Stirred, Not Shaken

The tricky thing about the distractions and diversions in my life is that, in most cases, I put them there.  No one else. And sure they can soothe me, and calm me, but more than anything, they can waste my time.  I can while away the entire evening with a pointless iphone game and the next day feel this funny ache, this regret, this knowledge that I should have manned up and done some writing, or exploring, given up on instant gratification to feel some long term gratification.  It can be a fight, all the harder now that I have a full time, stressful new job, my attempts to wrap my brain around which are keeping me in the office long past the time I'm required to be there.  And when I get home the last thing I want to do with my time is exercise my fucking mind.  And yet...

It was a wonderful weekend full of inspiring theatre and magical friends and affirming time with my mom and dad and a couple of those bubbling up warm fuzzy feelings thrown in for good measure.    It's also been "stirring".  The job mentioned previously takes a lot of faith that there will be a light at the end of the tunnel once these lessons have sunk into my brain.  And the fact that this job is not very artistic, in some ways not at all aligned with my natural tendencies, it makes me wonder if it's worth the time and pain.  However, these challenges, as they say "strengthen" us.  Remind us that we can get through if we trust.  And if we don't trust and we give up?  Then we reinforce the negative message that we will not make it and the things that seem so wonderful at the beginning will inevitably turn sour.  But if we DO trust, then the sour things turn back to sweet (oh lord this is one lame-ass analogy, but you get the point...right?) and you can feel good about yourself for not giving in to the momentary weakness.  

Or...have I jumped from one dead-end job to one that may have a clear path, but a path that I don't particularly want to travel down?

And yet, as my friend Mark reminded me, it's not boring.  And in a lot of ways, these moments of life are exactly what he hope for during the lulls.  I'm right in the thick of life, feeling emotions, figuring things out, experiencing.  And I am being creative.  I'm blogging, I recently finished a screenplay which I'm submitting to competitions and festivals, and I'm gearing up to be participating in a pretty unique multimedia stage piece which explores some of the myths that fascinate me through a modern sensibility.  And, it's nice to be reminded occasionally that pleasant surprises can find you without your working so hard to find them, as long as your opening doors and walking through them. 

Things are happening, inside and out, and right now it's enough to know that.

The "Extras in the Movie of Your Life"

It's a concept I was introduced to a while ago through a podcast called "How Much Do We Love".  They talked about the people you we run into on a semi-regular or sporadic basis, who inform and entertain our lives in some relatively small way, and I think it's a pretty lovely way to look at them.  You couldn't call them friends, or even acquaintences, they are just...extras in the movie of our life. Here are a couple of my more notable ones.

The Lady in White-  When you live in LA you are always about two blocks from a crappy neighborhood.  I was no exception.  There's a strip of PicoBlvd  that is populated by faded business that are barely hanging on, but somehow manage to stick around:  a nail salon, a palm reading shop, a perpetually empty Jack in The Box.   It was in this neighborhood that I would see the Lady in White.  She was in her mid-thirties, beauty faded, white robes, white leggings, white high heels, frizzy bleached hair (Think Elayne Boozler, circa 1983) Even her lipstick was white.  She was so thin and angular, you'd expect her to walk sharp, or even to stumble as if in a daze, but no...she glided effortlessly down the street like Glinda the Good Witch gone to seed.  Her white robes always seemed to flow behind her as if accompanied by a perpetual breeze.  I imagined a life for her, like you do, and imagined that she'd fallen into drugs and prostitution from a life as kept woman, from a life in the corporate world, and she was holding onto her lost virginity by cothing herself in the colors of purity that were yellowing, though she pretended not to see it happen.

Dreamy Starbucks Barrista-  I have a favorite Starbucks where I go to organize my thoughts, to read, and ocassionally write when I'm able to power through the doubt, and it is graced by the Dreamy Starbucks man-child.  He's in his mid to late twenties, and I think he's only there when they need a little help so he strays from the Starbucks he manages to pick up the slack at this one.  He's slender, with an effortless beauty.  He doesn't seem to work at it one iota and I picture him tumbling out of bed and his thick black hair tumbling right along with him.  I've always had a weak spot for incongruous pale skin and dark hair, and the black button down he wears accentuates the contrast.  Add to that his extremely helpful demeanor (also effortless) and a deeper voice than you would expect to come out of his pillow lips, and you can color me happily uncomfortable any time I see him.  Uncomfortable because I don't want him to think I'm looking and noticing him, so I just take tiny little glances in his direction when he's not looking, in a way that is hopefully not creepier than if I openly stared.  After all there's no pressure.  I don't expect to date him, don't think about him outside of the Starbucks, but he is pretty...even more so for the fact that he doesn't seem to know it.