For a place with such a laid-back reputation, there sure are a lot of big deals made over small stuff in L.A.Shouldn’t that be expected, though?When you concentrate so many drama-majors in such a small area, is it any surprise that drama rules?
Almost every newbie to L.A. stands frozen, jaw dropped at least momentarily the first time they see the news coverage about a little water falling from the sky and wetting the concrete of the L.A. River -- “STORM WATCH 2011!!!Quick!Find!!Your!!!Umbrella!!!!Before it’s TOO LATE!!!!!You might want to rethink your weekend plans because the roads will be... [duh, duh, duh...] damp.”
Now we have CARMAGEDDON!!!!!It’s the end of life as we know it in the Southland, and because WE are the center of everything, the devastation could be far-reaching.I’ve heard reports on how the economies of the entire world will be upset by this temporary glitch in the traffic grid so close to LAX (Los Angeles International Airport).
Some have compared the hoopla over this weekend’s closure of a small segment of the 405 Freeway to the Y2K scare.I think it’s even bigger than Y2K--because Y2K belonged to the entire world, but this--this is our own personal disaster--and if it’s all about us, it’s gotta be BIG!!!
Friends from the Midwest often ask me, “How can you stand it?”Well, you know what?I actually find it charming.It’s like that silly friend in junior high who never quite got the jokes, but was a hoot to have around just for the entertainment value of her clueless gaze and delayed reactions.(Yep, that was me, and I even fell for that line about how “they’re really not laughing at you, they’re laughing with you.”)So, LA-LA Land is home, and I finally fit in.My dramatic exaggerations don’t seem so out of place.And even if it looks like we’re all taking ourselves way too seriously here, we do get the irony of it all... eventually.
P.S. Don't tell any of the locals that the traffic isn't really that bad out there... until Sunday night.... The media scare tactics worked, the gullible are boarded up in their apartments, and the streets are wide open for the daring, the brave, the heroic, the [duh, duh, duh...] the unemployed actor who just realized he's out of Pop Tarts and decided to brave the scary streets of L.A. to restock before tonight's Carmageddon Staycation Marathon.
Sometimes the best way to learn something new about yourself is by traveling backward in time to face a truth you refused to face at the time it was current.
My work is all about digging in the past now, as I’ve been hired to write the script for a biographical feature film. Structure and meaning rise out of the research, out of the excavation--pieces of this amazing man’s past connect to his present and the path he is on makes more sense when it is unified in “the big picture.”
People understand such indulgence in the past for a project such as this--a grand life is different from an ordinary life--the origins matter. In my own life, however, I’m met with resistance when I dig. People want everything to be in a neat, tidy line. The past is a distant echo, not worth listening to.
Last year I wrote a blog entitled “Being Lovely” in which I noted the importance of living in the present as opposed to being consumed by yearning for something in the future--something we have yet to become. That wasn’t such a novel idea--living in the present is a pretty popular notion... presently. Like so many sound bytes, however, “Living in the present” is not as simple as it may sound.
“I need to remember that it's not about becoming, but rather about being. It is through being that we become...” I wrote...
but that wasn’t the whole story. I went on to consider that
“...being comes from clearly seeing ‘whatever is true.’”
Seeing. That is important. Just like listening. Sometimes that distant echo alerts us to something we need to take a closer look at.
While it is true that “living in the past” can rob us of fullness in the present, ignoring that distant echo can also rob us of fullness when it comes to the big picture--it can rob us of integrity, which I believe is essential to authentic living.
When most people think of integrity, the primary definition that comes to mind is the idea of high moral standards or professional ethics. That is only the outer exhibition of the heart of integrity. Moral and ethical behaviors are meaningless, and likely to falter, if they don’t spring from within. In my opinion, definition two and definition three of the word integrity are the things we need to strive for:
2. the state of being complete or undivided
3. the state of being sound or undamaged (Encarta World English Dictionary)
Our world is so full of fragmentation. We have our professional lives and our personal lives, our public persona and our private persona, and then we also have the linear segments that we sort into tidy little containers. My old photos are in albums or boxes according to their place in time. Digital photos are time-stamped so as to be filed away where they belong. When this system gets mixed up, it’s a problem to be fixed. In this mad-dash forward--always forward--we are prone to forget where we come from, but that’s okay, we tell one another. The past is gone. Let it be.
Does anyone else ever stop to think that we might have it all wrong? I posed this question on my facebook a while back:
“Do you think life is intended to be linear?”
Only four people replied. I loved my brother’s reply: [which somehow disappeared before I had a chance to answer--he may have decided to delete it, but fortunately, I had multiple tabs open, and was able to find one that still had his reply intact]
“I.e., linear intent + gravity -> parabolic course. Replace gravity with drama, or confuse the two, as often happens, for hyperbolic results.”
I won’t even pretend to understand the science behind his obvious humor, but I will say that this comment may have come closer than some of the others to the heart of what I was grappling with when I posted the question. I’m not nearly as smart as my brother, but I am a dictionary geek. I love to look up words, even when I think I know what they mean, because I always seem to discover nuances and connections that I might not have otherwise recognized. (And with the advance of technology, looking up things online presents incredibly enticing bunny-trails much to the satisfaction of the A.D.D. in me.)
Parabolic course. Parabolic. Google is like Calgon... Google, take me away.... I meet an educator named “Mr. Ree” and delight in his lesson plan on Parabolic Curves. I stumble upon an article written by a physicist that references the movie, Source Code. Oops. Spoiler alert. I haven’t seen the movie yet, so I can’t read on until I do so. It’s not on Netflix Instant View yet, but it is still showing on the big screen at the cheap theatre down the road (and probably not for much longer because it’s down to one 9:25pm showing a day). I manage to make it to the movie just a couple days before it closes, then head home and read the article.
It’s all connected. One of my favorite concepts in science fiction has always been time-travel or time-manipulation. This journey through research for my work, self-analysis for my psychological well-being, picking friends’ brains with seemingly random questions, searching words that jump out at me.... it’s all connected in a beautiful web that strengthens me and makes me feel more sound, more complete... it may sound like a very strange process, but I find it very healing.
When I think of the third definition of integrity, “being... undamaged,” I am reminded that I have been damaged. I think we all have at one point or another--life does that. More word study, more word twisting... Damaged. Undamaged. Are they opposites? Or are they more like different states of the same thing? “Un” can mean an opposite state of being--the negative of the root word, but it can also refer to a process--a reversal of an action or a state of being. One could look at the word “undamaged” and say that you either are or you’re not--undamaged, that is. But what if we took the word “damage” as a verb instead of a static state of being and applied that prefix in its active capacity... could not “undamaging” be looked at as a process--a reversal (a redemptive act) rather than the state prior to damage?
So, I saw the movie, Source Code. I won’t get into the details of the plot, but basically it is about going back (after some damage has already been done), not to undo that damage, but to get information that will help prevent future damage from being done. The question of whether something can be “undamaged” or whether preventing future damage is the best we can do, is central to the story. Either way, one must go back to the source--the root of the state of being, the impetus of the current course. This message resonates with me. When you’re on a track, speeding along, and braking is not an option, ignoring the past can be deadly.
Long story short, THAT is why I am drawn to examine my past--not so that I can dwell in it, but rather out of concern about averting accidents on the track ahead, and so that I can learn the true meaning of integrity--by being an integrated person. It seems to me that a complete life encompasses all at once--it's not cut up into autonomous segments, but rather the past is infinitely connected to the present and the future and not just in a brick-upon-brick manner, but more like a web in which you must go back and forth and compare and contrast and connect in order to make sense of it all. And if one does believe in a God who is outside of time and space, in whose image we are created, that makes the interconnectedness of the entirety of our lives even more necessary to learning to see things more like God does.
Why is it so much easier to identify patterns in the lives of others than in our own lives? Could it be because we naturally stand back and look at the big picture when it comes to the life of an other? Getting such perspective on self requires a level of intent that may feel awkward at first--even self-indulgent, but ultimately, it frees a person to be more truthful, more generous, and to exude integrity. That's what I want.
It's been a while. I started out the year with good intentions of keeping up this blog, but alas, reality got a strangle-hold on me, and my writing became blocked. Anyone who has known me very long, knows that I don't believe in writer's block, per se. "Writer's Block," in my opinion, is not at condition in and of itself, but rather a symptom of other problems.
Writer's Block comes when a person is hiding something. He could be hiding something from others or from himself. The only way to alleviate the symptom is to deal with the root cause--to figure out what it is the writer is having difficulty being honest about. You see, no matter what the subject, there is always an autobiographical element. Be it ever-so-small, it is there nonetheless, revealing something about the writer himself. It may just be the slightest dash of attitude, mood, or a prevailing world view, but the only way a writer can avoid revealing something of himself in his writing is by being utterly mechanical and dull.
Since my last blog entry in February, I've not been shrinking back from writing entirely. I've written (and seen produced) a couple of short films, done a little revision on my novel, and started building the groundwork for another feature-length screenplay (a true story about someone else--not me). It's been the blogging that has been difficult, because that's where I am most blatantly me. As a professional, I cannot allow myself the luxury of wallowing in blockage, so, as with so many other maladies, I must exercise to break through.
Where do you exercise? For physical exercise, some people have no problem going to a public gym or health club, but for a woman who is flabby and self-conscious, that is a difficult step to take. She may not want to be seen in such a condition. There's a time and a place for everything. Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name . . .
. . . but other times--especially when breakthrough has been eluding you--quite the opposite is true. You want to go where nobody knows your name . . . where you can disappear in anonymity. My hiding place for such exercise, which I would recommend highly to struggling writers (as well as those wanting to practice self-therapy), is a private blog. And that is where I have been prolific lately. Has it worked as far as ushering in breakthrough? I'd say that today is a success in that when I was inspired to write this message, the initial impulse was to stash it away in that place where nobody knows my name. But then I realized there is no need to do so. It may be a small, trivial message, but it is my babystep in working my way back to trusting.
Why have I been having trouble with trust? Like so many other things in life, it may be one of the very traits that drives me to create in the first place that also causes me to shy back. One of those mixed bags, blessings bound to a curse, ying and yang, Cheech and Chong, Donny and Marie . . .
Okay, bad example, but I think you know what I mean. (And yes, that was probably an avoidance technique to stall for time . . . and since Donny and Marie numbers never end, what a l o n g stall indeed!)
Imagination. Imagination is of utmost importance to the writer, true, but it must be kept in check. The very creative imagination that provides a wealth of material for us to work with can also work against us on a personal level. My imagination can run so wild that it practically destroys me--especially since it has a tendency to run to the dark side. Creative types have to be careful to sort out the fiction from the reality in their own lives. That's largely what I've been doing lately, sorting through the memoir material to figure out where I have been lying to myself about myself. My theory being that the less I lie to myself, the more my creativity will flow freely without blockage.
You've heard people speak of needing a "reality check," well I would propose that we also need an occasional "imagination check." I think I had one today. I try to walk two miles a day (although I've been falling short on that quite a bit lately). Sometimes I do it on the track at the park, sometimes on the treadmill, and lately I've been trying to do it in my neighborhood more often than not.
On my route through the neighborhood, right around the 1.5 mile point, I pass a huge grassy yard that backs up to the sidewalk along a busy street, separated only by a chain-link fence. This is a rarity in southern California where most people like their privacy and six-foot high wood or block fences encase most back yards. I always look forward to passing this yard, not because I get to peek in and be a snoop, but because of the way it triggers my imagination.
Before I even reach the place on the sidewalk where I can peer into this private world, my senses are filled with the wondrous scent of gardenias and lavender, and glorious music, pouring out across the grass on loud speakers. It's not the typical rock or rap music that people are most likely to see fit to inflict on helpless audiences, but rather a mixture of grand classical, swing, and big band type fare. Coupled with the white linens often fluttering on the clothes lines, I'm always taken to places like the grand lawns F. Scott Fitzgerald peopled with handsome men and beautiful women in flamboyant garb. I almost expect vintage cars to pull up, tooting their horns, and gloved hands to wave gracefully--one might even say "gaily."
The thing that makes it even stranger is the fact that I've never seen anyone in that yard, ever . . . until today. I have imagined who might live there. I've even thought of going around the block to the front of the house and knocking on the door so I can meet this specter of my imagination. Often I've said it was populated by the ghosts of The Great Gatsby. And when I wasn't letting my literary imagination run to the supernatural and fictitious realm . . . I'd tell myself an elderly actress--retired and now wheel-chair bound--was gazing out a window, tracing with her fading eyes every contour of her lawn, recollecting the parties she threw back in the day when she was a star and the belle of every ball. I imagined that the only gentlemen who ever set foot in that yard were the suitors in white tuxedos who only existed in her memory now.
All that was until today.
Today the same floral scents captivated me, the same music made me want to dance and twirl and then collapse onto a settee, chilled cocktail in hand, fringe on my flapper gown swaying like the linens flapping in the breeze. My imagination soared . . . until . . . I saw . . .
Him.
There in the yard, in the middle of the yard, a man was lounging belly down on a lounge chair flattened out like a stretcher. He was not wearing a white tuxedo, nor gloves, nor smart hat . . . It didn't look like he had cut, or even combed, his hair in the past few months. His clothes were dingy. His head planted so concretely face-down on the chair that it was likely a pool of drool might be irrigating it. This was about as far from the image I had dreamed of as you could possibly get. What? Was the plumber taking a break in the midst of unclogging the kitchen sink? No, his limbs draped so comfortably, albeit not gracefully, toward the ground that he exuded a sense of belonging. This was his home.
Ruined! I thought. My image was totally ruined! But the music played on, washing over this motionless body that I wouldn't have thought out of place by a freeway off-ramp, holding out a tin can to passers-by. As the notes swelled and waned and circled every inch of the luscious lawn and beyond, it dawned on me that the image was not ruined, but rather it had been expanded. Had the occupant of this property been more elegant, there would have been no story worth repeating, but the very contrast of the expected and the revealed was beautiful: a reminder to look for the extraordinary in ordinary places, to look for the magnificent in the apparently mundane, and to believe--always believe--that the world is worth exploring because it is full of surprise, full of things we can't figure out with feeble logic and sluggish imagination.
When a friend told me that he thought my blog had "much more finesse" than his, I could have just taken it as a compliment. His statement was, however, a much richer gift than a mere compliment. That simple phrase, especially in the context of such a comparison of our blogs, could also serve as a challenge, or even an admonition.
I hadn't read my friend's latest blog entries, and when I did, I was oh so thankful that his words had not been sanded down and white-washed with a mask of finesse. He poured out his heart with deep, profound, raw honesty--with a bravery I only wish I had. The fluctuations from sections of polished rhyme and meter to lines that read more impulsively--like the not yet edited results of brainstorming--became it's own form that illustrated uncensored feeling.
doubt, hurt, pain, regret, suffering...
were the tags to describe what he shared with anyone who would read his blog. His words welcomed me into his pain and caused me to feel.
Some people flee such emotion, but I've learned to treasure it. It is connection. It is what I believe being human is all about. If we learn to disconnect with others over the hard things in life, then the connection will not be strong enough to deliver the full impact of joy or love. We are a society so well-practiced at deadening our connections, at making them superficial, at managing them with finesse.
Mirriam-Webster defines finesse as:
refinement or delicacy of workmanship, structure, or texture
skillful handling of a situation: adroit maneuvering
the withholding of one's highest card or trump in the hope that a lower card will take the trick because the only opposing higher card is in the hand of an opponent who has already played
Desiring to be an artist, definition #1 is definitely a compliment. Compliments are nice and all, but they often sit at the superficial level of communication. Even delicacy and refinement speak to me of restraint, withholding (which, of course, there is a place for, but all in balance. All in balance.)
Definition #2 compliments the business sensibilities of the artist, "Look at how clever you are! You just might be able to pull this thing off." It makes me think of a race car driver, maneuvering the road, yet not really touching it, locked in a shell of protective metal.
Definition #3, however, can definitely be taken more than one way. In the game of life, we are told we must be smart, we must be clever, we should always be looking for the best deals, the greatest bargains. Applied to business, and applied to games, definition #3 is a good thing. It's the kind of behavior that gets us ahead, brings success. In relationships, however--in connections with our fellow human beings, definition #3 smacks of deception and usury. Definition #3 makes sense in the world's economy, but in God's economy where it is better to give than to receive, and the last shall be first, and we are blessed through the conduit of blessing others, finesse can be nothing but an excuse for being selfish.
It was in definition #3 that I met my challenge, my admonition.
Having two blogs, one public and another private, is a good way to manage one's image. Pour those things that are unsightly and humiliating into the private blog, and carefully edit what you publish on the public blog--it's as simple as that. Finesse, baby. Finesse.
And yet, for all the hiding we do, I believe there is a desire deep inside every person to be known and to be accepted. Finesse has us often so focused on the "accepted" part that we may overlook the "known" component. Our hearts know the difference, though, and finessing my way into being accepted for something that isn't truly me will never be fulfilling.
So, why do we hide, why do we shrink back from connections? I think it's largely due to a fear of pain. Not only do we avoid the "Debbie Downer", not wanting the bad mood of someone else to spoil our day, we also don't want to be that fount of negativity. We live in a world where everyone knows The Secret is positive thinking. We hear it referred to as law:
"The Law of Attraction"
"Name it and Claim It"
"Blab it and Grab It"
We're so afraid of a little pain that we build whole philosophies and religions around this gospel of prosperity and positive thinking, positive energies, and often ignore the richness of what is true and what is real. I'm not saying that we should entertain negativity, but I am saying that I think it is actually a negative thing (can we even go so far as to say it carries "negative energy"?) to deny what is real and what is true in the moment that we live it. It is negative because it doesn't foster connection. If my reality is merely a construct of what I think, and yours of what you think, then where is the bridge between the two?
Maybe that negative impact of (false) positive thinking is why so many disciples of The Secret and other such philosophies still have to keep their weekly appointments with their psychiatrist and still feel so unfulfilled even when the Law of Attraction is blanketing them with shiny, pretty shrapnel.
So, what does all of this have to do with the alleged finesse of my blog?
Even before my friend issued that compliment/accusation, I had already been thinking about how, in sorting out which things I blog about publicly and which I retain as private, I have been withholding some of my greatest life lessons--those grown in the soil of my deepest pain. If keeping our pain to ourselves is a generous thing to do, why is there such relief in learning that we're not alone--that someone else understands our struggles? Maybe it's because we were never intended to carry the pain alone.
"Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."
Galatians 6:2
How can sharing pain be a beautiful thing? I think back to loosing my sister. There was a lady in my church who lost her brother very close to the same time. All she had to do was come up to me and squeeze my hand and say, "I know," and a bridge was built. Once that bridge was built, a simple meeting of the eyes would reinforce the bitter-sweet connection. We weren't alone. Life was real. It wasn't simply some bundle of energies that I made up within my mind. She gave me the grounding I needed, and I'd like to think it was reciprocal. Even now as I think of this, my eyes well up with tears and a knot in my throat nearly chokes me. I'm not going to run from it, though. I'll embrace it. I'd sooner feel the deepest pain than not feel at all. Numbness is like being alive but not really alive.
I thank my friend for, perhaps unwittingly, opening my eyes to the façade of my finesse. I'm going to try to incorporate more of my "private blog" material here. No promises other than that. I'll try. I'll try because I do long to be known for who I really am, but I'll also try because that is the generous thing to do. There may be those who will never know that they are not alone if I don't find the courage to accept what is true and what is real, whether it's pretty or not.
It's not that I'm in some weird religious cult with "science" in it's name. I just haven't had much experience with doctors' advise turning out to be of any value to me. I read occasional health-related articles and consult the pages of "Prescriptions for Nutritional Healing," and do okay. Every time I've thought that maybe a visit to the doctor might be called for, I've ended up regretting it.
When I accidentally sliced my thumb open and rushed to the ER, I waited and waited--along with all the other stupid dinner-time kitchen utensil accident victims--missing my blood-tinged meal, and finally getting a few stitches, only to have the stitches ultimately fall out before the wound was completely healed. Now when I feel the scar on the tip of my thumb, I can't help but think that I could have saved a pretty penny by using a roll of duct tape to do it myself with better results. And with the money saved, I could have bought a better can opener.
Looking back, I'd have to say that the best medical advice I have ever received has come from non-doctors (friends, family members, and complete strangers). Because of this, when a medical question popped into my head today, my first thought was not to call the doctor, or even to consult a medical website...
My first thought was to post my medical inquiry on facebook.
What better use of a status update than to elicit medical diagnosis from 349 of my "closest friends"? And since a lot of my friends are actors, I'm sure there would be plenty who would relish the opportunity to play the part of the doctor with great authority.
That led to another idea. I thought it would be fun to ask my friends to participate in a social networking experiment. If everyone who was willing to post a medical question as their status line would also take a screen-shot of the crazy replies they received and send the screen-shots to me, I could compile them in an album--a virtual coffee table book entitled "Playing Doctor: diagnoses in the age of facebook".
You think I'm kidding, don't you?
Nope. Serious is my middle name. If you're in, send me your screen-shots (preferably zoomed in so we can read the comments).
So much of life is a balancing act. Not only do people like symmetry visually, but they find it practical functionally as well. Too much weight on one side of the wheelbarrow might even tip it over, and then you'll be side-tracked by shoveling up all the s*** ("stuff") you were hauling all over again.
Artists grapple with balance all the time, and I'm not just talking about within their composition, arrangement of design elements, structure of literary flow, and so on and so forth... I'm talking about within their lives and their work practices.
In the imagination of on-lookers, the life of an artist is a carefree existence--one not ruled so much by the laws of logic as by the fancy of the heart. We're right-brained, after all (which is a nice excuse for laziness, sloppiness, and erratic behavior.) The idea of a "Starving Artist" has been romanticized. Some even look at an artiste who focuses too much on the business side of his profession as a sell-out, less of a true artist.
We declare with deep ardor that art must first of all be true to the heart of the artist. Who cares what the people want?--I've gotta be me! That's why novelists are admired for dark, probing prose, and Hollywood is mocked for whitewashing the intensity of truth when the novel is adapted to the screen and the ending is tweaked to satisfy an audience hungry for happy endings tied up in neatly trimmed packages.
I've been on a high horse like that plenty of times--from the times that I've mocked the "contrived" blockbuster to the times I've defended the cryptic ending of my own "art" film.
One really must understand teeter-totter physics in order to fully appreciate the danger of mounting the proverbial "high horse."
Looking at the incline of the board in the above illustration, a child who has never played on a teeter-totter might think that the best place for the horse to stand in order to be king of the hill would be on the end of the board that is higher in the air (the end to the right in the picture.) It doesn't take long on the playground, however, for a child to learn the lesson of balance. The horse will find his highest possible position on the board by distributing his weight in a manner that is balanced in relation to the fulcrum (or by throwing a REALLY fat kid on the other end--but that's an entirely different issue).
It's been a while. It would seem that NaNoWriMo was the death of my blogging (which was already withering away on life-support). I did make it through the month, emerging with a stack of paper (well, actually, I haven't hit "print" yet--the ink is too expensive) a virtual "stack of paper" I call the first draft of a novel. The Office of Letters and Light says that makes me a "Winner," but I feel less than winnerly as I rest under the weight of guilt for deserting the good intentions of my blog.
my chart just before crossing the finish line:I guess the assembling of 50,000+ words that are more or less unified in story-telling purpose is an accomplishment. My enthusiasm, however, is tempered by the call of the re-write. So, now the moodiness of my inner frustrated writer wields a double-edged sword: On the one hand, I feel bad when I don't blog, but on the other hand, I feel like I'm using time that would better be spent on the re-write of my novel when I indulge in blogging. (You may look at my archives and say, "wait, what blogging?" but let me assure you that I have been blogging--or at least my anonymous alter-ego has been blogging.)
Yesterday, my friend Greg re-kindled my blog-fires by posing the question, "To Blog, or Not to Blog?" and starting a dialog on the purpose and value of blogging--especially for those who also write with the goal of publishing books. Opinions vary on whether authors should also blog or not and why (http://writinghood.com/online-writing/should-fiction-writers-have-a-blog/). Some blog for exposure and promotion to an audience, some blog as an exercise in writing (practice), some blog to help others with information they deem valuable, and some blog for self-satisfaction.
I know a great playwright who never misses a day blogging (and the blogs he posts are not mere trivial fluff). I am so impressed with his work ethic--he feeds my wannabe-writerly self-loathing and makes me contemplate plunging off a bridge on a regular basis. (I know, I should just head over to the pub like a REAL writer, but that's another story.)
As I perused the reasons others have for blogging, another reason came to mind: (perhaps because I spend a large percentage of my time with a couple of pre-adolescent boys)
BLOGGING IS LIKE VOMITING--sometimes there is something inside of you that just has to get out (and it doesn't matter so much who sees it or what it looks like--it just needs to be expelled or you'll be forever sick.)
In that sense, blogging can be very therapeutic. I started my anonymous blog mainly for that purpose--to keep myself from going insane, even while I can't afford a therapist.
I hope my friend Greg will start a blog, because he always poses such great questions, has a fantastic sense of humor, and literally overflows with encouraging words. The world could only benefit from his contributions to the blogosphere. I also hope he will take the plunge because blogging--like vomiting--is good for one's health, and I wish him (and the rest of my beloved friends) the best of health in this new year.
