Year One

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.

Meet the Parents

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.

Signs

One of my BF's ever was my roommate for about eight months. That actually didn't go so well but thankfully the friendship survived it. She and I shared a love of looking for 'signs' from the universe, which some days I am totally tuned in to and other days you could land a flock of angels on my head who are delivering pdf instruction booklet's on how to live joyfully and have s-loads of cash but I'd be too busy watching dog videos on YouTube to get the message. My friend/roomie was always noting that there were planes going overhead right at a particular moment that related to her mental state and was also concerned because she heard sirens alot and wondered darkness it might be alluding to. My then boyfriend-now-husband thought it had something to do with the fact that we lived under a flightpath and three blocks from a hospital. Jeez, what a cynic.

So I was just sitting down to write this post about a recent event that we could easily categorize under 'sign' when I heard a little voice outside my front door. We have an impressively large front door, and due to the hot evening it was open. Apparently this very large door is very inviting to a little-voiced- completely-ineabriated women which is what I found when I shushed the yelling dog and peered out into the semi-darkness. Unfortunately the porch light was off but through the screen door (not security door mind you, this is a troubling fact) I witnessed a wobbly little blonde person with what I believe was a large bottle in each hand. We enjoyed the following conversation:

(bongo kicked it off)

bongo: Hey! Wtf are you doing on our porch! It's freakin 11pm lady. Hey!
drunk lady: Hi there. Nice doggy. Can I sit on your porch?
me: No sweetie, I'm sorry.
drunk lady: (indignant) Whaaaat? Really?
me: No, I can't have you out there I have a baby sleeping in here and this dog is going to keep barking...
my head: WTF! Why am I telling a crazy lady on my porch about my sleeping baby!?
drunk lady: (heading toward the chair) It's nice here.
me: I'm sorry, no you cannot.
my head: Is she wearing bunny ears?
bongo: Dammit! My porch! Hey!
drunk lady: (turning back toward the street) They call me tinkerbell!
me: That's great. Okay! Have a good night!
drunk lady: somethingelseverytraceyjordanfrom30rock
me: (swinging giant door shut) Have a good night!

So okay, that's an odd little scenario. And yes you bet it makes me grateful for my brown dog even though he looks drunk too with a lampshade on his head.

But here's the really weird thing. I was thinking about how I was going to link back here to talk about the recent sign I experienced...(please stay tuned, it's coming). And if you went back there, you can see why this is weird. And if you didn't, fine! I'll tell you. At the top of that post, (did you finally go that time?) is a picture of tinkerbell. Seriously! Is that nuts? Okay, I'm kinda freaked out.

Let's pause to illustrate a few points using photo evidence:

Giant door behind big dog head

above: Big headed baby and post-op pooch on the porch. I guess tinkerbell has it right, it's a great porch for hanging out...


Me looking all glam for a pregnant lady. Again, as large as I am, how big is that door? BHB was almost fully baked, this was the week before he showed up.


Ok! I'm finally getting to the story. So if you did follow one of my 45 links back to the Courage! Courage! post you probably read about how the hubs and I are making a movie. Starting with a short first, which is very billy bob uh-huh slingblade of us. And if you did read that simpy stuff about how a-scared I am about it, then you'll appreciate what happened. And if you did go back there, you should probably comment there so I know you did. Omg I'm annoying.

The feature is called Nov 13th. The short is called Nov 1st. I won't say much here but I will tell you that the story involves a vedic astrologer. One night hubs and I were talking about said movie and how we need a website for it. So I decided to go search an image for the background of the site. I typed in 'Vedic Astrology Chart' and used google images. I find a few, nothing thrills me until I scroll down and find this one.

So if you just went there you might have noticed what I next got very excited about. Try it, go to that image, and hit 'save as'. Tell me what happens.

Right? Isn't that crazy? Here is what I saw:

I literally almost threw my laptop out of my lap from the shock of it. How! What! Why is this image called "Nov_13_chart.gif". So for those of you reading late night with blurry eyes here is just a reminder: Our feature is called Nov 13th. Seriously.

Upon further review I find that the image comes from another blog, an astrologer's blog. Big whut-whut to Juliana. I scrolled through in search of the answer, and apparently she created this chart for a full moon last Nov 13th, 2008.

So can I get an amen on the freaky-deaky nature of this event? So is it a sign? Do we pretty much have to make this movie?

Tonight handsome husband and I had another meeting about the shoot. We've decided to make it a daily ritual to meet for 20 minutes to check-in on our progress. My current journal (which is being handily ignored in favor of this blog) has this on the cover "Anything you do everyday can open into the deepest spiritual place which is freedom". Rumi.

So, we are going to meet daily. And I'll keep y'all posted. Right now we're choosing between two long weekends to shoot the short. Either Nov 6-9 or Nov 13-16. That's pretty much a no-brainer, right?

Lost In Space

ahem. attention!

hello?

I'm just hanging out here, a tiny zipcode of IP magic thanks to Blogger (well Google) who gifts me this lil' piece of the Interweb. But why do they offer such real estate? In case I become Dooce and sell s-loads of diet coke ad's next to my witty banter cascade of whining, anxious, yet hopeful words?

Nah, doubtful. Google knows what it's doing, and as it's becoming more and more obvious, I clearly do not. I guess that's what I'm spinning around in tonight, the vastness of the space. I was going to say cyberspace, but I got a little slap down doing the research, here's what Wikipedia says...

Cyberspace as an internet metaphor

While cyberspace should not be confused with the internet, the term is often used to refer to objects and identities that exist largely within the communication network itself, so that a website, for example, might be metaphorically said to "exist in cyberspace." According to this interpretation, events taking place on the internet are not happening in the locations where participants or servers are physically located, but "in cyberspace".

I found this gorgeous image in my search to understand the above. Apparently it's a visual representation of what a piece of the internet might look like. By the way, did you know that we might run out of internet space? Pretty freakin' nuts, right? Time for some IP addy hoarding to save yourself. Well, 'cept you won't, just like most of us LA citizens who do not actually have an earthquake kit. Our family is pretty much ready because we've got about 5 extra jars of TJ's almond butter and 3 cans of black beans. The end of the world will be a gassy, sticky affair. But I digress.

When I'm typing into this black hole of inter-web-inter-connectivity nothingness, I feel both excited to be reaching and yet lonely not knowing where it's landing. It reminds me of the first setting on our sleep sheep. It's supposed to be 'white noise' but instead it's a whale's whooping cry that rings out into the darkness of the big headed baby's room. (bhb photo to left for your enjoyment) The trouble is that no other whales ever answer because it's a loop. Freakin' depressing right? I imagine a giant gray whale swimming alone in a vast dark sea pinging the sonar again and again, but. Nothing comes back. Kinda like trying to talk on the ATnT wireless network. Is there anything worse then chatting along and then finally figuring out that the last two paragraph's of a self-obsessed monologue has fallen into the gap of dropped call netherland? I get that twangy mix of embarrassment and loneliness.

So this basically my round about way of asking...Hi, um, who are you? I know a few of my buddies have signed up as followers, god bless 'em (even though they'll never be back to read this). But hey! If you are here, reading, can you give me a shout out via the comment thingee? I promise I won't ask again.

Oh and I"ll be sure to follow your whale song back to your part of the ocean too...