I watched Surfwise last night, an awesome documentary about the Paskowitz family, led by Dorian (Doc) & Juliette, who raised their 9 children (8 boys and a girl) in a 24-foot camper that they drove around the country through the children's formative years. Doc espoused a holistic lifestyle, keeping the family on a strict sugar-and-fat-free diet, instructing them to surf daily, and refraining them from entering into the public school system. The film is inspiring and heartwarming. It makes you yearn for the hippie-ish atmosphere of the west coast and makes you itch to learn how to surf. It also invokes in you a sense of liberating autonomy regarding child-rearing, reminding you of a more animistc approach to raising children, far and away from what has become to be considered normal. It made me want to have a nine little puppies of my own. Just kidding. But, maybe...
The children are also gorgeous--Doc is Jewish and Juliette is half-Mexican, half-Native American, so you can imagine what a stunning tribe they made.
When I was 17, I adored a boy who was my best friend at the time. He was four years my senior, finishing college as I was finishing high school. I had strong feelings for him for nearly a year, but he didn't like me back. We spoke on the phone incessantly, took long rides together, and I went to every one of his band's shows. We were attached at the hip. Once, I house-sat at his apartment while he went away for the weekend, so eager to do him the favor. I took care of his cat, laid on his couch, slept in his bed. That night, while messing around on his desk, I found a note indicating that he was actually visiting a girl named Pauline a few towns away, whom he was having a secret tryst with. I was heartbroken. I went into his kitchen and found some vodka and gulped it straight from the bottle. Around that time, the Dreamers had come out and needless to say, I became obsessed with all things French. The song above was on the soundtrack and I was so taken by it. My crush, an excellent piano player, would play it for me and he could actually hit the high notes. I was impressed.
Later that summer, I traveled through Europe with another friend for six weeks. I had gotten over my crush by then after another heartbreaking prom experience and instead fell head over heels for some Norwegian guy I met in London (and then a Swedish guy I met in Paris...) Anyway, during my last days in Paris, my traveling companion left early and I met up with my former crush in Paris. He was staying at a flat all the way on the south side of town by the university with three Brits--a brother and sister, and another girl who was somehow romantically linked. He invited me to stay with them for my remaining 2-3 nights.
I remember it rained during those last days and the flat had a skylightm so this large, airy apartment was cast with a cloudy light and the feeling of rain. We stayed inside as if all of Paris was in the apartment instead of the streets. We made spaghetti for supper, played games, and all splayed out on the floor, listening to this song over and over again. Needless to say, it was bittersweet.
me in Paris the following summer, after freshman year at college, photo appropriately taken by my then latest boyfriend, an Italian
Guess what? Meryl & Marina are shooting our first short film that we wrote, and are producing and acting in. We spent this entire week getting the logistics of this sudden shoot together--locking locations, renting cars, luring crew members, picking up equipment. Now, I'm getting ready to go to sleep because I have to wake up in 5 hours to put on make up, pick up breakfast for the crew, load the equipment, and get to the location by 8am. We're working with a lot of great people on this shoot including our dear friends Jess and James, and some new collaborators, JR and Shal. Billy will be there too, eating our donuts and lifting heavy things. Stay tuned!
My friend Jen, who recently re-vamped the layout of her lovely blog, recently posted this Elizabeth Gilbert article on perfection. I'm not really an Eat, Pray, Love kind of girl, but I read Gilbert's portrait of Eustace Conway as the last American man back in September, and I dug it. I'm also procrastinating at work with a computer in front of me, so I decided to read it. And does it speak the truth or what? Since I have more or less conquered the threatening hurdle of my anxiety in my ongoing therapy sessions, we now have a new persistent topic that we keep returning to: my incessant yearning for perfection. Gilbert really hits it on the nose with this one. I'm the type of girl who reads the New Yorker while running on the treadmill right before my yoga class at least two times a week. I'm also trying to write a play, produce a short film, build an acting career, work on two scenes for my weekly scene study class, save extra money for two huge summer trips, exercise 4-5 times a week, eat healthily, cook as much as possible, go to movies, read three magazines a week plus 2 books and 2 plays, learn guitar, learn French and Italian, work on the web design for the cafe in Los Angeles, hold on, wait, I have to slow down. I need a cup of coffee. Too many things. Did I mention lose 10 pounds? Thanks, Jen.
