Checking in

Right when I finished my 30 days project, I was faced with a looming deadline on a script at work, which took up every minute of my time at work and at home. And then, I was faced with a crisis where I switched from just a feminist to an Angry Feminist (it started with the Marcia, Marica, Marcia episode of American Crime Story), and since then, I've been full of rage and asking everyone when the new planet will be ready, so that I can leave this place and take only the wonderful people with me. 

Bloggable things have happened, but I've been too angry to write about them. One would argue that I should write about the stuff that makes me angry. Well, I tried, and I couldn't get it to sound not-insane. So instead, let me give you a run down of just a few things that have happened over the past few weeks that I want to remember:

1. For a while, Maddie was saying "BINGO" instead of "jinx." We told her the word is "jinx," but she can't remember that, so now she says "JENGA!" It's the best.

2. I asked Isabella what she wanted the Easter bunny to bring her, and she said, "Candy! And a note. I want the Easter bunny to write me a note." Okay.

3. Election coverage was on, and Maddie said, "Why is there never a girl president?" That was about 2 weeks ago and I haven't stopped hugging her. 

4. I'm really excited for March to be over. These primary Tuesdays are killing me. 

5. I received an honorable mention for the story I submitted to NYC Midnight. I hated the story I submitted, but it got me writing again, and out of 40 entries in my heat, 5 moved on to the next round and 3 got honorable mentions. I'm trying to remind myself I don't suck. This helps. 

Day 30

Yesterday was day 30 of my self-imposed 30-entries-in-30-days. Here is what I learned, in no particular order:

1. Perfection is not even worth my time. I wrote 24 entries, not 30. I started to panic about it when I realized I was more than 2 days behind. But then I reminded myself that hey, I've written more in the past month than I have in the past year, so let's focus on that.

2. People like reading what I write. Some entries were more popular than others, and it wasn't always easy to predict which entires would be popular. Also, it was surprising to me to see who WASN'T reading - and by that I mean who didn't comment on Facebook, or who didn't "like" any of my entries, or who didn't even notice I was writing more again. I didn't take this as judgment - it was just very clear that more people OUTSIDE my circle were very much interested, and were supportive and excited to see I was writing. So... I don't really know what to make of that. But my takeaway is that I do have an audience, and while it's important to me to write for myself, it's nice to know people want to read.

3. None of us are baby geniuses. A friend said this to me a few weeks ago and it stuck with me. I have this underlying fear that because I can't write The World According to Garp, I shouldn't write anything at all. First of all, that is nonsense. Secondly, it is not even a unique thought. It's such a boring and common thought, so I'm trying to shut that up, and I've realized that my writing is something that will get better with practice, as opposed to writing it off as "not good enough."

4. I am a writer. This is more a reminder than a realization. All I need to do to hold on to this title is write. I don't need to get published, I don't need to be perfect, I don't need people to tell me I'm good. I just need to write.

5. I need to think like a writer. This is probably the biggest change over the past month. The more I make time for writing in my life, the more I think like a writer - I see more, I listen more, I'm more curious, I'm more empathetic and understanding. This all makes the writing come a little easier, and it starts to feel like it's easier to write than to NOT write (which is something Julia Cameron promises in The Artist's Way).

6. The "why" is important, but not always necessary. I have a constant conversation in my head about WHY we tell stories, and why we feel compelled to create. This kind of goes with number 3. The why is definitely important, but not having it should never prevent me from writing.

7. I have no idea what kind of stuff I want to write. My go-to is short fiction. But sometimes I want to write a novel. Other times, a play. Other times, a screenplay. Sometimes, a web series. It's okay to not know... but I plan on spending the next few months working on various things to try to figure out what it is I actually love.

8. Any kind of creativity fuels my writer-brain. In the past month, I have sketched at least two things, I have taken more pictures, I have colored with the kids and on my own, and I even helped Maddie write a book. This is all stuff that feels ridiculously good, and it fuels the fire in my head. So no matter what, I need to keep creating.

9. No one is making the rules but me. This is tricky - I do best under deadline and when people are counting on me. I'm terrible at holding myself accountable to ME. But I have to exercise this muscle. I can't let it become atrophied again. So... I don't know how to do this other than to just keep showing up. We'll see how that goes.

Thanks to everyone who read and encouraged me to keep writing. It's working.

Epipha-what?

"Should you fail to pilot your own ship, don't be surprised at what inappropriate port you find yourself docked."

-Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

It's that time of year in Los Angeles when the whole city smells like jasmine. It can get overwhelming at times, but when it first starts happening, every year around this time, it is nothing short of delightful.

Every year when this happens, it makes me think of when I first moved here, and it fills me with nostalgia and dread. How have I been here this long? How have I let this much time pass, and I'm still not doing exactly what I want to be doing?

I think I've finally - FINALLY - reached the point in my life where I actually believe I am capable of doing what it is I want to do, and I don't have to wait for someone to give me the opportunity. I'm finally seeing that the only thing I lack is motivation and belief in myself, and if I can just get past those, I can do all of those things I think are impossible.

My life is good. My ship isn't where I thought it would be, but it's not in unfriendly waters, and my ship mates are supportive. I'm taking small steps to right the course. It might not be immediately productive, but it feels way better than just trusting the night stars.

The effort.

This:

"If you are going to be a writer there is nothing I can say to stop you; if you're not going to be a writer, nothing I can say will help you. What you really need at the beginning is somebody to let you know the effort is real."

-James Baldwin

Not the thing.

Last night, I finished "Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear" by Elizabeth Gilbert. I have a bunch of takeaways from this, but here's what I want to put into words today:

Fierce trust demands that you put forth the work anyhow, because fierce trust knows that the outcome does not matter.

The outcome cannot matter.

Fierce trust asks you to stand strong within this truth: "You are worthy, dear one, regardless of the outcome. You will keep making your work, regardless of the outcome. You will keep sharing your work, regardless of the outcome. You were born to create, regardless of the outcome. You will never lose trust in the creative process, even when you don't understand the outcome."

This space isn't about writing great things. It's just about writing. And sometimes, things are unexpectedly well-received, and I see 300 hits on one post, and then sometimes, things I think are going to be great receive lukewarm responses, or fantastic responses but from only a few people. It doesn't matter. I mean, it does. The encouragement helps. The praise helps. The "hey, I feel this way too!" helps. But I can't let it matter, because what matters is that I'm showing up and conditioning my brain to work like a writer again. That's all that matters.

This reminded me of a bit from Amy Poehler's book "Yes, Please":

You have to care about your work but not the result. You have to care about how good you are and how good you feel, but not about how good people think you are or how good people think you look.

And...

You do it because the doing of it is the thing. The doing is the thing. The talking and worrying and thinking is not the thing.

On cue, I got a text from someone this afternoon gauging my interest in a project that would stretch my creative abilities and give me an opportunity to maybe do something I haven't done before but have wanted to do forever.  I don't know if this will pan out, but I said yes, I'm interested, despite my inner critic saying, "Pssshh.... no way." Because, I thought, why say no when you can say yes?

As I was hunting for the above quotes from "Yes, Please," I found this one that I had forgotten:

Because what else are we going to do? Say no? Say no to an opportunity that may be slightly out of our comfort zone? Quiet our voice because we are worried it is not perfect? I believe great people do things before they are ready. 

So: less worrying. More doing. On it.

Five years later

I don't even know how to start this one.

It seems a lot of creatively-inclined people will submerge themselves in their art when things in life go awry. I suppose they find a solace in transferring their anger and grief onto whatever medium they are using. I find my experience to be the opposite. When life sucks, I don't want to write, because writing is emotional and makes me think about too much, and makes me ask questions and explore my own feelings. Nope. Pass.

If you look on the right-hand side of this blog, you'll notice there are no posts in 2011. That's because 2011 was the worst year of my life. It came on the heels of a challenging but ultimately fantastic 2010, which was the year Maddie was born (and the year I got to go see Ohio State in the Rose Bowl). Christmas of 2010 was the best Christmas ever - there was a new baby in the family, my sister Jackie was sober and present and part of the holiday, and on December 17th, 2010, my doctor's office called me to let me know our first round of IVF had worked, and I was pregnant, after trying unsuccessfully for a year via IUIs. I felt like my life could not get any better. I was swimming in happiness - a cautious but very tangible happiness. Every subsequent doctor's appointment seemed to confirm what I had imagined was an almost impossible dream - we were going to have A BABY.

Of course you can imagine what happened. We were quiet about the baby, telling only a few people. And then, when I was 11 weeks and 6 days (which is one day shy of the safe-to-tell-people 12-week mark), I found myself going in for emergency surgery. The last thing I said to the doctors was, "Please take care of my baby." 

The doctors didn't even know why they were opening me up, they just knew they had to. I went to the emergency room that Saturday morning, around 1:30am, with severe abdominal pain. I won't bore you with the details of how I couldn't sleep, I couldn't pee, and how they didn't give me a pillow for my head but expected me to rest comfortably in the hospital bed, and how I whimpered throughout the entire night, and how Gina sat in the chair next to me, exhausted and emotional and uncomfortable and afraid. I'll leave that stuff out. I will tell you that they almost sent me home at 7am with a diagnosis of a UTI, but when a nurse noticed my pulse wasn't slowing, she decided against discharging me. NURSES ARE HEROES, YOU GUYS. I might've died had I gone home with only a prescription for fucking Cipro.

Sometime that morning, after they decided they weren't discharging me just yet, my fertility doctor, whose practice is located at the hospital I was at, came to see me. I could see the concern in his eyes when he saw me. "You don't look well, Katie." Maybe it sounds like he was being flippant, but he wasn't - he was validating me. No other doctor could figure out what was wrong with me, and one doctor even said, "I don't want to examine you because you are pregnant via IVF." Doctors, everybody! My fertility doctor was saying, yes, something is wrong, and you aren't going anywhere. He was the one who admitted me to the hospital. 

I had a CT and an x-ray, neither recommended in pregnant women, but my doctor felt like my life was more important than the health of the baby. I'm thankful every day that he was there through all of it, because I trusted him without question and I knew he had my best interest in mind with every decision he was making. Finally, Sunday morning, he told me, "We have to open you up and figure out what is going on. None of the tests are showing anything, but obviously something is wrong." We talked about the danger to the baby, but I'm pretty smart and I knew there was no other choice. So open me up they did, on February 13, 2011. 

I don't remember how long the surgery was - maybe 4 hours - but when I woke up, I wasn't in pain for the first time in two days - all I could feel was relief. I asked him if the baby was okay and he said yes, the baby was fine. He told me I'd suffered ovarian torsion, and that one ovary was necrotic and filling my body with sepsis, so they'd taken it out. They'd tried to do the surgery laparoscopically, but were unable to see anything, so they cut me open vertically from right above my belly button all the way down to my crotch. I imagine the next step was they were putting me on antibiotics to combat the sepsis, but I don't remember. I just remember the feeling of being out of pain and the relief that the baby had survived the surgery.

About two hours later, I started bleeding. Initially, when the nurse called my doctor to let him know, he said some bleeding is to be expected. But then I started bleeding more, and the nurse looked at me and said, "I think you're losing your baby." I don't remember what that nurse looked like - what color her hair was or what color her eyes were - but somehow I remember the feeling of the look on her face, and I remember how her voice sounded. She sounded like she was afraid I was going to freak out. But all I said was, "Okay." Thanks, morphine! I looked at Gina, who was there holding my hand, and I could see the tears in her eyes. A few minutes later, they showed us our 12-week-old fetus in a bedpan. I didn't cry. I was so drugged up and so grateful to be out of pain. All I could say was, "I'm sorry."

I ended up spending 11 days total in the hospital. I had a blood transfusion, which remains one of my trippiest experiences to date (I could FEEL myself recharging as the blood made its way into me - blood is the best!). It wasn't until I was on about day 5 that I started actually experiencing the emotions of what had happened. When I was finally well enough to go home, the infectious disease doctor told me I was finally "out of the woods," but that I had very much been in the woods during the past week and a half, probably being chased by crazy rabid wolves with machetes. Okay, I made that wolves part up. 

Recovery sucked, but I did learn that two Vicodin is better than one. I also learned just how much you use your core for, and when an incision has been made through half of it, it's hard to do EVERYTHING. I also learned that Gina is The Best at everything.

Grief is a weird thing, and I don't know if this grief is in a category all its own. I'm inclined to think had the baby been still born, it would've been harder. Or if I'd lost the baby earlier in the pregnancy, it would've been easier. I don't know. I just know that there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about that baby. I used to think everything happens for a reason, but I don't believe that anymore. Things just happen, and sometimes things are great and sometimes they suck. The only thing good to come out of losing that baby is Isabella, who would certainly not be our kid had that baby been born. But that doesn't make the loss any easier for me. Those two outcomes exist on separate planes - I love Isabella and love that she's ours and wouldn't trade her for anything (even when she's being a little punk), but I still ache for the baby I lost and wish with every part of my being that hadn't happened. 

Another thing about this kind of grief is that no one wants to hear about it. I mean, they say they do, they say "you can always talk to me!", but seriously, people don't know what to say or how to react. And it's easier to not talk about it, because it's such a bummer, and it's more fun to be funny and goofy. 

I haven't been able to get pregnant again, and it's taken me this long to finally be okay with that. I've finally accepted that there's a good chance this just might not happen for me. It helps having two rambunctious children who don't listen and who treat me like a short-order cook/housekeeper. But they are also delightful in so many ways, and I love them so much, and that love is finally enough to dull the pain of the loss. I still feel a twinge of jealousy whenever I hear anyone is pregnant - even characters on TV! - but it doesn't derail me anymore. I can go to baby showers, although I do try to avoid them in general. I'm angrier and more cynical than I otherwise would've been, but I've learned to just live with it. 

Every year on February 13th, I think "This is the year I'll post this story." But I haven't had it in me until now. Putting it all on paper (so to speak) feels like part of the process. So here it is. 

Right after our first insemination, in 2009. Look how relaxed and optimistic we are!

12/18/10 - the day after we found out I was pregnant. Pure joy. AND LOOK AT BABY MADDIE! COME ON!

There's a little bit of magic, everybody has it.

I was in a funk at the beginning of last summer. The kind where I could barely get out of bed in the morning or off the couch on the weekends. The kind where I ended every night with 2-3 drinks just to turn my brain off. The kind where I cried, a lot.

I was fun.

And then one day, I was on a walk, and one of my buddies (Katie or Erin, I can't remember which one) texted me:

So they sent me "A Better Son/Daughter." 

Sometimes when you're on, you're really fucking on

And your friends, they sing along and they love you

But the lows are so extreme, that the good seems fucking cheap

And it teases you for weeks in its absence

Luckily, it took approximately one listen for me to fall in love with it, and we were able to remain friends. But the bigger thing that happened was that Jenny Lewis pulled me out of my funk (the Lexapro also helped), and suddenly there was no other music worth listening to. I subscribed to Spotify and listened to every Jenny Lewis/Rilo Kiley song available, all the time, and I fell in love. When I first heard her song "The Next Messiah," I had this thought: "Why does anyone need to do drugs when songs like this exist?" The music from that song pulsed through my veins - I felt like I'd injected it into me. 

This happened with so many of her songs. I felt like she'd surely written "Head Underwater" for me. Obviously she'd read a bunch of my short stories from college and wrote "Late Bloomer." I fell hard for Jenny right as her new album Voyager was released, and not long after I first heard her, I saw the hilariously irreverent video for "She's Not Me." And then also the video for "Just One of the Guys," with Brie Larson, because OF COURSE SHE'S FRIENDS WITH BRIE LARSON. I kept looking for a song I hated and I wasn't finding any. Everything was so good. It all felt written for me.

Because Los Angeles is awesome, I was able to see her in concert for the first time about 6 weeks after I heard her for the first time. 

I like to pretend she's singing right to me here.

Best. Concert. Ever.

I think it's best if writers write for themselves, write what makes them happy, and what they believe in. You want to know your audience, but you don't want to cater to them too much or you risk losing your voice. But dammit, how great would it be to know that what you are sharing with people is changing them? That what you have to say matters so much, and is connecting on a very real level? THAT is rad. THAT is the dream. I feel lucky to have this girl and this music.

One of those "likes" is from her. 

30 in 30

I made up this challenge for myself a few days ago - 30 blog posts in 30 days. This is post #6 in as many days, and because of the nature of this challenge, I want to explain myself here.

I'm doing this as a way to get me to resume thinking as a writer. More on what that means in a later post. But I've been ignoring the writing thing for way too long, and I need to stop. So, this is one way I'm attempting to change my habits. 

This is my own space and I get to do whatever I please here, so not all of these posts will be fantastic or life-changing or funny or sad or whatever other adjective you're expecting. Sometimes they are just going to be fangirl love letters to writers or singers or actors. Sometimes they'll just be lists of stupid shit my kids do. Other times, they will be complaints about how everything is the worst. Maybe occasionally they will just be pictures with captions - captions count as writing! The posts might make you love me or hate me or think I'm wasting my time and yours. I'm okay with all of this. The goal is just to get them published, to have a deadline for myself, and to meet that deadline. I have no idea what I'm going to write about every day, but I will always find something, because that's what I need to do. 

Ideally, writing this much will slowly make me a better writer, and eventually, the quality of my posts will be higher, and you'll be interested to come here and see what I'm thinking and to tell me what you're thinking, and to also tell your friends to do the same. My goal with this blog has always been, since 2004!, to have a place to write and to connect, a place to dump thoughts I'm willing to share with others. 

And maybe in this process, I'll learn how to end blog posts well.

Beyonce & social change

I have to do it. I have to write about Beyonce.

I majored in theatre* in college because I thought I wanted to be an actor. I soon realized I wasn't good at acting, but I stayed in theatre because... well, because it was what I had started in, and what the hell else was I going to do? But definitely the second biggest reason I wanted to graduate with my bachelor's in theatre was because of the idea of "theatre as social change," a concept my small-minded self didn't think of until my History of Theatre class. As soon as my professor started talking about it, something clicked, and a huge "why" in my life was answered.

What a better thing to do with your art than to try to change the world? And that can be through something blatantly political, or through something more subtle, like introducing the concept of drag queens to a possibly tentative audience. We tell our stories so that we can feel understood, so that other people can relate to us, and so that we can, in a sense, weave our being into the fabric of humanity. We're saying, Hey look, we're here too, and here's what we're about, and I'm sure if you look hard enough, you can relate to something here, because we're actually not that different from you.

And sometimes, we tell our stories because we are pissed off. Who else but Beyonce could turn the Super Bowl into an advertisement not only for Beyonce, but for a brand new song/video, a new world tour, the Black Lives Matter movement, the atrocity that is the Flint, Michigan water crisis, and the desperate need to address systemic racism in America? Say what you will about her artistry - she is a force, and she is using that force for a purpose.

She woke up like this.

And guess who is angry? The "not-racist"s of the world. The folks who scream "all lives matter." The clueless ones. The ones who don't feel this anger, who don't feel this injustice, so they can't relate. (If you still think Black Lives Matter means your life doesn't matter, or police lives don't matter, or black lives matter MORE than any of these, you are so far off base, you're not even in the game anymore. But let me know if you'd like to play, and I'm happy to have a conversation about it with you.)

There were a million articles today about Beyonce's Super Bowl performance and how politically charged it was. It fills me with despair that so many people are so angry about it. Why do you think black people feel so disenfranchised? They're trying to tell us what they are feeling, and we're annoyed and angry and want them to just shut up. We're making it about us, the white folk, and how it makes us uncomfortable, and how we feel like we're being blamed. Guess what? It's not about us. Maybe this isn't my fight because of the color of my skin, but I stand on the side of human beings knowing they matter, knowing they are important, knowing they are equal. 

Now, excuse me while I whip about my AmEx to hopefully score pre-sale tickets to the Formation World Tour. Bow down, bitches. 

*I go back and forth with my preference on how to spell this word. Today is an "re" day.

A Crushing Chore

A quickie...

Upon learning of my re-entry into this creative realm I've been avoiding, a friend of mine recommended the book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert. I'm not big on self-help books, but I will read any book about writing. It arrived yesterday. This is the back cover:

What struck me most about this is the part that says, "Art is a crushing chore and a wonderful privilege." Over the past few years, I've been questioning why we tell stories, and more specifically, why I write.  I know why I don't write - that's simple. But when I am writing, why do I do it? And why do I always feel like it's a thing I should be doing?

For me, writing is the best way I know how to connect to other people. And I'm not talking about specific people - I'm talking about humanity. The best books I've read are books that show that other people feel the way I do, that we actually aren't hurdling through space alone and without instructions. It's that feeling that compels me to create, that urge to do that with other people and for other people. 

What makes it this crushing chore is that writing makes me vulnerable. It forces me to open myself up and dust off the stuff I ignore. I'm ignoring that stuff for a reason. It's not really working that well for me. So... I might as well just sit down and write. So that's what I'm doing.

Writing

I started and finished something last week.  It was a short story for a competition I paid $45 to enter. Participants were given a genre, character, and subject, and were charged with writing a 2500-words-or-less story in a week.

My genre was "ghost story." Even if I believed in ghosts, which I don't, I would never believe in the idea that ghosts are out to do harm to people. My instinct was to write a sad ghost story, not a scary one, but the genre description on the website specified that it should be creepy and frightening. So I wrote a ghost story.

I sort of liked my idea, but I was hating my execution. I waded through that story like it was sewage. I'm usually sort of happy with some of what I write, but at the end of this story, I had a real thought that I should just not write anymore, which spiraled into this helpful brainstorm about how I've been praised on my writing my whole life, and how it's one of the only things I think I'm good at, and maybe The Only thing other people have consistently told me I'm good at, but I just don't do it at all, I don't make time for it, and how maybe I've just been wrong about this huge part of me, that I'm actually NOT any good at writing, and...

Because I had this inkling that the idea was good, I decided to put my insecurities aside and show the story to a few people, with the hopes they might be able to offer constructive criticism. I've never been this reluctant to show people my writing. I just hated the story, and was embarrassed that this is what I'd come up with for this contest. I showed the story to other writers, and at least one of them loved it. The other ones had very positive things to say and nothing negative to say. One of them agreed that it was a draft and not a finished story, but that it was a very good, solid draft.

So, the story will live to see another draft. And I'll live to see another day as a writer, internal critic be damned.

What is this feeling?

I’m having that feeling again. A feeling which is not unfamiliar but not nearly familiar enough. It creeps up when I’m reading a particularly great book, or feeling inspired by a great article or interview, or listening to a new song I’ve just discovered that is lyrically perfect, often in its deceptive simplicity. All of those things have happened just recently, all at once: the great book is Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt – the metaphors! The word choice! The ridiculously rich main character, so complex and layered and flawed! I’m about halfway through the book and am obsessed!; the interview is the GIRLS panel last night at the Academy – envy at their youth and envy that they’re CREATING, and something that I think is pretty great at that; and the song is I Don’t Wanna Break by Christina Perri -  “I just wanna love you, don’t wanna lose me, don’t wanna lose you, if it gets harder then I don’t wanna break all alone…” sometimes a song just takes you to a time in your life and you combine the lyrics with a catchy tune and it throws you, quick and rough-like.

The overture to this was waking up one morning a few days ago before everyone in my house was awake, and the windows were open and it smelled like summer at dawn. The birds were chirping and the blue-gray light bled all over my living room, and I felt a surge of possibility.

So what is this feeling? Well. It’s this: I want to read all of the books – fiction, non-fiction, short fiction, flash-fiction, novellas. I want to read your journal. Yep, yours. I want to watch all of the movies and television shows. I want to consume all of the comic books and graphic novels. I want to see all of the paintings in all of the museums. I want to go to all of the panels, I want to be obsessed with everything that’s ever been created. I want to hear all of the music and read all of the lyrics. I want to read all of the poetry, maybe even memorize it. I want to discover all of the new bands and I want to go to the open-mic nights and I want to see all of the comics. I want to re-read all of my favorite books all at once.  I want to have lunch with you, all of you, one at at time and I want you to tell me about everything interesting that’s ever happened to you.

I want to write. I want to find stories to tell, and tell them. I want to create things people are obsessed with. I want to create things I’M obsessed with. I want to take pictures and learn photoshop and print pictures and frame them and hang them up. I want to figure out how to put into words how beautiful my girlfriend is, I want to find the right word to describe the color of her eyes. I want to write down every single word that I love, and I want to figure out how to use them in something I write. I want to learn how to construct metaphors – can that be taught? I want to blog and tumble and tweet. I want to take classes, go back to school to be all of the things I ever wanted to be – doctor, lawyer, writer, teacher, astronomer, marine biologist, actor. Filmmaker. Screenwriter. I want someone to shackle my ankles to a chair in front of a desk in a quiet room with a computer and force me to sit there for 4 hours, 6 hours, 8 hours, however long it takes until I’ve written something worth working on a second time, a “shitty first draft.”

I want to make sense of everything.

Of course, there is never time for this. Not for all of this, anyway. But there has to be time for SOME of it, right? If I could bottle this feeling, it would change my life. For now, I just let myself feel it, and let it move me to tears just a bit, and hope that if I keep reading and listening and working and writing – even just a little bit – the feeling won’t be so much of a stranger.

Yes, and...

Can we just take a moment to acknowledge how perfectly gorgeous Tina Fey looked at the Emmys on Sunday?

Good gracious.

I've been spending a few minutes here and there over the last few days trying to figure out how I could justify putting this picture up here.  While I'd love to just be able to put up pretty girls on here for your viewing pleasure (and mine), I feel like I need a reason.

Not having Tina Fey on my TV every week has not made me forget about her, but I don't think about her as much as I used to, but seeing her in this form-fitting blue dress has left me with little else to think about. There is one part of Bossypants that always sticks with me and it's when she's talking about doing improv, and how one of the main rules is that no matter how the scene starts, your job as a fellow improv player is to say, "Yes, and..."  So no matter what world your partner is creating, you have to agree to it and add something to it.  I remember her talking about how this has helped her on every level of her life, from her professional to her personal life.  I re-downloaded the book on my iPad this morning so I could search for this section and find out exactly what she had to say.  It is more fitting to me now than I even remembered:

"To me, YES, AND means don't be afraid to contribute.  It's your responsibility to contribute. Always make sure you're adding something to the discussion. Your initiations are worthwhile."

This comes as I'm a little bit more than knee-deep (maybe thigh-deep) into a journey of trying to find my way back to writing, trying to figure out why it is that I write... or more appropriately, why it is that I don't write, and why it is that I want to write.  A lot of little things I've been coming across lately speak of "responsibility" - to yourself, to the world, to your artist. I'll now add this to the list.

I am certainly not one to argue with Tina Fey.

Returning

Hello everyone, and welcome back to my little corner of the interwebs. I know some at least one of you have has missed me, and I do apologize for my absence. Instead of harping on that, let's talk about my plans for this space.

I've been blogging since about 2004, and the reason I always liked it was because it got me writing. As I look through my archives, dating back to when I was 25 (!!), I realize that this blog has been a great way for me to chronicle my life, a little spot for me to look back and remember things that become so easily forgotten. They might not be worth remembering to others, but they are to me, and I've always kept a blog for my own use and not with hopes of monetizing or profiting.

So what can you expect from this space? I realize a lot of bloggers look for their "voice," or try to capitalize on their "brand." Well, I don't really know what my voice sounds like or what my brand looks like, so for now, here's what you will see here:

--Anything and everything on my radar. Television, books, movies, popular culture, maybe some unpopular culture (although I'm probably not cool enough to know about the unpopular culture), politics, Los Angeles, Ohio, aunthood, parenthood (yep), writing, producing, comedy, podcasts, music, college football...and whatever else I'm thinking of. There's no theme here, people - just Katie's head.

--Labels - I hope to be diligent about labeling all of these posts so they are easily accessible on this page to anyone who might want to read about a certain topic.

--There will be an entry some point in the near future explaining my two-year hiatus from this space.

What is my goal for this space? I've been a writer since I was in 2nd grade. It's been the one thing I've been told consistently I'm good at, and whenever I feel like my life is lacking, I always think, "I should be writing more." I'm not saying this is the space I SHOULD be writing in, but this is a start, and I hope to use this space to unlock my creativity in my own personal writing, writing that I might actually try to get published some day.

I'm not going to proclaim some lofty goal of posting every day, but I feel like a goal of three times a week is an achievable one. It's easy to be great at setting unattainable goals, but it takes a stronger sense of self to set attainable ones, so let's start at 3 posts a week. I hope that's enough to keep you coming back for more, because while the main point of this space is for me to remember things and get back on track writing-wise, I also love sharing my thoughts with YOU and hearing your thoughts back. Also, there is a part of me that has a fear of sharing certain things, but I am starting to realize I'll never get to where I want to be if I'm not honest with myself, and what better way is there to hold myself accountable than to put my thoughts and goals out there for you to read and judge? (Or perhaps I just like being ridiculed? Not sure.)

Thanks in advance for stopping in to say hi. And please, if there is anything I can do to make your katieeverybody blog experience more enjoyable, let me know. I'm not sure how much I will be willing to or even know HOW to change, but I would love to hear your thoughts.

-k.