The SMD

Writing is my first love, but acting is my hot torrid mistress. If I'm Archie, writing is Betty and acting is Veronica, if you catch my breeze. I love them both dearly in different similar ways. I ventured out into the refreshing languid California sunshine to pursue what I love, what seems like ages and millenniums ago.

Then I met a charming man on a movie set (I was an illustrious extra for a year) and got a permanent souvenir of what love was to me at the time...I'm a single mama now, which is a far cry from any vision I had of my life. Like, Bangkok to Antarctica cry. But it's what I know to be better, in many ways. Let me count them.



The Single Mama Drama.



I don't offer this information freely. I don't post "proud parent" on Facebook or MySpace (to those that still use that 'dinosaur'), if there's a potential gentleman caller that I happen upon I don't mention it within initial conversation. I shy away from other mommies at the playground that sport the rock, I weened my kiddo on The Simpsons and Happy Meals. By all conventional standards, sounds whack, doesn't it?



There's a stigma and a cliche that goes along with "single mom" I have to fight against every day ('cause it's my nature to rebel against cloistered oppression), so to be out and proud has been uncomfortable, four years running. People dismiss/pity you almost instantly when you're lugging a little one and no ring yourself, so on rare occasion I'm alone in a social setting, I prefer to present myself as a person first, a mama second. It allows them to check themselves without me slapping a bitch (male or female) which is the usual gut reaction. I have plenty of other necessities to manage.



It's a little manipulative one could argue, but so is pretending to care about someones unique life circumstances just to liken them to the decay of western society internally. I can see it in their eyes, despite any progress we've had as a culture. It's still there, even if just a flicker. And a flicker is enough.



When that (imaginary sounding yet very real) person (I encounter all the time btw) realizes that you can be single, young, attractive, intelligent, have a sense of style and self and still be pursuing what you want out of life AND be a decent mom, it's like a light bulb of appreciation pops on. One that otherwise would be misused to cast an eerie glow of hurtful ignorance.



As an incognito member of the Mommy Club, I get to be a fly on the wall. The term single mom is often associated with such judgemental gems as: desperate for a man, down on her luck, liberal and indiscriminate libido, battered wife, or my personal loathsome fave, used goods.



The daily romance you have with your child/children, dispels those uninformed labels if you are brave enough to own it, I'm learning. Women feel like any/all of those things at one point or another. The fact that a kid is in the picture shouldn't be any ones business but your own, and those you choose to let into that world. It's sacred and it's a whole other person to consider. It's a thankless, dirty, lonely, heartwarming and heart wrenching job. It's a lifetime commitment.



Logan Scarlett, my daughter, is a dizzying blend of sugary, whip smart kewpie-doll and fearless, ferocious gladiator. In the same breath, she'll say, "I love you mama, you're berry beautiful" and as I bend down with tears in my eyes to hug her, "you're smelly, can you stand over there?". Her bright blue eyes pierce me and praise me.

She's not an Oscar, indie film cred, or a visual medium of self expression, but she's a truth serum and the biggest influence on both my Betty and Veronica I've ever had. A catalyst that keeps stirring my soul and challenging my comfort zone, inspiring growth and weeding out the negative. What a precious thing it is. Even if it makes me want to run screaming to Aruba on daily occasion. All is as it should to be, between a lioness and her cub. It's my job to make sure that's true everyday.



So for all those like me without a Dr. Spock to consult on being a modern single mama, and for the kiddos that all deserve the best mama they can get (a happy mama is a happy household, that ain't no joke), any comfort I can afford, I gladly do so. Symbiosis.


Unleash your own personal Riverdale of an outlet (whatever that may be) and hold your head high. Fight the good fight, and don't ever let the drama win.

Case By Case Cases

The well has been very dry, my friends. A couple months and a couple weeks dry. Any creative person can attest, sometimes you have to back off and live life. In blog terms locutionl has died and is now climbing back from time lapse purgatory...thank you to any who follow, and I hope the hiatus can be repaired.





I started to write on a couple things over the last month and a couple weeks...but alas, it was shit, and ultimately a mechanical response to the urgency a blog can incite, and that's bad. I don't ever want to go through the motions when it comes to writing, but I don't want to disappoint either. So here we are.





Part of the problem has been that I am not writing what I know completely...therefore I'm going to start a demi-blog (part journal part blog) to give a release to my real day job...more on that in the next entry.





The title of my comeback blog as it were, refers to my life in general. Well, the lack there of in generalities. There are so many loose ends right now...where's my next rent money coming from, where's the writing going, who's really in my corner, am a a gas bag or a valid voice of my generation? Is all the sacrifice effing worth it?


If I dare lumping all my experiences into a manageable stress wad of anecdote, there's generally (there's that word again) a consistent exception to the rule. "One day at a time" they say. Yeah, but what do you do for said 24 hours when there's nothing to do but wonder what your doing? "I get by with a little help from my friends" but if you have none in close proximity, how do they get you by and vice versa? "Believe and you shall receive" but when results are few and far between, how do you keep vigilant enough to change the tide?





I'm a positive person and I stand by all of those phrases I just listed...but not when it's in a blanket that covers all the telling details. "Case by case basis" is the new anecdote I adhere to the most. Especially in matters of the heart and all the crazy mess that comes along with it, you have to examine what it REALLY is and honestly try to fix it. Don't toss out a quick fix quote that really doesn't touch the real problem...use them if you've wrangled with the real issues and have no other avenue. They're most effective that way.





And when all else fails...Don't worry, be happy because, like attracts like. All's well that ends well.

Rom-ComDiculous

I've been on a chick flick binge lately, and with 70 percent of them, I'm sedately underwhelmed. I've thrown in oldies with newies (to me) and it's almost insulting how "number one movie in the country" romantic comedies present themselves these days. I watch to tread water when swimming for the medal wipes me out. It's comforting to have a happy ending that doesn't involve bumptious emotion or thought or technical assessment. Unfortunately, that's what I end up with. Musing, scrutinizing and emotions for other genres.



Men are obnoxious and clueless, and women are hyper-sensitive and clumsy, apparently. Like, ALL men and ALL women are that way, and they're not ashamed nor trying to bridge gaps to better the deals to be forged in the future. The leads in these movies are happy to be bumbling around re-heating old jokes to tepid and straining to have odd-defying chemistry with one another. Haven't we moved past that being an inside joke we chuckle at?



I can side step awkward dialogue or crappy plot if the couple at the core are plausible. I usually back up my opinion by citing examples, but I won't do that here (maybe the mush IS rubbing off). It's not really about trashing other people's work, I'm just blase about what's churned out. That's bad enough.



If I see one more pairing of a 25 year old ingenue and a 46 year old player that "inspires life changing revelation and growth" to the backdrop of played out Top 40 jams, I might spew into something bigger than a Dixie cup, Garth.



I'd love to see a gay couple that's strong and real and not dealing with "being gay" at the helm for a change. An interesting off beat single mom (that isn't beat down or quaintly out of touch) meet a guy that has issues with the whole kid thing but loves her enough to really try to learn. A married couple in their twilight years, rekindling their honeymoon days. No bullshittery or pandering cliches. REAL chemistry and emotional connection. Then again, that might go against the nature of these little binges...I'd respect myself more in the morning though.



In times of dark chocolate truffle souffle a little Moon Pie ain't a bad thing. Even if the taste in your mouth is less than romantic afterward.

The Seven Year Niche

I can remember a time in my life when I longed for what I now have. Living near the beach, doing what I love to do, feeling intrinsically myself. About seven years ago, I embarked upon a journey that I envisioned being a hell of a lot different. But here I am, right where I'm supposed to be.

As I sit sipping Bud Light, enjoying the few hours lull before the week day starts again, I happen upon The Devil Wears Prada on FX. I've seen it before and Emily Blunt was the best part. Don't get me started on Anne Hathaway. Anyway, the premise is what clicked in my brain. The message this time around being: no matter how many hoops one tells you to jump through, the hoops you set for yourself are the hardest, and so why jump for anyone else?

No matter how hard the days get pursuing my own ever evolving dream...feeling disconnected from friends and family scattered throughout the country, scraping by on whatever money there is at the moment, trying to pick my tear and snot stained face off the floor and keep pushing on...the day it all breaks into prosperous fruition is what I do it for. Well, that and seeing how it unfolds...I love a good drama, it's true.

I'm truly thankful for my life, and I'm proud of all the effed up crazy I deal with all the time. It could always be worse...I could be working a job that I hate, waking up to mediocrity and falling asleep to the same. I've said it many times before, I'll say it many times again, no doubt. It's taken me years to realize fully, but I'm so glad to be right here, in this moment. In California, writing what's in my heart, feeling like I'm part of the world. And an important part at that, because there's no other Lola like me out there.

If it takes another seven years for me to see the crescendo to all this, so be it. It's been said that in these dramatic times economically, mentally, emotionally....one has a great opportunity to carve out a niche. Boy am I glad I have a leg up on that shit. And cheers to those of you in the same boat or plotting a course to be in said boat...Let's carve this bad boy like a Thanksgiving Day bird.

Oh, and P.S...for all of you Daisy of Love-ers...my money is on Dave-er-12 Pack. My heart is with Flex though. That accent kills me and the guy liner is working for me. Rrrawr with a side of bawm chicka bawmbawm.

Imagineering and Filmisizing

The battle between books and books on film rages on. I don't know if others take the debate as much to heart as I do, but I do know that I've heard the phrase "The book was SO much better" a lot more than the inverse. Sensual experience versus a quiet personal retreat.
In the last couple years a few of my favorite books/stories have made their way to the visual mediums and my initial reactions are always less than excited, honestly.

I just started the book Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie for the fifth time. I don't jive with the cliches of girly lit usually (when you're a book club member 3 fold you get a few random choices) but this one has frank, funny, fleshed out characters you care about, characters that I've received comfort and laughter and tears through periodically for years.I'd be a little disheartened to see a film version in the works for that very reason. These people have been intimately emblazoned on my brain, and it's too tricky a challenge for human folks to embody that to the same degree. Vivid imagination doesn't want to be told what it "should" do when it already does.

I'm a long time fan of the Charlene Harris novels that are now the series True Blood on HBO. Even if the show is well made and the supporting cast is well worth the watch, the two leads are not (and that's kind of the whole crux of the story). The dirty southern atmosphere is well mimicked but not as lush and enchanting as the one in my mind. The forthcoming movie based on Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta character is cringe worthy, even with Angelina Jolie attached. And that's tough to say. Dr. Scarpetta is a unique bad ass/basket case hybrid and I know Angie can do it well, but my inner tuning rod is already set for another lady. One that exists for me exclusively. One that I (as juvenile as it sounds) look up to. Big pretend shoes to fill.


The beauty of a book is that your perspective changes as you grow, mature, age. Every re-read is a testament to your life experience, the story speaking to you accordingly. Film is not the the re-examination but rather the reminiscing of what, who and how life was when you saw it in an exquisite nostalgic way. But it's not a boundless entity like your mind...it has parameters and lighting and structures that are fathomable. Still beautiful heralded art. But static.

It's almost impossible to try and blend the two, no matter how close the race is. Fight Club, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and Trainspotting are among my favorite movies, but I've yet to read the books behind them. As is the way of the world, all things happen for a reason-maybe those moving, entertaining films wouldn't have had such an impact if my mental multi-plex had gotten a hold first, and vice versa. Perhaps that's the key. Keep the two realms separate and you won't have to try and meld one into the other, get disappointed or confused when they won't. If a book has a lot of meaning for you, don't venture out of that for curiosity sake. Let those who want that version have it their way. Make like Burger King.

Internally or externally...a good story is a good story. In our infinite technological capabilities, one day we will be able to capture the thoughts and characters in our heads as we read and be able to trade/compare them with one another in a giant orgy of telepathic projecting,...now THAT would be the perfect marriage of page and screen. And well worth the price of admission.

Homo Erectus Defect Us

I love men a whole bunch. We femmes are from another planet than the males, but what we do together is beautiful and heartwrenching and confusing. We get caught up in the timeless trappings of the tail chasing man and the money/status hungry female all too often, and the simplistic awesomeness of sex gets lost a bit. I had NO idea how dillegently science has been working out the finer points of how deep rooted those male and female niches are, however.





Flipping through quite a few dull choices on t.v. recently, I settled on a show called "The Science of Sex Appeal" on TLC. I half expected it to be all clinical-y and something I could pseudo-watch while I conducted some internet research (hey, trolling D-Listed is research)...boy howdy, was I wrong. It's not front page shocking neccissarily, but it's f-f-fascinating. That's right, stutter worthy. I can't possibly do all the information justice, nor would I try...if you happen across it, watch it, that's all. Here are a few key points that hit me like a ton of enlightening bricks for various reasons:





Symmetry is what we are most allured by: Because it means strong genes, and that means healthy children. Women look at the face, then to the broadness of shoulders. Men look at the face and then the curvature of hips. Insert metaphors here.





Women have a "scent detector" for potential mates: When we ovulate, we are more attracted to the male musk, and any odor that comes from our own bloodline is like sewer water, because it means the young ones will be deficient in some way. Everyone has a unique and exclusive genetic scent that we can tell subconsciously if it will mean good or bad baby making. She's just not that into your genes.





Monogomy is mental-ish: Men and women have Oxytonin present when in committed relationships that may account for the long term, and a chemical called Vasopressin that was once related to organ function and water retention has been found present in similar ways. In essence you crave the other person, prolonged infatuation. No matter how cute they are in their pjs, that's the scientific culprit.





Women want competition for their eggs: And again, it's to make sure they have the top dog alpha male to mate with. A study was held to see which females put out the vibe most while out with the girls, and it was the taken ones. And the more flirting we do, the more testosterone men produce. Hello, bar fights.





Men literally can't think when vaginas are in the equation: A group of men were asked to rate average looking females when low levels of vaginal secretions were being filtered to them, with picky results and then asked to do the same with high levels, and they couldn't distinguish between yays and nays at all. (Women are picky and men are NOT for equally fundamental reasons)





It all started when we stood up: According to the evolutionary theories, as soon as the humans stood upright, and women had to carry their young in their arms and not on their backs...they needed someone to provide and protect. So therein the gender roles were born. And haven't died since.





With each layer of findings they showed, I was both liberated and felt an impending sense of doom all at once. IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE. Opposites attracting (the more diverse the genes, the more impressive the kid), getting jilted for a seemingly lesser specimen (it's a chemical connection and nothing else perhaps), if you're spoken for, you're now hot property (competition for the bigger better deal on both ends) ...it's all primal and completely out of our control. So why torture ourselves?





I sat there thinking, what a double edged sword it is that no matter how many cross your path that are really good guys/girls and you "should" give them a chance, your biology won't let you go there. They just don't have "it". And the "it" isn't negotiable, as you were born with the selective matchmaker DNA that's the final say. The sword is wielded again with the thought that we really are cemented in the footsteps of our ancestors, despite centuries of painstaking leaps to leave them far behind and diferentiate. And that no matter how messed up your choice of partner seems to be, on some wavelength it's all systems go, and that's what keeps you in an otherwise toxic relationship. Holy Hannah Montana. We're just here to propogate the species. All the other shenanigans are irrelivent. Scientific proof.





Like I said before, it's not all that earth shattering, as we've known how us girls are into the paycheck and protection, and men are into another distinct p-word. To hear scientific proof to that effect is so boggling for me....countless drunken cry-fests stemming from "WHY GOD! WHY?!?" when it doesn't work out, endless dates that end in dissapointment, the "accidental" conception of a child. I feel comfortingly duped, almost. Like nature has been laughing at us in our dramatic little plight of inane, when all we're doing is ferreting out the best possible humans to carry the torch. Romance isn't neccissary.





At the end-spoiler alert-one of the doctors stated that people have voiced the same outrage to her that we're not the masters of our own relations and relationships and they wanted her thoughts...she said what we have right along with all the other mammals that pair bond or don't (or throw feces for that matter) is choice. We choose to be with who we want to, or not for whatever complex reason. I agree, even if I'm still a bit perplexed...all our fancy advances haven't been for naught, as they're what we do between mating, and they either complicate, fascilitate or distract from the sex area. If we DID follow nothing but instinct, I think the world would be alot more X rated and overpopulated, and the bonding between all other humans that aren't our alpha male/female...those wouldn't be there at all maybe. I have a few I'd like to keep around.





So after many gaskets in my head were blown and then fused back in stronger working order...turns out, we ARE evolved. Even if the resoning behind sexy times are the same as they ever were (but hey, keep primal where it belongs, I spose). I'm happy to split the difference. Romance, in every sense of the word isn't a futile or inane drama. It's what keeps us upright from the rest of the mammals.



I'm glad we stood up, even if it means we get knocked down to the ground by the very thing we stood up for, on occasion.

The Choose Your Own Adventure Fairy

There aren't many living, viable links between our past, present and future outside of ourselves and the loved ones we accumulate. Choices we make are of the few, however.


I fell ass over tits into the woulda-shoulda-couldas a couple weeks back, and I'm just now making my way back to sanity and/or serenity. Thinking along those lines equals time-wasting negativity, and a little bastard named regret. I'm not a fan. That term implies you had a road to pick and you botched it in some way. You can't really botch a road unless you paved it, if you catch my breeze. Regret implies that, in essence, you're doomed to carry around the burden of an enacted theory that didn't pan out ideally (usually in the far off lands of Hindsight and Retrospect), and it's kind of a cop-out. If one tends to stick by any decision and embrace the resulting person thereof...you get the picture.



Wouldn't it be rad though, if you had a wise, motherly pixie to show up and grant you a glimpse at the alternatives you declined, to re-affirm the road you did travel? She'd materialize (a Regina King/Glenda the Good Witch/Cindi Lauper in her heyday hybrid) and say, "Don't you worry, darlin'. Let's take a lighthearted look and see what else might have happened. Then it will be better, because you'll know and knowing is half the battle, right?" And you'd be all, "Thanks...you rock. LOAD off my mind! Can I have a cookie too?" There's no doubt she'd be packin' some fresh-from-the-oven Snickerdoodles. They're the most nostalgic cookie. it's true.






Life is a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book, I think. The main plot points that need to be will, but how you get there is up to you. There's no reason to cry over spilt milk, or how it was spilled. What the glass looked like. Soy, Chocolate or Banana. Doesn't matter. Even if it seems really important to figure it all out, you're better off just letting it go. Bottom line is try not to spill at all, folks. You're magic cookies won't taste as good without it.



Wait...what?