A Thought About Friendship - What We Learn from Television and Movies

A while back I wrote a blog about friendship and proceeded to give some of my own friends an assignment. What did friendship mean to them? Was there a moment or story that came to mind when I asked about the importance of friendship? A couple of blogs ago, you read my friend Shannon's story about learning about friendship through her mom's example. This week, I have an entry from Alicia Arinella. Alicia and I have been friends now for over 8 years and we've both witnessed each other go through many major changes in that time. Have a read and see what you think. As always, I'd love to hear from you!

I must admit, it took me a while to figure out what I wanted to write in response to your question, 'Will you write a little something about what friendship means to you?'

It made me wonder, how do we even figure out what friends are supposed to be in the first place. As Shannon wrote so well in her post about friendship and mom's last week, I guess we learn our first lessons from our parents. But where else do we learn about friendship?

For me, I learned a lot about frienship through movies and television. I'm a pop culture junkie (or at least I was in my formative years). I was surrounded by stories of successful pals - their loyalty, trust and companionship. So I bring you back to my early years and what shaped my meaning of friendship.

#1 - My Little Pony (The Movie)
I'm not sure if you remember this fantastic contribution to the home video market from 1986. No? Let me fill you in. So all the ponies are around preparing for a festival. Baby Lickety Split (she's got ice cream cones on her tooshy - I'm already a huge fan) is one of the ponies preparing a dance number (what's that you say, DANCE? I'm doubly in). BLS is practicing with her good friend Spike (a dragon - AWESOME). On the actual day of the performance, BLS tries to steal the number by interrupting the routine with a grand entrance while wearing a wild outfit and improving on the choreography with her own flair. She is scolded, embarrassed, and vows to run away. What follows is a big song from BLS and Spike where they sing, "I'll go it alone!" and, "Don't go it alone!" They agree to face the world together. I was riveted.

How did this seep into my real life? Pretty profoundly. Every time a babysitter came over and tried to get me to take a bath, I would pack a suitcase with my blanket (think child's binky) and "run away." This consisted of me running around a big rock in my back yard while my babysitter chased me. I was a N.I.G.H.T.M.A.R.E. But, every time I "ran away" my sister (and best friend) was always at my heels singing her own rendition of "Don't got it alone." We watched, My Little Pony: the Movie on repeat, and what we took away from it was that even when friends in your life are acting like crazy people, it's important to support them - follow them into the breech my friends - and defend them against the evils that the world has to offer (like baths).

#2 - Han Solo and Chewbacca
That's right - it all comes back to Star Wars. Although for the sake of this argument I could just as well have said Strawberry Shortcake and her band of renowned. Han and Chewie not only are the coolest cats this side of the Death Star, BUT they also have each others backs. They know that going into any challenge, it's going to be easier if they're together. They may quarrel along the way about the best way to do things, but they're a unified front in fighting the man (aka: the Emperor). Same goes for Strawberry Shortcake vs. the Peculiar Purple Pie Man.

When I was growing up, I thought I knew what their friendship was all about. However, it took some "big girl challenges" to realize that sometimes in life we face some decisions or turning points that just....well they suck. But if you have a good friend by your side, supporting you, willing to fly wing-man on your falcon? It makes it worthwhile. And it doesn't matter if this friend is male, female, black, white, or extremely hairy. A friend is a friend. For all of you non-geeks out there, try this analogy - there are a select few that I would go into a foxhole with and be happy share the long arduous hours there - no matter what the cost.

#3 - The Golden Girls
Let me just say these sassy young things were the first Sex and the City. Pioneers! These women taught me what it meant to have girl friends. Each character brought her own baggage and her own life's lessons to serve as "learning moments" for her roommates and for the audience. We all had our favorites (I was quite fond of Sophia and her need to carry her bamboo handled purse everywhere), but we learned to love them all for their uniqueness, their comic timing and their ability to solve everything with cheesecake.

To this day, I think about my life in terms of these ladies from Miami. Say, for instance, I'm at the movies and I turn and see a friend actually CRYING at Bride Wars. Well, I just pull Dorothy's dry reality out of my pocket and, in lieu of hitting her over the head with a newspaper, I just turned to her and say, "Stop it!" Through each of their unique Golden Girls's ways of handling the situations that life threw at them, I learned that you have to love your friends for who they are and sometimes provide a smack on the back of the head when they're acting crazy.

So I guess I absorbed a lot about what friendship was "supposed to be" through different cultural influences, but until I went through some serious changes, I didn't really know what friendship was all about in reality. For instance, you and I were always close, but when my mom died and you dropped everything to be my side and sang your own version of "Don't Go it Alone," rode wing man to my fear and hit me over the head with a newspaper, it solidified my feelings about you. And now? Well you're stuck with me forever.

And I'll be your wingman anytime.

A Thought About Friendship (and Moms)

Last week I wrote a post about Best Friends. In it, I asked for stories from other people about what having good friends mean to them. When my extraordinary friend and writer, Shannon, said that she would put down some thoughts about this ever-important relationship in her life, I was thrilled. See her essay below and, if you’d like to read more about Shannon check out her blog.

As always, let's hear from you. I know ya'll must have a friend story you're dying to share!

____________________________________________________________________

Friendship

by, Shannon Rigney

There are many qualities of my mother that I would like to emulate. She's funny as anything. She has good fashion sense. She makes a mean steak, and a great rice pilaf. I hope that one day my daughter looks forward to spending time with me as much as I do with my mom.

But, the quality of my mom's that I would most like to acquire is that she is a great friend. To see my mom with her closest friends is to watch a give-and-take of love, honesty, and humor. She treats her inner circle of friends like family. They're with each other forever. One way that my mom and her friends make sure that they stay glued so tightly is they carve out significant and regular time to be together. Mostly they have a glass of wine and some cheese, but they also cook together, go to movies, or just hang out. It doesn't matter what they are doing. They have a blast just because they are together. And all these shared moments and belly laughs do more than just pass the time in a happy way. All this love and time they devote to each other helps them weather difficulties.

Because there are bad times. My mom has been angry with her friends many times, and vice versa. But she never lets her feelings stew. She and her friends keep their connection real by telling each other straightaway when something gets under their skin. They practice a level of honesty that most people – myself included – aspire to but, like Zen mastery, probably won't achieve anytime soon.

I have lots to learn from my mother's attitude toward friendships – the way she holds them so dear, the way she prioritizes and makes time for them, and, mostly, the way she honors them with honesty. One thing that my mother had going for her when she was my age is that she lived in the suburbs amongst other women her age who had all made similar choices. They had all decided to have children and, mostly, stay home to raise them. My mom talks about many afternoons spent talking and laughing with her best friend while all of us kids ran around the yard.

Here in New York, I've got no yard, not a ton of free time, and no best friend with kids the same age as mine. In fact, few of the women whom I would call my best friends have any kids at all. And, of the women I know who do have children, most of us are working either part or full time. Scheduling even one afternoon together can be hard.

These minutes and hours with my friends are necessary to keep me balanced and happy. They remind me that I am more than a parent, more than a collection of work and dinner and bedtime rituals. They help me remember how to be light, how to be myself, how to laugh until I cry.

Those moments sustain me. Sometimes I feel like I am practically holding my breath until the next visit with a girlfriend supplies me with oxygen. I am trying to recreate with mere crumbs what my mom and her friends built with a full harvest. Time is the greatest commodity, the thing that most of us don't have (or at least don't have when we'd like to). And, yet, time is exactly what allowed my mom to build up the strong friendships that have carried her through the challenges of her life. For now, all I can do is do the best I can to spend time with the people who matter to me, the people who give me my air supply. And when I do have them with me, I'll enjoy every moment, breathing in enough to keep me going until the next time.

Have a Best Friend?

The other night I was out with a very good friend of mine to catch up and have a fabulous dinner (check out: Artisnal). In between consuming one of the best cheese plates I've ever had in my life - seriously - I had to stop the conversation a moment so that I could allow my taste buds to do a happy dance , I had the chance to catch up with a friend so busy that I mostly see her in blurs. After our dinner, I sat on the subway and thought about how important her friendship has been to me in my life. Okay, I also thought about the cheese, but mostly I thought about my friend.

I like to think of friendship as a living organism. One that shifts and changes, and grows and wanes as the years pass by. Some are finite but purposeful, some are life-long and everlasting and others, those rare others, are remarkable and breathtaking and make you wonder how you were so lucky in your life to have the opportunity to experience it. And yes, these friendships even have the power to overshadow a phenomenal block of cheese. Dare I say I've been lucky to have this last kind of friendship with a few people in my life. Their support, their honesty and their humor has contributed to the parts of myself that I like the most. Seeing one of these friends this weekend made me think about Best Laid Plans - how the series focuses so often on my dating relationships and not on some of the most significant relationships in my life: my friendships. I would ask: am I dating? Who am I dating? How can I meet people? Will I ever get married again? Will I die alone?

When you are out in the "single" world it sometimes feels like your personal life is public information in the way that a woman's pregnant belly becomes some kind of public touchable monument (pregnant ladies, start charging people a fee and start your newborn's college fund). Everywhere you go, people seem to want to know whether you're dating, who you're dating, what you're doing to meet people and so on. Your singlehood becomes a conversation piece: like a coffee table book. Everyone means well and there's very rarely malice behind it. However, like many of my single friends, I got totally caught up in that. So this weekend, as I sat across from my friend, it hit me, WHAM (much like a coffee table book slapping me in the face). I may have been single but I have some amazing friends around me. Why was I so worried about dying alone? In honor of the extraordinary relationship many of us know as best friends, I'd love to hear from you. Tell me your friendship story. It can be sappy, hilarious or simply honest. It's the type of relationship that we all have in common and I'd like to take a few posts to relish in it!

Best Laid Plans: Episode 2.5 - A Confession...

Best Laid Plans is a documentary web series that asks: what do you do when life throws you a curve ball? In this episode, I use my at-home camera to assess where I am in this whole journey so far...

A Best Laid Plans Question

As many divorced people can probably tell you, divorces often occur to one's life rather than one's marriage. You aren't simply saying goodbye to your spouse, you're also - at least if your experience is similar to mine - having to say goodbye to some friends as well. If you're with your partner for any length of time, your social life (for the most part) melds into one huge unified body. In fact, one of the signifiers for me that my marriage was in trouble, was realizing just how much time my spouse was spending with people I wasn't very friendly with. But once the dissolution process of our union began, and some ugly revelations came to the fore, I realized that there were certain relationships that I couldn't handle anymore. My heartbreak extended beyond my spouse when I realized that some of my friends either couldn't or wouldn't meet the expectations I hadn't even been aware I had of them. The breaking up of a marriage isn't easy for the couple or the community of people affected. Nobody comes out unscathed and that was certainly true in my situation. In the end, I needed to break up with a lot of people. For me, being in the presence of some of the people who I'd felt let down by was too difficult. I couldn't let those feelings go, so, I divorced myself from them.

Here's the kicker though...

Just because I divorced myself from some people, doesn't mean that I don't still have to see them. It's a small world out there and often friendships are created through other friends and you become a part of a whole circle of connectivity. And along with that, exists a constant reminder of learning how to forgive. How do you do this? How do you let go of the pain of being let down by people you believed cared about you? I keep reminding myself of all of the mistakes I've made with friends - all of my errors in judgement or selfish things I've done. I look at my mistakes now and recall how badly I wanted to be forgiven by the people I loved. We're all human. We all want to be forgiven. People make mistakes after all and the peaks of friendship must all come with valleys, right?

So how can I do this? How can I open myself up to let that ball of hurt in the pit of my stomach roll right out of me, so that when I have to see these people I can offer them a genuine smile and extend a genuine offer of, if not friendship, peace.

Any ideas?

To Gasp or Not To Gasp

A while back, I wrote a blog about a little habit I have that drives my good friend, Alicia up a wall. If you don't remember, click here to see the previous post. My love of drama has instilled in me a habit of GASPING. I thought about it the other day when my friend Shannon showed up on crutches due to a twisted ankle, and the sight of her injury elicited one hearty, robust intake of air. Then I remembered that I never posted Part 2 of Alicia's Gasp/No Gasp list.

Before you check it out however, I'd just like to point out to everyone, that the Gasp Worthy list is a lot longer than the Not Gasp Worthy list. Hmmm... interesting. Maybe my habit is not so unfounded after all...

So, without further ado, here it is:

GASP WORTHY (PART 2)
11. finding out the tooth fairy is real

12. waking up with cruella de ville hair

13. if lil kim became a supreme court justice

14. if i were to get chased by ninjas

15. if my poops were electric blue

16. if jason statham gets married to someone that is not me

17. if hammer pants come back into style and anna wintour wears them

18. if my sister jessie were able to levitate (cause it wouldn't be surprising if i could)

19. if you run into the “get off my train” dude from Ghost on the subway – that guy is terrifying

20. if you were to see a real life exorcism

21. if you were to see the alien come out of someone’s stomach in a diner – john hurt style

22. if I were to get braces again and I finally got to kiss ewan mcgreggor and he happened to have braces for a role and our braces get locked together

23. if gael garcia bernal makes a movie that doesn’t show him giving cunnalingus to a woman

24. if the Brooklyn bridge starts to warp while we are crossing it – like that freaky bridge did in Tacoma

25. if while watching a concert at madison square garden, you see the arena get sucked into a sinkhole (like that one in chile) and miraculously our two seats are the only ones that remain

26. spontaneous human combustion – anyone. Anywhere.

27. if you walk into my apartment and I’m having tea with oprah in our jammies

28. if we are getting air-lifted out of the water from some freakish accident and, while climbing up the ladder to the helicopter a Great White Shark jumps at us. (Like that photoshopped photo, but real)

29. If I ever finish a game of monopoly

30. If snuggle the laundry bear is really jack the ripper

31. if mel gibson ever has a comeback

32. if I cut the top of my thumb off – again. gross



Things that are NOT GASP WORTHY



11. if a new serial killer is discovered to be dressed as a clown - they are suspect

12. if you see a ghost – everyone knows they’re real, just stay out of their way

13. at the fact that peter gabriel taught a group of monkeys how to play instruments – that’s just cool

14. if you learn that time travel is possible, cause it is (however, if I time travel and wake up to find I'm getting chased by a saber tooth tiger, I will allow a gasp)

15. if my dog atticus started speaking. We all know he can, itt’s just his choice not to

16. if I pass out – I do it a lot

17. if I’m invited to race the indie 500

18. the line at the movies

Dating Advice

My friend Shannon, who might I mention, has her own blog HERE, recently strapped me down and made me listen to Miley Cyrus songs repeatedly until I told her my login and password for the online dating site that I'm on. And when I say she strapped me down and forced MC's music into my ears, I mean that she asked me for the information politely. Since entering the online dating world, Shannon has offered many an opinion about my choices in dudes. My dating life thus far has included being cursed out, being told a guy's sexual fantasy in sordid detail and being given poetry about a dead pet - and these all happened before I went on an actual date with any of them! I'd go to my married friend Shannon with wide-eyes and my mouth hanging open in curious wonder and she'd offer me a glass of wine and then kindly tell me that I didn't know how to pick the right guy(!). It was her wish that she perform a coup on the ruling party that was ME and become the leader of my online single existence. Perhaps she anticipated more resistance, but in all honesty, I was relieved! Fabulous, I thought! Take over! If I'm never cursed out again it won't be soon enough! And so it was that Shannon became Julie online.

The very next day I woke up to an email from her, announcing that she'd contacted the perfect man for me. She had found my destiny. She espoused how much we had in common, how cute he was and, though one cannot read tone in an email, I imagined she was typing whilst grinning and skipping. With the backing of my Ruler of Romance, I went ahead and contacted the guy that same day. I thought, you know, this might actually work. Shannon is one of my closest friends - my Clint Eastwood if you will - having been right by my side through the good, the bad, and some of the ugliest times I've ever had. She's offered advice and her opinion on all aspects of my life - why not go one step further and have her do a little matchmaking for me? I knew she was secretly writing a wedding toast for my upcoming nuptial with this perfect man. It might be safe to say that she was more excited than I was.

He never contacted me back.

After about a week, I told Shannon that I never heard from him. This time it was her coming to me, wide-eyed, with her mouth hanging open in curious wonder and me with a ready glass of wine. After all, friendship, like online dating, goes both ways.

You Can't Go Home Again...

But apparently - you can go back to college. This weekend, I found myself re-tracing steps I haven't taken for over a decade. There I was, back at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey to attend the New Jersey International Film Festival's screening of "Milestone". It's been MORE THAN A DECADE since I was last there... had I mentioned that? Longer than a two-term presidency. About the same length that CHEERS and BEVERLY HILLS 90210 were on the air. It took less years for WHAM! to create "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" and then disband.

Ten Years.

As I think I mentioned in my previous entry, I'm not always the best at looking back, but surprisingly, visiting my old dorm (Go Demarest Hall!) and driving past my old off-campus house was awesome. Beyond some minor revisions, (why oh why do the grease trucks need to provide people with tables???), the campus looked pretty much the same. The weirdest thing about it all was that I felt as if I'd never left. Walking among the students around campus I felt like I was 21 again. Each block, each corner, brought back memories from school... 'this is where my friend drank too much for her 21st birthday'... 'this is where I made out with my date until someone interrupted us to ask for directions'... Whoosh... it all came flooding back.



I'll admit, I was prepared too feel affronted by the experience, but in actuality I relished it. Cooler than the places I visited was the people I got to hang with - one of whom I hadn't seen for many, many years. Swapping stories - who's pregnant, who's moving in with someone, who's getting a divorce (ahem...) was great. Like I had hoped, talking about my breakup, the changes in my life felt fine. It simply felt like my life.

Maybe I'm settling in after all...

Mini-Reunion at the New Jersey International Film Festival

I am not a lady who is big on reunions. My high school had a 10th year reunion and I was a no-show. My college, I'm sure, will have some kind of gathering of alumni of which I will likely not attend. It's not that I turn my nose up at those kinds of events, it's more that I simply find them overwhelming:

"Oh my god! Look at you!"
"No, look at you!"
"You haven't changed a bit!"
"I love your hair!"
"Look at your dress!"
"Holy cow, look at your ass!"


Now with the onset of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter it's like being at a reunion every single day of your life. It also hasn't helped that I've had friends who've had rather *interesting* experiences at their own reunions. One friend was so nervous that she got more drunk than she ever had before causing some embarrassing shenanigans to ensue, and another told me a story of their married friend being propositioned by an old and married boyfriend. So much drama! That's why I'm happy sticking to the odd (and sometimes weird) confessions of old classmates' status updates on Facebook.

However, when my short film, "Milestone" got into the New Jersey International Film Festival, I couldn't give up the opportunity for a mini reunion with some girlfriends from college - especially since the festival screens their films on the Rutgers campus! Did I mention that that's where I went to school? No? Whoops.

So this Saturday, I'm going to dinner and a movie with some old friends. Some of these ladies I've kept in touch with and others I haven't seen in a very long time. At first, I'll admit I was hesitant since I still have that lingering feeling of failure since the breakup of my marriage, but I've decided to push through it. My college experience was great - I had wonderful friends surrounding me for four years and that alone helped me get past my trepidation. I'm still figuring out how to integrate my personal setbacks into my life and I figure there's no better way to help me do that than by meeting up with some old friends... and having a couple glasses of wine.

That Couple Is Cheating On Me

I was part of a great foursome. And by that, I don’t mean some dirty foursome, as in swing-this-way-foursome. My ex and I had a couple that we got along with perfectly. There was no - ‘oh, the women are friends, so the husbands have to hang out’ or ‘he’s nice but man, she’s a nightmare.’ We all genuinely liked each other. Even our dogs got along. We’d go out to dinner, have game nights, movie nights, simple hang out nights and sometimes, we’d separate and do just the girls while the guys hung out.

Now our foursome is a threesome...again, not the dirty kind. The couple is like family to me and I still love hanging out with both of them and try to do it as often as possible. And while I think I’m pretty fun to hang out with, I can’t morph myself into two people (and I certainly can’t morph myself into being a dude). Naturally, my friends found another go-to couple for their game nights and such. Naturally. Yet, I find myself... jealous. Is that weird? My girlfriend and I have spoken about the breakup of my marriage often, but recently the discussion was less about my feelings regarding said breakup, or the transition to singlehood and more about what a bummer the breakup of the foursome has been. It’s really a big ol’ bummer. She concurred.

When I go on dates now, I find myself not only looking for someone that could possibly be a good fit for me, but I try to suss out whether they’d be a good fit for my friend’s husband. I want to ask... “so, um... Do you like strategy games? Are you up on technology? Could you say, have a well thought out conversation about a good graphic novel you’ve read recently? Do you even read graphic novels? And if no, would you be willing to have a go at reading one soon?”

And do I add these questions before or after the question about whether he’s okay with my dog sleeping in the bed (see previous entry if confused)?

Oy. I should just create a questionnaire. Or better yet, maybe I’ll just bring my friend’s husband and my dog on the date with me. Just get it all figured out right then and there.

Thoughts?

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie?

So... A little while back a very good friend of mine and I were talking about my dog (who, I should confess, runs my life). She commented that now that I’ve been thrust into singlehood, I might want to rethink where my dog gets her shut eye. Currently, her bedtime location is with me, on the bed. She’s a medium-sized mutt but once asleep, she morphs into a pile of lead bricks, making it near to impossible to move her. My friend’s thought was a logical one – now that I may have, you know, guests over (let’s just call them guests for now), I should be open to them not wanting the dog in the bed. It’s a fair assumption.

My dog came into my life as part of my old, coupled existence. My ex and I weren’t married yet, but we were on that road and so, the decision to have the dog in the bed with us, was mutual. It was a family decision. Once my ex left, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that it was nice not to have a completely empty bed. Having another body on the mattress with me made it seem, in the beginning, much less lonely. My dog and I adjusted to my ex’s absence together – an odd team of sorts.

However, now my friends advice rings in my ears as I make my way out there in the single world. As I do with most things that are on my mind, I raised the question with another good friend. Figuring she would confirm my other friend’s advice I was hoping to get some tips on how to train the dog to sleep on her own bed. To my surprise, she had a different reaction. Though she agreed that some guests might have an issue with the sleeping arrangements, she felt that anyone who would make their way to being a guest (don’t you love a euphemism), would have to be an animal lover. That I would never be with someone who wasn’t accepting of that sort of thing.

The debate was on.

Then I wondered, how will I know whether this is true early on? Is that the kind of thing you ask someone over drinks? You know like, “Hey Mr. dude, are you the sorta guy that is accepting of a situation in which you may only be provided less than 1/4 of the bed because my dog likes to sleep horizontally in the middle of that very same bed? Oh, and I would be on the opposite 1/4 of that bed. She’ll be between us... Wait, where are you going? Are you sticking me with the bill? It was nice meeting you....”

These are the sort of scenarios that make the idea of dating so foreign to me. Of course, yes, you want to date someone who is right for you but there seems to be a lot between that first drink and right for you. Are you with me? I think both of my friends are right – and there’s the rub. There’s no one dating/relationship answer to go by. I mean, of course there are some dating do’s and don’ts, but when it comes to the details of how a person lives their life – the do’s and don’t’s get kind of muddled, don’t they?

I don’t know... What do you think... Dog in the bed, or no dog in the bed?

Locked in the Bathroom

Since I’ve gotten my little sky diving confession out of the way, I guess the next thing to talk about is what I’ve been doing these past nine months. Although I’ve been absent here, I’ve thought a lot about the documentary and have done some more shooting. In thinking about it, I realized that while documenting how I’m handling life’s curveballs is interesting, finding out how other people handle them is even more fascinating to me. So... Keeping that in mind I’ve spent much of my BLP shooting time interviewing other people. I talked to my sister, my brother-in-law, some friends, my parents and even some of my parents’ friends.

One interview that really stuck with me was with my mom’s best friend, Barbara. Her first husband passed away from a brain tumor when I was around 13 years old. For me, his illness and subsequent death was significant not only because they are like a second family to me, but also because it was my first real experience of life not working itself out. I remember saying to my father offhandedly when they told me about John’s illness, “Okay, but he’s gonna get better, right?” I assumed my father was going to say something along the lines of, ‘of course’ or ‘it’s going to be difficult, but yes eventually...’. You can imagine then the punch in the gut it was to hear, ‘ we don’t know.’ The air of not knowing if something was going to work out entered my atmosphere and has remained to this day.

When I talked to Barbara about that same event, it was so interesting to get her perspective on the entire experience. She’s happily married to a great man now, but at the time, she was taking care of a dying spouse while raising three teenage girls. And even though I was there, and lived through it, the thought of what that must have been like for her is mind boggling. How did she get through it? How did she manage? How did she not lock herself in the bathroom and refuse to come out? And here’s what she said:

I had diarrhea every day for a year.

I should tell you here, that Barbara is a very honest and generous person, but mostly, she’s hilarious and a lot of fun to be around. She’s not very shy when it comes to her bodily functions and so, when she answered with what could have been considered a sarcastic or glib response, I knew she was being totally serious. Her emotionally gut-wrenching experience became a physically gut-wrenching experience.

For Barbara, best laid plans turned into mourning and diarrhea. It seems that even your intestines are not safe from your life going awry.

Best Laid Vacations

What do you do when you are given terrible news? Not, tragic news, as in someone dying unexpectedly (or dying at all for that matter), but news that is so upsetting you start hysterically laughing? Or news that you should’ve heard ages ago, but you find out that you’re one of the last to know? Recently, I discovered the answer to these questions and found that for me, I needed to go away. Far away. Life is always cause and effect, right? You’re always acting on something and suffering or celebrating in the consequences. And when they are your decisions; when they are your actions, you can (and should) own it – good or bad. You can say, ‘well, this was my choice and so, I own the outcome.’ However, when something happens outside of your purview but grossly affects your world and your view of it, it’s jarring to say the least.

I needed to go away. I needed to be with someone that I knew cared about me and felt some semblance of loyalty to me. I also needed some time to be by myself. That said, I don’t want to give the impression that my friends here are disloyal because that would be a huge misrepresentation. Although, it’s true that, along the way this year, I have lost many number of people through my change in circumstances, I have also discovered that I have some incredible, devoted (and hilarious) people surrounding me. For that, I am more than grateful. But, they are here and I needed to go away.

I have a friend in Ireland. I met him many years ago in an acting program and we’ve stayed in touch ever since. He’s lent me his ear this year as I blathered on about everything and so I thought, who better to see and where better to go than to Ireland to visit Brendan? A successful actor in Ireland, I was lucky in that he had a week off to take me around to his favorite spots and introduce me to some of the people in his life. I got to rediscover an old friend that I hadn’t seen in ages while I took in some sites I’d never seen before. The freshness of it was grand. Amazingly, I (who normally can’t function on less than 8 hours of sleep) barely suffered from jet lag. I think my body was just longing for the change. So, am I still trying to tackle making sense of news that I didn’t see coming? Yes. But somehow, sitting at your friend’s kitchen table as he makes you a fabulous breakfast and tries out his American accent on you is a treasure. Somehow it makes your own small world make a tiny bit more sense.

And you discover that seven days fly faster than a light sneeze.

What do you do when you are given terrible news? Not, tragic news, as in someone dying unexpectedly (or dying at all for that matter), but news that is so upsetting you start hysterically laughing? Or news that you should’ve heard ages ago, but you find out that you’re one of the last to know? Recently, I discovered the answer to these questions and found that for me, I needed to go away. Far away. Life is always cause and effect, right? You’re always acting on something and suffering or celebrating in the consequences. And when they are your decisions; when they are your actions, you can (and should) own it – good or bad. You can say, ‘well, this was my choice and so, I own the outcome.’ However, when something happens outside of your purview but grossly affects your world and your view of it, it’s jarring to say the least.

I needed to go away. I needed to be with someone that I knew cared about me and felt some semblance of loyalty to me. I also needed some time to be by myself. That said, I don’t want to give the impression that my friends here are disloyal because that would be a huge misrepresentation. Although, it’s true that, along the way this year, I have lost many number of people through my change in circumstances, I have also discovered that I have some incredible, devoted (and hilarious) people surrounding me. For that, I am more than grateful. But, they are here and I needed to go away.

I have a friend in Ireland. I met him many years ago in an acting program and we’ve stayed in touch ever since. He’s lent me his ear this year as I blathered on about everything and so I thought, who better to see and where better to go than to Ireland to visit Brendan? A successful actor in Ireland, I was lucky in that he had a week off to take me around to his favorite spots and introduce me to some of the people in his life. I got to rediscover an old friend that I hadn’t seen in ages while I took in some sites I’d never seen before. The freshness of it was grand. Amazingly, I (who normally can’t function on less than 8 hours of sleep) barely suffered from jet lag. I think my body was just longing for the change. So, am I still trying to tackle making sense of news that I didn’t see coming? Yes. But somehow, sitting at your friend’s kitchen table as he makes you a fabulous breakfast and tries out his American accent on you is a treasure. Somehow it makes your own small world make a tiny bit more sense.

And you discover that seven days fly faster than a light sneeze.

Best Laid Plans (Part 5)

Embassies?  Consulates? Press Pass? Whaaa??

I am a narrative girl.  I make up stories.  I say... lets pretend that so-and-so meets so-and-so in a coffee shop and then...  Or, let's make believe that some girl meets some guy in the park and then...

I can for sure say that I've never uttered the words, "Can I document my travels as I traipse around Accra to sightsee, and then make my way to Ho to interview people and volunteer?" Nor have I ever asked my doctor if she wouldn't mind if I film myself getting a shot (and oh please god, let them not put me in the paper apron that opens in the front, while they administer my yellow fever vaccination and capture it for eternity on tape).  That is all very real.  Sure, I was never the type of writer that told far fetched stories.  You'd never catch me spinning a tale about a girl meeting a guy in the park, falling in love, and then combining forces to combat rockets shooting out some secret government bacteria.  My story would most likely entail my girl and my guy falling in love and then dealing with, oh, I don't know, relationship issues.  So, unless those rockets came with a surprise pregnancy, or a cheating boyfriend/girlfriend, it's not really a story I'm likely to tell.

I should say however, that just because my scripts are usually grounded in reality it does not mean that they are real, so now, my days of documenting the actual is throwing me off a bit.  My days consist of Joe's voice humming in the background saying things like: 'Julie's freaking out about plane tickets - let's get this on film!' Or 'Julie's freaking out about getting the press pass - let's get this on film!' 'Julie's freaking out - who cares about what! For godsakes get the freaking camera!'

It's all becoming real in a way that I never considered before: the budget, the plane tickets, the program, the interviews, the shots... yellow fever, hepatitis, malaria pills, tetanus, cipro for extreme diarrhea, an epi pen for my shellfish allergy... oh my... and while I've had many of these shots from previous trips or from swimming in the Hudson River (don't ask), hearing the list once again is, well, not a small thing.

Recently, I told my mother that I've been having anxiety dreams about forgetting to take care of something before Joe and I leave.  For example, my dream would have me forgetting something like the malaria pills only to then look down at my leg and see a smiling mosquito eating my ankle for lunch.  To this, my wise mother asked, "Then why are you doing this?"  I thought to myself, can I answer that it's because I'm getting a divorce?  Is that a legitimate response?  Should I even care if it's not?

From the stories I've heard, when relationships breakdown, most turn to the bottle, maybe have a lot of sex, refuse to leave the house, or bury their head into a huge tub of ice cream.  I don't know that I've heard the old tale of the person making their way to Africa.  Yet, I think the thought behind it is the same, and certainly I am not any different from anyone else.  You see, while I find myself having an anxiety dream about some Ghanian prison, I find that I'm not having a dream about my husband walking out again.  The rotation of ideas and thoughts and reasons for his leaving play less often in my head and is slowly being replaced by the trip.  I'd be lying if I said that I planned it this way, because I absolutely didn't.  I hoped for a distraction sure, but I never imagined how much this trip would consume me. And it's consumption in the best way possible.  Now I'm certainly not negating the building blocks of the drunken stupor, or the night of random sex, or the various flavors of a well-churned ice cream - it's just that that wouldn't do it for me.  I needed something more lasting, I guess.  I needed something that would match the pace of my racing mind.  

And I have to tell you... I think I've found it.