dame

In My Mind

2011-11-16T12:23:00.004-05:00

The longer I live, the more I realize how little I know.

I look back at old entries on here and am struck by how much I have changed in five years. How wrong I was about some things, how far some of my ways of thinking have shifted. I wasn't a teenager when I started writing here. I was 30. And even still, my view of the world has altered. The self that I am now is far less convinced she has anything to teach anyone else. I'm a work in progress. There is so much I do not know.

A long time ago I wrote a list of qualities I wanted, a post about the Woman I Want To Be. It was a long list. It had somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 items on it. The woman I am now has accomplished some of these things (I have adventurous hair. I pay my bills on time. I am more patient. I travel a great deal more...)

But my priorities have shifted.

And my goals have become simpler.

I want to be kind.

I want to learn to be content.

I want to be good at sharing my life with someone.

I want creating to be a part of my daily life.

The rest will figure itself out. Or it won't. But the stress I have created within myself to meet some vague ideal had never been fulfilling or fruitful. The constraints I have put on myself because of my own fears or my need to fit into some image of perfect that I assumed other people had... they have taken me nowhere.

At the rate I am going I may just be completely self-aware and centered and actualized by the time I'm 70. I think I'm kind of okay. At 70? Clearly I will be freaking awesome.

Some part of me wants to remove old entries. Erase foolishness, broad proclamations, a tone that implies a high opinion of my own knowledge and understanding of the world... But it's all a part of the journey, right? I keep running headfirst into the world (or, to be fair, sometimes the world runs headfirst into me) and getting battered and bruised and coming back thinking, "That hurt like hell. But I learned something." Which is good.

Even when what I learn is that I know so little.

That's okay, too.

___________________________

When I'm struggling with it, listening to this gets me right on track.

It's the funniest thing, because I don't think the person I was 5 years ago would have appreciated this song in NEARLY the same way.

"It's funny how I imagined
That I could win this win-less fight
Maybe it isn't all that funny
That I've been fighting all my life
But maybe I have to think it's funny
If I want to live before I die
And maybe it's funniest of all
To think I'll die before I actually see
That I am exactly the person that I want to be."

– Amanda Palmer

Yes.

Crossing Paths

2011-06-08T23:51:00.005-04:00

In the past few weeks I've made new friends. People who live all over the world - in four different countries - as well as a few new ones here in the states. It's been a long time since I've met new people I have a sudden and strong connection with. I had begun to think I'd outgrown the ability to make such quick, almost instinctual bonds with people - grown too cynical to allow myself to have faith in a stranger, to grow attached to someone new.

When you've lost many people who are close to you, caring can become a risky proposition. Allowing yourself to become very attached to anyone new seems unnecessarily reckless. Every person you let yourself love is another person you will lose. Funny how I remember the fears I had as a teenager - to grow attached was to risk that someone else would hurt me by rejecting me. Now I simply worry about those I love being safe, being well. For the past few years to add to that burden was unthinkable.

I attended a work conference last week. I had made a few connections via online networking in advance, so I was looking for a few faces that might register or be vaguely familiar after gazing at the icon that had represented them to me for the month preceding my trip. Perhaps there is a kinship to working in a similar field, but I also think sometimes you just know a kindred spirit right away (how very Anne Shirley of me, no?). The first night there I introduced myself to a few strangers, had drinks in the hotel bar, passed time as one does when far from home and surrounded by unfamiliar people. Then one of the people I'd had brief contact with online showed up. Our brief exchange online had left me expecting someone with a sense of humor not unlike my own, a sharp mind, someone I was likely to get along with. Perhaps it was seeing anything familiar after a lonely afternoon, but as I introduced him to the group I had gathered with in the bar there was this immediate feeling of comfort. My introduction read so clearly as, "This is my friend."

Some of my reaction to the people I met is, certainly, that I was fortunate enough to meet some genuinely special people. I am delighted to be keeping in touch with several people I met there and feel an increasing sense of community as we maintain contact. But it was also a striking and much needed reminder that I am not done. The world is still huge and full of interesting and wonderful people. I am not too old, too damaged, too cynical to make a new friend. To care about people who hadn't existed for me just days prior.

The week involved listening to a great many speakers, trying to soak up far more information than I feel I could ever manage in just a few days and being exposed to so many new ideas. The first morning I walked into a conference room filled primarily with strangers and sat down next to an old friend. Who I had met the night before.

Holding My Breath

2011-05-09T23:57:00.004-04:00

My friend's husband is a Mexican citizen. They are truly in love. They were married in Mexico City almost a year ago. It was joyous. His family loves her. She is so happy with him, she glows. With him, it's like she has found the security and support she has always needed in order to fully be herself, trust herself, accept herself. He is kind and has a generous heart. He is playful with her and has such unwavering faith in her. I love watching them together. They give me hope.

I wrote a letter of support for her petition for him to come to the U.S. while they go through the process of applying for his citizenship.

I know there are people who marry just for a green card. My friends are not those people. I know that immigration is a complex issue with a fraught history and much animosity on both ends of the argument. My friends aren't making any kind of statement.

They are just in love. They want to build a life together. A life where they can live and work in the same country. A life where the people around them love and accept both of them. They want to have a family (maybe not as soon as his grandmother thinks they should have a family, but eventually - a family!) and a future.

She would move there, but the two of them together in Mexico cannot earn a fraction of what either of them alone could earn here. And his family lives in Mexico City - where it is notoriously overcrowded and incredibly dangerous. If they were to raise their family there, they would share a three bedroom home with his parents, his two adult sisters and their two children. And, like his sister's children, my friend's children would play in a small concrete courtyard with a locked gate to ensure their safety in such a dangerous city. So she is here, away from him. Working in the States, to pay for lawyers, so that someday the two of them can have a life here together.

We all know this - but in the U.S. we take for granted the wealth we are born with. I grew up with very little, but the poverty I was born in is nothing like the poverty they endure in other nations. I thought I understood what an overcrowded city meant until I visited Mexico City and saw the people packed like sardines into bus taxis to get to their jobs, the number of people who share a home - and only one bathroom - in even a middle class environment. There are so many people, there is no escape from it - 24 hours a day you have people around you. Huge crowds in the streets, even at home every bed is a shared space. It's overwhelming. I had no idea.

I think that when we discuss immigration, it's easy for the argument to get focused on our resources and to forget the people involved. Families who are separated. People with no other reasonable choice than to seek shelter in a land that will not welcome them. So that they can make enough money to support their families. So that someday their children can play outside. If I was born in a country where the work I could get would not allow me to live in any comfort, where my children had to be locked in a courtyard in order to be safe, where I could not go out without an escort because I feared for my own safety - I wouldn't care whether it was legal that I travel to a neighboring country to live in safety.

I respect that my friends are doing this the right way, following all the proper legal channels. In spite of how painful it is for them to be apart. But my perspective on this issue is forever changed. I watch my friend working, living alone and missing her husband terribly and I am in awe of her patience. I watch her and catch my breath, knowing how she aches to have him home with her and how long they have been apart as they try to do the right thing.

Beyond the Pale "Titles" survey

2011-04-01T07:00:00.005-04:00

Tracey wrote this survey - I think with the intent that it simply be answered in her comments section - but I had pretty detailed answers, so I'm posting my thoughts here (more accurately, I started to comment and then I realized I was writing A LOT so...)

1. Agree/Disagree: I think it is okay to call people who are not actually my aunt or uncle by the title “Aunt” or “Uncle” So and So.

I agree. Providing that they are amenable to this and that I use this title in our homes or gatherings of people who know us both - in public gatherings it can cause unnecessary confusion and embarrassment for someone who has just met you and is trying to understand the relationship between the people in the group. This can also be cleared up by a quick explanation to any strangers in the conversation. I think it's poor manners to ignore the fact that you might confuse people.

I also would only use that title if I genuinely felt that person and I had a bond that felt more familial. I think the use of these titles should come from natural interaction and develop based on the level of closeness with that person - not because they say to call them that or because your folks call them that.

2. Agree/Disagree: I think it’s okay for my children to do the same thing.

If I had children, I would be okay with this providing they understood my reservations as listed above. Also, I don't think I would introduce that idea unless that person spend a lot of time with my kids and an aunt/uncle type of relationship seemed to be developing naturally. Once I introduce the idea - it would be up to the kids and how they felt toward that friend to determine if that name "sticks"

3. T/F: My kids actually do call — or I would let them call — my friends by the title “Aunt” or “Uncle” So and So.

I have friends who would definitely be "Aunt" or "Uncle" so-and-so if I had kids.

4. If you answered True, do/would these titles apply to all your friends? If not, why not?

I might not instinctively make this reference to all my friends when introducing them / talking about them to my kids. I think it would develop based on who my kids became close to and to some degree it would come from the more familial relationship I have with some of my closest friends. In the end, though - it would be up to my kids.

5. If you answered False to #3, why don’t/wouldn’t you allow your kids to call your friends “Aunt” or “Uncle” So and So?

N/A

6. If you allow — or would allow — your kids to call your friends “Aunt” or “Uncle,” would you let them do this in the presence of their real aunt or uncle?

Yes. I think that my siblings are smart enough to know that if any child of mine called someone else "aunt" or "uncle" it would be because that person plays a similar role in my child's life and it does not harm my siblings in any way or take anything from them. Their relationship with my children would be defined by the choices they made and the amount of closeness they developed with the children, not by what the kids called them. Blood alone doesn't make you family - it's also about behavior. If a friend of mine spent enough time with my kids that they felt natural calling that friend "aunt" or "uncle" then that means that that friend deserves the title.

7. A step-parent scenario: Is is appropriate for a kid to call a step-parent “Mom” or “Dad”? I’m asking. I really don’t know.

I call my step-mother "mom." When I met her I called her by her first name. I continued to do so until I was 18 or 19. Calling her "mom" was something that came from reaching a point in my life where I had fully bonded with her and felt she was my mother. She never pushed or dictated that I call her anything specific and when I started calling her mom she didn't make a fuss - it was entirely based on where our relationship was. I haven't called her by her first name in a very long time. :)

8. Another step scenario: Your wife died. You’ve remarried. You have adult daughters who call your wife, their stepmom, “Mom.” There is less than 10 years’ difference in age between your new wife and your daughters. Calling her “Mom” — appropriate or not?

It seems unlikely that a daughter would feel that someone less than ten years older than her was a "mom" figure - but I guess it's okay if the daughter WANTS to call her mom. I think it would be in poor taste for the father or step-mother to urge her to do so, but if the step-mother is comfortable with that she could let the daughter know it is an option. These are difficult situations - assuming that they like each other, both parties will often fear insulting or hurting each other even by discussing these possibilities.

9. Does it dishonor your dead spouse to have your grown kids call your new spouse “Mom” or “Dad”?

I don't think so, but the use of it should be up to the kids. It's not dishonor to their mother. But often you will find that children (of any age) in this position will call one mother one name and another mother a different one. My biological mother was always "mama" or "Mother" - my step-mother has always been "mom". There are a million names for mother. If the children WANT to call her mother but don't like the idea of sharing the name that was their own biological mother's - they have the option of choosing another affectionate mother-related nick-name for the new woman helping to fill that need in their life (because grown-ups need a mom, too).

10. What about younger kids? Is it okay for them to call your new spouse “Mom” or “Dad” if your first spouse is deceased?

Same as above. Younger children may need the reassurance of having someone they can call that title more and could be encouraged to use a variant that they never used for their deceased mother - young children are often unsure if they have "permission" to call a new parent by a title. That title means "you are mine" in so many ways. I don't think kids should be MADE to use any title, but encouraged and given options they can consider. ESPECIALLY if they have lost a parent. They will need nurturing but it isn't nurturing to be forced into claiming a new parent figure.

11. Who decides what a step-parent is called? The bio parent or the step-parent? Or the kids??

The kids do. And the parents can fight that but they will lose.

12. A grandparent scenario: Your grown kids have no kids. You’re not a grandparent. You allow the kids of other people to call you “Grandma” and “Grandpa” in front of your adult childless kids. You really want to be grandma or grandpa, so is this okay or not okay?

It depends on your kids. If your children have CHOSEN not to have children and actively do not want them, I think it shows no disrespect. Some older people are just called that within their community. If you enjoy that title in part because you are disappointed that you never had grandchildren - don't share that with your children. They don't need to know.

If your adult children did want to have kids of their own and for whatever reason never did OR if you are in any way uncertain what their feelings are about not having children, then I think it is acceptable to have that nickname at your church or somewhere in your community that your grown children do not typically enter but would be thoughtless to - for example - encourage the next-door-neighbor's little ones to call you as your children are likely to meet the neighbors kids and be upset by hearing that.

13. Another grandparent scenario: Same parameters as above, but you list these same non-related kids as your “granddaughters” or “grandsons” on your Facebook page. Okay or not okay?

Not okay. Facebook relationship designations are "information" that is provided and the implication is that it is factual. This is not only cruel to your own children but rude to people who don't know you very well and will find the designation confusing.

14. What is your philosophy of “titles”? I mean, who gets to call who what when there is no actual relation? (Horribly phrased, forgive me, but I think you know what I mean.) And who decides?

The person bestowing a title picks the title. Titles - ESPECIALLY ones that relate to familial designations - should come from natural interaction and feeling. When I call my step-mom "mom" I am saying, "You have been a mother to be. You have nurtured me and cared for me. I choose you. I claim you as a mother in my life." I think all familial titles are like this. And we can tell kids to use them but we aren't doing the kids or ourselves any favors. I'm a big believer in "you can call me ____." and then leaving it alone. The "namER" chooses who the "namEE" feels like in their world.

My whole family has a nick-name for me. I think of it as the familial version of my name. It sounds warmer to me than my own name. On VERY rare occasions I tell someone they can call me that. But in some instances people have adopted it on their own if they interact with my family a great deal and have a close relationship with me. I feel that if that is what they are comfortable with and the nature of my relationship with them - then they can use that "title"

15. If a “title” hurts anyone in the process — and if you know it does — is that enough to stop using that title or is the title more important?

Generally I think it's a good rule to try not to do anything that you know hurts someone.

That said, there are few situations in which I feel a reasonable adult could consider a title hurtful. I choose not to call my step-mother "mom" when speaking to my biological mother. I revert to her first name if referring to her when speaking to my biological mother. When the two of them (this almost never happens) are in the same room, I call my step-mother "mom" and accentuate the fact that I call my biological mother "mama" (she is not American by birth and "mama" is the designation she encouraged during my childhood). I am not willing to strip my step-mother of the title that accurately describes our relationship in front of my biological mother, but I try to approach it in a way that will not cause harm. My step-mother deserves the name I choose to call her by, although she has specified that she is not insulted if I choose to use her first name in those instances, I feel that she and I took a long time to get to this place and I would feel it was disrespectful to that history to pretend it isn't there when my biological mother is in the room.

The only other use that I find bothersome is having unrelated kids call you a grandparent's title in front of your children who do not have kids. I think that any intelligent adult should be able to realize the potential for hurt in this and can give kids a different non-grandparent related nickname to call an older adult they are fond of or save that title for children who never interact with their adult children.

There are some rare instances (I have seen this in action and it can be very sweet) where every single person in a community calls one older person "Gramps" or something like that and if a community has started doing this, I hope the adult children who do not have kids of their own are able to understand that that is less related to the grandparent role and more a way a community will affectionately adopt an older person.

When it comes to "aunt" and "uncle" - don't take offense. Just because your nieces and nephews love someone else who is not related to them enough to use that designation, it doesn't mean they love you less. I DO think it's tacky if the kids just use it because their weirdo mother or father pushes them to call someone that. There's nothing worse than hearing "you remember Uncle ___, right?" when referring to a non-related person who the kids CLEARLY have no personal affection for.

Basically, I think the use of titles should be dictated by personal feeling. Unless the title being used when addressing YOU is insulting or upsetting to you, you can suggest a title, but the use of a title relates to a person defining their relationship with you. And you can't force that relationship. So if your step-kids don't call you "Mom" - they may not be ready. It doesn't mean they never will. And if your niece calls your sister's best friend "Aunt Lisa" that doesn't mean your niece doesn't love you. It probably means that that woman is also someone important in her life and you should be glad that your niece has a lot of supportive adults. And hope that your sister's friend is actually named "Lisa."

Moments

2011-03-07T08:00:00.003-05:00

My mother and I were addressing my little sister's commitment ceremony invites last week (sis isn't sure about marriage, especially when so many of her friends cannot yet legally marry in the states in which they live). We were missing an address, so I called my sister. My mother kept writing while she listened to me talking. I got the missing address from my sister and then read aloud the list of names to ensure that we hadn't missed anyone.

We get to a dear old friend of my sister's who I remember fondly. I last saw him a decade ago. Sis tells me he's met a great man and they're very happy. My mom hears me discuss this with her and I say, "His beau is a bear? That's SO perfect for him! I bet they are adorable together."

My mom asks me - very serious and in all innocence:
"Does that mean he's a plushie?"

She learned that word from my sister.

I hope mom makes some awkward incorrect reference to this during my sister's event. It would be suitable karmic retribution.

_________________________

My father (who is actually a pretty hip guy on the whole) recently read an article online about youth culture and modern slang. He thinks "I'm just saying." is hilarious. I told him some acronym based phrases that were not on the list he read ("OMG" and "bee-tee-dubs" - which is "BTW" pronounced out loud). But the phrase he CANNOT get over, the one that surprised and entertained him the most, was this:

"friends with benefits"

He keeps repeating it. And bringing it up in conversation. Because he thinks it is bizarre and is vastly entertained that people use that phrase.

It's like having a 7 year old hear a curse word. And they aren't used to it and only understand it to a certain degree but they KEEP SAYING IT.

It's horrifying. Makes me wish I could take his internet access away.

_________________________

I think this means we've come full circle in some odd way. Now I'm the one worried that they're learning words or phrases they shouldn't know and hoping they won't say them in front of the neighbors.

I bet they felt like this when my brother started belting out lines from Les Miserables' "Lovely Ladies" in the supermarket when he was 4. Or when I was 7 or 8 and they took all of us to a restaurant and I wanted to order my drink myself. I saucily demanded that the server put "a LOT of nicotine!" in my Shirley Temple.

(I thought I had the word "grenadine" figured out.)

This is like payback for those moments, isn't it?

Talking to People Who Aren't There

2011-03-06T20:00:00.002-05:00

I tend to be a talkative person, but I have become less so as I have grown older. People don't really need to know so much about me. There are things we say to other people to make ourselves feel better, but that benefit them in no way. Some confessions, deep personal thoughts, difficult truths, messy personal histories... some are meant for few people to hear. Your closest friend, maybe a sister. But really, sometimes we just talk for ourselves and it serves no purpose. Sometimes our deepest feelings aren't meant to be shared. Getting to this has been a process. It took me a long time to learn to trust and to share information about myself or things that I felt with people. Then I had to turn around and learn when to stop. I'm still learning.

As I grow, sometimes I find myself "telling" someone something when they aren't there. The things I know I would be saying only for me, the things that are too hard to actually tell. I will picture the conversation I would have, that I might have about these things. I talk it through. I apologize. I tell the person who isn't there all the hard things they don't know, the complicated things I feel but can't say. Different people in my life, people who were once in my life, people I never got to say my piece to.

Sometimes I want to go stand outside somewhere and call things out. Like The Sound of Music meets Primal Scream therapy. Put me in a dress made out of curtains and set me on a mountaintop so I can give the universe hell for all the things I can never say aloud or realized too late. I can see myself - just screaming out sentences. Because the people who should hear them are gone. Or the time for it is past. Or because it would help me, not them.

It's like an exercise I do in my head...
finding the thing I wish I could say:

"I'm exhausted and sometimes this is too much."

"If I had it do over - I would press charges."

"I should never have left you and gotten on that plane."

"Grow up. See past yourself. Yes, I think you are selfish."

"Sometimes I want to protect you from the world. And yourself."

"You should have left her back then."

"No one believes anything you say anymore."

"Next to you is the safest I ever felt."

"I always loved you."

"Come back."

Things They Don't Write How-To Books For

2010-11-12T08:00:00.009-05:00

I hope none of you are ever caught smack in the middle of a horrific tragedy that makes newspaper headlines. And if you are, then chances are it will only happen once.

I've had two happen in my life - roughly only a year apart (the second of the two was over a year ago now). I feel a bit like I have the lay of the land. I could write a book, but that's so time consuming. Instead I'm going to chronicle some of my thoughts here. You know, where it's messy and unorganized and will never get snag me an advance from a publisher. How's that for brains?

Actually, that's the first thing I learned:

1) Don't expect your brain to be fully present. Be prepared when it goes on hiatus for a bit. Don't feel dumb when you can't form complex sentences, but also - don't operate heavy machinery. Or try to balance your checkbook alone...

In fact, when you have survived a horrific tragedy, and everyone asks how they can help, here is the best advice I have for you: hand your checkbook or your debit card to your nearest, dearest and most trustworthy friend or relative. Give them your bills. Tell them to pay what is necessary and give you the remaining cash in increments. I'm not even kidding. You should not be trusted with money or expected to do math after a tragedy and NO ONE thinks about that. I still have no idea what I did with my May 2009 paycheck. I think I bought some food. And maybe clothing to wear to memorials. And... um... yeah. I got nothing. I have NO IDEA what I spent money on. I just didn't care. At all. I'm still trying to catch up on debts that were ignored and went unpaid during the first several months.

2) Buy a mild sedative (unless you are suffering from dangerous levels of depression). Take it at 9pm every night. I don't care how busy you are. You need rest and if you don't do this you are going to end up like me - awake at 1am on a weeknight making lists because you have forgotten how to sleep. It ain't pretty. I mean it. It's going to take years for the bags under my eyes to go away. Small birds could nest in the hollows beneath my eyes. The sleep deprivation does NOT help you regain brainpower. Take a pill. Get some sleep. Later, when you are ready to heal, you will stop taking them and start dreaming again and blah blah blah healing blah.

3) Even the nicest reporter is not your friend. Everything is on the record. I'm going to write a lengthy post about this at some point, but just remember - even a genuinely well-intentioned reporter (and they DO exist) may misquote you. If you speak to the media, do the following (even though you will sound like an idiot in person when you do this):

Think very carefully about exactly what you want to say.

Say very little.

Pause as long as you need to to come up with the shortest and least complex sentence possible.

Speak at a reasonably slow pace and speak clearly - they cannot quote what they cannot understand or, in some cases, write down (but they can more easily misquote it).

End the conversation as soon as you have said what it is most important to say, no matter what. Even if it means being rude and saying, "Thank you for continuing to respect our privacy" and then just walking off.

You can stop ANY time you feel like it.

An interview isn't a conversation. It feels like it, but do NOT forget that you aren't just talking to someone - you're giving them material. And MOST important - Accept that they WILL get some of it wrong anyway. Even if they mean well. Even if they WRITE it accurately, their editor may cut out half a paragraph that changes EVERYTHING. Be prepared for that.

4) If you choose NOT to talk to the media, you are choosing not to have your voice heard. That's okay. They're going to get it wrong to some degree no matter what. But you need to accept that if you choose not to speak to the press, then you are choosing to keep your point of view to yourself. So, when your perspective and feelings are not represented (or accurately represented) in the media coverage, you need to be ready for that and know that you made that choice. Sometimes NOT talking to the media is as bad as talking to them. You aren't betraying a dead friend if you speak to a reporter. If you knew them better than anyone else, you're probably the person who wants to talk to the press the LEAST. You may, however, also be the best person to describe what your lost loved one was actually like. You may sit at home pissed off while people who did NOT know your friend that well are talking to the press. Neither choice is right. Neither choice is going to make things okay. Even the best news story is not very comforting. But recognize that whether or not you speak to the media - you are making a choice and you need to be ready for what that choice means.

5) There is no wrong reaction. The hardest thing to do sometimes is to figure what you need. What you actually want. If someone you love has died in the tragedy in question, then nothing is going to make that feel better. Except maybe time. Everyone has unique needs and one of the hardest things is seeing what you have to or need to do and accepting that. Conversely, if a lot of other people in your life who are effected by the tragedy - realize that they may have needs and reactions that you do not understand. Their reactions are valid, too. Even if they're weird or irritating. If they bother you, put some distance there, but don't punish other people who are also suffering for their reactions. Vent to a third party but it is important to get through difficult times without increasing someone else's suffering. This is the case with ALL tragedy, but it is magnified when there is media scrutiny. You start to feel like your emotions are supposed to fit some set course - because it's so public and others are SO aware of what is going on. It increases the pressure to "act normal" in a situation where there IS NO NORMAL. So just know that that is okay. You don't have to experience or cope with this in any particular way. Do what you need to do.

Honestly, if a large group of people are experiencing the same loss - the part about trying not to increase other people's suffering at all is dang near impossible. But try. When people are reacting to trauma they all have different needs. Be there for the people you love, but also locate some friends or family who are NOT sharing your loss. I don't care if you have to call someone you haven't talked to in ten years. I guess that would be #6...

6) Have at LEAST one person (preferably more) in your life who has not experienced the same trauma. Sounds easy, right? Well - depends on the scope of the trauma. But seriously - FIND someone. Like actually designate them. Let them KNOW. You are going to need to have someone around or someone you can call who has not ALSO just experienced this devastating loss. It took me forever to figure that out. You can't just lean on people who are also in the middle of healing and you need people you can trust - because acquaintances are not the best people to depend on when someone you love is in the news.

People can be surprisingly odd and unintentionally callous when, instead of just dealing with, "Oh your friend died, that's terrible." they are dealing with, "Your friend died and it's on the national news and the camera crews were right down the street from where I work and..." Yeah. Choose carefully, but find a non-trauma buddy. Someone who isn't excited about the fact that the newspaper reporter wants to interview you. If you stick with fellow survivors, then not everyone's needs will get met and some damage can be done. When massive, bizarre, life altering tragedy strikes - try to find at least one person to stand by you who isn't a fellow "victim." Even if that person is your awesome new therapist (**I HIGHLY recommend finding a good therapist!).

7) When you can, define your situation for the people outside your trauma. Basically, provide "Clif notes" to them. This is actually a good rule when dealing with a lot of types of tragedy - not just news-story horrific level stuff. But... remember that not everyone who matters to you is going to "get" it. And their ability to understand the level of impact the trauma has had on you does NOT mean they are a bad person or that they do not love you. Maybe they aren't imaginative. Maybe they've never experienced any sort of trauma. Maybe they are just human and have bad crap happening to them, too - smaller stuff than in your world, maybe - but still damn big in their world.

I learned to tell people in my life things along the lines of, "I am not okay. I may look okay and act okay sometimes, but I'm not really okay yet. I may not be okay for a long time. This _________ is what happened to me - in practical terms, that is what I experienced. That's a lot to process. I need you to try to remember that I'm always thinking about that, too. Don't give me a free pass to be a jerk or anything. But just be aware that that is part of what is happening inside me. All the time. So if I forget things or I don't reach out a lot - It's not that I don't care. It's that I'm still healing and I have a lot to work through."

It kind of feels like having to explain to the people you love that you were fully functional, but now part of your brain is gone. And you're sorry. And you don't actually know if it's going to come back.

But the things is, they DON'T KNOW unless you tell them. You may be really lucky and be surrounded by people who are incredibly empathetic and just pick up what's going on with you easy as can be. But this is the real world, so I'm thinking that's unlikely. If you talk to the people you love, even in the most rudimentary way, about where you are at and what you are still working through - that gives them some perspective and reminds them that you DO still love and need them. You just don't have complete access to your brain right now.

8. If you can, find ways to laugh. At least try. Again, good advice in all traumatic situations, but more so if it's something SO outside of normal experience (violent act, natural disaster, freak accident) that you have to process both the loss AND a horrific foreign experience. If someone has died, find someone else who knew them who will talk with you about the funny, stupid or weird things about your lost loved one - not just the simple, nice stuff. ESCAPE by watching a funny movie. DO something completely silly. One night shortly after the shooting, a bunch of my friends came over to my house and one of the guys - a big, butch guy's guy in the group - shows up with a hair highlighting kit. He let us highlight his hair. He was walking around with this silly cap on and strands of hair sticking out everywhere and, while my heart was so heavy, it made me see that there would be good again and there would be laughter again. It reminded me that the friend I had lost would want me to be able to smile - and would be laughing himself if he saw this big tough guy with a women's hair processing kit being used on his head (this man is one of my personal heroes).

Finding ANY joy and ANY normalcy kept me from losing my mind. When the world feels like it makes NO sense, the best thing you can do for yourself is find anything at all to laugh about. Or help someone else heal by giving them something to laugh about.

_________________________

These are the basics as I see them right now. I'm sure I will think of other things. Hindsight is 20/20. I think it was oddly helpful to me and the friends I went through the second tragedy with that I had had some previous experience with trauma in a public arena. I was better prepared for the media. I was more acclimated to the whole idea that terrible things actually happen to real people. On the whole, the big trick is to allow yourself to slow down. Take things one at a time. Don't rush any decisions that you don't have to. I know you don't have much choice about funeral arrangements. When you are involved in the memorial, those things have to be done. So you do them. But everything else can wait. And that's okay.

And last but not least - I hope no one I know ever needs any of this advice. If nothing else, though - rules 3 and 4 are really good to keep in mind during all media interaction.

Just in case, btw - to reiterate - I realize many of you put two and two together and will know which tragedies I am speaking of - which is fine. I just don't want this post or my blog linked to or mentioned in conjunction with anything that identifies my friends or the incidents in question. I hope my own awful experiences can be helpful to others, so I certainly want the advice or ideas passed on, but I don't want media-circus-gawker traffic. I appreciate your consideration.

Hand Dancing

2010-11-08T08:00:00.010-05:00

I am almost done with my next post (trying to blog on the regular these days!) but for today I just want to share this:

BECAUSE IT'S SO AWESOME!

Jeremy Irons

2010-11-08T08:00:00.009-05:00

Totally at random, I found this wonderful entry at "The Selvedge Yard" about the style of Jeremy Irons.

While I realize that he was styled for practically every shot used in this entry on him as a style icon, and I tend to be more fascinated with the style of people like - for example - Marlene Dietrich (who was fastidiously in control of every aspect of her own presentation at all times) because THEY are the person creating the style and selecting the clothing...

God, Jeremy Irons just knows how to wear clothing, doesn't he? There is something fabulous about how he wears the clothes... about how he wears HIS BODY, at all times.

I actually held onto all the ads he did for Donna Karan.
Another thing to dig out from my vaults.

Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire Revisited

2010-11-06T08:00:00.001-04:00

As I mentioned yesterday, I've wrote my original post regarding Vanity Fair’s Proust Questionnaire a while ago.

Then I answered it here.

But that was four years ago. A lot has happened in four years. So I've been working on doing it again. As a little exercise. Just to see how much I've changed.

As I said before, the trick is to answer honestly with yourself - not trying to impress your potential reader. I actually also keep a file of these from old issues of Vanity Fair, so I'm thinking I may pull some of them out and scan them in to share in the coming months. I love reading what Tom Waits and Edward Gorey and Shirley MacLaine had to say. It's fascinating to me.

The Questionnaire:

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Freedom from material worry ...and living in an enormous house surrounded by the people I love.

What is your greatest fear?
To die without having done everything

What historical figure do you most identify with?
I'm not sure I identify with anyone

Which living person do you most admire?
Tom Waits

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
my need to be liked

What trait do you most deplore in others?
Pretension... and being quick to judge

What is your greatest extravagance?
Time. When I let myself have any.

On what occasion do you lie?
To protect someone

What do you most dislike about your appearance?
My size... I'm not big, but I yearn to be tiny.

What is your favorite journey?
from knowing nothing about someone to knowing everything

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
stoicism... and chastity

Which living person do you most despise?
Glenn Beck

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
"Awesome." "I'm sorry."

What is your greatest regret?
the time I didn't spend with the loved ones who are now gone

What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Until now... the man who climbed Mount Desert Island with me and caught me when I fell coming back down...

But my life isn't over yet. And I have hope.

When and where were you happiest?
In a hotel room in Boston watching someone sleep roughly a decade ago

In Western Australia, driving to see my Aunt and Uncle in Perth with my fantastic, absurd, brilliant 18 year old Aussie cousin who is like my long-lost brother and realizing I was somewhere I belonged.

Which talent would you most like to have?
To be a tremendous athlete and dancer

What is your current state of mind?
ready

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I would be more athletic and more motivated.

If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?
Christmas

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what would it be?
probably a worried little hen. Or a bear.

If you could choose what or who to come back as, what would it be?
A great dancer

What do your consider your greatest achievement?
The lives I have had a positive impact on

What is your most treasured possession?
My grandmother's engagement ring

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Witnessing the death of a friend or loved one who is not yet old

What is your most marked characteristic?
my red hair, my (almost compulsive) need for everyone to be happy and safe and okay

What is the quality you most like in a man?
decisiveness, honor, kindness

What is the quality you most admire in a woman?
warmth, confidence, kindness

What do you most value in your friends?
loyalty, a lack of judgment, acceptance

Who are your favourite writers?
A.A. Milne, Tom Robbins, Terry Pratchett, Harlan Ellison, Jane Austen, Cormac McCarthy

Who is your favourite hero of fiction?
Jamie Fraser
(Go ahead, make fun. I don't care.)

Who are your heroes in real life?
One of my friends who died last year - she ran toward danger when every other person was running away. I hope to have that strength of character in my life in the moments when I have no time to think about my choices.

What are your favourite names?
Christopher, Grace, Gabriel, Michael, Dougal, Colin, Lorelei...

What is it that you most dislike?
getting out of bed on a rainy morning, yelling of any sort

How would you like to die?
Many decades from now, in the arms of someone who loves me

What is your motto?
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting their own battle.

I didn't re-read the old one first and looking at them both - some things obviously have knee-jerk automatic answers... But I feel like so much has changed. I love this exercise. Sometimes so much happens that you come out the other end different. I think I am different. But in a good way. Or at least mostly in good ways.

It's kind of reassuring to look at the changes in yourself and walk away from it thinking that, on the whole, you're happy with them.

The Dame Questionnaire!

2010-11-05T08:00:00.009-04:00

I'm working on answering the Vanity Fair Proust Questionnaire again. Now, I'm no Proust (then again, when it comes to questionnaires, neither was Proust. The Proust questionnaire is famously named for him because he ANSWERED two questionnaires rather notably when he was young - not because they were his idea). OBVIOUSLY. But working on that questionnaire got me thinking. I have questions. I have a lot of questions, actually. I narrowed them down to the ones I would most like to ask, the ones I would submit to someone, were it socially acceptable, upon first meeting them. Some of the ones that are most interesting to me.

I realize it's very presumptuous to put together a questionnaire, but these are just some of the the things I wonder about how and why people tick. I'd love it if someone chose to answer (post me a link, or if you don't have a blog - you're welcome to answer in my comments), but I'll probably just use it as an inventive new way to harass my sister. I can email her the questions to her one at a time when I'm having a slow day at work. I wonder how many I can send before she calls to ask why I'm torturing her with my incessant questioning.

Also: I am going to post links when people let me know they have answered the questionnaire - so you can view answering blog posts to the dame Questionnaire at:
The Chick Voice's At Altitude
cookiegeisha at The Death of Glitter
Lenore Kay at Pugs Can't Fly

Ideally - answer as simply, as quickly, and as honestly as possible. That's where the fun really lies in a questionnaire. In having an honest conversation with yourself.

Dame's Questionnaire

(imagine jazz hands here... and maybe a snappy drum intro)

What fictional person, place or thing would you make real, were it in your power?

What do you find comforting?

What makes you almost hold your breath in excitement?

What offends you?

What always makes you smile?

How are you in a crisis?

What is your most unusual or rare quality?

What woman has had the strongest impact on your life?

What fictional character did you love most or identify most closely with as a child?

What's the strangest job you ever had?

What's the hardest job you ever had?

If you could relive any moment in your life, which would it be?

Who was your first crush on?

What song makes your heart sing?

What book do you never tire of?

If you could live in a book, which book would it be?

What film have you watched the most times?

What film do you quote most often?
(Actually quote, not wish you were clever enough to quote regularly and INTEND to quote. What do you ACTUALLY quote?)

What film's dialog do you love most?

What poem or line of poetry resonates with you most strongly?

What famous quote do you repeat or refer to most frequently?

If you could (or had to) freeze your physical self at one age, what would it be?

What view would you choose if you could have any view from your bedroom window?

What one thing would you give to everyone you know if you could?

If you could be a tremendous success at any one thing, what would it be?

What, if anything, do you hesitate to do for fear of looking silly or being laughed at?

Who would you choose if you could talk to anyone who is no longer alive for an hour?

If you wrote your will, who would you leave your most prized possession to?

What sentence did you never say to someone, but wish you had?

What do you most like getting the opportunity to say?

When have you laughed the longest or the most?

Whose face is your favorite face?

Where do you feel safest?

When do you feel most yourself?

What makes you nostalgic?

What is the best lesson you have learned in life?

I pared this down by a few questions because I felt it was too long. And too repetitive. I'd ask you 50 questions about film and never tire. Also, I can only email my sister so many questions before she just goes insane... ;)

Dating. The Absurd Circus.

2010-11-04T18:00:00.006-04:00

I'm sort of considering entering the shark infested waters again. I don't know why.

For a woman who seems to be surrounded by violent death and bizarre disasters, I engage in a great deal of oddly optimistic behavior.

I'm not ACTUALLY dating again yet. I'm just thinking about it. It seems like the moment I become single, men just surface in my life in order to muck about with my head and make certain that I'm incapable of having a reasonable pleasant day without a bit of emotional turmoil. Especially since I'm still in that part of recovery from my last relationship where I get all weepy whenever he shows up and have to act like I need to pee so I can go check my mascara. And he didn't even leave me. Imagine what I'm like when I get dumped! It's apocalyptic. Really. Fireworks. Tickets could be sold to the circus that is my emotional hysteria.

So WHY would I consider dating? Ever again?

All evidence points toward the absurdity of this activity. I mean, the way men TALK when they are first trying to ask you on a date - that alone makes it a complete mystery that our species continues to propagate.

I have had men ask me what my sign is. Pretend they know me from somewhere. "Compliment" me by telling me that I move in such a sensual way (what IS that?). Tell me that they only date redheads - as if I should feel special that I qualify for their special club. Tell me their net worth - Actually describe what their assets are. Tell me that I seem interested in THEM and that, based on my good taste, they should give me a chance (Yes. I'm serious).

I'm fortunate in that most of my actual dating experience has been less fraught with crazypants. I've only gone on a couple of weird first-and-only dates. The hot biker/professional stripper who could only talk about himself and his furniture refinishing projects. The business executive who had his entire life planned down to the moment. The surfer type (complete with bright Hawaiian shirt) who confessed about his alcoholism right away and then talked for the next two hours about his recovery group. The miracle, really, is that I ever get to the first date stage at all when so much random bizarro stuff gets thrown my way in the "hitting on" phaze. Men do and say strange things. Not ALL men. But the ones who DO bring the crazy and inappropriate to the table seem to bring SOOOO much of it that they cover other men in a haze of associated wackadoo.

The best freaky first date story I know isn't my own, though. It's that of a close friend. She met a guy from teh interwebs. I'm not saying online dating doesn't work. I know very happy couples who have met that way... but sometimes it can mean missing out on the opportunity to filter someone's lunacy quotient sufficiently. Now, I can't remember why, but my friend let this guy come to her house after they had dinner. I guess he had seemed normal up to that point. When they got back to her house and were walking up to her front door, he actually stopped, unzipped his pants and started to urinate on the tree in her front yard! She told him, "Hey! I have a bathroom inside..." and he says, "Oh, don't worry. This is fine."

I guess he liked her a LOT. Couldn't even walk to her door the first time without marking his territory.

Needless to say, they never went out again... But THAT is what waits out there, people. Men who will ask for your astrological sign and whiz on your tree!

I'm glad we had this talk.

On second thought... I'm staying out of the water a while longer. There are some lunatic shark in there.

How to Write Again

2010-11-02T23:47:00.004-04:00

Obviously I'm having trouble with this. Life got hectic. Then I lost someone. Then I lost a few more people and this got so much harder to do.

I guess it just feels trite sometimes. Useless. Self-important.

I'll be walking down the aisle in the grocery store and start thinking about some topic and I'll just ramble on and on about it in my head but as soon as I sit down to write... it seems hollow and silly.

A friend and I were talking today and she has had a hard year or so. And I have had a hard couple of years. And she was talking about a crush she had on someone and then she stopped and looked up at me and said, "But this is stupid. It's so unimportant. It feels stupid to even think about it." Because, in the grand scheme of things, a crush on a stranger or fleeting thoughts about life, the universe and everything that come to you in a grocery store aisle... well, it all starts to seem a little trivial by comparison.

But I'm determined to get writing again. Even if it means subjecting Tracey (my most patient and faithful supporter) to terrible drivel.

I can't tell the drivel from the revelations any longer. I think all the time. And when you'd give anything to hear a person's voice again... suddenly small things can seem so large, can't they?

How do I separate the trivial and the tremendous?

The thing is - I can't. And for a little while, that may have to just be okay.

Just Like Starting Over

2010-05-31T23:00:00.004-04:00

"You must do the thing you think you cannot do."
- Eleanor Roosevelt

I've always been fascinated by the idea of living a more spare life, finding a way to live without being surrounded by excess material possessions. I try to purge unnecessary belongings. I try to organize and simplify my life. It goes in cycles, every six months or so I am swept up in a fit of frenzy to clear the excess baggage from my life... in this last year that urge - and the sense that I am too tied down by things - has just grown and the need to pare away the unessential comes upon me with far greater frequency.

When I wrote this old post, I was just moving into my current home. It's been a good nest. A place to heal wounds after a painful and complicated breakup. A place to become myself again and get my bearings. But the last year has brought a lot of changes to how I see the world. I don't feel safe all alone in this house. Incongruously, I've gained a fearlessness in my approach to taking chances that I can only attribute to having lost so much - eventually you start trying things because little failures, embarrassments and inconveniences that you once found daunting are small and insignificant in the face of so much tragedy. I overcame my fear of traveling across the world to meet my family. Joined a local performance troupe that does edgy humor - something far outside my normal comfort zone. I'm working on overcoming my fear of public singing. And I think I'm ready to genuinely let go of the life I built in this house and start anew.

I have an opportunity to move to a much smaller space - an unused studio apartment in the back of an old friend's home. The offer was prompted by her desire to help me set aside savings so that I will be able to buy my own house - something I want dearly to do - but the result will be that I spend the next year in a very beautiful but very small space. Right now I live in a fully furnished two bedroom house. In my new home I will be surrounded by gorgeous views and have a private porch and sit in my bed and look out into vast forest, but I will also cook on a hotplate and have to pare away well over half of what I own.

I'm terrified. And exhilarated.

I once told a friend that, when making life decisions, I wait and listen to my gut reaction. I listen for that little thrill of fear and excitement. A singing of nervousness that ripples through me when I stand in front of a change and some part of my knows that this is what I must do. Because that's where the great fear comes from - from that knowledge. From seeing what must be undertaken.

Since I feel like I'm building myself again - from the ground up - I think going through a similar exercise with my life will be just the thing I need. So I am staring at my books. My furniture. My television. My dishes. My rows of shoes... Deciding what I can live without.

So far, I'm feeling like I can probably live without everything except the bunnies, the books and the shoes.

I feel that rush of adrenaline. I think I'm ready to leap.

"A little simplification would be the
first step toward rational living, I think."
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Unconditional

2010-05-20T11:32:00.004-04:00

So the last year (the last two years, really..) have been difficult and insane and I kind of feel like I'm starting over from scratch. Like anything extraneous about the person I was has been seared away and I'm sitting down and trying to sort out what's left.

In the midst of this, the people in my life have changed. The people who find tragedy too overwhelming (or who don't have the patience for the fact that I average 4 months to return a phone call these days) have fallen away. But the friendships that HAVE survived have become stronger. And some support has come from places that seem surprising. People I barely knew when this happened. Family I had never met before this past year. And teh interwebs! Sometimes it's still funny to me how you can bond with people you never meet... but it makes sense in a way that this place where I put my thoughts and my lessons and my laughter has led me to some amazing people.

Tracey at Beyond the Pale always checks in with me and gives me someone safe to talk to (Thank you!)

And I don't think Greg, Sheila or Nina hane any idea how much it improves my day to hear from them and keep track of them via their blogs.

I drew into myself a great deal this year, and it was often misinterpreted as a desire to be left alone. As I explained it to one friend: I want to connect, but I don't know how anymore. I want to know that my friends are there and care about me, but I may not be able to talk. And sometimes the hardest thing in the world is picking up the telephone. Sometimes talking to the people I am closest to is far more difficult than talking to people who don't know what happened - because I can't hide things from the people who matter the most.

So she started sending cards to me every week. For MONTHS. How amazing is that? This weekly reminder that you matter enough to someone that they will just send you love. And know that you love them back without requiring anything in return? Those cards have been such a blessing.

One friend called me weekly for the first few months after the shooting and just left messages. Crazy messages. He told stories. He went on for as long as the voice mail system would let him. About silly things. Dreams. Monkeys. Anthropomorphic brooms.

My family in Australia had me come visit them and I fell in love with a big group of virtual strangers who took care of me and showed me their world and just let me in and loved me as if I'd been there all along. (I have to write about that trip. I'm not certain I even have the words to write about it. It was so important to me. I found a new home. Part of me feels like I belong on the other side of the planet.)

So I guess I'm saying: If, and when, you have friends experiencing profound loss - I know it's hard to know what to do. It's awkward. You don't know what they need and nothing makes it okay. We all know that. Just love them. The most amazing gift is to be shown love in ways that ask nothing in return. Love without conditions. Love that accepts that you are not yourself. Love that will be there when you put yourself back together again.

Sometimes the only light at the end of the tunnel was knowing that there were people who hadn't given up on me.

There have been people there to give me that and, in that, I am so blessed.

Therapy

2010-05-10T22:56:00.006-04:00

So I'm seeing a therapist.

Four people in my life died violent deaths in the last two years. Three of them died in front of me. So... yeah. TOTALLY not feeling shy about the therapy thing. Feel a little funny when I hear people sigh in relief that I'm finally trying this out, mind you, but feel pretty certain that no one's gonna razz me for getting myself over to see a shrink.

My therapist is kind of great.

He's actually the second one I've tried. The first one specialized in trauma. Oddly enough, this made her pretty much useless to me. I think this is because I'm not your average trauma therapy patient. Since my first session has to start with what is essentially me listing the exhaustive number of bizarre traumatic things that have occurred in my life, I'm not the type for pussyfooting around. It's old hat enough that I'm pretty matter-of-fact about it. I don't need to be coddled. The first therapist was very worried about "re-traumatizing" me by letting me talk about the very thing I had come to see her to talk about.

Trauma is NOT my new therapist's specialty. And that's okay. I'm talking to SOMEONE. Which is good. And I'm sorting through things... which means having to feel them. I'll admit, I'm not 100% sold on this part of the process being a good idea. But in the end I'm moving forward in some way, shape or form. I think THAT part is very good. Instead of being in some sort of grief-shock stasis at all times. I guess it says a lot when crying at the drop of a hat and having lots of nightmares is progress. Buy hey! I'm doing something.

Doc referred to me as a "statistical anomaly" the other day - citing the fact that most people have some trauma and tragedy in life, but there are some oddities who either never experience any trauma or experience a disproportionate amount of it. You know which one I am. I found this oddly reassuring. Like being told you aren't crazy. I wanted to shake his hand. "So it's not just my imagination that this is a little excessive? Ok, good. I was hoping it wasn't just my imagination."

I kind of felt like looking up at the sky and saying, "See? He thinks I've had more than my share, too."

Lately I just find the whole world to be overwhelming. Which makes sense. All my resources are going to just, you know, getting out of bed in the morning. Holding my brain in place in spite of the fact that the last two years are actually real and sooner or later I'm going to have to allow that to sink in fully. All this admirable fortitude and getting out of bed and all takes up a great many resources. Which means that any teeny tiny little additional thing that happens is one more thing than I have the energy or strength to cope with.

You SO don't want to see what happens if I stub my toe or get snapped at by a stranger in the supermarket check out line.

So the other day I'm filling Doc in on my week and whatever I currently feel I am completely incapable of surmounting and he says, "Well, It's just life. There's no right way to do it."

I know it sounds silly, but it was a genuine relief to have someone say such a simple thing to me.

So this is me, checking in. Still breathing and all that fancy stuff. Defying statistics. Muddling through.

And I can do this. I mean, hey - It's just life.

I Talk to Dead People

2009-10-05T00:22:00.007-04:00

Maybe this isn't unusual. Maybe this is how a lot of people cope. I don't know. I've lost a lot of people over time, but this is new.

We're loading in tonight for the next show I'm working on at my theater. I'm not what you would call a handy person. I'm good with a paintbrush and so far I haven't permanently injured anyone with any of the power tools. I maintain that it is only a matter of time.

So tonight I've got a project to complete and I cannot complete this project with the use of the staple gun. I root around in the tool closet in the back of the theater. Find what I think is a staple gun. Locate staples. Try to load them into the gun. They fall out. I try again. Same result. I look at the fine print on the side of said gun. It says, "Load nails here." Ok. Wrong tool.

I go back. Find another thing that looks like a staple gun to me. Actually locate the word "staple" somewhere on it. Satisfied I have the right tool, attempt to find the place that the staples go in. After about five minutes of struggling and pulling at different bits of metal and trying to pop SOME PART of this thing open I am FED UP. I don't know a damn thing about any of this. I cannot remember this ever being so hard. I have never been so frustrated at the theater before and I OWN A STAPLE GUN AT HOME that I know how to use. I am beside myself.

Then it hits me. Standing in the tool closet, away from the 20 other cast and crew members who are noisily painting and drilling and sawing out on the stage I have a sudden moment of clarity. At set calls, I would come to Allan. I would hold the offending power tool or doohickey out to him and say, "Make it do." He would stop whatever he was doing and come and set up the tool, walk me through how to use it, pat me on the head and go back to what he had been doing. Eventually we got to where there were no words. I would hold it out and frown, he would smile because he liked being needed. He would walk through the steps and hand it back. I'd lean against him for a moment in a no-armed sort of hug. And work would begin again. A cooperative ballet as we built. He who knew everything, I who knew nothing. We had a rhythm when we worked together.

And tonight I stood in that tool shed and felt so lost. My partner is gone. I stared at the tools, tears rolling down my face, and just started talking to him... something I do a lot these days.

What will I do without you?

How will this ever feel right again?

Do you know how hard this is?

Are you here? Are you gone?

Do you know how much I love you?

I need you here. I need you with me.

I can't make this fucking staple thing work.

I'm useless without you.

God I miss you.

----------------------

There's another set going up. Another set he wasn't here to help build. Another set none of them were here to help build. And it isn't the same. And sometimes it's so damn hard. The theater is my home. It's where my heart lives. It's where my friends died. It's where I talk to them. It's where I'm trying to heal.

I found someone to help me. I finished my project. I'm going back tomorrow to touch it up and then we begin dress rehearsal.

The shows will open. The work will get done. I will heal.

It would be faster if he were here, though.
He knew how to fix anything.

One More Time, My Homage to John Hughes

2009-08-06T21:00:00.009-04:00

I originally wrote What I Learned From John Hughes in March of 2007. My complaint, while in jest, was made to express primarily one thing: John Hughes had an impact on my formative years and my personal development through an art form that is dear to my heart. His films may not have been high art but they accomplished something that great art aspires to: they touched us, they let us know we weren't alone at a time when we most needed that message, and in some strange way they even changed us and impacted the people we became. What a strange, significant and lasting mark to have made on the world he left behind.

So here it is, one more time:

What I Learned From John Hughes

I have a friend who has a pet theory about John Hughes films. He says that John Hughes is responsible for 75% of all the relationship problems our generation has experienced because he destroyed our ability to realistically assess romantic situations and relationships. My friend may be on to something.

I started thinking about the John Hughes films of my teenage years and the impact they had on my impressionable, puberty muddled brain. For the purposes of this review, I consider THE John Hughes films to be:

Sixteen Candles (1984) JH wrote and directed
The Breakfast Club (1985) JH wrote, directed and produced
Weird Science (1985) JH wrote and directed
Pretty In Pink (1986) JH wrote and produced
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) JH wrote, directed and produced
Some Kind of Wonderful (1987) JH wrote and produced

And, for better or worse, this is what I learned:

Just be yourself.

"Not that I condone fascism, or any -ism for that matter. -Ism's in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an -ism, he should believe in himself."
- Matthew Broderick, Ferris Bueller, Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Every Hughes film touches on this. Andie is the quirky, weird girl in Pretty in Pink and WE LOVE HER FOR IT. Garry and Wyatt in Wierd Science meet girls who like them as they are. Ferris Bueller dances to his own drummer. He isn't the star quarterback or president of the student counsel. He has his own unique sense of style... and he's the most popular guy in school. Maybe in the city. He's a freaking legend. In Some Kind of Wonderful, Watts never changes. She stays a tomboy who plays drums and works on cars - and eventually Keith realizes how amazing she is JUST AS HERSELF. John Hughes let us in on the secret that being yourself was really where it was at.

"You had to be big shots didn't you. You had to show off. When are you gonna learn that people will like you for who you are, not for what you can give them."
- Kelly LeBrock, Lisa, Wierd Science

Stick to your principles.

"If somebody doesn't believe in me, I can't believe in them."
- Molly Ringwald, Andie, Pretty in Pink

I swear I learned half of my stubborn willingness to sacrifice anything to stick to my principles from my father and half from John Hughes films. From early on, I knew I should never accept anything less than what I deserved. I never let anyone tell me I wasn't good enough. I have always been honest and direct to a fault. A lot of that is my dad. But a lot of that is Andie and Duckie. And Watts and Keith.

"You remember how I said I'd rather be with someone for the wrong reason than alone for the right one? Well, I'd rather be right."
- Lea Thompson, Amanda Jones, Some Kind of Wonderful

Everyone finds love.

Sam and Jake Ryan. The Athlete and the Basket Case. Andie and Blaine. Keith and Watts. Farmer Ted and Caroline. Duckie and Kristy Swanson. Long Duck Dong and that really tall girl. These films taught us that, no matter who you are, there is someone out there for you. I'm not sure that's really a universal truth, but it's a nice message. It's reassuring. No matter how insecure I was in high school, I never doubted for a moment that someday a boy would love me. Someday an incredibly cute boy was going to come along and realize that I was the most amazing girl he had ever met. John Hughes told me so.

... And everyone just wants to be loved.

"I want a serious girlfriend. Somebody I can love, that's gonna love me back. Is that psycho?"
- Michael Schoeffling, Jake Ryan, Sixteen Candles

To me, this was brilliant new insight into the world. Beautiful, popular Jake Ryan wanted to find someone to love him just as much as Sam wanted to find that. Claire kisses John Bender in the closet and suddenly he isn't so tough, after all. Blaine may be rich and popular, but what he really needs is for Andie to love him and forgive him. This was a tremendous equalizer. People made a lot more sense once I understood this.

"I believed in you. I just didn't believe in me. I love you. always."
- Andrew McCarthy, Blaine, Pretty In Pink

We're not really all that different.

"We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that's all."
- Emilio Estevez, Andrew / The Athlete, Breakfast Club

Another popular message from Hughes, and probably the most consistent. All of his films lead you back to the idea that the geek and the jock and the rich girl and the tomboy - they all have insecurities. They all screw up. They all worry. They all want someone to love them. They all have imperfect families. They all had problems in high school. It's nice to know.

"Screws fall out all the time, the world is an imperfect place."
- Judd Nelson, John Bender / The Criminal, The Breakfast Club

The best guys are geeks and/or hard-core individualists.

"I feel compelled to mention to you, Jake, that if all you want of the girl is a piece of ass, I mean, I'll either do it myself, or get someone bigger than me to kick your ass. I mean, not many girls in contemporary American society today would give their underwear to help a geek like me."
- Anthony Michael Hall, Farmer Ted, Sixteen Candles

I have JH to thank for a lifetime of falling for the most interesting guy in the room. John Bender. Duckie. Cameron. Keith (I still have SUCH a crush on Eric Stoltz). Pretty boys have their work cut out when it comes to me. Instead, I fall for the rebel, the artist, the geek, the guy who has the guts to wear crazy vintage shoes and knows all the words to "Try A Little Tenderness." Super shy men or men who make me laugh or guys who look like trouble from a mile away. It's never the all-american average joe for me. If something isn't wildly different about him, I'll probably never notice him at all. In a John Hughes film, that character is the most appealing. He taught us to love the oddball.

Oddballs and rebels everywhere owe John Hughes big time.

"I know I'm old enough to be his mother, but when the Duck laid that kiss on me last night, I swear my thighs just went up in flames! He must practice on melons or something."
- Annie Potts, Iona, Pretty in Pink

If you want someone badly enough,
they will love you back.

This is where John Hughes caused a LOT of trouble. Sam pining for Jake Ryan. Garry and Wyatt pining for... well, for ANY actual girl. Andie pining for Blake. Watts pining for Keith. John Hughes taught us that the most unlikely romances can work out, and that WANTING IT seems to be the magic ingredient. As my friend is fond of ranting, this has caused no end of trouble. If wishes were horses then beggars would ride. But they aren't. Crushes don't always work out. Frequently they end in tears instead of candle-lit birthday cakes on top of dining room tables with hunky boys. But Mr. Hughes left that part out.

"That's why they call them crushes. If they were easy, they'd call them something else."
- Paul Dooley, Jim Baker / Sam's Dad, Sixteen Candles

Date and make friends outside your social circle / peer group.

There's just a lot of class line crossover in John Hughes films. The geek boy doesn't fall in love with a geek girl. The criminal doesn't meet a great chick who has a pierced nose and a wicked tattoo. They all find love in the unlikely places. So that's where you're apparently supposed to look. I'm not sure it makes sense to teach teens that Mr. Right is almost never going to be the guy you have everything in common with... but I met a lot of interesting people thanks to it. In the midst of exploring outside my comfort zone for nifty boys, I made many great friends I might never have met otherwise. At least insofar as it applies to making friends (remember Molly Ringwald doing Ally Sheedy's make-up in Breakfast Club? I loved that.), it's sound advice. I just don't think EVERY romance needed to be across class lines. The closest he ever came to bringing two people together who were on the same side of the tracks was Watts and Keith. And I liked them together. But they were the exception to the rule. Which leads me to...

The person you're meant to be with
may be right under your nose.

"Don't go mistaking paradise for a pair of long legs."
- Mary Stuart Masterson, Watts, Some Kind of Wonderful

Sometimes the best relationship is the one you end up having with a friend. Maybe instead of looking for the perfect face, you should be looking for an incredible person. Someone who already likes you for who you are. This is the case for Watts and Keith and it was supposed to be the case for Duckie and Andie (and WAS the case in the original ending, but was booed by audiences and didn't serve the rich man / poor man agenda of the film). Honestly, I always figured that Andie was going to regret that one day. It's nice that she got what she wanted and all, but even on his best day, Blaine was no Duck-man. Duckie was the greatest guy EVER. So Pretty In Pink taught me not to make the mistake Andie did, or that Keith ALMOST did. Pay attention, or you might miss out on someone like Duckie. And men like that come along once in a lifetime. If you're lucky.

A certain lack of respect for authority is healthy.

"Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you're crazy to make an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions."
- Anthony Michael Hall, Brian Johnson / The Brain, The Breakfast Club

Teachers and parents everywhere had John Hughes to thank for low-level rebellion becoming more socially acceptable. Really wild kids were going to act out anyway, but John Hughes taught the tamer kids that questioning authority (and the wisdom of being stuck inside on a perfectly nice sunny day) wasn't really bad. It was just logical. But honestly, John Hughes films are probably the healthiest and safest place for a teen to learn that some rules just need to be broken.

Of course, JH never covered the consequences of rebellion in any detail. He left out the part about how you end up grounded for most of your senior year because your DAD doesn't agree that it's reasonable to skip school to spend the day running around with your beautiful, trouble-maker boyfriend just because it was SUCH a gorgeous day outside...
But I'm not bitter (and, admittedly, don't regret it at all).

"I am not going to sit on my ass as the events that affect me unfold to determine the course of my life. I'm going to take a stand. I'm going to defend it. Right or wrong, I'm going to defend it."
- Alan Ruck, Cameron, Ferris Bueller's

Relax. Have fun. Spontaneity is it's own reward.

"Wyatt, you're going to have a heart attack by the time you're forty if you don't learn to relax."
- Kelly LeBrock, Lisa, Weird Science

"It's called a sense of humor - you should get one - they're nice."
- John Cryer, Duckie, Pretty In Pink

Value the moment. Enjoy your youth. Do the thing you are afraid to do. The rewards can be great, and if nothing else at least you lived fully. After all, look at Claire and Bender. He kissed her back. There is a lesson the be learned there.

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it."
- Matthew Broderick, Ferris Bueller, Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Oh, and almost everything happens in Shermer, Illinois.

John Hughes grew up in Northbrook, Illinois. Which was once known as Shermerville. His high school was located on Shermer Road. Thus the fictitious suburban town of Shermer, Illinois is born. An homage to his own home town, Shermer, Illinois is featured as an imaginary suburb of Chicago in several John Hughes movies, including Weird Science, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink and National Lampoon's Vacation. Also, the high schools in The Breakfast Club, Weird Science and Ferris Bueller's Day Off are all named Shermer High School. There's more on Shermer at The John Hughes Files.

This isn't actually something I learned per se.
I just remember being 14 and wanting to know where Shermer, Illinois was.

John Hughes
February 18, 1950 – August 6, 2009

I want to say thank you.

For a redheaded character who WAS the pretty girl. For the hope that someone like Jake Ryan might exist. For an awkward tomboy who got her man. For John Cryer lip syncing to Otis Redding, a moment in film so glorious to me that I never really recovered from it. For so very many characters I loved and performances that stayed with me. For the sense that the awkwardness, the angst and the insecurity I struggled with in my teenage years was such a universal experience that some guy was actually making films about it. Thank you for the laughter. Thank you for some of the most quotable dialog ever written. Thank you for the bubble gum of it all. Thank you for pop culture icons. Thank you for the glorious geeks and unforgettable rebels. Thank you for giving us Shermer, Illinois.

My Life Through One Artist's Work

2009-07-06T18:00:00.005-04:00

Totally snagged this off of Alex. How brilliant! I'm usually iffy about these things, but this one has me tickled.

The instructions are:
Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, answer these questions.

Pick Your Artist:

Tom Waits

Are you male or female:
Rosie

Describe yourself:
Trampled Rose

How do you feel about yourself:
Fumblin' With The Blues

Describe your current boy/girl situation:
I Hope That I Don't Fall In Love With You

Describe where you currently live:
Way Down In The Hole

If you could go anywhere you wanted to go:
Good Old World

Your favorite form of transportation:
Downtown Train

Your best friend is:
Old Shoes (And Picture Postcards)

Your favorite color is:
The Black Rider

Favorite time of day:
Midnight Lullaby

If your life were a TV show, what would it be called:
The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me)
or maybe
Frank's Wild Years

What is life to you:
Shore Leave

What is the best advice you have to give:
I Don't Wanna Grow Up

"Well, God bless your crooked little heart,
St. Louis got the best of me
I miss your broken-china voice
How I wish you were still here with me
Well, you build it up, you wreck it down
You burn your mansion to the ground
When there's nothing left to keep you here,
When you're falling behind in this big blue world
Oh you got to Hold on, hold on, You got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here
You got to hold on"
- Tom Waits, Hold On

Rockin' Leettle Bitty Miracles

2009-07-06T00:10:00.001-04:00

I know people (people like Tracey, who I adore) are praying for me. And sending warm fuzzies my way. And positive thoughts. And whatever else they believe in the power of. You know how I know?

I got pulled over TWICE on my way home from the funeral. TWICE. And NOT twice for the same violation. Oh, No. The first one was for going ten miles over the speed limit - which I usually watch so carefully - and for having a passenger without a seat belt on (My sister feels very guilty. Particularly as she is the type of driver who will not start the car until your seat belt is on.). The second time was because one of my taillights has apparently gone out.

Both times the police officers let me go.

I did not cry. I was calm. I was respectful. I did say that we were returning from a funeral but I made no hysterical point of it and both gentlemen would have been completely justified in giving me a ticket.

One said with a bizarre logic and semantic somersault I cannot even sort out in my head, that he could cite me for three different violations that would equal about $375 in fines... but "this time we're just going to call it even." I don't even know what that means. Of course, I don't care how absurd it sounds. I could have just kissed him.

I drove the rest of the way home gripping my steering wheel with white knuckles and feeling like I had a target painted on my bumper, but I feel truly blessed that this night ended sans ticket. It may not seem like much in the general scheme of things or in comparison to what HAS happened to me, but it's kind of nice when the universe sees that it is about to place that straw - the straw that would break the proverbial camel's back - and you can almost FEEL it ease up. Like, "Yeah... you know what? I've been hearing a lot about this one lately. She's had enough."

A mile from the house my sister said, "Well at least we didn't get pulled over three times." I nearly jumped out of my seat. If I had gotten pulled over at that point, I'd have made HER pay the fine.

Oh, and one more highlight from this weekend:

Prior to the actual funeral today we are all standing around, smoothing our clothing and checking each other's make-up and the men's ties and such. Everyone is a little tense and we're sorting out the details of who gets in what car and steeling ourselves for the ordeal of the viewing. My mother breezes in, holding a prescription pill bottle in the air and says brightly, "Does anyone else need Xanax?"

Um, yeah. I love my crazy family.

Pieces of My Fourth... or Fireworks: Not as Entertaining as an Anatomically Augmented Car

2009-07-05T01:41:00.003-04:00

I am woken early in the morning, as I still lie in bed recovering from last night's ill-advised drinking, by the shrill (it seems) tones of my mobile phone. It's my father. He is calling to say my grandmother died late last night (she has been ill, this was anticipated but also somehow sooner than I had expected). The funeral will be tomorrow night. Everyone is in town for the holiday but no one has anything to wear to a funeral. How long will it take me to get there and can I bring enough clothing to dress five of my closest female relatives for a formal Southern funeral?

I rush out to work to get a few things done in case I have to miss work Monday. Pulling my car out into the street, the sky is shockingly blue and my iPod shuffles on Josh Radin's "Brand New Day" and it occurs to me that I cannot remember looking up at the sky in months. Somehow on what I know will be a daunting day, I have a moment of feeling absolutely tremendously happy to be where I am and driving my car and breathing the air and just living in my skin.

My younger sister and brother-in-law arrive in town and we pile into my car and head out for the town where the funeral will be. After packing an entire suitcase full of appropriately somber clothing from my closet. And shoes for five women. Earrings for five women. Slips and cardigans and various sundry extra Anything They Could Possibly Need for five women. And clothing for myself. And my sister and brother-in-law's things as well. You get the idea. My car is overflowing with funereal clothing and looks like a goth gypsy caravan.

My younger sister introduces me to the wonders of The Lonely Island's SNL skit "I'm On A Boat." I mean, really? "If you're on the shore then you're sure not me, oh"? Wow. I am in awe. I'm so out of the loop. Note to self, must start watching television periodically. Apparently it has its moments.

We spend the last 20 minutes of our trip driving, overcome with fits of HYSTERICAL GLEE, behind a bright orange Cadillac with enormous truck tires and a huge pair of shiny metal ... well, what could only be intended to be a strikingly realistic representation of testicles swinging from the center of its rear bumper. We reach stop lights. We pull out camera phones. We try my camera phone. The resolution is too poor. We try my brother-in-law's camera phone. The people in the car next to us at the next stop light gesture wildly, making certain we are seeing what they are seeing. We ALL laugh hysterically together. Pointing. Incredulous. This goes on for miles. We have names for The Car. We start playing music we feel is appropriate for The Car to sing to if it were, in fact, able to sing along. We name the far less interesting and thus inferior cars that are driving next to The Car. The Car drives right up to and past the street we need to turn at to reach our destination. Pulling into the driveway, we cannot stop laughing.

As we were driving into town, fireworks began to go off in the distance. Blooms of red and white over the treetops. A single moment of the holiday surprising us in the midst of our crazy, difficult day. The bursts of light, silent from this distance, repeat and grow larger and change in color... Reflecting off the pendulous scrotum of the absurd car in front of us, making us all dissolve into new whoops of laughter.

We arrive. I am hugged by roughly a dozen people in rapid succession. We exclaim over how much weight people have lost and the pink streak in my adult niece's hair and my parents' dogs skitter around in excitement. My 8 year old niece who, as far as I can tell, only puts up with most people because they can reach things she can't and have mastered the ability to buy things (which she also cannot yet do), rushes me as I break from the cluster of people and grabs my lapels and pulls me down to close to her so she can kiss my face.

My baby brother's 4 month old daughter is curled up in a ball in the middle of a big old bed that has been slept on by members of my family during summer vacations for decades. She is a sweet, chubby pink ball of angelic sleeping baby and his expression softens and I say, "She's grown so big." He smiles and his normally dark face opens up and he just says, "yeah," softly.

We sit up late watching old home movies. My father keeps accidentally rewinding and replaying things because he's had too much wine. My sister-in-law (the glowing, miraculously good-natured and breathtakingly lovely mother of my new niece) sees many of us as children for the first time. She coos and is excited with each familiar face revealed in its childhood incarnation. We tell stories about foolish things we had forgotten. My father falls asleep on the couch and we listen to him laughing 20 years ago.

1am, the house is dark and everyone has found a bed or a couch or a recliner to sleep in. The house is silent except for my father's snoring and the whir of the old outdated fridge. One of my sisters tiptoes into the kitchen and whispers to me, "Is there anything to drink in here besides buttermilk and booze?"

Happy Fourth of July...

2009-07-04T11:37:00.003-04:00

...now here's a dog staging his own personal reenactment for our viewing pleasure.

Nothing says independence like an explosive wielding dachshund.

Paradox

2009-07-02T21:00:00.004-04:00

"I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love."
- Mother Teresa

That is where I am trying to be. In a place where I focus on how much I love the people I have lost. I want that to be my driving emotion. More than one person I care for died in the shooting. I am focusing on the loss of Allan, but that is because it is so large to me. I feel I need to find a way to understand that one loss so I can process all the deaths that took place that day.

I have every one of their phone numbers in my cell phone and I cannot figure out what to do with that. I started to text Allan one day. I was somehow disoriented enough to start typing a message I can never send.

Sometimes something hurts so much that it feels like it has a physical presence. It feels large and looming. The loss is enormous and surrounds me and makes me feel as if I am seeing everything through a haze. As if it has swallowed me whole.

I realize that the loss is so tremendous because of how much love I have for the people who died in front of me so suddenly, all in one day. So I am trying to find a way to focus on that love. If I must be swallowed by a whale, let it be made of something good. Let me be overwhelmed by how much I love them. Let me take that love and use it in how I interact with the world.

I'm not angry. Perhaps I should be, but I don't have room for anger. The man who shot my loved ones is dead. He took his own life. He is irrelevant and was, to me, from the moment they died - although we did not learn of his death until weeks later.

I have lost so much in the last year and a half. My last tenuous shreds of illusion about safety. My plans and even my desire to marry. Family members have died. And friends. Friends who were some of the most remarkable people I have ever known. This is not a disingenuous and distorted memory of the dead. I tend to be appalled at the rosy cheeked perfection with which people remember their dead. No, each of the friends I have lost were truly unusual and remarkable. Death came and took the best from among us. I do not want to be made up of loss.

So here I am, loving. Loving until it pains me in ways I could never have imagined. Loving like something in my chest cavity is straining to cry out and make itself heard in the ether. I am going to accept it and try to find a way to take joy in my capacity to love them. I am not going to let it close me down or prevent me from loving other people. I am not going to let myself swim in this suffering.

I will love so much that there will be no more room in me for hurt. Only love.

Healing

2009-07-01T22:00:00.010-04:00

I've been away for a long, long time.

I've just redesigned this blog and the coming months may see some additional changes. I'm fine tuning at this point. We'll see where it takes me.

I am going to blog again about film and random topics of interest for my fellow females and/or people who like to read a female perspective. I am. But I think that, if I'm going to start writing again, I'm going to have to embrace the fact that this is going to get personal. When my personal life was simple and mundane and smooth sailing, it was easy to focus on pop culture. But in the last year that just became impossible. So I stopped writing. And I MISS writing. I miss capturing little moments of life and fleeting ideas about the grander scheme of things in the happily haphazard format of the interweb essayist. I miss the freedom of saying things I need to say.

I'm in the trenches right now. Anyone who actually checks this blog (Yes! All three of you!) will remember the loss that took place in my life last year. I am sorry to report that I suffered another sudden and violent loss just a couple of months ago... made more bewildering by the fact that this time when I lost a friend I was actually standing next to him. A close friend of mine was shot and killed in front of me. Right now I have no idea how to interact with the world without acknowledging this loss. I'm not even certain I will come out the other side of this remotely the same person. I mean, my wicked wit and self-deprecating sense of humor are intact - have no fear. But I'm not certain about the rest of me.

For the first time I can remember, I understand what it is to be lonely. I've always liked as much time to myself as possible. Incongruous in a woman who is, essentially, a world-class social butterfly. But true nonetheless. I like my own company and I have never really understood loneliness. But it's hard to connect with other people now, and I sense that a lot of people who know what is happening in my world may be uncomfortable with me. There is a chasm between me and everyone who has not experienced this loss. There is a strangeness between me and anyone who is uncomfortable with death. As if death hangs about me and they don't want to stand too close to it. I am taking a sharp look at just how short life really is, and how suddenly and unexpectedly it can end. I am realizing that I don't actually want to spend my life alone, and it shocks me to have to face that. And of course, more than any other factor creating this gaping lonliness - one of the closest people in the world to me is gone.

Now, not everyone has someone in their life like my friend, who I'm going to call Allan here for obscure personal reasons other than it actually being his name (because it isn't), but if you do - then this will make sense. There are some things in life that we go through that are almost impossible to understand or accept about ourselves without seeing ourselves as a victim. I have had far more than my share of tragedy and, other than discussing a limited number of those topics relatively anonymously on here, I don't tell people in my everyday life just how many horrible statistics apply to me. I work hard to make certain that people who know me in my daily life are given the impression that I sprang into existence fully formed and happy as a clam. My history exists for them in broad and vague strokes. Allan was one of those rare people that I just let SEE me. He KNEW. He knew all the awful, ugly and terrible things that I don't tell people. Allan was wonderful and wise and knew I didn't want his pity. I just wanted him to know me. And he accepted that. He let me be wholly self and unguarded in his presence.

When we met, years ago, we were both going through horrible, painful breakups. The kind that are massive ordeals and change your life and involve discussions with accountants and creditors and burning things in the backyard and resisting the urge to throw your telephone or run anyone over. We spent many nights sitting on the back of my car, rehashing horrible conversations with our exes and congratulating each other on managing to breathe and wake up in the morning and not say mean things to strangers just for spite. We worked on creative projects together and met for emergency I-Need-To-See-Someone-I-Actually-Like lunches. We told each other all manner of Things No One Else Knows. Over time we developed such a shorthand that we would design a set or discuss a project seamlessly in stream-of-consciousness juggling matches in which we finished each other's sentences and solved each other's conundrums. He was one of those rare friends who become a safe place. Someone who you can hand a piece of yourself to and trust to hold onto it and guard it and treasure it and not laugh at the parts of it that are weird or silly or funny looking.

He was gentler than I have ever known how to be. He was the most intelligent person I have ever been close to personally and he absolutely refused to see that about himself. He had a biting, wildly off-kilter wit that my world seems drab and hollow without. He took a piece of me with him. I am traveling through the world a little more alone than I have ever felt before. I'm not sure how to live in a world that doesn't have him in it. I'm a little bit lost.

So I think I'm just going to have to accept that, if I am to write at all, this is going to become increasingly personal. I mean, I will dig up favorite quotes and photographs again. And I will share my rants about the horrors of dating (Yes. I've been dating. I don't know why. Because self-flagellation would leave marks, I suppose.) and the terrible films that get made these days and all that nonsense. But I'm healing. And it's probably going to be obvious every little step of this journey. But maybe I need someone to talk to. That can be you.

All three or four of you.

Being American

2008-11-05T01:06:00.006-05:00

I never understood it.

I'm first generation American. I grew up with my grandmother talking about "those Americans" and trying to understand why my mother's ideas about manners and grammar were so different from those of my friend's parents. The only presidential elections I was old enough to participate in were both sore disappointments for me personally, but also difficult and frustrating experiences for the entire nation. I have traveled to other countries and started conversations with, "I didn't vote for him." I have groused about my irritation that my parents chose to move here before having me, robbing me of what I felt would have been a more interesting life in another country. I have complained about feeling that my government did not represent me, had nothing in common with me. I have often worried that my fellow Americans were apathetic and didn't know how to think globally.

And now I get it.

Sitting in my mom's living room and crying at the joy of listening to a leader who I am proud to hear speak, a leader who - like me - has a foreign born parent. A leader who is so quintessentially American in that he genuinely represents a huge cross section of our population and has a more wide and global "melting pot" perspective than I could have ever hoped for in a U.S. President.

Driving home and looking up at the stars in an unusually clear sky and feeling faith in the people I am surrounded by. That they care. That, no matter who they voted for, they VOTED. So many people were motivated to participate in this election. Instead of the immobile masses I had imagined, I felt hope that I live in a country where people may really care what happens - and can actually make a difference and enact change in their world by participating.

For the first time in my life I understand why people have a fervent passion for this country. I understood the ideas before. What being a United States Citizen was supposed to mean and what this country represents. But tonight I FELT it for the first time. Tonight, watching Barack Obama speak to the nation, I felt I was a part of it for the first time.

If my grandmother were still alive, I'd tell her that from now on, she would have to say "you Americans" instead of "those Americans," because I finally understand why my parents wanted to be here.

Tonight I am so glad that I am.

I Just Voted Because of the Issues

2008-11-05T01:02:00.004-05:00

...but they ARE moving words and the action he is able to inspire gives me greater faith in people and their capacity for hope.

You know, I never saw this? I didn't even know about this video until will.i.am was interviewed on CNN amidst the election coverage.

I am so happy tonight.

I Believe

2008-10-25T22:04:00.001-04:00

I believe in a higher power. I believe a social conscience is more than just bleeding-heart crap, it's a way of life and a better manner of existing. I believe that animals have emotions. I believe that books have some sort of life of their own because stories are absolutely magic to me. I believe that something about our planet will always be damaged and hell bent for destruction until the people of every nation learn to think globally. I still believe in my heart of hearts that my father is 10 feet tall and can do anything. I believe that my sister will love me no matter what I do. I believe that love is a holy state of being. I believe that the ordinary can be transcendent and alive with possibility. I believe in saying please and thank you. I believe that men who hold the door for you are just better to be around. I believe that we miss too much when we sleep. I believe in being honest but never cruel.

I believe so very very many things.

But today I have decided that I absolutely believe in Internet Karma.

I get in these moods. These manic dear-god-does-anyone-love-me freak out moods where I check email every ten minutes. I don't do it all the time. It's not a constant compulsion. I do this maybe once a month, but when I get like this it's frantic and obsessive and I cannot seem to stop myself and it ALWAYS happens on a day when no one happens to be emailing me so I become convinced that no one is speaking to me. It's mad. It never lasts for more than a few hours but it's completely irrational and I think it's an unhealthy reaction to the constant influx of information that we simply aren't equipped for because technology is evolving faster than we are.

But there it is. I do this. Every now and then. And I was talking to my baby sister about this and she pointed out to me that she had just emailed me the day before - and I had not responded. And she's right. Most of the time I just don't care that much about email and I read what people send me quickly and then I move on with my day - often being too rude and self-focused to respond, to let them know I got their message.

And then I stop getting emails from OTHER UNRELATED PEOPLE. Not even the same people. Not people who know each other. It's like the universe decides to teach me a lesson. But I don't always notice at first.

Then I have one of my days. And it hits me that no one has emailed me in like 24 hours so clearly EVERYONE IN THE UNIVERSE has stopped speaking to me and I become distraught. Despondent. Limp and unmanageable.

Then I think about the people I have made feel this way. And sure enough - perusing my in box reveals several ignored missives! So I reply to all of them and - I am not kidding - within ten minutes I start to hear from the other people I was waiting to hear from. It's completely bizarre. But it happened to me today. I sent off email responses to my baby sister, an old friend from high school and my aunt. Minutes later I had heard from a theater friend who had not been getting back to me for weeks, a friend I know from Florida and another person I had lost track of ages ago. Unrelated people. Who could not possibly have ever met, much less be calling each other to say, "Oh, you can email her now. She's finally responded to my question from last week. She's learned her lesson."

Proof. Interweb Karma. I know I've written about it before but today was just WEIRD. Not something to build a faith on or anything but further proof of how strange life is and how long-existing concepts can be reprocessed and re-imagined through the miracle of technology.

I totally believe.

Embracing Age

2008-09-25T23:00:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I feel like my youth is lost. My best times are behind me and I am just going to go downhill from here. Then I see something like this thing on Yahoo and am reminded of how so many women - as they find themselves, as they grow as individuals, as they learn to love themselves - improve with age. I mean, these are movie stars... but most of them look BETTER as older women. I realize I'm not a guy and all that... but not only would I rather have a conversation with the mature version of these women, I think their mature selves are more physically attractive.

I've always thought that age and experience make people more interesting. Other people. It's harder to apply this to one's self. But my face was soft and without character when I was younger and now, very very slowly, it is developing more character, my bone structure is becoming more pronounced, my countenance is less child-like. I may actually be improving.

Admittedly, I didn't look like Diane Lane when I was 20. So I won't look like her when I'm 40. But I still think these photos bode well for all of us.

Late Night Thinking

2008-09-20T23:30:00.000-04:00

Life is strange. Obvious, right? I probably spend far too much time thinking about it. I find the paths our lives take fascinating, although I believe very strongly in the control we have over those paths. I don't think things are meant to happen or in destiny in the way many people do. I think you make the life you want while working with the circumstances you are given. When you make a choice, you open new doors and you close other ones. And you'll never know which life you might have lived, what you've given up or what you might have missed if you hadn't chosen this door. I also believe that disasters and forced change are like the universe's sometimes horrific way of creating. Not everything that comes of a disaster or a personal tragedy is bad. There are usually strange places that difficult times take you that add to your life or change who you are in important ways.

I can say this. I have survived plenty. I have lived through all manner of personal horrors. I have learned to embrace change. It's the only thing you can count on. Whether life is wonderful or terrible, it's all temporary. It will all change and eventually we will all be dead so there's nothing to do but accept it and make it work for you.

Sometimes I feel like I live within the eye of a storm. A whirlwind of change. Change that happens to me and change that I create. Chaos and reason in constant cycles and struggles.

I'm working on the particulars for a wedding. A very important wedding. It was less than two months ago that I called off my own nuptials and right now I am sitting in my living room staring at a little statue of a bride and groom. I am making the cake topper for my best friend's wedding which is only a month away. Sometimes I feel like I am living a very strange stream-of-consciousness film. It would take a tremendous editor to try to explain the point to all this. The ups and downs. The people that come and go and come back again...

And how I ended up here, painting tiny roses on the side of a little wedding gown.

Life is so very, very strange.

10 Items or Less

2008-09-10T22:00:00.004-04:00

I love Brad Silberling. He wrote and directed Moonlight Mile and 10 Items or Less. Moonlight Mile wrecks me. Using a similarly senseless and sudden loss in his own life as his inspiration, Siberling weaves this tapestry of grief and the human condition. His characters are all experiencing and expressing and coping with grief in ways that are almost difficult to watch because it is all so real. The illogical things you do. The way you get lost and don't remember why you walked into that room. The strangeness you feel when you learn you can still laugh or when you laugh at all the wrong times. The anger, the absurdity, the oddity of acknowledging the horrific thing that has happened right there in the midst of your world. And most shattering of all, the way life keeps moving on and stores keep opening and the mail gets delivered and new people come into your life and this horrible thing happened... yet nothing stops. And somehow in the midst of all of this - the film is hopeful.

It's clever, warm and strikingly spot on.

It's not at all what I wanted to write about tonight.

10 Items or Less I saw more recently. Morgan Freeman plays a sucessful older actor who hasn't worked in a few years. He's considering a role in a small independent film as the manager of a grocery store - so he gets dropped off at an out of the way supermarket to do research. Watch the locals. Get into the mindset of the store manager (this leads to a brilliant scene in which Morgan Freeman follows the diminutive, older Indian character actor Kumar Pallana around the store, mimicking his every move - HILARIOUS AND AWESOME). At the register Freeman (listed in the film's credits only as "Him") meets Paz Vega's character, Scarlett. She runs the ten items or less line. A frustrating, thankless job. She's too smart to be stuck doing this work but is struggling to find the self-confidence to get out.

Basically, they both have problems. Like we all do. And some of those problems are the ones it's just hard to see clearly on your own. So when they get stuck spending the day together (Freeman gets stranded at the shop and Vega begrudgingly offers him a ride) they both need some outside perspective. They spend one day together. Doing the most mundane things you can think of. The set up is so gloriously ordinary. The veteran actor raving about how amazing Target is. Gorgeous Paz Vega pulling a sandwich from a rumpled paper Arby's bag. And it's wonderful and strange. In the midst of it they are talking and learning about each other and helping each other do things. And eventually you are left feeling that just MAYBE they have changed each others lives.

In the midst of their day running around fixing problems and talking about everything, there is this one conversation in particular that they have that I just loved. Vega says that everyone wants more than ten items. No one is happy with ten. No one wants to give anything up. They talk about what they would get rid of if they could remove ten things from their lives. Then, more telling, they talk about the ten best things in their lives. What they would keep if they could only keep ten things. It's a wonderful scene. The "things" aren't just things. They are parts of life, moments, things you do, parts of their worlds. The ten best things. The things that, if everything else was gone, would be enough.

I loved that.

Ten things to rid yourself of is easy. But only keeping ten. Ten things. A simple life made up of it's ten best parts. What would you choose? What would that life be?

It's an intimate list and it's difficult to be honest and I think it's probably one of those conversations it would be easier to have with a stranger. Someone not invested in your world. Someone you could just TELL - give that truth to and then walk away and not have to admit to the rest of the world what really matters to you. Deep down. When it comes right down to it.

I have been working on my list in my head. Things. Places. The way certain things feel. People I couldn't live without. Ten items. Or less.

Overheard

2008-09-02T19:55:00.004-04:00

I live in a college town. And it's that time of year again.

So today I heard the following conversation near campus:

guy: "So, yeah. I started drinking at like 7pm Friday and didn't stop until 3am Monday."

girl: "Do you feel okay?"

guy: "oh, yeah. I'm fine... but by Sunday I was physically incapable of getting drunk."

girl: (without a trace of irony) "...But you tried, right???"

________

Fall just wouldn't be the same without the annual influx of brilliant teenagers.

How Much is Too Much

2008-08-26T23:25:00.002-04:00

I wrote the following a few months ago, in the midst of the turmoil at my job. Rereading it, I felt like it was worth saying. PLUS if I'm ever going to put it up, it should be now - before I finish my redesign and such. So - now that's it's actually safe to post it without fear of legal action - here it is:

________________

In our daily lives we make sacrifices. We make compromises. Because the world doesn't always work the way you want it to, because sometimes your needs outweigh your principles. Because there are often more people effected by a decision than simply ourselves.

Right now I am deciding whether or not to remain at my job.

There are little things, but there are always little things. Every job has imperfections and these are acceptable, because every environment has it's faults.

But there is also a very large problem. One that I can no longer ignore.

Last Friday a co-worker confronted me in a threatening manner over a minor misunderstanding. The essentially one-way conversation involved an angry tirade and an implied physical threat. This is not the first time this person has exploded at someone. He has yelled at me before. He has cursed out our receptionist. Attempting to intimidate his co-workers is a part of how he interacts. This past Friday is the first time I have seen him actually go so far as to threaten someone.

I have formally lodged a complaint with my employer. Due to the serious illness of a close family member of my employer's, I am trying to understand his need for a few days to sort this out. It has not yet been addressed. I cannot imagine there being any sufficient response other than the firing of this man. I cannot understand why this man still works here, other than the fact that he simply has a great deal of knowledge that we need access to. I do not know what my employer is going to do.

I cannot afford to be unemployed. There is little available in my field in town. I don't really want to move, at least, not right now.

Every moment I sit here, waiting for my employer to do the right thing and worrying that he won't - I feel like I'm sacrificing pieces of myself.

People who know me would be surprised that I let someone rip into me. More surprised if they saw the way I cowered, mumbling agreement with anything he said, just praying he would leave if I didn't argue. Hoping that if I agreed with him he wouldn't hit me. I tend to be an aggressive person. I've learned to be that way. Most of the time it works, most of the time it kicks in when I need it and it protects me. But sometimes another person's aggression crosses a line, a threshold of tolerance for me and I find myself in a familiar but long-absent place - frozen by my own fear. I've gone over this incident again and again in my head, trying to understand my own reaction to it. Why I feel so depressed. Why it's difficult for me to be in the building right now, as I type.

I was physically abused as a child, I've talked on here about being raped in my late teens, years ago I had difficulty with being harassed in the workplace at another job (all of which paints the picture of a perpetual victim, which I must assure you I am far from being). I have stood up for myself significantly more often than not in life, but in some instances, in THOSE instances, I failed to or was unable to protect myself. I cannot stand the idea of sitting idly by and letting myself be stepped on. Not now. Never again. I can't stand the idea of working for someone who would allow that.

Friday afternoon, I found myself cowering. Me. Cowering. For the first time in so very many years. That which does not kill us does make us stronger, right? Anyway, it lowers the threshold of what we are willing to tolerate. I am quickly reaching zero. I am not angry (I should be angry, why am I not angry?). I am just longing to do what I must to take care of myself. To look myself in the mirror and feel secure that THIS time I didn't let myself down.

Does everyone go through this, this strange self-knowledge? Learning the point at which you break, and at what point you refuse to be silent? I thought I knew this about myself, but here I am again. Trying to see my way through.

_____________

It took almost three months to find another position. The whole time I struggled, wanting to just walk away. When I was told that I had to tolerate the situation because, "Every workplace has someone like him. That's just how it is. We can't get rid of him and anyway, it's his word against yours." I consulted a lawyer and there really isn't very much you can do when you work for a small company and you live in a right-to-work state. It wasn't discrimination because of my sex. He didn't actually hit me. My lawyer told me, with no intention of offence, that if I HAD stood up to the man and he HAD hit me - well, then I'd have a case.

Sometimes doing the right thing for your long term well-being and doing the thing your principles and dignity demand... sometimes those things aren't compatible. So I did my best. I left as soon as I was able. I never said it was okay. I tried to maintain some level of dignity in spite of the fact that I felt intimidated walking in the door every day. And now I'm free and it's over. And I'll never work somewhere like that again. But I hate thinking about it. Because, when I do, I find that in some small way I still kick myself for cowering. Because I feel I let myself down. Sometimes the only person you can count on to stand up for you is YOU... it's important to know you can at least count on that to kick in when the chips are down.

I don't think it's a male-female thing, but I do think that women haven't always been taught to stand up for themselves. And we want to take care of ourselves. Maybe not all of us - but many of us want to be our OWN knight in shining armor. We want to save ourselves. I feel a responsibility to do that for myself and somehow feel incomplete when I don't.

Dame 2.0

2008-08-17T23:18:00.002-04:00

Well, folks, I'm working on an updated version of Dame. I haven't been around for a while and I think it's time for a new look and a little housecleaning.

To Dame regulars I would like to offer my apologies. I have really good reasons for having been absent so long. Sometime around June I had some problems in my workplace. I was threatened by a co-worker, there was discussion of legal action and my workplace became a fairly hostile environment. I have spent the past couple of months securing new employment and sorting that situation out. I now have a wonderful new job and am far happier... Because I had discussed my relationship (in relatively vague terms) on here, I should also let regulars know that The Guy and I have called off our engagement. I am alright and hoping he and I will remain good friends. But anyway, suffice it to say that it's been a very hectic time for me.

My life has changed a great deal in the past couple of months.

ALSO, as of today, I have reliable internet access at home for the first time in years. It had become highly impractical to post on my blog when I could not do so without going to great lengths. That situation is no longer. I sit, right now, on my bed with my shiny new laptop (who I have named), writing to you from my home FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME. That's right. 300+ posts and over two years of writing Dame on a break at work, from a friend's computer, at my local library, etc. Imagine how much more I will get done now.

So I'm working on a new look, a new approach... and while I'm at it a whole new life.

I just wanted to pop my head out of the ground for a moment and check in. Changes are a'comin'. Thanks for hanging in there. I miss reading your blogs. I miss having the time to share what I'm interested in. I'm looking forward to getting back in the saddle.

Gender Roles

2008-07-07T14:05:00.004-04:00

Today I navigated to Yahoo to check my personal email. Yahoo always displays stories / articles / news / human interest junk for their users to click on.

And today there were two articles about relationships:

For WOMEN : "10 signs that he's willing to commit"

For MEN : "How to tell if she's attracted to you"

It's not just Yahoo. It's everywhere. Obviously popular media STILL assumes that all women want is a long-term commitment and all men want is to know if they're going to get laid.

It's so reassuring to know that some things never change.

Did I just imagine that women's movement and the sexual revolution took place?

7 Songs Meme

2008-07-01T15:30:00.003-04:00

Snagged this from Sheila...

"List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring summer. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs."

"Tiny Dancer" - Elton John
Because I just finished a musical and the music director kept playing this song on the piano during downtime and we would all sing along. It had nothing to do with the show we were doing but it was great. It also took like five or six times of warbling along with the cast to get past the whole "Hold me closer Tony Danza" thing - but I'm so over it and back in love with the song now...

"Dragula" - Rob Zombie
High energy song. I've been going on walks and listening to this. I find it therapeutic. I know. Creepy.

"Fire and Rain" - James Taylor
Someone was playing this a few weeks ago across the street from the theater and I had forgotten how much I love it. It had been years since I consciously chose to listen to this song. So I've been playing it a lot lately.

"A Pirate Looks at Forty" - Jimmy Buffet
I love me some Buffet. Don't judge me. I'm not into Cheeseburger Buffet, I like rankly old sailor Buffet. Wistful drinking too much on a breezy afternoon Buffet. I'm all in the midst of warm fuzzy rediscovery of this love of Buffet.

"A Postcard to Nina" - Jens Lekman
My sister got me hooked on this song recently and I listen to it constantly. It's gorgeous AND funny.

"Spit It Out" - IAMX
Again, a recent addition from my awesome sister. I blast this in my car and howl along like a crazy woman and people look at me askance. Again, therapeutic.

"Rebel, Rebel" - David Bowie
The best song ever. For walking. For dancing in my living room. For singing along in the car. Impossible to think about your woes while bopping along to Rebel, Rebel. Kind of always into this but listening to it a lot lately.

Dorothy Parker

2008-07-01T14:07:00.003-04:00

Fair Weather

This level reach of blue is not my sea;
Here are sweet waters, pretty in the sun,
Whose quiet ripples meet obediently
A marked and measured line, one after one.
This is no sea of mine. that humbly laves
Untroubled sands, spread glittering and warm.
I have a need of wilder, crueler waves;
They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm.

So let a love beat over me again,
Loosing its million desperate breakers wide;
Sudden and terrible to rise and wane;
Roaring the heavens apart; a reckless tide
That casts upon the heart, as it recedes,
Splinters and spars and dripping, salty weeds.”

- Dorothy Parker

My sister has that line tattooed on her arm, "They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm." I've always loved it and had never read the poem which was it's source. Parker was renowned for her wit, her sharp tongue, her great mind... but I think in popular culture her sheer talent for words gets forgotten as her legacy is reduced to snippets of humor that are easily dispersed in conversation. The woman who wrote these verses was not simply a humorist or satirist, great though her contributions in that arena may have been.

Tracey's Right - The Best Thing in The World EVER

2008-06-27T15:25:00.002-04:00

tromp tromp tromp

I kind of adore Tracey at Pale Page and am inclined to agree with her about many and various things. But this post is a great and magnificent thing about which she is SPOT. ON. I adore her. I adore Cinders the piglet who appears in this story. I am beside myself with glee reading about this little porcine beauty who clearly knows exactly what she wants in life and is satisfied with herself, indeed.

She is a piggy who loves her shoes. She is MY KIND OF PIG.

Shirley MacLaine

2008-06-27T15:02:00.003-04:00

photo snagged at Dr. Macro (excellent resource for classic film photos), photo had the header: Hollywood At Home - A Family Album 1950-1965. Photos by Sid Avery

“I don't need anyone to rectify my existence. The most profound relationship we will ever have is the one with ourselves.”

- Shirley MacLaine

Dietrich

2008-06-10T11:00:00.002-04:00

“Darling, the legs aren't so beautiful, I just know what to do with them.”

- Marlene Dietrich

She was the original self-made icon. Long before Marilyn altered her voice, washed her face 12 times a day and wore vaseline to catch the light of the camera, Dietrich was crafting an image for herself. She knew exactly how she should be lit and demanded control over lighting and camera angles when being filmed or photographed. She knew the menswear angle worked for her, with her lithe frame, sharp features and deep husky rumble of a voice, and she ordered suits with trousers in every color at a time when no other woman was wearing slacks. In fact, she also sent pantsuits to other women (like Rosemary Clooney, whom she befriended early in the "girl singer's" career), encouraging them to follow suit. She oversaw every detail of her image, both onscreen and off. Couturiers spoke of how she not only made certain every thread was perfectly in place on the exterior of her clothing, but would have an article fit and refit until the seams in the lining were flawless and lay perfecty smooth. If she liked something, she bought it in every possible color and bought multiples so she wouldn't be without it. If she couldn't find something, she had it created. She was crafting an image both beautiful and completely unique unto her.

For whatever reason, that absolute control over her physical appearance and that minute attenton to detail fascinates me. She wasn't the most beautiful woman on screen. She was talented but she wasn't by any means the most talented actress around. And yet, somehow she not only became an enduring icon, but maintained that sultry image well into later life. She knew how to reinvent herself to follow the times. As Wikipedia puts it, "She managed to remain popular by continually re-inventing herself through her long lasting career. During the 1920s she began her work as a cabaret singer, chorus girl and film actress in Berlin. In the 1930s, she became a Hollywood actress, a World War II frontline entertainer, and lastly an international stage show performer from the 1950s to the 1970s. She accomplished the great achievement of managing to become an entertainment icon of the 20th century by the end of her career." For the cabaret routines of her later years, she had bodysuits made of sheer material in order to display her figure to it's best advantage under revealing costumes and present an illusion of ongoing youthfulness in her physique. Even the changes of age and time were things she sought and found new ways to control.

I cannot imagine the effort and energy that went into the image she created, but her life WAS her art. Her hard work and keen eye set an almost unattainably high bar for personal style and made her into a lasting cultural icon.

Bella

2008-05-27T17:15:00.001-04:00

This kind of film comes along so rarely. Bella does not pull punches, it is not soft, it does not pander and yet it is positive and warm and life affirming. It reminds us that no matter what happens, no matter what path we think we are on, things can always change. A moment can change the path of your life and in so doing, can change the world around you.

The director aptly described it with the simple truism, "If you want to see God laugh, tell him your plans."

Life is like that. But everything comes back around. The world balances itself. And we can take part in that and we can make concious choices about the type of people we choose to be and how we wish to participate in the human race.

A lot of religious groups are trying to co-opt the film to reinforce one of their more popular messages but I don't see it that way. Two of the filmmakers have spoken openly about being Catholic, so I'm not saying they don't share opinions with these groups, but I think this film goes far beyond social issues. It's simply a story about people. How we effect each other and how life can surprise you.

It also does a beautiful job of refusing to recycle the well worn Latino stereotypes too often seen in film; presenting instead warm families, interesting people and fully rounded characters - the way it should be.

Oh, and one of the last scenes - between the two brothers - MUST be an intentional homage to Big Night. It is simply too dead-on not to be intentional. That scene from Big Night it is one of my favorite scenes ever committed to film and the same dynamic plays beautifully and meaningfully for the gifted filmmakers of Bella.

I don't want to tell you anything about this film and I think you should do yourself a favor and not read anything about it. A lot of the film is just people talking. There are sometimes subtitles. The acting is gorgeous and I thought the cinematography was lovely. It may be too stream of conciousness for some or too warm fuzzy for others... but obviously I really liked it.

I want to hang this film on my wall and watch it like a living work of art.

Because I'm Tired

2008-05-27T12:22:00.003-04:00

I received a piece of junk mail titled:

"Longer, harder, fiercer bangs"

and I sat there staring at it, trying to figure out who sends junk mail about hair. And do people still use the word "fierce" to describe something that's aesthetically pleasing? And who wants HARD hair? Are bangs even in style right now? oh. wait. OH.

Bangs.

BANGS.

ok. ew. more pervy junk mail.

But at least that makes more sense...

I REALLY need to get some sleep.

Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks

2008-05-14T06:00:00.013-04:00

Bancroft and Brooks around the time of their wedding, in 1964

"I fell in love with her then and there."

- Brooks, in an interview with Liz Smith, on first meeting Anne

Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks met in 1961 when she was rehearsing for the Perry Como television show. The story goes that she was rehearsing the musical number, "Married I can Always Get." and wearing a white suit. Mel Brooks called from offstage, "I'm Mel Brooks." Brooks bribed one of the tv show's employees to find out where Anne was going to have dinner that evening so he could "happen" to show up at the same restaurant.

"When Mel told his Jewish mother he was marrying an Italian girl, she said: 'Bring her over. I'll be in the kitchen - with my head in the oven'."

- Bancroft

When they met, Miracle Worker had not yet been released and much of Bancroft's career had been in television. Although she had a respectable number of films to her credit and had already won her first Tony award (for appearing opposite Henry Fonda in the Broadway production of Two for the Seesaw), she had not yet become the marquee name we know her as today. Brooks was best known as a writer and comedian, his prolific years as an actor/writer/director were still ahead of him.

"He understands not only with his brain but with his heart. And that might be called love. Not quite sure, but maybe that's the key."

- Bancroft, on her husband Mel Brooks Associated Press interview (1997)

They were married on August 5, 1964 at the New York City Hall. They asked a passer-by to be the witness for their wedding. As one of Bancroft's obituaries aptly describes them: "He was the Borscht Belt spoofer who took comedy to delightful new lows in the bawdy Western satire Blazing Saddles. She was the Bronx-born daughter of Italian parents who won two Tonys. 'He makes me laugh a lot,' she said, explaining their attraction to the New York Daily News in 2000. 'I get excited when I hear his key in the door. It's like, Ooh! The party's going to start.'"

"First of all, you have to marry the right person. If you marry the wrong person for the wrong reasons, then no matter how hard you work, it's never going to work, because then you have to completely change yourself, completely change them, completely— by that time, you're both dead. So I think you have to marry for the right reasons, and marry the right person."

- Bancroft, on successful marriage. Associated Press interview (1997)

Brooks and Bancroft making an appearance in Larry David's fictional "Opening Night" in 2004

I just love their work. And I love the idea of them together. It's a union that always fascinated me.

I found a lot of interesting information in this profile of their marriage, which I recommend.

The Improbable Bride

2008-05-13T07:00:00.012-04:00

If the late breaking news has you worried that dameonline is about to become wedding central, you really needn't be concerned.

I have a friend who began her wedding planning when she was ten. She always wanted to get married. She kept pictures of dresses she loved and wedding cakes in a three ring binder. She wanted a picture book wedding. When she became engaged, she pulled out her binder and began reviewing her idea book. It was a fascination that lasted as she grew older and became a reality in her adult years.

She always knew what she wanted.

I am not that woman.

When I was ten years old I sat my parents down and, in all seriousness, broke the news that they would not be getting any grandchildren from me. I told them I might not even get married. If I did I would be AT LEAST 30 (which seemed very old to me at the time). They were flummoxed but then, I was a wierd kid, so they decided to take it in stride and didn't argue with me. They just said okay and I felt satisfied with myself for being so responsible and breaking the news to them early.

Evidently I've changed my mind about a few things over the years. But understand: All my parents (biological and step) have been married more than once. One has been married three times. All but two of my Aunts and Uncles (I have many) have been through a divorce. The vast majority of my childhood friends' parents were divorced.

I had no reason to think marriage was a good idea.

So I never thought about a dress or what colors I would use. I never watched Disney movies and imagined my own princess wedding. Father of the Bride didn't make me weepy. I never got weak-kneed hearing a romantic proposal story (I did get nauseated once or twice). When friends have gotten married I have participated in their weddings and been supportive and kept my cynicism to myself. It's not that I didn't believe in love. LOVE I understand. But wanting someone to be in your house all the time (ew) and never go away and then trusting that once you grow accustommed to this arrangement, that person will actually continue to STAY? Totally bizarre to me.

As you now know, however, the most improbable thing has happened. I am getting married.

My focus is on the marriage - my future with the man I love, forming a strong partnership that will last the test of time and my joy at finally finding someone who I genuinely believe I won't mind spending my days with when I'm 90 and it's just too much trouble to shuffle into another room (I think this is a vital characteristic in a life partner). This will, however, involve there being a wedding. I mean, I COULD skip that part, but since I'm actually pleased about the marriage - a celebration does seem to be in order.

I will have to start from the ground up.

I never gave any of this a second thought. So I'm not walking in with a rough blueprint in place like so many other women seem to. I don't have years of secretly thumbing through copies of Modern Bride at the grocery store and drooling over movie weddings under my belt in order to prepare me for this. The only thing I knew at all was that the shoes would have to be awesome because, you know, I LOVE SHOES.

I am finding that bridal magazines kind of freak me out. They tend to focus on large productions and I know that I don't want a wedding circus. No drowning in fluffy white taffeta and tulle while being surrounded by people I won't remember in 30 years and freaking out over children sticking their hands in the cake and running myself so ragged that I don't remember most of it later. There are these massive lists in the books and magazines of the 50 million THINGS YOU MUST DO 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE WEDDING OR THE SKY WILL FALL AND YOU WILL NOT GET MARRIED. The average wedding in the U.S. today costs upwards of $28,000. It just sounds like such an ordeal if you try to play by these rules (and, you know, I don't have $28,000). I mean, I just don't care if everyone's names appear in the right order and I know there are not 150 people in my life right now who need to be a part of my wedding day. There just aren't.

So if I talk about the process here at dameonline, it will be in the context of how one approaches the wedding planing when one tends not be be the traditional sort. Or the fairy princess sort. Or the sort to obey the laws of etiquette when writing an invitation... Basically when one is more mindful of the marriage than the party. And during the process, of course, I will be certain to share any wacky hijinks. Because EVERYONE loves wacky hijinks. Even if they don't love weddings.

News

2008-05-12T07:16:00.002-04:00

A little while ago something very important happened.

I wasn't sure if I was going to share it on here, but I think it's unavoidable.

I had thought it might happen, but I wasn't expecting it when it came.

Everything seemed to glow and get fuzzy. I was overwhelmed and joyful and surprised. It was as if the world had frozen for a moment. I almost can't remember the sound of our voices.

I think I held my breath.

The Guy stood up at dinner the other night and then suddenly he was on one knee. Right next to me. With a little box in his hands. And this look on his face.

It all happened so quickly. I didn't even think about it. I just burbled out the first thing that came into my head.

And then he kissed me.

(I said, "Yes.")

Best Mother's Day post

2008-05-12T07:00:00.001-04:00

Sheila's mother sounds lovely and wonderful and just like a mother should be but so rarely actually is. Much thanks to Sheila for sharing this little story.

The Periwinkle Dishes

Kitties Bobbin'

2008-05-06T07:10:00.000-04:00

This just made me giggle like an idiot.

Something- ahem - that I NEVER do.

Thank you to Lola, from whom I stole this link.

Fathers and Daughters, part II

2008-05-05T14:33:00.003-04:00

By some bizarre coincidence, Alexandra Billings put up a post about her relationship with HER father today and it just laid me out. Clearly, I already had this subject on my mind and I am just in tears now.

Read Alex's thoughts on the topic here.

Fathers and Daughters

2008-05-05T13:30:00.001-04:00

The relationship between a father and daughter is an important and compelling one. If it's not a positive relationship, it's impact tends to echo throughout your life. If it IS a positive relationship, the kind of bond that exists there often surpasses almost all others and creates a connection felt your entire life.

He's the first man in your life. As a woman, that relationship often effects how you feel about men when you reach adulthood. In a world where the war of the sexes rages on and feminism is still often still treated like a negative concept, a dirty word, your father is responsible for protecting you and being the first man to see your value and to acknowledge your potential. It's a big responsibility. From your first day in kindergarten when your pigtail gets pulled or the first time at recess when the boys won't let you play - the male of the species becomes far more complicated. If you are lucky, however, it starts out simple - with the unconditional love of one man.

I was my father's first child. I look just like him. Same hair, same jawline, same eyes and the same pale papery-thin skin. Same strong, gregarious personality, same pragmatism, same sarcastic sense of humor and love of the written word. From day one we've been crazy about each other. We've both made mistakes over the years. We've failed each other, but more often than that we've come through for each other. It was hard learning that he was human. Harder learning that he couldn't always live up to the standards he had raised me to maintain. In time I learned to accept him as a fallible man instead of looking for the return of the god of my childhood. Whatever mistakes he made, however many years we spent apart, whatever changes the years brought in us - he gave me my base in life. I always knew he thought I was beautiful and that I was loved by him. I knew what was right and what was wrong because my father told me these things. I grew up with this powerful sense of honor and heritage because of his influence. He is imperfect. He finds it difficult to talk about emotional matters. He is tremendously intelligent. He is more widely respected than almost anyone of my personal aquaintance. Later in his life, he is still full of dreams and plans. He is a part of who I am and an aspect of what I want to be. Obviously, I'm still crazy about him.

When I was 15, I made him a mix tape. I spent months on it; aquiring the songs I needed, arranging and rearranging them, working on the hand drawn art for the case. The songs were about fathers and their children. About love and being loved for who you are. About everything my father meant to me. I gave it to him and he was quiet. He thanked me. He kind of smiled and looked unsure what to say. He said he'd listen to it when he had the chance.

Years later he told me that he kept the tape in his top desk drawer wherever he went, whenever he moved. He kept it in a drawer and just looked at it. For three years. He said he knew it would be emotional for him. He liked just having it. He wasn't sure he was ready to listen to it. He never told me what made him finally listen to it, but almost three years later (which would have been just after I left home), he told me that he had listened to it for the first time.

Loudon Wainwright III has a sweet song that - for me - captures the magic of the father/daughter relationship in a beautiful way. And I cry every time I listen to it. In a good way.

...Maybe it's time to make another mix tape.

DAUGHTER
by Loudon Wainwright III
Listen to Daughter here

Everything she sees
she says she wants.
Everything she wants
I see she gets.

That's my daughter in the water
everything she owns I bought her
Everything she owns.
That's my daughter in the water,
everything she knows I taught her.
Everything she knows.

Everything I say
she takes to heart.
Everything she takes
she takes apart.

That's my daughter in the water
every time she fell I caught her.
Every time she fell.
That's my daughter in the water,
I lost every time I fought her.
I lost every time.

Every time she blinks
she strikes somebody blind.
Everything she thinks
blows her tiny mind.
That's my daughter in the water,
who'd have ever thought her?
Who'd have ever thought?
That's my daughter in the water,
I lost everytime I fought her
Yea, I lost every time.

Craptaculous Film Adventures

2008-04-25T13:51:00.002-04:00

Movies You Aren’t “Supposed” to Like

Now some people like only those movies which everyone else hesitates to cop to liking. I’m not really talking to you here. I can be a bit of a film snob at times, but I’m a film snob with a weakness for kitsch and kickass CGI. It’s terrible, I know. I’m going to tell you about this forbidden love and then I’ll go wash my mind out with soap.

You know what I’m talking about if you’re a midlevel film buff. You can quote The Godfather. You loved The City of Lost Children. You’ve had a conversation about Meryl Streep in Out of Africa that segued into an animated argument about Charlie Kaufman. You have passionate opinions about Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner being remade in the 21st century as a comedy. Not exactly a film scholar, but reasonably knowledgeable about film... just enough that you know which movies you are not supposed to love. Or even admit to having watched. Especially not more than once.

Now some films that aren’t so classy or brilliant totally escape this category. Like films that you grew attached to during your formative years (Grease, Fame) and Cult classics (Rocky Horror, Monty Python and the Holy Grail). A lot of films escape the stigma on sheer cool factor or having a respected director attached who makes the film more acceptable on the whole (Although some directors come into or out of style over time in an odd fashion. Case in point: when Army of Darkness was released, I was crazy for loving it - but NOW it’s cool to have a long standing love of Sam Rami. Whatever.). So, not those films.

I’m talking about the kitschy cheesefests and the unlikely shoot-em-ups that you rightfully ask aloud, “How did this film even get made?” And yet, you love it. You might be one of only a few dozen people who know it’s kind of awful but love it anyway (there are always the people who just don’t know it’s awful), but for whatever reason - it works for you, it makes you laugh, it allows you to check your brain at the door, something about it makes you happy. We need those movies. I respect and understand it when a friend tells me, “Ok. Don’t laugh, but you know what movie I love?”

And naturally I have my own list of the movies. But you know what movie I’ve been thinking about lately that I LOVE and know without question is B-A-D?

Who’s That Girl. That’s right. Madonna doing her best Betty Boop impersonation at the height of her Marilyn meets Sid Viscious phase. Refusing to act her way out of a paper bag. Back when she was still sporting those thick, dark eyebrows which I actually loved on her. In an impossibly illogical modern fairy tale about a sucessful executive with a huge stick up his butt abondoning his stuffy life and future wife for a cleptomaniac convict with a penchant for black lace. It’s SUPPOSED to be an update of Bringing Up Baby which we won’t even go into because that’s such an insult to Hepburn and Grant. But I love it anyway.

Griffin Dunne makes completely absurd choices that no man in his position would ever make, but he’s adorable and confused and you’re all like, “Well, OBVIOUSLY she has addled his brain with the oozing sex and all.” They pick up a Pategonian Felis (Puma or Mountain Lion... and not a correct scientific name from what I can glean on the interweb) which Madonna erroniously refers to as a tiger thruought the film. She names it Murray (great name) and it naturally becomes her pet pussycat and does whatever she says just because. She drags Dunne into a bad part of town to buy illegal guns and does the whole cutesy newsboy-capped-head popping out of a dumpster shot. Dunne’s bride to be has a hilarious subplot going on in which she is diddling everyone in NYC, with a particular penchant for taxi drivers who turn up all over saying, “I had her in my cab.” and then laughing in an uber creepy way. Madonna sports the most godawful fake Brooklyn accent ever captured on film. They spend 90% of the film being chased by thugs all over New York. The dialog is completely silly but my sister and I used to quote it to each other in tones of hysterical glee.

It’s awful. So awful, it’s kind of awesome.

Other craptastical films I love: Earth Girls are Easy (yes, I said it. I’m not taking it back), SING, The Craft, Cutting Class, Time Trackers (MASSIVE crush on Alex Hyde-White as Edgar of Mansfield), The Long Kiss Goodnight, Deep Blue Sea, Bloodsport, The Phantom (really mostly just for the fact that Billy Zane wears a purple bodysuit), Shock Treatment and (of course) Desperately Seeking Susan...

Well, those are the titles I can think of off the top of my head. There. I've confessed. May the person who has not loved a thoroughly atrocious film at some point in his or her life hurl the first stone.

Yeah. That's what I thought.

Life

2008-04-25T08:42:00.001-04:00

I apologize for my prolonged absence! I will be back on here with greater frequency very very soon.

Ben Lee

2008-04-15T16:34:00.000-04:00

More cheerful music goodness. Mostly because I don't have anything to post about. And because he was on Leno (I'm a Dave girl, myself) and I was flipping past and heard this song and was transfixed. Maybe it's the Aussie in me. I don't know.

The video is awesome. And Tiffani-Amber Thiessen is in it. How random is that? I love random.

Appropos of Nothing

2008-04-08T14:22:00.002-04:00

Turned on the television late Saturday night and Cheers was coming on.

"Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot...."

And I'm curled up on the couch watching the sepia tone pub images and turn of the century illustrations. The ones they chose to echo the characters. The ones they changed when the cast changed - the new ones for Woody Harrelson, for Kelsey Grammer, for Kirstie Alley. The green shoes and dress for Rhea Perlman, which I always loved. You know the set will always be the same. Norm and Cliff will be at the bar. Sam will be hitting on someone. Carla will be wiping down the counter or smacking someone on the back of the head or taking pot -shots at Sam's newest fling. It's familiar and reassuring.

Like all long-running TV shows, things changed - actors left the cast, passed away, made different career choices. So new characters were created, new storylines. There is a sense of obligation to have people marry and change and divorce and move away and alter over time - as people do - when a television show runs for over ten years. But I could have watched Norm and Cliff sit around and goad Sam into trying some stupid scheme and Carla crow when the scheme backfires and Diane or Rebecca turn Sam down again and again... well, for just about ever. I know Sam was a sexist pig and all that, but it was always his undoing in the end, anyway, so I really feel no guilt feminism-wise for loving Cheers. It makes me smile.

It sounds silly, but I think the basic idea was brilliant and worked because it DOES speak to something in all of us. We love the idea of having somewhere we could go where there would always be friendly faces, where they know all your flaws and like you anyway, where everything is simpler because no one asks anything of you except that you come around every now and then. Cheers represented what family is theoretically supposed to be but never actually is for most people. And that's why we love it. That theme song - for me and many others - brings this brief rush of the feeling of coming home. Which, in a simpler world, is the best feeling there is... but in this world is illusive and far too fleeting.

Did you know that Nicky Colasanto (who played Coach) kept a picture of Geronimo in his dressing room as a good luck charm? When he died it was added to the set. On the final episode of Cheers, eight years after Colasanto's death, in the final scene Ted Danson straightened the Geronimo picture before he walked off stage for the last time.

I just loved that show.

This Madhouse Known as Earth

2008-03-31T16:12:00.008-04:00

There's good crazy and there's bad crazy. I'm not referring to literal needs-meds-and-supervision crazy. Just, you know, CRAZY crazy.

On the GOOD side - there are the people of Improv Everywhere, who stage "missions" all over the world (but are based in the capital of crazy - New York City). Missions like No Pants 2k8 (it's an annual event) and the Food Court Musical and the infectuous Frozen Grand Central - which has now been recreated in, like, 40 countries. They are insane. And awesome. And I would totally freeze with them or maybe even consider dropping trou for the cause. Improv on the streets, making some kind of interactive theater / performance art prank for the world around them to gape at and, hopefully, enjoy. A beautiful reminder that the constraints we live within are so often simply the ones we put upon ourselves. 900 people on New York subways wearing no pants certainly stretches one's concept of anything being possible.

I found this thanks to Alexandra Billings at Stillettos and Sneakers, who always has awesome videos and the most entertaining stories of pretty much any blogger on the planet. She's that incredible. Seriously.

...On the BAD side there are people like the ones The Food Whore writes about in this post. Now, I know a lot of people complain about small children in public places and the behavior of parents and a lot of the complainers don't have kids and don't have a clue and are being petty.

This is not that kind of story.

This story is about a trip to a pizza parlour during which two of FW's fellow patrons decided to treat everyone to their cute baby being flown around in their arms airplane style. Again and again and again. For the duration of their meal. The parents in question are clearly MAD if they think complete strangers want to have their dinner interrupted with a baby they do not know dive bombing their table REPEATEDLY (Does anyone know these people? Someone MUST know them. Someone should be like, "Dude. I saw this story on the interweb and I think it was about you guys... Um. You guys have got to cut that shit out, man. It's creepy.").

The Food Whore owns and runs a restaurant and catering business, so she actually has MANY stories about how stupid and insane people can be, but this one struck me as particularly wierd. However, if you enjoy stories of bizarre human behavior - spend some time over at her blog. Suddenly every wacky-ass relative and creepy neighbor you have begin to seem really sedate next to the people who step foot in her place of business.

So that's my 2¢ for the day.

It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world.

On a Cheerier Note

2008-03-27T09:44:00.006-04:00

A friend sent me a link to this. And I am hooked. Alphabeat is a Scandinavian band continuing the great tradition of funloving Scandanavian pop bands. The song is simple and unremarkable, but it's so CHEERFUL. And the video? RELENTLESSLY, GENUINELY cheerful. The singers' expressions are joyous and uncomplicated. The bright colors that switch around are fun. The dancers are highly watchable. There are cardigans and a mettalic lavender lamé dress. Everyone looks freshly scrubbed and wholesome and high on life. It's completely bizarre.

I love it.

Mourning

2008-03-24T13:21:00.005-04:00

Some types of trauma don’t just end. There are echoes of it as time passes. Shockwaves as new information or developments hit home. It is not simple. You cannot just mourn. Mourning is in itself a process, but some horrible events in life are similarly a process. With each phase the grief or horror must be re-experienced. Redigested. Relived.

First they found my friend. We knew for certain that she was no longer with us and any lingering hope was gone.

And we mourned.

Then we learned that the state in which her body was found was particularly gruesome. We were left with an image in our heads of something from a horror movie happening to someone we knew and cared for. I have never understood why anyone finds it entertaining to watch people do terrible things to each other in films and I understand it less now. Somehow it made her death seem worse, her body being treated with such disregard.

The mourning process began again.

Then the man who took her life was sentenced to spend his life in prison and his picture was back in rotation on our television set. This face I am trying not to associate with my friend. New information was released regarding the last days of her life and we learned how close the authorities came to finding her and how hard she had fought to stay alive. It was strange to feel so devastated and so proud of someone all at once.

The mourning process began again.

Now the state’s Bureau of Investigation has released far more detailed information via what I understand to be a news media interview with an investigator (EDIT: Apparently what happened is that the recordings of the killer's confessions were released. So, right now, every tv news station in our state and many across the country are making the distasteful decision to broadcast his voice into your living rooms). Of course, all the details are so much worse than I had chosen to tell myself they might have been. She cannot be hurt anymore, but we keep learning more about what she endured before she was killed. Previous information came to me first through a sort of phone tree initiated by the family, so I had some warning and learned of it in a less jarring fashion. But the most recent details I learned by turning on the news one day, not expecting anything about my friend to still linger on the media’s radar.

Until now I had hoped, naively and foolishly and blindly, that amidst everything else that was done to her... perhaps she had not been raped.

So the mourning process begins again.

Any loss is a long and complicated thing to cope with. Every death alters lives. Certainly more so if your loved one’s death is brought about by another human being, whether it be premeditated murder or as a casualty of war or a victim of terrorism, an unnatural and intentionally caused death is a strange and awful thing to come to terms with. I know this will in many ways be a life long burden for her family and closer friends. They will feel the echoes of this far more strongly and for far longer than I imagine I will. But for all of us the feeling that we can safely allow ourselves to begin the journey of coming to terms with her loss is still illusive.

I have never been comfortable with the death penalty. It brings no one back and puts tremendous, frightening power in the hands of a judge and a jury and our correctional system. It is useless and impotent as revenge. But even if I am uncertain of my stance on it, I think I understand it better now than I did before. Until that man dies, the mourning process will begin again and again. When he is mentioned on the news. When he reveals new information. When the trials take place regarding his other victims. Until he dies of old age (and in this case one can only hope that prison life is difficult on the health of a man of his years) or unless he is executed for one of the other murders he committed, the people who loved her will sit at home and relive this sorrow again and again. When he no longer exists there will be greater closure in what is, under any circumstances, an impossible situation to accept.

As someone who was her friend socially more than having an emotional closeness to her, I am still coming to terms with my right to mourn. But she was my friend. We got together and did the girl talk thing. I miss not only someone I enjoyed spending time with but also someone I was getting to know better. Someone who I, due to her years of closeness with my loved ones, anticipated would be a part of my life for a long time to come.

We interact with each other in life and we ask, "How are you?" and most of us tell people that we are fine no matter what is really going on. We bump into each other's lives without really knowing what is happening in the world of the person behind us in line, the saleswoman on the other end of the phone line, the server at the restaurant who falters with his tray. Sometimes it is difficult to watch how life keeps moving and you wish there was some way to let the world know you need it to back off a little. To let the news media know their enthusiastic reports are beaming into the living rooms of people that news actually impacts. To let loved ones know that seeming alright and being alright are sometimes two completely seperate things (which, of course, they cannot do anything about. This is the nature of grief).

My friend was abducted. She was beaten and raped. She fought for her life for four days; both physically fighting (injuring and disarming her attacker) and bravely risking retribution by providing inaccurate information regarding her bank account again and again, forcing him to keep her alive or abandon hope of financial gain. She spent her last hours tied to a tree. In the end she was bludgeoned to death and after death her body was decapitated.

I am living my life and in many ways everything is “normal.”
But I am also not really okay.

And the mourning process begins again.

In this post I use more detailed information than I have previously, while still not using names. I realize many of you put two and two together and know which case I am speaking of - which is fine. I just don't want this post or my blog linked to or mentioned in conjunction with anything that clearly identifies my friend. This is my rumination on grief in unusual circumstances, not participation in the media circus. I am not interested in that kind of traffic. I appreciate your consideration.

In Between Times

2008-03-19T15:23:00.001-04:00

I'm a spotty blogger.

That SOUNDS like some kind of skin disease, but you know what I mean. Sometimes I just don't have as much to say - I mean, I'm reminiscing about Madonna, for heaven's sake. Sometimes I'm all ISSUES ISSUES ISSUES or chock full o' anecdotes and thought provoking lists (hahaha). But then sometimes I have a head cold and long hours of rehearsal and I'm all, "My readers? Uh... They have other things to do. I'll be back before they even notice I'm gone. Um. What were we talking about? Ooooh, Is that Nyquil??"

Sorry for the in between times.

While we're chatting (because in my my mind, this is a two way street. Like some ongoing conversation we're having), I want to refer you to an amazing blog I found through one of my favorite writers online, Liza. Gila at My Shrapnel is an American-born woman who lives in Israel and writes about life after she "was seriously injured six years ago in a suicide bombing while waiting for a bus at the Machane Yehuda open air market in Jerusalem." It's amazing. SHE's amazing. And funny. Seriously. Tremendously brilliant and funny. She refers to herself as a "Poor, Sad, Heroic, Victim of Terror®". It's the best thing I've read in ages and provides perspective the likes of which few writers I have encountered can provide. It's difficult to feel sorry for yourself while reading about a woman whose body is, to this day, slowly expelling pieces of metal and bone and other unidentitifed objects that are embedded in almost every part of her. A must read.

MUCH better for your brain than my musings on Madonna.

Madonna

2008-03-14T11:16:00.003-04:00

Photographed in 1986 by Herb Ritts for Vanity Fair

Oddly enough, I started writing this before I heard about Madonna's induction into the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame. I found all of these in my little archive of old magazine pics. But it turns out to be all appropriate and timely. I love being timely.

I clearly remember the first time I heard Madonna.

I was riding in the car with my father. I was young... in my early pre-teens. My parents were divorced and every now and then my father would pick me up for a visit and it was one of those times. In my mother's house I was not allowed to listen to popular radio or watch television unless it was PBS and the discrepancy between my exposure to the world of popular culture and the savvy awareness of my peers had become glaringly obvious (which, in my opinion, explains my obsession as an adult with film, music, fashion and general pop culture). But my father let me listen to the radio. For this and many other reasons, I thought he was wonderful.

We were riding over a bridge somewhere in Florida when I heard it. I remember the cars around us. I remember that the trucks next to us on the narrow bridge made me nervous. And I remember hearing the catchy first notes of "Borderline" coming through the speakers and how I perked up, even though I had never heard it before. I remember asking if I could turn up the volume. I remember ignoring my usual childlike embarassment over hearing somewhat adult lyrics in front of a parent. I was hooked. I remember that later, back at my mom's house, I would listen to the radio when my mother wasn't home with a cassette tape in the machine, waiting to hit "record" as soon as the first few notes of a Madonna song came on.

I loved Madonna. My late childhood through my teens and well into my twenties, I had a strong affection for her. I loved her when she was "chubby" and dressed like Billy Idol if he was a woman raised in an adult novelty store. I loved her faux Marilyn Material Girl routine. I loved Desperately Seeking Susan and watched it again and again and again and wondered how I could make a jacket like hers.

I don't have any info on this shot, if anyone knows who took it, please let me know so I can credit it.

I loved her bleached platinum blonde and straggly, earthy brunette. I loved her with huge chunky eyebrows. I loved her singing about unplanned pregnancy with a petulant self-rightousness. I loved her Bettie Boop phase. My baby sister bought me a copy of Who's That Girl on VHS because we rented it constantly and quoted absurd lines to each other. We sang "Cherish" and "Holiday" and "Like a Prayer" at top volume in my car when my sister was a teenager.

Photographed in 1989 by Patrick DeMarchelier for Vogue Magazine

I loved Madonna earthy and pissing off the church and Pepsi with her gorgeous video for "Like a Prayer". I loved her all pristine glammed up to Vogue and I loved her as Breathless in Dick Tracy. She was funny and enjoyable in a League of Their Own, hilarious in the video for Human Nature and eerie, ethereal and perfect in the video for Bedtime Story. I still liked her through those years. Later, I enjoyed watching her sing more classically in Evita and I was tentatively appreciative of her initial transition to techno-pop.

But she lost me somewhere after that.

Her music no longer seemed vital and interesting to me. She made what I felt was the weakest film of her career... or maybe I just didn't like her getting older (and what an evil, awful person I am if I feel that way). Maybe I couldn't understand a version of her that had ventured into territory unfamiliar to me - motherhood and family. Maybe it was just that her hardness and drive started to overshadow her joyousness. Maybe I didn't like the WAY she got older - fighting it tooth and nail in such an obvious way instead of embracing a more mature and graceful image of herself. Whatever it is, I don't love the Madonna of now.

But I still love the Madonna of my youth.

Or the image of her.

The constant, fluid changing as if she was not yet sure who she was, either. The sound of a voice not yet trained properly. The abandon of a woman unafraid of bad press and enjoying the spotlight. The girl who stood up on American Bandstand in 1984 and said, "I want to rule the world."

New York, 1979
photgrapher not listed

The Art of Meredith Dittmar

2008-03-10T13:37:00.001-04:00

© Meredith Dittmar, screencap from her home page - adorable animation!

Meredith Dittmar's work appears on her website, Corporate Pig. Her site features both her adorable "My Guys" - funny little critters handmade out of brightly colored polymer clay that you can buy the original of or, for a little less dough, you can purchase a "cloned" favorite. All of them are handmade - the original guys and their clones.

© Meredith Dittmar, I believe these are four separate pieces but they were in the gallery side by side and obviously follow a theme.

Dittmar also, however, has a gallery of her artwork on the site. Her works are formed in polymer clay with backgrounds created with spraypaint and hand-drawn stencils mounted on plexiglass. Each one like a little scene taking place in some otherworld, her art takes her ability to create unusual characters much further and places them in contexts that evoke emotions and stimulate the imagination.

© Meredith Dittmar

Fine art and cute critters collide in Dittmar's fanciful, unique work. Definitely a great site to peruse. Lots to see and lots of little lopsided smiles to brighten your day.

I also found this link to a wedding album of a friend of Dittmar's (isn't the bride just gorgeous?)- the couple had Dittmar create an adorable wedding topper for them. ALSO - another artist I featured on here previously, Trish Grantham, created the artwork that surrounded them during the ceremony! What lovely and innovative wedding ideas!

The Bizarre Look of Kohler

2008-03-07T13:40:00.002-05:00

I actually LIKE the "Bold look of Kohler" campaign and it's wacked out ads and freaky freaky bathroom acoutrements.

But this was too much for me.

©2005 Kohler, from the February 2006 issue of Cottage Living

Yeah, I owned a copy of Cottage Living. You wanna make something of it?

At first it's pretty. Then you realize she looks wrong. She looks kind of like someone tied her to that bench in the middle of that bathroom and told her to, "PLAY! PLAY DAMN YOU!" and refused to feed her. It MAY have been an effort to make her body echo the shape of the instrument... but it's kind of nasty looking.

So then you take a closer look:

See her reflection? The reflection of her hip area doesn't look quite so emaciated.

(Dude. How Blade Runner is this grainy close up? hee hee)

Up close you can see how someone has (a little too clumsily, in my opinion - I mean, her side just looks SILLY on the second image, right?) shaved a huge chunk out of her photo. Like she owed them a pound of visual flesh.

So while I'm still intrigued by the possibilities when it comes to digitally enhancing or altering photos for advertising - I think it's in poor taste to go around making women look like cellos. Scrawny, glorified, unhealthy cellos.

...Or, you know, WHATEVER that instrument is.

If anyone has trouble seeing the images - let me know! I may be having difficulty with my photo hosting thingy.

Maidenform, Lifting Woo-Hoos Since the 1920's

2008-03-06T16:33:00.011-05:00

My friend Sean calls them Woo-Hoos. I find this hilarious.

um... Sorry.

I have an odd collection that, it recently occurred to me, I have yet to tap into for use here on Dame. I collect images. A visual artist all my life, I have always enjoyed photography and my career path being in design, I also find marketing fascinating. So I read oodles of magazines and I've always hated throwing them out. I DO, however, hate the idea of being a crazy hermit lady surrounded by stacks of magazines MORE than I hate throwing them out. So instead of keeping the whole magazine, I keep the best bits. The unique ads. The awe-inspiring photographs. The taglines that are too wierd to believe without hard proof.

I've been doing this for 15 years. At least.
(EDIT - I just realized it's probably been just over twenty years. WOW. The nineties went really quickly, didn't they?)

Don't worry. I'm pretty picky about what I hold onto. It's all in a little portfolio I keep in a closet. Doesn't take up much room - again - FEAR OF BEING CRAZY HERMIT LADY. So not interested in that.

I found these two gems amongst the sheaves of papers.

© 1990 Maidenform, Inc.

The smaller text reads, "Women have spent the last ten centuries conforming to their lingerie. Fortunately, lingerie has finally gotten around to conforming to women."

© 1991 Maidenform, Inc.

The smaller text on this one reads, "Chick. Doll. Tomato. Fox. While the images used to describe women are simple and obvious, women themselves rarely are. Just something we keep in mind when designing our lingerie."

They appeared in (see copyright date) 1990/91 in fashion magazines. Based on the quality of paper and my life-long addiction to it, I'd guess I found them in Vogue, but I could be wrong. I also found a reference to this ad campaign here on Maidenform's website.

I wish I knew who was responsible for this campaign. They deserve a big high five. Even if I didn't agree with the concept, which of course I do, it's just really an intelligent approach to their consumer.

I'm such a geek. I love awesome advertising.

Happy Birthday, Elizabeth

2008-02-27T08:44:00.007-05:00

“It is very strange that the years teach us patience - that the shorter our time, the greater our capacity for waiting.”

- Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor was born on this day in 1932. While I have never been a big "Liz" person, her power, magnetism and impressive body of work are undeniable. For decades she was the reigning queen of American cinema; the biggest name on the marquee, the headline in every movie magazine and gossip column and one of the few women whose attachment to a project could make that project happen. She combined acting with international celebrity in a way that few people did in her heyday, living larger than life and inspiring an enduring fascination in the hearts and imaginations of her public. There were scandals and health problems and a private life playing out all too publicly, but in the end I think she still inspires a great deal of love and admiration.

Random Lyric Thing My Sister Did

2008-02-26T11:30:00.009-05:00

...because I don't particularly have anything else I need to ramble about today.

Random Song Lyric Meme:

Step 1: Put your MP3 player or whatever on random.
Step 2: Post the first line(s) from the first 20 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song. (Skip the instrumentals, the remixes and the mashups)
Step 3: Let everyone you know guess what song and artist the lines come from.
Step 4: Strike out the songs when someone guesses correctly.

Talk about a random assortment of songs. I'm pretty big on variety. This mix is from putting my ipod on random:

1. "Gold teeth and a curse for this town / were all in my mouth. / Only, I don't know how / they got out, dear." - New Slang / The Shins - Identified by count-to-seven.

2. "You keep sayin' you've got something for me /Something you call love, but confess" - These Boots Were Made For Walking / Nancy Sinatra - Identified by Jonathan Lapper.

3. "I used to got out to parties / And stand around / 'Cause I was too nervous / To really get down"

4. "I'm looking down the hole / You're looking up at me / You're cold and tired / That is easy to see / lower the rope to you / a bucket on the line" - Lotion / The Greenskeepers - Identified by count-to-seven (that's right! It's a song ABOUT THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, which is bizarre and SO disturbing but ohmygosh it's so catchy. Seriously).

5. "I've got a Dungeon Master's Guide / I've got twelve sided die / I've got Kitty Pride / and Nightcrawler, too"

6. "Each morning I get up I die a little / Can barely stand on my feet / (Take a look at yourself) Take a look in the mirror and cry (and cry) / Lord what you're doing to me" - Somebody to Love / Queen - Identified by Jonathan Lapper.

7. "Tweedily deedily dee, / Tweedily deedily dee, / Tweedily deedily dee, / Tweedily deedily dee, / Tweedily deedily dee, / Tweedily deedily dee, / Tweet, tweet, TWEET TWEET / He rocks in the treetops all day long, / rockin' and a-boppin' and a-singin' his song" - Rockin' Robin / Michael Jackson (before or after the Jackson Five??) - Identified by The Guy.

8. "I won't let you down / I will not give you up / Gotta have some faith in the sound / It's the one good thing that i've got" - Freedom 90 / George Michael - Identified by Jonathan Lapper (ahem. Hahahaha. But, then, I LOVE this song so who am I to talk?).

9. "(spoken) Really? From where I'm standing, the sun is shining all over the place.
(humming) Doo-de-doo doo Doo-de-doo-de-doo-doo...
(singing) I'm singing..." - Singing In The Rain / Gene Kelly - Identified by Tracey (Yay! I love old musicals and I love that you got this one!).

10. "Billy Ray was a preacher's son / when his daddy would visit he'd come along / when they gathered round and started talking / that's when Billy would take me walking" - Son of a Preacher Man / Dusty Springfield - Identified by Jonathan Lapper.

11. "Shook it up / I never loved nobody fully / Always one foot on the ground / And by protecting my heart truly / I got lost in the sounds" - Fidelity / Regina Spektor - Identified by KateP!

12. "I've wined and dined on Mulligan Stew, and never wished for Turkey / As I hitched and hiked and grifted too, from Maine to Albuquerque" - The Lady is a Tramp / Ella Fitzgerald (hers was the version I had loaded on my ipod) - Identified by Jonathan Lapper.

13. "I like / Where we are, / When we drive, / In your car. / I like, / Where we are; / here."

14. "Sometimes I feel I've got to run away / I've got to get away / from the pain you drive into the heart of me" - Tainted Love / Soft Cell - Identified by The Guy.

15. "I want love, but it's impossible / a man like me, so irresponsible / a man like me is dead in places / other men feel liberated" - I Want Love / Elton John - Identified by lynn.

16. "I need someone, a person to talk to / someone to care, to love / could it be you, could it be you? Situation gets rough / and I start to panic / it's not enough / It's just a habit" - Kiss Off / The Violent Femmes - Identified by The Guy.

17. "I certainly haven't been shopping for any new shoes and / I certainly haven't been spreading myself around / I still only travel by foot and by foot, it's a slow climb, / But I'm good at being uncomfortable, so / I can't stop changing all the time" - Extraordinary Machine / Fiona Apple - Identified by lynn.

18. "Old pirates, yes, they rob I; / Sold I to the merchant ships, / Minutes after they took I / From the bottomless pit. / But my hand was made strong / By the hand of the Almighty. / We forward in this generation / Triumphantly." - Redemption Song / Bob Marley & The Wailers - Identified by Nerka!

19. "Yo listen up here's a story / About a little guy that lives in a blue world / And all day and all night and everything he sees / Is just blue like him inside and outside" - Blue (DaBaDee) / Eiffel 65 - Identified by The Guy.

20. "It was Christmas Eve babe / In the drunk tank / An old man said to me, won't see another one / And then he sang a song / The Rare Old Mountain Dew / I turned my face away / And dreamed about you" - Fairytale of New York / The Pogues - Identified by The Guy.

So guess away! Post the name of the song and artist along with the number in my comments section. As the songs are correctly guessed, I will mark them off and indicate the first person to correctly name the song (along with a link to your blog or website if you include that information with your comment).

Edit: I forgot to tag anyone! I'm tagging Sheila, Nina, Tracey, Jonathan, lisachelle and Lola! ...but if it doesn't work with your format, guys, I totally understand. ;)

The Marilyn/Audrey Effect

2008-02-22T10:35:00.005-05:00

Women compare themselves to other women. I may be pretty, but when I see the girl standing next to me is VERY pretty, internally some part of me decides not only that I am less attractive than her but that I am less attractive than I believed I was just moments before. Her attractiveness actually makes me mentally subtract from my own. It's not a conscious thing and it's not quite as pathological as that - I'm oversimplifying - but it is, essentially true. In some weird-ass unconscious way, most women think this on some level (just because you say you don't doesn't mean you don't. It just means you aren't consciously aware of it). We feel thinner of fatter or prettier or plainer or more stylish or more awkward based on our unconscious mental comparisons with other women, both in person and in the media. Partially because we perceive from an early age that other people - male and female - make similar distinctions.

Popular women's magazines now run sections where you can compare two different celebrities wearing the same frock - and see the results of readers voting on who they feel looked better in the outfit. No matter how different the two women are, no matter how irrelevant it is that the dress looks different on different figures and each should be appreciated on her own merits. A standard of beauty is established by popular consensus. For example - the popularity of the television show Ally McBeal not only spawned a rash of ingenues showing up gaunt and waifish at red carpet events, but actually resulted in multiple co-stars of the (purportedly) naturally uber slender Calista Flockheart (the title character) later doing tell-all stories about their own eating disorders. They stood on set and watched the popularity of the young star of the show grow and compared their own build to her delicate physique and decided that it was high time they stopped ingesting anything. Women compare themselves to other women.

I read GoFugYourself on a pretty regular basis. Is it hollow and useless information? Yes. But I enjoy seeing what Bai Ling decided to wear as a skirt this week. It makes me smile. So I don't mind the loss of IQ points... AND the popularity of GoFug is probably a throwback to the comparison effect - i.e. "I may not be gorgeous or famous but at least I know better than to show up in a public place with my underwear showing! HA!" It makes people feel good to know that thin, pretty people can make stupid choices about what to leave the house wearing. Because we compare ourselves to them (And all of us dress better than Bai Ling).

Due to the recent promotion of the film The Other Boleyn Girl, there have been a couple of entries regarding the two female leads hitting the carpets and doing the publicity schtick. The result, of course, is all these pics of Natalie Portman (who plays Anne Boleyn) and Scarlett Johansson (who plays her elder sister Mary - although I believe the book and film choose to inaccurately depict her as the younger. Perhaps to explain her ability to attract the King's attention? Who knows. Leave history alone, people.) standing side by side.

Johansson, a petite 5'4" and physically quite svelte, looks somewhat large next to Portman (who is actually only an inch shorter than her, but built so very differently). Portman looks dark and wispy. Johannson looks zaftig and pale.

It's like someone took a picture of Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn next to each other (interestingly enough, I found, AFTER I had drawn that conclusion, that a W Magazine article had made essentially the same comparison).

Neither is less beautiful. They are both lovely women. But the contrast is striking. Portman is so small and delicate that she actually makes Johansson look less so. Johannson's vibrancy and overtly sexual presence makes Portman look more mousy. I find the contrast odd, but I also find my awareness of it rather telling.

The article in W discussed the fact that the casting seems "backwards" to many people. Anne (played by Portman), as written in the book and screenplay, is the driven, outgoing and perhaps even conniving sister while Mary (played by Johansson) is portrayed as the innocent and wholesome sister. And the public expect to see those two actresses taking opposite roles. Ironically, in life, history suggests that things were quite the other way around. Mary had an affair with Henry VIII in spite of the fact that she was married and after having already been the mistress of the King of France (she caused quite a scandal with her promiscuity). Anne was a very religious woman and best known for her dedication to the church and her wrongful execution for crimes she was later said unlikely to have been guilty of, in addition to being the mother of Elizabeth I. The women's roles in life may have been quite the opposite of the portrayal we can expect to see on film. Either way, even in history, these two women are compared to each other. Some accounts depict Mary as the prettier sister, some make mention of Anne being considered pretty but too dark for the fashion of the time. Even back then, women's appearances were being judged not just based on their own merits, but on a comparison to their contemporaries.

Is voluptuous better than sylphlike? Is dark, delicate and genteel better than bright, blonde and cheery? Is my red hair, pale skin and curvy figure less attractive because I am sitting next to my beautiful olive skinned friend with her thick, dark mane and slender, boyish figure?

Of course not. But we do compare. We cannot help ourselves. As women, the healthiest thing we can do is to try to embrace variety and learn to appreciate our own personal attributes completely separately from any contrast with our peers. But that isn't an easy thing to do. It isn't easy to remember that someone else being thinner or more fashionable or more feminine in no way impacts your own appeal. Seeing ourselves as individuals and appreciating the beauty of that is a difficult thing when we are so programmed to compare.

Click the photos for links to the posts about them on Go Fug. Kinda' hilarious.

In spite of any sartorial missteps, sometimes they DO both get it right:

While still, of course, being so vastly (and fascinatingly) different.

...Oh, and on a completely seperate note, isn't Eric Bana hot?

I really doubt Henry VIII was so good looking.

Come On-A My House

2008-02-22T08:35:00.001-05:00

I'm in one of my "Italian" moods. I feel like being surrounded by people and making my homemade spaghetti sauce with big huge spicy meatballs and drinking wine and talking late into the night. I credit my one-quarter Italian blood with these periodic cravings for cooking huge meals and making people into family (as well as my brief moments of insanity where I miss the Catholic church and wonder what it would be like to have 6 babies like my Grandmother).

Along with these urges come bizarro pop culture compulsions... 'cause you know - with me it always comes back to books and music and movies.

First and foremost, I've got Come On-A My House stuck in my head. Which isn't even Italian. I think the tune was originally based on Armenian folksongs. And Rosemary Clooney refused to record it at first. She was not such a big star, then, however. So this singer whose first musical love had been Sinatra - due to his immaculate diction - was told that she would either record a song in this awful fake Italian accent or she could hit the road. She relented, realizing she didn't have enough pull to force their hand and, well, a star was born. Come On-A My House was her first huge hit. Irony of ironies, this little novelty song that was the opposite of everything she loved was what made her a household name. It opened all doors for her.

I get in this mood and I want to listen to that song... as well as her recording of Mambo Italiano (which IS based on a traditional Italian Folk song), Dean Martin's recording of That's Amore (not Italian but became popular in Italy after being recorded here in the states)... or really most any Dean Martin...and Perry Como's Papa Loves Mambo (did you know Como was Italian-American? I didn't). It's this mood I get in.

Then I want to watch Moonstruck (one of my all-time favorite films which I have been working on a post about for like three months) and Big Night. Stanley Tucci is the bomb. So is Tony Shaloub. I love them. I love the brothers they play. I become tremendously emotionally invested in that movie.

Then I want to make everyone I know come over for big bowls of spaghetti with meatballs or pasta puttanesca ("whore's spaghetti"! Seriously! It's really like potluck pasta) and make THEM watch Moonstruck and Big Night.

Then I stay up late poring over my Italian cookbooks and re-reading Under the Tuscan Sun.

It's a thing. I get like this. Maybe because I sometimes feel my connection to my Italian heritage, unlike my more immediate Austrailian and Irish roots, is more tenuous and slipping away from me. Maybe because all things Italian make me think of my very Italian father and his (native) Italian father. Times and places and people I grow homesick for. My father's huge family, who are now spread far apart from each other, and the gatherings we would have and the food and the sense of COMING FROM somewhere. I miss my diminutive grandmother lecturing me saying, "Always remember that you're a (insert my ridiculously long Italian last name here). Be proud of it!"

Book Meme, Rather Belatedly

2008-02-20T15:20:00.006-05:00

Back when the earth was still cooling, Sheila (she of the awesome reading skillz and amazing brain) tagged me with this meme. Ungrateful twit that I am, I'd not gotten around to it. Finally, Here are my answers:

Which book do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews?

Similarly to Sheila, I refused to read the Harry Potter books for a very long time - certain I would hate them because EVERYONE loved them. But I did eventually break down and read them and fell in love with them... so I suppose they don’t count.

I don't know that it's irrational, but I refuse to read The DaVinci Code. I'm so glad the dull roar of constant, inane praise has died down. People talked about it all the time. I refuse to go near it.

If you could bring three characters to life for a social event (afternoon tea, a night of clubbing, perhaps a world cruise), who would they be and what would the event be?

Jubal Harshaw (Stranger in a Strange Land), Hagrid (Harry Potter Books) and Elizabeth Rapella (from Dancing Naked at the Edge of Dawn, she is the main character's unique, loving, free-thinking and wildly charismatic friend)

They aren't the main characters. The books they are from are not great classics (well, not by most standards). They aren't even necessarily my favorite characters. They are simply the characters who I feel I would enjoy the company of. I find them interesting and pleasant (well, Jubal isn't exactly pleasant in the traditional sense but he'd be excellent company). A lot of the great and iconic characters in classic fiction are, quite simply, people I would not want to know. Certainly meeting some of them would be momumental and fascinating. But after meeting them... I might find I wished I could excuse myself. So instead of choosing characters whom I have always wanted to know more about or who are so universally known... I chose people I would want to sit around and have a drink with.

Hagrid was a close tie with Gaspode the Talking Dog from Terry Pratchett's discworld. But I seem to remember Gaspode being referred to as stinky (he IS a stray and presumably does not get regular baths) and thus probably a questionable choice.

I also seriously thought about Jim Williams from Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil (non-fiction technically but clearly a somewhat fictionalized account and, anyway, he's dead so that would be interesting) and a variety of characters from my favorite childhood books. But you cannot very well invite Dickon from The Secret Garden to the same table as Jubal Harshaw. It would be wierd and complicated and Dickon wouldn't be allowed in a pub.

(Borrowing shamelessly from the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde): you are told you can’t die until you read the most boring novel on the planet. While this immortality is great for awhile, eventually you realise it’s past time to die. Which book would you expect to get you a nice grave?

I can't think of anything. Maybe a collection of Chekhov's plays. I can't stand Chekhov. I realize it isn't a novel, but it's fiction. I find his approach to the plight of the Russian aristocracy mind bogglingly boring. I know. Sacrilege. Whatever. It's how I feel.

Come on, we’ve all been there. Which book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you’ve read, when in fact you’ve been nowhere near it?

I'm a film NUT so, when a book is adapted to film, I am always fascinated by the process of my two great loves joining. If the subject matter is sufficiently interesting to me, I run out and read the book so I can compare and contrast when seeing the film. But if I am NOT sufficiently interested, I have still done all this research abut the adaptation. So I go into conversations about the film knowing how the character was originally described by the author, knowing what major departures the screenwriter made from the original plot, etc. This has lead to some confusion. But I NEVER lie about having read the novel. I try to make a point of letting people know, "I haven't READ it. I've just read a lot ABOUT it." Since the subject at hand is the film, I refuse to feel guilty about making certain I'm informed.

As an addition to the last question, has there been a book that you really thought you had read, only to realise when you read a review about it/go to ‘reread’ it that you haven’t? Which book?

I know there has but I cannot think what so I give up. I never finished War and Peace (although I did finish and very much enjoy Anna Karenina). It took me forever to remember that I only got 3/4 through.

You’re interviewing for the post of Official Book Advisor to some VIP (who’s not a big reader). What’s the first book you’d recommend and why? (if you feel like you’d have to know the person, go ahead of personalise the VIP)

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. If this person doesn’t read often, I’d want to give them something that’s an easy, unintimidating read. I wouldn’t want to waste the VIP’s time on something culturally irrelevant to start with and Hitchhiker’s widespread popularity has made it a cultural reference point (if, perhaps, an odd one). I’d want them to have something they were likely to enjoy - to encourage the habit. Also, if they don’t like it then I don’t want to work with them anyway.

A good fairy comes and grants you one wish: you will have perfect reading comprehension in the foreign language of your choice. Which language do you go with?

Ironically, probably Russian. I think I have read more books translated from Russian than any other language. And maybe if I could read in his native tongue I wouldn't hate Chekhov as much. Maybe something is lost in translation.

Or maybe French. I've read quite a few books that were partially in French. I have no idea why. It's very irritating to miss a passage on account of that.

A mischievious fairy comes and says that you must choose one book that you will reread once a year for the rest of your life (you can read other books as well). Which book would you pick?

Richard Grant’s Rumors of Spring. Because I already do. I also own five copies of it - different editions, including one of those advance copies the publisher sends out for proofing and reviews.

I know that the book blogging community, and its various challenges, have pushed my reading borders. What’s one bookish thing you ‘discovered’ from book blogging (maybe a new genre, or author, or new appreciation for cover art-anything)?

That it really is possible to read everything. So I need to get my act in gear. (Sheila's reading makes me feel totally inadequate.)

That good fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she’s granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leatherbound? Is it full of first edition hardcovers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favourite authors have inscribed their works? Go ahead-let your imagination run free.

My perfect library would have high vaulted ceilings and floor to ceiling shelves of dark wood built into the walls all the way around the room, except for large picture windows on one wall, preferrably facing a pleasant view, taking up maybe a third of that wall. The window should have thick, heavy curtains in a rich dark color and a seat set into the wall beneath it with lots of cushions. I don’t know the correct term, but I would prefer a second level of a walkway set into the wall all the way around the shelving and a circular staircase to the floor - to enable reaching books using only a stepstool for the highest shelf on each level. The room itself would be full of comfy chairs and chaise lounges and little tables for setting books down on. The books would be a vast assortment of rare tomes, paperbacks, coffee table books, out of date encyclopedias, classic works and whatever else strikes my fancy - all having been handpicked by moi thanks to the good fairy giving me an unlimited budget to quit my dayjob and spend my time feeding my biliophile habit. Because filling the library is an enormous part of the joy of a personal library.

And were I to tag someone (which I tend not to)... I would have to say my sister. Consider yourself tagged, kiddo.

It's That Time Again

2008-02-14T15:10:00.003-05:00

“I don't understand why Cupid was chosen to represent Valentine's Day. When I think about romance, the last thing on my mind is a short, chubby toddler coming at me with a weapon.”

-Anon.

Sorry for the unexplained absence. Just having a bout of writer's block / being too busy to pee much less blog / being too sick to convince myself that the long walk to the computer from the couch is a worthwhile investment of time and energy.

BUT it's that day again! And since I know so many of my fellow females struggle with this day, I just want to do my annual thing and remind you:

Whether or not you have a romantic interest in your life says nothing about your value and nothing about whether or not you are loved.

If you're feeling sad about a lack of flowers and candy this year, make better use of the time you might spend bah-humbugging this day and get flowers or candy for one of YOUR friends who might also being having a tough day.

LOVE isn't just sexual desire and romance. Love is what you share with your friends, your child, your parents (well, okay. sometimes. Depending on the parent), your siblings (most of the time), and a wide variety of other people who enrich your life. Tell THEM that you love them today. You can even make a little list of the people you haven't said that to often enough and call them up and let them know. If nothing else, catching up with people wll certainly be a distraction.

OR you can do what I do: Buy a big bag of Hershey's Kisses and hand them out to everyone you encounter today. If you want to be really classy like me you can hack and cough a little while holding out the bag. People LOVE that.

Speaking of Manners

2008-01-29T09:08:00.000-05:00

...I just loved this post from DaMomma, titled Shouting the Obvious. I admire her ability to step back from the situation (the first situation she mentions would have made me completely apoplectic) and put herself in someone else's shoes. She applies insight from an unpleasant experience to a completely different circumstance and it allowed her to be kinder and more patient with another human being. I think that's just beautiful.

The Art of Annette Lauder (Nut and Bee)

2008-01-28T14:05:00.000-05:00

#167, Shake Shake Shake, © Nut and Bee

Nut and Bee is the name under which Annette Lauder publishes and sells her sweet, whimsical artwork. I was fortunate enough to receive Nut and Bee stationary and bookplates for Christmas from The Guy and, of course, had to look her up right away. From a Ninja Giraffe to sheep posing as cloud formations, her style is simple and clean and her subjects are funny and cheerful. The website displays new sketches three times a week and has a link to a shop where you can buy stickers, T-shirts, notepads and an assortment of other stationary emblazoned with her adorable critters.

#155, Toastybreath, © Nut and Bee

The website shares very little information about Ms. Lauder herself, telling us only that: "Nut and Bee goods are designed and hand-assembled by Annette Lauder in Auckland, New Zealand. We aim to spread sweetness, whimsy and pleasant thoughts across the world!"

A worthwhile aim,don't you think?

My favorite - #089 Bunnylump, © Nut and Bee

Polite Conversation

2008-01-28T13:15:00.000-05:00

Are people no longer taught the art of polite conversation? Attending a party, while you may disagree with someone during a discussion or you may notice that they have misspoken - there are correct and incorrect ways of handling yourself, of responding to someone you have only just met.

At a dinner party recently, surrounded by close friends and one couple whom I had just met (the man is close to some of my friends, his girlfriend had not met anyone previously), a conversation began about a trip that couple had taken. I was wrapped up in another discussion but they caught my attention when the woman declared that "The food was so good, you could not get a bad meal anywhere!" regarding their vacation spot.

I chimed in that I had a similar experience at another (different) popular vacation spot, and that I had, in fact, used the exact same phrase to describe it.

Woman: "I don't think so. I lived there for a year."

Myself: "Oh? Well I loved the food there. I had some of the best meals of my life."

Woman: "The food may be alright, but none of it is memorable. It's just not that good."

Myself: "How strange. That just wasn't my experience. Even the inexpensive meals from little food vendors were wonderful."

Woman: (slightly agitated) "But is ISN'T memorable food."

Myself: "I suppose it's a matter of differing tastes."
(Cue me standing and leaving the room for a cluster of people talking elsewhere.)

I want to know who taught her that this is a reasonable way to speak to a stranger at a dinner party. I have had people express opinions that I strongly disagree with at social gatherings, and when it is appropriate I may discuss our differing opinions, but I would never say to someone, "No. You are wrong." Particularly not in an instance where the facts of the matter are strictly subjective. I loved the food. She did not. Neither of us is wrong. It's immaterial.

I think the art of conversation has been lost. The ability to discuss differing views in an interested but not heated fashion. As well as the ability to discuss books, films, art and issues without resorting to scandal, vicious gossip or sex. I'm not averse to discussing sex at a dinner party, but I do not do so unless I am sufficiently familiar with everyone at the gathering so as to be certain that no one would be offended. As with gossip, I feel it shows a lack of imagination for sex to dominate the conversation. Some people cannot attend a social function without arguing with someone, making a vulgar comment that does not suit the crowd's comfort level or trash talking about anyone who did not manage to attend. I'm tired of it. Perhaps colleges (or even high schools!) should be offering courses in conversation - how to interact politely and speak intelligently - instead of assuming that simply learning facts about art, culture, literature, film, politics and religion will enable their alumni to discuss these matters like reasonable human beings.

If nothing else, I wish my friends would avoid inviting people to dinner who aren't capable of polite conversation. It ruined my appetite (and totally destroyed my buzz. A waste of perfectly good wine, I tell you).

Community Theater

2008-01-23T13:27:00.000-05:00

Sheila posted this with a link to an essay written by John Barry about reviewing Community Theater.

I held my breath at first while reading it thinking, "okaaaay... This is going to sting." But it was pretty great. And clever. And insightful.

I live in a town with no professional theater. So we are fortunate enough to have some very talented people who were professional actors at some point in their lives involved in our community theater (because it's us or nothing). Some of them are very good. But most of us are policemen and lawyers and students and (ahem) artists, who really enjoy this but know we're just tolerable at it.

No one gets paid (well, the bookeeper does. But the bookeeper works for us). Even the cleaning is done by volunteers. We get yelled at when something goes wrong in the box office by patrons who don't ever realize that this isn't our JOB. Every year there is the task of deciding on shows for the upcoming season and the stress of balancing edgier fare with not alienating the older crowd (who pay our bills with their faithful attendance... I think some of them skipped Hedwig, though. It did well anyhow). We sell ads in the programs ourselves and design the posters. We pitch in on buying accessories for our costumes that simply won't fit into the budget. Heck, we're not even reviewed. We wouldn't know what to think of it. We're fond of saying, "Well, honestly, it's COMMUNITY THEATER." We know what that means. It's a labor of love.

The old ladies come to Sunday matinees and tell us how wonderful we did and make suggestions for future plays. One of them thinks we should do Phantom next year. She loves Phantom. Because, you know, a huge cast and an enormous chandelier would look great on our tiny stage. (The little old ladies rock. We love them.) Our families and friends say crazy things like, "When you're famous..." and bring flowers and make us feel like we accomplished something. Our community is pretty artsy so sometimes we get a packed house (which is always exciting) and on reception nights they exclaim about what they've seen you in before and tell you you look older onstage (well, maybe that's just me) and say bizarre things and try to be complimentary ("Did you do that lazy eye thing on purpose? That was AMAZING." urg). During performances you can hear people whisper to each other about plot points or clarify which cast member they know. That's my favorite. People will say hilarious things during a show. They talk to the characters. They ruin suspense. They make disapproving noises at the bad guy. Some actors find it distracting but I figure that the lady in the second row who's telling you what she thinks you should do next is REALLY INTO THE PLAY, which is wierd but also pretty great (and makes for a funny anecdote later).

The students all think they're going to be hugely famous someday. They're so cute. Well, the primadonna who demanded that someone do her hair because she is "accustomed to that being taken care of" - yeah her head needed pinching off. But most of them are adorable. The rest of us are just glad we have friends to get together with who don't think "playacting" is too silly for adults and who enjoy Saturday afternoons of set painting and long lunches. It's a thankless task in may ways, but everyone needs a hobby. Mine enables me to meet people I would never otherwise meet. I learn things about using power tools, which has never been a strong point for me. It shows me that inside the teacher and the nurse and the Russian translator and the photographer there may just lie actors and set designers and directors. People just as obsessed with theater trivia and film history as I am. Which is kind of reassuring.

It's just community theater. We know that. But we love it.

Further Evidence That My Little Sister Rocks

2008-01-23T10:00:00.000-05:00

She got me this postcard. How cool is this? I love getting gifts that you KNOW the person saw and HAD to get for you because they knew the moment they saw it that it's just something you would be over the moon for. Often they are the littlest things. But the littlest things can be so nice.

Maybe I'll start a collection of dame paraphernalia.

Heath Ledger, briefly

2008-01-23T09:00:00.000-05:00

This was my favorite moment in Brokeback Mountain.

If you did not see it, you missed seeing Ledger give one of the great film performances of our time.

In light of recent experience with the very poor media handling of the death of someone I knew, I would like to suggest we all remember a few things.

First, the media always gets a portion of the story wrong. So we can follow the news, wondering what really happened but we'll only ever know a small section of the story and that's really just fine. It's none of our business. All we need to know is that this poor man has died at a very young age.

Second, we did not know him. His performances, his work - that is ours. That is what he shared with us. But we did not know him as a man. By all accounts he was a good person to know and well liked by people who worked with him and a tremendous loss to his family. But that has nothing to do with us.

What we have lost is his future body of work. It is a significant loss, in my opinion. He had both classic movie star charisma (as shown in his earlier work, a warmth and ability to rivet his audience that is truly rare) as well as tremendous acting ability and instincts which were better displayed in his later, more mature performances. Certainly his development as an actor over the years would have been something to behold.

But we did not know him. This is our loss in only a very small way, particularly considering what those who knew him are enduring right now.

Greer Garson

2008-01-21T12:28:00.001-05:00

“Starting out to make money is the greatest mistake in life. Do what you feel you have a flair for doing, and if you are good enough at it, the money will come.”

- Greer Garson

My friend Mal says I look like Greer Garson. I should be so lucky.

I'm no Greer Garson. The jawline and the large eyes and the signature red hair - there are some vague similarities. So that's kind of making my day. I'm going to rent Mrs. Miniver and the Olivier version of Pride & Prejudice tonight and, you know, sit there telling myself, "Oh, yeah. If I was taller and had a 25" waist and flawless skin I'd look EXACTLY like that. TOTALLY."

A little fantasy never hurt anyone.

On Dying

2008-01-17T15:00:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow we're burying my grandfather. Exactly one week (to the minute) after the memorial service for my friend. I cannot ignore that the events of this week are unfolding through a perspective altered by that prior loss. Two deaths in as many weeks and they are as different in nature as it is possible for them to be.

So, with more assuredness than ever before at such a loss, I can say this about my grandfather's passing:

He lived a long life.

He married, had two beautiful daughters, five grandchildren, five great grandchildren (so far) and almost lived long enough to meet his first great-great grandchild.

He served his country and saw war firsthand. He traveled. He worked most of his life but he had time for his hobbies and passions. He liked to keep busy. He knew what it was to go without but he also enjoyed financial security later on in life. He took pride in the life he built for his family.

He leaves his family behind a lifetime of shared memories and stories. Things he did when we were little. Anecdotes about his quirky habits and hobbies. Nicknames and phrases. Things he always said and the way he would say them. A legacy of warmth and deeply southern sensibility.

He and my grandmother were married for almost 70 years.

He lived a full life.

He knew he was loved.

He was tired and now he can rest.

He was ill and he is no longer in pain.

He was frightened and he has nothing left to fear.

We knew this was coming at some point in the near future.
We were given time to prepare, inasmuch as one can prepare.

...So I am sad at the loss of my grandfather - for myself and my family. That we will no longer see him. But I am not sad for him. I think he's fine. I've never been one to see death as an altogether terrible thing. I think it's more complicated than that. And after mourning a woman who was taken from us after less than a quarter century of life, I cannot feel any injustice in the loss of a man who lived nearly a full century. We should all be so lucky to have the time on this earth that my grandfather had.

I love him and I'll miss having him near, but I know he was ready.

That being said, and with all respect to my much beloved grandparent...

I must say that his timing could use a little work.

The Things I Do For Shoes

2008-01-16T15:06:00.000-05:00

I sort of abhor the pouffy top boot movement. Typically, I love boots. Not being of the scrawny stick-leg variety, however, I do not need a pouf of faux fur to make my calves look healthy. I also have no interest in the clydesdale look which is really only cute on anime characters. Or people who look an awful lot like anime characters.

So I have my personal moral stand on the boot situation. Then I went therapy shopping this weekend and fell in terrible, forbidden love with a pair of boots. They have wedge heels and they were 20% off the already low price.

Clearly, I had no choice.

I have purchased them and am determined to take them:

to:

Wish me luck as I strive to strike a blow against fashion lemming-dom and remake my beloved boots in a more perfect image.

(Cue snazzy, inspirational superhero theme music)

Debbie Reynolds

2008-01-11T08:29:00.000-05:00

Photo of Debbie Reynolds taken by the inimitable Roddy McDowall

I think Debbie Reynolds looks like sunshine.

Stone Soup

2008-01-10T14:38:00.000-05:00

I think most everyone knows the story of Stone Soup. It is an old fable that has been retold and reinterpreted many, many times. The first time I heard it, the protagonist was described as an old woman instead of a couple of hungry travelers. I was spellbound. Listening to the beauty of the clever story, how this old woman convinces the villagers to contribute to her stone soup. How all the people who did not have so much on their own came together to make something wonderful. How everyone has something to contribute. How soup was MAGIC because it made water into food.

Perhaps because we didn't have a lot when I was young, I thought the idea of finding something from practically nothing was amazing. I liked the idea that things that looked worthless apart could together be useful and valued. That when people work together on a big problem, even on something that seems enormous and insurmountable (like hunger), it becomes smaller and more manageable. As a child, I thought Stone Soup was BRILLIANT. I still do.

All this is by way of saying that I think that fable led me to my love of cooking and, more importantly, to a lifelong, deep-seated love of soup. I think of it as food that nourishes the soul as well as the body. I have made some of my best soups a'la the Stone Soup method - by rooting around and figuring out what I already had in the pantry. When I am sad or tired or the world is just a leetle more than I am up for, thankyouverymuch, I make soup. I go through a mental list of ingredients I have at home. I make a shopping list. I go to the store and buy the things I need. I go home and scrub my kitchen till it gleams (because I like to make soup - a time consuming ritual for me - in a spotless kitchen). And then I do my thing.

It makes me slow down because my best soups have long cooking times. It's meditative. It's a healing process. It reminds me that everything doesn't have to be hard or complicated. It's like putting together bits and pieces and making something nourishing somehow reminds me that there is good in the world amidst all the ugly bits.

The world hasn't been so great lately.

Tonight I'm making soup.

If you also love soup, I reccommend checking out the Soup Peddler. His book has suggestions for throwing Stone Soup parties (a brilliant idea that is catching on). The book and website also contain his story - which is an inspiration to people looking for their place in life as well as for lovers of soup.

Oh, and there's also this:

My little sister's very fond of The Mighty Boosh... I am not particularly familiar but I figure anyone who writes a silly song about soup is ok in my book.

The Secret Lives of Bunnies

2008-01-09T13:00:00.000-05:00

Boy bun basking in sunlight.

Today I am offering a rare view into my inner sanctum. I need a pick-me-up and these are the critters whose main duty in life is to be cute in my presence and, therefore, make me a happier dame (I think they would be more likely to list their main goals as 1. dig a hole in the litterbox 2. gain access to every place in the house that has a closed door and 3. destroy the television by finding a way to access - and chew through - the out-of-reach power cords. I have very different ideas about how they should spend their time than they do.)

Girl bun in her favorite place in the UNIVERSE - under the couch.

Rabbits are surprisingly smart pets. They take a lot more work to keep up properly than most people assume. I think people tend to lump them in with hamsters and gerbils as low-key starter pets. This is ABSOLUTELY not the case. They have delicate digestive systems and if they eat something they cannot digest they can die (rabbits are unable to regurgitate). They are also prone to die of a heart attack from too much excitement or a sudden fright. They are sensitive and need an understanding owner who will bother to pay attention to their body language. They are more work than most cats and are rarely an appropriate pet for a child unless the particular bun has a mellow temperment and the child is considerate and clever enough to learn to care for a rabbit properly. They are also naturally social animals and need interaction (most buns are happier raised as a pair or group) and should not be left to live ignored in a hutch - the fate of many a bun purchased as an Easter surprise.

Boy bun noshing.

These little ones hop around my house pretty freely. They are litter trained (just like a kitty) and typically the only mess they make is when I accidentally leave a newspaper or the yellow pages down where they can shred it. They spend a lot of time hiding in what they think are BRILLIANT spots I do not know about, running races around the couch and conquering the mountain that is the chaise lounge (Boy Bun has climbed to the armrest on his own and will perch there to survey his kingdom). And they make no sound. Unless it's a little purring noise they will occasionally make by rubbing their teeth together (called a tooth-purr). It is a strange and wonderful thing to have these silent little creatures sharing my home.

They remind me of Mitch Hedberg's Koala routine: "My apartment is infested with koala bears. It's the cutest infestation ever. Way better than cockroaches. When I turn on the light, a bunch of koala bears scatter, but I don't want them too. I'm like, 'Hey... Hold on fellows... Let me hold one of you, and feed you a leaf.' "

My house is infested with bunnies. It's the cutest infestation ever.

Girl bun dismissing the camera with a withering glare.

All photos ©2008 dameonline.net

Chocolate or Vanilla?

2008-01-08T11:00:00.001-05:00

It probably goes without saying, but this image of Bette Davis is from All About Eve.

“Why am I so good at playing bitches? I think it's because I'm not a bitch. Maybe that's why Miss Crawford always plays ladies.”

- Bette Davis

Bette Davis and Joan Crawford were not fond of each other. Sometimes it's referred to as a feud but it seems to have been simply a natural dislike. They were different types of actors and it is said that their feelings for each other were not, therefore, caused over competition for roles. They only completed one film together, a set on which they were reportedly both professional and interacted without incident. By most accounts, they barely knew each other. Something in the two women was just so diametrically opposed that they were naturally inclined to dislike each other. They both had unflattering things to say about each other over the years (although it seems that Ms. Davis discussed this distaste publicly with more frequency than Ms. Crawford did).

Both were tremendously talented. I enjoy watching both of them on film. I've just always been particularly fond of Davis. I have a theory that it's a "chocolate or vanilla," "John or Paul," "Bert or Ernie" kind of thing. You can like both but you naturally skew one way or the other. I have no idea what it says about you, per se. I think it's just one of those things.

Incidentally: chocolate. John. Ernie. (and, yes, Bette)

In A Crisis

2008-01-07T17:00:00.000-05:00

This was written before my friend was found and is simply my attempt to remember the outpouring of public support as well as the strangeness a tragedy like this can bring out.

We spent Thursday on the side of the mountain my friend was hiking when she disappeared. We arrived at 6am in 10º weather and watched the bizarre circus unfold. I won't hash out the details and I'm not writing this to talk further about my own distress. It's just strange and fascinating how people respond and I have been making notes about it to try to remember everything. How crises bring out the best and worst in people. How much more people care about strangers than you often realize. How much more complicated an effort of this nature is than I ever expected.

There must have been close to 100 volunteers Thursday. Friends of hers, family members, local hikers who know the trails, vacationing hard-core hikers, people with search-and-rescue experience, gawkers, and people who simply wanted their face on the news (seriously, some people just seemed to be hanging out behind whoever was being interviewed. People walking by cannot help it, but the guy standing two feet behind the interviewee and just gazing off as if he didn't notice the cameras? Irritating.).

It was a panorama of personalities and reactions.

The local tradepost owner was wonderful and supportive. My group were the first volunteers to arrive that day and as they would not allow anyone on the trails until the helicopter had first made the rounds to do an infared search, we would have had nowhere to go for hours if he had not opened his store for us. He was very thoughtful and stopped an interview between one of his employees and a TV news reporter to first ask us if we were alright hearing her talk about our friend. He made a very difficult morning somewhat easier and we were all grateful.

The news crews arrived in droves and I found myself struggling with mixed feelings - it seemed distasteful, watching them decend like vultures. But then, the human interest and the resulting increased coverage is what brought out so many volunteers. The increased media coverage may have helped in aquiring more professional search-and-rescue people as we saw that more and more resources became available as public awareness grew. MOST importantly, more people came forward with information. This information led first to the identification of the man who abducted her and then led directly to his capture. It also led to the correct identification of my friend's dog when she was found. It is impossible to overstate the importance of the media coverage in finding everything we know at present about my friend's abduction. We have to thank the news media for that so I am a little ashamed of my initial discomfort and irritation.

The kind and patient men with the fire department organized the volunteers. The most experienced hikers and people with search-and-rescue training were sent out first. There were SO many of them - local people who knew the trails, vacationing hikers who delayed their plans, people with search-and-rescue training who saw her on the news - who just showed up in their gear, ready to go. People who knew her, experience or no, were held back to be interviewed. Once officials saw just how many people that included, however, they settled for interviewing only a few people to get an overview. This meant that some experienced hikers who were close to her were left cooling their heels because they were delayed too long to be sent with the first wave of search teams. I understand the irritation this created, but the Fire Chief was doing his best to organize an effective search while not stepping on too many toes. He had a difficult task.

A delicate, sweet faced woman with short brown hair and glasses showed up with her two beautiful teenage daughters to help me in the kitchen. They were on their annual vacation and had rented a cabin for the week. They showed up at lunchtime and stayed all day, doing whatever I asked. They didn't make a fuss over their sacrifice - just quietly helped and did it in a efficient manner. They said that they preferred to be helping when people realized they were from out of town and were so selflessly pitching in.

The fire chief's father (a genial older gentleman who insisted on being called "Grandpa") showed up with a huge container of beef and noodle soup and hung around all day, alternating between being reassuring me with kind words and unnerving me by saying that, "If it's your time, it's your time. Even if you're young." He meant well, though. He told me they have to rescue hikers "all the time" and then went on about bringing down a man with a broken leg and how it took four hours to get him off the mountain once they located him and generally he kept me distracted in between food rushes.

One man arrived in the afternoon and stood around for two to three hours, just rambling on about himself to anyone who would listen. He talked about how he's from an affluent neighborhood and none of the teenagers where HE lives would volunteer like this. He talked about how this would be a lesson to his 9 year old daughter. He rambled on and on about how people don't understand what's important and how his kids only value Ambercrombie and Fitch and how what's REALLY important is (expansive hand gesture) "THIS"... He also didn't lift a finger all afternoon.

One woman who actually does know our friend (and probably meant well) kept talking about her loudly IN THE PAST TENSE. She cornered family members and friends. She babbled cheerily all afternoon. All the while slipping into the past tense and then saying, "Oops!" and correcting herself. "Did you know her?" "She was a tough girl! I mean, She IS. I keep doing that! I mean IS." "So, Were you friends with her?" Top volume. All day.

The Fire Station's Chaplain was there non-stop. Not only making himself available to anyone who needed to talk and leading people in prayer, but also helping with the food and just pitching in wherever he was needed. He's a tall man with glasses and a big, bushy moustache (I find facial hair reassuring. Santa. My Dad. My favorite Uncle. Tom Selleck. So many of my favorite men have facial hair). I felt better just having him around.

An thin older woman in a formless grey sweatsuit and a tough looking leather biker jacket signed up to volunteer and then waited in case she was needed. She asked if we were saving food for my friend because she was going to need energy bars when found. I reassured her that certainly the EMT's who were standing by had appropriate supplies at the ready. She asked one of my companions if she and our missing friend had ever talked about girl stuff, "like what you would do if you were stranded in the woods." We puzzled over that for a while, as niether of us recall any "girl talk" conversations with female friends having covered lost-in-woods scenarios.

A couple of sweet teenage boys kept coming up to me and asking if I needed anything and just generally stayed around all day looking for things to do. Opening doors for people. Waiting to see if they were needed. They were quiet, they were respectful, they didn't go near the cameras. They just wanted to help.

My friend's godmother is the family's spokesperson and she was both emotional and firm. She did media interviews, she made announcements and thanked the volunteers, she spoke with such a fervor that I think some part of her hoped to bring our friend back by sheer force of will. She has continued to this this non-stop for days now. I think my friend would be both proud and deeply moved to see how her godmother has handled herself and tried to protect my friend's parents from the media glare.

I think volunteers who were not used may not see that they did something. They made themselves available. They showed up and said, "Here I am. Use me if you are able. I want to help." So many people did. When seven of us left together at 5am, we had no idea what to expect in terms of manpower. We didn't know if we would be a large percentage of the group searching or if there would be huge teams of law enforcement on the ground or WHAT. To watch droves of people arrive as the day went on was so reassuring.

Most of us know nothing about how these things happen. When you want to help, who do you call? Where do you go? Few people who volunteered expected to work with the food or do other tasks. They showed up to search. Much more support is needed than the actual people out looking. None of us understood that organizing volunteers was such an enormous task. Many friends and family members were left waiting, restlessly coming in and out of the building; sitting, standing, hugging, talking, calling people. But nothing to do. The waiting was and is awful. Every person present who knows her was there because they not only wanted to help, but NEEDED to. Looking back now I am kicking myself for not finding a way to draft more people into the kitchen. For their sake. Did it make a difference that I ladled soup all day? Doubtful. But I FELT as if I was doing something and I should have made an effort to help other people who were also struggling with that need.

For all that something like this reminds you how ugly humanity can be, it also brings out the best in people. As I sit watching the news now; waiting for more information, worried by the facts we have learned, my out of practice tongue whispering fervent prayers for a missing friend and her grieving family - there are hundreds of strangers doing much the same thing. Hundreds of strangers who searched the woods in below freezing temperatures or sent food or posted flyers or called about her dog or kept an eye out in their neighborhood for that man or just kept her in their thoughts. Hundreds of strangers who in their own big or little way did whatever they could to help are also watching the news and saying quiet prayers and becoming very familiar with the face of a pretty woman whom I very much wish they could all someday meet.

These Things Happen To Other People

2008-01-07T08:00:00.000-05:00

I cannot remember a time when I did not know that other people could hurt you and were not to be trusted lightly.

Not in a childlike "don't talk to strangers" way. In a concrete, visceral, premature distrust of the world way.

My friend was abducted while hiking alone in the woods with her dog. The man responsible for her disappearance is in police custody and is being charged, for now, with kidnapping and causing bodily harm. Sufficient evidence has surfaced that the authorities have officially declared this to now be a search and recovery effort instead of a search and rescue. Honestly, though, every single person who knows her is still trying to hold onto hope that she will miraculously be found alive. The evidence has made it clear that she will not be found unharmed.

I grew up in a fairly bad neighborhood. A poor neighborhood. I remember being very young and hearing that a police officer had been shot late at night in the park two blocks from my house. And I thought, "Doesn't he know it's not safe in the park at night?" I learned about the birds and the bees because my best childhood friend was molested by her next door neighbor. I ran home one day when a man offered me a watch in order to lure me to his car and then followed me.

So I don't feel any less safe today. Because I never really felt safe to begin with.

Like everyone who cares about this woman, I am torn between frustration that she took the risk of being out on the trail alone and knowing that I would not have wanted her to be a different person. I would not want her to be someone who lives in fear. She is more physically capable than most any woman I know. She is trained to fight and to defend herself. She even had a fairly large dog with her for company. But clearly those things aren't enough.

I'm a door locker. Windows, too. I keep a phone next to my bed at night. I keep a light on outside the door so neighbors can see anyone who approaches my door at night clearly. I don't walk to my car alone in the dark. I am not particularly friendly with strangers, although I will converse with them if I am in a sufficiently public place. Perhaps I'm a little paranoid. I also live my life. I traveled to another country by myself. I've taken a cross country road trip alone. I don't let my fear keep me from living, but I try to be careful. I acknowledge that every stranger or person I do not know well could potentially be a threat.

To be clear, this friend and I are not close. We get together in a group to watch bad tv and talk about girl stuff on a semi-regular basis. Until yesterday I could tell you about her excitement over her new job or who her favorite contestants are on ANTM but not where her family is from - that kind of friendship. I am fond of her. People I love, however, have known her for years and are very close to her. So this is not happening to me. This is happening very near me to people I love and a woman I very much care for.

There is no good in this. But perhaps there is a warning or a reminder. When we watch the news so many of us forget that these are real people and not just stories. These are people with families and friends and lives being halted or altered horribly by the events we see unfold in flashy television updates. And those people you see grieving on the TV news live feed could someday be people you know and care about. Today they are people I know and care about.

We are all hoping for her to be returned to us. I am also hoping that people will hear about her and be a little more careful in their choices. More hesitant to trust a stranger met in an isolated place. More likely to find someone to go hiking with them so they are not alone. More likely to get someone to walk them to their car at night. (Edit: To be clear - I do not think my friend was careless. You SHOULD be able to go hiking with your dog in the middle of the day and feel safe. I just think a reasonable level of healthy distrust can save your life.) Bad things can happen to anyone. Taking precautions will not change that, but it is the one thing we can do to stack the odds in our favor.

We can also all learn from this to keep a closer eye out for our fellow man. If only one of the several people who witnessed this man talking to my friend (and some said it gave them a bad feeling) on the hiking trail had stopped to check that everything was alright, perhaps she would be safe at home today. I certainly don't blame them in any way, but it is hard not to think that small changes in the actions of the people who saw her that day might have made a difference. Awareness of a witness might have altered that man's choices.

I (surprisingly) actually believe that most people are good. I still think 9 out of 10 people who stop to help you on the side of the road can be trusted. The problem is this: We all look the same. People who knew Ted Bundy thought he seemed like a pretty nice guy. The man who abducted my friend looked like a crazy, freaky old man. But most of the old men I've met who look bizarre and freaky are actually great people. You just can't tell, so you can't take risks with your safety and you shouldn't make assumptions about people based on too little information. For your own sake and for the sake of the people who love you. Live your life fully, but exercise caution.

My friend is an exceptional person. Right now everyone who knows her hopes that will translate into her beating the odds in what have become an increasingly grim sequence of events.

“I have learned two lessons in my life: first, there are no sufficient literary, psychological, or historical answers to human tragedy, only moral ones. Second, just as despair can come to one another only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings.”

- Elie Wiesel

________________________________

Edit: They found my friend and I am sad to say that she is dead.

Take care out there. The world is a wonderful place but there are some frightening people in it.

“My heart has joined the thousand, for my friend stopped running today.”

- Richard Adams

People Who Look Like Bunnies

2008-01-02T13:44:00.000-05:00

The Buh-RILL-iant people over at Hopscotch are doing a lookalike photo series called "People Who Look Like Bunnies." I think it's divine. Click the photo or the text link to view the brilliant. Liv Tyler and Jared Leto are my two faves after Alice Cooper. HILARIOUS!

Figured that starting the year out with a bunny link and a smile was DEFINITELY the way to go.

Relationships in One Paragraph

2007-12-27T14:36:00.000-05:00

As with many of my favorite things on the interweb, Sheila started this. Other bloggers have done their own versions - like Megan at From the Archives. I had to pare this down. I've dated a fair bit over the years and I think every one of them added something to the tapestry of my life. Even the unpleasant ones. I loved the idea of these brief windows into what love and loss and relationships have been in a person's life (EDIT: each paragraph represents a different relationship). All you'll really learn about ME from this exercise is that I know nothing about drug use, I'm crazy about Tom Waits and I'm very much in love.

Together, these pieces of my past are a journey that helped bring me to the man I am with today, which is a very good place to be.

He was the first everything. We listened to Robyn Hitchcock and Neil Young. He introduced me to Tom Waits. He taught me that I was beautiful. I thought he was the Ginsberg of my generation, I’m not certain he isn’t. Eventually I realized that I, along with his endless chain of cigarettes, had become a replacement drug, a compulsion for the recovered addict. So I ended it. For him and for me. I thought about him when I saw Waits in concert 15 years later and cried the whole time because it was beautiful and because he wasn’t with me to share it.

I was working the drive-through at my second job at the dry cleaner's. The air was greenish and bright and thick with spring rain. Hearing the bell, I looked up to see a red pickup truck pull in, but it didn't stop until the bed was even with the window. I saw raggedy jeans legs and then he leaned down and looked in at me, one arm bulging with two dozen roses and the other holding an enormous umbrella aloft. I stared, speechless, while he grinned and asked if he could walk me home. My friends didn't understand what I saw in him.

The Stone Temple Pilot’s “Big Empty” was playing on the radio while he drove me home. I wouldn’t let myself cry anymore until he was gone. Bruises showed up the next day. Around my neck, across my shoulders. I never spoke to him again. He was the gentlest man I ever met, until he wasn’t.

We went to see the Violent Femmes in concert and screamed the lyrics into each other’s faces for the whole show. Every day was joyous. I knew he would always be smart and handsome and kind, but I was some kind of goddess to him and the pedestal began to make me dizzy.

The first thing he said to me was, “Yer english shur is good.” but he looked like Matthew McConaughey so I tried not to notice.

I was so naive, I really thought he was just naturally thin and twitchy. Then one day he said he was sorry, but hiding his drug use from me was getting in the way of his habit. I couldn’t compete with Cocaine, but then I really didn’t want to.

I wore my velvet pants and he chased me all over the apartment trying to rub my butt and yelling “FUZZY!” with reckless, childlike glee. He sent me a letter once, written in crayon when he was too drunk to find anything else, telling me he loved me. I got a second letter the next day telling me not to open the first letter. I told him I hadn't.

Until he referred to "when we were dating," I had never called it that. I remember it as knocks on my door at 2am and listening to Bright Eyes and The Get Up Kids on my living room floor and standing on a wooden bridge at night talking about things that must have seemed important at the time but have since faded into a haze of angst and poetry and silly banter. He was younger than I and had a halo of blonde curls and a face like some sort of greek sculpture. Always sad, but he made me laugh. Out loud laugh.

His shirts matched his ties matched his suspenders matched his hankerchief. You could eat off his kitchen floor. One night he told me my half of the Chinese takeout was eight dollars and thirty-two cents. I gave him eight dollars and he hesitated a moment before saying that I could give him the rest of it later. I'm not sure what I was thinking.

My first day there we climbed a mountain. Hiking up the side, we could look out into the mist at the ocean and see peaks jutting into the air, speckling the water with islands. It had been four years apart, four years of recovering from something all-consuming. When I lost my footing on the way back down and began to fall, he rushed forward and caught me. It started again.

We walked into the party and everyone hollered and he did that half-hug, back-smacking thing with three different guys before making a beeline for the fridge to get a beer. Our friends started making bets as to how long he was going to keep his shirt on and I wanted to hide in embarrassment. They were literally laying odds and handing over bills. He always took off his shirt. He was a volunteer fireman and the most unabashedly sweet natured human being. His face lit up like a Christmas tree when he laughed. I have a photograph of him wearing furry white bunny ears on a roadtrip we took to Tampa. He isn’t wearing a shirt.

I had been struggling not to but eventually I couldn’t help it. The tears started rolling down my cheeks and then I was choking back little hiccup sobs while I watched him get quieter and quieter. His face became stiff and cold when he was angry. I tried to explain why I was upset and I talked a mile a minute like I always do and he finally shouted, “SHUT UP! SHUT UP!” without looking at my weepy face. He got mad when I cried but he didn't usually yell, so that stung. There was so much more and so much of it was good, but after five years with him all anyone really needs to know is that my tears made him angry.

I was new in the office and I was going to be his contact at our company, so he called to introduce himself. When he started quizzing me about my qualifications I tried to be polite but eventually couldn't take it anymore. I told him I'd been in the business for a decade, was the art director at my last place of employment and that I was fairly certain there was NOTHING he knew that I didn't. I got off the phone and stormed into my boss' office. I declared that someone else was going to have to work with this client because I had no intention of EVER talking to That Man again. It's been three years since that conversation. I think I'm going to spend the rest of my life with him.

Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies

2007-12-20T14:36:00.000-05:00

© Never Bashful with Butter - click the photo to visit her blog!

I'm not EVEN kidding. Since I have recently talked about finger foods and their importance to the holiday, I MUST share this link found via Dave Barry's blog (which tends to ROCK). Never Bashful With Butter created these wacky Bacon Chocolate chip cookies on sort of a dare from her husband and she swears that they are actually very good. So... who's brave enough to try it?

I bet my brother in law would LOVE these. He says bacon is "The King of Meats."

We Now Return You to Your Regularly Scheduled Holiday Cheer

2007-12-20T14:19:00.002-05:00

“Once again we find ourselves enmeshed in the Holiday Season, that very special time of year when we join with our loved ones in sharing centuries-old traditions such as trying to find a parking space at the mall. We traditionally do this in my family by driving around the parking lot until we see a shopper emerge from the mall, then we follow her, in very much the same spirit as the Three Wise Men, who 2,000 years ago followed a star, week after week, until it led them to a parking space.”

- Dave Barry

I love Dave Barry. In fact, he's just about the only person whose quotes I use on here who isn't a woman. I like him THAT much. Like he's an honorary woman on here. In spite of being almost as much unlike a woman as it's possible to be.

Teen Pregnancy, In General

2007-12-20T10:15:00.000-05:00

Excellent holiday topic, RIGHT??

Honestly I have no interest in the Spears family specifically, I just think this is an excellent example of a double standard we have in our society. We would prefer that teenagers, but more specifically GIRLS, do not have sex before they are married or at least legally an adult. But we know it will happen anyway, there is little parents can do to prevent it and in a lot of ways sex between teenagers has become socially acceptable. They don't even bother hiding it anymore (when I was a teenager, you HID the fact that you were having sex. Which I was. You didn't talk to everyone about it, dammit. And you didn't let your ass hang out of your jeans! Or your THONG! And we had to walk ten miles in the snow to get to school! Ok, not really. But you get the point.).

So we know this is happening. So some of them are going to get pregnant. Either they don't take proper precautions or they can't figure out how to put the condom on correctly, I DON'T KNOW (hello? Do schools no longer use the bannana method?). But if unplanned pregnancies can happen to adults, then you KNOW it's going to happen to crazed horny teenagers who are way too hormone addled to think straight.

When my mother was young, these girls would be sent away to "stay with a relative" or - if the family had money - "travel abroad" while they had their babies and were then forced to give them up. OR, if they lived in fear of angry parents, they would try to obtain an illegal abortion and possibly die in the process. I'm glad that we don't have that system of shame and danger any longer. The world is a better place for it. I just don't know how you get teenagers to take pregnancy seriously without it. They are old enough to only be scared by real and horrific consequences, they are also at an age when practical consequences like raising a child are less frightening than more abstract consequences like massive public humiliation. But I think the Fire and Brimstone, hide-the-girl-once-she-starts-"showing" approach is wrong. I just don't know what the alternative is.

There is still a lot of shame associated with abortion. I get that and don't really think that's wholly a bad thing (while maybe a sense of gravity might be more appropriate than actual shame). It's a horrific, ugly thing to have to do. I just personally acknowledge that for some people it is the right choice and I prefer to live in a country where it is legal and therefore REGULATED. But I don't think teenage girls should feel like that is what they have to do. I personally know women who had abortions as teenagers that their parents pushed them into. While that may have been better and easier for their parents, it was not necessarily better for them. One woman in particular is still upset over her loss, and it was 20 years ago. Clearly it was not the right choice for her and she should have had options.

But the other option is to have a child when you are yourself a child. That's a difficult road. Some of these girls choose adoption, which I think can be an excellent way to go, but some of them cannot bear to give up their child. That makes sense to me. Were I in those shoes, I don't know if I could do that. How difficult to let go of your child, even if you know it may be best for them. How can you ask that of anyone? It has to be a personal choice.

I know women who look particularly young for their age who find they are given unpleasant looks by strangers when in public with their young children. Because that is the double standard we live with. People look down on the teenage mother who chooses the most difficult road - to keep and raise the child herself. You don't have to BE young to feel that, you just have to LOOK young to know firsthand how poorly people react to it.

We try to teach our children to learn to take responsibility and accept the consequences of their actions.

Then, as a society, we teach teenagers that sex is fun and sells cars and Trojan condoms (or whatever brand has a slick ad right now) are cool and everyone's doing it.

But don't get pregnant.

If you do get pregnant, don't let anyone know.

Hide it, get rid of it, WHATEVER. We, as a society DO NOT want to talk about it. We don't want to know.

If you get rid of it, we REALLY don't want to know about that. If you let it slip that you did THAT, we will hate you for it. For doing what we secretly prefer but forcing us to be AWARE of it.

If you don't hide it or get rid of it, we will treat you differently. We will act like you are beneath us, for the same thing which we would celebrate if you were five years older.... and preferrably married.

We will not acknowledge that you chose to take responsibility and accept the consequences of your actions - like your parents tried to teach you when you were little. Partially because this doesn't fit in with our idea of how the world should be, partially because we're afraid you are contagious and other teenagers wil catch the baby bug and think it is ok.

We will crucify you in order to preserve the sanctity of the teenagers who are not yet pregnant.

We will not acknowledge that this could have happened to any of us when we were 16 or 17 because we were probably having sex at that age, too (we just didn't talk about it so much which, frankly, pisses us off about your generation).

It's a big hypocrisy. It's no win. Once the baby is on the way you have to step back and realize that this girl needs support and the whole world is going to be against her and each and every one of us who smiles reassuringly instead of looking down in judgement is making the world a slightly nicer place (every time you are pleasant to a teenager who is preggers or has babies a fluffy angel kitten gets it's wings, ok?)

Pregnancy is just as hot button an issue as abortion itself, it's just people are more ashamed to admit all the massive issues we have with it. How confused we are about it. Women who want to get pregnant often cannot. Women who don't want to get pregnant often do. You're bad if you get pregnant when you're young or if you're not married, but you're a saint and everyone flutters around you in joyful anticipation if it happens to you when you are older and married. If you do it when you are too old people think you are a freak. If you are too old without ever having done it, people act like something is wrong with you.

Everyone wants to talk about sex and no one wants to talk about unplanned pregnancy. These two topics have more than a little to do with each other so we should probably all start talking about one subject with a little less abandon and the other subject with a little more understanding.

That's all I'm saying.

(Ok. It's out of my system now, I SWEAR.)

The Spears Pregnancy Media Circus

2007-12-19T16:38:00.000-05:00

I'm not going to go on about this, and I rarely address issues in gossip media here at dame. But I'm tired of the hypocrisy.

To be clear, certainly I am saddened that another woman is pregnant before reaching adulthood. It is disturbing that her family allowed her to live with a man who is legally an adult when she is still only 16. I know parents are in a panic as to what they are going to tell their children and I am sympathetic to their discomfort. All over the internet gossip blogs are having a field day. Angry parents are vilifying her for "glamorizing" teen pregnancy. Some people are commending her for making a difficult decision. I think an important point is being missed.

The Spears family have significant rescources. If she had chosen to, young Ms. Spears could have obtained an abortion with complete anonymity. She could have gone on being the popular star of a children's television program and maintained her reputation. A fair number of the same parents who are furious with her for making teen pregnancy seem acceptable would be horrified if she had an abortion. But then, they would never know.

I happen to be Pro-Choice. That does not alter my feeling respect for someone willing to make such a difficult choice. This is unheard of in Hollywood, right? 16 year old television stars do not get pregnant. I think we should be asking ourselves, however, if Ms. Spears is the first particularly young woman in Hollywood to ever have an unplanned pregnancy - or is she simply the first not to choose to take the easy way out?

I don't think this is the first time this has happened. I just think it's the first time I have heard of a young woman in her position putting her personal beliefs ahead of her fame.

EDIT: My friend Larken made a very important point and I wanted to address it - It is difficult to know how accurate these reports are. Although OK magazine was the original source, the information has been confirmed by Nickelodeon via a public statement. If the information IS inaccurate, it is being disseminated by the Spears family. While there has been a lot of negative publicity for Britney, I cannot imagine them conciously countering that with a teen pregnancy scandal. It DOES take the spotlight off of big sis - but that would SERIOUSLY be "taking one for the team."

Based on the information at hand I would have to assume the reports are accurate. If they are not, then Jamie Lynn Spears may be in for a lawsuit from Nickelodeon.

Completely unrelated and irrelevant but I cannot stand that girl's name.

Important Holiday Tradition: Finger Foods

2007-12-17T16:00:00.000-05:00

Totally stole this photo from Kraft, but you know what? I use their cheese to make this recipe. ALWAYS. So I think we're even.

Why is it festive to eat food with your fingers? Because people do it at cocktail parties? Because nothing says wild and crazy fun like eschewing silverware? I don't know. But it's TRUE. Finger food = holiday fun

In my family, the particular favorite that just says Oodles of Holiday Joy to us are Sausage Cheese Balls. People have been making these since the invention of Bisquick (a.k.a. "all-purpose baking mix"). Perhaps even before then when housewives everywhere had to use - gasp! - ORDINARY FLOUR (and other stuff). Seriously. The Sausage Cheese ball recipe has been around a LONG time. These "easy party favorites" have been touted in Betty Crocker cookbooks and on the backs of baking mix boxes. Don't make them if you're trying to set up an impressive looking spread because they just aren't pretty. They are ugly, unsophisticated balls of cheesy, spicy joy. My family loves them.

Google Sausage Cheese Balls and you will see 100 variations on the same basic theme insofar as the recipe goes, the main argument being over ratio of cheese to sausage to baking mix.

My Family's Sausage Cheese Balls

are as follows:

1lb. sausage (one of those plastic wrapped logs o' meat)
16 oz. Kraft sharp cheddar cheese (if the recipe is too oily, try switching some of the cheese to the 2% lowfat variety)
2 cups Bisquick or your fave baking mix

(you rocket scientists out there will notice that this is essentially a 1-1-1 ratio. 1lb. = 16 oz. = 2 cups. Yay, MATH!)

Optional additions: chopped onions, French's crispy fried onion thingies or - what I use - a dash of cayenne pepper
If you do not eat pork, you can use Turkey sausage. This recipe is very forgiving in regards to subsitutions, just make sure you have enough whole fat cheese and meat for the recipe to work!

Traditionally recipes tell you to just mix it all together. Don't do that. Mix all the cheese and baking mix (along with any other additions) together as evenly as possible - you're going to need to use your hands, ladies - and THEN work in the sausage. Don't overwork it once the sausage is in, just knead it enough for the sausage fat to spread around a bit and help hold the mixture together. This way, some chunks of sausage stay intact, making the end result much tastier and the cheese and sausage flavors more distinguishable. Personally, I usually cut out a little of the baking mix. I put in 1.5 cups and then add a little of that last half cup later if it seems necessary.

Roll the dough into roughly 1" balls, place on a foil-lined cookie sheet and bake at 350º for about 20 minutes or until they are turning golden brown but not actually burning. You may want to let them sit on paper towels for a bit before serving, which is what I do.

For the uninitiated, this is going to sound WIERD. No liquids to make the baking mix stick together? NO. NO additional liquids. Trust me. Once the sausage and cheese begin to cook, they release a lot of oil which bonds the mixture together and provides the "liquid" component of this dough. Sounds awful, but tastes like ooey-gooey heaven.

They are good cold. They are good the next day. My family has always had them for breakast on Christmas day (and Thanksgiving day). My mother makes enough for an army (the recipe as listed above makes A LOT) and then we all snack on them non-stop for days.

Speaking of classic old-time holiday finger foods (drumroll please) this recipe for Holiday Bacon Appetizers appeared on The Pioneer Woman Cooks - source of brilliant artery cloggin' goodness - and I am making these bacon bites along with the sausage cheese balls for some guests this holiday season. They're all going to look at the spread and ask if I'm trying to kill them with premature heart attacks. Then they will eat every sausage and bacon laden bite... And swear undying fealty to me. Just you watch and see.

My Sister is Hilarious

2007-12-14T15:39:00.000-05:00

We were just talking about someone we know being pregnant and my sister suddenly blurts out:

"All I know about having babies I learned from ER."

Advice From Someone Who Knows

2007-12-14T10:15:00.000-05:00

I know I have previously mentioned having a family member who was severely mentally ill. I also, however, have other family members who struggle with issues like chronic depression, borderline personality disorder and being bipolar (oddly enough, due to my blended family, none of the people dealing with these issues are biologcally related to the family member who was hospitalized and heavily medicated for much of his life due to severe mental illness). Because of my acute awareness of this issue, I wanted to share this post from Dooce.

It absolutely had me in tears, and not because it is in any way sad. It was just wonderful to hear from the perspective of someone on the inside of this situation. It was familiar. I have watched this. My relative who is bipolar went through so much when she was younger and had a long period of just not being the person I knew and loved. She has been on medication now for almost her entire adult life and, while I know she went through some years of struggling with insecurity over "needing" to take it, I think she is at home with it now. She embraces it because she is MORE "her" when she is taking it than when she is not. Proper medication and periodic counseling gave her back to us, and to herself.

The Woman Behind the Man in the Red Suit

2007-12-12T14:32:00.000-05:00

Mr. and Mrs. Claus, © 2005-2007 Susan Comish Gallery

I would first like to say, that in the course of trying to learn about the origins of Mrs. Claus, I have seen WAY TOO MANY "Deluxe ADULT Mrs. Claus" costumes. Is there an entire section of the population with some wierd fetish I don't know about? Is it really that sexy for a young woman to dress up as a naughty version of what is essentially an iconic, sweet-natured grandmother? Ladies, if you want to dress up all hardcore for the holidays, you don't have to spend $34.95 on a short red tutu and tiny white apron. Save some money. Buy a few yards of 3" thick ribbon at the craft store. Tie a bow around your ass. VOILA! A festive bedroom getup your man is perfectly happy with. Seriously. There's no need to go dragging Mrs. Claus into this.

There were differing reports as to the origins of Mrs. Claus. One account was called "I am Mrs. Claus hear me roar" written by Lisa Bondy for The McGill Tribune. Her assessment boiled down to: "The sad truth is she was created by Thomas Nash in the late 1860s, in a series of illustrations for Harper's magazine, and later embellished by Haddon Sundblom in his billboards for Coca-Cola." The Thomas Nash illustrations DO come up often when searching for Mrs. Claus, but another source was mentioned again and again.

"Mrs. Claus, Santa's wife, was first introduced to the world in 1889 in the book Goody Santa Claus On A Sleigh Ride by the poet Katherine Lee Bates. In this story, Mrs. Claus pleads with Santa to take her along on the annual Christmas Eve sleigh ride to deliver toys to all the good little boys and girls." This account was found at usefultrivia.com and is corroborated by myriad other online sources.

Bates is best known as the author of America the Beautiful and was apparently the first to feel it was important to put in print the idea of Santa having a wife. There was also a song released in 1956 by George Melachrino, "Mrs. Santa Claus," which helped establish Mrs. Claus and her role in the popular imagination. Today, I am pleased to say, we clearly have reached a point where Mrs. Claus is widely accepted. In spite of any fancy magical abilites he may have due to being the anthropomorphic embodiment of a major holiday, no one would begin to suggest the jolly fat man gets all that work done on his own.

The term goody, by the way, is an out of use "polite term of address for a woman of humble social standing." I looked up the poem and had to share it here. In this version of the story, Mrs. Claus is apparently responsible for tending trees that grow the toys and treats instead of them being built by elves. There are also references to turkeys for Thanksgiving and chickens that lay Easter eggs being her responsibility. So she's a very busy lady. All this makes her "acknowledgement" that stuffing stockings "takes brains" and that she's only fit to hold the reindeer pretty barbed and sarcastic. I'm kind of loving how saucy this version of Mrs. Claus is for a woman in 1889 (particularly considering the last line).

Goody Santa Claus on a Sleigh-Ride

By Katharine Lee Bates, Published in 1889

Santa, must I tease in vain, dear? Let me go and hold the reindeer,
While you clamber down the chimneys. Don’t give me that sour smirk!
Why should you have all the glory of the joyous Christmas story,
And poor little Goody Santa Claus have nothing but the work?

It would be so very cozy, you and I, all round and rosy,
Looking like two loving snowballs in our fuzzy Artic furs,
Tucked in warm and snug together, whisking through the winter weather
Where the tinkle of the sleigh-bells is the only sound that stirs.

You just sit here and grow chubby off the goodies in my cubby
From December to December, till your white beard sweeps your knees;
For you must allow, my Goodman, that you’re but a lazy woodman
And rely on me to foster all our fruitful Christmas trees.

While your Saintship waxes holy, year by year, and roly-poly,
Blessed by all the lads and lassies in the limits of the land.
While your toes at home you’re toasting, then poor Goody must go posting
Out to plant and prune and garner, where our fir-tree forests stand.

Oh! But when the toil is sorest how I love our fir-tree forest.
Heart of light and heart of beauty in the Northland cold and dim,
All with gifts and candles laden to delight a boy or maiden,
And its dark-green branches ever murmuring the Christmas hymn.

Yet ask young Jack Frost, our neighbor, who but Goody has the labor,
Feeding roots with milk and honey that the bonbons may be sweet!
Who but Goody knows the reason why the playthings bloom in season
And the ripened toys and trinkets rattle gaily to her feet!

From the time the dollies budded, wiry-boned and saw-dust blooded,
With their waxen eyelids winking when the wind the tree-tops plied,
Have I rested for a minute, until now your pack has in it
All the bright, abundant harvest of the merry Christmastide?

Santa, wouldn’t it be pleasant to surprise me with a present?
And this ride behind the reindeer is the boon your Goody begs;
Think how hard my extra work is, tending the Thanksgiving turkeys
And our flocks of rainbow chickens – those that lay the Easter eggs.

Jump in quick then? That’s my bonny. Hey down derry! Nonny nonny!
While I tie your fur cap closer, I will kiss your ruddy chin.
I’m so pleased I fall to singing, just as sleigh bells take to ringing!
Are the cloud-spun lap robes ready? Tirra-lira! Tuck me in

Off across the starlight Norland, where no plant adorns the moorland
Save the ruby-berried holly and the frolic mistletoe!
Oh, but this is Christmas revel! Off across the frosted level
Where the reindeers’ hoofs strike sparkles from the crispy, crackling snow!

Now we pass through dusky portals to the drowsy land of mortals;
Snow-enfolded, silent cities stretch about us dim and far.
Oh! How sound the world is sleeping, midnight watch no shepherd keeping,
Though an angel-face shines gladly down from every golden star.

Here’s a roof. I’ll hold the reindeer. I suppose this weathervane, Dear,
Some one set here just on purpose for our team to fasten to.
There’s its gilded cock, - the gaby! – wants to crow and tell the baby
We are come. Be careful, Santa! Don’t get smothered in the flue.

Back so soon? No chimney-swallow dives but where his mate can follow.
Bend your cold ear, Sweetheart Santa, down to catch my whisper faint:
Would it be so very shocking if your Goody filled a stocking
Just for once? Oh, dear! Forgive me. Frowns do not become a Saint.

I will peep in at the skylights, where the moon sheds tender twilights
Equally down silken chambers and down attics bare and bleak.
Let me shower with hailstone candies these two dreaming boys – the dandies
In their frilled and fluted nighties, rosy cheek to rosy cheek.

So our sprightly reindeer clamber, with their fairy sleigh of amber,
On from roof to roof, the woven shades of night about us drawn.
On from roof to roof we twinkle, all the silver bells a-tinkle,
Till blooms in yonder blessed East the rose of Christmas dawn.

Now the pack is fairly rifled, and poor Santa’s well nigh stifled;
Yet you would not let your Goody fill a single baby sock;
Yes, I know the task takes brains, Dear. I can only hold the reindeer
And to see me climb down chimney – it would give your nerves a shock.

Santa, don’t pass by that urchin! Shake the pack, and deeply search in
All your pockets. There is always one toy more. I told you so.
Up again? Why, what’s the trouble? On your eyelash winks the bubble
Mortals call a tear, I fancy. Holes in stocking, heel and toe?

Goodman, though your speech is crusty now and then, there’s nothing rusty
In your heart. A child’s least sorrow makes your wet eyes glisten, too;
But I’ll mend that sock so neatly it shall hold your gifts completely.
Take the reins and let me show you what a woman’s wit can do.

Puff! I’m up again, my Deary, flushed a bit and somewhat weary,
With my wedding snow-flake bonnet worse for many a sooty knock;
But be glad you let me wheedle, since, an icicle for needle,
Threaded with the last pale moonbeam, I have darned the laddie’s sock.

Then I tucked a paint-box in it (‘twas no easy task to win it
From the artist of the Autumn leaves) and frost-fruits white and sweet,
With toys your pocket misses – oh! And kisses upon kisses
To cherish safe from evil paths the motherless small feet.

Chirrup! Chirrup! There’s a patter of soft footsteps and a clatter
Of child voices. Speed it, reindeer, up the sparkling Artic Hill!
Merry Christmas, little people! Joy-bells ring in every steeple,
And Goody’s gladdest of the glad. I’ve had my own sweet will.

Being a Better Human

2007-12-10T11:27:00.000-05:00

Arthur is my local theater community's resident crackpot old guy. He shows up to any and all auditions that have a male role. He volunteers for set building. If there is a theater holding auditions anywhere in town, you will see him walking down the side of the road in grubby slacks, a disheveled plaid shirt and maybe an old cardigan, his head looking cold with it's sparse covering of wispy white hair as he plods along, determined to attend the audition.

Basically, Arthur is a crazy old man. I don't think he's literally "crazy." I suspect that he has some psychological issues which have been compounded by old age, a difficult personality and many years of lonliness. I do not know his "story." I think he lives in a place downtown that houses low income elderly people. I have never seen him with anyone when he is out walking. He has never mentioned friends or family, but he does not usually talk about himself.

He is not an easy person to talk to or to be around. Arthur communicates in an awkward, stilted manner. His readings are typically a monotone drone interspersed with brief glimspes of warmth. In a show, he has to be watched for backstage directing - he will go up to your lead and tell her she skipped a line. His "directions" are obnoxious and misguided, but closer examination reveals them to be genuinely well intended. There are stories about directors casting him and then having huge problems. You have to provide him with specific and clear directions and appear to be taking his concerns seriously or he becomes mule-like in his refusal to cooperate. It's inconvenient and unprofessional, but it's also community theater. Although Arthur rarely gets cast, there IS a higher level of tolerance than would exist in a professional setting.

This weekend Arthur turned up - two hours late - to an audition I was at. Everyone froze as if a violent escaped mental patient had just wandered in. He has had some sort of surgery on his ear recently so he had bandages on one side of his head which added to his disconcerting appearance. In place of a headshot and resume he handed the director a sheet of paper. When I leaned to the side to catch a glimpse of it, I saw that he had handwritten a resume - covering the entire front and back of a worn page in uneven lines of blue ink.

We were essentially done with the auditions by the time he arrived. The few lingering actors looked around nervously and then rushed the door like rats jumping ship. The director and stage manager stood there uncertain what to do. I could see that if they allowed him to read at all it would be him reading alone on the stage. Arthur was going to be left feeling it was mere formality. Which I am fairly certain it was... But he had walked roughly 2 miles to get there and his intentions were earnest and I hadn't left yet. So I asked the director (who appeared willing to accomodate him, just unsure how do accomplish that) what she would like us to read. We read one of the selections together and when we were done Arthur packed up his things (he always carries a little bundle of papers and a book or two with him) and headed out. He seemed satisfied.

If any other actor had shown up at the last minute, a couple of the young women who were desperately vying for the lead would have leaped at the chance for another read. Another shot to show what they could do. No one wants to help when that last minute actor is Arthur.

We all encounter people like Arthur now and then. Perhaps I would be less inclined to look past Arthur's difficulties if I had not grown up with a close relative who was severely mentally ill. But I know first hand that just because someone behaves oddly or has difficulty communicating does not mean they are a bad person. Functioning in this world is more difficult for the elderly and alone and can be a great deal harder for the mentally ill. But Arthur is still trying. He wants to contribute. He wants to be a part of the community. He doesn't appear to have anyone and he knows how most of the world sees him. He still shows up and shrugs off the whispers and the nervous giggles and he tries.

I wish that when people ran into someone like Arthur, they wouldn't just run the other way. The mentally ill or impaired typically KNOW when they're being dismissed. So many other people have done the same to them. It doesn't take a lot of effort to interact with them in a respectful way. The difficult thing that it requires is overcoming your own fear and awkwardness about interacting with someone who is different and who may have trouble communicating constructively. Most of the time, I think they appreciate just being talked to instead of ignored or overlooked. I know Arthur does.

At first I thought to myself that it was unfortunate that this in no way related to the holiday season which is upon us - and on which I typically focus my posts at this time of year. Then I realized this does relate to the season. Quite sharply, now that I think about it. In this season of giving, what greater gift is there than to give someone a little bit of their dignity back?

It's That Time Again

2007-12-07T16:37:00.001-05:00

“In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it 'Christmas' and went to church; the Jews called it 'Hanukka' and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say 'Merry Christmas!' or 'Happy Hanukka!' or (to the atheists) 'Look out for the wall!'”

- Dave Barry

Lack of Blog

2007-11-30T15:40:00.000-05:00

My apologies for the lack of blog this week. I ended up needing the week off. After a weekend chock full o' crazy family goodness (which, by Sunday, had me running for the hills. Very nearly literally.) and a week of cooking like a madwoman (Staying up till 3am. No time to see The Guy. Back to the grocery store for something I forgot like TEN times. You see, I semi-volunteered to cater an event for 130 people tonight. On my own. Yes, please - DO call the men in white coats.) - I had nothing in me left with which to write. I couldn't even muster up a quote or ANYTHING. I'm dreaful. Apologies all around.

Tonight I serve cold Artichoke Parmesan dip with Criostini and Spinach Empanadas and Lemon Almond Biscotti and antipasto to a large group of people who, knowing my dumb luck, are probably all allergic to nuts and hate marinated mushrooms and olives and will want to know where the french onion dip is for the veggies on the antipasto platter.

Maybe I'll save myself some trouble and provide a completely-out-of-place dip for the veggies.

So anyway, after the catering I get to spend my weekend with The Guy and Little Man; sleeping in, reading, roasting marshmallows in the fireplace, assisting Little Man with the finer points of our favorite video game, visiting with some friends, making hot cocoa, maybe going to a local park for a walk - in other words, HEAVEN.

Next week I'll, you know, think and stuff like that. And then I'll get back to posting.

The Holidays

2007-11-21T13:48:00.000-05:00

Christmas has always been a complex holiday for my family.

Mine is a blended family so there are a lot of people involved. There's the tug of war over where and when celebrations will occur. So many people you are-and-aren't related to you who cannot decide if they should send you a present (I always loved how one of my sisters' Grandparents - who is only her Grandparent and in no way blood related to the rest of us - would send her a big gift and send the rest of us kids a tacky generic coloring book every year. Even as a child, I knew this was a wildly miscalculated gesture and VERY funny.) The various step and half kids all looking at each other's piles of gifts and wondering if discrepancies were signs of anything. The kids who had another parent of lesser means going through culture shock when comparing the familiar low-income Christmas to the bountiful middle-class Christmas (that would be me).

It was a wierd time for us. Always. Even on good years. Throw in a birthday right on the cusp of the holiday and, well, it made for a wacky mess of a holiday.

Then there was Thanksgiving.

A holiday I could understand. I mean, not the Pilgrims and Indians thing because A) I'm essentially first generation American and our attachment to that aspect of the holiday was tenuous and B) it always seemed to me like the Indians should have saved themselves a lot of trouble in the long run and let the pilgrims starve. Hindsight, I suppose. But aside from the actual history of the holiday, I understood what it meant to US, to MY family. When you have a large blended family, gathering together makes sense. Taking the time to be thankful for each other, for each and every one of us, makes sense.

We have a lot of cooks in our family. And a large number of people to be fed. Thankgiving, no matter what assortment of people were gathering, has always been a circus:

People laughing and chattering and arguing over the best way to make stuffing (it's an issue). The smell of things cooking in the oven and of hot casseroles being brought in the door and of fresh nutmeg and cinnamon being warred over as the pumpkin pie was being made. My mother making sausage cheese balls so we all have something to snack on through the morning as we prepared the meal and set the table... and the other table... and maybe another table (just in case). Cries of dismay when the hardcore home cookin' mom and my cousin the professional caterer both arrive with their "famous" sweet potato casseroles. The Annual Debate over the greatness of Turkey versus the joys of variety (in which the possibility of ham, chicken, duck, goose or oodles of little cornish game hens being prepared the following year is considered. Turkey always wins). My brother gets mad about something and pouts. My little sister eats all the rolls. My older sister and I fight with pickle spears as our swords (yes, even now). My grandmother spends a lot of time trying to identify which grandchild comes from who. My parents get confused and call the kids by the dogs' names and vice-versa. My Aunt gets tired of my Uncle's endless jokes and shrieks his name in that voice that tells you she's going to drag him out by his ear if he doesn't stop soon. The radio is switched back and forth between oldies and christmas songs. My mom wants to watch the National Dog Show and hollers constantly that we, "...have to see this one. It's! OH! Come look at this one! That looks like so-and-so's dog. HURRY! YOU'RE GOING TO MISS THE POMERANIAN. looklooklooklook!"

It's MADNESS. And this gathering is the epitome of what my family is. A crazy, loud, arguing, laughing, neurotic frenzy of people coming together to make something wonderful. We are all so different. We don't always get along. We don't always even like each other. But we all love each other. AND we love to cook and to eat.

On Thanksgiving, my family celebrates in a context I can understand and in a way that suits us. We come together and reaffirm that, although some of us share little or no blood connection, we are TRULY a family. Inextricably. In the most exasperating and wonderful of ways.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

2007-11-19T09:45:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. The family, the food, the fact that it's all about gathering and has nothing to do with presents. To me, Thanksgiving is about coming home or creating home. It's about finding the family in your life, whether or not they are related to you, and celebrating that. It's about needing people and creating for people. For me, when Thankgiving is at it's best, it is the most joyous of all times.

In light of my affection, I think the Thanksgiving movie category is much underappreciated, whilst Hollywood churns out crappy Christmas flicks ad nauseum. So I have made a list of my Top Five Thanksgiving film recommendations. Led, of course, by a film I mention FAR too often:

1. Home for the Holidays, 1995

"On the fourth Thursday in November, 84 million American families will gather together... And wonder why."
Everything goes wrong in Claudia Larsen's life on the day she is boarding a plane to return to her childhood home for Thanksgiving. The next 36 hours are spent coping with craziness, trying to understand her family and reevaluating her life. Features: Holly Hunter, Anne Bancroft, Charles Durning, Gerldine Chaplain. Robert Downey Jr., Dylan McDermott, David Strathairn

Because her family is crazy. And wonderful. And totally familiar to everyone no matter how close or distant your own family is. It is to dysfunctional families what Big Fat Greek Wedding is to huge families. Probably not child appropriate. Very funny. Very life affirming. Very oh-my-god-someone-gets-what-it's-like-to-deal-with-my-family. One of my favorite films of all time.

"Nobody means what they say on Thanksgiving, Mom. You know that. That's what the day's supposed to be all about, right? Torture." - Claudia Larsen (played by Holly Hunter)

2. Pieces of April, 2003

"She's the one in every family."
21-year-old April Burns (Katie Holmes) who lives with her boyfriend Bobby (Derek Luke) in a dilapidated tenement on New York City's Lower East Side. April has never been on good terms with her mother, Joy (Patricia Clarkson), but Bobby convinces her to host her family for Thanksgiving. Features: Katie Holmes, Derek Luke, Oliver Platt, Patricia Clarkson, Alice Drummond, Lillias White, Isiah Whitock, Jr., Sean Hayes. Patricia Clarkson was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as April's mother.

Because sometimes family sucks. Sometimes the people who come through for you are not who you would expect. And that's wonderful. And human. And SO what Thanksgiving is all about as far as I'm concerned. Not child appropriate. Ultimately very positive and life affirming, but takes it's time getting there.

April Burns: "I'm the first pancake."
Evette: "What do you mean?"
Eugene: "She's the one you're supposed to throw out."

"Once, there was this day... this one day when... everyone realized they needed each other." - April Burns (played by Katie Holmes)

3. The House of Yes, 1997

"Enter at your own risk."
The movie is based on the play of the same name, which is written by Wendy MacLeod. Set on Thanksgiving Day 1983, the film involves NYC student Marty Pascal (Josh Hamilton)'s return to his family's suburban Washington D.C. mansion to introduce his fiancée, Lesly (Tori Spelling), to the family—including his mother (Geneviève Bujold), brother Anthony (Freddie Prinze, Jr.), and twin sister Jacqueline (Parker Posey), who prefers to be known as "Jackie-O", due to her obsession with the former first lady. The holiday begins a rapid downward spiral from the moment Jackie-O learns her brother is engaged.

Because nothing says "neurotic holiday" like Parker Posey doing the slo-mo beauty queen Jackie-O wave to an imaginary crowd from her living room couch. Not for the faint of heart. Not appropriate for kids... or most grandparents... or, well, A LOT of people. Not a happy movie, but brilliantly, bitingly funny.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go baste the turkey and hide the kitchen knives." - Mrs. Pascal (played by Geneviève Bujold)

4. Addams Family Values, 1993

A comic Gothic horror-type family tries to rescue their beloved uncle from his gold-digging new love. Featuring: Anjelica Huston, Raul Julia, Christopher Lloyd, Joan Cusack, Christina Ricci, Carol Kane, Peter MacNicol, Christine Baranski, Nathan Lane, and (everyone's favorite bubble-brain vampire in a far more wholesome role) Mercedes McNab

Because my all-time favorite on film Thanksgiving moment is Wednesday Addams chastising the yuppies for the plight of the Native Americans. Not a Thanksgiving film but has that great Thanksgiving scene. Essentially positive... appropriate for children old enough not to misinterpret the humor.

"We cannot break bread with you. You have taken the land which is rightfully ours. Years from now my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans, and drink highballs." - Wednesday Addams (Christina Ricci, in the role she was born to play)

5. A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, 1973

Peppermint Patty invites herself and her friends over to Charlie Brown's for Thanksgiving, and with Linus, Snoopy, and Woodstock, he attempts to throw together a Thanksgiving dinner.

Because it's the classic I've watched since I was a child. Perfect for all ages!

Charlie Brown: "I can't cook a Thanksgiving dinner. All I can make is cold cereal and maybe toast."
Linus van Pelt: "That's right. I've seen you make toast."

What other holiday presents you with such an array of wacky options?

On the Big Day, my sister and I are also going to watch Clue. 'Cause it is also about people who are connected to each other coming together for a big meal... just under slightly different circumstances. And, anyway, Tim Curry rocks. And so does Madeline Kahn.

I LOVE Thanksgiving.

Sometimes

2007-11-16T15:33:00.000-05:00

... when I'm angry about something and I rant and rave about it... later I look back on my anger and cannot help but picture myself as Max in Where the Wild Things Are. I can see myself stomping and roaring and waving my arms and growling unintelligibly. In footy pajamas. Even when my anger is all justifiable and such. In the back of my head, there's Max.

We're In This Together

2007-11-16T12:00:00.000-05:00

Today I received an email from my Aunt. It was one of those standard issue emails that goes on about sisterhood and valuing the women in your life. It was sweet and well-intentioned and, while I may have seen those emails a bazillion times, I was pleased that she thought of me.

Someone on her list responded first to my Aunt, and then apparently thought about it and and decided to send her response back to everyone on the list.

She wrote an enormous paragraph about how, in the 60’s, she bought into the idea of sisterhood and then she learned that she couldn’t depend on other women. She railed against feminism and ranted about how she had been let down by her fellow females. She went on. And on. And on. Bitterness, vitriol and verbal bile just spewing forth. First at my good natured Aunt and then at everyone else who had the misfortune to be on that list.

Now, it’s a shame this woman doesn’t have positive female relationships in her life. But her rant was about women on the whole letting her down. Like she expected complete strangers to help her because of their shared sex - without any evidence that she has treated other women in this fashion. Sometimes women who do not know each other offer each other support, that DOES happen. But that’s NOT what my Aunt’s email was about.

Sometimes we forget the value of the positive and close relationships we have with other women. We get wrapped up in dealing with husbands or boyfriends (who are in some cases wonderful partners and some cases horrible mistakes), with co-workers, with difficult family members, with people who do not support us or whose relationship with us is transitory. But if you are lucky enough to have a close relationship with even one female relative or a lifelong girlfriend who you can depend on - then that is a treasure. And it is important to stop and look at that and value it and remember not to take it for granted.

And while we're on the subject - I am SO SICK of hearing women say, “I really don’t like women. I don't meet women I like being around.” If that is the case, then you are not looking hard enough. We often fall into the trap of feeling as if we are simply competitors. There are only so many jobs that are going to go to women, only so many men to go around, only one woman can be the prettiest woman in the room - and yes, some women get wrapped up in that too much.

You cannot depend on strangers to support you, male or female. But you CAN form relationships with members of your own sex. WAKE UP! If you feel like “other women aren’t like me” then you haven’t been paying attention! We are as widely varied as can be. More so than men on the whole, because we get less flak for embracing both our feminine and masculine inclinations than men do. (Yes, people give a masculine woman a hard time and there are certainly cases of violence against transsexual men - men who were born with the bodies of women - and I do not wish to belittle that in any way. It is very serious. I am just saying that if you ask any transsexual woman to talk to you about her experiences you will learn a lot about the greater level of freedom that society affords people who are born with female “parts” to explore their options.)

I hate the word tomboy. I am sick of the word tomboy. Women use this word to say, “Look, I am more like men than women. I am proud to show how much closer I am to them than I am to you.” Oh, bite me. Do you have any idea how many women say they were a tomboy? Straight women, lesbians, skirt wearers, jeans women, tough women, soft women - it makes no difference. Like 90% say they were a tomboy. Which is to say that as a child you identified easily with boys, you liked to run around outside, maybe you fished for tadpoles or thought bugs were neat. Some boys played with dolls and pretended to clean house and explored play in nurturing roles. It’s part of being a child. It’s not a male or female thing. It’s a human thing. It doesn’t make you different. Get over it.

I play video games. I love science fiction movies. I am not afraid of spiders. I like to climb trees. I am not alone in this and I am not a tomboy. I am a woman. Plain and simple.

There was a time in my life when I said that I could not connect with women - that I was male centric. I took pride in this as thought it made me interesting and different. I thought all other women were stupid and “girly” or - excuse the word - evil, competitive bitches. Then I realized that a lot of women think this. It’s like this moronic rite of passage that huge numbers of us reject our femininity and connection to other members of our sex because we don’t realize that part of us can live side by side with our more traditionally masculine attributes and interests. Women backstab each other sometimes. Guess what? So do men. I feel sorry for any woman who does not realize the value of her relationships with other women and I feel sorry for women as a group that we have one less woman who wants that closeness to us.

In a perfect world, women would all be supportive of each other. Big shocker - we don’t live in a perfect world. But try going out your front door in the morning and looking at other women - women of other races than your own, women who are straight and gay, transsexual women, old women, young girls, women of different socio-economic circumstances - and interact with them while realizing that we have a common thread. Try looking at them as fellow members of a long line of women instead of competition. They understand things about you that no man ever will. There is a connection between women, even women who are strangers. Not all of us stop to feel it or are willing to feel it but, like it or not, it’s there. A common history of repression, of having once been considered property instead of peers. A common debt to the women and men who fought for us to have the right to work, to own property, to have a say in our government... to have any say at all. A common history of victimization and violence but also a common history of strength, of persistence, of shared knowledge, a common history of being nurturers and creators. You cannot depend on all women embracing this but you CAN make an effort to be aware of it yourself.

There’s a lot of good there. There is value in these connections. It's not about a movement or an issue or making a stand, it's your birthright. It's part of who we are and has the potential to enrich our lives. I am SICK TO DEATH of watching women refuse to see this.

My Aunt sent out a friendly reminder to the women in her life that she is there, that she values them, that we are connected. How pitiful that one of those women was too bitter to see it for what it was - a gift.

And now I'm going to go punch a wall.

Shelley Winters

2007-11-12T07:49:00.000-05:00

Life Magazine, 1949

“I think on-stage nudity is disgusting, shameful and damaging to all things American. But if I were 22 with a great body, it would be artistic, tasteful, patriotic and a progressive religious experience.”

- Shelley Winters

The two-time Academy Award winning actress was a fair bit larger in her later years but had an excellent sense of humor about her physique.

Right Now

2007-11-11T12:56:00.000-05:00

I am in my office on my day off because I needed to get a few things done. All the lights are off in the building because I am the only one here so it is not noticeable that anyone is in. Our building is a single story with a reasonably sized parking lot just outside my window and a healthy speckling of mature trees all over the grounds.

Right Now, as I type, there is a scrawny slip of a teenage boy in our parking lot. He has black hair that is cropped close on the sides and back and little longer on top. He's wearing a dark hoodie and skinny indie-boy blue jeans and had been standing just outside my window on his cell phone for 10 minutes now. The parking lot is covered in acorns and he is stepping on them and doing this sort of goofy unconcious dance as he squooshes acorns under his chunky sneakers. He swivels his hips as he twists to pop another acorn and then hops a bit to the next large gathering of them on the ground. It looks like someone doing the Twist in slow motion who has never actually seen the Twist and is reading instructions from a book.

Now he's hung up the phone... but the acorns, they call to him. They make a really satisfying crackle under your feet. I've noticed this whenever I walk to my car across the lot. And there are SO MANY of them left. I don't know if he is waiting for someone of if he is passing time by parking in our lot because he is in a fight with a parents or meeting a girlfriend nearby after a bit, but right now he is still doing this wonky dance right outside my window. Clearly, he has no idea he is being watched.

It's such a strange sensation to watch someone when they think they are alone. They will do things and move in an unselfconcious way that you almost never get to see otherwise. This pale little scene-boy probably affects a certain personality in front of his peers, in front of his parents, in front of other people. But right now he is not a cool 17 year old. Right now he is a kid popping acorns in front of my window with a simple, childlike joy.

Hop-twist, hop hop, twist and shift. A little content smile on his face while he concentrates on the acorns and their cheerful little pops.

dame

In My Mind

I want to be kind.I want to learn to be content.I want to be good at sharing my life with someone.I want creating to be a part of my daily life.

Crossing Paths

Holding My Breath

Beyond the Pale "Titles" survey

Moments

Talking to People Who Aren't There

Things They Don't Write How-To Books For

Hand Dancing

Jeremy Irons

Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire Revisited

The Dame Questionnaire!

Dating. The Absurd Circus.

How to Write Again

Just Like Starting Over

Unconditional

Therapy

I Talk to Dead People

One More Time, My Homage to John Hughes

What I Learned From John Hughes

Just be yourself.

Stick to your principles.

Everyone finds love.

... And everyone just wants to be loved.

We're not really all that different.

The best guys are geeks and/or hard-core individualists.

If you want someone badly enough,they will love you back.

Date and make friends outside your social circle / peer group.

The person you're meant to be withmay be right under your nose.

A certain lack of respect for authority is healthy.

Relax. Have fun. Spontaneity is it's own reward.

Oh, and almost everything happens in Shermer, Illinois.

My Life Through One Artist's Work

Rockin' Leettle Bitty Miracles

Pieces of My Fourth... or Fireworks: Not as Entertaining as an Anatomically Augmented Car

Happy Fourth of July...

Paradox

"I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love."- Mother Teresa

Healing

Being American

I Just Voted Because of the Issues

I Believe

Embracing Age

Late Night Thinking

10 Items or Less

Overheard

How Much is Too Much

Dame 2.0

Gender Roles

7 Songs Meme

Dorothy Parker

Tracey's Right - The Best Thing in The World EVER

Shirley MacLaine

“I don't need anyone to rectify my existence. The most profound relationship we will ever have is the one with ourselves.”

Dietrich

“Darling, the legs aren't so beautiful, I just know what to do with them.”

Bella

Because I'm Tired

Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks

"I fell in love with her then and there."

"When Mel told his Jewish mother he was marrying an Italian girl, she said: 'Bring her over. I'll be in the kitchen - with my head in the oven'."

"He understands not only with his brain but with his heart. And that might be called love. Not quite sure, but maybe that's the key."

The Improbable Bride

News

Best Mother's Day post

Kitties Bobbin'

Fathers and Daughters, part II

Fathers and Daughters

Craptaculous Film Adventures

Life

Ben Lee

Appropos of Nothing

This Madhouse Known as Earth

On a Cheerier Note

Mourning

In Between Times

Madonna

The Art of Meredith Dittmar

The Bizarre Look of Kohler

I want to be kind.

I want to learn to be content.

I want to be good at sharing my life with someone.

I want creating to be a part of my daily life.

If you want someone badly enough,
they will love you back.

The person you're meant to be with
may be right under your nose.

"I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love."
- Mother Teresa