The state of things

Oh hi there! That’s me circa 1978 hanging out with some parrots, probably in Cartagena. My sister and I spent a lot of time in the water. Pools, oceans, lakes, you name it we were water creatures. My sister recently sent several dozen boxes of slides off to be digitized and we’re starting to get the files. It’s been a very strange experience seeing these images as they’re stirring up memories I’d long forgotten. What I remember about these parrots is they were all over this hotel’s outdoor area and they were extremely outgoing and would climb all over you for food. We were probably swimming down stream from a municipal sewage outlet and snuggling with every brand of avian flu in existence. But it was a happy life and I suspect part of the reason I rarely get a cold or flu. Like once every 10 years or so. My husband will be raging with the Andromeda Strain and I go about life as normal. The boy in the bubble.

It is an unusually gloomy and overcast Saturday in Los Angeles. It’s Sweden Gloomy out there. I need new windshield wipers. I don’t have a single day off this weekend. We pitched Humperdinck to Netflix yesterday. I think it went okay? I don’t know. It’s weird. They hadn’t read the script so it was like, uh, okay, here’s what’s in the script. I don’t get not reading the script. It does take 20 minutes to read, so I guess there’s that. Good news though, Brian knew the executive who was in the meeting and so it was a very friendly room. But also, Brian is a “nervous pitcher” and he stumbles and fumbles his way through the pitch and gets pissed off if I try to clean up (explain all the stuff he left out) after him. His ego also prevents him from just letting me do the pitch on my own. I’m actually good at pitching and have come to not hate it over the years by thinking of it as a one-woman-show where I get to be the superstar center of attention.

About 4 or 5 years ago my friend Nancy was going through a nasty divorce. Her best friend at the time let her stay with her, her husband and their two boys. Nancy and her best friends husband had an affair which of course was not cool to put it mildly. So now Nancy’s marriage is over, her best friend’s marriage is over, her best friend hates her guts and Nancy’s ex husband used the fact of the affair during the custody hearings to prove that Nancy was unfit. To be fair, Nancy’s pretty unfit but then again, her ex husband is WILDLY UNFIT so their child was between an alcoholic rock (Nancy) and a ego-manic, cult leader misogynist hard place (the ex husband). Cut to today, Nancy’s unable to maintain sobriety for more than a day. She phones in her efforts at sobriety and her child is a deeply depressed 12 year old with eating disorders and a cutting habit. The child did go live with the ex husband but his new wife hates the child, resents them and told the ex-husband, “it’s either me or your child.” He wasn’t going to give up his comfort to raise his child so he packed them up and sent them back to Nancy. I’m the only one of our friend group who didn’t completely shun Nancy after she slept with her best friend’s husband because I have known her for 30 years and remember who she was before she drove her life into a ditch. It’s not that I think she can go back to being that person, it’s just that I know what she’s capable of. I think about that day when we met in 1992, we were both a part of an exchange program and had arrived in Germany to go to university for a year. We were sitting in this youth hostel listening to our scholarship’s host speak in German about the “smelly but clever asylum seekers from Africa who were ruining Germany.” Also, I kid you not, there was a mural on the wall behind us from the 1940’s depicting the Hitler Youth greeting Conquistadors (!?) with gifts of sausages. Nancy turned to me and whispered, “what have we gotten ourselves into?” And that was the moment we became friends.

It’s not that I’m unhappy with my life. I love my life. But IF I had my life to do over, an opportunity to live a new adventure, here’s what I’d do differently: Start in 1977 because everything before that is kind of pointless. This was also the year we moved to Colombia. I’d take Spanish really seriously. I’d also buckle down and get straight A’s. What? It’s not hard, it’s just elementary school. Then starting in 1980 I’d begin learning Russian. Why Russian? Oh I’m going to be an astronaut. I’d focus on 3 things during middle and high school: perfect grades, physical strength, getting into Stanford to study engineering. DO I know anything about engineering? No, but like I said, I’m going to be an astronaut. I’d also go into the air force. Not sure if that’s before or after college? It’s a fantasy so I don’t need to research the proper timing of this. Anyhow, Stanford for engineering with a minor in Russian, the Air Force and then NASA’s Astronaut training program. Ideally some shuttle missions where I work my way up to Captain. Then, when manned space flight out of the US stops maybe a few missions on the space station. I retire at 40 as I’m guessing that’s the upper limit for being an astronaut and pivot into politics with the goal of becoming a Senator by 2014. It’s all nice on paper but totally unrealistic. Plus it involves me being a closeted gay until sometime after the repeal of don’t ask – don’t tell in 2011. I guess I could do that but it would be so unfair to have a relationship with someone unless they too needed to be closeted. Plus we’d have to find a lesbian couple and buy a duplex with an adjoining door in the basement — which is what a lot of couples had to do to keep up appearances.

I was reminded today to tell anyone who votes Republican that the Republican’s blocked an effort to cap insulin at $35 a month. They think it should be whatever the manufacturers can get away with charging people. They will kill us all given the chance.