Organization

I will probably never be really organized, but I’m addicted to the idea that someday I might be. Like the dream of losing five pounds, or the perfect partner, or wrinkle cream, or a sunless tanner that after all the technological advances in sunless tanning doesn’t still smell like Q.T. underneath…

I can’t give it up.

And somehow my feelings about organization are irrevocably entwined with my feeling about school. Even for the decade or so I wasn’t in school, there was still that feeling, each time I moved, each time I changed jobs or started a freelance project. I am still driven by the thought that I COULD be organized, together, that I might sit on my couch not out of overwhelmedness or depression about all the random life administration I’m putting off, but because it’s all done and I am actually free to think about something else.

In the 80’s I bought into the myth of the Trapper Keeper. I dreamed that the color coding would make it all clear. In September I could deny that the foldered pockets would become so overburdened and heavy that I would take them off their three ringed tethers—that by October I would be habitually late for class and without time to visit my locker would begin to put chemistry notes in the blue French folder instead of the green one, and that copying all 501 Spanish verbs would fill up the red notebook long before the year’s end.



By the 90’s I had to acknowledge the Trapper Keeper had been a false religion, but I wouldn't give up on its premise. I simply transferred my hopes to three-ring binders with the five tab dividers. You could keep adding paper—and you could get more binders—one for sheet music, one for stage managing The Taming of the Shrew…how could you go wrong? (Is it any wonder I ended up in production? The production book is just a too-cool-to-say-it Trapper Keeper with a three-inch D-ring.)

And I actually found I was able to get through a semester or a play and kind of just hold it together. But what then? What to do with all the binders full of sheet music, verb lists, blocking notes? And then I started working, got an EIN number and needed to keep resumes, cover letters, copies of invoices, pay stubs and expenses. It was time to admit I need more than a binder. (To be continued next post…)

Living with Rejection

Got a rejection yesterday that was slightly bigger than a check stub.
Alternately, one I got last week was on a full letter-size piece of printed stationary.

What do you think of this as a business idea...I could laminate the long narrow ones to use as book marks. Matte (sp?) and frame the larger ones to use as place mats. The quarter-page ones I could mount on doilies to use as hot-plate trivets, and some of the smaller ones could be refrigerator magnets...

The brand name is "Living with Rejection" and each piece of "functional art" carries (on the back or something) a statement certifying that it is an authentic, limited edition writer's rejection--no reproductions or recreations allowed.

MASTERY

Well I am now a MASTER (of fine arts). My defense on Thursday was pretty uneventful, for which I am thankful. My committee was great--sweet and supportive and complimentary of my work. They see much of the material as eventually factoring into something book length, which has been in the back of my mind, but at the moment I find much to overwhelming to think about. The discipline will be in starting back in before it all goes completely stale.

But at the moment I have a pile of revision I want to do--my screenplay and several stories are all in danger of being lost forever if I don't revisit them soon, as I know the USC program will likely be demanding.

My eyes can now turn west...I packed my first box of clothes yesterday, and packed an equal sized box to get rid of, so that felt good. Unfortunately I had more trouble packing a box of books today--it was supposed to be a box to go straight to a second-hand dealer in L.A. when I get there so I could have store credit at a local bookshop--but it was difficult to fill up the box because I felt I hadn't spent enough time with the books yet. The music and spanish books I feel I should save for my sister. And I never read Ethan Frome, or a Thousand Acres or the critical essay in the Film Noir book. Shouldn't I do that before giving them away?

Thus I am at All Saints (a coffee shop) with Ethan Frome in hand even as I write this. My iced green tea latte sits on the table, but unfortunately I forgot to request soy milk, so it has regular milk, and apparently my tastes have changed, because I keep taking sips and it keeps tasting bleechh!

On the GPS front, I purchased a Magellan 4250 but have already returned it. It seemed okay--but the voice recognition is obviously more wishful than developed technology, and it didn't know the streets around my house--not that I can really blame Magellan for this, since Mapquest and most printed maps of Tallahassee make similar errors even though the fences and dead ends have been in place since I moved here three years ago. (Where do map updates come from anyway? Who reports to whom a street closes permanently?) Then this morning, just to make sure I felt okay about returning--I looked through the Points of Interest for our nearest Post Office. Although five others were on the list, the one I was looking for (the one that is open on Saturday)was not. Three strikes and out.

Plus I have been doing more research, and am now investigating the Dash Express which, though flawed in some ways, seems to be the most right thinking technology for an urban traffic infested city like Los(t) Angeles. i'm quite excited my the philosophy behind it really--the units are interconnected in BOTH directions--so that my position is being (anonymously) tracked and that information can help other drivers, and vice versa. For instance, say I leave my house and wonder (as often happens) whether I should take Sepulveda Blvd south, which has traffic lights and will take about twenty minutes, or if I should chance getting on the 405 freeway, which on a good day will cut my time in half, but one a bad day could double it or worse. I can look on my Dash unit and see, in real time whether other Dash cars on the 405 are moving, or standing still and use that information to make my decision. THIS is the kind of problem solving that I love--and, if you've heard me rant about dynamic ridesharing at all, you will see that this is exactly the kind of technology that will be required to make it work. I'm incredibly excited that a company is beginning to work with it.

More on this later, you can be sure!

iPod induced confusion

hmmm...
They just announced that the new i-Pod will have on-board GPS tracking...I will be getting a new phone this summer anyway...is it better to have many devices, or one?

However, the description of the iPod GPS does not mention any audio directions. Although some people are really into the display--I want something to remind me when I start to daydream..."Veer Right onto the 110 in 500 feet!"

Also, what if I lose the i-phone? There is something to be said for dispersion of remorse...or course there is also something to be said for not losing shit in the first place, and perhaps that would be the case if I just had to hang onto one item...Miraculously, I have never permanently lost my phone.

Transitional

I turned in the thesis last Thursday and have my defense this coming Thursday...we'll see how it goes!

Am feeling weirdly emotional and transitional in the wake of it. I wake up in the morning and go to my computer, then think--I don't have to spend all day here...and then I don't! Friday I prepped to have some people over, and Saturday my parents stopped by for the night on their way back to Indiana. Yesterday I saw Young@Heart at the theatre and cried almost all the way through.

I'm not quite ready to jump onto the next project yet--I want to work out, but feel a bit lazy. I want to have already worked out so I could feel even better about sitting around watching movies and television. Last night I watched the last half of The French Lieutenant's Woman--kind of blah, period piece meets 1981--when it was nominated for 5 Oscars, so I was hoping to be more compelled. This morning I watched The Invisible--not as clever as it could have been by a long shot, but managed to evoke a mood, and then I moved straight into Twilight of the Golds, which i had never heard of but found quite interesting, so that was a nice surprise. I'm resting, but underneath things are churning.

Soon I must dive back in to real life though. I need to return piles of library books--but maybe should I wait til after the defense in case I need to do more revision? I need to clean and prep for leaving our house sit tomorrow, start thinking about all the paperwork I've been ignoring for the last month. Last night I made an Excel spreadsheet of all the GPS navigational devices advertised in the Sunday paper. Coming from an unfamiliar part of town yesterday I called Paul four times on my way to the theatre to check my directions...with gas prices going up and supplies going down, I don't think I can afford the lengthy detours when I get back to Lost Angeles.

Wisdom for today

Paul said something profound the other day,
"Irony is the enemy of self-improvement."

I think this is absolutely true,
but I still can't watch this Gift from the Secret Scrolls without making fun of it in my head.

Maybe I'll have better luck Visualizing Secret Riches.