Hunkering Down & No Drastic Movements

These were two things Patsy said to me this morning – to hunker down in school work mode – which I have actually diligently done today – you can check out the most recent installation of my poetry thesis on the MVD page (it’s 9 poems, laid out to sort of make sense as a mini-collection). I have to meet with my thesis advisor tomorrow for our second meeting.

At our first, she said, “over produce and cut back.” So, I got paralyzed by that(!), and blundered along writing my poem-a-week for my workshop class, and that’s pretty much what I’ve got. But, today, I did sit in a café with ALL the comments from my peers and professor, and sifted through it all. I copied the comments I liked onto my master copy, making my own new edits, with fresh eyes and some space from having written them.

Just now, I put them all into one document and edited the hell out of them. And in very much likelihood, they still need or want work – it’s like a painting, or a recipe – sometimes you’re not sure there’s something missing till you add salt, and suddenly it comes alive – poetry is like that – there can be one thing somehow off by a degree. But also, people’s barometers are calibrated differently :P

But, it’s done, for tomorrow’s purposes at least, so that’s one huge thing off my mind/plate.

As to “No Drastic Movements”, Patsy suggested that perhaps this week of all weeks (the 2^nd to last one of school when I am so aggrievedly badly procrastinatorily overworkedly behind), perhaps I shouldn’t: break the 6 months silence with my mom; look at ads on craigslist for SF apartments; look at ads for hybrid cars; flagellate myself for going over my monthly spending plan; or do any other such thing as would be drastic.

This week at least ;)

Despite the fact that I am over my spending plan for this month (an interminable month, if you’re looking at it through my financial numbers; though staggering to realize it’s nearly December!), I am in need of groceries. So, today on my way out of the city, I bought myself a pound of coffee. I still need to get to the real grocery store over here and stock up, but it felt like, SO THE FUCK WHAT – YOU NEED TO EAT – GO BUY SOMETHING silly girl, for christ’s sake. Martyrdom is way overrated. And I’m really f’ing sure that not having any groceries is not what this whole “financially solvent” thing is about.

Yes – I bought clothing that wasn’t in my plan (work appropriate! Though I did turn away from the oh so sinfully supple black leather jacket at Bloomingdales) – and I also bought myself a facial yesterday, because I’m exhausted and needed the recharge. I knew these weren’t in the plan – but I earned more than I anticipated this month ...

However, I know that pattern of my behavior – it looks like, Eh, a little more won’t hurt – it’s self care, or it’s my friend’s favorite color, or so what, my dvd from the library is two weeks overdue. …

And then finally, it once again looks like an empty fridge without the finances to refill it. It always looks like that in the end. I know that place.

So, here I am, seeing it early – “Awareness, Acceptance, Action,” right? But, I am also self-flagellating ;P

I’m a little punch-drunk from staring at my poetry and reading the rest of The Tempest today, so I’m signing off.

Lastly though, I did all of my dishes this morning. And, really, that counts for something.

Exile.

So, it’s finally happened – i’ve admitted that being in Oakland is really lonely, and I’m willing to do something about it. So, I called/texted 6 East Bay friends tonight to see if they wanted to go to the Saturday night “cool kids” meet up place, and I got 6 denies. It’s okay. I had to read for school and had a pretty awesome day of out&about self-care (the trees are finally turning colors – they look incredible), but I actually took action around it, which was a long awaited step.

I have a few, mainly school, friends here, but most of the friends I consider my closest live in San Francisco – yes, only across a bridge, but that’s an immense distance if you’re on either side of it (It’s like Brooklyn to Manhattan: you likely ain’t gonna make it) – I remember back to times when in SF, venturing to Oakland seemed like crossing Egypt. Which means, if I’m not willing to cross Egypt to hang out with people I know and love, I better get willing to reach out to people on this side of the Nile … Sorry, extended metaphor collapse!

I didn’t really realize it until last weekend at that meditation workshop I went to – which was about relationships with others. I said it out loud in my “hey I’m Molly, this is why I’m here,” and that was one of the things that came out. Being so busy with everything is a good distraction from making friends, and making effort to make friends.

Cuz, that’s what it really boils down to – there are plenty of people out on this side of the Bay – I just have felt petulant to make any new friends, and I have 5 years’ worth of friendships built up in SF, and friendships take work. To form, to grow, to create trust and intimacy, and I just haven’t been available for it since I moved over here – it was just too exhausting to think about “starting over.”

In the beginning, last year, when I still had my car, I made effort to get to the “cool” meet ups, but I didn’t feel any connections (or make effort to go much beyond a few cursory hey how are yas). Then, I had no car, and it was much easier to stay cocooned.

It’s pretty funny, cuz the first thought that I had in the workshop last week which I shared with a friend (as there were two girl friends I hadn’t seen in ages, and just seeing them brought such relief – here are people who know me, who’ve seen me grow and change, as I’ve seen them – it was seeing these friends, feeling that relief, ironically, which made me realize how starved I was for them, and how non-friend-having I’d been over here). So, I say to one of them, that my brain immediately goes, Maybe I should move back to San Francisco.

Of course, the simplest of all answers, Molly! That makes perfect sense! It doesn’t. School is over here, which it’s why I’m over here, “exiled” in the first place. – Just like the “simplest” answer to my punctuality/time problem is to get a car, of course…

The simplest answer is to make friends over here. To admit that it takes effort, and it’s scary, and I still think I come off as terribly uncool around new people. But, it’s that, or me and my cat on Saturday night, and I’m at least cooler than that. Well, not this week, maybe – but I made the effort!

Next Saturday I’ll be in the city modeling in my friend’s fashion show for her non-profit (that’s cool, right?) ;P but the following Saturday, I now have plans with a girl I sort of know to go hang out with the cool people. … in Oakland. 

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program

(My thanks to my friend with amazon prime who ordered me a new power adapter to be delivered overnight.)

That said, it was … ironic(?) that my computer went down on Tuesday night, as I’d just been thinking about taking a quasi-Sabbath this Saturday – to take it easy, maybe not be all electronically connected (do my homework!) – but apparently the cosmos had a different time frame in mind for my power-down day. It was nice, honestly, not even having the option of trolling online, checking anything at all. I had internet at work on Wednesday, and internet at The Dailey Method this morning. I’m not going all Luddite here, but I did feel freer in my time when I didn’t feel like my few moments could be packed with checking,looking,clicking.

I also questioned what my motives were in this whole blog-a-day thing. This arbitrary rule and deadline that I’ve given myself when I’m considering how I’m using and misusing my time. But, really, I do enjoy it – I think about what I might write about (though it usually ends up WAY off from where I intended), and I also really do know that it’s a good way to keep any interested parties updated, and finally – I get to track my own progress. Writing a few days in a row or in a week that I still have to contact that guy actor friend, I get tired of writing that – it’s sort of like a daily tally sheet, only public :P

Tonight I ushered at the SF Opera. I’ve been doing it for about two and a half years I think now, after my friend who is a ballet fanatic told me that he ushered for the Ballet (they’re in the same building, the opera and ballet). I’m a ballet fan – sure there are tons of unique modern dance, and some modern ballet too, but give me some old time Balanchine and Tchaikovsky, and I’m sold.

The ballet is expensive; ushering is free. :) However, it has become logistically much harder now that I’m in the East Bay, and it’s really not quite worth it to travel via BART to and from, especially at night, just for an opera. I had never seen opera before I began ushering, and I resisted doing the opera shifts for a while, but finally I went. I went to three in succession when I was still in the city, and I LOVED only one of the 3. The rest, meh. The sets – incredible; the symphony – world class; the story and the acting (which is now expected of the singers)? – meh. I’m really glad I saw the one I loved first – Tosca.

I loved the costumes, the EPIC sets – all the SF sets are epic – it’s radical. But, I'm not huge on opera which is good to know, i guess. In any case, I downgraded myself from regular House Usher (I even had the little gold pin “Usher”) to a more irregular/by request usher when I moved. But Nutcracker season is coming up.

The Nutcracker was surely where it all began for me – My mom and dad used to have season tickets to the New York City Ballet, and my dad would actually fall asleep during the performances, so I suppose my mom finally gave in and let me come instead. It is pretty magical. The SF version is way different than the NYC, but they both have merit. There’s nothing like watching that Christmas tree rise out of the floor to become several stories high – it’s enchanting.

In any case, I chose to go tonight to usher cuz I sort of miss it, and opera season is closing, and I thought I’d give it another shot. I did leave tonight before it ended – opera is three hours – but I got what I came for: to help other people on their sometimes one and only adventure to the opera, to listen to world class musicians and vocalists, and to people watch.

Like most places, there are categories of folks - the regulars, the 'i can find my seat on my own, thank you very much', and my personal most favorite - the couples where the guy walks in with his super dressed-up girlfriend and has that wonderful "i'm so going to get laid tonight for doing this" grin. i love that one.  ;)

(See, I had a whole blog about gratitude, humility, a leather coat, and raccoons going in my head as I brushed my teeth that you may have liked it better than this - alas, till tomorrow). Gnight.

technical difficulties

computer power cord broken. shutting down. sleep tight, m.

I love Mondays. & A Return to Art.

It’s my least busy day of the week, and I get to see some of my favorite people. My friend came by this morning and saw my holiday cards pinned up on a string of ribbon and said, you painted those? or maybe it was you painted those? ;) in any case, yes. it’s strange, i still get pretty thrilled when my paintings turn out well – it’s something I’ve had to cozy up to, work at, come back to.

a few years ago, I’d stopped drawing completely. i had too long associated doing art with drinking a 40oz – well, whatever the Korean measuring equivalent was (they had 3 types of beer: piss, pisser, and pissest, but, they worked). It’s funny cuz art was really the one thing my roommates there knew about me, about my hobbies – besides the drinking – and so each gave me some kind of drawing or painting set for Christmas.

I lived with two guys, one a Canadian, one a Texan, that first contract year. Their contracts run February to February because of the whole Chinese New Year thing; it was October when I got there in 04, and February of 06 when I left. But that first 4 months, I spent in this smaller more agricultural town – there was a pig slaughterhouse not far, and the lunch lady at the school would go into the hills/mountains to get some sprouts and things for the lunch … the always popular hot dog soup.

My Canadian roommate was the adventurous type, he found the well of fresh mountain water where you could stand with your jug and some ancient Korean woman. He also once reported a troop of Korean soldiers passing by him in the pitch dark one night when he was up the mountains alone.

In any case, when I stopped drinking, I stopped drawing. I used to sit with my 40 and draw or paint (infrequently) until I couldn’t really see the lines so clearly anymore, then stop – drawing that is. So I didn’t know, for a while, how to draw sober.

When I finally did take my things out (the end of my sketch book is pretty hilarious, lots of fucked up looking women – i’ve always drawn women, bodies, faces, i don’t know why – maybe cuz it’s what I see most often, or because there were fashion magazines around when I was little – but also, women are beautiful. just beautiful, i love drawing them, still). So, i took my things out about a year and a half after I’d gotten sober and tried to sketch one of these magazine women. – Utter Fail.

Well, at least, I thought it was at the time. I spent the longest time trying to get the lines just right, and got so frustrated over and over till i just quit the whole thing and shoved the sketch pad and pencils back into some drawer. Done.

Then, I started to host parties.

Somehow hosting became the thing that brought out my creativity again. The first party was a holiday one (Star of David Christmas Cookie party), and I didn’t do any “actual” art, but I rearranged everything (moved my bed onto it’s end up against the wall!) and I went to the party supply store and got some fancy looking sheets of scrap-booking paper and arranged them on my bedroom wall in a diamond like pattern, and I took all my variously received holiday cards and taped them in a pattern on the living room wall.

Come to think of it – when I moved into that one bedroom apartment from the room I was renting in some (very nice) lady’s house in the outer Sunset is when it all started again. I had all sorts of creative ideas for the apartment – i got to choose the paint colors, the flooring, and I had a semi-disaster when I decided to paint half my bedroom a crimson, bordello red, and left the other half white, as I intended to do a stencil of a damask pattern in black and white all over the other side … this never came to fruition, and finally my house painter friend came and painted the rest of the room red!

The next party was a “Pre-Val Hearts&Stars” and I created a whole tableau of mushy words in a crossword pattern and cut out each letter and pasted them on my wall (among sex, lust, and other words, “conceive” got a few eye-brow raises) ;P But still no painting.

HollerWeen! 2009, I painted. Well, I started with oil pastels. I did a version of Munch’s Scream with a jack-o-lantern head instead, and I was thrilled with it. I loved to get my fingers dirty again, smushing the colors around, messing up, going over, and just getting in there. It was wonderful. I did a few other riffs on some famous paintings (“Cece n’est pas une pumpkin”, and Warhol’s Marilyn with jack-o faces instead. And one in the kitchen I wasn’t sure was “okay” of Jesus on the cross with a jack-o head...!)

I loved it – and so I intended to do Valentine’s again the following Spring and I wanted to do something big – really big. I began these enormous sexy lips with a white flower in between them in oil pastels and colored pencil. It was daunting, I was frustrated, but I had a party to finish it for. This was why I had been doing all this art – I had a party to throw – my party was my muse. And it worked. I didn’t feel satisfied with that one for some time, it didn’t feel “done” till I got some good suggestions on it (drawing a flower on a 5 foot piece of paper is really hard!). But finally, I signed my name on that paper, and it was done too.

So, then, here I am now (this blog is getting long, and maybe you don’t care), but it’s wonderful for me to remember how tentative I was, how frustrated and upset and worried that I’d never be able to draw again. And now? Over my bed hang 7 sexy paintings of people, body parts, attached to a garden trellis like a headboard – and like I said, it’s not perfect, there are things I see that I know others don’t. But I love it. It makes me happy, and it’s hot.

And now here are my holiday cards, beginning to line my wall, and they’re silly and fun, and somewhat impressive even to me.

That’s what I love about this work – I continue to amaze myself especially when I come with a spirit of fun. Creating paintings for a purpose (a head board, a holiday card, a party) gives me the juice, the north on my creative compass – and even though, sure, I’m in school for writing, and I’ve been trying to get in to acting, watching one branch of my creative tree flower is actually pretty encouraging.

Though, now I drink tea, not Hite.

oil pastel on posterboard 2009

Quiet on the Western Front

This morning, I called out from meeting with Patsy, in order to sleep more – and not trudge through the rain and several modes of public transportation (AC transit, BART, Muni) to get there and just turn around. This is something I’ve been doing weekly since my car was stolen a year ago, and today, with all I’ve been thinking about rest, restorative rest, rather, I asked her if we could talk on the phone instead. And she said no problem. Just like my boss had said.

I still haven’t contacted my Shakespeare teacher to fess up to not being there on Wednesday, which obviously, he knows, but I have to talk to him about this final project too. It’s the end of semester push when everything you’ve been procrastinating about for the last few months suddenly comes due. So this morning, after sleeping in several more hours, and having the weirdest dream about two people in my life, weird, I got up, had breakfast, wrote my morning pages, and started my homework. Poetry workshop homework, which consists of reading and writing comments on my classmates’ work, work which has piled up over the last month or so, so that I have about 4 weeks of each person’s work. It’s cool, I like writing the comments. Like I said earlier, there are ways to comment on someone’s work, even in a suggestive manner, that aren’t soul crushing – so I try to write like that – but really, for the most part, people are going to be true to themselves, no matter the feedback, although certainly there is a little wiggle room, which I need to remember too – the whole “being teachable” thing. It’s still icky for me to read comments about my work, but I did read the comments I said I’ve been reluctant to read, and they were what I expected – a few, no i have no intention of following your suggestion that is completely off key with what my purpose is here, thanks for reading; a few, hm, that is something to think about; and mostly, lots of encouragement and support.

Then I went out into the world to see some folks for a few hours, laugh at ourselves, get some camaraderie, and came home, made dinner, and started a new holiday card (#4).

That’s about it. I did update my acting resume and sent it to the 4th audition I'd highlighted - I think I'm going to have to do a lot of these - I still feel like these are such awkward I have no idea what I'm doing baby steps, but I'll call my actress friend again tomorrow to check in, and ask a few more pointed questions about these particular auditions and my resume. 

I also did write that letter about renegotiating agreements with my mom this morning before I called Patsy. And I read it to her, and we talked about being emotionally vulnerable without feeling threatened – without having to run away or be consumed. After our phone call, I did one of the CITO exercises, which was an “individuation” meditation. It was sad and powerful; the recognition that we are each not what the other has wanted us to be, and that we can’t be; but by letting us both go from these desires, we both get to be freer. “Separate and whole” is the phrase that keeps repeating.

Patsy asked how I felt about the letter, and I said I felt scared that I couldn’t keep up my end – and she prompted sagely, worried that I couldn’t do it perfectly? yeah, that’d be it. So, I’ll do it haltingly. I don’t know yet when we’ll talk, but I know the work I did today, and this weekend, and for the last several years is heading me to a place where I can hold myself in openness and safety. I heard someone say today that we can be emotionally vulnerable, and raw, and blessed, and I’d like to enter that belief too.

So, there you are. I’m glad I slept in this morning, and I have more to do. I think all this spiritual gutting is contributing to my fatigue, and so I’ll let myself sleep and recharge, and that’s all she wrote. 

Sacred Bonds and Hybrid Cars

Today I went to the 2^nd in a series of workshops led by a friend of mine on relationships. The series is Relationship with Self, Others, the Divine, and Spiritual Contracts and Inner Archetypes.

So, today was “Others”. I trust this woman implicitly, and have been through several workshops and retreats with her over the past … could it be 4 years? Maybe. In any case, I was interested to see what would come up, especially as I’m doing all this Calling in The One work, etc.

The most poignant, and new, information was around my ideas of what a “girlfriend”, as archetype, as character, as a “should”, should be. After writing for other archetypes of Mother, Husband, Friend, qualities like consistent, loving, supportive, independent but available, etc., it was a shock to see me write under Girlfriend: sexy, happy, giving, available, demur. ...

It is not a surprise then that I’ve been a serial single person! If my belief is that in order to be a girlfriend, I must demur, be happy and sexy and giving and available to the other person at all times … yeah, it’s no wonder I’m single.

The other thing that came up was around my mom, with whom I haven’t spoken on the phone with for about 6 months, following a, well, an inappropriate conversation – one which she really has no idea was inappropriate. And I wasn’t able to say as much then, so I did like I do and I shut down, and haven’t spoken to her in 6 months. We text now and then, just so we know each other is not dead, but going to a dry well for water is one thing (I’ve sort of stopped) – having that well knock on your door and say what’s up how come you haven’t asked me for water lately is maddening.

In the workshop, I later wrote down how my experience of “mother” actually is, versus my “should”s: narcissistic, over-worker, self-involved, NEEDY, isolated, sad, doomed …

I then wrote how “daughter” actually is: burned, exhausted, done, tired, untrusting.

And again, it’s no surprise then that I haven’t spoken to her in 6 months! And yet I judge myself on it all the time. I should be nicer, call her, love her, talk to her, listen to her … I get depleted just thinking about it. But even so, Super Molly thinks it’s the role of a daughter to talk to her mom – no matter what. Human Molly tries one more time to not be disappointed, to set boundaries, to stay on her own side of the street, and gets walloped, time and again.

Last week, I told Patsy, my spiritual teacher/friend lady, that I had to write a “Renegotiating Old Agreements” letter to my mom – that I wanted to – that I’m warming up to the idea of getting in touch with her again, but that first I want to be clearer on a few things within myself. She said, how about you do it for next week – I cringed. She said it was just a suggestion – and here it is Saturday night, and I meet with her tomorrow, so maybe I’ll do it on the train – but I will write it. Because it does feel crappy to not talk to my mom – the mom I have is not the mom I want, but I would love to renegotiate an agreement where I can communicate with the one I have in a way where I don’t get depleted …

Come to think of it, in a similar way to how I believe a girlfriend gets depleted. Hmm…

Thank you for reading my therapy session. (Kate, I swear there’s traction!)

In other news, so, the Universe is obviously actively listening to me. About a month ago, in rearranging my room per CITO, I had need of a 2^nd bedside table, one that would match my first (sort of country-style wood painted white). I’d been semi-on the hunt for one, and in a very synchronistic manner, I ended up at a garage sale with the *perfect* matching table – white, with a drawer, and country details. Evidence one.

Evidence Two: the blind date – I’ve asked for a tall, handsome, employed Jewish man – and I got it – but whoa, buddy, I guess 'not a douchebag' wasn’t on my list, and I didn’t specify taller than me, so…

Evidence 3: the perfect purple wool pea coat. Done - and for cheap!

Evidence 4 … For the last week, I’ve been bemusedly thinking of getting a car, coveting them on the street, looking at some online, and I found a new lovely hybrid car online for the mere price of almost $30,000. So in realizing that I’ve gotten evidences One Two and Three, guess what I’ve been doing the past 3 days? Asking the Universe for a hybrid car or $30,000! (Although it was pointed out to me that having a car again may not solve my time-debting problem, as was clear to me when I rented a zip car yesterday...TO GET TO CLASS! f*ck.)

But, in the mail today when I come home is a pre-approved auto loan junk mail for … $30,000. No lie. I guess I have to be really specific these days (“$30,000 with no strings attached, and no one dies”).

Thank you Universe for listening, I’ll be more conscious hybridcarhybridcarworkingingoodshapehybridcar of my intentions from now on. ;)