Creative Endeavors

A watercolor I did of Maui, Hawaii

As most of you know by now, I come from a pretty artistic family.  My dad paints, my sister, Jen, paints, and my Aunt Jane is photograher.  I, myself, have always painted here and there, but not consistently.  The problem is twofold: 1) I am a perfectionist, so I will noodle something to death before I'm really satisfied with it, and 2) I'm not good enough for anything to ever turn out the way I want it to.  So, unfortunately, painting is not  all that relaxing for me, and therefore has infrequently been one of my creative outlets.  My best outlet turns out to be --you guessed it -- writing.  And I also do a lot of various physical activities, which gets out my pent up anxiety and stuff.  But before I found these personal vehicles, I searched high and low for something to free my many emotions (and there are many!), and here are a few of my most ridiculous avenues to inner peace:

Right after I graduated college and was working in Los Angeles, I began seeing a therapist named Babs.  Babs worked out of her house, which was a lovely little cottage and all, but what was really disconcerting was the fact that she chain smoked and had a very lazy glass eye.  She would have a giant bowl of Malboro Reds out on the coffee table, and during our sessions together I would maniacally smoke cigarettes with her, mostly out of nervousness that I would inadvertently make eye contact with her bad eye.  Meanwhile, her husband was a recluse and lived at home, and as we were talking he would pace back and forth outside the glass doors of her office.  It was really disturbing!  Babs informed me that I was not allowed to raise my voice so as not to agitate the odd little guy.  I would have to whisper my deepest troubles to her, "My boss is a cocksucker and my boyfriend broke up with me and I think I'm having panic attacks."  In response, Babs would whisper back, "Ssshhh."

After Babs, and actually that terrible breakup that I mentioned above, I decided I would give Buddhism a try.  I really wanted to want nothing and to not get attached to people or emotions or things, but after trying to be perfectly zen for a day, I actually started to crave fine leather goods and fancy Starbucks lattes with froufy names.  It was as if I was a rebellious child, who when they are told they can't have something, just start wanting it more.  Subsequently, I went with a friend to hear Thich Nhat Han (a Vietnamese monk) speak, and after three grueling hours of sitting cross-legged on a metal folding chair and listening to such heavily-accented and inaudible words they sounded like nothing more than ice crunching, I made up my mind that I was not, and could not be, a Buddhist.

After my Buddhist phase, I met a woman named Diane who did craniosacral therapy.  I'm still not exactly sure what this is, but I think it moves the fluid between your bones around or something.  She was a very nice lady, but when she told me she had visited Venus the previous Tuesday, I began to wonder if something may be awry.  Then, after one of my sessions with her I actually hallucinated that Diane was a giant deer with antlers growing out of the top of her head.  At this point, I was the one who fled.

A few months later friend of mine suggested I to go to this guy who did past life regressions.  I walked into his office and before I could say anything at all, the diminutive older man told me that I have a strong personality, a love for the color blue, and a fear of air.  Hmmm...the first two, yes, but a fear of air???  He proceeded to hypnotise me and we discovered that in a past life I was an American Indian man with a mullet that wore paper bags on his feet instead of shoes.  Okay, WHAT?  I do not make this shit up, although I am preeettttty skeptical about the validity of this deduction.  After the session was over I practically tripped over his gargantuan desk in my hurry to bolt, saying, "I'll call you next week..." with, of course, no intention of ever doing so, but who should be walking in right at that moment but my boss and the secretary he was having an affair with?!  Talk about awkward!  Apparently, they believed they were soul mates and wanted to find each other in past existences, but I quit that job shortly thereafter, so I'll never know if they found the answer they were looking for.

I've tried acupuncture (effective, but boring), color therapy (pretty!), God knows what and you name it, but for the the most part these days I stick with writing, exercise, and imagery (but that's a whole other blog entirely!).  And as for painting, maybe I'll go back to it one day, or maybe not, but I'll always be drawn to the arts, and to the artists I know and love with my heart.

And besides, this blog is probably better than any portrait I could do of myself, or of anyone for that matter.  I never could paint people.

Mother May I?

My mom and me circa 1973

I sort of touched upon this with my first post, but lately I've noticed so many of my female peers giving up huge chunks of their own identities to become what they believe wives and/or mothers should be.  Us mommies are told to live for our children, to adore our husbands, and to have only the most humble needs of our own.  Maybe I'm seeing this so often because I live in the South, and naturally it's more conservative here.  But even in California and New York I find women looking inward less and less, almost to the point that they aren't even aware of what they REALLY want -- for themselves.

Perhaps this is a generational thing, as women in the 60's and 70's were encouraged to express their independence through multi-faceted layers: family, career, art, sex, etc.  Women's possibilities were limitless, and they still are, but today in 2011 it seems as if traditional womens' roles have backtracked a little.  I truly believe that those of us who are wives and/or mothers just need to be shaken up a bit and reminded that we also have to be true to ourselves -- to the inner voices and personalities that are yearning to get out and differentiate us.

This brings me to my own mother, who I haven't even known how to write about yet as our relationship is so big and complex.  Entire BOOKS have been written about mothers and daughters, and it is impossible for me to sum up my relationship with my mom in one succinct blog.  But what I can say is that she is one of the strongest, most independent-thinking women I know, and she never completely gave up her own needs and desires in all the years I have known her.  I may have been a bit traumatized by her strength and volatility at times, but I think ultimately I developed the greatest possible admiration for her, and for her free-thinking ways. 

OK, so to describe my mom, Lynn, she is physically pretty petite, although she doesn't exercise and I'm fairly sure she has never broken a sweat a day in her life (in fact, she may not even have pores).  Her hair, which is naturally brown, is always changing, mutating even.  First, it was dark brown and straight, then it was light brown and curly (during this phase my dad drew a picture of her with whited-out eyes, as she uncannily looked like Little Orphan Annie), then it was medium brown with wings a la Mrs Doubtfire, then it was a blond bob, then a blond pixie.  Now we are back to blond bob -- phew, thank God, I'm exhausted and can't keep up.  She has beautiful light green eyes too, and kind of freckley skin.  She is amazing with money and real estate, and she is truly gifted in these realms.  (Of course, the minute she starts talking about either money OR real estate, I find myself sort of glazing over and staring at her unusual glasses' frames, which are also ever-changing.  Clearly, I did not inherit those parts of her brain.)  She is a fervent animal lover, and she also fiercely loves my father, my brother, and me to the point that she has told me that when someone wrongs us she feels like a steroid-injected bull elephant inside, ready to trample them at a moment's notice.  And, yes, it's happened and it's not pretty.

But here's the most distinctive characteristic of my mom: her voice.  It can be both impossibly shrill and loud at the same time, almost inhuman in quality.  You should hear her call my dad for dinner, "FREEEEENNNNKK!!!  DO YOU WANT DINNER OR NOT??!!!" (The assumed tail-end of this sentence is "YOU BASTARD," which is or is not always spoken, depending on if we have company over.)  And when she used to pick me up in carpool line at my junior high, she would scream across the parking lot, "SSAAAARRRAAAHHH!!!  I'M OVER HEEEERE, KITTYCAT!!!  HOW IS YOUR BLISTER DOING?!?""  If it was possible to actually die of embarassment, I'm pretty sure that I would have during those precious after-school snippets.

I call my mom every day, not just because I love her and miss her, but also because we have the most amazing conversations.  Yes, she can't stop herself from occasionally interrupting (ahem...), but she also is a great listener, and if you ever need anything done, she is on it like milk on Rice Krispies.  Seriously, she'll come over and have my entire house organized in 2 hours.  It's almost scary.  (And yes, another part of her amazingly efficient brain I didn't inherit.)

My mother is an eternal optomist, and I adore that about her.  You can tell her that you lost your job, wrecked your car, and have the stomach flu, but that your annoying hangnail has suddenly healed, and she'll say, "Your hangnail is better?  That's FABULOUS, darling!!!"  And that's my mom.  Always seeing the positive.

To bring it all full circle, my mom always stood up for her beliefs, always made sure she was heard wherever she went, and always let my father know EXACTLY how she felt (I grew up hearing, "Go fuck yourself, Frank" so frequently that it has now actually become a soothing mantra I sometimes say to myself when meditating.).  She didn't care what the other, more reserved parents of our childhood thought of her.  She always refused to fit into anybody's mold, and that's not easy, especially when you grow up in a small town like Ojai.  I have learned so much from her, and I feel as if I can finally apply all of it just now, at this stage in my life, when I am searching for my own path, and not just the path of being a wife and a mother.  The path of finding out who I really am inside and what I really want. 

The bottom line is this: I am really, truly proud to have Lynn Kirk as my mother.  She has helped me grow and succeed more than words can express, and now, looking back, I can recognize her independence and fearlessness and use it to inspire my own unique journey.

So, thank you, Mom, I love you.  And, yes, my blister is just fine.

Two Much

Bella and Charlie at the Houston Arboretum

I think I have been feeling a little guilty about writing a blog about Teddy, and not my other two offspring.  The thing is, Teddy is just so slapstick, while Bella and Charlie are a little more subtle, as well as complicated.  But, of course, there are some endearing stories about them, as there are with all children, and a few come to mind naturally.

First off, there's Bella, who's eight.  She is by far one of the sweetest little girls, if not human beings, I've ever met.  Here's a perfect example:  the other day my mother-in-law slammed Bella's middle finger in the car door, and when I say slammed, I mean all the way closed.  Bella tried her very best to keep a stiff upper lip, but when her finger started turning black, she kind of lost it and started wheezing out a noise that was a cross between a moan and a howl.  Meanwhile, my mother-in-law, also known as "Honey," had also fallen apart COMPLETELY, and was beside herself with anguish.  But Bella, who always worries about other peoples' feelings, was troubled that her grandma was upset, and shakily tried to comfort her through teary jags, saying, "Don't worry, Honey, it's not your fault...it was MY fault because I put my finger in the way of the door."  Three hours later, as we're waiting at the emergency room she whispers to me, "I'm sorry you have to go to all this trouble for me, Mom.  I won't let it happen again."  Ugh -- heart wrenching.

Bella wrote a poem at school recently and the last lines were, "Peace flies through the wind on a Saturday night.  Peace lives in my family room by the fireplace.  Peace walks down my street in the afternoon."  When I read this I nearly cried because it's just so honest and so pure, and also because there's no question that my daughter is a far better and more appreciative person than I am.

Bella does have her faults, however.  She is as dramatic as they come, and once she starts sobbing it's virtually impossible to get her to stop.  And she's not one of those quiet, docile criers.  When she cries, she cries LOUD, and her mouth uncannily resembles the shape of a giant peanut shell (it takes everything in my power not to laugh at this.).  Furthermore, Bella is super skinny, and when I hold her and rock her, which is usually the only way I can get her to calm down, I feel like I'm holding a moving bicycle in my arms, limbs and elbows poking at me everywhere.  I think I may even have some bruises leftover from her last episode.

But there's really nothing sweeter than a little girl, and I feel blessed beyond measure to have a daughter that loves me and wants to be with me 100% of the time.  Now Charlie, on the other hand, couldn't give a SHIT about spending time with me.  This kid, who's five, wants to do WHAT he wants to do WHEN he wants to do it.  Usually that consists of building Legos, drawing, watching Pinky Dinky Doo, and eating white, tasteless foods (namely, tortillas, string cheese and bread, in that order.  It's actually shocking that he's not more constipated.).

Charlie is breathtakingly handsome (I'm perhaps a tad biased), and the girls LOVE him.  Literally, when I pick him up from school he has a throng of lasses chasing him and trying to tackle him so they can play doctor and patient (Charlie is always the patient, smart boy.).  He also loves to adore himself in his reflection.  He often stands naked on the bathroom counter and preens in the magnifying mirror as he soulfully sings the lyrics to his mystifyingly favorite song, "Jessie's Girl."

Charlie loves to do anything related to art, which I suppose he got from my father, and he'll spend hours drawing, building, or play-dohing.  This visual and observant nature of his creates in him a certain softness and intuitivism, and therefore he's a genuinely sensitive and kind little boy.  If he knows that you're sad that he has a Rice Krispie treat and you don't, he'll immediately cut his in half, no matter how ravenous he is.  He'll take the blame at school for something he didn't do so Tommy won't get another time-out.  And he is wonderfully gentle with children younger than himself, even tiny babies.

The kid can be a challenge, however.  He is annoyingly impatient to the point of insanity, and he has a tremendous amount of difficulty in expressing himself.  He is one of those inward types, whereas Bella and Teddy are so expressive you know every nuance of every emotion they experience (which can also be fucking exhausting).  Charlie retreats into himself and it is hard to get him to talk -- about anything.  And I often feel guilty for the simple fact that he is a middle child, and that he subsequently gets a little shorthanded in the attention department.  But as a parent, the only thing I can do is my best, and thus I continually tell Charlie how special he is, and encourage (or beg) him daily to talk about his feelings.

Honestly, I feel so very proud of my three children, and so truly grateful that they are as happy and healthy as children can be.  Parenting is definitely the most challenging, as well as the most rewarding, thing I have ever done.  It is a constant exercise in selflessness, but it is one that I would do over and over again.  And I know my children will adore me forever, but that they will also break my heart at times, as we all did with our own parents.

And the truth is, I wouldn't have it any other way.

More poems

Thaw

There are oceans that flow
above
and below
the whole
of my soul --
and then there is snow
as you hold me.

A blizzard within
then
thaws throughout,
trenching my tunnels;
a breath --

Then I'm hot
and I'm heat
and nothing is neat,
but messy,
shouting,
like cardinal red,
in and out
and around,
abounding,
astounding,
exploding.

My stars burst open
and see.






Shred


I think I may
snap
in half --
is that
so bad?
I've clapped
and I've lapped,
but I feel fucking trapped.
And what is hap-
piness
but laughter
and rapture
and far greener pastures?

I love you
I love you

I'm apt
to adapt.






Window Bird

Through poreless glass panes
phosphorescent lanterns
hum and stealth into
my silent
lavendar night.

Suddenly
ghosts scatter on walls,
trees shadow and quiver,
crystalline visions
delicate hauntings
dance before my white-knuckled eyes.
The blueness of my being blazes
in dozing fits.

Light trinkles then
as
another day creeps upon.
Crows dance outside.
It is dawn.

Roaring Twenties



Cannes, France, during the festival


God, the holidays are exhausting!  Mentally I think I need a little vacation, and since my mind has been on traveling ever since my last blog, I suppose I'll revisit my overseas exploits in my twenties, particularly when I worked at the Cannes Film Festival.  Let me preface this by saying I graduated college early, at 21 (I have no earthly idea why), and immediately went to work in public relations at a company in Los Angeles called Rogers and Cowan.  Somehow I ended up in the International Film Department, working for the only two straight men in the entire firm.  Actually this was probably because I wore a short skirt and thigh-high socks to my interview.  Interestingly enough, at the time I thought that ensemble was totally appropriate, professional even (!).  Of course, I must also mention that I had gotten the job on the following prerequisites: 1) I had a passport, and 2) I spoke fluent Italian (this slight exaggeration only further clarifies how truly unprofessional I actually was.  I did know a few phrases, namely "Ciao," "Buon Giorno," and "Vai via!" ("Go away!"), the last of which was particularly useful when I studied in Florence and needed some space from the lewd yet charming Italian men who probably still lived at home with their mothers).

After a couple of fairly uneventful years of working for Michael and Lance at R&C, they suddenly asked me to work for the company at the Cannes Film Festival, as Lance had a conflict and couldn't go.  It was 5 PM when they asked, could I be ready to leave in the morning?  I, of course, immediately started shitting myself and internally screaming, "What?! Oh my God, what am I POSSIBLY going to wear?!"   Need I say more?  I was in.

I ended up attending three Cannes Film Festivals, and they were and are unlike anything I have ever experienced.  First of all, the city itself is BREATHTAKING!  There are hundreds of palm trees, pebbly beaches with striped umbrellas, and majestic, sprawling hotels.  During the 10 days of the festival, there are celebrities everywhere, throngs of paparazzi, and hords upon hords of tourists.  My job was to book and get interviews for our clients.  Sounds simple enough, but it wasn't.  It was fucking insane.  I would have a line of 50 journalists long standing at my desk waiting to schedule an interview, as they impatiently tapped their feet and berated me in strange foreign languages.  Then, of course, our clients would be whining over their lack of recognition (they were usually pretty minor in terms of celebrity status) and/or demanding more press.  I would literally sleep four hours a night every night for 3 weeks.  I almost always got incredibly sick, and even got food poisoning so badly one night that I probably should have gone to the ER.

But here's what made it all worth it: the intense, surreal, amazing parties.

There is so much adrenaline during the festival that even though you aren't sleeping and are working like a steroid-fueled racehorse, at the end of every workday, around 11 PM, you go out.  The parties are tented on the beach, or on a yacht, or even in a castle.  This one party I remember distinctly (and that's saying a lot, considering how much champagne I was drinking at the time) was The Moving Pictures party.  (By the way, Moving Pictures is an international trade publication, and they would always host elaborate fests.)  So this party I am talking about was at an enormous citadel on a hill in the old part of Cannes.  I remember getting out of the car in, like, slow motion, walking in, and seeing this gigantic courtyard all lit up in pink, with literally 1000 people all swaying in time to music.  There were Grecian statues everywhere, and hidden nooks where couples were making out, and so much liquor (and other stuff) it just completely blew me away.  It was like all these beautiful and sophisticated people had morphed into one joyous and frenzied mass, and the energy was absolutly amazing.  It was probably one of the most magical nights of my life, and I stayed there until 6 AM, when I went straight to the office with a pounding headache and a mysterious necktie around my neck.

At the parties in Cannes there is always a VIP section for the celebrities, which I was able to sneak into about 50% of the time.  At one of the VIP parties I met David Schwimmer and he asked me to back to his room at the Carlton with him, but I turned him down, as I had my eye particularly set on Remy, the chauffeur driver (don't even ask).  Anyway, David started pouting and whining, saying, "I can't believe you're telling me no.  That's sooo uncool!"  I think I half-expected him to tell me he was going to go and tell his Mommy.

At another VIP room, I met Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau, who were in Cannes promoting Swingers (does this date me or what?!).  They were hilarious and adorable, and when we all got back to L.A., a girlfriend and I even went on a double date with Vince and another friend of his.  Here's the really embarassing part:  Vince completely ignored me all night long.  He and his friend had taken us to the Dresden room and led us to the best booth right next to Marty and Elaine (the club's famously kitschy singers), but Vince immediately turned his back to me and started talking to EVERY other girl in the room.  Talk about humiliating!  Anyway, it was an experience at the least, and one I'll never forget -- especially since my dear friend, Amy, reminds me DAILY how I totally blew it by letting Vince snub me.

Cannes, and the escapades I had there, inspired me to continue traveling by myself, and I subsequently went to Prague, Budapest, Milan, and Paris, each trip completely by myself.  Trekking as a woman on my own, I have never been so open to meeting new people and to saying yes to surprising opportunities as they arose.  In Prague, with some new-found bohemian friends, I drank two bottles of this half-fermented wine one night and got the WORST hangover of my entire life that lasted three horrific days.  I also had a cab driver steal $500 dollars from me there.  Budapest was especially terrifying as I ended up staying on the wrong side of the river with the heroin junkies that were on every corner.  Additionally I didn't speak the languages or could even read the alphabets in either of those cities, so just getting around was a complete nightmare.  Paris and Milan were amazing, as one would expect, and all four of those cities were and are so beautiful that they are almost fragile in their exquisiteness.  As if their beauty is a transitory state, and could slip away at a moment's notice -- like most beautiful things, I suppose.

The travel experiences in my twenties created a fervent independence in me, and subsequently I knew I could handle anything that this unpredictable life could throw my way.  Even a journey into the wild wonderfulness of my very own family.  And, really, that's the craziest and most gratifying adventure of them all.

Family Tripping



Cruise ship fire drill --
I love how Andy's life preserver is swallowing him whole


There are two kinds of parents:  parents who travel with their kids, and parents who don't.  Fortunately my parents were the kind that took us on every vacation they ever planned, and they planned a lot of them.  This meant I was lucky enough to go places that many, many people never get to experience, from Europe to Russia to Scandinavia to more.  Some trips were better than others, of course.  I would consider crossing the turbulent North Atlantic while being trapped on a dingy for 7 days not one of my personal faves.  On the other hand, visiting the bright and bustling city of Istanbul was one of the highlights of my life.

In lieu of all the drama surrounding my last blog entry (and I really can't take much more drama right now - seriously, taking away Teddy's pacifiers was enough for a while!) I thought I would write about some of the Kirk family's most endearing and preposterous moments together while traveling.

The first thing that comes to mind is this cruise we took as a family when I was about 16.  My grandfather always was taking us on cruises around this time, as he was getting older and it was kind of self-contained sightseeing.  You could go to the filthiest place on earth, step in dogshit, get food poisoning and then get threatened by a homeless vagrant, but at the end of the day you could go back to your clean little perfect stateroom, dress for the early dinner seating, and see a corny magic show at the end of the night.  It was truly absurd.  Anyway, on this one cruise, in which we were traipsing around the Greek islands, my brother (who was 11 at the time) won the snowball jackpot in bingo.  Let me explain what this means: bingo on cruises takes on a whole new level, like, truly cult status.  There are three magic components to this: 1) most people on cruises are old, and bingo is a legitimately worthwhile activity, 2) there is really nothing better to do aboard a giant floating hotel, and 3) gambling is perfectly legal when you are at sea.  So here comes this irritating 11-year-old punk among all the serious hard-core bingo fanatics (who have been playing bingo aboard the ship religiously every day) and he wins the final snowball jackpot, worth $1600 (probably about the equivalent of $5000 today).  People were outraged!  There were wails like, "It's not fair!" and "Children shouldn't be allowed to play bingo!"  I mean, come on!  It was like someone had just told them that their Dr. Scholls were actually aliens eating away at the soles of their feet.

Meanwhile, on this particular day I had opted out of bingo, and instead decided to go to the cruise toga party (um, this is getting really embarassing).  I'm wearing, like, this white sheet tied at my shoulder and have lots of kohl eye makeup on and am feeling pretty good about myself.  After the bingo extravaganza and the toga thing are through, Andy and I reconvene in our stateroom, he with a wad of cash in his pocket and me in my ridiculous sheet and eye makeup.  All of a sudden, for some God-forsaken reason we start fighting over the cash: he thinks I took some, I insist I didn't.  At this point our adrenaline, which has been raring to go all day with our extreme cruise ship adventures (I'm thinking that could be a TV show), takes over and we start fistfighting each other, and I mean hard.  I knock Andy down, he hits his head on the corner of the table, and begins massively hyperventilating!  I totally panic -- I had never seen anyone hyperventilate before -- run out to the hallway in nothing but my toga and kohl, and start screaming, "I need a doctor, a doctor!  Help, Help!"  The steward immediately sets off the emergency alarm (for our entire floor!)), and, of course, like, five men come running all at once.  We all tumble and scramble into our stateroom, only to see Andy, standing up and breathing fine, totally blase, saying "I'm fine now, thanks."  Oh...My...God...I seriously wanted to kill the little turd.  I then send everyone away, ask the steward to shut off the alarm, and turn to Andy.  I look at his face and anxiously await for him to thank me for trying to save his life, even at the risk of my own personal and humiliating Greek tragedy.  He earnestly grabs both of my hands in his, looks deeply into my eyes, and says, "You still owe me my money, sis."

One year later, at a stuffy hotel in London, Andy locked me out of our room in nothing but my underwear.  That was fun.  My parents still laugh about this story each time it is told, as if it is the ultimate laugh riot.  Meanwhile, I am haunted by the memories of the uptight bellhops walking past me, trying not to make eye contact as I'm trying to play it cool by crossing my arms and acting nonchalant, while simultaneously growling, "Andy!  Open up the door, NOW!"  Good times.

There are also amazing, slightly less embarassing memories:  bottle-feeding baby sheep in the English countryside, fly-fishing in Scotland, touching a glacier in Alaska, learning to Russian folk dance, and quite simply experiencing cultures outside of my own.

The truth is, I really came of age during these trips.  I got drunk for the first time on on a cruise ship (my mom still insists the waiter slipped something in my drink), I was proposed to by a piano player named Cezar, my father was offered 5000 camels for me in Morocco, I went snorkeling and saw castles and ate crazy delicacies.  And I feel so blessed for all of it.  Now, with the world the way it is, I worry that I won't be able to take my children to the kinds of places I was exposed to, but I dearly hope this isn't the case.  And I suppose I feel as if I always have a little deck of cards in my back pocket -- each card representing one of the amazing memories I have from my childhood family vacations, and I simply have to pull out a card to revisit it again.  And again.

Drug Bust




Sarah and Andy, teenage siblings

 
Drugs are really weird.  Personally, I would say I've had a moderate experience with them, nothing crazy, nothing too tame. 

My first drug experience, outside of alcohol (which, yes, I know, is a drug), was actually a nitrous balloon at one of the many house parties I used to go to in high school on Saturday nights.  Everything turned completely green and giddy, and of course that awesome feeling lasted all of 30 seconds (although it really could have been 30 light years, for all I know).  From there it was pot, which, honestly, is it even necessary to write about?  Almost every single person in the entire world has done it, and if they haven't, well, that's just weird.  Sorry, but it is.  After that there was Ecstasy, which -- dare I say it? -- was ecstatic, and which was plentiful in California during the 1980s.  Unfortunately, I did that a few too many times, and probably destroyed more brain cells and spinal nerve fluid than I'd like to think about.  I never really got into hallucinogenics, because, of course, I'm way too paranoid to enjoy letting my mind run away with me.

Then it got kind of weird.  I went to college and still did all those things I listed above, but I also kind of got into prescription pills.  I developed terrible insomnia and anxiety when I went away to school, and the school shrink (seriously, WHY was there a school shrink?!) prescibed me Xanax.  Looking back, I think I was completely hooked on it, although I didn't realize that at the time.  I even took too many one time and got into a car accident, but my muscles were so loose and lethargic, that I came out unscathed.  God, I was a disaster.

Things subsided for a while after that, although my twenties were really one giant cocktail party (now THAT was fun!).  At 29 I became pregnant with my first child, and, of course, my frivolous ways came to a screeching standstill.  As I described in my first blog entry, after Bella was born I kind of became a little OCD.  I would obsess about the weirdest shit, like what time to the minute the garbage men would arrive and how to keep my daughter's hair free from grease for as long as possible (I wouldn't even let my husband touch it!).   Total psycho, I know.  So my doctor put me on an anti-depressant which was fine for a while, and then I would go off of it every time I got pregnant.  But after Teddy (my third and final), I went on the drug for a little while, and then eventually came to the realization, "Why the fuck am I numbing myself?"  We're humans, we're MEANT to feel things, you know?  And I'm not saying people don't need it, because they do.  There are chemical imbalances and deep depression and all sorts of conditions that those drugs (and others) are a godsend for.  I'm just saying that, for me personally, I like to feel and to feel deeply - joy, sorrow, anger, whatever.  And fortunately I'm not terribly OCD anymore (probably a little of the opposite, ironically enough), but I DO have emotions and pain and all the crazy stuff that goes along with, just, you know, life.

Here's the downside: all those feelings are draining!  I'm emotionally exhausted, like, 99.9% of the time (although that could just be from my three adorably maniacal children).  But I now feel challenged and motivated like never before, and that in itself is kind of exhilarating.  Not that I don't like to go out and get a little crazy occasionally...ummmm, ok, often.  But then when I'm on, I'm really on.

And on that note, I need a drink.