A sense of self and s'mores

I'm glad I wrote about the Root Chakra yesterday, because last night I saw its practical implications, and I have something coming up where I will be able to demonstrate learning, whether I choose to or not.

In my single adult calling I sometimes help with planning firesides. I was thinking ahead several months ago and I suddenly remembered Indoor S'mores. They were the s'more equivalent of Rice Krispie Treats, made with Golden Grahams, marshmallows, and chocolate chips. I decided I wanted to have those at one fireside. I will get my chance on July 19th.

These are sweets, and people are often watching their sugar intake, so you always want to have some healthier options. I like there to be connections, so I decided on deconstructed banana boats. Allow people to fill a bowl with banana slices, and there are marshmallows and chocolate chips as options to go with them, but there are also mixed nuts, Mandarin orange slices, and coconut. Customization with options should accommodate most needs.

(The orange slices are because I have done them twice before and people love them, and because my version of ambrosia salad is sliced oranges and bananas with coconut, the coconut feels like a natural addition, and the nuts are just an extra protein option.)

As luck would have it, my sisters were also asked to do a ladies night for church, where they decided to do a summer kick-off and the snacks there would also be s'mores-themed. We could trade ideas back and forth.

Their event happened last night, and they did a great job. There were some things that happened between the initial plans and last night that gave me new perspective.

One thing was that at some point Julie said something about me making the Indoor S'mores for their thing, and I asked if they were expecting that, because I don't remember them ever asking me. We could have gotten signals crossed, because I was talking about my event and they were talking about theirs, and that could be confusing.

So then I was confused, and I needed details like to know if that was all they were doing, and if they thought one pan would be enough. I'm planning on two for my thing, plus the deconstructed banana boats, but then the conversation got curtailed and she said "Never mind." It was abrupt.

I felt that I had irritated her, and a later prefix of "I know you don't care" to a different discussion about the presentation kind of backs that up. However, we have had many discussions about them taking me for granted, and there could also have been a legitimate recognition that I already have a lot to do, and they can handle their own thing. So I let that be, even though I was very tempted to just buy the ingredients and make it anyway.

The other thing was that we had a meeting for the single adults last week, and we talked about the fireside, and I said with there being a lot of slicing to do for the boats, if anyone else wanted to make the Indoor S'mores I could get them the recipe.

There are some levels of hassle here. You can't slice the bananas too much in advance or they get brown. You can't even buy them that much in advance really. Also, there is a budget for the food, but you need to buy it first, turn in your receipts, and get reimbursed, which sometimes goes slowly. So I don't want to ask anyone to do that, but no one volunteered. One of the committee members told me privately "Just make assignments." She's right, that will work, and I don't want to do it.

Come to last night. The presentation was great. My sisters know a lot about things to do around the state, and people were interested. There were no Indoor S'mores, but there were S'more Oreos (which shall hereafter be called S'moreos), chocolate chip cookies, and Malt-O-Meal's S'mores cereal - which people had not seen before and loved! It was really well-received, and my sisters did it on their own.

It was also really stressful for them, and that was where one of the realizations came in. My sisters are good at asking for things from family. Maybe it's because they are the youngest, or because they came in two and as a force, or maybe it's because we were better off financially when they were young. They can be so confident with us that I forget that outside the family they are a lot like me. It's really hard to ask other people or rely on them.

That was a good reminder. Our own quirks and insecurities can make us feel like such freaks, but actually we are all freaks, which means that none of us are freaks. We're not all in the exact same boat, but whatever boat you are in has fellow passengers.

It is also good for perspective in that I know that if they had asked me, "Gina, will you make two batches of Indoor S'mores for us?" I would have said yes. I can also see that it is probably better that it didn't happen like that. Maybe they still would have brought the cereal, but not the S'moreos. People liked what was there. There were only four chocolate chip cookies left at the end, and that was out of a lot!

I can also see that if they had asked someone else to bring cookies or something, that person probably would have said yes. My sisters would have fretted about whether the person would forget, but it would have worked out.

Am I going to make assignments for July 19th? My natural instinct is to do it all myself, but putting all of this together that would be sticking with my old patterns, which haven't necessarily been healthy. There is a chance coming up to grow, and I need to decide how to take it.

The Root Chakra

I think I figured out what I needed on the chakra thing, and it did not require doing yoga.

I can't rule out yoga happening in my future. Right now it does not do it for me, but there was a time when I couldn't stand doing aerobics tapes, and then later on that was something I liked a lot. Right now the exercise that feels best is walking outside, so I am focusing on that, but it can always change again.

I mention that because in the past I have felt this antipathy toward yoga. Given how many other people love it, and recognizing changes in my own patterns, I still have no interest in doing yoga, but I no longer have scorn for it.

The chakra thing was something else. It did go with the idea I had of a sequence where things properly lead to each other. Ultimately I kept feeling drawn to that one page: http://www.eclecticenergies.com

I would go through different sections, and feel a need to dig further. It was in the introduction that it finally clicked. The root of the problem was the Root Chakra.

The first time I landed on the page (searching for something else), it was on the exercises for opening the chakras. It said not to do the meditation for the Crown Chakra unless you have a strong Root Chakra, so there was always this idea of a necessary foundation. I have also been thinking about the spine more, which has its own principles of alignment and support.

I thought it would be about sex. The Root Chakra is located in the perineum, an area that seems like it would relate to that, and I have never denied that there are some frustrations to chastity when you remain continually unattached.

(Sexuality relates to the Sacral Chakra, which is located in the pelvis. That also makes sense.)

The Root Chakra is about being grounded, rooted, and physically there. It is about knowing you have a right to be here.

That has been a hard one for me. It is part of the overfunctioning - trying so hard to earn a place, so it is worthwhile for other people to have you around. "You don't unnecessarily distrust people." Not trusting is unnecessary?

What became clear was how hard it is for anything else to be okay if you can't even accept your basic right to be present. How do you let your feelings flow? How do you assert yourself? How can you be unguarded in your affection?

Working the way upward, the things that don't relate as much to the group and physical world - art and fantasy and intellectualizing things - are overactive, because they're safer and that's what you use to compensate.

I am better at asserting myself for other people. I have seen that and identified that years ago. I figured out years ago that those times when I didn't go after something I wanted and I got mad at myself for being scared or lazy, that I wasn't really scared or lazy as much as I didn't feel like I deserved what I wanted. All of that is such old news, and yet I still need it. I still need to remember that I have value and belong here.

So do I start doing affirmations now? I am not sure. There are some at http://www.chakra-anatomy.com/root-chakra.html.

Mainly I guess I just need to keep reminding myself, because I am prone to forget.

My most offensive blog post ever!

Some of you may not find this post that offensive, but I assure you that when I broach the subject with people I know, they get defensive. Like most situations when this happens, I know I'm right.

The last time it came up was in February. I was so irritated, and heard the usual defenses, and I decided the best thing to do was wait a few months and then blog about it. If I start noticing a lot of glares coming my way at church, I will know the post got passed around.

There is a very popular dance class in this area. It often seems like every family with a daughter in the stake has her in this class. I first became aware of it when I attended a luncheon for senior sisters. (A few not-senior sisters were asked to go to help the seniors get there.)

The entertainment was the dance class, like this was a recital for them. The first thing I noticed was a distinct lack of choreography. You know what there was no lack of? Costume changes!

That bothered me. If I were sending my child to dance classes, I would want her to learn some moves. I mentioned this, and everyone has the same answer. This is a free dance class. They actually spend more time dancing than they would if they were learning regular dance routines, because then they would be broken down into groups, and each group would probably only perform one number.

Seriously, everyone says this in pretty much the same way, so that must be the spiel that they are given. I tried to accept that. After all, movement is good, so this class gives them opportunities for exercise and socialization. I can support that. Then I saw them perform again.

Part of the context is that I had recently attended an adult talent show, and while it was a good experience it appeared that some people had not rehearsed or prepared very much, including choosing to sing a cappella rather than dealing with an accompanist.

Okay, these are busy adults, and it was good for them to get the chance to share something again. Also, no one individual act took that long. I can make some allowances.

The little girls prepare. They have practices. They have music. They have seven costume changes! They just don't have routines.

I mean, there is kind of an idea of tapping your foot here or circling there, but as simple as it is, they are still looking at the teacher who is motioning from the side, and some do kind of wander the floor in a daze.

I admit to being impressed that there aren't more collisions, given how little of an idea any of them seem to have of what they should be doing in a given moment. Some of this may be due to the presence of older students too, but I kind of felt like the older students should be embarrassed. If at this age you decide that you still like dancing, isn't it time to look for a real class? Shouldn't you be learning something by now?

(This is not getting into the fact that one song was written by the teacher's grandmother about herself, which seemed a little egotistical, or the absolutely ridiculous segment about flowers - whole living flowers instead of petals or seeds or something that wouldn't be killed by being uprooted - getting blown up onto the mountain by harsh winds, being in danger from the dark, and then being blown back down.)

I can totally conceive having the first few months be mainly free dance with a few moves taught, and letting the children improvise with each new move, but as you start getting closer to the big performance, maybe this is a good time to learn an actual routine. Maybe you do break into groups at this point. Yes, that means that not every single girl gets to be a pirate and a butterfly and a flower and a snowflake and a fairy and a princess, but that's actually the part that bugs me the most.

They aren't learning complicated routines or moves of increasing difficulty, so the thing that differentiates one number from the next is the costumes. And they are cute costumes, and they are cute little girls all together, but when more attention is put into the costumes than the routines, what does this teach them? Your job is to look cute. We neither expect nor want anything else of you.

What a wonderful message for young girls! I could not be happier with that. Sure, it will suck a little when they hit their awkward stages, or they end up not being that cute compared to other girls around them, or when while they are in fact cute, they do not believe that they are - I mean, that never happens!

The odds of them becoming professional dancers were low anyway, but so are the odds of being professionally cute, and a lot of those professions are kind of demeaning. Yeah, but they dance more than they would in an actual dance class!

So, fine - I'm the mean, childless, grouchy spinster, but I will take it. I get that it's not ballet. I get that it's free form by design. Lack of comprehension of the philosophy is not my problem. I concede that it's helpful for the local craft and fabric stores.

I remain convinced that it sucks.

Band Review: Dr. Something

Dr. Something is the solo project of Alison Dennis, whom you may also know from her work with The Piping Hot Love Engines, Coney Island Cartel, and All I Feel Is Yes, previously reviewed on this site under their former name, Hot Apparatus.

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2014/10/band-review-hot-apparatus.html

Alison is also a coworker, whom I know outside of music review. She once tweeted about a certain song title (the final track on Puppies Are Nature's Rainbows), with a word in it that garnered a lot of attention. I had to take exception, due to the profanity, but she assured me that it really raised the hit count.

I believed her, but having now listened to "Sh**splosion at the Lloyd Center Macy's " I have to say I am most impressed by the universality of the song. Not only has anyone who regularly rides public transportation had a time when the need for a bathroom was desperately urgent, but in this area the Lloyd Center Macy's is a prime destination for that, based on its accessibility and proximity to light rail. It has seen many a 'splosion.

There is a definite local flavor for Portland Metro Area residents, with frequent Tri-Met references, but the emotions and experiences are relatable outside of the region. Everybody can understand nausea, and unsatisfying relationships, and being reminded of art by something you see in nature, even if that does not always turn into a short biographical sketch of landscape artist Marvin Cone. Who wouldn't hear the title "Crying in a Cubicle" and not feel recognition?

(Possibly someone who has never worked in a cubicle, but my point stands.)

Obviously there is a sense of silliness that may come through in the titles. There is humor there, but a lot of it is simply because these songs incorporate the mundane in a way that corporate pop often chooses not to.

It's not unheard of - I distinctly remember Menudo having a song about the shopping mall - but the rhymes and lyrics were as cheesy and perfunctory as you'd expect. For Dr. Something, just because you are singing about the cat getting into your food is no reason not to add unexpected vocabulary or lilting rhythms. She will refer to something as Mahlerian and she will not be wrong.

The Dr. Something bio page refers to "silly folk pop". That's a pretty good description, but I will sum it up as beautiful and deeply strange.

http://drsomething.com/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-Something/796960910350077

https://drsomething.bandcamp.com/

https://soundcloud.com/drsomething

https://twitter.com/DrSomething

Band Review: Tales Untold

After I reviewed This Good Robot, I had this nagging feeling that if my former classmate, sketch comic, actor, and DJ Ted Douglass were in a band, it would be that band. He agreed they were close, but really, it would be Tales Untold, with whom I was unfamiliar. That made it necessary to check them out.

They're really good.

This Portland, Oregon (via McMinnville) band list themselves as pop rock, but recently that implies a lack of substance; that is not a problem here. I detect a folk influence, which manifests as a mellow feeling. They are more pop than the Traveling Wilburys, and less classical than ELO, but I believe Jeff Lynne would like this group.

(And fans of This Good Robot probably would like them, but they might be a better fit with Science.)

I found thirteen tracks on ReverbNation. I found references to other songs that I could not locate, but the band was active at a time when digitizing everything wasn't happening. There may be a lot of music out there that isn't online, but "Going Out Tonight", the one track that seems to have a fan video on Youtube, is in fact on Reverb Nation.

It is also a really good tune, so I strongly recommend checking it out.

My favorite was probably "Too Good". Please note the way the guitar wails, and then how the different instruments layer together to build a rich sound. It can be easy to get caught up in the emotion and not notice the skill, but it's there.

They have a good selection overall. Some tracks, like "Sister Satellite" and "Matahari" sound more exotic, and faintly psychedelic. Many of the songs bring in additional instruments, "Circus Freak" brings in animal noises, and it does sound like the circus. Mainly, the songs just rock.

Overall, Tales Untold is a good find. Their page says they are back from hiatus, so this is a good time to catch up.

I could only find two active URLs for now.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tales-Untold/169451609795322

https://www.reverbnation.com/talesuntold

UPDATE: More songs can be found at...

https://soundcloud.com/don-schwarz/sets/tales-untold

Related links:

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2014/12/band-review-this-good-robot.html

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2014/10/band-review-science.html

Becoming a writer

I disconnected from my body because I hated how it looked. I'm not recommending that; it's just what I did.

One thing that made it easier was finding that I had non-physical things going for me. I had been pretty sure that I was smart all along, but there were ways in which it did not seem to pay off.

I don't mean just that it doesn't make you popular, but I could see a lot of areas where smart wasn't enough. I could never think of good science fair projects. Through TAG we would get exposed to what at they time they called Olympics of the Mind and now (I believe due to trademark issues) call Odyssey of the Mind, but the things they did there baffled me. I have never needed to do an egg drop, which I feel is a lucky break because break is exactly what that egg would do.

Essentially, I knew answers to questions, but I had no practical applications. Fortunately, we got exposed to many types of endeavors, and at least one stuck. When I was going through old photos for the Throwback Thursdays, I found some other things that I had been holding onto, and almost forgotten.

In 1984 I entered a Saturday Academy writing contest, and did well.

Mainly this gave me a T-shirt, which I never wore, but it also gave me feedback.

"Your Alien story was a favorite of the judges for the way you used dialogue between Angie and her mother."

"We hope you continue to write funny and imaginative stories."

"I hope she keeps writing stories."

"Well written & easy to follow."

I hope I write better than a sixth grader now, but those are still some of the things I hear.

The next big coup was in 1987. When we were studying The Canterbury Tales, everyone had to write a sample prologue and five characters (we did not write any actual tales). Then one of each student's characters, and one prologue was chosen for a book. I can't remember if it was student votes or teacher selection. My prologue was chosen.

Looking back now I cringe at the awkward rhyme schemes, and the fascination with brand names that I gave my Yuppie character. I mean, she probably would have been into brand names, but I may have picked the wrong ones, or oversold how shallow she was, so there's that. I feel the same way about the prologue, actually, but everyone thought it was the best. That still feels kind of good.

That wasn't the only encouragement. I remember my English teacher the previous year, Mr. Cowles, was very encouraging. We had writing journals, and I would start new story ideas that would be all exciting, and then they would fizzle, because it was always rebellion but then when you get into the actual mechanics of revolution things fall apart. There were so many music videos with oppressive regimes that you fought by singing and dancing that this sort of plot was kind of inevitable until you get more life experience.

What he could see, though, was good invocation of a character or a mood, and that those skills can eventually go somewhere. And I remember him paying attention to other students too, and asking questions about where they were going to go with it, and I know I'm not the only one who still writes, so I'm grateful for that.

With writing I knew there was something I could do, and it was rewarding. It taught me things about myself. It still does.

Is it irrevocably linked to my nerdiness? It might be. When someone asks me about a new idea, I hear myself geeking out about it. I can't stop it, but I know I'm doing it.

That is how I became.

No more good pictures

I am not quite to the halfway point of my Throwback Thursday pictures:

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2015/01/43-photographs.html

The last good one was already posted. I'm not sure which that one is. The Santa one is okay, but the one in the Redwoods is not horrible. 

After that, from the 5th grade TAG picture forward, there is not a photo of me where I don't notice and hate how fat I look.

I know that's not necessarily what other people see. A lot of people liked the TAG picture. 

I liked my pictures before first grade. I thought I was cute. I wasn't positive, but people would respond positively to the curls sometimes, and I liked looking at old photos. After I started school, and was told that I was fat, I started being nervous about pictures. I wouldn't like new school pictures at first, but I could go back the next year and think it hadn't really been so bad.

After that, whether it was because the adultery had happened and that sent some shock waves through the family, or because other teasing had built up, or puberty gave me a reason to be more self-conscious, I don't like how I look in pictures ever.

The inner voice wonders why I tucked my shirt in, or why I wasn't wearing bangs to cover my enormous forehead, or marvels over how even my hands look fat. One of my older sister's friends made a beaver joke about my teeth many years ago, and even though my smile gets more compliments than any other physical attribute of mine, I think of myself as buck-toothed so sometimes my teeth bother me. Still, it's mostly the fat.

One thing I hate about the TAG picture is that it's where I really see the resemblance to one of my aunts. I have been told many times that I look like her. I do not find this flattering. But one thing I can see is that I am not relaxed. I am concentrating, but there is also that tension that became a thing any time there was a camera around because I am so ugly in pictures. So maybe my aunt's problem is just that she was never happy. I mean, there can be some satisfaction in looking down on other people, but it's not really joyful.

And for all of the lack of self-esteem and discomfort with photos, I wasn't unhappy all the time, but cameras make me unhappy. They still do.

Of course, that's why  I'm doing this. If I keep forcing myself to post the pictures as they become even fatter, I have to get used to that. When I transition to doing regular selfies, I will have to get used to that look. I mean, other people do not hate the way I look, though it could just be that they're less invested.

Anyway, here are some pictures that I didn't use, but thought about. I didn't want to use too many studio portraits because they seem kind of artificial.

I think this one kind of looks like the Gerber baby.

Actually, my understanding was that at the Wilsonville school parents could bring younger siblings on picture day and get packets for them too, and that's why we were able to keep up with the pictures pretty well.

Sidetracked by a superhero

I should refer back to something else as a lead in. When I was writing about "Grimm", and when I was thinking about writing some spec scripts, I repeated that they always say that you shouldn't submit a script for the show you want to write for, but instead submit one for a similar show. I had seen that more than once, and the reasons given made sense.

In Showrunners, two of the people profiled ignored that advice. Maybe they had never heard it. Steven DeKnight submitted a spec script for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and ended up writing on several Joss Whedon shows before becoming the showrunner for "Spartacus". Ronald D. Moore sent a spec script for "Star Trek: The Next Generation" to "Star Trek: The Next Generation", and worked on that and "Deep Space 9" and "Voyager" and other things before reviving "Battlestar Galactica".

Perhaps if you are good enough at it you can ignore advice, and perhaps advice being repeated a few times doesn't make it good. I mention it because other advice I have seen is that you just write one thing at a time. If you get a great idea in the middle of something, you finish that something first before going after the next great idea.

I know other people ignore it. One of the television writers I follow, Akela Cooper, always seems to have six or seven writing projects going on. This is important, because even though I totally intend to be focused on screenwriting now, I am getting into a comic.

It's because of the MOOC.

Part of studying the history of the rise of superheroes in comic books is creating your own. I was having a hard time getting to it. First of all, the assignments are given via PowerPoint slides, and they only release one week's worth at a time, and I had to upgrade PowerPoint, and some of the slides are less than user-friendly. I do have that set up now. Then it was just a matter of a character I could live with.

There are several things that came together. One of the 6 page screenplays I wrote in October was for a comic I have in mind, with depressed teenagers who love music and start a band. When I was thinking about it I was thinking about my teens of course, and I wondered if I should bring in issues like eating disorders and self-harm and mental illness. It didn't feel right for that one, but it seemed like something I could do later.

http://www.wattpad.com/74893306-theme-park-the-beginning-of-a-beautiful-friendship

Another source of inspiration was Gerard Way. He recently changed his Twitter handle to "Goth Claudia". The name stuck with me, like, "Yeah, I remember her." At least two of his friends have also changed to names apparently representing 1994 alternative selves, so that may be a thing. (Theme Park starts in 1994.)

So I was thinking about those things, but the person that was taking shape was more Emo than Goth, but that kind of led to her power. What if she could throw emotions at people? Take a bully and throw the anguish they are causing right back?

It's not that super a power. I mean, she won't defend the earth from an alien invasion. She might be able to interrupt a crime in progress, but mainly it would be a very personal thing, trying to help people.

I'm afraid this makes my work on her altar ego very lackluster, because she doesn't really need one. At this point, people aren't aware of what she is doing when she does it, and her scale is small. Teenagers hide so much anyway, a secret identity would be redundant.

I got concerned when we had to tie our hero to a mythic deity. Because of the Gerard Way song "Maya the Psychic", it totally made sense that Claudia would have Mayan ancestry on her mother's side (and that her mother had some psychic ability as well). Looking at the Mayan pantheon, the only good fit was Ixtab, the goddess of suicide. I don't want to make suicide an option. Too many teens look at that too much anyway. Claudia can't do it or glorify it. But in other ways it was a fit. She might not try it, but she's thought about it.

Ixtab ended up completing the look. She has a black mark on her cheek that represents decay. Claudia has a bruise that won't heal. The rope around Ixtab's neck becomes a necklace for Claudia. The bracelets Claudia wears are familiar to a lot of hurting girls.

I worry about how triggering this could be for some readers, but I also believe it can be helpful. Coming out of Family Ghosts, with Allison and Sarah they were both healing, and what I know from what's coming up is that they are going to become very powerful in different ways. They needed to heal first. For Claudia, it's finding her power that is going to help her heal.

It will change her. She will become more aware of other people, and that's going to lead to a desire to interact more and not be so withdrawn. Her nemesis will exploit that, but there will be growth.

I can see her getting to know her mother's family. Part of her problem is a lack of connection, but she does have a heritage and a history. Going to the Yucatan could be transformative for her.

We needed to specify her vulnerability - she is a teenage girl; she is all vulnerability. She will miscalculate how much she will affect someone and feel guilt over that. She will not always exercise good judgment. Her arch nemesis is a good looking teenage boy who took the same experimental medication, only he was abused instead of neglected so he is a sociopath. She is full of vulnerability! But that's not all there is to her.

So, I need to work on this. I believe I can work on both it and the screenplays that are coming up. Today I just did a sheet of dialogue that would be about three pages of panels. That gives her background right until her counselor recommends the pills. A page of script a day, plus drawing whatever is in the assignment, should be manageable.

I believe we will be drawing a confrontation with the nemesis for the last week. Frankly, she will lose their first one. I guess I should draw the last one instead. I'll have to see what it says.

For now I have only drawn one picture, but it's her. And I still feel like I draw like a 14 year old girl, and it's inadequate, but there's still something there. I recognize her. Claudia King. Code name Emo.

Band Review: Loose Logic

Loose Logic is a hip hop artist (Ian Westbrook) from Orange County.

I find him musically more interesting than most hip hop artists. Check out the intro to “Cali Dreamin’”, the keyboards on “Enemy”, and “Ava’s Song” in general for some good examples of that.

He also has something to say, with deeply personal songs about love lost because of that person’s self-destruction, and the changes made by having a child.

Those are points in his favor, but it also makes me more aware of how much is possible. Working through these issues feels like it should lead to somewhere higher, but I am bothered by the continuing drug references, the apparent lack of compassion for the lost love, and the frequent vulgarity, especially in “Shake That”.

That being said, those things may not be issues for other people, especially hip hop fans, because this is ultimately done well.

http://www.looselogiconline.com/

https://www.facebook.com/TheRealLooseLogic?ref=ts

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRM49ZSHlL4wNiu4WbhLPbw

https://twitter.com/LooseLogic