The Annointed Fig

Yesterday, was the first time I actually got to BE a producer. Funny. I considered myself one for a couple of months, never stopping to marvel at a stroke of luck.

And I think I had done surprisingly well, considering my abysmal lack of experience. No, not abysmal. Not sure the linguists among us would agree, but to me, abysmal implies there is something in my past that’s bad — yet existent. Not so. As relevant experiences went, I was a writer. But I swam right along. Sometimes, you just get in the groove — and do good. Call it…erm, a calling?

Yep, here's hopping!

But talking up celebs and prospective business partners was easy. Nothing but money and contacts in the game, and unless you are the late acting head of Freddie Mac (he’d recently committed suicide, if anyone had missed that cheerful tidbit), you don’t take these kinds of things but with a grain (or even a bucket) of salt.

But, boy…creation?

What can I say, in the past couple of days, it truly came home to roost how everyone does not — and should not — go automatically along with your vision, and pushing what YOU think is the Jesus fish of it all means stepping on the toes you not only respect, but are, quite frankly, intimidated by to a certain extent.

Let me just say, it wasn’t easy. And getting a final product I believe IS heck of a lot better than the sum of everyone’s contributed parts, a project anyone can live with and hopefully send along to their online buddies… Somehow, it didn’t make me happy. Rather, it did. It, also, made me sad. And relieved. And humbled. And mildly scalded, as though through a baptismal by fire. And a gamut of things in between. Well, why not?

I am not sure if I am an assertive person. Whenever I say something, I constantly look back and ask myself, did I hurt this person? Could I have conveyed my point across in other ways?

But what can you do if the point IS going to justifiably piss off your collaborators? Bringing to fruition an artistic vision, which I can attest to myself, is an intensely personal and very heartfelt process. And here, I come in, demanding my version of perfection. There are many truths. What gives me the right to think mine is the one with an inherent right to see the light of day?

And then, it all comes back to the title. To the one man trusting me enough to get me to a point where my words have now the weight to be the rock to another’s scissors (or however that analogy goes, I was never entirely clear on the game). And with that comes the responsibility to be judicious with my feelings. These are mine, and boy, do I have to be careful inflicting them on anyone. No more an impartial observer or a cog in someone’s wheel, I am one of those winding the clockwork, and I very, very much value every part making our great, exciting, revolutionary nose-thumb at Big Ben.

I think a great take-home lesson to me was: careful, CAREFUL preparation. A lot of talking, ironing out every little tidbit beforehand — and then, through the editing process. Put that way, every project is not unlike getting married, though with – HOPEFULLY – less lawyers and governmental intrusion involved.

We each have our unique thoughts, and temperaments, and experiences, and visions, and I would be a fool to trust that people would easily, smoothly see eye to eye when something so important, yet ephemeral is being carved out of ether and an HD tape. Perhaps, it might have been easier had we all been telepathic and foregone the imperfect medium that is speech to convey where each one of us is coming from.

But we are not, and to tell you the truth, it is probably good for our peace of mind — and, certainly, for that incomparable sensation of getting on our own high horse.

Which brings me back to talking things out. And knowing that once I’m granted power to veto or add to or subtract something, the very first thing I should do is step away from myself and view it with an impartial eye. The final product is a child raised by a village, but those that are ultimately going to judge it don’t even know that little hamlet’s zip code. At least, not yet — but, perhaps, soon enough, once Libretto Dreams succeeds at its intended purpose.

Hardly following the straight and narrow -- as promised.

I will now approach everything armed with this understanding and hope that the next project sure to follow the success of this first (even at my most introspective, turns out I am an optimist) will be a sail if not smooth, then marred far less with the learning pains of this first.

And I want to thank everyone who has come together and who had donated so generously of their time, and energy, and talent to create Lombardi Street’s very first video piece. It is now being polished and will soon be made public.

I anticipate there will be those that might not find it to their liking, but on the whole, I want to think we have done the best we can. And, frankly, that it is damn GOLDEN stuff!

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January 20th.  It was a quiet afternoon, as most afternoons in Louisville, KY are.  Of course, this one was special.

Because a few hundred miles away in a city that is never quiet — where the wheeling and the dealing are known to go long LONG into the night, and the paperwork keeps churning like butter — the noise pollution was such that day, it resonated in Louisville, and L.A., and Berlin, and even Kenya — whose native grandson has just put down his fork after his triumphant and very public first official luncheon.

Damn straight, sparky!

Before which came the equally triumphant Inaugural speech.

Now, I am sure there have been better speeches.  There might be better ones on all those January 20ths to come.

But for me, it was this speech that struck…something.  Something that gave me the nudge I needed to decide to reach for the stars.  Which we all needed to do, caught in the double helix of global recession and unrest.

I am a writer, but before that day…no, not that I was content to hold on to my day job.  It is more, I knew what I was doing, and, depending on whom you ask, the comfort of utter surety as to what tomorrow will bring is the prize all its own.

So, I kept polishing my book, and amassing suggestions, and reviews, and cautiously treading the water — and waiting.  In retrospect, I had been waiting for our new President’s Inauguration Day.

Apparently, I needed him to tell me to get off my ass and do something.  And if that something involved getting myself out there, well, hello world, The Annointed Fig: Metamorphoses is born!

But that wasn’t enough, not after that speech.  So, I decided to really take the bull by the horns — which, among other things, meant going and actually vying for a screenwriter-ship at one promising new venture, to which I had previously signed up, but had been too busy — and too chicken — to participate in.  And, so I used to tell myself, too realistic.

With zero screenwriting experience to my name, which I have since come to understand is an entirely different kettle of fish from prose, what in the world possessed me to think I was going to win a show-writer’s gig?  Why, President Obama, of course!

So, Mr. Antony van Zyl, the fearless leader and the mastermind behind Lombardi Street, that promising new venture that now has me haunting its site, has only his own former neighbor to blame for practically siccing me on him.

Because Lombardi Street, just like President Obama’s message, is addictive.  In our jaded day and age, the true promise of change, of revolution, is something as rare as the glimpse of an albino elephant.  And Lombardi Street, in a nutshell a full-length serialized college-based drama intended to run on both regular TV and the net (including video sites, blogs, and virtual worlds like Second Life), serves up said revolution in spades with its unique approach to scripted reality — a merging between fictional lives of those hailing from the all too real Happy Camp, CA; Lowell, MA; Midland, TX, San Francisco; Bemidji, MN and those of us actually living in, coming to, escaping these places.

Recently taken to welcoming the unwary with an offered selection of…you guessed it, the Beatles “Revolution” blaring off its front page — no, you don’t HAVE to listen — the L-Street actively practices what it has began to preach in early January.

It throws open the hallowed Hollywood doors to anyone smart and talented and determined enough to enter, and it does so through a series of contests or tasks the entrants are invited to participate in.  After all, shouldn’t there be tangible proof that you are not just wanting to reap the benefits, you YOURSELF are ready to be a part of the revolution?

In my particular case, it had been writing, as it has been for many.  Making a living AND showing off before the adoring public, we writers are not much different from artists, actors, graphic designers.  Of whom there are also hundreds on the site; we’re a multinational, multitalented, multidimensional Hydra.

Farm girls from Iowa set on becoming the next Meryl Streep; skit writers from Sweden inspired to create their answer to the SNL; dedicated community organizers staying up into the wee hours of the morning to help everyone from across the globe settle in, answer questions; talented grad students from India wanting a break; fantastic indie directors bringing their prize-winning expertise to bear teaching and writing; guerrilla advertising professionals promoting something they actually believe in instead of whoring themselves out to their highest bidder; hairstylists giving songwriting a chance; animal trainers giving assistant directorship a stab; even a billionaire tempted to try out for our ambitious marketing campaign.

"Never Follow the Straight and Narrow"

We’re all here, and we are building something great, something we see taking shape before our very eyes, something we can take pride in not for just an eventual payoff (which, let’s face it, who would say no to?), but because it is heck of a lot more ours than anything we join that is already so entrenched, that it has forgotten its roots.

As a friend I met through Lombardi Street has said, the entire concept is practically everyone’s unrealized dream.  Yes, it may sound too good to be true, but didn’t President Obama’s message do so when he started running?

He felt he needed to revolutionize the election, the country, the whole shebang.  Lombardi is fighting tooth and nail to accomplish the very same for the insular world of entertainment.

No need for studio heads, managers, underhanded distribution deals, that fabled Hollywood meritocracy that has been a pipe dream of many — who ended up settling into becoming teachers, scientists, programmers, housewives, bankers, firefighters, doctors.  Great things all to have done with a life, but for those of us wanting our chance at a place, in whatever capacity, in the light of the tungsten lamps?  Ultimately unfulfilling.

And it is powered by those of us who have chosen to take the reins into our own hands, those that Lombardi Street is rushing towards filming its pilot.  Slated to start airing September 23, 2009, the show is finally taking shape, and based on the cautious response, we are doing quite a few things right.

Lombardi will entertain, it will hopefully engross, it will employ dozens of people, it will introduce new directions in pull- and cause-based advertising to replace the invasive traditional means — and it will unequivocally demonstrate the validity of Mr. Obama’s message.

In a truly democratic society such as the one Mr. Van Zyl envisioned, spurred, no doubt, by example of the former Senator from his home state of Illinois, if you get off your ass, you CAN make something of yourself.  Even if that something happens to be in politics — or filmmaking, the mediums so often associated with the very worst excesses of cronyism and the dreaded casting couch.  Who knows, you might even change the world in the process!

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See, I have this friend…

Boy, after “it was a dark and stormy night”, this has got to be the most overused line on the planet.  And nonetheless, there ARE stormy nights — and there actually ARE genuine friends with genuine problems.

FBI'S Most Wanted: Considered Stinky and Dangerous. Feed Slops On Sight!

Like my friend, for instance, that I will call Jane Doe — to protect the guilty, in this instance.

Now, by all accounts, Jane is tops at what she does.  She is funny, loyal, happily married.  And she needs money.  Well, who does not?  Unfortunately, neo-con claims regarding the new administration notwithstanding, this ain’t socialism yet.

To finish setting up the stage, Jane is a hairdresser.  And apparently, not many stylists get paid a guaranteed salary these days.  Like Jane tells me, “50% commission off of northing’s still nothing”.

Not too long ago (certainly, less than the trial 90 days), Jane has found a new job.  Not a Paul Mitchell salon (those of its ilk incidentally requiring an unpaid internship BEFORE initiating the same generous 50% commission agreement), but a nice enough place with a steady non-commission paycheck.  “Not many of them,” says Jane.  “Most stylists are staying put.”

Which Jane would have loved to do — and is still doing (minus the loving) – if not for the crude, rude, slovenly, thankless, talentless piece of cow dung that had a good fortune to come from the same country as the salon’s owners.  Now, apparently, the gentleman (and I do apologize for so abusing the term) had been marginally more tolerable before his divorce (scuttlebutt says he was altogether responsible for) has become finalized last year.  Upon which, the man has really fell off that “civilized behavior” bandwagon.

A man, whose customers rarely come back, who doesn’t even take pride in his work has an unmitigated gall to yell at the lady stylists trying to help him.  He steals their food.  Berates them.  Skirts the edges of sexual harassment.  Demands the women scrub the john — and clean up after him once he’s done abusing his customers’ hairdos.

From what my friend tells me, it’s gotten to the point where she’s considering calling in sick the day she needs to spend more than a few minutes in the company of this singular representative of the male species (working with others, and being a daughter and wife to two more, I can with all surety say he’s altogether NOT a representative of the entire gender).  But what he lacks in company, he certainly makes up in virulence of his behavior.  Supposedly unable to even fathom what he’s doing wrong — yet consistently ignoring all attempts to correct his NUMEROUS faux pas, he has singlehandedly managed to make even a manager’s life a fun slice of hell.  Need I clarify she’s also a woman?

The problem, Jane explains, is that the owners, confronted by their female employees wanting recourse from the incessant abuse, blithely suggest they shake his hand.  Really, they shrug, he isn’t doing anything wrong.

To my suggestion the lady stylists get the regulars to complain about his shoddy work and unpleasant environment in the salon, courtesy of theirs truly, Jane gathered some people had.  Considering, the donkey’s uncle is still around, the customer is king — just not at that particular venue.

That said, guys, I’m open to advice.  I really wish I had something to pass along to Jane.  All of mine thus far fell through: the women are afraid to lose their jobs.  Economy being as it is, I can see why.  They don’t know if they should go to the police.  Deliberately sabotaging him doesn’t seem like a safe — or kosher thing to do.  And befriending him, after many years that he has been spiffying up the joint seems both transparent — and stomach-churning.

Anything else?  Anyone?  Jane and I could use some creative thinking!

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I am Lisa Gus, and I am a writer.  And medical researcher.  And a TV viewer — at least, I had been, back before adding a little mommy hat to my haberdashery shelf.  What I am NOT is a producer.  Had anyone asked me less than 2 months ago, I would have said I am the furthest thing from.  Well, I might have had a good laugh.  But no one asked.  Because the very idea would have been crazy.

Producer? Nah, I'm just acting the part!

What changed?

I’m blaming Lombardi!  Or Craigslist. I am flexible that way.  Let me clarify.

Lombardi Street is a social network (built on Ning.com, and boy, don’t get me started – the preceding in an exceptionally uncomplimentary way, though one not altogether deserved), a social experiment on making your own television future — and a full-length scripted serialized drama intended to reach its fans via network television, internet broadcasting, and virtual worlds the likes of Second Life.

Now, in January, cruising the Craigslist writer’s jobs section, I came across a tantalizing invite to become a screenwriter for this democratic new show, and though my screenwriting experience hovered at the time…oh, between zero and none, I didn’t let a minor thing like that stop me.

Since I don’t want to turn this into even a first tome of War and Peace, I won’t bore you with the details of writing trials I had to pass, of struggling with an unfamiliar format, of sleepless nights thinking up story arcs — take out “screen”, and it wasn’t all that dissimilar to a normal writing class, though with certain additional pitfalls.  Let’s just say, it’s been fun.

And let’s just say I did not make the cut — though the show creator recognized my ideas, my lack of screenwriting experience proclaimed itself from every benighted rooftop.

What followed was a bad couple of days.  I have become invested in my characters, my story arcs — and even more, the very concept.  You sign up, you show yourself — and the job is yours, complete with a cushy WGA-standards check and a writer’s credit.

Having practically held both in my hand — I made it through to the very last round — yeah, who likes losing?

Only I didn’t — lose, that is.  Funny how it happens.  The Lombardi Power That Be offered me a PR post.  And soon after — I still had had to prove myself — I clawed my way through to producer.

Some of it was determination.  Some of it  – sheer unwillingness to write copy espousing the wonders of someone else’s work.  And some…well, I guess our founder recognizes talent when he sees one.  Hey, kidding, kidding…

So, behold, yours truly, a producer — one with creative powers I don’t quite have time to exercise.  And I am loving every hectic minute of it.

Because hectic is what this is turning out to be — especially once I found out just what our founder has been going through and what sort of decision he was being forced into.

The very idea behind Lombardi is straight up “You Play, and If It’s Good, We Pay”, and considering the Internet is the very definition of a communal playground in the best of its Web 2.0-going-on-3.0 format, any sort of an under the table deal with a big time entertainment industry-entrenched sponsor is an anathema.  And yet, though this has always been both explicitly and implicitly understood, such a deal was offered — and once rejected, the financing was yanked right from under us, leaving people who won the paid positions having to reevaluate their commitment to LS and our founder, who had already sank personal funds into the production with the expectation of recouping his losses once the show went on the air, scrambling for a less incestuous form of financing.

Considering I am there to help him along, I am sure he will succeed.  Oh, come on, I am STILL kidding.

But, seriously, it is that kind of attitude that prevents the new DNA from sullying the muddy gene pool of Hollywood backrooms.

These days, for a beginning show creator, only the BBC (and that, on a limited basis) is not to say a guaranteed venue, but at least, not a guaranteed dead end)  is keeping its doors cautiously ajar.  For Hollywood, this has been a practice long dead and gone, so commonplace it is now an unwritten rule: years and years of entrenching yourself in the industry — that or turning up on the scene with impressively deep pockets.  Because like someone smart to whom I recently spoke remarked, “music touches the heads, but money changes the minds”.

Quite an exalted company, you know!

Well, I won’t pretend we have deep pockets — and Hollywood insiders?  Ha!  To paraphrase Mark Twain, “we don’t want to be members of a club that WOULDN’T have us as members”.  But we are working on rectifying the first.  I can even say, we’re succeeding.  If anyone’s interested, I will be back with updates.  We’ll be meeting some unprincipled S.O.B.’s along the way, but guess what, besides becoming a producer, I am learning I may be more of an optimist than I thought.  I firmly think we’ll also be meeting folks with a social credit score a LOT higher than 18.

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Don’t know why I am all about the recollections today.  Not even my own recollections…

They Just Put the Aww in Awesome!

This is a story related to me by mom, but I think it is just as relevant today, as it had been then. And the outcome — well, you tell me?

Marina was a star student. Funny, smart. Not a cheerleader material, she was a little too studious to fit right in — but if she wanted to, she could have.

Bit of a late bloomer, but towards the end of 9th grade, all the prerequisites were there: blond tresses, statuesque, toned, the laugh that could charm a tail off a donkey.

She was slated to graduate with top honors and go…well, who knew? Her best subject was math, but the rest weren’t far behind.

Now, interestingly enough, a lot of kids did well in math in mom’s school. No, nothing in the water the government put in to artificially raise IQs. Simply, there was a teacher in the upper classes that was… You know, how they say, when you can’t do, teach? Well, he could — he just CHOSE to teach, because that’s where his heart lay.

He had been married once, quietly divorced, no kids, and he was slowly rolling towards the late side of of 40’s. Bachelorhood didn’t sit badly on him. It was what it was, and he was a stoic. He was, basically, a teacher you never feared, though, mom said, when he did make cutting remarks — entirely for not APPLYING oneself, not for messing up where he could tell one was genuinely trying — he put Simon Cowell to shame. His wit stung, but his easygoing nature immediately soothed.

Towards the December of her last year of school, Marina developed what was initially thought of as senioritis. Well, why not? She had been long overdue. She mercilessly cut classes. Came in looking like she JUST dragged herself out of a wild part-ay. And though her grades remained stellar as could be, her volleyball skills and actual participation took a decided nose dive.

The thunder struck after the winter break. She never came back from her vacation. The principal was canned. If parents weren’t gunning for his ass, it’s only because they concentrated their attention on the equally dismissed (with EXTREME prejudice) bachelor math teacher.

That is to say, not so bachelor any more. Or, at least, not a very lonely one.

Did you guess where this was going? In the mid 60’s in a rather repressed society, it must be said?

Yep. Sexual harassment. Inequity. Sin. Teen pregnancy. Everything from rape to child molestation to…well, you name it.

The school board instituted draconian laws. Every teacher who even looked at a student with anything less than a scowl would have been put before an Inquisitor had it managed to raise one from the dead. The principal, a hero of WWII, well, he did find a job. If my mom knew right, supervising something vaguely zoo-related. Nope, not kidding.

The teacher? Well, he was never to work again, not in anything remotely profession-related. His victim just turned 18, so, no criminal charges were brought to bear. However, if a society like the one mom described, being blacklisted was a lot worse than not being invited to the better parties.

But did he end up regretting this? I don’t know. Something tells me, if he did, it wasn’t at all for the reasons his detractors suggested.

Because Marina put her foot down and married the man. And though abortion was legal until the end of 5th month at the time, she had decided to bear her baby. By all accounts, she had been happy as a lark. She, at least, never did have cause to regret her decision.

Neither the cause nor the time. Something turned horribly wrong during labor. Among students, the rumors had been rampant whatever the problem was, it had been man-made.

Mom didn’t think so. Her father had been a doctor acquainted with Marina’s ObGyn. He told mom the man, an upstanding man and a competent physician to the best of my grandfather’s knowledge, never said anything of even being pressured into anything illegal.

Things happen. Occasionally, horrible things. Marina’s death happened to be one of those.

The child lived, a healthy little girl. Her father named her Marina.

Her grandparents tried to take the baby away on the pretext of her father’s amoral behavior, and the disgraced teacher bundled his little girl up and one day, left the city. He hadn’t really crossed the law, so, there had been no APB, no road cross points.

What became of the family, my mom hadn’t known. At least, not for a good long time.

But decades later, she’d met this beautiful young woman many-many plane miles away, that was the mirror image of her high school classmate. The girl had been accepting a prestigious applied mathematics award and she had thanked her father, passed away a few years since, for working his butt off, taking the multiple low-paying jobs to get them by — and yet, always finding the time to spend with her and pass on everything he knew himself.

Married already, she had her handsome young husband’s — a colleague of hers — last name, and mom never came to her and asked what had been her maiden. But she had chosen to believe this had been the same Marina.

So, that’s it. Like I said, I haven’t a clue to to how to categorize the ending.

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I am not originally from the US. I was 13 when I came here.

I went to high school on the third day since having arrived. It was a Tuesday, September 7th, as I remember.

Now why didn't we have it in my school?

I didn’t speak a word of English other than “hi”, and knew the Latin alphabet only as far as it pertained to German. I wore a braid, thick glasses (especially, left lens — from having gotten a sizable chunk of glue in my eye when I was 6), and had been ridiculously traumatized from nearly having had my beloved pet lost by Delta Airlines.

We got to Louisville from New York by way of Cincinnati, and it was there when we were changing planes that Delta in its infinite wisdom forgot the specialized cage it made us, immigrants with practically zilch to our names, buy in NYC to transport our beast, a petite Siamese cat who (also, per airline specs) hasn’t been fed for 3 days to prevent erm…accidents.

If only Delta was quite so conscientious with its live cargo once it was all properly packaged!

Do I sound bitter? If I do, I have reason to be – though just as much of one is for me to feel grateful. Or, at least, touched.

Because, you see, we flew in on the red eye. There would not have been another flight from Cinnci until around 11 AM the next day.

So, guess what Delta did? Of course, that was LOOOOONG before their current crisis.

Yep, they actually sent a separate flight just for my kitty, picked her up – and gave her to me 90 or so minutes after grudgingly admitting they made a boo-boo. Talk about customer service!

I am happy to report for the animal lovers among us, Masha is with me and adding a very assertive meow to the thought of pets having to travel cargo.

Very much one of my soapbox topics this may be, but it really isn’t the subject of this particular post. Mainly, it’s here to establish the mental state of the subject, as they say in legalese.

Which, lemme tell you, was about -15 on the scale of 1 to 10.

Add to that not having gone to the bathroom for 6 hours straight on that first day for the simple reason I didn’t know where I was to *go* (neither the schedule of classes nor my Vietnamese and/or English speaking full-time guide from the English Second Language program didn’t think to incorporate this little activity into the roster), and well, sufficing to say, I wasn’t a happy puppy.

Sixth period for that puppy happened to be, in fact, ESL – and that’s…no, it actually hasn’t been the time I finally got to answer the call of nature.

But it had been very much the time when I fell in love – my first. In the US, anyhow.

Because in my ESL class was, among the kids from the former USSR, a young man, 4 years my senior. He was placed as a junior and he spoke English (however, one may speak a language one didn’t care to really study in their homeland and only had a chance to polish up among the native speakers in the last…wait for it, two weeks).

Still, he spoke it, and he was tall, and he wore the name of my favorite character from my favorite Dickens’ book, and he had the most marvelous stock of Russian profanities – they are the best in the world, I’ll have you know. Linguists agree. AND he was the one who actually not only thought to inquire after the bathroom thing – but along with another boy, took it upon himself to walk me to the bathroom.

So, imagine if you will, bladder bursting, tears threatening, heart pitter-pattering somewhere in the region of your toes – and being marched to the loo under a convoy of not one, but two handsome older guys, one of whom, you immediately decide, is going to be the father of your future children.

Oh, and did you imagine you are a shy, perfectly traumatized bookworm?

You did?

What did the imaginary you do? Taken advantage of the young men’s generosity? Politely thanked them and told them she just went? Or did she hightail it out of there and got lost and had had to have someone bring her in, loitering like a lost goat near the double doors of the cafeteria being scrubbed clean after that day’s lunch?

If you voted the unequivocal three – welcome to the club, hmm? But to paraphrase the undying words of Mark Twain, “Do I want to be a member of a club that would have me as a member?”

P.S. Fast-forward 17 years.

I am married to a guy with the name of my favorite character from my favorite Dickens’ book. We have a spectacular 14-month old.

He just isn’t the same guy.

P.P.S. Oh, and I managed to make it that time, bathroom-wise. As I usually do.

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Condoms.  How many of us use them?  How many have at one time?  How many abhor the rubbery smell?  The icky medicinal sensation of having to stop…whatever it is and get ourselves all “gloved” and proper?

Its time for change. Bud, can you break a dollar?

Admittedly, I speak for myself.  Done skillfully, just as easily is it a turn-on.  What can I say?  Some are lucky.

The point is, I have a right to choose.  And I have a more or less surefire way of protecting myself against pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, the, putting it bluntly, consequences of having to deal with being a sexually active, self-sustaining adult.  Escapism?  So, what!  Television, Internet, laden supermarkets.  Is that any less of an existence in an artificial bubble of what these days enjoying an advanced Kardashev Scale Type I civilization means?  Better be, if I am facing a nuclear holocaust, jobs easier than ever lost to cheap overseas labor, such devastating, yet formerly localized, plagues as Ebola catching an opportune plane ride!

Personally, I am married and ours is a comfortable relationship blessed with an awesome toddler.  We are not really trying to conceive, but would be overjoyed seeing a stick cough up another “plus” sign.

But I remember my high school health class, the very first delving — YES, it’s a very intentional pun — into human reproductive systems.  Every set of parents in my homeroom signed an affidavit permitting their sophomores to audit…horrors!…a subject matter that was not so much a popularization of sex (which, let’s face it, most 15-year olds have, at least, an idea about — if not yet one, put to practical use) as consequences of prematurely attempting to contribute to the global gene pool.  Every set of parents, that is, but one, and it is thanks to them  that a perfectly boring — and rather disgusting — class enjoyed a cachet of something sweet and illicit.

Because I, also, remember a petite all-American Honor Roll student who had had her desk moved all the way out into the hallway with the classroom door all but glued shut lest she be exposed to the intricacies of pulling an electric-blue condom onto a banana that towards the fifth period on a balmy April afternoon in a state sometimes called a “Gate to the American South”, achieved a quality that in a human model might, rather subversively, have called for a little blue pill.

Furtively glancing through a glass one-way insert in a handsome blond wooden door, a never-been kissed virgin, I used to ask myself, was she even more of one for not learning about gonorrhea, fetal alcohol syndrome, an uneasy trail of a spunky spermatozoon hurrying toward its female counterpart.

I still can’t tell you.  And no, this won’t turn into a cautionary tale of a naive teenager catching AIDS through her very first exploration of sexual identity through bouts of unprotected sex.  As far as I know, after graduating in the upper 10% of her class, she’s gone on to pharm school on a partial scholarship, and no, there was no telltale bulge under the watered silk of her prom gown.

What it WILL turn into is a rant against the reactionary stand of the Catholic Church.  Though not at all germane to the current topic, from my own pulpit, I am going to say that with the multiple abuses perpetuated under its don’t-ask-don’t-tell-no-really-keep-your-mouths-shut policies, the today’s Holy See has rather lost its moral high ground — and one that, even retained, STILL wouldn’t have given it a leg to stand on while preaching (literally, in this case) on condoms not making a dent in skyrocketing infection rate in populaces as badly hit as those of most African nations.

With some members of its clergy involved in fine, commendable, often heroic work in the affected regions calling for the relaxation of Vatican’s draconian anti-contraception laws, on what possible scientific — or even, commonsensical — basis does its head continue to form policies liable to affect not thousands, but ultimately, millions of lives?

“You can’t resolve it with the distribution of condoms,” the Pope Benedict XVI told reporters aboard the Alitalia plane headed to Yaounde, Cameroon, where he will begin a seven-day pilgrimage on the continent. “On the contrary, it increases the problem.”

Does it, really?  Certainly, abstinence would do a far better job, but how realistic is it to expect no sexual intercourse outside of marriage, especially as we are evolutionary geared to quite the contrary behavior.  It has long been proven that extreme species-wide stress can lead to increased birth rates to make up for the high mortality rates of the offspring and the low median age.  In less scientific terms, the population is attempting to insure its own survival by having more kids to offset those, perishing due to unfavorable living conditions.

That being said, how does withholding the only means of preventing both conception AND the spread of disease in any way takes care of what is widely seen as an escalating problem?  In fact, how does granting free access to these means exacerbate the occurrence of AIDS?

Yes, my classmate has done quite well having been shielded from the dangers inherent in Sex Ed.  Whether she has done so through remaining “pure” until her “I do’s” to an equally untouched male partner or via finding a way of circumventing her parents precepts is hardly an issue.  She is only one person.  Even should the former be proven the case, there is another, equally individualized, one to offset it, that of Governor of Alaska’s teenage daughter, Bristol Palin.  In a recent interview, she paints a picture of abstinence as a failed method of solving the teen pregnancy epidemic.  Just as easily, her account may be applied to the spread of AIDS.

And that's an order!

Obviously, the fundamentalist stand of the church is based on what it sees as the violation of the basic rights of its unborn, in fact, not yet conceived flock.  But isn’t it time to start thinking of the rights of those already here — and denied the courtesy of making a guilt-free decision that might well save their lives?

Already the welfare of the Holy See as an entity in its own right has been placed over that of the kids violated and made to keep their peace to protect the offenders.  If any trust in the Catholic Church is to be renewed, it needs to look to its heretofore inviolate doctrines and adapt them to truly benefit those, looking to it for salvation.

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A light at the end of the tunnel

He bounced back faster than the veteran nurse on his floor expected, and they told him he’d be discharged in two, instead of three days.

In the evening of his first day, they pulled his catheter out.  And that’s when the fun part began.

The piss wouldn’t come.  Apparently, in newly catheterized men, it can happen.  He shouldn’t worry, all sorts out naturally, wouldn’t you know?  How would you feel, all blase?

He would stand over the pot, straining, and I would be listening through the heavy hospital door.  No cigar!  We tried the old hand in the warm water trick.  Nothing.  Enter a more direct application of water to the spout itself.  Not even close!  The poor guy drank like a Bedouin camel fresh from a Safari jaunt.  Not even a flicker of an idea anywhere below the belt.  He even took a shower, thought expressly forbidden, his cut-up knee sticking out over the rim.  Not a chance!

Fresh from his surgery, he spent the better part of the next 24 hours trying.  Who woulda thunk how much I would miss that little tinkling sound?  And in light of it sorta being my fault…

Discharged now, cue continued trying.  Then, straight cath to drain the bladder distended to what the home care nurse said was a good 72-hour output.  Straight cath meaning a quick in and out, the wham-bam-thank you, ma’am, if you’re into gory details.

More frigging trying.  More cath.  An emergency room.  A urologist visit.  Another ER trip.  A few uncertain drops making it out.  For volume measurement, piss being collected in the toilet brush bowl, one without a lid.  Did I mention the situation stank?

A permanent catheter put in to get the bladder down from where it got distended and now exhibiting the tendencies of a lazy relation mooching off a softhearted retiree.

Knee exercises a requirement at that point, they put a damn new meaning into jumping through hoops — or, at least, over a catheter leash.

Another trip to a urologist on the far side of town.  Catheter out (about time, it being 3 days).  De nada!  Zilch, for my non-Spanish speaking groupies.  A urologist visit.  Catheter in again, and hello, Thanksgiving weekend!  As you can imagine, a gravy boat-full to celebrate.  Or, rather, there was — a more portable, even more permanent catheter.  Stop by after the holidays, and enjoy your Flomax and turkey!  Your prostate is losing its youthful figure, but you don’t need a surgery, not yet, just check out this photograph obtained…yep, through more straight catherization.  The one immediately proceeding the permanent cath.

The man’s Thanksgiving came later.  6 days later, to be exact.  That very permanent catheter was out.

New batch of free-flowing piss started making it into a toilet brush bowl.  And the output left some to be desired.  But it was there, which yet another urologist visit proved via their benighted ultrasound.

And then, that sound resumed, the audible kind, the one I was actually missing (no, not a golden shower fan, thanks very much).  The melody of piss tinkling into a toilet bowl, hitting the water with a crystalline tone of a self-assured stream, the droplets drying on the black lacquer toilet seat into lemony polka dots.

I used to rage.  Used to demand the guy, at least, get the toilet seat UP, like a normal male persuasion pig, not splatter the thing.

I am doing it, again, on the eve of the man’s well-check urologist visit.  In fact, I will be doing it just as soon as I wash the seat clean and use it myself.  Well, I will as soon as he wakes up, because it is 2 in the AM, and I like my victim lively when I go all nuclear on their chauvinist ass.

Really? It's true?! Ooof, color me relieved!

But just then, for a few weeks following Thanksgiving, the man had a carte blanche.

And now, let me post-face.  This ain’t a Flomax commercial.  I’m not even sure that is what specifically helped.  But it was there, as were the urologist, the nurses, the concerned surgeon, the toilet brush bowl, the re-baptized seat, the catheters, the turkey, the…  Everyone, please, take a bow!

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My cat is 2.5 years old.  In cat years…let’s round it to 20.

Masha is a purebred.  Top of the line Traditional Siamese.  Seven generations of her ancestors have documented pedigrees.  Her mom’s a breed standard, check the Wiki.  And no, this isn’t a cat personals post — though considering she will soon be going back in heat…  Hmm, hold that thought.

Cattus Interruptus

But for now, where I was going is this.  She’s my baby — who will need to be bred.  It’s just good sense, healthwise.  But boy, am I not ready to be a grandmother!

Sure, there are youthful grandmas, but by and large, the stereotype is still the apple-crisp-baking church-going dog-walking Thanksgiving-feast-whipping Paula Dean (without the line of cookware to supplement her dwindling retirement income).  And that just doesn’t seem fair, not when we’re contemplating being measured against that particular yardstick.

Can we live up to it?  Will we?  Why, in our age of post-feminism, would anyone want to excel at something so…Christmas Carol?

And what about the 40, 36, 32-year old grandmothers?  Are they having it all?  Are we, as a culture, as individuals too used to our own Paula clones shrewdly sizing us up from inside flowerette-studded picture frames proclaiming, “Love, Grandma”?  Can we accept seeming youth (only to become more apparent as our lifespans increase) being mature enough to offer the young mothers of our generation the guidance they received from their own?

My own mom is 60, looks between 50 and 55, and nearly the day my son was born, she started calling herself “old woman”.  What do 40-year olds with children all of 13 begetting their own living dolls call themselves?  What would I, once Masha pushes out her kittens?  (Yes, I AM still contemplating that cat personals ad, don’t hurry me along, will you?!)  I asked her, but I’m still not sure how Mom is handling her new role — which has nothing to do with what my son calls her (Grandma, Mimi, Maman, Lisa – I never understood that fear of being named what you really are — doesn’t it STILL amount to the same thing? And no, my mom is perfectly OK with that part.), and has everything to do with how she sees herself.

I wonder, do we immediately assume a persona we feel is inherent to any role we take on — voluntarily (when we find a new job, get engaged, leave a bad marriage) or through no conscious action (get called to jury duty, drafted, canned, become grandparents)?  Are we so preconditioned to losing our sense of self that we must play to what we we see as everyone’s expectations?  Or is it our own?

And are these very expectations responsible for letting ourselves go?  Heeding unneeded advice?  Committing atrocities in what we think is the name of our country?  Our Lord?  And would either of those really want that?

Do we have to act in the certain way just because generations before us have?  But if we had, where would have all the progress come from?  And if we are able to shed preconceptions when it comes to literature, and medicine, and atomic bombs in place of chariot combat, then perhaps it just might be time to accept that we, as human species, as a civilization have changed sufficiently in the past handful of decades that we might start viewing ourselves through just ours, just today’s perceptions?

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• This Year Give the Gift of Personal Finance Education As "Black Friday" approaches, the personal finance blogosphere is exploding with ideas about where and how to find the best deals in holiday shopping.  So, Mr. ToughMoneyLove thought he would chime in with his own, slightly contrarian suggestions on how to shop for Christmas gifts this year. First, resolve to......
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• Do Your Parents Need Long Term Care Insurance? A few months ago I wrote about how finding out your parents financial situation can be stressful and I thought I would touch on that again now that my brother and I have been talking a little more about it. My mom is living off the savings that her and......

I am a mom.

Unlike a gaggle of my acquaintances, can’t say as I had wanted to become one since getting my very first doll, because by and large, I really didn’t like the critters.  They never laughed at my jokes, never participated in keeping the play area clean, and for sure, they didn’t make good storytellers.  They were a waste of puzzle-board-embroidery-gear-Lego-sets-fillable shelf space.  And they INEVITABLY got between my cohorts and I.

Taking care of business!

Not that I held anything against fellow braided, ponytailed, combed-to-within-an-inch-of-our-lives, uniform-sporting twits going googoo over the latest trend in Amish chic or streetwalker anonymous, courtesy of Mattel (read, the whole flock of girls born within the same couple of years in our condo complex, and no, it wasn’t anything flowing through the brand new pipes, just the reality of life, a newly built condo —> newly minted, fairly comfortable family moving in —> and the baby makes three, or four, or…well, you get the idea).

But man, why did the ENTIRE flock consistently opt out of bowling, and books, and hula hoops when there was a new doll to be mock-fed, and mock-changed, and mock-disciplined, and mock-put-to-bed under a canopy of flowering jasmine?!  I used to ask myself,  the concept of X chromosome and genetic memory and societal conditioning largely lost on even a most dedicated 7-year old bookworm, were girls born instinctively knowing for every Barbie, and Martha, and little Cab-bitch Patch creep, there’s supposed to be a little mommy out there begging for the privilege to get a leg on those chores grownups eked out a living out of — if little Molochs they were doing them for weren’t a result of their own failed contraception methods.  Masochism, a 7-year old bookworm would have said, but kudos for my parents’ criminal records, I wasn’t yet familiar with that term.

In the hot bone-dry months before my eighth birthday, I still hadn’t learned the meaning of the word, but I did find out there was something to be said for motherhood.  Hey, hey, minds out of the gutter, kids, I didn’t set any Guinness Book records.  No, I’m referring to the Summer of Baby, it a lifesize, heavy, realistically wrinkled, bald-headed infant-doll that swept my mind along with those of every self-disrespecting female in the city under the age of 12 and every carat of loose change out of Baby’s “grandparents”‘ wallets.  Those lucky “grandparents”: within days, Baby became the area’s most glaring shortfall, and if the makers only demanded an arm, the speculators charged an additional leg and swore they just beggared themselves extending the discount.

Baby — not specifically MY Baby, I am not sorry to say, my parents having been singularly unable to find an altruistic speculator willing to ship his own brood to the poorhouse — needed to breastfeed (don’t ask, I THINK it came from one of us girls with a freshly popped-out brother), have his nappies changed, painstakingly burped, and at all hours of the day, have one of our cabal happily babysitting the little monster.

That’s when I learned to bite my nails counting minutes till one of my co-parents brought him in (as opposed to biting them for other various and sundry reasons), and prepare him a timely snack, and cater to the incessant demands that would have had a Tamagotchi pet shake its pixelated head region.

And that’s when I, also, learned not to take anything related to anyone’s care for Gospel.  “Constant vigilance,” catechizes Harry Potter’s Alastor Moody, and he’s right.  Boy, is he ever!  You see, Baby could pee — and if you don’t think that’s important, you haven’t lived as a tween girl in the throes of her first toy obsession.

Baby, as stated previously, was as close to lifelike as 6 pounds of rubber with a pair of…well, baby-doll blues was likely to get 20-odd years ago (yes, I am that old).  It could drink, close and open its eyes, all its body parts moved — and for all it was gender-neutral, it could pee, authentically soaking everything through, JUST LIKE A REAL BABY.  In Baby’s particular case, it really wasn’t a bug, it was a feature.

Which my grandmother didn’t appreciate.  What she did appreciate was the sanctity of our new coverlet, the furry one, with plump stoned-looking deer frolicking in the foreground.   It was a souvenir my dad brought my mom from one of his trips to the hinterlands, and at my grandmother’s insistence, it was ever only trotted out to impress the guests.

It so happened, that one day, it was.  It was, also, the day one of my co-parents, Yulya, grudgingly dashed down eight flights of stairs to hand Baby to me.

“Did he eat?”, inquired the reformed bookworm.

“Tea with milk and honey, plus raspberry jam.  He had a sore throat.”

Yes, Yulya took his temperature.  Ditto his pulse.  And no, he hadn’t yet gone number 2 (Baby had permanent constipation, but hope sprung eternal).  He did, however, go number 1.

“Gotta run, Mom’s been calling me to dinner so many times in the past 10 minutes, like you wouldn’t believe.  If I don’t see you tomorrow outside, that’s it, I’m like grounded till our next Grimm fairy tales recital.” (ours was an intense German-emphasis school, and the teachers wouldn’t leave us alone even in the dog days of Baby)

“But he did go OK?  There was no blood in the pee?” (my grandfather had been a doctor)

Now you're really in a jam!

Having assured me that pee had been clear as glasses lined on our dining table for the big event, and no, this description coupled with an earlier one of raspberry jam raised not a single red flag, Yulya ran off.  Her mom really didn’t like waiting — while Yulya couldn’t tolerate relinquishing Baby to me until the appointed second.  While I still can’t fathom our fascination with the dratted thing, I do understand that.  It was a point of honor.

One-on-one with my duties, I trickled a spoonful of warm water down Baby’s gullet, rocked it — and under pressure inherent in playing good host, succumbed to every harried parent’s escape clause.  Putting the little tyke to bed is beneficial, it isn’t abandoning it to properly attend to your callers.  And you had to say this for Baby, if ever there was a sound sleeper, it was this one.

Carefully, so as not to startle the temperamental beast, I carried him over, placed him on the furry coverlet — and this being summer, only lightly covered him with my mom’s gauzy scarf, a gorgeous one, with iridescent lilies.

To make a long story short…oops, too late now…let’s say in an effort to keep it from turning into War and Peace, my dad came in at some point, pulled out his dress shoes off an upper shelf, and…well, he ain’t no Shaq, but he did manage to land them on top of the scarf.

I had been building up to it, but no, this wasn’t the explosive finale.  The shoes found their lawful place on my dad’s feet, and while Baby started to copiously bleed, it was considerate enough to do so in silence.

The explosion came after, when I responsibly went to check on the thing — and gurgled just loudly enough to call the attention of the Nemesis…er, I meant to say, grandmother.

Yulya never did own up to not doing her best by our collective cross, and maybe, she had, but the reservoir got too distended from our incessant use and didn’t completely empty itself the first time around (that — or it was a “miracle” along the lines of indigenous Florida-countryside Madonna tours).  Most importantly for me, this was the day my Baby-slavery ended.

And most importantly yet, I hope I am a better mother myself, thanks to that coverlet and Yulya’s mom going all dictatorial on her daughter’s ass in defense of her chicken Kiev.

I hope, faced with someone telling me they fed my kid, I would be careful to check what, how much, and at what time (yes, there’s a story).  I hope to have the presence of mind to ask why my son is staying quite this late for his church choir rehearsals (unfair example, yes, but there’s way too much crap being flung about this particular topic for it not to stick to my psyche just this one little bit, just enough to have me asking — and repeating — questions).  I hope never to fail to demand my son’s hall monitor and teachers tell me exactly how many times he’s been on the receiving end of the stick-the-nerd-into-the-locker shtick and how many — the giving.  And I hope to God not to have a patronizing hospital employee refusing to admit that selfsame son (to make up for its own snafu, no less) — but if I did, to be hell of a lot more assertive about taking matters into my own hands than simply calling them up every few days pleading for help.

Other than Baby, I was a terrible, cuckoo-kind of mom to my dolls, but maybe, the idea behind having them is not to imitate their unattainable figures or dress, but simply to use up our worst sorts of mistakes on them — and then, come our own kids, do our best not to have too many repeats.

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