Without a Net

Oh, my little brain has been bouncing around like the ball in a freakish, high stakes game of ping pong . My personal movie score changes second by second from the Rocky theme to World on Fire to Greatest Love of All.

OK, so I made up that last bit (Whitney Houston? Please.) but you get the picture. I have a burning question that plagues me. My constant inner dialogue sounds pretty much like this: Follow the money/follow the bliss? Follow the money/follow the bliss? Follow the money/follow the bliss?

On the face if it, such an easy question, but my optimism (glass half full) is usually tempered with an extravagant dose of realism - some might call it "pessimism" or "anxiety" or "vibrating too high". I call it The Glass Half on Fire.

Some dead existentialist once said that perception is reality (So, does he now perceive that he is dead? How do I know the color blue to you is the same as... ) Yoda said, "Do or do not do. There is no try."

Indeed, but platitudes do not shoes on the baby put.

The point I'm trying to make, in my rambling, parenthetical way, is that my entire view of the question of whether to keep the money job or go for the bliss job changes so dramatically and thoroughly depending on which way the wind is blowing. I have my head up my navel, searching the universe for a guarantee that everything will be OK. I've asked my parents what they think, my friends, my dogs, fortune cookies, the In Style horoscope page, random bumper stickers, the set list at Friday's Ani DiFranco show. Surely the omens are out there trying to guide me. Why can't they speak up???

The fact is that there is no guarantee. Clinging to the notion that I can find it somewhere will simply result in my dying the thousand deaths of the proverbial coward. According to Zen, it is this desire to always avoid pain and seek out security that causes suffering. In Zen, it is only by embracing groundlessness, by swimming so far out to sea that you no longer have the reference point of the shore, that you can become awakened.

Really? 'Cuuuz that sounds like it would make me rilly, rilly, uncomfortable.

Perhaps another analogy would be that, in the great trapeze act of life, you have to let go of the one trapeze in order to catch the next one. Otherwise you just hang there, swinging and running of momentum, eventually calling "A little help here?" to an empty circus tent. And no, you don't get a net.

I tell myself that the decision would be easier if I didn't have a child to consider, but maybe that's disingenuous. I'd agonize about it in any case. The real question is this: Is it a better life lesson for him to see his mommy following her dreams and standing up for her convictions, or for him to have a miserable corporate mommy who buys him lots of crap but hates her life?

I gave notice at my corporate gig yesterday.

**********

PS: On the topic of religion, I give you Eddie Izzard's Church of England.

All about... All About Eve

I am positively buzzing with scratch-your-eyes-out catty joy, as I have just finished watching All About Eve, arguably my favorite movie of all time. Well, "watching" is perhaps too passive a term. "Reciting along with" may be more appropriate. The dialogue is so wickedly.. well, wicked. It's not campy, really, but it never fails to brings out my inner drag queen (my drag queen/tranny fixation may be fodder for a future post).

I mean, really, the whole movie is just a smorgasbord of one zinger after another. Here are just a few that make me as deliriously happy as John Waters in a condemned trailer park:


Addison DeWitt: "You have a point. An idiotic one, but a point."


Also Addison DeWitt: "You're maudlin and full of self-pity. You're magnificent!"


Eve Harrington [throwing door open]: "Get out. "
Addison DeWitt: "You're too short for that gesture."


Miss Caswell (Marilyn Monroe in her first bit part): "You won't bore him, honey. You won't even get a chance to talk."


And of course, the classic, Margo Channing (Bette Davis): "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night."

For the record, I do a mean Bette Davis impression. I think it beats my lip-synch version of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", but not by much.

Have I mentioned that I'm a drag queen trapped in a woman's body? (Stay with me, I know it's confusing).

Next up, Sunset Boulevard. Oh, snap!

Jeff Tweedy is trying to break my heart.

It's a beautiful, sunny day. I'm painting my son's room an impossibly cheery color, listening to Wilco and trying not to cry.

For the last 9 months or so, I have been preparing to leave my fat corporate job and go to work for a non-profit foundation that I adore. I mean, if they made baseball cards of these people, I would have all of them. Framed. I don't think I could have dreamed up a position that would better suit my skill set as well as my passion. They actually created the position just for me! It's a big drop from corporate money to a non-profit salary, but there was no question in my mind that I would rather cut corners and follow my bliss.

Of course, my financial picture has changed somewhat since X left. X is thirty-nine, by the way, and he left me for an eighteen year old girl. And yes, you're damn right I'm bitter. As a matter of fact, I will henceforth refer to him as XS. Extra small, indeed.

Anyway, last week, I met with my financial advisor, who told me in no uncertain terms that I cannot afford to take my dream job unless they're willing to give me significantly more money. I have explained my situation to Dream Job, Inc., and they are looking into it but I'm not holding my breath. Well, actually, I am holding my breath, but I'm not optimistic.

For the last ten years, XS has lived completely off of my largesse. I funded several album projects and an entire recording studio (none of which made a dime), and then paid all the bills so that he could go back to school full time, finish his bachelor's and get a master's degree. After years of waiting for my frog to turn into the prince he kept swearing to God that he was, he finally got a job... and then he left.

Fine, I thought. At least he's done fucking up my life, I thought.

My bad.

"Just shouldn't ever have to be this
hard"

Amen, Brother Tweedy.

Spider Detente

(Spoiler: Moderate gross factor. Proceed at your own peril.)

I don’t like spiders.

Intellectually, I understand how useful they are and, somewhat more vaguely, why etymologists get so wiggly about them, but that doesn’t stop the rush of fear based adrenaline that I feel when ever I see one. (Garg!) See, I used to have really scary dreams about spiders. I don’t want to freak anyone out, so I won’t mention that they had largely to do with spiders laying eggs in my eyeballs.

Oh… sorry.

But I have come a long way. Back in the day, I would frantically call to whomever was in earshot and command/beg them to dispose of the offending beast BY. ANY. MEANS. NECESSARY. But then came that pesky Buddhist thing about not harming other creatures, blah blah blah.

So the spider world and I came to an uneasy détente. I stopped commanding their destruction and they continued to be utterly unaware of my existence… Except in those little spider meetings where they talk about where to put the egg sack and all of that. Then I was prime real estate.

So I was hugely impressed with myself for living peacefully alongside a particularly creepy looking spider that took up residence in my bathroom. He (I say ‘he’ despite having no idea or desire to know what spider boy parts look like, but just because I thought it looked like a he. Look, I don’t know. OK?)… HE settled into a high corner of the slanted ceiling where it seemed unlikely that any spider molecules would fall on my toothbrush or anything, so I thought, “Fine. You just be sure to eat any skeeters if you see ‘em and you can stay.”

By the third day, I was feeling a little benevolence toward my eight legged buddy. I found myself looking for him each time I went into the bathroom – and not in an “is it going to bad-touch me” kind of way either. We were coexisting. Beautiful. Yay for me.

On day four, I was a bit taken aback to find that he had repositioned himself over my shower. Suddenly he was the unwelcome settler in my little porcelain Gaza strip. I showered uneasily, never taking my eyes off of him and almost hurling myself bodily out of the tub when he appeared to stumble at one point. Great. Nothing like being naked with a clumsy spider lurching around over your head.

But we made it through without incident. Wow. I was really getting good at this whole compassionate abiding thing.

The next morning, as I pulled back the shower curtain and my eyes traveled up to the ceiling…

(Insert here: screeching violin theme from Psycho)

… I saw two spiders. Or, really, the desiccated remains of one spider and another spider standing fatly over them.

(Skree! Skree! Skree! Skree!!!!)

Now I know as well as the next person that female spiders mate and then kill and eat the males. Or something. So either my spider had just had his innards sucked out of him or he was a she who was now joyously expecting the patter of a squillion little feet.

It didn’t matter. I had come so far.

I grabbed a broom and squashed her all by myself.

Ain't gonna be no egg sack, byotch... Ain't gonna be no egg sack.

The Bungalow of Perdition

Somewhere in the vicinity of Dante’s Seventh Circle of Hell is The Bungalow of Perdition. This is a special hell for obsessive types. It’s unspeakable.

If you want to torture a perfectionist, I mean really torture them, stick them in a badly painted room with a can of Pratt and Lambert and a linty roller. Come back three days later and you will find them writhing in agony and sanding miniscule bumps off the ceiling.

In a funny coincidence, just yesterday I was sanding miniscule bumps off my own ceiling (I have a sander that hooks up to a shop vac so there is no dust!). Of course, I realize that this is a bit over-the-top, hence there was some rather spirited self-talk in the process.

This is ridiculous. I need to get down off this ladder and walk away… Oh. My. Gawd! That crack over there! Where is my Dremmel tool???… Just put the sandpaper down already… OK, just this one more little bump… and this one…

In my defense, I have to say that the people who owned this house before me (bless their hearts, etc.) were not exactly crack home-maintenance types. I imagine it was they who are responsible for the very sloppy paint jobs that are the source of my torment. I’m serious. They painted over EVERYTHING. Door knobs, switchplates, lint… I fully expect to come across a spider, sealed forever in mid-skulk in some LaBrea tar pit of cheery yellow latex.

Anyone remember the old décor idea of jamming candles into an empty bottle of Chianti and letting the wax drip down the sides? Yeah. That’s about what my walls look like (at least through the filter of my obsessive personality). Seriously, they are drippy. And don’t get me started on the trim. I’m mystified that anyone could do such a bad job. Were they wasted? Grossly sight impared?? Why, God, WHY???

I was reminded of a conversation that X and I had a long time ago with our very excellent therapist, Margie:

Margie: “So, you’re a bit of a perfectionist then.”
“I hardly think so”, scoff I.
Margie looks at me quizzically.
“Well, if I were a perfectionist, wouldn’t everything I did be perfect??”
Margie and X exchange glances.

There is a little known legend about Vampires that they are obsessive counters. I have often wondered if someone at the Children’s Television Workshop knew this or if it was just Sesame Street Serendipity that they came up with Count Count. Anwyay, folklore says that if a vampire were to come upon a bag of rice, it would have to count every grain before resuming pursuit of its now long-gone victim. Me? I can be suitably paralyzed with that can of Pratt & Lambert.

Anyway, I gotta go. Lots of sanding to do. My god, these people were savages.

Frivolous Friday. Why not?

I can write music!

Hawaii Five-Oh
Ba pa ba pa BAH bah ba pa ba pa baaaaaaa
Ba pa ba pa BAH BAAH, ba pa ba pa baaaaaaa!
SQUEET bwe de zoop dee bwee da de daaaa
BRREEET doodley-adah bwe da da da
bum pum ba pa baaah BAAAAH, zoop da da da DAAAAA!


Yeah. I can scat. What about it??


My cat can paint.

Words to live by

Someone sent me one of those sappy e-mails today.

You know the ones - toward the end, there is inevitably a line in which the author "had to hold back tears" due to some gesture or words from a noble stranger, preternaturally benovelent child, etc, etc. They always strike me as contrived and sacchrine.

O! Drippy Internet Wisdom! O! Chicken Soup for the Soul of the Glassy-Eyed Keyboard Kommando!

This stuff just grates on me. Apparently the writers who gave us "A very special episode of Blossom" now have too much time on their hands. I, on the other hand, am incredibly important and busy and have no time for this dreck (Um...pay no attention to the hypocritical woman behind this blog-o-curtian).

So I got this dopey e-mail. Not sure why I actually read it but, after I waded through the corny- corn of its literary manure, there was a kernel of meaning, and it was this:

Life isn't about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain

My hackles went down a bit. I exhaled. I...I liked it!

I thought about so many friends old and new, and all of their storms, large and small; the Mayor's broken arm; Liv's Really Really Bad Week; M's marriage; my own marriage; friends who have lost spouses, parents and grandparents recently; the list goes on.

It's raining like hell out there, people.

That's it. I'm trading in my umbrella for some tap shoes. Who's with me??