Awkwardly Social

After my mother in law died things began to move very quickly to get her house sold and all 45 years of her and her husband’s belongings out of the 4000 square foot home.  It was awful.  My eyelashes are falling out.

Before the house went on the market it had a cash offer from a couple who wanted to restore the home and not tear it down.  We didn’t believe them, but Seth and his sister countered and they accepted the offer.  It was shown 4 more times and got two more offers.  The same day.  The real estate market in Beverly Hills is intense.  The couple officially has possession of the home now.  I hope they like it.  I know my in laws were very proud of it.  I cried yesterday when I said goodbye to it.

Seth has spent the last month getting art to auction houses - some of which are overseas - consigning art to galleries, and splitting up art with his sister.  The house was basically wall to wall art.  His father was a collector.  We still have more art to deal with.  I am fucking sick of art.

There was also the matter of valuable antique furniture.  Most of which is at auction now, some of the less valuable pieces were sold elsewhere.  I insisted we take the not-valuable wing back chairs.  And now our house is filled with tables.  We have a table infestation.

The amount of stress selling a house and dividing its contents with a family member brings is incredible.  When we cleaned my mother’s apartment out we did it so quickly and it was so small that it was like ripping off a little bandaid, this was like surgically adding a bandaid and then cutting it off your skin tiny piece by tiny piece. I have no idea how Seth is not snapping my head off with stress anger every minute but there were definitely mini-fights brought on by cleaning out the house stress.  It’s a good way to test a marriage.

The amount of relief I have that I don’t have to talk about where to put a table or if I want a lamp or another duck or this thing or that book or this cup is incredible.  For the record, in addition to a table infestation, we are also lousy with ducks.  I think I just lost another eyelash.

We are spending the weekend in a fancy hotel, because we need to have room service and pool side service and I need a massage.  Seth probably needs one to, but he hates them, so I’m getting his.

I think you all probably know that feeling when you haven’t been working for a while and your days are all a blur of one long weekend feeling but also every night gives you that Sunday night dread, right?  I haven’t been at work in a month and while I’ve managed to get a few things accomplished, I’m still feeling like I didn’t finish my homework and I have a big paper due and there won’t be time to study for that test.

My parenting/scheduling skills are reaching a point where I feel like I need someone else to plan my day for me.  We’re getting Seth’s mom’s house ready to sell and a 4000 square foot house that someone lived in for 40 years, uh, has a lot of stuff.  So, there’s always this schedule fuck up where I haven’t eaten and the baby hasn’t napped and there is screaming in the car (his, sometimes mine), and I feel like a bad mom, but what are you going to do?  The house isn’t going to empty itself.  Also, there is no money to hire people to empty it, which is what my inclination would be.  SO.  MUCH. STUFF.  And a lot of it is migrating here and it’s making me want to get rid of everything.  EVERY. LAST. THING.  So no one will have to say, “Why did she save this?  This is so crazy.”  Having now been the cleaner outer of my grandparents’ house, my mom’s apartment and now my in-laws house, I’m, um, how do I say this delicately, not allowing anyone else to die.  Ever.  Sorry planet, you’ll have to absorb all the old people who won’t be dying now.  Because if I have to empty one more junk drawer full of tape that is older than me, I might just politely ask North Korea to gently bomb us to oblivion.  Stop buying tape and losing it, Old People.  It is making me fucking crazy.

I had other things to say but now I’m on a full rant about old people.  What is with all of the scarves?  Why do I feel compelled to keep them?  I hate scarves.   That’s not true,  I have one scarf of my mother’s that I love, but I don’t wear it.  It’s just in my drawer so that when I open it and shove all of my bras that don’t fit me around I can see it and think to myself, I wish I wore scarves.  Now I have a million (slight exaggeration) more scarves and one day my kid is going to go through my drawer with my old bras and be all irritated and say, “She NEVER wore scarves, what is with all the scarves?”

And can we talk about dishes?  Because I have a set of dishes, and now I’m getting another FULL set of dishes and it seems like too many dishes.  Why do we need formal dishes and regular dishes?  WHY?  Why so many fucking dishes?  I don’t throw that many dinner parties (none, I throw none dinner parties) but if I did would I need a whole other set of dishes for my fancy dinner party friends?  I’m taking the dishes because I don’t know why.  I guess me and my millions of dishes will be happy on the next episode of Hoarders, Dishes and Scarves and Random Pots and Pans edition.

Finally, can we come to an agreement about photos of people we don’t know.  We can throw those away, right?  RIGHT?  Because if Seth doesn’t know them, and his sister doesn’t know them, sure as fuck I don’t know them, so they are getting thrown away.  (This is hypothetical, everyone knows everyone in the photos so far.  I’m hoping at some point, there will be something we can throw away besides tape.  Rolls and rolls of tape.)

This is Friday night.  I have to go do my homework and take an Ativan.

My mother in law passed away yesterday afternoon.  We all had time to say goodbye, but by the time I said it, she was heavily sedated and her breathing was so labored it hurt to watch. She didn’t know I was there, or maybe she did.  I don’t know.  We knew this was coming - an 84 year old woman who smoked unfiltered cigarettes until her brother died of lung cancer and then switched to filters until she quit 30 years ago has weak lungs, mix it with the flu and well… I still thought she was going to beat this.  She had beaten everything else.  She was too stubborn to die, I thought.

She was a tough woman who rarely showed her softer side, but with Moses she lit up and melted.  I’m sad that she’s not going to see him grow up, and I’m sad that Moe doesn’t have any grandmas and that Seth doesn’t have any parents and that everyone dies eventually.

Death is unfair even when it lets you know it’s coming.

Goodbye, Gita.  We’ll lock the gate.

Moses is one month old today, but before I write that post I want to honor the man who gave me my first job and influenced my career in many ways.

I will never forget getting the call from my former roommate, Alex, telling me Mel was looking for an assistant.  My palms were sweating when I called him.  I left him a ridiculous voice mail message and when he finally called me back he told me my voice was too high, I talked too fast and my resume was ridiculous.  He told me to come in that day for an interview.

His office was straight out of a movie about an old school Hollywood producer.  He had these amazing tufted leather club chairs, a chess board on his coffee table in mid-game, several Emmy’s lined his dusty bookshelf, and he sat behind this gigantic desk that I drooled over in its stature, features and magnitude.  I sat down and he looked me over.  He asked me a few questions and I nervously answered.  He told me he would hire me but that I needed to work on my voice.  He said again, “Your voice is too high.  You need to listen to Suzanne Pleshette and work on it.” Mel wasn’t wrong.

He never once pronounced my name correctly.  He yelled at me when I screwed up.  He threw things.  He called me “the girl.” But he believed in me.  He gave me my first television credit.  He told everyone that asked about me that I was smart and special.  Former assistants of his always marveled at how he treated me, they said he’d become a pussycat in his old age.

His list of credits was impressive.  As was his rolodex. Yes, it was an actual rolodex.  That I imported into the computer, one card at time.  He refused to retire.  He kept making movies.  Little movies that he didn’t care who saw.  He just wanted to keep working.

In a weird twist of fate, I married his one time best friend’s son.  Mel and Marshall hadn’t been in touch in a very long time, but they ran into each other at the post office and when Mel heard that Marshall’s son was married to me, he told Marshall that I was the best.  Marshall, a tough critic, always respected me after that.

He taught me so much about being a producer and documentary film.  Two things I quote all the time, his favorite things to teach young people starting out in the business - 1. Never rationalize your emotional response. 2. Work is good.  No work is bad.

I hope he’ll forgive me for saying “rest in peace,” because it is the last thing he would want to do.  He’d rather be working.

Once again, I’ve yanked Sundry’s recap meme.  Last year’s recap can be found here.

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?

I lost a parent, planned a funeral, had a miscarriage, went through IVF, got pregnant, heard a heart beating inside of me that wasn’t my own, saw the profile of the baby growing inside of me.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Here’s what I wrote:

More: physical activity (NO), reading (YES), creativity (WHAT?), dance parties at home (YES!), cooking (NOPE), doing (YEP), seeing people who make me laugh (NOT ENOUGH!), telling people I appreciate them (NOT ENOUGH).

Less: complaining (PROBABLY NOT), television (IF LESS IS MORE, THEN YES), over-thinking (HA!), worrying (WHAT?), sitting (NOPE), being mad at my body for being imperfect (NUH-UH).

So that was not such a great showing.  I think this year I’ll just wing it.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth??

A co-worker had a baby girl. I got to watch her go from not showing to big baby belly and it was pretty adorable.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

My mother. And just typing that has put me in shock all over again. I cannot believe she is gone.

5. What countries did you visit?

Germany (I’m there right now!)

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

A healthy, full term baby.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

July 14, I was sitting at work when my phone rang with an unfamiliar Seattle area-code number and my sister had to tell my mom was dead. I didn’t know grief until that moment.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Pitching a reality series at MTV.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Not selling the aforementioned show.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

The OHSS was probably the most severe thing I went through this year.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

IVF treatments

12. Where did most of your money go?

IVF treatments

13. What did you get really excited about?

My sister’s visit in December and this trip to Berlin.

14. What song will always remind you of 2011?

Landslide the cover by the Dixie Chicks that we played at my mom’s memorial.

15. Compared to this time last year, are you:?

– happier or sadder? Sadder
– thinner or fatter? Fatter, between IVF and now pregnancy, I’ve put on some serious pounds.
– richer or poorer? Same

16. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Exercise and leaving the house

17. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Having a doctor look at my junk.

18. How did you spend Christmas?

On the 21st we spent Hannukah at my mother-in-laws and exchanged gifts, on Christmas Eve Seth and I exchanged gifts and boarded a plane to Germany, on Christmas day we landed in Zurich and transferred to Berlin, had a lamb dinner at Seth’s son’s father-in-law’s apartment and exchanged gifts. It’s been a weird Christmas this year, for sure.

19. What was your favorite TV program?

Game of Thrones and Revenge.

20. What were your favorite books of the year?

I really liked Graceling, A Game of Thrones and Divergent.

21. What was your favorite music this year?

I guess Adele is going to have to top this list. I really loved 21, a lot.

22. What were your favorite films of the year?

Drive and Another Earth.

23. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

We had a karaoke party at my house and it was fantastic.

24. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Finishing more personal creative projects.

25. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?

Uh, it was mostly an ever expanding parade of comfortable clothes.

26. What kept you sane?

I can’t really say that I was sane, but my husband certainly did his best to keep me from going over the edge.

27. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.

You will never know when that phone call will come and the bottom will drop out of your world. So call that person you love and tell them.

I wrote this yesterday, but was too sad to post it.  I’m still too sad today, but whatever.   I am now a card carrying member of the Ladies’ Miscarriage Club.  We can be a very dour bunch.

A couple of weeks ago, I took a pregnancy test that turned out negative.  So I drowned my sorrows in some really strong margaritas and then the next morning barfed up my sorrows (tequila and linguine with clams… for the visual) and thought, wow, my period and a puke won’t this be grand.   I didn’t get my period that Monday morning,  so I took a pregnancy test.

I peed on a stick and it looked kind of like it was positive.  Being a suspicious sort, I made Seth look at it.  He agreed it was positive.  Then I waited a day and did it again.  It was still positive.  The doctor confirmed it a week later and we looked at a blob on the ultrasound - no heartbeat it was too early.

I spent those two weeks obsessively waiting for morning sickness - only one gag session yesterday.  I kept thinking I should be more fatigued - I’ve been tired, but I’m working about 65 hours a week right now.  I was looking for more crankiness - there is nothing out of the ordinary about my crankiness.

And this morning at our ultrasound our yolk sack remained empty.  No heartbeat.  No signs of life.  Just a dumb empty yolk sack.  I’m like those penguins who stare at their dead frozen eggs and sort of wander around wondering what to do.

I cried in front of my doctor, who was kind and informative and reassuring and blah, blah, blah, and I’m crying again now as I write this, but I’m trying to do that WASP-y keep your chin up thing because wow, it could be worse.

It could be better, but it could be a whole lot worse.

Here are the shitty things I keep thinking:

• Now I’ll have to be trying to conceive when Seth’s son is in town -  a person who gives me a whole lot of stress when he’s around.
• Seth has two kids who will probably have kids before I do.
• I am fat.  I am fat and I’m not pregnant.  My body is full of betrayal.
• I hate every single person who got pregnant really easily, fuck them.
• I am too bitter and hateful to get and stay pregnant.
• The D and C I have to schedule is very inconvenient and why couldn’t I just have a miscarriage like a normal person.
• I’m probably causing the universe to have something even more terrible happen to me because I find having to schedule a D and C inconvenient.
• I am too busy to be pregnant.  In fact, I’m too busy to be NOT pregnant.  I’m too busy.

There’s more.  There’s much, much more.  But I am too embarrassed to say some of the things I’m thinking because they are pretty evil.

If you want to comment that’s fine, but if you can hold off on the “Everything’s going to be fine” sentiments, I’d appreciate it.  Right now, I just don’t want to hear it.

For the past week, I’ve been watching movies for the Obvious Bigtime Awards Show (that I won’t mention by name, lest someone find me and fire me or something…) and all of these movies have one thing in common.  They are being watched because someone involved in the making of the movie croaked this year.  I did this 5 years ago for the SAG Awards, and for some reason that didn’t really bother me.  Maybe because I wasn’t in my 30s yet.  Maybe I used to be a heartless Hollywood hack.  Or, maybe because now I’m watching movies that I originally watched for one dude being dead, and now the other dude is dead and fuck me, watching The Muppet Movie is a real bag o’ laughs when everyone in every scene is fucking dead.  Even goddamned Kermit the fucking Frog is dead.

I watch the movie in fast forward, and say, dead, dead, he’s dead, she’s dead, camera-man dead, writer dead, director dead, dead, is he dead?, not dead, dead, dead, dead.

No one else is allowed to die. I know it’s going to get crowded down here, and traffic in Los Angeles is a bitch already, but I can’t take it.  No more death.  No more legacies.  Let’s just all stay alive a little while longer.  At least until the Obvious Bigtime Awards Show is over.

A year ago I was sitting at Tara’s house crying my eyes out because my boyfriend at the time and I had put the final straw on the back of our relationship.  The Christmas photo.

Louie is a Jew.  Also, he’s kind of an asshole when it comes to people taking his picture.  Or, at least, he was kind of an asshole that day.  All I wanted was a simple fucking picture of him, me and our dog so my mom could take down the random photo she had of us and put up a photo I actually liked.

God, he was such a dick that day.

The next morning he broke up with me.  Told me he was moving out that day.  That it was over.  It was.  But that night, this night one year ago, I came home from Tara’s house, my eyes red, drunk, and furious, and didn’t even look at him.  I didn’t want to see him.  I wanted to leave him.  I went to bed and he slept on the couch.  He never once had slept on the couch, so I knew he was pissed, but at the time I thought he had no right to be pissed.  This year of reflection and some kind of sideways reconciliation with him has taught me that boy oh boy there were certainly two of us in that relationship and whenever you have two people telling a story there are dramatically different versions.  Louie is probably going to read this.  And to him I can finally, a year later, say, “Thanks, man.  You did me right.”

So now here I am. I’m sitting in my office typing these words, drinking from a heavy leaded crystal glass that was given to my boyfriend by another woman.  A married woman.  A woman who in the recent past has tried to get my boyfriend to go on expensive vacations with her.  A woman he’s having dinner with next week. I wish it didn’t bother me the way Louie’s female friends didn’t bother me, but it does.  And I’m fighting the urge to throw this glass against the wall.  It probably wouldn’t break anyway.

Here’s to a year gone.  A new year coming.  A break up. And a glass I’m not going to break.

Last night I was laying semi-unconscious on the couch, watching Mr. F rearranging boxes so the cleaning crew could access the floor. Lula was on her brand new gigantic bed beside me. Miles was playing on iTunes. And I started to cry.

I have no idea why.

It wasn’t a sad cry.

It wasn’t a tears of joy cry.

I think it was an emotional exhaustion cry.

I had spent 2 hours getting irrationally angry at myself for being such a slob while I cleaned my old apartment. Spent 40 minutes loading the last bits and pieces of my life in 201 into my tiny Honda Civic. Spent 30 minutes unloading my car while Mr. F was on a wild goose chase for nails to fix Lula’s dog door. Spent 30 minutes aimlessly walking around the new house trying to figure out where, exactly, I was going to find my one clean bra. And then when Mr. F walked in the door, spent 20 minutes trying to fight off eating food. I finally lost that battle.  It turns out that when Mr. F asks me if I want food and I say no, he cooks it anyway and puts it in front of me and there I go, eating.  Good man, that Mr. F.

Mr. F asked me why I thought I was feeling emotional. We have lots of these conversations, getting to the bottom of what’s bothering him, what’s bothering me, so things don’t build and fester and create boils and infections. As we talked through it, I realized that I was just a little wistful about the end of that drunk, slutty, rebellious period I went through. I was so completely ready to be done with it, but I think it’s important to say goodbye to those times in your life properly with a little bit of emotion and maybe a few tears. Then, when it’s all said and done and your next phase has started the baggage has been unpacked and fresh starts are all queued up.

This morning I woke up and walked into the living room, and it was like Christmas morning. Out of extreme chaos, Mr. F had made our packed to the gills with boxes house a home. And I can’t wait to get home to him tonight and every night.

Two nights ago,  I walked into my apartment to a disaster of Lula proportions.  Dirty paper towels, dog hair, a mysteriously empty bag of Ricola (that had been full when I put it in the trash), and a very excited dog. She was pretty thrilled she had mastered the art of opening a closed trash bag, and couldn’t wait to tell me that her SORE THROAT, it was gone!  Never mind the fact that she didn’t have a sore throat.  I found it hard to get angry at her because she was so clearly on a sugar high, bouncing from the bed to my head to the floor to my shoulders to the ceiling fan and back again.

Normally, as a concerned pet owner, I would have worried and fretted about Lula eating an entire bag of Ricola, but she seemed fine.  That is until 3AM.  When she yakked all over her side of the bed.  And then proceeded to clean it back up.  It’s really disgusting that dogs eat their own vomit, but also, free clean-up!  *gag*

Last night on my run, at the last stretch before I hit Wilshire and head back home, a guy who works in one of the restaurants was standing on the sidewalk having a cigarette.  He called out to me, “You run every day!” And then he started jogging in place, “Is good exercise!”  I got a little sad that I’m finally being recognized by someone on my route.  Then I busted around the bend and flew across 6th Street and some teenagers on skate boards yelled, “Yo, that dog is fast!  That dog is the best!”  And I have to assume they were talking about Lula, because when she stretches out into her longest gait she looks rad.  And I got even sadder because I’m going to miss those skate boarding kids in their skinny jeans and floppy hair.

I have two more nights in 201.  Two more runs in my urban oasis.  I’m going to miss the brick wall and the quiet mornings padding five feet to the bathroom, and five feet back to the kitchen in my underwear while all of Koreatown looks on.  I think Koreatown is going to miss the white lady with the ratty underwear trudging around her small apartment.  But that’s ok, Koreatown, I’ll make sure to visit every once in a while to smell the human feces and see the garbage strewn streets!

It’s all beginning and ending at once.  Mr. F told me a while ago that the Romans didn’t see the future as something that lies in front of you waiting for you to discover it, but as a wave rushing up behind you.  I couldn’t agree more.