Ordinary Extraordinary

Endings and Beginnings

Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on,
with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.
                                                                         - Hal Borland

Yesterday morning I drove up the 101 to Camarillo, a pretty suburb tucked between the Santa Susana and Santa Monica Mountains at the south end of Ventura County. The weather was absolutely beautiful, clear and bright with a gusty wind that blew puffy clouds across the sky and encouraged the hawks to dip and glide playfully through the valleys. Though it was cold in the shadows, the sun was warm and the air smelled faintly of sweet grass and woodsmoke.

It was the kind of day that would make my friend Travis take a deep breath, tip his face up to the sun, and say with eyes closed "Damn, you've gotta love California in January."

It was the perfect day for his funeral.

If a man's worth is measured by the number of his mourners, then Travis was a rich man indeed. So many showed up that the funeral home had to open a second room and still there were people crowded silently together in the aisles and hallways. Several of us mused at one point that there must not have been any television happening in Los Angeles yesterday; the entire industry seemed to be in Camarillo.

Death at the end of a life fully lived is sad certainly, but death in the midst of life is a tragedy in the truest sense; there are no words of comfort for the loss of a man whose thread was so brutally and unexpectedly cut short.

As I sat with my head bowed at the end of the service, listening to the rabbi saying Kaddish, I let my mind wander through my memories of Travis. No one was better at living life, at being absolutely present to all of its joys and sorrows, than Travis - his light was so bright, and it warmed everyone who crossed his path. When I looked up from my reverie, I could almost picture him standing at the back of the room, eyes twinkling as he waited for the appropriate moment to gesture for all of us to go out, have a drink, and share some good-natured laughs at his expense.

I will miss his joie de vivre so much.

Driving home, I got to thinking about my own life and what I want from it. The New Year is traditionally the time to examine daily life and make changes, but I let my mind embrace more abstract ideas as I drove. Instead of evaluating myself in terms of list and accomplishments, I focused on what type of life I'd like to lead, how I want things to feel. The comfort of my home, the satisfaction of good work done well, the peace and joy of friendship and family, the exhilaration of adventure. These are the things towards which I will strive in 2009.

To that end this New Year I'm doing away with resolutions, carefully worded statements of inspiration, and lists of goals (yes even my latest 101 in 1001 is finished).

In 2009, my intention is simply to fill every corner of my being with pure, unadulterated LIFE.

In honor of Travis.

In honor of myself.

Crossing Things Off

So it's been, uh, four months since my last "montly" update on my 101 in 1001 list... Oops.

Still, I've been busy and have managed to cross several things off my list. Twelve items down with just under two years left to accomplish the remaining eighty-eight, not bad as far as progress goes!

Slam!

I have a theory:

There is no more effective way to find yourself suddenly slammed front and center into your life than to ruminate publicly upon the fact that you're feeling a bit lost and disconnected.

The Universe is always listening and she does have a wicked sense of humor.

Sitting here at my computer, staring down the barrel of a 6am call time for my new job, that theory is the only explanation I can come up with for how I managed to interview for New Job, accept New Job, and quit Old Job all in the space of four hours.

Yes, four hours. They didn't even call my references.

I wasn't kidding when I said I'd been slammed right back into reality!

Still, I'm grateful.

It was time to move on from Old Job for a variety of reasons (See: Lack of reasonable pay. See also: Crazy Boss) and I've been sending my resume around in earnest since the beginning of the summer.  Due to an enormous show looming for Old Job the end of September, I had an increasingly narrow window of time during which to extricate myself. I'm far too professional and loyal to walk off a production two weeks before air, but I was starting to get increasingly worried that I'd be stuck in Old Job until October. I feared for my sanity and crossed my fingers for a little Divine intervention.

And lo, did an interview request appear from thin air (or from submitting my resume to an online job posting, which may as well be thin air in this industry). And it was good.

And lo, did the heavens open up and rain upon me an offer that included more responsibility, travel, and more money. And it was very good.

And lo, having been made joyful and full of hope, did I skip walk sedately to my Vice President's office and gleefully somberly offer up my resignation.

And it was done.

And that, my children, is the story of why I'm getting up at four o'clock tomorrow morning to launch myself head first into the next phase of my career.

I'm excited and scared and curious and most definitely present.

Wish me luck!

(And please, send coffee.)

Lettuce Head

About a week ago I did something that will both shock and disappoint my family... something so antithetical to our way of socializing that meals in my parents' house may never be the same.

Yes, it's true.

I became a vegetarian.

*insert ominous music here*

Actually, the jury is still out on whether I'll ultimately settle as a vegetarian or a pescetarian (without sushi in my life, I might cry), but the point is that I've stopped eating meat and when I tell my father I fully expect him to look at me as though I've grown eyes on stalks. Fortunately, my family has a well established record of being supportive; if they can survive my calling home at age 19 to say "I'm dropping out of the #2 engineering program in the country to get a theater degree!" they can survive this.

Still, it should make our annual meat-eating extravaganza Nutcracker Weekend interesting.

So why the change? There are three main reasons:

My physical health. I've been an enthusiastic eater of meat my entire life, but I'd started to notice over the last few months that I'd feel sluggish or ill after eating any quantity of meat (especially red meat or pork).  I'd go through phases where the texture of  meat in my mouth  felt... odd. During those phases, all I wanted to eat were vegetables.  In talking it over with my doctor, she said that my body's tastes and needs might just be changing and she encouraged me to follow its instincts as long as I was eating a healthful and well-rounded diet.

My spiritual health. I finally broke down and read Quantum Wellness (I usually try to avoid any type of wellnes fad) and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it; it is really much more level and well-researched than I would have imagined. One of the things Freston talks about is the energy that we ingest with our food and why it is therefore important to consider the supply chain of the things that we eat. A piece of chicken that comes from a farm where the animals are raised comfortably and slaughtered humanely would have a much different energy content than, say, a piece of chicken from an industrial farm where the animals are abused and slaughtered cruelly by people who are themselves mistreated. That idea is all a bit woo woo for most people, but it really hit me.

The environment. I've been striving to live a bit greener lately, replacing a light bulb with a compact flourescent here, carrying around re-useable grocery bags there, and this is just one more change that I personally can make to help improve the environment. You all have seen and heard the same statistics that I have so I won't beat you over the head with them, but the fact is that industrial farming is hugely detrimental to the planet. I choose not to support it any longer; I have always been a proponent of voting with my dollars.

In the end, I guess it really comes down to one reason: It feels like the right thing for me to do at this point in my life.

The timing just seemed right. Monday morning, my carpool buddy and I were talking about the fact that the end of June is a good opportunity to sit back and take stock of the year - to evaluate how the last six months have gone and make adjustments for the next six. He said that he and his wife often make small mid-year resolutions and I thought that was a great idea.

Thus, my mid-year resolution for 2008 is to switch to a vegetarian diet.

Pass the tofu, please.

And, we're back

I survived ten days in Las Vegas without losing my money, my undergarments, or my sanity and upon my return to Los Angeles immediately lost my wallet.

The wallet containing my driver's license, my ATM and credit cards, and all of that cash I didn't lose in Vegas.

Thanks, Murphy.

Asshole.

The Guy gets huge points for keeping me calm and helping me search; he even walked back to the restaurant where I last remember having it and helped me dig through the dumpster to make sure I hadn't accidentally swept my wallet into the trash - now that's devotion. When it was nowhere to be found, he bought me dinner and took me to a movie. He gets a shiny gold star for Achievement in Awesomeness.

I'm annoyed that I was careless and now have to go through the trouble of replacing all my cards and identification, but I'm really more frustrated that every single business card I collected while I was in Vegas was ALSO in that wallet. I'd only transferred about half of the information into my BlackBerry and the cards are completely irreplaceable.

Sigh.

As you can imagine, I spent Monday morning at the DMV, at the bank, and on the phone. Those are several hours of my life that I will never get back, but at least now that part of my life is mostly back to normal. Aside from the fact that I have no way to identify myself or spend money for another week or so, that is.

Now if I could just get the rest of my life back to normal that would be swell; at the moment there's a pile of laundry threatening to lay siege to the hallway, the cats are still not speaking to me, and I haven't been to the gym in almost two weeks.

Yikes!

A Vegas Story

I woke up this morning in Las Vegas.

That was to be expected, though, since I flew out here yesterday in the 737-of-doom.

Though I'm only doing it a couple of times a year now, I used to fly a LOT. I know from flights. So please believe me when I say that this was one of the WORST flights I have ever taken. Not only was the plane crammed to the brim with obnoxious girls (Karen's 21! WOOHOO! We're gonna party!) and screaming children, it was also stuffy as hell and holy CRAP was the flight choppy. I've never seen flight attendants kneel in the aisles before so the first time it happened yesterday, after a particularly stomach-rolling nose-dive, I swear I thought they were praying. Needless to say that by the time the pilot slammed the plane onto the ground at McCarran, I was barely holding on to my breakfast and I could not get out into the terminal fast enough.

Woo, Vegas.

I'm here for ten days, which sounds awesome at the outset, but being here for work is not at all the same as being here for play. The first thing I did when I arrived yesterday was go to meetings and last night, while the casino in the lobby was full of loud, drunk people lighting money on fire and loving it, I stretched out on my bed to watch a Discovery Channel documentary about India and talk to The Guy on the phone. Party!

Fortunately, the advance work is going really smoothly so far (*knock wood*) and it looks like I'll have a little time to myself today before the rest of the crew arrives. I'll probably use that time to do something really shocking like... nap.

Viva Las Vegas!

Sweet Ride

The LD and I have been tossing around the idea of carpooling for some time now. We live less than a mile apart and generally work the same hours, but for some reason we haven't quite made the leap to ride-sharing yet.

Today, when prices crossed the $4/gallon mark at our local gas station, I got this email from him:

Gas is expensive. Really expensive. It would be cheaper to fill my car with Voss Water. Are you interested in carpooling? I own an irresistable '99 Mustang. Sweet ride.

Have I mentioned lately how glad I am that I bought an SUV right before gas prices started to spiral out of control? Yeah. Great choice. My response:

Yes! Can't wait to go for a spin in that "sweet ride."

So, as of Monday morning, I'll be carpooling a few days a week. Hopefully now I'll be able to afford to eat again.

Authenticity

Go read this.

No, right now, because John Mayer just shot an arrow straight to the heart of modern society:

I haven't spoken very much out loud these days, but I've been thinking to myself in what feels like surround sound. I can see so many things clearly, and feel so connected to myself and the world around me that I need to share the perspective with you.

. . .

What I'm about to write isn't about fame or success or celebrity or the media. That's my business.

This is about us all.

This is about a level of self consciousness so high in my generation, that it's actually toxic.

. . .

This is about us all. Every one of us. Who all seem to know deep down that it's incredibly hard to be alive and interact with the world around us but will try and cover it up at any cost. For as badass and unaffected as we try to come off, we're all just one sentence away from being brought to the edge of tears, if only it was worded right.

Plagued

On Saturday I discovered an orange tree, a grapefruit tree, a tangerine tree and a lemon tree on the property. The landlord would rather that we pick and enjoy the fruits than leave them to fall and rot on the ground, so I gleefully hauled out my ladder and filled up my pockets. I sat down in the shade and ate a couple of the (delicious) tangerines immediately; I will never get over the joy of being able to eat something mere moments after picking / cutting / harvesting it.

You'd think that, having eaten my weight in vitamin-C rich citrus fruit this weekend, I would have been victorious over any plague that came looking for a fight.

Alas, I was not and I am reminded once again of how much it sucks to be sick when you are a grownup.

Remember when you were little how you'd suddenly start to feel ill in the middle of the day, and the school nurse would cluck and fuss over you until someone arrived to bundle you up and take you home? How you'd get tucked into your bed and cool hands would brush your hair from your fevered brow until you fell asleep, and how when you woke up someone would be there with a bowl of soup, or a cool glass of ginger ale? Even though you were sick, you felt a little bit better because there was someone there taking care of you.

Yesterday, I drove myself home at midday and sat behind an accident on the 134 for 45 minutes while I shivered in spite of the sun booming through my windshield. I stopped at the store to buy orange juice, soup, and honey and used up my last remaining ounce of strength dragging my purchases inside the house. When I woke up from my nap it was dark, that cats were yowling for food, and I had to haul myself out of bed to feed them and me.

Sigh.

Sometimes, this adulthood thing is not all it's cracked up to be.

Spring Forward

Sizzle totally climbed into my head this morning to write her post about moving on:

But it is never easier to ignore your gut, to not put out the effort to live your best life, or to challenge yourself forward.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. It's time for me to move on, too.

I don't know quite what's gotten into me lately. Maybe it's the vibrant new energy of spring unfurling all around me, maybe it's the surge of energy created by having to uproot my entire life in the space of a week, or maybe it's just time; whatever the motivation, I'm ready to take the leap.

At age 30, I'm tired of having a day job to pay the bills while I stuff my passion projects around the edges. Don't get me wrong, I'm lucky to have a reasonably stable and well-paying job that I enjoy (most of the time), but I didn't get into this line of work because I love it - I did it because I have a knack for it.

Specifically, I did it because once upon a time an incredibly cruel drama teacher told me that I was too fat to act, but perhaps I'd be a good stage manager since I was so organized. I was too vulnerable to his "wisdom" to realize how fucked up that statement was, so I dutifully began stage managing and convinced myself that I loved making schedules and run sheets just as much as I loved writing and performing.

It's amazing how firmly you can convince yourself of something, isn't it?

I bought my own line of bullshit so completely that when I got to college, I dropped out of the School of Engineering to "follow my passion" and get a degree in Stage Management. Interestingly, the essay that I wrote for admission to the School of Theatre described the dreams of a very small girl who wanted to be an actress and a playwright. This did not strike me as odd at the time; I went merrily along to get my Stage Management degree and embark on a winding career path that took me through live theater, Broadway tours, large scale events, and finally to the technical & logistical side of live television.

It took me fifteen years to realize that there's a difference between loving something and having a knack for it, but now that I have realized it my job chafes like an ill-fitting shirt; I find myself constantly squirming and pulling at it, trying to make it fit. But it's never going to fit, so I think it's time to discard that shirt and go shopping for a whole new wardrobe.

Leap, and the net will appear.

If only I could find the silverware...

When I woke up in my new home on Thursday morning, there was a brief moment when I had no idea where I was or why every part of my body hurt. Several scenarios flashed through my brain before I remembered: I moved!

I would like to take this opportunity to say: this was my last self-move. Though Teece and I were rockstars who had the U-Haul loaded, unloaded, and returned within 7 hours, I'm really just not interested in doing this myself again. Next time, I'm hiring movers.

That being said, the whole day really did go remarkably smoothly; I even managed to back the 7'5" wide truck up my 8' wide driveway without 1) using my mirrors or 2) hitting anything! There was only one moment there at the end of the day where we both completely lost our minds and inadvertently trapped Teece under my mattress as we were trying to get it out of the truck. Naturally, one of my new neighbors chose that exact moment to walk up the driveway and found me filthy and giggling maddly as I tugged at a mattress that also appeared to be giggling. She had a sense of humor so she offered to help rather than backing away slowly to call the men in white coats.

I love my new place. Even though I'm up to my eyeballs in boxes and this morning I had to make a PB&J sandwich with my cake server because I haven't found the flatware yet, I love it. I can't wait until I'm settled in so I can start entertaining.

Of course, I'm going to need to find the dishes first.

Hmm.

The Sweet Intake of Breath

I have a place to live!

*deep breathe*

I signed for the keys a couple of hours ago, which is convenient since my house is in boxes and I'm picking up the U-Haul on Wednesday morning.

Phew.

Sometimes, the Universe just has your back.

Trying To Remember To Breathe

Q: So, amandarin, you've survived your two most hellish months at work and finally have some free time to yourself. What are you going to do?

A: I'm going to Disneyland find & move into a new home by next Wednesday at 5pm!

Panic... rising... can't.... breathe... GAH!

As I referenced in my last post, my beloved home was sold recently. Since a For Sale sign was never posted and no notice of sale or escrow was ever distributed, it came as quite a shock to the residents when we received letters that said essentially:

Dear Tenant,

Hi, I'm your new owner and I'm really looking forward to screwing you at every possible opportunity! I'm going to say that I want you to continue to live here, but really I'm hoping that eventually I'll make your life so miserable that you'll just give up and move out in frustration and disgust. Then I won't have to waste the time and money evicting you.

To start, I'd like to reduce your amenities, make no significant improvements to your units, disrupt your lives, and charge you 50% more (or 75%, if you've been living here awhile) per month for the privilege. I clearly over-inflated the value of the property to my lender and now you, lucky tenants, get to foot the bill. Please bend over and take it. Or don't; I don't really care.

Also, the rent is due today. Please make your check out to the name I have not included, and deliver it to the address that I have not listed above.

Sincerely,
Ms. Douchebag Extraordinaire

You can imagine how well THAT went over.

Unfortunately, there's absolutely nothing illegal in what she did. I live in an area of Los Angeles County that is not rent-controlled and I have a month-to-month lease; she can raise the rent at any time and in any increment as long as she gives us 60 days notice. She's also not required to make us all sign new leases, so there is no guarantee that she won't just keep raising the rent every two months until she's driven us all out - persecution and harassment are much cheaper than eviction proceedings.

Turns out, it's just not illegal to be a douchebag.

When we (the handful of residents who share the property) had all recovered our ability to speak in anything other than obscenities and invectives, we gathered in groups of two and three to discuss the situation. The general consensus is that our homes aren't worth that much money per month, and that we're not interested in giving money to an owner who didn't even bother to buy us dinner before expecting us to put out.

Ultimately we were all much more angry over the destruction if our community than we are over the loss of our physical houses. At least we'd at least have a couple of more months to enjoy each other's company and find new places to live... right?

Last night we all came home to letters that said essentially:

Dear Tenant,

I'm completely underwhelmed by your lack of response to my first letter, so I've decided to throw you another curve ball! In spite of the fact that no one has ever reported a problem with termites or other vermin, I'm going to fumigate your units and garages.

Next week.

Please remove most of your belongings from your houses and garages by next Thursday, and please find someplace else for you and your pets to live until the end of next weekend. I'll pro-rate you three days of rent - that should totally cover the inconvenience! I'll get that money to you at some undisclosed time in the future.

The guy from the fumigation company will be around tomorrow (Ed: That would be today, folks) afternoon to answer any questions and give you the supplies you need. I didn't really feel the need to give you any advance notice about this - you don't have jobs or anything, do you?

Sorry about the inconvenience (but not really).

Sincerely,
Ms. Douchebag Extraordinaire

The legality of this latest letter is tenuous at best so I have a lawyer who is doing some research and will advise me on my options, but let me make one thing crystal clear: If I have to pack up myself and my cats and move out of my place I am sure as HELL not moving back in four days later. No fucking way.

Of course, I still need a place to *go*.

I looked at a place earlier in the week for which I filled out an application last night. I also called and left a follow-up voicemail this morning to make sure that he'd gotten the application, and to ask if I could please pick the keys up on Tuesday. If I could have batted my eyelashes over the phone, I totally would have.

I haven't done much (read: any) comparison shopping, but at this point I really don't care - this place is cute, affordable, in a nice neighborhood, and available so I'm keeping my fingers and toes crossed that I can be moving into it next week.

In the mean time, I'm trying to remember how my lungs work because I am FREAKING OUT beneath my calm, cool exterior.

*breathe*

*breathe*

*breathe*

In Short, Part II

I survived red carpet season, I've had to re-schedule a first date three times because of work drama (both his & mine), my car needs work that I now can't afford because I have to move in the next 60 days*, I'm still training in any time that is not devoted to working or sleeping, the deadline for an agreement that I made with Keith is still looming over my head (though he graciously offered me an extension in light of circumstances), and my hard-won raise pushed me into a new tax bracket so I actually owe the IRS money this year.

And yes Mr Anonymous Email Man, I know that my blog header says 2007. Neither I nor the fantastic artist designing its replacement have had much time to think about it yet. You can stop emailing me now.

(Is it just me, or do people get hung up on the WEIRDEST THINGS?)

Phew, March looks a lot like February so far. I'd be completley lost without my wonderful friends; they are keeping me sane.

And now, back to the trenches.

-----
*My property is under new ownership and though the new owner isn't exactly evicting us, she is raising the rent by $500 a month. We're welcome to stay and pay it, of course. Um, no.

In Short

The Writer's Strike is over, red carpet season rolls brazenly onward, Valentine's Day approaches menacingly, I'm fighting a losing battle with the neighborhood ants over ownership of the kitchen counters, I'm training in any time that is not devoted to working or sleeping, the deadline for an agreement that I made with Keith is looming over my head, and I just applied for a completely fantastic job.

It's February for certain.

And now, back to the trenches.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

Sunday afternoon, February 3rd.

It's cold outside (for Los Angeles, anyway) and pouring rain. My new Crock Pot is full of delicious smelling chili ingredients, which are slowly but surely becoming chili. The cats are snoozing peacefully on my bed. The Super Bowl is on in a little while, and after the game I'll head down to Costa Mesa to see Demz, my favorite Road Dog. The Bossman is snowboarding until Tuesday, so the work week promises to start comparatively peacefully.

Today, life is pretty good.

Paying it Forward

BootieLA was absolutely off the hook on Saturday. In spite of the fact that it was the first Saturday in January (typically a slow date for bars & clubs) and it was absolutely pouring rain, The Echo reached capacity just before 11:30pm. I have never seen the dancefloor as packed as it was that night. Unfortunately, since The Echo didn't anticipate a capacity crowd, they only staffed two bartenders.

Two bartenders (and one overworked barback) for several hundred sweaty, thirsty people.

Eastside crowds are notoriously laid back and the Bootie crowd even more so, so most people took it in stride. It was very clear that the bartenders were doing their level best to keep up with demand, so we fought our way valiantly to the front and then made friends with the people around us while we waited for our turn to order.

But there's always an asshole, isn't there?

The guy next to me, heretofore known as Asshat Extraordinaire, made a big show of drumming his fingers, rolling his eyes, and sighing dramatically until he ordered. He then proceeded to order 5 Irish Car Bombs, 4 girly shots of some sort, and 3 draft beers. The bartender absolutely goggled at the credit card slip after Asshat Extraordinaire had paid for his drinks and held it up while asking Are you serious?

Asshat hadn't tipped at all on 12 drinks. His rationale? I had to wait, like, forever man - I'm not tipping you shit. Pour faster next time. WTF douchebag, do you not see the two bartenders running their asses off? Do you not see that the bar is 6-deep with people waiting for drinks? Do you not see the rest of us waiting patiently and chatting amongst ourselves? The Leo in me just couldn't keep quiet.

Me: Dude, that's pretty low. Do you not see how hard these guys are working?
AE: Shut the fuck up. I'm not tipping when I had to wait forever for a few measly drinks.
Me: Seriously man, it's not his fault that the bar is understaffed. They're doing the best they can.
He: Well aren't you just a loudmouth fat fucking bitch?
Me: Fuck you, douchebag.
Bartender: Dude, don't come back to me. Ever. I'm not pouring for you again.

Asshat Extraordinaire opened his mouth to say something else, but I think the murderous look on my face, and on the face of the bartender, made him change his mind. Wise move on his part. Since I couldn't kick the Asshat's teeth in (well I could, I just didn't), I chose instead to add $10 to the tip that I left the beleaguered bartender.

In relaying this story to Keith later in the night, he asked me why I'd tipped for the Asshat's drinks. I didn't have a good answer other than that it seemed like the right thing to do. It's not the bartender's fault that one of his customers was a total douchebag. Ten extra dollars isn't much of a sacrifice on my part, but I could tell that it meant a lot to the bartender. So... why not?

Maybe it's my indomitable sense of fair play, maybe it's my hyper-sensitive injustice meter, but when I see something like that and I have the ability to make some reparation, I do. I don't do it to be a "better" person, Lord knows I won't be up for sainthood anytime soon since I'm equally as likely to get up in someone's face, I do it because instinctively it feels like the right thing to do.

It's funny, I was having a similar conversation at a party recently - one of the people to whom I was talking was shocked to learn that I've been known to pay for a stranger's coffee at Starbucks for no reason other than that the thought to do so struck me at the time.

Have you guys seen this Liberty Mutual commercial (or its sequel)? I absolutely believe that's the way the world works and I strive to do my part. Maybe someone at the bar saw my reaction and in turn tipped a little more generously, or treated someone a little better. Maybe it's like a butterfly effect and marvelous things will grow out of a single, small act.

Or maybe not. It doesn't matter, really, because those potential effects are not the point at all.

As a whole, I believe that humanity is basically good. I evaluate people on a case by case basis because I don't think that all individuals are inherently good, and I think that pack mentality easily overpowers an individual's instinct to behave reasonably, but overall I think that humans are  a decent sort. I am, therefore, a big fan of paying it forward.

I believe in karma. I believe that eventually, the Universe returns to you what you send out into the aether. I believe that the only way to instigate change is by example. And I would like to believe that by doing my part to help others, help will be there for me when I need it. I haven't thought long and hard about these things, I haven't felt the need to, to me they're just... True.

So I'll keep doing these little things, and people will keep looking at me quizzically when I can't explain why, and that's ok. It's my Truth, after all.

It's all fun and games...

...until someone crashes their car.

So it's been raining here today. A lot.

We here in Southern California have a tendency to overreact anytime water threatens to fall from the sky - the first sign of clouds overhead and the local news pre-empts everything for STORM WATCH 2008.  It's ridiculous and we non-natives get a big kick out of watching all of the panicky press coverage, but severe rainstorms really are a problem here.

First, the Los Angeles area is simply not built for rain. The topography works against us since we're perched in and around valleys, narrows, and flood plains; we're already at a disadvantage for controlling large, sudden amounts of water. The climate doesn't help - endless months of dry weather punctuated by wildfires and/or earthquakes make the soil very loose and arid which, in turn, makes it very likely to move when it gets wet. All of this is made worse by the fact that our infrastructure was not built with rain in mind at all. Our streets and freeways flood, our power plants fail, and our bridges and roadways fall apart. Severe rainstorms are as problematic for us as blizzards are for colder climates.

Second, Los Angeles residents seem completely incapable of remembering that we do, in fact, have a rainy season. Every year, 90% of the population stares at the sky in fear and confusion, wondering what brought the evil sky water and when it will stop. This causes them to make some very, very bad decisions.

Like driving 70mph on the 134 freeway, after dark, when it's pouring rain and visibility is 8 feet at best. Behavior like that made my drive home from the chiropractor tonight absolutely harrowing.

People, when the flooding is so bad that there is a CURRENT on the freeway, slow the fuck down. You don't have to be anywhere that imperatively. I'm looking at you Mr. I-can-barely-control-my-hydroplaning-Camaro, and you Ms. I-think-I'm-invincible-in-my-Land-Rover. There is absolutely no way either of you could have stopped in time if you'd come upon a stalled car, or a stretch of standing water, which does explain why both of you lost control of your vehicles when we hit that two foot deep patch of water. The fact that you didn't run into each other, or the median, or any other cars, is nothing more than dumb luck and I hope that you're both still thanking your Guardian Angels for that save.

The storm is supposed to continue throughout the weekend so I think I'll stick close to home until it passes. I'm not afraid of driving in the rain, but I sure as hell am afraid of everyone else driving in it.

Balance

Today I went to lunch with a friend who is struggling against the confines of her cubicle-based job; I counseled her earnestly to find the balance in her life, to embrace the fact that life cannot be lived in sixteen square feet.

The irony was not lost on me, therefore, when my boss caught me just as I was walking out the door tonight and made me stay and take care of some inconsequential things that really could have waited until tomorrow morning. He made me stay just long enough to keep me from having enough time to drive home and change before seeing Out From Underneath at the Roxy, so I'm still at the office... sitting at my desk, pondering the nature of balance. (And being very annoyed that I have to go see the boys in my grubby work clothes, rather than the cute outfit I had planned. Grr.)

I didn't realize quite how burned out I was on my job until I took some time off over the holidays. I didn't do anything spectacular, even my trip to Seattle was spent largely catching up with Boy 2 & the Rockstar while getting my ass kicked at Guitar Hero, but the simple act of being not at work was wonderfully liberating. I spend so much time trying to fit my life around my job that I almost didn't know what to do with myself without that obstacle. I could just... live! Sleep, eat, read a book, run an errand, walk around downtown Seattle with no particular destination in mind, whatever... there was no schedule, no need to try to cram the important things in around the thing that pays the bills.

That's just completely twisted, isn't it? Trying to fit your life around your job? It's completely backwards. I mean, I think we can all agree that no one is ever going to reach their deathbed and find themselves wishing they'd spent more time at work.

I recently said to someone that although I like my job, I don't love it and one of my biggest fears is that I will allow myself to continue to do it simply because I'm good at it and someone will pay me to do it. Tonight, when I forfeited training to do something that I knew wasn't imperative, just to make my boss happy and "keep my job," I heard the first few pebbles slide down that slippery slope. I was instantly furious - both at my boss for making me stay to appease his own misplaced panic, and at myself for letting him do it.

That anger got me wondering: How do I keep the balance in my life? And more importantly, do I even need balance? Maybe the whole idea of "balance" is just a load of crap and striving to stuff my life around my job isn't much of a goal at all. Why settle for half a life? Maybe what I need to do is take a page from a friend's book, chuck my present circumstance, and go and do that thing that makes my heart sing even when it's frustrating me beyond belief.

Leap and the net will appear.

Of course, I still need to pay the bills. That very concrete consideration always pulls me back down out of my chuck-it-all fantasies and into the real world, where the bill collectors do not care how loudly your heart sings unless it is being paid to do so.

So what's the answer? I don't know yet, but I'm working on it. Right now the answer is to shut down my computer, head to the Roxy, and watch my boys rock the place off its foundations.

It's a start, anyway.

New Energy

Happy New Year, blogosphere!

My theme for 2008 is living up to my potential. Actually it's not just my theme - it's a theme that my writing partner (aka The Rockstar) and I are sharing. It's a big one (really, is there anything more terrifying/exhilarating/challenging than doing the things that you've always known you could if only you would?) so we decided to tackle it together.

I'm embracing my theme many different ways and the first is by completing or releasing all of the unfinished projects hanging on to the edges of my life. Home improvement projects that have been in the works for two years. Craft projects and gifts that I keep wanting to start/finish /improve. Ideas that The Rockstar and I have discussed but never brought to fruition. And every other thing that I've been meaning to do for the last few weeks, months, years.

The could haves, should haves, and would haves are exhausting; they're like little parasites that attach themselves to our psyches and suck away precious energy, energy that can be applied elsewhere, and I'm done wasting resources. So I'm either going to finish these things or I'm going to let them go, and I am not going to feel guilty about the latter.

Since returning form Seattle, I've spent most of my time working on my house. It's the physical representation of my life / state of mind, so I thought that it was fitting to get some new energy flowing through it in honor of the new year. In addition to the usual cleaning and sorting, I did one of those things that I've been "meaning" to do since I moved in here: I finally stopped using my spare room as a closet-with-windows and instead turned it into a small library.

(I have been referring to this room as an office for the last two years, but it's too small to hold a desk and one wall is now entirely covered in books, so I'm calling it a library from now on. I am very fancy with my private library!)

When I say small I do mean small; the room is less than fifty square feet and somehow I'd managed to stuff two armchairs, two standing fans, 8 plastic storage boxes, a variety of cardboard boxes, and mountains of miscellaneous crap into it. How, I'm not quite sure. I had to unload everything into my (similarly diminutive) living room in order to work on the library and that was an adventure in and of itself.

Thank heavens I'm good at Tetris.

I managed to get the room cleared out enough to put up some curtains and to install the shelves that Teece & I found at Satan's Warehouse Ikea. Then, after two years, I was finally able to unpack my books. I hate having books in boxes - I like to have them out where I can look at their familiar spines, smell their faint mustiness, pick them up and read through favorite passages. I'm so happy to have them out and available that I keep walking into the library just to look at them on their shelves. In addition to my books I was also able to unpack my diplomas (which have been in their packing crate since being shipped from the framer's six years ago) and hang them on the wall. After a few more photos and a new rug, the room was transformed and I am thrilled.

Oscar is also happy with the new arrangement: I left an armchair in the library and now he can look out both windows from the back of it, depending on which way he flops. He's been sleeping there since yesterday afternoon, turning around every few hours to get the view from the other window.

Fifty dollars worth of shelving etc combined with an afternoon of hard work and suddenly there's a fresh, new energy circulating through my house. It feels like an auspicious start to the new year.

*****

And finally, in celebration of the beginning of 2008, I leave you with the following snippet from Carson Daly's coverage of New Year's Eve in Times Square. Pause the video at 01:27 - NBC's cameras caught my friend Kerr sharing a midnight kiss with his sweetheart (they're the couple on the right), and a few seconds later they caught Kerr's friend Mike proposing to his girlfriend. I can't think of a more joyous way to ring in the year, can you?

2007, a retrospective

Holy crap, where did December go? I thought November flew by but damn - I completely missed December! One minute I'm packing to head back east and now I'm in Seattle, packing to head back to L.A. again.

On second thought, where on earth did 2007 go? I swear it was just March.

Ah well, the end of the year can mean only one thing - it's time once again for my favorite 40 questions about 2007!

T-minus 65 Hours

In just about 65 hours I'll be sitting on a plane, winging my way east for my family's annual Nutcracker weekend. My flight leaves at 2pm on Thursday! I'm excited to go, I love this tradition and I don't spend nearly enough time with my family, but I have SO much to do before then:

• The usual compliment of pre-departure house cleaning / laundry (complicated by the whole having-to-drag-it-all-to-the-laundromat thing) / packing.
• Three solid days of meetings and assorted work crap - we're deep into our crazy season.
• My holiday work party, which is (inconveniently) tomorrow night.
• An event for work that goes from 2am - 10am on Thursday morning.

Given the limited number of hours in the day, I had to skip training tonight in order to get through some things on my "To Do" list. This does not make me happy. I can't train tomorrow night because of the @#$*& party, so I'm hoping that I'll be able to go on Wednesday night; I really don't want to be away from the gym for more than a week, but we'll see - it might be unwise to train until 8pm when I have to be at work at 2am.

Sigh.

Ah November, I barely knew you

Seven posts in thirty days? That's just sad.

How is it possible that it's December already? Every year it seems that someone hits fast forward around the second week in October and bam! We go straight from Halloween to the Christmas season with barely a pause for breath. Of course it doesn't help that, in addition to all the holiday madness, this is also the time of year when my job ramps up from "crazy" to "absolute unbridled insanity." Long time readers will remember that we're getting into that time of year when I regularly work more than 100 hours in a week.

Thankfully, my raise finally came through... seven months to the day after I started in the position. Gotta love corporate bureaucracy.

It's a generous percentage increase that's being retro'd back five months - in a couple of weeks I'll get the largest paycheck that I have ever seen so I should be overjoyed. But the fact is that the percentage isn't quite as generous as it should have been, nor is it being retro'd quite as far as it should have been, and after seven months of being jerked around the most emotion I could summon was "It's about time." I did thank my VP and Manager profusely for their hard work, though - they've been beating their heads against the bureaucratic juggernaut for months on my behalf and I am VERY appreciative. It's nice to know that they value me enough to have kept fighting for me.

In other news... there isn't much other news. I was joking with VT on Friday that my life has become boring, but she suggested that perhaps "focused" is a better descriptor. I'm working a lot, training 5 days a week, trying to get a new side project off the ground, and spending a lot of time taking stock of my life. I guess that's what winter has always been for me - a period of intensity and focus before the carefree enthusiasm of spring. I'm enjoying the work this year, but I'm still looking forward to feeling the warm sun in a couple of months.

Blue

How is it possible that an entire week has gone by since last I posted anything? Similarly, how is it possible that Thanksgiving is next week? Who put 2007 on fast forward all of a sudden?

I've been in a bit of a funk for the last week for a variety of reasons. We've been busy at work and my raise is still under negotiation, as it has been for the last 6 months. Money remains a constant source of stress, especially since my Treo committed ritual suicide during a meeting yesterday and I had to scramble to get a replacement. My knee is healing well, but I'm frustrated that I can't train as hard as I'd like to until I've built up more strength in my legs. The Fireman and I have been talking a lot lately, which is both wonderful and heartbreaking since it's very clear that we both want to be together but it's just not in the cards right now. Two of my friends are going through some icky health stuff and I'm worried about them. And, my friend James was killed on the 5 last week. Though we weren't terribly close, he was a shining spirit and the world is a bit darker for his loss.

Thanksgiving (my absolute favorite holiday) is only a week away and once again I find myself unable to treat a houseful of friends and family to food, drinks, and football. I love hosting Thanksgiving, but I haven't been able to do it for the past couple of years because of money & work issues. While I know that's not the end of the world, it still sucks and I'm bummed.

So, yeah. I've been a bit blue lately. There's a lot going on in my head and I've retreated while I struggle to sort through it all. There's a lot to sort.

I am so grateful that I found Muay Thai when I did - it allows me to shut off my brain for a couple of hours each night and that has been invaluable in keeping my sanity.

Housework

Words cannot describe how much I love this photo and its caption.

(Thanks, Jason!)

Shrouded

When I woke up this morning all was gray, shrouded and silent.

My little mountain is about 1300 feet above sea level, and the clouds are hovering around 700 feet today, so when I peered out the window I couldn't see more than 5 feet in any direction. It's a bit of a strange feeling, being unable to see anything but mist and shadow, and I drank my morning tea while watching the sun struggle, and fail, to break through the gloom.

Truth be told, the weather suited my mood perfectly. Though plenty of good things have been happening lately, this is still the dark part of the year when the cosmic focus is on death as a means of eventual rebirth. As I take stock of my life, marking the things that need to be released and those that need to be nurtured, I feel as though my path is shrouded from view. The future, once so clear and bright, glints weakly as though through a thick fog.

What to do? Which way to go? Is that gently moving shape a beckoning arm, or the edge of a nasty trap? Right now, I can't tell the difference. So I'm crawling along, hands held out in front of me, hoping that eventually I'll stumble into the light.

. . . I wish I could know if the directions that I take
And all the choices that I make won't end up all for nothing

Show me what it's for
Make me understand it
I've been crawling in the dark looking for the answer
Is there something more than what i've been handed?

. . .

Help me carry on
Assure me it's ok to use my heart and not my eyes
To navigate the darkness

-"Crawling in the Dark," Hoobastank

Detour

The week before my sophomore year of high school, my class went on an adventure / bonding / team building retreat. It was, to quote Eddie Izzard, ...an activity center, where you climb a tree and eat a sausage and it's kind of… It builds your character so you know about sausages.

Though I'd been at the same school since age 5, I'd been well entrenched as an outcast for the past two years. (Ah 13, the magic age when girls turn on each other and boys turn into knuckle-dragging pack animals) When we were divided up into teams, I was paired up with the Most Hated Girl in School and her three henchmen - all in the name of making us "bond," of course. They were doing an excellent job of ignoring me and I was doing my best not to smack them all senseless until we got to the adventure wall portion of the day.

You know the one... 8' tall wall with no ropes or ladders... get your whole team to the top and revel in your newfound sisterhood.

Or, in my case, listen to the girls who hated me the most count to "3" and then drop me when I was almost to the top. I landed heavily on my left knee and felt the simultaneously strange and revolting sensation of my knee bending to the left, rather than to the front as is normal.  The only thing I could hear as rolled around in pain was the muffled sound of them snickering into their hands.

I learned some unpleasant lessons that day.

The diagnosis was a severe lateral ligament sprain with a little anterior cruciate ligament  stretching thrown in for good measure. I spent the next 8 weeks with my knee immobilized, hobbling from class to class and trying not to think about the fact that my volleyball, field hockey, and horseback riding careers had all come to a screeching halt.

I healed, eventually, but that knee has always been weak. Anyone's who's known me for a good amount of time has seen it go out when I've spent too many hours dancing, or been hiking too long without a break. It's always a reminder of that day.

I tell you this story now so that you may all appreciate my gut-wrenching frustration after my knee gave out again on Friday, in the first 5 minutes of my training session.

It was bound to happen. I've been working myself very hard and the joint is not yet as strong as my mind wants it to be. But as I lay on the mat, looking up at the skylight and waiting for the pain to subside enough for me to straighten my leg and assess the damage, I just wanted to cry; it was such a bitter pill. For a split second, I wanted to wave the white flag. For a split second, I wanted to just limp home and give up. For a split second, I was utterly defeated.

I sat up eventually, and Chief came over to see what had happened. When I explained, he told me in no uncertain terms that I would not be jumping or kicking anymore - I was so afraid that he was going to boot me from the class. Nope, instead he told me that we could use this "opportunity" to build strength in my upper body, my abs, and eventually my weak knee and that then I can jump and kick.

Never before have I been so glad to hear the words more sit-ups for you!

I'm still a little gimpy, but after three days off I was back at the gym tonight working on all of the things that don't involve my knee - trust me, that's plenty. Abs! Biceps! Triceps! More Abs! At least I finally got to break in my new gloves (which were waiting on my doorstep when I limped home Friday night, of course) with a few rounds on the heavy bag.

I'm trying to think of this as a detour, rather than a roadblock. I'm not so much a kickboxer right now as I am a boxer, but I'm working my way back up to the kicking one day at a time.

Meh

That pretty much sums up today and indeed, the last few days.

Meh.

If it's wrong to go to bed at 8:45 then I don't want to be right.

I'll be in my bunk.

Could Have 2

I'm way too sore & tired to put together one coherent post, so it's time for another random collection of things I could have written about!

• California? Still on fire. Fortunately none of the wildfires are burning too close to me, but several friends have been evacuated already and many others are packed and ready to go. Please send extra special mojo to the Greaser and his wife - the condo that they bought last week is directly in the path of one of the Valencia-area fires.


• I'm finally on the Twitter bandwagon. Follow me, won't you?


• Keith & I nearly got blown onto Santa Monica Blvd when we were at Century City on Saturday night; that should have been a warning about how bad this round of fires was going to be.


• I am a dork, a big one. I was supposed to join my company's team for AIDS Walk Los Angeles on Sunday, but I forgot to set my alarm and slept right through it. I have agreed to repent by offering many rounds of margaritas to the two girlfriends with whom I was supposed to walk.


• I met Paul Joiner at the laundromat on Sunday night. That name won't mean much to you if you're not a college football fan, but if you are you'll remember that in the mid-nineties he was a starting linebacker at Cal and one of the most promising young linebackers of the decade. His career ended when, in the summer between his junior & senior years, he got behind the wheel of a car drunk and high and totaled it. Though the 4 passengers all escaped with minor injuries, he was in a coma for a couple of weeks and had to re-learn everything - even how to swallow. He's doing pretty well, all things considered. He's an interesting guy. My title as Queen of Random Supermarket and Laundromat Experiences is secure.


• Work has exploded all over my life and I'm trying to clean it up because I am doggedly determined to keep some semblance of balance as I head into my crazy season.


• A huge number of my friends have either recently had babies or are due to have them soon. I suspect this is directly related to the zillions of weddings that I went to one spring/summer a couple of years ago.


• I willingly and happily spent 2.5 hours at the gym tonight. I got there early to warm up and have someone show me how to wrap my hands (again), then class ran a little long, and  then as I was hanging onto the heavy bag for dear life after my 100th knee strike (ow) Chief poked his head around the bag and said "Hey, can you stay? I want you to do 30 minutes on the bike before you go." For some reason, I said "Sure!" I blame temporary insanity.
  


• I'm considering starting a separate Muay Thai blog because I want to talk about it all the time, but I don't want to bore all of you to tears. Because my usual posts are soooo riveting. :-)


• What's everyone doing for Halloween? I want to do something, but I am completely devoid of inspiration.

Tuesday Morning Suicide

When I'm feeling in the mood for a tasty morning treat, I'll often stop by Starbucks for a Chai Latte and an egg salad sandwich. The bread is delicious and the eggs are seasoned just right with a hint of mayo and dill. I love Starbucks egg salad!

Or at least I did, until I tried to kill myself with it this morning. You see, Starbucks puts poppy seeds on the crust of their delicious multi-grain bread. I'm allergic to poppy seeds, super-duper-take-me-to-the-hospital-I'm-going-to-die allergic, but normally it's fine because I can just tear the crust off the bread and munch away happily. However this morning I discovered that they've changed their recipe and the poppy seeds are not only mixed into the bread dough, they're also mixed into the egg salad itself.

Naturally, I noticed this about halfway through my sandwich.  WTF Starbucks, why are you trying to kill me?

So I tossed the rest of my sandwich away as though it was on fire and swallowed a veritable handful of Benadryl. The hives are coming up anyway, I can feel them on my back and on my legs, but so far my heart rate and breathing are fine. I'm just going to keep my fingers crossed that I don't have to jab myself with my EpiPen and call the paramedics anytime soon. Internets, cross your fingers for me won't you?

Sigh.

Death by egg salad, could there be a more ridiculous way to go?

Beauty From Ugliness

My friends are remarkable people.

I was catching up with Grayson yesterday, with whom I haven't spoken in quite some time, when he dropped this casually into the conversation as his explanation for why he is now pursuing a degree in Human Services Management (quite a digression from what he's been doing up until now):

He: We adopted a (now) 17 year old who was going through hell in his life. After he was awarded to us I decided the system needs to be fixed and here I am.
Me: OMG!
He: LOL His name is Xxxx
He: It is funny telling people "hey this is my son" because he is black... You should see the shock it is great!
He: I have seen the ugly side of racism since he has come to live with us. My boss does not like him because he is black. He didn't know at the time that Xxxx was living with us and we were getting custody. That was an argument like you would not believe.
He: Still is at times.
Me Wow
Me: How did you meet this boy?
He: At the mall. He stopped in our store with a friend who told me was trying to keep him busy as he had tried to commit suicide
He: His mother is a piece of work. Alchoholic drug dealer who had never been caught. Xxxx is gay; she tried to have it beat out of him. He decided there was no reason to live if no one wanted him around
He: He does not know what a family is. Until recently he had a terrible time eating in groups.
He: He has post traumatic stress disorder from standing next to his best friend and first boyfriend when he got shot in a driveby
He: it is a story and a half
He: astounding of course and often times when I talk about it seems far fetched. But I am living with it and learning that people.... some people are truly just ugly on the inside and should never be allowed to have children

Let that sink in for just a second.

My friend Grayson met a teenage boy at the mall, realized that he was truly in mortal peril, went to court to legally adopt him, and and from that experience decided that he needs to do everything in his power to change the system that overlooked and neglected his (now) son in the first place.

Holy crap. I'm not even in a position to adopt a dog at the moment but Grayson saw someone in desperate need and up-ended his entire life to help this one young man.

This is why I say that I have little faith in humanity as a group, but every faith in the individual. A person, every person, has the power to work miracles.