Sunny Spells It Out

The Waiting Really Is The Hardest Part

2011-05-16T18:51:00.000-07:00

About a month ago, when I was going through a particularly dark stage of depression after my weight loss surgery, I was sitting on my therapist’s sofa informing him that I no longer trusted my own decision making (since seemingly every decision I make to try to make my life better, usually ends of making it far worse). Of course he said something in an attempt to assuage my fears like, “You’re a smart woman, you make good decisions, they just don’t always turn out the way you plan.” Something to that effect… Something, that sadly, doesn’t really comfort me because it doesn’t “heal” me.

Afterwards he read to me a passage from a book he’d lent me called Anatomy of the Psyche, by Edward F. Edinger, and today it’s buzzing rather loudly in my head (having felt a bit of a psychic punch in the gut on a couple of fronts this afternoon). When I’d originally taken it home, it was so textural that I couldn’t get into it. I guess I need a “story” to get involved. Probably why I liked History in school and retained it better than say, Math. In any case, he read this passage to me and I think it’s worth sharing to anyone who undertakes a journey of major change (presumably for the good) in their life. It reads:

“Anyone who gives themselves up to this search must therefore expect to meet with much vexation of spirit. He will frequently have to change his course in consequence of new discoveries he makes… The devil will do his utmost to frustrate your search by one or the other of three stumbling blocks, namely haste, despair or deception. He who is in a hurry will complete his work neither in a month; nor yet in a year… and in this Art it will always be true that the man who is in a hurry will never be without matter of complaint. If the enemy does not prevail against you by hurry, he will assault you with despondency, and will be constantly putting into your mind discouraging thoughts. How those that seek this Art are many, while they are few that find it and how those who fail are often wiser than yourself. He will then ask you what hope there can be of your attaining the [deep secret of life]; moreover he will vex you with doubts of whether your [therapist] is himself possessed of the secret which he professes to impart to you; or whether or not he is concealing the best part of that which he knows. The third enemy against whom you must guard is deceit, and this is perhaps more dangerous than the other two. The servants whom you must employ to feed your furnaces are frequently most untrustworthy. Some are careless and go to sleep when they should be attending the fire. Others are depraved and do all the harm they can. Others, again, are either stupid or conceited and over-confident and disobey instructions or are drunken, negligent or absent-minded. Be on your guard for all of these if you wish to be spared a great loss.”

Heaven knows, there have been many times in my life when there have been those close to me who insisted they were there to tend the fire, and resembled the third enemy described above. Luckily for me, I have been on this search long enough to know the difference between someone who hurts me unintentionally, through intent of kindness, love, loyalty or friendship and one who does so out of any other intent (or lack thereof). But that doesn’t mean that I don’t easily get derailed. I spent most of my life with people who wanted nothing more than to derail me because it was first fun, then force of will, and finally habit.

The passage goes on to read:

“… Therefore if any man desire to reach the great and unspeakable mystery, he must remember that it is attained not only by the might of man, but by the grace of [your Higher Power].” (Thomas Norton's "The Ordinal of Alchemy")

What this all suggests is that you must “self-oriented” instead of “ego-oriented” if you are to succeed in a quest to heal yourself. But right now, I don’t really know what that means. I don’t know the difference between my ego and my self because one sits so heavily upon the other they appear as one.

I want to be loved when I love and desired when I desire, trusted when I’m trustworthy and befriended when I’m friendly and in all good things, reciprocal. But apparently, it’s my lot to wait for parts of my life to happen that come more readily to others and have caused me to see myself as a failure at living. To have gone as long as I’ve gone without true, deep, trusting intimacy is more painful than I have words to tell and I'm rarely without words. It makes me hurry. That search also causes me to inspire repulsion and fear in those I don't wish to inspire anything of the sort. I suppose I can understand how I must seem in the their eyes. Being nice to me shouldn't be so hard. So right now, the best thing I can do to put myself in the right place, is figure out which part of me is pulling the strings… my “self” or my “ego” and get them in working order. Hopefully when that happens, all the things I yearn for will unfold easily and I’ll laugh at how fervently I tried to yank them into place when all I had to do was wait… just a little bit more.

Ready, set... GOAL!

2011-04-21T18:44:00.000-07:00

Well here I am, 42 and for all intents and purposes, giant steps backward from where I was ten years ago. Sure, I give myself some credit for having followed my dream of working for the company I wanted to work for. I do my best to celebrate the fact that I accomplished a goal that was twenty five years in the making. But now what?

Assuming something amazing is going to fall into my lap hasn’t worked out. To that point, it has less than worked out. At this moment I am making roughly the same amount I was making a decade ago, so my quality of living is ridiculously diminished in a time when I was more than ever to be comfy. Why? Because I don’t have a college education? Okay fine. Never mind that I’m smarter and have more common sense than at least 80% of the people I’ve worked with that have a degree(that mostly excludes all my beloved tech dudes - I don‘t kid myself!). Doesn’t matter. In the current economic climate, companies can afford to be elitist, requiring a slip of paper that says, “This person wasn’t as poor as another and afforded themselves the luxury of a higher education” and they most certainly are taking that advantage.

Before I go on, let me clarify something. I know that there’s a lot of people out there who work like dogs to put themselves through school and I’m not, by any stretch, insinuating they are brainless, lazy or spoiled. It just happens to have been my experience for at least the last decade, that I end up training (or regularly saving the ass off) people who are getting paid a shitload more money than me. If that doesn’t seem fair, that’s because it’s not.

Here’s the thing… to some degree I have to realize that part of my problem stems from knowing I don’t really belong in a corporate atmosphere; not any more. The only reason I take corporate jobs is because of the pay and benefits and I know I’m not alone. If I had a dollar for everyone I know that would be better suited working in a bookstore or vintage boutique, I wouldn’t be here complaining about how little money I have.

Still, lets get serious with one another, shall we? I openly admit that I am not, at all, following my bliss. Honestly, I have no firm grasp on what that bliss really is. I just hadn’t thought this far into my future. Of course I have some ideas. I get focused on them for a while, then doubt sets in, fear that I won’t be able to make a living at that thing sets it, fear that I won’t be able to give myself a “better” life overwhelms me, and I move on to another idea. Even when I see perfectly fine examples of other people successful in whatever realm I’m interested in, there’s something in the back of my mind that insists, “That’s them. You’re different. It wouldn’t work for you.” I’ve been hearing that broken record skipping in my head since I was a toddler. It’s time to change the tune.

I know, intellectually, that I’m perfectly capable of succeeding in whatever I undertake. The question is, where to I laser-beam my intent? How long do I give myself to succeed before I give in? I’m pretty hard on myself most of the time, so I know that time frame’s gotta change too. So, as I sit in this chilly Starbucks in Pasadena, with an angry pit in my gut (knowing I’m soon to return to a job where I’m overworked, underpaid, under-respected, have been railroaded, lied to and ultimately threatened with dismissal if I attempt to stand up for myself one more time, and yet another young girl waiting to assert her new managerial claws by taming the old broad under her), I know one thing is for certain… it’s time to make a plan. Right… NOW!

So I’m setting down a five year plan. By that, I mean that I’m giving myself five years to either accomplish these goals or let got of whatever fantasy they represent forever and move on to new ones. My hope is that it doesn’t take me the full five years to accomplish any of them (I’m not exactly known for being patient with myself). But all things take time and if you told me five years ago that some of the things I’ve experienced would transpire, I’d have thought you nuts. So I’m getting that seeds have to be planted. First and most importantly, order.

I’m going to try to put these goals in some semblance of logical order (knowing full well that Life will most likely smack me on the ass with a hearty chuckle and shake his head in humorous disbelief that I am still so naïve as to believe I’m the one in control, but whatever… humor me, Life)!

Goal 1. Choose a career path. Right now, I’m still convinced that should be a food related career. Again, I have no idea what. Cooking is an easy guess, but there’s a lot more to food than just preparing it.

Goal 2. Figure out where best to be to carry out goal number one, move there, and decide to be content to stay at least until I‘ve finished the reason I went there (if I have to move at all). Let’s face it, Los Angeles is chockablock with resources and educational opportunities innumerous. But can I afford to live here while I pursue whatever it is that I’m planning to pursue? Its not feeling super likely at the moment.

Goal 3. Acquire the necessary education, knowledge, mentoring, funds, etc., to be a credible candidate in my chosen career.

Goal 4. (Partnered with goal 2) Travel to states and countries of interest in order to discover where I want to plant roots and build a home I’m happy to be in (maybe build a family, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves!). That includes a vegetable and herb garden. GodDAMN, I want a vegetable and herb garden!

Goal 5. Find a charity to devote time and energy to. Girl Scouts burned me out and soured me on charitable work. There… I said it. Just the thought of participating in such things often fills me with disgust and rage that has virtually nothing to do with being charitable and more to do with having felt like I was forced into volunteerism. If I don’t feel genuinely concerned, I don’t participate. But I do feel I need to get over rote resentments and give some back to this world. Most likely animal related. Let’s not start talking about how I feel about most people these days and how much I‘ve poured into the empty chasms where their souls should be.

*Sigh* noooooo, not you (unless you share my last name and your first name isn’t Kyle), and noooooo not everyone. I don’t want to get concerned emails over that statement. I’m 42 and a have been through a lot. Cut me a little slack, m’kay?

Goal 6. Finish my book and screenplay and stop being afraid of what those things will bring.

Goal 7. Not the least of my goals: Live every single day with awareness and gratitude that each day is a gift, no matter how lonely, frustrating, devastating or tumultuous they can get.

Starting today, it begins. Wish me luck.

Happy Birthday To Me

2011-04-20T19:53:00.000-07:00

On a gorgeous Sunday afternoon, whilst bobbing contentedly in a warm lap-pool at the Glen Ivy Hot Springs in Corona (thanks to the fine planning of my friend “Darkness”), I quietly rang in my 42nd birthday. The next day, I slept through the whole day (something of a feat, since my surgery). Days later, I want to believe that sleep-a-thon was born out of relaxation or at worse, sleep deprivation. The truth is, I slept because I am depressed.

By all accounts I shouldn’t have that much to be depressed about. Although I am, at the moment, very worried about a much beloved mom to two of my longest and dearest friends, I know she’s in good hands and that she’ll be okay. Her illness did mean not having someone at the festivities that has been there for the last ten years, but that wasn’t enough to get all twisted up over. She was missed, but not “sleep all day” missed.

The night before my birthday, I enjoyed a delicious dinner, saw Super: The movie, and basked in the fine company of two of my best friend acquisitions since moving to LA. It was a perfectly delightful night! The fact that I didn’t have to come up with the plan for my actual birthday was a gift in and of itself, as well. There were slatherings of slick moisturizers, gooey mud and luxurious oils that left my skin feeling years younger and a much needed massage that soothed the aches I cannot soothe myself. Not one of those things is something to scoff at! So what could possibly have been my problem?

Right away, lets start with the fact that I’m still horribly ill virtually every time I consume anything that passes for food, since the surgery. I’m grateful for the surgery and the chance to lose the weight more “effortlessly”. But imagine feeling like you have the worst stomach flu conceivable for two months, then ask yourself what kind of mood you would be in (no matter what cheeriness was tossed your way). By the time I start feeling physically okay, its time to eat, and then shortly after I’m back on the express train to Barfytown. I’m not exactly feeling motivated to eat. The less I eat, the weaker I get. The weaker I get, the more I freak out and so it goes. So now I’m basically forcefeeding myself and that’s not as fun as it sounds.

But you know, I’ll get over feeling barfy soon enough, slip into clothing sizes I haven’t fit since High School (while maniacal laughter peals inside my head, mind you) and all will be forgiven. Most likely, that blessed event will take place well before I’m officially staring down the barrel of 43, so I’m somewhat discounting this temporary state of discomfort as being the derivation of my distress. Instead, I lay my inability to party down at the feet of the one thing that I fear will still be filling my guts with apprehension and despair next April… my being single and alone. I simply cannot bear the notion that I will spend another year fervently and forlornly trying to uncover the reason that the closest thing to an intimate relationship with a man that I generally achieve, is one where he fantasizes about me sexually and gives his love, care and self to someone else (someone, I hasten to add, he’s usually complaining about).

Rationally speaking, not knowing what makes me so unlovable to men who want to lay me but not love me shouldn’t cause me so much duress; much less should it ruin a perfectly good birthday. After all, if they’ve shut themselves off from the mere idea of loving me, that very detail makes them inherently wrong for me. I get that… intellectually, of course. I am, after all, a reasonably mature, somewhat sane woman. But there is still a part of me that sees their half rejection as a part challenge, part gut-wrenching mystery. I cannot seem to silence the “why, why, why” that plays endlessly in my head and causes my heart to ache all day, every day.

The thing is, I don’t think I’d care so much if it were only a smattering of men who behaved as though there’s some readily recognizable quality about me that shrieks, “Don’t love this one, you’ll regret it. But she is hot stuff so if you‘re horny, just keep manipulating her into thinking you care about her until she succumbs. In fact, don‘t even bother with that and just expect her to be cool with that. And be sure to get good and pissed off when she stands up for herself and says she deserves more. What the hell does she know, right?” If that were the case, I’m certain I would shrug them off as creeps who are probably incapable of genuine love or deeply fearful of true intimacy, and continue waiting mostly patiently for Mr. Right. Unfortunately, they aren’t small in number. They are, in fact, virtually every man I’ve ever dated, chatted with in effort to see if he was someone worth dating, and ultimately every man I’ve ever loved but one and therein lies the rub.

The two males who were charged with the unlikely responsibility of setting the tone for all my relationships with males to come, were just as greedy and selfish as the men who chase my tail. My “brother” is a preening, pouting Diva who knew all his carefree childhood days came off the sweat of my back and despite two decades of professing love for his sister, then stomped his angry feet until both our parents officially ceased to give a shit about me. Then there’s my “dad”. Until recently, I believed my dad to be as much a hapless victim of the wicked harpies that ruled our roost. He still considers his dismissal from the family home and hearth as retribution for having once stuck up for me to the screeching she-devil I called “grandma.” Way to assert male dominance, Dad! Good job protecting me from the beatings (verbal, physical and psychic). During the last conversation I had with him, just before he caused me my first full-blown, “Holy shit I think I’m going to die” anxiety attack, he was loudly asserting his completely misguided mantra “I TAKE CARE OF MY FAMILY!”

If by taking care of his family he means, “I will make you beg for anything you ask of me, and make you motherfucking miserable in the process by shouting incessantly, spouting inconceivable lies about you as if irrefutable fact,” then yes… he did a bang up job. When I was in grade school, my mother made me call him and ask him for money for school clothes (because, heaven forbid she do it herself). I was lucky to get $100 a year. Most of the time, I had to babysit or hope for some hand-me-downs from my mom’s best friend in order to be clothed because my mom used my weight as an excuse to spend all her money on my brother. “He needs nice clothes. YOU don’t. You’re too fat for nice clothes.” Before he was voted off Selfish Asshole Island, he used to show me their bank account balance, and tell me how much of that money was slated for my college education. Naturally my mom took all the money when she kicked him out and I never saw a dime. He occasionally offered a $20 when we saw one another, more out of not knowing what else to do, but I never got phone calls asking how I was, asking after my grades, or my health, or any other thing about my life. Instead, I hunted him down in order to spend time with him, which would be horribly uncomfortable, and like the men I now deal with, most our time together was spent with my listening to how much he loved and hated the woman he loved (never mind that his daughter was sitting right in front of him, wanting to pour her love and care into him).

Is it any wonder that I draw such men to me now? No. How they see it, smell it, sense it… I am still baffled. Surely some of it is subconscious connectivity… their bullshit links to my special bullshit and off we go. Still, I wonder, “Is there a certain facial expression I hold that bespeaks rejection and disappointment in the male gender? Is it something in my eyes? Something in my manner of speaking? Was it there all along, and therefore the reason my familial males denied me their honor and tenderness?“ My mind literally spins and spins until exhaustion. Every day I ask myself, “What is so unlovable about me?” I want nothing more in this world than to either stop caring or find the answer so I can change whatever despicable trait emanates out of me and causes this unfathomable chasm of loneliness. I fear I’ve been branded and fated to go on being unloved and unable to count on anyone, much less a man. I resent the fact that when I had someone who loved me for me, unconditionally, that I was so screwed up that I fled from him (because the feeling was wholly so unfamiliar)! Staring down the long, dark tunnel of another year feeling that way… well, it’s enough to make me crawl into bed and sleep until I forget, for a few sacred moments, the pain that drove me there.

This time next year, I want to be in a place in my life where none of these thoughts darken my mind. I want to blow out the candle on my complimentary dessert, at the celebratory restaurant of my choosing, and wish for World Peace or a hot new pair of shoes instead of the same wish I’ve had every year for as long back as I can remember: “Please, please, please… bring me someone to love that will love me back.”

Remember the Secret

2009-08-03T05:13:00.001-07:00

There was a time, about two years ago it seems, when you couldn't swing a crystal on a hemp rope without hitting someone who wanted to tell you about the Secret. My God, that was fucking annoying; particularly since I believe strongly in what the Secret is trying to convey and horrified that the message got lost in a rapacious fad that made the whole thing seem ridiculous. After a while, because of that, I felt a little ashamed to admit that I was still trying to follow the model for personal success and happiness. I feel even shittier that I lost track of something that was making me feel like I was heading in a good direction. Now, I need that positivity more than ever, and am finding it hard to call it forth.

I started a job last October that should have been, well… a piece of cake. With a mind toward getting myself back into school, I took a position that sounded as though stress would never be a factor, with a 10k pay cut (which would presumably help in terms of getting financial aid) and all for the expressed purpose of knowing that would be the foundation I needed to get through school at the ripe age of 40. Since that time, my job has been re-orged twice, and my responsibilities and duties have changed three times. My stress levels went from a pebble to a mountain in a snap, my work hours became ridiculous (and overlooked), I had no training and was expected to get up to speed immediately… most of which I did. In all that time I have been screamed at for the most miniscule reasons imaginable in front of more than just my department, scapegoated to an absurd degree, given a reputation I didn't deserve and then supposedly given a chance to prove I didn't deserve the reputation, while secretly, my new managers were having my dishonorable co-worker report on every mistake I made.

Not one to want to dwell in the negative, I have tried to look at all of this as a challenge, something to overcome and hoped that it would be enough reward to have the pride of knowing I did so. But it has become clear that any advances I make are being disregarded in favor of exploiting my mistakes. And in knowing that, I find myself accidentally and seemingly pathologically making mistakes that will only fuel their fire. At this moment, I fear that after this week, I will once again be unemployed because if it. Which brings me to think that if I hadn't lost my positive thinking, my focus on what I want and what is important, that perhaps this wouldn't be happening now.

Admittedly, nine months of torturous unemployment, losing my last remaining Aunt and my mother and taking a very unwanted trip to the hospital shortly before starting this job, helped me to lose a grip on my positive thinking and even if I don't lose my job this week, I know I have to start looking elsewhere. This position is clearly not right for me and not right for what I need to get back into school and take care of my future. There are still so many painful distractions that continue to pull my focus and I'm having a hard time getting back on track. But I'm trying. I'm trying to remember who I am and that I am not as miserable as this job is making me; that I have more to offer than purchase orders and being the target of blame-storming.

In that spirit, I am sending this out to the Universe… I want to find work that makes me feel happy and fulfilled, respected and well-paid. I want to work with people whose main concern is a job well-done, who are honorable, respectful, responsible and professional. I want to end my work day with plenty of energy to finish getting a degree, and start a new and rewarding career. If I must work while I do this, I want to work in a place that supports my efforts and elevates me.

I hope that if this cannot be immediate, that I have at least planted the seeds for some positive changes to come soon. In the meantime, my friends, send me any positive vibes you can spare. Help me to not let my foes kill my focus and my spirit.

Turning Corners

2009-06-23T04:47:00.001-07:00

Just when I think that things can't get any weirder, oddly enough, they almost always do. So, I won't say the last six months has been any more challenging, funky, bizarre, stressful, cathartic, silly or fun than any other year before it. I will, however, say that no matter how accustomed I am to having strange things go down in my life, I'm not completely prepared for everything that comes down the pike. That's where I am today.

This time last year I was starting what would turn out to be the funnest temp job ever, and was falling in love with the absolute worst choice of partners (I didn't know he was the worst choice at the time, of course). I was still reeling from the most abominably painful issues with the EDD, having lost my home of seven years to their inadequacy, their apathy, and ultimately their bureaucratic bullshit; and I was just about to lose my Aunt Julia and my mother within two months of one another (I won't bother you by delving into the insurmountable disappointment, disgust and pain that I endured at the disastrous sham that was my mother's funeral). All of which would be punctuated by re-entering the job market (as well as the company I moved here to work for) at 10k less than I was making four years ago. Just recounting all of that makes me feel exhausted.

There was a time in my life when I would have considered it a genuine miracle that I would still be standing after all of that. But honestly, I don't feel that way now. I look at how I have dealt with some of the shittiest life has to offer, realize that I am still reasonably intact, and know that is cause for celebration.

Of course, there are plenty of times when I feel despair over where I am in my career, that I haven't found a suitable partner yet, that I am still dangerously overweight, that I haven't accomplished all the goals I set out for myself, etc. However, I feel unfathomably grateful that the most overwhelming feeling I have on most days now, is happiness. Even in the darkest hours, my biggest accomplishment to date continues to be a source of pride, entertainment, support, sanctuary and love; that is to say that my having chosen my friends well continues to be one of my greatest successes.

Now, with the advent of Facebook (certainly more so than MySpace ever was), I am reconnecting with people from all over the timeline of my life. I now have the opportunity to talk with some people I always wished I'd had a better rapport with, and some people I lost touch with that I'd always regretting having misplaced. Just as important, I have gotten a chance to heal old wounds with estranged friends and acquaintances I believed to have lostchances to heal long ago. I had one of those moments that I want to share here.

This past weekend, one of my most longstanding wounds from my 20s was finally treated with some tenderness and I can feel it healing nicely. Out of the blue, I was contacted by someone I had always wanted to be friends with, but for reasons that are now obvious (but not so at the time); it had never clicked between us. Like a lot of people one adds to internet social networking, this person isn't exactly someone I could call up and ask to a movie, but someone for whom I have respect, admiration, shared memories / experiences and care. Consequently, it wasn't so much the content of the conversation that was of interest (even though it was certainly very interesting), as my finally fulfilling a dusty old wish, and the added pleasure of being able to look back at the girl I had been the last time I attempted to connect and feel relieved that I had the good sense to grow from that version of myself. All of which reminded me of something one of my most beloved teachers (Lee Tecang –my drawing instructor) taught me in college and how profoundly that lesson changed the course of my life.

It was the end of my first quarter of drawing class, and I was looking over my portfolio of drawings in amazement of how "ugly" the first ones were compared to the end of the quarter, and was pulling out the early stuff to throw it out. He stopped me at the trash can and said, "What do you think you're doing?!" I explained that I didn't want reminders of how bad I was before. He laughed and said to me, "If you don't keep these, then the ones you keep now will be the ugly ones you want to toss next quarter." He went on to add, "You have to respect where you have been to truly appreciate where you are." While I applied that to a lot of aspects of my life, it's taken me until very recently to apply that philosophy where it would do the most good.

As I was truly communicating with this person, for the first time in 22 years of acquaintance, I got this mental picture of a night 19 years ago, where we were sitting together, talking and neither of us seeming to understand a word the other said. I remembered how frustrated and upset I was (with myself) at that time with vivid accuracy; how much I wanted this person to like me, to want to know me, to understand me, and feeling desperately inadequate in my ability to connect. Throughout the conversation this weekend, I must have had the most ridiculous grin on my face. Finally, I could talk with this person the way I'd always wanted and for once, doing so was a genuinely pleasurable experience. It is a thrilling relief to not be that insecure version of myself any more, but more than anything, I am ecstatic at not feeling compelled to resent myself for having been so in the first place. To be able to feel love for past versions of myself (that I'd blamed for everything I'd wanted and never got) is, to me, a miracle and a major turning of corners.

So there is a lot to rejoice, these days, in spite of all the things I could tick off that are well worth complaining about. These joys may not seen big, like winning the lotto or getting engaged or the usual stuff that everyone gets excited about. But for me, they are huge. And I hope that as I begin to settle into my 40s, that this kind of growth and healing continues to trend high. Now, if I could just get my work life and love life to follow suit.

Thanks be to Sense-Memory!

2009-03-19T13:01:00.000-07:00

You don’t have to be an actor to understand the concept of sense-memory. Thanks to Inside the Actors’ Studio, there’s been enough mention of it and what it means, that most folks are pretty aware of the phrase and method. If you’re one of the ten people who have never seen the show, don’t know an actor, or just have never listened intently to the ramblings of either, sense-memory is where you use an external trigger to recall an emotion, state of being, period of time, etc. Usually this is evoked for the sake of being able to easily bring about a necessary element of a character or performance.

In my case, I’ve been experiencing sense-memory long before I was ever aware of what it was or why one would use it. In fact, I can remember the first time I felt the déjà vu-like sensation overtake me. It was springtime when I was in 5th grade, walking through the back field of my elementary school during lunch recess. My friends and I were blowing bubbles from the bottles we had gotten at a birthday party over the weekend and something about the air smelled sharply familiar, like it was charged with electricity, and suddenly I was transported to a Spring that I had lived before. It hit me so hard, I couldn’t move. Even now, as I write about that day, I can feel being 9 years old, I can smell the air, the humidity rising off the thick blades of green grass that had been heated by a blazing Spring sun. I can almost feel the breeze on my face and it makes my heart race a little. It’s incredible.

One reason that particular memory is so clear is because I vividly recall asking my classmates if they “smelled” it too. It was frustrating not to have the capacity of thought to convey what I was experiencing, which was a slightly fearful but equally exhilarating occurrence; scary in that I was the only one that seemed to know what I was talking about. That moment, in that day, stuck in my mind forever. I think of it every time the sweet scent of newly blossomed honeysuckle wafts through the air and mingles with warm grass.

The only thing that transports me more easily than obscure combinations of scents and energy in the air, is a song. Not every song has a memory connected to it. Not every song evokes a specific time or place or emotion. I am, however, aware of how easily such a thing can be imprinted onto a beloved song, so when I am going through something really lousy, I’m usually very cautious of listening to anything dear to my heart. For instance, I listened to Travis’s 12 Memories exclusively when I was going through some of the worst of my breakup with my ex-fiance’. It took a long time before I could listen to Love Will Come Through or Happy To Hang Around without immediately experiencing an aching pang in my chest, a pit in my stomach, and an expectation that the weather should be rainy and grey (as it was when I bought the album and as it was when I spent hours of time driving back and forth to Santa Monica to seek solace from KS).

Luckily, the same can hold true for happy, silly, sensual memories. When I hear “I’m Only You” by Robyn Hitchcock, I am instantly transported into my 1976 Toyota Corolla Liftback, cruising down San Carlos Blvd in San Jose, with LFS in the passenger seat, chattering about how anxious we were for the Cactus Club to open. The song "So Good" by Destiny's Child calls to mind driving through Pacheco Pass in the middle of the night in a rented SUV, couriering my worldly belongings to storage locker in Los Angeles, just before finally leaving home. And every time I stumble upon They Might Be Giants's “Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head”, I’m 19 years old, standing at the copier at the legal offices of AAA, the unnatural taste of Cremora glacky in my mouth, thinking of how much I wanted to be just about anywhere else and repeating the lyrics in my head, “Quit… my… job down at the car wash didn’t have to write no-one a good bye note. They said the check’s in the mail and I’ll see you in church and don’tcha ever change.” (From the files of “Sunny knows the Secret works”: They laid me off a month later. Focus enough on leaving, leaving’s gonna happen!)

This is on my mind today as a result of my picking random songs on my iPod, trying to remember that there are bands other than Kaiser Chiefs, Keane and People in Planes to listen to. I landed on “After Dark” by Tito and Tarantula (off the “From Dusk Til Dawn” soundtrack). MAN, the sensations that song evokes! Not every time, mind you, but when I’m susceptible to the self-hypnotic suggestion, it’s like a sledge hammer to my psyche. Instantly, I am right in the place where I am filled with the force of longing for sensual connection in my life (at the time I first heard the song) and not knowing how to release the stranglehold of repression that had built up over time; the discomfort of beginning to transition out of my 20s and realizing that the irresponsible lifestyle I was holding onto no longer fit me and what I wanted, but didn’t know what I was heading for or how to get there. Yet, even though a good deal of what After Dark evokes in me is remembered struggle, longing and awkwardness, I don’t mind that it brings me back to that place. And even though I know that the lyrics hold a different context than the ones I apply to them (as lyrics often do for the listener), the final lyrics of the song nail home exactly how I felt about wanting to get to the next plane in my life, wanting to know who I really am and scared of letting her see the light of day:

In my heart
A deep and dark and lonely part
Wants her
And waits for After Dark

Here I am today, feeling more true to myself than I have in years and realizing that while I face my share of struggles now, I passed through one that I didn't see an end to and can feel a sense of relief (and not the smallest sense of achievement) wash over my like a cool mist on a sweltering day. And since I sucked at keeping a diary or a journal to document these things, I’m grateful for the natural tool that is sense-memory to allow me to travel in time. Sometimes you really need to acutely remember where you were and what that place was like, in order to recognize your journey and how better of a place you are in now.

A Lovely Distraction

2009-01-08T11:30:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time and not that long ago when I think about it, I was a girl who loved to indulge in fantasy. Since my imagination is vivid and rich, they started out being incredibly fun, but I didn’t know when I come back to reality and would inevitably end up deeply hurting myself. It never occurred to me that being adopted by The Captain and Tenile was pretty ludicrous (although it was only a few years later I learned I had already been adopted so perhaps not as far fetched as it may seem). Nor did it occur to me to realize that I really couldn’t change the weather just by willing it to do so. I also considered it to be a perfectly valid question when I asked my mother if she’d let me go on tour with Journey as their backup singer.

During my formative years, I was heavily influenced by a woman who had a cursory grip on reality at best. She lived much of her life in a perpetual state of fantasy, most of which was unpleasant. Say what you will about my mom, she had quite the imagination on her. She would simply decide something was real and no longer be able to discern the truth from her fiction. That scared me about her and caused ungodly amounts of confusion and pain when I got out into the world. So much of what she had taught me was based on a seriously dark and twisted perception of life. I was constantly bitch-slapped by reality like so much Crystal Carrington on the receiving end of a Joan Collins special, and I stopped letting myself fantasize… about virtually anything. Consequently, as many children do, the things I found most unsettling about my mother are the things I took to the extreme opposite. Fantasizing was one of the first to go.

True, I prefer reality (even when it sucks the high holy one). Unlike most folks, I would rather eschew the disappointment of being blindsided by reality, than indulge in even a moment’s pleasure of entertaining the seemingly (or legitimately) impossible. I say “unlike most folks” because it has been my observation that a staggering number of people I have met, chatted with, read about, seen on television interviews or heard stories of all lack the ability to accept a fantasy as being nothing more and refuse to take responsibility for their own disappointment. Nevertheless, I get that it is not exactly something we are all taught to take responsibility for. By and large, the general populous tends not to do much of anything unless taught to do so. We are virtually programmed not to take that kind of initiative and that is not by mistake, I guarantee it.

Still, I have to say that it is nice when a pleasantly humming fantasy slips its way into my thoughts like a gentle breeze on a Spring afternoon and lets me take a little time off from all my self-enforced certainty. Today it is a man and that is one place I nearly never allow myself to go (because it feels almost exactly the same as rejection when my fantasy never comes to fruition). This is a man I cannot have and don’t need to have and I’m okay with that (for a change). Once in a while, we have moments that make me blissfully fluffy and floaty and I cannot seem to find anything wrong with it because unlike my past experiences with fantasy, I know when to stop and go back to reality.

Today, I found my mind drifting off to a place where I was wrapping my arms around his lean, broad shoulders, resting my face against his chest, and listening to him talk. When I realized what I was doing, I noticed I was quietly smiling to myself; calm and relaxed. When I snapped out of it, that feeling went with me for the rest of the day and for the first time in a really long time I had a fully good day.

It is a tremendous feeling to loosen the death grip I’ve had on my imagination and feel like I have grown enough to know how to protect myself. The trick is knowing when to let go and pull back; knowing how far you should let yourself indulge and not place icky expectations of where your daydreams will end up. But more than anything, it makes me happy to know that I have finally found a place in my life where I am not afraid of reality (no matter how bad it can be), and believe me… that sure makes it easy to come back from fantasyland.

I’m coming back!

2008-12-21T23:31:00.001-08:00

You may have noticed, it has been a long time since I have blogged. It certainly doesn't mean that I haven't had anything to say or anything I wanted to share with you. Most likely, the reason I have not put anything up for a while has been due to the adherence to the concept of saying nothing, where there is nothing pleasant to say.

True, I have started a new job over the last two months. I am grateful beyond measure to have one in this current unemployment / economic status. Yet there are, naturally, caveats to my fortune. Because of the climate, I felt obligated to take the position despite a 10k pay cut (when I was already barely making it by with that 10k) and it pinches me… regularly. The other, less than obvious downside, is that now that I'm working, everyone I had to stave off when I wasn't is now holding one hand out for their money and shaking a threatening fist of credit-rating-meltdown with the other. There are, friends, considerable penalties for being poor (where once you had a reasonably stable financial flow). It is exhausting, but at least I have the funds to work with these people. That I am threatened, rather than worked with, serves as an ever burgeoning reminder of how this nation has lost so much of its heart and soul (and how much it sucks, sometimes, to be a woman – as my ex NEVER received threats of any kind when he had thousands to pay off and my roommate and I get a threatening letter from our electric company if we're two weeks late with our money).

Again, I want to make it clear that I'm not complaining about working. It is just that getting the job hasn't been all sunshine and lollipops.

I started my job just weeks after my mother was buried. To say that there is still so much I have not yet dealt with in regard to her death, would be a crass understatement. Even now, I regularly have nightmares that she and I are bitterly arguing over something I never saw coming (as was often the case with us). More to the point, she's yelling at me like I'm a festering boil on her butt, while I'm trying desperately to defend myself. That was our relationship much of the time, after I turned 12 and she would tell anyone who would listen that she adored me, was proud of me, and had no idea why I was so unhappy with her. There are no words to describe the frustration of having strangers tell me what a shit I am for not worshiping her. They all believed her. And now, members of my family (despite knowing the truth in full and vivid color), have conveniently chosen the same path of passive aggression. In some instances, the aggression has not even been passive, but rather full frontal. Explaining to my friends, who accompanied me to the funeral to lend me much needed solace and support, why my siblings made sure that there was no mention of me in the official service, was probably one of the most upsetting and humiliating moments of my entire life so far. If you know me, there's been plenty of humiliating and upsetting moments, so for this one to take the cake… had to be pretty damned bad.

Dealing with the death of a mother whose love and support and nurturing I desperately sought my entire life, and never brought to fruition, is taking a massive toll on me. That the rest of my family persists in carrying on that tradition of unwarranted disgust and resentment is sickening (except my father, who barely understands what is happening because the rift in my family makes no sense to him – or anyone in their right mind). But there is nothing I can do but suffer it, accept and try to understand it. That this is happening because of money, makes it all worse. Particularly when those who cry "THIEF" at the sound of my name, are the ones who are stealing a nest egg I have been promised my whole life, and worked like a dog to make sure I received. Trying to deal with that, along with my mother's death, trying to start a new job and get my dilapidated life back in working order, has aged me... has killed something off in me. I am sad in a way that I never knew I could be, and as Christmas draws ever nearer, my heart grows exponentially heavier.

To those who have heaped onto my already overly heavy load with your deceit, your misplaced rage, your selfishness and your greed, I am confident it will be your undoing. You genuinely deserve every sleepless night you are about to and doubtless already have had. I believe there is a Higher Power that watches over us all. I have no need to retaliate. That Power will not fail to deal with you in due time and I am more patient than you will ever know. Until then… stay the fuck out of my way. Because when I am done with this mourning and sadness, a new me will come forth, more fierce, more confident and more determined than ever before to live MY life MY way without any of your bullshit. I already feel it happening, like a ravenous lioness pacing in a cage.

Friends, I know that I am experiencing the changes we all must endure in life. There is no sense of my feeling like I am the only one with a heavy heart and a gut filled with stress. I know that death is a part of life and so, too, is the buggery that comes of familial strife brought on by the vagaries of entitlement. I also know that starting a new job is always stressful (it just so happens I started a retail driven job just before the most significant season of the year, during the worst economic climate since The Great Depression). That I am still standing after three of the most unimaginably horrible years is a triumph of will and a testament to the work I've done on my life. I may be bruised and battered and fatter than hell, but I'm still standing and for that I am truly, truly blessed.

If there is any reason I am wounded but not totally annihilated, other than that which lies in my own heart and soul, is now – as ever – completely due to the outstanding friends I have amassed. I will not name them (lest the Googlebots drag their names up when their bosses or clients are looking for dirt or drama). They know who they are. And they know, all of them, that I love them with every fiber of my being. You are, my friends, my best gift, my happiest day, my sweetest song and the best excuse I have to be better. I love you all so much… so very much. Thank you for your patience and your tenderness and your ass kickings and your distractions. I truly hope that soon, when we sit across a table from one another, you see me smiling back at you more than that far off distant version you've been getting. Until then, thank you for letting me try to deal with all of this in my own time. You utterly RULE!

Merry Christmas!

Sunny

On Guilt and Justification

2008-10-09T08:27:00.001-07:00

Here is what I know… if you are truly guilty of something, there is no justification that will get rid of that guilt. It will eat at you, every day, every single day. You can tell yourself anything, give yourself every possible piece of logic as to why you were right to do whatever it was you did, but if you know in your heart you are guilty, no lie you tell yourself will change it. Just as you cannot justify it away when you deserve it; you cannot create true guilt in someone who knows and trusts themselves and where there is no guilt to be had. But once it is there, it will greet you when you wake, and there it will be when you lay your head down.

You can, of course, rid yourself of that guilt that you earned by making amends and doing what is right. But that does require you being honest with yourself, and... let's face it, not too many people are keen on that level of self-awareness. Or you can continue lying to yourself and count the days until that finally eats away at you. The question soon becomes… which is more powerful; the guilt or the lie you told yourself to create your guilt in the first place? Are you greedy, spiteful, petty and malicious? Or are you good, kind, righteous and truly, genuinely justified in your actions? Your image means nothing to guilt. Your conscience will let you know what to do.

… that is, if you have one. I do. Do you?

I See You

2008-10-02T19:13:00.001-07:00

Like a lot of people, I have trackers on my blogs to see who is coming to visit, how often, where they linked off of, where they are… all kinds of information. I know when my MySpace friends are checking my blogs, when my close friends are, when someone landed on my page through a Google search or came through my Twitter. So I know that one particular household is checking my blogs every single day, sometimes twice a day or more and I'm not sure what to say to this person. So I guess all I can say is that I have not stopped being accessible via the phone. I have spoken to you whenever you called. If there's something you want to know about me, call because it looks as though you either don't think you can or you are looking for ammunition against me. Maybe there's some other reason you come here that I can't imagine, but considering how things have been lately, those are the only two I can come up with.

So if you're waiting for me to put out some shitty blog about you, don't. I won't. If you're hoping I'll say something about being open to talking, I always have been with the exception of a couple days I requested you leave me alone (and I wouldn't have asked for that if you had been open to talking to ME at the time). If you're looking for validation for treating me so badly, you won't find it here. There is no justification for it. Whatever your agenda is, this is kind of creeping me out, so I wish you would stop this. But I know I can't stop you so, I just thought you should know all of this so you can choose to spend your time more constructively.

Blue Sky Day ~ A long-overdue love letter to Grey Matter

2008-06-01T05:29:00.000-07:00

There once was a great and mighty rock band. Their songs were edgy and entrancing, both smart-assed and perceptive. They borrowed heavily from their heroes and beloved peers at the time of their apex, and so even if they were not “inventing the musical wheel”, as it were, they were mind-blowingly badass and came to us well before their time. Some bands do, and because of that they vanish into memory with only their enduring, wistful admirers to keep the flame of their songs ever- burning with life while never having known the staggering thrills and the terror-filled valleys of success that some of their peers came to know. If you’re lucky enough to have found one such gem, and lost them to whatever demise they may have met, such bands often set a tone for what you look for in music for the rest of your life. Even if you don’t look for them consciously, we all find ourselves seeking similarity in that which comforted us as children. We do it with food, we do it with lovers, how we dress and how we live. The same can be said when you begin a deep and profound relationship with music; and when I was a late teen growing up in San Jose, I was devoted to a couple of bands that fit that description. But to me, for no other band was the tragedy of bad timing truer, than that of Grey Matter.

Joe Simpson, Sean Galvin, Marty Flanagan and Jeff Ebbage were one of those rare combinations of talent who, when put together, plugged in and amped up, comprise something truly amazing… something magical. Indeed they were a bunch of guys with instruments who were, frankly, renowned for their rumored sexual exploits and in that sense just like everyone else with a name and a gig. Yet, rarely have I since experienced that charge in the air when they took the stage; that feeling like I was present for something remarkable and I had no idea how lucky I was to have been there during their golden reign in the late 1980s. Despite my neophyte status in the local scene the first time I saw them play, by the middle of the opening song, there was no a question in my mind that they were extraordinary. Songs like “Better Off Gone” and “Charm School” were largely too adult for my experience level at the time, but had the right bite and bitterness to help me release some of the bile still lingering from my teens. “Temptation’s Reply” gave me a slight inkling of sexuality I had not even begun to comprehend yet derived a nervous pleasure from, as if committing some delicious sin of which I wasn’t consciously aware. But my favorite song of theirs, and remains still, was “Blue Sky Day.” Like most songs to most people, I’m sure the way I interpreted this lovely, hypnotic tune and it’s dreamy lyrics, was probably nowhere near what I was meant to have perceived. It didn’t matter. I left nearly every one of their shows feeling (which I can express now, having experienced more life since then), as one feels after having spent a stolen hour with a secret and sumptuous lover who knows all the right ways to please you. Loving them was changing my life and it scared the hell out of me… in a good way.

Sadly, I was too young, and too sheltered to have known of Grey Matter (who lost their name to a New York-based group who had retained legal rights to it), until it was near the end for them. At least, it was the end of the foursome that I knew as Grey Matter.

Joe left (in late 88 or 89), and went on to work with a band called Legal Reigns who managed some reasonably respectable success in the 90s. But like all of the most delicious dishes, once you take out a key ingredient, it’s just never the same flavor, never the same delectable treat that made you want to come back again and again for more.

Still, the three that remained were worth savoring and so we kept coming back. They tried hiring on a new guitarist (perhaps two or more, I’m old now and only remember one of them clearly). They brought their own element, their own… if I may continue with my culinary parallel… flavor to the music. They still rocked, they still had spark, they still drew us in, but with someone replacing Joe, it was still something different. As charismatic of a front man as Jeff was (and a more charismatic front man I have scarcely seen in all my life), it couldn’t last. Like it or not, Joe has a certain style and one that lent the songs a visceral growl that balanced Jeff’s folk-poetry lyrical sensibilities. Their music had an almost imperceptible country undertow (at least to me, back then) with some bluesy hues and poetic bitch-slaps that fit well into the vague description of “alternative” back then. Not finding a suitable (or reliable) replacement for their lost member, they became a trio.

But the 90s were hard on their heels, and with the new decade dawned the loathsome need to categorize and fit everything in to tidy, easy-to-read packages for mass marketing to the less-than-discerning masses. Anyone who didn’t fit a convenient musical genre that MTV, fashionistas and the ever-mutating radio industry could shove down your throat, found themselves faced with a choice; sell out or get out.

Somewhere in the tail end of Grey Matter, I had mustered the courage to talk to Jeff and Marty. Knees shaking, stomach lurching, my first conversation with them was such unholy gibberish that I know I would be ashamed and deeply amused to remember exactly what I had said now. I am, however, sure that I must have (my being mean) surreptitiously waylaid Jeff with one of my heat-seeking, yet unassuming criticisms or observations of their set that night.

I was so green and unaccustomed to talking with musicians and artists at that time, that I had no idea of how delicate and raw their egos could be, particularly facing a fan. Most people who create art (and I daresay I believe this is particularly true for musicians and performers) want, sometimes desperately, to please their audience. These men were certainly no exception that rule. In retrospect, part of me wishes I had known better, but mostly, I think some people need to hear the truth and I was more than happy to deal it out. I respected, admired and adored these men and true to myself, I wanted the same from them; that meant being honest.

By the time Grey Matter decided to go for it “Joe”-less, tastes were changing fast. Grunge, Speed Metal and Funk Rock were about to take their place in the world and when that wave hit San Jose there was little room for lothario troubadours like Jeff in the lifeboat. Sean was becoming an exhausted businessman (he was part owner of the premiere “alternative rock” venue in town), Marty needed to focus on working a bit more and getting his shit together, and Jeff was settling down. Age and life was not just catching up with them, but their following as well and the crowds dwindled rapidly. Trickling awareness of bands like Nirvana (whom I first saw with about 40 other people –including the staff- in Sean’s club and had to flee from the building for fear my ears were going to start bleeding), Fugazi and Faith No More were ushering in a new crop of faces and a new tone in the clubs; an angrier, louder, darker tone. In all fairness, the effects weren’t singular to Grey Matter, and we still had acts like Toad The Wet Sprocket, Poi Dog Pondering and Bob Mould to balance things out. But the new batch of college students were the regulars and the aforementioned acts were out-of-towners who had their own following to bring in money at the door. Where once you couldn’t open a Metro without circling at least five or six upcoming Grey Matter shows (San Jose’s equivalent to the Village Voice or LA WEELKY), they had finally faded away. If not for their friends The Frontier Wives, waving their freak-flag as hard and proud as they ever did at the time, my twenties would have sucked the high-holy one (not to be too prosaic about it).

Then, there was a glimmer of hope!

Thankfully, not too long into the 90s, what can only be surmised as an answer to all that rage coming through the clubs and over the air-waves, a hippy, poppy movement hit the scene like a fresh, cool breeze on scorching Summer day. Bands like Jellyfish and Redd Kross were either coming of age or enjoying a new audience and getting a lot of buzz on MTV and radio. It was almost as though the door had swung wide and a cheerful voice called out, “Jeff… your time has come!” Cottonhead answered.

Jeff, Marty and Sean (with Joe adding some guitar tracks) recorded a CD, then brought on guitarist Mike Donio (who had replaced Matt Rook in the Frontier Wives and was doing double duty for both bands). They retooled some Grey Matter favorites, threw in a couple new(er) songs and Cottonhead was born. The details of how they came to be are still a little fuzzy. I talked with Sean virtually every night for months (we had befriended one another at the end of a riot at his nightclub, not too long after Grey Matter disbanded), and must have been while they were in the process of recording, he never said a word. But that was just like Sean. He has a lot to say about a lot of things, and a lot of them might not make any discernable sense. But if doesn’t think you need to know something he can be seemingly as silent as the grave. I like to think he wanted it to be a surprise, that they all did.

With Cottonhead, Jeff meant business. It was do or die and thanks to my burgeoning friendship with Sean, I found myself “working” for the band and grateful to be in a position to help. I was to aid in “promoting” (which was basically stapling fliers on walls and bulletin boards of record stores and coffee houses, delivering posters to venues, maintaining their mailing list and selling CDs at the shows). With my new position came ample opportunities to trounce an increasingly beleaguered Jeff with my razor sharp “honesty.” To say that we didn’t much like each other during the early days of Cottonhead, might well be a crass understatement.

Most of the criticisms I tried tenderly to lob over to Jeff, I would still stand by today. His longing to make it big with Cottonhead was palpable. It was so heavy, sometimes, it gave me chest pains but I couldn’t fault him for his vibe. Everything seemed to be squarely on his shoulders as Marty wasn’t really suited for a leadership role, Sean was busy with work and school (eventually bowing out when he was diagnosed with the Epstein-Barr virus) and Mike had two bands to contend with. With all that responsibility, there also came all the pressure for him to be the one to make it happen for everyone. Nevertheless, owing to my ignorance of the multi-faceted mind-fuck that is dealing with musicians and their fondest desires, I made it clear to Jeff that I felt his grip on the band was too tight. I regularly bitched that he needed to listen to outside observation (meaning mine, naturally) about things someone else might be better suited to worry about and to not have his finger pressing the nerves of every detail of the band.

In retrospect, I understand why he didn’t listen. I wish he had, but I understand why he didn’t. Who was I to be so presumptuous as to believe I knew what was best for him. He’d been trying to make it in that business since long before I got into High School. I certainly had no credentials, no reason for him to listen to me other than the fact that I was a consumer of the product he was selling. Market research works when you want to sell something, even for bands, my friends. (Thank you to shows like American Idol, Total Request Live, Dancing with the Stars, etc. for proving my point!) But even that didn’t really matter. Besides, I was, after all, a female fan who was working for the band. The only people musicians usually consider to be less worthy of trust and attention in such matters, are the drunken whores who dance in front of the stage in slinky dresses, stiletto heels and too much makeup. At least they customarily get laid by the band! Hell, I’ve known members of bands to listen to transients more attentively than any girl offering up an opinion.

Being a female, and not one that is considered hot, or in a band that is pulling more bodies into a venue (or, heaven forbid, is more talented) and therefore worthy of attention ate away at me for at least a decade. Now, I still don’t like it, still hate that it’s the norm, but at the very least I understand and realize there is little I can do to change it. I have to give Jeff credit for being as respectful as he managed to be.

There were countless nights when my co-hort Cindy and I would cringe in horror watching Jeff order Marty to put on a wacky, spotted oxford shirt that Jeff had embellished with fabric paint (and had looked like something Jackson Pollack threw up). It was hideous, clearly trying too hard and made Marty look as though he was painfully unaware that the 80s had ended.
Jeff was trying to market the band to fit in with the Seuss-like fashions that Jellyfish and Redd Kross were not only known for, but were also setting a short-lived fashion trend to boot. It was a smart move on Jeff’s part to try, no doubt. The execution was just a bit off. I knew what he was going for and agreed, but sometimes you have to be able to stand back and look at what you’re splashing together to know when to stop. He just couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

I can’t possibly say I wanted them to succeed every bit as much as Jeff did, but I was close… very close. And it was obvious to what few fans they had, still clinging to hope, that if something didn’t click that was not going to happen.

Out of desperation (and misplaced sense of entitlement) I spoke up, and when I did it was not met with a joyous reception, I don’t mind telling you. If I hadn’t known Jeff better by then, I might have expected him to pop me in the mouth for some of the blows I dealt him. Having had people critique my music and art since those days (some of whom I love and crave their acceptance and respect), I can now say that I wouldn’t have blamed him if he did. When someone criticizes something so deeply personal, something that affects every level of your life, it is like an invisible beating. What might be an innocuous comment to a fan or audience member could become such a thrashing to an artist. They may not scar on the outside, but the pit of fear that their critics may be right, the rage they feel when they believe in all respects that you are wrong, the fierce explosion of protection for that which they hold most dear and have worked so hard to bring to life, are like a whirling dervish on their insides. So ultimately, it didn’t matter if I was right or wrong. I hurt him regularly and I am deeply lucky that he still calls me his friend after all (point of fact, Jeff was the one person I talked to regularly, when I was going through a terrifying cancer scare. If not for him, I don’t know how I would have made it through that time). For all my sucker punches of reality, all my pleadings to tweak just a few small but crucial things here and there, my words fell on deaf ears.

Cottonhead went on for some time. I would get calls from Jeff, telling me that they were going to be on the radio in LA, or that there was some lead that might finally break them into the business. Each time I hoped he was right, not just for the band’s sake but for his. He was losing faith, getting tired and it didn’t seem they’d last much longer.
They did last longer; longer than some imagined they would. Cottonhead recorded another CD, played small venues all over the San Francisco Bay Area and my friend Cindy and I were nearly always at all of them. Sometimes, we were almost their entire audience.
We didn’t go to their shows out of pity, misguided affection for a particular band member or even our clear and ardent loyalty. We went because we loved the music and over time we cared deeply for the men who made it. They had become our friends, and what is better than being friends with people who make music that makes you happy? I’m sure I can think of something better, but I can tell you this ranks right up there with the most decadent luxury you could name… at least in my book.

The first time I saw Grey Matter live, was at a music festival called Summer in Centerfield, which was that day. Still, I couldn’t have known the depth of the impact that summer, my best friend’s music taste (which was why we were there in the first place) and Grey Matter would have on who I am now. But as with any time one falls in love, as I did with this band, the memory of the moment you realize it makes an imprint in your heart and mind that dulls only slightly over the years. To this day, I could probably tell you what every member was wearing, and if I thought about it hard enough, I might even be able to recount the set list. As I write, now, a slide show of snapshots and clips of scenes from that show and the countless others are playing in my head and my heart is filled with love, sentiment and regret for not having known of them earlier. Particularly since I don’t recall having seen more than two shows with Joe in the band, and I’ve missed every reunion show since. I’d never met him and had the chance to tell him, as I had with the others, what the band meant to me. Luckily, we did manage to talk for a while, a year or so ago, when we connected on MySpace (one of the few things I like that shitty site for) via the page for the next generation of a Joe and Jeff collaboration, called Barrelfish –which also includes Joe’s wife. I guess eventually some musicians actually listen to women! ;-)

I know it’s possible I may not have liked Joe if I’d gotten to meet him when Grey Matter was in their prime (according to Sean, during one of our pre-Cottonhead conversations, I wouldn’t have liked any of them back then). Whatever. I think he’s fuckin’ awesome now. And I don’t mean that in the overused, current vernacular of the times.

As with all living things good and bad, Cottonhead finally ceased to be not long after I turned 30. I miss Jeff regularly, haven’t seen Sean in years (but would love to – especially since he has my Edgar Allen Poe book!) and wish I could give Marty a big hug. A Marty hug always went a long way. I miss these guys in a way that I don’t miss much about San Jose or the time I spent there. More importantly, I can’t help but begrudge the feeling that they would make it if they were just coming out now; if life, age, family, responsibilities, regret or fear were not an issue. I think they’d find a following and even if they didn’t reach exalted heights of stardom, they might enjoy the renown, residuals and respect they deserved 20 years ago. I could be wrong, but like usual, I doubt I am.

As for me, its only poetic justice that one of the lines I love best, from my favorite song of theirs (and one of my favorites of all time for two decades and running) begins to tell the tale of where I find myself now:
“Ain’t got a dime ‘cause dreams don’t pay. Spend all my time in Blue Sky Day.”
Thank you Marty, Sean, Jeff and Joe for being one of the strongest winds of positive change in my life. I love you guys!

*If any of the dates or facts of this epic tome don’t match the ones in your head (or reality), please forgive me. I’m old and nostalgic.

How I love her!

2008-04-14T17:23:00.001-07:00

Whiskeytown
Originally uploaded by Sunny-bunny

It's funny, when I look at photos of myself when I was little, I imagine what it would be like to be the mother of the child in the photo. Perhaps this is because some people very close to me have children that I love so much it makes me achey and some of them I only know from photos (the fact that I've never met the "Farty Pants Twins" is a prime example). It is because of this that I do believe you can love someone deeply, that you've never met in person. Romantically.. well... let's get into that some other time.

As I pour through photos of a former self, I see the spirit it took hard work for a controlling adoptive mother to squelch. It had to have been arduous and if that task hadn't been something that has caused me so much pain in my life, I would probably be enthusiastically proud of my mom for having been so prolific and undaunted in her quest. I know, now, why she did many of the things she did and have long-ago forgiven her (as I believe wholly that much of her behavior toward me had a good deal to do with her feelings surrounding a very creative, high-spirited and eventually alcoholic / drug-addict sister). Those that cling self-righteously to the idea that I resent her for not providing me with an idyllic childhood are grossly off base. Particularly since most of the people I know and love had equally as shitty, if not worse childhoods than mine (at least I lived in a house!). No, what finally made me disconnect from my family is far deeper. Far more personal. It's about love.

When I look at this photo, my instinct is to love the hell out of that little girl. I want to put my arms around her and tell her I love what a goofball she is! I want to know what what's bubbling around in her kooky brain and delight in whatever odd little world she lives in and encourage her to make use of what she finds there. I want to take her places that promote exercise that are fun, so I can do it with her and so she doesn't feel like she's a lone freak. I want to tell her how lovely and smart and funny she is and tell her what the world is really like so she doesn't get out into it and get the bitchslap of reality that I got after years of fantastic, nearly-psychotic rhetoric. I want to cheer her up when boys make her cry and remind her that just because they don't want her, doesn't mean she isn't lovable. I want to do all the things my mother never seemed to want to do with the girl in the photo.

Most likely she didn't have the intellectual and social capacity to do a lot of those things. That she spent most of our relationship telling me what was wrong with me, calling me childish, playground-bully names like "hippo" and "retard", making me the butt of her jokes and the focus of all of her pent up rage and control issues surely was the damage a dysfunctional relationship had done to her. A lot of people never realize fully how deep the scars of those relationships go and I cannot help but feel sorry for her in that way.

When I was 24, my mother told me to my face that she would never accept me for who I am. I had not fallen into line with her expectations of my creating a 1950s "perfect-girl-next-door" life. Much of that had to do with my body. She had wanted a popular cheerleader, who dated the quarterback in high school and married after graduation. I was supposed to have gotten a simple job, had a wedding she could orchestrate to her taste, had kids she could spoil and an adulthood that she could spend her golden years bragging over. She wanted those things, because they were everything she hadn't been. She didn't like the life she had lived and stewed in anger that I hadn't become a vehicle to do all those things she was cheated out of. And even that I can forgive.

But at the end of the day, and for years after that, I still tried. The truth is (and I mean that in the most literal sense imaginable), she made a choice when we were both adults and still had time to heal our relationship. She consciously chose, at every occasion possible, to be hateful, resentful and unloving. Not the imaginary kind that overly-hormonal teens and angst ridden post-adolescents suspect of their parents. The real, "fuck you bitch" kind that we are taught our whole lives to never take... from anyone. I loved her. I wanted her love back. I never got it. In the real world, that means it's time to move on and I did. And with God and you as my witness, I plan to make this one of the last times I will ever explain that decision again. I do so now, because she is dying and taking with her all the love she saved up for the day when I made her dreams come true.

She must never have felt, looking at me when I was little, or even the amazing woman I became, what I feel when I look at these photos now; immense love, hope, pride, and perhaps a tinge of sadness that so many lost and wasted opportunities to show the girl in the photo how loved she is. It has never been more clear to me, how important it is to develop love for oneself. But if I feel for the woman I am, what I feel for the girl in this photo, then I am well and truly loved. I'm working on that... every day.

More Adventures in Unemployment

2008-03-07T10:20:00.000-08:00

I don't mind telling you, folks, that if this weren't happening to me... if this weren't something I was painfully experiencing on pretty much a daily basis, I wouldn't believe it. No, I really wouldn't. When I asked my roommate if she would have believed me, if I had tried to tell her the story of what she has seen unfolding, she agreed that she would have assumed I was telling tales. Unfortunately for me, I am not embellishing one iota of my dealings with the California EDD, The United States Postal Service and now... Washington Mutual Bank.

No, I'm not looking to be extremist or pathetically desiring of dramatic effect, so I am not suggesting that these institutions are in cahoots with one another. What I'm putting forth, here, is nothing like that. But what I am finding is that apathy and opportunism have gained an all-time low that many people are probably lucky enough to not have to notice. Yet, when you are in the position that I am in... bent over a barrel, so to speak... you have no choice but to deal with that cold incompetence and hope to heaven that someone is feeling like doing a little work that day and that is what has led me to the keyboard today.

Now that I seem to be getting my unemployment checks with some semblance of regularity, a new crux has arisen and it goes by the name of WAMU.

I opened an account with WAMU on December 10th, seeking refuge from the rampant bumbling that now curses my once efficient credit union. Take-overs can do that to any good business and it certainly has with Vista (now Partners). If they were not the loan holders for my car and a credit card I have no chance of paying off any time soon, I would already have closed my accounts with them. I had hoped that WAMU would be better. They have been exponentially worse.

It took them two months to get my ATM card and pin number to me. I finally had both as of last weekend and flushed with relief of standing in lengthy lines at the branch, I deposited my unemployment check on Monday night. Charges were about to go through and it never, ever occurred to me that a bank would be suspicious of my unemployment check.

I was wrong, so very wrong.

Washington Mutual put a 10 day hold on the funds. These funds were supposed to cover such necessities as rent, car insurance, etc.

When I called them to find out why they had put a hold on a government check, they said, "We can't get someone at the State of California to confirm that the check is good."

We're talking about 900 dollars. If the State of California doesn't have 900 bucks in the kitty, we are in DEEP SHIT, people!

If that weren't bad enough, the harpie that I managed to get on the line was hostile toward me when I didn't understand what she was telling me. I have never heard of government checks being held under such suspicion and scrutiny. I've never had trouble cashing such checks at liquor stores or seedy check cashing places, so of course it didn't dawn on me that WAMU would have issue. Again, I was mistaken.

I tried to explain to the beeeawtch that was yelling at me over the phone, that I genuinely didn't understand what was being told to me, and she literally began yelling over me. I asked for a supervisor, she said she was one. I asked for a manager. She asked for my callback number. That was two hours ago and I've not had one phone call since.

So I called back and got someone reasonably pleasant and helpful and she told me that when she called the California State Treasurer, they refused to confirm that the check was good or not. All he was at liberty to discuss was that there was no hold placed on the check at their end. That was not good enough for WAMU to release my money. She suggested I go down to the unemployment office and get a letter stating that the check is good.

Hahahahahah! Human interatction? Seriously?

I explained to her that this was not only impossible, but that even if I called to request such a letter, it would take at least until their ridiculous hold was over to get it, and by then my rent check, insurance, etc, would all be bounced and cost me at least 100 dollars. She said her hands were tied, so I asked for the Treasurer's phone number and called. I got some guy named Jeff.

Jeff didn't answer his phone but his voicemail said that if there was an emergency, to call another number he gave. I called that number. Nobody answered.

You have GOT to be kidding me, right?

So I called the EDD and went in the sneaky way. When I got a hold of an operator he exasperatedly transferred me to claims, where a woman of about 200 answered the phone and immediately put me on hold. Four minutes later, she came back and transferred me to an adjuster. Apparently, the adjuster is working on this situation now.

Am I hopeful? No. Not even remotely.

As always I am struck by the fact that this is happening to me, someone who desperately needs the flow of her money to stay fluid in order for her very survival to continue, but I don't really hear of these things happening to others. Not much, anyway. Is everyone being quiet? Are you all just hoping someone else will take care of it? What is going on here?!

All I know is that the more I try to follow the rules and stick within the lines, the more I am thwarted. But I'll keep going for now. There's not much else better to do. But I think I will start cashing my checks and stuffing the money in my mattress. Seriously. This is rigoddamneddiculous!

EDD v. Sunnybunny... guess who's winning!

2008-02-19T23:45:00.000-08:00

So, in case you've been keeping score and hedging your bets in my direction, I have some rather glum sporting news for you. I don't seem to have much chance of winning when it comes to getting my unemployment benefits. Like... at all.

If you've been having trouble keeping up with this debacle, here's the tally:

Contract ended September 28, 2007 (EDD has it listed as 9/23)
Filed for unemployment benefits at approx Midnight on 9/28/07.

Following week letters arrive:
We cannot confim your identity, please send or fax the following documents
We must have a face to face meeting with you, please come to the office on October 11th at 10 AM.

The day of my appointment the following letter arrives:
We have recently discovered that we overpaid you the last week of your
previous claim (the first week I worked in my previous contract). Why did we do that? Explain yourself.

The documents you sent that we asked for, to confirm your identity, were unclear. Please resend them.

At my appointment, where I showed no less than three people my passport along with my live body and face, I learn that these people cannot confirm my identity to the EDD and then was urged to lie about not knowing PowerPoint in order to get training.

My first benefit claim form arrives on the same day.

I mail in my guess as to what may have happened to cause an overpayment the following day, not having recalled an overpayment (I assure you I'd have remembered!)or what I might have done to cause one since it had been eight months since I filled out the form in question.

I receive a letter the following week, instead of a check:
We have disqualified you based on the fact that we could not prove your
identity. Please call if you wish to reopen your claim.

I call and explain that I have not only faxed the documents three times, but sent clear, enlarged color copies of the documents they requested and that there should be no earthly reason why they wouldn't know I was me, particularly considering they didn't question my identity when asking for money back they think they overpaid me.

I luck out and get a kind agent on the phone who gives me her personal fax number. I fax it over, she walked it to her boss, and I was off and running.

November 14, 2007, I receive my first checks. Six weeks after I opened my claim.

I receive a tip from my apartment manager that management is cracking down on late rent, and as I had been living in my apartment for seven years, were particularly anxious to see me move out so they could raise the rent. Having been threatened with eviction the last time the EDD was bumbling my account, I have no choice but to move.

By this time, I have had to borrow over 1K from a kind friend who had just loaned me 1300 in order to go to baking school, and had to use all of it to keep afloat as the initial checks barely covered the late fees and overage charges I incurred (much less rent for two months) while waiting for them to figure out I am me.

November 28, I begin moving the four blocks to the shared condo I now reside in. I cannot afford a truck for the whole move, so I hire movers for the big stuff and move the rest in my car. Movers put a 300 dollar hold on my account for a 200 move. Monthly charges go through. Overage fees abound. I am exhausted and overwhelmed with the move and come home to my new place to find a letter from the EDD.

We believe you deliberately falsified your benefit claim form on the last week of your previous claim. We are docking you five weeks of benefits. You may appeal if you wish.

I finish moving on the 3rd (there's 150 off of my deposit that I would have gotten back), scramble to find the money to pay the move in deposit and formulate my appeal. By this time I am up to over 240 in overages alone.

Appeal is mailed on December 7 and faxed on the 10th.

Appeal court receives paperwork from EDD on December 27th.

Several potential temp positions are snatched out from under my due to the writer's strike. Suddenly everyone needs a secretary with a Bachelor's degree, preferably in Business or Literature.

January 5, 2008 finally arrives, signaling the end of the first week since November 26th, that I qualify for benefits. I send my benefit claim form in promptly on January 6th, as instructed. I am now borrowing from strangers, and vomiting Ramen in the middle of the night in stress.

January 11, 2008 Check information hotline says the check is in the mail. HOORAY!

January 28, 2008 After trying literally hundreds and hundreds of times to get someone on the phone, I finally go down to the EDD to see what the hold up is. Am turned away as there is no parking and the line to use the "Magic Red Phones" - that put you through to an agent quicker (but not immediately, you still have to do the hang up and redial over and over) is too long.

January 29, 2008 Back to the EDD to use the phone. Am told "stop check" form and next claim forms are in the mail that day (never to be received) and assured that if I can prove I will be evicted, that they will expedite my claim form.

January 31, 2008 I finally receive my January 11th $450 check, along with a good deal of mail I had been wondering about, including my appeal hearing date scheduled for the following Monday (see USPS v. Sunnybunny posts). Have to go back to magic phones to inform EDD that I have cashed the check (as instructed previously) and learn that there is absolutely no expediting process for claim forms. None, whatsoever. Impossible. Agent tries to help by sending the claim form that should be attached to the next check immediately, so I may catch up.

Same day I go to the USPS to have words over why I wasn't getting my mail. Abnormally apologetic for botching my life, they overnight my claim form for free. Next check for $900 (700 of which will go to rent) arrives on the following Tuesday. The form the helpful agent sent, arrives the next day.

February 11th, instead of a check, I receive a fresh claim form for the weeks I should have been paid for, stating that I had forgotten to fill out employer information. I get the "guilty" verdict from the appeals court the same day (which does not shock me as the judge had clearly made up his mind well before I had arrived). I fill it back out and send it in immediately.

February 15th I manage to get a hold of an agent who claims they had not received the replacement form but corrected what I sent based on my response and that the check would be in the mail on Saturday.

February 16th, called check information hotline at 6 AM. "Your last check was paid on February 2nd. Check information will be updated again on Wednesday, February 20th, 2008."

Naturally, there is no chance of getting a hold of a human right after a three day weekend. No chance in hell. But I try anyway. After doing some cash work for a friend, in hopes to stay afloat (and he skips out before paying me), a friend takes me to dinner. At the end I see that I have a text message from my roommate "You have mail from the EDD!"

I call and ask if it's a check, she doesn't know. I said, "It'll have some color on it, like it would BE a check." "oh no," she says. "It just looks plain white."

Not

Good

News

I get home a half an hour later to find... that's right... the SAME benefit claim form, for the two weeks ending FEBRUARY 2ND!
You marked yes and no for the same question. Please fill this out and send it in.

Imposible. This time I had a witness. I had my friend CB actually look at the form before I sent it (not having access to a copier).

Did you tally up how many checks I received in all that time? Were you paying close attention?

I wouldn't blame you if you didn't and just skipped to the end. As my roommate and I agreed, if we weren't seeing this unfold before our eyes, we would not believe such a story. Nobody could befall that much trauma, that much strife from one agency, could they?

Yes. Yes, they can and do. I'm lucky I still have a place to live and that is due to my friends. As always... you keep me sane when little else can.

The Importance of DIY

2008-01-06T13:28:00.000-08:00

I recently wrote a blog about how I had never decorated my home because I had been afraid that I would have a man I wanted to be with came over, he would think my decor was so eccentric or eclectic that he'd run screaming from the place and thus I would be alone forever. Here's another thing that made me change my mind about that...

I recently spent a good deal of time in the home of a man whose ex-wife spent the last years of their marriage covering every available wall of their house with the most hideous atrocities against pleasant home design I have ever seen. She even went so far as to paint their bedroom (a place that should have been filled with passion, romance or at the very least relaxation) a color best described as Rancid Baby Caca. If that wasn't a passive hint that there was trouble in paradise, I don't know what would have been.

By doing things like insisting that he never wear red (pouting angrily when he did, insisting he had done so as a deliberate affront to her), driving away any friend that empowered him or disagreed with her, spoon feeding him his life and domineering the rest, she had basically decorated the man much the same way as she had their home. I don't know what bothers me more; that she was self-absorbed and grotesque enough to insist up on that being the case, or that he had let her do it. Whatever the case, both he and the house were tailored specifically to her eerily selfish taste, both were as far from seeming like a cohesive whole as one could imagine, both were teeming with potential and equally as completely unable to attempt change without someone else coming in to do the hard work. I can't even describe how frustrating that was to me.

Still, if I had gotten married when I wanted to, which was right out of high school, or even say... ten years ago, I would have innitially suffered the same fate. Maybe not entirely, but I would have stuck myself in a situation where my significant other may have gotten quite used to my bending to their every whim, tailoring myself to them like a living suit of support and love and service. I was well on my way with the man I was supposed to have been married to by now. Without my determination to grow and get better and change, I might well be splotched with emotional paint effects that made no sense, and caused people to gasp and recoil at the lost potential. I wouldn't relive a lot of what got me to this place, but I had to experience it all to get where I am and there is a depth of value to that I cannot fathom.

So don't doubt that The Universe sends us messages all the time. As with the three ghosts in Dickens's A Christmas Carol, I have been shown visions of my past, my present and my would be future. I too have woken from my slumber shouting, "There's still time! I can make it right!" One thing is for certain... anyone who comes at me with their can of Rancid Baby Caca paint, is in for a big suprise.

On Red and Regret (a concordance with “Danger Amy”)

2008-01-05T13:03:00.000-08:00

Having left my apartment of nearly seven-ish years, I look back and think about how much fun I could have had decorating the place and didn’t start until about a year ago. Now I find myself in a place where I am expected to have to vacate in about two years and wondering if I should go through the trouble of decking my walls with luscious ruby red paint only to have to change it back in such a short time. The answer is resoundingly YES! Here’s why.

Once upon a time I was a blank canvas. I was gessoed up and ready for bright splashes of vibrant colors and sweeping textures of all kinds. Instead of deciding what I wanted on that canvas, I allowed other would-be artists to dictate the artwork known as Gina (Gina, being a name that I not only hated on myself but never felt connected to, and therefore allowed a dear friend to rename me when I was 23 and had undergone the first wave of positive change in my life… Sunny will be legal this year).

As the years went on, the people around me kept editing my canvas. Some contributors insisted that what they saw never changed no matter how many edits had been made. Some continued to add and subtract elements they didn’t like in hopes of forming the ideal masterpiece. Others would stand back, in awe, and watch the constantly evolving work; sometimes feeling fearful of what it was becoming and occasionally envying the fact that it wasn’t tied to staying forever the same. For a while, I didn’t mind it so much because I didn’t believe I really knew who I was anyway. It was so much easier to let others create me because it was their acceptance, their approval I desired most and I believed that if I let them mold me into what they wanted I would have what I desired. I was wrong. I was very, very wrong.

The same thing applied to my home (an extension of myself). I was afraid to pick out furniture, paint the walls, decorate in any strong fashion because I didn’t want to alienate a man who might want to have a relationship with me. Having grown up with people who believed largely as I did, or had suggested that I believe as they do out of some misguided idea of helping me find a mate, it had never occurred to me to really sit down and question that perception. Even when my ex-intended moved in with me, I was ready to let him lay a heavy hand on the decisions of how our home would look (which was asinine considering the most decorative item he owned was a figurine of Marilyn Monroe that he salvaged from a man's house who had committed suicide). All the while, somewhere underneath, I was thinking things like, “I want an Enchanted Tiki Room dining area!” or “I have always wanted a brothel / bordello bedroom” knowing full well that he would never agree to it. After I asked him to leave, I lost all interest in romance or decorating for a couple of tumultuous, busy, gut twisting years. Then a series of events took place that changed everything. And I mean… EVERYTHING.

During the gut twisting years, I met a man who once worked in special effects for film who had decorated his home in a way much like a Disney Imagineer would have. So much so, that many of the pieces were ones he had recreated in his garage workshop and he shared this home with his love (at the time). When I was getting a particularly healthy refund from the IRS, he took me to where he had gotten a good deal on his furniture (which was unique and yet still comfortable and homely). After sifting through no less than fifteen fabric books, I came upon a fabric that had a Moroccan look. My idea had been that I wanted a “Midnight at the Oasis” living room and it fit what was in my head perfectly. The main color is a deep, rich, dark red. When the furniture arrived, I remember my heart racing like crazy. I was so excited I couldn't sleep for days. I'd had no idea how good making that decision would feel.

At the same time, my then boss was unloading a lot of lovely fabrics, much of which were silk shantung that matches my furniture perfectly. It was as though I was being given a sign.
Not long after, I attended my first Bats Day at Disneyland. For those of you who do not know what Bats Day is, it’s sort of a gathering for all kinds of alternative types that the “normal” folks would call FREAKS. It was also the most comfortable and happy I’ve been at Disneyland in a long, long time. For once I was looking around and seeing people I understood and felt comfortable being around. More importantly, I was seeing them and their significant others and their families. That day, I finally began to realize that it didn’t matter what I looked like, how I dressed, what kind of furniture I had or art I chose. Anyone who truly loves me would either like the same things, or at least love me enough to live with it. When I finally disconnected from the hyper-judgemental, never accepting people in my life, it was the clearest that concept had ever been. Suddenly, I felt free to do whatever felt right, be whomever I choose, and live as I wish to live. Moreover, I finally let it sink in that to prohibit myself from doing something fun or fulfilling or creating an atmosphere where I feel comfortable and relaxed in order to appease the tastes of someone for the sake of their acceptance is just stupid and silly.

I have many regrets that I have let go of, some that come to me in dreams when I cannot stop them from haunting me, but more often than not I don’t allow them to run my life. But the single most burning regret I have, is that it took me this long to figure out how to live my life. To me, the best way to celebrate is with boldness, the richness, the power and sensuality that I believe is in me… and is represented by the color Red.

Death of a Supposed Smack-talker.

2007-12-17T06:13:00.000-08:00

Early this morning, I awoke to realize that I had not yet washed the dishes in the sink, and got up to make sure they were clean before my roommate arose at her usual 5 am. Like all things I intend to do, my chore was put off by swinging by my laptop to see if there was anything going on of interest. Strangely enough, there was.

Normally, I’m not in a big hurry to read blogs. But for some reason, when I got a notification in my Facebook that Kevin Smith* had updated his blog, I headed over to take a look. The post was about the suicide of a young girl named Megan Meier, an overweight, depressed teenager who once lived in St. Louis. I say “once lived” because events that took place between she and an imaginary boy named Josh Evans over MySpace became the impetus for Megan to hang herself by a belt in her bedroom closet. The worst part (as if that isn’t bad enough)… Josh never existed. He was the creation of the 48 year-old mother of a neighborhood friend who had been fishing for whether or not Megan was talking shit about her daughter.

I’ll get to my perspective on the tragedy of what happened to Megan at the hands of her so-called friend’s harpy mother in just a minute. But first, my thoughts about how I came upon this story.

What struck me about Smith’s post, aside from the disturbing content, was that it was an unusual experience for me to hear/read a man’s genuine perspective on something like this. That is not to say that men don’t have opinions on such matters; it’s just that more often than not when they do speak their mind about something this distressing it is rarely with any passion and usually said in a way that says, “I want to show you that I think this is awful and it bothers me, but I am not comfortable discussing such things so I am not going to leave my statement open-ended. Please call your female friends for further dialogue.” I have known some fairly sensitive males in my day that still wouldn’t want to talk about some 13 year old girl’s life with that way. Still, Kevin is, after all, a father and a writer so is more likely to discuss than others might be; but that doesn't mean he doesn't deserve some respect for having spoken his piece about something like this. Bravo Kevin.

Another thing that struck me is that Smith had a somewhat similar story to share, about how an ex-girlfriend's mother's involvement in their relationship became the motivation to basically harass him after the breakup. In her fight to regain him for her daughter (so it seems), this woman’s last ditch attempt to wear him down was to hand Kevin a note essentially ssuggesting that at the ripe, old age at 18 he admit that he would be a failure as a writer. Luckily in Kevin’s case, it didn't become his undoing and he used her words as further motivation to succeed (or at the very least saved her note as a reminder of how she was wrong). I can't speak for all of his fans, but I - for one - am really glad she didn't succeed in her ploy. I’d love to say I’d never heard something like that before, but I would be lying.

So now I find myself wondering what is burning most on my mind? Is it the question of the responsibility of adults when it comes to how they communicate with kids or even one another, particularly on the internet? I’ve had more adults misrepresent themselves to me online than I can count! Is it the overzealousness of a nearly fifty year-old woman and her sociopathic route to protecting her child (because I think we all know that when someone goes to that kind of sick length, it is more about their own pathos than that of their child)? Or is it the dangers of trying to find love on the internet, the perils of being an overweight teenage girl or my rant on how easily people – especially children - are “diagnosed” with depression these days and how I feel that to tell someone in that state that they are clinically so is basically condemning them to a life of excusing sullenness on their “condition”?

I’ll start here…

There are a million and one misconceptions I have uncovered in my life and there are bound to be at least that many more that I haven’t yet stumbled upon. One thing I know in the most intimate way is that just because a person is older, married, has children, a great job, a house or what-have-you, doesn’t mean they are a reasonable, rational human being. Sure, once upon a time the word “adult” denoted trustworthiness, wisdom, authority, responsibility. “If you are in trouble, find the nearest adult” was once a reasonable suggestion for a child who might become frightened. That is not to say it was always true and based on reason, but it was what a lot of people in my generation were raised to believe; that most adults were protective, wise and caring and the only ones to be scared of were the ones who wanted to get you into their car and give you candy. My mother was a perfect example of how wrong that assumption can be. Nobody on Earth has filled me with more lies, more misguided notions of the world and it’s workings than she did and it wasn’t out of some cruel design. She was mentally damaged, selfish and ignorant (among other things) and a like a lot of “adults” she believed that because she had all the trappings of authority, that she must be right. Then I was reminded of how many adults I had known in my childhood who had a profoundly negative influence on my life and it is clear that she wasn’t alone. (side note: I can remember watching a film in my grade school cafeteria/auditorium about how some man might want to lure me into his car with candy and how I was supposed to run away, and distinctly recall wondering if my mother had put the school up to it because she had me on diets from the time I was four).

I’m not going to sit here and tell you that a 48 year-old has no way of knowing what kind of damage she can do to a 13 year-old girl’s psyche. But I am going to tell you that to expect her to know the correct way to approach a child about her concerns for her daughter are dangerously flawed. To believe that is to assume that she has no ulterior motive, no deep-seated mental illness that this incident brought forth, and more importantly, that she is a mature enough, deep enough, well-rounded enough human being to have the tools to deal with something like this on the higher ground. How many people do you know that can do that? How many of them are someone you would trust to speak to your child about anything of importance (whether you have a child or not)? My God, adults have a hard enough time getting along with one another! I still have an adult out there who attempts to wage wars with me and slander me over the internet that I have not so much as sassed in over fifteen years. So how do we expect people, just because they are older, to know how to deal?

The thing is, this woman is not blameless because she is not a well developed, well-rounded human. She is responsible for the death of the girl. And I’ll tell you why…

She conversed with this Megan, a 13 year old, overweight girl looking for love. Megan was lovely, too; gorgeous eyes, sweet smile (braces or not). But of course, that wasn’t enough for some reason (be it social alienation, her mother, the media or whatever oppressive influence made her feel like she was not good enough). And this woman, this busybody mother, emailed back and forth with such a girl in MySpace. So she had to have had intimate details of how lonely, alienated, sad and desperate for romantic acceptance Megan must have been through that correspondence. There could be no doubt in her mind that she was going to devastate the girl when she turned on her, started calling her names and ultimately crushed her dreams of romance. Who doesn’t remember how much the loss of potential romantic connection makes you wish you were dead when you’re 13? Even so, she continued to torture this girl’s heart and soul. If that doesn’t imply sickness, honey I don’t know what does. She is guilty of torture, no matter what excuse she conjures in her defense. But murder? I can’t say.

See, I was tortured myself when I was younger. I was overweight, and not nearly as lovely (I was being informed regularly by my mother that I was a troll because I wasn’t skinny and popular, so much so that I believed it until I was well into my late 20s, and it showed on the outside). Boys played with my heart for fun, adults made hideous, hurtful comments and not one of them gave another thought as to the damage they might inflict. While I often wished for death, I was too strong or too scared to do it myself. I would find a reason to go on living. Even if it was something as trivial as knowing that I would get to go to Disneyland in two years, or foolishly believed my mother’s empty promises of braces for my teeth or a new bike. I refused to give up that easily. I refused to die. And so to that end, I imagine that Megan must have been far less driven than I was at her age to see how being a grown-up would be. She did, after all, choose how to resolve her pain. She chose death on her own.

Not everyone can suffer through the kind of agony she must have been feeling. I’m still shocked and pleasantly surprised that I did. And when I was well into my thirties a forty year-old friend said to me, “I’ve not heard half of the things that happened to you when you were a kid and I know that if I had been in your shoes, I wouldn’t have made it.” I was shocked and bewildered by that statement from a strong, independent woman. That was the first time I knew that not everyone had the same reserve of determination to go on. Now, I don’t expect it so easily in others. But I don’t know that many people who put enough thought into… well… anything, to know the effect they will have on another’s life and certainly not when it comes to their agenda. So I don’t believe for a moment that the over-zealous mother had any intention to see Megan die over her imagined smack-talking. If she wanted the girl dead, she would have killed her.

I feel for Megan’s parents. They must wonder if there is anything more they could have done, if they could have somehow foiled their neighbor’s plan or proved that Josh Evans was a hoax and saved their beautiful little girl. To my mind, there isn’t a whole lot they could have done. The mother seemed to have her eye on things and it still went out of control. But does the father wonder what he might have done? Maybe if fathers were more involved in their daughters’, they would be able to spare them the endless wondering of why boys do what they do. Maybe Megan’s father would have known that his daughter wasn’t actually talking to a boy at all. Who knows? But you have to admit… it wouldn’t have hurt. It’s nice to see at least one dad is paying attention.

*If you don’t know who Kevin Smith is, you have clearly been living in a cave and have never seen or heard of such cult classics as Clerks, Chasing Amy and Dogma. If you have, indeed, been cave dwelling for the past 15 or so years, go here to see out what he’s all about.

It is the Season

2007-11-26T11:32:00.000-08:00

So it's been a while. Since May, from what I can tell. And luckily I lost all my previous posts when trying to do a little blog tidying so it's basically back to ground zero. Let's start with what's on my mind today, shall we?

My title implies that perhaps it is the holidays burning in my noggin today, but nothing could be further from the truth. That which is taking up my thoughts of late is that my friends and I have reached that time of our lives when we are due for a shake up (or a shake down as Danny Elfman might suggest). All I know is, outrageous things are going to happen to us and there is no stopping that freight train no matter how we react.

Death is right at the top of the change list. I don't know if I'm a cold-hearted guttersnipe or have simply managed to rationalize death, but I feel prepared for the fact that both of my parents are at death's door. Certainly, I hadn't expected to be so detached from that process, but that is where I am. My family has never, ever been good at pulling together for anything. To have believed that death would have done so was, in retrospect, an entirely foolish outlook. Sadly, I am learning my family is not alone in this behavior.

Several of my friends have lost loved ones over the last year. Really, it's alarming when I think about it. It got to a point where every time I answered my phone, it was to receive news of a mother or father or in-laws or siblings that had died. Being the empath that I am, that started to take a huge toll on my heart. I love my friends so much. Knowing they are in pain causes me pain. That's how I roll. And I couldn't keep going that way, so I started to look at what was happening from another perspective.

Cold as this may sound (and I know it will), we are at that point in our lives when parents are starting to depart our lives. We are all, now, at a place where many of our career choices no longer fit who we are, or have changed so drastically in the scope of our chosen fields, that we find ourselves careening into the land of the obsolete. Many of us believed with all our imaginations that we would be living in a house we own, all married, all raising children, all firmly ensconced in a job from which (if we played our cards right) we would retire. But for many of us those paths haven't quite presented themselves. Some have a couple of those trappings of adulthood, some seem to be nowhere near. Some are happy with how things have turned out, some are not. Still, no matter how you slice it, many of us thirty and fortysomethings are being faced with a landslide of changes seemingly none of us were prepared for.

The job market, I think, has been even harder for most of us to face. I think of my best friend who has been at the same company for more of the span of our 22 year friendship than she hasn't and am astounded at her ability to roll with whatever adjustments have needed to be made in order to enjoy such longevity. While she tends to bemoan her princess-of-nice facade, and the requisite expectations of singular dimensionality, I suspect that niceness has bought her a free pass to not having to be out there figuring out what the hell to do next. That and, perhaps, a less than exaggerated sense of adventure, but who could really blame her? Security has it's benefits.

Many of my friends, these days, have Entertainment Industry related jobs or careers (and there is a BIG difference between the two). For those of us who had "jobs" we find ourselves finally relenting to being too old to be considered maliable and cheap by those in the hiring position. For those of us with "careers" we are faced with the ever mutating and dwindling options the industry has to offer these days. Try as we might to roll with those changes, there is a constant wave of fresh, eager kids who can and will take less money, no benefits, and have no problem being treated with practically no respect in order to get their foot in the door. Those of us who have been there, are less apt to take half-witted orders from kids ten years younger and do so with anything that passes for a genuine smile on our face. We know what we're doing and we know how to do it well and that makes us a liability, it makes us expensive and it makes us less marketable. If you're not in a position of power in this industry, or on the inside with someone who is, being a thirtysomething still at the bottom means you are most likely done. For those who are still going, still trying and still succeeding, you have my most fervent respect. For myself, I cannot rely on the willynilly industry any more. Time to start taking some action.

Home. That one bites a few of us hard. Practically every person I am close to rents. And they probably will for a good long time, if not forever. The idea of my somehow amassing 500K to move into a tiny condo with no lawn, no patio, no separation between me and my neighbor whatsoever, is mind-boggling. I have been envious of those who have been lucky enough to live in a house for any length of time (rented or not). For my part, I have finally given in to the expense of living alone and will be moving in with a friend to share a condo. The ceilings are so low I can literally reach up and touch them. My room is so tiny that I don't think I could fit a queen bed and a dresser even if i had both those things. My bathroom is big enough, but once my cat's litterbox and food is in there, it won't be. But I will be saving $500 a month, I will finally have a parking space, I will finally have a dishwasher and laundry in the unit. That is as close to being in more of a "home" arrangement than I've had in about 12 years. Still I'm so resistant to losing my privacy and autonomy, right now, that I should be packing instead of writing.

I guess my point is to say this... life may not have turned out to be what we thought it would, despite our best efforts to get what we wanted. But one thing is for certain, we are at the time of our lives when all of these changes, disappointments, questions, upheavals and even deaths are supposed to happen. We are right on course. And hopefully, once we pass this phase, we will find ourselves in a place where, at long last, we can rest for a change. We can stop struggling, have what we have and enjoy it. I'm working on that. How about you?

Oops!!!

2007-05-15T16:47:00.000-07:00

I accidentally deleted my blog! I meant to delete my weight loss blog (for the sole reason that it was not doing what I had intended and therefore... decided to stop flogging the dead horse!).

Nonnoonoooo I haven't decided to give up losing weight, silly. Please. I like being able to walk!

So this will blog will go back to my epic articles. And other blogs will follow. Stay tuned.