Family Ties

I just watched 3 episodes of Family Ties, back to back, and each one made me cry.

Either I am especially emotional, or those were three very good episodes.

The first one was the one where Mallory enters her mom into a mother-daughter modeling contest, and they win. Then, Elyse gets all the attention and Mallory's feelings get hurt. Mallory had a great line, which was, "Then why does everyone make fun of the things that are important to me?" That moment with her mother was beautiful.

The second episode was the one where Steven's production assistant at work falls in love with him. It comes out that Steven is 39. 39! I felt old. But no, that's not why I got teary eyed. The production assistant was played by Judith Light. That wasn't it either. The way Elyse handled Steven when he came home from not having an affair was beautiful. Meredith Baxter Birney did a great job.

The third episode I watched was the one where Alex starts taking amphetamines so that he can keep up with all his studying and writing for mid-term exams. This show is wacky sometimes and the jokes are occasionally really corny, but Michael J. Fox was great. Maybe his acting as a kid on speed was a little frenzied but it was very good.

Anyway, I've been laying around watching television, and it's time to do some laundry and Christmas shopping and cleaning and all that stuff I've been planning on doing. It's nice to be off work.

It's time to go.

This past Saturday was my last performance in the booth for "Moskva" at City Garage. The show closed on Sunday, but we had a birthday party for one of JP's little friends to go to, and I couldn't be there for the final performance.

I ended up with conflicting feelings about this show. It was beautifully performed and designed and written, and as always, I came away with very personal reactions to things I saw and heard on the stage. That almost always happens with City Garage performances.

However, the tech for this show was so hard for me. I think I had one perfect performance, and I'm really taking that to heart. Maybe I shouldn't. There are all kinds of reasons for why this show was so hard, but in the end, what it comes down to is, my operation wasn't up to my usual standards. Friends have told me that I'm being too hard on myself, and maybe that's true, but I will note that these friends are not associated with the theater or performers themselves. I think that matters.

I'm not sure if I'll even be asked to do another show, but if I am, I really have to think about what I'll say. Besides the fact that it was hard on Patrick for me to be gone two nights a week, that all the driving back and forth to and from Santa Monica was hard on me, and the late nights away from home are so much harder on everybody than when we didn't have Jules, that I wasn't able to join my friends at flute choir... it's a huge responsibility. I take it so seriously, especially when I fail, or feel like I have.

Anyway, to be honest, I'm glad it's over. I did have fun, and as I said, it was a gorgeous production, but for me, I'll be glad to not have to have it weighing on me. And flute choir begins again in January, and I'd like to spend some time with my friends, playing my flute more. It sucks that I can't do everything anymore, but I guess that's just the way it goes.

Actual Conversation

My co-worker, who normally doesn't work on Fridays, who talks to herself: Hey, what's that you're listening to, Irene?

Me: Oh, it's Ray LaMontagne, is it too loud?

My coworker: It's just a little repetitive.

Me: Oh, you mean Grammy award winning Ray LaMontagne?!

(I didn't say that last bit out loud.)

Coffee, Dayquil, and Ray LaMontagne

This post says not much at all.

Today's one of the Fridays I work. Unfortunately, since Wednesday, I've been feeling a major cold coming on. Headaches, achy, tired, sore throat. It's not a big deal, just annoying.

Anyway, most Fridays when I work, Patrick doesn't make the coffee in the morning. He leaves early and I take Jules to school. On my way in to work, I pick up Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf for myself and my co-worker, and usually some sort of pastry.

After I dropped Jules off this morning, though, I went to Rite Aid to get some half and half and some DayQuil. When I got to work, I decided to make myself a pot of coffee. Earlier this week I bought some CBTL ground coffee for an "emergency stash" for those days when I need an extra cup in the afternoon (we have a Keurig machine in the office). I haven't used a regular coffee maker much: when we started making it at home, we got our fancy machine pretty early on, so all I know is how to use the Breville YouBrew (I love it!). Anyway, I figured out how to use the machine, but I have made the worst coffee in the world.

I think I will throw it out and drink water instead, and sit here at my desk and listen to Ray LaMontagne and try to ignore the woman talking to herself in her cubicle. She's not usually here on Fridays. My normal quiet time has been disturbed, but I will survive. The question is, will she?

Actual conversation (mostly)

We were at the park. He’s riding a lion. I am standing directly in the lion’s path.

Actual conversation:

Me: [Lighthearted tone] Oh, I’d better move! You’re going to run me over!
Jules: The lion is going to get you!
Me: Oh no!
Jules: And then he’s going to eat you!
Me: Wait – what?
Jules: The lion is going to eat you!
Me: Really!? What about daddy?
Jules: Daddy too! And Franny and Dora!
Me: …um… 

Me: You know if the lion eats us all, you'll be by yourself, right?

Jules: Meh. 

It's good sometimes, to be dumber than your friends.

I don't think I've written much about my current stint in the booth at City Garage as the Light/Sound Operator for their new play, "Moskva," by Steven Leigh Morris, here (though apparently I have, over on Facebook, where my friends may or may not be losing patience with me), so I thought I might update you all (ummm. "you all" sounds optimistic, doesn't it) on this part of my life.

First of all, when I signed on to do this, I was told that it would be simple. I've done 14 or 15 plays at City Garage, most of them in the old alley space, and one at the new space that was a revival of a play we did in the old space. Maybe there were certain technical limitations in the old space; maybe Charles (the designer) is super inspired by the new space: I don't know. I can only tell you that the tech for Moskva is not simple.

I know I'm not the only operator they've ever had, and I know I panic and freak out probably more than anyone else, but the thing is, I try to do a good job, and to me, that means getting it right, as often as possible. If not every time. That's a little nerve wracking. I talk about it. Shoot me. For this show, my rehearsal time was limited, changes were being made up to and through opening weekend, and while it might not be the hardest tech ever, it's the hardest show I've ever done. 

I'm not going to be too specific about what, exactly, is hard about it. If I've ever complained before about only having two hands while running a show, this time around, it's even worse. I was teasing Charles about being surprised that he didn't add a foot pedal or indicate in the notes when I should be standing on one foot. That's the only thing missing. I mean, the curtain call? Has 13 step, two music cues, fiddling around with the DVD player (hit pause at 14:03; hit play at 14:20, hit pause again...). It's like 5 minutes of insanity. And maybe I'm exaggerating, but isn't the closing scene (and the bows, because City Garage doesn't actually have a curtain) one of the most important parts of a show? Screw that up, and it might be hard to remember that the last 2 hours were really beautiful. So yeah, there's pressure. Those moments are important. I want to feel the same magic the audience gets to feel, and that means doing it right. 

Anyway, because it's hard, and because I'm a nervous Nellie, Charles was in the booth with me for three weekends of performances (I only work the Friday/Saturday shows). In fact, I didn't even touch the DVD player or do the curtain call by myself until this weekend, when I finally ran it for the first time, live.  

Friday night was my first night alone in the booth, and it went mostly OK. I made some minor mistakes, and one pretty big one (twice). There are four moments in the show that make me crazy because there are about 20 things happening at once, and those actually went off okay. I was super nervous about that curtain call because I am not kidding when I say I had never done it before, period. I just read Charles' notes (and re-wrote them) and went for it. It seemed to be okay. Even Charles seemed surprised that I did the second audio cue (and believe me, I considered leaving it out). My timing could be better but that'll happen in time, I'm sure. Saturday went better. It's a great show. The onstage performances are really, really good, and the show is getting great reviews. You should definitely check it out.

Some of my friends on Facebook, and one not on Facebook, apparently felt it necessary to remind me to chill out about it (or perhaps just stop boring them by talking about it), and so, all day Friday I made an effort to relax about it. When I got to the theater Friday night, I wasn't panicky, though I was excited. It really helped. I always forget that when I relax and do my best, that things tend to work out. Worrying about stuff almost never makes that stuff better. To quote my friend Sarah, who was actually talking to me about something else entirely, "Just take it one step at a time and don't get ahead and worry about the unknown." 

It's good advice in so many ways. I love that I have such smart friends. When I actually listen to them, it makes things so much better. 

It's possible that the so-called Goddess of Light and Sound is going to need a nap soon.

(Re: that title, and sorry if you've heard me refer to myself that way enough already; the director introduced me thusly to the cast at the cue-to-cue: "Say hello to Irene! She is the goddess of light and sound!" And hey, look, when somebody calls you a goddess in front of a room full of people, that's not exactly something you forget or take lightly. Not me, anyway!)

Last night was my triumphant (ha ha) return to working in the booth (light/sound) at City Garage Theatre in Santa Monica. The cast and crew have been busting their butts for months, and I show up for one cue-to-cue a week ago and one week (actually, 4 days, this show opens on Friday!) of tech rehearsals, and here I am, after just one night, already complaining.

That's not true, because I'm actually not complaining.

Last night went well. At the cue-to-cue, Charles had informed me that he was keeping things simple for this show, and I (naively) took him at his word; however... things have gotten complex in the week I was gone. The audio is going to be a little tricky, and then I overheard the director and Charles say the dreaded word "projector." I've dealt with a projector before, in the old space, and let's just say it wasn't my favorite thing in the world to do. However, that particular piece of equipment was balky and possibly possessed by the devil (and yet it worked perfectly whenever Charles was around), but I was under the impression last night that the machine he's going to bring in will - maybe? possibly? - be from the 21st century. We'll see. Anyway, last night Charles ran the sound and I did the lights, and I could see that there are things I'm going to have to learn fast. There's a lot of having two audio cues happening at once, there's a live microphone, and there is some of the dreaded cross-fading. And of course the opening is super complicated.

Actually... I had a lot of fun last night. I love seeing these shows from the vantage point of the booth. There's something really, really cool about turning a guy's light on while he moves five feet. And I'll admit that there's a bit of a thrill involved what that guy is wearing a sheet... or maybe not even a sheet. (What can I say? The eye candy at City Garage is always spectacular.) It's incredibly simple to just hit "go, and of course the artistry and design was done by Charles and Frederique, but it is really satisfying. And as always, they've created such a beautiful set and tableaux. The thing just looks fantastic.

Anyway, the only sucky thing about this is being away from my family every night for a week. Yesterday was a work holiday, so I was able to be home with Patrick and my son in the daytime. I feel bad about the amount of solo parenting Patrick is going to be doing this week. I've lined up my brother to help him out on Wednesday, so that should help a little. And I'm going to try to go home between work and rehearsal (if traffic cooperates) for an hour, where I will, what? Make the little guy dinner, put away the fifty loads of laundry we did over the weekend, and maybe, maybe, eat something myself.

I heard last night that opening night was sold out and has been for 3 weeks. So exciting. So? As the week goes on I suspect that getting up at 5 or 5:30 a.m. for work is going to get harder and harder. I also suspect that Patrick's patience (which is legendary) will get shorter and shorter. I hope to someday make it up to him.

Until then, though, I'm going to keep hitting "play" and "go," hopefully at the right times. I'll see you at the theater.

Moskva, by Steven Leigh Morris opens Friday, October 18, 2013, at City Gargage Theatre, located at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, California. For tickets and other information go to www.citygarage.org. 

I want to be the girl with the most cake.

I've been listening to a lot of angsty angry grungy music from the 90s this week, and I realized that might be the reason for the black cloud over my head.

Maybe.

Anyway, I've also been listening to "Graceland" by Paul Simon, so I'm attempting to lighten things up. I just finished re-reading Douglas Coupland's book "Microserfs," and loved it the same way I loved it when it came out, in 1994. I even cried at the end again. I tweeted this (because of course D.C. is on Twitter):

"Hey, @DougCoupland, just re-read #Microserfs for the first time in a hundred years... totally shattered and yet full of light. Thank you."

Yeah, I don't really know what that means, either. He didn't respond.

I haven't had much to write about lately. My life chugs along like a 1972 VW in 4th gear. Oh, well, they started potty training J. at daycare this week: I personally don't think he's ready but what do I know? I'm just his mama.

I wrote this in an email to my friend, Andrea, today, and though it's totally apropos of nothing right now, I didn't want to forget it:

I always feel like a total phony at yoga. Like, these chicks are all thinking about the ocean waves or world peace or something and I’m looking at that woman’s body, humming an old song by Hole in my mind.

This post is full of questions.

Last week, my mother began a new chemotherapy treatment. After having no real therapy for quite a while, the three days of medication really took a toll on her. 

Over the weekend, I asked my sister what she thought my mother will do if the now stronger-than-ever-cancer treatment doesn't work. That's not a question I asked with a song in my heart. She thought mom would be realistic about it, but I told her I wasn't sure. Last week I was talking to my mom about what she wanted me to write in the email I send to our friends and families about her treatment, and my mother said to write, “Thank them for their prayers and support, and to continue to pray that this time the medicine will work.” She choked up when she said it, and I did too.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it. Maybe I’m letting my opinion of my mother’s Christianity-fueled “magical thinking” cloud my judgment. Maybe I’m the one with the “cup is half empty” theory. I totally realize that I need an attitude adjustment about this. The thing is, it kills me to see my mother sick from chemotherapy. It makes me angry to see the affects being sick has on her. To see her exhausted, and gray, to see her lose her sparkle (but not her edge, not totally). Yes! It pisses me off that she’s being used up this way.

Is it wrong to wonder, what if we stop these toxic treatments and just let things take their own course? Would it be better to be well for six months or whatever it is (and who knows how long she would truly have? Not even her doctor can say; certainly not me) or to be sick for a couple of years? Is the feeling, “This time the medicine will work” greater than “Today I feel good for the first time in ages”? Is it worth it? We keep telling her to fight, to be strong, but what does that really mean? Where does peace of mind come from? From knowing you’re letting medicine and your doctor manage your disease or from knowing you've done all you can? Is "giving up" a failure? 

It doesn't matter what I think because it’s not my decision to make. In the same situation (and please, please, please, to whoever has control over this, may I never be in this situation), what would I do?  

The other day my mom and dad were talking to me about their funeral plans, and about their final resting places (which will be wherever I and my siblings see fit, apparently; that was news I wasn't exactly prepared to get). The whole conversation had a level of hilarity and yet total realism that I wasn't expecting. We could have been talking about where to park the car, if parking the car was funny.

I've been talking a little bit about the things I do and don’t believe in with a friend. These have been interesting, text-based conversations. I don’t say everything I intend to say, and yet, sometimes I say more than I would tell someone, were we actually speaking. And then there are all the things I imply, that I think are clear or obvious. Sometimes I over-clarify, sometimes I even undersell the information I'm sharing. It’s true that I’m prone to over-sharing, and it’s true that I like words in my head but not necessarily in my mouth – but these conversations have been making me think about the difference between the things I really believe, and what I say I believe.

Is that how you know when you have grown up? When you’re consistent in what you think and feel and exhibit in your actions? Or is it when you accept your inconsistencies and failings as part of you? I'm not sure if the ideas at the beginning of this post match the one at the end, or maybe they do. I definitely don't feel like I have the capacity to self-analyze the things I am thinking about, certainly not right now. 

At lunchtime I listened (for the first time in a long time) to the recording that was made at the recital I played in when I was 11 months pregnant. My performance starts out a little off out of tune and has it's wonky parts, and my breaths were ill-timed and so loud... but then there are moments I hear of total sharpness (and I'm not talking about tone) and whatever that quality is that I love about my own playing, that I put out in my performance and somehow had the technical ability, to play exactly how I felt about that piece of music (La Flute de Pan, the first movement, by Jules Moquet), that it has always made me cry to listen to it. Every time I hear it, I cry. And not because I think I'm so great or that I'm trying to say that I performed the piece brilliantly. I totally didn't. I think that's what makes me cry, that I did a pretty good job and finally sort of heard what it means to be expressive. This is a totally unbalanced paragraph that I should revise, but I think I won't. I've been trying to figure out how to work in an extra walk or bike ride and not feel guilty about not spending that time with my son, and though I believe the goal of losing weight and being healthy is worthwhile, in listening to my own totally imperfect performance and yet hearing that thing that I love about music, what I really should be doing is getting in some practice time on a regular basis. Maybe that, the sound, the method, the repetitive exercise, will help me clear my mind and feel better about things that I can't control. Isn't that what all my questioning is about, anyway? I think it is, actually. 

Fed up with ThredUP

A couple of months ago I heard about this great place called ThredUP, which recycles gently used clothing and then sells them (discounted) on the internet. And, you can send in your stuff for cash or credit. It sounded great. I did a little shopping, found some cute stuff, and then I cleaned my closet and sent in a bag. This was in June.

About three weeks after sending my bag, I received an email from "James Reinhart, CEO" that they were experiencing a lot of interest and so processing my bag had been delayed, but that I could expect to receive my payout by August 4.

Hey, a month and a half to process 1 bag seemed a little crazy, but it was nice to receive an email from the CEO, so whatever, I waited. Also, I kind of figured they were functioning on the "underpromise, overdeliver" theory, so I totally expected, based on the fast turnaround on my order, that I would hear from them sooner. If you're apologizing for a delay and giving an estimated date to fulfill your promise, why not tack on an extra week anyway? Then when you do it sooner, won't the customer be thrilled to receive an answer sooner than you said? Maybe I just expect people to work faster when they know they're behind?

However... August 4 was Monday. I haven't received my payout. I emailed them on Wednesday, with no response. Not even an "we received your email and will get back to you as soon as we can" (I know those emails are autoreplies; still, it would have been nice). I emailed again yesterday, early: no response. I went online today and checked my account on their website; still no payout information. I tried chatting with them via their "Need Help?" link, and hey guess what? No agents are available right now. Right now! It's 10 a.m., right now, dudes, and you're in San Francisco. Where is everybody? It's a little early for Ghiradelli ice cream.

I also left a message (the line, of course, is not staffed by a live person). I'm starting to get worried. Some of the clothes in that bag were high-end things that I didn't want to give to the Salvation Army, though now I'm thinking the tax write off would've been better. Where did they go? My clothes, the people at ThredUP?

Of course, doing a "thredUp review" search now has revealed that they have a history of poor customer service, which (obviously) I think sucks. It's a great idea, and a good way to get nice, gently used clothing. I really liked the things I bought. I'd also really like for them to honor their commitment.

I'll post an update from them if I ever hear anything. For now I suspect I can kiss those clothes goodbye.

Panic at the (aquarium)

This past weekend, we went up north for a family reunion. We visited Santa Cruz, Aptos, Monterey, and Watsonville. We've been going every year for about five years. We had a great time. It's so nice up there, and every year my family grows more beautiful.

On Sunday, before we came home, we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which was incredibly crowded. J. loved it. I've been there before but never in August. It was insane. After we’d been there for a while I left J. and Patrick at the bat ray exhibit to find a bathroom, and on the way back to them, I had a panic attack. It took me by surprise. It's never happened before.

(Though, after in retrospect, I have had major coughing fits in crowded situations - Dodger games, movie theaters - or places where I felt I could not easily get out. I don't know if this is related. Nothing to this extreme has ever happened, though.)

The restrooms are outside of the main exhibits, by a little cafe. In order to get back to where Patrick and J. were, I had to go back through the dark, incredibly crowded exhibits, and I couldn't do it. It was different because we’d gotten to the place I left them from another part of the aquarium, so I didn't recognize anything. I kept texting Patrick to come out and get me, but his phone died. It sounds dramatic, but I’m not exaggerating, I was literally scared to go back in. My body was hot, especially my head. It was so weird. I actually walked a few feet into the exhibits, felt the crowd around me in the dark, and had to walk back out again. I sat down on a bench outside of the exhibits. I got teary. I felt so stupid. When Patrick didn't answer my texts or calls, I tried emailing another friend to see if they could talk to me and help calm me down, but they couldn't talk.  

Finally I walked up to someone working there and like a 5 year old who had lost her mommy, asked for help. She was incredibly kind, and drew a line back to the bat rays on a map for me. It took me at least a half hour to get it together. I was pissed that Patrick didn't come out to find me (later he said he didn't want to leave the last place we had been, which makes sense, logically, but didn't really do it for me in the moment), and when I finally got to him, we had a bit of a fight. Then I just shut up and we left. 

J. fell asleep in my arms on the way back to the car. We spent about 3 hours there so it was fine. We need to talk about this more, because we didn't handle it well, either one of us. I should have known something was up with me because Saturday night, we left the party for a little while with my brothers and Dan’s partner Joe to go to the Santa Cruz boardwalk, which was also very crowded. There was a point where there were so many people, I just couldn’t go any further, so Dan, Joe, Patrick and J. kept walking, and me and Andy hung out and looked at the beach. It seemed so obvious to me that there were just too many people, but we were able to get away from that, and I had someone with me. It worked out.

Yesterday I was talking to a co-worker about this. I know that she has some issues with speaking in public and we'd sort of talked about that before, so I felt like she would know what I was saying. She was totally sympathetic and sweet about it. We were talking out in the hallway, by the elevator, and while I was telling her the story, I felt a tingle on the skin on the back of my neck. I guess now I know what it feels like when your "hair stands on end." It was such an odd sensation.

I've talked about it now with a couple of people, and they were all nice about it. One was my boss, and she said that this used to happen to her mother all the time, and then we laughed about all the things our moms did when we were little that used to annoy us that are now happening to us. Is that all this is? Age? I don't know. I need to think about it some more, and figure it out.

I took the day off today to relax and hang out. I'm watching "Grosse Point Blank," the movie with John Cusack (playing an assassin) and Minnie Driver. I've seen it before, but I'm loving it so far. I think I'll make a bowl of popcorn and go watch on my iPad in the bedroom. Maybe take a nap. Maybe think about things; maybe not.

For me.. for me!

Yesterday I was teaching J. how to sing the part in Bohemian Rhapsody that goes "mama mia, mama mia...," and he was doing a pretty good job, and then I blew all our minds when I hit the high note (totally falsetto, and not very pretty) at the end of the line, all the "for me!"'s. I think that's Roger Taylor singing that part, and I think it's a B flat or a C? I'm no singer (clearly), so it was extra cool to hear that big ol' note coming out of little old me.

I love that my boy loves music. He rocks out in the back seat, strapped into his (now forward-facing) car seat, and it's the cutest thing, ever. He sings along with TV shows, and when we're walking, he'll sing the alphabet song or Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I'm still hoping he'll be a flutist or a drummer (or a sax or a marimba player, a composer, a singer, a bass player...) but whatever he chooses to do, I hope he always loves music.

Parental guidance required.

A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting on the couch in the freshly painted living room of the house I grew up, with a small stack of papers on the couch beside me. This is a couch that almost always makes me want to take a nap - it's so cushion-y and soft. I wish they'd had it when I lived there, instead of the scratchy brown plaid couches I remember.

The papers were life insurance paperwork for a policy my parents had purchased in 1998 that is probably not necessary. My mom said it's a "burial policy." We discovered that they might have duplicate coverage for their funerals but I was unsure, because no where on the papers were the words "burial policy." I have to do some follow up to make sure, but they can possibly stop paying on one of them. I don't know where we all were financially, 15 years ago, but I made sure my mother understands that at this point in all our lives, between myself and my three siblings, I think we can afford their funerals without her having to worry about it.

During our discussion of all this, which, by the way, was kind of surprisingly lighthearted, my mom left the room and came back with the pages from the catalog that show the urns she and my dad have chosen for their ashes. They decided against buying a space in a cemetery; I learned yesterday that their final resting places will be... wherever we chose them to be.

The urns are beautiful. Mom's has doves on it, and my dad's is plain, but nicely finished. I'm sure he was impressed with the workmanship. I'm sure either I or one of my siblings will find an appropriate place to display them, if and when the time comes. I guess there's really no "if," is there.

My mom left the room to put the papers away, and my dad and I were left alone.

Me: Do me a favor, and don't be like those people who, when one dies the other one goes within the week.

My dad: What? (Laughs)

Me: We're going to need a least one parent present at all times.  

This commentary is about 6 years too late.

I've been watching the West Wing on Netflix, season by season, episode by episode for a while now. It's such a great show, and I've been highly entertained. This week I finally made it to the 7th season. These are episodes I've never seen before, and they're a lot of fun to watch.


However, I am finding the storyline of "If you would just let him do what he wants, JOSH, Santos will get himself elected president" to be really tiresome. Patrick HATES Matt Santos, and every time he catches a view of Jimmy Smits on my iPad, he groans. I think the actress playing Mrs. Santos is a doll. This show has a thing for cute blondes.

I'm wondering what the hell Donna has been up to; if, after Josh's turned her down for a job but sort of admitted that he feels something, she walked our of the door of Santos/McGarry HQ and found herself a job at the Gap or something. Luckily I suspect this storyline will play out soon.

Josh's new super fluffy hair is super cute and youthful? Maybe. Santos needs a haircut, C.J. needs a nap, Debbie is never around, what does Charlie do, exactly, and WHO LEAKED THE SPACE SHUTTLE STORY? (Actually, I know the answers to some of these questions. Thanks a lot, Wikipedia.) Who cares, I just would like to see more Oliver Babish, please.

I don't like the weird color they've dyed C.J.'s hair: she looks older in the 7th season episodes than she does now, but I love the fuller skirts she's wearing. She's a great actress, and a beautiful woman, but she just seems too tired right now. I've said this before, but I love the actress (NiCole Robinson) who plays Margaret: Leo's, and then C.J.'s assistant.

Anyway, once I've finished watching all of season 7, it has been recommended to me that I should look into "House of Cards," and I watched one episode of "Veep" and laughed (a lot), so those will be my shows once this is over. I'm not sure if I will be checking out "Newsroom." I'll keep you posted.

Morning grouch

I noticed this morning that there was a memo on the intranet regarding our workplace dress code. I didn't read it because the intranet stories are so easily ignored, but also because I find a memo about dress code to be totally beside the point today.

I'm sleepy, and a little grumpy, and I forgot my coffee and my banana on the kitchen counter, and I didn't fall asleep until 12:45 last night, and then when the alarm went off at 4:45, and I set it to go off in 30 minutes thinking I could get a little bit more sleep, but then the kid woke up too and wanted "milk from mama."

Well. It is my opinion that since we all interact mainly with each other, and because the air conditioning has been so touchy lately, we should be allowed to come to work in our pajamas. I have a nice, respectable pair of navy blue sweat pants that don't say "Juicy" or "Pink" on the butt that I would be most comfortable in today.

Life is hard; wear a helmet*

Anybody who says they don't need a seat belt or a bike helmet ("because we didn't have those things when I was young") is foolish, period. Anyone who says laws enforcing these things are just "nanny state" governmental busybody-ness should get over their paranoid fears and protect their goddamn head already. Does it really matter who tells you to do it? Your mother, a coach, the "law"? I've heard some pretty stupid arguments against bike helmets. Have you seen how big a car is, felt how hard the pavement is, and thought about how delicate your fucking skull is?

(Those arguments that start with "I know someone who was in a car crash who would've died had they been wearing their seat belt" make me sad The stories of people dying in car crashes who should've been wearing their seat belt... well, let's just say they don't just make me sad.)

(I read a description of the car seat we bought for J. that said something along the lines of, "This seat has been nicknamed 'the Orphan Maker;'" implying that in a car crash, the kid will survive but the parents won't. If that fact right there doesn't take your breath away, you're insane.)

And yes, I too (and my sister and brothers) grew up during Evel Kneivel's heyday, riding in the back of my dad's pickup on the 405 freeway, riding minibike motorcycles bareheaded (actually, not me: by the time I was old enough, either the minibike was out of commission or my dad didn't want me riding it), not knowing what sunscreen was really for, rolling around on the floor of the front seat of a car as an infant, wandering the streets alone as a kid, giving "puppet shows" for the people behind us from the rear-facing back seat of my mom's station wagon... and we are all lucky, because nothing really bad ever happened to us (though my brother obtained some pretty rad scars from various bike crashes and other injuries; once, in the 11th or 12th grade, I was groped by a man who spoke to me in Spanish on the bike path under Sepulveda Blvd. Oh, and a big fat guy in a white car exposed himself to me while I was walking to school, once, but I was too stupid to understand what I had seen or do anything about it except laugh). And a guy I dated a few times in my 20s took me to his room one night, and when he was in the bathroom, I snooped in his bedside table and saw that he had a gun. I never saw that guy again.

I don't care if there is or ISN'T a law about safety; because we know, thanks to science and neurologists and people who study this for a living, that helmets save lives. We know that seat belts protect people in accidents. We know these things because not everybody has been as lucky as I have, or you.

Yes. You might die in a car accident even if you're wearing your seat belt. Yes, you might be paralyzed or suffer brain damage if you're in a bike accident while wearing a helmet: these tiny straps and pieces of foam are not the hand of God. None of us is guaranteed a safe ride home, every time. But don't be purposefully stupid, don't put yourself in harm's way if you don't have to. Take every chance you can while you can still think about it.

There, whoever I've pissed off has left the room, and for you, the ones left, I'd like to share this article I just read in the NY Times about pretty/cool/incredibly expensive bike helmets. My own personal helmet is a very utilitarian looking Specialized helmet that I got at Wheel World in Culver City. It looks like a helmet, and is black and grey, with reflective tape that I added for better visibility, not fashion; then again, that right there IS my style. Just because I personally don't feel the need to express my individuality via my stupid bike helmet, doesn't mean I don't think it's a fun idea. If more people will wear one because they now have the option of getting one that's a little kooky, then, hey, go for it. You can read the article here.

And don't forget to buckle up for the ride home, dummy.

*There's a seemingly now defunct website by this name that came up on my google search while I was writing this, with that title. I thought it was cute but couldn't access the site. My apologies for stealing your title, whoever you are.

"Someday you'll tell this story, and laugh." Today is that day.

My mom hates it when I tell this type of story so let's just pretend this happened to someone else:

I was talking to my coworker on our walk this morning about learning to drive. Her son is in his 20s, and just got his first car, a 1999 Toyota Camry with low miles on it. I was about that old when I got my first car, and was going for practice drives with my mother. (It never occurred to me to get my license before I had a car.) First of all, who had that bright idea? Anybody with half a brain could see that was going to be a disaster. For one thing, my mom and I had a history, when I was younger, of butting heads about how to do just about everything. She knew the right way to do things, and hey, guess what? So did I. Unfortunately, those two ways were always totally different. We did not know how to agree to disagree, we only knew how to attempt to beat the other into submission. This is an exaggeration. But when we disagreed, we really disagreed.

And then, I was nervous and not a confident student (of driving, and many, many other things). This should surprise no one. But my mom was also a nervous teacher, and this combination of fear and lack of confidence meant that our lessons almost all ended in tears (mine).

(You should know: I am an excellent driver now, so I will take a moment to thank my mother for those lessons, which though they were dramatic and emotional, apparently also taught me something. So, thanks, mom, for getting in a moving vehicle with me when I was a big dopey 20 year old. Also, now, 20 years later, we are better about accepting each other.)

The story I told my co-worker was this: I remember being in my mom's 1984 Subaru GL, waiting somewhere at a red light not far from home. I want to say it was at the intersection of Sepulveda and Sawtelle, heading towards Overland. Where Crocker Bank used to be. I was sitting there at the red light, with my hands on the wheel, stuck at 10 and 2. Tense, man, I was TENSE. My mom said to me, in that tone of voice that freaks me out TO THIS DAY, "Irene, you can relax! We're at a red light! Take your hands off the wheel!" And I immediately burst into tears. I probably then made an illegal u-turn and took us straight back home, where I hit the curb when parking the damn car.

My coworker and I laughed about this and did the whole "Mothers!" thing, and she said, "Aw, she was just trying to keep you safe," and I acknowledged that J. and I will probably have this exact same moment at least once (and probably many times), about a whole bunch of things, so the lesson for me today is that I need to learn how to not do this to him. It's also nice to be so old (there's something wrong with that) that these stories are now more amusing than painful, but I'll admit that I wish I'd been a more confident young person, or at least self-aware enough to have known that I should've found anyone else to teach me to drive so that both my mom and I would be spared the emotional scarring this event inevitably caused. It was nice to laugh about this now, and to understand what was going on, a little better. I appreciate my mom so much now; I need to work on showing it better.

The driving lessons I had  in my 20s with my sometimes slightly drunken boyfriend were better, but I can't advocate this for anybody else. For one thing, it might be against the law. Hearing his silly half-drunk voice ("Are we stalled out?") from the back seat as I stalled his 1990 Toyota Tercel on Wilshire Blvd. was a much more fun experience. (Sober, he was pretty much just as nervous about my driving as my mom was. You should've heard the argument we had once when I drove his car on the 405 south over some sort of debris that when he asked me to identify, I couldn't. He made me pull over so he could ensure that his gas tank hadn't been punctured or some bullshit like that. Needless to say, he made me cry, too. And then we made out on the side of the freeway. Hey, this was a more fun story. Why didn't I think of this one sooner?)

All the world's a stage, even your crappy little work cubicle

If you do a search on the internet for "why do people talk to themselves," most of the answers you're going to get back are about schizophrenia or the fact that everyone does it "so you're not crazy."

But there's a third reason my 30 second haphazard Google search didn't unearth (though it might have; I didn't delve much further than halfway down the first page of results. You want science, look elsewhere, my friend. You should know this by now), and I think it's this:

People talk to themselves because they're (we're) attention whores.

That joke about it being the only way to be assured of having an intelligent conversation? Yes, and it's also a way of making sure that a room full of people who have their own thoughts and tasks are all totally aware of you and your every utterance.

Anyway, somebody said something out loud in their cubicle today (this happens many times, every day), in a tone that was intended to be overheard (everything this person does is intended to be overheard), and while I have to assume this person is as sane as I am (because doubting my own sanity would be a problem, and because I am not a doctor, and therefore completely unqualified to diagnose anyone; you should know this by now), it just struck me that it's possible this person (a former community theater actor) considers their position behind their desk, with their back to the window, facing the door of the office, as an actor, on a very small stage.

Yes, lady. We're all looking at you and listening to your performance. What you don't realize is that some of us are also judging your performance.

(This article cracked me up. Should I ever need to find a banana, I will be sure to say it out loud. "Where is the banana? WHERE IS THE BANANA? Seriously! Where's the goddamn banana!")

"Words are trivial": for examples, see "Maturity is a disappointment," blog, by Irene Palma

I was at Venice Beach on the 4th of July and heard "Behind the Silence" or whatever that stupid Depeche Mode song is called, and thought, "And now my trip to Venice is complete. J. will remember this day forever." (Actually, he probably will: it was his first time playing in the ocean and he went batshit crazy. He LOVED it.)

When Patrick had said he wanted to take J. to the beach, I thought he meant, to walk around on the boardwalk and look at all the crazy people. It was only when we got to the sand and he started heading to the water that I realized he wanted to take our kid into the ocean. I had to stop so we could talk about it. I said, "I'm kind of freaking out right now about this." I said, "You need to be in charge, here." I said, "Don't you take your eyes off him or let go of his hand, EVER."

These were strong words even for me, and Patrick's no dummy (after 15 years of marriage he totally gets when I'm scared), and he retreated a little: he said, "We don't have to go today." I said, "No, we can go, just know that I'm worried."

Why so much worry? I remember being about 15 or 16, playing in the water with my friends, turning my back to the ocean like an idiot, and getting totally wiped out, flattened, tumbled, and flopping up on the beach many yards from my original starting point, breathless and blind (my glasses were somewhere on the beach with my stuff, and my friends, who were nowhere to be found for what felt like forever but was probably only about 15 minutes). It scared the shit out of me. I'm sure that other people who wear glasses are safe in the ocean but I am not one of them. And that experience was not one I will ever forget. Patrick, who grew up boogie boarding and body surfing (and he wears glasses, too) in Venice Beach (without a history of eye/ear infections or gangrene) is a much stronger swimmer (much stronger, in general) than I am, but I sometimes worry that in his efforts to make things "fun" for J., neglects some of the safety precautions I would take. This is, I think, the difference between lots of mamas and daddys.

Anyway, Patrick did everything right, and J. loved his time in the ocean, and we will be sure to get him to (perhaps cleaner) beaches again soon. But that's not what this post was supposed to be about:

There is something about that song, and that place. It just seemed right, hearing it. I heard it as we were walking back up the boardwalk to Rose Ave. to my mother-in-law's house, and it hit me in the head, via my ears, like a brick. Maybe because my experiences at Venice beach were mainly in high school, when that song was new (me, too). Maybe because my experiences at Venice beach were mostly unpleasant. Anyway, going there with Patrick, who lived six blocks from there practically his whole life until we got married, and exudes Venice cool, and my toddler, who couldn't be cool if he tried, was totally awesome. J. had to be physically picked up so we could go home! After about an hour of jumping and splashing and having what we suspect was the time of his life! Patrick said, "I wonder if he will dream about this?" Who knows?

The kid loves the water. Me, I got in the ocean up to my ankles, felt the pull as each wave reversed it's way back out, and remembered that it's not my job to transfer my fears to my kid: it's my job to make him feel safe in the world, and to ensure that he is. I'm trying, sweetie. I really am.

Take a look, it's in a book

I was walking back to my office through the parking lot, after picking up lunch. I saw a butterfly, about 20 feet above me. Simultaneously, as my eyes/brains identified it as “butterfly” (as opposed to, say, “missile” or “777”), the words and tune of “butterfly in the sky…” came to my mind. (Did you know there's a Reading Rainbow app for the iPad? Check it out!)