Monday, January 12, 2015

Thoughts while watching TV tonight.

The Golden Globes:

Helen Mirren is inspiring.

I love Tina and Amy.

What Joanne Froggatt!? From Robin Hood to Downton Abby to a Golden Globe! She seemed genuinely surprised and very grateful. I cried during her speech.

This could be a weepy night.

J.Lo's dress and body? Are stunning. So is her face. And Jeremy Renner? My second favorite archer. :) He seems .... drunk, maybe?

Not a fan of neon yellow dresses. (Naomi Watts.)
Says she who shops at Costco for clothes twice a year.

What is Fargo? Is it something I should consider PVRing?

I saw Birdman. I was looking for a rom com that night, so I was a bit disappointed and probably didn't fully appreciate its apparent brilliance.


Oh Colin Firth. You'll always be Mr. Darcy to me.

Julia Dreyfuss. Wow, she looks good. Are we really the same age? I need to stop eating.

Gina Rodriguez sure was seated a long way away from the stage. Jane The Virgin. Her speech got me in the feels. Crying.

Am I PMSing?

I better get a box of Kleenex if this first half hour is any indication of how the rest of the night is going to go.

Transparent? I know NOTHING about TV shows. I'm never home to watch. BUT I HAVE A PVR. I'm going to start recording like a fiend.

I adore Melissa McCarthy.  She has the friendliest face and the best smile.
And I totally enjoyed St. Vincent.
Bill Murray has 6 sons? (I just googled him, to see how old he is.)


I guess I should go see Selma. Seems important.

Katie Holmes did a fab job in her little bit.

Matt Bohmer? The Normal Heart? Sigh. I just am so out of the loop.

Amy Adams is having a fabulous career. That color looks good on her. (Pffft. Like I know the difference between a good and bad color.)  She was right. She was unprepared. Heartfelt. But disjointed.

WHOA. That was quick. HBO just aired a commercial congratulating Matt Bohmer on his Golden Globe win.

Selma Hayek DOES look stunning. I like that white dress.

I haven't seen How to Train Your Dragon 1 or 2. I need a grandson I think.

Kate Hudson. Lady? THAT is quite the dress.

I TRIED seeing Boyhood a number of times this fall. Every time the 'date' fell through, though. Patricia Arquette could've used Danica's magic on her hair.

Kristen Wiig and the guy with the very white skin. They have totally opposing skin tones. Spray on tan FOR THE WIN. And her dress reminds me of a nightie I had in the 70's.

Jane Fonda is 77.
OH. MY. GOODNESS.
If I stop eating now and do 10,000 sit ups a day, I may have a fighting chance to look like her in 35 years.


"If there's one thing I've learnt about writing The Affair, is how sacred and valuable our marriages are..."


The air conditioning is on the fritz. Everyone is melting. Faces are shiny. Makeup is dripping. A  real Hollywood tragedy.


Oh George Clooney:
"If you're in this room, you've caught the brass ring."
"It's a humbling thing to find someone to love..."
"Je Suis Charlie"

What is with Harrison Ford's nose? Does it look weird to you too?


Haha. Ethan Hawke's shirt. He had too much dinner... his tummy was peeking through. Gloriously.

Chris Patt tho.
He and his wife are too cute.

Love hearing all the British accents this evening.

Michael Keaton: Whoa. What amazing things to say about your son. Heartwarming, Tears. Again.


And then I stopped blogging.

The end.


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Seeing I'm amazing at multi-tasking, I found some things on the internet you might find interesting:

This article by a young man writing to other young men:

5 ways you are unknowingly destroying your wife and killing your marriage


(Want to know what they are?
1. Not providing the basics for the family.
2. Pessimism.
3. Withholding physical affection.
4. Putting other things first.
5. Not speaking her language.)

Oh come on. Just click the link and read the article.

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I was talking with a friend recently (in response to that blog post I wrote awhile ago about beauty/feeling ugly) and she said she'd always wanted to be considered magnificent. She wished for Hollywood-type fame. She, an extrovert x 1,000 wanted to get an Oscar or some such award.

I on the other hand, wanted to be beautiful to just one person. (And not stand out in a crowd re: appearance either positive or negatively.) And my dream, since childhood was to be happily married.

We were noticing that neither of us got what we'd hoped for. Although I said to her, "you still have a shot at getting your award. At this point, it's a matter of hard work and prioritizing your time and energy. I on the other hand, am going to have to let go of the dream, because statistically the chances that I'll get married again are very low. Less than 10%. It just doesn't happen for women in my demographic. Besides, I can't make someone fall in love with me by working hard or prioritizing my time.


AND THEN I saw this link on Facebook! Apparently it IS easy to get someone to fall in love with you. Just find someone who wants to play this 90 minute game... then play it with integrity and honesty and BOOM. True love blossoms.

Want to fall in love? Play The Love Game™

Grab a partner and together answer each of these 36 questions and complete the final 4 minute exercise.

Hahaha. You can play 'the game' from your laptop or download it onto your phone as an app. I can imagine someone playing it, say, in Disneyland. In the lineup. Like this:






And then? By the time you get on your ride, you're in love. 

Hahaha.
What the heck.

Good questions tho. Would be a great date night conversation starter if having conversations on dates is not your strong suit.


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Moving on...

Have you been keeping up with Brenda's journal?

Her most recent post is so good:

I learned about the importance of invitation. That is, the necessity of inviting God in... into my circumstances, into my feelings, into my fears, into my joys, into everything. God doesn't force himself into my life: He always waits to be invited. 

In other words, miracles and healing don't happen apart from invitation and desire on my part. Story after story in the New Testament shows Jesus clarifying by asking something like, "What do you want me to do for you?" Invitation and desire. 

 I am inviting God into all the feelings around that scan and the upcoming results the following week


Go read the whole thing. Isn't it great? 
Inviting God in.

Inviting God into THE FEELINGS around certain events or situations. 

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And lastly. 
Anne Lamott.

Her thoughts on aging necks: 


I am reluctant to say I heard directly from God the other day, because somehow Bill Maher or one of the other fundamentalists might get word of it, and condemn me as being as stupid and dangerous as Mother Theresa or the Parisian terrorists.
But I did hear from God. So sue me.
I rarely do--almost never in fact, directly, which is one of my real problems with the Divine It. Like it would be so much skin off Its nose, to slip us notes or whisper in our tiny shell-shaped ears: "Get rid of this guy." "Yes, take the damn job." "Keep the sweater."
But I did hear the other day, in the least likely of places--my church.
I had been nuts since the first of the year, in my Disease of Toxic Thinking; obsessed, shamed and controlling. I could have answered most of the 20 questions on the Addictive Thinking Questionaire; Do you ever lie about your thinking? Have you ever missed work as a result of your thinking? Do you ever think alone?
There were reasons--the anxieties of December, a month which, if I were God's West Coast Rep, I would cancel; the stress of the small victories book tour, 14 nights, 14 airports,42 fattening meals, all the losses in my family's life this fall; a new relationship that fell apart. You know the drill. It's called Real Life. It's hard here. It just is.
And my solution had been my conviction that I needed a neck lift.
A lot of us grew up in the sun, in an era when the only skin advice was that the best tanning aids were tin foil reflectors, and baby oil.
Also, then I got a little tiny bit old.
But part of my work involves being on stage, under bright lights, which are not ideal to showing off one's neck.
Listen, I have a good little neck, long and thin, which has successfully kept my head attached to my torso for 60 years now. It's a huge head, like a bowling ball, filled with sandstorms of activity, 96% of it meaningless, scary, or outright destructive.
I really do appreciate it. It's the little neck that could.
But I got fixated on it, like a helicopter mom, and had begun researching "mini neck lifts." One reads about them everywhere--less invasive, less recovery time, local anaesthesia. Magic! Yay.
Yet I am a feminist, a passionate supporter of women's rights, a follower of Jesus, especially His pleas that we take care of His poor.
So I thought I couldn't actually do it. But I was ashamed after the first of the year that I thought of it so constantly and of my conviction that I wanted to do it, and ashamed of my shame about it.
Obviously, I needed to fix this situation, which--left to my own devices--is my battle cry.
But I'm NOT left to my own devices. I believe in two things, God and my friends. They are both Love, and they stay close to me no matter how awful I am being.
Both have very low standards, which is all I have going for myself.
So I tried to heal myself of my obsessed and ashamed mind with my obsessive and ashamed mind. You know how well that works. Then I found myself in church. It was a nightmare, as my large heavy head had insisted on accompanying me.
But they say that when all else fails to follow instructions, so, it being church and all, I did what they say. It was silent confession. My usual confession is, "Look--I think we both know what we have on our hands here." But last Sunday, I said in silence that I was hating on myself for wanting a mini neck lift, and for being totally obsessed, in the face of my community's and world's profound suffering.
And in the silence, I heard a voice say, gently, "It's okay."
It was shocking. I opened my eyes to the sound, but all 25 congregants had their eyes closed. I gaped. It's okay? Wait--what?
And that was it--that it is okay to want a necklift, and it is okay to be screwed up and human and sad and cuckoo.
I started laughing to myself. This literally had not occured to me.
Grace as spiritual WD-40, as bouyancy, as vitamins, 2nd winds. I got into serious affection with myself. I said to myself, "It's okay. Get a neck lift, don't get a neck lift. I'm right here, either way."
I have been in a dangerously happy mood ever since. My friend Lori pointed out that you were chastised as a child for being too full of yourself. But I was full of myself, of amused love for my former trogydyte self. It was so Rumi, so Wavy Gravy. It was heaven.
The obsession and self-contempt were lifted. Well--ish. Mostly.
A few days later, I saw my county's best plastic surgeon.
He said "Oh, yeah--the famous mini-neck lift. Fabulous! But then you'll require the mini facelift, because the mini neck lift creates new creases in your face. So you will need general anaesthesia, and two weeks off. Also, these procedures will make the wrinkles and crowsfeet around your eyes look 50% deeper, so we'd need to fix that, too, while we're at it. And then your eyes would not be nearly as expressive. So maybe we'll do it somewhere down the road?"
I shook my head and laughed with something like joy. I said what my grandson says when he agrees to do what I say. I said, "Deal!" The surgeon replied, "Deal," and we shook hands on it. I hate to say anything that might trigger Bill Maher or Richard Dawkins, but I felt like God had reached down again and touched me. God sometimes looks like someone finally, finally telling the truth.


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Three things I'm thankful for:

1. The laziest weekend ever in the history of weekends. Not totally sure this was a good thing. Well. it was good for my heel (which by the way, HURTS LIKE THE DICKENS when I stand or walk. Or think about standing or walking.) Yes, I have an appointment to see my doctor. Earliest appointment isn't tile THE END OF JANUARY. Seems everyone has ailments that need attention these days.

2. Yesterday's sermon is continuing to seep into my consciousness. I have been uniquely equipped for the journey He has called me to participate in. 

3. Prayer. I am thankful that when I can't do anything else, I can pray. If a person or situation comes to mind, I'll just ask God to intervene. His will be done. Over in Vancouver. Out in New West. In Africa. In St. Anne's. On the Coquihalla. In Surrey hospital. In Hollywood. In Mexico. In AA meetings. In NA meetings. In churches. On movie sets. On TV locations. At Awards ceremonies. In neighbourhoods. At beaches. In the lives of people I love. In the lives of people I don't even know. 

I am thankful that He listens and responds. And that I get to experience peace in the process.


Shalom friends,
xo

2 comments:

Tricia said...

I enjoyed your commentary on the Golden Globes. Most of the time I do't miss tv, but not having it last night kind of sucked. All of those actress's...thats' hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of plastic surgery, hours of exercise, and no chocolate. Not worth it, I say.
PS. I continue to pray the Lord sends you a husband. Honestly, I'm baffled that you are single. You're witty, intelligent, caring, beautiful, inside and out. It's a mystery to me.

Jane said...

Hahaha. You're praying for a husband for me? Thank you, but I'm pretty sure I am destined to remain single. Thanks for all the kind words, tho. Lovely thing to read first thing on a Monday morning. xo