4-Hour Chef, Part 1

Kyle and I are about the begin the 4-Hour Chef program. Dad got me the book, and although I pretty much wanna kick Tim Feriss in the teeth (rich, white, male, blonde, thin and good-looking - HOW DO YOU MANAGE TO BE A SUCCESS, TIM, WITH SO MANY CHIPS STACKED AGAINST YOU?!), I like the idea a whole lot. There has always been the idea that true food-lovers have to eat unhealthily. I think that's true to some degree. But I've never explored getting INTO healthy food. Cooking it, appreciating it, arranging it, just like it was a cultural/ethnic type of cooking in and of itself.

Kyle will be learning to cook. Seriously cook. And we'll both learn to not just prepare, but understand and appreciate the healthy meals we make.

I'll keep this updated as we progress. We start Monday. Bon appetit.

Janus

Something terrible has been happening in the past few weeks. The Barbadian woman has come back. And, for the first time, I don't have Cliff anymore to fend her off.

I have nothing to keep her at bay, and I don't really know what's going to happen.

'Time sliding irrevocably into the past.'

There are moments in these last days I can actually see the Dunraven house's interior in the mirrors of this one. It's insane. But it's interesting the juxtaposition of the two places, and how I can very firmly assert myself as the owner here; this is my house, and there is no space here over which I do not have some measure of influence. I am the mother, the adult. This is Gillywimpis, instead of a space in which I merely existed.

But there are instants where I can't determine which place I'm at. It passes almost immediately, but it's still jarring. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be recalling something significant, if it's a by-product of getting another year older, or if I'm just losing a little more of my mind.

Resist

I've had a few opportunities in my life to Go Somewhere With My Writing. Nothing Cinderellish, nothing huge but avenues that, were I to pursue down them with serious dedication, might've yielded some recognition, if not fame. Recently, someone offered to give me some advice and assistance should I choose to try it again, and I found myself extremely grateful, but balking hardcore. I always balk hardcore.

The more I experience of that particular end zone, and the more stories I hear, the less I want it. I do not belong there. I'm not saying I'm above it; actually, I'm very aware how inferior I am to that kind of social/career circle. I don't like the people; I don't like the atmosphere. I don't understand it. I was miserable sitting in uncomfortable VIP white couches on the rooftop of the Amway Center drinking awful Stella Artois delivered to me gratis by a bimbo in spandex, surrounded by 60-something men with ponytails and their golden-prune wives as they sent up greetings to Chucks-wearing hipster filmmakers with fake exuberance. I was miserable in that stupid saccharine writer's group hosted by Connie May Fowler where everyone was jerking each other off and waiting to talk rather than listening.

I'm not comparing my writing to Ray, but I feel like he was the same way as far as social preferences or whatnot. He didn't even have a driver's license. I can't imagine he enjoyed the nonsense. Maybe he did. But, either way, he was so involved with cinema and literature and was happy. How did he do it? How do I do it?

I want dear friends to come over and to read me their stories and read mine for pleasure, not so we can write back-cover quotes for one another. I want to make movies and have the same kind of feeling on the first morning of principal photography that I felt when I woke up at Gogas' to shoot 'The Boys'. I want peace in my life, and humility, and magic. I don't want to be famous because people will admire or love me. I want to be famous because that's all the more people I can invite to see and meet and experience all the things I create that make me happy and get me excited.

I'm not unique in this. I see movies and read things all the time created by people who are just so excited and honest about what they're doing. Watching Duncan Jones bouncing all around at BAFTA or BIFA, can't remember which, just through-the-roof with excitement and joy - I loved seeing that. I loved seeing a filmmaker who was just hyper about people seeing his movie. It made me feel better about being a total goober about my own creative efforts. That's where I wanna be. That's my ultimate goal. I would gladly trade every chance at walking a red carpet or wearing a Bob Mackie gown or being on Oprah just to never have to schmooze or network or spend an evening in a club with The Beautiful People, and still make movies. I'd trade every chance for book-signings and a Barnes & Noble display of my books for never having a splash page of some other author's obviously fluffed up tit-for-tat review of something I wrote.

And there's another constant problem: I don't want to submit something that's less than my best, but my best gouges out so much of me and it's so much who I am that part of me is very afraid to let anyone other than people I actually know read it. My book of sonnets is there on Blurb, but I know damn well no-one other than family or friends will buy it. I have recurring nightmares where I'm sitting in this green room for either a talk show or a weird PBS roundtable or Inside the Actors Studio or something - some occasion where I'll be asked about my writing in front of an audience or a broadcase - and I flip out. I'll dream I crawl under a table, or start lying about why I can't leave the green room, or I'll lucidly have a hurricane hit and take out the power or something. It's this awful paradox where I want people to read or watch what I create, but I don't want to discuss it, or there's certain aspects I wouldn't be able to discuss.

We're going to do commentary for 'The Boys'. I'm excited for it, but I know there will be things I won't talk about - motivations for writing each of the characters, what I went through while writing the script, etc. Because it'll come out so stupidly pretentious, blathering on about a short film no one's even seen and maybe six people care about. I dunno. I think I'm just not cut out for being a legitimate writer. I wouldn't care, except that I'd like to earn my living with it and make enough so Kyle and I could make decent films.

Palisades

The pulpy emissaries arrived

And made themselves comfortable

Until they were not comfortable, and called

For me. I came, and met their demands

By chipping flecks from the settees, the fibers

Of the furniture

Going as mulchy as their occupants.

I was an adept hostess, covering all bases

Swirling through the kitchenette to coax canapés

From the tiny ovens

My guests rolled in concert to tour my estate

Liking the banners

Disliking the silence

Leaving their slopped castoffs in pools

For the heels of my Bergdorf-Goodman slingbacks

To drown in.

But I, ever confident, pursued the trend

Of whitewashing moments for company

And these unbaked ambassadors seemed to appreciate

The effort, if not the effect.

I knew not to be effusive

I knew to temper my sashays

They were traditional; they were ancient

So much depended on their conclusions

And collecting their runoff from the grooves

In my walls, on my floors.

I cultivated my carriage until they, at last, departed

Then my knees struck the ground, timed

With the shutting of my front gate

And I bent to begin licking up their refuse.

Ante

Now, once upon a time, there was a card
With tattered edges, marred by fold and crease
And, in a brand-new deck it wasn't hard
To spot, so folks knew not to draw the piece

But Jack came strolling up and eyed the deck
Held out and fanned by one just known as 'Fate'
He saw the battered card. He rubbed his neck
And stood there for a bit to contemplate

No one had ever thought about the 'why'
That made the poor torn card so sad and bruised
It's shabbiness served well to turn their eye
And pick a shiny card less frayed and used

But Jack saw every crease and fold and tear
A journey, an adventure or a tale
They seemed better instead of worse for wear
Those marrings called to him and cinched the sale

He drew the card; its face now matters not
He was the first to love the card he got.

Oh, Hello

I've always sort of made fun of Tori for humanizing her songs, calling them her 'girls' and giving them this odd sort of free will. And I don't think the things I write - poems or stories - are people. But they do talk to me. Some of them are insistent, some further themselves only when I'm about to fall asleep, etc.. But they all have different ways of making me write them, and all of them vex me in different ways.

This one is annoying, because it's not the one I wanted to spend my time on. I had other ideas, but this is the one I'm now thinking about constantly. It's not about any of my passions, it's not The Great American Novel. But it's the one that I'm writing and the one that won't let me be until I finish it.

Ah, well. Sometimes your Muse is an angry bitch goddess, sometimes it's a quiet, insinuating little shit.

Please Stop

Please, please stop.

Please.

PLEASE GOD PLEASE STOP.

It's time to disassociate from this, adult men. I don't care how good the show is. I don't care how many times you say The Humor Is Actually Aimed At Adults As Well As Kids and The Story Is Actually Really Cohesive and If You Actually Watched It, You'd Understand.

Son, sometimes good things get ruined by awful people. Sometimes, there's something awesome, but people take it over and turn it into something terrible. Sometimes an ancient symbol of good fortune turns into one of the most recognizable and reviled icons in human history. And it sucks, but you're never gonna get it back, and if you wear a T-shirt with it on it, no matter how many times you say The American Indians Used It Way Before Hitler Did, people are still going to want to punch you in the face. For good reason.

My Little Pony is now awful. Awful men have done things to it and made it awful. The show could be penned by the duo writing team of Shakespeare and Jesus, and voiced by Sinatra and Crosby, and it would still be awful because these awful people have done awful things with it. And it's such a damn shame, because there are so many little girls out there who love it and have every right to do so. It breaks my heart that my four-year-old niece is gonna grow up and learn what awful men did to her beloved childhood show. Fuck you guys. Leave it alone. Just leave it ALONE.

It's time to cut your losses and take your leave while you still have some integrity and decency intact, gentlemen-who-don't-fuck-or-fake-marry-ponies. I know several of you, and none of you are awful, but you are being associated with truly awful people. There are forty billion and seven awesome shows out there with clever writing and cohesive plot, and don't make you look like a pedo creepster. Go watch one of them. Leave the ponies to my niece and her friends and help it to stay appropriate and innocent.