The bed-rocky stuff

I'm lucky enough to be a part of community of lovely creative driven inspired people who let me play with them and it's the best.

The last couple of months, life has surprised us. Like, shaken us in weird ways. The bedrocky stuff.

Relationships that seemed as solid as sailing ships have ended. A landlord ended up supporting a nazi.

It's all very grown up in some ways, and makes us question and confide and reflect and sometimes take action.

I'm very grateful those in leadership positions are truly leaders, transparent and brave and humble.

We're very lucky.

It's the bedrocky stuff that shakes us. 

Cross posted from G+ - - Mother's day

It was an EXTENSIVE mother's day... even though my feelings about the day itself didn't start as the greatest.

Mother's Day is complicated.

Today was pretty wonderful.

My mom was in town.
Me, Mom, Oscar and my sister (and her dog) went to the park.
We stopped for treats.
Mom left for Sux City. (boo)
I bought myself a slice of pizza and didn't share my dessert with anyone (in a blur of "what do I need?" and basic greed.)
I laid down for a hot second.
The internet is a sentimental place on holidays, made up or no.

A robot helmet was dug out.

I am grateful to live in a city (a world perhaps) that people are impressed and ready to be impressed (or at least smile) at a four year old in a robot helmet.

It's a pretty great helmet.

He's a pretty great four year old.

A running hug from T. Danger!
A year with Frog and Toad! (Bradley Greenwald IS a treasure. There's this cookie scene...)
An unexpected backstage tour including backstage cookies!
Sandwiches!
Unexpected Mother's Day wishes from strangers!
Pillsbury House Chicago Avenue Project!
An empty dance studio to play 3 Little Pigs in!
More hugs and generosity and big kids who chased Oscar around like madness!
Kind grown ups who liked my play! (and had much deeper things to say than expected)
Leftover home made eclairs!

And really, it all sort of started last night.. Off Book was an unexpected treat.

All this, and... Neil Gaiman has another American Gods episode waiting for me. I probably won't be able to watch it tonight. I look forward to it's smart stupid lurid well cast-ness. I crave this more than a brunch.

Happy mother's day. It's still complicated. But still, it was a day. And what a day.

Honolulu: cross posted from G+

We are in Honolulu (PG has a conference, and was lucky enough to find dirt cheap tickets). Without the kiddo. He's with grandma and his Aunt, keeping them awake longer than either expected. It's very indulgent, and also very nice.

 - I know so little about Hawaii. Never mind how much Magnum PI one has consumed. But.. I wasn't pumped to be in a city while in Hawaii (which is a very privileged thing to say). Because nature is what Hawaii has in mind-popping ways, and a city can be a city.

But - - Honolulu is neat. I had no idea.

 - A mix mix mix. It would be very hard to be here if you were expecting a place where everyone looks like you. Or wanted an IHOP without hanji translation. You're a one one one ratio with tourists (and locals) from all over the Pacific.

 - Which means it's not hard to find noodle shops and matcha ice cream and korean cafes and McDonalds that serve Portuguese sausage and spam for breakfast..

 - I love Hawaii grocery stores with all of my tiny little heart. Mix mix mix.

 - There's also British or Australian people here. If they're actually British, I tip my hat at their perseverance through a hell of a plane trip. If they're actually Australian, they move very slow while shopping and don't say much. Which doesn't seem very Australian. (I'm judging them all.)

 - I have eaten spam every day and I will not stop. If you offer me Musubi (spam on rice wrapped in seaweed for under $3 a 'sandwich'), I'm gonna eat it with a joy verging on desperation.

 - More rice sandwiches!

 - The beautiful surfers, male and female, young and old, who's bodies are shaped by ocean daily. They're all relaxed lean and muscle, who have very comfortable relationships with their swimsuits. (My relationship with my swimsuit is fine. Maybe a little humorous. I only caught one man eyeing my belly button in strange ways... My belly button is on it's own particular journey through this pregnancy.)

 - We are staying by Waikiki beach (fancy!). Today we drive to the North Shore (fancy!) to watch more surfers and see if PG can find a sea turtle. I'm hoping for some duck diving and more spam.

 - I get back Tuesday morning on a red eye. BWAHAHAHAHAHAH. Let's see how that works. It's five hours behind Mpls. Crossing all fingers and toes.

Onward.

My mom swears

My mom swears.

It's now a mark of intelligence (and my mom is very intelligent. Even though she would down play this instantly. Which is probably also a sign of intelligence.)

But, I don't swear around my four year old. I really don't swear much lately, as much of my time is spent around kids.

I pride myself in the code-switch, for better or worse.

But I don't necessarily know if it's a good thing.

So... we don't use swear words. And my mom does. And I twiddle over every well-placed swear word Grandma utters in the presence of the four year old. Probably unnecessarily. As worry may not be a sign of intelligence. 

Start Again. Start Over.

Going with a new plan. My morning quiet time (usually 10 minutes or so) will be used to write. Sorry, world - - here it comes.

I love talking about process when it either comes to things I love love love or to other people's process (as in, encouraging).. but it's the other people's processess that I don't hear about that are really the bomb and that I excite and jealous over. This guy wrote a book. This guy finished a play (usually with a couple of other people and a lot of literal falling down. This gal opened a theater.. or, possibly more important, talked her stories in front of a lot of people over and over until she realized how to do it really well.)

My friend Joe is inspirational in this. He writes poems and sends them out into the world. Poems! The scariest, most personal, most poem-y of all art forms. You can't photoshop a poem. You can't act it into greatness. It just is.. and they're beautiful. I don't have to like every poem he publishes, but I can peek. And now, as far as daily poems goes, he has gallons of poems.

To the makers go the stuff. But let's just put it into a "to the practicers, go the stuff".

On another note, PG is being incredibly loud in the kitchen. I don't know if it's because he doesn't has his ears on, or it's just how he would anyway (or if I'm extra tired this morning), but if there's a cupboard to bang or a bowl to drop or a microwave to slam... he is into it. 

Your 'holiday' is dumb..

We're not really doing holidays over here.

We didn't really do them last year either. Felix was in the hospital. They were just sort of a blur, except for what the staff (very wisely) made of them and other special days. (But the other days were special for a reason - - they were based on him and other family.)

All other holidays seem very arbitrary and, like cold weather fireworks, stupid.

I know they're important to mark the passing of a human life, but... these dates are made up. Why these dates? Why not? (Because they're stupid dates in the middle of winter. Australia wins the holiday war.)

I'll celebrate my own holidays without knowing that they're holidays except in reflection. I'm forever grateful for the time I have and what I've got. Someday, maybe Christmas will feel like Christmas again, and I really do like to go dancing, but for now, I can't. Christmas is when the lights get hung up, New Year's is when it's really expensive to go out, and the neighbor has a party until 12:30 a.m..

And inexplicable cold weather fireworks boom inexplicably from 12mid - 12:45 a.m.. (WHO'S WATCHING THEM? Imaginary dickheads in tall towers, that's who. I truly don't understand.)

I don't care to mark the passing of 2016 because I'm on a different timeline.

I'm glad folks are enjoying it and I am forever grateful for the joy and support and play those friends have brought me. I'll wish them love and can't wait to see their faces. I can't wait to play with them again.

Happy 2017, folks.

Hero Heroes Heroes

Carrie Fisher passed away yesterday, and that sucks. She's fine - - it just sucks for the rest of us.

The public grieving of Carrie Fisher and the explaining... always the explaining.. I don't know if it comes with that variation of geek grief, but everyone seems to not only be grieving, but explaining WHY WHY WHY.

(Sidebar - - growing up, I had no one to talk about science fiction fantasy comic books etc. with. I kept it mostly to myself, except for getting really excited when my fifth grade teacher chose to read Lloyd Alexander's "The High King" out loud. I remember Alana Olson complaining something about how I was the only one in class who liked books like that... but having her read that particular book was magic. After I grew up, and found myself at a couple of Science Fiction conventions, I grew pissed. Here are a group of people with your like-minded interest.. and they were arguing over who knew the most. They were one-upping each other on the trivia vs. celebrating the amazingness of it. Pissed Jen. It was like playing with musicians who were gear heads. I don't care what your instrument is: I care about how it treats you and you treat it. Maybe I just didn't find the right folks. Who knows... )

And here I am explaining why...

Princess Leia was the bomb.

She was not only my hero, but basically my only choice of hero. Visually represented speaking. The 80s were a great time for adventure movies, a rough time from heroines. Most female characters were just plot devices to get the white straight hero in trouble. There was a lot of screaming. So much screaming.

Princess Leia did not scream. She got shit done.

She had awesome outfits and wore her long brown hair (representation matters, folks) in actually practical ways. She was brave without saying she was brave. She was frustrated at the ineptness of the males around her, and just wanted to get the shit done.

SpeederBike Chase! Communing with Ewoks! Cloud City Dinner with Vader! Garbage chute! Bustin' up a Starbux! WHY DID SHE NEVER GET A LIGHTSABER! GAH!

I was her for multiple halloweens, and when in Kindergarten, we were able to make hand puppets out of paper bags, I made Princess Leia. With a tiny black blaster.

All my other heroines of note were letters on a page, until the edited-for-TV version of "Aliens" showed up and suddenly I had 3+ badass female heroines (I include Newt. Newt survived for a very long by herself in a spaceship full of monsters. Newt's great. And Martinez! And that poor pilot!) And of course Ripley, who, again, frustrated by the ineptness of the males around her, got shit done. Points for being a brunette.

And that was about it.

Marvel comic books eventually entered my household, and I got that weird mix of often poorly written but pretty awesome heroines (Hi Kitty Pryde. What. You also have a pet dragon. What? You're a brunette? That's fantastic.) and boobs. As the 90s continued, the scale tipped to all boobs all the time, and I gave up.

Things (obviously) have changed, thank god. The YA genre is filled with very capable heroines, and new comic book heroines have appeared, fully dressed. And, visually speaking, we've got a Rey and a Jyn and a Katniss and that poor tortured looking girl from whatever Divergent is. Hopefully we'll get some non-white heroines in there eventually please.

And Carrie Fisher. We love you, Carrie Fisher. You were smart capable honest flawed and funny. Your smile was amazing. Thank you for putting up with us, and not putting up with our shit. I wish you were still here.