Latifah’s Had It Up To Here

And I may well have used that title before, people, because – let’s be real – Latifah has been pissed off more than a few times in the four years I’ve been blogging here or on Myspace. (We’re clear on me referring to myself as Latifah, no?) So, first things first, before I get to the “anger” – no one wanted to help me but I found a way anyway! HAH! I can now force you to listen to the songs I like. Which is to say that instead of asking you to go somewhere and find it yourself, I will just put it here, right there in the corner… and you can be a buttface and not turn it on or you can be an American hero – assuming you’re in America because why else would you be reading this oh-so-American brand of retardation, which isn’t to call America retarded but rather to say that I am most definitely a product of America and am retarded. …Ahem. It’s easier if you just turn on the song now.

So Latifah’s short list of unacceptable offenses: (a) since leaving the United States – and I’ve really only gone up to the attic – I’ve gotten some pretty strange banner ads. Such as the one saying I can “win” a green card and go to the US. … Is there … some sort of raffle. ‘Cause I’m pretty sure a few Americans would be pretty pissed off if that’s the way immigration really works. I mean, Canada let me drive in with a packed U-haul and a dog but … that’s just because my whole family’s hot. Mostly Ezra. Anyway, I’m gonna need somebody to get on that whole disabling of said banners, kthanxby.

(B) The point at which I start having dreams in which Jon Gosselin appears, it’s getting a little crazy. Okay, maybe it was my fault for reading about how my girl, Nancy Grace, chomped on his manhood but seriously, when Dream Jon starts attacking my parenting by asking who’s with my son when he’s at school – which…is just retarded. And hurtful, because the administration has already made perfectly clear that I am not allowed to even hang around the entrance for six hours. But on the real, I did think it was pretty lametastic how he NOW seems to be able to open his mouth and defend his estranged wife, after letting her be raked over the coals when he was originally photographed with another woman. Because (a) you truly know their marriage because they’re on TV and (b) what sick woman ever accuses another of “deserving” her husband’s alleged infidelity? Right. Welcome to morality. And said defense was really just to draw comparisons with how “and now I’m being made to look bad by only showing one side”. Yeah. Now you get it. GET OUT OF MY DREAMS. And stay outta my car, too.

And just so you can end your day feeling good about your life. Please try to wrap your head around this. And know that death is the only real option here.

 

The Matrix, How I Love Thee.

So, despite the fact that I never used to write about this, here is yet another entry about my actual writing/career progress. (As soon as Wonder Pets stops stealing my attention.) Didja… didja see how my title was misleading, there? Catch that, didja?! *chucklesnort*

Well, Andy, no I did not buy Writer’s Marketplace or subscribe online. Neither did I try to figure out Toni Morrison’s  agent – though another author told me they share an editor.  And on both counts, I feel I should stay as far away from both individuals as possible. While my work may still have thematic or sociological relevance/purpose, I don’t see how her people work with anyone else’s literature! You’ve just read Toni Morrison’s genius, what’s gonna sound good after that? Is this idol worship? If you know me, you know I’m an unapologetically confident person who knows I am talented and where that falls on the general scale of other people. But you also know that I’m a realist. I have no problem with the fact that Toni Morrison is separate from every other literary artist of her time, to be generous to everyone born before her. O_o Seriously. Here’s the other thing, it’s of the utmost importance to know thyself, in my opinion – which is something that’s supposed to make things sound more gracious, I think? (If this Wonder Pets episode doesn’t stop centering around a parrot who keeps cry/singing, “Polly Misses Her Pirate” on a minor scale, I swear to the heavens above, children will weep for what I’ve done to her.)

Anyway, I know this is about writing but social observation is on the same page: as I was saying how important it is to know one’s self, to know where you are special and what is not your forte or gift, I got to thinking about those people who have no basis or interest in reality for making that determination. These are the people who feign introspection but give themselves away with such phrases as, “[Describe a ridiculous situation into which they've gotten themselves or some ridiculous desire they have for which they are unqualified or done nothing],…but I know it’ll work out.” See that word there? “Know”? Just sprinkling it throughout any conversation makes the subject real and plausible, apparently. It’s what makes real people with genuine self-confidence (backed up by preparation and consistent effort) – you know, the kind that doesn’t dissipate when the sun goes down – too irritated by “surface  similarities” to talk about their lives and aspirations in mixed company. Especially since a big part of my preparation and learning about myself is prayer, and not the kind that requires beads or “openmindedness”. I am a strong individual but I know the necessity of submission when it comes to a relationship with the God who made me and that’s where I go to inspect myself. I highly recommend it. I find my faith encourages me to tell it like it is, hard to believe as that may seem to people used to glass-eyed believers who think the sun is always shining. No use living in Fictitia (a magical land wherein everything is as you say it is) if I know God won’t buy it. What good will it ultimately do me?

And that, my friends, is how you take a detour. So, Andy, to actually answer your question. I started out on Poets & Writers (the same place I went to begin researching literary journals) and then, sort of as a double check, I used Agent Query – pretty much to see if I’d missed anyone in whom I’d be interested. So, after that – on both counts (journals/agents) – I made a matrix.

And I am made happy by this. I cannot helpt it. Anywho: after finding the agents I think would be interested in my work, I visit their blogs or websites and find out information particular to them that interests me, which I also add to the matrix so that I can personalize my query letter to them. One of the agents, for example, is an alumna not only of my Alma Mater but also of my particular college – which makes sense if you know how UC Santa Cruz is set up. (Porter, whatwhat!) Others were interested in work with social relevance, character-driven work, etc. There were plenty of people who might be right as far as the type of book I’m querying but who didn’t jump out at me, so I didn’t add them in the first pass. Aaand I could write about this all day since… I write all day. Oh and query. But instead I will get back to Margaret who has been sitting in that bathtub for several days now. Pruney goodness. That or get back to widdling away the wordiness elsewhere. Or just go over to Andy’s blog. Whatever.

 

The Impossible Dream

Okay, I guess it wasn’t that impossible. Just don’t take naps late in the afternoon with semi-wet hair?

So I was in the movie theater in a mall, waiting for showtime (or to buy tickets tho I wasn’t in the line, I was walking around some partitioned off, badly placed area…which is to say, right in front of the concession stand, after about four people deep in the line, there was a large, rectangular space – maybe for art, for cut-outs? – that was surrounded by this waist-high plexiglass barrier). So I wasn’t waiting for tickets, I was waiting for showtime to get closer so that we could buy our goodies and go inside, which makes sense since Josh and I used to do that a lot when we went to the theater on Pacific Av in Santa Cruz before we had Ezzie. I have no idea which theater this was and at the time it seemed like a stand-alone.

ANYWAY! I’m with my boyfriend (?) whose British (?). Then suddenly – on like our third lap around the plexiglass – maybe there’s a noise from outside, I realize something is coming. The Green Goblin, to be exact. I motion for all the people in the concession line to follow me deeper into the theater, remaining calm myself. This is explained when I tell someone (whomever is now running alongside me is not my boyfriend and is female) I knew it was only a matter of time because I was dating Spiderman and Batman within the last two years and that always draws drama. (?!?!)

When we get inside a theater, choosing what we hope is a random one that he won’t enter – I see my childhood play-cousin, Quaylan and his friends to whom I rush over – they’ve all rushed to the front of the theater, crouched in front of the first few rows of seats. We hug and act like we’re about to get reacquainted until it becomes obvious that this theater is the one he’s going to enter. At this point, a click sound is heard and then something rolling/bouncing down one of the side aisles (btw this place looks more like an unlit church sanctuary without a podium than a regular theater). I’m about to run from where I’m suddenly at (on the other side of the columns separating the side aisle from the main seating area) to t he main area to hide between seats but then I realize the bomb is meant to cattle everyone in that direction so I and the woman who’s now constantly around me run to the lower part of the same section. I know the blast radius (remember because I dated Spiderman, so apparently I’m familiar with all nemesis autillary) so I know we’ll be safe. I lay flat in the shadow of a pillar (or something) instead of crouching behind things like the woman who finds herself hiding directly next to me – worried that one’s bowed back will be visible.

I should probably say at this point that the Goblin is now a woman. A huge woman whose identity is a mystery. This is dreamland, people, roll with the punches. Anyway, she walks down the aisle – people are running and screaming. No idea what she’s doing. Until she passes me and the other woman, sees the woman’s bowed back, rips her from her hiding place, slams her on the floor, turns her over and does what sounds like a knife going straight down through clothes and flesh. Why I know what that sounds like, I have no idea. At this point, I feel like I’m gonna go into cardiac arrest, my heart is beating so fast. I think, if she grabs me, I’ll have to wake myself up… which is the first time I’ve “known” I was dreaming. (Usually comes up when I’m in danger, though.) Anyway, this was not like split second fast – this killing – but rather as though the huge woman had all the time in the world and was just strolling around to exterminate things. The woman who was killed didn’t gasp though or scream, which was scary to me for some reason…

So the killer woman walks up the aisle and out of the theater room. And we all rush back to the “bottom” of the room, thinking about what we should do. Only one young woman looks at us like we’re stupid and says, “I’m going out this exit.” Everyone’s about to follow her until I suddenly stop and realize if it were that easy, we woulda done it before (not that I previously realized there would of course be an exit in here). And. That’s my whole rationale for not following her. I rush over to the far end of that back wall and yank the shutters off of a high window like one you’d find in a bathroom, for ventilation but very narrow in depth. Why is it here? Who knows. The woman behind me asks another girl if she can squeeze through the window. I answer, “I’m going, lady. I have a child. We can all go.” Like, this isn’t a search mission, dork. But also….I suddenly have a child, even tho at the beginning of the dream I was with a nonexistent British boyfriend? Sure. So I punch the screen out of this ridiculous window, pull myself up until my butt is about to come through (if it could fit), then turn around and sit down on the window, pulling myself up from that point and lowering my legs down to the sidewalk.

Now it’s like we’re at the Capitola Mall, despite it not having a theater. But the sidewalk along the building and the Sears that’s right there are obviously from that mall. So, the woman who went through the door is sitting on the sidewalk right outside of it, apparently incapacitated though the reason is unknown, and now she’s wearing a houndstooth shell top with a black pencil skirt and looks like she’s a secretary from a couple generations ago. ?!?! ANYWAY. We take off into the parking lot, where it becomes obvious that agents of the killer woman are looking for escapers. Somehow, they know what we will look like and our names. Like we took roll before seeing movies. (Which reminds me, when I climbed out, the people who were still in the theater room told me to leave some ID, which made total sense but I forgot to do it. And I have no idea what the logic was…maybe at this point, they suddenly knew that we were being held prisoner. ) So I’m literally looking for my car but it turns out that the other women are pretending to, knowing their cars aren’t in this direction. Again, logic lost. Why get the agents to figure out who you are and use the couple minutes when they rush inside (’cause they don’t have walkie-talkies in this scenario?!) to tell our identities to run to your car…. Anyway, so I’ve been freakin’ out because I don’t know where my keys are anyway. Well, one of the agents decides to just made a run at us (seeing as they’re all men and we’re all women) and we rush into the Sears that was next door to the theater. We’re running first through the auto repair garage, then inside in the tools section, which is where they somehow head us off. At this point, my brain goes, “duh!” and I realize I can just seduce them. So I come out of hiding and start being comic book seductive which is where I wake up.

*bows to thunderous applause*

 

Seven Levels

Since I’m quarantining my son from the outside until after his nighttime attempts to expel his lungs ends, I’m not going to be running errands today. Which I need to do. Correction: one of which I needed to have done like half a month ago. But since it took me forever to get their documents, I’m trying not to feel horrible. So instead I’m going to regale you with my final dream from last night.

Basically, my brain decided that Lincoln Heights (as it was in my dream, I simply knew what it was supposed to be – it didn’t really resemble those … “actors”) is so bad that it must be Canadian. At some point, I’m walking through the house – leading Josh through a narrow walkway like towards a staircase after which will be a basement or laundry room. Something like that. And the structure of the house I must say is not like a contemporary house, so I’m not sure what it was that let me know what the show was supposed to be. ANYWAY, as Josh and I are walking, there’s a song playing which is really cool and has a female lead singer and sounds a bit like a less commercial version of Paramore.  But I start talking to Josh about how Jennifer’s gonna say they sound like Tegan and Sara which they don’t and how I don’t even like that group and how I like this group and I wonder who they are. And then we round a corner and the band name is written on the wall as the final shot of the episode so people know who was featured. They’re called Level 7. (If it matters, they were Canadian, too.)

So, of course, I google Level 7 because I can’t believe I remembered the fictitious band name. Turns out it’s really an apocalyptic science fiction novel written in 1959 about, well, the end of the world. That’s….kinda what I meant by apocalyptic. So, Andy, ever heard of it?

Yeeeeah. I’m awesome.

EDIT: How is it that people are clicking links that aren’t in any way connected to my blog? As in, under my admin stuff it’s listing all the files/pages people are finding and looking at through my stuff. And like half of them I’ve never seen or read before. Hein?

 

Odds and Ends Much?

I think everyone should know that I was disappointed with what I saw of “Camp Rock”. I mean… it was no Cheetah Girls movie, let alone High School Musical. What’s the deal with the disparity in lip syncing performances? The kids are either over-performing (a la Jonas Brother who thinks it makes him authentic to have weird mouth contortions and full body shudders because the song is that intense) or have not been properly shown what to do with their hands or feet (a la Will Ferrel’s first interview in the Ballad of Ricky Bobby). Sweet Lord, it was annoying. To be fair, I didn’t watch the entire movie but… to be fair, I found the episode of Hannah Montana that followed to be much less annoying. …. You may be asking yourself why I was watching Disney Channel last night with my husband and aunt and Ezra wasn’t even in the room… *wanders off*

Anywho! I had some awesome dream wherein I realized everything I need to compose for the upcoming MacDowell and Fulbright applications. Both of which I promise only to speak of in the shallowest of terms. Mostly because… who are you people. But I digress. What is it with me and these dreams? You know I once had a dream where I wrote an entire book and absolutely loved it and told myself to remember it when I awoke only to realize upon waking that a) that doesn’t ensure memory collection and b) well, the book kinda made less sense than the second version of Planet of the Apes. Whoa and that one time I dreamt about being on the set of The Wonder Years and that if I left my fan letter to Fred Savage on the kitchen table, he’d get it in real life?? Despite the fact that by the time I was obsessed with it, there’s a good chance that it was not even being filmed anymore?? … Well, I guess the first point would be that I wasn’t really in the house. What? I got to it!

Le sigh… so … what’s up with you guys? Oh, nevermind. I have to go with my in-laws to see Wall-E.

 

Beautiful Dreamer

So during my unintentionally long afternoon nap, I had another of my trademark movie dreams. Beautiful with, this time, ugly content.

My family – a large, rather Victorian group – ride the train to the country to spend our holiday at a quaint, but still rather Victorian … as in, they brought in the “quaint”… bed and breakfast (I guess, because we don’t own it; it has a mistress). It’s a lovely place and I’m excited in that antiquated, girls-in-this-period-never-get-to-do-fun-things-so-don’t-show-excitement-well-but-
rather-like-a-retarded-schoolgirl. I don’t have a playmate but my father and brother, a short (ie my height, 5′9″) guy with black emo hair and facial fuzz. There’s a bunch of us but it’s extended family as well and I have no one my age so I’m excited to run off by myself or have my own room, etc. While everyone’s milling around back downstairs in the parlor, the woman of the house comes and calls my name. I frolic over and am smiling at her while she extends something to me. Which is when I notice the bonnet. And immediately know it’s because I’m going to be the help. This is when I realize (although already in the dream knew?) that my entire family is white (there is no mother figure present, only my white father and not-mixed brother). I take it and burst into tears, running out of the parlor to find my father. The part that really begins my devastation is that my brother and his friends – and countless other members of the family – were in the room, I remember him looking at me out of the corner of his eye when he noticed the bonnet. But then, I realize someone must have let the woman know my race ahead of time for her to be prepared with the uniform.

So I’m running around the house looking for my father in tears and come across a modern-day Black mother with her daughter to whom I show the bonnet (because I’ve had no choice but to take it when offered?) who rubs my shoulder and looks extremely sympathetically. They’re wearing jeans and visors like any other group of modern tourists and I know they can’t help me at all. I never find my father but I overhear (like voiceovers so that I don’t even know who said it) the gossip about “my mother” having died because my father had a mistress and how she was only my brother’s mother. I’m outside at some point, climbing over a half-demolished concrete wall (which once again doesn’t seem consistent with the period) to get into the lush green meadow (to look for my father, still?) and then out the front door, where there is a modern-day street and across it is a rather “urban” gas station with loiterers and a pay phone and more modern-day Black people. None of this is strange to me in the dream. Anyway, I eventually go back to the parlor, having found no one to comfort or defend me. I’m still crying when I lean over something like a podium – in the library, actually, not the parlor – (because having not found my father, no one can convince the woman of the house that I’m not supposed to work while there) and then my brother comes up next to me, without touching me and asks if I’m alright. I cut my eyes at him and don’t turn to face him before asking him to leave me alone. Sadly, he does. I’m there for a while longer, at some point wearing the jeans and outfit I was wearing when I went to sleep.

It really was beautiful, cinematically.

 

My Dream Life, 2

This is gonna be a short one. I just remembered something spectacular about one of my dreams last night. It involves myself, Joshua and Ariane doing some sort of construction/renovation (perhaps too many house flipping shows?) … on a grassy cliff. At twilight. So, Ariane’s father – who is approaching from a room in his own house…which apparently lets out onto this cliff – is played by the father from all the Friday movies, the Wayans brothers show and Boomerang. He leaves us to our work and immediately returns and we realize he’s having an episode. Apparently, he’s schizophrenic. So, when he comes back out, I immediately fear he’s going to push me off the cliff and yell for Josh to come over to my work station. Instead he goes straight for Ariane, telling her he needs her to get prepared for some visit – like to a voodoo doctor, I think. He pushes her down onto the ground, laying her flat on her back and takes out her drivers license. I’m still hammering away at my hutch or whatever … using quarters instead of nails. (I’m doubling up and hammering two quarters in each place I’d use a nail…and when I’m putting them in place diagonally, which is how you set them to hammer, they’re sitting on grass and soil instead of wood…le sigh.) At this point in my process, I remember a previous dream. But I remember it as being a dream, even to my dream self. I’m so weird. (It was about being in church on Wednesday night and a bunch of people from high school were there and the guy tells some Dane Cook joke and I roll my eyes. Then I swoon over his baby that came out of nowhere. By the way, this youth pastor is the guy who was on Santa Cruz’s action news last night.) Anyway, so back at Ari’s ritual, her dad now has quarters placed around her head and on her shoulders, which now look more like silver dollars. I’m feeling really uncomfortable with his episode and decide it’s time to go. Josh and I promise him (his name in the dream is Andy or something similar, sorry broseph) we’ll get her to the priest and start the ritual as soon as he gives her back her license. Ari’s completely “blah” about his whole thing, like this has happened a million times but we’re scared to death that he’s gonna roll her off the cliff. When we’re leaving, we are walking through a place that falls between College 8 and Oakes College. It’s fictitious and I’ve actually dreamt of it before. *shakes head* Anyway… I used to keep a dream journal but in high school, I’d just make myself dream about certain things and people so there wasn’t really a point.

 

My Dreams Is Poppin’

I’m warning you. My dreams are long and freakin’ weird. I’m going to tell the main points of my favorite dream from last night. I’d really appreciate any interpretations.

First, I’m watching OnDemand episodes of Saturday Night Live. The host is an actor and the musical guest is Christina Aguillera; but Christina was accompanying the host in their opening monologue. As in, she was doing a whole bunch of Jodeci-esque “ooh yeah”s. Suddenly, I’m watching it from above the stage in sort of an aerial view? Yeah. Then, when a small, British boy with one arm crutch stands up and starts singing, everyone starts applauding. Justin Timberlake stands up – at this point, I’m in the crowd at the taping – and carries the boy to the stage where he announces that he’s giving the little songbird $10,000. I remember thinking it had something to do with his being crippled because people were being quite forgiving of his voice cracking. Anyway, I still felt that I was watching OnDemand but now had authority over the taping and was worried that the rest of the audience would be upset if I skipped parts. No matter though because when my brain decided to give me the crippled boy’s background, the SNL portion of the dream was over.

So, cut to a meadow in England where I’m involved in a game wherein cripple kid (CK) and I are serving the same purpose…try and tell me what it is, please. I have no idea where this game came from. First of all, there are two teams. It’s almost like it was going to be soccer, at first. But anyway, there’s a little pen nearby and in it are the teams’ respective cows. Yes. Cows. They are beautiful, light brown Jersey girls with little bells hanging from soft, pink strips of suede. Right in front of the pen is where C.K. and I stand, right on the sideline on either sides of the mid-mark. We’re holding something. I can’t remember what, but we both have it. The field is not a straight-lined rectangle as in real sports; it’s actually in a V coming diagonally on either side of the pen. When the game begins, all the players are moving into CK’s hemisphere, so he starts off in that direction following the sideline. Some adult (a referee?) starts yelling at him that he has to keep up with the flow of the game, at which point I wonder why they would assign CK for this position, since his mobility is obviously impaired. You know what, I think he and I are holding tiny blue birds with butter yellow collars. I have no idea why but I get the impression that’s what we’re grasping. I was poised and ready for my moment, since the teams were coming towards my half of the field but at this point the dream shifted into something entirely different so I don’t know how the rest of the game is played. I don’t even remember the presence of a ball or anything. I have no idea the logic behind my teammates following the other team down one half of the field. What was going on??