Hiding in Public

I just woke up from a really bad dream. I was walking with my friend and she had a little tiny flash light and when she shined it, it lit up the whole neighborhood and she saw some sort of monster. I didn't see it, but we ran like crazy. We went into a little shop and hid behind a skimpy curtain. I was closing my eyes wishing I could just disappear. I didn't want anyone to find me, the curtain kept swinging open and I knew eventually the people from the shop would kick us out back into the street where the monster was. As I sat up in bed I thought about playing hide and seek when I was a kid and how much I didn't want anyone to find me. I would lie behind a couch or curled up in the toy box holding my breath with my heart racing and my eyes closed,but eventually someone always found me and when they did the i was so disappointed. Then I remembered reading this book that talked about kids and shame. It said that if kids got exposed to  situations that they weren't emotionally equipped to handle they would use shame as a defense mechanism. Which simply means they blame themselves. Then I thought about when I had my TV show I was not ready for all the exposure, I did not feel worthy, and I was over come with shame and wanted to stay in, I wanted to curl up in the toy box again, because I wasn't emotionally equipped to handle it. I didn't think I deserved it. I was so scared that something bad was going to happen and it did. My younger brother was paralyzed in a drunk driving accident. My show eventually got canceled and I didn't even care. I thought "why bother?"  I associated my being happy with bad things happening. Then I learned about this little thing called magical thinking. If I was that powerful to make bad things happen, which is what they taught us growing up, if you think it, it will happen, and whatever you focus on will grow. Then why doesn't it work the other way around? So I took out my little flashlight and the world lit up and yes I saw everything. Then I went back to the dream,  and thought wait, I didn't even see the monster, my friend told me about him and I got scared. hmmm... Why am I gonna hide behind a skimpy curtain because of monster that someone else saw?  The curtain is not going to protect me and the  monster will always find me, because the  moster lives inside me.  But now, instead of hiding, I can chose to use my light to scare him away.  It's a scientific fact that darkness cannot cover light.

Monkeys die without hugs

Growing  up never got hugged so when I got older and someone tried to touch me, I bristled. Then I saw a woman on Oprah talking about an 8 year old kid who had been a slave his whole life and how good it felt to hug someone who hadn't been hugged in years and I thought "yeah for you" that slave prob wanted his head to pop off. It has taken many years for me to be able to be touched and I am very grateful to the people along the way who were gentle with me and gave me only as much kindness as I could handle. One person in particular comes to mind. It was right after my boyfriend that I lived with for eight years, moved out on me while I was away for the weekend. I was hanging out with a bunch of girls that I hardly knew and I was so upset I couldn't control myself. I think one of them said "oh that must've been hard and the flood gates opened I started blubbering "Yes ! Yes ! It was really hard!" One of the girls took my hand and held it for at least an hour while I cried. I remember looking down thinking , "this break up is not going to break me, actually it's breaking my heart open,  I realized that this was the first time in my life that I had allowed myself that kind of  comfort. The pain was so great that i was compelled to do something different. In the past I would have pushed the girls hand away and said "what are you gay?" This time I let her hand stay in mine and cried until i couldn't anymore. It was one of those times in my life that the pain of staying the same was far greater than the pain of changing. Now I loved to be touched. Actually now I can ask for a hug when I need one, and I can say "ok that's enough" when necessary.

Patches Patches Patches

Last night, I met a guy who topped my eye patch story. I told him how I had to wear my eye patch to correct my lazy eye when I was little and how the kids used to whip acorns at me and he said said "oh my God I had a patch too!" The idea behind the patch is, it covers the good eye so the lazy eye will get strong but evidently they covered his good eye so long that it got lazy too. So, he then had to wear a patch on the other eye. He was telling me how it would get sweaty while playing sports and how they had to keep extras in the nurses office and we revealed in each others humiliation.  We are bonded for life. It just goes to further my belief that we are a product of our experiences and once shared with another human being rather than alienate us they  brings us closer together.  It reminded me of a time in high school when our Catholic ministry went to Walpole State Prison to visit the inmates. I was terrified, all I kept thinking was, "what could i possibly say to these men that could mean anything?" When I got there, I decided to just be honest. I told funny stories about how the kids made fun of me and when I was done they all came up to me and shook my hand and said things like "They used to call me meat head." This guy had huge muscles and I thought," he must have made his body so big that no one could ever make fun of the size of his head again." Then I thought "oh my God we are all the same, the only difference between me and him is that he took his rage further and murdered someone."  Here he was locked up for life trapped with the feeling of never wanting to be called meat head again. You can't re write your story but you can definitely make an amendment to it. Camou did it, he took the Myth of Sisyphus, which is a story about a man who kept pushing a boulder up the hill and every time he got to the top the boulder would roll back down on top of him. Camou's question was "was doesn't he just stop pushing the boulder?"

crippling fear of success

I love that term, it's my favorite, my second favorite is "addicted to the intensity of a bad feeling." I am trying to discipline myself to feel good. By "good" i don't mean" hedonism good" i mean "peaceful good". I was talking to a friend of mine today about how hard is for him to feel good feelings. I told him that I really think that for most of my life feeling bad made me feel alive. I guess I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. And secretly i wanted it to. I actually think that i subconsciously made it drop. It made me feel safe. Control was my life source for so many years. But, the truth is , control just gives you a false sense of safety. Actually I've heard it said that control freaks actually control themselves right out of a life. It makes sense, your world becomes so small that it literally implodes in on you. But I think for some people it feels better to take it down yourself rather than risk your heart and hope and have it fall apart because of no fault of your own. Plus for  me, when I am happy and light I feel free and when I feel free I feel vulnerable. But in actuality when I"m free I'm more open to let life happen and usually it's better than i could have ever imagined if I tried to control it myself.  Because whether I like it or not, it's going to happen, so I've decided to let go rather than be dragged. Happiness is not for those who need it, it' s for those who want it.

Its Sat morning and I just woke up, Not sure what to write about today but as promised I'm going to do it anyway. OK as I was writing that I thought of something, that's how it works I guess. Yesterday I bumped into a guy that I know from the city. The last time I saw him we were standing on a corner and he got a text from his friend saying that one of his friends had been murdered in Boston. A few days ago my face book post said that I had a really nice night and I almost got murdered. Someone from LA posted jokilyng that I shouldn't date guys I meet on Craigslist. Well when i saw the guy yesterday he told me that the girl was one of the people murdered by the Craigs list killer. When I got home my friend had posted a comment to the LA guy that his comment was in poor taste because some of my friends knew the woman who was killed. I had no idea how connected I was to all of it.I'm sure if the guy from LA ever thought it through he never would have wanted to hurt anyone. It has just got me thinking about how much we joke to deflect the severity of the tragedy that goes on in the world but sometimes our own defense actually contributes to the tragedy, as opposed to healing it.  There is so much power in feeling your own humanity, feeling your feelings and being in you skin. Other wise we just push the shit around  dump it on to one another until we are all buried alive.

They would be sad if I died.

So, yesterday I went to see my friends art studio in Brooklyn. She is a gay woman in a committed relationship from Israel. She met me at the train station and we walked to get a cappuccino. While we were in line we got to talking about how a lot of her friends don't have visas so they can't travel out of the country with their partners because of immigration. Then we went to her studio sipped our cappuccino and talked about Niche, and how his philosophy is that pain is a part of life and that you need to use it to propel your art. Then she showed me all of her art. One of them, I said, looked like a Richard Serra and her whole face lit up. She said he's the inspiration! She uses tools to spread the paint over the canvas with the movement of her body to creates the images.  In one of the paintings she uses one of those black and white Afghan scarfs and made a print with it. It reminded me of the book the Kite Runner that I just read about an afghan man and his boyhood friendship. His childhood friend told him he would help him always; " for you, a thousand times over" and it moved me. The simplicity of having someone love you that much. Earlier in the day I had been anxious, but as soon as we sat and talked, a calm came over me. Here we were two people from two totally different parts of the world sharing a coffee and some conversation. I left feeling honored that she allowed me to be part of her process.  When I got to Manhattan I got off the subway and walked smack dab in the middle of  a gang fight.  I got myself out of danger, but it really shook me up. My whole life I've wondered if anyone would miss me if I died, but this was the first time in my life that I really felt like I could have died, in a split second, I could have been gone. As I kept walking, I bumped into a bunch of friends that I hadn't seen in while. They were so happy to see me "Sue where have you been? We haven't see you in so long! It's so good to see you!" And at that moment I realized that if I had died there were a lot of people who would miss me.  And then, the afternoon flashed before me, If I hadn't died and just ended up in the hospital badly beaten, my family could come and see me and my husband, if I had one, but for my friend the artist from Israel she wouldn't be so lucky. So for the people out there who can't have their loved ones by there side, take that pain and propel your art as I pray for you a thousand times over.

Wrinkels give you character

Good monring all, as I was washing my face this morning I was looking at all the little lines on my face thinking, that one was from when I had my heart broken, and those are the ones I got from laughing so hard, and the ones on my cheeks are the ones I got from making funny faces. The other night I was sitting beside this woman and she has no wrinkles, none not around her eyes or mouth or nuthin and I sat there thinking where is her life? Her life had literally been removed from her face. I started thinking about how when I was 13 I scratched my face up with a rusty point of an old compass because I hated myself so much I wanted to erase who I was.  I thought, that is what plastic surgery is. It's a more acceptable form of cutting. And why do we do it?  For other women. I started to think about how when I did the movie Southie and an actress that I worked with told me that my wrinkles give me character and that she could never do stand up because a guy would never laugh at a girl he wanted to f**K. And then I started thinking about my old boyfriends niece, we used to have quiet time in her room, she was three at the time. We were on her bed and she looked at me and said "Sue you have wrinkles." And I got so insecure, I said "I know but you can see them now because the sun is shining on them so much." and she responded "No, I see them all the time." Who taught her about wrinkles? And then there was my friends daughter who was four when I did Last Comic standing, she called me Costello. When they asked her on camera if she thought that Costello was funny she simply said "no."  Everybody laughed and moved on, except her. And hour later she was still crying and when she finally stopped her Mom asked her what was wrong and she said, "I said that Costello isn't funny because I wanted to say that she is pretty and I didn't think you could be both."

Hi there

OMG so much has happened since I last blogged. I literally feel like a completely different person. I went through a rough patch for a while there trying to finish my show, but I did it. Minus 32 Million Words is almost perfect:) No, it will never be perfect it's a work in progress, like me.  Which was one of the most profound lessons I have learned on this little journey called life. I also realized that the darker the dark the lighter the light. And if I get out of my own way and accept my humanity, miracles can happen. Perspectives change and your eyes widen to see all the good while still being able to protect yourself from the bad. Allowing others to see me even if it is through my words is the key to life. One word at a timeIi can reveal myself to you with the hope of building a relationship because isolation is the number one killer in this country.  Glad to be back and I promise to try to write every morning even if it's just a little, cause isn't that how the pyramids got built?

Peace,

Sue