Talia's Tales

A few days ago I saw two people, within the span of 5 minutes, each post "Friends don't let friends vote democrat" and "Friends don't let friends vote republican".
Rather than comment on their posts, I reply here.

Both of these posts infuriate me for two reasons.

1) We have a private vote for a reason. Gone should be the days where the "wrong" vote will earn punishment. Who I vote for should not be any of your concern. I am a rational adult who has researched the candidates and I am making a decision as I feel best.

2) Your single statement, as posted, implies that one should only vote by the party. This leads me to believe that you have not researched the PERSON that you are actually voting for. It should be apparent that there is dissension within parties. So to say, "This person is a member of my favored political party and therefore holds the same political values that I do," is a fallacy.

So please stop blindly encouraging people to vote for a party. DO please encourage them to vote for a person.

We're all rational adults here.

Essentially I'm screwed at work. I've done absolutely nothing right and I've pissed everyone off while doing it. My most outstanding achievement has been updating the website into 2011... and that's really sad as an achievement. Right now I feel like there's no getting back up, and I really just want to wallow in self-doubt/pity/awfulness.

Yesterday was "clean the living room" day in addition to all the other crap I did. Cleaning the living room involved crawling into the crawl space and pulling old wires back under the floor so I could snip them cleanly. While this mission was achieved, I had a panic attack while under there that I haven't had in a long time. The whole house felt like it was on top of my chest, I felt like I was drowning back in Hawaii, I could hear the baby screaming and the dog barking and I just thought I was going to die under there. I don't remember how I got back to the access point, but I did rip a giant hole in one of my shirts and ended hugging the dog and weeping. Followed by uncontrollable shaking for 15 minutes as I tried to get a glass of water and ended up eating a quarter of a loaf of cornbread. (No, it doesn't make sense to me, either.)
I won't be going back into the crawl space any time soon. I don't give a damn that it's full of old siding and tile that needs to be removed.

My sister-in-law is allergic to dogs, which I didn't know. So now I'm doubly embarrassed that she can't enjoy lunch after Lexi's baptism on Sunday. And even though I've been scouring this house from room to room, I know that it still won't remove the allergins. Which sucks. Please let it be warm on Sunday so we can enjoy the porch. Ugh.

It sounds like Lexi's waking up in a better mood today. I can hear her babbling at whatever she talks to in the morning.
Today is "clean the kitchen" day. And the floors. The dog kept trying to eat invisible things in the corner yesterday. So the mop is coming out, too.
(And yes, Matt is also helping me clean the big things - so please don't assume that I'm doing this all by myself.)

If I have angered you, I am sorry. I believe I've apologized to everyone, but I'm saying it here too. I know my guilt-induced manual labor means little to you, but I'm doing what I can to make amends.

I have a brown and green skirt that has been called "amazing" and "the ugliest thing I've ever seen" by faire friends and my mom respectively.
Personally, I think it's a bit on the ugly side myself.
Yet on the days when I wear it, I feel free. Sitting at the computer and writing out an episode or two doesn't feel difficult at all. Even going through work emails and making mundane changes to websites is a grand adventure. I am a woman changing lives right from my home office. I am a mother creating an exciting world for my daughter and my apprentices. I am a girl slaying monsters and rising to glory.

And all it takes it one twirl in my ugly skirt out in the warm sunlight.

Today is Ugly Skirt Day. I think I shall conquer the world.

If you are not Irish, and you claim to celebrate St Patrick's Day, then you are racist. Period.

No other day on the planet is dedicated to pretending that you are a different nationality. No other Holy Day of Obligation has been used as an excuse for you to drink. No where else has a really poor stereotype been glorified to sell more alcohol.

You don't see me putting on blackface to celebrate Black History Month. You don't see me shooting British people on July 4th.
So why is it OK for you to 'drink like the Irish' on the day where they're celebrating their patron saint?

It's disgusting and I hope you get alcohol poisoning.

If you want to drink, go drink. But don't use a culture as an excuse. The End.

It's such a strange thing, to look at other people's videos of their visual art... or even to read their resumes and recognize roles or productions that they have been involved with... and to deep down feel intense jealousy.
It's not a feeling I enjoy.


I've really spent this morning so far looking at my high school year books and all the productions I did. Just for... validation? I suppose. But let's be honest. I'm not an actress. I never was, and never will be, the leading lady. 99% of the time, this is awesome. Character bits are hilarious and more often remembered by the audience.
But today is one of those 1% times.


"Your voice is too hollow to sing." "You need to think faster to perform improv." "You have no formal training." Those are all true. But the criticism that haunts me most: "Your stories read like essays. This is a creative writing class, please be more creative."
That one killed me in college.


And you'll notice that I haven't written any more stand-alone short stories since then. I switched to scripts. Wildly successful scripts, yes. But no more of my own stories. Just retellings of what others have done.

It's depressing, really. Not financially depressing, oh no, I have law school to fill that void. But for all my reading and all my writing I still only have one story that's truly my own original creation. And I haven't shared it with anyone. Because as soon as I do, it will fail. It will fall short. And, dammit, I need my one vain hope that I actually created something beautiful and perfect that would bring others to tears, just as I so often cry when I see beautiful art. So if I don't share my story then everything else that I DO share can try and live up to my one perfect creation.
That doesn't make any sense at all, does it.


I watched Hero again. And the dance scene in House of Flying Daggers. And then sat and stared at my quarter-page picture in my sophomore yearbook where I was the geisha in Dragon of the Winds. I worked for hours on a one minute fan dance. Somehow the director found a wedding kimono with the most beautiful embroidery of Mt. Fuji on it. It was my first lead role, my first stage kiss, the second time I bowed last in curtain call. (First final bow was as the Narrator in our middle school production of Les Miserables.)

I was beautiful (if I may say so myself). I've watched the dance again with a critical eye, and it's still graceful even though I made it myself after only watching the tea ceremony in The Karate Kid 2. I thought then that I would capture the eyes of directors everywhere.
Dressing room, opening night. One of the other girls said to me as she was tying my obi, "This would fit me so much better since I'm not as fat as you."
Cue the next two years of anorexia.


That's why I went to college for Speech Communication and not acting. I didn't even try to get in to the theatre program anywhere. I said to myself, I can be a better manager so that my friends can be actors. But I volunteered at the theatre. I ushered (and got to see amazing things like the Moscow Ballet and the London Symphony Orchestra). I studied everything that makes a theatre work behind the scenes. I created and ran workshops on fundraising. And in my senior year I did the one thing I never thought I could do.
I auditioned for the Bristol Renaissance Faire. And got in.


You can imagine my surprise. I was the girl that couldn't act. I was the girl that always got passed. And now I'm working in the real world with real actors. I tried everything that first year. I wanted to show the world that even though I wasn't the skinny lead I could still grab an audience and keep it.
I did.


But I never got any further. Despite all my trying. The world remembered that I'm not an actress. I wrote shows. I said to myself, I can be a better writer so that my friends can be actors. And seven stage shows and two years of RenQuest later I've seen these, my actors, bring my characters to life in ways I never imagined. I still cry when I watch them live in the moment.
Beautiful, moving, art.


As many of you know, now I'm the publicity and social media director of the Bristol Renaissance Faire. It's why I went to college. I can be a better manager so my friends can act. I'm no longer the assistant director of RenQuest - that position is in the more than capable hands of Miss Cassy Schillo. I'm still the Lead Writer of RenQuest, which is an honor to me that they still want me to create the new trilogy with them.
But I can tell you now that I already miss acting. Even though I never really did it.


Selfish? Tremendously. I know logically that I can't have it all. After all, I already have my family and my home. I have my career. And I have amazing beautiful friends that inspire the world everyday, even when they don't think that they are.
Because they inspire me.


I'm here so that you can do what you do for a bigger and better audience.
But forgive me if you see your publicity director trying to moonlight as an actress this summer.
I'm having a hard time letting go.

Dear sinus cavity,

Don't get me wrong - I'm a fan of the theory of evolution. I think it's done very well in the past by ensuring our survival. However, given today's circumstances I'm beginning to think that perhaps you skipped out of that class during school. You see, I understand that you have a natural instinct to produce fluid to flush out any type of foreign invader. And I know that I am sick. You know that I am sick. Hell, the dog even knows that I am sick and has been hiding in the guest room all morning. But I'm pretty damn certain that my illness does NOT reside inside my nose. So there's no need to continue to produce the almost-yellowish-greeny-ooze-like-substance that you've been producing since 6am in an annoyingly slow drip-like method so that even after I blow my nose I can feel the next drip coming. Evolution was supposed to work out all these kinks in the system BEFORE it got to me, so kindly study up on the theory and cease the flow of ooze to all orifices.
Further, it's bad enough that I have to wear a bandanna while I do anything with the baby. I can only imagine that the neighbors think I'm practicing to rob a train using the baby as some kind of weapon of mass cuteness. But, seriously sinus-cavity, when I sneezed into the bandanna and you decided that a pint of mucus should accompany said sneeze and wind up trapped between the bandanna and my skin because I was feeding the baby... that was just cruel.
In conclusion, not only have you proven that my immune-system has clearly regressed to the point before evolution decided to fix human illness, but you are also a malicious organ who is out to giggle at my suffering while I try to keep my daughter healthy. I demand that you cease all hostilities immediately or I shall be forced to follow-up with another dose of Robitussin.

No love,
Julie


Dear colon,
Please see above. You get the idea.
No love,
Julie

Wednesday - 4 miles, 1hr 6 min
Today - 4 miles 1hr, 2min!

My goal is to make 4 miles in an hour flat, consistently for a week, and then bump it up to 5 miles. Lexi is a peach and sleeps through the whole ordeal anyway, so tacking on another 20 minutes won't change her mind about the situation.

I've noticed that I'm starting to eat less. The no snacking thing was killing me these past two weeks, but it seems my body has accepted the fact that no amount of protesting is going to make me walk to the store and buy a bag of vanilla cookies. No.
If I want cookies then I must make them myself. And unless Matt is here to watch Lexi, there's no way she'll let me go through all the steps of making cookies by myself. She hates the sound of the mixer. I have no idea why.

But speaking of cookies, now that Matt IS home I shall go and make a few batches for my meeting on Saturday and the game on Sunday. If I'm going to eat dessert, then I'm a social eater. :)

Sunday 4 miles 1hr 10 min
Today 4 miles 1hr 6min

But 180 pounds.
I weighed myself twice.

So how on earth do I GAIN 4 more pounds when I've cut out all snacking, no soda and make all my meals from home?!
This makes no sense to me.

Boo.

Wed: 4 miles, 1hr 9min
Today: 4 miles, 1hr 8min

I feel FANTASTIC.

I'm still struggling with actually swallowing my multivitamin every morning, but I'll be pleased with myself if I take it every day in Jan. Baby steps, you know?

Speaking of baby - Lexi SCREAMS with joy every time she's on her play mat. She's started to roll from side to side (and ends up spinning in a counter-clockwise circle if I leave her down there long enough) but she hasn't rolled over yet.

Things are really starting to roll with work. And I'm really excited that one of my project ideas is going to come to life next month. Squee!

And now... Onward! To Waffles!

Saturday: 4 miles - 1hr 11min
Sunday: 2 miles outside w/dog - 1 hr, 30 minutes w/xbox Kinect... pretty sure I pulled a muscle in my right leg
Today: 3 miles - 57 minutes. Totally sure I pulled a muscle in my right leg. Much stretching in between each mile. Still too painful to finish 4th lap. I'm taking tomorrow off.

177 pounds.
Dammit.

And I've eaten salads all bloody weekend. Boo.
I'm hereby throwing out all remaining Christmas cookies and truffles. It's sad, but I blame them during my snacking. Grr.

So now that I've make red beans and rice for lunch, and eaten it, I find that I have nothing new to write about. So I'll go back to work and silently curse my desire to eat food all the time.