Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Na wè pita

http://youtu.be/KoPT5Mq1pzQ


John Denver Leaving On A Jet Plane Lyric

All my bags are packed I'm ready to go
I'm standin' here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye
But the dawn is breakin' it's early morn
The taxi's waitin' he's blowin' his horn
Already I'm so lonesome I could die

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go
Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane
Don't know when I'll be back again
Oh baby, I hate to go

There's so many times I've let you down
So many times I've played around
I tell you now, they don't mean a thing
Every place I go, I'll think of you
Every song I sing, I'll sing for you
When I come back, I'll bring your wedding ring

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go
Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane
Don't know when I'll be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go

Guitar Solo

Now the time has come to leave you
One more time let me kiss you
Close your eyes I'll be on my way
Dream about the days to come
When I won't have to leave alone
About the times, I won't have to say

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go
Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane
Don't know when I'll be back again
Oh baby, I hate to go

Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane
Don't know when I'll be back again
Oh baby, I hate to go

Monday, November 25, 2013

“When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them.” ― Martin Buber

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Don't live in regret


http://www.marcandangel.com/2013/01/18/10-choices-you-will-regret-in-10-years/

POST WRITTEN BY: ANGEL CHERNOFF

10 Choices You Will Regret in 10 Years

10 Decisions You Will Regret in 10 Years
“If only…”  These two words paired together create one of the saddest phrases in the English language.
Here are ten choices that ultimately lead to this phrase of regret, and how to elude them:
  1. Wearing a mask to impress others. – If the face you always show the world is a mask, someday there will be nothing beneath it.  Because when you spend too much time concentrating on everyone else’s perception of you, or who everyone else wants you to be, you eventually forget who you really are.  So don’t fear the judgments of others; you know in your heart who you are and what’s true to you.  You don’t have to be perfect to impress and inspire people.  Let them be impressed and inspired by how you deal with your imperfections.
  2. Letting someone else create your dreams for you. – The greatest challenge in life is discovering who you are; the second greatest is being happy with what you find.  A big part of this is your decision to stay true to your own goals and dreams.  Do you have people who disagree with you?  Good.  It means you’re standing your ground and walking your own path.  Sometimes you’ll do things considered crazy by others, but when you catch yourself excitedly losing track of time, that’s when you’ll know you’re doing the right thing.  Read The 4-Hour Workweek.
  3. Keeping negative company. – Don’t let someone who has a bad attitude give it to you.  Don’t let them get to you.  They can’t pull the trigger if you don’t hand them the gun.  When you remember that keeping the company of negative people is a choice, instead of an obligation, you free yourself to keep the company of compassion instead of anger, generosity instead of greed, and patience instead of anxiety.
  4. Being selfish and egotistical. – A life filled with loving deeds and good character is the best tombstone.  Those who you inspired and shared your love with will remember how you made them feel long after your time has expired.  So carve your name on hearts, not stone.  What you have done for yourself alone dies with you; what you have done for others and the world remains.
  5. Avoiding change and growth. – If you want to know your past look into your present conditions.  If you want to know your future look into your present actions.  You must let go of the old to make way for the new; the old way is gone, never to come back.  If you acknowledge this right now and take steps to address it, you will position yourself for lasting success.  The Power of Habit.
  6. Giving up when the going gets tough. – There are no failures, just results.  Even if things don’t unfold the way you had expected, don’t be disheartened or give up.  Learn what you can and move on.  The one who continues to advance one step at a time will win in the end.  Because the battle is always won far away and long before the final victory.  It’s a process that occurs with small steps, decisions, and actions that gradually build upon each other and eventually lead to that glorious moment of triumph.
  7. Trying to micromanage every little thing. – Life should be touched, not strangled.    Sometimes you’ve got to relax and let life happen without incessant worry and micromanagement.  Learn to let go a little before you squeeze too tight.  Take a deep breath.  When the dust settles and you can once again see the forest for the trees, take the next step forward.  You don’t have to know exactly where you’re going to be headed somewhere great.  Everything in life is in perfect order whether you understand it yet or not.  It just takes some time to connect all the dots.
  8. Settling for less than you deserve. – Be strong enough to let go and wise enough to wait for what you deserve.  Sometimes you have to get knocked down lower than you have ever been to stand up taller than you ever were before.  Sometimes your eyes need to be washed by your tears so you can see the possibilities in front of you with a clearer vision again.  Don’t settle.
  9. Endlessly waiting until tomorrow. – The trouble is, you always think you have more time than you do.  But one day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to work on the things you’ve always wanted to do.  And at that point you either will have achieved the goals you set for yourself, or you will have a list of excuses for why you haven’t.  Read The Last Lecture.
  10. Being lazy and wishy-washy. – The world doesn’t owe you anything, you owe the world something.  So stop daydreaming and start DOING.  Develop a backbone, not a wishbone.  Take full responsibility for your life – take control.  You are important and you are needed.  It’s too late to sit around and wait for somebody to do something someday.  Someday is now; the somebody the world needs is YOU.
Photo by: J.T. Noriega

Friday, November 22, 2013

A Poem By Patricia Lockwood

I am pretty speechless after reading this powerful poem.  :(
---------------------------------------

http://www.theawl.com/2013/07/rape-joke-patricia-lockwood

A Poem By Patricia Lockwood





Rape Joke
The rape joke is that you were 19 years old.
The rape joke is that he was your boyfriend.
The rape joke it wore a goatee. A goatee.
Imagine the rape joke looking in the mirror, perfectly reflecting back itself, and grooming itself to look more like a rape joke. “Ahhhh,” it thinks. “Yes. A goatee.”
No offense.
The rape joke is that he was seven years older. The rape joke is that you had known him for years, since you were too young to be interesting to him. You liked that use of the word interesting, as if you were a piece of knowledge that someone could be desperate to acquire, to assimilate, and to spit back out in different form through his goateed mouth.
Then suddenly you were older, but not very old at all.
The rape joke is that you had been drinking wine coolers. Wine coolers! Who drinks wine coolers? People who get raped, according to the rape joke.
The rape joke is he was a bouncer, and kept people out for a living.
Not you!
The rape joke is that he carried a knife, and would show it to you, and would turn it over and over in his hands as if it were a book.
He wasn’t threatening you, you understood. He just really liked his knife.
The rape joke is he once almost murdered a dude by throwing him through a plate-glass window. The next day he told you and he was trembling, which you took as evidence of his sensitivity.
How can a piece of knowledge be stupid? But of course you were so stupid.
The rape joke is that sometimes he would tell you you were going on a date and then take you over to his best friend Peewee’s house and make you watch wrestling while they all got high.
The rape joke is that his best friend was named Peewee.
OK, the rape joke is that he worshiped The Rock.
Like the dude was completely in love with The Rock. He thought it was so great what he could do with his eyebrow.
The rape joke is he called wrestling “a soap opera for men.” Men love drama too, he assured you.
The rape joke is that his bookshelf was just a row of paperbacks about serial killers. You mistook this for an interest in history, and laboring under this misapprehension you once gave him a copy of Günter Grass’s My Century, which he never even tried to read.
It gets funnier.
The rape joke is that he kept a diary. I wonder if he wrote about the rape in it.
The rape joke is that you read it once, and he talked about another girl. He called her Miss Geography, and said “he didn’t have those urges when he looked at her anymore,” not since he met you. Close call, Miss Geography!
The rape joke is that he was your father’s high-school student—your father taught World Religion. You helped him clean out his classroom at the end of the year, and he let you take home the most beat-up textbooks.
The rape joke is that he knew you when you were 12 years old. He once helped your family move two states over, and you drove from Cincinnati to St. Louis with him, all by yourselves, and he was kind to you, and you talked the whole way. He had chaw in his mouth the entire time, and you told him he was disgusting and he laughed, and spat the juice through his goatee into a Mountain Dew bottle.
The rape joke is that come on, you should have seen it coming. This rape joke is practically writing itself.
The rape joke is that you were facedown. The rape joke is you were wearing a pretty green necklace that your sister had made for you. Later you cut that necklace up. The mattress felt a specific way, and your mouth felt a specific way open against it, as if you were speaking, but you know you were not. As if your mouth were open ten years into the future, reciting a poem called Rape Joke.
The rape joke is that time is different, becomes more horrible and more habitable, and accommodates your need to go deeper into it.
Just like the body, which more than a concrete form is a capacity.
You know the body of time is elastic, can take almost anything you give it, and heals quickly.
The rape joke is that of course there was blood, which in human beings is so close to the surface.
The rape joke is you went home like nothing happened, and laughed about it the next day and the day after that, and when you told people you laughed, and that was the rape joke.
It was a year before you told your parents, because he was like a son to them. The rape joke is that when you told your father, he made the sign of the cross over you and said, “I absolve you of your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” which even in its total wrongheadedness, was so completely sweet.
The rape joke is that you were crazy for the next five years, and had to move cities, and had to move states, and whole days went down into the sinkhole of thinking about why it happened. Like you went to look at your backyard and suddenly it wasn’t there, and you were looking down into the center of the earth, which played the same red event perpetually.
The rape joke is that after a while you weren’t crazy anymore, but close call, Miss Geography.
The rape joke is that for the next five years all you did was write, and never about yourself, about anything else, about apples on the tree, about islands, dead poets and the worms that aerated them, and there was no warm body in what you wrote, it was elsewhere.
The rape joke is that this is finally artless. The rape joke is that you do not write artlessly.
The rape joke is if you write a poem called Rape Joke, you’re asking for it to become the only thing people remember about you.
The rape joke is that you asked why he did it. The rape joke is he said he didn’t know, like what else would a rape joke say? The rape joke said YOU were the one who was drunk, and the rape joke said you remembered it wrong, which made you laugh out loud for one long split-open second. The wine coolers weren’t Bartles & Jaymes, but it would be funnier for the rape joke if they were. It was some pussy flavor, like Passionate Mango or Destroyed Strawberry, which you drank down without question and trustingly in the heart of Cincinnati Ohio.
Can rape jokes be funny at all, is the question.
Can any part of the rape joke be funny. The part where it ends—haha, just kidding! Though you did dream of killing the rape joke for years, spilling all of its blood out, and telling it that way.
The rape joke cries out for the right to be told.
The rape joke is that this is just how it happened.
The rape joke is that the next day he gave you Pet Sounds. No really. Pet Sounds. He said he was sorry and then he gave you Pet Sounds. Come on, that’s a little bit funny.
Admit it.





Patricia Lockwood is the author of Balloon Pop Outlaw Black (Octopus Books, 2012). Follow her on Twitter at@TriciaLockwood.
You will find more poems here. You may contact the editor at poems@theawl.com.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

out with the old

I walked into the guest house today and one of the staff saw me and said I looked good.
I asked, "Didn't I before my haircut?"
"No." She said...

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

When Fat Equals Failure

http://lizapalmer.blogspot.com/2013/07/when-fat-equals-failure.html

Thursday, July 25, 2013

When Fat Equals Failure


I was sitting at a lovely, long overdue dinner the other night with a couple of friends and as dinners with old friends tend to do, we started talking about health and bodies.

I'd just gotten back from ComicCon, which made me want to cut my limbs off and float around as an untethered torso, so I had just talked myself off a ledge about fitness and health and feeling strong again when one of my friends started talking about feeling like she needed to lose weight.

(around Comic Con.  Holy shit, right?)

A side note:  the people who love us - love you - don't see the weight.  I think we get to a point with loved ones where they transcend their bodies, if that makes sense.  You're just you.  And I know we know our own body's fitness levels and where we feel best - and when we get into unhealthy territory the conversation must change -  but those who love us have a harder time seeing the flaws we think repulse the general population. So we think they're "being nice" or lying when they honestly say that they either don't see it or don't care.  Because as my friend was talking, I didn't see what she was talking about.  Whatever weight she thought she needed to lose, I didn't notice.  She's beautiful.  Just all the time.

A side note on the side note:  Oh hell yes, there are people in our lives  - or who were in our lives, ahem - that make us feel bad about our bodies.  That shit is on them.  Whatever agenda they have or insecurities they are plagued with?  That's not about us.  I've had to come to terms with my own inclusion in a Fat Harem or two in my not so distant past.  

Fat Harem:  Proper Noun.  When a particularly insecure friend needs her circle of friends to be heavier than she, ensuring (she believes) her beauty (worth?) dominance.   


As I drove home that night, I couldn't stop thinking about that conversation.  How we talk about weight as if every pound is like Jacob Marley's chains - a silver box of shame that we must carry around as some penance for our failures.  A pound isn't just a pound.  It's a proclamation of our worthlessness.  No wonder it's so hard to rid ourselves of them.

I know, in my own health journey, reconnecting with my body has been THE final frontier.  It was so much easier to hate my body from afar, detached and as if it was some far off enemy out to get me.  Hating my body both while denying it nourishment/pounding it into the ground with whatever exercise I overdid it with thereby losing weight too quickly or eating too much of the wrong kinds of food for comfort and making my life smaller and smaller, gaining weight and putting on that suit of armor to protect myself once more.  All because I was trying to get out of actually getting to the root of the weight.  The Why.

I had this moment the other week in Pilates.  It was a particularly Raised Shirt Pansa (Pansa is spanish for tummy) in the Mirror kind of session and I was at wit's end.  Totally in my head and it was getting ugly. It doesn't help that my pilates teacher is a dude and that every position seems to be - oh, is that the area of your body that you're insecure about?  Oh, okay - why don't you put your arms in the air and bend all the way back, pushing that part of your body up and out and Imma just stand right here takkinnnng it allll in.

I was on the Reformer (pictured above) in basically a Push Up position and was being asked to raise my knees (kind of into a plank) and send the reformer's carriage up and back however many times I could manage. Almost like a weird push up/plank/burpee hybrid.  It seemed impossible.  Almost as impossible as explaining it.  So, I sat there... arms out, knees bent and my head down.  Totally spinning in about how I couldn't do it and and and.  And my pilates instructor went around my body saying, "from here.  not here.  Here.  Here."  And he kept his hand there.  So gentle.  No judgment.  

 The Moment.

I closed my eyes and just breathed.  One big exhale.  Focusing on where his hand was, I lifted my knees and sent the carriage up and back, up and back... I finished and came out of the haze.  I was, for the first time in a very long time, truly and purely connected with my body.  Not judging it for what it could or couldn't do.  Not berating it for what it was showing or not showing.  Not belittling it for how long it was taking to get in shape.  Not insulting it for what it looked like.  No, there was no DVD commmentary track to that exercise.  We were finally united with no judgments.  Just two little weirdos tied together and we were going to win this goddamnned three legged race no matter what AND without calling each other names.

(this is also the Promised Land.  hello.)

For me, that's the promised land.  To see this in a healthy and happy light instead of a judgmental, punitive, fear based boot camp.  Ever since the Cancer, this isn't about thinness anymore - I almost wish it was.  It was easier when I could just yo-yo however much weight and I could still hate myself?  Win/Win.  But this?  Connection?  Love?   That's the hardest part of this and it's one that I have to battle every day.  For me, the judgmental killjoy voices in my own head were somehow proof that I was "working on it."  I know, I would think.  I hate myself, too.  Right?  Aren't I gross???  It was my constant companion.  A hobby.

I want to be at a place where pounds are just like miles ticking off on some road trip.  Just because you're 300 miles outside of San Francisco doesn't mean you're shitty and oh my GOD WHO WOULD LOVE YOU????  Nope.  They're just miles.  And if you keep driving.  Keep moving forward.  You'll get there.

We'll get there.


Here are my progress pictures.  
(Left: January/2012, Middle: January 2013, Right:  July 2013)

I'm pretty nervous about posting them.. oh the cruelty of never knowing when you're taking your Before photo.  

Sigh.  

We'll get there.  




Tuesday, November 19, 2013

"Brave" by Sara Bareilles



"You can be amazing, you can turn a phrase into a weapon or a drug. You can be the outcast or be the backlash of somebody's lack of love, or you can start speaking up. Nothing’s gonna hurt you the way that words do when they settle ‘neath your skin. Kept on the inside and no sunlight sometimes a shadow wins. I wonder what would happen if you say what you wanna say and let the words fall out. Honestly I wanna see you be brave with what you wanna say, and let the words fall out, honestly I wanna see you be brave. 

Everybody’s been there, everybody’s been stared down by the enemy. Fallen for the fear and done some disappearing, bow down to the mighty. Don’t run, stop holding your tongue. Maybe there’s a way out of the cage where you live, maybe one of these days you can let the light in show me how big your brave is."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUQsqBqxoR4

Monday, November 18, 2013

Manic Pixie Dream Girl

*I'm going to add a few notes before this:
1) I never knew what a Manic Pixie Dream Girl was even though I lived in Hollywood when both Elizabethtown & Garden State came out, and saw them both.
2) I get the attraction, it makes sense, but
3) I decided long ago I am NOT a white knight.  My purpose isn't to save anybody but to live fully.  If along the way I get to help and love and serve people, that fits with who I am, but I don't want to save the person I'm supposed to be with everyday.

bonus) I may love the song, "Fix You" by Coldplay (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJp8Mg9rjq0) but I stand by #3 above.

2nd bonus) I'm a poet & writer, too, and am all about original love stories, not ones I can steal from the movies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/fashion/uh-honey-thats-not-your-line.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

Uh, Honey, That’s Not Your Line



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Moonlight from the window illuminated the tattoo of a phoenix covering the left side of her torso. I traced it with my finger, from just below her armpit, over the speed bumps of her ribs, to her hipbone. I had only seen tattoos like this in the movies, never in person, never this close and never in my own bed.
Brian Rea

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I knew I had found my very own Manic Pixie Dream Girl.
The film critic Nathan Rabin of the A.V. Club coined the term Manic Pixie Dream Girl to describe the love interest in Cameron Crowe’s “Elizabethtown,” though the character type has been in many movies before and since (Natalie Portman in “Garden State” being perhaps the quintessential example).
The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is now an indie-film cliché, more a collection of quirks than a person, who exists to be the perfect love interest for the male protagonist. These weird (but beautiful) girls appreciate shy, sad, creative boys and teach them to enjoy life again though sex, love and various activities done in the rain.
Though often perky, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl will be troubled as well. She straddles the narrow line between quirky and crazy, mysterious and strange, sexy and slutty; she is perfectly imperfect. And that imperfection is the key, because a Manic Pixie Dream Girl must be messed up enough to need saving, so the powerless guy can do something heroic in the third act.
I met my Manic Pixie Dream Girl in a sketch comedy class. On the first day she wore a bright red dress and cowboy boots as if attired by the costume department. She had the olive skin and dark eyes of her half-Mexican lineage, a look one might describe as “exotic,” though she would punch you in the arm if you used that term. She had a boyfriend, so we couldn’t date, but we chatted online, learning about each other’s lives while we traded YouTube clips of our favorite “Saturday Night Live” sketches.
One hot summer afternoon, we met at a bar with the intention of writing sketches together, but our plans changed, as they often do with Manic Pixie Dream Girls. We never opened our notebooks and instead went on an impromptu bar crawl.
Each new bar found us a bit drunker and sitting closer together. Our knees touched under tables and our shoulders brushed together as we walked. We sat so close I could smell her sweat, though the chemicals of infatuation turned it into a sweet perfume.
The night ended with a drunken attempted kiss by me, which she ducked under.
“I can’t cheat on my boyfriend,” she said. “Even if things aren’t going well.”
Not going well. I had hope. More than hope, it turned out. Within a month she broke up with him, and not long after she and her tattoo ended up in my bed.
I’m not a nerd by any means, but I’ve never been cool in the classic rebel way. For example, I secretly enjoy doing my taxes. This girl, though, was cool. She could get a drink at a hopelessly crowded bar. At parties she enchanted men with jokes and dancing and loud laughter. I could see the envy in their eyes when she left with me.
She made me feel cool by proxy, like a human V.I.P. pass. Impulsive, erratic and electric, she was my opposite, and the juxtaposition thrilled me. I fell deeply in love. And she loved me back.
My Manic Pixie Dream Girl was either all-in or all-out on everything she did, so things moved quickly. Within a year we moved to Los Angeles, where we lived together. I had never lived with a woman before and loved the intimacy it brought, but the domesticity troubled her. She began to freak out periodically about our future together.
Whatever the cause (the purchase of dining room chairs sparked the first), these freak-outs followed the same script. She would cry and yell and pace around the apartment while declaring us incompatible. I would stay calm and explain how our differences made us work so well together by strengthening each other’s weaknesses.
I always justified why she shouldn’t be freaking out, why we should be together, in essence, why her feelings were “wrong.” (Shocker: people’s feelings are never wrong.) I didn’t mind the episodes so much. I considered them the symptom of my Manic Pixie Dream Girl being perfectly imperfect.
As we approached three years together, she struggled with a bout of depression and it created a rift between us. We had been a couple that did everything together, but she started going out without me.
On several occasions I woke up at 3 or 4 in the morning to find she wasn’t home yet and hadn’t called. I would lie in bed, vacillating between worry and anger, calling her every half-hour. If she answered, she would usually refuse my offer to pick her up and say something like, “No, I’m still having fun here.”
Sometimes I didn’t know where “here” was, if “here” belonged to a guy or a girl.
In the morning I would question her whereabouts, more disapproving parent than angry lover, playing my role of the calm, rational, square boyfriend. She would just nod, say a perfunctory sorry, and go to sleep. At night she was the Manic Pixie Dream Girl for other people; during the day I got the Hung-Over Depressed Pixie Nightmare. I knew our relationship was in trouble, but I still loved her and believed this was just the difficult third act before “happily ever after.”
One weekend I went camping with friends, trying to give her space. Before I left I wrote her a letter (five pages, single-spaced) about our relationship. I told her how much I loved her, how I wouldn’t stop fighting for “us,” and concluded by saying, “I know my love can’t fix your depression, but I still want you to know my love’s here and always will be.”
I put the letter on her desk with flowers and departed. I spent the 12-hour drive to Lake Powell waiting for her to call, but the phone just sat in the cupholder, silent for hours and hours. Late in the afternoon it finally beeped — not a call, but a text message. She thanked me for the flowers and didn’t even mention the letter. I knew then our relationship was over.
While the Manic Pixie Dream Girl always rescues the man from the doldrums of life in the first act of the movie, the roles reverse in the end, with him ultimately saving her with his love. Beyond the coolness and excitement they bestow, this is the true gift of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, because fixing something, especially when it’s a person, is what makes a man feel most valuable.
When I said in my letter I knew my love couldn’t fix her depression, I was lying. I thought my love could fix everything, including her depression. That letter was my Grand Gesture, the one that saves the relationship and the girl. It was my Lloyd Dobler moment, holding a boombox over my head, blasting “In Your Eyes.”
In the movies the romantic gesture works, but it failed me in real life. This was like Diane Court coming to the window only to shut it so she could go back to sleep. I gave her my heart; she thanked me for the $12.99 flowers.
What makes movies magical is not that incredible things happen in them. Incredible things happen in real life. No, what makes movies magical is they end right after the incredible thing happens. They stop after the war is over, after the team wins the game, after the boy gets the girl. But in life the story keeps going and the boy can later lose the girl. “Happily ever after” is too boring for a Manic Pixie Dream Girl.
Not long after I returned from my trip, she dumped me. There would be no effort to save the relationship; no longer all-in, she was all-out. It seemed my love couldn’t “fix” her after all, and even worse, she didn’t want to be fixed. Needing to be repaired is the No. 1 one rule of being a Manic Pixie Dream Girl — how could she ignore it?
She could ignore it because she wasn’t a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. She wasn’t a character or plot device in my story, or some damaged creature with deep despair that I and only I could cure as part of my “hero’s journey.” She was simply someone who had fallen out of love with her boyfriend. Which happens. It’s really uncinematic, but it happens.
So our story ended, not with credits rolling to freeze our relationship in eternal bliss, but with crying and the division of possessions. (I kept the dining room chairs; she kept the old-timey typewriters.) It took a while, but I found someone new.
This time I’m trying to make ours an original love story instead of one I stole from the movies.
Matteson Perry is a Los Angeles-based screenwriter working on his first book, a collection of dating stories.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Joy & Pain

"Sometimes you don’t know you’re taking the first step through a door — until you’re already inside.

And no matter what room you step into — every space holds the possibility of this profound joy and deep pain and the two always mingle together. There is no other place to arrive at.

There’s only one address anyone lives at and it’s always a duplex: Joy and pain always co-habit every season of life.

Accept them both and keep company with the joy while the pain does it’s necessary renovations."

~ Ann VosKamp

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Beat the Farm!!!

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:9990856
http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/recap?gameId=333200030
Final

(4) Stanford 17

(8-2, 6-2 Pac-12)

USC 20

(8-3, 5-2 Pac-12)
Coverage: ABC
8:00 PM ET, November 16, 2013
Los Angeles Coliseum, LOS ANGELES, CA
1234T
#4STAN737017
USC1430320
Top Performers
Passing: C. Kessler (USC) - 288 YDS, 1 TD
Rushing: T. Gaffney (STAN) - 24 CAR, 158 YDS, 2 TD
Receiving: N. Agholor (USC) - 8 REC, 104 YDS

USC stuns No. 4 Stanford on Andre Heidari FG with 19 seconds left

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USC Upsets No. 4 Stanford
SportsCenter Highlight of the Night: Cody Kessler led USC down the field to set up a game-winning field goal and help the Trojans beat No. 4 Stanford 20-17.Tags: USCStanfordCody KesslerKevin Hogan,Andre HeidariHighlight of the NightSportsCenter
LOS ANGELES -- The Coliseum stands emptied in waves that flowed onto the field after Stanford's final fumble.
Thousands of Southern California fans enveloped the Trojans to celebrate an improbable win secured by an interim coach, an inconsistent kicker and a thin defense that wouldn't break.
USC's surge for Ed Orgeron had just swallowed up No. 4 Stanford's national title hopes.
Andre Heidari kicked a 47-yard field goal with 19 seconds to play, and a stalwart defense repeatedly came up big in USC's 20-17 upset of the Cardinal on Saturday night.
Cody Kessler passed for 288 yards as the revitalized Trojans (8-3, 5-2 Pac-12) earned their fifth win in six games under the irrepressible Orgeron, who replaced the fired Lane Kiffin in late September. Orgeron immediately returned fun to a dour program -- and wins have followed, none bigger than this streak-snapping win over powerful Stanford.
"In our tight-knit family, there was a belief that we were going to find a way to win the game,'' Orgeron said. "I'm proud of our young men. This is something that they've wanted for a long time now.''
USC's remarkable defensive performance included two fourth-quarter interceptions and a season-low 17 points from the Cardinal (8-2, 6-2), who followed up last week's win over Oregon by getting knocked out of the BCS title chase and maybe the Rose Bowl race as well.
Heidari nearly lost his job twice this season, and he missed an extra point in the first quarter. But the junior coolly nailed the tiebreaking field goal -- and then got an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for running the length of the field to celebrate it.
"They all said, 'We know you got this. You do it every day in practice,''' Heidari said of his teammates. "They believed in me.''
Moments later, thousands of USC fans flooded the field.
Stanford had won in its last three trips to the Coliseum, including a triple-overtime thriller two years ago, and its last four meetings with USC overall.
Soma Vainuku caught an early TD pass andJavorius Allen rushed for a score for USC, which played 38 straight scoreless minutes until Heidari's kick. Nelson Agholor had eight catches for 104 yards, while Marqise Lee had six catches for 83 yards -- and both receivers made big plays on USC's final drive.
"I don't know if I pulled them together,'' Orgeron said. "I think they just came together. The leadership of this program is really coming to the forefront.''
Tyler Gaffney rushed for 158 yards and two touchdowns for Stanford, which had won three straight while closing in on the chance to host the Pac-12 title game for the second straight year. Kevin Hogan went 14 of 25 for 127 yards, but the Cardinal couldn't regain the lead after trailing 17-10 at half, despite repeatedly getting close.
"I think this is the first time anyone on this team has lost to them,'' Gaffney said. "It's a tough thing to swallow.''
Stanford tied it with Gaffney's 18-yard TD run on the first drive of the third quarter, but couldn't score on six drives in the final 23 minutes, managing just 88 yards -- 75 on a single drive ending in Dion Bailey's interception. USC's offense also struggled throughout the second half, but the Trojans' sanctions-depleted defense kept it close despite using just two substitutes for most of the night.
"They're a good team, and they got healthy at the wrong time for us,'' Stanford coach David Shaw said. "In the second half, we did a heck of a job defensively. We just didn't make enough plays on offensively. That's not going to win on the road in this conference.''
Bailey intercepted Hogan's third-down pass at the USC 6 with about 10½ minutes to play, killing what seemed certain to be Stanford's go-ahead drive. Su'a Cravens then intercepted a tipped pass at the USC 44 with 3 minutes to play, giving another chance to the Trojans' offense.
After Lee caught a 13-yard slant pass over midfield on fourth-and-2, the Trojans reached the Stanford 21 before two straight yardage-losing plays pushed them back to the 30 -- and Heidari still nailed his kick.
"This is definitely the most electrifying game I've been a part of in the four years I've been here,'' Bailey said.
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Cody Kessler
Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports
Trojans QB Cody Kessler celebrates Andre Heidari's game-winning field goal against Stanford on Saturday night.
USC hadn't beaten a ranked opponent since 2011, but the Trojans have played with ever-increasing fire and confidence for Orgeron, the longtime defensive line coach whose raw enthusiasm has worn off on the program. Orgeron wasn't thought to be a serious candidate for the Trojans' full-time job when he took over for Kiffin, but his players are pushing his name deeper into the discussion with each victory.
"Obviously there's going to be some decisions made here after we play UCLA (on Nov. 30),'' Orgeron said. "That's out of my hands.''
Stanford betrayed a few nerves early. The Cardinal burned two timeouts and committed an illegal-snap penalty on the game's first drive, and Ty Montgomery dropped two passes in the opening minutes.
USC's opening drive was smooth, with Lee making a tiptoe sideline catch before Vainuku came out of the backfield for a play-action 1-yard TD catch just 6:13 in. Gaffney scored on a 35-yard run moments later when he popped out the back of a scrimmage pile and sprinted past the slumbering USC defense, but the Trojans answered with another long drive capped by Allen's 1-yard TD run and a 2-point conversion catch by Lee.
Kessler was outstanding in the pocket and on the run, completing 10 straight early passes before Heidari's first field goal put the Trojans up by 10 points early in the second quarter. Stanford added a field goal with 17 seconds left in the first half. After Gaffney capped a 92-yard drive after halftime with his TD run up the middle, Stanford forced a fumble by Kessler at the USC 19 _ but the Cardinal's field goal attempt was blocked.
Former Stanford lineman Jonathan Martin watched the game from the sideline in a backward Cardinal cap. Martin left the Miami Dolphins last month after accusations of bullying from teammates.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
ESPNLosAngeles.com 

Team Stat Comparison

 
STAN
USC
1st Downs1818
Total Yards337311
Passing127288
Rushing21023
Penalties6-704-45
3rd Down Conversions4-124-14
4th Down Conversions0-01-1
Turnovers31
Possession30:3429:26

Passing Leaders

StanfordC/ATTYDSAVGTDINT
Hogan14/251275.102
USCC/ATTYDSAVGTDINT
Kessler25/372887.810

Rushing Leaders

StanfordCARYDSAVGTDLG
Gaffney241586.6235
Hogan4184.509
USCCARYDSAVGTDLG
Allen16261.6116
Madden6111.807

Receiving Leaders

StanfordRECYDSAVGTDLG
Rector24422.0028
Montgomery4235.8012
USCRECYDSAVGTDLG
Agholor810413.0026
Lee68313.8027

Scoring Summary

FIRST QUARTERSTANUSC
TD08:47Soma Vainuku 1 Yd Pass From Cody Kessler (Pat Failed)
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06
TD06:46Tyler Gaffney 35 Yd Run (Conrad Ukropina Kick)
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76
TD02:34Javorius Allen 1 Yd Run (Cody Kessler Pass To Marqise Lee For Two-Point Conversion)
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714
SECOND QUARTERSTANUSC
FG09:05Andre Heidari 23 Yd
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717
FG00:17Conrad Ukropina 27 Yd
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1017
THIRD QUARTERSTANUSC
TD08:22Tyler Gaffney 18 Yd Run (Conrad Ukropina Kick)
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1717
FOURTH QUARTERSTANUSC
FG00:19Andre Heidari 47 Yd
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1720

Research Notes

USC's 8 first downs in the first quarter Saturday were more than Oregon had in the first HALF last week at Stanford (7).
This is the first time USC has beaten a AP-ranked Stanford team since Oct. 25, 1986 (Stanford was No. 19).
Stanford scored a touchdown on its first drive of the second half to tie the game at 17. In their six drives after tying the game, the Cardinal had more turnovers (3) than points scored (0).
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USC is looking to defeat a ranked opponent for the 1st time since it knocked off No. 4 Oregon on Nov. 19, 2011. That Oregon team had just won an emotional Top-10 matchup the week before facing USC (No. 6 Oregon def. No. 3 Stanford on Nov. 12, 2011). Like 2011 Oregon, AP No. 5 Stanford -- USC's opponent on Saturday -- won an emotional Top-10 matchup last week (Then No. 6 Stanford def. No. 3 Oregon on Nov. 7).
Stanford's Tyler Gaffney had a school-record 45 carries in last week's win over Oregon recent history suggests he can bounce back. The last three FBS players with at least 45 carries in a game rushed for more than 150 yards in his next game that season.
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