Jury Duty postponed

I am writing a blog today because I feel if I leave that last blog entry up as my last blog entry, people who read it – which may be exactly two people or even no people at all, but still…people will think I’m constantly hysterical.

I did my usual hike with Arden today, three times around Runyon Canyon, about 7.5 miles and I feel great. And while I was walking I was thinking about how awful yesterday was and if I was just a wuss (is that how you spell that?) or if I really needed to make some changes in my life. And one thing I came up with was that I feel much better writing when I’m all exasperated and at the end of my rope. That’s when writing about my life is really great – in terms of doing something for me. I feel I get perspective, closure, I read what I’m writing and it has a weight that just thinking about it doesn’t give. I “get it all out” when I write about my frustrations. But when I’m feeling happy and content and on top of my life, I don’t have the urge to write, nor the payback that writing gives me. So it means that I naturally tend to write when I’m feeling…well, like I’m feeling frustrated or at wit’s end or on the edge of collapse or something. And I have to say, this gives a very incorrect view of my life.

Which of course, not to say, that everything in my life goes so perfectly all the time. I mean, duh.

So, I called this morning and got my jury duty postponed until the May 9th. And I said, “But I’m a single mom and my daughter is in afternoon kindergarten and I don’t have a babysitter who I can have come at 6:45 a.m. (when I would have to leave the house) and the woman said, “We do not accept your excuses.” That was all, “We don’t accept your excuses.” And I said, “But I’m a sole proprietor of a business and in fact, at the moment I’m working at night and I have to get ready during the day and no one else can do this job.” And she said, “We have reviewed your request and it has been denied.” And I said, “But what if I don’t find a babysitter to come to my house at 6:30 in the morning (notice how the time is getting earlier – okay I’ll be accurate: 6:45 in the morning) and I have to bring my daughter with me to the Court? And the woman said, “The State of California expects that you can make arrangements to have your obligations fulfilled including childcare. Children are not an excusable reason.” And then she said, “If you do not show up at the courthouse at 8:00 a.m. on May 9th and if you cannot stay all day and be prepared to join a jury, you will be fined $1,500.00”

So, there you go. AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Anyway, I will figure it out.

But I spent a lot of my hike today thinking of moving back to Spokane. I had a fantasy last week of moving back to Seattle, but it’s really too expensive. Seattle is as expensive as L.A. and I don’t have nearly as many employment opportunities. Spokane would be less expensive, I love the town, I have family there and lots of dear old friends whom I would love to spend more time with. It would be moving back into a much more religious community, but maybe that’d be all right. In fact, I actually meet more people who have definite opinions about religion, both positive and negative in a place like Spokane, since religion is not something you can completely avoid, like you can here in Los Angeles. A lot of my friends don’t ever even think about religion one way or the other, here. On the other hand, I feel I’m at the end of my NO-GOD campaign. I’m looking forward to this show getting filmed and then the book and then, I hope it’s just something I move on from. Not my opinions, mind you. Just the whole whipped up topic.

Even though, I have to say, I have been loving Los Angeles lately. I love my neighborhood. And I have dear friends in my neighborhood. And I love the public school that Mulan is going to. And on Monday night, this last Monday, I went to the Henry Fonda Theater for the L.A. Weekly Awards, where I was a presenter and for which I was nominated for Best Solo Performance. (I didn’t win…) The Groundlings got a lifetime achievement award and my friend Patrick Bristow was directing the awards show and many of us alumni from the Groundlings were presenters. And I had the greatest night talking to people. I spent a lot of time talking to Cassandra Peterson and Paul Reubens and Andy Dick and they are such amazing wonderful, lovely, people. And I spent time with all these old friends that I really consider family and who I feel so comfortable around: Tim Bagley, Mike McDonald, Loraine Newman, Tracy Newman, Tim Stack, George McGrath, Mike Hitchcock and Jennifer Coolidge who I presented with and who is one of the funniest women alive. (If my friend Wendy Goldman had been there I would have probably died from happiness.) I had such a good time. When I walk into the Groundlings, I feel so happy. I can’t be unhappy in that theater. And I like having that place down the street, the theater that totally gave me my life, started me out as an actress, taught me how to be a working actress, where I met so many wonderful funny people who I expect to know my whole life. Who I want to keep up with, who I want IN my life. And on Monday it was just so much fun, so relaxed. You know, we’ve all had a little success and we’ve all been knocked around a bit and we’re all, well let’s face it: older. But it makes things so much better! And lots more fun. So…Los Angeles, or Spokane, that’s the question I’ve got going at the moment.

What a quandary.

Mulan is studying Q words. I suggested quandary and then I had to explain it. I said, “Like you want to play dolls and you want to draw and you only have time to do one, then it’s a quandary.” And she said, “But I have time to do both.” And I thought, Oh, to be five again. Yes, she does have time to do both. Time doesn’t present quandaries to her, it’s infinite. And then I said, “But the word also means uncertainty – like should you apologize for sitting down in your violin class while your dear teacher was trying to show you something or should you just pretend it didn’t happen.” And she said, “I don’t remember sitting down.” And I said, “Well, you did.” And she said, “I want a popsicle.” And that was the end of Quandary.

Okay, if I get a chance there are two things I want to write for the website this weekend. One is: Why I am not a Christian. The other is: If you are a Christian who wants to write to me, please read this first.