opening the wardrobe...

It's not a wardrobe, exactly. It's a steamer trunk, the kind with drawers on one side and a hanger on the other. I bought it when I was just out of college. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world and handed over $40 bucks for it, before loading it in my Cabriolet and driving it to my apartment and rolling it up the stairs.
I repeated this, let's see, 7 times as I moved to new places, different states, and in different cars. I always took the steamer trunk because it's cool and because it's a good place to stash one's memories.
I opened it today because I'm cleaning out and I'm trying to figure out what to keep and what to toss and why. I want less of everything.

Inside I found:

• Notes passed around in middle and high school full of drama and intrigue and folded like we used to do because we wanted to be cool.
  
• Letters from college friends.
• Memories from my first trip to New York, my trip to Wales, my wanderings around Europe.
• High School trophies for duet acting and prose interpretation. They were all in pieces and the labels had fallen off.
• The remains of a homecoming mum.
• Mystery letters including one from a guy named "Tim" who was going to meet me in Wales on New Years and who was writing to tell me he was still married. I don't know who this was. I was in love with Mr. Key at the time, but I was famously naive and wouldn't have known he liked me then. Reading the letter, it seems like he did because he "couldn't wait to see my pretty little face again." But who was that?
  
• Invitations to friends' weddings.
• Graduation from college and high school stuff including the Letter K Award for Drama.
• Reviews and notices from a play I did at Fort Worth Theatre one summer.
• Pictures.
• Letters from friends in Swansea about how hard it was to come back to the U.S.
• The newspaper front pages from when Elvis and Stevie Ray died.
• Cassette tapes from interviews I did in college and a ton of college papers.
  

My history is in five messy piles in my living room. I may never look at this stuff again, but I feel better having done it. I feel more interesting. I wonder what happened to my college friend who married the truck driver and the one who found Jesus and the boy I played spades with night after night in the dorm stairwell. All part of my history. I see it all a little differently and I find there are things and people I'd forgotten (Tim?)

There are two options:

1. I burn them all in the Chimenea.
2. I put them back in the trunk.

What to do?

• Into the trunk with some.
• Into the pyre with the rest.
  

If nothing else, what I save will give Annalise some good reading one day. She'll see her Mom had a rather interesting life and some surprising adventures and a few really good reviews for her stage work.

I'm ditching the trophies, the pieces of homecoming mum and anything that makes me go "ugh".

I'm saving scraps of paper and things for a collage.
Right...I have been "saving things for a collage" for a really long time.

But this time, it's true.

News from Harper's Weekly

Some highlights from this week's Harper's Weekly, just so you know what's going on in the big ol world.

• President George W. Bush met with other world leaders at the G8 summit to discuss climate change. "Goodbye," he said as he left, grinning and punching the air, "from the world's biggest polluter."
• A British teenager who assumed that tremors in her bosom were caused by her vibrating mobile phone found a baby bat nestling in the padding of her 34FF bra.
• Obama admitted that he disliked ice cream.

--by Gemma Sieff of Harper's magazine.

And in my little universe:

• Plans continue to evolve with my desire to spend the fall/winter in the mountains. I'll be leasing my home here and staying with friends for 3ish months, just in time to enjoy snowboard season and be amid some natural grandeur.
• Cowgirl has finally found all of the hidden pecans in the backyard. She spent several long moments this morning digging one out, then discarding it as too old. Spring, my friends, is over.
  
• Last night I learned that crack cocaine doesn't create a physical dependency, it's all in the head. So, unlike some substances that people like to abuse, the biggest hurdle is giving up the good feeling. Which makes me wonder, why isn't everyone a Buddhist or into energy work? What about substances and drowning our sorrows is easier than tapping into our unlimited potential? Never mind...answered my own question. Sigh.
  

wandering in the parking lot....

Have you ever forgot where you parked and lost your car in a parking lot?
I have.
Years ago, I couldn't remember where I parked my car at the SeaTac airport. Ace and I wandered around, tried the levels, couldn't find our late model red cabriolet.
I was about to call it in as stolen when I found it.

Today, I was in a parking lot and saw an elderly couple both tiny, thin and white haired, walking up and down the rows of cars, each carrying a plastic flower pot. I felt it right in the heart chakra, pulled over and joined forces with another lady who had stopped to help. The elderly gentleman knew his license plate number by heart, he just couldn't remember where he put the car. When we found it in the very last row, I told them about the times I almost lost my car and demonstrated how I use my key to find my car, honing in via the sound of the friendly Honda beep. In humility we were bonded. It was the right car, they got in and hopefully found their way back home.

Back home, my yard is taking on a new bright, colorful life. Things are blooming. I'm putting effort into it, like I haven't since there was a big party here and I pulled out all the stops to make it look perfect. It's time to do the same for myself.

Up early this a.m. for a run around the lake. My friend brought his dog, a fast, long legged pretty boy dog. We got some good attention, and the dog upped my pace enough to give me the best run I've had in ages.

It's been a good week. A new job, part-time, lots of good work coming in, new projects to consider.

I'm still heading downstream...it's easy, it's good.

saturday morning

I'm up this morning, thanking my lucky stars. I feel good.
I just made myself a delicious smoothie, saving half for my house guest.

Last night after the last day of film camp, I had dinner with friends, then headed downtown to meet friends for a movie.
I couldn't find parking.
I came back home.
I pulled out my notes, my laptop and sat down on the back porch and got me some writing done.

I went to bed late and slept the sleep of the peaceful and happy. It feels like rowing downstream, or maybe just floating.
I'm back at it this morning.


Two things:
Here's a pep talk from my hero and crush Neil Gaimain.
Here's why I love the Pioneer Woman.

Oh, and one more thing....keep your eyes open.
I ran into two friends I knew from my Seattle days, who had recently moved to Austin while walking around SXSW before my panel. These ladies and I started the first single parent support group at our workplace and had some great times together, but I completely lost track of them after I moved.
There in the Austin Convention Center we still recognized each other as kindreds. I look forward to catching up with them next week.
So, keep your eyes open, there's much good coming in this spring and you don't want to miss it.

stand by your uh, man...

Tammy Wynette had the right idea, but it seems there are some things people need to answer for on their own, like spending 80K on hookers while talking big about moral behavior to the state that elected you Governor. At times like that it seems a bit much to ask anyone else to stand with you while you answer questions about what you did.

Or maybe.....he should have brought the hooker?

a friend read this post early on and heard Lewis Black say the other night that when you're making a public confession, rule number one is "Bring a date."
He went on to advise against bringing your wife. "Bring the hooker. That's who we all want to get a look at."

i'm marching forth...

Winter is doing one last frosty bit of business here in Austin, yet anyone can tell, spring will win out in the end. The air is fresh, the birds are singing like crazy and here on Rosedale street, flowers are blooming, and so am I...figuratively speaking.

Annalise has pink stripes in her hair, recorded in the same studio Elvis did and just reviewed her first contract.

Things are happening, blooming, changing.

I'm full force on two projects that I love, working with people that share my passion and seem to have some faith in me to pull it all off. My plan of focusing on projects that pick me, meaning that they won't leave me alone, has raised a little dust and more than a few eyebrows. That's okay. Anyone who doesn't understand that it's time for me to show up for me can retreat to the shadows.

The first run after the marathon was hard, almost like my body was afraid I'd take off for San Marcos instead of enjoying a leisurely 5 miles around the lake. Muscle memory is a funny thing.

I'm off to my new writing group this morning.

I'm going to vote today... for an African American man, actually a biracial man. Even more amazing, I'll be voting for someone I actually feel good about. I call this little bit of history: hopeful and miraculous.

And in other news... Japanese scientists studying the path of space debris over the last four billion years postulated an undiscovered "Planet X," between 30 and 70 percent the size of Earth, at the edges of the solar system, and two teams of physicists, one in Calgary and the other in Tokyo, successfully stored nothing within a gas, in the form of squeezed vacuum composed of uncertainty. They then retrieved the nothing.

All in a day's work, that's what I say!

Propaganda: It's not just for politics...

Kat asked me to add some thoughts of my own to our little marketing babble. While I hate to dis a paying gig...sometimes, I just can't resist.

We are selling people on training programs. I'm talking about HR folks, educators, people who are in the "informational analysis" field, those types. My "personas" are Spontaneous and Humanistic. Kat is working with Methodical and Competitive personas. Do you know what a persona is in this context? We don't...

So, yes, we've been writing a lot about helpful friendly doped up customer service agents who just can't friggin WAIT to take a phone call from a humanistic HR dude who has too much time on his hands.

Here's my thoughts on this. I once HAD to take a training course on "conflict management" while employed at a large corporation. I was an editor at the time. I was assigned to work with very ego-centric, writer who had been there FOREVER and who thought he was always right about everything. No one liked him much and we were all stunned to learn that he had a long term girlfriend, but she obviously didn't know him like we did. He sauntered around the halls and never knocked before entering and his office smelled.

I could mostly handle all of that because I was getting a really good benefits package at the time.

What I couldn't handle was when he tossed me a pile of crumpled up papers which turned out to be my thoughtful, helpful editing advice using the right style, punctuation, grammar, the works...he tossed it at me, and said, "I don't want to make any changes."


I laughed.
Loudly.
This may not have been the best thing to do, but I COULD NOT help it. It was funny.

So, in retaliation he told my manager that I "edited too much."
Whatever dude...


I'm not saying we can't all use a little reskilling in conflict management and it was nice to have a sort of day off with the other troublemakers, but I was just doing my job, the very job they paid me to do and gave me a benefits package to do. And my taking the class wasn't to "teach me a lesson" it was an attempt to appease the only writer they had who knew anything about some weirdo programming language that no one even used anymore.

I stuck to my guns.
I told the writer that I would continue to edit as I know how to do. I would not slack off.
I told my manager that I wasn't gonna dumb down my work.

I was soon reassigned to work with the other trouble making editors on a brand new project and within a few months I was promoted to program manager. That writer continued to saunter down the halls and make people nervous.

He didn't make me nervous.

I'd taken conflict management and knew that there were much worse things than pissing off bad writers. I had seen what happened to people who just wanted to "do their little job" forever and ever and I had escaped that fate, thinks to the unpleasant writer. He had done me a big favor.

I'm sure he never knew that is why I always went out of my way to be super duper nice to him.

Good things..

Something very good happened yesterday for one of my homeless friends. There was a bright and fast moving spot in the usual slow and heavily fluorescent bureaucracy of social service that resulted in a gap closing and a life changing. It's rare when this happens. I think the Universe even gave a heavy sigh of relief when this a person who had been unseen and forgotten and didn't quite fit, got some help. As for me, I'm more hopeful, happy and grateful, like my grandpa might have said, the F-stop on my soul opened up a bit.

In other good news, it just keeps getting better for girls. If I'd had a camp like this to go to when I was a kid who knows. Seriously, my parents would never have sent me, but I might have run away to Girl's Rock Camp. If you have a daughter 8-18 and she can't come to our girl's film making camp this summer, send her to rock camp! The documentary opens in Seattle and across the west coast in March. Watch the trailer. See the release schedule and support a great indie documentary. .

fly little month, fly

This is a leap year, and I have a special affinity for leap years and the date of March 4th, or, as I like to call it, March Forth!

It's the day, on another leap year many long months ago, I picked up my little 4 year old and our cat and headed to Seattle, thus beginning a pretty nice adventure. I have no such plans yet for this March 4th, but I'll do something big or small, or at least, meaningful, to me, if not anyone else.

Starting next week, the week of March Forth!, I'll be starting a new project, one that I've been wanting to do for some time and as things have shuffled and sorted themselves out, the time is now, suddenly, just right. I'm excited, enthusiastic, eager.

I'm also putting the finishing touches on our revised proposal for Roadside, USA. We've broadened from Texas only, which is just fine with me. As I've been researching, I've got a whole new list of places I have to visit. The Valley of the Moon, Salvation Mountain, Bishops's castle, and of course, the REAL Center of the World. The more work I do on this project the more I realize that I love people. As a species, we're really not that bad most of the time. The more I want a long winding roadtrip, too. Bad. I have some small ones planned, which isn't really quite enough.

Art class is still fun. I'm getting braver and I'm moving into the more advanced class very soon. I've also found a hard core writing group that I'm auditioning for. Wish me luck on that one.

You can see me speak at SXSW two weeks from yesterday. I'll be chatting about alternative distribution and self distribution for indie films and whether I'd do it again. I promise not to sugarcoat anything, but I will be, I hope, encouraging. With all of that there is also spring break film camp for kids and general life and good times.

I'm keeping my boat headed downstream, going with the flow, it's so much simpler this way and a hell of a lot of fun.

a bad day for the moose and impatient republicans...

Sad, interesting news to mull over from Harper's weekly today:

In case you need another reason not to vote Republican this year...
Representative Tom Lantos (D., Calif.), a Holocaust survivor and superdelegate who was expected to back Clinton, died. At a memorial service, Israeli Foreign
Minister Tzipi Livni compared Lantos to "a shining blue Star of David emblazoned on an American Air Force jet." Bono led mourners in an a cappella version of John Lennon's "All You Need Is Love," and Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R., Florida) interrupted the closing
speech by Elie Wiesel with a call for a vote to adjourn.

The water is too warm...
In a thousand-square-mile, low-oxygen zone growing along the coast of Oregon and
Washington, every fish, crab, and sea worm was dead, and the floppy ribbon worms of Antarctica were expected to meet their first predators in millions of years due to
warming water.

Some days it just gets to be too much for a moose...
A moose fell from a 150-foot cliff in Alaska, just missing state trooper Howard Peterson.
Peterson thought the moose might have been lonely, as the area is populated mostly by sheep, but state wildlife biologist Rick Sinnott disagreed. "They occasionally have bad days," he said of moose, "like the rest of us."

the lure of the hermit...

Kat talks on her blog about being a hermit and I am feeling that way, too. I know it should be a really great thing to come to almost=the=end of a film release. We get to put the rock down for a bit, file the paperwork for the last time and get back to doing what we love, telling stories and shooting them.
At auditions yesterday, I had fun thinking about movies for the first time since I shot Roadside. We saw some magic brewing.

That's why I do this. It's not the money (ha!) the fame (double ha! since most of the time people forget there even is someone besides Kat in the Storie coalmine ) or paperwork and phone calls...

When people talk about how hard it is to make a film. I remind them that the fun hard part is the making of it, getting the images on to a timeline, yep it's hard, but it's fun. If you don't like that part, you should probably find another hobby.

The really hard part is not burning out when the paperwork gets you around the ankles and you're talking to one person to "prove you had a theatrical release" while on the "must do now" list is to return a call to someone who is looking for a missing font so they can print your DVDs.

Meanwhile, outside the window, life is there and with it some of the things that keep us grounded, happy, and hopeful.

so tomorrow, I'm going for a trail ride...

what Jesus would probably do

Amish donate cash to school gunman’s widow

tuesday tuesday....

Busy week and it's only Tuesday.
I've been sort of turning my house upside down and shaking it a bit. It's true. Things have been falling around me and I'm giving things away, selling things, having less stuff around me feels right.

One goal I have is to live simpler in a prettier space. So I've been painting, cleaning, rearranging. It's fun.

Another goal is to work hard at work, but not at things that aren't work. I've been a famous hardworker all my life and it's been rewarding. I've had some amazing jobs and projects. I want to keep that work ethic in the work world. As for writing, love, homelife, family life, friends, ideas, running, I just want to do them. I don't want to work at them.

In other news:
Roadside is ambling down the highway.
We had our first writer's group meeting last night. Craig posted pictures.
He's faster than I. I just got my pictures from the trip and am busily loading them up on google...should be one more day.
Funny, I also found pictures of Ryan and Karen, Maddie and Dani, and Ace that I'd forgotten about. I'll post them as well.

I will be sleeping in my brand new room tonight. I can't wait!

overheard in aisle 3

There's nothing like going to the grocery store to make a girl feel happily 'single and dating'

I hear more couples complaining to each other in stores, arguing about silly things, making faces at each other...what is up with that? Not only does it bring back memories of a certain visit to Lowes one holiday season, it just makes me wonder why and how people can talk so rudely to the person they supposedly love more than any one on the planet. What can be so aggravating to make someone publicly redress their beloved? And if one is that aggravated, perhaps one should maybe spend a little alone time slaying a few of their own demons..just a thought...

On aisle three at Randalls:

"what is wrong with you?"
"I said...I...don't...feel...like...cooking."
"yeah, I got that idea...."
"what is that supposed to mean?"
"you've been very clear, very very clear."
"sooo...."
"I get it, okay?"

and on aisle five:

"I am not complaining..I'm not mad."
(silence)
"I am not mad"
"good"
"You are impossible!"
(silence)
"Fine, get the friggin spinach, and let's go already."
(silence)
"What?"

Here's a tip: When it gets this bad, just go out to dinner somewhere, drink a glass of wine and pretend you're in Paris. If you're broke, you can buy some strawberries, bread, cheese and wine and have a lovely dinner for under $12. (cheap wine, okay?, or sparkling water, or beer in a bottle will work, too.) Just don't bitch at each other in the local Randalls.

I actually saw a guy push his "girlfriend" with the cart on another occasion in a totally different store in a totally different part of town. Seriously he pushed at her with it, like "let's go, dammit."

So, yeah, I think having a little time in Europe will be good for this girl. I hope to see lots of couples stealing kisses and holding hands and excited by each other. Already, I'm getting lovely messages from the owners of the little B&Bs and hotels where we're staying.
Here are my favorites:
Madame, we await your presence with much anticipation.
Mademoiselle, we love to see you very soon.
Mademoiselle, we warmly await your arrival.

(I love it... I'm a sucker for the sweet talk.)

ye olde comfort zone - "running from safety"

I love Sheila O'Malley's blog. Lately she's been revisiting books she read and what they meant to her then and, now.
In this entry, she goes back to Richard Bach, of all people, someone most of us had a fling with at one time...and, well, just give it a read.

Why I will continue with the practice...

I've been to four yoga classes in my life, the fourth was just this week. I don't do yoga regularly, I don't have a single class I go to, I just go at times that work and I always find it a wonderful way to spend an hour and a half.

Why I will continue with the practice:
Reason #1: I leave class feeling relaxed, happy, lovable and loving.
Reason #2: I feel taller and more graceful, more supple and stretched.
and
Reason #3: Yoga makes grocery shopping fun! When I go to pick up a few things at a local upscale grocery story after a yoga class, attractive men approach me and ask me questions, like "do you know where the salt, is?" or "what kind of wine should I get?" or even "do you do yoga"? In the most recent occurrence I was told, "you're glowing". Since I don't have any official yoga gear, I think this is the result of the practice and the way it makes me feel. I like boys who pick up on the yoga glow.

Has Yoga changed your life?
Please comment and share.

red, yellow, blue, green

My yard is full of flowers from bulbs that I planted this year and the year before.
I completely forgot about them, and then all of a sudden, here they all are, cheering me up when I step outside or come back home.
I'm looking forward to Easter this year. I don't like to think about last Easter without remembering it's a time of renewal, a time to let go, roll the rock back, step outside and dangle your toes in the water again. (I like to mix my religion with nature.)

This year I'll head to Granbury where Dad says he's got the saddle all retooled and ready to ride. Dakota will be chubby from a winter of hay and carrots and little exercise, he'll be full of himself. That's okay, I will be too.

a letter from my young self

So, yesterday I stumbled upon something very interesting in a drawer I don't look in very often, an unmarked cassette tape. I found my old boom box and and fired it up.

I had somehow unearthed a tape of an astrology reading from over 10 years ago when a friend got my "chart done" for me. At the time, I lived in Seattle, I was working like a fiend, had just broken up with Mr. Motorcycle for the first time, was in supermom mode, had a big crush on Ace's Kung Fu instructor and was thinking about moving back to Texas.

(What's funny is that in between the reading there are moments where Ace records herself and her friends singing snippets of songs, and saying "wazzup"it's pretty cute. )

The astrologer said a few things about neptune and mars and pluto and transits, none of which I understand, but in the tape, I said, "huh, interesting", a lot.

It was just a little bit uncanny how spot on the reading was about influences in work and relationships. I've always said that if our destiny is written in the stars, it's also written in the dirt and the water and the air...which really is saying that I don't much think fate is predicated on the position of stars. I'm not even sure I believe in fate, I like to "wing it."

At the same time...I'll just say, "huh, interesting".

being sure

I'd never even heard of Jim Zumbo until today. He lives in a log cabin near Yellowstone National Park, writes for outdoors magazines, gives lectures and is even the star of a cable-TV show about big-game hunting in the West. He used to be well loved by the hunting community, until quite recently when he criticized the use of military-style assault rifles by hunters, in articular, for hunters who use assault weapons to shoot prairie dogs.

Mr. Zumbo wrote the following on his blog:

"Excuse me, maybe I'm a traditionalist, but I see no place for these weapons among our hunting fraternity...As hunters, we don't need to be lumped into the group of people who terrorize the world with them... I'll go so far as to call them 'terrorist' rifles."

The reaction was swift. He's no longer friends with the big names in "gunmaking", and the NRA and the hunting community have turned their backs on him. His career, they say, is pretty much finished. He offered an apology and promised to go hunting with an assault weapon soon, but that didn't help. For the record, my father is a card carrying member of the NRA who believes that gun registration is a good thing and assault weapons are ridiculous. I'm sure there are others who agree with his views.

What if Zumbo hadn't said he was sorry? What if he said that he really really means it and let them all turn their backs for a bit and stomp their feet and hold their breathe and stop inviting him out for big game hunts? He'd still have his log cabin in the park.

We all worry about what people think. I'm one of the worst on the planet for this. I want to be loved and respected for my flaws, my strengths, the whole package. Still, sometimes, you have to say, "no, that's not right" or "this is what I know is right" or even, "I'm not sure I'm right, but this is what feels right, right now."

One time I refused to sign off on a project that I felt wasn't ready. I got some flack and I had to stay late and I had to work with the others and figure out a compromise. It frustrated the others, a lot. Still, it was my name and my signature and I couldn't sign off knowing about the brokenness. We've all had to stick up for decisions we made, and voice our thoughts on decisions we felt weren't right. Sometimes we have to be the one to say, "the emperor is buck naked." Not everyone will love us for this and some of them will hold us personally responsible for the emperor's nakedness just because we happened to point it out.

I'm grateful for Mr. Zumbo for showing me the importance of certainty and for not caring what the world thinks about every stupid little thing we do or say. I hope Mr. Zumbo retracts his apology and owns his words so the little West Texas prarie dogs can thank him too.

the debate...justice and panda bears

Fox has been blogging about the death penalty, the execution of Saddam and the moral meaning of it all. It's sparked some debate on other blogs, too.

My story:
About 30 or so years ago, Melody Bolton came home from a morning of grocery shopping and surprised two burglars. They tied her up and one of them shot her in the back and left her for dead. Melody was a member of my extended family. I was a kid, and I remembered Melody as a tiny blond woman who had super cool hair and a big smile and who was really funny and sweet. Her murder changed everything for her husband and children, along with the rest of her family, her friends, and the people in the small community where she lived. I just remember the suddenness of her death, the hushed discussions and disbelief around the dinner table. I remember not believing it really happened for a long long time, expecting to see her at a family gathering.
The guy who shot her was caught after he bragged about her death to his girlfriend who turned him in. He was tried, convicted of first degree murder, sentenced to death and was eventually executed by the state of Texas.

I am on the side against the death penalty.

Justice is not equally administered and one wrong conviction for someone who is sentenced to death essentially makes the state a murderer. As a punishment, I think life in prison is harsh enough and prevents a fatal mistake. In jail, everyday you wake up to face your actions, you might work to pay society back, you might be able to become remorseful. The cost to society, in dollars, to execute someone is about 20 times higher than it is to keep them in prison for life.
When all is said and done, execution tries to be a type of revenge and revenge is never as sweet in reality. An execution will not bring someone back to life, heal a family or put a life back together. It is still up to each of us to forgive and move on.

Now, I'm going to go watch the Pandas.