I watched Gravity last night. I needed to divorce myself from reality and lose myself in a movie. Within minutes, I was lost in the stars and heavens of space and it was comforting. The movie reminded me that there is a God. There has to be. Or at the very least, I need there to be one. I'm selfish in that way I suppose. Agnostics and non-believers please be kind and let me keep my faith.
This melancholiness was brought on by the fact that a friend died a couple of days ago at the age of twenty-six. I am feeling tender. If someone touches me, I will bruise.
This friend who passed reminded me a lot of myself at that young age (another way of saying that I saw pieces of myself in her) and I am sad for the loss of her possibilities as well as her friendship. Her death made me see that we are all delicate plates on a shelf waiting to break. Fragile, that is what life is. And precious.
In modern day America we numb ourselves with television, multiple games of Candy Crush, texting and Facebook. It is easier to live life virtually than realistically. Why do I blast punk music in my car and sing the whole way to work? It must be to escape the drudgery of driving and the day to come. Because face it, work is often monotonous and life is hard. People die. There are wars and famine and tragedies.
At work yesterday, I had no mask on. My sadness was evident. I am often sad and usually hide it under a facade of cheerfulness. But I was too tired to pretend. My hair was frizzy and I had no makeup on. I sat at my desk like a zombie.
Dammit, I am tired of pretending with everything. I am tired of not seeking my dreams. What the hell am I waiting for? I have so many stories to tell. All of them mine.
For years, I have hesitated to apply to a summer writing conference in Vermont that is very competitive. I have been afraid that they would reject me. Last night, I threw caution to the wind. And somehow I knew it was meant to be because when I clicked on the applications page the deadline was March 1st. I had no time to think, I just dusted off my writing sample and applied.
After I applied. I crossed my heart and looked up. Into the heavens.
There is one.
Panorama of San Bernardino
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Monday, February 10, 2014
This is it or is it?
It pisses me off that the old saying, the one that says that youth is wasted on the young, is too true. Most days, I want to throw off my suit and dance. But I am old. Not old old, but almost middle-age old and old like my back hurts old and I must go to sleep at 9 p.m. and wake up at 5 a.m. old and care about retirement old.
I cannot say that I did not have wild times because I did. My sister Annie and I spent our late teens and early twenties living on our own in a two bedroom rent subsidized apartment in Upland. We waited tables to pay the bills and went dancing four nights a week at IE and LA clubs. We worked out every morning at an all woman gym called The Spa in Upland and ate vegetables and rice for lunch with no dinner as we preferred a liquid alcohol infused diet (we did not want to look bloated at the club). All that club hopping was not in vain because I met my husband Adrian at one of these clubs and we have been together forever since.
My mid twenties were spent in school getting my Bachelor's degree in English Literature. My time at Mt. SAC in Walnut was the hardest. I walked to work at the restaurant where I waited tables (it was blocks away) and Annie would drive me to school. It was difficult but I was in my twenties and had all the energy in the world. School was my solace and I was the editor-in-chief of the college newspaper and lost myself in the office for hours editing stories and doing layout. I loved the smell of the papers when we picked them up from the printers. My teacher and mentor begged me to apply to Columbia for journalism but I could not visualize it. At some point, I lost my job and had to move back with my parents into a trailer park in Pomona for a year or two. That is its own story but it made me more hungry to get out and motivated me to finish junior college and transfer.
After I transferred, I lived on campus at UC Riverside on top of a bar. The rooms were called suites and had a shared kitchen common area. My room was a little box that was only large enough to fit a twin bed, a small dresser, a desk and my little TV and radio. I must have had posters on the wall. I have always been a poster type of girl (my law office has framed prints from the New Yorker and Frida Kahlo alongside an unframed Sex Pistols poster).
I met two of my closest friends at UCR, Emily and Gina, who were also English majors. Together we ruled the school (sans Pink Ladies jackets) and spent our time drinking coffee or beer and laughing. Emily (who lived in the college suite below me) and I were procrastinators by nature and routinely stayed up all night together writing our papers in my apartment. Occasionally, we would all go out and I would stay the night at Gina's huge old house in Riverside where she lived with her two young sons. I remember waking up and Gina would make me coffee with cream and bring it to me at the kitchen table where we would have soul sustaining conversations about life and art. The possibilities seemed so open. Like we could do anything or go anywhere or be anything.
My late twenties were spent in law school at USC. To this day, I don't know how it happened. I planned on getting a doctorate in English Literature with a focus on James Joyce and post-modernism. And yet, despite these plans, I applied to law school at USC after taking the LSAT on a lark. And I got in. And I went. It was that simple. It could have been that I was flattered and surprised that an elite law school would even consider this former waitress and high school dropout. Looking back, I should not have been surprised, I had a 3.8 GPA and a decent LSAT. Back in those days, I used to feel shame about my windy road to college. Now I see it as an accomplishment and a kind of miracle.
I would not call USC Law a mistake. But it is a choice I question often. I am definitely more the bookworm type and may have been happier in academia. Or as a writer on SNL. I kinda wish I was Tina Fey. (Not kinda. I do.)
My time at USC Law flew by like a movie on fast forward. I was desperately poor my first year because I couldn't work. I got a half scholarship but did not qualify for enough loans to cover my living expenses and I had to live with Adrian and his parents for the first year. I commuted in a car Adrian gave me and used his gas card.
I remember counting change to cover breakfast at school (bagel and coffee) and coffee for lunch at Starbucks and Taco Bell for dinner while studying. The financial aid office found me more money and I moved into an apartment off of Hoover and Adams street for my second year (2L) with my law school friends Bridget and Tiffini. The rent was cheap, 1200 bucks for a three bedroom We had wires coming out of walls and critter friends and only one bathroom, but the walk was five minutes to school. Bridget and I clipped coupons and she cooked and we ate well.
By my third year in law school, my second year summer associate job funded me for my third year in style and Bridget and I moved into an apartment in Downtown LA. At the time (circa 2001 to 2002), the downtown area was not the hip place it is now, but our apartment was lovely and spacious. You couldn't walk outside at night because the homeless crowd would fight but we didn't care.
After law school, I moved to Texas by myself. I was working sixty or seventy hours a week, but for the most part I had fun. My amigas were two Latina twins from Brownsville, Texas (Celia and Cecilia). One was a talented writer and one was a lawyer like me. I also hung out with a girl in a grad program named Lulu (who is now a professor). We drank margaritas on the patio of our apartments on the weekends and chatted about our lives.
At work I had Nancy, an associate who was a year above me at the firm. My favorite part of the work day was the daily coffee break where Nancy and I would go to Starbucks and recount "episodes" from the firm. We even cast ourselves in the dramedy version of our lives should these "episodes" ever make it to the screen. She was cast as Susan Sarandon and I was Drew Barrymore. After work we would sometimes hang out at the Four Seasons drinking martinis and continuing the conversation.
It's funny, but I also remember spending a lot of time alone in Houston. I had my cat Leopold and he would sleep with me but I would go eat breakfast by myself on the weekends after which I would catch a movie and go shopping. I even went to a play by myself. It was a small production of a James Joyce short story. The play was staged at a tiny playhouse in the River Oaks area and I was the only one there solo (or it felt like I was).
When Adrian got into dental school in San Francisco I jumped at the chance to move. I missed him and wanted to be closer to my family. The partner that I worked for at the law firm was supportive and gave me a month off to study for the California Bar. I moved to the Bay mere months after finding out I passed and took the first law firm job I could find.
In San Francisco, Adrian and I lived in a five hundred square foot box of an apartment on the UCSF campus. The apartment was up on a hill in the Twin Peaks area. The bathroom was so small that I had to wiggle past the door. Adrian and I started building our pseudo married life there. He cooked two or three nights a week and we both cleaned. Adrian accepted the fact that I was cooking challenged and on the days he didn't cook we ordered in or ate out at one of the numerous restaurants. After a year, we moved to a bigger apartment in the Inner Sunset area by Golden Gate Park and on the weekend we would walk around the lake and look at the ducks. It was the best of times.
When my Dad died suddenly, I moved back home leaving Adrian to finish off his last year of dental school alone. Looking back, it was an impetuous choice. I didn't think. I just jumped ship. I felt that I needed to be home closer to my mom and my sisters. Or maybe it was because I felt adrift and aimless. My accomplishments seemed meaningless. All I kept thinking about were those seventy hour work weeks and that I hadn't spent any real time with my parents for five years. And now my dad was gone. I could not fix it. It was too late.
Coming home was the right thing to do. I know now that I should have waited for Adrian but if I had waited to move, we might have stayed in the Bay permanently. We loved it there. But our family was here in the Inland Empire.
And I don't think I would be where I am career wise if I hadn't left. I might not be a public defender and instead could be working at a big firm and hating my job. Life is too short to hate your job.
In another universe, there is a girl with curly hair who is probably still overweight and gazing out her high rise window at a Houston skyline while she slaves away late into the night. Every so often she sighs and thinks about writing a poem or a story but she is too tired.
Ultimately, I am writing this to figure out how I got here, and where I belong. It is obvious that I have been melancholy of late. The same restlessness that has plagued me at various times in my life has resurfaced and I want to make the right decision.
To be continued...
I cannot say that I did not have wild times because I did. My sister Annie and I spent our late teens and early twenties living on our own in a two bedroom rent subsidized apartment in Upland. We waited tables to pay the bills and went dancing four nights a week at IE and LA clubs. We worked out every morning at an all woman gym called The Spa in Upland and ate vegetables and rice for lunch with no dinner as we preferred a liquid alcohol infused diet (we did not want to look bloated at the club). All that club hopping was not in vain because I met my husband Adrian at one of these clubs and we have been together forever since.
My mid twenties were spent in school getting my Bachelor's degree in English Literature. My time at Mt. SAC in Walnut was the hardest. I walked to work at the restaurant where I waited tables (it was blocks away) and Annie would drive me to school. It was difficult but I was in my twenties and had all the energy in the world. School was my solace and I was the editor-in-chief of the college newspaper and lost myself in the office for hours editing stories and doing layout. I loved the smell of the papers when we picked them up from the printers. My teacher and mentor begged me to apply to Columbia for journalism but I could not visualize it. At some point, I lost my job and had to move back with my parents into a trailer park in Pomona for a year or two. That is its own story but it made me more hungry to get out and motivated me to finish junior college and transfer.
After I transferred, I lived on campus at UC Riverside on top of a bar. The rooms were called suites and had a shared kitchen common area. My room was a little box that was only large enough to fit a twin bed, a small dresser, a desk and my little TV and radio. I must have had posters on the wall. I have always been a poster type of girl (my law office has framed prints from the New Yorker and Frida Kahlo alongside an unframed Sex Pistols poster).
I met two of my closest friends at UCR, Emily and Gina, who were also English majors. Together we ruled the school (sans Pink Ladies jackets) and spent our time drinking coffee or beer and laughing. Emily (who lived in the college suite below me) and I were procrastinators by nature and routinely stayed up all night together writing our papers in my apartment. Occasionally, we would all go out and I would stay the night at Gina's huge old house in Riverside where she lived with her two young sons. I remember waking up and Gina would make me coffee with cream and bring it to me at the kitchen table where we would have soul sustaining conversations about life and art. The possibilities seemed so open. Like we could do anything or go anywhere or be anything.
My late twenties were spent in law school at USC. To this day, I don't know how it happened. I planned on getting a doctorate in English Literature with a focus on James Joyce and post-modernism. And yet, despite these plans, I applied to law school at USC after taking the LSAT on a lark. And I got in. And I went. It was that simple. It could have been that I was flattered and surprised that an elite law school would even consider this former waitress and high school dropout. Looking back, I should not have been surprised, I had a 3.8 GPA and a decent LSAT. Back in those days, I used to feel shame about my windy road to college. Now I see it as an accomplishment and a kind of miracle.
I would not call USC Law a mistake. But it is a choice I question often. I am definitely more the bookworm type and may have been happier in academia. Or as a writer on SNL. I kinda wish I was Tina Fey. (Not kinda. I do.)
My time at USC Law flew by like a movie on fast forward. I was desperately poor my first year because I couldn't work. I got a half scholarship but did not qualify for enough loans to cover my living expenses and I had to live with Adrian and his parents for the first year. I commuted in a car Adrian gave me and used his gas card.
I remember counting change to cover breakfast at school (bagel and coffee) and coffee for lunch at Starbucks and Taco Bell for dinner while studying. The financial aid office found me more money and I moved into an apartment off of Hoover and Adams street for my second year (2L) with my law school friends Bridget and Tiffini. The rent was cheap, 1200 bucks for a three bedroom We had wires coming out of walls and critter friends and only one bathroom, but the walk was five minutes to school. Bridget and I clipped coupons and she cooked and we ate well.
By my third year in law school, my second year summer associate job funded me for my third year in style and Bridget and I moved into an apartment in Downtown LA. At the time (circa 2001 to 2002), the downtown area was not the hip place it is now, but our apartment was lovely and spacious. You couldn't walk outside at night because the homeless crowd would fight but we didn't care.
After law school, I moved to Texas by myself. I was working sixty or seventy hours a week, but for the most part I had fun. My amigas were two Latina twins from Brownsville, Texas (Celia and Cecilia). One was a talented writer and one was a lawyer like me. I also hung out with a girl in a grad program named Lulu (who is now a professor). We drank margaritas on the patio of our apartments on the weekends and chatted about our lives.
At work I had Nancy, an associate who was a year above me at the firm. My favorite part of the work day was the daily coffee break where Nancy and I would go to Starbucks and recount "episodes" from the firm. We even cast ourselves in the dramedy version of our lives should these "episodes" ever make it to the screen. She was cast as Susan Sarandon and I was Drew Barrymore. After work we would sometimes hang out at the Four Seasons drinking martinis and continuing the conversation.
It's funny, but I also remember spending a lot of time alone in Houston. I had my cat Leopold and he would sleep with me but I would go eat breakfast by myself on the weekends after which I would catch a movie and go shopping. I even went to a play by myself. It was a small production of a James Joyce short story. The play was staged at a tiny playhouse in the River Oaks area and I was the only one there solo (or it felt like I was).
When Adrian got into dental school in San Francisco I jumped at the chance to move. I missed him and wanted to be closer to my family. The partner that I worked for at the law firm was supportive and gave me a month off to study for the California Bar. I moved to the Bay mere months after finding out I passed and took the first law firm job I could find.
In San Francisco, Adrian and I lived in a five hundred square foot box of an apartment on the UCSF campus. The apartment was up on a hill in the Twin Peaks area. The bathroom was so small that I had to wiggle past the door. Adrian and I started building our pseudo married life there. He cooked two or three nights a week and we both cleaned. Adrian accepted the fact that I was cooking challenged and on the days he didn't cook we ordered in or ate out at one of the numerous restaurants. After a year, we moved to a bigger apartment in the Inner Sunset area by Golden Gate Park and on the weekend we would walk around the lake and look at the ducks. It was the best of times.
When my Dad died suddenly, I moved back home leaving Adrian to finish off his last year of dental school alone. Looking back, it was an impetuous choice. I didn't think. I just jumped ship. I felt that I needed to be home closer to my mom and my sisters. Or maybe it was because I felt adrift and aimless. My accomplishments seemed meaningless. All I kept thinking about were those seventy hour work weeks and that I hadn't spent any real time with my parents for five years. And now my dad was gone. I could not fix it. It was too late.
Coming home was the right thing to do. I know now that I should have waited for Adrian but if I had waited to move, we might have stayed in the Bay permanently. We loved it there. But our family was here in the Inland Empire.
And I don't think I would be where I am career wise if I hadn't left. I might not be a public defender and instead could be working at a big firm and hating my job. Life is too short to hate your job.
In another universe, there is a girl with curly hair who is probably still overweight and gazing out her high rise window at a Houston skyline while she slaves away late into the night. Every so often she sighs and thinks about writing a poem or a story but she is too tired.
Ultimately, I am writing this to figure out how I got here, and where I belong. It is obvious that I have been melancholy of late. The same restlessness that has plagued me at various times in my life has resurfaced and I want to make the right decision.
To be continued...
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Letting Go
I am not adept at letting go (or adept at not letting go). Instead of shrugging the bad situations off, many of them petty and trivial things, I agonize over every slight or negative comment.
Some days I wish I could be one of those people that don't give a shit, but alas I am not.
This is not all bad news. The positive aspect of my personality is that I am constantly reassessing and asking myself how to improve. The problem could be that my job as a public defender is by its very nature confrontational. And, I like to argue but I pay a price for it with my internal critique. In Nora Ephon's "You've Got Mail", the Meg Ryan character laments that she always thinks of what to say after the fact which is similar to my dilemma. I like to debate and argue, but I am always questioning my reactions and performance. Perhaps it is the artist in me that wants to edit my life like I can the written word. In other words, I want a rewrite.
And I know what you are all thinking while reading this, I am narcissistic. Stipulate.
Maybe all I need to do is vent by writing and relieve the stress by exercising. I always feel better after a good run and a good story. In my self-imposed sobriety, exercise and writing are my new drugs (other than Diet Coke).
Tonight with rain falling from the sky, this is my outlet.
Thank you for listening.
Some days I wish I could be one of those people that don't give a shit, but alas I am not.
This is not all bad news. The positive aspect of my personality is that I am constantly reassessing and asking myself how to improve. The problem could be that my job as a public defender is by its very nature confrontational. And, I like to argue but I pay a price for it with my internal critique. In Nora Ephon's "You've Got Mail", the Meg Ryan character laments that she always thinks of what to say after the fact which is similar to my dilemma. I like to debate and argue, but I am always questioning my reactions and performance. Perhaps it is the artist in me that wants to edit my life like I can the written word. In other words, I want a rewrite.
And I know what you are all thinking while reading this, I am narcissistic. Stipulate.
Maybe all I need to do is vent by writing and relieve the stress by exercising. I always feel better after a good run and a good story. In my self-imposed sobriety, exercise and writing are my new drugs (other than Diet Coke).
Tonight with rain falling from the sky, this is my outlet.
Thank you for listening.
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Feminism Scheminism
I have always considered myself an independent woman. I grew up blue collar and put myself through undergraduate and law school by waiting tables. Feminism was just a term I heard thrown around by older white women. Mom never used the term while I was growing up in the Inland Empire of the 1970's and 1980's. Mom worked but it was because she had to. She had no choice.
I always think about how hard Mom worked when I start to complain about my job. You see, I know what it is like to come home from a ten hour day of waiting tables. Your feet hurt so much that when you take off your shoes, you can't let your bare feet touch the ground.
Dad moved furniture and Mom waited tables for all of my childhood and most of my adult years. It was a necessity to pay the bills. We were what you called "bill poor". There was enough money for food and vacations and an occasional Barbie Dreamhouse but my parents paid for that comfort with their own sweat, aching feet and backs. When my 75 year old mom finally quit her restaurant job five years ago she was happy to leave it behind.
My parents' work ethic is the best thing they could have ever given my sisters and I. It is more valuable than any money or property. That work ethic is what got me through Mt. SAC Junior College and what propelled me into the editor-in-chief position at the college newspaper and what sustained me through my financial struggles while at UC Riverside and USC Law.
After graduating law school, I worked in corporate litigation at the big firms for six years with back breaking hours. In Texas at Vinson and Elkins, I saw female partners and senior associates with deep circles under their eyes working seventy hours a week while trying to balance family. I may have admired their cars (one had a Jaguar that I coveted) but I thought to myself, "Fuck that. I don't want to be them." (Yes reader, I even cuss to myself.)
Before he died from the pancreatic cancer that caused my formerly hefty father to wither into a tiny bird, he told me, "I thought you went to USC so you could work less not more." Dad was right and after he died I made a change and ended up at the Public Defender's Office.
This morning I started thinking to myself, am I a feminist? I may seem like one from the outside. I kept my last name which my husband Adrian reminded me of this morning. But that choice has more to do with wanting to keep a piece of my father alive more than anything else. I work full-time as an attorney. But I would rather not be working as a lawyer at all. I love to write. Writing is what I see myself doing full-time for long term happiness.
I don't have kids but it is not for lack of trying. If God gave me the choice between working and no kids and staying home and raising kids, I would take the kids (even triplets) and happily stay home to raise them through their young years. My point is, at this age if God gave me a miracle, I would not thumb my nose at the gift. If that makes me old fashioned so be it. It is not that I think you have to stay home to be a good mom, it is that I would want to. And I am lucky that I have the ability to make that choice.
At this point, feminism be dammed. I just want to be happy.
I always think about how hard Mom worked when I start to complain about my job. You see, I know what it is like to come home from a ten hour day of waiting tables. Your feet hurt so much that when you take off your shoes, you can't let your bare feet touch the ground.
Dad moved furniture and Mom waited tables for all of my childhood and most of my adult years. It was a necessity to pay the bills. We were what you called "bill poor". There was enough money for food and vacations and an occasional Barbie Dreamhouse but my parents paid for that comfort with their own sweat, aching feet and backs. When my 75 year old mom finally quit her restaurant job five years ago she was happy to leave it behind.
My parents' work ethic is the best thing they could have ever given my sisters and I. It is more valuable than any money or property. That work ethic is what got me through Mt. SAC Junior College and what propelled me into the editor-in-chief position at the college newspaper and what sustained me through my financial struggles while at UC Riverside and USC Law.
After graduating law school, I worked in corporate litigation at the big firms for six years with back breaking hours. In Texas at Vinson and Elkins, I saw female partners and senior associates with deep circles under their eyes working seventy hours a week while trying to balance family. I may have admired their cars (one had a Jaguar that I coveted) but I thought to myself, "Fuck that. I don't want to be them." (Yes reader, I even cuss to myself.)
Before he died from the pancreatic cancer that caused my formerly hefty father to wither into a tiny bird, he told me, "I thought you went to USC so you could work less not more." Dad was right and after he died I made a change and ended up at the Public Defender's Office.
This morning I started thinking to myself, am I a feminist? I may seem like one from the outside. I kept my last name which my husband Adrian reminded me of this morning. But that choice has more to do with wanting to keep a piece of my father alive more than anything else. I work full-time as an attorney. But I would rather not be working as a lawyer at all. I love to write. Writing is what I see myself doing full-time for long term happiness.
I don't have kids but it is not for lack of trying. If God gave me the choice between working and no kids and staying home and raising kids, I would take the kids (even triplets) and happily stay home to raise them through their young years. My point is, at this age if God gave me a miracle, I would not thumb my nose at the gift. If that makes me old fashioned so be it. It is not that I think you have to stay home to be a good mom, it is that I would want to. And I am lucky that I have the ability to make that choice.
At this point, feminism be dammed. I just want to be happy.
Saturday, January 11, 2014
A Mantz Christmas Story (Part 3): The Soapbox Episode
Growing up, my parents usually fought on Christmas. Something would always go wrong. Dad would drink too much or Mom would get mad about something. I don't remember any specific fight on Christmas, but I recall the vague memories of them. Those fights are like old songs I can't remember the words to. I remember thinking that when I was older my life would be perfect. I wanted to be like the Brady Bunch girls on TV. My other fantasy was to morph into Joe (aka Nancy McKeon) on The Facts of Life who escaped her dysfunction by going to boarding school.
You see, as a young girl, I was a dreamer. Maybe I still am. Losing myself in books was my main pastime. Hours were spent in my room reading and daydreaming about the lives of my favorite heroines. I would lie in bed and imagine myself as Laura Ingalls Wilder on the frontier or Ramona or Beatrice Quimbly. As I got older, I tried as hard as I could to daydream myself into a Judy Blume character and later into Scarlet O'Hara. I also had an unhealthy obsession with Harlequin romance novels (my mom let me read hers when she was finished). I remember one specific Harlequin about a nineteen year old ward who lived with her twenty-something unrelated guardian in Greece. The cover showed her green eyes and long, black hair. And, I remember a scene where the guardian ravished her in a pool.
My husband Adrian tolerates my fantasizing. I am constantly ranting about a new goal or dream. One week it could be meeting Morrissey (every week more like it) and the next week it might be traveling to Latin America for a year or trying to write a screenplay or taking a camper cross-country. I keep thinking to myself that perhaps I should be happy with the life I have instead of the one I imagine. Why can't I just be content? Why do I yearn for a life that is different from my reality?
Maybe, my discontent and yearning could be a propelling force to my destiny. Or perhaps, my adult reality (like my childhood reality) contains too much chaos to handle without a fantasy life.
My extended family is my mother-in-law Orieta and brother-in-law Gabe. We live with them in a house on five acres in the high desert. My mom Judy used to live with us but she has her own apartment and is blissfully happy hanging out in her senior complex at the pool and at parties. I envy my mom at times. (Don't judge, just read.)
The drama from my childhood is still ingrained in me and I usually create tension with family around the holidays (See "A Mantz Christmas Story Part 2"). The holiday drama this year started on December 22, 2013, the day before my five year wedding anniversary. My mother-in-law Orieta had not talked to me for a week and I knew something was wrong. It had to be Vegas.
Adrian and I had done the unthinkable. We were leaving Orieta at home on New Year's Eve to spend it in Vegas with our friends. I knew she was pissed because Orieta loves Vegas almost as much as she loves her two sons Adrian and Gabe. Orieta is a natural at the slots and once stayed at the same machine for eight hours without a break. We usually take her along to Vegas, but this year we were going solo. This was the ultimate betrayal.
Did I mention Orieta is Italian/Argentine? When Orieta gets mad she appears stoic but you know there is something coming. You can feel the black clouds looming on the horizon and I felt the storm coming that morning at the kitchen sink the day before our anniversary.
"Good morning Orieta," I said with a smile.
She grunted.
"What are you doing?" I asked her. She had her hands in the sink washing some material.
"Nothing," she said. "On New Year's Eve do you want Gabe to take you to your friend's house?" I asked her.
"No, all my friends have family. I have none," she said and walked away.
Later that morning of the 22nd, Adrian and I were packing the car getting ready to leave to the Mission Inn in Riverside. We were loading the car when I saw Orieta walking outside with her head down.
"Adrian, go talk to your mom," I ordered. "She looks sad."
Adrian talked to her and it turns out that she had forgotten our anniversary. And she thought we were not coming home for Christmas. Adrian patiently explained to her that we were going to Mission Inn for our anniversary and would return on Christmas Eve morning. And, he told her that we were not leaving for Vegas until the Saturday after Christmas.
Was Orieta still pissed about Vegas? Of course, but she was a bit mollified. Plus, there is nothing you can do when an eighty year old Argentine mother-in-law gets her feelings hurt. You just have to let her work it out.
When we got home from our anniversary everything seemed fine and Adrian cooked us a roast with rosemary and potatoes for Christmas Eve dinner (note the irony after reading "A Mantz Christmas Story Part 2"). On Christmas morning, we packed the car to leave for my sister Annie's house. Orieta handed Adrian her gifts to put in the car. "Do you have your white elephant gift?" I asked her. Orieta nodded and handed me a package to put in the car.
Every year, my family plays the white elephant game. We may play it different than others so I will explain our process. We each bring a gift. There is an implied agreement of at least twenty or thirty dollars in value. I usually spend more but the minimum is twenty dollars (note, this is an important fact). We then put numbers in a hat and everyone picks a number. The first person picks a gift and opens it. The second person picks a gift, opens it and then they can take any gift that was previously opened and so on. Obviously, the prime spot is the last number. For example, if there are ten people playing, number ten is the best because you get the final pick.
We all put our gifts in the pile. I had made "A Christmas Story" movie gift package containing the movie blu-ray, a pair of Boston Terrier footie pajamas and a "You'll Shoot Your Eye Out" t-shirt. My other white elephant gift was a forty dollar set of owl canisters from Kirkland's (very cool canisters in a retro kind of way). I spent more than eighty dollars on the two gifts and I imagined my sister Jackie getting the Christmas Story set (Jackie is obsessed with the movie and her Boston Terrier Lizzie) and someone loving the owl canisters. That is how I play the game. I buy gifts I know certain people will like.
Orieta plays it differently. For her, the goal is to spend as little as possible. The first year we played she put in a little snowman figurine that looked used. This year she planned on putting in the ugly watch with removable faces that she had picked the year before. I had forbidden her to put in the watch set ("Orieta," I had told her. "You are not allowed to put in the watch set or you can't play. Go buy something new."). I was curious what she had bought.
When my mom, who always has bad luck at the game, opened Orieta's gift I was speechless. It was soap. A bottle of economy size hand soap. Who puts hand soap into a white elephant game? The answer, Orieta does.
With my mouth open, I watched as my mom used her swap power to take Orieta's gift and handed her the hand soap. Orieta made a face and said, "I don't need this, I have two more bottles at home."
Try as I might, I couldn't stop myself dear readers. I said loudly, "That's what you get for putting hand soap in a game."
The drama does not stop there. Jackie got my movie package like I planned and was delighted holding the Boston Terrier pajamas up to herself and exclaiming with delight about how she had watched "A Christmas Story" over and over the day before. She was like a little kid on Christmas and it made me think of our childhood Christmases. I felt happy.
Alas, the happiness was not to last. My niece who had picked the tenth number stole/swapped Jackie's gift and handed her a gift that Jackie had brought herself. Jackie sat in the circle we had created with a crestfallen face. It was as if a Grinch had stolen her Christmas and all I could think was, "I am not playing this stupid fucking game next year."
You see, as a young girl, I was a dreamer. Maybe I still am. Losing myself in books was my main pastime. Hours were spent in my room reading and daydreaming about the lives of my favorite heroines. I would lie in bed and imagine myself as Laura Ingalls Wilder on the frontier or Ramona or Beatrice Quimbly. As I got older, I tried as hard as I could to daydream myself into a Judy Blume character and later into Scarlet O'Hara. I also had an unhealthy obsession with Harlequin romance novels (my mom let me read hers when she was finished). I remember one specific Harlequin about a nineteen year old ward who lived with her twenty-something unrelated guardian in Greece. The cover showed her green eyes and long, black hair. And, I remember a scene where the guardian ravished her in a pool.
My husband Adrian tolerates my fantasizing. I am constantly ranting about a new goal or dream. One week it could be meeting Morrissey (every week more like it) and the next week it might be traveling to Latin America for a year or trying to write a screenplay or taking a camper cross-country. I keep thinking to myself that perhaps I should be happy with the life I have instead of the one I imagine. Why can't I just be content? Why do I yearn for a life that is different from my reality?
Maybe, my discontent and yearning could be a propelling force to my destiny. Or perhaps, my adult reality (like my childhood reality) contains too much chaos to handle without a fantasy life.
My extended family is my mother-in-law Orieta and brother-in-law Gabe. We live with them in a house on five acres in the high desert. My mom Judy used to live with us but she has her own apartment and is blissfully happy hanging out in her senior complex at the pool and at parties. I envy my mom at times. (Don't judge, just read.)
The drama from my childhood is still ingrained in me and I usually create tension with family around the holidays (See "A Mantz Christmas Story Part 2"). The holiday drama this year started on December 22, 2013, the day before my five year wedding anniversary. My mother-in-law Orieta had not talked to me for a week and I knew something was wrong. It had to be Vegas.
Adrian and I had done the unthinkable. We were leaving Orieta at home on New Year's Eve to spend it in Vegas with our friends. I knew she was pissed because Orieta loves Vegas almost as much as she loves her two sons Adrian and Gabe. Orieta is a natural at the slots and once stayed at the same machine for eight hours without a break. We usually take her along to Vegas, but this year we were going solo. This was the ultimate betrayal.
Did I mention Orieta is Italian/Argentine? When Orieta gets mad she appears stoic but you know there is something coming. You can feel the black clouds looming on the horizon and I felt the storm coming that morning at the kitchen sink the day before our anniversary.
"Good morning Orieta," I said with a smile.
She grunted.
"What are you doing?" I asked her. She had her hands in the sink washing some material.
"Nothing," she said. "On New Year's Eve do you want Gabe to take you to your friend's house?" I asked her.
"No, all my friends have family. I have none," she said and walked away.
Later that morning of the 22nd, Adrian and I were packing the car getting ready to leave to the Mission Inn in Riverside. We were loading the car when I saw Orieta walking outside with her head down.
"Adrian, go talk to your mom," I ordered. "She looks sad."
Adrian talked to her and it turns out that she had forgotten our anniversary. And she thought we were not coming home for Christmas. Adrian patiently explained to her that we were going to Mission Inn for our anniversary and would return on Christmas Eve morning. And, he told her that we were not leaving for Vegas until the Saturday after Christmas.
Was Orieta still pissed about Vegas? Of course, but she was a bit mollified. Plus, there is nothing you can do when an eighty year old Argentine mother-in-law gets her feelings hurt. You just have to let her work it out.
When we got home from our anniversary everything seemed fine and Adrian cooked us a roast with rosemary and potatoes for Christmas Eve dinner (note the irony after reading "A Mantz Christmas Story Part 2"). On Christmas morning, we packed the car to leave for my sister Annie's house. Orieta handed Adrian her gifts to put in the car. "Do you have your white elephant gift?" I asked her. Orieta nodded and handed me a package to put in the car.
Every year, my family plays the white elephant game. We may play it different than others so I will explain our process. We each bring a gift. There is an implied agreement of at least twenty or thirty dollars in value. I usually spend more but the minimum is twenty dollars (note, this is an important fact). We then put numbers in a hat and everyone picks a number. The first person picks a gift and opens it. The second person picks a gift, opens it and then they can take any gift that was previously opened and so on. Obviously, the prime spot is the last number. For example, if there are ten people playing, number ten is the best because you get the final pick.
We all put our gifts in the pile. I had made "A Christmas Story" movie gift package containing the movie blu-ray, a pair of Boston Terrier footie pajamas and a "You'll Shoot Your Eye Out" t-shirt. My other white elephant gift was a forty dollar set of owl canisters from Kirkland's (very cool canisters in a retro kind of way). I spent more than eighty dollars on the two gifts and I imagined my sister Jackie getting the Christmas Story set (Jackie is obsessed with the movie and her Boston Terrier Lizzie) and someone loving the owl canisters. That is how I play the game. I buy gifts I know certain people will like.
Orieta plays it differently. For her, the goal is to spend as little as possible. The first year we played she put in a little snowman figurine that looked used. This year she planned on putting in the ugly watch with removable faces that she had picked the year before. I had forbidden her to put in the watch set ("Orieta," I had told her. "You are not allowed to put in the watch set or you can't play. Go buy something new."). I was curious what she had bought.
When my mom, who always has bad luck at the game, opened Orieta's gift I was speechless. It was soap. A bottle of economy size hand soap. Who puts hand soap into a white elephant game? The answer, Orieta does.
With my mouth open, I watched as my mom used her swap power to take Orieta's gift and handed her the hand soap. Orieta made a face and said, "I don't need this, I have two more bottles at home."
Try as I might, I couldn't stop myself dear readers. I said loudly, "That's what you get for putting hand soap in a game."
The drama does not stop there. Jackie got my movie package like I planned and was delighted holding the Boston Terrier pajamas up to herself and exclaiming with delight about how she had watched "A Christmas Story" over and over the day before. She was like a little kid on Christmas and it made me think of our childhood Christmases. I felt happy.
Alas, the happiness was not to last. My niece who had picked the tenth number stole/swapped Jackie's gift and handed her a gift that Jackie had brought herself. Jackie sat in the circle we had created with a crestfallen face. It was as if a Grinch had stolen her Christmas and all I could think was, "I am not playing this stupid fucking game next year."
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Why we all wanted to be Molly
I am watching Pretty in Pink for the twenty-something (understatement) time. Pretty in Pink from 1986 is the seminal outcast movie. In the movie, Molly plays Andie, a punkish girl from the wrong side of the tracks who spends most of the movie making eyes at a rich button down wearing boy named Blaine while being followed around by a suspender and creeper wearing Duckie (Jon Cryer). Andie and Duckie epitomize the style of post punk culture. I remember seeing the movie at the theater. I still have the unrequited wish of owning a lavender Karmann Ghia. But, it was more than just her style. In the movie, Andie takes care of her depressed dad (Harry Dean Stanton) and gets picked on by rich bitches and hangs in the quad with the punks. She works in a record store with Iona (played by Annie Potts), a Siouxsie Sioux look-a-like. Plus, Andie was smart, wicked smart. To me, she was the ultimate smart but still cool chick.
Before Pretty in Pink was Molly's role in Breakfast Club where she played Claire Standish, aka the princess, a girl from the right side of the tracks who falls for a boy named John Bender, aka the criminal (played by Judd Nelson), from the wrong side of the tracks. In the movie, the character of Claire opens up and evolves from a superficial popular girl to an empathetic teen girl who just wants to be loved. This role was a risk for Molly who was originally cast to play Allison, aka the basket case (played by Ally Sheedy) but Molly brings a warmth and humanity to the princess role that is undeniable.
And of course, before both of those movies was Sixteen Candles, the ultimate 80's movie and Molly's breakout role. In the film, Molly plays Samantha Baker (aka Sam or "Sammy Davis Baker Junior") whose entire family forgets her birthday. I wanted to be Molly from the moment I saw this movie. The scene on the bus with Anthony Michael Hall as Farmer Ted is classic. The part where her grandmother feels her up ("I can't believe my grandmother actually felt me up") is hysterical and the climax is Sam getting the love from Jake Ryan. It all starts with a note from her best friend asking Sam, aka Molly, who she would sleep with. She names Jake Ryan, the ultimate hot and popular guy (and a Matt Dillon lookalike to boot) Jake gets her response by using his foot to slide the note toward him when the best friend falls asleep on her desk. Later, they meet eyes at a school dance but Farmer Ted intercedes and sabotoges them by approaching Sam with crazy dance moves. After some comic twists and turns, Jake shows up at the wedding where Sam is a bridesmaid (her sister is marrying a guy who is referred to as an oily beau hunk). In the end, it is clear that Jake loved her all along.
We all still love Molly. Molly is who we all wanted to be. A girl with an edge. A girl who bucked the expectations others put upon her. In Sixteen Candles, no one (not even her best friend) thinks she is good enough for Jake to date. In Breakfast Club, Claire decides to love the so called stoner loser despite what will surely be the dismay of the cool crowd. In Pretty in Pink, Andie is the ultimate outcast and chooses love with Blaine even though he is a rich kid (although I pine for the original ending where she chooses Duckie).
And, in the end, that is why we love Molly because, at least for me, she is every girl.
Before Pretty in Pink was Molly's role in Breakfast Club where she played Claire Standish, aka the princess, a girl from the right side of the tracks who falls for a boy named John Bender, aka the criminal (played by Judd Nelson), from the wrong side of the tracks. In the movie, the character of Claire opens up and evolves from a superficial popular girl to an empathetic teen girl who just wants to be loved. This role was a risk for Molly who was originally cast to play Allison, aka the basket case (played by Ally Sheedy) but Molly brings a warmth and humanity to the princess role that is undeniable.
And of course, before both of those movies was Sixteen Candles, the ultimate 80's movie and Molly's breakout role. In the film, Molly plays Samantha Baker (aka Sam or "Sammy Davis Baker Junior") whose entire family forgets her birthday. I wanted to be Molly from the moment I saw this movie. The scene on the bus with Anthony Michael Hall as Farmer Ted is classic. The part where her grandmother feels her up ("I can't believe my grandmother actually felt me up") is hysterical and the climax is Sam getting the love from Jake Ryan. It all starts with a note from her best friend asking Sam, aka Molly, who she would sleep with. She names Jake Ryan, the ultimate hot and popular guy (and a Matt Dillon lookalike to boot) Jake gets her response by using his foot to slide the note toward him when the best friend falls asleep on her desk. Later, they meet eyes at a school dance but Farmer Ted intercedes and sabotoges them by approaching Sam with crazy dance moves. After some comic twists and turns, Jake shows up at the wedding where Sam is a bridesmaid (her sister is marrying a guy who is referred to as an oily beau hunk). In the end, it is clear that Jake loved her all along.
We all still love Molly. Molly is who we all wanted to be. A girl with an edge. A girl who bucked the expectations others put upon her. In Sixteen Candles, no one (not even her best friend) thinks she is good enough for Jake to date. In Breakfast Club, Claire decides to love the so called stoner loser despite what will surely be the dismay of the cool crowd. In Pretty in Pink, Andie is the ultimate outcast and chooses love with Blaine even though he is a rich kid (although I pine for the original ending where she chooses Duckie).
And, in the end, that is why we love Molly because, at least for me, she is every girl.
Monday, November 11, 2013
When
When I was young, I never thought I would have kids. I have written before that I felt I was too damaged, irresponsible and/or crazy to be a parent. But, something about the memoir writing process of writing through my memories has made me reconsider and dare hope. To reproduce is defined as "to make a copy or a close replica of". That's not what I want. I want a chance at redemption.
On Thursday, I went to the fertility specialist and we are starting in vitro next month. I have started trying to visualize myself pregnant and have found myself saying annoying sentences starting with, "when I am pregnant..." My poor husband has to listen to these queries which range from the cliche to the ridiculous. "When I am pregnant will you go get me pickles and ice cream at midnight?" (cliche) "When I am pregnant will you rub my feet?" (cliche) "When I am pregnant will you make sure the dogs don't get jealous?" (how would he avoid that?) And finally, "when I am pregnant can you make sure I drink only Stevia flavored diet soda from Clark's?" (absurd)
There is something about saying those four words "when I am pregnant". I never let myself say those words before. Perhaps it was too disheartening to even try and visualize it. What if it didn't happen? I did not want to be broken by the process of wanting. I clearly am making progress because by saying those words I am opening up my heart to the possibility of a child. It is similar to the way I kept calling myself a writer and writing and now a mere seven years later, I feel like a writer most days. I still don't think I am a great writer or even a very good writer, but I write. I try. I put pen to page almost every day. I have even been called a disciplined writer which can be way more important than a talented writer.
That is what I hope happens with motherhood. That my persistence means something, I want the opportunity to be a mother and while I may not end up the most talented mother, I will give it one heck of a try. I will give it my all. Because in my life what I have found to be most true is that the things you work for and want and ask for, and sometimes even beg for, are the most valuable.
On Thursday, I went to the fertility specialist and we are starting in vitro next month. I have started trying to visualize myself pregnant and have found myself saying annoying sentences starting with, "when I am pregnant..." My poor husband has to listen to these queries which range from the cliche to the ridiculous. "When I am pregnant will you go get me pickles and ice cream at midnight?" (cliche) "When I am pregnant will you rub my feet?" (cliche) "When I am pregnant will you make sure the dogs don't get jealous?" (how would he avoid that?) And finally, "when I am pregnant can you make sure I drink only Stevia flavored diet soda from Clark's?" (absurd)
There is something about saying those four words "when I am pregnant". I never let myself say those words before. Perhaps it was too disheartening to even try and visualize it. What if it didn't happen? I did not want to be broken by the process of wanting. I clearly am making progress because by saying those words I am opening up my heart to the possibility of a child. It is similar to the way I kept calling myself a writer and writing and now a mere seven years later, I feel like a writer most days. I still don't think I am a great writer or even a very good writer, but I write. I try. I put pen to page almost every day. I have even been called a disciplined writer which can be way more important than a talented writer.
That is what I hope happens with motherhood. That my persistence means something, I want the opportunity to be a mother and while I may not end up the most talented mother, I will give it one heck of a try. I will give it my all. Because in my life what I have found to be most true is that the things you work for and want and ask for, and sometimes even beg for, are the most valuable.
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