Flying blind – 306.5

In terms of blows to self-esteem, this has been hard because I am used to being capable and generous and a valued employee. Coming to grips with losing these things is hard. The other way in which this is really outside of my comfort zone is that there are so many unknowns that are completely out of my control.

I am starting to realize that I am extremely neurotic. I have a sense of humor, and am easy going about a lot of things, so it is not obvious and I know I could be much worse. However, I do worry about things and overdo, especially when I am in charge, and I have a hard time trusting other people to come through. I have looked at my behavior before, and seen it as a combination of two things. One is that persistent feeling of not being good enough, where I feel like I need to overcompensate. Maybe if I bring three dishes to the potluck, instead of just one, I have earned a right to be there. The other part is just not trusting people to be flakes. In a lot of cases it may be fair, and comes from experience, but it is probably still overly judgmental.

I knew that I did this, but had never really pegged myself as neurotic, which I associate with New York and annoying people after reading books by East Coasters who obsess over things that don’t matter to me. (So maybe the annoyance is not because they are neurotic, but because it is about getting their kids into the “right” pre-school and crafting the right image.) I started using the word neurotic for me after two incidents.

One was standing in line at a church potluck, where they were trying something new to get enough people to bring food, but the discussion was on how people get flaky, and the person I was talking to was saying how ninety percent of people are flakes and the rest are neurotic, and I realized I was the rest, but I also realized that we get things done. Then I was volunteering at a blood drive, escorting people to the canteen and making sure they got their drink and snack before leaving. I was stressing, because people were supposed to wait for me to come, and if I was not there fast enough they would just start walking on their own (and we had a fainter and another one who got really weak, so it does matter), so I was always looking and trying to gage how long they would take, and just uptight about it. However, I was told later by one of the phlebotomists that I did a great job, and she was right. I did. I was stressed the whole time, but I did a good job. Neurotic people get the job done.

So, you can call me neurotic, and a control freak, and it is fairly true, though I do not try and control other people, and I can live with that. The problem comes when I am here with something that I can’t control. I like to always have a plan, and I can’t plan now. I can plan trying different things, but I have no idea on what the results will be or when I will know, and that is hard. I have had to set aside plans before (like when I realized I was not going to get married when I was twenty, and that I was supposed to go on a mission), but I can’t even make short-term plans now. I am used to seeing very quickly what is needed for a given situation, and how to implement it and just going for it, and that is not something I can do now.

I recently saw a film clip that I am trying to bear in mind. I think it is called “Facing the Giants”. A football team is doing conditioning, where some players are crawling with other players on their backs. One expresses some doubts, and the coach asks if he can carry one player fifty feet while blindfolded, repeatedly asking the player if he will promise to give his very best. The player agrees, and they start, and it is hard. Because of the blindfold he has no idea how far he has gone, or how much is left, so he can’t pace himself at all, and the coach actually has him go one hundred yards.

I don’t know what I have to do, but I probably also don’t know what I can do. It looks like I’m going to find out.

Bitter – 305

I ended on kind of a bitter note yesterday, so I thought I should at least clarify the advice issue. The two big things that people are saying (besides to not get discouraged, which, how exactly?) is to adjust your resume with keywords for each position, and to make sure everyone knows you are looking. Those are things I have done. I admit that I did not start out with the specific resume adjustments, but lately I have been doing it, as well as customizing cover letters. For networking, there may be a few people who don’t know that I am looking for a job, but I can’t imagine whom.

I think I have shared my theory about good listening before, but if not, it is that you don’t offer advice. The reason for this is that the person with the problem has been thinking about the problem more than the listener. They have a personal stake in it. They are worried about it. If they are like me, they are obsessing over it. You’re not likely to come up with anything new in your five minutes. It’s not impossible, maybe if you have some expertise in the area, or you are just way smarter, but generally, you are going to suggest things that they have already ruled out, and it increases the frustration.

It’s interesting, because I was taught that solution-providing is how men communicate, and then men and women have problems because the woman just wants to be heard, and share emotions. It sounds reasonable, but in my experience women try and provide solutions too, and sometimes men like to vent. Maybe in reality the person with the problem wants to be heard, and the person hearing wants to just fix it so it will go away. I do understand the desire to help someone, and for things to be fixed, but I believe the listening is helpful, and there are things you can do. You can ask clarifying questions, which may help the person see things in a new light, and after they have poured their heart out, if they ask for advice, you can give it then, but otherwise I say you are hurting more than you are helping.

The desire to fix is still nice, so it may not be fair that it doesn’t help, but this is how it looks to me. The thing is, it would be great if someone could tell me something new, because I don’t know how to get out of this.

The situation is that I don’t have a useful specialty or highly in demand skills. When I got out of college, the situation was good and it didn’t matter what you had majored in. I got opportunities to try new tasks, and I did well at a variety of things, but I essentially ended up pigeonholed in customer service. Since they wanted to keep me around, even when there were department changes and management changes and off-shoring, I ended up making really good money at it, that I would not really be able to replicate starting over somewhere else.

I have accepted that, and I can take less money, but no matter how many versions of my resume I make, I’m not going to tell outright lies on it, and so there is a shortfall for a lot of the more attractive positions. I could overcome a lot of that in the interview if I could get in, but a few months ago you could count on 80 to 140 applications for every open position, and the number of applicants keeps going up while the number of open positions goes down. It would be hard to stand out in that crowd anyway, but the way things are going, that crowd probably contains several people who have multiple years of experience and a degree in the right specialty. Truly, this is where networking should come in handy. I guess I don’t know the right people.

What’s really hurting now is that the less attractive positions are not calling me back either. I haven’t heard from Stream, K-Mart, or Fred Meyer, and I know I could do any one of those jobs. Maybe they are worried that I am overqualified, and will have an attitude. A lot of those applications only ask what you have made at previous jobs, not what you are willing to take, but ask me!

Actually, I waited to apply for retail for a while, because I am afraid that a job where I am on my feet a lot will bring on another cellulitis outbreak, but I’m desperate here. My doctor wants me to come in before she renews the Metformin prescription, I haven’t been to the dentist for over a year, and ultimately I am worried that I am going to start falling apart physically, which would at least make the outside match the inside.

So, that’s where I’m at. I don’t know what to do, I’m prickly on the outside because of all the torment inside, and I want to rip the heads off of people who try and help when they do it so ineffectively and smugly. Maybe it is time to start fast food applications.

Here we go again – 308

It was kind of mean of me to dump a lot of doom and gloom, and then procrastinate posting coping methods. It was not intentional—I have just gotten lost in my own problems again. I had said I was going to start another round of self-examination, but I thought I was going to do the other thing first, and maybe that was the wrong strategy. I may mix the two up, but I need to work some things out, and I think I am going to try posting every day for a bit, possibly for the next two weeks.

Maybe the first thing I should make clear is that I don’t think that every thing that happens is necessarily specifically designed by God for us. First of all, turn a bunch of us loose with moral agency in a telestial world and plenty of things happen, where we all get plenty of opportunities to be tested and rise to the occasion (or not). Also, since that agency is definitely there, that alone should indicate that He is not orchestrating every single thing despite being over the whole.

This is important because there are people who try to read specific meaning into situations where the real meaning is that someone is a jerk, or was careless, when they would be better off going for specific lessons, but looking at the greater meaning and how that situation fits into the greater plan. These people are also more likely to view specific trials as punishments (instead of just part of mortal life), and there just seems to be a lot of room for error. I don’t want to fall into those traps.

That being said, I don’t rule out the possibility that at times there are things being orchestrated for you, and even if the trial came up on its own, the end of the trial may be pending upon some change or progress within oneself. And that leads us to the crux of this next writing spurt—I need relief and I am trying to make sure I am eligible for it.

Being unemployed is taking a real toll. It has been all along, I guess. It feels worse now partly because of the cumulative weight (part of my survival has come from moving money around different places, like paying a credit card but then charging the cable bill), and I have run out of wiggle room. Also, well, I had a ray of hope last week, and it looks like that was turning out to be a false hope, so there’s a crash down effect.

When I went through my last bout of depression, I really thought that it was a one-time thing. I lost a key characteristic (my cheerful nature), had to deal with a false belief (that I could not be loved) that was affecting my entire life, but then I did learn and I did get my cheerfulness back, and I thought it was done. Even if there was still residual learning to do (like believing that a specific person could love me, or knowing how to act since I am not the hopeless case that I thought), still, the big part was over and I did not think it would ever have to be repeated. That turns out to only be partly true.

For one thing, I oversimplified my self-definition. When I didn’t recognize myself anymore as this depressed person, I thought, okay, this is my core characteristic, even above intellect. It looks like I have multiple core characteristics. It sounds logical, but it was something I had not thought of until I lost something else that I had always taken for granted: my employability.

This is really unfamiliar territory for me. I have always been able to get the job I want, and then be a star there. Even back when I was first job hunting as a sixteen-year old girl, I applied at a lot of places, but where I wanted to work was McDonalds, and that’s the job that I got. (The desire came from a visitor to my personal finance class who really talked it up.) Then I wanted to work at K-Mart, and Burlington Coat Factory, and those happened. I wanted the job at Clear Connections, and I got it, and even if I was applying for other jobs while I was going after the target, it was like that was all white noise and only one application really counted. There were moments of doubt, when Clear Connections was falling apart, and that one month after my redeployment ran out, but in general things went my way.

This is all different now. That it took a trip around the world right at the time the country was starting an economic freefall for me to have employment problems is impressive, I guess, but it doesn’t help. I still need a job and I am not getting one.

It’s not just that I am worried about bills and depressed about not having money to do things (though I am). It is not just that there is family pressure. It is also that I placed a big part of my value as a person in my ability to earn a living, and to be the smart, helpful one, who knew the job really well and that the rest of the team relied on. I was never doing anything really great, but I earned enough to do what I wanted, and to help my family. I donated to charity. I was generous with people. Now I feel like a big nothing. What am I really doing? Okay, I write (not as regularly as I could, but still), and I apply for jobs, but there’s no payoff. This is the seventh month now.

Honestly, I cannot think of a worse blow. Losing Mom or one of my younger sisters would hurt a lot, but it wouldn’t change who I was. I have struggled with my weight and with being single for a long time, but I am also used to those struggles. This is something completely new, and utterly destroying—except that it is a slow, grinding down destruction rather than a sudden obliteration.

My family is finding me to be a bear, and they are not wrong, but at the same time, every waking moment my emotions are composed of anxiety, fear, despair, humiliation, embarrassment, anger, and self-recrimination. They’re lucky it only boils over when they say something about the job. There is some improvement from last time, in that I have not been as down for as long periods, but still, I am having a prolonged hard time.

Also, what they are saying is not helpful. I am afraid a lot of that has come from Misty. She keeps complaining to Mom that I am not taking her advice, and so it is not my fault. The problems with that are that she actually never gave me advice, she just told Mom she did, the advice that she gave is something I have already been doing anyway, and also, I think anyone who has not successfully gotten a job in this economy needs to shut up. If you were able to successfully get a job in better times, good for you. I was too. The rules are different now. Misty needs to shut up more in general anyway.

Anyway, I’ll allow that ego is a problem that I need to overcome (also, revulsion for my older sister), but that’s why I’m putting it all out here, tearing down the facades that lend any shred of dignity in the hopes that it will help.

The shape of things to come - 305.5

While I was writing my last post, an unauthorized charge was being placed on Maria’s debit card, sending her into the read and ringing up $70.00 in bank fees. It looks like she had gotten them all successfully removed now, but then her car was rear-ended, and some trashy ex-friends of hers started another round of harassment. Add it to our litany of woes. Perhaps that makes this a good time for me to predict a dystopian future.

In December I went ahead and predicted the future a little bit, and now I am basically adding to that. There are trends that I see that are disturbing, and if things are heading that way, well, it’s something to be aware of.

First of all, I don’t see much coming in the way of economic improvement for the next three years. Some will argue over whether that is because the government is not doing enough, or because everything they are doing is wrong. Realistically, I think anyone would have a difficult time cleaning up after this mess. I personally am confident that additional tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations are not the answer, just as I am sure that additional deregulation is not the answer, but again, fixing this is going to be really hard.

Unfortunately, economic hard times lead to despair, and we are seeing a lot of that. I remember watching one news feature about the economy, and strongly feeling the impression that people were going to take their lives over this, then I remembered that at least one person already had (a financial advisor who had lost everyone’s money and felt bad about it). What I did not foresee was how brutal it would be, with so many suicides turning to mass murder first. We already had a growing suicide rate for our returning soldiers, and coming back to find poverty and no job prospects is not going to help. Expect depression, desperation, and rage to be common.

The other thing I have noticed is that the typical bugs are lasting longer. Diseases that you might normally shake in three days are lasting five weeks. This isn’t even an issue with the bugs becoming more resistant to drugs, because these are things like colds that you don’t normally medicate, but I have seen it with myself, family members, friends, and even reading about people I do not know in other parts of the country.

Maybe it is that we are becoming unhealthier. There is already the obesity epidemic and the increase of diabetes, which does not do your immune system any favors. In addition, the average diet is becoming more over-processed, and even some people who were making an effort to be active may be losing the battle, now (either through having to work extra hours or from sheer depression). Also, a lot of it may be stress. Who is not more stressed now than last year? And that does no favors for the immune system either.

Expect to see growing crime—not just violent crimes stemming from the rage and despair (in an environment where alcohol continues to post strong sales)—but also more theft. So much of where the world is now is the result of greed, and from people who stole and cheated big, but there are still a lot of little cheats, and they will be getting grabbier, from ocean piracy to check fraud. This may be somewhat driven by economic necessity, but also we seem to be getting more permissive as a society.
This may not seem like the most pertinent indicator, but marijuana use is becoming really prominent in recently released movies, and it’s being treated as very routine, without their being concerns for it being illegal or killing brain cells. Add sexting, and other trends, and, okay, some people will argue that the moral core has been missing for quite a while, but I think it’s getting worse, and so people and the things that they do will be getting worse.

Weather will continue to be more extreme, and more unpredictable. The last season was really rough on local farmers, and we need to care about them, because the other thing that will happen is fuel costs are going to rise and it will affect everything, including food. When you have cheap fuel, you can get cheap food from all over the world, and the transportation is minimal. That’s not going to last.

Anyway, those are the lowlights. Every now and then I will read something and have a thought, like I think Macao will be swallowed up by the sea, and I’m really curious about the direction that the Catholic Church is taking, what with Pope Benedict restoring indulgences, and pardoning Holocaust-deniers, so I think lots of interesting things will happen, but these are the main trends. Yes, I am sure there will be more natural disasters, but in ways those will almost be a relief from the squalor of regular daily life.

From the December post, I was predicting big calamities around 2012, and then a grace period. Maybe those calamities will shake us out of the economic meltdown much like World War II ended the Great Depression. If there is a need for new construction and repair, and we can work together, you can have a mini-Golden Age before the corruption starts again. Or maybe Christ will just return, and fix things that way. Even if I have a certain amount of pessimism for the moment, my overall belief is that all will be well. Nonetheless, this moment can be very hard. Next time I will write about getting through.

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2008/12/proposed-timeline-for-apocalypse-3185.html

Bigger: not always better – 307

I know I was supposed to start another round of self-discovery, but we have had an adventure I want to vent about.

I guess Harrises don’t like to mess with the status quo. Change can be irritating, and we’re certainly not fickle. So, before I was even five my father started a prime share account for each of us kids with Oregon Telco Credit Union. They have changed their name to Unitus Community Credit Union, but they are the same, and I still bank with them. When I took Personal Finance in high school I did briefly start a checking account with First Interstate, but I closed it after not very long, and added checking to my account at the credit union.

Not all of that was habit. I like the principles of a credit union more than regular banking. At times it was inconvenient, because they only had the one location for year, but the amount of things you could do by phone and ATM, and then on-line kept expanding, and now they have a Tanasbourne and a Beaverton location, so it has just gotten better.

On a related note, my mother started with First Interstate years ago, and stayed with them. They became Wells Fargo, and she stayed with them. At times I would be appalled, most recently at the $10 monthly service charge, but she didn’t want to go through the hassle of changing, and that is something I understand. That has changed.

Mom does not know how to use a computer. I have tried teaching her a few times, but she is not that motivated, and it is easy enough to check things for her. I check her online bank statements pretty regularly, and Julie checks her e-mail. Last Friday, Julie forwarded me an e-mail notification of an overdraft transfer, saying, “I assume you did this?” I didn’t.

So, I started checking the individual checks, and found six that didn’t fit. They had all hit within two days and wiped out her checking account, and the e-mail notification was because the bank had automatically taken most of her savings to cover the shortfall.

Obviously this was disturbing, but there were a few things that were comforting. One was that the information on the checks had nothing to do with Mom. The names were different, the address was in a different state, and the logo did not even say “Wells Fargo”; it said “Bank of America”. Establishing that she did not write these checks was going to be pretty easy, and also it looked like it was not a case of identity theft. Instead, someone had probably randomly generated account numbers, and happened to hit on hers. When I worked in e-tail we saw it happen a lot with credit cards, and I have read “Catch Me If You Can”, so I could wrap my mind around that pretty easily.

I wasn’t particularly disturbed that the bank had not caught the different information, because that takes a human eye, and a lot of things are automated, but it did bother me that five of the six checks had check numbers that had already cleared as legitimate checks that Mom wrote. That seems like something that software should automatically detect and have someone look at.

Anyway, at this point, we did not hate the bank yet. I looked on-line and found a contact number, and tried to report it. I was not allowed to because my name was on the account. Mom was right there, she could authorize them to talk to me, and I was not requesting information on the account, I was trying to give them information, but that didn’t matter. They were unhelpful, and honestly a little rude.

Okay, we could accept that we were outside of their procedures, so we went to the nearest branch office. The banker, Lilly, was really good and helpful. She started the claim for us, and told us to call this number in two days to see about getting provisional credit. Also, we would be receiving an affidavit we would need to sign and bring in, and, obviously, the account would need to be closed. (For one thing, there were numbers missing in the check sequence for the counterfeit checks, so I was pretty sure there were more coming.)

We felt somewhat better after this, but it didn’t last. First of all, the number for the claim was just as bad. They act like you are the one who has done something wrong, and that particular agent said that the provisional credit takes 30 days to get. Well, the claim can take up to 30 days to resolve, so that seemed pretty pointless, but I didn’t believe her.

We knew we would need to go back in, but we kept waiting for the affidavit. Thursday Mom got a call that it was being sent, and it arrived Friday, so the mailing time was fast, but it seemed like it could have been sent out faster.

We filled it out, went back in, and found Lilly again, and again she was very helpful. She made multiple calls to find out what the deal was on the provisional credit, and did eventually work it out. Still, several problems became apparent.

First of all, it occurred to me that the larger a bank is, the greater the number of accounts related to its routing number, therefore, the greater the likelihood of someone being able to randomly hit a real account. As Mom and I were discussing this, we started debating about how big Wells Fargo actually is, so we asked there if they were nationwide. Well, they weren’t, but they are merging with Wachovia now. That will not help.

Also, size is an issue with the poor customer support. I realize that we were outside of the norm, but there was still a problem on the other end of the phone, which was that the agents have no ability to do anything, or investment in what happens. When I call Unitus, I get a banker, at the branch, and my hold time isn’t any longer than it was for Wells Fargo.

Sadly, they seem to be moving more in this direction. As Lilly was trying to help us she had to talk to her manager, and it became clear that she had overstepped, and should not have started the claim for us but that those should always be done by phone or it doesn’t work right. Lovely.
One other thing that had bothered me was that we were told that they were unlikely to file anything with the police. I realize they people who did this would probably be hard to track down, but you should at least put the information out there, in case they get caught on something else, or in case they are doing it to multiple business, so it can be tracked, or just so you are not sending a message that counterfeiting is okay and you can get away with it. Again, I think they just write off the losses, and they can, because they are big.

The manager did try to turn their size into a good thing. So, our claim was granted pretty easily, and the original ten-dollar overdraft fee was returned, but there was another thirty-five dollar fee that has not been yet, and this is why. The $10 could be covered by savings, and was triggered by one of the bad checks. Mom had one debit card purchase she had made the previous week, but it had not billed yet because the package had not shipped. When it came through, there was not enough in checking or savings. What the manager told my mother was that since she knew it was coming, she should have arranged to have some funds put in to cover it. And I am thinking, funds from where? Both accounts had been emptied, she doesn’t keep huge wads of cash around, is she supposed to try and borrow it from her unemployed and underemployed kids? She never even comes close to floating checks. We were hoping we could get the provisional credit in there before it hit, but you know how that worked out.

So, I was irritated, and pointed out those things along with some of my concerns about the lacking security, and while she admitted that they needed to do a better job now that fraud was happening more, she said that they will return the amount on the bad checks without a problem, which a smaller bank or credit union wouldn’t do. Bull. Okay, granted, for reasons already listed it is less likely to happen at a smaller bank, but still. Bull.

I’m not saying that the bank is the only one at fault, because we have some very dishonest people out there. Lilly had said with the hard economic times, people are desperate, but I’m sorry, a $2500 shopping spree at places like TJ Maxx, Bed Bath & Beyond, American Eagle Outfitters, and Victoria’s Secret? That’s not desperation; that’s just fun. However, the bank was charging my mother $120 a year just so she could run her checks through them, so I expect more.

I did also have some feeling of unfairness about the issue of them not talking to me because I am not on the account, because is it really fair that she has to put my name on things just because she isn’t tech-savvy? And if you take away the branch option, and send her to the phones, with their menus and unhelpful people, I mean, there are a lot of people in her age group who would have a hard time navigating that mess alone, and they deserve better. However, I had to give that one up. I am on her new account.

Yes, Monday we went over to First Tech and signed her up. We thought about Unitus, but First Tech is more convenient with their locations for her, and Julie and Tripp have both said they are great, so I’m sure it will be fine. There are still a few hassles left in getting this mess cleaned up, but I believe this will turn out to be a good change. I’m still going to try and get that $35 back.

What if they danced it? – 305.5

I am feeling a lot better now. Most of my problems are still there, but I am healthier (my throat still isn’t quite clear, but otherwise I am okay) and I am getting along with my sisters again. The fundamentals of our relationships haven’t changed, I am still unemployed, and there are still loved ones far away in precarious health, so there is a real risk of relapse. I believe I am going to need to start another series of searching out the past, analyzing and figuring out, and just generally trying to get it together, but first, something different.

I went to the ballet, and it was pretty good. This was OBT’s second program of the season, Lambarena. There were three pieces. Honestly, the first piece, Ash, was just okay. Then it was The Rite of Spring, which was better, and they ended on the title piece. I loved Lambarena. I loved the music and costumes and the movements. It was great.

At one point during the evening, my mind wandered just a tad, and this is how it happened. I was watching Gavin Larsen, and I remembered that the first time I saw her was in the pieces Twilight, which I mentioned earlier as being one of my favorites. Somehow the title reminded me of the annoying book series, and I suddenly had this thought of how much better it would be as a ballet.

Think of it! First of all, the prose is gone, which eliminates a huge deadweight right there. In terms of the plot of epic yet complicated love, well, that just fits right into ballet, and throwing in some vampires does not hurt it.

Now, think of the other things that are annoying. Bella is moody and ungrateful, Edward is brooding and stalker-ish, and hitting baseballs over the mountains is stupid. Put that in a ballet, and with the right music and choreography you can make it all look good. Suddenly the baseball game becomes awesome, instead of annoying. In fact, there’s room for a lot of athleticism because half of the characters have supernatural strength and can fly. Grand jetée, anyone? I would totally go see that.

So, I’m going to try and send an open letter to various choreographers. It has built in commercial appeal, especially if you time it for when people are starting to get anxious for the second movie. I mean, why not? I’m thinking Stowell, Canfield, McIntyre, and Thomas. Maybe Tomasson, but he already has a Twilight. I just think it has potential.

I also realized that when I was going over my favorite performances and performers, there were two major omissions. For individual dancers, I was really impressed by Holly Cruikshank. I saw her in Moving Out, and saying she is really bendy may not sound like a compliment, but her body seems to be able to do whatever you could possibly ask it to do, and to do it very fluidly.

For groups, Aero Betty is long gone, but they were something else. That first year that I subscribed to White Bird (the good year, before they started becoming progressively more disappointing), it started off with Diavolo who incorporated some trapeze, and ended with Aero Betty who was all trapeze. Shall I call them Calder-esque? I don’t know—I have never seen anyone else like them. Given that every number was at least partially aerial, you might have expected them to be somewhat repetitive, but every number was so individual and unique, and it was just an amazing evening. I’m really glad I got to see them.

The Nadir – 303.5

There was an episode of “Frasier” where he was in competition with a handsome doctor, made worse when Frasier was shown up by the doctor on his own show. A caller appeared to be suffering from severe depression, but some questions from the medical doctor led to an alternative diagnosis of low blood sugar. It’s not that far-fetched. I know one counselor who had a case that presented as depression but was really a potassium deficiency. Obviously, there is a strong interplay between mind and body, where emotional issues can cause physical pain and physical issues can lead to emotional problems.

My point is that I have sunk back into deep depression, and I feel that it is due to prolonged illness.

It’s not that there is nothing to be depressed about. I am still unemployed. I had a very decent tax refund, which gave me two months worth of bills, but that just got me through to March, and there is nothing in sight for April. It used to be that there were jobs that I could do (even if they would not pay enough for me to get by), but no one responded to my applications. Now there are only jobs that I can’t do.

I’m not getting any hours preparing taxes. I was good at it, but he isn’t getting enough business, and so that dried up too. If H&R Block had called a little bit sooner, before I signed the non-compete paperwork, maybe I could have gotten some hours there, but those are skills that I cannot now take anywhere else.

I lost an aunt last week. Again, I wasn’t prepared for it. I knew there were health problems but I thought they were under control, and I was wrong. Maybe it’s the way the information travels, from them to my aunt to Mom to me, changing languages in the process, but I was as unprepared to lose Zia Luciana as I was Zio Paolo. I’m grateful we were there in the spring, because I had no idea it was the last chance to see them, but now there is always this nagging about who will go next. They weren’t even the two oldest. Now we only have Elda, Giorgio, and Giovanna. Those are the two oldest and the one with early Alzheimers. I only got to meet them for the first time three years ago and now I am losing them.

Also, we had to put Suzy down on Monday. I guess I am having a harder time with this one because she was so young, and it’s the first time it was a chronic condition rather than age or cancer or something that was going to take them for sure. The thing is, her epilepsy was getting worse, and I felt like it was at the point where she was losing quality of life, and we were. She wasn’t even getting enough time to feel like herself again between seizures, and maybe if we had stuck it out for a few more days she would have had some good months, or weeks, but it felt like it was spiraling out of control. What I really felt like was going to happen was she was going to go into a seizure and not come out, and it would happen on a weekend, so we would have to load up a shaking, or at least insensible dog and take that nightmare ride to the emergency clinic in Tualatin. I felt like it was the only thing to do.
Still, maybe it was the sleep deprivation talking. That weekend the seizures started at 2:30 AM Sunday (and I had only gone to bed at 1), and they kept up again into the night and next morning. I don’t think I had eight hours even between the two days. Even so, we kept thinking that if she didn’t have anymore it would be okay, and then she kept having one more, three times in three hours.

The sleep deprivation was why I was actually in denial about having the flu. The cough and nasal issues could have been cold or allergy. The headache could have been related to the cough and sinus pressure. The thing that made it flu for sure was my body hurting everywhere and that shaky feeling, and I thought maybe that was just that I needed sleep. After getting some sleep, I still felt like someone had beaten me over my entire body with a baseball bat, and shaky, so I gave up and decided it was the flu.

That has gone down. The next day I felt like I had only been beaten over part of my body, and the next day it was just the joints, staying upright has become less of an effort. The problem is, I am still not well. I feel like I am clammy (even thought I am not clammy to the touch, it is just a sensation). Also, I am still easily tired, like, I will make my bed, and then need to lie on it for five minutes. This does put a damper on the job hunt, as well as giving me concerns about whether I will even be able to do a job if I am lucky enough to get one.

The other problem is that I have been sick for so long. This bout with the flu only started last weekend, but I’d had a really bad cold a few weeks before that, and even though the worst symptoms went away, there were lingering effects, so that I have had one thing or another wrong with me for over a month.

I am just worn down. I can make do with not very much for a long time, but at this point my reserves are just spent. The depression may be part of the energy problem, but I know the physical problems are part of the depression, because I am just worn out and I cannot keep my chin up anymore and I don’t feel strongly motivated to anyway.

It’s a lot like last time. Death still sounds like the best thing that could possibly happen to me. I still can’t seriously consider suicide, because it’s wrong, and selfish, and cruel to those you leave behind, but also because having lost some people, I feel like it would also be a slap in the face to those whose lives were cut short. Some of them really would have wanted to stay.

Also, really, even I know I don’t actually want to be dead. What I really want is to not hurt anymore. I want something good to happen, but that seems impossible. No one is interested in my writing. The production companies have more scripts than they know what to do with, and the agencies already have people to worry about. I still believe my work is good, but it kind of doesn’t matter. That contest I’m doing, well, I’m not winning, which could be depressing, but I’m losing to really stupid, illogical, poorly-written entries. Now that’s demoralizing. Or maybe I’m just way off track and my work really does suck. In that case, then I guess it is a mercy that no one will look at it.

I am losing weight, but I just keep feeling fatter and older. Uglier. My family is exactly the same as they always are, which I can usually live with but I am having a hard time with it now. I am no closer to ever having a significant other, and I can’t find any reason to believe any of this is going to change. So this is my life, and I’m depressed about it, except that I could handle it a few weeks ago, and eventually I assume I will be able to handle it again. But what I really want is a deus ex machina. I’m willing to work hard and make my own luck, but there just don’t seem to be any good prospects within reach right now. I’m going to need something out of left field.

The Not So Good Boys of Dance – 309.5

Actually, this may make a good companion piece to the one on Twilight, in that there is me being dissatisfied with art, even though it does have popular appeal. I have to say that the rest of the audience was very enthusiastic at the show. However, the reviewer was pretty lukewarm on it too.

I hadn’t initially planned on going just from seeing the ad, but they had another ad that showed that Jon Drake was with them, and I am a big fan. He danced with OBT, and I have to say he was really impressive. Some dancers have a special energy or charisma about them, so that you can’t take your eyes off of them, and he is one. He reminds me a lot of Gene Kelly—it is a very masculine, dynamic kind of dancing. So, if he was in, I wanted to be in. My mother got me a ticket as a birthday present, and the performance would be on my birthday itself.

There were shows Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I assume the reviewer went to the Thursday show, I read the review Friday, and then went Saturday. I wasn’t too concerned with the tepid review, because the keyword with art critic is “critic”, and often they have problems that I don’t have, and seem to just be looking for the wrong thing. I wish I’d ended up feeling that way.

Now, one reason that I had not initially been interested was that I thought the “Bad” in “Bad Boys of Dance” might mean really nasty, and I don’t need to see that. They were not that kind of bad. The closest they came to that was that in one number the dancers used blow-up dolls as props. A bit cheeky perhaps, but nothing shocking or horribly offensive. It was just kind of stupid.

I think what they wanted it to mean was “Hey, we are going to totally defy convention and be in your face, full of our mighty testosterone.” I would have been totally in favor of that. Sadly, it was less leaping and stomping (although there was some) than jazz hands and goofing off. Again, a little bit cheeky is all I am coming up with.

It wasn’t incompetence. I don’t think there was a bad dancer in the lot of them. There was one guy who had kind of a weird stance, and often looked awkward, but I think that was the choreography they were giving him. Since the choreography overall was an issue, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. And really, with the choreography I think they just didn’t aim high enough.

There were moments when it seemed to be getting somewhere, and I would start to get excited, and then it would just deflate before it went anywhere. The biggest disappointment was one number where they had two of the performers tap dancing, and it started to pick up some energy, and then it became clear that at least some of the tapping (if not all) was recorded, and not really them. It felt like a cheat, and again, they did not really go anywhere. There was some good music, and good dancers, so there was certainly some potential, but it was unrealized.

The group was founded by Rasta Thomas. His wife, Adrienne Caterna-Thomas, founded the sister group Pretty Girls of Dance, and she participated in several numbers. Having a female on tap does give you some extra options, so should have been good, but she was usually really annoying. In her costume and movements she conveyed this vapid pop-tart stereotype whom I kept thinking should be chewing and snapping gum, even though she never actually pulled out any gum. She was just that type. Every time. I bet her group is even worse—two hours of every female dance stereotype and none of it really that pretty.

I think the only other thing I want to mention about them is that the second act was one long medley of Michael Jackson, Prince, and Queen, and those three do not all go together, though I think you could successfully meld Prince with either one. Oh, and the choreography was every bit as cliché as you can imagine when they got to Bohemian Rhapsody.

So, that was my birthday. It wasn’t torture, but it was really disappointing, and I don’t know the next time I will be able to buy tickets to something. I do still have tickets for three ballet performances, so I will need to hope for the best.

In one of my college Spanish classes they sent us to the art museum and then we need to talk about art. I remember saying that art needs to have at least one of three things (at least, for me to appreciate it). It can be beautiful, and nourish the soul that way. It can show great craftsmanship, and make you marvel that way. Or, it can convey something. For example, out on campus there was a statue that is mostly abstract, but it shows a torch and it has allusions to Prometheus, and although it is not particularly beautiful or detailed, it still draws you.

The sum of any of those three is that it draws you up, and there may be art that will drag you pretty far down to get to its point of something better, but it’s still going there. So the intersection of Twilight and Bad Boys of Dance is that they fail. They are aiming to please the crowd, and in many ways they succeed, but they could have been much better, and is it only laziness that prevented them from being better or was there not even the possibility?

For the Boys, maybe they did not have time to do more. I know I rushed through my last contest entry. It is not easy to make a living in the performing arts, so that they are doing that, and trying new things is something, and if there is an audience for that, maybe it will provide an opportunity for someone else to do something good.

Anyway, I don’t want to end on that down note. First of all, I got a second shot at a birthday evening, as my friend Karen took me out last night. We went to see No Time to Die (Ghana) at the Portland African Film Festival, and had Ethiopian food for dinner. It was a good time.

In addition, I’d like to list some of the best dance performances that I have seen—ones that did take me away.

Giselle: It is really just the second act. The first act is okay, but for me it is just filler until we get to the Wilis. I’ve seen it more than once, and it is beautiful every time.

Twilight: Ha! Not that one. I refer to the breathtaking pas de deux from Helgi Tomasson. Lovely.

Catapult: This was a piece by Diavolo that was absolutely amazing. I hope I get to see more of their work sometime.

Anything Goes: Great fun set to the music of Cole Porter.

Before seeing Anything Goes, I would have said the two pieces everyone needs to see to get the range of ballet would be Giselle and Company B, but Anything Goes displaced Company B, which is still a fine piece of work. That leads us to honorable mentions.

Like a Samba: I don’t know if this would have been as good without Karl Valkili, who again is amazing, and has that “it” factor. However, I will say that the music stayed with me for days. This leads to…

Trey McIntyre: You know, I haven’t seen any of his work since Stowell took over, and I haven’t seen him dance for much longer, but I can firmly say that his musical taste is impeccable, and I have found of a lot of music that I love through him.

Il Nodo: This is very much a piece that I would not expect to like, and yet I always end up enthralled in it.

James Canfield: I really have not gotten do see him dance much, though I did see him in Romeo and Juliet with Patricia Miller, but he produced amazing pieces, and when I went to see The Nut Has Finally Cracked (which I did not really like), he came on for a bit, and he did start to dance some, really, it was basically goofing off, but there was that magnetic physicality again. I guess some people just have it, and they don’t lose it. And on that note, just a few more amazing dancers that I have been lucky enough to see…

Guillermo Merlo and Fernanda Ghi: Where I saw them was really pretty much a dance recital by local tango teachers, but they wove the numbers into kind of a story, and somehow they got these incredible professionals to come on and do several numbers, taking everything up a notch. Breathtaking.

Alvin Ailey: Especially Revelations. It’s kind of amazing that the audience doesn’t end up getting swept up and dancing along, but I think we all just stayed watching.

Savion Glover: Talk about energetic! And not in a really frenetic way, necessarily, but more of a marathon. I can’t even fathom the stamina it takes to keep going like he did, as we watched his shirt darken with sweat. That sounds gross, which it wasn’t really. It was just one more thing that was amazing about him.

Mikhail Baryshnikov: I saw him with his White Oak project. I have to admit, I didn’t really like his Japanese-inspired number, and The Argument is more interesting with more people (I got to see it later with Mark Morris, and I think he used twelve), that being said, he is still the master.

So really, I guess I can’t complain that much about the Mediocre Boys. I’ve had some great dance experiences, and I should have more. I’d like to see Will Kemp some time, but even if I don’t, I do still have three ballet performances left, and some day I will be employed again, and buying tickets to things, and for now I have memories.

Besides, Bad Boys of Dance were still way better than The Holy Body Tattoo.

Twilight Time – 306.5

I generally try to be respectful of other opinions and preferences. After all, life is much more interesting with us all liking different things, and probably allows for better distribution of resources. Every now and then, something annoys me more than is logical. I once vented my spleen on The Family Circus, along with soft fluffy towels and “the f-bomb” (http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2008/03/sporks-pet-peeves-3375.html), and now I have something else. I hate Twilight.

I have nothing against it as a time of day, or a condition of the light, or even as a type of zone, but as a popular book series it sticks in my craw. I know I’m swimming against the current on this one, but I am not alone.

My first contact with the series came in Hawaii. Maria had rashly invited a friend on our trip, not fully grasping at the time that enjoying a trip to the mall with someone does not necessarily translate into enjoying spending eight days straight and sharing a hotel room with someone.

It ended up being a bit of a drag for the trip. We like to see and do lots of things, and never planned on lying on the beach flirting with cute boys, which was all the friend wanted to do. We just had different ideas of what the vacation should involve, which resulted in conflict. For example, she didn’t want to go to Pearl Harbor, but she did want to go to the swap meet, which was our next stop after Pearl Harbor (they are really close together). She was worried she would not be able to manage meeting us there, though, so she decided to come, and almost decided to go out to the monument until she learned that they make you watch a short film before going over, so she stayed on the grounds and sent text messages while we went over. Call us snobs, but we were a little dismayed by her lack of intellectual curiosity. She was a huge fan of Twilight.

It was not a craze yet, or at least I had not heard of it, but she had brought the book along and was re-reading it, and rhapsodized about it when asked. It was so romantic, because he was so strong that he couldn’t even touch her (huh?) and they were playing baseball and hitting the balls over the mountains. I thought it sounded stupid, but I shrugged it off.

I guess it continued to grow in popularity, but my next memory is when the third book came out, and there was all this buzz on Amazon and on message boards. Bella was finally together with Edward, but there was a strong contingent that felt she should have chosen Jacob. Okay, no big deal. The disgust did not start until the fourth book.

I often check in with themoviespoiler.com, and sometimes with the sister site, thebookspoiler. I read the spoiler for Breaking Dawn. Okay, I had to skim some, because when you are not invested it is hard to stay with the whole thing, but I picked up three things.

· One, Bella has a daughter. Clearly this will allow Jacob to have a love of his life, and it is nice to throw the dog a bone.
· Two, she managed this by having sex with Edward while still human. Based on my earlier understanding, this sounds like the opposite of safe sex, but if we rule out the possibility of humans and vampires having sex there will be a lot of disappointed Goths, so okay.
· Three, and this is where the hate started, Renesmee.

Yes, I get the origin and meaning of the name, but what a stupid, jacked-up name. I remember once talking to a five-year old girl whose parents had gotten her and her sister pet goats, and she was telling me the names, and those goats had really long names. I think between the two, the names Princess, Rainbow, and Sparkle were all used, along with some other things, because obviously they wanted their goats to have the most beautiful names possible. If you leave out something good, how will others know how special this goat is? For her, it was kind of adorable. Stephenie Meyer should know better.

With a food allergy, generally there is initially a small reaction and then it builds up with each exposure. A good hatred is like that too. I only kind of hated Twilight and thought it was stupid here. I needed more exposure to really hate it. That came. It came through millions of teenage girls, and also adult women. It came through my own sisters.

A friend loaned them the books, and they fell hard for Edward. They had some embarrassment over it, but they kept reading anyway. Maybe I was wrong, so I tried. I was not wrong.

First of all, the prose is so bad that I cannot read it through. I have to skip around. I suspect there will be no further attempts, but here are some highlights.

· Edward tells Bella that he used to come in and watch her while she slept. She does not realize how creepy this is because she is too busy contemplating the wonder of having “this god” in her room. Girlfriend, it is terribly creepy. Boundaries are really important. Also, horrid, florid, clumsy prose.
· Vampires sparkle? That’s exactly what you’d expect from someone who came up with the name Renesmee.
· Edward’s “siblings” get Bella a car stereo as a birthday gift, which she is not interested in and they obviously know, because the install it for her while she isn’t looking so she can’t take it back. Ingrate.
· Bella gets angry at her new vampire family for picking overly fancy clothes for her and her child. I’m not saying that some irritation is not justified, but clearly this family loves you, for reasons I am missing. Try and appreciate that. Then again, she didn’t seem to appreciate her human father much either.
· Edward seems to tell Bella (lovingly) about how much she used to stink. I’m not sure if it was the struggle not to bite her because she made him so hungry, or just that humans stink and she was lucky to no longer be one.
· Finally, the sex. I don’t know exactly how often Bella thrills and has her eyes roll back in her head a little, but one thing I do know is that it’s irritating and stupid. To be fair, writing about sex usually does end up sounding stupid. For the sheer mechanics you are either being really crude, or throwing in euphemisms that are almost invariably cheesy. I won’t deny that it works well as movement, but as words the whole thing becomes kind of preposterous. I think it can be hinted at fairly deftly, but this was not done.

These are all excellent reasons for me not to read the books, but I’m not sure that it justifies my revulsion. I mean, I have never tasted anything more disgusting than oysters, but it doesn’t bother me that other people eat them.

Part of it is probably the hype. It was fairly recent that the movie came out, and everyone was reading the books again, or lucky to get tickets to the midnight showing, or some such nonsense.

Also, the fixation on Edward was, I think, a bad thing. My sisters liked that he was totally devoted to Bella, and taking care of her, and they don’t see that happening in real life, and I kind of get that, but he is a moody, inflexible stalker, and Jacob seems to have anger issues. I don’t think living with either of them would be a picnic. And I guess one of their friends asked her husband why he couldn’t be more like Edward. That is not constructive criticism.

I don’t automatically mind hype. I didn’t mind with Harry Potter or the Lord of the Rings, and I was okay with the hype over the new Star Wars movies until they turned out to be major disappointments. Then again, the hype really turned me off of The Da Vinci Code. Perhaps it is a combination of factors.

For a literary hero I could actually fall in love with, I think the best so far would be Joe Harman from A Town Like Alice. He’s someone you could follow across the world and live with once you got there (and I’m pretty sure the last part is more important than the first part).

So that’s where I’m at. I not only hate it for myself, I have a visceral reaction to other people liking it. It irritates me. Somehow a twenty-nine year old mother of three was able to hold on to the fan-girl attitude and writing style of a girl half her age, and it’s making bank. At least they’re reading, some will defend, but I say “Garbage in, garbage out.”

I should also mention that I really meant for my next post to be about dancing, but I was thrilled to find that Stephen King was quoted saying that ‘Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a darn’, and it filled my sour little heart with joy. I posted the link, and got some interesting comments, so poured out all my thoughts here, as I do. And you know, King isn’t always to my taste either. He goes for crude a lot and I don’t like it, but he is inventive, effective, and prolific, and even if he is not my first choice, reading his work does not make me cringe in pain and have to stop. It’s just different.

Love stings – 308

One of my Facebook friends is in love. By Facebook friend, I mean someone whom I already knew, but am really only in touch with due to Facebook. This mainly covers people from high school, a few from church who are no longer in my ward, and a handful from work and college. I like them, I care about them, but we would not be in touch on a regular basis without social networking.

In the past, I would only see these people if we happened to run into each other, and then we would exchange pleasantries and catch up, but it would only be general. Now, because we can all update each other quickly and simultaneously, I know what lots of them are doing for jobs and relationships and children, and have viewed current pictures. This is interesting, and a lot of fun.

There is also some heartache with it. Two of my old classmates have children with really fragile health, and there have been divorces and deaths of parents, and unemployment. We offer each other support, which tends to feel inadequate, but it is something real. Actually, I had a dream the other night where I was discouraged with my efforts to make it as a screenwriter. I was with Becky, one friend whom I had not been in touch with until recently. She handed me a card, and it was signed by at least thirty people. The names that I could see (reading in dreams is really hard) were also Facebook friends. It reflects real life. People have been very supportive about my job and my writing and pretty much everything I put out there. It does give us some community.

So, the point of that is, without Facebook, I would never know that he was in love. It was interesting, because I have been observing him for a while, and I could tell he was lonely. It was usually hidden in self-deprecating humor, but it was still there. I could also see by other things that he wrote, about himself and to others, that he was a very good guy (we weren’t close in high school, and there was some awkwardness, so I hadn’t seen this side of him).

What was a revelation then, as he started to share the relationship, was how much of a romantic he is. It is kind of fun to see, and touching, but it also left me with one fervent wish: Please don’t hurt him.

Now that both parties have come out of the closet, and admitted they are dating each other, I feel much better about it, but it was an interesting reaction, and probably also influenced by other Facebook activity.

Remember E, from July? At that time I wrote that it was probably just as well he did not seem to be interested in me, because along with other complications, he had just gotten out of a long-term, stifling relationship, and could probably use some time on his own. Well, he had some time, and then recently he started dating someone again, and it became evident through posts and pictures. It seemed good, they looked happy, and then suddenly, it was over (by her instigation if I understood correctly). He’s a nice guy—
cute and funny and talented—I don’t want him hurt.
Then, another two friends are getting divorced (not from each other—I don’t know the spouses), and it hurts. So, for them, and for the lonely romantic who just find someone, I just keep wishing, don’t hurt them.

I am not being completely realistic. If a relationship is not working, that doesn’t always mean there is a villain there, and at least in E’s case, probably better now than ten years later, but still, it makes me sad.

This may involve some over-functioning on my part. Realistically, any single one of them has more relationship experience than I do, and should be able to successfully navigate the latest setbacks. They don’t need me to care. At the same time, it is nice that other people care that I am unemployed, and struggling (and that now I have muscle aches that I think are from stress, and a cyst growing out of my back that I guess could be stress, but it’s a little less typical). I do mentally think that all of us caring for each other is a good idea, but it’s a moot point anyway because it’s not really voluntary. If I decided it was stupid, and to stop, I probably couldn’t.

So we go on, writing cheerful notes and wishing each other well. I will pray for various people. I’m not sure how widespread that is, but a lot of people seem more religious now than they were then.

Ultimately, there is not a single one of them that I don’t think will survive the temporary heartbreak, and move on. Of the new couple, both of them had previous relationships that ended, and yet here they are starting a new one, fairly blissfully. Hope springs eternal.

Other than that, I did not win the first round of the Co-write contest (and frankly, I don’t think the winner is that great), I have eliminated about ten more agencies from the list I need to call, and I think my February screenplay will be the one where a first date that seemed promising quickly goes bad as the pair runs afoul of the powerful corn lobby.

For taxes, I should be getting a more regular schedule next week, and now I just need lots of customers. Anyone want your taxes done?

Updated – 309.5

I know I have let some time lapse. I had mentioned previously that I wanted to screenplay number four (Dark Secrets) to go quickly, because it was hard material and it was kind of brining me down. So, I concentrated really hard on writing that, and had some really long writing sessions, back-to-back, and in the process neglected journal writing, blogging, and things like that, and pretty much broke all of my new year’s resolutions except for the one about writing one screenplay a month.

It’s not as horrible as it sounds. I finished on the 21st, and have been catching other things up since then. I am planning on doing one rewrite on the 28th, and then a follow-up on the 31st, and then I should be fairly well done, with at least one aspect of my life on schedule. Ideally the next project will be lighter, and I can pace myself better.

Still, I love writing so much. It is so satisfying for me, and I feel myself getting better at it, in terms of being able to solve problems faster, and find the right words, and just give the time to it. I am really hitting my stride with it. Now all I need is a sale.

In other news, I have finished two levels of tax preparer certification. There is one test left, and it is a bear. I decided to try a quick run-through, and let myself fail if needed just to kind of scope it out, and I did not pass. Still, that is for higher-level returns, and I can do basic ones now and have actually completed my first one. Therefore, I have actually earned some money, for the first time since September. I’ll get that in February. I have no idea how much will be added to it. There is no guarantee of hours or returns, so there are a lot of factors, and I’m not sure how it’s going to go. Still, no one else is calling me, and most of the other people in the class have not done any returns yet, so I am lucky to have it.

In weight news, it looks like I have lost seven pounds over about two weeks after a plateau at 316. That is not how it went down at all. I had reached 311, and started going back up before the last time I posted, actually going all the way back up to 330. This was fluid retention related to me running out of my medicine. My blood sugar scores have been doing well, I was hoping I could manage without it, but I was wrong, and my scores were the least of the problem. Medco will not let you order without being part of a plan, but I learned that I could transfer the prescriptions to another pharmacy. I looked at Target and Costco, but Costco requires an application, and Target could turn things around in a day, so that is the way I went. Their pill prices are pretty good. The injectables are still too expensive, but they would be at Costco too.

I am grateful to be on them again, and to be back on track, but it is still pretty scary. Even if this tax thing does work out for income, it is seasonal and part-time, and there is no insurance. With my pre-existing conditions, purchasing a plan on my own would be horrendously expensive, even if I had money. So, that area is a real concern for me. If I sell a screenplay, I can join the Writers Guild of America, which functions like a union and there are health plans available, but it feels like such a long shot. To be fair, that still seems more probable than finding a regular job that I can live on.
Honestly, it’s just a tough time. The only reason the mortgage is not late and that I could get the medicine is because the church is helping me. I should be grateful for that. On one level I’m sure I am, but it is also killing my Sundays. I hate taking the bills in. I hate having to come back and get the checks. I hate feeling weird around Jeremy, and it is not his fault, but it is still there. I hate being a taker when I am used to being a giver. And I hate that the situation just keeps going on. To be fair, I know that a lot of my problem there is pride, which is exactly why I am even writing this. Doing so won’t necessarily turn me humble, but I can at least be actively working against the pride.

In other news, my birthday came and went. It was fairly disappointing. The only computer time I could get at the office was 9-12 on that day, so I was already getting up early and going into the office, which is not how I like either a Saturday or my birthday to start. Mom brought me a sausage mcmuffin, and those are normally delicious, but the egg on this one was all slippery, and the muffin had singed areas, which happened to include the part I ate last, so it left a charcoal flavor in my mouth for a few hours.

I got some errands done afterwards, but the part that was supposed to make everything better was that as my present, Mom had gotten me a ticket to go see the Bad Boys of Dance. I had seen the ad and not been particularly interested, but then I saw Jon Drake was with them, and he is great. When the ward talent show was announced for the same date, and I realized I would miss my yearly foray into stand-up comedy, that was kind of a bummer, but I was going to see a dance show, and it was going to be okay. Sadly, the show stunk.

I think I am going to post a full review of it, and write about dance in general. I should write about the inauguration too. I think I like writing about things better than updates like this, but maybe that is just context-dependent. I have committed to writing a Facebook note with tax tips, which I could post here, but that seems like overkill. If anyone reads the blog but is not on Facebook with me, and wants the tips, let me know. Mainly, I am trying to keep busy.

Anyway, that’s kind of where I’m at right now. It does not merely sound grim—it is grim—but I still know so many people who have been unemployed longer, or have sick kids or have lost parents, or something like that. In the collective sorrow bucket, mine is just a drop or two, but I could really use some good news.

Odds and Ends – 316.5

I don’t have a strong topic to write on because there are so many different things happening, so I thought I would take this opportunity to get caught up.

First of all, I am not writing about clown crime, so I’m not killing Uncle Earl off just yet (if he even exists, which I doubt). I really thought it would be next, but there are some limits to how much choice a writer has. At times I am ready to tell different stories, and I could try and force the issue, but it will make everything stilted.

Recent events have caused me to dwell upon certain things, and right now there is really only one story I can tell. Maybe it is a good one for my first attempt at finishing in a month, because it is kind of dark material, and so I want it to go fast. Yes, I was writing about vampires last, and there were places where it got pretty heavy, but even if personalities like those of Christine and Lucas are theoretically possible, I don’t run into anyone that bad on a regular basis, and even if I did, at least they would not be vampires. Mark is completely real, so it’s different.

Anyway, I am able to pour some recent grief and some old anger into it, so writing Dark Secrets has been somewhat therapeutic. I wrote twenty-five pages yesterday, which is a new record. I’m not sure it was wise, because my eyes were bugging out of my head by the time I was done, but it’s pretty impressive considering I have a cold.

I am experimenting with some new methods, where maybe instead of trying to write a little every day (and I have done that, because I was writing two pages a night on the days when I had class), I alternate writing days with work days. This is an issue because I hope to be working some in the upcoming weeks.

The class was tax preparation training, so I hope that can provide some income through April, and maybe the job market will have improved a bit by then. It’s kind of a departure for me, but it’s funny because in my second screenplay, the female lead was studying for her CPA, even if it was not necessarily what she wanted to do.

There has been some interesting convergence lately. I was trying to catch up on old magazines, so I was reading one old Smithsonian, and I read about Americans in Prague, and some other articles, but I stopped at the trout article because I suspect I will be sharing it with some of my friends who are fly fishing devotees. I opened another one and read about manuscript recovery and preservation in Timbuktu. I logged onto e-mail, and Henry Rollins had sent his latest dispatch from Timbuktu. I logged onto Facebook, and Kathryn was writing from Prague. Does it mean anything? Not necessarily, but it’s neat just the same.

In other news, I just got back from a Sisters in Cinema meeting, which has been going on for three years and I didn’t even know. I think more networking is going to be necessary for me to get anywhere. Also, I was thinking that when I make agency calls, perhaps instead of saying, “I’m looking for representation. Are you taking new clients?” maybe I should say, “I’m writing my fourth screenplay and I really need representation. Are you taking new clients?” The net result will probably be the same for most, but at least I am making them hear at least one reason to take me seriously.

I turn 37 on Saturday. Still single and childless, and now unemployed. In some ways it’s fairly dismal, but I do have exciting things going on, and I am getting good support from my friends, for which I am so grateful.

In political news, you may remember me objecting to the way Matt Wingard got his district seat, and something similar recently happened with the way Martha Schrader got into the State Senate. I feel I must mention it because she is a Democrat, and I deplore political chicanery across party lines. Anyway, at the time I suggested for a similar case a respected, retired person should be appointed. I was suggesting that as the ethical thing to do, but Andy Parker suggested just making it the law that whoever is appointed can’t run for the seat in the next election, and I think that’s probably the way to go. I mean, I’d like to be able to count on our elected leaders to make wise and just choices, but it’s sort of a pipe dream. At least we’re not Illinois.

I am looking forward to the national regime change, though I feel kind of bad for the mess Obama is inheriting. I take exception to Bush saying that he tried to do the right thing. He just did what he wanted done, and while I am sure that he did want things to work out well, or he was at least miffed when they did not, he never cared enough to change his strategy.

On that note, I’d like to state that I think I am okay with the choice of Rick Warren for the inaugural prayer. I know, people feel it is a slap in the face to homosexuals due to his support of Proposition 8. But remember how I pointed out that California voting for both Prop 8 and Obama was a good sign, because it signaled a disconnect between the orthodoxy that if you care about moral issues at all you have to be Republican? This could be more of the same.

Warren is firmly anti-abortion, but he still invited Obama, who is pro-choice, to speak at the AIDs conference. We need to be able to cooperate and work with people with whom we do not completely agree. There may be limits, but this should not be it.

Fighting poverty is one of the issues closest to my heart, because when you fight poverty you fight crime and promote education and you promote a strong economy and strong families and good health. There are so many social ills that are perpetuated by poverty, and then they perpetuate poverty, so there’s this cycle that is hard enough to get out of anyway, and then when the last eight years of government policy have actually been promotion poverty, yeah, I’m tempted to like someone who makes that a priority. We do share a lot of beliefs. I’m not always sure about how he communicates those beliefs, which may mean that I feel about Rick Warren the way Warren feels about James Dobson. How weird is that? (We don’t have time for how I feel about James Dobson.)

I know what would have been great. If Reverend Wright had risen to the occasion when he had the chance, and if he had acknowledged the anger, and where it was right and yet where it was wrong too. If he could have done that, and worked for sincere conciliation, he would have been a great choice and it could have been a beautiful thing. Since that didn’t happen, now Warren has the chance to rise to the occasion, and I hope he does. I hope it is a beautiful prayer that embraces everyone, even the atheists who think the tradition should be struck down. I hope that can happen. If it doesn’t, well Obama, it will still only be your first day, and honestly it will be the least of your problems.

The year in preview – 316.5

I think I can wrap things up today, and then maybe get back to just writing once a week. That will be less pressure.

My big goal is that I want to complete one new screenplay a month. This is fairly ambitious, but my turnaround time keeps getting better, so this would be one step further towards consistency. I tend to have these little lulls between projects, so the purpose would be to make me better about starting the new one.

Is it feasible? I think so. The most I have ever written in one day has been twenty pages, which I have done three times. The most I have written on a following day after that was six, but usually less. With writing, it is not just the time you spend writing, but there is the time you spend thinking about it, plotting it out and solving problems. Twenty pages takes a lot out of me, and probably can’t happen that often. Ten pages might be the magic number. Since generally a full screenplay is going to be between 90 and 120 pages, it is not unreasonable that a month would be sufficient time for writing and editing, as long as I keep at it.

My main concern was whether I would have enough ideas to keep going, because new ones come up all the time, but what if they didn’t. As it was, I went through the stable of things that I have largely or partially plotted out, and there were nineteen, and just writing a smart aleck comment to one friend I came up with another plot idea, so this is doable.

There are a couple of things that could make me change my goal. The big one would be if I felt that it was compromising quality. I don’t anticipate that happening, but if does, it would be a strong reason to change things around.

The other possibility is if I get a chance to take a film break. I am a writer first and foremost, but I do get possessive of my stories, and that can make one a control freak. So even though I do not necessarily need to be an actress, director, or producer, I might try my hand at it, at least with some short pieces. Doing so might actually give me some opportunities to advance my writing career, so I can’t rule it out. If I need to recruit actors at some point, I will probably do that through Facebook.

I believe the project I will be starting tomorrow will be a darkly comic detective story involving criminal clowns, but I might find myself pulled in another direction. It’s funny how that works sometimes. Other possibilities include a sort of coming of age tale set in the world of ballroom dance, a first date that goes south thanks to the powerful corn lobby, two spoof/parody pieces, a Bay-sian special effects thriller, an inspiring sports movie, a screwball comedy set during the Great Depression (nothing says “funny” like depression), an update of a Moliere play, a tense political chess game, a couple of candidates for Lifetime Movies for Women, a couple of animated features, a ghost story unraveled by a spunky feminist college student just after WWII, and a remake of a Hitchcock classic.

I would love to do a Christmas special and see if a new one can be good, but without the glow of nostalgia I’m not sure a new one can make it. Also, with “Hungry”, I know what will happen to the characters for two sequels and a spin-off TV series with one of the secondary characters. (I have two other series ideas, but I am focusing on the movie side now.)

“Hungry” is kind of a problem. Of the three I have completed, it is simultaneously the easiest sell, the easiest one to turn over to independent filmmakers, and the one I want most to do myself. Well, it’s been percolating twenty-three years—it ought to be versatile.

We’ll see how things go. I will need to start calling agencies again soon. I might put it off an additional week, because next week I am taking a class on tax preparation, hoping to come up with another day job, at least temporarily.

I have other goals for the New Year. I want to continue my weight loss and become more active, of course. That is not so much a new thing as trying to keep on in the direction I have been. I also want to keep in better touch with my cousins, which means brushing up on my Italian. When I am there for a few days, I become pretty functional, but surrounded by English here it becomes hard to remember the simplest things. For regular resolutions, I am trying to quit playing with my hair (I keep messing with the tangles, and it’s like I’m verging on trichotillomania), and keep my thoughts pure. Should be a fun year.

My year on the internet – 314

My writing yesterday ended up primarily about how I have grown over the year, and it was actually pretty significant. So while these last few months, especially in the last few weeks, have been incredibly hard, I guess I can’t really call 2008 a bad year. It was a year of growth and adventure, and 2009 will probably be that way too.

It seemed like bad planning that I needed to take Mom to Italy the same year I was accompanying Julie and Maria to Australia, but I felt like we needed to go. I thought it was so she could spend time with Elda again, because they are very close, but she is going on eighty-seven and there was a real concern that they would not have another chance. I never dreamed Paolo would be the one to go. He is the youngest next to Mom, and was the heartiest, and it’s just not something that we saw coming. It took up money and vacation time, but I can’t regret going. I’m glad we had that chance.

I’ve already stated that I don’t regret Australia and New Zealand, and that’s still true. Maybe I should, but it was a great trip, and I’m glad I went.

I certainly don’t regret the personal growth, and I don’t regret the way that it happened, even if I have had some qualms.

In 2006 and 2007 I was working on my self-analysis paper, and it was good, but it wasn’t enough. I needed to break down my boundaries of privacy, secrecy really, and just stop being afraid of letting people see my weakness. I have learned a few things from this.

One is that being open helps other people. This has been something that I have observed more with my church friends, but sometimes it is a real help to see that you are not the only one who struggles. Maybe it is because of the church setting. We show up nicely dressed and talk about doing what is right, and people often end up feeling like everyone else is perfect (which rarely happens with your coworkers). If you think that everyone else is what you see there, while you, familiar with your own life, know that you are a mess, that can be kind of lonely. A little candor reveals that really, everyone is kind of a mess, but not really because we are all dealing with our messes, most of the time successfully (sooner or later).

The other thing that has been wonderful is finding that people care. I guess the problem at my core was that I believed that if people saw my weaknesses they wouldn’t like me or would use it against me. I’m not even sure why you couldn’t let it happen, but it was clearly bad, and thus my father was always right, even though he frequently was not.

It turns out that when you are down and struggling, people can be really nice. They care, and provide encouraging words, and back you up. Combining this with the fact that acknowledging your errors leaves room for correcting them, it really makes the world a better place. It’s nice to not always have to be the strong one.

Technology has blessed me a lot with this. My blog has been my platform for being open and just putting things out there, be they good, bad, or ugly. I have joked sometimes about my regular six readers, because that’s what I had originally (it has grown a bit), so on one level exposing your soft underbelly to six people is not huge, but still, once on the World Wide Web, it can never truly be retracted, so it has taken a bit of courage, and it has worked. I’m sure blogging about one’s problems is not an all-purpose answer, but it’s been good for me.

The other thing that has been really great is Facebook. I only started my profile in October, after getting back from New Zealand, so I am still relatively new to this, but I have still reconnected with lots of people, and that has been great. This is where some of the support has come from. You can reach out to people easily and have them reach back, and while it can be quick and easy that does not necessarily make it shallow.

It has been great seeing different aspects of people. I’ve been reconnecting with people from all over, but I think the most fun has been people from high school. Oddly, of the four friends I have really kept in touch with from Five Oaks and Aloha, not a single one is on Facebook, so these reconnections have all been new ones.

It is great to see the different aspects of people. Most of us have turned out okay so far. The most profound part has been seeing people as parents, I think. It is just so far from what we were back then, and it is such a natural fit now.

I don’t know that I would have liked it so much before. In the past when I have run into people, it was always unexpected, and usually I was a wreck, like I was out berry picking and was covered in juice and thorns and leaves, but needed to run into the store for pectin. Hi Adam! Or I would be in restaurants or cafes eating, and having body issues felt awkward about that. Sorry John. Getting to do this now where I am feeling more comfortable with myself helps, plus no one knows if I am physically messy. I can type in my nightgown or a ball gown, and it makes no difference whatsoever. So, I am comfortable getting in touch with anyone.

This is also where some of the qualms have come in. For one thing, I was reluctant to add Aaron and Bob as friends because of the way our relationships were when we last saw each other. I felt like if they added me it was fine, but the last thing I needed was for them to get weird ideas about, “Oh, she still wants me.” I held out, but I would keep seeing their comments and photos through mutual friends, and holding off made me feel petty.

In addition, I realized that my whole last three years has been about not worrying about what people think, only worrying about the truth. So if they were still like that, which one would hope was not the case, it still wouldn’t be my problem. So, I added them as friends, with no ill effects. Actually, now that we are apparently past all the adolescent stupidity, Bob is really fun. He posts often and is generally humorous, so it’s fun getting those updates.

That kind of leads into the other qualm. Even if I strive not to worry about other people’s opinions, feelings do matter, and we don’t live in a vacuum. Writing about my hard times often meant writing about other people, and once it becomes conceivable that they could read about their selves I started to wonder if I needed to post any retractions. I thought of some that I could write:

· Even though I said that I did not like him because of his looks, he was nonetheless very good looking.
· I’m sure he would have been able to make varsity anyway, even if there were more people who wanted to play.
· Obviously he has matured a lot now.

I haven’t posted any retractions so far. For one thing, however many people make it to my blog, I doubt they’ll be combing back over old posts. Also, I think I generally did a good job of being even-handed, and pointing out extenuating circumstances. Like I did write about one girl that if we had still been in school together, I know we would have made up, but it was just too easy to not talk. Now we are friends through Facebook, and I am glad, and I did write her possible viewpoint when I posted then, so probably okay. I never wrote anything that was untrue, it’s just that we were all a lot less mature then, me included.

If anyone wants to know if they are mentioned and where, let me know. If after that you want me to write something about how you rescued a kitten, or are a solid citizen now, it’s totally a possibility. As it is, there are probably only four people who look bad. Three of them were from the traumatic incident in junior high (February 9th post), they have very common names, and I don’t think anyone reading it would realize the specific participants unless they were there and still remembered it. Even with that, thinking about it later I think I know how it got started, and I don’t think Jason (I feel compelled to write that this is not Jason C, and I think that will be good enough) meant for anything bad to happen. He wasn’t really the biggest part of it anyway.

For the other person who might be reasonably unhappy with his portrayal, eh, I could have said worse.

Trending downward – 316

I was recently asked for an explanation of the numbers at the ends of my titles. It was something that I started doing in January, after writing about my weight struggles and how I got to be the way I am.

One thing I have realized is that secrets are unhealthy. If we look at where my psychological flaws are, they tend to center around shame and denial. I never believed I was good enough, and I couldn’t bear to deal with it, which kept me unhealthy for a long time. As I started to realize that a lot of my worst fears and hang-ups were built upon false pretenses, I was working on healing and the answer in many cases seemed to be more openness. Share. Don’t hide.

My blog in 2008 pretty much laid all my secrets bare. In the beginning of the year I started with the three traumatic events that shaped my life, and the turnaround, a big part of that was my weight. I had defined myself by my weight for decades, especially in terms of my relationships with other people, believing that no one could love me until I lost weight. I guess to take away power from that number, and to reinforce that reality is what counts, and not what people think or know, I posted my weight at the end of that entry, and promised to keep posting it as a little side note throughout the year.

316 pounds is a lot for a 5’4” person (well, I think I might be 5’5” now, but I haven’t actually had a chance to check). However, I started at 344.5, so I have lost almost thirty pounds this year. It’s not as much as I wanted to lose, or as much as I need to lose, but there are people out there who would love to have lost thirty pounds this year (especially people who are only 30 pounds overweight, which I would love to be). Ultimately, I have to accept that it is not bad.

It is frustrating at times, trying to get this aging body into a shape that it never has been in, and sometimes the pressure of sharing it makes it worse. There have been days when I postponed blogging because I was up and did not feel like reporting it. Honestly, weighing every day is frustrating because there are fluctuations that don’t always make sense. Like one day, after having exercised the previous two days, I was up three pounds. I know I did not gain three pounds of muscle from two aerobic dance workouts. However, the overall direction is down, and I expect it to continue that way.

There has been other growth too. The other main trauma was my belief that I could not be loved or desired, and getting over that required not only sharing one traumatic event and one period of deep depression, but in July I started going over my entire romantic history, which is nothing to brag about, and every boy I’ve ever liked, and I had to dig pretty deep. Obviously I am still single, but I think I must have grown because two weeks ago a guy hit on me and I actually realized it at the time. That’s pretty major for me.

(Nothing happened. I wasn’t really feeling it, maybe because it was at a memorial service, maybe the chemistry just wasn’t there, but in the past it probably wouldn’t have happened, and if it did I wouldn’t have picked up on it because I wouldn’t have believed in the possibility.)

There’s still a long way to go. First of all, I don’t even know what my target weight should be. The BMI range for my weight is between 110 and 145 pounds, which is kind of a wide range (and I tend to believe the system is flawed). Mainly, I want to be healthy. Since I do not intend to become a female body-builder, I am pretty sure that I should be below 200 pounds, so I was thinking that when I get around there I will have my body fat measured, and try out the old presidential fitness tests. Actually, I did fairly well on the majority of those in grade school. I just could never master the flexed arm hang, and I am not sure that running laps is the best test of endurance—not without some training on good techniques and form. I have some time to figure it out. My more immediate concern is seeing if I can like the diabetes. Frankly, while I am unemployed and uninsured, I can’t afford the meds.

One thing that made me feel especially good is that I realized a few weeks ago that I haven’t binged at all, despite having plenty of motivation. It was never something that I did that often, so I don’t think that it will be nearly as important for the overall weight loss as my daily habits, but it was nice to see that I have gotten some improved coping skills. Again, when you are willing and able to face your problems, it makes a big difference.

Of my other big trauma, well, I still don’t drive. I will need to get to that eventually, but I am just going to need to have less on my plate before I can worry about it.

For boys, well, it would be nice if mistletoe could actually be relevant next year, but I am not making any promises. For now, I think I will stick to just working on being happier with myself, except it has occurred to me before that Powells would be a good place to go trolling for boys, and I think I may try testing that out next month.

One aspect of the weight concerns has been that I absolutely hate having my picture taken, and sometimes you just need to make a point of doing what is hard. So I will make sure to have my picture taken at least once a month over 2009, probably updating my Facebook profile or at least adding to my albums. With luck, it will start to document the incredible shrinking woman.

Living in perilous times – 315

With our hearts full of charity we can face the future with faith and hope, and that can sustain us through the trials. The trials are still there, though, and I can imagine at least some people wondering how I could write twice about the Second Coming with mentioning emergency preparedness. That is what we are going to talk about today.

My first priority is still going to be pretty spiritual in nature, and that is going to be cultivating the habit of listening for the still small voice. I remember reading about a steamboat explosion, and a man who lost his family. He had kept feeling that they shouldn’t board, and then that they should get off, multiple times, but he kept ignoring it.

I had read the article shortly before the September 11th attacks, and I remembered it as some people on the message boards were asking where God was, and yet we were learning how many more people could have been killed, but for some reason had waited to go in to work, or decided not to go in at all. It is important to remember that death is not the worst thing that can happen to us, but in addition, remember that guidance and protection are available.

Beyond that, there are many things that you can do to prepare, and my church calling has been related to that in one way or another for the past six year. Of all the temporal things you can do, I will tell you right now that the two most valuable are food storage and financial stability

By financial stability, I mean paying off your debts and building a reserve of savings. This requires living within your means, and planning, but will provide great peace of mind. I am truly regretting not doing this better now, and I am sure there are many others who will join me. It gives wonderful peace of mind to know that what you own is yours, and that collectors will not call. It gives peace of mind to know that if your income is stopped that you have savings that can cover the gap. It is important.

For food storage, you have to eat. Unemployment can affect the ability to purchase food, but there is room for many issues with the food supply. US dependence on importing food has led to some fears, but even the food that does not come internationally generally travels many miles to the consumer, and so when fuel prices skyrocketed, the price of food (and everything else) went up. You can delay buying new clothes or gadgets, but you still have to eat. Flooding in the Midwest destroyed several crops, local farmers had the worst year they could remember due to changes in weather patterns, and although gas is less expensive now, that is not likely to be permanent. Regardless of what obstacles come to finding affordable food, you will still need to eat.

I have been thinking about this a lot, and I feel like I need to start posting the newsletters I have been doing. I want that information to be readily available to anyone who might benefit from it.

I have done preparedness newsletters twice for Tanasbourne Ward and for Beaverton West Stake in between, but I am only going to start posting the more recent round of Tanasbourne newsletters. There would be a lot of redundancy in covering all of them, and I think I am better at it now anyway.

So, I have started a new blog: http://preparedspork.blogspot.com/

It seems like the only way to handle it. I’ve had qualms, like am I really such a narcissist that I need three blogs? Still, I feel like it is important. I will post one a week until we are caught up, and then just go monthly like the actual newsletter. There are about fifteen so far, and I guess about four more will come out by the time we are caught up.

I don’t know how useful some of them are. For example, the tips for preparing for an earthquake probably work with a 6.5 quake, but if we get a 9.0, will it hold up? I don’t know. Use your own judgment. I just like putting ideas out there (still fervently pro-thought).

Regardless of what you do or do not do, remember that the book of Revelations is ultimately a message of hope. Enduring through the apostasy and restoration and tribulations eventually leads to rich rewards. Those who die are safe. The martyrs are shown and they are fine. There is even a promise for those who have to go through the entire thing if we go back to Matthew 24:22…

“And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.”

Even though things are hard now, at least with my family we don’t quite want it to happen yet, maybe because it feels so final. Reading Matthew 23:39, “…Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord,” makes me think that events will get bad enough that we will change our minds, and that would have to be a pretty dark time. With all of that to worry about, I still know that He will come, and things will be fine, and that until then He is aware of my needs and I am grateful for that.