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Blog started in Jan 2005: 1st entries for Write in Every Genre. Then the REAL ME begins |
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It Hurts When I Stop Talking Sometime in Fall of 1998, when a visit from Dad was infrequent, and primarily at the mercy of his 88 Toyota making the 50 mile journey, I was being treated to lunch. The restaurant was my choice, I think. Sisley Italian Kitchen at the Town Center mall was somewhere my dad had not yet tried, so that was my pick. Either I was being treated to the luxury of lunch and adult conversation without my husband and 5 year old son in tow, or that's just how the moment has lodged in my memory. The more I think about it, they probably were there, but enjoying the Italian food too much to bother interrupting. Daddy and his lady friend at the time, Anne, came up together and made a day of it with me and the family. We were eating together and talking about some of my scripts, stories, coverages, poems and other creative attempts that really were not seeing the light of day. I think I'd just finished a group reading of The Artist's Way and was in a terribly frenetic mood over my writing. I think I'd just given them an entire rundown on a speculative Star Trek script. My Dad asked me point blank, “Why don’t you write it?? Anne agreed. It sure sounded like I wanted to write it. Why wasn't I writing seriously? It's what I'd set out to do when earning my college degree in Broadcasting many years earlier. Heck, I should, I agreed non-verbally. “I will.” But, I didn’t. Blogs can be wild, unpredictable storehouses of moments, tangents, creative dervishes, if you will. I'm getting a firmer handle on my creative cycle. My mental compost heap (which is a catch phrase from Natalie Goldman or Julia Cameron - I can't think which, right now) finally seems to be allowing a fairly regular seepage of by-products. That may be a gross analogy, but I give myself credit to categorize my work in raw terms. It proves that I'm not so much the procrastinating perfectionist that I once was. Still, I always seem to need prompts and motivation. Being a self-starter is the next step. My attempt to keep up in the Write in Every Genre Contest at the beginning of the year seemed like a perfect point to launch the blog. |
| I received an email today to add a comment to an on-going discussion of the upcoming Paramount/DreamWorks release Tropic Thunder. Some people think Ben Stiller and pals should join the enlightened. I might question if living the entertainment model of life even allows clear thinking -- ever. The issue is over using an insensitive storytelling device -- giving advice to your on-screen acting buddy on not being the ultimate "retard." While there probably is a bigger discussion to be had over who is truly disinfranchised in society today, I found that in composing my comment that I have been out of the advocacy field long enough to actually sense a real voice that is my own. It may not be P.C. but it is how I feel, particularly when others are advocating censorship. Here are the comments: http://www.patriciaebauer.com/2008/08/04/readers-advice/#comment-1603 Perhaps we could consider taking our responsibility boot off the neck of the media. Or cramming one portion of society's ideas down the throat of another portion's. No one seems to have mentioned that Robert Downey Jr. is a Caucasian actor playing a Caucasian actor portraying a Black character. I don't think Paramount and DreamWorks are unaware of that element of the film. We allow immaturity by not being willing to be teachers in every moment -- not just when it is a cause others will back. We need to be just as willing to work with the media leaders and creative personnel to mature into sensitivity, after the fact. Trying to lump all 50 million disabled people and their supporters into an angry mob is as inauthentic as this movie is based on any reality. Everyone needs to be a lot more individually courageous. It is just as much EACH PERSON'S task to speak up. And we need to teach our children, no matter what capabilities, to act and speak for themselves. Individuals are going to be ignorant of the way in which you prefer language be used around you or your loved ones every day. Better we teach by example. |
| I am taking my daughter to see the movie Swing Vote. I have suggested that she write a review of the movie. I'm trying to give it a bit of anticipatory excitement, as I'm letting my husband and son go see the new Mummy movie while she and I see the Kevin Costner film. I fully endorse the fact that midnight showings of Swing Vote are on at the same time as The Mummy: Dragon Emperor. I thought of that two weeks ago when The Dark Knight premiered here in the U.S. Why couldn't something else starting that Friday have catered to the more timid moviegoer. I would have seen Mamma Mia! no question if any theater distributor had thought to run a midnight showing. Anyway, it's our vacation and we can spend it doing silly things like we might only otherwise do on New Year's Eve... |
| Sunday's Image section in the Los Angeles Times points out that fashion designers are making high priced friendship bracelets. I swear the Eighties are actually coming back into style. I know 1987 I took the time to learn how to make friendship bracelets -- now, if I could get back into the craft, and add some high-style touches, they could be bartered or sold for a great deal more than I once imagined. |
| Okay, leave it to me for connecting an insight from a Wednesday church service with a segment from tonight's NOVA Science Now. Believe it or not, the reference to the monkey with its' arm stuck in a bottle is from the sermon. NOVA was reporting on paleontological evidence of an evolutionary link from tree shrew to the primate family. It gave a theoretical image of the lemur-like critters that may have flourished in fruit tree-laden areas, and to me in a very God-ordained way, quickly evolved the capabilities to survive in the environment they found themselves in. [To me, evolution too is a way in which "God provides" all that is needed]. The lesson to carry away from the monkey? By reaching its' arm into a narrow bottle for a bit of fruit -- being captured -- (aka focused on obtaining its' desire rather than its' freedom) when it cannot remove its' arm once it has grasped the fruit inside. There's a deep lesson for all of us in that one. I leave you to think it over. |
| I recently admitted to myself that I have a problem initiating. I realize it is essentially a shyness. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how long I’ve thought over how to approach someone. I’m overly careful about imposing on another’s time. This includes asking for help. I can be standing right there with someone, but if I've mentally convinced myself that "now" is not "the" time, I won't bring up the reason for which I'd initially begun the conversation. I handed a friend the url for my portfolio, but did not realize until tonight that I forgot to include the word /author/ in it. Perhaps this is something that I need to pay attention to. I do not use the word, "author," enough in my life! |
| I recently admitted to myself that I have a problem initiating. I realize it is essentially a shyness. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how long I’ve thought over how to approach someone. I’m overly careful about imposing on another’s time. This includes asking for help. I can be standing right there with someone, but if I've mentally convinced myself that "now" is not "the" time, I won't bring up the reason for which I'd initially begun the conversation. I handed a friend the url |
| Bad..." I love that I have the option to go to a Drive-in Theater still. So many have disappeared from the California landscape, that most people are surprised to hear that a few do yet survive. My romanticism about the Drive-in may be slipping. For about a week and a half, when I've entered my car, it smelled like a whole pumpkin or cantalope was rotting away slowly in it. I think everyone in my family except for me must have dead nerve endings in their collective nasal passages (or whatever it is that activates a sense of smell. (There are benefits to this for a wife and mother, they'll eat just about anything!) So, you may wonder how I could wait until this morning to clean the car interior and seek out the organic matter decaying away in the back seat. For now, I have a short commute. Once I'm out of the car, I think it leaves my mind. And, well... I'm a working mom; remarkably little time is spent in concern of the look and or smell of the car. Although, I prefer to give myself a pat on the back, I am getting better in the timely attending to messes. Perhaps the concern is in direct measure to how close I am to owning the ever-inching closer to decade-old car free 'n clear. Perhaps my consciousness itself is clearer and abhors a stinky environment. THE NEXT CONFESSION IS PARTICULARLY DESCRIPTIVE OF WHAT WAS STUFFED UNDER THE SEATS OF OUR CAR - NOT FOR THE WEAK STOMACHED **BEWARE**BEWARE** (The author is forgiving herself and hopes others will not form long-standing opinions in general cleanliness of me and mine.) The offending item was the chili cheese fries from Del Taco from Memorial Day Weekend. These were had by at least one child and one friend that was brought along to the Drive-in. I remember someone said the fries had gotten stepped upon. My fault for assuming the decimated item was thrown away in a trash can. However, here is my accounting of all else I dug out. (Vegetarian friends will laugh at my experience of finding dessicated meat products!) Two large pieces of a Slim Jim (meat stick) a blob of refried beans or meat stray french fries juice bottle 3/4 filled with juice, sealed shut, but expanding corn dog sticks several hair accessories, and an anklet three shoes five socks seven "kids meal" toys various catalogs a volume of E.B. White stories five journals of various sizes one White Pages phone book one Yellow Pages phone book (Feb 2008) four complete newspapers from different weeks a sweater, a shirt, a hat, a page of directions, unused envelopes two coloring books, a red ink pen, many, many pencils, colored pencils, crayons, markers, reusable drink tumblers, fast food cups, straws, wrappers at least two lollipop sticks with plenty of sugar stuff still on them A Trader Joe's empty, full-sized paper grocery bag, which I filled with all the recyclable trash I uncovered. I filled a 13-gallon kitchen trash bag with about nine gallons of straight-out trash Like a visioning, where I am encouraged to remember what was experienced and write about it for future clarity, I made particular note of all I found. (And, boy, is my youngest in for it!) The whole family will be invited to read this list and know that from now on, none of these items will enter the one and only car this family has with any of the following items WITHOUT THOSE SAME ITEMS LEAVING with the occupants after use of the car. |
| Congratulate me. I have put in ninety hours as a Religious Science practitioner student. The first year class completed tonight. In about 120 days I will begin again . The one-on-one counseling and active listening skills will be taught. The discussion about what each of us felt we had learned in this time led into a prayer circle in which we visioned how our practice unfolds from here. I have several impressions to document. Every sensation and thought has some meaning. I needed to clear away an uneasy feeling about myself scheming to deal with finances, wanting instead to know that God will direct me. Because there was no initial prayer to clear intervening thoughts, (like my example) it intruded a few times during the visioning. I was able to push the interruption aside. I experienced a movie theater setting and several snipets of favorite movie moments. The first was David Bowie as Nicholai Tesla in The Illusionist. Hugh Jackman was on-screen too. Harrison Ford cornering Princess Leia to steal a kiss, and later donnig a Fedora and running straight to the camera for his first Indiana Jones close-up. The darkness of forbidden sexual power being portrayed in a scene with Rutger Hauer in Flesh and Blood. Then I am on-screen. It's the ol' "life flashing before your eyes." I am in some situations of my own from my youth in the late-Seventies related to church gatherings involving Chris. I see flowers. The dark pink Oleander bushes from my home on the hill. I am seeing the sanctuary of my home church in Newhall. I am speaking to others and relating that I was married in the same building. I hear two footsteps in a stone or cement corridor. I smell a faint smoke odor and identify it with burnt unscented candles. It persists in the background almost the entire time. I hear the outside traffic only twice in the entire time of the twenty minute visioning. And I wonder if it is due to just a couple of large vehicles passing during that time, or that I am more deeply "under" most of the time. If there was more coming to me visually at this point, I've forgotten. Rev. Kris asks what is it we are to develop. I revert to the kind of closed-eyes color-seeing that I used to experiment with when I was a child being told to nap or sent to my room. The colors swirl and are almost exclusively yellow with an orange aura. I try to put some reasoning behind it and interpret it as a light or lamp of knowledge shape. Then I tell myself to stop interpreting. It is flame-like. I think Wisdom might be what's trying to come across. Later Kris mentions that it could also represent illumination. It was like a light without heat. I had no sensation of heat from the visual representation. I am (now) later thinking it is like a description of the qualities of the Burning Bush, an encounter from which God called Moses forth into service...Hmmm. Shortly after this, I experienced a close presence. A warmth inches from the entire right side of my face. It felt like it had the contours of an oversized face. It did not disturb me. I was not feeling at all threatened or wanting to back away or start. This is interesting given how jumpy I can get when in sudden close contact with a passerby or my proximity anxiety when I am driving/but usually as a passenger. Kris asked what was ours to avoid in preparing or developing and to determine if this was something we truly were committed to; "was ours to do or not do." Here, it was much more vague. But I am remembering more now as I write it than I did in discussion at class. My field of vision lost its sunny glow and went to deep blue-gray. A kind of crumpling upon itself occurred and some areas were more shadowed. I thought something was spoken. It was a darker, shadowy view but not frightening. I believe there was nothing further, as we moved to a conclusion. Perhaps nothing stands in my way to serving. Serving as a church practitioner, and maybe more beyond that practice, is mine to do. |
Nada  just asked if I did attend the homecoming of sorts I mentioned a couple entries ago. I certainly did! It was both elegant and fun. The salads and desserts were dished into Martini glasses. Someone said the menu had a vintage, like Twenties era, theme. The administration sent an Alumni Association rep to serve as Master of Ceremonies, and he was effective. Providing for my family is paramount, but It would be very satisfying to give back to my school. I am proud to have accomplished all that I did in my five years at Cal State Northridge, but without this opportunity to go back, many of the memories might have disintegrated with the passage of a bit more time. The experience has urged me toward more success.I'm even interested in going back to school, but can't conceive yet how that would happen. I have a concept for a literature appreciation course that draws from music lyrics, but think that I really need some fundamental music courses under my own belt before I develop it to its full potential. And there's the Masters in Library Science or Creative Writing that I continue to avoid. If money were no object, I would be at school all the time. My husband went back to school after a long absence (first at the community college level then finished the B.S. requirements in a year and a half on-line. Which now gives us a student loan debt to pay off. I have problems with taking on more debt at this point. But that doesn't really communicate my gratitude for having completed a degree myself. Thanks for asking, Nada Best line from Tin Man (2007) "You know you really should do something about that BITTER cynicism of yours Cain." |
| Blogging has created an intriguing patchwork quilt model of interconnectedness which I do not feel humanity has experienced before. I type in one line of John Mayer's popular song, Say, and Google points me to a Blogger account entry by Molly of I don't know where (wherever UTC Mocs are a team), and I feel like her experiences are my experiences and her friends could be my friends. I don't know if that comes off sounding creepy or dysfunctional, but that's the feeling value of it to me. Sometime, I'll create more space to not just wander the blogosphere and wonder if I can be a part. I'll invest time in stopping and chatting awhile. |
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