Yes, I’m changing the rules once again. It’s not that I’ve run out of Joys to document, but this week, one memory keeps bumping the front of my skull over and over again. And it’s not the type of memory one would consider joyful, but then again, do I ever do anything the right way? No I don’t. I do not.
So here we go, Fridays will now be either Enforced Secret Joy Days, or Enforced Secret Joyful Memory Days. Ahem.
If you’re looking for a Grand Prize Winner in Ultimate Stupidity, you really can’t do better than a purebred cocker spaniel from Alabama. Of which I had two (technically, I had three, but the first one was not purebred, and was much much smarter than the other two that came after her, and when I say smart, I mean she learned how to stick her snout into a long green plastic cup to get at the chocolate milkshake inside.)
I named our purebred cocker spaniels, and I named them Ernie and Bert, because I could, and because they were girls, and I am contrary like that. Their middle names were Gus and Jaq, after the Can-Do mice from Cinderella. Since they were purebred, they had official paperwork for some national cocker spaniel registry somewhere, and my Mother The Phone Harpy Who I Love Very Very Much extended their names to Bernadette Jacqueline and Ernestine Gustina, to make everything nice and proper. This made them seem like debutante dogs, (three years later, they were tapped for my hometown’s Doggie Ball, the canine debutante party benefiting the Humane Society) and while visions of gently loping golden brown puppies wearing white leather gloves and batting eyelashes over Victorian fans may have been appropriate for such weighty feminine names, the reality is they were Ernie and Bert, and they were gloriously stupid inbred messes, and I loved every bit of them.
My father, the Great Stoic Wonder, maintains to this day that Bert was not stupid, even though she was the runt of the litter, and not even our first choice. Our first choice after Ernie was spirited away the night before we came to get them by “Satan worshippers needing animal sacrifices” the owner breathlessly asserted us. The owner had an electronic organ playing hymns in the background of her answering machine message. I love the South.
If you ask my Dad, Bert was not stupid, just intensely curious about everything, even things she had examined not more than three seconds ago (the backyard, that squirrel, that other dog who they SAY is my sister.) Ernie, on the other hand, was terrified of everything, which we chalked up to a baby gate falling on her during her first year of living with us. Ernie couldn’t stand to be alone, and Bert couldn’t care less.
But because both were purebred, both had major medical issues for most of their life. Bert’s thing was vertebrae. They slipped, they fused, they did things they weren’t supposed to do, resulting in major surgery where Bert got out the other side sporting what the vet pronounced as a “Tiffany neck in a Wal-Mart body.”
Ernie’s thing was cysts. The older she got, the more they cropped up. External, internal, where ever. Mom and Dad never seemed to notice, since they were with them 24/7. But I’d come home from college, bestow tummy rubs on Ernie, and immediately shriek that I had found a tumor, a TUMOR, what’s wrong with you people, can’t you feel this marble just below her ribs, why aren’t you taking care of these dogs! So we’d trip off to the vet, and the vet would say it’s a cyst, go home you freaked out family with the ineptly named dogs.
It was during one of these examinations that my Joyful Memory happens. Ernie was on the table again, the vet was patiently explaining again that it’s a cyst, don’t worry about it, “You only worry when you can’t move it around.” We had taken Bert with us, nothing was wrong with her (that day), but these dogs were rarely apart, though I suspected Bert wouldn’t have batted an eye if we had taken Ernie to Disneyworld and dropped her in the backyard complete with Mouseketeer Ears and a Donald Duck T-Shirt saying I Went Someplace You Didn’t Go SUCKA!
After observing Ernie on the table and surmising that things were relatively okay (weird, but okay), Bert decided she was going to hunker down in the open doorway, facing the rest of the vet office. She looked very regal, her front paws stretched in front of her, head NOT down on paws, but alert and up, silently approving the presence of everyone who walked by her.
And the minions came. Oh yes, the minions came. Everyone at the vet office knew who Ernie and Bert were, they were the ineptly named cocker spaniels who showed up every three weeks because something else was going wrong. And every nurse, every orderly (or whatever you call random office P.A.s in a vet), every other doctor that walked by stopped and dropped to their knees in front of Bert The Majestic, offering up ear rubs galore, “Hey Bert! What’s going on? Whatcha doing here today?” Then they’d look past her, and see Ernie on the table, “Oh, it’s Ernie, huh?” And Bert would accept the ear rubs with a knowing nod, yes, it is NOT me today! It’s the other one! You may pass and go on about your day.
It’s such a bizarre memory. Ernie on the table, Vet moving her marble cyst around and around “See? It’s not on a stalk! You’d be in trouble if it was on a stalk!”, Bert in the doorway accepting tribute from the vet staff. And yet it makes me smile every time I think of it. So it’s a joyful memory to me. And I christen it so now.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Courage, friends, it's a long entry
Okay, let’s see if I can make this puppy fly tonight. It’s gonna be a long one, I can tell already.
A disclaimer: I’ve been reading again. Actual books, which is unlike me. Even though every writer worth their salt should ALWAYS be reading books. Since it’s summer, and we’re officially done with TV shows until Fall, I have time to read books. And since too many people recommended it, I’m reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love . But I could be reading anything good, and be struck with the same realization that I need to be MORE of a writer. I need to string a florid phrase, I need to describe a situation with just the right words, I need to inspire feeling in those to read me, just like I’m inspired by reading Elizabeth Gilbert. Hence, I will do my very very best to inhabit the shoes of a Writer, and the fact I just used two “very”s automatically means we’re doomed. We’re hosed, people. I apologize in advance.
Our entry tonight actually starts yesterday, as the Unnamed Charity Event that I had been helping the Event Planner for the past three weeks finally happened. I had taken this short gig in order to escape the Pay TV division of the Unnamed Movie Studio. I knew it was going to be a nightmare, yet I knowingly and willingly made the choice to do it, knowing it was the right choice to make (anything would be better than Pay TV), but I landed in yet another miserable situation. Which begs the question of whether my life has devolved to a series of one miserable circumstance after another, only varying in degree of intensity. Not a lower level of Hell, but an antechamber, with new horrors in colors of orange, purple, and yellow, and vendors who haven’t invoiced us yet, and fax machines that don’t have ink, and delivering parking instructions to all the major agencies who will someday kill to rep me, I tell myself so I don’t shoot myself right there on the Wilshire corridor.
But let’s not wallow.
The Unnamed Charity Event yesterday was a music and arts and crafts festival for kids (or rather, industry kids, whose moms and dads are shakers and movers in the industry and can afford $1500 a package.) So there were plenty of arts and crafts booths for the tiny tots to knock themselves out on. Balloon drums, Necklace Making, Dress Like A Rock Star, Custom Spray Paint Your Uggs Boots, and then…the tattoo booth. Not real tattoos of course, but spray paint ones, administered by a very jolly Tattoo Man and his staff of five. They last three to five days, and everyone wanted one.
I had been in close correspondence with Jolly Tattoo Man, as we worked to get his issues taken care of (we’re working three hours, no wait, we’re working four hours, unload your equipment here, then park HERE, not there, HERE.) And he wanted me to make sure I stopped by the booth to say hi, having spent hours and hours on the phone.
So when I got my break from the Check In Table, and after eating two Churros and one Fudgesicle (everything’s FREE), I headed over to say hi. And Jolly Tattoo Man is so jolly that he INSISTS I get a tattoo, I HAVE to, he’ll take care of me PERSONALLY, he’s having such a great time at this event.
I just have to pick a design.
This is a kid’s event, so no peeing Calvin and Hobbes tats here. There’s shimmering hearts, suns, moons, stars, astrology symbols, and Chinese characters indicating lovely states o’ being, like Good, Luck, Dream.
It’s here that I remember I’m supposed to read Scripture at church Sunday. And I think it would be funny if I waltzed up in front of the congregation with a tat winking out from the inside of my wrist. Not that we’re an uptight conservative bunch. We’re not even a congregation so much as a loose collective. But it would make me laugh. On the inside.
There aren’t any God tattoos, however, nor are there any Spiritually Seeking, Relentlessly Questioning, Overall Befuddled tattoos. I’m looking at the choices of the Chinese characters: Love, Wish, Awesome, Courage.
Courage. I pick Courage.
I pick Courage, not because there’s a zinging feeling through my soul of YES! THIS IS THE TATTOO YOU MUST HAVE, but because it’s the best of an awkward bunch, and it’s still an awkward choice, but I think that Courage is a good quality to have, and maybe imprinting it on my wrist will, I dunno, remind me that I need to be brave?
About what, though, about what? I wonder to myself as Jolly Tattoo Man gently takes my wrist and applies the design (bigger than I thought it would be, but again COURAGE, Amy, COURAGE.) he does a nifty shadow effect, and highlighting detail, but I stop him from using the glitter spray, since I am not five years old.
So now I am the proud owner of a 3 to 5 day Courage tattoo, and I have to take their word for it that it means Courage, and not Easily Duped American.
Driving home after the event ended, I find myself thinking about Courage. Courage. I hear the Cowardly Lion now, and his song that always meant time to take a nap or get another Coke from the kitchen when I would watch Wizard Of Oz on the CBS broadcast (brought to you by Kraft Macaroni and Cheese!)
What does courage mean? Let’s get an official ruling from dictionary.com
cour·age [kur-ij, kuhr-]–noun
1. the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear; bravery.
What am I fearing in my life right now that my Courage tattoo could chase away? I’m on the verge of tears at any given moment these days, those tears come from someplace inside me that’s that’s what, grief? Depression? FEAR!? A-HA! I FOUND YOU, FEAR! NAME IT AND CLAIM IT SO I CAN FLASH MY COURAGE TATTOO AND BANISH IT!
I’m scared I’m not a good writer. I’m scared I’ll never sell a script. I’m scared that I don’t have a plan. I used to have a plan, I had goals, and steps and progress reports and charts and deadlines and everything. And those goals, those steps, those reports, have not worked. It’s not an isolated incident. I’ve taken writing sabbaticals, sometimes by choice, sometimes by jobs being ripped out from under me, and nothing has produced a piece of material that sold. Yes, there have been plays I’ve written that I’ve co-produced, and rapturous response followed, but the last one of note was two years ago. The pressure to beautifully yak up another fully formed masterpiece to once again sound the trumpets that AMY! IS A GREAT WRITER! ALL THAT TIME SHE DIDN’T SHOW YOU ANYTHING WAS MERELY HER COOKING UP THIS WORK O’ ART IN HER LAB! Is enough to make me want to carve up this 3 to 5 day Courage Tattoo because the stuff I’m working on now people don’t LIKE, they liked the OTHER draft better, go BACK, no, DO THIS, no, DO THAT, no DO SOMETHING, ANYTHING, THAN THIS DRAFT YOU GAVE US BECAUSE IT BLOWS!
But let’s not wallow.
This morning, I read Scripture in church, and it’s not until I get there, and huddle with Pastor Bernard about the proper way to pronounce “Denarius” (Bernard’s response is “Up to you, I’m saying “Day’s worth of wages””) that it hits me that maybe Courage is supposed to get me through my two minute bout of public speaking. I don’t necessarily hate public speaking, but I do hate people looking at me. But it’s not like I have to have the thing memorized, I can read it from the sheet, so all I’ll be seeing is this, and my Courage Tattoo egging me on.
Then, about five minutes before I’m supposed to go on, I get the brilliant idea that I should take my camera up there with me and take a picture. Why not!? Because church isn’t about you and what you want. But it’ll be great for the blog! My Mom hasn’t seen the new digs we moved into! It’s proof that I did it! No other Scripture Reader has gone up there and taken a picture! I’ll be unique! It’s uniquely me! It’s not about you. It’ll take, like, two seconds tops.
There’s three seconds worth of terror as I fly by the seat of my pants and juggle the microphone, the camera and my script, but I asked everyone to smile, and as you can see, most everyone gamely did so (When I showed Roomie Heckle the picture, he said, “Nobody’s sitting in the front row.” Nobody ever sits in the front row of our Loose Collective. Nobody. It’s a thing with us. Roomie Heckle also said I was going to hell for taking a picture from the pulpit. I didn’t have the heart to tell him we don’t actually HAVE a pulpit. But the question of whether I’m going to hell is still up for grabs. I notice Pastor Bernard’s wife, Bernice, is not looking especially thrilled.)
I got through the Parable of The Vineyard And The Workers without further incident. It was so frightfully easy that Courage wasn’t even a factor, so this Scripture Reading Avec Camera, while fun, couldn’t be the reason I needed a Courage tattoo, right?
Late in the afternoon, I decide I’m going to LACMA. I can’t stay in the house, I’ll be swallowed up by the Your Life Sucks So PANIC Tornado. I shove the camera, Roomie Jekyll’s LACMA card, my Ipod, Eat Pray and Love in a bag and take off on foot.
LACMA’s a bit of a bust, since two floors are closed for renovation. I say hi to my boyfriend briefly (he’s upset that nobody stops to pay attention to him,) and decide that maybe I’ll head over to Callender’s to have a glass of chardonnay, and read Elizabeth Gilbert at the bar and pretend I’m in Rome eating authentic pizza and learning Italian. That seems like a plan. A PLAN.
So I start meandering, and I’m talking to God and trying not to ask questions, and the conversation is going something like it’s just that I don’t know what Your plan for me is, and I would very much like to know, so I can get it in gear and be in Your will and make life all sorts of happy and beautiful, so if You feel at all like sending a sign, go for it.
That’s when a guy suddenly falls into step with me. “Hello,” he says in accented English, “Did you enjoy the concert?” He’s around 50, fat, coke bottle glasses, loud obnoxious blue shirt. He came up from behind me, which must mean Amy’s Amazing Ass once again cast its unstoppable powers of attraction without asking permission.
I remain remotely polite, saying I didn’t go to the concert, but he doesn’t let up, and doesn’t go away. His name is Eddie, he’s originally from Havana, been in Los Angeles since 1997, blah blah blah, go away, Eddie, go away. Take the hint that I’m not looking at you as a sign and go away.
A sign. A part of me is thinking This is my sign? Creepo Random Eddie is a sign? NOOOOOO! I don’t wanna talk to him! He’s EXTREMELY friendly, and I’m getting weirded out. He is not my sign. He is not my plan. He’s NOT.
We’re out of the park by now, and I don’t want him following me to Callender’s, so I say I’m going the other way and say goodbye. I’m now walking towards my house, so the question becomes do I bag the Callender’s idea all together for fear that Eddie will make his way there and I’ll look like a moron if I walk in the door and he’s at the bar? Or do I damn it all and plow forward, intent on creating my idyllic alcoholic literary scenario?
I actually stop and ask God. What’s the plan? What do you want me to do?
And then I realize it. The fear. It would take more courage to NOT go home and to go to Callender’s, braving any Creepo Random Guys past or future, in order to create my idyllic alcoholic scenario. Creepo Random Eddie was not a sign, but I think he was a test. And I look down at my wrist to see El Courago Tatto-O smiling up at me. Yeah? Yeah? Yeah?
Off I go on an extremely roundabout route back to Callender’s. I stake a place at the bar, order a lovely glass of Chardonnay recommended by Jimmy the bartender and finish the Italy chapter of Eat Pray Love while the rest of the gentlemen in the bar are pissed that the cable’s out and they can’t watch the Red Sox versus the Yankees on the TV.
And I’m enjoying a lovely buzz, since the glasses they pour are quite sizeable, and the obligatory piano bar player is playing the NOT obligatory piano version of Engima’s “Principles of Lust Part B: Find Love.” Most folks just listen to “Principles of Lust Part A: Sadeness.” You’ve gotta be REALLY dedicated to get to Part B. That makes me smile. I am so lucky I had the Courage to get to here tonight.
A disclaimer: I’ve been reading again. Actual books, which is unlike me. Even though every writer worth their salt should ALWAYS be reading books. Since it’s summer, and we’re officially done with TV shows until Fall, I have time to read books. And since too many people recommended it, I’m reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love . But I could be reading anything good, and be struck with the same realization that I need to be MORE of a writer. I need to string a florid phrase, I need to describe a situation with just the right words, I need to inspire feeling in those to read me, just like I’m inspired by reading Elizabeth Gilbert. Hence, I will do my very very best to inhabit the shoes of a Writer, and the fact I just used two “very”s automatically means we’re doomed. We’re hosed, people. I apologize in advance.
Our entry tonight actually starts yesterday, as the Unnamed Charity Event that I had been helping the Event Planner for the past three weeks finally happened. I had taken this short gig in order to escape the Pay TV division of the Unnamed Movie Studio. I knew it was going to be a nightmare, yet I knowingly and willingly made the choice to do it, knowing it was the right choice to make (anything would be better than Pay TV), but I landed in yet another miserable situation. Which begs the question of whether my life has devolved to a series of one miserable circumstance after another, only varying in degree of intensity. Not a lower level of Hell, but an antechamber, with new horrors in colors of orange, purple, and yellow, and vendors who haven’t invoiced us yet, and fax machines that don’t have ink, and delivering parking instructions to all the major agencies who will someday kill to rep me, I tell myself so I don’t shoot myself right there on the Wilshire corridor.
But let’s not wallow.
The Unnamed Charity Event yesterday was a music and arts and crafts festival for kids (or rather, industry kids, whose moms and dads are shakers and movers in the industry and can afford $1500 a package.) So there were plenty of arts and crafts booths for the tiny tots to knock themselves out on. Balloon drums, Necklace Making, Dress Like A Rock Star, Custom Spray Paint Your Uggs Boots, and then…the tattoo booth. Not real tattoos of course, but spray paint ones, administered by a very jolly Tattoo Man and his staff of five. They last three to five days, and everyone wanted one.
I had been in close correspondence with Jolly Tattoo Man, as we worked to get his issues taken care of (we’re working three hours, no wait, we’re working four hours, unload your equipment here, then park HERE, not there, HERE.) And he wanted me to make sure I stopped by the booth to say hi, having spent hours and hours on the phone.
So when I got my break from the Check In Table, and after eating two Churros and one Fudgesicle (everything’s FREE), I headed over to say hi. And Jolly Tattoo Man is so jolly that he INSISTS I get a tattoo, I HAVE to, he’ll take care of me PERSONALLY, he’s having such a great time at this event.
I just have to pick a design.
This is a kid’s event, so no peeing Calvin and Hobbes tats here. There’s shimmering hearts, suns, moons, stars, astrology symbols, and Chinese characters indicating lovely states o’ being, like Good, Luck, Dream.
It’s here that I remember I’m supposed to read Scripture at church Sunday. And I think it would be funny if I waltzed up in front of the congregation with a tat winking out from the inside of my wrist. Not that we’re an uptight conservative bunch. We’re not even a congregation so much as a loose collective. But it would make me laugh. On the inside.
There aren’t any God tattoos, however, nor are there any Spiritually Seeking, Relentlessly Questioning, Overall Befuddled tattoos. I’m looking at the choices of the Chinese characters: Love, Wish, Awesome, Courage.
Courage. I pick Courage.
I pick Courage, not because there’s a zinging feeling through my soul of YES! THIS IS THE TATTOO YOU MUST HAVE, but because it’s the best of an awkward bunch, and it’s still an awkward choice, but I think that Courage is a good quality to have, and maybe imprinting it on my wrist will, I dunno, remind me that I need to be brave?
About what, though, about what? I wonder to myself as Jolly Tattoo Man gently takes my wrist and applies the design (bigger than I thought it would be, but again COURAGE, Amy, COURAGE.) he does a nifty shadow effect, and highlighting detail, but I stop him from using the glitter spray, since I am not five years old.
So now I am the proud owner of a 3 to 5 day Courage tattoo, and I have to take their word for it that it means Courage, and not Easily Duped American.Driving home after the event ended, I find myself thinking about Courage. Courage. I hear the Cowardly Lion now, and his song that always meant time to take a nap or get another Coke from the kitchen when I would watch Wizard Of Oz on the CBS broadcast (brought to you by Kraft Macaroni and Cheese!)
What does courage mean? Let’s get an official ruling from dictionary.com
cour·age [kur-ij, kuhr-]–noun
1. the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear; bravery.
What am I fearing in my life right now that my Courage tattoo could chase away? I’m on the verge of tears at any given moment these days, those tears come from someplace inside me that’s that’s what, grief? Depression? FEAR!? A-HA! I FOUND YOU, FEAR! NAME IT AND CLAIM IT SO I CAN FLASH MY COURAGE TATTOO AND BANISH IT!
I’m scared I’m not a good writer. I’m scared I’ll never sell a script. I’m scared that I don’t have a plan. I used to have a plan, I had goals, and steps and progress reports and charts and deadlines and everything. And those goals, those steps, those reports, have not worked. It’s not an isolated incident. I’ve taken writing sabbaticals, sometimes by choice, sometimes by jobs being ripped out from under me, and nothing has produced a piece of material that sold. Yes, there have been plays I’ve written that I’ve co-produced, and rapturous response followed, but the last one of note was two years ago. The pressure to beautifully yak up another fully formed masterpiece to once again sound the trumpets that AMY! IS A GREAT WRITER! ALL THAT TIME SHE DIDN’T SHOW YOU ANYTHING WAS MERELY HER COOKING UP THIS WORK O’ ART IN HER LAB! Is enough to make me want to carve up this 3 to 5 day Courage Tattoo because the stuff I’m working on now people don’t LIKE, they liked the OTHER draft better, go BACK, no, DO THIS, no, DO THAT, no DO SOMETHING, ANYTHING, THAN THIS DRAFT YOU GAVE US BECAUSE IT BLOWS!
But let’s not wallow.
This morning, I read Scripture in church, and it’s not until I get there, and huddle with Pastor Bernard about the proper way to pronounce “Denarius” (Bernard’s response is “Up to you, I’m saying “Day’s worth of wages””) that it hits me that maybe Courage is supposed to get me through my two minute bout of public speaking. I don’t necessarily hate public speaking, but I do hate people looking at me. But it’s not like I have to have the thing memorized, I can read it from the sheet, so all I’ll be seeing is this, and my Courage Tattoo egging me on.Then, about five minutes before I’m supposed to go on, I get the brilliant idea that I should take my camera up there with me and take a picture. Why not!? Because church isn’t about you and what you want. But it’ll be great for the blog! My Mom hasn’t seen the new digs we moved into! It’s proof that I did it! No other Scripture Reader has gone up there and taken a picture! I’ll be unique! It’s uniquely me! It’s not about you. It’ll take, like, two seconds tops.
There’s three seconds worth of terror as I fly by the seat of my pants and juggle the microphone, the camera and my script, but I asked everyone to smile, and as you can see, most everyone gamely did so (When I showed Roomie Heckle the picture, he said, “Nobody’s sitting in the front row.” Nobody ever sits in the front row of our Loose Collective. Nobody. It’s a thing with us. Roomie Heckle also said I was going to hell for taking a picture from the pulpit. I didn’t have the heart to tell him we don’t actually HAVE a pulpit. But the question of whether I’m going to hell is still up for grabs. I notice Pastor Bernard’s wife, Bernice, is not looking especially thrilled.)I got through the Parable of The Vineyard And The Workers without further incident. It was so frightfully easy that Courage wasn’t even a factor, so this Scripture Reading Avec Camera, while fun, couldn’t be the reason I needed a Courage tattoo, right?
Late in the afternoon, I decide I’m going to LACMA. I can’t stay in the house, I’ll be swallowed up by the Your Life Sucks So PANIC Tornado. I shove the camera, Roomie Jekyll’s LACMA card, my Ipod, Eat Pray and Love in a bag and take off on foot.
LACMA’s a bit of a bust, since two floors are closed for renovation. I say hi to my boyfriend briefly (he’s upset that nobody stops to pay attention to him,) and decide that maybe I’ll head over to Callender’s to have a glass of chardonnay, and read Elizabeth Gilbert at the bar and pretend I’m in Rome eating authentic pizza and learning Italian. That seems like a plan. A PLAN.
So I start meandering, and I’m talking to God and trying not to ask questions, and the conversation is going something like it’s just that I don’t know what Your plan for me is, and I would very much like to know, so I can get it in gear and be in Your will and make life all sorts of happy and beautiful, so if You feel at all like sending a sign, go for it.
That’s when a guy suddenly falls into step with me. “Hello,” he says in accented English, “Did you enjoy the concert?” He’s around 50, fat, coke bottle glasses, loud obnoxious blue shirt. He came up from behind me, which must mean Amy’s Amazing Ass once again cast its unstoppable powers of attraction without asking permission.
I remain remotely polite, saying I didn’t go to the concert, but he doesn’t let up, and doesn’t go away. His name is Eddie, he’s originally from Havana, been in Los Angeles since 1997, blah blah blah, go away, Eddie, go away. Take the hint that I’m not looking at you as a sign and go away.
A sign. A part of me is thinking This is my sign? Creepo Random Eddie is a sign? NOOOOOO! I don’t wanna talk to him! He’s EXTREMELY friendly, and I’m getting weirded out. He is not my sign. He is not my plan. He’s NOT.
We’re out of the park by now, and I don’t want him following me to Callender’s, so I say I’m going the other way and say goodbye. I’m now walking towards my house, so the question becomes do I bag the Callender’s idea all together for fear that Eddie will make his way there and I’ll look like a moron if I walk in the door and he’s at the bar? Or do I damn it all and plow forward, intent on creating my idyllic alcoholic literary scenario?
I actually stop and ask God. What’s the plan? What do you want me to do?
And then I realize it. The fear. It would take more courage to NOT go home and to go to Callender’s, braving any Creepo Random Guys past or future, in order to create my idyllic alcoholic scenario. Creepo Random Eddie was not a sign, but I think he was a test. And I look down at my wrist to see El Courago Tatto-O smiling up at me. Yeah? Yeah? Yeah?
Off I go on an extremely roundabout route back to Callender’s. I stake a place at the bar, order a lovely glass of Chardonnay recommended by Jimmy the bartender and finish the Italy chapter of Eat Pray Love while the rest of the gentlemen in the bar are pissed that the cable’s out and they can’t watch the Red Sox versus the Yankees on the TV.And I’m enjoying a lovely buzz, since the glasses they pour are quite sizeable, and the obligatory piano bar player is playing the NOT obligatory piano version of Engima’s “Principles of Lust Part B: Find Love.” Most folks just listen to “Principles of Lust Part A: Sadeness.” You’ve gotta be REALLY dedicated to get to Part B. That makes me smile. I am so lucky I had the Courage to get to here tonight.
Friday, June 01, 2007
Enforced Secret Joy #42 – Baby Hazel’s Free Floating Hair
Check out Baby Hazel! That’s a SMILE! She’s smiling at ME! She hasn’t figured out my boobs aint feeding anybody anytime soon!
What’s really impressive about this picture isn’t the fact that I’m taking it with my right hand and still able to nail picture composition, but Hazel’s free floating hair.
Observe from a different angle (still me taking it one handed, I was able to do everything one handed except open the beer. Randolph, a fellow Small Group member, did that one for me.) :
I’m reminded of the fact that Bug, my five year old niece has a friend called Electric Hair Lily (okay, that’s what Bug’s mom, Agatha calls her). And yet Baby Hazel’s stylish vertical coif is not the result of static electricity. It’s that way ALL THE TIME. I know, we’ve tried flattening it down with our hands, and it only pops back up, like a wispy weathervane, floating this way, floating that way, anyway but back on a Baby’s head like all baby hair should go.
It’s like a radiating half sun, it’s like a hairy laurel wreath, it’s choppy, uneven, falling out on one side, and would look like what would happen if I sucked down four more beers and got out the scissors. Et voilà ! Votre beau bébé est une oeuvre d'art (vous me devez cinquante dollars)
It’s the most awesomest thing I’ve seen all week.
Dear God, thank you for Baby Hazel’s free floating hair. Thank you for Baby Hazel, thank you that she’s learning to smile, thank you for my literal multitasking act, where I was able to take pictures, hold a baby and drink a beer pretty much simultaneously. But in all seriousness, thank you that Baby Hazel’s hair is as whacked out as it is. How can you not smile at hair like that? She’s gonna grow up to be some sort of beauty queen, and we’ll all nod and wink at each other and say we knew her when she had duck lips and flyaway hair. Thank you thank you thank you. Amen.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Talking, But Not Asking
Ethel Update: She lives! Ethel Lives! Ethel is now up and about and zooming around Los Angeles like she always was. Turns out the gas sensor was stuck, so when the dial was reading that I had a sliver’s worth of gas left, enough to get me to the nearest gas station, it actually was that I had ZERO gas. Stella’s Wella is the most awesomest mechanic around, and I owe him my firstborn (nobody tell him that I’m not having kids, ha ha ha.)
So I was reading this book, 10 Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You: (But Can't, Because He Needs the Job) a few weeks ago, because I’m a sucker for a Grab Me Title like that, and because the Los Angeles Public Library system is the best thing for people who don’t have the money or the space in their room to buy book after book.
This book is rather slight, though, barely a hundred pages, and while there are some topics that they don’t go into in depth as they could (such as The Role Of Women In The Church, which our own awesome chick pastor Dulcina covered much better a few weeks ago), and some topics that I think just COULDN’T be that easy to answer and thus will require more research on my part when I have time in, oh, mid 2009 (such as the Easy Peasy Presto answer that when the Bible talks about homosexuality, they’re using the Greek word for pedophilia.)
But there was one interesting thing I gleaned from it, which was the topic of prayer. The author defines prayer as (paraphrasing here) “A conversation with God, not simply a list of requests.”
And oh dear me, I am first in the line of offenders of Praying A Laundry List O’ Requests. Of course I am. I know SO many people whose moms are suffering from different forms of cancer. I know SO many people who’re trying to claw themselves out of the pit of depression and would love an Almighty Assist. And that’s before we get to my own personal prayers (which are short and simple: would like a better job, would like to sell a script, would like to love and be loved, please o please o please o please amen.)
But could I actually have a conversation with God where I wasn’t asking for anything? Well, that would be interesting to try. Ha, look at me. “That’d be interesting to try.” That’s probably what He’s been wanting THIS ENTIRE TIME.
Of course it’s difficult. I’d be chatting with God about my day, and thanking Him for the things that I do have (I have clothes on my back, I live in a house with a washer and dryer, I get to occasionally housesit in a mansion in Los Feliz, my car has come back from the dead)
But, as I am wont to do when I think I’m being all lofty and introspective, I ponder the issues that loom in the future (what’s gonna happen after this short term gig is over in another week, maybe I should switch temp agencies in the hopes of landing better jobs, I need to get my act together because I haven’t done any significant writing in at least two weeks, what the hell do I think I’m doing attempting to write a zombie graphic novel when I’ve never written for graphic novels before) I found myself sliding into Ask Speak again.
So I’d start off like this:
I dunno God, it seems pretty silly to try and write a graphic novel, like trying to start a TV writing career when you’re not in your 20s, and where do I start researching in the graphic novel world when I don’t wanna write for an established superhero, is this REALLY what I’m supposed to be doing?
Uh oh. You just asked a question.
…and it makes me wonder if this is what I’m supposed to be doing, writing an epic zombie graphic novel. THAT’S what you want me to do?
DING! Another question.
…I wonder if that’s what you want me to do, and when I say “I wonder” I mean I wonder in the non-question sense of the word. Because, honestly, could you give me a sign…
BLLLLLLAAAAANNNGGG!
I mean…MAN, it sure would be nice to have a sign from somewhere, wouldn’t it?
AOOOOOOGGGGAH!
I mean…it would be nice to have a sign if someone who just happened to be listening to me was in the mood to send such signs. And uh, well, no biggie if not. Just chatting here. Just shooting the breeze and all that.
So I’m sure God got a few chuckles out of it.
But seriously, what does it mean to have a conversation with God? Talking to someone who already knows everything you know, everything you’re thinking, and to make matters REALLY sticky, He knows what’s coming next. And yet you should forget that, try very hard not to ask him what’s coming next, and chat like a giddy schoolgirl over Starbucks frappuccinos. Did you SEE that hottie at the barbecue yesterday? Cut off his hair and slap a better shirt on him and MAN would he be good to go!
Then there’s a part of my brain that’s more than happy to trot out James 4, second half of verse 2, “You do not have, because you do not ask God.” so I AM supposed to ask?
And hey, let’s include verse three, before someone with itchy Comment fingers calls me on it, “3When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”
So I AM allowed to ask, as long as it’s in the context of “Is this what you want me to be doing, because if it isn’t, please send a Mack Truck to knock me off course before I really get too deep and waste too much time on zombies, if in fact I’m supposed to be writing about puppies instead.” (I suppose I could always throw a dog into the zombie idea. Since, by all accounts, zombies don’t give a hoot about a dog. Seriously, being a dog during a zombie attack is golden. Like being a fish during a flood.)
I dare you all to try it. Try talking to God without asking him for anything. It’s really hard.
So I was reading this book, 10 Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You: (But Can't, Because He Needs the Job) a few weeks ago, because I’m a sucker for a Grab Me Title like that, and because the Los Angeles Public Library system is the best thing for people who don’t have the money or the space in their room to buy book after book.This book is rather slight, though, barely a hundred pages, and while there are some topics that they don’t go into in depth as they could (such as The Role Of Women In The Church, which our own awesome chick pastor Dulcina covered much better a few weeks ago), and some topics that I think just COULDN’T be that easy to answer and thus will require more research on my part when I have time in, oh, mid 2009 (such as the Easy Peasy Presto answer that when the Bible talks about homosexuality, they’re using the Greek word for pedophilia.)
But there was one interesting thing I gleaned from it, which was the topic of prayer. The author defines prayer as (paraphrasing here) “A conversation with God, not simply a list of requests.”
And oh dear me, I am first in the line of offenders of Praying A Laundry List O’ Requests. Of course I am. I know SO many people whose moms are suffering from different forms of cancer. I know SO many people who’re trying to claw themselves out of the pit of depression and would love an Almighty Assist. And that’s before we get to my own personal prayers (which are short and simple: would like a better job, would like to sell a script, would like to love and be loved, please o please o please o please amen.)
But could I actually have a conversation with God where I wasn’t asking for anything? Well, that would be interesting to try. Ha, look at me. “That’d be interesting to try.” That’s probably what He’s been wanting THIS ENTIRE TIME.
Of course it’s difficult. I’d be chatting with God about my day, and thanking Him for the things that I do have (I have clothes on my back, I live in a house with a washer and dryer, I get to occasionally housesit in a mansion in Los Feliz, my car has come back from the dead)
But, as I am wont to do when I think I’m being all lofty and introspective, I ponder the issues that loom in the future (what’s gonna happen after this short term gig is over in another week, maybe I should switch temp agencies in the hopes of landing better jobs, I need to get my act together because I haven’t done any significant writing in at least two weeks, what the hell do I think I’m doing attempting to write a zombie graphic novel when I’ve never written for graphic novels before) I found myself sliding into Ask Speak again.
So I’d start off like this:
I dunno God, it seems pretty silly to try and write a graphic novel, like trying to start a TV writing career when you’re not in your 20s, and where do I start researching in the graphic novel world when I don’t wanna write for an established superhero, is this REALLY what I’m supposed to be doing?
Uh oh. You just asked a question.
…and it makes me wonder if this is what I’m supposed to be doing, writing an epic zombie graphic novel. THAT’S what you want me to do?
DING! Another question.
…I wonder if that’s what you want me to do, and when I say “I wonder” I mean I wonder in the non-question sense of the word. Because, honestly, could you give me a sign…
BLLLLLLAAAAANNNGGG!
I mean…MAN, it sure would be nice to have a sign from somewhere, wouldn’t it?
AOOOOOOGGGGAH!
I mean…it would be nice to have a sign if someone who just happened to be listening to me was in the mood to send such signs. And uh, well, no biggie if not. Just chatting here. Just shooting the breeze and all that.
So I’m sure God got a few chuckles out of it.
But seriously, what does it mean to have a conversation with God? Talking to someone who already knows everything you know, everything you’re thinking, and to make matters REALLY sticky, He knows what’s coming next. And yet you should forget that, try very hard not to ask him what’s coming next, and chat like a giddy schoolgirl over Starbucks frappuccinos. Did you SEE that hottie at the barbecue yesterday? Cut off his hair and slap a better shirt on him and MAN would he be good to go!
Then there’s a part of my brain that’s more than happy to trot out James 4, second half of verse 2, “You do not have, because you do not ask God.” so I AM supposed to ask?
And hey, let’s include verse three, before someone with itchy Comment fingers calls me on it, “3When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”
So I AM allowed to ask, as long as it’s in the context of “Is this what you want me to be doing, because if it isn’t, please send a Mack Truck to knock me off course before I really get too deep and waste too much time on zombies, if in fact I’m supposed to be writing about puppies instead.” (I suppose I could always throw a dog into the zombie idea. Since, by all accounts, zombies don’t give a hoot about a dog. Seriously, being a dog during a zombie attack is golden. Like being a fish during a flood.) I dare you all to try it. Try talking to God without asking him for anything. It’s really hard.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Enforced Secret Joy #41 – The Big Gay Jeep
Behold: The Big Gay Jeep, my transportation for the past week, and possibly longer if Ethel refuses to submit to the tender administrations of Wella.The Big Gay Jeep has saved my ass, as this new job has me driving all over creation, including twice to the tony neighborhoods of Bel Air. Once again, my life is taking unexpected turns, which I don’t mind so much. It’s not like you could PLAN meeting in a superrich home twice in one week to discuss parking passes for a charity event.
But The Big Gay Jeep has been through it all with me, and it has a CD player, which I know is standard now in most every single car (actually, maybe the CD player is already obsolete, maybe now it’s all about satellite radio, or a place for your Ipod player), but Ethel is so old that she missed that boat. Maybe that’s why she’s throwing this fit. Maybe she got sick and tired of the other cars on the block making fun of her shortcomings in the audio department. Maybe she’s on strike until I install an Ipod dock.
Since most of my music is all digital based, and since I have an Ipod, the need for mix CDs is not as pressing as it used to be, so I’ve been taking trips down memory lane with CDs I haphazardly grab from the towering piles that are collecting dust in my room as I trot out to the Big Gay Jeep.
One of them happened to be Paul Westerberg’s Eventually, and this song accompanied my long long drive up and down Bel Air:
These are the days, no one sees.
They run together for company.
I am the day no one needs
There'll never come another one like me
It’s a bouncy little tune, reminds me of anywhere other than L.A., and I can most certainly identify with the blend of self-pity and confident arrogance. HA!
Dear God thank you for the Big Gay Jeep. Thank you for Mella, who’s let me borrow it for the week. Thank you that it runs, thank you that it has a CD player, thank you for long ago forgotten songs that surprise me when they float out of the speakers. Thank you for friends who continue to come to my rescue, thank you for arranging the details behind the scenes, and thank you for Paul Westerberg, who doesn’t know me, but still affects me to this day. Thank you thank you thank you. Amen.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
God Was Here
Okay, okay, okay, I’m sorry, I know I’m really late. I do, however, have a pretty good reason. But first, there is a preface.
One of the reasons that I’m as much of a cranky Christian as I am is because I get really annoyed when I hear blissed out people talking about how God is working and moving so prominently and obviously in their lives. You know the type I’m talking about. The ones that are SO blissed out, wide eyed, moony beamy faces, you’re waiting for someone to slap a cup of Kool-Aid in their hand and they’ll gulp it down and blissfully stretch themselves out on the altar and go off to meet their maker and the quicky made-for-TV-movie about their cult lands on CBS staring Dean Cain, Lea Thompson, or Markie Post in three months.
But just as obviously, a large part of my annoyance is centered in envy. Why is God working so prominently in THEIR lives? Has He forgotten about me? No. So where is He? Is it one of those things where I have to stop being cranky and THEN He’ll show up? Because it’s chicken and the egg, stop being cranky, God will show. But when God doesn’t show, I get cranky. God very well knows my crankiness, and if He’s truly sovereign, he wouldn’t need me to be all beamy before He shows up. And yet, I listen to these monologues about how God really did provide for me to get pregnant, for me to get a better job, for me to get a cash money offer on my house, and I simply want to puke.
Frankly with this kind of attitude, I can’t believe God bothers with me in the first place.
See, now I gotta backtrack. It’s not like He’s never around. He is, of course, of course. But the way He usually works is that things’ll get really rough, I’ll scream up some desperate prayers, and about two weeks later, things’ll start happening. That’s what happened with the finances, and the job situation recently. That two week interim truly blows, where I’m trying so hard to be patient, to be faithful, to believe that He’s tinkering around with the details and will pull off the drop cover in just another 10 days or so, unveiling some solution that once again gets my head above water (there’s a whole other blog entry to be done about how I’m wishing I could get more than my head above water. God is there to help me sustain, but damn it all if I wish I could do BETTER than sustain. If I could THRIVE, that’d be awesome.)
But it usually takes two weeks or so for the Holy Drop Cloth to be unveiled.
So here we are last Saturday night. It was a day chock full of events, of me running around from one meeting to another, from this group to that group, helping out here, taking notes there, blah blah blah. The end of the evening is me attending Curly Sue’s birthday party, and for a split second, I was almost not going to go, because running all over Los Angeles all day long had left me pretty wiped, and I wanted to take a dip in the hottub in Basil and Ginger Puppy’s backyard. But people were pleading with me to go, because my crankiness is sooooooooo sparkling and crowd pleasing, so I jump back in the car and head out to the bar.
And the car decides to die.
Ethel the car is getting on in years, and she doesn’t get a bath as much as she should, and there was the time two months ago that someone tried to steal her and she wouldn’t give them the time of day, so they stole my eyeglasses as punishment (which costs me $300 to get a new pair, thanks.) But she hadn’t been doing anything weird to the point where I was thinking, uh-oh. Ethel’s heading for a breakdown.
And yet here we are, on the side of Fountain Avenue, between Gardner and Curson, and Ethel has given up the ghost.
I don’t throw a fit. This isn’t as surprising as I’d like it to be. Maybe it’s the result of getting older, but letting go of useless anger is simple, (and it’s being replaced by useless melancholy, ha ha ha.) Getting angry isn’t going to kick Ethel in gear. It’s time to get logical and rational, and to form a plan about who do I call, who do I call who’s nearby, who do I call who’s nearby and sober.
And, true to form, the people who I do call who are nearby send a complete stranger who’s sober, because they are not. The complete stranger is pleasant and helpful and waits with me for the tow truck, and I’m touched.
But it’s just one of a series of events that secular people would call Serendipity.
1. At one of the Saturday events (before Ethel kicked off), I spoke with a friend, Stella, and good naturedly laid a guilt trip on her to meet me at church the next day, because nothing gets people to church like GUILT.
2. After towing Ethel back to my house, I jump in Roomie Jekyll’s car, who just happens to be out of town, so I can get back to Basil and Ginger Puppy in Los Feliz for the night.
3. On Sunday morning, realizing that I have to get Roomie Jekyll’s car back to the house before Roomie Jekyll comes home from Canada at noon, I email Stella and say I’m not gonna make it to church because Ethel croaked and I gotta figure out how I’m gonna rent a car and get Ethel to a mechanic on a Sunday when no mechanics work.
4. As I quickly try to do as many errands as possible before giving back Roomie Jekyll’s car, Stella calls on my cell, saying it’s my lucky day, her husband Wella used to be a car mechanic, and better yet, his brother owns the same type of car I do, so Wella will be stopping by this afternoon to check Ethel out and see what he can see.
5. Wella does indeed stop by that afternoon and Ethel has never had so much male attention in her life. If she were alive, she’d be beaming like the aforementioned cult member.
6. Wella ends up taking engine parts home with him to do some testing and says he can get back to me on Friday. As I steel myself for a week worth of walking, my friend Mella emails me and says I can borrow his car, he’ll use his roommate’s car, who’s out of town. “You’d let me do that?” “Honey, I’d give you a kidney. What’s a car in the cosmic scheme of things?”
So here I am. Ethel is still dead in the driveway, and I’m tooling around in a Big Gay Jeep. Seriously. Check back for a picture.
So some people would say it’s Serendipity. But I know it’s God. I’m humbled. I’m red faced with embarrassment and gratitude.
I’m stunned. Not just at how quickly my friends stepped up to help me (do you know it’s easier to get someone to lend you their car in Los Angeles than it is to get someone to read your script?) But how quickly God stepped up to help. No two-week delay here. No shouted up prayers of desperation, when it would’ve been warranted on Fountain Avenue on a Saturday night. You know how every other blog entry on here is me bouncing around on my head going “Where’s God? Where’s God? WHERE’S GOD!?”
Here was God. God was here. God was here for the Cranky Christian, and I'm still tearing up just thinking about it.
Here was God. God was here. Amen.
One of the reasons that I’m as much of a cranky Christian as I am is because I get really annoyed when I hear blissed out people talking about how God is working and moving so prominently and obviously in their lives. You know the type I’m talking about. The ones that are SO blissed out, wide eyed, moony beamy faces, you’re waiting for someone to slap a cup of Kool-Aid in their hand and they’ll gulp it down and blissfully stretch themselves out on the altar and go off to meet their maker and the quicky made-for-TV-movie about their cult lands on CBS staring Dean Cain, Lea Thompson, or Markie Post in three months.
But just as obviously, a large part of my annoyance is centered in envy. Why is God working so prominently in THEIR lives? Has He forgotten about me? No. So where is He? Is it one of those things where I have to stop being cranky and THEN He’ll show up? Because it’s chicken and the egg, stop being cranky, God will show. But when God doesn’t show, I get cranky. God very well knows my crankiness, and if He’s truly sovereign, he wouldn’t need me to be all beamy before He shows up. And yet, I listen to these monologues about how God really did provide for me to get pregnant, for me to get a better job, for me to get a cash money offer on my house, and I simply want to puke.
Frankly with this kind of attitude, I can’t believe God bothers with me in the first place.
See, now I gotta backtrack. It’s not like He’s never around. He is, of course, of course. But the way He usually works is that things’ll get really rough, I’ll scream up some desperate prayers, and about two weeks later, things’ll start happening. That’s what happened with the finances, and the job situation recently. That two week interim truly blows, where I’m trying so hard to be patient, to be faithful, to believe that He’s tinkering around with the details and will pull off the drop cover in just another 10 days or so, unveiling some solution that once again gets my head above water (there’s a whole other blog entry to be done about how I’m wishing I could get more than my head above water. God is there to help me sustain, but damn it all if I wish I could do BETTER than sustain. If I could THRIVE, that’d be awesome.)
But it usually takes two weeks or so for the Holy Drop Cloth to be unveiled.
So here we are last Saturday night. It was a day chock full of events, of me running around from one meeting to another, from this group to that group, helping out here, taking notes there, blah blah blah. The end of the evening is me attending Curly Sue’s birthday party, and for a split second, I was almost not going to go, because running all over Los Angeles all day long had left me pretty wiped, and I wanted to take a dip in the hottub in Basil and Ginger Puppy’s backyard. But people were pleading with me to go, because my crankiness is sooooooooo sparkling and crowd pleasing, so I jump back in the car and head out to the bar.
And the car decides to die.
Ethel the car is getting on in years, and she doesn’t get a bath as much as she should, and there was the time two months ago that someone tried to steal her and she wouldn’t give them the time of day, so they stole my eyeglasses as punishment (which costs me $300 to get a new pair, thanks.) But she hadn’t been doing anything weird to the point where I was thinking, uh-oh. Ethel’s heading for a breakdown.
And yet here we are, on the side of Fountain Avenue, between Gardner and Curson, and Ethel has given up the ghost.
I don’t throw a fit. This isn’t as surprising as I’d like it to be. Maybe it’s the result of getting older, but letting go of useless anger is simple, (and it’s being replaced by useless melancholy, ha ha ha.) Getting angry isn’t going to kick Ethel in gear. It’s time to get logical and rational, and to form a plan about who do I call, who do I call who’s nearby, who do I call who’s nearby and sober.
And, true to form, the people who I do call who are nearby send a complete stranger who’s sober, because they are not. The complete stranger is pleasant and helpful and waits with me for the tow truck, and I’m touched.
But it’s just one of a series of events that secular people would call Serendipity.
1. At one of the Saturday events (before Ethel kicked off), I spoke with a friend, Stella, and good naturedly laid a guilt trip on her to meet me at church the next day, because nothing gets people to church like GUILT.
2. After towing Ethel back to my house, I jump in Roomie Jekyll’s car, who just happens to be out of town, so I can get back to Basil and Ginger Puppy in Los Feliz for the night.
3. On Sunday morning, realizing that I have to get Roomie Jekyll’s car back to the house before Roomie Jekyll comes home from Canada at noon, I email Stella and say I’m not gonna make it to church because Ethel croaked and I gotta figure out how I’m gonna rent a car and get Ethel to a mechanic on a Sunday when no mechanics work.
4. As I quickly try to do as many errands as possible before giving back Roomie Jekyll’s car, Stella calls on my cell, saying it’s my lucky day, her husband Wella used to be a car mechanic, and better yet, his brother owns the same type of car I do, so Wella will be stopping by this afternoon to check Ethel out and see what he can see.
5. Wella does indeed stop by that afternoon and Ethel has never had so much male attention in her life. If she were alive, she’d be beaming like the aforementioned cult member.
6. Wella ends up taking engine parts home with him to do some testing and says he can get back to me on Friday. As I steel myself for a week worth of walking, my friend Mella emails me and says I can borrow his car, he’ll use his roommate’s car, who’s out of town. “You’d let me do that?” “Honey, I’d give you a kidney. What’s a car in the cosmic scheme of things?”
So here I am. Ethel is still dead in the driveway, and I’m tooling around in a Big Gay Jeep. Seriously. Check back for a picture.
So some people would say it’s Serendipity. But I know it’s God. I’m humbled. I’m red faced with embarrassment and gratitude.
I’m stunned. Not just at how quickly my friends stepped up to help me (do you know it’s easier to get someone to lend you their car in Los Angeles than it is to get someone to read your script?) But how quickly God stepped up to help. No two-week delay here. No shouted up prayers of desperation, when it would’ve been warranted on Fountain Avenue on a Saturday night. You know how every other blog entry on here is me bouncing around on my head going “Where’s God? Where’s God? WHERE’S GOD!?”
Here was God. God was here. God was here for the Cranky Christian, and I'm still tearing up just thinking about it.
Here was God. God was here. Amen.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Enforced Secret Joy #40 – Cocktail Hour On the Housesitting Guest House Roof
As soon as I came back from Orlando, I jumped in the car and drove up to Basil and Ginger Puppy’s house for a week long housesitting gig. There’s been massive amounts of construction in the backyard as they’ve put in a pool, a hottub, a guesthouse, and a puzzling statue of a giant abstract bunny.
So every day this week Basil, Ginger Puppy, and myself have had cocktail hour on the guesthouse roof when I get home from work. It’s been nonalcoholic so far – a pudding up here, a Diet Coke there – ‘cause the dogs are trying to cut back. HA!
But it’s been lovely to take thirty to forty minutes out of the day to simply look out over this part of Los Angeles and talk to God. Or attempt to. More on that later.
Dear God thank you for this life. Thank you for this generous opportunity that I have with Basil and Ginger Puppy and the housesitting house. Thank you that it is possible to create space in the day to sit (well stand) and think. No matter how crazy life gets, you help me create space for myself. Thank you for giving me discipline, thank you for giving me dedication. Thank you for helping me give myself space. Thank you for helping me give myself THIS space. Thank you thank you thank you. Amen.
So every day this week Basil, Ginger Puppy, and myself have had cocktail hour on the guesthouse roof when I get home from work. It’s been nonalcoholic so far – a pudding up here, a Diet Coke there – ‘cause the dogs are trying to cut back. HA!
But it’s been lovely to take thirty to forty minutes out of the day to simply look out over this part of Los Angeles and talk to God. Or attempt to. More on that later.
Dear God thank you for this life. Thank you for this generous opportunity that I have with Basil and Ginger Puppy and the housesitting house. Thank you that it is possible to create space in the day to sit (well stand) and think. No matter how crazy life gets, you help me create space for myself. Thank you for giving me discipline, thank you for giving me dedication. Thank you for helping me give myself space. Thank you for helping me give myself THIS space. Thank you thank you thank you. Amen.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Fighting the forces of EVIL
Why should I type about how the weekend went when I can let the pictures do it for me, with slight commentary, eh?
We were in Orlando, celebrating Bug’s fifth birthday. Silly me, I thought this weekend was going to be relaxing. Instead, we were fighting the forces of EVIL. For as you will see, Bug has been possessed by a demon, and it was only by the grace of God we got out with our LIVES.
Here she is before the madness took old, a happy little now five year old.
And here she is, trying to choke the Big Fat Beagle Rolo.
(Rolo herself looks strangely like Brer Fox from Song Of The South.
Maybe Bug is getting messages from her toys. Here, we see a Satanic Snow White. Her red eyes give everything away.
When we told the other toys (who collectively look like a group of wanna-be Heathers) there was a demon in their midst, they promptly formed a prayer circle and chanted “In the name of Jesus Christ, I cast you OUT SATAN!” It worked so well it took out a topiary Minnie Mouse and Jasmine from Aladdin.
But we weren’t taking any chances, and decided to get Bug cleansed by resort pool (featuring subliminal restorative powers!) She seemed to sense what was up, and tried to lean away.
Then she tried to kick God out of the water.
Finally she submitted, (though she thought she was standing on a water spout.)
Her final act of defiance was to turn into Wonder Woman (via a costume supplied by me for her birthday)
But at last, salvation appeared in the form of alcohol. And she’s all better now. HA!
We were in Orlando, celebrating Bug’s fifth birthday. Silly me, I thought this weekend was going to be relaxing. Instead, we were fighting the forces of EVIL. For as you will see, Bug has been possessed by a demon, and it was only by the grace of God we got out with our LIVES.
Here she is before the madness took old, a happy little now five year old.
And here she is, trying to choke the Big Fat Beagle Rolo.
(Rolo herself looks strangely like Brer Fox from Song Of The South.
Maybe Bug is getting messages from her toys. Here, we see a Satanic Snow White. Her red eyes give everything away.
When we told the other toys (who collectively look like a group of wanna-be Heathers) there was a demon in their midst, they promptly formed a prayer circle and chanted “In the name of Jesus Christ, I cast you OUT SATAN!” It worked so well it took out a topiary Minnie Mouse and Jasmine from Aladdin.
But we weren’t taking any chances, and decided to get Bug cleansed by resort pool (featuring subliminal restorative powers!) She seemed to sense what was up, and tried to lean away.
Then she tried to kick God out of the water.
Finally she submitted, (though she thought she was standing on a water spout.)
Her final act of defiance was to turn into Wonder Woman (via a costume supplied by me for her birthday)
But at last, salvation appeared in the form of alcohol. And she’s all better now. HA!
Friday, May 11, 2007
Enforced Secret Joy #39 – Getting Out Of Los Angeles
I’m in Orlando for the weekend, as my Bug niece is turning five. I always like going somewhere better than coming back. The start of a possible adventure rather than the end. There is nothing NOTHING more depressing than flying back to Los Angeles, though that may possibly be because I have the world’s worst luck in ever getting someone to pick me up from the airport. BUT! We’re not at that moment yet, and I did get someone to drop me off this morning (thank you, sir) so hopefully it’s a sign that this weekend is going to be filled with fluffy bunnies and rainbows and cupcakes and happiness and joy joy joy all around.
Dear God, thank you for airplanes. Thank you for reasons to leave Los Angeles. Thank you for birthdays, for my family, for this laptop, for this minute, thank you for this second. Yes, we’re literally taking it second by second these days. So thank you for that one. And this one. And this one. And this one. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Amen.
Dear God, thank you for airplanes. Thank you for reasons to leave Los Angeles. Thank you for birthdays, for my family, for this laptop, for this minute, thank you for this second. Yes, we’re literally taking it second by second these days. So thank you for that one. And this one. And this one. And this one. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Amen.
Monday, May 07, 2007
The phone call
Okay, I’m gonna be drop dead honest, and some of you will want to throttle me for not being specifically honest with the individual you, but them’s the breaks, and I will maybe explain later when you buy me lots of alcohol (or maybe not.)
For the past two weeks I’ve driven to work every morning and had huge crying fits in the parking garage. I sob. I create mountains of used Kleenex. And I pray. I pray, I beg, I plead to God to please please please DO SOMETHING HERE. Fix my life. I hand it over, it’s Yours, please get me out of these circumstances.
The thing about being a screenwriter, aspiring or not, is that a lot of your life revolves around the lottery phone call. The one call from out of the blue where so and so that you worked with once, or so and so that you sent a script to once has FINALLY read the script and loved it, or FINALLY got the financing together and hey boys and girls, we’re making a MOVIE in the backyard!
And I realized during the last fit last week that I’m expecting the same thing from God. I send up the flotilla of prayers, and I’m expecting him to deliver the metaphorical lottery phone call that will save me from my life. I’m expecting it INSTANTLY. When the reality is, God aint your Genie in a lamp. He’ll deliver you in His time, not yours. And it’s never instantaneously.
Which isn’t to say it doesn’t happen. Because He did send a phone call, in the form of a short term job, a different job, one that starts later this week. My way out of this particular Boring Circle Of Hell. And there’s nothing to guarantee I won’t exit into another antechamber of hell, a different kind of hell. But at least it won’t be here.
And for that, it’s a Praise God indeed.
For the past two weeks I’ve driven to work every morning and had huge crying fits in the parking garage. I sob. I create mountains of used Kleenex. And I pray. I pray, I beg, I plead to God to please please please DO SOMETHING HERE. Fix my life. I hand it over, it’s Yours, please get me out of these circumstances.
The thing about being a screenwriter, aspiring or not, is that a lot of your life revolves around the lottery phone call. The one call from out of the blue where so and so that you worked with once, or so and so that you sent a script to once has FINALLY read the script and loved it, or FINALLY got the financing together and hey boys and girls, we’re making a MOVIE in the backyard!
And I realized during the last fit last week that I’m expecting the same thing from God. I send up the flotilla of prayers, and I’m expecting him to deliver the metaphorical lottery phone call that will save me from my life. I’m expecting it INSTANTLY. When the reality is, God aint your Genie in a lamp. He’ll deliver you in His time, not yours. And it’s never instantaneously.
Which isn’t to say it doesn’t happen. Because He did send a phone call, in the form of a short term job, a different job, one that starts later this week. My way out of this particular Boring Circle Of Hell. And there’s nothing to guarantee I won’t exit into another antechamber of hell, a different kind of hell. But at least it won’t be here.
And for that, it’s a Praise God indeed.
Friday, May 04, 2007
Enforced Secret Joy #38 – Don Music on Sesame Street
Here’s the tricky thing about memory, just when you’re absolutely positive you remember something from your childhood, after some searching about on Google and Youtube, you’ll discover that you were wrong on one crucial detail that scotches the whole thing.
All these years, I thought for SURE that it was the Sesame Street Muppet and game-host-with-the-most-Guy Smiley who would bang his head repeatedly into the piano wailing “Oh, I’ll NEVER get it, I’ll NEVER get it!” Never once did it occur to me that it’s a little out of character for our ever excited Guy Smiley, who normally wields a microphone and doles out prizes to Cookie Monster and presides over game shows like What’s My Part to do something like surrender to a fit of mopeyness, nope, nope, I was positive that it was him.
And yet, I am drop dead wrong. It is not Guy Smiley It is Don Music.
I can be forgiven a bit. It’s basically Guy Smiley’s face, an early prototype of eyeglasses that would eventually morph into what Scooter wears on The Muppet Show, and hair that looks like what Whitney Houston was sporting in her crack binges at the fleabag motel days.
There’s longer clips on Youtube of different songs that Don Music composes himself (The Alphabet Song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, The Declaration Of Independence) yet this one encapsulates everything that cracks me up about Don Music. The seriousness of the task ahead (composing Mary Had A Little Lamb) the I-Am-Doing-Something-EXTREMELY-Important-And-Have-No-Idea-How-Ridiculous-I-Am composure (much like that puffbag James Lipton on Inside The Actor’s Studio) And the Woe Is Me The World Is OVER I Tell You Panic when Don can’t find the rhyming word that causes him to eat the keyboard with his forehead.
It makes me laugh and laugh and laugh. I hope it comes through here on the clip I’m attempting to embed.
Dear God, thank you for Don Music. Thank you for the late, brilliant Richard Hunt, his Muppeteer. Thank you for Jim Henson and the rest of the Muppet crew, for giving us such a wonderful world that has never been equaled since. Thank you for Youtube. I know I enter dangerous territory here, since there’s all sorts of legal issues and stuff, but honestly, if it wasn’t for youtube, I never would’ve figured out how my memory has been so faulty all these years, so thank you that it’s still up and still free, for however long it lasts.
And God, we both know how my head works. So if we play the recently neglected game of I’m Me, Where’s God In This Scenario, then I’m Don Music, trying to craft my life (song), failing to see the obvious next step (note), and there You (Kermit) are, carefully observing the situation, removed enough to frustrate me, and only stepping in to suggest the winning phrase after I throw a fit, give up completely, and embed all 88 keys across my face. Sure is funny. To YOU. Kidding! Thank you for laughter, thank you that You are present, even if You seem frustratingly remote. I know You’re there, somewhere. Lose the microphone, though. HA!
All these years, I thought for SURE that it was the Sesame Street Muppet and game-host-with-the-most-Guy Smiley who would bang his head repeatedly into the piano wailing “Oh, I’ll NEVER get it, I’ll NEVER get it!” Never once did it occur to me that it’s a little out of character for our ever excited Guy Smiley, who normally wields a microphone and doles out prizes to Cookie Monster and presides over game shows like What’s My Part to do something like surrender to a fit of mopeyness, nope, nope, I was positive that it was him.
And yet, I am drop dead wrong. It is not Guy Smiley It is Don Music.
I can be forgiven a bit. It’s basically Guy Smiley’s face, an early prototype of eyeglasses that would eventually morph into what Scooter wears on The Muppet Show, and hair that looks like what Whitney Houston was sporting in her crack binges at the fleabag motel days.
There’s longer clips on Youtube of different songs that Don Music composes himself (The Alphabet Song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, The Declaration Of Independence) yet this one encapsulates everything that cracks me up about Don Music. The seriousness of the task ahead (composing Mary Had A Little Lamb) the I-Am-Doing-Something-EXTREMELY-Important-And-Have-No-Idea-How-Ridiculous-I-Am composure (much like that puffbag James Lipton on Inside The Actor’s Studio) And the Woe Is Me The World Is OVER I Tell You Panic when Don can’t find the rhyming word that causes him to eat the keyboard with his forehead.
It makes me laugh and laugh and laugh. I hope it comes through here on the clip I’m attempting to embed.
Dear God, thank you for Don Music. Thank you for the late, brilliant Richard Hunt, his Muppeteer. Thank you for Jim Henson and the rest of the Muppet crew, for giving us such a wonderful world that has never been equaled since. Thank you for Youtube. I know I enter dangerous territory here, since there’s all sorts of legal issues and stuff, but honestly, if it wasn’t for youtube, I never would’ve figured out how my memory has been so faulty all these years, so thank you that it’s still up and still free, for however long it lasts.
And God, we both know how my head works. So if we play the recently neglected game of I’m Me, Where’s God In This Scenario, then I’m Don Music, trying to craft my life (song), failing to see the obvious next step (note), and there You (Kermit) are, carefully observing the situation, removed enough to frustrate me, and only stepping in to suggest the winning phrase after I throw a fit, give up completely, and embed all 88 keys across my face. Sure is funny. To YOU. Kidding! Thank you for laughter, thank you that You are present, even if You seem frustratingly remote. I know You’re there, somewhere. Lose the microphone, though. HA!
Monday, April 30, 2007
I'm Amy The Writer
Okay, let’s do something proactive and fun? Anytime this particular blog entry starts detouring into mopey whining, I shall post pictures of indescribably cute things, so I will forcibly lift myself from the bog o’blah.
So I’m finally now just getting around to reading books that people have lent me. The sad part (bunnies! Cute fluffy bunnies! With twitchy noses!) is that they lent me these books last year, in like, August. I have a really hard time making time to read, because there’s always that nagging feeling of you should be writing! You should be writing!
But I was all excited to read “Epic: The Story God is telling and the role that is yours to play” by John Eldredge, because it started off really good, like this:
You seem stuck. Things fall apart. What does it all mean? Should you have chosen a different major after all ? Were you meant to take that teaching job? Are you going to find someone to spend your life with, and will he or she remain true?...and if crucial moments are about to happen, will you recognize them? Will you miss your cues?
Yes! Yes! I feel just like that! Oh boy, finally, a book that’s gonna reveal everything, or at the very least, point me in the right direction of what to do next.
For most of us, life feels like a movie we’ve arrived at forty-five minutes late. Something important seems to be going on…maybe. I mean, good things do happen, sometimes beautiful things. You meet someone, fall in love. You find that work that is yours alone to fulfill. But tragic things happen too. You fall out of love, or perhaps the other person falls out of love with you. Works begins to feel like a punishment. Everything starts to feel like an endless routine.
Yes! Exactly! Right there with you!
If there is meaning to this life, then why do our days seem so random? What is the drama we’ve been dropped into the middle of? If there is a God, what sort of story is he telling here?
Think about your favorite movies…The films you love are telling you something very important. Something essential about your heart.
Yeah? The films I love are Blade Runner, Memento, Se7en, Aliens, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, what’s that telling me? I’ve got a killer melancholy streak?
Next, I want you to notice that all the great stories pretty much follow the same story line. Things were once good, then something awful happened, and now a great battle must be fought or a journey taken. At just the right moment (which feels like the last possible moment), a hero comes and set things right, and life is found again.
Huh. In the stories I like, things weren’t once good. Things were kinda barely existing, chugging along on status quo and THEN something awful happens. Does that reveal something about my mindset, like an inkblot test? I mean, the movies I like , the characters mostly still come through relatively okay. A ragged hope. There’s no guarantee that things are gonna get better (certainly not in the case of Memento), but we’re gonna try and fumble along anyway, hopefully wiser, because of the journey we’ve just taken through the movie.
Unfortunately (cockapoos! Cockapoos are adorable!), the book veered off from there into telling the origins of Christianity through the classic storytelling elements of Joseph Campbell and his like, explaining the origins of God, the fall of Lucifer, there’s two worlds, a real one and a spiritual one, la la la.
And I’m thinking NO! I wanna know what my role is! ME! Specifically! Give me questions that I can ask these things for myself! Don’t need to see the Adam and Eve story again. I KNOW that story! I KNOW that God is pursuing me! Still can’t feel Him though. I’m trying to figure out what my role is here! HELP ME WITH THAT! HELP ME WITH THAT!
Finally, I get close to the end of this very slim book, and on page 100, it says,
Now, what is YOUR part? What is your role in the Story? In truth, the only one who can tell you that is the Author. To find our lives, we must turn to Jesus. We must yield our all to him and ask him to restore us as his own. We ask his forgiveness for our betrayal of him. We ask him to make us all he intended us to be – to tell us who we are and what we are now to do. We ask him to remove the veil from our eyes and from our hearts. It might be good to pause and do that right now.
Hmm. I’m not asking the question Who am I? I’m Amy The Writer. I always have been. Never wanted to be much else in terms of a profession. Emotionally is a whole other circus. Who am I emotionally? I’m someone who wants to love and be loved in return. I’m someone who wants to be married someday, (and it’s taken me YEARS to not be afraid to put that statement out there, because don’t you instantly get the image of some whiny clingy Please Please Please Don’t LEAVE Me Girl? That’s not me. THAT’S NOT ME.
I want to be married someday because I want to love, I want to be loved, and I want to know that person is committed to doing that for the rest of our lives, as opposed to putting in three to five years and then taking off. My buddy Georgina wrote about it in an essay and described it as “diving off a cliff while praying you’re holding the hand of someone who’s not afraid to fly.”) I’m someone who wants to trust, and who continually gets that trust abused. That’s not new, that’s everyone. People let you down, especially people here in flaky Los Angeles. Move on, move on, nothing to mope about here. (puppies in casts are cute. Sad, but cute.)
But the Telling Me What I Am Now To Do. Well, that would sure be swell, and something I ask for every day. What am I supposed to do next? Is there something I’m overlooking? Some job opportunity I haven’t looked in the right place for? Am I really supposed to junk it all and go work in Legal, because at least it’s a paycheck with benefits and crap?
Man, that last section on page 100 just blows (Matthew Fox the actor is QUITE cute.) It’s just icky, smacking of “Accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior and all answers will be REVEALED!” What a bait and switch. Where’s the book that says “I asked and asked and asked and I’m still lost.”
But at least I know who I am. Maybe that’s more important than the next step. I suppose, if you had two doors on the game show, and you could pick between This Is Who You Are, and This Is The Next Step You Should Take, most people, hell, I’d probably even take the Next Step door. But it certainly feels like, in a crappy Lesson Learned In The Last Ten Minutes Of A Sitcom, that you should’ve gone for the Who Am I Door.
So I guess I’m ahead of the game. I hope.
So I’m finally now just getting around to reading books that people have lent me. The sad part (bunnies! Cute fluffy bunnies! With twitchy noses!) is that they lent me these books last year, in like, August. I have a really hard time making time to read, because there’s always that nagging feeling of you should be writing! You should be writing!
But I was all excited to read “Epic: The Story God is telling and the role that is yours to play” by John Eldredge, because it started off really good, like this:
You seem stuck. Things fall apart. What does it all mean? Should you have chosen a different major after all ? Were you meant to take that teaching job? Are you going to find someone to spend your life with, and will he or she remain true?...and if crucial moments are about to happen, will you recognize them? Will you miss your cues?
Yes! Yes! I feel just like that! Oh boy, finally, a book that’s gonna reveal everything, or at the very least, point me in the right direction of what to do next.
For most of us, life feels like a movie we’ve arrived at forty-five minutes late. Something important seems to be going on…maybe. I mean, good things do happen, sometimes beautiful things. You meet someone, fall in love. You find that work that is yours alone to fulfill. But tragic things happen too. You fall out of love, or perhaps the other person falls out of love with you. Works begins to feel like a punishment. Everything starts to feel like an endless routine.
Yes! Exactly! Right there with you!
If there is meaning to this life, then why do our days seem so random? What is the drama we’ve been dropped into the middle of? If there is a God, what sort of story is he telling here?
Think about your favorite movies…The films you love are telling you something very important. Something essential about your heart.
Yeah? The films I love are Blade Runner, Memento, Se7en, Aliens, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, what’s that telling me? I’ve got a killer melancholy streak?
Next, I want you to notice that all the great stories pretty much follow the same story line. Things were once good, then something awful happened, and now a great battle must be fought or a journey taken. At just the right moment (which feels like the last possible moment), a hero comes and set things right, and life is found again.
Huh. In the stories I like, things weren’t once good. Things were kinda barely existing, chugging along on status quo and THEN something awful happens. Does that reveal something about my mindset, like an inkblot test? I mean, the movies I like , the characters mostly still come through relatively okay. A ragged hope. There’s no guarantee that things are gonna get better (certainly not in the case of Memento), but we’re gonna try and fumble along anyway, hopefully wiser, because of the journey we’ve just taken through the movie.
Unfortunately (cockapoos! Cockapoos are adorable!), the book veered off from there into telling the origins of Christianity through the classic storytelling elements of Joseph Campbell and his like, explaining the origins of God, the fall of Lucifer, there’s two worlds, a real one and a spiritual one, la la la. And I’m thinking NO! I wanna know what my role is! ME! Specifically! Give me questions that I can ask these things for myself! Don’t need to see the Adam and Eve story again. I KNOW that story! I KNOW that God is pursuing me! Still can’t feel Him though. I’m trying to figure out what my role is here! HELP ME WITH THAT! HELP ME WITH THAT!
Finally, I get close to the end of this very slim book, and on page 100, it says,
Now, what is YOUR part? What is your role in the Story? In truth, the only one who can tell you that is the Author. To find our lives, we must turn to Jesus. We must yield our all to him and ask him to restore us as his own. We ask his forgiveness for our betrayal of him. We ask him to make us all he intended us to be – to tell us who we are and what we are now to do. We ask him to remove the veil from our eyes and from our hearts. It might be good to pause and do that right now.
Hmm. I’m not asking the question Who am I? I’m Amy The Writer. I always have been. Never wanted to be much else in terms of a profession. Emotionally is a whole other circus. Who am I emotionally? I’m someone who wants to love and be loved in return. I’m someone who wants to be married someday, (and it’s taken me YEARS to not be afraid to put that statement out there, because don’t you instantly get the image of some whiny clingy Please Please Please Don’t LEAVE Me Girl? That’s not me. THAT’S NOT ME.
I want to be married someday because I want to love, I want to be loved, and I want to know that person is committed to doing that for the rest of our lives, as opposed to putting in three to five years and then taking off. My buddy Georgina wrote about it in an essay and described it as “diving off a cliff while praying you’re holding the hand of someone who’s not afraid to fly.”) I’m someone who wants to trust, and who continually gets that trust abused. That’s not new, that’s everyone. People let you down, especially people here in flaky Los Angeles. Move on, move on, nothing to mope about here. (puppies in casts are cute. Sad, but cute.)But the Telling Me What I Am Now To Do. Well, that would sure be swell, and something I ask for every day. What am I supposed to do next? Is there something I’m overlooking? Some job opportunity I haven’t looked in the right place for? Am I really supposed to junk it all and go work in Legal, because at least it’s a paycheck with benefits and crap?
Man, that last section on page 100 just blows (Matthew Fox the actor is QUITE cute.) It’s just icky, smacking of “Accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior and all answers will be REVEALED!” What a bait and switch. Where’s the book that says “I asked and asked and asked and I’m still lost.”But at least I know who I am. Maybe that’s more important than the next step. I suppose, if you had two doors on the game show, and you could pick between This Is Who You Are, and This Is The Next Step You Should Take, most people, hell, I’d probably even take the Next Step door. But it certainly feels like, in a crappy Lesson Learned In The Last Ten Minutes Of A Sitcom, that you should’ve gone for the Who Am I Door.
So I guess I’m ahead of the game. I hope.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Enforced Secret Joy # 37 – Japanese Irises
These days, whenever I’m feeling on the blue side, I make sure I seek out a flower. Maybe it’s a chick thing, maybe because it’s really easy to find them at work, as I think it’s mandated by somebody that when you put enough concrete to fill the Super Bowl, you have to balance it out with grass and flowers.But this particular Japanese Iris is among many that grow in my front yard. They came with the house, we didn’t have to cultivate them or anything. And as usual, I am gobsmacked by everything that’s going on in the middle of them. Whenever you feel like God has left the building, look at the inside of a flower.
Dear Lord, thank you for Japanese Irises. Thank you that I get to see them every day in my front yard. Thank you for their delicate snowy white petals, the splashes of yellow on the petals, the inner purple blossoms, and the amazing tiger striped markings that cap the whole thing off. I know tiger striped probably isn’t the right word, but You know what I mean. Thank you for beauty. Thank you for your attention to detail.
Thank you that something so jaw droppingly amazing grows in my front yard, not because I asked for it, but probably because I didn’t ask for it. You like to surprise me, don’t You. Thank you for turning my head with such gorgeousness. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Amen.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Still here
See, the problem with no holds barred blogging is that as soon as you start to gripe about something, 24 hours go by and it turns out to be nothing at all, so you look like a dumbass. So if I put up a post that says things are drop dead awful, and I’m not posting until Sunday, then things straighten themselves out so I COULD have posted Sunday.
If I wasn’t so tired.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, last week sucked on a variety of fronts. And the thought did hit me in the midst of the maelstrom that You know what? Life hasn’t been too peachy since you lost your job in August. You’ve been struggling for eight months now.
Even writing that sentence sags me down. Eight months. My God. I’ve been fighting for eight months to find a better job, to find a permanent job, to find a job I like. I’ve been fighting to write a script, to rewrite a script, to write a better script, one that I like (harder that it sounds, I don’t like a lot of the stuff I write.) I’ve been trying to change my life, to live a better life, to live a life I like.
Something has GOT to change, in the form of movement on the script, or a call about a job interview, something has to start to go right, it just HAS to. And maybe this is all eight months of laying groundwork, and a faboo opportunity is just around the corner, and won’t we all laugh about this a month from now.
I’ve never temped this long before. I’ve never had to, as God’s providence has funneled me into permanent jobs from temp agency placements from day one. There’s none of that here. I wonder what God’s trying to do here.
See, already I’m bumming myself out. I’ve been trying to be upbeat, to squash the nasty gnats of negativity. Trying to cheer myself up in unusual ways, such as singing “Possession” to Baby Hazel at Thursday night’s Small Group. The Duran Duran medley didn’t do it. Every Breath You Take didn’t do it. The Sarah McLachlan medley did it, put her right out. And I found a special perverse joy in singing these lyrics to her:
and I would be the one
to hold you down
kiss you so hard
I'll take your breath away
and after, I'd wipe away the tears
just close your eyes dear
This is gonna be one messed up kid when she grows up, and I can say I did my part, ha ha ha.
I’ve been reading Jane Espenson’s blog , and even though she talks mainly TV writing, I find it helpful when she talks about the different ways you can set up a joke. Jane is so cheery and positive, and reports what she’s had for lunch that day cradled in adjectives like Zing! Delish! Magnificent! I find myself wanting to be cheery and positive like her. She, of course, has the benefit of writing for Buffy The Vampire Slayer for five years. I’d be positive too if I just struck a new two year deal with a network. Wonder what she would’ve blogged about in the days before her career took off. Would she have been as worried as I worry I sound like now? (yeah, read that sentence again. I swear it makes sense.)
To try and quell the internal demons that have been throwing a kegger inside me Everybody in! We’re doing shots! I’ve tried to think Happy Religious Thoughts, about how God/Jesus is with me every step of the way. Literally, every step of the way as I make my way through this Dilbert environment of cubicles, Xerox machines, Sanjaya jokes on the kitchen whiteboard and powdered Crystal Delight. It’s not going so good, because I keep getting tripped up on Jesus in a New Testament robe, and wouldn’t He get a lot of stares from people and would He wait outside the bathroom for me, or if He’s with me everywhere, does He avert His gaze if He does come into the bathroom with me, because the bathroom’s where I’ve been having a lot of crying fits these days…
So I settled on angels. Angels surrounding me. C’mon, everyone likes angels. Even people who say they don’t believe in Jesus love the idea of angels. Everyone digs the whole Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest Shakespeare quote.
So I have been actively concentrating and dreaming up flights of angels surrounding me. Supporting me, cradling me in their fluffy wings. They’re guy angels, of course, so I can rest against their chiseled chests, and occasionally they’ll smooth back my hair. And though they’re angels, they’re not wearing white, because no guy looks good in white. They’re wearing muted earth tones, and they all look damn hot. They watch me as I type, but they don’t give editorial opinions, though I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re shooting each other know-it-all glances about what I’m writing.
I wouldn’t ask them to help me. They’re not God, and God’s the only one who can help me (and I’m sure He will, any day now, would love for it to be sooner, not later.) They’re kinda like my bodyguards, so I’m not walking alone these days. They hover protectively around me when I’m taking pictures like this one down at the Santa Monica beach today, and shield me from the bums (including the one who told me “God must’ve spent an extra fifteen minutes on you when he created you.” And no, don't even try to make the sappy parallel that the bum was an angel in disguise, because he still asked me for money.), the Boot Camp runners, and other assorted conventioneers. It may seem silly. But whatever gets me through the day, and right now, it’s them.
So to sum up: last week sucked, but I’m still alive, and my imaginary angels are hotter than yours. Onward.
If I wasn’t so tired.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, last week sucked on a variety of fronts. And the thought did hit me in the midst of the maelstrom that You know what? Life hasn’t been too peachy since you lost your job in August. You’ve been struggling for eight months now.
Even writing that sentence sags me down. Eight months. My God. I’ve been fighting for eight months to find a better job, to find a permanent job, to find a job I like. I’ve been fighting to write a script, to rewrite a script, to write a better script, one that I like (harder that it sounds, I don’t like a lot of the stuff I write.) I’ve been trying to change my life, to live a better life, to live a life I like.
Something has GOT to change, in the form of movement on the script, or a call about a job interview, something has to start to go right, it just HAS to. And maybe this is all eight months of laying groundwork, and a faboo opportunity is just around the corner, and won’t we all laugh about this a month from now.
I’ve never temped this long before. I’ve never had to, as God’s providence has funneled me into permanent jobs from temp agency placements from day one. There’s none of that here. I wonder what God’s trying to do here.
See, already I’m bumming myself out. I’ve been trying to be upbeat, to squash the nasty gnats of negativity. Trying to cheer myself up in unusual ways, such as singing “Possession” to Baby Hazel at Thursday night’s Small Group. The Duran Duran medley didn’t do it. Every Breath You Take didn’t do it. The Sarah McLachlan medley did it, put her right out. And I found a special perverse joy in singing these lyrics to her:
and I would be the one
to hold you down
kiss you so hard
I'll take your breath away
and after, I'd wipe away the tears
just close your eyes dear
This is gonna be one messed up kid when she grows up, and I can say I did my part, ha ha ha.
I’ve been reading Jane Espenson’s blog , and even though she talks mainly TV writing, I find it helpful when she talks about the different ways you can set up a joke. Jane is so cheery and positive, and reports what she’s had for lunch that day cradled in adjectives like Zing! Delish! Magnificent! I find myself wanting to be cheery and positive like her. She, of course, has the benefit of writing for Buffy The Vampire Slayer for five years. I’d be positive too if I just struck a new two year deal with a network. Wonder what she would’ve blogged about in the days before her career took off. Would she have been as worried as I worry I sound like now? (yeah, read that sentence again. I swear it makes sense.)
To try and quell the internal demons that have been throwing a kegger inside me Everybody in! We’re doing shots! I’ve tried to think Happy Religious Thoughts, about how God/Jesus is with me every step of the way. Literally, every step of the way as I make my way through this Dilbert environment of cubicles, Xerox machines, Sanjaya jokes on the kitchen whiteboard and powdered Crystal Delight. It’s not going so good, because I keep getting tripped up on Jesus in a New Testament robe, and wouldn’t He get a lot of stares from people and would He wait outside the bathroom for me, or if He’s with me everywhere, does He avert His gaze if He does come into the bathroom with me, because the bathroom’s where I’ve been having a lot of crying fits these days…
So I settled on angels. Angels surrounding me. C’mon, everyone likes angels. Even people who say they don’t believe in Jesus love the idea of angels. Everyone digs the whole Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest Shakespeare quote.
So I have been actively concentrating and dreaming up flights of angels surrounding me. Supporting me, cradling me in their fluffy wings. They’re guy angels, of course, so I can rest against their chiseled chests, and occasionally they’ll smooth back my hair. And though they’re angels, they’re not wearing white, because no guy looks good in white. They’re wearing muted earth tones, and they all look damn hot. They watch me as I type, but they don’t give editorial opinions, though I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re shooting each other know-it-all glances about what I’m writing.
I wouldn’t ask them to help me. They’re not God, and God’s the only one who can help me (and I’m sure He will, any day now, would love for it to be sooner, not later.) They’re kinda like my bodyguards, so I’m not walking alone these days. They hover protectively around me when I’m taking pictures like this one down at the Santa Monica beach today, and shield me from the bums (including the one who told me “God must’ve spent an extra fifteen minutes on you when he created you.” And no, don't even try to make the sappy parallel that the bum was an angel in disguise, because he still asked me for money.), the Boot Camp runners, and other assorted conventioneers. It may seem silly. But whatever gets me through the day, and right now, it’s them.So to sum up: last week sucked, but I’m still alive, and my imaginary angels are hotter than yours. Onward.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
No posts this week
I'm strung out. Tired. Hanging by the proverbial thread, and I see it snapping.
Check back Sunday.
Send prayer, good thoughts, chocolate and cute puppies.
Love,
Amy The Writer
Check back Sunday.
Send prayer, good thoughts, chocolate and cute puppies.
Love,
Amy The Writer
Sunday, April 15, 2007
On Deadline...
Today's post will be delayed to late tomorrow or possibly Tuesday as I work my ass off to finish the best draft of the Purple Monkey script, which is due at 6pm tomorrow.
Meanwhile, please enjoy this message from our favorite Happy Bunny...
Meanwhile, please enjoy this message from our favorite Happy Bunny...
Friday, April 13, 2007
Enforced Secret Joy #36 – The Orchids in the Lobby
The Temp Agency has funneled me to the very same Pay TV/Pay Per View division that I turned down a regular job at, because I said here that I didn’t have to settle. This assignment isn’t settling per se, it’s a month long, which is good (steady income) and bad (so boring I want to sandpaper my elbows for any kind of new experience.)But there is one lovely thing about it, and that is the orchid plants that greet me in the lobby every day I arrive to take the elevator up to Hell – The Boring Circle.
The first time I saw these things I thought they were fake. Most times I see orchids they’re either fake, or they’re in the process of dying. Roomie Jekyll, in particular, has single handedly killed at least two on her own (she thought she didn’t have to water them. She probably thought they were fake.)
But no, these are indeed real. There’s some crazy miniature detail going on up close, the kind that makes you think they have to be fake, because there’s no real nature-like reason for this kind of intricacy. Yes, you can claim Natural Selection has prompted these plants to grow this kind of complexity so they will attract the birds and bees that’ll pollinate them and blah blah blah. Fi on that, I say. Because the maroon brush strokes would’ve been enough. The yellow pollen buds with maroon speckles would’ve been enough. And that ever so delicate tendril curling back in on itself would’ve been enough. But to put ALL of those things together on one single plant defies the law of Attraction/Pollination. It has to be God. Dear God, thank you for the orchids in the lobby. Thank you that they’re real, thank you for their amazing beauty. Thank you for being a God that cares enough to provide a month long assignment for me (even if it’s a job I’d rather yack my liver out than do full time), as well as being a God who takes the time to clothe these orchid petals with jaw-dropping features. Nothing is overlooked in Your sight, God. From the earth, to the air, to the ground, to my scuffed up boots to these feather like petals. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Amen.
Sunday, April 08, 2007
I Am An Unfinished Metaphor
So yesterday, I skipped off to donate blood. My grand master plan had two parts to it – donating blood would get the Red Cross to stop calling me every week (Since I lost my job at Unnamed Movie Studio Number 1 last year, it’s been impossible to find a location convenient to me that would do a drive on the weekends), and I would also get to fulfill a lovely Easter metaphor. Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior shed His blood on the cross for me, so I would shed it for someone else. It’s a beautiful circle of life, it is: He did it for me, I do it for someone else, I write a blog entry about it and inspire others to do the same, and I get juice and COOKIES to boot.
And I’m all set. Got my camera, to take a picture of the full bag o’ me when it’s over, got my Bible, which is a comforting Teddy Bear like presence when being stuck with a sharp object.
With this kind of build up, you know something’s about to go horribly awry, right?
As I’m sitting there, reading Ephesians from the beginning, to properly understand Chapter 5 in full context, it occurs to me that, damn, I’ve been here awhile. Maybe it just feels like awhile. When you know there’s a needle in your arm, the seconds just DRAG. I don’t wanna be known as a Problem Patient, so I don’t say anything, and continue to read Chapter 2, But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. Uh-huh, blood shed for me, I shed for others, I’m not comparing myself to Jesus, but I can shed blood easily enough to help other people, check, check check,
The technician who did the initial needle stick has vanished, so another technician checks on my bag, and calls a second one over. Uh-oh. Never a good sign when a blood technician calls for a second opinion to check anything attached to you. My blood flow is still going, still going, just slowly…oh wait, it’s stopped all together. More looks passed between the technicians standing over me. Guys, I can totally see you. They ask me who the woman was that did the needle stick, and I describe her, though I don’t know her name. Someone else says she’s on break. So these current technicians shrug. “I don’t wanna adjust it,” one tells the other, “The blame doesn’t go on your record, it goes on the one who did the initial stick,” the other replies. Blame? Uh oh.
It’s here that I realize that the last name I donated at this location (the Crazy Koo Koo Church from last year) was the first time I ever gave blood, and that was where they stuck me in both arms, and gave me horrible bruises that made it look like I was on heroin. Here we are, over a year later, and it’s another bad needle job. People complain about bad customer service at banks, restaurants, insurance companies. But blood drives? Yes, Virginia, you too can get bad needle sticks.
They remove the needle, “It’s been in there for twenty minutes, and nothing’s happening,” he explains. He also calls for a bag of ice, and there’s already some bruising going on. He lifts up the bag, it’s half full. I ask him if he can use what’s been collected, he says no. “So you’re just gonna destroy it?” “Yep.” “But Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior shed his blood for me. I have to complete the Easter metaphor.” The technician laughs and says not to worry about it. Wraps the arm with ice and a bandage. Gives me the usual admonition not to lift anything heavy, or to exercise for 24 hours, and sends me off to the Juice and Cookie table.
And I’m sad. Not upset, I don’t get upset anymore, but I’m sad. I feel like I haven’t really EARNED this grape juice, I haven’t earned this bag of Famous Amos cookies, I haven’t earned the T-shirt they gave me that says Warning, Prone to Unexpected Acts of Heroism. I faced the dreaded needle, I sat there for 20 minutes, and it’s all for nothing. I save nobody today. My blood was shed…and will now be destroyed.
I am an unfinished metaphor on Easter weekend. This blows.
As I make my way to my car, I get to wondering whether every experience you have in life is SUPPOSED to have meaning attached to it. Are we supposed to attach deeper meaning to everything, be it getting out of a car, or watering plants in your back yard, or knee deep in your script rewrite, or giving blood? Or do you drive yourself crazy wondering why this, that and the other just happened. Is it really that some things in life just happen, and they have no meaning at all? If God is sovereign over all our lives, if there’s that cloying phrase that “God is in the details”, isn’t everything SUPPOSED to mean something? One of my Act One teachers sent an email recently saying “If you go looking for God in your daily experience, you’ll find him.” And here I was, reading Ephesians in the midst of a misbegotten blood draw, so where was He? I mean, I could cobble something bleggity like how I’m saved regardless of the works (i.e. donating blood) I do, but that would be an intellectual cobbling, not a present Whack Me Upside The Head Hey, There’s GOD! Experience.
It then occurs to me that um, Hellooooooo. You’re always gonna be a work in progress. You’re never gonna be done. If you WERE done, if you WERE a completed metaphor, you’d be dead. And you would never even know if the metaphor made sense, because you’d be gone.
Right. Right.
Well at the very least, I know I’m never giving blood at THIS location again. Maybe that was the meaning I was supposed to get.
And I’m all set. Got my camera, to take a picture of the full bag o’ me when it’s over, got my Bible, which is a comforting Teddy Bear like presence when being stuck with a sharp object.
With this kind of build up, you know something’s about to go horribly awry, right?
As I’m sitting there, reading Ephesians from the beginning, to properly understand Chapter 5 in full context, it occurs to me that, damn, I’ve been here awhile. Maybe it just feels like awhile. When you know there’s a needle in your arm, the seconds just DRAG. I don’t wanna be known as a Problem Patient, so I don’t say anything, and continue to read Chapter 2, But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. Uh-huh, blood shed for me, I shed for others, I’m not comparing myself to Jesus, but I can shed blood easily enough to help other people, check, check check,
The technician who did the initial needle stick has vanished, so another technician checks on my bag, and calls a second one over. Uh-oh. Never a good sign when a blood technician calls for a second opinion to check anything attached to you. My blood flow is still going, still going, just slowly…oh wait, it’s stopped all together. More looks passed between the technicians standing over me. Guys, I can totally see you. They ask me who the woman was that did the needle stick, and I describe her, though I don’t know her name. Someone else says she’s on break. So these current technicians shrug. “I don’t wanna adjust it,” one tells the other, “The blame doesn’t go on your record, it goes on the one who did the initial stick,” the other replies. Blame? Uh oh.
It’s here that I realize that the last name I donated at this location (the Crazy Koo Koo Church from last year) was the first time I ever gave blood, and that was where they stuck me in both arms, and gave me horrible bruises that made it look like I was on heroin. Here we are, over a year later, and it’s another bad needle job. People complain about bad customer service at banks, restaurants, insurance companies. But blood drives? Yes, Virginia, you too can get bad needle sticks.
They remove the needle, “It’s been in there for twenty minutes, and nothing’s happening,” he explains. He also calls for a bag of ice, and there’s already some bruising going on. He lifts up the bag, it’s half full. I ask him if he can use what’s been collected, he says no. “So you’re just gonna destroy it?” “Yep.” “But Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior shed his blood for me. I have to complete the Easter metaphor.” The technician laughs and says not to worry about it. Wraps the arm with ice and a bandage. Gives me the usual admonition not to lift anything heavy, or to exercise for 24 hours, and sends me off to the Juice and Cookie table.
And I’m sad. Not upset, I don’t get upset anymore, but I’m sad. I feel like I haven’t really EARNED this grape juice, I haven’t earned this bag of Famous Amos cookies, I haven’t earned the T-shirt they gave me that says Warning, Prone to Unexpected Acts of Heroism. I faced the dreaded needle, I sat there for 20 minutes, and it’s all for nothing. I save nobody today. My blood was shed…and will now be destroyed.
I am an unfinished metaphor on Easter weekend. This blows.
As I make my way to my car, I get to wondering whether every experience you have in life is SUPPOSED to have meaning attached to it. Are we supposed to attach deeper meaning to everything, be it getting out of a car, or watering plants in your back yard, or knee deep in your script rewrite, or giving blood? Or do you drive yourself crazy wondering why this, that and the other just happened. Is it really that some things in life just happen, and they have no meaning at all? If God is sovereign over all our lives, if there’s that cloying phrase that “God is in the details”, isn’t everything SUPPOSED to mean something? One of my Act One teachers sent an email recently saying “If you go looking for God in your daily experience, you’ll find him.” And here I was, reading Ephesians in the midst of a misbegotten blood draw, so where was He? I mean, I could cobble something bleggity like how I’m saved regardless of the works (i.e. donating blood) I do, but that would be an intellectual cobbling, not a present Whack Me Upside The Head Hey, There’s GOD! Experience.
It then occurs to me that um, Hellooooooo. You’re always gonna be a work in progress. You’re never gonna be done. If you WERE done, if you WERE a completed metaphor, you’d be dead. And you would never even know if the metaphor made sense, because you’d be gone.
Right. Right.
Well at the very least, I know I’m never giving blood at THIS location again. Maybe that was the meaning I was supposed to get.
Friday, April 06, 2007
Enforced Secret Joy #35 – Spike The Standup
It’s Easter week, a week that’s supposed to be filled with reverence, respect, and humbling gratitude. So let’s talk about Spike the Standup! (yes, yes, I know, and trust me, I am super thankful that Jesus Christ died for my sins on the cross, but what’s life without a little irreverence, eh?)
This is Spike the Standup. He’s from Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel . He can be the first thing I see in the morning, provided I wake up on my right side. He was a Christmas present a few years ago from Agatha and Bug, and the history of how Spike the Standup crossed the nation, and spent more than a few days in James Marsters trailer waiting for the authentic autograph (word is that James Marsters was upset that he blew the initial scrawl that results in the blob on the A in my name) is proof that Agatha and Bug are really devoted to getting me birthday presents, or are scarily single-minded in their quest to get things done.
He has also scared Roomie Jekyll a few times, when we have to move everything away from the walls when the pest control people come, and she won’t be paying attention as she passes by my room, and does a double take, thinking there’s a blond vampire in there. There are worse problems to have, ha ha ha.
Anyhow, Spike The Standup reigns in the corner of my room and makes me smile, because it’s impossible to look at him in the corner and NOT smile. He’s so serious looking, so oooh, look at me, I’m SMOLDERING, and he’s a Standup. (you can’t see it in the pictures, but he’s also sporting a half/boot half/sneaker shoes that suspiciously look like they came from Easy Spirit. HA!)
Dear God, thank you for Spike the Standup. Thank you for the generosity of Agatha and Bug. Thank you that not all presents have to be clothes, or socks, or whatever. Some presents can be silly fun. Thank you for the actor James Marsters. Thank you for Agatha’s friends that got the standup to him to sign. Thank you for silly poofy smoldering pouts that make me laugh first thing in the morning. Thank you for laughter. Thank you for the little things, in the midst of the Big Thing of Easter Week. Thank you for sending your Son to die for my sins, for Agatha’s sins, for Bug sins, and for James Marsters’ sins. Thank you that He died for ALL of our sins. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Amen.
This is Spike the Standup. He’s from Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel . He can be the first thing I see in the morning, provided I wake up on my right side. He was a Christmas present a few years ago from Agatha and Bug, and the history of how Spike the Standup crossed the nation, and spent more than a few days in James Marsters trailer waiting for the authentic autograph (word is that James Marsters was upset that he blew the initial scrawl that results in the blob on the A in my name) is proof that Agatha and Bug are really devoted to getting me birthday presents, or are scarily single-minded in their quest to get things done. He has also scared Roomie Jekyll a few times, when we have to move everything away from the walls when the pest control people come, and she won’t be paying attention as she passes by my room, and does a double take, thinking there’s a blond vampire in there. There are worse problems to have, ha ha ha.
Anyhow, Spike The Standup reigns in the corner of my room and makes me smile, because it’s impossible to look at him in the corner and NOT smile. He’s so serious looking, so oooh, look at me, I’m SMOLDERING, and he’s a Standup. (you can’t see it in the pictures, but he’s also sporting a half/boot half/sneaker shoes that suspiciously look like they came from Easy Spirit. HA!)
Dear God, thank you for Spike the Standup. Thank you for the generosity of Agatha and Bug. Thank you that not all presents have to be clothes, or socks, or whatever. Some presents can be silly fun. Thank you for the actor James Marsters. Thank you for Agatha’s friends that got the standup to him to sign. Thank you for silly poofy smoldering pouts that make me laugh first thing in the morning. Thank you for laughter. Thank you for the little things, in the midst of the Big Thing of Easter Week. Thank you for sending your Son to die for my sins, for Agatha’s sins, for Bug sins, and for James Marsters’ sins. Thank you that He died for ALL of our sins. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Amen.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Amy The Baby Whisperer
You guys see this? You guys see Baby Hazel, right? See how she’s sleeping? See how she’s sleeping in my arms? Guess what, when I first took her from her mom at Small Group last week, she was yowling her head off. Fretting and crying and sounding not unlike an exotic jungle bird AHHH! AHHH! AHHH! Hazel was not having a good night at Small Group, and not because we’re going through Chapter 5 of Ephesians with its many list of don’ts. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk, or coarse joking…have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness…do not be foolish…do not get drunk on wine (doesn’t say anything about margaritas! Yay!)
I wanted to give Hazel’s mom a break, so I volunteered to hold Hazel to see if I could get her to calm down without stuffing a dishrag in her mouth. But I was also secretly wanting to hold her, she would be the youngest baby I’ve ever held (now up to 17 days old.)
So Hazel’s mom handed her over, and I did the standard walk and rock routine that’s probably genetically programmed into every woman, regardless if they want kids or not. Hazel’s maybe seven or eight pounds or so, and it was quite interesting to feel those tiny lungs expand underneath the grip of my hands as she AHHH! AHHH! AHHH! ed her frustration at, at, at, what? Diaper’s fine. She doesn’t want milk. She can see mom over my shoulder. Oh, it’s life. Trust me, I feel like AHHH! AHHH! AHHH! ing my way through life these days too, little one. Oh, yes I do.
So I started crooning 80s songs to her, in one of those half whisper, half singing styles. I started with my favorite 80s song to sing to a baby, which would be Til Tuesday’s “Voices Carry.” (I start with verse 2.)
I try so hard not to get upset.
Because I know all the trouble I’ll get
Oh, he tells me tears are something to hide
And something to fear
And I try so hard to keep it inside
So no one can hear
Hush, keep it down now. Voices carry.
I pulled this one on Winifred’s newborn over the Christmas holiday and it seemed to work out pretty well, though he was already in his baby chair. This is trying to soothe a cranky baby, which is quite the different story.
But she stopped fretting and started watching me sing. It’s the lipstick, I think. I have the penchant for wearing it 24/7, unless I’m at the gym. Or asleep. Or I forgot to take it off.
I took the walk and rock routine into the kitchen, where the light is off. I’m suspecting that she WANTS to go to sleep, she just needs the darkness to edge her along. Like throwing a blanket over the bird’s cage so it thinks it’s nighttime and time to go to sleep.
I switch to Big Country’s, “In A Big Country”
I’ve never seen you look like this without a reason
Another promise fallen through, another season passes by you.
I never took the smile away from anybody’s face
And that’s a desperate way to look for someone who is still a child.
In a big country dreams stay with you
Like a lover’s voice fires the mountainside
Stay alive
I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered
But you can’t stay here with every single hope you had shattered.
See, I think Hazel needs to learn these things sooner rather than later, ha ha ha.
But soon, soon, sooner than soon, her little eyelids fluttered closed, and yes, she did fall asleep. Because of me! I did it! I sang and rocked that baby to sleep! I won the Baby Whisperer Game! Yay me!
I wanted to make sure she truly was asleep, so I kept rocking and walking in circles around the kitchen. Looking at this tiny thing asleep in my arms.
I LOVE being held. I dig it so much. If every day was Christmas in Amyland, I’d be carried around by a big strong man all day. I LOVE snuggling on the couch with a dude. I wouldn’t force him to watch Grey’s Anatomy, we could watch whatever, as long as I can curl up next to him. And yeah, it unfortunately has to be a guy. The girly thing where we get manicures and braid our hair, and hug each other in Girly Solidarity doesn’t do a thing for me. It has to be a guy. It’s the attraction to strength, I think.
But it’s such a primal thing, to want to be held. You feel safe, you feel secure. You feel like the person holding you will take care of you, or at least won’t drop you. Somebody else is in charge for a change, and that person knows exactly what’s going on, and that person is here for you, he’s got you, and he’s not going to let you fall.
And I know the obvious parallel, that what I’m describing is exactly what God the Father is supposed to be. Not supposed to be. He is. But again, the Great Agony of my life is that I don’t FEEL it. And if I’m supposed to feel God’s love through interactions with other people, I’m not getting that either.
But I can be it for Baby Hazel. I can be the things for other people that I want people to be for me. And hopefully it’ll come back around in some form or another and I will be nestled in somebody’s arms someday.
And as I walked back out into the living room, displaying the Sleeping Hazel like a triumphant hunting trophy, Hazel’s mom said yay and we took the picture to prove that it happened. And I was indeed a conquering hero, for about 20 minutes.
Until Hazel woke up again and started to cry. That’s when I left. HA!
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