Writing Prompt

Hey.
Know what?
Whatever, that's what! Whatever!
Who the hell cares if it isn't good? I'll never be Mozart, I'll always always always be Salieri, but who cares? Salieri is one of the most interesting characters I've ever read!

So here, without further ado, is my response to the writing prompt:
"They had nothing to say to each other"

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They have nothing to say to each other. And everything still left to say. They want nothing to do with each other, and desperately want more. Each one silently begs the other to close the distance between them, to reach, to touch, to kiss, to kneel.

Neither is willing to take the risk.

Isn’t this how happy endings end? The love is still there, somewhere, buried under wounded pride and self preservation. It’s subsisting, suffocating under the weight of promises broken, dreams delayed, and the voiced concerns that maybe ought not to have been given voice.

The love still wheezes despite the declining sex life, the multiplying white lies, the bifurcating senses of humor, and working opposite shifts.

They still want to kiss. They still want the magic hand of cinema or story-book to sweep over the scene and mend the egos, repair the relationship, blur the edges of the pain and deliver that happily ever after—no mistakes this time, no fucking it up.

Somewhere in their romantic hearts they yearn for the crescendo and swell of theme music to underscore a grand reconciliation. They wait for a lighting shift and birds to sing and slow-motion running through a field, or through a crowded city street, or along the foggy length of the train platform as the locomotive chugs unstoppably away.

They want the clichés. The conventions that make us simultaneously scoff and weep when we see them in cinema or read them in drug store novels. They are desperately complicated people but so very simple.

But heavy, grim realities stand like a chasm between them. He fucked someone else, lied about it, she found out. She hasn’t climaxed without a vibrator in six months, he feels un-manned. He has a job offer in L.A., she hates the west coast. She may be falling in love with someone at work-- and is there anything that can beat the giddy, glorious feeling of that first flush of feeling?

And that’s where cinema and stories fail us, fail the couple who can’t make it work. Film after film, story after story, what we see and want and long for and receive is the falling in love, the chase, the highly-charged, ever exciting, impossibly prolonged fall into mad, passionate, glorious, stuff-dreams-are-made-of LOVE! Sometimes it ends with a wedding, sometimes death- but either way it has a certain finality from which there is no coming back.

We don’t see, nor do we really want to see the rest of the story. Perhaps we’ll accept some title cards, just to wrap things up in a pretty bow: “The two went on to have three beautiful children. He became a doctor, she practiced law. They were very happy”., but beyond bite-sized morsels we can’t stomach any more.

With the exception of Indie fans we don’t care to watch a film about taking out the trash and working 40+ hours a week, dusting the surfaces of the bookshelves, deciding what to have for dinner night after night, sex that inevitably slows down, a woman who shaves with less frequency, a man who is gassy.

And all the stupid, trivial, nagging arguments. The casual put-downs, the careless comments. The thoughtless actions and the selfish ones. The step by step decline and degradation of that highly idealized, overly romanticized, up-on-a-pedestal LOVE.

We have no guidebook for dealing with that. It feels like we’re blindsided by the mundane reality, betrayed by the films and the fairytales. And inevitably we end up resenting our all too human partner for failing to remain god-like, heroic, pristine, ever-charming, perfect. Sometimes we might even idly wish that our story had been one of the ones that end with death- because at least in death nothing ever changes.

Now the cliché they have achieved is a sadder, more statistical one. They have nothing to say to each other. They will let their lawyers speak for them.

One hears such sounds and what can one think but 'Salieri'!

Ever notice how some people's compliments are really the most discouraging thing you could hear?

Some compliments are so genuine, so enthusiastic and so completely not bull-shit that they uplift you, bolster you and encourage you to keep going. Thank you to all of you who give those kinds of compliments. Those are also the kind of friend or mentor that are likely to give you really effective constructive criticism if they have it- the kind that honestly help you improve your work and inspires you to muddle through to a really commendable end-product.

Lately I've been perturbed by the hollow ring of some compliments in my life and it has proven more effective at discouraging me than if someone had said : "you suck, stop doing what you're doing and just give up!"

It feels condescending. Indulgent. As if I'm a little kid with a messy, incoherent, overall unappealing conglomeration of popcicle sticks, glitter and yarn and an adult says: "ohhh, very nice! I LIKE that!".




No they fucking don't like that. Maybe they like the idea of it, like that the child has been creative and had a fun time making it, but do they honestly find merit in the work itself? In the execution of the popscicle arrangement or the concentration of glitter particle in the upper left corner or the carefully chosen shade of fuzzy magenta yarn? Nope. Their compliment is shallow. Encoraging only superficially. Crack that compliment open and what you really get is: "don't quit your day job!".

So I'll probably lay off the creative writing for a while. Ewww. Whatever. Hopefully I'll stick with the blogging- my quest to find my voice is still in its zygote stage here! Just... well... it'll be me and not fiction. grrrrrr.

And about that day job... i fucking need one!

Same old story every time

If you know me you know I'm in love with the POST SECRET books, and with the whole concept behind the movement\art project. It is a goal of mine to create original scenes and plays and improvs using Post Secrets as creative jumping off points.

Today I tried a little experiment. I needed a writing prompt and since Aaron is at work I had to generate one myself. Instead of using something lame from the internet (I found some 'wanna be a writer?' sites with the most abysmal writing prompts!) I decided to put my money where my mouth is and try using a post secret as an opening line to a piece of creative writing.

Who is this person, how has their secret affected them? what is their life like? what happens next? So exciting to think about.

Anyway here it is:

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I wished on a dandelion for my husband to die. Watching the tenacious little puffs scatter and careen into the stiff May wind I had a moment of panic—could I possibly gather them all back out before they escape? I even reached out to scoop a few back, detain them from their natural course, abort the wish they carried on their impossibly delicate silk. But it was too late. Too many had stolen away, too quick to be recaptured, too determined to be recalled.

And so my wish, carried on the breeze, was out there in the universe. I prayed, or maybe I simply wondered?—if the seeds of my selfish wish would find fertile soil and take root. Because everyone knows that’s how dandelion wishes work. You close your eyes, take a deep breath, hold it, make your wish, and let the breath out in a gust to send all those teensy seeds into the blue spring or summer sky, and if one of those seeds finds earth, plants itself, and grows into a new dandelion, your wish could come true.

It was done then, and there was no way to un-do it. I wished for him to die.
I can’t say whether I smiled then or not, whether the expression on my face matched the giddy anticipation in my fluttering belly or if it mirrored the grim dread creeping along my spine from my scalp to my tailbone.

Because I wanted him dead. But I was afraid of it too. Of what would happen if… if he really did… if at last I could…

And I was afraid of being punished. Punished for wishing it, for even thinking it. Imagine if I’d said it out loud? I might have been struck down on the spot. I’m not sure who does the punishing for wicked thought or selfish wishes- if it’s God or the Devil or what. I think I was a little afraid that somehow he’d know, somehow he’d find out what my heart wanted, discover that I’d wished him dead on a dandelion and that he’d be the one to punish me for it—worse than God or the Devil.

But when several minutes ticked by in the timid sunshine of that early may, when stormclouds and hellfire failed to manifest around me, and when no steel-toed books came thumping out of the house to get me I forced my shoulders to relax. I made myself take as deep a breath as I could, and I let it out steady and slow and deliberate.

Robins chattered in the maple. They were uneasy because a big Jay lurked on the stockade fence.

Absently I twirled the spent stem of the dandelion between my fingers as I watched the Jay. Such striking birds. Little kids love them. Love to see the icy blue in the garden, love to add Blue Jays to their drawings—not sure whether they should be ‘cornflower’ or ‘cobalt’ or just true blue.

It isn’t till you’re a little older, I’m not sure what age really, that your see the Jay for what he truly is: A bully. I loved blue Jays, just like every other kid, until one summer when I saw a couple of finches chasing one big Jay around the sky above our big maple. Being young and favoring the clever, charming Jay I naturally bristled at the assault and began to throw pebbles at the finches, shouting and behaving as threateningly as I could.

It worked. The smaller birds retreated to the safety of high branches on the outskirts of back yard. The Jay, less intimidated by my onslaught, alighted on the maple and I remember thinking that he cocked his head in gratitude. Then that Jay, clever thing that he was, hopped up the four or so feet between him and a nest I hadn’t even known was there.

I felt such pride then- that I’d helped the Jay defend his nest, protect his family. But when I saw the size of the Jay perched on the diminutive assemblage of twigs and branches something twisted in my stomach. The Jay’s magnificent blue crested head dipped into the little crèche and I couldn’t tell, couldn’t see what he was doing. I didn’t hear any chicks. Maybe the nest was small because he hadn’t finished building?

With a careless toss of his beak the Jay then began to litter over the side of the nest. Flicked overboard these bits of something bounced and clattered lightly over every twig and branch on their way down to earth. The twisting in my stomach grew tighter, like someone was stretching catgut between my pelvis and my sternum. It seemed to take a very long time for the pieces to finally lad at the base of the tree.

I don’t know why but I walked over slowly. I was compelled to see what the little bits were, but something twisting and straining and thrumming inside me wanted only to turn and run back to the house and have lemonade and forget about all of it. To leave victorious and triumphant.

But I couldn’t. I didn’t. Instead I came to see the Blue Jay for what he was- and aggressive, opportunistic, violent creature. He’d done what his nature impelled him to do- he’d feasted on the clutch of finch eggs which, thanks to my aid, had been left undefended and vulnerable.

My grief and guilt were real and sharp and deep. I was only little but I understood what I’d done, what I’d helped him do and I felt sick over it. I threw rocks at the Jay and I screamed at him until he flew off but it was too late.

From that day on I never found them clever or curious or charming. Whenever I saw a streak of blue appear in the garden I would see it for what it was- a crafty hunter. Apsects of Jay behavior that had previously gone unnoticed by me seemed to be all I could see; His once charming call was now no more than a grating shriek, his confident behavior at the feeder was revealed to be bullying, and that regal crest once handsome and grand now read as a warning sign for danger and brawling in the garden.

I might not have thrown rocks or flailed my arms at them after that day, but I felt betrayed by nature and I never trusted Jays again.

Slowly rolling the hairless hollow dandelion stem up and down my index finger and watching the jay’s arrogantly cocked head I wondered if the errant seeds of my dandelion would wind up in his greedy gullet. They eat almost everything they can get their beak around. And if the Jay ate my wish would that ruin it? Or would it plant itself after it had passed through the bird’s system?

The stem was losing its resilience under the ceaseless rolling and it became soft and too thin between my fingers. It split open on my final caress and rewarded my fingers with a sticky white coating. I looked at the broken, bleeding remnant of my wistful, childish game and felt curiously sick. The dangling head of it looked obscene- plucked bald and exposed. The split stalk, limp and oozing, felt somehow too intimate, too private, and I turned my head away.

Without looking where it landed I tossed the wasted stem into the carpet of crabgrass and clover beside my patio chair. Before I wiped my sticky fingers onto my jeans I lifted them up to examine them. They glistened now, the pearly white changing to translucent wetness before it would dry into an invisible film. I brought my thumb and forefinger to my nose to smell the wetness. I knew from childhood that it would assault my nostrils with an acrid, earthy tickle. It smelled green and young and not-yet-ripe.

Slowly I let my tongue slip over the valley at the base of my thumb. I was unsurprised at the bitter, unwelcoming taste that made my salivary glands begin to over produce. My mouth wanted to cleanse itself of this almost poisonous tasting substance and I had to fight the urge to spit. Instead I let the saliva mix with the dandelion sap and swallowed.

A few parachuting seeds had landed on the lawn in little clinging clusters. They rolled and tumbled and some got caught up on stiff blades of grass. A blue Jay screeched and a smallish flock of finches chattered in response. I wondered how long it normally takes for dandelion seeds to grow.

Squirrels! Inspired by... Squirrels!

Aaron gave me a creative writing exercise to stimulate my writing. I wasn't originally going to post anything with profanity, because, well, who knows if my Dad will randomly decide to re-visit my blog on a whim one day. Don't want to shock the old man!

But as those odds are pretty slim and as my creative writing almost always contains profanity (the exception being my fairy tale of course), I've decided to just surrender it to the fates and post my creative writing.

Tonight's task- write a story that contains the following three things:

A Non-domesticated animal
A book
Non-mechanical tool

Here's what I came up with!

*Disclaimer* These creative writing ventures are rough-drafts, impromptu and just off-the-cuff, they will never be perfect, they are 'rehearsal' for writers.

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Squirrels.

The bane of the yuppy casual summer gardener. Those fidgety furbags, those brazen bastards, those sneaky sons-a-bitches.

See squirrels aren’t too much of a problem for seasoned veteran gardeners, oh no, because a seasoned veteran has long since passed that moral threshold of what is and is not considered ‘humane’, at least when it comes to mother-fucking squirrel mother fuckers.

But yuppy gardeners, the novice weekend warriors who decide to go as green as popular trend dictates, the ones who nod emphatically at Oprah’s assurance that growing their own produce will be better and taste better and make them feel better about their white, suburban guilt? Those are the same folks who are careful to buy organic, emphatic about fairly-traded, and who obsess about “cruelty free”.
They refuse to live off the tortured souls of their animal brethren. They devote their bleeding hearts to bleeding their pocket books dry in the endeavor to be eco-conscious and kharmic-ly ahead-of-the-curve.

Until they meet and square off against one of mother nature’s cutest looking douche-bags and general ruiner of your positive energy output. The god-damned squirrel.

Somewhere in the back of their habitually aloof yuppy brains these casual first-time garden dabblers made the comfortable assumption that squirrels eat nuts, frolic about in bemusing squirrely ways and bring bemused smiles to one’s face as one sips chai on the back patio, curled up in the sunshine with the latest vegan cook book under one’s all-natural canvas sun-brella made by Himalayan nuns, the profits of all sales going toward the upkeep of their blind-children orphanage somewhere near Nepal.
But squirrels are not some dewey-eyed, fuzzy cuddly incarnation out of a Disney film put on this planet to gambol about adorably for the purposes of our wistful viewing pleasure.

They fuck things up. They fuck up your plans, your hopes, your dreams for your grand summer garden. They eat everything you want the most. They purloin your strawberries, abscond with your tomatoes, contaminate your pumpkins, thieve your prettiest blossoms, shit in your lettuce, trample all the basil (and you were going to make a caprese salad for brunch today!), dig holes in your snap pea beds and generally wreak all kinds of havoc everywhere.

But they don’t stop there! They won’t be satisfied until they somehow tear a hole in your way-too-expensive all-natural canvas sun-brella from the nuns for the orphans in the mountains, until they knock over your over-priced artisan garden ornament purchase at your local non-profit fundraiser, harass your high-strung miniature pure-bred carry-around-in-a-faux-leather-handbag-dog into fits of frenzy, and inevitably find any and every way around all your clever squirrel-proof bird feeders and eat not some of, but every single morsel of organic, fair-trade, all natural bird food purchased with the hope of having a story-book like population of larks and chickadees and bluebirds flitting around your summer haven. They’ll also tweak off the sweet nectar in your hummingbird feeder- for which you overpaid, because do you know what that special nectar is Yuppy Gardener? It’s sugar water with red food coloring.

But the yuppy gardener will inevitably be impotent in their rage. They will fume and feel vaguely betrayed by these cuddly little cuties—not believing that they could be such complete assholes, but left with devoured strawberry patches as irrefutable evidence to the contrary. And the yuppy gardener will inevitably ask themselves “but how do I stop them?”- it will seem a task not dissimilar to stopping a wave from breaking upon the shore.

Because the answer isn’t pretty.

Oprah and Martha don’t get into the nitty-gritty of gardening. They focus on all the exciting bits- the planting and the sprouting and then the harvesting and the delicious recipes for your bountiful yield! They never seem to caution: Oh, and watch out for those jerk squirrels, they can be real mother-fuckers!

No. This yuppy will be ill-equipped for the task of “dealing with” meddlesome squirrels. They will want to, in their barbarian heart-of-hearts, they will want to take a club or an axe, or a hammer, or any other primitive tool and bash the little fuckers into proverbial smithereens. But they will not, can not bring themselves to violence. They reconcile themselves to the truism that “that’s just what squirrels do.. heh heh heh, that’s just squirrels being squirrels I guess!” and with a fixed but too-tight smile they will go out and buy some yuppy gardening book to seek answers. Cruelty-free, liberal, progressive answers that somehow persuade the squirrel to abandon their crime-wave against the garden and turn to more useful and productive occupations.

When the book fails to yield results they will buy expensive sharper-image type gadgets, high priced, high-tech and highly rated online, designed to dissuade squirrels but never harm the squirrels.

When this endeavor too, inevitably fails, the kharmic-ly balanced, compassionate vegan will begin to resent and loathe and fume and plot violent things against the squirrels. They will fantasize about the hammers and knives and also poison and traps and they will salivate.

And they will do none of it. They will surrender their harvest to the bullies, having wasted hundreds of dollars in seeds and fertilizers and pots and trellises and shovels and god knows what else Martha stewart convinced them was essential for their garden, and they will invest an equal fee into shopping at their local farmer’s market instead and get their caprese salad that way.

But they will never again smile at the precious caprice of frolicking squirrels. They have been bested and that wound will sting for a long time to come.

Fucking squirrels.

The Wizard

It’s been my endeavor to write a little every day. Sometime creative, sometimes just getting my thoughts down blog style. Today I’m just going to say a few words and then select an excerpt that I’m particularly grooving on from my unearthed fairy tale.

The few words pertain to where I am in my life right now. If you’ve been following (hi Danielle- lol), you know I’m more than a mite confused and often disheartened about where I am and where I’m supposed to be and blah blah blah. But I’d like to say this- I’ve seen three theatrical events in the past three days and guess what- I think I feel the faint stirrings of something inside me. Something dormant and crippled and half-starved down deep in the dungeon I tossed it in somewhere midway through student teaching.

I enjoyed all three experiences in different ways and to varying degrees. Maybe I’ll write more about them, but for now the pertinent information that needs to be gleaned is this: I have a director’s eye and a director’s heart, mind, soul and blood. Perhaps I should be trying to direct more? The downside to that is that I also have a near paralyzing fear of directing and failing and that’s why I don’t direct more! Ta Da! Welcome to my neuroses!

But there it is. Food for thought. We’ll see how it pans out if I ever get a christing job.

I also should get a reel together and start really pushing for Voice Over work but whatever!

Ok, as promised, a little creative writing to brighten your day?
This is the introduction of a major player in the story and is from those first three chapters that need revision\rewriting. But I like a lot of the imagery here. And I like that he isn’t Anglo. I need to write more ethnically diverse characters…

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The Wizard was a tall, tanned skin ancient with long silver-blue hair tied ceremonially at his nape and a symbolically trimmed beard that curled some 6 inches off his jagged chin. A wisp of a shining scar curved through the coarse beard hair, making a path from his left earlobe to the prominent cleft in his angular chin, and causing the silver-blue facial hair to grow on either side of it, as a wood parted by a snaking river.

Long had scribes and sages held sway at the court of Moonglory, counseling, guiding, sometimes healing- but none had managed solutions for the king as the drought stretched on. This wizard was something apart however.

He had met the King and his bride on their wedding night, coming across them as they strolled (deeply in love) through their moonlit south garden. Dressed quite strangely for the cool weather and modest style of the region, and with ritualistic body art unlike any either had ever seen- the young couple’s initial response was one of alarm.

Yet, something about the sonnance of his voice, the light lilt of a far-of accent on his kind, reassuring words, and the glow that lit his eyes and face from within, seemingly independent from the stars and the moonlight, captivated and assured them…

Maybe I need some flaming arrows?

I don't like revision. In high school and even college my first drafts were always strong enough for top grades so I never had to go back and revisit my writing, take what was there and re-arrange it, re-invigorate it, make it stronger. Other than punctuation, spelling, and grammatical errors I absolutely HATE re-working a piece I've written.

It wasn't until the upper levels of screenwriting class that revisions and re-structuring were demanded of me. It felt like failure. All my education to that point seemed to indicate to me that my "first drafts" were pretty flippin' stellar and if I had to go back to something, go back and CHANGE what I'd written, well that meant I had done a lousy job. It was UN-WORTHY. A wasted effort.

Now cosciously I know this to be a false assertion. I understand that drafts and edits and things of that nature are designed to nourish and strengthen a piece of creative work. I mean Jesus, as an actor\director I fully expect to rehearse and rehearse and rehears and try ALL kinds of different approaches to the material before finding the best way to perform it. As an actor\director I relish this organic process and HATE when people stick with the first and easiest instinct they had because there is almost always a better choice waiting to be discovered and nurtures and developed into greatness.

But as a writer? Stop the presses! It feels like a slap in the face, a punch to the gut a steel-toed boot to the groin if anyone ever suggests edits and revision.

I managed to do it for screenwriting though and believe for the most part that it produced an improved product. Often I felt like I had a unique vision and they wanted to conform it to a more comfortable hollywood format but I get it, and for the most part they understood where I was coming from. Except my last screenwriting teacher. What a cliched asshole. I mean absolutely. He wanted all my characters to be these stereotypical puppets and the plotline to be closer to Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves or something. He just would not see the story for what it was, dismissed all the work my previous professors and I had put into the efforet and basiaclly decided that in screenwriting 4 (the penultimate level of screenwriting) that I had to start from scratch.

It was one of the more frustrating experiences of my life, and maybe it was compounded by the fact that he wasn't a very adept online professor. He struggled with the medium and to tell the truth? I don't think he liked to read much. I would so these revisions and he would give the SAME comments back- Um Hello? I ALREADY fixed that issue. I started highlighting my revisions so he could more quickly scan thorugh the work and pinpoint the changes, but this only made him more surly and confused. And ultimately he decided I needed to start from scratch.

*sigh*.

I was so heartbroken and frustrated and utterly lost that Aaron took it upon himself to follow the teacher's instructions and write a very BLOCKBUSTER sort of historical adventure epic. The story got pared down to its barest essentials (a thing a history nut like me is really almost incapable of doing, motivations no longer made much sense but he made up for it with over-archetyping the characters. The King was no longer weak and ineffectual but scheming and well, a bit of a rapist-- very dislikeable, just how the professor seemed to want it. The Bishop was now more subservient to the king, which was more comfortable for professor McTritepants, but really not very interesting or deep. The queen's sex appeal was amplified and her general bent oscillated between "oh poor me" and "I'm going to seduce my way to the top!"-- what had once had the potential of being one of the most compelling female characters ever written was reduced to almost every hollywood female construct in the book. She went from a role for Cate Blanchette to one for Angelina Jolie or worse- scarlett johanssen or something atrocious like that. And Henry- the Duke of Normandy? One of history's most compelling creatures? Well, imagine Chris O'Donnell plays him now; all earnestness and heroics and wounded pride and puppy love.

Aaron really did a great job with it. It was very tongue-in-cheek and so reminiscent of real hollywood stuff that I gaped when I read it. The part with the flaming arrows and the buckets of lamp-oil? Inspired. Just what my film needed. special effects and a big band of an ending. It actually would have been kind of exciting if I weren't so sick over what a monster my story had turned into.

It was a parting F-U to the professor who never believed in my vision or trusted that this story really had something compelling and quality about it.

I won't lie. He didn't go as crazy mad over it as we had anticipated. I think he sensed from the complete about-face that I may, just may, have been flipping him the bird and mocking everything he stood for. It got a B, I think. Maybe a B-. And some stern words about following directions and being open to change and all that.

I thought for a long time about lodging a formal complaint since he really was an abysmal teacher. I wasn't the only one whose story he totally eviscerated, and not the only one who found him obtuse and arrogant and block-headed. We were a small class of about 5 and all of us struggled to understand what he wanted from us, made every effort to make the edits and revise where he instructed, and all 5 of us came up frustrated, confused and generally disheartened by the whole ordeal.

But C'est la vie. I never filed the complaint. He's probably making some other poor soul miserable this semester. I wonder if their story will end up with flaming arrows and killer taglines.

Wow this post got a hell of alot longer than I wanted it to be.

I have re-writes on my mind because of the fairy tale. I'm almost afraid to re-write it because I despise revision so much. But it feels supremely wasteful to just shelve all that effort.

Plus? I don't actually remember the whole plot outline and details about where the various quests would take our heroes so continuing on seems a bit ill-advised unless I can find all that junk tucked in a box in an attic or basement somewhere- and do I want this bad enough to did up a corpse that might never be anything but decayed and disfunctional??

Stay tuned.

Ultimatum?

I want to get a few thoughts down. I read through all the material I had on my fairytale last night and this morning. My initial gut reaction to the abysmal writing was honest and fairly accurate, but I will say this for it: it gets better. The first three chapters are very highly stylized, like the stained-glass beginning of Disney’s Beauty & The Beast film. There’s a certain distance, a detatched sort of almost biblical simplicity. Have you read the bible? Good stories, not too exciting from a writing (or reading) perspective.

So I think I get where I was coming from, and there are, believe it or not (I was surprised), some nuggets of good stuff in there. Then from chapter three on, when we’re done with the ‘origin’, done with the mystical history of how we got where we are now in the story, the writing, the characters, the whole thing sort of vaults into action and it is pretty fun.

I was disappointed when there was no more.

But I’ll tell you this: this isn’t a fairy tale. It is most definitely a novel. A novel for young adults, maybe young readers, but it is not a fairy tale. Its an adventure story, a quest, and it doesn’t look like it will be very short. So far the chapters are small but hell, we haven’t even left the castle grounds yet and If I remember my plan for the story arc correctly there’s a whole wide world out there and lots of obstacles await before our heroine even meets the mate of her soul and saves the world.

So. I have a couple options. First & Foremost option: Throw it out. I know this seems extreme and feels a little violent and unnecessary, but sometimes a purge is better for the creativity than trying to re-construct, re-design, and fix-up an ailing patient with no guarantee for quality of life after surgery.

Second: Use the spirit of it, use the idea but simplify, simplify, simplify. Write an honest-to-goodness fairy tale. A picture book with a few words here and there and be done with it. Some upsides to this plan is it might help me really clarify my vision for longer stories and there would be a product to show for my efforts instead of a bunch of chapters with no hope of completion. I might get several done and then could return to trying my hand at the novel form.

So. There we are. The last option is to take the hint the universe is dropping on me and forget about writing. Some people aren’t meant for it. I can’t tell you how many people in acting school really shouldn’t have been there. Oh that sounds terrible coming from a future theatre-educator. And honestly- some of those people whom I believed should give up go home and do something else- some of those folks have found a great deal of success in the business and are very happy because they have the passion and the relentless persistence to go to audition after audition and make the odds favor them even if god-given talent does not.

I was ‘smart’ about the whole thing. I realized I wasn’t supremely cast-able despite my talent, and I also realized that even though I had a great deal of skill and talent I still wasn’t SO amazing that it would overcome my detractions. I wanted a family and did not want to gamble all that on whether or not I could finally make a big break. So I finished school and more school after that and what do I have to show for it?

Ok. This blog isn’t a bitch fest so I’m going to stop there. I’m just saying- before I go chasing another unlikely artistic endeavor maybe I’d better just nip it in the bud, suck it up and work a damned 9-5 like I was obviously meant to do. Maybe it will come down to taking prescription medication again in order to maintain an equilibrium and avoid the deep, sinking depression that always rears its head when I’ve been away from the arts too long. Well, if that’s what it takes for me to lead a real life, a normal life, then so be it.

I have an amazing husband who has sacrificed so much for me. Parents who have given me everything and now are struggling to live. I need to get over myself, make steady money and help those who have done everything to help me.
Why does that sound like a death knell? What kind of selfish person feels grief over doing what they should and must do?

If we weren’t so poor I think I’d finally see somebody.

When I get a real job with real insurance I plan on making an appointment.

Was I on drugs?

SO I just unearthed my fairy tale. It was dated ’04. Where the hell did my life go?
Anyway I remember it being at least a little bit good. It isn’t really. It is like a junior high schooler wrote it.

EEEK. I’m going to make myself read through it all though, unapologetically. I did that earlier this week with a piece of writing from screenwriting class and while the writing was forced, rushed, hackneyed and scattered, the story at its heart and the characters were compelling enough for me to keep reading without too much wincing.

I even found a few surprises (pleasant ones), which is a nice feeling to stumble upon when reviewing your own writing.

But so far I’m about a page into my lengthy fairy tale endeavor of ’04 and am not looking forward to all these looming chapters.

Was I on anti-depressants that year? I remember going through quite a rough spot before I decided to attend AMDA- a time where working retail and taking anti-depressants and writing alternative lifestyle fairy tales all blend together in a blurry mess. I also dabbled with bridgewater state college for a hot second. The most memorable thing that came out of that doomed venture was my Native American style vision quest that I undertook for anthropology class in lieu of writing a final paper. It was april. And far beyond too cold to be vision questing in the woods of cape cod. But I did it.

Anyhow- wish me luck as I dive headlong into this terribly embarrassing experience. I’m hoping it will help me decide whether or not I should follow this “I wanna be a writer” fancy that’s taken hold of me lately, or just abort it before I get too attached to the idea.

Hidden Agendas and Veiled Symbolism

So I want to write a fairytale. Or several. A series of tales really. But I’m having a hell of a time with it. I’ve now taken so many children’s lit and theatre for young audience classes that I feel entirely bogged down in “what message am I sending?” and “Is that symbolism too sexually explicit?” and “is this a healthy message for young girls?” and “am I going to mess up vulnerable young psyches????”
All I see when I look at media for children, be it tales or books or tv or movies or even songs, all I can see is hidden agendas:

This book series is sending a CHRISTIAN message and that book series was written to counter-act that one and is decidedly an ATHIEST book series. This princess has an abusive-ralationship complex and stays with a man who has overt anger issues and hopes she can change him eventually and that princess can only win the man if she gives up her voice and changes everything about herself and gives up her entire culture. This story has little to do with princesses and dragons and more to do with having her first menstrual cycle and being ready to bear children. Everywhere I look I see sexual disorders and kinky messages like beastiality, necrophilia, pedophilia, fettish sex, incest, misogyny and masochism.

No as a decidedly liberal adult I find much of the above to be at least a little intriguing and believe all the legal stuff to be fine if it floats your boat, and recognize that the illegal stuff is repulsive, but makes for compelling drama and has since the dawn of storytelling.

However- should it be there in a children’s fairytale???? Can it be avoided? SHOULD it be avoided?

Something tells me that if I’m writing it all kinds of messages and naughtiness will be imbedded in the writing no matter how hard I try to neuter or child-proof it.
Well, this is all besides the fact that I mean to write with an OBVIOUS agenda too! I want to write alternative lifestyle (hate that term!) fairytales so that children can have more than hetero-normative happily ever afters. I want to teach them that you love who you love and that gender isn’t a factor in love and soulmates.
Told you I was pretty liberal.

It’s the way I plan on raising my children, and I would like there to be OPTIONS on their bookshelf. So if they are gay or bi they won’t feel marginalized from the very start. And if they are straight (even though I hope they will all identify as BI), I hope having the options there on the shelf alongside Cinderella and shit will at the very least cause them to be open-minded and not discriminatory toward other sexual orientations.

I was more than halfway through with my lesbian fairytale before I realized that her entire quest revolve around finding all the stones needed to complete a magical amulet. It was about jewlry. I mean, ok, it wasn’t ABOUT jewelry, it was about courage and problem solving and independence and friendship and responsibility and destiny and love, but for real? I was playing right into a disgusting female stereotyp without even realizing it.

Of course maybe there’s no harm in it. Maybe it isn’t as sexist as it struck me that day. Sometimes an amulet is just an amulet.

But when examing my man-friendly, lipstick-lesbian heroine and her quest for jewels (no matter how altruistic or imperitive) I suddenly felt like I was sending a very sexing-the-city message and just stopped writing.

LOL. I was afraid of what damage I might unwittingly do next when my fingers hit the keys.

So I sat down and tried to write the male-male story and ran into all kinds of difficulties. Of course the first quest object I thought of was a sword. Groan.
Then I had trouble even thinking-through the story because I would get distracted by imagining their first kiss and the playful budding sexual tension between them on their quest. It was suddenly not as sweet and innocent and innocuous as a fairytale ought to be. It was erotic and steamy and very very real. I was too turned on to write that with Mr. Rogers-like grace, so that one was aborted before it even got to the story-outline phase.

I guess the problem inherent in the situation is this: I am focused on sexuality. Sexuality is not a factor for young children. I need to bland-ify it up, not get into specifics of flirting and akward glances. In the other fairytales the prince and princess kiss, they marry, they live happily ever after-- we don't need to know how he won her heart or what about her made him fall in love it simpy IS. A matter of fact. A thing that happens, as natural as breathing.

And so the princesses wed and ruled the kingdom in peace and lived happily ever after. the end. we don't need to reconcile how or if they ever adopted children or whether or not the church ever sanctioned it and all that baloney.

And with that kiss the lowly stable-boy became a prince, the two were married and ruled the land, becoming the most beloved kings in a thousand generations. They lived happily ever after. No need to know which was the top, not necessary to know how they came out to their parents and all that. This is for kids. Its just fact. They love eachother so they get married. Done.

While the falling-in-love is vitally interesting to me, one of my favorite aspects of the human story, it is almost always reduced to basics for fairytales.

Maybe if I were writing for young adults, all twilight-style or Harry-potter, but for littles? All they need to know is: And that's the way it was!

In any case. I have two young nieces now with another niece-or-nephew on the way and my best friend is also having a baby and I feel this moral imperative to write my stories, but I am a little gun-shy.

I think I’ll brainstorm tonight and see if any of my first draft can be salvaged…

Sigh.

Maybe I’m write fairytales for adults instead… delicious.

For the record folks- Belle totally falls IN LOVE with the beast while he is a beast. It is only the last-minute co-incidence that turns him to human form at just in the nick-of-time to avoid the beastiality. She was going to marry the BEAST, not the prince.

The itch to do something creative has been nagging lately. The need, really, the imperative. As an artist an\or creative individual life gets very dark and restless if creativity isn’t happening. Mood swings double, triple, quadruple. Negativity multiplies. Hopelessness bleeds into dire pessimism and nothing in life seems much worth doing. Regret takes hold and choices\decisions that had heretofore been cherished, accepted or even revered, become suspect, sordid, folly, and mistakes.
I stopped blogging months and months ago. It feels like a lifetime ago.

One of the experiences I had most wanted to catalogue went largely undocumented and I regret that somewhat. I did keep a hand-written journal to keep from imploding, to help me vent or bitch or whine to some venue without forever turning my best friends and husband away from me permanently! But I recognized even then that I was sounding like a miserable broken record and had the good instinct to keep all the crazy bullshit out of the blogosphere.

Maybe I’ll look back through all those notes and publish some gems. Probably not though.

Anyway, student teaching kicked my ass. And my spirit, and my passion. As I predicted before I began I ended up liking and doing very well in the classroom- I’m a fairly competent teacher- but the surrounding ridiculousness has soured my taste for ever working in a school setting ever again. Which is more than unfortunate because I now hold a graduate degree in said field and will soon be certified for such a career and will have to suck it up and get over myself and go teach.
Fun attitude to have while entering the job search eh?

Anyhow, I stopped blogging because I realized it had become one big bitch session and I didn’t like that. I started blogging to find my voice and whining is not a voice I want to define me!

My resolution now is to continue the quest to find my voice, refine my perspective, express myself, and get the creative writing going. It is enormously terrifying.
I’ll be honest and admit this: I am lost. I have no idea what the hell I’m doing anymore. I know what I’m qualified to do (on paper), what I need to do, and what I should do. I also know that all of those truths make me physically sick to my stomach and the idea of living that life is soul-crushing.

So I need to figure a lot of things out and I don’t have the luxury of wasting time anymore.

This is one step I’m taking to try to work through what’s going on in my life—instead of running away from all the complicated stuff I’m going to start picking through it, sorting it out and holding it up to the light of day.
Sometimes the blog will be personal, other times I give myself license to use it as a writing tool- do little writing exercises like I did in college only this time I will actually be the author and not have my talented husband ghost write them for me so I can pass a class.

My writing will never be as compelling as Aaron’s, but I do think I have something to add to the world and it is my endeavor to discover what it is and deliver.
I promise a lot of it will be unreadable. Painful. Embarrassing. But I am pledging not to delete or edit any of it. No matter how dismal and amateur. Every book on becoming a writer tells you to “just Write” and not focus on perfect or even good. Just effing write already!

So that’s the plan. I can promise it will not be incomparable. In fact it will probably compare unfavorably to many hackneyed writers and student works. But it will be better than nothing. Better than a collection of sighs and shrugs and “maybe someday”s.

And who knows? Maybe there will occasionally be a gem or two amidst the shit.

Aaron revealed to me last night that before the Zombie job came along he had started a blog as a writing exercise. It was a secret blog meant to catalyze him into writing. It is great so far and I sincerely hope he gets back into the habit. What I love about it is that he makes no promises to tell the truth- that he intends on using it as an exercise in writing so fact and fiction will blend and mix and be largely irrelevant.

Mine won’t be quite like that, and because my writing is of such a different style than his I think it’ll be clear when I’m ‘journaling’ and when I’m doing creative writing, but I’ll label them just in case. HOWEVER, I’m kind of hoping that since it has been so long since I blogged that this little corner of the internet will remain unvisited for a while… And perhaps I’ll keep some off-line writing going too?

Today I have to get a resume and cover letter (I almost typed headshot) together for a position teaching English at a high school. I am qualified for this position. I feel like a fraud applying, however, and wonder what the hell I’d do if I got the job. But I am very much qualified for the position.

The wrong map.

Once upon a time is hard to recognize when you’re in the thick of it, living it, surrounded by it. Happily ever after is worse. Ever After is a time that never seems to arrive while you’re living it. These little clichés, these curious phrases are labels applied from a safe and comfortable distance, by people who aren’t involved in the events or the lives of those within the quotation marks. They live outside the elipses-- as observers, voyeurs.

Our own fairy tale never seems to materialize even while we pine for Once Upon a Time and Happily Ever After. We can’t see our stories evolving, can’t recognize the events which shape our little mundane lives into myth and epic. The people in our lives remain people in our eyes, never characters, villains, heroes, ogres, or fairy godmothers. Extraordinary incidents seem remarkable but largely separate from the everyday routine of our existence and we never attach undue import to them nor probe the event for symbolism or foreshadowing.

We exist. We live. We move through days without a real sense that we are protagonists or maybe antagonists in an evolving tale. Instead we sit in dark rows and watch the adventures of others flicker and fade before our eyes. Surely we are selfish or at the very least self-centered and we see through the lens of a first-person narrative. We cannot know what a third person omniscient would know and so we don’t feel special or enchanted or heroic or motivated to undertake quests or slay dragons or rescue princesses. We do what we do, hope someone takes notice, hope to make our mark on the world but never can see with enough perspective to know our own plot, our own story arc, our hero’s journey.

Maybe that’s why so many of us feel a bit at a loss and a bit lost. Why our jobs feel like dead ends and all our efforts seem small, humble and pedestrian. Why we restlessly change our majors in college, shift careers and cycle through partners and feel vague guilt over every ‘dead end’. It always feels as though there is a certain path we’re supposed to be on, a plan we should be following, a formula for that happily ever after, for that prince or princess, for that enchanted once upon a time.

But trying to make our story fit the mold of someone else’s journey will only ever lead to folly and unhappiness. We aren’t Cinderella, we aren’t Luke Skywalker, we have our own odesseys to navigate, our own wicked witches to evade and our own share of “your princess is in another castle” moments to deal with without trying to be someone else, without seeking out their adventures their problems and their victories. We may not be able to spin straw into gold or rub a lamp for a genie’s aid but we do have talents and skills and special powers perfectly equipped for our set of challenges and obstacles. If we stop trying to get to Mordor or Olympus or to grandma’s house or to that damned ball maybe we’ll finally be going in the right direction for our own goals.

We’re using the wrong map, listening to the wrong words of wisdom and looking for the wrong key to the wrong kingdom. But are we capable of taking hold of our own stories? Of wresting our lives out of the firm grasp of media saturation, popular culture constructs and the relentless tide of habit and tradition?

so thursday was the only good day I had! I felt physically well after having had the sore throat, and I felt emotionally excited because of seminar class that evening. School was great, then Emerson was great- I was so excited to see my Emerson pals and then Aaron and I went to see Inglourious Basterds which was absolutely fabulous!

Then Friday. Woke up feeling fine, but a little sleepy from all the thrusday activity. Midmorning I started to drag and feel queezy- I figured it was the spanx holding too firm a grip on m'jelly, but it didn't go away when I took them off that afternoon and then it happened: I got a flipping cold. Sneezing, runny nose, stuffy nose, achy, miserable, whiney, bitchy, unhappy and very grumpy cold.

It lasted ALL WEEKEND. In fact, I was supposed to go to U2- my favorite band of all time, and I was too sick even for that.

One good day- thursday, that was all.

Aaron was fabulous to me though- he took such good care of me and kept my spirits up. I love him to pieces.

And I woke up this morning for school feeling a great deal better- which is fortunate because today was my first day teachin g a lesson of my own! The assignment was to create 2 commercials using a random prop. It went over pretty well. Bob gave me good feedback.
\
I spent the whole day with a dry, red, peeling nose but felt a great deal healthier (thank the heavens, and only started to get rundown toward the end of the day).

I'll be teaching one of my lessons again on friday.

But I'd like to write more before then so keep an eye out.

Cross your fingers that I stay well!

Appetite for Life!

I woke up this morning with an appetite for the first time in close to a week! It is a good thing I took the day yesterday. On the one hand I hate people who call in sick, but on the other hand it makes the most sense. what good is it to go in like a zombie, miserable and out-of-it, wearing down your already struggling and strained body and offering nothing productive to the situation? Taking the day was just the thing I needed to recover in the most timely fashion- and isn't that the smartest thing? the most pro-active thing to do?

So today is thursday and I'm about to jump back into the swing of things. I also start my classes at Emerson again today! So, in honor of finally feeling better and finally rejoining my friends in Boston, I decided to wear the fiercest shirt I bought for back-to-school. It was a splurge, it was unnecessary, but even Aaron encouraged me to damn all the consequences and go get this effing shirt. It is shark grey with a zipper across collar which creates a boat-neck effect- but not your first lady's boatneck, a boatneck with a hard metal edge! grrrr! If I wanted to I could unzip one side and wear it over one shoulder! Or unzip both sides and wear it off both shoulders! Whoa Mrs. Robinson, back that cougar train up! I'll save the off-the shoulder bit for later with the Husband :)

Speaking of-- Aaron has arranged to take the info tour at Cambridge culinary college today as well! I'm hoping to zip up to porter square and join him after my class, but given the unpredictability of both Emerson and the T, I'm not certain I'll make it on time.

But If I Do I will look fierce!

GRRRRRR!

Sore Throat

So just as I make my pledge to blog more I get stricken with a sore throat. No, a sore throat does not impede my ability to type, per se, but it drastically impacts my mood and disposition. In short- I am a bear. I am an absolute whine-y bitch when I have a sore throat. I would rather any of the other common ailments, but sore throats are my Kryptonite.

They used to do the Blessing of Saint Blaise at my church and if you aren't Catholic you will likely not have experienced this. The blessing is intended to ward off sore throats and mouth cancer\throat cancer because Saint Blaise had a terrible lisp or a studdering problem or something, but anyway it's a great blessing to get right? Especially for a little girl who HATES sore throats and always seems bound to get one at least once a year (at the worst possible time-- do you think its psychosomatic?).

Anyway the blessing isn't just a sign of the cross and a few mumbled words and you're done, oh no. The priest takes two long tapre candles, crosses them into an "x" (I guess come to think of it it mught be in the shape of the cross and not an "X", but the effect is exactly the same), and then puts the crook of the X up to your throat while you stand there and he says the appropriate prayer.

To a little kid this looks very much like ritualized assault. It looks like strangulation without the stuggle. I always panicked at the idea of giving the priest such power-- what if he decided to strangle me for any reason? No thank you. It would be too easy.

So as a kid I always chickened out and I always got sore throats. When I was older, in highschool I finally screwed up enough courage to do it- and it was kind of a rush! It was not scary and no, the candles aren't lit (else our hair would definitely go up in flames!)-- though I do wonder if back in the middle ages they had been lit as part of the ceremony....

But I got the worst sore throat of my life that year right as I was supposed to take the stage as star of the annual high school musical, soooooooo. Draw your own conclusions.

Even though it didn't work that year I still think of St. Blaise whenever I am stricken with the grating, raw pain of a very sore throat and wonder if he's looking down at me and studdering: "I t-t-t-t-told you suh-suh-suh-so!"

Pledge

its 5:48 in the AM on friday of my second week. This is a pledge that I will be making more time to blog and to blog honestly and analytically about my experience and the details of what teaching is all about.

I am, however, not prepared to be blogging right now as I'm not dressed, not caffinated, and not ready for work.

Hopefully before I fall into a coma after work today I'll be a ble to do a recap of the week. Alot happened and I've had planty of thoughts on all of it.

I loved the President's Health Care Speech btw, and it was a hell of alot more inspirational than his message to the students. I really truly wish that all the folks who made a big deal about that speech could be made to look like the jack asses that they are. I mean, I REALLY wish it. I want it as much as I want to win the lottery.

On that note- today is a somber day and a great opportunity to explore emotions and feelings through drama and acting. But we won't. We will play a name game and the freeze game.

More to come.

BROKE

So I'm pretty broke. It really is quite serious. From here on out I absoulutely cannot spend money on anything other than essentials- and essentials do not include office supplies, exotic fruit, a night at the lux level, or more effing clothes.

Aaron and I will have to learn to content ourselves with dinner in every night and a lot less of it for that matter!

He says I am allowed to continue playing the lottery, but only one, count it, ONE ticket. not lucky number 7. not one every time I swing by the convenience store. no one a day. one. only one. Now my big dilemma is whether or not it should be a quick pick or if I should choose the numbers. UGH! being a libra makes this conundrum impossible. If I do quick pick and my numbers come up I will probably hurl myself off a bridge- but every time I choose numbers and they fail to appear I feel like a silly failure. yikes- right?

I put away the kitchen remodeling magazines and all that junk. Probably should have thrown them out, but I filed them away for later use. And I am officially reporting here and now that I no longer feel a stirring of any sort in my bosom or anywhere else when I look at photos of the house on Arlington street.

I do, however, feel a distinctly grim melancholy about the state of our finances and the persistent belief that we will NEVER be able to afford a house. at all.

Probably we will- but the feeling is there none the less. And no house means no kids- so yes, that hurts too.

And as happy as I've been with student teaching so far, I admit freely that I wish I didn't have to go back tomorrow. Thank god for the long weekend! I spent almost all of saturday sleeping!!! And yesterday was spent in the company of Aaron's mother and elderly but very kind boyfriend. While the day was nice, cordial and agreeable- spent on the side of a little lake in braintree- it was one giant waste of time. LOL.

And today we've been cleaning. You'd think keeping a studio clean and tidy would be easy but you'd be wrong and you'd be underestimating our ability to make royal messes in no time flat.

The Trials and Tribulations

All right folks! It's Drama Teacher time!

This week I began the next chapter of my life- a big step- I've begun student teaching! First day was tuesday when it was just educators getting ready, no students. Lots of meetings and we have a new superintendent of schools who is youthful, energetic and adorable! Tuesday went better than I had hoped- I wasn't awkward, I was clam and actually relaxed and enjoyed myself.

Then Wednesday was DAY ONE of school. WELCOME TO BHS KIDS! AND BETH!

It went well. I can exhale. It was pretty smooth actually and I not only survived, I had a good time. You could knock me over with a feather.

Then this morning meant all new groups of kids because of the rotating schedule so it was a bit of a 'first day' again, and this one went even better than the first. I won't lie- it was tough getting going this morning, I get up soooo early and I am not and never have been a 'morning person' per se. It's tough because actors like the night, we thrive after the sun sets, but then a struggling actor on auditions has to be up at the crack of dawn and working their ass off auditioning all over the place, then probably has to work at night to be able to afford to audition all day, and then drama teachers have to pull both duties too- early in the morning and then staying late in the evening while directing a show\running the club.
There is no restful time for those in the theatre. I learned that well enough while I was on tour, so I have to stop saying "I'm not a morning person" or anything like that because to be in the theatre means being omipresent at any and all hours!

Anyway I'm having an OK time so far, but I'm really just assisting the regular drama teacher right now. Then the goal is to team-teach, share the instruction, and then after a while of that he leaves and I've got them to myself. THEN I'll probably be a nervous wreck! But for now it feels good.

I have to start all the paperwork, which goes against my grain as a creative individual- I hate to PLAN theatre, but I've had some great instructors who've helped us find creative and clever ways of bullshitting all the paperwork requirements while still feeling free enough to run a drama class properly!

Tonight I have dinner at the folks.

Knock on wood my friends, but I am feeling pretty positive and happy.

The apartment is a bloody mess, but that's a whole separate can of worms!!!!!!!!!

It's a hike!

Went hiking today. I felt pretty miserable. embarrassed and pathetic. I got winded so quickly. my knees felt like jello and my legs seemed to weigh a million pounds. It was humiliating. I turned real bitchy real fast. nearly tuned back.

Aaron accused me of always being 'this way' whenever we do anything HE wants to do and claimed to be a saint while doing all the things I want to do. This just pissed me off all the more.

I wasn't trying to foul up his day. I wasn't trying to make him feel miserable.

I was simply and utterly disgusted with myself and with the shape that I'm in.

Good thing it was only a hill and not a mountain-- or else I'd have pitched myself off the side.

About half way up we came to a truce. I made it to the top (which was embarrassingly not too far from the base...), felt very much as though I would vomit, rested and we hiked around in a much more cross-country kind of way and less of a "i want to kill myself" kind of way.

It was a great day for it- not too hot and quite a nice view from the top.

we didn't picnic at the top as originally planned on account of my feeling nauseated and on the verge of heaving my breakfast sandwich all over the blue hills and eventually we headed back down. For kicks we opted to take the ski slope down which was delightfully steep and filled with grasshoppers! Its a wonder we didn't end up twisting our ankles.

Once at the base again we enjoyed the few animal exhibits and happened upon the gift shop. There we baught a bag of kettle cooked popcorn. The cashier, a 17 year old kid, warned us that it had addictive qualities.

Um. It was so good we felt like crazy crack fiends devouring it on the way home. Next time we go hiking we're buying the whole stock!

Maybe that's why I get winded hiking right?

Anyway I decided to stop at an office supply store on the way home since I start the next chapter of my life on tuesday. gulp.

We ran into Adam and Danielle there which was an awesome and pleasant surprise, except it made me feel a little more awkward about my own teaching endeavors as Adam's already an established teaching professional. After we parted ways I basically wandered about the store in a half-hearted daze. Theatre stuff, with very few exceptions, doesn't live in Office Maxx. I had hi-liters a plenty at home so I picked up some binders, some tissues and a note-book holepunch and called it a day. My heart wasn't in it and I just felt wretched to be trying to thin k and feel like a teacher.

I'm so nervous I could probably run away and never be heard from again. I'm nervous that I never should have done this to begin with and that it just isn't my passion and that the kids will sniff that out on day one (they are like dogs in that way) and the whole experience will be miserable. Not to mention the rest of my life.

Bah.

I need shoes.

We had Indian for dinner. It was wonderful, as usual.

Pangs

HGTV has lost its charm for me. We don't have much of a cable selection as we're getting illegal cable for free and HGTV was always reliably enjoyable. But now that I am coming to terms with not winning the lottery and becoming a multimillionaire watching other people enjoy their homes or shopping for homes or getting amazing renovations is not really pleasant. I find myself thinking all kinds of venomous thoughts and this bitter bile builds up until I'm swearing like a drunken sailor at these idiot couples who continuosly fail to see past paint color or who turn down the fixer upper and go with the brand new construction, or who have more money than they know what to do with.

I feel like my father shouting at the tv with such vitriol. So I've been tuning in a lot less.

So I thought I'd leave lifetime television for battered women on the tube during the day for white noise while I did various and sundry. To be honest I was waiting for the repeat of Project Runway since I had to miss it on thursday night, but I am a lifetime movie junkie. I simply LOVE all that dysfunction.

But what came on? Not a delightful thriller about the babysitter seducing the husband or the dad sleeping with his own daughter or a jealously twisted young woman who tries to ruin shannen doherty's perfect life because she once lost a talent competition in third grade (love!) or some other tori spelling mash up of feelings, betrayal, and violence... no. Baby story.

And this reminded me of why I don';t watch lifetime in the day. I used to watch the baby programs ALL THE TIME! They USED to make me happy and pleasantly anticipatory. Now they make me feel dark and ominous feelings that I'd rather never experience.

If you thought my house envy was bad- look out! Here are people having babies half-hour after half-hour while I get older and more sure it will never happen for me. Ugh. It really does seem like most folks are having little bundles of whatever lately. Some people are having their second or third! And for a woman who wants a big family- I'm talking 6-8 kiddies-- watching others start their families or add on to their families is getting old really fast--- like my uterus!

NOT like this is an appropriate time to have a kidlet anyway. For Christ's sake, we live in a studio! I always quip to folks when they ask if we plan to have a baby anytime soon (and yes, how outrageous is that for folks to ask? UGH!), I always say: "Where would I keep the thing? Under the desk?"

So no. No kids. no baby story. no house. no millions.

No job. no money. no prospects really.

I start student teaching this week. I'm sure this blog will just heat up with all sorts of scandal. The lame ass kind of teacher's room scandal that makes for thrilling literature....

I'm hoping I'll be so thoroughly occupied that my mind will stop designing dream kitchens and in-law apartments. That I'll be able to think intellectually again instead of just in an obsessive-compulsive way about ho I'd spend and invest the millions won in the lottery.

Maybe I'll be able to tolerate reading a book again.

And hopefully I'll learn to be as happy as I ahould be with all the wonderful blessings I already have. Why isn't there a tv channel for that? Well, becasue that would be wretchedly boring I'm sure and make other folks as blindingly jealous as I have been for kitchen renovations and offspring.

I just don't feel like myself and I'm terrified of starting next week and I feel like an empty vessel.

I just spent a visit down the cape where I felt on edge and uncomfortable the entire duration. Like I was holding my breath. I had nothing interesting to contribute, nothing witty or even amusing. I was a dull guest. Luckily there seemed to be hundreds of babies and toddlers and children around to distract from my abysmal lack of conversation skills, and plenty of better homes & gardens magazines for me to escape into.

Until I win the millions I vow not to buy any more DIY type magazines. Fuck Kitchen Cabinetry. I have one. One kitchen cabinet. And that's the reality. And I love my little studio fo all its complications and stresses and tiny-ness. I'm going to put away the home design mags, the decoration idea books and all that other SHIT that is making me long for impossible things. Starting today I refuse to tune in to those silly channels.

And I think I might return the orange vinyl purse and glass doorknob I pilfered from my adventures in the house on Arlington street. REALLY say goodbye.

I'm going down to the cape.