Celebrations.

It's my Birthday!!

Last year at this time (almost exactly) I stood at Rockefeller Center and felt the pulse of New York City under my feet.  My mother and I were being tourists on a double purposed trip to visit John Lennon's memorial at Strawberry Fields on the 8th, and to celebrate my birthday on the 10th. It was late-day, and as the sun was reclining into the horizon, and the lights of Christmas decorations seem to glitter everywhere, I looked at Prometheus bedecked in gold by the ice, and I almost fainted.

It seemed like the weight of the entire city was dropped squarely on my shoulders and I absolutely reeled, everything a swirl of chaos and Christmas. As soon as the lightheadedness left me, I changed my entire life.

Rockefeller Center and the tortured Prometheus has appeared in my life twice, both during strangely revealing moments. Once, as the background while being proposed to, and the second, the background to breaking it off and leaving all of it behind.

It was sort of an epic birthday for a skeptic like me, to trust some sort of Universal message that led me to make gargantuan decisions and just blindly run for them.  Its one of very few moments that led me so clearly. 

This year, exactly 365 days of, as I've said to many people this year, "trying to figure my shit out," and I still have a lot of chaos swirling around me; I have a few more things figured out, but I am no where near a point where I feel like this year and this universal guidance has come to a close. 

What I know is that one year ago, I started onto the right direction. I am on some sort of path now, still kicking stones along the way, but gradually making progress.  My travels this year have allowed me to reconnect and fall in love all over again with my friends, stay up too late and be too social, go to bed too early and just sleeeeeep, burn the candle at both ends, rescue a dog, enjoy time with my mother, start restoring my Buick, put my Nova back together, take better care of myself, relax and enjoy a few incredible moments, screw up a lot, wake my passions for writing and acting, and move past bitterness that clouded my judgment.

To my friends and family that allowed this year to be all kinds of chaos and comfort, thank you. I have a weird, special thank you for Prometheus also. I often say "there's a reason for everything" is a bullshit statement said by people searching for meaning in a universe that functions mainly on energy and coincidence without any greater, guiding purpose. If I pass on the life-is-meaningless-existentialism for a minute and just look at the symbolism here, it's clear that this statue meant something, that's its somehow not a coincidence that it existed during these moments of both entering into something torturous to me, and the ensuing escape. For the unlikely task of making me think twice about the meaning of it all, thank you, Prometheus.



Skeptically Yours.

I wore pink. Part 2.

"Why the hell not" turned into a series of brief interviews, during which we talked about everything that happened during these last two years. the good folks from Harley asked mom about the experience with cancer, and right away I think they knew that we weren't going to be average.

Mom talked about the diagnosis very quickly, and the treatment even quicker. She talked about not wanting to join a support group, because in general, it was a bunch of sick people, talking about being sick.

Instead, she wanted to get through it, and fast, and be surrounded by healthy people that reminded her of the future, not the present. The Harley folks were smiling.  We talked about how far we were willing to go, even thinking about running to Mexico for coffee enemas and juice therapy. They laughed, they loved that we were laughing together.

They asked me why I started riding, and I wasn't lying when I pointed at mom and said, "because of this, because of the cancer." I know that was the answer they expected, but as I explained, I hope they knew it was genuine. I had been enamored, but highly fearful, of motorcycles. Involving myself in the car industry meant I got plenty of adrenaline, but bikes---nope. It wasn't until mom's diagnosis that I looked at my list in an old journal titled "things I want to do, but probably won't, because they're scary." So many of them had been checked off, surprising things I can't believe I was actually afraid of, but there were a few that remained. "Ride a motorcycle, " and a few odd ones here and there about love and my intense fear of commitment. I decided to tackle the motorcycles.

They asked my mom what bikes she likes, and she smirked and remembered the bikes I'd been showing her, rattling off "Fatboy, Softtail."  Wow. No wonder we were cast.

On Wednesday, we went to Leo Carillo Beach and met the crew of the print ads. They fed us an amazing breakfast, they put us through hair and make up, they put us on a Sportster and shot pictures for about an hour, fed us lunch, and called "that's a wrap." Before we left, the rep from Harley hugged my mother and I, and gave us Pink Label riding jackets.

Harley Davidson treated my mother like a superstar.

I have always admired the brand, always loved the rumble of a Harley V-Twin, always secretly wished I was a little bigger so I could ride the bigger bikes, and now...I fully respect them more than I could ever put to words appropriately. The people in their ads were real riders, not just pretty (although Holy Christ, they were pretty too!!). The causes they support aren't just on paper. Their brand ethos isn't just marketing.

As for word 'cancer' in our house---it's not a death sentence, it's not something we talk about often, and its not something we dwell on anymore. As Breast Cancer Awareness month rolls out and everyone is selling something pink, we haven't really ever participated.  It's been very under the radar.  Now though---now we're about to be on posters and online and wherever else, the faces of people affected directly by cancer, the faces of a brand all about "pink". And both of us will now make the exception to wear the color, so long as it's on our Harley Davidson jackets.

I wore pink. Part 1.

Pink---it's become the color chosen to represent a fight with or surviving from breast cancer. It's also been a color that I always found dreadful both for the girliness attached to it and simply because I hated it. As a symbol, I hated it also, because it reminded me of the very, very vicious disease that has, for decades, been picking my family off one by one. Not just breast cancer of course, I have a virtual medical degree just keeping up with the diseases from which my relatives have died. But breast cancer, surely, was among them.

It's a fact of life, partially from having a very big family.

Also, because it hit home when my mother called me on my way home from work over a year ago now, and told me, with weakness shaking a voice otherwise very strong and opinionated, that she was diagnosed with breast cancer herself.  In the months that followed, I jumped a plane countless times on the trek from LAX to CVG Cincinnati, read countless books about cancer on the journeys to and from, and spent days and nights with my mom as she was operated on, bits of her removed, stuck with needles, chemotherapied, and on and on all countlessly. Medical---very medical. Very clinical. The smell of antiseptic sends me back sometimes to swabbing her sutures, to watching bags of blackness slowly drip into a port in my mother's chest, to waiting awkwardly in a room with other cancer patients who didn't speak to each other for the fear of not seeing them again next week, and knowing why.

If I were an only child, it probably would have broken me. But I am not an only child, and my brother and I switching on and off with my mom meant we both got to spend time with her, we both got a break from the medications and hospitals and heartache. 

My mom, of course, never got a break. She lost her hair, her eyebrows, eyelashes. One never fully appreciates those things until the sweat beads from a torturous Ohio summer stream into your unprotected eyes, or until the snowy winter months leave your home encased in a snowdrift, the heater barely warming your sensitive, bald head. All of this, I observed as a spectator. My mother...well, she had to survive it.

And she did, and she's here, and we don't talk about it a lot because we all agreed to get on with life and leave the past to the immense universal shredder. And we don't wear pink.

Just this once though, I decided to go backwards for a minute and I asked my mother's permission. Harley Davidson, which has grown on me through the years as a favored brand and company and a helluva motorcycle, needed real riders and real cancer survivors to be poster girls for their Pink Line. They donate to cancer research through the proceeds of this line, and their donations may well have touched my mom's life and my life without us even knowing it at the time. In any case, I thought "why the hell not??"

Bitten!

I was bitten.

Yeah, those little eight legged bastards turned on me. I've been a friend to spiders since I was 15 and learned to cohabitate peacefully with arachnids at camp.  At Peace Camp, as it were, I wound up walking into a giant web made by a Banana Spider who wound up on my face, and I swear I thought I heard the poor guy screaming. It was a lesson, because as I stood silently trying not to die of a heart attack, he was scrambling madly to get the hell off of my face, as I was a giant that just tore down his home.

After that, I became tolerant. After being tolerant, I became fascinated.  And with fascination, I discovered a beauty in these creepy little multifaceted beings.  Even the ones that can hurt you. They're so complex, so varied species to species. What power they have, ya know? Spiders are almost certainly named among people's biggest fears. That's so Machiavellian, to be feared like that. It's brilliant.

So, that being said, my original statement that they "turned on me" was just dramatic flair. I rolled over on one, in the middle of the night, and found myself the recipient of four terrific little fang-marks. On my ass.  The spider was just retaliating in a natural way, and I can't blame him.  I hope he escaped unscathed, though it's an unfair fight, spider vs. human, and I clearly had the advantage.

Before everyone gets frantic about brown recluses' necrotic venom, have no fear. I did see a doctor.  I'm fine, thanks. It was probably one of those little common brown spiders.

Once upon a time, in Puerto Rico, I saved a Cobalt Blue Tarantula from a river.  She was struggling, trying to climb onto a leaf. It was a beautiful struggle, her long, insanely blue legs clinging, alternating as one would slip off, fighting for her life.  I waded out and put my hands under her gently and brought her to shore.  Once on the ground, she turned to me and stood on her rear-most legs in her attack position, backing away slowly.

Its nature to strike out at what you fear, at what could hurt you. It applies to all species. Maybe exposure and an open minded mentality, my process for accepting spiders, would be a useful tactic in eliminating all of the half-crocked irrational fears floating around out there. 

Okay, except for boats. Nobody's getting me on a boat.

Scroll down to begin your spider-love. 













Cute, fuzzy!!  The Spotted Jumping Spider. Adorable, no?





(Bigger than this in person.)  This is my absolute favorite picture of the big girl I rescued in PR, safe on a rock.

 
Skeptically Yours.

Sunshine and Unicorns! <---- Lie

Cynicism, pessimism, skepticism...

It's all very tiring, the isms I employ.

And sometimes, I need an outlet for said negativity, and that's where my very good friend, beer, comes in handy.  The conversations that occur over beer rapidly evolve (devolve?) into what seem like life-altering clarities at the time. Sometimes, the next day, not so much. 

However, I think that this time around, I have a few gems to share.

*There is no such thing as "timing," in regards to love.  If two people are drawn together through the amazing power of pheromones or chemistry or whatever you want to call it, "timing" is simply an excuse.  I have an example:  in my youth, I fell in love with someone and he with me.  Neither one of us fit the other's mold...you know, that sometimes subconscious picture of the person you need to end up with.  So, despite the love, despite those very strong feelings, it was never going to work out from the beginning.  We blamed "bad timing" when it occurred, but the honesty in the situation was that there was never going to be "a time" at all.

*Everyone has a mold.  Like it or not.  You may not have consciously made a list, but somewhere, through childhood movies or watching your own parents, you have a mold of the person you need.  If you're making excuses about the person you're with/pursuing, maybe it's because you don't meet their mold or they don't meet yours.  Either way, excuses like "timing" will never fix the issue. 

*Sometimes, sci-fi fans, collision IS imminent.  Emotionally speaking, that is.  As in the above example, this was a relationship catastrophe just waiting to happen. It's like seeing an accident that is bound to occur, but not changing lanes.  I stuck with it though because I always abide by the principle that you should take the long way home.  And sometimes, even though it sucks, putting ourselves through these emotional paces and allowing the wreckage to ensue just means that the reconstruction needs to be brilliant.  Sometimes you have to participate in emotional demolition, enjoy the journey, and then survey the ruins. 

*There is a time to stop allowing the collisions to occur.  The reconstruction can only occur so many times before eventually, the frame is warped. 

This conversation was sponsored by the amazing beer at Tony's Darts Away in Burbank and a very good, very smart friend.  Local craft beer, girl talk, and vegan sausages...the damage to my waistline is outweighed (no pun intended) by the minutes of optimism and clarity it induced.  It may not be optimism level: sunshine and unicorns, but for me, it's pretty damned close.


Skeptically Yours.

Snapshot.

Plenty of moments are fresh enough in my head that it's better than a photo.


Nowadays, we snap pics of everything with our phones and it means little...yesteryear, each picture had greater value because you had to DO something with it...you had to take the film elsewhere and wait anxiously for the pictures to develop. I remember wondering if I had taken the picture at the right moment, if I had captured what I wanted on film. There was an anxiety about the wait, and anticipation. Nothing digital, nothing immediate.

Those pictures I will always cherish, that's for sure.


But the ones that are most vivid are those that I purposefully and methodically captured with my senses...the smell of the moment, the sounds, the feel of fabric on my fingers, the imperfections. I have many of those photos stashed in the parts of my brain that haven't been eroded yet, and there's one that I would like to share with the universe, in case it makes a single ounce of difference in the balance of good and negative energy surrounding my Uncle Kenny, and his impending death.


My grandmother's table sat crooked because the floor sloped, in fact...it felt usually like the entire house sloped, but it was as much a place of comfort as it was chaos. My grandmother was still alive back then, and there was a smell of cooking hamburger lingering in the kitchen, mixed with the cigarette smoke from a mix of Salem Slim Light 100's and Kentucky Best. The house on Crawford-Day Rd was filled always with sounds of Aunts and Uncles and Cousins, back when there was familial gravity and we all convened in Mt. Orab at what then seemed like random moments.


I waited on my Uncle Kenny's lap for my cheeseburger, ignoring him and the smoke and all else that occurred around me. When he spoke, his voice was a sing-song mix of Cat Stevens and Bob Dylan...and just as unintelligible as the latter. His breath smelled like Budweiser, and his beard tickled the back of my neck. I felt nothing but peace and calm in the moment, sitting on my Uncle's lap, and felt very loved as his niece. I felt, in that moment, like my Uncle Ken would have done anything to keep me safe, even if it meant giving up his own safety, or comfort, or freedom.  It's one of the few times I have felt that.


It's one of my only memories of him, and its a very good and simple one. 


Tradition on the Whitaker side is to send along a picture in the casket of a loved one that has passed, so in honor of that long standing practice, I'm sending this memory along before he goes. Maybe it'll help pave the path upon which he is bound to travel shortly.



Skeptically Yours.


  Thank you to my dear and talented friend, Dustin Barclay, for letting me use this amazing song (off of an amazing album) for Uncle Ken. 

Wesley.

Foggy memories, that's all that left of Wesley in my brain.  I remember him crying, I remember being annoyed with dealing with a baby.  I was maybe 7, and that's all the exposure I had with my cousin.

My cousin was 7 years younger than me, and through time and miles and family squabbles, he was little more than a stranger to me.  That's what happens when families are large and spread out, honestly, when care isn't taken to stay geographically close to one another. In a family like mine, where Dad was one of 10 and Mom was one of 13, there tends to be little gravity pulling all of the extended cousins together.

For whatever reason, though, when I learned this Sunday that Wesley had died at 25, I was gripped with a feeling of loss.  It shouldn't have meant much to me, this virtual stranger's death, but it did. Coming to grips with exactly why its affecting me at all has been a conundrum, and I'm still not 100% resolved.

I think mainly it points to how short life really is, in varying degrees for all of us. I wonder if Wesley did any of the things he'd set out to do when he dreamed of life as an adult, but if he was like most of us, he probably didn't. Also, since he shared at least a shred of my DNA, there is that dread that the brevity of years will run in the family.

Whatever the case, the simple truth is that once most of us are gone, the vacuum of our disappearance is quickly filled with the fact that life moves forward with a trajectory that's nearly unfathomable.  Maybe that's the hardest part of facing death---knowing that eventually, you'll be forgotten.

I see it a lot at flea markets---very old black and white pictures of people that once were loved, cherished, hated...people that were mothers and sisters and cousins.  And now, they are simply a relic of days gone by, a moment captured on film and then in a blink, forgotten.

Overall, the feelings I believe that I am left with is that of infinite smallness, and of sorrow...sorrow for all of us, living as if we've already died, living as if we're ready to be swept aside into the mausoleums of time.

I believe very much in energy.  Each time I have an amazing moment, I close my eyes and I try very hard to capture the essence and the energy within.  It's my hope that Wesley had these, and that some of the energy contained therein still exists here with the people that knew him better than I did.

Skeptically Yours.

Jerks.

It feels like a lifetime ago...the day I drove in a daze to Ventura to shoot a short film for Forza Motorsports. I remember the Nova was running rich, fuming badly, but I didn't even stop to adjust the carb...I just floored it to make it to the set. The director knew I would be late, and he held up shooting for me so we could proceed as planned.

I had been cast in the film because I had three things going for me: I'm a girl, and I could talk cars, and I had my Nova. The director needed those three elements, and thus....I had a role playing a "Jerk American" that drove Muscle Cars. We weren't supposed to play nice in the film, I remember the direction was to be a little bitchy. So I was. It was easy to let the negativity pop through, because I had been up all night the previous evening, and was not feeling particularly sociable.


In fact, I had called the director at 5 am, telling him there was no way on Earth I could make it and he should replace me.  You don't do that shit in Hollywood---people start to think you're unreliable, flakey, all the bad things that add up to you never working again.

But there were other things going on. A best friend of mine had been in a horrendous accident the night before, and I had spent the wee hours of the morning at the Cedar Sinai hospital with her. I felt lucky to be included, to help her, to be there for the aftermath during which we picked up the pieces. For her to trust me, and think of me first, when shit hit the fan.

So without hesitation, I called the director and said "sorry..."

To my infinite surprise, he said they'd hold up shooting for a few hours while I made my way there, and so I got to do both things...help my friend, and shoot a short film. When I watch this film, I think back to the reactions of my friends and family who criticized my "attitude" in the film. I don't know...to me, it was just acting...it was playing a role of a cocky, jerky girl driving an old car. I got criticized for playing a major jerk in a film that I almost missed out on, because I was being a good friend. Interesting the many roles we play in our lives, eh?

That's why recently I started thinking back on this film...


Because its  interesting the many ways we're judged.  As I find myself being judged in new ways, sometimes I wonder if all we're seeing of each other are these superficial roles, the ones we're directed into as we're cast into the characters we have to play each day, and not, as Mr. MLK Jr. would say, for the content of our character. 



Skeptically Yours.

The Lost Fight for Lennox

Around the world today, people are mourning a dog that most of us didn't even know. I certainly never met Lennox, as he existed in a country I've never even visited, but had planned to.  I have, however, met, owned, and loved plenty of dogs that look remarkably similar to Lennox,  including my own Staffordshire mix, Joplin.

The summary, in case you haven't followed Lennox's case, is that he was removed from his family in Belfast, Ireland, because he appeared to be a Pit Bull...and in that city, they abide by the most ridiculous concept of Breed Ban legislation.  They intended to "destroy" Lennox, but the family fought it. Fast forward through a couple of years, lots of signatures on a petition to free him, celebrity backing, famous dog trainer Victoria Stillwell making pleas on the BBC, a Facebook campaign, and news coverage...and Belfast City Council killed Lennox this am. 

Breed Ban Legislation is the foolish notion that by criminalizing an entire breed of canine, the "danger" imposed by that breed will diminish.  It bases its "logic" on foolish statistics that claim AmStaffs and Bull Terriers (and Rottweilers and German Shepherds and Akitas, et al) are vicious.  Statistics, my friends, are not unbiased, because the gathering of said statistics is done in a flawed system, by flawed people, and though Math is objective, the system in which its collected and weighed is very much subjective.

The idea that we can become safer because we eradicate a creature based on looks and background has been proven incorrect time after time.  The eradication of an entire breed sounds a lot to me like genocide, and although at this time it's perpetrated against dogs and not humans, it doesn't make it any less foolish.  It's a disgusting, amoral activity that solves nothing.

I tell the story often of the "most vicious dog I've ever met." He was a poodle and made of something like 60% rage and 40% muscle. He attacked me with the intent to rip off my face.  Wisely, my parents chastised the owners and not the dog, because he was a product of idiot owners.  I know idiot owners of dogs, idiot owners of guns, idiot owners of cars, idiot "owners" of children.  They are all potentially dangerous, potentially murderous.  "Potential to murder", "potential to harm," that's all still Innocent before proven Guilty.  Living in a world where we are Guilty before Proven Innocent means we are all doomed before given a chance to either fuck up, or do well.

I'm skeptical about any blanket statements, anything considered a "blanket truth." No such thing, folks...no such thing.  Breed Ban Legislation is one of those Blanket Statement Laws....because the X equals Y, it's bad and it has be destroyed. Insert your own values, and realize that this an evil, foolish equation, and a slippery slope into letting our "leaders" into our homes to decide what elements of our lives are acceptable, and which of them are evil according to the state and must be removed.

I say BULLSHIT.  I won't have a moment for silence for Lennox.  I will spend a lifetime yelling "bullshit."

Skeptically Yours.

Birth of a Gearhead.

"How'd you end up working in the Auto Industry?"



What's a Seat Belt?

I get asked this frequently when I meet new people, and I start into the tale pretty much in the same way every time, talking about growing up around cars, watching my father work on them, my mom telling stories about racing on country back roads with her brothers.  I often forget that growing up with terms like cherry picker, dual carb, Deuce...these are things that are pretty rare nowadays.  I forget that your mother punching it hard, aggressively cresting a hill just for a rush of adrenaline while reminiscing about the long-gone Chevelle with the 396 is a bit of a storied, all-American childhood.  It's hard to believe that not every child got to be carted around (sometimes even in the rumble seat) in a '28 Model A Roadster.

Carcinogens? Nahhhh....

As a child, I crawled around under my father's project cars, screwdriver in hand, unafraid and unprotected from the hazards of such an occupation.  I listened to my mom ask questions of muscle car drivers, like "you running a 383 in that Road Runner?" 



I rarely find myself in the position where I'm waving an American flag and feeling immensely patriotic, because I've always been on the skepical side about our country, our motives, our actions.  After reading "Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq" by Stephen Kinzer, my notions about the corruption of the USA were solidified. (This is a must read.  In order to advance and improve, we must know our own past indiscretions. )  Buy here:   http://www.amazon.com/Overthrow-Americas-Century-Regime-Change/dp/0805082409/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341080506&sr=8-1&keywords=Overthrow



'Cept for the desk job is cleaner.

Still, minus the politics, minus the negatives, minus the mass-displays-of-ignorance...I feel lucky to have grown up in a culture of Americanism that many missed out on.  It instilled a passion for history, for individuality, for independence...for adrenaline.  I feel bad for the apathetic youth that don't have something that they feel is worthwhile, worth fighting for, worth pursuing. I never thought these early exposures to the automobile would seal my career destiny, but alas, it did, and I can't say I don't feel like it's appropriate for me, and that it hasn't paid my bills. It is, and it does. 

Passions are valuable.  There are a lot of different people who have famously said that if you find something you LOVE doing, you'll never work a day in your life. I find that a lot of the generation coming up behind me don't know yet what their passions are, and thus...they live an unsatisfying existence.  Growing up a gearhead, filled with passion for cars, landed me in just about every positive experience of my life, from being able to shoot films in Los Angeles as both a driver and an actor, working on cars to help my friends, and eventually, for the Big L, in the air conditioning, with benefits.

Genetic destiny at play.

It's not the 80's anymore, and I don't know a lot of people that have access to the type of freedoms I feel like I had as a kid.  Maybe trying to find one's passions in such a restrictive environment is a futile edeavor.  We've traded a lot of our freedoms for security, and it's in the opinion of this skeptic that in some cases, its the freedoms that we need more desperately.

 Skeptically Yours.

Underrated.

(Excuse random underlining. Blogger...why are you doing this to me?)

My mother snapped a picture of me as I knelt down to put the registration sticker on the Nova. It was a simple act, something I've done every single year for 15 years every time that little sticker would arrive from the DMV. This year, that small act seemed absolutely epic, as six months ago, I didn't even know where she was.



Victory!


The Nova, that is. I didn't know where SHE was...not my mother. I've always known my mother's location. Follow along, people.

It's a long story, and has culminated in an increasing feeling of bitterness that I wish I could shed. I have no time for grudges, they give me migraines, and yet this one... I will hold on to this one. It's not an option. Let's just say that the skeptic in me was wrongly quiet as my car was handed over as a project, and it's the one time that the inner skeptic should have spoken the fuck up.

Now that she's back, I've had ample time to roll around in my rust bucket, clackety clacking around Los Angeles just like it was 2002. Not much has changed, actually, she has a crappy 350 (again), a crappy bench seat (again), and a granny shifter (again). It's like I'm 22 (again). Except for...I'm not.


Back then I was attempting to make the Nova faster, better, cooler. I don't remember feeling like I had something to prove, but apparently I did. These days, I'm back to my motto, "fuggoff." Really...she is what she is, which isn't perfect. She's a little aged. She's of the type where people either love her or hate her. Just like...me.


As I cruise along with no music except for the exhaust note and the miscellany of ticks and rattles, I find myself singing to fill the void. It's interesting the songs that I remember, poignantly, with a little spice from Led Zeppelin's 1976 album Presence. "I was burned in the heat of the moment, though it couldn't have been the heat of the day, when I learned how my time had been wasted, and a tear fell as I turned away." Fitting, I believe.   It's also Led Zeppelin's most underrated album, but that's neither here nor there.

The Nova is a little older than me, but not by much. The gravity of the years and miles are apparent, and we're both a little...basic. Of the few things that in this lifetime have never let me down, and as a consequence, I never gave up on, she's the one that symbolizes most the fight for self. She's been reinvented a handful of times only to come back to the very same configuration with which she started. She's been mistreated, misused and neglected as well as loved, cherished, and enjoyed. And now, in this original configuration with her rust and dents and dings  (character!), she'll be appreciated more than ever.

Because I finally respect and embrace her for what she is, and because I've come a long way since 22, I can fully appreciate that lesson.  Even the part about the grudge.






Skeptically Yours.

With a Little....

Ignore the random underlines. Again. Still.

Part 2!! You didn't know I was doing a To Be Continued...did you? I didn't either, so we're completely on the same page. It's sort of like the ending to Back to the Future...they didn't exactly know it would be a trilogy, but they left it open just in case. If you're wondering, unfortunately Crispin Glover isn't in my Part 2, either. Sad, I realize.

No, this blog isn't about Back to the Future.

I'm back to friendship and connections. On a recent morning having coffee with my mother, she broke out some insane wisdom and understanding. For a minute I thought, "has she become a Buddhist, or has she just started quoting those Buddhist passages I see sometimes on Facebook?"

We were talking about friendship, and the lengths that real friends should go to in order to help one another. She said something along the lines of "Inconvenience is temporary. If you let a little inconvenience stop you from helping a friend, you're saying that a temporary feeling of discomfort is too much for you to withstand, so you aren't going to help them. What kind of a friend does that?" I'm paraphrasing. I was tired and on my first coffee, so I didn't take the clearest mental notes. She was much more eloquent than this.

Commenting in this manner was timely, because I have been pondering ephemeral moments of importance. When I said I realized that essentially everything is impermanent, everything started to make sense for me. Taking on temporary inconveniences in order to help someone you love goes hand in hand with this idea. When you look at it like that, the word "inconvenience" diminishes. "Opportunity" becomes more pertinent.

I have the opportunity at times to help my friends, and I'm more grateful for that than almost anything. I wouldn't trade my moments of inconvenience for the world, and I realize that my friends having endured inconvenience for me is the greatest gift I have ever received. Some of the very best moments in my friendships have been when I was the one to receive the "help me" call in the middle of the night for a drunk pick up, for a run to the hospital, for a...hmmm hmmm...alibi.   Not because I wanted see my friends in those positions, but because I was trusted enough to be the one to see them while vulnerable.


Now, where's the Skeptic? Great question. Your humble narrator is skeptical about many, many things, but on this particular topic, I have zero cynicism. So shoot me. Point being...I get by with a little help from my friends, but also...with a little help TO my friends.


Now for the full song, with the amazing, crazy Mr. Cocker. Man, I love this song.



Skeptically Yours.

...Help From My Friends....

Blogger is still randomly inserting underlines. Ignore!

I feel very 1967 these days. I have enjoyed multiple nights of cross-legged-on-the-floor-listening-to-records, comfortable at home with my mother, my friends, and my pets. Very few moments in life yield an "in the moment" feeling, but recently, I've been able to tap into that sensation and see the connection between people without over analyzing ulterior motives. I marvel at the extraordinary efforts that some people will make to create and maintain friendships, to connect, and while I've never had many friends, the ones I DO have are the best of the best.


I once became the black sheep of a corporate meeting by commenting about a marketing strategy for "connected customers", saying something along the lines of, "the greatest tragedy of mankind is that we are infinitely connected, but oftentimes feel so isolated." The reaction I got was something like this: BLINK BLINK, BLINK BLINK, moving on.

The skeptic in me usually adds a tagline every time I feel connected, saying "yes, but it's fleeting." The truth in this, that moments and even deep connections may very well be temporary, used to make me sad. These days I look back on everything in my life that meant something and realize that the most worthwhile, and most transcendent were brief but bold, and while I may be nostalgic, it no longer causes despondency.

Maybe its a little dark, but it makes sense to me that as death is an integral part of life and renewal, the very notion of our own mortality makes everything brief, and somehow then...brighter, bigger. Each connection that occurs, dies, is reborn, is changed...these connections are no less real or immense simply because of their brevity.

It reminds me of the first scene I remember openly crying during...and you can probably guess, it had to do with the sentiment attached to a vehicle. It's a scene from The Wonder Years, when their trusty Dodge Station Wagon* finally gives up the ghost. The montage following broke my heart when I first watched, somewhere in 1988. I watch it now and realize it's because I saw that impermanence is unavoidable, and that somewhere years down the road, we will all play montages like this one. Maybe that's why I connect with the movie Stand By Me also, because it makes it clear that even though these particular relationships were momentary, it made them no less important. They were epic. (Pertinent scene starts at 3:20 in the clip below).  And yes....the Joe Cocker version of "With a Little Help From my Friends" is on my Top Ten Best Covers List.

I'm not saying there isn't a permanence that can exist, I have lifelong relationships.  Just that...the small moments existing in transitory interactions mean just as much as the grand gestures elsewhere.  Maybe more.


So in this moment of nostalgia, I'd like to state a simple fact: the gestures of connection, of support, of honesty, of simple and silly entertainment, of laughter...these are immense, immeasurable moments for me. Fleeting or not, they have left indelible marks. These will replay in my ever growing montage. I am better for it, each day, with a little help from my friends.




Skeptically Yours.




*the Skeptic in me HAS to point out  that the sign on the Dodge says '63, but the car itself is a '68, and that Kevin refers to it as "9 years old" which would have made it a '60.  Continuity aside, it's a DAMNED good scene.  Scriptwriters largely aren't car people. Or apparently..."fact" or "math" people.

What works.

(Blogger is inserting random underlines in my blog. These are not my doing. Ignore, read on, enjoy)

If there's a lesson we can all take from Hollywood, it's that we should just go with what works. This is why every Tom Cruise movie is really all about his hair (its gorgeous...have you noticed?) and his sprinting skills, and every John Cusack movie will feature a scene where Cusack is sad, in the rain. It just works. Directors know this stuff going in, and so if there's a script out there with Tom Cruise in it, he simply must say to his underlings, "wait, where's the running scene? Write that in, and let's have an extra camera just for his hair."


Being at an in-between chapter of my life, I feel like I'm somehow more likely to get unsolicited advice. I've heard just about all of the catch phrases and pick-me-ups aimed at single women over thirty, and I feel like people don't believe me when I say, "no really, I'm good..."

All in all, I'm not bothered by the friendly punches to the shoulder a la "go get 'em, champ" and the advice to "get out there" and "you're still young, you have time," and I wasn't even bothered by the generous offer of semen. Yep...semen, like, "oh, it's it about that time...here, I know how to help." The thing that bothers me the most is when people say, "whatever is meant to happen will happen."

First off, there is no comfort in thinking that your path is all paved out in front of you. I don't like the idea of predestination because it's sick to think that I'm already doomed into some fate that was written for me by a conspirator somewhere in the ether of eternity. I know this is meant as a comforting phrase somewhere along the lines of 'it'll work out in the end."

But it's not. It's putting your faith about the future not on your own decisions, not on your own efforts, but in the idea that we're all coasting across the stage of life hung precariously on puppet strings. I think back to when my cousin and I used to play with Barbie dolls, and even at 9 or 10, commenting on how weird it would be if there were someone invisibly directing our lives as we did with our dolls. Even then it creeped me out, and that feeling never left.

As I get multiples of the "whatever is meant to happen will happen" phrase, I wonder...do people really believe that? Do they allow life, or pursue living?

I can't deny anyone their philosophies on life, and hell, maybe this shit is more scripted than I'd like to believe. However, for right now, I'm going to stubbornly cling to the idea that I'm writing this as I go, relying on the tried-and-true patterns of my own behavior to lead me and guide me out of this cavernous and confusing chapter in a comfortable fashion that works for me.

And now to illustrate that going with what works is an equation for awesome:


 
 
Which leads me to what works for me...which isn't to believe "what ever is meant to happen will happen," to decline any of the offers for baby-making, or to feel like I require anything whatsoever other than my own acceptance of self. 
 
And now, off to watch Say Anything.
 
Skeptically Yours.
 
 
 

Bigskeptic is in Love...

...with Spotify. Tried it?

Since music ranks up there as one of the most potent, poignant, and pervasive (alliteration RULES!) aspects of my life, I think these people have hit the nail on the proverbial (okay, I'm done with the letter "p") head.  Based on the fact that folks like me will buy hundreds and hundreds of dollars of music every year, I think sites like Spotify have the right idea in letting you build playlists and discover artists, essentially test driving your music before you get incredibly hooked and plop down your dough.

The only problem...and it's actually a large one...is that with the free music, I've been building playlists for everything. Most of my memories of major events or major people are tied up in the music from that moment, and sometimes it's absolutely comforting or enjoyable. Sometimes...sometimes it drags me down to wallow in the funk of yesteryear.

Some of the music I found on Spotify is way too personal, as it belongs to an ex of mine's old band. That brings me to think not just of the past, but of past-love fuck-ups that I have made.  You can imagine with that, I've built a LOT of playlists.

I was told once that being consistently the one that walks away from relationships is a major red flag. I would completely agree---if I weren't me, I certainly wouldn't date me. Does that make sense? I mean, I do sort of have a pattern.  I wrote a blog not too long ago....Rage Rage Against the Dying of the Light...and I was damned determined to stop protecting my heart in order to allow myself to feel things, to put myself out there..and blah blah blah.

The inner Skeptic is still winning, folks, because whenever I get the nudge of an emotion trying to peek out and draw attention to itself, I poke it to death until it retreats. Being vulnerable, even for the mere 22 seconds that I gave it a go, is terrifying.  In that small window of time, I think I was more frightened than I had been in my entire life.

It isn't easy, and your humble narrator gets a big, fat "F" in my efforts to release the control and allow myself to feel elation, love, disappointment, heartbreak. I thought I was cruising along okay until I made the mistake of looking backwards, of listening to the music of that one particular ex.   He sings in one track, "I was meant to stay and fight, you were meant to burn out bright, and we were not meant to go quietly into the night."  It was poignant...

Burning out bright---that really means getting the hell out of dodge while everything is still good and perfect, before it starts to fade and temper your memory of it. I have always walked away, minus a few times, at the very peak. The inner skeptic yells "flee! Run! It's about to get shitty!" And of course, I listen.

Still, even with the songs that bum me out, Spotify has become my new best friend, allowing me at least honestly and quietly feel whatever the hell I need to feel, freely, and to choose to share (publish playlists) or keep it to my damn self (private playlists.) For that, I am thankful.

For a taste of some of the tunes I've been listening to, check out some of my playlists on Spotify here:

Grit
Winona
Beach Rd.
DRUMS

Skeptically Yours.