If I Were a Boy

The other night I was out at a bar listening to a band, and, after a few drinks, I was relaying some of my dating debacles to one of my guy friends. We hadn't hung out in a bit so he needed to be caught up on quite a few of my latest dates. When I was done with my tales he looked at me and said, simply, "Wow." Then he made me a sincere and interesting offer - he said that he would look over potential dates to translate their profiles from guy-speak to Julie-speak.

Interesting.

It made me think... are some of my dates not working out simply because I'm unable to read boy code? Can he offer me the online dating equivalent to the secret decoder ring in the box of Cheerios? Are men and women really so different that even a general dating profile needs to be translated for the opposite sex?

One general difference I've noticed between the ex's is that, what would take me and a number of girlfriends 20 words to say, would take my male friends about 5 words. Neither is better per se, but when you're trying to decipher a dude's profile - where only words and maybe some pics are available to you - I figured it'd be helpful to get a guy's interpretation on a dude's potential for me.

I took my friend up on his offer and showed him three profiles of potential matches. In less than 24 hours, I got the following interpretation from him:


Guy 1:
He looks like Larry David. He’s the guy you meet in a bar who looks like Larry David. Never mention Larry David when you’re trying to meet a lady. Larry David.

Guy 2:
He wants to date Jennifer Garner. He thinks he’s Ben Affleck.

Guy 3:
He’s at the store every Weds when the new comic books come out. Really (I mean REALLY) out of shape and if you’re lucky, has good hygiene.


In guy-speak terms, I went from considering a funny guy, a nice guy and a slightly dorky guy to a Larry David look-a-like, a guy I'm sorely mismatched with since I look nothing like Jennifer Garner and an out-of-shape, stinky comic book addict.

Now I'm wondering - has adding the guy-speak translation helped or hurt my cause?

What do you think? Do I need a man to meet a man?

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.

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.

What's Next?

So... now that Milestone is finished and being put out into the world, now that I've been to Africa to volunteer as I always dreamed about... now that I visited an old friend in Hibernia, I am left with figuring out how to close ye ol' documentary. Do I simply say my equivalent of "good night and good luck" and move on? Do I end things in a more shock value way by say - mooning the audience? Throw a party? Run naked through the streets? There are just so many options...

But in thinking about it - this documentary is not about exposing an issue. It's not about illuminating a cause that had previously gone unnoticed. This is about what you do when your life takes a turn that you hadn't planned on. Hopefully many people can relate to the idea and, I'll admit, on my best days I hope someone somewhere sees the documentary and feels a little better. But I know that this isn't a story that is going to save the world. Believe me, I totally get that. So, if it's not a story that gives out ideas and arguments and then backs up said arguments with interviews and what-not and then ends, then how does the story culminate? How do you finish a storyline - when - in actuality my story isn't (unless a piano drops on my head) finishing? I'm closing one chapter and diving into a new one. So what is it that would send that message? And frankly, I don't think mooning people sends that message. What then?

SKY DIVING!

Nothing says throwing yourself into what's to come like jumping out of a moving plane! Throw caution (along with your body) to the wind!

That's it! That's next!

Holy shit!

Milestone is DONE done!

Milestone is finished! The dvd has been burned, duplicated and put into fancy cases with artwork and everything! And to all of that I say... Phew!

Now we're onto the film festival world! I feel like I'm back applying to college again... will they like me? Will I fit in? Will I like my roommate (okay, maybe not so much that one, but the others definitely still apply). It's so hard to know what is going to excite someone about a short film - other than it not being awful. Granted I've been to a number of film festivals, but to tell you the truth, there's never really seemed to be any rhyme or reason to the films that were chosen. Sometimes they'll put the films into themes: like comedies, thrillers, experimental etc., but other than that, there was always a broad range in production value, story content and length.

So where will Milestone be seen? Who knows? But I can't wait to find out!

Thanks to everyone involved!

-jules

Best Laid Plans Where You Live

So... I realize that I haven’t written in awhile. I wish I could say that I’ve had a good excuse, but alas, I have nothing to offer you other than being in the midst of some things that made it difficult to take a step back and assess. In short, I’ve been avoiding you. That’s right people... I have been avoiding a blog! But hear we are – almost a year since I left for Ghana.

But I have news... First – check out the cool logo for the film that Melissa Jernigan at OTL created for me! I think she did a great job and am grateful to her for her patience in my not knowing what sort of graphic best summarized the project. Big thanks to her!

Second, while I, again, cannot really get into some of the details of what’s occurred in my situation I will say this. It is a SMALL world out there in a very big way. People talk about how huge NYC is, but truly, NY’ers (at least my friends have agreed with this), often stick to their small neighborhood most of the time. You create your own little safe haven in the midst of the city’s noisy chaos. Certainly for me, I’ve had to work at creating a whole new existence in my own neighborhood. Since it’s the same place that I moved into as a married person, all of my beginning memories of living there were associated with that identity. And then breakups happen and you find out how amazing it is that the simplest things trigger monumental emotional recollections – such as walking your dog, or going to certain restaurants. In the beginning of this process, your neighborhood is like a dysfunctional home that feels both safe and like its inundated with land mines. But then, the more things you do on your own, the more territory you take back and fill with new happenings, the more the “safety” scale tips in your direction. It’s your home again.

Neighborhood, by definition (I even looked this up), means “an area surrounding a particular place, person or object”.

Perhaps that’s why then, while chillaxing around my neighborhood with my dog, I was pretty jarred by seeing my past hanging out with his future only blocks from where we lived. Life winked at me in the form of a very jarring reminder that people don’t operate under the same rules. Perhaps nobody is right or wrong, but you learn quickly that the feeling of safety that you’ve built is shaky. If you assume that people have the same life rules that you do, and you create your world with that assumption in mind, you can, like me, be pummeled by the fact that that is wrong, wrong, wrong! So here I am again, learning something new. I’m growing people! If only the emotional growth could expand to my actual physical growth I’d be smiling from ear to ear! Looking back, there’s been so much disappointment this year – so many surprises that I wasn’t at all prepared for or deserved. There were things that I was so sure of a year ago but now realize I was completely wrong. But I’m not in charge of any of those things. Sometimes I can’t help but let the disappointment wash over me and follow me around, but other times, I’ve realized that what I can also do is simply focus on the things I am in control of and surround myself with people who operate under similar life rules as my own. And maybe that’s not a best laid plan, but it’s the best I’ve got right now.

Best Laid Plans (Part 18)

Voodoo (Part 2)

So there I am in a hut with my fellow traveler, Jodee and two women from the voodoo village. They’re helping us take our shirts and shoes off. Yep, shirts were coming off. Honestly, beyond my initial surprise at the priest’s request, the first thing that came to mind was ‘why in the hell did I wear the fartiest bra in the world that day’. Oh well...
After Jodee and I took our shirts off, the very gentle women then wrapped us in white sheets. So there we stood, wrapped and ready for the church. The Voodoo priest told the group that appropriate attire whilst in the church did not include shoes or a shirt. So while the men just disrobed out outside, Jodee and I were taken to a more private area.

Then we were ready.

Our group was escorted into the church. I didn’t know what to expect in there – I didn’t know just how ill the people would be and what sort of ceremonies would take place. It also wasn’t a church in the way that I knew them. It didn’t have tall ceilings, it didn’t have a steeple, or pews, but it was an honored, though makeshift space. The benches were in an L shape and the priest and his assistant sat in chairs at the front. Our group filed in and sat down on the nearest benches and, after a hello from the parishioners, the music began. It was loud and beautiful and heartfelt. I don’t know what I had anticipated I’d feel when I went into that church, but it was not this. It was like the rest of the world closed down and there was only this space with these people. The music and the singing was amazingly engaging and then, two-by-two, people got up and danced toward the priest. This was a celebration and nobody seemed ill at all. It was like they were all borrowing energy from each other and were moved to move. Clearly, what I don’t know about voodoo is a lot.

Robert and Richard turned to me again to see if I wanted to say something to the priest about my heartbreak. I couldn’t do it. First of all, I’m sure that all of these people had way bigger issues that required his attention and secondly, I didn’t want anything to invade this experience.

So here’s my advice... If you ever have the opportunity to go to a voodoo village in Ghana, do it.

Best Laid Plans (Part 10)

The Countdown Has Begun!

Joe and I head out in two days! Already packed and ready to go is our cancer in a bottle – better known as deet bug spray, some toilet paper for those ‘just in case’ moments, immodium, pepto, our visas, passports, customs letters, sunscreen, band aids, malaria pills, flashlights and a very sexy fanny pack. After much trial and error, Joe has also found a protein bar that doesn’t make him wince (for those of you picky eaters out there, your leader opted for the peanut butter flavored clif bars). We purchased lots of those, as well as some additional bars for me. At Alicia’s insistence, we also purchased some mosquito netting for our beds. Not yet sure what we’ll hang it on but I’ve realized that, folded up as it is, it’ll also double as a nice pillow on the plane. I know you might be feeling some major packing component is missing from this list, but not to worry, Joe and I will not be waltzing around Ghana naked. This, for me, is actually the most challenging part of the pre-trip preparation. How can I be sure that my 3-inch black heels won’t be needed at the volunteer site? Are chandelier earrings really excessive? There might be a very appropriate occasion for my sequin top and I would be so disappointed not to have it. Perhaps I can be clothed and Joe can go naked. I bought spf 50, so he should be fully protected as he carries the equipment in his skivvies. Kimberly from Globe Aware says that there is nothing you can’t live without for a week but I beg to differ. So if you happen to be watching CNN this week and here of a story about a naked tourist running around Ghana, know that I did indeed win the battle over bringing the sequined top!

Hopefully, the next time you hear from me, I’ll be in Accra, Ghana!

Best Laid Plans (Part 8)

So, I’ve started doing these video journals at home since Joe simply refuses to follow me around where ever I go. I thought of dousing myself in pancake syrup as a lure, but thought better of it at the 11th hour. The idea of the video journals began when Alicia had the gumption to ask me what my story arc was. I know, nervy, right? The fact is, as much as this trip and the volunteer work will be at the center of the story, the true epicenter of the doc is supposed to be dealing with the life change that divorce thrusts upon you. Because of this, Alicia pointed out, it just isn’t enough to record the process of getting to Ghana, or interviewing others who participated in volunteer vacations, it requires something more intimate. Now, while I’m sure, if it was required, Joe would happily follow me around in order to record some thought that had crossed my brain if it fell into the documentary’s realm; the video journals provide a bit more intimacy. This offers Joe the added relief of not having to watch me cry (which, I’ll admit, I’ve done in some of my entries). They say that people’s pasts and/or baggage follows them around in life and lately, I’ve found that both my ex, and this trip to Ghana (let’s pretend it’s in human form) are leading my personal pack. Their presence finds their way into everything I do: from work, to having drinks with friends, to dating, to sleeping. I think of it as being like the Verizon commercials that show human representations of cell bars following Verizon customers around everywhere they go. I’m told other people feel this way too – here’s hoping that they weren’t just being nice and my posting this blog doesn’t result in some mental health professional coming to my home to “invite” me to their “farm” in the country. Crazy or not crazy, it’s how I’ve been feeling lately – like I’m being metaphorically followed. Whereas a month ago, I found that this trip was pulling my focus from the demise of my marriage, recently it feels as if the two are getting closer together. I’m not sure why that is. I’m wondering now if this trip is going to be less about me beginning anew with a grand jumping off point, and more about intertwining the failure of my marriage with my need to have something else succeed. This documentary and my relationship with my ex have been further connected in my head because, as I recently confessed to Alicia, I am weirded out by the idea that he is reading these blogs. I know the phrase ‘lack of forethought’ is probably crossing your brain right now, but caution and jumping head first into something rarely coincide. You know, perhaps I should be video journaling about this right now…

Best Laid Plans (Part 6)

Ode to the elusive Press Pass!

Why do you elude me?  You say that you are on your way and yet... why have you not arrived yet?  I promise to be good to you when you arrive... I will do a jig even, and, had I the skills to, I would happily perform a double-triple-loop-backflip.  Yet, here I am, with an empty hand, sitting by my mailbox, longing for it to be filled with some sort of official-looking paperwork.

While our visas arrived very quickly, it seemed that our application for the press pass was misplaced.  The people processing the information could not have been nicer or more helpful and have said that the information has been found now and is currently being processed.  However, the neurotic New Yorker in me will remain concerned until the actual document is in my shakey, nervous hands.  Joe, of course, is not concerned.  He merely shrugged, ordered another round of pancakes and sucked back his third can of root beer.  Joe has, it should be noted, informed me that we are in a marriage of convenience.  The convenience being that he figures, I worry so much, that he need not worry at all.  Convenient for him, stroke-inducing for me.  The truth is, I'm sure it will all work out.  The people I have spoken with have been great and want to help out, but I can also honestly say that I long for the day that I can talk about my want of the press pass in the past tense.  

If you're out there press pass, come home.  We promise to treat you well!!

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.

Best Laid Plans (Part 2)

Why Ghana?

Okay, multiple choice. If you had to couple your husband walking out on you with one of the following, would you choose:

a. in the same day, somebody makes a copy of your bank card and steals $2,000 from your accounts while your cell phone conks out and you have no land line in your apartment.

b. your cell phone bill spikes to over $500 because you no longer have rollover minutes from your husband's account

c. your dog requires a biopsy for a bump on her back

d. all of the above

Well folks, whether it was just a run of bad luck, a case of bad ju ju or the gods coming together to hit me with a can of whup ass, I was faced with choice d (though I struggle with the word "choice"). In the months after my husband left, I felt like I was surrounded by those weird black-liquidy spirits that took down the bad characters in "Ghost." Had I been approached by a cult in those days, I probably would've asked them to lead the way to the compound.  All I wanted was to escape somewhere and dive head first into the sand. To quiet my brain a bit, I began contemplating where I could escape to.  My family had a big trip planned, but that was planned with my husband in mind and was somewhere I'd been with him before.  Because of that, I knew I'd feel like he was still there - a hologram of him - following me around, reminding me that his actual body was decidedly absent.

So back in my dreamscape, I thought about where I could go.  New factors that I was faced with regarding vacationing were:

1. Giving myself enough time to save money

2. Feeling at east with going by myself

2. Trying to find something that I'd always wanted to do but had never had the chance to due to compromising with someone else.

First, an Earthwatch vacation popped into my head.  I'd always wanted to do one and I figured that, since I'd be with a group of volunteers, traveling alone wouldn't really be an issue.  They're an environmental organization that offers volunteer vacations in which you learn and do work for any number of different projects.  You can search for butterflies in Vietnam, do marine research on a boat in Greece, work on an animal preserve in Africa, etc. You are limited only by your finances and your interests.  My personal idea was to try to become one with the dolphins. Me and Flipper, coasting the waters in Greece... can a human marry a dolphin? Has that been on the ballot recently?

Then I found an organization called Globe Aware.  They too offer volunteer vacations, but with a more Peace Corp-type bend to the work.  (By the way, in a moment of utter confusion, I looked into the actual Peace Corp, but then realized that two years without my dog would make me feel like my left arm had been cut off).  Globe Aware's projects span the world and in their list of destinations was Ghana.  I'd always wanted to go to Africa, and the idea of going half-way around the world to either teach or assist in building much needed facilities (ASSIST being the operative word), really excited me.  Their vacations are only a week long so it wouldn't require too much time off of work, and if I went in August I'd have plenty of time to save (provided I never set foot in any clothing stores in said time frame).  Globe Aware addresses lone female travelers on their website and they also focus on safety and security.  I was in.  All of my criteria were being met:

Could go by myself: Yes

Time to save: Yes

Could do something I'd always wanted to do: Yes, Yes, Yes

I was off...