The black hole between okay and fantastic

I quit smoking about 20 years ago.

(Go ahead, applaud. I'll wait.)

Thing is, while my 2-pack-a-day habit wasn't doing me any favors, neither was it impeding my life in any major way. You X- and Y-ers might not know this, but back in '87, you could still smoke most places, like...indoors. In your hospital room!

Plus lots of other people smoked, too, so you had your pick of people to date and hang out with and drink with who were also smokers. And, save the bronchitis I'd had a couple of bouts of in years past, smoking hadn't really affected my health yet. I looked fine, was in reasonably good shape, and since a pack still cost under twenty bucks, smoking barely made a dent in my hefty, ad-hole salary.

Still, I'd come of age after the surgeon general's thumbs-down, so I knew I'd have to quit at some point. I was switching jobs and figured it was as good a time as any: start at the new place with new habits. So I quit right before I started.

And then I farted for a month.

No, that's imprecise, I sat in a methane miasma of my own making for a month. Or longer. In a cubicle, that's a "room" with no ceiling, people, surrounded by brand-new co-workers who had no idea I did not always smell like a dead rat the horse shat out. I sat, head pounding from withdrawal, chasing my farts with matches as I wrote jingles and taglines and blurbs, grinding my teeth, chain-sucking Halls Menth-O-Lyptus tablets.

And that was while I was at work.

Every minute of every day for the first three weeks was a living hell. I had a mantra, one that worked so well, I wound up using it again several times during bad breakups:

If I can make it a minute, I can make it an hour If I can make in an hour, I can make it a day If I can make it a day, I can make it a week If I can make it a week, I can make it a month If I can make it month, I can make it forever

The basic point is, my life went from being...well, if not perfect, then pretty good, to a whole lot better. In between, however, was another story. In between, there was the Big Nasty. A great big stinky sodden mess of upheaval that there was no way past but straight through. And I get why we give up there: really, I do.

I reorganized my apartment around the end of last year. And because I am on the non-robust side, any serious reorganizing requires me to empty all critical bits of furniture of all their contents. And because my apartment is also on the robust side, this means that for a time, everything ends up in a gigundous heap in the middle of the apartment. Only it's not the middle: it's the whole freaking place, one big shitheap of all my crappy, earthly possessions, lying inert in a mass like we just had a 7.2 on the Richter scale.

Also, I timed this really, really perfectly back in December, which is to say, right when it gets dark. So it's dark, and it's cold, and it's the end of the year, and I'm lying in the middle of a shitheap. And this grand vision I had for the total reorganization and streamlining of my life is not only not working out, but the mess and the darkness have conspired to show me that I am, in fact, an idjit, that my furniture will only fit into ONE configuration, that change IS impossible and I am both an ass AND a boob for daring to think otherwise.

So I sat in the midst of the rubble and I cried a little. And then I started hauling around furniture anyway. And wouldn't you know that by gum, those old sticks would go together differently and I did get everything put away and when I was done, it was not only not just okay, it was fantastic. Fantastic!!!

Why bring this up now? Because I'm in a hole. It is maybe not so black and deep as Fartville or The Night My Furniture Almost Ate Me. But it is dark and it is vast. It is the great, not-so-great unknown I must cross to get from "okay" to "fantastic." Okay was okay, too, really it was. I've had a good life. But life can be fantastic, and I don't mean from a swimmin'-pools, movie-stars perspective. I mean the full living of your actual life: being there, doing that thing you do 100%, whether or not it earns you a thin dime. Fulfilling your purpose. You can do a lot of it from the land of okay, but eventually, you gotta go. And that is a scary gulf.

So if you cross...when you cross...stay aware. Reach out for a Halls or a hand or a good, sturdy, safety match, as appropriate. Know it won't be the miasma forever. Know that even if you can't see them, there are millions of people crossing their own impassible swamps.

Know that it's okay to cling to the shore for awhile, but also know that once you strike out, there's no going back.

You'll be okay. You'll be more than okay. You'll be different.

You'll be fantastic.

xxx

c

UPDATE: There's a pingback below, but for those of you who don't click on comments (and hence, might miss it), Amateur Manifesto has a wonderful post up about her own, current experience with the Black Hole. Strongly recommended.

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

And life begins when you start giving

I had an interesting chat today with my colorist (and good friend), Marc. Really, I have interesting conversations with most folks these days, since I discovered that the art of conversating (as the kids say) lies in the asking of questions and the hearing of answers rather than the spouting off of commentary. (Fancy that!)

Today's conversation was interesting because it revolved around kabbalah, about which I know little save it's an esoteric offshoot of Judaism that has something to do with red string and expensive bottled water (thank you, Madonna.) But Marc studied it (if that's the term) for many years, and he was able to shed a surprising amount of light on what I confess has always been (to me) a dense, deep and impenetrably mysterious practice. After all, it is very old and complex and we only had about an hour, as I'm a single-process kinda gal.

The topline of kabbalah, however, is really easy to get, and lovely, to boot: the more we learn to give, the more will come back to us. It's about "giving" as world view, which of course carries all kinds of other nice things along with it, like cultivating trust and fellowship, learning to communicate by finding common ground, and practicing abundance rather than scarcity thinking.

It got me to thinking about where to start. Because really, that's what I would've loved to have known 20-odd years ago, when I was flailing around in a sea of my own misery: where the hell do I start? Just tell me where to point my damned guns, already! And, while I now think that "observing" is probably the absolute best place to start, the very critical first step of many, and a mode to stay close to always, I think giving is a really good practice to have in your head even while you're in observation mode.

Part of what makes me think this is my many years of experience as a corporate tool. There was very little uncalculated giving in that world, and precious little happiness, too. Coincidence? Perhaps. Held up against the world of strings-free giving I've been blessed to live in these past five years, though, I think the causality is obvious: the nature of life is change, and we're happiest when we let ourselves go with the flow of that. It takes awesome fearlessness or, as in my case, having nothing left to lose. When you weigh 90 lbs (45 of which is your enormous head), and your intestines are in tatters and you're so weak that you can't walk to the end of the bed without support, you learn to accept help, to accept giving, with the very clear understanding that you certainly cannot pay in kind now, and may well never be able to pay it back later. Get down with that, and you've got one big, honkin' secret of life under your belt.

I'm not advocating sap-hood. I can only give to the extent I'm able and willing. Ironically, before I understood this, I used to give too much, receive too little. Now I finally understand you've got to let go to receive as much as you do to give.

To take this down to a practical level, Marc charges what I think is an incredibly reasonable price for his services, and I pay him. He gives me what I see as a deal, and I accept it. Occasionally, I get a bug up my ass and give him a bunch extra, just because. And he accepts that. I suspect that if I showed up one month and had no money, he'd give me coverage for free. He's that kind of guy, is Marc. And I'd do my best to receive it, graciously.

If you're not so good with the money yet, and I get it, I do, I have issues myself, start small. With compliments. Give one. Maybe give five. And be on the lookout for ones you get, and see how you are about receiving them. I used to answer every compliment about clothing with a rundown on how much I paid for it at the Goodwill. Still do, but at least I (usually) say "thank you" first.

Remember this year's motto: "help is everywhere." And the corollary, which I may not have shared yet, "...so ask for it, dumbass."

It is. You should. We are.

xxx c

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

Balance is also a #@$!)* journey

I was tired most of today, am still, in fact.

Am (stupidly, short-sightedly) drinking coffee in a (stupid, short-sighted) attempt to work through it, as I'd feel like too much of a schmo bailing on any of the commitments I have in the next 24 hours.

Why is this feeling so familiar, I wondered briefly as Trader Joe's Bay Blend and the moka pot prepared to bail my ass out once again? Because it's My Thing, for one, my overachieving, approval-needing, lack-of-entitlement-ing thing. But also because the nature of balance is...imbalance.

Okay, bear with me here. You have a scale, one of those jobbies like Miz Justice is holding, above. You put something on one side and then, to balance it out, you put something of equal weight on the other side.

But for however long it takes you to put that other thing on, even if it's a split-second, things are, all together now, out of balance! Out of whack! Off-kilter! Completely fakakta!

With planning and practice, of course, the lag time between farkakte and perfect balance gets shorter. You learn to keep the pile of feathers right next to the pile of cotton or drywall screws or JELL-O. You learn, in fact, that if you are balancing drywall screws and feathers, you will need far more feathers in ready supply than you will should you be balancing cotton and feathers. But the first time you try to balance feathers and JELL-O? Dude, you are looking at a serious mess. So, you know, try to roll with it. (And have the equivalent of paper towels at the ready, if possible.)

Even when your repertoire of items to balance becomes both vast and deep, though, you can't keep the scales balanced perfectly all the time. Why?

Because of air.

Yes, stupid air is messing with your scales. A good, honkin' breeze or a sudden draft when someone comes in the door and you have a window open will mess you up. Heck, even just floaty, floaty air will throw your scales off balance: it may be imperceptible, but it's happening. Unless you're in a vacuum. And you know how Nature feels about that.

This week, I had a surprise overabundance of good times dropped in my lap. I don't know about you, but I have already passed up enough good times for three lifetimes, and I'm over that crap. So I went a little crazy, hanging with my peeps, talking my cords dry, generally raising a ruckus.

And, rather than let down anyone who was depending on me, I did the work, too. Smart? Maybe not. Balanced? In the short run, definitely not. I'm here, fingers crossed (well, when they're not wrapped around my coffee mug), hoping that the stretch I get to include on this particular balance sheet extends through Monday. I have payment in full for the piper: Friday post-COB to Tuesday morning, I've stripped down to the bone. Excepting a hair coloring appt. (hardly rough duty), I could spend the whole three dancing nude around my living room and not dismay anyone except Eileen, my across-the-way neighbor. (She's a proper lady, is Eileen.)

Here's to me...and you...and (thank you, Miranda July) everyone we know not beating themselves up over imbalance, optical illusion that she is. The reality of imbalance is more like us: constantly changing, messy, equal parts wabi and sabi.

And compelling. Because hey, when you look at that frieze above, what's more interesting: the stone lady and her sword, or that endlessly shifting scale?

Yeah. Thought so...

xxx c

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

How you use things vs. how things "should" be

Time. Living rooms. Wardrobes. Relationships.

Somehow, over the years, you start building notions about the way things are supposed to be. It stands to reason, I guess: we learn to talk by mimicking; ditto writing, cooking, sex and a host of other things I'm probably not thinking of.

A lot of this is fantastic, as it saves crazy amounts of time. If we each learned our own language and then had to teach other people how to use the subjunctive, it would be really hard to get the lawn mowed and dinner on the table. Even in artistic endeavors like writing and acting and, well, art, there's a steep learning curve that's eased somewhat by treading the path that's already there for a bit, until you can find your own way.

That's the thing, though: in artistic endeavors, it's assumed that you will mimic the greats, your idols, and then, through trial and error, practice and more practice, your own "voice" will emerge, a fusing together of all you have learned and all that you are, magical alchemy of sorts.

What's more, unless you are a hack, it's assumed that your work will change and grow as you do, not stay as it is in perpetuity.

So why, I wonder, does it not work this way with other stuff? Why do we suppose (with few exceptions) that the way we have learned relationships or vacations or work habits or what-have-you is the way? Why, even when we bust out loose from our past, do we find the words of our parents coming out of our own mouths; why do we find ourselves in the same relationships over and over, with people who seem so different on the outside and yet who are so much like the previous beloved, we call them by the wrong name?

Why, even in a life examined and shrunk and mulled over and shrunk again, do we end up doing the same dumbass thing over and over again?

The answer, of course, is obvious: change is hard; imprinting is strong. So I insist on keeping a couch in my apartment for years, even though I'm not really a couch person. Even though I have always felt safer and happier reading in my bed. Even though I really wanted a big table where I could spread stuff out and gather people 'round.

I insist on staying married, even though the arrangement feels stifling and wrong. Even though I cannot recall one good model of marriage from my childhood, nor one ringing endorsement of it from any of the people who'd signed on to one.

I insist on wearing my hair a certain way or my pants a certain cut because...because that's how I learned to do it. What a revelation low-rise jeans were for a short-legged, waistless wonder like myself.

I insist on taking weekends off, or taking my vacation in two week chunks, because that's how it's done; I stop doing it because that's how it's done when you're working for yourself.

I'm calling bullshit.

Because my apartment really is better without the couch...for now. My relationships, for now, are better without the hammerlock of marriage. My hair feels better up, off my neck, my pants fit better without fabric around the waist and my leisure time feels better scheduled in where I need it. For now.

I'm (slowly) learning to let go of what doesn't suit and look into what does. It's an interesting journey, full of more delightful surprises than I'd have guessed going into it. I don't like TV; I do like watching movies on the computer (for now.) I don't like board games or sports or brunch; I love talking and talking and talking. (Followed by long stretches of not-talking.)

I like work when the scope is clear and the parameters locked down but there's tons of room for exploration inside. I like working weekends and taking days off during the week (for now), probably because of the delicious feeling of getting away with something.

I like treats, and I'm starting to treat myself to more of them. Slowly. Within a carefully arranged structure. (I like surprises within a carefully arranged structure, too, but that's a little harder to arrange!)

Mostly, I like the idea that what I like can change, that someday, I may have no table and two couches, or a closet full of party dresses, because for whatever reason unfathomable from today, it makes perfect sense.

For now, it's a Tuesday off.

Or as I like to call it, Me. Getting Away with Something...

xxx c

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

Also, the woman who made the dresses makes cute scarves & stuff, too. Love that robot jersey scarf! From Finland.

Sometimes searching is the work

I gave myself a rather extraordinary gift this year: no new clients for the first three months, to be reviewed and possibly renewed come April 1st.

This is extraordinary (meaning absolutely not the usual thing) for a few reasons:

1. I am obsessed with the idea of achievement
2. I have resident fear of living out my days eating cat food out of my shopping cart/home
3. I was raised by a workaholic who died rich (see Reason #1) and an alcoholic who died poor (see Reason #2)

Excepting the five months I was out of commission because of the Crohn's onset, some brief cipherin' sez I have not taken more than two weeks of complete non-work since I was 17. That's 30 years ago, for those of you just joining us. And unless I'm missing something, I can count those two-week hiatuses on two hands with fingers left over.

30 years.

No wonder I got sick. No wonder I fell apart at 41. No wonder my relationships were fraught with difficulty; can you imagine the kind of person who'd tolerate that in a mate?

Of course, there's an advantage to being obsessed with achievement, the kind backed up with action, anyway: you, um, tend to achieve stuff. Unfortunately, without time off for digesting, for rest, for replenishing, for the all the things that give one a little higher-up perspective, it's easy to lose one's way (and by "one", I mean me). You know, this is not my beautiful house; this is not my beautiful wife. Or simply, "Rosebud."

One gift among many given me by my ex-husband, The Chief Atheist of the West Coast, was the philosophy "Life is a series of techniques." It amused me and then annoyed me and finally, amuses me because it is true. However, while pithy as hell (he's a witty dude, the Chief Atheist) I have grown to believe that for clarity and usefulness, the line should be slightly amended to read thusly:

The living of life is a series of techniques

Or even more pedantically:

The successful living of life demands the acquisition of a series of techniques

Yeah, yeah, I sucked all the poetry out of it. But not everyone will have the benefit of hearing the line delivered personally by the Chief Atheist, and too many of those pithy lines get mucked up in the Big Game of Telephone. How many lives have been irretrievably fucked up by the perversion of the line, "The love of money is the root of all evil"? A lot. (Of course, those who have been attacked in their sleep by hordes of shiv-wielding Euros will probably disagree with me.)

Two of my big problems are "Eyes Bigger Than Stomach" Syndrome and its kissing cousin, "Shiny Object Syndrome" (which I believe was coined by a way-brilliant art director partner, Sherry Scharschmidt, back when you could actually make a living writing TV commercials.) Knowing my weaknesses, I've come up with some workarounds to help: a marketing coach who's kind of a hard-ass; a social media guru who's very gentle but insistent; a projects list to shame me into saying "no" or at least "maybe" when yet another irresistible opportunity pops up in my RSS feed of life. Oh, yeah, and a shrink. Sorry...make that two shrinks.

What do all these governors have in common? They give me ground-level guidance, sure, but they also provide a higher-up perspective. They are not mired in the me of me, and so can give me some reasonably objective input regarding where I'm on track and where I'm going off the rails.

This is great. Nay, this is fantastic: asking for help is a miraculous thing. Now the time has come to start giving myself some of that perspective. To stop working so that I can examine at where my Work is taking me.

I'm building in some granular hacks: one hour of enforced reading per day. A minimum of one meal or coffee with a friend per week. Five walks per week, to be sliced up however (a dog is your best partner in this exercise, pun intended.) This all falls under the rubric of this post's sister essay, "Sometimes Joy Is the Work," which, if you check the date on that link, is something I've been working on a long, long time.

But there's also the big, scary, new experiment I mentioned up front: no new clients for 90 days. And "no" to some projects from current clients. I think this will help give me the time and space I need to understand my own big picture, or at least, the next five years of it.

This is my work, too: making sure I'm doing the right work. And that means a lot of not doing work-work: money-work, easily-explained-to-the-outside-world work.

For the record, if you run into me at a coffee shop or a meetup or SXSW this year, I may still say, "Oh, I'm a graphic designer." It is scary to divulge too much at once, and tiring, for introverts.

But you will know what's really going on under the hood.

Keep a good thought for me...

xxx c

100 Things I Learned in 2007, Part II

Wrapping up this fine and crazy year in 50 short-to-medium numbered items. If you have OCD or something like that, you might want to read the first 50 short-to-medium numbered items first.

1. I may not be a dog person, but I'm definitely an Arnie person.
2. In every possible figurative sense, my eyes will probably always be bigger than my stomach.
3. Television? What television?
4. The shortest distance between two points is often a half-bottle of chianti.
5. Time crawls when you commit to doing something every day for 30 days.
6. The strongest proof of global warming may just be a visit to my apartment in September.
7. Life is better with regularly scheduled Ladies' Nights.
8. And TextExpander.
9. Just because you have seen someone over and over on the internet does not mean they are ready to embrace you as an old friend when you finally greet them during a surprise run-in at the coffee shop.
10. Especially when they are four.
11. And you are interfering with their immediate receipt of hot chocolate.
12. Lead by example.
13. Podcasts are easier heard than made.
14. Bank accounts are easier closed than opened.
15. The price of grinding your teeth at night has more than doubled since 1998.
16. There may be a wearout number of viewings for Play Misty for Me, but at 50, I've yet to hit it.
17. No matter how evolved I get, from time to time, I will be That Asshole.
18. Designing album covers is every bit as cool as you thought it would be when you were 10.
19. Even if the albums are now only 5"x5".
20. And will mostly be downloaded anyway.
21. Despite optometrists' exhortations to the contrary, you do not actually need to buy a new pair of glasses every year.
22. If you want something done, schedule it.
23. You never know where your next job will come from.
24. That goes double if you have a blog.
25. Those classes at the Learning Annex are as educational as you'd expect them to be.
26. That doesn't mean you won't learn from them.
27. The Central Coast is even better when seen from the picture window of your own, private rental home.
28. Never say "never."
29. On the other hand, "no" is a really good thing to say from time to time.
30. If Malcolm Gladwell does not want to be my next boyfriend, Jonathan Coulton will do just fine.
31. Or Bob McBarton, if I can convince him to leave his adorable wife and daughter.
32. Or Dan Savage, if he'd be into batting for the other team.
33. The point where dreams get truly difficult is when they start coming true.
34. You can't quit (or start) until you're ready.
35. When it comes to letting my hair go, I'm still a total scrotum.
36. The best birthday presents are the ones that cost nothing and show up unexpectedly.
37. It is way more fun to marry other people than to marry, period.
38. Trying to compose 100-things lists in the WP text editor is like trying to make a pie wearing mittens.
39. She who doth not invoice, doth not get paid.
40. Let it go.
41. Really, just let it go.
42. I'm serious...let it the fuck go, already!!!
43. Boobage is a pain in the ass.
44. People are amazingly good at providing help.
45. Especially when you ask.
46. Sadly, nothing much has changed from a management perspective since Upton Sinclair's time.
47. Happily, much has changed regarding access to the means of production.
48. The less you make of the holidays, the more fun they are.
49. Even if you own, you're only renting.
50. When in doubt, put on Django Reinhardt...

Happy new year, one and all!

xxx c

It may be a while before I post another one of these, so...

2007

• 100 things, Part I

2006

• 100 things, Part I
• 100 things, Part II

2005

• 100 things, Part I
• 100 things, Part II

2004

• 100 things, Part I
• 100 things, Part II

100 Things I Learned in 2007, Part I

Hard to believe this is the fourth installment of listy, round-up goodness. However, time cares not what we believe, continuing to march the hell on, regardless.

And so, without further ado...

1. Money might spend itself, but it does not reconcile itself in the QuickBooks.
2. Goals, on the other hand, neither make nor complete themselves.
3. No matter how public you go with them.
4. There is life after land lines.
5. CFLs do not suck nearly as hard as they did five years ago.
6. But they still kinda-sorta suck.
7. Bread + beer - activity = belly.
8. Fortunately, underwear stretches.
9. For someone who claims an ambivalence towards blood relatives, I feel awfully proud that five of my boy-cousins made hanging out with me a priority.
10. There is still no family like family of choice.
11. Even if they happen to be related by blood.
12. Nerds rule.
13. No, seriously, they rule.
14. Whoever said "Life sucks and then you die" was only half-right.
15. Thank christ.
16. Or whomever.
17. Information designers are hot.
18. Portland kicks L.A.'s ass.
19. Seattle doesn't, but Seattle coffee kicks all coffee's ass.
20. The real cost of acquiring stuff is the time spent divesting oneself of it.
21. That thing I tell myself, about being able to go back to copywriting? Total lie.
22. When in doubt, do a salute.
23. Or rearrange the furniture.
24. Cheese can tell you a lot about a person.
25. Telling stories is my favorite thing.
26. Helping other people tell stories runs a close second.
27. There is no such thing as too much music.
28. Or books.
29. Facebook is the AOL of social media.
30. Twitter, on the other hand, is the tits.
31. Perimenopause is a lot like having PMS 365 days a year.
32. Atheism makes an excellent hillbilly repellent in a pinch.
33. This design business thing isn't for everyone.
34. And by "everyone," I mean me.
35. The Wall Street Journal publishes an entire newspaper every day.
36. And by "every day," I mean every fucking day.
37. I miss SxSW when I don't go.
38. Mid-century L.A. apartments were not built for global warming.
39. Neither were mid-century women.
40. The Marines are the second-toughest job you'll ever love.
41. President of your Toastmasters club being first.
42. We all have a type.
43. Rick's hamburgers are as good as they say.
44. If you build it, they will come.
45. Dental insurance in 2007 is but a walking shadow.
46. Not to mention a walking shadow, a poor player strutting & fretting and a tale told by an idjit.
47. There really and truly are no shortcuts.
48. There is nothing like fan mail.
49. I can live without everything but truth.
50. Even the lamb sandwich at Cafe du Village.

Can't wait for Part II? Have I got your number, brother:

2006

• 100 things, Part I
• 100 things, Part II

2005

• 100 things, Part I
• 100 things, Part II

2004

• 100 things, Part I
• 100 things, Part II

Pushing back

Sometimes it seems like I resist almost everything.

Doing work, certainly. Going to my weekly Toastmasters meeting. Returning phone calls, exercising, taking the recycling down to the basement.

But it doesn't stop there, the stopping. Oh, no. On a given day, I can usually find myself resisting any or all of the following:

• brushing/flossing/Rotadent-ing my teeth
• at all
• going to sleep at a reasonable hour
• letting myself take a nap if I haven't
• having sex
• showering
• peeing
• answering the phone
• walking downstairs to pick up the Wall Street Journal
• actually reading the Wall Street Journal
• blogging
• doing my marketing "homework"
• finishing the last 1/100th of whatever project needs finishing

The odd thing is, with the exception of dental maintenance and phone-answering, I either don't mind or outright enjoy most of these activities. Hell, I even like talking on the phone when it's Dawud Miracle calling. And we have us some marathon sessions.

I learned a lot about resistance and procrastination during the Hypnotherapy Project I worked on earlier this year with my awesome friend and hypnotherapist, Greg Beckett. Partly responsible is The Resistor, my name for Steven Pressfield's characterization of the art-killing force that enlists procrastination in its fight against creative output (if you haven't yet, run out NOW and get The War of Art.)

But also responsible, I think, is a young lady who's been pushed beyond a reasonable expectation of endurance. Frankly, if I don't give her a break, and have a confab with the rest of the committee to get right with things, we're going to start having some serious shutdown issues.

So I'm working on a number of things to implement in the next four months, one of which is working less on stuff with a lower ROI and more on stuff that rings my bells. You see, I love working, as long as the work is fun. But this year was characterized by a little too much work that was just...work. It became clear that the plan was flawed when the plan basically got dumped by the side of the road like an unwashed, hitchhiking hippie somewheres south of March.

It's going to mean taking some gigundous risks. Maybe not to an outsider, but positively outrageous for me. But I'm committing to it. (Gulp.) Committing to not committing, except to what I really want to commit to. Which, right now, is not much of what I've been occupied by over the past several years. It will be interesting to see how this year's edition of Best Year Yet plays out.

Which leads me to the obvious question: did your 2007 go off the rails, or did it unfold with the exquisite combination of surety and serendipity that your mind-like-water self conjured up in December of 2006?

And what did you want? And how did you set about getting it for yourself?

And (here's hoping I don't regret this) did you use any special books/plans/tools to get yourself there?

Mastermind group? Plain old list? Goal-setting dominatrix wielding a Palm and a slim switch?

xxx c

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

"Thank you, sir! May I have another!?"™, Day 21: There's always room for sorry

This is Day 21 of a 21-day effort to see the good in what might, at first, look like an irredeemable drag. Its name comes from a classic bit of dialogue uttered by actor Kevin Bacon in a classic film of my generation, Animal House.

Everyone knows that the phrase "painless breakup" is an oxymoron. Any two people who are truly together are going to have a rough time of it when the together part ends.

But some splits, let's face it, are rougher than others. Maybe because you don't see them coming. Maybe because the passion is still there. Maybe, god help you, because of both of these happening at the same time.

The spring of my horrible breakup ushered in the summer of my unhappiness and the fall (and winter) of my big illness. It was not a banner year. And yet, I would not hesitate to call it the best, most significant year of my life. It was the year that changed me: that illness, and how I dealt with it. That breakup, and how we both dealt with it.

You see, up until then, there had been lip service about remaining friends with exes, but really, that's all it was. A polite fiction. The friendship that arose from the ashes of this wreckage took years to form (with a good, long break between the end and the beginning), but it is the friendship I am most proud of. I have had longer friendships, and even closer friendships, but I had never had a friendship I had to approach like religion: utterly faith-based.

Like the Crohn's, which has taught me so many good things like tolerance and kindness and the value of slowness and simplicity, this breakup and subsequent friendship taught me that anything was possible, given two people with the right attitudes and enough time. It laid a foundation for all kinds of impossible things: a breakup without rancor. A previously unimaginable friendship with my ex-husband. An inner flexibility I've never, ever experienced. The possibility of change, true change.

I do not know who reads this blog, beyond the people who come out from the shadows and tell me. But I do know this: there is nothing anyone has done to me that I would not forgive them for, were they truly sorry. I had a conversation with one person to this effect some three-odd years ago. At the time, it took a great deal of effort (and, I'll be honest, blind faith) to say it, but I meant it: the door is always open. Step through it, and together, we will work out how to move forward from there.

And should you choose not to step through it, that's is fine, too. Who am I to say what is right for you? We are our own keepers. Surely, I made choices that have left others scratching their heads. Surely, other people have moved on from things I have done which were painful, and have extended me grace I don't even know. (Thank you for that. And I know, I know, quit calling you "Shirley.")

Thank you, one and all, for being my teachers, no matter what the lesson or the method.

What a lot I have to be grateful for. What a lot, indeed.

xxx c

Image by Jon Irons Photography via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

"Thank you, sir! May I have another!?"™, Day 20: Gloomy Manor

This is Day 20 of a 21-day effort to see the good in what might, at first, look like an irredeemable drag. Its name comes from a classic bit of dialogue uttered by actor Kevin Bacon in a classic film of my generation, Animal House.

One of the sad facts of divorce is a general reduction in circumstances, especially for the mother, and children, if they stay with her.

The facts of my own parents' divorce are far too byzantine to cover in this post. The split had its roots in my parents' ridiculously short courtship (a long weekend at Jack Webb's fabulous Palm Springs getaway), fundamental incompatibility, and unfortunate coming of age on the cusp of the era of self-awareness. Too much possibility and too few tools to deal with it.

But for the sake of our story, let us oversimplify and blame this on the mother. The father, who always did his duty and yet was never quite There, was as bewildered as I that this shit was going down. He was forced into moving off-campus into a dreary, studio apartment, followed by an equally dreary one-bedroom apartment, while we stayed in our fabulous (if largely unfurnished) co-op by the lake.

Within four years, however, their fortunes had reversed: Dad moved into the swingin'-est 2-bedroom bachelor pad I've seen yet, rooftop pool, living room furnished with pinball machines and parade of hot stewardesses and all, while Mom, little sister and I moved in with her parents.

On paper, things still looked good: gigantic mansion on Lake Michigan in a tony suburb, weekly visitation with Dad and private, Catholic school for the two of us. In day-to-day reality, though, things were a little different.

First, we moved into Enablers Central. Mom found two new instant drinking buddies in her own father and eldest brother, who'd been booted out of his own household. They had different poisons of choice, but weren't all that picky, so anytime after about three o'clock (depending on day of the week and state of employment), you were pretty much guaranteed that someone was going to start tying one on.

Second, the Chief Enabler, our otherwise astonishingly responsible and competent Swedish-American grandmother, was, um, stingy with a few things, including the food. I don't mean that things ever got completely Dickensian on us, but she came of age in the Great Depression and I, more often than not, was hungry. (Although because she was a kickass cook, what there was to eat was always pretty darned tasty.)

A teetotaler, devout convert to Catholicism and frugal genius without par, Grandma had one human weakness: an insane sugar jones. Everyone knew where she kept her cookie stash; we also knew exactly how many we could poach without getting busted. When the selection was Pepperidge Farm Sugar Cookies, it was tough, pretty difficult concealing cookie leakage in that small, tight stack. You were better off around certain holidays, when there were tins of home-baked goods. But you didn't even look for the good candy stash. You pretended you didn't know about it (even if you did), and waited for her to haul out the Fannie Mae and offer you a piece when she was feeling itchy and generous.

Possibly worse than the food situation, although for a 12 and 7-year-old, not much, was the heating and plumbing situation. While the house was grand and gorgeous, with beautiful bones, plenty of space and a gracious flow, it was a sumbitch to heat and maintain. Everyone in Chicago was hot in the summer (well, except my beloved paternal grandparents, who got A/C shortly after it was invented and were never without), but I wonder how many people in our ZIP code were as cold as we were in the winter, there on the lake, in that huge house with the wind rattling the old storm windows, and the heat turned up enough to keep the pipes from freezing but not much else. It wasn't bad when you were fully clothed, and we learned the benefits of layering early on, but there was this insistence on bathing that made life difficult at times.

Which brings me to...the plumbing. The original plumbing, no doubt, with next-to-no water pressure and never enough hot. Forget that we were only allowed to use three squares of toilet paper per seated occasion (god knows I'd like to); far, far worse was shivering in the shower as you tried, TRIED, I TELL YOU, to get your 1970s, long-and-parted-down-the-middle girl-hair wet, shampooed and rinsed. At some point, our uncles took mercy on us (my beloved youngest uncle had moved in by then) and let me use the special shower they'd added on to one of the rooms. It must have had new pipes coming up from the main, because compared to every other faucet in the place, it was like standing under a hot fire hydrant. Which, in January, just off the lake in Chicago, is as close as it gets to heaven.

Life there was not, I must say, an unmitigated hell. I escaped every day to my wonderful, amazing grammar school, albeit an hour away by bus, and in the dark, for this was during the energy crisis of the mid-1970s. Gloomy Manor itself was an amazing place to explore and imagine, with four floors of who-knows-how many rooms, and a huge yard with steps down to the beach. I had dolls and books and all the paper and pens I wanted, plus hours and hours to myself, which I've always loved. If we lost half the house to the winter, sun porches and side porches and attics and basements, there were other, warmer rooms.

And while it chapped her hide, Mom never actually shut my sister and me up as we washed and dried every night to the sound of ourselves singing "If Mama Was Married" from Gypsy. While we were a dark family, we all appreciated a good joke.

Still, it was with profound relief that I welcomed her next husband, my ex-stepfather, into our lives. We went out to dinner, we sang in the car and everyone was allowed to stuff herself with food. He laughed easily, which was none too common at Gloomy Manor, my paternal grandfather's grim-joke name for this fallin g-down house by the lake full of stoic and/or drunk people. Our rental house that summer in Evanston before I started high school was a paradise compared to the remote prison I'd been stuck in for a year and a half. I barely cared that we were moving to a new place with a new school where I'd no know* nobody in my class of 1,000; freedom was in sight.

What is there, then, in that 18-month sentence, to be thankful for? Well, Youngest Uncle, for starters. He introduced me to Led Zeppelin and Monty Python and the National Lampoon during my stay, and besides saving my bacon, opened new worlds to me. Almost 20 years younger than my mom and only 10 years older than I, we probably never would have gotten close were it not for us being thrown together as cellies.

There was the quiet, too, and the isolation. Perhaps not the best for building critical preteen social skills, but while I was sequestered in the North Suburbs, my Chicago friends were starting to get into some pretty grownup stuff. I can't prove it, but I'm guessing that getting pulled from the city slightly before I hit 13 probably helped me hang onto my innocence for an extra four years, not at all a bad thing, in hindsight.

Most of all, though, came a fine appreciation for simple luxuries: the hot shower. The warm room. A full belly.

Love, expressed out loud.

It would have been devastating to have been deprived of these things from childhood, of course. But to have them, then have them taken away...well, like it or not, it probably contributed greatly to my gifts as an artist, not to mention my ability to see the humorous side of things. What is the comedian's curse again? Damn you for giving me a happy childhood?

They did their best. I know that, too. Nobody writes down, as the saying goes; in the same way, few people are intentionally awful to their fellow man. There is patterning, followed by a tent of darkness.

Some of us, if we're lucky, get just a peek under that tent. A small peek, bracketed by lots and lots of sunshine and warmth.

I am one of those people. And that is why I do what it is I do.

Thank you, Gloomy Manor, for the inadvertent gift of understanding. It's taken me a while to put it into play, but with some luck, there will be many, many years of illumination before this light is put out.

xxx c

*Wow. I was so overwrought, I plumb forgot my words.

Image ©2007 MichaÅ‚ Å»ebrowski.

"Thank you, sir! May I have another!?"™, Day 19: Sam

This is Day 19 of a 21-day effort to see the good in what might, at first, look like an irredeemable drag. Its name comes from a classic bit of dialogue uttered by actor Kevin Bacon in a classic film of my generation, Animal House.

I did not discover I was a dog person until last week, but I have always loved cats. Yes, they're aloof, but they're also independent and delightful in their own way, a very different way than dogs.

And I grew up with cats, starting with Crystal, when I was about six years old (sharp-eyed readers will note that this makes my p0rn name either "Crystal Delaware" or "Crystal LSD", depending on whether you call first street, period, or the first street I remember).

Turns out Crystal was allergic to city living and Mom was allergic to Crystal, so Mom stayed in town and Crystal moved to a farm to chase birds. This rendered me catless for a few years, when Newly-Divorced Dad let us get Monique (my parents divorced when I was young, what can I say?)

Once Dad moved away with his new family (to be fair, they would probably have preferred to stay right there in Chicago), I was essentially petless for almost 15 years. When I was in high school, Mom had another baby, so I had a kind of human pet, but that was it for years and years. College is too transient a time for pets, and when I was living in New York City, I could barely afford to feed myself.

Things started looking up money-wise when I moved back to Chicago, but my life was in rather great disarray, plus I was in renter's mode. A pet is not a great thing to get when you're not sure whether you'll last out the year in your adoptive city.

But once I'd sorted things out with my shrink-slash-astrologer and decided to stay, it made sense to really put down roots. A terrific condo dropped in my lap, and in short order, Sam followed.

Sam. Sam I am. Samela. Sam had a sad history when he came to me as a three-year-old. Much beloved by his first master, Sam came with a gallon-sized baggie of frozen cooked, chopped roast beef in individual serving sizes, and a stack of red plates he liked to eat it on, Sam was not, alas, beloved by the man's fiancée. Reluctantly, he chose the girl and I got Sam. There was some judging on my part about this (which I came to regret later, as you'll see) but I was happy to have Sam under my care.

Sam liked to sit around, a LOT, and then suddenly, arbitrarily, get up and do five minutes of wind sprints across the wood floors of my condo, time of day be damned. He had a tiny, tiny head and a big, not fat, but big, body. He enjoyed playing with invisible pieces of paper, freaking out for no reason and sleeping on my head. Not beside my head: on top of it. (My head-to-frame size was inversely proportional to Sam's own, so I shed a lot of heat out of that sucker, and Chicago gets fiercely cold of a winter's night.)

Mainly, as you might expect, Sam dramatically improved my disposition. He was someone to love, and to love completely. That should have been enough.

Alas, I was greedy and foolish. I wanted human love, too, and the type that appeared on my doorstep did not like cats. In fact, he hated them.

In fact, he wrote a poem about his feelings for them, which started like this:

Kitty in the microwave Asking me your life to save It's hard to hear your muffled cries Above my sizzling cottage fries

Okay, all you SPCA types, he was a stand-up comic and it was a joke. And a funny one, the way he delivered it. I laughed, every time. Me, lover of Sam. And felt only the smallest twinge of guilt in doing it. (My motto: the Joke is King; all Hail the Joke.)

The three of us living together was not so funny, however. The Chief Atheist didn't ever, ever physically mistreat Sam; I wouldn't have stood for that. But he was overt in his hatred, and I know Sam felt terrorized. So it was not hard to make the deal that when and if we moved to Los Angeles, Sam would not move with us. We'd all be better off. Well, Sam would.

Sam had a dry run or two with my friend, Deb, before the actual move. Having grown up in a house with a mother who made you put snacks in a dish before eating and who moved the piano to vacuum behind it every single day, pets had never been a part of her mental (or physical) landscape. (It was a very tidy and pleasant house, though, I must say, way nicer than any I've ever lived in.)

So she took on the task with some trepidation. And, again, I must confess that I pushed a bit: I knew that if Sam lived with Deb, there'd be a good chance I'd get to see him a lot on visits, (although I didn't realize how much that would ultimately turn out to be.) But of course, the same miracle happened with Sam and Deb that happened with Arnie and me: she fell in love. Sam brought out something in her she'd never known was there, could be there, and she took sterling care of her new baby until his death years later.

I have always looked on my loss of Sam, or my abandonment of him as I caved under pressure, with a strange mix of sorrow and thanks. Sorrow for the obvious reasons: I was weak. I lost Sam. As a grown woman of 31, I still didn't believe in my own self well enough to stand up for what I truly wanted.

Thankful, too, though, for some equally compelling reasons. Like having to face up to some less than delightful weaknesses I needed to work on. Like introducing a friend to the wonders of unconditional love on the donor end.

And mainly, for giving Sam the Wandering Kitty the best of homes to live out the rest of his years.

Happy holidays, little guy. May they be filled with lots of tasty roast beef served on brick-red plates, and big, warm heads to nap on.

xxx c

"Thank you, sir! May I have another!?"™, Day 18: Dude, where's my stuff?

This is Day 18 of a 21-day effort to see the good in what might, at first, look like an irredeemable drag. Its name comes from a classic bit of dialogue uttered by actor Kevin Bacon in a classic film of my generation, Animal House.

My other sisters have lost far more of real value because of our alcoholic mother: substantial money; their youth. Things get stolen out from under from you when you have an alcoholic parent that you don't even realize until much later, when you start comparing yourself to your normal friends.

I lost a little money, true. And a little of my youth, I suppose. But what I miss are my words.

I've been doing this crazy scribbling for much longer than this blog's brief existence. I began a diary back when that's what we called them, when they were bound in leather and came with tiny locks and keys and their heavy, gilt-edged paper only allowed for five or six lines of information per day. I've been writing stories and drawing pictures since I could pick up a crayon, manufacturing worlds for my imaginary creatures to live in that rivaled Middle Earth in their detail and complexity. I knew I could not keep everything; when you move a lot, which we did after my parents' divorce initiated our long, slow slide into intrafamilial dependence, you learn to do with less and less, to cull down to what is most important to you. Good training for the apocalypse, I warrant.

Before my escape to college, I got my stuff down to a few boxes, and then, on a subsequent visit where I was told to pare down, to one that I had to keep. It held the best of the best: all of my journals, best (or favorite) drawings and keepsakes, an unsigned Picasso print from my grandfather (well, so he said, anyway). One box.

You're not supposed to think about the stuff you leave at home. You're supposed to put up with your parents nagging you to pick up your damned stuff, already, so they can turn your bedroom into a sewing/guest/crafts room. But you don't even imagine that, outside of horrific acts of God, your stuff will just disappear.

Sometimes I wonder when I pick through stuff at thrift stores about how it got there. The same way I wonder how someone could just give up a good dog like Arnie, I wonder how someone's handmade photo frame with a family picture ends up in that great unwanted pile called the Goodwill. But I do know, someone dies...alone. Or someone gets on drugs, goes crazy and wanders off. Or someone loses his job and is forced to move out in a hurry.

Or someone's alcoholic mother can no longer pay the fees to the storage company and her things are sold in lots. Poof, a lifetime of chairs scavenged from estate sales, of knickknacks and out-of-print childhood books, of ski clothes and stuffed animals, of words and words and words, gone. Because of booze and shame and despair. Because you are broke and too embarrassed to ask for help. Because, because, because.

Of all the things I have had, it's the loss of words that haunts me. I don't trust my memory, you see, but I trust the words. I trust what they say, and I trust in my ability to read between them and recall the rest. Right now, my memories begin at age 18, in college. I still have every single journal with every single cringe-inducing entry. The photos I have that predate them? They help me to remember, but they were taken by other people of me; they are not my memories. I'm making those up now, as I go along.

I get a hollow feeling right now, even now, thinking of that box. And yet, I'm thankful to have lost it. It has made me treasure the few relics that have turned up in other dead people's things even more. And it's made me appreciate that no matter what exists, or doesn't, it is my story to tell, however I see fit. My story to distill meaning from.

Most of all, it has helped me find compassion in my heart that I might not have found otherwise for my mother and for people like her. People who cause pain even while surely they wish they could stop. We've all of us let something be sold out from under us, done (or neglected to do) something out of carelessness or fear; in this case, it was just something tangible.

The love is not in the beloved childhood doll any more than the stories are in the written-down words. These are things that are in us, that we carry wherever we go, and that come to life when we share them.

Let's put it this way: maybe, just maybe, if I had those journals, I never would have started writing out loud, for other people. I never would have had the experience of having my words played back to me, of hearing what resonated and what didn't, of what landed and what didn't. I never would have met the people I've met and learned the things I've learned and changed the way I've changed.

A Picasso print, signed or not, legitimate or not, will last as long as it lasts. The feelings unearthed by looking at it are what lives on.

xxx c Image by orbitgal via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

"Thank you, sir! May I have another!?"™, Day 17: Tenant from hell

This is Day 17 of a 21-day effort to see the good in what might, at first, look like an irredeemable drag. Its name comes from a classic bit of dialogue uttered by actor Kevin Bacon in a classic film of my generation, Animal House.

Before I decided to downshift into the carefree (ha!) life of artist/Seeker-of-Truth, I was a woman of property.

When my now-ex-husband and I decided to relocate from Chicago to Los Angeles, we decided to rent said property to some nice couple, so that once we'd secured jobs and agents, we could return to live in our city of choice with a minimum of hassle. After all, it was such a great place in such a great neighborhood, and this process could only take 18 months, two years, on the outside.

Three years later, our dream tenants had to relocate to a different city for work, and we had to find someone to replace them. We were managing the place long distance, but we hired an agency to screen prospective tenants, also known as That Parade of Freak-Job Losers with Hilarious Credit Ratings.

Finally, they found us another dream tenant. A big antiques-lover, she preferred older buildings (ours was pre-war), needed a parking space (we had one, a huge deal in the densely-populated Wrigleyville/Boystown neighborhood) and best of all, had a good, steady job at a nearby hospital as a mental health care worker.

That should have been our first tip to run.

She didn't raise hell right away. The gateway hell was little things: could she do this, add that, install these? Fine, sure, we said. We were happy to have her happy; if she wanted to add hooks and shelves and whatever other crap that would hold her doodads and knickknacks, fine by us. Plaster is (relatively) cheap and the ex is (very) handy.

But the problems started coming faster. There were cracks in the walls or the dryer was broken or the neighbors were annoying. (Um, what happened to your great love of this 75-year-old building? And isn't that what neighbors are for?) The ex would make repairs when he was in town, and when he wasn't, we had a handyman friend take care of what he could. A really nice, really easygoing, really competent handyman friend, who told us in no uncertain terms (and some fairly colorful language) that our tenant was batsh*t crazy, and also something that rhymed with "hunt."

Things devolved for months and months until we were barely speaking. She was constantly threatening to withhold rent, to take this up with some board, to generally keep making our lives a living hell. There were crazed letters of three, four and five pages in length, outlining the many physical and psychic indignities she was being made to suffer at our hands. I earned my first set of diplomacy stripes in this period, talking her down for hours on the phone, patiently listening to her alternate cursing of us and pleas for understanding. Bat. Sh*t. Crazy.

And then, we decided to sell. All of a sudden, Crazy Lady was our new best friend. She looooooved the condo; we knew that, right? Other people might like it, but she really loooooved it. She'd bonded with it. It was home. She'd added so much to it, like...shelves! Hideous assy kountry krap fixtures. Uh...paint. I guess. And best of all, if we went with her, we'd have someone in there we already knew and loved!

To add insult to inanity, she not only lowballed the price by tens of thousands of dollars, but, if I recall correctly, also enthusiastically proposed a bizarre extended payment plan that made zero fiscal sense whatsoever. After marveling briefly at her big, crazy brain and matching brass balls, we came back with price in target range, less than we could probably get, which was only fair, since we'd be paying no realtor's fees. But apparently far, far more than she thought she should be paying.

So we gave her notice that we we would be showing the place. Our realtor would, of course, work around her schedule, but she'd need to give access.

The seething hydra kicked up a huge fuss, with more threatening of boards and lawyers. She called us every name in the book. She told us we were delusional, thinking our place was worth that much. Our attorney wrote her a nice letter spelling out the actual law on planet earth; Crazy Lady backed down, sulking. We were nervous that she'd do something to queer the deal, but miraculously, even with her blocking maneuvers, we sold it, and quite swiftly, at more than we'd originally thought we could get.

You might be thinking this is another example of that karma I'm thankful for, but really, it's not. (Although I do admit to feeling more gleeful than sorrowful at the thought of her having to haul all of her goddam kountry krap back down three flights of stairs and out of there.)

Honestly, I'm thankful because I learned one thing for absolutely, positively sure: there are landlords...and there are people like me.

Thank you, Crazy Lady. I hope you are happy in Kountry Krap land. And that it's many thousands of miles away from me.

xxx c

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

"Thank you, sir! May I have another!?"™, Day 16: Arnie McScruff

This is Day 16 of a 21-day effort to see the good in what might, at first, look like an irredeemable drag. Its name comes from a classic bit of dialogue uttered by actor Kevin Bacon in a classic film of my generation, Animal House.

I don't know whether to chalk it up to the writing gene or the bad-brain-chemicals gene, but all my life, I've grappled with depression.

It doesn't hit me as hard as some of my smarter friends or those relatives further over on the Irish-Swedish side of the spectrum (thank god for being sort of a dumbass and half-Jewish, I guess); in me, it's less of a steady condition and more of a trigger-driven one. Too little exercise or too much sugar/caffeine/bad food or too much passive media intake and I'll slip into what Truman Capote so perfectly named "the mean reds." Always liked that better than "the blues." The blues are for sadness and wallowing. The mean reds are sons of bitches on a covert mission to fuck up your soul.

I hadn't had a bout in a long time, so they sort of crept up on me this past week without my noticing until they'd really taken root. And once that happens, uprooting them is like battling a flea infestation: slow, painful and largely Sisyphean.

There is not much good to a bout of the mean reds, other than coming out on the other side. The last round of them happened after 9/11 and stuck hard, so hard, in fact, that my therapist came very close to "firing" me. Just the thought of having to go on meds put the fear of god in me (I swear, our mom raised us like Christian Scientists); I did a ton of internet research on depression and came up with a mix of exercise, media blackout, stimulant/depressant fast and vitamin cocktail that lifted the horror long enough to get the talk therapy to work.

I'm off the good insurance now, so talk therapy (outside of the once-monthly session I can afford) is out. Fortunately, my new pal, Arno J. McScruffington, is in (see above for photo of my strikingly handsome savior.)

Within five minutes of meeting him, I felt the clouds part. Just being in the house with him shifts the energy of the place, and makes it a better, healthier, happier place to be. It reminds me of how much I need to get my own house in order, so that I can create my next living space: something with a separate room for an office; a space to house large gatherings of my friends; and an animal companion.

I have never been a Dog Person. Or perhaps, I never knew I had it in me to be one.

So here I am thanking those motherfucking mean reds for introducing me to the miraculous healing powers of the canine rescue pup. (Can you believe someone could not love a face like this?)

And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to get me a good dose of Arnie...

xxx c

Image by The BF, with and via his iPhone. Yes, all this, and an iPhone, too.

"Thank you, sir! May I have another!?"™, Day 15: Don't call us...

This is Day 15 of a 21-day effort to see the good in what might, at first, look like an irredeemable drag. Its name comes from a classic bit of dialogue uttered by actor Kevin Bacon in a classic film of my generation, Animal House. I did not start out here in Hollywood as a hot commodity. To do that without being well-connected you have to be:

1. exceptionally young
2. exceptionally beautiful
3. exceptionally weird looking
4. exceptionally funny

Some people might argue that "exceptionally talented" should be on that list. I, on the other hand, would argue that everyone thinks he's exceptionally talented, so what's the point? There's one Meryl Streep; there's a million people like you...getting off the bus...every day.

But I digress.

I was none of those things. But even though I was 33 when I got my start, I was fairly funny and in target range looks-wise for a gigantic commercial type (i.e., "Young Mom," 24-34). And I was connected, thanks to the Groundlings Sunday Company and my old career as an adhole, so between the resume at Groundlings and a casting director I'd worked with many times on Gatorade, I got a commercial agent.

I even booked a spot. A horrible test-market spot that went nowhere, but still, a booking. My agent seemed pleased.

So when she got a better gig across the street and was only taking her "bookers," I was stunned to hear I wasn't included. And, well...hurt. Yes. I was hurt.

Ordinarily, I would have gone off in a huff with my hurt feelings ("I'll show her") but in one of his more useful moments, my dad told me flat out what to do: go to her and ask her if she could recommend me to anyone else. To my great surprise, she gave up four names. I put packages together, sent them off, followed up, and nothing.

And then one of them called me. He is Cris Dennis of Film Artists Associates, and he is one of the greatest guys in the world. It doesn't usually happen and it's certainly not a prerequisite of doing business, but we genuinely like each other and call each other friends. He and his wife, Martha, were my staunch defenders while I was sick and then recovering from Crohn's, offering any help they could and insisting I take off as much time as I felt like, and to hell with it. For years after the onset (because these things are really up and down, especially until you learn to manage them), Cris would accept my "not up to it today" without so much as an audible sigh. Complete, unwavering acceptance and support.

But before all this loveliness developed, I was just the new schmo on the client list. Going out time after time, and not booking. I was so upset at the six-month mark, around the Christmas holiday, that I fell over myself apologizing when I stopped by his office to drop off the only gift I could afford: some small plant or a mixtape. Pathetic. And he could not have been more gracious: "Don't worry, it takes time. It'll happen."

When you are low and desperate, this means almost as much, if not more, than the validation of a booking itself. Someone believes in you. Someone is laying out time and money every day because he believes in you. I never forgot it.

I certainly didn't forget it two years later, when another agency started courting me, hard. Because Cris had been right: I did start booking. And I had spots running everywhere. Class A, network commercials, good ones, funny ones, with me front and center. Selling cars and tacos and I don't remember what else. A crapload of crap. I was lousy with TV presence.

The agent who'd been assigned to my case confided that my name had come up in their weekly meeting as a hot person they wanted on their roster. Who is she? Who is she with? Find her and get her here. Who was I?

I was that person who sent you a head shot and resume two years ago. When I had only the good name of my previous agent and a few paltry credits to recommend me. When I had no spots running and nobody knew my name and no one was willing to take a chance on me.

Well, no one but Cris Dennis. And if you think I'm leaving him to come to you, you're out of your mind.

I was nicer about it, of course. Even while I was marveling over having this conversation, the dream one, the one where the object of unrequited desire comes crawling back on all fours, I couldn't be mean. What would be the point, other than giving someone fodder for calling me bee-yotch.

But it was, I confess, a glorious moment. One I never would have had, along, quite possibly, with a career and a great friendship, had I not been shitcanned.

So thank you, old agent, for shitcanning me. And for being gracious enough to pass along those names.

Sometimes, you really do get to see karma in action...

xxx c

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

"Thank you, sir! May I have another!?"™, Day 14: You can't go home again

This is Day 14 of a 21-day effort to see the good in what might, at first, look like an irredeemable drag. Its name comes from a classic bit of dialogue uttered by actor Kevin Bacon in a classic film of my generation, Animal House.

You have no way of knowing this, but I was a wunderkind.

Seriously, that's what they called me in Adweek. Well, that's how they referred to me, anyway; management would reveal neither my image nor my name, for fear that the investment they'd fussed over for six months in the copy trainee program and six more months after that would be stolen out from under them by some ruthless competitor. Har dee har har.

I was no more than a combination of garden-variety clever and lucky, the far-greater success of so many people I came up with is proof of that. It was my fifteen minutes, that's all, and I wasted it in advertising. Que sera, sera, I guess.

Anyway, when things started getting a little bumpy in paradise, I figured I'd follow my old boss to Chicago. Number 1, it was my hometown. Number 2, there was a boy there I'd been in love with since he kissed me after I barfed up four hours' worth of beer and cigarettes downed in an hour and a half and it was time to see what was what with that. And number 3, my money would go a lot farther in Chicago than New York City, where I wouldn't have to share my 1-BR apartment with a 6'1" amateur fencer/musical theater enthusiast, not to mention the usual NYC fauna.

Immediately, my life got exponentially worse. My new co-workers were suspicious, at best, openly hostile at worst. Not that I did anything to endear myself to them; I was an obnoxious, oblivious, ungracious intruder. The intrastate version of the Ugly American. (The Ugly Ultra-Urbanite?)

Then, two or three months in, my boss abandoned me to move back to NYC and for the first time in my life, I was acutely aware that I had no protector and was flying solo.

Also, my new-old boyfriend tired of me quickly once I was actually available. Plus his mother, for reasons I cannot fathom, despised me from the get-go, and he, for equally unfathomable reasons, worshiped her. I think the relationship officially lasted 11 months, but basically it was over as soon as I got off the plane.

With a few notable exceptions, I did not relate to my old friends, most of whom had not left the area ever, even to go to school. I had lost the rhythm of Chicago and taken on the pace of my adoptive city, which meant that I walked, smoked and talked like an alien. And being closer to family meant I was expected to be closer to family, which was...not my favorite thing.

Just about the only thing that was better was my apartment. That, at least, was a vast improvement.

What is horrible about being in the middle of a big, fat, mess for the first time, bad job, bad relationship, lonely, depressed, is that you have nothing to compare it to and thus, you are sure that it will be ever thus. There's no benchmark; there's no understanding of cycles or the fixability of things. You have for-crap life-management skills, and back then, there was no wikipedia to turn to for guidance. So, at 25, I thought, this is my life and I finally get why they say it sucks.

The thing was, I had moved away from NYC to Chicago to flee unhappiness and, like Dorothy Gale, found myself right back where I started. I was by no means smart, but having moved myself over 1000 miles and bought real furniture and made commitments, I figured it was cheaper to hunker down and fix it there than to chance that location was the issue and just GO. And thus, I began the business of untangling and analyzing the mess that was my life, which only took another 20 years.

Kidding, kidding. Of course, I'm not kidding, I'm still figuring it out. But I started the heavy lifting back then. Significant time spent alone. Significant effort making new friends, and attempting to determine my own landscape and values and interests, the real ones, not the theoretical ones I'd been coasting on since college. Significant money (gulp) committing to some of them, like therapy and real estate and art.

There have been a couple of 18-month periods of my life that were so black, I despaired of moving past them, but this is the one I always have in mind when I say I wouldn't be in my 20s again for anything.

And I wouldn't. (And thank CHRIST I don't have to.)

At the same time, I am utterly and completely grateful for my extended first year at the School of Hard Knocks. And I mean that: whatever gratitude I have now I can connect directly to that time.

So thank you, rotten academic year at the school of hard knocks. Thank you to all my teachers, patient (hi, Mary Ellen) and impatient (you know who you are, and trust me, all is forgiven).

I will likely skip the reunion once again, but you are forever in my heart. For you have made my heart what it is.

xxx c Image by L Castro via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

"Thank you, sir! May I have another!?"™, Day 13: Speechless

This is Day 13 of a 21-day effort to see the good in what might, at first, look like an irredeemable drag. Its name comes from a classic bit of dialogue uttered by actor Kevin Bacon in a classic film of my generation, Animal House.

Anyone who knows me will assert that I am rarely at a loss for words. I suffer from the opposite problem: so many words I need to get out that I end up talking waaaaaay too fast, a prime example being this new acting podcast I was recently interviewed for. (Warning: it's looong. And it's just Part 1.)

But because of a strange confluence of events, I found myself with no words at all earlier this year.

I was sliding into illness, you see, when the occasion of my installation as Chief Nerd (a.k.a. President) of my Toastmasters club rolled around. I toyed with the idea of staying home, I was feeling godawful, and could feel my voice slipping away, but since I am from tough (read: hardheaded) stock, I decided to drink a lot of hot water with lemon and tough it out.

The event, which happens every six months at the changing of the guard, is in the form of a roast, although dinner itself is usually chicken (harhar). The past-president, who is as social as I am anti-, would have loved to have been roasted endlessly, including by yours truly. She's a good sport and she likes the attention. But I quickly realized that just getting through a the brief installation ceremony and an acceptance speech was going to be pushing it. And it was. By the end of the dinner, I was a wreck; all I wanted to do was magically transport my body and what was left of my voice back to bed.

Instead, I was surprised with a radical "improvement" to one of our current systems by a newly installed officer. Who had already started implementing the improvement over dinner. Without so much as a howdy-do to me.

I was floored. This was bad news on a couple of levels: a potentially upsetting and sudden change for some long-time club members and a harbinger of big-time management trouble to come. So I did what any green, untested, barely competent leader would do: I tried to explain why this might not be the best idea right now. Louder and louder, over smiling but steadfast rebuttals and an increasing din. And, I must confess, my own personal fury. It is one thing to volunteer to shoulder a burden; it is another when people happily throw rocks at you while you do it.

She had several years and many, many healthy blood cells on me that night, so I finally mandated that we shelve the discussion. Even if I hadn't, I would have had to: I woke up to no voice at all. None. Zero. Zip.

For three whole days.

Despite my sunny disposition, given the right circumstances I can go down the Bad Path like a greased sled on an icy hill. Now I was truly fucked. The club would be in upheaval, it would be my fault, and I would never regain control.

So I did something rather novel: I relinquished control. That's right, folks, the Queen of Overthink put down her DIY sword and standard and called for help. (Okay, emailed. I could barely manage that.) And bit by bit, my trusted friends helped me dig out from under and regain control of the situation. All while I could not speak.

I wish I could report that everything was smooth sailing from then on. Far from it. It was five months of tough slog, even after the four-week mysterious illness (mostly) vanished. (Side note: I must plug the magical, healing powers of the neti pot at this juncture. Without one, I think I'd still be sick.)

Getting so sick did the trick, though, in getting me back on the path. It made me recognize certain things I might not have otherwise: that things aren't always what they seem. That people you thought would be your staunchest supporters ain't necessarily. That help comes from strange corners. And, happily (because this story does end happily), that slow and steady does, in fact, win the race.

So thank you, dreadful virus. Thank you, human road block. Thank you for being my teachers.

Let us hope that I don't need to learn this particular lesson again...

xxx c

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

"Thank you, sir! May I have another!?"™, Day 12: Look, Ma! No coverage!!

This is Day 12 of a 21-day effort to see the good in what might, at first, look like an irredeemable drag. Its name comes from a classic bit of dialogue uttered by actor Kevin Bacon in a classic film of my generation, Animal House.

I have already alluded to the sorry state of my teeth, gums, cancer resistance and internal chemical management systems. May I now bring up the fact that in another seven and a half months, barring some sort of miracle from on high, I will join the ranks of those unable to pay for the regular maintenance and catastrophic repair of same?

I never thought it would come to this. Really. Had I known, I would have bought private insurance years ago, and not depended on what I now see are the vagaries of the employer-paid group insurance system.

The thing is, when I started out, in my 20s, all pluck and vinegar and walking ball of parentally-induced obligation complexes, I was 100% sure I'd be working for The Man the rest of my life, and that he'd pay for all the digestive disorders and other stress-induced diseases he was responsible for. That and a 401K? More than a fair trade, as far as I was concerned.

When I left my full-time ad gig in 1992, reality struck in the form of COBRA: expensive and time-limited, I quickly realized that the most important thing about being on COBRA was using the time to figure out how to get off COBRA. Fortunately, the ex-husband was healthy as a horse and whatever weird lady-surgeries I'd had were distant enough to be paying just an arm, not an arm and a leg. We scored some insurance with a deductible my younger, pre-preexisting conditioned self found outrageous. You know, the kind I'd crawl through hepatitis-infected glass to have today.

Still, it was enough of a drain on the household finances that I finally begged my dad to help me find some menial job with one of his beneficent corporate pals so that the Chief Atheist and I would qualify for coverage. I wanted to act, which required me to actually be available for auditions when asked (however seldom). But the cost was a wash, cheaper to work for slightly above minimum wage than to pull down $500/day and buy private.

All that came to a glorious halt with the SAG years. Sweet baby Jesus, the SAG years: coverage the likes of which I'd not seen ever, even in the fatcat, go-go, Madison Avenue years. For eight years, I never thought twice about going to the doctor. Not that it was anything I, you know, looked forward to; it was just that I wouldn't worry about how I was going to pay for something that happened out of the blue.

No more. Today I'm on COBRA again, and clinging for dear life. I've already informed all my providers that I'll most likely be entering the High Risk Pool next July, which means that I'll pay roughly $600/month for coverage that doesn't kick in for thousands and thousands of dollars I hope I never need to ask for. All of which means that anything needing to be probed, sampled or excised must happen now, or possibly never.

There is not much good in this. I am not thankful for the way our country treats its citizens when it comes to medical care. I am not thankful that I will join the ranks of the barely cared for, and pay an enormous price for doing so.

But I am also considering what a great gift it is to finally find out how most people live. For one reason or another, my whole life I've been sheltered from what I once saw as a petty concern, though it shames me to say it. I'm also thinking about creative solutions to the problem: of opting out, perhaps. Of taking the almost-$600 monthly and sticking it in some sort of investment account. Of letting my poor, old body crap out when its time. Of not fixing it, but, and really, heaven forfend, should the occasion rise, using myself as an example. Liveblogging my demise. Morbid? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Maybe a bunch of us have to throw ourselves under a bus to get Congress to get our legislative and executive branches of government to take notice.

Or maybe I'll join the ranks of the Starbucks unrevolution, work for The Man pulling espressos for my coverage. Maybe it's time for a little wax-on, wax-off. I'm not averse to a job-job if it doesn't mean selling my soul.

Whatever winds up happening seven months from now, I'm thankful that, for whatever reason, I'm not worried about it anymore. Me with my bad teeth and diseased gut and cancer-prone tissue. Maybe it would not be such a shame for my voice to get loud one last time over the indignities too many have had to suffer getting to this state of crisis.

I'll be truthful: I'd rather stay. But if it comes to it, it might be the noblest way to go.

And I am truly, truly thankful that I no longer consider living out this one particular life in some particular way to be a must-do. There are bigger things in life than this old bag of cells. I am glad that, at some point before I must go, and again, I hope it's a long, long time from now, that I finally realized it.

xxx c

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

"Thank you, sir! May I have another!?"™, Day 11: RIP, communicatrix the shill

This is Day 11 of a 21-day effort to see the good in what might, at first, look like an irredeemable drag. Its name comes from a classic bit of dialogue uttered by actor Kevin Bacon in a classic film of my generation, Animal House.

Despite the flashes of solopreneur-esque bravado you witness here from time to time, I'm neither a tooter of my own horn nor an intrepid explorer by disposition.

Don't believe me? This should change your mind: my first foray into the world of web communications and social networking was...Epinions.

Yes, that Epinions. That loser site of bullsh*t reviews and bulls*t high school status-hierarchy of reviewers, Epinions.

I wrote for Epinions early, so early that my participation pre-dated both the dot-com bust and the use of "communicatrix" as my ubiquitous handle. I also wrote long, not often, but long, involved, passionate pieces, much like I do here.

Only there, they were about...waffle irons. Baby wipes. Nose hair trimmers.

I poured my heart and soul into those reviews, and not for the money. I made pennies for my work (although, come to think of it, more than I've made on the blog). I did it because it was a place to write, and a reason for people to come and read my writing, and a community that sprung up around reading and writing about things we thought were noteworthy. Or just...good writing.

Like most things, Epinions evolved. In its case, it devolved into a site that was about dollars and cents and the tyranny of the lumpen middle. Not my people. I left and wandered for a while, homeless and bitter.

It took almost four years to find myself again. Here. With you. Too long, maybe, but here's how I choose to look at it: if Epinions had been even a little bit cooler, if it hadn't all but forced me out, like the Groundlings, like so much of what the rest of this salute has been about, I might still be there now, writing about mascara and coffee makers. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just not the wide, wide range that has stretched and shaped and grown me here.

So thank you, Epinions, for selling out and making your site a place I'd never want to visit, much less write for.

It is because of you I am the writer I am today.

xxx c

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

"Thank you, sir! May I have another!?"™, Day 10: It is always about money

This is Day 10 of a 21-day effort to see the good in what might, at first, look like an irredeemable drag. Its name comes from a classic bit of dialogue uttered by actor Kevin Bacon in a classic film of my generation, Animal House.

My late father was in the habit of mocking my late mother's side of the family for what he saw as their massively fucked up views on money and blithe disregard for facing up to the truth of just about everything, their mortality included.

It was not without some irony, therefore, that my sister and I viewed the colossal disarray in which he'd left his own affairs. And as for his relationship with the truth...well, let's just say it was rockier than we'd been led to believe.

Of course, we should have been prepared for this: there are few people who get excited at the prospect of their inevitable demise, and we'd been blindsided once by the bizarre structure our maternal grandmother had left in place. But this was our dad: the sensible parent, the one who didn't drink. If he had put a bit of a gloss on some...shall we say...interesting life choices, well, hell, we were a family of storytellers and ad people, for crying out loud! We spun for a living.

When there is a dispute about shekels left behind, the warring parties always declaim, "It's not about the money." But of course it is: the money is what's there representing the promises made (and broken). And since money means different things to different people, bequests represent love, security, freedom, fear and probably a host of other things. As with fetishes, there's one for everything you can name, and entire online communities for many things you can't.

For me, the difference between the airtight provisions that had supposedly been made and the jerry-rigged structure my sister and I ultimately discovered was devastating. Yes, because of the money, we're talking a lot of money, here, but also because of the years and years of haranguing about our supposedly subpar handling of our lives. My sister and I chose some pretty non-traditional paths, and while we weren't what I'd call irresponsible, we also were not living the suburban-American dream, socking away millions from our jobs at Shearson Lehman.

Dad was the responsible one. The one who supported his aging parents for the last 20 or so years of their lives while never, ever rubbing his father's pride in it. The one who paid for our mother's funeral, even though they had openly despised one another for most of their lives. The one who always always always asked if we needed money, and, though we always replied in the negative, quite often sent some anyway. The one who told us we'd be taken care of, and the precise sum that translated into, despite our protests that the whole discussion was silly and morbid.

So the blow was hard to take. And it was followed by another, far worse one which there's no reason to go into, the story is so old and clichéd and obvious, it's laughable. A story that happens to rich people and crazy fourth wives of famous singers, not middle-class girls from Chicago. The details hardly matter. Suffice it to say that it involved lawyers and family members taking sides and the besmirching of our good names. No one wins in a game like that, except the lawyers.

And yet, almost four years after the fact, I am grateful for this happening. My blood sister and I are closer than ever, having walked through the fire together. The family and friends who stood by us, I have an even greater appreciation for. More than anything, though, I am thankful for being introduced to who I am at my core, and for discovering the striking similarity it bears to the me that walks around from day to day in more mundane settings.

It is a good thing to sleep well at night...

xxx c

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