High Adventure

Being unemployed has taught me a lot of things.

1) It's far too easy to apply for jobs.

At the end of my dedicated 8 hour days I look back through my Sent file and see I've placed maybe 50 resumes that day. Now I'm careful and read every description I come across and think about cover letters and am attempting to do a thorough search. What I've seen in people's responses and what I've been told at interviews is that people are literally buried under 100s and 100s of resumes for a single Craigslist position, just after 24 hours and about 90% of them might as well be written in crayon. It complicates everyone's life that it takes 3 seconds to shoot off a resume from Craigslist or Careerbuilder. If it was more of an effort I think it would bode easier for everyone.

2) There are a large number of very dim people in the world.

WHO are applying for these jobs? I was interviewing for an Office Manager position and they brought me in for a "computer test". I thought I was going to have to build a database, write a program or put a power point together so I was kind of nervous but I was ready. I got there and the girl placed her business card in front of me with her info and a post it with the name of an elementary school.

The test (I am so NOT kidding) consisted of:
1 - opening Outlook
2 - sending an email
3 - opening Explorer
4 - logging onto the company's website
5 - creating a list
6 - putting items on the list
and the kicker
7 - looking up the Elementary School's phone number via search engine
oh
8 - and making sure it was in LAUSD

about half way through logging on to their website I was suppressing the need to giggle and had to shove down the snarky desire to ask if I could do this from my phone instead. In my sleep. With gardening gloves on.

Then I've interviewed at a number of other places where they tell me in the verification phone calls to "dress business professional, bring a copy of your resume and no sandals or jeans please". No sandals or jeans. PEOPLE!!! This is a job interview. Nothing short of an attack of the Nocturnal Clothes Eating Monster, an appointment before the mall opens and a world wide paper shortage would cause me to show up in jeans and sandals without a resume for a JOB INTERVIEW! Why is this necessary? What kind of idiots are applying for these jobs?

Send me an email??! I'm still baffled by it.

3) There are a lot of gawkers on the 57.

I've been down to Orange County about 3x a week for the last 3 weeks so me and the 57 have been getting cozy again. However, I don't remember the strange amount of people who pace your car and try to talk to you in traffic, ask for your phone number or just stare. Now, I've had this happen to me before but just once or twice and it was on the 101 which is freak central anyway, and the 210 after church, which was just funny. From a car viewpoint I'm a knock out, I'll admit it. I've got red hair and a great rack. What more can a commuter want for eye candy? But seriously people, I'm a stressed out unemployed college grad. I don't want to deal with the distracted male driving an audaciously large truck right next to me at high speeds. Focus people.

4) Receptionists need to read For the Strength of Youth

I don't need to see your naughty pillows coming and going nor do I want to. You're sitting down at a desk all day with people coming up to you that are standing. They have what is scientifically termed the "bird's eye view". If you look down and see something your mom wouldn't approve of then so can ALL of us and if that's the kind operation you're running you should mention that in your job description "self respect desired but not required".

5) Job Hunting is just an endless bunch of awkward. Not the entertaining kind, oh no. It's the blind date, slightly humiliating kind.

Sitting in a waiting room with 3 other people that you know are interviewing for the same job and are just as worked up as you and its taking forever and you think about striking up a conversation but you know you're just getting sized up and they look more terrified than bored so you decide not to - awkward
Talking about yourself and telling your story over and over - awkward
Not knowing who will be interviewing you and where they're coming from - awkward
The same strange dusty silk plants and ficus trees in every waiting room you go that are sometimes poking you in the face and make you have to sneeze through your whole interview - awkward. Freaky even

6) Interviews are either a Recruiter's favorite thing or least favorite thing.

I've been in 45 min interviews with men who look like a Muppet (including mannerisms) that are in love with the sound of their own voice and ask every. single. obscure question or personality assessment tell they can think of "Describe to me you're ideal day, environment, problem, and how you'd solve it and what color the walls might be and what animal would be there?" I've also been in 5 min interviews consisting of 5 questions that were answered by my resume sitting right in front of them that they spent the majority of that 5 minutes studying in silence.

7) Some recruiters have a God complex.

For kicks and giggles I was sniffing around the Phoenix Craigslist and opened up this ad looking for a Personal Assistant for a Scottsdale Marketing firm. It literally made me shake my head and want to go hug my mother. Make the bad man go away!

8) When putting an office environment together a Fung Shui type should be consulted or some kind of professional.

Purple is not a color that should ever be make up file cabinets, light fixtures or desktops.
Wallpaper does not belong on the ceiling.
6th grade science project boards is not the best way to introduce people to your company.
Yellow paint doesn't make people feel better, it makes them wonder what you're hiding, especially if you're a guy.
Swap meets or auctions from dismantled hotels are not the best places to go art shopping.

The funniest thing is I'm still in the thick of it. I cannot wait till this episode is over and I'm back to work, wherever that may be. I'm not sure how many more of these interviews I can weather before I just get up on the desk and Riverdance my way into the heart of those around me.

Pray for me people.

Oh - and I told him the walls would be pink with white trim.

Emotional Bulimia

So my spuah-star friend S, her husband, and I went to the Post Secret lecture at the University of Redlands last night.

It was very cool and Frank Warren was a very poised, simple speaker that seemed to be the most amazed at the Post Secret phenomenon than anybody else in the room. There were about 300-400 people there and I'm guessing the average age was about 21. It was kind of funny being in line and having this involved conversation about economic imperatives and globalization while the kids around us supplied a good amount of "whattha? whotha?" looks.

Post Secret is a fascinating concept. Frank started passing out post cards at night to random people in Washington DC and put his home address on it and asked people to write down their secrets and to his amazement a lot of people did. He stopped passing out post cards but they continued to come and not by 3s and 4s but by 50s and 60s and soon the 100s. He said now its a regular thing for him to receive 200 postcards a DAY.

There have been books published and art exhibits and people have been changed by being able to read the deep workings of other people.

He recounted the story about an exhibit that they had at Georgetown where they were displaying the secrets and there was a girl there that was holding one of the postcards and came up to Frank in total amazement. It had been written on a picture frame insert and had said that "I wish my life were as simple as a picture frame insert" and she said that she had recently broken up with her boyfriend because she realized she was in an abusive relationship when she read another postcard that said "my boyfriend is so abusive I have ceased to have any opinions of my own" and she sent in the picture frame insert postcard as a reaction and they happened to be displayed right next to each other at this event.

That, I think, is the ethos of Post Secret and why it's so remarkable. It's this private, respectful, shared catharsis and it's beautiful.

Frank's mantra is that "we don't keep secrets, secrets keep us". They keep us from being ourselves. Also that there are two kinds of secrets, the kind we keep from others, and the kind we keep from ourselves. As an example he shared a moment he had with a secret similar to the picture frame insert girl. When he was reading a secret about someone else's humiliating childhood experience and it surfaced one from his own past he hadn't realized he was hiding. So he wrote it down on a postcard and sent it away. It came right back to him but that process was very freeing. In turn, he tries to treat people's secrets with great respect. There isn't any advertising on the site, it's totally funded by the book sales etc.

However, that kind of sincerity was not there last night. Frank and his presentation were lovely and beautifully sincere, but for the last portion of the night there was a mic set up for people to come forward and tell a secret if they wanted to. It was the last part of the lecture and, after a night's worth of reflection I'm not sure a single secret was really shared.

People got up and said "I sent you this secret and it looked like this and I wrote it this way and I want you to know that blah blah blah". That seemed to defeat the entire set up of Post Secret to me.

Another stand out one was a woman who got up to say "I'm 33 and wonderful and have a plethora of friends both online and off and they think I'm amazing and wise and spiritual and perfect and I'm afraid to tell them that I drink it all away and I can't stop and if they knew that that they won't think that I'm super or wise or smart or spiritual anymore". She spent a good 5 minutes "telling her secret" with a line of 20 or so people and only 20 min allotted for the mic. It didn't feel or sound like a confession at all. It felt more of a display. I think her real secret is "I'm an alcoholic" and as S's hubby smartly pointed out, "I'm an alcoholic who doesn't want to change". She didn't want to say that or she doesn't realize it yet. Either way - it left me wondering.

Wondering if she really thought that that was her secret, like, if she had diluted herself enough to fear being thought of less by her friends than alcoholism, and why she had to take so much time to paint that picture that she did, and how I felt that kind of pomp and circumstance diluted the gravity of her secret whatever it was.

I brought this up to S and her husband on the way home along with the concept of "emotional bulimia" and S was open to exploring the idea with me. Emotional bulimia is a Patrick Phrase. It's kind of a family joke. We all talk to each other so much about the tiniest tedium of things and there are a few of us who almost manically grind up bothersome things over and over and talk about them to us over and over that by the end of the issue we're all exhausted with it and numb to the reality that it really has for that person.

Like, I think that airing out secrets in such a manner of robs them of their reality to a degree. What I love about Post Secret is that it's a private way of letting go of your secrets. The mic portion of the evening taught me that element of the project hasn't permeated the majority of the people who subscribe.

It also left me wondering why people (going back to the alcoholic girl) would emotionally flail around like that, especially publicly, and among their peers.

Were they not given enough attention as a child? Were they not hugged enough? Were they not taught respect for their feelings or the feelings of others? Are they not even literate about what they feel? Are their problems not real unless 1000s of people know about them? Do they not feel alive or human or worth something unless someone is listening? Do they not know themselves at all? Am I one of them but in an opposite manner? Do I just not talk about anything remotely close to any nerve centers? Because that has to be just as unhealthy.

Frank encouraged us to share our secrets with the people we were with on our way back to our cars etc and we didn't really. We talked about what brats we were essentially. I shared something I never shared before though that had to do with why my friend and I were brats. So that's a secret I guess -

We were sitting by an open doorway close to the ladies room and when the presentation started we kept hearing strange sounds coming from the hallway. They were vocalizations but not utterances. S and I both looked over at the doorway the third time one erupted and she finally got up to investigate and it turned out that there was a deaf woman in the hallway communicating with an interpreter. S wanted to see what was going on so she could know what she was getting annoyed at but I just stayed in my seat and painted a picture in my mind of what could possibly be going on.

I was hesitant to investigate because when I 21 and in the MTC I was brushing my teeth in the community bathroom and I heard someone in the stalls heaving and throwing up behind me. Now emotions run pretty high in the MTC, especially in the sister's dorm and the food there isn't so easy on people's systems so I wasn't too surprised. What concerned me is that it continued for about 5 minutes. And later that night I was walking by the bathroom door and heard the same thing and I realized that whoever was in the stall wasn't ill, she was making herself throw up. However, I did nothing. I said nothing. I just realized how sick this girl was and kept walking. Two days later the other 5 sisters in my district were talking about it and how the girl went home. The whole floor knew about it apparently but I still feel bad for doing nothing. Not approaching the girl, not approaching my coordinating sisters, nothing. I suppose every time I've tried to approach someone that's struggling in their disease I've been snapped at or worse so I've learned to keep my distance. But it's not out of respect like I tell myself it is, its out of fear. She needed help and I did nothing.

So I suppose that's a secret. I'm a wimp.

I better go tell a 1000 people.

Year in Review

Tis the season and its been a doozie of a 12 month so here I go :)

in 2008 I:

* Attended a 12th Night feast
* Threw my brother's California wedding reception
* Moved out of my adorable apartment
* Visited my best friend in Kansas
* Saw Mellowdrone in concert (x2)
* celebrated my 7th year home from my mission
* Saw Wicked (x4)
* Attended a drunken Asian St. Patrick's Day extravaganza
* Didn't get in to the Grad School program I wanted
* Sang in the Sunrise Easter Service at Forest Lawn
* Chaperoned a Youth Conference
* Went to the Hotel Cafe Tour at the Music Box and was changed forever
* Taught at a stake Inservice (this scared me SO much more than anything I'd done before)
* Visited my cousin in DC and saw the cherry blossoms
* Saw Lady Sinatra in concert at the Viper Room (x2)
* Attended a Syttende Mai celebration
* Visited the cousins in Phoenix (x2)
* Saw Greg Laswell at the Hotel Cafe (x4)
* Saw Raining Jane at the Hotel Cafe
* Saw Rogue Wave at the Hotel Cafe
* Saw Mandy Moore at the Hotel Cafe
* Saw Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers at the Hotel Cafe
* Saw Ingrid Michaelson at the House of Blues
* Saw Snow Patrol at the House of Blues and fell in love. Like REALLY in love.
* Saw The Swell Season at the Greek and was forever changed
* Went to The Magic Castle - Best. Steak. Ever
* Dated a louse of a guy for a stint
* Went to the midnight party for Breaking Dawn
* Was bitterly let down by Breaking Dawn
* Giggle-snorted and scoffed through entire Twilight movie
* Saw Much Ado About Nothing at Shakespeare in the Park
* Visited the brother in Salt Lake
* Went back to the Single's ward
* Watched a meteor shower (and still have Hannah's blanket in my trunk)
* Got lied to by the Chinese about many things including fireworks and birthdays
* Got grafted into my couch from watching the Olympics nonstop
* Planned my wedding to Michael Phelps (I've loved ya from the start babe!)
* Felt compelled to put an Egyptian sterility curse on Chinese gymnastic officials
* Walked in my college graduation commencment
* Turned 30
* Moved NaToya to San Diego and discovered what the definition of "sweating"
* Learned how and made 100s of beautiful paper flowers for a Wendy-bird's wedding
* Threw a cocktail/garden party for a friend's birthday
* Got called to be the Ward Music Chairman (for the 3rd time)
* Dyed my hair red finally, after 20 years of going back and forth on the idea
* Took a weekend of elegant leisure at a Palm Spring's resort and practiced extravagant lounging
* Played Rockband for the first time and didn't totally suck
* Was failed by Jet Blue for the first time ever
* Got courted and chased by a monster at a haunted house
* Went back to DC and saw the autumn awesome and Mt. Vernon
* Hosted a Roman Murder Mystery party
* Went to Wendy's fabulous outdoor wedding reception complete with a being rained on adventure
* Campaigned my little heart out for Obama and Prop 8
* Cried for joy when both came to pass
* Had my faith in American Government and the American (and Californian) people refurbished
* Almost got caught at the temple both times it went into lock down because of No on 8ers
* Attempted to write a novel (again)
* Got laid off (and couldn't be happier)
* Saw Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

Total books read: 47
Total concerts attended: 20
Total trips to The Huntington: 9
Total trips to The Getty: 7
Total trips to Disneyland: 5
Total temple trips: 30
Total life-changing films seen: 5
Total other fun movies seen: 75
Total times being sick: 2
Total migraines: 3
Total total freeway blowouts: 1
Total heartbreaks: 2
New restaurants I tried: 15
Foods I learned to like: 9
Total laugh fits resulting in face numbing and brain cell loss: 785
Total # of things I've left in other states on trips: 32
Total theater expeditions: 12
Things I want to change for next year: 378
Things I wouldn't change for anything: 308,876
New friends made: 24
Old friends reconnected with: 36
Friends I don't deserve: 89
new phones I've had to buy: 0 *high 5*
Speeding tickets I've gotten out of: 3
States visited: 3
Pedicures: 12
Nails broken: 14
Times I've fallen in love with California: 365
Mountain excursions: 6
Beach excursions: 5
Desert excursions: 4
Miles traveled: 20,000+
Ideas for next year: 2,396

Yay for unabashedly living life and yay for another year to do the same.

Top 10 Tuesday

Top 10 Reasons Why Oprah Should Make Me Her New Best Friend
10) I freak out really well and can do the head/hair shake as good as she can
9) I can down as much red velvet cake as Gayle can any day
8) I love trying new beauty products
7) I don't jump on couches
6) I love to travel so I could check up on the Girls School in Africa more often. Make sure no more funny business goes down.
5) She'll be the skinny one
4) BOOKS! We both love them. It's her thing, they're my thing. Its meant to be.
3) I could have warned her about the Dr. Phil investment before it came out he was a lying, cheatin', cold, dead-beatin', two time double-dealin', mean mistreating loving heart (I never liked him).
2) I live in California - I'm just down the road from her. I could look in on the dogs when she's filming.
1) I'm a super cook and can't find a man that isn't terrified of me either. We have a lot to talk about

Top 10 Things I Have Found a New Appreciation for in 2008
10) Haircuts - I never really had one before now. Hair was mom's thing so I ran away from it screaming but I've learned the power of a good hair day.
9) Crying - I've done a lot of it this year and I've realized the sooner I let myself do it, the easier it is to move on
8) The Economist - It's the next best thing to a crystal ball or the webbernet.
7) Institute - I kind of faded into the woodwork these last few years on the YSA front but I wouldn't trade my time at Institute this year for anything.
6) My US Citizenship - I really felt like I did something to deserve it this year and that I made a difference. Even if it was a little one.
5) Music - Its played a vital role in keeping me going this year and in relationships and elevating my thinking. I would really be lost without it.
4) Free time - its a disappearing animal
3) really tall heals - me and tall shoes have gradually been mending our relationship. I put the moratorium on them for about a decade while I was coming to terms with my height but we're doing well now.
2) Friendship - the real kind. I've seen faces of support and forgiveness this year that I didn't know were possible.
1) Love - the agape kind. I've been able to see just a little bit more clearly how truly surrounded by it I am and how much I desperatly need it.

Thursday Thoughts

So I think that I find, like most thinker-type people (and I like to fancy myself as such), me and my faults tragically fascinating. Much like a train wreck or an MTV Reality show. You just can’t stop looking and seeing how base you really are.

I think I’m in this section of head space for a few reasons. One being that this year has also been a particular education in people who have the amazing ability to aggressively construct their own realities and operate in them and expect me to get that and jig with them to their own lofty music. In response I am VERY determined to ground myself and eschew any and all kinds of pretense, no matter how entertaining or charming. I think that I get carried away enough that a constant effort to keep my feet on the ground will result in a toe or two making it there.

Two, the mahvelous Hannah and I got around to seeing the new Danny Boyle film Slumdog Millionaire and I left the theater very changed.

Danny Boyle films usually leave me stunned in my seat for a good 3 minutes. After Patrick, Nick and I got out of Sunshine we went to debrief at the Bourgeois Pig and even 30 min later we were all still in stunned silence. It takes me DAYS to digest one of his films and this one really blew me away.

I had an interesting day. I had spent the morning working at the Bishop’s Storehouse* getting Christmas dinner together for those that are in need. Then that afternoon I went into this film not really knowing what to expect. Just that it was Danny Boyle and it involves India two things I adore.

In a teary conversation to Lauren shortly after I got out of the film, the sweet thing listened to go on for 20 min as I burbled on about how I think in the US we have no idea what poverty is. Like – NONE – at all. Perhaps in some parts of the remote and rural South things could get a little third world but the sheer magnitude of the slums of Mumbai just floored me. There are over 1 billion people in India and over 25% of their population live in abject-sleeping-on-the-street-digging-through-the-garbage-for-food-and-shelter-no-running-water-plumbing-or privacy kind of poverty. That’s over 250 MILLION people living like animals. That’s nearly the entire population of the United States. So out of these difficult and dehumanizing circumstances comes one of the most beautiful stories I’ve seen in a long time. These characters, these magnificent humans, didn’t let their world sink past their skin and infect how they felt about themselves. They didn’t have anything, any reason to keep up any kind of appearance. No reason to want people to think more of them than what they were. In a way, I almost envy them for that. They got to live that kind of pure life. They lived on their will to live and belief that something better would come for them.

It was so interesting to me to see that, knowing it’s a true story and juxtaposed it with my experience at the Storehouse that morning. I was in the front helping the patrons who were picking up orders and it was so fascinating to me to see the different reactions people had to being in need, being vulnerable. Some were deliriously grateful, some were distracted, almost desperate and erratic, and some were just grumpy, short and hostile. They were mad. Mad at their circumstances or mad at their choices, mad that they had to ask for help and there were people there to see them asking and it left me wondering why and wondering how I would react in the same situation. Would I be embarrassed? Would I be angry? Would I be grateful? When I really though about it I realized that I would eat every scrap of food that I had in my house and make do with dollar store accoutrements before I would ask for a food order. I didn’t even have enough humility to get myself there in the first place so even the mad guy I had to help was WAY ahead of me in the humility game. He also had a family of 6 to feed and from his paper I saw that he lived in a pretty affluent area so this must have been triply hard.

But I think all that angst and our horrible American tendency to not be even remotely aware of the gross need that the rest of the world has all comes from an unhealthy sense of entitlement. I think all Americans suffer from it to a degree, and (sadly) its more clearly visible in some LDS people I’ve known.

After seeing that movie I was ashamed that I wasn’t overcome with gratitude every day of my life for the simple fact that I had a family, blankets, maggot free food, running water, a steady supply of soap, an education, a bed – all those things that I don’t even notice everyday because they’re there everyday. And because they’re just there and I assume everyone has them because I do and the rest of the world isn’t any different than me right? Wrong. Very wrong.

I felt so jarred and so moved. I wanted to do something. I looked up volunteer programs that night. I have no idea what I could do. Go there and teach the munchkins English? I don’t know. But I felt like I had to do something. I still do and when I figure it out I’ll let you know.

So this oblivion to the working reality around me that is my world and my circumstance is the first thing in my LONG list of faults that I’m going to chisel away at. The next being this sense of entitlement that I seem to carg around like it’s the newest Louis Voutton. Once on my mission my Mission President pointed this out to a group of missionaries I was with. He was a entrepreneurial multi-millionaire. He was one of the founders of Franklin Quest and designed the merger with Stephen Covey before it was Franklin Covey. The man had bought every single one of his missionaries a Franklin planner and drove an S class Mercedes. He didn’t need money at all. But one time he was taking us out to dinner and there was a penny on the ground and he had opened the door for us and we and the Elders we were with walked right by it. It was just a penny on the ground, but he chuckled to himself, bent over, picked it up, held it up to our eye level and asked “You’re too good? Are you too good?” We were too stunned by the sudden rebuke from an otherwise congenial man so we didn’t say anything. We just shook our heads and looked around for other pennies to pick up but he just shook his head and put it in his pocket, shooed us inside and bought us all dinner.

There are layers to that lesson. Are we too good to talk to “the one”, are we afraid to get our hands dirty etc, but for today that is the lesson I’m choosing to take. I’m not too good an I need to start living by that principle because there are a lot of pennies to pick up, 250,000,000 of them in India alone. I’m not too good. If anything, they’re too good for me.

*Mormon jargon translation: The Bishop Storehouse is part of the Church’s Welfare program. It’s essentially a free grocery store that provides food and supplies to families that are in need. It’s mostly self-supplied by the Church’s canneries and dairy farms but they have everything else one would need from soap to brooms to produce to Christmas candy. The whole program is volunteer run and it’s a really awesome to do a lot of good for those people that need it.

Top 10 Tuesday

It just sounds so fun huh?
I've decided I should do a silly list and a serious list to keep the balance in the force ya know?
So firstly - some imperative information we all can't do without:

My Top 10 Funny Movie Characters of All time
10) Ruby Rod from The 5th Element
“Why I always gotta get the broke one?”

9) Agador Spartacus from The Birdcage
“But wait! I’ve got shrimps!”

8) Bartok the Bat from Anastasia
“I’ll give her a wahhhh! And a high-yah! And then I kick her sir!”

7) Brick from Anchorman
“LOUD NOISES!!!!”

6) Dr. Evil from Austen Powers
“I’m the boss! Need the info.”

5) Jeremy the Crow from The Secret of NIMH
“Ohhhhhh!!! You’ve got a sparkly!"

4) The Ghost of Christmas Present from Mickey’s Christmas Carol
“With pistascheeeoo …. With pistachuooe…. With yogurt”

3) Carl the Friar from Van Helsing
“Actually, I'm still just a friar. I can curse all I want, dammit.”

2) Louis Tully from Ghostbusters
“OK, who brought the dog?!”

1) Emmanuel Goldstein aka Cereal Killer from Hackers
“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things. What? It's Corinthians one, chapter thirteen verse eleven. nnnn-duh”

Top 10 Things that have Irrevocably Changed my Life
(aside of the influence of my friends and family who change and enrich my life everyday)

10) The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
9) Cell phones
8) Morten Lauridsen’s music and the album Lux Aeterna
7) The movie Braveheart
6) Dr. Alison Baker and Dr. Rocklin from the Cal Poly English Department
5) Learning how to sing
4) My Mission to Washington DC
3) Growing up as I did in Pasadena and that social education
2) The Gospel of Jesus Christ and my testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon
1) My temple endowment

Cartoon Motion

So I think I still have the mind of a seven year old.

Maybe that's why I still love Hello Kitty and I still thrill a bit and feel the need to bolt when I hear the ice cream truck coming down the street and can remember every word to the theme song from the Gummy Bear, and cry at The Goonies (every single freaking time).

"This is OUR time!! These are OUR wishes!!"

I became aware of this on Tuesday this week when I went down to Seal Beach to visit my dahling friend Molly. We had been planning birthday festivities for weeks and weeks and I finally made it down there to go see Mamma Mia and dine and all that fun stuff.

Now lemme 'asplain a bit about Seal Beach in case you haven't ever been there before:

Seal Beach is awesome. Probably my favorite beach community in Los Angeles/OC. It's this little strip of city nestled right in between Huntington Beach and Long Beach and its really really unique. It's small, quiet and unassuming. Everything closes up at about 10 and the average age of a resident is like 55. Ok - so its an unofficial retirement community, but its the beach and rents are low and Molly is brilliant for moving there. Its kind of the beach town time forgot. People actually stop and chat with each other downtown. Downtown consists of a strip of stores about 4 blocks long that dead ends into the pier and they're all little places like "O'Mally's Irish Pub" and the hippie produce store. It's wonderful and old school and I just adore it.

So Mamma Mia had been a movie Molly and I had been trying to see forever and it was playing at the singular movie theater down there along with The Maltese Falcon (Yes. This place is that cool). But this theater was still the 1920's singular screen, singular house, movie theater with a stage kind of movie house. But not all glammed up like The El Capitan or The Chinese. It showed its age. Nothing was automated about this place. Our tickets were those Costco raffle tickets sold to us from a person speaking through a hole in a window, not a speaker. Every door handle and inch of paint showed its age and, lemme tell ya, it was tired. I didn't know it was a single house theater so I walked in and there were two doors, one on either side of the singular refreshment stand and was only set back about 2' from the outside door. I asked which theater it was and the very annoyed and pierced refreshment girl just said "Take your pick."

Once we settled in the very not stadium seating I took a look around. There were these attempts at modernizing on the walls of the theater that looked somewhat like a drunk 70's housewife's vision of modernism but not enough for every panel in the house, but that gave us a fantastic view of the fabric panelling that I'm positive probably saw Eisenhower win and Kennedy get shot.

Needless to say - I was instantly in love with the place. There was a covered organ off to the side of the stage with a good amount of dust on the cover and the remains of a basketball hoop above it.

It was awesome. AND we were the only ones in the theater for a long time. It was only 8 at night and as I was looking around and drinking in this rare authentic and honest establishment my stream of consciousness went a bit like this:

Oh man!!!! OhManOhManOhManOhManOhManOhManOhManOhManOhManOhMan. This place is awesome. Lookiet that!!! andthatandthatandthatandthatandthatandthatandthatandthat. I don't know why that girl looked so annoyed to work here. We are the only ones here and that ever super cooler!!!!!! Man. This place is old. I wonder whats happened here. How many people have made out in this seat?! And in how many decades! I bet they wore 3D glasses at one time too here. I bet a lot of things have happened here.

Then my glances of the place started going from wonder to slightly paranoid suspicion...

You know - old quiet places like this have histories. Kind of like old people. But quieter. ANd without so many medical needs. What if someone was killed here?! What if it happened right there on the corner of the stage??! Like what if he hit his head on the corner mid sentence and never got to finish what he was saying and now hes still here trying to finish his thought???!!! What if he comes out in the middle of the movie and we're the only ones in here??! Its going to be dark soon and this is a big room. What would I do? I think this is how scary movies start. Old movie house, only people there....

And right then this guy comes in the door. Like, there is no noise whatsoever in the room, Molly and I are talking and stuff but there are no previews, no other people, not even the sound of traffic is drifting in. Mostly because there is no traffic, but that's not my point. My point is a door opening might as well have been an atomic bomb. He was a young fit very straight looking dude. By himself. In a leather jacket. Going to go see Mamma Mia. On a Tuesday night. In Seal Beach. And he sat in the back right by the door. So it was us and Guido in the theater. Just us 3.

Oh man. Is he lost? What on earth is a guy like that doing here. Maybe hes European. European straight guys have license to like ABBA and leather jackets at the same time. Yeah, that's it. Hes not a rapist or anything. Nope. Not at all....

So the then movie started and everything was totally fine. No scary murdering rapist, no apparitions of any kind. Just wholesome awesome ABBA wonderfulness.

So yeah - my little brain managed to turn a simple movie outing into an episode of Scooby Doo in vast expanse of - oh - about 3 seconds.

So there you have it, a snap shot into my crepe papered, My Little Pony adorned interior.

But seriously, I want to go see the Maltese Falcon there. Whose in?