Where the F*#! Have I Been

Dear Phetasy,

It’s been a while, I know.  But cut me some slack, Journal, I’ve been busy.  I should be cleaning but I have to write or I’m gonna go crazy.  When I was in rehab they always used to say, “Cluttered room, cluttered mind.”  No truer words were ever spoken.  That’s why I stay the hell away from hoarders.  Those people are fuckin’ NUTS.

Normally it works like this:  First I clean and then I can write. I find something deeply liberating about cleaning, it’s like a meditation for me.  I literally feel my brain clearing with every tile I scrub.  (And by the way, if you’re a person who enjoys the process of cleaning, no cleaning lady in the world will ever satisfy your expectations).

But writing is like cleaning for my mind as well.  And four months is far too long to go without writing for a lunatic like me.  So, I am giving myself 60 minutes to drain my brain because I’m walking around in circles trying to clean, getting nowhere, writing the whole time.  In this rare instance, it appears if I don’t write—I won’t be able to clean.

Anyway, it’s that time of year, Autumn—a transition season.  The leaves are turning and with it, whatever subconscious shit has been hiding in the shadows of a summer inspired by Apollo tends to start coming out—casting me into a Saturnine state of broodiness and reflection. 

I wear a lot of hats:  yoga instructor, life coach, mentor, child facilitator, aide to kids with autism, writer, stand up comedian, actress, entrepreneur…whatever.  This summer you could say that “Party Girl” was one of them.  I wear this hat well.  I learned how to blend in with this crew back in my high school days after completely losing myself in middle school.

But this summer, wearing that hat was intentional.  I spent the entire summer shooting a mock reality show called HYPE.  It’s an idea I’ve had for years and something I realized I could absolutely produce on my own and in fact, have already been shooting for years. 

Although I’m sure from an outside perspective, I looked like I had the summer of a lifetime, I can’t tell you how often I had to drag myself out to shoot against my will.  I set goals I was determined to achieve; goals that in retrospect were a bit ambitious.  But for the most part, I hit every one.

I also learned something about myself.  I’m a writer/teacher 9 months out of the year and an actress/stand up comic 3.  I’m definitely okay with that ratio.  I couldn’t handle being that much of an actress or an extrovert.   Inherent to being a performer is the constant need to seek everyone’s approval and attention.  I don’t give enough of a fuck about what people think of me to be very good at that full-time.

Now that HYPE is in the can, Maggie and I can get down post production.  Well, that would all be fine and dandy if the only thing we ever had to do was work on Phetasy-related anything (our personal life goal we WILL achieve).  She works a full-time job in the fashion world and I work full-time as a… we’ll get to that….

But in the spirit of cleaning-house and finishing up old projects, my two readers can be expecting an array of goodies in the endless season of Phetasy:

~ The Grand Finale of Miracle On Wilshire Blvd.  I know some of you are still dying to know what the fuck happened to my car.   Trust me—it’s worth it, although I doubt you’ll believe it.

~Gephyrophobia.  We realize some of the articles have been missing since the great Phetasy Crash of ’08.  They will be restored and the Letters to the Editor also posted.

~HYPE.  I will tell you that I wanted to launch this show this Fall, but I think realistically, it will be coming this Spring.  In the meantime I will keep your appetite for video satiated with some shorts I’ll be producing in conjunction with my partner in crime, East Pleasant Productions.

~Skool Sucks:  A Four Part Series.  Whether you can believe it or not, I work in Education and the state of it in our country is something that is deeply important to me.  This isn’t a groundbreaking, Pulitzer Prize-winning piece of journalism.  It's just my experience, my feelings and my thoughts about where we are headed; an essay that just kind of poured out of me and was inspired by my new job.

About that: At the end of every summer, almost overnight, my life changes due to the fact that I work with kids and they all return from their vacations and go back to school.  Bye bye free creative time and late nights, hello early mornings and no free time.   This year, I got hired to be an actual teacher.  At a real school.  Now I teach yoga to teenagers at a progressive private school that recently opened in LA.  Working with teens is literally my dream job and the reason I got certified to teach yoga in the first place.  I can write for days about this and will in the coming months.   It might sound like some boring-ass writing, but I think it’s mostly going to be a fucking RAGE against the bullshit therapy and prescription medication racket that currently has our country, and our youth, by the balls.  Attention Deficit Disorder, please, as if that really exists…

What was I saying again?  Anyway, I had people living with me for six months until last weekend and now I have my place back. To replace my roommate, and for the first time since I was married (Yes, I was married, another blog for another day) I have cable television. It’s a magical thing that seems to be the only sleep remedy for a racing brain like mine.  (I have the Rip Van Winkle syndrome and am convinced if I take a sleeping pill, I’ll miss out on 20 years of my life).

It’s very strange to have cable again after so many years of not having it.  It’s weird to see again, but comfortably familiar like an old friend.  You just pick up that remote right where you left off… But I swear, the reasons I got cable were practical. I’m a sports fanatic.  I did the math and it turns out I spend as much as I would on cable in a month watching ONE GAME at a bar.  Add to that the fact that I’m really just not feeling like drinking lately and you’ll see my reasons are sound.  That and South Park.  The heroic return of Conan.  Kenny Powers is definitely worth $7.00/month...

But don’t worry, I’m not one of those writers who sacrifices solid writing time for TV.  I have a lot of writing friends who are like that and I swear I will never—wait, what time is it?  Almost 1:00?  I gotta go.  The Pats are on.