MC Escher portrait of a month

There's that M.C. Escher drawing of the man looking into the glass globe at himself, who's looking at himself looking into a glass globe.

I find myself picturing this image almost weekly-- subconsciously, or fully lost in the dreamlike stance that is almost foreign to me in this month's crazed schedule.

Sometimes, it feels like life-- the news, personal events, health-- starts spiraling according to my mood (caused by: the news, personal events, health). But in months like this, it seems like my psyche isn't the only psyche that's clinging to bubbles to avoid getting sucked down the drain.

A week ago, I would've written:
This has been an important month, full of unexpected change, and life leaps, and ideas bursting out of my brain at the possibility of real change.

Today, I'd write:
Things are a real bitch right now. My life has changed dramatically in the past month, but by next week, it might be eerily the same-- like waking up with Auntie Em and black and white furniture, scratching my head at the faint memory of horses that change color, and fields full of poppies.

It doesn't help that I'm writing from bed with a sinus infection, with achy chills running up and down my back.
It doesn't help that I got sick last night immediately upon hearing mostly bad news from the employer I've been trying my damndest to get a new job from.
It doesn't help that I want the new job because for the past two years, I've convinced myself that secretly, I don't want a new job and the scary, net-less leap of changing identities, apartments and salaries.
It doesn't help that every time I look into this globe, I see myself looking right back into my reflection in a smaller globe.

I am honestly dismayed at some of the things happening right now. And I thought hey-- maybe it's just because I have a fever, and ennui, and fear of the unknown, and I'm standing in Safeway in my pajamas watching a guy make my turkey sandwich for probably far less money than he's worth.
And then he said it.
"How are you? You look tired."
"Oh. Yes. I really am."
"Me too. This week's been-- it's been chaotic. It's been tough."
"Oh yeah? You ok?"
"Yes. Do you want tomatoes? Yes, I'm ok it's just..."
"Tomatoes, yes please. It's just like everything's off right now, isn't it?"
He put down the tomato and looked me straight into my eyes, with the biggest expression of relief.
"Seriously. It feels that way."

It's felt that way watching the polls drop, and my jaw along with it, as Obama continues to 'it's just grandpa!' his way through the Rev. Wright crisis. It's felt that way watching Hillary's eyes light up with glee after the Pennsylvania primaries and the bloodspatters of Obama's clean record in the media. It's felt that way with nasty comments being flung around at work, in rooms where people think they go unheard, and with people driving like they don't care if they're going to kill you and your precious cargo of friends on the interstate.

The world feels like someone's vaccuming in a galaxy a little too close to us.
I can feel my hair raise a little. I see a few strands of dust bunnies leaping away from the horizon where we're not looking.

And the weather doesn't help. 80 today... flower smells and the most pleasant breeze dancing through my apartment, over my cup of Sprite and my sweatpants... wasps finding tiny holes in my screen and bouncing off my vaulted ceilings. Tomorrow will be freezing-- the heat turned off in my office due to a suspicion of springtime, and another 12 hr. day spent shivering and pink-cheeked at my desk, with a bottle of amoxycillin and a cup of organic coffee that tastes like the plague.

I'm so hungry for something to bite into that will last more than just a fantasy in my mind, or a day, or a week.
Something larger than the turkey sandwich the Safeway employee handed to me over the Deli counter, looking sympathetically at my basket, which just had soup and tissues in it.

As I wrote in an essay on my dad's website-- the eccentric things take the sting out, but the quarter-life-crisis is no laughing matter.

Miscellaneous:
Maureen Dowd's column, which I thought actually had some strong points on Obama's "I refuse to portray the angry black man in today's critically modern political scene" versus his 20 year stint in the church of... the angriest black man.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/opinion/30dowd.html?em&ex=1209700800&en=bcf5d601b00f5a27&ei=5087%0A

a photo of my parents on dad's birthday, in Santa Fe:




















and also, a brief glimpse into my 60 hr. work weeks since March... my desperate organizational techniques look soooo "A Beautiful Mind" that people are actually starting to look nervous when I add to these notes:




















I can tell that this is just babble-- unrelated thoughts. I really don't feel well, and I shouldn't write a lot when I'm crabby.

It's just one of those months where it feels like you don't fit into your skin, for more reasons than one. And I'd love to fit into my skin just to help keep my chin up through May... which looks just as ambiguous as April did...

Ironically, as someone who is not religious, superstitious, or even a little "-igious" of any kind... I took something home with me last night. It's a polished piece of rose quartz, which a co-worker gave to me after she'd been heckling me about giving her a free copy of my dad's book. I told her I didn't have any free copies-- hell, that writers barely get any. She thought I was joking.
The next day, I bought a brand new hardcopy version from Borders and put it on her desk, signed from my dad.
At the end of the day, a beautiful handwritten note appeared, and the rose quartz-- "this brings you luck. It does. I met (my husband) after getting this. I hope it brings you luck too".
It's been sitting on my desk at work, mostly forgotten, but yesterday I put the rose quartz in my pocket, and left for my 8 hr. shoot... 3 people cancelled, one showed up, the bill skyrocketed for renting the studio that long with no talent there.
I took the rose quartz out of my pocket and actually held it in my hand when I emailed the producer, asking her if she'd hired someone else for the job yet.
I held it in my other hand when I dialed the phone at 11pm to tell my dad that I might not get it.
I put it by my bed on my nightstand and was up all night, feverish, with bizarre zombie dreams and crazy g.i. joe pains returning from a long slumber.

Is it my lesson? To not rely on luck and just rely on what I can do to help myself?
Or is it Dumbo's pink feather-- I need to just keep hanging on to it until I forget it one day, and leap out of the burning building on faith alone?

Maybe it's unlucky to take someone else's luck.

I guess we'll have to wait and see.

irritating minutae

Things that drive me crazy...

1. waiting for sheets to dry. 71 minutes in, and the fitted sheet is dry, the pillowcases are dry, but the top sheet has huge soaking wet blotches that will take at least 30 more minutes in the dryer when all I want to do is get in bed and finish A Staggering Work of Heartbreaking Genius and be too depressed to sleep and then get even bigger bags under my eyes so I can look like death at work in the morning.

2. Getting heartburn all week from stress and then hearing a news report that people who have frequent heartburn are the ones who surely will die a painful death from esophagus failure.

3. Media reports about stress-related ailments that stress you out even more than before; when you already had stress

4. Insomnia. And then the confusion, forgetfulness and dyslexia that follows. And when combining all three, just shaving ONE leg in the shower (ew. worst feeling ever for the rest of the day.) and then, an hour later, looking down at my feet as I'm driving to the grocery store and realize that I'm wearing fuzzy blue slippers instead of shoes. This is the true story of my Sunday.

5. Isomnia-caused dyslexia that makes me say things like "Old Country for No Men" and then my friends laughing and gently correcting me, and then an hour later, I can't figure out why that's wrong and have to replay the whole conversation again in my head.

6. Liking a movie much better the 2nd time-- such as today's quasi second viewing of NO Country for OLD Men-- and then having anxiety that all the movies I give Bs or B+'s to are really awesome A+ movies and I'm just missing out because I haven't watched them all twice.

7. Sending really, really long emails to people accidentally. Or being in a position where you have to keep emailing someone until they write back, even though you don't want to bug them, and then when they finally write back, you feel insta-shame as soon as their name pops up in your inbox because ALRIGHT already, they seem to say, I WROTE YOU BACK

8. April snow showers. I'm starting to get fully obsessed with summer-- summer dresses, flip flops, sun, my pool... and then the ice scraper returns and my windshield fogs up completely on the way to work in the morning and it feels like winter forever

9. Being annoyed about summer things before it's even summer. While folding my 3rd round of laundry today, I came across my green nightgown with sheep on it that's most useful on miserably hot evenings when t-shirts are out of the question, and suddenly remembered how twisty and weird summer pajamas are, and felt annoyed. What a waste of the human mind.

10. Jumping 16' in the air when the dryer buzzes, signifying that the one big blue sheet is finally dry, even though I JUST washed it 2 weeks ago and I'm just washing it again because the texture felt 'weird', like it had been slept in by visiting burglars when I was out of town, and now as I'm putting the sheets back on my bed they still feel 'weird' even though they're straight from the dryer and washing machine and I used new (higher concentrate / environmentally friendlier) detergent and now it's going to be hard to read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius because the sheets feel weird and I have insomnia-inspired heartburn.

11. People who complain, at great length, about trival things... in numeric lists. Especially if they were notably surly in their previous ramblings.

ps. I was in a cursing chicken mode earlier and quoted Eddie Izzard when I pulled my irritatingly un-dry sheet out of the dryer (Fuckin'-ba-guuuck!)... which reminded me that we have EDDIE IZZARD TICKETS for July at the Paramount and that's the best thing in the world. So that helps things feel a little more 'oh, ok' and a little less 'getting back in bed until June'

a heartbreaking work of staggering janeness

It's just before noon on a Saturday ... got a surprisingly (shockingly) early start... scowled through a bowl of cinnamon Life, checked my email and found a note from Goon telling me about a Lego recreation of Eddie Izzard's Cake or Death routine (http://youtube.com/watch?v=rZVjKlBCvhg). A nice new take on a classic.

Thought very seriously about getting back in bed... came dangerously close to getting back in bed until Monday rolled around again... but found myself in the gym, reading a magazine about Helen Mirren's choice of moisturizer and all the ways I could make my butt look like someone else's butt.

A woman was riding a stationary bike a few feet away from me, but instead of curled over it and sweating profusely like most of the Tour De France-ers who frequent my itty bitty athletic center, she was reclined all the way back and text messaging. Man, that makes me feel old. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!? I want to scream, Harlan Ellison-like, with spit flying from my mouth and veins bulging in my neck. It just looks stupid. And these text-ers never look alarmed, like they're just learning about nuclear war burgeoning in North Korea and they're furiously trying to get international news updates... just bored, glazed over, completely hypnotized by their tiny keyboard and the bright sheen of their Blackberry under gym lights.
Bleh.
I'm in a pissy mood and I probably shouldn't glare and journal about text messaging women at the gym, but what's the point of being in a thundercloud if you can't Zeus it out and throw a few lightening bolts at people?

I feel the need to quote Winnie the Pooh where he's looking for honey and bees, and he decides to go incognito as a black rain cloud or something, but I can't remember it. Which is not doing anything for my attitude problem.

I was struggling to stay focused enough on the workout... unfortunately, my text-at-the-gym wrath did not fuel my run like Easter morning, when the tv was playing Bill O'Reilly and Dennis Miller talking about "those moron homosexuals" in San Francisco, saying 'it wasn't up to THEM to judge,' but almost in the same breath, "wouldn't you just like to see it? Wouldn't you just like to see them turn into pillars of salt?"
THAT was a good run. For me, anyway. Those moron homophobic tele-bullies can kiss my ass, which still looks like my ass and not Helen Mirren's, despite genuine effort to get to the gym this year.

I could feel my brain getting distracted and a little panicky, so I went next door to self-medicate with my fix of choice-- caffeine. Iced coffee for the inevitable zone-out at home. I think I understand drug addicts a little more because of my introspective coffee time alone... it's probably Pavlovian, but as soon as I taste coffee, I'm transported a little bit into a 'this is my coffee buzz and you can't touch it' zone. I can only imagine what it feels like to spend you Saturday morning on meth... I can hardly handle the hypnotic effect of an iced latte when left alone.

Enough boring babble about coffee and Bill O'Reilly at the gym.

I find it interesting that the two worst days I've had to rally through to be at a can't-miss-under-any-circumstances day at work have also been 12 hr. days of intense shooting / directing / jamming wireless lavs up people's shirts and begging-- wheedling-- answers out of poor, innocent, normal people that will please the Internal Review committee, the Focus Group of snack-fed educators, and Our Cranky Customers who are liberal and conservative and obsessed with breasts. (But not in that way.)

I usually imagine that having to go to work even when it seems completely impossible would be more like the movies-- sitting at a desk and pushing folders around while looking wistfully out the window and playing montages set to music in your head.
When I get upset, I find it very hard to focus on anything-- literally getting the proper pen cap on a pen can be a difficult challenge. Yet, these are the times that I have to print out and then memorize lists from the office website that look like:

CAMERA BAG
• Camera
• 2 charged batteries
• Tripod plate
• Cleaning tape

TRIPOD

C STANDS (3)

MONITOR
• BNC cable (2)
• Electric cord (2)

FANNY PACK
• Spare batteries (4 AA, 2 9V)
• DV tapes
• Cell phone (charged)
• C-47s
• Pens/marker
• Various cable adapters
• Make-up (shine reducer, new wedges, hairspray, bobby pins)

GEAR BOX
• Microphone/windscreen
• Headphones (new)
• XLR cables (3)
• Power strip
• Electric cord (1)
• XLR cord for headphones
• Boom handle
• Lav mics w/batteries (2)
• Extra clamps
• Black blanket (steamed)
• Black blanket (extra)
• Gaffer's tape (orange and yellow)
• 15-watt bulb
• sandbags (4)

LIGHT KIT
• 2 HMI lights (600/1800)
• 2 Peppers (200 watt)
• Chimera
• Gels (full blue in pepper; 1/2 blue on hair light)
• reflector
• egg-crate
• umbrella

TALENT

• Cell phone numbers
• Release forms (adult / minor / location)
• Location contact number/staff i.d.
• Interview Questions
• Updated script (2)
• Snacks
• Food for crew/talent (5)
• Water for crew & cooler & cold packs
• Xcel sheet for good/bad takes (3)

And then it's 6 hours of saying exactly the right thing to talent to get them to say exactly the right answer for each question.
It's an out of body experience... I can't believe I can even remember these things on a good day.

We filmed for 8 hours last night on the Auraria Campus and the video studio employees couldn't have been nicer to us. Small things like that can save a girl's life. Especially if she and her two video comrades have just shlepped a light kit, camera, NTSC monitor, sandbags, gear box, etc etc etc 6 blocks through the snow to a building with no elevator. I understand why almost all producers have crazy hair, and look like they've just been in a tornado when doing an interview.

I'm reading "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" and it's so good that I'm actually dragging out the last 150 pages. I keep switching to my Harlan Ellison anthology because I will be so sad when I finish AHWOSG, I really might start heading back to bed on my Saturdays. It's exactly the right book for where my brain and my heart are these days-- scattered and not really capable of processing thick literature in traditional paragraph formats. I need diagrams of house blueprints, with arrows signifying how far Dave and Toph can slide in their socked feet if they start running from the front porch. I need crushing advice as given through a Real World Casting Call interview from the early 90s.

I need someone who gives an angry but completely bitter-less monologue of finding your way through life the hard way-- the way you wish it didn't have to be, but the way that your brain is forcing you to live, whether you're up for it or not. Where hard decisions come up like waves that you turn your back on until they're slamming you, hard, into the sand and dragging you back out for more. But you don't flail in the water and give up. You just keep one eye on the shore and try to swim sideways until your inner monologue shuts up and your instincts kick in...
in the words of Dory and Nemo...
just keep swimming. just keep swimming.
just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.
what do we do?
we swim. swim. swim.

I hope their advice is right. It's all I can do right now without just sinking to the bottom and calling in 'not mentally available'' on Monday.



I want another iced coffee.
I want to remember Pooh quotes about being sad and mad and morph into a pissy little rain cloud and spit rain on some happy little city until ducks float down the street.
I want to swear because my apartment's cluttered and I'm feeling bruised everywhere and trendy magazines are telling me that coffee will give me cancer and make my face fall off.
F*ck.

midnight rumblings

I won't jinx it.
I. Will. Not. Jinx. It.

But...

I got home a couple hours ago from Santa Fe, where I spent a very memorable (and important... and emotional... and oh, do I have gray hairs from this trip) weekend celebrating my dad's 60th birthday. An entire novel could follow here, but when I haven't had insomnia for 6 solid days... and when I'm cognizant of the fact that I shouldn't share details like drinking a bottle of champagne with my parents and almost falling over laughing from hearing my mom say "butt" for the first time... I will possibly consider returning to this.

Where was I?

Oh.
The drive home.
7 hours on I-25 North with new treasures (temprary LIBRARIAN TATTOOS... picture a huge skill with 'alas, poor Yorrick!' across my chest, and you have a correct picture)... and Itzahk Pearlman playing in the cd player, and lots of family conversations that somehow all came back to one of my favorite movies-- Broadcast News (oh, the irony)...
and I came home to find an email from a company that shall remain nameless, but it's a major Denver news station saying "we got your resume and we want to learn more. Send us more creative writing samples, please! Love, company anonymous." Um. SH*T, girl. Did you just ask me for CREATIVE WRITING SAMPLES?? All open-ended and vague and Bambi-eyed like that? No sweeter words have ever been spoken by any potential employer. (It's like saying, 'would you like to work in the dessert building? Next to the chocolate sprinkles fairy?')
Shut the front door.

My fingers are double crossed that soon, I too can join my friends in the Hall of Awesomeness.

Speaking of which, my cousin Stew's* wife (Linh, queen of Awesomeness) is having an art show in Vancouver, which include these little tykes: http://www.linhtruong.blogspot.com
* note to self-- write about Canuck connections next time, because Steve Weave (my Canadian platonic soul mate, fabulously music-savvy, Spinal Tap genius) and Cousin Stewart (Oregonian, met his Vietnamese/Chinese wife in Japan and now they're officially...Canadian) deserve their own homage here.

It's 12:14 am, and this is ridiculous-- I have insomnia to attend to. And job butterflies. And a super early morning. And foster kids to volunteer with until late late late. And creative writing to procure. And a life to return to... (and, currently, crazy Pippi Longstocking hair)

And you'll have things you'll want to talk about (ties my shoe and zips up my cardigan)...
I. Will. Too.
See you real soon, neighbor.

still life of true hollywood story and kids' cereal

Waiting to hear about jobs is too stressful, so for now I'm just crossing my fingers that I snag a different kind of gig that is so deliriously dorky, I can hardly stand it. I'll wait until those Easter chicks hatch before I go making a big giggly stink about it.
In the meantime, all of my friends are doing MUCH more exciting things with their lives.

Robin is editing the footage that she filmed in Zimbabwe, and I'm soooo excited to see the finished film.
Glorga is leaving her incredible anecdote-producing job here at the addiction recovery center to go to grad school at Baylor, which is amazing, but not surprising... because Glorga's the smartest one of all of us.
Justin and Dani got engaged on a hike, which is exciting... I love seeing my friends so happy...
Jessie just sent me a picture of her new beagle, and mentioned that she might not be a flight attendant because it interferes with her training for a marathon in Alaska (ooh, exciting)...
Meg got a very exciting teaching job in Denver...
Noah told me he's moving to Sweden next year to study design in the heartbeat of Scandanavian design-ville...

I'm so excited for my friends' adventures. And I will shamelessly live vicariously through them until I get my own version of a Sweden / Waco / Alaskan adventure...

I was in Denver working until almost 7 last night, and my feet are all blistery from running around the city in tall boots. Then I read an article about a man in Gunbarrel being 'kidnapped' and tied to a beam in his basement by some crazy guy who got away before the cops arrived, and of course there were mysterious footsteps on the stairs at 1am when I went to bed, so it's no surprise that I was wide awake in my tree bed until about 3:30. I'm taking advantage of my comp time with slippers and cereal... the cereal box promises a free race-car shaped cereal bowl if I send in the box top. (I splurged on a box of Golden Grahams, I won't lie...)
I miss those cereal days.

After running around Denver with a boom, camera, clipboard and huge talent folder tucked under my chin, I decided to try to wait out the parking Nazis and actually stopped to see a movie (which is funny, considering I mentioned that last time, but wasn't serious). I figured it would give my feet time to return to a somewhat normal size, and I could walk my high-heeled tooties back to my car after 84 minutes.

I was the only person in the theater to see Chop Shop for the first 30 minutes, and the combination of hurt feet, a Blue Moon beer and being really tired fit the mood of the movie pretty well. Despite some poor editing choices, a lousy ending and some very slow plot development halfway through, it was a very intriguing film. It felt like a documentary, and the actors were way too real to not be 85% the characters they were playing. The director also gave every character the same name as the actor (Alejandro was Alejandro, etc)... so I'm looking forward to reading up on it later. It was filmed and based in Queens, and followed a young homeless boy's experience stealing hubcaps, selling candy and dvds and learning the art of under-the-table car repairs in a chop shop that gave him a tiny room to sleep in. Joined by his older, flighty sister, Alejandro does everything he can to keep then afloat, working his hands to the bone to achieve their goal of saving $4500 to buy a van to sell Puerto Rican food out of.

A good movie to see by myself. I needed to contemplate blisters, boys living in Queens, casting options and ambitions of moving to a new city without a lot of people cluttering my mental space.