Tarantino X-Mas

Over Christmas Eve dinner of vegetarian curry, my family engaged in a conversation about Tarantino's new movie Django Unchained. The controversy about it, whether it is exploitive, or I guess "exploitative." The film opens today, so none of us had seen it. Much of the controversy is around the use of the n-word. Read about it. Metacritic: 20 out of 22 critics give it a positive review. So we bought tickets to the 11:30 matinee today.

Our conversation continued about Tarantino's other films, in particular Inglourious Basterds, and I admitted I hadn't seen the whole thing through, just the last part. My kids were outraged that I hadn't watched the whole thing, so we decided to watch it after dinner. They had all seen it between 3 times (Joe) and 30 or 40 times (Ian). Joe disputes the merit of the ending, which I could debate because I had seen the film's last 20 minutes at least once. Zoe and I love the satisfaction of Operation Kino, watching the effigy of Hitler being shot to pieces by vengeful Jews. Something that Hitler made impossible by killing and immolating himself, leaving the world cheated of that pleasure. Tarantino took it upon himself to fulfill, in one scene, a collective cineastic anti-Nazi fantasy. Film as the fuel for the torching of high ranking Third Reich including the Führer, catching them in the moment of their highest vanity, as if propaganda could make great cinema, was so beautiful and haunting. So we watched Inglourious Basterds together on Christmas Eve. We thought it would be good preparation for Django Unchained. It was.

On Django and the controversy around it, producer Reggie Hudllin tells theGrio (in case you don't go to the link):

“Forget racism, let’s talk about modern day slavery,” he comments. “There is a penal system in certain parts of this country where the war on drugs is used as rationalization to incarcerate the black population, and use it as unpaid labor sources. These things are destroying our community. If we don’t understand our past, we won’t understand where we are at present, and won’t be able to fix things for the future…We’re giving the word in its proper historical context, and if people feel uncomfortable, they should be.”

We just got back from seeing the film at the Metreon in a big full house - the Christmas day $6 matinee. Two-hours and forty-five minutes of epic entertainment, taking an unflinching look at the violence of slavery, flipping the roles of Southern Americans as heroes and Germans as villains in Inglourious Basterds on its head, making a hero of the German character, played by the very same genius of an actor Christoph Waltz, and the white Southerners as evil as Nazis. You gotta love that touch.

Tarantino's over-the-top violence aside, his high stylization of the western mixed with blaxploitation  genre really works. The masterful tension he builds, the performances he evokes, are priceless. Jaime Foxx's performance is remarkably understated, such an astute and effective choice. Samuel L. Jackson as the house slave is as scary as any of the white villains, and so explains the legacy of black on black violence, the "internalized colonialism" we all suffer today.

Outside the theater in the hallway we met three African American young men friends who live with us on our floor, who recently moved to SF from Georgia and Florida. They loved the film, not just for its cinematic feats but for its direct hit on slavery, and the undeniable implications for today. They could not get over how the n-word had a whole new meaning to them, "really showing where it came from."

Again from the theGrio article:

Mark Anthony Neal, Professor of Black Popular Culture in the Department of African and African-American Studies at Duke University, also believes the argument over brazen use of the n-word is merely a diversion from more difficult topics people are unwilling to discuss. “As a country we want to be post-race without ever fully engaging the dynamics of what race means to American society,” he says. “It’s much easier for us, at this moment, to gloss over historical realities and turn to what words we used and how they were used. Whether that’s getting rid of the n-word in books like Huckleberry Finn, so as not to offend young folks who are reading the book, or complaining about the use of the word in a film like Django Unchained.”

He adds, “When all is said and done, it’s a word, and I’m much more concerned by white supremacist actions than use of these terms….I think the fact that we’re having this conversation about the n-word is a way for us not to actually have the conversation about slavery, which the film talks about. If all that we’re talking about is the n-word, no one actually has to get to the depth and reality of talking about violence and slavery and racial relations in the historical context.”

Neal feels that anxiety over black on white violence in the film is due to an inherent fear in American culture that such depictions will actually “sanction” real life enactments, and that perhaps such loose use of the n-word might inspire some people to worry it will create tensions between races. However, these narrow-minded conclusions don’t give audiences credit for properly interpreting the story."

Meanwhile, I highly recommend Django Unchained. As far as endings go, this one is classic Tarantino, satisfying in it's unbridled pyrotechnic and symbolic glory. See it.

Now gotta meditate or do yoga to cleanse my soul. We have so much work to do to heal our culture. 

Nonviolent Communication

Joe and I are working on our Nonviolent Communication skills. It seems so simple and is so hard to practice in the moment. When listening, you have to stay so conscious and "listen with your whole being" for what people are really saying, then paraphrase, help them articulate what it is that they need. It's usually about connection, as in, we are all struggling to connect with each other. And when talking, it's so hard to take responsibility for your own feelings and express what you need in a tone that can be heard. Because being heard is a step towards connection. It sounds simplistic, and it is. Deconstructing all the complications of our communication is very, very hard. It takes everyday practice to get good at it.

The author Marshall B. Rosenberg (MBR) is superhuman. Joe and I read chapters aloud to each other because it's cheaper than therapy. In between our NVC nights we can be such assholes to each other. Or in NVC, "I observe that I often forget how to communicate clearly what I'm feeling and what I need, and as a result, I blame you for not understanding me." Or, "I often forget to bring my whole being to listening to you, and when I am not really listening, I have a hard time hearing what you are really saying, what you really need."

I'm a novice and generally suck at this. My own kids are better at it than I am (and point it out). But I will keep working on it. There's a whole vocabulary - not new words, but a different, more highly attuned attention to words that express feelings. Recognizing fake expressions of feelings, such as "I feel misunderstood," which is really an assessment of the other person's level of understanding. Maybe more accurate to say, "I feel annoyed," or "I feel sad."

Listening and not giving advice, or accepting blame, or blaming others, but sensing people's feelings and needs. This can be so hard when someone is yelling, or using "that tone" with "that face" that triggers your own negativity. You have patterns. It's so easy to blame and feel like shit.

What would it mean to practice NVC all the time? It would be so much cleaner. So much unnecessary conflict would be averted. It would require a commitment to staying conscious. That's hard to do the way we live. Drinking, trying to be funny, working, getting to BART. Who has time to be conscious all the time?

Who has time to be an asshole?

Thanksgiving in the hood

On the street below my window a man pulls up his pants. He's having trouble. He's hiding between a pick-up truck and a bright blue Recology bin. He doesn't know I can see him. Now he's digging through the bin for cans and bottles. Today is just like any other day, except maybe someone came by with a styrofoam box of turkey and mashed potatoes, the fixings. Maybe he got one and maybe he didn't. He's gone now, and so is the recycle bin.

Walking down Sixth Street towards the SOMA Whole Foods on 4th and Harrison one man races by pushing a wheelchair with another man in it, both singing, "We gonna take you HIGHer!" A woman standing in the middle of the street does the crazy, look-at-me dance in front of cars stopped at the signal. Her face, like the other faces we pass, is scrunched, missing teeth, the contraction of all expression into one that says, "I am lost beyond all hope."

There are dramas on Sixth Street as Ian and I walk by. If people see us they don't pay much attention. It's like we are in a parallel universe when we dodge SRO residents arguing, step over the lumpy spit on the sidewalk in front of the Bayanihan House,  everybody waiting for evening to come so they can return to their rooms. If they have a room. We weave around a black woman holding a big, fat white poodle on her shoulder. "You heard right! Now, give it to me!" she shouts.

The people with facial tattoos fascinate me. The man walking up the BART stairs on Market and Seventh the other day looking up with intense expectancy, his gaze passing right through me. What is the future you make for yourself when you tattoo your face? What is the past you come from that brings you to the decision to tattoo your face? Could I ever be that sad, or feel my choices were so limited that I would decide to tattoo my face? I can imagine it.

When Thanksgiving is sunny, and everyone inside Whole Foods has money to buy readymade gourmet mashed potatoes and organic kale, it makes you think no one is hungry. Then you walk two blocks up to Sixth and it's another story. A man asks for a quarter; I give him an organic Pink Lady that cost me 98 cents. He's not happy. I realize he may not have enough teeth to eat an apple but I keep walking.

An angry skinhead screams racial slurs and tips over all the trash cans into the street on Stevenson.

The security guard in the Ninth Circuit Court parking lot across the street opens the hatch to his Dodge Caravan and starts fixing his lonely dinner. On the other side of the steel gate a bearded man walks with purpose holding a cup from Starbucks. I can't see his face but I know what it looks like. It's hollow and anxious. His teeth are gone. He's hurrying to nowhere.

I will whip organic cream past soft peaks and sprinkle a dash of rapadura sugar into it and bring it with my pumpkin pie to the potluck down the hall.

Egan, Proust, Strindberg, kids

I am no longer the parent of any teenagers. As of today.

Things change so quickly my neck hurts.

I am writing like a motherfucker, challenged by the multiple demands of just living.

Jennifer Egan's book A Visit from the Goon Squad had a profound effect on me. I am inspired to experiment more, to broaden my range. Thanks to Jon V for making me read it. She moves around so fluidly in time, which is the real subject of this book. "Time is a goon." In interviews she says Proust and The Sopranos were big influences. Having read all 7000 pages of Proust a couple of years ago (with the beloved Bolinas Proust group), I was so ready for this book. Her website is another revelation.

On Saturday attended the Cutting Ball Theater's presentation of the Strindberg Cycle - all five of Strindberg's chamber plays in one day. It was an amazing, rigorous experience entering into the world of Strindberg for almost 12 hours, including breaks during which the subject of conversation was still Strindberg. I highly recommend seeing some or all of these plays. This is the first time in history that all five plays have been performed in rep. I mean first ever. The website is super informative for background and for actually seeing the plays performed if you cannot attend live.

Experiencing Strindberg's world of fucked up families with secrets and vendettas made me feel better about my little family.

We talk. We often have meals together. We like to hang out in the same places, but also are fine staying apart. We enjoy silence together.

This is the birthday week. Joseph on the 11th,  Zoe on the 13th and Ian the 14th. Every year.

Last night I sat in my new office (which is now also Zoe's City space) upstairs with Zoe and some of her best friends, including Ian, while she played a song on the ukelele that she wrote back in February in London. I'm feeling like shit with a bad cough but the song lifted me up. She is now 26: half my age. From now on, she's been alive more than half my life.

Joseph is steadily working on his school bus/art car project with big ideas for 2013. He's 24 now.

Tonight, right now,  Ian is letting go of his childhood in a ritual involving fire on a beach somewhere. Today he is 20. Twenty years ago right now he was fifteen minutes old.

Authentic Connection

When you are someone who sends out thousands of emails a week, you have to work hard for authentic connection.

After days of spewing electronic messages out into the ether with the hope, if you are really good, for a 19% open rate, you need an antidote.

As a succor, you need flesh. The real deal. Skin pressing skin, mouth on mouth, sweat and spit. You want to take it all the way in the back of your throat to stop yourself from talking. You need to shut the fuck up and throw your whole body into nonverbal animal communication and obliterate all words.

I no longer wonder why so many programmers are into kink.

You need all your dirty parts licked clean of all the SPAM and eWaste that has been shooting out at you through your computer screen, its nasty film covering your entire being with too much information.

It doesn't HAVE to be sex. It could be curling up with another animal (or human) and purring or cooing. No words. Just touch. Even a good hug can wash away some of the static cling.

If I don't have authentic connection often enough, I turn into a whimpering, unintelligible mess. I start to send out emails with the wrong words in the subject line. I give people mistaken titles and forget to confirm appointments. I become indistinguishable from SPAM.

I was going to say it's hard to predict exactly how and when you must insist on an authentic connection. It's easy: EVERYDAY. Or AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE.

More Porn

Reading Girlvert: A Porno Memoir by Oriana Small AKA Ashley Blue. One of the women who read/performed at the Femina Potens event.

It's a compelling read mostly because she just keeps taking it in the ass and taking more in the ass, and letting herself get pissed on and choked to death on camera, and yet she maintains a scrappy and uncanny sense of humor about it. She knows she is more than all of that, and we know she survives because look, she's written a book about it.

I'm half way through but I haven't read anything so far that reveals whether she gets real pleasure out of sex herself. Her mission thus far is all about getting more cocaine and pleasing her boyfriend and appearing to be a badass. I'm half-way through and have not heard about one single orgasm that belonged to her. She let's the most disgusting pervs cum on her face. She reluctantly agrees to give an extremely overweight, gross and stinky "director" a blow job after she's had a night of ass fucking by two large cocks and is completely exhausted. Why? Because her boyfriend wants some money to pay back the coke dealer.

I understand. I've done things not quite that gross but things I'm not proud of, for money or acceptance from a man. But I keep wondering, when is SHE going to get some pleasure? Or does she just not talk about it in the book? I guess I have to finish it just to find out. It won't take long.

The book has unsettled me.

The real discovery this last week of reading was Lidia Yuknovitch, and her book The Chronology of Water. Wo. This is the shit. Thank you Becca for leaving it on the night stand for me. I read it in two sittings...

Don't take my word for it. Maybe I'm a little late to this party, but why did I not know about her sooner?

P.S. It's not porn. But maybe the best writing I have read in years. Which is incredibly sexy.

Porn

I went to see Intersections: LOVE:SEX:PORN:ART: Our Intimate Identity last week at Yerba Buena. It was curated by Madison Young of FeminaPotens. I am still digesting the experience.

I grew up in a different era. As a kid, I would sneak into the hiding place between the sliding glass window and my parents kingsize bed (with Don Draper's gold bedspread), and read Playboy. I read every cartoon, every letter to the editor, and gazed at every centerfold. That was porn for me. And it was a special, private experience (that I am now sharing on the internet). It helped me understand that sex wasn't actually dirty. It could tell it was good.

There was porn porn then, of course. But I didn't know about it. 

Now it's different. 

I've queried people from Bolinas to Zurich, and most young men by age 12 are looking at hardcore porn on the internet. 

I am not against sex-positivity. I'm for it. 

I am not against sex work. It's been a fact of life for thousands of years.

Yet I have misgivings about the reality that young boys (and girls I'm sure) are imprinting their lifelong sexuality with porn. I worry that bondage and submission games that I am only beginning to understand cannot possibly be understood by preteen boys.

I worry that the women in front of the camera, even if they soberly and confidently choose to be there, which was the case for all the women who performed at the Yerba Buena Femina Potens event, will not always want their vulnerability out there for literally anyone in the world to view. Forever.

At the event, after watching some seriously disturbing scenes onscreen and moving live performances, and listening to these beautiful women speak so confidently, I was very challenged by my own background and feelings. These women, all 31 or younger, have chosen to own their decisions to enter the world of porn. Three out of five are no longer doing sex work or sex performance, but they are all talking about it in other ways. Publicly and intelligently. Which is refreshing.

Maybe my misgivings are no longer relevant.

Maybe my old-school fear that there is still abuse and coercion behind the scenes is just not true anymore. I heard from these women, some of whom are now directors and authors of books and screenplays, that they had much more control over the content of the porn scenes than I had ever imagined.

Maybe these women, and women I know that have gone on to be serious professionals in other arenas, are on the front lines of third wave feminism, truly making strides in the sex-positivity arena, countering the forces of female objectification. I believe this to be true.

Yet I struggle with it. I hate the idea of men never growing up, hiding behind their computer screens, jerking off to fantasies of women who never tell them to curtail their video games. I worry about a generation of people losing the ability to talk about their feelings face-to-face and to engage in "real sex."
 
I know just saying that is really controversial. The young women I meet are so together on this subject. Does this post reveal more about my prejudice that men are often beasts? Or the fear that our culture in San Francisco and all the healthy sex-positivity is simply not the reality everywhere else?

Am I just paranoid? Maybe people everywhere, including young boys, are more sophisticated than I give them credit for.

How do you feel about it?

Mother to "grown-ups"

Mothering large people through their transitions. Standing by.

Available to feed, or demonstrate some basic skill I somehow neglected to teach before. Such as how to remove toenail polish. Or to find the right mouth medicine. I brush my fingers through his or her hair as he or she lay curled up on my bed feeling small.

Available to listen on the phone to gut wrenching tears as I walk through the farmer's market looking for eggs and tomatoes. I listen to the sounds of my grown baby and tell her I'm glad she is smart enough to let it all out. I tell her that I'm willing to step into first string for as long as she needs.

Telling her this helps her feel strong enough to go to a picnic in Dolores Park.

I make an omlette for my big son and my bigger baby brother. Who is 42. In doing so I realize that I almost never cook anymore. It's such a nice way to express love.

I am alone now. Standing by for whomever needs me next.

There is no limit to my love.

There is no limit to my capacity to receive love.

Burning Man 2012 - Take 1

Beautiful, fantastical. Inspiring.

Singing Black Dog and Fever with Zoe on ukelele.

Family dinner before the Temple Burn.

Sitting in the Temple during a white-out dust storm watching/hearing the most beautiful wedding.

This is what it looked like when the dust cleared for a moment.

While we were there, three more weddings took place, all so different.

In a total white-out moment, I felt Zoe's presence, called out her name just once, and she emerged from the dust to come sit on my lap. Then she and T performed acro-balance as the sun was setting.


Ian DJing at Desert Morning for five hours, gathering a huge crowd at 11:00am.

Lounging with Mike and Jane while Mike read the most astonishing Australian poetry that we'd never before heard.

Joseph's face as we rode around the City for the first time together, five Benders deep. All smiles.

The Unicorn Stampede that we missed, but instead found Robot Heart at dawn...

Dancing with Joe at Robot Heart as the sun came up, fresh from 10 hours of sleep. Three days in a row.

Temple Burn.

10 things I want from Burning Man

Now that we are mostly done with material preparation, it's about psychic and emotional preparation, and setting my intention. What do I want out of this trip/vacation/journey?

Many things.

1) Complete removal from the grid and thoughts of work for at least seven days.
2) Simplicity.
3) Outdoor hot yoga.
4) Large scale participatory art experiences that blow my mind and inspire renewed faith in humanity.
5) Radical self-expression - in whatever form that takes. Even if that means a three hour nap and sitting naked in the sun/shade alone all day. Or in hammock in a great camp that I discover. Sipping cocktails.
6) Family time with all three of my grown children - separate time with each, and some all together. Maybe Joe and I will find them at dawn when they are DJing together on an art car after the Unicorn stampede. Maybe sitting on a tarp together, after everything is burned to the ground, when our camps our nearly packed, eating whatever food is left over and sharing stories.
7) Alter ego bonding with Joe in his leather gear.
8) Finding a new alter ego or two.
9) Bonding with old friends and new people I have not yet met.
10) Clarity on the direction of my life for the next 10-20 years.

Maybe some of these things will happen. I will stay open to collective imagination. That is my commitment.

 Zoe and friends on their way into the Nowhere Festival in Spain 7/12.

Zoe, Ian and Jordan  in Berlin 7/12

 

If you want to tune in:

Burning Man livecast.

Seven Days Until the Man Burns

Burning Man!!!

Game on. Today is is where the rubber meets the road in terms of final budget decisions: More food and alcohol or that pink wig I've been eyeing at that unYelped store on Market Street. You know what I want. I want to feel skinny and have long pink hair.

Camp gear, sexy big girl underwear, Joe's Leather, Etc. hat and shorts (wooohooo), our almost matching combat boots, fishnets, real chinchilla wrap and fake fur coats. It's all here, ready to be plunged into ziplock bags and buried in dustproofing bins for transport.

Joseph set off this morning, his truck fully loaded. Zoe and Ian leave whenever their camp is battened down for the road. Zoe: "Sometime between 9:00 am and 2:00pm, which means around 5:00pm."

Toes painted, bikinis waxed, abs crunched. Heads shrunken.

All this preparation and yet there is no way to fully prepare. You can say whatever you want...That last year was the last good year. Or 1996 was the peak year. Or, there's no way it can work with 60,000 people.

You are wrong.

It works.

Can you imagine feeling both the most intense connection to the universe and excruciating solitude at the same time? Extreme immediacy.

You probably can. I recall that feeling in childbirth: Everyone's helping, holding, touching, pushing, cradling you, but you are absolutely alone in your task.

Sometimes you can get there on really good drugs, but there are no guarantees.

The Black Rock Desert itself is a magical setting, and the collaborative imagination that creates the city for just one week promotes an environmental mindset that increases the chances for radical personal transformation.

No guarantees.

But if one steps onto the Playa with an open spirit, and lets go of all expectations, and, may I add, the right wig, anything can happen.

17 Days Until the Man Burns

Success at Goodwill inspired a many-hours long fashion show last night, with Joe the only audience... Except some wide-eyed young floor mates who caught glimpses when I headed to the bathroom mirror. They think of me, probably, as the grumpy, unwelcome mom figure wearing an eyemask on my forehead who tells them to move their loud 3:00 am conversations somewhere besides the common kitchen outside our door. They probably had no idea that underneath the eyemask and earplugs and bedhead, beyond the floor meeting manager who reminds them to pay their utilities and clean up their shit in the hallway, there is a purring Playa kitten about to get her freak on.

Will their knowing my other side increase my authority?

Getting your freak just right takes time. I'm almost there: one sewing session with Arianne and I'll be Playa ready.

At least in that department. I feel REI and Target runs coming on. Decisions: Which things require quality and workmanship and which things don't? I will suppress my guilt about shopping at Target and feeding the monster. I've seriously cut back, shopping there only a couple of times per year. I draw the line at Wal-mart - though I guess they are equally dispicable in terms of places to work.  See Target vs. Wal-Mart smackdown article.

Other concerns: Are those 20-somethings really flirting with me? Is that wrong?

Marriage: I've been to a few weddings lately, and officiated at one. Such happy occasions. Advice to anyone about to take the plunge: pay attention to exactly what you are promising. No need to overstate anything. Just say it exactly as it really is. That alone is big, with all those people listening.

What you want changes. Keep that in mind. Say the right words, the ones you can live with for a long time. If they don't quite fit, find other words, or leave that part off.

Zoe and T on the Playa last year. This is what inspires me.

18 Days Until the Man Burns

There's a warm reality simmering up through my Lorazepam-sleep head that reminds me that the default world is about to be left in a dusty haze for a week in the desert. My preparation has begun in earnest with an investment in solid but sexy undergarments, aka "the basics." They must serve and preserve me, smooth and tighten, endure extreme heat and cold, and attract my soon to meet new best friends on the dance floor and at the trash fence.

My strategy this year boosted greatly by the Gaultier show at the de Young - which closes on August 19th, so get your ass down there if you haven't been. I would be so much farther along in my preparation had I listened to my friends and gotten there sooner...

My persona will incorporate cheap imitation Gaultier-inspired re-use of thriftstore materials decorated sparingly with ephemera that speak of something future and something past. Some things will be revealed through diaphanous fabric, some will be guarded under layers of skin-toned or black satin and elastic, hooks and eyes, sturdy zippers.

I will forget about the default world and enter into new kinds of negotiations, ones which I cannot yet imagine...

Pre-Burn Do List

The man burns in 23 days. I am not ready.

But Ian and Zoe are back from Europe (yeah!!) and Joseph has his ticket now, too, so it's going to be a family burn. That was my wish. We will all be in different places: Joe and I will be in the walk-in camping with our own, minimal, efficient scene. That way we can visit our our kids and all our friends in their glorious, exravagant camps, but return to our own chill spot to absorb it all, and sleep when we want. Hopefully.

The Bender kids will all be in different camps. Last year Ian would ride out to our remote spot and eat some salad, get fully hydrated and/or take a nap with us, maybe borrow something for his evening costume, then ride back out to be with his people.

Whatever happens, we will all be transformed by the experience. It's Joseph's first year, so he is in for a real treat.

Things that need doing: thrift shopping, sewing, shopping online for elwire. Packing for 8 days in the desert. Finding the inner persona that needs radical self-expression while practicing radical self-reliance. Figuring out my gifts. Getting the gear in perfect order. No bigs.

Just a bit of a time management challenge...managing things in the default world. Like work and stuff.

Bringing the Ten Principles into my life. That's big.

Outside Lands this weekend: Joe and Joseph are helping artist Mike Shine build a giant set then performing in a crazy carnie art piece, Flotsam's Wonder World. It's dark and beautiful and weird. I also hope to see some bands. Lots of bands. I am not too old to appreciate a good line-up.

I went some months without therapy. I thought I graduated. Now I'm in post-graduate therapy with both my therapists, who now talk to each other on occasion. It makes me feel better. Tonight an extra long session. Why? Because I have an extra complicated life, I guess. It takes more than 50 minutes and more than one person to keep me sane.

What do I want out of Burning Man this year? I can take some lessons from the masters in setting my intention...set and setting...

Things I do to avoid blogging

Attend freaky conferences where people congregate in search of answers about how to live differently, manage jealousy, engage in radical politics and love.

Work on an ambitious ensemble piece with my writing partner.

Experience a crisis in confidence, and recover.

Send my kids off to fantastic adventures that I wish I were having myself.

Learn how to be present with my husband through emotions that I am not responsible for. And get to the other side without losing my sense of self.

Marvel at the Stevenson Street dramas...The woman of undeterminable age elegantly crashed out as if she were on comfortable bed but on the concrete driveway of the 9th Circuit Court. The couple with caved-in faces and desperate eyes fighting over which way to walk.

Watch the Pride parade from my second story front window.

Attend Silverdocs in DC then visit close friends in New York, where I stood naked on a penthouse terrace during a thunderstorm. Alone.

Wish I could become a true minimalist.

More Honesty

Hi dear readers. This is the longest I've gone without posting.

The reason: I'm working every day on a writing project that has a deadline. It has momentum. I am accountable to my writing partner and she is a hard task master. The project is called Honesty. I'm having so much fun working on it. I hope to someday share it with you in some form.

Between that and my intense and wonderful full-time job that involves a great deal of high-pressure high-stakes writing...

And managing my family, which can be in cruise control for stretches and then someone gets really sick, or someone needs emergency money sent overseas, or someone needs something...I'm the kind of mom that still makes my kids a priority. I'll take a surprise Skype call in the middle of my work day. Or leave work early to literally RUN to some PC one-branch-only bank downtown to make a deposit so that my kid in Barcelona can pay for a replacement passport - because she neglected to think ahead...

I did tell Zoe this week that I'd like to be "moved back to second string on the support bench." Last time I told her that, she said, "Mom, you are second string." I guess her real supporters are working even harder than I am.

I am grateful for all my my friendships, who rotate in off my bench to support me. My first string is solid and unwavering, standing at the ready, especially now that I've graduated from therapy. You know who you are.

Today, in a few hours, I'm stepping down as president of the Cutting Ball Theater after seven years. I'm so proud of what we have done together to contribute to the San Francisco theater scene. In ten minutes I'll be asking a donor for a gigantic pledge of support as one of my final acts as president.

I'm also an elected official in a small town. Doesn't take up much time, but it does.

All this plus just surviving all my irrational mood swings, being married, and staying alive in this insane world.

As a result, this blog has taken a back seat.

Go see Tenderloin at Cutting Ball. It's amazing. Annie Elias and all the actors who spent over a year interviewing and studying the characters in my neighborhood created an amazingly moving piece. It's getting all kinds of attention. See it if you can.

Honesty

I'm working on honesty. It's not easy. It's almost harder when you talk about being honest, because you set your expectations for yourself higher. Everybody has a different idea of what it means to be honest. And, as my long-departed mentor Gloria often said, "People are as honest as they can stand to be."

There's radical honesty, the kind I practiced at 17 when I left home and decided Fuck all the bullshit lying that everyone does to protect everyone else. It was also a Fuck You to my parents for reading my journal without my permission. You want honesty? Here you go! No more filters. It felt great, actually, to just declare myself and let the chips fall. It was incredibly liberating and often painful but I and my best friend Anny preferred the pain of the truth over the pain of finding out the truth later.

It was a lifestyle, and it still influences me now. But in the interim years I learned that timing of truth-telling and softening it and deciding if and when someone is ready for the truth (especially when it comes to your kids), all these adult ways of being also have their place in the life of someone who wants to actually function in this society.

It's a slippery slope, though. I learned the power of secrets and how they can create private worlds between two people, worlds that can live side-by-side with everyday life and make things really exciting. But the web of lies takes a ton of energy to maintain, and eventually the web breaks down somewhere and the truth oozes out, or explodes onto the scene. And then things can be really shitty. And the truth, that thing that starts out so pure and wonderful, can actually cause permanent damage to an otherwise great relationship.

So after a long hiatus, a period during which I considered myself a "very honest" person by the way, I'm challenging myself to return to honesty as a higher ideal. Not constant, unfiltered radical honesty, but honesty where it counts. Like not lying to your partner or your kids. Like telling people on your floor that it's not working out, that they should find another place to live. Like admitting when you haven't even thought about something at work that you said you would take care of. That kind of stuff.

Raising the bar. It makes you look at all the ways over the years you've really been dishonest with yourself. Or complicit in dishonesty.

It's hard, and it's work. But it's so liberating to come clean.

The Invisible War

Saw The Invisible War at the SF International Film Festival yesterday. It's a very, very powerful film about military sexual assault. If you are in San Francisco, please go see it Monday April 23 or Tuesday May 1. It's a must-see for anyone interested in contemporary women's rights.

After the screening during the Q&A, a number of women in the audience spoke about having been raped in the military, and thanked co-directors Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering for shining light on this hidden subject. Through their live testimony and responses from Kirby and Amy, I learned some new things about why rape in the military can be even more traumatic than rape in the "civilian world." It's about betrayal. These women are broken down in bootcamp to become part of a close-knit team that depends on each other in truly life-or-death situations. They are stripped of their former identities and taught obedience to those of higher rank. They exit bootcamp so enthusiastic about their service to our country, and as such are also extremely vulnerable to serial sexual predators. Or, in military terms, these women are "high value targets."

Statistic: 15% of men in the military have attempted rape or assault prior to entering, double the percentage in the civilian world. And get this: sexual predators average 300 victims in their lifetimes if not caught.

So the military provides "the perfect storm" for rapists. Aggressive predatory dudes in a culture that not only tolerates but promotes sexual harassment, 15% who have already tried or succeeded at rape and gotten away with it, all stuck together in a world where naive, bright-eyed women (and men) are ready to obey all commands. These women are totally unprepared for being assaulted by their comrades or, more likely, their superiors. Often, the person they need to report the crime to IS THE PERPETRATOR. Can you imagine? These poor women interviewed in the film all wanted to kill themselves. Their choices were to report the crime to the perpetrator or his close buddies and risk punishment or further harm to themselves, go AWOL and lose all their military benefits for the rest of their lives, or commit suicide.

Those who do report, only estimated at 20% of the actual number of victims, received such terrible treatment that they say it is almost worse than the rape itself-- while the perpretrators go on to higher rank and most often experience no consequences at all. And of course go on to rape again and again, both in the military and outside. In fact, for those who are subject to some investigation and let go, they are trained to navigate the criminal system when they get out - so they can continue raping in their hometowns without being caught or prosecuted.

Meanwhile these women's lives are not just temporarily disrupted. Many reported permanent psychological and physical damage such as back or face injuries-- that the VA won't pay for!! Most are on gobs of medication for depression, PTSD, anxiety, and are often agoraphobic. Many can't hold jobs and end-up homeless. Their lives are pretty much fucked. We are talking about 19,000 victims (women and men) in 2010 alone, and over half a million victims in the last five decades. This is very serious.

The film will be released in June, and has already made some shock waves. The goal is to change how sexual assault is handled within the military, and things are starting to happen. Please see this press release on the film's website issued by the U.S. Department of Defense. It's not nearly enough. But it's a beginning.

Sign the petition to the U.S. House Of Representatives Committee on Veterans Affairs.

Kudos to Kirby and Amy for working on behalf of women to battle one of the largest, best-funded and secretive institutions in the world .

Revolution is Nigh

Farewell, My Queen, Benoit Jacquot's beautiful film about the last days at Versailles before the Revolution, opened the San Francisco International Film Festival last night. I have always been fascinated to near obsession with that moment in history, so I loved Jacquot's adaptation of Chantal Thomas' novel about the last four days before the shit went down.

Jacquot said something really interesting during the Q&A which explained the realism that was so palpable in that most surreal setting of Versailles. He insists that his film crew be as loyal to the period as possible, making the set and costumes correct down to smallest detail, but he instructs the actors simply to act, to be present in their characters and the drama at hand. Not to worry about the period.

Jacquot thus achieves this amazing feeling that 1789 is not very long ago at all. That the styles then were just styles, not so different from the crazy shit that we might wear in 2012. You feel like you are there, behind the scenes, during those last four days when the Revolution is on, when people in Court are deciding whether to flee or remain and risk being beheaded. When it begins to dawn on people that it might be better not to be a member of the aristocracy, that people are actually just people.

The unbelievable disconnect as Marie Antoinette is facing the truth about the future, yet still, protected by her anxious servants, some of whom are beginning to assert their autonomy, she is ordering them to pack the household for her anticipated journey--as if to accommodate the annoying revolution she were just going to change venues and set up in another palace. She is worried about her jewelery and whether to bring chocolate makers and a spinning wheel to help mitigate her imagined boredom once they arrive in Metz. (Of course, she never makes it there.) The absurdity of her concerns while people outside the gates are starving, rioting, looting...and making lists for the guillotine with her name at the top.

The effect of Jacquot's film for me was the remembrance that revolutions do happen, and that shit can actually change. That the people at the very top living in their glass houses think they are immune to the will of the people, but they are not. When things get bad enough, even a fortress such as Versailles and centuries of class systems and social orders, and all treasures from the from the  rape and pillage of continents: nothing can protect you.

Farewell, My Queen made me think that a revolution is coming in this country. About the shocking inequality and poverty in America. Have you heard the recent reports about the effects of the 1996 "welfare reform act"? People at the bottom are truly suffering and pushed to do outrageous things to feed their children. Right here. Right in our own cities. I see it outside my window right now.

It's not surprising that people at the bottom are sucked into the prison industrial complex. It's a hungry, out of control machine that is enslaving over two million people in America today, over 700 per 100,000 adult residents, mostly African American men. We have the highest rate of incarceration in the world and in the history of human kind. And yet presidential candidate Romney, who lives at the very top of the pyramid and who pays a lower tax rate than I do, wants to decrease the safety-net in this country for those at the very bottom. He and people like him at the top need a slave class to feed their investments that keep them where they are. Poverty feeds that machine.

My kids have been telling me that revolution is nigh. I've thought in the past, Yeah, right. But Farewell, My Queen reminded me that the revolution in France was inspired by the American revolution. When people get hungry enough, shit goes down. 

May 1 General Strike.

Break It Down

What happens when your head is clear? When you meditate every morning and do yoga before drinking cleansing noncaffienated tea before starting your insane day?

So far, it makes everything a little less insane. Day 11.

Note: Ian set out on his journey a week ago. He is learning about Life. He was refused entry at the Canadian border. Apparently having a DUI on your DMV record now makes you a threat to national security. Maybe that and the fact that he only had $20 in his pocket and was on foot and wearing a backpack. Do they check people's facebook pages at the border now before they decide to let you in? I wouldn't be surprised. If yes, they would not necessarily have found Ian, who's facebook name is End Capitalism.

Maybe the Canadians are mad at the U.S. for being such dicks about Canadians crossing the border in the other direction. I would be. We are dicks to everyone. Why shouldn't they be dicks back to us?

So Ian is getting a real taste of "hitting the wall."

And I am getting a taste of "there is nothing you can do about it."

He seems to be taking it in stride. He's walking and hitchhiking and sleeping in parks and at friends houses. Who knows where he will go. Into the wild...but hopefully not all the way in. Shedding things along the way that no longer seem necessary to him. He is yearning for nature and authenticity. I hope he finds what he is looking for. Or at least what he needs.

I am shedding, too. And dealing with the new stuff that comes up. Stuff that's not necessarily new but that I haven't been able to deal with for years because I've been dealing with crisis after crisis. You know what I'm talking about. The really hard stuff. The murmur underlying your well-being that you've been ignoring so long that you pretended there is nothing that can be done about it. The murmur you never talk about, because it's just too big or overwhelming so you just try to forget about it.

But it's there.

That kind of stuff.

What I'm finding out, now that my head is a little clearer, is that by looking at those things head on and putting them on the table, they just are not that bad.

Break it down. Talk about it. Share your fears about it with someone else. Come up with a plan.

Things take time. But you can do it. Take the time. Don't be afraid.

This is what I tell myself.

This is how I'm going to finish a piece of writing this year.

Full Deck

Yeah. Turning 52. No big deal.

But so much Facebook love yesterday!! Thanks, people.

Can I just say something about Mellenium, the restaurant on Geary and Jones? Whoa. It blew my low-expectations-on-my-birthday mind. It was AMAZING. Makes me consider becoming a vegan.

Here is why:

Chopped raw salad with kale, cabbage & bitter greens, brassicas, pickled red onion, sun dried tomatoes, avocado-cucumber "green goddess" dressing, cashew cheese crumble. I don't understand everything that was in this or why, but it was YUMM.

Mediterranean Spiced Green Farro & Lentil Cake (WTF?) = Greens with rosemary-lemon cashew cream, balsamic & Aleppo chile glazed artichokes, roasted tomato chutney, crispy leek hair, green olive-green chile tapende. WTF??? Astonishing.

Ginger, kumquat and carrot/coconut sorbet. To die for.

Okay?

Joe and I graduated from therapy today. We went in realizing we had nothing to talk about. I said, "I think we are graduating." Dossie said, "Yep." And we talked about good things. Then, for the first time in my life, I left therapy 10 minutes early.

Wow.

Maybe I will soon be able to afford to buy some new clothes!

Playing with a full deck. Not so bad.

Good Bye Koosh!

Today we are giving away our cat.

We've had him since 2003. Ian was 11 years old and he wanted a cat. Joe said No. I am totally allergic to cats, but Ian really wanted one, so, after much debate about short-haired vs long-haired cats and how we would keep the cat away from me, I took Ian to the Ferel Cat Lady of Inverness. 

We drove up to Inverness with a cat carrier. We walked into her house. It was kind of dark. This lady  had dozens of cats in different rooms, but it wasn't too weird. She just loved cats, and wanted to find them homes.

She took one look at Ian and sat him down, and said Wait right here. After a few minutes, she brought over the sweetest four-month old tabby kitten with orange hair that matched Ian's. It was instant love.

The cat hid for the first couple of days at our house. At one point we thought we'd lost him, and the kids made signs to post in the neighborhood. It turned out he was hiding on a shelf in Ian's room.

His name was Basil at first, but he became The Koosho. The Koosh. The Shoke.

The Koosh is the best cat in the world. Everyone loves The Koosh.  Joe loves The Koosh more than just about anyone.

The Koosh is fiercely independent, and loved living in Bolinas where he roamed freely. He always let us know when he wanted to come in or out. He never complained.

When we moved to the City, we left him at the house with our new tenants. The boys were around  and fed him. But at some point there were several dogs living in the house, and The Koosh would hide up in the attic for days at a time.

So we brought him to the City.

The Koosh is not a City cat.

He's crying right now, lonely for the outdoor world, and his kitty friends and all the wildlife that he can torture, kill and snack upon. Where he can poop in the sunshine and wild grass and hide it, never in the same exact place twice.

So today, we are giving him to someone in Bolinas who really wants him. We've all said our good bye's. He doesn't know it yet, but he's about to get his freedom again.

Tomorrow Ian leaves, too. But he'll be back.

We'll miss you, silly cat.

Teaser

Whoa. Six days since last post. Don't know what happened.

Went to Quiet Lightening reading at the Boxcar Theater on Natoma. Amazing. Eight minute readings with no introductions. Such diverse writing. Inspiring. My friend F. and I are thinking of submitting for the May reading. Scary.

What am I struggling with?

I made some moves since my last post.

My therapist said, "The grown up you is very well resourced now. You have the strength to talk to the child and tell her what you want and need."

It resonated. I talked to the child. I told the child, "Be strong! You know what you want. I'm not going to indulge all your irrational impulses, because by waiting, you will get what you really want."

The child said, "No!! Please!! Give it to me now!!"

I gave her a teaser. "Here," I said. She was happy.

"Now go write a a fucking story."

So I'm writing a fucking story.

Trans-ition

Sometimes it takes overwhelming strength just to get up.

The vortex of bed and sleep pull harder than the things you need to do.

Maybe because at 4:00am there was a tussle outside your window and 11 cop cars sped to the scene from all directions.

Maybe because some new things are on your mind. Things that, once you are woken up, keep you awake. Things you want to change, that a week ago were fine.

And good things keep you awake, too, like stories coming together in your head. Stories about people changing.

Last night I was reading about trans men. Especially about mothers who transition into being men. I am not thinking about doing this myself, FYI. I did think about it once, for about a week in 2000, after my therapist at the time told me she was "making the transition." For one week I considered what it would mean to pass as a man and assume male gender roles. Maybe it was some kind of mellenial fever. It was fun to think about for a little while. It helped me realize how much I do like being a 6'1" woman, and that no matter how cool I think it might be to be a man, I can never, in this life, have my own real penis.

I know one or two people who have made the change from female to male. It's a big decision. There is so much information about making a change like that on the internet now that it's probably not as scary as it used to be. But it's huge. I woke up thinking about the steps outlined on a really helpful website, starting with "being real with yourself" and ending with sexual reassignment surgery. It encouraged people to only go as far as they need in order to feel comfortable with themselves.

How intense would that be to sit with your kids and tell them you were assigned the wrong sex at birth, and that you need them to start calling you Dad instead of Mom? People do it. It's so courageous. Let's face it: people only do that if they absolutely have to do it. It's not a whim. It's about survival.

Knowing there are people who find the courage to tell their own kids that they are the wrong gender and need to make a profound change, and even ask for their support in doing it, puts some of the changes I want to make in my life into perspective.

Above Ground

There are times when dreams wake you up with a theme or a phrase. The words "Above Ground" were in my head when I woke up today.

It's like you keep uncovering things that need change in your life. You finally tackle some big ones, maybe it take years or even decades. And you want to feel that feeling of accomplishment. And you do.

Then you take a big sigh and realize that the next thing, like a plate in an old cafeteria line, pops up underneath, all fresh and ready to be handled. Sigh.

I was feeling for a minute like my life was more or less in order. Like I had my shit together. Like I could say proudly that I am Walking the Walk.

Then a big elephant steps into my dream. It doesn't even have to name itself, because it's just there, taking up a bunch of room. Apparently it wants to go "above ground." I couldn't even see it before because I was to busy cleaning up all the shit on the floor. Maybe you can only deal with so much at any given time.

Joe and I are watching Upstairs Downstairs on Netflix. I never saw a single episode before. It makes Downtown Abby, on which it was clearly based, look like a soft-focus rip-off. Upstairs Downstairs hits class issues head-on. Made from 1971 to 1975. Still so relevant.

I wonder if I'll ever have the guts to write something meaningful. Above ground.

It's Friday night am I am NOT getting stoned.

Nope.

I'm in bed nursing a cocktail and waiting for dinner to be served. It's been a hard week.

Obamacare: Yes. All three of my kids would have NO health, dental or vision care if not for Obamacare. And I would be fucked.

Trayvon Martin: WTF? Prosecute that motherfuckin "Neighborhood Watch" maniac. I keep thinking of that poor young man walking home from the store with Skittles and ice tea. Chased down, scared for his life, shot dead by that racist freak. Poor family. Poor America.

"Stand your ground?"

Fuck.

My man JB makin red curry tofu and veggies.

Yeah.

I was going to go see a performance called Indifference, but...

I could not imagine sitting in a chair after sitting in one all day.

Fuck chairs.

Fuck sitting.

Yes to men who cook.

Are we The Richer Sex?

Enter this debate:

Do Women Now Have A Sexual Advantage?

Guess my response.

Sexual Addiction or Good Times?

I subscribe to women's issues on the Huffington Post and get links almost every day about sex, sex addiction, overcoming sex addiction. What is it?

I just found this definition in an article by John Kort, "certified sexual addiction specialist and sex therapist" entitled, Sex Addiction: Real or Myth?:

The model of sexual addiction and compulsivity disorder has generated controversy in and outside the gay community. Some say that using this model makes sexual behavior seem "bad" and denies enjoying positive sexual experiences with as many people as one likes, any way one wants. But it doesn't demonize sexual activities unless they involve adults being sexual with children, or ignoring someone's limits against their will, such as in the case of rape. Nor does it judge people who enjoy a variety of sexual desires, partners, and behavior. In fact, sexual addiction is not about sex at all -- it's about suffering and unhealed trauma that has become eroticized.

Okay, so I guess I can agree that there are some people who have really unhealthy sexual behaviors that qualify as "addiction."

Most people I know, however, do not fit this category. They just like sex. If they have a problem, it's that they can't get enough of it. Not because they are "addicts," but because they are normal and are not having enough sexual connection in their lives. Why? Because they have some hang-ups or are in a relationship that needs better communication or they can't find a good sexual partner. It could be that they are being too picky.

Most of these articles written by women have a tone of guilt and are overshadowed by the paradigm of monogamy in ways that I find unhealthy. There are endless articles and books by women that reminisce nostalgically about times when they were sexually free and had, say, dozens or even god forbid 80 or more sexual partners when they were in college. And now they see all of that behavior as deeply dysfunctional and symptomatic of their low self-esteem and that required decades of therapy enabling them now, from a second or third marriage, to say they are finally "healed."

I think it's such bullshit. Why do people, women in particular, have to revise their histories and say they were fucked up for wanting to have sex with a lot of people?  They were young and gorgeous and had the opportunity to explore their sexuality in what should have been a guilt-free way. So what? More power to them.

I think they write about their sexuality through the prism of guilt and reform because... it sells.

See Leah Odze Epstein's article today called Addiction Envy. She went to an addiction book panel where a literary agent said recently "he'd gotten a brilliant manuscript, a memoir by a young woman, full of glittering prose and crazy exploits. Such promise! But then, after page 100, he realized the story stayed the same. There was no transformation. No fall and redemption. Just freefall. He said there were many addiction memoirs he rejected."

Epstein left the panel with "addiction envy."

Women classify the fun times they had exploring multiple sexual partners in a free-wheeling period in their life as "sexual addiction" so they can talk about it from their reformed, monogamous, safe lives = Transformation. Otherwise, no book deal. No Huffington Post column.

I don't know about you, but I have NO regrets about that time in my life when I was single and exploring who knows how many partners, most of whose names I can't remember. I thank god for those people and experiences,  to which I'm still indebted because they helped me figure out early on what I liked and didn't, and what it meant to be and to be with a great lover.

I wouldn't be in what I consider an extremely healthy relationship with my husband of 25+ years if it hadn't been for those fabulous 70s and 80s free love times.

The next generation has its own challenges. Lets not pretend to them that we didn't have fun, if we did.

Joie de vivre

I am feeling really close to the important people in my life. I feel like I haven't fucked up in that regard: I tell people constantly how much I love them.

I'm kind of in love with you, Anonymous. Even though you hardly ever comment, I still know you are there. How? Google Analytics.

I'm not obsessed with stats (anymore) because you are a bit fickle and it can be really confusing. When I do check, like I did yesterday, my stats were pretty good. Good for me, anyway. Since I started this blog in November, you have consistently viewed three pages (on average) every time you visit. That makes me feel good. It's like, you may not be available for a date every time I randomly post, but when you come to my site, you like to stay a good 3:56 minutes. It's cool. In internet time, that's a real date. In three plus minutes, we can get down to business.

Did you like the part about my son trying to make out with my friend? Every time I think about it I chuckle. My friend said, "He clearly has more than a little Joe Bender in him." True that. How does that work? I guess one gets one's balls from one's parents. Makes sense, right? And one's curiosity and joie de vivre.

Joie de vivre: "joy of life; an exultation of spirit. Can be a joy of conversation, joy of  eating, joy of anything one might do… And joie de vivre may be seen as a joy of everything, a comprehensive joy, a philosophy of life, a Weltanschauung. Robert's Dictionnaire says joie is sentiment exaltant ressenti par toute la conscience, that is, involves one's whole being."

I'm guessing there was a little carpe diem in there, too, and perhaps, a bit of laissez les bons temps rouler. 

I love you, Anonymous.

Carpe diem.

Woah!

Last night Joe was out and I stayed home alone. The lover in my head was quiet, feeling home-bodyish.

I thought about going to a poly dance at a nightclub in the mission, or to see some famous dj with Jim and Anne. Because, you know, I like to do research.

But instead after Tantelewald at Cutting Ball and drinks at the Show Down, I just wanted to talk on the phone with my friend D. about writing and marriage. She's in L.A.

We decided that characters are "likable" if they work through a problem and come out on the other side of it. It's not a moral tone or pre-ordained set of characteristics that determine "likability."

Maybe what makes characters "unlikable" is when they stay stuck... or don't even realize they have a big problem.

We then talked about how many of our friends are taking care of parents with dementia. There's some real comedy potential there.

And how you have to give up the whole notion of "fairness." It's not fair.

How recently D.'s ex yelled "I'm sorry!!!" I thought it was pretty evolved of him.

How one of my sons tried to make out with a friend of mine recently. She was not offended, just a little surprised.

Woah! No ageism I guess.

I'm not sure if I'm horrified or impressed.

D. was impressed.

Benderama

I love the tone of Portlandia and Modern Family. I am seeing my life through the comedy lens this morning and laughing at myself and my life. I make things so serious, but really they aren't. My comedy is called Benderama. (Thanks Cathy!)

In Benderama, I think I'm an empty-nester, with all this free time and doing all these grown up things I never got to do before. But really I'm a harried full-time worker and a hovering helicopter mom with three grown up kids whom I still sometimes treat like babies.

Example: I say my kids are grown up and out of the house, but two of them live in the studio next door. I sometimes sneak in and pick up their dirty dishes, and when no one is looking, make Ian's bed. I still want to cradle my gigantic son in my arms and play with his hair. Sometimes he lets me.

In Benderama, Joe and I are super liberated and independent and think of each other as lovers and have our separate lives. But we are also a married couple who have been together for 26 years and can interpret the tiniest thing about each other without words.

Example: We can be in bed together in the middle of the night and I hear a change in his breathing. It's subtle, but I can tell he's awake and I know exactly what he's thinking. We can go from being relaxed asleep into a full blown co-counseling session crying about childhood traumas, then go right back to sleep again, all cozy and shit.

In Benderama, we think of ourselves as, like, in our thirties, still kind of young and cool and sexy. But really, we are in our fifties. We are not really cool anymore. We are the old people.

Example: We live on a floor with mostly 20 somethings. We say we do not want to be the parents. We say "You all are in charge!" But I will get up like I did last night at 1:30am and walk out to the common kitchen in my nightgown, with my eyeshade pushed up onto my forehead and one earplug in my hand and just stare at them. They know what that means.

The truth is that I am an fifty-something empty-nester helicopter mom in an alternative long-term marriage who often acts like I'm in my thirties but does not hesitate to pull the age card when I need to. That's the gist of Benderama.

Am I a good mom?

I don't know how I survived raising three kids. And almost had four.

I wonder if I was a good mom. I realize I tried to make up for the feeling of not having enough attention as a child by giving my kids more of what I thought they needed. Sometimes that was and still is too much. Fortunately they tell me. It's worse when they don't tell me. I'm also sure I neglected my kids at times. I'm sure they will tell me all about that, too, as they become adults and can afford therapy.

But you never do everything right. The only judge of how well you parented is how your kids turn out, and even then, you don't have total control. You can only provide the foundation. Just like your own parents had very little control over what you decided to do with your life. Or didn't decide, and what just happened.  But they did provide the feeling base. The invisible world of feeling that was your house. The place your emotional life grew up...Or didn't grow up.

I think my kids are turning out pretty okay. I'm getting past the judgment based upon whether they are "successful" as measured by our society's usual standards: whether they go to college, which college they go to, whether they have high paying jobs.

My kids are not going that route. Or at least not the straight route from high school to college to full-time jobs to marriage to home-ownership. It's scary sometimes,even though it's like, what did I expect coming from me and Joe as their parents? We didn't live that trajectory. Our kids want to take the off-beat to a higher level. But it's ironic for me that I'm out there telling the world as part of my job how important it is for youth to be "college ready." I believe that. And yet two of my own college age kids are not, thus far, choosing college.

You have to admit, it kind of sucks out there for young people these days. So many of my kids' friends who went to college are coming out with massive debt and can't find an entry level job. My boys think that is absurd. But I still hope they someday decide on their own to pursue higher education. I am adamant, however, that they not take on huge student loans. Now I'm happy when I see them reading and pursuing serious intellectual thought on their own.

Being a boy and becoming a man seems to be extra hard these days. Being the mom of boys becoming men, I can tell you, is really challenging. Where are the really great role models? How many women do you know that are single and yet you cannot recommend one single man as a possible partner? I mean really recommend?

I hope my boys become men who can be really great partners and be happy in life. Honestly, I don't care what they do, as long as it's not harmful to others or themselves. Be good people. Be happy. Be someone I want to spend time with. Be giving, be sensitive and emotionally intelligent, but be strong.

My sons may not go to college, and while that will be extra challenging for me and probably for them in the long run, they have their own lives now. They will make mistakes. I cannot prevent them from making some whoppers. I will want to prevent them from making bad decisions. But they will.

Notice I am not talking about my daughter. She is 25 and shows all signs of being a very happy person who is capable of having a great deal of love in her life. So I can stop worrying about her, I think.

For now.

Inner Beach

To calm my nerves this weekend, I spent time at the beach. Early yesterday morning I walked alone from my studio through Golden Gate Park all the way to Ocean Beach. The whole walk was sparkling with sunlight, green and magical from the recent rains. Finally reaching the wide expanse of ocean was a reward. The clean horizon line against sky levels my brain. The waves, not big or dramatic, peeled gently in the soft warm breeze.

I could see Bolinas across the Golden Gate and wondered what the beach was like there.

So we drove out to Bolinas where it was absolutely stunning. Joe went surfing and I sat in the spot where I've sat a thousand times and looked across to Ocean Beach where I'd been a few hours earlier. It gave me peace.

On a spectacular day like yesterday,  I would normally want to bump up the magic with a hit or two of pot. It's like I want to turbo charge the day, or get more for my money, or squeeze more beauty out of an afternoon than what the ticking clock and setting sun will provide.

But I didn't.

Instead I sat quietly, feeling connected to my little beach, watching families playing catch, older folks walking dogs and young couples taking photos of themselves. I thought, is it time to get a dog? Maybe not yet.

It's been many years since I've had a whole day at the beach my family. Living at the beach had the down side of eliminating what we did every weekend before we moved to the beach: whole days playing, swimming and being lazy together. When you live a short walk to the beach you go home to eat, and everyone has their own friends to play with, and maybe they don't want to go to the beach at all, so you end up going by your self most of the time, or with a friend. It's one thing that bummed me out when I lived in Bolinas: I could never get my whole family to go to the beach together. Except when I forced it, like on Mothers Day, and everyone was cranky about it.

I want to take the calm feeling from the beach inside me today as I enter the workplace. I must avoid entering a technology loop, like the one captured in this Portlandia sketch.

Mental Instability

Sometimes I am mentally unstable.

I am not schizophrenic, thank god. Nor am I bipolar. That usually shows up by the time you are in your 30's, so I'd know by now...Nor am I clinically depressed, though I guess there is still time for that!

Sometimes I feel all of those ways.

It's Saturday and I worked all day. As a result I feel like I deserve some kind of reward. And it's not clear what would make me feel better.

First choice: a love reward.

I want a lover to come out of the woodwork and ravage me.

But after some preliminary text messages, it appears that my desire shall remain unrequited.

As a back-up, I'd really like to alter my conciousness in some other way.

For example, there is some sticky skunk weed that my son's friend gave me the other day sitting in a jar on my shelf. Normally I would pack the glass pipe I stole from my kids room and take two or three hits by now. This would sufficiently alter my consciousness for the entire night. And I would be happy. I might not forget about my love needs, but I would feel temporarily euphoric.

Getting stoned is like a cheap vacation from my normal self. Unfortunately there are consequences. I hate to admit it, but the fragmented feeling from which I've been suffering the last few weeks may not be helped by my weekend pot smoking habit.

So I've decided not to smoke that incredibly tempting skunk weed sitting right over there on my shelf.

Instead I'm drinking. It's the house cocktail: ginger tea and vodka. And it's doing me fine.

Blasting Joe's 5-star, all-genres playlist while he prepares 6'x1' aluminum panels to paint for his next exhibition. Peace Frog by the Doors, now Dazed and Confused by Led Zeppelin.

Joe is my main squeeze. My man. He holds me through all my mental instability. When I have momentary breakdowns and near psychotic breaks. He deserves a lot of credit for being my safety net.

Ian left on his walkabout, somewhere in Big Sur area.

Joseph staying in our Bolinas house this weekend.

Zoe in London representing. Here with Arya.

Playing Big

I was asked to be part of a woman's power circle. 10 women who will meet 10 times in 2012 to help encourage each other in our careers and lives. We are calling ourselves Playing Big.

I am honored to be a amongst these super high-achieving, powerful women. We meet in a beautiful conference room overlooking downtown SF in Embarcadero One at PixInk, my friend Ayesha's design firm that focuses on developing and marketing brands for women.

We start out sharing something that we can brag about that has happened in the last month. Then we each get a segment of time to ask for something from the group. Then we have a guest come in and talk with us about something we all want to know more about.

This month I asked for help generating comedic scenes/stories about women in the workplace, a project I'm working on with H. and J. It can be about the glass ceiling or working in the man's world or anything as long as it's funny and personal. Right away got some great scenes. If you have any ideas, please email them to me. I love this brainstorming phase.

Being with these women, even though I hardly know them, gives me strength.

One of the women has a project called Madly In Love with Me. She said something that really hit me. It's about doing less and being more. And the inner voice women have, inspired by the early feminist movement, that we can "have it all." I have talked about it here.

What is wrong with wanting it all? Nothing. I want it all.

It's the message embedded in it, though, that we must therefore DO IT ALL. We must be superhuman. Yet I'm sure, like me, you are finding it impossible to do it all and be happy.

DOING IT ALL is too much. It means doing not only what we want, but doing everything for everyone else. Where is the real person in that? How can we actually DO what we really WANT?

One day you wake up and you are 51 and you realize DOING IT ALL is making you crazy and miserable. Maybe 50% or more of what you do is making you happy. But maybe there are a bunch of things you really need to stop DOING. That's how I'm feeling. I need to cut some things out so I can BE more.

I don't have all the time in the world. My time left on this planet is limited. I gotta be judicious. I gotta figure this out.

Shameless

Not the TV series by that name, which I have never seen. Rather, Downton Abbey.  I'm not going to lie: Joe and I had a five episode binge last Saturday night, and two episodes yesterday morning and one last night. We'll finish Season 2 tonight.

I watch it because it's a naughty pleasure to peer over the covers at Downton and all its gorgeous, uptight characters. Whilst naked.

I'm here nursing Joe and Joseph, who have some kind of virulent flu. Early yesterday morning I decided since they were too sick to drive with me to LA for my Mom's 75th birthday, I would stay home, too. The idea of being in a car with two sickies for 6 or 7 hours vs. driving alone all day vs. staying in bed made my decision instant.

I had been looking forward to participating in a family gathering that I did not organize. My siblings can host a special event without my help, and I was happy to just show up and enjoy it for a change. Because let's face it, I can be a controlling bitch sometimes. I whip things into shape and some might say I can be uncompromising.

I just asked Joe what "take no prisoners" means. He said it's when you kill everyone even after your enemy has been defeated, even if they've surrendered.  Wikipedia adds,

"Take no prisoners" style indicates viewing the world in two-dimensional terms. There is no third dimension where mercy can be dealt. Instead, there is merely forward active aggression from which no one is spared. Mitigating circumstances, as in warfare, of injury or surrender do not exist in the "take no prisoners" mindset.

That's definitely NOT what I mean, or what I am like with my family. I don't think.

I think about how I used to force my younger siblings to clean the house in a game I made up called "Deadman." When I gave the command, they had to die and freeze on the floor. I would whisper detailed chore instructions in each of their ears, and when I clapped, all of them jumped up and speedily swept or washed windows or scrubbed toilets.

If only I had that much control over my husband and kids now...

Since I was in SF and not in LA celebrating my Mom's birthday, I was able to help my son Ian (19) prepare to go on his walkabout. I don't know what else to call it. He starts in Big Sur, then may head to Oregon and Washington (as a general direction) and/or to New Orleans by way of Detroit or vice versa.

I bought Ian a zero degree sleeping bag and a new pair of pants. It's this instead of college, so I felt I could give a little bit of quality if not quantity. I was willing to buy him a new tent and backpack but he declined.

These days, since the Occupy movement, Ian is conflicted about allowing me to buy him things. He's an 'anti-capitalist' yet living on the Bender dole. Not conflicted enough to get a job 'working for the Man,' but enough to set out on a WWOOFing journey. Which I totally support.

Anti-capitalism is a nice twist. I still remember the rage young Ian (age 10?) flew into at the Novato Target because I wouldn't buy him a pair of jeans he wanted. They had some logo or stupid flashy thing I was against. He really worked me hard. I did not give in, but felt terrible. Now I am stoked that he has two pairs of pants instead of just one for his journey.

I like the new Ian, the one who spends 8-12 hours a day making music and reading Non-Violent Communication. No more video games. Lots of YouTube, though. Super chill. No job. Polite. Engaged. No job.

New Ian is walking away from his music-making and dj gigs to explore being on his own, in the wild so to speak. Don't laugh. Raising boys in Bolinas...you know what I'm taking about. They are adorable and feral. They don't domesticate well, at least without a fight.

I'm still making this parenting shit up, and it may not be right at all. I may be taking the completely wrong approach. But I do like how New Ian questions things, and likes to sit around the dinner table and argue about society (while eating our home-cooked meals). I'll miss him. I'm sure he'll be back.

What am I not telling you?

I went to a group the other night. It was such a relief to meet and shamelessly talk with others like me.  Joe was with me, and he felt the same way. We all had similar stories.

For now, we'll leave it at that.