tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52624349253601024232024-03-21T17:02:05.339-05:00Biscuit FortuneI'm Working On It. Whatever It Is.Corrbettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07348597683981672294noreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5262434925360102423.post-88916551306729681952017-01-11T22:00:00.002-06:002017-01-11T22:01:01.483-06:00Write Club: Power v. Justice (POWER)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">963, 1023, or 1096. It’s one of those, I’m pretty sure. Once you near 1000 it starts to get hazy. But yeah, it’s somewhere around there.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-854c2214-90c1-98f9-722b-f91d3f60f2e4" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In 2016, police killed 963, 1023, or 1096 people, depending on your source. It gets hazy. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You know what’s fun? Aside from Not This Even A Little? When you research this, you can click a refresh button for various sub stats and it’s like a grotesque fireworks show - powerful displays of the very opposite of independence. OOOH a third of the victims were under 30. AAAAH 1 in 20 were unarmed. OOOH mental illness was cited in a quarter of the incidents. Wait wait...finale... just under a third actually fled from the officers. Yay (clap clap clap) </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>(sings) </i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ameeeeerica ameeeeerica...fuck it.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, I could spend all of my seven minutes, Lily’s seven minutes, and seven minutes of each of your days into infinity spouting more stats or names like Terence Crutcher, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Keith Lamont Scott...but then I would just end this showing the lack of justice from last year </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>alone</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and call it a day. But that’s lazy. And I’ve had too much rage coffee - also known as air - to be lazy. SO LET’S DECIMATE JUSTICE since it’s pretty much a smoldering corpse of fiction anyway, yeah? GREAT. Let’s go look for some.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, police brutality decreased in 2016, but that’s like saying you have less oozing cancer in your left eye than your right. YOU STILL HAVE OOZING EYE CANCER. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We poisoned the water of our own citizens - well. I mean. If we consider bown people citizens. Flint got the brain damaging shit water and the Dakota Access Pipeline is really just a river of pox blankets for Native Americans who had the unmitigated gall to stand up against being poisoned. Again.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And hey. Then there was the election. I can’t say anyfuckingthing new about that. Fucking christ. Motherfuck. Uptown Fuck, Rogue Fuck. The Fuck Awakens. Stranger Fucks. I cannot. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Prisoners are being forced into slave labor and taken out of mental health treatment if they’re "bad."</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Brock Turner got "seven seconds of action" and the victim WROTE A LETTER, but we still heard his fucking swim record.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Idiots took over a bird sanctuary. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We’ve taken to rebranding Nazis so we don’t hurt their feelings.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A foreign power stuck its dick in our assed up elections and didn’t even lube up first, and we’re pretending it didn’t happen. It’s like Cosby’s PR people took over our collective consciousness. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We lost everyone holding the fabric of our universe together. I’m not listing them here because I want to remain standing and not scream crying while vomiting into a bucket of consolation chicken. Again. It’s finger licking sad.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because these things that I try not to think about and think about all the time simultaneously TAKE THAT 2017 Resolution to Meditate - all of these things...so far...have no consequences. Police officers aren’t charged with murder, the DAPL will still break ground after this month, the Oregon standoff morons are serving their wee sentences, while Native Americans almost died protecting themselves, and the mayor of Flint is still being allowed to speak and the water he drinks is clear and tasty.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tell me there is justice in the world. There is not. Not a hall, not a dawn of, not a league of it. No justice, no peace. And I’m pretty sure we’re not peaceful now.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Power, though. Power is alive and well. How do I know? Because in Justice v Power, my white ass was handed the topic of Power, while Lily Be is stuck with Justice. “Here, defend this thing that we no longer have for people like you. Good luck!” </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the absence of Justice, Power is all we fucking have left. It’s how we got here in the first place. The loudest, richest, whitest dude wins, because what he has is that scent of authority. The eau d’ control por homme. The stink of Because I Fucking Said So.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And let’s revisit one of those previous points, shall we? Let’s go back to rape. But, Corrbette, I don’t wanna talk about rape, you say. But guess what? I have the microphone and my voice is amplified and I therefore have the power so you’re coming down this dimly lit alleyway with me. See, power is what sexual assault is all about. And justice has no part in it. Justice is rapists actually being sentenced. Justice is education and cultural norms pointing AWAY from assault being ok and not electing it president. Justice is women not being told what to wear, where to go, what to drink, how to travel, how to make eye contact, what to say, and which self defense classes to take and not using her sexual past as a reason to rape her. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; white-space: pre-wrap;">(claps) WE DON’T HAVE ANY OF THAT THOUGH. Rape is used as a weapon of war, as a threat against any woman online (“in the cyber” if I use the parlance of our times and our President Elect). We hear a lot about why we should go easy on rapists because they could have their whole lives ruined, while the victims just retreat into themselves forever. Cause who cares about their future. Do they even sports? An entire football team stomped their feet and said, “No. NO HOLIDAY BOWL. NNNNO” when 5 or 7 or 10, eh, it was a group of em, so hazy, were suspended for raping a woman. Allegedly. Justice would be if those dudes understood that was the lightest of sentences. Instead, OH OK NEVERMIND. COME ON. <i>(tousles hair) </i>Ya scamps.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Can we use use power for ourselves? Yes, Dorothy, you had the power all along. Jesus, get new friends.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Army vets came and put themselves in front of the cannons at Standing Rock. Apparently, we can’t see our own cruelty to Native Americans because brownish, so people who we claim to hold dear stood in harm’s way. The construction halted. Temporarily, but it halted.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A whole bunch of vaginas will descend on Washington to make their voice heard as our funding for basic care is stripped away. Black Monday in Poland was a whole herd of vaginas - ummm I think that’s called a curtain? A curtain of vaginas protested an all out abortion ban and that shit was shut right down. Hey, a woman’s body CAN shut that stuff down! </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Inmates refused to show up for their slave labor-like work across the nation, and even paid workers went on strike.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">People complain about how power is gained. No one likes the new rich, the entitled. No one likes dictators. And yet...here we are being lead by them. No one likes protests - oh they’re so inconvenient, oh my god you should be upset about this other thing instead. And yet, that is how power works. You have to flex your muscle, whether it’s by showing up in numbers or calling or yelling louder or just sitting in their damn way. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is no justice in seeing the white doughy fuckwads of the world flexing their muscles. But there’s power in us all, and they will be terrified when they see it. Show up. Be powerful.</span></div>
<br />Corrbettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07348597683981672294noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5262434925360102423.post-70713076236622110492016-12-09T11:51:00.003-06:002016-12-09T12:12:15.930-06:00Factory Love LetterIn a play about strippers, I was cast as a waitress. And a lawyer. I don’t like roles I’ll age out of. I played a 65 year old woman when I was in high school. So I never feel like I’m aging. I’m just growing into the roles I was already playing.<br />
<br />
On the first day of rehearsal for the aforementioned stripper play - called Top Shelf Gash in case you wondered if we had ANY class at all and my mother loved it by the way - I was excited and a little nervous. I didn’t know anyone in the cast except for one person, and these people were a tight knit group. I was brand new. So I made sure to get there early, and I waited. And waited.<br />
<br />
I was at the wrong space, because this was an itinerant company and we rented 15 different spaces to rehearse in and I apparently couldn’t read a goddamned calendar COOL, I’ll just take a cab to the right space then.<br />
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Everyone was very nice, and we read this ridiculous play out loud and I had no idea what was going on and I didn’t care. It was funny. It was weird. The jokes were a combination of crude and elaborate, obvious and <i>beat-you-to-death obvious</i>, and subtle. There were a lot of references. A lot. I didn’t think people made plays like this.<br />
<br />
They didn’t know me at all, but they threw an extra role at me because they wanted someone to say the name of the restaurant where the scene took place. It was called Vagitaria. Because of course it was. Shameless Ball, Shameless Company.<br />
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The director, Nick Digilio, just told me to come up with a few specials. Me? Just...rattle something off?<br />
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They didn’t know I was improv trained. They didn’t know this is what I do. They just assumed I would catch the ball if they threw it, because why else would I be there? Catch the fucking ball, let’s all move on. So I did.<br />
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My specials were mostly puns involving vegan food, and it ended with this one: “And lamb. You can’t eat him, we’re just going to bring him out and you pet him and tell him how special he is.”<br />
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It worked.<br />
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I was in. Also, I was in an onstage pun war with our Artistic Director, Scott OKen. I do not recommend that. Ever. It’s brutal. And I loved it.<br />
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I was addicted then. I would become a company member two years later, after acting as consigliere while in a band with all of the company’s leadership.<br />
<br />
I was in this shit now, son. How deep? Oh, man.<br />
<br />
This Shameless Ensemble. This group of crazy people. I have held these people while they wept; I have shared holidays with them, invited them to my wedding and my home. I have cried with them. I have helped them get home safely, and held their hair when they’ve thrown up. They have helped ME get home safely and been blissfully unaware when I’ve thrown up because I am a GODDAMNED PROFESSIONAL.<br />
<br />
I have seen audience members <i>literally</i> piss themselves. I’ve also seen them be forever changed by something they saw that no other theater would put on stage, for better or for worse.<br />
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I have fought with these company members and made up and fought again. I have been half naked on stage for them. I have loved and lost and loved again with them around to hold me up. I learned to cartwheel and rollerskate for them, to fight better, to write better, to be the straight woman, to step up, to SIT DOWN, to respond faster and smarter, to lay it on the line like Triumph. To be present, to be right here right now, Jesus Jones. To say ULTIMATE a certain way. Ultimate. To enjoy lawsuits. To know what a fart room is, what shit bird is, what a reach around means IN A SHOW, what a DON’T DOOR is, and when and where to make a list moment happen. I have learned to stop, to collaborate and to listen. To constantly ask, “OH IS THAT RIGHT.”<br />
<br />
To scream chants in bars on command.<br />
<i> (leads room in chant)</i><br />
WHAT TIME IS IT?!?!<br />
<i>(Room responds perfectly)</i><br />
<br />
You see that? That is commitment. And a liiiiittle bit of a cult. IT’S OKAY we are a really nice cult and you're all invited.<br />
<br />
These are the teachings of this shameless family. As my career grows, I can look back over ten years of being a company member and know that I got most of it from them. I am now aging gracefully into the roles I’ve had. Just last month, I shot a short film about strippers. I played a waitress. I think I did a pretty good goddamned job.<br />
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<br />
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<br />Corrbettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07348597683981672294noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5262434925360102423.post-81887527006491046802016-06-10T09:58:00.001-05:002016-06-10T10:06:03.606-05:00Big Feelings<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Holy shit.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">My husband, Scott, graduates with his Masters in Social Work from the University of Chicago this weekend. We're attending the hooding ceremony tonight with his dad and stepmom and Gilda, and the reception post-graduation tomorrow. We're missing the graduation ceremony proper because Gilda has "The Big Show" at school, and watching 4 year olds Salsa is more entertaining than watching adults walk slowly. However...</span></span><br />
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<span data-offset-key="7c21k-0-0">This has been over three years in the making. Scott lost his job in advertising, an area in which he never intended to stay. But the money and the stability and acting blah blah blah like so many of us, and 10 years later he was still doing it. Then it was gone. He got offers to go back to old firms, and I begged him not to return to something that made him miserable. So he became a stay at home dad with Gilda for the first 18 months of her life. During that time, he decided what he wanted to do with his life in his new roles as a father and as a sober man. In case that wasn't enough, he applied to graduate schools to begin the journey to becoming a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. He wanted to help people. He still does. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="bde47-0-0">He went part time to make OUR lives easier, and that meant this journey would be three years instead of two. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="bde47-0-0">During that time, his internships were hard. I mean, are-you-kidding-me hard. First up, <a href="http://www.thenightministry.org/" target="_blank">The Night Ministry</a>. He stood outside during the Polar Vortex to help people in need. He also organized a sock drive because, goddammit, it's cold outside. This is a van set up outdoors to assist people without anywhere else to turn, and it's often LGBTQ youth. They provide health care, food, and human connection in the model of harm reduction. It's vital, it's compassionate, and it's nothing like any other program. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIwjpPbVnMAlmB7hnNk6ADVY8hp7LB07Cb9U4QjmoHWHhW6-3sgeFB_04l0iHC-cOCNMPWN3QUe6Kem6piJnP1KY2D1t9wrRT6MVhB6mjelNclL5_AwMk3QgYvQMoHiHST9K6j38_CpGQ/s1600/1490622_10152567769379896_203319781_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIwjpPbVnMAlmB7hnNk6ADVY8hp7LB07Cb9U4QjmoHWHhW6-3sgeFB_04l0iHC-cOCNMPWN3QUe6Kem6piJnP1KY2D1t9wrRT6MVhB6mjelNclL5_AwMk3QgYvQMoHiHST9K6j38_CpGQ/s320/1490622_10152567769379896_203319781_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">No, YOU'RE cold.</td></tr>
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Then he began working at The Night Ministry's emergency youth shelter, The Crib. He was interning at the van, and working part time at the shelter. Oh, and getting all A's in school. He wouldn't talk about the work much, but he also wasn't withdrawn. Just...tired. Cause...yeah. One day, when he had a small hole in his shirt, I jokingly asked him if he was breaking up fights. "Not today," he answered in all seriousness.</div>
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<br />
I make this joke a lot, but it's a good summary of where our lives were headed by this point. We were going in two very different directions, but also becoming more of who we really are as people (and therefore coming closer together at the same time). Here's that summary.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Scott: A girl at the shelter went to jail for strangling another girl to death over a pair of sneakers.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Me: I auditioned to be a singing rat today. I don't think I got it.</div>
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All the while, he was maintaining his sobriety and helping raise the happiest little girl on the planet.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Just...miserable.</td></tr>
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He then got the internship at <a href="http://recovergateway.org/" target="_blank">Gateway</a>, where he is currently a full time counselor. He was leading therapy sessions as an intern, and getting a good hard look at what the future would bring in his career. He was exhausted, but so happy. </div>
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<br />
Did I mention he was still getting all A's?</div>
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<br />
During this time, we have lost dear friends. Dear friends have lost their sweet baby boy. His family went through several emotional upheavals and illnesses. He traveled out to California to be with his mother after heart surgery. And, in November of last year, we lost her. It's not like the universe gives you a goddamned break while you're busy. That's not how life works.</div>
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<br />
He took some time off after that, about a couple of weeks. He then tried to dive back in with a quiz. Like you do. </div>
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<br /></div>
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He continued to excel at his job and in school.</div>
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<br />
I also did two summer shows back to back and we moved. Somehow, we're still married.</div>
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<br />
I know. I'm rambling and I'm making my husband sound like an unearthly being. He's very human, I promise. We bicker and we laugh and we had our kid in our bed for so long, we wondered if we were ever going to be alone together again. Our house gets messy as hell, we're poor as fuck, and we've both put on grad school weight. Whatever.</div>
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<br />
He finished with his excellent grades, his proud family, his sobriety, and our marriage in tact.<br />
<br />
As of tomorrow, he has a Masters in Social Work, and he is a graduate of the SSA program. I stand in awe of this man. I have never been so proud of anyone as I am of him (except MAYbe when Gilda started walking or using the potty...I'm not a monster), and I have never felt so fortunate to be on a journey with someone and watch them truly become who they were meant to be.<br />
<br />
It's never too late, and it isn't out of reach. Whatever it is, go. Go after it.<br />
<br />
Happy Graduation, my love.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT-PS-acx76f2FIp1gj9fCHcm5mRQJjlwRWjQVZ4-e08enCFjBJAdYNYE7AueOFIyhFI_k7zIl8bvXAhTYC1p4ehDhqadGhsrFkhO-3vfeLx0WxWcU8wRWu2lBzgeC7wIwQ7w7wkfUOgs/s1600/IMG_2063.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT-PS-acx76f2FIp1gj9fCHcm5mRQJjlwRWjQVZ4-e08enCFjBJAdYNYE7AueOFIyhFI_k7zIl8bvXAhTYC1p4ehDhqadGhsrFkhO-3vfeLx0WxWcU8wRWu2lBzgeC7wIwQ7w7wkfUOgs/s320/IMG_2063.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This guy.</td></tr>
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Corrbettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07348597683981672294noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5262434925360102423.post-27891480256973065862016-05-14T20:42:00.001-05:002016-05-14T20:42:39.139-05:00Write Club - Skin v. Bone (BONE)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Boner.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-f369b9f5-b212-bb82-41a9-aa0a415faeea" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t really have much else on that, I just really like the word and it’s my topic with an R. Good night. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ahhhfuckno. Belknap isn’t winning by boner default. Not this time, pal.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Look, I’ve done my research. There’s that song about bones on Schoolhouse Rock that I’ve heard at least 15 times in the last two days because I have a toddler sooo...I pretty much have this in the bag. (ahem) I know that, without bones, you’re just a blob. Protecting organs...their main job. And other handy facts that rhyme.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The fact is, what we’re talking about is structure. I’m a 40 year old with undiagnosed ADD. Structure isn’t my strong suit. I have one, I suppose, we all do, but it’s a mess. Oh you're an artist so it's looser, no. It's a mess. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have two sisters and none of us ever broke any bones growing up. This was a point of pride for my mom, Like she smoked steel into us in utero, instead of Winston’s tar... like hickory smoked into bacon but way...way more disgusting. She bragged, I ate Tums every day," she said, "Like they were candy. We didn’t know they had calcium!" </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While we were in the nest, that protection seemed legit. She made us, we weren’t breaking anything. Once we were out, it was up for grabs.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In college, I gave myself a hairline fracture to my own nose while choreographing a modern dance final, and that gave me a really good idea of just how much I was gonna get in my own way forever.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My oldest sister had the bones in her face broken by a concrete bench. There was no protecting her on that one, especially since she met the concrete bench courtesy of a cop. You probably saw it online. The whole world did. I’ve somehow managed to only watch it twice. That was enough.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Years after my mom died, I saw the resemblance more than ever between her and my oldest sister. The high cheekbones especially. The plastic surgery to fix her orbital bones that would prevent her eyeball from falling didn’t quite restore the one cheekbone perfectly, but it’s close.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The pictures I took of her after she was released, with blood on her shirt, shaking uncontrollably, come up every time we write each other because technology likes to link pictures and words even when you don’t want to. The picture’s connected to the memory. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the protection of our calcium-laden home, we drank whole milk from the carton to wash down the Apple Jacks and Lucky Charms and twinkies that were taking the place of emotional support. That’s the best kind of food. The one that replaces affection. It’s fucking delicious.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I had some questions, though, about this “no bones broken” thing. Much like there were questions about that whole “you weren’t born Jewish” and “you weren’t actually a ballerina” and “why is there a different last name on my birth certificate” thing. So many questions. But back to the bones. I had one to pick.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I had a twisted leg at birth. Yes twisted. Not a medical term, I’m sure, but it’s the only adjective I got. There was a cast involved which says "break" to me, but these facts were usually discarded in favor of the better joke. "You were really hairy, so we called you monkey baby." </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instead of structure in our house, we got speed. As a family, our brains are fast but border on unstable, because our mutterings and need to arrive at the perfect punchline make us skip over the tenets of normal discourse so we wind up being our own best audience - kinda like the guy screaming "Happy Friday" in his own piss. Eventually, that’s where we’re going. When your family invents their past and denies the present, but can also make the best joke about it, you’re probably gonna be screaming something in the street covered in something at some point in your life. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let’s just say I can feel it in my bones.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But I'm terrible with looking ahead. I love lists, but will not have a five year plan, It seems pompous and illogical to me. Who the fuck am I to lay out a plan? It's not that I believe in God's will, it's just that by 12 I learned to not ask and just go. My dad went to a Ramada Inn and ended his life. Next thing I know, I'm staying at friend's houses, grounded for a summer for shoplifting some pants from a Bergner's, and I live in a new town and mom had a boyfriend named Mel. Just...just fucking go with it.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So I did. I rolled with punches and made lists and never really looked at where I was going. I never planned on being married with kids because I never planned any kind of life for myself beyond that list. I got lucky. My husband and kid are spectacular. People let me come and perform and write stuff and say it out loud when I secretly don't believe I'm worthy of it. I rolled with it and hopes for the best. But now I can't roll. I can barely fucking turn. Age has pulled a folgers trick on me, replacing my bones with nonsense to see if I noticed. I have wads of arthritis where my bones should be. I don't have joints. I have fucking traitors.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not to brag, but I have </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">advanced</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> arthritis. I've always been a quick study. "You're too young for this," my doctor says. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My dentist even casually told me that the noise in my jaw was arthritis. In my jaw. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your teeth are also considered bones. I willingly filed my front six down to niblets and covered them with crowns because they were cheaper and faster than braces. My mom had a plate for hers. That’s because a man kicked them in when she was 16. She had a child with him. Later, she gave each daughter a different explanation as to why she had a plate and always joked that she wanted a son. She had one with the man who abused her so much that she ran away, leaving the child with his family. She thought it was the only way for either of them to survive. I never met him, and my mother wouldn’t discuss it. Even when she knew my sister finally told me everything. She didn’t even recognize the skeletons in her closet as anything but clothes by this point.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We keep other people’s secrets until we no longer feel it’s our right. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m hopeful that, while we watch Schoolhouse Rock for the eleventeenth time (I Got Six is a jam and if you didn’t know, now you know), I only have dresses and shoes to pass on to my daughter. I also hope I can keep up with her and that she grows up so strong. Because kneeling down toward her is some bullshit.</span>Corrbettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07348597683981672294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5262434925360102423.post-31850792933426021542016-04-04T12:44:00.000-05:002016-04-04T12:44:00.884-05:00Clapping Wildly and Smiling Too BigI've already yammered about my tendency to be a straight up bully to myself. We all do it, but I can't do anything about other people - only me. When entering a journey of any sort that involves self work ("I will be stronger"/"I will be kinder"/"I will not eat all of my child's leftovers"/"I will not watch Better Call Saul without my husband," etc), the hardest part for me is doing it with self <i>love</i>. Acknowledging that work lies ahead is not hard. Hell, I'm convinced I have work to do even when I'm already working on something else...like sleep. Acknowledging that I am still a good person despite work that has to be done? Ahhhhfuckstick. That's harder. Even when it doesn't have to be, I make it harder.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mmm. What a cozy waste of productivity. What do people call this thing? </td></tr>
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<br />
I begin by frantically listing the things I have to do, and make them sound super-daunting so I won't want to do them. "I have to call the unemployment office, All Kids, and the Health Marketplace to straighten some things out. I'm gonna be on hold for my entire life."<br />
<br />
REASON: I booked a spot on a national television show and I got paid, so I had to file a new claim, my husband is now employed full time, and we are covered under his insurance as of April 1. These are GOOD PROBLEMS.<br />
<br />
REASON TO ME: I am not going to get another gig and it's all catch-as-catch-can and I'm failing my family, good thing my husband is here or we'd be living under a bridge.<br />
<br />
See? Asshole.<br />
<br />
I also completed these calls and it took MAYBE 15 damn minutes.<br />
<br />
When tackling something more common like weight loss and strength training, I can be even more brutal. Recently, I tried something as I struggled in a class. My muscles were tired and unaccustomed to moving this way (it's been a minute). My knee is swollen so holding my balance was a blooper reel of futility. I wanted to give up. I wanted to tell myself it was too late and I should probably accept defeat.<br />
<br />
Then, I did it. I talked to my body like it was my daughter.<br />
<br />
Simple concept, really. Except that most times it feels like I'm telling my daughter "no" or "don't touch that do not touch that it's trash what did I just say do not do not do no -- ugh." However, there's encouragement aplenty in our house. This week, I cheered her on as she made a basket with a wrapper she was growing away, because she kept throwing it until she got it. I also thanked her continuously for her impeccable behavior when we're out and about, her desire to clean up, her endless cuddles and kindness, and her sense of humor. Sure, a lot of those jokes currently involve poop, but dammit...still funny.<br />
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<br />
I started applying this encouragement to crunches and leg lifts.<br />
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"10 more? Pfffft. You can do that! You're doing it now! Yes yes yes. You've got this! Look at you! You're doin it! Yaaaay! Oh my God, you're almost done I can't believe it!"<br />
<br />
It's important to note that thjs wasn't out loud.<br />
<br />
It's also important to note that it worked.<br />
<br />
It worked a fuckton better than, say, "Maybe if you did this more it wouldn't be so hard" or, "Your fat rolls are rubbing together." I mean, hitting myself in the face would work better than that shit, but still. This was GOOD. This was PROGRESS.<br />
<br />
It's a long journey to be kind to yourself. I look at body positive projects <a href="http://nothingbutlightproject.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">like this one</a> and the FIRST thing I do is notice the people with conventionally "acceptable" body types. I then judge. "Why are they worried? They're fine." Then my rational brain takes over; I look at their story and their struggle and I empathize. I am grateful they told that story.<br />
<br />
I'm telling mine in bits and pieces, and this piece concentrates on the simple joy of mentally clapping and smiling and saying, "YAAY!" to yourself when you need it most. It works. I'm going to try it more often.<br />
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Even if it is out loud.Corrbettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07348597683981672294noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5262434925360102423.post-58340129577209134102016-02-24T12:30:00.002-06:002016-02-24T12:39:07.503-06:00Put It Down and Step Away Slowly.<br />
I'm on my phone a lot. We all are, but it's really starting to hit me just how much I'm holding the damn thing. I'm no longer at a computer for 8+ hours a day, so my work is in my hand until I sit down to write a full piece. There are emails to answer and texts to respond to and calendars to update with the deadlines created from those texts and emails, plus Facebook messages for those who don't text or email, then back to the calendar. I talk to Sevigny pretty much all day every day via Google Hangout, and that's not going anywhere so long as we both have fingers and brains. Then there's this clock gobbler (h/t Stephen Colbert) of a thing, Social Media. My thumb goes to that F button for the app when I'm trying to check the weather or my calendar. It's a muscle memory reflex of an addiction. I find myself reading while telling myself to turn it off and I answer, "in just a minute." WHY? What on earth is so pressing that I can't go get my own shit done? "Hang on, there's a think piece about that millennial who got fired from Yelp from a different millennial and I should read that real quick cause everyone said 'read this' when they posted it." We all know that looking at social media for long stretches isn't the best idea for people with <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2015/04/08/new-study-links-facebook-to-depression-but-now-we-actually-understand-why/#3a55f47e2e65" target="_blank">depression</a>, particularly if you already tend to compare yourself to others negatively. Which...hi. <a href="http://corrbette.blogspot.com/2016/02/a-kinder-gentler-face-punch.html" target="_blank">Have we met?</a> If so, I probably decided you're better than me at some point.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me, allowing my life to slip by and not sleeping/eating/peeing but OMG NEW LIKE OPTIONS!</td></tr>
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Scott works pretty much nonstop, so he also has phone in hand at home, but is usually reading about basketball or playing video games. He's allowed. You go and help people trying to come down off of heroin get the help they need, and you too can play all the video games you want when you get home. Unless, of course, you're supposed to be watching a show with me, in which case I will harass you mercilessly until you put the phone down and watch tv with me.<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>You're looking at the wrong screen. Look at the one I'm looking at. Stare into this bigger screen with meeeeeee.</i> (Why. Why am I even married? I'm the worst.)<br />
<br />
We know that our behaviors, good or bad, are absorbed by our children. They are tiny sponges - which also explains why they get every illness ever to ride the wind and past their face for three seconds - and they hear even the things you mumble. They mimic your actions and make them their own; they create entire worlds out of something you said offhandedly once. Like, maybe, you said they should shut the door so wild animals don't get inside as...like...a joke...'cause the weather was warm and one might leave the door open but the constant slamming was too much for you and it wasn't your house so you just SAID that and then that kid wanted all of the doors closed in a constant fear of being ambushed by WILD ANIMALS because of your stupid mouth. Maybe. As a purely fictional example.<br />
<br />
I was charging my lifeline with a Mophie yesterday. It's just a black box that's a portable charger because...well...if I charged my phone in the wall it would be TOO FAR AWAY FROM ME. Oh, God. I just typed that and thought about my whole life and got a little sad. Ok. I'm shaking that off now. So I was charging and looking at my blue-light friend so I could avoid watching BusyTown Mysteries again (EVERYONE IN THE HOUSE IS LOOKING AT SCREENS WHAT IS DRAWING AND PRETEND I FORGOT). My daughter spies the charger and wants to see it. I quickly realize it looks like the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/28/nophone-kickstarter_n_6057294.html" target="_blank">NoPhone</a> being Kickstarted a while back. Remember that early intervention tool? How'd that work out for us?<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This one enables the hell out of me.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This one does nothing.</td></tr>
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<br />
Bird immediately decided the charger was her phone. This was cute at first, as she held it to her ear and talked to someone, a friend she said was in the "hostibal" because...dammit. I can't remember why, but it was adorable. Then she wanted to take the charger to bed. Just like mama and daddy do. I told her we have our phones in the bedroom because we have alarms on them, but that didn't work. I asked her to pick out her stories, and I went to gather all the usual Going to Sleep Barriers: milk, water, tissues, blanket, stuffed animal, socks, anxieties about our future, etc.<br />
<br />
When I came back into the room, she was sitting up in bed, stroking the surface of the charger with her index finger, as though scrolling down a screen. But there was no screen. She was perfectly content to stare at a black, plain surface, pretending to scroll. She told me that she was doing the same movement that I do.<br />
<br />
Scott came into the room, and she decided to share her findings.<br />
<br />
"Look at this interesting cute cat video!" she said with a smile, holding the charger out for us to see.<br />
<br />
"Look at this cute boy and girl," she smiled, as though they were just adorable.<br />
<br />
Scott and I just stared at one another in horror. "I'm sorry if Daddy is on his phone too much and not paying attention to you. I'm going to stop doing that now," he said. She looked up at him and smiled and told him more about her day with me at the library. I also vowed to put the damn thing down more.<br />
<br />
Sure, I started this blog on my phone. I have checked it since then. But I'm now staring at a computer screen while Bird is at school, blissfully unaware.<br />
<br />
She's probably pretending everything in the playroom is a phone, though. I think we're doomed. I might post that on Facebook, along with a picture of my kid and my dinner.<br />
<br />
DAMMIT.<br />
<br />
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<br />Corrbettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07348597683981672294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5262434925360102423.post-89326225181610017522016-02-17T23:51:00.000-06:002016-02-18T00:23:19.392-06:00A Kinder, Gentler Face PunchIn a time of freedom and success, I sure do seem to be laser focused on why I'm not kind to myself. But hey. This is a blog and it's getting so loud in my head I can't think anymore. I literally got up out of bed to write this. Take that, sleep and stuff.<br />
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We all have physical imperfections. We all have things we do not love about our appearance and have either grown to accept those things, have embraced those things, or have chosen to loudly complain about those things when ordering a pastry/trying on clothes/purchasing skin care products/looking in a mirror/watching one's self on video/having a conversation about something unrelated ("Well, I wouldn't say that a vote for Bernie is a vote for Trump, it's not like an immediate thing like eyes drawn to my love handles. What are we talking about?") in the hopes that the complaining will somehow lead to the aforementioned acceptance/embracing or magically fixing it.<br />
<br />
Sure. We all have that. We also love seeing other people have that, because it feels validating and good. Stars are just like us and all.<br />
<br />
Body positivity is not only important, it's fucking vital. And I encourage it in the exact same spirit I encouraged my husband to pursue a different path after leaving advertising: that's totally cool for you, but not for me. No, no, YOU have to do that. In this life, what else have you but your happiness and sanity and love? Do it! Me? No, fuck that. Not me, this is about you. YOU do those great things. You deserve them.<br />
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Everyone should love themselves and all they come with, I preach, for this life is cruelly short, and we cannot waste it on wanting to be something we aren't, unless we are putting in the actual work that comes with real change. There is nothing to gain by demonizing one's own appearance. I know these things, and I practice them once in a great while for myself. But most often, I am running a checklist of all the things that are currently wrong with how I look, and wrong with what I'm doing. Like...all day and night.<br />
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Goddammit, I have a daughter. The thought of her doing this to herself breaks my heart into a thousand fucking pieces.<br />
<br />
I remember saying something disparaging about my appearance in front of my mother late in her life. "What are you talking about?" she growled in her smoky Brooklyn voice, "You're gorgeous!" She was appalled. I thought she was biased. I get it now. She was both.<br />
<br />
I try to see myself as my daughter sees me. Sometimes that works. And then I see a video or photo of myself from even a year or two ago, and I wonder how I am bigger than that now, when both versions of me were post-kid. Then I snap back to now, realize I am pushing my body around in the mirror like it's hair and all I have to do is spray it and oh my God what if she saw me do that. Shit, did she see me do that?<br />
<br />
She must have seen me do that at some point. How could she miss it?<br />
<br />
I am terrified of all the challenges this girl will face, and I am doing my damnedest to raise her to be strong against them, even as she adores princesses and their dresses. Dresses are nice, so I won't argue with that. But between Photoshop and models and the industry <i>I am in </i>and a GODDAMNED VICTORIA'S SECRET CATALOG IN MY MAILBOX EVERY DAY SINCE I BOUGHT A BRA STOP SENDING ME PORN, VS, I HAVE A PHONE FOR THAT...she'll be bombarded with images and ideas about how she should look. I am hopeful that the battle being waged on that bullshit will have made some progress soon...or that she can take up arms to continue the fight in earnest. I am also hopeful I haven't lost myself yet. That I haven't decided entirely that I am not up to snuff. But, man, I am not making this easy on myself.<br />
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I read a great <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/maggyvaneijk/i-feel-different#.miXqMyyBD" target="_blank">list of body positive books to read with your daughter</a>, and I was delighted. I was all, "hell yeah, this is powerful. I can't wait until she's old enough to read these," and then...quietly, but <i>so so consistently</i>...I literally judged these books by their covers. "If being different is so awesome and celebratory, why is there a really pretty model on the cover of this book?" My thoughts devolved from there, wondering if I should just gain more weight so I could be a "type" instead of this mushy, oddly shaped and too-big version of my former self - someone who just doesn't get how she was <i>supposed</i> to look. Like no one told me and I just ate food and now what the hell is this.<br />
<br />
Don't get me wrong, when I was thirty pounds lighter than I am now, I thought I was enormous and I'd cry about it. This isn't about the weight. Sure, I'd love for some of that to go away so I can wear more clothes in my own closet because poor. But see, I KNOW WHAT TO DO TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN. It isn't about that. It never was.<br />
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It's about never, ever, fully embracing my entire self the way I want others to do for their entire selves.<br />
<br />
Whether it's my career (you know this tune: I'm a fraud and what I'm doing is ridiculous because I will never be as good as doo dah, doo dah...I'm a failure and delusional why do I bother, oh the doo dah day), my self worth (how DO I have all of these friends and this selfless and courageous husband when I am the literal worst and most selfish person ever), or my appearance ("You should love yourself as you are. You're fucking gorgeous. Me? No. You? Always").<br />
<br />
This isn't a plea for compliments or validation. It won't do a damn bit of good anyway because, if I don't believe it myself, that sweet sentiment is going to bounce off of me and crash to the floor. Continually.<br />
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I have small victories where I break the cycle: I give myself an approving glance in a store window reflection. I take a good selfie (cue club jamz). I just feel good enough that I don't care. My daughter looks at me adoringly when I show her "ballet moves." My daughter looks at me adoringly for any reason and laughs at my jokes. Anyone laughs at my jokes. But it's really only a matter of time before I slip the "I could lose a few pounds, amirite" comment or "it's cool, I'll just be chinless and over here being super weird" comment into an otherwise pleasant conversation.<br />
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I don't want my daughter to hear or see it, but it permeates everything I do. Therefore, it can no longer be about hiding it. It has to be about actually believing what I want her to believe: that we, as we are, are beautiful. That what we are doing is good enough as long as we're trying our best. Not in a motivational meme or Instagram post kind of way. Really and honestly believing it down to my rapidly deteriorating bones. Goddammit, I did it again.<br />
<br />
This journey isn't easy, but it has to be done. For me, for her, for everyone I love. Because who wants to be the woman who hates herself underneath the good talk? No one. And I've been her long enough. I deserve better. My daughter deserves better. My husband deserves better. And one more time for the back row: I deserve better.<br />
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There, Brain. I've emptied a bit. Now please leave me be and let's go the hell to sleep.Corrbettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07348597683981672294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5262434925360102423.post-19405185509848816252016-02-11T01:29:00.003-06:002016-02-12T12:30:29.635-06:00Navel Gazing and Other Ways We're TerribleWe are all horrible to ourselves. I mean. Just awful.<br />
<br />
We sat at Italian Village, the place where I had never been and felt ashamed as a Chicagoan. Didn't matter -- it was open, this seemed right. Christ, the band was playing Girl From Ipanema when we walked in. It could not have been more perfect if we wanted it to.<br />
<br />
Warm bread, a little wine, some cheese and some meat. All is well. Wait...there was no cheese on that antipasto platter. I call foul.<br />
<br />
One went home before the food and drinks, she has three kids and her mom was watching them. Busy day tomorrow, helping and healing more people. But she felt bad. Like she was disappointing us after a day of healing the masses and their aches, fears, and recurring pains.<br />
<br />
The three remaining, headed to Italian Old School Chicago Glory because Fuck It, It's Open have seven kids...among them. Can you do that? Can you pool kids like tips at the end of the night? She has four, the one who still dances and teaches kids. The one who, after the show was over, had an alum (whom none of us remembered) say, "You're HER? I had a huge crush on you." Four kids, that one, and probably the best sense of humor about it of anyone I've ever met. Me, I have one. The indecisive woman who amplifies her old self around these lovely women, plays the role as Negative but Not Too because she can't seem to figure out where to put her hands and she isn't wearing pockets -- metaphorically speaking. Just the one child. Quit while you're ahead or be too frightened to admit that you Want and Don't Want More and Don't At All At All. Then there's A. She has no kids, because she's doing national tours like the show we just saw her slay. I have the nerve, the unmitigated gall my mother would say, to ask her questions about the production and how it compares to the tour she did 18 years ago and who the everloving fuck am I to ask any of these questions? No. One. But someone. But not in this context. It's embarrassing. The one with two kids speaks. She should have three, but she lost the baby right before Christmas. She cries, catching A up to the fact. She apologizes profusely for crying. We only see A once every couple of years and she doesn't want to see this, she reasons.<br />
<br />
She is having a real and unguarded emotional reaction. To losing a child. It's a pretty good goddamned reason. We aren't interviewing her for a job. We're catching up on things and calling ourselves old friends. Shouldn't that be the time?<br />
<br />
Even as I write this, I wonder if I'm something great in the back of my mind and maybe someone will read it and discover that, yes, indeed I am. Oh, her ramblings are superb and make Eggers or David Foster Wallace or other famous ramblers look like idiots, they'll say because they've actually read David Foster Wallace (I haven't) and are therefore more competent and smart and able to judge these things. They will. Not me, they will do it. Someone else will validate me and I won't accept it but it because, should it ever come, this mystery validation from a theoretical We, I will instantly disavow Their credibility. But Someone Else with More Qualifications will certainly be around soon to let me know the thing I could not tell myself.<br />
<br />
I do not give me permission, and yet I give myself complete permission.<br />
<br />
She didn't give herself permission to cry and grieve because surely the time has passed and this is Not What We Are Here For.<br />
<br />
But then what else the hell are we here for? To connect beyond the highlight reel, even if we Weren't Always Close we're in a situation now that assumes it was so. Move forward and act accordingly. Cry. Tell me about it. Celebrate one another. It's so much easier with my Givens. The People I Surround Myself With Regularly. I know it. This isn't consistent so I'm trying to figure it out as I'm doing it. What do I walk away with? The knowledge that we do not give ourselves permission and we leave, walking in the cold to our cars, telling each other that no, we were the worst. At Least You Didn't...etc. We exhibit no kindness for our own actions, and infinite acceptance of anyone else's.<br />
<br />
I say often we should make space for kindness to ourselves, and in small ways, sometimes we do. But damn, is it easy to just cut yourself deep. It's too easy. And it wastes precious time.Corrbettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07348597683981672294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5262434925360102423.post-52599138561557576232015-11-30T18:36:00.003-06:002015-12-01T13:20:53.139-06:00It Feels Like This. Until I Tell Myself It Doesn't. It's the split of knowing in your bones you are meant for something else. But, on the other side, the feel of the routine - feet pounding the downtown pavement in secure, happily paid steps. The fear, then, comes in and it's weighty. It's one of wondering if what you were meant for was to <i>be the person in the office that was meant for other things</i>. That you're too late to leap now. That foolishness would have been rewarded before. But by now, you've shown the world you don't believe in yourself enough.<br />
<br />
There is a grace some of them have. As though they've cast off the insecure weight. It isn't that they don't have their own anvils, albatrosses, gravity shoes, or their own metaphors to bear. But there is a carefree air to one who stands tall in saying, "I HAVE A RIGHT TO PERFORM AND WRITE AND MAKE IT MY JOB." It's beautiful to behold. I long for it. This isn't about the huge percentage of that proclamation that is out of your control. This is about owning the ask, claiming the fight to be heard and seen as a worthwhile one.<br />
<br />
Others see you differently. Kinder than you see yourself. But just as you begin to allow that kind view in -- that OF COURSE you can do this -- you tell yourself that's complacency and laziness. That multitudes more deserving and talented and experienced aren't achieving what you're trying. So let it go. But you can't. You can't fucking let it go. It's always there.<br />
<br />
And so.<br />
<br />
The process starts all over again, while your feet pound the downtown pavement, a little sadder, a little more defeated. Until those steps are no longer guaranteed to bring security. Until that magnet is being ripped out from your shoes. The split you've hidden for so long is now massive, a rip through your cool facade. It bleeds into everything. It's messy.<br />
<br />
Because you are being called up.<br />
<br />
It's now or never and not believing in your own ability to make the leap is a sure way to fall on your face. The weight, the doubt, the fear, it has to go. It's chaining you to the ground and you'll never feel the air, the grace of claiming your worth, if you don't shed it now. What good does it do to carry it now? None at all. All to gain.<br />
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Leap. But...the doubt...but...the leap...but the fear...but...the leap...Corrbettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07348597683981672294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5262434925360102423.post-191458030730117112015-11-21T18:21:00.000-06:002015-11-21T18:21:12.247-06:00Don't Click That. Too Late.It was a distressing headline, because that's what headlines are supposed to be - distressing or shocking so you'll read the story. It appeared in my feed as "trending" and something I might be interested in. Apparently, I was interested. I clicked on the damn thing.<br />
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Moments before, I was telling the world about a friend's new <a href="http://bellambrianachicago.com/" target="_blank">cafe</a>. It had just opened after years of hard work and we finally got the chance to try it today. I was happily typing about Nutella-filled doughnuts and panini and coffee. Since this week has been a nonstop train of Refugee Refusal Arguments, Toddlers Sleeping Outdoors Pictures, Racist Idiots In Charge Stories and the Painfully Obvious Absence of My Beautifully Kind Mother-In-Law Since Her Death Last Week, I figured an innocuous food post would do me good.<br />
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It did. Until I clicked. Until I wondered, "Well, this sounds horrible. I wonder what happened?" As the story loaded, I yelled at myself, alone in our apartment.<br />
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"Do NOT READ that."<br />
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And I yelled to the universe as I read it.<br />
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"No. NO. NO NO NO."<br />
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And I cried and my breathing sped up. My legs wouldn't stop bobbing up and down, to match the pace of my heartbeat.<br />
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I know we all do it. We click on horrific things because we're terrified the story inside could happen to us or someone we love. If it is about children, we are instantly more terrified. If it is children hurting children, our terror becomes bewildered sadness. But we read it. Because it happens.<br />
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I am not a proponent of burying my head in the sand. I speak out often and write about what I see and the changes I want in my life and the world. I act on them. I speak my mind. However, there is a limit. There is a threshold we reach, collectively. The world reached it when a picture of a small child washed ashore made its way to a newspaper, spurning reactions to the Refugee Crisis that were previously no more than uninterested shrugs of indifference or lack of education on the topic. We reach it with family, with friends, with information. We get full. The threshold for witnessing human suffering and cruelty seems to vary depending on the distance from ourselves. When it is a specific story, one that details someone's hurt and struggle - especially if that person is under two years old - the distance closes. It could be anyone we love. Predispositions and prejudices disappear, as there is nothing a 19 month old could have done to deserve suffering, just as there is nothing two three-year-olds could have done to inflict it with a sense of truly knowing what they had done. But it happened.<br />
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And I reached my threshold.<br />
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I don't want my head in the sand to the world, as I want to actively participate in making it a better place. However, I also don't want to shatter myself because an algorithm told me I would find something heartbreaking "interesting" for the next five minutes.<br />
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So we put our heads, then, in what? A bubble, enabling us to see? In a window high in the air so we can breathe? I don't know.<br />
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I post here so infrequently because I doubt my own ability to write well enough to intrigue people to read it on an ongoing basis. But it cannot be about approval anymore. It's about where I have to put my head. I have to put it to thought and writing creatively, or I will forever live at this threshold. That isn't a sustainable place to stay.Corrbettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07348597683981672294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5262434925360102423.post-25059682392236064572015-05-22T15:20:00.001-05:002015-05-22T15:20:13.847-05:00Vulvapit and Box Wipes.<div class="_37">
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<span class="null">Sometimes you and a friend wind up writing to one another when you're supposed to be sleeping. That's common enough. <br />
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Sometimes, though, that conversation makes you laugh so hard you're afraid you will wake your entire household. Then you'll have to explain what you're laughing about. And then it's gonna get a little blue.<br />
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See, Lindsey and I both subscribe to Petit Vour. It's a lovely service that sends four unique vegan and cruelty-free beauty products to your home for a few bucks each month. This is not exactly about how nice that is. This focuses more on the "unique" part. <br />
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We had just been discussing a cool face sponge we got that month, and then we got around to talking about some wet-nap looking things that came in the shipment, too. There were two of them, and they were called, "BOX." The card inside said they could be used anywhere on your body, but were particularly designed for your...well, your box. <br />
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Having previously had long-ass Facebook threads about how Lindsey's armpit <a href="https://www.facebook.com/#!/87279238650/photos/a.441405303650.229523.87279238650/441406053650/?type=1&theater">looks like a vagina</a>, we decided it was time to once again ask the experts - us - about our thoughts on this product.<br />
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Look. It's been a rough couple of months. Let's just talk about vaginas and laugh, ok? Good.<br />
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Corrbettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07348597683981672294noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5262434925360102423.post-86158082618261599172015-02-23T10:17:00.000-06:002015-02-23T10:17:09.543-06:00Sitting Still and Other Boring Necessities<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: 'Open Sans', arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 28.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
I don’t sit still. I mean, not ever. At work, I am required to sit for extended periods of time, and the best I can do to rally against the system there is to bob my knee up and down relentlessly. Yeah. Take THAT, 9-5 Lifestyle. I’ll..show you.<br />
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My body is a fidgety one: constantly shifting, adjusting, exercising, then injuring, healing, swaying (in place like my mother), expressing, gesturing, dancing. If that sounds like it would be a constant distraction for anyone sitting with me (though I’ve managed to curl my toes in my shoes discreetly if need be to hide the movement), you’d be right.<br />
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But it’s nothing compared to what’s happening in my head. The squirming on the outside is a physical manifestation of the mental gymnastics I’m executing for infinite Russian judges. Not gymnastics of any significant difficulty – no algebra or code sequencing. It’s just regular thought. SO MUCH THOUGHT all at once.<br />
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As an example, I recently blurted something out to my husband that was approximately the 5th step in a mental journey I was taking enirely alone.<br />
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Something thoughtful, something eloquent. I believe it was, <strong style="border: 0px currentColor; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“If I water did I? No, I’m good.”</strong></div>
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“What?” my husband calmly asked, since he’s known me for 12 years and realizes I’m not having a stroke.<br />
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“I remembered that my water bottle was in my bag, and I was hoping it wasn’t on top of my lunch and squishing it. It wasn’t, plus I realized I packed everything I need to make lunch with the food I have at work.”<br />
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“Moves fast, doesn’t it? It’s so fast, your brain. I love you.” He’s a goodun. I’m keepin him.<br />
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Now, note that I’m remarking on the speed. Not the intelligence. I’m fairly smart, but there’s not some kind of burdensome intellect on my shoulders. Just words. Really. Really fast. And all the time.</div>
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While I physically bob, mentally weave, and my eyes glaze over, I am busy. I am insanely busy with work, writing, singing, acting, marketing, and oh, yeah…parenting. I fill my calendar with things I love to do, and apparently I love a lot. Meetings, talks, rehearsals, playdates, brunches, trainings, workouts, the occasional husband date (too infrequent, those). Busybusybusy. It’s the way I’ve always been.<br />
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So the segue into talking about my therapist probably isn’t a surprise, right? No? Ok. Great. She posited that I cannot get a handle on how I’m feeling a lot of the time becaue I’m just moving from one thing to the next. So much to do, so little time to react. She suggested I journal. Journal in short bursts when I am en route to something, how I’m feeling, and how I feel after.<br />
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It’s getting easier, but the first time I tried it I was commuting, balancing all my belongings on my lap, and listeing to an NPR podcast.<br />
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I’ve also started tracking my food and my workouts. Who can tell what the hell I ate that day? I’m busy! BUSY, I SAY!<br />
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<strong style="border: 0px currentColor; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">*donuts fall into mouth while yelling, gains 5 lbs, becomes confused*</strong><br />
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Surely, the distraction isn’t that bad, right? I don’t need to Memento my damn life to know which way is up. I can relax. I got this.<br />
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Mmm. Well. Not exactly. Here, allow me to tell you more than you’ve ever wanted to know EVER about me.<br />
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I use the Instead Softcup when I’m having my period. I keep meaning to buy a Diva Cup but…you know…distracted. These are little, flexible domes that go around the cervix and catch the menstrual blood. It’s cleaner, there’s less smell, you can have sex with them in and they’re just easier and less gross and painful than tampons for me. TA DA. Now you know.<br />
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Oh, no, I’m not done. Here’s more. YOU'RE WELCOME. You can wear these for up to 12 hours, depending on your flow. They’re…significant. They aren’t painful, and you don’t feel them after inserting, but…you know. Plastic dome on your cervix, howsitgoin.<br />
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I recently took one out with difficulty, confused as to why that was.<br />
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<strong style="border: 0px currentColor; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Because there were two. Two of them. Inside me</strong>.<br />
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That means one was in there for a month, kids. Just…hangin out. Hugging my cervix. A long, long, uncomfortable, month long hug. <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.savingeveryday.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/softcup.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.savingeveryday.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/softcup.jpg" height="187" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'm so cuddly! Just hold me FOREVER. </td></tr>
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So I basically ended my period last month and just FUCKING FORGOT I was doing anything to keep myself from looking like I had a target on my crotch during said period. “Ok! Well that’s done. Where are those donuts?”<br />
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When I realized this, I sat in my bathroom in a daze for a while. Perhaps that was the superpowers I developed from contaminating my lady bits taking over.</div>
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Perhaps, it was brain stopping the ribbon competition in the floor exercise for a second and saying, “WOAH. Woah. Maybe…maybe we should slow down.”<br />
</div>
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That’s right. I took a “stop and smell the roses” message from my cervix and a foreign object I just left in it.<br />
</div>
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Because this is my life. You’d fidget, too.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.fatpiggybank.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Instead-Softcup-315x250.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.fatpiggybank.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Instead-Softcup-315x250.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"I'm so happy I didn't leave that in there!" <br />
"Why? Who would fucking do that?"<br />
"I dunno. Morons? YAY PERIODS!"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Corrbettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07348597683981672294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5262434925360102423.post-59892575645078270632015-01-21T11:17:00.000-06:002015-01-21T11:17:03.706-06:00Early<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-bff5b218-0d61-a870-fb94-f37e8a957e0c" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<a href="http://25.media.tumblr.com/84bcfa62d7c1f0fdac5cb7ab73116a95/tumblr_n0hd7ctx3I1rqyje0o1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/84bcfa62d7c1f0fdac5cb7ab73116a95/tumblr_n0hd7ctx3I1rqyje0o1_500.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; vertical-align: baseline;">If I put the writing of this piece off any longer, I would be typing in front of you. On the plus side, my living room is entirely rearranged and very clean.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; vertical-align: baseline;">Also, I barely made it here on time. After leaving work and rushing to daycare and then transferring my 2.5 year old to the sitter-friend, despite my child’s pleas of “I don wan you to go pee-forming, mama, I wan you to stay hew wif me,” I went ahead and broke both our hearts and I left, and made it on time. Barely.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; vertical-align: baseline;">But this isn’t about “on time.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; vertical-align: baseline;">Write Club does not concern itself with such average mediocrity and Good for You Maintaining the Bare Minimal Effort Required of You, Champ that is “On Time.” The drama lies in the extremes. The Early and the Late.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; vertical-align: baseline;">And frankly, I don’t want anything to do with the extreme that represents dead or unexpectedly pregnant.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; vertical-align: baseline;">And yet…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; vertical-align: baseline;">I’m here to defend the honor of Early. In this, I am an unlikely candidate at best. Here’s the thing: I’ve always heard great things about Early. It’s something I’ve longed to be associated with for decades. I mean, who wouldn’t? Who wants to be the inconsiderate representative of mistakes that happen long after parties end because there’s a whole menu devoted to those mistakes at Taco Bell? No one. Well, no one and Bob Stockfish, I guess.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; vertical-align: baseline;">But unfortunately, Late is pretty much where I’ve been for most of my life. I’ve been late to work for 16 years. Getting up before the sun is foreign and strange and I don’t enjoy it one bit. I am constantly texting apologies and checking other people’s wristwatches on public transit, as though simply </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">knowing</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; vertical-align: baseline;"> the time is going to make it reverse in my favor.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; vertical-align: baseline;">I am, in short, that inconsiderate asshole you wait on. I am Late. And I am so sorry.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; vertical-align: baseline;">But. BUT. My heart, it’s in the right place. I swear to you. This is why I have always dreamed of being included among the elite ranks of the Early. To stand nobly in the I-Was-Here-First spot in line. The walk the hallowed halls of Jogging Happy People and the kind of blooming that means advanced reading and big boobs. Oh, it just sounds so NICE, you guys.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; vertical-align: baseline;">Imagine: a state of being so clean, so honorable, that it puts even beautiful, docile songbirds into competition for readily available worms. It allows the elderly a smaller bill just for having dinner at...noon. It puts a spring in the step of the downtrodden nine to fiver because the quittin time whistle blew a whole two hours before normal closing. </span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; vertical-align: baseline;">And this magical place isn’t just about convenience. Early saves lives when it’s in the form of detection. Your doctor can’t comfort you by saying “Good thing we caught it so late.” Early is so noble, so coveted, so impressive that even its negative connotations don’t get to hold its name.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; vertical-align: baseline;">I know it’s hard to even imagine a bad side to early. If you’re too late for something, it could be fatal. The bomb went off. The cancer has gone into your eyeballs and pores. Someone else got the job. Your sweetheart married someone else because you didn’t object. By the way, if that’s all that was stopping someone you love from marrying someone else, that person is terrible and you should reevaluate your choices.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; vertical-align: baseline;">If you’re too early, you’re...a minor inconvenience. I can’t possibly handle all this noise, all these questions, all these Pulitzer Prizes or multiple orgasms at this early hour. I need coffee.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; vertical-align: baseline;">For episodes worse than that due to early arrival, they aren’t even called early. Nope. Say you...were surprised with by the onset of a happy ending during your lovemaking. Two seconds in, let’s say. Is it early? No. It is called premature ejaculation, son, and early will have nothing to do with you. Don’t even try it. Here’s a towel.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; vertical-align: baseline;">And say that premature ejaculation lead to pregnancy, which you found out about because she was LATE...and then the baby came dangerously early, because it apparently takes after its FATHER. For this, we give the offspring the premature label, too. For early cannot be bothered with anything so complicated. Here’s another towel.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; vertical-align: baseline;">Can you imagine it? Being a part of something so...not late? Because I can’t. But GOD DO I WANT TO. I mean the early part. Not the premature part. I’ve had that before. I have the towels to prove it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; vertical-align: baseline;">I want to live in Early. I do. I am too overinvolved and distracted to do it. As soon as my feet hit the floor, about an hour later than they should, I am strangely compelled to clean or cook something for my family or read ALL THE BOOKS WE OWN to our child. My intentions are good, but early is a beautiful place I just can’t seem to reach. And that seems unfair, doesn’t it? It’s like my wiring is unable to grasp this beauty like...a long torso or a c cup or a face that sits still when I talk. What is it even doing right now?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; vertical-align: baseline;">So here is what I propose: screw it. Let’s call it early from now on. Let’s all invite ourselves to that party, and we’ll show up when we please. No one will be shunned or scowled at for their belated entrances. If we say we’re early, we are. Just think: stroll into work tomorrow at 11am like you own the fucking place. Say something about "getting an early start." See if anyone argues.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; line-height: 1.15;">Deny reality. It’s the only way something as amazing as Early is going to let us wrongly wired folks in. Sure, it might bring the property value down some, but let’s take what’s ours. Let’s be early whenever we want.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span> </div>
Corrbettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07348597683981672294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5262434925360102423.post-77862498255508238342015-01-08T23:35:00.003-06:002015-01-08T23:35:55.730-06:00Funny People, Part 1I know the funniest people on Earth.<br />
<br />
No, no. I don't think you understand. This isn't because of any one thing that happened or person or wacky scenario. It's my life, and I am so goddamned grateful to be surrounded by smart people who understand how jokes work and actively make them because it brings joy. I'm lucky, is all.<br />
<br />
So tonight, a couple of things struck me. 1. That I need to document the conversations a bit more for my own benefit. You know. When I've lost my memory and I can reread everything like it's the first time. 2. That I'm very fortunate. 3. Chicago weather is like a fist that you aren't sure where it's going to go every winter, and you just pray it isn't in your ass again. Then it is. I digress.<br />
<br />
Tonight, the music stopped in the bar where our meeting was held. It was just the pause between songs, going from something like Slipknot to something like Beastie Boys because the shuffle was taking hallucinogens. Again. During our discussion on fundraising strategies, the loud protest came from Sully.<br />
<br />
"I don't wanna draw boobs for my dad."<br />
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And then the music continued. We all nodded at the statement's universal applications.<br />
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Later, I was being driven home. I live two blocks from the bar, but it's hard to walk with the aforementioned Chicago winter fist lodged in there. Plus, I got a few more minutes with Sara and Angie this way. Win.<br />
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We pull up to my building. It's a snowy blanket of 7-11 Slurpee and clean, white flakes.<br />
<br />
"Are you safe?" Sara asks. I instantly reach for the Marathon Man joke, but before I can finish, she asks again.<br />
<br />
"Are you safe?"<br />
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"Yeah, why?" I reply.<br />
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"Well there's a strange man walking toward us in the middle of the street."<br />
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"That is because the sidewalks are shit right now."<br />
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"Well all right," she pauses. "No. Nope. It's the Stand GET BACK IN THE CAR."<br />
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I didn't. I went home. I'm fine. That dude was walking to his car. To drive across the country and find Mother Abigail.<br />
<br />
Next time, more of this. Documentation, no matter how underwhelming it is to anyone else, really.Corrbettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07348597683981672294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5262434925360102423.post-62902529964906282302014-01-22T11:22:00.002-06:002014-01-22T11:40:41.358-06:00START...Ready, Go.<b style="font-weight: normal;"></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidC2kcyA6yegS0xmTmv34NeUaX0QyUazmYEJKseBIwnHbuNn3J5Y18437E6WOd3Gy7iP-BtUMG1tIy2ivu5ZUyKhpL26utCsCx7oQvRF2718UMNt0MPMZhc1lKjpx8X_x8Yz0u2qMa5tk/s1600/012114WC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidC2kcyA6yegS0xmTmv34NeUaX0QyUazmYEJKseBIwnHbuNn3J5Y18437E6WOd3Gy7iP-BtUMG1tIy2ivu5ZUyKhpL26utCsCx7oQvRF2718UMNt0MPMZhc1lKjpx8X_x8Yz0u2qMa5tk/s1600/012114WC.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span> </div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I got this. I totally know what I’m doing, don’t worry. Hell, I'm wearing red lipstick, so I am clearly in control, merely by putting it on. What you are witnessing is me, living the dream. By simply starting, I am now in the midst of having it all.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’m not some hack who has mined herself and her family too many times and finds her throat dry as she searches for ideas. I am no longer in the throes of panic because I started, say, yesterday in some terrible pressured rush, doubting my every written word. Nope. Not me. I started this exactly when I should have. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">While typing away at my dining room table, listening to the dulcet tones of my cat puking on something of value, I decided to embrace opportunity. The mass edits and cutting I did were not exasperated deletions of failure. Rather, they were chances at a better life. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This revelation I have had is exhilerating. And it was with me all along. I want to share this joy, these ruby slippers, with all of you. Start is more than a topic, it is now the yardstick for all of my accomplishments. That's right. It's all Starts. And that's it. You see, we all know that the start is the best part of everything, and hey - It's my seven minutes, and I want you all to join me in the promised land. Fuck Finishes. Right in the eye. We're only going by Starts from now on.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Abandoning the crushing burden of Finish; putting that aside because it’s my microphone, my reality, I suddenly measure up to be quite the success. My day was perfect because it started well. I started organzing my closet last month, so now it's neat and tidy by this new decree. Think of it: all your relationships perfectly preserved in the amber of Starting, all gooey and jittery and full of flirtatious compliments and not once, not ONCE did they decide to bang your roommate or that they aren't ready for a relationship or borrow money you’ll never get back. Basing my life on starts, I have a successful career at several theaters since I auditioned and never got rejected. I had a baby, so she'll grow up kind and smart and strong. I have lost every pound by starting to diet and have worked out whenever I packed my gym clothes that day. Also, I have my college degree since that one paper for that one class didn't prevent me from finishing and therefore failing which was completely unfair and also a million years ago so I can...let that go. I started that paper. I'm good. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">To the untrained eye, these successes mean as much as a youth soccer trophy, because everyone starts, so everyone wins. But that’s ok. If we are perpetually in the world of new love, first tastes, cars that always start and our houses are exceptionally clean because we bought paper towels, we will no longer care about who finishes first. Or at all, for that matter. No pressure to finish what you start or having the bad luck of being a nice guy because there is no finishing last. No need to finish your vegetables before dessert. You lifted a fork, that's good enough - fuck it, you're having ice cream. You'll start your diet tomorrow. This is bliss.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Conversely, If we only go by finshes, we are miserable. Life is breakups, ends of vacations, and perpetual death of grandparents and pets. We'd go right to the regret of drinking too much and be forever full of cake and in pain. Because we'd gorge ourselves on cake and booze if we were forever breaking up and all our pets were dead. This, truly, is no way to live. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span> </div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Case in point: Porn.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Listen, the Start of a porn movie is ludicrous, but you don’t care. It’s an adventure! And you’re horny, so you’ll put up with plot of the dude delivering a pizza to a naked sorority party in space or whatever for the thirty seconds of dialogue. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span> </div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My husband and I have a slogan for porn: After the Release, It’s Ridiculous.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Whether alone or with others, in your bed, on the couch, or standing brushing your teeth and trying to leave for work with a smile on your face, Porn is a GREAT idea. Until you finish. Then...then you’re looking up to see people who look rode hard and put away wet pretending they’re teens having lots of faked orgasms and they're all very tan. And you feel...icky.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">If we remembered only that feeling, the finish, no one would watch porn ever. What a sad place. For us all.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Not that the finish of sex is bad, of course. See, we can’t have one without the other. And this part is better, so Finish be damned. Here's why:</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Even every day sex is best recalled without the finish. Just the start of some intimacy with my husband shortly after our child was born was a beautiful thing. It meant closeness and love and a willingness to return to normal. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The finish was one of the strangest experiences, my being covered in sperm and breast milk and wondering how this was my life now.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sure, sure. Those two fluids are starts in their own right, but it doesn't mean I want to wear them. So I'm leaving the finish out of that memory. Except for all of you, who can now not unsee that image. You're welcome.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Oh look, a new paragraph to redeem myself. A fresh start. Opportunity created out of thin air. Even the loud buzzing sound of finish cannot take that chance away, because it's already been set in motion. I'm completely prepared and confident here because I am living in a world of starts. I encourage you follow suit. I'm going to start my evening now with my third beer. I'll probably also start dinner when I get home even though I finished it an hour ago. This is utopia, friends. Live it with me. We're just getting started. </span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"><img class="mainImage" src="http://www.myrlandmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Start_button_large.png" style="background-color: white; height: 230px; width: 357px;" /></a></b><br />Corrbettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07348597683981672294noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5262434925360102423.post-65593646076361095762013-09-20T10:49:00.001-05:002013-09-20T10:51:26.111-05:00My Internal Monologue is SAG. <div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid--3c651bf-3c00-c976-d27d-0fd9b7c67683" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’m sorry if you can see me shaking because I’m holding the paper. I mean, not BECAUSE I’m holding the paper, but that just lets you see it better. And I’m probably visibly sweating. I tried to wear something to hide that, but I know it’s there. Bursting through clinical strength Dove antiperspirant bullshit - sorry. I shouldn’t start off this way. Talking about shaking and sweat. I know. That is a horrible way to introduce myself. I asked my husband about this piece and whether it was gutsy enough. He’s known me too long, I think. He wasn’t sure, because he’s seen every side of me, poor guy. And I was telling him that I’m presenting the insecure contents of my head. Cause I’m usually all, “Blah blah dead parents messed up childhood, but whatever who didn’t, I’m cool, it’s fine.” And you hear this and it’s like, “oh my God, she’s a mess.” So I’m sorry if this sounds more like that than something cool and moving. Ugh. My gut’s hanging out, too, because...childbirth and cookies. Wine. I’m so sorry.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Hands up, who wants to hear THAT bullshit for the next nine minutes? (throws hands down)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And yet...I listen to it all day long. Once it leaves my head and comes out of my mouth, this is what it sounds like. Apologies. Apologies for everything I think I’m doing wrong, which is anything I happen to be doing at that moment. Apologies to inanimate objects I knock into. Apologies and second guessing myself about rudimentary shit. Like breathing in before breathing out. Maybe I should try it the other way around? It is exhausting, this whole process, and I feel badly for the listeners. However, what everyone else has to hear is only half the story. The apologizing that comes out is a direct result of the mass amount of abuse going on inside my head. That sounds different. And it’s constant.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Like the sound of songbirds in the summertime, only it’s the sound of mean, horrible words in a constant assault; blowing through my mind like jasmine to the Isley Brothers. If jasmine is “oh my God, you’re so ugly and a failure as a parent and this lipstick makes you look like a hooker clown how do you stand yourself” and the Isley Brothers are me and I’m trying to walk out the door to go to work without crying. Oh, and I’m also trying to not show my one and a half year old daughter that self hatred is totally just part of being a woman. It isn’t.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Here’s the rational thing I know: If anyone said half the shit to me that I say to myself, I would never stop punching them in the crotch. Ever. My arm would tire, I’d switch sides and never. Stop. Punching. Their crotch. Their babies would be born looking like my fist. But apparently, if I say it to myself, all bets are off. Whee! Hooker clown failure comments all around!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I got a piece of advice from a casting director seminar years ago: he took his negative voice and made it a person. He asked this person to wait in the lobby while he went in to audition, and promised it that as soon as he came out, it was free to tell him how horrible he was.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A good friend of mine took this advice almost immediately and, being a consistently working and auditioning actor because she has a better agent and is more talented than me and I’m sorry I’m even using this example oh my God I’m doing it again, that shit WORKED for her. Bitch booked a tv pilot for Fox because she convinced Bernice, the name she gave to her negative thought monster, to stay home when she went for auditions.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I told my therapist about the constant ticker of negative narrative and the personification idea. She suggested we name mine after a really obnoxious celebrity. Before I could question this tactic, she added, “Like Jennifer Tilly.” I never had a problem with or a love for Jennifer Tilly before, but I figured criticizing the choice of spokesperson for my self flagellation was too much to figure out. I went with it. My negative inner voice is Jennifer Tilly.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So while I apologize outwardly, understand that an actress who lends her voice to Family Guy is narrating my vehement self hatred.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“This is going on way too long and it took you forever to get to this part. I’m the funny part. And everyone has an inner voice. Nice topic. Also, this monologuey thing you do is a lame excuse for actual writing and you shouldn’t really be here with these people. Why are you even here? I’m looking at everyone’s faces and they’re wondering what the fuck you’re doing here.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My God. Jennifer Tilly is an insufferable cunt.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My husband pointed out recently that, when I’m very sleepy, I’m uncharacteristically decisive. He brought our infant daughter into bed one night when she was crying, and I was very adamant that none of us would get sleep this way, no matter how cuddly she is and holy shit is she cuddly. By contrast, in my waking hours, I look to him to make sure I should feed her. “Right? I should give her food, right? Cause she needs that? Yeah?”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Decisiveness and action are the results of Jennifer Tilly being a heavy sleeper. Before I reach full consciousness, I am very certain of myself because the doubt takes up more energy than I have. There’s something to that, right? I should grab onto the idea that the vacillation sucks the energy right out of me? Yet, when I’m fully awake, my actions have a questionable echo: “Sure, you can let your baby play with your electric toothbrush...if you want to kill your baby.” No logic. Doesn’t fucking matter. The diffidence accelerates until I’m actually telling myself I shouldn't change the baby’s diaper because “she’s enjoying a story right now. And what kind of mother would ruin that? One that wants to kill her baby, I guess. You should change her, though. Don’t be an idiot.” </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There is an upswing: This affords me the opportunity to say things like, “Shut the fuck up, Jennifer Tilly” and even lets my husband say things like, “Jennifer Tilly is not invited out with us this weekend.” I actually had to kick her out of bed once, ‘cause she was about to mess with me about my postpartum body while I was trying to have sex and you don’t DO that, you crazy bitch. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In giving my negative bullshit talk a persona, it makes it somehow a bit separate from me. Not in the “I don’t think my invisible friend wants you sitting on her lap right now,” way, but more of a chance for me to see what I do to myself at a slight distance. Turns out, I’m a huge fucking bully. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I critique the fuck out of my body shape when I see it in the mirror. At the gym. While I am in the middle of trying to work on that very goddamned thing. As though I can move my body around like it’s hair and it’ll stay if I just push my ass up enough. “Here’s what you would look like with normal thighs,” says Jennifer Tilly, squeezing my legs like a concertina. She’s just the worst.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I sit in crowds on the train or an event, taking stock of everyone there. Then Jennifer Tilly pops up with helpful reminders like, “I bet none of these people pee when they cough” or “Do you think any of them can look at you and just know that you tweezed a long white hair off your nipple earlier today?”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sometimes, I now realize, I am fooled into a false sense of self confidence. I should be able to see it coming because it’s just too much. It goes past self love and delves into arrogance. That’s only so the fall is farther when she yanks out the rug. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Man. You are so much smarter than everyone in this office,” she sighs. “It’s like, creative to them is American Idol and you’re way beyond them. You’re really talented.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And just as a small smile creeps in, letting in the compliment, I hear “and yet here you are working with them because you are a failure and will rot in an office wearing stirrup pants and chains on your glasses. You cow.” </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The craziest part about this process is that the stronger a voice I give Jennifer Tilly, the less I hear her. Believing that I am a good person will encourage me to do good things, whereas convincing myself I’m a sack of shit will result in shitsack behavior. Telling her she’s wrong is just telling my insecurities they have no place in my joy. Telling her to back the fuck up while I eat this ice cream lets me enjoy the damn ice cream. Pushing her out of the mirror or store window with my reflection allows me to focus on something good like my hair instead of something I can’t change in that moment like being really behind on new music. Playing with my daughter and going with my gut about what she wants and doing that stupid dance that makes her laugh is a lot better than wondering if I should maybe get new knees for Christmas and if I’m just failing her in new and exciting ways.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The voice is still there. She’s still loud. She still blathers on and I mute her with therapy, self love...and medication. Like, low level Zoloft. Not lithium. Calm down. But I have louder things - my daughter’s amazing laughter, my husband’s voice, a really good red lipstick after I’ve had my moustache threaded so it isn’t magnified with a red underline. Compliments on my form from gay gym instructors. Singing, writing, reading, watching. Whatever it is, if it makes me happy I’m turning it up lately, and that makes a huge difference. That woman’s voice is horrible. And I’m not even a little bit sorry. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjBuW8dTnoTJ1al8r2M-0VJegJrCM1jt7P_Xsh2Bkz1vQkMDHbLi_x3s4wEbkNdX41_ET0wZ7UcrPJ67LC7HJ0x8fY3zijdLYI6UFPSvRtRYJ3rzomasxmorSjS6XRW-dCO70myoHzJH8/s1600/Jennifer-Tilly_35451.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjBuW8dTnoTJ1al8r2M-0VJegJrCM1jt7P_Xsh2Bkz1vQkMDHbLi_x3s4wEbkNdX41_ET0wZ7UcrPJ67LC7HJ0x8fY3zijdLYI6UFPSvRtRYJ3rzomasxmorSjS6XRW-dCO70myoHzJH8/s320/Jennifer-Tilly_35451.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />Corrbettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07348597683981672294noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5262434925360102423.post-55406740543480314782013-07-29T17:22:00.003-05:002013-07-29T17:22:51.683-05:00Camera Phone?In talking to my sister about technology and its inevitable rise, I used the term, "camera phone." I immediately realized that this was ridiculous, and stated that fact.<br />
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There is no such thing as a camera phone. It's just a phone. We were floored when the iPhone came out and had the internet on it displayed JUST LIKE A COMPUTER. Remember that? Other miracles soon followed.<br />
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"You guys, it's a music player AND a phone. Wow! But does it have a camera?"<br />
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"Of course it does. Whaddya think this is, 2008?"<br />
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My sister countered that we're doomed.<br />
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I have a 15-month-old daughter. I am terrified. My ability to keep up with technology is only going to weaken, and everything I now know will be outdated in about five minutes. I won't understand any of the acronyms she'll spout off in second grade, because I don't understand half of them now. By the time she's a teenager, I'll be muttering in a corner about words being beautiful things and wishing they'd come back. I'll try to update my blog, but I won't have downloaded the newest version of the OS for my Google Enema, which is old technology anyway.<br />
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By the time she gets her hands on any kind of phone, it will be a chip IN her hand. And I'ma be all, "I went to school before the internet!" and she'll put me in a home.<br />
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It's cool, though. All the people there will understand my plight.Corrbettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07348597683981672294noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5262434925360102423.post-27041122671243037832013-06-10T23:11:00.000-05:002013-06-10T23:11:28.156-05:00 Talk Shows and Talking ShowsI don't watch a lot of tv. I don't mean that in the I'm-Better-Than-You way. I mean that I don't watch a lot of tv in <i>real time</i>. I Netflix/Hulu/Amazon everything because cable is expensive and babies aren't. Plus, I think I maxed out on every episode of SVU/Criminal Minds/NCIS in existence while struggling through depression a few years back, and there's only so much Food Network I can take before I start getting angry that I'm not wealthy with a sick kitchen and perfect makeup. So now that the only tv we are at the mercy of comes in basic channel form, I don't flip through very often. I have one hour of watching between putting the Bird to bed and going to bed myself, and that watching hour is usually accompanied by ice cream or wine or both in my face. I don't have any hands free to flip channels.<br />
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Sunday night, my husband was watching basketball, and I realized that I was missing the Tonys. Once the game was over before it was over (4th quarter and the Spurs just kind of said, "fuck it, let's try again tomorrow"), we decided to flip. Of course, the one channel we don't have with the digital antenna is CBS, so no Tony greatness for me. I'll have to YouTube/Netflix/Hulu/Amazon it. So be it.</div>
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What I did find, aside from awesomely bad episodes of the Bionic Woman (nananananananaaaaaa), was a stupid talk show I only see in cabs.*</div>
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*I have a cab problem. I'm much better lately because...poor...but trust that I have to work to not throw up my arm in the JAPpiest of JAP moves a JAP ever JAPped. I don't know where I get this from. I'm broke as hayall, and only my dad was Jewish and it was my mother who described camping as, "A Howard Johnson's if we have to." And WE were poor. I digress.</div>
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Talk Stoop is a brief show where some lady interviews a lot of very famous people on a stoop in New York. This, in and of itself, is fine. It's a three minute whatever while you get from point A to point B in your taxi (or...you know...a couple of times if you take that taxi to work BUT WHO DOES THAT, RIGHT? shit.), but here it was taking up actual tv time. It was on. I watched it. Woody Harrelson was talking about a play he wrote and is producing in New York. The interviewer, looking her quirky best with her dogs sleeping nearby and her Chucks in the shot with her sundress, proceeded to ask why he used unknown actors and what he has "against famous people." Gross.</div>
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Later, she gives him a present for his birthday right after describing him as "the guy who talks about hemp all the time" and he opens the bag to discover a terrarium. Ok. Sure. Whatever talk show hosts give famous people on steps in New York while cameras roll on their birthdays. I don't know these things. He asks how he takes care of it, and she guesses watering it. And then pours coffee cup water into the narrow glass vase. My sister makes terrariums - kick ass <a href="http://krrb.com/posts/25303-luke-darth-terrarium-in-vintage-cocktail-shaker">Star Wars</a> ones to boot - so I winced when this happened.</div>
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See, none of this matters, and I truly don't care. But after a long weekend of singing, playing, walking with a baby, hurting (my body is falling right the fuck apart, in case you're keeping tabs), giggling, baby loving, working, and breathing (in AND out...exhausting), I want to unwind. I was shoving unspeakably bad food into my face because lazy and didn't change the channel. So instead of unwinding watching the Tonys and getting choked up and proud of Chicago's storefront scene, I watched a perky woman present a celebrity with a gift and take a big dump in it, essentially.</div>
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Did I also mention that my weekend included having my stomach fat pinched by someone I hadn't seen in a while when I dared to leave the house without SPANX? It did.</div>
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Also, why is there no GrubHub for wine delivery?<br />
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Corrbettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07348597683981672294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5262434925360102423.post-35155695275000555262013-04-25T10:55:00.002-05:002013-04-25T11:08:31.149-05:00Year One, Which Passed In Two Weeks.As usual, I am unprepared.<br />
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We were going to bake your cake, and we haven't shopped for the ingredients. We were going to have a party, but decided to wait until the end of May when it's warm and everyone can be at the beach. We have to get you on a plane next week, and we're still running errands. I was going to write to you regularly so that you knew how I felt during the first year of your life; but I was working and writing a zombie play, wedding toasts, and seven minute pieces you got to watch instead. <br />
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We knew that every plan, from the birth plan to the apartment setup, was gonna go out the window. We made those plans without being too attached to them, because we figured you'd probably come along and change them all. We embraced that uncertainty as part of the ride. So much so, that we tend to be happily surprised when things like cloth diapers, food prep, and pumping at work actually stuck around this long. <br />
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The birth plan was the first to go, because it didn't suit you. You wanted out way faster than all this early labor and rest nonsense would allow - so you skipped it. Let's put Mama on the yoga ball in some Depends until Kathy, our friend and doula, gets there instead. That's more like it. Way funnier.<br />
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By filling your amniotic fluid with meconium, you eliminated the possibility of water birth. You knew what you were doing - you wanted Mama to have the epidural she warded off for six and a half hours. In hindsight...um...thank you.<br />
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You threw your own plans out the window, though, sweet bird. You breathed that meconium in as you were about to trumpet your arrival with a joyful and powerful wail. So you couldn't breathe at all. I couldn't understand why I wasn't holding you and why I couldn't hear you. Then they wheeled you past me so I could touch your hand for a moment. Then you were gone.<br />
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You scared the bejeezus out of your parents. Won't be the last time.<br />
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I didn't get to hold you for two days after you were born. That wasn't the plan, either. While doctors and nurses took excellent care of you and made sure you could breathe, we stared at the empty bassinet in the recovery room, remaining positive. Remaining tired. When we finally saw you hooked up to a vent and monitored, we were terrified and hopeful all at once. And tired. Did I mention that? And another feeling - reflective. Your grandmother exited this world being monitored this way, surrounded by people trying to help her breathe. Same machines. Same setup. "Do you know what a blood gas is?" the nurses asked. Your father and I quickly said yes. We hoped this familiarity wasn't a negative sign. Turns out, it wasn't.<br />
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Holding you for the first time was one of the most incredible moments of my life. Every emotion flooded me at once and it was all I could do to not swallow you and put you back in my belly to keep you safe. Yeah, I know that's not how it works. I didn't say I DID it. <br />
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That moment was all the sweeter for the waiting. All the sweeter because it meant you would make it. <br />
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We took you home on May 5, 2012. Since then, you've surprised us over and over. You sleep like your mother - someone who adores sleep. You eat like both of your parents - like someone who adores food. You've grown 12 teeth - 12! - this year. You're making your own schedule. You laugh and smile and clap and splash and wave and walk and sing and dance...like you. Like Gilda. Like the Gilda Madeline Pasko you are and will become. Someone amazing, bright, and infectiously happy.<br />
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I will never be prepared for you. I don't ever want to be. I like your surprises most of the time. Most. Don't get any ideas.<br />
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I love you with all that I am. You and your father have made me the happiest and luckiest woman alive. He spends the days with you, and I am so grateful. Jealous, but grateful. I miss you both all day, and coming home each day is a party. Sometimes a loud party, but it's still one I want to be invited to over and over. I call you and your father my Everythings. Sounds dramatic, sure, but I'll be damned if it isn't true.<br />
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Happy birthday to my Little. My Munchkin. My Gilda Bird. <br />
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Thank you for you. <br />
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Corrbettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07348597683981672294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5262434925360102423.post-7788827460364206192013-04-03T21:40:00.002-05:002013-04-03T21:40:55.845-05:00Undefeated. It Feels Funny.I returned to Write Club on April 1, and this time squared off against Ian Belknap, Write Club's very own Overlord. I had Funny, he had Serious. He also had the flu, as well as a fantastic piece about Shitso the clown and the perils of not taking Funny for the Serious business that it is. Just know that orphans died. Like crazy.<br />
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Meanwhile, I managed to win with Funny despite the absence of my adorable baby or any visible plague. Just tales of using Funny as my main coping mechanism, conversation default...and life saver. For those that couldn't make it, or those that could and would like to see the two paragraphs I cut on the fly in order to come in under seven minutes, I have it all here. Huge shout outs to Merrie Greenfield and Scott Pasko for feedback and edits and listening to my ramblings and helping make them into something for other people to listen to. You are the best looking people ever.<br />
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Also, Lisa Buscani, Tim Stafford, Nik Gallik, Kait Ziegler, and Ian Belknap were degoddamnedlightful to watch. The whole evening is super swell to be a part of, and I'll happily throw down words for it any time. <br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.31526784249581397" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On September 11, 2001 - calm down, everyone, I know what my topic is - on that day, I sat at a diner and pushed my food around my plate, watching old men drink beer at 11am because fuck it. We were all in stunned silence, glued to the tv screen and staying downtown against our better judgement.</span></b></div>
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.31526784249581397" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I got up to go to the bathroom, and spied a comic strip on the wall. Two aliens were congratulating each other on finally eliminating all forms of humor on the planet Earth. Then one farted. They guffawed and one exclaimed, “We’re doomed!” I laughed. Audibly. It was out of place. But the aliens lost. The terrorists didn’t win. Because we still had funny. In that moment, I realized we were anything BUT doomed, because we still had funny. Also, I just said “but”. </span></b></div>
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.31526784249581397" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not to be super Jewy or anything, I’m gonna talk about my shrink. Once I had a therapist by the name of Honey Rosenfeld. I said Super Jewy, did I not? She once said to me, in an attempt to get me to dig deeper, “We know you’re funny. It’s time to see what else you are.”</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whaaaat a bitch.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sure, sure fine. I use humor as a knee jerk reaction to difficult situations rather than taking in the full weight of the thing right then and there for fear that it might crush me entirely and I will be rendered incapable of handling the sheer tragedy, the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">serious</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ness, of it all and will be reduced to a crumpled, drooling, mass of skin and bone and post baby and post custard donut fat who understands that her life is a complete failure and she is a phony and everyone everyone everyone fucking knows it. Fine. But you know what? Farts. And probably? Poop.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was raised on Funny, and told to respect it or be forever humiliated at every meal for not getting the banter. My family, by the way, is full of horrible people. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Last weekend, I accidentally said that my middle sister was experiencing 16 feet of snow in Vermont instead of inches. My oldest sister and I laughed and laughed because, ha ha, everyone in Vermont is now dead.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first time my brother in law met my family, we all sat upstairs, conspiring how to kill my mother’s wretched boyfriend. Perhaps an air bubble in his insulin? Poison? He suggested a pillow over the face, and was instantly welcomed as one of us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My father picked us up from school with a duck on his shoulder because...he had a duck.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At work, I cursed aloud before I could stop myself. A co-worker asked if I kiss my mother with that mouth. Without so much as a breath, I said, “No, I kiss YOUR mother with that mouth.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is how I operate. Under the blissful functionality of Funny. It is my breath and my goddamned life force. Why? Why not just be stoic and solemn and dependable and be taken seriously by people and NOT...you know...me? Why? Because Funny makes the better memory. It’s no less true than Serious, but it’s the spoonful of sugar on the shit sandwich medicine of tragedy. Example: You’re talking to a doctor because things look grim for a loved one. With me? There is the serious side of this, where it looks SO bad that they start handing you pamphlets on how to deal with loss, but grandma isn’t even dead yet. She’s unconscious. This is awful. And real. And you’re sobbing because you’re confused and sad and scared.There is, however, another side of this that is just as real. The doctor you’re talking to is interrupted by his cell phone ringing. The ringtone begins, “Imagine there’s no Heaven.” He then tells you, by way of explanation, that there’s a thing...called a coma. This ALSO happened. This is ALSO awful. But it’s funny. So that’s the memory you keep at the top of the stack from that day. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If finding Funny in the terrible is bad, then I can tell you that we are all complete wastes of skin. Because we all do it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Listen to the news for a bit. Just listen to how fucking awful the world is for a moment. How SERIOUS shit can get. And after a while? It gets funny. Whether you want it to or not. And you know what? Thank God. We already know how serious the world is. We know the unrelenting austerity of hunger, of war, of violence and grief. After a certain amount of time, that solemnity gives way to the giggles. If it didn’t, we’d never leave our houses. We’d be too overwrought to turn ourselves over in our sleep, let alone face the day. There’s a certain point, right after the NPR newscaster says, “and once the child armies had eaten most of their enemies, they proceeded to beat one another playfully with the limbs” or “he wore a hooded sweatshirt as pants because it was the only thing that would contain his enormous testicle.” (only one of these is true) There’s a certain point right after those soothing yet awful words come out that you just lose your shit laughing. Because it’s just...so awful. So funny. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The tricky part is that Funny does not appear just because you want it to. You can’t just come up to me and say, “Hey, I hear you’re funny. Say something funny.” That will not get you anything funny. I don’t know you, we haven’t talked. There’s no foreplay. But at a funeral, where NO ONE is asking for Funny, it’s like flies on shit. Or...a...dead person.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">By the way, the person that comes up to me and says, “say something funny” is an asshole. Apparently, Ian Belknap is that guy today for giving me this topic. No one likes that guy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And just so we don’t go thinking I live under some delusion of frivolity, that the world is just hilarious and cancer is the silliest joke God ever told, let me be clear: Funny does the heavy lifting no one else wants. It saved my life more than once. I had a cab driver once tell me about how he used to beat people and leave them for dead. He kept turning around and pointing for emphasis, and something told me that it wasn’t all past tense. I told him to be careful - I might be packing and would kill him in an instant. He laughed his ass off, and the rest of the ride was quiet. Sure, I had him drop me off a few blocks away form my destination because telling jokes doesn’t make me DUMB, but hey...I’m alive, thank you Funny.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m willing to bet that Funny got most everyone here laid at one point in their lives. Let’s be honest, as good looking as all of you are, I’m gonna guess an icebreaker joke helped to drop some pants for you. It wasn’t your stoic demeanor. Trust. When trying to get laid, never go with Serious. You’ll end up with bad poetry. Or a restraining order.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So yes. I know that I am many things other than Funny, thank you Ms. Rosenfeld, but it’s staying at the top of my roster. I’ll be damned if I am going to disassociate myself from the thing that made 9/11 tolerable, acted as a conduit for family communication, saved my goddamned LIFE, and got me laid. What has serious done for you? It probably grounded you for a week, told you about your clogged arteries, shushed you in class, and killed all of your erections. No one has a friend as good as Funny has been to us all. Serious? We all have that friend. But we didn’t bring him tonight. Because fuck that guy. He isn’t funny.</span></div>
<br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>Corrbettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07348597683981672294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5262434925360102423.post-28246451960574141162013-03-09T10:34:00.001-06:002013-03-09T10:37:29.199-06:00Salty. Plus, a Cute Baby.On January 7th, I finally weasled my way into competing at <a href="http://writeclubrules.com/">Write Club Chicago</a>. By "weasled", I mean "got them to listen and understand that I will make seven minutes worth of compelling performance, promise." I did that, with one second over.<br />
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I watched Ian Belknap, Don Hall, Samantha Irby and Daniel Shapiro weave words and hold the audience captive. I held my breath and smiled like an idiot as my friend and opponent, Rachel Claff, presented her hilarious and passionate piece on "Sweet". We both mentioned in our respective pieces that she made my wedding and baby shower cake. Because...how do you not mention that? She was brilliant.<br />
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It was a great night all around, and I laughed until I cried. My husband and my baby were both there, and that was everything to me. My infant daughter hardly cried at all, and that was victory enough for me. I held her as the words "I'm not gonna stick my dick into a jar of CHUNKY peanut butter" were presented in defense of the topic "Smooth". I'm pretty sure that's model parenting right there. Hey, she also heard Irby's defense of "Rough" and now knows the dangers of Brazilian waxing. See? Parent of the Year.<br />
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Ian called my daughter out a few times for being "mind cracklingly adorable" while she sat in the audience on her father's lap. She yelled out after my piece and everyone applauded. If she had a hand in my winning that night, I don't care. She earned it.<br />
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She also cried during Don Hall's piece, and we had to take her into the front for a bit. See? She knows what's up.<br />
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I had the topic "Salty". It seemed I couldn't help but write about my mother, even though I had other things in mind when I sat down to hammer it out. So today, on the three year anniversary of her death, I reprint it here.<br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.081002501770854" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Electrolyte.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was 1988, so naturally, my hair was enormous. I slept in rollers, then hot curled, sprayed, fanned, shaped, threw all of my styling tools into the sink in a fit of frustrated young girl rage. I did everything RIGHT.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But it rained anyway. Of course it did. And I didn’t have an umbrella. Of course I didn’t. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hesitated before walking the short distance from the door to my mother’s car, wondering if Rave Level 4 Hold would be enough to withstand the downpour. My mother turned and saw my concern. In that moment, she offered sage wisdom to put things into perspective.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Only two things melt in the rain,” she said, “shit and sugar. You’re not either of those, so let’s go.” </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My 14 year old mind was blown. Thanks, Mom, for telling me I’m not shit. But also, those are the only two things that melt in the rain? Who conducted this experiment? They left out salt. And...anything else that dissolves in water. Like ice. Or a cake. A cake that, by my mother’s logic, was made of fondant and feces. I had so many questions and zero time to decipher her colloquialisms.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As I have aged, I have discovered salt doesn't dissolve. It transforms when it hits water. It becomes vital fluid.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Salt water is brine, antiseptic, hydration, the sea. Sugar water, meanwhile, is what the crazy guy keeps asking for at Starbucks. Dissolution is not an option for salt, so it was left out of my mother’s list of things I was not.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Preservation.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She was a 55 year smoker. Her voice was lower than any man’s in this room. She held onto her Brooklyn accent like a prize, and whenever I recall something she said, I imagine she had a cigarette in her hand. Because she did. She was the head of my salty family for a reason. She was a sailor, the rim of a margarita glass, she was a cure for the bland. She literally ate salt for breakfast by crumbling up saltines and pouring milk over them. We called it “cracker cereal.”</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If I tell you someone I want to set you up with is so sweet, you’d expect two things: they’re idiots or they’re ugly. Sweet, it would seem, is a consolation prize. “You’re so sweet” is a pandering shitbag of a compliment. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We are all salty. Our blood, sweat, and tears define a person’s ability to live. Also, they have a fantastic horn section. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Saltiness pulses through us. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When we cry, or become damp with exhaustion, or we cut our goddamned finger on the slicing blade of the Cuisinart even though there’s a big fucking orange sticker telling you not to do that and now you’ve bled all over everything, goddammit, we are human.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We literally cannot live if we are not salty.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cleanser.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When my father took his life in 1987, we moved very quickly from my childhood home. Like, REALLY quickly. I didn’t know at the time that the bank was foreclosing on the house. You could say the bank salted the earth after we were defeated and left, but OTHER people did fine on that land. So...we kinda salted the earth under our own feet wherever we were. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Things had a hard time thriving wherever we lived - a tiny apartment in Melrose Park, my mother’s boyfriend’s house that had a mirrored dance floor no shit. We grew, but we didn’t thrive. I mean, my HAIR. I worked HARD. Nope. Not gonna happen. You have been deprived of your riches, child, your father left you shame. Flat hair for you. Start over.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Flavor.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t crave chocolate. I have been called a communist and have been accused of not being a real woman because of this fact. It’s not that I don’t like it. I just don’t crave it. Unless you add salt to it. A salted piece of chocolate will make me get up in the middle of the night. Salt makes sweet better. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My eight month old daughter is adorable and sweet. But when she got her first baby doll and went right for the face and started chewing, she somehow got even cuter. I’ve passed the saltiness on.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><b id="internal-source-marker_0.081002501770854" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Currency.</span></b><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My husband and I have a very sweet meeting story. I will not bore you with it now. It’s awesome. It really is. But no one wants the sweet part. They want the fun part. The sustenance. The salty goodness. Ok. Here’s that part. We broke up about four years into our now ten year romance. Everyone had advice. Everyone had opinions. It was upsetting.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I did what every girl would do. I called my mother. Once again, salty to the rescue. Sweet had failed me over and over again.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Fuck em,” she said, “This is about you and him and no one else.” That was the best advice I’ve ever gotten. You could dip it in ranch and make it even better.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The proper response for sweet is opening your mouth, tilting your head, looking foolish and saying, “Awwww.” The proper response to salty is raising one eyebrow, pulling in your chin, looking smarter than everyone else and saying, “mm.”</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have nothing against sweet. Sweet over there made my wedding cake AND my baby shower cake. Everyone likes sweet. It’s so...nice.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On the other hand, french fries. That’s all.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pillar.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let me tell you about my salty mother’s dying thought. I don’t know the very last thing she thought of, but I do know what she said to me in what turned out to be her final few hours. Lucidity, as it turns out, comes and goes when you’re about to leave this world. All I knew was that I shouldn’t correct the woman on her hallucinations because it confused her, and I hated hated hated seeing her confused. So I went with it. After asking if I could warn her when nurses were coming so she could put out her imaginary cigarette (she hadn’t smoked in two years. COPD didn’t give a shit), she asked me what number was “up there”. She gestured to the door. I knew immediately she was looking at a deli counter. Do you get that? A deli. She wanted some salty meat when she went, and who could blame her? I walked up to the fake counter and squinted. “92?” I said. “What number are you looking for?” “99,” she said. She died four hours later, as apparently it was a slow moving deli. And I bet dollars to donuts </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(see? donuts are only worth a dollar. say dollars to Fritos and the value skyrockets on that bet)</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, she is happily eating pastrami on rye and shoestring potatoes out of the can and licking the salt at the bottom.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because that’s what heaven is. Where you get to lick the salt at the bottom. </span></b>Corrbettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07348597683981672294noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5262434925360102423.post-1366784475162029602012-09-14T10:33:00.001-05:002012-09-14T10:49:57.181-05:00Reflections, Auditions, Birthdays, Twinkies.On my father's birthday, I decided to go digging. I came up with a piece I wrote for his birthday six years ago.<br />
<br />
This piece was my second Neo Futurists audition, leading to my second Neo Futurists callback. Sure, I'm not part of the ensemble. I've been through the audition and callback process three times. The reason I mention it at all is this: the Neos insist on the truthful and personal nature of their work. I brought that every time, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to do so. I am grateful the company exists so I had a goal and a deadline to write under. I had artists to inspire me to work with them. This company exists and inspired me to keep writing. Also, they're swell people.<br />
<br />
Looking at these pieces is good for me as a writer, and better for me as a person. They remind me of my journey and show me a time period of my life in a way that no other writing could. The reflection is pretty accurate, bereft of frills and half truths. It's just me and the time I was in, unflinchingly looking back at me now, wondering why I'm wincing.<br />
<br />
My last round of auditions and callbacks was in May of 2011, and it was easily the most intensely personal and difficult. My audition felt like a dirty secret because I was pregnant. I was excited. I didn't want to tell them because it was early, and I would worry about the details later, right? One thing at a time and all that. The morning of my audition, I miscarried. It started an hour before my audition and continued all day. I still went in, not certain what was happening but knowing exactly what was happening. On my audition form, my answers were very different than they had been in previous rounds. "Where do you see yourself in five years?" "Writing...raising a family..." I was heartbroken, hopeful, proud of my work, and devastated by my loss. I was called back, but I just couldn't muster the same enthusiasm. One of my pieces was about losing those close to me, no matter how careful I was. My mother, this child. But I couldn't articulate it correctly. I also didn't tell them why I wrote that piece. I didn't tell them that I sang the song I used in the shower the morning of my audition, praying I wasn't losing this child. I wasn't as honest as I could have been. That showed.<br />
<br />
Two months later, I was pregnant with Gilda. I have never been more grateful for anything in my life.<br />
<br />
Today is my father's birthday. He would have been 74. My mother is now gone, also, but I wrote this when she was still alive. I had the callback for this piece when she lived with me after her heart attack. She watched me zip in and out the door, marvelling at my energy. Then she went to the back porch to smoke. I joined her later, and we stayed up way too late talking about it all.<br />
<br />
So today, on my father's birthday, I revisit the piece that flowed out a bit easier six years ago. I miss him, I miss my mother, and I wish they could have met their granddaughter Gilda. Sweet Jesus, they'd have loved her to bits and pieces. <br />
<br />
Long way around, as always: happy birthday, Dad. I love you.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">
<strong><span style="color: white;">We Always Had Twinkies in the
House and I Didn’t Bake You a Cake</span></strong></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: white;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="color: white;"> </span></o:p></div>
<em><span style="color: white;">(Blackout on stage. Corri lights a
birthday candle that is in a Twinkie, maybe a couple depending on how much
light one candle gives)<o:p></o:p></span></em><br />
<span style="color: white;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: white;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: white;">She called me to remind me. I
always know in the days leading up to it, but never on the day. It's like
there's some strange veil over my memory and nothing will trigger it until she
calls me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: white;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: white;">I try to tell my friends that
remembering their birthdays is hopeless for me. I don't want them to get angry,
but I can't blame them. Who remembers lyrics to the theme song on a short lived
Ann Jillian sitcom and not the birthday of their closest friends? Me,
that's who. My commemorative priorities seem pretty out of whack.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: white;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: white;">But as soon as she calls – calls
back, even, after I just spoke to her – and says, "Do you know what today
is?" I can say yes and mean it. Because I hear it in her voice, in her low
and gravelly voice that can put a twinge of sadness on even the happiest
things. Not just because she sounds so sick, but because it's so low and grave.
And when her heart is heavy remembering you, remembering you would have been 68
today, mine breaks. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: white;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: white;">It doesn't break for me today, I
have my own days for that. Days that really have no significance because there
are so many at this time of year, I need a break. I'll grieve in the spring
when there's nothing to remember. My heart breaks today for her. Because she
lost her best friend. Her husband. The father of her children. The man who
loved her. The man she helped and covered for and tried to heal. The man who
may not have made it to 68 even if he didn't take his own life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: white;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: white;">But on this day, when we grieve
and when my heart breaks for her when she calls, we pretend you would have made
it. We talk about how we miss you, and how fall is the best and worst season.
She tells me life goes on, and that she can see it in my nieces. They're
beautiful and smart and you'd love them to pieces. They hear about you. About
your infamous Birthday Weeks and your charm and your humor. Your smile, even if
it was as rare as green leaves come that November.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: white;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: white;">So happy birthday. Happy Birthday
Week to you. I love you. I miss you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: white;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: white;">But I'll grieve in the spring when
there's nothing to remember.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: white;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
Corrbettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07348597683981672294noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5262434925360102423.post-35579765759777455522011-09-07T15:03:00.000-05:002011-09-07T15:03:28.854-05:00What...what is that smell?It can't be perfume. I only wear that at night so I don't smell like the Office Hoor.<br />
<br />
Teen Spirit? Don't be an asshole.<br />
<br />
I think...I think it's confidence. I think it's the beautiful scent of actually <em>liking</em> myself. It's so novel, I didn't recognize its fruity olfactory goodness in my nostrils.<br />
<br />
Today, I had someone tell me I look, "very Corri Pasko" today. Any other day, I could twist that comment with Hulk-like strength into a twisted wreck of mean, horrible sentiment. Today, I skipped a bit and said, "Thanks." It could be the maroon tights. It could be the new Mary Janes and corduroy skirt. Could be that it's rapidly becoming fall, my favorite season. I have no idea, but I'm not gonna think about it too hard, lest my natural ability to demean myself come parading out to show me what for.<br />
<br />
On top of this, I heard my boss make a comment that sounded like me. And I was pleased instead of horrified. <br />
<br />
Yesterday, I had a callback and walked out thinking I did my very best. That I felt good about it, and the rest was up to them. It actually felt good to know it was out of my hands. Normally, I'd worry and go over the audition again and again, fixing the past in my brain. Apparently, I love futile activity.<br />
<br />
Again, perhaps it's the weather. Maybe I accidentally spiked my coffee. Maybe I'm delusional. I don't care.<br />
<br />
I like myself today, and considering my penchant for doing quite the opposite, I will take it. And I might even break my goddamned arm patting myself on the back, thankyouverymuch.Corrbettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07348597683981672294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5262434925360102423.post-78195433121199534182010-06-29T13:52:00.001-05:002010-06-29T14:09:10.084-05:00Oh, Nothin...I haven't written for eight months. Eight.<br /><br />In that time, I officially reached my mid-thirties, wrote a show, celebrated a Christmas with fake moustaches, produced a show, lost a parent, mourned, and picked the wedding planning back up in the midst of aforementioned show after aforementioned mourning.<br /><br />Nope. Nothing to write about. I'm really glad I understand the dullness of my existence. Sigh.<br /><br />I think it's fitting that, after losing my mom, I'm in a ridiculous comedy I co-wrote where I play a superhero. This makes sense to me. I felt like one when I took care of her properly. When I could help. When I could no longer help, I didn't care if I was a hero or not. I just wanted to be there with her. No matter how I felt, there were always lots and lots of inappropriate jokes to be made. Having this come together in one tiny spandex package with tights seems right and happy.<br /><br />I also am very happy to sit with my fiance and get back to wedding planning. It's a party I am seriously looking forward to, sure. But more than that, I'm looking forward to being married to him.<br /><br />On Sunday, we sat down with a kickass homemade brunch (and several mimosas) and discussed the wedding.<br /><br />Talking about a day surrounded by family and loved ones is a pretty wonderful chat. The idea that I'll be going through this without either of my parents is incredibly hard to fathom and also pretty easy all at once. Part of me feels that of course this is how it would be. The other part of me feels that it shouldn't happen to anyone this way.<br /><br />We almost got married at her bedside, just so she could be there to see us get married. Once she lost lucidity, we decided not to. I'm grateful we didn't, as it would only remind her that she couldn't attend.<br /><br />She'll be there at opening night, at the wedding and wherever else I need her. My father, too. They do that, loved ones. After they pass, you can ask for them to be somewhere and they just are. It's a request they can only fulfill after death, when you no longer ask for their physical presence. If you believe they're there, that's enough. Sometimes.Corrbettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07348597683981672294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5262434925360102423.post-48675266141035806222009-10-20T15:22:00.000-05:002009-10-22T12:04:48.663-05:00Weighty. (Rimshot)Dear Scale:<br /><br /><br />I think we both know what this is about. I don't pay much attention to you, and I think you're ok with that. However, I thought maybe I had misjudged you. Perhaps you and I could coexist. Not a friendship, per se, but some kind of mutual agreement where we can share a space. I might even allow you into my home. Perhaps if I just gave you a chance, I could change my thinking and we could bury the hatchet once and for all.<br /><br /><br />I was so so wrong about that. I was stupid to think we could possibly be civil to one another, but I do have one request that I ask you fulfill in exchange for a satisfying silence from me: I write this letter to ask you to kindlly stop giving me a higher and higher number every time I visit you.<br /><p>I won't come around often, and you can start to gradually slide back into a digit that doesn't make me hyperventilate when I do visit. Deal? Please? </p><p>Hoping,</p><p>Corrbette<br /></p><br />Dear Corrbette:<br /><br /><br />Ow. Get off me. Why do you weigh so damned much?<br /><br />Painfully,<br />Scale<br /><br />Dear Scale:<br /><br />You have no heart.<br /><br />Weeping,<br />Corrbette<br /><br />Dear Corrbette:<br /><br /> ...<br /><br />ScaleCorrbettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07348597683981672294noreply@blogger.com0