Lights! Camera! Diapers!

Departures

2011-03-13T00:34:00.000-08:00

Our lil BHB is almost 2. I can't believe it. If you have a new-ish baby and you're reading this, let me be the 412th person to tell you this 'It goes so fast!'.

Are you annoyed? I sure was.

But, holy crap, it goes so fast! Hold on, wait, that's not true. The first 6 months took about 6 years.

But since then, it's been blazing by in a blur of sweet and firsts and 'oh I should write that down' or oh I should blog about that'. But there are no lack of pictures my friends, the boy is documented at the very least in photographic evidence. Here are a few recent goodies:

Kale smoothie

ASL - the letter V. Or peace.

In other news...

I don't know about you, but my heart and brain are just breaking apart the last few days with the news of the Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan. That event is the true meaning of devastation, and I never know what to do with the overwhelming feelings that crowd my synapses at times like this. It's such a mix of unreasonable sadness and helplessness and the weird relief that distance provides. Although living in LA which by all accounts is 'next' when it comes to anyone's guess for earth shaking disaster zones isn't exactly providing much in the way of 'thank god that's not us'. Cause it so totally-ottally could be and likely in our lifetime will be.

So there's that.

In recent months I went into a power scramble to get our 'kit' together and did a pretty good job of making it happen thanks to this place and this site and of course the cute hubs who just totally obliged my freaked out state of mind. And that feels somewhat better. But. When I watch the footage of that horrifying blob of water creeping across the land makes me wonder what the heck our collection of bottled water and snacks and bandaids will do in a moment like that? I shudder when I say, 'Oh, not much'.

Being a parent just really puts a giant amplifier on these types of moments, doesn't it? The fears and sadness the 'whelming empathy I feel for those families come from a place that's so different now. Being the one who that tiny laughing boy with the big eyes counts on just makes me feel so responsible and useless at the same time.

Like tonight I want to sleep under his crib so that if the earth moves even the tiniest bit I can grab his little sleeping body and somehow be good enough to save him from whatever the hell is going to happen. Guess what? I can't do that now, nor will I be able to do that when he walks to school alone and has to cross the street where there are big trucks that are driven by dudes with big egos and big addictions or when he wants to skate around town with his ipod and knit hat pulled down over his eyes, or when he becomes a pilot or when he...ok, you get the idea.

So I guess the best I can do is enjoy his little snore and be grateful for the running water (hot even!) and for the safety of my loved ones and the bed that beckons and even the loss of an hour due to random time scrambling.

I just want to say that my deepest sympathies are with you Japan and your beautiful people, I am so very sorry for your losses and continued troubles. I cannot begin to know.

Yours,

PS - If you need some cheering up with some deeeelicious foodstuffs, be sure to drop by this blog. My friend and a supporter of our movie cooks and writes these amazing recipes up, I'm so going to cook the current recipe for our own warmth and cheer and try to figure out how to ship it across the sea.

Christmas Vacation

2011-01-04T02:27:00.000-08:00

We didn't go anywhere, we stayed put with the mysteriously warm days mixed in with crazy ass rain.

We didn't make plans, we sorta faked it. There were no demands, we weren't willing to have them.

And it was good. Spontaneous delight appeared.

We opened a few gifts, well...whatever other people bought us. BHB's gifts were then wrapped with that same wrapping paper. The dog did the unwrapping anyway. (video evidence below).

Boy that kinda makes us sound a little. Um. Cheap? Sure. How about 'on a budget?'. Which is true, too. Cute hubs and I don't buy gifts for each other anymore. Sometimes that makes me a little sad. Mostly it's a relief.

Let's just wander through the days of our vaca, shall we?

Are you kidding me with this?

Mom, Boy and God?

Christmas Morning with Kissy Whale and Daddy

Yes we call this sleeping buddy the Kissy Whale instead of the Killer Whale that it is. I know. Damn left-coasters.

New Years Eve we took the BHB to his first Sushi. He beat me to this 'first' one by 21 years.

BFF's

BHB has a dear friend who he knows from hiking. She's appeared up here before, as you can see. This day he rolled his hand around in her hand for a really long time giggling. She was both enchanted and confused by it. They often fight over each other's cheerios as we make our way up the hill. And they talk about birds.

BHB has a great habit of repeating the word, Yea. Yea! Yea. Yeaaaaa. Yea.

He awakes with this idea in his mind sometimes, we hear him yelling it from his crib. We call it his morning affirmations. I bring this up because his blonde girlfriend will often talk about him when they are apart by saying 'He says Yea! Yea. Yep. Yea'.

I hope he always feels this way about life.

I have to include the following video. Our brown dog developed a new talent this Christmas, is David Letterman still doing stupid pet tricks? "Cause comon', this qualifies.

With the warmest wishes for a Happy New Year!

PS - Shout out going out to Corrie Davidson who is one of our backers for our short film. She is a film producer, social media goddess type and a mascot. How genius is that? You can find her here or here.

Time Bandits

2010-12-22T15:15:00.000-08:00

It's pouring here. Buckets and train cars full of water slosh from the sky. I am lucky that unlike other Los Angelens, I do not live near the edge of a cliff or under the shadow of a mountain so it is without reservation that I celebrate the influx of wet. Huzzah! Bring it! (with a little shout to any Angelens who are in either of this situations, eep. sorry).

It has been raining, storming even, for like six days. It's easy to love it because I know it ends. Also, I don't commute anywhere. Plus I figure we were overdue, so let's gather as much of it in the ground or reservoirs as possible. Of course most if it runs off, creates havoc and is useless but I like my pollyanna vision of little ponds with frogs and ducks getting filled with clean, fresh water.

Here are a few pics from a recent rain hike where we got whipped by rain and wind but the BHB was a total champ under his plastic tarp.

Rain makes me have deep thoughts...

Overdue is a quick apt description to my reality at the moment. I've got a library book so overdue I even got the wtf robot dialed phonecall on my cell phone. But getting to that library one mile away sounds hard. I'm a disappointment as a citizen and a human being, I realize that. But it's raining! I need a boat to get there.

And I'm overdue with my updates here. Overdue on several emails. Overdue to spend QT with friends, I wonder if they remember me?Overdue to get the kid out on playdates. I've got that big stamp over me at the moment, but I'm strangely peaceful about it.

I recently transitioned from SAHM who REALLY needs to be working to WAHM with waaay too much work. I felt like that desperate, dehydrated desert traveler who stumbles onto water and gorges on it until he is sick. Ah! Did you see 127 hours? Like that. That was me. Still is.

And honestly? It's been fantastic. I've had two jobs of late, one is editing behind-the-scenes videos for various artists. Here is one of my favorites so far:

So while I cut away in my office, the BHB has several girlfriends who come over in the afternoons who party with him at the park, entertain him here at home, or do laps n' snacks in the red stroller that he could sit in for hours. It's pretty darn sweet, he love these girls and I'm right here if I'm needed. When the day ends, he and I do the dinner dance, bath, book, bed and I go right back to work...usually til the wee hours of the night. Or get up at 4 or 5 to work again til late morning when cute hubs needs help again.

Which finally brings me to the title of this post. While it's been a super sweet time, it feels like there have been bandits who have taken late summer and fall away. I feel DAMN lucky to be able to work at home so I can have meals with the dude and see him off to bed. Sure sleep is back off the list of things in abundance, but it's a fair trade for the laughing contests I get to be a part of....

Oh, and is there something happening this week? Something to do with Jesus or the Mall? Remind me ok. I'm kinda out of it.

Soaked in goodness,

PS. Sending out some love for our friends in the real estate business. Holiday is the perfect time of year to buy a house, prices are lower and sellers are eager and you've got time to cruise around in the rain with our buddy Brad. Go grab a house before interest rates go up!

Big Daddy

2010-11-16T14:20:00.000-08:00

* Note to google stumbler who is searching for Adam Sandler silliness - sorry to dissapoint. I like to name my posts after movies. This movie offers a title I like. I've never seen it. We cool??*

My Dad died when I was 20. I don't recommend this. I think waiting until you're 40 and up is a more preferable time frame to say goodbye to a parent's presence on this planet. Anything before 30 and it's going to be a life definer. Anything before 20 and it's so big all of your therapy will never quite get you through it. So I fall in the almost no recovery but not quite; certainly a life defining moment category as a member of the dead dad club.

My Dad was always going on diet's. He was built pretty much like a bear anyway, add the beard and fuzzy hair-do and he definitely had the 'bear' thing going for him. To lose weight he'd eat a mono diet of crackers for many days. Not kidding, the cracker diet. He'd drop about 10 pounds in 5 minutes 'cause you know, it's a male thing, they can do that.

He wore blue short sleeve shirts with a collar and a pocket. Do you know the one? Not the stiff starchee one, the soft kind. The pocket held is cigarettes. And a lighter that was always falling out when he bent over. He had these really great looking calves, like a tennis star. The only trouble is they were always really dinged up by coffee tables and any low flying objects. Benches, things like that. He had an eye disease called Retinitis pigmentosa. If you're not into following links, I'll say this: He was loosing his eyesight very slowly, moving from the periphery in. What he could see, he could see well, it was just a very limited field. Take a pin, poke a piece of paper, look through that.

He was a really kind man. People really liked him - you couldn't help it. My cousins remember him as someone who would make you feel like you're the only person in the room or even in the world. He was very present with you, you had all of his attention. It was like a light swung by and stopped on you and your little person needs. This wasn't of course always my experience as a little person, but I get why that's how they remember him. And I really like it.

My favorite memory of my father happened when I was thirteen and my heart got broken. I mean smushed flat and stomped hard for the first time. A boy named Sean broke up with me a few days before homecoming. From then on my parents called him 'Ob-Sean'. I grew up in Texas y'all, and let me tell you, football and homecoming is a BFD. So getting dumped by the quarterback a few days before the big rally and game was pretty devastating for anyone, and for this lil sensitive thing? Disaster.

I was a twirler. There were four of us, we didn't perform with the band, more like in the shadow of the cheerleaders with a microphone and boom box. We had a big routine to perform at both the pep rally and the game. As the scorned girl, I felt that time more than ever, I needed to get it right. There waas nothing worse than the thump. thump, thump of the baton down the wooden stage steps and having to scramble into the audience in my white jazz shoes, nude stockings and short skirt to pick it up.

So I was obsessively practicing my routine in the backyard. Steady tears, scratchy grass and waning twilight were my company as I did the routine over and over and over again. Somehow that flashing silver in the dim light was bringing me the slightest sense of peace, I drank it up until the day gave in to pitch black. As I walked into the kitchen door, I discovered a strange sight. My dad was sitting at the kitchen table crying his eyes out. He was on the phone with his sister Jane (who yes I was named after) and she was trying to help him through my heartbreak.

He tried to compose himself but I'll never forget his beautiful hazel eyes all red rimmed and wet. After getting off the phone, he took off his glasses and hugged me. We both wept. And then laughed. And cursed Ob-Sean's name, which was easy to do thanks to the nickname.

Can you imagine? How loved I felt? How completely understood and cherished? The light swung by and held my sopping little heart. Sure I think it sucks that I missed twenty to thirty years of being an adult and a relationship with a Dad. But. I had a lot then.

Yours in weepy memory moments,

PS. - If you're wondering what inspired me to write this, please follow this link. This is a dear, dear friend of mine who is an incredible writer.

Walk the Line

2010-11-10T09:55:00.000-08:00

The BHB (big headed baby) refuses to walk.

He's a fast as hell crawler.
He's pretty much at a run - as long as you've got him by the hand.
He's about 14 feet tall.

But no walking.

I finally stopped opening myself up to the following nonsense:

Me: "Oh he's 19 months old. Yea. Not walking yet. He'll get around to it"
Them: Nodding earnestly
Me: "Must be a procrastinator like his Mom!' awkward laugh
Them: The Speech.

You know the one.

OH all babies are DIFFERENT. They all do things AT THEIR OWN time and pace. It's NOTHING to worrry about. I mean. My baby starting walking when she was NINE MONTHS OLD, well running actually, HA HA so you should feel lucky....

Really?
REALLY?

Ugh. I totally deserve it actually. When BHB was just a tiny nugget and tucked into my chest in a Moby wrap, I met a family with a cute toddler person. They shared that he had just started walking at like 16 months or something, only finally crawled at 15 months. They looked stressed about it.

ME: Oh I hope this one does the same thing! That sounds about right...
THEM: Nodding earnestly.
(internal monologue) Really. REALLY?

CUT TO: Now.

AND I'm done with it.

I know, I know it's fine. He's fine. But it's just a bit of a drag honestly. He's got the skills, just not the willingness. But carrying him everywhere or doing the one handed walk is making my body hurt. Wah to the wah, right? As if I've got problems compared to I don't know, a real problem?

I just want him to feel the joy of running. And he will soon. And then I'll be sorry.

Leaning to the right,

The Natural

2010-09-14T23:11:00.000-07:00

It's so exciting to have a genius in the house!

I'm amazed that we got to figure out his calling so early. I mean, that's lucky right? The kid is only 17 months old and we already know his fate, and for once this didn't involve a call to the astrologer.

Yes, and by the title of my post you know I mean baseball. And besides, he kinda looks like a mini-Redford anyway, right?

Witness:

About to throw something. Run!

He's the nations next great pro-baseball pitcher. The next Nolan Ryan. (ahem. age myself much?) There is not a doubt in my mind about the greatness that is BHB's MLB career. Frankly I'm most excited about the various houses he's going to buy his loving, doting parents.

In the meantime? He's trying to kill us. More specifically, the brown dog.

We live in utter terror. He has the most amazing aim, and worse, his fastpitch is already coming in. It's a bit side-arm-ee but I think with the right coach he can perfect his form.

Today we pulled all toys that have any heft or sharp corners out of the toyboxes. I hate giving him his sippy cups because they are sure to be launched and provide heavy-plastic-water -filled danger that explode in both thud and wet. Thankfully he's started developing 'the look'. He cranes around me, looking for the brown target and when he's got the poor-pooch in his sight, there is a focus that comes over his face and is both eerie and helpful. That's my big chance to either remove or catch the missive. However if I happen to wander off to you know, cook, or pee or glance at my phone? No-one is safe.

Here's how it goes down:

SFX: Crashing plastic block, dog's nails skittering on wood floor as he escapes.
Me: "No Thank You, NO thank you, we do not throw blocks at Bongo"
BHB: Laughing hysterically.
Bongo: Skulking away
Me: You can throw a ball. Let's find a ball. Ohhhh Look a ball! You can throw this!
Me: Ducking

So other than this 'No thank you and let's find what you can throw' plan, do you guys have any other advice? I'm desperate.

I'll leave you with an image that I've put up here before. Anyone who has ever pitched a baseball can vouch for me here, he's got the perfect finger placement.

Gifted child.

Yours somewhere in-between terror and pride,

PS - The other day I tried to ignore dawn patrol by crawling back into bed with the boy and his morning bottle. Hubs snoozed away, and I got a few more winks as the milk went down. Bad idea. Upon completion cute hubs got the fast pitch at short range - literally a foot and a 1/2 away the bottle flew at his nose at full speed. Poor hubs. Not my proudest parenting moment either, as I carried the star player into the other room I asked him (in the not nicest way) what the eff he was thinking. Yea. So please help.

Cold Mountain

2010-09-09T12:03:00.000-07:00

Today we needed to do 400 things. But, as always, one of our main priorities was to get up and down or local mountain. I'm pretty sure mountain is a bit of an exaggeration. Ok fine! I'll check the definition.

In the Oxford English Dictionary a mountain is defined as "a natural elevation of the earth surface rising more or less abruptly from the surrounding level and attaining an altitude which, relatively to the adjacent elevation, is impressive or notable."

So great, in relative terms - land forms that rise 400' above Los Feliz should definitely be called a mountain. Or fine, it's a nice hill. And we go there daily to rise above it all, admire the smog-ee smogginess or just notice that all of those cars filled with angry people are really not going that far or fast, it's sweet how their nasty little honks can't affect us up there. It's a nice little bite of perspective on this sprawling city of angel sandwich.

In fact, getting up and down that hill has become so critical to my peace of mind that I call it sanity mountain. Which is dangerous because if I don't get there?

Yep. I'm total koo-koo-pants.

Sometimes I go up twice a day, like today. The first trip I pushed BHB up in the stroller. The 2nd trip he rode on my back. I know, I'm really, really special. And strong! But mostly, sane.

But the story I want to tell is the morning epic. In the AM cute hubs and I gathered our forces and our selves: brown dog, a big-headed baby with big hair, and the set of weary parents. We galloped out the door. Ahem. Limped? After the 10 minute car trip, the stroller was being set up at the base of the mountain (yep, I'm sticking with this mountain theory), and the transfer from car seat to stroller was taking place, a deeply disturbing fact was uncovered. Well, two.

1. A giant, foaming, overflowing poo diaper was in play.

2. The diaper bag with the nice wipes, clean diapers and other clean pants was woefully missing from the car.

What's a hike-needing family to do? Well, I remembered that there was one diaper in the stroller basket. Sure it was sorta crumpled and a little shredded but clean. And it exists.

Then! I remembered there was a buncha wipes in the back where the dog hangs out. Sure they were dried out and furry, but, wipes nonetheless.

Poor BHB. Perched in the back of the car filled with dog hair, he yelped while his little bum was swiped by dried out wipes. Yuck-a. And the fact that the pants were blown out with a smear of poo juice made us go:

"Forget it. Let's go home"

'Cause doing the white trash diaper only thing wasn't do-able, it was a cold morning.

So back the stroller goes into the car, dog coaxed back up, baby buckled in. However, upon spotting a cute striped long sleeve shirt on the floor of the car, I had a brilliant idea.

"Look! Upside down pants!"

I mean really. Why should poopy pants come between us and the mountain?

So, with a relatively clean butt, warm legs and the crows and distant skyline to keep him company, we took to the hill.
Mountain.
Hill.

Here is some of the fun with improv pants and the Ugg's we got at a shower that are clearly still too big.

Notice the far-away city...nothing that small can be that bad!

Checking out awesome boots. Witness the neck hole at the crotch.

The 2nd trip up looked like this. Mom = Sherpa

Improvisationally yours,

The Joy Luck Club

2010-08-22T23:38:00.000-07:00

I'm such a sucker for astrologers. And psychics. And mediums. Do you have access to some big cosmic picture book? Hotline to the goods?

I'm in.

I know what you're thinking....
Good thing you're in California Jane, it's so the place for you!
I know! And I'm glad we're staying.
(for now)

In case you are wondering what happened with the big move, basically a job situation we were counting on in Utah went away and another possible job situation opened here in LaLa Land. While nothing is solid or real and done or done in that job arena, we figured we'd better go with possibility rather than the not so much. Yep, it just seemed like we should stay. And so we did. Until we decide to go. And still we might. So how's that for non-committal? Welcome to my life!

But back to the stars. I recently saw an astrologer who told me that I have warring aspects. As a Capricorn, (sun sign) I am tied to the earthly pragmatic realms and ways and I have to work, work and plod along. My rising sign is Sagittarius which he said gives me the luck that often strikes and makes jobs appear out of the blue, or handsome soul mate, or super cool experiences that are so trippy and coincidental that most people are like NA-UH, you're so lying.
And I'm all NA-UH I am so not!

So my chart makes me a bit koo-koo because it makes it tough for me to determine whether I should just 'secret that shit' as my friend and I like to say, or work work work for a result. All that lucky juice makes me a little complacent, but since real life has been on the menu 24/7 lately - complacency ain't working. Of course we do get the magical whizbang wizardry that only a little person can bring, like his sudden and hugely hilarious laugh at a tiny antic I pull or his decision to put the butter from his toast into his hair as a moisturizer.

Blueberries are also an excellent face and hand moisturizer.

So what is my point? My point is that I'm hanging in the balance. That the waiting continues but I'm feeling much more comfy here on the precipice. I think this suspension that I've been strung out from the last five months or so has served the purpose of helping me to live between my warring aspects and do the foot work and trust the lucky stars.

And I should say that this book has helped me immensely. BHB pulled this off the shelf recently, it landed on my foot and opened to a page that said 'You do not have to make a choice'.

Really? Well shit howdy, that helps.

I read that chapter and have been reading it every night since, soaking up the wisdom and ease that her work brings me. Also my SIL (Sister in Law) reminded me in an email recently that I had given her this book years ago, and that I better get to the business of 'Loving What Is'. I guess the combo platter of baby luck and email-reality reminder has got me in good stead. And aspecting well.

Yours in search of (and finding some) inner peas,

PS - A dear friend told me today that she stopped seeing psychics and astrologers and the like and is now listening to her own still voice. How about that? She's inspired me however I'm really clear that I"m not there yet. Yet.

Year One

2010-08-17T11:46:00.000-07:00

Approximately one year ago (give or take 3 weeks) I began this blog. I didn't know what the hell I was doing, I just knew that my friend Stefanie Wilder-Taylor said I should. We had just met, I thought 'she's funny as hell and seems to have it together as a mom, I'll do whatever she says'. I know, that's ridiculous. In my defense I was sleep deprived, and she's pretty.

You: Dude, you are such a name dropper.
Me: I know. Sorry.

But I'm glad I did. And so I've been up here more or less consistently typing into the void of the interweb sharing my panic about this parenting thing, and my love of the tiny boy with the big head, the endless nights of sleepwalking, our shortfilm fundraising efforts which succeeded (woot!), a possible huge move out of the state (which isn't happening by the way), and the continual unfolding of realization that this choice we made to be parents just changes the whole playing field in ways I still don't fully understand.

The shockwaves run the gamut: finances, career, friendships, marriage, personal identity. For me it's been a bit extreme in such groundshaking, earthquaking ways that it looks like a crack the size of South Dakota and feels like the crushing loneliness I felt driving through that state when I was 20. I feel a little ridiculous by how thrown I am by this new life, and while it's definitely getting easier, glimmers of the existential angst remains.

But I'm here, and you know what? It's getting better and better. It's actually turning out to be an incredibly sweet life, and the likelihood is that the darkness I've seen this year is what brought me into this light. Sure the PPD fairy left her mark, but her fairydust doesn't choke me anymore, thankfully that little beyatch is flitting about more on the periphery.

So now that I've linked my way through some highlights of the year, I'll also share some faves that are unrelated. If you've got a minute or 14, wade on through...

* Cute hubs on our anniversary
*A big creepy fight outside our house
* A lovely moment of happiness during the holidays
* Sad (long) story of my brother's journey with schizophrenia
* During the movie review phase - Away We Go
* The birth story that I wrote in SWT's class. This was Take 2.

I'll leave you with this. One of the only ways cute hubs and I made it through the year is through knowing Larry and Linda - The Untroubled Couple. They are amazing and have a beautiful way navigating the stormy waters of love. Please watch the trailer for their webseries and become a follower. You won't regret it.

Untroubled and pretty happy about it,

PS - Link count: - 14 of my past posts and 2 other sites. That's a lotta linky!

PPS - Can't leave you without one pic of the BHB. This is his sign for Light.

Sunshine Cleaning

2010-08-12T21:20:00.000-07:00

Anyone seen this movie? I just netflixed it (the verb, to netflix) and I have mixed reviews on it. Basic premise is that two sisters start a cleaning company that cleans places where people die - be it through natural causes or otherwise. If it sounds sorta gruesome, it is. There is some heavy backstory about suicide, which is hard to watch this week due to an anniversary of a dear friend who left the planet that way five years ago. And that's not why I didn't love it. The main reason I was sans love is that I found it a little clunky in the dialogue department. It was a little "Hey! Here's how I'm feeling. Oh you didn't ask? Oh that's okay -let me tell you anyway, yes! Here comes a monologue!"

Ohmygod! It's just like blogging. Harumph. Well, that's a revelation. So here comes a monologue - even though you didn't ask.

This motherhood thing is for sure the craziest experience I've ever had. I've never been so simultaneously strung out and annoyed and enchanted and bored and overcome by love surges all the while wondering how I can make it to 7:30 pm. (aka: bedtime) and then miss the little sweetfaced dude when he's asleep. I mean, that is seriously koo-koo-pants. Can anyone relate?

Let me illustrate my little reality with a little story.

The other day I needed to go see a man about some shots in our short film that we are trying to fix up. The shots are not happy because of some evil combo platter that happened between our dolly speed, shutter angle, f-stop and craft service coffee chemistry. Basically the shot is a jumping, juddering mess and it's nobody's fault but I don't know, god. So there are these people who are like god's in fact that they have giant machines that might be able to use their fancy logarithms to fill in the frames and make this pretty, pretty shot live on in our opening sequence. Here is a still from it - you'll see why I want to keep it.

Scott Subiono as Jonathan in Nov 1st.

(I love how blue and sparkly the look is and the dolly move is pretty darn cool too).

So! I go to see the men about this moving picture. But as you all know, there is this little man who must accompany me in this meeting because, well, that's my life. Despite the fact that I need to go and act like a hot-shit professional to encourage said men with fancy machines to give us a screaming deal on their fixing skills, I need to first:

a) wait out the insanely long nap that would usually be welcome but of course made me late

b) change the poopy diaper that threatened to wipe me out of an entire case of wipes

c) figure out what a WAHM/Director chic wears and how to best accessorize with my son who will be strapped to my back. Here is a model wearing him as I did that day...

Kim Rhodes wears BHB in the Ergo on a recent hike. Good grief she is pretty. She is in our movie doncha know.

He of course felt it was important to bring a tennis ball in one hand and an adorable but rather large alpaca stuffed toy that sat right behind my right ear and mocked me the whole time. I cracked myself up doing the very literal dance of marching through the giant facility going on about my credits and blablah director me and why they should invest in me and our film by helping us out all the while hopping, bouncing and entertaining the boy by shaking my butt and getting him to giggle. Thankfully the nice man was a Dad but I'm not quite sure how he kept a straight face.

Two days later I don't know yet whether they can fix our broken shot, and also very importantly whether they think free-ish is a good price. But I do know that the women in the fancy, fancy lobby thought he was very cute and lil BHB thought the giant machines and beautiful theatre where they projected our movie was awesome.

Maybe these worlds can live together.

Your favorite SAHMDC,

The Girl In the Cafe

2010-07-10T00:40:00.000-07:00

This day, today, was sweet and fun and magical. And this day had some fun that exemplifies why I love where we live. One of about 113 reasons. In fact, I think I shall name them one by one in subsequent posts. Are we staying where we live you ask? Likely. Is it for sure? No. Is that fun? No. But I'm thinking the most positive thoughts that I have access to. (thank you Abraham)

Here is the story:

Today we met with one of the actors who is in our short film, Eddie Jones. Here is a truly delightful man, and holy crap is he talented. But I digress.

We met to have the lunch and provide a sharpie to him so that he may sign the still photos from our movie. Soon we will ship these out to our backers who paid above a certain level who get these cool still's from the movie with the fancy signatures. So there we were having our turkey burgers and laughing and Eddie was signing away while I drank bottomless iced tea.

Next to us was this a delightful man kept joining our conversation in an enjoyable rather than annoying way. Which as you can imagine is a tough line to walk, but he managed to. Turns out he is a writer who used to write on the TV show Becker. And since somehow Ted Danson had come up in the conversation, he piped in that Ted Danson happens to be a super swell guy - oh I know! Eddie performed with him on Cheers, no wait. We have to go back....

Because somewhere along the way delightful writer dude (we'll call him) somehow mentions that the gentleman who was until just a few minutes ago sitting next to him, is the guy who wrote The Deer Hunter.

Yes, The Deer Hunter! That is some iconic shit y'all!

So that's impressive of course but then it had also surfaced that Eddie worked with Robert Redford on the film Sneakers. Eddie played a bad guy but in turn said that Redford was just a lovely, approachable guy. Ok, I know I overuse lovely - so you know - I'm aware. Perhaps we were having the 'which celebs are lovely and approachable' conversation?

Which is what got us to Ted Danson but then, THEN! Deer Hunter dude walks back in and is just so hilarious and charming and I don't know, old hollywood in that 'What picture did we work on together?' way. (Back then it wasn't a movie, it was a picture). As we were all being introduced to him there was some music playing and it somehow made sense that he would grab the nearest woman to spin her around and they do a little dance and at the time I think he knows her, but no, actually -not so much. Honestly that bit doesn't go so well, her purse sorta whacked him in the chest but huge kudos for effort, right?

By then the whole room of this little cafe is engaged in this sparkly and fun conversation and you couldn't spot on unsmiling face for miles. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that somewhere along this timeline Morgan Fairchild walks in and DWD (delightful writer dude) says hello to her and she says hello back and holy kee-rap does she look good and I'm going whoa dude, this is fun stuff.

So THEN! As we're leaving with our little blond shortie who is of course receiving his own celebrity treatment for being so round-eyed and quiet and a great eater of hummus, and Deer Hunter dude and his posse of Old Hollywood are all outside and all say goodbye with winks and sparkling blue eyes and 'Hello my name is Howard'. At that point I'm restraining myself from saying Howard Who? Dish it! I've got to IMDB you on my iphone on the way home.

But I wasn't going home, I was going to my friends studio where he performed some visual effects magic to fix a little shadow situation in our movie. Which is why it's 12:15 am and due to this crazy lil day, I'm still buzzing. That and the iced tea.

Your starry eyed friend,

PS - Below is a couple of pictures of Eddie on our set. Just a lovely, delightful man. (kinda went for it with my favorite overused words)

Eddie Jones, over Scott Subiono's shoulder

Eddie Jones and Jennifer Nicole Lynn

Toy Story 3

2010-07-02T00:53:00.000-07:00

Oh Pixar, why are you so great?

I've loved you since the beginning Pixar, long before you got so cool with your little lamp hopping in 3-d. I got how brilliant and talented and amazing you were long before you did this on again off again romance with Disney. I mean, I get it - that mouse is cute in those red pants and who doesn't love a castle? But if you wanted to be with someone really devoted, you'd be with me.

JESUSAGECHRIST this is an awesome movie! Anyone else see it? Since my mom has left town movies out are no longer really part of the plan, unless one of us sneaks off while the other one hangs at home. As it was tonight. We've had a wicked rough couple of days that involve, uh, well - that involve stuff that can't be discussed on the internet much - let's just say it's a combo platter of wrenching anxiety mixed with crushing disappointment and some betrayal thrown in the mix. Delightful.

So I took myself out tonight. Dammit, that's what I did.

First stop - sushi dinner. Perfect alone meal, me and the sushi chefs laughing and relating while I throw back some Sake and beer and delicious fish. Or it might have looked a little more like me relating with my iPhone, some perrier with lemon and a very annoyed sushi chef enduring my 'handroll no rice' order.

Sushi chef: Everything okay?
Me: Yea, sure. Thanks!
Sushi chef: Yea but everything okay?
Me: (confused)
Random person next to me: He wants to know if you don't want rice on everything.
Me: Yes please. No rice.
Sushi chef: No rice on everything.
Me: Please. No rice. Thank you so much.

Me: looking like asshole because I didn't understand him.
Him: Annoyed.

How did I get okay from no rice? Jeasus.

Next stop, therapy~! Hooray! I do enjoy beating the crap out of the couch and screaming my head off. It's seriously good times.

Last and final - Toy Story 3 for some laughing and crying (not kidding) and delicious popcorn at the Arclight where they use real butter don't you know. Those people at the Pixar really know how to tell a story and they have the technoweenie wizardry to back them up. Luckily there were some good laughers there in the late night showing, so I didn't feel alone in my belly laughing or the sniffling.

That is - my friends - one of the best g'damn movies I've seen in a long time. Screw the animation category, they should win it all next year at the Oscars.

Here are some pictures that have absolutely nothing to do with this post. It's an argument for taking the kid out to dinner though, he was a blast this day at a Thai restaurant where he pounded vegetable curry and cucumber salad. He's a fantastic eater and I'm gloating while I can. I know, karma works fast.

Your friend in the appreciation business,

PS - Thanks for your comments about my lil' green facelift - appreciate it! I'm probably going to be fancing this place up somemore soon, stay tuned.

Midnight Cowboy

2010-06-28T01:25:00.000-07:00

Ugh.

I so relate to this blogger who recently pulled her blog down (I panicked because I love her blog) and then put it back up and just had herself a little existential crisis about it. I truly get that.

Recently I've had so much crushing uncertainty and strangeness mixed with the euphoria of possibilities back to plummeting panic (all with regards to the move) that I think..."Who wants to read about that? Who really cares?" Plus what can I ACTUALLY talk about without either getting into trouble with someone or over-sharing or just hovering in this in-between space that is clearly boring because without detail, what the hell can you read about?

Nada.

So you've noticed.

We might not move. At least right now. It's still unclear and we're supposed to leave in a month. This has been the weirdest chunk of a life I tell you, it's crazy, wacky, nutty times. Long story short - some of the facts shifted, an opportunity opened here - a job went away there - and while that seems like enough information to make it obvious what we should do, it just isn't.

I repeat, ugh.

So let's talk about the short film, shall we?

It's almost done!

Our editor is here right now at 12:30 am and he's finishing the cut before he leaves the country for three weeks. He's been such a ridiculous gift of a person...Cheerful. Kind. Talented. He comes to us and works out of our home so we can be productive and be parents. How lucky, right?
Through a friend we found an amazing motion graphics person who just kicked ass and made us an amazing opening title sequence.
Our composer also killed it.

Three talented guys! Rushing alongside us and our ridiculously cute one year old toward the goal of completion!

So inside of these three (ok six) months of Are we moving? Are we staying? What can be done? What should be done? Should we do the financial program of that Christian dude who's got those nice white people going 'I'm debt free'? Should we go back to relying on the Secret? Why is the weather so great here?

This film has been a beacon of sweet and sanity and good. And it's almost done. And hopefully along with it's completion will also come a new place of knowingness and clarity for our little family. We can only hope.

Producers as Performers, Director - your bloggess, Writer as Cow

Yours in sweet confusion that only 70 degree weather can make ok,

Kickass

2010-06-09T23:33:00.000-07:00

So if you're like me, you occasionally need a break from your existence. And if you're like me, you don't drink. (not likely...but quick shout out to my girls in the hot chics who drink perrier club!) So if you're anything like me, you'd think sneaking off to go see a movie with friends on a Wednesday night would be just the thing.

But here's where the trouble starts.

beloved friend: we're going to see Kickass at the 3 dollar theatre.
me: Oh that looks good. But. I just read on flixter that it's pretty gratuitous in the violence department.
beloved friend: oh I haven't heard that.
my inner voice: don't do it, not worth it.
me: Cool - sure, sounds good.
inner voice: go see How to Train Your Dragon! Hubs would never watch it with you. You love animation. You can't WAIT to see Toystory 3. Why risk it?
me: what time does it play?

I hate violent movies. I violently hate violent movies. I can't watch the murderous mayhem, it churns my guts and makes me just shake. So thanks to my unfortunate ignoring of the very articulate and clear inner voice, tonight I landed myself at an incredibly violent movie.

And I'm still shaking.

There was a ton of redeeming stuff about it, in terms of production value, ideas, acting even. The parts I watched anyway, most was watched from behind my hands or with averted eyes. Perhaps it was a very good movie, but I hated it with every cell in my overly sensitive body. Afterwards I went into the badly lit pink bathroom of the 2nd run theatre and had a good cry.

I cannot reconcile this experience sometimes, I don't know how to do this. How do you raise a kid in a world where we think it's funny or charming or fun to watch an 10 year old girl kickass with every weapon known to human kind? And I"m a fan of dark comedy, I get that, but I'm still just blown away (bazooka to the chest) that our society thinks it's neat to make a super action killer character out of a little girl. It's disgusting. And, y'all know me, I'm not one of those Mom's who wants to censor the world or what not - but SERIOUSLY - how is this okay?

One of the scenes played just like a video game, I lost track of the body count. To which I say, video games harumph. I don't play them. I don't want the boy to play them. Ever. Certainly not the gun-ee or goreee ones. How can I protect him from that? It's so ubiquitous. I'm so screwed here people. In fact today there was a war of sorts just beyond the sweetness of our font porch. Seven kids ranging in age from 4-9 were battling it out with orange and green machine guns. Foam pellets flying. The sweet 8 year old girl who comes by to walk brown dog was at the forefront with her big, creepy, cute colored gun. And what's even more upsetting? She looks like she knows how to carry the damn thing. As if I know what that looks like.

As we drove home I thought about his sweet blonde head asleep in the crib. The sound of the ocean plays in his room and tiny little butt is pushed up in the air under a crocheted blanket his grandmother made for him. In the morning we will pick him up and he will smile his blindingly sweet smile at us. His white soft arms will wrap around us, he may touch my cheek with an open palm as he's done lately. We'll read him books about a little red barn with all of the animals, nothing about the genetically modified crops in the fields or the terrible slaughtering practices in the other barn. Or the killing going on in theatre's nationwide. I don't know how to reconcile the worlds.

But on the porch I saw the battle going by while the little one joyfully yelped and barked the sounds of learning a language. At least I could just inhale his sweet baby skin and dream of the billions I could make if there was some way to bottle his smell.

(what I see when I am lying on the padded porch with the BHB - this is sorta cliche California, right?)

sweet faced dude

Here are some sun-soaked porch pictures. Today was the first day I saw him successfully stack the legos himself. Clearly the kid is a genius.

And I prayed he didn't notice the guns, no doubt he'll ask me for one soon.

Yours in-between worlds,

Do The Right Thing

2010-06-04T00:03:00.000-07:00

Everytime I think - 'Ok, it's time. It's time to let go of the naming the posts after movies thing' a BRILLIANT title of a post appears in my mind that happens to be the name of a movie. And in this case a great movie. Boy there are too things at work there. Humility and a dastardly misspelling. Of course I meant two, not too. Jesus!

OK!

I'm in a 'do the right thing' kinda moment. And I'm going to be honest, I'm not really having fun.

Today I was changing BHB on the changing table - which is hard to do because he likes to squirm and crawl away making it completely precarious and frightening due to the 3 feet above the ground thing. And annoying! Especially where there is poo involved. So we've tried several solutions including moving the whole operation to a safe distance from the floor - ie; the floor. Or reasoning with him. (which is going great, thanks!) Or just telling him 'tough kid, lay still' - which usually makes him do the terrorist scream. You know the one? It's the 'someone is trying to kill me' scream that we often hear around PJ time. I expect child services to show up at our door any day, I'm sure our neighbors have the number on speed dial.

So I've taken a new tack. I tell him firmly and with a smile that he has to lay still for this part (the diaper part) but then I am more game for him moving around for the clothing part. That way the poo situation is mildly under control and he can 'help' me put his clothes on. I'm not saying this is completely successful yet, far from it. It's just the plan. (go ahead - laugh). But it's worked like twice and so I'm a believer. Especially if I can have any sense of humor at all about it, he is much more amenable to it.

Wait! I'm getting to my point. Here it comes.

So I was trying this new system and saying something to him along the lines of....

"Sometimes things in life aren't fun but its non-negotiable. This is one of those things. Like Mommy has to clean the bathroom. She doesn't want to, but she does it. And so you will lie still during diaper time little dude, and I hear that you are frustrated. I HEAR THAT YOU ARE FRUSTRATED! I"M SORRY YOU ARE FRUSTRATED BUT SOME THINGS ARE NON-NEGOTIABLE..."
(obviously he is screaming so I have to bring up my empathy to a higher volume)

And I thought, oh crap. Now I have to clean the bathroom.
But then I did it. And I felt better!

But to that end it's time to start packing without doing the wah-wah poor me terrorist scream. This move is 'the right thing' for so many reasons. We need to be near family. We need to lower our costs. The boy needs to know his grandmother (cute hubs mom), and she needs to know him. It's the right thing! And no I'm not comparing moving out of LA to cleaning to the bathroom, but I'm guessing I will feel better when it's done.

Moving date: August 1. Now all I need is some good 'moving' themed movie titles for future blog posts. Oh and any advice on the whole diaper-scream-change time would be awesome too.

Yours in 'the A word' (acceptance),

PS - In case you are wondering, I am reading all kinds of inspirational and uplifting 'change is good, accept all to be free, what you resist, persists' kind of . It still doesn't change that I LOVE the house we are living in and I love this damn town. I'm just sayin'.

PPS - Sorry for the re-run from FB but omg I love this misty morning photo. It's total crap quality from my iPhone and likely the tiny grubby fingers pushing the lens is what created this effect but, yea. It really makes me happy...

Bewitched

2010-05-28T00:16:00.000-07:00

So.

Today I went to a super bitchin' coffee shop here in the LA area called Swork. There is an umlaut. I do not know how to create an umlaut. If you're curious, I linked you up, follow at will. If you didn't, just imagine the two dots adorning the w. Which is weird, right? Don't umlaut's usually live on vowel's? The exciting part about Swork is not it's odd lil' name, it's that it features a sweet little play area for shorties. Complete with endless blocks and other goodies, it's pure awesome I tell you. But I digress, as I often do.

So I'm walking into this place to meet a dear, dear friend and her almost 3 year old dude and I'm doing the purse/diaper bag/22 pound baby juggle so I'm a little out of breath and off kilter. Not that it's a good excuse, but there it is.

I see this dude on a go-cart scooting up the sidewalk. He's on a go-cart! Going 20! On the sidewalk! But what's more interesting is that the dude is like 45. But not an interesting 45, more like a frat boy all growed up 45. So I'm thinking something like this....

"OK dude, you are WAAAAYYY too old to be driving a go-cart".

I mean, wouldn't you?

But that's the problem. It was kind of a mean spirited (ok quite) thought and I'm not usually such a person as this. But there I was all juggley and judgey and I swear to you the following happened. As I walked by the guy said to me:

"I know, I'm too old".

Drat!
So busted!

So I sorta laugh and turn toward him and I'm about to apologize for what I said except that I quickly realize that I didn't actually say anything so instead I offer a halfhearted apology in the form of a laugh-turn-and-acknowledge as I stumble by with the unreasonable load of crap and cute hanging off my shoulders and arms.

I ask you - is nothing sacred? Is my bad mood private thinking no longer an option? If every thought I think is out for public consumption (um hello, the fact that I'm putting this on a blog is not lost on me, I know I'm ridiculous) I'm seriously in trouble.

I'm going to try to live tomorrow as a transparent mind. It will be a delightful experiment and I will share the results. But here is a little sampling from today:

"This June gloom matches my mood beautifully. Sure I hate everyone and everything but at least this diffused lighting is flattering on all of us."
"I love my friends, they are ridiculously great. I'm annoyed at their greatness. Will I ever find new friends this great?"
"Good grief this is a cute kid. I love his soft white limbs, they are like white bread. Umm, white bread."

and other hits.

And finally, I'll leave you with the reason I love facebook. Today I posted this quote from The Prophet by Kahil Gilbran.

“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain. And could you keep in your heart the miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy. And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields. And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief."

and got this response.

To proceed very far through the desert, you must be willing to meet existential suffering and work it through. In order to do this, the attitude toward pain has to change. This happens when we accept the fact that everything that happens to us has been designed for our spiritual growth.— M. Scott Peck

And two things happened. I thought, how weird! I'm moving to the desert. And then I thought. And there must be a higher reason. But you probably knew that's what I was thinking.

Cloak and Derwood,

PS - Here is a little spot of joy from my afternoon yesterday.

7 Year Itch

2010-05-25T00:43:00.000-07:00

The longest I've ever lived in one spot is 8 years. 1st grade through 8th grade I lived in Texas. Houston, y'all, it was awesome.

Runner up? Seattle for 7 years. Next runner up? This current beautiful and ridiculous city for 7 years. Perhaps the constant movement of my childhood has set up this little timer in my gut that goes off and rattles my brain and my life and off I go.

St Louis, 6. San Diego, 5. And then there was that Florida adventure - 6. I'm not saying when what happened but I think what I'm really missing when you look at the US map is the northeast.

My foot n' shadow. Perceptions aren't always accurate. Something to think about...

The move from Houston to Florida was the hardest. I had finally gotten to be one of the cool kids, finally shook off my uncool-fat-kid-rep and was sorta popular. FINALLY for effin' sake, why would parents move a little girl out of such a precarious spot as the teetering of actual popularity? And then make her to go to a filled-in swamp for high school and start over? Oh sure, Houston was a swamp too, that's an interesting thing to note. They promised to buy me a horse. They didn't do it. But bribe's work man - not that I had a choice.

Anyway, I'm feeling a lot like that little 13 year old girl right now. I mean, we are finally making some headway with our dream here - (our film is coming along swimmingly, thanks for asking) and I have many dear friends that I love so much it hurts my heart to even pack a box. I've had a headache for two days from too much crying. (or perhaps it's caffeine issues, can't be sure)

But the bets are going down now for how long we can stay away. The shortest I've heard is 6 months, someone else suggested a year. I predict we'll come back in 5-6 years, but you know, what the hell do I know? I'm just the one renting the moving truck.

I just want to be settled when BHB gets to school age. It's only fair.

13 going on 39,

sweet dreams

2010-05-20T22:21:00.000-07:00

I want to be good. I want to be layered with subtext and make tiny choices with big consequences. I want to be inspirational to smaller girls and lucid old people with twinkling eyes. I want to do something extraordinary - really extreme. Like those crazy Olympians. Yet I want to do it in a small ordinary way.

I think of the filmmakers who made Once. Have you seen that movie? It was a small undertaking that turned into an extraordinary thing. It's magical, and the title track to the soundtrack makes me sob without fail.

Like a David Whyte poem. Like this poem.
I pasted it below too....

I don't need need fancy dresses, I dress like a teenage boy in real life, why pretend and wear other people's dresses? (I'm thinking of the Oscar's of course). I just want to be grace and love and magic personified. I want to drop all of my bad habits, negative thinking and random bullshit that y'all have surely noticed over the last 3/4 year but have granted me pardon because I'm funny at times or my kid is too cute to pass up. I'm guessing anyway. Is that it?

Can you tell I'm working in a 'dream board' this week? I'll have to scan it and share it like a big old geeky crafty scrapbooker when I'm done.

I've got to get some vision back into this picture as it's gotten a dangerously dark and gloomy around the edges. As it is, that big ol' life change I've been threatening to dish about has finally come to pass in an official way. Our tenure in Los Angeles is coming to a close, this little family is moving east to be near cute hubs family. So the thing in the box over there to the left? About leaving LA for free babysitters? It's happening.

We're moving to Utah. I hope the saints are nicer to outsider's in 2010 than they were in the 1840's. Hub's family is delightful and not a part of that scene (for the most part), but that part of the equation is an x factor that makes me uncomfortable. I'm reading Under the Banner of Heaven, which it turns out, isn't a great idea. But it is a great book.

I love LA in an unreasonable way, mostly because of the people who I love here. And the sun I love here. And the way people dream big here.

For the record I'm going to keep dreaming big up there in the valley near Park City, I just have to do it in the snow. (shudder)

So for now I'll leave you with this poem that a dear friend of mine sent me in an email six years ago. She didn't stick around the planet for long after she sent it to me, I think this kind of living is hard to do. But I love this poem and her memory in the same fierce way.

Heavy hearted-ly yours,

Self Portrait

It doesn't interest me if there is one God
or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel
abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need
to change you. If you can look back
with firm eyes
saying this is where I stand. I want to know
if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living
falling toward
the center of your longing. I want to know
if you are willing
to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.
I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of God.

-- David Whyte
from Fire in the Earth
©1992 Many Rivers Press

Working Girl (2)

2010-05-10T22:30:00.000-07:00

Sometimes motherhood knows no bounds in it's ability to bring me to my knees. Literally.

Imagine this.

You're at some work function, it's the type of thing that features a sea of featureless faces and fancy graphics flying around giant screens, stage lighting, and funny but wince worthy videos. Anyone live in corporate land and know what I'm talking about?

So let's ignore that it doesn't make sense that I'm there. Let's just let that go for now. Let's just say that it's an old day job that came up and I'm happy to be there.

Back to you. So you're there, the place is filled with thousands of people, but most of them are men. I'd say 80%. And before you go all 'Samantha' on me and think that the numbers sound good, I'll tell you that the actual numbers of the men you'd like to see their face is 10%. So the ratio isn't that special.

But the point of the above paragraph is that you're happy about it because there are never lines in the restrooms. Like at hockey events. And you go in and no one is there but in one stall you see a pair of black boots that are facing the wrong way. That's odd. And you hear a toilet repeatedly flushing, like back to back to back. And again. And these boots are there, the owner is squatting and time is passing but you don't hear anything. By now you expect to hear the telltale wretching of the night before gone wrong, but you don't hear that. Instead you just hear the tiny splish splish splash of tiny squirts of some petite liquid hitting the water.

Do you know what it is?

If you're a mom you're going to guess faster.

And if you guessed milk,
you're right!

Silly me, I thought we were more or less weaned. Silly me I thought it was fine to go on this business trip without the pump. Silly me, I was wrong, wrong, wrong.

Leaning over the toilet is something I used to do alot when I drank too much. So my face too close to porcelain today was all too familiar. But there was something even more sad and pathetic about the grown woman squatting and squirting with vigor into a churning tank because the damn auto-flush function was in overdrive so I was occasionally getting splashed in the face thinking are you effin' kidding me with this!? all the while wondering what the nice lady who is always there to ensure that the place is super shiny is thinking as she paces by. Meanwhile I"ve GOT to get back in there to work but it's also critical I commit time to this activity I don't get a plugged duct or something horrifying.

And I so desperately miss the little creep who's fault this is. The physical pain is a helpful place to put the heartache I feel. I'm guessing the person who decided the dates of this event is a man and maybe not even a Dad because I had to fly away from the sweet little giant headed baby on Mother's day - before he or the sun even awoke. Which sucked.

But skulking past the bathroom lady 6 or 7 times today enduring her dirty looks and figuring out which of the 18 stalls the auto flush is mercifully broken and wondering what bladder trouble I needed to invent for my co-workers and trying desperately to find a pump but deciding that it was too expensive was how I spent my day. And I thought y'all might get a kick out of the story.

Looking a LOT like a porn star,

PS - I took these pictures yesterday as everyone prepared for the onslaught of people today. I think they perfectly captured how I felt after flying across the country away from my boy for the first time. I was so profoundly alone. These chairs and tables are lonely and beautiful little flowers.

Eat, Pray, Love

2010-05-05T00:42:00.000-07:00

I loved this book. I know, me and 14 trillion other ladies. The movie is coming out soon. I'm anxious about it, I saw the trailer and - uh-boy. I don't remember a best friend that she confides in all the time from the book, do you? They invented a confiding best friend and that makes my heart sink.

A couple years ago around the time it was becoming the ginourmaous massive hit it was to become, one of my BF's and I went to hear Elizabeth Gilbert speak. She was on tour with Annie Lamott and I thought boy is that worth the 50 bucks or whatever it was - these were two amazing women breathing the same air. And this is BEFORE I read Operating Instructions, I thought I loved Annie Lamott from Bird by Bird but I had not idea that I loved her as deeply as it turns out I do.
But I digress.

Eat, Pray, Love. What an amazing journey. Such unbearably beautiful writing. I love her voice. I love her. I love her talent and guts and her unbearably beautiful writing. She is worthy of idolizing, and, clearly - I do it.
And,
I don't think Julia Roberts should've played her.

There, I said it.

I don't.
I'm sure no one had a choice in the matter. But, let me tell you who should have played Elizabeth Gilbert in this movie that is DOOMED to fail because holy crap we all love this book too much and there's no way, just no way that a 95 minute movie is going to take us on the ride it needs to to even for a second give us a glimpse of the page turning goodness.

So yes, here is who it is.
Kate Winslet.
Am I right? I'm so right.

Oh dammit, I just googled that combo and I see that I'm not the first to come up with this. I'm sure everyone else said the same thing. Julia Roberts? Really? No! It should be...Kate. or Laura Linney. That's a great idea too.

Anyway, the point of all of this is that I just finished re-reading EPL and it totally inspired me. Not to leave my husband and go on a soul searching journey, but to stay with my husband and tiny tot and go on a soul searching journey. I think I'd call my version Sweet, Play, Love.

God bless me and my cheesy ways but I need to make that my mantra. What else is there really? That little boy shows me these all the time. His sweetness overflows in the little fountain of joyful squeals, fast crawling toward our waiting arms, and in his sweet smelling hair. If I actually sit and play with him, we find each other. We bonded today over the moving of the big legos from this bin to the other spot. He stared into my eyes and laughed at my random observations. He's like a little alien who doesn't speak the language but gets it more than anyone I've ever met. And love? As you know, it's all we need. My damn cute husband is a walking lovebomb - when I stop and focus there instead of 18 other places, I hear birds and notice good lighting. So - when I come back to those things, along with the gratitude I have for the health we have, the love of friends and family, that hummingbird that was hanging around this afternoon - I can't get all freaked out by the future and all the stuff I'm freaked out by.

Although, frankly, I'm kinda freaked out.
The trouble with coming out of the movie coma I'm faced with reality and it's a bit daunting.

Towards the end of EPL she talks about this time that she went to an island alone for a week and sat in solitude and silence and faced down her fears. She literally sat still, watched the feelings come and go and then invited her fears, shame and hurt into her heart. I have never heard of anything so brave. I was so moved when I read this, it floored me. Again let me tell you - she sat STILL inside of squirmy awful feelings and let them move through her - and then she INVITED them into her heart. Who does that? Seriously? Rockstars. Not real ones, I use that as a complimentary term. She's my hero.

So there you go. A little sass and sap for you on a Tuesday night, as I continually try to talk myself down from the freak out and back to the SPL.

Your memoir writing mama wanna-be,

PS - Here's some eat play love - stop it with the cuteness, right?

The boys making the birthday cake for the belated birthday party. Not sugar of course, sweetened with maple syrup...

Birth Story - Take 2

2010-04-30T13:43:00.000-07:00

For the last two months I've been taking this amazing writing class from Stefanie of Baby on Bored. Every week a bunch of funny, talented cool chics gathered - got instruction, wrote for a chunk of time and then read our work aloud. It was so damn fun, I'm truly bummed it's over. I'll be putting up some of the fruit of that labor in coming days, but speaking of labor - I want to share a new draft of the birth story that I put up here a few weeks ago.

So to be clear - LCD regs, you've read a version of this story back here. I'm re-posting it because I've spent hours and hours and HOURS rewriting and editing it, and then in a bold move performed it at the staged reading the other night that was the culmination of the class. I swore to myself I wouldn't cry in the telling, and then I did.

Ah well.

This one is 1000 words less than last time, if you're up for it, see what you think....

----------------

“Stop it! Stop yelling at me! Please stop. I just can’t have that right now. It’s not
helpful.”

A hush falls over the room, but I keep up the stinkeye. I’m guessing it’s not very
often that the flushed, sweaty, very fat lady squatting in the middle of the bed yells
at the help.

She says,
“I don’t think I was yelling”.

I say, “You were definitely yelling”.

It won’t be long now before another crushing combo platter of pressure, pain and
pinch will arrive along with the need to bear down. We need to get through this
little discussion fast.

“I wasn’t yelling” she repeats a little under her breath and turns on her heel. I have
time to think, did she just turn on her heel? She’s gone and here I go again.

I’m wild, I’m swinging my head. The wave is back and I’ve got a job to do. Fuck her
and her yelling ways. Fuck that noise and fury. Now I’m the one making it.

I squint my eyes into slits and push my legs up on the bar. Holding up the blue
sheet in an effort to give me some dignity is both useless and pointless, but god
bless that sweet nurse for trying. I bear down and think. Damn. I’m pushing so
hard. I really hope poop isn’t coming out. That’s pretty gross. I don’t think poop is
on my birth plan.

Ah, the birth plan. According to it, right now I’m home in warm water giving birth in
one of those tubs you see in Youtube videos. I’m the picture of serenity and grace,
my husband swabbing at my head with a warm washcloth. No wait, is he in the tub
with me? Is he wearing anything? What did we ever decide about that? Of course I
won’t be wearing anything in the birthing tub but is it weird if he doesn’t wear
anything? Maybe a speedo?

A contraction only lasts between :30 and :90 seconds but it might as well be the
staging of War and Peace. It finally ends and I slowly catch my breath. I gather the
sheet around my puffy legs and stare out the giant plate glass window. The sun
came up some time ago, what the hell time is it? More to the point, what day?
We’re going on hour 54 of labor, for me time and space have given up and are
making out in the corner.

My midwife comes into view, the one I hired for my fantasy homebirth. Her white
turban blends with the blownout bright morning light behind her. She is concerned.

“Jane, you’re going to need to play by their rules here. You’ve been pushing for
three hours now. If you want to avoid...”

She trails off here.

The knife. The knife is the end of her sentence. I don’t have the heart to glare at
her. Her face is too kind. My heart is too tired.

“I suggest that you really try to be accommodating. Let them guide you, perhaps
some extra coaching will help.”

“I don’t want yelling” I weakly assert.

The key yeller marches back in the room, followed closely behind by the physician.
“You’re not pushing effectively,” says the mean midwife. Mean midwife, it’s an
oxymoron, I know. I was driven forty-five minutes across town in screaming labor
to this particular hospital so I could stay under midwife care, and the result is that I
get the mean one. I glare at her squatty form.

The physician takes over.

“Now, I’m going to help you focus your efforts by keeping my hand here during the
contractions.” By ‘here’, she means on his little head which is coming down
sideways. And when I say ‘on his head’, you’ve likely gotten to the right image. Up
the Vajay. I’d squirm but really, why bother? At this point I’ve lost track of how
many people have had their hand there. Too bad I didn’t charge for admission.

In our birthing class, we watched all of these videos of waterbirths. The woman
would be all ohh and ahhh and then at some point a face muscle would twitch like
maybe she’s having a small orgasm and then a baby would pop in between her
legs. A tiny upside down face would suddenly appear there, squinting in the watery
world.

I watched with avid interest. That’s going to be me! I thought. That’s so totally
going to be me! When the birthing coach discussed the epidural I waddled off in
search of more snacks. When she talked about a fetal monitor that attaches to the
baby’s head I scoffed. And pitocin?. Oh no, that won’t be me. Totally. Not me.

Stranded on the hospital bed, the shiny floors are a sparkling sea miles below me. I
am on a barge with sheets and I use the pushing bar to row. I hang up my
birthplan like a sail, its navigation powers are useless against the tide of medical
madness. Pitocin – check. Epidoural – check. And the fetal monitor attached to his
tiny head? Check. Right now surrender looks like me in bad lighting and a gaping
hospital gown.

So I push. And I push. And. PUSH. The physician's hand is there. Her curly head
shakes back and forth as I bear down. They yell, I don’t care anymore. It’s a wash
of sound and wonder, light and shaking muscle.

I am raw and exposed, there is not a single shard of dignity left. My self capital S is
no longer part of the equation, my body is just a powerful machine that’s in heavy
use. The constant pain has become irrelevant. And though that epidural has long
since worn off, I’m still attached to the end of it like a dog on a leash.

So I’m pushing out a person. This important fact has faded into the blur of the long
anxious minutes. What I know for sure is that I will never be the same. I will never
walk the same. I will never have the same fears. I will never wonder if I am strong.

Now my friend runs around the room weeping and brandishing my camera. She
yell’s He’s coming! He’s coming! I can see his little head!

And now he’s crowning. Jesus, ouch.

And then nothing.

We’re between contractions - I guess we’ll be hanging out here. This is what they
call the ring of fire.

In this extended, stretched moment I take a look around. It’s an unreasonably
bright room filled with people I don’t know. There is not a candle in sight. Sure my
friend has the ipod going and Yo Yo Ma is cranking out the Bach, but that’s the end
of the sweetness. The population doubles when a team of dudes shuffle in with
their eyes averted. Apparently there was meconium in the water, (which is an
indicator of fetal distress) so these guys have first dibs on him. All scrubbled up,
they await his arrival across the shiny floor.

I'd heard of the 'ring of fire' - I believed it would be accurate name. And I won't go
on here but suffice it to say it is a fine, fine name and the fire is 1000 angry wasps.

In the next contraction he comes out in a gush. I don't know much about it because
I can't see anything. I have pushed so hard that my eyes are rendered useless –
they are only registering fuzzy forms in white. I’m now looking through the lens of
an impressionist painting, perhaps this is for the best.

He is quickly ripped away and flown across the sea into their waiting hands. I am
left there - stranded in the tangled sheets and blood. I have just turned my guts,
heart and other parts inside out in an effort to bring this guy onto the planet - and
now he belongs to them: medical science.

A team of gloved hands rapidly scrub him as plastic tubes descend deep into his
throat and very being. My dear husband stands by and watches helplessly. Our tiny
infant is being manhandled like a car in a car wash without the water.

3 minutes slowly pass.

He isn’t breathing and neither are we. The air feels heavy, like the moments before
a thunderstorm. Alone on my island I watch the storm approach and I wonder. I am
curious. I am quiet. For me it’s white light and blur and the pound of my heartbeat
in my head.

Finally we hear a raspy cry. A cheer goes up in the crowd.

My midwife insists that he flies back to my chest. I guess this is a little tip of the
hat to my original dreamy birth plan. The trouble is that it's an old idea and I'm not
sure how to get back to her, or back to that warm water. My hands are heavy
flippers as I try unsuccessfully to comfort this little being who is bound and perched
on my chest. His little mouth yawns open and closed with a weak cry. I join him.

56 hours. I did that dance with the force of nature designed to bring human life to
the world for 56 hours.

I know in my heart of hearts that nature knows best, that a tub of water or a pile of
hay is a perfectly fine place to land a baby. But that wasn’t the way it went for us.
Nature took us to a hospital.

And was it okay? It was. Because he was okay.

And my body won’t bear a scar from a knife. Of course there are endless other
scars and gifts that come from moving through the hardest thing I’ve ever endured
cheered by strangers, the sparkling sea, my husband and Yo Yo Ma.

Pictured below - Boy in the NICU with Dad on day one of life.

Poppy

2010-04-25T23:09:00.000-07:00

Did you know that Poppy's require sunlight to open their flashy orange petals? And not just daylight, direct sunlight?

I didn't either. Last week as we were recovering from the shoot we wanted to do something special with Grandma before hubs went back to full time work. We went up to the Poppy fields not far from here and discovered the above fact. Sunlight req'd.

But I got some cute pictures anyway.

( I should also add that it was damn 45 degrees, no-one was prepared for that. Grandma held onto the boy to stay warm...)

Even closed they are pretty cool.

Flashy poppy love to you,

Living in Oblivion

2010-04-22T00:17:00.000-07:00

Helllloooo Racefans!

I have never in my blogging career - (right, all nine months of it) - been gone so long. It was so sad! I missed you people. I missed my incessant checking of Sitemeter and that hopeful check of my email in my constant longing for your comments. I missed reading all of your blogs (boy do I have some catching up to do) and obsessively word smithing mine.

But I'm back and I'm ready to dish.

I've been in a make a movie cave for the last weeks, it's simultaneously a very fun and painful place. It's like that trash compacter that they land in in the middle of Star Wars. I'm surrounded by soupy trash, the walls are closing in and yet I'm hopeful for a rescue of some kind. And when it comes, which, by the way, looks like reaching the end of the day and by some miracle all of the shots on the shotlist have been achieved, the pain of the stress and angst goes away and then I blow a hole in another wall and climb in again hoping that I don't find myself in yet another giant trash compacter with snakes under the water. (or whatever the hell those things are).

And if you're wondering why I love this job based on the description above, I'd have to say that I'd agree - it absolutely makes no sense.

Have any of you seen the movie that I named this post after? Holy bejeasus is it good. It came out about a billion years ago with Steve Buschemi and I think that it's required viewing for any filmmaker. I was completely living in that oblivion for the last few days. Complete with on-set drama and surreal scenes.

We shot Friday from 11am-11pm. Saturday from 11am-12pm-ish. Sunday from 3:30pm-3:45am and then Monday from 6:30pm-6:00am. (well those were my times in and out - thankfully my crew wasn't there as long, most of them anyway). Needless to say my eyes are still bleeding from lack of sleep but I'm also still running on adrenaline.

We made a movie!

We did it!

With a crew size ranging from 25-50ppl each day we all gathered and moved lights and rolled camera and acted and got mad and got excited and brandished a fake gun which required a cop to stay outside of our location and had a really talented actor suffering terribly in a giant dinosaur mascot costume. It's a beautiful blur and there were many moments that were so unbearably stressful. Like these!

* we've only got 1 hour to get the three shots with the kid in it before the studio teacher shuts us down! (many faces were mad, but we got through it with a mad talented kid)
* we've only got 15 minutes before we lose the cop or he goes into overtime and kills our already stretched budget! (we did it, no overtime)
* we've only got :30 before we have to leave the liquor store. (we were out in 5 minutes to spare)
* our permit just ran out, that lost shot? (we didn't get it. sigh.)

And then there were moments that were so freakin' awesome. I guess it's like any extreme sport, sometimes it just hits. Like this!

Clarity, magic and genius collide. The right exact words tumble out of my mouth and the actor says 'ah-ha!' and the shot is just exactly the right size with the right lens, with the rich color and the backlight and all of these pieces play into a sweeping little symphony including the pacing of the dolly moving just the right speed and the light flare hitting and the performance reaching it's warm and exacting peak and then the valley comes and the dolly is done and I yell cut and do a Tiger Woods fist pump (I know he's a jackass, but a talented one so I'm going with him on this fist pump thing) and then we're on to the next.

And we try again to find that sweet, sweet spot.

I guess that's why I'm wearing my Princess Lea buns on my head and willing to wade back into the water. That altered state is what the yogi's meditate for, the athletes train for, the actors find and lose, the artists take drugs and wander back to. It's frustrating that I need a BUNCH of damn people and a place and a script and a lot of money but sometimes I get that lucky too.

Wheee. That's all I can say. Fawking wheee. Lucky me.

With wild eyes and grateful heart,

P.S. - If you're wondering how the hell I did this project along side my husband with a one year old in the house, I'll tell you - it's a one word answer. Grandma. This film would not by any chance in a million been made without her incredible generosity. She just moved in and did the deed, she was Mom and Dad rolled into one cute Gram for 5 days and much of the days leading up to the shoot. We're amazed and our gratitude could never truly be expressed...

P.P.S. - This picture for some reason sums it up for me. The dinosaur butt coming out of the back seat along with our gaffer that day posing under the starlet just makes me really happy...more pics to come fo sure.

She's Having a Baby

2010-04-06T11:54:00.000-07:00

Yep, I've known I was going to use this movie title for this post for a long, long time.

It's time for the birth story kids, it's time. Our lil hero turns one in an hour, we'll celebrate him on this day for the rest of his life, our lives. This life. (draft started 11pm on April 5th)

----

This time last year I was in the hospital wondering what the eff I was doing there. I had just gotten an epidural put in by a very hot, sassy, gum-snapping Armenian chick whose work was overseen by a giant man with an awkward walk. I was terrified. There I was perched on the edge of a hard bed with a breeze on my butt and what felt like duct tape up and down my back and the tiny long needle about to go in.

Snappy gum: Don't move. It's really important that you don't move.

Me: Contraction. WAIT! Please wait. I can't Not move during a...... aaahheeeighhggghggheihhh. F*ck. HOld on. Ouch. okay. hold on. okay. go ahead.

Snappy: Ok, this will sting a bit.

Me: Seriously? Nothing can phase me now.

enter needle

Snappy: Ok! Great, so now you will soon feel relief. Push this button (hands me a contraption on the end of a cord with a red button) if you need more relief, it will dispense more medicine.

Me: Neat.

So the army of amazing women who had followed me, the belly, and cute hubs across town to the fancy-ass UCLA medical center now disperse in search of sleep. My midwife says, sleep. Take advantage of this epidural to finally get some rest. Sounds like a pretty good plan since I have not slept since 3 am Saturday morning when the 'rushes' started - and this is now 11pm Sunday night. The boy isn't going to come on April 5th after all. Or April 4th either (our first guess seeing how labor started that day) I guess we'll meet him tomorrow.

'Rushes' by the way, is the lovely term that midwifes and other lovely hippy-dippy sweet people who want to make you think that you can give birth in a lovely home-like candle lit setting or in a calm part of some damn sea or a water tub with dolphins n' such and gracefully and gently move through the feeling of the 'rush' of sensation and by calling it a 'rush' it is somehow not the FAWKING TIDAL WAVE of PAIN and utter ridiculous PAIN and searing hot PAIN and bone-crushing body-wracking FAWKING PAIN and I guess it's not a bad plan to call it something other than the FTWOP (fawking tidal waves of pain) but I think they were pretty darn misleading but thankfully I am not angry. Really.

As they are leaving, I am a mix of compassionate for their needs along with a hollow feeling of being completely deserted. I watch their backs march away into the inky night which is visible through the giant window of our strangely beautiful hospital room that has nice dim lighting. The view is sweet of Westwood's spots of lights and perhaps campus beyond. Sleep they said. As my awareness fuzzes out into the lights visible over my giant belly and the form of a sweet sleeping husband on the bench, I feel grateful for their beauty and their kindness and belief in my ability to have a natural home birth but also just a little bit grateful for the gum snapping Armenian gal and her freaky needle.

And I fall into delicious sleep. I close my eyes and ask the images of the previous 40 hours of my existence to disappear into a drugged oblivion. The walking and walking and the waves of pain and constant throwing up and the sitting on the toilet waiting for the world to end and standing and no, actually, walking and the waves coming consistently and then intermittently and none of it added up the the labor I was supposed to have. The walking sure. The singing even on Saturday night as my doula, BF and I did laps around our block. The beautiful moon behind the black palm trees in the gentle April night. My sweet doula and her constant presence. The warm smell of hubs neck as I leaned into him, his gentle ways and slight anxiety obvious through the haze.

What wasn't invited was the lack of rhythm. The fact that the swimmer was turned and his shoulder was stuck in some weird way. That the labor was termed 'prodromal' which is a mystery but I think says something about my head that isn't great. The IV drip due to my inability to keep anything down, even water. The thought-out labortime snacks I had prepared sat somewhere nearby, I think someone quietly nibbled on them at some point. I can't remember. The time at home was behind a wall of water and glass and pain.

-----

A few hours later I am awoken by the midwife on duty, she needs to 'check me' to see how well the pitocin is working. Fine. That's fine, check it out. She frowns and pulls her gloved hand out of the exit zone.

Nice midwife: Oh well, okay. So. You're only dilated to 5cm. We were hoping for more. We need to up the Pitocin.

Me: Neat.

Nice midwife: Try to go back to sleep.

I nod.

This room is very large, I feel like I'm on a boat in a sea of shiny floors. They said it was the nicest room in the wing, sure seems like it. Let's ignore for a minute the beeping of the heartmonitor on the baby that I was never going to get, even if they said I'd need it. Let's ignore the machine hooked into my body providing a flow of narcotics surging into my body and the little one, the thing I was never, ever going to do. Let's focus on the fact that I don't feel the GD rushes. Oh. Wait a minute.

Me: Ouch

crickets

There is no-one here. Cute hubs is asleep on the bench. I don't have the heart to wake him. I'll just push this little button on the end of the thing here, because this 'sensation' is starting to heat up - oh boy.

Me: OUCH. Shit. Um.

The FTOP's are back. That's not the bargain I struck here. I gave up the last remaining shards of my 'birth plan' and dignity to end the reign of pain that had gone on for 40 hours at home and in the car. I am now fully in their world and their world is supposed to be pain-free.

Me: DAMMMMMMIIITTTTTTTT.

Cute hubs: Zzzzzz. (poor guy he hadn't slept for 1/2 of Friday and most of Saturday night either)

Time to call the nurse. She arrives eventually and promptly calls snappy gum who eventually (after many more FTOP's). She rolls in there rolling her eyes at me.

Snappy: You have sensation?

Me: Yes, plenty.

Snappy: Did you push the button?

Me: Several times.

Snappy: (SIGH) Let me see.
(pause while fiddling with machine)
Okay, I reset it. It should work now in about 20 minutes.

Me: 20 minutes!? Are you serious?

Snappy: (Eyeroll)

----

So this goes on. There is no more sleep. But at 5 am it's time to check again, (I wish I'd charged for admission for access, by the end I probably could have paid the hospital bill) and the good news is that we're fully dilated kids. Game on. Let's push.

My army of women slowly arrive as the hubs awakes. Dawn streaks out over UCLA as the pin lights disappear and I wonder about the college kids going to their classes and how they don't know that something miraculous is happening right behind them, right up there on the fourth floor.

At 7 am I have 'labored down' enough and I start to push. Due to the epidural which is now turned off but is still attached, and fetal heart monitor, I cannot push like a normal person, I have to squat awkwardly in the bed or do some kind of upside bar madness. It's not comfortable. It's not reasonable. But I'm okay, it seems okay. Strangely people keep coming in and saying that I look really glamourous. Which is ridiculous. The nurses say "You're the most glamourous pusher I've ever seen".

I bet.

So an hour passes. Then another one. And still I'm getting pretty good feedback about my efforts. It's certainly not easy and by now I think it's about time to get this lil party over with but oops looks like I'm losing one of the key players.

Nice Midwife: Well, I'm afraid my shift is up - I'm going to turn your case over to our next midwife on duty.

And now you know why I"ve been calling her 'Nice midwife'. Cause here comes the other one.

This new woman enters and before shaking my hand or as much as a hello she checks me and the progress of the boy through the ol canal and now another frown and the stark, nasty disapproval makes my heart drop into my swollen feet.

Mean Midwife: (scowling) Ok, let me see you push. I don't think you're being effective here.

So I proceed to do my glamourous pushing which involves a head toss and some real strain, I mean really - but based on the look on her face, it's not enough.

MM: You're pushing with your face and your legs, you need to push right here. (She illustrates with by thrusting her hand into the spot of which she speaks. Apparently she's touching his head.)

Me: Scream.

Next comes a confrontation. MM and her folks decide to coach in a non-midwife manner during a contraction by yelling "PUUUUSH" and "RIGHT HERE!" and "OTHER THINGS" and I am just. not. okay. with that. Sure it's a very Hollywood labor moment but I just can't abide by this scene at all. So after I finish panting I yell.

Me: I can't have you yelling at me!

MM: I didn't think I was yelling.

Me: You were.

MM: Scowl.

And by 'pushing back' (ha ha) I create a tense moment that involves a conference outside the room with my real midwife (the one I originally hired for a homebirth) the MM, and the physician on duty.

The RM (real midwife if you're not tracking with my initializing) reappears and strongly encourages me to play ball (as it were) seeing as how it's now Monday morning and my water broke on Saturday and if I don't want to end up under the knife, well. I need to shut the eff up. Not her words exactly, but I get it.

----

So I push. And I push. And. PUSH. And I get more productive with the pushes, it's less glamour - more progress. The MM does not come back after the above conference (there is a God) but the physician is just as adamant about touching his head ALL THE TIME while I push so it is a deeply uncomfortable (and intimate) experience.

The following hour is something I'll never forget. I have never felt more vulnerable, raw and exposed. I have never been so strong and beautiful. I have never had to do something so incredibly fawking hard. And I've never had such a profound reason to partner with my body. I'm sure it will sound cliche but I dig into a part of myself that I had never met. It's somewhere under the gut, surrounded by soul right next to the heart and nowhere near the brain. It is primal and destructive. I am a cyclone, a whirling dervish a slow rumbling earthquake. I hear a roaring sound resounding in my head, I have no idea if the screams and grunts I hear are mine, as far as I can tell the room is silent as I watch the whole thing from inside and above.

And the time in-between the contractions is so weird. It's a ride on the FTOP's which are massive and huge and fantastic and then we file our nails and wait for the next one. Finally my girlfriend is running around the room weeping and brandishing my camera yelling 'he's coming! 'he's coming! I can see his head!'

Now he's crowning.
And everything stops.

But. He just sits there.

I'd heard of the 'ring of fire' - and I believed it was an accurate name. And I won't go on here but suffice it to say it is a fine name.

F*AWKING HELL-O KITTY WHAT THE EFF DID I DO DESERVE SUCH PAIN?

This is my inner monologue, outwardly I am strangely calm. I focus on my breath. It's 11am and I've been pushing for four hours and really? People? I am just done. So I take another breath.

In the next rush okay contraction he comes out. I don't know much about it because I can't see anything, my eyes have been pushed out of working order and it's all a fuzzy Renoir wash. So after only four and 1/2 hours of pushing, it's done. He's here.

----

What I have failed to mention thus far is that there was some evidence in the water that caused some alarm that the boy might be in distress so a team of dudes have been called. They arrive in a quiet shuffle all scrubbed and ready to meet him at the table across the shiny floor.

He is quickly ripped away from me and flown across the sea into their hands. I am there alone on the island, stranded in the tangled sheets and blood. I have just turned my guts, heart and other parts inside out in an effort to bring this guy onto the planet - and now he belongs to them. Medical science. A team of gloved hands and plastic tubes that descend deep into his throat and very being and my dear husband stands by and watches helplessly. I can't see any of it, but later he described watching this tiny infant being scrubbed and handled like a car in a car wash without the water.

3 minutes pass.

There is an oppressive weight in the air, like the humidity before a thunderstorm. Alone on my island I watch the storm approach and I wonder. I am curious. I am quiet. I don't know why but I don't feel anxious, just curious.

Will he stay?

Finally a raspy cry. I think a cheer went up in the room, I can't say.

The Real Midwifes of LA County insists that he come onto my chest. I guess this is a little tip of the hat to my original dreamy birth plan of the candle-lit water birth and the sweet bonding and the alleged fact that the tiny guy will come crawling up to find the easy breastfeeding because of course there has been no drugs or anything to inhibit breastfeeding.

But this isn't the world I live in anymore, it's an old idea and I'm not sure how to get back there. His little mouth is yawning open with a weak little cry and I'm helpless like a beached, blind manatee. My hands are heavy like flippers as I try unsuccessfully to comfort this little being who is bound and perched on my chest.

But he's gotta go. The team of faceless carwash guys want him down in the NICU.

Hubs goes with them. And now there is nothing. I'm just there on the windy beach. I'm lost in a blown-out world of white and shapes, I still can't see.

----

56 hours. I did that dance with the force of nature designed to bring human life to the world for 56 hours.

Unfortunately I felt like I fell off the stage when I couldn't 'see' the birth at home anymore. When we took to the Prius caravan and covered the entire LA basin in search of a hospital with midwives, I'd turned in my shoes. And then the force of nature had to deal with the force of medical science. And in my humble opinion, they don't get along well. But the good news is the boy was born, and he was okay.

After they all roll down the hall to the NICU, my midwife (aka RM) - turns to me and says she is glad we are here, at the hospital. And as I look at her sweet make-up-free face under the turban and see the kindness and sincerity on her face, (what I could see of it), I say I am glad we are here too. But they better not give him antibiotics...

----

Happy Birthday BHB, I'm so glad you stayed.

In a wash of memories and relief and love,

PS - The NICU story for another time. Thanks for reading this. Hubs and I joke that telling our birthstory is almost 'real time'. Hopefully it wasn't 56 hours for you...

Fool's Rush In

2010-04-01T23:59:00.000-07:00

Happy April Fool's Day!

Anyone do anything dastardly? I've never been good at this prank thing, I'm too chickensh*t for it. I don't like the suspense or worry that something will go horribly wrong or someone will end up hating me. When I was 12, my brother rigged a bucket of water above the bathroom door and waited snickering around a corner for me to walk under it. Unfortunately instead of the intended bucket dump, it slid off the top and landed directly on my head where it bounced before finally soaking the floor. A bucket full of water - whadya think? Maybe 15 pounds? It hurt like hell. I think it explains alot about my personality...

So, guess what!? We are in the final weeks before our film shoot. Y'all may remember that I've been yammering on about this thing for months and months now and that raised all of the money on ye old interweb. So we're finally going to be getting this thing done this month.

Ya-freakin'hoo!

I could wax on endlessly about how miraculous it is to be sitting where we are right now. Don't tempt me. But, let's just summarize by saying this:

*Last fall, we were told "You don't have enough money to make this film".

*Last fall, we asked the internet, our friends, our family, you to help us make this film.

*This winter, the fundraising succeeded. Incredible considering the state of the economy and the rest.

*This spring, we will shoot our short film. 10 days after the boy turns 1, a dream 5 years in the making will come true.
It is a miracle. Nothing short.

I gotta be honest, it's been hella challenging trying to balance the two big roles of Mom and Director. Well, three - also Executive Producer. It has somehow magically worked due to very patient, sweet producer's who meet over here a lot during naptimes or so he can play in the play-yard while we chat and sweat details. I've also been seen location scouting with him in the Ergo or driving neighborhoods looking for locations while he naps.

Here on the right you can see how excited he is to be checking out an office location....below we are looking for a convenience store.

I gotta say, I think he looks like a future star baseball pitcher in this shot. Facebook friends, sorry for the repeat - but comon', that is ridiculous cuteness.

Here we are working hard in our PJ's. Not my proudest parenting moment, but a sleepy baby doesn't pound on your keyboard (I've noticed).

I'll leave you with the schedule of the juggle from today. Our lil guy was a total champ as we made our way through this day, this last hectic day before my Mom comes back to see us through the shoot....

8:00 am meeting with potential unit production manager in studio city. We negotiated his price while dad had kid in lap and feed him applefish.

9:15 hike with friends and babies and dogs (oh and one of the star's of our movie!) Boy learns how to clap! I guess the blue sky and black crows were just finally 'cause enough for applause.

11:30 go to hollywood - wait for place to open to get delicious seaweed salad while on call with producer.

12:00 next hollywood errand - find dinosaur costume for movie (hub featured sporting costume) get awesome discount due to extremely cute kid in Ergo!

1:45 BHB finally gets the nap he was denied all morning.

2:00 finally eat delicious lunch, awesome production manager hired - talk to location guru and friend about the key locations that we're missing, he has great ideas...

2:30 babysitter arrives

3:00 go to location, meet with DP (Director of Photography) to talk shots

5:30 home to relieve babysitter

6:00 play with boy til 7 including admire his new clapping skills and laugh hysterically with him at the antics of the peek-a-boo dad. Then bedtime routine.

8:30 eat our dinner watching 6 Feet Under Season One to get inspired by good shots, good acting

10:00 sucked into emails with producers and put up an 'update' for our backers on kickstarter.

11:51 still typing blogpost that swore I wouldn't stay up til midnight to do....

Right. Goodnight.

Yours in the crazy, happy, busy daze ~

PS - I name my posts after movies. I haven't seen the one this post is named, I know nothing about it. I just liked using anything with Fool for this day. I'm working on another post called 'Enchanted April'. Is this naming my posts after movies too ridic? You can tell me.

Flash of Genius

2010-03-27T22:46:00.000-07:00

Our son is a genius, I mean - it's the only explanation.

I mean, sure he isn't walking or talking or anything stupid like that. Oh no, that would be weird. But! He's a problem solving hero and let me explain...

As you know, we live in LA. It's pretty and sunny here. It's sunny and we drive alot. We drive alot and the boy hangs out facing the wrong way. Toward the sun.

Which is totally donkey, but safe.

So I've tried some of those ridiculous window shades n' shizzle but they were plastic and lame and broke. And sure, I could get the ole Prius tinted in the window department, but uh, who's got tinting your window money? So I wind up doing really safe maneuvers like reaching over the back seat with my right arm and creating a tiny sliver of shadow with my closed fingers for Mr big blonde head who can sometimes be found thrashing from side to side to escape the relentless sun.

But! Recently I had one of those lil muslin blankets back there and got the bright idea to hold it up to shade him (don't worry, completely safe) and I was prepared to do this today when I traversed town in the west to east direction at the exact wrong time - ie sunset. But lo and behold, I looked behind me and this is what I saw. I won't say who the photographer is for this, I just repeat that it was completely safe.

He's holding the blanket up to shield his own eyes. When I saw it, I got a little misty.

So am I right? He's a super genius? I mean the guy isn't even one year old and he solved this problem like a complete champ and then left his hand mit-blanket up until we were clear of the sun. My husband would say that it's a result of all of the fish oil he gagged me with when I was preggers, and who knows? Maybe he's right. But geee-ross.
And then the poor kid gets fish oil in his apple sauce every morning. I mean, seriously gag me with a spoon right? Yes we do, gag him with a fishy apply spoon. Of course he thinks it's delish.

I've started singing this song to him: (to the tune of Spiderman)

Apple Fish
Apple Fish
Every baby loves apple fish
WATCH OUT!
There's fi--sh in your apppple sauce.

I know, it's ridiculous. And it makes us all really happy. The hubs loves it especially, he loves all of the inane songs I have made up for this kid. He's the musician and songwriter in the family, but so far I've written the tunes that are incredibly catchy like the original number:

'What do you say, super bean?" (there are several verses for this song, it was invented on our long road trip to Seattle)

or

The song I wrote when the boy was in his 'just watching' phase.

Everything he does is FAS-CIN-ATING,
everything he does is swell
Everything he does is AHH-Mazing,
he's the Daddy you can tell.
'Cause, Everything he does is FA-AHNtastic
everything he does is neat..
everything he does is SUPER-duper
he's the Dad he doesn't eat meat'.

I know, I know.
It's so good.

Ok, now that I've slipped into the utterly ridiculous land that I have, let me march deeper in and tell this story on the hubs. Because he is cute.

He recently came home from an event where he learned more about a particular brand of fish oil (gag). He was pretty excited about the flavor and the brand and wanted me to be the guinea pig because he clearly knows how much I enjoy taking this stuff. (gag). So he says something about it being apple flavored which of course I think he's kidding and kee-rack up about it because in my mind I'm already singing..

Apple Fish
Apple fish...

But he's looking annoyed.

Hubs: Oh yea, that's so hilarious.
Me: Um, yea, it is actually.
Hubs: So anyway, the apple flavor completely masks the fish taste...
Me: Oh no, you're serious.
Hubs: (more annoyed) Yes!
Me: The fish oil is flavored with apple?
Hubs: Yes!
Me: And you don't see what's funny?
(blank look)
Me: (singing)
Hubs: Oh my god.
Me: You seriously didn't think about that?
Hubs: No.

What follows is my laughing til I peed (not that this is a shocker, can I get an amen Momma's?) and landed on the kitchen floor and him laughing along - yes - but clearly not as hard. I'm not sure if this story is funny to anyone else, it just makes me squeal with laughter to think about how he listened to an entire evening of conversation about apple fish oil and didn't think about our morning ritual. But I digress, as I often do.

Back to the boy genius. I guess what's blowing me away is not only the problem solving aspect of what occurred today, but also the self care and the evidence that - yes - someone is completely home and thinks for himself and things are really starting to cook with gas in that big head. The fact that he can shovel food into his own mouth with his tiny hands (boy he does enjoy the yams people), he can drink out of his own sippy cup, that he can motor around and get himself into and out of precarious situations. That he figured out how to STAND UP on his own, (he's not getting any encouragement from me on that one). But how does it happen? It's so freakin' miraculous.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised because I consider people who have a good sense of humor to be smart. And we have big laughs all the time. I personally think his humor is sophisticated, but I guess I'd have to admit that it's more likely that mine is super simple and juvenile. Tonight he almost fell over in the bath tub when I did the 'turtle appearing over the side' trick, it just killed. 'Cause there's really nothing cooler than sharing a laugh with a tiny boy who only a year ago was still swimming around in my belly.

I mean the genius baby who was in my belly, who made an appearance on the planet in early April. I'm so excited to celebrate him in a few days, afterall - he's loosing 'infant' status. Wowee.

Jaws

2010-03-20T00:01:00.000-07:00

(cue the music)

So I hope you have the music playing as you read, thanks for playing along...

I've got a serious problem over here.

That adorable boy?
The one who is about to turn one in a few weeks?
The one who has grown about 14 pounds of hair in recent days?
The one who brings love, laughter, copious snot and a newfound joy I've never known?

Yea, that one. The BHB.

He bites!!

It's brand new today. I'm kinda freakin' out.

You: Um, actually Jane, I know for a fact he's bitten you before, you ~~whined~~ talked about it here.

Me: No!...I mean, yes, you're right. He has bitten me in the past, but what I'm talking about now is the ole 'I've got him in my arms and the exposed tank top shoulder get's a chomp taken out of it', or the 'boy my neckline hem thing must look delicious but oops he got which a nice hunk of flesh out of the same milk providing mechanism but from a different angle'.

You: Welcome to motherhood.

Me: Dammit! I knew you were going to say that.

I mean, I know about the two year olds who bite. I know about the terrible terrible two's and while I was NOT judging you momma's who have the biters I was secretly, smugly convinced that my little angel would never bite me (he would love me too much) and while I'm sure your kid loves you...Uhm, well, I got nothing for ya, but I just KNEW it wasn't going to happen to me.

And here I am! And he's only not even one.
Not even one.

Slump. Sigh.

So how am I supposed to deal with this dear Momma's? How do I not drop him? I almost did tonight, I was so surprised when the sharp pain ripped through my consciousness, my hands unconsciously let go. Yes, I think it was a release and catch program, thank god for my cat-like reflexes. I have a very difficult time with gravity, the benefit is that because I drop crap all of the time, I'm really good at re-catching it. Which I did.

So I look forward to hearing your thoughts. In the meantime, I'll leave you with a few of the images that were captured tonight of the danger lurking in the water.

Don't be fooled by the sweet smile...

chompers

check it out! all of that hair even looks like a dorsal fin!

Needing a bigger boat,

Wordless Wednesday: Who's Your Momma?

2010-03-17T23:30:00.000-07:00

Got chin?

Love!

The Longest Nap

2010-03-09T23:45:00.000-08:00

So this is what happened.

First nap began at 8:30.

I did a few things, soon it was 9:00.

where did that time go?

So he might be up in a half hour, or he might not.

what can I get done in a half hour?

If I turn on the shower, the opening screech might wake him up.

So, no.

I'll answer a few more emails.

Oh god the dishes are piled and sticky and clambering for my hands.

But. If I clink dishes too loudly, he might wake up.

That warm water will feel good on my skin.

But it's too loud.

So, no.

I'll read a few blog posts.

And send a few emails.

It's 9:30.

he could be up any minute

I'm cold, I'm gross. I need a shower.

But.

If I get in the shower, it will wake him up.

Then I'm sopping wet and he's screaming.

So, no.

I'll check accuweather to see if it's going to warm up.

(I mean, comon! It's like like 50 degrees here in LA sheeeesh)

Now it's 10:00.

wow this is a long nap!

I totally could have taken a shower.

And scrubbed a few dishes.

But no.

So.

I'll read some more blog posts.

I should be folding laundry.

And do a few searches.

And answer a few emails.

See? this is productive...

And get on a phone call.

But no.

I will not finish the phone call.

Because now it's 10:45.

And he's up.

Oh long nap, how I love you. If only I could know your heart (and duration).

Circling the house in search of,

Message in a Bottle

2010-03-08T01:51:00.000-08:00

Oh man, this sounds like a relapse post. It's not. If you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, go back here. There you'll find the post where I dish on Stefanie's blog about leaving the world of boozin' good times and choosing a clean, fresh world of perrier and other natural soda.

Head roll, knuckle crack. Sigh.
Let's begin.

I am walking along the shore and there are millions of sparkling bottles lining the beach, clear and green and brown and they bob and pop and sparkle - all of them calling to my arms and hands. Pick me up. Read me.

Write back.

I want to hear the words and feel the emotion of the messages contained therein - it's just that they are too far away. Between here and there is the feeling of being bisected by my too tight jeans and the bedazzled look my tshirts have all decorated in baby snot and bits of mushy food. As I walk, I stumble over the crushing, jagged anxiety about the jobs that have flirted and flown by. The tree fairies who I hike to commune with swear that I'll be getting the call any minute about the next big and great job but they seem to be lying, flying little beyatches because the calls haven't come. At least the ones that say, 'You're booked'.

I love being freelance. I have been lancin' along since 1995 when I graduated college with some debt but a sassy attitude. I started a business, I had boom years. I changed directions and spent some money to start shooting commercials. It worked, good times followed. However like many people in my industry and every other industry, I found 2009 (and into 10) to be an ass-kicker bordering on doom. Of course in some ways the timing was great - lil BHB came on the scene and so me not being on the scene (as it were) directing was actually swell by me. Except for the whole money thing. Money is helpful.

sandbox of germs? where did he get this cold anyway?

In other stumbling news, the sweet boy has his first full blown horror of a cold. And ear infection.

Sleep has been completely elusive. We're back to the fuzzybrained newborn days with the-once-an-hour 'hello how are you?' typa thing. His cough sounds dangerous and deep and the fever is scary to me when his belly throws so much heat I don't know whether to cover it more or put him in a cool bath. So far the highest of the high is at about 102.somethin' but who can trust these damn digital thermometers? I know, we could bust out the vaseline and the old school thermometer but holy keerap that boy hates his diaper changed as it is, I can't imagine the flip-over-insert-instrument scream that would follow. No thanks. Not now anyway.

With the ear-infection diagnosis came the antibiotic prescription that I had filled on Friday in a bit of a panic. And then I read my copy of "How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor" and we talked ourselves out of the pink biotic-killing goop in the fridge. But now, with the cough from hell and the continued fever I am 2nd guessing our 'ride it out' ways and wanting for a quick release for him and for us. Damned dilemma.

So I see the glittering lil bottles with their allure of a dream and a dance. How I want to write about our new BFF's and a new spiritual path, the way a life can be touched by the most simple act and moment. Walking along the misty shore, I want to read and talk about the Oscars, Katheryn Bigelow, those pretty pretty dresses. What about all of the paths to God, my philosophy and the gathering storm clouds at once gorgeous and troubling? About extraordinary coincidence. About sweet thoughts that inspire good behavior followed by a shy smile. I have them all here for you. I just need to figure out how to walk over the broken ones to get there.

Elusively yours,

PS - Thank you for your kind encouragement last week about the milk dilemma of 2010. I do feel better. I'm grateful for the easy, soothing solution I can offer during this sickness - how great when he won't eat anything else. Of course the new demand has me busting back into an old 'where'd you buy those' look, but the teeth seem to be retracted for the moment.

Milk

2010-03-04T00:27:00.000-08:00

Tonight I went to a writing class.

Uh-boy, not a good opener. Now you've gotten the idea that a good post follows and well, friends, that just ain't happenin'. No really. I need you to let it go. With these words...gently, open your hand...release that silly little idea, let it float away into a sweet spring breeze....now take a deep breath. What do you smell? Ah yes, the dog crap I didn't pick up in the front yard. Right I'll get on that. Now that you're inspired to keep reading, here's what's up:

I'm just having a crappy ass time of it. There. I said it. No rainbows, no unicorns. Just that sticky residue of unnamed, unreasonable emotions that remain unexpressed due to the lack of funds req'd to do the rock star therapy thing. So to the writing class I go for the therapy that I need. And to you, dear interweb therapists, I guess I'm a- bringin' it to you. Thank you in advance for your sage advice and wisdom. Thank you for your virtual ear.

Tonight I'm all jacked up on ideas and Pinkberry. If you're not in LA - let me just say this. You're lucky. This Pinkberry stuff is totally delicious, totally useless, likely completely toxic and open until 11pm on weekdays. I go through phases with this fancy fro-yo stuff. I really only eat it when I'm full of self-loathing. So there you go.

I mean, it's pretty awesome how perfectly rotten it makes me feel. I eat it, I check my watch and then wait for the headache to show up between :22 and :28 minutes later. Tonight it came on in a quick :12 minutes, but likely that was due to the fact that I ran through the rain thusly accelerating it through my system.

So what does all of this have to do with milk? (the title of my post). Well I'm doubtful that there is any actual milk in the product of which I've been rambling, so that isn't it.

No, it's about me. About the fact that I am still serving it 3-4 times a day and while deep down I'm a stinky, stinky hippy who would be probably be willing to nurse through toddlerhood and beyond I've had some recent experiences that are threatening to end my run of being a walking dairy dispenser for the little baby with a big head.

Well, you can't see them in this picture - but there are top teeth as well in that little cartoon mouth.

And like anyone with new tools that they'd like to try out, he's been checking out his chomping skills.

And like anyone who is learning their way around emotional states, lately he's been taking his anger out for a test drive.

Ok. I've said enough. Y'all are smart.

Although I will say this, I'm proud to say that while much harm as come to me, no harm has come to anyone else in this family. When the little bite n' pull showdown went down the other night I calmly put him in the highchair while I calmly went to warm up the lentils and rice mush and I calmly served it and while he was not so calm I was quite. It was almost eerie. Perhaps being emotionally shut down has it's place.

And since I left the boy and his Dad before the final milk session tonight in order to go deep into Hollywood for my class, now I've got the surplus and the accompanying pain. Of course there is no serving it anyway because it's laced with Pinkberry toxins.

So while my milkmaid status is potentially precarious, I offer this math. 20 months ago, in June of 2008 my body got taken over by the production of a person. 11 months ago in April of 2009 it became the diary farm that it is today. Here in March of 2010, I'm about ready to take it back for my own uses, even if they are not noble or good. Anyone want to back me up on this decision?

Your organic farmer,

PS - It's probably obvious if you're read this far, but I could use some encouragement. Life is kinda kicking my ass right now, so if you've got any - please do share.

**EDIT, 3/4** - I just found out that when the boy was getting his last song last night he starting looking around wildly for me. Watching the door and pushing the sweet singing daddy aside, he was clearly wondering when the usual milk delivery was coming. When it didn't come he finally wailed 'Mom!' and collapsed into an inconsolable wail.

So he has been saying Momma and Dad -dad-dad-dad it's a little non-specific, we're not sure if he's placing it with us. So that was a first, and it's pretty damn touching. I am twisting my hair into dreads right now so that I can merge with my image of a long-term breastfeeding momma (you know I say stinky hippy only with complete love, right?) and see if I can keep this party going. I"ll keep you posted.

Snow White

2010-02-25T23:00:00.000-08:00

I type and I watch. I'm catching out of the corner of my eye these mad dudes with their flying, flashing ski's willingly flip, well - fling themselves miles into the air and flip flop fall and float (but mostly flip) into the relative safety of the snow that sometimes catches and sometimes kick back with a splash of white and whatev's. All I can say is WHOA dude. These guys are awesome.

What inspired that? Were they like six years old and racing a car around the Berber carpet in 1994 and looked up at the flickering coverage of the Olympics coming to them from Norway and saw these nutty dudes flipping through the air and then turn to their mom's with big round eyes and matchbox car mid-track and point their little stubby fingers at the screen and say - "Yes, I will do that. It will be rad and I will wear shiny colorful spandex and I will win."

photo credit: Mike Groll AP/File

Don't you wonder? As I watched the other jumping event tonight - the ski jump - with the dudes that fly for like 30 gorgeous heartdropping seconds I got totally annoyed with my 10 month old son as I projected into the relative near future when lil BHB and I will likely have this conversation....

INT: OUR HOUSE - NIGHT

An adorable 4 year old BOY pushes a monster truck around the hardwood floors as his MOM and DAD watch slack-jawed as the Olympic aerialists flip fourteen times before landing on the fake snow.

His Mom is extremely hot and looks amazing in casual sweats. She is a very thin and young-looking 43 year old...(oh rats, sorry - went off into fantasy there) Ahem. The sweet boy looks up at the giant plasma TV that is uber fancy and wafer thin...

BHB

Look Mom! I can do that!

Nope. No way. Forget it.

BHB

But Mooommmmmm.

Sorry.

BHB

(looking offscreen with intense resolve)

I will wear flashy spandex, and I will win.

Noo! I love your big head!

I don't want you to break it on that mean snow.

Curse you inspiring dudes who flip through the

air with the greatest of ease!

Sigh. I guess we're not going to be watching the next Winter Olympics.

With love from the future,

PS - Ok, I realize that reading the above is like watching reality tv when a really great drama is on the other channel. It's on the silly, fluffy and pointless side but thanks for coming by...

Now if you want to read something really heartfelt and poetic and filled with awesomeness, you should go here. The writer is a dear friend, filmmaker, writer, and mom of an amaaaazing kid. I met her in line at Sundance a bunch of years ago. She's just fantastic! But I digress. But yes, you should definitely check this post out (whut up double link!) And be sure to play the music, it's a wonderful good time.

Missing

2010-02-22T23:09:00.000-08:00

Oh hi.

I've been remiss and missing from this space and let me apologize in advance for apologizing because it's kind of ridiculous. I mean. Y'all aren't sitting next to your google readers tapping your foot and wondering where I am, right? No. I know that. I so often feel this delightful and delicious tingly pull in this direction, oh - OK, nightly. More often than not I resist the urge, close the computer and go to bed.

Because right now it's either LCD and all the fun I have up here yammering on about my THOUGHTS and FEELINGS and occasionally an IMPRESSION and maybe even an occasional OBSERVATION.

Or sleep.

And as you Momma's know, sleep is a nice thing. And clearly it's been winning.

During the day it's chasing tiny boy and making sure brown dog stays clear of tiny boy and his tiny hands and his new teeth and charming smile so that brown dog doesn't do some dastardly doggie thing like nip at the mischievous tiny he tries to grab tall soft, brown ears.

And mushing the food or heating up the mush or steaming the finger food or mixing the stuff or making sure there are enough cheerios on the tray. And watching those impossibly tiny fingers PICK UP the tiny bits of carrots or pears or apples or o's or yam bits. And occasionally drop the bits for the brown nose to scoop in and enjoy. That game hasn't become a full time pastime but I expect that it is coming soon.

And the toys and the books and soft green ball that pile out of the little faux leather chest in the morning and then pile back into that same little brown chest at night.

And then there are all of those tiny shirts, the ones with the stripes and the tiny dogs on the front or the soft pants and the socks that are too small when you buy them and the shoes, why doesn't he have any shoes, what the heck size is he? And the hand-me-downs thank god for those but then you've got to hand them back and what box and which mom goes to which baby is going to wear it next. In the meantime they've got to be washed. And folded. And put away. And coaxed over a big head.

And at night it's a mix of emailing and emailing and working and conference calls and trying to think clear, concise and meaningful and oh dinner and right now of course the olympics (oh crap I missed it tonight) but we need to do a re-write of the script and we are casting later this week and I have to go location scout, but I'll be doing that while he naps in the car and and and.

I guess it's obvious why sleep is winning.

But for what it's worth I am writing into this white box in my head all day. The sweet bits of floating observations like the backlight of the afternoon sun, a halo on his sweet blonde head. Or his smile of discovery at a new thing (a bird!) which he now shares with me in his eyes, the recognition in his eyes of me - and - of a thing - and - of the separation of him and me and thing and then his delight in it or me or him or frustration when something is awry. Then comes my scramble to discover what IT is although sometimes if I have had enough sleep I might just sit in (or next to) his frustration and let him BE without fixing it.

And that's a pretty good reason, right?

Floating in the joy bits,

P.S. - One of these Monday's I'll get to writing about An Education. Short review: Hell ya, see it.

Wordless Wednesday: Kissy Kissy Kiss Edition

2010-02-17T22:35:00.000-08:00

With a kiss for you too,

Gold

2010-02-13T00:08:00.000-08:00

I feel so trite saying this, but here I go. I too want to go for the gold, only I don't want the round disk that all of those folks up in Canada are after - I'm more interested in that shapely hottie they call Oscar.

I think I've been too embarrassed to say it, especially as a resident of Los Angeles. It's just so obvious. And the Academy Awards are so. You know. Such a swell of pretension and glitz and comon' tell the truth actual awesomeness but they certainly have been known to roll around in a stinky pile of lameness. Like the King of World moment. Ugh.

But I'm going to out myself here. I want Gold - and it's on my five year plan dammit.

I'm excited that Kathryn Bigelow might beat James Cameron this year, making Oscar history by being the first woman director to win. I say hells ya. Or, actually? It would be okay with me if I was the first. Sometime in the next five years.

Sometimes I get annoyed with the fact that I've been dicking around doing other for so many years when I know that my true dream is to direct features. I feel lucky that I've been able to carve out a living doing what I love - I mean - that's kinda bitchin'. But, you know what? I've been really beating around the bush....

For fun - let's look back down the road full of bushes, shall we?

Corporate vids - Big fun! Nice money. Lots of control over the creative! A product that only makes sense to a tiny segment of the population. I know, I know, I've already subjected you to some of it here.

TV Ad's - Big fun with someone else's big money! A perceived sense of control! Lots of people talking in your ear. And a product that's reallllly short. But seen! Sometimes salesy and lame. But. Fun! Be subjected here.

Here is one of my favorite commercials that I've directed:

Short Films - Not so much on the money. But so, so much closer to the prize. A narrative. Actors. Creating a world. Hard ass work. Nice reward when we go to Sundance. (hello Secret)

Viral Vids - No money at first. Some fun. Some success. Later on, perhaps some money. Need to see some?

The reason I'm going ON about my career (or whatever it is) tonight is that I'm in a reflective mood after watching something super fawking cool happen. One of my BFF's from Seattle just walked with her Olympian husband in the opening ceremony. He was the guy waving the flag for Peru. He and my girlfriend met on the internet and fell in love long distance about six years ago. I remember I was one of her only friends who wasn't going, "Are you nuts? Some dude from South America? From the internets?" Not me. Being a fate-lovin' ridiculous romantic who had just a few years before met her hubs on a plane...I was cheering for her instant messaging love.

And now they are hanging out in Olympic Village with their adorable two year old and preparing for the race of a lifetime. What about it?

It's just so amazing to see a dream of that magnitude come to fruition. So inspiring. So fantastic. So like me going to the podium and trying not to trip on my fancy-ass dress when I accept my Oscar. Don't you think? I mean I've been mentally prepping for that moment for a long damn time. In fact when I went to film school I would go on my nightly runs through Balboa park, pictured to the right. And as I would run on this road toward the fountain with the sky going through it's pastel wonderland into black, I would accept my Oscar. Pumping my legs with my eye on the shooting water I would thank my peeps, crack a great joke, stand to the left to show my good side, and then give a shout out to my Dad on the other side. For the record? This was in the mid 90's. I, like Oprah, was practicing the Secret long before the australian home-chic made that cheesy movie. Of course Oprah seems to be better at it.

I have to say, I miss the Hollywood YMCA. I used to run on the treadmill there before Mamahood. I'd always choose the machine that looked right into a blank wall which must appeared to be an odd choice because that wall was maddening, like two feet away. But I loved it, it was perfect for projecting a fantastic future onto. I would replay that moment, that dream moment - me, dress, moderate heels 'cause I suck at walking in them, and the feeling of 'dream come true'. So if there is anything to that Secret madness, I've certainly put in some time.

Hmm. Guess I better go back to my bookshelf filled with manifestation books. Here are two of my faves:

So hang with me people, I think it's going to work. Tonight as I watched the faces of people I love and adore march across my television, I thought.

Yep.

I can do it too.

With big dreams and big bags under my eyes to match,

PS - Please cast your ballot about Movie monday, I know we're all watching the Olympics but I'll blather on about a movie anyway...

Away We Go

2010-02-09T00:41:00.000-08:00

I am going through this.

Other friends I know are going through this.

Some have already left town.

Others are seriously considering it.

For me the question is: To LA with bay-bee or NOT to LA with bay-bee soon to be preschooler with a college tuition size price tag and then public school lets hope he can read kid and then not long after a tagging teen, maybe he's got talent? Of course you fervently pray that he's not a gang banger with jeans around his butt crack but realistically how do you prevent that when your neighborhood is filled with gang bangers?

So needless to say I found the movie about the couple trying to figure out where to move to raise their kid to be incredibly relevant.

This movie is such a great mediation on these oh-so-critical questions: How best to do this? Where do we want to raise our family? What are the questions we ask in order to make such a huge decision?

I need to share that I had two distinctly different experiences at two different times watching this film. Which is one of the reasons I think I have been jumping up and down and wanting to talk about it. (I left the poll up over there so you can see how ridiculous I am.)

Take 1: Tried to go to a Mommy and Me movie when BHB was like 5 weeks old. They had the wrong time on their website so a bunch of us stroller pushin' wide-eyed sleep deprived Momma's pulled up to find out the movie had started 1/2 hour before. Some shrugged and wandered into the dark room with their hands already in a giant barrel of popcorn. Myself and several other Momma's were too indignant about our movie going experience and choose something else. I choose this movie. Only trouble is, it wasn't a Mommy and Me screening which meant no-one was going to think it was even remotely okay for me to a) have the tiny boy in there b) hear from him c) be willing to turn down the DAMN loud soundtrack.

He was great through the previews. He was lovely through the first two minutes. He grabbed a little milksnack in the darkness, so far so good. About minute 3 the discontent began and so my ping pong match of going in and out and bouncing and lurking close by to try to watch and then if not watch listen while I change a diaper on the slanted carpet ramp leading into the theatre and this was my experience:

me: I hate this movie. It's so fake-ee and over played and why is the acting so giant and unrealistic and ugh. This is stupid.

I left after about 20 minutes having spent approximately 5 in front of the screen. I was unimpressed.

Take 2: My dear friend babysat for us about a month or so ago - oh wait, yea. On New Years Eve, god bless her right? BHB snored and she watched her some pay-per-view (the least we could do, right?). She rented this movie while we were away. When she told me I thought...

me: Ugh.

But oh well, right? We've got it for 24 more hours to watch it so we should check it out. And then.

I loved it! From the first frame. I thought it was in fact entirely enchanting. Hilarious. Poignant and sweet. Basically the exact movie I wanted to see then and have several times been tempted to thrown down 6 bucks on the PPV to see it again.

The two leads were delightful. I don't watch The Office, so I don't know John Kraniski from Adam, especially due to the giant beard, but it was nice because I wasn't taken out of the movie by his known-ness. Maya Rudulph is adorable, I don't know how else to say it. Adorable even in the fake belly, just so present and available to the high wire of emotions that the pregnant ladies waddle across. I did anyway.

Even though I've claimed before I have a real need for plot, this isn't a big plot-ee film. But it unfolds beautifully and you know Sam Mendes ain't no slacker in the directing department. I'm a big fan of the way he creates moments. Like the plastic bag moment in American Beauty. Or about 14 million others in that movie, how about Annette Bening in the driving around suburbia singing her heart out? He does the same thing here, he gives us these still snapshots that breathe and resonate. The two of them sitting out by the pool discussing pregnancy weight gain. The way he was unspooling their future in the end frame. I'm avoiding having to do a spoiler alert here, I'm just speaking in weird vague ways, I hope that's working for you. If you've seen it, you understand. If not, perhaps this will make you plunk down a few bucks or click it on up on your Netflix Que. I definitely recommend it.

Of course I have to give a shout out to the most hilarious, memorable moment in recent movie memory - the stroller scene. The character that Maggie Gyllenhaal plays is so perfectly ridiculous, so hilariously extreme in her attachment parenting rant...I just about peed my pants laughing. You know that peeing laughter when you know you are laughing at yourself? Yea, that one.

'Cause for reals I was a total Moby wearing graduate to Ergo sportin' Momma. Still am. The first time I put him in a stroller (recently) I was like oooh noo! I can't see him! He can't see me! What am I doing!? This is unconscionable! But, for the record, I am over it. And I quote the movie alot.

In fact, let's bust out a *Spoiler Alert*

For one line. It's so brilliant:

"I Love my babies! Why would I want to PUSH them away from me?"

*That's it*

Wishing for more hours in the day so I could watch this movie again,

PS - Thanks for the commiserating in my safety dance rant. I'm still in search of solution, in the meantime my shoulders look great in my ears.

PPS - Thanks for reading you guys. In my quick little reference here about what the 'Big Life Decision' is, it's so nice to not feel so alone in the struggle. This blog (and the lovely comments) give me a really lovely feeling of camaraderie and safety. It's an illusion clearly, but I look forward to coming here and also following you back to read what you're doing. It's fun up here in cyber mommy space. Xo!

Out of Time

2010-02-06T00:32:00.000-08:00

As I ~~yelled about~~ shared earlier this week, we are going into production on our short film. I'm officially, as of yesterday, damn busy.

And as I shared last week, the boy is moving faster now - impossibly fast. So when he is awake I'm watching him intently as he swims around on the floor like a pinball in search of the most points. Or in the kitchen he's doing laps under my feet as I do dishes and wish I am a fly with extra eyeballs. Or mostly I've resorted to wearing him in the Ergo if I want to be in any room that he can't be scooting around in (most of them). So as of last week, I'm officially damn busy.

The boy on the move really presents alot of problems. And like everything else in parenthood when first presented with it, it seems pretty unsolvable and overwhelming in a throat-closing way. Okay now - Baby gates? Baby proofing? Little latches and plug covers and drape cord management systems? Most moms I know around here hire a professional to come in and do this thing and it's done, just done. So I imagine that these families fall asleep with sweet smiles and have good nurturing dreams and awake refreshed and happy to face another safe day filled with happy baby playing sounds. Unlike me with the soundtrack of my grinding teeth through the night. Awake to a new day of tiny boy chasing that comes with worry and wonder and discovery of the dastardly danger that lurks around every sharp corner.

you: Call the professional baby proofer.
me: Harumph, this is not really in my budget right now.
you: Go to Target.
me: Harumph.

I mean I will and I am but I just hate to buy all of these plastic crap, plastic gates or other plastic things that require installing them. And oh crap, who's going to install them? The other day I put dog and boy into the car to go to the mountain and as I buckled BHB into the car seat I heard myself think, 'Whew, at least he's safe'. In a car. In Los Angeles. This can't be good.

Friends, what the hell do we do with the ficas tree that he constantly wants to shove his little baby hands into or eat the leaves with his little baby mouth? I LOVE this tree. I don't want to put it outside. Sure we live in California and sure it will probably be just fine but but but! I don't wanna! Perhaps this tree represents my last shred of individuality, the last little bastion of me, the sappy ass adult who wants a pretty damn tree in the room. I know, I know, it's going.

This lil play pen is the only true solution, we call it the baby hot tub.

As you can see he looks pretty damn happy in it, and thank god he is. Of course I read the RIE parenting books and they make me feel like a rotten terrible person because I haven't created the safe room that he can just be in. And the hot tub is too small.

But for now it's the best solution for the occasional trip to the bathroom.

Or the 14 minutes of dishes until we can strap him into the high chair where he'll be safe until we can strap him into the carseat where he will be safe until I can strap him into the stroller and push him up a hill until we can then strap him into...the shopping cart and then I will strap him onto my chest to walk to to the car and then. Thank god for straps.

Of course we do release him on the floor occasionally and then follow him around going:

Oh well no honey um let's go this way and opps a cord and nope let's not do that and oh wow look at all of these big books at your level ready to tumble down on your sweet head or the stack of CD's that you really? Are going to pull the middle one out? And holy cats that cool antique tool box is built to hurt a baby have you ever seen anything more lethal oh boy, let's play with these super cool blocks made out of foam but oh man they are made in china? Uh-oh they are painted but sheesh please go ahead and eat these. Please little one, I'm begging you...sit down in one spot and gnaw on these blocks..

Google is going to have a field day with the ad's on this one, so much good crap to sell. Do you have any suggestions? Things that worked for you? A padded room I can borrow?

Yours in the 'whelm,

PS - I love this picture. You can tell he's really enjoying this hike. And that strap looks uber safe too.

Wordless Wednesday: Baby Super Model

2010-02-04T14:23:00.000-08:00

So it's Thursday and so far this is not wordless either but it's been an interesting week...

photo credit: cynthia perez

Your favorite stage mother,

November 13th

2010-02-01T23:05:00.000-08:00

"We interrupt our regularly scheduled Movie Monday Madness to bring you a special bulletin about November 13th the movie and November 1st the short film"

OHMYGOD! HOLYSH*T! HOLYCRAP! I'M FREAKING OUT! (and yelling, obviously) But. OMFG!

It Happened! We did it! You did it! It was did! Ok, okay. I'll stop yelling. But, as you'll see, it's incredibly yell-worthy.

Our short film got funded! We just today surpassed our rather ambitious goal of raising 13,000 over the internets in hunks as low as 2 dollars, and for one person as much as 2,500 dollars - we somehow gathered enough signatures and people willing to put their CC where their typing fingers are and this is how it happened....

That Kickstarter site is so damn amazing. It's really just so special how they help artists and filmmakers and non-profits and bakers and bloggers and anyone who needs funding. It's an online democracy for art. Anyone can make it happen! It was such a perfect forum for us to get the excitement centered and focused - an incredible piazza if you will where we can all mill about and admire other people pursuing their passion. And let's be clear, the number one reason I liked the piazza's in Italy? The gelato. That's what Kickstarter is missing! A dairy sugar treat. Actually - you can get delicious fig newtons up there from Cassie, I did!

Ah but it's pretty darn sweet tonight, let me tell you. Needless to say I'm just so thrilled. It's overwhelming to me that 95 people so far have stepped forward to support us. 95! I got 95 emails that said 'New Backer Alert! So and so is your new backer! Amount pledged x dollars'. So 95 times my little heart jumped when the emails came in. And some of the times if the numbers were especially crazy my heart and feet would jump around the room and our little baby would squeal and my dog would look worried and my mom and step dad get excited and IN FACT! I just scared the kee-rap out of the cute hubs because as I was looking at the email to see the wording for the above sentence when another 'Backer Alert!' came in for a big hunk of money from a dear friend and I just skitterred across the house trying to squeal quietly and scared him a little bit. What is happening? Why am I so lucky? How are we loved so much by friends, family and strangers alike? It's just nuts, and I'm shaking with the prospect of it. Make that 96 and wipe the tears from my face for the 45th time today.

So that's what is going on over here friends! It's an incredible day. February 1st. I'll never forget it. This experience has given me a new faith. It's a humbling and moving reminder to me of the great Nike campaign from the 90's.

Just Do It.

And we're gonna.

Your incredulous hostess of soon to be movie making fame,

PS - Thank you again to my dear blogee friends who are among the 96. I so appreciate you. And thank you again JJ for putting up the widget on your blog. Love you and the B-day Bea!

I don't even have a title for this post...

2010-01-30T23:51:00.000-08:00

Tonight I was going to write an extraordinary post. You know, the one that you would read and say "Wow, holy crap that is amazing! That Jane is SUCH a talented writer - she just changed my life in ways that are incomprehensible to me. I just get, feel, understand know of what she speaks and I relate to it in every way. If only I could have said it so well."

But I watched Extreme Makeover Home Edition instead.

And yes, I cried. And got annoyed with all of the cloying blahblah but then cried again and admired the design and then got annoyed that they drag it out for two hours but thank god for Tivo and then, yes okay FINE I cried at the end.

I wish I could stay up and write that post for you. Alas it will remain in the draft folder of my mind. I'll just say this: things are getting better. The big life decision still looms but at least there's a little relief so the mindgrapes aren't hurting so much.

A couple years ago I got to create a spoof of the Makeover Show for Microsoft. Watching the show tonight I realize how a) easy it was to spoof and b) how great a job we did.

With the love of a procrastinatin' heart,

PS- Please vote for the movie over to the left. I like you.

Wordless Wednesday: Man On a Mission Edition

2010-01-27T23:01:00.000-08:00

Not my proudest photography moment, but you know, it's happening fast. BHB learned himself how to crawl! Last Saturday friends, January 23rd. So. Here we go...

Yours from the fast lane,

Up In The Air

2010-01-25T23:36:00.000-08:00

George Clooney is so hot.

It's that damn George Clooney! He's so hot right now!

Sorry to mix my movies. Zoolander happens to be one of my all time favorite movies. If that fact means you don't care what I have to say about any other movie, so be it. Don't let the browser hit you on the ass on your way out.

YOU: Wow, really Jane? That was pretty rude. Do you actually feel that strongly about Zoo-freakin'-Lander?

ME: Yes, Yes I do. I love it. I mean comon'...the walk off? Pure genius.

YOU: Oh, okay. You know what? You're right.

ME: Ah good. Glad to see you've got great taste in movies. What a relief!

Ok, back to the action. Yes, hot. I just have to start there with GC's hotness. I mean, hellllo. And while it should absolutely have no any bearing whatsoever on whether or not Up In the Air is a good movie, I'm sorry to say but it does.

It made it better. And it was already quite good.

Nominations for 2010 Oscars will be announced next Tuesday. I feel pretty darn confident that Up in the Air will be among the best picture contenders. Do I think it deserves to win that auspicious award? Short answer: Kinda.

Here's what worked for me. The filmgoing experience. I was quite satisfied. Ok, I granted I was a little frustrated with the ending, I'm not saying why yet (don't worry, I'll flag with spoiler alerts) but I get the strong feeling that we are supposed to be a little frustrated by the ending. And I laughed. I got a little weepy. I was swept away into the story and it's character's just like I'm supposta be.

Hot GC's character evolves. I like evolvement! In fact I think it's critical to a hero's journey and thusly the audience journey. Our hero should come out the other side a pretty different guy in a believable way. He did. I believed it.

And wow. I LOVED the casting a--key--ross the board. Down to the bit parts. This is often effed up by other filmmakers but Jason Reitman and his team just nailed this casting thing. I love lovey loved the love interest played by Vera Farmiga. What a power move, more or less an unknown ( I totally IMDB'd her on my iPhone on the way home from the theatre). And the other key role was played flawlessly by relative newcomer Anna Kendrick. Holy delightful! And the sisters. And. Really? Everyone! Like down to the gate agents kind of thing. I really appreciate this attention to detail, how often do you see a movie and things are humming along swimmingly when it suddenly gets knocked off track by a wooden lame actor with zero ability phoning it in and then Whoa! Weird! Bam! you're out of the story and have to find your way back with a gulp of DC and a few bites of popcorn. This friends, did not happen. Plus I don't drink DC, it makes me feel funny.

So here it comes...my issue with the movie.

**Spoiler Alert**

Ok, so. What's with the out o' the blue married status of our gal? I mean, I get that surprise's are good - ie: "ohhh, wow, didn't see that coming" But this was too far out. I don't think it's fair to take an audience to a wedding on a WEEKEND and give us tons of smilee -gorgeous- we're-a-couple-now-twirling around-the-dance-floor with a woman who is not wearing a ring and did I mention it was on the Weekend? And isn't it totally true that when you go to a wedding with someone you're taking the next step? Especially the wedding of a family member? On a Weekend?

Harumph.

**Okay, comon' back**

So I wanted to overlook this flaw, I really did. The only other issue I had is that it could be a bit stage-ee at times. Like the shot (don't worry, it's in the trailer) of the two of them opening their laptops at the same time. I mean, yea. No. That's heightened reality, which I am all for but all of the reality needs to match. But, well. Hold on, I think I'm being a bit curmudgeon-ly. The heightened stuff happens alot...and it's fun. See the thing is I didn't like Juno. (gasp! I know!) and that level of inauthenticity that happens in the cutesy moments (ah Jane, there you go again) is why I didn't like Juno and it was where I got lost momentarily in this movie too. His apartment? Just not believable. I get what you're trying to do, but it's frustrating.

I do love Jason Bateman as the boss. That dude is a fantastic freakin' actor who I think is sorta underrated. Not by me, by the world. Anyhoo. Ok so I know I'm all over the map but y'all know me well by now and wouldn't expect any less. Or more.

All of the acting goodness along with one of the better moments in recent cinema (the hotel lobby sobby scene) add up to something definitely worth seeing, as in I'd see it again.

So I give it an A--. Or B++. I can't commit to just one sign here. It's flawed it a pretty major way in my mind but totally, totally worth the ride. Especially to watch the uber hot George Clooney totally nail it. May he win many more awards and put on many more benefits and may he be in a movie that I direct someday so that I can admire him in person.

Jane out.

PS- This is an apt title for a post for me right now as so much of my own personal life feels very up in the air. I will dish more very soon. In fact...I'm thinking of asking folks who read my blog to help or actually make a major life decision for me and the hubs. I think it sounds kinda fun. I mean, it's better to blame the wiley internets if we find out later it was a total mistake, right? Stay tuned!

Telethon

2010-01-23T00:08:00.000-08:00

I am watching this Hope for Haiti Now telethon and it's so incredibly moving. My confession is that I've avoided the news for the last 10 days because I knew I wouldn't be able to bear the images or the facts. I hate that about me, it's not that I don't care or don't want to know. It's just that knowing makes me feel like someone took a potato peeler to my skin and is lurking close by with a juicy lemon and a smirk.

But I'm watching. And trying to call, but the good news is I can't get through. When I go to the Hope for Haiti Now website I get a weird certificate message which is making me hold off on entering my credit card. Likely it's not actually an issue but ack, you know? I guess I'll wait until that is resolved or just donate to the Redcross which can also be done through the handy button over there to the left. Of course I'll admit I want to chat up Steven Spielberg or Sigourney Weaver. Or Leo. I love these conversations that they are showing us. How extraordinary and genius is thing that they've created in such a short time? George Clooney is truly a stand-up guy. How many people are like me and have been hiding from the news and are now watching these stunning performances and watching the Twitter map go off and just think of course I'll donate. Of course. Lemon's be damned.

I am always somewhere between embracing my sensitive ways or crucifying myself over it. But I am damn sensitive, it's just true. I'm sensitive to lighting. Fluorescents make me feel hopeless. Overhead lighting makes me angry. I'm sensitive to sound. Basically most of the time it's too loud and there are pitches that are perceivable to me and my brown dog, no-one else. And perfume? Let me summarize, by saying - Ugh. I can't wear it and if I hug someone who's got it going I often get it on me but where I don't know how to scrape it off and then I smell it all day and then...continued ugh-ness.

I watch BHB closely to see if he's got the same issues. I was once told by a psychic that he would be a 'sensitive child' and that I should buy the book The Highly Sensitive Child. While I'm not embarrassed to say this (okay a little) I'm all ears when it comes to the spiritual info that is downloaded onto me...I 'm going to wait and see before full tilt panic. Or book buying.

Lately I've been in the darkness again. I can't say whether that has something to do with ye olde PPD from days of yore. I have judgements about that - I think to myself - he's almost 10 months old! How is this still PPD? More like wtf getoveryourself which we shall initialize as GOYJ. But it is in fact why I've avoided the horrifying news from Haiti or for that matter our Senate. I just get taken down by this information and often don't recover for hours or even days. To truth is as I've shared before I have my own glimpses of psychic moments and also medium moments (I see dead people!) so I figure the whole sensitive bit is just par for the course. (regardless of how mysterious the course is to me....) But. I am looking for some solutions to get a little more de-sensitized.

Have you heard of the book The Mood Cure? Cute hubs picked it up and so far it's darn interesting. I haven't gotten very far into it, but I'm interested in the part that talks about overly senstive/overly emotional people and how this can be treated with diet. Since as I mentioned recently that I saw a family member successful treat a major psychiatric illness with diet changes, it totally makes sense to me that I could potentially find some relief from my endless weepy ways and inability to deal with bad lighting and bad news. Of course I've recently begun that journey by kicking the sugar to the curb but it may not be enough. I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime please enjoy some pics of the BHB livin' large with big joy (and big drool) despite my temporary lack of it.

Hubs dressed him in this plethora of stripes. He was trying to be funny and it worked 'cause this is true striped awesomeness.

FB friends sorry for the repeat. It's just too good to pass up...

Yours in the search for ease n' grace,

PS - I know I have just over-linked to past post-ness. And I'm sorry but, uh, not totally. That last one is a personal fave and a shortie if you're willing...

PPS - Yes there is a movie called Telethon (on TV). No, I've never seen it but IMDB says it exists. Oh and for Monday? Vote my sisters! I promise to do your bidding!! And thanks too btw for voting to keep that in. That's really nice, I appreciate it. So I'll keep yappin' about movies...it's good for my brain.

Wordless Wednesday: Who needs toys when there is a bucket nearby?

2010-01-20T11:01:00.000-08:00

music credit: waxlab

sending buckets of love,

Julie & Julia

2010-01-18T22:36:00.000-08:00

I know, I know...y'all voted for Up. But what is there to say other than that it's brilliant, hilarious and endearing and it will be one of the few movies that we'll all be able to stomach for the 100th time when our little tiny ones get to the point of shoveling DVD's back into the machine over and over again until one day it breaks because the younger one put cheetos in it and then we'll upgrade to the bitchin system whereby the kid will be choosing from our library of movies on a menu stored on some hard drive or some distant server on the interweb. Yep, that will be some fancy shizzle. Of course, to be clear, I will not let BHB watch TV until he's 8. Ahem.

So let's talk about Julie & Julia instead.

First of all, in one of the two stories featured in the movie you'll find another blogger success story. I mean, other than Dooce. All of us bloggly blogesses of the off-blue screen secretly (or not) imagine this to be our story. Start a blog. A reader stumbles by and due to the sheer brilliance of the writing, offers a book deal. We write a book. Due to the sheer genius of the book (or the catchy concept) we get a movie deal. Life is forever good as we rake in the residuals and book deals and speaking engagements. Our children are proud to call us Mommy and we can hire full time help.

Joy. Ease. Love-filled life and shiny teeth.

So there's that, so that part was definitely interesting to me. When the Julie character was all a twitter about the 20 comments on her blog and she got all to be the all-too-annoying-self-obsessed-no-sex having-blogger I turned to cute hubs and said nervously in a high-pitched voice, 'Oh haha she does not remind you of anyone, does she?' These striking similarities to persons fictional or otherwise is not why I didn't love the movie.

I found it to be many charming moments piled up with pretty people and some fun for sure, however, my takeaway was that it was plotless and flat. I give it a C+. If you loved it, I won't be hurt if you click away. Go ahead. Hit an ad on the way out, would you? Oh crap, I don't think I'm supposed to say those things. Well damn if Google sees this and takes away my adsense and the 6.42 I've earned so far so be it.

Let me back up, I loved Meryl Streep. I mean, comon'. She is so freakin' cute and just nails it. She literally channels these people, I mean the characters she plays whether they are real or otherwise. She is an American treasure and I l-l-l-l-love her. She deserved the Golden Globe and I loved her speech. So there. I also loved Stanly Tucci. He's another actor who deserves a hell of a lot more praise and great roles than he receives. And wait, I also really enjoyed Amy Adams and whoever that dude is who played her man. I found their love believable. So by now you're wondering - uh, you give it a C? I do. All of these likable people in great costumes tracking along with one historic cookbook does not a great movie make.

*Spoiler Alert!* (I promised I'd do this, here it is)

Even if these are real people - we need a plot! We need to be taken on a ride! There was some danger around Senator McCarthy and Julia's hubs getting into trouble but that fizzled off into whatever nothingness. There was some danger that Julia didn't (gasp) like what Julie was doing. And that's bad! I mean, really bad, right? Well it's shuffled off the screen in a big act 3 wrap up that I didn't find satisfying.

*Alert over* - (resume reading if you care to)

Then there is the problem of the music. Movie music is such tricky business, it my mind it's pretty rarely done perfectly. The music in this movie is all Cute and Spunky and like Pointing to the screen with a big 'Something interesting is coming!' and 'Don't you like the shiny lighting?' kinda deal. That may be a bit harsh but I will say when the credits were rolling I didn't want to hang out to hear more. I ran away.

Now let's address one more thing, if you haven't thought of it already. This is a big year and awards season for women directors. Which I think is freakin' fantastic. So I feel a bit out of line or out of synch by doggin' on our girl Nora Ephron. Historically speaking I personally loved Sleepless in Seattle and hated, really hated You've Got Mail. So you know, sometimes she hits, sometimes not so much, like ANY filmmaker. Sometimes I just think I should have some solidarity or something like that with the womens directors (s on the end of women intentional) but end of day I'm just interested in honesty and truthful moments. Oh and as you've already noticed, a plot.

It's too bad I don't have the strength or courage to see The Hurt Locker, which I hear is amazing. It's just that I literally cannot watch war movies or overly suspenseful films without throwing up. Yep, I truly am a sensitive lil thing. Director Katheryn Bigelow is apparently a total rock star in this thriller/psycho fear genre and I guess I'll never see her work. But you know, let's give a big what-what to the awesomely successful action-flick chick-director.

Okay then, there you go.

UP - A
Julie & Julia - C+

Sleepless in LA,

PS - Uhm - btw - should I keep doing this movie thing? So far, so fun, but you know...I don't know. Let me know.

PPS - I also want to give a bit shout out of thanks for your birthday comments and lovin'. I truly and totally appreciated your words. And to quickly summarize - the day it was a mix of crappy and sweet. Birthday's really can be stoopid. It's all about expectation management I suppose. I'm sure 40 will be no problem there. Ahem.

16 Candles

2010-01-15T23:56:00.000-08:00

So tomorrow is my birthday. I'm going to be 39 (for the first time) and it's trippin' my sh_ out.

For the record, my adorable step-dad would prefer I didn't swear, so to honor his readership and the fact that he cares enough to tell me his opinion, I am going to ix-nay on the four letter words from here on out. I mean, I think you'll still effin' know what I mean, but perhaps LCD has just become a softer, sweeter place.

Birthday's are just weird. First of all, a lil shout out of huge thanks to my Mom! Whatup Momma! Thanks for um, you know, OUCH. I've realized that instead of this day being all about me, I think it's time to share just a little bit of the good stuff with the woman who suffered mightily to bring my tiny pink butt to the planet. In fact, now that I know the score, it's high time to write 38 thank you notes for the last 38 celebrations. Damn. But now I know.

And my Mom was awesome at throwing birthday parties, I've got seriously big shoes to fill in that department. I think my high school friends started to look forward to the fun party coming a few weeks after Christmas, 'cause she always rocked it. Let's run down a few, shall we?

Sweet 16 was a bitchin' 50's themed party and we all wore poodle skirts. My Dad and his best-friend DJ'd the event with all of 'their' music and we cleared the dining room out and did our best swing-dancin'. Only trouble had to do with Dad's BF who was visiting for a few weeks and trying to sober-up down in Florida. Dontcha know he picked that night to relapse into a pool of booze which turned him into a puddle. The net-net was a really uncomfortable moment where he swerved me around the dance floor and pawed the back of my poodle. THAT was a pretty crappy high school moment. Ahem, yea. Kinda dark, sorry about that. Also need to apologize for an unfortunate rash of alliteration. The sad fact is that he died later that year from complications from his alcoholism.

For 17 she did a super cool scavenger hunt. Since we were all driving then, she had clues hidden all over town. One required a purchase at the McDonald's drive-through for (how she got them to participate is beyond me) and a crazy-dig-up-something-thing on the side of a lonely stretch of a brand new road. It was an all afternoon affair of driving and laughing and some actual thinking to solve her smarty-pants clues. My dad even built a rough little wooden treasure chest to hold all of the goodies for the team that won. In fact, I still have it in all of it's splinteree glory. Wait a minute, I have to disclose this lil tidbit...it currently holds all of my journals. Ha! How precious right? About time to retrieve that from storage for the old bonfire. Godforbid anyone read those. Oh wait, isn't that what this blog is? E-journal 2009-2010.

18 was the best. To celebrate my then new ability to gamble, the rents threw a Gambling Night. No kidding. They rented all of these tables including craps, black-jack and roulette. Their friends were the dealers all smiles in bow-ties. There were lessons on how to play the games and we all got big piles of tiny pink and blue monopoly money. Then we bid on prizes at the end of the night, the most memorable was the giant Hershey's kiss. What a fun night for us big shot seniors to get all fanced up in our fancy-wear. She even served us caviar and sparkling apple cider as champagne. Genius.

I think maybe the last birthday I looked forward to was 1996 when I turned 25 and could like, finally rent a car. Other than that, they have been steadily losing their charm. I do have to say the cute hubs rocked 30 pretty hard by surprising me by flying my best-friend from HS into town. He dropped me off at a massage place and when I walked into the heavy incensed air and soothing music - there she was. I almost fainted. He then sent us on a scavenger hunt around town (hmm, a theme) which was hilarious and amazing and then surprised me again that night with twenty-five of my favorite people at my favorite restaurant. He was already, you know, my fiance at the time - but his stock went up pretty high after that one.

So to summarize, I guess birthdays can be aiight. Honestly I'm already mentally blowing by these days and the hubs birthday in February because I'm all a quiver about BHB's birthday in April. It just feels like it ain't about us anymore. And as you can see that's a pretty good idea. Plans for the weekend are minimal but I will be enjoying one of the last weekends that my folks will be around. Let's not talk about the mighty withdrawal that is coming when they actually depart, it's just best not to. Nope, let's not. Let's just enjoy not-turning-40 for one more year.

For fun here are a few pics from birthday's past.

That's the BF. Even though we haven't lived in the same state since we were 20, we often manage to celebrate our birthday's together. This is the birthday after the toughest Christmas ever, 2006. Drinking was an excellent idea then, or so I thought. I love bar self-portraits.

Oh lookie! Here I am enjoying another vice that I no longer imbibe in. If you ever go by FU Sugar you'll see that it's going ah, pretty well. I've only slipped a few times since Halloween. Tomorrow is tempting though. Look at that cake! Be strong Jane, be strong.

By the way, I have to apologize for all of the naval gazing and bio-pic quality of recent posts. I guess this entry into a new year as a new parent is creating the space for too much rumination.

And finally, don't forget to vote in Movie Monday. You'll make my whole birthday with your vote. Or a comment. OR if you really want to make an old lady happy, toss a few bucks on our movie. (or see sidebar to left) Time is growing short.

Ain't that the truth?

Yours in cusp of the middle age,

Wordless Wednesday: Meet the Cousins Edition

2010-01-13T22:37:00.000-08:00

The Constant Gardener

2010-01-12T09:59:00.001-08:00

Day late on the Movie Monday again 'cause I needed help writing this. I mean, until this minute I was calling the movie The Constant Gardner - which cute hubs pointed out might be fine if Jennifer Gardner (or to be accurate, Garner) was in it. But no, it's Gardener. Got it hubs, I put the vowel in. So since he's so damn smart, he can help me write this. I'll start.

Me: Let's start with the title, no matter how you spell it, I'm still trying to decide if it's a good title or not. I took a great screenwriting class from the dude who wrote Save the Cat and his claim is that a movie title should 'say what it is!' Ah yes, just found a little article of him talking about it here.

So while our protagonist does quite a bit of gardening in the movie, and you know, it's pretty, I never found a real compelling reason for this phrase to be on the marquee. I kept waiting for that 'gardener of souls' business or somekind of deeper metaphorical-ee type entrance into why this is the title. And shoot, Rebecca voted for this movie 'cause she thought she'd hear some valuable tips about some veggies and dirt. See what I mean? Not so much. It's more of a espionage, love triangle, thriller type dealee with some killer-diller filmmaking. But maybe the hubs saw the deeper meaning for the title.

Hubs: Thought about fibbing here, but no - I didn't see the title as a strong point either. Sure, I got the broader reference and all. But when referring to the movie, I've needed a couple of seconds for it to pop into my old mind. I neglected to ask my mom about it - she is a true constant gardener and likes Ralph Feinnes. She would've expected a HGTV epic.

But then, this isn't a Hollywood movie and came from a English novel - an artsy martini with a fartsy garnish. My suspicion is that John le Carre (the author) might've used Save the Cat to swat a roach, but likely hasn't cracked the cover in the other sense. Want a Hollywood, Save the Cat title? Howzabout 'Take My Wife, Alive, Please'. But with the title and the trailer and Ralph as the lead and a foreign settng, I was in deep, dark, sweaty fear of being tortured by another The English Patient (or The English Not So Patient), another movie to make Catholic Mass look like Cirque du Soliel. I knew if I saw anything like another panning shot of a damned plane soaring over desert to orchestral masturbation, I’d go Elvis on our television.

Me: I liked English Patient fine. I can see why it struck a fear chord in the hubs though, here's a poster comparison:

Btw, I didn't know Elvis shot his TV, did you? Huh. That's fun. So while I did not share the EP fear that he did, I will say I have my own espionage-shoot-em-up-in-another-land movie fear. Well, to be honest I don't like guns. I know, you're thinking - boy your Hollywood career is going to be short. Yea, I know. I really love it when filmmakers can make a movie that keeps the stakes high without the lethal piece of metal. It's just such a shortcut, you know? Anyhoo. What's interesting about this movie is that despite the aforementioned potential pitfalls for me, I thought it was an excellent piece of filmmaking. Oh sure the academy did too since it was up for four oscars and some golden globes n' shizzle so I'm not exactly providing a uniqe POV there. What was cool is that I turned it off at one point and thought, "oh it's that type of movie..." but when I was compelled to finish watching once tiny boy was in bed, I was really impressed by the way it developed in really surprising ways and my once opinions about the characters was 180'd.

By the way, I'm being super vague so that if you decide based on our vaguities that you want to netflix it, you won't be robbed of the goodies. If I ever bust into a spoiler alert, I'll be sure to say so. So yea. I really liked it. It's the type of movie that haunts and wanders through random thought moments and daydreams. It was beautifully shot. So, two rattles up from me.

Hubs: Ditto on the rattles. And nice investigative work on those posters, baby!

I've come to really appreciate films like this. The movie - in script, direction, and editing - is an elegant mess that capitalizes on our minds' ability to cobble together disparate images and details to form a story. I love this style, dammit. It mimics the movies we see in our heads. And as Jane hinted, it felt like a sometimes dream/sometimes nightmare. There's a precision to it (that I wish I fully understood) that fuels the chaotic essence at the heart of the story. The world is disquietingly random, even on a good day. Relationships - and our imaginations within them - are not under our control, no matter how passionate or defined they seem. And Africa has become a dusty and brutal political clusterboink - though mostly degrades to a simple and horrible anarchy - that the rest of the world could conceivably be sucked into.

The added beauty is that I'm not sure it would be considered a political story. And that's brilliant. No preaching. The basic story is the struggle of a complex love, and the political turbulence is the vivid backdrop. Yet it's more powerful because of it's gravitational dance with the characters from a slight distance. It's a beautiful thing to observe. And I'm picky - a preachy movie with an upfront agenda is as interesting to me as Ann Coulter bitching about the price of cocaine.

The movie is haunting after the credits. But as a new dad, a film like this haunts me again because of nurturing a 9-month-old boy into this wondrous and fucked world. Love and hate. I love brave movies like this with their necessary realism. And I hate stories depicting the world as a place where people (not shown in the film, thank god) will hang a man upside down from a tree, skin him alive, then stuff his own genitalia into his mouth during his last breaths. Christ, that was hard to write. And it was hard to hear in the story. And I wish I could believe that it never happens, or even that it's just distant, heinous evil that can't touch us. What can I say? How can both this story and the BHB's sweet face both exist, here and now. And how will I explain those shitty things? Will I be able to prepare my guy to find some comfort amidst these conditions? Will he he understand that this place is perfect, even though there is no such thing as our concept of perfection? Years and years to go. Then tomorrow is today, and the answers won't be easier. Nevertheless, in the end, he'll have to find him for himself. I wonder if, and pray that I can lose fear to provide an example.

Me: Aw. Good. Now you can see why I love him so, what an awesome brain.

Putting the poll up for next week now. Vote on over there to your left, as you can see I (ok, we) are having fun with this.

Happy Monday (ahem) to you!

P.S. - If you are a link follower at all, you'll notice I'm amazonin' it alot. I've decided to become an 'associate'. Full disclosure seems like a good thing.

A Beautiful Mind

2010-01-11T09:25:00.000-08:00

I guess we should have seen the signs. But we didn't know.

Even though a family member had at one time been diagnosed as schizophrenic, it didn't occur to us to worry.

Every two year old has temper tantrums. Tons of high school kids have drug problems. Lots of people have perfect pitch and vocabularies that surpass their knowledge and learning level.

You can't really worry too much about schizophrenia being a family trait when the affected family member managed to recover from that terrifying diagnosis through the use of self discipline and willpower. This is a fact. He stopped exhibiting symptoms and in relatively short order become not only a contributing and well member of society, but a pretty incredible dude and artist as well. Add into the mix great teeth and an amazing combination of accountability and sincerity. How did he move out of that diagnosis you ask? He did it by getting really, really specific with his food choices. He went vegan. He started getting blood tests and managing every aspect of his blood chemistry, sugar, potassium, iron, etc etc you name it, he watched it. He meditated. He did yoga. You know what? He did it right and the result was miraculous.

So when my brother was in his late teens and dabbling in psychedelics we all thought, ah well... it's a phase. Sure it's ridiculous that he barely made it out of high school considering his remarkable IQ but. You know, drugs and alcohol, it's almost cliche. It was about the time Tough Love was introduced, so we dished that up.

I had gone to acting school for two years and already beat-up and disillusioned by that career choice before the age of 20, I decided to move across the country. I arranged to waitress in South Dakota for the summer to raise money for my new life in California. A few days after I arrived there, my world crumbled. After a fun day of rock climbing with some brand new friends I got a note on my dorm door that there was an emergency and I needed to call home. After many calls with trembling hands I finally heard the word. My dad was dead. He had Lupus so it shouldn't have come as a surprise, but he was always insisting that the 'wolf wouldn't get him' and we believed him. So it was an unbearable surprise.

Now I see that it was the perfect storm. An angst-filled young man, drugs and alcohol, a terrible tragedy. The current reality is no surprise to any health professional or anyone who knows anything about mental illness. But we didn't know, we couldn't know. We were torn apart, blown apart by our loss and our grief and inability to know how to be a family. After the services I continued on to California. My mom found her way into grief groups and then an RV and traveled the country for a few years to deal with the loss of her beloved 46 year old husband.

And my little brother spiraled. More drugs. More alcohol. A diagnosis: manic-depressive. Then the jail stints. A car fire...was it an insurance scam? We wondered.

About that time I was making my way into film school, into the jagermeister bottle and up and down big rocks in Joshua Tree. My brother's dramas were far off and incomprehensible to me. I think about my early 20-self sometimes and wonder if she could have done something to help him. To alter his terrible path. And sometimes I let myself off that sharp hook with some of the words already written above. How could I have known? And sometimes the nails into my hands are very painful. I could have...I should have...If only. But I didn't.

The years have unfolded in a movie-of-the-week-after-school-special plot line involving more jailtime, homelessness and a long unsuccessful line of halfway houses. My mom has kept a running document of all of the events of his life so she can give it to the next social worker or the next counselor or hospital. By now if printed it would be about a ream of paper. In my late 20's I did a big rescue effort. I flew to Florida and hunkered down for two months to do my big sister duty. First I had him Baker Acted into the hospital so that he could finally get the help and meds he needed to get straightened out. The result wasn't great. Thirty or so days of hospital life and his voice in my head. 'I hate you for doing this, I'll never forgive you'. Awesome.

It's a fucked up disease, that's for sure. As a family member, it's impossible to know how to be. We have alternated between being very involved and very hands off and the results don't seem to change based on our efforts. Some suggest to deal with him like you do with someone addicted to drugs or booze. As in, do not help them unless they are helping themselves...they have to 'want it'. And while he has a dual-diagnosis (addicted and schizophrenic) I think it's much more complex. He's got rude and mean-spirited voices talking to him in his head. He argues with them all the time, sometimes they win. In fact more often than not they win. When the voices start arguing with me, I have to get off the phone at that point 'cause I am bound to lose and strain my own version of sanity in the process.

Not long after the big rescue effort came the 'I can only love him from afar' era. He can be incredibly manipulative when there is money or musical instruments to be had, which to my mind is confusing. How does he have the prescience to be able to manipulate reality to his preferred end? It's strange but true. So to avoid getting caught in that trap, I decided that I wouldn't give him money or material things, only my ear over the phone and my love from 3,000 miles away. Needless to say, my mom has been through the ringer on this one. About eleven years after my Dad passed she married an extraordinary guy. He's seen the both of them through many, many variations on the themes of hands off to very hands on and miraculously has the willingness to answer the midnight calls and go on the jail visits. I think we all consider ourselves lucky that our new family member would be such a giant of a guy to be able to handle such a brutal and constant source of pain and awkward and unruly variables.

For years I had strong opinions of how my Mom 'should be doing it' and for some reason I was convinced I had a line on what correct action was. Interesting how the birth of my son has ripped that smug knowingness from my gut. I realize now I know nothing. I do know that schizophrenia (and addiction) is a family disease and you'd be right if you thought 'Gosh I bet that scares her a little bit'. You betcha. If my son starts to go down these roads in a few years, can I help him? Can I save him from the horrible fate of loneliness, despair and social outcast?

For those of you who have been around LCD, you might remember the PSA that I made about an organization that helps mentally ill get off the street. Remember, the one that should have won that damn Emmy? I'm putting it here again.

Thanks for watching and reading. Oh and voting, if you please (to the left). Tell me what to type about for Movie Monday.

Yours in joy and pain,

Wordless Wednesday: (okay Thursday) Getty Edition

2010-01-07T22:45:00.000-08:00

Food Inc

2010-01-04T23:26:00.000-08:00

thanks to those who voted in the schmancy movie poll over there to the left. Cause let's be clear any viewer participation at all (be it comment, follow or vote) in this blog makes me feel UBER special. So here goes.

Time for another edition of: Monday Movies: Masterpiece or Meh? (or something in-between)

Watch this movie.
Don't wait.

I"m so tempted to end here. Bwha hahaha! It is tempting.

But I won't. So let me 'splain.

You know how we just go along eating the food, you know the food that we get at the Crazy Chicken (El Pollo Loco) or MickeyD's (um, I don't go there dammit) or that nice restaurant where we're spending 20 bucks a plate. We think 'Gosh, I'm sure it's safe. I'm sure the animals that we're eating were treated with... okay they were killed but at least fed and had a little bit of animal joy, some lil piece of what I would consider to be humane treatment. I don't really know where this food came from but since that chef is so swell and the food tastes SO Good, you know, it's gotta be good.

And scene. End of thought process.

Food Inc asks you to actually think about your food, about the places it's been, who is getting paid along the way and what is at risk. It's one of those 'eye opening' documentaries. I've been known to avoid these films, I'll think. 'Gawd, I can't see another movie about government corruption (duh, we know!) or how evil we are to civilians in Iraq, or entire villages of people that are starving, I'll really start crying and never stop.' Because I know it, I know it and it's upsetting and I feel powerless and there is rarely anything if much I can do. But I do watch them, occasionally. And get upset.

I was feeling pretty bold when I sidled up to Food Inc. But I was pleasantly surprised. While I did get a little smack down of reality that was tough to swallow (get it?) , I also got a nice little edu-macation and importantly I liked the filmmaking alot. No small thing for me, if you're going to scare me or inform me or inspire me, thanks so much for taking the time to make killer graphics or really interesting visuals that wouldn't be caught dead in a Ken Burns film.

If you've read The Omnivore's Dilemma, you know the dealio. The movie is based on this book by Micheal Pollan and he tells the story of how the majority of our food is 'industrialized' down to the control of seeds and comes from 3 or 4 corporation who are trying to squash (trying? well, often succeeding) the little farmers. Most farmers are working for these corporations and let's just say it's not a good scenario.

So while I have a lot more to learn and a whole heck of a lot to think about, I am very glad I watched this film. The images of the industrialized chicken houses and slaughter houses and the facts about how 90% of what we eat has CORN in it (as in derived from, or fed, or syruped or whatevs) shook me to my core. I cannot continue to eat what I was eating and pretend I don't know what is going on.

And of course I was looking at the film with one hand over my eyes, but the other one waving with a little Amen brother! Tell it! This shizzle has got to change. It's funny how the little one who is still eating what I'm eating (and now a whole lotta baby mush that I make at a furious pace to keep up with his little growing belly) is making me care, really care about these issues. And of course not just what he is eating now, but more than that, what planet and food system will he inherit.

But what's awesome about Food Inc is that I felt immediately empowered with the information I need to make a few changes that I DO believe will make a difference. At first I decided to become a Vegetarian. And then I decided that I would like to support farmers who treat the animals well and let's get honest I really like chicken, but it does mean I just can't eat the random 'don't know the backstory chicken' anymore. So I become an Integritarian. And OH yes I did just make that up, and OH yes I feel prettttty proud of it. As in, I eat with integrity.

What's tricky about that is all of the food labels that can kick your ass in a fit of semantic confusion. Does organic mean free range? Nope, not necessarily. Does free-range mean they get to wander the forest? Nope, rarely at best. So I'm still digging through all of this as well as bugging the butcher at Whole Foods about his Organic chickens from Mary's. So far his answers were pretty darn good, but I'm thinking I'd like to go to her farm and see for myself so that I can be sure to feel good about eating what she produces. In fact the film features a farmer named Joel Salatin who literally has happy pigs rolling around behind him in the interview and they are literally - as happy as pigs in shit. I thought...I could eat the animals who lived that sweet life. And apparently this guy sells to Chipotle Mexican Grill, and they are one of his biggest customers. Pretty darn cool. Chipotle claims that their chicken and pork is completely 'natural' as in, not from industrialized farms. And their beef is 50% there. Ok, a place I can go out and eat chicken if I'd like to...they make being an Integritarian easier. Godblessem.

I do feel like I can be a part of a massive necessary change by voting for a different world with my dollar. By refusing to support those thoughtless, heartless and dangerous industrialized foods at every turn possible. And so, I buy the organics. I go to the farmer's market. I am done with the meats unless I know what farm and how and why and I must say I'm pretty afraid of the fishes. The food choices are slimming (as in what's avail) of course it wouldn't break my heart if that was the result on my butt too. When I went all evangelical about this on Facebook a few weeks ago a friend of mine told me she pulled corn and evil meats and the rest out of her diet when this movie came out last summer and has since lost a ton of weight. I just saw her the other day and I'm here to tell you, watching this movie just might make you hot. She looks GOOD.

Next on my netflix in the 'I'm feeling brave' category.
King Corn.

Alrightee then. We'll see if I get to enjoy any movies between now and then, I'll try to give you some more swell choices for next week. Thanks again for playing.

Rock on super chics!

Happiness

2010-01-01T23:58:00.000-08:00

Today was one of the amazing days where time moved in a very odd and deliriously, delicious way. One minute forward, two minutes on hold, what feels like three hours turns out to be only :42 minutes. Have you had this experience? It's either some kind of acid flashback (Hey - I saw the Grateful Dead in my 20's) or it's just life's way of pointing out that time in fact doesn't ACTUALLY exist and the key to a stress-free year is to keep that lil fact front and center in the ol' cranium.

I wonder if time is going all Salvador Dali on me due to my proximity to the BHB? He's in a really cool phase of what appears to be his first class on perspective. He is constantly searching for a new angle on the shiny things in life. He ducks his head under to look up under the window shade, then checks the streaming light from 14 more observation points along the way. He dives sideways to observe the brown dog in a 90 degree angle, and then with great abandon and thrill, he flings himself back up in my general direction. I haven't caught the digital image of it yet, but he's been using his hand in an L position to observe the world. Like a viewfinder.

Me: Ah jeasus, just what this family needs, another director.

BHB: (grins) Squeek! Gurgle. Bah. Bah. Bah.

Me: No seriously dude, one control freak per household, please.

Who knows? I may have to step down from that auspicious post. We'll see in a few years. Here is a photo of our hero finding his reflection particularly fantastic in a shiny trash can at Whole Foods.

And the light in LA was perfect today. Rose Bowl Parade fans, did you notice? It was that soft pink light, like what they get in Paris in the fall. (Umm, okay. I've been once. In the fall.) They have the most amazing grapes. Have you eaten french grapes? Holy crap, it's like eating perfume only that sounds dastardly and this is the opposite. If I could live in Paris, I would move in a heartbeat. Although, wait....since I don't drink anymore, that might suck. Harummph. I may need to rethink that fantasy.

But back to the USA. And today with it's long, lingering beauty. I realized something that I almost didn't want to admit to myself, and it's kinda shocking that I'm sending on over to you in this etherweb of wires and wireless-ness and other mysterious techno-weenie magic.

I am really happy.

I am. Life is really good. It's like a french grape. It's big and juicy and not covered in pesticides. My mom is in town and decided to stick around for three more weeks (sob! joy!). I'm all yummed up on good food and the good lovin' that occasionally a holiday season will deliver. I'm healthy. (we all are) My baby is STOOPID cute and killin' me with his fantastic ways. I should note that the cynical side of my brain wants to jump in here and type out all of the reason's I shouldn't be so damn joyful. But.

Hey, of course Mr. C-side has a point...but, you know what? I'm going to tell it to eff off. This kind of unreasonable satisfaction doesn't come all the time, might as well surf it's sweet little well-lit wave.

Happy New Year pretty internet friends!

PS - Also a big ol howdy welcome to the new followers. I know Stefanie sent you over and I will totally make out with her tomorrow when I see her to thank her. (I kid, but you know, she is hot) I hope to keep y'all entertained over here too!

PPS - Be sure to vote in my shmancy new poll over there to the left and up. What movie shall I type to you about on Monday?

My Mom rockin' the Ergo @ Zen Zoo. Speaking of happy, right? Separating these two will NOT be easy later this month. Best not to think about that.

Santa takes a break from the hard Santa Baby workload. That look is so faraway and sweet, isn't it?

Wordless Wednesday: Sunset Hike Edition

2009-12-30T23:55:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

Just a few words on this wordless Wednesday. So my friend JJ does this thing, (or oops, not today, but usually?) I don't know if she made it up or what but I think it's super neat and I've meaning to join in the fun for a long damn time. New Years time makes you want to do thing things you've been meaning to, so here we go.

Some recent pics from recent sunset hikes in the beeyootiful Griffith Park.

Avatar

2009-12-28T22:37:00.000-08:00

Okay! So here @ LCD I've decided to start a new thang. It's called Monday Movie ~~Musings.~~
~~Magic~~
~~Masterpieces~~
Wait! Back-off strikethrough, ~~jesus!~~ I like that last one.

Monday Movie Masterpieces.

What do y'all think? Here's my thought. Let's talk movies on Mondays. It's as if I have a life and go out to movies on weekends and since I am a big-shot film school graduate (oh yea!) I'll use big film geek words and talk about why I think films are in fact achieve Masterpiece status or live in total crapland. Or something inbetween. I know what you're thinking - whatever Jane! We can just go to Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes and hear from a REAL film critic. But, but I say to you. Where else can you hear from the POV of a new-ish Momma, a sensitive little soul who cries in every movie, a filmmaker about to break through and a total smart ass? Here, that's where. Game on y'all!

(deep breath)

I saw Avatar today and HOLY CRAP IS IT GOOD!

But let me back up and say this.
I seriously didn't want to go. I am not a fan of guys who are mean to their actors. In a recent NPR interview he said that meanie stuff was just legend. But Kate Winslet got into trouble for saying she would never work with him again. Oh, hold on, maybe she was misquoted. She said she'd never work with water again. Ok. Well, you decide what you think based on this evidence. I was upset because I have a friend who was an extra on the set of Titanic down in Mexico and she said he terribly mis-treated not only crew and extras (often treated like kee-rap) but even his stars. He tried to drown them. Or well, no. He didn't try. He just almost did inadvertently and then said 'let's go again'. Insensitive. Driven. Jerky.

but.

A fargin' genius.

My estimation of Avatar? Yep, a masterpiece. I was truly blown away by this movie. And yes I cried my head off. For anyone who's seen it, um hello, the tree scene? Were you bawling like a baby, or was it just me? OMFG. I gasped at the beauty. GASPed, not once but many, many times. The world he and his team created can only be described using E words. Extraordinary, exquisite, elaborate, enduring and well extra-terrestrial yes with such a loving wink back at earth and also the rave scene. One of my favorite scenes of all times that induced the ol tear roll down cheek was in Wall-E. You know - when the use the fire extinguishers to propel themselves through space? There was a scene in this movie that rivals and possibly surpasses that scene. Oh no, I'm not kidding. I do not say this lightly people, I heart Pixar so deeply. But. This. is. Stuuuning. On the aforementioned review sites I saw that one of the reviewers called it the new Star Wars. I totally agree. In fact, that was one of my thoughts as I stumbled blinking back into the light today with my mom. I can't wait for 2010 or so when I can show this to BHB.

Only drag is, if you've ever read that lil 'Story By' over there to the left you know that I dreamt of making the next Star Wars. Dammit! That's done. I guess I'll be happy to make the next Garden State. I'm not enough of a sci-fi geek to have been that guy anyway, but I am a Joseph Campbell fan so expect a hero's journey with all the trappin's.

Ok, I forgot to use big words. This is my freshman effort, I'll bring those and some more complex sentences next Monday. Having seen Avatar 3d today I'm still in this amazing space of sitting in it and near it and just wanting to breathe in the goodness of their planet. (with one of those breath-ee things on my head of course) Oh and I will say this. If When Mr Cameron wins a bajillion Oscars for this and goes up there for the fourth time (Editor, Writer, Director, Producer) to take home Best Picture, if he even THINKS about pulling a "I'm the King of Pandora!" I will personally kick his ass.

So, did you guys like it?

Elf

2009-12-25T11:02:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!

Baby on Bored invited me over to her space to talk about a little Christmas miracle. My life sans hooch. If you're interested, pop on over there and check it out. Or scroll down for my midnight Santa ramblings.

Hope you're enjoying the magic of this sweet lil day!

The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

2009-12-25T02:03:00.000-08:00

It's Christmas Eve and all through the house, not a brown dog is stirring, not even the skunk that totally kicked his ass last night.

The matching stockings (hell ya!) were hung by the fireplace with care. (there's no chimney, just a hole where you shouldn't put fire) In hopes that ol Santa would do a drive by and hook a lil family up.

I in my ugg slippers and Pa in his cap have settled our selves and he'll be seeing about a long winters nap since I"ll be up typing this for way too long obsessively checking to see that it's a) funny b) touching and c) fit for such a fine occasion as Christ-mas.

Christ-mas!! Christmas Ricky! (name that movie for 20 points)

Okay that's enough of that silliness. Let's talk about why Grinch was probably totally justified in stealing this consumeristic lame little holiday that allegedly has something to do with the Christian faith but mostly concerns itself with the bottom line. I say heave ho that bag of crap off the top o the mountain you green faced lil freak, DO IT!

But I don't really mean it.

And yes, you totally know where I'm going, and here I go. It's BHB's first Christmas!! It's so sweet. He won't remember a g'damn stitch of it but I suddenly care just a little bit. He's my little Cindy Lou Who but he's better drawn. One tooth, (well two but only one really reads in pictures). A ready grin. A fantastic squeal. A new zest for solid foods. A joy that can be witnessed by his gummy little hands opening and closing in unison. Dammit I love him so much.

I am the Grinch. I totally am. As you know from the previous post (scroll it on down if you care to) I was so not into this thing. I was feeling obligation to care and since my folks are in town doing lots that looked like caring. But this week and it's manic nuttiness has brought home a new range of the emotional goods.

My heart has grown three sizes this week. I'm just blown away by the highs and the lows of this thing. Momma's, can I get an amen? Never have I been more physically, emotionally stretched. Never have I been more afraid. Never have I been more in love. It's all so Ginourmous and gorgeous and overwhelming and UGH comon' fingers -comon'! These typed words can't stretch their truth around the magnitude of the LOVE...yes that's it but I need more emphasis or italicises or bold to say it, yell it. I love this silly baby person and the person who made him with me. I love him! It's crazy love! Both of these boys. And the brown one too.

But y'all know, right?

I can feel my heart going stretchee stretch. Every time that kid lights up when he see's me. Everytime he squeals with the sheer whatev's of it. When he falls alseep in the Ergo as we shop for Christmas dinner and his soft little downey cheek smooshes up to my chest and his long eyelashes relax and despite the clanging noise and shopping fury he his so soundly asweetly asleep. Ohmygod. My little Grinch heart is bursting out of my chest. What a mess. It's so wonderful.

Cute hubs and I watched It's a Wonderful Life tonight and wrapped presents and baked pumpkin pies (this was a first folks) and I panicked because I didn't know it was so liquidee when it goes in? Is that right? And holy dairy festival! But anyway. As you can see we pretty much followed the Christmas eve brochure to the letter and it was awesome.

Merry Christmas beauties! I hope y'all are having a wonderful day with your littles. Thanks for making my season so bright.

Big Love! (obviously)

PS - Check out the Santa-on-Santa action! I couldn't help but think about Billy Bob in Bad Santa but the whole standing in line talking to other Moms and making a total ass of myself trying to get him to smile totally got me into the spirit. God bless us all, right?

Home Alone

2009-12-18T23:04:00.000-08:00

Ah. Home alone on a Friday night...just me and my miracle brown-dog and the big-headed-baby.

Ok that's not really alone, is it? But it's quiet. Little BHB sleeps peacefully in his little room with his little blanket all cuddled up with his weird-ass rhinoserous head attached to a tiny blanket thingee. You know, a lovey. A lovey. Just one of the bajillion things I had never heard before this year that now runs my life. I once spent 3.5 hours searching the internet high and low to find another one of the the weird-ass rhinoserous head attached to a tiny blanket thingees while completely panicked that I had 'attached' him to something completely irreplaceable.

And I was right, that's basically what happened.

Which means I'm screwed. I mean, sure I could find some other little fuzzy magic blanket that's way overrpriced that I can buy 20 of and slowly ever so slowly over time gently remove rhino-head from his plump little fingers and replace it with the new fuzziness. But. I can't. I won't. I don't care right now, I just don't have the juice.

To the right is the closest thing I can find by the same company. A horse is NOT a rhinoceros dammit, and um. It's $26.50. Comon'!

Which brings me to my topic for tonight. Supermom. Why I'm not her but continue to strive to be her and stress my ass out while feeling a mix of jealousy, disdain and despair at my inability to be her. And when I recognize her out in the world or in my in-box I get that wash of delicious chemicals, JDD let's call it, (jealousy, disdain and despair for those of you skimming and not really paying attention) it sweeps over my endocrine system and marches around all of the Jane cells making me look sorta washed out and lost and feel very, very tired.

By the way, have you noticed my obsession with initializing things? I do enjoy. Ok, back to the action.

I know y'all know, I know you do. And what I've noticed is that we Mom's seem to fit pretty squarely in one or the other camp. Argue that with me, I'm happy to hear it because I would like to enjoy some gray here myself, but right now I'm pegged pretty far over in the not so SM at all camp.

My buddy JJ has been talking about a book called Bad Mother that deals with this exact topic and you'd probably say to yourself, gosh why don't you just read it and find some relief? Harumph I say to that. Requires effort.

Jane: But, where do I get that book?

You: Well you just linked it on Amazon jackass, go there.

Jane: But then I have to walk into the other room to get my creditcard and then wait for it to arrive on my doorstep.

You: Seriously?

Unfortunately that basic exchange is the gist of every conversation going on for me right now. Even this second.

Jane: I'm hungry.

Other Jane: (the one you played in the last one) Get up and make some Miso soup out of the cool packet thingee that you bought at Whole Foods yesterday.

Jane: Ugh. Then I'd have to stop typing and get up and there's boiling water involved and oh yea. No.

OJ: Seriously?

Let me just share what has prompted this little affair of despair. (note: I just made that lil phrase up and I kinda think it's genius)

I have a cousin, who I adore. He married a lovely woman and they live in a lovely home and they have a 3-ish year old and now 6 month old twins. I mean, cool right? Our kids are basically the exact same age, BHB only has 2 months on those lil ones. Oh but wow, the difference in is his reality and theirs - they'll never be able to relate. Let me illustrate.

It's taken us like five days to get the lights on our tree. I was damn proud we bought it, and that was only possible due to the grandparents who are still lurking around. Godblessem. Ornaments are feeling a bit optional at the moment, but I would like to put them up so I can stop tripping over the boxes. I'd really like to buy a few gifts for the boy seeing as how it's his first Christmas and all but as you know, I've got the ol' creditcard-in-the-other-room stumbling block and so sadly he won't be getting any presents this year. I guess I'll print out this blog for him and put it under the tree.

Today I got a link to an album of amazing pictures from the aforementioned family of the extraordinary events of their recent life, amazing places, holiday goodness, smiling family pictures, a trip to Rockefeller center. Their giant tree decorated. I was still doin' okay until the pic of the matching stockings came on the screen, that was it. Straw, camel. Breaking and splintering happening as I tumbled into a downward spiral and the JDD washed over me.

I want matching stockings.
Who thinks of ordering matching stockings in time to put them up by December 15th? Someone with six month old twins? I'm amazed. I'm impressed. Let's face it, I'm jealous.
I will never have matching stockings. We'll just have to limp by with this ridiculous Santa one that I guess is for the cute hubs and this pathetic sock looking thing for the dog and the gorgeous angel one my Mom made for me a million years ago and what about the baby? HE WON'T HAVE A STOCKING? Sob.

While we're at it.

I was GOING to be that Super Green Mom too. I have admired the fuzzibuns and superheineys and angeltushies and all of those brands of washable diapers and basically ended up at eww. Um. These Costco diapers are kinda doing it right now for me. Oh yes, I'm that person. Curse me silently, curse me aloud. Swirling trash piles in the Pacific are haunting me, but not enough to deal with getting the spray thing attached to my toilet or figuring out how the heck you actually get the stains out of the damn things.

I was GOING to be teaching the boy French by now and since this is the window (it's closing in fact, maybe closed?) where he is best able to learn another language I have proven it again, not SM. My neighbors speak Spanish to him and I just nod and think. Right. He should learn that language, and so should I if I'm going to survive here. But I have not, nor will I. I am not her.

Oh friends I could go on, but, I will not. I think Miso will win out here. Plus I have about 14,000 things to do for our movie. Hmmm, hold. on. a. minute. That's the issue isn't it? The movie is robbing my SM status. DAMN YOU MOVIE! And funnily enough, that is the very crux of this blog. Can she be a Director and a hustling-get-this-thing-funded Producer/Director/Wife and a super Mom?

Short answer? Nope.

Our tree. It has one ribbon. Cute hubs did a fantastic job putting the lights on. Call it good.

Bongo is very festive with his jingle bells on. I will say however is that he is looking a bit like a guy who could use some extra attention...BHB looks like a five year old in this picture. And here's my cute Mom being, you know, cute.

The Miracle on 34th Street

2009-12-11T23:17:00.000-08:00

I name all of my posts after movies. This season is ripe with possibilities! Too bad I'm too damn busy to take advantage of all of them. But there was a miracle friends, and while 34th street is far from here - we did indeed have a damn miracle.

So.

Remember the incredibly challenging situation with our brown dog? The last time I talked about it, things were dire. Backstory available by clicking on Bongo at the end of this post. Or you can just click on Bongo in my new label cloud. Ohhh, I'm excited about the label cloud. It's over there to the left. Down a little. I need to do a better job categorizing my posts with their lil labels. Ohhh, label cloud.

Anyway if you didn't go anywhere and you still wanna know, in our cliffhanger episode our cute brown dog was headed for eye surgery. Which no-one wants, no one does.

Around that time a friend had introduced me to a pretty groovey dude who is a healer. This healer friend was alerted to the Bongo situation. He pretty much came right to the rescue and started doing healing sessions on the dog, and on us as well. And our little smoochydoggie would look better for oh, say, 3 or 4 days and then he would start the same squinting and goo-ing and general dismay based in the eyeball. So it was clearly helping but not fixing.

ohmygod. Are you bored? Don't click away, I'll speed this up.

Cut to the chase: We went ahead and scheduled the surgery, but the eye surgeon we used last time wasn't available for two weeks. And healer man suggested another healer gal who specializes in animals to augment the process. She just happens to be the daughter of a famous dude. And I suppose has her own fame as well but holy crap she will forever be famous in my mind. Famous and exhalted as the woman who came over here and did some major doggie voo-doo and fixed his eye. Ok, that sounds ridiculous. And it is, and it isn't.

Let me 'splain. We've known All along that the issue was clearly emotional. Clearly, truly. I mean comon', it all started 2 weeks after BHB arrived and it was so obvious that when the baby would cry, in response the dog's eye would squint and leak. But when a surgeon says to you, uh-boy, your brown dog needs surgery, you brace yourself and your wallet. And then when you have a pretty lady who smells good come over and take your dog in figure 8's around the room and do some cool oovey stuff involving lazers and sprays that smell like flowers and all around general goodness you think, ok, that's cool. Fun story. Fun stuff. But what you don't really, truly expect is for it to just get better.

And that's what happened. Day by day. He looked better, he was more cheerful and his eye stopped gooing and squinting. Soon the surgery was upon us and we're going, um. gosh. I don't think he needs it! And so they checked it out, and remarkably they agreed. Nope, he's looking great.

God bless it. All of the times watching The Secret and What the Bleep do We Know? and I totally nod and go oh yea, totally. We are creating our own reality. Our thoughts make our lives. Abso-dam-tootly. Yet I'm still shocked when the dog shows me how that is really done.

It's a nice rack-focus reality slap of fantasy. (if that makes any sense). Perfect for the holiday season.

Please enjoy some pictures of Santa Baby and the Miracle Pooch.

Honest

2009-12-04T23:56:00.000-08:00

Holy crap what a week. So good, so good I'm trembling to tell you about it unfortunately it's going to have to wait. Even though BHB has been a champion sleeper I have Not as I have been cranking on work deep into the night so I must go to bed Now, now now now now. I promise to dish the news soon.

But first! Let's have a quick award show. Drumroll please.

A fine and fabulous reader who we know as embracing my quirks gave me this shout out recently (well, somewhat - it's been several weeks actually, oh shoot I'm already going to lose the honest status right there!) - it's called an Honest Scrap. Ha.

So here's the scoop.

1) Must thank the person who gave the award and list their blog and link it.

2) Share "10 Honest Things" about yourself.

3) Present this award to 7 others whose blogs you find brilliant in content and/or design, or those who have encouraged you.

4) Tell those 7 people they've been awarded HONEST SCRAP and inform them of these guidelines in receiving the award.

10 Honest things about myself:

1) I am the busiest lazy person I know.
2) I love the smell of my dog's head.
3) I still think my husband is totally hot. Luuuucky!
4) I believe in past lives.
5) I forgive easily. (sometimes too easily)
6) I had a devastating crush on Davey Cole in 2nd grade.
7) I freakin' love to be on stage. (thus the blog)
8) Regarding #7 - I know that approval seeking is boring, I am trying to kick the habit.
9) Speaking of kicking habits, I don't drink anymore - I got it all done early.
10) If given the choice between a delicious salad and mac and cheese, I'd choose very well. You decide what that means.

And now for the nominations:

Baby on Bored - she got me into this mess and I totally love her for it (mostly). And. Okay, I"ll say it. I want to be her someday.

JJust Kidding- freakin' hilarious. Read this post, an all time fave.

Wellington Road - my new NZ ex-pat BF. I heart her. It's fun to see what's going on on the other side of the world from an American mom's perspective. Plus she backed our project on Kickstarter which makes her doubly, triply cool. Just sayin'.

Viva Joy Riot - name says it all. It's a mish-mash of mommy stuff and design and amazing pictures and great writing is the thread that holds it together.

Lulu and Moxley's Mom - I am finally reading her blog along with about the rest of the world. Go see why. Dry and fuuuuuny.

Shoot how many more am I suppposta do? Can't do. any. more. must. bed.
Award show over.

(here it comes...the signature that was voted in even tho B thought it was clothing designer-ee. I wish I was a clothing designer, then I would have much better style. The whole ballcap and sneaker director thing fits me well, sad to say.)

Home for the Holidays

2009-11-30T00:07:00.000-08:00

(to the tune of the 12 days of Christmas, I know...I'm early)

On Thanksgiving weekend my sweet life gave to me:

12 cute hub kisses
11 hours o cooking
10 footballs passing
9 palm trees swaying
8 moods a milking
7 wine drinkers
6 (x 3) pounds of Turkey
5 Ba-by giggles!
4 Frolicking Friends
3 Pumpkin Pies
2 Pa-rents
and a Brown Dog wiiiith a kong.

If you don't know what a kong is, you're about to get really jealous of my reality. This red rubber thing comes bouncin toward our knees and the baby's head about 18 times a day as the dog looks on desperately with the highest and most fervent hope for someone to stop what they are doing, turn and head toward the kitchen, pull out a butter knife, open a peanut butter jar, and put said peanut sauce into said kong and then go off into the recesses of the house (as if it's that big) to hides the stinky lil thing.

Next this ~~sucker~~ person comes back to the not-so-patiently-sitting-dog and says in a high squeaky voice with arms raised in an I don't know expression. 'Where's your Kong?'. The tiptap of joyful brown nails skitter off in every direction but mostly the direction of where you left it because his brown nose is powerful stuff. Bounce. bounce, bounce. Sigh. Open door, jar open, butter knife hits sink, footfall on hardwood floor, pause. 'Where's your kong?'. Skitter. Rinse. Repeat.

Has anyone seen the title movie? Oh man, I should netflix it. As I remember, I kinda loved it. I think it was because it featured Robert Downey Jr (RDJ) oh yes I just went there initializing his name damn his genuisness and endless hotness as he was just knee deep in his addiction and apparently doing heroin during filming. And pretty much playing himself in the movie. I gotta say, he is just the freakin' poster child for recovery, isn't he? Gawd I heart him.

But I digress. As I often do.

This holiday weekend was long and good. I saw not one but two movies this weekend. TWO MOVIES! That is the fallout of a baby who sleeps - a filmmaker who can reenter the sanctuary that is Arclight cinemas and soak in the real butter and the comfy seats and laugh and laugh and almost pee laughing. Of course I'd be lying if I said I didn't come out of the theater and call my mom desperate n crying 'cause I wanted her to keep the boy awake so I could rush home instead of going to dinner to kiss his downey head before he slept. But. He was already asleep. So we went to Amoeba records and dinner and we acted like people with a life. Dawg I just love her and her 'baby is already asleep just go to dinner I love you' self.

Let's enjoy this picture of the cuteness, shall we?

The parents are leaving on Tuesday and I'm trying to not bawl openly and constantly. Thankfully they are not going far, like 50-some miles away to park in a pretty place and enjoy some nature and likely enjoy the time away from the constant buzz of baby and our lil' movie and get it done! and what's next? and crap I need to and can you just watch him while I? kinda stuff they've been doing with us for a month. A month! Ladies and gentlemen (uh, do any guys actually read this blog?) Ladies, can you imagine? A month of daily lovin' from grandparents who are truly good. Damn you time for your forward marching! Thank god they'll be back for Christmas.

I'm gonna get honest here. I am torn about whether this signature thing below is fabulous or totally obscene and cheesy. Let me know your thoughts while you admire the font and size I chose. I hope your holidays were delicious.

Meet the Parents

2009-11-21T23:08:00.000-08:00

So my Mom is in town. And my Step-dad. Here's the thing: these people are really good people. Not like, oh you know, good as in they are well groomed, wear matching jewelry, listen to NPR all day and wear LLBean.

No these people are Good (capital G), as in, are loving and always of service and cheerful. Really! Cheerful pretty much all the time. Frankly it's a bit tough being around them because any impulse I have to throw a snit or complain or whine about dumb crap gets quashed by their laughter and Can-do attitude. Oh and I should say that they are well groomed too, but not so much on the catalog outfits.

In fact, it's been hard to come up with stuff to write about up here because I think alot of what I do here is thrash around about my garden-variety angst which has been minimized by all this damn loveliness. Of course the other thing I do is talk about sleep which I know y'all are probably over hearing about. And frankly? Nothing to say right now - drama done for the moment. OK. Okay, wait..I know you won't mind just this one little tiny eensy bit...

The boy sleeps. I put him down. He goes to sleep. As I'm leaving the room, he smiles at me. I'M NOT KIDDING! He does this at night, he does this at nap time. And then he sleeps - 3 hours during the day, 11-12 at night. Ridiculous. And if I wasn't me, I'd hate me too.

Back to the parents. They live full time on an RV, so they are staying in their lil traveling house about a mile from here. So. Life is so sweet with our routine of getting up and making coffee for Papa L. They arrive at nine, he drinks it makes jokes and starts doing all kinds of stuff around here. Like fix lamps. He goes to his favorite hardware store. He watches the stock show. My mom gets the baby up from a nap. She changes him into a cute day costume. They sit together and coo and laugh while I flit around trying to get something done. And meals are made, errands get run, the baby is so beautifully taken care of since his naps are totally honored and yet, something unique for this household, still stuff gets done! If I could freeze time I would. I do pine for my Mommy and Me groups and a little bit, but not enough to miss a minute of this magic.

They were originally going to be here to help us BHB sit while cute hubs and I made our short film. And then, if you remember, we had a reality check and realized that we didn't have a huge chunk of the budget required to shoot the short in the manner we'd like to. Meaning: pay people something, not steal locations or shoot without permits. It turns out law-abiding is an expensive habit. Harumph.

Soo, we decided to do some fund-raising type thingee's while they are in town so that we stay focused on making some art while we get the benefit of some delicious Gramma babysitting and Papa L tasking. So last weekend we had a fund-raising party and today we threw a fund-raising Garage Sale. Both only mildly successful in terms of actual dollars compared to the work put in, but strangely fun and also came with the great house purging and house prepping that a g-sale and party (respectively) will do for you. Picture above: Boy and Grandma prepping for garage sale with couch on porch.

The place we're really hoping for some magic is our online effort. Last week we mounted a computer-to-computer Obama type funder on a super bitchin' site called Kickstarter. Perhaps you noticed it the widget over there to the left? Give it a click, or go right here. On the page you'll find a video of cute hubs and I yapping to the camera and some real fun comes when BHB makes an appearance (about 3 minutes in).

If you can, pledge a few bucks. Really, just 2 is seriously great. What's even better is if you can pledge a few, and then forward to some friends and say 'Hey! Check this out! These people have a small child (with a big head) and still want to shoot an ambitious short film. I think they are kinda nuts but in the best way and I pledged a little, can you help them out too?' Then the magic of the interweb comes to life with all of the forwarding and hey-ing and tweeting and lovin' and then our movie gets made thanks to you. Seriously.

I hope that sounds good. I've backed a few projects up there and it's super damn fun to be a part of their projects. Artists are crazy people and I enjoy being counted among them, especially in times like these - we're hanging out on the edge.

Also, this is our movie poster. Our friend Bob designed it. We love him.

What Dreams May Come

2009-11-17T12:57:00.000-08:00

You know, I should have left this title for a super oovey-groovey post about Angelsnshit but I am too lazy to come up with another way of saying - dreams do come true. It can happen to you, if you're tough at heart....

Well, not heart tough actually, more like heart-filled with love, tears coming down your face but loving your little person enough to set a boundry and help him learn something all the while with endless love you are psychically sending from the next room as you are furtively writing down the times and resetting the timer and walking in and carefully leaving in thirty seconds and sighing and crying and hoping it will end soon. But here's the result.

It works.

He's sleeping Through, not around, not beside, not above, not below and not any other preposition. Through the night.

Can I hear a what, what?

Last night was the one week anniversary of the first night of letting the boy cry which as you know from the recap sucked. And the rest of the score?
Check it out:

Night One - 1:01
Night Two -: 20
Night Three - : 04
Night Four - :38 - * I speculate it was rougher here due to the fact that we were stressed around here getting ready for an event the next day...
Night Five - :28
Night Six - :03
Night Seven - :02

Last night he slept from 7:03 pm to 6:30 am. I'm beside myself (and more prepositions). The previous two nights before we only heard about four minutes of crying somewhere deep in the night. You know deep in the night, the part where I used to jump and and run in there and feed his little face sometimes a little dangerously because I couldn't remember doing it? That part. Now I raise my head and my hand enough to jot the time and make sure the crying doesn't go past five minutes, because then I would have to do something. Holy hallelujah.

So I do not intend this as cyber bragging, it is not. It is me saying the following. When I birthed this little boy I said 'hellsnonowaynohow am I letting him cry it out, those people are savages'. No offense to you people, I know you know. But now after the last four months of the rocking, swaying, singing, feeding, rocking, swaying, feeding singing to sleep and the four and five times up before actually finally going down making it a three hour process sometimes, I've changed my tune.

We did it all in one fell swoop. Nights, weaning from night feedings as well as naps. All at once. All from the Sleepy Planet program. Totally recommend this, it's working great as his naps are even shaping up really well too. Today he was down for two this morning, and I just put him down for midday and we heard 30 seconds of crying and then nothin'. We'll see him in an hour or so. Peeps, I'm just sayin'. It's a freakin' miracle.

Here's the link again. Big shout out of love to those purty ladies, big ol recco on the DVD as well. Sorry this is a big commercial for them, but you know - I want to say to my comrades suffering out there - I'm out of baby jail and life is pretty sweet.

Liar, Liar

2009-11-12T22:38:00.000-08:00

Night # 3. I put him down at 7pm. He cried for four minutes.

(space for emphasis!)

I checked in a bit later and found that he is doing his usual starfish impression with the flung out arms and adorable peaceful face. Not a peep since.

So dear friends, needless to say, I've joined the ranks. I'm a believer. He's learning a new skill, and doing a freakin' great job. Clearly all of the fish oil that cute hubs gagged me with is working. Our son is a genius.

I thought you people were lying. No offense, but I really didn't believe you when you said that it's not just selfish people wanting a life back (I mean, how rude!) but it's better for the child. You said, Jane not only is it better for you, but guess what? better for you is better for the child and he's got a skill for life, blah blah blah. I thought y'all were mean-spirited cry-lovin' people and you were all trying to make me into a baby terrorist.

But now, I'm an evangelist for your team. I mean, four minutes? Really? God bless him, I do think he's happier. I used to feed him all the way to sleep, now he doesn't have to wake up :40 minutes to burp. Or wake up going 'Ok. I don't think I drank that much, but last I remember I was in her arms and it was warm and now I'm in this crib, wtf wahhhhhhhhh!' God forbid it was looking like beginnings of a black out drinker. I just saved him from hours of life not having to go 'Hi my name is...'

The first night after I wrote the last post, skeeeroll down if you want to see what I"m talking about, turned out to be a pretty rough night. I stayed up typing to you to give him the preemptive 11:30 feeding, went great, he went right back down. Bed at 12. I was planning to feed him again around 3:30 to avoid the usual 4:30 or 5 feeding. It's the way the pretty ladies at sleepy planet recommend you wean night feedings: wake him up an hour before he usually eats. Feed him some. Slowly each night make it less and less, then you're done. We'll see, but so far, so good. I gotta say, I kinda want to make out with these chics. Not in a hot MLF on MLF kinda way, in a OMG you've just saved my life kinda way.

Back to the action. Unfortunately he beat me to the preemptive 3:30 feeding and woke-up and cried at 2:30. So. We did the routine. Check in at 5 minutes. Check in at 10. If he stops crying for longer than :30 seconds wait to start a new round. Moral, it was 45 minutes of this. Then I had to wait for 15 more minutes to make sure he was back down to go back in and wake him back up to feed. Did that feel broken? Yes. Poor guy just got back to sleep and I'm in there bugging him with a boob.

But! He fell right back to sleep and slept very peacefully til 6:30.

However I did not. I could not get back to sleep. Could not, no way, not happening. So, on night one I got 2.5 hours of sleep altogether. But! if last night (only 20 minutes of half-hearted protest and no problem going down both times I woke him to feed) and then this four minute magic tonight have any bearing on my future...I think it will clock in as fawking worth it.

But we'll see. Ebbs and flows. Teeth will come. Sleep will go. Illness will come. Peace will go. But you know what? I think I just got out of baby jail. I can hire a babysitter and go out after 7. I feel like a blinking stumbling hostage who wandered into the sun with just a little bit of rope burn and a silly big grin of freedom. My nights! Are back! Ahhhhhhh maaahhhh god!

Thanks again for your support y'all. It is truly, totally, utterly helpful.

PS - He doesn't sleep on our bed anymore- he's a crib lovin' dude. And the blanket is not over his face, I swear. In fact, here's the close up:

PPS - How cute is this?

PPPS - He's starting to cry right now. Drat. This is the result of the gloat, karma moves fast.

PPPPS - It's not a cry, it's a little coo-ing whimper. Hmmm, now what? Damn I wish I had a video monitor.

Cry-Baby

2009-11-10T22:05:00.000-08:00

Yep, we're doing it.

We're 'sleep-training' or 'sleep-learning' or any other euphemisms you'd like to throw around which basically means, our tiny boy is crying until he sleeps. Tonight is Night One. I know what you want to know, and keep reading, I'll tell you.

LCD regulars will tell you I was deeply troubled by this idea. In fact, I was even all the way to (what? No!) judgmental about it here. Quick aside, how freakin' pretentious is it that I've initialized the name of my blog? Um, seriously. AND, it makes me really happy.

So I wanted to throw up all day. This morning I watched the DVD from the nice pretty ladies at Sleepy Planet. Let me tell you what, no other book - not even theirs got me there. But their lovely little faces being all super genuine and I don't know, mothering totally put me over the edge onto 'this is a good idea and not only am I going to do it, I'm even going to do a totally ridiculous fist-bump with the cute hubs that means game-on'. Because you can't go back on a fist-bump, I mean. That wouldn't be right.

Let's be clear - as a filmmaker I can be pretty sensitive and - let's be clear - critical of all things video. And I would be lying if I said I wasn't totally annoyed with the music. But otherwise? It's a good piece of media. Good graphics, good talent, good other mom's that we follow through the harrowing experience of 'sleep learning'. My mom and I watched it and I just wept. Wept. She's so sweet she encouraged me all day when my little eyes would grow big with fear and when I would convince myself that he was teething! we couldn't do it or that he is sick was that a cough? we shouldn't do it and that the moon isn't full enough or do you think we should wait til the economy is better to do it? but really we shouldn't do it because of my hangnail because I can't handle any more emotionally, so we really, really shouldn't do it.

God bless her, right? Example enough that this parenting gig is tough, seeing as how she has had to put up with this hot mess for so many years.

But tonight at 7pm when the show was all set to start, she was so outta here. I can't say I blame her. I'm sure she was so worn out from supporting me all day with the pre-cry crying. And helping with preparations for this film fundraiser we're holding this weekend. And the cleaning out my fridge! I mean, really? What on earth did I do in a past-life to deserve this much goodness? Man, I'm grateful. She even dropped off some delicious tacos from Hugos before her exit.

So the cute hubs and I sat there with our digital clock and pen in hand and listened to the dreaded soundtrack. Here's the craziest part of all. I didn't cry. Not until I saw some welling in the big blues on the cute hubs and then I melted a bit. But it was a strangely dry-eyed experience for me. But! Don't worry friends, there's always tomorrow. Or later tonight.

And the answer to your question is one hour. I think most people don't have to endure it that long, but for us, tonight, with various breaks at various intervals the total was one hour, one minute.

I'm putting this picture here because it's a good visual on the BHB mid-cry. I'm a jerk too because my mom and I had a good laugh at this moment - we said together 'that is ONE pissed-off-pumpkin!'

City of Angels

2009-11-06T07:22:00.000-08:00

Sometimes magical things happen that are inexplicable.
And sometimes they don't.

Almond Joy has nuts, Mounds don't.

OH MAN I am showing my age. If you're young and fabulous and you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, move along. And if you're old and fabulous then yes I just dragged that catchy tune that tortured you from your childhood into your mind, you're welcome.

Back to the topic, thanks for going with me on that. I live in a city called Los Angeles, loosely translated: " city full of pretty people who drive like completes shitheads and have a shocking lack of confidence which is hilarious considering the attitude". No wait, that's not it. According to wiki the full name is "La Ciudad de la Reina de los Angeles" - or The City of the Queen of the Angels.

And who is that you might ask? The Virgin Mary is apparently the Queen of the Angels. Now this makes no sense to me because according the Doreen Virtue's Angel Cards, Angels are totally hot. And from what I remember from bible study Mary is a no-sex-havin', virtuous holy gal who you know, hangs out with sheep.

Man, I keep wandering off here tonight. Clearly I'm tired. Okay. Here's what's up.

I am going to reveal something kinda embarrassing and ridiculous and/or totally bitchin' depending on your point of view. But here goes. I talk to the Angels. Like. All the time.

Yep. Uh-huh. Totally.

I am tempted to close the post here and see what happens, but foolishly I"ll go on. I've referred to the oovey-groovy side of myself a few times up here and just sorta whitewashed over it. But I'd be remiss in sharing a real picture of this little Momma if I didn't just overshare a little bit on this topic.

It seems like ever since I gave birth and had my self, physical and otherwise, split open I've been exactly that, more open. I'm getting more 'information' from you know, guidesn'shit. And taking care of this little tiny Angel-faced person has inspired me to chat up the other Angels more often. I 'read' the Angel deck, pulling cards for every reason I can. What's amazing about this is how often the information is so freaky-deaky truly uncanny and also quite soothing. Or how I'll ask a question and the same card will come up again and again. Seriously. In a deck of like 44 I think, I ask the question get a card. Shuffle. Shuffle again. Ask the question again, here comes the same card. Fuuuuhreaky

In fact, when I was preggers with BHB I talked to a psychic and she mentioned that he will love unicorns. Well, that remains to be seen - his only interests at this point involves my anatomy. But at some point I'll be able to confirm this and that will be hella interesting. In the meantime, anytime I would ever ask a question of the angel cards that relates to the boy, I get the same card over and over again that happens to be a damn Unicorn. Unicorn Angel. Which is nuts, right? In so many ways, but I mean in the 'whoa, that can't be a coincidence way'.

Tonight I went to a class to kinda purse this new line of thinking some more to see if all of my talking to Angels and various other folks seen and unseen was a reasonable thing to do. But you know, when you go to a place promoting such activity you're not going to get any kind of helpful perspective. So I don't have any. So instead of going on here, I am going to go chat up the Angels about sleep. Mine, his and yours.

Btw, thanks so much to all of you who commented on my previous post about that topic, I totally freakin' appreciate you. Nothing has been resolved over here, in fact the cute hubs is singing song #4 right now as I type to see if he'll go back down. I've already offered way too much food for 11:42 at night and so now we're into the Opera (again). I will keep you posted.

Sigh. Now a new song is in your head, isn't it?

Says she talks to Ang-el-s, they call her out by name..