Lextopia

The Day After....

2007-02-26T10:06:00.000-08:00

The good thing about this year's Day After The Oscars is that it doesn't feel like a societal hangover. Usually the show is sooooo long and sooooo boring and sooooo insulting to humanity with it's excess that the day afterward I always wake up feeling ashamed, like I was run over slowly by a steamroller as penance for living in a country that so blatantly flies in the face of global poverty and despair. But this year, thanks to - I don't know, Ellen Degeneres? - I didn't wake up feeling that way. So many celebrities spoke out about global warming and the need for something to be done; Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth" won Best Documentary; the Oscars themselves were supposedly "green," although I need to check up on that...

Today is about editing. New Orleans. I've written the outline and it feels good. This morning I'm going through the footage and making notes about the good soundbites are. Next, after lunch, I'll throw the outline together in what's called a Radio Cut. Basically, the radio cut is the story told in audio only - soundbites, music, pacing. You pay no attention to the visual. You just lay out the story in your outline and see if it holds together if you close your eyes and listen.

I'm also researching hosting this blog somewhere else because I'd like to upload video examples of what I'm working on or at least screenshots of it. It'd be good to see a progression of each project.

Alright, I gotta get back to it. have a great day, y'all!

Home Again

2007-02-22T16:28:00.000-08:00

I've been away for a very long time. Although there were pockets of time when I was home, they were short and always spent preparing to go on the road again. Most of the places I visited were for work and I enjoyed them a lot. One great exception was the Sundance Film festival. I hated it, but even there there was something good to do. I co-produced a video with my colleague, Karina Longworth, about the Iraq documentary "No End In Sight." You can find all of my videos on http://www.netscape.com/member/alexia/activity/videos. Every video I do for Netscape ends up here. Some I'm not so proud of and some I can't stop watching... :)

New Orleans, my most recent trip, was an incredibly rewarding experience. I saw a lot of the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina, and met a lot of locals affected. truly, though, everyone in New Orleans was affected, even if they didn't lose anything personal, they lost a lot of the city, and for New Orleanians, that's almost worse than losing your house. Check the above URL regularly for videos from my trip there as well as more from the India trip. Awesome, amazing stuff.

Overall, my three months of travel have been so eye-opening to me societally, certainly, but also personally. I've seen things I never imagined, and experienced things I couldn't prepare for. Now it's good to be home where I can rest and look out the window at the lake and be grateful about where and how I live.

Everyone should visit Kolkata. And everyone should visit New Orleans. But, truly, everyone should visit somewhere new whenever they get the chance. It's the only way we're going to learn about each other so we can grow and evolve.

"Difficulty shared is difficulty halved, Joy shared is Joy doubled." -Chinese proverb

I've Had A Lot of Espresso

2007-02-01T09:53:00.000-08:00

I’ve had a lot of espresso. And it prompted me to have this conversation with this guy who’s out of work and newly moved to the area. He’s a mama’s boy. He told me himself. Calls her everyday and talks about everything. You know about that, right? Some of you have that. I used to have that, but my mother’s dead. I know… “BOOM!” right? It’s not that weird. It’s COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY FUCKED UP, but it’s not that weird. It’s part of the cycle, although, as an aside, I really hate people who hear about my mom and tell me things like: “I’m sorry your mother has transitioned.”

“TRANSITIONED”?????????? You’re sorry my mother has TRANSITIONED????? Well, I’m sorry that I can’t get a decent cup of coffee in the suburbs, can’t fit into a size 10 anymore, and that the price of gas in Los Angeles is un-fucking real. TRANSITIONED?????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! To WHAT?????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

People who push their new age agenda make me absolutely, fucking crazy. If I wanted to hide from the facts, reject her death, live in denial that I can never, ever, EVER hear her voice again unless I play recordings of her over and over, I’d curl up into an ASANA, chant “Om,” and pretend I loved everyone TOO! BUT I DON’T!!!!!!!!!

I WANT to be miserable about my mom,
I WANT to miss her,
I WANT to rage as out-fucking-loud as I can because
I
HURT
SO
MUCH.

I’ve… had a lot of espresso… And none of it, and nothing else, can ever bring my mother back. So when I talk to a nice guy about how much HE loves HIS mom, it makes me feel

alive.

And like I’m here, and will be here, to speak of her and her beautiful deeds, forever.

Death isn't a "transition." It's black, and it’s bad, and it’s lonely-making,
and it’s okay. And I've had a lot of espresso, and you know what?
Mom LOVED espresso...

Letters from Sundance

2007-01-26T08:31:00.000-08:00

i woke up this morning thinking again about where i am, what i'm doing... the first thing i thought was: "i'm going to be in New Orleans by myself for two weeks. i was here (at Sundance) for one week (and hated it-ish)." i thought the next feeling would be panic, but it wasn't. I thought maybe i could relax a bit in New Orleans. it seems odd, such a destroyed city, but i loved it when i was there just once, and i'm sure i'll love it again. it won't be as hot as it was then (101 in the shade), and i'll have a car, something i don't have here.

i asked myself today why i'm doing all this - running around and filming. i'm surrounded by "filmmakers" here, people with a clear purpose. i asked myself: "do i not have a clear purpose?" honestly, i don't know. i thought about what i told you, that when a company is paying me so much to go somewhere and do something, i want to live up to that expectation and work hard. not work my ass off, i'm not doing that here, but i'm not taking any time off to stop and look around. my inner motor always revs on high when i'm in the field. maybe i feel guilty when i go on the road because i feel like i don't work hard enough when i'm home. i don't know...

i'm saying all of this so that maybe you can see something in it and give me a little insight into why i do this, who i am, and - ultimately - what i want. i think you might know. or at least might be able to see through everything to some clear answer. i'm not sad, i'm just even. and i've never been that. ask anyone. i've always been either 100% great or 100% shitty. No Middle Ground. that was my middle name.

then i thought about you. i thought: "well, i'm making money. i'm building toward a goal of owning a house," but for what? to live in, sure, to settle somewhere. to have a place that's forever the place where i have a comfy armchair in the corner by the fire with a bright, wide window next to it where i can read.

do i want to make films? i honestly don't know. evidence would suggest that i don't, seeing as i haven't. should i call myself a filmmaker? i don't know... i DO know that i want to do everything in my power to help you get to where YOU want to be. i'm committed to that. it's a very clear goal in my head.

when i thought about New Orleans i thought: "i have the car and will be alone. maybe i can just drive around and see what i see. i always 'see' with the camera, never taking time to see with my own eyes. i'll have the time to do that in New Orleans." maybe i can even write some commentary for the web. i don't know. all i know is that i'm not not looking forward to the trip. it will be un-fun to be away from you again for that long, but at least i won't be doing stupid stuff like i'm doing here. this is just awful. being in this sea of hypocriticals who are all discussing the new, affecting Iraq documentaries while they ignore the State of the Union is something that really brought everything home to me. Don't Make Any Art That Doesn't Matter. fiction is stupid unless it has a global, influential message. if you're going to entertain, you better knock it out of the park. that's why i like docs. maybe i am a filmmaker and just need to own it more by actually settling on a project and seeing it all the way through. i'm GREAT at all the small stuff. TV shows. 3-minute features. but what about something more...? what do i care about?

actually, i care a great deal about the elderly. and i care about cancer. and i care about music. and i care about you.

my heart is so heavy right now about my mom. i still just can't believe it.... i miss her so much. i wonder sometimes if i'm just going and going and going to try to rid myself of the pain of not being able to talk to her. my body misses hugging her so much.

i want to come home, babe. i think i need some vacation time. i think i need a break. i'll take a long one after SXSW. April.

Happy New Year?

2006-12-31T22:05:00.000-08:00

Doesn't it just suck when people blow it?

Catching Up To The Future

2006-12-21T13:21:00.000-08:00

The future just arrived. Today. Actually, last night. It started last night. M's father pulled me aside to tell me something in confidence. This has never happened before, so you can bet that - even with a few glasses of wine in me - I paid attention... John asked if I had any thoughts on having children. I said that, yes, M. and I have talked about it a lot. He then suggested that I go first, because of my age ("Your clock is ticking," he said), and suggested I do so with M's brother as the donor.

...

I KNOW!!!! WOW!!!!!

But that wasn't all. NEXT he suggested MY BROTHER AS A DONOR FOR M. This is all pretty big stuff and just so REAL, it was an incredible moment. As a result I can say officially that I have had more "real" moments - moments that you realy can't sleep through; moments that when you're in them you are 100% aware of how important and impacting they are - with M's family than I have with anyone else. They're just good people and have embraced me into their family with such gusto that I can't ignore it anymore. I am HERE TO STAY, and actually HAVE AN IMPACT on their lives. It's an incredible feeling, especially after so much time feeling invisible. Amazing...

I Dream Like This

2006-12-16T20:39:00.000-08:00

I dream of Mom all the time. Michael just told me that he had his first dream of her "in a while" 2 nights ago. At the moment my eyes had landed on a page of news I was reading online and caught the word "Obituary." I suddenly remembered doing a Google search on her a few weeks ago and finding a notice my Dad had put up about her death. I can't remember where he put it, but it was somewhere familiar. One of our schools, or something. "Beloved wife of..." It's still so dissociating. You can't imagine it unless it's happened to you.

Life On Blog

2006-12-14T11:56:00.000-08:00

My friend Katie wants to blog. She'll be AMAZING at it. I spoke to her for a long time on the phone today about what sites to check out, how to "do" it - blogging -, and then sent her a long email with some of my favorite links. It's exciting to think how long Katie and I have known each other, and to see us now adapting so well to the new world. Blogging. Holy shit. Vlogging. I had to tell her what that meant. I didn't even know what it meant until a year ago... It's exciting because blogging is the ultimate democracy. Choice On Wheels. You can create a blog or a vlog and put it up on the web for all to see. This is beautiful. It's like meeting new and interesting people while sipping coffee on a plaza in Rome. No shit. You're sitting at a cafe near the Spanish steps and all of a sudden some tall, blonde dude and his super-short-haired, blonde girlfriend will ask you for sugar. In perfect English-With-A-Dutch-Accent.

The Dutch always seem to really travel a lot. Have you noticed that...???

Anyway, so Katie is getting into blogging. She's a professional mom and accomplished children's book writer, so she'll be a natural. It's also exciting to think about reading her stuff every day. No matter what she writes about. Katie and I have known each other for - fuck - over 30 years (when did THAT happen..????), and fell to only being in touch, like, once a year. It's life, you know. Work, relationships. Work. Moving too quickly. Maybe why the Chinese eat so much rice or the Indians do so much yoga - slows'em down. Katie and I need to slow down. I find that when only half of my day is "full" I feel much better. Working from home helps a lot, and so I'm looking forward to Katie discovering that bliss.

You go girl!

India and more

2006-12-13T09:32:00.000-08:00

This morning I started thinking about packing. What will I bring to India? And what will I be able to fit in my suuitcase that will otherwise be filled with gifts? Juthica has told me that coffee table books of classicly American (Native American) images would be best for adults and any kind of electronic gadgets would be best for kids. There are three kids I'm bringing stuff for. They are the children of the 2 professors I am interviewing for a piece on Kolkata itself. The city has had an internationally bad rap for long enough and so, although I have to address the issue of poverty and squalor, I'm also going to have these guys talk about the wonders and beauty of the city. It was, after all, once the capitol of India...

Last night I had flight-panic. But this is normal. It's not that I'm afraid to fly, it's that I'm afraid to leave my house. My routine. I am a slave to the comfort of routine. Cancer with Cancer rising and my Moon in Cancer. Oy vey... Anyway, so this is what happens to me before a trip: I'll spend a couple of days being very excited, then will wake up one night FREAKING OUT about leaving M. and having to go off into the cold, dark land all by myself. You have to understand that, for me, the last "cold, dark land" I went to was Canada. Not bad. Not bad at all. But I wuss, so...

So, what will I bring to India...??? I think it'll be 80 degrees and humid. Kind of like back East. ;)

The Time of Total Non-Reality

2006-11-29T08:50:00.000-08:00

This is what I call the period between Thanksgiving and New Year's. During this period it seems that every otherwise reasonable person turns into a stark, raving lunatic and all I want to do is run away to a sunny tropical island and hold my breath until it's all over. Truly, though, this was my mother's problem. My MOTHER became a stark, raving lunatic. Maybe it was the unpredictable nature of any arrival by my brother, or maybe it was the anticipation of having all of us, the Fab Four, back together again. Mom wasn't ever the same after the family "broke up" when Michael left for college.

I wasn't the favorite. I was the female. In households headed-up by Latin mothers, The Eldest/The Boy is The Heir Apparent. All others need cater and keep silent. And if you're The Girl, then you are additionally expected to be All Other Things: servant, maid, emotional caretaker. This is not me complaining, by the way, this is me explaining. I no longer wish to hide certain truths from certain folks, i.e., anyone close enough to me to care enough about reading this blog.

The favoritism thing wasn't anyone's fault and wasn't all that bad. My mother, by cultural origin, had no choice, and my father was blinded by the same powerful, Apollo-like, Golden Boy rays that came off Michael that we all were. Michael was... an angel. He still is. He's just lost a few of his feathers.

I joked with someone yesterday that for the first 15 years of my life my name was "Michael Prichard's Little Sister." He was something of a celebrity in our small community of intellectuals. He was an accomplished choir singer from 4th grade through the changing of his voice, and became the reason why many - pardon the pun - actually flocked to the Episcopal church where he sang. He had a soprano... that you would just not believe. Rich. Round. Full. Sounds like I'm talking about wine. But if you could have heard him...

Anyway, we are in the midst of The Time of Total Non-Reality and it's a miracle because I'm not feeling any effects at all. M's family doesn't freak the way families I grew with did. It was a Rite of Passage. Ya freaked. No one blamed you, everyone hated it, and then we all ate turkey. What's not to love?

Maybe it's all this damned sun and no snow around here. The absolute lack of hardship. Where I come from winter is something you EARN. You survive an East Coast winter and don't go home crying to mommy, you get your wings. But, like living in NYC a few years after you're not into being there any more, once you leave the East Coast winter for Southern, sunny CA, you don't go back. And that's what's hard. I belong there. Back there in the cold and harsh dark. The misery that at this time of year is always a little... wonderful.

Ah well. No answers today. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe never. Goodnight Mom. I miss you.

The Feeling Of Being Not Here

2006-11-20T11:41:00.000-08:00

The feeling of being just not here is growing. There are pains in my body that move around so I never know what to try to heal. I'm always chasing some new hurt. Obviously this time, the holidays, are more terrible since Mom died. They bring into sharp focus the fact that my other half is gone. Or my complete whole. Or all of me. I feel like the walking dead sometimes. Numb. Clear-colored. Plastic. And I don't know what to do. Having never been depressed I couldn't tell you if I am now or if I'm just very, very blue. I do know that nothing feels or looks the same as it did when she was alive. It's as if, finally, I'm understanding that all of my joy of life went with Mom. I can laugh and smile and feel happy and hopeful for others, I just can't sit up, can't move toward them, toward the happiness. Everything feels at arm's length.

2006-11-11T14:07:00.000-08:00

The thing I have been most afraid of has happened, is true: I don't feel anything any more, it seems. My mom is gone and with her went me. How did I not see how connected we really were? I wake up wondering how I could feel so little these days. I mean, we're talking about ME, after all. Anyway, I had a dream of paranoia last night. No, a feeling of paranoia and I "called on" my mom to come and help me. She came. She was real, albeit, spirit. Air. Smoke. She was smoke. She hovered above me in one of the flowy, formless dresses she used to make for herself, light as a feather, and then lay down next to me and took me into her arms. Somehow I thought that was too weird, to be lying in bed with my mother, and so I imagined her going into me. In habiting me. She lived inside me and was pushing out all the "dents" in my soul, like a mechanic does with a damaged car. I was lying awake so scared, really PARANOID, panicked about my life - my actual LIFE - and she came and held me. All this time I've wanted her to come, but I guess I didn't need her badly enough, and then she shows up last night and.... saves me? I don't know. I do know that I don't want to lose M, and that mom doesn't want me to either. She misses me too. She's so sad that I'm hurting so much, but she's strong. She didn't cry. She's in a place now where she understands everything we do in life and why.

Election Day

2006-11-07T13:38:00.000-08:00

Can you feel the tension in the air? The collective held breath? The results of today could rock our nation, however they turn out. And so I feel it's so appropos that Donna Warren called me this afternoon to say what she thought of the video I made of my one day visit with her. Donna is the Green party candidate for Lt. Gov. of CA and I spent a day following her around on her campaign to get a glimpse into the life of a local activist. It was an incredible day and I came home with three hours of footage ready to make a small extravaganza. But, in my heart on the drive home, I knew what the piece would really turn out to be... Check out the video here:

http://donoevil.netscape.com/story/2006/11/07/netscape-onevoice-donna-warren/

Donna called to tell me that she loved the piece. It wasn't what she expected - which I imagine was a strong, campaign-like statement on Green party politics and why we should all care about hard social justice issues - but she felt that it was good. "Heart-wrenching" is what she said.

As a person and an artist I've always held back just enough so that people in my videos wouldn't get hurt. This is, I think, my first departure from that. I knew that if I didn't tell Donna's son's story I wouldn't be telling Donna's story or that of the cause of social justice. I never set out to make her cry, dredging up, as I did, the murder of her beloved son, but there comes a time as an artist when you have to let go of every safety net there is if you know you have a REAL story. Donna was brave enough and generous enough to let me do whatever I wanted, and the universe has rotated just enough so that I would be able to recognize what I was supposed to do with such material.

Thank goodness. And I hope I never go back to hiding under the covers.

My very, very humble thanks go out to Donna for this opportunity.

My Life In The Slow Lane

2006-10-24T12:15:00.000-07:00

My brother is saving my future. He's helping me get out from under a few money problems that will help me buy a house in two years. I got the "you betcha" email from him today in response to my email from yesterday asking for his help.

Everyone needs an older brother. Everyone needs an older brother like this. I am humbled and very grateful. Here's my response to his chivalry:

"All I want, now that I have the relationship I've always dreamed of, is a house of my own. Must be Mom's genes working in me. I had a dream last night that I was standing in front of my huge yard, visualizing a flower & vegetable garden, when I suddenly realized I didn't know how to grow anything. In the dream I went to a garden store/Farmer's market and asked a young man there if he was a gardener. When he said yes I told him about what I wanted to do and then asked him to come over to my house and act as my consultant for a good fee. He agreed and the next part of the dream is in "scenes:" he's pointing at soil and telling me what will grow well there; I'm digging up dirt with a handplow and tenderly laying seeds into the ground. I'm sure that tonight I'll dream of myself eating fresh zucchini."

We all need help at times. The trick is to realize it, be open to the moment when it presents itself, have the balls to ask your most trustworthy intimates for the help, and then have the balls to walk through the fire. I did it once. With a lot of help. There are a few folks around me right now who are on the jumping off place to doing it - needing it badly. With my hand over my heart and my head bowed, I thank my brother for this incredible gesture of love, and I send good vibes to those around me who need the strength to ask for what they need. May they soon see that the path to loving themselves is clean and clear and actually all that it is cracked-up to be.

The Virtual/Mobile Life

2006-10-07T12:48:00.000-07:00

Does anybody remember the movie "Singles"? It was as much about the life of single almost-30-somethings in Seattle as it was the visual-mainstreaming (and killing) of grunge music. With Matt Dillon mockingly sporting Chris Cornell-inspired long locks and khaki cargo cut-offs, fronting a band named Citizen Dick (who's most famous song was, no kidding, "Touch Me, I'm Dick"...), and boasting, as it could, Eddie Vedder's (and other Pearl Jam members') first on-screen appearance, "Singles" showed us that nothing in youth culture was sacred anymore.

But, I digress... (The destruction of music-inspired rebellion and/or rebellion-inspired music in this country is certainly a discussion worth having, I'm just here to talk about something else right now).

If you look closely at the movie, carving your way through all the unnecessary stuff like, well, most of the movie, you'll see one of the main characters trying to do something revolutionary: design and build a commuter train that would be cafe, meeting place, and wireless workspot all in one. Actually, I can't remember if the character played by Campbell Scott was going to include wireless connectivity into his supertrain, but all of his other ideas for it are awesome.

As I work from home as well as "third places," this article struck a chord in me. I love being mobile, left alone, and connected anywhere I go. And no, I'm not cell or crackberry addicted, I just like to be able to read my various website of current news whenever I want. I think perhaps, instead of being called the Kinko's culture, we should be called the demanding culture. It annoys me beyond anything I can express here that we can send people to the Moon but still have to suffer roaming charges. Roaming is ridiculous. There are SATELLITES in the sky. Technology can't be so backward that a better repeater system hasn't been inevted yet. I know it's out there and I want it. Now.

But, I digress...

I find that I prefer working out of a "third place" because I get to meet people and somehow still get more work done, as the article's protagonist does. There's something about the freedom of managing my own time that makes me wake up earlier so I can get to the coffeeshop faster, so I can have time to chat with someone I meet and still get everything done that I need to. And it's gratifying to know that all the while I'm also benefitting my company by, as the article states, saving on office space, the overhead of having bodies in an office, gas money - which I would inevitably covertly bill to my company, especially since I live in Los Angeles - and, the big one: TIME.

In LA everything is at least an hour each way. And that's usually not counting traffic. With today's gas prices and the public's growing acceptance of the facts of global warming, more and more Angelenos are working from home. Before Netscape I worked at a company that was a 1 1/2 drive - each way - from my house. Traffic. When the current gas crisis began I tried driving into the office for one week before I caved and said: "Either you let me go or you let me work from home." I'm a video producer and editor. There is no meeting in the world that I have to participate in in the flesh. Always on the go, we're a phone, email and IM industry. You tell me I have to come into the office so I can respond to emails from my boss who sits across the hall, I'll tell you to stick your server where the Sun don't shine.

Anyway, I liked the article because it feels new. Feels like the first time someone is coming out and saying: "this is the way to do things. Work has to be conducted in a new way. Everything needs to be conducted in a new way."

Currently, I am writing from the lobby of the Westin Los Angeles airport. I am here accompanying M as she participates in a music conference. The revolution is here. We all just have to look up.

Square One

2006-09-26T18:28:00.000-07:00

Times like these are why it's good to drink. "Drowning" your sorrows isn't a phrase that came out of nowhere. It works, and that's why people keep doing it. My problem is... the whole weight issue. I get fat when I drink beer. I've tried switching to red wine - as studies show it's also good for the heart - but it doesn't have that same cold, chugging satisfaction that beer has.

Clearly, I need an alternative.

Go Fuck Yourself

2006-09-25T21:41:00.000-07:00

If it takes so much work to be grateful then you're doing it wrong.

It Smells Like...

2006-09-21T10:47:00.000-07:00

...Spring outside. Usually in SoCal outside doesn't smell like anything year-'round but sage. But today, though, in the quiet late morning while everyone else is in school or at work, the air smells like the beginning of something wonderful.

Sometimes, on days like these when I was growing up, Mom would let me stay home. I'd pretend to be sick even though I knew she knew I wasn't. For some reason, because of the magic of the day, it was okay for her to believe whatever she wanted or needed to believe so we could stay together. Just like in love relationships, in life sometimes it's important, for your soul's growth, to break the rules a little.

Everything has meaning on a day like this, as if Time has stopped so you can make a note of things. In those times it's important to do something you've never done. And when you're in love, it's imperative.

I can't imagine what M. and I could do today - we both have so many commitments... but days like these seem to promise that everything will be okay even if you shirk your responsibilities. Days like these demand to be remembered.

I wonder...

It's Been A Month Since My Last Confession

2006-09-18T21:26:00.000-07:00

Travel, travel and more travel. And more to come. We went to the east coast, I saw family, M. saw family and met her godson!!!! And then I went to work in Toronto. I never thought a film festival could actually be fun but I guess that's what happens when you talk to interesting people. My favorite interview was Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro. He is such a sweet, beautiful man that all of sudden, after talking with him, I can see his genius so clearly. It IS harder to see it otherwise. He's scarey. His films are scarey. Anyway, I got back a couple of days ago and am just now recovered. I had a blast and am so happy with my improving shooting skills. I can already tell that I'm writing this post as if my mother was going to read it. She has been very present with me in the last few days. There were a couple of days at the end of the festival when I felt her approaching presence. She was around, but distant. Then when I got home, there she was - all around me. I was cooking chicken stew tonight - her recipe, or what I gleaned of her recipe from smelling and eating it for 30 years - and felt her there with me, looking over my shoulder. Our relationship has changed a bit. She's more at rest, more at peace now, it feels like (or maybe that's me...) than ever before. Hence she was there looking over my shoulder and not kibbitzing. I was throwing this and that into the stew and into the rice as if I'd been doing it as long as she had, and maybe that's right, maybe there's some of her being channeled through me. It would be great if that was true. I certainly feel as though she's moving there through me when I cook, guiding my hand and my thoughts a bit. "A little lemon. Yes, a little lemon would taste good there."

M. had a dream the other night and told me the next day: "I know where we should go. For a trip. Peru." Instantly, my eyes welled-up. "It's going to be really hard for me," I whimpered. "I know," she said, "but I know it's right, and I'll be there with you. I'll take care of you. And we'll go to Machu Piccu." It's been this forever thing in my mind - that I am descended from the Incas. Maybe I am, but what's more important is that I'm the daughter of a woman who was born in Bolivia. My grandmother was Bolivian. I wish I'd known her, or heard her voice on an old recording. Wouldn't that be something? Antonia Guzman. Maybe M. would be okay with naming a daughter Emma Nilda Antonia, for us, for Mom and for Mom's mom, my gradmother. Mi abuela, Antonia. Maybe I could write something, or film something about what she might have been like. Or maybe my Aunt Nelly could remember something my Uncle Walter might have said about her. My mother died when I was 37, his mother died when he was 7.

So, more traveling. Keep the light on.

"I'm worried about my daughter"

2006-08-15T23:47:00.000-07:00

Mom was hallucinating. I said: "she's okay. She's fine." She nodded, her eyes wide, trusting me so, and replied "okay." A few seconds later she was "back" and I was me again.

If I tried to fully imagine what her body looked like as it burned to ash inside the creamator, I would go completely mad. There are places, images, realities where I am not yet ready to go, but for some reason keep feeling like I must. I see myself climbing up a steep mountain in La Paz, Bolivia and letting fly some of her ashes. I see myself watching them as they float away, free.

I think my mother was freest those months when it was just the two of us on the Vineyard. Her laugh was so easy then, and she went to sleep early because her body finally had a chance to completely relax. Every muscle, every pore. Her breaths were deep when she took a nap, and she looked like an angel. When she woke I would make her soup and a small smorgasboard of cheese, crackers, hummus, lox and a beer. That's what passed for lunch in my house, unless Mom had cooked and there were leftovers, or Dad had picked up KFC on the way home from tennis on the weekend. Then, when they moved to the Vineyard full-time tennis was every day and the chances of fried chicken even greater.

But I didn't so much care for other people's friend chicken. I liked Mom's. I flatter myself that I make a good variety of chicken dishes to rival Mom's. They're different, of course, but very good.

I'm tired. Every pore. ;) It feels good. That song of M's always knocks me out. Makes me sad, makes me remember, makes me write and then makes me sleep.

Good night, Mommy. Touch me if you can. My heart needs a recharge.

"I'd Be Happier In A Bar"

2006-08-12T10:27:00.000-07:00

I'm watching a Janis Joplin documentary. She's telling a reporter that she'd be happier doing this interview with him in a bar. I watch the film and wonder how much of the time she was flat drunk. Or frozen on heroin? How could she keep time with all those influences...??? People used to say she was ugly, but I think she has the cutest, All-American girl-type smile. The other ridiculous and disassociating thing were all the people standing on stage behind the band as they played. They stood back there with drinks in their hands, their suit jackets tailored tight against turtlenecks as they swayed in hip post-Beat fashion to the coolest music on earth at that time, sucking, as they did so, the very life out of her. "Take it. Take another little piece of my heart..."

I can't remember the meanest thing I ever did to my mother. Maybe leaving. I didn't leave in the spiritual sense - never that - but all those times I left to go back to school, when we held each other too long... so long that I almost missed my train, or too long because it didn't feel right at that moment to leave. Leaving mom is something I was never comfortable with or good at. "Had I known what it took to come this far... would I have...???"

Would you change the world to fit for me...? She did. In every way. And try as I might I am not winning the battle against missing her less.

Cycles

2006-08-04T10:35:00.000-07:00

Everything, it seems, happens in cycles. But this is different. Do you all feel it? There's A LOT of energy swirling around and, although cyclical in feeling, is also undeniably a little different. Take the current conflicts going on all over the Middle East. While it's no surprise that these kinds of military expressions of hatred cycle through that region regularly, it still feels like there's something different happening now. I wonder if it's evolution. No, I'm not kidding. To evolve doesn't necessarily mean to progress, it means to change. The feeling I get from the Middle East is that this isn't the same old argument being handled in the same old way. This is more finite. It seems as if Israel is deliberately unleashing a violence they've been storing for just such an occasion, while it also seems as if Hizballah is defending itself as if it's been preparing for this fight for years. I srael won't stop unless the world stops it, and Hizballah won't stop unless Israel stops. If anyone has the upper hand, it seems to me to be Hizballah. They're not making desperate decisions, they're making calculated ones, while Israel is acting like a bully that just got his come-uppance and is swinging wildly with everything he's got.

How this affects my life is... well... is the same as how it affects all of our lives. For at least ten years I only skimmed over news of Middle Eastern conflicts. Today I am reading everything I can find because the conflict has changed. Is changing. Before our very eyes. And if we're not careful, it could spark WW3, and who on earth could survive that?

I had a dream last night that the earth split in two. Right down the middle. The two halves went floating apart in space, one getting burned-up by floating too close to the Sun while the other - the half M and I were on - stayed relatively in the same place. The trouble with our half was that, as a result of losing so much mass, our gravity and weather got all fucked-up. I am now obsessed with finding out just what would happen to life on the living half if this ever happened. Would we lose gravity? How would that affect living organisms? Us?

I don't find it at all conincidental that what was important in my dream was that M was on the side that survived. Even in my unconcious she cannot be hurt or in danger because I simply couldn't bear it.

A Little More Sacred

2006-08-01T22:09:00.000-07:00

I left a message for my friend Nathan:

"Hey, how is it that, at 'almost 40,' both of us are still up at 10 o'clock. I mean it's fine and all, but I know you and I certainly know me and I'm fairly sure that both of us would rather be asleep right now. But see, we're both interested in the world and doing our part to save it and, as a consequence, we're busy as hell... so, I don't know... Anyway, I'll literally only give you ONE guess as to who this is, after that, you're on your own! Seriously, though, give me a call back tonight if you can, I'll be up until at least midnight, and I want to talk to you about something that can't be done during work hours, it's a little more sacred than that. Alright, I love you and miss you. Bye."

"It's a little more sacred than that. My mother died." Eesh...

Is my idea of others' reactions to the news of my mother's death greater than her actual impact on them was? Am I building her memory up too much? Am I going to be disappointed by people who aren't hurt when they learn of it? I have a lot of people, people close to me, telling me I have to move on, can't let this sadness rule me. K... How close were you to YOUR mother, asshole???????!!!!!!!!

N: How did she die?
A: We think... cancer.
N: Who is "we?"
A: Tom Lynch, oncologist.
N: What kind of cancer?
A: We think... lung.
N: Why aren't you certain?
A: Because Tom isn't and he's not saying any more.
N: There was an autopsy.
A: Yes.
N: Results?
A: Metastasis.
N: As predicted.
A: Yes.
N: And.... nothing else?
A: Cremation.
N: Ah...
A: Yes.
N: A pity.
A: Yes.
N: You're sad?
A: It's a little more sacred than that.

I have a greiving process. It's not rocket-science, but it works for me. When I had my last "extremely bad thing that happened in my life" I dealt with it head-on. Met the fear, shook it's hand, went into an emotional & psychological tailspin, rollercoaster ride and survived, with a lot of help. Friends, family, Mom. Mom is always bigger than everything else, even family, and so she gets her own category.

Anyway, so I have experience in how my "process" works. I think that's very good! What if the death of my mother was the first "extremely bad thing that happened in my life"? Who's to say how/if I would have come through it? Cause if you take current evidence of my state as data and throw me into the past with a set-up of never having gone through someting like this, I warrant the numbers wouldn't look good. I think it would take me A LOT longer than it's taking me to deal. Dad says he pushes aside memories and feelings of Mom when they come up because they just make him sad. Well, you know what? Memories and dreams - even bad ones - are all I have left of her, and I will hold on for dear life, thankyouverymuch.

Fuck... Meet the girlfriend? You've got to be kidding...

This has been a hard day. I live in priviledge so "hard" is relative, and so, relatively speaking, today was hard. I found out that my father can't help me financially as he did my brother and my brother's wife. I found out that I am, essentially, worth one-third as much as my brother. Not that I'm crying over lost inheritance, no. I'm struggling financially and could use some help, that's all. But, relatively speaking, I'm okay.

This makes no sense, and anyway I'm too angry and disappointed to try to make sense. So I think I'll just leave it here. Maybe I'll comment some more later/have a revelation, but for now this is it. Maybe some of you can comment or send me an email saying: "we're still here. You're okay. Hang in there." I don't know...

In The Midst of the Unpredictable

2006-07-29T21:15:00.000-07:00

Although it's still relatively early in the night, I'm awfully tired. I woke up too early after going to bed too late. I try to promise myself that I won't do that but sometimes circumstance gets the better of you. In this case, as in the last few of this past week, M has been rabidly busy - no time to sit or stop moving, she has been running from one thing to the next - and, because I want to accompany her, I end up staying up. This is new in a way... When we were first together I stayed up because the "in love" part was always on "go," but then things slowed down. When I moved in with her, we got used to each other, we had our own lives. Mine involves sleeping. As much as I can. There are plenty of times when I don't sleep, or don't sleep well, and they are alway when I'm on the road, working. So, as I say, today it's something different...

Two nights ago M and I were driving home from a function and suddenly, looking out the window at the passing rugged landscape I realized that I was no longer tied to Carlisle, the home I shared iwth my brother and his wife. I have loved it from the moment I set eyes on the place and will cherish forever the gift of having lived with my one and only brother, but things have changed. The last time M and I visited him at the Carlisle house, there was unnecessary tension for me. It was Michael's 40th birthday and months ago I'd wanted to make a big deal out of it: contact his best pals way in advance, have everyone go in on an elaborate gift that he'd be sure to love, have a big BBQ in Carlisle, the whole nine. I thought that his first birthday after The Death, and the fact that it was his 40th merited a TO DO. But no. The disorganization that permeates his current existence made it impossible for anything predictable to happen, so when M and I arrived, what we were served was the unpredictable. Knowing him and his wife as well as I do I should have predicted that: the unpredictable, so, yes, in a way it's my own goddamned fault, but the crashing disappointment I felt as a result wasn't.

This brings us to the night two nights ago when I was staring out the window on the drive home in CA... I felt the last "string" tying me emotionally to my old life there suddenly snap. One second it was there, the next gone, and I realized that it meant that M really was all that I have now. Not that my brother is gone, it's just... It feels like the time I let go of Mom and moved out to San Francisco to try out my wings. I never had before then. I'd lived with or near Mom my whole life and liked it just fine. I'm a "late bloomer." For real. I mature late. I say that in the present tense because it's still going on... Anyway, at that time in my life I had left NYC due to a nervous breakdown, basically. The move out West that first time PISSED MOM OFF and we had a big fight. I screamed at her: "YOU did this! YOU made me stay! YOU made me your best friend when I need you to be MY MOTHER! Now you HAVE TO LET ME GO!" And yes, it was as dramatic as I'm making it sound here. To her credit Mom left the room, took a breath, and somehow miraculously came back in and, with an ashen, surprised face, said: "You're absolutely right. I did do that to you. I'm so sorry."

After that we talked for hours. About everything. About me. About her, her life and how she grew up - basically raising herself. At the end she understood why I was feeling the things I was feeling, and, to my eternal amazement, did something I will try to emultae for the rest pf my life: she put aside her own feelings in favor of supporting mine. She stood up and said, excitedly (my mother, at 68, could be excited like a 4-year-old): "I'll help you pack!"

I felt a detachment then, but it was quasi-good/quasi-intended. Parent let's go of child, child grows up, blah, blah, blah... This thing with my brother feels different. I never wanted to feel detached from him. I guess the center of it, though, is that he doesn't need to feel attached to me. I definitely feel a NEED to be attached to him. We're each other's only sibling, and OUR mother died. We should have a bond, and make efforts for one another. But I can't do it alone. Like when I have troubles with M - we need to resolve them together. I can't be both sides of something.

So, I looked out the window and felt the snapping of the string. A string I know was only in me, which is why it hurts so much.

And so now there's M. I turned to her and told her I loved her. She smiled. And today I cried in her arms because I was tired and had been wrestling with a Mom dream, and it was soon time for M to go to work and I didn't want her to go.

There's this powerfully painful memory I have: Mom had been visiting me in NYC. One of the few times she did that. We had a great time, were inseparable, and when it came time to leave I took her to the train station myself. In the middle of Grand Central we said goodbye. I don't know why we'd decided that I wouldn't go all the way to her track with her and see her actually get on the train, but that's what happened. Anyway, so we hugged and looked as supportive for each other as we could, and then she turned and walked away. I turned for a second and felt my heart drop into my stomach with a terrifying, nauseating thud. Immediately I turned back around and ran toward Mom. She heard my steps because hse turned and we fell into an embrace and both cried like we were never going to see each other again.

It is my truest feeling that EVERY moment is precious. Every one. Iv always felt this way, although it's gotten more acute in the last several years of my "adulthood." Every moment should be cried over like it was going to be your last. It just very simply could be. What a gift: to know that any moment could be your last with a person. That give us such easy rules to follow: always be a good person. Don't ever slack off. It's not as hard as it sounds. And yes, I count myself as a very good person.

I can't remember what Mom and I did that day in Grand Central. I can't remember if I decided to say "fuck it" and went with her or what. What I do know is that I wanted to. The way I know that I wish she was still alive today and that I miss her so much it makes living - every day - difficult.

Settling Down The Whirlwind

2006-07-26T10:14:00.000-07:00

The past week and a half have seemed like a whirlwind. Last Wednesday I went to job #1 and had a great time even though it was late-night and stressful; then went to job #2 early on Thursday and the ceiling fell in. No, not literally. One of our number fell down badly on the job forcing the rest of us to pick up after him. We were at a very large event and as a result of being overworked I came home sick, exhausted and annoyed. I've recovered now, but boy was that a pain in the ass. Now that person has been let go or has taken a leave and so I have to be the only videographer for a while. Do I love it? Yes. Is it a shitload of physical work? Yes. Does it mean more time away from M? Yup. Does that grate on my soul and wear-down my defenses in every way? Betcher-ass...

M has been having nightmares. Project fears, personal worries. It's not easy pursuing your dreams. You have to own up to them, rise to the occasion, and actually accept that you're good at something. It's this last one that is the real slippery-slope. The comforting, previously ever-present self-doubt: "am I good enough?" is replaced with an answer we never planned for. "Yes." What the fuck do you do with "YES"?????? Yes means I have to KEEP DOING WHAT I'M DOING, have to STAY ON MY TOES and KEEP WORKING THIS HARD ALL THE TIME!!!!!!! Yes. It does.

I've always worked this hard. It comes so naturally to me. The only things I have to "gear up" for in my life are times when I'm going to be away from M. Those times are impossible to me. I see red, get anxiuous weeks before I leave, and start crying at unpredictable times. But for all the rest of the things one has to do in one's life to get from point A to point B I seem to do okay. I've trained myself to distill something down to it's most basic version and then look to see how that, in the end, and from any angle, could affect me. Once I realize that it's not going to kill me (as very few things will), I move forward to address it so I can move on.

This, of course, brings up the question: what does "move on" mean to me? Only one thing: M and I owning our own house.

I'd like to take a moment here to talk about how much "in a relationship" I feel I am. With the only other true one that I've been in there was always a distance, always a certain "this isn't the last stop on the train." But, of course, I was fairly young then, but still not as young as M is now, and so sometimes, in the dark, I worry. But not a lot, I have to tell you. That's why this one feels so real and so like how these things are supposed to feel. She feels like blood. Irremoveable. Biologically a part of me. Maybe that's the time in relationships when couples start looking alike. It's because they're so in love and have gotten to that place where they understand that their role in a relationship is just to respect the other person. Once you reach that place maybe the part of your ego that made you insane for so many years (being insecure about how you looked, trying to be impressive in a job, stressing about your dreams) falls away or just relaxes and you suddenly become what I feel is a human's natural state: relaxed, logical and kind as a result of being in love. But I think this can only happen when the love is mutual. And it doesn't come without a ton of testing. M and I are here after two hard, hard years of screaming at each other, walking away, and... always coming back. We have worked and worked and worked and worked at this relationship. We've worked so hard we've changed. She has actually changed herself for me and I have actually changed myself for her.

I don't want to speak for her on this issue, but for me the changes have all been ones that were so, so necessary. The most prevailing is one that's old and linked to my family. I've always suffered from a feeling of being a little bit invisible. I joke that for the first 14 years of my life my name was "Michael's Little Sister," and believe me it was a name I bore with pride, but after several years I realized it was an occurance that had affected me deeply by causing me to suppress my own personality. If I was proud of being "Michael's Little Sister" then it wasn't bad to be that, and, consequently, I didn't have to work too hard at finding out who I actually was. Anyway, so years and years of not trying to figure it out ensued: I coasted, and drank, and pretended to get by. I went through a series of 12-step programs, annoying friends, bad jobs, bad realtionships, being bad in relationships, blah, blah, blah...- finally, I hit the wall. I was emotionally completely drained. What was really happening was that I wasn't facing anything. Nothing. I was living my life from moment to moment, making it up as I went along and holding my breath in between. Ironically, when I finally crashed for real, in early 2002, it was to Michael that I went and found myself. I went and lived with him and he and I talked and I read for 2 1/2 months. Living with him and hearing the clarity he had for his own life, made me realize what I was missing: my own opinion. When I was little I always knew what I wanted and how I felt about things. By age 34 I had suppressed it ALL. It took Michael, his discourse and his library to bring me back. I began to develop opinions about world affairs, psychology, food, travel. I was coming back, and it was incredible.

The rest of the story most of you know well: I moved with him to Boston and worked at a great job and then met M, who has, effectively, completed this phase of my "retraining." With her I let go of every defense mechanism I had left. I realized, in the 2 years of fighting-and-figuring-out with her that what I needed to do was take a leap of faith. I had to trust her. I had to trust that she loved me. With that comes a period of emotional whitewater-rafting. It's relatively short, but also powerful and dangerous. Still, it's just rapids. You're in a boat, you've got your buddy, and you've trained for this. And the only real way down the river is on the river. Walking while carrying the kayak yourself will take a long time and you'll probably die before you reach the end of the rapids. Along the way you'll be starving and will have to fend off bears who see you as a good meal waiting to happen. If you choose not to go down at all, then you'll die there, in the woods, at the top of the river, and become bear food. So, trust me, play the odds. It's the best decision.

Isn't it funny? Braving the river is the scariest choice, but also the one with the best odds. Who would have thought...???

Another Night of Talking to the Dead

2006-07-18T08:49:00.000-07:00

Two nights ago I had a dream that the four of us were on some kind of vacation. An outing. We were all the ages we are now. We were walking around an outside museum of some kind, then I decided for everyone that we should sit down at these round, outdoor tables. We weren't, any of us, happy. There was a gloom over the whole afternoon. But still, I pressed on. It was me that wanted us to be here, to be pretending to be happy. I needed this and was working very hard at it. Anyway, so I decided to get us all some drinks. Mom was cold so I thought I'd make people some nice, hot drinks. Instead of asking the employees of the museum to help me I jumped behind the "kitchen area" - the kind that magically appear in dreams when you need them to - and started whipping something up. As my father was complaining about having to be there at all, about having to do this, I deliberately made him something I knew he would hate. I made a super-sweet hot chocolate with CHUNKS of raw chocolate and other devastatingly sweet things floating around in it. For Michael I made something less sweet because I knew he liked it. And for Mom I made tea the way she likes it. While I was cooking one of the employees came up to me and showed me a picture of my dad in uniform. An Army uniform. Aged somewhat as he is today, but standing in the picture in an Army uniform. I remarked that I'd never seen that picture and asked if I could have it, as it was of my father. The woman said no. She then started saying things that didn't make sense and that I didn't want to hear. She asked me why I was torturing my mother. I didn't know what she meant. She told me that it was clear to all that my mother was dead and that I shouldn't hang on so hard, but instead should let her go. I was angry and so, so, so sad. I turned and looked at my family. THAT'S why Michael was looking away pretending none of this was going on, I realized. THAT'S why dad has his smug look of non-caring as if to convey that he was thinking of great and profound things and not, in fact, being inconvenienced by this most un-seemly event. THAT'S why Mom looked so tired and in pain. She was a ghost. And I had dragged her off of the path she was meant to lead and kept her here.

I woke up sad and confused, and knowing I should have known better.

In other news, I'm going with M's little sister this morning to buy bras. Something I've only done once without Mom. It's somehow fitting that her replacement should be a caring, loving, beautiful, and incredible 19-year-old who adores me. Hallelujah. Thanks, Sarah.

Much love,
alexia

UPDATE:
Went and got the bras and ohmygod... Now we know why specialty stores are specialty stores (can you say: "Victoria's Secret"?), THEY SPECIALIZE IN THINGS! I threw out my old ones and have four new ones that feel like they were specificaly tailored to my body. Technology is amazing.

July 15, 2006

2006-07-17T22:15:00.000-07:00

One year to the day. And where was I...??? Lying in bed with M. It was just after dawn. In my half-sleep I heard Michael come down the stairs, felt him sit on the edge of the bed. That's when I opened my eyes and turned to him. "Is she gone?" I asked. "Yup," he said. I don't remember anything after that. Maybe he does and can fill in the blanks. It's amazing what we forget and how quickly. And what we remember and for how long. Katie always says that I have the most incredible memory, but I can't remember what the rest of what my brother and I talked about was just hours after our mother had died. What's wrong with me? Maybe I'm blocking it, but how stupid is that? Dad wrote about filing his and Mom's last joint tax return and how gross it was to do that. I can imagine. Next, he wrote about how hurtful it was to see Mom's garden blooming without her to attend to it, and that reminded me of a dream I had recently. I woke up - in my dream - knowing that I had to learn how to garden. I started teaching myself about organic gardening because I figured why repeat something someone else did so well? Why not, instead, take what you learned from that person and build on it? What I learned from Mom about gardening was love, detail, patience and science; which flowers/plants work in beds together? Which will nourish each other? Which will make the best mulch, once dead, for new plants for the next season? Anyway, so I began researching vegetables, herbs, food. I wanted what I grew to do something more than just be pretty. Maybe it's my multi-tasking nature, but it made perfect sense in the dream and when I woke up - for real this time - I knew it could all happen. I will learn to grow food. That has a nice ring to it. And as I dig in the earth, till it, weed around my little lettuce and tomato and squash plants, I'll think of her and how she would marvel at what I'm doing. "Organic food..." she'd say, shaking her head in exaggerated awe for emphasis because she wants nothing better than to make me feel special and strong and like I'm doing something great, "organic food. Only you, A'lex. Only you would think of such a thing..."

No, not only me, of course, but in our small circle - the overly-intellectualized one I grew up in and the one my father and his friends still inhabit - no one grows their own food. Can't be bothered. "Why, when there are others to do it for you?" Folks like those don't care to try to understand the beauty of the feeling of making something so simple. They need "a bigger challenge." Maybe what they need is notoriety. Whatever. Either way I always knew that Mom was never like that. She played that. For survival. But it's not what she was. She loved simple things. Simplicity. Like the dreaming up, planning out, and creating of a garden of flowers. What could be simpler than working so hard to create something that does nothing but stay still and look beautiful? That's the way Mom was. She had her complex moments, as do I, but I will remember her for the simple in her. Even at the end, in the hospital, when I wasn't there and don't remember what Michael afterward old me happened, she was simple. What I do remember is that he told me that she died in her sleep. A sleep of sorts. A deliberately-induced drug sleep that allowed her breathing to slow slowly, and eventually stop.

There's this pamphlet you can get from the hospice representative when your loved one is dying. It tells you how to deal with it, how to cope, and, at the beginning of the pamphlet, what signs to look out for that tell you, yes, this person is indeed dying. I read the signs and recognized them. THAT I remember. Two days before she died I remember reading about signs I'd already seen. Signs that came to me too late to actually have time to think of something to say other than the ONE and only thing I did say, which was... "Who's going to be my best friend?" I think it's one of the most sincere things I've ever said. That and the night I screamed at the interns to stop hurting her. I was sitting on the left side of the bed. Her left. It was just the two of us. We were quiet and sort of twiddling our thumbs as if teenagers on a first date. We kept eye-ing each other as if to say, nervously: "how ya doin'?," except Mom's nervousness was nervousness about dying. Anyway, I was sitting there, my hands wringing themselves, when all of a sudden I felt a tear. Then two. Then felt my nose running. I wiped it - a giveaway - and looked up. She looked at me. I was caught. I thought she was thinking: "why are you crying nina? (pronounced in the Spanish 'neen-ya,' for 'Little One')," but she wasn't. More on that in a second... I looked up at her and thought that that was what she was thinking and so I said: "Who's going to be my best friend?" She looked at me, a little annoyed at why I would be thinking such a selfish thing WHEN SHE WAS THERE DYING, and said: "It'll be alright." It came out as a scold, as if she'd said: "You should know better," and instantly I felt ashamed. Maybe that's why I gave Michael that last night. I didn't and still don't know if he knew it was her last night, but I knew it, and knew I had the strength to "give" it to him, to step aside for the last moment I could ever have with my beloved, perfect, incredible, unmatchable mother.

"It'll be alright."

It isn't. Not yet, but I imagine it will be, if for no other reason than it will change. I will change and will perhaps learn to feel less ashamed, although, ashamed or not, I will always miss her and no one will ever be such a best friend.

So, today, one year after, exactly - what do I choose to remember? Her exploding smile. The kind of smile that let's you know you ARE, and will never be alone or unloved or unremembered.

I love you, Mommy. And I miss you.

Your best friend,
a`lex

PS. The "signs" that you read about at the beginning of the hospice pamphlet tell you of certain behaviors that a dying person will exhibit that will let you know, beyond a doubt, that they were dying. They will worry their clothes, tug at them like a nervous tick, but won't be aware of it. Mom did that and I didn't know what it meant. They will hallucinate. Mom did that a lot and I thought it was the effects of the drugs, until I knew it wasn't and by then it was too late. I found all these things out after they would have made a difference to me. But by the time I read them I already knew she was dying. We'd alreday had the Family Meeting. So, word to the wise, if your loved one is dying, as for the hospice pamphlet as early as you can...

This Is What 39 Feels Like

2006-07-07T09:25:00.000-07:00

Gloria Steinem, upon her annual visit to the Phil Donahue show, would always say her age. One year Phil said: "Wow, you don't look 50," and Gloria, without missing a beat, would open her arms wide and say: "This is what 50 looks like!"

You know you've found love when your loved one, for your 39th birthday, buys you an antique, swinging loveseat/porch-chair/wooden hammock from India so you can spend the mornings writing in your blog and drinking your coffee while staring out at the lake. Love is... someone who knows you. M always outdoes herself for my birthday. In price and inspiration. Like I did with my mother, M always knows exactly what to get for me. She also got me a ukelele, something I've wanted for years. Four years, actually. I was going, then, through a terrible time in my life - although, admittedly, not as terrible as the one I'm going through now regarding dealing with the death of my mother, but pretty bad - and the only thing that got me through it all, or got through to me during it, was playing my friend's ukelele. She'd gotten it for her birthday and never, ever played it. I went online and learned the basic chords and rules in about a minute, and soon was playing "Amazing Grace" like I'd been born to it.

A gift is something nice. You hold it, look at it, play with it, love it. But when a gift is this - a moment in time... it's something very special. M has a way of taking emotional snapshots, or making emotional snapshots, I should say. She creates moments inwhich her loved ones can exist in exactly the way that makes them feel the most comfortable. And in this case, she has done it for me. She has given me back what I lost when my mother died: a home.

You see, there's this thing I like to do, need to do, am compulsive about: morning. I need to get up before everyone else, have my smoothie and my coffee, write in my blog, read a bit, and look out the window. Mostly, that's a long and flowery way of saying I need special time to commune with my coffee, okay?????? And, no, I'm not addicted in the traditional sense. Er, well, actually, forget I said that - yes, I am AM addicted in the traditional sense. If traditional means can I go a day without coffee, then the answer is: no. I can't. Do I have more than one cup. No, I don't. I'm telling you all this to give you a bit of backstory, 'kay? You need to understand my religious feelings for coffee and the ritual of drinking it in a quiet environment in the morning. That's what M just gave me. A quiet place to enjoy my most precious time of day. Thank you so much, love...:)

The middle part of the rest of today will be spent working and putting back together all the things I took apart yesterday to cope with the possible evac. I have to act quickly, actually, as I have some editing to do of pieces that need to be up before the end of the day. but you don't need to know this. Okay. Thanks for reading this far. There's a lollipop in it for you when I see you next...;)

All my love,
Lex

PS. Although we can still hear helicopters swooping around, grabbing water from the lake, our fire is said to be "100% contained." It must just still be on the other side of the hill, blazing away. Think of what that means: the firefighters have been fighting it 'round the clock. Let's tip our hats to them, shall we? They just saved my life.

Brush Fire

2006-07-06T20:38:00.000-07:00

The light has gone but we can still hear the WHOOP WHOOPing of helicopters swinging down to snatch water from our lake. They're using the lake water to fight the fire. Yes, there's a fire here. In front of my house. I moved from the East coast - 20 years in New York City and nothing happened - and the minute I get out to L.A. THERE'S A FUCKING MORTALLY THREATENING BRUSH FIRE 500 YARDS AWAY FROM MY HOUSE!!!!!

I was being all innocent-and-shit this morning, minding my own business, doing my work. Then M called and frantically asked: "Are you anywhere near that fire?????" I was confused: " fire?" "Oh my god. Go outside!" So I did, and juuuuuuust over the ridge in front of me, about 500 yards away from my house I see huge, dirty-brown smoke. Billows and billows and billows. It was incredible. I was like: "HOLY. SHIT." I said into the phone: "Uh, yeah, THERE'S A FUCKING HUGE FIRE OVER HERE!" M was on her way back from the city where she was picking up my birthday present. "Should I start packing?" I asked her. "Yup," she replied calmly. "I would do computers and your cameras." "Ooooooooh-kay."

When she got home we launched into military mode. She told me what to do, how to do it, what to leave, what to keep, etc. I ran around placing important items into secure boxes (I KNEW there was a reason I kept all the packaging for my computers!), and gathering a pile of goods that we'd be packing into two cars. When I'd gathered my stuff I took the boxes and bags one-by-one to car #1 while M packed up car #2. As we did this we kept KCAL-9 on at full volume so that if we heard an order to evacuate we'd be able to act immediately. "Sometimes they don't give you more than 30-minute's warning," said M, all large and in charge. It was incredibly comforting to have a native Southern Californian to go through this with. If I'd been alone I would probably still be standing in the doorway waiting for the next tremor. For this Easterner the unfamiliar threat of fire is exactly the same as the unfamiliar threat of earthquake. Although, as the firefighters out here are so good the biggest difference between the two events is that you have a chance in a fire. If The Big One hits Los Angeles, there'll be nowhere to go but down. So glad I moved here...

Earlier, when M was still on her way and before I knew what I should have been doing, I couldn't resist being one of those dumbasses you see on TV: I grabbed my camera and went outside and shot footage of the smoke billowing so close to my life. As I was rolling and thinking to myself "This is so fucked up, BUT IT'S SO COOL TOO!!!!," a huge plume of flame shot up from the ridgeline, bisecting my frame. "OH SHIT!" was all I could say (my mother would hate this post with all these curse words). I kept rolling until I heard M drive up, then I went in to see what we should do.

I must say, we packed quickly. It's an interesting excerise, a fire, to see what you'll actually take. What - in a split second - you decide isn't worth saving. Here was my list: computers, cameras, photos. We managed to get all of M's sexiest musical equipment as well as her own huge computer, and still had/have (we're still waiting to hear about possible evac.) room for the 2 cats and one large dog. "Tzeitl! Don't forget the baby!" I definitely felt a little like Tevye in one of my favorite scenes from "Fiddler On The Roof." At the end his family is all packing up and he's agitated about something and yells the above line to his eldest daughter, Tzeitl. She and her husband are preparing to go with the rest of family as they all leave their beloved town, Anatevka. By the end of the play/movie/story, the Jewish families are leaving their beautiful, little town because they have been overrun one too many times by Catholic Russian soldiers carrying out pogroms. Fuckin' assholes. I still don't understand that kind of violence. It's the most disrespectful thing in the world. To hit, maim, kill someone just because they're not like you? Makes me want to puke. Fuckers.... Give me a minute, I've been battling a fire all day and have a little anger to work out...

Here's something cute: M and I are both writing in our blogs. What's a little fire when you need to update your public???

July 4th

2006-07-05T10:29:00.000-07:00

I can't remember the last July 4th I spent with my mother. I remember Christmasses. We weren't at all religious, my family, but we never missed a midnight mass because of the singing. I grew up on singing in the house. Opera records, my parents singing opera, Mom playing flamenco things on her little classical guitar. I never knew how she learned to play. I'm sure she taught herself. Her cousin, Eduardo - who Michael and I call our "uncle" because he's older, it's easier, and he really was more like a brother to mom - played in a "Tuna" back in Peru. A Tuna is a group of singers, like a mariachi band except not at all like that. Think more "Student Prince" than "Desperado."

Anyway, last night M and I didn't go anywhere for "The Fourth" except to the movies and then down the road a bit to walk our dog before bed. There were some light fireworks done by the kids in the neighborhood and we watched some of those from the curb, but it wasn't the typical "get everybody ready we're going to go out and watch the fireworks" type of evening. It was an afterthought. And so relaxing because of that. It was amazing to not feel the pressure of having to go anywhere or be prepared in any way to be happy. I was happy, it was just organic and a little sleepy rather than the usual holiday-manic.

Last night I also had a horrific dream. In the re-telling it won't seem horrific, but trust me, it was awful. I was in the New Haven house with Michael and Dad. But the house was in Boston because M was out visiting with her friend Jack. It was morning and Dad, Michael and I were chatting in the kitchen. And by "chatting" I mean that they were ignoring me while they talked and I was sitting there pathetically taking it like I always do (something I really need to change...). Anyway, so there we were, and then suddenly I noticed the time. It was 10:00am and I realized that M's and my flight was at Noon, not that evening. I wasn't packed and M was out. And so I FREAKED. I started running around the house looking for all of my things, but they were everywhere. I had to find everything super-quickly OR ELSE. Yes, the "or else" didn't make any sense, but something still felt just awful. I called M and told her about our flight and she said that that was actually perfect because she was at the airport just then dropping off Jack and the kids. They were going on vacation. She said she would just stay there and wait for me. She had her bag with her - all packed and mellow and ready to go. I kept thinking desperately that I had to get to her. That if I didn't she would somehow leave. Where she would go, or why she would get on a plane to go home without me also made no sense, but, again, this was a dream and clearly something in me that needed to be worked out. BADLY. So, anyway, I was running desperately around the house crying harder and harder and more desperately, like if I didn't get to the airport I'd never see M again, something like that. And through it all Michael and Dad kept -----

talking.

Oh holy shit... I just figured it out. Wouldn't take a rocket scientist... Michael and Dad kept talking while I was crying my eyes out, desperate to get to M "or else." It's a mirror to that awful night when I was alone in the hospital with Mom. Oh hell... Michael and Dad were away at Tanglewood. In the middle of Mom dying they went far away. I know that for my Dad it was really important to do that because he needed a break so badly. So badly... But for Michael to go... I was so angry that he still went. To sing. If the way that that evening had gone had been that Michael insisted on staying but that Dad begged him to go because he (Dad) needed the break, then it would have been better. I'm angry because I never saw any struggle in Michael. Never saw any desperation that he was about to lose his mother. And on the one night when it was the absolute worst I was alone. The ultimate abandonment. I am alone in the hospital when the most important, most connecting person in my life almost died in front of me. Yes, Michael deserved to be the one there on her last nght - which was a couple of days later - but it was also important that it not be me because I now realize that I wouldn't have been able to handle it. Not one bit. I would have screamed and cried and begged her not to go. Just like I did in my dream...

I think I just said good bye to my mother, y'all. I think I just said good bye to her in that dream last night. Or she to me. Something like that. One or both of us is letting each other go. How awful. How sad it makes me.

I was rushing and rushing and crying and crying looking for all of my clothes... M was waiting for me at the airport. She wouldn't have left without me... but Mom did. She had to. Something like that. I'm still working it all out, but I think something huge just happened.

I'm going to take some time today to work and think about all this. I thank you all for reading this. My love for you is huge - those of you who I know are reading this. Thank you all so much.

All my love,
Alexia

It's cancer

2006-07-03T10:14:00.000-07:00

Even before I finish this passage in the new book I know it's cancer that the woman is dying of. She's spitting up green fluid. Throwing it up into a plastic, kidney-shaped receptacle "provided by the hospital." I'm only two pages into this book and it's already reminding me of the death of my mother. Now, is that me, or will everything from here on out remind me of the death of my mother? I held similar receptacles under mom's chin as she turned her head and threw up green fluid. For someone who wasn't consuming anything but ice chips and water, she sure threw up a lot. With every hurl she'd fill the little bowl and I'd have to run to the sink in her room, toss it out, leave the thing with soap to soak, grab another one, and be ready under her chin to catch the next wave. I called one of her medicines "the anti-puking stuff," but I'll be damned if this shit worked even one little bit. The nurses said that if she didn't take it she'd be throwing up even more. Holy mother of Christ...

What is it about cancer that makes you sit and watch mindless, soul-sucking TV that you would normally never watch? Mom and I watched the dumbest things in the early days in the hospital. And by "early days," by the way, I mean the first two or three. She was only alive, and with me then, for nine days. Nine small days. The whole world was nine days. Built, populated, and destroyed in nine days. We couldn't even make it to ten. I was working before that. In Orlando. Dad had said on the phone: "Well, come if you want to" because at that point no one knew she was actually dying. Dying. I was looking at her and kissing her and holding her and crying next to her and lying on half of her bed while she slept and all that time she'd been dying. Her body was caving in. Giving up. Calling it quits. Making that last Hail Mary toss. Fuck. What if I had known she was dying? What would I have done differently? Joan, in her fabulous book "The Year of Magical Thinking" talks a lot about that. "What would I have done differently if I'd known he was dying?" And she didn't even have as much time as I did. She didn't have nine days. She didn't have nine minutes. When her husband keeled over with a massive heart-attack, he was dead before he hit the floor. "Pupils fixed and dilated," she writes. What Joan, I bet, wouldn't have given for nine days or nine minutes.

I'm surprised at how difficult this book is to read. Reading about someone watching his mother die from cancer. Probably not what I should have picked up right after the book about Joan Didion learning how to deal with the death of her husband of forty years. Mm-hm. I can really feel his pain. It's my pain. And I wonder if that was why I wasn't a good actor - because I couldn't feel anything. Not really, anyway. And I'm taking into account the Method method, okay? But acting is much more than any one school's technique - you either feel it or you don't. It's something you can't teach. The thing is is that I was a good actor. A great one, actually. But feel THIS...??? I don't know... I would have made a convincing show of it before, but not like I would now. Now I'd fuckin' blow the roof off the place. "Goodness, you really FEEL that she lived through her mother's ghastly death from cancer. It's eerie." Note to self: never do a play or movie in which I have to play someone watching her mother die of cancer.

The music is aggressive and too loud here. It's afternoon, so I suppose they're doing that good business practice thing where you make the environment comfortable, but not too comfortable or you'll have people sitting here all day, which is exactly what I'm doing. I'm here because it's better to suffer the noise and be close to M than be at home alone in the desperate, sinking quiet without a car. There's something about having a car, even when you don't need it, that's comforting. You can always get away. Always go. Always leave the hospital. And I did. I left. And I shouldn't have, but I was so tired. If I could explain, like a good actor, just exactly how tired I was you'd understand. You'd forgive me. But I can't. Just know that it was the awfulest tired there is. Except, I suppose, when you're a parent and your child is dying. That's a bigger, worser tired I betcha.

You have to wonder about medicine in cases like these. She's dying. She's definitely not doing anything else. I think that's what I realized on that horrible, horrible night. That horrible, horrible, horrible night when I was all alone in the hospital with her in the middle of the night and thought I was seeing my mother slipping away forever. I realized then, watching the residents jump through hoops going through procedures to bring her back, that she wasn't ever going to leave here. Wasn't ever going to leave this hospital. Wasn't ever going to see her home again. Her garden. Sit in the kitchen with me in the early morning - the first ones up. Always. I would never sit with her anywhere else but here. Right here. This hospital, this room, this view, and no garden or kitchen table anywhere in sight. Shit.

The book is getting more intense - do you like this play-by-play? - much more intense. I think of myself and hope I don't get cancer. I wouldn't want M to go through that. I'd have to think of something. Of course I know so much more about it now that I'd probably navigate it fairly well. "Hey, doc, seriously - am I getting any better?" "What do you mean by 'better'?" "'Kay, that was honest - I mean, am I going to get up and walk around and fuck my girlfriend and, you know, LIVE ever again?" (pause) "Define... 'live.'" (annoyed head shaking...) "Alright, you know what? Go fuck yourself, doc. And take me off these fucking drugs. Now. I want to go home." Yah. That would probably be the best way to navigate it all...

For all of my seeming sexy strength I am, truly, a puddle of mud. A puddle. Not solid but with loads of potential. Watery. Hopeful. Trying. I'd be much, much better if my mother was alive. I promise. Except - not, because, of course, I've learned so much as a result of all this. So much. Fuckin'-A. But you would, you'd see. I'd be... I could be... I'd certainly try to be... (pause, thinking... pause, thinking... pursing lips, head-shaking confusedly-) There's a word for it. It's something like "happy" and "present" and something with "joy" in it. Something like living. Alive-ing. Something like that. But for the life of me I can't think of it and so for now I'm a puddble of mud, trying to get to a cool, dry place where I can suck up all this water and... solidify.

The most burned woman I have ever seen just walked out of the Starbucks I'm sitting in. SHE'S alive. Survived being burned. Alive. Holy shit...

Bo. We ignored him. The eldest son of my first mentor. My English teacher. The man who'd gotten me into theatre and taught me everything. Bo. We sat at our table in the restaurant on a rare night out and Mom and Dad recognized him carrying a pitcher of water, going from table to table filling glasses. Mom did a sharp intake of breath as he approached us and looked down at her plate, pretending she hadn't seen him. The thing was he had seen her see him and even though we'd never known Bo very well, we all knew who each other was and the four of us knew that his mother was, at that very moment, while he poured our water, at home dying of lung cancer.

Quick! A quiz! What is this post about?????? If mocha and flowers was your guess, YOU'RE RIGHT!!!!!! What do you win? The chance to never read this post again. How 'bout that? This is a little self-congratulatory at this point so I'll leave off, but it's pretty odd, don't you think? That I come to just finish a beautiful, if heart-wrenching, book about a woman's husband's sudden death only to pick up a book about a son's mother's death from cancer? Fate, in my life, is nothing if not demanding. "Get a move on, Lex! Get off your butt! Let's go, get over this, there's A LOT of shit to do!!!!" My Fate is a drill sargent. Wonderful...

She was swelling with tumor. I know that now. I think I'm reading this book so I can learn to give myself license to say things like "she was swelling with tumor." As she lay dying her stomach, empty of everything but what was growing inside it and out of sight, was getting bigger. Huge. Becoming a burden. I remember thinking, upon seeing the swelling midsection, that my mother would have so much trouble getting up and out of the bed. I remember thinking that I knew she'd have so much trouble she'd never get up out of it again. I knew, in my bones - all the way in there, that deep - that she was dying, that she'd never be getting up or getting out. That she would die there where her stomach was swelling. In a cold, cream-colored hospital room with thin blankets and a stunning view.

There's nothing like feeling M naked lying on top of me. She's so beautiful and perfect and small. The most precious little thing. Not precious like "isn't she cute?" Precious as in valuable. Having a unique and high value. Irreplaceable.

It's time to finish this post. Don't you think? I'll read more of my book and think of more things to say, but I think I'll let them go now. Let them slip away. I've said quite enough for one day and I thank you so much for sitting here through it all. To share it does me a world of good.

Memories of The Colonial Inn

2006-07-02T18:43:00.000-07:00

I was just there, eating dinner with M and Su, hearing the live music in the background. Dave First, who's interview I am transcribing today, reminds me that I was once a regular. I started at the bar (of course...), listening from afar, not really eager to hear anything bad. I didn't know jazz, traditional or otherwise, from a hole in the ground, but when I heard Jimmy, I knew I was hearing something special - something that would only be here for a moment. Lloyd heard him for the first time yesterday while watching my trailer (which SUCKS and has to be recut...). He said: "He sounds like..." "Louis Armstrong," I said, finishing when he couldn't think of the name. Lloyd is 23 and has heard of Louis Armstrong. There's hope in the world.

I love the way all these guys say the word music. It always seems like they're talking about God, or praying. Well, why not? Most musicians I know have a sort religious fervor and devotion to music. You can see them in their fog, walking around with inward-looking stares at the sofa, the floor, the mountain. They're not looking at the mountain, they're composing and seeing their own hands moving as they play. M plays in her sleep. Her fingers twitch. It's the cutest thing and one of the few things that's consistent about her.

This film is a journey for me. I'm stepping into a new role: filmmaker. I call myself a filmmaker like I call myself "gay." It's something for me to say that's socially acceptable. I'm annoyed by the need to be socially acceptable, but when you need food on the table you're forced to make certain concessions. I'm incredibly lucky that I'm able to put food on the table for both of us by doing something I love, while being able to do something else that I love (making documentaries) on the side. Life is good... Pity my mother never got a chance to really feel that.

Listening more to Dave I get the sensation of beer. I can smell it and taste it, feel the cold pint glass sweating, thick and heavy in my hand, and I miss it. But I've made a promise. Can I keep it? I have no idea. Luckily, the promise is to myself. We all know that we can't keep promises to others. We have to make promises to ourselves in addition or we'll fall flat on our asses. This is all very deep, isn't it? I don't mean to be deep. I mean to be spewing. Ah-HA! That, then, is what this is: spew. Like puke. Blogging your own life is like puking only this kind feels good. Having been a drunk for so long I can tell you that the bad kind of puking really does suck.

Percolating. That's what I've been letting this film do. Percolate. I've been deliberately spacing out the transcribing so an interview has time to percolate in my mind. Genius. Not really like procrastination at all...

Dave is telling a tale... "It's time for the blues, Jimmy." He's making my film for me. Thanks so much, Dave. Cough and all, it's going to be a good film.

...

Smack in the middle of transcribing I think of my childhood summer theatre group. The Something Players. What a great name. We mounted plays in an old barn that got as hot and uncomfortable with humidity as you've ever felt in your life. But I loved it. It was my place. So much so that when I learned to ride a bike I rode there in the off-season, and when I learned to drive I drove there at night when I needed some peace. There's no barn now, only M. And I've known her only a short time. She isn't long enough in my life to evoke a poignant, disarming memory in the way an old place from my childhood does, but she has potential. ;) I am a slave to memory, to the past, and I think it's time for me to let that go if I'm ever to make a go at progress. I'm currently too stuck in my thinking. That's why M is good for me. I see something new and say, suspiciously: "I don't know..." She sees something new and her eyes go wide just before she dives in. My mentor is a 26-year-old rockstar. :) Perfect.

It's time to start a book about life and leave this one I've been reading about death.

2006-06-15T20:53:00.000-07:00

Exhaustion has a way of making you unsure. Am I here? How did I get here? Did I do that? Memories cut you off as you walk briskly, in a fog, up 51st street. I said I would never return here, but things keep dragging me back. When I'm away I don't feel like I'm in a relationship. I know she's out there - floating, living her life - but when I'm away my life has nothing to do with hers. That's how she wills it. Her life gets really positive when I'm away... Yesterday I tried to explain to someone what it was like being back here again - the familiarness like you're coming into your mother's living room - but he looked away mid-sentence, too excited by his first time here. NYC is happy that I'm back this time. She's being very welcoming. What a love. And what a sucker am I. She knows how much I love her... I had almost completely forgotten that my ex-friend was here. For the record - mine, you don't know either her or me - she was never my best friend. Mom was. My 4am phone call. ... When I'm away she is single, independent, vibrant, positive and productive. When I am away from her, or she is away from me, I feel her happy distance. ...

2006-06-10T12:30:00.000-07:00

Packing is always fairly stressful for me. I never know what to wear and always feel I look like shit. I always seek the help of a knowledgeable family member and that usually does the trick, but I don't ever feel comfortable until after the first day of any trip is over. I've worn the clothes, then, for one day, worn the jewelry, and generally start feeling more comfortable in my skin. Part of my problem with packing is that I have no sense of fashion. Seriously. I need people to TELL ME that orange and red don't go together. And I can't accessorize for shit. I have all this great stuff from my mom and no idea how to honor it. See, I grew up as a little boy. My brother is only one year and one week older than me and so I always felt more comfortable hanging out with him and his friends than I did with other girls. I was the typical Tom Boy: played sports, rough-housed, preferred tractors to dolls. I also loved playing in water, with or without clothing, but that's a story for another time... Anyway, so I didn't get the kind of formal, "I can braid my own hair"-type of girl training. My mother tried giving me dolls but I would always look at them, smile and ask: "who's that for?" All this, I feel, served to set me up to become the current fashion disaster I am today! It helps a little that I'm getting my figure back through working out, but I still need someone's help before I set foot outside. Otherwise all anyone would ever see me in are khakis and a sleeveless v-neck tee.

So, packing... I'm going to New York City. My old haunt... although I'll be in a neighborhood that I never spent much time in at all: Midtown. Actually, I hate it. There's no "there" there. Just straight, clean streets with corporate offices or upscale residences. There are few delis, no parks, the subway entrances are all a mile away.... Oh god.... I'm complaining... Okay, fuck it. I'm going to NYC and I'm going to have a good time. There it is.

First Post on my first blog: beer and paranoia

2006-06-09T10:51:00.000-07:00

What's important today?
-Contacting Ray Nagin's office to see if there's an official response to Sen. David Vitter's (R-LA) declaration that gay marriage is the most important issue in the U.S. today.
-Continuing to transcribe the interviews for my film, "Jimmy Mazzy & The Last Minute Men."
-Going to the gym.
-Trying not to think too much about beer.

It's so hard keeping up with the news. I always start my day with thehuffingtonpost.com then check the mainstream media sites for their takes (if they have any) of the same stories. I check the liberal press, the fringe liberal press, local press (media outlets in the area where the story is happening), blogs, and neighbors. This last one is a sort of community test. How many of my neighbors read the news? What news do they read? Are they Republican, and, if so, are they insane and wanting to kill me, or can they be reasoned with at arm's length? These are, if you don't already know, serious considerations in my Southern Californian upscale community (I'm renting). For all of my outward strength I'm really a fraidy-cat. I hear conservatism, fanatical religiousness, and racism and go running for the hills. I'm no champion. Those folks could be nutty enough to carry guns, ya know?

Now, on to beer. I used to drink it a lot. A. LOT. So much so that last year I gained 20 pounds. Yah. From beer. Love the stuff. So, okay, I have a hot-n-sexy, 26-year-old, rockstar girlfriend who I don't want to look like shit standing next to, ya know? So, I hit the gym. Start training at Gold's with "Emma." Emma is great, but she's a little distant and after 3 months I'm not showing many signs of improvement beyond feeling good about exercising again. But Emma is really smart and answers all my questions about the science of the body/nutrition/exercise, etc., so I let it go. Then Emma signs me up for another 12 training sessions. I don't know any better so I go along wth it. What's $800 when I'm on my way, right? Well, 2 days after she signs me up, she bails. Takes a job in another state. Now I'm $800 in the hole, haven't lost any weight, and have no trainer. Cut to: two months later. Gold's Gym, who was supposed to call me after Emma left to "assign" me to another trainer, is still doing fuck-all to help me spend my hard-earned, "I really need this to help pay down my debt" $800. So, I take matters into my own hands - I walk into the trainer manager's office and put my foot down. A little bit scared he runs out onto the floor of the gym and comes back with.... Alex. Alex is a guy and I like my biological concerns (internist, GYN, accupuncturist, trainer) handled by chicks, but the trainer manager is a little freaked and Alex seems cool and like a nice guy, so I say: "great." Alex and I make an appointment. Cut to: two weeks later. I'm stronger, leaner, and happier. Alex is The Answer. Where Emma was working isolated areas of my body, Alex works everything all the time. I come home exhausted, sore, and... thinner. Long live beer.