I recently had the pleasure of watching Amanda Palmer’s brilliant tedx talk. You should, too: http://www.ted.com/talks/amanda_palmer_the_art_of_asking.html

I’ve loved her for years and in the video you can see why. In it she covers a topic that has plagued me for a long time - asking for help.

I am a massage therapist and holistic health practitioner.
I have been self-employed at my company Nautilus Bodywork http://www.NautilusBodywork.com since 2008. These days I also work 5 spa shifts a week at a busy hotel as well, and have kept that job for nearly two years. Unfortunately, it’s not enough.

I lost my massage studio in 2009 when the economy tanked, not so long after opening, and have been barely making it ever since.

I need $5,000 to change my life.

https://www.wepay.com/donations/operation-new-start-for-carly-molly

It sounds like a lot, and for me it is surely an amazing amount of money, but with $5000 I can pay my tuition to finish yoga teacher training to better my life and others.

…and pay off the IRS for a W-2 I neglected to track down. I guesstimated on my taxes instead of going after it, and now I need to correct that mistake.

…and SDGE to keep my utilities on and turn them on in my new place. I’m already on their low income program.

I need to move. My apartment complex is no longer serving me, or my 2 1/2 year old daughter. Her father and I have been trying to come up with the money for a divorce for.. awhile. He recently chose to rent the apartment next door to me! We are friends and I am in no danger, but it is definitely interfering with my healing process. I am just ready to move on.

I found a great place owned by my friend Elizabeth, another female entrepreneur.

It is small but it is perfect. It is a one-bedroom cottage in the Azalea Park neighborhood of San Diego.

The cottage has a w/d and access to some outside space where i could start a small container garden.
…to grow herbs and veggies to use in my massage practice and home.

The best part is, it comes with a detached one-car garage in which I could do bodywork and yoga sessions in and still have my daughter at home, with a babysitter.

I have had a challenging history with money in terms of thinking that I don’t deserve it, and I am ready to change that. I really am. I’m ready to move ahead, so that I can continue to work to get out of debt and create a financially comfortable life for my family, so that I can turn that outward to the community.

At my current income level it will take me a year to save $5000 before i can even begin to start fixing my credit
…unless my business takes off, but having no space in which to work makes it difficult to reach my clients and arrange care for my daughter.

I understand if you cannot afford to send money.
I really, REALLY do, so
if you know someone that needs a massage, just mention me
or, think fondly of me. I will feel it.
I will hug you back.
I love you, too.

I’ve worked out a budget to save what I need by June, but this amazing place will be available April and I am so hopeful and open to receiving this space. So, I’m doing my own kickstarter campaign. I make enough at the spa to cover my rent, groceries, gas, but not much more. This is what I need to take care of first:

MOVING $2000
SDGE $138
IRS $639
YOGA TEACHER TRAINING TUITION $1900 = $633/mo
DIVORCE $400

TOTAL $5000ish

There are more bills, but these are the most immediately important for me to move forward with getting everything else on track. NOTE: I believe once the goal is reached that further donations cannot be given, but if this turns out not to be the case I will donate the excess money to my 3 favorite San Diego charities. If you are addicted to helping, you should send them some money, too.

Becky’s House:YWCA DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN PROGRAM http://www.ywcasandiego.org/get-help/beckys-house.html
Shakti Rising: EMPOWERING GIRLS TO THRIVE http://shaktirising.org/
Center for Community Solutions: SAN DIEGO’S ONLY RAPE CRISIS CENTER http://www.ccssd.org/


Below you will find a list of the service options available to you as fair energy exchange for your faith in me:

$10 - Thank You Note & Photo of Carly & Molly in their new home
$25 - Personalized 3 card Oracle reading (can be distance reading), Thank You Note, Photo of Carly & Molly in their new home
$50 - Relaxing 50min massage or personal yoga session at my house (OR personalized oracle card reading OR original art piece just for you for those who do not live locally), Thank You Note, Photo of Carly & Molly in their new home
$100 - Relaxing 90min massage or personal yoga session at my house (OR personalized oracle card reading AND original art piece just for you for those who do not live locally), Handwritten letter of appreciation expounding your virtue, Photo of Carly & Molly in their new home
$250 - (2) 90min massage or personal yoga session at my house, or (1) 2hr massage or personal yoga session at your house, (OR personalized oracle card reading AND original art piece just for you for those who do not live locally), Handwritten letter of appreciation expounding your virtue Photo of Carly & Molly in their new home
$500 - 6 hours of bodywork or personal yoga instruction at my home or yours (OR letter & original art piece just for you for those who do not live locally), Handwritten letter of appreciation expounding your virtue Photo of Carly & Molly in their new home
$1000 - 12 hours of bodywork or personal yoga session at any location with a lifetime supply of tune-ups, advice, and heartfelt gratitude. Handwritten letter of appreciation expounding your virtue, Photo of Carly & Molly in their new home
$5000 - 40 hours of bodywork, 10 personal yoga session, with a lifetime supply of tune-ups, advice, and heartfelt gratitude. Handwritten letter of appreciation expounding your virtue, original creative works in your honor, Photo of Carly & Molly in their new home.

https://www.wepay.com/donations/operation-new-start-for-carly-molly

This helped motivate me:

500 ppl give $10
250 ppl give $20
200 ppl give $25
100 ppl give $50
50 ppl give $100
33-34 ppl give $150
25 ppl give $200
20 ppl give $250
10 ppl give $500
6-7 ppl give $750
5 ppl give $1000
2-3 ppl give $2000
1 person gives $5000

Last night I went through my OG (and since retired) Twitter account. I wanted to use it for something else, but quickly ran out of steam when I realized I had to hand delete every single one of my old 3k+ tweets, unless I wanted to publicize them all. So I figured I’d just make them public, it couldn’t be that bad, right? OH MY GOD. I really felt ill at both the things I spent my time doing, ideas and facts I thought were important, and generally just incredibly embarrassed that *I* was that person and had been, up until I realized there was a better way to be. OOF.

I felt the same way when I deleted my 10 year old LiveJournal. This writhing feeling, like I had to wriggle away from everything I once was. But it’s funny, I moved on from my online bitchfest blog and my public writing stopped completely. I didn’t even try to be creative in my tweets, just blahblahblah. Creating nothing important, helping no one, hidden by probably most of my friends anyway because my trust issues were so severe. So, basically, talking to myself, about myself. Constantly. Exhausting. These days I am a lot more forgiving, love myself a lot more, and do my best to share the gratitude and happiness that I have discovered within.

I’m amused by how mortified I am. One of the biggest driving forces within me is the aim to do better, be better. This is a great thing, except that sometimes I get so caught up in all the doing and being and learning and opening that I forget to celebrate how far I’ve come. Confronted with a clear image of how I used to relate to the world causes a meltdown. How could I have been so insensitive? Rude? Tactless? How many people do I need to track down and apologize to and forgive? But I don’t want to demonize my younger self, either. She was me and is me, and I need to remember that and stop judging myself.

I remember staring at my feet in the bathtub in my old apartment in Hillcrest, wiggling my toes and thinking. Toes, I like them. I think they’re ok. I was 24 years old and it was literally the first time in my life I genuinely accepted that I may not hate one tiny portion of myself. I’d been trying all day to fulfill a meditation objective which simply said, find something physical about yourself that you like, and start meditating on that. Thank the body part for how hard it works to support you, and honor everything you’ve been through together. Then really work on loving it. I love my toes. I love how flexible they are, and how I can pick things up with them, and how my feet were always an ‘average’ size 8, even when my body changed shape. My toes have ALWAYS looked good. At the time, it felt like I was never honestly going to find something about myself that I 100% genuinely, truly, loved. But they were the least offensive, and I started there.

Now I look back through my mother-eyes and feel nothing but compassion for the 24-year-old girl laying in a bathtub, trying so desperately to come up with ONE thing about herself that she didn’t hate. In the bathtub, drinking a bottle of wine, sad and sure in the knowledge that if she disappeared, nobody would notice, and maybe she should. I’ve spent a great deal of time in dark, emotional, scary places in my head. I thought I wanted to write about it all, but now I’m not so sure. I do know that I am desperate to find my proper outlet for my Voice in this world, because I feel like I have a lot to say.

Maybe that’s my biggest accomplishment yet: allowing myself to relate to the idea that I Have A Voice and I Have A Lot To Say (…and maybe, I Have Good Things To Say! People Will Want to Listen? I Matter? We All Matter?)  It feels good. My most constant evolution has been towards loving myself and sharing that love with others, and that’s really the sort of thing I want to write about lately.

How did you become a video game designer? People ask me this all the time (sometimes awkwardly, wondering if it is polite to ask someone something like that, whether it’s offensive - because really honestly how do you just become a video game designer out of the blue without a degree in computery stuff or..?) It doesn’t happen nearly as often anymore now that I’m several years free of the crunch life, but it used to be an almost daily occurrence and I never really knew how to answer that question.The answer truly is that I just persistently bothered people until it happened. (Now I get the opposite question, “You stopped being a video game designer to do MASSAGE? WHY?! Didn’t you used to make a lot of MONEY?!”)

There are many answers to how I became a video game designer, but let me start with how I even got into EverQuest in the first place. I was too busy with theatre and writing and dance to really play video games, although I’d always loved them! But when Jase and I moved back to Houston after New Orleans fell through, we moved in with my friends Ann and Russell. I would write or paint (or try to make herbal soaps and candles and holistic pet food with Ann!) while Jase played. I daydreamed about going to school to become a naturopath or holistic health practitioner, but those things sounded very exotic and out of reach.  I worked at an animal shelter and went to University of Houston, and Jase played. Finally one night he made me a Half Elf and I started in Kelethin, where I immediately walked off a platform in the dark and died. So then I made a Wood Elf and attacked my guildmaster, got angry, and finally found my true race (Dark Elf. Night vision. IMPORTANT!)

It was a weird time period. My favorite aunt (Aunt Flo, my grandpa’s sister. Yes, Aunt FLO. She was awesome.) had died while I was in New Orleans and not only had no one thought to tell me that she had died. I missed everything and I didn’t show it, but I was really hurt. My grandfather’s health had been declining as well with his diabetes and complications from that, and he had to cart around a little oxygen tank that depressed the hell out of him and made him feel old. Also around this time period my “other grandma” Patricia (Marshall’s mom) had a completely unexpected brain aneurysm and died mid-flight on her way to visit relatives. Marshall had been my mother’s high school boyfriend and was my stepdad for awhile, so our families were very close. Patricia and her husband Dick lived literally around the corner from my grandparents, so my long summers back in Houston included lots of nature walks and trips to the science center with Pat. She loved spy novels and good policework (and owned every John LeCarre novel and had read most of them to me aloud, and those “The Cat Who..” books) and would talk to me about things like critical thinking and horticulture and health food. I never knew how much influence she had on my life, but she really did.

Marshall’s brother Wynn, who was AMAZING, had also recently died, a few years after a successful liver transplant. Since Marshall had moved to Oregon, his only remaining brother Richard stayed to take care of his dad. Richard himself was a combat medic in Vietnam and really kept to himself. He likes to go camping and be in nature, around people, not so much. He has done a really great job taking care of his father all these years.

Anyway, it was sad and oppressive. Jase and I broke up, Ann and I had a falling out, and then one day my grandfather got pneumonia and died quickly after being admitted to the hospital. I was grateful to be at the hospital holding his hand when he died, but my grandfather was my whole world. He was the biggest, safest, most loving, social, and outgoing person. He wasn’t a person, he was a giant protector and all around fun guy. John couldn’t die, but he did, and with him he took the last bit of happiness that was left in my family.

I still had the job at the animal shelter, and school, but I stopped showing up for either. I had gotten a cute little apartment in the Heights, with many foster animals I was caring for from the shelter. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I think I had some kind of a nervous breakdown. I stopped eating and lay in bed for days. My mom found me that way and took me back to my grandmother’s house and took the animals back to the shelter. I was broken. My mother couldn’t handle it, as predicted, and instantly took a job in California and left after I feebly assured her that I would be fine. My Uncle Johnny had moved out (amazingly) for a brief period of time, so all of a sudden it was just my grandmother and I in that big house.

It was okay though, I had my computer. I started taking my EverQuest playing a little more seriously and spent the better part of the next year in my bedroom. I never thought about how my grandmother must have felt, probably because she continued her same routine. She woke up at 5am and worked around the house, cooking and leaving food at my door. Never intruding, being quiet. I am fairly certain that she was broken too, and that her long slide into dementia started that year. It’s a testament to how much I had let my world shrink that during this entire time that the only person to show up at the house worried about me was my friend Mike, who had the depressing job of putting the animals to sleep at the shelter. He brought me all of his Bukowski books and left them for me when I refused to come out to see him. I read them until they fell apart. I never ran into Mike again — but thank you for checking on me. :)

This might have gone on forever, except that I had SO MUCH FREE TIME! I played EQ for 12-16 hours a day, every single day. I decided to start volunteering in the game as a Guide, helping answer questions for other players and helping out the GMs. Xerae the Blighted was born! It was so much fun I seriously started to think about moving to San Diego and magically getting a job as a GM. Because you know, I was so good at EQ and so helpful that they’d love to have me, so I should just move out there and do it. I had been to San Diego twice for Comic-Con, and as far as I could tell, it was the most beautiful place in the world.

Luckily, that was true. Well, sort of. There were some VERY key people that actually got me in at Sony, and they were James Helssen and Michelle Butler. Without their help the whole adventure wouldn’t have come together at all. But first I met Verrine, then lost Verrine, moved to Mesa, AZ, jumped in a U-Haul with total strangers and rode to Des Moines, then flew to California just in time for my mother to be arrested. But that’s all in part two of this post! Until next time. :)

Only recently have I begun to really think about and deal with the idea that my mother is a borderline (suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder). It’s so confusing to read so much information put out from people arguing against social disorders being “true” diseases. If you had grown up with my mother you would know how severe it can be.

I’m 30 years old now and raised myself, for the most part, lucky to have many, MANY role models in my life to help guide me to the light. These days I can structure time with my mother and see her and be genuinely happy to spend time with her. Most of the confusion is gone. My mother is severely mentally ill and she cannot help what that and years of drug abuse have done to her. My mother is a beautiful person.

As my husband and I have separated, I have been spending a lot of supportive time with friends. Neil and I have been seeing a lovely life coach to help us stay in a place of love and fully explore the different ways we can be in relationship. I am so grateful for both things. One of the most amazing things to come from this renewed focus on my friends is the discovery that a close friend of mine ALSO has a borderline mother. I’ve never had something so deeply personal in common with a friend, nor felt comfortable enough to talk about my mother unchecked with anyone. Such a relief.

She and I walked together, and talked. Borderlines are different because they manifest in different ways, but there would be little things that I never thought ANYONE else on the planet could have experienced that she had. The level of healing and forgiveness of self that can happen simply being heard is dramatic. I feel 15 years younger again and so free.

But the funny thing is, I started this post to write about voicemails. The incessant voicemails of a borderline! I don’t know how many clients I have lost over the years due to being slow to call them back. It’s my single biggest hang-up in my business. My mother will call and leave a 5 minute message detailing an episode of Married With Children she is watching. Then call back just to make sure that I got the first message.

If I haven’t returned her call within 2 hours, there will be several more voicemails, each more incoherent and angry than the last. Some days I just sit there and watch them pile up and think about how long it will take for them to get completely full (about two days). Many days I see the little voicemail icon at the end of the day and say fuck it, not today.

I can’t take too long though, or she becomes distant for weeks, punishing me for taking so long to call her back. That happens less these days. Now we meet for lunch, or take my daughter for a walk. We don’t go to her house and I try not to criticize her. Sometimes I even think we might be able to have a normal relationship someday. My mother is my family. But so are all my friends. Thank you.

(test scene from the play I am working on)

SPA DAY

Entire scene takes place in a long hallway with a door in the middle. Stage right is a skinny prep room viewed from the side containing (from left) supply shelves with snacks, tea, brushes, robes, slippers. Cabinets line the wall with beauty products, massage oils, towels. There is a sink, a telephone, and computer crammed into the remaining space and no chairs. Center stage is a door that swings shut quietly and automatically when let go of. Stage Right is a Relaxation Grotto. There is a wide screen TV showing an aquarium video, a table with ice, fruit water, tea, snacks on it, and rolled towels with cucumbers. Two reclining chairs with footrests and little side tables with magazines and lamps round out the room.

In each of the chaises is a GUEST  wearing only a silk robe and slippers, with towels around their necks and cucumbers over their eyes. They are JUDY and CHRISTINE.

JUDY is an early 30s feminine Asian woman who appears perky and full of take-charge energy with no outward “stereotypical” lesbianisms. She has a super hip haircut with platinum streaks in it and wears super high end athletic/yoga wear when not in her spa robe.

CHRISTINE is athletic, late 30s, and always appears slightly angry or worried. She has long dark brown hair pulled up into a ponytail, Caucasian, with freckles and bright blue eyes. When not in her spa robe, she wears running shoes, snowboarding pants, and t-shirts.

Also on stage, on the prep room side are:

SIOBAHN is a pin-up girl with long platinum hair, Bette Paige bangs, tattoos, and is Caucasian. Age undeterminable. She is an esthetician and is finishing putting away a dizzying array of beauty products in the cabinets at breakneck speed.

MARINA is 30, Caucasian, with long medium brown curly hair, blue eyes, and also covered in tattoos. She has an hourglass figure. She is a massage therapist and is filling small oil bottles from large generic-looking oil bottles.

SIOBAHN: Balls! Why do men always assume we want to see their old man balls?!
MARINA: I know?! They just sit there with their legs splayed open in the chairs airing them out. Like their robes aren’t just gaping open staring us in the face. Then they look SO SURPRISED when we come to pick them up for their services!
SIOBAHN: I think the men just hope that if we SEE it, maybe one of us will be overcome and feel the need to TOUCH it. Whereas the women are a little bit more selective.
MARINA: Maybe they’re just sweaty from the steam room. Either way, I’ve learned to keep my gaze at eye level. You never know when the robe is just going to gape open.

(LOUD footsteps approaching from Stage Left)

JESSIKA is 18 and looks like a Latina Disney princess. She has long flowing hair, big eyes, and is very thin and small.

JESSIKA enters carrying a huge stack of folded clean towels, weaving and wobbling and barely missing tripping over the dozing JUDY and CHRISTINE. She then almost takes out the table of iced fruit water and snacks before practically falling through the swinging door into the prep room. JESSIKA then dumps the towels on a big clear spot on the counter, and starts unfolding them one by one and rolling them tightly.

SIOBAHN and MARINA: Hi JESSIKA!
JESSIKA shyly: Hi..

(awkward silence and break in the frenetic activity as everyone takes a moment to rest)

JESSIKA: Hey, um..  I know it’s my first day and all but..
MARINA: What’s up?
JESSIKA: Why does the laundry fold the towels so nicely if we are just going to unfold and re-roll them?
SIOBAHN: They go all over the hotel. So some will go to rooms, or the fitness center, or whatever. But imagine if someone saw the cart going by with them all unfolded and crumpled – people would assume they were dirty or we didn’t care. Never let them think we don’t care! So.. sometimes there’s duplicated work. It helps if you just think of your part in the whole process.

JESSIKA: I didn’t really think about it like that.

SIOBAHN: There really is a reason for everything, sometimes it’s just not so easy to see.
JESSIKA: Also.. I found a used tampon in the women’s shower. So nasty. I can’t believe someone would do that!
MARINA: But, on the upside – MOST of the guests are nice, MOSTLY we get to make people feel better, and every once in awhile you get a HUGE TIP! Welcome to the team!
JESSIKA: Err, one more thing..Do all the guys usually sit with their balls hanging out?
SIOBAHN and MARINA: YES!!!!
SIOBAHN: Ok, maybe not all of them, but it’s exceedingly common. I gotta peace out, we are going to the MAGIC CASTLE in LA tonight!
MARINA: Oooh la la, fancy!
SIOBAHN: I know, right? I can’t believe I finally found me a man that likes live music AND decorating and fashion, and he’s not even gay!
MARINA: I think Todd’s fabulous AND manly.
SIOBAHN: We gotta get as much fun in while we’re here. Anyway see you, I gotta clock out. (exits stage right)

MARINA (noting from a change on the computer screen): My guest just checked in. Gotta pick ‘em up in a few minutes. Let me go check the table warmer and hot packs! (exits stage left, her demeanor and gait changing completely as soon as she steps through the swinging door into the RELAXATION GROTTO)

JESSIKA loads up a huge armload of nicely rolled towels and starts navigating out of the PREP ROOM, trips, and drops them all over the floor of the RELAXATION GROTTO, rolling in every direction. She looks like she is about to cry. Both JUDY and CHRISTINE sit up. MARINA instantly appears from stage left.

MARINA: Oh no, don’t worry! It’s okay, we will get this cleaned right up. Would you ladies like any tea or orange-cucumber lavender water?

CHRISTINE: No, thank you. (lays back down and starts reading a magazine)

JUDY: You know, you should really be more careful. What if you had hurt someone? Yes, I will take some water. (glaring at MARINA)

While MARINA fills a glass of water and hands it to JUDY, JESSIKA creates a huge wad of towels and takes them all the way stage right and offstage. MARINA follows behind, picking up stray towels that continue to slide off behind JESSIKA, but stays behind in the prep room and starts rolling more towels. JESSIKA returns from stage right with another armload of clean folded towels.

JESSIKA: Hey you know, you girls are all actually pretty nice. I mean, Antonio showed me everything I need to get done during my shift but everyone else has helped me so much, too. I think I’m really going to like this job! I mean, aside from the gross stuff.
MARINA: I know. We complain a lot but it’s all in jest. Honestly I went through like 4 jobs last year trying to find somewhere not full of competitive mean women! I don’t understand why they’re so mean to each other.
JESSIKA: Yeah, it’s dumb.
MARINA: You’ll see. Everyone here is pretty good. Most of us have kids and are just trying to work on our own stuff. I am writing and have my private clients, Siobahn has her own business with Holly, you wouldn’t know her, she quit before you started, and Yelena is like a small business marketing mastermind. If you ever want to do your own thing you should pick her brain.
JESSIKA: Thanks!!

(phone rings, JESSIKA leaps to answer it, her face falls)

JESSIKA: Someone threw up on the treadmill. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! (Exits stage right towards fitness center)
MARINA (laughing): GROSS!

JUDY: Hey, this water is pretty good.
CHRISTINE: You know, you were kind of a bitch to them. I think that attendent girl is new, she looked lost.
JUDY: Whatever. I’m paying $130 an hour to NOT have someone drop towels all over me.
CHRISTINE: Haha! Whatever, I know you have a Spa Week coupon!
JUDY: Shh, I’m trying to feel rich!
CHRISTINE: You’re sure acting like it!
JUDY: What, rich people can’t be nice?
CHRISTINE: Then why were you a bitch when you pretended to be rich?
JUDY: FUCK! Okay, you win. C’mon, let’s get out of here – I’m embarrassed!

JUDY and CHRISTINE exit stage left as JESSIKA enters stage right.

JESSIKA: Is it like this every day?
MARINA: Worse! Today was slow! Wait until Spa Week goes into full effect next week!
JESSIKA: Are you kidding?
MARINA: Nope. But don’t worry we all cover for each other. You will be ok. Just do everything Antonio says.
JESSIKA: We gotta stick together.
MARINA: Yup. I love it here.
JESSIKA: Except for all the old man balls, right?
MARINA: I like my day as old man ball-free as possible!

JESSIKA and MARINA finish rolling towels and JESSIKA expertly stacks them up and skips through the RELAXATION GROTTO without awkwardness.

I moved to New Orleans with Jase in 1999, in the Fall. I had settled into a pretty persistent funk through the college application process the year before and only actually completed the process with the University of Houston. There were many places I was interested in going, like New York for acting or LA for film, Berkeley, Santa Cruz.. U of H had a really decent Theatre program though, as was their Creative Writing, and I knew I’d be majoring in one of the two. The idea of staying nearby and continuing to do great shows with all my friends was appealing, and I had managed to squeak out a Creative Writing scholarship and entrance into the Honors College. I moved on-campus and met some new great friends. Not too long after, I met Jase through ICQ (I Seek You!)

Jase was nerdy, tortured, smart, and artistic. He was also the person that introduced me to EverQuest, which had just come out and would figure quite prominently in my life later on. We were instantly wrapped up in each other. Overnight, I decided that college was a huge waste of time for me as a writer or actor and that I would be much better served by being out in the world ACTUALLY writing or experiencing whatever I could. My mother learned of what was happening and broke into Jase’s car and stole my computer, which just solidified our leaving. I abandoned my dorm room and we left for New Orleans, set on making our own comic books and publishing our zine “Vytae”. Jase’s father had a small apartment on St. Charles right across from a trolley stop that he used for business, and we took it over with permission.

Our apartment was one tiny bedroom with barely-a-kitchen for $500/month, and it was perfect. Anne Rice’s mansion with its ever-watchful stuffed dog on the balcony was just a few blocks away, and we often detoured to walk by. There was a small deli next door where we always ate, and I spent hours sitting in Jackson Square watching the tarot readers and moving statues and brides (Amanda Palmer was doing her bride gig there at the time.) I got a job working the cash register at Reverend Zombie’s Voodoo Shop and occasionally helping Raven over at Marie Laveau’s.

I loved working at the voodoo shops! The hours sucked and I often didn’t get off until 3am, leaving me walking home with a butterfly knife tucked into my boot that I didn’t know how to use except to show off, but the Quarter was full of magic. An old man on a bicycle would bring in baskets of Spanish moss from the swamps and we would assemble many of the voodoo dolls on site, with clear instructions on what colors went with what kinds of charms and how to label them. Most of the staff were random lost-like kids like me, always coming and going. Once a week I’d have to drop the cash deposit at the bank, and it always scared me walking the few blocks through the Quarter with a big sack of money. The costumed tour guides for all the haunted tours would meet on the front steps and drink from their flasks.

As the weeks went by, Jase seemed to lose interest in our project and spent more and more time playing EQ. New Orleans seemed more and more to be less a place of magic and more one of inertia and avoidance. It soured for me and soon I was back home to Houston for a week to visit. While I was there, I learned that my favorite of my grandfather’s sisters, Flo, had died and nobody had thought to tell me. I was hurt, and sad.

Upon returning to our apartment in NOLA, I found most of my belongings were gone. Jase hadn’t paid the rent or something had gotten messed up, and the landlord had evicted us and thrown all our things out into the street. I found my cat, Morrigan, outside. Everything else was gone. I had years of costumes and puppets and collectibles, writings, journals.. lost forever. I decided I wasn’t such a big fan of New Orleans after all, but didn’t break up with Jase.We returned to Houston and landed on our feet by way of my friend Ann, who let us stay on her couch until we could manage to split a 2-bedroom with her and her friend/boyfriend Russell. I met Ann when we worked together at Pizzeria Uno and she and I got our first tattoos together. There’s a lot more to tell you about Ann, but not now.

It was so sudden. I felt like I had had a romantic connection to New Orleans my entire life, and she had just dumped me on my ass. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me to stay. I had a cousin Lee that owned a fitness studio on Tchoupitoulas (A-Aerobic Cardio Kickboxing & Tae Kwon Do!) and I was the one with a job, after all. But I hadn’t met any friends really and the idea that Jase might not be The One hadn’t occurred to me. We left New Orleans in early Winter 2000, and I didn’t go back until a few months after Hurricane Katrina. I guess we both got dumped on our asses. http://www.flickr.com/photos/animaetrix00/sets/72157604181450219/

I was watching the movie Prom the other night with my daughter, and it got me thinking back to my high school prom. I met my prom date Jimmy at an open mic night in Houston. It was my first (actually, only) time I’ve ever read any of my writing in public. I had written a limerick about my family that was pretty funny (my senior year high school English teacher Mr. Nathan may remember it!) I guess it was all in the delivery, because I really didn’t think it was that good, but I came in 2nd and won $100. SWEET VALIDATION!

Jimmy didn’t win anything at the open mic that night – he was memorable because in the middle of his spoken word piece he was escorted off the stage. The artistry of his incessant use of foul language in the piece was lost on the establishment. But not on me. I found him outside and told him his piece reminded me of Bukowski and I was pretty much instantly his girlfriend.

I was pretty nervous about asking Jimmy to prom because he was like 25 and I figured he would think the whole thing was super lame. He did, but he had also skipped his own prom, so we decided to make up for it. We got all dolled up like “the top of a Gothic wedding cake” as many have told me, and off we went.

I think the prom part of my experience was pretty typical. We had dinner with a bunch of friends beforehand at Benihana in downtown Houston. It makes me feel a little white trash to admit it, but it was the nicest restaurant I’d ever eaten in on my own. Everyone was so happy and dressed up and fancy, about to break off in a million different ways. Many of them I don’t remember ever seeing after that night. So I get the magic of prom. I just didn’t think anyone from school would ask me.

We made our grand entrance and said hello to everyone, took our obligatory picture, then snuck off to our hotel room at the USS Flagship Hotel in Galveston. We took mescaline and watched the waves all night long. There were proms all over Texas that night and I’m pretty sure that the hotel was 100% sold out with other revelers. We listened to them giggling and giggled ourselves. It was a nice night.

I was on the Quiz Bowl team, which is one of the nerdiest things I’ve ever publicly admitted. We had a meet in New Orleans a few weeks after prom, where I correctly answered a question about naming a word in the English language that had all the vowels in alphabetical order (I chose “facetious”, or “facetiously” for even more of a bonus). On that trip I got to ride in Mr. Nathan’s new VW Beetle, which was the most adorable vehicle I’d ever seen. We stayed at Tulane, and I snuck off and got my lip pierced at Rings of Desire at the first opportunity I had to get away. (Sorry, Mr. Nathan!) I only bring up the trip because while I was out of town, Jimmy dumped me via email, and I never saw him again. But at least I have a good prom story!

I really feel like I got to have the best of both worlds, because I got to go to Lamar Prom twice. My best friend in high school was a boy named Andrew Harper, who was a year behind me. He still is one of my best friends. Andrew had the same girlfriend all through high school, and she unceremoniously dumped him the week before prom. Of course I agreed to be his back-up date, and we had the BEST time.

The second time around there was no fancy hair-do or dress, everything was last minute. All our theater friends had gotten a beach house in Galveston for afterwards, and nobody wanted to leave the event early. We danced all night and stayed for the after-party, then drove to Galveston and watched the sun come up. My prom was nice, but prom with Andrew was one of the best nights of my entire life. My theater friends really got me through high school and it was the best feeling in the world to share prom with them. I’m glad I got a second chance to do it right.

Shopping With Maw Maw

I was born in Houston, TX, very close to my grandparents’ house in
Spring Branch. My mother and I lived in their house for the first few
years of my life, then again when moving to upstate New York with a
lumberjack didn’t work out. We had a few places of our own in Houston,
then my mom got back together with her high school sweetheart Marshall
and we were off to Dallas, Odessa, and finally San Jose, CA. We lived
in San Jose and Campbell for 7 years, and I spent most of every summer
back in Houston with my grandparents.

I don’t remember much of my life in the various places we lived
outside of school, but my summer memories in Texas are very vivid. We
went to church, spent weekends in Hempstead gardening, and I swam
almost every day. I called them Maw Maw and Paw Paw, and they were so
happy to have me around that they pretty much left me to do whatever I
liked, which was usually reading or putting on makeshift plays in the
front yard. I never had many friends my own age, seeing as how if I
tried to make neighborhood friends in Houston I was a little too
Californian (plus I was only there over the summer we all quickly
forgot about each other come the next school year) and back in
California my southern accent and Baptist tendencies put a large
divide between myself and the neighborhood kids. Or maybe it was
because my mother never allowed any visitors because our house was
perpetually too messy for guests. I felt isolated on all fronts, but I
loved my grandparents.

My grandmother, Ruth, is an amazing lady. She worked most of her life,
held down the fort while my grandpa fought at Iwo Jima, and a rode a
train cross-country to Oceanside, CA to meet him when he returned from
Japan. She’s an Irish-rooted Alabama woman, beauty queen and party
hostess, with a steel backbone and excellent taste in clothing. I can
only hope to someday be as stylish as she was in her era. Most of my
childhood was spent in her kitchen, where she endlessly broke down
vegetables from the garden, fried chicken, and made the family meals
for everyone, every single day without complaint. Pecan pies and
banana bread were Paw Paw’s area of expertise - he and all of his
sisters were diabetic and gifted with a great talent for baking
sweets.

The main way my grandmother tried to assert herself and get time with
me was by taking me shopping. Ruth loved to whisk me away to the mall
for what felt like endless days of shopping. Macy’s, Palais Royal, JC
Penney were some of her favorite places of torture. The vast air
conditioned malls of Houston became my least favorite part about
summers back, trying on these pants or those tops. I hated every
minute of it and wore crappy thrift store clothes 99% of the time,
gathered on similarly endless trips to Goodwill and Salvation Army
with my mother. I mostly hung out in the book section on those trips,
but with my grandmother there was no escape. Just us and one Juniors’
department after another. I felt as though something was wrong with my
body, no matter WHAT I tried on. My self-image was crippling. I felt
humiliated… and bored.

I wish I’d been more grateful, or at least told her how badly I saw
myself. I wish that instead of being an impatient kid intent on
getting back to reading in the backyard, maybe I’d paid a little more
attention. If I had followed her more closely in the kitchen, I’d have
no problem frying up a chicken fresh from the market. Feathers? No
problem. And if I’d followed her more closely at the stores, maybe I
wouldn’t be so addicted to What Not To Wear. Perhaps I would have
gained a measure of self-confidence a lot sooner, developing my own
style and celebrating my body as it was. Instead, I grew up never
caring about clothes or my appearance. People who judged you based on
how you looked or what you wore were snobs, period.

I’m turning 30 years old this year and only recently have I began to
allow myself to think that maybe, just maybe, I *do* deserve to let
myself be a little bit frivolous. Maybe Ruth was onto something,
trying to get a little girl time in at the stores. She always had
fresh healthy food around, looked great and never left the house
without make-up, managed all of the family affairs, and raised two
adopted kids. She could do anything. It hurts so much to be so far
from her now, and so many years removed from a real conversation. I
hope she knows how much I love and miss her. I’d give just about
anything to take Molly along and continue shopping with Maw Maw.

Tony was the first particularly good boyfriend I ever had. I actually met him when I was on a date with someone else. It was some guy I knew from Rocky Horror and I honestly can’t even remember his name, but we decided to stop by our friend Jennifer’s place because she had some cast people over. My date was my type, tall, skinny, rebellious. When we arrived Tony was romping around the living room in overalls that were covered in grease, no shirt, with crooked teeth and hair down to his ass. His energy was SO BIG you could feel it the second you entered the room, loud, fun, caring, and completely unselfconscious. I had never met anyone like him.

Turns out we had both been performing in the local RHPS cast for awhile, but I hadn’t met him because while we lived in HOUSTON, he did construction in DALLAS and did the long drive back and forth a few times a week. Plus, I guess when he was doing lots of Rocky he’d also been doing lots of coke. So much coke that he had endless stories of cocaine-fueled exploits and pictures of his formerly waifish self. Anyway, one of those nights had gone wrong and a friend had been killed. At 22 Tony managed to quit coke, love himself, and move on. He seriously was a genius.

Music was at the heart of him, guitars and bagpipes and Celtic dancing and the Texas Renaissance Festival. Tony would sit on the bed and serenade his mother and grandmother with METAL! Did I mention that he also lived at home and paid the mortgage to take care of all of his elders? Or that when his ex Shelley had a baby and was a single mother, that Tony used to buy her groceries and check on her? The love that poured out of this man was unchecked and given freely.

When I was a teenager nobody came to my house. My house was full of addiction and mental illness and things you don’t let people know. Tony didn’t even ask, he just walked right in and gave my mom a hug. To this day she brings up how nice he was.

But you know, I was 16 or 17. I was fickle and uncertain and blind, and I still can’t remember why but after a few months I broke up with Tony. It didn’t matter. I was family. Tony and his friend Dwayne would come over to my house once every few weeks to watch movies with my mom. He would give me hugs and make sure we had food.

The last time I saw him alive was at the Garden in the Heights. We were both there for the Celtic festival, Scottish games, all that stuff. We had a beer and danced and he even wound up giving me a ride home. A few weeks later I received a phone call from my friend John from Rocky telling me that Tony had died. I was sad for a moment, thinking Tony Ward (our usual Eddie!) had had something terrible happen.

“No, Carly, Tony CHAPIN. Tony-Tony. They’re taking him off life support.”

I used to skip school to play pool at the Cue & Cushion, and that’s where Tony had been that night. His friend Jamie had gotten into some shit and got a knife pulled on him. Always the hero, Tony had disarmed the man and gave the knife to the bartender, then drove Jamie home. I guess the instigator held a grudge at being embarrassed in front of everyone, and he followed Tony all the way home to his mother’s house. He waited for him to get out of the car, then ran him over.

For years I wondered how someone so full of love deserved such a petty end. Tony didn’t live to see his 25th birthday, but he changed my life. He showed me love multiplies and that taking care of those you love is the only important thing. I’d never met anyone particularly good before, but now whenever I hear someone playing bagpipes I think of Tony and I am grateful to have known him.

Love endlessly.