Go Big or Go Bust: Day 234 (on walking in NYC, getting off my high horse and learning to be a pedestrian among pedestrians)

Walking is one of my favorite ways to get around New York City.  For the distances I don't have time to walk, you'll find me on the subway.  And the same was true for Paris when I lived there as a student.  Maybe because I have big eyes, a lot of nervous energy and am a slooow reader, walking has always been my favorite form of education (and exercise).  And I like to walk alone, in a bubble, like a visiting Martian, safe and invisible. 

La Maison du Croque Monsieur on East 13th Street    I <3 NYC

But it feels like my relationship to walking around New York City is becoming a different kind of education.  And I suspect that this change has something to do with the breaking down of my self-containment in the writing of this blog.

When I first moved to New York, I felt slapped in the face by everyone I passed.  Being a country girl, I looked people in the eye and had a smile all ready for 'Good morning!'  But person after person walked right past me without even a glance my way.  I was stunned by the coldness.  I even took it personally.  What happened to manners?  It didn't take long for me to put up my own wall and be as cool as everybody else. 

Mr. Green (a native) once remarked that New Yorkers aren't unfriendly, they just don't want to waste time.  If you want directions, people will give them to you, but they might not stop moving as they do.  New Yorkers are also real.  They don't fake 'nice'.  Can you imagine saying "Good morning!" (with feeling) to the hundreds of people you pass before 9 AM?

Today, rushing around doing errands under my skimpy umbrella, a woman I've seen around the neighborhood for decades crossed my path.  She's probably fifteen years younger than I am and I've never known her name.  Whenever I see her, we smile, nod or say hello,.  And we keep walking.  There's something vulnerable about her which has always made me nervous.  Today when she said hello, I stopped.  We talked for ten minutes and, to my surprise, it left me feeling more free.  It felt like I'd overcome a fear which I hadn't even been aware had been ruling me.  Could it be that because I'm accepting the possibility of my own vulnerability that I could let her in?

Connecting with someone, getting down off my high horse and being a pedestrian among pedestrians is a risk I don't generally take.  Sure, I'll give directions to tourists, but to get into a conversation with someone who I'm going to be running into all the time is a commitment.  "I've got too many friends already!  The next thing you know she'll be asking for a favor!"  Today these voices didn't even dare to come out of their holes. 

Talking frankly here and hearing that you identify is a powerful force pushing me in the direction of taking risks and expanding.  I thank you for that.

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 233 (on process, insomnia, extreme AC and the amazing Marie Forleo)

I’ve been out and about living the dream.  Tonight that meant riding the NYC subway system and I figured you’d want to see me navigating an MTA tunnel. 

Unfortunately, the cars of the trains are so overly air-conditioned that you need a sweater while you're traveling.  But, as the saying goes, what goes around, comes around and the hot air from these cars is vented onto the platforms. Waiting for the next train, I felt in danger of being poached standing up.  But I digress.

Tonight brings me to the fingernails-on-the-blackboard subject of ‘process’.  I’m so into results and finished products, I practically break out in a rash if someone wants to talk about ‘process’.  Trusted reader, why are you not surprised.

Anyway, this trying to take The Louise Log to the next level is nothing if not a process.  My usual way of wanting it all finished yesterday simply doesn’t work.  Yes it makes me hysterical.  Yes it throttles my anxiety up and off the charts.  Yes I’m up until 2AM tossing and turning and driving Mr. Green ‘cray cray’ (he would hate that expression and I’m taking a certain pleasure in using it).  The fact is, I’m a nervous wreck.  

And guess what comes across my computer screen?

The solution to all my problems!  

The ‘Crazy Simple Stress-Busting Tool You’re Not Using (Yet)’

If you’ve never met Marie Forleo, you’re in for a pleasant surprise.  Oh come on I’ll say it right out: Get ready to fall in love.  There's even a free download for those of you into stationery porn.  OH yeah. 

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 232 (on the heat wave in NYC, the end of summer, personal boundaries, assertiveness, and 42nd Street)

It’s hot in New York City today, 93º hot and humid and I don’t mind.  Even hiking around the city with my twenty pounds of computer, hard drives and pocketbook cutting into my shoulders, somehow I find it relaxing.  I was thinking how precious these last days of summer are.  I was also thinking that if I lived in LA, they wouldn’t be so precious because they wouldn’t be about to give way to freezing rain and biting wind.  Not that I’m crazy about cold wet weather, but I love having an awareness of the preciousness of now, of the bittersweet end of summer.  And for this to be possible, the seasons have to be limited.  

Naturally, this started me thinking about other limits and boundaries, emotional ones.  In my formative years, personal boundaries never seemed like a good idea.  I sneered at the term ‘personal boundaries’ as pathetic psychobabble for people who couldn’t just wing it, people who had to think about such givens.  

The truth was, I wanted no part of having boundaries or setting limits because by definition, that means confrontation.  Not wanting any part of that, I grew into adulthood avoiding confrontations however I could.  I was ‘flexible’, I was ‘easy-going’.  Frankly, I thought I was killing it at life.  I’d found a way to avoid that stressful, ugly moment when the other person looks at you like they don’t get you and, furthermore, they don’t like you.  I got along with everybody or, if I didn’t, I didn’t push it in anybody’s face.  Who needs to be so goddam brutally honest all the time?  The sad fact is that, if I ever knew how to assert myself, that know-how went down the drain in my teen years.  

Growing from a young adult working alone to an adult working collaboratively, I had a rude awakening.  For the work to come out the way you want it, you have to figure out how to say no to people, how to negotiate and how to develop a thicker skin.  You have to realize that if you insist on what you want, not everybody is going to like you.  Adrienne Weiss shared a pearl of wisdom from her own experience of directing: “Stop trying to make everyone like you.  They already DON’T like you!”

And so I’ve learned a few things about setting limits.  I’ve learned something about asserting myself.  I can have all the conversations I want in my head but when push comes to shove, I have to find the words to ask out loud for what I want and to say no.  Our limits define us, the way temperature and the angle of the sun define the seasons.  And as winter can have its nasty days, so people can have their nasty confrontations.  And like the old 42nd Street had a gritty, filthy and dangerous quality, for me the truth of that 42nd Street was more beautiful than the phony Disneyfication of Times Square today.  I want to be true.  I want to be real.  

It’s supposed to be hot again tomorrow.

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 231 (on Everett Quinton, Amy Winehouse, Drop Dead Perfect and success)

Mr. Green and I went to see AMY tonight, the documentary about Amy Winehouse and a sobering meditation on the perils of success and media attention in this day and age.

It’s interesting to find myself in the situation of needing and wanting exactly this double-edged sword of success, the very thing which makes it possible to raise money and greenlight projects but which can apparently become a curse.  

Maybe I’m deluding myself, but I’d like to think that my thirty odd years in the trenches have sufficiently grounded me so that I would weather whatever storms success might bring.  

And then, I happened on wonderful news of a fresh success for someone who has known well-deserved success for decades and wears it well:

Everett Quinton in The Louise Log #41                  Photo by Karen Sanderson

Everett Quinton, the delightfully difficult father-in-law to Louise in Season 3, is killing it Off-Broadway.  Not only did The New York Times name Drop Dead Perfect a Critic’s Pick, they singled out its star and gave credit where credit is due:

Thank you Everett for showing us all that a person can continue to be a stellar, generous and sane human being in spite of having his (her) name in lights.  I can’t wait to see you in this.  Congratulations!!

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 230 (Janet Perr, designer of Cyndi Lauper's first album cover, and new video thumbnails)

Today I spent a couple of hours walking by the Hudson with Janet Perr, a friend from the (sometimes dark and lonely) days when our kids were in Kindergarten together.  Who knew that old Janet had had designed an album cover one for the Rolling Stones, that amazing cover for Cyndi Lauper's first (incredible) album and that Janet even won a Grammy for album cover design!

Oddly enough, I'm up to my neck in my own design project.  Using everything Mhairi told me to do plus whatever I've been able to learn from studying popular web series thumbnails (the tiny posters for videos online are called 'thumbnails') I'm in the midst of redoing all the thumbnails for all three seasons.  Whaddaya think?  (I'm seriously open to comment and suggestions.)

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 229 (Getting over the No-Pain-No-Gain mentality and having some Fun with Julie Clark Shubert)

I still remember the morning thirty odd years ago when my dear old dad, who had choked down Shredded Wheat for breakfast for much of his life, learned that this cereal was virtually devoid of nutritional value.  "I figured anything that tasted that bad must be good for you!"  It seems that I've managed to incorporate his "no pain, no gain" fixation: I generally feel most comfortable killing myself with work. 

So it was with complicated feelings that I decided to seize the opportunity to have some fun and hangout with a musician who has been more than generous in letting me use her song in my videos.  The irrepressible Julie Clark Shubert (whose wonderful song "I Want To Know You" is the soundtrack to this video about The GypsyNesters must-read book) is in town.

Soon after Julie arrived, we set off and have been walking and talking all day.  First stop was to visit Louise Log musician and Etsy star Emily Spray's table at a street fair where Julie scored a hat:

We then headed downtown to give Julie a taste of Soho and Little Italy, ending up in Chinatown where we took a break for a lunch of Chow Fun at Hop Kee followed by foot massages.:

In spite of my protests that the sun was in the wrong place for a picture, Julie insisted on this shot with the Hudson River at the 3.5 mile mark.

We made it back to my place in what Google Maps calculated as 3.9 miles.  OH yeah.  And Julie's just announced that 'cooking and dancing' is next on the agenda.  I want to rally.  I want to be a good sport.  My only anxiety is that I may miss dinner, fast asleep in bed.  Fun is exhausting. 

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 228 (The Power of Less invades the living room)

It may be a further effect of this ban on multi-tasking that my mind is suddenly a whole lot quieter.  And in a shocking and abrupt shift, I've become physically unable, for even a minute, to accept the clutter of decades.  Pictures are coming down off the walls, furniture is on the block (as in 'executioner's block').  Looking at YOU unpainted wooden bookcase (on the left) that doesn't make it to the ceiling.

Do you have any idea of how long I've wanted to deal with this claustrophobic situation? That it's all happening without much of a plan, effortlessly, like a snake shedding a skin it's outgrown astonishes me.  And it proves to me without a doubt that the physical world is indeed a manifestation of thought and feeling. 

The only picture I could find of the living room which shows the piano (partially obscured but highlighted) is from the shoot of Season 3.  (L to R Danusia Trevino, Everett Quinton, Jennifer Sklias-Gahan, Kira Cecilia, me, The Piano, Chris Leone)    Photo by Karen Sanderson

The living room tonight on its way to a new zen state it hasn't known for decades.  I'll keep you posted.  

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 227 (The life and death stakes of moving our piano, efficiency mania, The Power of Less, living with an open heart and the meaning of Going Big)

So, finally getting back to finishing the story about the monster truck that creamed our car ... and just so you have all the facts, it was not a five-inch scratch as reported but a good ten-inch crease.  I measured it this morning. 

But I want to sidetrack for just a minute in order to give the truck story its full due.

We have a friend who prides himself on being able to cram three 30 gallon cans of garbage into one 30 gallon garbage bag (lotta jumping).  With my efficiency obsession, this is a practice I heartily admire but it's a bit of a painful reminder of my own attitude toward time. 

I know how to cram at least 36 hours into 24: cut back on sleep, cut out all pleasure and non-essentials and multi-task like a maniac.  A guy once asked me if I was doing something else while we were on the phone.  "Of course." I told him, unabashed.  "I'm doing the dishes.  I'm a mother!  I'm always doing at least two things at once.  Though I draw the line at vacuuming and talking on the phone."  (He never called again.)

So everybody's heard of 'eating lunch at your desk'.  I assumed that that meant that you chewed while you kept on working.  Apparently, that's not necessarily the case.  I used to eat breakfast and lunch at my desk work work working right through.  Only shame and guilt (and lack of an impending deadline) crow-barred me away from the office to cook and sit at the dinner table with Mr. Green.  

But for the past month, because of The Power of Less (thank you Victoria Trestrail!), except for a handful of reversions to my bad old ways, I've taken to eating in company or eating as a meditation.  There's no reading, no radio, no working - just chewing and enjoying the food.  And this is having a radical effect on my life.  I have a sense of ease and a sense of peace that there's enough time.  I even think I have a growing sense of confidence and joy, all from this incredibly simple change.

So to get back to the Confrontation While Alternate Side Parking story, it's in large part because of my new zen-ed out state (my awareness that I will go as 'big' as I'm supposed to while doing only one thing at a time) that I had an extraordinary experience that day.  It also involves a piano. 

Remember Ava throwing herself on the piano? 

Well once upon a time, children around this house practiced on that piano and it got a lot of use.  Now that they've grown up and are off living far away, this massive, dark piece of furniture is parked right in the middle of the apartment sort of blocking the door, totally crowding the place and looking to me like a huge Black Widow Spider -- and why?  I threatened Mr. Green that I was going to find someone to move the piano and shopped for a good bargain.  And then on one of those 93º humid days, three guys came to do the herculean job of getting this massive thing down to the floor below.

In former times, I think I would have been in my office working away, busy as a bee, while they moved the piano.  I would have figured, hey, they're professionals, why would I be there?  But because of breaking this habit of trying to cram 48 hours into 24, it was clear to me that I should be there.  And as it turned out, I'm so glad I was. 

The piano couldn't make it down the narrow turn at the head of the stairs so the only alternative was 'the long way'.  The long and perilous way.  It had to go out the kitchen door and down the steps of a wooden deck.  But until they got the piano out on it, I hadn't realized that this deck had not been built to withstand the weight of three big guys and a massively built, fifty-one inch tall piano. 

Neither had I realized how much communication and negotiation goes into moving a piano. The stakes are very high for every lift so they were constantly bargaining with each other on what the next move would be. 

And meanwhile, the deck and the stairs down to the garden were acting like they were chopsticks or toothpicks, not two-by-fours.  There were cracking and splintering sounds, the deck was shuddering, wobbling like a hammock and seemed to pull away from the building.  To counteract visions of the whole platform separating from the house and throwing them and the piano into the garden, I used my 'white light' technique (which is no technique at all ... seeing circles of white) ... and praying.  They were hard-working guys.  They wanted to get the job done.   More than once, back in the kitchen, they had asked, "You really sure you want this piano downstairs?"  They wanted to please me.  They also definitely wanted the money for the job.  Did they realize how dangerous it all was?  They could feel the deck shuddering, hear the wood splintering.  I stepped back into the kitchen figuring I could at least avoid being the 'straw' that broke the camel's back.  Mostly I prayed. 

When they were about half way through this torturous job, off the deck and stairs but approaching the steep narrow stone steps down to the house, they took a break and I became aware of a loud chorus of horns filling the air.  One of the guys asked me (my hands were free) to go check and see if their truck was blocking traffic.

Running to the front windows, I saw trouble and called for one of them to move their truck.  The truck that had creamed our car the day before was, ironically, stuck right behind the piano truck and the rest of the block was paralyzed.  Angry drivers were out of their cars and a traffic cop was writing a ticket.  I had my Wonder Woman moment with the driver (see blog, Day 225) and thanked the cop for not giving the piano truck a ticket.  "Oh I gave him a ticket."  I asked for how much ($65) and when I told the piano guy, he almost broke down.  "Oh GOD!  This city!  It'll kill you!  You try to make a buck, there's no where to park!  Sixty-five dollars??"

Here this guy, not a young man, had been putting every ounce of himself, possibly risking his life, into the brutal job of moving our piano.  I'd noticed when he'd first arrived that he walked with a very heavy step, that his body seemed to be carrying a huge weight even when he carried nothing at all.  And because I'd been right with him during the move, living through every inch of the piano's journey, I was with him with my heart wide open: "I'll pay the ticket."  I didn't look at him but felt his mood shift instantly.  We walked and found a spot, checked it out with the traffic cop and went back to finish the job.  

I'm wondering if this experience of feeling the physical courage and vulnerability and then the financial difficulties and finally love for these piano movers was equally if not even more powerful than my Wonder Woman moment. 

As far as 'going big', is it possible that this is the definition (actually) of what it means to 'go big'?  Daring to live with your heart open, vulnerable, daring to feel with your fellow man - taking your eye off your particular prize.  And here if I'd been at my desk, I would have missed this whole experience, this extraordinary joy.

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 226 (on justifying hanging out as working 'smarter')

The divine Lea Floden, star of (my first and probably only feature) How To Be Louise, is in New York for a few days.  We hung out all day long eating tomato sandwiches, guzzling kale smoothies (kale from the garden) and even went to my friend Heather's birthday party in a penthouse loft.  SO elegant.  Really interesting-looking people, especially one amazing guy who defies description and bust out multiple psychic insights about Lea scattered through a regular conversation. 

So guess who lost track of the time and didn't get around to writing a blog today?  Me!  The same person who didn't take one single action toward going 'Big'.  Unless, of course, you count being around Lea who is so inspiring and fun.

I'm chalking it up to a "working smarter, not harder" day. 

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 225 (on euphoria, the Wonder Woman stance, bullies in trucks, and alternate side parking)

I just had the most amazingly joyful day and naturally want to bottle the good feelings.  Well, if not actually ‘bottle’ them, at least figure out the factors so maybe I can duplicate the experience.

So what could have caused this euphoria?  The week started off yesterday on less than a high note.  I moved the car in this dance New Yorkers do to avoid paying for a parking garage, ‘alternate side parking’.  I got a great spot in the shade and in front of the only doorman building on the block.  This is a score because it reduces the (unlikely but real) chance that someone will break into your car.  The thought crossed my mind that it would be wise to move ahead to another spot, away from the doorman building and in the blasting sun.  Though not ideal on a hot and humid day, there was a car double-parked way out into the street exactly opposite where I was parked which left only a narrow lane for traffic to get through between us.

I repressed the thought and, sitting in the driver's seat, started on my to-do list.  A screech of metal alerted me to the very large demolition dump truck which had just made a five inch crease in the side of my car.  

I blasted the horn and jumped out.  The driver, way up high in his enormous truck, rolled down his window part way and stayed well back, hidden in the shadows.  “Sorry.”  he called down, not smiling.  “Sorry?”  I shouted up at him over the din of his monster engine.  “Seriously? How about let’s exchange uhh —“  I was trying to think fast what exactly you exchange with someone who’s just creamed your car.  “Insurance!” I remembered it, but a little late as he was already rolling up his window and nodding, moving his lips but he wasn't talking to me.  Behind the reflection in the window, he appeared to be looking ahead down the block.  I was irrelevant.

Meanwhile, the driver of the double-parked car across the street was having his own problems. One foot on the street, one foot in the car, he was in a shouting match with someone I couldn't see.  The growing chorus of car horns blaring behind the dump truck made it clear that this truck had to move. 

I shrugged, not all that flustered as our car isn’t new or even close to ‘like new’.  I was feeling bullied, feeling powerless but what could I do?  Start scaling the dump truck?  I'd noticed the driver had muscles-- I'm sure he could crush me like a bug.  And what if there were a second guy beside him but out of sight.  

The doorman from the building behind me appeared at my side, a short man with a Spanish accent.  “Is this okay with you??”   I shrugged again.  And then a “No!” burst from my mouth: his outrage cleared away my doubt.  I dashed around to grab a pen as the car horns went silent and the big truck began to move but I scribbled down the name of the demolition company and (I think I got) the (mud encrusted) number on the license plate.  Just back from the boondocks, it had never occurred to me to grab my phone, take his picture, or take a video of the way our vehicles were locked together, the damage he’d done.  

On the advice of the Traffic Police woman who appeared soon after on foot, I called the precinct.  No answer.  I called back three times.  A bored and annoyed person finally answered and told me to call non-emergency 911.  It was hot.  It was humid.  Why am I sitting in the car over a little scrape when New York is a 'no-fault' state?  My inner voice went on a tear:  this'll raise our insurance.  Why am I making a mountain out of a molehill?  The police in New York City don't even have time to hunt down bag snatchers, it'll be hours before they show up!  Apparently it was a quiet morning as within fifteen minutes a patrol car pulled up and took my ‘accident report’.

But that's not the end of the story.

Flashing forward to today, there was a great deal of honking out on the street.  Looking out the window, I spied the name of the very same demo company on a huge truck. I scrambled down the stoop and rushed across the street to discover the same guy trapped in yet another double-parked situation. This time, he wasn’t so callous, his window was open and he smiled a sheepish: “Hi.”  I'm glad that I happened to be wearing the same clothes: he recognized me immediately.  Feeling neither hopeless nor helpless, I took my Wonder Woman stance (feet wide, hands on hips) and shouted up at him, victorious, even taunting with almost a smile:  “Hey I filed an accident report!  What’s your name!  Yeah and what’s your LAST name?”  He insisted on giving me his phone number too (still unverifed) and with some sheepish nodding and 'friendly' waving at me,  pulled ahead as soon as the traffic could move.

There’s more to this story which I don’t have time to tell tonight as it’s already after midnight…  I'll finish it up in the post tomorrow. 
 

All I can think is that he must now be aware of the Accident Report.  

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 224 (the compulsion to clean and a postcard from the set of 2010)

There's so much to do to re-establish life after the summer, buying food and cleaning supplies and scrubbing out the refrigerator (in that order).  And cleaning everything else!  The grime of New York City is everywhere and I especially love to clean when the challenge is great - I was inside, I was outside.  It occurred to me to ask a passerby to snap a shot of me with my broom and the leaves (leaves in August?) but I couldn't break stride for even that. 

So though this blog was supposed to get written hours ago, here it is after 11 PM and I'm wishing I were one of those people who has a supply of posts waiting in the wings.  Alas I am not so tonight I hope you'll be happy with a photograph from the shoot of Season 2. 

Chris Leone (Sound Mixer), Deb Micallef (Associate Producer) and I get ready to shoot while actors walk through a shot.        Photo by Sean Fox

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 223 (on composting, marketing notes, churning butter and the epidemic of road rage)

For the past fifteen months, when upstate, Mr. Green and I have been composting kitchen garbage. True to our let's-reinvent-the-wheel natures, we didn't buy a compost bin or read as much as an article on how to go about composting.  We designated a spot under an ancient pear tree 'the compost pile' and throw a piece of firewood on top of kitchen garbage along with a few stalks of cut hay. The fact that there are deer galore, raccoons and skunks, a large family of ground hogs and another of rabbits sharing the property has keep the question alive if what we put out for compost turns into their salad bar when we're not looking.  So it was with some joy that I went to turn the compost for only the second time this summer, a job that's supposed to be done weekly. 

Good news!  Our carrot tops, kale spines, egg shells and apple cores seem to actually be turning into a pile of black dirt!  But it's an awfully small pile of black dirt considering how much stuff we've put out there ... which leads me to believe that our salad bar theory is also true.

(there's actually a lot more of the black dirt than you can see in this picture...)

With mixed emotions, I washed my hands, packed up my computer and 'marketing files' and we headed back into the city.  Living in both the tranquility of upstate New York and the beehive of New York City is a joy I never imagined I'd know. 

But getting out onto the highway, it quickly became apparent that not everyone on the road was returning to the city from a tranquil place.  While I motored along in my zen state, one car beeped aggressively just to let me know he was passing and a number of drivers cut us off zigzagging from lane to lane at high speed. This prompted me to wonder: Whatever happened to 'passing on the left'? 

Shortly after a police car passed us and, I'm happy to report, he passed on the left, but was so far over the line into our lane that I was afraid he might clip us. This prompted wondering if modern life has gotten to be too much for me... Isn't that still the deal?  Don't we still each GET OUR OWN LANE?? 

Only yesterday I was marveling at an exhibit of farm tools at the county fair, astonished at how much effort, ingenuity, energy and the time of men, women, children and animals went into simply growing and harvesting the food. There was even a wooden treadmill for a '40 lb. dog' to churn the butter!  Nobody got off easy.

I don't want to romanticize an era when women were actually indentured servants without a vote, a voice or any rights at all, but it seems that in 'former times', this kind of behavior would not have been the norm. 

A) People would have been in horse-drawn carriages traveling at the speed of a jog and calling a greeting to each other-- or not calling a greeting but probably not trying to give the finger to or needlessly endanger a stranger's carriage. 

B) When you're out working up a sweat, breaking your back and seeing the fruit of your labor, you generally feel some sense of satisfaction and humility at your part in the greater scheme. 

On the road today, it looked like an epidemic of frustrated, angry and alienated people who actually don't know how to drive.  Mr. Green tried to put it into context: "I've heard of this before.  People get behind the wheel and their personality changes.  It's a sort of neurotic response to the power of the car."  Road rage?  At least today no guns were involved. 

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 222 (on surviving the end of summer, bad moods, sadistic elected officials and points on licenses with coconut curry)

This whole Go Big thing requires that I hang in there.  And in order to hang in there, I have to stay healthy and reasonably happy.  This post is going to drag you through a bad mood and out the other side.  

Until this afternoon, I’ve long suffered, but never understood why the the 20 mph speed limit around schools so irritates me.   Today the light bulb went on: it feels like a calculated and sadistic move on the part of bean-counting elected officials who (obviously) excelled in school and take some pleasure in rubbing it in.  For the duration.  Those of us who were not good at book learning are forced to relive the horror or risk points on our licenses.  

This afternoon as I crawled by the local elementary school (in a car), decades of bad memories glommed into one worse-than-usual baaad feeling which forced my chest to cave in and my face to wrinkle in a wince.  "See You at Back-To-School NIght!" shouted the signboard with the movable letters.  As I rubbernecked, I heard the over-loud school bell in my head and boom, another light bulb went on: a lot of elementary schools actually look like prisons. This observation was confirmed by a friend who pointed out that architects who design prisons often also design schools.  

I decided to take an action, change a feeling.  We went to the county fair.   

I read somewhere once that after a death you should treat yourself to the ultimate luxury.  The death of summer seems like a bonafide death so tonight I’m cooking rice noodles, kale from the garden and fish with a fabulous coconut curry. 

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 221 (on my worthy adversary Mr. Green)

After our night on the town, but before putting the car into gear to get out of our 'illegal parking spot', Mr. Green asked: "Shall we head back to our vigorous lifestyle?"

I was laughing too hard to answer.  Mr. Green, deadpan (but not kidding around):  "What's so funny."

I would've posted a picture of Mr. Green tonight but he forbade it. 

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 220 (Postcard from my night on the town - finding a parking spot with Mr. Green)

So it's feeling like the end of summer and the last joyless man and I decided to go into the nearby big town for the evening.  We circled around for a good fifteen minutes looking for a parking spot but there wasn't one anywhere and then we finally found three together.  Okay it was blocks from where we were going but, with some hesitation, we took it and as we race walked to our destination, Mr. Green became convinced that the three spots were available only because they were illegal and we would come back to find at least a parking ticket if not a towed car. 

So, supportive and selfless, in spite of hunger pangs, I suggested we double back and look for another spot.  But Mr. Green insisted that we press on (pointing out that everything would be closed if we delayed further) but that he was now certain that we had parked illegally.  I pointed out that the police would have no trouble finding us, two criminals on the lam headed to the health food store to get some gazpacho and corn bread. 

"Very funny Annie.  Here.  Lemme take a picture of you with these sunflowers."

P.S. The car was not towed.  And we didn't get a ticket. 

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 219 (on insomnia and dreams of success)

So the pendulum is swinging ... wildly.  I got very excited last night about what the future could hold.

(In case you've somehow missed out on 'the best t-shirt ever' (and can't read it here) it says "Anxious.  And tense.  The way I like it.  The Louise Log"

Unfortunately, worked up as I was experiencing this possible success, I couldn't fall asleep til 4:30 AM.  Not that I lie in bed yawning.  After an hour, I get up and read, file papers ... something.  I learned long ago that fighting insomnia is worse than insomnia. 

Mr. Green once remarked to someone that I make a great house guest.  "She doesn't need sheets or a pillow, or even a bed!  She just wanders around the house all night."  Well.  Not exactly.  Anyway tonight I'm turning in early.  G'night.

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 218 (on decoding messages in the mountains near Jasper, British Columbia)

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that one of the things I love most in the world is a sign, some kind of confirmation that I'm on the right track, some kind of guidance on what direction to follow. 

This passion sometimes edges over into obsession, as it did when we were driving through British Columbia in June.  Not wanting to lose his life at the hands of a distracted driver,  Mr. Green took the wheel so I could record the messages the mountains were trying to give me.  This way, I figured, I'd be able to take the time to study and decode them.  I took scores of pictures. 

Here it is late August and I haven't found the time to look at them. Until today. 

Anthropology wasn't offered at my college, I've never given more than cursory attention to hieroglyphics and I know nothing about languages which use alphabets other than the Latin one.  But I'm fairly certain that these mountains are rife with important information. 

Please let me know if you read or see anything I should be aware of!

There's a clear 'E P' in the red circle to the far left, 'S5' or maybe 'F5' in the middle circle and if that isn't a lucky horseshoe over in the right hand circle, I'll EAT MY HAT. 

If I were a musician, I would definitely be thinking about the merits of making an EP. 

As one of my favorite tarot card readers, 'Abby' from the old Gypsy Tea Kettle on 56th St and Lexington Avenue used to say "Is there a V, please?  A Victoria? A Veronica?"  Abby, a story in herself for another day, wore her hair in a huge platinum bee-hive and claimed to be Miriam Hopkins' son Michael.

I didn't bother to circle the three '0's' on the side of this peak so you could also find the five 'I's just to the left of them.  And the smiling cat face in the right middle ground.  AND SO MUCH MORE.

Maybe it's a blessing that I never learned Morse Code.  I'd be so busy here I might never do anything again EVER. 

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 217 (on feeling uncomfortable with people and meanwhile wanting to be on The Ellen Show and with an audience of millions)

I didn't mention that on my recent visit to see John Carroll the healer, he asked about the badly swollen knuckle on the third finger of my right hand.  It's been an eyesore since my student days and something I've tried to ignore.  Naturally, I was busy shrugging it off when John, with his usual directness, asked: "Who are you angry with?  Who are you giving the finger?"  No one could have been caught more off-guard.

Me?  Giving the finger? 

I'm sure I put on my thinking face while John went to work on the finger.  And I began to realize (and admitted out loud) that I've felt different and uncomfortable with people for pretty much all of my life.  Maybe a certain defensive attitude could come along with that, an attitude, it occurred to me, that it'd be hard to be aware of because of its pervasiveness, going from horizon to horizon, being simply the way things are.

It may have started when we moved just before Third Grade.  I told myself that I was just a little bit smarter, more discreet and from a better family ... and that's just the light stuff.  God forbid you should REJECT me.  At that point, the chin nose and eyebrows would go up and my many reasons for being different (let's face it, for being better than you) are reduced to only one: You're obviously not capable of grasping who I am.

This is not taking into account the dreaded flip-side scenario in which I suddenly lose all self-confidence and am cast to the bottom of the heap, in fact under the heap, a terrifying situation to be avoided at all costs.  You could see how a person with this paradigm of human relations could feel a little tense and the need to be armed with a finger to protect her position. 

But for someone who professes to want to be on The Ellen Show and to have an audience of millions, the world view seems like it might be counter-productive. 

In fact, for years I've been trying to get off my high horse. 

So when we were invited to go to a rodeo the other night, I readily accepted the invitation.  There were cowboys riding bucking broncos and even bucking bulls.  It was riveting entertainment and my heart was in my throat with the excitement and the danger.  And the people expertly lasso-ing heifer's hind legs while in mid-air for a matter of split seconds were exactly the kind of people I could see myself looking at down my long nose. 

I'm hoping to keep my heart open.  I'd like to think that that swollen knuckle is even looking a little smaller. 

The rider has been thrown off and is momentarily under the bull. 

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 216 (on panic, pain, and Stephen Colbert's life raft of acceptance)

I'm fortunate to have never had to battle depression.  In fact, I've hardly ever been depressed.  But today it's been in a downhill slide since before hauling myself out of bed.  I'd like to think this mood was caused by the second half of that hummus sandwich on the way home from the rodeo --or the barely five hours of sleep.  So I fought it off but it came back.  Again.  And again and again. 

I was starting to fear that the underlying panic (that I'm blowing it, that I'm blowing everything) has solidified into the new me.  

Here I thought it was good to have hopes and dreams (especially supported by astrological forecasts) that the whole 'vision board' thing was a healthy discipline.  Too bad, with my willfulness, it all turns into torture. 

So, not liking pain, I've been scouring for help.  "Plans but no expectations" says John M. Carroll, the (biblical era-type) healer who works with visualization and has helped me and thousands of others with conditions and/or diseases which sometimes (apparently) spring from inner turmoil.  "Forgiveness, no judgment or feeling slighted".  I'm sure he's right, but today I'm not hearing it.

Luckily, Jessica Arinella sent me a cover story on Stephen Colbert which is saving my life.  In the last third of the article, Colbert talks about suffering, about loving your failures and about the importance of accepting them.  "Acceptance is not defeat.  Acceptance is just awareness."  Whattt. 

Many years ago, I had a mentor in a successful artist.  He used to talk about the precious state of feeling completely defeated, that in that moment, your skin is "stretching".  I would think but not dare to say, "Easy for you to say, you with your museum retrospectives and your big career." 

Today his words came back to me with force after reading Colbert's words.  Combined with my late mentor's image of the stretching skin, an action-step came clear: I relaxed into the horrible feeling of my skin 'stretching' and, in an instant, the panic and the pain lifted.  Poof.  GONE.  It was just like the shift of hunching my shoulders and tensing every muscle to not feel a blast of arctic wind vs. relaxing and experiencing the cold as just another feeling.  Once the resistance is removed, it's a state without a positive or a negative charge, like a color. 

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 215 (postcard from my new studio with Mr. Green's storage bench)

Mr. Green very kindly put his many projects on hold to build me a storage bench and he completed it late yesterday.  With joy, I've been cleaning up the chaos of my studio all afternoon.  And while sorting and stashing, I was hoping that a blog topic for today would occur to me. 

Meanwhile Mr. Green is on to his next project, which involves a weed whacker.  For those of you who live in a city, you may not know that a weed whacker is such a noisy piece of equipment that it makes concentration difficult.  And to make things even more exciting, the pressure is on.  We're leaving to go to a rodeo in half an hour.  I've spent what would have been my writing time on several false starts and so for today, it's going to be a postcard from my studio.  Well, how about two postcards!  The 'before the storage bench' and the 'after'. 

Before

After