Good morn... wtf?

This is what I came out to this morning. Got to love California in the rain. Well, I guess Bette Blue needed a bath...

Four years ago, life began...

Four years ago today, my new life began officially.

I got my tattoos, which I still adore to this day. Destiny on one side of my wrist, and a Buddhist chant for blessing and enlightenment on the other side of my wrist.

Oh, and my divorce became final.

I don’t know why this day - this fourth anniversary - is so heavy on my mind.

And I don’t know why this quote from (god help me) “Xanadu” keeps running through my mind: “Well, maybe just one moment. Or forever. I keep getting them mixed up.”

One moment or forever.

That’s what it feels like.

It feels like just yesterday that I sat in our home office and said that I needed some time. Just time to figure things out. Just a moment to look at where I was, where we were. Just a moment.

Or forever.

Just yesterday, I sat in a tattoo parlor in Las Vegas with my best friend, my mom and another friend while this adorable guy tattooed my wrist. Just a moment, such a perfect moment. Beautiful moment.

Or forever.

I never thought we’d divorce. I still don’t believe that it happened. I never meant for it to be like this, like that. I never meant for us to be done. Not for a moment.

Or forever.

And four years have gone by so quickly, so strangely, so remarkably. They have been four years full of productivity, creativity, beautiful friends, tragic loss, heartbreak, and wonder.

Four years where I have done some of -- no, have done the absolute best work of my life.

Four years where I have found some amazing friends, worked with brilliant actors, created incredible memories.

Four years.

Or a moment.

And for four years, I have dragged you around behind me, as a memory, as a lesson, as an excuse. It kept me protected, it kept me captive. It kept me from living the rest of my life. I kept falling for those I couldn’t have because the memory of you kept me from being able to really, truly believe that I could fall for someone who would want me back. It was safe. It was easy to hide behind you and say, no, I’ve been abused, I’m battered and wounded and hurt so I’ll keep myself hidden and locked up. I built huge walls around me so I wouldn’t have to feel, so I wouldn’t have to try again. At least for a moment.

Or forever.

Well, forever starts today.

Today, I leave behind the corpse of us. Or at least, I’ll try. I won’t use you as an excuse anymore. In fact, I’ll try to never mention you again. Because I need to get that power back from you.

I need to take this moment to get to my forever.

Opening weekend

Great opening weekend for "The Jamb".

I love my cast. It helps to work with two of my favorite men on earth - Kerr Seth Lordygan and Brad C. Wilcox. They are not only great men and great friends but amazing actors who bring intelligence, grace and dignity to every part they perform. I wish I could play with them all the time.



And Garrett Liggett and Kenlyn Kanouse are just icing on the very wonderful cake that is my cast.



The play by J. Stephen Brantley is full of amazing words and amazing characters and gave me so very much to work with. It was great that he was able to come out from New York and watch the first two performances of his play.

This is why I make the choices I do, to continue to do work like this. I hope you get a chance to check it out if you're in LA. http://www.eclecticcompanytheatre.org

Another opening...

My new play, the world premiere of "The Jamb" by J. Stephen Brantley, opens today - Friday, January 15 at Eclectic Company Theatre in North Hollywood, CA. Featuring Kenlyn Kanouse, Garrett Liggett, Kerr Seth Lordygan and Brad C. Wilcox. Directed by yours chumly.

Tuffer (Kerr Seth Lordygan) and Roderick (Brad C. Wilcox) are turning forty. Neither wants to face it.



While Tuffer continues to smoke, snort, and screw his way through Manhattan's much younger gay male population, Roderick's gone as straight as possible for activism and martial arts. With the arrival of Tuffer's latest boy toy Brandon (Garrett Liggett), Roderick can take no more. He insists that Tuffer accompany him to sober up at his mother's house in rural New Mexico.



When Roderick's mother Abigail (Kenlyn Kanouse), a formerly successful folk singer, throws the guys a very organic birthday party, twenty years of tension comes to a head. The foursome find themselves in a spiritual exile on the high desert, each on the verge of something, almost somewhere, in the jamb.



The title of the new play, The Jamb, comes from Tuffer's observation: "We grew up between the old shame and the new show. Post-Stonewall, pre-Will & Grace. We weren't exactly stuck in the closet, but we hadn't fully entered the room yet, either. We were in the doorjamb. Of the closet."



Susan Lee directs. Her previous stage directing credits include the recent well-received production of "Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde," "Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You," "Lloyd's Prayer" (L.A. Weekly Pick of the Week), "Keely and Du," "Afterplay," "Juche Rules" (winner of the USC MPW One Act Playwriting Festival) and much more. She produced, wrote and directed a feature film, "Cinderella Drives a Pick-Up." Her production experience includes stints at Simpson/Bruckheimer Productions, The Ladd Company, Cruise/Wagner, and working as assistant to John Kricfalusi at Spumco Animation.

Originally from Texas, playwright J. Stephen Brantley resides in New York. A graduate of the NYU Experimental Theatre Wing, he is a devotee of Kabbalah. His previous plays include Distortion Taco: Analog Hunger in a Digital World (Village Voice Pick of the Year), Break, Struck, Gatos Locos and the Ave Maria, Scoptopia, and Someone You Know Is Starving Tonight.

Get your tickets now at www.eclecticcompanytheatre.org

Please note - adult content. Not suitable for children under 18.

Tickets $18

Blackout

“She laid her heart and soul right in your hands/but you stole her every dream and you crushed her plans…”

Keith Urban on an endless loop tonight. “Stupid Boy”.

I almost let you back in. Almost. This close. Was going to send you an invite to the new show, thinking that maybe I should reach out to you, try to close the gap, try to let you back in, in whatever tiny way I could. Let you share in my life for a second, see what I’ve done, see what I’ve accomplished, who I’ve become.

“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.”

Then I remembered why you aren’t in my life anymore. Why I left almost five years ago. Why I chose to live without you.

Because you tried to suck the creative life out of me.

Right after I left you, I found a script I had started when I was with you. It was a script that I knew was good, that I knew could be something special. I wasn’t far into it but I could see it.

You couldn’t.

You didn’t even bother to read it. Just criticized, just tore down, just desecrated it before really reading anything. I was writing it wrong, you would write it this way. On and on and on and on and on until I stopped writing it because I couldn’t hear my characters over your voice. Just stopped.

“You stole her every dream and you crushed her plans.”

I forgot I had written those pages. I stumbled on them when I was searching for something else. I thought I had written less than a dozen pages, nothing worthwhile. But I had written 30 very strong, very solid pages. Pages that sat dormant because your voice drown out mine. Because I would never been good enough.

“So what made you think you could take a life/And just push it push it around/I guess you build yourself up so high/You had to take her and break her down.”

Then tonight, I found another. An entire script this time. I don’t even remember writing it. Well, maybe it came back to me a bit as I read it but I really, truly barely recalled putting the words down on the paper. Eight-eight pages. All it needs is the last few pages and it’s done. Sitting dormant.

Because you convinced me I wasn’t good. I wasn’t a writer. You made me doubt every word, every sentence. And when you couldn’t find anything wrong, you simply tore apart all the minutia until I just finally stopped letting you read what I wrote.

“It took awhile for her to figure out she could run/But when she did, she was long gone
Long gone, long gone.”

And there’s a script I wrote - with your “help” - that I still can’t read today. In my head, it’s terrible because the number of henchmen in one scene is wrong. I know it doesn’t matter but that’s all I hear in my head when I read it. That the number of henchmen in that scene is going to ruin the entire script.

“Oh, you always had to be right but now you've lost/The only thing that ever made you feel alive.”

How much abuse does it take to block out entire chunks of my life? Works that I have put my heart and soul into that I cannot even remember creating. How much does it take to make me forget and deny and ignore what I did to the point that it didn’t exist in my memory until I actually opened up the document and read the words I had created?

My roommate asked me what you thought was wrong with what I wrote. And I realized what my mistake was.

I am a better writer than you.

And instead of being a partner and a husband and someone who wanted the best for me, you had to tear the life out of my work and leave it empty and pointless and abandoned so that you could somehow be better than me. My ability to create made you so afraid, so terrified that you simply could not allow me to create.

And I believed you.

I believed you when you diminished my talent, my ability.

I believed you when you made me feel like I was stupid and lacking and weak.

I believed you when you told me that you knew everything and that I knew nothing.

I believed you when you screamed in my face that I had to change the number of henchmen because it would ruin my script. Ruin it. Nobody would read it because the number of henchmen was wrong.

I believed you… until I didn’t believe you anymore.

I stopped believing you when you said I was stupid.

I stopped believing you when you said I was lazy.

I stopped believing you when you said I would never succeed.

I stopped believing you when you found fault with every single thing I did, whether it was making dinner or choosing a movie or directing a play.

I stopped believing you when you screamed in my face about all of my shortcomings, occasionally listed either alphabetically or chronologically.

I stopped believing you when you told me that you knew everything and I knew nothing.

I stopped believing you when you said you loved me.

Because you could only love me if I wasn’t equal, if I wasn’t on par with you. You could only love me if I didn’t exist. You could only love me if I cowered in front of you and obeyed your every command, including changing how many henchmen were in my script. You could only love me if you could destroy me.

And you almost did.

Each pill I counted out that one dark night was because of you.

Each pill had a supposed fault, a supposed fragility, a supposed weakness of mine attached to it.

Each pill represented each word that landed like punches on my soul, tearing my heart out and battering me from the inside.

And finding those abandoned words tonight made me realize something.

You don’t get to come back in.

You don’t get to share anything, to be invited to anything.

Because you don’t deserve that chance.

“She laid her heart and soul right in your hands/but you stole her every dream and you crushed her plans.”

Because I can’t risk letting you back in, even the tiniest bit. My life is fragile and it’s delicate and it’s precious. And you cannot be a part of it because I can’t afford to black out sections of my life again. I can’t afford to let you steal my words and my ideas and my thoughts and hide them away so you don’t have to be afraid of them.

“It took awhile for her to figure out she could run/But when she did, she was long gone
Long gone, long gone.”

Proof

Prove that you love me.

That’s the phrase that kept going through my mind in the dark of last night. “Prove that you love me.” Don’t know where it came from but it crippled me and kept me from really being present in the middle of a great night.

I participated in a 24 hour theater event at Eclectic yesterday (and the night previous). I love doing these things because they keep me sharp as a writer and make me think differently as a director. And I love working at Eclectic because the people there are incredible.

Madame H, Ranger Smith and I wrote an outrageous, Judd Apatow type script (only smarter) and had a blast. We haven’t seen much of Ranger due to his Beautiful Baby so it was so much fun to write with him, however briefly.

Then quick sleep and up at dawn to get my play as a director and work all day. Long, boring stories about a producer who didn’t know what she was doing, crap I ended up doing because she didn’t, exhaustion, frustration, etc., etc. Long, long day. But the performances were quite good, for 24 hours, and I had a good time, all in all.

But suddenly, in the midst of the partying to celebrate the shows and the upcoming new year, I got bitch-slapped by clowns. Again. They’ve been very quiet lately. I think they’ve been plotting in the darkness.

I stepped away to the dressing room to get some quiet time because I had been going like crazy all day and thought I just needed a moment or two of peace to pull myself together. But the longer I sat alone, the more melancholy I became. And suddenly, that phrase leapt out at me.

Prove that you love me.

I wanted someone to come back to the dressing room and find me and beg me to come out and be a part of things. I wanted someone to come back there and tell me they loved me and how wonderful and important I am and all kinds of bullshit like that. I wanted these wonderful friends who are so loving and giving and supportive and amazing to “prove” to me that they loved me by…. I don’t know what.

I don’t know what they have to prove to me. They have proven over and over again how much they love me by just the presence of their friendship. They have cajoled and encouraged and supported and praised me more than any other set of friends I have had. They have been there for me at other dark times and have surrounded me with more love than I have ever had.

But in the dark of last night, I needed proof.

The intellectual part of my brain was trying to be heard over the cackling of the clowns. It was telling me all of this - that these folks love me and demonstrate that quite often and what more could I possibly need to feel loved? But that part was drowned out and finally gave up and faded into the background.

And my beautiful friends did what they could, which should have been enough. ET kept checking on me, poking her head in, asking if I needed anything, not letting me be alone too long. Then Kerr stuck his head in and insisted that I needed to be out on the stage (where the party was) at midnight so I could kiss him at midnight. Okay, he’s gay but I adore him. And he would not take no for an answer. And I’m glad. I went out, greeted the new year, kissed him and a few other friends and started to feel better. I thought I had gotten through the worst of it and the rest of the night would be amazing.

Boy, was I wrong.

I saw the current OOMA with his girlfriend celebrating the new year and that sent me off again. I want THAT. Of course, I want him but I really would like what they have. Someone to wrap me in his arms, kiss me, hold me, make me feel like a million bucks. And I was off to clown-land again.

And again, the refrain - Prove that you love me.

That clown in particular has my mother’s voice. Which is interesting because my mother has never uttered those words. But I think that’s the root of her craziness - prove that you love me. I’ll do outrageous things so that you will have to prove that you love me. I’ll be crazy and out of hand and obnoxious so that you will have to prove that you love me. I’ll say terrible things to you to get your attention so that you can prove that you love me.

Life with my mother always seems to be filled with landmines and booby-traps. You never see them coming. They just appear in front of you and explode. And then you’re not quite sure how or why or what actually happened but you’re suddenly missing a leg. And she’s petulant because you didn’t demonstrate how much you love her as your leg got blown off.

And I spent most of my life with people like my mother, who demand that I prove that I love them by sacrificing parts of myself. And that’s probably why I don’t like that there is that part of them in me, the part that screams “prove that you love me” when I’m feeling dark and moody. I feel like I’m lost in a tsunami of emotion, not sure what I feel or what’s going on, and I just want to stand and scream, “someone rescue me, someone prove you love me”. And I hear my mother in that voice and I don’t want that.

I don’t want to be my mother. I don’t want to grow up and be her particular type of crazy. That’s one thing I am definitely learning. I don’t want to be my mother or my sister or my brother, particularly. I’d like to be more like my dad, more zen, more laid back. But even he has his own crazies, as I guess we all do.

Monica gave me some interesting insight tonight that I am hoping will help kill the “prove that you love me” clown. She works with Zadra, my best friend, at a company that deals with gifted children. For the past few years, when I talk about certain things or issues I’m dealing with, Zadra will teasingly giggle, roll her eyes and say “gifted child.” And then help me out with my issue. Monica brought this up tonight. She read me this quote -

"The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive. To them... a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create -- so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, their very breath is cut off...They must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency they are not really alive unless they are creating."
— Pearl S. Buck”

This kind of stopped me in my tracks. I realized that many of the times that I find myself buried in the black is when I’m in a social situation that is big and loud and crazy. What Monica explained is that they find that gifted children cannot handle situations like that because they are overly sensitive to input and stimuli, and therefore, situations like loud parties become intolerable because they’re taking in every single sound and sight and person and things and it becomes intolerable.

That’s exactly what it feels like. I’m almost drowning in a tsunami of input, of stimulus, and I’m not sure what to do with it. It feels emotional but it may start out as just overwhelming input. Then I just can’t function and maybe I need someone to “rescue” me from the overwhelm. That’s maybe where the need to have someone “prove they love me” comes from. I need help. I need rescue. But I can’t ask for it because I’m incapable at that point to ask for help. So it translates weirdly into no one loves me because no one is rescuing me from my own self-imposed exile into blackness.

So, after losing yet another night to unnecessary and inexplicable blackness, I realize that I need to get a handle on this “prove that you love me” thing. I need to lose the idea that someone needs to “prove” that they love me and just accept that I’m loved and help those people who love me find a way to help me out of the blackness. Give them tools to reach out to me when I’m deaf, dumb and blind in those moments to rescue me from the blackness. And maybe with giving them those tools to help me will give me the comfort to know that the people who love me will absolutely rescue me and, thereby in a weird way, “prove” that they love me without my demanding it.

But I did realize today, in the middle of all of this, that I am deeply loved. I was overwhelmed by that and it made me angry with myself that I let the clowns distract me from that love. So I hope to take these tools that I gained today from my awesome roomie and beat the living hell out of this particular clown. And then maybe find more tools to beat the living hell out of his buddies.

Alone but not lonely

As the year creeps to its inevitable close, I have been feeling very lonely. I had hoped by this point, there would be someone in my life to share my life with, even if it’s just a Saturday night at a time. Someone to hold me and love me and… yada, yada, yada. I’ve been wading in self-pity - not yet wallowing but that was coming soon. Bemoaning the lack of love in my life, whining about not having someone special. Yikes. How could you all stand me?!

The past few days have shown me otherwise.

Simple gifts of grace have touched me in small and silly and wide and wild ways.

First, my new Buddhist family (Soka Gakkai International) have embraced me and made me feel so very welcome. From the simplest thing - Christine lending me a book about the Lotus Sutra, which I was trying to rush through to return to her and then her telling me that it was a gift and to keep it; the way that I was greeted when I walked into the meeting this week, like an old friend; Brad lending me a really great magazine on how to start this whole new adventure, which, again, I thought I needed to return and he generously gave to me. Silly, I know, but those little gifts mean a lot.

And the simple generosity of the kids I teach. Many hugs, much praise for how much they love me as a teacher. As much as I wish I made more money, nothing pays you back for your work than the look of pride on a nine-year-old’s face as she puts her heart into a Sisley duplication and she knows that she’s making a masterpiece. The smiles on my students’ faces today as we painted and draw and colored and played cannot be cashed but it made me feel like the richest woman on earth.

The gift of my beautiful, talented, brilliant cast on “The Jamb”. I know I say this about many of my projects lately but, to me, it just shows that I am making better choices, not only about what I direct, but where and with whom. These actors and crew fill me with pride and passion whenever we’re together. Half the time, we end up just hanging and talking after (and occasionally during) rehearsals. There is this sense of not wanting to leave because what we’re doing is wondrous and pleasurable. They make me feel loved.

And then, out of the blue, the simple generosity of someone who I am not very close to brought me to tears. She knows of my financial struggles and my family struggles and tonight, she gave me an envelope, saying merry Christmas. I opened it later and was stunned to find $50 in the envelope and a beautiful, touching note about how she had been thinking of me since we had a discussion a while ago about how I couldn’t pay my bills and about my family and so many other things and how she felt compelled to help me. Her gift will allow me to actually drive to work this week (I am teaching a lot this week and have to drive probably twice as much) without watching the gas gauge and trying to figure out how to sell a kidney to get to work. I can buy a few groceries. I could even treat myself to drive-through as I head between studios tomorrow, working a 12 hour day. She may never know how deeply her gift touched me, I think mostly because it was so unexpected.

So in this moment, this hour, this day, I feel surrounded by protective forces, which is part of what my journey into Buddhism is about. I am blessed with incredible friends, both close ones (Monica, Beth, Brad, Kerr, Zadra, of course, and so many more I can’t even list) and those not so close. I am blessed with a fascinating journey of discovery through SGI and Buddhism. Not sure where it will go but I’m certainly enjoying the scenery. Blessed by being a member of a company like Eclectic Company Theatre, where my talents are appreciated and supported and fed.

I may not be close to my family but I have an amazing family here. I don’t promise I’ll remember this tomorrow when I wake up and things may be ridiculously wrong again, but, for now, I am alone but not lonely.

Tough fit

I am 47 going on 25.

I don’t want to dress like Diane Keaton and Meryl Streep.

I am not a cougar. I have no desire to date a 25-year-old, despite the fact that I feel like a 25-year-old.

I want to wear styles that are featured in the junior’s department. I just would like longer sleeves to cover my upper arms and maybe a little longer cut to cover my slightly pudgy belly. But otherwise, I like the curvy cuts of those t-shirts, as opposed to the t-shirt cuts of what a woman my age should wear.

I can’t read another self-help book. “Eat, Love, Pray” got thrown across the room due to its ridiculously unrealistic, unrelatable, totally fantasy approach to mid-life. Mine isn’t being spent running around the world, trying to find myself while living lavishly, with more money than God, apparently. I found myself. That’s why I left my marriage. I don’t need to go and explore and find me. I’m right here. So don’t tell me what to eat, how to love and how to pray. Tell me how to pay my rent and how to re-start a life practically. Tell me how to go back to where I was when I met him and before I threw away my life on him. Tell me how to reconnect with that misfit 25-year-old that seems to have reared her beautifully coiffed head in my heart.

I can’t see another Nora Ephron, Nancy Myers mid-life movie. Yes, I admire these women greatly and I know they have paved the way for women like me who want to make movies. I love their sense of humor and how they stick to their guns. But I won’t be putting my $6-$12 down to see “It’s Complicated”, despite being the ideal demographic for it. Why? Because I just can’t relate to those women, those films.

In my head, I’m 25 again. I remember being this excited about life at 25. I remember looking forward to the next 25 years of my life. These books, these movies about these women have them looking back at the last 25 years of their life and trying to justify it. They never really seem to look forward at their lives unless there is a man they’ve found to save them from being alone at 48 and having to spend the next 25 years trying to figure out how to live without a man.

At 25, I thought I would never love again. I had determined that I would be single the rest of my life because I would never love anyone as much as I loved TS. And I still hold that true. That first love is the purest, most powerful love you can ever have in your life. And I’m not sure much can top that.

But maybe at 48, after having two failed marriages, maybe I can find that love again, that pure love, that “first” love. However, the entire focus of my life isn’t searching for that love. Yes, I want it. Yes, I am so incredibly, ridiculously lonely some nights that I can barely stand it. Yes, that leads me to unceremoniously throw my heart in front of the proverbial romance bus and get it run over. But my life isn’t hollow and meaningless and empty because there isn’t a man in it. My life is full and blessed and beautiful, maybe because there isn’t a man in it that can fuck it up.

Let’s talk about the men in my life for a moment. I have been lucky to have had some amazing men in my life over the past four and a half years. Some of them have left me behind as they’ve moved on in their own adventures. And that makes me sad. I miss them so very much - my dearest Chairman (probably miss him the most), AJ, Peter. They saved my life when I was first on my own. I guess that was their purpose - catch me before I fell and made sure I landed on my feet. I still love them so very, very much, even though they are so far away, even in the same city. And I always will.

There are new men in my life. Ranger Smith. I smile every time I think of him. He loves me, regardless of being married and having a beautiful daughter. He still loves me. He makes me feel like a billion dollars. He is a walking hug on two feet, that man. Ranger. Hehehehehe… Kerr, who has been an amazing friend and collaborator. Almost as ambitious as me, totally ready to jump off the cliff creatively with me. Talented, funny, twisted, the best kind of man. Brad. Wow. Brad. Possibly the most talented actor I have ever worked with. Now that’s saying a lot. Facile with his talent, generous with it to everyone he works with. Powerful, delicate, exquisite. And that’s just his acting. Beautiful man, inside and out. I wish I could order one of him on HSN and have him delivered to my door.

I will probably always have great men in my life because I love great, talented, brilliant men. I won’t lack for male company as I have always had great male friends. Maybe that’s why I don’t feel the need to go all Diane Ephron Meyers Lane Keaton on my life. I don’t “need” a man to make me complete because I have so many around me who make me complete without making me crazy. Okay, so maybe one or two make me crazy in different ways. But mostly, these men fill so many emotional gaps that I don’t have to spend my time and energy trying to find someone who makes me feel beautiful and talented and amazing and funny and smart and sexy and brilliant.

Okay, sorry, sidetracked by the men. Always happens.

Most of the people I hang around with now are at least ten years my junior. A few are a bit less, but most are around 35. I don’t think I have a single close friend here that is my age.

Maybe because I don’t know what my age is. Or what it’s supposed to be. Or I am defying what it’s supposed to be.

I don’t want to wear baggy, bland, boring clothes and spend the next 25 years sitting around, waiting for someone. I don’t want to be a soccer mom, yet I am so terribly, desperately regretful that I never was able to have children. My biggest, hugest, worst regret ever. Although I guess God didn’t want it to happen. And it’s probably for good reasons. And I don’t know how I would fit in with soccer moms anyway. The mothers of the kids I teach sometimes confound me with their lives. Is it wrong that I think a 45-year-old woman should not be as caught up in “Twilight” as the tweens I teach are?

Yeah, I can’t do “Twilight” or “New Moon” or whatever drivel they’re coming up with next. I can, however, do “Sherlock Holmes” and “Iron Man 2”.

I now drive a killer blue convertible. I guess it’s required for mid-life, although it’s not red and it’s sexy and adorable and perfect. Bette Blue. Love her to death.

I am often mistaken for anywhere from 28 to 38 but never, ever, ever 48, which I’ll be in four months. I had a Mary Kay consultant inform me that her $150 cleanser set would make me ten years younger and I kind of laughed in her face. She thought I was 35. Thank you, $6 Oil of Olay.

So what’s the point of this?

The point is that, while I love my life and it’s beautiful and amazing and incredible, I still don’t know where I fit in.

No, wait, I do.

I fit in when I’m in the director’s chair, figuratively. Driving to rehearsal for “The Jamb”, the new play I’m directing (check out http://www.eclecticcompanytheatre.org for more info) with the aforementioned Kerr and Brad, I realized that, maybe more than anywhere and any time in my life, directing is where I belong, where I fit in. I have grown into the director that I’ve always wanted to be. I no longer really second guess myself when I’m working on a project. The work gets deeper, as does the pleasure of doing the work. When I’m doing a show, all I want to do is that show. I hate that I have to go to work and actually stop working on the show while I do the pay-the-rent thing.

I looked in the rearview tonight as I was thinking about this and I liked the woman who looked back at me. She was someone who didn’t care if she fit in because she couldn’t be fit into a box. She doesn’t belong anywhere yet she belongs everywhere. She doesn’t care who’s around her, as long as they’re funny, smart, talented and just plain good humans. She loves her car, her dark hair, her twisted sensibilities. She embraces her quirkiness and her masculine/feminine struggle -- actually, she doesn’t struggle. She knows who she is and it doesn’t matter what anyone else sees.

And that’s the fit. I love standing in that woman’s shoes. I love the way that feels. I love the way the men in my life look at me when I’m in those shoes, in that place.

That’s where I fit. That’s where I belong.

How does that apply to the rest of my life? I don’t really know. All I know is that as long as I’m growing and working and creating as a director, I will be happy. The real me, the woman in the mirror, lives for that state. And as I learn to be comfortable in those shoes and not really care whether they’re in style or not, then it will no longer matter if I fit in because there will be no “in” to fit into. There will just be me, with my beautiful boots, my boot cut jeans, my men’s shirt and my long dark hair standing here, standing now, making my own space to fit me.

As best we can

You loved me the best you could. I see the evidence of that occasionally. The little porcelain boxes I unpacked today showed me that you loved me as best you could. The overflowing basket of flowers that I threw away when we left the apartment that last time showed me that you loved me as best you could.

Looking through the photos as I moved them showed me that we did the best we could. We tried to be happy. We tried to do what was right, what was expected. We smiled when we thought we should and we put the face on that people wanted to see.

We lived through our struggles and we tried to get through as best we could. We tried to talk, we tried to laugh, we tried to live as best we could.

I loved you as best I could. I tried to be what I thought you wanted me to be and tried not to feel the pain that doing that cost me. I tried to perform as your wife as best I could. I hope you see that in the moments, in the times when something brings on the memories, the echoes of our life. I hope you can see that I loved you as best I could.

But the best we could wasn’t enough. We were missing the tools, the power, the… something. Something that could help us not hurt each other. Something that could protect our hearts as we struggled to find our way through the hard times. Something that we could use to get us through the “as best we could” times and get us to the other side of that. Our families, who did the best they could, left us without the ways to fill in the holes, fill in the blanks, and understand how not to destroy that tenuous, delicate, fragile thing that love is.

And now…

We live as best we can.

Um, wow.

Warning - I'm not sure this post makes any sense at all. Read at your own risk.

It’s been a day.

I became a Buddhist today. Not exactly sure how that happened. It kind of sneaked up on me. My darling friend, Brad, introduced me to chanting over the summer. He’s a Buddhist and I’ve always been fascinated by it so I was excited to learn how to chant. He and his friends who were there also explained the philosophy behind the sect of Buddhism they belong to and I was intrigued. He finally invited me to a meeting, as did his friend, CJ, and I went today just to check it out. Brad wasn’t there because he was out of town all weekend and overslept but CJ was there as well as one or two other faces I knew. The meeting was amazing, stuff was explained and folks shared. Okay, oversimplification but I’m really, really tired and have other stuff to talk about.

At the end of the meeting, Christine, one of the district leaders, was talking to me about my chanting - how often, what benefit, etc. When you chant in this particular sect of Buddhism (SGI - http://www.sgi-usa.org/), you chant to a sacred scroll called the gohonzon. I wish I could explain more but I’m a baby at this. Check out the website for more info. Anyway, Christine asked me what I chanted to and I told her I usually had my laptop in front of me because I was using the audio guides on the SGI site to help me chant. She asked me if I’d like my own gohonzon. Huh? I had this idea that I had to earn it or something. Not that it was just given to me when I felt ready for it. I thought there’d be a test or an initiation or something. Nope. I said, sure, not entirely sure what it all meant. Next thing I know, there’s a little ceremony going on and Christine and CJ and Brad are planning to come to my place to enshrine my gohonzon (yes, there’s a little shrine involved) tonight.

Tonight.

Have I mentioned I’m moving? Just across the courtyard but still. And I have to be moved before 8 AM. I’ve been moving for the past week. I’ve hit the “holy cow, where did I get all this crap” stage today. Had to find folks to help move the 52” screen TV and the couch. The place is a disaster because, hey, I’m moving.

And you want to enshrine my gohonzon tonight.

I could have said no. But then Christine offered to help move my couch and I was in.

Okay, kind of selfish but I needed the help!

On top of all this, there is a myriad of emotions coursing through me today. Moving always sets me off, as it does everyone, I’m sure. But it’s made me miss my folks. My dad is not doing well and I miss him terribly. Mom sounds like she misses me and that makes me miss her. And finding a batch of their stuff just made me sit down and cry.

And somehow, I feel like a failure on this move. I couldn’t afford the old apartment - FAIL! I should have been able to - FAIL! Etc. You get the picture.

And finding stuff from RJ, which makes my heart break all over again. Photos of us, smiling at the camera, arms around each other. Were we really ever that happy? Were we just good at posing as happy? Again, EPIC FAIL! How could those people in those pictures not be together. Look at them!! They’re smiling! They’re happy! It must be love.

And feeling terribly alone. Monica had her boyfriend helping this week and he’s been awesome, not just for her but for me. He’s helped move a ton of stuff and even bought us a coffee table because we desperately needed one. He’s a great guy and a terrific boyfriend.

And I don’t have one.

It’s me. All me. Just me. Monica and Brian helped but it was still down to me. Made me feel very alone. Very no-boyfriend-y. Very never-gonna-ever-have-a-boyfriend-y.

Which lead me to (stay with me now, I’ll get to a point eventually) the current wonderful man in my life - Brad. I guess I’m blessed that I always have wonderful men around me who make me feel giddy and terrific and amazing. But they always seem to come with one thing I can’t overcome - a committed relationship to someone else. I can love them, I can adore them but I can never have them. So I’m back to very-no-boyfriend-y. I’m trying not to let my heart get carried away with this one, although it’s way too late. But the sensible side in me is winning out lately and I’m trying to reign my heart in before it gets shattered again because I’m dumb and have lost my head over someone I can’t have.

So, back to tonight. I agreed to let the Buddhists descend on my disastrous apartment. I’m glad they’re gonna help me move because it took me two hours just to clear off and dismantle and reassemble the giant Ikea bookcase in my living room. A nice group coming - CJ, Brad, Christine and me.

I have to evaluate why I’m doing this before they come. Am I doing it to impress Brad because I want him to love me? My constant fault. I’ll do anything, become anything, just to be loved. But I am learning, with men like him and Ranger Smith in my life, that it is possible to be loved by someone without having to be their girlfriend or wife or significant other. They can love me just because I’m me. Broken and battered and emotionally damaged. I am their friend and they love me. Wow. Um. Wow.

I realize I am doing this because I want to do this. My grandfather was a Buddhist and I have always wanted to know more about it. I had gone to a Buddhist wedding years ago and was fascinated by the chanting and what it all meant and how it all worked. And here was this incredible friend offering this to me. Of course I’m going to do it. If I don’t like it, I can stop. Doh.

Brad arrived before the others and we discussed the placement of the shrine, etc. I was suddenly overwhelmed again because I felt like I somehow didn’t deserve this honor. After all, I’m just starting. How can I have my own shrine? I chant at a snail’s pace and don’t really understand what I’m doing. How can you honor me this way?

Because that’s what Buddhists do.

CJ and Christine arrive with the small wooden shrine -- which I can paint and decorate any way I want -- and the four of us kneel in the space beside my bed as CJ sets up the shrine. We begin to chant and it’s amazing. Just the four of us but I was overwhelmed by the sense of love and beauty coming out of that chanting. They weren’t here just to chant. They were here to help me and welcome me and share with me this beautiful, special moment. I had tears in my eyes as CJ unrolled the gohonzon in its new home in my plain and simple shrine. Then we sat and talked for a while about what this meant to me.

Christine then asked the loaded question. What am I chanting for?

Well, duh, finances. Can’t pay my rent, can’t pay my bills. Don’t need to be filthy rich but need to survive.

Then I tried to explain that, while I want to leave no-boyfriend-y land, what I really want is a peaceful heart. I want my heart to stop chasing what it can’t have and find its own peace. Whether that means someone in my life or accepting the solitariness of my life remains to be seen. But I want my heart to stop running, stop hiding, stop being restless and just be peaceful. That’s what I truly want. And until it’s peaceful, I’m not sure I can share it with anyone else.

I had to stop there because I couldn’t talk anymore. Too much emotion, too many thoughts.

I had started out the evening feeling very alone and very solitary because I had so much to move. Monica was definitely moved out although she was wiling to help but she was at the end of her tolerance for moving stuff. I had been standing in the old place by myself, thinking, this is it. This is my life. Me. Just me. This may be how it’s supposed to be. Having men in my life like Brad and Ranger Smith to love me without hurting me, without breaking my heart like the OOMA did. Maybe solitary isn’t so bad if I can be loved by these amazing men. But even that felt lonely and empty.

And then the Buddhists descended (bushel of Buddhists? Battle of Buddhists?) and surrounded me with love and blessing and beauty. And added to that, Beth was able to come by and help out. And Monica, burned out though she was, carried her fair share of my shit tonight.

And now, I am alone again. Sitting on my bed, nursing my aching body, afraid to look at the piles and piles and piles and piles of crap I have to now organize and find places for. So I shut my door.

But though I am alone with only my purry, barking cat with me, I’m not sure I am that alone. The love that filled this room just hours ago hovers in the air, like beautiful incense, just enough to let you know it’s there. Maybe solitary and alone aren’t the same thing. One implies emptiness and hollow and nothingness. Alone. The other says standing by one’s self but with pride and fortitude. Solitary.

What’s my point? There probably isn’t one and I’m sorry I’ve dragged you all the way to the bottom of the page without one. Wait. Let me make a point up, so you’re not disappointed.

Loving and being loved can take many forms. I guess I have to figure out how to love in those different forms so that I won’t be hurt by my expectation and so that I won’t drive away the men that I love. Be grateful for the love that I have, because I do have a lot of it. And find ways to return that love that will let the recipient know that he is loved, not in a crazy, oh-my-god-I’m-going-to-stalk-you way, but in a you-make-me-happy-you’re-in-my-life way. And I think I’m making huge steps in that direction.

More "Mastermind"

Here are a few frame grabs from the film. I love the way it's looking. It's the hardest I think I've ever worked on a shoot but also the most fun and I think it just might be my best work to date.

Mastermind and his evil laugh:




Mastermind in all his evil glory:




Liz Lasseter, intrepid girl reporter. How will she get out of this?




The start of one of the greatest -- and most twisted -- love stories of our time:



More to come... stay tuned...

So we wrapped the “Mastermind” shoot with a marathon weekend of filming. I think it was about 20 hours in less than 36 hours. Now, I’ve done my fair share of 48 hour films but this weekend really pushed me hard.

And it was sooooo much fun.

The pleasure of working with people you love and admire and who love and admire you right back. I would say it wasn’t work but it really was. But at the end of the day, no one really wanted to walk away. It was a bit melancholy to put a pin in this project because it’s been so special for all of us. But I know it’s just the start of something special because this project has felt truly blessed.

The biggest problem was a huge lighting issue on Sunday that set filming back by four hours Lighting is not my strong suit and so it took probably twice as long as it would have for someone who know what they hell they were doing. The other problem was that I had to be behind the camera. I’m pretty good with it but I’d rather have someone else shooting so I can concentrate on my actors and get the performance on camera instead of getting the shot. And I’ve had a great cinematographer for the first three weeks. Oh, well. I think I got what I needed. And it’s all gonna be comic book-y and blown out so I think it’ll be fine.

The biggest entertainment of the weekend was interacting with Brad Wilcox as Mastermind. He had warned me that it might be a weird weekend with him in character and it was a bit. It was fun, though, to see Brad behave like a six-year-old who was wearing his mother’s bath towel as his cape. Yet as soon as the camera rolled, the villainy and the power came out.

Highlights of the weekend:

1. Watching Brad and Beth bond. They are connected in this project in a fantastic, twisted way. I loved the moments when they would just either reach out and embrace each other during the first part of the shoot, when they were Liz and JD and needed to be connected, and the way they stood toe-to-toe, challenging each other as Liz and Mastermind. Whatever they did worked. Their chemistry is amazing.

2. Going into the parking lot at Swordplay to get Brad to come to set. Usually, he and Beth would hang out at the table, smoking, talking, working. No Brad. Look around the parking lot, it’s 2:30 AM, and I look up the staircase next to the door and there is Mastermind, backlit like Janusz Kaminski had lit him, grinning down at me with his best evil grin.

3. I’m setting up a shot at Swordplay, Beth is deep in her preparation for the shot, I see Mastermind sneak up behind her and scare the shit out of her. She smacks him, calls him a dick and they just grin at each other like preschoolers.

4. Beth really enjoying handcuffing herself to the chair.

5. Giving notes to Brad in Mastermind mode about making sure a bit of his alter-ego, JD, comes out on one particular line to make sure there is an emotion and depth to the character. Mastermind just shakes his head at me and says, very quietly but very intensely “no.” I say “yes”. Brad tries not to smile and insists, “no”, putting on his best Mastermind face. I smile right back at him. “Yes”. I poke him in the chest. “It has to come from here”, and poke harder at his heart, “and not here” and poke his head. He shakes his head and pokes his own chest. “There’s nothing here.” But his grin says otherwise.

5. At the end of her part of the shoot, the look on Beth’s face when I tell her she’s wrapped. As she’s getting ready to go, I gave her a big hug and realized how sad I was that we were done and that she’d be gone. The set felt very empty for the rest of the night.

6. A small, private toast after everyone was gone with Brad and my flask of Jamesons.

My favorite shot of the weekend:




All in all, a wonderful, exhausting, incredible shoot that I think it going to result in an amazing piece of film.

Now, on to build the plan on how we’re going to conquer the world…

Who put the bar all the way up there?

Some day, maybe I’ll learn how to not set ridiculously high goals for myself.

I’ve spent the last few weekends filming “Mastermind”, the one act play I directed over the summer about the amnesiac who thinks he just might be a supervillain. It’s been going incredibly well. Beth is so beautiful and feisty and incredible as Liz. And Brad as JD is by far one of the most talented and vulnerable actors I have ever worked with. They have been breaking my heart as I edit and making me so excited to get this project out into the world for everyone to see.

However, we got behind because I set very high goals as to what we could get shot and we fell short. Not unexpected and not unusual. And we’ve been shooting with natural light so we are victims of the sun. Last week, we needed just one more hour of sun and we didn’t get it.

So today, we shoot that last hour, break, then start at 8 PM until god knows when, nap, then setart again at noon in Mastermind’s lair (which I can’t wait for!) and shoot till we’re dead. We also have some short promos to do to get y’all excited about seeing “Mastermind” in all its glory.

I had an amazing rehearsal with Brad yesterday as the new and improved Mastermind on crack. I’m excited because he’s really ratcheted up the creepy, scary, crazy factor without going too far and I think it’s going to translate beautifully on film (video).

But I’ve lost my director of photography to a paid gig. He was amazing and shot so quick and got to much it’s incredible. I’m short of crew. Don’t have the “hostages” I need for the bank scene. Kind of the usual stuff guerrilla filmmakers go through.

But what has me up and writing this morning is that I’m scared. And I realized that I’m not afraid of not finishing. That’s not an issue. We will finish… somehow. The cast and crew may not be happy with me when we’re done but we’ll be done. I’m afraid about shooting it myself because Los did such an amazing job and I’m not sure I can match him.

But what’s really making me afraid is that I’m afraid I’ll disappoint. I’m afraid that this is going to be the one that I’m going to absolutely tank on and be proved for the fraud that I am. That without a brilliant DP, I’m nothing. Without someone else calling the shots and guiding me, I suck. And that I’m going to let down mostly Brad and Beth because they have put as much into this as I have. Maybe more, in some ways, because as actors, it’s their hearts and souls that are up there on the screen.

I’ve been trained that to disappoint is the gravest of all sins. Fail, sure, that’s expected. Drop the ball, well, duh, that’s what you do. Disappoint. Oh, shit. The world will come to an end if you don’t outshine, outsmart, outperform everyone else.

And with every project, that fear grows. With every project, I work with people whose talent takes mine up a notch. Which just makes the expectation even greater and the potential for disappointment even higher.

This project is one of those special ones. The play was the sentimental favorite of “Hurricane Season” at Eclectic Company Theatre this year, if I do say so myself. And it worked so well and was such an incredible experience that I feel like I have to top that. I have gained two fantastic friends out of it and they have put their trust in my hands. If this project comes out the way I want to, I think it could be something truly amazing.

But the clowns are circling their cars and honking their horns and screaming obscenities at me. Who am I to expect that something I do will succeed? Despite recent evidence to the contrary. I am going to let all these talented people down and, as always, I will be left with no one there. They will leave me, as all the other wonderful, talented and special people have done. Because I will disappoint them, as I apparently have done with the other beautiful people who are no longer in my life. I can’t possibly live up to this expectation.

And it’s also the thought that I’ll disappoint Brad. There’s something about the men in my life -- the truly special men in my life -- that makes me even more afraid that I’m going to do something wrong and disappoint them. Because that means I’ll lose them, which I guess has proven to be true. I let both my ex-husbands down in some way, otherwise why we would not still be together? I’ve somehow disappointed the OOMA and the pieces of my heart because they are no longer either. It terrifies me that I am going to once again do something and lose this muse, this very talented, beautiful man and lose him as a friend as well.

So I’m trying to not let the fear eat at me today as I go. I have to teach three classes before we start today so I’ve got all that time to obsess on how much I’m going to disappoint everyone. I’m not sure how to battle that. I’m trying to just metaphorically keep my head down and stay focused, just looking at one thing at a time instead of trying to absorb the entire weekend. Just breathe and focus. Breathe and focus. Breathe and focus.

We’ll see how that works.

Climbing up from the end of the rope

It’s been a tough couple of weeks. Money is non-existent. I mean, truly non-existent. I had to take home toilet paper from work the other day to make sure we had a roll at home. Once again, can’t pay my rent. Haven’t paid for Bette, my new convertible, and the woman who sold it to me is so tolerant. I owe the wonderful Beth money she lent me over the summer.

Drowning.

Drowning.

Drowning.

On top of that, I’ve lost two classes a week, cutting my income by $400 a month.

And my father has been given three to six months to live.

Fuck.

Hard not to throw in the towel. All I could think is that this is how soccer moms end up having sex in their SUV for money because it gets that bad, that tight.

All I could think is that I don’t want to work at Starbucks. I don’t want to work retail. I don’t want another pay-the-rent job. I want directing (or writing) to be my pay-the-rent job. But right now, it seems so incredibly far away.

Once again, I find myself thinking, I’m 47 years old. I should have a better handle on my shit than this. I hear the voices in my head screaming FAILURE!

I had some hard decisions to make today. I finally broke down and called our landlord, who had offered us another two bedroom apartment in the same complex but it’s $200 less a month, which means Monica can afford to pay half the rent, dropping my rent to $725 from $1,000. And I need it because I can’t sleep. I’m incredibly stressed because I’m so behind on bills and payments and everything else. Luckily, our landlord is amazing and gets it. So we’re moving by December 1.

FAILURE!

I should be able to pay my rent. I should be able to make money. I type 100 wpm. I have mad skills. But I want my days to allow me to direct, otherwise there’s no point.

I’m frustrated that I don’t have the life I want. I hate constantly facing choices that seem to want to pull me away from what I feel I am destined to do. Maybe it’s what is supposed to make me stronger and make sure I am doing what I want to do. Maybe it’s just the universe fucking with me. I don’t know.

And on top of all of that, the shoes are still on my floor because we had to extent filming another week. (FAILURE!) So Brad’s shoes are at the end of my bed, feeding the longing to have someone fill them. It seems so far away to me that I might find someone to leave his shoes at the end of my bed. And right now, I could use someone like that. Arms to hold me, whisper good things in my ear, all that stuff. Make me feel not so alone.

The one glowing light is that the “Mastermind” shoot is going really well. The crew is amazing. I have a DP who knows what he’s doing, who I don’t have to explain everything to. He just picks up the camera and shoots these amazing pictures. The handful of folks who have come out to help have great attitudes, great enthusiasm and great passion for what we’re doing.

And my actors. This is my greatest joy.

Beth. Girl crush.



She looks like a movie star in this film. Her eyes are exquisite and she just leaps off of the screen with her honesty and her soul on her face. She is beautiful, she is talented, she is gorgeous. The chicks are going to be lining up for her after this. On top of that, she brings a core and a groundedness to Liz that is incredible. I’m so glad we did the show over the summer and that she had the time to really grow this beautiful, complex, wonderful character.

And Brad. His heart in his wondrous eyes breaks my heart.



Takes my breath away. His JD is so complex, so complicated, yet so incredibly vulnerable and fragile. He’s taken what he brought to the stage and deepened it and make the character even better, if that was even possible. I can’t wait to see what he does with the supervillain, Mastermind, when we start to shoot that next week.

And Brad and Beth together are breathtaking.



Monica watched some of the footage tonight and it took her breath away. Which makes me happy because that’s what I wanted. I want to have your heart touched by these characters, including Mastermind, when we get there. I’m very happy with my vision and happy that it’s coming true right before my eyes. It’s what’s gotten me through the past couple of weeks of pain and torture and stress and anger. It’s what’s gotten me to keep hanging on to the hope that I am doing what I should be doing. It’s what’s stopped me from just throwing in the towel and giving up and finding a “real” job and just living.



And Brad’s shoes at the end of my bed.

I’m hanging on to the knot at the end of the rope, hoping that this change today will bring relief and release, letting me focus on getting my life back on track. Hoping this change will move the energy and help me to bring someone into my life who will not only leave his shoes at the end of my bed, but maybe leave a little piece of his heart behind with me whenever he is not present. Someone who will want to leave his shoes at the end of my bed and leave the pieces of his heart with me.

The Power of Shoes

There are men’s shoes sitting at the foot of the bed. That was enough to send me into a really weird place last night.

I was shooting a web series/short film in my apartment all day yesterday. It’s based on “Mastermind”, the one act play I directed over the summer that I absolutely fell in love with. The original actors are returning, the writer has given his blessing and I have a fantastic crew involved.

The shoot went great. Had some issues, which every shoot has, but nothing huge or panic-inducing. Just ordinary production crap.

At the end of the shoot, my lead actor, Brad, was packing up his stuff. He asked if he could leave his wardrobe here since we’ll be shooting again on Sunday and he thought it would be easier to leave it at my place than haul it back and forth. Made sense to me.

Everyone packed up and left. I crashed for a bit and took care of a few things before finally hauling my butt to bed.

As I was getting ready for bed, I tidied up the production stuff left in my bedroom, because we had been shooting in there the latter part of the day. Once everything was cleaned up, I was left with two pairs of men’s shoes at the foot of my bed.

That stopped me.

Men’s shoes. At the foot of my bed.

I miss that.

Men’s shoes.

I opened my closet to put something away and Brad’s wardrobe was hanging in there - a button down shirt, pair of pants, a thermal t-shirt. Men’s clothes. In my closet.

I miss that.

Doesn’t help that I adore Brad, as does everyone who knows him. He’s a wonderful guy and has the best, most amazing energy. But he has a girlfriend so I just am glad he’s a part of my life and that he’s become such a good friend.

But his shoes were at the end of my bed.

I sat on my bed for a long time, staring at those shoes.

Yeah, sure, in another world, I’d love to think that this incredible man would be the one to leave his shoes nightly at the foot of my bed but that’s not gonna happen. But it made me miss having someone leave their shoes at the foot of my bed on a regular basis.

I miss that masculine presence in my life. I have amazing men in my life like Brad and Kerr and Ranger Smith and many, many others. But I miss that specific presence, that specific man, who will leave his shoes at the foot of my bed.

And it made me wonder if there will be someone in my life to leave their shoes at the foot of my bed. Someone whose shirt will hang in my closet. Not someone just to date but someone to bring that masculine energy back into my life.

I think sometimes I manifest that energy and am maybe a little more aggressive than I need to be because I don’t have that outside source of masculinity in my life. I love my guy friends but there’s something about having that specific, intimate energy that I miss.

I finally put Brad’s shoes in the back of the closet where they will rest safely until they come out to film next week. I had initially just meant to leave them on the floor but I don’t think I could look at them every day between now and Sunday. So they and their energy can hibernate until they need to come out.

I look forward to the day when the shoes of someone I love can live on the floor beside my Chuck Taylors and my Santana boots. Hopefully, they will belong to someone as amazing as the men I have found special in my life over the last four and a half years of my life. They’d have to be to stand up to my shoes.

Darkest days

The darkest days are these ones, the ones where I think it was all my fault and I deserved the treatment I got. The days where I have to fight picking up the phone and calling him, being casual, saying, hey, let’s get together, let’s talk. The days where I want to beg him to take me back, for us to be us again.

The days when I think maybe I made up all the bad things. Where maybe his treatment of me wasn’t as bad as I make it out to be. The days where I wonder if I just blew things out of proportion and turned him into a monster so I wouldn’t have to take responsibility for the things I did wrong.

The days where I think that there is never going to be a day where I don’t think of him, where I don’t wonder if I should have stayed, if I should have tried harder, if I should have… fill in the blank.

The darkest days are the ones where I am just simply and totally alone. Where I think being with the man who tormented me and verbally abused me daily and who made me come so close to no longer being here would be preferable to being alone. The days where I’m ready to just give up everything I’ve worked so very hard for just to have someone’s arms wrapped around me, even if they’re his arms.

The darkest days are these - full of creativity and projects I love and friends I adore. But feeling empty and hollow and shallow without someone - without him.

Embracing my dark side

It all started about a week ago. Brad, one of my favorite men, was sitting on my couch, talking to me about the “Mastermind” shoot coming up, working on translating the character from stage to screen. The fireplace was lit, it was very quiet in the house and our conversation meandered from the shoot to just whatever it is that two friends sit and talk about. Brad has the most calming personality yet he’s not afraid to talk about whatever is on his mind -- or mine. And we talked long after we were done with business. When he left, I could feel the absence of him in my living room.

And it made me miss having someone to just sit with, to just talk with. Just be with. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s very cute.

But I realized that the main reason I was lonely was that I had spent the better part of my adult life having someone on the other end of the couch. Dysfunctional, abusive, angry, bitter person but still a person who I talked to, who talked and/or shouted back and who, on occasion, actually listened and talked and tried to share to the best his ability. You’d think that four and a half years later, I’d be used to a metaphorical empty couch by now. And I thought I was.

But -- and I know this is going to sound stalkerish and creepy -- after Brad left, I just kind of wanted to curl up in the space where he had sat and -- I don’t know what. Remind myself of having someone? This is not a man who is available and we have a great friendship and a great working relationship that I wouldn’t want to fuck up. But I was just feeling so lonely after he left, after he took his presence with him, that I felt the hollow he left behind.

That really sent me into a nosedive over the last week. Feeling so alone and lonely. Feeling so absent from parts of my life. Feeling so incredibly empty. I kept looking at the end of the couch, trying to imagine what it would be like to have someone sitting there and I just couldn’t see it. I couldn’t imagine someone sitting there. The couch was empty and it was going to remain empty for the foreseeable future.

And I kept thinking about my ex this week. Feeling like I wanted to go by and see him. For what reason, I don’t know. I just sold my wedding rings recently for a whopping $35 and maybe it was residual sentimentality. But I felt like there were things I wanted to say to him, although I didn’t know what. And I know I could never say the things I wanted to say to him and I know I wouldn’t hear the things I wanted to hear. So his presence has been maybe metaphorically sitting at the end of the couch, taunting me, fighting with the positive energy Brad left behind. Making me wonder if R should have been sitting there, not Brad.

And through the past couple of days, I’ve been sad and lonely and depressed but couldn’t figure out why or what caused it. Yeah, post-show blues always happens and “Gross Indecency” was so wildly successful and beyond what I had ever expected for it to be that a let down could be expected. And I’m between projects, which is never good. But we’re working on Mastermind and just started work on “The Jamb”, a world premiere play opening in January, which I am thrilled to be doing. So the blues weren’t making sense.

Until tonight.

As I was driving home from teaching, I was thinking still about the empty couch and the seemingly empty life I was feeling. And I started thinking about R and our life. I realized that, sometimes, I miss that life. When it was good, it was good. He could be sweet when he wanted. We shared a lot and we created a lot. And I learned a lot. I missed our old apartment - this incredible loft space that never quite felt like mine. I missed the comfort of the dysfunction because it was familiar and it was known to me. And it’s always easier to be with what you know. It’s less scary. It’s less frightening. It’s less everything.

And as I thought about that life, I started to get angry. By the time I sat down to write this, I can feel this anger growing. Not in a wild, out-of-control way, but just a deep, seething anger that I don’t ever allow myself to feel. Because I’m not supposed to be angry. I’ve never been allowed to be angry. My family, my exes never gave me permission. R would mock my anger. He would diminish my anger. He would walk away from my anger, leaving me feeling powerless and pathetic and stupid and wrong.

Well, I’m angry.

I’m angry that for sixteen years, he made me feel stupid and lazy and weak and untalented and defenseless and unloved.

I’m angry that he said he would never, ever, under any circumstances, ever, ever let me go. And he let me go two weeks after I said I needed some time. Two weeks. Sixteen years together. And it took him a whole two weeks to figure out that those sixteen years weren’t worth never, ever letting me go. I got whiplash from how quickly he let go.

I’m angry that in a year of counseling, he was never able to let down his guard and say anything honest and real. It was always my fault, never his fault. Even the counselor acknowledged that in one of our last sessions. He became Spock and refused to participate emotionally.

Yeah, I know he has issues and problems and a side to this as well. And I know his family is fucked up, particularly his bitch of a mother, who laid the bread crumbs for his to leave his never-ever-leave-you wife behind. But he never really, truly tried. Because he didn’t love me enough. Because he didn’t love us enough. Because he didn’t have the balls to face his faults and really, truly fix things. And that makes me particularly angry.

I’m angry because it cost us a life. A life that could have been great. A life that had potential and that should have led us to success and beauty and wonder and all the goals we ever had.

I’m angry because I am terrified to ever let anyone get that close to me again. He left his mark on me as deep and as dark and as permanent as he would have if he had cut me or beat me or broken something on me. The scars and the bruises and the breaks are just buried deep inside where they’re hard to see. And I don’t know if I can ever let anyone get close enough to see those scars, to try to heal them because I’m afraid that those bruises and breaks will only be the beginning of another set of injuries, another set of punishments, another set of batterings. And I know I won’t survive that.

I’m angry because he left me with an empty couch when he could have chosen to stick it out and be on the other end of it. I’m angry because, deep down inside, a part of me wants him to be the one on the other end of the couch because he is all I know. I’m angry because the size of the hollow on the couch is immeasurable and I don’t know that anyone will ever be able to fill it.

And I’m angry because my heart still breaks over him and over us and over the life that has been lost.

And I don’t know what to do with that.

Meandering thoughts

I’m restless and moody tonight. Wow, how unusual.

On one hand, I’ve had the most amazing couple of months of my life. “Gross Indecency, the Three Trials of Oscar Wilde” was hugely successful, critically, creatively and financially. I have never had such a successful piece and something that was so well-received across the board. I had an amazing cast who took my basic direction during our extremely limited rehearsal period and ran with it. So much of the credit for the success of the show lies with them because of what they added to what I saw in my head. I couldn’t be more proud of the work I have done.

It was amazing to sit back and see all the things I had envisioned with this show over the past six years actually come to fruition on stage. And Kerr Seth Lordygan, who played Oscar and who shepherded this show through Eclectic Company Theatre with me, was a great partner-in-crime and a great Oscar Wilde.

At the end of the show last weekend, I realized that I wasn’t as sad as I had expected to be. I expected to be overwhelmed and depressed and blue because that’s what always happened at the last theater company I worked at. With them, I never knew when I would get a chance to direct again and I wasn’t really treated with much respect when I did direct, despite doing excellent shows. I realized, as we closed the show, that I wasn’t as sad because I knew exactly what I was going to be directing in the next year. And the joy of that knowledge is that I get to work with the actors/friends/people I love and people I respect and who respect me right back.

Next up - filming “Mastermind”, the one act play I directed this summer. It’ll be a web series and it will star the feisty and talented Beth Ricketson and the brilliant Brad Wilcox. We’re in blocking rehearsal right now and plan to start shooting beginning of November. And then I am directing “The Jamb” by J. Stephen Brantely, a wonderful New York playwright, and will be starting rehearsals mid-November. Oh, and I get to play with Kerr again and Brad again and Kenlyn (who did “Flawless” for me last year). Yeah, sure, make me work with two of my favorite men/actors on earth as well as a very talented actress and throw in another cute, talented boy and my head just may explode.

There are other productions as well but more about that as they fall into place.

Creatively, couldn’t be happier. This is why I changed my life. To create. To do what I want and be able to own it without having to share obligatory credit that didn’t really exist. This show is mine - good, bad or ugly, it’s all mine.

But with all that success, I find myself feeling a bit hollow. I had a great cast to share this with and good friends as well. But I missing that one special person to share it with. Someone to have endless discussions about the trials and tribulations, about my fears and my happiness. That one person.

I drove tonight to have drinks with a couple of the folks from “Gross” and found myself almost not wanting to go because there would be no one there to hold my hand and be the other half of me. To be the one beaming at me and just being there for me.

And I realized that I’ve never really had that at all. R had moments early on but even then, most of his praise was qualified. He could never just say, what a great job. I’m so proud of you. In fact, I don’t think the words “I’m proud of you” ever came out of his mouth. Maybe “I’m proud of you but”. Always a qualifier.

My family is a laugh. I sent them the reviews of the show, foolishly thinking there would be a response from them. Crickets echoing in the distance was the response. Yeah, I’m important to them. Yeah, I matter.

And S. Well, we were so young and so… young. And I hadn’t really done anything to be proud of or to share with him at that point. But I wanted his praise and his approval and I’m not sure I ever got it. I don’t know what I wanted it for but I wanted it.

And now, I’m trying to find the pride and the approval within myself and I got a little closer to doing this on this project. And the fact that actors I adore like Kerr and Brad and Beth are lining up projects to do with me fills part of that hollow.

But I wonder if I gave up having another part of me so that I could have this part of me. Does having this creative life and this creative joy and this creative everything mean I have to sacrifice having someone to share my life with?

And I’m not sure I’m ever going to be ready to really, truly let someone in ever again. How do I trust again after two men who were supposed to be the loves of my life destroyed my life and left me to find my way alone? How do I trust again when the one man I thought was going to be the next person to share my life with has faded out of my life without a word, without an explanation, without anything, taking a huge piece of my heart with me. And the others who I’ve thought, maybe this one, maybe this one, have turned out to not be the one.

Maybe there is no “one” left. I’ve had two that were supposed to be it but weren’t. Maybe I’ve used all my cards and there are none left.

Four and a half years alone. Four and a half years of wildly creative life. Four and a half years without someone tearing me down and making me feel so much less than. Four and a half years without someone.

Not really looking for an answer tonight so don’t feel obligated to post platitudes. I know, I get it. “There’s someone out there,” “just put yourself out there”, “give yourself time”, “you’re not really looking,” yada, yada, yada. I know the Oprah/Dr. Laura/Dr. Phil self-help bullshit crap that I’m supposed to know. And I don’t need that right now. I think my heart is still trying to heal and trying to put all the pieces back together, despite a few pieces still being MIA. And platitudes and encouragements and self-help logic won’t help fill in those holes. I’m not sure what will. A rotating group of OOMA’s (Objects Of My Affection) is obviously not the answer.

Maybe there is no answer. Just more questions, more seeking, more bitching and moaning.

At least my cat loves me. Mostly.

Reflections of...

I saw someone in the mirror yesterday morning as I was getting ready for a very long day.

It was the woman I want to be.

She is strong, confident, with a quiet power that doesn’t need to shout out, “look at me! See how amazing I am! Acknowledge how amazing I am!” She doesn’t need that because she knows who she is and what she is capable of.

She is mature in the best way. Knows she doesn’t have to prove her maturity by meeting others’ expectations. Knows she shows her maturity by pursuing what she wants and accomplishing her goals without compromise. She has the kind of maturity that allows her to laugh outrageously and not be embarrassed about it and play rigorously, knowing it doesn’t make her any less mature.

She is on the verge of beauty. Not the kind of beauty bought in a department store or the kind of beauty that comes out of an expensive jar with an unpronounceable name. But the kind of beauty that comes from deep inside. It’s not the kind of beauty that can be taught or bought. It’s beauty that comes from knowing who you are, what you want and knowing that you’re on the path to achieving what you want. The beauty that comes from peace of mind, from confidence in self, from letting go of fear and embracing life.

She caught my eye in the mirror, looking elegant and strong, watching me back through the glass. Her eyes were full of the knowledge I seek and level with the confidence I fake. Her eyes studied me for a moment, like looking backwards at her own progression. Her eyes and mine are the same but I saw, in that moment, where I could be.

Then she slowly faded away and I was left there, staring at my own reflection. But, for a change, I wasn’t critical of what I saw looking back at me. I saw the potential for who I could be, if I just stay on my path, if I just keep doing what I love and keep true to myself. If I stop using everyone else’s yardstick to measure myself against and just trust in the sound of my own voice. If I just trust that woman in the mirror and follow her example. Eventually, that woman looking back at me will truly be my own reflection.

Becoming Susan

I was talking to someone last night after “Gross Indecency”, discussing my vision for the show and why I chose to stage it the way I did. All very positive, all very wonderful.

And she asked me a simple question, something about where I got my vision and how impressed she was at my commitment to my vision. And somehow, we it seemed appropriate to say that this was why I had changed my life just over four years ago, to be able to be true to my vision. And it hit me in that moment, this play is the culmination of why I changed my life.

I read this play probably six years ago, when I was just beginning to direct at the Ark. I immediately put it on my list of plays I wanted to direct eventually.

When I started working on “Lloyd’s Prayer” at the Ark (one of my favorite all time pieces I have ever done still to this day), I started aggressively pursuing “Gross Indecency”. The rights apparently were not available, although I’m not entirely sure how aggressively the rights were being pursued on my behalf. I saw this play in my head, one particular moment especially, and never quite let it go. I was a baby director back then, just really beginning to find my way as a creative entity. “Lloyd’s Prayer” was the first time I looked at what was happening on stage and thought, that’s because of me. I made that. It was also the first production that my ex was truly not a part of. He didn’t attend rehearsals, he wasn’t producing it with me. It was mine, all mine. And he hated every minute of it. For the first time, I didn’t really care.

We were in therapy then, trying to save our marriage. I told him in therapy that I just needed him to be by my side, to be able to say, yes, I think she’s great and she’s done a great job, without bringing himself into the equation, without any qualifiers as to what I had done, without making it about him. That’s all I asked. Be supportive. Be my husband. Don’t be an asshole.

Opening night of “Lloyd’s Prayer”, he sat in the audience and said nothing. After the show, he gave me perfunctory appreciation and then literally sat in the house during the after-party, not at my side, because he simply couldn’t just be my husband, couldn’t just be supportive and couldn’t just say, wow, you did a great job. Instead, Carlos, my lead actor, and Chairman, who was such a dear friend at the time, and Peter were the ones at my side, singing my praises, telling me what a great job I had done. The supposed partner in my life, the supposed person who was supposed to be my rock, my love, my life chose to sit this one out.

Since then, I have grown as a director. I have done things I am so very proud of - “Afterplay” was one of my favorite because of the opportunity to give Chairman a beautiful role he would normally not be offered and his performance still warms my heart; “The Change-Up” short film because it was my truest Tarantino moment as a director and it placed top 5 on Famecast.com and I got to go to Austin to represent it; “Juche Rules” which won last year’s USC MPW one act playwriting festival, such a triumph because this was the third one I had directed and the previous two should have won; and, capping it off, “Mastermind”, another one of those very special productions that touched me in ways I can’t even begin to describe and the sentimental favorite at Hurricane Season one act festival this year.

“Gross Indecency” is the capper of my growth as a director. I feel like I went from a toddler to maturity in a matter of four short years. I could have never directed “Gross” without doing “Lloyd’s” and “Afterplay” and even the god-awful “Godislav”, possibly my least favorite production ever. I learned so much from each of those shows that led me to be able to tackle this scary, challenging and very difficult show.

But the biggest element that has led me to this success is the lack of my ex in my life. His ability to diminish me, his ability to make me question everything I did and everything I thought robbed me of my ability to create without him. I thought I knew nothing. I thought I was an amateur, a hack and that I could never do anything without him there to tell me what to do and make sure I didn’t fuck anything up.

“Lloyd’s” showed me I could create without him. And I don’t think I’ve looked back since.

One of the things I wonder about and ponder on the dark days is the fact that I feel like I had to choose my creative life over having a personal life. I miss having that partner, as fucked up as our partnership was. I did learn a lot from him, despite his inability to let me fly on my own. I miss having someone to sit with and discuss my thoughts and my choices and my concerns and my fears. I think that’s why I enjoyed coffee with Justin so much a week or so ago. It felt like talking to someone close, having a partner to share my thoughts, my feelings with.

Sometimes, in those dark, cold, empty days, I wonder if I chose correctly. Should I have stayed in my abusive marriage, tried to fix it, tried to make him see how he was hurting me, try to find ways to cope and re-configure our relationship so that I could stay with him and still live the life I wanted to live? Should I have just sucked it up and stayed with him so I wouldn’t be alone, I wouldn’t be just existing from production to production with no one in my life in between? Should I have made it work so that I wouldn’t be alone for the rest of my life?

On the dark days, I think, yes, I should have. Having a great show doesn’t make up for more than four years of life alone every single night. Having a great show doesn’t make up for not having someone there opening night, kissing me and beaming at me. Yes, he could do that for me - usually when he could take credit for something on the show. But maybe that was worth the sacrifice, give up some of my credit and accolades to have someone there for me. Creative freedom for an empty life, what kind of a trade-off is that?

It’s the best kind of trade off. This whole process with “Gross Indecency”, from committing to some very controversial choices such as casting Kerr as Oscar Wilde to the way I’ve staged it and going without a curtain call, has been very scary. Kerr has been a great partner in producing this and a great friend along the way. He trusted me, he trusted my vision, he trusts that I know what I’m doing and just gets out of the way. He’s there when I need him and not there when I don’t. He treats me with respect and treats me like a professional, something I am really not used to.

When the reviews started coming out, it was weird to see my name and see praise for what I had done. And there was no voice telling me that they were wrong, that I had somehow still done a bad job. There was no one telling me that maybe I should really look at the critical reviews and learning from them, which I do anyway. There was no one there to make me feel bad about my success and trying to take away any joy that I was getting from this moment in time of success.

And last night, while talking to this woman, who said she just wanted to meet the person who had such an incredible vision for this show, I realized that that person was me.

This production is the culmination of the two sides of my life finally coming together. Yes, I’m alone and that’s not likely to change soon. I’m a powerful, creative, successful, determined woman, which is attractive to men from the outside but most men don’t want to live with that. And I don’t want to be with anybody who can’t handle my success and my creative life. So if that means I’m alone, then I’m alone.

And I realized last night, for the first time in just over four years, that alone is just fine for now. Because by being alone, I’ve been able to shape my vision, sharpen my creative teeth and learned to trust those voices in my head that are not clowns, but are the creative muses who live there, whispering to me in the best and worst nights.

So if the trade-off means that I don’t have a date Saturday night and that I sit at home and watch “Snatch” on my 52” TV by myself or with my roomie, but I get to create things I am truly proud of and truly own, whether it’s a film or a play or a painting, then that’s the trade-off I’ll take. My heart is lonely and still in pieces but at least there isn’t somebody trying to hack it apart every time it starts to come together. And I have to trust that when and if someone special comes into my life, they will fill out my life, not try to take it away from me. They will know who I am and that will be what attracts them and they will become a part of my life, not make me fit into theirs.

And if it means that I get to create these amazing shows like “Lloyd’s” and “Juche” and “Change-Up” and “Mastermind” and “Gross” and get to step back and be proud of what I do, then it is absolutely worth the empty, lonely nights without someone. The pleasure and the joy and the pure sense of worth that I get when I step back and watch something I’ve created come together so strongly, so perfectly, is worth every moment on the couch by myself.

And I realized that last night, in talking to this woman, that I wouldn’t be here if I had not chosen to leave my life behind to find my new one. This show is the last of things to come back into my life that I tried to do in my old life and now its fruition maybe marks the true beginning of my new life. All the old debts are paid, all the leftover remnants are gone. After this, it’s all new, it’s all fresh, it’s all pure.

And it’s all mine.