FIRST LOVES

Every morning after I wake up, I put my sweatshirt and pony tail on, grab my purse, and walk down the hill to Starbucks to get my usual grande iced coffee with two pumps of classic sweetener.  Rain or shine, sleet or snow (well, we have no snow, but you know what I mean).  Summer, Winter, Spring or Fall.  It never fails me.  I want my vice and I want it when I want it. 

I know it sounds expensive, but I don't have kids, so I figure since I am not spending money on diapers and college educations, I can have my Starbucks everyday.  It's all about perspective.

During my daily jaunt down to the main boulevard my mind fills up with all sorts of thoughts and for some reason becomes the best time to get ideas for writing.  I have had rest, I am getting my first exercise of the morning and ideas flood my brain.

This morning I was thinking about youth and first loves.  But maybe not the way you're thinking about it.

You see, I bought a curling iron yesterday.  It was an impulse purchase inside a CVS Pharmacy.  I only meant to get toilet paper and such and ended up buying a curling iron as well.  I took it home, unwrapped it (that was a feat within itself) and plugged it in.  I haven't used a curling iron since the 80s.  When I was young, I had all that energy to play with my hair.  I cared about what I looked like.  I styled it and practiced in front of the mirror for maybe not hours, but certainly alot longer than I would ever care to bother now and I just thought--

Why don't I care anymore?  And this got me thinking of a scene from  the movie "When Harry Met Sally".
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HARRY: How long have you been dating Joe? 3 weeks?
SALLY: A month.  How did you know that?
HARRY: To take someone to the airport, you are clearly at the beginning of a relationship.  Which is why I never have anyone take me to the airport at the beginning of a relationship.
SALLY:  Why?
HARRY: Because eventually things move on, you don't take them to the airport anymore and I never wanted anyone to ask me, "why don't you take me to the airport anymore?"
SALLY: It's amazing. You look like a normal person, but really you are the angel of death.
-------------------------------------------------------

I know it's wierd but this made me think of that curling iron and I just thought- How come I don't curl my hair anymore?  Is it because my relationship with my hair is past the honeymoon stage and I no longer care?  What happen to all that energy and youth?

And while I am currently not seeing anyone romantically right now, I can at least rekindle the spark with my hair.    I don't know how long this will last, but I am ready to start the fire and passion again.  I want to care again.

Reunited and it feels so good.

Confessions of a Late Bloomer: For Art's Sake

HOW I ENDED UP INSIDE A HOME DEPOT WITH A DRILL IN MY HAND that one fateful Saturday afternoon, I will never quite understand.  If memory serves, I was completely frazzled and out of my comfort zone and quite possibly-- my mind.   I might as well have been wearing a t-shirt that said: I DON'T BELONG HERE.  My awkward body language, my walking, then pausing, then walking again.  My head tossed up and down, side to side with my eyes fixated on the big numbered signs that hung above each aisle... I must have looked like a tourist.  Yes, that's it -I was a tourist inside a Home Depot.  Finally a man in his fifties wearing an orange apron approached me.  He must have felt sorry for me.

"Can I help you find anything?"

Oh you can help me alright.

Arty

You see, I was on a mission.  Recently, I had inherited random pieces of "grown up" art during these past few months from friends and famiy members, and a pile of paintings were gathering dust on the floor inside my little studio apartment. I was getting sick and tired of looking at them and  decided now was the time to hang them up on my walls-- sort of.  Well, it's just that some of the pieces were rather heavy and were made up of some sort of material that looked like corkboard on the backside.  I couldn't just stick a push pin through it and be done with it like I used to do with all my posters of Madonna and The Brat Prack back in the 1980s.  No, this was real art and it required actual hanging and I had never hammered a nail into a wall in my life.  I was faced with the challenge of "decorating like an adult"-another rite of passage I had managed to dodge well into my thirties.  Gone were the days of taping up movie posters on walls of sheetrock inside a modern tract home in suburbia.  In were the days of hanging up real framed pieces of art with naked people on them on the plastered walls of my cool vintage 1950's Oakland apartment building.  Did you know that if you hang paintings of naked people up on your walls that means you are mature and arty?

I had to convince myself that I was not hanging up porn, but with each painting I accumulated of a blissful lady with long flowing hair clutching her naked breast, I just thought: BOOBIES!   For awhile I avoided putting up any real art by taping up my Fillmore rock posters and world maps, but that proved to be unsatisfying.  I could no longer get away with the "college-dorm-room" look and I didn't have a spare room for all my rock-n-roll memorabilia and maps of Korea.  I had one studio and it needed to look like a woman over 30 lived there.  And when the double sided tape loosened and my mom's canvas paintings came falling off the walls in the middle of the night (that's right, even my mom is arty), I knew I had to bring in the big guns.  Which I guess is how I ended up holding a box with a drill inside it at Home Depot.  A place I never thought I would end up.

"Do you have any staff that are experts at hanging pictures?" I asked the man in the orange apron.

"No, but here are some nails,"  he pointed to boxes and more boxes of screws and other pointy objects in all shapes and sizes.  "What kind of wall do you have?"  He asked me as if I knew.

After explaining the whole double sided tape debacle to him and how my walls were old school, he suggested I drill a hole before hammering in a nail.  A DRILL? I HAVE TO BUY A DRILL NOW?  Is this a sneaky upsell? This was turning out to be more work than I wanted it to be, but I nodded soberly, defeated, with my head hung low.  And like a sheep led to the slaughter, I followed him to the aisle where the drills were located.  He handed me a basic $40 drill and I took it. I didn't know what else to do.  Then he brought me a hammer.  I nodded solemnly and clutched the hammer as well.

"Anything else I can help you with?" He asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Where are your posters?"

By the time I got home it was dark and I thought perhaps too late to make noise in the building, lest I disturb the girl living below me.  I stared at the open space of the far wall that my bed was pushed up against.  Just how far should a nail go in?  What's with the whole 45 degree angle thing?  Can't I just write a story about hanging up paintings instead? 

The next day, I knocked around the wall "listening for a stud" as instructed by all my friends, family and the man from Home Depot, but I couldn't find a spot that sounded any more deep than hallow to the naked ear.  I noticed an old hole from the prior tenant and thought I would start there and started hammering in a two inch nail.  It wasn't long before I realized that nail was not going in any further than maybe an inch. It would not budge-this was not good. I ripped it out.  I tried a smaller screw type nail that also felt unsturdy.  If I could just pull these nails out on my own, well that couldn't be good, could it?  What if there's an earthquake? I didn't want some heavy piece of art dangling above my head come crashing down and give me a concussion.  Seriously, these are the things that keep me up at night.  And as I laid there in my bed, later on that evening, with my walls still bare above my head, I gazed out my window at the full moon and thought to myself, "how did I get like this?"

Well, I couldn't blame it on my gene pool.  Nope, even my mother herself is an artist who would take me to her night school art classes at Alameda City College back in the 1970's.  I would sit at a table next to her with paper and pens and pretend to draw while she sat still, patiently painting the latest bowl of fruit or wine bottle.  I couldn't imagine all that sitting still and was anzy as I hastily scrawled stick figures on my sheets of paper.  Can I go play now?

Not to mention the many birthdays and Christmases where my siblings and I would receive not only crayons sets like most children, but water color paint kits and colored pencils! Oh soooo many colored pencils!  My mother was trying to tell us something.  But I didn't get the memo.

And it wasn't just hanging up art on the wall that I put off for so long, but pretty much furnishing my apartment in general.  Let's just say that when the girl who I was subletting the place from decided to move out after two years, she took all her funiture with her and I was left alone sitting on this old beige carpet while staring at four blank white walls.  You would think that not having a bed for three months would have made me crazy, but I dreaded lifting something heavy for so long that I slept on a borrowed futon until my 38-year-old neck and back rebelled and could no longer take it.  It was no use.  I was going to have to put furniture in my apartment.  My mother insists to this day that my lack of motivation in things that require exertion is because I am anemic and need iron pills.  Even though the doctor who took blood tests on me back when I was in junior high told us otherwise....

Maybe I have such a hard time with all of this is because I feel like I don't know "the rules" when it comes to decorating and I don't know what looks "cool".  And please don't tell me there are no rules to art and it's just "whatever you like" because that is a lie.  If I tell you that I bought my art at "Bed, Bath and Beyond",  wouldn't you just squirm quietly to yourself with an air of condescension?  There are rules and you know it, and the reason I know this is true is because while I may be tone deaf in most things visual,  I make up for it with my ear for music and writing.  I would never tell someone that good music is "whatever you like" because if they tell me they like musical acts such as "Nickelback" or "Keisha" then I would have to tell them they have poor taste in music.  Seriously.  Don't think we could even be friends.  Hey, I didn't make the rules...

So after coming to grips with the fact that I was indeed, "art-deaf", I went to Ace Hardware and purchased a battery operated "Stud Finder".  And then I called in reinforcements- because as the Book of Ecclesiastes tell us: Two is better than one.  Enter my friend Sheri.

My friend Sheri in some ways is my complete opposite.  She's the ying to my yang.  Not only is she arty with an eye for photography, she also knows her way around a tool belt.  And besides, since she was the person who gave me all those heavy pieces of naked people in the first place, I figured she could at least show me how to put them up.  Well, let me tell you, Sheri's a busy lady, but after a month or so of trying to pen her down, we finally set a date for a Sunday afternoon.  And when that day finally came, I cleared off all my maps and rock posters from the wall, opened up the package that my stud-finder came in, and discovered my double-A batteries didn't fit.  They were too big.  So I texted Sheri to bring triple A's.

At 3pm exactly, she arrived with a supply kit in hand.  She laid out all the art work on the floor and we discussed various possible arrangements.  She checked to make sure my drill was charged and handed me her triple A batteries.  I was exicted.  I finally had another eye and hand to help me get this done.  Then I noticed that her batteries were too small for the stud-finder. I turned the back of the package over that it came in and read: NOT INCLUDED: 9 VOLT BATTERY.  Now who the heck carries 9 volt batteries?

Studly

"We'll just knock on the walls to find the stud," she assured me. 

Oh great.

"Hear that?" she asked me as she pounded on my walls.  The singer in me, in fact, did hear it.  The note was higher on a stud that it was on the rest of the wall.  How come I couldn't figure that out before?

I'm so bohemian now

We decided to hang up a funky purple sheet that she had given me years ago but I didn't know what to do with, and used it as a wall covering above my bed.  Not only did this give me piece of mind that it wouldn't fall on my head in the middle of the night if there was an earthquake,  but it also created the illusion of a headboard that my bed was actually missing. 

Next, to the left of the wall covering, she put up the collage of naked people:

On the opposite wall we decided to hang up my mom's homage to Andy Warhol.

As Sheri lined up these pictures she asked if I had a measuring tape so she could make sure they were even.   I scrambled inside my kitchen junk drawer and suprisingly found one.  "What's this doing here?" I thought as I handed it to her.  Her eyes widened.   "This is MINE!"  She flipped it over and sure enough, there it was: PROPERTY OF SHERI WONG.  Oops.  Hey, how did that get in there?  (Okay, so Sheri and I may have some history of her helping me get out of domestic jams.)

After she reclaimed her measuring tape, she touched up my kitchen with a picture of my mom's egg art on one wall and a cool framed picture above my Wedgewood oven on the other wall:

Does it look crooked, it's not.

Mom's egg art

She checked her phone for the time, packed up her belongings, including her measuring tape and was gone in a dash. What I had put off for months, she had accomplished in a little over an hour.  And me?  I was left with the task of putting things away.  But as I tried to stuff back all the nails and other gadgets into my kitchen's junk drawer it exploded on me:

I can't close this drawer now, it's stuck.

Then I got ambitious and started emptying out all my "junk drawers" and whadda ya know? Turns out I already had a hammer:

.
Two is better than one

I learned something that day.  Two really is better than one and don't be afraid to ask for help-even if that means calling in the big guns.

The Girl Who Wasn't There

Back in 1985, in the movie "The Big Chill", starring Kevin Kline and Glenn Close, a background actor played the part of a body lying in a casket in the opening funeral scene.  Pretending to be dead in a casket would have seemed like an easy part to do with guaranteed exposure, right?  There were no speaking lines, and all the actor had to do was pretend he was sleeping, knowing that every audience member in the movie theater would see his face once the film hit the big screen.  However, when "The Big Chill" was finally released in theatres, the footage showing the actor's face in the casket was deleted. It was probably a bit of a blow for the then, unknown actor, Kevin Costner, to be taken out of a film that he thought might lead to his big break.  Fortunately, for him, as I don't have to tell you, his career recovered.  But for every Kevin Costner, there are thousands of unknown (and some known) actors who continue to end up on the cutting room floor.

In March of 1995, I stepped onto the set of my first television commerical.  It was for Nike and featured tennis players Andree Agassi and Pete Samprass who were at the top of their game at the time.  I was doing background work in a crowd of about 300 people who were watching a faux tennis match that took place in a busy intersection in downtown San Francisco.  When the 30 second commercial aired a couple of weeks later, my friend Kristen, who also worked on the commercial with me, called to let me know:

"I saw the Nike Commercial.  We are not in it."

Well, I wasn't in the 30 second version and thought that I better get used to not making the cut.  And then a funny thing happened about six months later.  I received a call from the ad agency who produced the commercial and they told me, "We expanded the spot to 60 seconds, and now you're in it.  This is your lucky day."

A contract was mailed to me and I became eligible to join the Screen Actors Guild.  Boom, just like that.  Some actors move to Los Angeles and struggle for years trying to get their SAG card, but me- I thought, "Shoot this is easy."

A very young Theresa in a purple sweatshirt at about 22 seconds in, runs up to Pete Samprass:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkFytHPxa_4

I received a modest amount of residual checks for a commercial that aired for only 13 weeks, but back then I thought it was big money.  But then something happened after my first big break--nothing happened, for years.  Or so it seemed.

What appeared to be a great start to a possible acting career and a quick answer to a prayer (Dear God, should I do theater or film?) was becoming more and more confusing. 

The doors didn't open much for me with acting jobs.  I'd finally get an agent, only to lose an agent, to getting another agent, to losing that agent.  I couldn't seem to build momentum.

It would only be the beginning of my long journey in the entertainment industry of let downs and being the girl who was "of it, but not in it."  From then on, I would work on lots of movies, television shows and commercials that I was not actually "in". Sure I worked four consecutive nights out in the freezing cold in a cable car scene in the Sandra Bullock feature film, "The Net".  But when you watch the movie, I, along with about a hundred other hopeful background players are not in the final cut.  All that footage down the drain. And then there was that one time when I worked on the Robin Williams' movie "Flubber" playing a high school cheerleader, whom you barely saw on screen even though the camera man gave our cheer squad ample camera time on the set while filming.  Then there was that other time where I worked 2 whole months of 12-hour days on the movie "Scream" as a stand-in for Neve Campbell, only you would never know about it, because I didn't receive a credit.  I'm not bitter (sarcasm).  There have been lots of movies and television shows where I haven't received credit.  This will test your motives, your reasons why you do the things you do.  I do it because I love it.  And sometimes I do it for a paycheck.

I have never made a consistent living while doing movie/commerical work and have always needed a day job.  And as of January 2012 I still had lingering credit card debt.  It was at this time that a new class at my church was being offered titled "Emerge: Shaping Dreams Into Destiny" - and the price of the course - $300.  My spirit was stirred within me, but where would I find the money?  So I prayed about provision and shortly after I got a last minute call to do some "hand model work" on a Chrysler commercial.  I simply had to put my hands on a steering wheel for an hour and it was the easiest $492.00 I ever made.  Now I would have enough money to take the class.  When the commerical finally aired during the Superbowl that year, my hands were nowhere in the commercial- (even my hands were left on the cutting room floor)  Cool spot though:

It's Halftime In America...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PE5V4Uzobc

Apparently this commercial caused a bit of controversy.

Then in February 2012, I drove up to the little town of Yountville in the wine country to do some background work for an American Express commercial featuring world famous chef Thomas Keller and his restaurant, THE FRENCH LAUNDRY.  All of us extras were portraying dining patrons and were seated inside the restaurant strategically.  Originally I was sitting at a centrally located table (that they called the "hero table") and thought for sure I would be seen on camera.  Then at the last minute, before the cameras started rolling, I was asked to switch places with someone else and ended up left of camera, and I assumed-- out of the shot.  Yet again, I had been placed in deep background, or so I thought.

But when the commerical aired during the Oscars, a friend of mine saw it and insisted I was in it.  I assured her that was not the case, but she was convinced.  Then a couple of weeks later I received a letter from the ad agency for American Express saying I had been upgraded from background to principal (meaning I am recognizable and will be getting paid for every time it airs on television)  Hey, what do you know, I am in it.

Membership has its privileges.  (don't blink, about 9 seconds in, I am sitting at a table left of camera with my hair up drinking a glass of water)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PevAJBcLI4U

And though, I am almost invisible in this commerical too, when the residual checks started coming in, I no longer seemed to care whether or not anyone could see me in the commercial.  Funny how that works.

In March of 2012, the Emerge class officially began.  Our pastor had us close our eyes and envision the dream God had placed on our hearts.  As we went around the room declaring our visions, I announced that mine was to "do a one woman show and travel with it."  I saw myself on a stage in London.  I had never thought about London before and besides, how would I pay to get there?

In April 2012, I started receiving enough residual checks to finally pay off my credit card debt and build a savings.  It was at this time also that I attended a theatre show produced by a friend of mine, Tracy Held Potter, titled "Woman In Solodarity".  It was four women performing solo pieces of their own.  Each piece was about 20 minutes and I was inspired.  That's it- that's what I wanted to do.

I continued taking the Emerge classes at church every Saturday afternoon until the end of May 2012.  It was a committment, but time well spent.  Each week we were building trust with each other while sharing our dreams and articulating our goals.  It had kick started something in me.

In July 2012, while attended another one of Tracy's shows, this time a play being peformed inside a record store (independent theatre, gotta love it) - she told me if I wrote a solo piece for next Spring's Women in Solodarity show, I was in.  And the theme of the show- even better.  "Cat Ladies".  I took her up on her offer and a couple of months later, over Labor Day weekend at a family event, I came up with my working title- "One ExBoyfriend. Four Cats."

In the Fall of 2012 I enrolled in a creative writing class hoping to jump start the creative juices and churned out a few pieces over the course of the semester.  Now with a deadline for my cat themed solo piece coming up soon, I got get cracking!

2012 was a year of blessings and transition.  In a heart beat, God can change your circumstances- one minute you owe thousands of dollars on your credit card and the next minute, you are debt free, with a savings and the impending birth of a new dream. 

Here's to 2013 and to no longer being the girl who wasn't there.

The Sounds of Sirens

In between writing drafted stories and waiting until they are ripened to perfection, I forget to jot down streams of conciousness blogs because it seems that, well, that is what Facebook and Twitter are for.  But then this blog feels neglected lately.

I woke up this morning to a perhaps, "2 alarm fire", across the street from my apartment building.  When I first heard the sirens around 7:30am, I just thought they were the sounds of Oakland that I have grown accustomed to.  Speaking of, I keep meaning to pen down that parody about Oakland to the tune of Simon and Garfunkel's "Sounds of Silence".

The Sounds of Sirens- An Ode to Oakland

Hello loudness my old friend-
Did I just hear from you again-
An onward buzzing and HORNS blaring-
Woke me from my sleep I WAS needing-

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to be continued.

Anyway, the familar sounds of sirens didn't faze me until they creeped up onto my street and two firetrucks landed right outside my window.  At first I thought maybe someone had a heart attack or stroke and I was looking for a stretcher.  But then, I saw a hose that was laying flat on the street.  I looked up and noticed red flames shooting out of the second story rear side window of the pink apartment building across the street from me.  I grabbed my rinky dink smart phone camera and missed my shot because my camera sucks. By the time I powered off and turned back on my phone, I only got a picture of black smoke:

View from my window

I would like to say that my first impulse was to pray, but I would say it was a tie between praying and getting my camera to work. And then praying my camera would work.  It's my personal battle of priorities between being a Christian and being a citizen journalist always looking for a story.  But I did pray for everyone's safety and in the end, no one was hurt.  At one point I saw the house next door voluntarily evacuate an elderly man and their black cat.  No animals were harmed in making this blog.

I had my eyes glued across the street for awhile.  A few hours later, after the fire department had left, I saw a man go into the half charcoaled building and salvage his Christmas tree.  To be displaced right before the holidays- wow.  There was no going back to sleep now, which kind of sucked because I woke up yesterday morning with a very sore throat and I woke up this morning with a full-on cold.  My Christmas cold came early.  Here's to hoping I get it done and overwith before December 25th arrives.  I should be okay- I got the stuff to knock it out:

It's the most wonderful time of the year:

But how can any of us really complain about colds and property damage when we have our lives?  And for all the sirens I have heard in Oakland through the years, I have never witnessed a mass shooting anywhere around here.  It's crazy to think that I was safer in Oakland this past Friday, than a group of kindergartners were in Connecticut.  You just never know.

Alright, the point of this blog was to pause and reflect and hopefully unblock the writer's block that plagues me.  

Until next time....

The Alarmist

IT WAS MY THIRD NIGHT IN A ROW BATTLING WITH INSOMNIA.  I woke up around 4:00am to the cold morning air, shivering inside my studio apartment with all my blankets kicked off my bed -again. What started out as a warm Indian Summer October evening had quickly transformed into a brisk early Autumn morning. I quickly sat up in bed, with my eyes still closed, and shut the window. As I scrambled for those abandoned blankets that were halfway to the floor, I noticed my eyes felt glued shut. I must not have properly removed all of my eye make up before going to sleep and my allergies were setting in. Going to bed with mascara on my lids would cause me to look like I had pink eye the next morning, which was the last thing I needed at this moment, not to ignore the fact that I also needed to go to the bathroom- again. Why oh why was it so much colder at 4:00am than at midnight and why were these late night trips to the toilet more frequent these days? Hadn’t I just been there two hours ago? I felt around my bed with my eyes still closed, searching for the abandoned thick tube socks that fit like slippers, compliments of an ex boyfriend. I slipped them back on my feet, attempted to open my eyes, and got up to relieve myself. It seemed that my bladder had become my new alarm clock these days, and as for my actual alarm clock that sat on the nightstand to the right of my bed? Well, it had taken on the role of something else.


I finished quickly and curled back into bed, this time with three blankets covering every inch of my bodily frame. As I began to get cozy again with hopes of drifting off into a deep slumber, I heard the sound of a car speeding down my street and then I heard it stop and slowly back up. I sat up in bed and perched out the window to my left in time to see a newspaper come flying out of an old white Toyota Celica, hit the front steps of my apartment building, and then dash away. Not many folks around here received good old fashioned newspaper subscriptions anymore.

I laid there in bed fully awake and stared at the ceiling while listening to wind chimes whistle from the apartment building next door . I looked over at the alarm clock--4:45am. And then the refrigerator in my kitchen, a mere 12 feet away from my bed, started to run.

Hoping those buzzing noises that came from that oversize appliance I made little use of, (except to house old Starbucks coffee cups and Chinese take-out) would lull me back into a deep sleep, I closed my eyes again.

“If you fall back asleep now, you should still be rested enough for work,” I assured myself.

Conversations of the day before, the week before, came tumbling up towards the surface of my mind. Then thoughts about the last minute email I read at 11:30pm before going to bed began to emerge. It was that last minute inconsequential email that would get my mind going at this God forsaken hour.  Why was this the time my mind chose to process things? I began to notice the subtle pain in my lower right back letting me know that the Tylenol PM had already worn off.

“Should I take another one? Half of one? Do I have the sniffles? Should I take a little Nyquil? Just a little maybe….”

In the faint background I could began to hear the sounds of early commuters whizzing in their cars on the freeway overpass about a quarter mile away. Was it that time already? What is it that they do for a living anyway? Were they stockbrokers? Were they club bouncers or waitresses just getting off a late shift? What is this- Vegas? Why weren’t they all in bed like me? That way, it would all be quiet.

It was now 5:00am. I grabbed my smart phone off the bedside table and checked my Facebook home page, but even my fellow Facebookers were not up yet as an outdated expired newsfeed from the night before sat there- dormant. People hadn’t posted for hours. Boring. And then I decided to catch up on my Words With Friends games, which only occupied me for another 15 minutes.

I noticed the sounds of increasing cars on the freeway almost sounded like ocean waves. “Yes, those aren’t actually cars,” I told myself, “but high tide instead, and hey, maybe those waves will lull me back to sleep”. Then I noticed a train’s horn in the distance. Society was up, but I refused to participate.

Then I heard the sounds of a person shuffling around outside. Knowing about a recent increase of burglary in my neighborhood, I quickly sat up and looked out the bedroom window again, only to see a professionally dressed businesswoman sporting a blazer and a hair bun, turn off her car alarm, climb into her Audi and drive away. Freak. I laid back in bed. I am NOT GETTING UP THIS EARLY. What time is it anyway? I shifted my head towards my alarm clock again- 5:30am.

"It’s not too late to fall back asleep," I assured myself, knowing that my alarm clock was set for 7:10am. I started thinking about the work meeting I had scheduled later on that morning. Was this the real reason I wasn't able to fall back sleep? Because I knew I couldn't afford to oversleep? I never had thought about work outside the office before- what was happening to me? I tossed and turned.

"Should I just get up now before my alarm goes off?" I wrestled before another voice quickly protested, "NO! You will feel worse. Just lay in bed with your eyes closed. When your alarm goes off, at least you gave your eyes a chance to rest." I acquiesced with the second voice. One sheep, two sheep, three sheep…

My alarm finally went off to the tune of many voices of talk radio and I didn't hit the snooze button. I found the banter comforting. Stories of traffic accidents and weather reports filled me with vivid dreams. In the calamity of it all, I fell back asleep....

Justice In America

“Veronica stole my pants!” my friend Julie told me one day in Junior High School.

"What do you mean?" I asked her.

“I let her borrow my Jordache Jeans, you know the ones with the white swirly stripes on the back pockets…”

“I love those jeans.”

“Yeah, me too- well, she borrowed them, stretched them out with her wide-ass hips, and then when I asked for them back, she said they were hers!”

We stood there by our lockers as I listened to Julie rant on and on about her favorite designer jeans, shocked that Veronica could be such a bully. Well, I wasn’t that shocked, truth be told. Veronica had developed a bit of a scary reputation to the point where I had avoided any direct contact with her altogether. But not Julie- Julie wanted to be friends with just about everyone- even the mean girls, and now she was paying the price for it. After this incident, I decided that Veronica had crossed the line. Taking my friend’s favorite new pair of Jordache Jeans- the ones that Julie was planning to wear to our 8th Grade Graduation Party a week from today? I became enraged at the injustice of Veronica’s actions and thought, “why, she can’t take my best friend’s pants and get away with it! This is America!”

“I’ll get your pants back for you,” I assured Julie, “don’t worry about it.”

Well, I don’t know what came over me that day, thinking I could just confront a girl who I had always been afraid of. Veronica may have not been a big in size, standing a mere five feet, zero inches tall, but she was a feisty little thing and was known for getting into fights with girls much bigger than her - and winning. And I, possessing a whole four inches over her, had never been in a fight in my life, until possibly now.

But I couldn’t even think about the possibility of me getting my ass whipped, the potential consequences of my soon-to-be actions. I was too busy hatching a plan on how to get Julie’s pants back. Through the rest of school that day, I sat in my classes, dreaming up a scheme of how to get our little revenge on Veronica. And then finally, during my 6th period History class, it came to me- it was perfect. I knew Veronica had P.E. class during second period, and I knew that she had a habit of leaving her clothes on the benches in the girls locker room, rather than putting them in her actual P.E. locker. I decided the next time I saw her wearing Julie’s pants, I would get excused to go to the bathroom during my second period English class, walk over to the locker room, grab Julie’s jeans off the benches and put them back in her hall locker for her.

The next day at school I noticed Veronica had Julie’s pants on again and I knew that I had to move swiftly. During the beginning of my English class, I stared at the clock on the wall, waiting for precisely 10 minutes to pass before asking to be excused to go to the bathroom. I figured this would be enough time for Veronica to change into her gym clothes and be out of the locker room and for me to snatch the pants back. But when I entered the locker room about 13 minutes into second period, Veronica was running late and was just then exiting. We made eye contact and I smiled at her sweetly as we both said hello. “Darn it,” I thought, “she would now know I was at the scene of the crime."  It was a wrinkle in my plan for sure, but I wasn’t about to change my mind.

Sure enough, as I walked towards the benches, there they were- Julie’s coveted Jordache Jeans with the white swirly stripes on the back pocket, folded neatly next to Veronica’s other clothes. I grabbed them quickly, exited the locker room, and rushed over to Julie’s hall locker, dialed her locker combination that I knew by heart, put her pants inside, and went back to my English class. The plan went perfectly- for the moment.

But it didn’t take long before word began to travel that day that, “Veronica’s pants had been stolen during P.E. class and that she had to be sent home to get more clothes.” “Serves her right,”  I chuckled to myself.  However, by the end of the school day, rumors had already begun to spread that Veronica wanted to fight me.

“I knew it was you that took those pants,” she confronted me the next day at school, “I saw you in the locker room.”

I didn’t say a word.

With less than a week away until our 8th grade graduation, I begin dreading going to school, wondering if Veronica would try to start trouble with me. Other girls, who had gotten into fights with her in the past, began to approach me.

“She’s strong,” a girl named Cindy warned me, “if she pins you down, you won’t be able to get up!”

“She’s not that tough,” insisted another girl named Jessica, “she just talks tough!”

“What do you mean she’s not that tough?” Cindy shot back, “didn’t you see what Veronica did to Mandy Peters’ face? She didn’t come back to school for three whole days!”

My heart started to beat outside my chest. What had I done? Would I make it to the end of the school year alive?

As each day passed, I managed to avoid any confrontations with Veronica. I found it suspicious that she wasn’t seeking me during lunchtime or after school on the walk to the bus stop, and then I heard the news.

She was waiting until our graduation party to fight me.

The party of the year, the one where all the cool kids were going to be at, the one I had been looking forward to for months- would be the boxing ring of our so called rumble. I couldn’t believe she was going to ruin the party over this, but I wasn’t about to back down. Nothing would keep me from going to the social event of the school year.

“I am wearing my stretch jeans,” I quietly told Julie, as we rode in the backseat of my parents’ station wagon that fateful afternoon on the way to the party. I wanted to make sure I had enough flexibility if I ended up being pushed to the ground somewhere. I may not have ever been in a fight before, but I had wrestled with my older sister Lisa plenty of times and I knew how to tumble.

“And I,” Julie declared, “am wearing MY JEANS jeans!” She was so happy to have her pants back.

After my mom dropped us off at the party, we walked around the side gate and into the backyard. About 30 kids were there, mingling, sipping punch from a drink fountain and eating snacks while Quiet Riot’s “Come On Feel The Noise”, played loudly in the background.

As I reached for a red plastic cup to get myself a drink, I scanned the place in search of my nemesis while trying to not be obvious. And then in the corner of my eye, I saw her- Veronica, standing on the lawn against the back fence, talking with her posse of three other tough girls. She was glaring at me, with her arms folded. She was probably deciding when she should make her move. I pretended to be undaunted. But the night was still young.

I chatted up with my friends and laughed and joked and even danced a little as the party went on. But a couple of hours later, Veronica still hadn’t tried anything. Was she waiting until it was dark outside? And just how was she going to start trouble when the parents of our party host, were right inside the house? How did she think she was going to possibly get away with taking a swing at me while parental guidance threatened us just a few feet away? Maybe she didn’t care. I heard that about tough girls. And just then, one of her friends approached me.

“Veronica is ready to fight you now,” she said as if it was something I had agreed upon.

“So?” I said nonchalantly, trying to not appear scared, but really my heart was beating outside my chest again. Was I actually going to go through with this? Was I really going to let the bully of the school come at me? It was one thing if Veronica had come up behind me when I least expected it and I had to rely quickly on my reflexes-- but to allow me time to become afraid was just too cruel. I gazed back over at the fence to see her still standing there with the other mean girls, just staring at me. Was she expecting that I would make the first move? My mind was still racing when just then, I saw Veronica begin to walk slowly towards me and I had to think fast. I grabbed Julie and told her to come to the bathroom with me inside the house, but really I was going to call my older sister and tell her what was going on. At this point I hadn’t told anybody in my family yet but enough was enough. From the kitchen phone, I confessed to my sister about the whole pants debacle and once she found out, she told her tough friend Tiffany about it, who happened to be with her when I called-- and then it was on.

“Get Veronica on the phone right now!” Tiffany told me.

At this point Veronica and her posse could see me on the phone through the sliding glass door that separated the backyard from the kitchen. Julie nervously motioned to Veronica that she had a call, while I escaped to the bathroom.

I don’t know exactly what Tiffany told her over the phone, but whatever it was, it worked. I exited the bathroom just in time to see Veronica hang up the phone, avoid eye contact with me, and walk back to the backyard. She ignored me for the rest of the party, and although she didn’t quite raise a white flag admitting defeat, I felt vindicated. Crisis averted.

I never did see Veronica after that night. The school year was finally over, and rumor had it that her family was moving out of town. She would be starting high school 50 miles away from us, never to be seen or heard from again. And as for me- well, I never had a problem with anyone ever messing with me after that. I may have not had to physically fight my own battles, but I didn’t care. I was just happy that Julie got her pants back.

Those Were The Days

THE PET SHOP BOY'S HIT SONG "WEST END GIRLS",  always reminds me of my older sister's friend, Heather, laying out in her backyard, while the scent of coconut suntan oil filled the air, back in the summer of 1986.   My sister and I had stopped by her place for a visit and this song was playing on her radio.  No, actually, it wasn't on the radio, but on a mixed tape of the radio. Heather had taped the radio because that's what we did back then.  If memory serves, I think she also was wearing these funky red sunglasses.  I have such happy memories of the 80's, I really do. We were carefree teenagers. Life was simple. It was cheesy pop music and suntan lotion for the most part. We were not overly burdened with the cares of the world yet and considered ourselves still kids. Meanwhile, back in East Berlin, Germany, young people our age, who looked just like us with their acid washed jeans and big hair, were fighting for their freedom from a repressive communist regime.  Middle class American teenagers were criticized for being shallow back then, but I believe it was because we didn't have a common cause to rally behind at the time. We didn't feel like cold war kids.  We had our freedom already, relatively speaking, and if our freedom was what made us shallow, then so be it. I mean, wasn't that part of what the East Berliners were fighting for? Their right to be shallow if they wanted to be?  Their right to be kids?  It all made sense looking back- why Irish band, U2's music was so rich with political meaning- meaning I didn't understand at the time. They grew up in a war-torn country. I didn't have those memories. I only remember the suntan lotion, the pool parties, the permed hair, and the Guess jeans. So sue me. I was being a kid for as long as I could before I had to go out into the "real" world.

As a fourth born,  being a kid was what I did best. I milked that season of my life well into my twenties. I clung to the walls of home. And when I wasn't clinging to those walls, I had a short leash, just a half hour away, while cat-sitting full time for an employer in Oakland. I never strayed too far from the nest. So when a series of unforseen circumstances came upon me at the age of 35, in the summer of 2006, when I could no longer squat in my home away from home....I came home.

I just needed a place to stay through the holidays was the plan. And then the holidays turned into February. Then I started looking for what I could afford on my own in an area around my then workplace and the results were disheartening. With my paycheck, I could only pay for the smallest of accommodations, and at one point,  was presented with the saddest, loneliest of unfurnished rooms. A simple make-shift studio space that someone had converted from their garage. And it felt cold like a garage. Staring at that room, I got depressed and just thought, "why- I could just sit on that floor all by myself and think about my ex-boyfriend for hours."

Apparently I wasn't ready to re-leave the coop just yet, but I always found comfort in knowing I wouldn't be homeless. I would be an irritant, a rash for sure, to my parents, who had now become grandparents.  Grandparents who just wanted to enjoy their Golden Years with the occasional visit from their offspring, and their offspring's offspring, but nothing more. They were done raising us kids. So whenever one of us took advantage of the revolving door that was home, they hesitantly let us in. Especially me.

"I'll never leave," I thought as an 8-year-old girl who shared her room with her 9.5 year old sister. A 9.5 year old sister who was already collecting dishes and towels and putting them in her Hope Chest, for "her own place when she was going to move out." She was so independent at such a young age.  We couldn't have been more different.  I thought that all sounded so scary. How would I make it on my own? How could I ever afford a roof over my head? It was so grown up. I thought you had to be rich in order to live in a house. I thought my parents must be rich, but I knew I wasn't.

I finally did permanently leave their nest in the summer of 2007 and my old room has now been converted into my mother's art studio space.  But there still is a bed in there, for you know... visitors.

Looking back, as a young person, I have always been fortunate to have shelter, clothes on my back, and the freedom to be shallow. Long live liberty and the pursuit of not having to worry about being homeless. Those deep politcial song lyrics written by U2 went right over my head in a middle class American suburbia bubble. The Vietnam war had ended by the time I was 3 years old and there would be no protesting during my youth. Hippies had become yuppies. Those were the days when we didn't have causes- we had designer clothes.....and we liked it. But mostly, we had suntan lotion.

Creative Writing Assignment #1: The Room

I am taking a Creative Writing class at Laney College this Fall semester.  Last week we were given a writing prompt requesting that we simply write about the atmosphere in our classroom.  Here's what I wrote.

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Theresa Donahoe
English 210A

The Room

I hate jazz. He had to pick a jazz cd for us to listen to, to take in, to digest, and distract us from writing our papers. The whistling sounds of that gut wrenching genre of music that brought back negative memories of a former jazz appreciation class I took years ago. I did not appreciate it. Busy saxophones and trumpets over took the classroom and drowned out the more pleasant buzzing noises of what seemed to be air circulating through a vent. Just air circulating through a vent would have been more peaceful. The squeaking of students shuffling in their chairs, with pens in hand, writing fervently on their notepads, would have been enough of a background chorus for me to write to. No soundtrack of annoying horns required. The occasional cough uttered in the room was more welcoming to my ears than any music played by Thelonius Monk or John Coltrane. The soft waxing lull of the teacher’s black marker as it apologetically screeched against the dry erase board, was more compelling than the sound of whiny horns blowing aimlessly in the wind. I looked around the room. Was this how it was going to be all semester? Was this part of the standard required uniform- the proverbial creative writer’s checklist? Long hair in a ponytail. Check. Liberal opinions sputtering about on political issues. Check. Vacant jazz music humming in the background. Check. And there they were- a room of writers, deep in thought, staring at their pieces of paper, feverishly gripping their pens, oblivious to the evil music that filled the room and undoubtedly spawned the likeness of Kenny G.



They Came To Pacifica

I HAD A FULL EVENING THAT FRIDAY NIGHT IN OAKLAND, filled with eating sushi, hip hop clubbing and late conversation with my girlfriends.  After all was said and done, I finally hit the pillow around 2:30am and was ready to dream.  I was exhausted from the long work week and had pushed myself to go out that night.  I figured- no worries- for I had my entire Saturday to sleep in, lounge around the apartment, doodle on my smart phone, relax, and finally get some writing done.

Or so I thought.

The next morning at approximately 8am, I woke up to the sounds of beeping construction trucks and busy maintenance workers speaking in Spanish while drilling into the street's pavement directly outside my bedroom window.  If the sunshine of the predicted 90 degree weather forecasted for that day wasn't going to wake me up in these wee small hours of the morning  (that's right 8am is wee), the sound of trenchless sewer plumbers would.

Rise and shine!

This has to be some sort of a joke.....

Grumpy and defiant,  I laid in bed trying to go back to sleep until 10am, which was my normal weekend hour to rise. When I could no longer take the noise anymore, I rose from my slumber with my eyes burning.  This was not what I had in mind. 

There went my original plans for that Saturday.  With my need for silence and complete solitude in order to create, I would get no writing done if I stayed in Oakland.

I started to entertain thoughts of staying in a secluded hotel room on the coast as my little landlocked studio apartment began to heat up and I began packing an overnight bag for the sleepy little ocean town of Pacifica.  Pacifica: a frequently fogged-in locale that refuses to succumb to any heat wave the rest of the nation may be experiencing.  And although I had visited there many times before, I had never stayed overnight.  So I quickly read some hotel reviews online and figured I would wing it once I got down there.

I hopped in my car and sat in the typical East Bay traffic for a half hour on my way to the Bay Bridge. I sailed passed San Francisco and onto the coast.  As the freeway ended and highway 1 became a four lane road, traffic begin to pile up again.

Surely all these drivers weren't headed where I was headed, were they?

As I made the right turn into Rockaway Beach, I followed a row of other cars in.  Apparently my secret destination had become all the rage.

Since I couldn't find street parking, I went ahead and parked in the "customers only" parking lot of Nick's Restaurant, telling myself I would patronize the establishment later.  I climbed out of my car in search of my first task of the afternoon-  a vacant cheap hotel room.

BEST WESTERN LIGHTHOUSE looked pretty good as it sat practically on top of the ocean.  It coudn't have been cheap, but I thought I would ask. 

"Sorry, all rooms are sold out this weekend," I was informed by the front desk clerk.  I nodded and left suprised.  Pacifica? Sold out? What's going on?

My next stop was a rickety two star place that had mixed reviews on Yelp.  THE MOTOR LODGE INN aka PACIFICA MOTOR INN.  I couldn't help but chuckle- would there be any more room left for me at the Inn?

Well, I almost did get turned away at the Inn as they were originally booked out, but then I heard those coveted words: "We had a last minute cancellation, " and I began to perk up.  Then it was followed by, "it's a smoking room."  I mused at the thought of this, thinking about how I had just stayed up past 2am the night before at a friend's place, talking about random things, while she experimented smoking inside her house for the first time.  I thought about how we laughed at the smoke rings floating above her head and how it reminded us of the 80s.

In an adventerous and somewhat desperate moment, I looked at the front desk clerk and responded: "I'll take it!". And then my curiosity got the best of me.  "Can I see what the room looks like?"

"It won't be ready until 4:30pm," he told me, "but here's a key to the non-smoking room next door, room 303. It's the exact same set up."

At that moment a short Mexican cleaning lady came wandering in.  The hotel clerk tried to confirm with her that my room would be ready at 4:30pm.  She started to haggle with him and insisted, "No, 5pm!" in to which he shot back, "No, 4:30!"

I took the key and went to room 303 and unlocked the door. As promised from Yelp, there was a cramped bathroom immediately to my left.  I saw the "uncomfortable pillows" that were also written about, but no one mentioned the four flies that were circling above the bed.

I took a deep breath and exhaled.  Note to self: ask for a fly swatter when you receive your key. I did like that there was a table and two chairs against a window, and I knew I would be able to plug in my laptop there. It would have to do. As I returned the key to the desk clerk, he told me I was lucky to get the last room and that all the hotels were sold out "because of the golf tournament".  "Tiger Woods is 10 minutes from here,"  he informed me.  As I stood there thinking about how I couldn't care less about some golf tournament, another straggler looking to escape the heat of the East Bay entered the hotel lobby looking for a room. "Sorry", he told the 50-something year old woman, pointing at me,  "she took the last one.  You might want to try a hotel by the airport".  "Yes", I thought, "and they probably have less flies."

Needing a way to kill time until my smoky infested room would be ready, I decided to make an honest parking lot patron out of myself and walked over to Nick's Restaurant to grab a bite to eat.  I opted for a window seat in the bar lounge overlooking the ocean. I was determined to make this last minute weekend excursion relaxing while waiting for all the dust to settle (pun intended) and I could get into my room.

I noticed the locals who were seated around me had their eyes fixed on the two televisions that were mounted on the walls above.  I never understood what was so great about watching golf.

I ordered crab cakes and a cherry coke and was playing Word With Friends on my smart phone when I heard a familiar song being sung by an unfamiliar voice over the radio speakers in the bar:

So you want to be a rock 'n' roll star?
Then listen now to what I say
Just get an electric guitar
Then take some time and learn how to play

I sat there listening, dead in my tracks.  I had been humbled.  It was the original version of a song I thought I knew.  You mean Adam Duritz did not make up these lyrics on the live version of the Counting Crows' hit, "Mr Jones", a version that my ex-boyfriend had put on a mixed cd for me all those years ago?  Apparently Adam was quoting another song, that I looked up immediately on my smart phone.  A song recorded by the Byrds and released in 1967 literally titled, "So You Wanna Be a Rock n Roll Star".   And all this time I thought Mr. Duritz was being clever.  I was realizing I was not the rock n roll trivia aficionado I thought I was.  How did I miss that one?

As the bar filled up with people and I filled up on my crab cakes, I managed to burn an hour and a half away, pay my check, and move my car into the parking lot of the two star hotel.  You would think I would have just walked over to the beach and stared at the ocean waves to pass the time, but lately I have been on a "does your beach have sea-shells" kick and I knew Pacifica's did not.  I was strictly in it this weekend for the cool weather and hopefully peace and quiet. 

But peace and quiet would continue to allude me.

I got my key to room 302 from the front desk clerk, and took my overnight bag with me up to the third floor.   As I was walked down the hallway towards my room, I noticed the cleaning lady's cart parked right outside my door.  It was 4:50pm and she was still working on it.  I approached her and she smiled and insisted that she had just finished.  But before she could push her cart away, I took a peak inside my room and sure enough I had to alert her of the flies that circled above my bed.  She knew very little English and I had to just keep pointing at them, and saying, "look- mira!" 

She went back to her cart, and I thought she was going to grab a fly swatter.  Instead she grabbed a can of bug spray.

I stood there mortified as she started squirting bug spray in the air right above my bed to kill the flies.  Then she took a towel and started to wave them out of the room.  All I could think about was how there would now be the scent of bug spray and cigarettes mixed in on my sheets and pillow. 

When the flies and maid were gone, I went downstairs to my car, got into my trunk, and pulled out my emergency sleeping bag made for such occasions as this.  The hotel already had my money and I wasn't going back to Oakland so I figured I would make the best of it and besides, at this point, I knew I would be getting another story out of this.

Once I settled into my room it didn't take long for me to realize that I wasn't going to get any writing done.   Turned out the loud noises of motorcycles and other vehicles from the four lane highway directly behind my hotel, drowned out any blissful sounds of crashing ocean waves that were a mere block away from me in the other direction.  Only the sold-out Best Western Lighthouse stood a chance of providing me with the ambiance that I so desperately needed in order to create.  So I took off again in my car and headed to my favorite coffee shop in Pacifica that was two exits away- the Chit Chat Cafe.  It overlooked the ocean.

I pulled up, plugged in by a window, ice coffee in hand, and was getting ready to write when I saw and heard the dreaded familiar noise of a microphone sound-check of a woman and her guitar.  Of all the times I have visited this coffee shop, I had never been there for a live music set, and the place was getting loud and packed.  Really?  Pacifica?  Why are you so loud this weekend? Why is everyone here? Why did they all come to Pacifica?  The one weekend I needed it to be the loner town that it normally is,  was buzzing with people.  I got cranky. I thought that maybe if it was just a woman playing instrumental pieces on her guitar, I could still get some writing done.  But when a man with a saxophone showed up, I immediately powered down.  Not gonna happen.  By this time it was beginning to be sunset, so I drove my car back over to the hotel, walked to the beach and took pictures of the ocean instead.

Maybe I just needed to do this all along. Sure there were no seashells worth a darn, but look, so pretty.

After staring at the waves, I started to feel relaxed.  The highway noise wasn't so loud now, so would at 9pm on a Saturday evening, finally be the time to start writing?  It was.

I opened my hotel room windows and started typing away.  It was late enough at night that the real work would begin. Some say the process of writing is 10 percent actual writing and 90 percent staring at the walls.  I say that this time it was 10 percent writing and 90 percent getting in the mood for writing.  I guess that means the same thing.

Around 10:30pm I started to get hungry and walked back over to my go-to Nick's Restaurant to see if the kitchen was still open.  It wasn't, but the bar lounge was in full swing with live music and drunk locals.  I asked one of the staff if there were any leftover dinner rolls that I could snag.  He checked, and came back with garlic bread on the house.  Happily, I thanked him and took it and walked outside to stare at the evening waves crashing against the rocks.  I thought I would have another peaceful moment, but it was marred by the sounds of a drunk couple arguing in the parking lot.   Completely unappreciative and clueless about how amazing the atmosphere was around them, I overheard the man yell at the woman, "and this is why they call this town PATHETICA!"

Munching on my garlic bread back in my room, I continued typing until about midnight, and then  decided to retire for the evening.  I hoped that at this time of night, as the town went to sleep, that I would finally be able to hear sounds that I was looking for.  Instead what I heard was the overspill of more drunk locals walking down the street yelling unitelligible phrases.  When I woke up around 2am to go to the bathroom, I only heard the occasional car zooming past on the highway.  As far as the ocean- not so much.

The next morning, I decided to check out early and get on the road, but as I was throwing my sleeping bag back into my trunk, the ocean reminded me I needed to visit her one last time.  As I walked past the Best Western Lighthouse, I realized I wanted to envision what my ideal hotel room should look like-so I walked into their lobby, past the front desk, and up the stairs as if I was a guest staying there.

I roamed the first floor halls in search of that one ocean view room that would have the money shot.  A cleaning lady pushing her cart saw me wandering and realized what I was looking for and pointed me in the right direction.

I came upon room 125 and the door was already open.  I made eye contact with another cleaning lady who was changing the pillow cases and she nodded and motioned me inside.  She knew what I wanted.  I started taking pictures from inside the room.

View from Best Western Lighthouse

Meanwhile, back at The Motor Lodge...

The Best Western Lighthouse hotel room was everything I imagined it would be.  A room that sat right on the ocean complete with a soundtrack of crashing currents that could lull you to sleep.  As beautiful as it was though, it didn't quite compare to a reoccuring dream I have been having lately.

I have this dream that I am staying in a hotel room that is very low to the ground and practically touching the beach sand. The ocean water is warm and a deep turqouise color. It’s very tranquil and peaceful.  It makes me think it might be in Hawaii.   When I first started having these dreams, I was always staying in one of the more modest, no frill rooms, but I would steal a peak inside the master suite that was located at the far right end of the hall on the bottom floor. But as the dreams progressed, the last couple of times I have had them, it is me that is staying in the master suite. I have yet to find that actual room in real life, but I keep searching. I have a feeling it is not on the California coast.

After finally getting the breathtaking hotel room view I was looking for, I left room 125 feeling a little more satisfied.  I got into my car and drove back to the East Bay.  With a 15 degree drop in the weather that day, it was finally safe to head back to Oakland.

Confessions of a Closeted Recluse

I GOT WIERD SLEEP THAT NIGHT I SLEPT ON THE FRONT PORCH.   Although I was bundled up in my sleeping bag with extra blankets to shield my face from the cool midnight air, I still woke up to the sounds of garbage cans banging and dogs howling around 2am and then again around 4.  The second time was probably because I am such a light sleeper than when my porch camping buddy got up to go to the bathroom, I followed suit.  Then it was back to having wierd dreams until the sun begin to greet me some time after 6am.  I ignored the sunlight that hit against my sleeping bag, nature's little wake up call, and forced myself to drift off again until after 8am. When my friend sat on her futon and started playing Scrabble on her i-Pod,  I knew I needed to get up.

I was proud of myself though.  As someone who doesn't share space well, especially while sleeping, I managed to get through the night.  It would be an unusual thing for me to become such a privacy rat when it came to personal space.   As a fourth born, growing up, I shared a room and bathroom with my older sister for many years and I knew how to share.  It wasn't until I was 28, while cat-sitting on a regular basis for an ex-boss of mine, that I got a taste of living in complete solitude.  And I loved it.

I loved it a little too much and hadn't realized what kind of reclusive creature I had become until I went on a ladies church retreat in the summer of 2002.  At 31 years old, I still considered myself somewhat young at heart as I claimed an upper bunk bed in the cabin I was assigned to among eight other women.  In my mind I still saw myself as a 12 year old girl, so imagine my surprise when I couldn't fall asleep the first night of the retreat while being in a room filled with so many other people. This coupled with the fear that I would roll off my bunk and hit my head on the wooden floor.  Toto: We are no longer at junior high camp. 

"There are too many people here," I thought to myself as I took my sleeping bag with me and climbed down to the vacant bunk bed below me.  All of a sudden, I felt crowded, like I couldn't get any downtime to just chill and relax.  As long as people were around me, I felt busy and occupied.  I recognized that the presence of people gave my Sanguine side energy, even while they were sleeping.  I couldn't come down from the high, and I was exhausted. 

And so the years went by in my thirties where I would occasionally experiment with taking an overnight weekend trip, here and there, while others loomed around me.  I could never quite relax and chalked it up to "well, no one sleeps well when they are not home."  But this put a dent in any travel plans I wanted to do.  More and more I started daydreaming about taking a trip to Europe...alone.

Alone, where I could sleep in at my own pace.  Wake up late without anyone telling me I needed to be up so we could get to some art museum on time or start a hike before the sun came up.  To be on no one else's schedule, where I could just sit in a coffee shop with my laptop and people-watch for hours with no particular place to go, in a foreign land.  Yes, that sounded good to me. 

I felt like such a fuddy duddy, turning down group trips, especially anything missions related with the church.  I had done the whole missions trip thing in my twenties- group travel riding in a van, sleeping on floors, wherever you could find space.  I kept thinking I would get used to it, but with each trip I grew more and more grumpy. While others saw it as an adventure, rich with meaning and deep moments, I just wanted to leave.

I would have my deep moments later- about two weeks later- when I finally got home had time to myself to reflect about my trip.  Reflections of handing out food and clothing to those more needy than me.  Reflections about how others living in a third world had materially nothing compared to me, but were content with what they had.  Memories of cramming 30 young excited kids into an old rickety school bus and taking them to a playground in a park just a few miles away- kids who almost never left their small village.  They were good trips with good things,  but those thoughts never hit me in real time.  I was too tired and busy being cranky.   And don't get me started on the whole "one outhouse for 25 people" type of thing.  I just about cracked.  This was the total opposite of privacy.  You can't say I didn't try.  I tried for years.  I think it was safe to say that overseas missions was not my calling.

So there I laid, in my sleeping bag out on the front porch, a few feet from my friend as she played Scrabble.  I had made it through the night, without being too wierded out.  And I considered it a personal victory.