Hush up and look at the gumbo!

The theater was packed for THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG last night.  9:40pm on a Friday night in Hollywood, and a couple hundred 20-somethings had paid $15 a ticket to watch a 2D animated musical.  And this was by no means an all-female audience.  These were not girls still hoping to turn into princesses someday.  In fact, I’ll be so bold as to claim that there was a solid 55% male majority in that theater.

We tiptoed in as the last trailer ended and took our seats in the second row.  The lights dimmed all the way down as the Arclight logo lit up the screen.  I leaned forward excitedly as the long swoop down over the Disney castle began, accompanied by the familiar melody (“When You Wish Upon A Star” from Pinocchio).  Then, as the words “Walt Disney” looped in cursive across the bottom of the screen, this fantastic thing happened: the audience erupted.  Not just applauding – whooping and shouting and whistling!

I got chills, and not for the first time that night.  When I first arrived at the theater before the movie, the parking lot was predictably full.  My first date with my ex-boyfriend started with a shared flask of bourbon on top of that parking structure, and I really did not want to park up there last night.  But I didn’t have a choice.  As I prowled the rows looking for a spot, a particularly epic song blasted from my radio: “Kings and Queens” by 30 Seconds to Mars.  That song is shameless.  I mean, it literally starts with a falcon’s cry.  And it is wildly popular.  I pulled into a parking spot just as the chorus of voices blasted the final refrain.

Now all of you know that the top floor of a parking garage has a special power over me, so when you add to that the residual grief of remembering my first date with my ex-boyfriend, then add the most epic song on the radio right now…  Again, with the chills.

It’s tricky, though.  It used to be that when a work of art gave me chills, I felt connected to the artist.  The artist’s effort proved to me that someone else out there was striving and seeking the way that I was.  That changed when I got my heart broken by a guy whose art I loved so much that I thought I could love him forever.  Turns out that the artist doesn’t always live up to the art.  A wall went up between me and the movies and music I love.  I didn’t know how to trust them like I used to.

I’ve felt set adrift by my newfound mistrust of artists, but I think my Friday night at the Arclight has given me something new to hang onto.  When a Top 40 radio station blasts an epic, earnest song, or a Disney 2D animated movie plays to a packed house, I find reassurance in the size of the audience.  Audiences show up in droves for fearless, shameless, unapologetic work.  I love what that says about people.  That gives me hope.

Seroquel XR

About a week ago, I caught a commercial on Fox for Seroquel XR, a new anti-depressant that treats bipolar depression.  It shows a series of middle-aged folks dressed in clothes that camouflage them into their daily lives.  The voiceover talks about how bipolar depression can make you feel like you’re fading into the background.  It’s a smart, memorable commercial.  I’ve been watching a lot of TV lately, and I had seen the ad a number of times before last night.

If you’re like me, Wednesday is a big TV night for you, what with So You Think You Can Dance announcing results and the Glee kids singing their well-rounded asses off.  (Also: Modern Family!  I gotta set my DVR to record that “Incident.”)  So I was sitting on the couch last night, and my Brilliant Darling Roommate (BDR) was sitting at her desk, and we were watching SYTYCD.  The Seroquel XR commercial came on, and I reached for the remote to fast-forward through the ads to yet another shining moment with SYTYCD host Cat Deeley.

My BDR called out, “Whoa whoa whoa, pause for a second!”  I paused the TV on this frame:

She laughed and suggested that I take a look at my own posture.  “We’re watching a depression commercial about blending into the background, and you’re sitting on the couch wrapped in a plaid blanket.”  My BDR was right – my head was lolling just so, a plaid blanket wrapped completely around me, merging me with the couch.

“Now if only I had a 6-year-old boy on the floor next to me coloring!” I joked.  My BDR turned from her Photoshop work to look at me.  “Are you serious?”  I noticed her tracing paper and drawing pad.  She had her stencil in hand and fabric swatches arrayed on her desk.  Turns out she has actually gotten really good at coloring her sketches in Photoshop.  The coincidence was complete!  I had admitted a few days before that I was fighting depression, so this was a perfectly timed illustration.

What is there to say about depression?  I have no formal training in psychiatry (aside from Psych 101, which was my only 8AM class in college – you can guess how much I retained), so I think it’s best to stick to my personal experience…

Depression sucks.

I can’t enjoy any of the things I usually love, getting out of bed every morning exhausts me all over again, and delicious food tastes like sawdust in my mouth.  My mind attacks me, I am a terrible friend to myself.

Depression commercials, on the other hand, are awesome.  As silly as they may seem to folks who have never suffered from depression, they usually get it right.  As does Anne Lamott, writer of Bird by Bird, when she says:

“To be engrossed by something outside ourselves is a powerful antidote for the rational mind, the mind that so frequently has its head up its own ass – seeing things in such a narrow and darkly narcissistic way that it presents a colo-rectal theology, offering hope to no one.”

There is always hope.  (In the juice aisle.)

You’re Not Crazy

When I was a sophomore in college, I took a class with Professor Jim Kincaid called “The Perils of Common Sense.” A lot of irreverent people with big brains took that class. We cracked jokes about everything, and we bonded quickly. Early in the semester, we spent a Saturday together in one of the conference rooms at USC. We broke into groups and we did presentations on various themes, ranging from sexuality to war to politics to family. We tried to challenge each other… which is the pretentious college way of saying we tried to impress each other. We all wanted to be the most subversive kid in class.

Then one group got up there and started talking about 9/11. They made jokes about conspiracies, talked about the man who jumped head first from the towers, blustered about what we did to deserve it. They challenged us, they made a point, they fulfilled the assignment. And I completely lost my shit. I interrupted and I talked about that morning in AP US history class when Andrew Moon walked by our classroom talking about some attack in New York, and Mrs. McNamara yelled out the window that he shouldn’t make jokes like that, and he said he wasn’t joking. I talked about watching the second plane hit. I talked about going to New York ten days later and wanting to punch my dad in the face as he made me and my brothers pose for somber pictures in front of the bulletin boards covered in missing person fliers. And then I did the least subversive thing a 19-year-old “intellectual” can do: I started to cry. Sob, really. In front of all of my classmates, and I felt so ashamed.

I blubbered my apologies for ruining their presentation and for raining on everyone’s parade and for… “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry, I’m just crazy.” And the professor stopped and turned and looked at me, and he said, “You’re not crazy.”

I’d like to say I stopped crying when he said that, but I only cried harder. His words were stunning and never before heard. My whole life I’d felt crazy. Crazy because I couldn’t make people understand. Or crazy because I reacted so dramatically to what other people took in stride. Or crazy because… people told me I was crazy. My dad told me I was crazy a lot, especially when I cried.

To have a professor that I loved watch me rant and weep and stutter, and then tell me I’m not crazy. To insist on it. That moment remains the most intense feeling of relief I have ever experienced, and it sustains me. I’m writing about it now because I just watched an amazing play called “School for Suckers” (go see it: http://www.schoolforsuckers.com/), and it talked about shame and it made me laugh and it reminded me of that intense feeling of relief. It made me want to share the feeling with you. I know I can’t do it as effectively as Jim Kincaid or the talented thespians who put on the play, but I have this blog and sometimes people read it, and maybe those people feel crazy every once in a while. I’m here to tell you:

Maybe remembering 9/11 makes you weep and shout, or 2,000 miles between you and the person you share a bed with makes you anxious to the point of not eating, but you can’t pick up the phone to order pizza because you’re too stressed out about talking to a stranger, plus you count your ice cubes at a soda machine and have to have exactly 9, and you still count calories even though you’re “over” your eating disorder, then a bus speeding by makes you want to step out into the street just to see what it would be like…

You’re not crazy. I’m right about this, you want to know why?

1. Jim Kincaid is never wrong.
2. Jim Kincaid says that I am not crazy.
3. If I’m not crazy, neither are you.

The Inches Before A Kiss (a new song)

I wrote a new song called “The Inches Before A Kiss.” You can listen to a rough recording of it here…

Or download it here…

The Inches Before A Kiss

And check out the lyrics here…

I’d like to buy a house
In the inches before a kiss
I won’t hesitate
To put money where my mouth is

You can rent a room
You can come and go as you please
I won’t make you stay
It’s a one night by night lease

Just pay me with kisses
Pay my lips and my neck, my eyelids and breast
No one will miss us
You move me to bliss without moving an inch

I’d like to buy a house
In the inches before a kiss
I won’t keep you long
Just put your lips where my mouth is

And pay me with kisses
Pay my lips and my neck, my eyelids and breast
No one will miss us
You move me to bliss without moving an inch

I’d like to buy a house
In the inches before a kiss

Jason wants to be Joan Didion, and I want to be John Wayne

“As it happened I did not grow up to be the kind of woman who is the heroine in a Western, and although the men I have known have had many virtues and have taken me to live in many places I have come to love, they have never been John Wayne, and they have never taken me to that bend in the river where the cottonwoods grow. Deep in that part of my heart where the artificial rain forever falls, that is still the line I wait to hear.” (Joan Didion)

Keys That Change

by Monika Lind

If you’ll sing, I’ll fall in love–

if not with you
then with your song.

Oh, dare to sing!

I’d rather taste a melody
than tears that fall
on keys that change

than notes that stretch
my tenor range.

Give me a song
and it won’t matter
if your hands are on my hips,

that your lips aren’t on my neck:

flatter me with harmony
and I’ll never know you left.

Obsessed

“It makes you good at the rest of the things you do.”
-BDR

Dealbreakers: It is NOT what it is

In the absence of a man worth thinking about, I ponder the type of man I’m looking for.  There are obvious qualities (honesty, intelligence, stunning good looks) that leap to mind, but those don’t interest me much.  I care more about refining my radar.  Not because I’m hunting for a husband, Lord knows it’s not that.  I am just so tired of wasting my time on guys who are going to flake out or freak out or faaaaaaaade out.  So, in the cause of saving everyone time, I have compiled a list.  Correction: 3 lists.

Permanent

Let us begin with the set-in-stone variety.  My childhood, my values, my genetics, etc., all make the following qualities prerequisites (like the SATs or CTCS 190).  He must be pro-choice and support gay marriage.  Duh.  My father and brothers and male cousins average 6′4″ so he must be tall enough that I can wear heels and still look up at him.  I can count the number of times I went to church as a kid on one hand, and I was never baptized – that has to be alright with him.

The qualities I’ve listed so far are sort of “he either has ‘em or he doesn’t” traits and are probably very difficult for a guy to change either way.  That and the fact that I don’t think I’ll ever change my mind about them make these qualities “Permanent” Dealbreakers.  The last three items in this list fall under the “Permanent” category because I have absolutely zero tolerance for them in anybody and so, even if a guy could change and/or improve said characteristic, I wouldn’t stay around long enough to find out.  Therefore, the last 3 “Permanent” Dealbreakers: dangerous driver, doesn’t reply to communications (text, phone call, email) promptly, chews with his mouth open…  Deal.  Broken.

Temporary

I created this “Temporary” list to allow for my own ability to mature, develop patience, re-prioritize, etc.  Also because the intensity of my anger towards some things is directly related to their prevalence in the Zeitgeist.

The first on this list is the omnipresent, seemingly omnipotent catch-all phrase, “It is what it is.”  That must be the laziest maxim in the English language.  It’s like responding to a question about dinner by saying “Red is a color.”  It is what it is?!  To all the athletes out there propagating this mind-numbing jargon: if you have nothing to say to a reporter, just say “No comment!”  It seems fitting, though, that this phrase entered modern parlance through one of the great disappointments of the nascent 21st century.  When Al Gore ceded victory to GWB, he said, “I strongly disagreed with the Supreme Court decision and the way in which they interpreted and applied the law. But I respect the rule of law, so it is what it is.”  Shame on you, Mr. Vice President, for undoing all your fine work on Global Warming by unleashing this petulant verbage on an unsuspecting world. If a guy says “It is what it is” within my hearing, I lose all interest.

The next entry needs no introduction nor explanation: Nicolas Cage.  I cannot stand him.  Seriously, his most recent movie KNOWING?  The line they chose for the end of the trailer, the hookiest most clever amazing line from genius entertainer Nic(olas) Cage?  “Little Boy: Are we going to die?  CAGE: I would never let that happen.”  So I can only presume this movie recounts Nic’s quest to discover the fountain of youth so his son will NEVER die.  A tip: if you like Nicolas Cage, keep it to yourself – no one will be impressed, and I will definitely not sleep with you ever.

And for a bit of seriousness… after a bad burn in my last relationship, I cold refuse to do long-distance again anytime soon.  Considering my line of work, it will almost certainly happen again someday, but I will put off that day as long as possible.  Long-distance relationships make loving people act cruel and sane people seem crazy.  Which reminds me: as well-balanced and trust-worthy as she seems, Juliet on LOST gives me the heebie-jeebies, so if you’re into her, shhhhhhhhhh, at least until Sawyer and Kate get back together and I can nestle in the warmth of their love.

Dealmakers

Now before I get yipped at for heaping on negativity, consider that I was finally motivated to write this post by one of the greatest Dealbreaker lists I have ever heard.  A lovely young man recently shared with me that he, in his pursuit of a wife, would not date Mormons, virgins, vegetarians, or red-heads.  Lest you think that his list was a way of letting me down lightly, I no longer have red hair.  No, this was a friendly conversation, perfectly earnest.  The specificity of his list surprised me until I learned that it was not hard-earned wisdom from past relationships – this gem of a list had been handed down from his frat brothers.  I envied his certainty (and efficiency!) and wanted to make a list of my own, which you find above.

So let us round out this post with a final catalog.  I love boys/guys/men, as all of you know, and so there will always be things they can do that will make me fall in love as fast as the above Dealbreakers will make me turn tail and run.  The Dealmakers are small things, acts I cannot brace myself against, and the list grows all the time.  For now, we’ll stick to the three Ol’ Faithfuls.  First, if he can talk to me about any of my three geekiest favorite books (Ender’s Game, The Grapes of Wrath, Harry Potter), I go weak in the knees.  Second, if he can swing or salsa dance and can *really* lead, I am putty in his hands.  Third, if he rolls up his right pantleg and hops on a roadbike to get around… it is a wonder I haven’t tackled more boys-on-bikes in this town, they are so dreamy.

If I’m being honest, though, there’s really only one thing that could allow me to forgive a guy for chewing with his mouth open, and that’s courage.  And in perhaps my most embarrassing revelation so far, I confess to you, the quickest way for a guy to show me he is both brave and incredibly hot?  Put on some eyeliner.  We would all do well to take a page from Casey Affleck’s book.

UPDATE! (4/3) Please post your Dealbreakers in the comments!  Like, maybe you would never date a blogger…

Straight Guys: “Even their irony is unironic.”

I met a guy a couple of weeks ago, we’ll call him Eric.  He’s smart, funny, handsome with a killer smile.  I liked him immediately.  We talked for maybe half an hour that first night, then he scurried off at closing time at the behest of his in-a-hurry friend – we’ll call him Jacob.  I was disappointed that Eric and I hadn’t exchanged numbers, especially considering the awkward/awesome moment when I asked what time it was and we both pulled out our phones and literally stood there, mute and immobile, phones in hand, unable to clear the hurdle.

So the next day I found him on Facebook.  Duh.  There followed a pretty delightful daily exchange of messages that we agreed ought to culminate in plans to go out the following week.  I was pumped – he seemed sane!  (Oh how far my mighty standards have fallen.)  Alas, I missed his call and we played awkward phone/text tag for about a week before I conceded it was time to bow out.  If it’s not easy in the beginning, it will only get more difficult.

So okay, I thought Eric was out of the picture and I was back in that most lamentable position of having no one whatsoever to think about.  Young women out there know what I’m talking about, maybe young men as well – we’d rather be wrapped up in something (or someone) that goes nowhere than have nothing to fantasize about and analyze in the first place.  I was pretty surprised, then, when Eric’s friend Jacob from the first night invited me to a preview screening of the movie that Jacob directed and Eric produced.  I felt a little awkward accepting the invitation, so I watched the trailer first to see if it was worth it.  Turns out the movie looked very cool, so I told Jacob I’d go and texted Eric that I’d be there: “I didn’t want to surprise ya!”

The movie did not disappoint.  I signed away my rights to write about the movie in a non-disclosure agreement before the screening, but after some Googling ©, I’ve discovered that the one background element of particular interest is already an internet meme: an initially innocuous, eventually hilarious, ultimately infuriating game called, creatively, The Game.  The only rule in The Game is that if you think about The Game, you lose.  So the goal is not to think about The Game.

A flurry of text messages followed the screening, which included me being my dumb self and telling Eric that I thought he was great and we should hang out and he should let me know.  So now the ball is securely in his court.

This is a perfectly familiar circumstance for me.  I rarely show restraint when I like the idea of kissing someone.  But there is a special wrinkle in this particular iteration.  Thanks to that clever movie Eric produced, whenever I think of him, I also think of The Game.  Which means that every time I think about him, I literally *LOSE* The Game.

What a postmodern, post-ironic mindfuck!  I am terrible (terrible!) at playing the “game” in the classical way that we discuss in interpersonal relationships.  And now, having stripped away all mystery and intrigue from my flirtation with this guy by actually *telling* him that I *LIKE* him, I am faced with both losing the game and losing The Game every time I let my mind wander.

I publish this post now rather than text him again.  This blog entry qualifies as “restraint” for me.  Pure comedy.  I hope you agree.

UPDATE!  Hahahahaha he’s gay!  That makes the title of this post both moot and amazing.  I am really really retiring from the g/Game.

A Wifely Job

This is the single greatest gift a man has ever given me.  It has a special place of honor in my kitchen.

The text goes like this:

A wifely job’s no cinch–
At times it leaves me cross–
But I kinda like my job
Because I kinda love my boss!