On Monday, March 15, 1993 at 9:00AM, I started my first shift working at the public library. On Friday, March 15, 2013 at 9:00AM, on my 20 year work anniversary, I was celebrating the first day of spring break in my back yard by kicking around a soccer ball with my six-year-old daughter.
In 1993 I was a 22 year old college dropout, in the last few months of a three-year relationship with a woman who remains to this day one of my best friends. In 2013 I'm a 42 year old with an Associate's degree, in a ten year relationship with a man who puts up with my quirks and likes me more because of them, whose love for me, in sexy symmetry, equals mine for him. I lucked out.
In 1993 I wanted to be a writer but I couldn't figure out how to support myself financially. I figured being around books and people who like books and information would be a good way to spend my day. I had applied for six jobs before someone finally offered me a page position. When I mentioned to a co-worker how excited I was that they finally hired me, she burst my bubble a little by informing me that this time I was the only one who had applied for the job. I lucked out. I worked 15 hours a week and made $6.63 per hour - almost twice as much as I'd made in my previous jobs at a subway shop and being a nanny for a rich family. I felt like a grown up for the first time in my life. I felt nervous and scared, but mostly I felt excited.
In 2013 I am a writer but I still can't figure out how to support myself financially by writing. I still work at the library. Twenty years and they haven't fired me yet! I met my husband Will when he also worked at the library. Then he quit to work for a friend, and we got married. Then we had a kid. If it weren't for the library I would not be Will's wife or Katie's mother. By the time Katie was born, I worked full time and I continued to work full time for five years until my doctor advised me to cut back my hours at work if I was serious about my mental health. I had doing-too-much syndrome. Now I work 24 hours a week and make a living wage helping people who love books and information, and I write and do housework and care for my husband and child at home. And our pets. So much freaking pet hair and vomit to deal with. But it's OK. They're worth it. They're just a bunch of furry love fuzz balls. Except for Thatcher the cat. He acts like he's feral. I don't know why I put up with that fucker.
There is currently no cure for doing-too-much-syndrome so I'll probably have it for the rest of my life, but it's manageable. Side-effects are a sinkful of dirty dishes and wrinkled, unmatched clothes, and occasional uncontrolable swearing. And yet, somehow, despite all my care-taking responsibilities I still feel like a kid, on the precipice of something exciting and fulfilling. Not really knowing where it is I'm going but feeling confident I will once again luck out.
Katie sat at the table, coloring a shamrock on her March reading log. The instructions from school say to color a shamrock for every ten minutes spent reading outside school. At the beginning of the school year it was apples. Pumpkins in October. Now shamrocks in March. At the beginning of the year Katie'd just scribble over whatever picture, not putting much effort into it. I could tell she thought it was dumb to keep track of how much she read. You don't keep track of how much you jump or skip or laugh or...breathe.
Katie never needed an incentive to read. Reading together has long been one of our favorite activities, and now that she can read books to herself I catch her all the time off in some corner of the house reading with no push from either Will or me. Well, it's probably a natural push, having a librarian for a mother. But Will now reads just as much as I do, so he's influencing her habits too.
Katie puts more effort into coloring her reading log now. She sits at the table with her tongue sticking out of her mouth, in full concentration, spending time making it look neat.
She pulled her tongue inside her mouth and looked up at me. "Did you know I'm reading at a second grade level?"
She didn't wait for me to respond before she went back to coloring. Tongue out again.
"Oh yeah? Who told you that?" I asked.
"My teacher. She said she was impressed," Katie looked up briefly and smiled, then went back to work on her shamrock.
"Well I'm impressed too. Why do you think you're such a good reader?" I asked.
Katie didn't look up. "Because I work so hard at it."
"That's true. You do work hard. I'm proud of you. You work hard at reading, you work hard at your spelling words, at your math homework, at your terrapin project. All that stuff." I waved my hand in the direction of her back pack.
Katie looked up and smiled. She rested her elbow on the table and started lightly whacking her forehead with a crayon. As if she had summoned some sage, she said, "You know, Mom, the only thing that I don't work very hard at is love."
"Why's that?" I asked.
"Because when you are born you already know about love. It's just hugging and kissing and all that stuff. It's easy. Easy peasy."
I threw my arms around her. She's right. Easy peasy.
Lately I've been on a mission to slack off more. Since I cut back my hours at work over a year ago, I've become more of a workaholic. It used to be, when I worked full-time, that when I'd get home I'd take it easy because, you know, I deserved it. I had been working hard all day earning a paycheck, so I felt entitled to some rest and relaxation in the evening. Now that I only work twenty-four hours a week outside the home, if I'm not at work-work, getting paid, I feel compelled to do something resembling work at home, whether that means writing or doing housework, to justify not being out in the world earning a bigger paycheck. If I sit in front of a screen to, say, watch a movie, I start to feel guilty.
I should be working. I'm not one of those pampered kinds of housewives who watches TV all day. If I'm not going to write something the least I could do is go scrub the soap scum off the bathtub or put away some laundry.
But that's a bunch of bunk.
Around Oscar time last month, when a friend asked me what my favorite movie was last year and the only two movies I could think of that I had even seen were kids' movies with Katie, I realized I haven't been allowing myself enough me-time. I need a break! Even when I read books for pleasure at home I feel like I'm working. I have to read them carefully so I can write a review on my blog, so I can know who to recommend them to at my job at the library, so I can gain insight from them for my own writing education. Reading, as much as I love it, as much as I can't live without it, is still work to me.
So I've rediscovered the pleasure of watching a movie I like, one that I've picked out, not for Katie, not for Will, just for me. Self-love.
After having trouble even getting a freaking DVD of my choosing home, I finally sat down the other day and watched the Maggie Gyllenhaal film, "Hysteria." It's a fun, frothy, fictionalized account of how the treatment of the once-common medical diagnosis hysteria led to the invention of the vibrator. The ending was a little too neatly tied-together, but the romantic leads were both adorable, and my husband and I laughed out loud throughout the film.
The only complaint I have is that I enjoyed myself so much while watching the movie that I completely forgot to get off the couch and put the laundry in the dryer. So when it was time for me to get ready for work-work the next morning, I had no clean socks.
I'm glad I'm a modern woman who has a rewarding career outside the home and who has equal rights and who is in control of my own body and mind, unlike most of the women in the movie. But I still struggle with juggling all my responsibilities that come with a blended work/home life. I should quit thinking of laundry as drudgery and accept it for what it's worth. I can't show up to work-work without clean socks.
But life is more than work and clean socks, and every now and then we all deserve a little self-love, so I'm glad I watched this movie and ditched my domestic duties for one night.
I ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich every day for lunch when I was a kid, from the time I began gumming solid foods until I started eating hot lunch at school. I've recently brought back the trend.
Since I cut my hours at work, and therefore my wages, so I can stay home and write more, my family has been looking for ways to save money. The biggest savings for us has been eating out less. When I worked full-time I often treated myself to lunch out because, you know, I worked so hard and who wants to bother with the drugery of fixing a sack lunch at 7AM? Same with Will. Now that I don't have to be at work at 8AM every day, it's no big deal for me to spend a few minutes each morning filling Will's lunchbox with goodies from home: leftovers, sandwiches, odd concoctions of whatever we have on hand to remind him that his kooky wife loves him despite her culinary skills. Will smiles like a lion whose pride keeps him well nourished as his coworkers come over to investigate the contents of his lunchbox each day in the breakroom.
For myself I almost always fall back on my favorite: the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The sandwich I eat now looks different than it did when I was a kid, but it's essentially the same: bread, ground up legumes, smashed sugary fruit.
This is what my PBJ looked like in 1973:
2 slices of Wonder bread, crusts cut off
2 tablespoons of Skippy peanut butter
2 tablespoons of Welch's grape jelly
This is how my PBJ had evolved by 1993 (although it was most often eaten at midnight after a night of binge drinking rather than at noontime while watching Sesame Street):
2 slices of whole wheat bread
2 tablespoons of Jif peanut butter
2 tablespoons of Smucker's strawberry jam
And this is how my PBJ is today, in 2013:
2 slices of Whole Foods 365 Organic Early Bird bread
2 tablespoons of ground-in-the-store organic peanuts
2 tablespoons of Whole Foods 365 Organic strawberry conserve
Sometimes I substitute the strawberry conserve with its Whole Foods 365 Organic brand cousin, concord grape jelly. And sometimes I even use the Bonne Maman peach preserves, imported from France, because now that I'm a grown up sometimes I feel fancy like that.
It was raining hard and Will and I were in a hurry to get to the theater in time. It was that moment, when Will turned his head away from me to merge onto the interstate, that I tossed him a question.
"So, in the past eleven years, what would you say is one thing about me that hasn't changed?"
If I were driving, which I wouldn't have been--Will feels uncomfortable when he's in the passenger seat with me--and if Will had asked me the same question, which he wouldn't have--Will is secure enough with himself that he doesn't need constant validation from me--I would have shushed him and told him I had to concentrate on the slippery road conditions. Will didn't shush me. He answered my question without hesitation.
"Your tenacity."
"What?" I laughed and looked at the beads of water forming on the windshield. "I don't even know what that means. You mean, like, I never give up?"
"Yes. Exactly." Will kept his eyes on the road.
There's this overpass that connects southbound 69 Highway to eastbound I-435. It freaks me out. The walls on each side are made of that heavy concrete-looking stuff that's often used to divide highways. If your car goes hurtling into one, the idea is it will smash before heading into on-coming traffic. But on this overpass the walls feel too short, like there's not enough protection to keep your car from flying off the side.
"Those concrete sides are too short. If you had an accident couldn't your car just fly right over the sides of the wall?" I said aloud.
Eleven years ago Will would not have understood that my question was rhetorical and anxiety-induced and that I actually didn't want him to explain to me the physics behind the concrete blocks keeping us safe. He would have gone on and on about how the structure works and I would have nodded and smiled and pretended to listen. Will understands me now better than he did eleven years ago, so he kept his rational thoughts to himself.
He took his eyes off the road momentarily as we approached the overpass. He smiled at me the way you do the second you're strapped in and the roller coaster starts to take off. I quickly smiled back and then turned my head to face forward, hoping he'd follow my lead. I sucked in my breath and then expelled it from my lungs forcefully. I thought about one of my favorite scenes from the movie Parenthood:
"I wish I didn't worry so much," I said, keeping my eyes on the water beads in front of me.
I'm sure Will wishes I didn't worry so much too. But he didn't say anything, and when we got to the other side of the overpass and merged safely into our spot among the traffic, he took his right hand off the wheel and held mine.
We were in a hurry because we had changed plans at the last minute. Earlier in the day while I was at work, Will drove Katie to his folk's house so she could have a sleepover with them and her cousins, so Will and I could celebrate the eleventh anniversary of our first date. It's probably due to the amount of time I spent in previous relationships with women that I put such a great emphasis on first dates. In my day, lesbians weren't allowed to get married so a first-date anniversary was it. Will and I were similarly casual about a legal marriage. We lived together for about a year before I said to him one day, without thinking:
We should get married!
And he replied, without hesitation,
Sure, why not.
By the time we officially got married, we'd been dating for two-and-a-half-years. Including a six-week break-up one summer before we realized how much we wanted to be together. We were married by a retired judge inside our apartment--with the dog as my maid of honor--because of the rain outside changing our plans to get hitched in the park across the street.
Inside the car, I tried not to think of the various ways the rain could change our plans that night, but one way in particular kept popping into my head: both of us on stretchers in the ER, bloody and mangled, the car smashed into a concrete block on the highway or upturned below, off the side of the overpass. I breathed in and out and felt the warmth of Will's hand against mine. We are here now. We are in this moment. I need nothing more than this.
The rain didn't change our plans. We got to the theater a little late, but safe and secure. A little wet, but the water droplets evaporated as we got into our seats, lifted the dividing arm rest, and fell into each other.
It was a last minute plan anyway. Those are the ones that work out the best. If I put too much thought into how I want something to go, I get disappointed. The best choices I've made in life have come with the least amount of deliberation.
That morning as I was getting ready for work, I suggested we go see some live music that night. We knew Katie was spending the night with her grandparents, but we didn't have a firm plan for how we wanted to spend our date night. Will said that sounds good, but we committed to nothing. By the time I got home from a long eight hour shift, the last four of which I'd spent on my feet, I was too tired to summon enough coolness to be seen in public at any show I'd be interested in seeing, so we decided to go see a movie and then grab some dinner. It was Will's idea.
"So? I'll go see that with you," Will said, unsmiling. He looked sad, like the time I got him the wrong kind of Russell Stover coconut chocolates for our anniversary. For the fifth year in a row.
"What?" I asked.
"What what?" He said.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" I said.
"Like what?"
"Like you're disappointed. Because you wanted to see The Hobbit and I put it off too long and now it's gone?" I guessed.
"No," Will shook his head. "We can see it on DVD."
"Then why are you looking at me that way?" I asked.
"Because my wife doesn't think I'd want to see a movie she likes!" Will scoffed.
"Oh yeah, I guess you did go see Brokeback Mountain with me, didn't you," I said.
"Yeah. What? Did you think I was going to make you go see the latest Arnold Schwarzenegger movie?"
"No!" I laughed. "But I feel bad that we didn't get to see The Hobbit since it's your thing. And since the movie we saw on our first date was Return of the King. It would be a nice reminder of our first date."
We were both quiet for a moment until I said, "So you really will go see Silver Linings Playbook with me?" I slapped him playfully on the arm.
"Yes, I said so, didn't I? I like to do things my wife likes to do, you know?" He looked like he wanted to slap me back, perhaps not so playfully.
I leaned forward, my lips barely touching his, and whispered, "Is it hard to live with me?"
He laughed and leaned back and said, "Look up the showtimes!"
I did, and we made a plan. We'd go see Silver Linings Playbook at 6:55 at Ward Parkway and then head to Westport afterwards to get burgers and beer at The Green Room. It was Will's idea. The Green Room advertised in The Regular Joe Kansas City, the local paper I've started writing for, so Will figured they might have a copy of the paper we could get our hands on.
They didn't, and we ended up not seeing Silver Linings Playbook either. At the last minute, I joked, "You want me to check and see if The Hobbit's still showing somewhere?" I was teasing Will, because I know it drives him crazy that I always change my mind at the last minute after we've finally settled on plans.
He called my bluff and said, "Sure, why not."
I had checked a couple of weeks ago when we finally got around to going to see The Hobbit, but at that time it wasn't showing in theaters around here anymore. I felt so bad. I had told Will I'd go see it with him on the big screen and I'd put it off too long. So I figured this second attempt at finding a local showtime would be futile, but I did it anyway.
And guess what? A dollar movie theater across town had a showing in thirty minutes.
Now that I know for sure Will's willing, we can go see Silver Linings Playbook another time.
Will likes to tease that I'm his anti-muse. Will sings and plays guitar. Before we met he wrote many songs of unrequited love and loss and yearning. But since we hooked up he's so goddamned happy his creative fruits have dried up. It seems a shitty life is the fertilizer from which creative endeavors grow. But that's not true. Will doesn't write as many songs now that he's a happily married thirty-two year old with a wonderful kid, a great job, and a comfortable home as he did when he was a teenager experiencing heartbreak and the groundless feeling of growing up. But the songs he does write now are sublime. Full, rich, nicely nuanced, mature. A few months ago his mom lent us her electric piano. Will's teaching himself how to play. He has a music background - his parents met in college when his mom was a music major and voice minor and his dad was a voice major and music minor. He started playing violin in elementary school and picked up the guitar by middle school. When I met him he'd just turned twenty-one. On our first date he burned me a copy of his self-recorded debut album, which he named "Black Man in San Francisco" because of a discussion we'd had earlier in the evening about how I'd always felt like I'd been reincarnated and that in my previous existence I'd been a black man in San Francisco. Not only is Will now teaching himself how to play the piano, he's filling out a song he wrote about a year ago on the guitar. The piano arrangements enrich the song. It's powerful. I get goosebumps when he's practicing. I'm so lucky to live with a person of such great artistic talent. I'm creative too, but in a different way. I love music but I don't understand it enough to play an instrument myself and I'm too shy about my voice to sing anywhere other than in the car with my six-year-old. Although I gotta say, too bad for you I'm so shy about singing in public because Katie's and my rendition of "Feel So Different" by Sinead O'Connor is pretty cool if I say so myself. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change Courage to change the things I can And the wisdom to know the difference I am not like I was before I thought that nothing would change me I was not listening anymore still you continued to affect me I was not thinking anymore although I said I still was I'd said "I don't want anymore" because of bad experience but now I feel so different I feel so different I feel so different I have not seen freedom before and I did not expect to don't let me forget now I'm here help me to help you to behold you I started off with many friends and we spent a long time talking I thought they meant every word they said but like everyone else they were stalling and now they seem so different they seem so different they seem so different I should have hatred for you but I do not have any and I have always loved you oh you have taught me plenty the whole time I'd never seen all you had spread before me the whole time I'd never seen that all I'd need was inside me now I feel so different I feel so different I feel so different I love to sing in the car but I'm no performer. My creative outlet is writing. When I was a young child, before I knew how to form letters and words, I drew. I was never interested in how good a picture looked but more interested in what message it conveyed. I drew stories. When I got older, I played with Barbies in a similar way, creating story lines for the dolls that were on par with the soap operas playing on TV in the background during summer vacation. I gave up playing Barbies by the time I was thirteen. We'd moved to a new school district and I was too embarrassed to play with dolls with my new friends. It was at this time that I began to pay closer attention to good literature. I'd always been a reader. Curious George and I Can't Said the Ant were my favorite books when I was young. I moved on to Beverly Cleary's Ramona series, then Judy Blume, who I adored. Starring Sally J. Friedman As Herself was my favorite book in upper elementary school. I read it over and over. In seventh grade, at my new school where I had no close friends, we were assigned to read S.E. Hinton's book, The Outsiders. I read it in one night and burst into tears when it was over, a pattern that I still follow today with my favorite books. I remember becoming obsessed with the fact that S.E. Hinton had written this book when she was only sixteen. I decided to give up my dream of quitting school, running off to England and joining Duran Duran as a backup singer, which is probably a good idea since I didn't like to leave my bedroom and I refused to sing in front of other people. Instead, I decided I wanted to be a novelist like S.E. Hinton. I did not finish writing my first novel in time to publish it at age sixteen like Hinton. So, on my sixteenth birthday I tweaked my plan. I would publish it by age 26 (like Alice Walker). Then I turned 26 and still there was no novel. So I decided I'd publish it by age 34 (like Harper Lee). When 34 came and went and no novel had come forth, I decided maybe I should tweak the plan further by renaming the career goal the more generic "writer" so I can count my personal essays (and now my blog) as writing. It was then I decided my goal would be to publish something of book length by the age of 66 (like Frank McCourt). You might ask, what's with all this comparing yourself to others crap? I know. I'm really bad about that. I think it comes from being the youngest sibling of five brilliant, funny, creative people and feeling compelled to live up to their standards. At least it feels good to blame it on a side-effect of birth order, something I have no control over, so I don't need to bother myself further with worry over it. A couple of years ago when I turned forty and my brother died I got back into therapy. I began seeing a therapist when I was eleven, and continued seeing a long string of therapists throughout my early adulthood. I never felt a strong connection to any of them, though, so I'd always quit and tell myself I can manage better on my own. But when I found myself unable to get out of bed without vomiting and it wasn't due to any virus, just malaise, I got back into therapy. I wanted something different though. I talked to one therapist on the phone and after giving me an assessment he suggested I try Dialectical Behavior Therapy. I tried it for a few months and then quit when I felt ready to go it alone again. I didn't like the group therapy part of it - I found myself getting sucked in to the others' trauma and becoming more depressed and overwhelmed with anxiety the further they shared their sad stories. I didn't have the energy to give to others at the time. I needed all my mental health energy reserves for myself.
But what I did love about DBT is the Buddhist component of it. The middle way. The nonjudgment. The distress tolerance. The ambiguity. The idea that you can hold two conflicting thoughts inside your head and be aware of them without judgment and without avoidance. These ideas have been very helpful in my personal wellness journey. I recently started reading Buddhist nun Pema Chodron's book Living Beautifully: With Uncertainty and Change. Chodron says people get stuck and suffer when they haven't learned how to ride the waves of uncertainty. When they have a fixed identity or plan. When things don't work out, when we don't get what we want, anxiety arises and we turn to our favorite coping mechanisms to shift our thoughts back to the familiar. To something we think we can count on in an ever-changing world. Food, drugs, alcohol, television, the Internet, work - whatever keeps us distracted from being fully aware. Competition. Mom and I used to sit on the front porch and play the movie star initials' game. Mom would say, "J.S." and I'd guess which celebrity she was thinking of. She'd call me out of my bedroom when I was doing homework to watch TV with her. Awards shows thrill her - Oscars, Tonys, anything glitzy with lots of celebrities. Mom used to encourage me to write romance novels instead of heavy pieces of introspection because they'd sell better. But fame and monetary recognition are not as important to me as artistic expression. Mom's focus is outward, external. My focus is inward, internal. That's why I love blogging. I can share what I want when I want to. As much or as little as I feel is appropriate. I don't need a big corporate publishing house to say whether or not my writing is valid. I can self-publish and let my readers decide for themselves. An Internet friend recently shared Amanda Fucking Palmer's amazing Ted Talk, "The Art of Asking":
My favorite quote is this one:
"For most of human history, musicians, artists, they've been part of the community, connectors and openers, not untouchable stars. Celebrity is about a lot of people loving you from a distance, but the Internet and the content that we're freely able to share on it are taking us back. It's about a few people loving you up close and about those people being enough."
My husband and his buddy JJ are my favorite musical duo and yet they're not even in a band together. JJ and his family come over periodically. We smoke and drink and eat. Our kids play together. Will and JJ jam. I've been moved more by these two guys I love and know personally, playing music inside my living room, than I ever have been at a big-name rock concert I paid big bucks to see.
I'm not saying people who make a lot of money off their art are wrong for doing it. I'm just saying that good art doesn't need a price tag.
I recognize that fact in other artists, but I'm still struggling with it myself. I love to sing but I'm too embarrassed to sing in front of other people because my voice is not as good as Adele's. So what? Comparing myself to one of the most gifted singers on the planet won't make me happy. Singing along with my non-judging six-year-old in the car makes me happy.
I'm not Adele. I'm not Frank McCourt. I'm not Harper Lee. I'm not Alice Walker. I'm not S.E. Hinton. I'm Becky Carleton. I'm a writer. I'm a singer. On my blog. In my car. The way I like it. I don't have to do things the way others do them. I can do it my way. Great. Now I sound like Frank Fucking Sinatra.
Human beings used to sit around the fire and sing and play music and tell stories and dance. On a warm night in late summer it's fun to go camping and get back in touch with our inner tribal selves. But when the weather outside isn't conducive to camping, the Internet allows us to partake in a similar type of artistic sharing: smaller, intimate, more personal. The Internet allows us to invite people over to sit on our front porch, to sing and jam and share stories, even if we physically live far away.
Since I watched that Amanda Palmer video, I'm excited about writing a novel again. I feel less panicky when I'm aware that there is not just one way to do something. I don't have to find an agent and a publisher. I can self-publish. When I thought about self-publishing before, I didn't know how I could do that since I'm broke. There's no way I could come up with enough money to publish my own novel. But here's an idea: ask for it. If I were a musician I could lay my case out for tips. This is the same thing.
I finally understand what's been holding me back from working on the second novel stored inside my head: I've been worried I won't be able to find a publisher for it, just like my first manuscript sitting unpublished in my desk drawer. So, what if I start out writing the second novel with the intent of self-publishing it? Then I can get it done when I want to, on my own timeline, at my own pace. I can enjoy it. It can be all mine. I don't have to worry about what others will think of it. I won't have to worry about selling myself to an agent or writing another goddamned query letter. I hate those fucking things. And then, when I'm ready to self-publish it, I can create a Kickstarter campaign to raise money from family and friends and fans of my blog to publish it.
But stop. There I go again. Planning instead of writing. It's good to know I have varied paths on my journey to publishing. But for now, I'll focus on the moment. Instead of worrying about the intricacies of how I'll get it published, I'm going to focus on writing it.
When Katie brought home her book of jokes, my first thought was, "What kind of six-year-old writes a book of jokes? Who is she, Woody Allen?"
I know that Woody Allen started selling jokes at a young age because Woody Allen is my favorite director. It's hard for me to admit that. I usually say, "Woody Allen used to be my favorite director." Like when people tell me their birthday and I say, "Oh, you're a Libra. Cool." Then they ask me if I'm into astrology and I say, "Oh, not anymore. I spent one summer when I was fourteen reading Linda Goodman's Love Signs, that's all." I've moved on. I watch Hank Green's SciShow now, for goodness sake. A person of my mental integrity has no room for such trivialities...
Similarly, the assumption when I say Woody Allen used to be my favorite director is that someone replaced Allen in that role. They are my Hank Green to my teenage self's Linda Goodman. But when pressed to reveal who my favorite director is now, I have a hard time coming up with an answer.
Maybe Ang Lee?
The problem is, I can hardly call someone my favorite director when I've seen only two of his films. Sure, they're both on my list of top ten movies of all time: Ride with the Devil and Brokeback Mountain, but considering I haven't even seen Life of Pi yet and it won the Oscar for best director this year, I'm a pretty shitty fan if I call Ang Lee my favorite director.
Conversely, I've seen every Woody Allen film he ever made. Until the Soon-Yi scandal. When I found out he was romantically involved with his girlfriend's daughter, a 19 year-old, adopted, legal, sure, but still, yuck. How can I continue to like a person's art when I don't like the artist as a person?
But oh how I once loved him. Annie Hall's tied with The Big Lebowski for my all-time favorite movie. I remember seeing it in the theater at Metro North Shopping Mall with my parents and, in the parking lot walking to our car, asking my mom if I could start seeing a therapist. It sounded so cosmopolitan and cool. Mom, of course, thought I was nuts and shrugged off my request until I turned eleven and started starving myself.
Ironically, it was after seeing these unflattering tweets from Allen's son, Ronan Farrow, that I began to think it's time to give the old man a second chance. Funny, I'm not the only one who's eyeing Ang Lee for our "best director" slot. Turns out, Woody Allen's son thinks Ang Lee's pretty awesome too:
Let's be real, if we could pick our legendary director dads, we'd go with Ang Lee, right guys?
— Ronan Farrow (@RonanFarrow) February 25, 2013
This one's my favorite: Ronan Farrow manages to sound like his dad while he's slamming him. Well done!
Happy father's day -- or as they call it in my family, happy brother-in-law's day.
— Ronan Farrow (@RonanFarrow) June 17, 2012
If Woody Allen can produce an offspring so funny and so cool, then I guess luck assured he's not a complete fuck up in the kids-turned-out-ok-department. Even though he's probably a horrible person in some ways, I'm grateful that Woody Allen exists for his art, but also because if it weren't for him Ronan Farrow wouldn't exist. And look how cool he is.
If you ask Katie what she likes best about school, she'll say PE, recess, lunch, and "free draw" time in class. Due to budget cuts, each class has just one session a week with the actual art teacher, but Katie's first grade teacher sets aside time each day for some unstructured creativity.
Yesterday Katie brought home not just a single drawing, but a book.
"A book? Were you assigned to create a book?" I asked, making sure my kid really is as awesome as I think she is. If it were an assignment, that's cool, but if not, that's awesome. Like, she's-ready-to-join-Nerdfighteria and don't-forget-to-be-awesome, awesome.
"No, I made it during free draw," she said.
Yes! My child is a nerdfighter prodigy!
"What made you decide to make a book?" I asked, beaming, expecting her to wax six-year-old-philosophic on me about how wonderful it is to draw out your thoughts and feelings and explore whatever's in your imagination.
Instead, she said, "Because McKayla and I want to sell them and make money."
McKayla is a girl she's recently become chummy with at school. Last week McKayla wrote her phone number down and gave it to Katie. I asked if she was supposed to call her and Katie said no, it was for when they were playing "pretend smartphone" at recess. This kid is corrupting my innocent artist child with consumerist ways!
"Mom," Katie pointed to the spot on the book where she had written $4 dollers," Does this mean it's published?"
"Oh don't I wish it were that easy, Punk!" I said, laughing. She's heard the word "published" from me. Usually with the prefix "un" in front of it.
My proud-mama-of-an-artist bubble burst, knowing my kid wants to write books for profit and not for pure artistic expression. I wanna break it to her, though: If she's in it for the money she oughta rethink her plans. I cut back my hours at work a year-and-a-half ago so I could spend more time writing. Which I have. And it's wonderful. I love it. But my original goal was to sell my manuscript to a publisher and start supporting our family with the money I'd make as a novelist. When I couldn't find an agent and I realized I'm not savvy enough to market my own work, I chucked my manuscript into the desk drawer and started blogging.
It's been great for my mental health, for my need of pure artistic expression, but it's been shitty for padding my bank account. As of this moment, I've made $45.16 in ad revenue off my blog. Since July 2011. In another couple of years I might be able to afford to buy Katie an American Girl doll with the proceeds.
At least the kid isn't a spendthrift like me. When I asked Katie what she plans to do with the money she earns selling her books, she said, "I'm saving my money for college."
I should have done that. I shouldn't knock her book selling idea. Maybe if I had written books as a kid and sold them for four dollars a pop, I could have saved my money for college. Then maybe I'd have a degree and know what the hell I need to do to get published instead of dropping out after becoming exhausted trying to support myself with a full time job while finishing my Creative Writing degree.
The kid's full of good ideas. I should take her advice more often.
On the way home from the store, Katie announced this to Will and me: "When I grow up, I don't care how much money I make. I don't care if I'm rich or poor. I just want to have a house and a family and a job and be happy."
What a reasonable little artist she is. I need to quit worrying about how little money I'm making off my blog and simply enjoy it and life with my wonderful family. The family that gives me such good material to write about.
I'm supposed to be writing right now. Instead I'm allowing myself a beautiful dissociation via Judy Garland and Radiohead. Hollywood ate Judy Garland's soul and then stuffed the empty void full of prescription meds until she died at age 47. Garland's dancing works eerily well with Radiohead's moving "How To Disappear Completely." Torn between wanting to open yourself up and shutting down.
I understand the feeling. My successful brother is starting another community newspaper, this time in my community. He's asked me to write for him. I agreed. Now I'm freaking out. When I was twenty my Composition instructor at the community college offered me a job writing for another, now defunct, community newspaper. He was the music editor and he wanted me to write reviews for him. I said no. I wasn't ready for that type of writing commitment. I loved writing. My biggest dream was to be a professional writer. But personally I wasn't in a good place. I was at the height of my depressive lows. I had so much work I needed to do on myself. Years of therapy. Years of reading self-help books. Years of growing comfortable in my own skin. I didn't have the energy to write for someone else. Twenty-two years later, my brother has offered me an opportunity to attract more attention to my blog. I love blogging. It feels intimate and open at the same time. I can write what I want when I want to. No rules. No deadlines. No expectations. But goddammit, it's time. I'm in a good place. I'm at the height of mental wellness. I've worked on myself for twenty-two years since I got my first writing job offer. I've had the therapy. I've read the self-help books. I'm comfy in my robe, in my own home, in my own skin. Let's see if I can write for someone else now. ...or in another minute or two. Just one more viewing of Judy dancing and I swear I'll get back to work.
