Attempting To Halt The Source

I work for two bosses at the Miniature Golf Network, and they have their quirks and fun bipolar days where one of them yells at me if I dare say “Mr. Smith is on line 1” when it’s actually “THE ASSISTANT has Mr. Smith on line 1.” Because that just can ruin a person’s LIFE, don’tcha know. It’s on par with finding out a tornado destroyed your double wide, your accountant ran off with your bank account, or your olives are touching your mushrooms on your pizza. RUINED! My life is OVER!

But I recognize #1 – Crazy Bosses are unavoidable in working in the industry and #2 I’ve worked for so many of them that it simply doesn’t faze me anymore (and I get a perverse kick out of giving them my Blank Face. Crazy Bosses want to see you crumple when they’re yelling at you. If you shoot a Blank Face at them, it pisses them off more, hee hee hee.) and #3 – Crazy Bosses are usually crazy because the boss above them is crazy, and it’s Classic Trickle Down Theory. I’m Furious And Angry And I’m Yelling At You. Pass It On. I’m Furious And Angry And I’m Yelling At You. Pass It On. I’m Furious And Angry And I’m Yelling At You. Pass It On.

That is definitely the case here, as my boss’s boss is notorious for being a hateful person who’s unfortunately very good at the job.

And since I do not want anyone to figure out what network I work for, even by saying whether my boss’s boss is a man or a woman, I hereby decree that my boss’s boss, is in fact, a dragon. See?



A dragon who eats kids for lunch at the Goofy Golf in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida. Let’s name it Hornby.

Hornby is a very angry dragon, for reasons no one quite understands why, though there’s snerks here and there that it’s because Hornby has no personal life to speak of (so it has plenty of time to develop monster hits.) So it spews fire and brimstone at my two bosses, who in turn spew fire and brimstone at me.

So I pray for strength, I pray for patience, I pray for the slickest of backs so it all rolls off and doesn’t hang around my head for me to pass along like a psychological STD.

But then it occurred to me that if I truly wanted to be effective with the prayers, that I would actually stop praying for things for myself, and instead pray for Hornby.

So begins the Great Dragon Slayer Experiment, In Where I Attempt To Metaphorically Slay Hornby The Dragon’s Ill Temperament Via Prayer.

The thing that makes me think this thing will work is Hornby’s assistant, Lil’ Buster. I used to feel sorry for Lil’ Buster, because it had Hornby as a boss, and got a daily blast of ire so severe that Lil’ Buster’s hair probably burned off a long time ago.

But then I gradually realized that Lil’ Buster is in fact, a lazy assistant, who would rather get answers to its questions from me, rather than go in and ask Hornby itself (Assistant 101: You Have To Get Your Answers From Your Boss Even If You’re Scared It’ll Yell At You.) Suddenly, I started doing Lil’ Buster’s job for it, and I can’t tolerate people who create more work for me. So I started praying for Lil’ Buster, that Lil’ Buster would grow a brain, grow a spine, grow patience, grow wisdom, grow insight, grow a thicker skin and grow into a better assistant.

Lil’ Buster instead got fired. This week is its last week.

Now, I wasn’t actively praying for something BAD to happen to Lil’ Buster. I was praying for nothing but good things to come Lil’ Buster’s way. I probably could’ve sat back and done nothing, and Lil’ Buster still would’ve been shown the door.

Or maybe God is moving in very mysterious ways.

So now I’m actively praying for Hornby. That its craggy heart would soften, that it would realize what’s important in life, and it’s not the new crop of contestants on Putter Up! I’m praying that Hornby would gain perspective, that Hornby would realize how negatively its actions affect other people. I pray that Hornby is able to pinpoint what exactly makes it happy (assuming it’s not eating the nearest village), and is able to take steps to achieve that Happiness Goal.

I dunno, maybe it’s all a little condescending, or maybe God isn’t fooled at all, and sees the unconscious self servitude behind the prayers and therefore won’t answer them. Though, I really do mean it when I wish for good things to happen to Hornby. Just as long as my definition of Good Things are the same as God’s definition and Hornby’s definition.

But if Hornby goes down in a plane anytime soon, I’ll get a little freaked out.

I'd rather stand in line than raise my hand.

There’s a guy standing in front of me. He looks like a rocker, he’s got a pierced eyebrow and lip, hunched shoulders squashed into a vintage blue shirt. Skinny black jeans that end in flip flop clad feet. He’s got more product in his hair than I do. I think it’s dyed too, that kind of chunky flat black color.

The fact that we’re both standing together in the communion line amuses and pleases me to no end.

When I was growing up, My Mother The Phone Harpy Whom I Love Very Very Much wouldn’t let me take communion until I was confirmed in the church. Her view was that there was no point in partaking of a ritual that I didn’t yet understand. I can see both sides to that, (the flip side being that ingraining yourself in a ritual from a very early age makes it less likely that you’ll stop it later. So everyone should start tithing when they’re like, two years old or something.) Once I was confirmed (sixth grade, I think), I didn’t really think communion was cool even though I was finally allowed to do it. I didn’t really think anything about it. Here’s the tray with pieces of bread going down the pew, here’s the tray with grape juice in tiny plastic cups that your dolls could have a tea party with going down the pew.

Since we were Presbyterians we stayed still, and the bread and juice would come to us. The Crazy Koo Koo Church I used to attend out here put a spin on it, where you would hold the plate for the person on your left, as though you were serving them. Then they’d take the plate, and serve the person next to them, and so forth.

There was some point in my church back home where they shifted from bread to some nasty tasting thing. I asked Miss Eunice what it was, she said some kind of unleavened pie crust. I said it’s gross and it brings whole new meaning to the standard phrase “This is my body, take and eat of me.” Miss Eunice said she preferred to think of the volunteers who selflessly volunteered their time to cut the gross tasting unleavened pie crust into tiny tiny parts for everyone to have during communion. Which is why Miss Eunice is going to heaven, and I am not, ho ho ho.

But in my current church, they have pairs of people stationed at the end of the aisles, and you have to go to them. One person holds the plate of pita bread, and you tear off a piece, and shift over to the other person holding the cup of grape juice, dip it and go.

And I kind of dig it. Sure, there’s the hilarious crush of people that flood the aisles as soon as they give the invitation to come on down, and the awkward dance of people maneuvering do I have to go all the way to the end of the line if I’m in the fourth row? Will someone let me cut in front of them? Is that considered less than holy if I do?

But I find myself digging it not because of the Tear and Dip ritual itself. But I connect with the fact that here we all are, a congregation of (two hundred? Three hundred? Is it a holiday weekend?) And we’re all lining up to receive communication. The fact that we’re lining up, that we’re patiently waiting, maneuvering with the apologetic smiles, it’s as physical of a declaration as you can get that yes, I believe in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. And I’m in a huge line of other people that believe it too. And it runs the gamut from a silver haired grandmother in pearls to Mr. Rocker in front of me. We have sundresses, tattoos winking from the back of necks and shirtsleeves (on both men and women.) khakis, hipster satin vests, and me wearing the same old boring wardrobe as I ever do (jeans, black shirt, black boots.) And we’re all here, believing in Jesus, and waiting our turn.

Mr. Rocker, by the way, was ever so helpful in pointing out where I was when Tulip, Pastor For The Day said in the middle of the sermon, “Is Amy (The Writer) here today? Where is she?” Tulip’s squinting under the lights, searching the crowd for me. Damned if I’m gonna yell out where I am, Tulip’s gonna make me recite Scripture or something. So I raise my hand, and if she can’t see it, oh well. But Mr. Rocker sees it because he’s sitting behind me (yes, he was in front of me during communion, he’s behind me now), so he helpfully yells “OVER HERE!”

Then Tulip announces to the congregation that “Amy (The Writer) told me yesterday that she’s reading through the Bible and she’s up to Jeremiah. We all need to take note from her.”

Oh GAWD. No we don’t. Don’t ever use me as an example, folks. Just because I’m reading the Bible straight through doesn’t mean I’m understanding any of it. I have to make connections to Eeyore, The Smiths, and Friday the 13th Part 2 in order to make it make sense to me. I’m the worst example in the world. Don’t try this at home.

And I was all excited that I had finally gotten out of Isaiah, and into Jeremiah, and then the chronological Bible sent me back to the pancake flipping duo of 2nd Kings and 2nd Chronicles this morning. Great.

I’m not telling Tulip that.

Amy can't come to the blog right now, she's lost in Isaiah

Isaiah, oh Isaiah. With your endless chapters of prophesies that all boil down to the same scenario – Israel as the flashy chick who dumps God, then discovers that all the other guys (idols) out there don’t do it for her, and comes back groveling on hands and knees. And God will take her back, but only after rubbing her nose in how badly she treated God. You WHORE, ho ho ho.

Um, you’re putting a slightly negative spin on it, don’tcha think? Because most Happy Chipper Christians read it and praise God for taking back a nation of people who weren’t worthy. That He will always take you back, no matter how hard you far.

Yeah, yeah, but then there’s chapter 47

1 "Go down, sit in the dust,
Virgin Daughter of Babylon;
sit on the ground without a throne,
Daughter of the Babylonians.
No more will you be called
tender or delicate.
2 Take millstones and grind flour;
take off your veil.
Lift up your skirts, bare your legs,
and wade through the streams.
3 Your nakedness will be exposed
and your shame uncovered.
I will take vengeance;
I will spare no one."

Sigh.

I am never getting out of Isaiah, folks. I’m stuck here until the end of time. I have daydreams of someday reaching the book of Acts, which I’ve always wanted to read, but context is so important to me, which is why the idea of reading the Bible chronologically in the first place was appealing. But here in the wilderness of Isaiah, I’m just dying. Dying in the dust alongside the bared wady legs of the Virgin Daughter of Babylon.

This weekend kicked my ass allergy wise. Housesitting with Ginger Puppy and Basil. Normally, I can handle their fur. But I can’t handle their fur, extreme heat and Griffith Park dust.

So Saturday, I’m cowering in the TV room, trying to watch > To Catch A Thief, deciding that there simply is no one more lovely than Grace Kelly in that first ice blue dress, and dying because my nose is now a raw red mushroom on my face. Ginger Puppy is staring at me but, but, but, I don’t understand! Why don’t you stick your nose on the top of my head and rub my ears like you usually do?! Don’t you love me!? GASP! YOU DON’T LOVE ME! Oh my GAWD! What’d I do!? What’d I DO!? You’ve shunned me like some Virgin Daughter of Babylon.

I’m popping Benedryl, Claritin, Alavert, I’m sleeping every twenty minutes, and waking up when I can’t breathe.

And finally, even though I think it’s stupid and petty, I send up a prayer to God, Dear Father in Heaven, I would really really really like to breathe, pretty pretty pretty please.

And no lie, within ten minutes of shooting that desperate missive up, I CAN breathe.

Now, do we think that’s God unblocking my nasal passages? Do we think that’s coincidental timing, and it really was the massive amount of loratadine finally working?

I guess it’s however you want to call it. And though Sunday was still an I Can’t BREATHE/ Hey, One Nostril Is Better Than None tug of war, the whole weekend is a reminder that God is not a genie, and my prayers aren’t answered instantly. Sometimes it takes ten minutes. Sometimes it takes ten years. But it’s never ever ten seconds.

Everyone cheer for Carlen. , she’s kicking mucho ass on Script Frenzy. Gooooooooooo Carlen! YOU CAN DO IT!!!!!

Where My Head Goes

So in my further travels in reading the whole Bible, I can say I was a little disheartened to get somewhere around Psalm 90, and realize there’s still a good 60 chapters left.

Keener Bible readers than me will groan loudly when I venture to say that the Psalms started to get kinda boring after awhile. They all seemed to follow the same pattern of Praise God! God’s Great! I Was Miserable And Bad Things Were Happened To Me But God Rescued Me! Or Maybe I’m Still Waiting On Him To Rescue Me, But I Know He Will! Yay God! God’s Great! Made me think paradoxically of the Smiths song, “What Difference Does It Make,” especially when it gets to very end of that song:

Oh, I'm too tired
I'm so sick and tired
And I'm feeling very sick and ill today
But I'm still fond of you, oh-ho-oh

Yes, I admit it’s not the best example. But that’s where my head goes.

Then I hit Psalm 105 and 106, which are a handy dandy history lesson for those for us who aren’t reading the Bible in chronological order, and haven’t already read Exodus and Numbers.

But I perked up a bit when the psalmist in 106 namechecked Phinehas in verse 30 and 31. But Phinehas stood up and intervened, and the plague was checked. This was credited to him as righteousness for endless generations to come.

I had forgotten about Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron and a priest of the temple. In Numbers 25, Israelite men start sleeping with Moabite and Midianite women, God tells Moses to kill ‘em all, kill ‘em all, and in the midst of Moses telling his troops to kill ‘em all, kill ‘em all, an Isralite dude named Zimri and a Midiaite woman name Cozbi decide to give a metaphorical finger to God, Moses, and anyone else telling them where they can or can’t have sex, and decide to get busy IN the temple, apparently in front of everyone. Phinehas responds by taking his spear and running it through the couple whilst they were in the middle of whoopiemaking.

To which I thought, Hey! I’ve seen that before!

(okay, first I thought, GROSS.)

But yes, I’m right, I have seen that before. See?












That’s Jeff and Sandra from Friday the 13th part 2. See, you thought the Friday the 13th movies were just a gratuitous slasher series with no redeeming social value, didn’t you? NOOOOOOOOO PEOPLE! YOU’VE GOT IT ALL WRONG!

Director Steve Miner and writer Ron Kurtz are very obviously crafting a biblical metaphor, where killer Jason is a stand in for Phinehas, Sandra is Cozbi, Jeff is Zimri, Camp Crystal Lake is the Jewish Temple of Meeting, Scott, Terry, Vickie, Mark, Ginny, Random Policeman and Crazy Ralph are all sinning Israelites that need to be purged.

This also means that Mrs. Vorhees is God.

I think we all owe Mr. Miner and Mr. Kurtz a big apology for thinking their movies are black holes of plotless gore filled with vapid characters absent of any logic. Because they are clearly much more religious than any of us ever gave them credit for.

And this is where my head goes.

Five minutes a day

Dur….

My head’s all fuzzy from allergy medication. At least three times today, I’ve caught myself staring off into space and thinking about sleeping. With my eyes open. Just a warning, people.

In my skimmings with the Christian entertainment community, I find it interesting that there seems to be a prevailing persecuted mentality of sorts. Newbies to the city consistently ask me if I’ve ever been discriminated against because I’m a Christian. To which I always reply “Nope. You’re more likely to be discriminated against if you’re a Republican.” (though I find it fascinating that nobody has ever had a co-worker who’s part of that scary scary, no I’m not typing it here religion that certain celebrities jump up and down on Oprah’s couch about.)

And it’s true. Nobody has ever treated me differently because I believe in God. I don’t stand on my desk and preach to everyone going to the break room, but that’s because I believe in God AND I’m not a moron.

It’s kinda weird how the questions always come. Almost as if they’d like to think the reason more Christian entertainment isn’t happening is BECAUSE Christians are thrown to the Dilbert Workplace Lions.

But it’s simply not true. I’ve worked for Christians, Jews, quasi-Buddhists, none of them gave a toss what I was. You could believe in Ceiling Cat and they wouldn’t care as long as you were competent.

I’ve given church recommendations to fellow co-workers in the copy room. I told my boss “Maybe we should pray” when 9/11 was going down (his response was “thanks” and hung up to watch the tv.)

Currently at the Miniature Golf Network, one of my co-workers has a wooden church on her desk counter where everyone sees it when they walk by, and keeps a copy of the Bible by her computer. And another one of my co-workers, counting down the days to her impending nuptials, had a conversation with me last week about how she’s always been able to feel God’s presence. To which I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her senseless, screaming “Tell me the secret! Tell me what you DO!!!”

She says that she makes sure that she takes time out every day to Be Still And Know That I Am God. “Don’t even pray,” she says, “Just sit and listen.”

So I’ve been working on it. Five minutes a day, just sitting and concentrating on God. No prayers, just the discipline of me continuing to focus and refocus on God. And it is a discipline, because my thoughts always want to run and skip in the meadows of When Is Lost Coming Back On, I Need New Workout Shoes, I think The Mist Is Frank Darabont’s Meditation On Faith.

So far, all I’ve gotten is that five minutes goes much faster than I realize. But I think the start of every new endeavor begins pretty inauspiciously for me. So on I go.

But the important part is, I got the idea from a co-worker. In the Entertainment Industry. So there ya go, naysayers. No discrimination here. Go find something else to keep ya down.

You know, if you drink one Starbucks Vanilla Frappucino while on allergy medication, the back of your hands get numb. Interesting. What happens if I drink TWO?

Requiem for my camera

I absolutely love being away from L.A. I mean, I could amend that slightly to I absolutely love being out of my house, as my many dogsitting stints with Basil and Ginger Puppy will attest to (two gigs in April! Yay! Yay! Yay!) Are you dating me? I wanna stay over at your house, because my house has Roomie Heckle and Roomie Jekyll, and I get tired of tripping over them, and we’re having plumbing issues that make the whole house smell like hamster shavings.

But yes, I love getting away from L.A., because well, L.A. is great if you have money and it sucks if you don’t. I’m scraping by, but not enough to love L.A.

So the family wanted me to join them on a trip to Cedar Key, Florida. This would be My Mother, The Phone Harpy Whom I Love Very Very Much; My Dad, The Great Stoic Wonder; my sister Agatha; her husband, Mr. Agatha, and Bug, my almost six year old niece. My parents picked the spot, as the original choices of St. John and Mexico proved not to work scheduling and money wise.

To go from thinking Caribbean! Woot! To the sleepy town of Cedar Key, where 900 people live, there's a strip of sand about 2 feet wide, and brown water was not quite what I had in mind. However, it was NOT Los Angeles, and that was good enough for me. (and to be perfectly fair, we did spend days at Ft. Walton Beach as well, where the sand was white and water was blue. Don’t look at those two places on the map and ask me why. Just…don’t.)

We had so MUCH family time, my GOODNESS it was a lot. I have learned that Bug cannot keep a secret to save her life, so she is not the best person to have on your team when you’re playing Clue, she is not the best person to watch a repeat of Food Network Challenge: Cake Challenge: Disney Villains with. She misunderstands the reaction of don’t tell me that! to really mean what a clever girl you are to share your knowledge with the world! Please do go on. No really, don’t stop.

We walked to the grocery store. We walked to the bookstore. We walked to the cutest little public library (with free wi-fi!) We walked down the “main strip” of gulfside bars. We took an island (use that word oh so loosely) boat tour where they told us Cedar Key’s two main industries are tourism and clams! Clams! The clamming industry is aces in Cedar Key! The one island we did stop at, where Cedar Key was harvesting the Cedar trees to make pencils in Pennsylvania, was infested with mosquitoes.

And I would have plastered pictures of all this on the blog, but I have learned the hard lesson that the worst place to lose your camera is in Cedar Key. Because even though you absolutely know where you last left it (Seabreeze On The Dock, oh yeah, I’m calling them out) the staff is less than helpful in trying to help you get it back. Even though the service is slow, the staff suddenly is too super busy to answer your queries of “Is there a lost and found?” “Well, everyone here has their own idea of what that is.” “Is the manager here?” “She left to get change.” (the next day) “Is the manager here?” “She left, she’s coming back, but you know, it’s Prom Night, we’ll be real busy.”

Prom Night!? Prom Night at the rockin’ clam industry town of Cedar Key!? Kiddies, whatever you do, DON’T BRING YOUR CAMERA! YOU WILL LOSE IT AND NOBODY THERE WILL GIVE A SHIT!

I am pissed, and not just because of the completely illogical reality that my camera, which I originally paid less than $250 for on Amazon in 2006, is now retailing for over $600 at the same site.

There are two possible options here:

1. A staff member picked it up, took it God knows where, and is blind/deaf/dumb to not hear that a Los Angeleno has left messages with her number to please call her if you have it.

2. A restaurant patron stumbled upon it and thought to themselves, hey! Free camera day for me!!!! Wasn’t mine two seconds ago, it’s mine now! Get me some clams pronto!

Which upsets me, even more than the September Break In at the house. Because that was deliberate, that was a criminal targeting the house. This was a chucklehead who stumbles over something that’s not his and decides to keep it rather than do the right thing of Turn It In, You Moron, It’s Not Yours.

I hope the clam industry is positively thriving in Cedar Key, because the tourism BLOWS.

I’m thinking it’s option number 2. I’m thinking it’s a chucklehead patron, as opposed to the steely I Can’t Help You, Please Leave Me Alone glares of the Seabreeze On The Dock staff.

Let’s pray for the chucklehead, okay? C’mon, it’s supposed to be a God site, we should rally here.

Dear God. Thank you for being Lord of my life. Thank you for allowing me to live in L.A. and pursue my career of being a paid writer for as long as I have. Thank you that I had money to buy a camera. Thank you that I had some great times with that camera for two years. Thank you for the geniuses who came up with digital photography in the first place.

And Lord, I’m not ducking responsibility here. I know it’s my fault that I left the camera. You know me, because You created me, and You were witness to the Let Your Anger Go conversion that happened around 2005, where I stopped losing things because I wasn’t panicked 24/7 like I used to be because I Let My Anger Go. Except this time, I did lose the camera, not because I was angry, but because I was finally relaxing and not paying attention to every detail.

Lord, it appears that a chucklehead in now in possession of my camera. They know it’s not theirs, and yet they’re hanging on to it, though they’re doomed once the battery dies. And though a very large part of me wants You to smite them, curse them, rain down huge heaping gobs of bad luck upon them, the snotty little Good Girl in me says I can’t ask for that. Ugh. Instead, ugh ugh ugh, I pray that you please bless this chucklehead. Rain down huge heaping gobs of blessing upon them. Open the proverbial floodgates, so they’re drowning in love, money, good fortune, and puppydogs. Let them win the lottery. Let them meet their soulmate. Let them bear above average children. Turn their lives around professionally and personally, so that they don’t have to resort to hanging on to things that aren’t theirs. In Jesus’ name, amen, amen, amen.

P.S. Please let me find another camera that I can afford. If You have time. Thanks!

Love, Amy The Writer.

Let us all mourn my camera by looking at the last shot I managed to transfer onto my computer before it slipped through my fingers. Behold: BUTT RUB.

The worst part about being away...

Is all the crap you have to catch up on your return.

So posting will happen, er, um, sometime this week?

How very irresponsible of me.

It's supposed to be a vacation.

Here I am in Cedar Key Florida with the fam. They say it's a vacation, I'm not so sure. I can say without a doubt that this is the place to be when the zombie apocalypse hits, as it's so remote, and half the structures are on stilts, so you burn the ladders, and the zombies will never be able to get to you.

It's the delicate dance of Amy Time versus Family Time, and making sure enough time is spent in both quadrants. Escape may not be so easy, as there are no movie theaters, maybe one bookstore, or whatever. There's no cell phone service here. But there is free wireless, so that makes things reasonably better.

The town is basically four blocks big, and on the second block is the town's only grocery store, where they sport Butt Rub seasoning. Yep. That's right, I said it. Butt Rub. They SELL Butt Rub. I took a picture of it, but I can't upload the photos. Bwah ha ha ha.

Check in next week.

It's Got A Good Beat, And You Can Dance To it. Now.

I know a very cool chick named Beatrice. I got her in to audition for Pink Piggy (four of the actors cast were because I got them in the room. So it pays to be a friend o’ mine, but you also want to be a kick ass actor) and she was cast in the room as a slightly deranged karaoke singer, which, if you know Beatrice, is perfect for her, and that’s meant as a big compliment.

In the script, this slightly deranged karaoke singer sings a little ditty called (I used to have the title here, but had to take it down) The lyrics are exactly what you’re thinking they would be from a song with that kind of title, kind of like you bastard, I’m awesome, can’t you tell, I’m having a nervous breakdown right now because you can’t tell, look at how bold I’m being, I’m metaphorically slitting my wrist in front of you in song! Aren’t I cool now? AREN’T I COOL NOW, YOU MOTHERTRUCKER! But I didn’t pay that much attention to the lyrics when I was writing them because I was writing this script while drunk at 2am in 2002, and I was writing just for me, and we were never gonna make this movie anyway.

But six years later, yes we are, and I never got a chance to polish the song, so the individual lines of the verses are mismatched rhythmically, I don’t like the first two lines, and I used to have them posted here, but I had to take 'em down because I value my privacy, sorry.

But what Beatrice ended up doing was taking the song to her stepfather, who wrote an arrangement for it, and then took it to another friend of hers, who had a band, and another friend did a mix of it, and all of the sudden, a CD lands in front of me at a sushi restaurant last night, courtesy of Beatrice.

And the song is f’ing awesome now. It’s got STRINGS. A MANDOLIN. I remember thinking that nobody could really sing that lyric that I had to take down And have it fit in a certain tempo, but Beatrice and her buddies not only figured that part out, they made it sound GREAT. Beatrice wrote in the liner notes Everyone who contributed to this zany thing did so because they found the whole thing funny, and the song oddly charming…and because I told them it was going to be an awesome film.

I’m once again stunned at how things can take a life of their own outside of my original intentions for it. And thank GOD for it, because what I do is just the base coat. Everyone else brings their layers to it and make it much much better.

Beatrice also told me the HI-larious story of her four year old nephew, who was cast in his church’s Easter pageant. (I love those kind of potential train wrecks. My church is too cool to do anything like that, so God bless the Midwest.) “Was he Pontius Pilate? Was he a fleeing apostle? Was he one of the accusers? Was he one of the guards that rolled dice for Jesus’ clothes?” Nope, Four Year Old Nephew was cast as an angel (I think all the four year olds were cast as part of the heavenly host.) but rehearsal went past his bedtime, and he started to throw a fit, so his Mom bundled him up and hauled him out of the church, and Four Year Old Nephew starts screaming, “Nooooooooo! I wanna see Jesus! I WANNA SEE JESUS!!!”

Oh man. I do too, little buddy. I do too.

:)

Everything I Should be Doing Isn't Working

Sorry for the late post, my time really hasn’t been my own lately. Except for yesterday, which was my birthday. I am now officially eight, but I’m telling everyone I’m six. ‘Cause everyone knows six year olds have the most fun, grin grin.

Things are very chaotic over here at The Miniature Golf Network. We’ve got 4 shows on the air, and I’m now working for two people, so my workload has officially grown horns, cloven hooves, and has used me as a couch. And even though our shows are frolicky and silly, the environment is still corporate Dilbert world. And you want to do a good job because you have a good work ethic, even though your product is golf courses through jungle mazes.

But it’s extraordinarily difficult to keep on top of everything, with demanding bosses you get upset if I’m doing something for the other person first over them. So yes, I have made a few mistakes. Yes, I have been yelled at. Yes, I’m wondering what I’m doing here.

Where is God in this situation? Do I call on Him for help? Do I lean on my own understanding and general office skills? I thought I wasn’t supposed to lean on my own understanding. Understanding isn’t the same as skill. If you are a dumbass because you wrote down the wrong number on the phone sheet, God can’t really do anything about it.

Where is God in a Dilbert corporate world? I pray for help, I pray for strength, I pray to not be a dumbass, I pray to feel His presence helping me lift the burden, but all I feel is my own guilt and shame at doing something wrong. What, you think He’s gonna come down with the God wand and somehow magically right everything you’ve gotten wrong? If I’m supposed to go to Him for everything, then am I allowed to expect that He’ll do something about it?

These are the days where it seems impossible that a God we exalt as King, Lord Most High, Creator Of The Universe, la la la, really gives a shit whether my bosses are yelling at me or not. I think that might be the unintentional distancing effect that most hymns have. When we sing “Summer and winter and springtime and harvest. Sun, moon and stars in their courses above. Join with all nature in manifold witness. To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love” on Great Is The Faithfulness, then you think to yourself, yes, this God has created the seasons, has set the stars in the sky, and you want Him to do what? Get the courier here with the package faster? Because that’s very high on His To Do List? Are you kidding me?

One thing they’ll hammer at you in church 24/7 is the theme that God wants a relationship with you. God wants a relationship with you! You pursue worldly things, and worldly relationships and all God wants is a relationship with you! Set your sights on God, get to know Him, pursue His kingdom and you get fluffy bunnies, Cadbury eggs and everything else!

I don’t have a clue what pursuing a relationship with God means. No no, not true. I do too know what it means. I just don’t think it’s working currently.

Church will tell you that pursuing a relationship with God usually boils down to six or so things.
1. Read the Bible.
2. Pray.
3. Listen. (ideally while being still.)
4. Go to church and listen to what they have to say.
5. Get connected with a small group and discuss what they have to say.
6. Repeat

Yeah, I’m doing all of that. No, I don’t feel like I’m making progress.

I pray, so I’m talking to Him. I read the Bible, to try and understand a tiny tiny fragment of Him (I’m still stuck in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles, where it’s all about Kings not tearing down the high places of pagan worship, and the successive lines of Kings who do the exact same thing, and Lamb Chop is stuck in my head singing, this is the song that doesn’t end, yes it goes on and on my friend.) I listen for Him ALL the time. I get nothing. No deeper understanding, no response. Just the cold academic calculating of Well, your landlord didn’t hose you on the rent increase so you know…that MUST have been God saving your ass, right?

If God wants the relationship with me, why is all I’m working through is a mountain of secular shit? What does He want me to do? What MORE does He want me to do? What kind of response from Him am I supposed to be looking for?

Oh great, we’re back to the Enough question.

We’re back to the What Do You THINK God’s Response Is Gonna Be Like?

We’re back to the Whatever Response You Think God Should Give Is Just Another Example Of How You Don’t Know Who God Is In The First Place, So Chutes And Ladders Yourself All The Way Back To Square One and Start Over, You Whiny Little Bee-yotch. Read The Bible. Pray. Listen. Go to Church. Go to Small Group. Repeat. Read The Bible. Pray. Listen. Go to Church. Go to Small Group. Repeat. Read The Bible. Pray. Listen. Go to Church. Go to Small Group. Repeat.

If I’m continually getting it wrong, there’s less and less reason to start over again. It gets so HARD to start over again. Whatever.

I think everyone needs to get Lamb Chop’s song stuck in their head. RIGHT NOW.

Life is Sucking Very Hard Right Now...

So I shall post next week.

Sorry.

Bible Reading With Eeyore

A few months ago, I don't remember exactly when, but I decided I was gonna read the whole Bible. And now I'm done! Ha! Kidding. One of my buddies gave me a One Year Chronological Bible, meaning it's laid out in order that scholars think the events actually occurred. So you start off the same with Genesis, but then Job comes next and then Exodus, and so on and by the time you get to 1 and 2 Samuel, it's interspersed with Psalms, and most of 1 and 2nd Kings have 1 and 2nd Chronicles interwoven in there and la la la.

I can now say with authority that nothing makes Leviticus fun to read, unless you make a drinking game out of it. Drink every time they say "Ceremonially unclean." Drink every time they say "an ephah of fine flour." Drink every time someone sprinkles blood on the altar! Forget it! Game over, we're all wasted!

I was actually kinda excited to get to Ecclesiastes, as I thought the depressed parts of me would finally have something to relate to. But MAN , it's a bummer book. Meaningless, meaningless, says the Teacher, utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless! I get it! Go outside and fly a kite!

However, if you imagine Eeyore the donkey from Winnie The Pooh doing a podcast of Ecclesiastes, everything suddenly becomes MUCH funnier.

For those of you who don't know what Eeyore sounds like, check this out:



Spastic ears aside, that's basically his voice. So imagine that voice reading this passage, Ecclesiastes 6, verses 1 – 6

1 I have seen another evil under the sun, and it weighs heavily on men: 2 God gives a man wealth, possessions and honor, so that he lacks nothing his heart desires, but God does not enable him to enjoy them, and a stranger enjoys them instead. This is meaningless, a grievous evil.

3 A man may have a hundred children and live many years; yet no matter how long he lives, if he cannot enjoy his prosperity and does not receive proper burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. 4 It comes without meaning, it departs in darkness, and in darkness its name is shrouded. 5 Though it never saw the sun or knew anything, it has more rest than does that man- 6 even if he lives a thousand years twice over but fails to enjoy his prosperity. Do not all go to the same place?

And then it's much more fun. I cannot wait until I get to the far reaching plains o' fun that is the sixty-six chapters of Isaiah. I will probably never make it out alive.

Behind the Scenes

The one sign that convinced me that Pink Piggy was full steam ahead was the production meeting where they talked about the police escort they’d have for the car scenes. There’s a good 10 pages of car scenes, they had gotten the permits, the tow rig, and a police escort to make sure nobody would bother them. And I’m thinking police escort?

Back in film school, my thesis film was a road movie (sure glad I got that out of my system before coming out to Los Angeles) and all we did was tow a blue Mustang convertible up and down Florida’s back highways. I think there may have been a courtesy call to the police department to tell them it was happening, but nobody came out to escort us anywhere. So I thought they’d do the same thing here, maybe drive out to San Dimas or someplace where nobody cares about filmmaking and steals the scenes that way.

Nope, they had arranged for a police escort, and they were gonna film smack dab in the middle of Los Angeles, too.

The other thing I wasn’t aware of that Pink Piggy’s production included was a behind the scenes camera crew that documented every bit of the production process. Since I have an aversion to still photographs, I was not a happy camper that they wanted to interview me ON camera. Twice. Because they didn’t get it the first time? Who knows.

It was the second day of shooting. The awesome producers had secured my neighborhood bar, the actual bar where I got the inspiration to write Pink Piggy in the first place back in 2002. I put the bar in the script never expecting we’d GET the actual location. I never though this movie would ever get made. (Striped Tiger has a few scenes set at the Santa Monica Pier, so saddle that one up for next year boys, heh heh.)
We had to wait until they closed at 1am, so we didn’t get the first shot off until 2:00am or so. And the behind the scenes camera crew is pointing their Camera O Death at me. “How does it feel to see your words being said by actors right in front of you?”

I know what they want me to say, “It’s magical, it’s joyous, it’s beyond my wildest dreams.” But I’m Amy The Writer, and I’m tragically honest, so I say, “Honestly, it’s not that big of a deal. I’ve written and produced plays here in Los Angeles, I’ve seen actors say my lines before. I wrote and directed a thesis film before, I’ve seen them say it on film before.” Don’t be a brat. Give them a sound bite. Give them something they can use, “But I had no idea when I was writing this script in 2002 at 2am in the morning that we would be here six years later, in the very bar where it all started, making a movie out of it.” There ya go, Insta-Sound Bite!

Is it really no big deal to see this stuff being filmed? See, I’m not one of those writers that writes autobiographically. Out of 105 pages of Pink Piggy only 1/2 of a page was taken from real life, and even then it had a completely different outcome. I knocked at a guy’s door, he opened it, we said a few words, and he let me in. That’s not a movie, there’s no conflict.
So watching my adorable actors in character discuss the Really Bad Idea that kicks off the movie, I don’t feel the zing of relation, I’m thinking that it feels way too dark in here, but I’m trusting the two DPs working with the big ass cameras and no tripods, and I’m trusting that no tripods is a good idea as well.

Trust. Trust. Trust.

My second time on set is at the coffeehouse location I secured. One of the stipulations from the owner was if there were going to be any actors behind the counter, she wanted it to be me, since she trusted me not to mess with any of the equipment. Figuring that I’d be far enough in the background to where nobody would recognize me, I stepped into the background role of Coffee Barista. This was my view. (I wanted to post the picture of how all the signs behind the counter were written in Korean, which made trying to figure out what the password was to the Wi Fi network hysterically impossible, but for all I know, the signs are probably saying “The combination to the safe is…” so I shall not post it.)

For six to seven hours, I stood behind that counter and pretended to work without turning on any of the equipment. Which meant I counted coffee sleeves. Over and over again. There were 108 sleeves from a local bank advertising 4% financing for something in Korean, and 83 sleeves advertising the second seasons of The Tudors on Showtime. Heh. I wrote in my journal, I caught up on my magazine reading. The still photographer has a picture of me sitting on the counter reading the Entertainment Weekly cover story on Juno, but since I wasn’t looking at the camera, I’m slightly okay with it. Except because I’m wearing my black heavy coat because it was cold in there, I look fat. Heh.

So I’m counting my coffee sleeves over and over again and I can’t really watch the scene without looking at the camera, so I’m listening to the words, yes, it sounds like they hit that beat, yes, they nailed that joke, it sounds funny, I hope it looks funny, funny in a good way.

And two characters are discussing how the main character is not feeling the proper response from a line she has asked another character to say (Yeah, I know it’s vague. Imagine if you told someone to tell you something you’ve always wanted to hear, like “Your movie’s getting made.” You’d expect to feel happy, right? And our main character is not. Sorta. Kinda. I think I’m actually confusing it more.)

So her best buddy says “Maybe it’s what you’re supposed to learn. You’re not getting the response because you’ve grown past the response.” And our main chickie says, “But what I’m learning can’t be told to me, it has to be something I feel myself.”

And it hits me, my hands full of Korean bank coffee sleeves. That’s my whole struggle with Christianity right there. Not that I don’t believe Jesus is the son of God, because obviously I do. But my main struggle is that I can’t feel God, any progress I make is from an academic standpoint, which seems to be…not right.

But what I’m learning can’t be told to me, it has to be something I feel myself.

My spiritual struggle was nowhere around when I wrote that line back in 2002. What those characters are discussing has nothing to do with God. And yet it fits perfectly just the same.

The last question the behind the scenes camera crew asked me was “Any advice for any would-be writers?” my first response was, “Like I know what I’m doing!?” give them something they can use, give them something they can use, give them something they can use, “Um….nobody ever got anywhere by giving up.”

That probably works for God too.

And Then This Happened

“Take this as it's meant .. Did you hit a cat :)” – an email from my sister Agatha.

Thank you everyone, for your patience.

I have made it a priority to keep certain things to myself, such as my last name. “The Writer” serves as a very applicable last name for me, as it’s true, and “Amy The Writer” has a pretty snazzy ring to it, I think.

But why the secrecy? Dunno, I’ve just never felt the urge to unmask myself to the internet. Those of you who need to know it, know it, and that’s enough for me. When you google my real name, the return paints a very strange picture (like, for example, I’m not gay), and I get tired of explaining things over and over again (I don’t have to be gay to write gay themed material.)

Plenty of people find this site by googling other phrases (“Pink Puppy Paw Pads” is a popular one) and I like my privacy, which is why you get pictures of parts of me instead of the whole enchilada (and the fact that the camera flat out doesn’t like me.)

My Paranoid Red Button prevents me from talking about the projects I’m working on (someone will see my logline and write their own version and sell it faster than me because they’re better connected and have no imagination! GACK!) , so if I talk about them on the site, I give them code names, like Purple Monkey.

So I introduce you now to the fabulous duo of Pink Piggy and Striped Tiger.

Pink Piggy is a script I wrote in 2002. I wrote it after a series of merry misadventures in Boy Trouble that left me convinced I was never going to find true love, I was hideous in appearance, and I was never going to learn the lessons of How Not To Be Stupid Around Guys (lessons I’m still not convinced I’ve learned.) I wrote the script for me in a desperate attempt to exorcise the self-hatred demons, since at the time, it sure seemed like guys would rather set their tongue on fire and douse it with lemon juice than go on a date with me.

To be as vague and specific as possible, the plot deals with a girl who discovers her boyfriend is cheating on her birthday, goes to a bar to get drunk with her friends, and hits upon the idea to look up every single guy she’s ever had sex with in the past to get closure from them. Her method of closure is whacked and warped and precisely what prevented me from ever doing anything with the script once I finished it. I couldn’t spec it out, I couldn’t get an agent with it, it’s impossible to come up with a logline for it that wouldn’t make the other person go, “She does WHAT!? WHY!?” I liked the script a lot, but for me, writing it was enough, I didn’t need to do anything more, other than work it through random Writer Groups when I didn’t have any other material to present, and show it to a few other friends of mine. The response was normally positive.

What I was trying to sell during this period was Striped Tiger. Striped Tiger was written before Pink Piggy, (in fact, Pink Piggy was written as an intended thematic sequel to Striped Tiger, with Striped Tiger characters making cameos in Pink Piggy and so on.) Striped Tiger’s plot was based on my first full length play, which featured things like Lady MacBeth’s monologue, phone sex, fun with ice cubes, rules on journal privacy, and boyfriends that you think are beautifully misunderstood but your friends think are cold blooded killers. My friend Humphry saw the play twice, and was convinced that he had to make it as his first feature film. My response was, sure, of course! Take that ball and run with it as far as you can.

Humphry ran that ball for four years, from 2002 – 2006, a roller coaster ride where the money MIGHT be there, the money’s not there. Talent IS attached, talent is not. I got paid option money, but the thing never came together and finally fizzled out in 2006. So when Humphry called me last year and said he had found a new investor for Striped Tiger, I said cool, you run that ball as far as you can. Again and went back to working on Purple Monkey. New Investor had a couple of notes (they always have notes), I suggested a new take on Striped Tiger that everyone seemed to love (The Tiger’s not Striped! It’s Spotted!), and Humphry sent New Investor many writing samples of mine to give New Investor things to read while I worked on a new outline. And at the meeting where New Investor was supposed to greenlight the Striped Tiger outline so I could start writing the script, he told Humphry that he wanted to make Pink Piggy instead. Pink Piggy was a finished script, had fewer characters, fewer locations, and could be done for less money.

I reacted to this the way I have been conditioned to. This SO isn’t happening. Four years on a Striped Tiger Roller Coaster will do that. So when we had casting sessions, when we sent out the all call for location favors, when I was told I needed to come up with a 150 word synopsis ASAP to send to bands for hopefully free music placement, I went along with the ride (wrangled my non-union actor friends into the auditions, found a coffeehouse as a location, sent in my synopsis with suggestions of L.A. bands that haven’t been signed to a label yet), but still metaphorically stuck my fingers in my ears and went not happening, not happening, nyah nyah nyah so it wouldn’t hurt so much when the film fell apart at the last minute, because that’s what happens, right? We lose a location, New Investor loses interest, something goes wrong, because something always goes wrong.

But nothing went wrong. We wrapped shooting on Pink Piggy Saturday morning at 7am, following a grueling 2 week, mostly nights shoot. I was on set for three days, and every time, right around 4 or 5am, I KNOW that crew would’ve been happy to throttle me for writing a story that took place between 10 pm and 2am. Which I will never do again, ha ha ha. I also will never write a script where a character pukes, because that takes YEARS to set up, and I don’t care if it’s oatmeal and applesauce, it’s disgusting to look at.

From the second New Investor said let’s make Pink Piggy five months ago, I have been trying to sort out what God thinks about all this. I’m working off the assumption that since we all live in a Legoland that God built, nothing really happens without Him knowing about it, so there’s no way that Pink Piggy got ushered in through a side door while God was working on the Darfur crisis.

So okay, God knows Pink Piggy and its misbegotten puking scene is being made into a movie. The next question is, is it that He’s WANTING it to happen, because it all figures into His Plan For Amy that is way stranger and cooler than I ever would’ve given Him credit for, or is He ALLOWING to happen because He knows the experience is really a test or temptation leading me down a road in which Really Bad Things happen. Like, this movie gets made, it jump starts my career, I sell more scripts, I hang out with the wrong people and suddenly I’m dead from a heroin overdose. Which wouldn’t have happened if Pink Piggy hadn’t been made.

Yes, people, this is unfortunately the way I think. But let’s try to be positive.

Two of my friends have had screenings of their documentaries in recent weeks, and I went to support them. The docs are very admirable and worthy of praise, and are about laudable things like surviving the death of a loved one by dedicating a life to Fair Trade practices, or exploring the debate and controversy surrounding gay marriage. If God had led me down a path where my purpose was to tell those kinds of stories, it would make sense. If God had led me down a path where my purpose was to write for Veggietales, that would make sense.

But we have gone and made a movie where a drunk girl and her friends stumble through the L.A. landscape to learn the lesson of Don’t Do Stupid Things When It Comes To Boys. Sure, I can dress it up in fancypants religious language and say it’s the journey of a young woman learning to forgive herself, but at the end of the day, it’s Don’t Keep Old Boyfriend’s Numbers In Your Cell Phone Because You Will Drunk Dial Them And Get Yourself In Trouble.

Oh, I hear Counselor Gladys now. It’s not an Either/Or. It’s a Both/And. Both/And will be the name of a script I write someday.

The real question is do I trust God enough to let Him work in ways that aren't overt in the way that one would think God works in (angels, The Sistine Chapel, Hallmark sappy movies.)

I was always going to write the things I write. Do I trust God that Pink Piggy and Striped Tiger and Purple Monkey were all part of His plan too? His plan to Prosper Me, Not Harm Me? Or am I a huge honking misguided Justifer?

When I met with Miss Eunice over Christmas break, I asked her whether God is intimately involved in every single detail in our lives, from primo parking spaces to free food at work, and if we don’t get an empty airplane seat next to us on the four hour flight back to Los Angeles, does that mean we did something to piss God off. Miss Eunice did her nifty sidestepping the issue thing and said it’s best to look at it like this: Good Thing Happens. Don’t Obsess About Why. Just Say “Thanks, God.”

So here ya go. Thanks, God, for Pink Piggy being made into my first feature film. Amen, amen, amen.

I Have A Very Good Reason For Not Posting Today

But you have to check back next Monday to find out why.

It's a doozy, I promise you.

:)

It's The Puppy Bowl, People!

The Puppy Bowl! The Puppy Bowl! Yay Yay the Puppy Bowl! I'm not even bothering watching the real thing, since the Puppy Bowl is more much more entertaining, and you can always get the recaps on which Super Bowl commercial was the most popular on Youtube the next day.

Go here:

And here's the starting lineup

I wouldn't count out Dixie, as those Golden Retriever can be huge players if they want to.

Jackson looks like a little stinker

And I can't wait to see what a mix of a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel and a Bichon Frise does.

But how do you not cheer for a dog named Mrs. Roper? Seriously!

Catch ya at the tailgate party!

I should've gone back down the aisle

Today my church was doing an extra curricular activity where they were gonna spend an extra hour and a half after the service talking about the reasons why we worship the way we do why it’s okay to raise your hands to heaven, how we connect to God through singing and la la laaaaa. I didn’t wanna go, I wanted to go home and write, but as we all know from past experience, it’s the things I don’t wanna do that are usually the things I’m supposed to do, so I went.

They handed out a little brochure thing that listed all the places in the Bible that Scripture says it’s okay to Lift Up Your Hands, Clap, Shout, Play Music And Sing, Dance, Play Instruments. The snotty part of me wanted to point out that the Meditate And Be Silent section automatically negated all the other parts, but yes, I know, it’s not and Either/Or, it’s a Both/And, fine, whatever. I still don’t feel the need to lift up my hands. No, I will never believe that lifting up my hands will connect me to God in a way that’s better than any other way. And God still loves me, just like He loves the ones who do lift up their hands.

At one point during the service, the leader says members of the prayer team are available to pray with you, if you want to. That’s nice. They will pray for you “to be able to experience the presence of God this week in a vital way.” Aw hell. That means I have to go do it now. Shit and damn. I wanna go home and write! It’s cold in here! This place doesn’t have central heat and it’s raining outside! We’re all freezing!

But there’s been something I’ve been wrestling with that I actually would like prayer for. Well, I would like to be held accountable for it, and it seems like perhaps grabbing one of these Prayer Team Peeps and praying with them about it would maybe get the ball rolling on trying to fix it.

I see that Tulip is amongst the Prayer Team Peeps. I like Tulip, even though I get annoyed when she starts talking Platitudes. She knows I get annoyed, and she likes me anyway (She’s the type of person that you would know instantly if she didn’t like you. But she’s also a pastor in the church, so I think that means she’s forced to like everybody. But I bet she secretly doesn’t like some people. But she likes ME. I think. Ho ho ho.)

So I resolve to go down there and grab her to ask her to pray with me. Which I do. I say, “There’s something I have to pray about to be held accountable for, and then I need you to pray for me to experience the presence of God.” She says okay, she grabs my hands and we bow heads. And she prays for me, she thanks God for me, she thanks God that I’m still searching for connection for Him. She prays for a bunch of stuff, and it’s beautiful and I’m positive God’s listening to her.

And then she says, “In Jesus’ name, Amen.” And squeezes my hands. Oh. Um, okay. It looks like our prayer time is over. But I didn’t get to pray about what I needed prayer for. I didn’t get to pray publicly with Tulip about it, I didn’t get to be held publicly accountable for it.

Like a chickenshit, I scurry back up the aisle without saying anything else to Tulip other than a quick “Thanks.” Go back there and tell her you have to pray for something with her. NO! I can’t do that! I can’t monopolize Tulip’s time! It took courage just to get me to go down the aisle the first time! Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!

And then it hits me that maybe God wants me to be held publicly accountable here on the blog to the 11 or so readers I still have after my stops and starts and I’m Taking A Hiatus Now. No Wait, I’m Back! Fits.

Oh, gross. I don’t wanna do THAT. Well, you know that means you have to.

Okay, fine. FINE. Fine, fine, fine dee dee FINE.

I have trust issues. TA DA!

You know, the Bible says something to the effect of “don’t put your trust in men, men will let you down.” Lemme go look it up. Ah, here we go,

It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man. 
It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes. Psalm 118:8-9

So there you go, my trust issues are vetted by the Almighty, and He says it’s a-okay not to trust a one of ya! Nyah nyah nyah!

Actually, I think everyone has trust issues, or they damn well should. Have you been living in this world (okay, Los Angeles) at all? People are flakes! They let you down! They say something, promise you this, that, the other, dangle the golden carrot in front of you, you believe them, and then POOF, they’re gone. Personally, professionally, whatever. We’ve all been bounced around like yo yos, and still we square the shoulders and soldier on, thinking we’re gonna be smarter next time.

So it gets to the point where I can’t look a potentially golden opportunity in the face without first thinking of all the ways this opportunity is gonna sock me in the gut for believing it was gonna happen in the first place. It is not one of those situations where my unbelief causes the deal to go south, because I’ve gotten very good in keeping my unbelief to myself, to test the theory that the deal would go south even if I put on a Happy Face.

But if you’re a friend of mine, I guarantee there has been a point somewhere in our friendship where I have puffed up paranoid scenarios about how you’re going to metaphorically sock me in the gut.

The Paranoid Scenario button is one I have never been able to turn off, much as I would like to. It usually goes like this:

I met a great guy! He’s gonna lose interest.

I’m getting my play produced! Nobody’s gonna go see it, and you’re gonna get trashed by reviewers.

Somebody wants to read one of my scripts! They’re gonna hate it, or they’re never gonna call you back.

I’m doing a blood drive! Nobody’s gonna sign up.

Now, in all of the above instances, everything worked out swimmingly, at least for awhile, so you would think I would stop mashing the Paranoid Scenario button based on past experiences.

And yet I can’t. I don’t know why.

All this week I’ve been wrestling with Paranoid Scenarios about how this, that, and the other person is going to fuck me over for this, that, and the other reason. That’s what I was going to pray with Tulip about. (I probably wouldn’t have dropped the f bomb though.) I would’ve thanked God for creating the potentially great scenario, for putting the people in my life that had a hand in creating the potentially great scenario. I would’ve thanked God for blessing me with the gifts He has given me that helped perpetuate the potentially great scenario. I would’ve asked for God would give me the strength to wrench my thoughts from turning the potentially great scenario into a Paranoid Scenario. I would’ve asked God to help me deliberately focus my thoughts on the positive aspects of this scenario, of these people, of my gifts. I would said a lot more P words, like prayer, praise, pshaw, etc.

So instead, I ask God here, in front of you all. Give me strength to be positive, give me strength to be positive, give me strength to be positive, give me strength, strength, strength. Amen.

Crossing fingers…

Me Love Some Crazy (Not Really)

I haven’t been talking a lot about where I’m working these days. It’s in the reality department of Unnamed TV Network. As such, there’s about a bajillion nondisclosure things I have to be careful that I don’t let slip.

But something happened on Friday that demands a sit and spin. But let’s dress it up in some fictional fancy pants.

Therefore, I now work in the reality department of The Miniature Golf Network (TMGN)! It’s huge, people, we’ve got a bunch of shows on the air, including Who You Callin’ Mini!, a nationwide search for the top miniature golf champion under the age of 10, Kitchy Kitchy Koo, a miniature golf design contest, and Putter Up, A Real World-esque docudrama about a group of seven strangers picked to run a Goofy Golf in northern Texas.

(the above paragraph is quite plainly fiction, in case anyone stumbles onto here looking for a real Miniature Golf Network on TV. No such thing exists. Move along, and have a great day!)

I’ve been at the TMGN network for a few months now, and I can say that this is not where I thought I was going to be at this stage in my life. God’s a crackup, that’s for sure. Me a writer, working in reality. But it’s ironically the safest place to be with the writer’s strike still going on. Remember how last year I was working in Event Planning at Unnamed Movie Studio and they wanted me to work the Golden Globes party, and I said no way in hell? I wouldn’t have that job this year, because of the strike. There were no Golden Globes this year. There’s a company I temped for two weeks last year that I wish would’ve hired me on, and their studio deal got force majuered because of the strike. So there’s evidence that God is protecting me, albeit using the strangest ways possible.

Because He’s a crackup, He is.

Reality programming isn’t where you think you would find God lurking about. Much easier to find Him in scripted programming. You can have your Touched By An Angel show here, a Seventh Heaven show there, a Lostaway has the audacity to invite another one to pray on the first season over here.

But Reality Programming is chock full of chuckleheads who don’t want anything more in their life than to be famous. And I’ve been bouncing away like a Plinko chip at the pegs of my reality landscape, going, “Why am I here? Why am I here? What’s the game plan? Where are you, God?”

Now there’s a series that TMGN already shot and was in the can before I ever showed up. It’s called Hole In One, and it’s a dating show, where 10 women compete in various miniature golf events to win over Ted Tallywhacker, the heir to the gigantic Pocket Balls miniature golf franchise. It hasn’t aired yet. When I first started this job, I was told three things: “We don’t accept unsolicited submissions” , “Don’t schedule more than three pitches a day if you can possibly help it” and “watch out for Moira from Massachusetts.” Moira from Massachusetts was a Hole In One contestant who had a habit of calling TMGN, wanting to know when the show would be airing. I was told never to engage her in any more than a swift “No, we don’t have that information yet.”

So I’ve been toiling away at TMGN, and discovering that wow, I do need God’s help a lot more than I think I would, because it takes the grace of ten thousands angels in order to deal with the mountain of phone calls from random people who start out the conversation with, “I have an idea for a reality show, and I want to know how I can pitch it to The Miniature Golf Network.”

Guess what? You can’t. Just like you can’t write a script, call up your favorite director, and submit it to his production company. There’s a wonderful barrier called Agents And/Or Managers that you have to go through. If you don’t have one of those (and it has to be a recognizable one, not your Uncle who’s a lawyer in Des Moines) you can’t submit it to us. There you go. Plain and simple.

I wish I had a more calloused soul, so that I could turn these people down left and right without blinking an eye. Given a few months more, I probably will. But right now, it pains me to dash the hopes of the Random Folk, “We don’t accept unsolicited submissions.” “How do I get solicited?” is the follow up question. And I want to hang up on them, they’re dumb, they’re stupid, they’re wasting my time and theirs. Who WANTS to pitch a show to TMGN anyway? People who want fame. Fame is fleeting, doesn’t anyone know that?

So I need God’s grace to pick up the phone when I look at the caller ID display and see that it’s an out of state area code, which means that it’s somebody from Middle America who wants to pitch us their unsolicited idea. Because in God’s eyes, these Random Folk aren’t dumb. They aren’t stupid. They’re just, um, well, very passionately misguided.

This is what I try to remind myself every day I’m there.

On Friday, I get a call from the assistant to The Miniature Golf Network President. “I’m transferring someone to you. She’s crazy.” Oh YAAAAAAAYYYYYYY! “She’s got a bunch of reality questions, and I can’t answer them, so can you take care of her?” Oh sure, no problem. Dear God, please give me grace. Please give me strength. Please help me help this crazy passionately misguided person as quickly as possible.

And it’s Moira from Massachusetts. Who is NOT a happy camper. Moira, who suspiciously sounds like she’s off her meds, talks one hundred miles a minute for five minutes about why isn’t she featured in more episodes of the show. The show that hasn’t aired yet. Moira, by the way, gets the boot in episode three when she refuses to participate in speed painting various fiberglass obstacles on a miniature golf course. Moira had the purple whale, and she flat out refused, saying purple clashed with her outfit. Because, you see, Moira didn’t really care about winning the heart of Ted Tallywhacker. She didn’t really care about miniature golf. She just wanted to be on TV. She wants to be FAMOUS.

And in her five minute speed rant clocking 500 miles, Moira demands a meeting with the head of TMGN, because the show won’t be number one if they don’t put her in more episodes. The show that hasn’t aired yet. The show that she got bounced on episode three.

Dear God. This is a child of You. “I’m gonna call every day until I get an answer, Amy. I’m an Ashkenazi Jew, we don’t stop.” Dear God. This is an Ashkenazi Jew who’s also a child of You. “I’ve been a cyberbunny on Playboy’s website! I’m the best thing about this show! You’re trying to keep me from becoming a star!” Dear God, I need sooooooo much grace right now. “Just tell me this much: is your boss straight?”

(Yes, she really did say all of the above. That part is not fiction.)

I try to shut her down as quick as I can. I suggest she send an email, “I’m not writing an email. I’m shaking right now.” I tell her I can pass her number and message to my boss, “I want a meeting. 15 minutes.” I tell her I can pass her number and message to my boss, “I have no problem with going to the picket line and telling reporters how you’re not featuring me in more episodes,” I tell her I can pass her number and message to my boss. The network president’s assistant IMs me in the middle of the conversation, she’s been listening the entire time, “You’re really good at this.” Just God’s grace. Getting me throooooooough.

After repeating myself 18 times how I can pass her number and message to my boss, and with a small assist from another VP who loudly calls my name so I have an excuse to put Moira on hold, then come back saying I have to go (the whole office is listening to this conversation now.) I finally finally get Moira off the phone.

Dear God, I know Moira is a child of You, in addition to being a Playboy Cyberbunny and an Ashkenazi Jew. (hey it rhymes! It must be a poem now!)

Dear God, I know Moira is a child of You
(in addition to being a Playboy Cyberbunny and an Ashkenazi Jew.)
Thank You for Your Grace In Getting Me through

And if I may be so bold to ask for more,
Please don’t let there be any more Crazy Calls in store,
I know it’s impossible, but miracles, you can pour.

Banish these hateful thoughts running round my brain
About how these people are stupid, idiotic, or otherwise lame
Because I feel bad, guilty, yes, I feel shame.

Thank You for a paycheck, thank You for a job
Thank You for a constant income in the midst of a striking mob
I trust You, I trust You, Yippee Skippy Bob.

Love, Amy The Writer.

If You Hold A Blood Drive, They Will Bleed

Ah, I’m a day late with the posting, so that obviously means the Paranoid Bitch WON, didn’t it! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

No, it’s just that I’ve been caught up with about thirty thousands annoying details on thirty thousand other annoying things in my life. But I’m here now.

I knew the cancellations would pour in as soon as I sent the reminder emails out to everyone that they had signed up for the blood drive on Sunday. And I did have four to five people email back to say they had to work, their car broke down, they’re sick, they have to work, la la laaaaaaa.

And then I expected more people to simply not show for their appointments, as we have a pretty laid back congregation, to whom skipping a service is no big deal, as opposed to me, who thinks I’m going to hell if I drift for two seconds during the sermon, or if my gaze happens to wander to look at one of the hotties when we’re all singing. (Seriously. My congregation has a lot of hotties. They never ask anyone out, either. Annoying.)

But I got there, solved the first crisis about how to get the Bloodmobile out of the red zone, set up my table and posters and BALLOONS! (I don’t remember the last time I blew up a balloon!) greeted Native Chick, who was hung over, but still made it out to help man the table (that is a true true friend, people), and held my breath as 9:00am rolled around.

And people showed. MAN did they show. I already had 2 people slotted every twenty minutes, but I had a bunch more people as walk ups. I had people who were just walking down the street in front of the church, saw the sign, and wanted to sign up. We had to start turning people away. Usually, my heart is broken by the usual things – rejected scripts, a sad eyed puppy, trusting a guy who says all the right things that night and then disappears the next day – but today, my heart was broken by people who I couldn’t get into the Bloodmobile. Some of them looked positively WRECKED. What do you mean, you don’t have room for me? I KNOW, people! I would shoehorn you in through the vents if I could, but the Bloodmobile could only accommodate so many people at a time. I had no idea how many people wanted to do this. I was operating in my This Blood Drive Is Oatmealy Good For Ya, and I’m Force Feeding It To My Church bubble because I had no feedback whatsoever. I got the feedback now, and the feedback is They Want The Oatmeal. They WANT The Oatmeal!

I had plenty of people ask me what inspired me to do this. Um, God told me to. There’s not a linear path to it. I’ve never needed blood. I don’t have a cool story where I got into a car wreck, or I chopped off my arm, and I had a femoral artery gushing through the wreckage until the Pints O’ Goodness showed up and saved my life. I started giving blood because I wanted to be mean to myself, whoops, I wanted to Challenge My Fears. And once I realized how ridiculously easy it was, there was no good reason to stop giving. And no good reason to not get other people to do it too. If You Provide The Blood Drive, They Will Bleed. Or something like that.

I don’t know why God told me to host a blood drive. I was overjoyed that He was talking to me in the first place. He could’ve said anything, Go dye your hair pink, go be a bank teller in Montana, go jump off a cliff. And I would’ve done it. Except the bank teller in Montana part.

We got 38 pints on Sunday. Four people got bounced because of their international travels. One gal got bounced because she didn’t weigh enough. Nobody got bounced because their iron content was low, but that was probably because I didn’t give. That’s right, I couldn’t give at my own damn blood drive. There wasn’t any room. That’s AWESOME.

The Bloodmobile staff was amazed at our 38 pints. They said you never get that kind of number for a first time drive. You’re lucky if you get 22 or so. BOO YAH WITH OUR 38 PINTS. The Red Cross takes those 38 pints and separates them into three parts each, so our 38 pints helped 114 people.

I don’t know why God told me to host a blood drive. But I don’t have to. We helped 114 people today, and we will never know who they are. But we don’t have to. You don’t have to know people to help them, and you don’t have to know why you’re doing what God tells you to do. You just do it. Or, I do, anyway. With a dash of paranoid ramblings, of course.

And since I have completed my task, maybe God will say something else, maybe there’s something else on his Holy To Do List, or maybe there’s another Fortune Cookie saying I’m gonna get on the ellipticals.

Or maybe nothing else comes. If I’m really anticipating for something to happen, it usually doesn’t. If I make like I’m not anticipating anything to happen, it STILL doesn’t happen, like God knows I’m peeking behind my closed fingers.

Regardless, I helped facilitate an opportunity for 38 people to help 114 people that none of us knew. And that’s enough.

For this week, anyway.

Go Host A Blood Drive (Because I Said So)

When I first started this blog, among my hopefully witty whinings was how I didn’t hear God’s voice enough. The irony was that in 2006, I heard God’s voice a lot more, and when I say “more” I mean “maybe three times a year if I shut up with the babblings long enough to listen.”

But I was asking a lot of questions in 2006. Not to say I don’t still have questions, but I know now I’ll never get a definitive answer. You could write ‘em all off with a “Because I said so” and not be too far from the mark from what the answer would be.

But where I would catch a charmingly cryptic phrase, “The Answers Will Come.” “In My Time, Not Yours.”, “Let The Idea Speak For Itself, these days, when I think it’s God talking, it’s more of a Jump In My Head Thought that’s surprisingly more specific, which is probably why I hear it less and less.

“Go look up Gabriel, Angel of The Lord,”, was one. “Go ask that woman what you can pray for”, was another. And in August of last year, coming down from a high of Yes! I was able to give blood after three misfires! as I was drifting off to sleep, another one came, and this one said:

You should host a blood drive.

Um, okay. Sure. Why not. Let’s spread my joy and triumph of Facing Your Needle Fear to Da WORLD! I don’t really think I’m Leadership material, (people don’t seem to listen to me, which is fine, I LOVE to gloat, har de ha ha), but I can be Facilitator material, and I can certainly try to facilitate a blood drive at my church. It can’t be hard.

Certainly not hard from the Red Cross’s end of things. They were overjoyed that I wanted to facilitate said opportunity. They’re always looking for ways to connect with the twentysomething and thirtysomething populations of Los Angeles, that’s the biggest demographic of people who don’t give, most often because nobody has never asked them.

Little did I know that my church was in the middle of a restructuring, because my church thought instead of 5 people making all the decisions, it would be much better to expand it to 16+ people making the decisions. And while that does ease the burden bearing, to try and get 16+ people together to make one decision about Should Our Church Host A Blood Drive took awhile. And when I say “Awhile” I mean “4 months.”

I tried not to give up. I tried to banish all pesky thoughts of Nobody Wants This Idea Except For You, Maybe You Should Get On Board With What The Church Wants To Do, Which Is All Things International Justice N’ Stuff, ‘Cause, You Know, International Justice is COOL! Way Cooler To Go On Mission Trips To India And Report Back About Brothels Than It Is To Host A Boring Blood Drive. Way Cooler To Host a Alternative Christmas Marketplace Benefiting Free Trade And Other Stuff Than It Is To Donate Red Blood Cells. Dollars For Mostly International Issues = Cool. Your Plasma For Other People = Not Cool.

No, no, nobody ever said that, just the Paranoid Bitch in my head who’s in desperate need of medication. Yes, I was envious. They had the numbers. They had the publicity. They had tons of people helping them out. It was just me and my lonely little metaphorical Let’s Host A Blood Drive! flag dangling limply in the metaphorical breeze.

Finally, the church got back to me with a date that worked for them. Luckily, a drive had just canceled on the date the church wanted, so the Bloodmobile was free. A-HA! I TOLD you God wants this Blood Drive to happen!

Now the Paranoid Bitch in my head who lives on a steady diet of Red Bull and Pixie Stix shifted tactics: Yeah, you got your precious blood drive, but nobody’s gonna sign up for it. You won’t get your minimum 33 signatures, and you’ll look like a dumbass for wanting this in the first place. Nobody wants a blood drive! They wanna do outreach to at-risk kids on Skid Row! Get with the program already!

Nevertheless, I carted all the many promo materials that the Red Cross sent me (Posters! Sign up sheets! Balloons!) down to the church lobby for two weeks straight. I felt nervous and annoying, much like Tracy Flick and her Pick Flick cupcakes in Election . You want to do this Blood Drive and you don’t even know it!!!

But damned if I don’t get 34 signatures for my blood drive in those two weeks of sign-ups! Not even including me! I make 35! Wheeeeeeee!

My fears are not completely gone, since the Paranoid Bitch in my head who’s got a nasty crystal meth habit and trolls through people’s trash for shredded credit card offers has shifted tactics again to beat out Yeah, you got your precious blood drive, yeah, you got your precious minimum 33 signatures, but all those people are gonna FLAKE! They’ll FLAKE, I’m telling you, and you’ll still look like a dumbass.

But there’s a first time for everything, and so far, even though nobody ever told me this was something the church should do (except, well, you know, GOD), it looks like all people needed was to be asked to do it. Unless they flake. Yeah, yeah. We’ll see.

So here we go, Amy The Writer’s Top 5 Reasons For Why Everyone Should Give Blood:

1. Cookies! They give you cookies, crackers, juice, all sorts of stuff after you donate. FOR FREE! Even if your dentist frowns on Free Sugar, he will not begrudge you the Famous Amos cookies if you’re eating them to boost your blood sugar.

2. A medical excuse not to go to the gym! After you give blood, you're advised not to work out for 24 hours after you donate. So very technically, you get to eat cookies AND not work out. This is a lazy person’s wet dream, people!

3. Conquer your fear! Where else can you challenge a phobia and come out the other side helping somebody? I have a fear of snakes, but handling them doesn't help a single person, unless I’m on a Reality Show competing for a million bucks (which I’m not.) Whereas facing my fear of needles makes me feel like a badass when I make it through AND I saved a life in the process.

4. It's FREE! You don't have to write a check. You don't have to walk through Beverly Hills and snarl up traffic. You don't have to hop a bike down the Western seaboard. All you have to do is lie back
and bleed. Did you nick yourself shaving in the shower? So you bleed accidentally, right? Now you can bleed WITH A PURPOSE.

5. Say what you will about the splatterific SAW franchise, Lionsgate studio partners with the Red Cross to host blood drives for every Saw premiere. People line up on opening night to see a splatter flick AND they give blood. Since 2004, they’ve collected over 38,000 pints. That’s seriously brilliant AND twisted. If a freaky horror movie fanatic can spare a pint, so can you.

You have blood. You have blood to spare. Other people need it. Somebody needs blood every two seconds. So that's now. And...now. And...now now.

You can sign up for any drive at www.givelife.org.

Stay tuned for next week to see who was right – me or Paranoid Bitch. Yay!

The New Year a la '07

I will have all of you know that I’ve been trying to write this post for the past week. But it kept getting mopey, and I kept disgusting myself. Except for this paragraph:

“I don’t want to be a cynical person. How does one make that move from cynical to joyful? Certainly everyone knows how to go the other way, from Joy to a Cynic. All it takes is years of trampled self-esteem, dashed dreams and a sprinkle of substance abuse! But how does one go from a Cynic to a Happy Chipper Christian? Without barfing?”

That made me laugh. And if I can’t crack myself up, it’s not going up here.

Let’s see. According to last year’s post, I was going to make purposeful steps towards not worrying. Well, I guess I kinda did that. Not worry, that is. The buggerall of it is, I still was sad. I still cried a lot, more than I thought I was going to.

I’ve been temping for over a year now. That’s never happened before. It frightens me, but I don’t worry about it. Is there a difference? Sure there is. Frightened is when your internal organs drops three feet inside you upon a sickening realization like you’ve been temping for over a year. Worrying is dwelling upon that sickening realization for more than five minutes. I clock it right up to four minutes and fifty-seven seconds, I do, but then I go write in order to focus on something else.

When I was home in Alabama for the holidays, I had my annual breakfast with Miss Eunice. Last year, Miss Eunice said that you allow things like compassion and God’s grace in, that they’re not things you work on. (yes, that may seem blindingly obvious, but Christianity has a way of making you feel like you’re repeating the first grade over and over again.) This year, I was stuck on the concept of Enough, and what is Enough, and how will I know, who’s gonna tell me the Amy equivalent of “That’ll do, pig, that’ll do.”

And Miss Eunice said there is no such concept as Enough in Christianity. The idea circling back around to Grace, and how God sent Jesus to be Enough, and I don’t have to be enough (I’ll never be able to reach it anyway), because He is. All I have to do is accept it.

Ha ha. Accepting God’s grace and love. Accepting the fact that He loves me, cares about me, will pick me up and hug me and kiss me and call me George. Ha ha ha. I know better than to say that’s a goal for 2008, accepting all of that. That’s not a goal, that’s a journey that’ll take the rest of my life. Yay (said with a sigh.)

If you had told me on New Year’s Eve in 2006 that 2007 would find me doing the following (this is the Deliberately Positive Version):

• Embracing my girlyness via wearing skirts and boots on a regular basis.
• Willingly coaxing cranky babies to sleep by singing 80’s songs.
• Drinking champagne and eating chocolate on a balcony overlooking the ocean on my birthday.
• Assisting at a camp for kids with brain tumors
• Overcoming my fear of needles to the point where I’m spearheading a blood drive at my church in two weeks
• Skinny dipping in the housesitting house’s hottub.
• Acting as a pseudo mentor for Act One newbies who are too new to realize that my advice is worthless.
• Thinking of a particularly evil way to kill off a character in my zombie graphic novel (iron spike through the eyeballs. It’s thematic and everything!)
• Coming up with a compelling argument for the devil on the night that Jesus was born (Devil tells God that God needs the Devil around because “Can't give the people freedom of choice if there is no wrong choice to go with the right one.”)
• Hit a dog and not only NOT kill it, but able to find its owner through bumbling adventures across Los Angeles and the power of Google and senior citizen roommates.

Then I would’ve probably told you, um, okay. Not really what I THOUGHT I’d be doing. Wasn’t I, you know, gonna sell a script or something?

It’s never enough. Because there is no concept of Enough, apparently. HA!

And here is where I was SUPPOSED to post the Ren and Stimpy Happy Happy Joy Joy song. Had it all prepped and everything and youtube has since taken it down. I could look at it as an ominous omen for 2008, but I choose not to. You all just don't get any pictures with this post.

Thanks for reading. See you in 2008.

My Mother The Phone Harpy Is So Short....

I've talked before about how short my mother the Phone Harpy Whom I Love Very Very Much is, but I think this conveys it much more eloquently than all my many words could:

Behold, a tiny duckling STREEEEEEETCHING to reach the stone shelf where the party is obviously happening.





















And here is my mother, STREEEEEEETCHING to reach the laundry detergent so cruelly placed out of her reach on the top shelf of the grocery store.











Also implied is the evil daughter taking a picture of her shorty mommy instead of helping her get the laundry detergent. Which I did. Eventually. Ha!

So if you watch late night TV in Alabama...

You see this commercial. I can't say that it's solely directed at a Southern audience (the Spears family tree from Louisiana not withstanding), because there's not a Southern accent to be found anywhere in there. But I've NEVER seen this one on Los Angeles TV.

To watch this on TV with your dad across the kitchen table is just plain hilarious. And wrong. But I survived.

Soon, people, soon.

I promise. Got a five hour plane ride tomorrow, so there should be something I can come up with.

As we say in assistant world, "Please hold."