Monthly Archives: July 2011

this is the scariest video i’ve posted so far!

the scariest clip ever!  and not just because we talk about ted bundy type episodes.  this is something i’ve been sitting on for two weeks and am only just now realizing i can’t weasel out of. 

benjamin gonzalez is f2fb friend #140 and his wife marissa durbin is f2fb friend #141.  marissa has been following the progress of my new years resoution and when i suggested a get together she was hardly surprised.  i knew ben initially through his uncle laurence who is a photographer and did some (ahem!) portraits of me, one of which hangs in his house.  i happen to have forgotten to wear clothes that day.  that forgetfulness doesn’t happen very often but it does make an impression.  marissa and ben have an adorable eighteen month and ben is so in love with marissa that when he talks about her it’s a little like listening to a twelve year old talking about the aphrodite of the eighth grade class.

i went to dinner at their home.  marissa and i chatted.   ben might have been somewhat baffled that our talk kept circling back to facebook.  when marissa excused herself to put on the lipstick for a video, ben allowed as how he hadn’t expected that an old friend would haul off and play wedding party videographer.  that’s when i explained my new years resolution.

now, ben has been in the film business for quite some time. most of that time he has worked for strata entertainment (you can see their stuff at http://strataproductions.net) their focus is real life events recreated in a manner to challenge the filmgoer. 

i believe that letting ben document what i’m doing will help me finish my new years resolution.  i am grateful every single day for the help my facebook friends give me, whether it’s meeting with me, driving me to another friend’s house, playing chaperone, making me dinner, helping me get an advance on a line of credit on my house to pay travel expenses, introducing me to their family, tellling me i had a good impact on their life at some point, or sending me a gps system (which is in the mail) or a lucky charm such as william clark or the hedgehog.   i’ve twice had f2fb friends lay hands and pray over me.  i’ve been stunned by friends opening their homes and hearts to me. 

ben, on the other hand, made me feel so anxious that i bought a bottle of as good as i could afford and i sat down on the couch and drank it to the last drop.  when i woke up, i figured if i get to pursue my determined, eccentric dream–i gotta let ben work on his.  he and his crew are like a bunch of boy scouts working on that eagle badge. 

tomorrow, i get on the plane for new york.  then a train to rhode island.  then to boston.  back to new york.  home again.  and right back out to california (again!).  i sure hope the boy scouts stay on their side of the plane to new york.  i need my space to have my little freak out.


f2fb friend #166, flexibility, and NO beer! two out of three ain’t bad–

there can’t be a meeting between me and a facebook friend without me getting lost.  i have spent a lot of time at rest areas and freeway macdonald’s with a road atlas and my index cards with mapquest.com directions.  if my new years resolution is to see every one of my 335 facebook friends, that’s a lot of crying, driving in circles, and self-loathing. 

when i drove up to milwaukee i was actually pretty damn proud of myself. i was visiting f2fb friend #166 john gion who has 17 facebook friends in common with me.  i found his place quite easily.  that was before there was trouble:

john is a costumer who has worked for many theater and film production companies.  he has done work on many shows that my sons have been in.  he did the absolutely wonderful thing of asking after joseph and eastman when i arrived.

i told him i was taking him the milwaukee villa terrace museum of decorative arts.    i was sure that something like the milwaukee public museum or the pabst mansion would be too obvious.  we sallied forth in the direction suggested by mapquest. 

flexibility is the most important skill i’m learning this year.  because we got lost.  and i worried that i was disappointing john by not getting us to the new museum.  but john is one of the most flexible people, one who takes the world as it is presented to him.  he said “hey, we’re pretty close to the pabst mansion, let’s just go there” 

i was so relieved.  it was a beautiful tour of a mansion owned by the captain frederick pabst family.  john has displayed his costume collection in some of the 20,00 square foot home so it is nearly as if he was an owner.

too bad there wasn’t a pabst blue ribbon tasting after the tour. 

some people have asked me why i’m meeting all my friends and one part, small but significant, is that i am at an age where i am for the first time without children in the house.  and i know that one day i’m going to be a caretaker for my dad justin (f2fb friend #30) who was instititionalized by his wife barbara after my trip to tallahassee but has since gotten sprung.  i am at an in between phase. 

one of the things i admire about john gion is that he was a caretaker for his mother for many years before her death and now he acts as a caretaker for his father.  he has given up a lot to be there for him.  i hope to put him together with lon kiefer, f2fb friend #111 ,who has  a presence on facebook as defender of the caregiver, a resource for caregivers.

i left john at his apartment after a truly enjoyable afternoon–and i continue ahead to the next adventure. . .

next, andrew pearce helps me book flights for the international leg of the party–and i have news to share about the second half. . . .

 


christmas in july

it’s july one.  the middle of the year.  the middle of a new years resolution.  and i have achieved twin successes–a milestone and an intriguing but daunting proposal–and both scare me as much as they delight me.  but first, i must explain the blessed absolution i received in the matter of stealing the christmas trees from the boy scouts.

facebook posts and news feeds leave a lot of room for misunderstanding between friends.  and friends of friends.  my misunderstanding with f2fb friend #165 phil hoza had its origins in an event that occured even before there was a facebook! 

it was nearing christmas.  my then husband was working in england.  joseph and eastman were eight and four years old.  i had been feeling poorly.  low energy.  afternoons disappearing into naps, workouts disappearing altogether, boys watching a lot of television. 

i went to the doctor who said he was going to admit me to the hospital because i had pneumonia.  i said no, i have no one to take care of my children.  he gave me drugs and made me promise complete bedrest.  i drove home thinking about how the boys’ christmas was now officially ruined.  i stopped at the parking lot where the boy scout troop sold christmas trees.  nobody was there except for an old woman who picked out a tree, shoved it into the trunk of her car, and glided out of the parking lot with none of that shoplifter guilty look.  i figured “what the hell?”  and took a tree myself.

i put up the tree in my bedroom because it would make watching the boys easier.  they asked me where i had gotten the tree.

“i stole it from the boy scouts,”  i said.

i was instantly transformed into the cool mom.  later i found out that after the last saturday before christmas the boy scouts abandon the tree selling business.  so it wasn’t technically stealing.  i never corrected the boys on this minor legal technicality.  i let them think i brazenly stole that christmas tree.  that i wasn’t scared of time in the pokey.  that i was just a little bit of an outlaw.

after that, the boys believed that i stole every year’s christmas tree. to be fair, i only stole a christmas tree one other year and that was when the leader of the boy scout troop called me on the saturday evening before christmas to tell me that if i wanted to steal a good one, i’d better hurry.

“buying christmas tree is for suckers,”  eastman told me as we dragged the tree along the snowy side streets. 

this past christmas i posted on facebook that i had carried on the family tradition and stole a christmas tree.  i actually must fess to having bought one.  but still, the boys were happy.  some of my facebook friends were not.  f2fb friend phil hoza had a good suggestion “you should write a check to the boy scouts” but i was worried that he was really really really angry with me.  and the compressed nature of facebook posts flummoxed me–how could i communicate the entire story in a 140 character post? 

so i didn’t. 

phil is a vietnam veteran who was shot during the tet offensive of 1968.  his daughter carrie serve in korea during peacetime and iraq during the first gulf war.  phil has volunteered his time to charities and public works projects in winnetka so much that he rightfully can lay claim to the title of secural saint.  i was nervous about seeing him as part of this new years resolution.  i shouldn’t have been.  he gave me absolution and told me to sin no more. . . .
phil hoza has lived and worked in wilmette and winnetka all his life!  he does so much for our towns!

many people have christmas in july parties.  phil hoza and i had our christmas in july party today!

the milestone today is that i am seeing friend number 166 tomorrow.  i am halfway through the new years resolution.  that’s a great milestone because i find so much of it unbelievable.  the proposal?  not for marriage, but for a project that would make this new year’s resolution something that would explain myself one day to my boys.  this means the project becomes much more difficult, logistically and personally.  when i first heard of this proposal, i went to lakeside groceries, bought a bottle of wine, drank the entire bottle while sitting on the couch, and then passed out. 

waking up, i realized something awful about myself.  i’m just as scared of success as i am of failure.