Good Idea/Bad Idea

Some of you might remember a weekday afternoon cartoon in the 90s called Animaniacs. On the show they had a segment called “Good Idea/Bad Idea” which according to my memory of it, showed two scenarios with a strange looking animated skeleton-like fellow – or maybe it was a mime? - who would go through two versions of the same thing with a very droll voiceover narrator who would says something like: Good Idea: Going Ice Skating in the Winter; Bad Idea: Going Ice Skating in the Summer – and other, more creative than I can come up with right now nonsense.

This afternoon, I had such a moment. Good Idea: Drinking tea on my couch under a blanket with my new copy of Real Simple magazine, tearing out inspiration for the handmade holiday cards I intend to make (a failed intention I’ve set several years in a row!) with my cat curled up on my lap as it rained and was ugly outside.

Bad Idea: Later walking past the indie movie theater by my house, and deciding to go see the about-to-start showing of Martha Marcie May Marlene.

This was a bad idea ~ and I heard that Animaniacs voiceover tell me so as I walked back out into the cold feeling like I hadn't breathed properly in two hours. The movie itself was wonderful in all the ways art films are supposed to be wonderful – skilled, raw actors; absorbing, believable plot; creative camera & sound work. But, it was also emotionally wrenching, violent and sexually violent, tragic and concluded in a sudden and unsettling way.

I used to have a much greater tolerance for psychological dramas; perhaps as a way to cathartize other emotions I was having – in my Shakespeare class this semester, we’ve done a lot of reading about the role of theater as mass catharsis. But, lately, I just can’t really handle it. Give me something a little less intense, wrenching, honest. Ironic then, isn’t it, that I’ve said that my own poetry has recently become more of all of these.

Maybe as I find the ability to put words to my own drama, the drama of others just over-flows the well. Maybe as I work to open myself and my heart to the world, I’ve become a more tender human being.

Or maybe, I just want my entertainment to be entertaining these days. 

I sort of am ashamed to say it, but I’ll take the fluff right now, thank you very much. Sure, I feel like I’m no longer in a set of intellectual elite who are discoursing on their favorite Kurosawa – but then again, really, when was I?! I’m not a true cinefile – Don’t get me wrong, I love movies - but I haven't seen any Kurosawa. I *am* the kind of person who will sometimes just walk into a cinema and see whatever happens to be playing then, but it seems to me that ending this cozy afternoon by unknowingly walking into a tragedy about rape, murder, and PTSD was a Bad Idea.

And (resigning to/embracing) the fact that I’ve actually made plans to see the new Twilight with a friend is a Good Idea. Bring on the innocuous brooding fluff!

Thanks-Giving Myself the Day Off

My girl friend texted me yesterday to ask if I had Thanksgiving plans, and then invited me to spend it with her family. I thanked her, but told her I’d consider it and get back to her. What I had to consider were my many little plans and designs. …

The first of which was whether to pick up the catering shift I was offered. In fact, they asked if I’m available on all the upcoming holidays – Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve. And zoom – my fear brain goes, Of course! I’m not busy those days, I’m not working my temp job, so I’m not earning on those days – I should do it. (Pause 1: “Should”). I don’t have any plans yet, East Coast orphan that I am, I don’t have any family here, and my friend who hosted last year said that it was too expensive to do it this year. I won’t be hosting, as I now live in Oakland… and no one comes over to this side! and also my apartment isn’t big enough.

…Then, I start to consider every other East Coast orphan (San Francisco has a lot, and we tend to gravitate toward each other) And I begin to wonder what they'll be doing--

And I wouldn’t want to leave my friends high and dry on the holidays--

And I better make sure they have plans--

Or maybe I'll host anyway--

Or maybe I’ll ask someone else to host--

And wouldn’t it be nice to have all my friends together for the holiday, if I can only figure it out. (Pause 2: “Figure it out”)

Or maybe …

Maybe, (breathe), I will simply show up to a friend’s family dinner with homemade pumpkin pie, and a smile.

I asked my financial savvy buddies what they thought about my working on a or all holidays, and they said, a) ask my HP (higher power – i.e. get quiet and ask myself what is the “Super Molly” thing to do, and what is the “Human Molly” thing to do), and b) maybe choose only one holiday to work – perhaps one that isn’t while I’m also in school. (FYI, catering is not as easy as just serving plates – it’s hauling cases of water glasses, wine glasses, champagne glasses, salad plates, dinner plates, dessert plates, table linens, tables, decks of wooden chairs, wine, water, and food up and down flights of stairs or across lawns, all while attempting to not look like you’re breaking a sweat in front of the client – It usually knocks me out for the entire next day, as my body is not nearly as resilient as it used to be.)

What would “Human Molly” do? Hmm. Well, first off, she loves holidays. I do. I absolutely could squeal with delight about the holidays. I love the memories I have of them, the smells associated, the warmth I feel that permeates all layers of skin and soul. I love them. I get squishy thinking about them. – When I was living in South Korea for two years, they did not get squishy about Christmas – or, duh, Thanksgiving. They got a little commercial about it, sure, with some inflatable Santas and some tinsel in the department stores – but for the most part, it was an atheist’s wet dream winter season. And, how I missed home then.  – I have come to conclude that my affinity for the holidays has a lot to do with the fact that it was pretty much the only time of year my family acted normal. We had people over – which never ever happened during the rest of the year. We had smiles and played nice, and façade or not, I loved it. It made me feel safe, and like maybe not everything was fucked.

Luckily, I now know what I need to earn in November and therefore how much I need to work. And the reality is, I don’t need to work on Thanksgiving: the “should”s (see above) are always a major tip off I’m about to put myself in a situation I’ll resent or regret.

I am also aware that anything I feel a frantic need to “figure out” is a sign that I’m trying to organize things that likely don’t need to be organized. My fellow East Coasters are entirely capable of figuring out their own plans – they’re not asking me to create their holiday, and I will feel much calmer not trying to create them!

So, as you might have guessed by now, I texted my girl friend back this morning telling her that I would love to join her family for Thanksgiving. Relieved of my own machinations, I can now look forward to just showing up – with pie. ;)

Hosting Thanksgiving 2009 in my SF apartment. (Turkey never made it to the table!)

Asian Hipster Abundance

This morning as I was trudging up from the dungeon of Montgomery Street BART, there was an asian hipster dude a few paces in front of me, and he’s bobbin to his music, and then he’s really swaggering it, and then he begins to bark out some phrases, and then he begins to clap with wide arm gestures. With every increasing jaunt of his, my smile begins to get wider, and I follow him for about a block or so, smiling to myself as a few short stints of sunlight shine through the buildings onto my face. And I ask myself to remember this feeling – at least for a little while.

I’m now working 3 days a week in SF as a temp at an interior design firm. And sometimes it’s sort of cool, and I’m looking at massive design books of ridiculously fancy homes and touching pretty fabrics from a new line – but mostly, it’s the same admin work any admin anywhere does – cataloguing, entering, organizing … mind-numbing, I think my eyes are bleeding work.

That said, I’m tremendously grateful to have this job. Firstly, the people are quite excellent – at a former temp job, I had a very “that’s my stapler” cubicle tenant adjacent to mine, and it was always a fine line between being immensely entertained and alarmed – particularly when the continuous murmuring monologue included sudden bouts of loud expletives. Secondly, I’m a graduate student, living off student loans with absolutely zero savings, and much like unemployment, student loans pay you almost enough, but really not enough. Well, not enough for a studio apartment in the Bay Area at least – which, yes, was a conscious choice I made rather than have roommates.

And so, when this temp job was offered to me, despite also being a full-time student, it was like manna from heaven. I worked with this company over the summer – it was like manna then too – and they asked for me back. So, I’m back. I’m also babysitting, catering, and ... well, yeah, that’s it for now (although artist’s model auditions come up in January again – I missed them last time. I auditioned with a different company once before and it wasn’t as weird as it was simply difficult to remain super still for 20 minutes!)

So, suffice it to say that today, after a few mind numbing hours in front of a computer screen, it was hard for me to maintain the jaunty optimism of the asian hipster, but I’m glad to remember him and his yellow backpack right now.

I’ve been tracking my income and expenses much more closely, but with purpose, since August. Prior to that, about a year or more ago, I started to track my expenses, but just got pissed at myself that I was spending so much money on coffee. And thinking self-flagellation was not a mile-marker on the road to serenity, and not really having any idea what to do with that information, I stopped keeping track. But, then it was August, and I’m contemplating ramen, canned tuna, and an empty fridge - again - it was time to address this - again. So, I reached out to people who do this sort of thing (this frighteningly adult sort of thing) called “having clarity around finances”, and started to keep my numbers again. ~ and I was amused to note that in August, I spent $8.00 on coffee. Not the omigoditmustbelike$100 paranoid number I’d imagined!

After tracking my expenses, I work with these folks to create a spending plan. It was surprising to learn from my friends that I was “underspending” aka depriving myself in all sorts of categories like food, clothing, and personal items (apparently $1.34 a month-for a toothbrush-is not an act of self care!). And so, I’ve begun spending within my newly clarified means – confirming abundance, and also confirming the fact that I actually *do* have this money. I just haven’t known where it is, or where it goes, hence my whole “binge and purge” financial routine.

The advanced part of this exercise is the income plan. This means that yes, YAY! I get to buy the fancy shampoo that is kind to my chemically straightened hair (bad idea), but that I have to earn the appropriate income to support a habit of self-care. And I like this new habit of self-care – this month I actually added in a category, modest though it is, for flowers. And there they are, right here on my desk. :)

So, yes, I work in a job that is more exhausting by how sedentary it is, and yes,  I woke up this morning at 6am to write a paper and went directly from work to class until 9:30pm tonight, but a) it won’t always be like this, b) I’m grooving patterns of responsibility and evenness (not the mania of “how am I going to pay my rent???”), and c) … well, I really like coffee.

The Cousin.

When I was 19, my brother’s best friend’s cousin (got that?) came to visit NJ from Ohio. His name was Ben, like my brother, so we just called him “The Cousin” for clarification.

And, oh, how we fell. I wrote a poem about that too. (pasted an excerpt below). The cousin and I have been each other’s… well, he’s been my “if we’re single and 40” contingency plan. I said to him once that if I were willing to let myself fall into the painting of the white picket fence with him, I would. We were very good painters.

He was the first (and only) guy to send me flowers on Valentine’s Day. He sent me a poem about my hair (that it was “everywhere” ~ not like that! ~ like it’s so unruly) and it had little hand-drawn cartoony pictures of me with my unruly hair. Enclosed was a “self-portrait” he’d done in Microsoft Paint or something, with a backwards cap, because that’s what 16 year old boys did back then.

Yes, 16. He was 16; I was 19. Be grossed out – but that’s how it happened. My best friend dated my brother’s best friend that summer – of course it was summer – and the 4 of us were a raucus ball of Summer Lovin’. We had a blast. I was his first. And although it sorta sucks to say, I think part of what has kept our link for so long is that the fiery kindling of that summer romance never had time to extinguish. The summer ended, he went back to Ohio. But for the next five or more years, we kept up semi-regular correspondence, lots of meandering, poetic, off-kilter emails. Jokes, and references, and randomness – a randomness that almost, well, it made sense between us. Our individual off-kilter-ness made sense to each other. We felt understood; I felt understood. (I’m sure you understand) ;)

Last I visited him was on my drive out to San Francisco in 2006; we had another lovey weekend together – sensitive, understood, silly – and drunken. Last we were both in New Jersey, I was no longer drunken, and he couldn’t remember the mildly offensive things he’d said the night before. Then it’s 2009 and he says maybe he should come out to California … and I tell him that California didn’t fix me – I had to do a lot of work to get out of the mess(es) I’d been in. And he says, Oh, and we hang up.

And I hadn’t heard from him in two years … till a month ago.

I was in New Jersey and I get a text from him. He hadn’t heard that I was in town, he just decided then (cosmic Universe oo-ee-oo sound) to text me. Remarkably, a “Calling in the One” exercise of that very week was “Renegotiating Old Agreements.”  (“Marry you when we’re certain we won’t find anyone else & are done doing everything else” Agreement ring any bells? ~ cue music again.)

So we talk on the phone the next day, and I play “friendly” catch-up because, really, what is there to say? … What is there to say when I’m standing at the threshold of letting go of a promise written in gossamer? How can I say, I’m getting “over” you. Because that’s not the truth either. I will always be that 19 year old in NJ August heat in my best friend’s bed with my hair strewn across his vibrating body. I will always be her, but I will also always be the every-other-age-woman that I’ve been, including today’s ~ and that woman is very desperately sorry to disappoint her 19 year old, and to disappoint The Cousin ~ but I am available for a different kind of love now. One that isn’t a painting of a picket fence, but one that breathes, is adult, is still random and off-kilter, but, frankly, is no longer available for “if I can’t find anything better” ~ because everyone is worth more love than that.

I still have a renegotiating letter to write and likely burn, ceremony-like. And a potential conversation to have. Or maybe, as has been suggested to me, a promise written in gossamer will simply fade when I stop re-writing it.

***

(from "Love Poems")

There’s a voicemail I’ve pressed 9 to save for two years—it’s a joke, without preface, 

and he just hangs up when it’s done—and there’s a text poem about a porch and twilight

and hands I can’t yet erase, and there’s him, 16, in August heat, on the bench seat of my dad’s cutlass.

***

You can’t please all the people all the time (hint: stop trying)

i have this habit after my poetry workshop of not reading the feedback the other poets give me on whatever poem I handed in the week before. it’s fear. i know. i spend a lot of time when I write feedback on their poems, but, well, I sort of don’t want to hear what they have to say. I have this ridiculous vision that my poems are like Athena, springing forth fully formed from my head, and so they don’t need revision.

Which isn’t true. a good writer is/has a good editor. In fact, these days, for poems to even get typed, they’ve already been worked over by hand at least once and will likely undergo change several times more before print … but,  … When I was home in NJ last month, i found the short story from college on which my teacher had written that it was … too purple, too poetic, too much. ~ less x, less y, less molly is how I read it. Even though over these years I couldn’t remember precisely what that teacher had written, I could still feel how stung I was by her critique. Looking at it in hand last month, I was right to feel burned by it. It was pretty much everything you don’t say to a budding writer, or a budding human for that matter.

It has taken me years to show people my writing. I began to post my poetry on facebook about three years ago, and it was a ‘safe’ forum for me, as everyone reading it was a friend of some stripe. And I got some good feedback, lots of love, and much indifference, but it was a heart-pounding moment everytime I clicked “publish” ~ “will they/won’t they” … and eventually, much later, “does it matter.” It did, and it didn’t – I am a sensitive person, and my ego sometimes needs soothing, but much like with the painting project, I allowed the poems to go “up” anyway, perfect or not. (though I would still, even after several years, go back and tweak a word or title here and there)

About a month and a half ago I put up a poem on facebook about being institutionalized ~ and I took it down pretty quickly. About a month ago, I put up a poem about rape ~ and I took it down after a few days of gnawing my lip. Then ~ I took everything down. In a moment of extreme reaction/self-protection, I wasn’t going to have that all public. I even got a “like” on the rape one before I took it down.  But … things … my poems have recently been getting more “real”, more graphic, more uncomfortable, ultimately more authentic, and suddenly, facebook did not feel like the “safe” place for me to put these anymore. I felt exposed, even though, yes, everyone was/is still a friend of some stripe. But, over the years, my stripes have gotten wider, and my circle of “friends” has expanded, and somehow, I don’t really want to expose some truths about myself or my experiences to such a mass audience.

And so, everything came down. Even the “silly” stuff, even the non-exposing stuff. It was the pendulum swing – everything up or everything down. Do I regret it? Maybe a little. There were some wonderful and supportive comments from people, friends. But I felt myself retracting, wanting to hide it/me. So, *cue irony* here I am on a blog, a more visible, barely more anonymous forum, and one of the first things I’ve tried to do now that I’m going to be using it more often is to figure out how to get a page that will also publish my poetry. (I downloaded Wordpress, and am way overwhelmed with words like “code”!)

So, here’s the thing. The truth will out. It will out on facebook, or blog, or classroom. People will write it’s melodramatic & cliché (like a professor said last semester), or, more likely, they will write supportive comments meant to help *improve* my work, not detract from it. They are not ticking time-bombs, this stack of unassuming pages. Although I’m not sure I feel ready to look, and sure I feel melodramatic saying it ;) I’m warming up to the idea that creating art implies and demands being vulnerable ~ and being teachable. If I want people to read it, I have to let them have their ideas about it. And, but, still, in the end, I have to follow my inner compass, because f*d if that’s not what this is all about anyway. 

Pulling a Carmen

So, following in the footsteps of my friend Carmen, I've decided to post a blog a day, cuz why not. I thoroughly enjoy reading hers each day, or a few in a row, like catching up with a friend - and keeping up with people in this busy world.

So, can I admit that I just wikipedia'd adam levine - that maroon 5 singer, after watching some of charlie day on SNL (on hulu; no tv ~ not a california thing, just a ... don't have a tv thing). And lord, have, mercy. My god. That is one hot jewish man. And god save me, there are actually hot jewish men in this world.

Now I know you can't chose (particularly) who you fall in love with, but boy, would it be nice to find a tall, handsome, jewish man. ... and while we're at it, employed. It's been interesting - as a semi-result of reading Carmen's blog, I bought and started to do the exercises in this book "Calling in the One". Now, gag if you must, but I did a lot of browsing in the "preview" on amazon, and it seemed like it was up my alley - very Artist's Way-style exercises and readings, and hey, why the f. not.  Now interestingly enough, I'm asked to look at what ways are my relationships with men a reflection of my relationship with myself - She, the author, asks, if we're picking up this book, in what ways is are we not loving, nurturing, or committing to ourselves ... and I knew immediately that there are tons of ways in which I am not committed to myself - to my dreams/goals/little internal nudges. And that is certainly mirrored back to me in the real world.

So, I've been reading this book, and doing these exercises - and shit you not, the week I was home in NJ was the week on "Letting Go" ... I'm not doing it all precisely one-a-day, but reading, flagging, going back, doing the exercises on more than one situation like she suggests. And things are changing. Take a look at my apartment!!

But, also, I recently downloaded from the SF Public Library on eBook (yes you can do this now!), What Color is your Parachute? It's a book about careers, career advice, how to figure out what you want, what you're good at. And so I'm now doing the exercises in this as well. Because, no, I am not committed to my dreams. I am always embarrassed to tell people I sing. No one's heard me (well, except Carmen actually, who once told me [after I'd just sung with a band in front of an audience of a hundred people...] that I was really good, and when I said "Really??", she said, No I'm just trying to sleep with you) ;) But more than just sing, I want to perform. I want to act, be on stage, riddle you with emotion - I wrote a poem about it once. About throwing you off the edge of a cliff and gently reeling you back in - about steamrolling you with emotion - and the fucked up thing is that I really do think I can. I really do believe that I have it in me to possess myself so completely that I might possess you too.

What a powerful thing is that?

Now, the advanced portion of this exercise, is to let myself head there.

This blog, I suppose, is a part of that. Emptying out my childhood home is a part of that. Finally completing the art project I began in July is a part of it ~ and I'll tell you something, It Looks Amazing. Even I'm proud of myself.

I've been realizing I have a pattern of thought/behavior lately, which states that I can only have happiness when I have success. I can only have love when I have a job. I can only have a career when I ... when I let myself take the hideously frightening action steps - even the baby ones, like call these two working actors I know in SF and set up coffee dates/informational interviews. So, putting up my artwork yesterday was part of spitting in the face of that belief - the art doesn't have to be perfect for it to go up (that was actually the purpose of that project - was to let myself paint it, no matter how it came out - and when it was done - it was done, no finnicking with it). The art doesn't have to be perfect to make me happy. I don't have to be perfect to be happy, because let's face it - that would be never. So, I've set up for myself a system of belief where I can never have love or joy in my life. And, in realizing this, I'm realizing how ultimately retarded it is, and I'm beginning to take action in the opposite direction.

Because maybe there's another Adam Levine out there just waiting for an actress/writer/singer. ... bass player ;)

(source: huffington post via Cosmo UK)

Excavation: Chapter 3

So, it's been bothering me that I have recently been writing about all this fucked up shit about my family and childhood, particularly now when I feel that I've been "doing so much better" and "moving beyond it." Or rather, truly feeling that it (the past) doesn't have the same power to inform my behavior and interpretation of the world that it used to have.

And so, I've been curious then to see that it's been coming out so much in my poetry. Then, I had a realization. I had begun a serial poem a few years ago titled "Excavation", and it has a few "chapters", Curiosity, and Betrayal, and a 2.5 that I can't find, But I'd always been curious as to when the next chapters would show up, and, I believe they are. I believe this is the work that is happening right now.

It occurs to me now that "excavation" is not just, dig stuff up and get rid of it. It's dig stuff up, examine it, and then get rid of it (or lay it aside, or hold it differently, etc.). And so, writing all these poems, I've recognized, is the examination. This is what these ancient pieces have to say; there's a reason they don't feel current, and that's because they're not. They're like fossils of an ancient emotion or experience, and my work now is just recording them. Acknowledging they exist, validating the experience, and setting them aside with honor, but without the power of tyranny.

I find comfort in this realization; that I am "moving beyond" these old wounds and experiences. But, I actually have to process them (record them) as I excavate them, or else they still have a hold on me, they're still unexamined, and therefore like the ghosts of souls who still have work left to do on this plane. By writing about them, I am finalizing the work of these experiences. By recording what was written in and on these fossils, I am laying them to a final rest. And so, "Excavation Chapter 3: Examination", so that eventually, I may come to the next chapter, Freedom.