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.