Move along, Nothing to See Here

My goal as I write this blog is to give the universe bad writing, incomplete thoughts, stupid ideas and my take on my mundane life. I've spent so much time and energy wanting some perfect genius to spring from my computer, onto a canvas, or as I get sworn into a political office where I will lead us to a better world.

I think the only thing I've accomplished is to just drive around with a proverbial load of horseshit.

I realize that these are mules and not horses. But, hopefully you get the idea.

Now that I know I will not be the voice of my generation, hang my art in some great gallery, sing with a band, or do any of the other things I thought my enormous brain, my writing, my art, and my unique (hahaha) political philosophy, I need to just retire. I'm done with all that.

It's time to create for me. My own well-being depends on it and it's high time I get into shape.

Therapy through the years has allowed me to clear away some really crappy psychological clutter and I'm trying to upgrade a bit. One thing that I have a problem with is fighting my inner judge. This judge puts Judge Judy to shame with it's wit and it's forceful truths and leaves me stranded and drowning in unfinished business. So, it's time to shift my way of looking at my desires to do something creative and have fun.

At one time, I held so much promise.

There are three things that alleviate stress in my daily life: writing, creating art, and exercise. How weird to realize this. The problem all along is when I did these things with specific goals in mind, I hated them and these were the things I always put on the back burner thinking that if they weren't tied to big goals, then surely they were a waste of time.

I decided to take a more spiritual approach and do those things simply to do them. No strings attached.

So, here is where I practice my writing. It is mostly bad, definitely unedited, and stripped of any pretension. I merely want to write, to blog, to screw around on blogger. That is all.

I will also be putting some art into practice as well as exercise. All at a base level. I just know now that I need to do these things just for me. It's an experiment. We'll see what happens.

I think I was more creative when I made fun of death.

Some of my best ideas involved dressing up for theme parties.

Attitude and a good haircut was all I needed at one time.

1968

My mom was here last week for a bunch of family events, but we had time to check out the 1968 exhibit at the Oakland Museum. I knew I'd love the history of it, but it was better than I expected. Loved what was curated and they did such a good job of conveying the them of how things changed radically and how this change was brought into the living rooms of America. Such a fascinating time and it turns out, many of my favorite films came out that year in including the original "The Producers."

When you walk in, you enter a 1960s living room with TV and a giant Huey sitting there.

The details were just amazing. Loved the crafted lampshade with the floral print and rick-rack.

I so wanted a Mrs. Beasley doll. I remember watching "A Family Affair" in prime time (gah, I'm old). I also wanted to live in a high rise apartment and have my own Mr. French.
 

The artifacts were TO DIE for. Seriously. Those pins. The sunglasses. The groovy wallpaper. Want!

Man on man on man.

My blogs are scattered like ashes...

I'm nothing special, but I am still kinda fun.

There is one constant about me that I have figured out. I love ideas and starting things, but sticking to them. Well, that's another story. At this point, the only thing that I seemed to have stuck with for a long period of time is my marriage.

I have been trying too hard to blog and after going back and reading this one, I'm thinking I need to get off my high horse and kill my stupid dreams of somehow becoming famous by blogging on some specific thing. I'm not hip. I'm not an expert on anything and I've never just had any sort of hyper focus on anything to really follow the prescribed idea of what blogs should be.

So to hell with that.

At one time, long ago in the early days of the internet and email, I got a job in San Francisco and started writing weekly emails to my friends and family. I'm truly astounded at how unselfconsciously I wrote. Even to the point where I'm kind of freaked out at how open and honest I was in those emails. But, I look back and think it was some of my best, kick ass writing ever.

Now that I'm slumping through middle age, I need to just say shit. And that's what I'm going to do. So, goodbye food blog, and the one that is sort of a cool mom's night out blog. So long to my dreams of blogging about being a moderate liberal who thinks it's all bs.

I need to just observe and write and stop trying to be the voice of my generation. All I have are my words. I'll scatter them across the virtual world and let them float away into binary code infinity.

Holiday Texas Style

We had a great Thanksgiving in Texas with my brother's family. The kids loved being with the cousins and we ate great food, watched a lot of football, and came home well-rested and ready for the next leg of the holiday season.
Houston holds a really cute Thanksgiving Day parade complete with floats, marching bands, low riders, and balloons.

Don't the kids look so cozy posing next to the big tree in their summer clothes?

This red swing hung beautifully in the museum district near the Mark Rothko Chapel.

The Houston Children's Museum is wonderful. The kids did NOT want to leave. Not even to eat or go to the bathroom!

On Tuesday, prior to Thanksgiving, we joined the Landrys' for gingerbread makin'.


We grabbed a little inner peace at the Mark Rothko Chapel. Such a great little spot in Houston.

Our little astronauts got to play at NASA Space Center, too!

This boy Elroy is a bit wary of his helmet!

No Thanksgiving is complete without a visit from the ice cream truck to beat the November heat!

My dad made this cool game based on what is apparently a traditional Texas pastime: the game "Washers." The rules seem to have a lot of flexibility. It should be called "Diplomacy" given the amount of debate and negotiation that takes place in the constant revising of the rules.


My brother's tailgate buddies brought all their gear and we sat in the driveway with outdoor TVs and ate. A lot. Armadillo Eggs, cranberry salsa, nachos, shrimp wrapped in bacon, chicken in white sauce. Yum. Who needs veggies?

Playing Tourist (origins)

I grew up in a small, small, small town in rural south Louisiana. It was probably better than your average small town because we were Cajun and felt somewhat special, somewhat insecure, somewhat isolated. We ate different food. We talked funny.

One summer, my daddy said that if we can spend all that money and time exploring other states, we should do it in our own state. We spent our family vacation driving around Louisiana. I will never forget that trip. I was around 9 or 10 and we set off on a week long journey through the Sportsman's Paradise.

It was fun to be familiar and unfamiliar with the place simultaneously. We drove West to Lake Charles, the Acadian Parishes, up toward Toledo Bend, to Shreveport and Bossier City, Monroe, down through Central Louisiana, Baton Rouge, Hammond. We left out New Orleans and our swampy homeland because we covered those areas on Sunday drives and weekends.

I loved the antebellum homes. I remember seeing the beautiful False River. We visited the Monroe Zoo and an Acadian Village. At Shadows on the Teche, I was reprimanded by a stern docent for touching a piece of furniture. I leaned on a chair, rapt in the docent's story and she called me out. My mother, not one for sticking up for me when I got in trouble, was really mad.

We stayed at a tiny dive motel in the town of Many and I saw my first ever vibrating bed.

Our state was just as interesting as other places in the country, we learned. We saw gardens, met people, learned about our history and the physical act of riding those roads helped me in later years because if you told me you were from even the dinkiest town in Louisiana, even when I was in college, I could almost always say I had been through there once.

My parents loved doing this sort of thing out of shear curiosity. No hipster ideals. No desire to check things off a list. They simply felt it was important to know your own place. Dining at mom and pop restaurants was a way of life and it shaped me in the years to come. I don't seek out the out of the way spots to "be cool." I honestly enjoy it and am interested in it.

I think we need to keep that spirit of the open road, of getting there, rather then being there. Stop thinking of rural areas or the middle of the country as places you drive through, gas up, or worse, fly over. If we're going to burn fossil fuels in this country, at least let's use it for good reason...to connect, to learn, to explore.

I Wish You Peace

My friend, A, is dying.

This hurts. It has hurt for her and all of us since she was diagnosed and my heart continually breaks as I enter a new stage of grief in this process. My heart breaks knowing that since her first surgery, she has not had a life, she has been butchered and tortured, and smothered by her loved ones.

I am trying to figure out the meaning of all this. A and my father-in-law (died in February) are/were not spiritual people. I am not saying that we all need to believe in God. I dabble in my half-assed belief and still can't stand and deliver on the faith thing. But, having a spirituality on some level is better than despair. The despair is as real and hard as the cancer that invaded both of them. My father-in-law, while not ready to die, was at least equipped with the knowledge that he was older and had lived his life. A, on the other hand, is younger than I am. She is the symbol, the poster-child of the unfairness and utter meaninglessness of it all. Really. We all needed her around for at least another 20 years. I'm being generous, here, Providence!

I realized that A is the first friend that was close to me to die of disease. Slowly, agonizingly, and with total awareness. Other friends I've lost have been through accidents, freakish things that plucked them suddenly and dramatically from life. In those instances, we were sad and shocked, but somehow able to feel immune to it. It was not us. It was them. They who died by accident. With A, I'm realizing that I could get cancer too. I could die. Children are left without a mother or a father a LOT. I'm noticing this, more and more--friends who lost a parent when they were young. This scares ME. It becomes about ME. The lost of my friend, but also the lost of the great, wonderful, necessary me. I feel so selfish and horrible when I think this.

I'm trying to learn. I'm trying to learn the right words to use. I have made many mistakes. I am trying to live my life and be funny without seeming like I don't care. This is so hard. I'm trying to teach my kids to keep their comments to themselves. They do not. I'm trying to understand the complexities of the family dynamic. I don't like getting involved in these things. I think about my crazy early years where I lived and worked around people like me: free, healthy, disconnected, clueless. Those days are over. We have entered a new phase that includes death, deteriorating bodies, and much pain.

I used to wish and pray for immortality. Now, I pray for peace.

Death in the Family, Part II (current)

It's been over a month since my father-in-law passed away. The initial rush of it all seemed to go rather smoothly for us all and it seems like we all got back into day-to-day living pretty quickly.

Every time we see my mother-in-law, she is shedding more of Phil's things our way. We were touched to go through the contents of his wallet: photos of his kids, notes to himself, and a worn piece of paper with "I PHIL GRAYSON LEAVE ALL MY WORDLY POSSESSIONS TO MY WIFE, JANE." It was dated the year 1968. My father-in-law was unsentimental and whenever possible deflected conversation to his facts on Hollywood history, his latest political obsession, or various tidbits from what he had been reading. On occasion he talked about the old days in Torronto and he had a regular schtick of sound bites from being in San Francisco in the 1960s. Mostly, he had the same menu of things to quip and he repeated them. A lot.

So the contents of the wallet was touching to us. No money. Just pieces of what he really cared about.

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The other day, David received an email from a perspective agent interested in Phil's scripts. This made David tear up.

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Another box of items from Phil revealed silent photos of him with his first wife along with the paperwork where they legally changed their last names to Grayson from Bloomberg. We always knew he changed his name but did not know he did it with his ex wife. Mysterious.

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