Magic: It's not the volts that kill you. It's the amps.

Whoa. Another blog entry? Already?! I know all of you reading are shocked. All BOTH of you!

So again I'm going to rattle off stream of consciousness without editing. I'm into that now. My friends and I were discussing James Joyce and Faulkner at brunch, and I guess I'm going to try that style today.

Wow. I made that sound like we had this erudite meeting of the minds. And actually, yeah, I think our conversation today does qualify as that, but it was more about Jim Morrison's influence on Iggy Pop, (because I work Jim Morrison into every conversation) and the administrators at our kids' school, and our upcoming travels.... see? I'm doing it already. Why are those authors revered? This stream of consciousness shit is a breeze! Anyway, as I was thinking/saying/writing, we really did have a good time, because I love talking with these very smart people.

And don't you love it when you have that connection with people? Where your conversation could go for days? You have it in the beginning of a romantic relationship. That giddy ionic bonding through language, both verbal and non-verbal. If you're really lucky - for the entirety of your romantic relationship, you will maintain that connection, even if the demands of every day life dictate that you can't abandon responsibilities to engage constantly. (Supposedly. I don't have empirical evidence of my own, although I hope to one day.)

So... Don't you hate it when you lose that connection?

(A moment of silence.....) Ok, enough of that shit.

My niece wrote a song a long time ago, "Unknown Encounter." It's one of my favorites of hers just for the sound of it. It popped into my head today, because I was thinking back on the past week. In the last few days, I've had some fantastic, thought-provoking conversations with old friends, new friends, and old new friends or is it new old friends? In her song, she sings, "I was havin' a debate... on religion and politics, and if I needed faith." She wrote this as a teenager, and it blew my mind that she had such perspective. The same song says, "The next year we hung around... and pretended to be friends... but the truth is you have potential, so this isn't where it ends."

And it's potential that powers those debates, those connections. Whether we do it with another, or with ourselves, we drive our lives by converting this potential into kinetic energy. When people say that they feel "alive," this is what they're feeling. Sheer current that, if you are quiet while it's flowing, you almost can hear it. The kind that quickens your pulse and widens your pupils. The kind that keeps you painting even though your thumbs are numb. The kind that keeps you typing even though your eyes are blurred. The kind that keeps you awake until 4 am just to listen to a voice.

Magic happens. And when it happens with two people, hearts heal, minds unite, cells divide, and synapses fire. Yes, the synapses that fire together DO wire together, to paraphrase Carla Shatz. But they also can tire together. If I have to lose the connection, I think I prefer to be knocked to the ground by lightning rather than to just have the battery drain or the wiring get so old it's too brittle to conduct. (Then you end up with that "sound and fury signifying nothing" - which was Faulkner quoting Shakespeare and I guess meant that nothing means anything. Bleak. That was his stream of consciousness, so let's get back to mine... after this brief message.)

Taking a short intermission from my stream of consciousness: I grabbed this info from Wikipedia, but only because I know about it from my job, but didn't know how to succinctly explain it: "In electronics, capacitive coupling is the transfer of energy within an electrical network by means of the capacitance between circuit nodes. This coupling can have an intentional or accidental effect."

Same goes for our coupling. Humans are not meant to be resistors. We must connect or our lives will become blackouts. Just like every medicine is really only the right amount of poison, so then is every connection life-sustaining but possibly deadly. You've got something in your head, and in there, it's safe. But once you let it out, once you so much as voice it, that current is flowing.  Don't kid yourself that just because you didn't directly stick a fork in a socket that you might not be creating a dangerous arc. Exciting, beautiful. And often the more exciting, the more beautiful, the more lethal. But also often, the result is worth the hazard. Just be sure to use shielded cables.

"Ohm's Law is a linear relationship, meaning that for any given body of resistance, the more volts you have, the more amps you'll have. That's why it's misleading to say that it's not the volts that will kill you; it's the amps. The volts directly determine the amps."

(The volts are thoughts, and the amps are actions, if you didn't follow me there.) When you've got that 230 VAC/50 Hz surge buzzing through your body, please use it! (Or domestically, you should probably use 120/60, but I digress.)  Be careful how and where you channel it, but use it to power something.

You can't live without your power. Share it. Open yourself to the flow of others. Connect. Be cautious but remember safety is never guaranteed. Keep in mind that you will definitely live through a little bit of static shock.

And if you're looking for a spark but afraid to plug in, start slowly and try something of lower risk, like maybe licking a 9 Volt battery.

But don't do that at brunch with your friends, or they'll think you're really weird.

Go listen to Ariel!

Electric Arc

Science, y'all

Requiem for Demand-Withdraw and Laughter

Today I learned that one of my friends was getting a divorce. She had posted about it on Facebook and apparently someone had criticized her for divulging too many details.

A second friend recently addressed the fact that she was hearing some untrue things about herself that apparently could be traced back to her ex. Rather than retaliate, she showed class and reminded everyone that when people are hurting, you should take what they say with a grain of salt. Basically, she said she understood, and that she wasn't going to hold a grudge over things she knew were said in pain. What a gracious way to put that. I'm impressed with her empathy.

Ordinarily, although I'm usually an open book about myself, I think I would agree that it's best to err on the side of discretion when it concerns someone else's secrets, feelings, and/or when there are kids involved.

But in this case, I really get the "oversharing." She owes no protection to her soon-to-be ex.

Some people put so much stuff on social media that you're like, "Do you ever look up from your phone?" Other people only put the happy stuff and you kinda get sick of it because you get the distinct impression that they are full of shit. But you also don't want to see someone constantly complain. Who wants to follow Eeyore on Instagram?

It's tough to strike a balance. For the most part, I guess I tend to lean toward posting more of the "good." It's not phony. It's polite. There's no need to document every mood swing. On the other hand, I'm also not going to image craft a life that I'm not really living, and I don't even have the time or savvy to do that. Even if I'm slightly skewed toward the auspicious, I'm pretty authentic online. And that's simply because I don't know how not to be. If you really know me, well, you know me. We've all read about the implications of social media and we all know not to compare our blooper reel to everyone else's highlights. (Am I plagiarizing Dr. Phil or someone? It's good advice, whoever said it.)

For those of us who are old enough to have had more than one class reunion, here is your explanatory metaphor: Social media is the mall. Remember the mall? It wasn't like school. It was more of your own turf, with the glass vestibule entrances providing just enough of a buffer between you and your parents so that you felt safe knowing they were a phone call away, but you could also call someone an "asshole" instead of a "jerk" and you might put on more eyeliner than you were really supposed to be wearing. Maybe you might make out with someone in the movies. (Or was that just me?)

Maybe you were one of those boys who liked to look at the funny, dirty cards in Spencer's Gifts or one of those guys always doing stupid things with those bouncy balls. (Was that a subliminal message, guys? Don't answer that.)  Maybe you were one of those girls who liked to try on shoes. But mostly we just walked around talking and looking at each other and letting other people talk to and look at us. If you were me and you were 13, you were naively wearing an Ocean Pacific half shirt. (I still have it. It still fits. Yes it's hilarious. No, you can't see. Ok, maybe just one of you....)

Side note: A lot of times, at the mall, you looked a lot dumber than you thought. But that's ok. We all did. We still do. And it's still ok.

So it was fun to be at the mall and you went there looking good and being friendly. But sometimes you might find yourself arguing with a friend at the food court. Maybe you walked into Miller's Outpost and saw your boyfriend flirting with the girl working there and you spilled your purse as you tried to storm out. Maybe your parents just got divorced or you'd gotten caught skipping school that day and been stripped of your student council seat.

Sometimes a lot of the kids, and it seems like all of the kids, at the mall know what just happened to you and you're embarrassed, even if you didn't do anything wrong. Your choices are to stay home, (or to go home, should the thing happen AT the mall) or to just deal with it right then and there.

So my friend with the cheating spouse made an excellent point: She said that people shouldn't judge her for "airing her dirty laundry." (He had already gone out in public with the other woman.) "Why judge me?" she proposed. "Judge them." And while yes, she's saying this while in pain, she's right. I totally am going to judge that. I shouldn't. We're not supposed to. It's none of my business if your marriage falls apart, or even if you had an affair. But could you at least have kept that relatively private? Or if you just had to go out in public, could you not have done it where you knew people your wife knew would be? But I wasn't there. So I can't really comment. But if I reserve judgment of him, I will also refrain from judging my friend for putting her opinion out there.

Why should the betrayed pretend that they are ok with it? Where's the class in being discreet? Who is she supposed to be protecting? If it makes her feel better to talk about it at the mall, well, let her. If you don't want to listen to her, leave the arcade. Do whatever it is you do. Get a facial at Dillards or go argue with that kid that he needs to put down the Bon Jovi and ask the cashier if he can order a cassette of Suicidal Tendencies or something by Skinny Puppy, because of course they won't have it because "this town is lame, man." Whoever you are, you've got your own life, so you don't have to gawk like she's a freakshow; just move on. But if this is your friend, you can stop and say, "hey, that sucks that you're going through that."

And if she wants to talk some shit on the guy who just decimated her world, that's her prerogative.

The bridge has been burned. Why not have a bonfire with the wreckage?

A few months ago, I ended a five year relationship. Oh, and yes, I'm well aware that I totally buried the lead here. Maybe no one is even reading this far. But there it is. I said it. I don't know why it took so long to say it except that for a while, I guess I didn't want it to be true, and then I was too hurt to talk (I just heard a collective gasp.) and then I was mad and knew I'd say something I'd regret. Until now, I've only said it when I had to say it. We had been engaged and he referred to me as his "wife." We lived together. As far as the state was concerned, we were, for all practical purposes, married. So it was pretty crushing for me, and I think I can safely say it was no picnic for him, either.

The truth is that if you know either of us, and especially if you know us both, I probably don't need to explain. A lot of people were surprised that we lasted as long as we did. But the only other person who possibly knows him as well as I do once wrote to me, "I'm glad you found each other (even though you were right in front of each other)." I still appreciate that vote of confidence, and it means more to me than all the well-intended remarks of even my most caring friends. We did find each other, even if we eventually lost each other. And one of these days I hope I can look back and laugh, because oh, man, we laughed. We fought. But we laughed our asses off. We really, really did.

So it really sucked that it didn't work out, just because I wanted it to, and he wanted it to.... And it sucked even harder that all the people who scoffed at us ended up being "right." I would love it if that didn't matter. I don't put a lot of stock in other people's opinions. It's not that I don't care about people's feelings. I just don't really conform. I'm not trying to be non-conformist. It's laziness, really. I just don't have a clue as to what everyone is "doing" or wearing or what's cool or even what word I'm supposed to be using instead of "cool"  to describe what I think is cool. I don't "keep up" with trends.

I long ago realized that it doesn't matter to me what everyone thinks... except when they're right and I wish they weren't. In that time, I realize that I do care, and that we all want to cry in private. I hate seeing my friends not knowing what to say. I loathe being pitied. I can't even begin to describe the gut-wrenching agony of imagining how he is describing us and me. And if you know, please don't tell me. If he's telling you, it's not because he wants to publicly shame me, it's because he trusts you, and I respect that. Unlike my friend who was taken by surprise while she was still in the relationship, he and I are no longer a unit and it's none of my business. And I don't mean to assume, but maybe that grain of salt adage applies to him as well.

So both my friends were right. In my case, I can only say that I just want him to be okay.  It turns out that I am not as mature or brave as either of the friends who posted about their relationships. I'm only mature and brave enough to admit that I'm not. Maybe it's because I'm 44 and I thought I'd have it more together by now, or perhaps because I was already divorced, or maybe because it turns out I have some pride, this breakup stings like failure.

And guess what. If I haven't talked to you about it, it's because I don't want to talk about it.  (And now I think I just heard a collective sigh of relief!)

Again, I'm only able to admit that I know my feelings aren't logical; I'm not able to stop feeling somewhat embarrassed. Why am I? I have no problem meeting strangers and public speaking is a breeze for me, really. So why now is the open book usually on display now in the restricted section? Why don't I want to talk about it? Why don't most people? I'm pretty sure that if my friend's marital problems hadn't been displayed publicly, she wouldn't have needed to address them that way. And the callous disregard for her privacy justifies her reaction.

As for the rest of us.... Why are we ashamed to say that we're in pain? Don't we roll our eyes when our parents or grandparents groan upon standing up only to say, "I'm fine! Nothing's wrong!"? Aren't emotions as much a part of our lives as our physical bodies? They are what makes us who we are. The body is just the scaffolding. And right now, the inside of this one is a construction zone. Please use caution - authorized personnel only.

Mad Men Finale Sucked

Spoiler alert for all both of you that still watch Mad Men: It just ended and I am totally let down.

Also, I'm totally not proofreading this at all. So how's that for living on the edge?

That finale sucked. Sucked. As I did with True Blood, let me re-write the ending: 

Ok, Don gets his ass on a plane and decides to be there for his kids. Betty *was* just being a hypochondriac and so Sally freaks out and beats the crap out of BOTH her parents. Betty physically recovers. (She was emotionally broken enough and deserves to watch herself age.) Don Draper, however, is rendered irrevocably impotent and with Broca's aphasia - no more smooth talking, asshole. Don ends up relying mostly on his kids for everything. He sure as hell ain't doin' YOGA. (AS. FREAKING. IF.) Roger's ending is fine as written, except he shaves the cheesy stache and we get to see a lot more of him being hilarious while in his boxers, maybe on acid again. (Always found Slattery several thousand degrees hotter than Hamm) 

Joan actually gets to be happy. HELLO WORLD WHAT HAVE YOU GOT AGAINST BEAUTIFUL WOMEN WITH BIG BOOBS? BELIEVE IT OR NOT LIFE IS NOT ANY EASIER BECAUSE OF THESE ATTRIBUTES. (Spoken solely on Joan's behalf, of course.) Anyway, let her be happy, dammit. Let her have the man AND the job and Peggy will use her as inspiration to write that Enjoli ad "she can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan and never never let you forget you're a man." (Which, no, I did not need to google. That is burned into my brain.) They will argue about whether any man ever forgets he is a man. Peggy will say, "Don Draper," and the ad will air. (And ruin the lives of an entire generation of women. How about when we said "hey ladies, get jobs" we ALSO said, "hey men, guess what. YOU can also scrub a toilet."?) ..... Anyway, back to Joan.... Seriously. Seriously. They didn't make her happy. (But I do. She and Ken and Peggy will also end up doing the Virginia Slims "you've come a long way, baby" campaign.)

And as for Stan and Peggy. Um, no. What you saw there? That was a nightmare. Did. not. happen. Guuuhrrooss and the most blatant DEUS EX MACHINA ever done. Cheap and incestuous. 

Ken - yes - give that guy the WORLD. :) 

The last person that deserves a fresh start is d-bag Pete. Gaahhh... in my ending, he is totally dominated by Trudy, but he is too boring for us even to care. 

All in all, the ending has nothing to do with a bunch of strangers and minor characters. I mean... the freakin Bradys didn't end it when they were in Hawaii or in that ghost town.... Christ. That really really sucked. 

So much for weekly blogging... but I'm not too worried about it.

My son wasn't thrilled that I wanted to document my entire experience with his Bipolar I diagnosis. That was one of the many clues that he was really doing better. And it's been quite a while now, and no more episodes. 

I'm thankful. I'm relieved. I still can't relax, though. I have anxiety. So I may as well discuss my own issue rather than my son's.

Here's a sample of how my mind can work even when, in spite of life never being perfect, things are settled at least for the evening:

Relax. Just relax. But I was going to dust, and do that load of laundry, and write a blog post, and work on those photo albums. But I don't know which one to start on. Oh, man, and I also need to clean out my purse, pay some bills, feed the cats, let the dogs out, get some groceries. Ok, so I'll make a list. 

After sitting down and writing a "short" list that ends up having 23 items, here's where my brain goes next:

I'm just going to sit down for five minutes and look at Pinterest. I need to relax. According to all the quotes on Pinterest, I deserve to relax. But I should probably check my bank account. And open the mail. And learn some new software languages. And be reading the classics.

Relax. I said relax, dammit. 

My mind wanders from legitimate issues (did my daughter do her homework? has my mom gotten any news about that medical problem? HOW many people are incarcerated for non-violent crimes in this state?) to trivia such as clearing out the DVR and my email. Prioritizing these is a problem for me, and I have trouble sorting out which problems are actually problems, which ones need to be solved right away (or at all) and which ones I can personally handle. It's not that I don't really know what's important. It's that when things start adding up, the little things seem a little bigger, the bad things a little more ominous, and the combinations of events and to-do bullet points starts to feel heavy. 

When I realize I've done as much as I can do for the day, I say to myself, relax.

But lots of times, it's just near to impossible. 

I don't think relaxation is really what our culture fosters, at least not for regular people, and definitely not for those of us prone to worrying. I know I'm not the only one. Where are you, my fellow Antsy Nancys?  People say that you should "take it easy" or "one day at a time." (I think I've already asked if there is some other "two days at a time program" that I'm missing.) 

I do appreciate the sentiment and understand the good intention. It just isn't as simple as that, even though I wish it was.

"Don't worry," they say, and "worrying is a waste of time," and my personal favorite, "worrying is like wishing for what you don't want."

Guess what, it's totally not that at all. 

It's not wishing for bad things. It's dread. Yes, it can become a habit to worry, and some people do seem to want to worry, or to be happy to be worrying. But really, it's a case-by-case issue, and many times, handling stress, even everyday kinds of stresses, takes more effort than "putting it out of your mind" or "handing it over to God." I would love to be able to put things out of my mind. Sometimes I can, but other times, whatever I put out keeps coming back like a hungry stray cat. I'm basically nagging myself.

To those that try to help, I know you're walking a fine line. You want to be encouraging without indicating to an anxious person that he or she isn't already doing everything within his or her power to get a grip on it. Obviously, just saying "try not to worry" sounds dumb. (Also dumb: the instructions to never reply when you're angry, make a decision when you're upset, or make a promise when you're happy.  Wedding vows should be said when you're unhappy? Think people. Think. Can we be a little more realistic and logical with some of these sayings, pinners? What happened to not using absolutes? But I digress.)

See, these are things I think about! I could have spent that paragraph doing some cleansing deep breathing. 

If I do figure out a way to divert my own attention by something as allegedly mind-numbing as TV, I am bombarded with commercials telling me what to do, want, buy, and want to be able to buy so that I can be thinner, look younger, and "have it all." (I'm going for a record with quotation marks here in the post. It's a blog, folks. Not the New York Times. I'm leaving the damn quotation marks.) If I look at the internet, I can end up looking at a top ten list of things I never cared about before. A respectable publication such as Psychology Today, can cause me to analyze my relationship. Reading about procrastination somehow leads me to even more reading about procrastination.

And then of course, there's bolting upright at 2 a.m. remembering the one thing I really did need to do. In my defense, the world really can be a scary place. 

Recently, a terrible man was attacking women in parking lots here. (They caught him, so if the previous sentence worried you, you really can put that one out of your mind.) Days after law enforcement had taken him into custody, I heard a commercial for my local news. It went something like, if not exactly this, "Coming up: Mistakes women are making in parking lots."

HOLD UP. What is that?! What mistakes are MEN making in parking lots? Is this about my not remembering where I parked? Pretty sure that guys do that too. Ohhhh! They mean stuff that's going to get us lady folk attacked! Are they telling me that if I 'm a woman, I better watch it or I'm making a mistake that is going to cost me my safety? First of all, they're distorting the issue. The story is "the mistake this man made in several parking lots." Secondly, the sick fact here is that it's true: if I make a mistake in a parking lot, there's a good chance it could put me in danger.

Knowing that doesn't help with anxiety. Knowing that I have anxiety doesn't help with anxiety. For some reason, though, writing all of this at a frantic pace did help with anxiety. Tonight's anxiety, anyway.

So for all the people I know who don't have anxiety, who aren't worried about anything, I commend you. And to those of you who actually have nothing to worry about, I am amazed and happy for you. Both of you.

Another New Normal

How many times in life have you experienced a shift in circumstance so powerful that you adjust the parameters of what you consider "normal"? Most people have several of these: graduation, marriage, the birth of a child, the death of a parent. Some shifts are wonderful, and others devastating. Still others are just plain weird. In transition, I always think back to how things were and wonder how long it will be until things return to that state. It's usually then that I realize - they're never going to. 

Sometimes we expect the transition, and we have time to prepare. Other times, we are stunned to have our imaginations blown apart by the force of the unexpected. Whether the event is happy or tragic, our minds seem to process our surprise first, and we learn to cope from the vantage point of the shell-shocked. It's from that point that I write now. So I find myself almost at a loss of words attempting to describe how I feel about discovering that my first-born child, my only son, has a preliminary diagnosis of Bipolar I. If you aren't familiar with this condition, well, this isn't about just mood swings. Bipolar I includes psychosis. 

I know people generally agree that teenagers are crazy. However, when my son believed that the CIA had given him LSD, "crazy" understated his mental state. He also sincerely believed that his internal light was so strong that he needed sunglasses, lest he burn someone with his eyes. He was manic for several days, and slept a grand total of 13 hours in the course of a week. Finally, after heavy doses of antipsychotics, he began to come back to reality.

To be honest, some of the delusions were downright hilarious. For example, when asked to recount any addictions, he very seriously explained to a nurse that he was, "hooked on phonics." Despite a few laughs, I hated bearing witness to my son's struggle with the mania. The nine days of his hospitalization were the most draining of my entire life.    

Having him "back" is like a dream come true. Then again, he isn't "back" because we've never known who he is as an adult, because he hasn't yet become that. My hope for his future has been restored and even magnified now that I know how much he has already conquered. Before the episode, he had been a sulky, angry young man. I had worried for months, but his behavior was never outside the range of what seemed to be "normal" teenage angst.  I'm so happy to be reunited with a boy I haven't seen in a long time, and getting to watch him become the young man who we are actually yet to meet.

A few weeks before the manic episode, I had considered that he might need a psychological evaluation, but since he was 18, I wasn't sure how I was going to convince him to participate. Some people tried to tell me that I was over-protective. More than once I was told that I was the actual problem. I wasn't over-protective, and I wasn't the problem. Had I known what I know now, I would have trusted my instincts. Yet I can't regret the sequence of events, because without the manic episode, the scope and magnitude of his illness might not have been adequately assessed. Without the psychosis, diagnosis could have been murky, and he might have battled for years without even knowing what he was fighting or why. I am so thankful that we discovered his condition so early in his life.

I can't describe the details of the experience (so far) in one post. Suffice it to say that we are once again expanding our definition of "normal."

Not as Enjoyable to Read (or Write!) as Satire

Don't you hate it when you try to write a blog and you can't quite get your words in order... and The Onion articulates it perfectly?!

We disagree on so many things, but there are a few things we claim to agree upon, hands-down, no questions asked. One of those issues that everyone agrees on is that violence against children, including sexual abuse, is absolutely, always, no-doubt-about-it wrong. We start disagreeing when we talk about teenagers and how we define where childhood ends, but we've roughly estimated it at age 18, and that's what we've agreed upon as a nation. Age 7 is definitely, definitely well below within the boundary, and there is no room for debate.

Ronan Farrow tweeted regarding Woody Allen's recognition at the Golden Globes (which I didn't actually watch). He missed the tribute, and tweeted:

"...did they put the part where a woman publicly confirmed he molested her at age 7 before or after Annie Hall?"

My brain went in about 100 directions when I read about the tweet. Just because someone has made some great art, do they get a pass on seedy behavior? I don't mean legally, because legally, no they don't - at least theoretically. I am not talking about the justice system, but how deviants are viewed socially and historically.

IF the allegations that Woody Allen molested a 7 year old are true. If it's true, then the if/then chart leads us back to the law. This legal situation  involves another of Mia Farrow's daughter's accusations. But that court case was, according to CNN, dropped.

So my debate is not whether or not Woody Allen is guilty. It's about that gray area of humanity where we draw the line between open-mindedness and common sense, between judging a person we don't know and being forced to judge in order to protect the innocent. And between art and its creator.

He clearly has some disturbing proclivities and isn't deterred by the most widely accepted social mores. You know the one I mean, the one that says you don't marry your common-law stepchild.

However, in spite of the fact that we, as a society, find him icky, he keeps making movies. And we, at least some of us, keep enjoying them! I myself am guilty! I guess I can let myself off the hook for enjoying the old ones, right? But then I had to see the one with that guy I like, and before you know it, I'm watching the films of a person who I am pretty sure is a guy I would not let into my home, really. Take away the talent and genius (yeah, I'm actually going to say I think he is a genius, although many disagree) and what are you left with? A creepy dude at the very least. But you can't separate the genius from the man. How is it, though, that people seem to manage to separate the creepy?

So he has pretty much violated our most sacred code, and aside from some negative PR here and there, he hasn't really suffered publicly, absolutely not enough to lose his career and wealth. He remains a sought-after talent.  And here is the real, chewy nougat of the problem at hand:

Should he be allowed to continue to do that? Who is allowing him to do that? Everyone who's not trying to stop him? I could blame myself and all of us guilty of watching the films, but we can only watch them after they've been made and lots of money has already been exchanged. And I definitely had nothing to do with him getting an award! So here's the real question: why are people, people who can actually really hire and fire this guy, so enamored of celebrities that they'll put up with the worst behavior? Because the truth is - nobody's listening to ME and my friends. The people in charge are working with him because they choose to do so. And I think it's weird, at the very least. Because surely there are some geniuses out there who do NOT give us all the heebie-jeebies.

So what's wrong with these studio executives who will continue to work with him? How do they decide that they must develop his work, when there are literally millions of un-produced works of art up for grabs? Sure, he's made some great movies. How about giving someone new a chance, since we've already gotten an enormous amount of entertainment out of this guy's brain? 

What makes one scandal a nightmare with the firings, and pulling of the merchandise and another scandal almost unmentioned? The Food Network fired Paula Deen. In 1997, Marv Albert was fired  because of a sex scandal. Of course, he ended up becoming more successful than ever after beating the rap, but the point is that employers have the right to fire people. Executives have the power to terminate contracts. Studio executives have the right to refuse to produce scripts. While Paula Deen had and still has her supporters, that network was within their right to fire her if that's what the bosses decided to do. She can find a way to make a living elsewhere. She isn't in jail; she just got fired. 

But we've long been inconsistent about who we persecute and who we revere. (Don't even get me started on Bill Clinton.) There was some backlash when Woody Allen married his former common-law stepdaughter, but have we just decided, as a culture, that it is far enough in the past? In a few decades, will we be seeing tributes to Mel Gibson? He's all but banished. Why? Because he said some very stupid, vile things. Because he was violent, or at least threatened to be. Those were terrible things to have said, and everyone understands why everyone is appalled by his words. Why, though? Because he got caught. And in this case, we just have the word of one person against another. 

So why do some people "get away with it" and some don't? Is it the greatness of their art? Isn't that subjective?

When you look at a Picasso, do you think of the string of heartbroken wives and lovers and their children whose father was undoubtedly ridiculously selfish? What about when you're reading Hemingway, which students are often required to read?! A long time ago, I saw Beth Ann Fennelly read a poem she wrote, "Letter from Gauguin's Daughter." She nailed it! I highly, highly recommend everyone look her up and buy some of her poetry. 

It's a long standing tradition, it seems, for the talented, to often also be awful, and maybe we've resigned ourselves to that. Too many examples come to mind to list them all, but notably, Picasso and Hemingway. Their art survives and maintains its value. They were womanizers. Not someone who got caught up in some feelings and had some relationship overlap. Not midlife crises. Not young guys who did some carousing and then settled down. These guys were lifelong, pathological cheaters. Hemingway at least said he'd left his wife for another woman, "because I am a bastard." Is there anything to be said for the self-awareness? Or was that just narcissism?

And maybe, because these guys are very long dead, we can now enjoy their art left over, just as we could the inheritance we might receive from a dastardly uncle.

But womanizers from a century ago still aren't considered as vile as pedophiles. And while I admit to adoring "Annie Hall" I think a lot of what Woody Allen has done has seemed very repetitive. And I don't mind that, either. It's just that I don't think even a magnificent body of work excuses ill intentions, and surely there is at least one nice person somewhere making great films who could have garnered the award recently bestowed him! Sort of how you might be very qualified for a job, and although the employer can't legally discriminate against you, they can still choose to hire someone "better suited" once they see the Facebook photos from your "SPRING BREAK 2008" album.

At least someone finally arrested Roman Polanski, (caution, this link is explicit) - and at least Salon remembers!Thank you, Kate Harding!  To pretty much everyone else, where was the outrage? And there's that nagging fact that  Roman Polanski admitted guilt, and Woody Allen has not.  The mere suggestion of such things is enough to ruin most ordinary people's lives, or at least alter them permanently for the worse. Where are the ordinary consequences? And does the guy really need an award at this point? Was no one else deserving? Who voted on this? I guess I could look up some of these questions and delve further into it, but I'm not going to waste my time because not one thing I could read would sufficiently answer the real question: Why?!

So... I guess at this point, all I'm asking is this: Hey, famous-movie-producing-money-having and award-giving-out people? What are you thinking?

On the Occasion of the Eighteenth Anniversary of My Firstborn's Birth

I'm experiencing all the cliche emotions associated with the fact that my only son turns 18 tomorrow. I'm excited, sad, all of it. I'm so proud, and simultaneously disappointed. I'm disappointed in myself, because I totally did not do pretty much anything that I planned to do as a parent. I wanted to teach him to read when he was very young, and I did do that. Somehow, after that, it became all about whatever was going on at the time. Suddenly, we're here. It's time to look back and take stock of how this project is going, now that I'm handing it off to a new CEO. I mainly wanted to teach him to be a good person. He is a good person, but that's his doing, not mine. I wanted to be a good example, and I haven't always been that.

But I'm letting myself off the hook.

Because I have loved him with all my might, and don't intend to stop just because he will now be legally responsible for himself. I'm forcing myself to let go a little bit and accept this event. Furthermore, I'm even attempting to embrace its joys. I remember exactly what it felt like to turn 18, and I hope the liberation is just as gratifying for him, even if really, in the course of day-to-day life, the change is primarily psychological at this point.

His birthday isn't about me, of course, it's about him. But this writing that I'm doing is about me. And so I'm processing, with each tap of this keyboard, how I feel about his childhood being "over." It really, really, really did go so much faster than I ever thought it would. I remember everyone saying that it would. I've been having a sense of dread for weeks, feeling sad that I feel like I failed and that I missed so much of it. 

And then I realized that I haven't. I have been here, and although I've messed up a lot, I've never abandoned him. I've never not loved him. He's never gone without care. And he knows enough now that he really will be okay on his own soon. I'm so glad and thankful that he exists. I'm even more thankful that he is my son.

And that feels weird too. And I guess it's okay that it feels weird, too, because, well, it has to be okay, because that's how it feels, and so that's just how it is.

None of my disappointment has to do with him, although sometimes I have been really mad at him and disagreed with his behavior. I know he's young and human. I trust that he's learned from his mistakes, and that he'll make good choices in his bright future. I'm proud of him not because of his accomplishments. I'm proud of him because he is kind and brave. He just demonstrated these characteristics by gently cutting a hairball off our poor cat Pearl, who'd gotten into something sticky. He is so much smarter and gifted than he even realizes. I sincerely hope that he will be able to harness his intellectual power while maintaining his total lack of arrogance.

I'm rambling and hating the quality of this post, because it's scattered and raw. But it's honest. I had to commemorate this day, my last day as the mother of two "children." Tomorrow, one will be an adult. And I shouldn't have read Kahlil Gibran before I tried to write about this, because now I feel incredibly inferior. He said it so much better than I ever could. It's been so hard trying to be a stable bow, aiming the arrow as high as I could. I can't even fathom the target, but I trust that it will one day astound me.

"On Children" - Kahlil Gibran

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of Children." And he said: 

      Your children are not your children. 

      They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. 

      They come through you but not from you, 

      And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. 

      You may give them your love but not your thoughts. 

      For they have their own thoughts. 

      You may house their bodies but not their souls, 

      For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. 

      You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. 

      For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. 

      You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. 

      The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. 

      Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; 

      For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.