Mixed bag o'stuff

Well, the fundraiser did not go as well as we would have liked. Although I have to say, I’m almost not surprised. It’s so hard to do something like this in L.A. because people are so jaded and not about to reach out and help their fellow artist. I can’t count how many people assured me that they were going to be there tonight because they believe in me, they believe in the project, they think it’s a great thing I’m doing. And they were not there. Again, would love to say I’m surprised but I’m just not. Put your money where your mouth is – cough up the 20 bucks then if you can’t make it. Don’t give me an excuse. Don’t tell me why you didn’t come. Cough up the money, honey, then tell me why you stood me up. Sorry, I’m a bit miffed.

But, although the numbers were very low, the small audience certainly enjoyed the music. Most people hung out for a good portion of the night instead of breezing in and then taking off after a song or two. And these bands were incredible. Annaliese sang her soulful heart out and really touched a lot of people there tonight. As always, Deena Rubinson and her “Sweet Sweet Voice” was darling and gorgeous and she shared the theme song of the film, “Goodbye Cinderella” to a rousing round of applause. Although my personal favorite is still “Blinking.” And it helped that my best friend, Zadra, was up there singing with her. Jeddrah rocked the joint, and it was the first time I’d heard a full set by her. I was blown away by her and her band and the amazing musicians that they are. Then the stunning Adonna Vichet made a special appearance and showed us all how a woman should strip the old-fashioned way. Sophisticated even in her altogether, it was such a treat to hear her sing and watch her perform. The men in the audience certainly appreciated it! The evening was topped off by a very cool performance by Nellie Bly. Missy and her band are favorites of mine. Missy usually rocks out and straddles the mike stand like nobody’s business and she did her best considering she is 8-1/2 months pregnant. She has the voice of a drunken goddess who’s been smoking too much and I adore her moxy. Her song, “Pretty Girl”, (see my recent blog for lyrics) is my theme song.

I kept finding myself saying, “Oh, I love this song” or “I love this band” or “I hope they do this one.” As the evening progressed and each band seemed to top the one before, I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by the talent up on the stage. It’s easy to think that an artist is talented when you listen to their CD and scan through their songs or see them perform by themselves. But as the performers stacked one on top of the other, I couldn’t help but appreciate the talent in that room tonight. And the generous spirit of these performers who gave of their time graciously and were so supportive and encouraging about this project that I found myself almost moved to tears several times.

Speaking of being moved to tears, my favorite part of the night came as a bit of a surprise. I used to belong to a group of friends who would get together once a month to set goals, plan our careers and generally challenge and push each other to succeed. Some of us participated in what became the Career Success Group for as much as five years, trying to figure out what we wanted to do with our lives and our talent and figure out how to get there. Well, most of us were there tonight, not by design, and we found ourselves standing together at a table. As I looked at these people, some of whom I have maybe grown a little distant from due to circumstances, I was so overwhelmed by how far each of us has gone in those five little years. Zadra was just trying to figure out what she wanted to do when she joined us. She couldn’t decide between acting and singing or something in between. She stumbled into performing with Damon and the Willies and has not stopped singing since. In face, she and Damon sang with Deena tonight and that was definitely one of the greatest pleasures of the night for me. Tony and Donna have done such wonderful work in the story salon that their two person show, Guess Who’s Coming To Coffee, has been accepted into two Fringe Festivals. Darryl has been directing steadily over at the Road and doing quite well there. And he’s fallen in love with my beautiful friend, Shelley, which was one of his goals as well. Maybe not Shelley specifically but to find someone to share his life with. Such a wonderful goal. And Adrienne, who has struggled so long with physical and personal issues, to see her smiling and beautiful and finally putting so much pain – both physical and emotional – behind her so that she is now beginning to embrace her life is just as amazing and rewarding as our own career goals. And Erik, who, while never really officially a member of the group, always seemed to be on the edge of it, struggling along with us to realize his own goals. And I realized, standing there in that group of friends, that I would not be here, in this place, today if it weren’t for them. Their challenges, their support, their encouragement and friendship got me through many deep, dark days and kept me going on this path when I thought I might give it up. They were the first to see and acknowledge the artist in me and made sure that I didn’t let that fall by the wayside. I was overcome with emotion as I stood there with them, realizing how easy it would have been to walk away and leave everything I now live for behind when the struggle seemed so hard. I’m so glad that I didn’t and I’m so glad that they were in my life when I needed them the most.

This made me take a good look around tonight at who had come. There were so many faces there that I love, so many people who have shown me how much they care by just showing up and putting down their $20, not expecting anything for it in return. So many artists who are going to be sharing this experience with me and just wanted to come and be a part of tonight. Although the attendance was small in numbers, it was huge in my heart. I had a hard time towards the end keeping my emotions in check as I looked from one friend to another and found their love and their warmth right there on the surface, being held out to me. I was so deeply moved by those who came up to me afterwards and told me that they are proud of me and how far I’ve come and what I’m accomplishing. That meant the world to me, as did the many phones calls and emails and messages from those who could not make it but wanted me to know that they were there in spirit.

And tonight would not have been even the minor success it was if it wasn’t for those who stepped up and chipped in and helped out. Erik and Patty handling the door, Paul just being there as the official Ark support and really offering his encouragement and praise. Tracey G. taking on camera duty and documenting the entire night. Monica for taking my digital camera and capturing what she could in the low light without blinding all of us. And, of course, my dearest Chairman, who took on the bands and kept them on time and in line, dealing with all the technical aspects of tonight while I dealt with the other stuff. This night would not have been as successful if it wasn’t for him. As always, his unconditional support of this project never ceases to amaze me and I am always grateful to have him with me in any capacity. He is truly one of my greatest friends.

So as I now rest my aching feet – still not used to high heels and short dresses – and try to settle down enough to sleep for a couple of hours before I have to get up and deal with work I ignored today, I am satisfied with knowing that Chairman and I did everything we could tonight to make it a success. And many others around us helped in whatever way they could – reposting the notices on Myspace, handing out flyers, adding their own invites to those he and I sent – and that certainly didn’t go without notice. So there is nothing we could have done better really. We did it the best we could and at least we didn’t lose our shirts (now, come on, no striptease jokes, please). Although I did love the chant for Chairman to follow Adonna in her striptease with his own. I can lay my head down tonight knowing that it was the best it could be and those who came enjoyed it. Hopefully, that good will and good karma with the bands will bring prosperity to us through Paypal. Or is that sacrilegious?

Good night and thanks again to those who came out and supported us.

On this journey...

I almost feel like this should be one of those story games, where someone begins with “I’m going on a trip and I’m going to pack….” and the rest of the dorks sitting in the circle with you fill in the blanks.

I feel like I’m filling in blanks lately.

It’s that damned full moon again.

On this journey, I have found myself. I’m still digging through the pieces, trying to put the puzzle together, but as each step, each day goes by on this journey, I feel stronger, more confident, more me than I have felt in years.

On this journey, I have discovered the many faces of love in all of its forms. Incredible friends who have embraced this new, infant me and held out their hands to help me take my first steps. Who have held me when I’ve cried and shared pieces of their hearts with me as I go. Tentative steps towards falling in love again, offering that part of my heart out to the object of my affection, whether he knows it’s offered or not. It’s still a step I have to take in order to get to the place where I can love and be loved in the way I want to. The unconditional love of my parents and my family. Can’t even look at that, it’ll make me cry.

On this journey, I have found passion. Passion for my art(s). Passion for music, which I never realized how much I missed it. Passion for the simplest, most basic things in life – singing, dancing, laughing, playing. Really embracing the artist in me has been the most incredible part of releasing this passion and allowing the artist to play.

On this journey, I have found joy. I’ve listed my joys plenty enough in previous blogs and you all know what they are. But that list continues to grow, as I can only hope it will always grow. That is the most precious of all of these gifts, the gift of pure and simple joy. I missed that so much. I lost that ability, the ability to embrace joy, and it was devastating. Now, I never, ever want to lose that again.

On this journey, I have found pain, unlike anything I have ever felt before. The pain of realizing that my marriage was over, the pain of realizing that he didn’t even realize it. The pain of walking away from the only life I’ve known since I’ve lived here and leaving all of that behind. The pain of knowing I can never go back. The pain of discovering just how much I had been hurt by him, how much anger I have at him, how much pain he inflicted on me and I just accepted it. The pain of losing friendships in sudden, heart-rending, unexpected ways. The pain of knowing that I will lose my father some day soon. Not immediately, maybe not even before the end of the year. But knowing that his time is growing small, that his battered heart keeps him hanging on, that he gives me everything that he can from that battered heart, that is a pain I’m not ready for yet.

On this journey, I am finding my destiny. I know where I am supposed to be. I know I am on the path to that. I know in my heart that all of the sacrifices will be worth it and it is where I’m meant to be.
On this journey, I have found fellow travelers. Miah (http://thesecretofmybecoming.blogspot.com/), Champagne year (http://champagneyear.blogspot.com/), Twyla (no, not my cat but http://lostinthebattle.blogspot.com/), and Xariklea (http://xariklea.blogspot.com/), as well as my own sister (http://picturethisifyoucan.blogspot.com/). It’s so incredibly moving to me that I am not alone in this journey. We are all different ages, different in our situations, from different parts of the country, yet we’re all trying to figure out where to go from here. We’re not young, we’re not children, we have lived significant lives already but are now questioning where our next 30, 40, 50 years will take us. I don’t know if it’s just that maybe this generation is the first to realize that we will live to 80 or longer, so at 40, we can start an entire new life and live it fully and completely for another 40 years. Suddenly, we have options that maybe our parents’ generation did not. It is so inspiring to know that I am not only accompanied on this journey by those who I love, who love me, but also by those I have never met – and probably never will. That we share such a common thread, common experience, common suffering and pain that we can reach across the miles through this amazing technology of 1’s and 0’s and reach out to each other and let each other know that we are not alone, that there is comfort, there is growth, there is something more that we maybe cannot see right now. This is actually what inspired this blog tonight, getting a message from Miah about the fundraiser tonight, her encouragement reaching out to me from… I’d have to look at her blog to even tell you where she’s from. But that faceless, almost nameless person reaching out to me so graciously just made me think about this journey and what I am finding.
On this journey, I think I am discovering that it is a long journey from here. There are many adventures to be had, many joys to be found, much passion to be unleashed, much pain to still be experienced in order to grow, much love in its various forms to be experienced, many other fellow travelers to pass at crossroads and signposts, much more of me to be found. I hope to keep up this journey with expectation of growth and discovery, of sharing this journey with someone who will enjoy and appreciate the path, and to have a very long time to get to the end of the journey, never regretting a single step along the way.
Good night, fellow travelers. See you on the path.

Here we go...

Two days until the “Cinderella” fundraiser and, of course, I can’t sleep. I don’t think I’ll sleep again until after we’re done shooting.

I’m nervous, anxious, excited, thrilled, terrified and about 900 other things all at once. What if only 30 people show up? What if 300 people show up? What could go wrong? What could go right?

As with everything in my life these last eight months, I’m learning so much about myself as I go through this project. I realized tonight that I spent so much time in the last few years talking about all the various things that could wrong with any project that I was working on that my focus was beginning to go to the negative first – what’s going to go wrong and how bad is it going to be? Not in an anticipatory sort of way, as in, how can we prevent this from going wrong or anticipating potential problems. Mostly just focusing on what could go wrong so that by the time we get there, my brain would be full of all the wrong things and I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the experience because I’m too busy anticipating problems.

My biggest hope for Tuesday is for me to enjoy myself, enjoy this time, enjoy this event. Take a moment to realize that it is the beginning of something huge and wonderful and amazing. And if something goes wrong – and it will—that’s okay. Besides the small army of volunteers coming to help out, I know I can rely on Chairman to be right there, to lean on, to count on.

The thing that overwhelms me with this project is how it just is coming together. I don’t want to jinx anything but it does simply seem to be the time to do this. I have never had such positive support on anything I have done. I have never had the sheer power of positive thinking so focused on something I’m working on. There has always been that negative influence at my side, trying to shake me up, sucking the joy out of everything. Now that it’s gone, nothing seems impossible.

I’m finding more and more strength and confidence in myself as I go through each little thing that it takes to put this project together. Had some crew interviews tonight, which went well. I think I found my director of photography and a lovely woman to take on-set shots. There is a feeling I have to learn to get past of missing/wanting/needing someone at my side to verify my instinct, to make sure I’m doing the right thing, making the right decision. I have not been allowed to rely on myself and my own intuition for so long that it feels foreign and strange to listen to that strong voice, that strong presence, that strong force inside of me that tells me I’m doing it right. But that’s what I want – to free that voice and allow that strength to preside over everything I do. Trust that inner voice, because it rarely leads me astray.

I’m currently spending a lot of time listening to music I have selected for the film, to make sure I’m familiar with the music that my bands are going to be playing on Tuesday. It’s out of respect for their contributions that I feel I should be fairly familiar with all of their music that I do have. Listening right now to Nellie Bly and “Pretty Girl,” whose lyrics I love. It’s me.

“I don’t have no pretty girl hands,
I don’t dress quite right.
My face is weathered,
my teeth are yellow, not white.
But I can ease any man’s load,
My back is strong as hell,
Maybe I’m not graceful
but I stood up when I fell.

I don’t have no pretty girl spells,
I don’t faint nor blush.
My skin is dry like leather,
my feet are dirty and rough.
But I can ease any man’s pain.
These hips are strong as steal.
Maybe I’m not dainty
but I can steer.

I don’t need no pretty girl mouth
Cuz I don’t talk too sweet.
My lips are thin and tight,
My eyes are lined and deep.
But I can please any man’s mind
These thoughts are mine to keep.
Baby, I’m not careful.
These words are mine to speak.”

Those lyrics and Deena’s from “Goodbye Cinderella” -- “what good does it do/to run with one shoe/if nobody’s following you.”

Once again, I find myself enjoying discovering the gift that music is. I’m so glad that so many people came forward with thoughts, suggestions and CD’s for me to listen to – Zadra, Chairman, Peter, Shanti, Misha, Anna B., and I know I’m missing many others because so many people gave me music. It’s an area I was always told I didn’t know what I’m doing in and yet I find that I really do. I love the music selected for the soundtrack not only for the music itself, but what these women have to offer as their views on life, their opinions.

Sorry, I shouldn’t blog late at night when I’m tired because lately it’s become a rambling, almost incoherent series of unconnected thoughts. But I guess that’s where I am right now. Can’t wait to get to – and through – Tuesday. Then maybe I can focus on the directing part of the gig instead of the producing part. Once I know how much money we raise, I can then move forward knowing what our resources are.

At this point, I will ask for your positive energy, good thoughts and many, many prayers that Tuesday is successful. I again thank you all for your love, your encouragement, your support through all of my crazy, full-moon-driven nights and endless ponderings on life itself. When “Cinderella” succeeds, it will certainly be largely because of this energy and support I feel from all of you. And I can never thank you enough for that gift.

Good night, sleep well for me and I’ll see a batch of you on Tuesday!

Damned fence

Should be in bed, should be asleep but am not. Okay, I’m in bed, in my Nick & Nora’s with the sheep on them, Twyla purring nearby. My eyes are sleepy but they are apparently the only body part that is.

I’ve put myself in a crazy-making situation and don’t know what to do about it. Can’t move forward, can’t move back. Can only stand in this moment, thinking, “what the hell am I doing?” Feeling like I’m making an idiot of myself. Feeling like I’m so transparent and silly and a million other things. Yet I’m frozen in place, same place I have been for so long. Can’t seem to cut loose and just let it go. Can’t find that comfortable place again that I was in for such a short time.

Felt like – and feel like – spilling my guts tonight, laying it all on the table, whether in person or in blog-o-sphere. But, of course, I won’t do anything but obsess and worry and continue with the crazy-making.

I’m a grown woman, two marriages and a handful of relationships in the past. Why can’t I figure this out? I hate fence-sitting and, yet, here I am. Firmly planted on that damned fence. I guess it’s gonna take a hurricane to get me off of it. Or something to draw me to anther fence, to sit, to obsess, to make an ass of myself over there. At least it would be something different.

Reaching...

I’m in a weird place recently. It feels like a crossroads lies in front of me and I’m approaching the fork. There’s a signpost like the one in “M.A.S.H.” listing all of the different places I can go and places where I have come from. I guess the post would read something like this – Winnipeg, 2 divorces, China, parents, friends, career #1, career #2, career #3, pain, heartbreak, broken promises, healing, life, love, unknown future…

I’ve never been happier in my professional life as I am right now. The fundraiser on Tuesday is (I’m hoping) shaping up to be very successful. People are starting to talk about how to contribute if they can’t make it (www.cinderelladrivesapickup.com, in case you were wondering – any amount will do) and even talking about investing in the film. The energy and the support and the just mind-blowing freight-train-ness of this project is almost overwhelming. I’m actually having a hard time accepting the fact that this is going to happen and it’s going to be amazing. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop – and it may still drop. But the love, support, enthusiasm and general good karma seems to all finally be in place for me to realize one of the biggest dreams of my life – my first feature film. I’m getting to make it with some of the most amazing people and some of my best friends – Chairman, of course, Peter, Erik, Patty, A.J., Misha, my great friends, Donna and Dean, two wonderful actresses in the lead – Suzannah and Vanessa. I can’t even name all the wonderful people who are going to be at my side. It’s overwhelming to have that much unconditional support.

I guess I’ve spent so much time in the last few years having the other shoe drop and being told all the negative things that are/could/should/will/would happen that I can’t seem to deal with not having that voice in my head. I’m actually finding myself waiting to be told I can’t do something, I can’t have something, I can’t actually achieve this dream because of… I don’t know what. That somehow I am lacking and don’t deserve to achieve this. That I have talent but only as much talent as someone close to me will allow me to have. I’m waiting to be told what a failure I will be and that I cannot possibly handle this.

Sometimes, the hardest thing for me to deal with is knowing that I accepted the criticism and the badgering and the negativity for so many years. That I allowed all of that to seep into my soul and haunt my creative life. That I never trusted myself, my vision, my heart and soul because the one person whose opinion mattered the most to me could only, as time went by, diminish my gifts instead of encourage them. I don’t know why and I don’t understand why he had to do this. I just know that it’s made it difficult at times for me to fully enjoy and experience the wonderful things going on in my life because I haven’t exorcised all of his demons yet. That’s when I realize it’s only been eight months since I left him. Eight months. After 16 years. It seems like only a few days ago and it feels like years ago.

I’m so proud of how far I have come and I’m so glad I have come as far as I have. I’m glad I’ve been working with this wonderful therapist who is helping me find a way to make sure that I am present in my life and that I don’t allow myself to be buried again. But there are still days when I see how far I have to go, how much pain and anger and hurt I still have to deal with. I feel the pressure and the negativity waiting around the corner, hovering for the opportunity to leap in and destroy this precious balance I have worked so hard to achieve.

Personally, I am also standing at the crossroads, trying to figure out what I want in my life and what I want my life to be. Financially, I am really reaching a difficult point where I will have to bite the bullet and find a way to work at a job while juggling the film. Not sure how to do that but it’s a necessity. I see the potential on the horizon for several of my little ventures to come together into something successful but, right now, it’s just beyond my reach.

So many things seem just beyond my reach right now and, for the most part, that’s okay. I like to live my life just out of reach. That keeps me going, keeps me growing, keeps me reaching out to touch those dreams, those passions, those nuggets of wonder that are so rich and so precious when I actually get my fingers wrapped around them.

I’m hoping that’s true about my heart. That’s the biggest struggle for me right now. Part of me is ready to find someone to be with, thinks it knows who it wants to be with, and wants to jump in and say, “hey, guess what, I’m in love with you, you doofus. What’dya think?” The other part of me wants to bury its head in the sand and just be for a while. Crossroads. Two different choices, two different signposts. I want to wrap my fingers around what is just in front of me but it doesn’t seem close enough yet.

I feel like I’ve spent the last three or four years looking so hard into myself and into my relationship and into him that, at this point, I’m done looking. I’m tired of examining every thought, every feeling, every look, every touch. I’m tired of figuring out where I learned to react this way and where the hurt comes from. I’m tired of celebrating every little success as I learn to open up and allow others in. I’ve looked and I’ve looked and I’ve looked and I’ve looked. I’ve looked so hard at myself that I’m not sure I’m seeing anything anymore.

I think I want to just be for a while. Look at the signpost and see what choices there are. Maybe sit on the side of the road and see who comes up to join me instead of chasing down people to walk with me. Gather my thoughts, gather my emotions, or just release them into the wind. No expectations of results (other than the practical ones that have to be met – like the film, job, etc.). No examination of the soul. No test on whether or not I’m learning, growing, striving. Just allow what I’ve learned, how I’ve grown, what I’ve seen some time to blossom without tending. Then, eventually, get up, dust off my butt, and study the signpost a little closer to see where I want to go next. And hopefully, find a hand in mine that will help me decipher the signpost and move forward to the next adventure.

Heart in hand

I want to go back – before there was a possibility, an inkling, a potential put out there. Before the whisper got into my ear. When it was simple and just the company was enjoyed. When I didn’t think, didn’t worry, didn’t contemplate everything.

I spent the last years of my marriage giving my heart and my soul to a man who didn’t know what to do with them. Instead, he left my heart laying there, on the ground, beating, bleeding, calling out for him to pick it up and make it better. I finally had to take it back and hide it deep within myself to protect it from getting shattered even more.

And now, I’m doing it again. Holding my heart out in my hands to one who doesn’t see it there. At least he’s not knocking it out of my hands and kicking it around the room. I think I’m doing that quite effectively by myself. But the hints and glimpses of something imagined make it difficult to keep holding it out there.

Maybe I should pull it back and put it away. After all, it’s only a gift if he takes it.

Jumping

Since poetry seems to be the requirement this week, here's a shot:

I stand
toes
on the edge,
looking
all
the
way down.
Heart
in my throat.

I jump.

It'll end
either in
a beautiful swan dive
and I'll
catch the wind
and
soar.

Or

you'll find me
embedded
in the roof
of someone's car
and ask

what the hell was she thinking?

Getting their freak on...

What the hell is it with the freaky guys and karaoke? Okay, I realize that’s kind of a silly question in and of itself but...

Last week, singing at the mike, doing my karaoke thing. Guy who I was introduced to as “so and so’s brother” grabs my ass on his way back from the bathroom. Has the nerve to wink at me as he passes by.

Okay, so, that’s bad enough. Tonight, however, the freaks grew braver.

I’m singing Bonnie Raitt, still feeling a little funky cuz of the residual flu effects. But I’m holding my own.

Suddenly, Freako Boy is leaning into my personal space, like he’s trying to look down my shirt. Strange, since I’m wearing a turtleneck. He’s not looking at the screen, he’s leaning waaaay into me. Then his shorter, weirder, uglier friends sidles up and opens his wallet and shows it to me. WTF?!!!!

I look over at my chick-posse, trying to do the subtle head tilt, look at the freaks thing. They smile and wave at me. I mouth “help me”. They just shrug.

Meanwhile, I can smell Freako Boy’s breath. Not pleasant. They continue to hover.

What I really wanted to do – in such an Ally McBeal moment – was take the microphone and beat them both to death with it. Or take my hand, shove it firmly into the face and push that freak and his sidekick all the way out on to Hollywood Blvd., to be with the other freaks.

But, instead, for some insane reason, I was polite and just tolerated them until I got to the end of the song.

Peter came straight over to me afterwards and said, “Wow, the freaks really do come after you.” Thanks. I didn’t know this.

The girls then apologized and said that they didn’t see Freako Boy and Sidekick. There were that usual bunch of guys hanging out, blocking the front table view. I forgive them – kind of.

All I know is that at this rate, I’m never gonna get laid. And if I do, it’s going to be freaky—and not the good kind.

She's baaacckk!

Wow, four days sick in bed gives one way too much time to think.

The klowns set up their big tops somewhere around 5 AM on Monday, after about the third time I threw up nothing (I always see them as Killer Klowns as opposed to Ringling Bros. clowns). They had their themes down, having apparently practiced for a while after I banished them the last time. This time, however, they waited until I had no immune system and was too weak to fight them. They moved in, set up and made a lot of noise.

Theme #1 – Object of my affection has no use for me whatsoever. I’ve pushed him away, destroyed whatever friendship existed and now he sticks around because he doesn’t know how to leave. I manage to chase away every man I find important (including one very painful one that apparently the clowns were now trying to convince me was my fault). I have too high expectations and I frighten away men who only want to be friends. I expect too much from them, I demand too much from them, I am just too damned much and I deserve to be alone for the rest of my life. I have already lost this very lovely man and it’s all my fault.

Theme # 2 – The film is never going to happen. It’s just another in a long series of failures that I have in my wake and who am I kidding? I’ve never been able to do something like this before, what makes me think I can do it now? I’m just going to disappoint everyone and make a fool out of myself yet again, leaving me with nothing, which is what I deserve. I’m kidding myself with the thought that I have talent, skill or anything redeemable that would make anyone want to actually do this with me. They’re all just tolerating me, no one really believes in me or this project. So I should just quietly let it die and hope nobody notices.

Theme #3 – I should have never left my marriage. At least I knew what hell it was. At least there was money coming in and I didn’t have to burden my already over-burdened parents with paying my bills. I should get my shit together, give up these foolish dreams, get a fucking job already and behave like an adult. I’m almost 44 years old, I shouldn’t be living like this.

And so it goes on…

Four days of this.

I woke up this morning at 6 AM (thanks to my feisty furball who was apparently chasing the klowns around the room) and immediately thought “what the f***?!” Immediately, the calliope music stopped. I could almost hear the whoosh as the big tops came down and the klowns slunk their pasty-faced butts out of my head.

My brain kicked in and a million things that needed to be done crowded out all the circus sounds and I knew I was on my to recovery.

I also realized, as I have been groggily working my way through things today, that I have been waiting. Waiting for someone to tell me it’s okay to do the things that need to be done – or rather plan the things that need to be planned. I’m so used to having to get approval from a significant other about even my artistic endeavors that I realized I was figuring I would have to make sure everyone else was good with what I had planned for the film before I went ahead and planned it, including scheduling meetings, rehearsals, etc.

I woke up today and realized that it’s all on me. Yes, there are some things that I do need to get input on because I am unsure or because it does involve numerous schedules, etc. But for the most part, this is my show. MY SHOW. Wow. How hard is that for me to get through my thick, stupid head? MY SHOW. I don’t need to wait on anyone. If something doesn’t work, I can always change it, but to wait around for some unknown approval is just plain silly.

Four days of being sick made me realize that it’s now time for me to take the stick, take control, run the klowns over if they won’t get out of the way, and get on with the rest of my life… starting with my film. My film.

Felled by the flu...

Flu bug caught up to me late Sunday night. At first, I thought it was just my bronchitis acting up until... well... I'll spare you the details but it's definitely the flu.

Been in bed since then. Ate something for the first time last night and it finally stayed down. Still very, very weak this morning but feeling halfway human.

Frustrated because there's so much work to do on Cinderella and I haven't been able to do anything but sleep and lay on the couch. I get winded just going from my bedroom to the living room. Hopefully, I'll be able to eat more today and get my strength back. I've got over 50 applications for crew positions on Cinderella to go through, which I am thrilled about, and stuff to do for the fundraiser (which by the way is two weeks from today - if you can't come, give us your $20 anyway!).

I guess it's better I'm sick now than a week from now or when we're shooting. I just hate it. Being sick not fun!

Yuck.

Sick. Coughing up a lung – damned asthmatic bronchitis. Need to get Airborne and comfort food.

Lonely – see blog from last night – still applies.

Tired. Shouldn’t have gone to see Snakehandlers but really glad I did. Didn’t get to sleep until 3:30 and then woken at 8 by noisy chatty neighbors (imagine “Pick A Little Talk A Little” in Spanish).

Not suitable for human consumption. Not suitable for much. Gonna lay on the couch, eat comfort food and just moan in despair (okay, maybe not despair but it’s just such a good word).

Missing...

Missing someone tonight that I have no business missing because he’s never been mine to miss. Had a moment where I thought he might have been but somehow missed it. It was either me or him, not sure exactly. Just know that tonight, I wish he were here.

Pleasant dreams (I hope)

Had thought I would blog more tonight as I have a half-dozen crazy things running around in my head but a lovely bath (“it’s beautiful lukewarm”), a shea butter bath bomb (guys, you’re not supposed to know what that is, so don’t panic) and a nice, relaxing night have banished those crazy thoughts to the back of my mind, where I’m sure they will resurface at around 3 AM. So if they do, look forward to the dumping of my head in the AM. If they don’t surface, then I shall sleep soundly with a purring Twyla near my head on my newly washed sheets and hopefully grab a yoga class before a very long day at the Ark Saturday.

Okay, so a lovely bath doesn’t quite take the place of lovely sex or a lovely man to go with that lovely sex, but, for tonight, it will do.

Pleasant dreams…

Pop-o-Matic rules my life

(My friends, Monica and Patty, and I were discussing life, men and board games last night at karaoke. They did their turn and blogged on this subject on Myspace, so I'm sharing my thoughts with you all.)

Guess it’s my turn to ruminate on the board game metaphor.

While Monica and Patty did a splendid job with the Monopoly concept, I tend to think of my life more in the terms of Trouble or Sorry.

Just when I figure I’m close to “home,” some asshole lands on my and sends me back either to the beginning or just far enough back to have to fight to regain my ground. And then the Pop-o-Matic rolls and sends me on my way again, trying to avoid assholes and find my way to my goal.

It’s just so appropriate in my life. I tend to want to set up my board game with strong, smart men who seem to know everything that I don’t – wow, that seems to include the current alleged object of my affection. I want to learn from them, I want them to help me grow, I want them to stay out of my way when I’m getting closer to home.

Unfortunately, these men always tend to be more ruthless players than I am and don’t mind landing on my head and forcing me to wait my turn until they’re done playing. I don’t wait my turn well. It makes me angry, depressed, frustrated and bitter. But I keep yanking out the stupid board, begging for them to play with me, hoping that maybe, just this one, they’ll take pity on me and let me win.

Done with that. My board, my game, my rules. If you land on me and I don’t want to go back to home, I ain’t going. Call it cheating, call it unsportsmanlike, I don’t really give a crap. And I don’t like what the Pop-o-Matic rolled, I’m just going to keep hitting that son-of-a-bitch until I get the roll I want. You’ll just have to wait until I’m done before you get your roll.

And when I am getting close to home – as I am now in my creative life – stay the fuck out of my way or you’re going to be the one sent packing. If you can’t give me the room and the cheers and the freedom to take my chances and follow the Pop-o-Matic, then you’re going to be sitting in that little line where you start for a very long time because that’s where I’m gonna send you.

And I realize when I finish this current game I am playing entitled “Cinderella Drives A Pick-Up,” there’s gonna be another game with another set of assholes trying to keep me from getting home. Some of them may be the same assholes from the previous game because I apparently am a slow learner. And I’m gonna start all over again in that little line, waiting for the Pop-o-Matic to roll me doubles or whatever the hell it is that I need to get me started on the path of another game. Maybe this time, it’ll be a team play kinda game, where someone will be popping the Pop-o-Matic with me and letting me take my turn first, instead of waiting for him to land on me.

Or maybe my life is Trivial Pursuit and it all comes down to who knows the most about meaningless crap. That’s appropriate, too, since that’s a game I actually do well at. Frightening.

Dancing and All That Jazz

I miss dancing. I missed dancing. I missed every and all kinds of dancing.

About 100 years ago, I was a dancer. I studied ballet and jazz dancing. Loved it. LOVED IT. Lived for it, every single minute of the day and night.



I discovered dance at 19, late for a dancer. I had always danced in school and in plays and in everything that I could dance in. I started working for a dance studio because I thought I could combine work with something I loved.

Dance took over my life. I studied as much as I could at the studio. I was even told that, if I had started as a child, I would have had a career in dance. Of course, at 19, this was not going to happen. And this was back in the stone age, when there wasn’t MTV and music videos and all that stuff. If you were a dancer, you went to Toronto or New York, you didn’t stay in Winnipeg. I accepted my limitations but thought I would go on to teach, maybe run my own studio one day.

My first ex kind of supported this, but he always made me feel bad about dancing. He came to a show I was dancing in and watched me warm up on my pointe shoes before the show and commented to a friend – “And she wonders why I won’t dance with her.” Suddenly, my passion was wrong, was bad because it made him feel less.

I kept dancing, though, going out to clubs with my best friend because he didn’t like to go out dancing. She and I would close down the clubs, dancing more than drinking. I loved it. It was the early ‘80s and the music, at least the dance music, was pretty good, or so it seemed.

When my ex decided that a younger woman was what he needed (I was a whole 24 years old at the time), I decided to move to L.A,, figuring I could dance here, I could act here, I could do all that I wanted to here. But when I danced, I kept hearing his voice and feeling his seemingly disappointment at my gift. I kept up classes for a while and even did a show or two where I was hired as a dancer. But associating that gift with his disapproval took away the joy I felt in the gift and, slowly but surely, I gave it up.

I only danced at weddings and social events and even that was rare. My new husband didn’t really dance and hated clubs, although, ironically, we went dancing on our first date. Over the years, I danced less and less, even at weddings, even at social events. It got to the point where I never danced at all anymore, even around the house. Dancing felt foolish and frivolous, unnecessary and trivial. I lost the rhythm of something that had been so important to my life.

Then, in November, I was in Las Vegas with the ever-spontaneous Chairman. We went to a club as part of our debaucherous weekend. I couldn’t remember the last time I had gone dancing and couldn’t even figure out how to dance to hip-hop or other music I had been hearing more and more over the years. Undeterred, Chairman and I hit the dance floor with enthusiasm. I have always admired Chairman’s freedom and joy with everything creative that he tackles. And he tackled the dance floor with the same abandonment I always loved about him.

I found myself letting go, ignoring the critic in my head that cautioned me about not being familiar with the music, not being current and “hip” and not knowing how to move. The critic that told me it had been so long since I danced that I couldn’t possibly remember how to do it anymore. And you know what? I didn’t care. It felt so free, so great, so wonderful to just let loose and listen to the rhythm and let my body move to its own groove, whether it was “right” or not. I closed my eyes and surrendered to the sea of bodies around me and the sense of sound and light and noise and just danced. I can’t remember when I enjoyed being on a dance floor that much. And Chairman’s smiling face, encouraging this abandonment, just fed that pleasure.

In that night, I found another piece of myself that I had sacrificed so long ago. I gave up one of the greatest passions in my life because one of the greatest passions in my life somehow didn’t appreciate it in me. So, because he didn’t appreciate it, I felt I wasn’t worthy to have that gift and I let it go. It broke my heart. And it took a gin-soaked night in a Las Vegas club to find that joy in that long-dormant gift I used to have. Granted, I’m not the dancer I once was but I didn’t care.

And I look at the relationship that just ended and I realize how many times I came close to letting go of my gifts of writing and directing because they somehow made him feel less than. My success, my joy, my discovery of these gifts somehow drove a wedge between us because it was something he could not control. And I almost gave it all up. I almost buried the thing that gave me the absolute most pleasure and joy in my life because of a man who couldn’t share that with me.

I still twitch when I watch any type of dancing – on stage, in movies (watching “All That Jazz” tonight brought all of this back to me). I long to be able to get back up there and arabesque and jette and all that jazz again. Hard to do at my age so I guess I have to find some other way to feed that now-awakened desire. Country line dancing? Organic belly-dancing at the studio near my place?

I just know that, for more than an hour in an unknown club in Vegas, I found the 24-year-old left behind so long and found the passion and the sheer, pure joy that that young woman felt when she was allowed to just be, to just dance, to just live. And I never, ever want to let that feeling go, let that feeling get buried again. Because nothing and nobody is worth giving that much up for.

Because I had nothing better to do...

I just finished a very rough first draft of the script I started four years ago and just recently rediscovered. The working title right now is “Live At 5”, like a promo for a newcast. It’s (hopefully) a dark personal odyssey into a woman’s quest to succeed at any cost. Or not. It needs some more work but I wanted to get a rough done before we started shooting Cinderella so I have something to pitch, should God smile upon us and Cinderella is good and people want to maybe employ me.

It’s funny, what spurred me to finish tonight was my own struggle with encroaching depression. I’m getting used to dealing with this mood sneaking in around the edges and I’m learning how to deal with it on a consistent basis. At least when it comes on now, it’s not as encompassing and all consuming as it once was. I’m in better shoes and in a better place than I was even a year ago. But that doesn’t stop it from coming, it just diminishes it a little bit.

I hung out at my usual Monday haunt – Bigfoot Lodge for Monday night rock-n-roll karaoke hosted by the fabulous Vitamin E. Several of the usual friends were hanging out and I sat and talked about men and flirting and life with one of the lovely chicks that we all know and love. There’s a guy there that has his eye on her and she wasn’t sure about flirting back to his flirting because she didn’t know anything about him and I asked her how could she know anything about him if she didn’t flirt back and let him know she wanted to know more about him and we got into an absurd, funning discussion about flirting backwards and forwards. Anyway, the guy eventually either got the hint or someone very kindly nudged him in her direction and they were actually talking to each other instead of just flirting when I left.

And I walked to my car thinking about a Wally Lamb book I read a long time ago called She’s Come Undone. It’s about a woman who discovers that she’s disappearing – literally – after she turned 40. People no longer see her, she is quite literally vanishing from her own life.

I struggle with feeling like that when the depression wants to press in. It makes me feel like I’m invisible and that no one would notice if I did simply vanish. That feeling was coming over me as I headed home, feeling that I don’t exist, that I wouldn’t be missed, that I’m vanishing from my own life.

Strangely enough, where I had left off in the script is a very desperate man who is about to do something that ends tragically. Looking at his life makes him realize that he has nothing to live for, nothing of value, that, due to his circumstances, he is invisible to the world at large and that no one would miss him if he were gone.

So I took the depression by the hand and made it sit down at my Ibook and write. Now, two hours later (actually, really about an hour because I had to check Myspace and email and research something quick), I have a short but finished script. And I think it’s exactly what I wanted it to be. I’ve got to fill in a scene or two which required actually finishing the script so I could see where the muse was leading me regarding a few script points. But now that I’m there, I just have to go fix some timeline logic issues, figure out how to bring her father back into the end, and tie up some loose ends. I need to add about 20 pages to make it an acceptable length and I think these things will bring me in right about where I want to be.

So, while the depression is not exactly gone, at least I feel productive and channeled some of that blue-ness on to the page. Now maybe I can get some sleep and be refreshed for tomorrow (today?), ready to face a full day of work on Cinderella, resolving some problems with the fundraiser and, yee-ha!!, actually getting around to casting the thing. I’m looking very much forward to that and that alone should push the blues away for at least a little while. But for now, Twyla and I are going to turn off the Ipod, post this missive, then disappear into slumber and sweet dreams.

A clean house.

(forgot to post this one yesterday so here it is)

There’s one thing I hate more than just about anything and that’s cleaning the toilet. I hate it. Can’t stand it. There’s nothing more disgusting and icky and gross and stuff than cleaning the toilet. However, there is nothing more satisfying than a clean toilet. And a moderately clean apartment.

I took out my frustration on my apartment today, armed with a scrubby sponge and Comet. Actually, I started in my bedroom and actually found the floor. Okay, so I still have to vacuum the floor but everything is off of it. I re-arranged, re-piled, redistributed the mess, hiding some of it in the closet, tossing a whole bunch of stuff. Wow, I can actually walk and Twyla may actually be able to play.

I then tackled that icky of all icky places – the bathroom. Scrubbed the tub and the toilet and the sink and the floor. So the room sparkles now and it’s shiny. It’s almost livable now.

Moving on to the kitchen and the counters are clean and the stove is no longer sticky. Of course, there are now several bags of trash that I have not managed to haul downstairs yet. That will wait until morning, I think.

Little white dusting rags helped de-dust the living room and, again, more piles moved, more papers shuffled and we now have a coffee table with a clean surface.

So what does this all mean? Not much other than it always helps quiet the clowns when my surroundings are not chaotic. I’m still frustrated but I think I’ve worn myself out, scrubbing and cleaning and dusting, oh, my.

I guess it’s the cliché metaphor for my life. I need to take control. I need to clean things up. I need to re-pile my shit and figure out what to do with it.

I know a bit of the frustration is the inner panic of being six-and-a-half weeks from shooting and there is so much to do. The clowns are working on convincing me that I don’t know what I’m doing and that this project is going to be a failure. And I’m sticking my fingers in my ear and humming Keith Urban at the top of my lungs to drown them out. I’m hanging on to the sound of Chairman’s voice telling me that this project will happen, no matter what, because it is time for it. I hang on to the confidence that Paul and the others at the Ark have shown me in supporting this project.

So, tomorrow, I’ll tackle one or two of the things on my to-do list of 59 items. I’ll try to keep my head-house clean and not let the dust-bunnies pile up in my brain, creating the frustration and the aggravation that runs in circles in my head. I’ll look forward to the auditions on Tuesday and starting to see the film come together in front of me. I’ll deal with the fact that my life is barely in my control and I’m hanging on by my fingertips. At least I have some good people at the end of those fingertips, helping me hang on and making sure that the clowns don’t get too loud.

I'm so frakkin' frustrated.

Okay, c’mon, you knew this was coming. I’ve been too warm and fuzzy and, oh, god, I love the world lately. I still love the world but, today, it’s frustrating the fuck out of me.

First thing – I’ve frustrated that I’m 43 years old and I can’t make a living right now. I’ve applied for a couple of jobs lately and gotten nothing. I’m making about $200 a week and living off of my parents for almost eight months now and that has to stop. How to stop this without breaking down and getting a real job, I’m not sure. Even my Michael’s class was a frustrating teaching experience – one single student. Yee-ha. Okay, so that’s how it starts with the teaching crafts thing. I have another single student on Monday. Oh, boy. $18 whole bucks.

Second thing (kinda tied into the first thing) – I’m frustrated that I have to live with a roommate (nothing personal, Tif). ANY roommate. I would love nothing more right now than to have my own place. It was nice to have a roomie at first because I had a hard time dealing with being alone and Tiffany has been a great roomie. It’s just now, with so much going on with the film pending and the fundraiser and trying to get my notebooks selling, I’d love to have a big (or small) studio that’s entirely mine, to plaster the walls with my schedules and lists, to spread out and slather everything in Modge Podge, to not have another person sharing my space. Mainly right now, I’m finding it hard to be creative in my own space because I do my dull, boring, what little money I make job in my bedroom (sounds kinky but it’s so not) so my bedroom does not inspire me to be creative. And, not that I’m complaining, but my bedroom is kinda small due to the amount of crap I’ve put in it. I can’t really work in my living room because I’d have to move half my computer stuff into the living room to really work effectively and then it would have to be moved back into the bedroom then… aaauuuuuughhhhh. So I hid in a lovely coffee shop for part of the day and got a ton of stuff done. It might be just that it’s hard for me to create at home because I associate home with my boring job but I don’t know. I just know…. FRUSTRATED!!!

Third thing – Completely and totally frustrated with my non-existent love life. I want to be with someone yet I don’t know if I’m ready to be with someone but yet I want to be with someone but yet I don’t know if I’m ready…. aaaauuuuuuuggggghhhh! And the person I would most like to be with, I don’t know how to talk to about it, I don’t know if I want to talk to him about it, I don’t know if he’s even aware of the fact that I spend countless hours debating about all of the above involving him. And it doesn’t help that there isn’t anybody else around to distract me from obsessing over this one. And I’m certainly not putting myself out into the world anywhere that I might actually meet someone that I could obsess over. So it’s me and Twyla and lots of crap circling my brain.

Fourth thing – So much to do on the film and the fundraiser and two people who have offered to help have not returned my calls after coming to me saying they want to help out. They sent me emails saying, hey, sounds exciting, I want to work with you. I call. They don’t call back. Aaauuuuugggghhhh. I know so much of this is on me because it’s what I want and it’s my project and I’m the only one who can make most of these decisions. But, gosh darn it, I need some help!!!! So, this week, I gotta find someone to help me out.

Ummmm, I’m sure there are other things that are frustrating the fuck out of me right now but these are the major things. I know part of it is that the stuff I’m doing on the film is not the creative stuff I want to be doing. I don’t want to be the one finding the crew and putting the fundraiser together and finding the product placement and figuring out all the crap that has to be figured out. I want to create. I want to do the fun stuff. I want to direct. But all the crap has to be done to get to the creative stuff.

So I’m gonna bitch and moan tonight (as I did to poor, sweet Zadra) and grumble my way into bed with my sweet, purry kitty, and hopefully shut up the clowns long enough to get some sleep tonight.

And tomorrow, I’ll get up and go to a full morning of meetings, hopefully feeling much more optimistic and enthusiastic and not quite so bitchy. I’m gonna try to do a few things tonight to help quiet the clowns – maybe a Jamesons before bed is not such a bad idea – and try to get some of the crap out of my head before I lay it down on my pillow.

Thanks for listening (reading?) and here’s to a less pissy day tomorrow and better attitude toward the world in the morning.

The heart is an amazing thing.

With Valentine’s just passed, it makes me ponder the durability of the heart.

I look at my father. He is 72 years old (I think). He had open heart double bypass graft surgery at 48. We stopped counting after five heart attacks following that over the past 25 years. Most of them have been blood clots. He is now on his third pacemaker in five years. His first one had to be replaced because, when the doctor cleared him to play golf, the doctor didn’t realize how vigorous my father plays golf. During his first round of golf upon healing, he managed to literally tear the leads from the pacemaker off of his heart and they had to go in and put another, stronger one in with two leads instead of one. His new one has a defibrillator and they had to stop his heart during the recent surgery to insert this one. Very scary considering that they think only 10-15% of his heart is actually functioning. And yet, he continues to function at such a high level, his doctors are staggered when they see him. Most people with a heart in as bad shape as his is would be dead, not able to get off the couch, unable to function, let alone play 18 holes of golf. My father’s screen name, by the way, is RoboRon. I think he’ll outlive us all.

Yet it is not the fact that his heart continues to beat that amazes me about my father’s heart, it is his heart’s ability to love. He is the most kind, generous, non-judgmental person you are likely to meet. Both he and my mother accept most people for what they are, flaws, faults, foibles and all. Through the whole demise of my marriage, they have never once said anything bad about my ex, even though there probably is plenty of reason to have something negative to say. His mother sure has. But as I was sitting in their living room one day, talking about all of this with my father, he said simply, “We only want you to be happy.” Just that. Nothing more. His gestures of love have included the first summer I was living on my own. I would stop by their place often and he would always have something new he had taped on his Betamax (yeah, that long ago). First, it was “Pippin” because I was a dancer then and he thought I would enjoy something by Fosse. Then it was “Jesus Christ Superstar” because he remembered I had seen it with some friends and really liked it. Even now, we talk independent films and he hands me a tape with “Red Rock West,” one of his favs. He and my mother stun me with their ability to give not only financially (Bank of Mom is very generous) but their ability to give emotionally. They have never found reason to turn their back on either of my ex-husbands and, if either of them would show up at their doorstep and need help, my parents would be the first ones to offer a hand. They set the bar high when it comes to unconditional love.

Which leads me to my own heart and it’s battered and worn state. Yet it keeps going, keeps ticking, keeps wanting to be used. I have a heart murmur, which I am not sure many of you know. It’s not a serious condition. Every once in a while, my heart jumps in a funny way and it makes me a bit woozy but it’s so rare that I don’t even notice it. It requires antibiotics when I visit the dentist and every new doctor listens to my heartbeat with a strange and quizzical expression when they examine me for the first time, even after I tell them I have this murmur.

And after having gone through two very difficult, heart-rending marriages, both of which did not succeed and both of which, in their own ways, came very close to destroying me, my heart continues to beat. It continues to want to be used again, to find someone new to make it flutter and make it skip a beat when that person is near. It has never been more broken than it was the night I told my recent ex that I needed some time away from him. Then it broke more when he showed up two weeks later with divorce papers, something I had not been ready for. It shattered the day I finished moving my things out of what had been our home for nine years of the 16 that we were together. As I hugged him for the last time, I could feel my heart cleave in half, a substantial part following him to his car and fading away as he drove off. I don’t think I’ll ever get that part back because it belongs to him for the rest of my life.

But in the last eight months, my heart has shown me that it is like a starfish – cut part of it off and it grows back. Even with several devastating events that threatened to tear apart what little I had left, my heart refused to give in. It hung on, it dug in and it sought to draw strength from those around me. The acceptance and unconditional love that seemed to find its way to me seemed to put little pieces of my battered heart back together, like Humpty Dumpty. So much so that I have been able to let it begin to love again, not just amongst those generous enough to want to add to my heart-bank, but truly fall in love again.

That, in and of itself, has brought on a whole new set of heart-related injuries and wounds, none too serious, just the typical oh-my-god-how-can-I-feel-like-this variety, especially that this love is not requited. But my heart, even vigilant, ever optimistic, ever durable, wants to be let out for this exercise, even if that’s all this is. Because my heart wants to be stretched and to be tested and to be let loose to let its affection go where it wants, my brain be damned. And I think it’s smart that way. If I kept it locked up and never let it out to play, how would I know that I can even love someone again? How would I know that I could love my friends the way I do? How could my heart be touched and moved and expanded by the beauty of the life that God has given me in these last eight months? It would never be satisfied to be kept secret and hidden. So I have to let it out to run willy-nilly and risk breaking it yet again just to be able to glean those wonderful, magical moments of true and pure love from those around me.

And, hopefully, it will find its way to someone who will gently cradle it in his hands and take over the care and feeding of this delicate yet powerful muscle and let me tend to his own heart.

Moving forward...

I’ve been trying to write down what I feel right now for the last half hour and it’s been hard. There are so many feelings strolling around inside that I’m not sure how to harness them and put them down on metaphorical paper. This is my third attempt at this blog tonight because, once again, the muse will not let me sleep until this is done.

I have moved through this week without a lot of things – without fear, without pain, without anger, without desperation, without wanting and needing and begging, without hiding myself, without weakness. As each week goes by, it’s becoming easier and easier to let go of all of these things and embrace my life as it is, instead of trying to force it to be what I sometimes think it should be.

The clowns in my head have apparently packed up the big top and headed off in search of a new psyche to invade. The sounds swirling in my head seem to come from a logical place, without the feeling of running in circles and getting nowhere.

There is still a want, a need, a desire to be with someone and I think I still know who I would love that someone to be but, with each passing week, it’s easier to let even that go. If it’s mean to be, it will be and my messing around with it will do just that – mess with it. And maybe it’s not the person I think I want to be with that I will end up. And that’s okay, finally. In the meantime, I can just enjoy his company and his presence in my life without overburdening our relationship with a load of insecure, unfocused, illogical crap.

I’m moving away from the marriage and the disappointment and the anger and the sorrow and everything that brought me to this place. It’s growing smaller and smaller in the distance as I grow more and more into this person that I want to be. I still want to understand things about that relationship – why I let him abuse me that way, why I allowed myself to be treated like that and why I let myself get lost – but that will come with time. I’m seeing behaviors and choices and understanding how to recognize signs and change things before I begin to find myself in the same place all over again.

I am finding that the ink on my arm is doing just what I wanted it to do. It is a constant reminder of the blessings and destiny that are in front of me. Every day that passes, this simple little symbols become more organic in their presence and I can almost feel the energy they send out, never letting me lose sight of their meaning and the meaning my life has taken on.

And, in the best possible way, the joys of my life are no longer so overwhelming that I don’t feel that I deserve them. I have learned that I deserve every one of them. That has given me the freedom to just receive them and completely appreciate them. From the simple joy of the presence of my dear friends to rediscovering old friends to the simplest unexpected text messages on my phone all have become the continued evidence of the richness of my life.

And tonight, Valentine’s Day, maybe has made me a little sappy and overly sentimental but the easy pleasure of spending the evening with three exceptional people – Zadra, AJ and AJ’s beauteous wife, Amanda – and being shown that others I love are thinking about me makes me feel whole and complete and gently joyful at the blessed life that God has given me.

Now, the challenge is to hold on to this feeling and see if I can get it to carry through one more week. I am hopeful.

Love is...

I don’t know what’s going to come out of me tonight but my muse is awake and seems to want to blog so…

I’m listening to a playlist that I put together for a dinner with Chairman and Peter before Christmas. It’s a bunch of songs that are on other playlists on my Ipod but, for some reason, the mix of them on this playlist is perfect and makes me very happy. Part of it, I think, is that the dinner and the whole evening around it was perfect. I couldn’t remember a time when I felt happier than I did with these two guys chowing down on stirfry and making yummy noises. My heart was very full that night and it remains one of my fondest memories of last year.

I think maybe my heart is what is awake tonight. Appropriate, with it being officially Valentine’s Day. I knew I wasn’t going to feel too badly about this particular day because I know that I have so much love around me right now. I sent little missives off to the three pieces of my heart, which really were for me to remember that not only am I loved but I have those that I send my love off to, without need of anything in return, without expectation of anything coming back, and that’s a really gorgeous feeling.

I also ran into an old friend tonight who I haven’t seen since before I split up with my ex. She’s had her own deeply difficult struggles over the last year, which I know had a huge impact on her life. We spent a long time talking in the parking lot at CBS after this networking thing, catching up and sharing. She said something that really caught me – that she hadn’t called me or tried to reach me since everything happened because she wasn’t sure where she stood with me. It struck me because I realized I felt like that about so many people from “our” life. I’m not sure where I stand with so many people that were “our” friends. And she also said what, I think, so many others have thought but have been too polite to say – I’m so much better off without him. Not that he’s a bad person, not that he’s horrible and should be shunned. Just that I was so unhappy and now I’m not. That simple. And as we talked, we shared as much as we could in that short time about the blessings in our lives and how God has been kind enough to provide what we have needed recently to get our lives together. She had some terrible health issues that have been cleared up and now she is beginning to discover the radiant self that she is, just as I have been doing. And it moved me so deeply to again share the wonder and the love that is in my life with someone who hasn’t been in the middle of it.

One piece of my heart then sent me a little Valentine’s Day text message in the middle of our discussion, just as I was telling my friend about him. It makes me smile even now. My friend just smiled as I explained how important these guys are to me and what they have done for me. As we parted tonight, promising to rediscover the friendship that has been put on hold, she reminded me what a gift these friendships are, that God wants us to be filled with joy, not sorrow. I wish I could quote the song she mentioned as we left but it was about a hill filled with sheep and that the sheep were there for us to have and discover, that all we had to do was go over and get them. Okay, it was phrased much prettier than that, but you get the drift.

So maybe my heart wants to tell all of you to take this day of love and passion, whether you have someone to kiss and cuddle with or not, and take a look around your life. Take a look at your Myspace page and those faces (or boobs or butts, depending on your page) smiling up at you, count the literal blessings that are on those pages. I, for one, am looking at my top 8, those who rock, and have little gems of memory and love for each of them, even though some of them I really don’t know well at all. The three pieces of my heart are easy, because you all know the love I have for them. The Ark, ditto. But Bryson, who is the lead singer of this amazing band, The Snakehandlers, has given me such joy and pleasure just with his music. And Drummer Chick, aka Ellen of the Piper Downs, is joy with pink pigtails and her drumming and enthusiasm for life just fills me with giddiness.

I could go on and list every one of the 58 people on my pages but each of them has a special thing that makes me smile when I see their picture on these pages. Otherwise, doh, I guess they wouldn’t be my friends.

And as I read my friend, Monica’s, blog about curling up with herself and listening to the calm, clear, focused woman inside, I realized that, for the first time in years, I am beginning to discover the ability to give myself a little bit of that love that I give to everyone else. I am beginning to be able to tell that woman curled up inside of me that she is a blessing, because I had lost her for so long, had almost lost her permanently that one dark, black, bleak night. She is the soul I want to be, what I aspire to. And she embraces me and curls up with my heart and tries to keep it safe until I’m ready to embrace my heart myself.

So for Valentine’s Day 2006, I challenge you not to feel sorry for yourself if you’re alone, not to bemoan not having a significant other, not to lash out at those kissy-face couples you’re going to encounter today. Instead, take real stock of the love around you, from your Myspace friends to your pets to your family to your very dearest, best-est, most amazing-est friends. And you’ll find there is love all around you. Sappy, I know, but it is the truth. In my life, at least. Happy V-day and my love to you all.

Sitcom versus Rom-com

With Valentine’s Day looming, I keep finding myself battling between the romantic comedy in my mind versus the sitcom that is my life.

For instance, I’ll be going somewhere that I know someone I am interested in is at. The scene that plays out in my head is something like this – he’ll see me in this outfit/hair-do/make-up/shoes and, suddenly, his eyes will light up. At some point in the evening, he’ll lean over to me and say something very sweet and very tender. At the end of the night, as he walks me to my car, he’ll very gently take my hand after we hug and say something totally sappy and totally charming like “I thought I’d kiss you now” and then he would proceed to do just that and the orchestra in my head with cue up and my toes would curl and it would be one of those moments I’ll treasure all my life.

Instead, he’ll show up with another girl, unaware of the fact that my heart has just sunk into my Santana boots and I’ll be forced to smile and pretend to like her and think she’s great and I’m okay with all of that instead of wanting to throw chairs at both of them. I suddenly become Ally McBeal and smile my head off while imaging arrows and bullets and all other terrible things.

Or else he notices nothing and nothing changes. And I make an absolute Grace Adler of myself trying to be witty and charming and funny and, instead, I’m just stupid and silly and falling all over myself. All I need is the wacky neighbor to show up and add more sit to the com that’s going on.

And with Valentine’s looming and no date in sight – other than Zadra (whole other story) – the romantic comedies are playing more frequently, wistfully wishing for at least some of it to come true.

Instead, I’ll hang out with my best friend, probably send a few e-tines (if there is such a thing) to those I love dearly to remind them that they are loved, whether they have their own valentine or not, and I’ll embrace the love and the friendship that I am surrounded with most of the time. And I’ll try and shut off the head-movies for a while and just play into the sitcom and cherish the fact that I can laugh at parts of my life now that used to throw me into such dark places. And with luck, and maybe some more clarity on my own inner workings, maybe this time next year, I will be living out some of that romantic comedy, hopefully with more of the romantic than the comedy.

The nature of friendship.

Several incidents this week have gotten me thinking about the fluid and always changing nature of the friendships in my life, both for the good and the bad.

I look at someone like Chairman, a man who I have known for at least a dozen years, yet if someone had told me when he joined the Ark two years ago that he would end up being one of my dearest friends and one of the most important people in my life, I wouldn’t have believed it. We shared a group of friends, saw each other at parties, movies, etc., for many years, ran into each other semi-frequently when we were both at Valley College. But our paths never led to much more than friendship that was renewed a couple of times a year at random events. I always knew I liked being around him when our paths did cross and couldn’t think of a sweeter, more lovely man. That opinion still holds, by the way. But now to have him become such an important part of my life makes me wonder why we never connected this solidly before. Apparently, the universe was saving him for when I would need him the most.

Then I look at others who I have known probably as long and was so close to for so many years that, now, I’m not sure where I stand with them. Divorce is funny that way, friends fall to one side or the other, maybe not meaning to, but they do. Some try to stay on both sides of that line but those seem to be the friends who were maybe not so intimately involved in the relationship. The closer the friends are to the relationship, the harder it is to not choose up sides.

The loss of a couple of very important friendships has kind of sneaked up on me. It’s little things like invitations to parties and/or events that never got sent and that I heard about through the grapevine. Things like a lack of phone calls that go unnoticed until I look at the calendar and realize how long it’s been since we’ve talked. Things like the awkward glances and uncomfortable silences when I do see them and I can see that they maybe don’t understand my choices. It’s not that they’ve taken “his side” or anything like that. It’s just that I don’t fit with them anymore, I guess, and they don’t know how to still be a part of this new life I am making for myself.

It would almost be easier if these friendships could just end. Just say, hey, we love you and we’re glad you’re happy but, gosh darn it, we don’t know who you are anymore so we won’t be seeing you around. Don’t expect us to call, because we won’t, but know we’ll remember you fondly. No hard feelings, we just don’t get you.

That leads me to look at the new friendships that have snuck up on me and become so meaningful. Someone like AJ, who I teased that I would miss him terribly while he was gone shooting his film. And, dammit, I discovered that I did miss him. I knew I enjoyed being around him and talking with him but I didn’t realize how much he had come to mean to me until he wasn’t there.

And a simple comment on a blog made me think about a friendship that was lost suddenly and harshly, with anger and pain and sorrow – on both sides, I think. Damage done way beyond repair and damage done that extended far beyond just the two of us. It was a loss that stunned me because it was a friendship that I had grown to treasure and had believed was going to be one that would last a lifetime. I have so many warm, wonderful, cherished memories of this short-lived friendship that my heart breaks when I think about how quickly and unexpectedly it ended. I sometimes wish we could put all of that behind us and try to mend fences but I don’t see that happening. And that breaks my heart even more because I know I could never let him back into my life again.

There are friends who have endured through this transition that still hold strong, maybe they’ve chosen “my side” or however you want to look at it. These friendships become more precious because I realize how fragile they are. That may be why I am so fearful of losing the friendships that are so close and important to me now, knowing how transient and ephemeral they can be.

I’ve always trusted that the universe or God or Buddha or whoever is in charge of my life puts the people in front of me that I need when I need them. I guess that means I have to trust that, when these delicate gifts of friendship are gone, that they have served their divine purpose and are on their way to fulfill that same purpose in someone else’s life. And I hold their memories close to my heart, storing the wondrous things we shared and trying to release the difficult moments into the atmosphere, to dissipate and leave only the warmth of the memory behind.

50 Things I love...

... in no particular order.


1. Family and friends.
2. My three guys.
3. Directing.
4. Writing.
5. Twyla.
6. Zadra.
7. Karaoke, especially at Koji’s.
8. Music – just rediscovering that.
9. Good chocolate.
10. Good hugs.
11. Watching great actors/performers work
12. Perfume – but not the icky yucky flowery kind.
13. My Carlos Santana boots, especially the red ones.
14. Really good Southern rock/roots music.
15. Guys who play guitar.
16. Blue eyes.
17. Laughter, especially of those around me.
18. Dancing.
19. Peter Ross’ feet.
20. My tattoos.
21. The ocean.
22. Full moons.
23. My few moments of femininity.
24. The Ark Theatre.
25. Art deco graphic design.
26. A really good chai latte.
27. A warm bed.
28. Soft, sweet kiss in the hollow of the neck.
29. Strong, powerful women.
30. Well-written books.
31. The deep connection I share with the special people in my life.
32. L.A. at 3 a.m.
33. Watching Chairman, Peter and AJ sing. Fearless.
34. Creating something with my hands.
35. Learning just about anything.
36. Snow.
37. Being held by someone who loves me.
38. The smell of jasmine.
39. Photo safaris.
40. Movies – good and bad.
41. Jamesons on the rocks.
42. New Year’s Eve.
43. Cupcakes.
44. The second I fall asleep.
45. The warmth of a fire.
46. Being sung to.
47. Degas and Rodin sculptures.
48. Ice skating outside in the cold.
49. New York.
50. My life.

Oh, no, not another epiphany!

Maybe Zadra is right. Following the dark days, insight comes fast and furious, seemingly more so as the months go by and I get further into this adventure on my own. And the black days are no longer black, maybe a dark grey, and it’s getting easier to push that grey away and find my way out of it.

I am beginning to see myself as the artist that I am. This has always been a difficult thing for me to do, I think because I’ve spent the last 15 years trying to figure out who and what that artist is. It’s been a journey to an undefined destination, uncertain what will happen when I actually get there.

I think I arrived there on “Lloyd’s Prayer.” Wow, that was a year ago. I know I have raved about this show and talked about its impact but I think I’m just beginning to understand what it meant.

Up until that show, I had always second guessed myself as an artist, as a director, as a person. Part of that was due to the fact that, during my learning curve, I always had either my ex or someone else beside me, correcting me, guiding me, showing me what to do. It really wasn’t until “Lloyd’s” that I was truly, completely and totally by myself. It was up to me to make this show come together. Granted, I did have the blessing of the universe giving me these four extraordinary actors that connected to each other, the material and me in a way that no one could have created.

But that was the first show where I felt comfortable in my boots. I realize now that it was also the first show where I felt like these actors accepted me as a director, totally and completely. Not a director-in-progress, not someone learning how to do it, but someone who actually was a director. I had never felt that before and I liked it. I didn’t realize it at the time but I had arrived at that place I had been struggling to get to for so long.

Each creative endeavor I have undertaken since then has been greeted with the same acceptance of who I am as an artist. I have never had such universal acceptance of who I am and what my talent is.

What is helping me accept myself as this artist is seeing that image reflected back at me in your eyes. All of you who stand beside me, who grace the stage for me, who sing with and for me, who join me in this adventure show me who I am. I see more and more of the person I want to be reflected in your eyes and it makes it easier for me to accept that this is who I am.

I realize that many of you met me as a mostly formed artist, not as the work-in-progress that I still feel like I sometimes am. I think of it this way – the last 15 years have been my adolescence. I went through the pimples and the voice changing and getting my creative menstruation for the first time and losing my virginity. I think now I am entering my adulthood as a creative artist. I am no longer questioning and uncertain and awkward and goofy – well, okay, maybe occasionally goofy. I am moving well into my 20’s as an artist, still growing, still discovering, still learning my craft, but the foundation is there for me to stand on, the structure is in place and I am no longer a stumpy lump of clay desperately in need of shaping. Maybe I need refining and a little sculpt here and there but essentially, this is me.

And the stronger I grow as an artist and the more I embrace that part of me and see it reflected in the eyes of those around me, the more I find that confidence and that satisfaction sinking into my personal soul and my personal life. Because I can no longer separate the artist and the person – they are me. I’ve spent too much time trying to keep the two sides of me apart and it almost killed me. Now I am simply eliminating the space in between, allowing the two halves of me to become one, single, solid, somewhat perfectly imperfect whole. And that’s a great place to be.

Discovering laughter.

I love to laugh. I love to be around those who laugh.

Part of what I love about my “boys” is that they all love to laugh. And they make me laugh until I cry sometimes. And most of those I hang around with understand and appreciate the value of laughter.

I especially love to watch Chairman laugh because he laughs the way he does everything else – fully committed, every cell in his body participating. I also realized he and I laugh the same way (I think we were separated at birth in a previous life but that’s for another blog). And I love to make him laugh. One of the greatest joys in my life is when Chairman laughs at something I say or do.

I realize that this is because my ex used to laugh at something I’d do and then he would qualify it with “wow, I didn’t know you were that funny” or “wow, that’s clever, I didn’t know you were that clever.” Married that long and he didn’t know I was funny or clever. Every laugh, every joke, every quippy, clever remark was met with a qualifier. My joy, my laughter, my simple jokes were never accepted at face value. He always had to give them a value and a score. He could not simply let me be funny.

The biggest discovery and challenge of this time has been accepting and understanding that these people in my life do just that – simply let me be… whatever. There are no qualifiers when I make Chairman throw his head back and laugh that wonderful laugh of his. There are no scorecards when I do anything, whether it’s tell a joke or sing at karaoke. Like Monday night at Bigfoot, AJ and Amanda were there and I got up and sang. AJ’s smiling face grinned up at me from the darkness of the audience and when I sat down, he said, “It’s amazing how much you’ve blossomed in eight weeks.” (He’s been gone shooting a film). That was not followed with a “but you know what you should do…” or “next time, you might want to think about…” Just that I had done something worthy of commenting on without judgment being placed on it.

It’s hard for me to accept compliments because, so often in my life, they have been followed by that horrible “but” comment, something that makes me feel that I am less than. So much of my life in the past 15 years has been spent feeling less than.

Zadra says that she appreciates when I go through dark days like past few have been because she thinks these dark days lead me to discoveries within myself. I think she’s right. The past couple of days have been difficult as I have been spending a lot of time alone and I don’t do that well. The clowns started running loose in my head and baiting me with their usual pile of crap and making up things that have no foothold in reality – I’m going to lose my friends, I’m doing everything wrong, the most important people in my life are going to go away because I’m going to do something stupid.

What the past couple of days have shown me, after a couple of grey days, is that I no longer have to worry about everything I do being judged. These friends are not going to leave me because I do something dumb. Dumb comes with the territory occasionally. And my three guys are certainly not going anywhere. I’ve made an ass of myself quite frequently recently and none have run screaming from me.

We can laugh, we can sing, we can dance, we can do anything we want together and I will not find myself being on the short end of the judging stick. It’s so freeing not to have to worry that everything I do is being evaluated and rated. It’s so wonderful that these guys are the first ones in eons that don’t make me feel insecure, ignorant and, most of all, not funny.

I am not only finding my voice and my path, but I am rediscovering my laughter and I think that may be the greatest gift of all.

Not easy.

It’s the things that should be the easiest that are the hardest.

It should have been easy to tell him about how bad things were.

It should have been natural to want to share with him my pain, my anger, my loneliness, as it should have been easy for him to share the same with me.

It should have been easy to share my darkness with those who cared the most, who wanted to help, who reached out.

It should be easy to leave a difficult life behind and begin again. Letting go of all the negative and embracing the positive should make that transition easier, simpler. I thought that the first time and I think it now again.

It should be easy to tell someone new that you are in love with them because it’s the most amazing thing in the world to have someone in love with you.

It should be easy to put that behind you when you decide that it’s not the right time, right circumstance, right anything because you want it to be right.

It should be easy to put that person away for a while until it’s right or it’s not.

It should be easy to be with friends and not still feel alone.

It should be easy to find hope in this new life that’s being created and look forward to what it’s going to bring.

It should all be easier as time passes and distance grows between now and then, between the hurt and the sadness, between him and I.

But some days, it’s just not.

I am a writer...

I really am just discovering this.

Let me rephrase. I have always written. I have two books of very bad poetry that I started writing when I was 18. Maybe 6 of them are good out of several hundred. Most are morose, depressive writings about the men in my life and how much being in love sucks. Hmmm, seem to have added to that recently. I wrote all through school. I even wrote for my science class instead of doing a science project and got an A+. My English teachers all loved me.

I wrote a long, rambling novel with classmates in junior high school that got destroyed by bullies (that’s for another blog). I have notebook after notebook filled with beginnings of stories and novels and short stories and articles and so many other ramblings.

I have a couple of completed scripts and a whole bunch of half-finished ones. I have, again, many notebooks filled with partial scenes, ideas and thoughts for other screenplays. I’ve written a couple of short films that have been completed and a handful that haven’t seen the light of day.

I now have a healthy stash of blogs that I have been writing and that many of you have read.

But until recently, I have never considered myself a “writer.”

I am a director, first and foremost. I’ve always said that I write out of necessity, to give myself something to direct. And the feedback I always got from my ex was that my writing was good but rarely much more than that. He would give me high praise only when others had already given me high praise. He would compliment parts of my writing but there was always something significant that had to be done for the piece to be improved.

However, over the past few years, I’ve been opening up to others’ opinions about my writing, including my own. I have come to embrace the fact that I write well and that I write things that people like. However, I never really embraced that writer until recently.

The blogs have been a huge help in releasing this writer and allowing me to write without thought of criticism or pleasing anyone or trying to measure up to someone else’s idea of what I should be/do/write. The feedback has been inspiring and encouraging.

Then I sat down at a coffee shop today to “write.” Mainly, with the sort of unsettled mood I am in, it was just an excuse to not be at home and look like I was doing something productive.

I opened up a screenplay I started four years ago. God, four years ago! It was a script I always wanted to finish, with a darker plot than I usually write. I didn’t really want to work on anything so I thought I’d re-read it for grins and see how much work it needed. Not that I was ready to work on it.

Instead, I found myself stunned at how good this piece is. The 47 pages I had written were really good. I was surprised because it’s a bit out of my normal range. But I found myself inspired to keep reading and then, suddenly, I was inspired to keep writing.

I’ve just sat down tonight and written another 10 pages and cannot stop thinking about where this script is going to go. I kind of figure I’m going to spend most of tomorrow writing, while the muse is awake and speaking in my ear.

Part of it is, I realize, the lack of the negative voice whispering over the muse. I am not concerned about anybody reading this and telling me what I’ve done wrong before I even get through it. The negative voice had been so loud for so long that I think I became afraid to write because I couldn’t stand to hear it anymore. I have enough of my own negative voices without adding the outside contingent.

I don’t mind critique and I don’t mind suggestions. But for the first time in years, I feel free to choose what I take from those things and apply to my work. I am finding my feet creatively in these past few months and feel stronger than I ever have about my voice and my gifts. Being a writer makes me a better director because it helps me understand the words and the text and appreciate what goes into creating those words and text. Without that, I don’t think I would be a good director.

And I love to write, as if you can’t tell by the enormous amounts of blogs I turn out. I write better than I can speak. I wish I could solve all my communication problems by writing notes to people about the things I find I cannot talk to them about. The blogs have done that in some ways and it’s such a release to be able to blog. And the blogs will be feeding my future scripts, I’m so terribly sure.

But finding this script was such a blessing as it showed me that the road I have chosen is the right one, that “Cinderella” isn’t the only good thing I’ve written and that there is more than one facet to my creative life. I know not everything I do is going to be great. Some of it may suck. But I am so proud of the work that doesn’t suck.

I hope to finish this script fairly quickly and will let you know when it is done. I may ask for some opinions and some comments. I look forward to sharing this new work with my creative family.

The pieces of my heart...

...are all back together. The wandering third has returned home to much jubilation and joy. I think I almost killed him with hugs tonight.

It’s no secret that these three men make up so much of my heart, leaving just enough for the rest of my incredible friends and family. It is such a pleasure to love and be loved by these three and I can’t for the life of my explain why. Maybe that’s the secret – I don’t know why and that’s fine.

I have always preferred the company of men to the company of women. I seem to be able to speak to men more openly than I can with most women. This particular time in my life seems to be an exception or the women I’m currently surrounded by are exceptional, which is probably the case. But there is something about male energy that fills me. It’s not a sexual thing, so don’t go there. Most of the men I adore – including these three – don’t treat me like a “girl” or treat me in a way that is anything but as an equal of theirs. Okay, so, sure, I’d probably… well… if the circumstances were right…

But I digress. With most of the special men that have passed through my life, there is a feeling of unconditional acceptance, no need to be flirty or pretty or anything but who I am. There’s a mutual respect without the competition that I think most women inadvertently find themselves in. There is something about talking with men that seems so much easier than talking with women. There are so many women who can’t have a conversation without lapsing into talking about men – and I am guilty of this, so shut up – but there’s got to be something more to life than whether or not this guy likes me or what should I wear when I see him or isn’t he cute. And I’ve been on that side with men as well, which is always highly entertaining being allowed to sit on that side and hear what men really think. When I was contemplating my tattoo, several men at a birthday party told me point blank what they thought of various tattoos on women and didn’t hold anything back.

With women, there is often a feeling of being judged and that the other woman is basically stocking up on things about you that she can say behind your back when you’re gone. Luckily, this is not the case with the group of women in my life now, but that hasn’t always been so.

I just feel more comfortable talking with men. The ones I treasure don’t make me feel stupid, don’t make me feel that my opinion is invalid. They listen intently no matter what I am telling them and answer back. They disagree with me openly and are open to me disagreeing with them. I can argue with a man better than I can argue with a woman.

Yes, these three men make me feel very special and, yes, they all occasionally flirt outrageously with me, as I do with them. And, yes, I openly adore them, if you cannot tell by the look on my face when I am around them. But it comes down to this – I know I can say anything to them and they will accept it and me without judgment, without putting a value on it and without feeling that they have to compare notes with 15 people before they give me their opinion. They let me be stubborn and pig-headed and emotional and frightened without condemning me for it. The masculine energy makes me feel complete and comfortable, surrounded by warmth and safety. Maybe it is a girl thing to feel that way but I know I prefer it to the often cold and shut-out sense I get from many women. At least with men, if they don’t like you, they will most often tell you to your face or give you a major indication that they don’t want to play with you.

Men don’t play games, for the most part. And I think that may be what I appreciate about them the most. Well, maybe they have a few games but that’s mostly in the areas that they’re not really well schooled in – romance, courtship, wooing – but other than that, I find most men are pretty honest and don’t hide behind so much pretense. Or if they do, the pretense is easy to spot and go around. Or maybe it’s just that I have been blessed to have exceptional men in my life when I need them the most.

All I know right now is that tonight was such a joy to sit at Koji’s, surrounded by my favorite male energy, to know that I can love these men with all my heart and they take that and keep it safe and return it to me just when I need it the most. And there’s not much more that I can ask for right now other than that.

Blatant self-promotion

Dear friends and family:

"Cinderella Drives A Pick-Up" began almost 20 years ago with my sister, Cindy, writing down a few pages about the end her first marriage. Discouraged about the reality of "happily ever after," she and I began talking about and mocking the fairy tales and myths that most little girls grow up with. I added my two cents, as I was nearing the end of my first marriage. That grew into a book, "Cinderella Drives A Pick-Up And Wears Chuck Taylors" that cobbled together our thoughts, views, opinions and experiences with things such Prince Charming and Wicked Stepmothers.

The book was never published and Cindy and I moved on with our lives -- her to two more marriages (the current one seems to be just right), and me to the end of my second marriage.

In the meantime, I have been working hard on establishing myself as a director both in theater and film, working with such prestigious institutes as the American Film Institute, Slamdance, and the University of Southern California. I have been working most steadily with the Ark Theatre Company, directing seven productions over three years, including the critically acclaimed “Lloyd’s Prayer” (LA Weekly Pick of the Week).

In continuing my relationship with the Ark, I will be directing and producing a motion picture version of “Cinderella Drives a Pick-Up,” working from my own screenplay, based on the book written by myself and my sister. My co-producers on this project are Paul Wagar, artistic director of the Ark Theatre Company, and Chairman Barnes, a frequent collaborator of mine. The motion picture is about two sisters, Jessie and Sam, who tread the waters of relationships with not only the myriad of men and other mythical creatures in their lives but also try to find their way down the path to a relationship with each other.

This motion picture will be produced using digital technology, the cutting edge of filmmaking. It allows for a smaller crew, faster schedule and no processing of film, all of which can keep the budget extremely reasonable. Principal photography will begin April 7, 2006. Upon completion, “Cinderella” will make the film festival and film market circuit to secure distribution.

This is where the blatant plea for money comes. I am looking to raise about $25,000 to cover all the production expenses. This is relatively inexpensive, thanks to digital technology. Any amount that can be contributed will help greatly with getting this project made -- $10, $25, $100, $1,000. I’ll take your money any way you care to give it. For details about how to contribute, please see the website – http://www.cinderelladrivesapickup.com.

Contributors of $100 or more will receive a copy of the soundtrack for “Cinderella,” which includes music from some of the best independent artists in Los Angeles and New York – Vertigo Road, Jeddrah, Nellie Bly, Deena Rubinson, Alison Pipitone and Annaliese Schiersch. The soundtrack will be available for purchase on our website, http://www.cinderelladrivesapickup.com, and you can find more information about each artist on the website as well.

Contributors of $500 or more will receive the soundtrack as well as a “thank you” in the end credits of the film. If you wish to contribute a substantial amount, please contact me directly and we can discuss your contribution.

If you are interested in participating in the production as a crew member or perhaps contributing your time or tangible goods (feeding cast and crew, providing a location, etc.), please contact me and I will figure out how to best use the resources you have to offer.

Thank you for your support of my past endeavors and for your continuing support of this project. I can be reached at (818) 512-3480 if you have additional questions, or by email at lifeonitsside@earthlink.net.

Yours truly,


Susan Lee
Producer/Director/Writer
Life On Its Side Productions
http://www.cinderelladrivesapickup.com
http://www.myspace.com/cinderelladrivesapickup