The Adventure - Part 2

I actually slept heavily last night, alternating between one dream and the other, not quite sure if I was still home or on a train speeding past small towns in Kansas. What confirmed it was the first spoken thing by the person next to me: "It is hard getting a good night's sleep on a train, isn't it?" I knew he was having trouble sleeping. He fidgeted and changed positions multiple times before I dropped off at 9:30 or so. He was also awake a while before I woke up. "About half an hour ago it was snowing outside."

Now it's an endless vista of snowy fields, playgrounds for horses and birds. Thousands of leafless trees frame the picture, sometimes block the view, but not a single picture or set of words could fully capture the hundred new definitions of "beautiful" that I've seen so far. I sit here and bask in the sun coming through teh observation car, awaiting the metropolis coming in five hours, Chicago.

(12:12pm - Pulling out of the Mendota, Illinois depot with two more stops until the windy city!)

(1:28pm - Chicago Union Station at last and yes, snow everywhere! )

Wednesday, December 19th
2:07pm
The last leg

I am definitely feeling the effects of being on the train for four days. My butt is numb, I'm exhausted and in need of a shower, and I'm really anxious to get home with some real food in me.

The Chicago to DC trip was evenful, after having wandered through the cold, rushed streets of downtown Chicago. I stood in front of the Sears Tower, touched snow piled up against one of the bridges, and I thought everything was going to be easy and peaceful from that moment on. I returned to the station to find familiar faces waiting for the train to DC. I thought, "You get to keep a lot of the same friends? This is so awesome." We were checked in and began our mad dash to the train, dragging heavy carry-on luggage behind us. Excitement was building. I got to the door and I should have asked to sit with Danny, the Chicagoan college student I met in line. Instead, what came out was "Can I have a seat with an outlet?" He said "Yes" and assigned me seat number 35.

[Warning: the description becomes graphic at this point. It may not be suitable for people with weak heart or stomach conditions.]

Instead of an outlet, I had to sit in the shadow of a man and a half, the largest and stinkiest resemblance of a human I had seen on the trip thus far. I noticed him chowing down on a bunch of bread sticks from Pizza Hut in line, but didn't even have a moment of dread that I'd have to sit next to him. He smelled like a fiery hot soup of dead fish and sweaty socks, an unfortunate circumstance of not bathing for days and maybe an infection or seepage somewhere. I have been close to people who smelled like they shit on themselves. This was worse. I stood, staring at the seat number, and then had a gag reflex I had to walk off, my eyes tearing as I approached the back of the car. In fact, I only had to sit next to him when I showed the conductor my ticket. I focused on mouth breathing for the two minutes, and then spent 95% of my time on that leg in the lounge/observation deck with Danny, who absolutely made up for my bad luck with the toxic fat man. Even better, he stunk up the whole car he was in, and I never had to deal with it for long. I slept in the observation deck next to the largest windows on the train, and was accompanied by a good number of people within radius of the guy.

Upon arriving in DC, I lost Danny, but immediately put my bags in storage and set out to discover the city. I walked all the way out to the Vietnam Memorial Wall and spent an hour there after having passed the museums, the Capitol building, and the Jefferson Memorial. I spoke with a Vietnam Vet in an area close to the wall, and then slowly and reverently, I walked up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, let myself appreciate the moment and sat down on teh steps looking out across the reflecting pool. Yeah, even as I write this, it's still amazing to me that I was there. I helped take a few photos of people, and then I walked back to the station.

I found a handful of my fellow travelers there and we stuck close together, relieved and happy that this was our last leg. Although this last part has been a little chaotic - this was the fastest and bumpiest ride thus far - time seemed to slow when my friends left the train:

James, the engineer in Jacksonville, FL
Don, who never flies and always travels by train, in Orlando, FL (A lot of people got off in Orlando)
Jay, one of our loudest snorers and definitely our loudest cell phone talker, in Fort Lauderdale, FL

And here I am, with four hours left until I see my family and that shower I so desperately need. As I look out my window at a bright moon at daytime peeking through two clouds, I'm really thankful that I made this trip and saw what I saw. Yes, I have to do it again in two weeks, but this has already changed me.

The Adventure to End 2007 Begins

Riding quiet rails under the blanket of darkness, I am removed from the sleepy cityscape, industrial park after superstore skating by us without even a whisper. This is what it's like as you ride east from Los Angeles. The seats are wide and warm, the windows large and clean, and slow or fast, the train hops and leans in a relaxing rhythm that insulates you, rocks you deeper into your seat. It's not claustrophobic like a plane; You're encouraged to move around and explore, and the bad inflight movie is replaced by the view. It's not a cruise ship - not so far, at least - there are no activities or entertainment. This trip has only begun, and I haven't been out of this seat yet.

Sunday, December 16th, 8:20am
In Gallup

I just had breakfast with three strangers, talking about our destinations both in life and location. The long, flat plain outside had snow scattered throughout, and now, I'm at home enough to begin seeing all this in perspective. Fairly soon, thanks to an absence of outlets, my iPod will sleep and the only soundtrack I'll have until I arrive at Chicago will be the marriage of wheel to track.

The view, of course, continues to be a feast for my eyes. I'm soaking in every detail, not even really pausing to take pictures because the beauty rests in the fact that the landscape is constantly moving, changing shape and height, unfamiliar patterns suddenly appearing in front of a very wide horizon. And what am I doing at this point in my life, other than enjoying the scenery? (I'm staring at mountains, by the way, mesas rising above snowy fields.) Honestly, I'm thinking about a goodbye I just had, about sixteen years in the making. It's a story I can't reveal too many details about, of course, but not wanting to be accused of being boring about it, I'll dance a little. Better yet, I'll make this a slow dance so it'll count.

I have loved many times in this life, but I have only been in love once. It was both perfect and completely imperfect at the same time, kind of like a flawed but unique diamond whose flaw lends the mystery and name to it. My heart was captured in a bubble of youth and left broken inside it when we went our separate ways, and the rest of me slowly fell apart over many forgotten seasons until there was nothing left. All that remained was a small simple puzzle of a heart in an airtight bubble. Hope that she would return faded after years, and then true hope that I would return faded after. The story becomes somewhat familiar at this point. I discovered theatre and began breathing again, obsessing over this new language of creativity. I couldn't stop; I wrote plays, songs, poetry, played with photography and art.

(We're motoring alongside Route 66 through a town I can only describe as the one from the movie Cars.)

There has been one constant throughout the theater years. The bubble stayed intact. It didn't matter what I did or who I was with, the heart in the bubble stayed broken and I knew I couldn't be loved. She tried and couldn't maintain. Others made an effort but were conflicted. Everyone else affirmed my short-sighted belief, but then again, I DO live in Los Angeles, and the entire population seems to be a mismatched collection of odds and ends. Try as hard as I have, I have not been able to romanticize the city as much as my solitary experience in it.

Very recently, the girl appeared in the shape of a voice, a faceless spring flowing with familiar feelings and affection. It was the sound that I had been missing for 16 years, the almost unrecognizable beat of my young, intact heart. Over a few months and scattered conversations flavored with some longing and regret, she managed to mend the heart and pop the bubble with a gentle goodbye. Are our paths altered by the fact that we made contact? Does anything in our lives get redefined?

(Riding towards the New Mexico/Colorado border, and there is a beautiful, vast nothingness out my window. Yellow plains, meet blue sky.)

Nothing changes. We are who we are now. What I wanted to remind her of is that she's precious, unique, loved, and up to now, the magical love of my life. She made me feel just as special, but even more so, she encouraged me to be open to deserve it from someone new. Yes, I can be loved. Yes, I can hold her in my heart as my soulmate. I just don't think that we're given only one. She held me throughout my young adulthood. I can, now at 40, hold my 24 year old heart in the brand new search for my happily ever after. That's where this trip begins; I am full, finally complete and ready to start over. I'm in a place to see new worlds, meet new people, and I'm fueled by the knowledge that someone out there loves me. She began this transformation of me with a kiss beneath a starry sky, and finished it with the news that she's moving away and wants to see me happy.

Someone out there loves me. How awesome is that? Now, where is my next love?

Past Present

Sitting in the museum of Natural History, catching up with an old friend....

C: Not here for sightseeing, I'm guessing.

S: What gave me away?

C: The huge camera on your hip. The fact that you're looking at the architecture of the place maybe more than the exhibits.

S: Maybe I just needed to get out of the house.

C: And this is it? T-Rex versus Triceratops? Huh. It looks like a battle for survival, but really, I think the King was just pissed off he was smarter than everyone else.

S: And hungry.

C: That, too.

S: Don't forget the fact that this big brain had little tiny arms.

C: Some things have never evolved with men...ooh, is that the Hall of North American animals?



S: Sure, umm...okay. Hall it is. So...wait up, is there anything wrong with changing my scenery?

C: Of course not. Look at that mountain diorama with the goats!

Annoying Father: Bobby, look on the other side, raccoons!

The boy glances, but shrugs it off.

S: That was interesting. He was pointing to the beavers. Yeah, I hate it when beavers go through my trash.

C: You know what that just looked like?

S: What, the...guy?

C: No, you. You recognized it. Someone trying to evoke an emotional response with careless words. Is that pretty much it?

S: Well yeah, I recognized what he was doing. So?

C: Hmm. I'm just saying...it looked like it was familiar to you, like you've seen it recently.

S: What are you getting at?

C: Back up to the big window over there. The moose. I want to take your picture.

S: Careful, it's a new camera. So what are you saying about me recognizing...what, someone being careless with their words?

C: Move to your left and turn to your right a little. I want it to look like you don't know there's a huge moose behind you. Who was talking out their butt recently?

S: People do it every day. I see it in the things people write about thsmselves, the things they say. I hear their expectations of others and where their letdowns come from. Then I see what they do, and it's a total contradiction. It's crazy.

C: Ever think you're putting attention in the wrong places?

S: Christy, what options do I have? I am where I am. I'm not working on anything all-consuming, so wherever I stand, I'm wide open. The simplest exchanges are meaningful and when I'm out, especially with a camera or notebook in my hand, I go exactly where my heart dictates.

C: Come with me. I can't have a serious conversation with a moose looking over your shoulder. So...if you're still so open and always have something creative with you, why aren't you doing something?

S: I don't know. Blog entries don't count, do they?

C: Nope, not by themselves. Ooh - let's go to the room with the stones and gems.

S: I don't...I don't know about the creative stuff. I usually just wait for insipration...or an opportunity. Remember the two year span that led up to the musical? I was blogging, writing poetry, multiple plays....

C: All because of a girl.

S: No...no, no. Not just because of her. It was the girl and the outlet. I had the theater company back then and a bunch of collaborators.

C: Ohhhh look at all this gold. That's amazing. I'd probably pick up one of these rocks and not know the difference. (pause) So that's your plan? Wait it out?

S: I really don't know what to do. This stupid strike kind of sets a precedence, doesn't it?

C: That's right...I was going to ask you about your disillusionment with the entertainment industry.

S: What did you want to know? I haven't even written about this.

C: As soon as you were laid off, you were excited about the chance to jump in. Now, after you did you research and interviewed some people, the writers strike actually killed your love for it before you even got in the door?

S: No, that's not it. How can I explain this to you? Look, over here...look at this opal.



C: Beautiful.

S: But look at the rock next to it. It's unrefined, right? There's an opal stuck in the huge rock, and you could leave it alone as whatever nature designated it to be, or you could work on it and shape it to what you think it should be.

C: Okay, I'm with you so far.

S: Before you even chisel it out of the rock, you have to have that idea of where it's going to end up. You have to balance dissatisfaction and optimism, constantly correcting whatever it currently is all the way through the process. Grinding, buffing, chiseling, all the time knowing how beautiful the finished product already is, hidden somewhere inside this lump of rock.

C: The 7 Habits guide to Jewelry?

S: That's where I am in the process of looking for the next job. Dissatisfied and optimistic. The difference is, I don't know if there's a gem in this one. I look at these underpaid people walking the line, and I wonder how the industry appreciates talent, whether it's marketable or not.

C: Or relevant. You're worried about that, aren't you?

S: Yeah, well....the transition at this point is a little hard. I'm right in the middle of it. Let's get out of here. Upstairs or downstairs? Uhh, dead birds or American history?

C: History, always. So...okay, here's one thing I don't get. How is it possible that so many things completely shut down right after the layoff?

S: That's part of that same relevance mystery. Who knows how all this stuff happens? People change quickly...or, actually...wait - this is my theory: Sometimes people are forced to play roles because of the circumstances and the environment, but that's not an accurate reflection of who they are. Maybe it's more along the lines of who they want to be, because otherwise they would have changed their...situation, right?

C: I don't know...it's hard to just let go of responsibility to the life around you. You can't just...well, look at you. You had a job you didn't like for years, but you justified it because it afforded a lifestyle that you wanted. If the job wasn't an accurate picture of who you are, you would have gotten a better one a long time ago, wouldn't you? They forced your hand in the end.

S: Yeah, I guess so.

C: And another thing - you have to be completlely honest with yourself...I mean, you can't fool me, obviously, unless you're really trying to write me into a story. I don't think that's what this is about. The real truth is that if you wanted to stay in touch with a lot of the people you used to be in contact with, you would have made the first move.

S: There are some people I can't contact first.

C: You are defining the "can't" in that thought, my friend.

S: Huh. Good point.

C: This is a weird place for a skull. Who is this? La Brea Woman...about 8 million years old. Ha - take that, creationists.



S: She was tiny.

C: Do you think she died alone? It isn't a display of La Brea family. It's just...well, it's just her head. Her tiny head.

S: No, of course not. That would be just...sad.

C: Why do you sometimes believe you will? (pause) No answer?

S: Let's...not get ahead of ourselves, okay? The spanish haven't even conquered California yet.

C: "The deepest, the only theme of human history, compared to which all others are of subordinate importance, is the conflict of skepticism with faith." Goethe said that.

S: You're so lucky you only exist in text. I'd love to hear how you pronounce Goethe.

C: I can look it up on Wikipedia as easily as you can, mein freund.

S: For the win. Come on, let's worry about the future when we get there.

C: Uhh, you do that. I'll be busy savoring the irony of that statement.

The Caves of Hira

I write a lot about optimism, not to paint that picture of myself but more as an exercise to rememember a little perspective for the moment. That's why I blog; Clearly, the plays I write are purely hypothetical, subconsciously working through little demons. Poetry, of course, is all about celebrating what might be delusional, but I digress. Now, I'm going to confront the painfully realistic.

The year approaching my 40th has been amazing. So much baggage from the past has been taken off my hands, and I've been able to let go of a lot of things that weren't working for me any more. I reached the peak that I was climbing for years, ready to make a change. I directed a play that was proud of, I stood on Mayan ruins and stayed in a suite on a cruise ship, I drove a brand new convertible up the Florida coast to see the Space Shuttle launch, and best of all, years of having a job I didn't like ended in a dramatic bomb scare (the last time I saw my boss) and then a quiet morning after. Quite a year to remember.

The real surprising thing at this very moment, is that the overture has made a subtle shift to a minor key. What I'm also being told, in many ways and places, is that I'm too old and too late for an alarming number of things. Yes, it was expected when I began the intimidating task of changing careers and industries, but on a personal level, I am (and I'll admit this) reading reactions and comparisons that for the first time, feel like an outside negative opinion of my life at 40. I had my anxieties about it before and have always been fully aware of what people might think is normal for a life at this age, but I've lived simply and without regret for so many years, I entered this year with a "wait and see" attitude.

Again, I haven't had any regrets about my choices. Living a life doing theater with the waking moments away from an easy, well-paying job has been awesome, and I didn't waste a single day. My relationships - even the fleeting ones - fed me creatively and fueled my courage as I took a lot of chances in my artistic life. Even when I asked one of my closest friends at the end of my Playhouse chapter if I had anything else to prove, she described my record in those little theaters as "prolific". I have no illusions; They're small theaters in the middle of Los Angeles, but considering the history of the place, who taught there, and what the industry thinks of the school, I don't dismiss my experience there, either. So why, after spending my 20s working and having fun, and then spending my 30s living for live theater, would people see me as spent and unimportant? Am I really done with this life, never having gotten to the normal stuff everyone else has found? You can run the whole block of 30s and never look at 40, but as soon as you walk through the door of 40, you're staring straight at 50. Me. 50. Inconceivable.

I would say that the hardest part of this is that first impression people have, when you're immediately labelled and therefore some people will never know everything else there is about you. That would apply to anyone reaching this age. The hardest part of this is, in my case, painting yourself into a corner and having to sit there with your thoughts. I have nothing but space and time right now. Look around you. Are there familiar faces who need you, who keep a rhythm in your life and who will, at the lack of one breath, notice if you're not there? Lucky, lucky you. I made it a practice to isolate myself when building my creative life. I was alone as a director and writer, keeping the vision intact. I'm alone in my preparation as an actor. I often need to focus when I explore with or without photography, so I'm open to everything around me. I'm used to it. Now I'm here, writing this to put it all on the table so there is a record of where I am before the beginning or after the end, so my story is accurate and comes directly from the middle of the circle.

See, now is the time to listen, to not be afraid of the outcome. Now is the time to find the new direction - because there is one - and leave the expectations to others. Now has to be it, the only thing, because without hope in the now, there is nothing. So I smell defeat cooking on the minds of others. I see pity in the spaces between words. I hear indifference in silence. That's not my story.

I write because I'm still alive and haven't yet surrendered. I write because I'm not stuck and firmly believe that the unimaginable is still ahead of me. Just in case, though, I write to leave proof that I was here. Now it's time to listen. There is more....

You Are

This is one of those entries that has begun multiple times as I tried to wrestle with ideas and time. The brick wall I kept running into was actually just a very resiliant mirror, and I realized that I kept turning the self-realization screw tighter, making it harder to get to an answer outside of myself. The truth is, I don't plan the blog entries, even though I sometimes bookend thoughts and use devices that might hint otherwise. I actually start with a fuzzy idea, and try to answer a simple question with either something I haven't thought of yet or something I haven't listened to. I mean, what's the point of common sense if you discount it when it applies to your situation? Such as it is, I was wrong to look in the mirror on this one. It begins, simply, with a question.

Who are you?

No, not your name, and not your favorite color or who you're related to. I'm asking about who you are. Put yourself in the past tense, as if the moment when you stood up for yourself has already gone, and someone is retelling the way they remembered you. Are you, in fact, what you settle for, or are you what you aspire to be? Does any of it matter if you're not doing what you aspire to be? It's hard in this world to not wear a label, especially one that's not immediately read a certain way because of how you look or where you stand in a crowd. Forget for a second what even the closest people to you believe you should be, because they only know what you've told them. In the most private place of your heart, how do you want at least one person in the world to see you?

Let's face this much; There's a lot of competition out there to be whatever it is you're interested in. That applies to just about anything, be it careers or relationships. To choose one thing, or even two, you have to know that this is what makes you unique. The knowledge that you are exactly what follows the question "Who are you?" should at least begin to erase any concept of competition, right?

Or maybe...you don't know yet. It's okay. It's just me asking the question.
Some will say that the answer changes because one has to adjust themselves to different situations. Does that actually redefine who you are, though? Look, I understand the whole thing about different situations. This whole re-evaluation started forming clouds on the horizon when I was laid off. Despite my immediate optimism, I still wrestled with questions about why I was chosen and let go. Yes, they did me a favor, but still I wondered. It wasn't until I got to the outplacement program that I actually heard the question. They asked all of us to come up with a 30 second commercial, an answer to the question "Who are you?" for employers. I answered it a few times at the beginning of each class, and I had to remind myself that I wasn't defining myself completely. I was answering "What can you do for us?" and not the bigger question. Still, the seed was planted.

I've been thinking about it a lot. I've had nothing but time to think about it. The crazy thing is, for once in my life I haven't been too busy to pay attention to the things and people who would normally deflate and defeat me. Know what I found? It doesn't really matter how most people value me. I still try to see the best things in my world, and that, I think, answers the question in my own mind.

For the life that I've led and the things that I've done, the answer is mine to keep and believe in. Despite who I've had to be in different situations, I am still alone with my thoughts at the end of the day when my head rests on the pillow, and there, I know who I am.

Indeed well. Sincerely.

Getting out of the house last weekend, I went up to CityWalk (immediately wondering what I was doing up there), and I saw all the noise, heard the bigness of the place. I walked in my own jetstream, disillusioned and strange, and I didn't recognize the place. Was it fun to visit once upon a time? Did it have a magic to it, like some of the other places I can't get around to revisiting? I distinctly remember thinking how lucky I was to have Universal Studios and Citywalk practically in my backyard. Maybe I was naive, holding on to a first impression the same way I remembered Hawaiian sunsets from my youth, the Vatican, family vacations, and a certain pair of brown eyes I fell into and never emerged from. Can you blame me? We hold on to our very first impression of something, but to see them with older eyes makes it hard to reconcile. Especially now.

Sometimes, unfortunately, the last impression is the thing we hold on to and hope to forget. We leave the experience behind us, and whether its solved or not, every now and then you cross paths with your past and even with perspective, it's an uncomfortable reminder of something wrong you have no power over. I've been really lucky this year to have had some huge mysteries of my life solved, but in the past few weeks, a reminder of a particularly helpless moment reappeared. Yep, while it might seem like I have it all together right now and optimism is the soundtrack of my life, I am still seen by some people in my past as strange and troublesome. Any simple conversation - even by email - is full of obvious politeness, an annoying attempt at walking on eggshells. I can see the look on this person's face again, as if she's talking to a mental patient, trying to play things safe to not arouse any uncontrollable emotions or reactions. It's crazy how obvious the behavior is, even now.

Flash back to many years ago, when at the end of a long, strange friendship, things blew up between one friend and I. One simple act on my part, nowhere near the level of rudeness I was on the receiving end of for years, caused the person to write me off completely, despite my efforts to reconcile and even accept much of the blame. I was in pain, felt misunderstood and alone, and in one group of friends, everything I did was highlighted as insane and wrong. And so it was, when I was able to spend time with these friends without the influence of this other person, they treated me with the same behavior I recently read: polite, detached words, non-committal and backtracking from the first syllable. It's kind of disgusting, and still a little embarrassing, but nowhere near as effective as it used to be. I have had two experiences in my life where I was in pain and the people closest to me abandoned and shunned me. Thanks to them, thanks to the people who never listened or gave me a second chance, I've become strong and independent, quiet about what's going on inside. I know better now. You have friends, and then you have the friends who are connected to you, heart to heart. In that respect, I'm so unbelievably lucky.

I have two people I can always call, and I stay in touch constantly. I have two more who will always help, and I'm spending Thanksgiving with them. I have a family who works hard at maintaining contact, at listening to nuances in my voice and would drop everything if they felt I needed them. So what do you think? Do I set myself apart from the world as the tainted, problematic person some people once saw me as? No. They gave up on me. Whether they gave up on me before we broke off contact or they simply cut me off without any explanation, it's the same exact unapproachable void. On my own shore of this sea of nothingness, I can look back and rather than attach blame, I can simply remember that I offered love, was rejected, and with time I learned to give that love to others. That is the last impression I want to hold on to, hopefully with a little wisdom and pride intact.

Can you blame me for relying on good memories to propel me forward? As much as I am able to remember the ugly moments, and am reminded even when I choose not to, nothing I tell you will replace listening to Space Oddity with the sunroof open on a starry night, or an amazingly heartfelt hug on a Halloween day at work. Nothing will desaturate the warm colors of a musical coming to life on stage, and the best parts of the story lending themselves to real life. While I have suffered, I have done so honestly and expressed the same in simple words, but that has emptied my heart to make room for greater things to fill it. All this awkward maneuvering that I see, to serve purposes that in the end have little to do with me, will just have to remain beyond the ability for these older eyes to reconcile.

I have everything I need, especially now.

Natural Selection

I once wrote, in the tagline of a play I never finished, "What is the difference between revolution and evolution? The direction of the movement." It was a story about a war of ideas and beliefs, about confusion and loss, about being remembered the way we want to be remembered and not leaving that definition up to anyone else. It was a war, not a struggle, of one man against the world, then the world against ideas, and then the man became just another form of the ideas he was against in the first place. The main problem, of course, lies in the fact that truth, a sense of order, of right and wrong, is subjective, and contrasting ideas are not often discussed because...well, as we're prone to think, "Would anything I say make a difference?" I'd like to be the first one in this hour to tell you that yes, everything you say makes a difference.

If you've read all 64 blog entries before this (and...damn...if you have...wow), you would know that I'm constantly soul searching, asking the questions that I can wrestle with and leaving the other little mysteries alone until I can find relevance (like why I hadn't been able to get the song "More than a Feeling" out of my mind). Being out of work has risen this to a whole different level, because people have confirmed certain things about me, and I have to believe that I have those qualities going for me. My resume looks great. My outplacement program has involved all of us without work in a bunch of exercises to help us sell the best things about ourselves. I don't know where anyone else is in their lives, but I've had this...this habit of journal/blog writing...for 22 years now. Over that time I have fought my demons. I've believed the worst things about myself. I've even accepted defining places like my former job for years at a time, because it was just easier to stay in one place.

Do you know what feels more right than believing the worst? Love. Listen, you can call me out for being more of a dreamer than a realist, but I, too, can see that something is exactly what it seems to be. I can empathize with a bad situation or acknowledge a dead end when I see one. I have tried, and failed, and tried again, and found success. I have been rejected and then missed, completely alone, yet at one with the entire world in front of me. What gives me this kind of annoying optimism is the fact that I crave love, am addicted to it, so that is what I try to project. I will never say that I'm not worthy of it, because I have so much.

So we all have choices, as I keep repeating in my entries to remind myself, more than anything. I could try to understand the past, or worse yet, try to fix it, but at this beautifully even-numbered age of 40, I'm a little more occupied with the future.

This is my transition between revolution and evolution.

Chrysalis

Somewhere beyond the atmosphere of my former job, beyond the influence of my old theater company, and everyone I knew at both places, I'm floating out in the middle of nowhere, looking for a new home and the next version of me. For years, I have been as people have seen me, defined in familiar terms, within safe limits, and independent by choice. I have floated in pools of ideas that sparked like synapses, I have run the gauntlet of doubt from everyone around me, and the whole time, I have worked my ass off to rise above. Rise above what? Everything. Everything and everyone. Only from the top can you see far.

Right now, however, I can see in every direction, because I am completely alone, in control of the next step, knowing fully I could choose to do anything right now. I could move to another city and start completely from scratch. I could choose to be something entirely new, putting everything creative I've done behind me, burying it in my past. I could do that, but...I need to know what's next. I have been growing and expanding in this same patch of land for years, and I need to know what happens if I expand again. It's intimidating and so much bigger than me, because...well, if I've reached this plateau and there's nothing here for me, then all of the sacrifices I've made have been for nothing.

That's what I'm carrying; I have worked 40% of the time with a lot of people and 60% of the time alone, reinventing and studying, writing and revising, singularly focused on the how and the why while others have enjoyed life spending time with friends, having families and attending birthdays. I've been so lucky to have a life where I haven't had to say that I wish I could, or that it would be nice if someday I could do something creatively. I've done everything I've imagined I wanted to do, and outside of career, I could easily see the next step. But now, I am staring straight at the future like a huge tornado that I need to run straight towards. I need to swallow the fear, bleed a little, and try to lock down that presence of mind that found me constantly creating. I need to set the hopeless romantic in me aside for a moment and engage the fight. Some say this is just unemployment. I see it as war.

For eleven days, I have wrapped myself in reinvention, evaluating myself on paper and letting go. I've seen everything I knew become unfamiliar parts of my past. I've marked the end of my 30s, simplified my life, and have been very focused on not wasting a single day. It would be so easy for me to be lazy, to just sit and wait, hoping for something to come along. It would be too convenient to give up, to narrow my options to the point where I can justify doing nothing. I've been there before. I'm not there now.

Know this: I'm scared about the prospect of doing this alone. I'm really uncomfortable about moving backwards, about encountering the feeling that I've lost something in the process.

But...

At the same time, I'm anxious and excited, selfless enough to listen to the experts I'm meeting and trust their advice completely. I'm optimistic and encouraged by my past, writing this mostly to throw a rock down at this point in time to mark where I am and hopefully look back someday to see that this is where I made my stand. This is where I chose to acknowledge the fear and doubt, and then leap into the unknown anyway.

That's all there is. This is the week I've begun to step out into it.

The Trial of Fledging

The great thing about inviting change into your life is that the possibilities become exciting to look forward to, fascinating to fantasize about. The difficult thing about having change thrust into your life is to try to react to it the same way you would if you had invited it. In a way, through action or inaction, you set yourself up for just about everything that happens, and as I've said before, sometimes all you have to do is pay attention to what's really happening around you to know where you are...or where you should be.

Yesterday, at about 10:00am, I was escorted to a conference room I originally booked, and met up with a handful of fellow co-workers there. There was one manager for every employee there, but I didn't notice that until after the fact. We were told all at once that due to the merger (which was just finalized), they had to eliminate positions due to redundancies, and that we were the unfortunate part of the 11% that was being let go, or just over 600 people. (I found out about the 11% in a press release later.) It was brief and we were escorted to our desks, then escorted out, and this was going on throughout the company, and my immediate reaction wasn't one of shock and betrayal. I was actually kind of relieved and smiled when I got the news. See, this merger was just finalized, but the cuts and job loss will happen over two years. We've had the threat of losing our jobs hanging over our heads for a while now, but that's nothing compared to what the people who are still there will go through.

Enough about them. I fulfilled the instruction from the CEO and now president when he told our department, "Don't quit, let us fire you." That's easy to say for a man whose salary might double as a result of the merger, but that's neither here nor there. My only regrets about the whole thing are that I didn't get the chance to say goodbye to people before I left, and that my boss planned to be out of the office that day. She was the one who asked me to book the conference rooms for the layoffs, essentially asking me to dig my own grave. I thought it was a nice stroke of irony, maybe a planned oversight. My old boss didn't say anything to me, and she was in the meeting. I guess there is a professional distance, and where friendship sits in the balance versus career, career for the above the line people will always win. I don't like it, but it's...well, I have to say that it really determines the difference between mere effectiveness and greatness. Everyone is expendable in the workplace; not everyone is replaceable.

And so begins my awesome journey to begin again. That was one of my favorite parts of my musical, when Helen tells Jack in a posthumous recording to "begin again". I can feel her giving me the same advice now, at the best possible time. In the past two amazing months, just about everything regarding my past and present has been redefined and wiped clean. I no longer have much of the mystery of family history hanging over me, I am no longer defined by past relationships as tainted goods, and now, I'm no longer working the lie for a paycheck. I may have said this before...that without theater the day job just can't be justified. My job was a shameful thing to admit because I've known all along that I was much more capable. The search begins now on borrowed free time from my former company - thanks to severance - for a much better fit in a different world...maybe even in a different city (as my sister suggested).

The bigs in my former company completely have the right to stay in the game and make calculated decisions to make more money. That's business.

I'm a free agent now, able to consider all possibilities and not worried about my usefulness hanging in the balance anywhere. In one week, I turn 40 and I could not have asked for a better gift. It's completely up to me now, to use my time well and keep everything I'm doing in motion. Stay tuned...the trip from here on gets interesting.

Aspirins Into My Cereal Bowl

As I reach another chapter of my life, I'm noticing that some of the fog of war is lifting now that I'm out of theater and real life has been able to catch up. I have had a lot of things completely wrong for a really, really long time. I can't tell you exactly how I feel, and I'm not quite sure that I'm even trying to unravel what's going on in my head. I haven't written in a while because I'm focusing nearly all of my writing on a fiction writing class, and...well, that's what happens when I work on a project. I obsess and narrow my vision to what I'm trying to learn, a habit I've always had but was strengthened by watching my friend Lisa Hayes work on her music. That's why my writing style tends to be simple and straightforward. I work hard to keep it simple rather than trying to fool you with clever, witty phrases and ideas that would never be uttered in conversation. I'm so lucky to find out that that this style follows through anything I write, whether it's blogging, playwriting, poetry, or fiction writing. Wait - emails, too. Texting. What else? Greeting cards? Post-it notes! What? Oh. You get the idea.

I'm also really lucky that I can separate myself enough from this narcissistic society to see the parts and write about them, and at the same time protect myself from the traps of my own personality. I know most of my weaknesses, and I know what my strengths are, but still, I have to watch myself. I trust easily, and sometimes I can see the hurt coming but I tell myself that I'm strong enough to take it on the chin and remain standing. If there's one thing I learned from acting and directing, and then that fed my writing, it's that an artist attempts to "defend the truth", no matter how ugly. It was a part of learning how to prepare as an actor. You can't think about conventional things you should care about, for the only things that work are the things that truly move you. You have to be brutally honest.

You have to be brutally honest. I thought about that as I packed up two friendships and marked them "return to sender". The truth had been thumping me on the forehead for a long while now, and the things those two people were saying the whole time were so blatantly obvious, but of course, I reached shoulder deep into my bag of second chances until I began to wonder why I wasn't really paying attention to what was going on. What were the words? What wasn't being said? Most importantly, what were the denials? Oh, man, it was simple math the whole time and I made it fuzzy with my own prejudices and expectations. When I ended one of the two friendships, there was just a brief moment of surprise, and then the undeniable acceptance flooded the cavity with silence. What am I exercising here again? I'm only doing the things I want to do now. Okay, never mind my job. I'm talking about personal stuff. I'm not settling, I'm not wasting my time, and I'm enjoying people in my life who really seem to reflect me accurately, for all of my flaws and good points. The people I don't hear from...well, I could speculate, but really, what's the point? I could get it completely wrong.

It's really funny how we sometimes make misinformed decisions, and our whole lives become built on our own delusions. You just can't regret them, because you have no choice but to accept who you are. Some people happen to think they are the center of the universe and the others the master of their own domain, but especially now that I'm at this place in my life where I'm looking at the last two decades of change, I know I'm just a stranger in a strange land. I'm not even an important part of this world, but I'm trying to learn as much as I can about it and write about what I see. I know that the history around me moves regardless of me, so I won't presume to walk through any door and feel like every head turns. That arrogance of youth is totally gone. I've been humbled by even getting things about my own family wrong.

Right now it's almost as if I have a freshly erased blackboard in front of me. The huge, complicated equation has been erased because it was based on false numbers. I'm hitting the gym three or four days a week now in addition to cycling in the mornings before work. That's very recent. I'm redefining myself as a fiction writer. I'm only reaching out to meet people halfway, and using the rest of my time to make today count. Today. This day. Whenever you're reading this, I'm reminding myself to be grateful and happy and not let doubt fester in the back of my mind. Yeah, I'm going to try to use Occam's razor until it dulls, or at the very least, until I know better.

One of my closest friends used to sing to just about every song on the radio, but he used his own lyrics. I corrected him a few times, not knowing the brilliance of what he was doing, but I eventually gave up and we laughed every single time one of us could make up a new lyric to a song. No, the Police had it wrong when they printed the lyrics to "Spirits in the Material World". It was "Aspirins Into My Cereal Bowl".

Honestly, what is the truth that matters? Is it the one that belongs to one other person or a group of other people who want you to believe what they believe? Is it the truth that you see, from where you stand in the world? When all is said and done, the only thing that matters is what you hold to be self evident, and how you act based on that. This might sound like an over-simplification, but it is, after all, right there in front of you.

Zuzu's Petals

It's been a long time - for me - since I've written, mostly due to the heat, being busy, a few surprises, and all the fanfare I shower myself with when I'm motivated enough to change my life yet again. I've actually written a lot - nothing blog-worthy - but on the eve of a new challenge, I feel the need to catch up and really seek out a moment of clarity and perspective about my life so far. Why now? Is what I'm about to do that important? Not really, it's just a writing class I'm starting tomorrow. What would inspire me to stop and look back now, other than the fact that most of my writing will be focused on the study of writing?
I've got a year to live.

Don't read that wrong. I'm not planning on dying, nor am I sick. I mean, I don't know when it'll happen, but if I go, I currently have everything I want. I have a few really good friends who are committed to life and our investment in it together. My family's doing great. I've had a whole life in theater stuffed into a decade and promise of bigger and better things. I've found a way to pay attention to what people are saying and doing, and I'm endlessly entertianed by the dance around me. I'm so thankful for what I have, but yes, all this can change, so I'm inspired to make better use of my time and get back to living a slightly larger life. That includes getting on my career, getting back to learning and seeking new places and people, and even new avenues of charity now that the one through work is caught up in the merger and the other one through theater has no home for the moment. I've sat in the cocoon of home recuperating from having left my actors and my stage, but I am currently in the midst of recreating and rising from what was.

I have a year to live. Really live. And then after that, I have another one. It allows me a chance to make plans beyond saying "I have a day to live". This is basically me saying that I'm optimistic about my future and not weighed down with regret. My mistakes from the past, especially the ones that invited recurring patterns, only lend to my experience and not to my character. My character is all about the things my friends recognize: I love, and love with my whole heart, and I take care of the people close to me. I'm opinionated but committed, eager to connect (sometimes to a fault), but at the same time - and most of the time - I choose to go my own way.

Here's what my experience dictates: Acting has taught me to not respond until I'm really provoked or inspired to react. I only recently learned this on a personal level. Also, you own your own perceptions and issues with the outside world. 90% of the time, people have more than enough on their own plate to accomodate worrying about your problems, so...this is what I tell myself...pull yourself together and keep moving. If you can do all this and choose happiness over anything that might slow you down or obscure your view from the answers you need on a daily basis, you can pretty much stay young and true to yourself. It's not easy, but sometimes the practice surprises you, and you find the spectacular in the simple moments of the day. Alternatively, you could be distracted by the unsolvable mysteries of situations that are completely out of your hands. It's your choice.

Yeah, you have to accept that there are things you can't help or change. You have to be okay with that. There are mysterious people in the margins of my life who play by their own rules and on rare occasions enter my world like strange lights in the sky, appearing and disappearing without explanation. I used to think that the exchange was somehow a reflection of me, both an attraction to who I was perceived to be and a repulsion to the realization of who I actually am. In reality, it has nothing to do with me, and I have to either let those moments go or fight the temptation to reach for them. It's usually both. I'm still practicing the balance of that.

What's the worst that would happen if you, in a mixed moment of courage, changed a response to something, or said exactly what was on your mind? What would happen if you suddenly chose to not do something expected of your character or decided to stop living a life that isn't working for you? You and I have that same year to look forward to, my friend. It can be whatever you want it to be. We do, after all, have a year to live, and in the end...if it really is the end...it would be such a crime to have wasted it.

We are still here. That means we have a choice. Isn't that all the power we need to begin?

Tight

BEFORE I say anything else, I'm watching Dancing with the Stars and both Dolly Parton and Wayne Newton are scaring me. Scaring me! Wayne hasn't had his face pulled back as tight as Dolly has, but man. Wrinkles add character. Sinatra looked great as old blue eyes, Sophia Loren is still a hottie. Plastic surgery people, please save the money for something else. It's okay...no, shh shhhhhh, it's okay to age.

Wait - how many times have I written about turning 40? Also, am I not working out like it's a new fad? Okay, guilty. I'm still not ever going to pull my skin back over my face like a condom on an apple core. Yeah, I said it. How's that for a mental image?

We all want to be loved forever, and we sometimes want the ridiculous combination of our youthful bodies with our current wisdom and knowledge. I know I'm chasing it. I see it all over the place in the entertainment world. People want to be seen. They want to be noticed. Just like the craft we practice, the lives within tend to be an enhanced mirror of the lives outside of entertainment. That's why some films and shows tend to resonate so well with audiences. It's not a matter of finely crafting stories based on psychological study and behavioral equations. As one of my greatest acting teachers once said, "actors are very special broken people". The same holds true of any kind of artist.

In a rehearsal this past weekend with that very same teacher as a director, I watched really interesting behavior of people who were getting parts taken away and given to them, who had a chance to establish themselves in a pecking order that just doesn't exist. It happens every time he revisits the show. People want his approval. They want a chance to set themselves apart from others. It's not competition - there's nothing to win. It's manufactured self-esteem. There was one girl in particular who has always drawn attention to herself. She laughed the loudest, even when nothing was funny. When the whole cast would be addressed, she would either talk to someone else or rifle through her purse. She, like Britney, like Paris, like Lindsay, will not stand with others on the same level. She wasn't the only one at the rehearsal, either. There were others screaming for attention, for approval, even physically staying close to the strongest person in the room, the "alpha male" director. It's behavior that occurs in rehearsals and in performances, where the self-involved aren't self-aware. I kept looking around at other people, to see if they noticed the same things I was watching. Only a couple did.

Back in real life, the volume is turned down on the same attention-getting habits, but they're still there. I wonder where they come from, and often ask myself how they make the transition from an innocent cry for help to a destructive, self-serving path that really leads to endless dissatisfaction. So Dolly and Wayne have altered their looks, and I know a few surgically enhanced girls at the office. The girl I saw at rehearsal is really no different than the brat I worked with who never quite found out what it was to be accountable for her actions, even when she could clearly see the cause and effect of them. I've seen the most unbalanced people complain about the drama of others, and all of it, both the creative and real worlds I live in, begins to blur and I ask myself why people seem so disconnected, and at the same time want approval, want to redefine the world according to them.

What in our world ranks possessions over ideas? What makes it possible to believe that we're not okay the way we are? When this life seems to be made of all these irregular puzzle pieces, and we end up craving something real, what happens when we center ourselves and are once again able to manage the whole thing? Do the real things we needed get capped and put back in the medicine cabinet?

You have two options: 1) to tighten up because life moves fast and as you get older, sometimes your decisions illustrate the fact that you are alone with your own values and perceptions, or 2) to relax your hold on everything and see yourself in the ever changing context of the world, constantly getting better and never letting any outside influences take anything away from who you are.

So who are you? Who is the country star, the vegas performer, the obnoxious actress, the divorcee with fake breasts, or the writer blogging late at night? We're not so different, you and I. We cross paths, we fade away, we lose sight of each other, of ourselves, and here we are again. We all want to be loved forever. Shouldn't we first get that love from ourselves?

Me, Myself, an Island

This year...really, this year more than any other leading up to it, has represented the social exercise of maintaining self-awareness with respect to others' feelings while at the same time not caring about what people think of me. It's important to note at this point that I'm saying this with a healthy amount of hindsight, that it's not a proclamation of independence or intent. It's not a discovery or resolution. It's just the result, I guess, of having reached a few limits, and rather than compromise myself to win the favor of others, I've finally thrown my hands up and accepted that, in the moment, I just can't behave the way people want me to, or worse yet, be the person people want me to be. I am so guilty of having tried this in the past - with a theater company, with people at work, with friends, with relationships - and in the end, I've found out that merely disguising the parts doesn't make them fit together any better. It is what it is.

Now, I won't sit here with this pickle in my left hand (it's lunchtime) and tell you that I absolutely don't care what everyone thinks about me. That would just be a flat out lie, and I suspect that anybody who tells you that they're completely apathetic to opinions about them isn't telling you the complete truth. Our reactions are different, but even a two second exchange with a stranger could make or break your day. That guy who honked his horn at you in the parking lot might be immediately forgotten, but later, that unresolved memory might be waiting on your pillow. "Wait...was he honking at me? Yeah, he was. What did I do?" I used to think that adapting to everyone who had a problem with me would solve the whole pillow issue, but it didn't. There's always a reconciliation with the day's deeds, at least in my mind.

What I'm beginning to learn is that people are entitled to their own anger, happiness, and yes, even a sadness you want to take away but sometimes can only be in the company of. The point really is, to be strong, to know yourself, and in my case, to keep asking questions so I can really be here, living in the present and always be ready to change direction and see things differently...

...because I can't, as much as I've tried in the past, make anyone feel anything that somehow fits in the world of my expectations. I only have the capacity to be the person I aspire to be, to constantly learn and pay attention, and hopefully stop wasting my time worrying about things that are out of my control. I've finally surrendered to that, and the get out of jail card I have in my back pocket is that for years, I've explored my life and the world around me mostly alone. I've had only a couple of people in my life who have been right there with me, but for the most part, walking away and doing my own thing has been a briar patch for me. Oh, I know people have complained about me, or even recently in my history, don't quite know how to maintain contact (which could easily make me feel like "tainted goods", but it doesn't), but as a friend once told me, that's not my problem. It's all in the reaction.

If I close my eyes, I can see myself surrounded by nothing familiar, an ocean of indifference and memories in the back of my mind. I've walked away from aging definitions of things I wanted to do and people I wanted to be around, and I wait here in silence. I do have this pickle, though.

Soon, it'll be time to rebuild.

Solo

Lately, I've been into words that mean one thing in one language, and with the same spelling, mean something different in another. Take "once". In English, it implies one time, a singular occurence In Spanish, it is the number eleven. The title of this entry is also in the singular, more often than not describing a person away from everyone else. In Spanish, while it implies one thing apart from other, it is also an expression of "only" or "just", as in "this and nothing more".

Commercial airplanes encounter air turbulence, its pilots never being able to predict where and when it'll happen because, of course, air is invisible and different currents at high altitudes are moving in different speeds and directions. They fly cautiously, holding on and trying to gently move with each bump and push on the fuselage of the plane. Suddenly, from one section of deceivingly clear sky to the next, the pockets of rogue wind fade and the plane slices through the air smoothly and effortlessly. The pilots and passengers who paid attention could look back at a rough patch and ask "what was that?"

That's kind of where I'm at now.

Sometimes I let people in because the timing feels right and for the moment, people are on their thoughtful best behavior. People forget themselves and "I" becomes "We" for - all too often - a short time. Once "We" becomes a fragmented collection of "Me", "You", and "Them", I start struggling with a comfortable place to be, and then suddenly...

...well, this time I've found myself alone in a deceivingly clear section of sky. I found myself in that turbulence, tried to either work against the push of other peoples actions and intentions or try to flow with them into pain and rejection, and then took a step back. I was invested. I was stuck on hope and optimism that things could go back to "we" in a few places, but it just wasn't meant to be. In the past, I held on for years - once for five years, once for eleven - because I valued time and commitment. Never one to say that it was time wasted, I did learn a lesson. With that recent step back, I also revoked investment. On one hand, that means that I'm back to going at some things alone, but on the other hand, I'm doing things on my own terms, and that makes me happy. With solitude comes an opportunity to be creative again and not just pass the time with company. I can keep looking for collaborators, people who are in the same place and time as I am. I can find people who believe in the "we", and the only thing outside ourselves is the thing we create together, be it a song, a story, a funny moment, or a great idea.

My lunches alone have become productive again, filled with writing and seeking, something like the days when I used to know Nons and started writing poetry on the way to creating the musical and huge movements in my creative world. It's kind of funny; In Spanish, if I describe you eating, I use the word "come". It comes from the word "comer". In English, if I want you to meet me here, and in this particular case, I'm talking about being here in this moment of understanding each other, of knowing what both you and I bring to this sentence, to this weird little self-indulgent page on the net, I use the same word. Come.

The Fool on the Hill

I've actually written a few blog entries that withered on the vine, attempts to recapture something unemotional but enlightening. Let's face it; It's better to leave enlightenment in words to another forum. As Mark Twain said, "It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."

My search has become interesting over the past few weeks, travelling up to Ojai, Santa Barbara, and Solvang, meeting people along the way and discovering the completely unexpected. With completely open eyes, no fear of the road less traveled, and a camera in my backpack, I've seen a lot, sometimes asking myself "How did I get here?". Watching an oceanside wedding, being invited to watch a play in an outdoor theater modeled after the Globe, driving along a 150 year old stagecoach route, the list goes on.

As if that wasn't enough, there was a flashpoint of activity with my family that brought on a lot of new information yet to be digested. My family history back in Argentina is a total mystery, which makes my family here in the states my closest friends. Yes, I have that relationship with them as a group and with them as individuals. The momentary re-establishment of contact with Argentina just opened a dusty and nearly forgotten footlocker of history that includes a lot of finger pointing, power struggles, politics, a child born in a convent, and fifty years of silence between siblings. The escape of my family to the U.S. was exactly that: a flight to pursue freedom and a future in a Romeo and Juliet kind of way, and new fertile ground to plant new roots and raise a family. This is just the beginning of it.

Naturally, I needed to get out of the house to clear my mind. Then I got sick and had to go see a doctor. Prescription medicine is not cheap.

My mind, of course, hovered back to the recurring questions and debates over the people who have floated through my life. The interesting thing about being in the state I've been is that I've kept myself away from others, finally quarantining myself with medication and silence. At work, I stayed at my desk, did everything I could to guard myself and keep a steady schedule of remedies. Today's my first day out of the shell, a chance to stand on a peak and look above and across the path I've just come down, even the part that precedes me and is still shrouded in fog. From here I can see some simplicity in the whole thing, even if it escapes me to some extent.

A while ago, a girl wrote her phone number and email on a random blank page in my notebook, and I believed for months that something significant would happen when I arrived to that page. Although absolutely nothing happened and I was eventually rejected and dismissed by the girl, I was sitting on a warm patio in Ojai with a huge margarita in front of me and I flipped back to the page with the phone number and wrote this:

For posterity:
Something was supposed to happen upon arrival to this page. It was a miracle; The sun rose, it set. The moon quietly crossed the sky. Wind blew through leaves and children laughed in the distance. It was a good day.

Yes, getting sick was a blessing, so I could think about the weekend excursions and those other magical moments I've had this year. There are moments so fleeting, that stupid me, as I wait for something significant to come along, they come slowly and fade, hoping that I would notice and appreciate them. I see those moments and won't lose them:

...standing in front of that girl and basking in the glow from her smile...

...sitting in the Hollywood Bowl with a friend enjoying the perfect romantic atmosphere...

...driving along the rocky coast by Malibu feeling a lump of stress blow away...

...and now, sitting two tables away from a beautiful friend at work who is also eating alone. I think I'll have lunch with her tomorrow.

50 Things You Might Not Know About Me

My good friend Soledad created this list in her blog, and I just had to try it out for myself. Truthfully, I don't know that I can come up with 50, but it's worth a try. I do love making lists. I'll try to make this unique.

1. I'm the only person in my immediate family to be born in the U.S. The rest - my parents, my two sisters - were born in Argentina, and are often reluctant to tell me anything about what it was like to live there.

2. I have a crazy fear of roller coasters that, no doubt, comes from a serious car accident I was in when I was 3. My mother's car was parked on a hill, I released the parking brake, and my middle sister and I rode it all the way down as it jumped a curb, flipped over, pancaked, and dumped us out. My sister had the only injury, cuts on her knees from the glass.

3. I used to have long hair shortly after high school, when I was into heavy metal. Garage bands, guitars, bandanas...that was rock in the 80s.

4. I once supplied the voice of Mickey Mouse for Michael Eisner's (he was the prez of Disney) very first personal computer.

5. As a sophmore in high school, I broke my left forearm in a 90 degree angle. That was the easy part. Resetting it was hard.

6. As a child, I had a recurring nightmare of falling off the roof of a 6 story building.

7. I took piano lessons when I was three but abandoned them shortly after. I picked the piano back up when I took it upon myself to tune the family's piano when I was a teenager.

8. When I started learning how to play the guitar, I played two or three hours a day.

9. I only eat one item on my plate at a time. I don't like to mix up my tastes.

10. I've been to Hawaii over 20 times, made possible by the fact that my dad worked for the airlines.

11. My mother altered just about every piece of clothing I wore, because she was, professionally, a seamstress. Carol Burnett even specifically requested my mom when she wanted a few dresses made.

12. I have fired, due to the generosity of a friend, an automatic .45, .38 snub nose revolver, and a .22 rifle. Ahh hang on - I think Chuck Heston is at my door.

13. I don't know how to swim. Oh yeah, another traumatic childhood incident when I almost drowned.

14. I've played guitar with a band in front of 2,000 people, and solo in front of 500.

15. I attended college twice, once as a music major, then a few years later as a theater major, english minor. I never finished.

16. I memorize music by attributing colors and shapes to it.

17. I've been keeping a journal (now this blog) since 1984.

18. I wrote my first play in about an hour.

19. I can speak Spanish, but not write it correctly. I still think in English and only grew up speaking Spanish with my mother. Oh, come to think of it....

20. I grew up speaking English with everyone in my family but my mom. My sisters speak English with each other but Spanish with my parents.

21. I almost always have a guitar pick on me, for luck.

22. I once worked at the Wherehouse (video and music) for one summer, and that was the only retail job I've had.

23. I was a video game tester at Disney.

24. I was online during the early days of the Internet.

25. When I was in grade school, I was teased and harassed by a group of kids in my class. That lasted for years until I actually started fighting back.

26. My first kiss was in 1st grade. I still remember the nacho cheese on her lips from the Doritos.

27. I was an altar boy (and no, I'm not repressing any memories).

28. I used to drive a Jeep Wrangler and loved everything about it except for the frequency of tow trucks and visits to my mechanic.

29. I've been in two car accidents where I was the driver.

30. I once did a 50 mile bicycle race in Mexico and got my bike up to a little over 65mph on a downhill stretch.

31. I've written over 20 plays and produced six of them.

32. I'm both a neat freak and a pack rat. I think there's something in the pleasure of having so much to clean up. I love throwing things away.

33. I have six guitars and one keyboard.

34. I don't often go to parties. As a matter of fact, I've only ever actually had three birthday parties (not including ones I had as a child).

35. When I was a child, I created illustrated books of poetry.

36. After high school, I wrote a book of just over 100 songs and then five years later, shredded the whole bunch.

37. Thanks to breaking a bone in my left hand in the early 90s, I have seven visible knuckles when I close my fists.

38. I was a football player in grade school and a track athlete in high school.

39. When email was fairly new, I had a pen pal for about seven years. Everything was awesome until she moved out here.

40. My mother was 40 when she had me.

41. My addiction for DVDs has waned only a little bit - I have nearly 300 and can now resist temptation, even when they're on sale.

42. I've been a loyal Laker fan since the 70s.

43. I was once a personal assistant for a brilliant actress.

44. I'm allergic to penicillin. In fact, I'm not even sure I'm spelling it right.

45. I'm the go-to person for creative stuff at work, and I totally don't even see the importance of it. Why? That's just dumb.

46. I'm fascinated by religion but could be described as agnostic.

47. I used to be a Disneyana collector. In my collection: a 1939 record set of Snow White & the Seven Dwarves, a 1969 map of Disneyland, a light from the Electric Light Parade

48. I spent nearly every weekend at the theater for two years, for both matinee and evening performances, PLUS rehearsals during the week at night after a full-time job.

49. (matching Sole's 49) I type nearly 100wpm, once clocked at 98wpm on a 5 minute test, and 85wpm on a manual typewriter.

50. I still have the blanket I was brought home in from the hospital.

Whew! I didn't...think...I could come up with that many things. Are they interesting? Hmm.
Well, YOU try to do it. There. The gauntlet has been thrown down.

Current Mood

I find it really ground-breaking that MySpace has given us the power to choose our mood in the new status section. Whether you choose happy or sad, that must be what you want to feel, isn't it? It's alarmingly convenient and effective.

With a couple of very quiet days at work around me like an ocean around a small island, I started doing some maintenance and found myself missing old friends when I ran across their emails.

C: All of your old friends?

S: No, not really.

C: Not the recent ones you broke off contact with?

S: I didn't ceremoniously break contact, Christy. It's nothing as big as that.

C: Do you talk to them any more?

S: No, not really.

C: Are you making any effort?

S: Friendships shouldn't be a lot of work, should they?

C: What I'm getting at is -

S: I was beginning to wonder.

C: What I'm getting at is this. You were trying to re-establish one friendship, another was a daily thing, another hit one snag and -

S: And what? How long is this list? Should I keep every habit in my life whether it's working or not?

C: Meaning?

S: Do I drink soda any more?

C: No.

S: I stopped drinking it for my health. I also eat a lot better. As I get older, I'm beginning to see the difference between just seeing myself in context with the things that make up my life, and having the option to stop doing things that don't work for me. Other people around me more or less believe the same thing, only they try to change the existing things...and people around them to suit their needs and ideas.

C: Damn.

S: What?

C: For some reason, that got all complicated. I thought it was going to be an easier explanation.

S: Okay, umm...maybe it felt more complicated to you because I'm writing both sides of this conversation. Would it have been easier if I just said, "I've had it and don't want to deal any more?"

C: No, that feels...unsatisfying and out of character.

S: Well, I choose to be happy, and that means making some tough choices.

C: So that's it? The very second someone does something wrong you're going to bail and dump them?

S: No! That's kind of harsh and blunt. Look, I love the imperfect perfection of the whole world around me, and...oh, I feel I need to say this: I'm flawed. I do and say the wrong things sometimes and have been lucky to find a few people who forgive me, and know how to share that blame and forgiveness when it's called for. I just...think that...sometimes things work and sometimes they don't.

C: Kind of like a key, right?

S: Maybe not that exclusive, but yeah, kind of like that.

C: I'm a little worried, though.

S: About what?

C: You could shut yourself off completely and go crazy.

S: Sometimes I need to, though. Sometimes I need to climb a mountain without reaching for a hand up.

C: Or dead weight, or the knowledge that anone got up before you did.

S: (pause) Sort of, yeah. (pause) But there are some people I will never shut out completely.

C: Who?

S: They know.

C: Aren't you overthinking this whole thing?

S: Aren't you the one who brought it up?

C: Yeah. One more question. What if you make a mistake?

S: Mistakes...is there such a thing when one doesn't believe in regret? Little things between friends can be healed and mended, but the bigger decisions...well, they are what they are, aren't they?

We're all imperfect, and everything is so temporary. Sometimes we come across puzzling people we're fascinated with until the mystery (ha - I almost wrote misery) either unravels or enfuriates us. Sometimes we just come across people who keep us company for part of the journey. It's easy to accept things the way they are until years pass by and you're standing in the same spot you were, dreaming of change. What I'm looking at is the bottom line, and how the things in my life add up to that. It means not being afraid to change the pieces out and try new ones. It means letting go of things that have been comfortable and familiar.

Sometimes it means whispering a little goodbye and not trying to take everything with you.

I clicked on happiness.

Some Assembly Required

I have been waking up lately in a cloud of the most subdued, passive anger. Actually, it's a peaceful, friendly, loving anger that feels ominously like the opposite of a hug. It comes with an ounce of vindication - I'm not crazy for feeling the way I do - and pounds of awareness and knowledge. Still, I control my reactions, stand back patiently, and make many small disconnected efforts to understand.

This has been the persistent soundtrack since I've returned from the jungles of Mexico. Los Angeles has proven to be the unsolvable puzzle, where everyone is mostly preoccupied with themselves and words are used to negotiate rather than communicate. It might be like this in other cities, but this is where I live, where I was born and grew up. The truth seems to be that most people are completely blind to the ripple effect, and people grow so restless in this dense city that many feel they have to get out or go insane. I've seen it time and time again; I even funded one friend's escape to Chicago...or Boston...no, I think it was Kansas City. Honestly, I can't remember which. They all got out of the maze, gained perspective, and found a spot to look back and reconnect on some level.

The obvious direction for this train of thought is to say that they quit, made some kind of mistake, maybe showed weakness at a deep level in their conscience. That would be inaccurate, and besides, I can't make that judgement. All of our lives unfold in unique ways that play out our fears and strengths in a neverending series of tests that either repeat themselves or increase in difficulty. We all have the one thing in common with L.A., though: We see the maze, the puzzle, the huge contradicting mosh pit, and we have all said at one point or another, "Get me the hell out of here!"

I know a lot of selfish people here. I blame them sometimes for the absence of home, the lack of support or unconditional love. These people use me as a resource, they remind me how lucky I am to be in their orbit, and all too often they say the right things but don't believe them, or so their actions would lead me to believe. They make promises that are open to the back door of lame excuses, and often observe and suggest that I should be more understanding, easier to appease, perhaps a little less analytical of behaviour that would otherwise hold them accountable for their flakiness. Denial is a hot commodity, a fashionable choice that keeps the sport of evasion and opportunism alive. It is all about feeling good and making things easier to digest, and never, ever having to take responsibility for anything.

That is why I am not leaving Los Angeles, dirty and mindless as it is. I'm not going to let my birthplace kick my ass. I will not allow the place that broke my heart and offered me equal portions of failure and success - absolute blue furry bliss versus sharp serrated moments of blood red desperation - take me apart and send me packing to a place I have no relationship with. I know that if I leave, most of my problems will travel with me at this point, and the pieces to my puzzle would be left behind lingering in the smog and freeway traffic. I own this. This is the riddle of my life. I don't want to ever look back and say "What was that all about?" and be too far to put things together. I will occasionally step outside and get a view of it all before diving back in, but I'm going to stick it out and tame this cloud of indifference.
My family has always put together difficult jigsaw puzzles every year during the holidays. We've done the double-sided, the story-telling mystery ones, the 3-D puzzles. We have never left a single one unfinished. I may, in this case, abandon pieces that don't belong, but believe me, I'm not walking away from this one just because I'm angry.

This one belongs to me.

The Sun and Moon

Far removed from the usual writing spots, I'm writing this in the Shakespeare Library, deep within the cruise ship Inspiration, currently moving across a quiet and dark Gulf of Mexico returning to Tampa from Cozumel, Mexico. For the past few days, my sister and I have not endured any obligations, schedules, or expectations. We've eaten when we wanted to, did what we wanted to, and brought not a single breath of work or anxiety with us. The only traffic we've encountered was at the jacuzzi next to the salt water pool at the back of the ship.

Ironically, the symbolism of the whole trip fell right in line with familiarity for me; On the way to and from Mexico, I've seen beautiful sunsets (which incidentally, look much better reflected on water than they do framed by rush hour traffic in my dirty rear view mirror) and the almost impossibly beautiful moon, which embraced the water and ranged in color from orange as it rose in the sky to stark white. My temporary home, as I mentioned before, is called the Inspiration, and all of the decorations have had something to do with the arts. In Mexico, I've seen a culture obsessed with the sun and have done my share of worshipping during the whole trip. I've wandered through Mayan ruins dedicated to the goddess of the island where specialities are fertility (love) and prosperity (money). I even made an offering, a coin in a small pile of others despite the fact that "In God We Trust" is written on them.

In all of these locales, though, I moved in the stillness of the world around me. I was in the ocean, the jungle, the stars above in a dense, black sky. I was at the center of my universe, and I wondered which symbol captured me the best: Am I the sun, opening my effect and my attention to the whole world around me, or am I the moon, perpetually hiding in all the ways I've written before, always keeping a dark side reserved? Well, it wasn't a very difficult question. Nani said it once: I am the sun. Try as I can, I give off light and heat, I illuminate and clarify, and until the end of time, I chase the moon, always finding her in a sky that doesn't suit her.

And so I return to the race. I will immediately lose that sensation of moving without effort, the vision of waves moving silently past. I'll immediately lose myself, sitting once again in a huge box of lights and meeting rooms, a ship that goes nowhere with a captain who travels alone and incites competition and a fight for survival among his peers. With the theater a bit off in the distance, how will I recognize myself? How will I find the center of my universe?

I will look for old friends. The sun will look down for the son, painting the sky and reaching out to encourage and comfort. The moon will always give me a place of surrender, peeking out from behind buildings and through the lingering smog, reminding me of the ocean without a visible horizon, that despite all of the obstacles, she and I are continuing our dance.

I'm going to give this place another try, and then I'll look for change. When I rediscover and reaffirm who I am, the things and people who define me as I'm not lose a little color and gravity. In only a few more hours (we disembark tomorrow morning), I'll insert myself back in a little changed. The old world will need some adjusting.

Previously, on LOST in LA

One year ago, I was sitting on a bus dreaming of taking a real vacation. I looked out at the people on the street, wondering why I wasn't in my car singing to the soundtrack of RENT, calling family or friends on the way to who knows where. I was sitting in someone else's space, not quite relaxed, subliminally unsatisfied and just going along hoping that things could change by themselves. While some things haven't changed, I am in a different space right now.

A week ago, I wrote the following unfinished sliver of thought:

Friday, May 11th, 2007, 11:18am
As I sit here between two buildings and about 2,000 people working under oppressive fluorescent lights, I wonder why I'm the only one sitting out here. Maybe it was the spreadsheet that had me going cross-eyed. Maybe it's the glimpse of the outside world from the edge of my cubicle. Maybe it's simply that perpetual ache in my heart that constantly wants, searches, needs something real.
Ahh, there it is. That's what is happening just underneath the surface, the surprising and recurring theme that defines my perpetual sadness. It doesn't mean that I'm never happy; I'm just defining one note in the symphony that is always there. It's my soundtrack.

Yup, you saw it correctly. That's how my handwriting translates through typing when I write at the office. It's Courier New from a world that forgets about people until they become a problem.

So I still flow like water around everything and hardly stay still, and when I get my head screwed on straight before I go to bed, I wake up the following morning completely disinterested in the past. This is especially easy when I've exhaled a whole week like this one, watching it slip by because it was dominated by work and automation. I am not sitting on a bus; I'm going my own way, and that includes a vacation to the Yucatan peninsula in 13 days. I sang all the way home from work (and the gym) today, and I'm not so concerned at this point with whom is along for the ride. Everybody in this city seems to be tumbling in their own bubble, and the whole thing from a distance must look like a huge carbonated novelty aquarium.

13 days, and I'm on my own schedule, sitting on a cruise ship with my sister and turning my gaze from the rear view mirror towards the Mayan ruins poking over the tree line. I'm going to clear my mind, relax my body, and open my eyes to the new direction I have to take when I return. Once again, it's time to turn over the topsoil and see what grows.

Sometimes, to find your way around, you have to get out and come back in.

Brainsqualling

I have a writing exercise that helps me when all other thoughts of story structure or creative wandering lead me to a sad little stump in the road. I make lists. I do it to pass the time, I do it to avoid making a trip right to the center of what I'm feeling, so...wait...that's significant. What am I avoiding? (Sometimes the words come out so quickly I get surprised by things I write after I read them.)

Okay, maybe that has to simmer for a little bit. I...uhh...where was I? Oh, lists. Yes. I make lots of lists. Among the crazy, stupid things I make lists about, I occasionally use them to empty my mind when I'm in transition.

So I asked myself, can I name ten lessons that life is trying to teach me? This is what I came up with:

1) If you have to say something important, say it and then let it go

2) Second chances are overrated and third chances are just plain dumb

3) Sometimes people are truly unaware of their actions, and sometimes they're just unaware of the consequences. Most of the time, they're only focused on the benefits.

4) Apathy and indifference are in style right now, but they're the plastic cup of friendship; They're convenient, stackable, and completely disposable.

5) If you don't believe in compromise, you can either hold on to your principles or you can hold on to your friends, but not both at the same time.

6) Life is too short to settle for spending time doing things you don't like doing.

7) You can't blame people for wanting to use you for the things you CAN do instead of the things you WANT to do. That's their limitation, not yours, and you have an endless supply of the word "no" at your disposal.

8) People will fight for the freedom of stupidity, and they have a right to that. For example, George Bush was elected TWICE.

9) 99% of everyone out there will not care about the details you obsess about, so make them count for you.

10) Try as much as you can to get the world around you to conform to your rules, but know that people will not change. They'll twist and contort slightly to fit around you, but sooner or later they'll snap back to the person you should have seen and accepted in the first place.

11) Never limit yourself to ten.

12) If you reach for something or someone and you get denied or ignored, don't lose faith in the action. You are merely a key looking for a lock.

I suppose the real question at this point is whether or not these are too big for fortune cookies. Okay, this isn't quite like the other lists I've made, but this is all about brain maintenance.

Now what is that other current I very nearly tapped into?

Every day I wake up in my own bed with the belief that there are very real people out there somewhere. I know it's true; I know a couple of people who are genuine, responsible, empathetic people. Why I don't spend more time with them is beyond me. Somehow I find myself trying to gain the trust of people who fall short of being completely open, people who can't participate in a human exchange of thoughts and feelings honestly and with great care. Okay, before I even get into this....

I acknowledge the fact that I'm extremely open and at times reactive, that I will call out behavior and say things at any given moment because they occur to me (that may be the training as an actor - it really transforms you). I have an almost unfiltered connection to my instincts yet at the same time I'm trying to figure out why I find myself in the ripple effect of people whose least favorite subject is any bad reflection of themselves. I think I'm trying to begin with accountability, the knowledge that I sometimes have unrealistic expectations of people who can't measure up to those precious few whom I can always count on. I make the decisions to care about and stand close to the wrong people. I did it for nearly twelve years with one person. I have to accept blame for that.

But I'm already involved. And I will be here again. When you train for years to be sensitive to behavior, to make the other actor on stage the most important thing in a moment, then you're going to spot false behavior like a bright orange jumpsuit. You'll see the shallow belief behind words as clear as bad singing. You'll begin to doubt before you believe, and then...as I've seen with people I've worked with in the past (not naming any names), you completely isolate yourself while you're in the business. That's the maddening life of an artist. It's no wonder why most people don't get too involved in the craft, and those who do can get lost so easily.
So who's real, and who's merely out for themselves? How are you supposed to react when you discover that someone you've invested in is not interested in your problems? In the past week, I've dealt with being interrupted, rejected, bombarded with small talk, and at the same time being told to stay cool and to simply enjoy the friendship when I'm obviously not being treated like a friend.

And here's the real bottom line; In the past week, my mother was admitted to the hospital via the emergency room and is still in a hospital bed without much more than guesses about what put her there in the first place. It's been nearly impossible to get a hold of a doctor, but tomorrow she may be two procedures away from being released. Hopefully. That's where my heart and my mind has been, and still, with that knowledge a few people have taken shots at me. I do believe that's worse than the indifference of others. People should know better, but they don't. The end result for yesterday was a total breakdown and the clouds of depression darkening the sky. It shouldn't have happened. After having gone through losing another friend to cancer, walking away from my theater company and finishing a production, the changes at work, and my mother, I shouldn't have had to go through the catharsis I did.

So it's time once again to toughen my skin and try to move past, to focus on the health of my family and to not take on the baggage of others as my responsibility. Yes, it hurts like hell when friends acknowledge I'm having trouble and abandon me, but when I step back, my priorities become a little more clear. My family comes first. I can always call them and - thank God - my mother is getting better and I'm going to commit to calling my parents a little more often. My very real friends who love me also need more of my attention, because they have proven themselves, even when we've had trouble in the past, that they won't leave me.

Most of all, because I need to be there for the most important people in my life, I can't lose faith in myself. I am who I am because I've chosen to be. I write. I play music. I am working hard for a creative life and trying to find a career that will fullfill that. Right now, I have a film festival, a play to direct this coming Saturday, and another play in the works. That's what I know I have. There may not be a relationship in there, nor is there a muse any more, but I do have purpose. Some people have exchanged that for a sense of belonging, but I think I've done okay for myself.
This was the sound of me hitting bottom. This is a frame of my deformed shape meeting an immovable object. Change comes next.