If you have ever gone to Disneyland and spent any time at all in Fantasyland (a place ostensibly for children) with any degree of consciousness, you just can't tell me that it's not the most terrifying place one earth. Like many "children's" literature and entertainment, it's filled with allusions to the horrors of adult life: alcoholism, broken families, and abandonment.

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride
This ride's story is, I'm convinced, about drunk driving (which may or may not have been the intention of "The Wind in the Willows" writer Kenneth Grahame, but who cares...). The ride takes one through Mr. Toad's chaotic path (in his car) almost crashing into his friends Rat and Mole, into a bar SERVING BEER (this ride is for 2-year-olds), into court where he is sentenced (with perhaps the the rodent equivalent of a DUI), back out in the world at which point he drives into a moving train, dies, and winds up in HELL. In this Catholic HELL, we meet the Devil and lots of scary demons. Thanks Disneyland for further traumatizing me with your Christian visions of the afterlife. Children of alcoholic parents will know where dad is going to end up!

Snow White's Scary Adventure
We see little of Snow White here as most of the ride takes us through the journey of her evil step-mother who was so traumatized by our youth-oriented beauty culture that she stepped over the line of sanity by deciding to take the matter into her own hands with murder. The poor woman never got the help she needed (had she, perhaps she would have become a feminist and kept Snow White from becoming a bored houseprincess). The ride abruptly ends just after Snow White eats the apple (before the Prince and everyone shows up) and when the Dwarves are chasing after the evil queen. At this weird juncture, the little car drives out to the light of day with a storybook that says "...and they lived happily ever after..." Did they run out of money? Or does Disneyland just like traumatizing kids by taking out the happy ending?

In my day of traveling to and fro rides like the Haunted Mansion, the ole Matterhorn, and Pirates of the Carribean (which we went on twice because the first time our boat was filled with Japanese men flashing away...I couldn't look at a single skeleton without a red dot floating around), I must say Snow White's Scary Adventure and Mr. Toad's Wild Ride most touched my fear bone. At 32, I have to ask myself why?

When I was four I came to Disneyland for the first time and was terrified by the Pirates of the Carribean and the Haunted Mansion. I feared that maybe people went into these places and never came back (I actually thought the people coming out of the rides were clones of some kind...where I got this from I don't know, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" maybe?).

The chill is still there. And maybe I should give Disneyland some credit, after all it's hard to find a good horror film these days. The attractions are given so much detail and care that these worlds really do transport me to the fear and mysticism of my childhood fantasy life. You don't get that at Magic Mountain.

Just for today, I respect the magic and horror of Disneyland.

I saw "Aviator" last night because I am a dutiful American. It was very good up until the two hour and one minute mark, at which point I lost interest as I do in every single movie I attend that tests my attention span endurance...it matters not the quality. At a certain point the "entertain me" muscle in my brain turns off and I start talking in my head to the director of the movie. "OK, Martin, we know he's nuts....Ok, that scene did not move the story forward...Did that line really need to be said one more time." I really tried not to feel taken hostage by Mr. Scorsese, but by the end I felt hit over the head with the point so hard I came home feeling insulted.

I still liked the movie. I just wished it was shorter.

Just for today, I can have an opinion.

I'm starting to think that maybe I don't need to own as much stuff as I thought I did. Very scary.

Just for today, I feel relaxed.

I had lunch with some friends from college who I hadn't seen in a while and some other people who I guess we could call "acquaintances" from the days when I brushed gortex jacket with those of ruling class (who happened to attend the same gothic towers of the college we all attended). By the end of the lunch I had to seriously wonder if these people think about anything other than real estate and babies, or if those are the unspoken parameters of conversation when a Bush is in office. You would never know that wars were being fought, or that we all went to college and actually learned to think. I think maybe I've spent so long hanging out on the fringes of the "artsy" crowd (a polite eupehmism for educated and poor), that I no longer know how to connect with the ruling class which I was never a part of (but always thought I wanted to be). Not that I ever "connected" the way I do with people who, like me, blurt out their innermost thoughts and feelings as if every interaction is a therapy session (it's gotten a little bit more under control since I hit 30). But it seems like in the old days, when people wanted to chat about...I don't know, the "crazy housing market" or what not, I could nod my head like it was all very serious and earth shattering. But at the lunch I just wanted to say, "Am I supposed to give a crap that you have a bigger backyard for the Mexican nanny to chase after your kids? Is there something wrong with public parks?! What I really want to know is how you treat the Mexican nanny..."

Needless to say, that would have created weirdness galore. I'm just grateful that my children won't grow into overscheduled neurotic zealots who need three educational therapists to take the standardized tests to get into the right kindergarten.

Just for today, I am grateful to not fit in.

There are many cults in Los Angeles. Churches, groups, meetings, expensive self-improvement classes, acting classes, 12-step meetings, and places to shop. You may think you're buying a cup of coffee or engaging in the latest styles, but you're really on the outer fringes of the Michael Star cult, or the Peete's coffee cult, or the Vegetarian cult. Sure, Govindas likes to sing and spew out new age maxims about acceptance and what not, and sure the plethora of cute yoga outfits is a little overwhelming for someone whose been using a jog bra for far too long...but yoga is my cult!

At some point while sweating out the chosen pain of a torturous "fiery" one legged split (over the far more painful agony of breaking up with my boyfriend), I realized that nothing I could say or do would bring my boyfriend and I back together. It's not that I didn't cook him dinner enough, or that I typed while we talked on the phone. Neither was it the fact that he feels he must share every passing thought (good or really bad) with me.

And with that acceptance....we got back together! It's like someone picked up my heart from the trashcan and put it back inside my body. I'm not saying that all is smooth sailing, but in his words, it felt like an act of will to be apart. And, it's far easier to put up with him than without him. Amen.

Just for today, I adore, love, and appreciate my boyfriend.

A window in my bathroom that I had believed was rotted/molded shut was opened yesterday for the first time in probably 10+ years. I don't live in a rotting building, but it's just very, very old. It's an "East Coast" brown stone that somehow got beamed onto the beach in LA. It was built in the 1920's and probably served as a hotel for people who lived in Hollywood or Beverly Hills. Anyway, I finally complained about this window and the Gods of building management shone on me and two guys came yesterday to open it and figure out how to replace it.

I had this very romantic idea that the Opening of the Bathroom Window symbolized the opening of my soul to new life and access to the flow of energy (and air) into my world. That is, until the incredible stench from the shaft outside of the window wafted into my bathroom. My neighbor across the way had warned me about the smell, but I wasn't prepared.

Just for today, I can appreciate closed windows.

Does anyone like Valentine's Day? If you are NOT in a relationship there is a tinge of mockery and pity in the air. If you ARE in a relationship, but are currently in a funk about it (cuz such seems to be the cyclical nature of romantic/sexual love), any attempts at celebrating this day of pepto bismol pink feel forced and creepy, and if you are madly in love and having great sex, do you really freakin' care that it's February 14th?

This weekend I called my friend Jane crying. There aren't that many people you can call crying who won't try to dish out bad advice before trying to get off the phone and get back to their lives. Jane has a life, but she has a big spirit, and she's a great friend. She invited me over and we listened to the Indigo Girls (who rock!...and explain the previous post) and ate chips and green chile salsa from Trader Joe's and then everything in my life was OK again. That kind of friendship pulls me out of myself and self-pity and into a world of music, food, laughter, and exciting things to do. This kind of relationship is not glamorous or romantic, but it feeds my soul, gives me strength, and builds me into a woman who can give to the world. Just like how in Sex and the City (love that show!), the friendship between the women made them capable of being themselves in their work and relationships, a friend like Jane makes it possible for me to risk failure and still come home again. There is no Friends Day (that I know of...do you?), so today I send a big cheezy Valentine (what the hell is a Valentine anyway?...all I can imagine is that stupid horror movie)...I send great waves of love and appreciation to all my friends who keep me real, strong, and in love with life. I love you all (and you know who you are cuz you read my blog ;-)

Happy Valentine's Day!

I'd really like to know.

I went hiking with some people I didn't really know today. At the top of the mountain we came out upon a view of all of Los Angeles. Nearby there was a memorial with some flowers on it. When I saw it I said, "Did someone get killed up here? Wow, I didn't think it was that dangerous." Everyone looked at me like I was the devil and someone said that we shouldn't make bad jokes about dead people. Apparently, someone in the party knew someone who knew someone who had placed a memorial at the spot because it was the deceased's favorite place. Everyone acted very solemn, and I felt like an ass.

Just for today, I can make friends on hikes.

I saw this acting guru speak last week who coaches Leonardo DiCaprio and Hilary Swank. I furiously took notes on everything he said as if her were the second coming (close enough). I especially liked how he said actors should all be in therapy. That made me feel hopeful because God knows, I've been doing that! He also spoke about "doing your art" irregardless (not a word) of your life circumstances or whatever pain you're in. He said that Lena Horne got up and sang the year that she lost her father, son, and husband. If she could do it, then so could anyone. Thanks, for the comparison.

I've been so heartbroken the last few days that the idea of pursuing my "art" seems ludicrous. I'm too busy running like mad from the pain of the food processor my heart just went through (if you don't like metaphor, perhaps a meat grinder? boat propeller?...it's not going to sound attractive, cuz it's not). Compared to Lena I'm feeling self-indulgent But was she really a "great" performing artist, or was she just running from the pain by doing the thing that always brought her joy and love. Or maybe I like to sit and wallow and think of every excuse I can to not be a grown-up.

Just for today, I aspire to be like Lena.

So much as I claim to be a victim, I know that I am comfortable in the part. The point is, I don't want to break up with my boyfriend, I don't want to play the victim anymore, and I don't want to fail at love anymore. I'm ready to graduate to what used to seem boring, but now seems very freeing. I'm ready to give of myself as selflessly as I can, instead of seeing how much I can get. I'm ready to appreciate, without worrying about whether I am appreciated. I think Carrie said it best in the final episode of Sex and the City (love that show!)

"...I am someone who is looking for love, real love, ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can't live without each other...love."

Just for today, I am willing to give ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can't live without each other love.

My now ex-boyfriend and I had "a talk" the other night that resulted in the termination of our relationship. Because he had been vacillating about his feelings on the continuation of our relationship, he opted to bring me flowers for this "talk." This was very nice. Except for the fact that in the course of the "talk" he informed that "something is missing (in our relationship)" and that it "has never felt right." I sat there with my flowers and soaked up the irony in order to distract myself from the pain. Whatever they may be, the flowers became a beautiful boquet of "something is missing" and symbolic of all that I am not in his eyes. Did I still want to take this boquet home? Of course I did. They were beautiful flowers. I took them home, but not after making a big scene of marching out of the coffee shop and abandoning them to the people that worked there. The impact of my dramatic effect was sufficiently lessened when I creeped back into the coffee shop a few minutes later to ask the guy behind the register if I could have my flowers back (even though my ex had offered him to the cashier to bring to his wife.) Sorry, cashier, you have to suffer pain to earn these flowers.

I'm hoping they will last through Valentine's Day.

Just for today, I can appreciate beautiful flowers.

First of all, nothing says, "I'm starting over again," like a trip to the DMV to get A NEW PICTURE taken for a A NEW DRIVER'S LICENSE! Move over J.Lo with your "new" life....Just tell me one thing...do you have a new driver's license? Mmmhmmm, that's right...I didn't think so.

Secondly, when you're not working (and when I say "you," I mean me), there's nothing like a trip to the DMV to make you (me) feel an enormous sense of accoplishment. Other ways to spend the day include mulling over Brad and Jen's relationship drama (FYI: they had dinner last week), flossing, going to Yoga, breathing through the right nostril and letting it out through the left (which you will learn in yoga), and checking e-mail.

Just for today, I can enjoy the life of the unemployed.

Please feel free to comment on the travesty of my life.

I spent last night babysitting. Between a robust game of dodgeball and trips to the bag of Trader Joe's carmel popcorn that I "accidentally" opened, I watched the SAG awards. After about an hour I came to the tragic realization that I no longer care for awards shows. As a child and teenager, I lived for awards shows. And when I say "lived," I mean I remained hopeful and alive because of the distinct possibility that if awards shows continued to exist and I continued to exist, a day might come when I too would win (or be nominated...same thing) for an award for something (God knows what...but it never really mattered, so long other people found it fabulous, and I seemed fabulous for winning it). Because THEN, all the crap that I endured, the divorce, the loneliness, etc., would somehow be redeemed. It was sort of my own personal, evangelical belief system, except I substituted the idea of Heaven, with a televised awards show and people clapping, and tears, and maudlin feelings for my mother, father, dentist, mailman, and kindergarten teacher...AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, everyone was watching. So, I had to be actress, or writer, or director, because after all, who watches awards shows for librarians or machinists? What chanel are those shows even on?

Last night I watched Hilary Swank proclaim Clint Eastwood to be the second coming, and while she's beautiful and her job is cool and given the same set of circumstances I would probably say the same things, NONETHELESS, I'm grateful not to be in the awkward position of being raised above society so high that I have to projectile vomit praise and acclaim just to feel comfortable.

Just for today, I don't have an award, and it's OK.

I'm certain there are better ways to spend my time than sweating over blog software, and yet, I'm like a rat who learned that she needed to be tortured by computers in order to eat. Except Pavlov never found a rat as masochistic as I am. Someone, call the paramedics!

Just for today, I'm OK when things don't work.....#$&$%@%...right.

Did the original "yogis" think about where to buy cute yoga clothes, while in the middle of Warrior II? Also, if you're going to call yourself a "yogi," then don't leave the lights on so bright while glancing at all the cute girls in the room.

Just for today, I'm kind of over yoga.

The "yogi" I go to most often likes to rattle on about whatever is going on in her mind; Eckart Tole's "The Power of Now," the U.S. constitution, anatomy, etc. It's not so much yoga, as a creative mish mosh of yoga poses, new age religion/spirituality, health/nutrition, entertainment, and political history class. She lights candles, plays music that I used to get high to, turns down the lights, and then in the middle of Warrior II, she'll launch into views on the economy, all while reminding us to breathe throught the pain. I really do feel more at peace while doing yoga. But it did take me a little out of the moment the other day when she told us that our founding forefathers were "mystics who practiced yoga..." The idea of Thomas Jefferson in downward dog while his slaves toil outside, got me me a little confused.

Just for today, I can tune out my yogi.