As The Cook Deals With Meat And Vegetables

I want to write/blog something often. Maybe every day. Maybe not. We will see how things go.

Today’s highlights:

A good quote I read by Eric Hoffer, a writer who lived mostly in San Francisco and died in 1983 after he spent his life being a longshoreman. He kept notebooks with his thoughts as well as writing nine books, including The True Believer which is subtitled, Thoughts on the Nature Of Mass Movements. He writes that true believers are disappointed people, “Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves.”

But I am writing all this to get to one other quote of Hoffer’s that I really, really love.

“How terribly hard and almost impossible it is to tell the truth. More than anything else, the artist in us prevents us from telling aught as it really happened. We deal with the truth as the cook deals with meat and vegetables.”

I had a great late-night conversation with Michael Patrick King, my friend who was the show runner on Sex & the City and who is now working on The Comeback. A show I was initially wary of and now find impossible not to watch and watch again. Even though I am not in any way whatsoever an actress like Valerie Cherish, the actress that Lisa Kudrow plays on The Comeback, I think the show is driving me back into therapy. It has gotten under my skin. I watch it more than once.

The scariest thing on television in the last ten years are those two writers on The Comeback. They make me shiver.

I'm sorry. And I'm not moving.

Oh dear. This whole blog thing is NUTTY! Well, first of all I have to apologize. I did get several horrible e-mails from people about not believing in God. But honestly, nothing compared with the positive ones. And now I’m embarrassed that I gave the bad ones so much weight. If you look at it scientifically, and you consider that I got -- let’s see – including all the e-mail I got after the L.A. Times article, about 3500 e-mails over the last two months, and about 100 to 200, I would guess, are negative and only about 70 to 100 were hateful. Such an incredibly small percentage. Teensy weensy. Not worth bothering about.

It’s kind of weird having your blog be quoted in the paper. I think this is the third paper I’ve been quoted in. I keep thinking that blogs are so…PRIVATE. Ha. To me, blogging is like you are blathering to a friend late at night when everything in the world is bothering you and it seems like it should have a shelf life or something. And then, out of nowhere, you get quoted in the paper. I should be more…on my toes! Ready to be quoted!

And yet, the whole beauty of the blog is that it’s half personal diary and half public pronouncement. Blogs are like personal conversations at a restaurant that can suddenly include the people at the next table – sort of private, sort of not private.

In any case, I will attempt to think through what I’m writing a little more. I got sooo many letters from Christians apologizing for the bad spelling and the hateful language. I don’t even care about the bad spelling. I was being catty. And that is so bad. Bad, bad, bad.

I mean, it’s true about a few, a very few of the letters. But who cares about spelling? Some of my favorite people -- people who I consider to be geniuses -- are horrible spellers. And I had my own spelling and grammar mistakes pointed out to me. Oh why, oh why did I say that to begin with?

And the hate part – I don’t even care about that anymore. I feel hate myself. I guess more like anger, not exactly hate. Threats bug me. But I really don’t care anymore.

I sound like I'm convincing myself. I am bugged when people write and say things like, "I see you've gotten yourself more publicity." I don't know how to respond to that. Of course, what I'm doing is not responding to it.

Also, I’m not moving. I was so tired when I wrote that. And I had started a new job and I had been with my mother for over ten days. IMAGINE my state of mind.

I just flew back from Toronto where I shot something for a day. I shot an episode of my friend Bob Blumer’s Food Channel show, The Surreal Gourmet. I think I didn’t do such a good job. I think they wanted me to be witty and have quips and I did not. Why don’t I know in advance that I’m not good at that? It was a hot, long day. But excellent food.

And on the plane ride back this morning, I read a book I picked up at the airport: A Short History Of Progress by Ronald Wright. It’s soooo good. And soooo depressing. It’s almost like a very condensed version of Jared Diamond’s Collapse and Guns, Germs & Steel mixed with Martin Rees Our Final Century. If you don’t have time for Jared’s two big books, this one by Ronald Wright is sufficient. Then I also read the July/August Foreign Affairs issue, which is all about the next pandemic. Which could be the avian flu. Which could happen anytime. And how we are destined for a major population reduction. We are majorly overdue. Wright writes, “Medical experts worry that nature may swat us with disease: billions of overcrowded primates, many sick, malnourished, and connected by air travel are a free lunch waiting for a nimble microbe.” Eee gads.

Basically I am not eating meat (which I have no proof would stave off any type of avian flu) and I’m enjoying the sunsets a lot more. Even though I just ate meat for this shoot yesterday, so see how I’m a hypocrite already? But no more meat. That was the end of it.

I’m going to look up eating poultry and avian flu.

Okay, now I’ve spent an hour reading about the Avian flu on the Centers for Disease Control web site and the CNN website. The CNN website is actually better for information. You can get the Avian flu from handling birds that are infected, or being around them. When I was in China a few years ago, walking through the Qing Ping market in Guangzhou, seeing all the caged birds next to the caged dogs next to the caged cats ready to be slaughtered all together for the purchaser on the very same cutting board – I thought, this cannot be a good thing. And apparently it is not. Anyway, once the flu is entrenched in humans, it can then spread from human to human. Very scary.

I know this has nothing to do with God. But it is one of the side effects of not believing. The world truly does get scarier. Human history, civilized human history anyway, becomes a mere ten thousand or so years. A blip. A crazy patch of stable weather, good for chimps.

My favorite line in Wright’s book is: “Homo sapiens has the information to know to know itself for what it is: an Ice Age hunter only half-evolved towards intelligence; clever but seldom wise.”

Why didn’t I spend more time reading the In Style magazine that I also bought? Victorian blouses are going to be in this year. A return to conservatism!

New camera

Okay, things are moving along. The show opens Sept. 1 in previews and then opening night is Sept. 17th. I am in the process of gathering together my team of people, the sound director, the lighting designer, etc. It's all very very exciting. Also, Mulan graduates from pre-school tomorrow. Also, I just realized that I have either misplaced or had stolen my video camera and my Leica. OHMYGOD. First, I hate myself for not knowing if I've misplaced them or had them stolen. Okay, let's just assume they weren't stolen. Where the hell are they? Oh I am filled with self loathing.

I had to go buy a new video camera just now. Yep. I had to go spend $700 on a new video camera. I have turned the house upside down. I have no Leica Camera and no video camera. The video camera has a tape on it which is basically everything Mulan has done for a year. How can this be? Oh, the cost of being disorganized is high, indeed.

Okay, breathe. Breathe.

I now have a new video camera. The old one was several years old, so I guess it's really good that I have a new one. I will now be able to properly record my daughter's life. Where is the Leica, though?

Okay, let's change the subject.

I got to meet Wim Wenders today. He interveiwed me for a part in an upcoming movie he is directing. I worshipped Wim Wenders for years. I mean, I still think he's great. It's just...looking at him, talking to him. I felt like I was in a dream. He didn't seem real. The whole thing threw me into an entire day of thinking about his movies. I wanted to say so many things to him that I didn't. That "The American Friend" is one of my all time favorite movies and I've seen it eight or nine times. Alice in the Cities, also an iconic film for me. But I was speechless, I just sat there and giggled nervously. He asked me how I could have done a monologue about cervical cancer. And I said something like, "It wasn't just about cervical cancer, it was also about my brother's cancer!" I sounded like a freak. But he was nice. He acted like he was going to see me again, but you know those europeans, they can always sound like that, they are so polite. Oh jeez.

Taking a blogging break

Thanks so much for all your e-mails. I got hundreds more in the last few days. It’s really overwhelming. Over three thousand now. I appreciate them all. I just wish I could respond. So many made me want to jump right in and write a thorough letter back. I am still going to try to reply to people when I can get a moment.

But for the time being, I’m going to take a blogging break. Not that that’s so important to anyone, but… I’m just going to take a break. First of all, since I started my new job, my whole life is wound up in things I can’t talk about at all.

Second of all, I’m getting some pretty harsh weird e-mail. It’s making me take a moment to think about how many people are out there who scare the shit out of me. Granted, most of the e-mail I got - to an overwhelming degree -- is from people who are positive and encouraging. Who feel just as I do. Who went through what I did. Or people who are worried about what's happening in our country and culture with regards to religious fundamentalism and Christian domination.

Of course, I don’t want to restrict my reading to only those e-mails which are from people to feel the same way I do. But…well, I wish I could just show you some of the many frightening letters I have received. They make your spine tingle. They are SCARY. A lot of angry, scary people.

People with poor spelling and punctuation. Mostly.

Not that I’m the bastion of proper spelling & punctuation, but… I have one suggestion for the Christians out there who want to send me a long intimidating, terrorizing e-mail – at least spell your threats properly. It’s distracting to my sense of fear when your spelling is SO bad.

I know, that’s mean. But it’s hard to look past it.

Anyone who has e-mailed me and asked to be notified when the CD comes out will be contacted. I am still on my schedule. It will happen and you will be notified.

I have to keep reminding myself that these people are just people composing e-mail and telling me their point of view. But they are sooo nasty and so outraged and so filled with hate. I think I tried really hard not to be hateful in my monologue. I tried to make the case for faith, and show the struggle with compassion to all sides. But yes, in some ways I am hurtful. I am saying things about a myth and a book that many people believe are sacred. And I am challenging the validity and the sacred nature of those materials. I even feel an imperative about what I have to say. I think the future of our species depends on us wising up and accepting ourselves as animals that evolved on a planet.

Just like the Christians think that my future of depends on accepting their beliefs. In this way, I think I have a lot in common with Christians, or these types of Christians, because I think it’s majorly important if someone is religious or not. Only, I think it should be on the "not" side.

I feel that people who have superstitions have been victimized and do not see the world clearly. And I feel very sad for them.

Also, a teeny bit afraid of them.

But to be honest, I don’t know how much I want this in my life. All these angry people. If I still had an assistant, I would have him or her going through these e-mails for me, but I don’t have one and I end up reading them all. And it’s just gotten to me. I mean, of course, they haven’t convinced me. And I’m not going to be quiet about it. I just think that a daily journal about my views isn’t the way for me to go at the moment. The blogging just seems to goad them on even further.

And today, for the first time, I seriously thought I should move or something. I got a little scared.

Eeek.

I will blog again someday, but not in the near future.

Life Is Not Fair

Mulan and my mother are still asleep and today is a big workday, so I’m going to write a few thoughts down before they wake up. And I guess some might think I’m just spouting off now because of the big response to the This American Life piece and now I’m pontificating or something. And well…yes. I guess so. I am a little bit. But it’s been such an overwhelming response, I got almost fifty more letters just this morning! And I guess I’m indulging the fact that I have a few more people’s eyes to read what I have to say. I have to remind myself that this will all calm down soon and I’ll be back to complaining about five year olds or something.

So, that said… This is what I've been turning over in my head recently.

Life is SO not fair. That’s something my dad said all the time while I grew up and I think probably everyone’s parents said that. Well, without the SO part. So here: Life’s not fair. But I never really believed that. I thought God sorted it all out in the end. I had a vague idea that there was ultimate justice. And this had effects down to the smallest interactions.

For example, I am a person who has a very hard time haggling for something. And I have spent time in South America and Asia where you have to haggle for everything. And I would think, “If they overcharge me for this or that item, then that’s taking advantage of me and that act is on their head and they will deal with that when they meet their maker.” And then I would just pay them the price they asked at first as a matter of pride. Like, it’s not up to me to make sure this person behaves with dignity.

This makes me seem ridiculous, and when I write that it does seem ridiculous. But I’m trying to say that these ideas (like life is not fair) aren’t just in place when one considers the big questions in life, it affects even the smallest interactions.

When I stopped all magical belief, including God, it struck me like thunder that everyone was getting away with everything they could get away with and there was not going to be any God to sort it out. And that’s such a difficult bitter pill to swallow, that life is not fair. Life is not fair in the extreme.

The way nature works is not fair either. Survival of the fittest: not fair. I mean, unless you are fit in the ways that nature dictates is fit.

Anyway, I suddenly realized I had to defend myself against others who were trying to take advantage of me. It was all up to me. It felt really cold and sad. I had to defend myself not just against the big forces of chance, but even against this person trying to charge me four dollars for something she's charging one dollar for right behind me

And there’s no remedy for that cold and sad realization. Not at least, one I have found. It’s stark and it makes me feel like an adult in all the worst ways. But then, I had this whole new appreciation for what does enforce some fairness in life. Like governments and laws. Who said that great phrase? ”Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.” Yes. That’s what society does. That’s why we aren’t animals all out for our individual selves. We come together collectively to help insure the survival of the whole group and in that process we make things a little more fair for those who can’t insure that fairness themselves.

That’s one of the worst things that religion does, teach people to be compliant with gross unfairness. Religion does this by inculcating and idea of ultimate justice after death. This makes the paupers happy and content – they will get their reward. I know that most religious people would say that Jesus inspires them to behave in ways that are altruistic and heroic and that all Jesus was about was helping the poor. And yes, I can see how Jesus is an inspiration in that.

But all I have to say to that is two things: Jesus did use the idea of reward when it came to helping the poor. He didn’t say to help the poor because it’s fundamentally unfair and that a more balanced financial distribution is better for everyone. He said to be good to the poor because if you do you get rewarded in heaven. Also, all I have to say is that Bush says Jesus is his favorite philosopher and look at what he’s done for the poor. Just make them a whole lot poorer.

So, life is unfair. This is one of the hardest parts, for me, of letting go of God. And it’s unfair in ways that no government laws could ever change. People die on the brink of great promise in their life. It doesn’t always work out for the best. We are fantastically vulnerable to having everything we hold dear be killed, betray us, reject us. And that is a harsh and hard way to see the world.

But I think it’s accurate. And I realized that I was willing to trade accuracy for a fantasy. AND, weirdly, this harsh acceptance has led to such a deep appreciation for so much in my life. I would call myself a very happy person. I enjoy every day – or nearly every day that I am alive. It caused me to care about others, to increase the money I give to charity and to make sure that that charity is doing what it says it’s doing. It has caused me to be even more politically active and try to make the world a slightly more fair place for other people. It has made me discover science and the scientific method and it has given me a consistent way for evaluating the world. That is no small thing, by the way.

I have come to realize that maybe one of the best things that has come out of my whole experience has nothing to do with God. It’s that I realize that I respect the truth and that there are systematic methods for arriving at truth -- or what we can bet is closest to truth -- and that thousands of years of scholarship has gone into refining these methods. I truly sit on the shoulders of giants in this way. I am receiving the fruits of many people’s efforts over thousands of years who have figured out how to think systematically and come up with information that is reliable and re-testable and all that. And that gives me a great calm. I have a system for looking at the world.

It’s had all kinds of tangible effects too. Like I don’t spend time, or excessive time, around people I don’t like simply to be nice. Time is so limited and valuable. I know I am speaking in platitudes and stating the obvious, but I have to say, this came to me in a whole new way after I grew up, FINALLY.

Okay, now I have to go make Mulan put on clothes. It’s crazy beautiful here in Hawaii. I really hope I get to retire in Kauai someday. I like Oahu, but my heart belongs to Kauai. Yesterday I think I spent more time in the water that I ever have before. Mulan did this dolphin quest experience – they have a dolphin lagoon here and about five dolphins in it. They give you all this literature about how Dolphin Quest is good to the dolphins and they don’t force the dolphins to do excessive tricks. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that Mulan had the best two hours learning about dolphins yesterday. They gave a class where they showed a human skull (a fake one) and a real dolphin skull and they spent about twenty minutes learning the differences in the skulls and what mammals were and how we can tell they are mammals. Wow. I wish I’d had that when I was a kid. Or maybe I did hear all that stuff (well, I certainly didn’t do a dolphin experience) and it washed over me. In any case, I was so rapt. It was really interesting. Then Mulan got to pet and feed and splash about with the dolphins. It was pretty great.

I remember when I was in the Galapagos and suddenly someone yelled that there was a school of dolphins on the side of our boat. (Is it a school?) Anyway, we all jumped off the boat – there was no island in site, and we swam along with the dolphins. I could hear them clicking and communicating underwater and I was really right next to them. It was one of the most profound experiences of my life. Now, I’ve been reading recently how dolphins are pretty cruel to each other. I guess it turns out that the bigger the brain, the crueler the species. Hmmm…

Biology and Psychology

Okay, I'm on a break here in Hawaii. And I was thinking, after reading more the letters to me, many of them about the real deeper meanings of the Bible stories, that in the end, it wasn't the Bible that did me in about God and all the rest. The Bible did in religion for me. Yes, that's true. Reading the Bible and learning about how the Bible was put together. Reading the Gnostic Gospels and the other "sacred" writings, learning about the traditions of the church and how they became traditions, all that led to me rejecting religion.

But not God.

What did God in, really, was biology and psychology. Learning how our minds work, how we respond to social hierarchy, how we naturally tend toward superstitions and how we see patterns in things, even when no patterns exist. How evolution works, the slow agonizing process of animals evolving, how we living creatures evolve different specialties to compete in this harsh world for survival, how our brain evolved and how it gives us a certain type of advantage, how viruses work and evolve – that’s what did God in.

Many people have written to me about Michael Behe’s book. He wrote Darwin’s Black Box and he’s an Intelligent Design guy who says that there is an irreducible complexity in cells that is unaccountable by evolution. So basically God made cells and evolution did the rest. I have read this book and listened to many scientists responses to it. Basically the problem is that Behe does not account for the fact that certain structures in the cell could have evolved by natural selection and then further evolution caused those same structures to find employment in other novel ways as evolution continued.

Plus, even if a cell floated to earth fully formed, it still doesn’t mean that human beings would evolve or that there is a designer out there somewhere who wants us to be here in particular. I always say that if God got humans here by means of evolution he is a harsh, horrible, wasteful, uncaring God. Millions upon millions of species evolving and dying off in horrifying circumstances. What did the dinosaurs do to God to make him cause them to die in a cloud of darkness after the meteor hit? But for the believer, that’s just what God did. Have 4 and a half billion years of agonizing evolution to get us. Us humans. It makes the creationists who believe that God plopped humans onto the earth in one fell swoop seem reasonable when you think of a God who got us here by means of evolution.

And now the evidence is enormous. Evolution is confirmed over and over again by all kinds of different fields: anthropology, biology, genetics, and so forth. And we understand our own minds much better than we did before. We know the parts of the brain that have religious experience and we understand how people can have those experiences. Experiences I had myself! So, for me, it all points to a world without a God. The world makes sense without a God from a scientific world view. The world does not make sense scientifically with one. (I am referring to a traditional definition of God here.)

I won’t even get into the New Age redefinitions of God. I always say that if God is hydrogen and helium, then yes, I believe in God too.

Some people have written and accused me of a dogmatic fanaticism in my non-belief. I disagree. My disbelief in God is just like my disbelief in Santa Claus. If there is solid scientific evidence that shows a creator God who cares about us humans and offers an eternal life, I am completely open to that and I would change my mind based on it. I have not yet seen evidence that comes close. And yes, it’s true, I am not going to spend all my time searching for evidence that I am wrong. I did do that for years and I came to a certain conclusion and I’m going to stick with it until I find compelling evidence to the contrary. Michael Shermer says you should be open minded but not so open minded that your brains fall out. I think that’s a good stance.

Many people have also said that I selected portions of the Bible that look the worst and judge the whole book in that context. And that’s true. I did do that. I actually left lots out -- I mean lots and lots of passages that are so absurd, like the children getting mauled to death by bears because they make fun of a bald guy in the Old Testament. There are some stories in the Bible that are so ridiculous that I thought that I wouldn't seem credible repeating them! I tried to find passages that people were generally familiar with.

But what I found is that religious folk who argue that the Bible should be viewed in the whole context of the Christian tradition are using that as an excuse to not deal with the disturbing and clearly legendary and folktale aspects of the Bible.

Of course, if you judge the Bible by it’s impact on culture, it’s a tremendously important document. But this becomes a spiral where you can’t judge the Bible by itself and you can’t judge the cultural impact without the Bible. I do not argue that religion has many, many great byproducts. It offers so much. It can do tremendous good. It creates community and ritual and connectedness and Christians in particular are very good at organizing social injustice movements. All that is fantastic. I think those wonderful things are practically worth it to be part of the organization in spite of what it’s based on. I mean, almost.

But some have argued that the byproducts of Christianity – the positive byproducts, the work on behalf of the poor, the community it creates, is the proof that Jesus is the son of God and that God is the only God and a force that created us and loves us and offers us eternal life. However, many other cultures have similar types of byproducts from their religion (maybe I shouldn’t even be saying byproduct, maybe it’s just impacts) and they aren’t Christian. The Muslims have social injustice movements and religious sacred literature with many insightful and great passages, just like the Bible. The Buddhists do too. The Hindus do too. Also, there are secular organizations that offer all this without the religion.

I am here in Hawaii, and I’ve met a couple who went and did the Peace Corps after their six children were grown. They spent two years doing work in Africa and there was no religious organization, it was totally secular. So, the fruit of religion isn’t a good argument for the veracity of Christian truth.

On balance, I think religion has been detrimental. I think it caused the Dark Ages and has set us back over and over again in our human history. ON BALANCE.

So, please, don’t send me more individual examples of religion being so great. I find what I experience as the transcendent in nature, with a full acceptance of who I am and where I stand in nature. Nature may not care a wit about me, but I sure care a lot about Nature.

Last night I laid on the beach and looked at the sky full of stars and the water crashing at my feet and just the thought that the earth is round, just that little fact that I used to take for granted, it just bowled me over. The earth is fucking ROUND!!! And we’re hurtling through space! And who knows how much longer animals like us will be here to look out at that sky and know that the planet they sit on is ROUND? How many animals in the universe know that the reason it’s dark is because their sun is on the other side of their round planet? Or that the sand I scrunch my feet into is made up of millions of years, billions even, of rocks ground up into bits, rocks that were crawled on by other creatures and plants that didn’t have this wonderful gift of knowledge that the earth is round – hurtling through space.

Woooeee.

Okay, that probably sounds all preachy and shit. I’ve just read through (or skimmed through) two thousand e-mails (really, over two thousand letters in four days) and I’m a little wound up.

Thank you so much for your e-mails

Note: this is written hastily as my daughter tugs at my shirt sleeve and I don't know how to use spell check, so keep this in mind.

I really wasn't prepared for the This American Life show to have such a big impact. I have so much to say back to each and every one of you who has written. I almost hesitate to write this because I don't want anyone NOT to write to me. I read each and every one and today has been such a grand day. I wish I could respond to everyone tonight but I can't!

Many people said they knew I was going to get a lot of e-mails from people who were appalled and angry. This is true. But I would say those e-mails represent a very small minority. I also thought that is what would happen. But, for the recond, what I have found out today is that there are lots and lots and lots of people out there who feel just like I do, have gone through the same things I have. What an amazing thing! I got e-mails from people from all over the United States, I mean all over the place. And I am soooo appreciative. Thank you so much.

But really, this isn't so much about me. What thrills me is that I am finding that there are so many of us who have gone through the same experience or are going through the same experience. I mean, in some ways, because of Bush, he has pushed this whole issue to the forefront, for good or bad, you just can't dismiss your views on religion anymore as being a small matter.

And of course, not everyone has jettisoned God the way I have. And I have so much to say in return.

But I will say this here: many people wrote to say that they didn't think I should have gone from rejecting the Bible to giving up on God. The truth is that I didn't do that. It was a long long journey with many other variations on God and if you could see the whole show, you would see that it wasn't just straight from not-Catholic to non-believer. (my show is two hours and fifteen minutes long and the This American Life excerpt was less than thirty minutes) It took years to explore everything and I hung on until I realized that the only God I could believe in was made up of hydrogen and helium. And then...anyway. I am so re-inspired to write the book and get the CD out and the film done. Really, everyone who has written, thank you soooo much.

Also, YES, my newsletter sign up asks for birthdates and the person's gender and that is really wrong. I don't know how I allowed that. It was a suggestion by the person who designed my website and I'm going to change that immediately. Don't feel you have to put that information in. I have never even looked at that stuff and I won't.

And also, for the Christians who wrote about what those passages mean in the Bible. Yes, I know that the passages I site have all kinds of theories and complicated layers of meaning. I know the theories. I know the ways that people explain those passages. I looked into it. But now, it doesn't really matter because when I, after a long learning curve, really understood how the Bible was put together, which stories were kept and which weren't, what political situations were in place and what was useful to emphasise and so forth, then the Bible became a really interesting historical religious document to me -- inspiring but not sacred. Very much the work of ancient man and not the inspired word of God. So, you see, telling me all about the meanings behind those stories is sort of beside the point at this point.

I am in Hawaii right now, and I am so lucky to be here. My mother is with me and she just had a knee replacement surgery six weeks ago and my daughter is here too and it's a little like having two kids to look after while I'm on a work retreat. Not that I'm complaining, believe me I am not. But my time to resond to e-mail is limited. I will try to, I really will. Because people have the most amazing stories. Everyone's story of how they woke up and saw through the workings of their religion and their faith is interesting, even if they don't give it up in the end.

Also, I got many letters from priests and pastors who told me that they too, don't believe anymore, but what can they do? They are in a profession and they have been at it a long time. This is so heartbreaking to me.
Soooo... no spell check and I'm not even going to read this over, but I felt I had to put something up on the site.

Raining in Hawaii

Well, it’s pouring rain here. And I like it. It probably won’t last. I love the daily rain in tropical islands.

I am still getting tons of letters from people all over the United States. Ira says that approx. 1.7 million people listen. (Ira wrote and said they have gotten possibly more comments on this weekend's show than any other -- I haven't asked yet if it's more positive or negative.)

So, I can’t speak about the general opinion. But the letters to me are really positive. Wow, I am so fascinated by everyone’s stories. So many people who feel the same way. Only a few begging me not to “let go of God.” Most are supportive and from people who feel exactly the same way.

You know, when I first “let go of God” I felt it was a private thing, something I didn’t need to share with anyone. But now, as I see what religion is doing in our culture and in our politics, I think we’ve all just got to be a lot more out-spoken about how we feel. I remember being hesitant at first, when people said religious things around me, even benign things like…”Well, it will all work out for the best.” I would just say nothing. I would simply joke to myself “Yes, that’s just what Hitler said…” But now, I do say things like that. Or I say, “Well, I don’t believe that is always the case, but I know what you mean. “ Or something like that. I am proud of being a woman without superstitions, to me it’s liberating, nothing to be ashamed of. I think of it as an achievement, and I’m not going to be quiet about it.

I got a lot of letters from people who were raised in a religion and then when they were around 12, they saw through it all and left. In fact, most of my own friends had this exact experience. I think they are fascinated by how I could have believed for so long. I think it’s a combination of the following:

1.) I needed to believe emotionally and I didn’t want to NOT believe that there was something there that cared about me.

2.) I didn’t think about it deeply. I dipped into my belief when I needed it or when it made certain circumstances more tolerable or more “poetic” and then I went back to a benign skepticism when I didn’t need it.

3.) I had a serious lack of science education. I would latch on to seemingly scientific ideas about “energy” or “the power of intention” or “synchronicity.” I just didn’t have the critical thinking skills or the basic scientific knowledge to not be vulnerable to lots of ideas that seemed to make sense if you didn’t look into it too much.

So, I was never a big believer to begin with. I mean, more than my friends. In some ways, loosing my faith wasn’t the big deal. It was on the other end, it was in accepting myself as an evolved animal on a planet in a vulnerable fathomless abyss. And after you got over the horror of it, the deep realization that we’re merely random flowers blooming in a sea of minerals, then it was all so different. That impact was immensely greater for me. It made me appreciate each day, each moment so much more. It made me grieve for injustice in a whole new way. It made me truly afraid and appreciative. My investment in my own life grew and my concern for others plight increased.

Anyway, most of the letters I’ve gotten are from people who feel the same way I do. And that just makes me feel great – obviously. Thank you so much people!

The letters I got from people who were upset and angry – well… Many of them started out the same way, something like, “I know you think people like me are stupid, and I can tell you even enjoy putting us down.” One person said, “Obviously you get off on humiliating others.” Get off? Get off on humiliating others? Another person started their letter, “I bet you feel pretty good about yourself right now, stomping all over the sacred book that most of us hold dear.” Or something like that. Anyway, all day yesterday I was thinking, “Well, was I gloating? Do I ‘get off’ on this?” I felt I really didn’t. I didn’t do this rashly. It’s not the only topic I’ve taken on. I don’t make my living from it. I have lots of dear relatives who are believers. I tried not to be condescending.

Then I thought, “Well what if I WAS ‘getting off' on it?” What difference would that make to the truth? If someone were attacking me as a non-believer, I wouldn’t -- first thing -- right off the bat, accuse them of enjoying disagreeing with me. Or of happily humiliating me. I would try to counter them with the facts and I would keep my feelings about their state of mind while attacking me to myself. It’s beside the point.

I didn’t know what an ad hominum attack was until a few years ago. Which is horrible because I was a high school debater and my dad was a lawyer and I should have known about it. But basically it means when you attack the character of your opponent as a way of arguing for your view. It’s such a basic thing. It’s sort of what my parents did the whole time I was growing up. “Well he’s an idiot.” Or “Why would listen to THAT guy, everyone knows he’s nuts.” “You are angry right now” and so basically everything you say has no merit. Or I even think of old arguments with a particular old boyfriend where every time I brought up something disagreeable he began to attack me on “when “ I brought it up, or “how” I brought it up or my “tone” when I brought it up. Everything became about everything else and not the facts of the case.

I suppose this is so obvious to everyone in the world, but it sure wasn’t to me. I mean, until a few years ago.

Well, I am going to try to post something every day. I can’t write about my job, clearly. But I can write about everything else. Now it’s stopped raining and Mulan and I are going for a swim before my work starts for the day. Yippee! A seven a.m. swim, what could be better?

The Show Is Closed

Boo Hoo. I mean, yippity yah.

Well, after a Herculean effort by many, the show closed this weekend. We added a matinee on Saturday because of the demand for tickets, which of course, just thrilled me. Doing the two o’clock matinee instead of a three o’clock made a huge, enormous difference when it came to the eight o’clock show. If I ever do this show again, that’s good information. I got to come home, eat something, take an hour nap, and I was as ready for the eight o’clock show as I would have been any other night. The audiences were great and it wasn’t too hot outside. I feel really glad about the whole experience.

I’m saying the show ran for ten months, when I suppose technically it was only nine months. We started to sell tickets Sept. 3, but we were in rehearsals all through August. That’s pretty much a year. And in retrospect, this is really all I’ve done for a year. It makes me feel great that a year ago, I was still writing this show, and now it’s finished the L.A. run. I’m not even sure at this point if there will be any more “runs.” I may just do the show here and there in a specialized way before I film it. And then, there is also still the possibility of taking it to New York, after this next year with Desperate Housewives is over.

My Aunt Bonnie, who is a faithful Catholic, and who is one of the most wonderful people I know in the world, keeps telling me, “Julie, this topic isn’t going away. You could do this show for years and years.” And that statement has stayed in my head and made me feel calmer about closing it. Yeah. I can wait a while and do this show again in a year or so. In the meantime, I will finish the book and the Cds.

Last night, after the matinee was over, we all took down the set. It took two carloads and a small pick up truck full of stuff to get everything back to my house. Steve Mallory helped me put the rug back down in the living room and put the sofa on top of it. We put my Stickley chair back in its place, and the round end table next to it and suddenly my living room was back to it’s old self. It was as if I had never moved that furniture and never done the show at all. Last night I sat on my chair, the same chair I use in the show, and read. Everything old is new again! Mulan was with us all day and sbe danced all around as people took down lights and cables and the star drop curtains and we loaded everything into electrical boxes. I am going to miss Zeke and Sabra at the theater, and my crew, Heather and Sean and Steve and Jamie – I mean we got to know each other so well over this year. We knew each other’s weekly frustrations and dramas. Oh, it makes me sad.

I am going to sell one of my video monitors to the Groundlings Theater, and I’ll keep the other one. Declan, who helped make the set and who did a great job on the book shelves on the set that hid a post that was in our way, suggested that I sell the video monitor to the Groundlings as they need one desperately and have a limited budget. My ex-husband -- Steve Hibbert, who I am still good friends with, is directing the new Groundings show and I bet he'll be happy to have that equipment.

Drew, my video and sound designer came by while we packed up last night and he convinced me that if I ever do a run of this show again, I can just buy another one and that prices are constantly dropping and if it’s a limited run, it’s easier to rent them than buy one. Drew took out his computer that had the sound effects on it, out of the booth. We are going to make all of this into one Keynote file on my computer so I can do this show with one set of images and one stream of sound where ever I go. This way I could perform the show at colleges, which really excites me more than doing a whole run of the show again. In the meantime, I have one more performance to give for the Independant Film Festival on June 23. But for that I only need one computer to run the show.

Heather came over last night at like, eleven or so and brought me the keys to the theater (which I have to turn in tomorrow) and we sat in the living room and talked. It was really a pleasant, easy, smooth closing.

I can’t believe how much Mulan has grown up in the ten months since the show opened. It seemed really stark to me yesterday because I can remember her so well when we put the set up! I mean, she was sort of a little kid then, just out of toddlerhood when the show opened. Four years old. And now she’s five and a half and she pranced between our legs last night dancing and everything about her is now a girl; her body, the way she talks. She can barely remember when I wasn’t doing this show. She has her crayons and dolls in my dressing room that had to get packed up – she knows all the terms, “the booth” “backstage” “the set” “house manager.” I wonder how much she will remember. I used to think, “Oh, she’ll forget all this.” But now, I think she’s in the realm of personal history. She was very excited last night when she realized that we now own a set of walkie-talkies.

I have been sleeping much better. I have been taking Arden on a walk at night. I was only able to do this, this last week, while Lisa was here to watch Mulan. So for three days I got to walk Arden around the neighborhood for an hour around seven or eight o’clock. When I used to see people walking their dogs at night I was so jealous. And it made a huge difference in my sleep. Just enormous.

Well, now I have to get ready for this Saturday when we fly to Hawaii with the Desperate Housewives writing and producing staff. I can’t BELIEVE how great everything worked out. I mean, I just cannot believe it.

I have felt so stressed out lately, with the pressures of the book and the show. But I can feel this deep psychological muscle just…relax. I already feel a thousand times calmer today than I did yesterday. I don’t know if it will stick, but I bet it does. Even though I love performing, I am fantastically relieved to be stopping for a while. This was a really great year. And it just got even better because now it’s over. It’s so funny how that’s the case. It’s like, now this wonderful year working on this show is something I can savor in my mind and I don’t have to be bothered with any of the petty details of making it continue. I was thinking last night, what if I never did this show again? Would it be okay? What if it was never a movie or anything? And I thought, it WOULD be alright. I mean, ten thousand people saw my show this year. Ten thousand! Right there that’s worth it. If only for them. And that makes me so happy, like I already won and anything else that happens is gravy.

Not So Desperate Anymore

Okay, the best thing of all, the very best thing of all, is that I had a great night of sleep last night. I actually slept seven straight hours last night. And this just makes me want to cry with happiness because I have not had any decent sleep for days. Man, my sleep problems are really my number one problem. I figure there are two things that lead me to getting a good night’s sleep. One is working out really hard during the day and the other is not having any excitement in my life or performing to do. The excitement and performing thing is a hard one because, well… I am a performer. And that means excitement. And when I say excitement, I don’t mean, y’know, “excitement”! Excitement can mean bad things too, anxiety, worry, and just wrangling the level of uncertainty that I have in my life.

Now that I’ve been in “show business” for twenty years, I can see that one of it’s biggest plusses is also it’s downside. Which is nothing is ever regular or predictable. It’s a high uncertainty field. And I think my temperament is really made for this in some ways. I can tolerate pretty high levels of uncertainty about my future and I do thrive in some ways on the adrenaline that comes with getting projects done at the last minute or never knowing if your show is going to tank or run for a long time. But I also see that it’s just killing me. Honestly, I feel so worn out. And sadly, although I have become accustomed to this uncertain, this constant uncertain life, the excitement and nervousness that comes with it is getting actually harder to deal with in my body. Which is how I get to the sleep problem.

My father was a notoriously poor sleeper. He had sleep debt all the time. I can throw these types of terms around with confidence now that I’ve read this book, “Counting Sheep” which had a huge impact on me and a book I recommend to anyone who sleeps. FYI: Sleep is really important. Anyway, I think I either learned or inherited my dad’s poor sleep habits. And now, in my mid-forties, it’s really taking a toll. I mean, it can really ruin your life. And now I even have Fear-of-not-sleeping and that just makes it all worse!

What’s sad is that many of my favorite moments of my life, the memories I hope to cherish as long as I can cherish memories, are of performing. I feel I am most “me” and at my best performing on stage. I’m not saying I’m so great at it, I’m just saying, this is the thing I do that I’m most proud of and I get the most enjoyment from. But then the adrenaline that builds up in me is just almost intolerable. I cannot sleep. I just cannot. Now even Excedrin P.M.’s don’t work, I’ve taken so many of them, so regularly. I haven’t resorted to prescription pills because that would mean admitting that I have a sleep problem that is BIG. And it means taking a prescription which, which just makes me sad. I don’t know, but I get a lot of pride from not taking any prescriptions. I don’t know if this is because my parents are/were on ten or so different prescriptions and were my whole life or what. But I just…resist that. Plus, I honestly don’t know if there’s something that would work.

What I’m thinking is that I have to just have a more predictable life and stop performing for a while. Pull myself together. I really feel like doing “Letting Go Of God” has aged me ten years in the last ten months. I am pudgier and puffier than I have ever been. I am tired so much of the time. I am not eating really well, too -- much food on the go and eating too much of it. I haven’t been regularly exercising other than taking Arden hiking five days a week – and we usually go only once around Runyon Canyon which is only between 1.8 miles and 2.4 miles depending on who you listen to.

Oh my goodness, I have gone on too long about my problems. But there is a hopeful future! For one thing. I took a job. A great job. A regular job. That will have, like, some predictability in it. I mean, I think anyway. And I’m not in charge, it doesn’t all hinge on me. And it all worked out so well, I am just astonished that it worked out so well.

So the headline is: I’m going to go write on this little show called, “Desperate Housewives.” The deal just got done on Friday. It’s really -- see, I was gonna write, “exciting” shit! But yes, it’s exciting. The offices are at Universal Studios which is only twenty minutes from my house. I’m like…on staff, a regular employee, part of the team! And everything fell into place the last few days: Lisa, Mulan’s babysitter is available and back from China, so I’m hiring her on a part-time regular basis, my show is ending next weekend and I start on June 4 basically so that worked out eerily perfectly. I am not working full time on Desperate, like…3/4 time, so I will have some time to volunteer at Mulan’s school and work on other things. The writing team is going to Hawaii together for a week in June which is…like…AWESOME. I get to take Mulan with me. So…there you go.

Also, the This American Life show that is going to be about my show, Letting Go Of God, is going to be on June 3 (at least here in L.A. where the show is on Saturdays) and I am recording it on Monday and Tuesday with Ira Glass at KCRW. This is also mind-bogglingly exciting. See, there’s that word again! But still, yes. Exciting beyond belief. And I’m editing the shows together to be a CD and that might be done fairly soon.

The bad news is that I’m going to have to majorly extend or get out of my deadline on the book. Like I’m thinking I have to give back the advance. Oh, that is so humiliating. And painful to even think about. But what I’ve come to realize is that I cannot get this book done in the time that they have given me. Which is already so much time. My book editor has been generous with the time already, and still, it’s not enough time. I AM going to finish this book. I mean, I have so much of it written already! But I want to have a more leisurely time to write it and -- I don’t know -- I am just not dealing with the deadlines on this book well at all. I really want it to be thorough and great and it’s just not thorough and great right now. So this means a really humiliating and awful conversation with my editor. What I wish is that they would let me take the next nine months to finish it. Which I think I could do. Plus, having an office somewhere else is going to help me get things done. And what’s really going to help is stopping performing the show. I think. I mean, the whole thing, the whole book disaster makes me feel like an enormous failure and untrustworthy to boot. I have never NOT delivered on a project. But I just haven’t been able to get the time to do it while I’ve been performing. It’s only been in the last month of so that the Figuring-Out-The-Show hat has been taken off and the Figuring-Out-The-Book hat has been put on. ARGH.

The last few days I’ve been going over the decisions I’ve made. It’s hard to tell if I’ve done the right thing. But I will say, it all feels right right now, because I’m so happy about this job on Desperate, so thrilled, I am just pinching myself. But I basically could have taken his show to New York, and I turned it down. And I think this show is not only my best show, I think it’s culturally and politically relevant right now. And yet, I just could not do it. Six to eight shows a week – moving, what it would do to Mulan. No partner to help me out, it would have been horrible. I even had a last ditch New York fantasy where I went and only did matinees. Matinees are the perfect show for me, plenty of time to come down off the show and get to sleep on time. I would get evenings with Mulan and I would be the one reading her the story and putting her to bed. So I had this elaborate fantasy that I went to New York and only did matinees all week. Wouldn’t that be fantastic!? It would be a job like any other job. In the DAYTIME. Ah, well…

This also means postponing the filming of Letting Go for the time being. I was planning on filming the show in the fall, but now I bet I will have to wait a year. And I want to finance the film and direct it myself, and that means coming up with the $, which I could also do if I borrowed from myself – money I vowed never to touch, or take a mortgage out on the house. But if I save all year and I could probably do it without dipping into that money next Spring. So that’s the current plan. Shooting next Spring. I am doing the show for the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival in June – June 23 and things might change based on that.

Wow, now THIS is a personal blog. Money, sleep, body image – that’s the real personal stuff.

Yesterday was Mulan’s school’s Fair. We went for most of the day and we ended up buying six baskets of stuff. I really didn’t expect our bids to get taken on SIX baskets of stuff. So now my living room is filled with…well, junk. All the stuff I am trying not to accumulate. And we’ve got to clean it all up before the matinee. We got a Hello Kitty basket and a Baking basket and a Arts & Crafts basket and a Beach basket. Let’s just say that I have birthday presents for kids covered for the next three years at least!

Fast, Cheap, and Good

I'm not an entrepreneur, just yet.

Because, now I’m not doing the CD anymore. I mean, I am. But not NOW. OHHHHH! Yesterday had so many hours spent discussing something that’s just going to get postponed. Right now it feels like I wasted the day just talking about it so much. But I think it’s the best thing to postpone the CD a little bit.

See, I recorded three shows to edit together to make one Letting Go Of God (LGOG) Live CD. While I was doing this, I was, of course, as always, listening to This American Life every time it came on and I was thinking that LGOG would be very good if it were done as a Spoken Word CD as well. The medium of telling my story directly into the microphone to one person. You wouldn’t get the audience there laughing, but then you would gain an intimacy and my performance would be so much different if I were doing it this way. But then, after many discussions with friends, I decided that it was too confusing to do two different recordings of the same show, and that I should just go with the one, and that ONE should be the live recording.

But then, yesterday, I literally spent hours on the phone with Ira, talking about my experience and how we are going to do this This American Life show. And he felt that I should do the show as a Spoken Word recording. I mean – of course he likes that better, he’s Ira Glass for crissakes. But he said some things that make sense about the intimacy of the writing and how he read the script first and had a certain feeling, imagining me say it, and was different when he heard the live recording I sent him. There was something lost in the live recording. I was playing more for laughs, more for the audience.

Of course I can completely see what he’s talking about. But which to do, the live or the spoken word? Then, after talking to Ira later again about it, he suggested and I think he’s right, that after I record the sections of my show for his show, which will be a spoken word format and listen to them back again, I will know which way is best.

But this means not getting the CD done in time for the show to air. And it means that I told a jillion people the CD is going to be ready soon and it won’t be.

So, now I’m not making the CD right now. I’m going to wait. I think it’s better to get it done right rather than fast or when the most people might want to buy it. ARGH! Also, to get it done this quickly would incur a lot of fast-track prices that make it more expensive. Plus, there is so much I need to learn about how to do this, and I want to put a lot of time into it…I heard once that you can do any creative project two of the following three ways: Fast, Cheap, and Good. Your project can be Fast and Cheap, but not Good. Or it can be Good and Cheap, but not Fast. Or Fast and Good, but not Cheap.

I think that’s right.

I’m going with Cheap and Good. And Slow.

Then I had another talk with my editor yesterday, who I love so much, but who is understandably frustrated that my book deadlines are continually delayed. This caused me so much anxiety that I was up, again, last night all night long. Really. I finally took Excedrin P.M.’s at five in the morning, just desperate out of my mind for some sleep. They should make Excedrin A.M.’s for when you are up at five a.m. and you just need two good hours of sleep. Because now I have that sleep medication hang over. In the night as I frantically paced the floor, I decided I have to give the book advance back. I don’t know if I can write this book with this much else going on. But of course, this is not the state of mind to make these decisions, with two hours of sleep.

I may take a job – well, it looks highly likely I will take a job writing on a TV show today – the details are getting worked out. Of course it could all fall through. But man, I so want some stability. I am tired of freelancing my way through. Ira and I talked a lot about freelancing versus being on staff on something. Right now I want very much to be on a staff, working on something other than my own projects.

While I was up in the night, I had my New American Bible out and I reread parts of each book of the New Testament. I am going to have a conversation with a theologian soon and I need to bone up. It’s just amazing to me that anyone thinks that the four Gospels are anything other than different drafts, different versions of the story – the clearly fictional story – of Jesus. In this one they cut the birth scene, in that one they make his family travel 60 miles for a census, in that one a star moves around showing where Jesus was born, in this one three guys with incense and myrrh come, in this one draft Jesus dies and cries out “My God, why have you forsaken me?” And in that one, Jesus just says, “It is finished.” It’s like a typical group of screenplays up for arbitration at the Writer’s Guild. In this Gospel, Jesus is related to David with 42 generations between them (and that’s related through his father, Joseph, who he’s not even related to directly anyway) and then in that one Jesus and ABRAHAM have 42 generations between them and they are completely different people named as ancestors as the ones between Jesus and David.

Anyone who says there is no inerrancy in the Bible clearly has not read the Bible. In fact, the Bible makes mistakes about itself! The Bible itself is lax in it’s OWN reading of the Bible. There’s a reference in the New Testament to a passage in Jeremiah that isn’t there – it gets things wrong all over the place when it refers itself.

In one Gospel Jesus says, “Whoever is not against me, is with me.” And in another Gospel he says, “Whoever is not with me, IS against me.” I mean – isn’t that direct contradiction? Hmmm, could it be that Jesus is just like all of us, on some days optimistic and other pessimistic? Who knew that only two thousand years later the most powerful man in the world would use this pessimistic quote to threaten the entire political landscape to coerce them into joining us in a war in that very region of the world?

Wow, I must seem like a crazy woman, up in the night reading the Bible. It’s so funny, there I was with my grade school Bible, and I figured it must have been handed to me in about sixth or seventh grade. I bet I have used that Bible more than any other kid who was handed that Bible in that class! I even have a note in the Bible from high school, because we were to use the same Bible’s all the way through, that excuses me from gym class for a doctor appointment. The note is written to our P.E. teacher Mrs. Roberts (even though Mrs. Roberts herself asked to be “Ms.”) and it’s signed by Sister Mary Howard – not even her real signature, just a stamp of her signature. Ms. Roberts is dead now. I wonder where Sister Mary Howard is?

Okay, this is going to be one of those blogs where I’m worried people will be worried about me. Not sleeping, reading the Bible in the middle of the night.

Oh, now Mulan is up and we must start our day. I will take a nap today. I will get clear on things. I will eat well. I will take Arden on a hike.

The Entrepreneur

So I spent the whole day yesterday figuring out how to make my own CD.

I have these three shows that I’m editing together on Pro-tools. Then I have another recording of “In The Family Way” that I could also put out on CD, and if I do both CDs at the same time, I can save some costs. The margins are small, a dollar to a few dollars if I sell the cds on Amazon. Amazon takes 55%. This is all a reality call for making the film. It’s going to have a big learning curve, and for something I don’t really intend to do again! But still, I am glad to be doing this myself and I’m glad I didn’t allow another company to do it for me.

My show may be the featured story on This American Life in the next three weeks, so there is a big push to get the cds done. This is really a big deal if it all comes together, which it seems it will at the moment. Ira did one of his very first shows on This American Life all about God Said Ha! And it was transformative for the show even back then, suddenly it was a national thing rather than a smaller L.A. thing. We will see.

Today is another day when I will not be writing, just continuing to edit the audio version of the show and talking to my designer about the cd cover and booklet. I don’t see how I can get much done on the book until the show is closed. The poor book, it’s continuing to be shoved off to the side. But when I look back on it, it was impossible for me to write the book until the show was done. Now I must call my editor and have a difficult conversation. And Mulan and I have our violin class this morning.

Yesterday when I picked up Mulan there was a group of girls standing around the snack shop table with a violin, taking turns playing. They were really good! I was so impressed that we could even happen upon a scene like this. Mulan looked impressed and I was open-mouthed. When one of their mother’s arrived, I asked her how long her daughter had been taking lessons. Five years she said. Oh man – five years. But wow, imagine being able to play like that at age eleven. Really exciting.

Last night I went to bed reading James Randi’s “The Faith Healers.” I started getting so riled up about these charlatans. It’s so insidious; this type of exploitation preys on those people with the lowest thresholds of critical thinking.

Mulan and I are continuing our discussions about God, all prompted by Mulan herself. Last night while I was making dinner and she was sitting at the kitchen table doing homework, she said, “When the kids at school talk of God, I just keep doing my work and don’t talk.” First of all, it’s so cute to me that she always says “of” God for some reason, not “about” or “in” – it’s always, “You don’t believe ‘of’ God, right?” Or, “Let’s talk ‘of’ God.” And I find myself bizarrely saying to her, with continual firmness: “It’s IN God. IN God.”

Anyway, she was telling me that one of the girls in her “group” at school (they break the kids up into groups to work on certain projects and problems) keeps talking about God. And so we talked again about it. And you know, I think she’s really getting it. I was saying, “You know, when we see Dora The Explorer on TV, we know she’s not real. She’s a made up character. And when we went to a show where there was a real-life Dora The Explorer, we knew she was a person dressed up like Dora The Explorer, right?” And she totally got that. And then I said, “So that’s like God, it’s an idea, he’s a made up person that is in people’s imagination just like Dora, and he’s exactly as real as Dora is. Some people think God is real, but I don't think he is."

And you know, this time, she seemed to get it. You know, a year ago, she would have just said, “Dora is real.” But now she understands that Dora is not real, she’s a TV character, people can dress up like her. That seems significant to me. She gets that characters are fictional. The characters in the book we read last night are not real, they are made up by the author.

But then, again, at the end of our discussion, I said, “You are way, way too young to know about God. I wish kids didn’t even talk about God.” And she said, “But they do, all the time.” That is so shocking to me. I don’t remember that. Although I suppose we must have been talking about it. I was at a religious school. Or maybe because our family believed in God, and I did too, I just didn't even think about it, the conversations didn't make any type of blip on the radar. And I know that this is more about Mulan realizing that we are different than other people than about anything else.

I suppose I cannot control this, it’s just going to happen. And I was thinking that my biggest job with Mulan is to teach her how to have critical thinking skills – just like that guy said at my party. I don’t want her to be a person who is going to be easily swayed by whatever someone’s trying to convince her about. I want her not to spend all the time I spent being so gullible and as easily convinced like I was. I suppose this is what every parent hopes. But still, I think that with our non-mainstream views of religion, it’s a plus, it allows us to talk about what critical thinking is at a pretty young age.

At the conference, there was some talk about a person’s level of absorption. Absorption is a person’s ability to give themselves over to a story or a fantasy. I would imagine I have a high level of absorption. This is something I like about myself. It’s what children have in spades. But this absorption level is correlated with belief in the supernatural – which I guess, is a pretty obvious correlation.

Maybe that’s why it’s so important to me, this whole God thing with Mulan. Because I know what it’s like to enjoy believing in something. And it took me so many years to distinguish between believing in things that were real and not real. Not just God, but in other things too: synchronicity, destiny, fate, pre-ordained coincidence. But life is not any less wonderful for not letting myself succumb to those fantasies. In fact it’s more wonderful. But it’s exactly like how a kid makes sense of the world while he or she also takes part in what is such a great hallmark of our minds, our ability to fantasize and think about stories and give ourselves over to the narrative. It’s tricky, but doable.

I am so glad that I waited to have kids. I would not have been able to have any of these discussions with my child if I’d have kids in my twenties. See, sometimes it’s better to be older. Even if you’re tired a lot of the time.

A wonderfull time had by...well, me for sure.

So. Yesterday. A big day. I had to get ready for the show and the party. I had Mulan with me all day, basically talking non-stop. And a dog leaping into the air all morning because he thought I was taking him on a hike, which I wasn’t. And we filmed the show yesterday – not for selling, but for a reference for me for the future – and then we had the party at my house after the show. I was really stressed out in the morning, getting alcohol, ordering the dessert, putting out flowers, tucking away all the odds and ends and all those things you think won’t take much time, but ends up taking LOTS of time. I was so happy when I got to the theater and I knew that I was basically done with the hard stuff. All I had to do was the show and enjoy the party.

I think it was a big success. I know, I had a fantastic time. About fifty people came to my house and we ate Mexican food and had margaritas and I got to meet so many amazing people. There were people from all over – I got to talk to the Irish Skeptics, there were two of them who came all the way over here, and James Randi was here too and he even did some magic for Mulan, which blew my mind! I was so tickled to even have him in my home. It was fun to have Michael Shermer here – I kept thinking of when I read, “How We Believe” and how it was such an important book for me and then, wow, here he is, coming to my own house!!! I was having to pinch myself.

People stayed until about 11:00, we all ended up hanging out in the living room. It was just fantastic. I was so glad to have the party. I can barely move today, of course. But I’m very smiley today.

I am thinking of two things and then I have to get to work. One is that Mulan kept asking me for the phone number to the place where I called to have her adopted, because, well, she’s going to adopt a baby from China too and she’ll need to know the number. It was so hilarious. I kept saying, well, you can’t adopt a baby for a really long time and you’ll probably get married, and she said, “No! I’m going to adopt a baby just like you and I need to know the number!” And it was so funny to me, us going back and forth like that about the phone number.

Also, somebody last night, I forget his name – oh that’s so bad, but I couldn’t remember everyone’s name! Anyway, he was saying that it doesn’t matter whether people believe in God or not, what matters is if they are critical thinkers. And I really like that. It’s true. What really happened to me is that I went from being a non-critical thinker to a critical thinker. What went out with the bathwater was my faith. But I have no problem with people who feel they have sufficiently researched their religion and feel they are making a wise critical choice. But what gets me is when religion encourages no questioning, blind faith, and then when it’s taught to children I go nuts. Children should not be taught about religion at all. They have no real critical thinking skills, they can’t. It’s really abusive, in my mind, that people teach children about God without letting them know the arguments for the other side and explaining that they will make their own decision about these matters when they are skilled at critical thinking.

Of course, barely anyone would believe in God if it were that way.

In any case. It was a great day yesterday and I am beat beyond beat today.

I should just go ahead and take Valium

Because…you see, I get all excited like I’m a little kid. And if I’m really looking forward to something, I get all hyped up and I cannot sleep. I mean, I am up, looking at the clock every fifteen minutes. And then I wreck the thing I’m looking forward to because I didn’t sleep enough. Y’know, like I’m nine years old.

In fact, right now, right this moment. I’m going to go take an Excedrin P.M. so that it will start working on me and this won’t happen tonight. Right now it's late after Saturday's show. Mulan and the dog are sleeping. And I really wish I were too.

I’m back. And I took two. And I’m drinking a beer. Should I be worried?

But tomorrow’s a big day and I just gotta get some real sleep.

Okay, now I am seized with why I am even writing this. I think this blogging all the time thing, this thing I just started last week, will just go for a period of time, and then either I will just stop it, slow it down considerably, or become so embarrassed by something I’ve written that I will erase all of it. I have to keep reminding myself that blogs are only for those who wish to read them.

Okay, I’m blogging.

So, I was sooooo excited about the Skeptics conference at Cal Tech today, that I couldn’t sleep AT ALL last night. I mean, I usually have a hard time on Friday nights getting to sleep. Sometimes I don’t even get to sleep until two in the morning. But last night I was up until four. I was literally jumping up out of bed thinking I had overslept, only to find that it was merely ten minutes after the last time I did the same exact thing. And I had to be up at seven to get there in time for it to start.

Which of course meant that I went to the conference today and was so wiped out that I couldn’t stop dozing off and I had to pinch myself to keep myself focused. I’m not saying I didn’t get a lot out of it. I did, I did. I only was able to hear the first two sessions. But I got to hear plenty of wonderful people, Christoph Koch, Susan Blackmore – who I did get to meet and even get a picture with, and Alison Gopnik, too. It was really stimulating, fascinating, disturbing, educational – everything it should be. Of course, Michael Shermer was articulate and funny. I cannot wait until I don’t’ have to be performing myself and I can stick around and really hear everyone at these conferences.

The topic was consciousness. Susan Blackmore convinced me that consciousness is an illusion. She says it’s like the light in the refrigerator, only on when you look in, otherwise, it isn’t. Alison Gopnik convinced me that all children are scientists and that it’s the ones who retain this childlike wonder that become scientists as an adult. This really rings true for me. I learned about sleep and the areas of the brain that process visual information. I was in heaven learning all this stuff. (I have to say, I thought that the women were the best communicators during the speeches I heard. Not that the guys weren't good, of course, they're all geniuses. i mean that -- not sarcastically - they are. But the women, they seemed to see things differently and to me, more clearly and were able to pick out the obvious and communicate it better, more succinctly. Maybe I'm just sexist, but there you go...)

Oh how I wished I could have stayed longer. But I had to leave at four p.m. and get ready for my show tonight. I really had a great time doing the show tonight. I honestly feel lucky each and every time I get to do my show. (P.S. I am not articulate after a show. I repeat myself. And then repeat myself using words I just repeated in the previous sentence. Can you tell?)

Tomorrow is the big skeptic benefit party here at my house. I still have to buy tequila, some flowers, and the Italian cookies from Susina. This is all doable tomorrow morning. James Hammond is going to come to my house early and man the fort until the rest of eveyrone arrives -- the caterers, the servers, the bartender. THANK GOODNESS FOR JAMES.

My show is sold out, every single seat for the rest of the run. And the waitlist is already started. So I decided to go ahead and add a matinee for the last Saturday over Memorial Day weekend. May 28. We are going to have it at two o’clock, so that will give me from four thirty to eight to recover and do the next show. I think that will be okay. Previously when I did two shows in a day, it had been a three o’clock and an eight o’clock show. That extra hour will mean a lot. I don't think it will be hard. Plus, all the adrenaline from the knowledge that it's the last weekend, at least for some time, I think that will get me through.
Oh, I am so sad for the show to close. I am so sad. But I can’t perform anymore until the book is DONE. And there I go again, repeating myself. Good night. I can feel the drugs working. Yes, there we go. Relaxation, relaxation.

A Small Window

Well, it was a really fun show tonight. It was packed, we had as many people as we could possibly have in the theater. I was seized with a wish that I wasn’t closing the show in three weeks.

Even though I really must.

I can’t seem to finish the book while doing the show. I don’t know why, but I just can’t seem to. So I gotta take a break.

Plus, there are lots of interesting job possibilities afoot that I cannot talk about. That has been keeping me up at night. Reconfiguring, rethinking, imagining, worrying. All will soon be clear. Or gone.

Oh, how cryptic of me.

Okay, here’s something. I have two friends who are about to be ordained Jesuit priests. Well, one is someone I consider to be a friend. The other is an acquaintance. I really like them both a lot. They are funny and smart. They are eager and sincere. But, we obviously have very different views of the world.

I got an invitation to the ordination in Spokane. (They are being ordained at the same time.) I sort of didn’t know what to do. Imagine if I had sent them an invitation to my “High Priestess of Atheism” ordination. What would they do?

I finally settled on sending the one who I truly consider to be a friend a note saying, “I am so happy for you. You know I feel so differently about the world and hope that someday you see things my way, just as you probably wish I saw things your way, blah blah blah. But I am happy that you have achieved your dream.” And I figured out a present that I think he’d like.

But then, this week, I got an e-mail from the other acquaintance-person-about-to-be-ordained that said, “Protect the God-ordained institution of marriage! Go to nogaymarriage.com and sign a petition to save marriage.”

Hmmmmmm….

What am I to do with this? I opted for: ignore it.

Then I come home later in the day and see that another person who received this message (there were about fifty people on the address list) wrote to all us “reply all”s, and said, “What difference does it make if two consenting adults want the same legal rights that marriage affords? Please take me off your mailing list.” And then another e-mail from another person said, “Yeah, I agree. Please take me off the mailing list.”

So that made me feel better about writing something. And I wrote something short and quick, something like, “are you talking about the Judeo-Christian God who’s Bible is full of men who marry as many women as they can afford and have relations with their female slaves, and it’s all condoned by God?” or something like that. And then, of course, “take me off your mailing list.”

I almost regretted the last part because I am sort of intrigued by what these types of people send each other. I hate to only hear from those who have opinions I already agree with. But on the other hand, these types of people – there’s no getting anywhere with them. They are stuck in their point of view (as I imagine they feel I am about mine) and there’s no changing it. It’s pointless and depressing to see their e-mails.

Anyway, I write this whole long boring story to get to one thing. I got an e-mail back from one of the people on the list that said “Keep this kind of thing off the internet!”

At first, I thought this person was responding to the entire group about the entire topic and message. But then I realized it was addressed to only me. So he wanted ME and MY message – not just off the e-mail list, but off the INTERNET.

Which made me laugh, almost, all day. Honestly, I giggled about this intermittently all day long.

Me, me? Me and my measly off handed comment about the realities of the God they worship’s views about marriage? Not the 50 ads for penis enlargement or the 75 ads for lonely housewives waiting for fun that we all must get in our e-mail baskets every single day? Not the full-on pornography, bestiality or child porn? ME??? Me and my little comment, this is what this guy wants to keep off the entire Internet?

Then I got a one other comment from a woman who said, “If you are going to quote the Bible…” (I didn’t quote the Bible, I merely made a comment about the God of the Bible’s view of marriage) you must know that the Bible says, “A man shall not lie with another man.”

And then, before I could even fantasize about writing this woman back, saying, “Yes, the Bible does say that, about two lines after it says that children should be stoned to death for disobeying their parents and about three lines later it says that you can’t eat meat unless the animals first born male has been sacrificed (by burning) and about five lines later it says that if you are a woman and you are menstruating, if you leave the house, you will be outcast from the tribe for all time…

But oh yes, that’s what the BIBLE says – a man should not “lie” with another man!!!! Before I can write this rant, or even fully fantasize about it, this woman says, “I have banned you from ever e-mailing me again.”

HAHAHAHAHA! Oh. Oh… Like I’m going to barrage this woman with e-mails. Like…she really got me! I was looking forward to a big e-mail debate!

Now, dear reader, can you see how I am so burnt out on the God stuff? And yes, I hear you, why did I even write my e-mail to begin with?

But let’s not think of that. Let’s think about my delightful audience tonight. And what a lucky girl I am to be able to perform this show. And how sad I am it is about to end…

After the show I spoke to a woman about how my show appeals to people over forty for sure, and mostly people over fifty or sixty. And she said, I think that hormones control your life for so long, you can barely think. And then you get older, the hormones die down and it’s not all about procreating anymore and you get to wake up and see the world for what it is. And then when you think how dementia and Alzheimer’s and so forth can easily rob you of your brain in your older years, it only leaves you with this small window of clear thinking.

Wow. I never thought about it quite like that before.

I do think she’s right, there’s such a small window when you are smart enough to know things, courageous enough to see things clearly, and have enough acuity of mind to really experience the world. Its so short. Such a short little window in life.

Tomorrow, oh, now in fact – today – I am going to go to the Skeptics conference at Cal Tech. So I gotta get to sleep. I think if I meet Susan Blackmore I will absolutely die from happiness.

And! My house is so ready for the party! I hardly have to do anything. I got almost everything done today.

Yippity yah!

A Day In May

What a difference a day makes.

Okay, today is one of those days where I wake up, thinking I can conquer the whole world. I probably won’t get beaten down into reality until at least noon. Also, Mulan is still asleep and this is the magic hour where I whip around and get things accomplished.

Tonight I’m making a dinner for a friend’s birthday. My friend Julia. Our kids were best friends first and then we became friends. She is wonderful. We are exactly the same age – well, she is six months older than me. I am always asking her for her sage advice. She is astonishing, this Julia. She is majorly into crafts and is fantastic at them. And she gets these enthusiasms. She was really into quilting – well she still is. But she was getting all these wonderful quilts made in the forties and fifties on e-bay and then repairing them. She got one for Mulan that is amazing. She got me a book about quilting (I was actually already into quilts, but I’ve never made one) and now we are going to take a quilting class this summer. All I’m saying is that I’m thinking: bowties or maybe octagons, or then there’s the wedding ring style. Oh, it’s all so exciting. Then Julia got into vintage glasses. She would buy these amazing vintage glasses on e-bay for like…a dollar. The thing Julia really has, I realize, is taste and stamina. Which means that if I were going through six thousand vintage glasses on e-bay, I wouldn’t have the wherewithal to look at them all, and then I wouldn’t have the good taste to pick out the best ones. Then Julia got into vintage class rings. She got one for herself and it ended up having her husband’s initials on it, without her realizing it would. It’s from the thirties and it’s gold and it’s gorgeous. It’s from some technical college in the Midwest. And it cost like…three dollars. Then she got me a ring, it’s from 1937. We aren’t sure where it’s from. It’s silver. It’s gorgeous. I like wearing it. It cost about four dollars. I am always looking forward to Julia’s next enthusiasms. Also, Julia is a very good writer on top of it. But she’s being a full-time mom right now. Julia’s next project is a home made doll house for her daughter. She went and bought wrapping paper to be the wallpaper in each of the rooms and had someone cut the pieces of wood. She bought greeting cards to be paintings in the rooms. I can already see it’s going to be a work of art. Julia worked at Martha Stewart Magazine before her mom-gig. Like that wasn't already obvious. She comes from the world of periodicals. And she's got great advice about clothes and writing too. It's almost too much for one person to be good at all that.

Speaking of wallpaper, the garage map-of-the-world is going up today. I cannot wait. And Mulan is ahead in her homework. And Lisa is back in town and everything is much, much, much better. Last night I had Lisa babysit because I had to go to a meeting for a possible job as a writer on a TV show. The meeting was at seven and lasted until eight. I had Lisa until 9:30. Lisa drives an hour to get to us, so I don't feel good unless I have her babysit three hours, cause it's not really worth it for her.

And so after the meeting I had an unexpected hour and a half to kill with a babysitter and no where to go! Not enough time for a movie. I don’t want to shop. I called my friend Wendy and she was busy and then Bob and he was busy. I should have called Greg. But he would probably have been busy too. But anyway, it all led to this ridiculous hour of me driving around with no destination in mind saying to myself: I can do whatever I want! I can do whatever I want! And really having no place to go.

I ended up eating Chinese food at this little restaurant on Beverly and reading my issue of New Scientist magazine. This is just my favorite magazine right now. I read all about how lightening bolts create themselves inside clouds along with stuff from outside the Earth’s atmosphere (cosmic rays help make lighening!) and then, this amazing article about reconciliation between animals. Conflict resolution. Turns out we have a lot to learn about conflict resolution from other species. Revenge, this is the problem. Conflicts arise, of course, but in other species, they can get resolved quickly. In the quickest scenarios, it’s the loser of the initial conflict that comes and makes up. Makes some gesture at a truce. So it's the losers who are the ones who are really responsible for resolution. If they accept their state and adjust and reconcile with the dominant one, then peace is restored. But if they go off and lick their wounds and plan revenge, then it's another story.

Bonobos just have sex to make up for everything, even between members of the same sex, Sex is a huge communication tool for them. But our problem is revenge. Wanting and planning revenge. That really should be one of our seven deadly sins.

Anyway, the article did have all the usual scientific statement-of-the-obvious based on studies over years and years. Like: after careful examination of lemurs over ten years and graphed observations of every interaction, an estimated six million interactions, we have come to the conclusion that it’s more likely that reconciliation will occur when the two conflicting animals depend on each other for survival.

Well…duh.

That’s when I don’t think I could be a scientist. Imagine working on that project. I would be running around saying, how many interactions does it take to prove something everyone knows already? And I know that is not all that scientific of me to have that attitude.

Oh my gawd, it's so gorgeous here. Really sunny and beautiful. I hope I get time to go around twice at Runyon Canyon. And write ten pages for my book. And get the house organized. And make pizza on the grill for tonight. And a cake. And get the house sparklingly clean.
Yes, I can make it happen!

Late night blatherings about motherhood. Warning: could be pretty boring!

I am so wiped out on Mondays. I have learned to discount any depressed feelings I have on Mondays because I am so tired, so blindlingly tired from the weekend, that I usually just weave through the day. After I get Mulan off to school, and Arden walked, it’s about noon and I just want to lay down.

I was lucky today because I got out of jury duty. I called last night with my jury number and my group number and the automated voice said that I had completed my jury duty and not to check in today. I was so shocked I decided I had to have made that up and I called back and sure enough that’s what it said.

But then, I didn’t get all that much done today anyway. I may as well have gone. I was just so tired. Is this because the show is so hard, or am I older and have less energy, or is it the child care? Or what? I don’t know.

My parenting duties are expanding. Mulan goes to afternoon kindergarten and she really doesn’t have to be there until 11:20. Then she’s done at 2:45. There are a few activities at the school after-care program she’s signed up for. So I can get her at three thirty if I want to on three of the days. And then, she has a few dance classes during the week – violin and tennis too. And I only use babysitters on the weekends during my show for the most part – unless it’s something huge I cannot avoid or want to do desperately. Something that I am willing to spend an extra $60 on for babysitting. But in the end, it means I am on duty all week. And you know, I love it. I really do, I am glad to be the person picking Mulan up from school. I get the first report, I get to talk to the teacher if there’s something wrong. I have gotten to know her friends at school. When she says she sat by so-n-so, I know who that is.

But honestly, how much can I expect myself to get done between eleven and three? I get the dog walked, that takes an hour and a half. I return a few phone calls and some e-mail and if I’m lucky, and if I’m Herculean, I get in three hours of writing on the book. And that often includes writing while Mulan is in a class and I’m outside typing away.

Except Monday’s when it’s hard. Because I’m so tired. All I think about on Mondays, it seems, is how I’m going to move to Kauai and look at the stars and just retire. But I can’t retire for a long, long time.

Next year will be the same. Mulan is going to repeat Kindergarten next year. She only started at this school a few months ago, this public school in our neighborhood. It’s weird, but the private schools often attract the people who have the most money AND the most free time. There is usually a spouse that is primarily in charge of the kid or kids, mostly one that is not working. And they have their kids at private schools, wonderful private schools and the kids can be there from eight a.m. to five p.m. and get all the best classes and activities in the world. Often these families also have a full time nanny as well. There is an abundance of child-care options, spontaneity is no problem for these parents. And it’s not like I think these richer parents aren’t working hard, they ARE working hard.

But at the public school, mostly, it’s people who need to work – work as much as they can, every hour is an hour they could be earning more money somewhere – money that they need. And yet, the school is set up for maximum parental input. There are no teacher’s aides, so parents are encouraged to fulfill that role. There is no money for all day kindergarten, so it’s only a few hours. There is no P.E. or music – or it’s very limited.

But I love this school. I love public school. I think everyone should go to public school. I don’t even think private schools should be legal! I love that it’s our neighborhood and that all these kids are from all kinds of economic backgrounds. Several parents in our neighborhood who could easily send their kids to toney private schools have opted to send their kids to this public school and I love that sooooo much. I feel very glad to be away from the pressure of contributing time and money at a private school that already charges a lot of money and has an abundance of parents trying to jockey for position to volunteer. I really didn’t fit in at the private school. I always felt a little less-than. I mean, no one made me feel that way, but I did feel that way. I felt guilty that I wasn’t giving more or doing more all the time. I felt jealous of the women who could spend their mornings directing traffic into the school as volunteers and then go out to lunch with each other. At the public school, if you write a check for a couple of hundred dollars, they practically burst into tears with thanks and gratitude. It’s almost embarrassing how different it is. And it all just makes me even more committed to public school. And even more proud to be there.

But here I am, at a school I feel much, much, much more comfortable at, but one that requires more of my time. It’s like I left a private school because I felt guilty for not being able to spend time there and went to a public school where I’m HAVING to spend a lot more time there.

Well, I wanted to be at a school that would require me to make less money so I could spend more time with Mulan. But as far as money goes: how low can I go? That’s what I’ve been asking myself. How much free time am I willing to trade for money? If I let my once-a-week-housekeeper go, that is going to make it even harder to get writing assignments done. I am caught. I want to be the mom who’s always there. But I also love my work, I love to write, and I love performing too. And I feel I am really getting good at it and I also feel that this show I’m doing now is the best thing I’ve ever done. So I really want to do right by this show and by me. PLUS, I need to work. Even when I redo our budget to really be spare, it’s still a whole lot. It shocks me how much we need to live, just to get by, without saving anything. I mean, I’m not complaining, and I’m not totally broke by a long shot, but…y’know… It’s all a very hard balancing act. And yes, I know, I know everyone has a hard balancing act. But I’m just saying…this is a hard one.

Also, this public school – jeez. You should just see the homework. Mulan has about an hour of homework a night. FOR KINDERGARTEN. There is such pressure to keep the grades up and the testing up, I think. Or maybe it’s just way, way, way harder than when I went to school. When I went to kindergarten, you basically learned the alphabet. At this kindergarten, you are expected to proficiently read by the end of the year. And Mulan is beginning to read, but she is very far from reading easily. Or even getting most of the words.

Mulan and I, we spend our whole evenings doing homework. Often, that is the case. I keep thinking that if I had no other job, this job with Mulan now, is a good full-time job. You get a little recovery while she’s at school to make the beds and fill the dishwasher and run an errand, and then back on the job – baby. But adding work and the normal frustrations of writing…

I could get a job. I mean, a job where I went in to work. And like…got a salary. In fact, I may take or get a job in the coming few months. But I have really mixed feelings about it. On Saturday I went to a lunch on the beach with several girlfriends who I know from working on Sex & the City. One of the women is getting married and we were all celebrating. These women are all writers and all very successful. Their lives are dream lives in many ways. And they are all smart, talented, hard-working women. None of them have children. And there was a moment when one of the women said that she was going to Palm Springs for five days for a shoot and to break story ideas for episodes of the show she’s working on. And I was seized with jealousy. I want to do that!!! I remember when I did do things like that!!!! That can be really fun.

But also, I remember it being really hard too and boring a lot and frustrating. So I realized I felt both jealous and lucky not to be going at the same time with the same intensity. I couldn’t get myself to any clear view of it.

Plus: what’s the deal with all this homework for kindergarteners? I heard one parent say that because it’s only a half-day of school, they expect you to work with your kid for the missing part. If there were all day Kindergarten, they would do this work at school. But I don’t think so. I see the homework that the kids in the other grades have – it’s a lot. And I want Mulan to be in an academically challenging school. And she actually enjoys the homework for the most part. She loves that we have so much more interaction. And I like it too, it’s just…like this extra new full-time job.

I realize that having kids is really like going into business. It’s a business. You are now in the business of kids. Or Kid. And you need a big support team. I have heard women complain about other mothers who have nanny’s and lots of help and they are women who have their mother’s around to help or cousins or family. So they don’t really get it.

I want a tribe. I need a tribe.

Well, I sort of have one to a small extent with this family that Mulan and I spend a lot of time with.

Oh jeez. I gotta go to sleep. We have violin in the morning.