On Writing

I don't know how to write my memoirs. There are stories, ever stories, pieces of dialogue, the briefest glimpses of brilliant imagery, that peter out before even a chapter may be formed of them. Perhaps if I begin to record the pieces, keep them in the same collection, eventually they will combine like so many mismatched LEGOs discovered in couch cushions and beneath car floor mats and at the bottom of backpacks over the years. Perhaps my memories and thoughts are nothing more than these generic building blocks that were all designed with the coveted clickability of those delightful, colorful plastic blocks.
I fear I lack the creativity to assemble them without the handy, LEGO instructions, walking me through each mediocre click step by step; organizing and pre-packaging the pieces for me; assuring me of the end result with the picture advertised on the colorful (albeit, overpriced) box.

That would make a fun short story, wouldn't it? Sounds right up Stephen King's alley, a story about   a particular character who buys these boxes with all the intent of enjoying the assembly, only to learn that the instructions are quite a bit darker and lead to more disturbing ends... Wanting innocently to pass an afternoon constructing a peaceful LEGO log cabin, the dutiful character instead finds himself constructing the dark, the obscene, the dangerous... and, against better judgement, plagued by agonizing curiosity, he continues to turn the pages, continues the slow completion of the unknown... brick by brick...

I am not an Artist. I cannot seem to wrap my head around that title, to ever feel comfortable gracing  my business card with it... and why? Well, for starters, I'm not even comfortable owning business cards. Artists are other people. Artists have genuine skill and they know it. Artists can present the gifts of their works, into which they've pored time, energy, thought, and only the cash necessary to acquire the materials to create, and rest assured that the recipient is thrilled. They are certain in their skill. They are the others who post their works on ebay and Etsy. How does one get to this stage in life? The skill must be recognized, praised, understood, and even desired by others. What makes an artist is the desire of their patrons to possess or look upon that creative soul's work. Otherwise, Artist, you are not. You may be one who dabbles in paint, or hobbies with the manipulation of the language... as am I... though that hardly sounds as nice on a business card... real Artists have business cards. People are interested in who they are. If a true Artist meets new people, those people are intrigued and desire a method by which to contact said Artist again in the future. I've only been asked once for my card, and it was for a play-date for my daughter. I do not possess the skills nor marketable product to self-define as an Artist. Hell, isn't that the point? It cannot be self-defined. I suppose, in the privacy of my home, I could call myself whatever I want... but it does not make it so, for longer than my parched ego holds the beading vapor of this dream.

What more is there to do than to attempt to harness these small but furiously spinning bits of literary storm swirling and gaining momentum and material in my brain? I feel them daily, they speak to me, they spin out their few phrases of decent diction and I am impressed, I am lifted, I feel that I just may be the creative Artist, the [oh, be still my heart...] author, the writer, I've always dreamed I was... somewhere beneath that cloud of obligation and lack of time.

Is S really so deep as to have ascertained all of this from watching me? Did he know I must begin to collect these small storms, to wrangle them into the uncertain boundaries of an anonymous blog, where they may steadily grow with each passing day and each new companion, into something I was always meant to have written? Truth be told... it's beautifully organized. How many bits and pieces of these orphaned storms, wrangled in ones and twos, exist in varied hard drives, floppy disks, flash drives, writeable CDs, notebooks and journals spanning the past 20+ years of my existence? At least within the blog, they are contained, collected at some address in the sky I may access, presumably, all my life, no matter how many times I upgrade computers, jobs, or storage media.

S is a genius. But we already know this....
Many of my writings were a conglomeration at one time. In an effort at preemptive defense,  I destroyed somewhere between ten and fifteen journals I'd kept and saved over the years. I remember exactly how they looked, lined along the back wall of my bedroom, atop a rickety desk I'd uncovered from some apartment complex dumpster or another. Journals are a great gift in this world... pages of potential... lined... meaningful and beautiful covers. Every journal I own, without even opening the covers, speaks volumes of the possessor. Journals are like great pieces of art to me. I adore them. They are beautiful and alive and reminders of excellent times past, excellent feelings and passions that have otherwise fled my current consciousness. I love choosing journals based on their covers, thickness, quality of pages, whether or not they are lined, whether or not they have that lovely black strap one may stretch across the closed book to keep it secure, whether or not they have magnetic lid-like clasps. It is such a pleasure to open them, to admire the thousands of words' potential, like a fertile womb.That day... years ago... those ten to fifteen journals were a perfect photograph of this writer's life, closed or open. Read or unread. My journals, much like my greeting cards [of which there exists a well-organized and overfilled chest], are sacred relics of this would-be Artist's life.

I did not destroy the covers. I couldn't. I loved them too much and in ways I had neither described nor written nor expressed to anyone, so they, void of their confessional pages, were safe. I tore every page, every piece of paper, covered in the whorls and scrawls of a penmanship honed over the years into my characteristic hand. J would know it, as I see and know her handwriting at a moment's glance, all these years later. And her mother's. And my mother's. How I miss the written word, the hand-written word. The fact that I do not know the signature handwriting of the love of my life, presently, is a sadness to me. For what is written anymore that can so much more easily be typed? As I'm presently demonstrating... the ease of saving these thoughts to blogspot... does that circumvent the need for there to be some sort of physical specimen of my existence? Does it matter at all whether any of this is known or saved or that I am remembered for any of it? Perhaps those are egocentric dreams I must allow to dissipate. Is placing my name beside my art after my death any consolation to a fled soul? What consolation could it possibly be to those I leave behind, other than a desire to categorize all of my work into chapters and headings and analyses that sum up my life's ambitions, dreams and achievements as cleanly and coldly as I may attempt of artists before me? What does any of it matter, except insomuch as it affects me today, as I write it, and the fraction of peace I may find today in doing so?

I must stop caring so much about this "carrying on" concept. I used to print and paste my typed ramblings into my current journal. It's the same reason I pain over deleting S's text messages. I want to hold and cherish the words of the past. This is why humans write, don't you see? To retain. The words that fall across our lips are dead nearly as soon as they are heard, as they are filed, perhaps, into faulty and ever-deteriorating memory, combined with taste, and sight and touch and sound of the moment into some hodge-podge of experience which will probably be better recalled as an emotion than as any deep or meaningful prose. We write to retain the prose, and perhaps to encourage or even recreate the experience anew, through the lens of memory. How fleeting our experiences are otherwise. Our fights, our mistakes, our pains, our hatred and rage... even our passion, how quickly forgotten. Of course this is a biological benefit. Wallowing in the agonies of life is surely to stifle one's creativity and production... growth... happiness. Argh, we're too quickly entering a philosophical question of the purpose of life and life's experiences which I am entirely unqualified to examine.

I ordered a pair of gold earrings for myself the other day on a complete whim, jumping to typing in my credit card number (from memory, I'm an online shopping junkie) before I had time to consider the necessity (there is none) of the purchase or to talk myself out of it. They are lovely little golden pelicans. I doubt I will ever wear them. Someone designed them, these small little golden birds. I bought them because they are beautiful, and because in that moment I wanted them, I had the money, I indulged myself in a piece of creativity from a fellow would-be artist. Actually, an actual Artist, for their art is coveted and purchased by others, thus defining the creator within their art. I bought them off FAB, a delightful website which brings together the works of creative souls across the country who idly hope to be the next praised thing... the next droplet of brilliance in this sea of creative souls' blood, sweat and tears from the onset of human existence.

FAB's trademarked catchphrase is "Smile, you're designed to."

The comma bothers me... that should be two sentences, or, at the very least, a semi-colon. 
Trademarking language also bothers me. 

I would argue that artists seek not fame, but following. At the completion of something beautiful by my own hand, I seek not financial compensation, but emotional confirmation. I long for the eyes and mind of another to take it in, to digest it, to fill my ears with the words I'd formed myself but feared I felt alone. Even God, in the Genesis book of the Bible, creates and, looking back upon  his work at the end of each day, remarks, "It is good."

But that wasn't enough.
He also created witnesses to concur.
Which they did.
Until they disgraced his art.
And were cast away to wander in absence of his art...
sort of...
for a while.
He can't resist coming back to show them what He's come up with every now and again...

It's probably a sin to liken God to an artist disappointed in His ungrateful audience and throwing them from the gallery in a tantrum.

But He made us in His own image, did He not?

Sexpectations

I will preface this post with a moment of pride.
My daughter is seven years old. We'll call her C. She loves acting and singing and recently auditioned for a local production of Grease, which will be her third full-length production of her young acting career.
Last night we found out that she was cast as Danny Zuko, one of the two leads of the play (the other being Danny's partner, Sandy).
My daughter was so thrilled she couldn't take her hands from her face. Her cheeks were bright red and she wanted to delay telling me, to savor the joy and draw out the suspense, but her fellow actors betrayed their own excitement and burst upon me, all screeching, "She's Danny! C's going to be our Danny!" My eyes filled with tears and excitement and I found myself embracing all those little actors and actresses and hearing their excited declarations of their own parts. My daughter has acted with several of these budding stars in the past so we have grown to know each other and to share in their excitement over this rather thrilling day, the day the parts are announced!

Our joy was shortly quelled with something that at first confused and puzzled me, then caused me, I must be honest, a bit of frustration lending itself toward rage. How disappointing to have society reveal itself in this manner. And how utterly deflating to realize I, once again, ever naive, was operating under the notion within the little bubble of my life and my own home, that we as a society have progressed further than we actually have.

Helen Merino [female] playing the male, heterosexual Prince of Denmark in Shakespeare's Hamlet.

I have been SHOCKED how many people have responded with "Are you okay with her playing a boy??" and "Is she okay playing a boy?" I feel I must comment on this, as I received this comment far more frequently than I would have expected. Even C's acting director who was responsible for casting, emailed me ahead of announcing the roles to ensure I was "okay with her playing a boy." I have to say I'm a bit disappointed in hearing this. In defense of the director, I know she's a progressive thinker or she wouldn't have considered Caddie for the role in the first place, and I'm sure she was testing the waters as to whether her decision would result in some small-minded gender-ignorant parental meltdown akin to, "no son of mine is a sissy!"

Grrrr....

My daughter wanted this part so badly she literally dreamed about it, though her premonition as to who would play Sandy was inaccurate. ;-) We downloaded the Grease soundtrack from itunes and she was practicing the song "Grease Lightning" every day to and from school. She's an incredible actor and a male role is certainly within her range. She's played a sea witch octopus, a genie, and a lion [the latter two being male....]! Surely a challenge within her own species is something she can handle. I am just a bit saddened that we, as a society, continue to segregate on gender lines, especially our children. I thought the days of pink and blue were over. But, in all honesty, I know better. It's the #1 reason why ultrasounds are done, to determine the sex of the baby. "How could we possibly prepare for the birth of our child if we didn't know the sex?" (dripping sarcasm here, obviously).

My daughter has never been limited, at home, because of her sex. I realize that she's a member of society, and she's touched by the ignorant expectations of those around her. She is not naive to that. As I think about this... the first announcement I heard from one of her fellow child actors was, "She's a boy!" The categorization of children begins prenatally by gender. Of course children are aware of this. C has been encouraged to be, very literally, WHATEVER she wants to be. I am very proud of her. If her playing Danny Zuko is another stand necessary in society to drop these rigid gender norms, then I applaud her even more, because that is LONG overdue. We are a progressive culture, full of diversity, but also full of similarities. Gender is a fluid notion, it is not black and white, and it is not tied directly to sexuality. I was assured that the "romance" of the play had been removed when I was asked whether my daughter could play the male lead. I am saddened that the director felt the need to assure me of this. Why should that matter? Some fear that my female child would play a love interest to another female child? Bravo if she does! Homophobia is not allowed in my house either. I am disappointed in our Puritanical culture. Please recall the 1500s and 1600s in England when the birth of modern theater as we know it was in full bloom, and some of the greatest love stories and tragedies of all time, that forever formed the precedent of all to follow, were written by the great William Shakespeare and his colleagues and were performed ENTIRELY by male casts as it was ILLEGAL for females to grace the stage with their lovely presence. The most passionate and heart-wrenching love story of all time, Romeo and Juliet, was enacted by two males, and convincingly so! Think how this play has set the precedent for all romance since, particularly the beloved concepts of star-cross'd lovers. I am proud that my daughter has turned the tables on the restrictions of women across time, turned it on its head! Not only is she gracing the stage with her incredible talent, but she is playing a MALE. The males who auditioned, despite their sex, did not bring the talent and ability to this audition that C did. I am damn proud of that, that she played this male better than the biological males!? Oh, Heaven wept, what a scandal! I am proud that she has gained a sense of equality from her mother and those we surround ourselves with, and that she is not limited by her sex due to the "sexpectations" of a society still locked in archaic Puritanical philosophy.

We need to stop saying that we want our children to be happy; that we want them to be anything they can be. Stop SAYING it, and actually DO it.

In the immortal words of Noel Coward from his play Design for Living:

"You're making a mistake in daring to disapprove of something that has nothing to do with you whatsoever."

Eddie Izzard, self-proclaimed "action transvestite"

Tim Curry [male], playing a transvestite character in the film "Rocky Horror Picture Show."

Genesis

so.
Everyone needs a "why did I start this blog" post.
right?
Or... every blogger owes a bit of homage to the brain behind the operation.
Or, the brain behind the motivation.
Both, likely.
Approximately six years ago, I met the man who would very shortly become, in the cheesy romantic comedy way, the man of my dreams. It's one of those stories in which you'd be totally rooting for me. Him too, I think... in a While You Were Sleeping kind of way.... Anyway... six years later, and that man, that brilliant soul who has more insight into this ol' gal than anyone ever has; this dream of a man who has twice described me using a Good Will Hunting quote: "...feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you," ...
he's actually my partner. Seems the simplest, most sensible thing in the world, but it has taken us six years to reach this point. Six years to find our proper time. Six years before we were both ready to be the partner each other respectfully deserved. Perhaps, one day, I will feel so-inclined as to blog the details of that story. ... or to make it into the next teen romance series! ... Today, suffice it to say, it was my darling S who has encouraged me for ... easily over a year now... to begin a blog.

The romantic in me would like to believe that he's merely supporting my life-long dream of becoming a writer and somehow finding a way to make a living through this artistic medium. Insightful bloke that he is, he's surely recognized that his partner, talented though she may be, has failed to produce a single piece of fiction in the time he has known her ... [pause to argue the value of her poetry and non-fiction literary analysis here, won't you?]

So, we could surely stop here and give a nod to the great and brilliant S and presume that he always knows me better than I know myself and is simply encouraging the dream I probably won't begin to fulfill until the jewel of my eye is off to college.

I'd initially voted for this romantic notion, but, upon further reflection, my darling S is more likely to have noticed a far less romantic (and far more annoying) aspect of my personality that was in serious need of an outlet... before his insightful, brilliant mind simply exploded from the onslaught of texts and emails containing each and every possible point of discussion hurtling in his direction from the Bubblegum pink flip phone [yeah, you heard me] and post-9:30 bedtime gmail messages. Oh, my love. I don't know who said it first, but you certainly know me better than I know myself. 

His brilliance is a bit catty, actually. 
Note how the blog idea is [surely] an effort to find a creative outlet for me, thus improving my life, sense of self-worth, expanding upon my creative writing, etc, etc. But... it's also saving him  the onslaught, right? tsk tsk tsk. He always does this so well, it's incredible. A modern-day Sherlock. Or... Moriarty, perhaps. 

Another example of his catty brilliance: 
I consider myself a bit of a nerd. Always have been. No friends in high school, save the teachers, whom I regularly entertained after class with witty exchanges and requests for extra credit assignments as I was bored out of my skull and needed any motivation at all to drag me out of bed in the morning to return to those halls of taunts and jeers. I digress. I have always been a nerd. Played [and beat, naturally] every game Mario has graced with his presence, and many others we won't go into here. No physical coordination to speak of, chubby, no skills; only high grades and a general assumption that everyone disliked me for my plain appearance and aforementioned characteristics. Despite this pedigree, I never delved much into comics. Despite the draw of the comic books stores, made even more alluring by the nerdy male clientele [further romanticized in drool-worthy television shows starring said nerds such as The Big Bang Theory], I just never geeked-out on comics or comic characters. I had a passing knowledge of the X-Men characters due to a radiant red-haired best friend in fifth grade who had a bit of a fetish, but that was the extent of my knowledge. Strangely, even a sexy Ryan Reynolds didn't turn my head toward a Green Lantern lesson. 
Yet, one day, a couple years back (true nerds will know when X-Men: First Class was in theaters, I can't be distracted to look this up at the moment), I was wandering the small town of Taylor, Texas with a former partner when we came upon a delightful old cinema. It was a beautiful building. I've always held a soft spot for gorgeous old theatres, beginning with The Wilma in my hometown of Missoula, Montana, which, like the one in Taylor, Texas, still also shows films, though only on a few screens, as they were never meant to compete the the megaplexes of today. See the Paramount Theatre in Austin, Texas for another breath-taking example. Anyway... I wanted desperately to see more of the Taylor theater than the exterior but we couldn't tour as they were selling tickets to a film that was about to begin, the prequel to the X-Men. My former partner was a fan of the comics and rather easily persuaded me to give the film a shot. I had already decided it was worth the $4 admission to view the interior of the theater, and decided I really ought to support the poor guy's interests now and again, so in we went. 
Needless to say, I don't even remember the interior of the theater, though the snack bar, I recall, was intimately small and ridiculously inexpensive, if you're ever in the area. I really enjoyed the film, 100% more than I had expected to. 
Fast forward to today, well, a few weeks ago,... with my partner properly replaced with an eligible one, my darling S, who somehow had not seen X-Men: First Class, despite an admirable comic nerdom (or, at least, loyal following of all of the comic-based celluloid productions as of late). He, the poor dear, really tried to get me to watch The Avengers and Thor, making sure they were playing in the background every time I came over for weeks (let's just say he was trying to get me to watch them, and did not, in fact, watch them himself for weeks on-end... <3sigh<3.... my lovely nerd). Anyway, his efforts were greatly without fruit. Despite my desire to share his interests, I just didn't find the pieces of the films (and I'd also seen bits of Captain America... distorted giant head on a child's body, anyone??) enticing enough to warrant 2.5 hours of my time, multiplied by x number of superhero and comic-based films. 
Naturally, S was probably secretly thrilled to see my excitement at watching X-Men: First Class together. It was actually my suggestion!
He did not share any of this excitement with me. 

Here is what the catty little devil did, however. 
S has a habit of reading... and reading... and reading... everything he can get his hands on. 'Research,' to S, does not stop, typically, at Wikipedia. He is one of those [delicious] nerds who also follows the links at the bottom of the page to their logical conclusions... [yes, ladies, and he's all mine!] To refer to S as 'learned' and 'well-read' is a bit of an understatement. But, despite how horribly sexy that is, it has a downside. He often spoils works, particularly films, but occasionally books and restaurants as well, by reading far too many reviews, summaries and critiques. He gains a certain smug superiority from lifting his nose whenever possible, and, God knows, one may find a degrading critique (or hundreds...) on the internet in moments on just about any subject imaginable. 

Knowing this about himself, my darling was in a bit of a dilemma. He's an absolute director nerd and was interested in the genesis story of the X-Men, but did not want to go in completely unprepared. After all, how could he properly critique what he was watching if he knew not whose creation it was or whether it was based on actual comics or some freelance sideshow? This is serious business... how do you research a work without stumbling upon the spoilers?
You will remember the Moriarty comment, won't you now?
It just so happens that my beloved has, at eager beck-and-call, a rather talented researcher who had already seen the film. 
So S asked me to research a bit, find out whether the film was based on an actual comic, as in, did Stan Lee or any subsequent X-Men writers actually create the genesis stories for the X-Men characters in the strip, or was the film the work of a clever screenwriter alone? 
This seems like a completely legitimate request, doesn't it?
Sweet S just doesn't want to spoil the show, he's trying to give it an honest and impartial viewing, while still fulfilling his desire to comprehend the film's parentage. 

...

right?

Ah, but we aren't thinking like Moriarty. 
Recall the hidden (and somewhat self-serving) ulterior motive of getting this 1000-thoughts-per-day nerd-lover to write a blog instead of plaguing S's bewildered and exhausted phone....
What could S stand to gain in asking his angelic nerd to research the X-Men?
....He's a genius!

I happily jumped at the opportunity to "convince" him that the film was worth watching by doing the bit of research he requested. But I didn't stop there. I have a Masters Degree in English for a reason! S knows this. He played to my passions. I researched for hours, poring over the genesis stories of the X-Men, then expanding upon my own theories and ideas about the original relationship between Professor X [so fucking hot casting James McAvoy, btw] and Magneto. My undergrad is in Psych, so I get further into the character discussions regarding Magneto's traumatizing childhood and Xavier's endless empathy. Needless to say... my bf quite successfully opened my mind to the joys and pleasures of the comic world. A gateway film.
Catty little devil. I told you.
If only he had poor taste, I may have the heart to blame the guy. 
So far, his insight has been true, and he's introduced me to that which I've since thoroughly adored and had never known. 
Cliché as it may be, I cannot help but conclude that that is exactly what love is meant to be: An opportunity to see the world through the eyes of one's lover and to share in that vision. To learn via a collection of experiences and explanations built over the years of one's partner's life, and to add one's own. 


that was almost touching
had I not, for some horrible reason, thought: 
"With our powers combined! .... I... am Captain Planet!"

hey.. nerds can be romantic too... 
if you don't mind the sketches, quotes and citations.

..dude! Check it out!

The overheard portion of a conversation, between a pair of 20-something humans of opposite sexes, was prefaced with, "Do you even know how to get there?" from the young man, who was pointing apparently to a mutually-understood location in the distance, as he was literally pointing over my head and into a supporting wall decorated with some unidentifiable modern 'art:' a knobby stick painted black, zip-tied to the wall, accompanied by a bent brown frond and some rusted metal tool. The girl, looking up into the boy's rather impressive height, shakes her head in response to his question. Excited by this opportunity to further engage the young miss, the boy adorns a goofy grin, snort of a chuckle and exclaims, "Check it out!" before entering into a rather non-eventful series of driving directions.

I've noticed this new trend. Young people (younger than myself, let us say early 20s) are preempting listener boredom and inevitable abandonment of the conversation with the bouncy statement, "Check it out!" I cannot help but wonder if we, as a capitalist society based on consumerism, are so inundated with marketing that we feel compelled to "sell" not only ourselves, but the conversation (or bit of dialogue) we're about to share. Isn't this an interesting bit of social evolution? We can hardly argue that we do this... adding little bits of curiosity and amusement, attractive pictures, alluring outfits, hairstyles, expressions... not unlike boasting our bright plumage proudly as indication of our worthiness for attention. Curious if S would call it a "meme".... Also wondering if it is the influence of a largely online culture, where shocking and/or sexy pictures and graphics constantly compete for our instantly distracted attention.

What is even more interesting, in my opinion, is how specifically this statement is being used. One would expect, given the exclamation, that the listener is about to receive some exciting and relevant piece of information, something worth staying tuned for, something that could change the course of her life! In the context of this conversation, one might expect he's going to announce that the club (or coffee shop, mall, or sex dungeon he was leading her toward) is in some very unlikely and thrilling location, perhaps suspended about the city on a nimbus plane, or on the bed of Town Lake, admittance only via a rapidly-descending tunnel into the depths by way of an old, rickety rail cart. But, no. Despite the "Check it out!" intro, he launched into a stale google-maps Directions transcript.

Given my brief exposure to him, I'll go so far as to presume that he, either due to his self-consciousness and excitement over ensnaring the young girl's attention up to that moment, or due to a simple lack of intellect... perhaps both... is misusing the exclamation entirely. I'm more inclined to presume that it has become yet another essentially meaningless collection of sounds, thrown into conversation for minimal effect and more to create the illusion of the speaker's popularity and 'hip'-ness (coolness? what are the kids saying these days?...) as opposed to any deliberate marketing of one's verbal product. Or, maybe, just for a moment, the poor lad convinced himself, and the lucky lady, that he actually had something thrilling to tell her, thus enabling him a few extra moments in her presence, and the hopeful illusion that she wanted to continue the conversation, which was contrived from the onset.