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?

adventures during the search for signs of intelligent life in the universe

i got goose bumps today. they came with a heavy side of joy and tears.

i folded six paper cranes, attached them to articulating straws and wrapped them into a bouquet. i put them in my purse, got in the car, started my audiobook and drove to downtown olympia where the State Theater of Harlequin Productions resides and where i would see The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe. 

the few blocks that surround the old movie theater turned production house is full of charm with its old record store, small diner cafes, and vintage clothing shops. walking into the theater you are met with kind people taking your tickets and letting you know where everything is while you are surrounded by red velvet. 

i took a picture of the program, updated my status, turned off my phone to see what adventure awaited me. 

i had a seat in the front row. to my left, was a season ticket holder who told me the history of Harlequin Productions and how they had started out in the black box of another theater until they could buy the one we were now seated in. she asked me where i was from and upon learning i had travelled from seattle, listening to my audiobook, she asked me, "what is the book about?" as i told you this week, i'm listening to Valis. i replied, "about a crazy person." she blew out air, responding, "well, that seems depressing." to which i laughed because, yes, it is a bit depressing.

the couple to my right complimented me on my converse shoes and how exciting it had been to have a pair "back in the day." they joked with me about whether or not they were near intelligent life, which i, of course denied, letting them know the search would continue should it have stopped by me first. they laughed and asked me what i did and i told them about my nerd herding in seattle and aspirations on being a writer.  

we wound ourselves into talk of the seahawks which turned into being part of the fan base as sort of a connection and how being part of the connection of any audience is part of the experience; even here, the theater we were about to see. the woman specifically said, it's all about "synchronicity." a term i have, of late, become very obsessive about. and is about to become acutely present. the man turned to me and said, "this may sound strange, but we are writers, too."

when i asked, he told me he has published some humorous short stories. he asked what i wrote, i told him i had published a short story, as well. he asked me what it was about. i told them it was a bit of a fantasy story, but really it was a fictionalized story about how i moved through the grieving process. when i asked what she wrote, she told me, she too, is writing a story about a grieving process. i asked him for the name of his book, and he wrote it down for me, right as the lights were going down for the show.

the show. the show was brilliant. perfect. moving. i am not normally a reviewer of shows and i know the convention is to tell you something about what the show is about and then critique it. i won't tell you what the show is about. i want you to trust me. go and see it - read what i have written above about my pre-show experience, and then experience this show. it was pure synchronicity for me. 

the part of the convention of which i will conform is the critique part. as a stage manager over the last 24 years, i often have a difficult time watching any show without noticing all of the technical elements as separate from the acting and most definitely separate from the writing. but in this case, everything worked together. a concept i've mostly forgotten. 

Terri Weagant's delivery of this material was funny, quirky, compelling, intense and athletic. she lived each moment. she can go from a midwestern housewife to an angsty teenager like flipping a switch; from prostitute to pondering homeless woman like water running over two well worn stones. The subtly with which she brings the opening character around through the story is delicate but not so quiet that you miss the "ah ha" moment (that actually happened out loud in the audience). she can bring you to the verge of tears but then pull you back while you wipe your cheek, unsure about whether the wetness is due to laughter or sadness.

the combination of sound design by Jesse McNeece and lighting design by Amy Chisman brings both humor and wonder as Terri flies between time and space.  My favorites here are the channels changing which is reminiscent of The Twilight Zone (a favorite of mine), the appearance of "space chums"(i don't want to give too much away here), and the sound that took me from one time to another that i can only equate to a good drum line - but that's not even right. but it was cool. and lastly, the stars. . .and honestly, that part was even cooler than i can explain because of the set design by Mark Bujeaud. He made a set that seemed too simple but was designed to be put together like the puzzle you are challenged to determine throughout the show. it was a perfect and clever metaphor.

and i must give props to the stage manager, Vanessa Postil, for, without her, space chums could not have arrived with precision, time could not have shifted, space could not be stretched. she must be tied to Terri very tightly for those things to come off so fluidly and exactly. 

and it gave me goose bumps.

and i cried. unabashedly, completely, proudly, sadly, and joyously.

i gave Terri the cranes, we hugged, we talked, we broke bread. it was awesome. it was a good day. i met a lovely little theater and breathed in art. i feel restored.

The struggle for young women today

It's weird how things come together . . . hang with me here, this will all make sense in a minute (or more)

About three days ago, I was reading my facebook feed and an article from NPR came up. It was an article on the first female african american CEO of a fortune 500 article, Ursula Burns.  I loved the article and thought about sharing it with some of my female co-workers because it had some pretty cool things in it about women and how we should be empowered and just rock it.

Then I got angry.

WHY IS THIS REMARKABLE in 2012?  WHY ARE WE WRITING ARTICLES ABOUT HOW HARD IT IS TO MAKE IT AS A WOMAN (or any part of the "minority")?  WHY? IN 2012?

Because the tragedy of it all is - it is still remarkable in this day and age.  

So, I didn't share the article.  I went on my way ignoring the reality of the situation.  I don't want this reality to be true, so therefore, I pretend it doesn't happen.  And a typically random but wonderful way, I ended up talking about this article with someone I work with who is a fellow female.  She felt the same way - WHY IS THIS NEWS??  It made me feel just defeated that this is still an issue.  And my ignoring the reality is contributing to the fact that it is the reality.

It's funny because I feel like I talk about a lot of things pretty openly.  I give my opinion about anything and everything, but this particular issue, I do not opine or lament about the inequalities for women.   EVER.  I think I thought this type of strategic silent rejection of the situation would make it not so.  I walk the walk so I can talk the talk in so many other ways, I think I felt that by walking the walk (being a good role model by action) that I could talk the talk - unfortunately, we are not there yet for that.  There are still too many "the first female " articles out there for me to just pretend it doesn't exist.

So, last night, I came home and started talking to Mikal about it last night.  And he shared a commercial he remembered about this topic.

Even he was lamenting the choices for his daughter.  I want my step daughter to have role models that ARE NOT reality stars, NOT celebrities for showing skin, NOT fashion models that contribute to eating disorders, NOT famous people that have been made.  I want my step daughter to look up to real women that have MADE THEMSELVES, and are NOT made by an anonymous metaphorical machine.

Women like the following remarkable, amazing  women.

Liz Burns Good - Production Manager for Pearl Jam - one of the ONLY women doing this kind of job for a band of this scale - She hires women and works in a music world old boys club. I am honored to call her my friend.

Terri Weagant - a passionate, courageous, talented artist, director, writer and dreamer - she makes fantastic dreams into reality. I could not have made it through the first part of 2012 without,her, my kindred spirit.

Amanda F'ing Palmer - someone that challenges the status quo for the good of the craft.  She doesn't follow the crowd.  I am proud to have contributed to her cause.

Sharon Nelson - an award winning science teacher and mentor.  She inspired me then and now works with other women to inspire them (including my mom).

Ciara McGrath - a fearless traveller and passionate civil rights activist.  She reminds me every day to reach for places unknown.  Plus, no one can have a beer in a cool bar in a foreign place better than  she! She is my friend and my family.

These are people I want to be like - that I wish I had as much talent, patience, honesty and integrity that they have.  Some are people that I've never met, some are very close to me, some are famous, and some aren't (but should be).

With my discovery of Amanda Palmer, recent connection with a kindred spirit, meeting of new people, and the discussions about why I pretend the inequality of women in the world doesn't exist, and the fact that I'm now a step mother - I have to take a more active role.  I want to inspire like these women.  I want to challenge the current standard, I want there to be NO NEWS - it should just BE.  I want to be part of that.

I'm going to actively have this discussion from now on - I will not be silent.  I will walk the walk and talk the talk in a different way - in a way that will change the WHY these stories are remarkable.  We are remarkable, not because we are the "first" to do anything - we are remarkable, because we ARE remarkable.