One Big Happy Family

I haven't written here forever -- almost a year. I have a list of things to write about, scribbled on a post-it and stuck on a little cardboard "Fairfield Federal Savings and Loan" desk calendar that Onion's mom insists we take home with us every holiday season. But this writing thing takes time - at least for me. I'm not very quick, and by the time I sit down to write about one topic, 3 or 4 more have cropped up in my head. So, what possessed me to get back on this old blog and spend a few minutes bending your cyber-ears?

The Chick-Fil-A Incident. The Aurora shooting. The Sikh Temple shooting. Yeah, I know...you're probably tired of hearing about all of it. Tired of the debates & discussions that go nowhere. The Olympics are on, for God's sake! Can't we just rally together and watch our athletes kick some international ass and forget about the chicken and guns already?

 I can't. Actually, I literally can't, because for some strange reason DirectTV does not get local channels where we live (and "rabbit ears" antenna doesn't work -- we tried). Ofcourse, I read about what's going on online, and Onion keeps me informed (he's currently at his mom's -- he said he went to check in on her -- she's 88 and lives alone -- but I think he went because he knew he could watch the Olympics there), but I'm finding I just can't get too excited about the Olympics this time around. I know the athletes are amazing and inspiring (though somehow, sitting on the couch watching them perform amazing feats of strength, flexibility and power only makes me feel more like a slug than I usually do). I know it's good for us as a country to "come together" to cheer on our "team", but somehow it all just feels like a diversion to me. Like a desperate family vacation where we all drive off in a station wagon, determined to have fun and be a happy family, when in fact mom & dad are on the verge of divorce over dad's indiscretion with the babysitter, and Jr.'s bookmarking neo-nazi websites on his computer.

 A lot of people seem to be holding on to their guns and bibles with sweaty, fearful fists.

We can't have any kind of real discussion about guns because it automatically turns into cries of "an armed populace is the only protection against tyranny!" You can almost hear the furtive whispers around the sturdy wooden table by the hearth, where the men drink mead from steins and and stockpile weaponry,ready to grab their tri-corn hats and their muskets at a moments notice and ride into the night, crying "Freedom from tyranny!". Some people seem to live in hope of another revolutionary war, or civil war -- to die fighting for freedom! and liberty! (of course, these folks could also enlist right now, and possibly have that great honor). World War II was probably the last war that we really HAD to fight, and God knows the men and women who did performed a great and honorable service for our country and for the world. I also admire and respect any person who has fought in any of our subsequent wars, as unnecessary or as suspect as these wars may have been/might be -- I am not about to disrespect some young man or woman who wants to perform a service for their country and believes the military is the best way to do so. But as long as we as a culture continue to glorify war (and violence in general) -- as long as we insist that "might equals right" and we are indeed the Mightiest -- we're going to continue to have gun violence. Angry and alienated white guys (who are responsible for the vast majority of mass shootings) are going to continue to grab their guns and fight against their own brand of "tyranny" with a blaze of bullets.

We can't have any kind of real discussion about marriage equality because it turns into cries of "you're trampling on my religious freedom!". I was "eavesdropping" today on a facebook conversation between a friend of mine (very liberal) and one of his friends (seemingly not so liberal. Note: sometimes the newsfeed thing on facebook makes me feel a little like Harriet the Spy). The not-so-liberal friend of a friend seemed like a very nice young woman who was respectfully and earnestly trying to explain that she didn't hate homosexuals, but she follows the bible and the bible clearly says that homosexuality is an abomination. She also actually said that she didn't want to live in a secular democracy -- she wanted to live in a democracy as the "founding fathers intended" (which seemed to mean to her a democracy guided by the Christian bible). So essentially, she wants to live in a theocracy -- (but a Christian theocracy, not one of those evil Islamic theocracies). And because she -- and all of those like her -- insist on cherry-picking passages from an old, silly book (because yes, there are some lovely passages in the bible -- some truly inspirational ones -- but there's also a lot of silliness. It was written by men. Sometimes I think some parts could have been written by Monty Python) and demanding that we ALL respect certain particularly silly parts of this sometimes-inspirational book, gay folks cannot legally marry. Christians -- who are the majority -- are crying about THEIR rights? Oh please, cry me a river.

 I generally don't refer to those who are against marriage equality as "haters" -- I really don't think they "hate" homosexuals. At least, most of them don't. I think they're probably mostly very nice people who live very narrowly defined lives -- often defined by their churches and the bible and what the like-minded people around them expect them to do and be. They strive to be "normal", not really knowing what that means, and anything that falls outside of their very narrow frame of reference scares the shit out of them. They don't "get it", and that makes many of them feel angry and stupid and then really angry. And then scared that the world is changing, and they don't like it. We all get scared about stuff -- that's human. But two people of the same sex loving each other and wanting to spend their lives together? I just don't get what's so scary about that.

Frankly, marriage equality shouldn't even be a discussion -- it should just be a right. There is no valid "other side". No one is suggesting that churches must marry gay couples -- churches can go on preaching that it's a sin until the end of time if they want. No one is suggesting that Christians must personally support homosexuality (new law: all Christians must attend at least one gay wedding per year). But Christians should NOT have the right to block two consenting adults from LEGALLY marrying simply because it goes against THEIR religious beliefs. Marriage is not just a spiritual contract (and indeed, it doesn't have to be a spiritual contract to be valid) -- it is a legal contract as well. It is a legal contract primarily. It need not involve a church, or religion, at all.

 So we have one group of decent human beings who are scared, and holding on to their bibles and guns for security. And another bunch of us decent human beings who are trying to "talk these folks down", and not having a whole lotta luck. And in the meantime, we have some American Olympians kicking some ass, and Curiosity landing on Mars, and plenty of other stuff to occupy our hearts and minds. Which is great. But one of these days, the vacation is going to end, and we're going to have struggle our way through our differences. Through our fear.

 I just hope it's not during the Winter Olympics. I hope by that point to be getting local channels, and I love watching the figure skaters.

W-O-M-A-N

Whenever I read books or articles pertaining to women, there's always one big assumption -- that you're a mom. And immediately, even though the article is supposedly about women in general, I feel relegated to some inferior sub-group of "not really completely a woman" women. I have all of the parts that make me female, so I can't be a man (well, I could -- Chaz Bono did it. But that takes lots of money and surgeries and hormones, and I don't really want to have a penis or take dumps with the bathroom door open). And yet, since I haven't had the experience of pregnancy, childbirth, breast-feeding, motherhood -- the whole "most fulfilling experience of my life" shebang -- I'm not really a woman. Perhaps I'm a clever impostor? Perhaps I'm just pretending so I can have an excuse to cry at movies and wear pink clogs and talk about my "monthlies".

If I'm reading books about middle-aged women (which I am, so I am) -- which are usually written by women -- there's a tendency for the author to make statements such as "Having spent the first half of your life tending to the needs of others -- children, husband, family -- it's now time to tend to your own needs". I feel like a selfish bitch. Was that what I was supposed to be doing these past 25 years or so? Oops.

I will never know what it's like to be a mother, or a grandmother. I think I'm o.k with that, as long as I make the next half of my life pretty fucking cool.

I'm in Lima, OH.

I'm off to a good start.

Here We Are

We're all still here. The judgment day has come and gone, and all of us sinners and all of the "true believers" are still kicking up the same old dirt, sharing the same old planet.

All of the people who drive down your street in their cars with the bass turned up so high on their stereos that the buddahs you bought at World Market shake, rattle and roll on your IKEA shelves -- they're still here.

The people who seem to feel the need to talk very loudly about personal matters while in public places -- "There's something wrong with my right nipple. Yeah, I'm seeing a doctor about it next Tuesday" -- they're still here.

The women who bring their kids into gift shops and sip their Starbuck's skinny lattes and talk about their Pilates classes while their kids play hide & seek amongst the shelves of blown glass -- they're still here.

And I'm right here with them. I did not get pulled up into heaven -- a place where, according to David Byrne, "nothing ever happens", but in my mind, a place not unlike Yellow Springs, Ohio, or Asheville, NC, or maybe even parts of West Virginia (John Denver might agree) -- a place where little independent coffee shops and bookstores, artists' studios and street art and art-house movie theaters abound -- and I have the money and the time to spend at all of them. Heaven is eating baklava every day and never getting fat. Heaven is the total absence of cellulite. Heaven is a great big dance party with people who respect each other's personal space. (Yes, I am white, and a liberal, but my heaven is also a multi-cultural, diverse heaven where one can get authentic Thai, Vietnamese, Indian, Mexican and soul food at any time).

No one got pulled up into heaven -- we're not getting off that easy.

Living in the crime capital of the U.S can be pretty distressing, particularly if you read the paper or watch the news (I try to do neither, but sometimes curiosity gets the best of me). Every day here, someone is murdered. Every day. Most days, there seem to be multiple murders. Many of these murders seem to be related to drug deals gone bad (I wonder how many drug deals would be described as "going exceedingly well"?). But some of them are just cruel and senseless -- heartless people who must be dead inside, preying on the elderly and the vulnerable.

The poverty-stricken, drug-addled crackheads who kill on a whim, the robber-barons of Wall Street who laugh (at us, poor saps) all the way to the bank, and all of the rest of us just trying to lead good lives -- we're all here together, whether we like it or not. We can move to other parts of the city, to the 'burbs, to other states, to other countries, to try to get away from the bad guys. But "bad guys" are everywhere, and sometimes bad guys are just good people who do bad things. We can hope that the heavens will open up and all of the good folks will be taken up, and all of the bad ones will be left to sizzle and suffer here in the hell the earth will become (what happens to the animals, though? Do they all get taken up, too, or are they just left to become bar-b-que for the sinners?). But that's not gonna happen (unless God is actually Steven Spielberg, and large space-ships appear with gentle aliens who usher kind, cuddly-looking humans into the stratosphere).

We're here, I think, to try to figure out how to make this all work -- this life, this place called Earth. There's no deus ex machina that's going to solve all of our problems, or divide us into the good and the bad. There's just us. And while I have no idea what the answer is to our problems, I'm pretty sure it doesn't involve guns or weapons, or people floating up into the sky.

The answer might, though, somehow involve a dance party.

Random Thoughts for a Snowy Day

I love snow days. I think snow is nature's way of telling us to just chill -- to relax, slow down, take note. But we don't listen very well. We insist on doing things "our way", trying to bend nature -- and everything else -- to our will. Sometimes this determination to conquer the physical world works to our advantage -- we create civilizations. We create buildings with heating and air conditioning systems. We create Snuggies (or Slankets, depending on your preference), microwaveable popcorn, instant hot chocolate and NetFlix to help us pass our snowbound evenings in a cocoon of synthetic lethargy.

Sometimes our determination to conquer the physical world works to our disadvantage -- although right now I'm too lethargic to really think of why it's a disadvantage to be warm and cozy and full of instant hot chocolate.

Wait! I just thought of why -- because when one is warm and cozy and full of instant hot chocolate, one is not apt to be at "the top of one's game". One is more apt to gain a few pounds, take a few too many naps, and wear the same clothes for days on end without showering. Which sounds a bit like depression. Or winter.

Speaking of depression, I've actually been in pretty good spirits lately, in spite of very precarious finances and recently watching the movie The Road (based on the book by Cormac McCarthy), which is one of the bleakest movies I've ever seen. It really is a well-crafted film -- the acting is superb. Watching it made me certain of one thing -- I have no desire to live through an apocalypse of any kind. Now, I don't believe this is a "spoiler", because it's brought up quite early in the film, but essentially in McCarthy's post-apocalyptic world, many people resort to cannibalism to stay alive. Onion and I have often joked that, if I was an animal, I would be prey. I do not have the "hunter" instinct (except, perhaps, when it comes to finding a bargain, or something cool in a dumpster or alley -- which I suppose could prove to be a beneficial skill when surviving an apocalypse). I have no doubt that in such a world as depicted in The Road, I would be at least a few days' meals for a pack of hungry of cannibals.

Since it's been a few months since I last posted, I feel the need to end on something more positive than the thought of being made into a stew.

So, here, watch this trailer from The Fantastic Mr. Fox -- I watched this movie (for probably the fourth or fifth time) immediately after watching The Road. It makes me immensely happy, and glad to be living in a world where I can snuggle up with my instant hot chocolate and microwaveable popcorn and watch Wes Anderson films.

Everyday People

I am fascinated by people. I love them -- I love us. I love shared moments with strangers. Not THAT kind. Not the being-felt-up-on-public-transportation kind, or the quicky-in-the-unisex-bathroom-kind (not that I would know anything about that), but more like what happened today in Target. Somewhere, a child I couldn't see was singing very loudly her own song -- the only lyrics seemed to be "I love the holiday season", which she just kept singing, making up her own melody as she went along, carefree as can be. I happened to glance up and made eye-contact with two women shopping an aisle from me -- we smiled at each other and began to laugh. It was a nice moment -- for just a minute or so, we got out of our own heads and thoughts and acknowledged something sweet and joyful happening in our midst.

I'm taking a Biology class on Saturday mornings from 9am - 2pm in preparation for a possible career change that may or not be coming down the pike depending on a bunch of variables. The class is a great mix of younger students and women my age. The class is taught by a young woman from Ireland, one of the students in the class is from England, one is from Bosnia, and one is from Nigeria (that's just the international students I know of). I've had an opportunity to chat with a number of the students -- particularly the ones around my age, and I love hearing their stories. Jackie worked on the assembly line at the Chrysler plant until they closed. She's my lab partner, and on the first day of class, she said she was scared she wouldn't be able to do this -- that it would be too hard and she just wasn't smart enough. But she stuck it out, and half-way through the semester, she's doing great. Beth is my age, and thinking of going into the same program as I am (Occupational Therapy Assistant). She came to class a few weeks ago, just two days after losing her mother to complications from diabetes, because she didn't want to miss class. Svetlana is from Bosnia, where most of her family still lives. She lives with her mother and young daughter, having lost her husband two years ago to pancreatic cancer. She told me that although she knows life would be easier for her if she moved back to Bosnia, she wants to stay in the States so that her daughter will have more opportunities.

Last night, I had the privilege of working an Indian wedding reception (one of my multiple jobs right now is working for a catering company). I say that it was a privilege because I look upon any opportunity to be a part of a different culture's traditions -- even if only in a very peripheral way -- to be a privilege. The place was full of women in beautiful, elaborate dresses and saris, and men in suits. The women seemed to mostly cluster together on one side of the room, and the men on the other. Some of the them must have been Muslim, because a group of women went up to the mezzanine level, out of the way of the drinks and hors d'oeuvre, took off their shoes, placed a tablecloth on the floor and began to pray. Soon after they finished, a large group of men came to the same place, and went through the same ritual. One man missed the prayers, and later went up to pray alone -- he asked me if I remembered which way the men faced when they prayed? I remembered, and showed him. Later, after dinner, a band of traditional musicians came to the stage and played and sang for a few hours. They wore bright tunics, and sat on the stage floor, on cushions. The music and singing was amazing. There was no dancing -- the guests pulled their chairs closer to the stage and listened and sometimes clapped along and shouted out approval (at least, that's what it sounded like to me).

If you know me (and if you're reading this blog, you do), you probably also know that I post a lot of political stuff on facebook. You know my politics (whether you want to or not). You know that I'm a liberal Democrat and I don't have a lot of love for the Republican party. But maybe what I don't say enough is that, when it comes to day to day interactions with people, politics doesn't much come into play. The strangers at Target that I shared a moment with, the women in my Biology class, the Indian/Muslim/Hindu guests at the reception -- I don't know their politics, and I don't care. They're all people -- flawed, hopeful, beautiful, sad, joyful, full of good intentions, sometimes kind and compassionate, sometimes angry and fearful. They're all trying to make their way in this world, just like me. Just like you. Might as well relax and be friendly.

Why Won't Ben Vereen Get Out of My Head?

I haven't been writing much these days. My brain feels full. After a little more than a year of being back in my hometown, I still don't really feel at home. It is interesting to me how relatively easy it was for me to move, over and over again, to new places where I knew few, if any people, and how I much I enjoyed "forging" a life in new environments. Ofcourse, I was mostly moving for theatre -- either to go to school, or to work, and so I was meeting like-minded people. There were classes and meetings and rehearsals and productions, all of which occupied our hearts and our minds almost 24/7. It felt at times as if we were all on a great quest. We knew that making a life in the theatre/arts was foolish by most peoples' standards, but most of us felt that we had little choice -- theatre was "in our blood".

And then my dad died, and it was if a "switch" was turned off in me -- everything stopped. Or I should say, I stopped -- and everything else around me kept moving, often at what seemed to be break-neck speed. I had stepped off the proverbial merry-go-round. I haven't really been able to get back on since.

And so here I am. No costumes, no sets, no scripts, no characters to hide behind, and I feel like I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. It's a big, fat cliche', I know, but I've always really felt more "myself" on the stage, in the rehearsal room, or even in front of the classroom, than I ever have in "real" life.

I first saw "Pippin" when I was 16 or 17, I think. It came through town and played for two weeks ( Robbie from the TV show "My Three Sons" played Pippin - he was really good!) --I saw it three times during those two weeks. "Pippin" was to me what "Rent" was for the young people of the 90's, or what "Spring Awakening" has been for many young people today -- it spoke to my restless, yearning young self who wanted least of all to live an "ordinary" life.

I'm a tad embarrassed to admit it, but it still speaks to me today.

Eat, Kvetch, Drive

Elizabeth Gilbert wrote a lovely book called Eat, Pray, Love, which has been turned into what I'm sure is a lovely movie starring the lovely actress Julia Roberts. I read the book about a year and a half ago, and it was... lovely. By now, you're probably familiar with the story -- the author tells us how, after a difficult divorce and a confusing relationship with a passionate, younger lover, she decides to "find herself", and takes off for Italy (to enjoy life/food), India (to pray/meditate) and Indonesia to ... well, I don't remember what she went to Indonesia for, but she finds love. Real, true love.

That's nice.

Actually, I did enjoy the book quite a bit -- particularly the "eat" and "pray" parts. Gilbert's a very friendly writer -- conversational and funny. And I was drawn to the book because I also have my three "I" countries I long to visit, two of them being, in fact, Italy and India. I also really want to go to Ireland. Not quite as exotic as Indonesia, I know, but man, can the Irish tell a great tale and play some pipes and whistles!

I think what Ms. Gilbert's successful book might've done is opened the flood gates for all kinds of memoirs of "self discovery". I want to be the first on the bandwagon! My book would be called Eat, Kvetch, Drive. Here's the blurb: After losing her father and her full-time job, our author decides to move back to her sprawling, mid-western hometown with her domestic partner and cat. Hilarity ensues as she attempts to find work, deal with her ailing, problem-ridden mother, and try to figure out what to do with the rest of her life. A joyous romp through middle-age, not to be missed!

I played with a variety of titles -- eat, mope, sleep almost won.

What would you title your past year's "journey of self-discovery"?