Hot damn, guys! They finally did it! Here it is, you guys gotta check it out!
Stuffonmymutt.com
The dogs featured are not mutts, but that was the available domain, since a squatter has stuffonmydog.com , and isn’t giving it up for anything.
Ah heaven. Ah bliss. Yes, most of them are clothes related, but it’s in its beginning stages of the site, people. Cut them some slack.
Dear God, thank you for stuffonmymutt.com. Thank you for Mario, who runs the site. Thank you for funny pictures of stuff on dogs (and cats too), they make me smile. Thank you that the simplest things can make your heart lighter, even if it’s just for a moment. Or two. Or three. Thank you for dogs. Thank you for reaffirming that there’s nothing funnier than a long suffering dog whose owner covers it in shamrock stickers. HA! Thanks especially for that one, God. Who says You don’t have a sense of humor, right? Thank you, thank you, thank you. Amen.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Surely, you're sure? No?
I am going to try and create a meaningful blog entry here. One with personal touches, insights into Amyland that still retain the sheen of Universal Truth, and a well wrapped concluding paragraph that makes one go “Huh. I liked this one.” I used to write more of those last year, but that’s the bonus of Year One of any blog, you’ve got a lot to say.
And it’s not as though I don’t have ANYTHING to say, but it’s not feeling new and fresh. I want to write something new and fresh, like, like, a new brand of panty liner or something.
See?
Ah well, here we go regardless.
I’ve been chugging through Kris Young’s “Getting Through The First Draft Of Your Life 40 Devotionals For Screenwriters,” and I think it’s best to be reading these if you are in fact working on a script. Luckily, I am, I’m in the midst of a giant overhaul on the Purple Monkey script, and it’s due on April 15th, and I know I’ll get there, even though my mentors who are overseeing this overhaul left me with these parting words, “Don’t treat it like it’s your first draft, treat it like it’s your best draft, and really knock this out of the park, because this is one of those once in a career lifetime ideas.”
So absolutely no pressure.
A lot of what Kris has said in the devotionals really resonates with me:
From Rah Rah You’re GREAT things like “No one in human history will ever write in the same unique and marvelous way God designed you to write”
to Things You Should Do (That I’m Already Doing And Thus Freaks Me Out Because If I’m Doing What I’m Supposed To Be Doing Where’s The Fruits Of The Labor?) “Wake up very early in the morning while it’s still dark, leaving the house to a solitary place to…pray.” (My solitary place to pray is on the ellipticals in the gym, to me, this still counts, it keeps you amazingly focused.)
to Whoa, That’s An Interesting Perspective, And I’m Totally Using It, “If you create work that God deems Good…He promises it will be conspicuous/prominent/noticeable/outstanding/celebrated/famous. And even if it doesn’t seem that way from your or their P.O.V. at this time, God whose P.O.V. is outside of time sees the Truth…Good Work cannot remain hidden. (inspired by 1 Timothy 5:25)”
But there was this one that I was a little puzzled by. And I shouldn’t be, really, because it’s everyone’s favorite Psalm, Psalm 23. For those of you who don’t wanna crack a Bible, it’s the one that starts, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” He makes me lie in green pastures, and leads me beside rivers, and I walk through valleys of shadows and death and stuff but I’m not scared because God’s with me YIPPEE! (my paraphrase.)
This particular devotional focused on verse 6, and he’s using the good ole King James version, which is “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” Kris goes on to craft a devotional that calls for the screenwriter not to panic, even during the Sahara Dessert of the Second Act, even when you’re doing everything possible to do something, anything to jump start your career, joining writers groups, entering contests, attending seminars and classes, and then you lie awake at night thinking you’re a failure. Actually, the way Kris phrases it is this:
“And then you look at all the silly scripts you’re spent months, maybe years writing – and all you can do is just lay down and die. You’ll go to sleep and never write another script again.”
Which sent a cold shiver of recognition within me, as I’ve thought on more than one occasion this month alone that “Now would be an EXCELLENT time for a car to hit me and put me out of my misery.” You all know I think that’s how I’m going out, right? Whenever my number’s called, whatever day that is, I have a very clear picture that it’s coming on the hood of an out of control car. Or a plane wreck. But I prefer the car, since I’m the only one that’s in harm’s way. No fair taking innocent civilians along with me.
Regardless, Kris perks himself up from the Failure Bubble by remembering verse 6 of the 23rd Psalm, ‘Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” And Kris reasons, “If God says Goodness and Mercy’s been following me all my life and God is not a liar…then maybe Goodness and Mercy are walking and I’m running…maybe all I need to do is slow down. Stop and wait.
The ultimate thing that Kris is saying is that the screenwriter needs to slow down and wait. To “Wait on the Lord. Renew your strength, Rest in Him. Lie down in green pastures. And wait for Goodness and Mercy to catch up to you see what a difference that makes. Then write.”
Check Kris out, he’s hit at least two or three of the more annoying platitudes I blogged about last year, ha ha ha.
But ironically, that’s not what I have a problem with (eh, I still have a problem with those platitudes, but I have no new and fresh panty liner ideas to go through it again.) I have a problem with thinking “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life” is a promise from God. God’s not saying the 23rd Psalm. David is. It’s not like when Jesus says at the end of Matthew, “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (and you can argue all you want about whether it’s Jesus or Matthew saying it for Jesus.)
I read “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life”, hell I read the whole 23rd Psalm as someone who’s desperately trying to reassure themselves that God is indeed there, and yes, God will take care of you, and yes God will provide for you, even though you slept with Bathsheba and sent her husband to the front lines of the war to be killed on purpose so you could continue to shag her, and whoa, that’s really f’ed up, but surely, SURELY “Goodness and Mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.”
It’s not a promise from God to me, it’s a desperate hope from me to God.
The same kind of desperate hope that I go to sleep with every night, “it’s gonna work out. No really. It will. It doesn’t look like it will at this minute, with money evaporating out of my bank account due to no steady job and bills and someone stealing my glasses (what kind of f’ed up person steals someone’s prescription GLASSES?!) so I had to drop bucks to get new ones, and that vacation I insisted on taking for my birthday. Never mind all THAT. It’s gonna work out. Right? Right? Because you’re God and you’re good and you’re gonna work it all out, and THEN Goodness and Mercy shall follow me all days of my life, right? Right? PLEASE TELL ME I’M RIGHT.”
I think it’s the word Surely. Surely, I have a problem with surely. Let me crack my dictionary. It says Surely is “With assurance or confidence, in a sure unhesitating manner. Without a doubt, assuredly, unquestionably, certainly.”
Okay, I’m wrong. Why do I always think that when Surely is used, it’s as something to be battened down like a stray fly? A-ha! Dictionary goes on to say “often used as an intensive emphasizing a supposition, “Surely you don’t believe that!”
I think maybe modern day culture has devalued the use of the word Surely. Surely you jest. See!? Right there. Whenever anyone uses it, it’s with snarky sarcastic undertones.
Surely Goodness and Mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. Surely, you’re mistaken. Surely, I’m not. Surely = the verbal life raft of the desperately hopeful.
Surely, things are going to get better.
Surely, I will get my bills paid.
Surely, I will get a job (I have an interview tomorrow, so there’s that.)
Surely, I will sell a script.
Surely, God has a plan for me.
Surely, God knows what’s around the bend,
Surely, God has great things in store.
Surely, I believe that. And if Goodness and Mercy are tagging along somewhere, groovy. They are officially welcome to show up during my nocturnal panic sessions and stomp on my face We’re HERE, we’re HERE, we’re HERE.
You know, the more times you type or read the word surely, the more it looks like you’ve mistyped, and you’re trying to type the word surly.
That makes me smile.
And it’s not as though I don’t have ANYTHING to say, but it’s not feeling new and fresh. I want to write something new and fresh, like, like, a new brand of panty liner or something.
See?
Ah well, here we go regardless.
I’ve been chugging through Kris Young’s “Getting Through The First Draft Of Your Life 40 Devotionals For Screenwriters,” and I think it’s best to be reading these if you are in fact working on a script. Luckily, I am, I’m in the midst of a giant overhaul on the Purple Monkey script, and it’s due on April 15th, and I know I’ll get there, even though my mentors who are overseeing this overhaul left me with these parting words, “Don’t treat it like it’s your first draft, treat it like it’s your best draft, and really knock this out of the park, because this is one of those once in a career lifetime ideas.”
So absolutely no pressure.
A lot of what Kris has said in the devotionals really resonates with me:
From Rah Rah You’re GREAT things like “No one in human history will ever write in the same unique and marvelous way God designed you to write”
to Things You Should Do (That I’m Already Doing And Thus Freaks Me Out Because If I’m Doing What I’m Supposed To Be Doing Where’s The Fruits Of The Labor?) “Wake up very early in the morning while it’s still dark, leaving the house to a solitary place to…pray.” (My solitary place to pray is on the ellipticals in the gym, to me, this still counts, it keeps you amazingly focused.)
to Whoa, That’s An Interesting Perspective, And I’m Totally Using It, “If you create work that God deems Good…He promises it will be conspicuous/prominent/noticeable/outstanding/celebrated/famous. And even if it doesn’t seem that way from your or their P.O.V. at this time, God whose P.O.V. is outside of time sees the Truth…Good Work cannot remain hidden. (inspired by 1 Timothy 5:25)”
But there was this one that I was a little puzzled by. And I shouldn’t be, really, because it’s everyone’s favorite Psalm, Psalm 23. For those of you who don’t wanna crack a Bible, it’s the one that starts, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” He makes me lie in green pastures, and leads me beside rivers, and I walk through valleys of shadows and death and stuff but I’m not scared because God’s with me YIPPEE! (my paraphrase.)
This particular devotional focused on verse 6, and he’s using the good ole King James version, which is “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” Kris goes on to craft a devotional that calls for the screenwriter not to panic, even during the Sahara Dessert of the Second Act, even when you’re doing everything possible to do something, anything to jump start your career, joining writers groups, entering contests, attending seminars and classes, and then you lie awake at night thinking you’re a failure. Actually, the way Kris phrases it is this:
“And then you look at all the silly scripts you’re spent months, maybe years writing – and all you can do is just lay down and die. You’ll go to sleep and never write another script again.”
Which sent a cold shiver of recognition within me, as I’ve thought on more than one occasion this month alone that “Now would be an EXCELLENT time for a car to hit me and put me out of my misery.” You all know I think that’s how I’m going out, right? Whenever my number’s called, whatever day that is, I have a very clear picture that it’s coming on the hood of an out of control car. Or a plane wreck. But I prefer the car, since I’m the only one that’s in harm’s way. No fair taking innocent civilians along with me.
Regardless, Kris perks himself up from the Failure Bubble by remembering verse 6 of the 23rd Psalm, ‘Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” And Kris reasons, “If God says Goodness and Mercy’s been following me all my life and God is not a liar…then maybe Goodness and Mercy are walking and I’m running…maybe all I need to do is slow down. Stop and wait.
The ultimate thing that Kris is saying is that the screenwriter needs to slow down and wait. To “Wait on the Lord. Renew your strength, Rest in Him. Lie down in green pastures. And wait for Goodness and Mercy to catch up to you see what a difference that makes. Then write.”
Check Kris out, he’s hit at least two or three of the more annoying platitudes I blogged about last year, ha ha ha.
But ironically, that’s not what I have a problem with (eh, I still have a problem with those platitudes, but I have no new and fresh panty liner ideas to go through it again.) I have a problem with thinking “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life” is a promise from God. God’s not saying the 23rd Psalm. David is. It’s not like when Jesus says at the end of Matthew, “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (and you can argue all you want about whether it’s Jesus or Matthew saying it for Jesus.)
I read “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life”, hell I read the whole 23rd Psalm as someone who’s desperately trying to reassure themselves that God is indeed there, and yes, God will take care of you, and yes God will provide for you, even though you slept with Bathsheba and sent her husband to the front lines of the war to be killed on purpose so you could continue to shag her, and whoa, that’s really f’ed up, but surely, SURELY “Goodness and Mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.”
It’s not a promise from God to me, it’s a desperate hope from me to God.
The same kind of desperate hope that I go to sleep with every night, “it’s gonna work out. No really. It will. It doesn’t look like it will at this minute, with money evaporating out of my bank account due to no steady job and bills and someone stealing my glasses (what kind of f’ed up person steals someone’s prescription GLASSES?!) so I had to drop bucks to get new ones, and that vacation I insisted on taking for my birthday. Never mind all THAT. It’s gonna work out. Right? Right? Because you’re God and you’re good and you’re gonna work it all out, and THEN Goodness and Mercy shall follow me all days of my life, right? Right? PLEASE TELL ME I’M RIGHT.”
I think it’s the word Surely. Surely, I have a problem with surely. Let me crack my dictionary. It says Surely is “With assurance or confidence, in a sure unhesitating manner. Without a doubt, assuredly, unquestionably, certainly.”
Okay, I’m wrong. Why do I always think that when Surely is used, it’s as something to be battened down like a stray fly? A-ha! Dictionary goes on to say “often used as an intensive emphasizing a supposition, “Surely you don’t believe that!”
I think maybe modern day culture has devalued the use of the word Surely. Surely you jest. See!? Right there. Whenever anyone uses it, it’s with snarky sarcastic undertones.Surely Goodness and Mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. Surely, you’re mistaken. Surely, I’m not. Surely = the verbal life raft of the desperately hopeful.
Surely, things are going to get better.
Surely, I will get my bills paid.
Surely, I will get a job (I have an interview tomorrow, so there’s that.)
Surely, I will sell a script.
Surely, God has a plan for me.
Surely, God knows what’s around the bend,
Surely, God has great things in store.
Surely, I believe that. And if Goodness and Mercy are tagging along somewhere, groovy. They are officially welcome to show up during my nocturnal panic sessions and stomp on my face We’re HERE, we’re HERE, we’re HERE.
You know, the more times you type or read the word surely, the more it looks like you’ve mistyped, and you’re trying to type the word surly.
That makes me smile.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Enforced Secret Joy # 33 – Baby Feet
Everyone say hello to Hazel, the newest member of my Small Group. My Small Group is busting out all over. We have anywhere from 1 – 4 of the tiny things running laps around the coffee table and occasionally sneezing on the mixed nut bowl.I don’t mind babies like this (and this may possibly be the smallest one I’ve seen in real life as opposed to a picture. Hazel is ten days old.) They don’t cry too much, they don’t hit you in the kneecaps, they don’t throw tantrums in department stores, and their mothers are usually nearby to take care of things like Poopy Diapers.
And I was fascinated with Hazel’s toes. (yes, I realize it's my second post in a row devoted to feet. If any of you Gentle Readers happen to be lurking Foot Fetishizers, understand now that it's all a coincedence, and I'll be blogging about elbows next time.) So tiny, using my Albino Hand for comparison, but all TEN (HA! Thanks for the correction, RT!) toes are there. Her face still looks a little squished (though I’m sure she’ll grow into it), but her toes look like they’re supposed to look, just tiny. They are so adorable, that I kinda wanna snip them off and sprinkle them on an ice cream sundae. I know, it sounds gross and Saw-erific , but they're just so cute that I want to eat them up. Dear God, thank you for baby feet. The little tiny soles, the little tiny toenails, the little tiny toes, the little tiny toeknuckles? Is that a word? You know what I mean God, even if words fail the writer (they're not supposed to, but occasionally they do.) Thank You that Your creation is magnificantly displayed in something so tiny, something that a lot of people don't think about until they see it. Thank you for feet, they take us where we want to go. Thank you that feet grow with us, and thank you for the simple pleasures of a foot massage, even though Hazel doesn't understand it yet, she thought I was Random Crazy Person Who Wouldn't Let Go Of Her Toes. She'll get it later, Lord. Hopefully, we'll ALL get it, whatever IT may be individually for us all. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Amen.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Hitting the limit on my Blogger picture bandwidth
Tonight’s blog entry will be illustrated by my feet, because they’re there, and they feel like they don’t quite get the credit they deserve for carrying me through the life I’ve had. (they also want a proper pedicure done by a professional, but I blew most of my money on the birthday trip, so they’re just gonna have to wait.)
So me and my tootsies had quite the birthday weekend! I’m telling you folks, I’m in love with The Surf And Sand Resort in Laguna. Yes, it’s pricey, but it’s worth it, and I’m definitely planning on making a yearly jaunt down there for future birthdays.
My feet walked on the sand.
They enjoyed the sunset the first night on my own private balcony with a margarita and a water chaser.
They dug the free champagne and chocolates with an Evian chaser that I got from the hotel for my birthday as they read about Angelina Jolie and the Darfur orphans.
They loved the whirlpool by the pool.
And they liked 9am yoga outside on the Catalina Deck.
The weekend was mostly overcast, only got some sun on the first day, but I am not only Amy The Writer, I am Amy The Moody Writer, so overcast suites me just fine. I still got plenty of awesome sand and water shots as I sat on the balcony or as I walked on the sand. (Bonus points to the hotel for putting an Ihome in every room, so all I had to do was stick my ipod in and I had my tunes ready to go.)
In keeping with my surroundings, I kept playing ocean songs, like Tidalwave, from Longwave
take me back to the other place
take me back when im alone
i can see all the little things that once could make me whole
i am everything you wanted
i am everything you wanted
i am everything you need
God? Is that you God? It’s Amy the Moody Writer on her birthday weekend, trying to sort out why I’m seven and haven’t sold a script yet and why I’m still alone and why the temp agency keeps trying to funnel me to jobs I don’t want.
Then it was onto Ocean Breathes Salty, by Modest Mouse.
Well that is that and this is this.
Will you tell me what you saw and I'll tell you what you missed,
when the ocean met the sky.
You missed when time and life shook hands and said goodbye.
When the earth folded on itself.
And said "Good luck, for your sake I hope heaven and hell
are really there, but I wouldn't hold my breath."
You wasted life, why wouldn't you waste death?
Dunno. Sometimes it’s best just to groove to the melody and keep walking, like with Sæglópur, by Sigur Ros
Sæglópur, á lífi
Kominn heim
Sæglópur, á lífi
Kominn heim
þaõ kemur kafari
Komin heim
þaõ kemur kafari
Komin heim
HA!
I haven’t been doing morning devotionals since I bid a fond farewell to Oswald The Annoying Devotionalist in December, but in my last minute flurry of grabbing stuff I thought I might need before getting on the road, I grabbed a three hold punch book given to the Act One students last year by Kris Young, one of the teachers. It’s called “Getting Through The First Draft Of Your Life: 40 Devotionals For Screenwriters.” And I had meant to start reading it in January, but was afraid that I’d burn through 40 in an instant and be left adrift for the rest of the year.
But no better time to start then on my PRIVATE BALCONY OVERLOOKING THE WAVES! (sorry, am I being obnoxious yet?)
The entry I choose is, appropriately enough, based around Psalm 46:10. Be still and know I am God. Kris goes on to talk about how you need to silence everything electronic around you and just listen to the silence. Just listen and know that God is God. That we need to be still and know. And then Kris says we need to step outside ourselves and “take a good look. Just who are you? What makes you “you”? Snap snapshots of the physical you, then think about and write down all the internal things that make you “you.”
Kris then gives a list of possible things, most of which do not apply to me, such as “I’m overweight….I hope to lose 40 lbs.” , “I’m losing my hair…I hope Rogain will grow back my hair.” “I’m poor…I dream of winning this $80 million dollar lottery.” (yes, my finances are not in the best of shape, but I never play the lottery.)
But then this little bon mot showed up, “I’m writing a screenplay...I dream of selling it for a million dollars. I expect it to get made into a hit film and win an Oscar. I hope to repeat this cycle until I die at 110,”
Oh dear. Well, it’s usually the dream of most screenwriters, so I can’t slam myself too hard.
The devotional continues on and says “You = the sum of all this information. But if we hit the delete button on your past and future, so that you only exist in the present, then guess what? The “you” you thought you knew no longer exists.”
Meaning live in the present. Live for today. Kris says, “Jesus says… die to time. ” (It’s Kris’s interpretation. I don’t think Jesus literally said that.) He goes on to say that “Awareness of Time hurts. We can spend the rest of our time trying to kill time by keeping busy busy, or we can turn 180 degrees and Be still. Die to time and self.” Be still and know that I am God.
Which jibes with my worldview of Living For Today. I don’t remember when exactly I figured that little thing out, but it’s pretty simple. You either live for Today, or you live for Someday. I choose to live for Today, because it’s the things that you do Today that affect your future, ergo Someday. To most people, it probably appears shortsighted, and it’s not as though I don’t have any plans for the future, because I have a whole Excel sheets of multiple writing projects with goals, and steps to take to get to the goal. But it makes life easier to handle, if all you focus on is what you have to get done today. This is my list of things to do today. Step by step, towards your ultimate goal.
So Kris says you need to hit the delete button on your past and future, and exist in the present. I WISH my past and future would die. Well, I wish my past would die, so I wouldn’t keep remembering it, which I think is the single biggest chain on my head that I try so hard, every single day, to overcome, to break. These constant thoughts of well, it didn’t work before, so why would it work now batter me relentlessly. If I could silence them once and for all, and what would do that more than success at something? Like selling a script? Starting the rounds again of contacting my peeps in the industry and begging them to read something and hoping, wishing, praying that THIS time, THIS script is the one that’s gonna sell, despite the fact it hasn’t worked before, but it’ll work now. Oh yes, little one, it’ll work NOW.
It seems impossible. It seems stupidly naïve and wishful pie in the sky thinking. But I have to keep hammering myself with the idea that nothing is impossible with God. And it’s not like I’m sitting around doing nothing. I’m doing everything I can. And clinging to the hope that this time THIS time, by the grace of God and a huge dose of His favor, it’s gonna work.
The thing that stuck with me the most is when Kris says, “Moses asks God His name. God replies: “I AM.” Not “I was” or “I will be” but “I AM.”
“I AM is eternally present. Not defined by past or future…I AM is the guy in the Goodyear blimp who sees the beginning, middle and end of the Rose Parade all at once. I AM sees our lives all at once.”
And all I can think of is thank GOD someone knows that, ‘cause I sure as hell don’t. It’s a comforting thought, that God knows my whole life, that if I’m a book, He knows the last page, even if my book happens to be in the Horror Section, as I suspect it is. And my particular bitching and groaning must be highly amusing to Him if he knows that the next mile marker is going to bring something pretty awesome.
And I choose to believe that something pretty awesome is coming. I deliberately declare it. And yet at the same time it’s making me sound like I’m living for Someday, doesn’t it? Damn. Okay, okay, do I sound like a hypocrite if I say I believe in something awesome coming someday, but I’m living for today? Aw hell.
Okay, so here’s my favorite picture of the weekend. Mr. Surfer Dude is standing on his surfboard and paddling with a pole. He actually didn’t go “into the light” like it looks like he’s going to, he skirted around the edge.
But I totally would’ve.
So me and my tootsies had quite the birthday weekend! I’m telling you folks, I’m in love with The Surf And Sand Resort in Laguna. Yes, it’s pricey, but it’s worth it, and I’m definitely planning on making a yearly jaunt down there for future birthdays.
My feet walked on the sand.
They enjoyed the sunset the first night on my own private balcony with a margarita and a water chaser.
They dug the free champagne and chocolates with an Evian chaser that I got from the hotel for my birthday as they read about Angelina Jolie and the Darfur orphans.
They loved the whirlpool by the pool.
And they liked 9am yoga outside on the Catalina Deck.
The weekend was mostly overcast, only got some sun on the first day, but I am not only Amy The Writer, I am Amy The Moody Writer, so overcast suites me just fine. I still got plenty of awesome sand and water shots as I sat on the balcony or as I walked on the sand. (Bonus points to the hotel for putting an Ihome in every room, so all I had to do was stick my ipod in and I had my tunes ready to go.)
In keeping with my surroundings, I kept playing ocean songs, like Tidalwave, from Longwave
take me back to the other place
take me back when im alone
i can see all the little things that once could make me whole
i am everything you wanted
i am everything you wanted
i am everything you need
God? Is that you God? It’s Amy the Moody Writer on her birthday weekend, trying to sort out why I’m seven and haven’t sold a script yet and why I’m still alone and why the temp agency keeps trying to funnel me to jobs I don’t want.
Then it was onto Ocean Breathes Salty, by Modest Mouse.
Well that is that and this is this.
Will you tell me what you saw and I'll tell you what you missed,
when the ocean met the sky.
You missed when time and life shook hands and said goodbye.
When the earth folded on itself.
And said "Good luck, for your sake I hope heaven and hell
are really there, but I wouldn't hold my breath."
You wasted life, why wouldn't you waste death?
Dunno. Sometimes it’s best just to groove to the melody and keep walking, like with Sæglópur, by Sigur Ros
Sæglópur, á lífi
Kominn heim
Sæglópur, á lífi
Kominn heim
þaõ kemur kafari
Komin heim
þaõ kemur kafari
Komin heim
HA!
I haven’t been doing morning devotionals since I bid a fond farewell to Oswald The Annoying Devotionalist in December, but in my last minute flurry of grabbing stuff I thought I might need before getting on the road, I grabbed a three hold punch book given to the Act One students last year by Kris Young, one of the teachers. It’s called “Getting Through The First Draft Of Your Life: 40 Devotionals For Screenwriters.” And I had meant to start reading it in January, but was afraid that I’d burn through 40 in an instant and be left adrift for the rest of the year.
But no better time to start then on my PRIVATE BALCONY OVERLOOKING THE WAVES! (sorry, am I being obnoxious yet?)
The entry I choose is, appropriately enough, based around Psalm 46:10. Be still and know I am God. Kris goes on to talk about how you need to silence everything electronic around you and just listen to the silence. Just listen and know that God is God. That we need to be still and know. And then Kris says we need to step outside ourselves and “take a good look. Just who are you? What makes you “you”? Snap snapshots of the physical you, then think about and write down all the internal things that make you “you.”
Kris then gives a list of possible things, most of which do not apply to me, such as “I’m overweight….I hope to lose 40 lbs.” , “I’m losing my hair…I hope Rogain will grow back my hair.” “I’m poor…I dream of winning this $80 million dollar lottery.” (yes, my finances are not in the best of shape, but I never play the lottery.)
But then this little bon mot showed up, “I’m writing a screenplay...I dream of selling it for a million dollars. I expect it to get made into a hit film and win an Oscar. I hope to repeat this cycle until I die at 110,”
Oh dear. Well, it’s usually the dream of most screenwriters, so I can’t slam myself too hard.
The devotional continues on and says “You = the sum of all this information. But if we hit the delete button on your past and future, so that you only exist in the present, then guess what? The “you” you thought you knew no longer exists.”
Meaning live in the present. Live for today. Kris says, “Jesus says… die to time. ” (It’s Kris’s interpretation. I don’t think Jesus literally said that.) He goes on to say that “Awareness of Time hurts. We can spend the rest of our time trying to kill time by keeping busy busy, or we can turn 180 degrees and Be still. Die to time and self.” Be still and know that I am God.
Which jibes with my worldview of Living For Today. I don’t remember when exactly I figured that little thing out, but it’s pretty simple. You either live for Today, or you live for Someday. I choose to live for Today, because it’s the things that you do Today that affect your future, ergo Someday. To most people, it probably appears shortsighted, and it’s not as though I don’t have any plans for the future, because I have a whole Excel sheets of multiple writing projects with goals, and steps to take to get to the goal. But it makes life easier to handle, if all you focus on is what you have to get done today. This is my list of things to do today. Step by step, towards your ultimate goal.
So Kris says you need to hit the delete button on your past and future, and exist in the present. I WISH my past and future would die. Well, I wish my past would die, so I wouldn’t keep remembering it, which I think is the single biggest chain on my head that I try so hard, every single day, to overcome, to break. These constant thoughts of well, it didn’t work before, so why would it work now batter me relentlessly. If I could silence them once and for all, and what would do that more than success at something? Like selling a script? Starting the rounds again of contacting my peeps in the industry and begging them to read something and hoping, wishing, praying that THIS time, THIS script is the one that’s gonna sell, despite the fact it hasn’t worked before, but it’ll work now. Oh yes, little one, it’ll work NOW.
It seems impossible. It seems stupidly naïve and wishful pie in the sky thinking. But I have to keep hammering myself with the idea that nothing is impossible with God. And it’s not like I’m sitting around doing nothing. I’m doing everything I can. And clinging to the hope that this time THIS time, by the grace of God and a huge dose of His favor, it’s gonna work.
The thing that stuck with me the most is when Kris says, “Moses asks God His name. God replies: “I AM.” Not “I was” or “I will be” but “I AM.”
“I AM is eternally present. Not defined by past or future…I AM is the guy in the Goodyear blimp who sees the beginning, middle and end of the Rose Parade all at once. I AM sees our lives all at once.”
And all I can think of is thank GOD someone knows that, ‘cause I sure as hell don’t. It’s a comforting thought, that God knows my whole life, that if I’m a book, He knows the last page, even if my book happens to be in the Horror Section, as I suspect it is. And my particular bitching and groaning must be highly amusing to Him if he knows that the next mile marker is going to bring something pretty awesome.
And I choose to believe that something pretty awesome is coming. I deliberately declare it. And yet at the same time it’s making me sound like I’m living for Someday, doesn’t it? Damn. Okay, okay, do I sound like a hypocrite if I say I believe in something awesome coming someday, but I’m living for today? Aw hell.
Okay, so here’s my favorite picture of the weekend. Mr. Surfer Dude is standing on his surfboard and paddling with a pole. He actually didn’t go “into the light” like it looks like he’s going to, he skirted around the edge. But I totally would’ve.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Enforced Secret Joy #32 – It’s My Birthday!
It’s my birthday! Today, yes, today! Wish me happy birthday! It’s my birthday and I am SEVEN! (okay, maybe I’m eight, but I know I can pass.)
And I am off to the Surf And Sand Resort in Laguna Beach for the weekend. This is a huge deal for me, I NEVER go on vacation. I RARELY spend this kind of money on myself, but when you’re turning lucky number seven, then you deserve it. That’s gonna be my mantra for today. I deserve this, I deserve this, I deserve this. Because I do. I DO! I have to be this emphatic since my destructive nature loves to make me feel bad about myself for anything.
It’s gonna be a lovely weekend where I sit and ponder the meaning of my life and what the next step is, and what decisions need to be made and who knows what I’ll look like on the other side. But sunsets! I’m gonna get to see sunsets! From the water! From my own private balcony! I’m gonna walk on the sand! WHOO HOO!
I had thought that maybe I would spend all of Saturday in a lovely state of intoxication, but there were birthday parties for me on Wednesday and Thursday, so I dunno if my system can handle too much more.
But the parties were nice and fun and I got to see so many of my acquaintances who I rarely hang out with anymore. And it struck me in the middle of yesterday’s fling that Gosh, I sure like my friends. My friends are cool and nifty and fun! And I LIKE hanging out with them. Again, this is a huge deal for me to realize, since most of the time, I don’t actually like people. But I liked them on Wednesday. And I liked them on Thursday. If I hung out with them everyday, they’d probably start to bug. But it felt like all the stars aligned. Some of these people, I’ve known for YEARS. I’ve built sets with them, I’ve struck sets with them, I’ve hung out in theater lobbies with them as they waited to make their second act entrance. There’s history with them. I like having histories with people. I like knowing that it doesn’t matter if months go by and we haven’t talked, when I do see them, it’s all good. I like having those types of friends. I know this entry probably isn’t making any sense. I’m a bit hung over, har de har har, and now I’m gonna get on the ROAD! WHOO HOO!
Dear God, thank You for my friends. Thank You for the privilege of knowing them. Thank You for the history and memories I have with them. Thank You for the fun we have had in the past, and thank You in advance for the fun we will have in the future. Thank You for my life. You know what an amazing thing that is for me to say. Most of the time I moan and groan and grumble and bitch and complain. But for the past two days, I have liked my life, and that is a miracle. Please let the miracles continue through the weekend. Please let me witness spectacular miracles of your creation in sun, ocean, and sand. Please let me feel Your presence somewhere along the line. And thank You that I’ve made it this far. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Amen.
And I am off to the Surf And Sand Resort in Laguna Beach for the weekend. This is a huge deal for me, I NEVER go on vacation. I RARELY spend this kind of money on myself, but when you’re turning lucky number seven, then you deserve it. That’s gonna be my mantra for today. I deserve this, I deserve this, I deserve this. Because I do. I DO! I have to be this emphatic since my destructive nature loves to make me feel bad about myself for anything.
It’s gonna be a lovely weekend where I sit and ponder the meaning of my life and what the next step is, and what decisions need to be made and who knows what I’ll look like on the other side. But sunsets! I’m gonna get to see sunsets! From the water! From my own private balcony! I’m gonna walk on the sand! WHOO HOO!
I had thought that maybe I would spend all of Saturday in a lovely state of intoxication, but there were birthday parties for me on Wednesday and Thursday, so I dunno if my system can handle too much more.
But the parties were nice and fun and I got to see so many of my acquaintances who I rarely hang out with anymore. And it struck me in the middle of yesterday’s fling that Gosh, I sure like my friends. My friends are cool and nifty and fun! And I LIKE hanging out with them. Again, this is a huge deal for me to realize, since most of the time, I don’t actually like people. But I liked them on Wednesday. And I liked them on Thursday. If I hung out with them everyday, they’d probably start to bug. But it felt like all the stars aligned. Some of these people, I’ve known for YEARS. I’ve built sets with them, I’ve struck sets with them, I’ve hung out in theater lobbies with them as they waited to make their second act entrance. There’s history with them. I like having histories with people. I like knowing that it doesn’t matter if months go by and we haven’t talked, when I do see them, it’s all good. I like having those types of friends. I know this entry probably isn’t making any sense. I’m a bit hung over, har de har har, and now I’m gonna get on the ROAD! WHOO HOO!
Dear God, thank You for my friends. Thank You for the privilege of knowing them. Thank You for the history and memories I have with them. Thank You for the fun we have had in the past, and thank You in advance for the fun we will have in the future. Thank You for my life. You know what an amazing thing that is for me to say. Most of the time I moan and groan and grumble and bitch and complain. But for the past two days, I have liked my life, and that is a miracle. Please let the miracles continue through the weekend. Please let me witness spectacular miracles of your creation in sun, ocean, and sand. Please let me feel Your presence somewhere along the line. And thank You that I’ve made it this far. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Amen.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
The Mountain And The Bend
I'm slammed today, slammed this whole weekend, this is all I got, and it's quoting myself. Damn.
From my journal, 8/4/06
(The teacher) did say something that resonated with me, which was using the metaphor that (life is like) you’re driving around a bend, and God knows where you’re going to end up. It may not be right in front of you, because God’s gotta move you around the bend so you can see what the next thing is. I feel like that’s EXACTLY my situation. I don’t know where we’re going, all I see is a mountain wall, and we’ve been endlessly trying to get around it, and no dice. If I can just trust that God WILL get me around the bend soon enough. I have to trust that, I have to trust that, and I can TYPE the phrases “I have to trust that” but can I really BELIEVE it? I’m supposed to. I guess to believe it means not to worry about it. Not to worry that I’m in this dark moment. And I kept repeating it like a mantra today itrustGod itrustGod itrustGod itrustGod itrustGod. Singing the lyric from that praise song “When the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will say Blessed Be The Name Of The Lord, Blessed Be Your Name. You Give And Take Away. You Give And Take Away. My Heart Will Choose To Say. Lord Blessed Be Your Name.” As though repeating that would be the magic phrase that makes everything alright.
This is one fucking long bend, folks. (sorry.)
From my journal, 8/4/06
(The teacher) did say something that resonated with me, which was using the metaphor that (life is like) you’re driving around a bend, and God knows where you’re going to end up. It may not be right in front of you, because God’s gotta move you around the bend so you can see what the next thing is. I feel like that’s EXACTLY my situation. I don’t know where we’re going, all I see is a mountain wall, and we’ve been endlessly trying to get around it, and no dice. If I can just trust that God WILL get me around the bend soon enough. I have to trust that, I have to trust that, and I can TYPE the phrases “I have to trust that” but can I really BELIEVE it? I’m supposed to. I guess to believe it means not to worry about it. Not to worry that I’m in this dark moment. And I kept repeating it like a mantra today itrustGod itrustGod itrustGod itrustGod itrustGod. Singing the lyric from that praise song “When the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will say Blessed Be The Name Of The Lord, Blessed Be Your Name. You Give And Take Away. You Give And Take Away. My Heart Will Choose To Say. Lord Blessed Be Your Name.” As though repeating that would be the magic phrase that makes everything alright.This is one fucking long bend, folks. (sorry.)
Friday, March 09, 2007
Enforced Secret Joy #31 – The Witch House
In my neighborhood is this cute house that looks like something out of Snow White And The Seven Dwarves. I have therefore dubbed it The Witch House, because The Dwarf House would not make it sound like someone would want to live there (it would also make it sound like it should be three feet high.)Occasionally I unleash the Amy Brain and let it run wild through Wildest Dreams Land, and on our romps through the grassy meadows and cotton candy clouds I think about what would I do if I did sell, not just one script, but two or three or four scripts, enough to buy a house in Los Angeles. There have been many conversations as I swim through laffy daffy ponds about where could one possibly live in Los Angeles – The beach? What if there’s a tidal wave. The hills? What if there’s an earthquake. Away from people? The drive to get to the events that do have people in them will be a hassle.
But this house, this house seems like it would be just right. So maybe that makes it the Goldilocks house, ha ha ha.
Dear God, thank you for the Witch House. Thank you for its whimsical gingerbread style, in the La La Land of stucco and adobe. Thank you for Wildest Dreams Land, though sometimes I wonder whether that’s sanctioned by You. It seems like Your version of Wildest Dreams Land would be a place where mission workers fed starving children in Africa, or nations sat down and agreed to disarm, and things such as Witch Houses would seem frivolous.
Then I remember that everyone has the right to hope. Hope has to be sanctioned by You. And I hope for a great many different things for my family, my friends, my colleagues I’ve worked with for as little as three months. And in those hopes are plenty of noble things, great dreams, selfless wishes. But I think frivolity has its place. So thank you for this witch house in all its frivolity. I confide in You that I hope to sell four or five scripts, tithe ten percent to you, and THEN buy a place like this. That’s my hope. But you’re in charge of the grand master plan. Thank you for caring about me enough to have a grand master plan for me. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Amen.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Giggly Goes Bye Bye.
This post is all about my pal Giggly. She’s moving to Anchorage, Alaska for a job. At her going away party last night, I wrote that I would do a blog entry in honor of her, since to recap all my fond memories of her would take up way too many pages in the guestbook (and plus I’d spend all of the party time writing, instead of DRINKING!)
Giggly is one of those rare rare women: stunningly beautiful with none of the pretense or affectedness that comes with beautiful women. And she’s totally hard core. Looking at her, one might think that she’s too much of a girly girl to want to get suited up in Katrina Country to do gut outs of houses. But she didn’t flinch once. She didn’t bolt at the sight of cockroaches, she didn’t complain at her leaking air mattress in the gym where we stayed for the week, she didn’t faint at hefting shovelful after shovelful of debris to the curb, and she mowed a yard where the grass came up to her waist in 90 degree heat.
So here ya go, a random sampling of some of my favorites memories of Giggly.
I first met Giggly at the church retreat last year. It was during lunch on a Saturday, and after lunch we had our choice of four different talks to go to. My particular lunch table was buzzing about the talk entitled “The Christian Case for Sex: A Holistic View of The Body.” In order to get to that talk, you had to cross a meadow in full view of everyone else that were going to the talks on Paul the Apostle, or International Justice. It inadvertently turned into a kind of Walk Of Shame, like look at the people who wanna hear about SEX! Oooooohhhhhh!
Because I have no shame, I was all set to stride across the meadow, and I noticed Giggly was doing the Indecisive Dance, where she WANTED to go, but she didn’t wanna take that walk by herself. So I gaily slung an arm around her shoulders, and pulled her along with me, bellowing at the top of my lungs as we went that “(Giggly) wants to talk about SEX!!!” She started laughing, we made it across the meadow, learned all about culture viewpoints on sex versus Christian viewpoints on sex (you can imagine what the answers are) and Giggly later thanked me for making her go.
A few months later, I had made the decision (on an empty stomach) to go on my church’s Katrina Mission Trip. I was sitting in the back of the church, filling out the paperwork, when I noticed Giggly sitting beside me, filling out the same paperwork. “You’re going to Katrina?” I asked her, and she said yes indeedy she was. Instantly, I knew going on this trip was going to be exactly the right thing to do. It’s very rare to feel that kind of concrete feeling based on so little information, but something just told me that if fun people like Giggly were going to be going on this trip, that this was going to be a very special trip indeed, and it was even before we knew that Native Chick would be joining us, which made the trip that much more awesome.
Incidentally, Giggly is the only person who’s ever told me that my handwriting is pretty. Everyone else thinks it looks like the scribblings of a serial killer. Not that it’s influencing my opinion of her AT ALL, ha ha ha.
The whirlwind trip of Katrina Country, which I’ve already blogged about in greater detail elsewhere. I was mentioning to my buddy Xavier last night that the Katrina trip was very much like everything I’ve heard about childbirth, in which you look back on it with great fondness, to the point that you’d want to do it again, conveniently forgetting all the parts of physical pain and exhaustion that SUCKED ASS. But the one morning at the very end of the trip found my crew splitting up and wandering around the French Quarter at 9am in the morning. Giggly and I paired off and wandered around for hours, taking pictures until my digital camera died, talking about life, boys, job aspirations, boys, feelings on religion, boys that aggravate us, boys we wish were smarter, boys we wish we were smarter about. We ended up sitting on a stoop towards the east end of the Quarter, waiting for Native Chick to show up with the car, and it really did feel like we had known each other for forever.
Getting back from Katrina Country, Giggly, Native Chick and myself all signed up for the same Small Group. Our Small Group usually closes our meetings with a group prayer, and people will say what they need prayer about, and then we all take turns praying about it. I usually don’t voice any prayer requests, simply because people have more pressing problems than I do, and I don’t ever think my circumstances are so dire as to do an all call prayer for it, and I get irrationally skeeved out hearing people pray for me. But every now and then Giggly would pray out loud for me, skeeviness be damned, “I know Amy hasn’t said anything, Lord, but I know there are things going on in her life that she needs Your help with.” And I secretly appreciated it.
I haven’t even mentioned the times we went for cocktails, or the times in church where we’d stand together and sing, or how she participated in a full baptismal born again dunking in front of the church. But I will close with this:
At our Small Group last week, we closed in prayer for Giggly. She sat in the middle of the group and we all laid hands on her as we prayed. I’m not a big fan of the laying on of hands in prayer, it kinda conjures up an Oooky Gooky Spooky Communing With The Woo Woo Spirits Feeling for me. But I gamely joined in, because it’s not about me, it’s about Giggly. I had one hand on her shoe, and one pinky wrapped tight around hers. (there were a lot of people there, so you had to fight for space.) And though it seems strange, I think it’s gonna be the tightness of that pinky hold that I’ll remember the most. For the rare woman whose heart really is that pure, that big, that loving, that caring. For the woman whose spirit is as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside. For the woman who wielded a mean wheelbarrow full of toxic debris, who wandered into the French Quarter Fire Station in search of hot firemen with me, who loves little kids (who love her right back), who split a piece of the most divinely rich cake with white chocolate icing at the Alcove with me, for the woman who never stops believing in the possibilities of what God can do, including untangling a wreck of a love life (hers, mine, everybody’s.) God’s going to do some amazing things with Giggly and I can’t wait to see what happens next.
Giggly is one of those rare rare women: stunningly beautiful with none of the pretense or affectedness that comes with beautiful women. And she’s totally hard core. Looking at her, one might think that she’s too much of a girly girl to want to get suited up in Katrina Country to do gut outs of houses. But she didn’t flinch once. She didn’t bolt at the sight of cockroaches, she didn’t complain at her leaking air mattress in the gym where we stayed for the week, she didn’t faint at hefting shovelful after shovelful of debris to the curb, and she mowed a yard where the grass came up to her waist in 90 degree heat.
So here ya go, a random sampling of some of my favorites memories of Giggly.
I first met Giggly at the church retreat last year. It was during lunch on a Saturday, and after lunch we had our choice of four different talks to go to. My particular lunch table was buzzing about the talk entitled “The Christian Case for Sex: A Holistic View of The Body.” In order to get to that talk, you had to cross a meadow in full view of everyone else that were going to the talks on Paul the Apostle, or International Justice. It inadvertently turned into a kind of Walk Of Shame, like look at the people who wanna hear about SEX! Oooooohhhhhh!
Because I have no shame, I was all set to stride across the meadow, and I noticed Giggly was doing the Indecisive Dance, where she WANTED to go, but she didn’t wanna take that walk by herself. So I gaily slung an arm around her shoulders, and pulled her along with me, bellowing at the top of my lungs as we went that “(Giggly) wants to talk about SEX!!!” She started laughing, we made it across the meadow, learned all about culture viewpoints on sex versus Christian viewpoints on sex (you can imagine what the answers are) and Giggly later thanked me for making her go.
A few months later, I had made the decision (on an empty stomach) to go on my church’s Katrina Mission Trip. I was sitting in the back of the church, filling out the paperwork, when I noticed Giggly sitting beside me, filling out the same paperwork. “You’re going to Katrina?” I asked her, and she said yes indeedy she was. Instantly, I knew going on this trip was going to be exactly the right thing to do. It’s very rare to feel that kind of concrete feeling based on so little information, but something just told me that if fun people like Giggly were going to be going on this trip, that this was going to be a very special trip indeed, and it was even before we knew that Native Chick would be joining us, which made the trip that much more awesome.
Incidentally, Giggly is the only person who’s ever told me that my handwriting is pretty. Everyone else thinks it looks like the scribblings of a serial killer. Not that it’s influencing my opinion of her AT ALL, ha ha ha.
The whirlwind trip of Katrina Country, which I’ve already blogged about in greater detail elsewhere. I was mentioning to my buddy Xavier last night that the Katrina trip was very much like everything I’ve heard about childbirth, in which you look back on it with great fondness, to the point that you’d want to do it again, conveniently forgetting all the parts of physical pain and exhaustion that SUCKED ASS. But the one morning at the very end of the trip found my crew splitting up and wandering around the French Quarter at 9am in the morning. Giggly and I paired off and wandered around for hours, taking pictures until my digital camera died, talking about life, boys, job aspirations, boys, feelings on religion, boys that aggravate us, boys we wish were smarter, boys we wish we were smarter about. We ended up sitting on a stoop towards the east end of the Quarter, waiting for Native Chick to show up with the car, and it really did feel like we had known each other for forever.
Getting back from Katrina Country, Giggly, Native Chick and myself all signed up for the same Small Group. Our Small Group usually closes our meetings with a group prayer, and people will say what they need prayer about, and then we all take turns praying about it. I usually don’t voice any prayer requests, simply because people have more pressing problems than I do, and I don’t ever think my circumstances are so dire as to do an all call prayer for it, and I get irrationally skeeved out hearing people pray for me. But every now and then Giggly would pray out loud for me, skeeviness be damned, “I know Amy hasn’t said anything, Lord, but I know there are things going on in her life that she needs Your help with.” And I secretly appreciated it.
I haven’t even mentioned the times we went for cocktails, or the times in church where we’d stand together and sing, or how she participated in a full baptismal born again dunking in front of the church. But I will close with this:
At our Small Group last week, we closed in prayer for Giggly. She sat in the middle of the group and we all laid hands on her as we prayed. I’m not a big fan of the laying on of hands in prayer, it kinda conjures up an Oooky Gooky Spooky Communing With The Woo Woo Spirits Feeling for me. But I gamely joined in, because it’s not about me, it’s about Giggly. I had one hand on her shoe, and one pinky wrapped tight around hers. (there were a lot of people there, so you had to fight for space.) And though it seems strange, I think it’s gonna be the tightness of that pinky hold that I’ll remember the most. For the rare woman whose heart really is that pure, that big, that loving, that caring. For the woman whose spirit is as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside. For the woman who wielded a mean wheelbarrow full of toxic debris, who wandered into the French Quarter Fire Station in search of hot firemen with me, who loves little kids (who love her right back), who split a piece of the most divinely rich cake with white chocolate icing at the Alcove with me, for the woman who never stops believing in the possibilities of what God can do, including untangling a wreck of a love life (hers, mine, everybody’s.) God’s going to do some amazing things with Giggly and I can’t wait to see what happens next.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Enforced Secret Joy # 30 – Sleeping Babies
Just because I am not a fan of small children doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a cute sleeping baby every once in awhile. Because when they’re sleeping, they’re not crying, which is one of the reasons I dislike small children the most. This one, Fontleroy, doesn’t cry much, didn’t wake up when I was taking these pics of him, and sounds like a dog’s chew toy when he hiccups, which makes me and the rest of my Small Group laugh and laugh. And because it was one of those weeks where I was desperately searching for an Enforced Secret Joy, none were merrily winging my way, so on a Thursday night with the Enforced Secret Joy post due on Friday, this is what you get.Dear God, thank you for cute sleeping babies. Thank you that I don’t have any, nor do I harbor the desire to have any. Thank you for letting that be okay. Thank you for Fontleroy, and his cute baby cheeks, and his tiny baby nose, and his teensy baby fingers, which I wanted to get a picture of, but I would’ve gotten an accidental boob shot in the way, which probably isn’t a good thing on this blog. Thank you for his patient Mommy, who didn’t question at all why I plopped down next to her, whipped out the camera and started snapping away.
Thank you for sleep. Thank you for comfort. Thank you for security. Thank you that all of us found those things in our mother’s arms at some point, and do find (or will find) them in You. Thank you thank you thank you. Amen.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
More Declarative Deliberately Positive Statements
I am a damn good assistant.
I know this because everyone at work was very dismayed to see me leave on my last day, which was yesterday, Monday, and not Friday as they had told me on Thursday. And if you think that’s a lot of yanking around, you’re not the only one.
God does not want my next job to be in a Pay Per View division.
Because if He did, He wouldn’t have given me a creeping dread feeling as the Woman Who Would Have Been My Boss described the job duties in the interview today, which included “a very busy desk” scheduling four different VP’s schedules for an upcoming big deal event at Cannes in April. I just came off a three month chaotic job. I don’t wanna dive back into another one. I would like to breathe.
I deserve a chance to breathe.
This is not laziness, this is self preservation. This is also honoring a big part of myself that thinks I deserve a job that I like. For most of my day job career here in Los Angeles, I have taken every job I could without a thought of whether I’d like the job. To me, liking your job was not required. It was a frivolity, and anyone who ever said they liked their job was fronting a happy face to hide the moaning wounded monster inside
So if I’ve never liked any job I’ve had, it seems I SHOULD have taken the Pay Per View gig. (I can just hear My Mother The Phone Harpy Who I Love Very Very Much banging out that tune on her anxiety piano. No, Mom, it’s not cute. Knock it off.)
But no, here’s the crazy thing. I wanna be DIFFERENT! I wanna be HAPPY! I deserve that chance! And if we’re a month from now, and I’ve resorted to digging up roots in the backyard for food and filling up bottles from the water fountains at the gym, fine, I’ll take the next crappy job, even if it’s Corporate Law or Commissary Finance. But I deserve the chance. Because….
I do not have to live in fear that I must take the next job BECAUSE it is the next job.
Which is something my Temp Agency does not understand. In fact, they tried to guilt me into taking the Pay Per View assistant gig. “You may not want this kind of note on your Temp To Hire record.” Oh yeah? Well, you can take your Temp To Hire record and lovingly, filled with God’s Supreme Goodness, gently SHOVE IT. What the hell does that mean, my Temp To Hire record? I wouldn’t even have a Temp to Hire RECORD, would I? There’d really be only one entry on the Temp To Hire record, the one where I was HIRED, right? Jeeze Louise.
Fine, if you’re gonna hold a grudge (and we don’t know that they’re gonna do that), never place me again. I’ve got other temp agencies I can go to. I scored a perfect 100 on the Excel test. People beg to have me as their assistant. Just like the Pay Per View folks did today.
I do not have to settle, no matter what other people want me to do.
No I do not, No I do not. No, I do not. I’ve only got one entity to please in this life, and it’s not the Temp Agency, it’s Mr. Alpha and Omega. And if He wanted me in that job, then He wouldn’t have put such strong negative feelings in my stomach that I SHOULDN’T be there. I have hope. I have faith. I trust that His path is leading me somewhere else. There’s gotta be more than one door to open on the Temp Agency path than the first one. God usually doesn’t want you to go through the first door on any other paths of your life, like I Understand The Meaning Of Love , I Know Exactly What I’m Going To Do As A Life Occupation, or I’m Absolutely Correct In Every First Impression I Make. So why would the Temp Agency Job path be different?
I deserve every good thing that God sees fit to give me. Not because of anything I’ve done, (because I can’t earn His love) but because He’s that good, and that wonderful, and He loves me that much. And He is going to give me good things both tangible and intangible, even though typing that sentence makes me fear I’m sounding arrogant. I’m not. I’m declaring a deliberately positive statement.
God is leading. I’m just the one stumbling behind. He knows what’s going on, and He’ll clue me in soon. No “hopefully” about it. He will do it.
He will.
I know this because everyone at work was very dismayed to see me leave on my last day, which was yesterday, Monday, and not Friday as they had told me on Thursday. And if you think that’s a lot of yanking around, you’re not the only one.
God does not want my next job to be in a Pay Per View division.
Because if He did, He wouldn’t have given me a creeping dread feeling as the Woman Who Would Have Been My Boss described the job duties in the interview today, which included “a very busy desk” scheduling four different VP’s schedules for an upcoming big deal event at Cannes in April. I just came off a three month chaotic job. I don’t wanna dive back into another one. I would like to breathe.
I deserve a chance to breathe.
This is not laziness, this is self preservation. This is also honoring a big part of myself that thinks I deserve a job that I like. For most of my day job career here in Los Angeles, I have taken every job I could without a thought of whether I’d like the job. To me, liking your job was not required. It was a frivolity, and anyone who ever said they liked their job was fronting a happy face to hide the moaning wounded monster inside
So if I’ve never liked any job I’ve had, it seems I SHOULD have taken the Pay Per View gig. (I can just hear My Mother The Phone Harpy Who I Love Very Very Much banging out that tune on her anxiety piano. No, Mom, it’s not cute. Knock it off.)
But no, here’s the crazy thing. I wanna be DIFFERENT! I wanna be HAPPY! I deserve that chance! And if we’re a month from now, and I’ve resorted to digging up roots in the backyard for food and filling up bottles from the water fountains at the gym, fine, I’ll take the next crappy job, even if it’s Corporate Law or Commissary Finance. But I deserve the chance. Because….
I do not have to live in fear that I must take the next job BECAUSE it is the next job.
Which is something my Temp Agency does not understand. In fact, they tried to guilt me into taking the Pay Per View assistant gig. “You may not want this kind of note on your Temp To Hire record.” Oh yeah? Well, you can take your Temp To Hire record and lovingly, filled with God’s Supreme Goodness, gently SHOVE IT. What the hell does that mean, my Temp To Hire record? I wouldn’t even have a Temp to Hire RECORD, would I? There’d really be only one entry on the Temp To Hire record, the one where I was HIRED, right? Jeeze Louise.
Fine, if you’re gonna hold a grudge (and we don’t know that they’re gonna do that), never place me again. I’ve got other temp agencies I can go to. I scored a perfect 100 on the Excel test. People beg to have me as their assistant. Just like the Pay Per View folks did today.
I do not have to settle, no matter what other people want me to do.
No I do not, No I do not. No, I do not. I’ve only got one entity to please in this life, and it’s not the Temp Agency, it’s Mr. Alpha and Omega. And if He wanted me in that job, then He wouldn’t have put such strong negative feelings in my stomach that I SHOULDN’T be there. I have hope. I have faith. I trust that His path is leading me somewhere else. There’s gotta be more than one door to open on the Temp Agency path than the first one. God usually doesn’t want you to go through the first door on any other paths of your life, like I Understand The Meaning Of Love , I Know Exactly What I’m Going To Do As A Life Occupation, or I’m Absolutely Correct In Every First Impression I Make. So why would the Temp Agency Job path be different?
I deserve every good thing that God sees fit to give me. Not because of anything I’ve done, (because I can’t earn His love) but because He’s that good, and that wonderful, and He loves me that much. And He is going to give me good things both tangible and intangible, even though typing that sentence makes me fear I’m sounding arrogant. I’m not. I’m declaring a deliberately positive statement.
God is leading. I’m just the one stumbling behind. He knows what’s going on, and He’ll clue me in soon. No “hopefully” about it. He will do it.
He will.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Friday, February 23, 2007
Enforced Secret Joy # 29 –Freebies at Work
So it looks like today, Friday, is officially my last day at this temp gig. Which is only sudden in that everyone, including my bosses, had been operating under the assumption that NEXT Friday was going to be my last day. But the Powers That Be that run the Finance Department issued the decree that if you really want her to stay another week, you have to come talk to me and justify why. And rather than take up the gleaming sword of She’s Amazing And We’re Helpless Without Her, my bosses caved. They are HOSED, I tell you, and they’re gonna realize how much they needed me to stay, oh, about 9:02am on Monday.
I’m not upset, I knew the end of this particular job was in sight. And as many blog entries can attest, it’s not as though I liked this particular assignment. There is a concern that the temp agency may not have an assignment ready for me to start on Monday, so I could work without a break, but while not working means I go back to eating Ramen and drinking rainwater from the roof, at the very least it gives me more time to WRITE. Those zombies aint gonna kill themselves, ya know.
I’m not looking forward to the multiple good-byes I’ll have to do to in the department. I hate those kind of things. Sure, I can temper it with the whole “I’ll still be on the lot somewhere, as soon as the temp agency places me,” and “You can always request me to fill in for anyone in your department if you have a need.” But the act of saying “Good bye, thank you for everything, you’ve been wonderful to work with,” over and over again wearies me.
But something I WILL miss is all the freebies. The office supplies are a given. Reams of paper, stacks of post-its, boxes of pens, everything an aspiring screenwriter needs to be a happy brainstorming baby.
But since my division was a small part of Marketing and Promotions and Publicity, what I didn’t expect to see was all the free FOOD. It must be from regional clients that the Unnamed Movie Studio works with year round. I’ve been here through two holidays, Christmas and Valentine’s Day, and the amount of free edibles was STAGGERING. Baskets of goodies that one person simply cannot consume themselves, so they put it on the counters in front of their desks, signaling anyone to come by and help themselves.
Chocolate truffles, vanilla chocolate covered pretzels, toffee candy, and more Sprinkles Cupcakes than any one person should scarf down in their lifetime. There was an authentic Mardi Gras King’s Cake last week. It was YUMMERS (no, I didn’t find the plastic baby baked inside. Apparently enough cakes had come through to where certain folks knew exactly where the baby was and went for that section first.)
Everyone in the department has their birthday in January, so there’s usually birthday cake in the kitchen once a week. Not to mention the dozens and dozens of lunch meetings held in the conference room that require catering from the commissary, and that food goes to the kitchen as well. And while I felt like Templeton the rat, scavengering through the left overs for three months. I have to say it was damn good eating.
So when I got the news late last night that today was 90 percent likely going to be my next day, this red velvet cupcake eased the sting. (I am a huge fan of red velvet cupcakes now.)
Dear God, thank you for this job. Thank you that it’s ending. Thank you for the consistent paycheck it provided, which allowed me to continue to pay my bills. And while I don’t know what Monday brings, I trust You to continue to lead me towards the jobs You want me to have. And if I’m being honest (and why not, with You, since You know everything anyway) I have to say that I didn’t understand why You led me to this particular job, since it was so stressful and stupid at times. But if the reason really was as simple as You wanting me to experience a continual stream of baked goods and candy, then thank you thank you thank you. (Yes, I’m sure that there were other reasons which will become clearer later.) Thank you for cookies. Thank you for the free soda. Thank you for the bottles and bottles of Arrowhead water. Thank you that every Friday is Bagel Friday. Thank you that my sense of discipline is such that I was able to indulge and not gain fifty pounds. Thank you for these silly things in life which make other things like stressful jobs bearable. And thank you for this cupcake, which might be the last free one I get. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Amen.
I’m not upset, I knew the end of this particular job was in sight. And as many blog entries can attest, it’s not as though I liked this particular assignment. There is a concern that the temp agency may not have an assignment ready for me to start on Monday, so I could work without a break, but while not working means I go back to eating Ramen and drinking rainwater from the roof, at the very least it gives me more time to WRITE. Those zombies aint gonna kill themselves, ya know.
I’m not looking forward to the multiple good-byes I’ll have to do to in the department. I hate those kind of things. Sure, I can temper it with the whole “I’ll still be on the lot somewhere, as soon as the temp agency places me,” and “You can always request me to fill in for anyone in your department if you have a need.” But the act of saying “Good bye, thank you for everything, you’ve been wonderful to work with,” over and over again wearies me.
But something I WILL miss is all the freebies. The office supplies are a given. Reams of paper, stacks of post-its, boxes of pens, everything an aspiring screenwriter needs to be a happy brainstorming baby.
But since my division was a small part of Marketing and Promotions and Publicity, what I didn’t expect to see was all the free FOOD. It must be from regional clients that the Unnamed Movie Studio works with year round. I’ve been here through two holidays, Christmas and Valentine’s Day, and the amount of free edibles was STAGGERING. Baskets of goodies that one person simply cannot consume themselves, so they put it on the counters in front of their desks, signaling anyone to come by and help themselves.
Chocolate truffles, vanilla chocolate covered pretzels, toffee candy, and more Sprinkles Cupcakes than any one person should scarf down in their lifetime. There was an authentic Mardi Gras King’s Cake last week. It was YUMMERS (no, I didn’t find the plastic baby baked inside. Apparently enough cakes had come through to where certain folks knew exactly where the baby was and went for that section first.)
Everyone in the department has their birthday in January, so there’s usually birthday cake in the kitchen once a week. Not to mention the dozens and dozens of lunch meetings held in the conference room that require catering from the commissary, and that food goes to the kitchen as well. And while I felt like Templeton the rat, scavengering through the left overs for three months. I have to say it was damn good eating.
So when I got the news late last night that today was 90 percent likely going to be my next day, this red velvet cupcake eased the sting. (I am a huge fan of red velvet cupcakes now.)Dear God, thank you for this job. Thank you that it’s ending. Thank you for the consistent paycheck it provided, which allowed me to continue to pay my bills. And while I don’t know what Monday brings, I trust You to continue to lead me towards the jobs You want me to have. And if I’m being honest (and why not, with You, since You know everything anyway) I have to say that I didn’t understand why You led me to this particular job, since it was so stressful and stupid at times. But if the reason really was as simple as You wanting me to experience a continual stream of baked goods and candy, then thank you thank you thank you. (Yes, I’m sure that there were other reasons which will become clearer later.) Thank you for cookies. Thank you for the free soda. Thank you for the bottles and bottles of Arrowhead water. Thank you that every Friday is Bagel Friday. Thank you that my sense of discipline is such that I was able to indulge and not gain fifty pounds. Thank you for these silly things in life which make other things like stressful jobs bearable. And thank you for this cupcake, which might be the last free one I get. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Amen.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
How Did Happy Go?
My sister Agatha and I traded calls all day yesterday, always missing each other, and now she’s busy watching AMAZING RACE because she’s on the East Coast feed and has no time for me, ha ha ha. But the message she left yesterday is a keeper, because she was calling in between a party for a bridal shower and drinks at another bar, and needless to say, she was a bit tipsy. In between giving me the important details of how tipsy she was, she said “Hope, you know, that happy mood is doing well for ya, because for me? It IS!”
So how IS my happy mood doing, without the benefit of bridal party shower alcohol? Well, I can certainly tell you all that it IS exhausting to consistently be HAPPY. C’MON! GET HAPPY! GET HAPPY AND STAY THERE! DON’T MOVE A SINGLE MUSCLE FROM THE HAPPY ZONE! DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT! AH! I SAW ONE CORNER OF YOUR MOUTH DROOP INTO A FROWN! CUT IT OUT! You start to feel like that poor newscaster in Batman. Hysterical painful laughter leading to death because the Joker dosed your lipstick with Happy Poison.
So what happened was Happy kinda boiled down to a Pleasant Bemusement. Which is still better than Mopey Whining.
I’m not lying, it does take work to consistently focus on the happy, or pleasant stuff. I’m not saying my heart got instantly lighter. But I did smile more. At silly things.
Like this morning at church, Percy and Petunia’s little baby Paddy was wearing the Jack Skellington baby hat I got for him. (and me without my camera, but it looked a bit like this.) I held him for two seconds, then when I tried to pass him back, he reached for me, because he doesn’t know I don’t really like kids, I just like to buy Jack Skellington baby hats for them. So I end up holding the little guy for most of the songs, which was funny.
Like the other baby girl, who’s a bit older, but not by much, and she was wearing a cornflower blue dress, and held on to her mom’s hands while her pudgy baby leg stretched out and pudgy baby foot pointed like she was skipping along the sea shore. That was amusing too.
Like Lewis the Dog and his Pink Puppy Paw Pads , who’s staying here for the weekend, and when Roomie Jekyll and her boyfriend left to go see a movie, he jumped up on the couch to wait for them to come home, like a cat would, here.
Like how my goal yesterday was to name the characters in my zombie script, and several folks at the Act One reunion dinner were more than happy to volunteer ideas, including their own names, and how we discovered one of them had parents named Dale and Gale. Dale and Gale! How can that NOT make you smile? I ended up not only naming my characters, but figuring out the first and third act while I was at it. (Second act? We don’t need no stinkin’ second acts.)
It’s the little things, folks. If you find enough of them, it could almost constitute a lot of waking moments that could constitute a life.
I think I need to take my camera around with me more often.
So how IS my happy mood doing, without the benefit of bridal party shower alcohol? Well, I can certainly tell you all that it IS exhausting to consistently be HAPPY. C’MON! GET HAPPY! GET HAPPY AND STAY THERE! DON’T MOVE A SINGLE MUSCLE FROM THE HAPPY ZONE! DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT! AH! I SAW ONE CORNER OF YOUR MOUTH DROOP INTO A FROWN! CUT IT OUT! You start to feel like that poor newscaster in Batman. Hysterical painful laughter leading to death because the Joker dosed your lipstick with Happy Poison.
So what happened was Happy kinda boiled down to a Pleasant Bemusement. Which is still better than Mopey Whining.
I’m not lying, it does take work to consistently focus on the happy, or pleasant stuff. I’m not saying my heart got instantly lighter. But I did smile more. At silly things.
Like this morning at church, Percy and Petunia’s little baby Paddy was wearing the Jack Skellington baby hat I got for him. (and me without my camera, but it looked a bit like this.) I held him for two seconds, then when I tried to pass him back, he reached for me, because he doesn’t know I don’t really like kids, I just like to buy Jack Skellington baby hats for them. So I end up holding the little guy for most of the songs, which was funny. Like the other baby girl, who’s a bit older, but not by much, and she was wearing a cornflower blue dress, and held on to her mom’s hands while her pudgy baby leg stretched out and pudgy baby foot pointed like she was skipping along the sea shore. That was amusing too.
Like Lewis the Dog and his Pink Puppy Paw Pads , who’s staying here for the weekend, and when Roomie Jekyll and her boyfriend left to go see a movie, he jumped up on the couch to wait for them to come home, like a cat would, here.Like how my goal yesterday was to name the characters in my zombie script, and several folks at the Act One reunion dinner were more than happy to volunteer ideas, including their own names, and how we discovered one of them had parents named Dale and Gale. Dale and Gale! How can that NOT make you smile? I ended up not only naming my characters, but figuring out the first and third act while I was at it. (Second act? We don’t need no stinkin’ second acts.)
It’s the little things, folks. If you find enough of them, it could almost constitute a lot of waking moments that could constitute a life.
I think I need to take my camera around with me more often.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Enforced Secret Joy #28 – Skirts and Boots
I haven’t worn skirts on a regular basis in years. YEARS. Like, right after high school, I think. And I don’t even think I wore them that much in high school, but I do recall a skirt or two on my body during that time. But it was always the chaste kind, where the hem is coming down to your ankles, because it’s September, and it’s cold, and it seems very fall like to wear a long skirt, and high school principals frown on Le Miniskirt, and blah blah blah.
When I hit college, it was ALL about Hey! I’m on my own! I’m gonna wear what I want because there’s no Mom staring at me across the kitchen table! So no skirts. Ever. Which seemingly has persisted to this day. Sure, there’s the occasional dress I wear to church during the Christmas holidays and the random wedding here and there, but no skirts. Ever.
There’s a psychological block at work. I inherited most every genetic trait from my Dad, the Great Stoic Wonder, and that includes my tragic bowedleggedness (He is also to blame for the genetic code that wakes me up at 5:30am in the morning.) Seriously, when I was a competitive gymnast in high school, my coach informed me that I was getting points docked during my balance beam routine because the judges kept thinking I wasn’t straightening my legs when they actually WERE straight. Just bowed. This high school coach also cracked the joke that “you could drive a herd of wild pigs through your legs,” they were so bowed. I didn’t like this coach much.
So the last thing I wanted to do would be to don a skirt that would highlight this unfortunate quality. But now here I am, working in Corporate Dilbert World, worse, in Marketing and Advertising, where every girl sports every trendy fashion they can pick up from Vogue, and every day someone’s wearing the skirt and boots get up.
I thought maybe I should try that look myself, since the boots would offset the bowlegged quality I was concerned about. And I also thought that it was high time I just got over myself already. I’m a chick. I don’t HAVE to wear jeans and pants all the time. Guys can’t wear skirts unless they’re Scottish, so I should embrace the feminine aspect o’ me and all that crap.
So when I was at home for the Christmas holidays, I picked up a skirt and boots combo, which you see here. And I’ve incorporated it and other skirts into my wardrobe on a weekly basis.
And I’m truly surprised at how much I like wearing them. Not only do I look like I belong in Marketing and Advertising, but they make me look GOOD. Sexy, even. Like a chick. Sure, the corporate length of the skirt goes a long way to hiding the bowed legs, but it’s the boots, definitely. No demure two-inch heels for me. It’s boots all the way, baby. I can type 90 words a minute AND kick your ass in my almost knee-high boots, I can.
Dear God, thank you for skirts. Thank you for boots. Thank you for MY skirt and boots. Thank you for giving me the strength to once again get over myself, though it wasn’t so much an active act of will as it was more of a “Um, okay, fine, whatever,” kind of letting go. But it still counts. Anything I achieve that makes me feel better about myself has to have Your hand in it somewhere. Thank you that I’m a girl. Thank you for my bowed legs, not because I want to, but because it feels like something I should say. ☺
Thank you for the fact that nobody walked into the office bathroom when I was taking these pictures in the full length mirror, because they would just think I’m weird, instead of the truth, which is the only full length mirror in my house is in Roomie Jekyll’s bedroom, and I have to leave for work before she wakes up. Thank you for letting me acknowledge and embrace this part of me: Amy + Boots & Skirt = Goddess (in a completely non-competing deity kind of way.)
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Amen.
When I hit college, it was ALL about Hey! I’m on my own! I’m gonna wear what I want because there’s no Mom staring at me across the kitchen table! So no skirts. Ever. Which seemingly has persisted to this day. Sure, there’s the occasional dress I wear to church during the Christmas holidays and the random wedding here and there, but no skirts. Ever.
There’s a psychological block at work. I inherited most every genetic trait from my Dad, the Great Stoic Wonder, and that includes my tragic bowedleggedness (He is also to blame for the genetic code that wakes me up at 5:30am in the morning.) Seriously, when I was a competitive gymnast in high school, my coach informed me that I was getting points docked during my balance beam routine because the judges kept thinking I wasn’t straightening my legs when they actually WERE straight. Just bowed. This high school coach also cracked the joke that “you could drive a herd of wild pigs through your legs,” they were so bowed. I didn’t like this coach much.
So the last thing I wanted to do would be to don a skirt that would highlight this unfortunate quality. But now here I am, working in Corporate Dilbert World, worse, in Marketing and Advertising, where every girl sports every trendy fashion they can pick up from Vogue, and every day someone’s wearing the skirt and boots get up.
I thought maybe I should try that look myself, since the boots would offset the bowlegged quality I was concerned about. And I also thought that it was high time I just got over myself already. I’m a chick. I don’t HAVE to wear jeans and pants all the time. Guys can’t wear skirts unless they’re Scottish, so I should embrace the feminine aspect o’ me and all that crap.
So when I was at home for the Christmas holidays, I picked up a skirt and boots combo, which you see here. And I’ve incorporated it and other skirts into my wardrobe on a weekly basis. And I’m truly surprised at how much I like wearing them. Not only do I look like I belong in Marketing and Advertising, but they make me look GOOD. Sexy, even. Like a chick. Sure, the corporate length of the skirt goes a long way to hiding the bowed legs, but it’s the boots, definitely. No demure two-inch heels for me. It’s boots all the way, baby. I can type 90 words a minute AND kick your ass in my almost knee-high boots, I can.
Dear God, thank you for skirts. Thank you for boots. Thank you for MY skirt and boots. Thank you for giving me the strength to once again get over myself, though it wasn’t so much an active act of will as it was more of a “Um, okay, fine, whatever,” kind of letting go. But it still counts. Anything I achieve that makes me feel better about myself has to have Your hand in it somewhere. Thank you that I’m a girl. Thank you for my bowed legs, not because I want to, but because it feels like something I should say. ☺ 
Thank you for the fact that nobody walked into the office bathroom when I was taking these pictures in the full length mirror, because they would just think I’m weird, instead of the truth, which is the only full length mirror in my house is in Roomie Jekyll’s bedroom, and I have to leave for work before she wakes up. Thank you for letting me acknowledge and embrace this part of me: Amy + Boots & Skirt = Goddess (in a completely non-competing deity kind of way.)Thank you, thank you, thank you. Amen.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Deliberately Positive
It hit me the other day, when I was responding to my buddy Donald, who was apologizing for not reading my blog lately because he had lost the link. I wrote, “You probably don't wanna read my blog these days, because I've been stuck in somewhat of a funk and the blog entries are REALLY whiny.”
And it hit me. I don’t really want to be this way. I don’t wanna be whiny. I don’t wanna be in a funk. You guys don’t wanna read about me being in a funk. You guys don’t wanna read about me being whiny.
I’m reminded of Say Anything. I know a lot of people remember a lot of things about that movie, but I’m always the strange one that remembers the odd stuff, so here ya go: Greatest Man Ever Who Doesn’t Exist In Real Life And Has Sent Many A Girl Despairing Lloyd Dobler is having an argument with his sister Constance, and he says
“How hard is it just to decide to be in a good mood, and then be in a good mood?”
Constance’s withering reply is “Gee, it's easy.” But she’s a single mom with a little kid in a crappy apartment with her brother staying on the couch and the parents in Germany. I have no such excuse.
At the same time, I was reading on a friend’s Myspace page how her acting teacher had told her this:
The moment you start seeing life as non-serious, a playfulness, all the burden on your heart disappears. All the fear of death, of life, of love - everything disappears. One starts living with a very light weight or almost no weight. So weightless one becomes, one can fly in the open sky.
The fluffy weightlessness and “fly in the open sky” bit aside, the part about not taking life seriously, to make like Lloyd, to decide to be in a good mood and then BE in a good mood, was something I thought I should try to do.
So I approached Friday with that mindset. I was going to view life as though it was a game today, that nothing that would happen today would really MEAN anything, because it’s all a game, a piffle, a bit of nonsense and stuff.
Because that’s essentially what a temp’s life is, right? Nothing really counts, or is consequential, because you’re not really there. I mean, the professional integrity thing spurs me to do the best job I can, and because I’m human, I can’t help but feel bad if something goes wrong. But if something does go wrong, so what. 99.9 percent of the time, it’s not my fault, so they’re not going to fire me.
I was off to a good start, as I had finished my latest Christmas monologue for Joseph’s poker playing buddy, Big Al (what? They did TOO play poker back in Jesus’ day!) When I get to work, there’s plenty of stress going on, as some people have let the fax machine run out of toner and not ordered a new one, other people can’t type in email addresses correctly and get frantic when the emails bounce back, other people are having shitfits because they’re moving their trip dates around and we can’t get them hotel rooms, blah de blah blah.
But I don’t get stressed. I’m viewing it all as a game, like I’m looking at those people through a glass wall, watching them tear their hair out. I know better than to get stressed with them, that won’t solve anything, I’m just here to help, and even if I’m asked to do something I already know the answer too. “Could you please go check to see if Bonehead is sitting on that document I need?” “The fax machine is broken.” “Could you please just go and check anyway?” Okay, I think to myself, but it’s not going to be there. But if you want me to, sure I’ll go. Lo and behold, I’m right, there IS no document. And I’m (inwardly) laughing at how funny this is all turning out to be.
Coincidentally, all around me, the marketing and promotion chicks are buzzing about The Secret, The Secret, have you heard about The Secret? Well, yes, actually, I have, I heard about it at a birthday party last month, and the girl that told me about it said something like, “If someone else tells you about it within a week, you have to go buy the book.” Which is actually a brilliant marketing idea on their part. Nobody told me about it within a week, but everyone’s talking about it now, because it was on Oprah on Thursday.
All it is, is another self-actualization book and movie, saying that you control your reality, and if you put out negative thoughts out there, that’s what you’ll get back. If you put positive thoughts out there, that’s what you’ll get back. The Biblical version of it is Philippians 4:8, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
And there have been plenty of times in my life where I’ve stood in my backyard, stretched my arms out wide, prayed the neighbors didn’t look over and see the Crazy Chick In The Backyard, and put out to God and the Universe In General what I wanted. Not that I was going through a wish list, I want a bike, a pony, and a CAR, but things I was actively working towards, and what I wanted to have happen. None of them happened, and at the time, it brought me down, made me miserable, made me doubt, scream, throw margarita glasses against the side of the garage, la la laaaaaa.
I recognize the folly of what I was doing at the time, telling God what I wanted, as opposed to asking Him to tell me what He wants me to do. But what was also missing was after I stood in the backyard and asked God for things, I then squared my shoulders and went through my day with a grim determination, like life was a chore, life is a hassle, I’m just trying to keep my head above water, and not drown in a sea of despair before a life raft in the form of a sold script comes along.
So right here, right now, I’m making a declaration: I’m going to put myself in a good mood and stay there. This is different than clinging on to an already happening good mood. This is a conscious, rational, reasonable decision. I’m DECIDING to enter a good mood and will focus all of my conscious effort on STAYING there, and DEFLECTING any little gnats of negativity that might try to buzz through. I’m having good days only. Because honestly, given my usual tendencies, the most twisted peculiar going against my grain thing I could do would be to live deliberately positive.
Therefore, I’m deliberately declaring these statements:
I am an awesome writer.
I will sell a script.
I am attractive and have an amazing ass that grabs the attention of everyone I know, men, women, gay or straight. I used to have a problem with this, but I DON’T ANYMORE.
I am worthy of being loved.
I am MORE than worthy of being loved. I am an absolute GODDESS. I am funny and interesting and independent and strong. I’m talented, thoughtful and resourceful, like MacGyver but different (thought I did unblock my ignition lock by digging out a twisted piece of metal with a pair of tweezers this morning.)
I am not like any other woman you know and that is a GREAT thing.
Making these declarative statements does not make me a loser, it makes me focused on the positive parts of me. So there.
Let’s see how the week plays out.
And it hit me. I don’t really want to be this way. I don’t wanna be whiny. I don’t wanna be in a funk. You guys don’t wanna read about me being in a funk. You guys don’t wanna read about me being whiny.
I’m reminded of Say Anything. I know a lot of people remember a lot of things about that movie, but I’m always the strange one that remembers the odd stuff, so here ya go: Greatest Man Ever Who Doesn’t Exist In Real Life And Has Sent Many A Girl Despairing Lloyd Dobler is having an argument with his sister Constance, and he says
“How hard is it just to decide to be in a good mood, and then be in a good mood?”
Constance’s withering reply is “Gee, it's easy.” But she’s a single mom with a little kid in a crappy apartment with her brother staying on the couch and the parents in Germany. I have no such excuse.
At the same time, I was reading on a friend’s Myspace page how her acting teacher had told her this:
The moment you start seeing life as non-serious, a playfulness, all the burden on your heart disappears. All the fear of death, of life, of love - everything disappears. One starts living with a very light weight or almost no weight. So weightless one becomes, one can fly in the open sky.
The fluffy weightlessness and “fly in the open sky” bit aside, the part about not taking life seriously, to make like Lloyd, to decide to be in a good mood and then BE in a good mood, was something I thought I should try to do.
So I approached Friday with that mindset. I was going to view life as though it was a game today, that nothing that would happen today would really MEAN anything, because it’s all a game, a piffle, a bit of nonsense and stuff.
Because that’s essentially what a temp’s life is, right? Nothing really counts, or is consequential, because you’re not really there. I mean, the professional integrity thing spurs me to do the best job I can, and because I’m human, I can’t help but feel bad if something goes wrong. But if something does go wrong, so what. 99.9 percent of the time, it’s not my fault, so they’re not going to fire me.
I was off to a good start, as I had finished my latest Christmas monologue for Joseph’s poker playing buddy, Big Al (what? They did TOO play poker back in Jesus’ day!) When I get to work, there’s plenty of stress going on, as some people have let the fax machine run out of toner and not ordered a new one, other people can’t type in email addresses correctly and get frantic when the emails bounce back, other people are having shitfits because they’re moving their trip dates around and we can’t get them hotel rooms, blah de blah blah.
But I don’t get stressed. I’m viewing it all as a game, like I’m looking at those people through a glass wall, watching them tear their hair out. I know better than to get stressed with them, that won’t solve anything, I’m just here to help, and even if I’m asked to do something I already know the answer too. “Could you please go check to see if Bonehead is sitting on that document I need?” “The fax machine is broken.” “Could you please just go and check anyway?” Okay, I think to myself, but it’s not going to be there. But if you want me to, sure I’ll go. Lo and behold, I’m right, there IS no document. And I’m (inwardly) laughing at how funny this is all turning out to be.
Coincidentally, all around me, the marketing and promotion chicks are buzzing about The Secret, The Secret, have you heard about The Secret? Well, yes, actually, I have, I heard about it at a birthday party last month, and the girl that told me about it said something like, “If someone else tells you about it within a week, you have to go buy the book.” Which is actually a brilliant marketing idea on their part. Nobody told me about it within a week, but everyone’s talking about it now, because it was on Oprah on Thursday.
All it is, is another self-actualization book and movie, saying that you control your reality, and if you put out negative thoughts out there, that’s what you’ll get back. If you put positive thoughts out there, that’s what you’ll get back. The Biblical version of it is Philippians 4:8, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
And there have been plenty of times in my life where I’ve stood in my backyard, stretched my arms out wide, prayed the neighbors didn’t look over and see the Crazy Chick In The Backyard, and put out to God and the Universe In General what I wanted. Not that I was going through a wish list, I want a bike, a pony, and a CAR, but things I was actively working towards, and what I wanted to have happen. None of them happened, and at the time, it brought me down, made me miserable, made me doubt, scream, throw margarita glasses against the side of the garage, la la laaaaaa.
I recognize the folly of what I was doing at the time, telling God what I wanted, as opposed to asking Him to tell me what He wants me to do. But what was also missing was after I stood in the backyard and asked God for things, I then squared my shoulders and went through my day with a grim determination, like life was a chore, life is a hassle, I’m just trying to keep my head above water, and not drown in a sea of despair before a life raft in the form of a sold script comes along.
So right here, right now, I’m making a declaration: I’m going to put myself in a good mood and stay there. This is different than clinging on to an already happening good mood. This is a conscious, rational, reasonable decision. I’m DECIDING to enter a good mood and will focus all of my conscious effort on STAYING there, and DEFLECTING any little gnats of negativity that might try to buzz through. I’m having good days only. Because honestly, given my usual tendencies, the most twisted peculiar going against my grain thing I could do would be to live deliberately positive.
Therefore, I’m deliberately declaring these statements:
I am an awesome writer.
I will sell a script.
I am attractive and have an amazing ass that grabs the attention of everyone I know, men, women, gay or straight. I used to have a problem with this, but I DON’T ANYMORE.
I am worthy of being loved.
I am MORE than worthy of being loved. I am an absolute GODDESS. I am funny and interesting and independent and strong. I’m talented, thoughtful and resourceful, like MacGyver but different (thought I did unblock my ignition lock by digging out a twisted piece of metal with a pair of tweezers this morning.)
I am not like any other woman you know and that is a GREAT thing.
Making these declarative statements does not make me a loser, it makes me focused on the positive parts of me. So there.
Let’s see how the week plays out.
Friday, February 09, 2007
Enforced Secret Joy # 27 – The Puppy Bowl!
I’m not into pro football very much, since I prefer the jaw dropping boneheadedness that comes with freshmen newbies in college football. I used to be really into the Superbowl for the commercials, but with all the internet hype and ad meters magnifying every second, that’s not much fun anymore either. Since I am not a guy, the Lingerie Bowl doesn’t do a thing for me. But God in heaven above saw fit to correct the lack of Amy Options On Superbowl Sunday by smacking some smarty pants at Animal Planet with the idea of the Puppy Bowl, now in its third year.It doesn’t matter that the Superbowl itself is officially over, you can catch clips of the Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet’s website.
There are no rules, there is no rhyme or reason, it’s exactly what it sounds like. They built a Puppy sized stadium, threw a bunch of puppies in there, a bunch of chew toys, trained about 10 cameras on them and hoped for the best. I’m sure there was plenty of peeing, pooping and humping, but it’s all been carefully edited out. (though there are a couple of times where a ref calls a time out to clean up the field, ha ha ha.) There’s even a puppy tailgate party outside. They’ve thought of everything.
Seriously people, I dare you to watch more than ten seconds of this and not find yourself oddly hypnotized by the cute little fluffy bundles of love. I got Roomie Heckle, who’s called cuteoverload.com “porn for girls” in the past, to watch five seconds of it and he was HOOKED. “I can’t…I can’t believe this,” he sputtered, not being able to stop himself from sinking down onto the couch as Sonny the puggle faced down three Samoyed puppies. “Somebody over at Animal Planet is a f’ing millionaire for thinking this up.” And yet he couldn’t stop watching. Roomie Heckle’s buddy came to pick him up to go to their Superbowl Party, and sank down onto the couch too as Jackson the golden retriever puppy kept picking fights with Milo the French Bulldog (who sported a neck vein so bulging I really did think it was gonna pop at some point.) Then Roomie Jekyll came in, “What the f are you guys WATCHING?” she says, but as soon as she saw the Bowl Cam (they stuck a camera underneath a transparent water bowl to get super close up shots for puppy tongues lapping the water, and puppy feet including PINK PUPPY PAW PADS splashing around) she was hooked too. It’s a drug, people. You don’t wanna stop.
Dear God, thank you for the Puppy Bowl. Thank you for the silliness, the inanity, the puppies. Thank you for the patient Referee and his vacuum. Thank you for the cameramen who might have thought at one point there has to be better gigs than tracking the movements of a directionless pack o’ puppies with no game plan. Because honestly, there ISN’T a better gig. This is it. Puppies, squeaky toys, pink puppy paw pads, sniffy noses and cockeyed ears. Thanks for the kitten halftime show, too, because even though I’m not the biggest kitten fan in the world, kittens playing on a playset to disco music is damn funny. Thank you thank you thank you. Amen.P.S. Thank you for Prince’s halftime show on the real Superbowl, because he RAWKED. Thank you especially for his cover of “The Best of You.” That was my favorite. Amen.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Return Of The Whiner
Once, a long time ago, my sister Agatha had a roommate Tabitha who was well versed in the art of tarot card reading, and occasionally would do readings for me. YOU’RE GOING TO HELL FOR PARTICIPATING IN THE DARK ARTS OF TAROT! Ha ha ha.
Anyhow, there was one reading she did for me where the card that was the centerpiece of the reading was the Five of Cups card. While the picture on the card she used had a guy with his head of the table, I couldn’t find that one, I found this one instead. The intent is the same: you’re either a guy crying with your head on the table along with three spilled cups of wine, and two full ones behind you on the mantel, or you’re a cloaked, vaguely Byron-esque guy standing with your back to the reader, and your empty cups in front of you, your full ones behind you. The point is you’re crying over the cups o’ wine that you lost, instead of seeing the cups of wine you still have.
And the definition of this card is one you would expect from a picture like this:
Represents regret over past actions or over a loss in a relationship. The seeker has suffered a loss or disappointment and is grieving. As with every loss, this initiates a change. There may be some obsession over past wrongs. It's time to put that behind and move forward. Concentrate on what you have, not what you lost.
In fact he (Mr. Quasi Lord Byron) becomes so caught up in his grief and remorse that he turns his back on the two upright cups that are sitting right there. (Mr. Quasi Lord Byron) reminds us that where we focus our thoughts we also focus our energy. In our lives sometimes feelings of loss will be present. It is in those times it is important to not become too attached to the emotions of nostalgia and regret, but to turn around and shift our focus to those two upright cups... the blessings and abundance that already are there. In so doing, we make way for more abundance to flow in while working constructively to heal our grievances.
And as Tabitha nicely lectured me, “Stop focusing on what you don’t have, and look at what you do.” I tried to point out to her that three cups of wine is definitely more than two cups of wine, so of COURSE I’d be upset if three cups were spilled. Tabitha said that was my whole problem right there.
That reading was so long ago that I honestly don’t remember what was going on in my life where those kind of predictions would have applied. And yet here we are in present day and present time and sometimes I don’t think I’ve learned a damn thing.
I’ve talked a bit about my Functional Depressive status before, and that’s what I was wrestling with this week. I’d like to think that Midlife Virgin is right, that it had something to do with the full moon. YOU’RE GOING TO HELL FOR ASCRIBING POWER TO THE MOON. Yeah, thanks for that.
It is not easy to live with the knowledge that a big part of you would like nothing more than for you to be miserable 24/7 for the rest of your life. That even when things are going reasonably well, there’s a Paranoid Circus in your head that likes to insidiously whisper how people are lying to you behind your back, how people are being untrue to your face, how them wanting to know how your week has been is really a polite front because they don’t give a shit, and they’re bored in your presence. Sometimes it’s not even insidiously whispering, they’re slamming a big brass kettle drum against your forehead, chanting over and over how you’re never going to sell a script, you’re never going to sell a script, you are not talented, you are not witty, the only thing you’ve got going for you is that you’re disciplined, and that’s wasted on you, you of mediocre talent.
See, I’m not saying these things because I want you all to leave comments telling me I’m wrong, wrong, whoop de do wrong, stop focusing on the negativity, stop crying over the three spilled cups of wine on the table, focus on the two full ones behind you. I KNOW those thoughts are wrong. The issue is I can’t make them stop. The Christian platitude of Give Them To God doesn’t do SHIT for me, because I’m always Hey God? Um, God? Could you, you know, keep Your promises that You talk about in the Bible, where you’re talking about laying our burdens at Your feet. Cast our cares upon You, and You will sustain them? ‘Cause, um, and I hate to be whiny about it, but IT’S NOT WORKING.
And maybe I’m misinterpreting everything, and it’s not that God will take them away, but that He will gave you the strength to sustain it. But, um, I don’t want to SUSTAIN, I want it to GO AWAY!?
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen.
In other news, at my church’s Home Group this week, we were talking about Ephesians, and God’s grace, and “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.” La la la. One of the questions for discussion was to look back at our lives and look for times when you thought your life was going to be going this way “BUT GOD” had other plans. Most everyone had some sort of dramatic examples – planning on moving overseas when they got pregnant and had to stay in the states, job offers in faraway places, illnesses, deaths in family, the whole nine yards.
But I couldn’t come up with a decent example in my own life. Is that weird? Boring? Unfortunate? My life has been a on a pretty steady course. I came out here to write, I’m still pursuing it. Life hasn’t thrown any major curveballs in the form of illness, financial hardship, insane relatives, abusive relationships. Even the two times that I’ve been job hunting weren’t truly curveballs, as I had plenty of advance notice that losing my job was in the works.
And now that I’ve recognized it, does that mean I’ve jinxed it? That the next plane I get on is going down? Does it mean I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing, if there haven’t been any major curveballs? And if it does mean I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing, where is the final product? The results that are supposed to come from obedience? WHERE’S THE SUCCESS? Or am I supposed to take the lack of success as a sign that this isn’t what I’m supposed to be doing?
See why I’ve been a little internally freaked and paranoid lately? Sigh.
Sometimes I torment myself by telling myself if you have the audacity to ask, to wonder, to question, then you’ll never receive it That asking God why aren’t things happening faster means I’m somehow setting the clock back for them to arrive. If I only have FAITH, if I only TRUST in God, if I pull an Orpheus and go down to get Eurydice from the Underworld and bring her back up to Earth without looking back to see if she’s still behind me, then BLAMMO, a script sells tomorrow. I know it’s stupid to think that way, I know that’s not how God works. But again, thoughts I can’t shake. And I wonder where His grace is that’s supposed to help me shake them.
I’m sorry the blog posts have been a series of downers lately. I’ll try to do better, I promise. Enforced Secret Joy post this Friday! I promise!
Anyhow, there was one reading she did for me where the card that was the centerpiece of the reading was the Five of Cups card. While the picture on the card she used had a guy with his head of the table, I couldn’t find that one, I found this one instead. The intent is the same: you’re either a guy crying with your head on the table along with three spilled cups of wine, and two full ones behind you on the mantel, or you’re a cloaked, vaguely Byron-esque guy standing with your back to the reader, and your empty cups in front of you, your full ones behind you. The point is you’re crying over the cups o’ wine that you lost, instead of seeing the cups of wine you still have. And the definition of this card is one you would expect from a picture like this:
Represents regret over past actions or over a loss in a relationship. The seeker has suffered a loss or disappointment and is grieving. As with every loss, this initiates a change. There may be some obsession over past wrongs. It's time to put that behind and move forward. Concentrate on what you have, not what you lost.
In fact he (Mr. Quasi Lord Byron) becomes so caught up in his grief and remorse that he turns his back on the two upright cups that are sitting right there. (Mr. Quasi Lord Byron) reminds us that where we focus our thoughts we also focus our energy. In our lives sometimes feelings of loss will be present. It is in those times it is important to not become too attached to the emotions of nostalgia and regret, but to turn around and shift our focus to those two upright cups... the blessings and abundance that already are there. In so doing, we make way for more abundance to flow in while working constructively to heal our grievances.
And as Tabitha nicely lectured me, “Stop focusing on what you don’t have, and look at what you do.” I tried to point out to her that three cups of wine is definitely more than two cups of wine, so of COURSE I’d be upset if three cups were spilled. Tabitha said that was my whole problem right there.
That reading was so long ago that I honestly don’t remember what was going on in my life where those kind of predictions would have applied. And yet here we are in present day and present time and sometimes I don’t think I’ve learned a damn thing.
I’ve talked a bit about my Functional Depressive status before, and that’s what I was wrestling with this week. I’d like to think that Midlife Virgin is right, that it had something to do with the full moon. YOU’RE GOING TO HELL FOR ASCRIBING POWER TO THE MOON. Yeah, thanks for that.
It is not easy to live with the knowledge that a big part of you would like nothing more than for you to be miserable 24/7 for the rest of your life. That even when things are going reasonably well, there’s a Paranoid Circus in your head that likes to insidiously whisper how people are lying to you behind your back, how people are being untrue to your face, how them wanting to know how your week has been is really a polite front because they don’t give a shit, and they’re bored in your presence. Sometimes it’s not even insidiously whispering, they’re slamming a big brass kettle drum against your forehead, chanting over and over how you’re never going to sell a script, you’re never going to sell a script, you are not talented, you are not witty, the only thing you’ve got going for you is that you’re disciplined, and that’s wasted on you, you of mediocre talent.
See, I’m not saying these things because I want you all to leave comments telling me I’m wrong, wrong, whoop de do wrong, stop focusing on the negativity, stop crying over the three spilled cups of wine on the table, focus on the two full ones behind you. I KNOW those thoughts are wrong. The issue is I can’t make them stop. The Christian platitude of Give Them To God doesn’t do SHIT for me, because I’m always Hey God? Um, God? Could you, you know, keep Your promises that You talk about in the Bible, where you’re talking about laying our burdens at Your feet. Cast our cares upon You, and You will sustain them? ‘Cause, um, and I hate to be whiny about it, but IT’S NOT WORKING.
And maybe I’m misinterpreting everything, and it’s not that God will take them away, but that He will gave you the strength to sustain it. But, um, I don’t want to SUSTAIN, I want it to GO AWAY!?
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen.
In other news, at my church’s Home Group this week, we were talking about Ephesians, and God’s grace, and “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.” La la la. One of the questions for discussion was to look back at our lives and look for times when you thought your life was going to be going this way “BUT GOD” had other plans. Most everyone had some sort of dramatic examples – planning on moving overseas when they got pregnant and had to stay in the states, job offers in faraway places, illnesses, deaths in family, the whole nine yards.
But I couldn’t come up with a decent example in my own life. Is that weird? Boring? Unfortunate? My life has been a on a pretty steady course. I came out here to write, I’m still pursuing it. Life hasn’t thrown any major curveballs in the form of illness, financial hardship, insane relatives, abusive relationships. Even the two times that I’ve been job hunting weren’t truly curveballs, as I had plenty of advance notice that losing my job was in the works.
And now that I’ve recognized it, does that mean I’ve jinxed it? That the next plane I get on is going down? Does it mean I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing, if there haven’t been any major curveballs? And if it does mean I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing, where is the final product? The results that are supposed to come from obedience? WHERE’S THE SUCCESS? Or am I supposed to take the lack of success as a sign that this isn’t what I’m supposed to be doing?
See why I’ve been a little internally freaked and paranoid lately? Sigh.
Sometimes I torment myself by telling myself if you have the audacity to ask, to wonder, to question, then you’ll never receive it That asking God why aren’t things happening faster means I’m somehow setting the clock back for them to arrive. If I only have FAITH, if I only TRUST in God, if I pull an Orpheus and go down to get Eurydice from the Underworld and bring her back up to Earth without looking back to see if she’s still behind me, then BLAMMO, a script sells tomorrow. I know it’s stupid to think that way, I know that’s not how God works. But again, thoughts I can’t shake. And I wonder where His grace is that’s supposed to help me shake them.
I’m sorry the blog posts have been a series of downers lately. I’ll try to do better, I promise. Enforced Secret Joy post this Friday! I promise!
Friday, February 02, 2007
Enforced Secret Joy Post #26 - Pansies
Must do Enforced Secret Joy Post, must do Enforced Secret Joy Post, it doesn’t have to be long, just get something up there. Get back on the schedule, get back on the routine. Because the world has gotten far too dreary if I don't actively look for things to write about Enforced Secret Joys posts.
Is this even going to be coherent? I’m pretty manic today, and I don’t know what started it. It’s been so hard wrestling with mental shit this week. You all just THINK I’m calm, cool, and collected on the outside. Inside, though, I’m screaming at the top of my lungs, tearing clothes, beating heads against the metaphorical walls Why! Why! Why is this happening! WHY!?!?!?! No, I’m not explaining more.
If I happen to run into you this weekend, I apologize in advance for any drama I am unable to successfully suppress. You can only keep the lid on for so long, folks. On to the Joy.
Pansies! I like Pansies. I do. (okay, half of you are waiting for the obvious joke “And no, I’m not talking about English daffy guys that dance around.”) I like them even though the Freedom From Religion Foundation uses them as their corporate symbol. (I am NOT linking to them, you go look them up on your own.)
I don’t know why I’m drawn to the Pansies. Because they look like they have faces? Because Alice sings “Golden Afternoon” with them in Alice In Wonderland ? (before they turn on her because they think she’s a weed.)
I toyed with the idea of creating Amy’s Pansy Pot, since we’ve got a couple of spare gardening pots around the house, but I don’t think I have the strength to spend time upkeeping a flower that’s not a perennial. I’d taking the dying thing too personally.
So I like looking at anybody else’s Pansies. And I saw some on the Unnamed Movie Studio Lot today, which is pretty amazing, considering the Unnamed Movie Studio Lot is a lot of concrete and soundstages and parking garages and precious little greenery anywhere. So yay for that.
Dear God, thank you for Pansies. Thank you for their vibrant color, thank you for their face-like petals. Thank you that I was able to see some on the Unnamed Movie Studio Lot, even though this pansy bed is woefully dry and dusty (see previous paragraph about how Unnamed Movie Studio Lot doesn’t have a lot of lush greenery going on.)
Thank you for my life, which is also woefully dry and dusty and thus must be why You put these pansies in my line of vision for me to see. Thank you for Your grace and patience in listening to me whine, moan, bitch or otherwise complain about why I can’t seem to tame the internal winds of discord within my own psyche.
Thank you for this yellow pansy.
Thank you for blessing me, even though I am a rotten ungrateful brat who truly doesn’t deserve everything You have given me.
Thank you for this white and purple pansy.
Please let me gain control. Please let me gain control. And please send someone to water those pansies. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Amen.
Is this even going to be coherent? I’m pretty manic today, and I don’t know what started it. It’s been so hard wrestling with mental shit this week. You all just THINK I’m calm, cool, and collected on the outside. Inside, though, I’m screaming at the top of my lungs, tearing clothes, beating heads against the metaphorical walls Why! Why! Why is this happening! WHY!?!?!?! No, I’m not explaining more.
If I happen to run into you this weekend, I apologize in advance for any drama I am unable to successfully suppress. You can only keep the lid on for so long, folks. On to the Joy.
Pansies! I like Pansies. I do. (okay, half of you are waiting for the obvious joke “And no, I’m not talking about English daffy guys that dance around.”) I like them even though the Freedom From Religion Foundation uses them as their corporate symbol. (I am NOT linking to them, you go look them up on your own.)
I don’t know why I’m drawn to the Pansies. Because they look like they have faces? Because Alice sings “Golden Afternoon” with them in Alice In Wonderland ? (before they turn on her because they think she’s a weed.)I toyed with the idea of creating Amy’s Pansy Pot, since we’ve got a couple of spare gardening pots around the house, but I don’t think I have the strength to spend time upkeeping a flower that’s not a perennial. I’d taking the dying thing too personally.
So I like looking at anybody else’s Pansies. And I saw some on the Unnamed Movie Studio Lot today, which is pretty amazing, considering the Unnamed Movie Studio Lot is a lot of concrete and soundstages and parking garages and precious little greenery anywhere. So yay for that.
Dear God, thank you for Pansies. Thank you for their vibrant color, thank you for their face-like petals. Thank you that I was able to see some on the Unnamed Movie Studio Lot, even though this pansy bed is woefully dry and dusty (see previous paragraph about how Unnamed Movie Studio Lot doesn’t have a lot of lush greenery going on.) Thank you for my life, which is also woefully dry and dusty and thus must be why You put these pansies in my line of vision for me to see. Thank you for Your grace and patience in listening to me whine, moan, bitch or otherwise complain about why I can’t seem to tame the internal winds of discord within my own psyche.
Thank you for this yellow pansy.
Thank you for blessing me, even though I am a rotten ungrateful brat who truly doesn’t deserve everything You have given me.
Thank you for this white and purple pansy.
Please let me gain control. Please let me gain control. And please send someone to water those pansies. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Amen.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
When I Want To Smack Myself
I think we all can agree it’s much easier to give other people advice than it is to listen to it ourselves. I mean, I can sit here and blather on all I want to about how I don’t understand God, I don’t hear Him, I hate Mr. Purple Puffy Pants People telling me what I should do when it comes to Him, blah blah blabbity blah. But when it comes to telling other people what to do, oh MAN, am I all over it. Maybe I’m a Mr. Purple Puffy Panters myself. Except I would like to think that if my advice was clearly not helpful, my friends would tell me so. Hey, let’s make a pact, Faithful Reader, shall we? If we know each other well enough to where I either tell/email you what I think are helpful words of encouragement, and you think they are a big steaming pile of ostrich pus, you shall tell me immediately, mmmkay? I won’t be offended. I need to know when I’m being stupid. Um, now?
F’instance, I was over at Ambiva-vent, as Carlen is experiencing some spinning around You Led Me Into The Desert, When Are You Gonna Get Me OUT!? stuff that I had gone through last year myself. (Oh, I’m sure I’m still stuck IN the desert. But I’ve given up being upset about it. Takes too much energy. I’d rather watch zombie movies instead.) So I emailed her my thoughts, because Blogger must’ve had their Ostrich Pus detector on, as it was not letting me post publicly. And I came up with this little bon mot:
Nobody ever knows God the way they think they do, so cut yourself some slack. Because God loves to surprise people.
Now, I’m not sure where that thought came from, it was sandwiched in between “God’s not mad at you, He’s mad at me,” and “Go take a long hot bath because you’re not paying for the water bill.” And Carlen, ever the gracious lovely lady that she is, emailed me back and thanked me. But as I re-read that sentence, it struck me as particularly annoying, cloying, and not even true, as there probably are some people who DEFINITELY know who God is. Just because I don’t doesn’t mean everyone else is as much of a dumbass as I am. (I will stand by the God Loves To Surprise People idea, though.)
Secondly, at my small group last week, we’re discussing one of my favorite topics, How Am I Supposed To Be Nice To People I Can’t Stand (and I didn’t even start the topic, Giggly did) and there’s all sorts of churchy talk about God’s will, and Obeying, and Being Led Into The Desert (where you shall spin endlessly for EONS, you will) and finally I say,
“We’re called to Obey, we’re not called to like it.”
And amazingly enough, the group murmurs in agreement, and at least one person says, “Good point.”
Good point? It f’ing SUCKS. Why didn’t someone call me on it? If someone had said that to me, I would’ve punched them in the face. Metaphorically speaking. But I’d definitely cry all sorts of foul, and then promptly rant about it on my blog. Because “We’re called to Obey, we’re not called to like it.” carries the undercurrent of To Be A Happy Chipper Christian Means You Must Be Miserable About Something All The Time. (And technically, if that’s true, it means EVERYONE’s a Christian and they don’t know it, because everybody’s miserable about something all the time.)
“We’re called to Obey, we’re not called to like it” means that all Christians are just little depressing blobs shuffling around, never lifting their heads up to the sun, stuck in the Gulag O’Life. When that’s not the case at all. Being a Christian is supposed to be freeing, liberating, the best thing going, man I can’t believe what God’s going for me, it’s AWESOME.
At least, that’s what they tell me.
But I don’t know where those annoying icky poo strands of advice came from. And the idea that my subconscious is taking on Ostrich Purple Puffypants Puss hues is not comforting to me. I talk a good game. I don’t believe it, though. And if that’s the case, then shouldn’t I um, maybe, shut my mouth?
F’instance, I was over at Ambiva-vent, as Carlen is experiencing some spinning around You Led Me Into The Desert, When Are You Gonna Get Me OUT!? stuff that I had gone through last year myself. (Oh, I’m sure I’m still stuck IN the desert. But I’ve given up being upset about it. Takes too much energy. I’d rather watch zombie movies instead.) So I emailed her my thoughts, because Blogger must’ve had their Ostrich Pus detector on, as it was not letting me post publicly. And I came up with this little bon mot: Nobody ever knows God the way they think they do, so cut yourself some slack. Because God loves to surprise people.
Now, I’m not sure where that thought came from, it was sandwiched in between “God’s not mad at you, He’s mad at me,” and “Go take a long hot bath because you’re not paying for the water bill.” And Carlen, ever the gracious lovely lady that she is, emailed me back and thanked me. But as I re-read that sentence, it struck me as particularly annoying, cloying, and not even true, as there probably are some people who DEFINITELY know who God is. Just because I don’t doesn’t mean everyone else is as much of a dumbass as I am. (I will stand by the God Loves To Surprise People idea, though.)
Secondly, at my small group last week, we’re discussing one of my favorite topics, How Am I Supposed To Be Nice To People I Can’t Stand (and I didn’t even start the topic, Giggly did) and there’s all sorts of churchy talk about God’s will, and Obeying, and Being Led Into The Desert (where you shall spin endlessly for EONS, you will) and finally I say,
“We’re called to Obey, we’re not called to like it.”
And amazingly enough, the group murmurs in agreement, and at least one person says, “Good point.”
Good point? It f’ing SUCKS. Why didn’t someone call me on it? If someone had said that to me, I would’ve punched them in the face. Metaphorically speaking. But I’d definitely cry all sorts of foul, and then promptly rant about it on my blog. Because “We’re called to Obey, we’re not called to like it.” carries the undercurrent of To Be A Happy Chipper Christian Means You Must Be Miserable About Something All The Time. (And technically, if that’s true, it means EVERYONE’s a Christian and they don’t know it, because everybody’s miserable about something all the time.)
“We’re called to Obey, we’re not called to like it” means that all Christians are just little depressing blobs shuffling around, never lifting their heads up to the sun, stuck in the Gulag O’Life. When that’s not the case at all. Being a Christian is supposed to be freeing, liberating, the best thing going, man I can’t believe what God’s going for me, it’s AWESOME.
At least, that’s what they tell me.
But I don’t know where those annoying icky poo strands of advice came from. And the idea that my subconscious is taking on Ostrich Purple Puffypants Puss hues is not comforting to me. I talk a good game. I don’t believe it, though. And if that’s the case, then shouldn’t I um, maybe, shut my mouth?
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