Starfish Envy

So... Does This Mean I'm A Sci-Fi Geek Now? Cuz That Could Be Cool.

This weekend I had to get my car serviced, and what's more fun than that, right?  

SO fun.  

Except it was, actually, because in the three hours I had to wait, I went to see Avatar.

I was not psyched about it.

I went solely because it was the only movie that happened to be showing in the window of time I had available.

But here's the thing: Avatar is amazing. Astounding, really.  Not because the script is so good, or the acting will bowl anybody over (although CCH Pounder ROCKS the blue folks' language), but because the effects are beyond anything I could ever imagine.  

Hello, 3-D!  Turns out I'm a fan.  Two dimensions are so old school, so last century, so passe.  

And can we talk about how GORGEOUS Avatar is? Seriously, I'm running out of superlatives.  This is starting to get embarrassing.  Someone MAKE ME STOP.

Honestly.  I've never seen anything like it.  I can't even tell you.

Just go.

You really must see for yourself.

  

Starfish Envy: An Early Retrospective

Last week, a reader checked in who hasn't been here in awhile, and what with all the dog drama and the moving prep and the job lunacy and the sugar-freeness I've been writing about lately, she was like SO, WHAT'S UP WITH THE WHOLE KID THING??? 

And I realized that although it feels like everything in my life is about THE WHOLE KID THING, I haven't gone into much detail recently about exactly where I am with... yes, that's right... THE WHOLE KID THING.

So here goes.

But first, let's take a little trip down memory lane.  A (premature) retrospective.  Because I'm still ailing, and my clever muscle is weak.  And it's easier to assemble a pastiche than to start all over from scratch.  Or something.  Me weary.

So:  A Brief History Of Starfish Envy.

The baby-planning was percolating, but wasn't named until I heard Isabella Rossellini on NPR.  Why she chose to narrate a series of short animated films about animal reproduction, I don't know, but I'm grateful she talked about it on NPR when I happened to be listening.

Suddenly, what I'd been feeling had a name.  Starfish Envy.  

Isabella Rossellini may have smacked me on the head and said "HEY, YOU"RE ON THE ROAD, LADY!"  But I was already there, even if I wasn't totally aware of it, because of a little Ethiopian girl with an enormous smile, and strangely, because of my mom.  

At first, I was leaning toward adoption... and trying to come to terms with what I'd be letting go of if I took that route.  

I had some hard choices to make.  About where I live, about how I think, about how I want to go about becoming a mom.  And, for the first time, in vitro became a serious part of the discussion.  In a drunken, kinda weird way.

So I started doing A LOT of reading.  (And I consulted with an astrologer.  Because I live in L.A., and that's what we do.)  And I learned about sperm.  Well, sperm donors. Which kinda changed everything.  Because it turns out, not all sperm donors are anonymous. And that makes a HUGE difference.  

Still, I met with an adoption attorney.  

And immediately after the meeting, I kinda knew how I was leaning.  Which was not un-terrifying.  So I did more reading.  And I watched a movie about single women who are trying to get pregnant on their own using donor sperm.  (Which freaked me out. Because it's hard, folks.  This whole pregnancy is your late thirties thing doesn't always happen.) I got my FSH levels tested... which, by the way, is the last fertility related good news I've gotten.  

It's probably just because I'm adjusting to being off the pill, but my fertility chart is CUH-RAAAAZY.  Temps all over the map, iffy ovulation, short luteal phase.  My acupuncturist assures me it's all fine... but it feels frustrating and crappy.

And then life kind of fell to shit.  So I've been managing wounded dogs and packing plans and TWO BOUTS WITH SICKNESS, which is SO NOT COOL.  (Although I did manage a blogging digression to rail about Roman Polanski!)  All of which, I'm sure, has played into rising doubts about this whole parenthood thing.  

I mean, seriously, what am I thinking?  It's all really, really, REALLY scary.  

Then again, most good things are.

Which is why I'm glad I have great readers, who remind my of very important, wonderful things like: When in doubt, do the more active thing.

And that's what I'm doing.  Because only a crazy person wouldn't have doubts about having kids.  It's a big deal.  A big, fabulous, messy, amazing, wild, life-changing deal.

So.  That, my friends, is what's up with the whole kid thing.  Starting in January, I will officially stop being a Thinker and become a Tryer.  

Let the wild rumpus start!

Ruminations and Rain Shoes

There are two seasons in California: Birkenstock season, and Ugg season.

Birkenstock season is great and all, but I looooove Ugg season.  And not just because my feet will be encased in clouds for the next few months.  I love the crispness in the air.  I love sleeping under a down comforter. Most of all, I LOVE THE RAIN.

Today, for the first time in months, it rained.  And within seconds, I was standing on the mini-balcony in the writers' room with two other rain-lovers bemoaning the fact that we don't live in Seattle.  

Many years ago, I visited California for a cousin's wedding.  I'd never been to the West Coast before, nor was it a place that ranked high on my adolescent travel wish list.  The wedding was beautiful, but the thing I remember most about the trip-- and this tells you more than you need to know about the things that stick in my memory-- was my other cousin's boyfriend.  Over lunch, at some pre-wedding festivity that I barely remember, he said smugly, "There are two kinds of people in the world.  People who live in California, and people who want to live in California."

I hated that guy.  I'm happy to report that my cousin is now married to someone else.

I never wanted to live in California.  When I was growing up, I thought I would eventually live in New York.  By the time I graduated from college, I was leaning toward Iowa.  Or Minneapolis.  Someplace that would require mukluks and lots of wool sweaters.  And then Thelma and Louise happened, and my whole perception of the world changed, and I went to grad school to study film, and that was that.  L.A., here I come.

I met Callie Khouri at an event about a year ago and faltered through one of those bumbling your-work-changed-my-life moments.  She was very gracious about it.  Mad Money had just come out, and I think she appreciated hearing something nice.

But I wonder sometimes what my life would have been like if I hadn't moved to California.  Would I be married?  Would I have kids?  I don't know if I'd be much of a writer.  I have no idea what I'd be doing for a living, in fact.  It's impossible to know if the trade-offs would be worth it.  If I would be happier.  

One thing is certain.  I would most definitely not have such a vast collection of Uggs. And that would be a shame.

.

How has your life turned out differently than you expected?  

My So-Called Movie Review

Tonight I watched a documentary called "Maybe Baby," produced and directed by Shannon O'Rourke (full disclosure, she's the friend of a friend), which follows six single women (none of them spring chickens) trying to have babies, and I am SO not a movie reviewer, so take it with a grain of salt when I say I thought this movie was terrific, but... I thought this movie was terrific.  

For one thing, I learned a lot.  Like, the California Cryobank has masterbatoriums.  Who knew?  MASTERBATORIUMS!  Suddenly, I want there to be a sequel to Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium! And you know where I think they should set it?  Thaaat's right.  The Masterbatorium Emporium.  You think I'm being facetious, but I'm gonna work on a pitch.  Take it to HBO.  Make a ba-zillion dollars.

I also learned that the California Cryobank distributes 2500 ampules of sperm every month, and 40% of them go to single women.  When I say "you're not alone in being alone in this," I MEAN IT, PEOPLE!  Every month, more than a thousand ampules of sperm JUST FROM THE CALIFORNIA CRYOBANK get shipped off via Fed Ex to SINGLE WOMEN ALL OVER THE WORLD!  That's a lot of starfish envy, folks. 

Now, I'm being glib because that's my way, but there were things in this documentary that broke my heart.  In pieces.  Teeny, tiny, cracked-heart shaped slivers.  One woman threw garage sales to raise money for her in vitro treatments (and eventually had a baby using an egg donor, which is more heart wrenching and then heart warming than heart breaking now that I think about it).  Another ran out of money and had to stop trying. Another accepted that she simply wasn't going to be a mom.  

Now, my blood pressure's been a little elevated lately (although I read on the internet today that it's completely fine by British standards, so GO BRITS!), which I think is just because of the heat in my UN-AIR-CONDITIONED-HOUSE and the hideously awful air I've been breathing thanks to the wildfires, but it's still totally freaking me out and spinning me into "what if I can't even do this?!' land.  I'm not even pregnant, I'm not even TRYING to get pregnant, and I'm positive I have preeclampsia.  Premature preeclampsia.  Pre-pregnancy premature preeclampsia.  It could happen.  Because what you DON"T want, when you watch a documentary like this, is to end up like the women it doesn't work out for.

You want to be like Betsy, who got pregnant the first time she did in vitro.  Or like Joanna, who was turned down by one doctor because of her advanced age (43) and went to another one and within three months was pregnant with her adorable son Tyler. THAT is how it is supposed to go for YOU.  YOU are the success story, the happy mom with the giggling, healthy, dimpled toddler.  (Apparently, the most popular sperm donors have dimples.)

Most of all, watching Maybe Baby made me feel incredibly lucky.  Because, whether I get pregnant or not, I don't have to throw a garage sale to try (thanks, tax refund!). And that, alone, is an enormous relief, because it is simply TOO DAMN HOT to go through my stuff right now. Seriously, if it's on the curb, you can just have it.

Better Than Walter Matthau In A Pale Yellow Linen Suit

Last night, I had a celebrity sighting. 

I live in LA, and I’m a tv writer, so celebrity sightings are about as common as red lights.  Just this morning, driving across the 20^th lot, I almost hit T.J. Thyne from Bones with my car because I drive a hybrid and they’re SO QUIET, and when you’re zipping around on a little bicycle, you just don’t know I’M RIGHT BEHIND YOU.

In the last ten years, I’ve had some fairly big sightings.  Stephen Spielberg on a corner in Beverly Hills.  Walter Matthau, also on a corner in Beverly Hills, but a different corner, and obviously that was a while ago, because he was alive.  Cyndi Lauper just a few weeks ago.  She looks GOOD, and seriously, ‘Time After Time’ does not get old.  Leonardo DiCaprio at a party in The Colony (that was back in my assistant days, my oh so fun assistant days of scheduling pedicures and brushing dogs’ teeth).  Tom Hanks (quick aside: I took my mom to see ‘Mission Impossible’ when it came out a hundred years ago, and I couldn’t figure out why she was all excited to go, because my mom doesn’t really like movies, and when it was over we walked out and she said, “Now, who in that movie was Tom Hanks?”).  Gabriel Byrne.  A bunch of American Idols.  Suge Knight.  Cuz that’s how I roll.  Oodles of sitcom people.  Colin Firth.  I like him just as he is.  All the Grey’s people.  Ben Stiller in the elevator up to my old office.  A few months ago, when I was leaving work, Hugh Laurie was right behind me on his motorcycle.  I like him just as he is, too.  Ice Cube, who was behind me at a gate going into a different studio.  I could see his diamond studs in my rearview mirror.  HUU-YOOGE.  Katherine Keener and Dermott Mulroney (back when they were married and Daisy was a puppy and they wanted to pet her and because I’m nice I let them), Alecia Keyes, Nathan Fillion, Neil Patrick Harris, I have to include Felicia Day because I think she’s an internet genius, all the casts of all the shows I’ve written, Elvis Costello, Stanley from The Office, who gave me sunscreen when we were on strike and picketing in the hot sun…

I could go on and on until the internet ran out.  It’s LA.  They’re EVERYWHERE.  In general, there’s that little moment of “Oh, that’s… whoever!”  And maybe you relive a childhood memory or two, or do a spur-of-the-moment critique of whoever's last movie, then you go on with your day.   

Yesterday was different.  I recently (as in two days ago) joined the Single Mothers by Choice listserve on Yahoo!  Pretty much just lurking at the moment, learning the ropes, trying to figure out the lingo (BFP? BBT? AAARRRGGGHH.). 

So I’m reading away, gleaning all I can glean, and I read one particular comment, and I think, this woman’s story sounds familiar…  Where have I heard this before?  And her son’s name is Scott… and I go HOLY CRAP!  This is Louise Sloan!  Louise Sloan, who wrote “Knock Yourself Up!”  LOUISE SLOAN, people!!!

Taking a moment.

Now.  When I saw Walter Matthau on the corner in Beverly Hills, he was wearing a pale yellow linen suit, and I’ve never seen anyone or anything more magnificent.  Truly.  And I’m including the Grand Canyon and the Eiffel Tower at night.  The man was a STAR.  It emanated from his pores.  He was old as the hills and doing nothing but standing on a corner, and he was absolutely riveting.  My throat got tight.  I can remember the feeling to this day.  He died not long after that, but just having seen him made me feel a connection to a different Hollywood, a more magical Hollywood.  Though he was barely twenty feet away, it may as well have been a million miles. 

But Louise Sloan, who must be thousands of miles away, was RIGHT HERE.  On the computer in my breakfast room.  I could join an internet conversation she was having RIGHT THEN.  I could ask her a question, just by pressing some little buttons that form words, and hitting send.  This is why the internet is CRAZY.  Because as cool as Walter Matthau is, he didn’t change my life.  Louise Sloan kinda did.  Reading her book was one of the key things that made me believe I could be a single mom.  It helped me decide what path to take. 

And I think I’ve decided.  It’s been settling in slowly for awhile, and I think it’s here to stay.

So let me take this opportunity to say:  Thanks, Louise.  

Crossing Over... with Jon Favreau

You know what’s weird?  Looking up from your desk and finding Jon Favreau standing in your office.  I’m talking Jon Favreau the speech writer, not Jon Favreau the actor.  And by speech writer, I mean SPEECH WRITER TO THE PRESIDENT!  In my office!  Craziness.

Here’s what I discovered in my three minutes with Jon Favreau: I have absolutely no idea what to say to people who do amazing things that make a difference in the world.  And I am old.  Very, very old. 

Fortunately, WP is better at small talk than I am and had a nice chat with Jon and his buddies (who are friends with one of the ‘Lie to Me’ writers) about the lovely and talented Jennifer Beals (and the fact that these guys are too young to remember ‘Flashdance’--  WHAT?).  I pretty much just stood there awkwardly.  Someone has to do it, why not me?

I’m excellent at standing awkwardly.  It’s a particular skill of mine, and one I try to cultivate at every opportunity.  I worked on it tonight, in fact, at a dinner party.  I’d been sort of dreading going, because of the whole single woman thing, but despite a certain amount of my patented awkward standing, I actually had fun.

Part of that, of course, was the other guests, all of whom were interesting and fun to talk to.  But the biggest part of it was… me.  Something significant has shifted in me since I got serious about becoming a single mom.  To steal from Callie Khouri, “Something’s crossed over in me and I can’t go back.”  At least, I hope I can’t.  For the first time in my entire adult life, I’m not unhappy about being single.  I’m not happy about it, either.  But it’s not keeping me up at night.  (Mind you, I reserve the right to backslide when my friends’ wedding rolls around in November.  Weddings are a whole other level of sucks-to-be-single.)

One reason for the shift, I think, is that I’m not waiting anymore.  I’m not waiting for the boyfriend or the husband who magically makes all the pieces fall into place.  I'm not putting contingencies on the things I want-- I'm going after them.  I’m moving forward, and I’m astonished by how liberating and exhilarating that is.  

And if The Guy appears at some point and wants to catch up, that’s fine.  But I’m going where I’m going… with or without him.

You Gotta Get Sad To Get Happy

Sometimes the road to happy is paved with sad.  While my decision to become a mom has already brought me a tremendous amount of joy (and I don’t even know how I’m going to do it yet), tonight I’m feeling sad about one of the steps I’ll be taking to get there. 

I’ve decided to sell my house. 

I really love my house.   My heart is kind of breaking.

The first time I walked through the front door, seven years ago, I knew this house was my home.  My little Spanish bungalow/tree house is warm, and charming, and I feel safer here than I’ve felt in any house I’ve ever lived in. (And that’s saying something— I tend to be a bit of a scaredy-cat.  Not in life in general.  Just when I’m lying in bed and there are sounds and shadows that make me think of… this is embarrassing… vampires.  I was far too young when I saw ‘Salem’s Lot.’) 

I bought my house when I was a low-level writer on “Angel,” (yes, the vampire show) and had no way of knowing if I would have a real career.  None of my friends had bought houses yet, and it felt huge and terrifying, and so grown up.  For years, most of my furniture was borrowed or given to me for free. 

I’ve written half of two books in this house, and more scripts than I can count.  I was standing in the kitchen when I got fired off my own show (which was good, ‘cuz the vodka was close).  I learned to cook here.  I nursed my dogs through surgeries in the living room.  I planted my first herb garden.  I started this blog.  I’ve had more house guests than I can count—most of them in the last eight months.  And dinner parties, and Friday Night Lights marathons, and a million hours of knitting.  I was standing in the living room when WP called to say she was pregnant.  I hugged my dad in the kitchen, having just told him that his best friend had died.  The tangerine tree that B’n’K gave me when I moved in (yes, that’s B’n’K, the magic parents) took four years to really take root.  It took me at least that long to develop a Spanglish communication system with my brilliant gardener. 

And in these seven years, my neighborhood has transformed from what’s politely referred to as “marginal” to being just AWESOME.  My salon is around the corner.  I can walk to a coffee shop and a bakery and several real, actual restaurants.  I can walk to a great hiking trail… or to a park with a little lake and a walking path, if I feel like something flat (this is the park where I saw my favorite piece of graffiti ever: "F*** pigs and gentrifiers."  I find this brilliant in ways I can't even access rationally).  And an independent bookstore/café just opened up on Sunset WHY AM I LEAVING?????  I like my neighbors!  What if I never find neighbors I like again????

Okay, reign it in.  

I’m leaving because I have a thirteen-year-old lab with arthritic hips, a ten-year-old hound dog mix with two metal knees, and a one-year-old husky mix with severe hip dysplasia.  Which is a problem when your house was built on a hill.        

But, mostly, it’s the mom thing.  My house is perfect for me.  I’m not sure it’s right for Mommy-me.  Mommy-me has this dream of looking out a kitchen window (or, better yet, French doors) and seeing my son or daughter playing on my flat, grassy, backyard.  And if there happens to be a guest house in that yard, I’m fine with that too.  Because there’s a nanny in my future.  

And I want her to be as happy as I’m planning to be.

Lessons from John Hughes

Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, and The Breakfast Club were the seminal movies of my adolescence. 

I was thirteen when Sixteen Candles came out.  More than any other movie, Sixteen Candles both was me and made me.  

In Sixteen Candles, John Hughes taught me what it was to be a teenager in America in the 80’s.  He showed me how to be cool without being a cool kid.

Most of all—for better or worse—he taught me about love.

Like me, Sam (Samantha, she would insist) had a complicated family.  Hers, of course, was the idealized version, while mine was real, messy, and painful.  I could easily imagine my family forgetting my sixteenth birthday—and by the time it rolled around, I would wish they had. 

Like me, Samantha felt separate— from her family, from the other kids at school, from the boy of her dreams.  Jake. 

Could any boy be more perfect than Jake?  Well, yes, of course.  The first time we see him he’s zoning out in class, chiseled jaw in hand.  He barely knows Sam exists— his interest in her begins when he intercepts a note in which she admits she wants to have sex with him.  (Sex and adolescence are inextricably connected in John Hughes’s movies—as, let’s be honest, they are in real life.)  But, we quickly find out, Jake’s “interested in more than a party.”  He’s had it with his shallow but gorgeous girlfriend, Caroline (the first image we see of her is a close up of her perfect breasts—I hated her immediately.)

What follows is an hour of pure, unmitigated longing.  Sam wants Jake desperately.  But he is utterly unattainable.  He’s “a senior and he’s beautiful and perfect.  I like him a real lot,” she tells her father, in a scene that BROKE MY HEART, “and he doesn’t like me, okay?”

I could cry RIGHT NOW.

And her father says the thing that every teenage girl wants to hear and wants desperately to believe: “When it happens to you, Samantha, it’ll be forever.”

And this is my beef with John Hughes.  You made me believe, Mr. Hughes.  You made me believe that the longing and the longing and the longing would lead inevitably to a happy ending.  That, one day, there would be a Jake, and that he would look at me and I would look at him, and we would know. 

It happened for Samantha, didn’t it?  She comes out of the church in her silly bridesmaid’s dress with those silly flowers on her head, and the cars clear away, and suddenly, like magic, there’s Jake (and his red Porsche, which is way, way better than the black Transam Sam wanted), and we know that even though these two people have never actually exchanged more than three words, this is the beginning of something huge and real and forever. 

This is love.  And love is really, really awesome.

But life isn’t a movie, and love isn’t that forthcoming.  It’s been twenty-four years since I watched Sixteen Candles for the first time.  I’m thirty-seven now, and beginning the process of starting a family on my own.  The biggest thing missing from the life I imagined at thirteen is that there is no Jake-- which, as tragedies go, doesn't rank very high.  In general, my life is quite good.  Just different than what I expected.

Still I can’t let go of the dreamy wish that one day, there will be a guy—no chiseled jaw required— who looks at me and says, “Yeah, you.”