God Is Patient (I Am Not)

Sluts, Schemers, And Other Shockingly Interesting Women Of The Bible #8 – Mary, Jesus’ Mom.

2012-02-14T21:44:00.000-08:00

You guys, I'm still having internet issues. Working off two to no bars. THIS SUCKS! This is what happens when something goes wrong at your Shabby Shack at the same time that there's a death in your landlord's family. Nothing can be simple.

Sigh. Onward we go, still no pictures.

Disclaimer: I am doing this as a way to share what I learn about these gals. I’m not saying what I discover and write about here is the absolute truth about them. I’m not thinking I’m going to discover some revolutionary truth that nobody’s heard before, nor am I looking to start legalistic fights. This is more about me being curious and wanting to learn more about these gals, and saying “Here’s what I learned in my Bible readings today!”

Which One Is She?

Oh, please. Everyone, Christian or not, knows who the Virgin Mary is. The Virgin Mary, Mary of Nazareth, Jesus’ Mommy.

And with Stella, My Biblically Super Smart And All Around Awesome Person’s encouragement, I have put Virgin Mary in the Schemer category.

HEAR ME OUT.

Yes, Mary’s days before Jesus is born are filled with obedience, and hiya Gabriel, I’m pregnant with God’s son? Well, “I am the Lord’s servant, my it be to me as you have said.” (Matthew Ch: 1:38) Toodleloo, I’m off to hide out at my cousin Elizabeth’s house, and she just so happens to be married to Zechariah, a high priest of the temple, but he currently can’t talk to rat me out (and besides, I’m family), so I’ll hang out and be obedient and head to Bethlehem and pick up the rest of the story there with the donkey, manger, swaddling clothes, wise men, la la laaaaaaaaaa.

But after that, the few times that Mary is mentioned, it COULD be viewed through a Schemer lens.

Hell, if there’s such debate (and boy howdy, is there) about whether Mary remained a virgin her entire life, or only until Jesus was born, and whether she was exempt from the whole “original sin” thing, or how she died (normally, or taken up body and soul by Jesus?), then I think it’s okay to look at Mary’s few mentions in the Gospels through a Schemer lens. Because then things get interesting…

Who Could Be Her Celebrity Counterpart?

Today I am saying it’s Sarah Michelle Geller, Ms. Buffy, Ms. Ringer. She grew up in the industry, getting her first modeling roles at the age of 4, and being an actress/model ever since without plunging into wretched starlet excess. Because by all accounts, she’s squarely a solid businesswoman who plans her next career move meticulously, aka a Schemer, in the very best sense of the word.

Where Is She In The Bible?

She’s mentioned in all four Gospels, and a tiny bit in Acts. And she MIGHT be mentioned in Revelation, as we briefly touched upon last week, she seems to be represented as “the women clothed with the sun…” in Revelation 12.

What Did You Already Know About Her Before This?

I knew what most everyone knows. I did a series of monologues about the Christmas story in 2006, and specifically had written a monologue from Gabriel’s perspective in 2006, as he comes down to give Mary the news about being pregnant with Jesus. So I’ve examined her from the pious “I am the Lord’s servant, my it be to me as you have said” angle. Yawn. Let’s get to the Scheming!

What Verses Do You Want To Focus On?

So Mary gives birth to Jesus, and he’s a little stinker running around and staying behind at the temple while Mary and Joseph do the classic “I Thought He Was With YOU!” routine. (Luke 2:41-52) and God knows what else he did as a kid and a teen (though Anne Rice has taken a fictitious stab at what that was)

But let’s look at two other instances:

The first recorded miracle (if you’re going chronologically) of Jesus was the wedding at Cana. (John 2:1-12) The whole turning water into wine thing. Giving credence to million of alcoholics everywhere, YAY!

At this point in history, Jesus has not announced his ministry, hasn’t announced he’s the Son of God, nothing. John the Baptist has been shouting about it, there’s a voice in the Heavens that essentially says That’s my BOY! but Jesus hasn’t said boo.

Which is why, when Mary asks him to take care of the Bar Gone Dry at the wedding, Jesus tells her, “Dear woman, why do you involve me? My time has not yet come.” (John 2:4)

If we look at Mary through the Schemer lens, we can think this:

1. Mary knows that Jesus is the son of God, thank you Gabriel, Elizabeth, wise men, Anna and Simeon at the temple, la la la.
2. Mary knows that Jesus is precocious, thanks to his stunt at the temple.
3. She must have reason to believe that Jesus COULD turn water into wine, or else she wouldn’t have asked him to. I like to imagine that maybe she caught Jesus drinking underage, and when he sent him to his room with only a water bottle, she shows up later to find him completely hammered, laughing, and really needing a bathroom. I KNOW THIS ISN’T TRUE. But it’s fun to think about.

So if we know all of this, why does Mary ask Jesus to bust out his bartending skills? I think Mary’s Scheming in the very best possible way. She’s giving her firstborn son the nudge he needs to announce his Awesomeness, aka his ministry. She might also want him out of the house, ho ho ho.

Jesus knows she’s gonna ask, because the son of God usually knows everything, and he
finally does what Mary wants, and turns six stone jars of water into the best possible wine ever. Behold, Jesus’ Ministry O’ Miracles and Baptizing Folks and Preaching Good News begins!

Next mention of Mary in the Gospels comes later. (Matthew 13: 1-15/ Mark 3:20-21; 31-34 / Luke 8:19-21)

I’m using the verses in Mark, not just because they coincidentally were the ones the sermon was about at my church this past Sunday, but because for once, for once, Mark is the one that gives the most interesting details about this story.

The reason why that’s hysterical is because Mark is generally known as the briefer than brief Gospel. It was written first, and kinda of a general summation of Jesus’ life. Mark’s the highlight reel after the Superbowl/Grammys/Oscars are over. You can usually get more detail about Jesus’ life in Matthew, Luke, or John. Mark is kinda like the Twitter of the Gospels – short, sweet, and under 140 character per mention. HA!

But here’s the exception that proves the rule, as Mark gives much more context. Basically, Jesus is raising a ruckus by being awesome and performing miracles and arguing about Fasting and Rules Of The Sabbath with the Pharisees, and drawing crowds everywhere he goes. Mary knows that if Jesus doesn’t watch it, he’ll get arrested. So she and the family “went to take charge of him, for they said, ‘He is out of his mind.’” (Mark 3:21). Mary’s Scheming here, because she knows if she floats the theory that Jesus is insane, he can’t be held responsible for his actions if he’s arrested. She might also think he’s legitimately out of his mind, but the Insanity Defense is probably the better cover story until she can get a hold of her son and suss out what’s what.

But Jesus then says, “Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mark 3:35) to expand the definition of family, and Mary’s probably grumbling going Great! They can ALL go look for you at the temple. Or something like that.

But! It should be noted that Mary is there at Jesus’ crucifixion. She (and other women) stood by her son, even when the majority of the disciples had abandoned Jesus. As a mother would. Which goes to show that being a Schemer does not inherently make you a bad person. It makes you a very passionate person. And in this case, a singular woman bearing the pain and joy of the Savior of the World on her soul.

What did you learn?

You know, I was really at a loss in trying to find a lady in the New Testament who could be classified as a Schemer. There’s a smattering of Sluts, and an endless supply of Shockingly Interesting Women, but I was digging REALLY hard to find a Schemer. Whereas they are all over the place in the Old Testament.

And if you think about it, it sorta makes sense. Most of the ladies in the OT are very concerned with whether they’re married, or have kids, and if they aren’t, they’ll Scheme to get that way.

In the semi-more enlightened New Testament (now is not the time to get into Paul’s wackadoo attitude toward women) the women have a little bit more freedom, and more independence and can do things with their own money like fund Jesus’ ministry or host churches in their living rooms, and those OT things aren’t as important. So the ladies of the NT don’t necessarily have time to Scheme about getting pregnant or married, they’ve already done that, and are trying to spend their money wisely.

It’s an evolution that spans the entire Bible – From Schemer to Shockingly Interesting Woman.

Sluts will already be around. I guess. HA!

Sluts, Schemers, And Other Shockingly Interesting Women Of The Bible #7 – The Whore Of Babylon.

2012-02-07T10:24:00.000-08:00

My internet is busted at the Shabby Shack, which is annoying and also why this post is late. Mucho apologies.

Disclaimer: I am doing this as a way to share what I learn about these gals. I’m not saying what I discover and write about here is the absolute truth about them. I’m not thinking I’m going to discover some revolutionary truth that nobody’s heard before, nor am I looking to start legalistic fights. This is more about me being curious and wanting to learn more about these gals, and saying “Here’s what I learned in my Bible readings today!”

Which One Is She?

You really can’t be called the Whore Of Babylon and be anything other than a Slut. Sorry. Very technically, she’s known in Revelation as “the woman,” , “the great prostitute” and then over the centuries, people would casually call her “the Whore Of Babylon.” You know, ‘cause that’s catchier.

Who Could Be Her Celebrity Counterpart?

Oh hell no. No thank you. We shall be using paintings of her from across the centuries. (when I get my internet service back up and running, thank you.)

Where Is She In The Bible?

Revelation 17 and 18.

What Did You Already Know About Her Before This?

Surprisingly, not much. I know she’s there, and I know she’s not a real person, but a concept, the book of Revelation is mostly written in code, so she’s an example, an allegory, an enigma wrapped in a metaphor.

What’s Her Story?

Revelation is the revelation of the apostle John, who is writing this book o’ the Bible while in exile on the island of Patmos and has a vision about the ultimate battle between good and evil.

The Whore of Babylon represents Rome, Babylon, Jerusalem, hell, let’s just say any culture, civilization or person who has turned away from God and have abandoned their faith for pagan religions, false teaching and worshipping false gods.

In John’s vision, Chapter 17 has an angel showing up to John and basically saying “Wanna see a whore?” Okay, fine, the official phrasing is “Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits on many waters. With her the kings of the earth committed adultery and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.” (Ch. 17:1-2)

Rather than saying, “Um, gee, thanks but no,” John doesn’t say anything, and in the classic sense of Not Saying Anything Means Yes Indeedy, the angel spirits John to the desert, and there our lady is, “sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries” (Ch17:3-4)

Such specific detail! Scholars suspect that the color scarlet is in there to directly contrast with white, which is the color of purity (though to me, the opposite of white is black, and black and purple is a cool color comb, but whatever.) Purple has long been noted as the color of royalty, so this chickie is the Queen of Blasphemers.

She also has a “golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things,” (Ch. 17:4), which to me means it was filled with Cheddar Ranch Doritos, and she’s also drunk “with the blood of the saints, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus,” (Ch.17:6) so she’s all around not very nice person.

There’s a bunch of symbolic mumbo jumbo woo woo stuff about the beast she sits on, the beast’s seven heads, ten horns, waters, a partridge in a pear tree and la la laaaaaaa.

The Beast and the Whore are going to turn on each other, because evil will always turn on evil, and “… they will bring her to ruin and leave her naked; they will eat her flesh and burn her with fire.” (Ch:17:16)

So the Whore of Babylon is basically a city, “The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth.” (Ch:17:18) And she’s a whore/prostitute because a gazillion people (in the form of kings, cultures, civilizations and populations) have “committed adultery” with her in a metaphorical sense by abandoning God for pagan religions and teachings.

Chapter 18 goes on to talk about how how she, as a metaphor for a city, comes to ruin. At first kings come to her and commit adultery, merchants grew rich from “her excessive luxuries” (Ch.18:3), but God “has remembered her crimes. Give back to her as she has given, pay her back double for what she has done…” (Ch.18:6) and so she as a city burns, and kings, merchants, sea captains all mourn the loss of the great city, and then an angel throws a boulder into the sea and says “With such violence, the great city of Babylon will be thrown down, never to be found again.” (Ch.18:21b)

Whatchoo Thinking About?

Well sigh. Why does the metaphor of a blasphemous city have to be a CHICK? You’ve got a lot of Roman emperors (like Domitian, who’s the ruling emperor when John’s in exile) who demand to be worshipped as a god. Why can’t the metaphor be a dude?

Because John’s letters don’t make it out from Patmos if there’s any language in them that could be read as slander against the emperor. So let’s make Babylon a CHICK! Why? Because everyone knows a chick has the possibility to be a WHORE, right? Because it’s an easy association, since most pagan religions worshipped at temples where they could have sex with temple prostitutes (even though there were male temple prostitutes as well, but whatever).

You know, you could’ve used animal imagery. There’s already quite a few dragons, and unnamed beasts, sea creatures, horses, and locusts scurrying around Revelation. So why couldn’t it be the great Bear of Babylon? Bruno, the Babylonian Bear, clothed in scarlet and purple, drunk on honey and blood.

They probably have never seen a bear. This is the Middle East we’re talking about. You don’t find bears in the desert.

I joke, but I am kinda sad. Because whenever there’s a metaphor to be written about, especially if it’s a metaphor where someone has gone astray, a lot of writers of the Bible smack the Chick button. As a literary tool, it’s done to death.

I’m not talking about the real women who have real adventures in the Bible. I’m talking about women as metaphors. Revelation also mentions another woman in Chapter 12, a woman who’s obviously meant to be the Virgin Mary. But it’s like, when it comes to literary devices, women are either Virgins or Whores or In Labor (see book of Jeremiah).

There’s just so much more to us, we’re so much more interesting, so much more complicated, to reduce us to broad literary stereotypes. And if this is how men in Biblical times saw women, we’ve come a long long way. Sometimes. No, yes, maybe, depends on what day it is.

It’s just a shame that these particular literary metaphors live on in the Bible, to haunt us still.

What Did You Learn?

Bruno, the Bear of Babylon. That cracks me up. Whenever I see the phrase “Whore of Babylon” from now on, I’m just gonna mentally switch to Bruno the Babylonian Bear. It makes me happy.

deadlines a'loomin...

2012-01-31T20:58:00.001-08:00

which means no post this week. Check back next week. :)

Sluts, Schemers, And Other Shockingly Interesting Women Of The Bible #6 – Mary of Bethany

2012-01-23T23:50:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: I am doing this as a way to share what I learn about these gals. I’m not saying what I discover and write about here is the absolute truth about them. I’m not thinking I’m going to discover some revolutionary truth that nobody’s heard before, nor am I looking to start legalistic fights. This is more about me being curious and wanting to learn more about these gals, and saying “Here’s what I learned in my Bible readings today!”

Which One Is She?

There’s a bunch of Marys running around the Bible, so you’re forgiven if you sometimes mix them up. The following are all different Marys and not the same person:

1. Mary, Jesus’ Mother, the Virgin Mary

2. Mary Magdalene (not a prostitute as most commonly think)

3. Mary, mother of John Mark, the apostle.

4. Mary, wife of Clopas, mother of apostles James and Joseph, and Jesus’ Mother’s “Sister.” (Quotes are there because the Greek word for “sister” could also be translated as “cousin,” “aunt” , “niece” or other female relative. So this Mary probably isn’t really Mary’s SISTER sister, because the Virgin Mary’s parents already have enough on their plates by being grandparents to the Messiah to not need to add drama by naming two kids the same name. The people in the Bible can be messed up, but not THAT messed up, heh.)

But today we’re looking at the FIFTH Mary, which is Mary of Bethany, sister to Lazarus and Martha.

She’s a Shockingly Interesting Person, as we shall soon see.

Who Could Be Her Celebrity Counterpart?

The Arquettes are a giant bunch (as seen here - Alexis, Rosanna, Richmond, Patricia, and David). And even though there’s a few more siblings than I need for this example, let’s say Rosanna is Martha and Patricia is Mary, and Richmond and David can duke it out over which one of them is Lazarus. (Alexis is the most fabulous of them all and can be anybody she wants to be.)

Where Is She In The Bible?

Luke 10: 38 – 42 – where she sits at Jesus’ feet instead of helping Martha with the housework.

John 11 – Where Jesus raises her brother Lazarus from the dead.

John 12 - Where she washes Jesus’ feet with perfume.

What Did You Already Know About Her Before This?

Everyone in Sunday School knows the story about Mary and Martha, and how the Bible’s Martha could easily have been the Martha Stewart of Biblical times, because Martha’s so focused on cleaning the house for Jesus (and later on, mentioning how Lazarus’ corpse will probably smell after five days when Jesus goes to raise him from the dead) while her sister Mary abandons all housework to simply sit at the foot of Jesus and listen to him teach.

In fact, if I ever get around to writing a musical featuring Women Of The Bible, I think I’ll have a duet between Martha and Mary, called “I Was Always Jesus’ Favorite.” It’ll be sung to the tune of Deck The Halls:

Martha sings:
I was always Jesus’ favorite
La la la la laaaaaa, la la la la.
He loved me because I was obedient.
La la la la laaaaaa, la la la la.

Then Mary sings:
I was always Jesus’ favorite
La la la la laaaaaa, la la la la.
He loved me ‘cause I know what’s more important.
La la la la laaaaaa, la la la la.

Then Apostle John would probably jump in
I was the one whom Jesus loooooved.
La la la la laaaaaa, la la la la.
It’s all in my Gospel, yes it waaaasss.
La la la la laaaaaa, la la la la.

ANYHOW

In addition to not helping with the housework and pissing off her sister, Mary of Bethany is also the one who washes Jesus’ feet with an expensive pint of perfume and dries it with her hair. As we read in John 12, this angers Judas, who argues that instead of washing Jesus’ feet, they could’ve sold it and given the money to the poor (John editorializes that Judas actually didn’t want to give the money to the poor, he wanted to keep it for himself.) Jesus tells Judas to shut up (not like that, but nicer) and explains that Mary has actually anointed his body for burial, “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.” (John 12:7-8)

Why Is This Shocking?

Sitting at Jesus’ feet to listen to him teach was considered something a disciple would do. Mary’s a chick, but Jesus allows her to sit where a disciple would because he considers her, a woman, a disciple – pretty shocking.

Back in Biblical times, a guest to a house would get a foot bath as soon as they entered the house, because Sandals On Everyone + No Paved Roads = Dirty Dirty Feet.

Normally, a servant would do the washing with water. Jesus and the apostles are meeting IN Mary (and Martha and Lazarus)’s house, so Mary is technically a host, and didn’t have to do the washing.

And even if she wanted to do the washing, water was fine. But she chose to use a very expensive gift on the most humblest of body parts – the dusty road weary feet.

(P.S., while Mary is washing Jesus’ feet and Judas is getting angry, what’s Martha doing? She’s SERVING! John 12:2 – “…Martha served…” Martha is gonna pitch a fit pretty soon if she doesn’t get some help. Though the servants aren’t washing Jesus’ feet currently, so she could grab them if she wanted.)

Whatchoo Thinking About?

I think Mary of Bethany’s all about emotions. Not necessary an emotional wreck, but she doesn’t hide her feelings, she wears them pretty openly. She drops everything to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen to him, never mind what Martha wants.

When Jesus arrives in Bethany after Lazarus’ death (John 11) , Martha goes to greet him first, which seems a little out of character for both sisters. But interestingly, this section is more about Martha’s character arc, and how she finally believes that Jesus is the son of God (this is even before Jesus raises Lazarus, and I love that Martha has her own moment here). Mary is back in the house, mourning with others, as someone whose grief is so overwhelming emotionally would do. Yet when Martha tells her that Jesus is here and is asking for her, Mary “got up quickly and went to him,” (John 11: 29)

When Mary gets to Jesus, she throws herself at his feet and says, “Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Pretty emotional statement right there, she’s crying, everyone around her is crying, Jesus “was deeply moved in spirit” (John 11:33b) and wants to know where Lazarus is buried, and what comes next is the thing that causes Jesus to say the most memorized Sunday School verse ever. Seriously, if you’re in Sunday school, and the teacher says next week’s assignment is to memorize Scripture, and you get to pick the verse, go for this one, John 11:35. Because it’s simply this:

“Jesus wept.”

EASY TO MEMORIZE. YOU WILL GET A GOLD STAR.

But back to Scripture! What moves Jesus to tears, among other things (dead Lazarus) is Mary’s tears. Tears from an emotional woman, a woman who says what she thinks, who doesn’t hide her feelings, who acts on her emotions.

A woman who doesn’t give a toss what anyone (Judas) thinks of her washing Jesus’ feet with perfume in John Ch.12, instead of selling the perfume to give the money to the poor. After all, Jesus is the guy who raised her brother from the dead.

Or perhaps, she’s the one who actually understands what Jesus has been telling the disciples for some time – that his time on this earth is drawing to a close. The disciples aren’t getting it. But Emotional Mary Of Bethany is taking Jesus at his word, and anointing his body for the burial that Jesus says is happening. The disciples may think it’s another metaphor, but Mary takes Jesus at his word. Which we all should do.

What Did You Learn?

Looking at these examples, Mary of Bethany could be seen as almost operatic. And I’m kinda jealous of her openness and emotional bravery. She doesn’t care what other people think, she’s gonna feel what she’s gonna feel.

How else would you react in the presence of your Lord and Savior? All pretense should be cast aside. Not point in putting on a mask in front of Jesus. He’s gonna see right through you.

And FYI, it was pretty impossible to find a screen shot of Patricia Arquette in an emotional pose. She’s always calm and collected in front of the cameras. If you wanna see her crying, you’re gonna have to go rent her films. I like True Romance, myself.

Sluts, Schemers, And Other Shockingly Interesting Women Of The Bible #5 – Bathsheba

2012-01-16T20:10:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: I am doing this as a way to share what I learn about these gals. I’m not saying what I discover and write about here is the absolute truth about them. I’m not thinking I’m going to discover some revolutionary truth that nobody’s heard before, nor am I looking to start legalistic fights. This is more about me being curious and wanting to learn more about these gals, and saying “Here’s what I learned in my Bible readings today!”

Which One Is She?

Bathsheba was married to King David, and bore him a son, King “I Wrote Most Of Proverbs” Solomon.

Conservative religious chuckleheads would say that Bathsheba is a Slut for going along with King David’s adulterous wishes. I disagree. She’s actually a Schemer for what she does after the fact.

Who Could Be Her Celebrity Counterpart?

Because she is the only woman in the Bible who is described in Hebrew as “maod towb” which means “very beautiful”, let’s go ahead and say she’s Angelina Jolie, who is one of the most beautiful women in the world and always looks like she’s got mega scheming plans behind those big eyes. We are lucky that those plans are usually about helping Serbian orphans or adopting another child from an impoverished country, because she could be scheming to bring about the zombie apocalypse. I mean, look at her – doesn’t she look like she could convince any scientist in the world to unleash a zombie virus if she really wanted to?

So really, people, we’re only alive because Angelina Jolie wants us to be.

Where Is She In The Bible?

The part of the story that everyone remembers is 2 Samuel, Chapter 11 and 12. That’s where King David sees Bathsheba, grabs her, impregnates her, and then sends her husband Uriah to the front line of the war so he’s killed quicker so King David can marry Bathsheba and claim the kid as his. That kid dies, by the way, as God’s punishment on King David (and some say Bathsheba too).

But King David must’ve really really loved Bathsheba, because he stuck with her forever. He could’ve booted her after the first kid died, but nope, she sticks around. But again, she’s Angelina Jolie beautiful. Who wouldn’t want a gal like that to stick around?

BUT! She also has a small adventure in 1 Kings, Chapters 1 and 2.

And when you look at her actions in both of those stories, you realize she’s a Schemer.

What Did You Already Know About Her Before This?

Everybody knows she’s the chick bathing naked on the roof when King David saw her. Everybody knows King David fell into such lust for her that he purposefully schemed to get Uriah, her husband, killed in battle so he could marry her because she was already pregnant with King David’s kid. And the bulk of this story falls upon King David and his actions, because yes, he’s the bigger sinner here.

I used to like to get into debates in various small groups whenever anyone said that Bathsheba bore some of the blame of the sin of adultery by going to King David when he “sent messengers to get her” (Ch.11:4), even though she was married to Uriah.

But hello!

When a King “sends messengers to get” you, how do you think he’d do it? HE USES SOLDIERS. Big burly men with swords and battle axes and other weapons that not-so-subtly indicate that It’s Best You Come With Us And Sleep With Your King Serve Your Country.

Because a King is only going to accept one answer here. And Bathsheba is a woman of the Bible whose husband happens to not be at home ‘cause he’s fighting in the war, and she’s got zero options.

Put another way - If the Secret Service comes knocking on your door and says “The President Would Like A Word With You,” you don’t really get to say no. Any movie will show you that you get your ass tackled if your answer is anything other than yes.

So nope, Bathsheba didn’t have a choice, and any conservative religious chucklehead who argues that she did is usually #1) a guy or #2) someone who likes to blame women a lot. Back away slowly from those folks. The zombies will get them in their time when Angelina gives the say so.

What’s Her Story?

After Bathsheba gets pregnant by King David, and after Uriah gets killed in battle, King David is courteous enough to wait - “after the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son.” (Ch11:27) Oh yeah, NOW he can wait. Couldn’t wait before, but NOW he can. Heh.

So here comes Nathan the prophet, who essentially tells King David God knows what you did, you bad bad person! Calamity approacheth! King David, to his credit, instantly confesses, and Calamity averted, but the kid (who never gets a name, poor little bugger) dies after seven days. Because sin has consequences.

As usual, the Bible spends zippo time checking in on its women, in this case Bathsheba, and what she must be feeling/thinking. Her husband Uriah is dead. Her firstborn (if she had kids with Uriah, the Bible would’ve said something about them) is dead. The King who got her into all of this mess is still alive, and now she’s married to him.

And yet, she still stays with him. She doesn’t run away, she doesn’t pull a Cleopatra and Asps Away! She doesn’t even kill him. Why? The only thing I can think of is that she must love him. Or he must be really hot. Like, Brad Pitt hot. Maybe that’s the series I do next – Life Of King David As Played By Brad Pitt.

It must also be noted that God wanted these crazy kids together, because she gets pregnant with David’s kid again and in Ch.12:24-26 “She gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon. The Lord loved him, and because the Lord loved him, he sent word through Nathan the prophet to name him Jeddiah.” Jeddiah means “loved by the Lord.” And God really loves Solomon, because he is also in the bloodline that will eventually produce Jesus.

So let’s skip the parts where David has other kids by other wives, and they’re obviously not Bathsheba’s kids, because they’re all screwed up and raping their half sister (Amnon), or killing their brother because they raped their half sister, and trying to take the throne from David (Absalom). I like to think Bathsheba is just trying to raise baby Solomon, and giving him all the wisdom that he’ll need to write Proverbs later (which could quite possibly be as simple as “don’t do anything you see any of your father’s sons doing.”)

But she pops up again where not a lot of people expect her to do so, in 1 Kings, Chapters 1 and 2.

At this point, David’s son Adonijah (who is NOT Bathsheba’s son) decides he’s gonna jump over the whole succession thing (which dictates that Solomon would be King when David died) and claim himself King because David is way too old, and too busy trying to get it up with young virgins named Abishag (yeah, when the Bible says “he could not keep warm,” that’s a gentle euphemism for “I cannot perform sexually to produce more heirs and thus prove I can still be King”) to fight him off.

So Nathan the prophet, yes, the same prophet who told David that his firstborn son by Bathsheba was gonna die because of his adultery sin, finds Bathsheba and says, “You wanna do something about this or else Solomon’s not getting the throne.”

And seriously, can you imagine Bathsheba looking at this guy, this prophet, the same guy who told David (I’m guessing she was either in the room or nearby) that their firstborn son was gonna die because of the sin that David kinda sorta coerced her to participate in, THIS guy, is now coming to her saying “Yo, need your help.”

Nathan the prophet needs Bathsheba’s help, because he’s already figured out that if he went by himself to talk to King David, his words wouldn’t be heard.

But if King David’s not gonna listen to the prophet who was right in the past about his firstborn son dying, then who would King David listen to?

BATHSHEBA. Which is why Nathan went to her to ask King David first. If Nathan could’ve done it by himself, he would’ve. But nope, he needs the one woman who, when she speaks, KINGS listen.

(We are not brain-eating-zombies only because Angelina Jolie loves her kids and Brad Pitt too much to give the order.)

Nathan instructs Bathsheba to go to elderly King David (whose throne is probably a hospital bed at this point) and say something to the effect of, “What the hell, you said Solomon would be king, and Adonijah’s just sent out a press release saying he’s taking the throne.”

Bathsheba does him one better, and tells King David that not only has Adonijah sent the press release, he’s excluded Solomon and Bathsheba from the victory dinner, and they’re most likely gonna die soon.

So King David quickly crowns Solomon as king, while Adonijah is at his victory dinner, and since what King David says still goes, Solomon is now king, and Adonijah sulks away, because Solomon, in his wisdom, doesn’t kill him.

That doesn’t stop Adonijah from requesting through Bathsheba for Solomon to grant “I Don’t Like Being Known As The Virgin That King David Couldn’t Get it Up With” Abishag as his wife. Bathsheba allegedly innocently carries the request to Solomon, who promptly kills Adonijah for his request (because if Adonijah could get it up with a virgin that his own father couldn’t, that means Adonijah has conquered Virgin Territory And Thus Deserves To Be King. Gross and stupid.)

See I bet, I just bet, that Bathsheba knew that would happen. This is her chance to get rid of the pesky Son Who’s Not Her Son Who Tried To Take The Throne From HER Son once and for all.

Why would Adonijah ask Bathsheba for help with his dumb request? Because when Bathsheba speaks, KINGS listen.

Oooooooh, she’s crafty, she is.

Whatchoo Thinking About?

At first glance, it looks like Bathsheba is nothing more than a pawn in other men’s schemes – King David must have her, Prophet Nathan needs her to talk to David, Adonijah needs her to talk to King Solomon.

But how she not only survives those plans, but often times does them one better, is kinda awesome.

Everyone wrote off Bathsheba as a beautiful woman and nothing more. I think just about everyone has more going on under the surface. Sometimes not a ton more. But something more. Look beneath the surface of everyone

What did you learn?

Don’t have a victory dinner until after you’ve taken the throne.

Never ever underestimate the persuasiveness of a beautiful woman (who, by the way, was verbally persuasive with King David and King Solomon. Again, more than meets the eye.)

Brad Pitt is staring in the movie version of World War Z, which is about the zombie apocalypse. Coincidence? I THINK NOT.

Sluts, Schemers, And Other Shockingly Interesting Women Of The Bible #4 – Gomer

2012-01-09T23:37:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: I am doing this as a way to share what I learn about these gals. I’m not saying what I discover and write about here is the absolute truth about them. I’m not thinking I’m going to discover some revolutionary truth that nobody’s heard before, nor am I looking to start legalistic fights. This is more about me being curious and wanting to learn more about these gals, and saying “Here’s what I learned in my Bible readings today!”

Which One Is She?

Gomer is firmly in our Slut category, as she’s the woman God told the prophet Hosea to marry, despite her indiscretions that continued even after Hosea married her. She’s willful, stubborn, wants to do her own thing, comes back and says she’s sorry and she won’t ever do it again… and then promptly goes and does it again.

Just like most of mankind.

Which is why God told Hosea to marry her, as their union would vividly be a metaphor for God and Israel, his chosen people.

In that metaphor, Hosea is to God as Gomer the slut is all of us.

Who Could Be Her Celebrity Counterpart?

I’m gonna get in such trouble for this. It really doesn’t matter who I name, it’s gonna be bad news. Oh, yes, please DO “name a famous female celebrity who’s slept with MASSIVE amounts of people.” Let me Google that phrase and see what I come back with. HA! GOOGLE DOESN’T COME BACK WITH ANYTHING! GOOGLE’S STAYING THE HELL AWAY FROM THIS ONE!!

You know what? I’m gonna say Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love (Venus is the Roman version). Who was VERY well known for taking numerous lovers, and never really being faithful to her hubby Hephaestus (Vulcan is the Roman version). And since Mira Sorvino played a prostitute (and won an Oscar for it) in Woody Allen's “Mighty Aphrodite,” that’s the face we’re using today. (we’re NOT saying Mira is a slut. WE ARE NOT SAYING THAT. We’re saying that we’re using her face as an illustration. THAT’S ALL.)

Where Is She In The Bible?

Hosea, a minor prophet book in the Old Testament. Fourteen chapters long.

What Did You Already Know About Her Before This?

I knew about her, because it’s a wackadoo part of the Bible that not a lot of people know about, so when you read about it you’re like “?!HUH?!” but then I forgot. Then I remember. Then I forget. Minor prophets are like that.

What’s Her Story?

God told Hosea to marry an adulterous woman, though look at the hilarious way it reads in the Bible,

Chapter 1, vs. 2 & 3 “…the Lord said to him, “God, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the Lord. So he married Gomer, daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.”

BWAH HA HA HA HA!

See, the way I read it, God doesn’t tell Hosea WHO to marry, He tells Hosea WHAT KIND OF WOMAN to marry, i.e. “Go find yourself a whore and marry her,” and Hosea thinks, “OH! I KNOW JUST THE ONE!”

Meaning it’s up to Hosea’s own judgment to find the whoriest of whores. OH MY GOD, PEOPLE, DO YOU NOT SEE THE HILARITY HERE?

After being instructed by God to pick a whore for a wife, Hosea marries Gomer and they have three kids (there’s debate over whether the second and third child are Hosea’s), and God tells them to name the children specifically these names because of what the names mean:

Jezreel, a boy– Jezreel is a famous battleground where a historical bloody coup took place under the king of Jehu. Jezreel means “God scatters.” By Hosea naming his child this, God is speaking through Hosea that Jehu’s rule is coming to an end.

Lo-Ruhamah, a daughter, - Lo-Ruhamah means “not pitied.”

Lo-Ammi, a son - Lo-Ammi means “not my people.”

With a slut for a mom, and these wackadoo names, I am shocked that we don’t hear more about how these three kids grew up to be serial killers. I mean, seriously.

God is using not just Hosea’s marriage, but his children as an extended metaphor for the bumpy love story between God and the Israel nation. Though I don’t think that explanation would’ve stopped those kids from getting their asses kicked on the playground. Thanks, God!

So the majority of the book of Hosea is either God talking, or talking through Hosea about how Israel (the nation, which takes on female qualities when God talks about her ) has turned away from Him, so He’s gonna take everything away from Israel, strip her bare, then charm her all over again, like in Ch.1 vs. 14 “Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her.” And if you’re thinking this makes God sound like an abusive husband – I gave you everything, you abandoned me, so now I’m gonna take everything back! – you’d be sorta right, except for the fact that Israel brought it on herself by turning its back on God first and #2, When God woos Israel back, He doesn’t mistreat her. Israel’s the one who keeps running off (in the form of abandoning God in favor of worshipping other pagan gods), over and over and over again and God’s the one who lets Israel suffer the consequences of her choices, waits for her to come back, and takes her back over and over again, until the next time Israel runs off, enticed by some new pagan god.

This is played out in Hosea’s marriage by Hosea continually going to find and bring back Gomer from whoever’s bed she’s currently bouncing in. This includes buying her back out of slavery/possible temple prostitution (Chapter 3). While Gomer’s only specifically mentioned by name in Chapter 1 and 3, you can extrapolate that she’s married to Hosea through all 14 chapters of the book, otherwise it would’ve been mentioned if they busted up (and when God wants to use things as a metaphor, they kinda go the way He wants. Because He’s God, you know.)

Hosea’s still continuing his career as a prophet, and you gotta think this makes him an especially effective speaker, who’s literally practicing what he’s preaching in terms of how God will always go after His people, will always take them back. It’s also a good thing that Hosea’s a prophet, and not a minister, because you know he would’ve been kicked out of any church for having a wife who would so publicly embarrass him, and whom he seemingly can’t control.

No reason is given for why Gomer runs off. She could be a nympho, she could be bored of Hosea’s constant preaching of Israel’s sorrows, she might take the attitude of “F it, if this is what he thinks I’m going to do, might as well prove him right.”

She’s stuck in a pattern of behavior that she’s been in for so long, it’s quite possible that she thought this was a normal way to live. She could have said, “Yo, you knew I was a slut when you married me. In fact it was BECAUSE I was a slut that you married me. I have to keep being a slut, or else God’s metaphor of our marriage doesn’t work. So I’m heading down to the bar to pick up a guy, and I’ll catch you on the flip side, mmmkay?”

I keep getting the picture in my head that Hosea was the nerdiest of nerds, and Gomer was a total (if a little road-worn) babe. (Woody Allen and Mira Sorvino, maybe?) Because had Hosea been the least bit studly, Gomer would’ve totally stayed around, no?

I wonder if Gomer simply couldn’t handle at first what love is about. True unconditional love means accepting the person, warts and all (and there’s an assumption that the warty person will try very hard to change their warty ways, and you will love them through that process too.)

There had to have come a point where Gomer was so tired of her negative behavior that she just gave up and thought, yeah, you can have me back if you want this broken down soul and beaten up body. Because nobody can keep living that kind of life and end up happy.

And for Hosea to take her back must’ve blown her mind. Why would you want me back? After everything I’ve done to you. After everything I’ve done to myself. I am not beautiful anymore. I am not worth your love. I am not worth anyone’s love. I am not worthy of being loved.

But Gomer was worthy of being loved. We’re all worthy of being loved. Warts and all.

A big part of me wishes that the book of Hosea focused more on that aspect of Hosea and Gomer’s relationship, and less on God and Israel. Even though they’re metaphorically the same thing. But you know how it goes when it comes to Old Testament prophets – the prophecies take center stage 99.9 percent of the time.

What Did You Learn?

We’re all worthy of being loved, and that can be the hardest realization of all.

Disgusting New Year's Metaphor

2012-01-01T22:30:00.000-08:00

Oh, you guys. I have the most disgusting New Year metaphor ever. It’s positively DRIPPING with sentimental ooey gooey BLEGH of inner meaning. So I absolutely have to interrupt the current Sluts, Schemers, and other Shockingly Interesting Women on the Bible series to tell you all about it!

I didn’t get a vacation this year. I was supposed to, the entire family was supposed to go to St. John for my parents’ 50^th wedding anniversary. My father’s Stage IV colon cancer diagnosis put the kibosh on that (for now, there’s hope we can do it in 2012), yet circumstances in the form of multiple dogsitting income gigs throughout 2011 and Hollywood basically shutting down between Christmas and New Year’s all conspired to allow me to take a mini vaca to the amazing Casa Laguna Inn in Laguna Beach for a few days between the holidays.

As soon as I walked into the room, I knew that this was absolutely the right thing to do. I was very well taken care of (they upgraded me to a balcony with a partial ocean view and the TUB! The TUB, people! I took a bath every damn night with that TUB! It was AWESOME! THANK YOU, CASA LAGUNA INN!)

I love Laguna Beach, I really really do. It’s closer than Santa Barbara, and the beach is awesome. I haven’t been here since my birthday in 2007, and Casa Laguna is further south of Laguna Beach than that adventure. But turned out to be absolutely fine. The Inn is located close to Victoria Beach, a pretty much hidden beach and only known to locals and people staying at Casa Laguna, since they include helpful printed directions about how you can walk there.

So walk there I did.

We all know my End Of The Year custom is to go down to the beach and toast the sunset, preferably with tequila. Normally, it’s Santa Monica Beach, but this year, it’s Victoria Beach and no tequila (no glass on the beach, no beachfront bar in sight, and it’s 3:00pm in the afternoon.)

But here I am on the beach, and in search of an adventure. So I decide to head north, to see how far I can get, and see what I can see.

There’s plenty of nifty beachfront housing, and even an old lighthouse? Tower? Something? But I continued on.

There’s a lot of rocky coastline and tidepools, and plenty of signs saying DON’T PICK UP ANYTHING YOU IDIOT! (paraphrasing)

And I came across a patch of coast where the tide was coming in and out in a somewhat irregular manner. So the challenge was to take your shoes off, dash across the wet sand (which would suck your shoes off if you still had them on) before the surf came back in to get you wet, yet have enough time to put your shoes back on to climb the rocks and get up to the next part (You can’t climb these rocks in your bare feet. You absolutely cannot.)

So I slipped my shoes off, dashed across the sand, put the shoes down on the rock, got my right foot into one shoe, and then... WOOOOSH! Here comes the water, and grabs my left shoe! It’s gone! MY LEFT SHOE IS GONE!

“SERIOUSLY!?” I yell uselessly at the water. I see my left shoe bobbing far out in the surf, tossed back and forth by the currents. I’m so pissed, I forget to take a picture (so you’re just gonna have to trust me.)

What am I gonna do? Walk back to the Inn with one shoe? That’s going to be uncomfy. Casa Laguna supplies a BUNCH of things – a gourmet breakfast, a nightly wine and cheese reception, bathrobes, hair dryers, ear plugs, Q-tips, umbrellas for inclement weather,

Himalayan sea salts for the awesome jetted bathtub (and so so much more) – but I think a size 7 ½ left shoe is out of their paygrade.

I watch the shoe bob and bob on the surf. My right shoe in my hand. Both feet in the sand and my legs getting soaked by the surf.

And I wait.

I wait.

In truth, I’m waiting because I don’t know what else to do just yet. I’d like to think that waiting was my instant Grand Master Plan To Get My Shoe Back.

But in all honesty, I was standing there because I didn’t know what to do next.

Until I realize that if I keep spotting the shoe, and watch the waves, there might be a chance the waves would deposit my shoe back to a place where I could snatch it.

So I wait.

And wait.

Maybe two minutes. Probably shorter, just felt like two minutes.

Lo and behold, the tide returns the shoe practically to the same rocky place where it grabbed it away in the first place. And I grab it.

I am officially back in double shoe business! Yay me! I don’t have to limp back to Casa Laguna! Yay yay me!

So here’s the disgusting metaphor part – 2012 is going to be the year of Not Panicking.

2012 is the year of knowing that even if life/fate/God/Whatever Higher Power You Believe In throws you a curveball, or snatches something that you really really need right out of your hands…

Your first response is to wait.

(Okay, your first response can technically be yelling “SERIOUSLY!?”)

But THEN, wait.

Wait and watch.

Watch the landscape, then make judgments based on what you see. 99% of the time, it’s probably not as bad as you think. And if you simply wait, you can get what you needed back.

Yes, it’s a simplistic metaphor, and I reserve every right to say THAT METAPHOR IS COMPLETE BOLLOCKS! should events of 2012 sock me in the gut.

But then I’d probably go back to Casa Laguna to shake it off. Or shake my fist at the sun setting over Victoria Beach.

We shall see.

Happy New Year everyone. And if you ever get the chance to visit Casa Laguna Inn, I highly, highly recommend it. They are awesome awesome folk. :)

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T17:55:00.000-08:00

Let us not forgot the Savior of the World was born today, and he came to save us, the children, and the bunnies.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Many thanks to my home church in Alabama for the photo, which was not staged at all, I literally stumbled over it on my way to services.

Sluts, Schemers, And Other Shockingly Interesting Women Of The Bible #3 – Ruth

2011-12-19T23:51:00.000-08:00

Ruth’s mother in law is Naomi.

And I’m gonna say she’s Susan Sarandon.

An older woman who’s plenty plenty sharp.

Where Is She In The Bible?

Ruth’s got her own book in the Bible, after Joshua and Judges in the Old Testament. (Lyle Lovett once named an album that – “Joshua Judges Ruth”)

What Did You Already Know About Her Before This?

I knew that she took care of her mother-in-law Naomi and wouldn’t leave her for anything, and she married her boss Boaz. And there was gleaning in the wheat fields. And she was talked up a LOT in Sunday School classes for being such a good daughter (in law) to Naomi.

So What’s the Story?

So Mother Naomi was married to Elimelech and had two sons, Mahlon and Kilion. Then Elimelech, Mahlon and Kilion all die, leaving Naomi and her two daughter in laws Ruth and Orpah alone and childless.

Which sounds sneakingly familiar to Tamar last week. In fact, if you choose to look the Bible through the eyes of its female characters, a lot of what the majority (but not all) of the Women Of The Bible do is formed around the questions Am I Married? And Do I Have Children?

Now Naomi, Ruth and Orpah (I’m just gonna call her Oprah and be done with it) are widowers and alone. There’s a famine in the land and Naomi’s heard there’s food in the land of Judah. But Ruth and Oprah are Moabites, and would be considered on the outs in Israel. Technically, Ruth and Oprah are supposed to stay with their mother-in-law, but Naomi says never mind, go back home to your families, you don’t have to take care of me.

There’s weeping and hugging and crying and Oprah finally says, “See ya!” and takes off, but Ruth refuses to leave her momsie, because, as Ch.1 verse 16 says, “…Your people will be my people and your God my God.” Essentially, Ruth is converting from her Moabite religion to throw in with Naomi’s Israelite heritage, all because she loves her momsie-in-law that much.

So Ruth and Naomi make it to Bethlehem, Naomi’s hometown. Ruth decides to go gleaning (picking up wheat left behind by the threshers, which is how poor people got food in that day) in the wheat fields. And she providentially lands in the fields of Boaz, who’s a distant relative of Naomi’s dead husband (fun fun fact, he’s also the son of Rahab, everyone’s favorite Prostitute Who Helped The Israelites!) So Ruth’s gleaning, Boaz sees her, and she’s a looker, so he goes to talk to her. Once he realizes she’s Ruth, the daughter-in-law of Naomi, and the one who converted to her mother-in-law’s religion though she didn’t have to, Boaz tells Ruth to only glean in his fields, he’ll make sure she and Naomi will have enough to eat, and the workers won’t touch her. So Ruth does so, and brings back a ton of wheat home to Naomi, where they make a bunch of bread (I’m guessing.)

So now Naomi is upping the game, and counsels Ruth to go get gussied up for Boaz, wait until he’s sleeping and “uncover his feet.” This could either mean

A) His feet.
B) His penis. (“Feet” was a euphemism for penis in OT times.)
C) Stella points out that there might be a mistranslation of the Hewbrew pronoun, and that Naomi is telling Ruth to uncover HER feet (either her feet feet or her lower half.)

Though I think it’d be really hard for Ruth to pull Boaz’s pants down and him not notice immediately. And in CH. 3v8, it indicates that “in the middle of the night, something startled the man, and he turned and discovered a woman lying at his feet.” You could argue that what startled the man was his Mr. Other Feet being uncovered, but the verses seem to indicate a passage of time between the uncovering and Boaz waking up. He could’ve been really drunk. STOP IT!

Anyhow, so off Ruth goes to get gussied up, waits until Boaz has had dinner and is asleep, goes down and uncovers whatever feet interpretation you want. Then, like any good housedog who’s allowed on the furniture, she lies at his feet and waits for him to wake up.

When he wakes up in the middle of the night, there’s a chick by his feet, or his Mister Other Foot, and he asks what’s up. Ruth then asks him to “Spread the corner of your garment over me, since you are a kindsman-redeemer.”

If you can believe it, this is apparently the OT female way of asking the guy “Will you marry me?” I KNOW! I can’t believe it, I didn’t even think chicks were allowed to ask guys to marry them in Biblical times. They can’t do anything else, really.

Anyhow, so Boaz says “yes, I’d love to, but you’ve got a closer kinsman-redeemer who’s got first right, let me go see what he thinks.”

Then there’s a subplot about the kinsman redeemer (kinda like James Cann In Godfather type, a relative you were supposed to turn to for help.) and Naomi selling land which also had Ruth’s hand in marriage attached, and the kinsman saying thanks, but no thanks, so Boaz steps in, buys Naomi’s land to give it back to her, and marries Ruth. Ruth has a son by Boaz, and the name him Obed, who’s the father of Jesse, who’s the father of King David, and on down the line we go until we get to Jesus. A lot of people like to mention the metaphor of Boaz as kinsmen redeemer to Ruth and Jesus as kinsmen redeemer to us, the human race. That’s all true, but not the focus of this particular entry.

What did you learn?

A few things:

NAOMI – THE MOTHER IN LAW THAT YOU ACTUALLY WANT TO MEDDLE IN YOUR LIFE AND RUTH – DISNEY PRINCESS ON THE OUTSIDE, SHOCKINGLY FORWARD ON THE INSIDE.

Naomi is quite the schemer. Naomi’s doing some furious matchmaking behind the scenes for Ruth and Boaz to meet (as opposed to the closer kinsmen redeemer that

Naomi must know about but decides wouldn’t be as good a match as Boaz.) Interestingly though, she doesn’t specifically tell Ruth to go to Boaz’ fields,

Ruth lands there on her own (though I suspect God had something to do with it.)

At first glance, I thought the Book of Ruth should’ve been called the Book of Naomi. At first glance, it seems like all Ruth does is obey. Which is an important lesson, sure, we all need to be more obedient.

But at first glance, everything’s kinda given to her. Which makes her Sleeping Beauty. A Disney princess.

Can I tell you that Sleeping Beauty is my favorite Disney Princess movie, 80 percent of it because of the artwork but 20 percent because Aurora doesn’t have to do jack squat. She pricks her finger on a spindle and falls asleep, and when she wakes up, all her problems are over – she’s inherited a kingdom, she’s got a good looking hubby, and the mortal enemy who wanted to kill her is dead. SHE DOESN’T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING! MAN!

But if you look at the Book of Ruth and let Sleeping Beauty fade into the background, you’ve got Naomi. A widower, lost both her sons, who’s seen and lived through such tragedy that when she gets back to her hometown, she tells everyone not to call her Naomi, but call her Mara, which means bitter, because “The Lord has afflicted me, the Lord has brought misfortune upon me.”

So how do you go from that mentality – the Lord has brought misfortune upon me – to plotting and scheming to get her daughter in law married to Boaz? I guess that even in your own pit of despair and depression, you don’t give up. The Book Of Ruth doesn’t tell us what Naomi was thinking, if she was praying to God, or if she picked herself up and dusted herself off and said enough, I’m getting us out of this mess.

BUT WAIT! THAT WAS FIRST GLANCE! WHAT DOES SECOND GLANCE REVEAL!

- Chapter 1 – Naomi tells Ruth to return to her homeland. Ruth refuses, saying she won’t leave Naomi.
- Chapter 2 – It’s Ruth’s initial idea to go glean in the fields.
- Chapter 3 - Naomi tells Ruth to go to Boaz’s threshing floor, wait until he’s asleep, uncover his feet, and Ch.3v4 “He will tell you what to do.” Ruth goes to the threshing floor, waits until Boaz is asleep, uncovers his feet, AND THEN SAYS “Spread the corner of your garment over me,” i.e. the marriage proposal. So Ruth wasn’t waiting for Boaz to tell her what to do, Ruth’s not waiting for a ring, she proposed HERSELF. HER IDEA. SHE PROPOSED TO A DUDE IN BIBLICAL TIMES! No wonder when she gets back to Naomi and tells her what happens, Naomi says Ch.3v18 “Wait, my daughter, until you find out what happens.” In other words, PUT ON THE BRAKES, KID!

That’s pretty shocking for someone I first thought was a do nothing Disney princess.

Also of note – Boaz is actually a gentleman. A gentleman in Biblical times. My theory is that he didn’t sleep with Ruth on the threshing floor, simply because there were other people there who would’ve probably heard them. And he insists on waiting until he straightens out the whole kinsman redeemer thing.

Yes, Virginia, there are gentlemen in the Bible. Maybe I’ll do a series on them later.

FInally, one of the smartest things you can do in life is make friends with people who are smarter than you. So I must give a shout out to Stella, who is again the Smartest Gal I Know When It Comes To The Bible, and gave me a huge assist on the research of this. Hi Stella! I hope that Mirabella is letting you sleep at night!!!

Sluts, Schemers, And Other Shockingly Interesting Women Of The Bible #2 - Tamar In Genesis

2011-12-12T23:37:00.000-08:00

------------

Okay! Entry #2 in the SSSIW series! Here's Tamar (The Genesis version, not a daughter of King David.)

Which One Is She?

As we’ll soon see, Tamar is a Schemer. But not an evil schemer, a schemer by necessity, thanks to being surrounded by not-so-obedient guys.

Who Could Be Her Celebrity Counterpart?

I’m gonna say she’s Minka Kelly. Here she is.

Does she look like someone else you might’ve seen? This becomes important later.

Where Is She In The Bible?

Genesis chapter 38, verses 1 to 30.

What Did You Already Know About Her Before This?

I remember her vaguely as the one who had sex with her father in law. And that’s about it.

So What’s the Story?

Okay, so there’s Judah. Who’s Judah? He’s the fourth son of Jacob. He’s the one (with Reuben) who saved Joseph from being killed by his brothers for his Technicolor Dreamcoat by getting Joseph out of the well and sell him to Midianite merchants. While Joseph goes off to Egypt, gets sold into Pharaoh’s house and has lots of merry adventures there, the brothers go their own ways.

Judah breaks from the herd and gets married to a Canaanite gal named Shua. She gives birth to three sons – Er, Onan and Shelah. Since Er is the firstborn, he gets married first, to a gal named Tamar. Per verse 6b “But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the Lord’s sight so the Lord put him to death.” What did Er, er, um, do? Bible never says. Er is here, Er is, er, gone.

In Biblical times, they had this wackadoo thing called Levirate marriage, where if you’re a dude, and your married brother dies and you’re still single, you’re supposed to sleep with your brother’s widow so she can get pregnant and bear a kid. Why is this? Because in Biblical times, if you were a chick, you were a second class citizen and a woman couldn’t inherit her husband’s property, only her children could. Additionally, if you’re a woman in Biblical times and you’re not a daughter, a wife or a mother, you don’t have any rights. Right now, Tamar is childless and a widow. So really, she’s screwed. Actually, she’s not, that’s the whole point here, she’s gotta GET screwed.

So here’s son number TWO! Onan! Onan, step up! If you’re a high school student in any kind of religious institution, you know Onan as, snigger, snigger, the one that “spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother.” So he’s the first official rhythm method dude. He doesn’t wanna get Tamar pregnant, not because it’s kinda gross to be sleeping with your brother’s wife (even though it is), but possibly because any kids from this union would be considered Er’s, not his. These Biblical times are so messed up on so many levels.

So then God kills Onan. BWAH! Thanks, God! That’s what you get for practicing the rhythm method! Ya-woooooooo!

Now there’s only one son left, Shelah. Instead of viewing God as Tamar’s bodyguard, killing anyone who doesn’t give her a kid, Judah is viewing Tamar as a pox upon his household. Judah thinks Tamar’s unlucky, as his sons keep dying around her. So Judah sends Tamar back to her father’s house to live until Shelah “grows up.”

Judah’s not only scared, he’s not obedient. According to Levirate custom, if Shelah’s too young, Judah can perform the obligation himself and get Tamar pregnant. But Judah refuses, possibly because it’s gross, possibly because Mrs. Judah’s still around (Not for long, but important to note that Mrs. Judah did not die because she didn’t have sex with Tamar, more likely because of old age. BWAH!) but more likely, Judah suspects Tamar has the VAGINA OF DEATH, and doesn’t wanna inflict whatever curse she’s got on himself.

But God WANTS Tamar pregnant in the worst possible way. Why? Because she’s going to be part of the bloodline that eventually produces Jesus, though nobody knows that yet.

Tamar herself is looking at her situation and knows she’s gotta get screwed and if Judah and his household are not gonna step up and be a man about it, she’ll roll up her scheming sleeves and get the job done herself.

Instead of last week’s Woman At The Well who would pick anybody, Tamar’s gonna play by the rules and get pregnant by Judah. She hears that Mrs. Judah has passed away, and that Judah is gonna travel to get his sheep sheared (not a metaphor, we’re talking literal sheep.)So she disguises herself as a temple prostitute and waits by the side of the road for him. Wackadoo Thing #2 in Biblical Times – it was considered culturally okay for a guy to “worship” at a temple by sleeping with a prostitute. They thought it would bring favor on the guy’s life – water for crops, good luck with the sheep (I don’t even wanna think about what that means), etc. etc. etc.

So Judah approaches Tamar, who he thinks is the Gossip Girl actress Leighton Meister. Because they look a lot alike! So alike it was a plot point in the movie The Roommate !

But since Tamar’s saying she’s a prostitute, there’s a security deposit involved. Well… I got goats! Nifty cool keen! Tamar says yeah, it’s gonna take something else, so Judah coughs up a seal, cord and staff, and off they go to the races. When Judah sends his servant back the next day to get the security deposit back, there’s a problem with the carpet, holes in the walls, the door is kinda off its hinges and no you’re not getting the security deposit back… NO! Tamar is GONE! GONE with the security deposit! The servant asks around, and everyone’s like, “Nope, there’s no Minka Kelly around here. We don’t know who you’re talking about.”

But it doesn’t matter. we have a winner in the Screwing Tamar Sweepstakes! Judah! Come on down!!! When Judah hears that Tamar is pregnant, he says YES! BONUS! SHE’S A SLUT AND I CAN BURN HER TO DEATH! YESSSSSSS! (seriously. It’s verse 24b)

But Tamar then shows up with the seal, cord, and staff and says these belong to the father of my child. Judah says, “Hey, those’re mine!” and realizes what’s happened.

To his credit, Judah doesn’t try to get out of it, but instead gives total bonus points to Tamar – “She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn’t give her to my son Shelah.” (verse 26) And though he doesn’t sleep with her again (bonus points to him, I guess), Tamar gives birth to twin boys named Zerah and Perez. Perez goes on to become a (bunch of greats) grandfather to Boaz, then King David, and ultimately Jesus Christ.

Whatchoo Thinking About?

Oooooh, boy. Where do I start!? That poor other son Shelah! Can you imagine him seeing all of this on the sidelines and thinking to himself, “there but for the grace of God (that my Dad’s not obeying) go I.” BWAH!

No, seriously. Here’s a fascinating thing:

Tamar sees her situation very clearly. She knows Judah is not doing right by her, (being disobedient to cultural practices and to God.) Her options, as a widow with no kids, are very limited. She’s probably thinking to herself, “I gotta do something. But what can I do?”

And she has no idea that God’s looking out for her, she has no idea that she has a very important part in God’s plan to bring about Jesus Christ.

The chapter doesn’t say anything about what she thought, only what she did. So we don’t know if she was praying to God saying, “I’m thinking I’m gonna do this. What do You this?”

Because that’s what modern day Christians are told to do all the time – You think you’ve got a plan? Tell God about your plan. Talk, discuss, sit and listen for His response. Don’t say “Here’s what I’m going to do, please prepare me and bless me for success.” It’s supposed to be, “Here’s the problem. Here are my options. Here’s what I’d LIKE to do, but I’d much rather do what YOU want me to do. Do you have an opinion on what you’d like me to do? Please feel free to share.”

Though Tamar’s discussion would have to have gone like “Father God in Heaven. I have to go trick my disobedient father-in-law into thinking I’m Leighton Meester when I’m really Minka Kelly. All so I can get pregnant.

This is a wackadoo plan, God. It involves weird sex by the side of the road, and trickery, and is this really my LIFE!? REALLY, GOD REALLY? IS THERE ANOTHER WAY THIS CAN HAPPEN?”

Meanwhile God’s up in heaven chuckling softly to himself, thinking, “My son Jesus is gonna say something really similar in the garden of Gethsemane…”

Holy crap, is that a breakthrough? Ahhhhh! Move down to the next question!

What Did You Learn?

Could the Bible be seen as a collection of stories about people who all said the same thing? I’LL DO THIS IF YOU WANT ME TO, GOD, BUT IS THERE ANOTHER WAY TO DO IT? NO!? WELL… GOSH… OKAY THEN! TRUSTING IN YOU AND YOUR WACKADOO PLAN!!!!!

I mean, take anybody from the Bible. I bet you they thought that at some point.

If you wanna break that down, anyone who’s asking that question thinks a few things.

There is a God.

He’s in charge of my life.

There’s this thing He wants me to do.

It sounds really wackadoo.

I really don’t wanna do it.

But because I trust God.

I’ll do it.

It will suck.

So I hope I get something out of being obedient. Like a pillow top mattress in heaven or something.

Well, I need to give a special shout out and thank you to Tamar. I don’t know that I would’ve reached the conclusion any other way. JJJ

Sluts, Schemers, And Other Shockingly Interesting Women Of The Bible #1 - The Woman At The Well

2011-12-05T22:41:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody!

So the blog series I did for the month of January -- “Sarcasm In The Bible” went over like gangbusters, if my counter stats are to be believed.

Since we’re approaching Christmas, which I’ve never been sentimental about, and the Christmas story, which I’ve already examined from several angles (check the archives), I’ve decided to bust out another series. I think I’m calling it…

“Sluts, Schemers, And Other Shockingly Interesting Women Of The Bible.”

Because nothing says Christmas like that! :)

Now, let’s make one thing clear. I am doing this as a way to share what I learn about these gals. I’m not saying what I discover and write about here is the absolute truth about them. I’m not thinking I’m going to discover some revolutionary truth that nobody’s heard before, nor am I looking to start legalistic fights. This is more about me being curious and wanting to learn more about these gals, and saying “Here’s what I learned in my Bible readings today!” Because I’m betting there’s a lot more to them beneath the “Slut” surface.

You know how your pastor in your church will constantly exhort you to “Spend Time In The Word Every Day! It Will Change Your Life”? (Pastor Diet Slice said it for the ten thousandth time yesterday.)

This is how I’m spending time in the Word, Pastor Diet Slice. I’m praying before diving into the research. I’m asking God to meet me in the midst of my curiosity. Let’s see if anything changes.

-----------------

Sluts, Schemers, And Other Shockingly Interesting Women Of The Bible #1 – The Samaritan Woman At The Well.

Which One Is She?

Since this chickie was married and divorced five times, she’d probably fall in the Slut category. That’s probably what the town gossips called her.

Who Could Be Her Celebrity Counterpart?

Let’s say she’s the late great Elizabeth Taylor (married eight times.)

Where Is She In The Bible?

Only in one Gospel book - John 4: 1 – 42

What Did You Already Know About Her Before This?

That she was a town pariah, multiple divorcee and currently living with a guy who’s not her husband.

Everyone talked about her, nobody liked her, and she’d have to get water during the hottest part of the day because that’s the only time when nobody else was at the well. I imagine the modern day equivalent would be Elizabeth Taylor having to grocery shop at Ralph’s waaaaaaaaay in the Valley at, like 4am.

She was a Samaritan, a race that most everyone else in Biblical times looked down upon (see also The Good Samaritan, the only person who stopped to help someone in need while a priest and a Levite ignored the person in need.)

Jesus talked to her by himself. You know what that means? JESUS MET WITH A WOMAN IN PRIVATE! (the disciples don’t show up until verse 27.) Why is this important? Because even today in modern times, throw a stick and you will hit a pastor who refuses to meet with a woman for lunch, for counseling, for anything one on one. Meet with a guy one on one? Sure, no problem. Meet with a woman? Nope, it’s inappropriate. People will talk. Even though Jesus did it, and we’re called to be like Jesus. Except in this particular instance. “Because people will talk.” Whatever.

What’s up with the Samaritans? Why did everyone hate them?

Oh gosh. You guys, I just lost about 45 minutes of my life trying to understand the geographical boundaries of Manasseh and Ephraim, and Jews vs. Samaritans vs Assyrians and when did the Babylonian Exile start, and I feel my enthusiasm for learning about SSSIW (Sluts, Schemers, and Shockingly Interesting women) fading away. Blarg

In short, I THINK the tensions came primarily from Samaritans claiming they had the one authentic site of worshipping God – their temple on Mount Gerizim, as opposed to the temple in Jerusalem. There could have been things like Samaritans being a mixed race resulting from foreigners marrying Israelites, and there’s a tiny possibility (via 2 Kings Ch. 17) that some Samaritans did things like worshipping idols and child sacrifices in addition to worshipping Regular God. So yeah, lots of crap going on.

Of course, there’s zippo to indicate what the Woman At The Well practiced in terms of her Samaritan religion before she bumped into Jesus. Pretty sure she didn’t have any kids, or else they would’ve been mentioned. THAT DOESN’T MEAN SHE SACRIFICED THEM!

Oh God, we’re so off track. Ahem.

Why Wouldn’t The Guy She’s Currently Shacking Up With Marry Her?

Dunno. Maybe the guy mentality of Why Buy The Cow When You Get The Milk For Free existed back then. Unless they sacrificed the cow. Along with the kids. KIDDING! GOD, I’M SO KIDDING!

Whatchoo Thinking About?

Woman At The Well (has the face of Elizabeth Taylor) probably thought this was going to be the rest of her life – a life of shame. A life of people gossiping about her. A life of regret, of broken relationships and really bad choices that she’d never be able to shake. Maybe she thought her current guy would marry her, and thus maybe she’d gain maybe two percent more respect. Maybe she thought her current dude would take her away from this place and they’d go live somewhere else. It’s easy to forget that back in Biblical times, women, especially ones who got divorced a bunch of times, didn’t have a any freedom, which is why they needed to be married – because the man had the power, and the woman didn’t.

Anyhow, so WATW might have thought that this was going to be her life for the rest of her life – no escape, no way out, no forgiveness.

And I’m just guessing here, which is all anyone can do – that she probably condemned herself far more than anyone outside of her could do. Isn’t that how shame usually works? We beat ourselves up worse than anyone else could? Because you can eventually get away from other people. You can’t get away from yourself.

Why did Jesus ask the Woman At The Well for a drink? Why didn’t he get it himself?

What, is our Lord and Savior so exhausted from the heat that he can’t get the damn water himself? NO! (and he doesn’t have a jar, verse 11 says so.)

Jesus is supposed to be at the well (BY HIMSELF, I’m sorry, I’m not letting that go) to meet the Woman, to change her life, to knock her out of her life of self hatred and condemnation.

She’s shocked:

1 – Apparently Jews didn’t directly address women they didn’t know.

2 – Jews wouldn’t speak to Samarians, even if they happen to be traveling through Samaria.

3. If Jesus drank from the Samaritan Woman’s jar, he’d be considered ritually unclean, because she, by virtue of being a Samaritan, is unclean.

I can’t help but think somewhere in the back of her mind, there’s probably a gleeful voice jumping up and down saying, I’M NOT THE FREAKY ONE NOW! I’M NOT THE FREAKY ONE NOW! HEY, EVERYBODY! COME LOOK AT NUMERO UNO FREAK… and then realize that nobody’s there at the well to witness this except for her and Jesus. Heh.

Then we go through the standard verses that anyone who’s spent any significant time in a church has heard at some point or another “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst…” and she says, “Sir, give me this water….” And “You are right when you say you have no husband…. You have had five husbands and the man you now have is not your husband…” WATW says she knows that the Messiah is coming, Jesus says DAT’S ME!!! All the greatest hits of this story in those verses.

Then the merry band of disciples show up with lunch. I love this part, verse 27 “… But no one asked ‘What do you want’ or ‘Why are you talking with her?’” There you go, modern church. If the disciples didn’t question why Jesus was alone with a woman, then a pastor should be able to meet one on one with a woman. Let it go already.

So WATW is so spooked/stoked by what Jesus has said that she leaves the water jar behind as she “went back to the town and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” You gotta love how she words it. She KNOWS Jesus is the Christ, he just told her. But she’s playing dumb so that the others will come out to see for themselves. She’s super cagey, because it could’ve gone this way –

WATW runs through the neighborhood, finding any and everybody in town that she can.

WATW – “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did.”

TOWNSPEOPLE - “Um, yeah, EVERYONE knows what you did. We talk about you behind your back constantly.”

What did you learn?

If you’re doing a sermon on this, you usually focus on the “living water” stuff and “Sir, give me this water…” And how Jesus is extending his grace and love and forgiveness to this town outcast, that he doesn’t care what her backstory is, he’ll love and forgive her anyway. That’s basic Christian 101 stuff.

Most people would stop paying attention around verse 30, after the townspeople come out to see Jesus, because the disciples get all up in Jesus’ grill, saying he’s gotta eat something and Jesus throws out metaphors about harvests and sowers and reapers and la la laaaaaa.

But if you keep going to verse 39, you get this: “Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I ever did.’”

I think it’s more interesting that Jesus used an outcast to bring people to faith. Not just an outcast of society, but a CHICK outcast. So in Biblical Times, that’s like an outcast time two, heh.

Once again, Jesus uses the least likely of people to draw more people to him. Not the proper people, not the powerful people. Not the people that were doing everything right. But he uses a person who had done EVERYTHING wrong. Because nobody is so wrong that God couldn’t use them if He needed to. I SO dig that about God.

It doesn’t go on to say what happened to WATW after the townspeople believed her about Jesus. I’d like to think that the guy she was living with finally made an honest woman out of her, and that they followed Jesus throughout the rest of his travels in the New Testament. Because even former sluts deserve a happy ending.

Berlin The Bear Says Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-27T21:35:00.000-08:00

And so do I.

Happy end of Thanksgiving, everybody!!

Snoozeathon

2011-11-21T23:32:00.000-08:00

What do you do when you're bored with your church?

I feel bad. We're a young church, only six years old. I've been here since the beginning.

I'm committed to this church. I tithe 10 percent, I volunteer once a month. I've done plenty of small groups, I was the one who started blood drives at this church. I've been here long enough to see pastors come and go. I know most of the staff. I've met a lot of great friends at this church. I like going, for the most part.

And yet I'm bored.

Why? I'm not learning anything.

One of the reasons I like my church is because they take their time. If we say we're studying the book of say, Ecclesiastes, then we're going to STUDY it. We're going maybe six to ten verses at a time in a two month study. I dig that about my church, so much more than any other church where they decide on a theme and then cherry pick verses to go around that theme, ignoring context and historical cultural themes.

And yet lately, the sermon series is not interesting to me, because it’s not really digging into the context of what was written, not like they usually do and the topics haven’t been interesting for six weeks, which is a long time to be bored.

Maybe this is something all Christians go through - when the bliss of Hey, I'm Learning NEW STUFF wears off, and it's back to Advent season for Christmas. Again. Sigh.

Maybe my church is defining itself as the perfect church for newbie Christians trying to suss out what it means to be a Christian in today's world. But if you're not a newbie Christian, if you're interested in having conversations in small groups examining all sorts of viewpoints, even if they're controversial, and you're met with a resounding silence, what do you do?

A couple of months ago in a small group, I pointed out that on Paul's famous list o' These People Will Not Inherit The Kingdom Of God (1^st Corinthians 6), homosexuality was the only sin that didn't actually cause harm to another person (assuming the gay sex is consensual, because if it wasn’t, it’d be rape.) And I was met with a sea of blank faces. Nobody wanted to talk about it, nobody wanted to discuss it.

Nobody wanted to have a discussion about how homosexuality in Biblical times might have been considered wrong because Biblical times was all about the family, to make sure you had a family to help you tend the fields, take care of the house and each other, how God's chosen people's most important goal in those times was to PROCREATE to ensure their survival, and you couldn't do that as a gay couple and how in modern times, that need is no longer relevant so maybe all this sturm and drang towards gay and lesbians is... oh I don't know... ANTIQUATED? Nobody wants to talk about that. It’s as if they’re all too scared to really examine their faith.

Sigh. This is why I didn't bother signing up for another small group this season.

I do like my church, and I like the friendships I've made in it. But if I'm not learning anything new, if the idea of engaging conversation and different viewpoints isn't peeping up, then what do I do? Do I move on? Does that make me a fair weather churchgoer, only wanting to stick around for the entertainment factor?

I don't wanna be entertained, I want to LEARN.

If I find my church lacking, is it my fault for not trying harder to engage myself with it? To search search and search among the congregation and find people who DO want to talk, who DO want to engage. Do I write a mildly-written letter to Pastor Diet Slice saying this recent sermon series is a snoothathon? Should I come up with my own series of something, not sermons, because I haven’t been to pastor school, but topics of conversation, like how we examined sarcasm in the Bible earlier this year?

Do I become my own teacher? I mean, I’ll do it if I have to, but there’s a sadness about it. Or exhaustion. One of the two.

Something to ponder…

Dogs Have Overrun The Blog

2011-11-14T23:32:00.000-08:00

Oh you guys. Someday I’ll go back to talking about God n’ stuff. I promise you I will.

But I just finished up dogsitting seven dogs in the span of ten days. I’m tired, my clothes are covered in doghair, and my landlords haven’t taken their laundry out of the washer yet.

I guess I could always pull out the cheeseball God And Dog metaphors.

Should I do that? How ‘bout I pretend I’m a religious copywriter for those hella cheesy cards you find at quasi-religious bookstore in the South? That might be work. Let’s see:

This is Edwin the Domino Face Dog. He belongs to besties Nick and Nora. He’s doing his best shepherd impersonation because he had to go walking in the rain (he’s an apartment dog.) He was so so excited to go outside, even though I tried to prep him that he was not really going to like it once he got out there. But he would not be denied (who would, really, when you gotta pee, you gotta pee.)

And then we got out in the rain and though I tried to keep him under the umbrella, he didn’t get the concept, and kept getting rained on, and he cut his own walk down by half because he was wetter than wet.

So if we put him on the cover of one of those sappy religious cards, I think this one would go under the category I Told You So. KIDDING! It would be a Get Better Soon card.

Heard you’re a little under the weather.

Shoulda stayed under God’s umbrella.

Now you’re covered in sin.

GAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! THAT’S NOT RIGHT AND ALSO THEOLOGICALLY INCORRECT! MOVING ON!

After five days with Edwin, it was back to the Beagle House, for three days with Bella, Bonnie, and Babs.

If only a picture could adequately convey how loud Bella snores. Next time I’m getting audio.

Babs the cocker spaniel is adorable as always. The interesting thing about her is that she never wants to sit near my feet, but she doesn’t wanna be too far away either. I’m still missing Ginger Puppy terribly, and when I’m in a room with a dog, there’s that subconscious expectation they’ll sit by my feet while I’m writing, because that’s what Ginger Puppy did. Babs is not like that. She wants to be close, but not too close. So her card would be in the Thinking Of You section.

I’m thinking of you.

Not getting in your way.

Unless you go to the kitchen, and then I’m all about tripping you.

GAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! MOVING ON!

Then it was two nights with my Pasadena clients. Sleepy, the yellow lab, Slappy the wire haired terrier mix, and Dolly Parton, the Brindle Bouvier. There’s also Gunther the parrot, but he scared the crap out of me, so no pictures of him.

Slappy wouldn’t stop jumping around for me to grab a picture of him, but here’s Sleepy on the couch with me. How simple and easy the comfort is to have a dog next to you – sitting on your feet, or sitting on the couch, or lying next to you on the bed. This would be one of those Just Because cards.

Just Because…

there’s a sheet on the couch

And you’re nice to snooze next to

So I’ll leave you a pound of my hair on your clothes

By the way, what’s up with those blue socks?

MOVE ON MOVE ON MOVE ON!

Dolly Parton, the Brindle Bouvier, is a little disconcerting when you first meet her. She’s basically the size of a small Shetland pony (pictures cannot do her justice) and her eyes look disturbingly human. Like some goblin zapped her in the enchanted forest and turned her into this dog. And if only I knew how to break the curse. It’s not sloppy kisses, she’s given me plenty of those. It’s not waltzing around the kitchen on her hind legs, we’ve done that too.

So this category would be…

I’M HAPPY! I’M HAPPY AND I’M HAPPY AND I’M HAPPY!

LOOK INTO MY EYES! YOU WILL BE HAPPY TOO!

FREEEEEEEEEE MEEEEEEEEEEE!

Okay! So basically, we’ve established that I may be a decent writer, but I would suck as a religious greeting card writer. Good to know. Crossing that off my list.

I Actually Prayed This Prayer This Week

2011-11-07T21:55:00.000-08:00

(I'm not proud about it, but I am honest about it)

Dear God,

I lift up to you this car in front of me. Not that I literally lift this car in front of me. Because I'm not that strong.

But I do metaphorically lift up to you this car in front of me. It was behind me, uncomfortably close, then zoomed around me, and now has cut me off in L.A. traffic.

Dear God, please please please be with the driver of this car. Please grant him patience, patience, and more patience.

Please let him be on time to whatever it is he's driving recklessly toward, because he's driving very fast for SOME reason.

Please grant him some measure of caution. Please grant him some measure of safety. Please open up his reservoir of generosity to encompass everyone else on the freeway.

And please grant him confidence. It must not be easy to have a small penis, but that flashy car is overcompensating for something.

Please grant him a bigger penis if it makes him a safer driver. It may take a miracle, but You are the God of miracles. If You are willing, You can do anything. So I pray that You are willing to help this poor poor man. You will be saving lives in the process.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

Alabama has color

2011-10-31T23:16:00.000-07:00

I was in Alabama over the weekend, saying hi to Great Stoic Wonder, who I’m officially renaming as the Great Cancer Fighting Cowboy (Stoic Is Implied) and Phone Harpy Mommy.

I can’t remember the last time I was in Alabama when it wasn’t Christmas, and therefore I was stunned to see all the trees turning color.

Brilliant color.

These aren’t the best pictures, since they’re from a moving car, and also on my iPhone, but you get the general idea.

And just when I think I’m ready to claim being an Alabamian again, I see something idiotic like this in the airport gift shop.

Sigh. Two steps forward, three poop steps back.

Once Is Enough

2011-10-24T23:55:00.000-07:00

You know what I find myself doing a lot of these days? Repeating prayers. Repeating prayers for my dad, repeating prayers for my friends, repeating prayers for myself.

I can try and blame it on my short term memory, which is definitely going (I’d rather my memory than, say, my eyesight.)

A lot of my time has been consumed lately with Striped Tiger. Last Monday found me in the conference room of a mid-sized talent agency, guzzling free Diet Coke, and pitching an hour long TV version of Striped Tiger.

Striped Tiger started as my first full length play, then I turned it into a feature length script. Last Monday I and two producers went into the conference room with an hour long version. Walking into an agency conference room is something I haven’t done before in my career, and so I asked for lots and lots of prayer ahead of time.

And driving down there, I kept repeating over and over again, please be with me, God. Please be with me, God. Please give me wisdom and discernment. Please let me personable and knowledgeable. And no matter what the outcome is, give me the grace to accept it. Even if it’s not what I hoped for.

Over and over and over again. Please be with me, God. Please be with me, God.

Until at one point, I had to stop and ask myself. “Why am I repeating myself? What, do I think that God didn’t hear me the first time?”

Why do we endlessly punch the elevator button? The crosswalk button? Why do we endlessly repeat the same prayer? Why do priests give out penance in the form of multiple Hail Marys? Is there comfort in the repetition? Like maybe God wouldn’t have granted the prayer UNLESS I said it ten times? I only said it nine, so nope, no go?

Of course it doesn’t work that way. But for a split second, it felt like it.

I pray repeatedly when I don’t know what else to say, so I just say the same thing over and over again, like a verbal security blanket. God heard me the first time. But I didn’t believe it the first time.

The problem isn’t me worrying God didn’t hear me. The problem is that I don’t believe that praying once is enough. I’ve got to believe in the power of my own prayer. And that once is enough.

We came out of the conference room with the order to make Striped Tiger a half hour show. My joke is that the only format left from here on out are five minute webisodes, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the next order.

And as I drove back through the city to work, jacked up on free Diet Coke, all I could think of was an endless string of prayer:

Thank you God, thank you. Thank you God, thank you. Thank you God, thank you.

Once is enough. More makes me feel better, but once is enough.

I Am A Christian.

2011-10-16T21:35:00.000-07:00

I Am A Christian.

This Is What I Believe.

I believe Jesus Christ Is My Personal Lord And Savior.

I will talk to you if you want to ask me what I believe.

If you ask me if I believe, I will be honest and say yes, I do.

But I’m not gonna shove my religion down your throat.

I’m not about changing your mind.

I’m about living my life in a way that makes you want to ask me how I do it.

And I’ll say it’s a combination of caffeine, tequila, sheer force of will and discipline…

…but mostly God.

I wouldn’t be here without Him.

Everything I have is because of Him.

My imagination, my writing skills, my personal point of view.

My family, my friends, every open door, every closed door.

Everything I have is because of God.

Because I Am A Christian.

This is what I believe:

I believe in God.

I believe in gay rights.

I believe in a woman’s right to choose.

I believe a woman can teach, lead, and pastor a church.

I believe that everyone has the right to their own opinion.

It’s not headline making.

It’s not flashy.

But there’s a lot of us out here.

And we’re so reasonable, we don’t make front page news.

I Am A Christian

I’ve never seen Passion Of The Christ

And I don’t intend to.

I know the story, I know what happens.

I Am A Christian

My favorite movie is Blade Runner.

My next favorite movies are Fight Club, Seven, and Heathers.

I lean towards the dark side, but I write on the humorous side.

(And I like Muppets too.)

I Am A Christian.

I swear like a sailor and I drink like a fish.

I believe in heaven.

I also believe in the devil.

(you can’t really have one without the other.)

I Am A Christian.

I only say “I’ll pray for you” if I know hearing that makes you feel better.

(the rest of the time, I’m still praying for you, I’m just not saying it to your face.)

I don’t raise my hands when we’re singing songs in church.

Half the time I’m not singing.

But I’m still standing up.

Because I Am A Christian.

And I go to church even when I don’t feel like it.

Even when I’m pissed off at God.

(which is a lot lately)

I show up.

Woody Allen says 80 percent of success is showing up.

So I show up.

I stand in the aisles and I don’t raise my hands during the songs, and I don’t sing, but I’m there.

(I also tithe 10 percent)

Because I Am A Christian

I get pissed with God.

I shout and scream and metaphorically throw things.

Sometimes I drop the F bomb in His general direction.

And He still loves me.

So I don’t turn my back on Him.

Even if I don’t hear Him.

Even if He doesn’t talk to me.

It doesn’t mean He’s not there, or that He doesn’t care.

It means I’ll understand later.

I’m not getting out of the ring.

God’s gonna have to do something with me, because I’m not getting out of the ring.

I am all of this and so much much more.

I Am A Christian.

And This Is What I Believe.

Hops

2011-10-03T23:59:00.000-07:00

The last time I hung out with Basil Diva Dog and Ginger Puppy in July and August, there was a full moon on one of the nights during my stay. It shone through the window in the master bedroom, and bathed a patch of floor with nifty moonlight. Ginger Puppy liked it so much she decided to sleep there (she also could catch the breeze coming through.) And it was so lovely I decided to join her on the floor with a pillow for a little while. Amy and Ginger Puppy, sleeping in a patch of moonlight. Which is where we stayed until Basil Diva Dog woke us both up with a start with his very loud knocking around trying to get out of his crate.

I visited Ginger Puppy on Sunday at the animal hospital. I had noticed that she wasn’t eating much during the last few days of my stay with her in August, and alerted her daddies Albert and Abbot that they may want to take her to get a check up. This was how we found out that she had what was eventually diagnosed as IMHA (immune mediated hemolytic anemia.)

How does this happen? How does my father go from a routine colonoscopy to Stage IV colon cancer in the space of a month? How does my favorite dogsitting client go from her loveable self to a softly trembling lump on a pink blanket in an exam room with a feeding tube up her nose and shaved patchy fur in the space of two months? She’s only seven and a half. Her aloof anti-snuggling brother is 14, poops every five minutes, has no idea where he is and he’s still here.

And alas, Ginger Puppy is not. I got the call today. I was the first person they called about it.

When her daddies invited me to come visit her on Sunday, I knew what was up. Though they said I was under no pressure, I knew that it would likely be the last time I would see her. All three of us took turns lying on her pink blanket with her in the exam room, angling our faces so she could see us without having to raise her head. We kissed her dry nose, we stroked her paws, we rubbed her ears. We got so excited when she drank a bowl of water. We cheered when we got a wag of a tail. We told her she was beautiful. We told her she was loved. We told her over and over again that she was loved, loved, loved so much.

I loved Ginger Puppy like she was my own. She was my favorite, not because she wasn’t any trouble (she didn’t eat my shoes, she didn’t snore to rattle the windows, she didn’t think she was a bird, she didn’t smell like pee) But because she was the very definition of love. She loved people. Other dogs, not so much. But people. PEOPLE! People were AWESOME!

She was a snugglemonster. How many nights were spent in the media room, with her resting again my leg while we watched movie after movie after movie? I always eschewed the leather chair with motorized footrest and cup holder so I could sit on the floor so she could be next to me, because she wasn’t allowed on the furniture.

How many mornings did I wake up and see her asleep on a towel next to the bed, so she could be right there when I woke up?

How many late nights did I jump in the hottub and drink and talk/screamed/wailed to God while she sat on the second step and patiently waited for me to come out?

How many times did I write in the office while she sat on my toes?

The Ginger Puppy post over in the Hall of Fame section has gone around the world and then some. It’s by far the most popular post on this blog. This entry continued her saga, so if I’m a writer, if I’m a proper bookender, I know what comes next.

I don’t want to write it, tears are streaming down my face as I type this out. But I have to complete the story. The story that’s true, the story that will continue to be true. The story where I play the role of God and Ginger Puppy plays the role of all of you.

But I’m not going to set it against the animal hospital backdrop. I’m not going to set it against the last time I saw her, labored breathing, brown eyes, and one wag of a tail.

I’m going to set it in that patch of moonlight, where me and her were stretched out on the floor, where she was healthy and happy and snuggly. And the moonlight was dreamy and silvery and nobody was in any pain at all.

--------------------

Will it hurt?

I don’t think so, little one. I’ll do my best to make sure it doesn’t.

And you won’t leave me?

Absolutely not. Not for a single second.

I don’t understand why it had to go this way. Why couldn’t my leg have healed? Why did this immune mediated whatever show up? Why am I going so soon? I’m seven and a half. My brother is practically twice as old. Why can’t I stay as long as he can?

I wish I could tell you. I really really wish I could.

I like it here. I like my daddies and my friends. I like you.

I like you too, Ginger Puppy. But where I’m taking you, you’ll be happy. You won’t have any trouble with your leg anymore. You’ll be able to run around and eat what you want and jump on all sorts of furniture.

WHAT!?!? I get to jump on a couch!?!?

A thousand couches, and chairs and beds and all sorts of stuff.

I’m not supposed to jump on the furniture!

But you can where we’re going. You can even sleep on a real live BED.

That sounds AMAZING!

Yep. It will be.

Will I still be able to snuggle next to somebody?

Absolutely. There’s going to be all sorts of new people to meet, and they’re going to love you just as much as you were loved here.

It sounds fun. But I gotta admit, I’m a little nervous.

Jus trust me, little one. Just trust me. I am not leaving you for a single second. I’ll be with you the entire time.

Well… okay. But can we sit in the moonlight just a little while longer?

Sure we can, Ginger Puppy. Absolutely we can.

--------------------

Ginger Puppy was my favorite. Her real name was Hops.

I Am A Shit Ton More Honest Than The Next Person

2011-09-26T23:59:00.000-07:00

If I’m being honest, really truly honest, then I’m pissed off and angry. The kind of angry where I read something on facebook that goes something like, “Consider your allegiances and God will change you!” and it’s some note about some guy who I’m sure is a lovely person writing about how he’s had an amazing transformative weekend because he’s chosen to seek God in ALL areas of his life, and it’s come about because he had an epiphany about (simplifying here, but because) he learned to pray for other people and God changed his life.

And I’m like…really? Honestly and truly? What are you, 22? (He might very well be, I don’t even know him directly, an acquaintance of mine was commenting on his link and it showed up in my new facebook profile, blah blah blah.)

WELCOME TO THE CHRISTIAN LIFE, IDIOT! YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO PRAY FOR OTHER PEOPLE, JACKASS!

Please, come talk to me after you’ve spent decades spending most of your prayer life praying for other people and noting how God moves speedily in answering your prayers for other people, but at a glacial pace in working in your own life. Come talk to me when you’ve spent decades talking to a God who rarely talks back to you, after you’ve spent decades listening for a single word from Him, only to be met with a thundering silence 99.9 percent of the time.

Come talk to me when your prayer life goes like this, “Fuck you, God, and Your plan for my life. Your plan sucks. I violently disagree with it. Go blow.”

Oh, I’m sorry. Was that too disrespectful? Too upsetting for your Virgin Christian ears? Was your first response, “Well of COURSE God’s not gonna answer you if that’s how you talk to Him.”

Oh, little one. Oh, dear dear dear hypothetical little one.

I don’t mean to burst anyone’s Happy Chipper Christian Bubble, but the dirty little secret of the Christian life is that YOU CAN TALK TO GOD HOWEVER YOU WANT TO, AND IT’S NOT GOING TO AFFECT HOW HE DEALS WITH YOU.

I have spent years being obedient and respectful. I have spent years being filthy and disrespectful. Guess what? I can be however I want to be in front of God my Savior, and He’s going to treat me exactly the same way. Because what He wants from me AND YOU more than anything else is to being fucking HONEST with Him.

If you can’t be fucking honest with God, who the FUCK do you think you’ll be honest with?

How I act does not change how God acts toward me. Wrap your Newbie Christian brain around that one.

Here, I’ll save you a trip. God loves you no matter what you say to him, and it’s only after you realize His massive massive love for you that you will be so consumed with guilt with your irreverence and disrespectfulness towards Him that you will immediately repent of your disrespectful ways, beg for forgiveness, and then be a Happy Chipper Little Christian until the next time you get pissed.

I’m so bummed there’s only one of me out here that’s got the balls to say that. Ah well.

The thing is, my current anger is actually NOT because of my dad’s cancer. I know it’s oh so tempting to draw an easy parallel to that. If it was a movie, it would be that. In fact, I know a bunch of you are sitting at the computer shaking your heads, thinking, “she’s in denial.”

But life is so much more messier, and my current anger is much more self centered. Dad’s doing okay, far as I know.

And whatever I’m going through in my own Amyland Bubble certainly can’t compare with my Dad’s cancer so quickly fuck me gently with a Heathers http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097493 chainsaw and my self absorbed anger over stupid meaningless shit like a busted internet router (so I’m sitting on the floor, tethered to a wall) and silly producers who don’t understand Excel, and the petty envy over dear friends who see God moving in blatantly obvious ways in their lives and the growing inability to sleep at night, which I’m pretty sure is a psychic connection with my dad, since HE’S not sleeping well at night, either.

I love sleep. I love sleep better than living. I never had issues sleeping until Dad’s cancer. Oh, yes, armchair shrinks, draw your obvious dime-store conclusions. You suck as much as God does. He knows I don’t like Him right now. He’s actually pleased that I’m honest about it. I’m probably more honest than you in that regard, so that’s gotta be good for an upgrade to Business Class on the plane trip to heaven, whenever that shows up.

Let’s look at pictures of PUPPIES!

I tried mightily to get shots of all three dogs at the Beagle House last week, and this was the best I could do.

Smiling Bella on the left, new dog Babs in the middle, and Bonnie sleeping in an apple box on the right.

Babs is a cocker spaniel, and I grew up with cocker spaniels, so I was immediately in love.

Babs is 12 years old, and as energetic as any puppy I’ve ever seen. She’s also the smallest cocker spaniel I’ve ever seen, half the size of the cockers I grew up with, a bonsai tree version of a cocker spaniel, and I found myself staring at her tiny face that fit in the palm of my hand. She wasn’t comfortable being picked up, which made me sad, because all I wanted to do was scoop her up and snort her up my nose like cocker spaniel cocaine. But she would sit by my feet and whine when she thought I wasn’t petting her enough, so believe me, she had it great.

Bella has had her face warts taken off, but regardless, she’s still the only dog I’ve ever known that actually smiles. And I tried mightily to get photographic proof of it:

This is not a smile:

THIS is almost there:

THIS is a smile.

SEE!?!?

Open Windows

2011-09-19T23:23:00.000-07:00

I'm going back to the Beagle House starting tomorrow for another round with Bella (she got the growths on her face taken off!), Bonnie and new addition Babs, the liveliest 13 year old cocker spaniel I've ever seen. She's f'ing adorable, people. Just wait until I get pictures of them.

And when I was catching up with the human owner, and she was asking how things were, I found myself telling her about Great Stoic Wonder's Stage 4 cancer diagnosis. The human owner started crying. I was dry-eyed. It was a little weird.

When I was sending out the email to my friends about the Cancer Earthquake, I asked them not to ask me about it in person, as I feared I would lose it and break down. But as soon as I hit send, it was like a window opened, and I found myself able to talk about it in person. No tears.

It's like I leapfrogged over the other four stages of grief and landed directly on Acceptance, and now that I'm here, there doesn't seem to be much point in going backwards to, like, the Bargaining stage. Which I guess makes sense. One of the things that everyone knows about me is that above everything else, I am uber productive. Which means I can't sit on the couch and cry for days. That's not productive. I'm not even suppressing the depression. It's just not there. It's more of a melancholy thing tickling at the back of my brain.

Perhaps my Twin Superpowers of Denial and Distraction are coming into play here. Perhaps it's a cold analysis of I'm Not The One With Cancer, And Being Depressed About It Isn't Going To Help My Dad At All So Might As Well Get On With Living Life.

But I haven't gotten mad at God. I haven't shaken my fist angrily, I haven't asked Him why this is happening. I guess I know better than that. Or possibly because I know He's not gonna answer me, so asking Him why wouldn't be productive. I still pray every day. I still pray for a miracle and ask that Dad miraculously gets into remission somehow.

This Cancer Earthquake hasn't shaken my faith. I can list a dozen people who've made it through much much worse circumstances. If my one friend can survive flying home to be by her mom's side in her final moments, only to have her dad meet her as she walked off the plane and take her home to pick out what her mom would be wearing in her coffin because the mom was already gone, I can make it through this. (That story ripped my guts out.)

This is our road to walk down. Everyone is going to die of something someday. My dad just happens to know what his order is. And, since I got most of my genetic quirks from him (doctors told him he was slightly anemic. I could've told him that, since I'm slightly anemic, and my blood didn't come up with that all on its own) it's probably what's going to take me out much much later down the road. I'll be going through my own colonoscopy, once I figure out if the Can't Deny Pre-Existing Conditions part of Obamacare is sticking or not.

Sandra Bullock's mom died of colon cancer, and Sandra tells a pretty funny story about how Sandra went through a colonoscopy and was so stoned from the drugs that she went shopping and bought ridiculous stuff. Maybe I'll do that. It may not be productive, but it would be funny. Which is productive in its own way, I suppose.

Earthquakes, Part 2

2011-09-05T18:52:00.000-07:00

So, where were we?

Oh, that’s right, thank you, Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius. We were about ten steps of the canyon ledge and still thinking there was solid ground beneath us.

But let’s back up a bit. Let’s put Wile E. Coyote back on the cliff.

That would be July 26^th, 2011.

That was the day my sister Agatha and I got the email from My Mother The Phone Harpy Whom I Love Very Very Much about the results of my Dad, The Great Stoic Wonder’s routine colonoscopy.

I knew the colonoscopy was happening, I talk to my parents every week, we knew it was happening, it was routine. My family is notorious for coming from a good genetic stock. We rarely get sick, we don’t get long term diseases, we rarely break bones (the last one was sister Agatha in high school, some twenty years ago.) We don’t get divorces, we don’t have miscarriages. Yeah, my mother the Phone Harpy had an issue with her vocal chords that meant she couldn’t sing on key, but frankly, she couldn’t sing on key anyway, so this just meant she had to tone down the volume (she would tell you this herself.) No big deal.

I am the last person in my line (if you’re not counting the cousins under 10) to not have any cavities (it’s really simple, people, just floss. I swear, it works.) We don’t even get food poisoning, unless it’s pesto, pine nuts, or leftover crab (I was watching the documentary “Waiting For Superman” that day. That was a bad bad bad day.)

The email of July 26^th, 2011 from My Mother The Phone Harpy Whom I Love Very Very Much said that the my father, The Great Stoic Wonder’s routine colonoscopy turned up a cancerous lesion, and they had scheduled surgery to remove the part of the colon that contained the lesion on August 1, 2011. It certainly seemed scary, and prayers were offered up, but I remembered that my father, the Great Stoic Wonder, had had various skin lesions removed in the past, the result of playing golf in the sun for half your life. And I guess my brain chalked up the colon lesion up to those tiny no big deal skin cancer lesions. We had no reason to think any different.

August 1, 2011 – While I turn in my Golden Gecko Gymnast outline, my father has 8 to 12 inches of his colon removed. Phone Harpy Whom I Love Very Very Much calls to say that while they were mucking around in my Dad’s intestines, they saw something else to give them pause, more information later. Um…. Okay.

(Wile E. Coyote has just started his dash off the cliff, yet still is upright on faith alone.)

August 4^th, 2011 – My Dad is released from the hospital. I didn’t think they would call today, which is why I’m trying to munch a microwaved Smart Ones chicken and cheese quesadilla while they give me the news that they found cancer in eight of the surrounding eighteen lymph nodes. They’re scheduling a PET scan for August 25^th, results to be discussed August 29^th. Today is also Sister Agatha’s birthday, and the day ends with the email from the Creative Exec that the Golden Gecko Gymnast movie is on hold.

August 8^th, 2011 – I get the email that the Golden Gecko Gymnast movie is officially dead. However, my father the Great Stoic Wonder is still alive, and that’s more important in the grand scheme of things.

(Wile E. Coyote is still running his heart out, he can even see the other cliff waiting for him on the other side)

August 15^th, 2011 – I get a postcard in the mail from Pastor Home Church. He is indeed the pastor of my home church back in Alabama, the church that My Mother The Phone Harpy Whom I Love Very Very Much faithfully attends, and the church that my father the Great Stoic Wonder attends on Christmas and Easter. On the postcard, Pastor Home Church says, “I just heard about your dad’s diagnosis with cancer,” For some reason, I was able to happily bop along in my Denial Bubble That Has Served Me Faithfully For So Long In So Many Ways, so that when I read this orange postcard (I’m sure the mailman also sends his regrets, since he can see it too) it finally hits me that this is real. Uh… okay. My Dad has cancer. Um… okay. But there’s no reason to panic yet, right? Right?

(Wile E. Coyote is gradually realizing that the ground may have left him.)

August 25^th, 2011 – Dad goes in for his PET scan, which will illuminate how far the cancer has spread, if at all. When I talk to him on the phone, he sounds fine, if somewhat subdued. He’s his usual stoic self, taking potshots at the Phone Harpy and her hoarding I-Can’t-Throw-Anything-Away-Including-These-Three-Pictures-Of-A-Mountain-In-Europe-That-I-Forgot-To-Label-When-I-Took-The-Picture-30-to-40-Years-Ago ways, which have been threatening for decades to consume our entire house. Business as usual.

August 29^th, 2011 – Sister Agatha and I get an email about the results of the PET scan. If it’s bad news, we get it via email, because the electronic buffer is safer. But Phone Harpy Mommy hasn’t cc-ed the right email address for sister Agatha, so I print out the email and run out of my office on the Unnamed Studio Lot, but there is no good private place to talk, so I land on a bench somewhere between the casting building and the costume museum, and trams of tourists are passing by as tears are streaming down my face as I tell my sister on the cell phone that our father has Stage IV colon cancer.

(And Wile E. Coyote begins his freefall.)

The cancer, which showed no outward symptoms, has spread to his liver and around the aorta. He’s scheduled to have a central port put in on August 31^st, with chemotherapy to start September 7^th.

August 30^th, 2011 – I call in sick. My face is swollen from crying, my eyelids are the size of Vienna sausages, and I only leave the house to shop for my parents’ anniversary card. They’re celebrating 50^th years of marriage on September 2^nd. We were all going to fly to St. John in the Bahamas in October to celebrate. It’s not happening anymore. I put together hooks in the wall to hang my stepstool on (shorty me needs a stepstool to reach shelves in the kitchenette) and a shoerack for my closet. I buy a basil plant. I am thwarted in putting another wall rack in the kitchenette because the wall has a sheet of aluminum on it, and I

don’t have a power drill, and the landlords and the Dalmatians Pepe and Pembleton are out of town. I cannot fix my father’s cancer, I can fix these things. Most of them, anyway.

September 1^st, 2011 – I’m back at work, and there’s an earthquake. Not one that I dreamed about two months ago, this is real. It’s a shaker for about four seconds, long enough for me to shove off my headphones, turn the chair around, and grip the armrests, ready to bolt if it goes longer than four seconds. This is more movement than my co-workers do, by the way. They’re all frozen like deer in headlights.

I am not frozen. I am ready to move. But the earthquake is only four seconds long. And truthfully, there’s nowhere to go. Nothing to do, nowhere to go.

I can’t stop this earthquake, just like I can’t stop life. It began with a dream two months ago, it has led to this day, and it will go on for many many days more.

We are all falling with Wile E. Coyote, and all I can do at this point is grip the armrests of my chair and hold on for the ride. At least we’re finally in September. Because I don’t mind telling you, August 2011 officially goes down as The Worst Month Ever.

Earthquakes, Part 1

2011-08-29T22:46:00.000-07:00

Around the end of June, I dreamed of an earthquake. It was so violent, it literally shook me out of sleep. I could've sworn I was lying on a bucking bronco of a bed, and I thought it was strange, because the Shaby Shack is situated on a granite hill that absorbs tremors. (Totally true. You all are gonna wanna come see me when the Big One hits. We'll still be standing.)

I don't usually have intense dreams like that, unless I take a handful of Benedryl to knock out the allergies. But here I am, gripping the mattress, staring at the ceiling, jumping on Facebook to see if anyone else is posting about a monster tremor. Did this really happen? Was it just me?

Turns out it wasn't real. It was just me. And it was an unfortunate omen of what was to come.

----------------

My Golden Gecko Gymnast movie is gone. The bright side is that it wasn’t my idea, it probably would’ve hurt so much more if it was. The other bright side is that it wasn’t because of the work that I did that it died (like if I had turned in a really shitty outline.) It is, quite honestly, not my fault.

I went against my better nature, and told people this project was happening, because there was zero reason to think the rug was going to be pulled out from under me. I had a contract. I had a payment schedule. I had notes from my creative exec that I incorporated into a second draft of the outline. I turned in the outline. I got paid for the outline. There were meetings, and emails, and a company with a track record of animal movies, all of which I took as evidence that yes, yes, this is happening, and Amy is On Her Way.

I turned in the outline on August 1^st. On August 4^th (sister Agatha’s birthday!), I got an email from the creative exec saying that everything is “sort of on hold.” The creative exec went on to praise all the work I did, and how impressed she was with how quickly and thoroughly and seemingly effortlessly I was able to incorporate all her notes (that “effortlessly” was basically a 24/7 IV drip of Red Bull) “I will get you produced one way or another, with this project or another one, so hang in there with me,” Creative Exec says, “I'll be in touch soon!”

Okay. Okay, no problem. I’ll just switch gears and go back to rewrite Red Llama, so I have something to work on until Golden Gecko revs back up again. No problem. None whatsoever. I could use the break, really. I’m not that big of a fan of Geckos. Sure, I’ll write a gymnastic movie about them, but they’re kinda freaky looking, and I’m much more down with Llamas.

The following Monday, August 8^th, I get another email saying the Gecko movie is officially dead. Not my fault, it’s a matter of the Company Powers That Be not liking how much this movie is going to cost (I never got an idea of how much that was) versus what they thought their rate of return would be, and pulling the plug before we went any farther. Much like how Universal has pulled the plug on several projects lately like The Dark Tower, and At The Mountains Of Madness. The Geckos are apparently too expensive to train or something. I honestly don’t know, and they wouldn’t tell me. They just offered copious apologies.

It's basically like, I went walking in the jungle, a Golden Gecko jumped into my lap, I played with it for about a month, it gave me a small check, and ran back into the wild, never to be seen again.

Looking back now, from that Thursday to Monday, I feel a bit like Wile E Coyote, speeding off the cliff and remaining airborne for longer than normal, and in that five seconds before freefall, thinking everything was fine, not realizing the truth of the situation, that there’s about to be a terrifying fall and a painful splat.

In those blissful five seconds, you don’t know anything’s wrong at all.

At all.

--------------

(Continued next week.)

Zen Doggie

2011-08-15T22:25:00.000-07:00

To be honest, things are not great. I know, I know, less than a month ago, they were awesome. And now they are not. And I have been forbidden to talk about why. Which is awesome. So I still have awesome in my life, heh.

Somewhere in my house back home, there is a postcard, or a coffee mug, or a calendar image for the month of June or something, and the motto is "When All Else Fails, Hug Your Teddy." It's not this image here, but along these lines:

And though we're not at the "All Else Is Failing" part, I increasingly find myself going to seek out Pepe the Dalmatian in the garage. Because he is, most of the time, the most Zen dog I know.

If it's not first thing in the morning, when he wants to play ball, if it's not on a run, when he wants to fly like a bird, Pepe the Dalmatian is downright mellow. His brother Pembleton is batshit crazy all the time, but Pepe is calm, cool collected. And I can spend hours stroking his muzzlepouch, and staring into his eyes, and observing the blissful vibes he gives off.

Everything will be fine. Everything will be fine. Everything will be okay. Please scratch my chest, I can't reach it. Everything will be fine.

I even got video of it tonight. Ignore the little clicking crooning noises from behind the camera. That's me.

But damned if you don't get a tiny sense of the awesomeness that is Pepe Zendoggie toward the end.

Patience, patience, whatever...

2011-08-08T23:56:00.000-07:00

There are many things I love my friend Winifred for, but one of the best reasons was that she was the first one to introduce me to the Frantics' sketch "Boot To The Head" when we were in high school.

We were old school, so we just had it on audio tape, but now it's become a rite of passage for various karate clubs and high school drama teams to perform it as well.

This is probably the best one in terms of camera work and skill. Plus you get a slo mo version of Unchained Melody at the end.

One of my favorite quotes of all time, "Ed Gruberman, you must learn patience," "Yeah, yeah, yeah, patience, how long will that take?"

BWAH!

Basil Diva Dog's Turn At Bat

2011-08-01T23:58:00.000-07:00

Here’s Basil Diva Dog, the ever aloof older brother who loved to laugh at Ginger Puppy whenever he could. He’s calmed down a lot now.

I would say these are Basil Diva Dog’s twilight years, except that brings to mind the awfully written books and movies. So let’s just say that every day is a Senior Day for Basil Diva Dog. He’s still got a pretty great life. He’s just old. Getting older. And older.

So while last year was the year of Ginger Puppy As Metaphor For You And God, it looks like this year might be Basil Diva Dog’s turn at bat. Let’s see if I can turn it out.

I and my upper body strength will once again be playing the role of God. Basil Diva Dog will be playing the role of Some Of You Some Of The Time, Or Someone You Know, Or Someone You Knew, or Someone You Once Were, Or Someone You Might Be Now And Don’t Wanna Tell Anyone. It’s all good.

----------------------

This is you, Basil Diva Dog. This is you, and this is you a lot of the time. Sleeping.

I remember, BDD, when I first met you, years and years ago. It wasn’t this house. There wasn’t a youngun named Ginger Puppy running around either. It was just you, and your house, and I entered your life for two and a half weeks and you really weren’t sure about me. I wanted nothing more than to take care of you, to feed you, to pet you, to love you. And you didn’t want any of it. Except food. You were okay with being fed.

You didn’t want my love. You didn’t wanna sit in the living room and watch rom coms either. It’s okay, Notting Hill kinda sucks. I swear I was only watching it for research. Roger Dodger, though. I liked that one.

I would sit in the backyard and work on my storytelling. You would keep your distance, choosing to lie down in a spot that was far enough away for you to still keep tabs on me, but not close enough where I could pet you.

All I wanted to do was love you. I’m such a huge dog person (if I’m playing God, I have to say I love all creatures great and small, but you know what I mean.) I just wanted to make you happy. And what made you happy was me keeping my distance.

After two and a half weeks, your owners came back, I left, and maybe you thought you had gotten rid of me for good. Too bad for you that I got on so well with your owners and this whole idea of dogsitting that I soon became your permanent guardian for when your owners were away.

So I would come back. I would again want to love you and brush your fur and feed you. You again rejected everything but kibble. That was okay.

Changes were afoot. A move to a bigger house. There was that first Thanksgiving in the new house where you would snooze in a patch of sun on the living room rug because the furniture hadn’t gotten there yet (I need to scan that photo in.) The foyer was full of scaffolding that both you and I would have to duck through in order to get upstairs. You got through it quicker than I did. That was okay.

Then you got a sister! You got a sister! Man, you thought you hated me? You hated your sister SO much more. I was only there some of the time. Your sister was there ALL the time, nothing but a bucket o’love to you, and you really would’ve killed her if you could’ve. Instead, you settled for bullying her most days, and humping her other days, to where she’d flee under the desk by my feet for protection. You really were a mean sonofabitch, Basil, you really really were.

And yet I never stopped loving you. You were mean, you were aloof, if I came home and greeted Ginger Puppy before you, then you’d race back outside and not come back in. I’d have to go out there with a flashlight, through underbrush and overgrowth, tripping over loose stones and fossilized poop just to grab you and bring you back in.

But I always went after you. Because I loved you.

I grew to know you better. I know you like your ears rubbed. I know you like your cheekbones scratched. I know you hate tummy rubs (again, a first for me.), I know you hate being picked up and carried anywhere. I know you’re an independent dog, and the only person you show open affection for is your dad. Your first dad, because your first dad bought you before he got married to your other dad.

There was that one day where I wasn’t working, I was eating my lunch, and you came up to me. One look on your face and I KNEW something was wrong. That’s how well I know you, Basil Diva Dog. I scooped you up and off we went to the vet in Pasadena, where your daddies already had the foresight to put me on the family contact card in case of such an emergency. The vet was showing 101 Dalmatians in the lobby, which cracked me up. An hour later, and a diagnosis of severe constipation with a med remedy, and you were somewhat okay. I think you were more pained that you had to come to me for help. You were probably embarrassed that you were all backed up, and there was nobody but me, ME, the one you DON’T LIKE, to help.

But I helped you. I always would help you, Basil Diva Dog. Because I love you.

You have had cases of Nasty Butt. I have had to put you in the tub and clean up your backside. It’s not a picnic. There are fewer things less pleasant than Nasty Butt and the smell of wet fur. Sometimes I can’t eat for the rest of the day.

But I do it for you. Because I love you, Basil Diva Dog. Occasional Nasty Butt and all.

And now here you are. In your senior years. In the month since I last saw you, you have significantly slowed down. If I see you in another month, I’m sure you’ll be slower.

Because you are old, you sometimes have trouble walking. Our walks of years ago, where we’d hike all the way up to the Griffith Park Observatory are long behind us. Last month, I could take you on a ten minute walk. Now, Ginger Puppy and I walk when you’re still sleeping in the morning. You sleep a lot.

You’ll do the standard dog shake, slip and fall down. The wood floors are not your friend anymore. The inside stairs, even without scaffolding of years ago, are no more for you. The outside stairs are sorta okay. I carry you out to the Official Pee Spot Under The Magnolia Tree in the backyard, then leave you alone. Your daddies, currently in Israel, have emailed me to say you can make it back inside on your own, so I leave you alone… but I’ve seen you on them like this… So hesitant. So tentative. But yes, you do make it the rest of the way.

I will carry you up and down this house of stairs. Last year, I carried your much heavier sister after her leg surgeries while you laughed at her. Now I’m carrying you. Your sister isn’t laughing at you, though she has every right to. She’s leaving you alone to do your own thing.

I’ve also watched you stop and look around, kinda like this. I think you forget where you are, that this is your house, that you used to romp through these rooms unabated, full of aloof energy, which I didn’t think was possible until you showed me what it looked like. Now I carry you, showing you the same rooms you used to romp through on your own. I tell you what each room is, we look at all the nice furnishings, we take our time. Maybe you understand. Maybe you don’t.

In the past, when I would hang in the backyard and write, you’d wait until I opened the cabana, so you could go inside and snooze away, far from me. These days, you can’t make it up to that top level. Flora and Fauna showed up on Saturday for pool time. We brought your crate up to the cabana (technically, I carried you under one arm, and held your crate with the other arm, because I am God and I have amazing upper body strength), and got you settled in. You went into your crate and slept for the rest of the afternoon while Flora, Fauna and God had martinis in the pool.

I will carry you around. I will make sure you are included, that you are not left out, even though there are no martinis for you.

You are old now, Basil Diva Dog. You, who used to hate being picked up and being carried around, are now nestling onto the back of my shoulder whenever I pick you up. (this isn’t the greatest picture, it’s a self portrait. It looks like I have no right arm, but then again, I’m GOD! I don’t NEED two arms! HA!) Maybe you feel like you’ve given up. Maybe you feel like there’s no point in resisting. Maybe you simply don’t understand what’s going on. That’s all possible.

But I am here for you, Basil Diva Dog. I was always here for you, even when you didn’t want me. I loved you, even when you didn’t love me. I took care of you, I fed you, I walked you, I washed your Nasty Butt. I watch over you now. I still feed you now. I carry you now. I clean away your eye crusts, I rub your ears, I scratch your cheekbones. You will never want a tummy rub, and I think that’s weird for a dog, but that’s okay. I do all these things for you even though your feelings for me never rose above Bare Tolerance. I love you now.

I loved you then. I love you now.

Maybe you don’t want me. Maybe you do want me. Maybe you do want me and you don’t know how to show it. Maybe you don’t remember who I am. It’s all okay.

I never left you. I will never leave you.

Because I love you, Basil Diva Dog. I really truly do.

Dogs Rule

2011-07-25T21:50:00.000-07:00

Ahhhhh, I am back. Back with my favorite dogsitting dogs. Back for a GOOD LONG TIME with Ginger Puppy and Basil Diva Dog.

There are many reasons why I love these dogs the most. They don’t eat things that aren’t already in their kibble bowl. They don’t smell like pee, nor do they pee in the house. They are content to watch movies with me in the media room.

But I think I love these dogs the most because Ginger Puppy likes to sit by my feet while I write on my laptop. Looks like this:

Her owners say she’ll go under that desk when she’s scared of loud noises. Yet she’s there curled around my tootsies when there’s not any loud noises. Like tonight. Nothing going on outside but the errant helicopter making it drop off and pick ups from Children’s Hospital down below. This may be a case of Your Dogs Act Differently With Me Than They Do With You.

I can’t tell you how comforting it is to have a dog by your feet. I read Rick Springfield’s memoir this weekend, and a large part of his book talks about the dogs in his life. He brings them into the studio when he’s recording, he had them running around backstage when he did the EFX show in Vegas for two years.

If I had to take a stab about why it’s nice to have a furball at your feet that you must be mindful of when you try to move your rolling chair closer to the desk, I think it’s about comfort and acceptance. This dog is simply content to be at my feet. Ginger Puppy doesn’t care what I’m writing. She’s a dog, she’ll never learn to read, so she’ll never judge the quality of my writing. If I hit my writing deadline or not, she’ll be happy either way. Because she’s with me. And I am happy that she’s with me.

Dogs rule.

The Magic Phone Call

2011-07-18T22:42:00.000-07:00

I think I may have said this before, but what sucks for Christians and screenwriters and Christians who are screenwriters is that we spend an inordinate amount of headspace anticipating that magic phone call.

Maybe the call’s from God, inspiring us with a vision of what we’re supposed to do with the rest of our lives (go build schools in Africa, go work as a bank teller in Florida, go wrangle blood drives at your church), or giving us an answer to a particularly thorny problem (what do I do with the guy? What do I do with the crazy boss? What do I do with the friend who needs help?)

Or maybe the call’s from a creative executive wanting to take a meeting and shoot around some ideas, or the call’s an email from an exec responding to one of your loglines.

In either scenario, it sucks because you can’t sit around and wait your whole life for the call. You gotta go out and live your life, try out different roads, freeways, on and off ramps. You gotta sit down and write some stuff.

It’s a tricky line to walk between doing your part, and looking to God, hoping He’ll meet you where you’re walking. Because when you don’t get any call, you’re wondering if you’re supposed to keep going, because it’s now learning to persevere in faith, or whether no call means you’re not on the right road to begin with.

So in the middle of Damien’s Reign Of Terror a few weeks ago, I got the call. Except I didn’t know it was the call. In fact, I grabbed the ringing phone off the counter as I was chasing Damien around the first floor, because he had an oven mitt in his mouth in another one of his misperceptions of Catch Me! Catch Me! Catch Me If You Can! Because This Is A GAME! I answered the phone completely distracted, literally on the run, because my number one priority was Get The Oven Mitt Out Of Damien’s Mouth.

The assistant on the other end of the phone was talking a mile a minute, probably because it was nine p.m. and he desperately wanted to go home, and I think my call was the very last on his list of priorities.

But his mission was to set up a breakfast between me and his boss. I didn’t know why, I didn’t ask. The executive and I had been trading emails about a potential project, so I assumed the breakfast would be about that. I quickly checked my calendar, said what date worked for me, and that was that. We hung up, I wrestled the oven mitt out of Damien’s mouth, and life went on for another week.

I prepped my notes on the project, I prepped my list o’ other ideas in case she wanted to hear what else I had in my bag of tricks. I didn’t bother to stress, because I still didn’t really know what the meeting was about, and I was too embarrassed to call and ask the assistant a week after the fact, when I should’ve asked him when I had him on the phone the first time had I not been dealing with Demon German Shepherd jaws.

So I go to breakfast all cheery and ready with my iphone notes app, and pens and a pad o’ paper just in case we’re kicking it old school. The creative exec shows up, all laid back and cheery, and proceeds to pitch ME an idea. That she wants ME to write. And they will pay ME money to do so. All I have to do is say yes.

This is not how I was imagining this meeting was going to go. AT ALL.

Turns out that harried assistant was supposed to send me a pitch document before the meeting. Oops. BUT! It just so happens that the idea is about…

(I CAN’T REALLY SAY WHAT THE IDEA IS ABOUT BECAUSE OF CONFIDENTIALLY STUFF SO EVERYTHING I SAY NEXT IS CODE CODE CODE!!)

… a Golden Gecko who does Gymnastics.

And while I didn’t have the pitch document in my hot little hands, while I didn’t have a WEEK to prepare my responses, one thing I DID know is gymnastics. Because I was a gymnast as a kid. And if your main character is a Golden Gecko who enters the crazy world of competitive gymnastics, then yes, I can totally relate. YES I CAN.

So I talk to the exec about how I think the story would go. About how this little Gecko already has the deck stacked against it because while this Gecko isn’t flexible at all, this Gecko has no fear. Which is totally how I was as a gymnast, and it was surprising how far courage could outweigh an inability to do the splits.

As I’m talking to her about how your choice of music to do your floor routine to can reveal so much about your personality (my routine was mostly to the non-speaking parts of New Order’s “Shellshock.” Totally true. Just take a listen: It was impossible to keep up that pace.)

… And I see the light bulb go off in the Creative Executive’s eyes. It’s the look you want to see the person on the other side of the table get. Because that lightbulb, that look is the person on the other side of the table seeing what you’re saying playing out on a screen. And liking what they’re seeing.

Even so, I thought it would go poof, as so many other opportunities have. There have been many people who have come alongside me, promising this, that, and the other thing, and then blip out of existence without so much as an explanation for why they went poof. They just went poof. Poof is a part of life here in Los Angeles. You learn to live with it, and even though you saw a lightbulb go off across the table, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. She pays for breakfast, she tells me not to start writing on anything until we sign a contract. Oh, okay. No problem. I’ve got a bunch of other things I’m working on anyway.

Then a month goes by. And just as I’m about to chalk it up to Poofery, a contract comes through the email. For me. With a writing schedule and a payment schedule, in four steps. And an email from the Creative Exec wanting another meeting, where we nail down a few story details about the Golden Gecko.

That meeting happened. The contract is signed. And my outline, the first step, is due on Friday. I am officially a professional writer who’s getting paid for writing.

I can honestly say that Golden Gecko Gymnasts are the last thing I thought I would be writing about. And I’m not quite sure why God wants me to write about them. But this has unfolded in such a bizarre manner, that it can’t possibly be anything but God pulling the strings behind the scenes.

I just hope He likes what I come up with.

Things are Afoot!

2011-07-11T22:38:00.000-07:00

There are at least two things I wanna talk about, good and bad, but I have to wait until the dust settles in order to have the full picture. But needless to say, both the good news and the annoying observations prompt the following reaction:

Stay tuned...

Hickory, Dickory, Dock

2011-07-04T20:29:00.000-07:00

These are two of my three newest dogsitting clients. Let’s call them Hickory, Dickory and Dock. In this photo is Dickory and Dock. Yes, they do have eyes, and no, they don’t bump into walls. Dock, the white one, also the youngest, and you can see his eyes pretty easily. He’s also a SuperSnuggler, and sleeps on the bed next to me, which would be lovely if he didn’t think that 4:30am is the perfect time to get up, and if he didn’t smell faintly of pee. They all small faintly of pee, thanks to their dreadlocked fur that drags along the ground, picking up dirt, twigs, and errant pee drops.

Initially, I was gonna post picture of the house, and all the stranger than strange Southwestern deco, including a life-sized Mexican mannequin and a life-sized cowboy statue at the top of the stairs. But then Paranoid Brain took over and fears that someone out there is going to recognize the creepy life sized Mexican mannequin sitting in a rocking chair across from the life sized wolf statue across the room from the authentic Indian ponchos and then the jig is up. For all I know, going this far incurs some Navajo Indian protector ghost, but that would actually be kinda nifty, so bring it on, Navajo Skinwalkers! I ain’t afraid of YOU!

So the dogs smell, the décor also smells, (I’ve been existing on allergy drugs for the past five days.), the washer and dryer are on the far side of the garage, and it’s a little difficult to make your way past two cars to get to it, but this tour of duty ends with them tomorrow, (though I’m back with them next week for another few days.)

This is the part where my Dad, the Great Stoic Wonder, bellows, “Why are you doing this if it’s so miserable!?” (I’ve never understood why half the advice my Dad gives me is to quit when facing an uncomfortable situation. But the other half of his advice are good stock tips, so it all comes out in the wash)

But in facing this uncomfortable situation, some things become clear - while Dickory is a total yapper of a dog, especially when you get home from work, I discovered a HUGE ASS bottle of Patron tequila in a drawer next to a wine refrigerator. Patron tequila makes everything easier. These dogs are fine snoozing on the floor while I type on the computer. And if you really wanna get down to it, I’m getting paid to be inconvenienced first, and taking care of faintly-pee-smelling dogs second. Which is reason enough for me.

This is Hickory. She’s the only girl in the group, she’s the eldest, and she’s the one whose eyes I have not been able to locate on her face, because she won’t stay still long enough to lift up the dreadlocks to see them. I’ve found her ears, right where they’re supposed to be. But no eyes.

I did find the tag on her collar that says this:

I have no idea how useful a therapy dog she could be. She’s pretty aloof. Not a snuggler, not a comforter. Not a leader, not a follower. The only notable thing I’ve seen her doing is patiently suffering as her brothers take turn humping her. And I don’t think that’s advice that would be considered useful in any situation.

But, regardless of what my Great Stoic Wonder Dad says, no situation is as bad as you think it is. In this case, it’s that none of these dogs are a two year old 110 pound German Shepherd named Damien.

ThankyouGodthankyou. ThankyouGodthankyou. ThankyouGodthankyou. ThankyouGodthankyou.

I can survive anything that’s not that.

Proof That I Am Not A Kid-Hating Monster

2011-06-27T23:27:00.000-07:00

Check it out people!

This is me with Stella and Wella's little girl Mirabella. Wella produced a short I wrote and we shot all day Saturday. As a writer, I like to be on set, not to peer over the director's shoulder and hiss "They're not saying the lines right!" (they said the lines fine) but so I can be an extra set of hands wherever they're needed, since everyone's a volunteer, everyone needs help, here I am to help, la la la.

So I went on Starbucks runs, I made watermelon water (pureed watermelon, water, and lime), I cleaned dishes, I started to make the director her special strawberry smoothie but she came down on a break and was horrified that the writer was making her smoothie and took over. I guess she was embarrassed at the perception that I was a lackey, but I didn't really care. I take the attitude of "I'm a servant" on these things. Sometimes to my detriment, but Saturday was fine.

Towards the end of the night, when all the dishes were washed and they were still shooting, I joined Stella in trying to cajole Mirabella to go to sleep. All my usual remedies did NOT work, not crooning 80's music, not crooning Disney tunes. Any steps toward a dark room to prompt Sleepy Eyes were met with howls and yowls.

Finally I busted out what had to be the best remedy for Awake Baby - reading to her recipes from a cookbook that happened to be on the coffee table. We went over the different ways to make creme brulee - butane blowtorch or iron salamander. Mirabella did not have a preference on how to make creme brulee, nor did she go to sleep upon the crooning recitation on how to do so. I finally gave up and handed her back to Stella, but I would like to point out that yes, I tried, I failed, but when I left around midnight, she still wasn't sleeping, and she was soundly in her mother's arms.

A lot of the time, when people hear you don't want children, they assume you must hate them. Not true, not true. No, I do not want to be a mother, I don't think I would make a good one BUT that doesn't mean I can't hold a cute kid and try several ways to get it to go to sleep.

(as far as I know, Mirabella is still up. Let's pray for her mom, Stella, shall we?)

World's Shortest Post

2011-06-20T22:56:00.001-07:00

So if you wanna truly be shamed about how you’re praying, someone will usually come along and say something to be the equivalent of “Stop praying for stuff. Spend time with God and get to know Him more.”

Get to know God more, that’s always a sentence you can throw out that nobody can argue with. Because nobody REALLY knows God. That’s the Catch 22. By definition, God is unknowable, but you’re supposed to make your life’s pursuit spending time with Him and getting to know Him, even though you’ll never TRULY know Him, but you gotta try. Rather than ask Him for things like a new car. Or even a used car.

I think as humans, our knee jerk response to the phrase, “Get to know God” translates into “Get to know God more so you’ll understand why He’s not giving you the stuff you’re asking Him to give you.”

How can you know the unknowable? I think a lot of the time, the church will send you off with a cheerio, “Go read the Bible! He’s in there! You’ll learn all sorts of things about Him if you read your Bible and spend time in prayer.” Spend time in prayer getting to know Him, the unknowable.

I’m still working on it myself.

I'm Not A Mom, I'm An Alpha Dog

2011-06-13T22:23:00.000-07:00

I’m on the verge of being sick, and it’s pretty much Damien’s fault. This dog is intent on destroying me, whether by allergy attacks to his my-owners-say-I-don’t-shed-but-I-waited-until-they-were-gone-to-unleash-my-fur-attack! Or from flat out exhaustion trying to wrangle him – stopping him from eating everything in the house, using all my arm strength to stop him from pulling me on walks. Or maybe depression – I have two more days of a two week gig, and this has been a truly miserable experience, made bearable only by the money I earn, and the fact that I’m close to the end.

The very very sad part is that I’ve already signed up for another tour of duty with this guy, a five day gig that happens NEXT week. So I really only get a week off from this madness.

And part of me knew it would be madness and thought from a clinical perspective that it would be an interesting challenge – Try and retain your marbles in the midst of insanity. I haven’t done that in quite some time. I think the last time I thought I was losing my mind was 2009 with Polka Dotta Platypus running for so long. How will I know I have my Marble Retaining Ability if I haven’t exercised that Marble Retaining Muscle!? Remember how to mentally stretch your arms and center yourself when things are demanding your attention at every angle!

We all know that I don’t want kids. Every now and then well intentioned someone will ask, “Are you sure you don’t wanna have kids?” Like I could somehow grow a biological clock. Am I sure I don’t wanna have kids? Well, are you sure you’re whatever sexual orientation you are? I mean, after all, couldn’t you just change your mind!? That’s basically the thought pattern behind that question – you could just change your mind and want to have them, couldn’t you?

That’s so not how it works, people. You have the biological clock, or you don’t. You like guys, or you like girls. It’s not a choice. It’s how God made you.

And I’m pretty sure God made me without a biological clock because He knew I would make a horrible mother (I think I would make an awesome mentor to a troubled gay youth, though), and these two weeks of terror with Damien proves it.

Damien is two years old and 110 pounds. He has the attention span of a gnat. He is as stubborn as a Texas beauty queen who wants access to her trust fund. And his piles o’ poop are towering monuments to excrement.

I am not used to any of this. Ginger Puppy and Basil Diva Dog are well behaved. They sit by my feet when I write. They come when they’re called. They heel on walks. And their poop piles are as dainty as teacups.

Damien is not used to a dogsitter. He ran the last one off, she got a job as an editor with really long hours, and when she came home, Damien wouldn’t let her sleep.

Let’s repeat that. THE DOG WOULDN’T LET HER SLEEP! He would jump on her in bed and pull the covers off and then go chomp some pillows to get attention, and she ran screaming down the driveway, never to be seen again. I think.

Now I’m up at bat. And I’m determined not to lose. Not to an f’ing DOG. “I’M the Alpha Dog!” I tell Damien when he doesn’t wanna go on his walk, “I’M IN CHARGE!” I yell through the bathroom door when he’s whining and scratching on the door because I won’t let him come in when I’m on the toilet. “I’m doing something for me right now, I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU WANT,” as he’s trying to get my hands off the keyboard and on his head, see?

(p.s., don’t even think that he’s acting this way because I don’t play with him. I run circles around the damn house playing Keep Away with him. The issue isn’t that I don’t play. The issue is that he doesn’t STOP playing.)

This has strangely brought up all sorts of childhood memories. There were two running themes to my childhood: 1. You Don’t Really Need That (And I Will Make You Feel Guilty If You Make Me Give It To You) 2. I Don’t Care What You Want, You’re Doing What I Say.

I didn’t want to go to Gymnastics? TOO BAD! I signed you up for those classes, and we’re not wasting the money. I don’t wanna run a mile around the track!? TOO BAD! We’re not leaving until you do, I have the keys to the car and you’re not old enough to drive yet. I want to stay home for the summer? TOO BAD! You’re going to camp in another state for six weeks.

Now, my parents actually did the right thing (with the exception of not listening to me when I said I wasn’t a long distance runner) I don’t have to be a parent to know that you don’t give in to your child, especially if the child is saying, “But I don’t wanna.” It’s because my parents made me go to gymnastics class and made me go to six week camp in another state that I had a pretty damn robust childhood. I learned how to shoot rifles, work a bow and arrow, did time on a pottery wheel, placed fourth in a horse riding competition even though I had only met that horse twenty minutes before the competition started.

Your child does not know better. You know better.

Damien does not know better. I know better.

So I deny Damien a lot. I don’t let him do a lot of things, like eat the sofa. He does not get my hands scratching his ears 24/7. He is learning, whether he wants to or not, that he is not the most important thing in this room. That would be the computer. ☺

While some would argue this does INDEED make me a good parental figure, it does not. Because I don’t want a dog of my own, and I don’t really want Damien, I’m merely enduring him. There is no love for Damien here. Instead, I’m a cranky exhausted sneezy person who has not lost her marbles yet, but is very much looking forward to Wednesday night and beyond, especially because I get a weekend gig with my favorites Ginger Puppy and Basil Diva Dog, and the most incredible bed in the universe.

And I almost wanna walk Ginger Puppy and Basil Diva Dog past Damien’s house and scream, “SEE!? SEE!? THESE ARE WHAT WELL BEHAVED DOGS LOOK LIKE! THESE ARE MY FAVORITES!!! YOU ARE NOT MY FAVORITE AND YOU PROBABLY WON’T EVER BE!”

That is why I would not make a good mother.

Damien and Facing Your Fears

2011-06-05T22:31:00.000-07:00

Everyone say hello to Damien. Okay, fine. He’s not REALLY the devil. He’s just sapping my will to live is all. OH I KNOW.

Sure, sure, you look at that face and you think Amy! How on earth could a face like that harbor any kind of horribleness? Look at that face!? He’s a sweetheart!

Damien is a new dog client, a referral I got from Pepe and Pembleton. And Damien lives about five minutes away from my house, so everything’s convenient.

And I’m sure he is a sweetheart. Or actually, I’m sure he will be. In about five years. See, Damien is a sixty pound two-year-old German Shepherd dog they got from a shelter. It’s wonderful that they rescued him, yes yes yes of course. Save a dog’s life, wonderful, you’re going to heaven, yes, yes, of course. But Damien is TWO YEARS OLD. The last dogsitter washed out because she got an editing gig with a lot of late hours. There were rumors that she was scared of Damien. I doubt all of that. I bet that the truth is simply that Damien wore her out.

Damien is exhausting. I started this gig on Friday, and I’ve got two and a half weeks with him. Of course the first few days are exhausting as dog and dogsitter get used to each other. It is my secret hope that he calms down really soon. Maybe bitching about him in this blog will be the reverse jinx that makes him finally go to sleep (I gave him a few owner-approved natural doggie Calm Down Aids an hour ago. HE’S STILL GOING, FOLKS!)

All Damien wants to do is play Tug Of War. 24/7. His little dog brain has no concept of time, and given the chance, he’d play Tug Of War forever.

I’m fine playing with dogs for a little while. But not ALL DAY LONG. I’ve got work to do. I’ve got stuff to write. It’s the weekend, I’ve got naps to take.

But Damien wants to play Tug Of War. And if you won’t play with his red rubber spiral thing for as long as he wants, he will go chomp on the nearest thing made of fabric and flaunt his naughtiness in front of you. This includes:

The computer chair padded armrest
The bed comforter
Pillows
Blankets
Stovemitts
Kitchen Seat Cushions
My shoes

When you shout “NO!” or “DROP IT!” or “THOSE ARE MY LEATHER BOOTS!” he doesn’t drop them, but instead runs laps around the dining room table while you frantically try to get the thing out of his mouth before he pokes holes in them. To his credit, he hasn’t poked holes in anything, he’s just trying to get your attention so you’ll play with him for another hour. He also hasn’t knocked anything off any tables either, and this place is filled with all sorts of crystal and porcelain bric-a-brac, so he’s super conscientious of anything that’s not already in his mouth.

And I get it. He’s two. He’s a rescue dog. He’s spoiled by his two retired Stay At Home Senior Citizen Daddies Who Play With Him All Day Long.

But when it’s midnight, and I’m desperately trying to get some sleep and I hear chomp chomp chomp is that a RIP?! down at the bottom of the bed, I wonder how I’m gonna make it through two more weeks of this.

At first, I thought Damien was going to be a perfect metaphor for Facing Your Fears. Because let’s face it, he’s a sixty pound German Shepherd, and those things are intimidating at first sight. The first time I met Damien, he was barking at me through my the dutch door at my own house, because he was over for a playdate with Pepe and Pembleton. I opened the half door and WHOOSH! ROWRORWROWROWRWOWOWOWOW!

A normal person rears back in the face of such aggression (And thinks something along the lines of DUDE! THIS IS MY HOUSE!), which only incites Damien ah-HA! She’s scared of me! She’s automatically guilty of something! GET HER GET HER GET HER!

I quickly shut the Dutch door after that and thought it was the end of it.

But the summer months are prime months for dogsitters, and Damien’s previous dogsitter washed out and well, why not? Why not face down a metaphor for fear? What else will I blog about this week? Nothing else is going on.

So I got a walkthrough with Damien last Sunday, got his feeding and walking routines, he sniffed me long enough to where we all thought he’d know who I was when I showed up on Friday morning.

So when I step out of the car into the driveway and see him losing his mind barking at me through the gate, my thoughts go something like this:

Show No Fear
I Need The Money
God, Please Don’t Let This Dog Bite Me.
“Damien! It’s me, Amy! You know who I am!”
ROWRORWROWROWRWOWOWOWOW!
“Damien! I’m not leaving, so you’re just gonna have to get used to this!”
ROWRORWROWROWRWOWOWOWOW!
God, Please Don’t Let This Dog Bite Me.
God, Please Don’t Let This Dog Bite Me.
God, Please Don’t Let This Dog Bite Me.
Oh yeah, Show No Fear.

I open the door, and go up the stairs to the closed door. God, if this dog bites me, I’m totally gonna… well, I don’t know what I’m gonna do, because the owners are already off on their river cruise in Europe, so I can’t just default on this, but I am NOT going to be happy. Please, do not let this dog bite me.

God had no response, so I open the door, and here comes Damien, loping down the hall towards me.

Show No Fear. Show No Fear.

Damien skids on the floor…. leaps into the air…. And tries to knock me down with his two-year-old-excitement. I stand firm, and hold the secret weapon of jerky treats out for Damien. He promptly gobbles them up, and then brings me the rubber red spiral toy to play tug of war with. And he has yet to stop.

I guess the metaphor there is Face Your Fears Even When God Doesn’t Respond. Probably Because God Knows You Can Handle Things Even If You Don’t Think You Can. Because You Have Jerky Treats In Your Hand. You Can Take On The World With That.

Here’s hoping.

Rahab, The Coloring Book

2011-05-30T23:20:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody!

It’s been awhile since we’ve discussed anything Biblical, I know, I know.

BUT!

I have been working on a series of monologues based on women in the Bible. The idea is that the monologues would be contemporary updated versions of women found in the Bible. Because anyone who says women aren’t a vital part of the Bible frankly hasn’t read it. Because they’re ALL over the place. You just have to read the damn thing to find them.

And it’s been a lot of fun to make a list of Bible’s Greatest Women and to figure out what a contemporary version would be. Not gonna give everything away right now, but I will say that one of them is Rahab, the prostitute found mainly in the book of Joshua Chapter 2 and 6.

In a nutshell, she hides Joshua’s spies from the King of Jericho’s army in return for a promise that they will save her and her family when Joshua’s army invades. And they promise, so she hides them, and the army eventually invades, and her family’s saved, and there’s an interesting discussion to be had about faith versus works, which is mentioned in Hebrews (she’s justified through faith in her works) and James (she’s justified through works demonstrating faith).

Now, when I’m doing my research on these Women Of The Bible I invariably run across really well meaning church videos. Let me reiterate that most drama performed in churches today SUCK SUCK SUCK AN AMAZING MOUNTAIN OF SUCKITUDE! To a lot of churches in America, to perform a monologue of a woman in the Bible means you have a woman up in front of the congregation, sometimes in modern day dress, sometimes in “Biblical Gear” of a shapeless shift and headdress, but the monologue is almost always the same, and that’s that it’s basically a first person narrative of what you could simply read in Joshua 2 and 6. To these churches, it somehow means more to have a person “acting it out” rather than you reading it in your Bible.

This sucks from an imagination perspective. Because there is no imagination in that.

Because I’m trying to be a nicer person, I will not post an example of such sucky monologues. But do a simple google search on “Rahab” and hit the video tab, and you’ll find them. You’ll also find a Sarah Silverman monologue about Cheese REHAB, which means someone cannot spell.

BUT! I will post this video, because I believe that higherpraisetube.com is somewhat in in on the joke.

One reason (among many, I know) I don’t think they’re completely in on the joke is because they also offer a study guide which includes a coloring book picture of Rahab (she’s got the Disney Princess eyes going)

Did you guys ever read Greek Myths as a kid? I did, except I got the sanitized version, D’aulaire’s Book Of Greek Myths. It’s because of that book that I grew up thinking Dionysus was really Jesus, because of this picture:

(okay, it’s copyrighted, I’m not gonna post it, but click here - then hit LOOK INSIDE, and go to page 67. )

I see a guy with a beard, what looks like thorns on his head, and grapes all around, and my second grade self thinks Dionysus = Jesus turning water into wine.

It’s not until much later that I realize Dionysus is pretty much the antithesis of Jesus with the madness, the ecstasy, the music and the orgies. OOOOOPS! SORRY JESUS!

So I really feel for the kids that watch this video and color this picture of Rahab and think she’s a cool action adventure spy smuggling chick who runs a hotel.

The truth, whoring warts and all, is so much more interesting

Why Would You Believe That?

2011-05-22T20:03:00.000-07:00

I was very grateful that my church did not mention the Rapture That Didn't Happen today. I wonder why more people don't realize that giving these nutjobs - whether threatening to burn a Quran, or buying billboards claiming they know the exact date that the world's gonna end - attention means they don't go away.

I was the Go-To-Christian for a few of my secular friends this week. "Is the world gonna end? Do you really believe that?" Why would I believe that? Why would you think I would believe that? Why is it the fringe element of any major group or institution suddenly becomes the face of that institution based on the amount of publicity they receive?

Because being normal is not interesting. The truth - that nobody knows when the world is ending, we're supposed to live like we're meeting God tomorrow, yet very few people do - is not as interesting as WE'RE ALL DYING AT 6:00PM YESTERDAY! BUT WE'RE STILL HERE! PRAISE GOD! OUR PRAYERS STAYED THE WRATH OF GOD! NOW COME FOLLOW US AND GIVE US MONEY!!!!

Whatever.

In other news, I spruced up the bloggie!

Check it out people! There's a Hall Of Fame Section over on the right hand side, featuring the best of this blog! Now you too can re-live things like Boobgate (I didn't think I was gonna recover from that one), Ginger Puppy, the scary website where you click a button to reject Jesus Christ (I bet they thought the world was ending yesterday) and much much more!!!

Thank you, faithful readers of the blog. I cannot believe we've been here five years and counting. :)

Beautiful Bella

2011-05-15T23:44:00.000-07:00

I’m picking up a lot of new dogsitting clients, I’ll be bouncing all over the place in June, and this past Saturday night, I got to hang with two beagle mixes, Bonnie and her sister Bella, shown here desperately trying to nap on the couch while I shove a camera in her face.

No, that’s not dirt or a piece of dried poo on Bella’s snout, that is in fact a growth of some kind. You can see two others on the right side of her face, and one on her paw, and there’s a big benign mass bulging from her left shoulder.

Her owners rescued her from a Beagle adoption place seven months ago, and are considering surgery for her to get rid of all stuff. The doctors say if they want to go through with the surgery, it’ll slow Bella down a bit for the recovery period, and that made her owners seriously consider it, because despite this picture, Bella is one rocket of a dog.

I’M SERIOUS.

Here’s what she looks like when she’s rolling on her back, wanting a tummy rub:

Here’s what she looks like “at rest”

She won’t stop moving unless she’s trying to take a nap. She’s always on the go, and she is one happy happy dog. Her tail is endlessly wagging, she’ll smile at you, she always wants ear rubs, tummy rubs, pay attention to me FOREVER.

Bella does not care what she looks like. That growth on her nose is totally in her eyeline, she knows it’s there. But she doesn’t care. I never saw her paw at it, trying to get it off.

Meanwhile, I have a small small zit on my face and I’m convinced I’m hideous.

I’m convinced dogs understand the concept of shame (yell at a dog when they’ve peed in the house and witness it for yourself) but they don’t understand self consciousness. To go further, no dog is gonna make fun of another dog because they’ve got some weird black thing sticking out of their face that’s not their nose.

Dogs don’t give a flying flip what they look like. Unless you put a Christmas hat on them. Then they know they look dumb.

Bella is beautiful. I grew to love those things on her face in the short time I was with her. And I adored the pink lining of her thick floppy ears that just so happened to match the quilt she was taking her nap on.

I need to be more like Bella.

That's Why He's God And You're Not

2011-05-01T21:26:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody!

Remember when I left my temp gig last year because my boss wouldn’t hire me, because he claimed that he couldn’t make a decision because he hadn’t interviewed enough people?

That my eight to nine months on the desk wasn’t good enough for him to pull the trigger and offer me the position full time?

Remember how it sent me into a spiral of gloom and doom, that in standing up for myself, I jettisoned myself into a void of uncertainty? And I kept clamoring for God to talk to me, to tell me why this was happening, what’s the plan, la la laaaaaaaaaa.

And I flailed around for two months?

And then I finally landed a full time job in a place that’s turning out to be pretty okay? (Pretty Okay is an awesome title for a book or song or something.)

Guess what was the leading story on one of the entertainment websites on Friday afternoon?

That boss who wouldn’t hire me, the dick, is leaving the company. Friday was his last day.

I busted out laughing so hard my 6 person department all stuck their heads out to see what the ruckus was.

I quickly jumped on the IM to chat with my former co-workers about the news. They wished they could’ve seen my face when I read the article. I tell them I’m wearing a huge grin.

Which is evil of me. I know this.

The official word is that he wanted to leave. That this had been in the works “for months.” And while you could say that’s why he didn’t hire me, because he knew he’d be leaving, he offered the third temp who came after me the position full time. That guy was on the desk for two months and got an offer. Which he turned down.

So I’m going with the theory that my former boss is still a dick and what goes around comes around and off he goes to take a ride on the Karma Boomerang O’ Life.

It’s now crystal clear that God was trying to protect me. THIS is why God didn’t want me to be hired full time, so months later I wouldn’t be an assistant whose days are numbered because their boss has left.

And there’s probably no real way that God could’ve communicated that to me in a way I would’ve understood.

And He is so patient. SO PATIENT. And I am such a brat. SUCH A BRAT.

I will never understand why God continues to love me when I am such a brat, when I scream at Him to talk to me, make demands as though I’m in any position of power over Him.

But I guess that’s why He’s God. And I am so very very thankful for that.

Happy Easter, from Berlin The Griffith Park Bear

2011-04-24T21:27:00.001-07:00

And me too. :)

Vanilla Jesus

2011-04-17T21:54:00.000-07:00

Last night I got to see a local church’s production of Jesus Christ Superstar. I bumped into some acquaintances there, and they wanted to know what brought me out to see the show, if I happened to attend that church. “Nope,” I cheerily replied, “I’m friends with Judas.” That’s probably the only time in my life that I’d be able to say that. In a church, no less. Awesome.

I am indeed friends with the actor who played Judas, he was in my 2005 production of Zig Zagged Ostrich, and while I didn’t know he could sing, he’s a talented enough guy that it did not surprise me at all that he rocked the house as Judas. He was easily the best thing about the production, which was typical church produced fare, complete with little Sunday School kids waving palm fronds during “Hosanna,” a gazillion extras on stage, and a staged tableau of the Last Supper.

What was striking about this show was that the actor playing Jesus was so….. bland. Vanilla. Quite possibly the most Vanilla Jesus I had ever seen anywhere in TV, movies, art, stage, books, anywhere. No facial hair, no chest hair, nerdy looking and the most trim haircut this side of a military barrack. He frankly looked androgynous, if not neutered.

And not compelling. Right towards the end, Jesus is receiving his 40 lashes, and around lash 17, I leaned over to my friends and said, “Wow, Jesus is taking this awfully well.” Because there was literally no reaction from Vanilla Jesus onstage. It’s not shock, it’s Failure To Emote.

In any good story, your villain has to be as compelling as your hero, every good writer knows that. But that implies that your hero IS compelling.

Jesus is not supposed to be Vanilla. He’s not Buddy Jesus. Sure, everyone know about Jesus wrecking the moneychanger’s tables in the temple, but Jesus cursing the fig tree also cracks me up.

So much of what we see about Jesus in culture presents him as beatified, beautiful, holy, cleaned up, eyes focused on heaven, blah blah blah. These presentations of Jesus are frankly, kinda boring to me.

I wouldn’t choose this kind of Jesus, this kind of Jesus doesn’t look like he has a thing in common with me, there’s no way he’d be able to know my struggles, he doesn’t look like he EVER struggled. Like dirt doesn’t stick to him.

I prefer Non-Vanilla Jesus. Jesus wasn’t white, everybody knows this, right?
There’s a well-known Popular Mechanics article theorizing what he might have looked like and they came up with this:

However close to the truth it is or isn’t, this guy looks waaaaaaay more interesting. This guy looks like he’s got ISSUES. This guy looks like he’s struggled. I totally wanna hear what this guy has to say. This guy could totally kick Vanilla Jesus’ ass.

Says me. ☺

Guess What We Forgot To Do?

2011-04-10T23:20:00.000-07:00

You guys! We totally forgot to celebrate this blog's FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY! I suppose it's par for the course. We never seen to be on track with anything around here, ha ha ha.

But yep, this here blog was born on January 2nd, 2006. Can you believe it!?!?! Five friggin' years of wrestling with God and being a Christian screenwriter who occasionally drops the f bomb.

So I was thinking about creating a Hall Of Fame section over in the sidebar of some of the more famous (or possibly infamous) posts of the past five years. If you've got a favorite, let me know.

Happy Belated Anniversary, little ole' bloggie o' mine!!! :)

Fun With Talking Body Parts in Scripture

2011-04-04T23:58:00.001-07:00

So I got the email in the middle of this week asking me if I wanted to read Scripture at church this week. I haven’t done this since 2007, where I took a picture of the proceedings, and I was convinced by doing that, I was put on some invisible Do Not Let Her Read Again list.

But either there’s not that list, or nobody remembers that I’m supposed to be on it, or everyone else passed and I was at the very bottom of the list. Regardless, I said yes, sure, no problem, I can read.

I get the scripture on Thursday, and since we’re still studying 1^st Corinthians, we’re up to the fun part (well, there’s a bunch of fun parts in 1^st Corinthians) but this is chapter 12, verses 12 – 31, where “If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I am not part of the body” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body” …. “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ and the head cannot say to the feet ‘I don’t need you!’

Oooooooh fun! Fun fun talking body parts fun!

We’ve got a lot of talking body parts here, actually. Feet, Ears, Eyes, Heads.

And we all know how I roll. When I see an opening to make a joke, I can’t NOT make the joke. I can’t. I CAN'T! At Small Group this past week, our Group Leader was talking about her mom getting re-married, and everybody’s nodding their heads about how surreal it is that she will have a five-year-old step-brother, and I blurt out, “You’ve got bigger problems. Your mom is having sex again.”

I HAVE TO MAKE THE JOKE, PEOPLE! I HAVE TO! You know that’s what everyone is thinking. And that’s another way of how I roll – I usually will say what everyone is thinking, but nobody else wants to say it. Sure I’ll say it. Why not? Somebody has to. Might as well be me.

So here I am facing a situation where I’m reading a scripture passage featuring no less than four talking body parts and what the hell am I supposed to do!!!!

So I practice the night before. I don’t really have a fear of public speaking, but I do have a slight fear of certain Elders at our church who might give me a verbal smackdown if I don’t take this seriously. No fear of public speaking, but I do have a fear of public shaming.

Let me be clear, it’s not that I don’t take this passage seriously. But read the passage:

1^st Corinthians Ch. 12 v. 12 – 31.

12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

15 Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. 28 And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues[d]? Do all interpret? 31 Now eagerly desire the greater gifts. And now I will show you the most excellent way.

First of all, that’s a long ass passage to read in front of a church body. Second of all, it’s kind of hilarious. PAUL IS WRITING ABOUT TALKING BODY PARTS! Yes, there are some serious things going on there (we are all diverse but necessary parts of the body of Christ), and some excellent points being made (your baby-making parts are covered in modesty, yet are no less honorable.) And yet. Paul’s using humor to make a point.

Sidebar: whenever I read this passage in the past, I always wanted to shout I AM GOD’S SPLEEN! TREASURE ME, THE LOWLY PANCREAS! Talk about lowly body parts that are completely necessary for everyday life.

I show up for church today, ready to behave if called upon, but also wanting to see how much I can get away with. That’s what rehearsal is for, ho ho ho.

Luckily, I’ve got a fairly zen stage manager, and I’ve known Pastor Diet Slice since the church started six years ago, and when it comes time for me to get up onstage and start reading, I let loose with my interpretation of what a talking foot, ear, eye and head would sound like. I’ve made the editorial choice that they’re all spoiled brats who wanna take their toys and go home, since they’re not an hand or an eye, so they obviously don’t belong to the body (insert eye roll) and the eye telling the hand “I don’t need YA!” and the response back, “YEAH!? Well I don’t need YOU!”

And the staff is standing in front of me, checking the slides behind me to make sure the text matches up, and I hear them start laughing. I stop and say that I can ditch the funny voices if they want me to, but Pastor Diet Slice says I should go for it. Yay! Pastor Approved Funny Voices!

Once I finish rehearsal, Pastor Diet Slice takes the time out to compliment me on my reading skills, with or without the funny voices, and then also says that the Scripture passage is too long, and they’re going to cut it in half, since Pastor Diet Slice’s sermon isn’t going to touch on anything past verse 20 anyway. “My funny voices cut in half?” I say. “No, no, you still got…two of them.” Pastor Diet Slice assures me.

Well. Okay. I mean, it’s GOD’S WORD he’s cutting, so you know, if Pastor Diet Slice wants to take it up with God, he can. HA!

So for the first service, I do the two voices (Foot and Ear) in the same kinda of semi-snotty way I did for rehearsal. But I notice that during the sermon, Pastor Diet Slice is characterizing those verses as having not so much as a sullen Because I’m Not A Hand, I Don’t Belong To The Body (So THERE!) theme, as they are a sadly envious Because I’m Not A Hand, I Don’t Belong To The Body (Insert Sad Face) theme.

Ah yes. Clarity. Whenever you start to feel like a dumbass, you know God’s at work in you.

Of course it’s not about sullen body parts. It’s about SAD body parts. About Feet wishing they were Hands so they could be accepted into the body of Christ. It’s not about snottiness, it’s about sadness.

Why didn’t anyone tell me that, hmmm? Don’t know.

So I change the characterization for the second service, and make it be more about sad body parts wishing they were accepted for what they are not (so that the lesson can be learned that you don’t have to be something you’re not in order for Christ and God to accept you.)

It’s this characterization that ends up on the podcast. I don’t think that’s an accident.

They do edit out the part of the second service where I took a picture before I started reading Scripture. The idea was that I would post the picture here on the blog, and compare it with the picture I took in 2007, so faithful readers o’ the blog can see how much this little church has grown and changed.

I got a fancypants new Iphone last week, and thought this fancypants camera that came with it would do the trick.

Behold the result:

Nice, God. Nice.

Don't Forget To Breathe

2011-03-27T23:58:00.000-07:00

Another weekend with Basil Diva Dog and Ginger Puppy. It was very low key and lovely, though it’s true that Basil Diva Dog is getting older and slowing down quicker than one would suspect.

While he’ll still greet me on first arrival with a wagging tail, he chooses to forgo our morning and late afternoon walks. And while he still does endless circles around the first floor of the house to make sure everything is where he last saw it three seconds ago, most of the time he wedges himself into the back of his crate and doesn’t really come out for much.

Which puts me in the position not unlike Shirley McClaine in the opening scenes of Terms Of Endearment. The one where she’s a new mom, and she thinks there’s something wrong with the baby since the baby isn’t making any noise, so she goes over to the crib and jiggles the baby until it starts crying and then she leaves, satisfied that everything is okay.

So while I’m not pulling Basil’s tail to get him to woof and prove to me he hasn’t died in his crate, I have started to make it a habit of reaching my hand in there (waaaaaaaaaaay in there, since he’s wedged himself into the very back of the crate, the below picture is deceiving, he can flatten himself against the back of the crate when he wants to), and resting my hand on his back or side, waiting to feel him inhaling and exhaling.

I can’t see in there when I do this, so I really am relying on nothing more than the sense of touch, waiting for him to take a breath. And since he’s old, and usually deep in sleep 80 percent of the time, it can take him a little longer than normal to breathe. And I’m crouching by the crate, not being able to see anything, stretching into the void, finally making contact with his furry side, and waiting, waiting, thinking… breathe. Please please breathe.

And he does.

I wonder if that’s another snapshot of God. We’re just spinning around in our stupid little circles and cycles, and we don’t know what’s going on, and sometimes we’re asleep, sometimes we’re asleep when we’re awake, and we don’t feel the Hand Of God on us, resting there on our heads or something. God probably doesn’t need to check on us to make sure we’re still breathing, since He knows everything anyway. But He’s there anyway, even if we don’t know it, can’t feel it, or can’t see it.

Which makes me feel somewhat better.

Laugh, Don't Scream

2011-03-20T21:19:00.000-07:00

Okay, so when I meant “soon” I meant “a week later.” So what. I claim Birthday Excuse, I get to use it once a year, right?

I’ve been panicking that we’re three months into 2011, and I have no major adventures to my credit. For example, by this time last year, I had battled a plagiarist, encountered Snoopyologists, and worked as a stand-in for an awards show. There’s plenty of writing stuff swirling behind the scene that I can’t talk about right now, lest I jinx everything, but regardless, stuff needs to start happening.

So it seemed perfectly logical that I should take trapeze lessons as a birthday present to me this year.

Though I was willing to do this alone, my friend Beatrice immediately said she was in (and confided that she had wanted to do something like this for awhile, but wanted to have someone to do it with her. Our circle of friends appear to be huge chickens when it comes to heights.) Since one of my favorite adventures from last year involved Beatrice and zero gravity , I knew she would be the perfect partner for this.

So off we went to Hollywood Aerial Arts. It’s pretty unassuming from the outside, and inside you can take lessons on things like the Spanish web, tissue, hoops, standing trapeze…

But we want the SWINGING trapeze. Hell YEAH, we do! And that’s in the back. It’s thirty feet up in the air. We’ve got three instructors, a class size of about 6 people, three newbies, three regulars. And it really doesn’t matter what your skill level is, the newbies learn things from the regulars, and the regulars learn things from the newbies.

We have a really happy guy as our main instructor. He rivals Dr. Chuckles, my dentist, as the Happiest Professional I’ve ever come across, so let’s call him the Flyin’ Optimist. He’s on the ground, calling the shots, and holding our safety ropes connected to the harness around our waist. Up on the ledge thirty feet in the air to help us grab onto the trapeze are two really laid back guys, Zen Guy 1 and Zen Guy 2. They do this all day, every day, and they are far from bored, they just greet every terrified girl that scales the ladder with a blissed out, “Heeeeeeeeey. You’ll be fine.”

It is true, that I have been on the trapeze before. First time, I was 14 or 15, and on a family vacation to one of those Club Meds in the Caribbean, and they featured a lot of circus activities, including a show at the end of the week featuring the staff, and guests, and I was part of a standing (not swinging) trapeze act that worked WITHOUT AN F’ING NET and to this day I can’t believe some of the tricks I did WITHOUT AN F’ING NET AND WITHOUT AN F’ING HARNESS! I’m pretty sure Mom and Dad have blocked the whole thing out, but we have photographic proof, people. Sadly, no video.

It is also true that I was a gymnast for my high school years. Because of my family’s notorious history of physical inflexibility, I was not a great one, but I was renown for my lack of fear. No, I cannot do the splits, but tell me to do a roundoff back handspring off the balance beam, and I’ll TOTALLY do it. Regardless if I land slightly on my head (which happened once) or not.

And yeah, I took a circus class at college, and can do a Spanish web routine with no problem (and that was without a harness too, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME?), but the point is I am not a ringer. I simply have no fear. There is a difference.

And maybe that’s why I settled on this as my adventure. I wanted to put myself in situations where fear was a totally reasonable option, stare it down, and kick it in the ass. Flyin’ Optimist said that’s why a lot of people take these classes. It’s less about the physical ability, than about challenging your mental fears. To literally leap off a ledge thirty feet in the air, holding on to nothing but a trapeze bar. And then maybe do some tricks on top of it.

Flyin’ Optimist gives us about maybe five minutes of instruction before sending us up the ladder to the ledge, “I can talk your ear off about physics, and pendulum swings, but nothing is going to be as helpful as just getting up there and doing it!” Flyin’ Optimist like to talk in sentences that end in exclamation points. He really is a happy happy guy, and even though he met you only five minutes ago, he is convinced you can get up that ladder, swing out on the trapeze, and then do a back flip, and by the middle of class, hook your legs back onto the trapeze, and even do a catch by the end of the class. He is convinced that you can do this, because by mere virtue of the fact that you’re here proves that you want to TRY. Which puts you heads and shoulders about the rest of the population that maybe thought about it, but never went through the motions of signing up for it.

And this is why he’s a really happy guy. “I love my job!” he says. Because he loves meeting people that want to TRY. He loves coaching people who want to overcome their fears and are actively working toward it. And when he puts it like that, you really do think that he has a great job. There aren’t a lot of whiners here, just people who wanna stare fear in the face and fight it.

And you wanna prove that his enthusiasm in your as yet untested ability is warranted.

Climbing the ladder was maybe the second most uncomfortable part. Especially since the safety ropes weren’t connected to your harness yet. They had the utmost faith that you could scale a ladder thirty feet into the air without falling off. You’re carrying your safety ropes over your arm and when you get to the ledge, Zen Guy 1 would attach them to your safety belt around your waist, and pull the trapeze to you to grab with one hand, while you’re holding onto the ledge bars with the other hand.

That trapeze bar is heavy. Flyin’ Optimist had told us this ahead of time, but words are not the same as trying to hold a twenty pound bar with one hand. It’s f-ing hard people. (also, from this angle, thirty feet up in the air, EVERYONE'S thighs look fat. It's not just me. Even though that is me in this picture.)

Zen Guy #2 is standing behind you, holding your safety belt so you can lean out far enough without falling to grab the trapeze bar. and when Flyin’ Optimist gives you your verbal cues, “Ready…. Set… Go!” you go.

Ready = mentally prepare yourself to go.

Set = bend your knees to prepare to jump for takeoff.

Go = jump.

What happened to all of us, at least once, was this:

Ready = Yep, yep, I’m gonna swing out on this bar.

Set = I know I’m supposed to bend my knees but…

Go = I don’t wanna.

Here is every girl’s biggest fear, the one they wouldn’t say to Flyin’ Optimist on the ground who wants to know why we’re not swinging in the air after he’s cued us to do so.

It’s a uniquely female fear, and it trumps the whole I’m Too Heavy and My Body Weight Will Drag My Hands Off This Bar, and also the I’m Going To Fly Off, Burst Through The Net And Smack Into A Bloody Puddle On The Pavement.

And the fear is this:

My Butt Is So Big It’s Going To Smack The Ledge As I Jump Off And Wreck My Swing. In Fact, My Big Butt Will Hit The Ledge, I’ll Let Go Of The Trapeze Bar, It Will Smack Me In The Forehead, And I Will Tumble To The Net In Pain And Embarrassment.

EVERY girl thought it. Regardless of butt size. Here's Beatrice swinging off and this is EXACTLY what she's thinking, she told me so afterwards.

It’s totally not true, and if you see video of yourself on the trapeze, you see the laws of physics and geometry of swinging that prove it’s not true, but that was the horrible Fear whispering in every girl’s ear.

Sidebar. I like my laugh. It’s distinctive, it’s nice to listen to, my actor friends always know when I’m in the audience because they recognize my laugh.

So I’m a big fan of my laugh. My screaming, not so much. I have the world’s girlish scream. It’s embarrassing. It’s not throaty, it’s not worldly, it doesn’t build from the bottom of my toes. It starts at the top of my head and suddenly, I’m a fluttering pin-curl girl from the 40s, all skirt rustles and wide eyes and hand clutching the throat. My scream, quite, frankly, is dumb-sounding.

(When I went to visit Agatha, Mr. Agatha and Bug last October, Mr. Agatha and I went on the Incredible Hulk roller coaster. And after we got off, Agatha asked how it went. Mr. Agatha chuckles and says, “Amy was screaming half the time and then laughing the other half.”)

So I do let out a small scream as I jump off the ledge. All the newbies let out some form of verbal terror the first time. But none of our butts hit the ledge, and we’re off on swinging. We work on building momentum by kicking back when cued to, kicking forward when cued to, feeling the momentum of the swing and the natural rhythm that comes from it. My hands instantly flash back to high school gymnastics, oh GAWD! Are we doing this again? Back to the days of forming calluses that rip open, and then your parents chase you around the house with Vitamin E that you never wanted to put on your palms, because it wouldn’t absorb and then you had gooky hands with Vitamin E everywhere... ARE WE GOING BACK TO THOSE DAYS!? SERIOUSLY!?

I discover quite quickly that it’s simply easier to listen to Flyin’ Optimist on the ground and do what he tells you do, rather than hear what he’s telling you, weigh the possible outcomes (death, pain, dismemberment), wonder how what he’s telling you is possibly going to work, and THEN do it.

Nope, nope, just easier to perform when commanded. Easier to trust the Flyin’ Optimst who loves his job and does this all day long. Easier to believe he knows what he’s doing, than to listen to the armada of voices in your head that are more concerned with High School Calluses Days and Your Scream Sounds Dumb And Your Butt is Big.

Feel free to insert your own religious metaphor here. God = Flyin’ Optimist on the ground. Trust God, take the leap into the unknown, God’s got your safety ropes, blah blah blah.

Yep, it’s all there, just waiting for you to pick it up and be all smug about it.

If only God actually called out to me. I have no doubt He’s got my safety ropes. I have no problem trusting Him. You never jump off the ledge until Flyin’ Optimist tells you to. And I’m still waiting for God to call out, to say Hey! You’re gonna do a back flip this time! You’re gonna hook your knees over the bar and then let go with your hands! It’s gonna be awesome! You can totally do it!

But then we run into a roadblock. For the life of me, I cannot pull my legs through and hook them over the bar. It’s baffling. I have the ab power to pull them in, but there’s no room between my torso and the bar to hook them over. I used to do this all the time when I was six. What, when I grew up, my arms grew shorter? Is the safety belt in the way? Is the safety belt and the three layers I’m wearing because it’s kinda cold outside in the way? Dunno. But this is something that my lack of fear cannot help me with. The only thing that’s gonna work is practice practice practice. Beatrice wants to sign up for a package of classes. And I just might do that with her. We’ll see.

Here’s video of me doing the only trick I could master, the back flip into the net. I got pretty good at this one, to the point where I was laughing all the way down. which is better than screaming.

Soon, soon, people. Soon

2011-03-15T08:07:00.001-07:00

I have a post, and yet no time to write it.

In the meantime, my birthday is tomorrow. Please send me well wishes and tequila. :)

This is my life right now

2011-03-07T07:02:00.000-08:00

I thought things would slow down last week. Not so.

The capper is the scream the poor Muppet lets out at the very end.

That's me this week, so hopefully I'll return next week with a lovely thoughtful post.

Bleeders and Fakers

2011-02-28T21:46:00.000-08:00

Gaaaaaaaah, people. Just gaaaaaaaah. The past two weeks have been insane. I have been sick, I got over being sick, but my voice stubbornly refused to come back for awhile. I dogsat for Ginger Puppy and Basil Diva Dog, I took another interview for a potential new dogsitting client, then scrambled to make an introduction to a referral when the new dogsitting client wanted someone to be at the house during the day (in other words, a freelancer.)

I’ve been researching travel details for my family’s trip in October to St. John to celebrate My Mother The Phone Harpy Whom I Love Very Very Much and My Dad, The Great Stoic Wonder’s 50th anniversary. It involves flights, ferries, cost comparing taxi cab companies, all SORTS of fun!

I’ve gone to career groups, I’ve met with people on potential new projects, I’ve emailed with people on other potential new projects, I’ve introduced people to the wonders of zombie movies, I’ve gone to dinner with other friends who desperately need to stay out of their house for personal reasons, and I’m currently dogsitting Pepe and Pembleton, the crazy Dalmatians, who look very cute as they’re sleeping next to my desk, if only they would cut out the dog farts. One more of those, and I’m kicking them both out.

The Twin Whammies were another blood drive last weekend, and another stint as a stand-in for the Nameless Award Ceremony this past weekend. If I could just survive those things, I could go get a massage. I desperately need a massage.

I ran a blood drive at my church last week, even though my voice was more Muppet like than anything else (I was fine physically.) I ushered in 31 people onto that Bloodmobile, and 24 units o’ red stuff was collected, which isn’t our best number, but it was MY personal best. Because even though I barely beat the Red Hemoglobin Machine O Death by two tenths of a point, I filled up the pint bag in my fastest time ever, five minutes and 3 seconds. FIVE MINUTES AND THREE SECONDS, PEOPLE! HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A PERSON BE A SPEEDY BLEEDER LIKE THAT!?

Seriously, all the nurses were stunned. Even the bloodmobile driver came up to take a look, “Miss AMY!” he said, “How did you DO that?” “You guys wanna go home, right?” I said, “I aim to please.” But in all honesty, the secret is caffeine. Drink a can of soda about thirty minutes before you go in and you too can bleed like a stuck piggy and save lives in the process. Wheeeeeeeeeeee!

One Whammy down, on to Whammy #2! I once again signed up to volunteer at the Nameless Award Ceremony this weekend. I had such a blast as a stand-in last year, I had very high hopes for this year. I was working with a lot of the same folks, including the assistant stage manager, and the camera crews, so there’s a common shorthand among us all.

Last year, I fake won once, and had to approach from backstage. This time, I fake won THREE times, and got to walk through the football field sized tent THREE times to collect my award that’s not mine.

But this year, the awards I fake won for were GROUP awards. Meaning I had an entourage of other stand-ins representing actors, producers, casting directors marching up behind me, and standing behind me on stage while I stepped up to the microphone to deliver my fake speech.

So if that’s the situation, you’re kinda limited in what you can say in your fake speech. You can’t really make it all about you, your parents, your dreams, your jokes, when you’ve got four other people behind you that helped you fake win this award that’s not yours. I can’t even thank God, suppose somebody in my fake crew is an atheist? Or an agnostic, or a Jew or a Buddhist? The possibilities of who I could offend with my fake speech ARE ENDLESS.

It’s kinda hilarious, actually.

So I kept looking at my fake family that was certainly acting the part by hugging each other arm in arm with big grins behind me, “Thanks guys! I couldn’t have done this without you,” was my stock opening line. Then I went on to thank the voting body that gave us the award, and some inspirational lines about original voices translating to original stories, and how important it is to keep that alive, so thanks very much.

The few times I let loose was after we suffered through hurricane winds and rains and the tent started leaking in several parts, including the stage. After several mops, hastily put down carpet, and several admonitions from the director to take our time getting to the stage because it’s slippery, I get my crew of six people up the stairs and the first thing I say into the microphone is “Nobody tripped on the stairs! YAY US!”

Then there was the time I had three women behind me. I look at them and crack, “It’s all chicks up here! Women in film ROCK!” which we do, except that’s not the organization giving the award. HA HA HA! Nobody called me on it, though, so it’s all good.

And in all honesty, my benchmark was my camera crew. If I could make them laugh behind the camera, even when I wasn’t winning, I knew I was doing good.

Which is how a mock fit that I pitched at my table when I didn’t win Best First Screenplay ended up being bumper footage leading out to a commercial break later on in the rehearsal. I mock screamed silently. I mock picked up invisible things at the table and chucked them at the winner walking up to the stage. I mock wailed at the injustice of it all, that all this hard fake work I did on this Best First Screenplay that I didn’t write didn’t win.

And the only people that noticed were my camera crew and the guy who made the decision to use that footage as the bumper later in the rehearsal. It’s the little things, people.

I think I deserve my massage now. A real one, thank you very much. :)

Berlin The Griffith Park Bear

2011-02-21T11:40:00.000-08:00

This is Berlin, the Griffith Park Bear. Doesn’t he look so sporty and jaunty?

His mother city donated the statue to the city of Los Angeles at some point in the past (internet research strangely cannot determine an exact date.) And he stands by the Fern Dell entrance to Griffith Park.

I drive past him most every day, and since the beginning of the year, a mystery group has taken it upon themselves to crochet him a new outfit every few weeks or so. This is what he’s been sporting for Valentine’s Day, and other people have been adding details to it, like his sparkly heart necklace.

It’s the kind of thing that renews your faith in the simple quirky details of life. That not all Los Angelos are bitter, manipulative, tragically hip and/or Chronic Users Of People.

Some of them just wanna dress up a bear statue. Because it’s adorable.

I can’t wait to see him dolled up for St. Patrick’s Day and Easter.

There’s a website devoted to his sartorial choices here:

Change Your Heart

2011-02-14T22:02:00.000-08:00

Last night was my monthly prayer meeting and since I seem to be in an extended season of Nothing Going On I requested prayer that God would help me not be so cranky, since, by and large, I don’t like people. I quickly followed that up with, “You all (in the room) are okay,” “Thanks!” chirped Nellie (and very very technically, I didn’t mean everyone in the room, only half of them, I thought I’d be polite.)

(I like Nellie. I like her Norman, her husband, and I like Donald, also in our group.)

Why don’t I like people? Um, well, most people like to complain about their lives and yet don’t do anything about it. They don’t try, they don’t make decisions, they don’t change. Yes, I’m saying that Nothing Going On with my life, but I have a monster writing calendar with goals and deadlines, and I also have goals this year like Take Surfing Lessons and Possible Karoke and Go See A Bob Baker Marionette Show I’m working, I’m writing, I’m setting goals and reaching them.

I hate to be around complaining people who aren’t trying to change. And yet I complain all the time about how I hate people and I don’t seem to change towards liking them any more than I do. The closest I get is being more polite towards them. If I’m exceedingly nice to you, it probably means I hate you inside. KIDDING.

I remember when Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind came out in the theaters, and I went to see it with a college buddy of mine and it looked like a date even though it wasn’t a date because we were just friends, bantering about roommates, Cold Mountain, Down And Dirty Pictures, and I don’t think either of us realized what a date movie ESOTPM ultimately turned out to be. Yes, a mind bending whacked out date movie, but a poignantly imaginative rumination on love, pain and memory. Still one of my favorite movies of all time.

(I like my college buddy.)

I distinctly remember sitting through the end credits, and in MY memory, there were animated little diamonds or something that faded in and out as the credits rolled, but I just checked my DVD copy, and there are no such thing, just a black screen with credits on the right hand side. Not sure why my brain would conjure up something like that, but regardless of what I did or didn’t see, what was definitely HEARD over the end credits was Beck’s cover of The Korgis’ “Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime”

Change your heart
Look around you
Change your heart
It will astound you
I need your lovin'
Like the sunshine

Everybody's gotta learn sometime

I bumped into Eugenia at my gym a few weeks ago. Eugenia goes to my church, and we were chatting about a third person who also attends, but who I do not like at all (And don’t bother asking me who it is, I will never tell. Just assume it’s you. KIDDING.)

(I like Eugenia.)

I was confiding to Eugenia about how I’m such a cranky bitch because I do not like this other person, and I wish I didn’t have to interact with them, and Eugenia just smiled and said something to the effect of how “God hasn’t changed your heart about them yet.”

Which is something I instantly loved. Because then it takes the pressure, the burden, the guilt I feel for not embracing this person off of me. IT’S GOD’S FAULT! HE HASN’T CHANGED ME! BOO-YAH!

Well, that does mean you need to pray for God to change your heart. You know that, don’t you?

It certainly seems like a prayer of “God, please change my heart so I like this person, that person, ANYBODY ELSE more” would be something He’d grant INSTANTLY. I mean, why wouldn’t He? It has nothing do to with my career, it has nothing to do with my personal life, it has everything to do with my heart, and if there’s something that pastors love to stomp in your brain over and over again is JESUS WANTS A RELATIONSHIP WITH YOU! HE WANTS YOUR HEART!

(I like Jesus. I guess. There’s no real reason to dislike him, honestly.)

So I started incorporating that into my daily prayers, “God, please change my heart so I’m not such a cranky person and so I like (third party) more.”

What does God do? Separates us. I haven’t had to interact with this person in close to a month. It couldn’t be just coincidence, could it?

And yet I’m still cranky?

And now that I’ve acknowledged it, God will slam us together again? Uh-oh.

:)

The Hammer Monologue

2011-02-07T22:07:00.000-08:00

My friend Native Chick had her birthday party on Friday night, and she wanted to do something different, so she had a Talking Circle. All 12 or so of us sat in a circle, and passed around a seashell, (only the person holding the seashell could talk) and shared stories about beginnings, endings and fond memories of Native Chick.

It was pretty amazing to be a part of, even though it sounds sappy. And yes, there were more than a few tears shed, more than a few hugs, and Native Chick really does have some amazing friends who are very willing to be open, honest, and vulnerable about their past, about their fears, about their hopes and dreams, and I felt really honored to be included.

I did my fair share of sharing (hee!) but since I’m me, I can’t let things go on too long without trying to make people laugh, so I shared my favorite memory of Native Chick, which is The Hammer Monologue. Everyone liked it and laughed, and a few people said they wanted to steal some of it for their own auditions, and even if that was a joke in and of itself, it was a lovely thing to say, and so I’m sharing it here, for them, and for Native Chick, because she is a super super awesome friend.

Really devoted readers o’ the blog might remember the Katrina Mission Trip that Native Chick and I did together in 2006. And this entry here is where the hammer went down.

So this is the monologue, based on true events, my favorite memory of Native Chick.

--------------

The first thing they told us at our mission trip orientation was “Whatever you do, do NOT throw a hammer at anyone.” Which we thought was pretty odd.

We were down there a year after Hurricane Katrina had ripped through New Orleans. We were staying in the Chalmette High School gymnasium with a relief organization and assigned to do gut outs of houses in the Gentilly district.

But why would we throw a hammer at anyone? All the other things they were telling us made sense. Don’t open a toxic refrigerator that hadn’t been opened since 2005, because everything inside would have congealed into a toxic orange goo that would practically eat through your arm. Always wear your respirator and helmet, as you’re gonna be ripping out insulation and plaster.

But why would we throw a hammer at someone?

We’re working for 5 days. Five days of brute manual labor. Reducing two houses to the studs, hammering through walls, poking through ceilings, carting the debris out to the sidewalk.

I have never been so physically exhausted in my life, have never had my body rebel so much at the thought of ham sandwiches in 90 degree heat, have never felt like I was doing so much and so little all at once, as I did on this mission trip.

On Day 5, Native Chick and I are in charge of tearing down a disgusting bathroom. Which is half tile. Roaches in the corners of the walls. Baby frogs hopping endlessly in the bathtub. They give us a sledgehammer and tell us to go for it. And though the thought of getting my inner drunken frat boy on SOUNDS like a great idea, we are so tired that we have to trade off after every two whacks. Whack 1, Whack 2, pass the sledgehammer to Amy. Whack 1, Whack 2, pass the sledgehammer to Native Chick.

We are so tired. Five days of this. Whack 1, Whack 2, pass the sledgehammer to Amy. Whack 1, Whack 2, pass the sledgehammer to Native Chick. Rivers of sweat under our Pyrex suits. Sounding like Kenny from South Park in our respirators masks. Seeing so many roaches that after hour 2 on the first day we didn’t care anymore. Our only saving grace is that we haven’t encountered a toxic refrigerator.

Whack 1, Whack 2, pass the sledgehammer to Amy. Whack 1, Whack 2, pass the sledgehammer to Native Chick.

Somehow, all that tile comes down. To the point where we missed how the baby frogs got out. I hope they got out. I’m pretty sure they did.

But here we are, pulling out nails at the top of the wall near the ceiling. I’m on the ladder on top, Native Chick is pulling out the nails on the baseboards.

And I have a hammer in my hand.

I am so tired. She is so tired. This is our last day of work.

And I have a hammer in my hand. And as I’m working on a rusty stubborn nail, it finally flies out with a pop…

And the hammer flies out of my hand.

I yelp. And then I hear a CLUNK that sounds a lot like a helmet. And a tiny “aaaahhhhh!”

I am mortified. I have become a cliché. I have become a cautionary tale. I have thrown a hammer at someone. Something I scoffed at a mere five days ago, I have officially embodied.

The good news is that it was more of a glancing blow, the hammer was not especially large, and Native Chick was wearing her helmet. And she promptly busts out laughing. And I bust out laughing.

You really know who your friends are when you can throw hammers at them and laugh about it. If you ever have to throw a hammer at anyone, you could do no better than Native Chick. Because she is that cool.

☺

---------------

Sarcasm In The Bible – Example #4: Job And His Doofus Friends

2011-01-30T21:45:00.000-08:00

Poor Job. You think you have it bad, Job’s got you beat.

As if Job doesn’t have enough going wrong for him (oxen and donkeys stolen by Sabeans, fire burning up sheep and servants, Chaldeans stealing camels and killing servants, house falling on sons and daughters, painful sores on his body, you and your suffering is merely a pawn on a bet between God and the Devil.) he’s also got spectacularly unhelpful friends.

Job’s friends are Eliphaz the Temanite (I keep wanting to type Termanite), Bildad the Shulhite, Zophar the Naamathite, and Elihu the “I Showed Up Out Of Nowhere For My Speech in 32 - 37” Buzite. And they start off okay, sitting for a week on the ground with Job, not saying anything, just being physically present there, strong Friend Shoulders to cry on. Except for Elihu, since he’s not there, he’s apparently he’s not THAT great of a friend, heh.

But then they open their mouths and it’s all over.

The jist of their advice is “What’d you do to bring this on yourself? Come on, you can tell us. Better yet, tell God, confess what you did and repent. Because there’s no way all this would happen to someone who didn’t deserve it.”

Spectacularly unhelpful. Judgmental doofuses. The modern day equivalent would be something like, “It’s my Christian duty to tell you you’re dressing like a whore.”

(Have to give Stella credit for that one, she said it first. Not that I was dressing like a whore, we were totally talking about something else, ha ha ha.)

So they go around and around until God shows up in Chapter 38. God does a few chapters of neatly dodging the obvious question of Why Is This Shit Happening To Me by talking about I’m The Creator And The Point Is Not About Asking Why Because Life Is Complicated And Not About Easy Answers, The Point Is How Will You Respond When The Shit Rolls Down Because If You’re Gonna Abandon Your Faith Over This, Is Wasn’t Really Faith To Begin With. Faith Is About Staying Strong In Good Times AND Bad.

Now, what’s interesting is that a lot of websites like to say Job Chapter 38, verse 4 is sarcasm. God is asking Job “Where were you when laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me if you understand.” (verse 4)

It’s my belief that that’s actually not sarcasm, that’s a genuine question God wants to know, because He knows that Job’s answer has to be “I wasn’t there. Oops.” And then will realize that Job’s got no business demanding answers from his Creator.

Chapter 38, verse 5 is a bit more snarky, “Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!”

But quite honestly, I’m not comfortable with a sarcastic God. Are you? It makes me uneasy. I mean, just look at the Old Testament to see what an angry God looks like. It aint pretty. So a sarcastic God kinda scares me. I’m pretty sure this is the only place in the Bible where He gets His sarcasm on.

So I look at this line as God demanding answers. "Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!" "Um, well, uh, you, did, God."

It's possible you think I'm stretching. However, what IS sarcasm is back in Job 12, verse 2, snapping at Zophar, “Doubtless you are the people, and wisdom will die with you!”

At the end, Job apologizes for questioning God, and takes back all the questions he asked before. And God yells at the Doofus friends, and tells them they’ve gotta go make burnt offerings, and “My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” (Chapter 42 v.8)

So ultimately, the moral of this Sarcastic Lesson is #1 – Sarcasm is an effective weapon against Doofus Friends, #2 – if you ARE going to be a Doofus Friend, be a Elihu, because he totally disappears from the narrative when God shows up, and thus escapes God’s lecture and potential wrath.

☺

This concludes our Sarcasm In The Bible series. I SO hope you enjoyed it. Really. I mean, I hope the joy just FLOWS out of your eyeballs and puddles onto your computer keyboard when you're reading this.

:):):)

Sarcasm In The Bible – Example #3 – The Whiny Israelites

2011-01-23T20:53:00.000-08:00

(this series is going on all month, so if you’re not digging it and want me to go back to whining about my life, please rejoin us in February. )

It’s true, the Old Testament has way more examples of sarcasm than the New Testament (Paul’s writing notwithstanding.) They were so angry in the Old Testament, plagues, wars, sacrificing animals, sacrificing kids if God told you to (JUST KIDDING ABRAHAM!) It’s a wonder God loved us enough after all of it to send Jesus, that He didn’t just smite us all for being a planet of thoroughly bratty kids.

And the Israelites in Exodus are no exception. Seriously, thank God they’re the chosen people, because who’d wanna save THIS bunch.

Having made it through the 10 plagues that God through Moses and Aaron inflicted on Pharaoh and Egypt (Exodus 7 -10, and incidentally, my favorite plague is the plague of frogs, because unlike the plagues of gnats, flies, and locusts that simply flew away when they were done swarming, when the plague of frogs is over, the frogs die where they are, meaning dead frogs everywhere “… they were piled into heaps, and the land reeked of them” (Exodus 8:14) You know they’re all pointing fingers at each other saying WHO’S GONNA CLEAN UP THESE FROGS!?!) Pharaoh has allowed the Israelites to leave.

It’s not immediately clear how many days have passed since they’ve left Egypt, so we don’t know if the Israelites are basking in the feeling of triumph, jubilation, security, and We Are The Champions when Pharaoh changes his mind and decides to get his pack o’ slaves back.

But bitchy they get, charging Moses with “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us out to the desert to die?” (Exodus 14 v.12)

Awesome bitchy use of sarcasm.

Never mind the fact that God has been with them all this time, literally appearing in a pillar of cloud during the day and in a pillar of fire by night to lead the way (Exodus 13: 21 -22) and one would think that a God that would care enough to do that, a God who rescued them from bugs, boils, and hailstone bumps, among other plagues, probably isn’t going to be bitchy back and say “YEP! I BROUGHT YOU GUYS OUT OF EGYPT TO KILL YOU ALL! THANKS FOR THE ANIMAL SACRIFICES AND THE WORSHIP SONGS! KISS YOUR BUTTS GOODBYE!”

Nope, God instead parts the Red Sea for them, lets them go through so they can hit the Universal Studios gift shop on the other side, and then drowns the Egyptians when they follow.

One would think this would shut the Israelites up enough to where they would learn to trust God, and know that He’s not gonna let them die. But nope. Because the Israelites are a whiny whiny bunch, and they complain a lot more.

Exodus 16 – The Israelites complain that they don’t have enough food, so God rains down manna and quail on them.

Exodus 17 – The Israelites complain that they don’t have any water, so God tells Moses to hit a rock and water comes out.

Exodus 32 – The Israelites complain that Moses isn’t coming down from the mountain where he’s getting the 10 commandments anytime soon, so Aaron, make us a golden calf that we can worship. That doesn’t go well.

And here’s where God’s had enough of them, and tells Moses he’s gonna kill them, and it’s only by Moses’ intervention, pleading and praying that God says okay, fine, but MAN, I’m pissed off at them, so I’m not going with them to the Promised Land “…because you are a stiff-necked people. If I were to go with you even for a moment, I might destroy you” (Exodus 33:5), and it’s only by Moses’ intervention, pleading and praying that God says okay, fine, I’ll go with you but you guys are a bunch of whiny brats. I still love you, but SERIOUSLY, MAN UP ALREADY.

So ultimately, the moral of this Sarcastic Lesson is #1 – Sarcasm is what shell-shocked people fall back on when confronted with impending death and #2 – TRUST GOD ALREADY.

Seriously. These whiny Israelites don’t know how good they had it.

☺

Sarcasm In The Bible – Example #2 – Elijah and Fire Fire Fire!

2011-01-16T22:48:00.000-08:00

Hey! We’re going all OT up in here! Ya-wooooooo!

We’re in 1st Kings, Chapter 18. Elijah is a prophet and his backstory up until this time (which is basically Chapter 17) is that he’s predicted a famine in Israel, then went and hid in a ravine because God told him to, and was fed by ravens while everyone else starved. (Yeah, I know.) Then God tells him to leave the ravens in the ravine and go hang with a widow in Zarephath, who I personally love for this response when Elijah asks her for a bit of food, “I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it – and die.” So! Dinner, then death. LOVE IT!

Needless to say, God provides for the widow, her son and Elijah, and even brings her son back to life when the son dies, and then tell Elijah to go present himself to Ahab (not the guy after the whale), the tenth king of Israel, whose wife Jezebel (not the Bette Davis movie) is out running around killing God’s prophets.

It’s right around this time that the old song, “Children, Go Where I Send Thee” pops into my head. Did you guys ever used to sing that one? We would speed it up and sing it as fast as possible to get through all twelve verses. This is the fastest I could find on Youtube (and even they don’t go through all twelve verses.)

Elijah must’ve been thinking at some point, “God, I’m kinda tired. Can we knock off the whole send me here, there, and everywhere.” Though it’s quite possible that Elijah was so stoked that he was getting direct communiqués from God that he was like, “Sure, no problem.”

Anyhow, God’s told Elijah to challenge Ahab’s prophets to a bake-off, where Elijah will face 850 of Ahab and Jezebel’s prophets on Mount Carmel. They’ll built competing altars, sacrifice competing bulls, and call on the name of their respective gods to light the altar and consume the sacrifice. “…the god who answers by fire – he is God.” (v24.)

So the 850 prophets go to it, build the altar, sacrifice the bull, and call on the name of their God, Baal to light the fire. They call, they dance, no dice.

So Ellijah makes like a good man of God and taunts them “’Shout louder!’ he said, ‘Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.” (v27)

Awesome awesome use of sarcasm.

So the Baal Bad Guys keep at it, and like a tortured high schooler, cut themselves while they’re calling and dancing but still no dice.

When it’s Elijah’s turn, he preens a bit by dumping three jugs of water on the altar just to make sure everyone knows it’s gonna take a miracle to light this now soggy wood, calls on God, who promptly sends down fire to consume the sacrifice, the altar, and the water around it.

So everyone then knows whose God kicks ass.

Elijah then makes like a good man of God and orders the slaughter of those 850 prophets in the Kishon Valley. Yeah. I know. That’s how they do things in the OT.

So ultimately, the moral of this Sarcastic Lesson is #1 If you happen to be so lucky as to have God talking to you, go where He tells you because #2 It could involve slaughtering of bulls or idolatrous prophets and #3 You get to be right about it.

☺

Sarcasm In The Bible – Example #1 - The Blind Guy

2011-01-11T21:17:00.000-08:00

I know it’s hard to believe, but I’m much less of a sarcastic person now than I used to be. In person, that is. (Writing is allowed to be sarcastic, reading a sarcastic sentence doesn’t have the same kind of cutting pain to it than if you said that same sentence in person to someone. For example, “Well, you’re just on the cutting edge of brilliant, aren’t you.” Trust me, you don’t want me to say that to your face.)

But oh MAN was I a little sarcastic twit growing up. When I moved to L.A. and got freaked out at just how hard it was going to be to achieve my goals. So I toned it down. Also got tired of the relentless cynicism necessary to fuel the sarcastic drive. So now it’s all internal, and I come across as a somewhat quiet chick who must be thinking deep thoughts, when really I’m laughing at your nose or something.

KIDDING.

Frederick William Faber once said, “No one was ever corrected by a sarcasm—crushed, perhaps, if the sarcasm was clever enough, but drawn nearer to God, never.”

(which probably isn’t true when you look at the yards and yards of sarcasm that Paul used in 1st Corinthians, upbraiding the church to get them to come closer to God. Take THAT Frederick!)

But I’m always tickled pink when sarcasm’s used in the Bible. God will meet you where you’re at, and if you’re a sarcastic twit on the outside or inside, then here ya go – Biblical proof that sarcasm was used back then.

It’s the story of Jesus healing the blind guy; John Ch. 9. There’s actually a bunch of hilarious things running around in here – how Blind Guy’s neighbor’s supposedly don’t recognize the dude when he’s healed, though he looks exactly the same (v8), Blind Guy’s parents passing the buck about how their son was healed because they don’t wanna get kicked out of the synagogue (v20-23), the hysterical yet completely appropriate response of Blind Guy to the Pharisees when asked where Jesus was, “I don’t know (dude, I was BLIND! I couldn’t SEE him to SEE WHERE HE WENT!)” (v8-12)

But these are Pharisees we’re talking about, and when Pharisees are involved, SOMEBODY is getting their ass kicked. Much like when you call the LAPD on a domestic dispute call, SOMEBODY’s going to the station.

So the Pharisees question Blind Guy (He’s Healed Now) again, trying to get him to say Jesus is an imposter. And when they ask Blind Guy (He’s Healed Now) how was he healed, Blind Guy (He’s Healed Now) says, “I have told you already, and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?” (V27)

Awesome, awesome use of sarcasm in the face of impending ass kicking.

There’s another swipe, where Blind Guy (He’s Healed Now) points out that Jesus has to be from God, because who else would’ve given him the power to heal the blind, but the Pharisees have had it, and start the ass kicking, and they kick him out of the synagogue. (V30-34) I can’t help but picture his parents breathing a sigh of relief Whew! At least it wasn’t us!

Chapter 9 ends with Jesus finding the Blind Guy (He’s Healed Now), so he can see what Jesus looks like, and even Jesus takes a swipe at some nearby Pharisees, "If you were really blind, you would be blameless, but since you claim to see everything so well, you're accountable for every fault and failure." (v41, Message translation)

So ultimately, the moral of this Sarcastic Lesson is – God thinks it’s okay for you to be sarcastic if you’re #1 – right about your answer and #2 – giving glory to God about it and #3 – have less than supportive parents more concerned with social synagogue standing then standing up for their child.

KIDDING.

☺

Toasting The Sun With Tequila At The End Of The Year

2011-01-02T19:24:00.000-08:00

So since my weak ass blood meant I wasn’t able to continue my Christmas tradition of giving blood in December, I was able to do my OTHER Christmas tradition of hitting the Santa Monica Pier and toasting the sunset with tequila. If I can’t do one, I can do the other.

I was off work this week, so I went on a weekday. Happy to see my secret about where to park for free is still intact. It was kinda windy, which meant I had room to myself, and I sat with the sun for a long time and thought about the year and all the other things you’re supposed to think about when you’re approaching the end of the year.

Everybody hated this year, it wasn’t just me. Although I realize that it’s pretty much the party line - to say how much you hated the year as you approach the end of the year. I heard in a sermon some weeks back that said something to the effect of truly desperate people live much more in hope than happy people do, because desperate people know that there’s gotta be something much better than where they are currently. And that reminds me of the classic quote from Damage (The Jeremy Irons feature film based on the Jopsehine Hart book, not the Glenn Close TV series.) “Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive.”

No point in dwelling on the crap, feel free to look through the past year to get an inkling yourself if you want. And when I was shuffling through the mental memories to come up with something that would sum up the year in an oh-so-poetic way, my brain suddenly flashed to the Halloween trip I took to visit sister Agatha, Mr. Agatha, and Bug.

We had gone to Typhoon Lagoon on the last day it was open before it went down for rehab, and it was still in the mid 70s, so not too cold. And at one point, we all went on the Lazy River. You know the drill, you grab an inner tube and float at will all the way around the park, and get off when you want to. So there were four of us, in four different inner tubes, and in order to stay together, we all grabbed each other’s tubes and hung on as casually as possible. Sometimes a hand was on a handle, sometimes an ankle was hooked onto another tube. It wasn’t that difficult, and luckily it wasn’t that crowded, to where we weren’t blocking other people who wanted to get around us.

It occurs to me that that’s what life is: you hook yourself up to someone else’s inner tube, and they grab onto someone else’s inner tube, and you form your own community in your family, in your church, at your job, in your circle of friends, they’re all just inner tubes that you’ve locked together to float down the River O’Life. It gets bumpy, and sometimes the water gets filled with leaves, twigs and crap. Sometimes you wanna get off at a certain point, and maybe you do, or maybe you stick it out longer than you should. But ultimately life is meant to be lived together with other people. Whoever they are.

Following this metaphor, it means that God is the bored Disney Lifeguard who’s watching everyone to make sure they don’t drown, but really would rather be at home playing something on the X-Box. HA!

But I like this picture the best. This is Bug taking a flying leap for the photographer standing in front of her during Picture Day at Thanksgiving in Orlando. I wasn’t there, but I saw the pictures, and this is my favorite one.

I like it because even though we don’t see Bug’s face, you KNOW that there’s a gigantic grin on there. Just look at this shot. The outstretched feet, the arms in the air. Hell, it even looks like her HAIR is smiling. (candidly, I do have the picture that was taken from the front angle. Yes, she is grinning, but I like this shot more.)

This is a shot that says I’m Gleefully Jumping Into The New Year (Even Though This Picture Was Taken At Thanksgiving.) If only I had some kind of photoshop skills, I’d cut her out and put her up against some dramatic cliff or something, so it looks like she’s gleefully jumping into the abyss, but she wouldn’t go down, she’d go up. Or over. Her optimism bearing her safely to where ever she lands.

I must be friend with someone who has those kind of mad photoshop skills, right? Somebody in my Inner Tube circle could do that for me?

Hmmmmmmm.

My Mother The Atonal Phone Harpy

2010-12-26T21:55:00.000-08:00

I’ve been in Alabama for the past few days, and it’s been snowing here. SNOW, PEOPLE! IN ALABAMA! We’re in Northern Alabama, so it’s not completely unheard of, my childhood has more than a few memories of bucolic sledding down neighborhood hills with borrowed sleds, but I haven’t seen snow since 2005, and I think that was in Pittsburgh in February or something.

It started snowing on Christmas morning, and the first thing most people do when there’s a decent snow (these pictures were taken when it first started snowing) is to build snowmen in yards. It’s a knee jerk reaction. Whenever we’ve gone out in the car over the past 48 hours, we’ve slowed down to pay respects to every snowman we see. That’s what they’re there for, of course. They’re decorated with hats, scarves, twigs for arms. And carrots for noses. There’s ALWAYS a carrot for a nose.

Even my baby snowman, no more than a foot high, had a little carrot nubbin for a nose. He was supposed to have M&Ms for eyes, but they wouldn’t stay put. (It was icy snow, rather than sticky snow), and they’d fall off when we tried to put the head on, so he’s not quite fully assembled here.

People get all bent out of shape over snow here in Alabama. They even canceled local church services, for fear of slippery roads. The roads were fine to my eye, and I was thoroughly bummed to miss a good old Southern church service.

But we did make it to Christmas Eve service, so not all was lost. The church has gone under some renovations, I THINK these are the same pews I grew up in, though they appear to be canted at more of an angle than I remember. The front stage has been enlarged, the massive cross has come off the wall and is now suspended by wires over the choir section, which led to visions of something snapping and something horrible happening dancing in my head (nothing did.)

This is the church I grew up in. I once shot golf balls off the back balcony towards a golf hole at the front of the church altar in a church-sanctioned putt-putt course that went all throughout the building. I don’t think you could do that now, because you’d most likely hit the now-suspended massive cross in front. I was there for the good years, heh.

This is the church I grew up in, and though it’s got some fancy bells and whistles on it, some things never change. Our Christmas Eve service will always be scripture readings of the Christmas story, interspersed with traditional carols (the Korean translation of the songs were new, apparently a small Korean church rents out the Fellowship Hall for their Sunday services.) There will always be a church candle lighting done to Joy To The World.

And My Mother The Phone Harpy Whom I Love Very Very Much will always be horribly off key.

I grew up in this church, and I grew up standing next to MMTPHWILVVM and her atonal warbling in Sunday services for years and years. I remember it being something like yowling cats. Howling knives on chalkboards? I love her very very much.

I never thought much of it at the time. This is MMTPHWILVVM, and this is how she sings. I’m sure your moms did something throughout your childhood that later on in life, you look back and cringe at. Picking you up at elementary school in an embarrassing car? Maybe unfortunate footwear? Blowing up the kitchen with an ill-advised cooking experiment? We’ve all got something.

But somewhere along the way, I realized that I could sing on key. I escaped the genetic punishment of Off Key, and I was On Key. I LURVE singing. One of my goals for 2011 is to sing Smokey Robinson’s “More Love” at a Karaoke Night To Be Determined.

How is it I can sing, MMTPHWILVVM can’t, and I’m related to her? I dunno.

She sung falsetto for years and years, until some throat nodes some years ago knocked that out of her, and now she’s humming down on an alto level. Which is where she was this past Christmas Eve. She’s tackling faithful standards such as “Angels We Have Heard On High” and “Away In A Manger” (for which there is no Korean translation for “Round Yon Virgin” HA!), and she’s off every third or fourth note. I wonder if that’s why Dad put me firmly in the middle between them in the pew, to act as a literal sound barrier. Nah, she’s not that bad.

I mean, it’s definitely noticeable. I’ve been battling a mild congestion case, putting my own voice down at Lauren Bacall levels, and I’m more on key than she is. The guy behind us is over 60, and he’s got a beautiful voice, I can hear him clearly. I can only imagine what the people are thinking in front of us. Nobody’s turning around horrified.

And yet.

This is the church I grew up in. This is the church my Mom attends regularly. We’re surrounded by regular attenders of all kinds – people who’ve called this church home for 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years. Mom’s a veteran, over 30 years at least.

And this is our church family. The stuff inside may move around – pews, massive crosses, new additions out the back – but this church still stands. And the people still stand inside it. They even add to it, thank you Korean congregation.

So I smiled, realizing that My Mother The Phone Harpy, Whom I Love Very Very Much and her atonal pipes have GOT to be an institution by now. Everybody who’s been going here for any length of time totally knows what they’re getting into when they sit in her pew. She’s here. She loves God and Jesus. And she’s gloriously off-key.

And we all love her for it.

Happy Holidays, everybody.

Heading Home...

2010-12-20T23:28:00.000-08:00

tomorrow for Christmas for the first time in two years! Will Alabama be ready? Will I be ready!? I hear it's FREEZING over there!

Remember how I said I wasn't sure if I could handle not writing at all in December? Guess what?! HAVEN'T BEEN WRITING! Too much other crap to do, with it being the silly season and all...

Though I do not doubt that there will be plenty of time to write on the plane. Heh.

Oh, and I got bounced again by the Red Cross when I tried to do my Hopefully Annual Tradition of Giving Blood in December. Stupid red hemoglobin machine of DEATH!

Seriously. there's not a thing else I can add that I haven't already said before.

So I'm off to bed, it's gonna be a long day tomorrow.

Who Says Los Angeles Doesn't Have Seasons?

2010-12-13T23:24:00.000-08:00

Because these trees in my neighborhood think it's fall:

Isn't the color LOVELY! It was over eighty degrees yesterday and today, but who cares!? (especially since I don't have to rake them when they fall down. It's not even in front of my house!)

But the absolute best tree is the one that came today to my office, courtesy of sister Agatha, Mr. Agatha, and Bug.

My very own mini Christmas tree! Fits the Shabby Shack perfectly, a tiny tree for a tiny place!

I basically threw the lights and mini ornaments on, because I'm on a blogging deadline, people!

Needless to say, plenty of thoughts came to mind, like You're stringing the lights wrong, you're not placing the ornaments the right way, there's no extension cord, can't you quickly come up with some kind of religious metaphor for the tiny snowmen ornaments made in China, blah blah blah. That will all come later. I'm just enjoying the trees right now.

My new mantra

2010-12-05T23:04:00.000-08:00

You know, when I signed up for Facebook, I had to quickly put up some kind of personal info about me, which everyone knows I'm not eager to do. So my opening sentence was

"I write things that make people laugh. And I am kind to animals."

I still stand by that.

But the backup singers on Adele's new one have an awesome mantra:

You're gonna wish you. Never Had Met Me.

That's so awesome. I'm not planning personal revenge on anyone currently, but it smacks of such brassy I'm Awesome And You're Stupid that I adore it to pieces.

Go on, sing along. It's damn catchy.

Basil Diva Dog

2010-11-28T23:56:00.001-08:00

I’ve been at Basil Diva Dog and Ginger Puppy’s house all week for Thanksgiving. Ginger Puppy’s fur has grown back significantly, which we’re all pretty happy about, though she can sometimes be reluctant to take the stairs.

Meanwhile, Basil Diva Dog has been doing his own weird pacing routine, and that sometimes includes refusing to take the stairs as well. There’s a couple of different explanations – old age affecting his mobility and/or memory recall – was I just in this room? I can’t remember. I’d better go through it again. And it’s quite possible he’s manipulating me into giving him the same kind of treatment he sees his younger sister getting. But joke’s on him – he’s may be bigger than Ginger Puppy, but he’s lighter, so I don’t mind carting him around all day.

We’ve gotten some rain on a few days, and tonight the wind was kicking up, which sent Basil Diva Dog into his pacing circles on the first floor. This drives me batty, because his old age also means he’s given to pee on imported rugs if I don’t keep my eye on him and The Walking Dead was about to start, so I simply picked him up, and made soothing sounds while I slowly carried him through each room to show him that yes, indeed, we’re all safe and sound, the only bad guys are the zombies on TV, and they’re not real.

So I settled down on the floor in the TV room still holding him, just to see what he’d do. Turns out he decided to take a nap, half in my lap, half in my arms. (Ginger Puppy was holding court on her own towel underneath the TV.)

He never does this. This is Basil Diva Dog we’re talking about. Mr. Aloof. Mr. You’re Only Here To Feed Me And Open The Door So I Can Go Outside. Mr. Don’t You Dare Touch Me.

There’s been a few moments in the years where he gets spooked and wants to be reassured. But those usually involve thunderstorms, fireworks, or construction equipment outside.

Tonight was just the wind, which seriously wasn’t that bad, and the zombies on the TV, which weren’t too bad either (I can’t take them seriously, they’re Slow Shuffling Zombies, not Jackrabbit Zombies. It’s the Jackrabbit Zombies that you have to be afraid of. You can easily outrun or get in a car and drive away from Slow Shuffling Zombies.)

This might be Basil Diva Dog’s final spiral, which I don’t like to think too much about. But in my experience, dogs will start doing things they normally don’t do, like a Doggie Bucket List of sorts, when they sense their time is near. Except where humans will put things on the list like cruises, or trips to Africa, dogs seem to do things like sleep in places they don’t normally sleep.

The weeks before my first dog Taffy passed away, I found her sleeping in chairs in the living room she never would jump on before (we didn’t even think she could jump on them.) “Whatcha doing in here?” I’d ask her. And she’d raise her head and just do her version of a smile, which, since she was a cocker spaniel, still looked pretty damn anxious. But I knew when she was happy. I have to think it was worth it for her. And I very much admire the scaled down version of a dog Bucket List.

I cannot imagine that sleeping in my lap and arms is on Basil Diva Dog’s list. He is the most independent and aloof dog I’ve ever met.

But damned if I didn’t move a muscle all throughout the episode, because I didn’t want to wake him up. My left leg went completely to sleep, which rendered me much like a Slow Shuffling Zombie when I tried to get up afterwards. THAT’s what’s wrong with them! They’re not zombies! Their left legs are just asleep!

No, I don’t think I’m on Basil Diva Dog’s Bucket List. But for whatever reason, he felt comfortable enough to be comforted. And everyone needs that. Even Basil Diva Dogs.

And here he is, in all his shaggy glory. He’s once again sitting in my lap, albeit briefly. Because if the choice is my lap or his crate, it’s no contest. The crate wins every time.

The Next Big Thing

2010-11-22T23:12:00.000-08:00

One of the most glaring things about temping in and around the industry is your lack of access. Sure, you’ll see the emails about employee screenings, about wellness seminars, about discounts at the company store and all their affiliates, but you can’t take part in them unless you’re a full time employee with one of those ID cards. I did crash an on-lot premiere party for a studio’s release one weekend, but those opportunities are few and far between. And all things considered, I wish I had been able to see the movie more than drink at the party.

When you’re a temp, it’s like you’re a ghost. You’re there, but you don’t count. You do the work, you don’t get the perks. You’re needed, but not appreciated. Not unless they hire you full time.

Nowhere is lack of access more annoying than trying to get onto your lot to report for work every morning. The full time employees buzz through the employee lane, the security guards scan their IDs, the parking gate arm raises up and off they go. Meanwhile, you’re left in the dust trying in vain to persuade the security guard that yes, you’re trying to get to work, no, you’re not trying to blow up the lot, and no, you don’t know why there’s not a pass for you in the system.

Nine times out of ten, the security guard will try to call your boss to clear you, not understanding that nobody will pick up the phone, because the person that picks up your boss’s phone is YOU, and you are not on the other side of the parking gate arm.

There are some really annoying security guards like that out there, and someday, maybe five years from now, I will list them all. And to be fair, for every really annoying security guard, especially the one that was the bane of my existence for a month, his compatriot right across the street at the other building I landed a two week gig at was an absolute sweetheart, and would let me in without batting an eye. He told me he worked for twenty years in customer service at an insurance company, that may have a lot to do with it, heh.

But it’s about access. It’s about the lowered parking gate arm. The symbol of how you don’t count. You’re half a person. You gotta wait.

I’ve been temping for a little shy of two years now. It’s grueling and debilitating stuff, especially when your boss claims he can’t hire you because, despite the eight or nine months you put into the gig, he hasn’t interviewed enough people to be able to make a decision. And you in turn have to tell that story in every subsequent interview you go on, because they wanna know why you’ve been temping for a little shy of two years. Don’t you want a full time gig? (Yes) Aren’t you good enough to hire full time? (Not according to that loser.)

The lowered parking gate arm.

That boss will get his in time, I have no doubt. You don’t yank someone around like that without incurring massive amounts of bad karma. And there were good things about that gig – I made a lot of great friends, who helped me take advantage of what perks I could (barbeque lunches during the summer.)

But temping for a little shy of two years is grueling and debilitating stuff. Especially when you’re turning down full time offers that you absolutely know would be the wrong place for you. And the thoughts that haunt you: Aren’t you good enough to hire? (Yes) Don’t you want a full time gig? (Not here, I don’t.)

The lowered parking gate arm.

Today was orientation day of my new full time position. It’s at one of the huge media conglomerates (one with a studio lot. Heh, THAT narrows it down, doesn’t it!?), and most of the day was spent exploring all the different perks and benefits available to us. If I’m understanding things correctly, I could take Spanish classes online. For free. Learning Spanish is on my Bucket List, right after Learning To Surf, Trip To Napa Valley, and Cruising On The New Disney Cruise Ship (my Bucket List is stupidly achievable.)

Even though this job will officially end my days o’ temping, I’m a little wary of what will happen next, for a variety of reasons that I may not be fully able to talk about in a public forum (because I signed one of those I Have Read The Standards Of Business Conduct things without actually reading it yet.)

But as I was trying to talk myself through it at the lunch paid for by Human Resources, I realized that the last two full time positions I’ve had have been temp to perm positions. Meaning I knew what the job was about. Here, I’ve been hired without knowing what the job is really like. Sure, I interviewed, and sure, I saw the place, and met my fellow co-workers, but you never know. Things could go horribly awry. The pros and cons list are running equal right now. Which is better than negative, but not as good as positive.

I love this picture. I’ve used it on the blog before, but it SO perfectly encapsulates my mood when embarking on any new life change. Thanks God! But please don’t let this suck!!!!

First thing they did when I reported for orientation today was take a picture of me for my ID card. These never go well, it’s hard to take a good picture of me in natural light, much less under florescent lighting with a pixilated camera.

And when we went downstairs for lunch and to hit the studio store for the studio tour, we had to go through the security clearances. I wondered if my ID had been activated to let me in, or if I was gonna have to plead with the security guard to buzz me through. I’ve pleaded with enough security guards to know how to make my case, and the ones here are amiable folks.

But I dug out the ID card and passed it over the card reader. The red X changed to a green arrow, and the plastic turnstiles retracted to allow me through.

I have access now. I officially count now. Lead on, God, lead on.