Everyday Goddess

You gotta know when to hold 'em.

Well, I've spent this fine New Year's Eve morning over at On The Lot, dipping my toes a little further into the community.

First off, I can't watch the shorts on my home computer, which is a bit of an issue, to say the least.  I couldn't watch them at the dayjob, either.  You can't download them and then watch them.  They use the dreaded "buffering" technology.  The Boyfriend's computer is my last chance.

I was hoping to have a goal of watching and commenting on five films a day or something like that, so this inability to watch at home is a bit of a wrinkle.

I also *just* discovered that there's a whole "friend" thing like on MySpace.  I had friend requests pending from November!  Which made me feel very unfriendly.

But I do have seven new friends now.

Who's shorts I can't watch.

My short is uploaded, and my paperwork will arrive to them next week, but it looks like the backlog means a two to six week wait before the short goes live.  I'm also unclear if this is from the time I uploaded (12/17) or the time I submitted my paperwork (mailed 12/29).  So I'm starting the new year by practicing my patience.

Another year, more dreams in the envelope.

So on Friday, I was at the post office mailing off my written On The Lot application.  I kept thinking about last year, when I was mailing off cast & crew DVDs of my PSA on New Year's Eve.  Seems I'm always mailing something off.  Finishing up some minor attempt at the dream.

This month, I got my rejection letter from an NBC program I'd applied to.  I also got a letter from the ABC/DGA program saying that they were pushing the program to a late June 2007 start.  So I guess my application is still under consideration, which is good news.

Even better, the next application process will be Sept./Oct. 2007, and I can't say that isn't a relief.  One less thing to distract me while I'm looking for a new dayjob.

I've been thinking a lot about 2007.  What do I want to be doing next year?  In a really unfocused way, I know I want to write more and to start working out again.  And I want to find a positive working environment to spend my days in.

I think I'll be ready to get to work again next week.  Time to buckle down and make some new plans.

Just as soon as I'm finished ringing in the New Year.

Relationship Resolutions

This post is cross-posted on BlogHer.

I love making New Year's Resolutions.  Last year, I resolved to give up Internet dating for an entire year, come what may.  I met a guy the good, old-fashioned way on New Year's Eve, dated him for a few months.  Ended that and met The Boyfriend a couple months later at a games night.

I think it depends where you live, but I do so many different things and meet so many new people all the time, that I realized Internet dating was making me lazy.  More on that in another post, though.  This post is about resolutions.

Relationship resolutions.

It occurred to me that the new year is a good time to take a look at your relationship - or lack thereof - and make a resolution for change.  Yes, change, because sometimes it doesn't have to be about improvement.  Sometimes, like my resolution to give up on Internet dating for a year, you can make a resolution that's designed to simply shake things up.

So, maybe this year you resolve to have date nights, or to compliment each other more, or to do more favors for each other.  (In these instances, BTW, I recommend being specific in your resolution - one date night a month, for example.)  Or, maybe you resolve to swap a chore, or take up a new hobby - separately or together.  Think of something that would shake up your routine or anything else you feel too settled into.

Single?  Try a resolution that changes your dating routine.  Let go of the computer, or conversely, give that crazy Internet dating a spin.  Here's one I would like to try if I was dating again.  I think I would resolve to not email with potentials - demand conversation on the phone or in person.  We've all become so used to email, actually talking can really shake things up.

Don't be shy about sharing or declaring your resolutions, either.  Resolutions are a great conversation starter.

So, got any good relationship resolutions?

A good way to start is to stand.

Sludge.

I feel like I'm in sludge.

Just trying to be productive and have some sense of what day it is.  I can feel myself winding up, but I was supposed to be off (unpaid) this week, so it's been hard to hit the ground running.  Just been trying to get my mom's b-day gift finished and out, get my On The Lot application finished and out, and get a revision of my resume finished and out, out, out.

Meanwhile, blogging is at a minimum.  But I feel an upswing coming. 

Any time now.

The Case of the Missing Brisket Recipe

Christmas Eve.  My most favorite time, and I couldn't find it.  I knew all I had to do was pour a glass of wine and pop in an appropriate movie to watch by the Christmas tree, but instead, I putted around, doing this and that, and...  fighting with the Tivo.  As I rearranged the components and replugged wires - moving the Tivo away from the cable box as they do not play well together - and then reprogrammed until I finally, FINALLY have it working, I fleetingly wondered if my activities this evening might be a harbinger to Christmas Eves spent fighting with bicycles and toys.

I spent yesterday morning tearing through Flyte  (Septimus Heap, Book 2), and then had turned my attention to digging out my recipes for today.  As I dug out my old, paperback Better Homes & Gardens New Cookbook, circa 1981, with the pages all detached and stuck back in together - not even the cover is attached - I thought, wouldn't it be funny if the page with my brisket recipe was missing... just as I flipped to the page and discovered it wasn't there.  My brisket recipe wasn't there.

I make Jewish food for Christmas.  My parents live in Texas, so with the using all my vacation for work or to visit them, I never get to go home to South Florida.  I've been home two superfast weekends in over four years.  So somehow, I've fallen into a tradition of Jewish food for Christmas, because Jewish food is home to me.

I'm not doing latkes this year, but I'm doing my brisket and kugel and challah.  Yeah, the brisket recipe is key.  I eventually found it in one of my Jewish cookbooks.  (I'm making carrots, too, and my friend Melinda is bringing a great bottle of wine, salad with home-made dressing and her famous rosettes for desert.)

And two Gelson's later, I have an absolutely gorgeous brisket in my fridge.  I've heard people ooo and ah over raw meat before, but until I saw this brisket, I had never.  This is one fine looking piece of meat.

But when I got home from grocery shopping, I just couldn't seem to settle down into Christmas Eve.  I miss The Boyfriend, and I have to admit the layoff is shaking me up.  I mean, I feel really positive about moving forward, but at the same time, I'm constantly thinking about it.  I feel bad about it.  Christmas Eve has always felt content to me, and I am far, far from the land of content.  Lost in the land of transitional.

So I putted around for a while and then finally gave up and went to bed.

And when I woke up, it was Christmas.  The Challah is rising, and there was even a present under the tree, thanks to my new roommate Erin (thanks, Erin!).  You know, when you're a grown-up, you tend to just open presents as they're given.  Sometimes, I save them up, but this year I felt like I needed to open as I went.  But there was one, and I ripped it open!

And then, I realized that the brisket recipe, just found yesterday, had gone missing.    I could not believe I'd lost it again.  See, I'd been putting about and kinda sorting and shoving things.  I'd reorganized the cookbook cabinet.  Was it stuck in there somewhere?

It was; I found it.  Whew!

So now I must get back to my challah.  I've brewed coffee and made my traditional Christmas morning Pillsbury orange cinnamon rolls - yum.  I'm going to check on the dough and then enjoy a Christmas morning episode of Sex & the City (thank you, Tivo) and then get to cooking, hooray!

Hope you're having a wonderful day, too.

Oh, and BTW, this morning, when Tivo said it taped "Bend it Like Beckham" off an upper level cable channel (because I told it to tape all films directed by Gurinder Chadha), well, my friends, that was actually what was there for the first time since I got the Tivo.  I win!

May your days be merry and bright.

This post is cross-posted at BlogHer.

Like many women, I learned to send holiday cards by watching my mother.  Every year, this was a time-consuming holiday task she would complete, and from a very early age, I wanted to and did send my own holiday cards as well.  I obsessed over finding the perfect cards, and I had the book to track to whom I'd sent and received cards from year to year.

And ever hard-core, I would write a personal line or two on every single one of them.

I stopped when I went to graduate film school in 2000, and I've never done it since.  I had begun to realize that there were things that I faithfully spent time and money on in my life that my male competition did not.  My male friends didn't send holiday cards like I did, and in fact, I didn't know any men that sent holiday cards.  They spent that time and money better elsewhere.

Now, I'm sure there are men out there who send holiday cards.  And businesses send holiday cards.  And truth be told, I LOVE LOVE LOVE getting cards in the mail.  Now that I don't send them, I value the ones I get even more.  Every one seems like an unconditional gift from those who don't take me off their list when they don't get a return - something I had surely been known to do in my obsessive carding days.

Not sending cards remains a difficult choice, while at the same time, an easy one, since I literally don't have the time.  I feel guilty about it every year, and it makes me feel lacking.  Deep down, I feel that no matter what my goals, I'm still supposed to have perfect hair, a perfect body, perfect shoes - in fact, a variety of outfits... and, send holiday cards.  But I don't make any more money than my male counterparts, and I don't have any extra time.

The only thing I've maybe got more of is sky-high ambitions and dreams.  So I've let the mass mailing of holiday cards go.

Bless those of you who still send them, though, because they sure are pretty.

Right before Christmas, almost everyone leaves.

This post is cross-posted on The SexySmart Blog.

Christmas in Los Angeles.  Almost everyone leaves.  Suddenly, the roads and the stores aren't as crowded, and the city gets quieter.  Sitting alone in front of my Christmas tree, it feels like a blessing.

I've been dating The Boyfriend for over six months now, but I didn't go home with him.  I wasn't ready, I guess.  And maybe he wasn't either.

I know it's a protection more than anything else.  Not wanting to travel and meet parents, and then a few months down the line it ends up being for nothing.  Although at six months it doesn't have to be that way, to be sure.  But it is what it is.

I'm not one to finagle and scheme for an invite, and I certainly balk at the hint of a suggestion that I *need* an invitation.  I'm spending the day with a girlfriend, and we will cook yummy food, and drink good wine, and relax and talk and laugh.  I am totally looking forward to it, and I love that I'm in town for Christmas, to be sure. I enjoy the freedom of my life right now, too.

He didn't really ask me.  He didn't say, "I want you to meet my parents.  I want to be with you at Christmas."

Still, sometimes I worry I'm too careful, too prideful, too safe. That the divide is entirely of my own construction.  When The Boyfriend and I went to Austin this month - where my parents happen to live, so we visited them much earlier than I would have chosen - I allowed myself one moment.  Just once, I allowed myself to say, "Maybe I would like to come."  Home with him for Christmas.  I did put it out there, that I would like to go home with him, if we were there, if he was there.

We felt so natural.  Right.  Us.

He said we would talk about it, but we never did.  And that small, carefully decided on crack in my wall was all I could allow.  I didn't bring it up again.

Because in all honesty, I think this is for the best.  I miss him, but I'm glad to be home.  Glad not to have rushed into a big visit before we were ready.

Still, in the car before he left he said, "Why do I feel like I'm forgetting something?"

And I thought, It's me.  You're forgetting me.

This post is cross-posted on The SexySmart Blog.

Christmas in Los Angeles.  Almost everyone leaves.  Suddenly, the roads and the stores aren't as crowded, and the city gets quieter.  Sitting alone in front of my Christmas tree, it feels like a blessing.

Christmas is a time for new beginnings.

The dark of winter wraps around us tight.
The lamps are fired, and flickering light
beats time to the fiddle as notes float softly down, like the years' first snow.
While outside the window a blast of late December wind
whistles harmony to the drone of the pipes.
We push the old year back against the wall
so we can dance a jig for Christmas and welcome in the new.

Reflections on a Scottish Christmas, by Johnny Cunningham

My Winter Solstice post is definitely squeaking in under the wire!  I would have preferred to have posted yesterday, ahead of the shortest day of the year, but I was a bit distracted by my being laid off from work and being pushed straight into my new beginning.

I guess my favorite way to spend the winter solstice is with close friends, good wine, candles, and a Christmas tree.  December is such a wonderful time to celebrate.

This year, I didn't throw a party as I thought I might at the beginning of the year, but I did manage to have The Boyfriend and another friend over for some board gaming and Baileys.

Is there a moment quite as keen
or memory as bright
as light and fire and music sweet
To Warm the Winter's Night

To Warm The Winter's Night, by Adam Victor Christianson

Some years, you really have to think about new beginnings; some years, your new beginning is simply all around you, not to be denied.

Months ago, I said that I would address the question, "What religion are you?"  And surely solstice is a perfect time for that.

When pressed, usually I will answer that I am no religion.  Given an official form, that is most likely what I would check.  I don't consider myself Wiccan, although I enjoying reading about Wiccan practices from time to time, and I do use Wiccan resources when I feel like creating and performing a meditation or ritual.

But wait, if I'm practicing a ritual, how does that reconcile with not practicing a religion?  I guess I consider paganism as a general practice to be more about spirituality than organized religion - because surely it is frequently not organized in the same way that Christianity or Judaism or Islam, etc. are.  And I do not practice it in an organized way at all.  Actually, I feel I study it more than I practice it.

Marking the pagan holidays this year - to the extent that I actually did that - was part of that study.  To some extent, that practice.

The seasons and the changes they bring are with us.  Part of our world no matter how far we move from the field.  The pagan turnings find us in the city, and they are there whether we mark them or not.  To look towards them for what they can illuminate in our lives, is to gain wisdom that has always been there.

Am I a pagan?  Well, yes, I believe I am in many senses of the word.  Then again, the Internets have left me to "spiritual, but not religious."

And that's about right.

If you'd like to read more about Winter Solstice visit Candlegrove.

Solstice poems are from this site for Aine Minogue's CD, To Warm the Winter's Night.

I'm gonna wash that job right out of my hair.

Well, I just got laid off 5 days before Christmas.

And I'm OK, and I'm Really Glad I don't have to go there anymore, but I'm also feeling a little shocked and scattered and Really Wishing that I'd been able to find a new job before I got laid off.  I have many irons in the fire, and it's amazing how much I feel like I have to do today.  Forms to process, things to get organized, and I even have a phone interview today that was previously scheduled.

It's amazing how you can feel shocked at the same time that you're not remotely surprised.  When peeps walked me out to my car yesterday, I couldn't find it, couldn't remember where I'd parked.

Can I tell you how glad I am to have my blogging?  It has become my rock, my constant.  My place where I can express myself, and I have total control.  My place.

Today, I'm trying to get organized and hit the ground running.  I'll be OK financially through January, but I know that I need to immediately take a serious look at where my money goes, file for unemployment, read my handy brochure from the state of California.  Oh man, I'm a person with a helpful brochure entitled, "California's Programs for the Unemployed."  I'm that person.  Ug.

Plus, being laid off in the middle of December is crappy because you've bought some gifts, but not others, and now you can't buy anything.  Already got my tree, can't take that expense back.  Need to cancel my hair appointment I was going to treat myself with.  Need to not panic.

Crap.

Yes, your phone survey is somewhat biased.

I got a call this weekend asking me my opinions about eminent domain.  Which in itself is kinda cool, because the eminent domain, yeah, I've got opinions.  And they tend to lean towards, you'd better have a damn good *major* government reason, and no, some private developer's mall ain't it.  The government seizing private property to give it to another private party is just a massively slippery and immoral slope in my book.  I can't get behind that.

So I sat down to answer the man's questions.

Dude, he was so totally leading me, and his tone was wacky friendly.  Like, at one point he even said, Well, I totally agree with you there.  Say, what???  And towards the end, he asked me a question to which I said firmly, Yes.  And he goes, Somewhat...?  And I was like, No, I said YES.  Firmly YES.

I guess I shouldn't be shocked that polls aren't conducted with utter impartiality, but I guess it was always more in the phrasing of the questions, as opposed to the manner of the person conducting the poll.  Back in South Florida, a million moons ago, I conducted phone interviews for some major Jewish surveys in Boca Raton, and they were conducted with the highest level of professionalism.  For example, if you need a modifier, you go, Strongly, somewhat or not at all?  You give ALL the options, so the person taking the survey doesn't just grasp your Somewhat and give you the answer you just fed them.

So it was shocking to me to find myself answering questions from someone who seemed to be trying to lead my answers.  We read poll results all the time, and if this is how they're conducted, I'm not thinking we can rely on this stuff at all.  At the very least, I'm going to look closer at who conducted the poll.

I wonder if he gets in trouble if the survey results aren't leaning the right way.

Most interesting to me was that he asked me if I considered myself liberal, moderate or conservative, and I had absolutely not one idea what to say.  It so depends on the question at hand.  Maybe that's what moderate means, though, so that's what I said.