Category: Random

Back in the late 70’s early 80’s, Tupperware came out with this lunch box which for for all intents and purposes was inspired by a Japanese bento box.

We weren’t well off enough to splurge on Tupperware, nor did my family like to waste money on things that had simpler utilitarian alternatives (brown bags). So I’m pretty sure when I DID get one (after much parental convincing), it was close to the only Tupperware in the house and I treated it like the Ark of the Covenant.

I kept it so clean, mothering it, polishing it dry, all for the next day’s lunch adventure. Then after maybe a month of ownership, perhaps even less, it was stolen.

Two days later, I accused another student of stealing it because she had the exact same model and I could see my name scrawled on the bottom before she yanked it closer to her chest to hide my handwriting.

I never pushed the issue. I don’t know why. I think I was partially mortified that someone that close to me (small school) would do something so horrible. I was also smart enough to realize that if I asked again, the name might be removed so it was a pointless venture to try to ask or point it out again.

I felt injustice by my own hand by not doing anything. People steal, this wasn’t a new concept, but friends or classmates stealing and then protesting their obvious theft? I was dead inside after that. Dead to material ownership of things. Why bother lusting after something everyone wants? Someone will just take it. It’s not worth it.

I still miss you lunch box.

I hope your new owner thinks about her theft every day and that it has carved a deep, stale, tupperware-plastic, smelly hole in her heart.

---

This post was inspired by a Reddit user posing the question: What mild injustice was done to you as a child that you are still mad about?.  I recommend you read the other responses, it will be an interesting respite from the harsh day.

The amazing photograph of The Lunchbox was published with permission by Mitzi Swisher of Vintage Goodness. Check out her fabulous blog for all things mid century.

We sometimes go through life looking backwards, reaching deeper as the years go by and what do we see?

Are the memories softer because of age, or are they painted with a varnish of wisdom that comes through living through them?

This particular weekend has brought back a lot of memories that were once filled with thorns but time and therapeutic apologies have trimmed off the points, leaving nothing but blooms.  In our youth we experience what I think are some of the most tumultuous situations of our life. We’re changing on a daily basis, surfing a wave of hormones we can’t control and occasionally we crash the waves made by other people’s crafts, causing wakes that can pulverize or intersect with greatness.

I’m mostly talking about personal relationships that have gone by in the past with people who go unnamed here because no one deserves the wrong type of attention. I’m approaching this blog entry as a straight female adult living with the memories of loving a gay person in my childhood. He was not in any position to completely understand his feelings or come out of a closet so tightly nailed shut in the era we grew up in, that there really can be no blame for any hurt feelings that passed between us.

From my perspective, I was once dating a kind, generous, fun, soul that became anxious to explore the sexual potential of the human body with another person so hard and fast that I was unable to mentally process five minutes ahead of myself, a girl who lived an emotionally desperate, parent-demanded chaste life.  I never inwardly blamed him for the impulses, I just couldn’t ever give back because I was wrapped up in that fear. I lashed out publicly at the impulses but I never truly blamed him. I blamed myself for being the prude who couldn’t reciprocate and many relationships afterwards were tinged with that inability and feeling violated for wanted to feel good.  My brain was twisted to not get close to another human being and it took many years to un-wring that mess.

After many cross words spewed down stairwells and across hallways, we went our separate ways, neither knowing what truly powered the other. It wasn’t until many years later that I came to understand the inception of all disastrously immature behavior that passed between us. The event gave me pause to instantly forgive not only him but myself. In the middle of a fashion design class, for some reason, we started talking about significant others that had become famous.  My X-boyfriend, a local personality had come up in conversation, and I mentioned our connection in high school. You think it only happens in the movies, but the room really did become become silent enough to hear pins drop.  I looked up from my work and the woman across from me, with a look of disbelief, said her roommate (a man) was dating my x-boyfriend from high school.

I remember that moment as if something in my life had died and simultaneously exploded like a beautiful phoenix into the air. The clarity that came with finding out a person that caused me so much heart felt pain was gay made the moment palpable and the only thing I could say as I set down my arms on the table was, “That makes complete sense.”  I understand now and all is forgiven. Not only were they set free, I was too.

We spoke later through letters and I’ve kept those letters as a reminder that we move through this life with the ability to grow as human beings and loving ourselves is tantamount to loving others.  It’s so easy to get caught up in revenge or harbor ill feelings because let’s face it, hatred is as powerful of a drug as is love, but love is, with my utmost respect for the cliche, what makes the world go around.

 

 

It was 1983 and Mr. Fox was planning to get married. He had arrived in Los Angeles to tie the knot with his betrothed but like many love connections, he quickly learned that the family of the bride-to-be was not keen on living arrangements coupled with sin, so he was forced to quickly find a cheap apartment in East Hollywood.

He searched about, thinking mostly of his fiance, trying to find the closest bachelor apartment (an appropriately coined term, if I do say so) and when he happened upon a garden courtyard he snapped up their only remaining studio, located in the back with the worst view and the noisiest neighbors.

He wasn’t going to be there long, so the lack of luxury accommodations didn’t phase him. He would soon be cuddling with his fiance post ceremony and life would be complete.

Then one day the relationship ended, perhaps over money, perhaps over family, Mr. Fox wasn’t one to divulge that much information to strangers. So he stayed in that bachelor apartment to wait out what would happen next in his life.

One year went by and then 20. Soon 30. That’s when I met him, after almost a lifetime of sitting in a tiny, corner pocket, studio apartment. He never changed the paint (or carpet), and lived exactly the life you would expect of a bachelor who’s heyday was probably in the 1940s.

He would make delightful conversation with myself and our neighbors as they came and went through the complex, moving on with their lives as he gently evolved into that kind man in the corner apartment. It was always a joy to bump into him on the way to the mailbox.

Mr. Fox once gave me a painting he was going to take to goodwill. I saw it as he passed by and he offered it to me, saying he couldn’t remember if it was worth anything. I told him it inspired me for its dream like qualities and soon after that it was mine.

I recently learned that Mr. Fox, the permanent bachelor, the kind man in the corner apartment, died this week. A former neighbor at the complex broke the news and I just wanted everyone to know what a kind, sweet, patient person he was. Why some woman never snapped him up, we’ll never know.

See you on the other side, Mr. Fox.

I’ll remember your wisdom-laced smile forever.

It’s been a couple days since the world lost Mr. Nimoy, and not many people who know me now, know that I have a deep connection with Star Trek.

Sometimes it’s embarrassing to let people know this information, especially if someone willingly laughs at you for being in an inconsolable state of drunken shock when the news finally settles in one’s heart.

Yes, this has already happened to me.

But I thought, ignoring the ignorant, I’m finally able to put words to digital paper to talk about my connection to a television show and an actor who has been a part of it.

Every time we lose one of our heroes, a little notch is taken out of our souls. It makes us less than whole and it’s just a matter of being patient enough to walk through the pain and brush off the wound so we can keep going.  God help me when Mr. Koenig reaches this point. Seriously. I’ve packed away some Xanax and a paper bag for the day. But that’s a different story.

I’ll just begin by saying that my personality is probably 50% Star Trek and 50% parental upbringing. Where my parents faltered, a television show about survival, equality, peace and the love of science took their place.

Star Trek is also how I started my fascination with writing.  My father, having moved away after my parent’s divorce, knew I was lonely the first time I left my home state to visit him. At 12 years old, he bet me 50$ I couldn’t write a book by the end of the summer and having fallen in love with Star Trek the previous year, the math was simple. I wrote about what I loved.  I turned in, I don’t know, 200 pages of hand written Star Trek melodrama with a stolen nemesis from Flash Gordon to boot.  Funny how I never got paid for that until many years later.  But I did get paid. I was given an immense gift. A way to escape all worries, a safe place to explore and just be myself or anyone else I wanted to be.

Fast forward many years, after educating myself in theatre and film, I ended up as an assistant stage manager / production assistant at South Coast Repertory for the play Six Degrees of Separation. Marnie Mosiman, an actress in the production was/is an amazingly talented woman who just happened to be married to John De Lancie.  I figure if you’re a trekkie/er, I don’t have to explain any identities, nor explain the internal storm of raging excitement I hid every day of the production.

After some unusual days in rehearsal, (John de Lancie was pacing in the hallway with what appeared to be fumes hovering over his head, at least that’s what I was imagining when I sent our unsuspecting production intern out to figure out why he was upset or here for that matter), I came to the realization that this entire production would probably be touched by Star Trek, my secret love, my comfortable tattered sweater I wear when no one is around.

I wasn’t wrong. Many faces of Star Trek came through the backstage doors during production, and each one was a pleasure to talk to and not about Star Trek. I wasn’t stupid, I was cool, or at least I thought I was. I kept my ST questions behind the doors of convention hotels, safely locked away in their proper place. Don’t be the GEEK, Stacy.  Inside, I was a spaghetti and meatball mess of course, but it was fun throwing off some actors from the show (ST: VGR) because normally no one recognized them under all that make up.

Then one day, I think it was during the last week of production, Marnie let loose that Mr. Nimoy, THE ONE AND ONLY LEONARD NIMOY, would be gilding the halls of South Coast Repertory with his presence on the last show of the production. Many amazing actors have walked through the halls of SCR, but in my head, none compared.

I’m pretty sure when she told me,  I held my breathe and smiled, saying ‘lovely, that’s great, I hope I get a chance to meet him and his wife’.   Marnie promised she’d try to help make that happen.

Cut to the final show of the production. I can barely think or carry on a conversation with anyone I work with, and thankfully by that point, most of my cues were so ingrained, I couldn’t forget them.  The last show was as great as the first and the actors filed out to their dressing rooms for the final time.  As they got dressed back into their street clothes, I stood backstage pacing, because I knew what was happening next. Staff would lead Mr. Nimoy backstage to the green room to await Marnie.

I could not move my feet to the green room.

Why couldn’t I move? Why was I pacing backstage while I’m pretty sure a couple of my back stage crew enjoyed watching me buzz back and forth talking to myself.

Many people find it easy to ask questions at a convention. The actor they love is safely behind a “wall” of expectations, so there’s a form and dress to it all, you know the drill.  You’re surrounded by 3000 other people in the same boat, so it’s easy.  Back stage in the green room I knew there was just this person, this actor I had spent many many years adoring. I have to treat them like a human being, not some god. So you see the internal struggle and conundrum?

Marnie had promised to introduce me but time was waning backstage, no one had come to retrieve me so I swallowed hard, trying to create a voice that wouldn’t crack when I left to go find them.

I entered the green room and sure enough Marnie stood there with Mr. and Mrs. Nimoy.  What did I do?

I placed my arm around Marnie’s shoulders and asked her “So, who are these friends of yours?”

DID I JUST ASK THAT IN MY HEAD OR DID THAT COME OUT OF MY MOUTH????   Nope, woman, you said that. Don’t puke. Doooooon’t Puke.

Luckily, I was spared because Mr. and Mrs. Nimoy were use to this nonsense over the years. They melted my internal horror with handshakes and a pleasant conversation about the play and other places they had seen it to compare against what they had seen at SCR.

And that was it.

After they left the green room I lamented to Marnie, that I hadn’t had a chance to ask a certain question of Mr. Nimoy. I said it felt weird because it was somewhat related to Star Trek and it felt improper to blurt it out.  She said she’d try to ask him, and get the answer for me. So I told her what I wanted to know, hoping she’d email me with the answer.

The show closed, I went about my next few days getting ready to start another play and forgot about my question.

My question if you’re wondering was simple. What ever happened to a short Mr. Nimoy had directed about Chang and Eng Bunker, the “Siamese Twins”. Mr. Nimoy had attended a tour of Star Trek conventions showing off this lovely short and beyond the convention I had never heard of it again. I just wanted to know where this gem stood.

After a few days, the event of meeting a hero, safely tucked away inside my heart as a top 10 moment, I came home and the answering machine was blinking.

I pressed play and then knelt on the floor, unable to breathe because Mr. Nimoy had called my house and left a long message…answering my question.   I had to listen to it several times to understand what he was saying because well fuck, LEONARD NIMOY LEFT A  MESSAGE ON MY ANSWERING MACHINE!!!

It occurs to me now, 18+ years later, that the message was recorded not on tape as I had thought (I’m still wondering), but on one of those DAMN digital contraptions with only a battery back up to save what was on them. I know I saved the message for quite awhile, but I don’t think I was able to archive it.

That’s my memory of Mr. Nimoy. It’s a good one for me. I’m going to miss him and his good work in this world, as I do every actor who created this fantastic world for me to live in when I was a child (and adult).

Thank you, Leonard. You and your wife have both touched the world and we’re better off for it.

---

I suppose you may want the answer to that question?

Mr. Nimoy explained that the short was a sales tool. He had wanted to create an entire feature film about Chang and Eng Bunker and after showing it around town for so many years, and after receiving no bites, he simply moved on to his next project. That’s a pretty typical answer from any filmmaker. But as a fan of his work, I still want to see that film, and I guess as a writer, I have seen it in my head already, but I still want to see it.

#LLAP

 

 

 

I am going to have to wrap up 2014 on a down note. I’m usually a great optimist, and I try to live in the moment but several situations have negated this possibility for the start of the year.

1) I lost a friend that I no longer communicated with over inane roommate complications.  There was no obituary posted, I can’t figure out if they’ve had a memorial service and I feel a bit lost at sea about it.

2) A family friend died on the same day. Seriously 2014, why.

3) We lost Robin Williams and Phillip Seymour Hoffman too soon. But I understand why. I understand. I just keep telling myself that to move on.

4) Another airline lost and limited technology to track it down. We’re minutes from 2015 and we haven’t pulled our collective heads out of our asses to make advancements for the safety of human lives a priority. We’re apparently just meat, and we’ll continue to think of each other as just meat until the computers take over and turn us into batteries.

5) Racism. What the fuck?  It’s 2015 and a woman younger than me with all that comes with that advantage should be capable of open-minded thinking. But when her child says her mother won’t let her use an iPad app because she might talk to black boys, I nearly had a heart attack.

• I now consider you a nasty horrible human being in charge of a girl with a good heart. She’ll be ruined by your slimy thoughts.
• I’d rethink the whole education of your children. Maybe you should be more worried that she’s TALKING TO BOYS at 12 without supervision on an electronic device that is a helpful tool to stalk children, rather than worrying about what color they are?
• And people think black people are just paranoid about racism, that it’s not as expansive as they think. THEY’RE NOT PARANOID. This racist filth exists in droves and it breeds…apparently with a different man each time. (ooh, I slut shamed her.)
• I feel as if it’s now my mission to counteract your ignorance but I can’t be there all the time. I just want to smack you so hard into the light.

I’m going to do my best to stand tall, head up, and think good thoughts for the remainder of the year. 2015 can’t be worse right?

 

I recently spent some time on twitter in an attempt to learn why certain keywords trend; whether they’re paid for as an advertisement or truly blooming as a result of the population.

While searching #disneyland, because I was sure it was a trending topic as a result of advertisement (I was wrong), I chose to stumble down a rabbit hole lined with the coagulated angst of first world teenage conversation.

Why I did it, I don’t know.

Maybe it was the disrespectful thought process spewed through a keyboard, or the lack of understanding on how social media channels work. The tweet is read out of context, and none of us were there, but that’s where I will inevitably draw my point about how children these days do not care about what they proclaim in public spaces. They don’t understand the ramifications.

We were all teens once, but were we all this mean and thoughtless? (Luckily for Generation X, our missteps in youth aren’t on display to this degree. But I certainly remember never telling the entire world that my parents should “stfu” for being excited about something.)

Names withheld because I think this person is a minor.

Child:  “Its annoying af when my mom thinks going to the movies is like her going to disneyland, bruh chill tf out, take your seat, & stfu”

af (as fuck), bruh (brother), tf (the fuck), stfu (shut the fuck up).

Here’s where I could have just shaken my head, shown the person next to me how ungrateful and mean this child was being considering it’s most likely a twitter feed outside the realm of their parent’s viewing.

But no, I decided to poke the angst-ridden hornet’s nest and dare suggest with a little sarcasm that their parents were fidgety at a movie because they don’t get out much and have ungrateful children. Because the tweet is out of context I can only read into what is on the screen. It reads to me and others I’ve asked as thus:

– My mother doesn’t get out much and she’s very excited to be at the movies
– I’m so embarrassed by this activity rather than excited to be with her
– My mother probably paid for the movie so I’m not only ungrateful of this, but probably a lot of other things I’m given in my cushy life.

My reply: “Your poor mother probably doesn’t get out much… a side effect of caring for ungrateful children. LOFLOMG I can’t even.”

LOFLOMG (laugh out fucking loud, oh my god)

I guess I wanted them to realize they were in public, not some private little diary where they can cry and maybe just maybe understand the consequences of being a turd online.

But I was hoping for too much.

You don’t poke an angst-ridden hornet’s net without getting those first few barbs of defensive worker drones guarding the gate. The insults grew from generic to personal (towards me), and a bullying atmosphere developed over the next 24 hours.

An unrelated youth joined in to support the child’s ignorance and throw barbs about age, and life expectancy of my gonad tissues.

With every reply (lovingly captured for the future), they continued to spew hateful things, but they NEVER once worked the issue through. Reactionary at best, they never once tried to discuss my conclusion. They only wanted war.

That’s your future, World.

The comments kept coming, proving to me that children these days DO NOT CARE what ends up online and this will either confront them negatively later in life or maybe, and I say this with a dystopia laced caution, the world will evolve NOT to care and people will just be this mean and this callous 100% of the time.

If the latter is the case, I’ll probably be voting for suicide booths on every corner because who would want to live in that world?

I know there are more thoughtful, more intelligent children out there who understand humanity early on, and embrace the world for its positives but they are few and far between. They are little treasures that should be nourished so they grow and run the world in a more positive atmosphere.

My favorite reply of all:

Unrelated Youth (not original child): you’re eggs are probably rotten and you mad cause you can’t have me as a child shutup bitch

Honey: It’s ‘your eggs’ not ‘you’re eggs’.
And it’s ‘you’re mad’ not ‘you mad’.
I’ll let ’cause’ slide, because it is Twitter after all.
There is so much more to correct, but this isn’t a grammar lesson today.

Unfortunately, my eggs are still very fresh and it’s annoying having to worry about getting pregnant at this horrible old age, and after reading your tweets…no dear, without male parental guidance in your life, I would never want to be your mother.

Feel free to read the entire thread on my twitter feed. (8/8/2014)

The density and continuous stream of ignorant statements is alarming.

No more Twitter experiments for me.

Leave the ignorant youth alone and let them consume their own darkness.

For as adults, they’ll be easier to spot and weed out.

———————————————————————–

For more information about understanding the consequences of online actions:

http://www.ikeepsafe.org/be-a-pro/ethics/helping-kids-understand-the-consequences-of-online-actions/

http://www.onguardonline.gov/articles/0012-kids-and-socializing-online

http://www.sheknows.com/parenting/articles/845191/the-internet-never-forgets

http://www.today.com/parents/offline-parenting-why-some-parents-post-nothing-their-kids-online-1C6301992

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0012-kids-and-socializing-online

—————————

Shout out to my friend, Devin, for making this good point: “It’s not so much a useless experiment if you learned something from it.”  Well said, sir.

This little entry will entail what it’s like to have your apartment building purchased.

So far, it’s been pretty humiliating.

A few months ago, our new “owners” came by with cheerful smiles and attitudes. It seemed to reflect what we thought (or I thought) was a future rainbow focused on new beginnings. They were pleasant and we were pleasant back, because all of us have been suffering under the equivalent of a gentle handed slum lord (not outright horrible, but not outright great either –aka Artiste Apartments).

Cut to yesterday evening when the new off site temporary managers went door to door during dinner time (good choice), to see if people were home and introduce themselves. Again, on outward appearances this is a great idea but let’s rewind a bit. It was over a MONTH ago the place was looked at by the new buyer. A good company would send out letters informing us who the new managers would be AND let us know when they’d come for a visit so we could all meet them and BE HOME for them because I for one wanted to say hello but couldn’t. But, instead, the random quick in/out drop by is what we got. Leave your money on the dresser, man.

Less than 24 hours later (this morning) they started demo-ing 4 of the empty apartments. And by demo I mean, ripping out floors, kitchens, etc.

I made a little call to the department in charge of building and safety and discovered  no permits were filed for this activity and to be honest, I’m not surprised. This is ‘tow the line’ average for Los Angeles. These investors rake through the city, assess properties that can put out like the little money whores they are, buy and then flip them without acknowledging that human beings live in these spaces and have to live and work around their short cuts.

Exactly how hard is it to drop a f***ing note in the mail to inform us of upcoming construction? Not hard. And if they’re too cheap for stamps, and if they don’t get permits, what does that say about them and their ’employees’.

The new company (Essential Management, Inc. of Los Angeles) appears on the surface to be no better than Artiste. Prove me wrong!

Sure, you’ll flip the ailing apartments that need work as discussed, and you’ll pretty up the yard, but you’ll do it with unlicensed labor (hello GAS LEAKS!!!!!!), no permits, using noisy crews that yell for no reason, and play loud music while the rest of us who LIVE here try to work and pay your income.

I could call the city and punish them, but that will just hurt me (because we know how slumlords like to treat tenants who whistle-blow), and it would just delay the work, so at this point, I’m stuck.

I like it here, but I prefer to have building owners that acknowledge humanity and actually communicate professionally.

And…they don’t.

---

When is a permit required? http://dpw.lacounty.gov/bsd/permitinfo/

 

—————————————————–

Update: 8/9/2014

Six months later and I’m in a beautiful new apartment with a management company that actually cares about their tenants.

The initial manager who spoke with me (Karen) when the apartments were taken over, lied TO MY FACE about the company having permits. That was swiftly and easily taken care of by calling the city and having them inspect the work, stop the work (a nice week of peace and quiet, thank you), and require permits for the rest of their construction.

Stories of nazi-like aggression from the owner (the old one) from when I left continued to leak my way. He likes to yell and point fingers in faces, which didn’t work well with me, other than I left to get away from his magnificent ego and uncaring touch.  He ripped out almost every single plant that was green on this property and replaced it with sand, concrete, and pointy plants.

It’s the grossest most disgusting over-priced re-design I have ever seen in my life. The place looks like a prison now. I’m glad I’m gone.

My favorite example I was witness to was when he knocked on a tenant’s door at 9 am on a Saturday (a no no) and then chided her for being sleepy when she’s a waitress that leaves work at 2 a.m.. He then continued to invite her to his skeevy superbowl party. Gross.