As I await for Austin...

I didn’t know how much I wanted this – to win this contest. Now, with about 12 hours left, I am breathless. I’m pretty certain I’ll be leaving for Austin on Tuesday, with about $50 in my pocket so I guess I’m eating at McDonalds and Burger King while I’m there. Okay, the contest is not over yet and there is still the possibility that I will spend Wednesday doing what I usually do but I have faith that Austin awaits.

Why do I want this so much? Well, yes, the acknowledgment is wonderful. To have some success, even if it is through a vote-for-your-friends site, will be very fulfilling. To know my friends support me enough and care enough to be badgered and harassed and bugged daily to vote and then that they do vote humbles me in a way I can’t express. To have entered with 285 other competitors and made it to the top 5 is still stunning to me. It speaks to the quality of the product, the devotion of those who participated and, maybe, to my weirdly driven-ness.

This, though, culminates a journey that began just over two years ago at the opening night of “Lloyd’s Prayer.” My dearest Chairman said to me that night to stop giving away all the credit, to embrace that I am good at directing and to acknowledge it. That the reason “Lloyd’s” was so good was because of me, because of my vision and because of my talent. He and the others just expanded on that. I had never had anyone really say those words to me before – embrace and acknowledge that I am good at this. The men that I had loved in my life were never able to allow that to happen because if I acknowledged that part of me, it somehow diminished them.

That night opened my eyes to my gifts and to the fact that I had to do something with them or I was going to die. Literally die. Those words came at a time when I was quite literally on the verge of throwing it all away – my gifts, my abilities, my joy, my life. It hadn’t been very long before that that I had counted out the pills and contemplated giving it all up, just to make life easier. My heart so ached to be somebody, to achieve something, to have somebody be proud of me, to have somebody who allowed me the ability to play with my gifts and to have somebody open the door and let those gifts out.

I never realized that the person who kept those gifts locked away was me. I allowed this to happen, allowed others to make me feel as though my gifts, my dreams weren’t enough, weren’t right, weren’t of value. I allowed others to make me push my dreams to the back burner and ignore them. I allowed my talents to be diminished by those who could not discover and unleash their own gifts. I allowed them to almost break me.

Chairman’s words that night, though others had probably said the same thing at some point, finally broke through because I was on top of the world that night. I knew I had done something extraordinary, something precious and something amazing. I knew I had a cast like none that I would ever have again, that magic moment when everything comes together in perfection. And I knew that it was mine, it was me, it was where I was supposed to be. Destiny had arrived and I now had to choose what to do with it.

I thought that Chairman was the only voice speaking out at that time but, after that night, I began to hear that voice more and more, audibly and inaudibly. The fact that my “devoted psychopaths” continue to turn out to play with me on these ridiculously short time projects still humbles me to the core. But I also realize it means that they are echoing those words from Chairman – embrace and acknowledge your gifts. We’re here to help you with that. The fact that Ranger Smith and Madame H, two of the strongest writers I have ever worked with, keep wanting to hang out and eat funky food and blather endlessly about existential items and put words to paper echoes Chairman’s words. The support and encouragement I get from the ladies in the Career Success Group, who turn to me for mentoring and inspiration reflect those words so long and yet so short ago.

I changed in my life in June, 2005 so I could go out and find out if those words were true, that I had something worthy of acknowledgment, that I had something worth embracing, that I had something worth risking everything I already had to go and find. And even though the man who spoke those words to me on that night is now only on the fringes of my life, I will forever embrace him for saying the thing my heart had been crying out for. And for opening my ears to hearing those same words from others around me. And for helping me find a way to say, no, stop, I’m not going to let you diminish me anymore. I will not allow it. I am talented, I am gifted and it is wrong to not find a way to express it. So, good-bye, Susan Lee Johnson. That person is gone. I wonder sometimes who she even was.

When I arrive in Austin on Tuesday, it will be as Susan Lee, filmmaker, eccentric, moody, emotional, passionate, “weirdly driven”, focused and obsessed. I will be the Susan who woke up one night in 2005 to her friend saying the things that the one she loved would never utter. I will be the Susan that sees the path and is walking it with her head up high and the pleasure of some wonderful company walking the path with her. And I will take you all with me, in my heart and soul, and share it with you.

Vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote

We're #4 today. I'd like to be #3 or higher. Don't ask, it's just an obsession.

Please vote for The Change-Up at Famecast.com.

You know the drill. If you don't, register at Famecast, bookmark our page, then vote every day. That's it. That simple.

Please help send me to Austin next week. I promise a lovely blog filled with pictures.

Please help us to win $10,000 to finance "The Wraith."

Thanks for your continued support.

The week that was

Wow, been a tough, tough week.

Many tears shed, many emotions gone through.

But tonight, there will be celebrating.

"The Change-Up" is #1 at Famecast.com.

Number freaking one.

I had aimed to start in the top 5 in the top 5 round. Never imagined we would start at #1.

The rankings are not public but it's on my account page.

I am overwhelmed.

Packing for Austin!

Voting starts again today for "The Change-Up"

Voting begins again for “The Change-Up” on Famecast.com on Saturday, November 17th at 6 PM PST.

Here are some ways to make voting easier – remember, you can vote once a day – or just vote once. Every vote counts!

1. Register at http://www.famecast.com.

2. Follow directions on your confirmation email. If you don't get a confirmation email, go to Famecast.com and click on "Re-issue confirmation email."

3. Bookmark our page http://www.famecast.com/lifeonitssideproductions

4. Vote. Every single freaking day. It's that easy.

You can register and vote with more than one email account, if you're really bored at work.

Voting ends on Saturday, December 1st. Please support all the hard work of the cast and crew!

Struggles

It is a struggle to keep going in this direction when adversity seems determined to take away the joy of success.

I am heartsick today at the thought of losing this sanctuary where I have grown so far and so much. I am devastated by the challenge against my creative ability. I am rattled to the core of my being by these challenges. I like to think I’m strong and powerful and bigger than this but the truth is, I am not. I am crushed and wounded and aching and angry and all the things I cannot express.

I have lost so much that the potential loss of this is almost more than I can bear. I’ve lost the OOMA and his friendship, which devastates me still. I have lost my relationship of 20 years out of my own choice. I have lost independence in some ways. I have lost my singular existence. I have lost so very much. There have been many gains but sometimes, the losses overwhelm those gains and make it almost impossible to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

I have to do a meeting on Monday where I feel like I have to stand in front of these amazing women and try and motivate and inspire them at a moment when I am so far from inspired. I hope I can find the ways to do that because these women are part of the reason I do keep doing what I do. They inspire me.

I know I’ll recover, no matter what happens. I know I’ll go on and keep going because there is nothing else I can do. But right now, what I wouldn’t give for some simple peace, some simple time of not doubting myself and my abilities, someone to hold me close right now and assure me that everything’s going to be all right, fuck them, and we will go on.

Maybe that’s the toughest part of this recent – and past – struggles. No arms to hold me, no mouth to say those words then gently kiss me, make me feel safe and secure and comforted.

There is no comfort tonight. There may not be any to come for a very long time.

So I go on, because I don’t know what else to do.

New watercolor

Here's something I've been working on.

Enjoy.

And on the other hand

At a time when I should be celebrating the achievement of this latest endeavor, the creative quality of it and of my recent body of work is being challenged and called into question. Hard choices will be made in the morning. I just hope I am wrong.

Top 10 on Famecast.com!!!

"The Change-Up" has made it to the Top 10 on Famecast.com.

A huge congratulations to my writing team, Monica Hafer and David Smith, my cast, Peter Ross Stephens, Tricia Pierce, Kerr Seth Lordygan, and Erin Treanoer, and my incredible crew.

The next round of voting for the top 5 opens in six days, so look for some bugging from me 'round then.

In the meantime, thanks for your votes. You got us there, you can keep us there.

Luv. =)

Arms

All the affection from all of my friends cannot make up for the lack of a pair of arms belonging to a loved one to wrap me up and hold me and take the world from me for just a moment.

That’s what’s been pushing me into the depths recently, I think. I know I am loved. I know I have amazing friends in my life. I have this creative life I’ve always dreamed of. Yet there is a hollowness, an emptiness that no one can fill.

When I walked out of my old life, I knew I would miss things and be lonely and it would be hard.

But I didn’t think it would be this hard.

He has someone. Has had someone for some time. And had a few someones before her. He is happy, I guess. Happy after I took so much from him and I don’t begrudge him that. I left partly because I knew he was so unhappy and I could not find his happy for him. Or for me. He has the ordinary life he craved and that I could not provide. He has arms to hold him and care for him and take him in.

All the friends, all the joy, all the beauty cannot make up for the lack of those arms. As beautiful as my life is, as full as it is, there is a space around me that dies for those arms to wrap me up.

Cute Boy is fine for now but there is someone else to whom his arms belong. I have no right to intrude on that. I live for those moments of hello and good-bye when his strong arms wrap me up and give me, for one millisecond, the feeling of being loved, of being held by someone who loves me. Then his arms are gone and he is gone and his arms envelope the other woman in his life. I hope she knows what she has in those arms as they are quite lovely arms (sorry, watching “Notting Hill” and my prose has suddenly become English).

I had thought the OOMA would be the one to wrap me up but he has since left me as well, standing alone, looking at his shadow, wondering where he has gone. When I do see him on the rare occasion, his arms are cautious and distant, holding me off, keeping me away. I miss the warmth of his embrace, his eyes, his smile. But they are also on to some other muse, someone who is filling his thoughts for the moment, whoever that may be.

I crave that – the moment of intimacy that is there in a loving embrace. You can’t fake that. You cannot duplicate or copy or mimic the arms of one who loves you.

I have yet to find another pair. And at times like these, I am the saddest because I am afraid I will never feel that seductive, comforting, indescribable warmth again.

I guess whoever I am waiting for – whoever God is holding on to for me – must be someone terribly special, terribly perfect, to keep me waiting this long.

I just hope he has good arms.

Today

Frustrated.
Angry.
Disappointed.
Wounded.
Defensive.
Furious.
Despondent.
Isolated.
Hopeless.
Alone.
Exhausted.
Heartbroken.
Empty.
Pointless.