Awkwardly Social

Summer has finally arrived in Los Angeles.  This morning as I walked out into the muggy, rain speckled morning, and felt the weight of the air, I flashed to summers spent in the mid-west, playing cards in the basement with my sister and cousin, riding bikes to the corner store to buy pop-rocks and blasting through a huge stack of novels.  I had a special childhood in many ways, a charmed life, I have so many good things to remember and summertime brings it all flooding back.

I felt very sad about not getting pregnant in June.  I was so sure I would.  I boo-hooed about it for a day then I read an article about a study conducted that said women without children are far happier than those with.  Even worse, women with children are the least happy when they are physically with their children.  I’m sure there are about a 100 other studies going on right now to figure out why that is true or if it is untrue, and I can guarantee it has something to do with this new theory I’m forming about the bill of goods sold to women of my generation and (I expect) the generations following.  The bill of goods that says you can have it all, you can be whatever you want, you can find the man of your dreams, you can live the picture perfect life and not only that, if you don’t - if you aren’t all of these things - a mother, a college educated career driven woman, and a wildcat in the sack with your loving devoted husband - you aren’t trying hard enough, and you’re a failure.  Hard to believe women would be unhappy when we’re expected to do all of these things and the men of our generation are promised that we will be all of these things - and they don’t have to do one damned thing different except not open the door for us.  It’s a theory I’m still fleshing out, but when I start to really think about it, I start to really get pissed off.

Mostly though, the past few weeks have been spent trying to respect myself.  I learned something about this in therapy.  I spend a large part of my day finding fault with myself.  The part about therapy that really started to get me down, was that I was expected to wallow in the failures of my upbringing.  Wallow in the ways in which I could blame everyone around me for why I am the way I am.  Why I don’t like being who I am a lot of the time.  I want to be perfect.  I want to be thin, funny, smart, talented, productive, positive and loved.  I’m working on the productive and positive parts.  I can admit I’m smart, I can admit I’m talented, I have been praised for my comedic timing, I believe I’m loved and even though I want to be thin, I can at least recognize that my body dysmorphic disorder is often in overdrive and I’m learning to love my shape.   But I want it all.  I want to be able to do the triathlon - but the fact that I have to skip the swim upsets me.  I won’t be perfect.  I’ll be pussing out for part of it.  I am working on forgiving myself for this.  I’m working on forgiving myself for not taking care of my body while I’ve been nursing my depression and my stress.  But moreover - I’m trying to accept the fact that I’ll likely never look like an athlete/model/actress.  It helps that I get to laugh every day with my friend who sits directly across from me at the work, and my Seth who sleeps next to me.  I’ve started running again, after my injury time off.  My ear was bothering me so much that I didn’t want to get out of bed, much less work my ass off trying to keep up with Seth.  But now I can and it feels so good.  Blazing down beautiful streets at dusk with the dude and the dog I love.

I am a lucky girl.

Every night we sit on our front stoop with Lula between us, watching the Hasidic Jews walk by, drinking a tall glass of ice water and basking in these special days we have here together.   In 25 years I’ll look back and have these to add to my long list of nostalgia.  And I’m so very glad.

When you check in at the House Ear Clinic, there is a sign that basically says, “Look, we know you’re here because you’re having some ear problems, let us know if you need us to come tap you on the shoulder when we call your name, because you very well might be too deaf to hear the lady call you.”  I felt good that I was at least not so deaf that I couldn’t hear the lady call my name.

First, I had to get a hearing test.  It was hard, y’all.  I am terrible at the Opthamologists office, when they’re like 1 or 2, this or that, and in this one, it’s not a multiple choice.  It’s just, can you hear this?  We don’t tell you when to expect it, do you hear it?  Anything? How about now?  What about this?  Can you repeat this word?  (What word?)  And on and on.

She lead me back to the waiting room and I told Seth I was completely fucked that I had to repeat words and I couldn’t fucking HEAR them.  And there were no 2nd chances!

We got called to the front of the waiting room in a group of 5 people, and I thought, what the hell is this?  Group hearing therapy?  But she separated us off and we waited in a freezing cold room.  Doctors like things to be cold.  I guess it’s better than sitting in a room and sweating.

When Dr. Goddard (the cutest doctor I’ve had in a long time.  Maybe ever.  Like farm boy, central casting, cute doctor cute) came in he told us he works with Dr. Friedman (the doctor I’d been referred to) and that he was going to look in my ear and he did.  And he said, “Oh, there it is, it’s not that bad.”  Which is way better than what my other ENT did, which was go, “WOAH.  THAT’S A BIG ONE!”  He talked to me about my ear and Seth made him blush when he did some tests by touching my face, Seth bellowed out, “Don’t you touch her!”  He giggled.

He told me that because of the location of the hole in my ear drum that surgery is recommended.  The reason is, skin can grow into my ear canal and fuck things up, like cause my face to go paralyzed.  And ever since this girl in high school had Bells Palsy, I’ve been afraid of facial droopy paralysis situations.  Then Seth asked him, “What would you do?”  And he said, “If you were my sister, I’d tell you to have the surgery.”  And I was like, I can be your sister…. I can be whoever you want me to be. (But I only said that in my head.)

Then, he pulled out my hearing test.  And he said, all dramatically, “So, let’s talk about your hearing.”  And I was thinking, oh here it comes, I’m gonna get fitted for hearing aids today.  He looked very serious, and he said, “In your right ear [the good one] you have above average hearing.”  And he showed me the chart, and I was like, “Are you saying, I’m like a superhuman in my right ear?  Like I have an A++ in that ear?”  And he smiled and said, “Yes.  Your hearing is excellent in that ear, and that is why you are perceiving the difference in your left ear, which is also still in the average range, just slightly lower than the right.”  Basically, I’m not only not deaf, I have one bionic ear and one average human ear.  Woo!  (I’ve been bragging about this all day.)

So we consulted with the surgeon, Dr. Friedman, and he used a fancy magnifying and projecting ear looking thingy and I got to see it on a TV screen.  The ear is kind of cruddy looking inside there.  It’s gross, and now I can’t even use q-tips.  I was contemplating how one cleans one’s cruddy dirty looking holey ear when Dr. F took a phone call wherein he had reason to name drop his brother.  When he got off the phone, Seth said, “You’re Robby’s brother?  I knew him when he was at Warner’s.”  And Dr. Friedman said, “Yeah, I want his life.”  And I was like, fuck that!  You’re a damned surgeon, he’s just the head of a billion dollar studio.  His parents must be so proud.

So, I’m waiting to hear (pun intended) when I’m going to have this surgery.  And when I’m going to get married.  Because there’s a whole health insurance situation that’s going to need to be squared away.  Who’s got their marrying license?

We were waiting for our dangerous garage door of death to make its rickety rise open, when a bug landed on my arm.  I yelped and almost smashed it, but looked down and saw a heavily spotted ladybug.

“Make a wish!”

I did and I’ll let you know if it comes true.

I’ve had a weird weekend.  Fits and starts, naps and late nights, books and movies, tv and radio.  It was a gorgeous day today and now that the Yankee game is over, I can relax or start worrying about not sleeping tonight.   Maybe I’ll do both.

I’m reading a slightly embarrassing self-help book for writers called Walking on Alligators.  In it there are daily (hourly?) meditations on writing and strategies on how to get your ass into the chair and write.  One of the strategies is to look at oneself and the demons you keep in your closet and use them.  If there are things you don’t like about yourself, use them in characters.  Build those things into story lines.  Use them in your villains.  Use them in characterizations of your family.  Use everything, good and bad.

I have a lot of bad.  I think if we’re honest we all can find a lot of bad.

My demons are plenty, but mostly I feel like shit physically right now.

I am dealing with a bum ear, and those that know me know I’m a terrible sick person.  I need a cave to hide in and someone to throw medicine and food at me from a safe distance.  I am having a hard time hearing on the left side, thrice daily drops poured into my ear canal, congestion, hives, sleepless nights, and all the while dealing with a new daytime situation that has me commuting to the dreaded valley and sitting at a table made of plastic.  It’s a hard knock life, for us.

So, if you notice a bit of extra angst on these here pages, I will just tell you, I’m working some things out, and this is my safe place.

On the upside, I got to go to the Dodger v. Yankee game tonight, something I had been looking forward to for a while.  And aside from the extra obnoxious vibe of Dodger fans, it was good to be back at the park.

The internet has been on sappy letter writing spree as women write (figurative) curlyqued cursive letters to themselves in their twenties.  Oof, we bloggers are a drippy feel-good lot.  And since I’ve been in a bad mood since I left the womb, I’m giving you  a letter to 20 year old Tamara that she would actually listen to, not some love song to a time gone by that 20 year old Tamara would have flipped the bird to.*

Dear Idiot,

1. Get rid of the overalls.  You are not a farmer.

2. Keep the Doc Martens, you are going to miss them when you’re 34.

3. No, that guy is not giving you mixed signals, asshole, he thinks you’re a chubby 20 year old who gets ugly drunk.

4. That guy too.

5.  None of those boys like you.

6.  Stop pining.

7.  And while you’re at it, stop eating fast food.  You are getting fat.

8.  No really, you don’t look good.

9.  Oh god, slam poetry?  You are so fucking embarrassing.

10.  Keep writing that stuff in your journal, though, it’s hilarious when you’re 34.  Like, seriously?  You thought boys just didn’t get you?  Believe me, they got you, you desperate embarrassing idiot.

11.  You will lose that freshman 15 weight in your 30s, but it will be hard because you’ll think you remember a time when you could just eat fast food 3 times a day, forgetting that you were fat when you did that.

12. If you stop wearing the same jeans every day, you’ll be forced to see what size you really are, and that size will make you unhappy, and you will lose weight.  Let’s get on that.  Before your metabolism takes a dive.

13.  That guy doesn’t want to marry you.

14.  Don’t worry, he doesn’t either (THANK GOD).

15.  Seriously, give up on the boys.  You’ll be fine in your 30s when you stop fucking caring so goddamned much.

16.  The no bangs experiment goes on too long.  Just let it go.

17.  And finally, it’s going to be ok, asshole, don’t panic.  Crying makes you look terrible.

Love,

Future You

*I haven’t forgotten the Ode to my 20s I wrote when I turned 30.  So, I was a little sentimental then.  Whatever.

We were staying in an apartment we rented from a stranger who solicited us in the train station in Prague.  We took the subway from a station 2 blocks away from our apartment to all the must see places listed in our Berkley guide to Eastern Europe in the Prague section.  That day we were supposed to meet Lara at 7pm at an Irish pub before we went out dancing with some cute ex-pats we met at an American bar watching the NBA finals. That morning we heard about OJ Simpson and his car chase.  We missed every frame of it.  We had no idea what our mom was talking about.  It sounded so… unimportant.

We were in an Irish pub when Ireland beat Italy, when Lara finally met us, 2 hours late, and said, “Y’all, we were robbed!”  Surreal?  I don’t know.  I remember feeling at the time that it was an important thing to be doing and experiencing, so far away from home, so grown up, so fucking clueless.

I’ve been listening to NPR in the morning and they’re doing a feature on people’s World Cup memories.  Mine are all about that summer in Eastern Europe when I was just a kid, traveling across countries I could barely point to on a map a month before.  Watching a sport I hadn’t cared about since I was a kid on the AYSO team, the Burros.  One time, as a Burro, we were told our uniforms didn’t fit with AYSO uniform standards because our team name was printed on the front of the uniform.  We, both girls and boys, stood around doing stretches and warming up, without our shirts on while our mothers hastily patched over the team name.  I distinctly remember feeling like it wasn’t fair that the boys didn’t really care that they weren’t wearing shirts, and we girls, did.  I remember wishing I could crawl under the grass so no one would look at me.  Shirtless.

Will I remember anything about this World Cup?  I hope not.  I want this one to remain as uneventful as all the others since 1994.

Seth and I are walking down the wide hallway of the ICU.  On the right a control station, serious looking nurses watch giant screens, people’s stats roll by like a stock ticker.  On the left, patients lay in beds, tubes and wires connecting them through the walls to the monitors and the computers and their heart beats are streaming across the screen.  Ahead of us, Seth motions to the man with a black stocking cap who looks 90 years old, “He’s been having trouble all day, I think his people are saying goodbye.”

We visit with Seth’s dad, we say stupid things and make dumb jokes.  We talk about the Lakers and the nurses and the monitors and Marshall’s heartbeat ticks by on the screen and we watch while Seth rubs a popsicle on his father’s lips.  We say goodnight but not goodbye.

I cry out in agony when the alcohol hits my inner ear canal.  I’m curled in a ball, and Seth touches my back.  We’re on our way to the emergency room again, I’m shot through with pain on every bump.  I try to keep my head still and breath through the stabbing jarring impossible pain.  I sit alone on a bed in the ER.   I have a prescription for pain killers and $100 ear drops.  The nurse sits on the bed next to me and explains my medications.   Her body is touching mine, I almost move away, but she’s so nice and she’s just handed me a pain killer, I like having the contact. Seth is finally allowed to come back and sit with me.  I tell him my news, burst ear drum, I can’t hear on my left side.  I’ve had two doctors look with astonishment at my inner ear and I just want to be home in bed.

We get home and I am glad to hear that his dad is doing better and will be leaving ICU.  Seth walks through our bedroom.  “You remember the ancient guy with the black stocking cap?”

I picture the old man at the end of the hall and nod.

“He died last night.  He was 30.  He was there, now he’s gone.”

“Where did he go?”  A sad smile and a nod to the movie we both cried during a few weeks ago.  “He was that young?”

Seth walks to the end of the bed and looks at me, “I don’t know why I thought of it, but I can’t get it out of my head. I just keep thinking, we were some of the last things he saw, stuck in that bed, staring down that hall.”

I don’t often think about the end.  We will get there when we get there and I’m ashamed that there are days when I wish I could get there sooner, but most days I am glad I’m laughing and crying and strong and weak and here.  It’s so short.  We’re here so briefly.

Seth’s dad is back in the ICU again tonight, and we’ll go back to the long hallway with the monitors and the hard cases, the serious nurses and the young doctors.  All I can think is don’t go anywhere, please stay here.

I’m not a strong swimmer.  I tell people I can’t swim, when really I mean I can’t put my face in the water and swim a regular stroke that makes me look like I know what I’m doing, not like some crazy person flailing around in the water.  When one of my friends e-mailed me and a group of work friends that she wanted to sign up for the Malibu Triathlon in September as a relay team, I told her to sign me up, as long as I didn’t have to do the swimming part.

She e-mailed back that night saying there were no team spots available anymore, but if we still wanted to do it we could sign up individually through the Team CAF website.  The Challenged Athletes Foundation is an amazing non-profit organization that helps athletes without limbs, with physical disabilities and other injuries get the equipment and artificial limbs they need to return to the sports and activities they love. I signed up and hoped no one would donate so I wouldn’t have to swim in the scary ice cold Pacific in mid-September.

On Saturday night we got a phone call from Seth’s mom.  His dad fell and was taken to the hospital with a broken hip.  He had surgery on Monday morning and by Tuesday we were all sure something was going on.  Either he had completely given up and was prepared to stay in his hospital bed until the inevitable end or… we didn’t know what.  They took him for an MRI and discovered he had a stroke.  They aren’t sure when.  They know it wasn’t during the surgery, they suspect it’s what caused his fall, but it could have been the night after the surgery.  They know that it was minor and that part of his frontal lobe was affected, but that his recovery should be full.  No motor skills were affected, no language or cognitive areas were affected, he just feels really sad.  I would too if I was stuck in a hospital being told part of my brain was dead.

I signed up to do the triathlon, and agreed to raise $500 for the CAF foundation so I could participate in the race.  I can’t really swim, I haven’t been running lately, and my fear of biking in Los Angeles has me taking leisurely bike rides on quiet Sunday afternoons, but that hasn’t stopped me from being a complete moron and signing up for the triathlon.  Thank god my friend is doing this as well, because if I drown in the ocean all by myself I’ll be really pissed off.  But most of all, I know that if I don’t keep being active, if I don’t continue to use this meat machine I’ve been given by a higher power or a magic man with a beard or a chance firing of proteins coming together, I’ll be really pissed off someday laying in a hospital bed wondering why I never got off my ass and learned to do a stupid breast stroke.

You can donate to my efforts if you see fit by visiting my donor page - click here.  Or if you can only afford to cheer me on with your moral support I’d like that too.  If you live in the Los Angeles area and want to come see me on the day of the race, (September 12th, 2010) if for no other reason than to see my ass in padded bike shorts and a wet suit which is bound to be comedic, I would absolutely adore that.  I’ll keep you posted on my efforts.

A while ago a few of my friends ganged up on a single friend of ours, signed her up for all of the dating services, and began to troll the internet for eligible bachelors.  I took my turn skimming through photos of single Jewish men in the Los Angeles area and clicked on a picture of a writer I thought my friend would like.  Once the photo became more than a thumbnail, I shrieked, “He’s MARRIED!”  Everyone turned and looked at me, all rushing around the computer to see the asshole who was trolling for single women while his wife blissfully believed he was in love, and if not, at the very least faithful.

“Or, he was, the last time I saw him!”

“How long ago was that?”

“Um… 5 years ago?”

The questioner laughed and said, “I was happily married five years ago and now I’m waiting for my divorce papers to arrive.”

I trolled through his profile, trying to figure out if he had really divorced the woman or if he was a fraud, a faker, a J-date troller.  Or, if he was doing it for research.  He was, in fact, a writer.  None of the other tidbits made sense though, he used to have pitbulls not Shelties.  He used to live in the farthest reaches of the farthest reaches of the outskirts of Los Angeles, not Sherman Oaks, for godsakes.   Maybe he was divorced.  I told my friend who was manning the J-Date profile to ask him out for our friend.  I wanted to know more.  I wanted to spy on him through my friend.

I was refused.

My friends said if I knew him so well, I should just e-mail him.  “Well,” I responded, “the last time I did that he never returned my e-mail, the asshole, and maybe now I know why!  Maybe because he was going through a horrible divorce and didn’t want me to know.”

I slunk off to my desk and began stalking him on facebook to no avail.  Then, I began stalking his wife.  Her profile wasn’t private.  She listed herself as being MARRIED.

What.  The. Fuck?

I looked at my waiting for divorce papers friend and asked him how long it took him to change his status.  He shrugged.  I got the feeling he’d still have it listed as married if he had a choice.

When Louie broke up with me he almost immediately changed his status on facebook to single, which, since we were facebook linked, sent ice through my veins.  My blood rushed to my face, and I was horrified.  He told the world and I was notified by facebook that my status needed to be fixed.  They couldn’t have me running around saying I was dating someone, when in fact, I WASN’T.

Seth doesn’t use facebook.  I will never have to change my relationship status based on his simple button click.  I hope he never leaves me, but if he does, at least facebook won’t know about it.

I wonder what’s really going on with the formerly loving couple with four pitbulls.  Is he merely trolling the dating sites without his wife’s knowledge for a thrill, is he doing it for a script, is he divorced, does she not want to change her status just yet to avoid questions from distant acquaintances?  It’s all so intriguing to me, and yet, I can’t bring myself to write the e-mail saying, “I saw you on J-Date, does your wife know?”

It’s so easy to look at a tv show and give notes.  People make livings doing that.  They get to sit there and say what could be done better.  And then we, the people doing the behind the scenes part, have to make it better.  It can be really hard to do that, because sometimes you’re not sure if what they want is actually making it better.  But also it can be really great to have someone who’s not completely entrenched with the material just sit back from their safe distance and say, “Don’t need.  Lose this scene.”  “Story not tracking until Act 3.” or, “Not enough sexy, let’s add some fun into act 2.”

I was thinking about how I would hate to sit through a notes session on my own life.  How there would be complete sections that someone would say, “Lose, doesn’t move story ahead.”  Or, “Why is this scene here?  Repetitive.”  Or, “This is your A story?  Why is it being introduced at the end of Act 2?”

If I look at my life like a 4 Act, 22 minute 30 second episode of reality TV, I would have a lot of story notes myself.   My story is tracking right, it’s just not tracking quickly enough.  I am trying to get pregnant right as I’m also trying to get my career into full swing.  That gives great potential for conflict, but I actually have to live this life, not watch it on TV.  I spend a lot of time looking at story outlines on neatly typed 3×5 cards on huge corkboards, and I’m starting to realize I might have fucked up my act breaks.  That I’m pushing too much story into Act 3.  That Act 4 is always the shortest act and that Act 3 needs to bring the tension to a head then have some fun with it.  That the way I’ve designed my story it’s all leading up to this great Act 2 act break, and if everything goes as planned in the field, Act 3 will have great drama and conflict with a really awesome Act 4 resolution.  The thing is, I have no idea how to get there to that act break.  I cannot control when I get pregnant, or get a job.  Not to mention once I get to Act 3, I have no idea how to balance work, family, creative life, social life and still have time to ride bikes with Seth on a Sunday afternoon.

I don’t regret my act 1, and even though my act 2 took a story detour for a while, I’m really loving this second half of it.  I just don’t know how it’s going to work.  I don’t see a lot of people in my business, at my pay level, being able to do the things I’m going to want to do.  Which means, I’m going to have to sacrifice something, and I hope I manage to figure out what to sacrifice before it’s too late, because from what I’m seeing, the way it’s designed is that people with kids don’t have both parents working 10-12 hour work days.  And I sure as hell am not giving up my 10 hour work day.  I actually like what I do.  I like being there.   And, yes, everyone seems to think that will change once I have a baby, that I’ll want to be home more, but what if it doesn’t?  What if I still like 10 hour work days?  Will my children be ADHD monsters who date hitters (or worse, actors…) because mom liked work better than them, and dad is dead because mom married someone 21 years older than her? Or fuck, what if I can’t even have kids?

These are things I guess I should have thought about while I was dorking around in Film School.  It’s so embarrassing now to think about how much time I dorked around there.  Or god, how much time I was obsessed with getting shit faced drunk in crap bars in crap parts of Los Angeles with crap boys.  But these are the things I can’t change.  This is the story line that’s being shot.  I’m just going to have to make it work in the cutting room.  I hope there won’t be too many notes, and I hope they mostly say, “More sexy,” or, “Up the fun here.”  Those are my favorite ones to get.  And they’re ones I know how to address.