Hold, please.

When I first began this mid-life adventure, I had the life I thought I would always have. Lots of friends, hanging out a lot with friends. Going to see bands and such with my dearest Chairman. Doing great work at the Ark, hanging out with those folks in the off hours. Just really enjoying life.

But things have changed in the last two years. Dad got sicker and sicker and he and my mom and I moved in together. That’s when my life was put on hold. Or so it seems.

I spend most days hanging out in my room. I love my mom but can only take her in short stints. My father sleeps 18 hours a day due to his heart only working about 15%. I teach so I get to talk to children a few days a week. I paint. I write. I edit. That’s my life.

Money’s been tight so I haven’t been going out because, well, there’s no money even for gas right now. I’m hoping that’ll change soon. But it’s reality.

I have to base everything on my folks. Taking a job - will it allow me to chauffeur them to doctors’ appointments and groceries, etc., because Mom is becoming increasingly dependent on me as Dad has good days and bad days. So I can’t take a job that ties me up in the mornings. And I can’t take a night job because Mom wakes up at 7 and by 9, her patience for those sleeping - no matter what time we all got to bed - wears off. I’m afraid to be out too late as I worry something will happen while I’m gone. So I’m on hold.

I have a few friends who are close and who I can count on to get me out of my room occasionally. They call and invite me out or to just check in on me, which I appreciate. But the vast majority of my friends are busy with their lives and broke as I am so they aren’t around like they used to be. And I’m not in the Ark circle anymore, so that creates even more distance because I’m not accessible. So the distance grows and the connection loosens and my support system narrows to a point.

But I miss mostly having a man around. I know it’s stupid but I do. Chairman was so close to me when I was first alone and it was so wonderful to just have a guy to hang out with, even if it was just friends. There’s something about men that we just can’t get from women. Even male friends can make you feel attractive and wanted and beautiful. While women can tell you that, they just aren’t men.

But that part of my life is on hold as well. Not like it was ever active. But I don’t know how I could have someone in my life right now and that makes me sad and makes me ache because I don’t know when this hold button will be released.

And it’s painful to basically be on a death watch for my father. It’s been so evident lately how bad he can be because, ironically, he’s been a bit like his old self the past few days. We went out for dinner the other night and he was chatting with me about what he was watching on TV and which shows he’s interested in and a bunch of other stuff. Usually at dinner, he has trouble just staying awake and doesn’t usually engage. It makes me sad because I know it’s just temporary, his life on hold as well, maybe.

The hardest thing is that we don’t know how long he’s got. He could be around for another five years like this - barely living, just existing, biding his time until there is no more time to bide. And Mom and I stand by, on hold, watching, waiting, not sure what to hope for because he’s not going to get better, that’s about all we know.

My sister watches from a distance, I’m sure judging what I’m doing wrong and how much better she could/will do, if they actually move up there with her. My brother checks in occasionally. But their lives go on, they travel, their children get older, they move through time like everyone else.

Meanwhile, I wait, staring at the walls, wondering if there is a future out there that I will get to sometime. But that would mean losing someone I love very much. Makes it hard to look there.

Virtual fridge - it's been a while.

This was my first "master duplication", which means choosing one of the old Masters - this case, Manet - and painting something of his while learning why he painted the way he did and how he used the paint, etc. Not just to duplicate the painting but to learn how to paint like Manet. I really love this one.



Another master duplication, this is a landscape by Monet. An exercise in impressionism. I kinda like it. ;}



I've been screwing around with learning how to draw noir/crime comics and these are a few of the drawings I've been messing with. Kinda like them, too.






That's it for now. Been working on some watercolors for "Cinderella Drives a Pick-Up", which is going out to Slamdance this week (finally!). Cross your fingers.

Just a single tear

You never cried for us. Not a tear that I saw. Maybe if you had, I might not have made the choice I did.

When I told you I was done with us and I didn’t know what to do and I needed some time to figure out things, you just looked at me blankly and said, for the first time in our marriage, “if that’s what you want.”

In the year of counseling, you never shed a tear. I cried oceans and screamed and let out everything and you sat there like Mr. Spock, staring, fighting, not willing to cry for us. Not a single tear.

When we packed up our home of nine years, the place I wanted to love so much but that you had made your own, not a tear. You coldly packed. I know you were hurt but you never asked why, you never said that simple, single word that might have stopped it all - “stay”. Okay, two words - “stay, please.”

When we stood outside our place for the last time and I couldn’t stop weeping, you just said good-bye, no tears, no questions. Just walked away.

In the time since, not a tear, not a sign that our marriage meant anything.

I realize I cut you off because I think I was afraid if I saw you, I might not have the strength to walk away from you. I might end up like Carrie in “Sex and the City” and just throw myself at you if I saw you and put everything behind us -- all the pain, all the abuse, all the shit you put me through. And then I might have another 15 years of the same thing. I could not do that.

But if you had just showed me that you valued our life, that you valued me, by letting yourself go enough to cry with me or in front of me, it might all have been different. But you coldly walked away, ending our relationship because you “didn’t want to be fiscally responsible” for me anymore. Not because you were hurt or you didn’t love me anymore or because you wanted to end things and move on, because you didn’t want to be “fiscally responsible”. Wow, that’s love.

Maybe movies have corrupted us into wanting, needing, expecting that moment when we open to the door to find the one we love standing on the other side of it, begging us to come back to them, that they don’t care what happened, they can’t live without us. Sorry, doesn’t happen in real life.

In real life, you end up with resentment and distance and anger and pain. And that’s it. No glorious romantic comedy moment where everything you want comes true. Just the struggle to get through the day, even now, almost four years later.

I know you shed your tears to your friends and your family. I know you shed your tears into your pillow.

But what might have saved us is if you had just shed a single tear around me.

Mid-life update

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted. I have had too much and/or too little to say so I haven’t been posting. Sometimes I feel like the things I have to say have already been said and I would just be repeating myself and boring all of you. But I have had a couple of requests for new blogs so here you go.

First, to answer a couple of questions from new readers – I am an art teacher for a private company with around 20 studios throughout Southern California. I love this job almost more than I love directing and writing, which are the passions of my life and one of the reasons why I left my marriage of almost 20 years almost four years ago. Oh, and he was emotionally abusive and extremely controlling.

But enough about that.

What I’ve been thinking about recently is security. I realize that I have never felt secure about anything in my life – my relationships, my talent, my abilities, my jobs. Nothing.

I know this probably comes from my family. I think I felt left behind and ignored most of my life, so I have never felt secure about my place in the family. I feel like I could have disappeared and nobody in my family would even notice that I was gone. This is still true today. My sister’s family and my brother’s family get so much more interest and attention from my mother than I do, despite the fact (or maybe due to the fact) that I live in the same apartment with her and take care of her and my father. But when packages are sent to my mother’s sisters, they include photos of my sister’s family and my very talented nephew and my brother but rarely does she ask to include photos of me. I have to go, hey, Mom, how about including the photos I took in Austin when my film was top 5 on Famecast.com and they flew me out there? This only serves to make me question my success and make me feel very insecure about my place.

I was always the odd girl out in school, always feeling like I didn’t fit in, that I would lose the friends I had if I wasn’t the fun, groovy, happy girl that I pretended to be at home. If I wasn’t happy, nobody would like me. I never felt secure as myself because I couldn’t figure out who I was. I was smart (almost straight A student), excelling at English and writing (big surprise). I loved to write even then and luckily had a few teachers who supported and encouraged that, which kept me writing. But I never quite believed that I was as good as they said I was, because, after all, I didn’t exist and I was not “special.”

My relationships with men have not done much to help with the security aspect. I didn’t date a lot because I wasn’t the pretty girl and I was smart and I was uncertain of how to “date.” I didn’t believe in sex before marriage, although I might as well have had sex with the few guys I was that close to because we did probably just about everything but that. I was afraid, I think, that if I did actually have sex with one of them, I would lose them because I wouldn’t be very good at it and that would make them leave me behind.

My first marriage didn’t give me any security (sorry, TS). We were both very young and maybe shouldn’t have gotten married when we did. He left me behind a lot, going to parties and wanting to be with everyone else but me. I spent many nights, sitting at home, wondering where he was, what he was doing, who he was doing, when he wasn’t with me. I guess I knew eventually he would leave me because, obviously, I wasn’t what he wanted. If I was, he would have been there. And it was true. I wasn’t who he wanted. After less than three years, he left me for someone else – someone younger, someone who was what he wanted, as he’s still with her today.

That left me with no sense of self, even moreso than when we got together. I thought I knew who I was, I thought I was figuring it out, I thought I was getting more secure in myself when I got to LA but I was just kidding myself. I was waiting for someone to make me feel secure, make me be defined by them. And I found him in RJ.

At first, he made me feel secure. He confirmed my strengths but always followed that up with my weaknesses. I thought that was great. I thought that was learning and growing. What it was, instead, was giving him my security in myself and letting him define me without keeping any security within myself. He never had to say that if he left, I would have nothing. He didn’t have to say it, I felt it. My only security was in trying to hang on to him with all my strength, leaving no strength for me. His continued verbal abuse and constant criticism left me with nothing until I stared at a pile of pills, not even having the security in my own choice to take them. I allowed him to steal my security in my talent and in my gifts. I allowed him to steal everything from me.

I never felt secure in my relationship with the OOMA (object of my affection, for you newbies). I fell for him so hard and I just wanted to grab him and hang on to him because I had no sense of security that I would be able to hold on to him. And I wasn’t able to. My need to feel secure in our relationship made me grab him and pull on him and try to make our relationship secure just made him finally run away, leaving our friendship in tatters, which still makes me very insecure about where I am with him.

What does all this mean? It means I’m realizing that the security I seek has to start with me. It has to be in myself because no one else can give it to me. I have to work to figure out how to hang on to that security when I have weeks like these past couple, where the petulant little five-year-old boy who lives in my head tried to stage a coup with the clowns who also live in my head. I have to dig deep down inside and trust that I am who I am and that I have the talents I have without seeking approval from outside. I have to embrace the woman I am without having to have a man tell me I’m beautiful, tell me I’m smart, give me the security I seek. I have to know that I am special and precious and gifted without seeking approval from my family and acknowledgement from people who aren’t going to be able to give it to me.

I have to take baby steps and not get stuck in “forever” mode and think that the way I feel today will be the way I always feel. I have to take baby steps in finding and hanging on to the security I feel in those moments when I’m directing and I know I am awesome at it. I have to hang on to the security I feel in the moments when I’m teaching and I know I rock at guiding these kids – whether they’re five or 15 – through drawing and sketching and painting, feeling secure when they have success because it reflects my own success. I have to hang on to the security I feel when I finish a painting – like I did when I finished an oil this week as a present for someone – that feeling when I step back and I say, wow, that’s incredible, before the voices in my head try to make me push that positive voice away. I have to acknowledge the security I feel in those moments and embrace it and color every single fucking day of my life with that security. Then, if I find someone, I won’t need them to be my security, I won’t need to cling and obsess and panic to hang on to them, I will be able to just be me and be secure in that and know that they love me because I am me and that’s it.

Virtual Fridge - cont'd

Okay, so this is what I do for a living:



It started out as a demonstration on how to draw a pig for a girl on my left. The boy on my right was drawing a butterfly and somehow, the butterfly wings ended up on the pig. Then we added a tube top, clown hair, and alient antennae. Yup, I get paid for this.

This is what I get trained to do:




I really struggled with the colors on this one. The Gluck Method narrows their palettes down to two to simplify things when we teach - an "American" palette and a "European" palette, which is what this one was. Took about six hours to do altogether, from sketch to finish. Need to get faster and more confident about how to create the colors. But I love the colors and I'm happy with how it turned out.

Every day, I am grateful for this job because I would have never known I was capable of this. I've always wanted to draw and paint and it's so incredible to be getting paid to learn how to do this and to get to make clown pig butterfly aliens every day!

Don't hedge me out.

So what is it with men with girlfriends? Why don’t they want to tell you?

Cute Boy, who I still have a huge crush on, never admitted to having a girlfriend when we were having our most intense flirts. I found out through a friend of his. He didn’t admit it until I finally had to ask, and then he admitted he was flying across the country to see her. “Yeah, I guess it’s serious,” was his response when I asked him about it (her).

New Guy just did the same thing tonight. Have met a few times through a variety of things. Nice connection, nice flirting, nice guy. Three times we’ve had plenty of time to talk about many things. None of those times did the word “girlfriend” come from him. Tonight, after walking me to my car and spending a good half hour talking to me, he asked if I was going to see the show at the theater this weekend. I said, sure. He said, what night? There was a definite feeling of wanting to meet me there. I was just about to invite him to join me earlier for coffee or something – perfect opening to get some time with him to see if there’s anything there – and we got joking about how our cell phones have made us kind of stupid because we don’t know anybody’s numbers anymore because they’re in the phone and he said, “Yeah, like I don’t even know my girlfriend’s number…” Long, awkward pause. I almost kicked him in the shins and screamed, “Then explain all this flirting you’ve been doing, you ass.”

Are you guys just hedging your bets so that if things don’t work with the chick you’re with, you have one on deck? I am just the fall-back if your girl don’t do it for you anymore?

I have one thing to say – stop flirting with us! If you’re not going to date us, don’t give us the cute boy face and the flirty eyes. We think you’re flirting. We think you want us. We get all giddy at the thought that you find us attractive and maybe you want to be with us. Then you drop the “girlfriend” bomb and are surprised when we run screaming from the room.

Is it me? Am I so safe that you all think you can flirt with me and not think I’m going to get all gooshy inside? I hate to tell you but I’m not. I get gooshy, probably way too soon.

But mention the girlfriend immediately. Save us the days and nights of wondering about you and picturing you picking us up and taking us somewhere wondrous and beautiful and save us from naming our children and picking out the house. C’mon, you know you do that. It’s not just me.

If you have a girlfriend, save the flirting for her. Don’t waste it on me. I don’t have the time for this. Be nice, be friendly, flirt with me AFTER you tell me about your girlfriend so I can know that the flirting will be just friendly with nothing at stake and no hopes to be dashed.

And girlfriends, know that your boyfriends are out there flirting with us. Maybe they mean nothing by it – after all, men are a bit dense about the signals they’re sending. Maybe find a nice, polite way to inform them that harmless flirting doesn’t exist, especially when they don’t mention you to us. Explain to them that informing a cute girl about your girlfriend will make the flirting harmless. Otherwise, they deserve everything they get.

Men. Fuck.

Technological dysphoria

I am a technomancer (I hear Monica giggling off on the Westside). I love technology. I have an Iphone, a Macbook, various IPods, just about anything Apple makes, I have. I covet big screen TV’s and I have been known to salivate and envy anyone’s technology that is better than mine.

Technology has made it easier to communicate en masse to our friends and family about good news and bad news. It makes it easier to keep in touch with folks far away and makes it easier to stalk those we love who may not necessarily love us back.

Technology has made it possible to make a film in 48 hours. Or 24 hours. From writing through filming and editing. I know this as I have done it now almost a half dozen times.

Technology allows me to post this silly little missive into cyberspace and have tens of people read it at their leisure, including people that I will probably never meet who live on the other side of the country.

This makes technology amazing.

However, this ability to communicate quickly and efficiently has taken the human factor out of our communication. We now text message instead of call. That’s great for “I’m running late” or “are you busy tonight” kind of communications. We email our concerns and worries or post them in our blogs or comment on someone’s Myspace page when they post news. We seem to have forgotten how to pick up a phone and call. Or sit down and have coffee.

Technology creates the feeling that we are all communicating so much and so regularly, which we are. We’re communicating, we’re not connecting. We’re sending messages but we’re not relating on a human level. No amount of Myspace messages or emails or text messages can make up for a single phone call. You can’t riff off onto other subjects with text messages. You kind of can by email but it’s time consuming to type all that shit.

Maybe it’s the lingering part of me that is old-fashioned but I feel more and more disconnected by this advanced technological communication. When something goes well or goes wrong, I do the technological thing and post it on one of the social networking things I belong to or the Yahoo board for the Career Success Group and I get responses. But I have to admit, sometimes those responses leave me feeling even more disconnected because they’re letters on a page. While their intent is clear and their owner’s desire to communicate is appreciated, I think I still prefer more personal contact – a phone call, a coffee date, something.

We are creating a world where we all can communicate instantaneously and constantly, which we do. I’ve seen more groups of people standing around, all talking on their phones or texting away while the others in the group wait for them to finish. I know I’m guilty of texting or checking my email while I’m hanging out with someone. It used to be a social faux pas but now it’s acceptable. We communicate constantly through our IPhones and our Blackberries and our Sidekicks but I think that is making us less human as communicators. No wonder our children are growing up disconnected and cold. They’re learning how to communicate from us. And if all they see are grown-ups on cell phones and emails and computers, that’s what they learn. If we allow ourselves to only communicate through devices, that’s what our children will learn. If we don’t find a way to stem the contagion of children communicating only through their text messages, we are creating a cold and disassociated society, which is not a society I want to live in.

So I will do my part and try to communicate more through phone calls and coffee invites with my friends. I will reach out more personally instead of through texting and emails. And I hope that you all will do the same. Know that your text doesn’t have the same impact that a phone call does. Know that your email is taken in the way it is meant but that those techie communications can feel cold and disconnected, especially at times when a connection is really needed.

Let’s just try once a day to call someone who needs support, encouragement, a pat on the back, something, instead of just dropping an email or a text saying “way to go,” “don’t worry, it’ll be fine.” Let them know you’re still a person on the other end of the technology, not just a keyboard and a wifi connection.

Depression part 58

The most difficult thing about depression isn’t the soul-sucking, I want to slit my wrists, nobody loves me and no one will miss me, I am all alone and nobody cares feelings.

It’s the apathy.

At least suicidal thoughts are active and require some brain power. It takes focus to figure out whether hitting a freeway divider at 85 mph will be enough to really kill you or will it just leave you as a vegetable and a bigger burden on those left behind. That requires math to figure out. You’re at least thinking.

Apathy is what can kill you with depression. Nothing matters. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. There is nothing you care about enough to actually rouse yourself to do more than sit and stare at the walls/ceiling/TV/cat. Your brain just simply stops, not wanting to touch the emotions that are buried deep down inside. The apathy and numbness mask all that you are thinking about and make you absolutely unable to function.

That’s the worst thing. The not caring, the not wanting to care. That’s what leads you to cut yourself off from your friends because it’s just simply too hard to actually try to reach out and contact somebody. Because you just don’t care. Or maybe you just can’t care because the rest will all fall open and you’ll be suicidal and crazy again. At least apathy is quiet. Numbness is silent. It requires nothing from you other than to sit and be silent.

You can blame so much on that apathy. “I was depressed so, therefore, I couldn’t do anything.” It sounds so much better than “I was apathetic so, therefore, I couldn’t do anything.” Not so much sympathy and understanding for apathy.

I see the same expression my mother’s face – apathy. She won’t let herself be depressed, she won’t let herself be happy, she won’t let herself be anything because that would mean she’d have to FEEL something. So she tries to go on being apathetic instead of acknowledging the fear and the sadness and the anger and the depression underneath, which only makes her more angry and more sad and more frustrated instead of numb. She relies on the wine to make her numb.

I see the same expression on my sister as she tries to tell me what I’m doing wrong and how happy her life is and what everyone else should do. When we try to discuss anything worth anything, she pulls on the apathy mask. It’s easier to just push away the feelings and the pain and everything else and just be apathetic about what’s going on around you (her apathy is disguised as cynicism but it’s the same thing). She also uses alcohol to keep the numbness going rather than accessing the big scary part inside.

I don’t want that. I don’t want to be apathetic. I don’t want to numb my feelings with other things, which I find myself thinking about more and more. A drink, two drinks, 20 drinks and maybe I won’t have to think about all of this anymore. Just shut down, just don’t care, that will make it all better. To not feel, to not care will make things easier.

But I left my marriage to feel, to throw off the apathy, to get rid of the mask I had been made to wear for at least half of my marriage.

But every day is a struggle. I don’t know if it’s hormonal – being a woman of a certain age. I’m going to start back taking Estroven today and see if that helps. It takes a week or so but if you haven’t taken it, if you’re over 40 and you’re finding you’re struggling, too, try it. It does help when times get very bad.

So that’s where I am. Trying to overcome the apathy because I have so many projects in front of me that need me and they really mean so much to me that I want to push this apathy aside and tackle them with all of my attention, not with 50% with the other 50% hiding somewhere underneath. I created this life to live it, dammit, and I must find a way to do that fully.

Two films in two weekends.

I shot a long short film on the 8th - "The Hit", based on the play by Kerr Lordygan. It was a blast. The script was so good, the actors solid. It was great to work with some of the actors from the Eclectic, since that's where my next few directing projects will be. They're a terrific group, really excited about working on new and exciting projects.

Then I succumbed to the lure of the 48 Hour Film Project and shot "A Hit to the Heart" from a script written by myself and the funny David Smith. Tiny little crew, including Anna B. as our boom bitch for a short time. Erik's kids came and helped out and were terrific. I think Jean wants to be a director at 3.

Here's the link for the photos from the two shoots, if you got nothing better to do.

If you'd like to come out and support the 48 Hour Film Project, please join me for the screening of "A Hit to the Heart" on Wednesday, June 18 at 8 PM at the Fairfax Beverly Cinemas, 7907 Beverly Blvd. Los Angeles, CA. 90048 (323) 655-4010. Tickets are $10 and not available in advance. Please come early as they almost usually sell out. The audience gets to vote for its favorite film so please come out and help us get more votes!

Thanks to all who came out and helped, to the actors for their marvelous performances in both films, and to my usual suspects for their dedication. Thanks particularly to The Piper Downs and Deena Rubinson for allowing me to use their music in "A Hit to the Heart."

Hawking my wares

If you've ever admired a piece of jewelry I've created or a purse or a notebook, or you've desired to own your own print of one of my pieces of artwork, you now can purchase one of these items for your own.

For my jewelry and purses and notebooks, please go to:

Lee's Take-Out (Accessories To Go!) at Etsy.com.

For prints of my artwork, please go to:

Lee's Take-Out at Imagekind.com. Not all of my artwork is up there, in fact, there are only a couple of pieces while I track down a large scanner I can use to scan in my bigger pieces. But Imagekind allows you to pick the size and type of print you would like - simple glossy poster or museum wrapped high end canvas. You can also order a frame to go with it.

If you feel you'd like a custom purse or notebook or a particular painting of something done, I'm more than happy to accommodate that, with a small 10% custom fee.

So, please check these out. Feel free to pass the info along to your friends/family. A more formal invite will be issued once I get my own personal website up and running but for now, this is the best place to find my stuff!

Fragility

My horoscope today:

“Like a newborn, you are most powerful in your fragility because you are the closest to divine presences in that state.”

Particularly powerful today as I have been feeling very fragile as of late. In fact, I added a “Define me” application to my Facebook account recently and “fragile” is the one word most people chose to describe me.

Fragile.

I have often felt fragile inside but it kind of freaks me out that fragile has made its way to the surface.

I have spent my life trying to prove to the world that I am strong and powerful and independent. Now, suddenly, the word “fragile” is echoing throughout my life.

Is this the universe trying to get me to acknowledge my own fragility?

I have never been allowed to be fragile in my whole life. Neither of my marriages allowed the luxury to be fragile. Both men expected me to be strong and powerful – Wonder Woman often comes to my mind about how I am supposed to be. (Alex Ross’s Wonder Woman mostly, who is strong but human and flawed) God forbid in my family that I should any fragility at all.

Fragility has always equaled weak to me. And it’s disturbing to suddenly be defined all around as a word that reflects weak back to me. It makes me want to cover up all my emotions and just present this hard-nosed, closed down person to the world so that people will find me powerful and strong and not fragile.

But is fragile a bad thing? Here’s the definition:

frag•ile – adjective (Middle French, from Latin fragilis)

1. a) easily broken or destroy (a fragile vase) b: constitutionally delicate: lacking in vigor (a fragile child)

2. Tenuous, slight (fragile hopes)

Synonyms (too many to list but here are a few) brittle, crisp, friable (substance that are easily crumbled or pulverized), weak.

Oh, yeah, I guess it is.

This recent view of me as fragile has me all messed up. I don’t want to be viewed a fragile. I don’t want to be viewed as weak. And fuck the horoscope, explain to me how it brings me “closest to divine presences” when I’m weak and breakable.

It rattles me, I guess, because I’ve always been told the way I feel is irrelevant and just as I’m starting to feel stronger in my life, where I don’t feel like I’m one big ball of emotion, the one emotional personality I am most afraid of showing is apparently tattooed on my forehead.

So, what does all this mean? I don’t know. It means I am off my pins, sets me off my game. I have been feeling vulnerable these past few weeks, tied strongly into how lonely I have been feeling as well. But fragile? FRAGILE. It’s a big word to me and something I need to look at and see how I am projecting fragile to the world.

Maybe I do need to stop expressing my every emotion and every feeling. Maybe I need to hide a bit more of what I feel and stop broadcasting it to the entire world. Maybe I need to cover up that fragility and hide it from the world. I don’t want to be seen as fragile. It’s something I never thought I would be defined as. Yet, I think it is a word that almost perfectly describes me.

Maybe that’s the biggest fear, is that I am truly fragile. Because then it means I am easily broken. Which I am. And I don’t want to be broken any more. I want to be whole and strong and powerful. I’m not sure how fragile can possibly fit in with that.

So fragile will be the thought of the day. See what that brings.

Cuz I needs gas money

Please check out my store at Esty.com at Lee's Take-Out, Accessories To Go.

Lee's Take-Out, Accessories To Go is a re-branding of an older accessory company I started many years ago that remained dormant for a while.

There are some hand-crafted purses and notebooks up there right now, hoping to expand and include some of my Asian-inspired jewelry as soon as I can find the time to reshoot the stock. I also will be adding in some of my original oil and watercolor paintings as well.

So check it out, buy something, put some gas in my car. I highly encourage custom orders, if you don't quite see what you want.

I don't need fixing

I realized that I thought he would fix me. I thought he was everything I wasn’t. He was smart, clever, educated, talented, ambitious, focused, reliable, consistent. So many things I thought I wasn’t. So many things that were different from my first husband, who was talented in a different way, focused in a different way, etc.

I saw myself at that time as drifting. I was thinking I was an actress but never really believed it, despite high praise from Susan Strasberg about my talent. It never felt real so I felt like a phony doing it.

He knew all about the entertainment industry, so I thought, and I figured he would be the one to guide me to success, because I didn’t know what I was doing. He would fix that. He would make me successful, after he was successful, of course. Which was fine with me then.

He knew about all my faults and was able to talk about how he perceived his own faults. I thought it was refreshing to find someone so in touch with themselves. He would help me and fix me in that way, help me to find myself and be in touch with my own flaws. When he criticized me, I thought it was because he was trying to help me, to fix me, to make me better.

I liked the fact that he was consistent and reliable. If he said he’d call by 7, I knew he would call no later than 7:02. He would help me be reliable and consistent. He would show me how to be a better person that way, because I wasn’t, or so I thought.

He would fix my flightiness because, god knows, I thought I was a mess. I needed someone to show me how to keep my feet on the ground and not go off daydreaming about what I wanted to do with my life. I had to be practical and he would help fix that in me.

He was supposed to fix me. He was supposed to save me. He was supposed to be the one who saw my flaws and loved me in spite of them. He was supposed to be the one who would find a way to help me become a better person, to be a stronger person, to fix the broken me that was standing before him.

And that’s just too much to put on a person. To stand naked and vulnerable before someone and say, “Here I am, broken and shattered and afraid and needy and uncertain and weary and wary and insecure and unsure about everything. Please take me and make something of me because I don’t know what I’m supposed to be.” Of course he wanted that job. Most men want to “fix” those they love – make things better for them, solve their problems, repair their car, whatever it takes. That’s their job.

And he took the job. He “fixed me.” Or at least he tried. He tried to fix me so that I would be whatever the person was he saw me as. He wanted me to be his ideal, his vision, his beautiful creation. Pygmalion.

And I wanted so much to fit that mold. I wanted to be what he saw in his eyes. To be the perfect wife, the perfect partner, to be exactly what he wanted me to be. And I almost died trying to be that perfect.

What I never realized until it was too late was that I didn’t need fixing. Maybe I needed a tune-up or someone to hand me the tools and suggest where a bolt needed tightening. But I wasn’t broken. I just couldn’t see it then.

And by handing the reigns of myself over to someone else, I gave them permission to take the raw sculpture in front of them and hack away at it with a chainsaw so that they could reshape it into what they saw. I gave him permission to take what I saw as a Degas sculpture and chop off my head and try and turn me into the Venus De Milo. Both very beautiful works of art, both completely different things. Both very different visions.

It’s taken me almost five years since that very dark, horrible night to finally see the sculpture that is me coming out of the block of stone. I have been seeing glimpses of what I want to become here and there but I am finally seeing the shape I want it to take, trying very hard not to let someone else’s vision – no matter how beautiful or tempting – to interfere with my work. After all, the only one who can see what I see is me. Hopefully, in the long run, the whole world will be able to see and appreciate the work of art that is truly, perfectly me.

100 things (cont'd)

32. Must know how to play with me and make me giggle like a little girl.

"I was alive and I waited, waited..."

...to paraphrase Jesus Jones.

“I was alive and I waited, waited/ I was alive and I waited for this/Right here, right now/There is no other place I want to be/Right here, right now/Watching the world wake up from history.”

I realize this song has a more global purpose and message but, for some reason, those lyrics resonated very personally today.

“I was alive and I waited, waited…”

I spent so many years waiting for my life to start. Figuring I had all the time in the world, I could wait for it to get better, for things between us to get better, for everything to get better. I was asleep, living in history and not thinking about the next day/month/year. Just getting through the history of that day.

“I was alive and I waited, waited…”

I waited for him to define me, to tell me who I was, who I am, who I would be. I waited because I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t realize I could wake up and find my own definition.

“I was alive and I waited, waited…”

Waited for someone else to save me, because I knew I couldn’t save myself.

“I was alive and I waited for this…”

Waited for a life worth living, waited for friends who allowed me to be who am I, waited for a history that would begin new and not be weighted down by the history I dragged along behind me.

“Right here, right now, there is no other place I want to be…”

Simply true. Right here, right now, there is no other place I want to be. “Watching my world wake up from history.”

Right here. Right now.

17 years

It would have been 17 years today. 17 years. 19, if you count the time we knew each other before we got married.

I don’t know why it’s sitting with me this year – 17 years – when the last two years, this date passed with just a thought of, “oh, it’s our anniversary.” I was kinda glad it was that insignificant. I don’t want this to be an “anniversary” date the rest of my life, although I do occasionally think about my first marriage on that anniversary.

I’m not sure if I really miss him today or if I just miss “us”. Being a couple, having someone in bed with me every night (other than my cat), having someone to bounce ideas off of, someone to hold my hand in the movies, someone to GO to the movies with.

I am overwhelmed with the feeling of loss these past few days. We don’t talk at all because I choose not to. I am so filled with anger when I do see him – anger at him for the way he treated me and how much he added to the wounds of my life; angry at myself for letting him treat me that way, not seeing what was going on, just existing instead of participating in my life. I want to slap him and scream at him and ask him if he really understands the consequences of his actions. Maybe it’s a good thing I don’t talk to him.

17 years. What does it mean? What came of that relationship? How could we have been together so long and not made it? How could we have been together so long and not have a relationship now? And I don’t want to have a relationship because I’m afraid it would go back to being what it was – hard, angry, difficult, negative. I have a finely balanced life right now and I don’t want that life to tip back to the dark, dank place it was on that horrible night I almost took my life. I never want to be there again. But what did all those years mean? Is it just a void in my life now, something I can refer to gingerly, an era I don’t want to acknowledge but can’t avoid acknowledging?

He is still on the fringes of my life and even that pisses me off. He does little things that make me feel like he’s clinging to our relationship yet he’s the one who chose to close the door by filing for divorce before I knew what I wanted.

I guess I still struggle with the fact that, even though I was the one to say I need to be alone for a while, I never thought it would end. I thought we’d separate, I’d figure out where my head was at, get myself straightened out emotionally, we’d stay in counseling, and eventually, we’d get back together, stronger, better, ready to face the rest of our lives together. I know it hurt him when I told him I didn’t want to be with him anymore. And maybe filing for divorce was his only way to regain some control over the situation, make it hurt less somehow. But that simple act ended any relationship we could have had.

Maybe that’s what I’m angry about as well, that the way he handled the end of our relationship was just the same as the way he handled most of our relationship – making it what he wanted, not considering what I wanted. Maybe it’s best we ended that way instead of hanging on, trying to figure out if we were ever going to be together again, having that undefined, disconnected lingering thing that so many couples go through. When my first husband left me, there was that period where I didn’t know what we were – together?, apart? He’d call and want to see me and then call can cancel. We’d have drinks and I’d think we were getting better then I’d hear he was with this girl he left me for. I finally had to put my foot down and stop maintaining any contact with him because it was too hard to be on the edge of something and not know what that something was. I guess that’s how RJ had to be – put his foot down to figure out what the end of our relationship was.

I just know that today, I am struggling to find closure, find perspective, find some reason why it ended and why it couldn’t have been that beautiful future we planned on May 11, 1991. Wondering what I could have done to change the course that ended in June, 2005. There are answers I’ll never know, no matter how much I look at it. And maybe I’ve gained some insight that will carry through into another relationship 100 years from now when my wounds will have healed enough to allow me to let someone else in.

For now, I’ll just try to get through to the 12th and put the 11th behind me, for this year anyway.

My heart (warning - poetry ahead)

My heart
breaks tonight
for love I had
and
love I lost

You
when I was
young
and sure
and wrong
and can’t let back in
because the wounds are still there
and will never go away

You
who was my
soul
mate
who broke my
heart
soul
ego
passion
and just about
broke all of me
and the years between
are just air
nothing
gone
done

You
who
still holds my heart
in his indifferent hand
and who I still feel
within that empty space
where your heart lives

And you
who I never had
and yet
I somehow
always have
but can never have

So
here I am
pieces of my heart
scattered to the wind
mourning the losses
and
wistful for the promises
that may never come

Life is not a romantic comedy

The one you love doesn’t suddenly decide he misses you more than life itself and show up at your door, bearing some cutsie-pie gimmick that makes you laugh and forgive him for being an ass and throw yourself into his waiting arms.

No, real life means it continues to be awkward and hard and terrible to see him even though you should be long over him and moved past him. Real life is him keeping distant and cold even though there is still that connection so strong, you know he’s going to be there even before he does.

And the one marrying the wrong woman does not suddenly realize you are the most incredible person in the world and suddenly show up at your door…you know where I’m going with this.

No, real life means he leaves in the next few weeks and marries the wallpaper woman (as in one who is as interesting as, not one who sells wallpaper). He will live his life with this blandness and I get to sit on the sidelines, my mouth forever sealed, never saying, “what the fuck are you thinking? At least marry someone interesting!” No, real life means sitting by and hoping I am entirely wrong and they’ll be happy and together forever, while I watch and groan.

Startling strangers do not suddenly appear, showering you with anonymous notes of love because they’re too shy to say anything. You don’t run into men at the store who adorably step on your feet, look up into your eyes and fall madly in love with you. And the men you do meet are just mortal men, not gods of rom-com, and they have no idea that you exist.

So real life means trying to let go of those you’ve given your heart to who don’t realize you have (or don’t WANT to realize you have) and trying to find some peace with being alone with your cat and your friends and ignoring the empty shell inside that just wants to be held and embraced. That’s real life.

Missing

I miss the way you spooned with me almost every night of the 16 years that we were together.

I miss the way your eyes would look at me with such love, before those eyes turned critical and angry, only seeing my flaws.

I miss having my hand on your thigh when we drove long distances.

And I am sad that I don’t miss more of you.

48 Hour Film 2008

Yes, I did it again. I signed up for the 48 Hour Film Project on the weekend of June 13. Yes, it's an addiction. But I'm thinking this may be my last one... although don't hold me to it.

But this year is tinged with sadness and memories.

Last year at this time, Perry and I spent several hours phoning each other back and forth, somehow knowing the registration was about to open. It's not like in years past when, if you didn't register immediately, you didn't get in. Now, it seems like you can register at the last minute and still get in. But that's no fun. Perry and I were texting/emailing around midnight last year when the registration finally opened about both of us waiting anxiously by our computers and finally registering. He was as excited and happy as he always was getting ready for this project.



I had decided last year that I needed to step things up a notch for this year as I feel like I've stagnated in the process. I want the writing to be better (although I love what we wrote last year, Madame H and Ranger Smith) and I want the production to be better and I want the editing to be gremlin-free. But this year, I really want the film to be the best it can be as it will be dedicated to my dear friend, Perry. I really feel his absence right now.

So here's to the best year yet in the 48 Hour Film Project. And here's to my dear friend who inspired me and encouraged me and made me feel like there is nothing on earth that I cannot achieve. I miss you, Perry, and hope you're watching over all of us on that June weekend. We'll certainly be thinking of you.

The dark side of parent-sitting

4/17/08
It’s been a tough couple of days on the home front.

While the visit from my uncle Jack was great, it has made me decide that visitors can no longer stay in the apartment. They must find a hotel. Why? Well, let me tell you.

Dad is exhausted. While he enjoyed having his brother here, I think just the exertion of having someone here and all the talking and visiting they did wore him out. He was doing pretty good right before Jack came and now he’s back to his lowest baseline. I’m still glad Jack came, however, as it will probably be the last time he will get to see him.

It is so difficult watching my father just hang in there every day. He’s so thin and emaciated and seeing him shuffle through the apartment, just surviving, kills me. He was always so active, golfing almost every day, going for long walks, etc. Now, his day consists of sleeping about 16 hours on and off, sitting out on the porch when the sun is out and laying in bed, watching TV. When he’s feeling strong, he goes for a walk around the block, during which he has to sit down at least three or four times. He’s trying to keep going, he’s trying to keep active, but it’s obvious that his body is failing him. His eyesight is getting worse and Mom is very worried about him driving.

Sometimes, I have the terrible thought that I wish he would just give up. He’s not living a life that I think he would rather live. He struggles every day just to get through the day. The amount of pills he has to take would choke a horse. He struggles to keep it all straight. His mind is slowing fading and he struggles to get through a sentence. I don’t know how he feels about it but I know sometimes I can see how hard this struggle is for him in his eyes. Sometimes, I think he’s very sad about his existence but he continues to go on simply because he can. Maybe that’s something – continuing on simply because he can.

And the wear on my mother sometimes is horrible. She worries about Dad constantly, exhibiting it by screaming and yelling at him and me and everyone in a 10 mile radius. Last night, I thought I was going to have to sedate her. Dad apparently “almost drove up a wall”, which probably means he drove past a wall, and Mom got out of the car, sobbing and shaking, swearing she will never get in the car with him again (right in front of him), yelling about how much she hates this apartment and that the laundry room is filthy and disgusting and nothing works and she will never do laundry in there again. She’s standing over Dad last night, yelling at him as he’s trying to find a pill he has to take because he can’t find the right bottle. Instead of helping him, she expresses her frustration by yelling at him about how incompetent he is that he can’t find a pill bottle. Gee, wonder where my issues come from.

I know she must be struggling, too, watching Dad deteriorate and become a shell of the man he once was. I know she’s frustrated because she’s not working and has nowhere to go and nothing to do. But she won’t do anything. I try to take her out once a week at least and I was stunned that she wanted to see “Juche Rules” last week because she normally doesn’t want to leave the house. And I know she means the best and is terrified of losing him, but I also think she would be happier if he were in a nursing home or somewhere that he can be taken care of instead of here, where his imminent passage hovers over the house like a cloak some days.

I can’t take it some days. Sometimes, I escape to work or writing or the theater. Some days, I feel compelled to stay and try to referee between my weak, sad father and my terrified, angry mother. Some days, I just want to take the bottle of Jameson’s on the fridge and drink until it’s empty and I can’t hear them anymore.

I couldn’t get out of bed this morning because last night was so bad. I did not want to get up and face them. I wanted to hide under the covers with my cat, sleep until my body woke me up, then have a quiet, contemplative morning by myself. I finally dragged myself out of bed and went out to face the living room.

Mom has calmed down somewhat and is preparing to do laundry in the “filthy disgusting” laundry facilities here. She’s not shrieking, for a change, which is an improvement, I guess. I haven’t seen Dad yet, as he was sleeping when I got up and is now getting some sun on the porch. I’ve given up trying to get work done this morning as I can’t focus, I’m too distracted and exhausted to do much. Should make rehearsal interesting later today.

I just hope today is better and that Dad’s rallying back once again, as he does at the most unexpected times. I’ll cross my fingers for some peace and quiet today and that Mom may find some peace today herself. And I will, as always, be grateful for one more day with my father, no matter what his condition. But some day soon, I’m going to need some relief and some comfort myself or I’m not sure I’ll make it through.

Anatomy of a painting

Okay, this painting is my last one in "tone painting" - which means painting only with white and raw umber.

This is the actual item I was painting from - a starched napkin on a small masonite board:



This is the drawing:



This is midway through:



This is the final version:



The best thing about this is that I didn't feel overwhelmed or like I didn't deserve to be proud of what I did. I owned it. I embraced it. I loved it!

It's 10:42 AM

And I already need a big fucking drink.

Repeat to self - I love my mother, I love my mother, I love my mother...

"Juche" does, indeed, rule.

Three times is a charm as "Juche Rules", a brilliant play written by Mark Niu about a reporter facing a moral dilemma over a trip to Korea, won the USC One Act Playwriting Festival tonight. This is the third time I have directed for this program and I have always felt that the shows I’ve done have been some of the best. Tonight, that was proven.

Thanks to this brilliant script, we won tonight, to thunderous applause and much praise. One of the judges described this as a play that needed to be told and that it created an interesting and well-rounded world to be explored.



Left to right - Myself, Darrell Phillip, Roy Vongtama, Playwright Mark Niu, Ryun Yu and David Chan

I could not be happier right now. The cast was exquisite tonight, with no exaggeration. Roy Vongtama, David Chan, Darrell Phillip and Ryun Yu are four of the finest actors I have ever worked with. With only nine rehearsals (Ryun only being cast less than two weeks before tech rehearsal only had maybe three rehearsals), they created layered characters with emotion and really understood and reflected the conflicts these characters face. And these four were absolutely letter perfect tonight. There was not one thing I would have changed about any of it.

I think the best compliment I got through this whole thing was from the writer himself, telling me how pleased he was that I understood the subtext and subtlety of the script. It was easy. He wrote one of the best scripts I’ve ever had the pleasure of directing.

I’m glad some of you were able to come out and support this show. I was delighted to share this evening with the fabulous Patty Jean as my +1 and unexpected assistant as I handed her my purse, et al, while being dragged away to be photographed. Such a good friend, she let me take total advantage of her throughout the party.



As always, I find myself humbled and blessed to be playing in such company.

Lee Wochner, the producer of the event, wants to definitely find other projects for me to work on in the future. He does a lot of staged readings, etc., which pay. Wow, getting paid to direct. And I’ve been offered the Moving Arts One Act Festival, which I have to turn down, unfortunately, due to my commitment to Keely and Du.

This whole experience brings a number of things in my life full circle. I am grateful to have this chance to do this again and do it right and make it mine and mine alone. This is why I believe there is a God, one who gives us second chances when the first one didn’t turn out so good.

My new boys

Here is a link to some photos from "Juche Rules", a one act play I am directing for the USC Masters in Professional Writing Program. It's a great piece about two journalists in North Korea struggling to make a moral decision that could have a personal impact on their guide.

I first did this program five years ago, I think. I did it for two years and had a great time doing both. All the students enrolled in the Masters program can submit their one acts and the four best get a full performance. This year, it's at the East West Players, which is an Asian-American theater here in LA.

It's been interesting directing a piece about Asians (Korean, mostly) written by a Chinese-American and featuring three strong Asian actors. It's a weird connection to my own vague Chinese heritage (1/4, thank you very much) and I've really enjoyed this experience. These guys are terrific and they really stepped up to the plate and worked very hard with this extremely short rehearsal schedule we had.

I once again find myself living a piece of my life over again, without having him leaning over my shoulder, telling me what I'm doing wrong, telling me how all of my choices are wrong, telling me that I am not worth it. It's such a pleasure to do this show again, this time on my own, without him.

My writing partner, Ranger Smith, was dogging me on the question of God this week. He's a confirmed agnostic and it's hard to explain to someone like that about faith and how I just know God plays a part in my life. It got me thinking about Amy The Writer and her blog about finding God (sorry, Amy, I haven't had time to do all the blog reading I normally do so I'm way behind on yours!). It's times like these, when I get to relive a moment in time that is colored by such negativity imposed on me by my ex, that I know that God exists and that He blesses my life with these simple gifts. The simple gift of enjoying my work, embracing the praise from those around me without feeling that I somehow don't deserve it. I feel God's presence when I realize that, if I had stayed with him, I would not be doing this right here, right now. Because I would be dead. Not figuratively, but in reality. Because I could not have survived, continuing to live with him.

I had a choice the night I thought about ending it. Actually, I had three choices. One, die. Totally and completely die. Two, die emotionally. Lose everything I loved and just live, with no purpose but to make him happy and serve him. Shut off my heart and my head and just be his wife. Three, choose to live, whatever that meant.

I chose to live. And God has let me live again, giving me the chance to replace the bad with the good, to finally know what this could have been and what it is now.

I'm glad I chose to live.

And for those of you who may be in the same situation I was - living a life that is not real and not true and not the life you deserve to live - it's time to wake up and find your life. Whether you're 20 or 40 or 80. Look at your life, look at the person next to you and ask yourself this - what is this going to look like 20 years from now? Is this what I want the next 20 years of my life to be? If it is, good luck and God bless. You are one of the lucky ones. If it's not, then get your ass out of bed and find your life. I wish I had found mine sooner but I'm glad I found it at all.

One down, 999,999 to go.

It took a long time and I never thought I’d see it but, tonight, a clown died. It took phenomenal fire power, like one of those gigantic monsters in a video game, but it finally bellowed its last breath and died.

It was the clown who liked to proclaim that I simply MUST DO IT ALL AND DO IT RIGHT AND DO IT THE WAY EVERYONE ELSE WANTS ME TO DO IT OR I’M A HUGE FAILURE. Sorry for the caps but the clown only talked in loud, screaming caps.

This clown has been the recipient of multiple attacks in the past three years, particularly from those of you close to me. Your constant reminders that what I want is the most important thing and to really figure out what is important to me, not to the whole world, were like little, continuous shots at this huge, looming clown. But like the video games, it was hard to tell if these little shots were having any effect. I don’t have a red bar at the top of my screen to tell me how much life this creature has and I have tried to hang on to my ammunition and just keep throwing things at it, hoping some day that I would throw enough at it (with the help of my friends) that maybe this clown would be mortally wounded and eventually die.

He died tonight when I realized I could do whatever the hell I wanted. That’s it. Whatever I chose to do was right. It’s been coming on for a while but I never could look at it because the clown was always standing in front of that fact, denying me access.

Tonight, I threw the biggest piece of ammunition at him that I have – putting myself first.

I am under a lot of pressure with two shows and two jobs and my parents and life in general. I’m trying to juggle about 20-25 hours per week of medical transcription, 30 hours of teaching, six hours of additional training to teach, 12 or more hours of rehearsal, three to six hours of writing with Ranger Smith and Madame H, never mind my own writing, obligations to the Ark, obligations to Eclectic (which I have not been keeping up on), ferrying my folks around as necessary…

Had a great rehearsal tonight but have spent today trying to figure out how to juggle all of the above. I have to find props and wardrobe for USC show, go to admin training in the morning, teach two classes tomorrow, tidy my room, do some laundry, finish PJR’s present, take Dad for blood tests tomorrow…. Aughhhhh!

But then I had this crazy thought – what’s most important? The USC show is the most important thing right now. What’s second? Jobs, unfortunately, right now as I have bills to pay. Parents are kind of priority #2-1/2, sometimes #2 depending on how Dad’s feeling. Writing and other creative work is third. Admin training, “tech” (which is art class), and everything else is last.

What does that mean?

That means I sent an email to my supervisor at Mission Renaissance saying that I cannot come to admin or tech until after the USC show. Yes, it’ll set me back and it means I won’t get a little bit of pay for going to admin but it also means I can get some sleep in the mornings after nights like tonight where I just got home at 11:35 and am exhausted and wide awake at the same time. I don’t have to immediately try to force myself to sleep when sleep is a long way away. I don’t have to wake up in the morning and try to cram KK work in (which, luckily, I don’t have any tomorrow) and then head to admin and then scramble to get home and get myself together to go and teach and then…

It means I can let myself unwind tonight, spend some time with Twyla, wake up later tomorrow, take some time in the morning to do the things I need to do and then go and teach. It means I can take time for myself and not run myself ragged and crazy and exhausted, which leads to getting horribly run down, which leads to not feeling good, which leads to an inability to keep up with this crazy schedule, which leads to BIG CLOWN telling me I am letting everyone down because I’m not doing/being all to/for everyone and how dare I take the time to slow down and do what I want because I’m letting everyone down and I’m a disappointment and I’m lazy and stupid (wow, this clown sounds exactly like my ex-husband) and how dare I not do everything at once, which leads to depression and suicidal ideation. Not a good combination.

The clown didn’t like when I told him that I just didn’t care, I wasn’t going to admin tomorrow. The USC show is the most important thing right now, as well as my well-being. The clown bellowed and screamed and stomped his feet and caused me to waver momentarily. Maybe I didn’t need to sleep that much. I haven’t sleep much the past few days, what were a few more? But then, I heard a chorus of voices behind me, who sounded remarkably like my friends and my loved ones, shouting battle cries and cheers of support. I stood up to that clown and said, fuck you, I’m not going. I need sleep, I need rest, I need to focus on this show. Tech and admin will be there after the 9th, no one will die because I didn’t go read another policy about how to teach or because I’m a few weeks later finishing “the rack.” The clown tried throwing things at me but I just dodged them easily, putting my fingers in my ears and basically saying, nee-ner, nee-ner, nee-ner, you can’t catch me, and running away like the adult I am. The clown lumbered after me, but I was too agile, telling him I didn’t need to justify my choices to him. It’s my life and my priorities. I finally turned and stood my ground and just shouted up at him, over his noise, over his bellowing, saying, “Shut up! I know what I want. I know what’s important. I’m not disappointing anyone and they will understand. I don’t need you to make me feel like a failure because I am not a failure because these choices are exactly in line with what I want and with my priorities. So fuck off.”

The clown swayed, the death blow delivered as I walked away, not throwing anything more because I didn’t need to. I heard the squeak as he fell on his little red nose and the thwang as his big floppy feet flipped out from under him. He whimpered a bit and then expired.

For a moment, the remaining 999,999 clowns held their breath as they watched their brother fall. They were astonished, never having seen one of their ranks face down, his clown white spreading around him. Then they started bellowing.

But I am not hearing them right now because I know that they can be felled. I know that all I have to do is find their Achilles heel and cut it off. I know that I can do it, with the ammunition augmented by those around me.

I know the war is not over yet but at least the first battle is won.

I won’t say “rest in peace, clown #1” because I hope you rot in hell with all the other pieces of my life that tormented and almost destroyed me.

Faking it... until now.

I’ve spent the last three years just tumbling through the things I’ve done. I love directing, I love writing, I love the art I’ve created over the past three years but I realized tonight that I have never felt that I owed any of it. I’ve always been afraid that I’m going to be “found out”, that somehow, some day, everyone’s going to realize I’m a fake and a phony and not really able to do anything that I say I can. I’ve done projects because they were there and focused more on completing them than making them good. Luckily, I usually have a terrific group of people around me who have made the pieces strong while I tried to figure out what the hell I’m doing.

I’ve spent a great deal of time pretending that I know what I’m doing. I’ve gotten really good at making everyone think I’m in control of every situation and that I have a handle on it. And I do – partially. I do the producing thing well and the organizing thing well and the motivational thing well. The piece I think I’ve been missing is that I’ve never believed I’ve done the artistic thing well. Because of all the other skills I have and do well with, I often get caught up in that and lose the artistic side, looking back on projects thinking “if I had only focused more on the directing than the producing” or whatever. I’ve never had faith in myself as an artist.

This has led me to make choices that are motivated by trying to make those around me happy. I realized that I went out of my way trying to find things I could put the OOMA in, partially because he is most definitely one of the best actors I have ever worked with and because he’s easy to work with and we have (had?) an incredible shorthand that made working easy, and partially because I wanted him near me all the time. He was also (and maybe still is, hard to say) one of my biggest supporters and one of the first people in my life who saw me as an artist, not as a lump of clay to form. But I let my desire of pleasing him get in the way a lot of the time, in weird ways. If I finished a film and he liked it, I was in heaven. I could not own it because I have been taught throughout my life that I cannot own my success. So, if OOMA liked it, I was worthy (wow, I meant to type “it was worthy” but I typed “I was worthy” – interesting). As he faded from my life, I wondered if it was the work we were doing that made him pull away because maybe, somehow, I was disappointing him with the work I was doing. How twisted is that? Because I didn’t own my own work. I had to have validation from someone – obviously, needed validation from a man.

With OOMA out of my life, I had no partner left. I had no one who I could turn to and deflect the attention off me. I had no one to steal ownership of my work, not that he did, but I had no one to give ownership of my work to. Even when I started writing the script of “The Wraith” and the lovely and talented PRS was starting working with me, I found myself wanting to give him lots of credit for things that he didn’t do. He was available when we started and then his job changed and he was only able to act as kind of an editor – I would write and send him pages and then he would give me notes or occasionally send me short passages of dialog. But I worried and I struggled over what kind of credit to give him on the script. I felt that I had done the majority of the work but wanted to acknowledge him so I put the credit as “story by” both of us and then promptly felt like, again, I was letting him down, I wasn’t giving him enough of my credit, I was being selfish and not giving away my ownership of the script.

I finally felt like I began taking ownership, weirdly enough, when I started writing with Ranger Smith and Madame H. Maybe it was the combination of working with a man and a woman but I no longer felt like I had to give away all the credit for the first film we wrote together. I felt proud of the work we did but I didn’t feel compelled to say, “no, it’s all them.” Maybe it’s that they let me sort of spearhead the way we write or what we write and maybe it’s that they make me feel like I know what the hell I’m doing. They give me a great deal of respect and, when we’re writing with the Moderately Successful Comedian, they turn to me when decisions have to be made and they let me drive our sessions, when we’ll meet, what we write. It’s still very much a collaboration and very much a team, but I no longer feel that I have to give away my ownership in what we do.

That being said, and this was a very roundabout way to get here, but I finally feel like I’m about to do the best work of my life. That’s my goal for this year. THE BEST FREAKING WORK OF MY LIFE… so far. To really, truly own what I am doing, not just do it because it’s there and I said I would. Make choices that will make the work worthwhile and not just going through the motions of it.

I think that’s what drove me to make the difficult decision of firing an actor recently. It was an extremely difficult decision because it was an actor I had a great deal of respect for but the role was not coming together. The actor just didn’t seem to get the role, find the meat of it, and the actor also came into every rehearsal with an attitude and an excuse. I found myself wanting to make the actor happy, not wanting to rock the boat and yet I would go home from every rehearsal frustrated and angry and aggravated because I didn’t feel like I could say, “hey, I expected more from you, and you need to step it up because you’re not doing your job.” But I want to make everyone happy and this particular actor is very popular and I knew that any discussion that questioned their ability was going to bring on a whole world of hurt. But, finally, I could no longer let it slide because the work was suffering and I love this piece and didn’t want to do it halfway. I fired the actor after the actor handled a situation very flippantly and I decided that I would not tolerate this, that my work was suffering because I felt like I had to make the actor happy instead of focusing on getting my best work done. And I fired the actor. And a whole world of hurt began for about three weeks. Hurt that bled over to my Birthday Twin, hurting her in ways she should not have been hurt. And I had a brief moment of wanting to give in, wanting to do a less than stellar production because I had upset a couple of the popular people. I was almost willing to give up doing my best work just to make someone else happy.

Then I woke up. I figured, fuck it, it’s my show, I’m the director and this show is not coming together the way I want it because this actor is not doing their job. That’s it, that simple. I don’t owe anybody anything when they are not holding up their end of the deal and when their performance is preventing the show from growing and becoming what I need it to be. If my name is going on something as director, I have to know that I did everything I could to make it the best show possible. I’ve walked out of shows before because I didn’t think they worked and I didn’t want my name on them. I need to embrace that and know that I must take ownership in what I do.

With that in mind, this is going to be the year of the best work I’ve ever done. That means making sacrifices and making hard choices and maybe letting some projects go because I’m too busy to do them right. I want to take my time and make sure I’m happy with what I’m doing. I need to take ownership and be confident that I’m doing every single thing in a way that isn’t rushed, isn’t pushed, and isn’t just slammed together because I want to make something. I want the films and shows I do from now on to be so strong and so much mine that I won’t look back and wish I had done something different. If something is bad, it’s because I didn’t focus enough on it and I didn’t give it a chance. Or maybe it’s just bad and I have to own that, too.

I need to stop giving away my ownership without losing the sense of collaboration I so treasure with those in my repertory company(ies). I want to share the credit and share the wealth while still being able to say “that’s mine.” I need to show myself that I am good at what I do and that there is a reason that I am here. I need to ignore the clowns (“with their little red noses and their big floppy shoes”) and embrace that I am good at directing and writing and art and anything in that ilk. Sure, I’m going to screw up and there are going to be things that suck, but until I can embrace and own the good, I cannot allow myself to own the bad. I’ve been owning the bad for a long time, earned or not, and now I want to make sure I can look at my work and say, “I did the best work of my life.” No excuses, no apologies. The best work of my life.

100 things (per Monica)

1. Smart – without condescension and ridicule
2. Curious – about everything in life, mine and his
3. Funny – when I’m not, when I am, when he’s not, when he is
4. Talented – in whatever it is – banking, surfing, acting
5. Passionate – about my life, his life, our life, everything in life
6. Spontaneous – with experience, with affection, with passion
7. Intensity – with purpose and with direction
8. In touch with emotions – his and mine
9. Accessible – must be able to communicate, even when I can’t
10. Patient – with me…
11. Respectful of me, of himself, of others
12. Quiet – in indefinable ways
13. Beautiful eyes that speak the words I cannot
14. Hands that I can’t take my eyes off of and that touch with love, never with agenda or intimidation
15. Who would be willing to find me if I ever got lost – literally and figuratively
16. Must understand romance is more than a word or a flower
17. Must desire to defend my honor, whether it needs defending or not
18. Able to leap tall buildings when I can’t
19. Arms that are strong when they need to be and gentle and comforting when they need to be
20. Adventurous
21. Available – in every way
22. Two very good ears to listen when I need him to
23. Lack of the ability to be judgmental
24. Taller than me but not terribly tall
25. Artistic in his own way
26. Love film
27. Love to read
28. Did I say talented? Can I repeat talented?
29. Green eyes or blue eyes.
30. Must be able to break my heart in all the right ways
31. Must know himself.

(only 69 to go... interesting number...)

The balance of our lives

The last few months have gotten me thinking about balance, both as a concept of making things equal and as a concept of the remainder of something.

I have a hard time balancing things. Zadra pointed out to me on time that I tend to be all or nothing, black or white, very little grey. Sometimes, that’s great. It means I make decisions quickly, I am quick to adapt to changes in situations, etc. It also means I occasionally react too quickly and sometimes don’t think things through before I leap off the cliff. I’ve found myself way in over my head a few times because of this all or nothing attitude and, since Zadra told me that, I’ve been working very hard to not be that black and white, to not be that reactive, to find the balance between being quick-thinking and impulsive, to find the balance of not being mired in too much thought while making sure I take the time to think. It’s a difficult balance for me and one I will probably struggle with all my life.

My relationships tend to be that way - you’re my friend or you’re not. There’s very little room for in between. If I love you, then I LOVE you and that’s it. If you do something that breaks from my expectation of you, the disappointment is so deep and so black that there is no air in there. Particularly when it comes to men, and I’m realizing how much of that is from my relationship with my mother, weirdly enough. I want the men in my life to LOVE me and I bend myself into a million different pretzel shapes to be what I think they want from me instead of just being me and fuck them if they don’t like that shape. Finding the balance between being myself and being something I’m not. Find the balance between the all or nothing I feel about most of the men in my life and just taking the relationship we have at its face value instead of doing to them what I do to myself – make them and our relationship into something I think I want it to be.

This was very clear the other night when I left Cute Boy behind after a very black evening I had been having. He could not have been more delightful and charming and entertaining after he heard about my bouts of depression. He did everything but puppet shows to cheer me up and I think if he had had an extra pair of socks on him, puppets would have definitely made the scene. Driving home, instead of being delighted to have such a wonderful friend and instead of seeing the love and affection he showed me by trying to cheer me up without fixing me, I got stuck on wanting more than that. Because that’s the way my life has always been – wanting more of something instead of appreciating what I have – finding the balance. I made myself stop and say, “I’m so very glad Cute Boy is in my life, no matter what the capacity, because my life would be missing something if he weren’t there.” Finding the balance between really wishing there was something more there and accepting that there just isn’t going to be and embracing what we have, instead of diminishing it because of what it can’t be. Balancing the moment with the wish. That’s a hard one for me and I’m trying to just exist in that moment where I am grateful for his very special friendship and the bond we have without turning it into something else. Just be. Just accept. Balance.

A recent situation has made me also evaluate the constant struggle for balance between being an authority figure and being a friend. It’s always a challenge to work with people you know because those lines get blurred and we all forget where there lines were. Trying to find the balance between being kind and nurturing and understanding and making difficult choices and difficult decisions. Finding the balance between being the person I want to be and the person I have to be. Finding the balance between what is expected and what is real. Finding the balance in me to stand up and say “enough” and weather the storm and just letting things lay and losing myself in the storm. It’s been a hard couple of weeks for me, and a learning experience for me about standing up for what I want and trying not to break toes on the way. Finding the balance between hard and soft, between challenges and solutions. Finding the balance between giving up something and gaining something. And not allowing my clowns (“little red noses and big floppy feet” and all) to throw that balance off by adding weights to the already tipped scales of criticism and keeping the scales balanced by knowing I did what I thought was right.

And then there’s balance, as in the amount of something that is left. Losing Perry so recently makes me think about the balance of my life. I struggle right now because I don’t see my life as being what I want it to be. It’s all out of balance, out of sync, and it is difficult every single day because I don’t see the end in sight of this dislocation of my life. What made me change my life was the thought of the balance of my life and what that would be made up of. Perry looked at the balance of his life and decided to make it a balance of a life of things that would make him happy. He helped me on my film because he always wanted to work with me. I’m sure I made him crazy as we have two very different styles of filmmaking but I’m glad he did it because there was no balance in his life left and we were able to share a very special moment in time. He changed his life so that he was doing exactly what he wanted to do when the balance of his life ran out. He had someone in his life who had loved like I have never seen him love someone. He looked at the balance of his life and decided this is what it would be. I want to remember that there is a balance to our lives and none of us know what that amount is. Perry struggled for a long time to find his balance and I think he found it in the last months of the balance of his life.

I don’t want to find that balance in the last few moments of my life. I want to find that balance while I’m living the balance of my life. I want to hang on to the scales and make sure that I check them constantly for balance – whether it’s professionally as I juggle too many projects right now, or in my relationship with Cute Boy (or future Cute Boys or Geeky Boys or Adorable Boys or Crush Boys), or in my relationships with the amazing women in my life. Find the balance where it isn’t all or nothing, find the balance that keeps the world on a reasonably even keel so I’m not constantly trying to keep my sea legs under me.

Find the balance for the balance of my life. That’s my goal this year. And next year. And for the balance of my life.

A good day

Feeling the need to brag a bit:

Just got asked to direct for the USC Master in Professional Writing Program, which I had done for two years about four years ago. It's a prestigious event and I was recommended by the previous producer to the new producer because of the success I had with the two I did previously (wow, really fractured that sentence). Here's the link for info on the program:

http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/mpw/students/index.php

Mine is a piece called Juche Rules and is a very powerful political piece about North Korea. And there's a $250 stipend, which is nothing to sneeze at. I would like three 0's at the end of it but I'll take it. Nice to recommended based on the strength of something I did so long ago. Oh, and it goes up April 8th and 9th, my birthday, at the East West Players Theater.

AND

We have been asked by a recent collaborator to work on a new show of his. Very excited. Still working out the details as he was considering another writer but loves the work we've done so far. Still, even if it doesn't go forward, it's nice to know that our work is appreciated and our talents are desired.

All in all, a very lovely day.

Virtual Fridge update

Have lots to write about but no time to write, although today, I'm home sick and don't feel like writing anything.

So here are a couple of new oil paintings (tone oil using only raw umber and white):



This one was to learn how to paint metal. I am really proud of the way this came out. Took about 6 hours to paint. Had to scan this in as two parts, so please excuse the line in it.



The assignment with this one was to complete a simple tone oil painting in one single class - about 2-1/2 hours. Not bad but couldn't really do anything too challenging.

The next one I start this week will be what is called "The Rack" - take a linen napkin, starch it, drape it on a board so there are interesting folds and pleats and paint that. Can't wait! Might take up to four or five classes to do that one.

Just for grins

This made me laugh very hard so I figured I needed to share it with y'all.


moar humorous pics

Consider it your silly moment for the day.

What's the point?

I started this blog again recently so I could share wins and successes and try to write about recovering from the mid-life crisis and sharing what life is like now, 30 months after launching this new life. I thought I had many positive things to share and really wanted to focus this year on being more appreciative for the life I’ve created. However, when one struggles with depression, appreciation is hard to find. But sometimes, it sneaks up on you and bitch-slaps you in the face.

I was driving home the other night, knowing I was going to be writing with Madame H and Ranger Smith. I look forward to the nights we write because we enjoy each other immensely and we’re a great team. Then Madame H called to say she wouldn’t be able to make it. I almost called Ranger and cancelled because all I could think for the past few days was “what’s the point?” Why am I busting my ass to create these things – scripts, short films, Cinderella – what’s the point to all of it? I’m still in the same place, fighting the same demons, battling the same depression. How is this a win? How do I share this as a success when I feel like such a fraud, such a failure?

I park my car and Ranger gets out of his, grinning that crooked little grin of his and I can’t help but smile back at him. We have a not terribly successful night of staring at my laptop and writing about ½ page of a difficult script we’re starting. Then he said something I’m still not used to hearing from men. We were talking about a budget/script breakdown I’m going to do for him and his partner on a script of theirs. We were discussing what they needed and I told him I’d do it, etc. He then said something about taking me to dinner to partially pay me for my efforts and I said something snarky about “if only I could find a guy who would appreciate me.” And he was quiet for a moment then said, “I really appreciate you.” Seriously, sincerely, without agenda or demand. I get that from many women in my life and am slowly getting it from the men in my life but it always makes me stop when they actually offer it up without me prodding or begging for it. And I thought, that’s what makes this worth it. Those moments of true connection, true friendship, true appreciation for one another.

Then I go Friday morning for administrative training for the eventual Assistant Program Director job at my studio and I am thrilled to find out that they screwed up and aren’t ready for me yet so I get to go and paint instead! Yippee! I am still not terribly confident in what I’m doing as a painter. I am intimidated by some of the artists I train around and I am always kind of uncertain when I sit down to paint. But I love it almost as much as I love directing. So I sit down, I pull out my three silly props which I am painting – a metal coffee pot, a small gravy boat and a cup – set up my canvas and start. Immediately, I find myself in that rare zone of totally focused and confident. The paint brush is an extension of my hand, with a mind of its own, putting down brush strokes before I even see them. As I’m painting, my instructor walks by and stops. I hold my breath, waiting for the gentle critique that usually comes from that stop. She just says, “good” and moves on. Then one of the big mucky-mucks comes by and she stops and says, “wow, that’s really, really good” and moves on. And I start to think, this is why it’s worth it. Then this young woman who is so talented and who I admire so much peeks over at my canvas as she’s been sitting next to me most of the morning. Her eyes light up and she says quite earnestly, “wow, that’s so good. I was watching you paint and you really seem to be so much more confident today. And it really shows.” And I look at my half-done painting and realize that I am more confident and I am so enjoying learning this new skill and flexing m painterly muscles. And that’s what makes this all worth it.

Then I taught two challenging classes (our Friday classes try my last nerve sometimes) and I am exhausted but I drag my tired butt to my friend’s birthday dinner because it’s the first one of his I’ve been invited to in a while. I know my ex will be there and I am still not comfortable around him. I’m not ready to let him back into my life in any way whatsoever and that makes it difficult. I sometimes want him there, want to be able to show him my artwork and share my joys and my successes with him. But I’m afraid of his criticism and his harsh words and his ability to make me feel like what I do has no value. So I continue to be extremely guarded around him. But my car stereo decides to put things in perspective for me as I drive off, playing Keith Urban’s “Stupid Boy” as I pull away from the studio. “She laid her heart and soul right in her hands/but you stole her every dream and you crushed her plans/she never even knew she had a choice/and that’s what happens when the only voice she hears is telling her she can’t/stupid boy.”

At dinner, I get to share my paintings with my friends because they haven’t really seen any of them and their joy and celebration over my wins and successes make me feel warm and loved. And yet as I sit at the table with these people who used to be some of my dearest friends, I realize that I don’t belong with them anymore. I don’t know why or how I know that, I just don’t. I used to really miss them and wonder what I did to lose them in my life. I realize now that it’s just the way life is. We come together, we move apart sometimes. That doesn’t mean we’re bad people. We’re just people. And I listen to the snippets of conversation that my ex is having at his end of the table and, for a fleeting moment, I really, truly, terribly miss him and the life we had. But I realize one of the reasons we don’t have that life is that I grew into someone else and he stayed the same. He doesn’t seem to have changed one bit over the past 30 months but I feel like a completely new person. I realize that going to this party was worth it because it showed me the life I could still be living and it showed me that it is not the life that I want to live. My life is plenty wonderful, thank you very much, and it’s hard and it’s a struggle and it continues to baffle me even on the best of days.

But it is worth every single struggle, every single broken heart moment that sneaks up on me, it is worth every tear shed over lost and missed opportunities and it is worth every aching desire and want, whether it be for the OOMA or Cute Boy or any of the million things my life is lacking. It is worth it because it is my life. And I own it more and more every day. And that is what makes it all worth it.


As does my teddy bear (oil painting done in tones only):