In 7th Grade, my English teacher, Mrs. Dahlquist, decided that a groovy way to get us interested in poetry analysis would be to have us analyze a contemporary song. I chose Killing Me Softly With His Song, by Roberta Flack.
Though I was a straight A student in English, I remember this being a humiliating experience. I somehow completely misunderstood the song. I'm afraid that poetry and song interpretation is not my thing, and frightens me. In situations like this I tend to get a wee bit over-analytical, and sound slightly officious, even though I don't have any idea what I'm talking about. Looking at the lyrics now, I can't imagine how I could have gotten things wrong, but I remember the very kind Mrs. Dahlquist writing a rather lengthy explanation when she graded it. I did NOT get an A.
And so, in an attempt to right my failure from the past, I, a middle-aged white woman, will now analyze a contemporary song for you.
I have chosen Young, Wild & Free, by Wiz Khalifa and Snoop Dogg.
Young, Wild & Free
Written by: Wiz Khalifa and Snoop Dogg
"Young, Wild & Free" by Wiz Khalifa and Snoop Dogg is an American rap song, which is, on the surface, a drug anthem, a celebration of teenage drug use, specifically the use of cannabis. But through the clever use of repetition, structure, diction, simile and irony is a paean to the carefree days of a lost youth.
The song lyrics are divided between two very different men. The first, voiced by Wiz Khalifa, aka Cameron Thomas, is very young and enthusiastic about his freedom and joie de vivre. His repeated use of the phrase "So what?" indicates a lack of adherence to cultural expectations. He is clearly reveling in his simplistic life, "When you live like this you’re supposed to party, roll one, smoke one, and we all just having fun." Living a relaxed, carefree time with his dear friends and having fun with the ladies ("Keep it real with my n-ggas, keep it player for the hoes.") while partaking in large quantities of illegal drugs.
The second man, voiced by veteran rapper Snoop Dogg, aka Calvin Broadus, is a much older man, looking back with fondness and longing upon a youth spent in the same vapid endeavors as the first man, but with the knowledge that his led a pathetic life during which he killed too many of his brain cells. The fact that Mr. Dogg is decidedly not young (he is 40), nor wild (he is a married father of three) and often not free (he has been arrested 7 times for marijuana possession, most recently on January 7, 2012) leads me to theorize that this part of the song is meant to be ironic.
Through a clever use of rhyme and simile, the older man laments the loss of his youth ("It’s like I’m 17 again, peach fuzz on my face.") and the squandering of money ("Dippin’ away, time keep slippin’ away, zippin' the safe, flippin’ for pay, tippin’ like I’m drippin’ in paint.") And with the line "Oh my god, I’m on the chase, Chevy, It's gettin’ kinda heavy" the writer is clearly commenting on the man's advanced years by referencing Chevy Chase, a cultural icon of the '70s, and well-known pot user.
Throughout the song, the use of the simplistic, inane, irritatingly repetitive chorus effectively illustrates the influence of longterm marijuana use on the human brain.
In the end, the two men come together, while the older man sings of...a lot of things with initials ("T-H-C, M-A-C, D-E-V, H-D-3"), clearly representative of...the initialness of our world. And then they become resigned to their life of stonedness and choose to "roll one, smoke one, When you live like this you’re supposed to party, Roll one, smoke one, and we all just having fun." Which must certainly be interpreted as an analogy for the meaningless nature of the modern American teen culture.
Maybe I should have stuck with Roberta Flack.
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Afterthought...
The other day, when this song came on the radio while Jude was in the car, I quickly changed the channel, wanting to protect him from lyrics such as "So what we get drunk? So what we smoke weed?" Actually thinking the sentence "These young people and this terrible rap music!" inside my head. Later that night, when we were all sitting down to eat dinner, Jude started singing in a loud, happy voice "Everybody must get stoned!" Yep, Daddy had been listening to Dylan with him!
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This post influenced by...
Prompt #2 - Analyze a popular song you heard on the radio…what exactly does it all mean?
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If you missed this yesterday, PLEASE take a moment to take my SURVEY. I'm working on some changed to upgrade The Spin Cycle, and could REALLY use your input. Thank you SO much!!
In an attempt to better serve you as your Spin Cycle hostess, I have created a SURVEY! Don't you just love surveys? No? Oh come on, who doesn't love a good survey?
No, don't go away! Believe me, your opinion matters to me. I value your help! Really.
Just click the link below, and it will take you to a Survey Monkey survey. It is anonymous, and will only take you a minute. Really.
I'd love if all of you could take the survey, whether you are a reader/blogger or a reader w/o a blog. Whether you are a regular Spin Cycle participant or not. In fact, participation from non-spinners is even more helpful to me. Really.
I welcome any and all input - good, bad or indifferent. Please be brutally honest. It won't hurt my feelings. Well...it might hurt my feelings, but I can take it. I'm an actor, I have a thick skin. Really.
Thank you for your participation! Please, PLEASE participate! Help me!
phobia [foh-bee-uh] noun - a persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity, or situation that leads to a compelling desire to avoid it.
We're sharing phobias this week on The Spin Cycle.
Oh yes. That would be my mother-in-law Mommy. Phobia = Mommy. Mommy = Phobia. One big, loveable bundle of persistent, irrational fear that leads to a compelling desire to avoid it.
A few of Mommy's many, many...many phobias - spiders, lightning, elevators, heights, choking, pills, germs, airplanes, the unknown, strangers, the dark, carbon monoxide, crowds, disasters. The list goes on and on. I suspect that Mommy might not just have panophobia, the fear of everything, but also phobophobia, which is the fear of phobias. Sigh...
Do you have a phobia? A gripping irrational fear that makes your palms sweat, your heart beat wildly, your breath catch? Do you freeze in place? Hide in the closet? Avoid the world?
Spin it up here. Sharing is healthy. No one will make fun of you. Oh no, we won't.
For years, Jimmy and I have been trying to get Jude to sit and watch the Academy Awards with us. We always make a big deal of it (this year they requested an encore of our Valentine's fondue feast) and we loved the idea of Jude joining in. Well. Be careful what you ask for. This year, he sat and watched the whole thing and the kid WOULDN'T SHUT UP! He had seen both Hugo and The Artist, so he was feeling pretty "in the know" and suddenly had opinions. He was very upset that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two didn't win anything, "It's the best movie I've ever seen!" And the endless questions! "What's a Documentary Short?" "What is Cinematography?". "Why was that funny?" "Why is that lady crying?" "Who is he?" "Who is she?" "Who is he?" "Who is she?". On and on and on. I fear that we have created a monster.
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Does anybody else think the Oscars were painfully boring this year?
I've always loved Billy Crystal, but he was pretty dull Sunday night - classy, charming...dull. But I'm afraid it's because he just didn't have the material. His trademark opening song had to include NINE Best Picture nominees, one of which (The Tree of Life) I'd never even heard of. I mean, I'm an ACTOR who lives in LOS ANGELES, and I had never heard of it! I bet that most people who live in the middle of the country hadn't heard of half of them!
In 2009, they changed the rules so that up to 10 movies could be nominated for Best Picture. Apparently, one of the main reasons for this change was an attempt to combat declining television viewership of the awards show. The theory was that including more films in the Best Picture category, the Academy could include more popular films, and that might encourage more people to tune in. THIS IS NOT WORKING PEOPLE.
Because the real problem is that the studios make a bunch of crappy movies, and don't promote the well-made films AT ALL. Hence my having never HEARD of one of the nominees. There's just nothing worth going to see any more. There are films that are fun and escapist. Or of the block bustery/adventure type. But big budget, well-made films just don't exist. Pretty much everything I deem worth watching lately, is on television. True.
Look at the Oscar nominees from the last half of the '70s:
1975 - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Barry Lyndon, Dog Day Afternoon, Jaws, Nashville
1976 - Rocky, All the President's Men, Bound for Glory, Network, Taxi Driver
1977 - Annie Hall, The Goodbye Girl, Julia, Star Wars, The Turning Point
1978 - The Deerhunter, Coming Home, Heaven Can Wait, Midnight Express, An Unmarried Woman
1979 - Kramer Vs. Kramer, All That Jazz, Apocalypse Now, Breaking Away, Norma Rae
Damn, those were MOVIES! Every single one of these movies is a brilliant classic! How can you compare even one of the NINE nominees this year with ANY of these movies?! Sad.
Okay, I hearby step off my soap box.
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Angelina, Angelina, Angelina. For those of you who missed the controversy...
Angelina Jolie showed up wearing a truly stunning black Versace gown. The problem was that every time she stood still she arranged herself in this bizarre, ridiculously awkward pose, with her right leg thrust out to the side to show off the dresses slit, and her left arm stuck uncomfortably on her hip. She did this over and over on the red carpet...
Which is really all fine, because the red carpet is all about the fashion and posing for the still cameras. But then, when she walked out on stage during the show to present the Best Adapted Screenplay award, she stopped in front of the microphone, and carefully arranged herself yet again in this awkward pose, popping her right leg out and then strangely arranging her left arm on her hip again. It looked downright uncomfortable...
...then started talking. I actually said out loud "What the hell is that about?" I mean, who does that? Then, when The Descendants screenwriter Jim Rash came on stage to accept his award, he rather snarkily arranged himself in the same silly pose...
And people kind of got mad at him for making fun of her, but really...she was absolutely fair game. Just silly. I hope she's fired the bone-headed stylist who no doubt convinced her that she needed to do this. She is so gorgeous (albeit freakishly, painfully thin), and the dress was so gorgeous, that she absolutely didn't need to do this silliness at ALL.
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The other big controversy? J Lo's nipple. Look veeeeeeerry carefully on her left boob...
Yep. That's some areola. Pretty sure. I mean, that's a lot of gown there, and no amount of double-face tape is gonna assure you that there's no slippage.
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I do love me those women from The Help! Didn't Octavia Spencer look fabulous?
Every plus-size woman in Hollywood should rush to Tadashi Shoji, the designer of her gown. He completely used her curves to her advantage, and made her look fabulous. Somebody PLEASE give Melissa McCarthy his number!
I LOVED that Viola Davis chose NOT to wear a wig! I hope every little black girl in America saw her and thought "I have pretty hair just like her!" Though I think she should have left it it's natural color too. She looked amazing.
Jessica Chastain, who is as cute as a bug, literally...actually, she's probably cuter than most bugs...had one of the best dresses of the evening...
And Emma Stone somehow made a dress with the biggest bow on the planet look chic...
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Enough of my ranting. Head over to Stacy's for more Random Tuesday Thoughts!
It's cold and rainy here in sunny So Cal today. The perfect day for something warm and comforting.
This is not your traditional Shepherd's Pie recipe, but that's why we love it. It's sort of an Italian/English hybrid. It should also just be used as a guideline - feel free to booger with it in any way you want (and see NOTE below).
2 tbsp. butter or olive oil
1 cup chopped red onion
1 clove garlic, chopped
2 lb. lean ground beef
1/2 cup dry red wine
1 (14 1/2 oz.) can whole peeled Italian plum tomatoes, drained and chopped
2 tbsp. tomato sauce
5 oz. fresh mushrooms, trimmed and thinly sliced
1 zucchini, thinly sliced
1/4 cup fresh Italian parsley, chopped
1 tbsp. chopped fresh marjoram or 2 tsp. dried
2 1/2 tsp. chopped fresh oregano or 2 tsp. dried
salt and pepper to taste
7 medium potatoes, peeled and cut up
2 or 3 cloves garlic, in the skin
1/4 cup half and half
1/2 tsp. grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground pepper
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
In a large skillet, heat butter or olive oil; add the onion and garlic. Cook until soft but not browned, about 3 to 4 minutes. Add the beef, breaking up with a spoon, and cook until meat begins to brown. Remove excess fat from the skillet. Add the wine, tomatoes and tomato paste. Then stir in the mushrooms, zucchini, parsley, marjoram and oregano. Season with salt and pepper. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly. then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 5 to 7 minutes or until vegetables are tender and flavors are melded. Remove from heat and drain any excess liquid. Transfer meat mixture to a 3 to 4 quart baking dish, spreading evenly.
Boil the potatoes together with the whole garlic cloves until soft. Remove the garlic skins and beat the potatoes and garlic together in a large bowl. Add the half and half, nutmeg, salt and pepper and beat together. Spread the potato mixture evenly on top of the meat mixture in the casserole to form a crust.
Brush top of potatoes with beaten egg and then sprinkle with Parmesan.
You can either bake it now, or keep, covered, in the refrigerator for up to a day.
Bake at 375 degrees for 40 to 50 minutes or until heated through and top is a light golden brown and crisp.
NOTE: Traditionally, Shepherd's Pie is made with lamb, but you can use any kind of meat you like - lamb, beef, ground turkey or sliced sausage. I've made it with 2 lbs. of Italian sausage, 1 lb. ground beef + 1 lb. sliced smoked sausage or 1 lb. ground turkey + 1 lb. smoked turkey sausage. It's all good. ALSO, I've used a variety of vegetables - corn, carrots, green beans - they all work great. I mean, pretty much anything covered in mashed potatoes is good!
To my husband, Jimmy, movies work like a balm to his soul. He may be in a dark, miserable mood, but turning on a favorite movie will completely shift his view of the world. He reacts to a beloved movie in a passionate, visceral way.
The films on this list are not necessarily Jimmy's picks for the best movies ever made (though some of them certainly qualify). They are the movies that he most loves and connects with on a deep, personal level. These are the movies that, though he's seen them each a hundred times, if he's channel surfing and happens upon them, he can’t turn them off, and he ends up sitting and watching the whole thing. They are all extremely personal for him, and served as seminal moments in his life.
I tried to make this a top 10 list, but he had such a hard time wheedling the list down, that I let him go with 11, or 12 if you count the Godfathers separately. And the quotes are pure Jimmy. Here they are in alphabetical order...
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948 - Directed by Charles Barton, Starring Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney, Jr.)
A favorite of Jimmy's since childhood. Part comedy, part classic horror movie, Jimmy says this movie still always manages to make him laugh and scare him to death. For him, it's serves as a movie version of comfort food. Sweetly, the thing that Jimmy says has always touched him most about this movie is Abbott and Costello's friendship, that "amongst all the monsters, they always tried to help and take care of each other." When he was a kid, the part when Abbott goes back to save Costello always made him cry - "they were best friends even in the face of death".
Casablanca (1942 - Directed by Michael Curtiz, Starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman)
Aside from simply being great film, Jimmy loves that it's hopelessly romantic. Romantic with a capital R. Not just the romantic love story, but also Victor Laszlo's heroic conviction to his cause, and Bogie's sacrifice for the greater good. This movie also happens to be Pop's favorite movie of all time.
The Godfather, Parts 1 & 2 (1972, 1974 - Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, Starring Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro)
Both movies sweep you up and into the world of the Corleones. Coppola created a combination of sounds, smells and images that bombard you every moment. The thing that gets Jimmy is the beautiful paradox at the core of the films, that the story is really about a family like any family, they eat together and laugh together, but they're murderous gangsters, which sets them apart from the rest of the world. The tragedy of Michael Corleone was that his life could have gone another way, but it didn’t. His father meant to do well, he tried to do everything for Michael, but in the end, he made him someone just like himself. Vito Corleone wasn’t a vicious man, and yet he was a murderer. We knew what he was doing was wrong, and yet here was a gentle man who loved and cared for his family. The beauty about Brando was that he had so much pathos about him, and that made the viewer confused. Brando brought that to it. "Any other actor wouldn’t have brought that to it, but that cat? Come on."
GoodFellas (1990, Directed by Martin Scorcese, Starring Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci)
Jimmy's first reaction when thinking about this movie was a deep exhalation. "Edgy. GoodFellas is edgy, it’s sharp, scary, sexy." It has a similar family element like The Godfather, they all stuck together and took care of each other. But in GoodFellas,"these people weren’t family, they behaved like a family because of their business, because of money. And when you realize that at the end of the movie, when they all start to rat on each other, as an audience member it destroyed me. Because you thought that their life was just grand. But they were vicious, vicious people." Unlike the poetic Don Corleone, these people had no pathos, they were cold-blooded killers and didn’t pretend otherwise. And yet, "Scorcese did it again. He made such a great film, that you can’t stop watching it."
In the Heat of the Night (1967 - Directed by Norman Jewison, Starring Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger)
"Explosive. Great acting. Great story." Poitier and Steiger's performances are "an acting lesson", they were both at the peak of their talents.
La Dolce Vita - (1960, Directed by Federico Fellini, Starring Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg)
A brilliant Fantasy. "Marcello Mastroianni is poetry in motion." The dream sequence is "one of the most brilliant and frightening scenes I’ve ever seen on film". Watching Fellini’s film "was like going to Coney Island."
Last Tango in Paris (1972 - Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, Starring Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider)
"Tragic. Romantically tragic. Sexually tragic. Psychologically tragic." And yet, there was a beauty underneath the whole film. "The score really lit up the beauty, and heightened the emotional life of the characters." Beautiful and sad and raw. A journey into the human conditions. It's always fascinated me that when Jimmy was 16, Pop and Mommy took Jimmy and his friend Scott to see this movie, which was, at the time, notoriously rated X. After the first scene, when Brando and Schneider meet and have sex, Pop leaned over to Jimmy and told him "You and Scott. Other side of the theater." Apparently, Pop didn't mind him watching the movie, just not watching the movie while sitting with his mother!
"When Annie Hall came out, it was ground-breaking in that nobody had ever seen a movie like that, and nobody expected Woody Allen to make a film like that . Then, with Manhattan, he took it to another level. It has a class to it, a maturity." He matured as a director and in the subject matter. Manhattan hit a deep spot in me about how we can take loved ones for granted in relationships and not realize what you might have. "The intellectuals on the Upper East Side with all their problems fascinated me." It was extremely funny, and very sad. "Mariel Hemingway was a gem. I met her right before they did the pizza scene but I didn’t know who she was. My cousin Aurelio was an actor in the scene, he played the pizza parlor guy and I went to visit him the day they shot it at John’s Pizza in the Village. I hung out there all day. And I’m sitting on the ground, talking to this girl and I thought 'Oh what a cool chick.' and then all of a sudden one of the grips came over and said 'Mariel, we’re back on the set now.' And she left. We rapped for about 20 minutes.'"
Raging Bull (1980 - Directed by Martin Scorcese, Starring Robert De Niro, Cathy Moriarty, Joe Pesci)
Scorcese brilliantly captured the violence of these people. Not just in Jake LaMotta and his brother, but in the whole culture. "Just really scary and upsetting , but it was beautiful violence. The violence itself wasn’t beautiful, of course, but the artistry of the film made it beautiful. The photography was exquisite. As was the editing and the acting. You can only watch Raging Bull maybe once or twice a year tops because it’s too disturbing."
Swept Away (By an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August) (1974 - Directed by Lina Wertmuller, Starring Giancarlo Giannini, Mariangela Melato
Life-changing. It was a "special era" in Jimmy's life. In the summer of 1975, HBO was just coming onto the scene, and Swept Away was one of the first movies they showed. "It blew everybody’s minds and I turned everybody on to it that summer – Swept Away summer was a golden summer. A lot of romance in the air. Like we were just waiting for it, and it was perfect timing." The film was voted the most controversial film of the seventies. People were talking about it around the dinner table. From Manhattan all the way to the suburbs of Long Island, where Jimmy was. "I fell in love with Giancarlo and Mariangela Melato. Everybody had a crush on her after this movie. You wanted to fuck her and slap her at the same time. It was sexy watching this movie. It was hot."
[Jimmy wants me to make it clear that he is NO WAY condoning the horrible Madonna remake of this film. "It was disgusting. She ruined a masterpiece. A fart must have got into her brain. I can’t even discuss it, it’s so horrible what she did!"]
The Third Man (1949 - Directed by Carol Reed, Starring Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles)
Sinister. Filled with "intrigue and style." Anton Karas' zither music was "darkly romantic and fit the movie like a glove – genius."
Okay, I expect you all to go immediately to Netflix and line up the ones you haven't seen in your queue!
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Please do the polite thing and visit all of this week's spins on the topic "The Movies"...
Disclosure: This is a repost from two years ago. But I love it, it fits Mama Kat's Workshop's prompt so perfectly and it defines my marriage succinctly, so here you go...
Bedtime Story
11:45 PM
Gretchen has once again stayed up too late doing something important and meaningful on the computer while taking a hot bath and drinking wine. Satisfied after achieving a new personal best in Family Feud, she closes the laptop, gets out of the tub, dries off and covers her body with all of her various special creams. She brushes, flosses, pulls on pajamas, and exits the bathroom.
She tiptoes into Jude's room and finds him lying spreadeagle, having kicked off all the covers, but with one arm firmly clutching his four favorite stuffed animals. Sweet. She tucks the blanket around him, sticks her nose into his neck and inhales deeply, then gives him a kiss.
When she enters her bedroom, she finds Jimmy lying in bed, sound asleep, with the television blaring. As usual. David Letterman has just sat down post-monologue and is chatting with Paul.
She walks to her side of the bed and tries to get into her spot. Unfortunately, Fancy, the dog, has chosen Gretchen's spot as her spot, and is also sound asleep, legs and belly pointing to the ceiling.
"Fancy. Come on honey. You gotta move."
The dog looks up, pissed.
"Move honey. Come on."
The dog won't move. Gretchen manages to shove her slightly to the right, and jam her own legs into the tiny space allotted her by the dog and the husband.
She then carefully arranges her pillows the way she likes them. Five pillows. One particular pillow under her head, two special large pillows on each side of her, creating her little nest. Unfortunately, Jimmy has one of her special pillows under his head. Stealthily, she eases it out and eases a "not special" pillow into its place without waking Jimmy. Whew.
Pillows arranged, she then pulls yet another jar of special cream out of the bedside table and rubs it into her hands and arms, followed by Vaseline, which she applies to her lips and forehead wrinkles.
All ready for bed, she looks around for the remote control, so she can turn Letterman off. Damn. No remote in sight. She looks around on Jimmy's side. On the floor. Under the covers. No remote.
She extricates herself from the sheet and blanket and pillows and dog, walks over to the tv, and punches it off manually. She then crawls back into the bed, squeezes herself back under the covers and arranges her pillows again. Fluff, fluff, fluff, pat, pat, pat. Satisfied, she reaches over to turn out the light on the bedside table.
"And the man said...banana!" says David Letterman. The audience laughs and applauds.
Gretchen sits up.
"What the...?"
The television is on again.
Puzzled, Gretchen looks around. The remote must be in the bed somewhere, and she has accidentally hit it. She does another thorough search for the remote. Nothing.
"Well, this is ridiculous." she says to herself.
Again, she extricates herself from the sheet and blanket and pillows and dog, walks over to the tv, and punches the button manually. A little harder this time. She crawls back into the bed, squeezes herself back under the covers and arranges her pillows yet again. Fluff, fluff, fluff, pat, pat, pat. Sighing heavily, she reaches over to turn off the light.
"And my son Harry said...It was like a monster dance!" says David Letterman. The crowd roars with laughter.
"No way!" Gretchen says, sitting up again.
She looks at Fancy, who is sitting up now, looking disturbed.
"Fancy! Did you do that? Are you on top of the remote?"
Gretchen digs her hand under the dog, disturbing her thoroughly. No remote.
She searches under the sheets, under the pillows. She feels around Jimmy, careful not to wake him.
"Well this is just silly!"
Gretchen angrily kicks aside the sheets and blankets and pillows and dog. Gets up and walks around the bed, smacks the off button on the tv, gets back in the bed, jams her feet under the covers, jerks the covers back over her and arranges her pillows yet again. Fluff, fluff, fluff, pat, pat, pat. She reaches over and quickly turns off the light.
Silence.
"Number Two: Do I get a jet pack?" Much laughter and applause from the Letterman audience.
"NO FUCKING WAY!"
Gretchen sits straight up in the bed, the room filled once again with the light from the television.
Gretchen then realizes that the bed is now shaking violently. She looks to the right and sees that though Jimmy still has his eyes shut, his entire body is shaking with laughter. Slowly, he pulls the remote out and hands it to Gretchen, never opening his eyes.
"Oh, VEEERRRY funny, Mister." Gretchen says, snatching the remote and finally turning the tv off.
Dramatically, she settles herself at last into her nest of pillows.
Slowly, a sound builds in the dark and quiet room.
It's the sound of Gretchen giggling so hard that she's crying. Jimmy joins her, and they both laugh themselves to sleep.
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Inspired to repost by Mama Kat's Prompt #2 - A time you were tricked.
We will be eating the traditional pancakes for dinner tonight here in the Second Blooming house. So while everybody is preparing your jambalaya and King's Cake, why don't you listen to some Professor Longhair...
...and I'll try to entertain you with some Random Tuesday Thoughts...
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And since today is Fat Tuesday, that means tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the dreaded Lent. I have come to the painful and frightening decision to give up computer games for Lent. Now, I realize that for most people over the age of 16, this is perhaps not a serious sacrifice, but I'm ashamed to say that for me...it is. I spend a ridiculous amount of time playing Facebook and Pogo games. I'm totally and completely addicted. It's really very stupid. I try to justify this silliness by saying that the gaming is my rest and relaxation time. But when I think about what I used to do before I started obsessing over Gardens of Time or Pogo Addiction Solitaire, my rest and relaxation time involved doing things like reading, and knitting. Which I miss. Plus, I find myself easily distracted from doing things like WRITING because I find a sudden pressing need to check and see if the Silver Arrow I was crafting in Castleville was completed, or if it's time to feed the geese again. So no games it is. I'm afraid my little Castleville villagers will just have to fight off the gloom without me for 40 days. Wish them luck.
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To help me get through this difficult lenten time, my first errand this morning will be to the yarn store to start a new knitting project. Have y'all been to Ravelry? It's the best knitting website (thank you Aimee!!). I found a pattern there for a throw blanket I really like...
I like the pattern because it's complex enough to look interesting, but easy enough for tv knitting. I can't decide what color yarn to go with. I'm thinking either a taupe or eggplant or maybe a kind of moss green. I'll keep you abreast of my progress.
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And speaking of finding ways to occupy myself for the next 40 days...
I have done something a little shocking and out of character. I can count the number of books I have stopped reading mid-stream on one hand - I always just plow through them to the end, no matter how little I am enjoying them. It's an issue I have, and I'm afraid it's become a bit of an issue between Jude and I - I always make him finish any book he's started. But now...
Several years ago, I bought Stephen King's then-new hardback, Under the Dome. I don't know exactly why, but I think I thought it would be fun, and I used to love reading stuff like The Shining and The Stand, back in the day. This book is 1074 pages long, and weighs about 20 pounds. Okay, that may be an exaggeration, but the thing is damned heavy. I started reading it a couple of years ago, and stopped when I got vertigo, and couldn't hold the book up. I then, stubbornly, started it over again a couple of weeks ago, determined to finish it this time. I'm about a quarter of the way through it, and I just can't take it. It's too damned heavy. I love to read in the bathtub, and I just can't do it with this thing. This is the PERFECT BOOK FOR A KINDLE. But I fear I can't take it any more. And also, it's kind of gruesome and mean-spirited (it is a horror novel, after all) and after the third rape and the thirtieth time I stopped all feeling in my hands trying to hold the thing up, I have cast it aside.
I have instead started The Hunger Games, which I'm really excited about. I know, I know, I'm way behind here, but I want to read it quickly before the movie comes out. I've just started it, but I'm loving it!
But yesterday, Jude noticed me with new new book, did a double-take and walked over to me with a questioning, accusatory look. "Why are you not reading Stephen King's Under the Dome?" And yes, that is exactly the way he said it. I hemmed and hawed and told him something about how heavy the book was, and how it was hurting my back...But I don't think he bought it. The kid was on to me.
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Like many of you, I am presently mourning the end of the season of Downton Abbey, though I am VERY EXCITED about the way the season ended, and I'm looking forward to the arrival of Shirley Maclaine as Grandmama (pronounced Grand Mah-Mah, with the emphasis on the last Mah, please). But in the meantime, I'm thinking I am liking this Smash show. It's like Glee for grownups. I'm loving the music and the acting is terrific. And truly, I would watch it just to see Debra Messing clothes. She's just smashing (pun intended) in everything...
God, I love that pulled together, sophisticated New Yorker look!
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I just watched the HBO documentary The Union, and absolutely loved it. It's about the making of the album of the same name in which Elton John got together with his idol Leon Russell, basically dragging him out of retirement. It's a beautiful film about music and love and respect and friendship and aging. Definitely watch it if you get the chance. Anyway, I can't get The Border Song out of my head. And since it's not a bad song to have stuck in your head, I'll leave you with this...
Jude had a four day weekend - Friday they had one of those Teacher In Service days, and today, of course, is Presidents' Day. I overheard a conversation between Jimmy and Jude, wherein Jude informed his father that the quotation mark should come after the word "Presidents" since the day really belonged to all of the presidents, not just the current president. Clearly, the kid is absorbing something at that school.
And that's a lot of time off, time during which we could have been doing something fun. Half the people from Jude's school seemed to be heading off on a ski trip, or Mexico or something. But we're not doing anything. And by not anything, I really mean not ANYTHING. The whole weekend just slipped up on me, and I didn't even realize that it was a long weekend until about Wednesday. Not that we would be heading to Mexico anyway, because a) we're half broke and b) Jimmy teaches on both Friday and Saturday. But still.
And then lots of weird and stressful things happened.
First, on Thursday afternoon, while I was driving around like a madwoman to auditions and committments, I got a robocall from Jude's school, saying that due to police activity in the area, the school was under lockdown, and that nobody should come and pickup their kids until the LAPD had declared the area safe. I kid you not. I was nowhere near the school at the time, but when I called Jimmy, I found out that he had received the same robocall, and naturally, his response to the school telling him NOT to come and pickup his child because of police activity was to get into the car immediately and drive down to pickup his kid. Because really, there was POLICE ACTIVITY. Gotta love that in the man. Turns out, some nut had shot his wife and set the house on fire, which had nothing to do with the school, but the LAPD was just being overly cautious.
Then, I went to the most horrible and emotional funeral I've ever been to in my life. The son of one of my old friends from college had died of a heroin overdose. It's just so tragic, that it's really hard to write about. The service was at a mission down on skid row, a place where this young man had found help and solace, but clearly it still wasn't enough to help him get the better of his addiction. I really, truly can't remember ever witnessing grief and anger at such a level as my friend was suffering. I so wish I could help her, and give her strength, but really, what can I do? I am extremely thankful that our other friend, Wendell, and I could be there for our grieving friend, and I'm extremely thankful that Wendell was there for me, because this was a neighborhood that I would NOT want to have been walking around in by myself. It was everything that you would imagine Skid Row Los Angeles to be. And let me throw out an "Hallelujah" to the people who work at this mission, it's hard to imagine the level of commitment and faith that they have, ministering to the MOST downtrodden people, people who truly have no hope. It was all very, very, very humbling. And I left feeling horribly shaken, and achingly grateful for my child and my family and my blessings.
I left Skid Row and drove to Beverly Hills to help another friend by modeling for her in a fashion show for the clothing line she reps. Irony? You think? I enjoyed playing dress up with my friends Melissa and Laura, but really, I think this would have been much more fun if I hadn't just sobbed for 2 hours.
Then on Thursday night, at about 2:00 am, I woke up and threw up! Over and over. All the rest of the night. I have no idea why. I don't think it was a virus, we've just had this thing sweep through our house, and it didn't feel the same. I think it might be the Trader Joe's egg salad that I ate just before going to bed, which I found out later was one day over the "eat by" date. Eww.
So, Thursday was great.
And then Friday was the day of cancer.
First the good news - after I woke up from my night of vomiting and propped myself up with some Gatorade and the computer, I found out that Amy, who I had asked you to pray for last Monday, came through her lumpectomy with FLYING COLORS. Here's the update which Becky wrote on Amy's blog (Confused? I think sisters get to do that kind of thing) which explains it far better than I could. But it's GOOD NEWS y'all.
Then I got an email about Jude's friend Gus, the boy with the impish grin in the picture on my sidebar. Though he's doing really well, and making CRAZY good improvement, this email was asking for doubled prayers to help Gus's numbers get high enough for him to go back to school. He's been having to take class via Facetime on the iPad which the class bought for him, and he's really eager to get back to school. I have no idea what these "numbers" are. I feel certain that they have been explained to me, but...I'm an actor, these things just whoosh over my head. But I upped up my praying thing there.
Then about a minute later, I popped by What Now and Why? Which is a new favorite blog that I only discovered a few weeks ago. PLEASE check her out. The woman who writes it, Arnebya, is funny and raw and wry and really refreshingly honest. Anyway, she had just written a post titled "Negativity Ate My Positivity Then Belched It In My Face For Dramatic Effect" (and that title effectively defines everything I love about Arnebya) in which she says that she has found a lump in her breast and had to go in for a bunch of tests, and she was really scared. So I had to start praying about that one too.
Then, about 5 minutes after THAT, I got an email telling me that one of my beloved Cub Scout dads has just been diagnosed with a form of blood cancer called Chronic Lymphocitic Leukemia! So I had to start praying about that too.
And I know that because of all this praying and all of my church choir singing, that y'all must think I'm a terribly religious person or something, but really, I'm not so much. I mean it's not like I'm some kind of holy roller goody-goody who just walks around praying all the time. Not me...at all. So this is too much, really. Everybody needs to just GET WELL and STAY WELL.
On Saturday I managed to drag myself out of bed and do something about the semi-squalor into which our home had devolved while I was indisposed.
And on Sunday I managed to get it together enough to host my little writer's group meeting. So far, we haven't done any actual writing, but we're having a lot of fun.
If you've been reading carefully, you'll notice that during Jude's long 4-day weekend. there has been no mention of...Jude. He has been a real trooper while Mama has been running around/vomiting and Daddy has been working. So I promised him that today I would take him to Universal Studios Hollywood. Which is the easiest amusement park around - really close to us, and easy to get in and out of.
I'm sorry that this has been such an incredibly long-winded way of saying that I didn't do a damned thing for four days.
So my weekend in summation - police action, skid row, vomiting, cancer, amusement park. So basically...hell.
