Sleeping In Pursuit Of Happiness And A Project Or Two

Okay, I actually haven't been sleeping, but that's a big dream of mine.  As is happiness.  I have been absent from this blog for awhile though.  This was an unintentional, yet welcome break for me that's allowed me to focus on a few other things.  Life has been rather busy. What, you may ask, have I been doing??!!

Work, lots of work.  For months it was literally all I did.  I've worked on several movies back-to-back. None of them are in theatres yet, but they will be soon.  One premiered at Cannes, directed by a filmmaker most people would know (Woody Allen.) Two films were period pieces and one is a quasi-sci-fi, not-too-far-in-the-distant-future thing.  All the time travel at work has made the contemporary world rather boring.  Odds are, my next project will be present day. This almost makes me sad.  We'll see...

 Apart from that, I'm finally getting to a place where I feel like I'm accomplishing some goals I set for myself long ago.  I still feel like an outsider alot of the time, but instead of letting this work against me,  I now "own" my awkwardness.  Sometimes, it puts me at a great advantage.  After all, outsiders tend to be more observant and are also often highly creative since we see the world in ways others don't.

I've put more time and energy into my writing.  Primarily I've been focusing on short stories, but I'm also currently working on a screenplay with a co-writer.  Rejection notices have become my friends, but lately I've gotten a few more of these neon green ACCEPTANCE notifications.  They're like little green monsters I'd be inclined to ghost-bust if I wasn't so happy to see them.  [Among those publications who have most recently published my work are Chicago Literati, The Gambler Magazine, Dual Coast Magazine, and The Grief Diaries. ]

It's very easy to let show biz suck every morsel of my life, but I've tried really hard to maintain a sense of work-life balance.  There are other things I'd like to do with my life.  The work-balance thing is a constant struggle.  These days, it's become a goal unto itself.  Like happiness...

Besides my own writing, I read a lot.  This has always been the case. Even if I'm working and I have a 4AM call time, I'll get up early to have coffee, read the paper or snag a few moments with a good book.  I just finished The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.  Before that, it was Why (Not) Me by Mindy Kaling.  Now, it's Judd Apatow's Sick In The Head: Conversations About Life And Comedy.

WHAT ELSE HAVE I BEEN DOING?

- Bought a laminator (!!!) for work but ALSO to exercise my creativity and make my hand-designed greeting cards look even more professional. 
-Purchased my first major appliance!  A jet-black, General Electric Refrigerator.  (The old one, gifted to me by a neighbor 15 years ago, finally gave out.)
-Dated a bit here and there, mostly there.  I'm so confused.  It's always confusing, isn't it??!!
-Grabbing the mike at stand-up comedy open-mic nights.  (Might as well entertain people with my awkward weirdness...)
-Going to all the doctor appointments I've been putting off.
-Watching movies, TV, documentaries and stand-up comedy specials. 
- Dreamily planning vacations I can't actually afford.
-Finding ways to avoid driving my car unless absolutely necessary.  Mostly, it's been necessary.  (Thanks,  Los Angeles.)
-Visiting family, the few who are left...
-Improving my Spanish vocabulary.
-Teaching myself French from scratch thanks to Duolingo and Memrise.  (Uh-oh, now even my Spanish has a weird French accent.)
-Planning new adventures and plotting my escape (don't tell anyone...)
-Looking for work because for the 1st time in a long while, it's been S-L-O-W.
-Living life because this is all I have. 

©2016 by K.Liedle/@cococaffeine

The Lover's Dictionary: Defining The Nature Of Love

A dejected Charlie Brown famously said, "Nothing spoils the taste of peanut butter like unrequited love."

Years later, Woody Allen would believe "Sex alleviates tension. Love causes it." Lady Gaga would be addictively caught in a bad romance. And Lily Tomlin would plead with the world at large: "if love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question?"

Do I believe in love? It's like asking I ♥ Huckabees. How am I not myself? Am I myself? Do I believe in love? Or is it a concoction like the word normal-- a theory to make us feel inferior and unsure of ourselves? It's intangible, unproven but proven, fleeting yet everlasting. Love.

It's like God and the Devil and heaven and hell all wrapped into one. It makes us float and giggle and believe in the very best of everything there is to believe in. It's magnetic and unpredictable. It makes us believe in magic, fairytales and happily ever afters. It tempts us and taunts us. Sometimes, it makes us do things, reckless things, we wouldn't normally do. It makes us stay in relationships much too long. It makes us postpone decisions, settle for what's right, what's wrong, what's stable. What's love?

It's hard to capture and hard to hold. It chases happiness and hides from sadness, but sometimes sadness finds it. And like bloodhounds, loneliness and jealousy and hatred can sniff out its trail, too. When it's good, it makes us lace fingers and curl into each other's arms. When it's over, it makes us curl into a ball. Alone. Starting over from scratch. Again.

Love is confusing. And complicated. Defined yet undefinable.

The Lover's Dictionary, an experimental novel by David Levithan, explores this very thing. The novel originally evolved from a story that Levinthan had given to friends as a Valentine's Day gift. Released in 2011, I recently discovered it, or rather, it discovered me, as I believe books tend to do.

Levithan, a young adult novelist, best known for penning such fare as Nick And Norah's Infinite Playlist, approaches the many facets of love through words. The novel is composed of dictionary/journal entries in which nouns and adjectives provide the impetus to exploring and understanding feelings, beliefs, memories, and experiences of love. The nature of love is beautiful. The hypocrisy of love is ugly.

The Lover's Dictionary is organized alphabetically, but the entries describe events and moments that are not necessarily in chronological order. As Levinthan states in one entry: "We do not divulge our histories chronologically. It's not like we can sit each other down and say 'Tell me what happened,' and then rise from that conversation knowing everything."

It's like he's saying that the only known is that we will never know everything: about ourselves, the world, nature, love, or even our most intimate lovers and friends.

Early on, Levinthan's unnamed narrator states: "There has to be a moment at the beginning when you wonder whether you're in love with the person or in love with the feeling of love itself."

Who wouldn't want to be in love? It's like asking, who wouldn't want to be happy?

However, in another entry, a character thinks: "I am myself, and that is the point. Pairing is a social construction. It is by no means necessary for everyone to do it. Maybe I'm better like this…"

The moments described in Levithan's unconventional novel may be from one couple's relationship or that of many different relationships. It doesn't matter. What matters is that they reveal the intimacy, the truth, the uncertainty, and the undefinable nature of love.

"I've always been deeply terrified to really be someone's wife since I know from life one cannot love another, ever, really," Marilyn Monroe once wrote in her private journal, while married to playwright Arthur Miller.

As another Valentine's Day approaches, remember this:

We all have our own moments. And love is not easy for anyone.

©2012 by KLiedle