Well, it IS Pope Ratzinger

My friend Hal Bidlack wrote me today and asked me to blog something about the new Pope. And so Hal, here you are! These words are a little jumbled as I have my five year old climbing on me while I write them.

My views on the new Pope, for anyone who might care about that:

My friend Jamy Ian Swiss always says that the best dramatic events are both surprising and inevitable. And I guess Razinger’s win as Pope fits that nicely. How naïve I was to think it could have been anyone else. And yet, it seemed impossible that he would be Pope. If this were a movie, he would be cast as the hard-lined antagonist and he never would win. I guess, living in Hollywood, my bets are off because I’ve been lulled into a sense of the dramatic positive ending actually happening outside of the movies. Or maybe it’s just that old pesky optimism rearing it’s raw, under-experienced head again.

On the other hand, what do I care? I don’t even think there’s a God, so what difference could it make to me? Well, because there are a lot of Catholics that I care about. Because there’s one billion people out there who are affected by this choice. And because people like Ratzinger can influence life and death in my lifetime. And, because I have a special love for Catholicism (a special not-love too) and I can’t help myself from being interested in the machinations, the politics, the influence that it has on our world. It’s like a family that you’ll never quite be away from. It’s always there to offer comfort, reminiscences, and a renewal of my conviction that it’s all a bunch of bunk. And with the Pope being reelected, the drama is inviting. So…there’s my excuse.

Okay, on the one hand, it makes no difference if he’s Pope. Probably, anyway. He was so much a part of JP II’s worldview; it’s like Cheney becoming president. What difference would that really make? In a way, it’s quaint. I think of people like Cheney and Ratzinger as people who would never want to be the front piece, the focal point. Because they know the real power is BEHIND the throne. So, in any case, Ratzinger is just a continuation. What is sad for me is that this Pope will continue to destroy the gains made during Vatican II, and countless children will be born under his watch that have AIDs because of the Church’s policy about condom use for those with AIDs, and countless children will be born in poor countries to people who cannot afford them and those children will not have the chance for basic needs and education and enough social structure to give them a good chance in life – let alone what the population, the extra population on the earth due to the Catholic policy – is going to contribute to the destruction of a habitat that will allow all of us humans to survive over the coming centuries.

I hate that this Pope will do nothing about the abuse that is rampant in the church due to it’s dark-ages view of sexuality and misunderstanding of basic biology. I hate that lots more boys and girls will be molested than otherwise would be if a Pope who made some basic changes had been elected instead. And of course, I hate that this Pope will help to create much new human life and then make sure they live with a medieval view of their place in the world, never allowing them to experience what I think is what is most truly human and unique about us: our ability to see our place on this planet and in this known universe as aware animals, lucky animals with a lot of real knowledge and the truth about death. I guess there’s no Pope that I can imagine being elected that would make that kind of change! So, that’s just wishful thinking. But I do feel sad about all the new children who will be born because of the Catholic Church’s view on birth control, and then told a lie, a lie about death and about life. And I am sad for all the little girls who will be born with as much potential as anyone else who will watch man after man after man stand on the altar and tell her how God doesn’t want her voice at Church, except in song or in agreement or at the bake sale counter. And Ratzinger is someone who will prevent any progression in this regard for maybe another generation. Yeah, that’s possible. Another whole generation.

But here’s what might be good or at least interesting about Ratzinger. According to my friend Kevin Gunn, who I got to talk with on the day of the election, and who did the Pope Watch bios that I put on my site, Ratzinger and all those other conservative Cardinals hated communism. Well, I mean, we all know that. But why? Mostly because of the association often made between communism and totalitarianism. It’s always been so curious to me, the Church’s stand on communism. If you read the Bible, outside of a couple of passages, and one parable that I can think of, Jesus is constantly admonishing people to give up everything they have for the poor right and left. Jesus would TOTALLY have been a communist.

I am personally not a communist because I think it doesn’t work. I think we aren’t that altruistic in our nature, and the incentive to work for our own personal gain is too good an incentive to let go of. Witness: every communist country and government. In any case, JP II and Ratzinger (I just can’t say Benedict…yet…but I will, by the end of this blog…I swear!) have been credited with helping to collapse communism. But the truth is that they hate capitalism just as much as communism. And they particularly hate capitalism as practiced by one particular nation: US. And maybe Ratzinger can get somewhere on that, put pressure on economic policy that impacts the third world. They hate poverty and even though the church fuels poverty with their birth control stance, maybe they can do something on the policy end that might make a difference. So, there’s one good thing.

Also, they hate the war in the Middle East. And maybe Ratzinger can make a difference there. In fact, this is what I have the most hope for. That Ratzinger can help with the bridge between Muslims and Christians. I mean, I don’t know how much headway we can expect on this front from a person who has repeatedly said that the road to redemption is held only by Catholic Christians, and through no other way. But still, maybe there’s some hope there.

And maybe he’s craftier than any of us think. Maybe his conservative stance was a ruse that would set him up in the power seat to make some real change in the church for the better. Nah…

I am sympathetic to Ratzinger’s hard-line ethical approach, just not the things he’s hard lined about. My loss of faith caused me to become much more conservative rather than liberal. In the Catholic Church, the liberation theology movement, that Ratzinger has spent so much of his time dismantling, destroying, and fighting against, has an ideology that God is within everyone. We are all God’s children is their creed. No matter what race, or what religion. And this comes from the idea that people are basically good and pure and wonderful simply because they are human and a child of God. This was the sort of Catholicism that I was immersed in in my last two years of high school, by the particularly liberal Jesuits who taught there. God was a concept and heaven was an instant out of space and time and maybe just an idea and everyone was intrinsically good and graced by God. And this view has often been accompanied by a more relaxed and relativistic view of the traditional moral code. And that’s where I think it can, CAN, go wrong.

I mean, I love that worldview, that everyone is equally good and God-like, but I also think it’s hopelessly naïve. I’m not saying that I don’t think that every human being has worth and merit and isn’t intrinsically valuable simply by the fact that they are human. I do think that. But I can see how this idea isn’t going to work in a world where you want people to conform to a social code that is rigid and branded, like Catholicism is.

In any case, the liberation theology movement doesn’t put Catholicism in a place better than other ideologies. And Cardinals like Ratzinger have pushed against this open-minded approach by saying that a strict reading of the rules of the church is necessary for redemption.

And why this is similar to my world view is that, while I do not think Jesus was the son of God or that Catholicism has any particularly good road to the afterlife, I do think that a stricter rather than a more relaxed adherence to a social code is necessary for a society like ours with so many people in it, to work best. I am fairly conservative in my judgments of morality. I believe in rigorous honesty, which is very difficult. I believe that we are responsible for the world’s poor and I believe that we must all contribute to the collective society. I believe that each child should have an equal chance at success. I think that laws should apply to everyone and that certain groups or corporations should not be treated differently than other groups or corporations. I believe that commitments should be held to. I could go on and on, but what I’m saying is that I do not have a relaxed moral code. And I personally don’t think anyone should and that our society should shape and encourage people to adhere to a strict moral code. I don’t think we are all born intrinsically good. I think we have a mixture of social and anti-social behavior that is inbred in us and that our communities and families shape these innate tendencies inside of us so that we can function well in society. We must be taught compassion. Anyone who doesn’t think that this is the truth should go visit on Kindergarten recess break and see what it’s like. You have to teach kids not to bonk each other on the head and take things, and not to be aggressive or ostracize some kids.

So, in this convoluted, desperate way, I am similar to Cardinal Ratzinger in my a-theology. I am more conservative than liberal in this particular way. And I can see how Ratzinger, like almost all of the other Cardinals, might be afraid of a looser structure without strict adherence to a moral code. It’s just that….I disagree with much of the particular moral code they promote. That’s the only difference.

Wow, am I desperate to find something to relate to in the new Pope.

On a final note: I have to say, when Pope Benedict 16th came out on the balcony and waved, I was carried away by his genuine smile. I mean, I have never ever ever seen Ratzinger smile. But Pope Benedict 16th was smiling. He seemed over the moon. And I couldn’t help but feel happy for him. I mean, this is a dream come true for him, probably more than sixty years in the making. And his smile made me smile. I couldn’t hate him anymore. Honestly, I just was won over. Even though I know that some of the worst people are the most likeable, and that smiling and getting your dream does not make you a person I need to like, still, I was happy for him. I am interested to see what he does. In an odd way, it felt, in that instant when he waved, like the Catholics were actually taking a step forward.

And I get all caught up in the pomp and circumstance. Even though I hate it, the majesty of it, the middle ages-ness of it, the beauty and old-world of it, gets me every time. I really wished I were a priest and could be standing under some gothic archway discussing the new pope in Rome or even at some Catholic University. I wanted to be in the club again.

Back home.

We are back home. It’s one thirty in the morning and we are awake like it’s noon. Mulan, with a fever, is watching cartoons on TV and I am here in the kitchen eating yogurt and cereal. Oh jeez, I hope she doesn't get sick.

The trip to Japan was so much better than I expected it to be. I mean, of course I didn’t expect anything awful, but it just really exceeded my expectations. Meg and I had, probably, the best time we’ve ever had together. It was fantastic being able to travel with her and Mulan. Meg and I really got to have some long, long talks and even get some difficult topics between us worked out. She’s in a great place right now in her life. She’s happily married and her career is going well. She’s sort of seeing what her life is. And that’s true for me too. Our lives are not in the future anymore, it’s now. Maybe this is what happens to everyone in their mid-forties. Or maybe this feeling has extra oomph from me suddenly realizing that this is it, there’s no hereafter, no predestination in any sense, no living for tomorrow. Kenny Lonnergan had a play in New York called, “This Is Our Youth” – which was great, it was all about a few college kids after they graduated and had to go out in the world. And I keep thinking about that title about my own life: This is your life. This is your life. This is what happened. These are your friends. This is your child. This is your family. This is who you turned out to be. This is your story. It’s not in the future. It’s now. And now. And now.

It’s really powerful and makes me relax deeply. I am so much more present than I used to be. Wow, I’m really sounding Oprah-ish right now, so I’ll knock it off. Jeez. Maybe writing a blog in the middle of the night is not a good idea. Oh fuck it.

Okay. There’s a couple of wonderful moments in Japan I have to get down. One was at the spa in the Iya Mountains. We all went up to this little traditional Japanese hotel in the mountains. And they had hot springs and there was a little wood cable-car that lifted people up to the springs to take a bath. Of course, there was a women’s side and a man’s side. We could have signed up for a family bath, lots of families did. But we stuck to our gender, I mean, I don’t think it would be all that relaxing for me to hang out naked in a hot tub with my sister’s naked husband. Call me old fashioned.

Anyway, Meg and Mulan and I entered the women’s side and there were these five young girls in the hot springs. The springs have rock all around them and are very natural looking. Cherry blossoms were around the edges and it was all very rustic-Japanese. So as we entered these five girls, who were the only people in the bath, all giggled a little and commented to each other, in Japanese of course. Meg said they were saying that Mulan was so cute. The girls looked to me to be in their early twenties, and they were all so wholesomely beautiful, all had long black hair back in a chignons. The image I first had of them was startling, like we’d stumbled upon a gaggle of giggling wood nymphs or lounging goddesses or something. It was like we’d wandered back in time and we were the first foreigners they had ever seen and we were in the harem’s private bath. Their beauty was overpowering. I couldn’t believe they were real. Meg and Mulan and I got in the water and they departed after about ten minutes. But I continued to think of them, that startling image of five young beautiful naked Japanese girls lounging under bursting cherry blossoms. It was a moment out of time.

Later, we all went to dinner and we were all wearing the bathing kimonos that they give you when you arrive and which you are expected to wear the entire time you are at the hotel. And I looked down the row of guests, it was actually quite comforting to see us all dressed exactly the same, and there were the five girls, all sitting perfectly on their knees, sipping sake with such delicate precision and they looked at us again and slightly bowed their head in acknowledgement. I’ll never forget them.

Okay, here’s another great moment. Meg and Mulan and I went to Nikko, which is a town 80 miles north of Tokyo. We went to visit these ancient temples and shrines which sit in a huge wooded area. There are a few structures dating from the eighth century, but the biggest temples and shrines are from the seventeenth century. It’s all set in an enormous park with enormous tall, very, very tall trees. It’s actually thickly forested. The entire area is protected, and it’s 540 acres. We only wandered through a small part of it, of course. There were old, very old stone lanterns. And quaint, Chinese-styled bridges, and magnificent entryways.

The other temples I visited in Japan were actually sort of depressing to me. I mean, they sell all kinds of garish stuff: fortunes and incense and little trinkets that are awful. This time to Japan, I really saw the temples as more of a money making place than anything else.

But at Nikko, it was different. It actually had a feeling of sacred, and ancient, and there were no charms for sale, and it was cold and vibrant. Anyway, Meg and Mulan and I got there late, around 5:00 in the afternoon, when this part of the park is closing. And it was really cold, much colder than it had been anywhere else we had traveled. There was even some residual snow around in between the temples. And the guard told us to go ahead and wander around but that we couldn’t go inside anything because they were closing. And so we spent an hour just wandering around this wonderful place. Monks were closing the temples and they wore these beautiful kimonos, bright blue with a white jacket and the hair on the women was long and in one straight braid and the men head’s were shaved. And there was no one, and I mean this, no other person besides the monks and us. And we wandered and lingered and daydreamed and chatted as we strolled through this forest of trees and among these magnificent temples and gates and lanterns.

I have been to Kyoto several times and every time the temple was so thronged with people taking pictures that it wasn’t possible to get any sense of the temple itself. You just ended up gawking at all the other people gawking. But this was so private and beautiful. The knowledge that these structures had been there for so long, that they were so lovingly made, and delightful to lay eyes on, and Meg and I drifted in and out of conversation and Mulan skipped along ahead of us.

The other wonderful moment I had in Japan was in Tokyo. We really didn’t plan our trip as well as we could have. Well, I should say “I” because I was the one who wanted to go to both Nikko and Tokyo in three days, which I now see really cheats both places. We should have stayed at Nikko longer or skipped it and spent some time in Tokyo. In the end, even though Nikko is only 80 miles away from Tokyo, it took the better part of a day to get there, buses, trains, subway, taxi. But we got to our hotel just as the workday was finishing on Tuesday, and all these throngs of people, much bigger crowds than in New York, left work. And we went down and stood near a big crossing corner where everyone could cross diagonally or any which way, and it was thrilling. And the people were so fashionable, and good looking, and hip and sophisticated. I really felt like a doughy girl from Spokane, mouth agape, staring at all the cool kids. We ended up just standing there for a while, watching people. And that was the best moment of Tokyo. The next morning, before our flight home, we went down to hunt for blooming cherry blossoms, and we watched all the salarymen – that’s what they call all the male office workers, on their way to work. They are all practically in uniform, dark suits, white shirts, dark ties, moused, shaggy hair and an earring. And then an hour later, here came all the shopgirls, trendy and young, wearing the latest fashions, weary from a night partying. It’s really pretty sexually delineated like that too. It was odd, like seeing the future and the past all at the same time.

I realized I wish I could have spent at least five days in Tokyo. The way we worked it, we had about five hours to do what we wanted to. We went to a children’s museum and that was about it. And Nikko, I could have easily spent a week in Nikko. They have all kinds of hiking through those woods with trails and little places to camp, even. Oh, I could have spent so much more time there.

And of course, the food. The meals at the hotels were great. And when we were out on the go, we got these fish on sticks that they cook near charcoals on the street. Mulan especially loved those. And then, I have to say, one of the best meals I had of all was actually on the plane ride home. And Mulan ate almost everything, she was amazing. Few five year olds would be so open minded, I am sure.

And Meg really made the trip extra, extra memorable. She organized everything and was so generous when we were in Tokushima, she and Tsuyoshi paid for every single thing, drove everywhere. I was so worried, thinking how zonked out I would be in a similar situation here in L.A. And traveling with family with a child is TOTALLY the way to go. Not that being with Meg without a child, which I have done many wonderful times, is not also delightful. But I am feeling, understanding rather, the huge advantage being with family is when you have a child.

Whenever I’m with any adult here in Los Angeles, the childcare it totally my responsibility. Completely. Well, with one exception of one very close friend. And, anyway, this is as it should be. When I used to hang out with my friends who had kids I never took it upon myself to participate in their kid’s parenting or looking out after their kids in any way. I figured that was their responsibility. But with family, it’s different. They have a vested interest in this child and they expect to have a relationship with this child for years and it’s of benefit to them. And it makes everything so much easier. When we were all with Mulan, especially when we were with Tsuyoshi, three adults and one child, we could always dip into a conversation with Mulan or getting her something to eat or whatever she needed and it never felt obligatory or wearying, we all just traded off. And it made all our little trips so easy! Mulan did so well too. She had about three mini-tantrums on the whole eleven-day trip and those were mostly at the end and after a long day of traveling. And they didn’t last very long.

I realize that I am very much beginning to favor visiting people who also are interested in knowing Mulan. With many of my friends, and some of my closest old friends, our relationships are more difficult because of their disinterest in Mulan. Not that they aren’t interested at all, it’s just…well, I can’t judge them harshly because I was exactly the same way before I was a mother. I totally totally didn’t get it. The only kids I really kept a relationship up with were my niece and nephew. And I don’t even expect my friends to be sincerely interested in Mulan, I don’t think they even should be. All I’m saying is that when you are around people you like, who also have a vested interest in your child, it is GOLDEN. What a great trip all around.

Now, I just have to finish my book.

Oh dear.
I did read a wonderful book on the trip. In fact, I cannot believe I haven't read this book before.

It's Mary McCarthy's "Memories of a Catholic Girlhood." Christopher Hitchens recommeded it to me after he saw my show, Letting Go Of God. I haven't read any Mary McCarthy, which is ridiculous, how could I have missed her? Anyway, this book is so good. Her prose is so powerful, her sentences so well, so well -- well I guess you can see that I do not even have the vocabulary, not to mention the art, of contructing a sentence that even describes her writing. wonderful? beautfiul? startling? hilarious? all sound trite. What a great book. I actually read it twice. The last chapter is about her grandmother and her grandmother's sister and it made me cry, reading it while I was with Meg. Wow, now I want to read everything she ever wrote.

The dog stays in the picture.

I'm in Japan, in Tokushima, visiting my sister, Meg. It's about six a.m. and I am up and everyone else is sleeping. I've been in Japan five days now and I'm still not totally adjusted to the time change. Although, actually I am, since my preferred time to go to bed is nine thirty or ten and I love to get up early. So, maybe I have adjusted, I'm just in my unusual off-schedule with everyone else in spite of time changes.

In any case, here I am. Meg lives with her husband, Tsuyoshi, in a small, traditional Japanese house on the outskirts of Tokushima on Shikoku Island, south of Osaka. Most of the houses in her little area have small gardens and the streets are really narrow. There is a school down the street from her and that means in the mornings school children usually run by in their blue sailor uniforms and red backpacks. But we are here during their spring break, so I am missing the usual morning throng. But this is the first time I’m here for the cherry blossoms to bloom. Every morning we take a walk with my sister’s dog, Blue, a small black pug. And we look at the cherry blossom trees and see if they are about to bloom. Yesterday we saw several trees where a few flowers were open. We are thinking that today it’s going to be a burst of color.

I believe Mulan will be a good traveling companion. Here’s what’s great about her. She’s pretty good at spending a long time traveling. She can occupy herself with her drawing and all her dolls. She’s a fantastic eater. Oh boy, am I lucky. I have a lot of friends whose kids are really particular about their food. And Mulan is so game! We are eating spinach and toasted sesame seeds for breakfast along with a fish, tofu and pickle salad and she’s eating all of it and likes it. (It does taste fantastic!) She dives into food she hasn’t tried and genuinely gives it a chance. She doesn’t like everything (yesterday at the Udon noodle house she didn’t want the squid appetizers, but all in all, she’s really good. A zillion times better than I would have been at her age.

And she’s learned how to pack! I traveled for up to six months at a time with a small backpack – okay that’s an exaggeration, a medium sized backpack and a small extra bag. And since I adopted Mulan, we’ve had to lug so much stuff around to travel anywhere. At first it was bottles and diapers and then we just got a bit lazy. But this time we packed in advance, we packed our bags several days before and we kept trying to make it smaller. We decided we could have four outfits max and they had to be things that could generally be washed easily. We did pretty well. We could have gone down even farther. But we did it, we got ourselves into carry on luggage only. At the last minute, I threw in my computer and Meg’s house has Airport, so I’m really glad I took it.

And Mulan is pretty good at meeting other kids and falling in with them. We went to a bar last night and there were a lot of kids there (bars here are like they are in Ireland, a family affair) and she was shy at first – I mean, it is hard since she only knows about five words in Japanese. But after about an hour of hesitation, she was gone and playing for another two hours and then she didn’t want to leave.

Today we are driving up into the Iya mountains and staying at a Ryo-kan, a traditional Japanese hotel. Then we’re back here tomorrow night and then we fly up to Tokyo. I’ve been to Japan four times, but never to Tokyo. Then we head back to L.A. and I have shows next weekend again.

Here’s what I love about Japan: I love how precise each and every movement is. I love how they pour you a drink with both hands on the vessel. I love the bowing to each other. I love the emphasis on fresh vegetables and the near obsession with gardening. I love the public baths. We all went to their neighborhood bathhouse the other night and there we all were in the natural hot spring baths, naked and toasty, cheeks red and kids rushing around. Tsuyoshi was in the other side with the men and when we left we all met up with each other in the entryway, many people from the neighborhood saying hello, people we would see again the next morning on our walk. Talk about getting to know your neighbors! But the social security here, and I mean this in the sense that everyone looks out for each other and looks in on each other, is really comforting and impressive. Also, the food and the talk about food. Neighbors come by with extra vegetables from their gardens and share recipes all the time. I love how small their cars are and how precious energy is, it’s not at all squandered.

Okay, here’s what I don’t like about Japan. I hate how the cities are not zoned in any way and that means that there are vending machines with garish fluorescent lights at every corner and industry spewing filth next to rice paddies and restaurants. I hate the look of the advertising. I mean, I hate this in America too, but here it seems worse to me. It’s all bright colors, loud cartoon characters vying for your eye’s attention and it ends up being a mishmash of intense screaming at your attention. I hate how there’s electrical poles everywhere and they dominate the scenery, all the wires and lines and it seems like they must be antiquated because it’s about ten times more equipment than in Los Angeles, and it already bothers me in Los Angeles! And I hate the social conformity, the dark side of everyone knowing each other so well. There is huge pressure to conform to and subvert your individual desires to maintain social harmony. Spirited debate is absolutely frowned upon. Their conversations seem to be mostly about everyone agreeing on something benign like the weather or the new sewer system. And I have to say, I even hate the chronic unstoppable gift giving. Everywhere you go, someone is giving you something, something valuable! And you can’t refuse it and then you sort of owe that person. These women came over and gave me these vintage kimonos, I mean, really nice kimono jackets, called Haori from the forties and it was so embarrassing. I had brought them books on vernacular architecture in Los Angeles and I think it was odd and confusing to them. AGH. Also, I have to say I hate the flimsy nature of the Japanese homes. They are absolutely freezing! My sister has a kotatsu, which is a small square low coffee table in the middle of the living room and there’s a heater in it and a blanket over the top of it and we all just sit there all the time trying to keep warm. In fact, that’s what I’m typing this on right now, and Mulan said she wanted to sleep underneath it last night.

So there you go, Japan.

Also, it’s sort of hard for me here with Meg’s friends. They are all so nice, really really sweet. And they all want to practice their English on me and I cannot understand them and I wish they would just speak in Japanese and have Meg translate. But Meg tells me that it’s very impressive for them to be able to speak English with a native English speaker and so I have to be in endless conversations where I smiling say over and over again, “What?” And here I am, I don't speak any other language and I'm so impressed that they even try to talk to me, but still.... AGH!!!

And then there’s the matter of celebrity on top of it. Many of them want to meet a Hollywood actress (I won’t even try to explain how they butcher the name “Hollywood” – that took me days to understand what they were saying) and they just want to…basically…stare at me. It’s weird. I’m like a funny animal from a zoo and they are all gaping at me. And none of them have even seen anything that I’ve done. And I’m sure they are wondering why I’m not more beautiful and ingénue-like, Meg’s actress sister is here from Hollywood! But Meg has been so good at limiting this and last night was the last night we will be the case, but oh! If I never have to be in a bar again with a bunch of people who want to meet me, that would be just fine with me.

Okay, that makes me seem so surly. I guess it depends on who the people were. I mean, if people see my show, for example, or know anything about what I do, then of course I am thrilled to meet them and talk to them. But this…is just…difficult.

But all in all, I am really enjoying this trip. I feel relaxed and Meg is relaxed too. I really like her husband, Tsuyoshi. He’s the sweetest man, really caring and notices the smallest things. She is so happy with him and that makes me so happy for her. Meg has afforded me the experience of getting to see what it’s really like to live in a couple of countries – she used to live for a short time in Italy and speaks Italian as well as Japanese. And this has been such a great boon, such a gift. She is overwhelmingly giving and she has orchestrated all of these visits and sight seeing and it would just be impossible to do this as a single tourist without assistance. Plus, we have our shared history and we get to laugh about family members and remember things. This is really lovely. All because of Meg.

We have CNN on right now and Terri Shciavo has just died. I mean, don’t all those Christians who are praying for her, don’t they think she’s going to heaven? You would think it would be the non-believers who would be so hell-bent on keeping someone alive at all costs. But no, it’s the people who fully believe that she will spend an eternity in bliss who are so adamant that she be kept in a vegetative state with no cerebral cortex function. It’s such a gross exposure of the lack of biological understanding.

And now the Pope. It’s all Pope all the time on TV. I am so curious to see what happens, who the next Pope is. That’s something I would think was worth watching 24/7, the picking of the next Pope. I suppose Ratzinger can’t be chosen simply because of his name. Pope Ratzinger. Then he could strip away even the smallest gains women have made in the church at all, and all in the name of “honoring” them.

So. I’m not going to give my dog, Arden, away. I spoke on the phone to a cattle farmer and a sheep farmer about him and both of them convinced me that I should keep him and get him used to an exercise schedule that conforms better to my ability to exercise him. Plus, I have to admit, I love the dog. I mean, I do, I do. I wish he could live with our cat better, but… I think I’m going to make some new rules when I get home. It’ll be a good time to rethink our attitudes towards the dog after we haven’t been around him for a while. I am getting much better with him and I think I can enforce even more rules than I have in the past. He’s even all right the way he is except for his determined effort to protect me from the danger of our mail carrier. And the UPS guy. And the squirrels, which are of great danger to us as well.

Now everyone is up and we are watching Japanese TV. It’s 24/7 about the cherry blossoms blossoming. Except it rained last night and that means the blossoms might all be swept away in the rain and wind. And then there will be nothing left to do but think about next year’s cherry blossoms and their potential.

Harry Frankfurt "On Bullshit" and the Dog Whisperer

Mulan is asleep. It’s ten thirty p.m. and I should be getting to bed. But I just watched such great television tonight, I had to comment on it. First of all, I watched “The Daily Show.” Which, as should come as no surprise, is my very favorite show on TV. Mulan thinks Jon Stewart is the president of the United States. Some people cynically pointed out that much of the American youth gets their news from The Daily Show, but I have to say, I do, too. And I think it’s the only truthful news show on TV right now.

So, Jon had on this wonderful guy, Harry Frankfurt, who wrote this book called “On Bullshit” which I bought and read a couple of months ago when it came out. It’s actually an essay he wrote in the early eighties that they just published this year. It’s very short, and the book is so small, it looks like a children’s book. But it packs a powerful message. I loved the essay. It really helped me to solidify the distinction between bullshit and people who lie. His premise is that liars actually have a measure of respect for the truth, liars know what the truth is and intentionally distort it. But bullshit is different. It’s more insidious than that. Bullshitters have no regard for the truth. They have a goal, and they will say anything that suits them without any regard to what is true or what is not.

Harry was so engaging, so endearing, so present and direct and without nervousness. He seemed sincerely happy to be on the show. And I just fell for him. What an amazing man. I loved his essay, and he wrote another book too, “The Reasons Of Love,” which I just ordered from Amazon.

Anyway, after The Daily Show, I watched “The Dog Whisperer” which is now the one show that Mulan and I watch together at night. What I mean is, when The Daily Show is on, she usually goes to her own room and plays with her dolls, but then when “The Dog Whisperer” comes on, she comes back. I love this show so much. There’s this guy, Cesar Millan, who lives here in L.A. apparently, and he goes to people’s houses and helps them with their dog problems. And frankly the problem is always the same thing. Which is that the people are not behaving in the alpha role, and the dog is taking over that role. Person after person, who are mostly women, try to change the behavior they don’t like by loving the dog more, which only leads the dog to think that the behavior he is exhibiting is good, so he does it more. This is something I did at first with my dog, Arden. But now I really let him know whose boss, and I do not give him constant affection. He eats only after Mulan and I eat. When Mulan comes out in the morning to get a “morning cuddle,” Arden does not get to be part of that cuddle until I say so. This might seem like small potatoes, but for me, this whole this is transformative. It’s really hard for me to be the boss and I’m not generally good at it. I do not give clear signals for my expectations and now I’m learning to do this. It’s really sort of fun. A whole new way of behaving that has all kinds of other ramifications in my life. And now I am relating more to Mulan this way, saying things to her like, “When we go in to violin class I expect you to pay attention the whole time and not lay down on the floor in the middle of the lesson.” And mostly, sort of, pretty much, it’s working. Yippee!

Wow, I was so raised to be submissive and not assertive. I really learned to get my needs met based on circumventing direct action. I think this is probably true for most women, since we are typically the nurturers and mostly smaller than men, I think we evolved to learn how to get our needs and desires met while we were being so “sweet” on the surface. I don’t even mean we learned to be deviant, but like, for me – and I’ve heard this from a lot of women – we don’t even know what our needs or wishes even are. We just want to be loving, or nice, or sweet. That’s the main thing. And then it’s only later when we figure out what we really want. In that way, it makes the behavior more bull-shitty than outright lying. Anyway, here I am in my forties, and I’m just learning to figure out what I want and then try to get it overtly. From my dog, and from my kid. And it’s working, everything is much clearer. The real hard part is figuring out what I want, making it clear in my own mind exactly what I want. Which takes a lot of thinking. I used to think, “The hardest part of life isn’t in NOT achieving your goals, it’s just having the goals to begin with.” And that is really true, not just professionally. Anyway, blahdittyblah.

In spite of my newfound behaviors and relationship with my dog, I’m thinking of finding Arden a new home. I know, it’s sort of silly, I mean now I have him so much more under my command than I used to. It’s because…well, he needs so much exercise. And he really has to go to Runyon Canyon every single day and he’s even restless if I go around the canyon only once instead of our usual twice. Once is two and a half miles. And I love our hikes, but I just cannot do it every day. And I am really trying to reduce expenses, so the idea of hiring a dog walker, which is $25 a day, is unappealing. He needs a cattle ranch. He needs a real job. One that he was bred for. In fact, on “The Dog Whisperer” last night, Cesar told a couple who had a cattle dog that the dog needed much, much more exercise and that he should really be on a ranch. And the people said, “No! We are already in love with our dog!” And I was thinking, “Yes, let’s find him a cattle ranch!” So, there’s a guy at the gym I go to whose father owns a cattle ranch near San Louis Obispo and he’s going to ask him if he can take Arden. This way, our cat Val could move back in the house. For now, she basically lives on the roof of the garage and I have to feed her up there!

I figure, whoever gets Arden gets a great dog. Plus, he’s about to be famous. I wrote an article for Playboy that comes out in the May issue (yes, I finally get to say I’m appearing in Playboy!) and it’s all about Arden. Well, mostly about Arden. The editor called me a few weeks ago and said, “Your dog is about to be famous.” Ha.

Okay, I have to go to bed so I can get up and write and write and write. I have to finish this book and turn in a draft by the end of next week! But then I expect I will be working on it for about two months more after that. Maybe even longer. We will see. I have so much writing to do, it’s ridiculous.

I went to that TED conference and had such a great time. It was really stimulating and fun. Each lecturer was so wonderful, it was almost too much for me. I felt I had to lie down after every other speaker and just absorb what they said.

So, I’m closing my show, for sure, for sure, for sure, on Memorial Day. And I’m going to stay in L.A. for the time being and not go to New York with the show. It’s just…too hard. Mulan is in a great school now and it’s just too complicated to change things. So, now I’m focusing on getting the book done, and then filming the show – perhaps in the fall or some time in the next year. In the meantime, I think I’m going to make myself available to go to colleges or universities and do the show. I think it would be a perfect show for a university and there could even be a question and answer session afterwards or something. I dunno. We will see, there are all these other possible job things happening so I guess I just have to see how things go.

I’m letting my assistant Pam, go. This is sad, but necessary. All expenses are being reduced to a minimum. I should feel scared about money, but for some reason, I’m not. I’m just getting more in touch with what I spend and what it takes to run my life. And what really matters and what doesn’t, or what I can now do myself.

So, here’s some excerpts from Harry Frankfurt’s “On Bullshit.”

“Telling a lie is an act with a sharp focus. It is designed to insert a particular falsehood at a specific point in a set or system of beliefs, in order to avoid the consequences of having that point occupied by the truth. This requires a degree of craftsmanship, in which the teller of the lie submits to objective constraints imposed by what he takes to be the truth. The liar is inescapably concerned with truth-values. In order to invent a lie at all, he must think he knows what is true. And in order to invent an effective lie, he must design his falsehood under the guidance of that truth. On the other hand, a person who undertakes to bullshit his way through has much more freedom. His focus is panoramic rather than particular. He does not limit himself to inserting a certain falsehood at a specific point, and thus he is not constrained by the truths surrounding that point or intersecting it. He is prepared to fake the context as well, so far as need requires. This freedom from the constraints to which the liar must submit does not necessarily mean, of course, that his task is easier than the task of the liar. But the mode of creativity upon which it relies is less analytical and less deliberative than that which is mobilized in lying. It is more expansive and independent, with mare spacious opportunities for improvisation, color, and imaginative play. This is less a matter of craft than of art. Hence the familiar notion of the “bullshit artist.”

Here’s another excerpt:
“One who is concerned to report or to conceal the facts assumes that there are indeed facts that are in some way both determinate and knowable. His interest in telling the truth or in lying presupposes that there is a difference between getting things wrong and getting them right, and that it is at least occasionally possible to tell the difference. Someone who ceases to believe in the possibility of identifying certain statements as true and others as false can have only two alternatives. The first is to desist both from efforts to tell the truth and from efforts to deceive. This would mean refraining from making any assertion whatever about the facts. The second alternative is to continue making assertions that purport to describe the way things are but that cannot be anything except bullshit.”

Oh! I love that so much! Here’s another excerpt that deals with people, like that woman who came up to me after the show and said, “I think that this is true for you.” Like there is no objective reality and something can be true because someone believes it, but not true for someone else because they don’t believe it. This just drives me nuts! Okay, here it is:

“The contemporary proliferation of bullshit also has deeper sources, in various forms of skepticism which deny that we can have any reliable access to an objective reality and which therefore reject the possibility of knowing how things truly are. These “anti-realist” doctrines undermine confidence in the value of disinterested efforts to determine what is true and what is false, and even in the intelligibility of the notion of objective inquiry. One response to this loss of confidence has been a retreat from the discipline required by dedication to the ideal of correctness to a quite different sort of discipline, which is imposed by pursuit of an alternative ideal of sincerity. Rather than seeking primarily to arrive at accurate representations of a common world, the individual turns toward trying to provide honest representations of himself. Convinced that reality has no inherent nature, which he might hope to identify as the truth about things, he devotes himself to being true to his own nature. It is as though he decides that since it makes no sense to try to be true to the facts, he must therefore try instead to be true to himself.”

“But it is preposterous to imagine that we ourselves are determinate, and hence susceptible both to correct and to incorrect descriptions, while supposing that the ascription of determinacy to anything else has been exposed as a mistake. As conscious beings, we exist only in response to other things, and we cannot know ourselves at all without knowing them. Moreover, there is nothing in theory, and certainly nothing in experience, to support the extraordinary judgment that it is the truth about himself that is the easiest for a person to know. Facts about ourselves are not peculiarly solid and resistant to skeptical dissolution. Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial — notoriously less stable and less inherent than the natures of other things. And insofar as this is the case, sincerity itself is bullshit.”

Wow, that’s a lot to think about.

Rain and Thunder

We have gotten three times the usual amount of rain this year in Los Angeles, according to the papers. It has transformed the place. I am smitten with my home-town at the moment, and that’s saying something. It reminds me of Ireland or Kauai – wafts of fog and droopy gray clouds waft by spilling rain on me. And most wondrous of all, just beyond them is blue sky. Everything is green. My usual hike, in Runyon Canyon with the dog, Arden, is like traipsing along in the hills of Connemara: a thousand shades of green, verdant bushes dripping wet, light gray clouds making themselves into reflectors for a shining downtown. From the top of the hill you can see Santa Monica too, and beyond it, all the way to Catalina. I have never been so happy here. I just did the hike three times around, (Mulan is having breakfast with her Chinese babysitter and her family) and it took over two hours and I am achy and wet and have never felt so shivery and giddy.

Last week, I drove down my street and looked up at the Hollywood sign, shining and bright, framed by palm trees with little rivers of water running off them in an arc and then behind that the greenest hills. If I saw this in a movie, I would laugh at how unreal and gorgeous it looked. Oh, I love this rain. People are beginning to complain, but I wish this would go on forever. Maybe it will, maybe this is what global warming has brought us here in Los Angeles, and I am back in Seattle without having to move at all. Mulan takes her raincoat to school now as a matter of course; like this is something she does all the time. Coffee suddenly tastes a thousand times better, shops are warm and inviting and offer refuge. People are chattering more with strangers, we see each other as comrades in this sudden change of scene, jumping under doorways and letting our hair get wet and who cares about our shoes. It’s mad and wonderful.

Last night, during my show, rain pelted the blackened windows on the back of the theater so hard, I nearly stopped the show to remark on it. It was like people had hoses aimed at the windows outside and were pelting them with water. I have a moment in my show when I talk about rain, and we have a sound effect and it was ludicrous when this came on, it was so dribbley and unnecessary with the downpour happening outside. I felt very cozy in the theater and people were huddled and happy to be warm. I have to say, last night was one of my favorite nights performing ever. I appreciated my audience so much, we all seemed to be floating out of space and time or something. And to think, this was the weekend I was sort of deciding not to go to New York after all with the show.

Oh dear, oh dear. What to do. What to want. Yes, that’s the problem, deciding what to want. I always think that the hardest thing in life is just knowing what you want. Trying to get it seems to have it’s own pitfalls and successes, but the hardest thing for me is just knowing where to point and staying convinced that this is what is right for me.

So, I was planning on going to New York with this show, but suddenly this week, I decided to just think, just imagine, NOT going. Why? Because it’s all so romantic and exciting in the imagination and in reality it might be hellish. Even if I can do only six shows a week, it means not putting Mulan to bed myself for five nights a week at least. And it’s suddenly dawned on me with a ferocious intensity that I am completely on my own in regards to my family. And when I say family, I mean Mulan and myself. Mulan doesn’t regard the two of us as a family, which made me very sad when she started to say it, but now I actually sort of agree with her and I don’t argue it anymore. She says we are a mother and daughter and a “family” is, well, like my family of my mother and brothers and sister, or a “family” is like what everyone else has at her school but her. And I can already see that she will be spending some time on the therapist’s couch over this and I’m not sure what I can do about it. I don’t mean to bemoan this here, this reality is the result of lots of things, some of which I have no control over and some of which I sort of do, but none of this is really here or there. In the meantime, it has rushed into my consciousness that I would have to go to New York and do a huge, enormous, big, big job and then hire someone to be with Mulan for a gigantic amount of her waking hours. And people who are hired to look after your child have a much smaller chance of being fantastic and devoted than if it were someone who expected to have a lifetime of relationship with this child. Or someone like her current weekend babysitter who has known her since she was a baby and has a whole developed relationship with her already and expects to have for years to come. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t lovely people out there who I could hire. It’s just…what are the chances? Plus, I don’t want to be away from Mulan that much. I like her. I like being around her. I am sad when I am not with her.

Because Mulan is a person now. That’s the bottom line. When I went to New York before to do a show, she was basically a baby – three and a half, on my most recent multi-month sojourn, and her sense of time was still in baby-land and she often had no idea if I’d been gone for two hours or twelve. But now she’s a person with her own thoughts and a more real sense of time and we have conversations and she has friends and classes and a neighborhood and all that. I have a big support system here in Los Angeles and this would all be gone. And if Mulan went to school in New York, I would be doing two terrible things: seeing her for about an hour after school before I whipped off to the theater and also, getting up much earlier than I would want to be doing to get her to school, all the while feeling guilty at how little time I had spent with her. And she would be in a totally foreign environment with all new people and I just…oh, things are already so great here.

Plus, if I film the show in June, I could edit it in July and August, maybe while I’m up in the Seattle area with “family” and then perhaps take it to a film festival or sell it and so many more people would see it than if I ever went to New York. I was thinking, “How many people would have not seen ‘God Said Ha!’ if I hadn’t gone to New York?” I think it’s a small percentage. I don’t think Miramax would have bought the film for any more or less, it didn’t really have that much impact. So…given the child situation, given how depressed I would be to not be spending time with Mulan, given all that – why not skip New York and just film the damn show?

But then, this morning, I had another thought. What if I home schooled Mulan in New York next year? And then I had a babysitter come at four o’clock in the afternoon and be with her until midnight when I was home from the show? Mulan would go to bed at midnight or after and we would both sleep in and maybe I would just take her to a violin class every day and forget school for a year. I mean, she’d be missing kindergarten! I can cover that, I think. I think, I think.

Oh dear.

Now I have to rush off to the theater for another show. And then I’m taking next weekend off to go to a conference in Monterey – TED, it’s called. It cost a lot of money and I totally wouldn’t be going if I hadn’t paid for it a year ago. Plus, it’s time for a break. We haven’t had a whole weekend off in…well, we haven’t. We have been on every weekend since the show opened in September, so everyone needs a break. And then, with the exception of one weekend in the beginning of April, we will be going until Memorial Day. Yippee! I love doing this show. I am so happy we are selling enough tickets to make it work.

Johnny Carson is dead and Elvis Costello is on the radio

It's Sunday night. Almost eight. I'm listening to Elvis give an interview on KCRW while I type this and wait for Lisa, Mulan's weekend-babysitter, to bring Mulan home.

I did a matinee today. It was sold out, and the audience was a little quiet. But it's hard to tell if it went over well or not-so-well. I have found that an audience takes on a certain collective personality most of the time -- they seem to collude from 100 individuals into one strong personality -- or at least a few strong personalities. And this audience, today, their personality was rather reserved and on the quiet side. Which isn't bad -- after ten or more years doing this, I have come to realize that you can't completely tell how any individual will experience the show, even if they have a vocal response like the collected average. It's odd, and this is completely based on my anecdotal personal experience -- but I've done so many shows - some of them very quiet, some of them very boisterous, and I swear, you just can't tell what any given individual's response is. In a way, this knowledge is very comforting -- it means that after a very loudly appreciative show, you don't really know how many people silently disapproved, and then you also realize that after a quiet show, many people could have approved of it, in fact really liked the show. The interesting thing is, from my perspective, people tend to coalesce into a single response-mass, at least most of the time.

Which is why I often feel like I imagine a prostitute must feel when I'm on stage. Each audience is it's own personality, and I figure out in the first fifteen minutes what the deal is. "Oh you're an audience that likes this...and this...and not so much of this...but this, and then...oh yeah...THIS!"

In any case, if I am a prostitute, my audience today was like a Victorian widow, all full of propriety but willing to give themselves over...eventually. And when they do, it's powerful. My voice is really rough. I don't know what the deal is, but as soon as I started this show, my voice got really raggedy and rough, and I have had colds on and off and once I even lost my voice completely. And I'm not sure why this is. I don't know if it's because I don't have the time to recuperate from shows like I used to be able to, or what. I do have all kinds of mothering duties. For example, after Friday night's show, I couldn't sleep until 1:30 a.m., because I'm just so filled up with adrenaline from doing the show. And then at 7:00 a.m. Mulan was jumping on my head saying, "Mommy get up! Mommy get up!" And you know, I WANT to get up. I want to be with her, do things, start the day. But I felt so wiped out, and that deep phlemmy feel, like I could be getting sick., that feeling of -- if you sleep two more hours you can overcome it -- but you can't sleep two more hours. Anyway, here I am, probably sick again. And tired. And exhausted. AGH.

But still, I have to say, I am thrilled to perform each and every show. And I'm not just saying this because potential audience members might read this. I really honestly feel excited to perform each and every show. But let me tell you, I am wiped out afterwards. And now I'm considering going to New York where I would have to do eight shows a week. Wow. Wow. That's all I gotta say: wow.

I will probably know if we're taking the show to New York in the next month. I am basically pointing my ship towards this goal. It's just crazy how much a New York run will cost -- our budget is around $600k at the moment. And to give you perspective, this show here in L.A. cost about $60k for me to mount. And I just paid for it myself. And now, after five months and the show getting very good reviews and sold out houses, just now...I am earning my money back. I mean, it's been totally worth it, completely worth it in every possible way. But still, it's a risk and money and it's nothing compared to what the risk and money would be to take the show to New York. So, now we are starting the process of looking for investors and figuring out how long it will take to earn the money back and so forth. I would commit to a run in New York for about nine months. This is how long I would need to be there in order to make it lucrative enough, potentially, to attract investors. And this is all very exciting. I already have Mulan jazzed about going to school in New York, and I've found schools that look promising and all that. It's just...I could actually be earning more money in the short term by staying in Los Angeles, and working on other projects that might be less important for me, but more widely seen. So, it's a toss up. A constant internal battle. But at the end of the day, and here I am at the end of a day, I feel it's important and exciting and right -- just plain right, that I take the show to New York. And I actually think that it will be successful, even though I have only my own hunch to base this on. And I think the people who invest will be happy with their bet. But still, it means asking people to make bets on you, and that comes with all the obvious worry and thrill and concern.

AGH.

Okay, now Mulan is home. Oh dear universe, how I love this little girl. How I worry for her, and care for her. I know, not any more than any parent does, I'm not trying to be especially precious about her, but jeez, she is truly the light of my life. I said to her, "I am a little sick, my voice is kind of gone right now and I'm sneezing a lot." And she actually said, "Was it hard to do your show today?" OHMYGAWD. Like an adult. She's like...empathic. Oh me oh my. It made me want to cry. First of all, just because she was thinking about me and my show in any way. And then, because I wish she wasn't so concerned because that seems wrong, that a five year old would even be aware that their parent worked in a way that might tax their voice -- it seems wrongly mature for her to ask me that. And then thirdly, I want to cry because she is the only person on the planet who could even ask me that question.

Okay. I'm being dramatic. My assistant, Pam, might ask me that question. But still. Mulan is five. That's pretty concerned and emotionally aware. And also, I have to remind myself that she is not always so compassionate. Yesterday, we took our dog, Arden, for a walk to Larchmont, and on the way home we ran into a neighbor. Someone I don't really know, but know of... and she said she had come to my Christmas show and seen Mulan sing "You better watch out..." and my neighbor said to Mulan, "You did a really good job!!" Mulan shrugged her shoulders non-appreciatively and said with a bored sigh, "Yeah..."

Her delivery of "yeah" was like "so..." Like, "So...what?"

It wasn't good. Not polite. Embarrassing to me, arrogant of her. We came home and had a talk about "tone." How when someone compliments you, you look them squarely in the eye and say, sincerely, "Thank you." You DO NOT SHRUG YOUR SHOULDERS AND SAY. "UH-HUH."

So, I guess I relate that to you so as to not make Mulan into a saint. Which makes me think about two weeks ago. A not-a-saint Mulan anecdote. I have a person who comes and cleans my house once a week. Her name is Margarita. She has come and cleaned my house once a week for about ten years. So...a long, long time. She is the most reliable person on the planet. I recently learned we were the same age, which threw me a little. I thought she was much older than me, and I felt embarrassed that we were the same age. Her working for me. Me employing her. It seemed wrong.

I have often thought that I could just clean my house myself. And believe me, do clean my house myself. I do tons, just keeping it in order. But once a week, I have Margarita come. And now she's become so much a part of my life, she's just a foundation to be honest. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, while it was raining, just pouring rain -- raining like no tomorrow, I offered her a ride home after she worked. She normally takes the bus, but I could see that it was going to be horrible to wait for the bus on a rainy day like this was. So, I went to get Mulan from school and then we came home and took Margarita to her house, or rather, her apartment, which is about three or four miles away. And it was raining so hard, so desperately hard, that the traffic was slow and there were pot holes, and cars stalled, and it felt like we were at the car wash every single block. And Mulan got impatient she she started to say, from her perch in the back seat -- sitting on her car seat -- she started to say, "Why are we taking Margarita home?" And I said, "Because it's raining so hard, darling, and Margarita would have to wait for the bus if we didn't drive her." And Mulan began to kick the seat, the back of the front seats with her shoes and she said, "I think we should have just let Margarita take the bus or walk home. This is taking too long! We could be at home right now if we weren't taking Margarita home!"

Oh! It was so embarrassing and so horrible and so wrong!!!

I said very little and then, after we dropped Margarita off, I was so angry with Mulan. I drove to the nearest gas station and pulled in and made Mulan get out of the car and stand, in her rain coat, in the actual...rain. Yes, I made my kid stand in the rain. And I got in the car. Yes, that's right. I got in my car and she stood outside the car in the rain. And she yelled, "Let me back in the car.'" I made her wait. It seemed like ten minutes, but it was probably only a few minutes. And then I let her back in and said, "How does it feel to wait in the pouring rain? How does that feel? Would you like to wait for the bus in the rain?"

As we drove home. I felt a little guilty about making Mulan wait outside the car in the rain. But then, I have to say, in the couple of weeks since this incident, she has really been much more observant of the plight of others. She's said, repeatedly, "if Margarita comes when it rains again, we will drive her home!" And then, tonight, she asked me if it was hard to do the show. I suppose compassion must be taught. Or at least I think it might have to be for most of us. So, here Mulan is -- a pretty, sort-of, at least for today, compassionate kid. Hmmmm....

Okay, here I have gone on and on about basically nothing at all. And not mentioned all the important stuff. Like how last weekend, I went to the James Randi conference, called The Amazing Meeting, which is held in Las Vegas, and I had the most wonderful time. And how I got to hang out with Richard Dawkins again (he came to my show a few weeks back) and Christopher Hitchens too! And it was all so mind blowing and fun and informative.

A real highlight of the conference was getting to see people who've become good friends, Hal Bidlack, James Hammond, Phil Plait, Jamy Ian Swiss and Penn Jilette. There was one mind-bogglingly fantastic moment when Jamy did some magic for Dawkins and the look on Dawkins face -- it was all so incomprehensible and, well, magic, and seemingly unexplainable by natural real-world methods, and it was just priceless. What a great moment that was. Jamy is positively supernatural. I always say he could rule the world with his super powers.

Ahhh...

So here I am, in my kitchen, listening to Elvis Costello on the radio and thinking about Johnny Carson being dead. I always thought my dad was like Johnny Carson, which is something I imagine a lot of people might think about their dads. And him being dead, well, it 's another death, another blow, another erasure of someone I think of as familiar and lovable and not-quite knowable. Sometimes I am stunned as it's clear that characters from my life, big characters in my psyche, people who are stalwarts, are starting to die off. It's disconcerting.

Carson was a supporter of the work of James Randi -- I guess Carson gave Randi's education foundation $100,000 because he was so angry about John Edwards, the psychic spirit medium, bilking people of money based on obvious fraud. That made me like Carson even more than I already did. I also knew that he was an amateur astronomer, and that made me like him even more. And it was kind of cool how he just dropped out of Hollywood completely. I mean, it made me wonder if he just couldn't handle being a celebrity without a duty, a specific duty, like when he was a talk show host. But it also seemed so dignified and clean somehow. And since I knew he was interested in looking at the stars -- the real stars up in the sky, I felt comforted that he was doing what I hope I can do someday. Just sit and look up for a long, long time. Jeez, I wish I could have met Carson. I mean, just like everyone does.

I am reading Martin Rees' "Our Final Hour." I have had the book for a while, but a woman I met at a dinner party this week reminded me of it. And I started it and it's so alarming. I mean, I know much of this stuff already, but still, it's very alarming to have a person with the stature of Martin Rees say these things. The book is about our potentially certain dive into oblivion and societal collapse based on all kinds of terrible brewing developments, like terrorism, bio-terrorism, nuclear capabilities, over population. He gives us to 2040 or 2060 for a major, major wipe-out. Eeek. Anyway, when I read this book, I just want to move to Kauai and look at the stars. Oh, I just realized that I think I've said that a whole bunch of times in my blog already. And it's probably what everyone thinks about -- I'm sure everyone has their "kauai" they imagine themselves in. But still, I can tell that my next big enthusiasm is going to be astronomy. Sometimes I lament that I live in Los Angeles and I hardly ever get to see the night sky with any stars in it at all. When I do see stars, it's such a rare treat I cannot stop looking up. And then, I'm such an early-to-bed person that I'm usually falling asleep at the same time. Oh, I hope Johnny Carson got to look at the stars a good long while.

Elvis Costello is talking on the radio about the death of the big record companies and how people can just release their own stuff now and how the internet is going to redefine everything in music and how albums are almost obsolete -- no one listens to a whole album anymore. That's probably true. although I have to say, I listen to albums, whole albums all the time. In fact, this morning I listened to Rufus Wainwright's "Poses" all the way through beginning to end on my hike with Arden. (That's a great album by the way) But also, what Elvis is talking about excites me because I'm about to release, on my own, recordings of my last two shows. They will probably be ready in the next month, maybe even sooner. And I hope I can get them on audible and people can just download them. How cool is that? Ohmygoodness, sometimes I really love technology.

Okay, time to make Mulan practice violin. Boy, let me tell you, the violin is a hard instrument to make sound nice when you don't know what you're doing. But it's so beautiful, her little violin. And it's excruciating, making her play "Ten Little Indians" (are we supposed to be saying that? Ten little Native Americans doesn't fit the rhyme... Ten Little Sioux. Ten Little Spokane. Ten Little Shoshone. Maybe we shouldn't say "little" either. The song is about kids, so maybe "young" is better. One young, two young, three young Cherokees... Hmmm...) All right, forget it. We just have to get through the song twice before bedtime.

New Year's Eve 2004

It's seven o'clock. I have no plans to go out tonight. I am watching Mulan, who is wearing her tap shoes, pitter and patter across the kitchen floor to the music playing inside her head. Oh my god, I love her so much.

This has been a very unusual Christmas/Winter holidays/New Year's for us. I am mostly, most often, in Spokane. Being with my father who I'm sure will die during the next year. But this year, he's already dead, so I am released from this bondage. Even though, I would give everything to have an evening with him.

In any case. Here we are. Family-less (well, dear beloved family member on the edge of death-less in any case) and we are not travelling for Christmas or New Years and I am not planning anything tonight except to write this. And have a fire with Mulan, and perhaps watch some Pee Wee's Playhouses tonight.

I have been on an organizing binge. I remember a time, a long time ago, when I lived on Sierra Bonita -- in a little garage apartment, four spaces big, when I was completely organized. I knew where everything was and everything was filed or in it's place and well...I have to say, it was a major psychological boost. Yes, a boost! Just being that organized. It's like it was a reflection of my mind. And I have to say, I think the organized nature of my apartment reflected the boom in creativity at that point. I was, of course, totally broke. And working as a bartender at a big hotel. But in many ways, I look back on this time as such a creatively fertile time. I thought up many of the characters I would eventually play, I constructed screenplays, made up scenarios, my mind was so free from the clutter of daily existence that it ran, unfettered for a long, long time. But since then, I have basically been just one step in front of disaster in terms of organization. I always have big boxes of I-don't-know-what and manila envelopes full of oh-my-I'm-about-to-have-a-dinner-party-and-let's-get-this-out-of-the-way kinds of stuff. And things have gotten lost and I've rebought things I already have and it's just been. well. bad. Yes, I would give me a C- or a D+. Not a good grade.

So this year, I sorta decided that I would take the two weeks of Christmas, where Mulan was out of school and I had no babysitter and there was no point in even trying to WRITE anything and I would really, truly, deeply get organized. And I have to say, I can barely stop myself from continuing on after the weekend. The last two days have been all about Mulan's bedroom and everything in it has a place of it's own. These two days have included two trips to IKEA to get organizing equipment. Clear plastic boxes for: 1.) barbies, 2.) brio train tacks 3.) Madeline and her outfits 4.) odd small toys. Oh, I am on a high of organization. The cds, finally organized. All Christmas music, downloaded! I bought new silverware, and new dishes -- in white and stark, plain stainless steele. I am clean and I know where things go! And things have a place! The newspaper, yes! It has a place! The mail, yes, it has a place! I have cards ready to address for thank-you's, I have stamps ready for bills, I have a spot for museum announcements. OHMYGOD, this is so the way to spend Christmas, just getting reorganized.

Okay. So, here I am on New Year's Eve and contemplating the year. It has been a very good year. Mulan is older and, actually, in many ways, easier and more enjoyable to be around. Parenting a kid at this age is less physically demanding, it's more of a psychological game now and I'm better at that. Or at least on most days.

Also, I finished my play this year. I remember after going to The Amazing Meeting last year in January -- James Randi's annual conference where I did a skeletal version of Letting Go Of God -- making a peronal promise to myself that I would get this show finished within the year --- really, really done, up in a theater and all that. And I did it. This gives me a lot of confidence about completing other things.

My New Year's resolutions for 2005 are:

1.) Lose 25 pounds (this is always on my list...but I feel this is the year!)

2,) Finish the book.

3.) Do more social type things. I feel I am always on task, always squeezing in a moment and then dramatically collapsing at the end of the day. And I want to do more fun, leisurely things this year -- go to more nice restaurants, see more people, actually....LINGER. Yes. I want to linger this year.

4. Read more books. I need to reinstate my earlier policy of having two books going at all times, one fiction, one non-fiction. I've reverted to my earlier habit of having five or six books going at once and then I don't end up finishing any of them. I need to really be more diciplined in the book arena.

5. Spend less money, and spend the money that I do spend more wisely. Man, this is a big one. I want to write down everything I spend in a book so I can look at it at the end of the day and just...think about it. Otherwise, money gets to be like food, you have no idea how it's surging out (or in, in the case of nourishment) and then, before you know it, bam! Not good.

6. Cook more. And cook less. You see, what I've been doing is buying a lot groceries for several vague recipies I have floating in my head. Then I never take the time to cook that food and it rots in the fridge while I exasperatingly run to a restaurant with Mulan for various meals. So, I'm going to take a more New York approach, which is to just figure that restaurants are going to be feeding your bulk of meals, and then have a lot of left-over take out and then really cooking something special a couple of times a week that is planned in advance, well planned and is special. Like get Mulan in on it. So you see, cook more and cook less. This leads me to...

7. More smaller dinner parties. My dear beloved friend Bob Blumer Surrealgourmet.com makes these wonderful meals for me (and sometimes Mulan) a couple of times a month when he's in town. And it's so great! And I"m used to having these big huge dinner parties with twenty people and I want to have a few smaller ones with just six to eight people and food I can fuss over a bit.

7. Visit Meg in Japan. I want to figure out how to get to Japan to see my sister and her husband. Maybe the end of March, on Mulan's school vacation. I want to travel farther south in Japan than I have before.

Okay, I am looking over my resolutions and they are so mundane and personal, but not personal in an intriguing way -- more of a BORING way, and honestly I feel I could just be anybody.

But maybe that's good. Why must I feel I need to be so...individual? I am typical in my new year's resolutions. And probably in my tendency to fail at my resolutions.

Ah well, into 2005. Here we come.

Christmas survived and enjoyed

Mulan is sleeping. It's early morning on Dec. 26th. She got to come to the show last night. We sold out the show, actually oversold it, accidentally. It was really a special night. Mulan got to sing "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" for the audience and they gave her a big applause. I watched her face as she got the applause. I know that's powerful stuff, and I almost feel guilty that I allowed her to get that kind of hit, that kind of drug, at such an early age. I remember when I was a kid, all I wanted to do was be a lawyer like my dad. It all seemed so glamorous. So, when I think about it like that, I think it's okay. It's natural for kids to have their first exposure to the world be through their parent's profession. On the other hand, I would hate to be setting her up for some kind of expectation about Hollywood. Ach -- she'll grow older.

Okay. Here's my situation. I am incapable of writing a short holiday letter and I always end up either not sending anything at the holidays or I write a long, three page letter and this, THIS is what always happens: I send it out to about half my list of friends. Then, I take a break and I start to look at the letter critically and think that I should not be sending this out to people. It should be funnier, more interesting, shorter, and I end up not sending the letter to a random half the people on my list.

And in the case of this year, what caused the delay, was me thinking of people who might be upset by my letter. Because, in my last paragraph I talk about my show, "Letting Go Of God." And I make some comments about how it's been surprising that I've had such a broad level of support for the show and how even some Rabbi's and Episcopal priests have come to the show. Which is all true. It's just that -- we'll here's what I don't like about it. I feel like I'm apologizing to the people who might be shocked that I have written a show about this topic and have the views I have -- I feel like I'm trying to make it a less-bitter pill -- like I'm saying: see!! Even religious people like it!

Okay, then what's now happening is what always happens. I start getting calls from people saying that they heard that so-n-so got a holiday letter from me, but they didn't and they want their letter! And now I'm feeling guilty and strange and sending out the second half of the letters reluctantly. I want to rewrite the whole thing, but I can't at this point. Oh! AND, then this morning I opened several letters from my most Catholic of friends and their holiday letters are full of their Catholic activism "This year we started a web-site for pro-life!" "This year we got into the jails to teach them about the St. Ignatious teachings!" And I don't know if I should send them my letter. Even though I feel angry that their holiday letter is filled with political activism diametrically opposed to what I feel should be happening. And my letter just mentions that I have a play in Los Angeles that deals with faith where I let go of...God.

So, I feel two opposite ways. I feel I shouldn't be pussy-footing around about my show to these Catholic friends. I feel I am justifying my show to them so it's not so shocking by adding the stuff about religious people liking the show. And I also feel a little confronted by my friend's relgio-political comments in their Christmas letters.

And the truth is, the people who are religious who like my show are of a very, very rare variety. They are those who are very open-minded or/and who come from a religion that is also an ethnic-culture, like Jews. The great thing that Jews have going for them, as far as I can tell from talking to people after the show, is that there is so much room for skepticism in their religion. And, even if they come to the conclusions that they don't believe in God, then they have their wonderful culture to still be part of. Where as with Catholics, it's not exactly that way. If you don't believe, you are basically out. You could never publicly acknowledge that and still be considered a Catholic. So, anyway, what I'm saying is -- there are some extenuating circumstances as to why the people who are religious still like my show, and I feel as if I'm using them and their attitudes to show people who are not so open minded that people like them would enjoy the show -- when that is not really the case at all. These people I am worried about sending my holiday letter to would not like this show at all.

Okay, I can hear what you're thinking: I'm overthinking this.Yes, you are right. I apologize. But I gotta say: wow. There's a lot of very relgiious people out there and they are organized and activated. I probably got 30 holiday cards from people, friends who I grew up with, who mentioned their political activism in their letter. Their conservative, right wing political activism. It all just makes me want to move to Washington D.C. and work for Americans United For The Separation Of Church And State.

All right. I'm going to send the letter to everyone today.

I am so impressed that the right, the conservative right, has been so good at exploiting the internet and media. You would think it would be the other way. The problem with those who believe as I do, who are skeptics or secular people, we don't have a God to motivate us. And God is a powerful motivator. If you really believe that there is a God out there who wants you to start a website for pro-life, for example -- that is potent. My political motivations come from reason and awareness, and that includes an awareness of the futility of fighting such an uphill battle against people who believe that they have a supernatural power behind them! But I can't let myself feel complacent or like it's not worth the frustration or work. I think I must galvanize myself to continuing to be active politically and find ways to reach people.

But, wait. How am I politically active? Well, I...I...give some money to the Democratic party and I to Move On and to various skeptic organizations. And...I guess...I'm doing this show, which I suppose is sort of political. But, jeez, I could do so much more.

I'm going to send out my holiday letters with pride! That's what I'm going to do! Yes!!!

Okay, I have another comment before I close up this blog post. I have had some comments after the show -- one in particular actually that really stuck in my mind -- and it was "Well, this is what's true for you." For me. True, for me. Like, truth is relative and if I don't believe in God, that's true FOR ME. But not true for others. Well, on the one hand, yes. Yes, that's true. If you believe in God, that belief is a true belief. And it probably affects the person who believes quite profoundly, I know it did for me. On the other hand, there either is a God or their isn't a God. Many people in the religious right complain that morality for non-religious people is relative. And just the idea that morality can be relative is upsetting to them (even though morality is clearly relative for them. At least those who support this war, for example, and also say they think the Ten Commandments should be posted in school rooms and in court houses which clearly forbids killing people.)

But what I'm getting at is that, for me, what is really offensive, is the idea that truth is relative. Truth, in large part, is not relative. Either something is true or it isn't. Instead of people saying, "This is true, for you," I wish they would say, "I think you are wrong." I freely and happily admit that I may be wrong. I may be very wrong. But it isn't true that we can all believe such diametrically opposing things and both be right. Yes, we can figure out how to live together in society, and we can not force our views on others, but we cannot both be right. I feel that when people say, "And that's what's true for you." They are trying to make it okay that we disagree. I already feel okay that we disagree. I think in order to live in community with others, we must tolerate direct disagreement. And that's why we live in such a great country where we tolerate all religous views. Or at least we theoretically do.

Okay, the other thing I want to say is that...I went to Church on Christmas. YES! I admit it! I wanted to hear some carols and I wanted Mulan to hear some carols and you know, I love churches -- well -- particular kinds of churches. So I took Mulan to a 10:30 p.m. service at St. James, this little Episcopal Church near my house. It was just lovely. The songs were mostly in latin, so we weren't needlessly upset by the meaning of the words in the songs. It was all very high Anglican. And as I sat there, I thought, wow, the churches, they really do it up right. I mean, this church was so lovely. The music was sublime - the choir's voices in perfect pitch. There were candles and people huddled together. Man, I really get it. It's really powerful, that place. That idea of hallowed ground and holy nights. And I think that's what we all yearn for. And those things are not intrisically tied up in belief, I don't think. I think it's about people, coming together in a tradition, wtih rituals and song and a common purpose. And I wish there were places where I could go where I didn't have to get the God stuff too. In the meantime, this little Episcopal church did the trick.

What I see, from my little perch, looking out at the culture, is a deep spiritual hunger that I find completly misdirected by religion. I am outraged too, just like the religious right. I am appalled by the deep consumerism in our society. I am as appalled by this as much as people are appalled that it's legal to have an abortion. I am outraged that people don't acknowledge what science and the scientific method has contributed to their lives -- that they pray for people who are sick instead of appreciate the long arduous history of experimentation and research in science that has allowed us to have the medicines to live. This appalls me at the deepest level. And I have a sense of armageddan too -- I feel that people who believe in the End Times will cause the End Times for all of us. And I feel that people who yearn for connection and history and community, mistakenly turn to religion to feed their spiritual needs. When seeing the world without the cloudy glasses of faith is a path to a deep awe and spiritual wonder at life. People want to feel connected and they want to feel that they are contributing to their society and they want to feel they are deeply good and moral. I think these are all human qualities that we all share. I feel this way. And I see others who feel this way -- most people feel this way. And the church has provided this for people for a long time. But I think they are also horribly wrong. And that keeping the truth from others, about our real state as animals on this planet who are supremely vulnerable and spectacularly lucky, keeping this truth from people is wrong in the deepest way possible.

Now, here I have gone on and on about religion again. I have had some people write to me and say, "Is this all you think about?" And of course I do not. But since I am doing this show now, I do think about it a lot.

On a more personal note: this is my first Christmas without my father. And I think about him so much. I really miss him terribly. On the other hand, I had a really nice Christmas. Not travelling anywhere just rocks! It was lesiurely around here. We got to have days of just organizing together (me and Mulan) and we went to some lovely Christmas parties with some dear old friends. I love my neighborhood so much. And Mulan is at the peak Christmas age -- being five. She got a violin and was so thrilled, she was just overwhelmed with joy. She's so into Santa Claus, it's just nuts. And I finally organized all my cds into these books and loaded many onto my computer. It's really thrilling, getting that project under control. I have about 2000 cds, culled down from about twice that many last year, and I am slowly putting them on my computer on a separate hard drive. It's really fun and I'm revisiting all these long lost cds that I love. Dave Edmonds! I forgot about Dave Edmonds! Today I have a matinee, but I'm still going to keep organizing in the dining room.

There are some fun possibilities in the future for the show, and decisions will have to be made during January. Maybe we will relocate to New York in the Fall and then we could go to Seattle for the summer, or maybe San Francisco. It's all very exciting.

Late night after the show

I am in my kitchen with a planned splurge of food: two glasses of red wine and a lean cuisine. Oh! My life is so exciting. Actually, it makes me a little scared how excited I am for this and how I planned it so carefully.

I have been so high (I guess of adrenaline, as I gather from my reading) after the shows -- not because it went so well or something, even though, I have to say the show did go pretty well -- but because after any show, good or bad, I am just jacked up so high I cannot sleep for hours afterwards and I have been spending this excited time EATING. Which is not good because, because that is not healthy and not good. So I am trying to plan for how I'm going to feel after a show and what I will do and what I will eat. So, here I am with a very expensive bottle of pinot noir and a Lean Cuisine and frankly, I couldn't be happier.

It's weird to be an actress like the kind that I am, doing these monologues. I now have been through this three times and now I kind of know the drill. How spectacularly thrilling and exciting it is, and how completely lonely it is. I kept thinking I might go out with people after the show, but I am so wound up from the show I can't really concentrate on all that much except the show. And that means I am glazed over on any subjects that are not about MY SHOW. And that is a spectacularly ego-filled maniacal state to be in, one I'm sure that is not condusive to regular conversation. So to be polite, I make sure I am alone. But being alone means being with myself with all this energy! When I did God Said Ha! I thought I never knew such depths of aloneness and high off performing-ness. But then, back then, oh those eight years ago -- before all the travels and the big break up and the adopting of Mulan and all that changed, back then it was kind of romantic, this whole life I led -- so alone and so connected. But now, it's begining to feel routine. And that feels good, and not-so-good at the same time. I'm older. It's not so starkly beautiful now, and I don't have a God in my life to make me feel good or bad or anything about it. It's just what...is.

So here I am. Eating a Lean Cuisine and having a glass of pinot noir. And this is what I'm thinking about: I am reading this amazing book: "Don't Think Of An Elephant." by George Lakoff. It's a lot about how progressives need to deal with conservatives in our country. And to accomplish this, he describes the world view of many conservatives and I feel so enlightened. And I understand so much better now! And I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all this information, what I can do, but it's very fertile stuff. In any case, he talks a lot about how conservatives view the world in a frame of family (as do progressives, by the way) and the frame that conservatives use is the strict father frame of viewing the world. Their brand of Christianity is the strict father type and the progressive view is of the nurturing parent brand.

Well, first of all, if you haven't read this book, it means that you must read it immediately. Conservative or progressive, you must read it. It's really amazing.

But it has caused an explosion in my mind of re-examining who this God was in my life that I have now let go of. And I realize that the God I believed in was a compassionate god, a friendly god, a loving god -- not at all the strict father God that so many people believe in or have rejected. I began to notice this a few years ago as I workshopped my show -- that many people's Gods (that they rejected) were punative and judgemental. And I would say, "Wow, the God I believed in didn't do all that much but just love me." And still, I rejected him!

Then I thought about my own dad. My dad was never a strict diciplinarian in any way. In so many ways, he was like a friendly uncle who lived with us. My mom was the one in charge and my dad just went to work and tried to be friends with us. I know now how untraditional this type of family system is, and I can see what is not good about this -- it made my mother have to be the heavy and my dad clearly abdicated so much of parenting to her and I think she was not prepared for this in any way. But besides all that, the fact is that the God I had constructed in my imagination was very much like my father. Like a super-human version of my father. A confidant, a friend, an all-knowing daddy. Which, in some ways, made it harder to let him go. Because what is the downside? For me, it became the facts, the psychological and scientific facts that were so at odds with this imaginary friend. But I can see that people who have a "strict father" frame of the world may not at all be able to understand what I'm talking about when I talk about God. I mean, it doesn't mean God is any more or less real because of our fantasy about him, but it does mean that the people who would never be able to relate in any way to the experience I have had will probably never be albe to. Not that I thought they would. It's just all so...interesting. That's all.

When you can imagine whoever you want to be God, then God can be anything. So to talk about "God" is almost impossible. Everyone has such a different set of needs they bring to the table when it comes to talking about God.

In the end, it's just reality that is happening and not our ideas of abstract notions. People are dying in Fallujah tonight. Or barely not dying. Or thinking they might be dying.

There's so much pain in the world, so much excrutiating pain, sometimes I cannot bear it.

Stepping forward, finally

I feel I'm gaining my perspective back on the world. Although it all still looks very bleak. But from some letters I've read and some articles I've read as well, it looks like the moral superiority that so many people claimed the Bush had over Kerry -- it seems like it could be overplayed. And that a bigger reason may have been fear and a misunderstanding of what is happening in the middle east. It's so disheartening that the statistics show that those who are least informed about world affairs dominate the bulk of the Republican Party. But then, when you look back at the history of the Democratic party, it is also filled with preachers and priests taking bus-loads of people to the polls, people who also probably had only a tenuous grasp of the issues. It all comes down to good information and accurate reporting and an educated public.

I have to say, one of the unexpected outcomes of the election, for me personally, is an increased interest in sending Mulan to a public school. I don't want to stay away from the secular public. I don't want her or me to be living in such a rarified environment. I am more skeptical of sending Mulan, even to an Episcopal school -- which I am still considering. I feel a bit angrier at religion now, and more interested in participating in our still-secular school system.

I don't know. Another part of me wants to move away. I am feeling the need to make a big change. I'm not sure what. The show is doing very well here, and it appears I could take the show on the road -- we have an intriquing offer to go to Toronto for two months. And I would love to do this show in New York. And then last night I let myself have a spit-second fantasy of going to London with the show. And like a bomb, it exploded into a full blown elaborate dream. Mulan would be in kindergarten next year. And she's practically reading already. I feel if I were going to take off for a year, next year is the year to do it. Maybe we could go to San Francisco, Seattle, and then on. Who knows. Would it be awful? I think it would be hard for Mulan, she likes stability and routine, in some ways more than I think the average kid likes it. It's hard to know, being a person who is happy to take off with a back pack for six months at a go. I don't know if I expect her to be more flexible than I should be expecting. But hmmm... Hmmm... The time seems right. In some ways. My ability to make money is probably greater here in L.A. Theatre is hard to make money at, and I like to keep ticket prices low, and the subject matter isn't exactly broad and it may not work well outside of certain urban centers. And it takes a while to get the word out. Like we've had this show up for about two months now, and just now the word seems to be getting out. I think it takes about three months to do a proper run.

Why am I musing about all this on my blog? I guess I just wanted to get some entry on the site that wasn't about me about to end it all over the election. I have to say, Joe Conanson's article in Salon last week was a big help.

Here's a section: "In the dark post-election mood that lingers, the defeated should find history both restorative and instructive. Restorative because the past reminds us that both victors and vanquished tend to mistake the dimensions of the immediate event, whose true significance cannot be known until years or even decades later. Instructive because the past tells us so much about how the conditions of our present distress came to exist -- and, most important, how we can change them.

So for the moment set aside the triumphal proclamations from the Republican leadership and their echoes in the media, along with the petty recriminations against John Kerry, who has devoted his life to public service and deserves admiration for the honorable campaign he waged against unscrupulous opponents. As a presidential candidate he had his virtues and flaws, which obviously differed from those of George W. Bush -- and will surely differ from those of the next Democratic nominee.

A longer perspective is more pertinent and more relevant to the future than listening to televised imbeciles maundering about the "death of liberalism." (Had the Democrat won by three points and a couple dozen electoral votes, nobody would be touting the "death of conservatism.") Progressives and reactionaries in America have both survived much sharper electoral rejections than this one. Both sides tend to overreact to such rejection in an election's emotional aftermath."

Oh Joe Conason! And I got a lot of letters from people along the same lines. See what a little perspective does! I feel better. Much better.