How much stuff do we need?

So, Black Friday has come and gone. I almost managed to stay away from the malls, but a leather jacket on sale for $50 enticed me to stop at Fashion Valley on the way home from taking my sister to the airport... at 10:30 pm. A great time to shop, by the way. The parking lot was clear, there were no crowds to deal with, but the store looked like a hurricaine went through it. And of course they didn't have the style I wanted in my size.

You can't see me shaking my head right now, but I am just thinking about it. I worked retail many years ago. When The Broadway was still alive. It was a second job for me so that I could earn extra money for a two month trip to Europe. The rudeness and messiness of people annoyed me then, but I swear it's gotten worse. I mean when did it become ok to, oh, say knock some shirt or sweater on the floor and pretend you don't see it, and walk away for some overworked eight dollar an hour employee to pick up? Seriously people. Will it kill you to bend over? to take a minute to hang it back up on the hanger? to just TRY to fold it back up and place it on the shelf?

And really, when you think about it, how much stuff do we really need? Do I really NEED a leather jacket? Sure it would be nice, and yeah, I got rid of (donated) my old pink puffy fiber-filled ski jacket and my fake leather jacket... but trust me, I won't freeze this winter.

To be honest, I have boxes in the garage that I never unpacked when I moved into this place 2 years ago. And more coming as my sister and I divy up the remains of my Dad's life. Just thinking about finding space for all the new stuff makes me start to hyperventilate.

However, if you must buy me a present, consider my Amazon wish list.... linked in the sidebar of this very blog... or better yet, give me a call, let's go for a walk, have a coffee, take a class together, visit a museum, an art gallery...

My Thanksgiving Toast

Here’s to the turducken, gobble gobble quack cluckin right onto our thanksgiving plates next to Mama Stamberg’s cranberry relish (oh my god its so pink)
And the fresh green beans called haricot vert and the salad called mache tossed with pomegranate and parmesan and corn pudding made with creamed corn just like mom used to make.

Here’s to the white bread dressing with tangy crispy apples, pecans and a touch of cinnamon just like grandma used to make and a hundred dollars worth of New York apple and LA pecan pies.

And here’s to relish trays and roasted savory sweet potatoes, lumpy mashed potatoes and smooth brown gravy with Bisto and creamed onions and lactaid tablets and where are the peas anyway?

Here’s to ignoring the football game or games or whatever is on the television and margaritas, merlot or beaujolais noveau

and

Mostly here’s to friends who are family and family who are friends who have come together to make all this happen.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone...

end of an era? changes in the wind for SanDiegoBlog

Joe C. moved away from San Diego awhile ago. We miss him and his lovely wife Leahpeah a lot... he has been kind enough to keep SanDiegoBlog going, along with WebSanDiego and SanDiegoBloggers (which he sold off last month).

So the last of the SanDiego properties, SanDiegoBlog, is now up for sale.

Here's the dilema. I want to buy it, but I'm not sure I can make it worth the monetary investment, specifically I'm not sure I have the time to invest to make it worth the investment.

Aside from my job, which takes up a good portion of my day, I am working on a book, a memoir (I usually say very creative mostly non-fiction). I've got a good portion done, and am now revising, compiling all my work into a first draft, and hopefully getting a book proposal together for the Feb. 2007 San Diego Writers Conference.

I have two other blogs I neglect...
and there's all the other ideas I have, like a class on how to blog for San Diego Writers Ink, a multi-media one-woman show of my memoir, Reconstructing my Mother... some ideas I have for audio production... a painting I want to do....

any thoughts? advice? encouraging words? discouraging words?

UPDATE: I took a pass on SanDiegoBlog. I may or may not continue to post over there, and I'm totally ok with that. So, I guess that means I'm back to working on my book... stay tuned.

Road Woes

I was going to post something about the idiot drivers on the road. Lord knows I have enough fodder on my daily commute-- and I'm going reverse traffic!

But Sheila beat me to it with her post on Road Ragishness. Amen Sister!

Stay tuned, however, I may just post something anyway. When I get some time. Where does all the time go that we save during daylight savings time??

Oh, and BTW, Sheila has her own domain now. GetSheila.com. She's all grown up.

more albums

ok, so here's the rest of the list. And seriously, if you want any of them, let me know... would you read the list before you start laughing already?? sheesh...

Hi Fi Spectacular: Sounds Of A Thousand Strings (it was my granddad’s and has cool cover)
Carmen Cavallero Plays His Show Stoppers (see note above)
Pretenders, the one With Brass In Pocket And Precious
Carole King, Tapestry
Little Feat, Dixie Chicken (Hey, I lived in Virginia)
Blondie, Hunter And Parallel Lines
Pat Benetar, Crimes Of Passion (2 Copies, note I only have one copy of Parallel Lines) And In The Heat Of The Night
Culture Club, Colour By Numbers
Go Go’s, Beauty And The Beat (we got the beat!)
The Human League Dare (don’t you want me baby?)
The Cars Candy-O
Led Zeppelin Zoso (with Stairway to Heaven of course)
Fleetwood Mac, Rumours
George Winston, Winter Into Spring (my mellow, I’m sophisticated, I drink real wine with a cork in the bottle and listen to jazz phase)
Elton John Greatest Hits And Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player
Joe Jackson’s Jumpin’ Jive
Lynyrd Skynyrd Gold And Platinum And One More From The Road
The Doors Greatest Hits
Beach Boys, Best of
Gilbert O'Sullivan Back to Front (Claire, the moment I met you I swear... it had to be something. Somewhere.....)
Peter Paul & Mary, Best Of in orange vinyl. way cool.
The Band.
Simon & Garfunkel, Bridge Over Troubled Water (I think that was my Dad's at one time)
Jim Croce Photographs and Memories (aka Greatest Hits) and Cat Stevens Greatest Hits... I think I stole them from a friend. Well stole is probably too literal, let's say borrowed and never returned and lost touch with her bla bla bla. .... and I don't remember her name any more, except Rebecca, so there ya go.
and Foreigner Double Vision seems to have the name Terri B on it which is my cousin Terri, but she probably just left it at my house 20 years ago.

And more from the What Was I Thinking category: Barbra Streisand Greatest Hits Vol. 2 (Did I Have Vol. 1? ) and Neil Diamond You Don’t Bring Me Flowers

and finally. The last album I ever bought, Toni Childs, Union, circa 1988. Maybe even the last album pressed, who knows. Seriously, who knows? When did they stop making albums and switch completely to CDs? hmmm.

Albums anyone?

Does anyone still listen to albums anymore? Does anyone remember what albums are anymore? I thought that turntables and albums were making a little comeback, and maybe I could unload my collection, but I think I was mistaken. It was just a ploy by the department stores last year to unload some old stock of turntables by turning them into a retro nostalgic must have kind of thing.

and besides, my collection of albums is really nothing to brag about, but I will share my bizarre music taste with you, all 5 of my loyal readers, and the occassional drop in / drive by blog reader who finds me by searching for "pert boobs."
Feel free to let me know if you want any of them. For the price of postage they could be yours:

The Beatles
Yesterday and Today, the first album I bought with my very own money.
Revolver, Let it Be, Meet the Beatles, and The Beatles Again were my father's records but I've had them a long time.
Oh, and Sgt Peppers Lonley Hearts Club Band, commerative color printed vinyl edition

Blondie, Parallel Lines (2 copies)

Heart, Dog and Butterfly and of course Dreamboat Annie (which I can still play on guitar)

The Eagles, The Long Run and Hotel California

Supertramp, Breakfast in America and Even in the Quietest Moments

Styx, Paradise Theater

Jackson Brown, Running on Empty

The Who, Face Dances

Electric Light Orchestra, Discovery

I'll post more later. I'm tired of typing. But to round out this post I'll add

Olivia Newton John, Have You Never Been Mellow. Yeah. I know. What was I thinking?

Congratulations to Jill Badonsky

I always have to say outloud in my head "bad. on. sky." to remember how to spell Jill Badonsky's name.

Anyway, just thought I'd share the news from Publishers Marketplace:


NON-FICTION: ILLUSTRATED/ART

Creativity coach, artist and author of THE NINE MODERN DAY MUSES AND A
BODYGUARD Jill Badonsky's THE DAILY AWE-MANAC, a full-color,
illustrated guide to living with spirit, purpose, and humor that
includes a page for each day of the year with "Today I Get to" prompts
(instead of a To-Do List), writing exercises, inspirational quotes,
and much more, to Jennifer Kasius at Running Press, by Stephanie Kip
Rostan at Levine Greenberg Literary Agency (world).

It's great to be surrounded by successful people doing cool things... and if you haven't already checked out Jill's website, TheMuseIsIn.com, the Nine Modern Day Muse book, gotten on her email list, whatever, Just Do. She's lots of inspirational fun.

Do you believe in astrology?

I don't believe in astrology, but sometimes.... ya just gotta wonder.... Here's my horoscope for today, read after I wrote my last post:

The imaginative Pisces Moon stimulates our dreams and increases the intensity of our fantasies. Additional adrenaline comes from the harmonious trine between sexy Venus and electric Uranus. We want to break out of our restraints to let pleasure rule the day, but retrograde Mercury is forming a tense square with austere Saturn, isolating us from the objects of our desires. Even if we strongly crave freedom, it may feel beyond our reach at this time.


... I feel just like that. Weird, huh.

Feeling rather maudlin today

Not sure if it's the whole Dia de los Muertos thing, or more overwhelm from dealing with my Dad's estate, feeling like I am totally alone in the world now-- no parents to watch over me, no kids to distract me-- like I'm the end of the line. Or the middle, floating with nothing to hang onto.

To top it of my boss's mom just had a stroke, so I'm here listening to him talk on the phone.

"It's ok Mom, Laurie and I are taking care of everything. You don't have to worry about a thing."

And she is comforted. And it strikes me. Who is going to take care of me when I get old and dotty?

So I think about this quote from the movie "American Beauty." The character Lester says in voice over:

Remember those posters that said, "Today
is the first day of the rest of your
life?" Well, that's true of every day
except one.
(a beat)
The day you die.

It sounds good, makes an impact and all but it is not true. Even the day you die is the first day of the rest of your life. The rest of your life is just very very short.

All this thinking makes me jittery, like I need to get out and do something crazy, move to Alaska or cash out my savings and to hell with sticking around here and hoping the real estate market bubble will burst enough so I can afford to buy a house.

And just in case you're curious, Merriam Webster Online defines maudlin as:

1 : drunk enough to be emotionally silly
2 : weakly and effusively sentimental

Etymology: alteration of Mary Magdalene; from her depiction as a weeping penitent

Yup, maudlin is a good word. Especially for Dia De Los Muertos.

Chemo Brain is Real...

If you're lucky you're not familiar with the phrase "chemo brain." Unfortunately, as you may know from previous posts, my sister Debby has breast cancer. This is the second time around for her. The first time was in 2000. She found a lump. A small lump, she had a little surgery and the surgeon got "a clear margin" which means no cancer cells on the whole outer surface of the 1 mm lump they removed. And they tested the lymph nodes-- all clear. Debby did a little radiation and a little chemo "just to be sure" as the doctors say, and poof, it was gone. She handled it so well she could have been the poster girl for the How to Survive and Thrive With Breast Cancer campaign. Heck, she even look fabulous bald.




By 2002 we were walking the Breast Cancer 3 Day 60 Mile walk in San Diego, and raised about 10,000 dollars between the two of us.

Well, in 2004 Debby had a little pain in her back. Thought she pulled a muscle, strained it at work or something. It didn't go away. After visits to the massage therapist and the chiropractor-- to no avail-- she mentioned it to her oncologist at a check up. After he chastised her for not coming to him first, he set her up to get some tests, and before we knew it, she was diagnosed again. This time with metastisized breast cancer, the little evil cells having landed on her bones (her back where she felt the pain) on her pelvis, oh yeah, and in her liver, lung and a tiny spot on her brain. I don't remember the exact sequence, it seemed to get a little worse with every doctor visit.... and before long she ended up in the hospital having seizures, on medication that left her legs looking like little toothpicks and her face puffy and round, "blowfish face" she called it.

She had gamma knife procedures, more chemo, more radiation... and at one point (a long point) she was so weak, her muscles so depleted, she could hardly get up out of a chair.

Now here we are in 2006. Debby still has breast cancer, but she's doing a lot better. Not a hundred percent, but to look at her you'd never know. Except for the little lump on her chest, her port, inserted just under her skin so the nurse doesn't have to keep hunting for a vein everytime she goes in for chemo. She still goes about once a month. "Chemo lite" Debby calls it.

Oh, and the point of this post, she has what she calls "chemo brain" which is apparently now a recognized side effect for some people who are on chemo:

CHEMO BRAIN NOT ALL IN YOUR HEAD
Article from the American Cancer Society:

"Researchers are learning more about "chemo brain," the memory and concentration gaps that plague some cancer patients after chemotherapy." More at the American Cancer Society Website....

Welcome Ralph to the Blogosphere!

So my friend Ralph FINALLY started his own blog. Lord only knows he has plenty to say, and a pretty sharp wit with which to say it... So I hope he'll keep at it. He's only written one post so far, but maybe with a little encouragement he'll post some more once he's back home and on his regular feed.

So, if you get a chance, pop on over and say hello to Ralph, aka Stack, the walking guy.

You can't make this stuff up...

I was thinking about writing something meaningful, showcasing my indignance over this whole Foley affair, but I'll save my political ramblings for another day.

This article on Washington Post caught my eye. Usually the best stuff in an article appears at the beginning, but in this case, the last paragraph is the best. You just don't find folks like this in Southern California:


... "It's all right for some people," she says. "But, bebe, if you had to pluck and skin and boil your own chicken, after catching it with a shark hook baited with rancid meat, and if the chicken weighed 500 pounds and tried to eat your leg off and then vomited on you, well, you might not want to eat that, either."

from "Bayou Belle by Birth, Gator Trapper by Choice" By Monica Hesse

Creativity is

I've been busy this evening. Here's my first doculogue/a montage of sound and pictures. This is what creativity is.

Grab a Hanky...

So, last April I attended the First Friday at The Grove, an open mic event for prose writers hosted by San Diego Writers Ink, and fellow San Diego writer James Spring was recording with the hopes of creating another story for This American Life (his first story aired in February, "Cat and Mouse"). So of course I said Yes you can record me. And James generously sent me this clip of me reading one of my essays, Me and Billy Crystal. Enjoy. Hopefully you'll hear bits of the essay, and perhaps conversation with me and Holly Fleming and James on some future TAL show, but for now, I hope you enjoy this. And thanks to James for allowing me to use this, especially since I have since lost the draft of this essay that was edited down to three minutes. Did you catch that? It's 3 minutes long, so get comfy.

Arrrrgh. Ahoy mateys

Shiver me timbers! Tis' Talk Like a Pirate Day

Yours Truly,

Scribe Prudence
What is YOUR pirate name?

We the Screenwriter

Don't you just love it when you're cruising the internet and start off looking for one thing, and then you click and click and find something really cool?

Well, I was looking at San Diego writerly links, and came across the San Diego Writers Conference, thinking maybe I'll go this year, maybe I'll try to get the first 30 pages of my manuscript polished enough to show to an agent, maybe I'll go rub elbows with editors, maybe.... and then I clicked and I clicked, and I found this:



Michael Steven Gregory is the executive director of the writers conference, and produced another movie that I've seen called "We, The Writer" which was pretty cool. And the best part is, he created a new word, "doculogue." Love that!

Musing about Creativity and Mental Health

I'm a firm believer that EVERYONE is creative. In some way or another. Some of us are writers, artists, photographers, others of us are mothers, scientists, and/or business owners. Whatever you do in life, being creative, being able to look at things from a different angle, makes life interesting, more fulfilling, and brings you closer to your bliss.

Why is it then, when we need it most, creativity escapes us? Like for me, right now. I really want to get lost in my own fiction, to make up someone else's life in a short story and live there awhile. But the muse is just not here for me right now. bitch. Oh, it's not her fault, I know I'm the one pushing her away, closing the door when she knocks, turning on the television to drown her out. But dammit, can't she see I need her?

Maybe I need to wallow in my misery right now, I don't know. I just know that I am struggling to get out of bed in the morning*, although I can't sleep at night, busy brain my sister calls it, and I WANT to want to spend time on my own projects, not the ones that were forced upon me by my father's death, but I can rarely muster the energy to do anything in the evenings except watch television, which of course makes me feel even more pathetic..

Gee, how did a post about creativity turn to that??

So I'm signed up for a class next Friday, a workshop on Overcoming Self Sabotage. Perhaps being depressed about my Dad is just an excuse to NOT do the things, to NOT put in the hard work toward achieving success in my creative endeavors, to NOT achieve success. Perhaps I am just sabotaging myself. I'm hoping that is the case, 'cause I'd much rather think that I am creatively brilliant, but emotionally stunted than to think that I am just a depressed hack.

The creativity hostess, Jill Badonsky, has put together this whole "Unleashing Creative Brilliance" weekend workshop and has teamed up with Dr. Robert Maurer. It looks like a great program, and Jill is a wonderful muse channeler, and she says Dr. Maurer is fantastic.

I also signed up for a workshop on the 30th of September, entitled "It's my story and I'm sticking to it" taught by Debra Ginsberg, through the San Diego Writers Ink.

Yeah. Just keep moving forward. I'm acting "as if" as Dr. Phil would say. As if everything were fine, as if I were not depressed, as if I am a brilliant writer.

* * *

*I should point out that not wanting to get out of bed has nothing to do with my job. I'm actually quite happy with my job at the moment, we have lots of fun creative changes in the near future, and I just got a nice little raise, that really isn't that little, but just makes me feel like I need to step up even more so we can continue to do more fun stuff.

PS: I just read this post and it reads like I'm manic or something. Yikes.

9/11 Can't avoid it.

I've been trying to avoid it, I rarely watch tv news, but here it is. September 11. Of course I wish there had not been such a tragedy, but what I mostly wish is the love and compassion we had for each other in the days following September 11 would have stayed with us. With me.

I remember for a while it was OK to look into the eyes of strangers. It was like you knew that everyone you met could have lost someone, or knew someone who lost someone, and it was ok to express your sympathy, to ask, did you know anyone? Where were you when it happened?.

I remember people were nicer to each other, they drove their cars more respectfully. Not like this morning when I, driving well over the speed limit, was still passed by folks who thought I was going too slow. And so I cursed them. Crazy drivers.

I heard more pleases and thank yous, and fewer exasperated loud sighs that are some sort of I-can't-talk-to-you-cause-you're-a-stranger code for "Excuse me."

I miss those days. I wish that feeling had permanently imprinted on the American Psyche, and that every time any one of us were to encounter that the gruff old man at the newsstand, that the girl down the street who never smiles, the lady in the beemer who just cut you off... maybe just maybe instead of getting pissed off, we could have a little compassion. Because maybe just maybe that person just lost a friend, a wife, a brother....

Skyline Drive

I've been missing my dad a lot today. It's Sunday. I miss talking to my dad on Sundays. Not that we ever had much to say, which is funny because we had a lot in common. Too much. So much it scares me. So much that it inspires me to clean out my closet, and take things to the Goodwill, which I did yesterday. Still more to go, I might add.

Anyway, so here's a couple of photos. Times were good then, even if I did have Farrah hair. And big glasses. yikes.

These were taken at Skyline Drive in Virginia, circa 1980...

It's funny, I totally remember that day, the way the crispy Fall air tasted like apple cider, and caramel. I remember those overalls. I loved them. And that red sweater with a hood was soft.



And me and my Dad were ok. Not perfect, missed my mom, but we were ok.

Jean Berg took the picture. She was cool. I always wished my Dad had married her.

This just gives me chills

I met this gal at the Blogher conference (I know, I know, shut up about that conference already, would ya!) But seriously, Amanda rocks.
Here she is singing a capella, one of my favorite songs. AND she does it well.



And I didn't know she could play geetar. Great arrangement:



I'm inspired! don't worry, I won't sing, but I am working on putting some AUDIO up, the result of playing with my new digital audio recorder that I love. Stay tuned. Maybe tomorrow. Darn these weekends are too short!