Sunday Serenity - The Andy Griffith Show Theme Song

Listen to this three or four times in a row and try to stay glum.  Can't be done.

Last Sunday I went to my husband Ed's apartment in Kelso to retrieve the things I'd left there over the last two years of Sunday visits and occasional weekend overnights.  We had the conversation that ended our 41.5 year marriage.  Not a serene Sunday.  No Sir.  (for the backstory see these three poems in this order: Piles of Painted Echoes and My Heart is the Lake of Fire and Who Am I Without You? )

This weekend my Mom resumed her weekend visits with my brother's family in Portland OR.  Even before she left Friday afternoon I'd already started covering her bed with the contents of the back-and-forth-bags and the plastic dresser I'd brought home last Sunday.  I added to all that the clean clothes that had accumulated from the laundry over several weeks and other wardrobe items that were not stowed in their homes.  

Contributing to the disorder was the habit I'd developed of using items out of the travel bags and stowing clean clothes back in them or piling them on top.  It generated a sense of being neither her nor there.  Along with a deep sense of homelessness.

Before midnight Friday I'd cleared Mom's bed of the first pile having bestowed order upon my wardrobe, accessories and personal items.  Not perfect yet but getting there. I set up so I can continue to sort and organize smaller containers during the week Mom is home without covering her bed.  

I did not rest on my laurels.  I immediately began a new pile on her bed.  This time of craft paraphernalia from the room across the hall which is my office/crafting room.  It has been the same situation there with the back-and-forth bags and boxes of crafts and writing stuff including electronics.  This was a more complex project and took me until late this afternoon to get Mom's bed cleared. There was a lot of going back and forth between the rooms and in the end I've established a similar situation in which I can do fine-tune sorts of smaller containers without commandeering Mom's bed.  At least not for more than a few hours in the afternoon.

The irony did not escape me that with Mom returning to Portland for the first weekend since the shelter-in-place regimen began in mid March I might have been schlepping those bags over for our first sleep-over in three months but instead I'm busy unpacking, sorting, organizing and stowing all manner of stuff: Clothes, crafts, health-and-beauty aids, electronics, books, office/writing paraphernalia -- along with thoughts, feelings and memories.

Since I only have the stamina to stay active about an hour at a time I took sit-down breaks to crochet and/or watch videos.    Altho there have been a few others I've been nearly bingeing on Season 1 of The Andy Griffith Show.  Since this is a show that aired during my childhood and Ron Howard who played Sheriff Andy's son is only 3.5 years older than me this is a total nostalgia kick.  

It is also helping me to remember who I was before I became who I am and grounding me in my own history and memories.  In other words it is helping me find hope that there is a viable 'after' a devastating ending of a 41.5 year marriage.  I may have lost my best friend but I have not, as I half expected to discover, lost myself. 

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Friday Forays in Fiction: Channeling the Women of Star Trek

The Women of Star Trek

I just watched the last episode of Voyager which concludes my marathon rewatching of every Star Trek episode of every series since early September.

It started out as prep for NaNoWriMo because my coming of age YA novel character was a fanatical fan of all things Star Trek and the concept for the story was that whatever dilemma or crisis was thrown at this teen girl a solution or insight could be found in one or more of the Star Trek episodes or Movies.


Since my character was a young girl she would be consciously or unconsciously finding role models among the Star Trek women so for the first time ever I consciously focused on the women characters throughout my marathon.

Oddly enough I feel as though I've just been through my own coming of age story arc.  Or at least the first half or so of it since I don't yet feel I've reached a resolution.

I'm astounded by how strongly I've been impacted by the experience.  I'm still processing it.  Much of it is not at a level where verbalization is possible but I began feeling a strong sense of a shift in my own psyche about half-way through November--right around my birthday--and I'm sure I'm never going to be the same.

In my story synopsis on NaNo I said my character would be channeling the Star Trek women.  Now that has become my own aspiration.


Cool fb page.

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Going Where My Heart Will Take Me

Faith of the Heart -- Star Trek Enterprise Titles Song

Lyrics by Diane Warren

Sung by Russel Watson

Originally recorded by Rod Stewart

It's been a long road

Getting from there to here

It's been a long time

But my time is finally near

And I can feel the change in the wind right now

Nothing's in my way

And they're not gonna hold me down no more

No there not gonna hold me down

Cause I've got faith of the heart

I'm going where my heart will take me

I've got faith to believe

I can do anything

I've got strength of the soul

And no one's gonna bend or break me

I can reach any star

I've got faith

I've got faith

Faith of the heart

There are five more verses: Russell Watson - Faith Of The Heart Lyrics | MetroLyrics

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I started watching reruns of Star Trek Enterprise on Netflix last week and by the time I heard the titles song the third time I was beginning to own it--the sentiment of it.

Since then I've seldom let the show continue without playing the titles a second time and often three or four times. Now the song plays itself in my head all day and I'm starting to feel it viscerally.

I've come to identify with it to such a degree I've taken it on as my personal anthem.

Since I've found several YouTube versions I probably won't feel the need to replay them at the beginning of every episode.

Star Trek Enterprise was the only Star Trek series I never got to see all the episodes.  In fact I have seen less than half of them.  They were always changing up the schedule without warning--switching from Saturday night to Friday night, switching from the 7pm slot to 4, 6, 8, or 9pm or even 1am--usually to accommodate a sport show.

Star Trek began weaving itself into my psyche at age 9 becoming second only to the Bible and tied with Shakespeare in impact to my sense of story.  From age 11 through my late teens I was a rabid fan of the Classic Star Trek--Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scottie, Sulu, Uhara, Checkov--and recognized even before age 13 that a great many of the episodes were parables.

I realized recently that it had been years since I'd seen classic Star Trek episodes and began to long for them and thought it was about time I take advantage of their availability on Netflix but once I signed in and saw Enterprise and remembered I'd missed so many episodes when they aired, I decided that it was fitting to watch the prequel to the classic Star Trek first.

Watching Star Trek now is an exercise in tracing my relationship to story back to its roots.  I wish to re-encounter as an adult and as a writer all the stories that enthralled me as a youth.

It's also homage to the first stories I wrote that weren't children's picture books or chapter books--Star Trek fan fic.  Though I didn't know that's what it was called and it was long before the Internet so I didn't know anyone else did it and only a handful of my sixth grade classmates ever saw any of the pages.

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Sunday Serenity #404

August 31 Sunday

4400 Titles Song:
Amanda Abizaid -- A Place in Time

I've been watching 4400 episodes on Netflix this weekend as a reward for excellent progress in the sorting and organizing project.

I love the theme song.  It speaks to me on so many levels.  Especially to the ongoing, unwanted separation from my husband.

So lonely...

Such longing...

So well expressed.

Even so the song is soothing and leaves me feeling a little bit more hopeful every time I listen to it that we will soon find our place in time.

Our Place in Time

[This is one of the posts going up retroactively after the weeks long unintended hiatus that began the week after July 4th.  See She's Back for more detailed explanation.]

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Sunday Serenity #296

For most of this entire month of July I have been consuming Stargate SG1 episodes at the rate of five or more per day. Or maybe a case could be made that they have been consuming me.

I started mid season 2 as that is where I'd left off last summer when something distracted me.  Probably my two month visit at Mom's last summer.  I just watched Season 6 Episode 12.  There are over 20 episodes per season.

For the majority of those hours I have been crocheting so it is not as terribly unproductive as it sounds.  I haven't really increased the number of viewing hours that much I've just, in the last two weeks, gone exclusively, obsessively SG1.

The storylines are invading my dreams.  Along with crochet stitches, thread, patterns and clickable browser images and text which tend to also be either SG1 or crochet related.


It's funny as I never paid SG1 much mind while it was actually being broadcast.  I am a Star Trek snob to a great extent and any other Sci-fi world must overcome much to draw me in.  Star Wars and Babylon 5 are two of the few that have before SG1.

One of the things I love about the show is all the subtle and not so subtle references to Star Trek.  Like someone during a moment of extreme danger on another planet saying "We might as well be wearing red shirts."  Or Col. O'Neill giving the name Captain James T. Kirk when being interrogated by American soldiers after they ended up trapped in 1969.  There are many more.  And I believe I caught a few that might be referencing other science fiction stories that I can't quite place.

My favorite character is Danny the archaeologist and language expert geek.  Who has made only one appearance this season after...well in the interest of no spoilers I'll just say he was written out of the script at the end of season 5 but has made one appearance this season and I sense his storyline is not finished.

What I've come to realize is that SG1 contains many of my 'shiver words' which is a term I picked up in a writer's craft book or blog sometime in the last year or so.  I wish I could remember where or had written it down in the notes where I listed my 'shiver words' as an exercise suggested by that source.  If I could remember I would credit them here.

At any rate, 'shiver words' are terms or concepts that have a depth of emotional resonance for you and are unique to individuals.

So some of my 'shiver words' found in the SG1 experience are:

stranger-in-a-strange-land phenomenon
comparative culture
religion
mythology
Ancient Egypt
Atlantis
AI
Space travel
alien cultures
languages spoken and written
geeks getting respect
bullies getting justice
political intrigue
spiritual journeys
friendship
ethical and moral dilemmas

There are more but I'm ready to get back to the story.

And the stitches.

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Sunday Serenity #268

Clips of Harry

I'm still having bouts of homesickness.  They say laughter is the best medicine.  I've been taking my medicine by streaming 3rd Rock from the Sun.  Am in mid season 3.  I try to limit myself to 2 episodes per day but find myself sneaking in that third one.

Clips of Dick

Sally and Tommy play Monopoly

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Criminal Minds Marathon

I've been having a Criminal Minds marathon since Friday night, watching between three and five episodes per night.  The DVDs belong to acquaintances of my sister so can't go home with me.  I had seen only three or four episodes before this and those two or more years ago and all from the middle of season 1 and which I barely remembered more than a few images from.
My favorite characters are Spenser Reid and Penelope Garcia.  Most of the comedy relief seems to involve one or the other of them.  And a show like this needs comedy relief or the brutality of the criminal minds they must get inside would be too intense and overwhelming.
As it is I find my eyes flinching away from the screen often. I find getting inside the minds of villains difficult which is why so many of my stories stall when they walk on stage. 

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Wonderfalls

It's always the ones I love that get cancelled before the story plays out.  Quirky, eccentric, surreal.  A 20-something named Jaye living at Niagra Falls, is given Delphic messages from inanimate animals--stuffed, drawn, plastic, wax, etc. and when she obeys events work out for the best for all involved.  Of course Jaye is always misunderstanding the meaning of the cryptic commands and trying to fulfill them inappropriately.  It is funny, charming and full of wonder.

I just discovered this show via Netflix DVD and have watched all but two of the 13 episodes this week.  I would have watched the last two as well but got sleepy as has been happening a lot this week because of the virus.  Then I slept until midnight and by the time Ed and I got dinner prepped and cleaned up he was ready for bed and I couldn't watch the last two episodes on the TV in the room.  I have the option of pulling the disc out of the player and taking it in the living room but that room is an icebox as the heat has been off since 9pm.  

I could also play it on my netbook.  But I think I will leave it where it is and wait for Ed to wake up (if I even last that long myself) for I have plenty of other options--things I could or should be doing that are already within reach of where I sit.  One of which is the full set of Bones Season 6 discs from the library.  I could also stream Netflix or watch some of the weeks of accumulated new pods.  I list video options first as they are things I can do while crocheting which is one of the 'shoulds'.  So next in line would be audio books of which I have several out of the library and several more onboard my netbook.

But I also have dozens of ebooks on board of which one is a review copy--another of the 'shoulds'.

I could also continue work on the file organizing and maintenance on my netbook.  I've been plugging away at it over the last several months.  Have finally got everything I wanted off the old laptop hard drive which can now be reformatted to serve as backup for my personal files, ebooks and music

I could also perform the same organization tasks on my fiction writing files.  Or better yet I  could write in them.  Haven't written anything put posts since NaNo ended so that is another strong 'should' as letting it slide too long makes getting started again harder.  Watching Wonder Falls this week though has made my fingers tingle for the keys.  My ideas aren't related but something about the show has inspired me.  It sets a certain tone that draws me and which I'd like to emulate.

Whoever the idiots were who decided to cancel it have no business in show business as they have no idea when they have a great thing.  I wonder what they were making room for when they pushed it out.  Probably more American Idolatry or Brainless Bachelors and Babes surviving without hair product on breezy beaches.

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Friday Forays in Fiction: Desperate for More

I just watched the last available streaming episode of Desperate Housewives on NetFlix--the finale of season 6--and now must wait until season 7 begins streaming or start putting them in my disc queue bumping down the 20 odd now at the top.

I've been binging on Desperate Housewives since early July seldom going a full day without at least one episode and often watching 3 to 6 in one day. I started at the beginning and watched straight through. I'd seen all of season's 1 and 2 and a few episodes of 3 when they originally aired but then I quit having decided that being a slave to the TV schedule was not working for me any more and decided to wait for the opportunity to see them on my own terms via streaming or DVD.

This is one of those stories and its story world that make me want to take it apart like my brother once did ball point pens, transistor radios and gas engines to see what makes it click, sing and go. And since, still after all these years of studying the craft of story telling I'm still not sure exactly what I'm looking at and what it all means when I have cracked open the shell and watched the innards at work and then one by one pulled the parts out to examine them from all sides, I rely mostly on my old standby--osmosis via immersion.

The last TV series I did this with was Ugly Betty and the one before that The Gilmore Girls. Soon I would like to do it for Lost. Others on my list for similar treatment would be Twin Peaks (and while I'm at it all of David Lynch's movies as well), Northern Exposure, and Babylon 5 and all of David Kelly's creations (Ally McBeal, Boston Legal, The Practice)

It seems at a glance that there couldn't be more dissimilar stories and thus no way to explain why I'm enthralled by all of them. But they do all have one thing in common that, once you see it, you want to bonk your forehead with your fist. The common trait? They are all ensemble casts of unique eccentric characters that act in unexpected ways when unexpected events are thrust upon them. All but three--Lost, Babylon 5 and The Practice--are what I would call dramedy with a fairly even blend of comedy and drama. All but two--The Gilmore Girls and The Practice--have a strong streak of surrealism in them. And every one of them is a running commentary on the power of story to shape our lives, to heal our hidden wounds and to create community out of a chaos of seemingly incompatible characters.

Oh and every single one of them I am desperate to emulate, tho in the form of a novel. Desperate and quivering with insecurity.

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That's Gotta Smart

Ed and I watched Get Smart the movie staring Ben Stiller as agent Maxwell Smart. We both loved the 60s TV series so this was a treat.

Am still working at limiting activities that had become obsessive and adding back those I've been neglecting. I haven't crocheted since Thursday which was when I strained my left arm. Today was the first day that the pain was lessened enough I thought I might be able to hold and control the thread but I still let it lie.

I have been going for hours without checking email and fb. Often four or more hours.

Meanwhile I've added back reading fiction having read for 30 to 60 minutes one to three times per day for a whole week now.

I must admit tho that I've not beaten all obsessions and overdone activities. I've continued to watch a lot of DVD and stream. And I've been stuck on the same Spider Solitaire game since Thursday.

So two steps forward, three back.

I've been home a week now and have begun to aclimate to the heat so maybe I'll locate my ambition and energy again soon and shift that to three steps forward and two back.

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Movie Night

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

I decided to cut myself a little slack after all the work I did cleaning and organizing since Saturday. So I designated tonight as Movie Night. Most of the day too. I'm counting as movies the several TV series seasons I had out of the library this week. House MD 6. Six Feet Under 2. Boston Legal 2. And Lovejoy 2. I finished Lovejoy on Saturday actually. And just finished House and have now started on Six Feet Under. Lovejoy had been due last Thursday and the other three were due this past Tuesday. I lucked out when Boston Legal renewed. But the other two must now be in the drop box before the library opens tomorrow at eleven to avoid a fine.

I'm adjusting to the idea that I'm not going to make it with Six Feet Under. Only if I put the disks in my netbook and used the video ap that allows me to speed up videos by percents would I have any hope of watching twelve more hours in the next 12 and 1/2 hours. Even then I'd have to speed it up until they all sound like Daffy Duck and the chipmunks. Not a very appealing concept. So I guess I'll be hanging on to it over the weekend and eating the fine.

Meanwhile I've also watched several excellent movies this week and some a bit less than excellent but still worthy: Yentil, Sleepless in Seatle, La Strada (now I must explore more Fellini), Cowboy Up, $9.99 (yes, a film title--a stop action animation for adults).

Boy when I see it all listed like that....

And that's not all of it. I streamed some TV episodes online. So many and of such variety I can't list them all. The one that stands out is the final two epiosdes of Ugly Betty which I'd been depriving myself of for two months because I was sad to be finished with the story and a bit afraid they were going to botch up the story with a shoddy ending. I should have know better and trusted the writers who hadn't let me down yet.

Here's where I would usually lessen the shock of the amount of time I spent watching the screen by saying I was plying the crochet hook or the needle the whole time. But I can't say that this time because I've done very little crochet or needlework since last Friday because of the time, effort, and energy I put into the room clean and the related disarray of my craft materials and work space. Mostly it was the exhaustion after hours of lifting and sorting and rearranging etc. I was too tired to care and just want to sit and stare at the screen.

If it hadn't been for the flood of DVDs off my request queue that came in over the last two weeks, I might have chose different ways to relax. I keep getting surprised by these floods and I keep saying how I won't let that happen again and then I do. I try to manage my library request queue so that only one and no more than two TV series season boxes come home in a single week. At least not the same day. But last week Ed misheard me when I told him what all was waiting and listed what I wanted that day, Tuesday, and which could wait. He heard the first list but not the second and he grabbed everything on the hold shelf with my name slip in it. Three TV seasons and an audio book among them.

As of last Thursday there were two more waiting and I'm afraid to check now to see if any more came in since then. But I need to go check on my items out list to verify my memory of what items were due this week and have to go back in the morning as I have to prepare them now before Ed is ready to sleep. Which could be any minute so I guess I better get on with it.

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Sunday Serenity #226

I spent the afternoon watching season one of Mad Men the Emmy award winning drama (soap?) on AMC. This was my first exposure to it. It came up in my 'you might like' lists on Netflix but I found it at the library.

After the first couple episodes I was unsure as to whether I'd would ever send for season 2. It seemed little more than a night time soap set in the sixties pre-political correctness and thus giving a pretext for a lot of offensive behavior and views. I thought to myself, this is just Desperate Housewives for chauvinist men or shall I say, Desperate Execs.

Something about it reminded me of the Sopranos too. The viciousness, the power gluttony, the deals behind closed doors, the deceit and the greed, the cynicism, the sadness masked by a manic grasping after irrelevancies. Only difference being the use of words rather than guns and fists as the weapon of choice. And I took to the Sopranos after I got past an initial revulsion and grasped the writer's intent.

So when, while researching for this post, I discovered The Mad Men was created by the creators of The Sopranos, I can't say I was surprised. It felt more like learning something I already knew but didn't know I knew.

But by the end of episode six I was beginning to get it. I'm becoming more convinced that it is more than a soap and more than pretext for crudity. There is an important message in it which is ironic since it features the message makers aka the Madison Avenue Ad Men aka the Mad Men.

I believe now that this is an attempt to put a mirror before us as a society. Just as The Sopranos was.

Before I became convinced the story was worth my time and attention, I was already attached to the music and hankering after the soundtrack. It features a lot of original Jazz pieces along side Jazz and pop music from the 1940s.

Another aspect drawing me in was its look. It reminds me of noir. Of, say an old Humphrey Bogart.


I can't get enough of the music. Especially David Carbonara's original pieces.




I adore Carbonara's version of Babylon. I've heard a lot of them over the years. Sung one a number of times at church youth events. But this is my all time favorite version. I've played about fifteen times while preparing this post.

I went looking for it on YouTube specifically as I had just finished watching episode six of season one in which this was featured in the last two minutes in a stage performance that Carbonara himself participated in. The versions on YouTube in which those final scenes--like a music video--featured were all embed disabled. I had almost given up looking when I found this one which is music only with no images.



And last, a recap of the first two seasons. Since I just reached season 1 episode 6 I saw some spoilers in this. But they serve to reinforce my growing inclination to stick with the story.

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Library Loot: March 2 – March 8

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

Claire has Mr Linky this week

The loot this week was small. One book and three DVD.

The video at top represents one of the DVD. Coincidentally I sent for The Music Man a few weeks ago after discovering, while prepping for Library Loot, the videos on YouTube for both the 1960s version and the 2000s version of the Marion the Librarian segment of this classic musical. I sent for both of them. The 2003 version staring Mathew Broderic and Kristin Chenowith from Netflix which has come and gone and the first one staring Shirley Jones and Robert Preston from the library.

I just hope that after watching this one the 76 Trombones song does not play in my head endlessly for days and days until I'm chewing on my tongue and boxing my own ears in attempts to shut it up.

The second DVD is Jesus in India

A documentary that speculates that a young Jesus traveled via caravan to India and spent some time studying Buddhism before returning to start his ministry.







The third DVD is season 3 of House MD












The book is Teaching Yourself Visually Crocheting

I seem to learn things involving all three dimension better by a combination of pictures or video or watching someone else do it and then hands on experimenting on my own. When instruction is text only without pictures I struggle to figure out what is meant and have to painstakingly visualize it move by move before attempting to do it myself. So I'm hoping this book will help me with some of the difficulty I'm still having reading patterns.



Now that's something of an eclectic selection.

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Sunday Serenity #215

I'm having an Ugly Betty marathon this weekend to take my mind off feeling so lousy with this respiratory bug.

I'm streaming season one off Netflix. Season one is a rewatch for me but somewhere near the end of season one or the beginning of season two I missed several episodes and decided to wait for rerun season to catch them before watching more but then I missed the rerun weeks as well. So I've been waiting a long time to catch up with this story which I fell head-over-heals with the year it premiered.

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Juggling

I'm watching Joan of Arcadia season 2 this weekend as the DVD set is due at the library Monday. In spite of needing to watch over 20 episodes in two days I just watched episode 8 for the second time in the process of looking for a specific clip from it to post.

This episode has to be one of the top three or four best of both season's so far. It was so intense with a multi-track storyline that had not one wasted word or image with a theme and a message so profound and acting so right on that I can't imagine they can top it. All that in 43 minutes!

The clip I wanted was from the very end where Joan is juggling three glowing blue balls in the dark. The theme and the message of the story is contained in this scene which is beautiful on its own but of course can't be experienced in full without the preceding story. The clip is actually in the last couple of minutes of this video and there may be enough of the story in the preceding segment to orient a newbie to the series but just in case: Joan is always encountering what seem to be ordinary people who identify themselves as God and give her advice, warnings and tasks.

If you want to watch the whole episode from the beginning you can find the first four parts on YouTube posted by the same person who posted this one.

Total spoiler below this line. Also in the clip of course since it is the last minutes of the story.

In this episode her best friend, Judith, helps her prepare for her first fancy restaurant date and while Joan is on her date Judith goes out to party with the druggie friends from her old school and is stabbed while they are trying to score. Joan's policeman father is called to the scene by his boss who believes the injured girl is his daughter as she is wearing Joan's sweater with her name tag inside.

Joan arrives home from her perfect dreamy evening to the news and her Mom drives her and Adam to the hospital where Joan has one last intense encounter with Judith who requests that Joan demonstrate that she can juggle, a skill Judith had been teaching her for their joint Physics class project. Joan attempts to juggle three rolls of bandages and fumbles them several times before finally keeping them going for a full round and the moment Judith sees the success she closes her eyes and the machines begin to howl. I was a total blubbering fool at this point and could barely see the remainder of the scenes through the tears.

There is an intense car ride home with her Mom and when they pull up her younger brother, Luke, his up to this point secret girlfriend, Grace and Luke's friend Friedman who has had a raging crush on Judith since she was introduced in S2E2, are sitting on the front porch obviously having already heard the news. The three of them had gone to a cheesy sci-fi movie marathon that night. Friedman had recently finished memorizing the entire Hamlet play after Judith had promised him a date if he did. He was ready to recite it but had wanted to go to the movie marathon so put it off. Over the next several minutes he quotes very relevant passages from Hamlet in response to the anguished questions or comments from one of the others.

Now I've simply got to find a Hamlet video!

Adam had disappeared from the scene at the hospital soon after a brief visit to Judith's bedside with Joan. He arrives on the scene in Joan's front yard an indeterminate time after Joan's arrival, early in this clip actually. Joan's paralyzed older brother, who had dropped Judith off where she was meeting up with her friends on his way to work, drives up in the last seconds of this clip. It is hard to tell if he has heard what happened to Judith yet but since he works for the newspaper I can't imagine how he wouldn't have. Not to mention that the whole family has cell phones.

OK that's the setup for this scene. You can watch it now and get most of the effect.

But in case you'd rather just read it, here's the gist. Or at least the part that is most meaningful to me. When Adam arrives he presents Joan with three balls he had made which light up when he presses a button on them. He tells Joan he had made them for Judith to use in their Physics project. As he hands them to Joan she spots one of the reoccurring characters self-identifying as God. The dog walker is walking several dogs on leashes past the yard. Joan walks over to him and confronts him with his negligence for having not kept Judith alive. Earlier, at the hospital in another guise he had talked about free will and choices good and bad and their consequences. Now he asks her to solve the riddle of the man with three boxes who must cross a bridge that will bear only 200 pounds but he weighs 190 and each box weighs 5lbs so how does he and his boxes get to the other side?

Joan knows the answer is by juggling them and always keeping at least one in the air. But she spits out the answer in anger and disgust not seeing the point until God tells her that the boxes represent her feelings: joy, pain, loss, etc. He takes the balls from her and starts juggling them and then tosses them to Joan one by one and she keeps them in the air effortlessly as he walks on with the dogs.

The last minute or so is all image with musical background as we watch the balls float up and down and the faces of her family and friends watching the balls and watching Joan.

And I'm left feeling a huge YES exactly. That's how I manage not to fall through the floor of my life each and every day. It doesn't take a major tragedy (or several in a few short years as in Joan's case) to make you feel weighed down to the point of being crushed. Even the comparably ordinary burdens of an ordinary life are too much to bear all at once all the time.

I don't think I've ever done this before--relating the entire plot of a movie or TV show in a post. I doubt I'll ever do it again. It's just that tonight I could not tear my mind off of it and thus could not imagine a post on any other topic. When I began I was going to just find the clip if I could and relate the riddle. Quick and easy see. But I should have know myself better than that.

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Hoarders

Hello, my name is Joy and I'm a hoarder.

If there isn't a Hoarders Anonymous there ought to be.

I've been watching season 1 of A & E's Hoarders the last couple weeks or maybe three. With other series I often watch several episodes in a row in a kind of gluttonous binge but with Hoarders I can barely watch one episode straight through without taking a break.

I see too many of my own quirks, behaviors, justifications represented in the people featured on these shows. I get the feeling they probably select their participants in large part because they represent the worst of the worst--stuff stacked floor to ceiling in every room of the house with pathways too narrow for a stretcher when the husband has a heart attack or a wife strips over a box on the stairs and breaks her arm; infestations of mice, rats, cats, possums, flies, mold, rotting animal carcasses and rotting food; houses being condemned, renters evicted, children removed.

I never reached such a level of gross out and doubt I ever would. When it comes to cleaning I confess to letting things slide quite often for weeks at a time but never for years or decades. Probably because closely related to my hoarding issues is my obsessive reorganizing and rearranging of the furniture and the stuff . But when it comes to collecting stuff I probably don't have rooms stacked floor to ceiling with (organized) stuff only because until ten years ago we've never lived in one place more than a few years and twice we lost nearly everything we'd accumulated in the previous decade or so and in the last decade we've had only one small room to expand in and probably only three fifths of that. But this room is stuffed such that it would be difficult to swing a mouse by its tail in here.

So I do identify strongly with those whose proclivity is collecting things that have potential uses: books, crafting and sewing supplies, office supplies. Doesn't sound so bad when listed that way but if i were to confess some of the subcategories you might shake your head until its contents felt somewhat like the die in a Boggle game between rounds. Like gum wrappers and foils candy wraps, clothing tags and the cardboard backs of note tablets for bookmarks; unlabeled plastic bags, plastic containers and various cardboard boxes for storing crafting, sewing and office supplies in which until said uses are found for them hold only cardboard boxes, plastic containers and plastic bags; snips of crochet thread, yarn and embroidery floss shorter than the needles for crafting projects I have in mind for them (think abstract art and bookmarks or greeting cards) or else for the birds to use in their nests; twist ties, paperclips, rubberbands for their various organizing uses but of which I have dozens to store for every one actually used.

In that list I've covered only the things that have volume and mass but I'm sure my collecting of podcasts, ebooks, graphics, photos, games, applications, URLs, stories forever in progress and the characters for them that proliferate faster than the pages, notes, unfinished book reviews and essays and other digital files is related as well as proliferation of new ideas and concepts and issues to be concerned about from the BP oil spill and every other environment wounding to child labor in China, from abused children and animals to war, corruption, slave trafficking, civil rights and victims of natural disasters.

And then there are the unfinished projects from TBR and TBW piles and lists of books and videos to cross stitch and crochet and other sewing, from stories to sorting and organizing stuff to blog revamping and a web page project with potential for income on which I've been working for five years. And lets not forget an email inbox pushing 1400.

And do you suppose the accumulation that expands my waistband has anything to do with this?

Well I have been tackling these issues head on for over a year and have made significant progress in spite of a few setbacks but I've been doing keeping mostly to myself about it with only Ed and my two sisters in the loop. I'm thinking maybe it might help me pick up the pace if I went public with my shame and thus create a sense of being accountable for follow through if only by the need to have progress to show in order regain my dignity after laying it on the altar of public confession. So I'll be posting occasionally on this with photos to illustrate my shame and declare my reclaimed dignity.

A very ironic thing happened as I set out to create this post. Today I'd done a major reorganizing of my 'office' beside the bed in preparation for the NaNo kickoff at midnight Sunday night. I also sorted a months worth of laundry and did several loads including the bedding. I wanted to at least start the marathon month with my work environment as tidy and conducive to productivity as possible. Well, as I began working on this post Ed arrived home from his swing shift with a tall hot coffee for me. I set it on a tray that was balanced on a box on the bed to my left. Most of the time I was keeping my hand on the handle (I had transferred it into my lidded, insulated mug) as I operated the mouse and watch YouTube videos. I had just brought my right hand up to the keyboard briefly for a keystroke or three when Merlin jumped up on the bed and then onto the edge of the tray which then catapulted my mug onto the bed where all but a couple swallows gushed out before I could spot its dark blue against the dark green of the blanket. It soaked through the blanket and both sheets and saturated the mattress and that portion of me that was planted on the bed. There was a narrow miss of a library book and the bag with two spools of crochet thread and a bookmark in progress.

As if I wasn't feeling demoralized enough after spending some six hours shuffling stuff around (including Merlin who seemed to absolutely have to sit or sleep right where I needed to sit or crawl or right on the thing I needed to use or move) yet again and in the process stubbing my toe, banging my elbow, bumping me head, being snared by the cords of my ear buds, discman, netbook, printer, detached disc drive, camera, lamp, alarm clock. I swear the very hair on Medusa's head had migrated to this room to make my efforts as impossible as possible and as miserable!

Now I have to strip the bed again and wash an extra load and remake the bed. Meanwhile I have to sleep on the damp spot!

And of course the spilled coffee is directly caused by the hoarding since that is why I no longer have a stable place to set a cup of coffee on or near my workstation.

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My Name is Karma

While I've been sick this past week or so, one of the things helping to pass the time has been watching Netflix online. I gravitated toward TV series rather than movies rewatching some old favorites (Ballykissangel 1-3) working at catching up with other favs (Ballykissangel 4 and Bones 4, Doctor Who 4 and several Doctor Who specials and extras) and taking the plunge into a series I'd never seen while it was on TV but always wanted to check it out if for no other reason than it having a character with my name--My Name is Earl.

My Name is Earl only lasted four seasons and I'm currently one third into its last season and torn between keeping the pace the sooner to see how it all turns out or slowing the pace in order to make the fun last longer. I was really surprised by how much I liked this show. I expected to have satisfied my curiosity with two or three episodes and then move on without more than a glance back. But it only took the first episode to hook me.

The premise is a guy who has been a jerk from the time he learned to walk and talk, trashing peoples rights and feelings and property, living by stealing and finding his entertainment in the pain of others and feeling no remorse. Until he gets a wake-up call he can't ignore, is introduced to the concept of Karma (aka What Goes Around Comes Around aka Do Unto Others as You'd Have Them Do Unto You aka The Golden Rule) and decides to change. Not only to start doing the right thing but to make up for all the bad things he did in the past. He makes a list of all those bad things, adding to it as he remembers them and crossing things off after he goes to the person harmed most and makes amends. This has a ripple effect on the lives of his friends and family and those of his past victims--just as his past bad deeds had.

Among his friends and family: his somewhat simple but sometimes (accidentally?) wise younger brother Randy who is his side-kick; and as his nemesis his ex-wife, ex-beauty pageant contestant and vicious brat (Barbie as Harpy?) Joy and her two sons (by two different men neither of them Earl) and her new husband Darnell Earl's friend who works at the restaurant which is a community hangout; and Catalina part time maid at the motel where Earl and Randy live and part time pole dancer/strip tease whom for most of seasons 1 and 2 Randy had a colossal crush.

The show is slap stick silly and quite raunchy at times. The kind of thing I'd be the least likely to enjoy I would have thought. But apparently there are still bastions of prejudice within me awaiting demolition. For under that patina of giggles and gross-out is a witty and wise story that is well written and well acted. It's truly a pity it only lasted four years.

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Reading Scott Turow

It's been over a week since I checked out Turow's latest, Innocent, after waiting months for my turn. Which means I have less than two weeks left with it but before I can even start it I need to finish Presumed Innocent, which I started a week ago but didn't get far before the room spring clean commenced. Then the last couple days have been about getting season two of The Sopranos watched because it was overdue at the library as of Tuesday.

Finally finished the last episode this afternoon and then after dinner picked up Presumed Innocent and tried to start where I left off. Not only was I confused for having forgot who some of the characters were and their relevance but I found my mental visualization of the story conflating with that of The Sopranos, with faces of The Sopranos characters superimposing over Turow's characters and plot lines from The Sopranos tangling up with those of Presumed Innocent.

Not just confusing but soporific apparently as I fell asleep for two hours and had bizarre dreams which I can't remember anything of but the sense of astonishment, confusion and revulsion.

I think maybe I ODd on The Sopranos.

Yet I'm already yearning for my turn with season three.

Well, I'm off to give Presumed Innocent another try. May have to at least review the first 60 pages some before continuing on. Hope I don't have to actually reread every page.

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Watching The Sopranos

I've got eight hours to try to get 7 more episodes of The Sopranos season 2 watched. Unless Ed doesn't have to work tomorrow and thus won't have to leave the house before 8 to return the DVDs to the library that were all due Tuesday.

The Sopranos is an unlikely show to have attracted me and I held it in distaste and even disdain for most of the years it was on HBO though I never saw a single episode, only trailers and teasers on cable TV. Then I picked up The Gospel According to Tony Soprano by Chris Seay on the Friend's of the Library sale table at the library a few years back and it intrigued me because I'd once had a copy of the 1965 book The Gospel According to Peanuts.

So I bought Seay's book and it's been kicking around my room ever since. I haven't read the book cover to cover but have browsed in it enough to get the gist of Seay's thoughts and learn that The Sopranos was considered a quality work as both film and story and that serious themes regarding human nature and culture were being addressed by it.

So I was primed when the entire series became available in our library system a few months back and decided to give it a try. I watched season one a few weeks before I left town and my turn for season two was getting close when the date for leaving closed in so I deactivated my request until my slated return date so season two awaited me last week along with five movies. It was a lot to try to get watched in one week even if I'd not needed to spring clean our room as well.

As expected I find the violence and language hard to take and yet the quality of the story and the writing and acting and directing has kept me mesmerized for one and a half seasons.

At any rate, here are a couple more links that discuss the show on the level I mean:

The Gospel According to . . . Charlie Brown, Tony Soprano, and other unlikely spiritual guides. by Andy Crouch

Tony Soprano: 61 Minutes Left to Find Redemption by Cathleen Falsani

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Slumber Party

We're having so much fun, Jamie and I, we've extended our sleepover through Sunday.

Tonight we watched the movie Get Smart. Yesterday afternoon and evening we watched the movie Next and a disc of Monk episodes, a disc of Criminal Minds episodes and a disc of Saving Grace episodes.

This evening before the movie we listened to music on a mixed CD of Jamie's favorites from the last four decades. She's introduced me to a few new groups that I've GOT to hear more of. If I can find a way to embed something of theirs here I will. But not tonight. Probably not while I'm dependent on Jamie's Cricket connection with its two bars of service strength that are continually dipping to one or zero which makes loading vids and music a pain.

If fact it has cut out on me several times as I prepared this post and is out as I type this sentence. Blogger warning that saving and publishing may fail.

Oh, there it's back. I think I better publish while I can.

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