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Blog started in Jan 2005: 1st entries for Write in Every Genre. Then the REAL ME begins |
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It Hurts When I Stop Talking Sometime in Fall of 1998, when a visit from Dad was infrequent, and primarily at the mercy of his 88 Toyota making the 50 mile journey, I was being treated to lunch. The restaurant was my choice, I think. Sisley Italian Kitchen at the Town Center mall was somewhere my dad had not yet tried, so that was my pick. Either I was being treated to the luxury of lunch and adult conversation without my husband and 5 year old son in tow, or that's just how the moment has lodged in my memory. The more I think about it, they probably were there, but enjoying the Italian food too much to bother interrupting. Daddy and his lady friend at the time, Anne, came up together and made a day of it with me and the family. We were eating together and talking about some of my scripts, stories, coverages, poems and other creative attempts that really were not seeing the light of day. I think I'd just finished a group reading of The Artist's Way and was in a terribly frenetic mood over my writing. I think I'd just given them an entire rundown on a speculative Star Trek script. My Dad asked me point blank, “Why don’t you write it?? Anne agreed. It sure sounded like I wanted to write it. Why wasn't I writing seriously? It's what I'd set out to do when earning my college degree in Broadcasting many years earlier. Heck, I should, I agreed non-verbally. “I will.” But, I didn’t. Blogs can be wild, unpredictable storehouses of moments, tangents, creative dervishes, if you will. I'm getting a firmer handle on my creative cycle. My mental compost heap (which is a catch phrase from Natalie Goldman or Julia Cameron - I can't think which, right now) finally seems to be allowing a fairly regular seepage of by-products. That may be a gross analogy, but I give myself credit to categorize my work in raw terms. It proves that I'm not so much the procrastinating perfectionist that I once was. Still, I always seem to need prompts and motivation. Being a self-starter is the next step. My attempt to keep up in the Write in Every Genre Contest at the beginning of the year seemed like a perfect point to launch the blog. |
| Again another entry on what media choices are turning me on this season. On Wednesday, I watched the premiere of Pushing Daisies on prime-time television. I was delighted, because I was immediately immersed in a drama about dealing with death that had a storyteller's creative touch. Visually, it was enhanced and fanciful like a Tim Burton film. The character situations bringing to mind Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach (a children's story that can be taken as quite dark). It also reminded me of Big Fish, and also, The Fisher King. I know there's connectivity in all theses mental impressions I had, but don't ask me to draw you a map just now. |
| Bless Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson, but most of all I bless the writer of 'Stranger Than Fiction' It is a perfect foil to my favorite existential book/film, 'What Dreams May Come.' |
| After wrestling with a frustrating and drawn-out conversation with my husband today, the fact that I'm now focused on creative thoughts and general dreaming is the last thing I would have anticipated as the end result. The discussion was only hard since it felt like one I'd had to have many times before. But, come to realize, maybe I never had any of these logical conversations I was recounting, and they took place in my head only. It was a continuation of a "what I want" from my husband talk, but this time it was punctuated with sobs. I've decided straight-out that on days when I go to the Episcopal church for USDA handouts, having deep conversations is likely to bring out buried emotions. Now I recognize that, and I've warned my husband. I let myself be set-up for a condemning attitude on such a day. A day in which there is a notice of overdraft protection kicking in, taking half the money in savings. And, at this realization, I know that the other half will be taken as the fee for providing this service. The sole money that was meant for the upcoming week's fuel, and five full days before the next paycheck will deposit. I go to this food bank before I am even aware that the bank account is drained, as our cupboard is so bare I don't know what will be for dinner. The husband has no plan based on these facts, I do not believe he is even paying attention, on that kind of crisis-level, to note these details. He's also the person in the house without a salary. So, fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, (as in, whether one wanted to deal in that moment with a detached, angry, sobbing female), we communicated and grew a little. Then I was blessed with a sudden invitation to take our daughter to a one-year old's birthday party. That kind of escape and laying back for five hours after the afternoon's emotional turmoil really did me some good. Don't ask what it was that suddenly had me remembering the excitement of attending L.A. Con II twenty-three years earlier. I just was doing a little web-research and got some thread of something that led me to looking up information about Hugo Awards. Now, from all that, I'm considering the great adventure of attending another World Con. (If you are not aware, World Con is an annual convention for members of the World Science Fiction Society, those that decide the Hugo Awards.) The 2008 seems an improbable goal, plus it conflicts with something else I've expressed an interest in attending. The 2009, however, fires my imagination, one because it is named, 'Anticipation,' and two, it is being held in Montreal, Quebec. Maybe my two years of high school French can finally do me some good? |
| It is three o'clock in the morning, PST, and I've been watching the total lunar eclipse visible to those in the Pacific region. The moon will remain in the shadow of the Earth for the approximately the next 75 minutes before reemerging. I just wanted to take the time to comment that the moon looks perfectly natural to me in the state of penumbra. Having the reflective glare removed from sight, that lunar feature which has historically been looked at so romantically, is like a relief to my eyes (maybe I really have been staring at computer screens for too much of my day). |
| I was uplifted today listening to a taped talk by Marianne Williamson. She reminds me to choose mental life, not mental death. Every word and action turned toward life is so much more than a noble stance. It is a reaffirming of the God-given purpose for each of us. And, I wish to set an intention; to do this work in my work also. An uplifting consciousness shows that I am doing my best, not treating work, or the requests that come in serving customers as drudgery. The work at a newspaper, in whatever department, is serving the public good. I believe this. My faith in the core values of my company will not falter. The business will expand and flourish through the employee realization of our doing good for the world. It is not only for myself, but in the hope that my co-workers too can remember that the jobs we all do are comprised of so much more than tasks. I hold all of us in this consciousness to be in the highest level of customer service and care for ourselves. |
| The death of someone familiar. I have experienced mourning today over the sudden passing of veteran broadcast journalist Hal Fishman in Los Angeles today. It was less painful than it could have been, since my "knowing" the KTLA evening news anchor was only very minimally more intimate than the average dedicated Angeleno viewer. Read the article in latimes.com http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-fishman8aug08,0,6792962.story?coll=... and you too may wish you had worked at his side, or been an early student of the man who started out here as a political science professor. It is odd when someone else's life flashes before your eyes and yet, you are all the prouder for having shared a moment of history and the same circles. I'll admit that I contribute to a completely different area of the medium, eventhough employed by the same parent company. I haven't had a chance to check on the company-distributed notice of this co-worker's death. It is one of those moments when the information you may have gathered about a person has never coalesced until it is too late to get to know them better face-to-face. This does not mean that what I have accepted as noble in his life can't live on. I see that he had a purpose-driven life — one that revolved around maintaining an informed electorate. He took his role as a broadcaster seriously. That is the legacy that must survive his passing. Good Night, Hal. |
| Mark it up to my letting the mind wander today. Vacation; and I do not need to get up to go to work in the morning. Full Metal Alchemist is playing on the TV in the background. We saw our daughter off after breakfast at the Duarte IHOP. She's starting a week-long visit with her grandmother. When I rested my eyes for an hour, not long after, it was plenty peaceful. I got an image of my daughter spying on my sleeping body but not speaking a word. When I worked graveyard shift, she may have done that more than I am aware. The article on open adoption mixed in to all this brain fluid picture. I can admit that the financial insecurity I feel by being behind in certain bills and knowing that history has always been sloppy is what makes me identify with the mother who gives up her daughter. I know the struggles of any one income family generally parallels the financial questions for the mother in the open adoption story. There's this kind of questioning that goes on in everyone, right? I want to see the good that each member of my family creates. When one is absent from me, it all feels different. Yet in a spiritual sense, I need to take the time to not see things with my eyes or even my heart and emotions. Some day my children will be on their own and not present so much in my day-to-day activities. If I can work toward the peace that it will take to let the environment that I am used to change, that day may not be so dramatic. I want to practice seeing the good on this earth, especially among those my soul recognizes as family. |
| I only got around to reading the front page article in Sunday's paper today. The article paints a very vivid picture of the experiences of Kendall McArthur, as the article proclaims, "a pioneer" in the idea of open adoption. Of course, Kendall was not the inventor nor even an outspoken proponent of the concept. At the time her mother Patti gave birth, about twenty-three years ago, Kendall was the baby given for adoption. In open adoption, information about the biological parents and even visitation with the child is allowed. For the perceived psychological benefits, this form of adoption is practiced now more widely. Kendall was put up for adoption in order to live a life better than her birth mother could provide. I'm thinking I might have to go find a rack that still has one of Monday's paper's available. The story continues in the 8/6/07 edition I do not have any personal experience in the matter of adoption, but even in the average financial struggle to provide for my family, I feel connected to the issues of this story. |
| Technology gives the overworked (and even procrastinators) a bit of a cheat every once in a while, and today I am taking advantage of that. My blog will be recorded for the day, eventhough it's only a few minutes since I entered my blog for the first. I am taking this opportunity because I have offered to make pizza for dinner after work. I have a new episode of Who Wants to be a Superhero 2 to watch and recap, and I still have a bit of writing to do for my class summary due Friday evening. After hunting around for opportunities to earn a dollar here, a dollar there in connection to my writing contributions and my blog, I know that I can get obsessive. I am filled with an energy. It is certain (not held back by space and time) but to sound like an average Joe, I'll say, pretty soon; and my available moments will expand to fuel the brilliance of how I know I can succeed. |
| My recent fascination with Wikipedia has gotten me into this Wikimedia state of mind; a place where I imagine that I have much to contribute. There is a Wikimedia project which is fully focused on Middle Earth. I just signed up to be a contributor to the on-line directory named Wikimmunity. I am considering becoming part of the K-12 education curriculum-building and sharing group as well. And beyond all that, I am signed in to experience the current year's Wikimania in Taiwan. I am not physically going to the conference of Wikimedians, but I do wonder how I might get to know world-wide contributors as I enter into my week plus of vacation. |
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