it was rough and amazing. cuz that's how life is. . .

and it’s that time again. time for me to put goals out there and then promptly not meet them. i’m a great beginner, and a terrible finisher. this time last year i decided i was going to “live the Ray Bradbury way.” it was my hair brained idea that i could read something every single day of the year. and to add to it, i also said i’d read a whole bunch of other shit and go to a bunch of shows and visit the library - oh, and of course, write a whole bunch. on the blog, not on the blog. . .oh, the goals i had.

i don’t think i made it to the library one time. i almost went last month when my parents were in town, but i am not sure that would have counted at all.

i feel like i failed. . . again.

i looked back at how many postings i did in 2014. and it’s less than 2013 (which was less than the year before that). . . and i wonder why on earth i can’t keep up a writing habit. i love to write. it makes me feel right, normal. the gap in the middle of the year makes complete sense to me.  so - here’s what happened.

at the beginning of the year, i had just moved back into my house. i had moved out (this was the second or third time) because of a major disagreement of how a marriage should work. i had high hopes, i posted 5 times in january. that was amazing for me. at least once a week i posted something. 

in february, i went to mexico to a writing conference and - it was an amazing time.  i was inspired. i felt renewed and invigorated and i thought i would write and write and write.

San Miguel Febuary 2014

however, my return was ruined by the fact that another marriage disagreement (of major significant factors) occurred. details don’t necessarily matter, but know that i don’t deserve what happened. i have enough self esteem to know i am a good person who deserves an equal partner willing to participate in life. and not just in my life. in their own life, too.

i wrote a blog posting in march about how i needed to forgive myself about what i hadn’t done. and it’s true, i did need to forgive myself. i was depressed. so depressed it was hard to get out of bed every day. i had tried very hard to write, to read, to be inspired, but it was hard. when your marriage is dissolving before your eyes, it’s hard to focus on much else. it would be short sited to not look back at that and think - shit - she should forgive herself - she did all of that during a very difficult time. 

that time lasted for a long time. my breaking point was in the middle of may (probably at the beginning of may, but i hadn’t found enough courage to do anything). there is a quote by Meg Cabot -

“Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgement that something is more important than fear; The brave may not live forever but the cautious do not live at all.”

it’s a quote i’ve told to others, on many occasions, to help them know they are more important than any fear they have. so hypocritical of myself. it’s always easier to give others advice - you can see the problem so objectively when it isn’t you. but this time i had to see my own problem. it was hard and it was terrifying. but i had decided that i was more important than my fear. more important than my fear of loneliness, more important than my fear of being hated, more important than my fear of thinking i could never find my center, more important than the my fear that i deserved this unhappiness and disrespect.

i didn’t leave my house this time. it’s my house. on June 1^st, i got my space back. my house and safe place. i was mercifully and terrifyingly alone. i thought it would be enough to break the depression. but it didn’t get better. it got worse. and along with it came some other scary things. 

i woke up one morning, in july, without being able to put a hair tie in my hair. i couldn’t grab things correctly. and i knew this mean there was something wrong with my neck. and i had been through this. two and a half years ago i had my disc removed and my spine fused to get rid of this problem only to find out that well - there are these canals that were being pinched by the disc but that are now narrowing so. . . disc or no disc, my nerve was very angry. two neck injections later and i’m better. . . but. . . just better. it comes and goes.

a month after that i woke up and found  this crazy creeping red thing going up my arm.  i waited all day because it didn’t hurt or anything, but after work i went to the doctor and she sent me straight to the ER. they promptly said i had a blood infection and needed antibiotics - oh - and hey - i guess i’ve developed an allergy to that antibiotic (WHAT?). they sent me home with two OTHER antibiotics and said if the red moved outside of this marker line they drew on me to come back in the morning. and it had.  and they gave me another antibiotic that i promptly and painfully found out that i’m terribly allergic to. only to be told to take the antibiotics they gave me in pill form. WHICH I AM ALSO ALLERGIC TO and had to go into the ER for a THIRD time in 48 hours to get treatment for anaphylactic shock. it was fun. and they have no idea what the blood infection was. and all of that led to more depression. so much so that my best friend came into my house to make sure i was ok. i wasn’t returning phone calls or text messages or emails.

blood infection

then came the panic attacks. i was receiving emails and letters from my estranged husband. each and every one caused me to have an alien bursting from my chest episode. i could hardly work and would cry at the drop of a hat. i needed to file for divorce but the mere thought of having to think about him made me spiral into these horrible panic attacks where i felt like my chest was going to explode and i would end up in a lake of tears. it was crippling. i spent a lot of time hiding in my house. avoiding things. avoiding places. avoiding people. going to work was an enormous effort. and i would be so exhausted when i got home i would just want to sleep. and while i could fall asleep, staying asleep never worked because if i woke up for even a few minutes, i would start thinking about what i had to do. that would become completely overwhelming.

and so it went for months. and months. then my friend moved in for a couple of weeks. it was amazing. i felt like i had a purpose. i had to get up every day. i had to make sure the house was clean. i had to be a good roommate. and i wanted to do things with her. having her live there was sort of like having a booster shot of b12 those celebrities get when they are overwhelmed with their schedules. but if you have ever read anything about that kind of thing. it’s very short lived. it gives you a boost, but it isn’t a solution. and that is sort of what happened when she moved out. i fell back into the old habits.

but the healing has started. i think it’s started because i finally filed for divorce and asked that all communication go through my lawyer. there are few emails here and there that still give me panic attacks, but for the most part, i find myself doing things like going to the grocery store regularly. cooking. walking. seeing my friends instead of watching endless amounts of investigation discovery. it’s not perfect and i haven’t quite figured it out, yet. but it sure as hell is better than i felt the first part of 2014. 

and how did i do in 2014 with the Ray Bradbury way? Actually not to feakin’ bad for not finishing. i didn’t have goals for the entirety of all the things i’m about to show you, but i am going to use it. i’m going to improve on what i did. 

Category	# of items	% of goal completed
Poem	30	8%
Short Story	31	8%
Novel	22	183%
Essay	15	8%
Show	25	208%
Story Idea	8	15%
Film	7	13%
Blog	10	100%
Non-Fiction	5	100%
Written Short Story	2	4%
Writing	25	48%

a quick % explanation

• Poems, short stories, and essays were out of 365 (one a day)
• Novels were out of 12 (one a month)
• Shows were out of 12 (one a month)
• Story ideas were out of 52 (one a week)
• Films were out of 52 (one a week)
• Blogs were out of 10 (mostly because i didn’t give it any goals. . . so anything more than 1 was good)
• Non-fiction was out of 5 (because i didn’t have a goal and shit, i did five, so fuck - yeah!)
• Written short stories was out of 52 (one a week - that was ambitious, wasn’t it?)
• Writing - in general i wanted to write every week. . . so, this is out of 52 (at least once a week, right?)

The funny thing is that i was pretty disappointed in myself when i saw how “little” i wrote. so, i went back through all of my writing over the last day, blogs, journals online and written long hand, and letters. oh, the letters i wrote. i actually wrote more tun 40,000 words. that can seem like a lot or a little, depends on who you are (an author might say that is shameful, a non-author may be amazed). the point is, if i say (which is pretty reasonable and accurate) that i didn’t write enough, i should call myself a liar. most paperback books have between 250 and 350 words per page, i wrote the equivalent to a 114 to 160 page paperback book. while it’s not the next american novel - shit - that’s a lot of pages. it’s a lot of words.

not sure if you care, but there were some amazing things I saw, read and wrote. here are some highlights:

• poem - Anna Akhmatova - Drink my soul, as if with a straw. Ciara gave me this author. she's amazing.
• short story - Neil Gaiman - the goldfish pool and other stories. a sad tale about how hollywood just forgets.
• essay - Cynthia Ozick - A drugstore winter - lovely lovely sad story - so reminiscent. 
• novel - John Scalzi - Agent to the stars - just fun. and funny. love this novel.
• shows - too many i love to name - Amanda Palmers book tour (me and a friend sang and cried like there were no tears left on the planet - it broke us open), Blood Countess (my roommate was amazing), Rose's Pawn Shop (best song ever and a great boy introduced it to me), It's a Wonderful Life - omg - I can't pick and there are 21 more. . . .
• Non-Fiction - Kathi Diamont - Kafka's last love. i left her seminar with mascara down my face. amazing.
• writing - well, everything i ever wrote my mother. it's more inspired and amazing than anything i've ever published. 

it helps me think, every day, i’m not horrible. i’m not less than. i am good. i am trying. and some day i’ll get there. i don’t even know where there is, it’s just not here. and i think if i keep striving to be better than now, better than here - that’s something. the second i stop caring, then you need to be worried.

the most significant thing that happened this year (yeah, something more significant than divorce and blood disease happened) is that i turned 40. it was amazing. my parents came (they won't let me show you pictures, but they were adorable and everyone loved them). i had the best time and here's one of the many many days i celebrated. so - onward to the next 40, because, fuck - life can only go up, right?

Elf - The Musical a review

On October 6th, Mikal and I went to the University District Food Bank Aloha Auction.  In case you forgot, I helped crowdfund to sponsor a table at the event.  While we were there (it was a total blast), we got some stuff (as you might expect, it was an auction and all. . .).  Some of it was pretty standard and I do every time anyway.  And some came as kind of a surprise.

A SURPRISE ????  How could that be? you wonder - I mean, at an auction you must raise your paddle to get something or write your paddle number on a sheet of paper.  Well, yes, you do.  And I did do that. . .and so did Mikal.  And then there was some wine or something.  And sometimes there is some confusion when you yourself sign your number but then have your spouse go check to see if you won and they think you meant a different one. .. so you think you lost the auction item and then bid on other things. . . and that means you end up with a whole STAYCATION package - which includes a night at the Sheraton, dinner at Gordon Biersch and tickets to Elf - The Musical at the 5th Avenue Theater.  When at first this seems like the end of the world because you spent more than you THOUGHT you did at the end of the night, this actually turns out to be a really cool fun thing.  

my house in elf form

Ok - so you're with me on why I was at Elf - The Musical on Saturday evening.  Plus - if we are friends on Facebook or you follow me on Twitter, you've seen my weird obsession with Elf and having my house full of paper snowflakes and garland (much to my husband's dismay at the amount of paper I have used). 

If you don't know the story (you've been living in a cave), Buddy the elf was an orphan as a child and one Christmas Eve, when Santa was delivering presents, he crawled into Santa's sack of toys.  Santa didn't notice until he got back to the North Pole and he and the elves decide to raise him as one of their own.  Buddy grows and grows and becomes so much bigger than everyone else with only basketball as his "special" elf talent.  He finds out he's human and decides to go into the city to find his real dad.  This does not go well.  His dad is a jerk and Buddy is banned from his father's building.  In his subsequent adventures, he meets a special pretty girl, falls in love, wins over his dad's family, ruins his dad's career, finds Santa's sleigh and helps save Christmas for all of the world - the bonus is that he also puts the spirit of Christmas back into his lady friend and his dad.  It all ends very happily.

The musical version of the movie follows pretty closely.  There are some scenes where the movie was directly quoted and directly sung from, "I'm singing, I'm in a store and I'm singing" and the response, "hey, there's no singing in the store" with the ensuing fight about the "big guy".  So, the cute factor was off the scale to WAY CUTE.  I mean, I love Elf.  I love this movie.  It makes me love Christmas.

But the production?  It was good.  I'm a stage manager, so there were some things that drove me crazy, but overall, it was very cute.  There were two major highlights - Buddy the Elf, played by Matt Owen and the opening song of Act II, Nobody Cares about Santa.

Matt Owen (after a good hour of searching google, I found very little information on this Seattle-born but LA dwelling actor) plays then incomprehensibly happy and optimistic Buddy the Elf. I actually thought several times during the show, "how on earth can someone be so happy?", "maybe he's super depressed during intermission or away from the show", "there's no way someone can be that happy all the time, it just is impossible."  He was great.  I read an article at some point about how he wanted to make Buddy his own Buddy and not copy what Will Ferrell did in the movie.  I think he succeeds here. I mean, Buddy in the movie is happy and full of Christmas cheer, but because it's Will Ferrell, you don't *exactly* believe it.  Matt Owen makes you believe - believe in Christmas, believe in Santa, and believe in syrup on spaghetti.

A very close second to Matt's Buddy is the opening number in Act II - Nobody Cares about Santa.  It's an excellent song full of tired men (and one woman - funny Cynthia Jones) who have played Santa all season long.  The season has come to an end and they are all having dinner at the only place open on Christmas, a Chinese restaurant. The song is catchy but mostly it's fun and kind of bluesy.  The best part is when the choreography (kudos to Denis Jones) gives us a chorus line of Santas doing pelvic thrusts to the beat.  It's pretty adorable (even though, I'm sure this doesn't sound adorable).  Anyway, it was the highlight of the night.

Overall, the musical is the movie with a couple of tweaks to make it stage ready and some songs that are actual songs and not Will Ferrell being Will Ferrell.  There are some catchy parts of songs, but nothing except the Nobody Cares about Santa song that really catches your attention and holds it.  So, without a hugely inventive script (it's the movie for the stage) and some catching tunes, it's really the production that makes the show.  

The show starts out with Santa.  He's a good Santa, except, I felt he was yelling his lines.  I know it's theater, but he was mic'd so he didn't need to yell.  But the show gets instantly better when you see the production choice next taken.  Elves.  Elves that are not played by little people.  Elves that are played by regular people, but with shoes on their knees.  It was hilarious.  It was brilliant.  It was adorable.  It really brought you into thinking that Buddy really was bigger than everyone else.

Some terrible staging and acting occurs right before Buddy is sent off on his trip on the ice glacier.  But the set design into the big city kind of makes up for that.  It's an art deco kind of design and the color scheme is inexplicably, but really cool and subtle purple.  I didn't notice at first, but then I realized that there is a color scheme that denotes the city - it's purple.  And I liked it.  Then you listen to some unremarkable songs and watch some things you don't remember.  

Then you're at the store where you meet Cynthia Jones' Store Manager, "She's singing. She's singing in the store." There's a pretty cute introduction to Jovie, but her part isn't that big in the show, so despite her pretty voice, she's not what you're watching.  But I was watching the clever set design with the ladders that end up as green tinseled wreathed Christmas Trees with Jovie wearing an adorable lighted star hat.

Another stand out that I'm just remembering is the kid who plays Michael, Buddy's younger brother.  I'm actually not sure if he was portrayed by Noah Barr or Grayson Smith.  I'll go out on a limb and say Grayson Smith.  Either way, the kid has some pipes and the singing was really good.  He was a bit nervous on stage and clearly needs some practice being out there in front of a load of people, but the boy has some chops.  His rendition of I'll Believe in You made me tear up.

The rest of the act was pretty unremarkable for me.  This is where Rodney gets to say what he said on Facebook about an hour before I left - 

Then, like I mentioned before, enter in the best tired Santas in the business.  With this opener, it really made me glad to be back (even though there were 3 people around me that left at intermission). Poor Jovie is forgotten, Buddy helps his dad sell a book (well almost) and Christmas is saved (this is where I teared up again).  My only real "stage manager problem" was the snow - man, the blower was loud and kind of seemed like it didn't happen in the right spot.  But - eh - it's live theater - that's what we stage managers live for.

The tickets were great (thanks @udistfoodbank)!  We were in row N in seats 111 and 112 which meant that my glasses actually worked for me. I love going to musicals and I'm glad I saw this one at least one time.  I would normally want to try to go again if I fell in love, but I'm a bit sad to say, I love the movie already, so the musical, though fun to see, was good just once for me.  If you're into Christmas and you have some kids - totally go - it's cute and will put you in a good mood and make you love Christmas even just a little bit (even if your kids are driving you mad and you hate this season).  It's not high brow and you won't go home thinking it's the best thing you ever saw, but the 5th Avenue does it as much justice as can be done.