I Want to Sparkle

It’s September. 

Of course, you already knew that. 

I’m not sure, though, when, or how, this year became to be three-quarters of its way through. Really, I look at the calendar and I’m certain that the pages just turned to June. By the time I recognized it was June, I think it was August. That may explain that.

Time flies when you’re having fun, moving on, learning new things, or growing up. That’s all happened in the last nine months. What have you learned this year?

This year, I learned that I love to be spontaneous, so long as everything else is planned. It’s important to me to know where I’ll sleep, or how I’ll get somewhere, but the rest -- I can go with the flow.

Also, I learned that I’m content with being alone. In fact, much to my dismay, I actually enjoy it. That being said, I do love companionship and hope one day that I can have a relationship where there’s an honest blend of mutual interests and individual interests.

What I learned most about myself and my experiences of this year is what I don’t want, and how to help those who may not want it either. I don’t want to be stifled. 

I want to sparkle.

Getting the frump out of your rump is a permanent process; it is a constant cycle and the recognition of what does deserve and what one does not; and getting it out allows your sparkle to shine through. 

I have something big coming. It’s still in development and it is coming. As soon as I can tell you, I will. I hope you’re as excited about it as I am. 

Bookends, Measuring the Year in a Life

“525,600 minutes how you measure the year in a life?” begs and so tries to answer the theme song of the musical Rent.

When I think about the “year in a life” right now, I think of the word bookends. It’s the marking of both the beginning and the end of something, and the story that’s told between those markers is how you measure that year in a life. 

Bookends are like the sunrise and sunset of the day. 

At the sunset of one year and the dawn into another I made myself a promise. 

“In 2011, I’m going to like myself more,” I said. I wrote it down. I published it on this blog so that anyone could see and hold me accountable should I have any doubt that I could do it. 

A post called “Floating on the Wings of Earthly Angels” told the story of how very real people turned up in my life in previously unimaginable ways. Emotionally, spiritually, and some days, physically, I was floating on angels. Now, I am again, and this time no one had to say anything. I already knew. 

Anyway, days grew into weeks and weeks grew into months and somehow I found myself standing seven months after that post without a single question or doubt that everything had in fact happened for a reason. 

Tomorrow will mark one year since something quite specific in my life. It will also be what would have been my Grandma’s ninety-second birthday. When I look at where I will be tomorrow and where I was exactly 365 days earlier and then all that has happened in between, I can’t imagine it only being 525,600 minutes. 

I started July 22, 2010 in tears of emotional hope. 

I ended July 21, 2011 with a smile that could not be wiped from my face that could only be described as ethereal joy. No hope necessary, it just is.  

The story that’s told in the middle of these bookends is a year in a life. 

It’s told simply: in small and big prayers, in some very big cups of coffee, quite a few bottles of wine, moments of uncontrollable laughter, the making of some wonderful new friends (some old one’s too) and memories, as well as the shedding of a former self that all built up to an overflowing of gratitude. 

Bookends. 

        Oh, and I totally like myself more. 

Thinking About that "Movie Moment"

Have you ever had a “movie moment?” Or, better yet, what would you consider a movie moment?

Sometimes, in social situations, or within my own thought process, I find myself saying aloud, “Wow, that was a movie moment.”

You know what I’m talking about...

It’s that moment when he realizes that she is the one. Or, the moment that they both realize they’re in on the joke together. Or, the aha moment! that two people, friends, or lovers, have when they discover they are far more similar than they ever thought possible. 

You know the line (thanks Harry from When Harry Met Sally): “When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible!” 

But, have you ever been watching a movie and felt that you already had your own movie moment and completely blew it? Have you ever actually found yourself standing in the rain somewhere about ready to tell some guy or some girl that you want to marry them some day and then you don’t?

Here’s the thing. It was more than 10 years by the time I found out that a guy from high school waited outside my sophomore year English class every day and I just walked right by him. Why don’t you people say anything? What’s more, I wonder why even bother telling me now? 

Is there some “hopeful romantic” (not hopeless, but hopeful) thread running through all of us? Do we all somehow sit there and think that the guy we’re having dinner with has been thinking all the same things we’re thinking, but all we do is think it? 

To all the people who say that this (real life) is not the movies, I say yes, that is true. However, we’re all just as stupid and vague and love-struck as all of those movie characters in those predictable movies. We just don’t have a music track to cue the aha-moment!, or the run to him or her in the rain, or the “it’s you” revelation.

What’s your movie moment?

Confidence Found on a Bar Stool

What makes a person confident? Is it the repeated hearing of compliments? Is it something just inside them that says they are confident, or good enough, or smart enough?

Sometimes I wonder about that.

When does confidence become rude? Can your confidence ever hurt another person? Is that even possible, or just a problem with perception?

No, I don’t sit up at night thinking about this kind of stuff, but it is kind of fun to wonder.

I went out last week, alone, because I didn’t want to cook or be home alone. I went to one of my favorite spots and sat in an empty bar stool.

Once the Yankee game was over, the guy sitting next to me struck up a conversation. He was intelligent, thoughtful, and quite attractive. So, I participated in the conversation.

He said one thing to me that I had never quite heard before and didn’t really understand why it resonated so much to me.

But, he, after several attempts of trying to get to know me, finally said, “Are you one of those hot girls who doesn’t believe she’s hot?”

I nearly whiplashed my beer right into his lap with a stunned expression on my face.

Me? A “hot girl”? Of course I never believed that I was or am a hot girl. I am the girl who sits in front of a computer for a living, wears glasses at night, and studies for a graduate degree most of my spare time. 

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and thinking, but it dawned on me, that maybe there’s hope out there for all of us girls who say that the right guy is either “handicapped or taken.” 

Not that this is or was the right guy. I believe he was an agent of change. He allowed me to understand that everyone’s definition of “hot” is different. Maybe to him, in his young-Tom-Hanks-Ryan-Phillippe-wearing-a-hat-good-looks, being hot was being intelligent and confident. When he asked me what I enjoyed doing, I said I loved to work out and get outside, and also wine taste. I recognized that’s quite a social dichotomy. 

This guy in one sentence handed me a plateful of confidence that I had been missing for years. I’m still not sure what to do with it, but with less than a week of graduate school left, I think I’ll start with smiling more. 

Hot people, in general, don’t frown. 

Then, maybe I’ll pick up and read a book I’ve been meaning to read. 

You know, because hot people, can carry a conversation.

Then, I’ll just shut up and listen, and enjoy the atmosphere, but don’t be afraid to say hello. 

I Need Coffee. Did that Make Sense?

If you’re a regular reader, or sometimes just pass through, I apologize for my weeklong absence. 

I took time away from this journey to work on another journey. This involves some work on your part. Don’t worry, it’s not like homework. It’s very simple. 

If you’ve ever read this blog, why do you read it? What are you looking for? Is there something missing from your life, or is there something you’ve found?

Here’s the thing:

I believe many of us spend our entire lives trying to figure out the secret of life. But, as Faith Hill sings, “The secret of life is nothing at all.” 

There is also a question about “happiness.” That is almost a buzz word these days. What makes you happy? Who makes you happy? Why do they make you happy? 

Can’t we just be happy when we wake up in the morning?

Alright, so here’s the thing. When someone tells you something that you don’t really want to hear but you know to be true, how do you react?

Ok, because once someone told me, “You don’t write well. I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

It drove me nuts because my teachers had all selected me for writing awards growing up. I didn’t understand how my educators could respect my writing but my peers and colleagues could not. 

In college it proved to be a real problem. Fortunately, I had a professor who listened to me in class and recognized my thought process. 

Professor Lisa Smith was her name. I remember because she always sat on the desk at the front of the classroom and I sat in the front row. I mistakenly always wanted to call her Lilith. You know, like Frasier’s wife (ex-wife) from “Cheers” and “Frasier”? 

Anyway, she finally said to me, “Annie, you need to write your papers like you’re writing a letter.”

I said, “What?” I mean, what happened to the bing, bang, bongo format?  I seem to remember learning that in fifth grade. Introduction, three main parts, and then a conclusion. Bing. Bang. Bongo.

“You need to just start writing and don’t stop until you’re done,” Professor Smith said. “Don’t even start a new paragraph. Don’t edit it. Just write it and submit it.” 

I later found out that I wrote, thought, and spoke just like Lorelai Gilmore on “Gilmore Girls.” My thoughts hop-scotched, to me, naturally from one spot to another. If I tried to formalize the thoughts in some sort of restricted and legitimized writing format, it didn’t make sense. Oh, and I also like coffee just as much as she does. 

“What?” I said.  

“Just write it like you were talking, without a filter.”

“Wow,” I think I said, or I thought I said.

Anyway, I was a sophomore, I think, and for the first time in my life, someone with the power to decide my success decided with me, and not against me. She recognized that I had something to say, and to let me say it, even if it meant allowing me to choose my delivery. 

Lesson learned then is a lesson learned now and every day that I think many of us struggle.

Happiness isn’t about changing who we are or becoming who someone else wants us to be, it’s about being able to be exactly who we are, when we want to, and how we want to.  No disguise. No disappointments. 

So, a few years later when a news anchor said, “I don’t understand what this says,” I knew she was wrong.

I said, “let me see that.” I grabbed the script from her hands and I read it aloud.

“Oh,” she said. 

There were no more words.

I finally made sense. 

____

Question: What makes you happy? When do you feel most understood? Have you ever tried to change who you are to make sense to other people? Did it work? Let me know!

We All Have Little Girl Dreams of Making it Big

UPDATED: April 7, 2011


Ok, so I wrote this post last night after watching "American Idol." Then, without anticipating it, a person who seemed to be just about everyone's favorite, Pia Toscano, was eliminated on Thursday night. Clearly, she is in a caliber of her own and does not need a show like "American Idol" to be successful. 


Even though I participated in the "I'm outraged" and "what just happened" reaction, I do believe that she, just like every little girl (and boy) who tries to do what they believe they can do, is already a winner. 


Now a question for you, what is it that you really want to do? What's stopping you? 


ORIGINAL POST BELOW: 


Thanks to Charlie Sheen winning seems to be everything these days.

It’s not about winning, though. It’s about trying. It’s about getting up after falling down. It’s about trying that dance move one more time. It’s about wearing that ballerina outfit even though you think you look like a marshmallow when you’re wearing it. It’s about singing country, if you’re a little bit country, instead of singing rock ‘n roll. 

Just saying.

When I was about 7, I was in a little dance troupe. I was in a class called “intermediate jazz.” I wasn’t reformed enough for the ballet. I was way to attention-deficit for that, and not quite coordinated enough for tap (as much as I wanted to be). I had these small-town, big-girl dreams of making it big. 

Our dance teacher decided we would be dancing our final number to “A Spoonful of Sugar” from Mary Poppins. Little did any of us know then that a spoonful of sugar made me dangle from the chandeliers and not dance. 

I can still remember holding hands with the other members of our all-girl group as we wore these checkered red and white leotard outfits with frilly white things attached to them and sparkling red hats. We skipped are way to the right, and then around, in a circle. Then there was something about “jazz hands.”

Courtesy: franticmeerkat.com

Apparently, if you spread your hands open really wide you can feel the energy coming out of your fingertips. I think it was just the blood freaking out about which way to travel.

Somewhere, in the home archives, and not in this house, my parents have a picture of me in that dorky little outfit. Man, I thought I was something else. And, like almost every 7 year old girl, I knew, I was going to be a star. 

23 years later, all I an say to that is just dance. Lady Gaga got that right. Just dance. 

And, in the words of my eighth grade language arts and social studies teacher, to my friends, and to those who try, “You’ll always be famous to me.”

It’s not about winning. It’s about believing. 

It’s not about being famous, or even trying.

It’s about being you. Red and white checkered leotard with frilly white thing, and all. 

You Don't Know Something Stinks Until it Smells

The first week of Spring is coming to a close, even though it roared in like it was Winter saying it was going to stick around another week.

I refused to let that get the best of me. Just because I can’t lay out by the pool or go running in the sunshine right away doesn’t mean it’s not Spring.

For whatever reason, I’m particularly excited about this year’s Spring. 

All I can think about is Beatrix Potter, Peter Rabbit, and having tea parties in rooms surrounded by tulips and girl friends wearing pastel Easter Springy-dresses! 

It might be throwback to my childhood, but I would be lying if I didn’t tell you that my guest room is starting to look like the Easter Bunny’s Workshop. First of all, the bed spread is very spring-like with all the flowers on it. Secondly, I have pastel post-it notes marking which card and gift goes to which person. Third, I can’t seem to stop myself from gathering up little books, magnets, lotions, and candies for a list of people.... (Yep, made a list, checked twice or so already) who are on the recipient list.

It’s all part of bringing back good mail. It’s a campaign I’ve been on, mainly because I’m tired of getting just junk and bills in my mailbox. I’m sure you are too. Just saying.

Going to the mail box now is like an Easter egg hunt. You don’t know if there’ll be a surprise when you look tomorrow! 

For all the good things that Easter and Spring can bring, one lesson from my childhood really stinks. Or, sticks out. Honestly, you don’t know something stinks until it smells!

One year my Dad hid eggs all over the house, the backyard, as well as jelly beans. I seem to recall finding jelly beans and eggs for days after Easter. Maybe even a week. Once they were all collected some of the multi-colored sugar-shaped eggs were hard and nearly broke my teeth off. I’d also had about seven egg-salad sandwiches a day - and I had moved on. I was ready for Summer. 

I don’t know exactly when it was, but we had gone somewhere, and when Mom, Dad, and I arrived back home, we opened up the front door and..... Blast.

Damn. It stunk. It stunk like a sewer on a hot summer day near the Salton Sea. 

So, what happened? Dad stuck an Easter egg in Mom’s china cabinet. The egg, mind you, had ideas of its own. It didn’t want to stay put. So, it exploded all over that thing. Dad had to cart the china cabinet, dishes inside, into the garage, empty everything out, scrub it down, and in the process decided to cut two inches or so off the height of the china cabinet.

Mom was not pleased. I don’t think this was the kind of Spring renewal she was hoping for.

I’m telling you, you don’t know something stinks until it smells. 

------------
How about you? Do you have a memory from Easter that taught you a lesson? Or when was the last time something really had a stench? What was it?

You Can't Be Right If You're Worried About Time

There is a lot of inspiration in a 100 Grand candy bar.

I ran track in high school. (Seems fitting since I liked to run, err, chase, people around the playground in elementary school).

The whole distance thing didn’t work out for me, but 100 meters, and I was there. My Coach, I seem to remember, was a one-time Olympian. He scared me.

The head coach, on the other hand, would give out 100 Grand candy bars. I don’t even remember what for, but it was inspiring. 

I wasn’t fast. I sat a lot of meets out. But, boy, did I love to run. I wasn’t the fastest on the team, but I was the fastest in PE class. I’d run so fast in class that by the time I got to practice, I couldn’t run anymore. Coach never made me feel like I wasn’t fast enough. 

It wasn’t until some 15 years later that I’d hear how important it was to be “fast” and to be “first.” (Thanks slogans and mantras at news stations.) We also had to be right.

So, how can one be fast? First? And Right? All at the same time?

Well, clearly. One has to slow down. You can’t be right if you’re worried about time all the time. Even if you got through the finish line fast enough, how can you be sure you’re actually first? What if you didn’t run the race right? What if you threw out your knee so bad that you finished, but have to wear a brace for the next two weeks. That’s no fun.

I had the shin splints for two weeks. I hated that. 

Then, in college, I thought I’d run a marathon. Six miles into training I felt what sounded like a gunshot go up my left knee. That would be the beginning of deteriorating cartilage.

I still like to run. I just don’t have to be first. Or fast. I just want to run. There’s nothing to run from, or to run to anymore. 

You know what? This is for all the people who give up their candy bars because they have to get in shape. 

Run. Run anyway. Then eat a 100 Grand. You deserve it. Coach said so. Then run tomorrow, too. 

But, I'm not in a hurry. I'll get there, wherever there is, someday.




Photo Courtesy: http://www.franticmeerkat.com/

All the Other Kids Grow Up Too

How many homes does one have in their life? Not just a house, but a home, a place where there is a sense of family or community?

I just had to come back one last time, sings Miranda Lambert in “The House That Built Me.” 

In 1994, I went to high school with my direction facing the rear view mirror. I thought if I could just return to middle school every now and then I’d remember what I was afraid I’d forget. 

Del Dios Middle School became so much like a second home to me, I spent afternoons in the teachers lounge. I copied papers and put spiral bound backs in student print out documents. Mostly, I chatted. 

“So, I have this teacher who....” 

“I want to be President someday, still, but....” 

Honestly, I don’t think I ever had anything interesting to say, but I didn’t want to leave. 

Just as much as I didn't want to leave, I was in love with my Grandma. When she passed away in 2006, I could't believe I hadn't returned to her home, where so much love could be found, in so long. So, in 2008, I made the journey. I thought, finally, coming home. But, Grandma's house wasn't Grandma's house anymore. I looked for any evidence that it was, and immediately, outside I spotted what was once my swing, worn, tattered, used, and rusted, yet waiting as if just to say "hello." 

My "Swing" Outside Grandma's House (2008)

You leave home, you move on, and you do the best you can, I got lost in this whole world and forgot who I am. 

In 2002, I left my first job at what was then a Fox affiliate in San Diego. While working there I described it as a playground.

“Anne Marie, how can you run around barefoot!” someone would yell from the sports office.

“Because I can!” 

People would be tickled by the copiers, mini breaks were taken upstairs to make hot chocolate, and no matter what we all always went out for drinks afterwards. 

I remember this one time we convinced one of the main anchors and a weather anchor to come out to karaoke, something the rest of us did every week. Somewhere, on video, they are singing “I’ve Got You Babe.” 

When the men would sing, the girls and I would toss panties, yes panties, to them and scream like we were 17. The hostess of the karaoke night also worked at a strip club. She came with props. 

We had some really, really, fun times. Really. 

In 2009, I went back to that first job for a job interview. It was just happenstance, but someone who worked there when I did still remained and said to come on by. 

She took me inside the building, the same building that I had dreamt about getting lost in, and finding myself in, for the previous seven years. I had never left it. 

“Rust,” I said to her as I looked at the stairwell that had once been so clean and white. “Smudge,” I said again as I noticed dirt on the walls. I cringed inside a little because it wasn’t anything like coming home. 

Then, just as I felt a tinge of tears lulling me out of joy, I heard someone say, “Anne Marie.” 

Two years later, almost to the day, I returned to my latest home, hoping to take more than just a memory. For the first time, the place looked the same, some of the faces were still familiar, and the feeling inside was just right. I had come home.

Yet, I recognize there is always some nostalgia in “coming home.” Eventually, all the other kids on the street grow up and move away, too. It’s always fun when you come back to visit and there’s at least a few you can talk to at the mailbox, or catch up with during a morning run. Yet, they all leave too and we’re out looking for a new place to call home. 

They say home is where the heart is, and depending on who is in your heart, and what makes it beat, and has your chest rise and fall; it’s one place, or no place, or many places at the same time. 

I’ve found home in the teacher’s lounge at a middle school, in the studio of a TV station, on the stage at a bar on karaoke night, and in a little desert town where some people think you only retire, and ultimately, wherever the people I love happen to be. 

I Kind of Get the Whole Comedian Thing...

Here’s a pickle. I like to laugh, and I like it when I am enjoying a conversation with someone and we’re laughing. 

Yet, I spend so much time overanalyzing, as someone put it, the only way to laugh is to just not think. 

“Did you buy the wine,” said my friend, as we got back to our hotel room on my recent trip to Hawaii. 

“No, I thought you bought the wine.”

“Well, I can’t find it,” she said. Then I reached into my bag and pulled out the perfume I had bought for a friend, and myself, and some lotions, too. I smelled each one of them. Every time I smell perfume I immediately think of Natalie Wood, thanks to a story my Dad has told hundreds of times, and then a friend of mine who once wanted to make perfume for a living. My mind starts to wander and then...

“I bought the wine!” my friend shouts from somewhere deep into her bag, laughing. I walk over to her side of the room and sure enough, she’s holding the bottle of Pineapple wine. We just started laughing. It was the most mundane moment ever, but to us, it was completely hilarious.

I suppose this is a spin-off of that whole nothingness notion I wrote about last.

The point is, I understand why comedians are funny. The whole “walk a mile in my shoes” thing isn’t really what it’s about. It’s about leaping yourself out of the situation you’re in and looking at it as an outsider. 

I completely laugh aloud when I watch “Chelsea Lately.” I’ve seen her comedic routine twice in person, and have rolled over laughing. It’s the kind of comedy that I’d never let my children listen to (I don’t have children, but if I did), and the kind I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I do like. Yet, I just get it. Chelsea Handler makes perfect sense.

As I write this, I recognize that it’s not my place to be the funny one. You have No Shopping Liz and OhNoaG for that. I philosophize publicly. However, when you get to know me, we’ll be laughing. Perhaps, even, as my closest friends know, you’ll get to hear what they affectionately call (or so I believe), “Annie noises.” 

In fact, I went to San Diego in September and my best friend picked me up from the airport. I wasn’t in the car more than thirty seconds when she said, “yay, Annie noises!”

So, if you’re looking for the nugget to put on your bulletin board (Liz, this is for you), then the point is that you can’t laugh at anyone else, until you can laugh at yourself. Then, of course, you can laugh at anything. 

Point retracted. It’s not that everything is funny, it’s just that we own our reactions to everything. If it’s funny to us, we know why. If it’s hurting someone else, they know why. (But, we all don't know everything.) So, laugh with respect to those who may be humbly hurt. It’s a lesson I’m learning every day.... 

p.s. As I write this, I chat online on Facebook with an ex from 2003. He says, “lol. You’re funny.” I wasn’t even trying. 

Good news.