Pink Chat Room opens tomorrow, June 18th!

Month in the life

So I’ve been back in LA for about a month now, and it’s just lovely. Beautiful winter weather, shopping on Sundays, speaking English without getting dirty looks…

I bask, I wash my car, I wear flip flops and frequent Target…

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I did a lot in a month… Moved 6,000 miles, got an apartment, job and car in one week, started doing stand up and the Groundlings program and going on auditions… Got something called “Hair Bling” over which everyone I meet goes bonkers…

My brain starts feeling a wee bit scrambled, and I go silly…

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But no excuses! says my inner monologue. Despite being fatigued, the usual psychological self-torture intensifies as more and more ideas cram my petite noggin, scraping their creative-juice coated nails across my inner eyeballs…

“Write eight stories at once!” they demand. “Come up with 27 hours of new stand up material! What are you doing?! Watching figure skating??! Quit f!#$&ng around!!”

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Alas, with my noodle tangled and my noodly body weary, and at the end of the day, all I can do is smile with just a hint of crazy.

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EFH2T: Life Labyrinthitis

My latest post on Billy Corgan’s blog about holistic livin’:

Everything From Here To There » Blog Archive » Life Labyrinthitis.

Talks about the causes and effects of vertigo, of both physical and psychological origin.

(Posted a week late, but written during that badass rainstorm last week.)

Life Labyrinthitis

I just moved back to Los Angeles from Berlin a few days ago, and I’m experiencing what I call life vertigo: that swimmy, disoriented feeling we feel in response to a change of conditions like a big move, changing or losing a job, death of a loved one, divorce, or other drastic changes. Over the course of my move, my perception of time has been bizarre, I’ve acquired countless bruises from repeatedly walking into stationary objects, some simple everyday tasks are comically outsmarting me, and I can’t seem to keep more than one thought going in my head at a time. In spite of all this, I’ve managed to get a lot done in a few days, and am soldiering forth to establish my life again.

However, as I drove on the freeway today in what was probably the most incredible rainstorm I’ve ever seen in LA, I occasionally felt overwhelming pangs of panic in my chest. My heart felt like it was about to explode, and parts of my brain were screaming at each other that something horrible was happening. The rain was epic, but this feeling of panic was not precipitated (no pun intended) by any events in particular, or by a lack of bad weather driving experience, and so I felt that I was having an irrational physiological response to a sudden change of conditions, the rain and flooded streets, layered upon another rather large sudden change of conditions, moving across the world; my mental conduit for properly interpreting the changes in my environment was inflamed.

All of this got me thinking about the physiological causes of vertigo, like labyrinthitis, or inflammation of the inner ear. The name stuck out as a fantastic metaphor: we navigate through the labyrinth of life, feeling as if we know where we’re going only to find sometimes that we don’t recognize where we are and can’t see how we got there, and so we feel disoriented and panicked because we can’t tell which is the right direction. What I find really interesting about labyrinthitis is that the prolonged vertigo associated with it can directly cause anxiety, panic attacks and even depression because of the brain’s chronic misinterpretation of sensory input, i.e. perceiving physical danger where there is none.

A common treatment for labyritnthitis-related anxiety and depression is the same as clinical anxiety and depression, which is to prescribe anti-depressives. I’m not proposing this as a commentary on depression medication, but it seems a bit strange to treat depression resulting from a physiological condition the same as emotional depression, and I think that’s telling of our symptom-obsessed culture (and the industries that encourage it).

The problem with only addressing symptoms is that we sometimes don’t look deeply enough past the symptoms, whether emotional or physical, to see what is causing them in order to find a real solution, and can end up covering deep wounds with band-aids. That might mean treating the symptoms of chronic vertigo while the cause worsens, or in my case, it might mean treating the panic I felt on the freeway without addressing the deeper anxiety from moving across the world, or even more deeply, why that move provokes so much anxiety in the first place.

Generally, it’s been shown that people who feel that their condition is out of their control are less likely to improve than those who try to have some positive control, and it’s as true for life vertigo as it is for medical vertigo. A patient who doesn’t believe that they can be helped is no better off than a panicked driver who lets go of the steering wheel or a weary job hunter who doesn’t submit a resume; if we want to get through it, we have to try. For me, that meant looking past the panic, taking deep breaths and calming myself down so that I could navigate through the rain safely, keeping in mind that my body was overreacting due to deeper causes. And for all of us, it means not letting the overwhelming feelings from the changes in our lives take control of our perceptions so that we can navigate forward through the labyrinth of life, even when we’re not entirely sure which direction forward is.

Gratitude, Comedy and Rice Chex

I am so happy to be back in LA, I can hardly stand it! Though I’ve only been here one week, I barely remember trudging through the snow and ice in Berlin, desperately trying to get to the grocery store before 8:00 because it’s Saturday and if I don’t shop now, I’ll starve until Monday…

Well, today’s Sunday. It’s a gorgeous day outside, and not only do I think I’ll go to the grocery store, but I think I’ll get a steak–because amazingly enough, finding a decent steak at the store–on a Sunday–that won’t cost half the month’s rent is not difficult! In fact, most things here aren’t!

Maybe it sounds a bit pathetic, but I just want to use my energy for creating, for accomplishing and relating, and not for doing simple everyday things like feeding myself.

On that note, I bought my allergy-havin’ ass a box of Rice Chex. It was $2, and delicious. I look forward to waking up to more Rice Chex tomorrow!

Ok, I’m very happy about the food situation, but there is more. Last night I spent several hours at the Comedy Store on Sunset watching a group of really fantastic comediennes tear up the stage (ok, yeah, a few good male comics as well. They were great, actually.). There were 3 rooms booked solid with comedians all night, and though the crowds liked it, they obviously didn’t give a second thought to how lucky we are to live in a city so rich with comedic talent. Comedy is so important to me, and I think to the world, that it’s a bit hilarious that these people don’t see how lucky they are! But they showed up, which of course is the most important part.

Keep on movin’…

Only 5 days left in Berlin, and I’m taking inventory. Partially because I’ve been incapacitated for the past week, but also because I am once again starting my life over… Sort of. More like returning to the scene of many old crimes, but as a different person.

Living in Berlin has been rough. Moving here was rough, what happened as soon as I got here (miserably failed attempt at a relationship) was rough, finding a place to live was rough, living there was rough, deciding to leave Berlin was rough… And of course, Berliners are rough. The great irony of being immersed in the English comedy scene of a rough German city is not lost on me. And it’s not rough in the “big cities are rough” kind of way. I’ve lived in many bigger and badder cities, and as far as city life goes, Berlin is pretty mild. But there’s something especially defeating about being a stranger in a strange land while trying to cope with the ordinary roughness of life. My kudos to those of you out there doing it.

As someone who moved practically every year of my life until I was 22, I fully, wholeheartedly, unabashedly hate moving. Hate isn’t even close to being an adequate description. But if we want progress, we do what we have to do to move forward, and for me that meant leaving LA for the past 2.5 years and getting something else from the world. It was never about finding the right place, or believing that LA was bad, or that Europe was better. I loved LA, but was incredibly unhappy. Sometimes comfort is a slow death.

So this should be interesting… Moving back after everything I’ve experienced and having the chance to look some old demons in the face. Hopefully when they look back at me, they see a very different person.

Rantlet: Happy New Year, owwwwww

Happy new year everyone! I hope everyone had a good time doing whatever you find festive. Oh, me? I just partook of the yearly tradition of someone at the new year’s eve party giving me a cold (lookin’ at you, monkey!), so now I’m just sitting around like a lump eating popsicles and whining to myself about my sore nose. Ow ow ow.

But things are afoot–whether or not they are great is up to the observer–and though I am momentarily incapacitated, onward go the moving arrangements and tying up of loose Berl-ends. Oh, lame pun. Give me a break. I’m half delirious.

I will be back in LA on January 16th–that’s just 8 more days! And forthcoming is my full review of Five Weeks in a Balloon (spoiler alert: I strongly disliked it), plus in honor of my birthday and looming maturity, I will give a grossly immature recap of all the funniest uses of “ejaculated” in the book’s dialogue.

Dreams: More trains and a flying Beetle

I had another long, crazy ass train dream again last night. I was visiting my sister, back when she still lived in New York, and we were taking the subway all around the city–but the city was more like Paris than New York, including the subway system (very dark, and the trains were small). There wasn’t much to it except for getting from A to B with trains, and occasionally getting lost and having to read indecipherable transit maps. And there was particular emphasis on the number 6 train, which was coded pink on the map (so definitely not NYC).

Then at some point I became a bit lucid and started driving a flying VW Beetle. It was a murky greenish teal color. Then I got back on the trains. Then I was trying to find a gym to work out in temporarily (which I am in Berlin at the moment), but I didn’t have gym clothes so I was going through the lost and found, trying to decide if it would be too weird to use someone else’s gym shoes.

Again, I’m not sure about most dream interpretations… But a lot of them say that mundane things that are part of your normal life (ie, taking public transit) don’t mean as much as the process of using them. So whenever I dream about trains, it’s usually in this sort of chaotic context of not really having a destination as much as just having to change trains over and over. Metaphor…?

Dunno what the flying Beetle is about, but that was fun.

Happy (post) Halloween!

I didn’t plan much, but took inspiration from this ultra-fabulous floor length seafoam green polyester dress I’ve had since I was 15. It’s Chertastic and discolicious. Sanjay took this amazing picture on stage at the Kookaburra. I look completely plastic!

EFH2T and H.G. Wells: The Superlative Now

Everything From Here To There » Blog Archive » The Superlative Now.

My second post on Billy Corgan’s holistic livin’ blog looks at H.G. Wells’ description of the world in Comet, and compares the “bad” world then with the “bad” world now.

I’m honestly starting to wonder if we’ve always hated the world, or if there’s ever been a time in the past where people have been generally cool about things the way they were. It seems that as the world gets smaller, our complaints get bigger.

The Superlative Now

I just finished reading In the Days of the Comet, written by H.G. Wells over one hundred years ago, which is a before and after description of the world and relationships around the time of a great “Change”. Without giving too much of the story away, I’m amazed by the similarities in the lead character’s description of the “before” world, the bad world that everyone was so happy to see disappear, and our world today, the world that we all seem to be hoping will disappear as well. Aside from the dated vocabulary and writing style, quite a lot can be readily adapted to describe the world as it is now.

On the economy:

” Here… we’re on the verge of the biggest lock-out in the history of this country-side; here’s distress and hunger coming, here’s all the capitalistic competitive system like a wound inflamed…”

On war:

“On no conceivable grounds was there any sense in modern war. Save for the slaughter and mangling of a multitude of people, the destruction of vast quantities of material, and the waste of innumerable units of energy, it effected nothing.”

On material inequity:

“…Through the private ownership of land that had resulted from the neglect of feudal obligations in Britain and the utter want of political foresight in the Americas, large masses of property had become artificially stable in the hands of a small minority, to whom it was necessary to mortgage all new public and private enterprises, and who were held together not by any tradition of service and nobility but by the natural sympathy of common interests and a common large scale of living.”

On religious extremism:

“You can no more understand our theological passions than you can understand the fancies that made all ancient peoples speak of their gods only by circumlocutions, that made savages pine away and die because they had been photographed, or an Elizabethan farmer turn back from a day’s expedition because he had med three cows.”

“Suffice it that we lost our tempers very readily in pursuit of God and Truth, and said exquisitely foolish things on either side.”

On the environment:

“Young people nowadays can scarcely hope to imagine the enormous quantities of pure litter and useless accumulation with which we had to deal…”

On health:

“…A large part of the physical decline that was apparent in our people during the closing years of the nineteenth century… no doubt due in part to the miscellaneous badness of the food they ate…”

On popular culture:

“…Penny fiction, watery, base stuff, the dropsy of our nation’s mind… warped and crippled ideas and contagious base suggestions, the formulae of dull tolerances and stupid impatiences, the mean defensive ingenuities of sluggish habits of thinking and timid and indolent evasions.”

And so on.

Reading this book, I’ve been reflecting on the idea that we seem to be generally convinced that “now” is always the greatest challenge, the most dramatic time, the superlative moment, and it continues to be. But if we have felt that way in the past, why do we keep feeling that way? And why do we continue to have reason to feel that way?

There’s a whole school of thought around the concept of focusing one’s energy and attention exclusively on “now”, not living in the past or in the future. I’ve studied that idea and been convinced of its merits, but I feel that something is being left out. If we don’t reflect on the past or consider the effect of today on the future, how can we have any perspective on the present?

Here’s a silly example: as I write this, I am recovering from what is, in reality, a very minor cold. I hate being sick, as do most of us, so I tend to feel a bit pathetic and dramatic whenever it happens, probably just because of that feeling of general helplessness and lack of control over my body. That, and it feels nasty.

Amazingly enough, however, I have to go out of my way to remind myself that I’ve been much more sickly in the past—in fact, I know that the worst flu I’ve ever had happened about a year and a half ago—and that in just a few days I’ll be fine again. Even though I completely understand those facts, it still feels just a little bit false, because I can only really experience the way I feel right this second.

As a larger example, if I look at my life objectively, then the lowest point has to be when I was 15 years old. Even now, I go back and forth between feeling like it was all a horrible nightmare, and feeling like I’m reliving everything I went through all over again. But somehow, even though intellectually I see that as the worst of the worst, it still feels as though all the pain I feel today, now, in this moment is somehow bigger; even though I “know” that whatever trials I face today are trivial by comparison, it’s sometimes hard to muster the energy and motivation to face them.

Wells’ protagonist, on his former life:

“…Has not some queer nightmare spirit out of dreamland slipped a pseudo-memory into the records of my vanished life?”

Wells’ book demonstrates this “superlative now” idea on the large scale; we, as a global community, seem to understand intellectually and have some perspective on the challenges we face today based on the trials of the past, but in practice, that understanding sometimes feels false.

I’m currently living in Berlin, a place with some obvious dark points in the past. Everyone still talks about the Wall all the time, but it’s very romanticized and glamorized the way people tell the story now. Then there’s the Nazis, which the Germans on a personal level try their hardest not to talk about, but on a national level take a stern, confrontational stance to talk about publicly.

But the things people are upset about these days are taxes, the Deutsche Bahn, the welfare system giving people too much money, the welfare system not giving people enough money, the weather, how lame the Berlin club scene has gotten, etc. I’m generalizing, but the point is that I have never once heard anyone say, “Y’know what? This is nothing compared to WWII.”

I am not suggesting that we all start living in the past, or to take the problems we face today—both personally and globally—less seriously, but I feel that at least for myself, freaking out about every little thing that comes up in the “superlative now”, regardless of how trivial it might be, is a waste of energy.

When we feel that now is the most difficult time ever, I think it can seem like an extremely daunting task to try and improve things. So maybe having just a bit more perspective could help us put the energy we use freaking out to practical use; that energy could be motivating instead, as if to say, “We’ve gotten through greater challenges, so we can do this.”

The characters in Wells’ book figure this out as well. After the great Change, everyone is immediately struck with horror and guilt over what they now considered to be a lifestyle based on utter insanity and cruelty. But they don’t allow themselves to dwell, knowing what work there is to be done to make the world the place they envision from their new perspective.

“I was doing nothing to prevent it all! …And it’s fools like us that lead to things like this! …But this is being a fool. Talk! I’m going to stop it.”

Moxa is popular among young people!

a couple years ago, at the recommendation of my sister, acupuncturist and moxibustion enthusiast, i got into burning moxa to help with pain. i use pre-packaged moxa; just stick and burn.

i usually use moxa on my arms:

trying a new insomnia therapy:

it’s a little tricky to pull off, and i think i need to give myself a strong pedicure before i’ll feel the full effect. but i do enjoy the effects of moxa, if not for the thrill of applying burning stickers to myself, then for the marijuana-esque aroma that has passersby wondering, “where’s the party?”

you can find moxa at alternative medicine and Asian markets. highly recommended!