It seems impossible that my cohort is turning 50, and yet, there it is.

I’m sliding into it myself—just three years and change to go. Truth be told, I can’t wait: my 40s were so much better than my 30s, which were so much better than my 20s, which were so much better than my teens, I figure my 50s are going to rock the house.

Or, at the very least, that I’ll get another decade or two of yum before I hit the point of diminishing returns.

On the other hand, it’s a good thing I’ve some time. Half a century is a significant achievement, and calls for a marker of equal significance. I received one such tribute about a week ago, from my friend and former art director, Kevin Houlihan. He assembled 50 of the people he’d met along the way, from the godmother who held him at his baptism to a friend he met in a bar about a year ago, and asked us each to write a little something for a book he wanted to assemble about the people he’d met along the way.

Here’s the beauty part, though: instead of asking us to write about him, he asked us to write about ourselves. His point? That, as his wise and no-nonsense New Hampshire-bred father used to say, “You can tell a man by the company he keeps.” So Kevin sent each participant a series of questions designed to help us unearth what it was about us that had helped him learn about himself.

The result? A breathtaking compendium of musings, stories and yes, a little haranguing, that is universally appealing because of the specificity of approach. I’m forever parroting every English teacher I’ve ever had about the key to great writing lying in the detail of the personal truth one lays out there; maybe instead of yakking, I could just direct people to this book.

Unfortunately, it’s a private publishing of 50—one for each participant. There has been a groundswell of support for a more public release, but until that happens, you’ll just have to content yourself with one of my entries and imagine the rest. The question to me was what, if anything, did the various & sundry creative outlets for my expression have in common, and how did I continue to nurture my creativity.

It’s a wonderful question for anyone to ask of themselves, or of their loved ones; it’s a glorious question to be asked…

xxx
c

***

I have called my life many things in an attempt to get across the idea of what it’s been like to live it—to express the heart of my journey. One of my fave-raves, coined several years ago upon quitting my Hateful Advertising Career, was that I was “Living My Life Backwards”: going from a hyper-responsible, overachieving, 401K-building, condo-and-cat-owning twentysomething to a foolhardy, largely unemployed, dream-chasing thirtysomething. (And then a sex-crazed, metaphorically-old-purple-wearing-lady fortysomething.)

Not a bad quip—you know us copywriters, always with the handy quip—but somehow too…pithy. As Einstein said, Everything as simple as possible and no simpler, please. (As an aside, that’s where a lot of advertising and marketing goes off the rails: oversimplification. That, and too many objectives. But let’s not go down that bad path, shall we?)

I wish I had a pithy answer for my life’s work now—for what motivates me, for what the thread is. But I don’t. I have a long and boring story, which I’ll summarize here:

Many years ago, when The Groundlings Sunday Company pulled over and dumped my baby-actor soul by the side of the road to fend for itself, I thought I needed a theater company to call home. And so it was that I found myself standing on a stage in a tiny, back-alley theater in Santa Monica in front of an insane French woman (sorry—redundant), “auditioning” to be a paying member of her highly experimental theater company.

She let me perform my wildly inappropriate monologue, but it was clear that what she wanted to do was get to the Q&A.

“What would you do,” she called out from the dark, “eef I asked you to take off your pants, take off your shirt, take off your shoes and stand zere nakeed on ze stage?”

“Uh…ask you why?”

There was a long pause. Then, whether to out me as a poseur or to see if maybe, possibly she could salvage this ten minutes and put an extra $35/month in the theater’s coffers I don’t know, but she threw out another one:

“Why,” she called out again, “do you want to be an actress?”

No one had asked me this; I had not even asked myself about the why. Why does one throw away everything with no promise of a something down the road? Why does a sane, smart girl with a career and a title and a condo and a cat toss it all out the window for what younger and more talented people will tell you is one of the world’s worst career options?

I stood in on that dusty stage, lit from above, threw head back and my arms open wide and let whatever it was inside me that had been responsible for my irrational decision do the talking:

“To tell The Truth!!!”

It was right, that Voice. (It always is, you know.) My whole life until then had been a quest to funnel The Truth as it is writ large somewhere in the cosmos into words and pictures that made sense down here. So I did it for awhile in advertising. And then in acting. And then in design. And now, with words, both on the blog and aloud, wherever someone will let me.

If I get off track, it gets me back on. If I need inspiration, I go back to the well.

The Truth.

I mean, come on—can that ever get old?

TOPICS: acting, art, creativity, truth.

I was going to sit down and talk about how hard the past week was…how draining.

And it was, in its way. For whatever reason, there was an abundance of drama over the past eight days—the missed deadlines, botched communication and general fakakta-ness that seems to accompany Mercury going retrograde. (I wonder, could things have been this messed up before I knew about such silly nonsense?)

There was also a paucity of rest. Social engagements out the wazoo, back-to-back, every day but one. Not light-hearted ones: thinking ones. Emotionally draining ones. Ones that required attention, a lot of driving, or both.

Like my ex-husband’s wedding reception, where I was the surprise guest to a raft of folk who hadn’t seen me since I lost them in the divorce eight years ago (let it never be said that my ex doesn’t have a wicked sense of humor…or his new bride, for that matter). Like dinner with the one friend of my dad’s who stood by my sister and me in the ugly, ugly aftermath of his death. Most devastatingly, like the memorial service for a brilliant 26-year-old artist who was stolen from the world too soon. It took three beers, The BF and a Harold Lloyd flick to talk me down from that last night.

I want to run and hide when it gets like this. I want to live in a place where it rains a lot and gets dark early—where I can bundle myself up in a scruffy, fluffy sweater and read books on the sofa with a bottomless mug of peppermint tea. Instead, I live in an overbuilt parking lot with fires breaking out at each end, wearing boxers against the heat and earplugs against the noise. And I have no upholstered furniture. Still.

Fret not, however, for in the midst of all this mishigoss, I am, bizarrely enough, happier than ever. There is work work work and feeling like you do not make a difference, and there is the other kind; right now, and for some time, I feel like I’ve been living the other kind. It’s exhausting, but wonderful. Not particularly lucrative, even, but wonderful. I never felt this way after a day of wrangling copy. Never. Not once. And I did that for 10 years and a lot of money.

Still, this schedule is a brutal one to maintain, and something has to give. It’s kind of been my health, which has to stop, and it’s definitely been my “optional” writing, which also has to stop.

It’s the optional-type writing, you see, that’s made all this possible. I’m starting to get it now. So it really isn’t optional at all for the life I want to live.

People: create. Make things. Think things and write them down, or tell them, or draw them. Note things and mull them over (or not) and pass them along (for sure.) When I get bone-tired like this, I can feel the pull to buy. It’s odd; I feel it. Possibly other people feel the pull to watch TV (I used to feel that, although I’d never give it my full attention) or to play games. Consuming isn’t inherently evil, but it leaves you more empty than full.

Tonight I made a (SCD-legal) pizza and this post. It was all I could muster after a long day of pushing pixels. But that pizza tasted better than anything I could get delivered.

And this post? Even better than that…

xxx
c

Image by Sidereal–who is rapidly becoming a communicatrix staple, it seems–via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

TOPICS: creativity, happiness, life, truth.

The BF and I must be happy, because we are fat. Fat and happy, fat and happy, go together like a pee and nappy.

Only like most things, it’s not as simple as that.

He is fat because he has been working 16 - 20 hour days on a hamster wheel of stress, pushing pixels for the Man, eating whatever carb-y thing he can grab in between worsening his carpel tunnel. He is fat because the writers and the actors and the directors are going to do big battle with the producers next spring, and there are too many dependents in his trust for whom the words “strike” mean nothing, but who require food, clothing and health insurance, nonetheless.

I, on the other hand, am fat because I quit acting. I am fat because where I once ran my thespianic ass all over the 25-square-mile playing field that is Actors’ Los Angeles, I, too, now park it in front of a keyboard for the bulk of the day.

But he is also fat because of the Lexapro, or whichever of those SSRI dolls he’s on to officially correct what he used to self-medicate. Whereas I am fat because—here it comes—I have been self-medicating. One, two, sometimes three glasses of hooch per evening. The creep has been slow but steady, a match reverse of my dip into the Valley of Monotony. And it’s time to stop before I have to Stop.

Last night, I dreamed I went to an AA meeting. Because it was a dream, it was probably unlike any AA meeting in existence (I’ve never actually been to one): there were a lot of forms to fill out for newcomers, and once I made it into the meeting (already in session), it looked more like I imagine a Cuban refugee camp might, with little clusters of people building shacks, playing card games, cooking over open fire.

It was an interesting dream to have last night, because of the day I’d had before it: work, rain, reading…and abstinence. Apparently, the perfect storm for creating self-awareness. A day just as long, filled with just as much work and solitude, but devoid of alcohol or the desire for it. Here’s what I’d sussed out as of this morning:

• The work was engaging. I got my hands a little grubby with code, but went slowly and broke nothing. Knocked a big item off my to-do list, and felt pride of accomplishment on a lot of levels.
• The rain gave me permission to stay inside and do it. One of the dastardly things about this relentlessly “perfect” place is the tyranny of perpetual sunshine. I’ve never liked the outside so all-fired much, but there it is, 24/7, postcard-perfect and in my face. No wonder Bukowski drank. L.A. should go fuck itself, sometimes.
• As much of a powerhouse as I think I am, the truth is, I amn’t. I need rest and reading and quiet and solitude. I need space for puttering and play. The BF was two hours late to a rendezvous—we had promised to help celebrate a very important birthday—and as I’d passed them with a spectacularly engrossing read, I was sanguine. Well, for me, anyway. So QED.

And then, because I can’t possibly be expected to get it all myself, I was visited this morning by the Archangel Ira Glass, who sang a song of a 19-year-old saint from Elizabethtown, New Jersey. Since I gave up TV about a year ago, there are some gaps in my cultural knowledge. Everyone and his brother has seen the Nike basketball commercials starring freestyle sensation Luis Da Silva and heard his amazing story. (If you haven’t, here’s an extended version on YouTube. And here’s Luis all by his fantastic self.)

Just like that, the other piece of the puzzle turned up under the sofa: find that passion. Find it find it find it, and then keep a holy shrine to it in my heart—and on a screen saver and a bright-yellow rubber bracelet and any other talisman-reminders I need. When I’m plugged in, the rest falls into place. Good days, bad days revert back to plain old time, which I’m spending doing the thing I’m Here to Do (plus some attendant side tasks and the daily chores that keep me from being a callous monster.)

It seems pretty simple in the cold, clear light of day: find the thing I love, work hard, take breaks, get a refreshing night’s sleep, wake up happy, do it again. Abstinence takes care of itself when I take care of me. Fat pants and booze are the symptoms, not the root issue.

Thank you, Ira and Luis, for reminding me.

Thank you, Sofka, Leslie, Pema, Jack, Julia and Jiddu, for telling me in the first—and second, and third, and-and-and—place.

Thank you, dear reader, for keeping me honest…

xxx
c

Image by sidereal via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

TOPICS: change, fear, happiness, truth.

I make no secret of my age. (46, and if you haven’t wished me a “happy” yet, feel free to!)

I’m up front about my struggles to get organized, to get happy, to get my bowels in working order.

So why, oh, why am I having such a problem letting my hair go gray?

A little backstory: unlike many of the women on my mother’s side, while I had a few stray grays pop up as early as my 20s, I didn’t need to start actively coloring to cover them until my late 30s. And I was earning a nice living via acting at that point (with good health insurance…sigh…), so it made sense to make sure my hair matched my face, which for some reason insisted on looking 5 - 10 years younger than the rat’s nest on top of it.

But if I’m honest—and dammit, if I’m not, there’s little point to anything anymore—I wanted to look chronologically younger for me, too. In the late 90s, I’d just left my marriage of 8 1/2 years for a man 12 years younger than I, who looked 5 - 7 years younger than he really was. And who was also, shall we say, empirically good looking. It was frustrating enough for me and my fragile self-esteem to flit about with The Youngster in public; add to that the subtle and ongoing pressure from him to “look my best” (what is it with these empirically good looking people?) and you have a perfect storm for public deceit.

Well, I’m not acting anymore. And dye, in addition to being not inexpensive, is toxic and time-consuming. What could I do with those extra two hours per month? Those extra 1000 or so cancer-free years days of my life? Or, while we’re at it, the extra 750 bucks a year? (A steal in L.A., but still.)

I find myself obsessing over gray hair. It seems to be a trend, or a meme—the ladies lettin’ it go, perhaps kicked off by Meryl Streep in the otherwise forgettable Devil Wears Prada. Someone wrote a book about it. There’s a Yahoo! group devoted to it, a graying Botticelli’s Venus as their icon. (I joined.) There’s that idiotic Dove campaign.

I think it comes down to this: vanity.

Not vanity about looking my age, but about looking good for my age. Or maybe just looking good, period. I quit wearing makeup long ago, and I’ve let myself get woefully squishy around the middle; strictly from a design/style perspective, hair dye saves my beauty bacon. It’s the lazy gal’s way to look good (at least, until your face and skin tone stop coordinating well with dark hair. I am going to look like a raggedy-ass schlub growing out my gray if I don’t work a little harder to look good in other departments, like clothes and fitness.

Maybe that’s the thing: put “Pilates body” on the to-do list. Make it a big goal for…say…2010, and get crackin’. Then, once I’m leading the yoga class, shave my damned globey-head bald and wear all black or something.

It’s an option I’ve discussed with my patient, generous colorist. He’s amazing, really—basically helping me figure out how and when to fire him.

There are no easy answers to this. I would like to think I’m “there”, but clearly, it ain’t so. Whether I like it or not, going gray is a political statement in a patriarchal society where a woman’s currency is tied to her looks and reproductive status. As is toeing the party line with a box of dye.

I do not like the lies I am telling, and yet, here I am.

Now, where’s the way out, I wonder…

xxx
c

UPDATE 9/19: I wrote another blog post about aging (and lying about aging) here that may help illuminate some of this thinking.

Image by s.o.f.t. via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

TOPICS: ageism, change, communicatrix, fear, Feminism, going gray, gray hair, graygirls, happiness, truth.

Birthdays are as good a time as any for starting a fresh page. And this year, mine came in with a full moon and a Jewish new year.

If that’s not a message from the Universe to do a little soul-searching, I don’t know what is.

Well, my appraisal goes thusly:

Over the past 12 months, I’ve written 5 posts on design, 12 columns about acting, 82 posts on marketing and god knows how much crap on this blog.

I’ve launched a monthly newsletter, been VP of Membership and President of my Toastmasters club, written 10 speeches and traveled to Portland to drink tequila with my fellow bloggers.

I’m actually too frightened to add up how many hours I’ve worked for money, but I’ve sent out 68 invoices. And some of them were for (gulp) multiple jobs.

I was hypnotized 30 days in a row and wrote about it. I’ve been to Disneyland twice and the ocean once. I watched my friend Mark’s business take off. I watched my friend, Uma, make magic happen from the depths of coma. And then I saw magic happen to her when she awoke.

I consulted with my ex-husband on how to be a good wedding officiant and accompanied my ex-boyfriend and his girlfriend to their bible study class.

I said goodbye to some people I will miss, and reconnected with some others I thought I’d lost forever.

I got really sick. I got a muffin top. I quit acting (not necessarily in that order).

I watched time speed up. Again.

From my vantage point of 46 years (hey! I’m an Elder!), I’m pretty sure there will always be more stuff to do than hours in which to do it. There will always be promises made that aren’t kept, roads not taken and wondered about, other roads taken and rued. With luck and paying attention, there will be less and less of all this as the years pass. At least, that’s how it seems to be trending.

Love the minute you are in right now. Love that pimple on your face (or your butt), love the horrible meal you just made yourself, love the crappy air and the noisy traffic and the terrible drivers. Love your boyfriend and your mail carrier and your crabby uncle and your impossible friend from high school. Love your p.o.s. car. Love your too-small house and your too-big bills. Love your love handles.

Love the piece of shit blog post you wrote just now. Just…love it all.

Because it goes fast.

Super-dee-duper fast.

xxx
c

Photo of my sister, Liz, my sister, Cathy, and me taken by our Aunt Patti last Thanksgiving.

9/13/06
9/13/05

TOPICS: change, truth.