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.

Toy Story 3

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.

Kickass

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,

sweet dreams

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

Living in Oblivion

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.

Out of Time

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.