5 am again and again and again

It's 5 am again. I am up with the shih tzus. This is my favorite time of day. I play my music, albeit on low. I hang with the puppies and write. I lay on a too small couch. I'm five foot three and I can barely stretch out. But it suffices. 

The dogs are eating my husband's new flip flops. I'm loath to stop them because they're distracted and I'm writing. Cognizant that he just bought the shoes, I hand them my ragged slipper to bite on. 

The Shins stream on volume one in the background. I tend toward mellow music in the morning. The Shins, the Beatles and Joni Mitchell. Nothing too hard. Maybe some Queen. 

I'm wearing my Bowie lightning bolt earrings that my best friend Melinda gifted me. Ohhh I think, that's how my brain works as I write this, put on some Bowie. So I do. I sing along. Humming. 

I think of everything that's going on. Despite the chaos in the world, some things remain constant, and that I appreciate. I was able to see a couple of good friends yesterday. One friend, a fellow deputy public defender who's moved to Ventura, stopped by to see me and the puppies yesterday. We talked about mental health court and caught up. And I saw another good friend virtually for my podcast, one who is a writer and professor. We talked about everything that's going on and commiserated. 

It is soul sustaining in these times to be able to connect with people who are just as dismayed by the current times as I am. 

Where do we go from here? This is the greatest rollback of civil rights since Reconstruction. The people in power have effectively created, or helped create, a dictator who rules by decree, and who disappears people. 

I guess I don't know what to do or where to go. Maybe nowhere is safe. But for now, I'm just going to keep on writing. And voicing my opinions, and performing and talking about the issues and stories I care about. So there's that. Happy Friday friends. 

 

Is it not too late

I don't consider this a political blog. But sometimes, I do talk about justice and right now, is a crucial time. Those in power are moving fast. According to a recent article in The Atlantic, we have moments left to act. Our very democracy is at stake. 

As the article states,

"Look around, take stock of where you are, and know this: Today, right now—and I mean right this second—you have the most power you’ll ever have in the current fight against authoritarianism in America. If this sounds dramatic to you, it should. Over the past five months, in many hours of many conversations with multiple people who have lived under dictators and autocrats, one message came through loud and clear: America, you are running out of time." https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/04/america-trump-authoritarianism-global/682528/

What that means is that we all must stand up. We must speak. We cannot ignore the crisis. It's tempting to want to run. But there is no where to go. 

As the same article warns, "When I hear people ask if they should flee to some other country, some faraway land, I want to shake them. You want an escape plan? To where?” Ressa said to me recently. “If the United States of America falls, it’s the ball game.”https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/04/america-trump-authoritarianism-global/682528/

Our democracy is everything in America. It's why we were the superpower. It is how we created the ideal and idea of the "American Dream". Soon we may look back and say, "Do you remember, not too long ago, when we had a free press, social programs, free K to 12 education, federal student loans and social security?"

This democracy can easily die on the vine while we sip our wine. Put down your rose filled or colored glasses (filled with vino or positive thoughts) and stop ignoring the obvious. Because we must act. We must stand up. Now, my friends. I know it's scary. It's terrifying in fact. But it's the reality. 

The feels

Last night, I had an event at the libros bookstore in Lincoln Heights. It's in a charming neighborhood in LA right off Soto and the ten freeway on Broadway.  It is a small venue, but they do a lot with their space. 

They were able to accommodate the reading and musical performances and even had seating for most of the people who came by. The rest were standing. 

I got there in plenty of time. I left early so I could get some gas and chicken soft tacos at Del Taco. I usually loathe driving to LA, but it wasn't bad. Traffic was minimal and I listened to a podcast (listening to Marc Maron wax on about his crazy cat and whether he should add another cat to balance out the brood had me laughing out loud).

When I got to the bookstore, I saw some of my favorite people, musician and writer Laurie Markvart (get the audible version of her memoir here: https://www.amazon.com/Somewhere-Music-Ill-Find-Me/dp/B0CM9QL6XX), Hannah Sward, who wrote one of my favorite memoirs (titled Strip), and a few writers who I had never met but soundly admire, Christine Sneed (she read from one of her fabulous books that made me laugh out loud and I got her recent collection of short stories), as well as Jeremy Ray who writes amazing micro fiction and William Fox whose guitar playing will make you swoon. 

I was nervous before I went up. I was last. But I managed my nerves. It's gotten easier. I always think, hey if you can fight for someone in trial before a judge in a robe, you can perform your stories. I try to remember that everyone is there rooting me on. They want me to succeed. 

So I got up (after running to the restroom to pee right before, damn my nervous bladder) and read and finally found that vanishing point where I lost myself in the story. 

Up there reading about my high school days at a club. I felt as if I transported myself back in time for a moment. I was happy then sad and everything in between. I'd been listening to the song "Messy" on repeat by Lola Young earlier in the day and that helped along with the inspiring performances by my fellow performers. I love it when that happens. To get those feels, it's everything. 

The mores...

Tonight, I have an event in Los Angeles. I've tried to cut down on LA events. It's hard on me. The drive. My anxiety. My stress. Plus, it's the Sunday before Easter.

But, as much as it's hard, it's everything in some ways. I love the community of it. I even enjoy the nervous energy I get right before I go on. Then, once I'm up there, I lose myself on stage, or try to. I think I just adore that feeling of being someone else. At least for a moment. 

And yes, I'm reading and performing memoir. So it's me. But it's me at a different time and place. Jenny is a character. Try as we might, we cannot really capture ourselves fully. She's who I remember myself as. She's a creation. 

I'm morphing creatively I think. I want to do more. A play. Another book. A TV show. 

But you're 53! Why can't you just be content, that's what I ask myself. What the fuck is wrong with you? Why do you want more and more? Why can't you just be satisfied with what you got? You have a lot. Yes, I tell myself I do, but I do want more. I know I can do more. And more and more.

Rock away

Last night, we went to Pappy & Harriets in Joshua Tree to see The Coverups, which is basically Billy Joe and some of his Green Day crew, playing covers. It was so epic, and they did songs by The Replacements, The Ramones, Buzzcocks, Pretenders, Generation X, Bowie and more. But my back is paying for it this morning. Toward the end of the show, I was grimacing sitting on a bench trying to stretch. 

It was a long drive there, and the ride home was even harder. It's a curvy, narrow road to get to Pioneertown, and I was the designated driver which is rare, but I didn't mind. It allowed me to enjoy the show sober. 

But my night vision is middling at best and on the ride down the mountain, my husband commented that I was way below the speed limit, going only 25 or 30 miles per hour. I shushed him and turned the radio volume up higher and listened to Marky Ramone's playlist on Sirius radio to manage my anxiety. 

It got me thinking. Is there an age when concerts are too much? Here's another way of saying it. Will I ever be too old to rock out to live music? I'm not sure. I'm not saying I would amble into a live show at eighty. Or am I? 

Concerts are such a huge part of who I am and seeing a punk or post punk show, for me at least, is the ultimate release and explosion of joy. 

That being said, last night, after pogo dancing to Billy Joe's rendition of Rockaway Beach by the Ramones, I might have said, panting after losing my breath, although I will vehemently deny it if ever asked, "I'm too old for this shit."

Writing and more

I write every day. Something. A blog. A story for class. An essay for a newspaper. Those are three of the things I've written in the last couple of weeks.

My writing routine is this. I wake up early and drink two espresso shots and write on my phone. Then I email the document to myself to convert it to a word document.

It works for me. With my back issues, I only sit at a computer at work or at home with a laptop desk. I remember when I was working on my chapbook, I wrote on my bed on my forearms typing. That was a ridiculous way to write. 

Comfort is key for me now. I type with one finger, yes I do, but I'm a quick scribe even with one digit doing the work.

I've also been working on a YA novel, which I'm also writing on my phone and saving in a draft version on my blog page as well as creating a one woman show, which I'm recording episode by episode, some of which I've released in short mini bonus content on my podcast.  

So I guess what I'm saying is that I'm finding new ways to write. To be productive and prolific in the limited amount of time I have. I would urge you to do the same. Find what works for you and just do it. And always remember, there's just this, and there's just now. So savor it. 

The dropout

After dropping out of high school at seventeen, just five units short, I thought my life was over. I felt like I'd thrown away everything: my dreams of attending Claremont McKenna, my goal of leaving the Inland Empire (the "IE") and my quest to be somebody. I thought, I am a nobody. A loser.

For many years, I blamed myself. Even though I took my GED and ended up excelling in junior college and then at UCR and USC Law, I always felt less than. It didn't matter that I was an attorney with a fancy law degree from USC, dropping out of high school was my biggest shame. I hid it. I never talked about it until my dad died and I quit my prestigious law firm job and came back to the IE. Something I said I'd never do (never say never, it's a challenge to the universe).

And so decades later, I came home to the much (unfairly) maligned IE. And I found myself again, as a writer and as a deputy public defender.

In the process of writing of my memoir, I finally realized it was a miracle that I'd made it through most of high school at all. That epiphany made me realize that the story behind my stigma of being a high school dropout could become my superpower. 

You see, in high school, I was an A student, and on the swim team, and yearbook. Then junior year, everything crashed around us. My dad lost his bar (as my mom always said, "a drinker owning a bar is a disaster waiting to happen" and happen it did), my parents lost our house, and we moved from rental to rental. I think we had to move three or four times in two years. Then my half sister Barb (who was in her twenties living in Oregon) died in a head on collision. It devastated my father. He locked himself in the bathroom with his gun and me and my mom talked him down.

By senior year, the stress of my family's financial struggles combined with all of my childhood chaos, began catching up with me. Most days, I couldn't get out of bed. I refused to go to school and I slept my senior year away to my mother's dismay. My mom would try to get me up out of bed, but if she did, I'd pretend to walk to school then wait till she left for her breakfast shift at the coffee shop and I would walk back home and crawl into bed. I now know that I was in the midst of a full blown depressive episode. As a deputy public defender who specializes in mental health, I've educated myself. And all the symptoms were there. But teenage depression was not a thing in the 1980s. There was little or no information or mental health treatment for teens who were struggling. I didn't even realize it myself. I thought I had just given up, which I had, but there was a reason, and a justification that wasn't my fault. It was my organic brain chemistry that needed help. I needed help. But no one helped me and I spent my graduation day under the bleachers crying, watching my twin sister graduate. 

But this is not a sad story. Or at least not a story with a sad ending. I made it out of the IE then came back. I have a law degree and I'm working on another graduate degree. I have a job where I get paid to advocate for those paralyzed by their own mental health struggles. And I love my clients. People sometimes ask me how I represent people who are accused of doing bad things, and I always say, there but for the grace of a higher power, go all of us. I am them, they are me. We all have a story. And this is mine.