TOO HOT to write.

This writing consistently thing is challenging for me.  Especially now in summer, with both adorable wonderful time-consuming children expecting food and general care-taking 24/7. Summer in Texas. It's hot, friends.  Those of you who know me from high school know this all too well.  I often thank God Houston was the first place I lived, instead of say, the third, because had it been a domicile later in life, I would have understood the ARMPIT I was in.  Instead, it was a blissfully innocent if moist first eighteen years.  Houston: where every day is a bad hair day.  Were they being honest, this slogan would appear on brochures boasting city information.

Not to knock Houston generally--it has some fantastic culture, theater, restaurants, that Fast Times teenage club teeming underage squalor where I watched (sweaty, of course, and envious) all the girls with boyfriends dance to "Sister Christian"--but all I'm saying is, be prepared to sweat. Be prepared to shower and blow dry and get ready and put on makeup and to have it literally drip from your face like some colorful experiment.  Some Mary Kay nightmare. To have your hair suck up the steamy air and quietly devastatingly EXPAND (please refer to my high school graduation picture below for vivid proof, where my hair literally sticks out past the frame of the camera).

And while Dallas isn't Houston, and as an adult, I live in Dallas, where it isn't quite so humid, it is it's own brand of boiling.  It makes me believe in global warming.  It's not science, I don't get the science, it's just common sense.  It's hot as hell.  Is it startlingly more balmy or am I just getting older?  Is it really helping at this point to wear sunscreen?  I drench my tender-skinned children in Banana Boat.  I try in vain to protect them.  Still Jack returned from the pool the other day pink as fresh meat.  He already has freckles sprinkling across the bridge of his nose.  He's only seven.

And two Saturdays ago, while Isabel was no more than two feet away from me, she fell and bumped her lily-white face against a drawer, and we spent the next several hours in the emergency room getting stitches.  It did not help that the plastics doctor we requested, while clearly skilled at his job, showed an hour and a half late and had the bedside manner of Nurse Ratched (whom I played in high school, and can say with authority this guy resembled).  I tearfully asked, "Will it leave a scar?"  And he didn't bother to hide a snort.  "It's a cut.  All cuts leave scars.  I don't have a magic wand."  Patronizing doesn't really begin to cover it.  

My husband, normally the grounded reasonable one (like who is not that compared to me?) looked like he might vault the bed and throttle him.  Sorry we ruined your dinner plans, doc, I was too stunned to say, but this is my tiny beautiful girl; what if it is my fault that she has a scar on her face forever?  Later I would think ad naseum about this reaction, knowing in my gut, I would have felt less devastated if she had been a boy.  The insidious nature of the need for a female to be attractive in this world has such a hold on me, it caught me naked, before I could put on my stylish yet natural battle gear.  I like to think I'm not part of this inane Juicy Couture culture, that I am somehow beyond the airbrushed madness.  And then I see myself sometimes, frightening close to a version of womanhood I am disgusted by.  And I realize all over again why I was apprehensive to have a girl, that being mother to a her is inherently different, in too many ways to imagine.

But it wasn't just that she's a girl.  When our children get hurt, we feel responsible.  She was physically so close, yet I still couldn't do anything to stop it. Accidents happen and it doesn't have to be anyone's fault.  This past week a family was riding in their car to Beaver Creek and got in an accident; a 5-year-old son was the only survivor.  Is five, I keep wondering, old enough to remember?  Yet we just troll the streets and go to Central Market and watch Mad Men and brush our teeth and act like the possibilities aren't possibilities.  Because what else can we do?  We live in a world where planes run into buildings.  But we still have to get to work.  Being constantly aware of the fragility doesn't do much but cause mental paralysis.  

So we adapt to the heat.  Sweat it off.  Take a shower.  Remember.  Laugh at The Bachelor.  Feel sorry for Lindsay Lohan.  Live, us all, in our existential Texas.  Instead of trying in vain to hide them, maybe we embrace them sometimes, our scars.  Maybe that's what makes us beautiful.

 HOT OR WHAT? 

(certainly liberating)

Look at the halo surrounding.  So large was my hair, it had its very own aura.

Conan O'Brien, commencement genius. Mike Rawlings, Dallas mayor. Are things looking up in education?

Conan O'Brien delivered the commencement address at Dartmouth on June 12.  If you haven't treated yourself to the whole enchilada (full, 24-minute-long, video is posted here) or at least a little genius sampler (a 4-minute-long video of the highlights), I suggest you make your own day by doing so immediately.

Some of the quotes I enjoyed include:

"Whether you fear it or not, disappointment will come. The beauty is that through disappointment you can gain clarity; and with clarity comes conviction and true originality."

He unflinchingly accounts his rise to his "dream job" and what the job actually turned out to be for him.

'There are few things more liberating in this life than having your worst fear realized.'

His hilarity runs all the way through, but you have to believe, watching him don that silly graduation hat and Jimmy Neutron hair, even the people we think of as uber 'successful' have their own heap of failures and disappointments.  It's cliche because it's true: it isn't what happens but how we react that eventually determines where we land.  This is the lesson I want to impart to my children. The lesson I want to be true. The lesson it took until my thirties to begin to grasp.  O'Brien also noted, to my great relief, and I'm paraphrasing here--success (or not) at a career does not define you.  That I desperately want to believe.  But honestly it's my Achille's heel.  What constitutes success, after all?  Starring on Broadway?  Publishing a New York Times bestseller?  What was all that expensive 'education' for?

I got my MFA in acting, spent over a decade involved heavily with the theater, all through high school, college, graduate school, and four years in L.A., but ultimately, for reasons too long and tangential for this post, I went a different direction.  But I will say it was not without a lot of trying, many a retarded commercial audition, and a lot of heartache and tears.  I have to admit, there are still times I ask myself "am I a quitter?".  At my twenty-year high school reunion a couple of years ago, friends and frankly many people I have no recollection of every roaming the halls with kept ambling up and chirping versions of, "I thought you would be in New York!" and "I always thought you'd be a famous actress!"  I smiled and tried not to disappear into my over-sweet too liquored punch and willed the topic to die.  You know, it's just so NOT "Go for the gold, Ponyboy!"  There's no movie about the guy (or girl) who makes the sensible decision to put his original dream away for one that seems more doable.  I watch "The Rookie" or "Rocky", one of those feel good movies about the old guy (or girl) going back for the brass ring and making it dammit, with that extra stick-to-itiveness, that won't-take-no-for-an-answer, and yep, I  feel a twinge of regret.  

But often my son is watching beside me, and his face is perfect in the screen light.  And my daughter slides her carefree arm across the tray of her highchair, crust and bananas and rice and vegetables free falling, while looking me in the eye and grinning mischievously.  My husband says something so uniquely him, so whip smart funny, that I remember.  This reality is not a dream.  It's not perfect.  It is real.
  
Sometimes I wonder if I had "made it"--if my original dream of becoming a successful actress in L.A. or New York had happened--would I have looked at the life I have now--gorgeous children, loving husband, anonymity even--and imagined the grass greener?  Or would I rise in my profession, and the dream turned out to be something other than I imagined it would be?  Maybe I would have felt like Conan O'Brien when NBC blew up: "There are few things more liberating in this life than having your worst fear realized."  I have to be content with knowing I will never know.  By virtue of taking one course we are saying no to another.

Of course it doesn't have to be black and white: this past Saturday afternoon, for example, I acted in a reading, performed with scripts in hand (ironically cast as a principal, the play set in a public high school), at Kitchen Dog Theater.  We only had one rehearsal and I felt a little rusty those first few lines, suddenly throat dry nervous in the knowledge that an audience was watching me.  But then something clicked; I remembered to look at the actor I was talking to, focus on the words, make it about what was happening between us instead of what was up with me.  And it was so fun!  I love the play, and I loved playing actor for a few hours, before I went home to my family. 

So what the hell does this have to do with Conan O'Brien or the commencement speech that should be required listening?  That we all of us have those ships that didn't sail and that star that did not appear.  We can either spend our time looking back wishing or we can look at what is in front of us, accept it for what it is, and get on with it.  We can make it up from here however we want to.  I'm not saying I'm always successful at this endeavor, but I'm working on it.  The movie, after all, follows that brilliant Aristotelian three act structure--beginning, middle, and end.  The theme is usually discernable.  You throw away the remnants of your popcorn.  But in real life, the end, remember, is death.  Like in a box or sprinkled over the sea, or heaven or hell, or whatever your belief system, so what are we rushing toward? We don't know the particulars of our particular end, but we know there is one, end of story. 

Assessing the freshness of now, start any story we have the time, energy, and passion for.  Like, for instance, we have a brand new shiny mayor, Mike Rawlings, who promises to make public education a priority. Today I look to that, I vote on that, to hopefully begin to put an uplifting end to this young generation's  story.  Tomorrow, hey, who knows?  


What do you think, dear readers?  I would love to know.

STS Statewide Conference, July 15th & 16: get involved in 2012 primary and election either to support existing pro-education candidates or to help find new candidates to replace current legislators who have failed in their responsibilities.

This is a cut and paste from an email received from savetxschools.com.
CHECK OUT THEIR WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION; THEY ALSO HAVE A FACEBOOK PAGE.


Save Texas Schools Statewide Conference in July!

Join hundreds of other concerned Texans at the STS Statewide Conference on Friday evening, July 15 and all day on Saturday, July 16 in Austin!

Did you know that some groups are already planning who will run in the primary elections next spring? That others are already active in finding even more candidates who believe that the cuts to education in this session didn't go deep enough? That recent polling shows that worries about education have moved to the top of list for Texans?

If we are going to take back Texas, we need to begin now! The failure of the current legislature was determined by the election last November. Let's get behind those who are pro-education and will keep their word to stand up for our children and schools!

The STS July conference will equip you with tools to get involved in the 2012 primary and election wherever you live, either to support existing pro-education candidates or to help find new candidates to replace current legislators who have failed in their responsibilities. We'll have morning and afternoon breakout sessions by region to meet with experts about strategizing to be successful in your area. We'll also learn how to mobilize our neighbors to vote and explain to them in simple terms that Texas can fund quality education for all.

Click here to register now! Space is limited. Cost is $30 each, including a light breakfast and lunch on Saturday. We're also negotiating to get reduced rates for hotels. Scholarships are available to teachers or staff who have lost jobs due to the cuts.

Look soon for our list of speakers and complete agenda!

Our Mission

Save Texas Schools is a nonpartisan coalition, focused on education. Just as the Tea Party has made its mandate cutting government (including education) to the bone, our mandate will be to provide efficient and effective education to ALL children, no matter what their situation. If we are to have a state that works together, rather than a state of haves and have nots, we MUST make sure that ALL students are given the opportunity to succeed. Texas is currently tied for 3rd in having the highest percentage of children living in poverty. For a state blessed with incredible resources, both in land and people, we have no excuses. Let's elect a legislature that has a vision for a better future than walled neighborhoods and minimum wage jobs (Texas also leads the nation in the percentage of workers who work for minimum wage).

We won't get fooled again! Knowing that the 2013 session will start with another huge deficit, let's start now to elect a legislature with the courage and vision to invest in the future of all Texans!