Tulgey Wood

"It's not a place you can get to by a boat or a train. It's far, far away. Behind the moon. Beyond the rain."

Confession: I spent a significant chunk of my childhood twirling around any available area sweetly singing Over the Rainbow in perfectly choreographed bliss. And fuck was I sincere about it. My little heart meant every note. 

I could watch the Wizard of Oz all day, and I frequently did. That movie was my dream. Get knocked out, go on a musical adventure in a faraway Technicolor dream land? Yes, please.  Where troubles melt like lemon drops away above the chimney tops was where you'd find me. In my sparkly red shoes.

Even now that I'm all (okay, mostly) growed up and the sparkly red shoes only fit even the toe-crushingly little bit that they do because I have wee little Hobbit feet I still think old girl had the right idea. Not the escaping to a bright beautiful problem-free wonderland because life is unfair part. The part where she realized that where she really wanted to be was where she had been all along. She knew who her home was and who her family was and even when they weren't really with her they were with her.

Home isn't necessarily where you come from. Home is where your people are. And in this I am a true Cancer. Because when you are my people you become my home and I am nothing if not a homebody. I want to be with my people all the time.  Because I think that in this mind-boggingly immense multiverse full of unfathomable distance and uncertainty the point is to stick together.

When you've found your group/guild/clan/family you've found your home. When you've found the people (or person) you want to survive the apocalypse with and explore time and space with and create with and love with and die with you've found the only place worth being. You can find some badass shit out there in this vast and perhaps ultimately unknowable universe, but you're not going to find anything better than that. And, no, I must tell myself, not even if what you find is a space mermaid (but close).

My guild/clan/family/ SG team is a ragtag bunch and I tend to think of us as (Space) gypsies. Sometimes we're all together, caravanning through the wild, untamed forests of space and time, exploring and adventuring and making merry. Sometimes we split up into units of two and three and the occasional four. Solo missions are not uncommon. But we always find our way back to each other and pick up where we left off with the exploring and the adventuring and the general making of merry. 

So lately I've been thinking about where I want to be. I once would have said over the rainbow. Now my instinctive response is Space. With a mermaid fin. Cause that's just a given. But obviously Space (and *sigh* a fin) is out of the question at least for the forseeable future. So when someone insufferably suggested that whereever you are is probably whereever you need to be I was torn.  Because while I'm content with where I am on a lot of levels, if I'm being perfectly honest, I'm not exactly where I want to be. I'm getting a lot closer. I'm so close I can almost touch it. I'm just not quite there yet.

But then I realized that when I'm with my people I am exactly where I need to be. And even those other places that I'm trying to get to are places I don't really want to be if, in the end, I'm not there with my people.

"I hardly had places that I needed to go
Cause you're the places that I wanted to go"  (Modest Mouse)

One of these days I'm going to blog something other than this but today is just really not that day. In fact, don't even get me started on today at all cause I haven't eaten yet and my backup generators of zen haven't kicked on yet.

Little Earthquakes:

- Had my bike stolen yesterday. My sweet, cherry red bike whose (flat) tires were chained together that was just minding it's own damn business on my screened in front porch. Which means that someone walked up my front steps, opened my screen door and gathered up my bike in the middle of the day and just carried it off.

- Woke up with no patience and my last nerve all throbbing and exposed. Missed my first class. Had to walk through a lake of mud and gravel water to get to my second class. On the way realizde I forgot my headphones at home so can't get any work done in my third class so might as well not even go. Got to second class (math for dumbasses and old folks and bitches like me who haven't taken a math class in 9 years) and barely texted my way through the teacher explaining the same easy-as-fuck problem three times before she started talking about rounding decimal places and actually said, "With the advent of computers in the early 90s..." Aaaand there went my last nerve. I got up and walked out and resolved to hit the reset button on today.

- It's hot again. Why the fuck is it hot again? October, hello!

- Thanks to said fucking heat half a log of Rolos melted in my purse, shitting caramel and chocolate all over my phone and keys and nano.

Little Moments of Zen:

- Fall Break starts this week which means no more classes for the rest of the week!

- Whoever stole my bike also left a not-as-awesome but more appropriately sized bike in front of our house. At least I assume that's who left it there. Either way it's on my porch right now.

- Half a log of melted Rolos, once rehardened, makes a pretty good calm-your-damn-nerves-already late morning snack.

- Leaving class early = more time for online mahjong!
 

Hiss:

- Cat shit in the bathtub again this morning.
- Fucking seasonal allergies.

Meow:

- Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry's!!!
- Mogwai concert tonight!!!
- New episode of Fringe.

:( 

- Last week. Fuck last week. I got in a wreck on Monday (not my fault) and got arrested on Wednesday (for driving with a suspended license). Yeeeeeah. Spending 24 hours in jail for some dumb bullshit you weren't even aware of is a blast.  On top of all that the faculty director of the school film I was art directing had no fucking clue what he wanted or what he was doing which meant practically no art department budget and a matter of days to get work done that should have been started weeks ago.  Because this dude wanted a helicopter shot for a 15-minute student produced short film. So the wreck and the jail time caused me to miss production meetings and the first two days of shooting. Good times.

- My messy fucking house. Fuuuuuuuuuuck my house is gross right now. I took a good look around the living room yesterday and realized that we live like squatters. Or 20 year-old dudes. It is pretty horrendous and, busy semester or not, I should be ashamed of myself for letting it get so bad. I mean, I guess I could divide the blame amongst my roommates as well, but I've lived with them long enough to know that if anything is going to get cleaned it's going to be me that has to clean it. Besides, I can't even go into the clothes and empty fast food cups ground zero that is my bedroom right now. I have got quite the task ahead of me.

- Having to go to the DMV to get my license reinstated. Ugggggggggh, I do not want to do this. The DMV is it's own layer of Hell. I swear to whatever diety might be tuning in I am going to start riding my bike more. Cause apparently driving priveleges and I just do not agree.

:)

- First time on an actual film production. Despite the clusterfuck that was preproduction, missing the first two days and not really having all that much to do on set the third day anyway it was actually pretty fun. It was a 12-hour shoot at two locations and I would say probably a good three quarters of that time was spent just hanging around with the rest of the art department and misc. crew watching the filming going down and waiting for them to need us. But it was fun. I now know I want to get some experience assistant directing and I got to be an extra in one of the scenes, so...score! Filming starts on the second school production I'm working on (wardrobe) on Friday.

- Does It Offend You, Yeah? Rocking my musical ladyplaces so hard.

- Spring Break. I have got so much to do...get my license reinstated, bring my car to the shop, catch up on readings for my Production and Film Theory classes, start outlining my essay for Film Theory, finish all the preproduction work for the short film assignment I'm shooting for my Production class next week, get my bedroom/house cleaned up, finish up articles I've been working on, reprioritize and reorganize life for coming end of semester/summer...and though I'm stressed I'm strangely psyched. It's time for a good old fashioned Life Spring Cleaning. And if I can accomplish 90% of that without getting out of my jammies I'll be a happy gal.

Assignment #53: Give advice to yourself in the past.

Advice to Tiffany at age 11:  Do not play 7 Minutes in Heaven with Kelly's boyfriend's cousin in her mom's bedroom.  I know you think you're really mature for your age, but you are way too young to be making out with and being felt up by 15 year-old boys.

Advice to Tiffany at age 15:   For the love of god pluck your fucking eyebrows!  You are going to look like a bazillion times better when you do, and you won't feel so manly all the time.

Advice to Tiffany at age 16:  Do not spend even one minute telling yourself that you are fat and ugly and worthless because that piece of shit James Cook talked shit about you again.  That guy peaked in middle school.

Advice to Tiffany at age 17:    Don't fool yourself into thinking that a perm is going to make your hair look like Kate Winslet's in Titanic.  It's called a curling iron, and don't believe that stylist at the mall when she tells you otherwise.  Seriously, you've got senior pictures coming up in a few weeks and senior pictures are forever.  For-fucking-ever.

Advice to Tiffany at age 18:  Whatever you do, don't move in with Christine.  I know it seems ideal, but it's really not.  Her parents are fucking psychotic, and she is their Satanic little minion, and you and Jayme are going to have to resort to sabatoge to get out of the lease and friendships are going to be rent asunder (I'm talking group-wide here) and then you and Jayme will have to go live in the ghetto and your mail will be stolen by the maintenance man and it will be scary.

Go to class, bitch!  I'm not even going to deign to give you a reason for this one.  Just do it.

Advice to Tiffany at age 19:  Take a deep breath.  Everything is going to be okay.  I mean it.  It's okay that you don't know what the hell you're doing or what you should do.  Yes you've let yourself stop believing that it's possible, but you're going to get that back someday, I promise.  What's happening right now...it's just a panic attack.  Come here...seriously, come sit down on the bed.  Okay, now smoke this and listen.  Get the hell out of this place.  It's been bubbling in the back of your head ever since the depression started and it's the one thing you've got right.  You've got to get out of here.  Pack up your shit, go back home and take some time to reassess the situation.  Meet Jen and start smoking pot and talking about things and thinking about things and changing things.  I know it seems scary and unfixable now, but it really isn't.  It's going to take a while and it's going to be hard as fuck, but this feeling is going to pass.  Breath by breath you're going to breath it out until one day you look back on this day and realize that it had to happen.  You had to crumble right now for everything else to start falling into place.  So, just breathe, okay?

Advice to Tiffany at age 21:  Do not quit Hollywood Video.  You're not actually going to make it to California. Yeah, I know.  You're going to be stuck in this two-horse town for another two years and the fact that you and your best friend/roommate are pretty much the reigning queens of the local video store could come in all kinds of handy for all kinds of reasons.  You could get around to watching those lists and lists of movies you've made...and for free!

Do not get drunk within five minutes of getting to RenFest and make out with fucking Frank and She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named right in front of Joe.  There is no sensitive secret layer under that sleazy exterior (really, who are you trying to kid?) and she's an immature, manipulative bitch.  Besides, it's a shitty, thoughtless thing to do to a guy who liked you so much he bought your freaking ticket so he could spend time with you, and you're only doing it because despite what you may admit to yourself you're completely terrified and emotionally unprepared for the whole Joe thing.  Also, LISTEN TO THE CARDS, YOU IDIOT!  They told you so, and you know they told you so and you blatantly ignored them.  Let that be a lesson to you.

Advice to Tiffany at age 23:  Do NOT spend nearly every waking minute of the two weeks you're staying in the same house as the guy you're in love with being all clingy and moonfaced and piney.  It's degrading, and you're better than that.

Do not try to kiss that musician guy you work with outside your apartment.  He will very politely push you away, and you will want to die of mortification.  He may be all smart and cute and have a really sexy singing voice, but that guy has serious women issues, and he's not even really your type anyway.

Advice to Tiffany at age 24:  A kiss really is just a kiss. It's high time you realized that.

Don't gnaw on the nozzle of that whipped cream canister like that, you're going to chip your front tooth and then the cafe will get super busy and you'll have to go run the register and smile at yuppie assholes for the rest of the day with a chipped front tooth that will cost money to fix that you don't have, not to mention the fact that you don't have a dentist in Baton Rouge so after you can finally schedule the time off of work you'll have to drive two hours to see your dentist in Lake Charles and your mom will have to pay for it and the entire experience will be unpleasant and inconvenient and mortifying.

Advice to Tiffany at age 25:  Do not, under any circumstances, tell him you feel like you're glowing like a gloworm when you're around him.  Despite what he says to the contrary, this probably freaked the hell out of him.  Besides, it's creepy.  You can't just say things like that to people.

You're doing a good job.  Keep on keepin' on.

...I don't really know why I picked the specific things I did.  I just kind of let them flow to me at random.  But it's interesting to see how many of the things I warned myself about involved boys.  I guess I don't like to think that some of those things had as much of an impact on me as they did.

Guess you learn something new every day.

So, after years of wanting-but-never-quite-getting-around-to I am finally doing it.  I'm going to complete all the assignments from Miranda July's absolutely fabulous book Learning to Love You More.  Yay!  And I'm going to attempt to chronicle it here because...well...I can't seem to not chronicle.  It's a sickness.

Since a new year is beginning I thought it fitting to start with assignment #70:  Say goodbye.
 

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen and so on and so forth

'On the 6th day God created man in his own image'. Now it's up to us to figure it all out...right, wrong...good, evil. In each of us is the capacity to decide what drives our actions. So what is it that makes some choose selflessness--the need to devote oneself to something greater--while others know only self interest--isolating themselves in a world of their own making. Some seek love, even if unrequited, while others are driven by fear and betrayal. There are those tho see their choices as dark proof of God's absence while others follow a path of noble destiny...but in the end good, evil...right or wrong...what we choose is never what we really need. For that is the ultimate cosmic joke...the real gift that God has left behind.

There is good and there is evil...right and wrong...heroes and villains. And if we are blessed with wisdom then there are glimpses between the cracks of each where light streams through. We wait in silence for these times...when sense can be made...when meaningless existence comes into focus and our purpose presents itself. And if we have the strength to be honest then what we find there, staring back at us, is our own reflection...bearing witness to the duality of life...that each one of us is capable of both the dark and the light...of good and evil...of either, of or. And destiny, while marching ever in our direction, can be rerouted by the choices we make, by the love we hold onto and the promises we keep.

~ opening and closing narration, "Dual" (313)

I don't usually do resolutions, I just fail at them anyway.  But I'm having a bout of the ol' insomnia, so why not?  Maybe if I don't call them resolutions I won't fail so spectacularly.  So, they're not resolutions, 'kay?  These are just...things...I would like to accomplish...over the course of the year.  Goals, if you will.  Goals that I resolve will do my best to achieve.  No pressure, right?  Nope.  None a'tall.  Just you and me and these little ol' goals and oh get on with it already...

- Vox more.  I miss this place when I'm gone.  Cause I'm not so much gone as either a) busy, b) lazy or c) fucking around on Twitter and/or Facebook, which is totally lame of me.  Which leads me to...

- Get some damn time-mangement skillz.  I learned the hard way this Fall that I gots none of those.  Well, little to none.  I just am really, really bad at managing my time.  Which hasn't always been the case.  Okay, I lie.  But it hasn't always been this bad.  Really this is actually just a subcategory of a much larger resolution goal...

- OR. GAN. IZE.  A few months ago I decided to start saving boxes and bags and empty containers and jars in order to a) decrease my trash output and b) create art with it instead.  I started a list of projects I could do using my ever-growing piles of trash, but eventually the list-making stopped and the trash-piling didn't (the actual projects never even started) until my entire art room and most of the craft corner of my room were overflowing with empty cereal boxes and wine bottles and other assorted junk.  And because my messes are almost always contagious the disorganization spread to other areas of my life and promptly spun out of control.  I managed to get my art room mostly organized before I left for the holidays, but that was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.  My house and my system of organizing my entire life need a compelte overhaul.  If I can just get that done I feel like so many other things will fall into place.

- Don't hold back.  I used to tell myself that I wouldn't take an acting class while I was fat.  I couldn't.  I just couldn't be confident enough with myself to get up in front of a class full of strangers and act.  But apparently I could.  I did.  I took two acting classes last semester and I loved them both.  I don't think I'm going to be winning any Oscars soon, but I don't think I'm complete shit either.  More importantly I was able to be myself in a class full of strangers without my usually debilitating lack of self-esteem rearing its fat, ugly head.  I had some good times and met some good people and even came away with a few good friends.  And I realized that I'm tired of holding myself back.  I'm finally on the path I want to be on, having the adventures I want to have and I'm tired of myself getting in my own damn way of enjoying that.  So I'm just not going to do it anymore.  I'm going to try my damndest anyway.

Aaaand now I've run out of steam.  I've been teetering on that edge of 'not tired enough to sleep' and 'absolutely fucking exhausted' for about three hours now and, apropos of nothing, I just came crashing down off of it.

G'night space cowboys and girls. 

There is a moment in every war when everything changes. A moment when the road bends.  Alliances and battle lines shift...and the rules of engagement are rewritten.  Moments like these can change the nature of the battle and turn the tide for either side.  So we do what we can to understand them.  To be ready for change we steady our hearts, curb our fears, muster our forces and look for signs in the stars.  But these moments, these game changes, remain a mystery.  Destiny's invisible hand moving pieces on a chess board.  No matter how much we prepare for them, how much we resist the change, anticipate the moment, fight the inevitable outcome...in the end we're never truly ready when it strikes.

- Heroes