My brain.

It is a funny thing how the brain works.

Today I found myself wrestling with how to restructure a screenplay I'm working on.
A trusted friend and colleague suggested that I print out each scene in its entirety and tape them on a wall.

As she spoke, I felt my brain cave in, though I knew it was a good idea.

After I hung up, I looked over some recent notes, and one of the things I'd forgotten about was a typed list of all the scenes in the current draft; one sentence descriptions of each scene. My intention had been to cut those up and move them around like a puzzle to see if I might discover a new way of looking at things.

Instantly I felt energized. It's my version of what my friend was talking about. Because of the way my brain works - this use of tiny idea bites totally energized me. Somehow these tiny bites keep me from being overwhelmed... it's why when my husband and I sold jewelry for a living- I used to make earrings and he used make the necklaces- earrings are tiny idea bites!

So...not only did I get them all printed out and on the wall, but I was able to make real progress. I am so grateful for my friend whose gentleness with me around this process has been a godsend. She has nudged me again in the direction of my own creativity and that's where the fun lives.

To Be Or Not To Be

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Our culture is weird.

We revere the fake, the untrue, the unreal.

We don't reach out and talk about the things that matter, the things we all experience as a natural part of being a human. Things that would help us through this odd and interesting life.

We have gone so far as to develop a whole industry to support self un-acceptance.

I like to call it Desperation Dialing.

Are you a human being? Yes! There’s a number you can call for that!

Are you ready to lost that last 10 pounds?

All you have to do is Defy Gravity.

Erase wrinkles in just 10 days.

Lonely? Want somebody cute to talk to?
Call now to talk to people just like you.

Need a pair of jeans that make your booty look 3 sizes smaller?

Want to cover those grays?

Ready to makeover your life?

There’s a number for that, there’s a website for that, there’s a cure for that. And it’s only 39.95 plus shipping and handling.

WOW...such a deal.

Tiddly Winks

BAM!

Out of nowhere the name of this childhood game came whizzing through my mind.

Tiddlywinks.





















Seriously?

What a bizarre name for a game.

All i can remember is the little colored thingamajigs.













So I wikipedia it and here's what I learn:

Played with sets of small discs called "winks" (the thingamajigs!), players use a larger disc called a "squidger" to pop a wink into flight by pressing down on one side of the wink. The objective of the game is to cause the winks to land either on top of opponents' winks, or ultimately inside a cup.

















Squidger. say it with me: Squidger.

Fun, no?

I think I'd rather say 'Squidger' five times fast than play tiddlywinks, but that's just me.

Apparently Tiddlywinks is all the rage in Vienna. Vienna, Virginia, that is. Yup,
according the the North America Tiddlywinks Assocation (No lie!- Tiddlywinks.org)the 39th North American Pairs tiddlywinks championship was held in September.













In fact, the World Teams championship brought the top eight winkers from the English Tiddlywinks Association and the top eight winkers from NATWA to town to compete.

I wanna be one of the top winkers. But my championship would be all about winking. You know, with your eye.



But that's just me.

Taking the Girls to Work

Years ago a gorgeous woman told me that she viewed her boobs as power tools in the workplace...male bosses refused her nothing.













Recently a new colleague shared the workplace truth at the other end of the spectrum...cleavage at the office equals less respect...no one will take you seriously.













Half awake on the way to the bus stop this morning, this thought woke me up: I can't waste my time worrying about being taken seriously. I take myself seriously (with a healthy dose of humor, of course)












The thing is...I like v-necks. What others do with that truth is their business.

Does not Compute

In the old days, moving into a new house was considered the height of stressful.

Well...forget making copies of keys.

Or hanging art on the walls.

Today, getting a new computer has trumped that as the high intensity frustration experience of the century.

If you think about it, moving to a new computer is just like moving into a new house. You gotta find and reinstall your programs, program keys, you gotta transfer your files, docs and bookmarks into the new place.

On top of that, you can’t find anything. In a house move it's: where's the cat?

With a computer its: where's my sanity?

The technology has improved so much you can't figure out how anything works. That's a little, bizarre, no? Things you took for granted now seem like insurmountable obstacles. (Where the hell is the start button?!)

In the old days, a knock at your door was probably the neighbors welcoming you to the 'hood with a pie or plate of cookies.

Today it's more like this:

Knock knock. Who’s there?

Your 67 passwords from various sites and programs...remember us?

NO!!! I don’t! f***ck!

Hell, I'd rather build a new house. From scratch. By hand. By myself.

But instead, I get the distinct joy of jumping through hoops to gain access to the many sites and servers that my new employer needs me to get into.

It's like jumping a security fence at a prison only to find another one that is taller, built of razors and surrounded by angry gunmen.

All I'm saying is: it's kind of frustrating.

I'll get over it...

Someday.

Ground Control to Major Tom

Out my window I see a man wearing a giant, white space suit.

I’m not kidding.

From the office of my new job writing for a technology giant, I can see the laboratory where Space Suit Man does his thing. No clue what he’s got going over there. Something freaky that requires the wearing of space suits, that’s all I got.

I don’t feel so different from him. My space suit is office-friendly. The scientific jargon I speak is filled with acronyms and puffy words like ‘leverage’ and ‘bandwidth’.

My fellow space travelers in this capsule are kind to me. But I can see how life in the Cube can squish out the soul of things. Quietly, non-threateningly. And it happens quickly.

I get home after two long bus rides and enduring whatever weather the skies have shared. It’s dark. I feel confused. I’ve forgotten what it is that I usually do in my own space.

Perhaps it will come to me.

I sit in front of the TV and hope to remember soon. The kitty climbs in my lap and that’s real nice.














What was I saying?

My Word!

I like to make up words.



















It's not that I sit around and think, 'Hmmm...what word can I make up today?'




























The way it works is this:

I'm talking with someone, and in the middle of gabbling (see?!) passionately about something, some non-dictionary sanctioned word pops out of my mouth in the middle of a sentence.
















Out of thin air. (though I don't believe air is thin.)

This weeks words: Creativitude and Creativitating.

Often, these homemade words leave me as soon as I've said them. But these two have stuck with me. Creativitude makes simple sense to me, but after days of thinking about it, I couldn't quite pinpoint what I think Creativitating is.













So i posed the question...



















to my dear Jose.



















Me: If Creativitude is one's aptitude for creativity, what is Creativitating?
Jose: It's when someone is so Creative they can float.

Don't just stand there...

I had a huge realization the other day.







Huge.

Okay, so I'm a writer, right?

Right.

I Write.

Typically, when I send a screenplay out to producers after months or years of toiling on it, there are people who become interested in it. That's nice, right?

Absolutely.

But here's the problem. It's like I'm walking down the street writing, having a nice life. then I send the thing out and after a while people stop and stare at what I wrote. I turn around and see people stopping and staring at my work. so, I stop. I stare....at the people stopping and staring.







The thing is: I stop and everything stops with me. Then I get anxious. And sometimes depressed. I get confused about what life is about. And I wonder why everything goes so slow and dear god will anything ever 'happen' with my work.









i become an unhappy kitty.









Here's where it gets good. The big AHA?

It's not my job to stop and stare at the stoppers and stare-ers. I just gotta keep doing what I do. Turns out if i just put my virtual pen to paper and start writing ANYTHING...



i'm happy as a clam. if clams are happy.

And I'm thinking they are.

Vertigo

There are a lot of rules in our culture and generally I follow them, but I’m not immune to how unbelievably stupid most of them are.

I’d like to know for instance, what genius decided that mustaches on girls are a bad thing?










And all the things we do to behave, be proper - I wonder if Miss Manners really existed or if, like Santa Claus and Yom Kippur, she was created just to keep us in line.

At this point in my life, I'm sure of only one truth...being a person is a funny thing.

So many rules exist telling you how you're supposed to look, how you're supposed to live and how you're supposed to react to your own experiences.These arbitrary rules reign supreme. But rules can be tricky.

Case in point: I've heard that when you jump out of an airplane for the first time, you experience vertigo.








You can even black out, because your brain has no frame of reference with which to understand the situation it's in. I've got this story stuck in my head; I saw it on the news - or maybe I read it in the paper. It was about a man who took sky diving lessons. The day came for his first jump. He leapt from the plane.

The news report claimed his body made a four-foot deep hole in the cement where he landed. So what happened? He took lessons. He learned the rules - how and when to leap, when to reach for the parachute rip cord on his flight suit. He was drilled and drilled until he was ready. So what happened? He jumped just like he was supposed to. He reached for the rip cord like he was supposed to.

But it wasn't there.

No one taught him what to do if the rip cord wasn't there.

He panicked. Panic, one of the unacceptable human responses, was not part of the lesson plan. The report said the guy scratched a huge hole in the fabric of his flight suit where that rip cord was supposed to be.

Apparently his brain went into overdrive and because of this brain freak called vertigo - He was grabbing and scratching for the rip cord on the wrong side of the suit.

The wrong side.

Some days are like that, you know?

OUT

She watches as the pictures dance in her head
Of all the days and faces and simpler times.

She closes her eyes thinking about
the curse of this freedom
and how unrelenting it is,
Just like being locked up

And the smile on the lips of the people in the street
annoys somebody to distraction.
They ease out of their situation
and reach for a stick or somebody elses purse.

And some small child is eating
something she found on the street
Rachel
Her mouth is full
And her head is spinning
And mommy’s upstairs again
shooting relief into her veins

Though she can’t remember when the last time it felt good was
But it doesn’t matter anyway
As the thought slips from her head
And the jammer slips from her hand
And the sweat slowly winds down her face
And she barely remembers her life today

And little Rachel is in the street long past forgot

There’s a buzzing in her fingertips
But she doesn’t mind
It’s her mind she’s trying to avoid today
But there’s a nagging sound or word or thought
That’s ripping at her gut
So she kicks it out with a final hit
And that feels better
At least she wishes that felt better
It really doesn’t feel like much at all anymore
But that doesn’t matter because she can almost remember
When it felt so good and good god
Where is Rachel little Rachel

In the street
Taking candy from strangers

If only she could sleep.

Flying Through Blue

Something had felt off for a while.
She didn't know exactly what it was,
but she was on the hunt for
the switch
to flip
that would open
whatever it was in her
that had quietly closed.
Yes, her father died.
Yes, her credit card
paid for a tropical trip
to heal, she thought.
to feel, she thought.
Abundant sunshine
worked its magic.
but it was undersea
where she found
her inner fins.
sharing space with
giant sea turtles,
to the sound of
whales singing
she felt at home
in a way she hadn't
for a long while.
flying through blue
she found what she
had lost.
and learned she could
fly through blue
whenever she pleased.
and she pleased.
alot.

Apology to March

You are a fine upstanding month, March.
It wasn't my intention to ignore you
here in blog town.
I am deeply sorry.
Don't worry April.
I know I only have
a few days left,
but I will post something
in the blogosphere
that is more artful
than an offering of
regret.

Today is a Poem

It’s early morning and I’m

Standing in front of a brick wall at the bus stop
Listening to my itunes, trying not to cry.

Suddenly a man comes running from across the street.

He is angry.

He runs right up to where me and this other girl stand,
…waiting for our work day to start.

With a mighty force
He throws himself against the brick wall
He misses the girl by an inch or two.
His mouth is stretched across his face in a frightening silent scream.
His eyes are wild.
He looks like he could explode.

I scoot away.
The girl stands perfectly still.

David Bowie sings in my ear:
Ground Control to Major Tom.

clean slate. fresh start. clear mind. clean house. excavate fridge. sweep under bed. look in closet, make friends with the darkest corners. fold stuff. file stuff. imagine that all these rituals set me up for the optimal experience of the current future.

SELF DEFENSE

She’s on trial for a crime.
A situation out of control.
A knife, the dark
Two children at home.
She struggles.
Watch.
Watch her.
The juror checks his watch.
His dinner waits.
He hates her dress.
Convict her.
Convict her.

A fly in the ointment

They gather together
And dream a dream
Absently swatting flies
While tormenting
Themselves
With possibilities.

They comment
On the daily news
And flip the channels
Aimlessly
In search of distraction

They look forward
To their meals
In an unnatural way

They swat flies with a passion.

The Long Darkness

It is the season
of the long darkness
The sun
Is low on the horizon
We wait
In the cold
For light

LIGHT

Makes vision possible
The sharing of light
Warms heart
Hand
And soul

This Moment Here

It's halloween. The little kidlets have come and gone. The entire month has come and gone in a blur. Tonight is daylight savings time. I've never been very good at saving.
The kitties are in the other room. Jose is playing music at Serafina. Alone and wrapped in a soft blanket and the intense events of the week, I marvel at it all.

Resilience

The dictionary defines resilience as the ability to return to the original form, position etc. after being bent or stretched.


Resilience also means the ability to recover readily from illness, depression, adversity or the like; buoyancy.








Consider what you have experience thus far in life. consider those around you. Amazing to see how each of us responds to being bent or stretched; adversity or depression.

Some of us hold on tight to those things, defining ourselves by this pain or that difficulty.









Others seem to transcend them, taking what they can as insight for the future, and not being overly impressed with the rest.

They move forward.





That is resilience.



A while back at a party, I spoke with a woman I hadn't seen in 10 years. When I asked her about herself, she said "there is a black cloud hanging over our family".








Throughout the evening, I over heard her talking with other friends nearby and I heard her say it 3 more times to 3 different people. It's her story, her truth.

I'm not saying, pretend we're happy when we're not. But I believe there is something to this idea of not crafting a story out of our pain, that we then have to stick to.

I don't have the answer, just the question: Why create storylines for our lives that box us in? Why tell and retell our pain stories that keep us looped into the past? Why not speak in such a way that is perhaps more groundless (saying that I've been going through a rough patch is not the same as committing to the story that there is a black cloud over me) I'm saying speak with an open-ness to the possibility of good, of relief, of peace, or abundance knocking on the door of our body/soul/life.

Things change. But if your story is set in stone, you might not notice.

Color Me Happy!

Have you ever stopped to consider the color beige? Beige is the color of billions of walls across the nation. It is the color of a kajillion rugs in north America and an un-nameable sum of pants, skirts and shoes on well meaning souls across the planet. If you're up on what's healthy or have been to the doctor in the last few years, you have already realized that beige is the color of most of the foods on the 'bad for you' list.

Face it. Beige is color's version of middle of the road. Beige represents the no-risk choice. The okay option.

But why oh why would we want to settle for okay?

Imagine your daily interactions like this:

A: How's your day? B: Beige.
A: How's your dinner? B: Beige.
A:How's your life? B: Beige.

Come on people...let's do the unthinkable. Let's consider just for a moment, a wee bit of mauve. (gasp!) Let's leap into a vat of juicy orange. (whaaa?!!)
Let's risk freaking ourselves out with exuberant, with incredible, with delicious.

Yes indeed...just what the doctor ordered.

Slow Train to Weird Town

There are times when you look up from the flurry of activity that is your life and you think 'Wow...time sure flies by!' or ' I can't believe 2009 is half over already!' or, How did I get to be this age? I was just 12!'

Right? you have times like that, right?

Me too. But not lately.

Lately, I feel like I've been on the Slow Train to Weird Town for a bit longer than I bargained for.







I've been having thoughts like 'Can't I skip by this part?' or 'dear god, is it still 2009? You've got to be fucking kidding me!' or 'please lord, can't somebody make a few really good movies this summer that i could lose myself in? Please?!'
Honestly. somebody give me a hall pass already....or a get out of jail free card.





Here's the thing - I find life interesting. I'm not looking for an out. I just...you know...wouldn't mind a faster train through this here terrain.

You dig?

A day in the life

Today is my birthday.







Last night my sweet friend Annie Ready died.
















Tomorrow has its own mysterious offering.