Love and Drive-Ins
May. 25th, 2013 10:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraLow pressure front has brought rain and unseasonably cold temperatures. I'm watching the chemicals parade through my brain. It's a funeral march, and I have to keep reminding myself: These thoughts have nothing to do with me. They're all about the weather, the absence of full spectrum sunlight.
The meta-question is always: How can I wrestle/ransom/earn/beg/borrow/extort more time to work on my own projects? This is the perpetual dilemma that creatives face, I suppose, and the answer is: I can't. You either have to make it happen on the terms you're facing right here in this imperfect present tense, or it won't happen. Persistence rather than talent is the winning ticket.
In the last few weeks I've noticed that I'm thinking like a lone wolf again. It's a transition back to a self I last knew 30 years ago, before I had Max. When I was the active custodian of children, of course, my destiny, my function was very caught up in actively helping them grow. I was constantly looking for buses that might try to mow them down so I could throw myself in front of those buses, sacrifice myself on their behalf.
And then, from the moment Ben and I connected, he became the other voice in my inner dialogue. This was something completely unexpected: I never expected to meet another human soul on that moonscape. Despite all the negatives in our relationship – God knows there were plenty of those – he remained that other voice for a long time.
The kids have spun off now – I'll always be their Mom, of course, but I'm not their guardian any longer. I've forged a pretty strong adult relationship with Max and hope to do so with Robin.
For two years after the marriage crumbled, Ben remained the Other Voice. Our minds didn't stop meshing. We hung out together an awful lot for a couple that was no longer together. But I think his illness has changed the way his brain works – that is a known side effect of hepatic disease, of course. Not written about very much: It makes people stupid. Last spring, I noticed his thoughts had gotten sort of… muddy. I started beating him consistently at word games. He was hospitalized right before I left, and I remember going to see him for the last time right before he was discharged.
"It's the end of the movie," I said.
Yes, I know: clunky melodrama. Really, it was more like the end of the acid trip. I knew that when we met again, we would be different people with some overlap in the Venn diagrams of our respective personal histories, and of course, Robin – the living embodiment of all that's best in our respective DNA repertoires. But we wouldn't know each other beyond that.
I liked being tracked by Ben. He knew me so much better than I knew myself.
We text very frequently, often for hours at a time, but it's like Flowers for Algernon – I can see his mind shrinking. These days he texts me mostly about the TV shows he watches.
He doesn't write anymore.
Oddly enough, this was the Big Deal in our breakup. He hated me because I had stolen his voice; I had expropriated his ideas, his words, his concepts and put my own logo on them. I had extinguished him.
The little boy was looking for his voice.
(The king of the crickets had it.)
In a drop of water
the little boy was looking for his voice.
I do not want it for speaking with;
I will make a ring of it
so that he may wear my silence
on his little finger
In a drop of water
the little boy was looking for his voice.
(The captive voice, far away,
put on a cricket's clothes.)
But, of course, that's what writers do. We cannibalize other people. We eat their hearts and spit them out in forms that are just recognizable enough to be horrifying.
He doesn't write anymore, but I do.
'Nuff said.
In other news, Mizz Jeanna opened the drive-in and is already exhausted. Her landlord has offered to sell her the property and front the cost of the digital projectors for $300 K – he'll finance it over 20 years.
On the surface, it sounds like a good deal
But it's not.
For one thing, it commits Jeanna to working the drive-in till she's nearly 80. That's just not doable.
For another, she'd have to figure out a way to keep the drive-in open all year round, which given its location in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains is just not feasible.
Most importantly, I don't think the property is worth $250,000. Maybe it's worth half that.
I told her I'd help her try to figure out a way to come up with the money for the digital projectors. She rejected my nonprofit idea, and now has me investigating Indiegogo, which I personally don't think is the way to go. I mean, I don't get their pricing model at all, and I don't think she understands that she'd have to give something on top of that to potential investors – what is her value proposition there? With Kickstarter, people are supporting you because they love your project.
She's also facing an insurance crisis. I suppose this is more fallout from terrorism – insurance providers are increasingly reluctant to underwrite large group venues where people can get blown up. Her insurance company didn't merely raise her rates; they informed her abruptly that they are canceling her insurance altogether as of August 1.
"What are you going to do?" I asked.
"I don't know, Patty. I don't know," she sighed. "Maybe I'll just give it all up. Cancel my phone, get rid of the TV. Live very simply. Grow my own food –"
"Jeanna, that's ridiculous. You can't do that."
"Why not?"
I sighed. "Jeanna, do you belong to the Outdoor Theater Owners trade organization?"
"No. I don't care about that kind of shit."
"Well, Jeanna, you ought to care about that kind of shit. And you ought to join. I mean, seriously. The insurance crisis is probably something that everyone in the business is facing right now, and trade groups are your best bet for finding another insurance carrier. You can't stay open without that."
The bizarre thing, of course, is that the city of Las Vegas, New Mexico is basing its entire tourism campaign around Jeanna's drive-in. You'd think that someone in the Chamber of Commerce would have some kind of idea that might help her. Next week she's going to be a feature story in Santa Fe's big newspaper –
"I told the guy who's interviewing me to call the story, Drive-In Owner Gives Up," said Jeanna.
"No, Jeanna," I said. "You tell the guy who's interviewing you to call the story, Plucky Drive-In Owner Vows to Keep Fighting. You kind of angle the story for that Peter Pan moment when everybody who's reading the damn piece closes their eyes and chants, I believe in drive-ins. One must always remain relentlessly positive in all dealings with the press."
"Plucky, huh?" said Jeanna.
"Plucky," I agreed.
The meta-question is always: How can I wrestle/ransom/earn/beg/borrow/extort more time to work on my own projects? This is the perpetual dilemma that creatives face, I suppose, and the answer is: I can't. You either have to make it happen on the terms you're facing right here in this imperfect present tense, or it won't happen. Persistence rather than talent is the winning ticket.
In the last few weeks I've noticed that I'm thinking like a lone wolf again. It's a transition back to a self I last knew 30 years ago, before I had Max. When I was the active custodian of children, of course, my destiny, my function was very caught up in actively helping them grow. I was constantly looking for buses that might try to mow them down so I could throw myself in front of those buses, sacrifice myself on their behalf.
And then, from the moment Ben and I connected, he became the other voice in my inner dialogue. This was something completely unexpected: I never expected to meet another human soul on that moonscape. Despite all the negatives in our relationship – God knows there were plenty of those – he remained that other voice for a long time.
The kids have spun off now – I'll always be their Mom, of course, but I'm not their guardian any longer. I've forged a pretty strong adult relationship with Max and hope to do so with Robin.
For two years after the marriage crumbled, Ben remained the Other Voice. Our minds didn't stop meshing. We hung out together an awful lot for a couple that was no longer together. But I think his illness has changed the way his brain works – that is a known side effect of hepatic disease, of course. Not written about very much: It makes people stupid. Last spring, I noticed his thoughts had gotten sort of… muddy. I started beating him consistently at word games. He was hospitalized right before I left, and I remember going to see him for the last time right before he was discharged.
"It's the end of the movie," I said.
Yes, I know: clunky melodrama. Really, it was more like the end of the acid trip. I knew that when we met again, we would be different people with some overlap in the Venn diagrams of our respective personal histories, and of course, Robin – the living embodiment of all that's best in our respective DNA repertoires. But we wouldn't know each other beyond that.
I liked being tracked by Ben. He knew me so much better than I knew myself.
We text very frequently, often for hours at a time, but it's like Flowers for Algernon – I can see his mind shrinking. These days he texts me mostly about the TV shows he watches.
He doesn't write anymore.
Oddly enough, this was the Big Deal in our breakup. He hated me because I had stolen his voice; I had expropriated his ideas, his words, his concepts and put my own logo on them. I had extinguished him.
The little boy was looking for his voice.
(The king of the crickets had it.)
In a drop of water
the little boy was looking for his voice.
I do not want it for speaking with;
I will make a ring of it
so that he may wear my silence
on his little finger
In a drop of water
the little boy was looking for his voice.
(The captive voice, far away,
put on a cricket's clothes.)
But, of course, that's what writers do. We cannibalize other people. We eat their hearts and spit them out in forms that are just recognizable enough to be horrifying.
He doesn't write anymore, but I do.
'Nuff said.
In other news, Mizz Jeanna opened the drive-in and is already exhausted. Her landlord has offered to sell her the property and front the cost of the digital projectors for $300 K – he'll finance it over 20 years.
On the surface, it sounds like a good deal
But it's not.
For one thing, it commits Jeanna to working the drive-in till she's nearly 80. That's just not doable.
For another, she'd have to figure out a way to keep the drive-in open all year round, which given its location in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains is just not feasible.
Most importantly, I don't think the property is worth $250,000. Maybe it's worth half that.
I told her I'd help her try to figure out a way to come up with the money for the digital projectors. She rejected my nonprofit idea, and now has me investigating Indiegogo, which I personally don't think is the way to go. I mean, I don't get their pricing model at all, and I don't think she understands that she'd have to give something on top of that to potential investors – what is her value proposition there? With Kickstarter, people are supporting you because they love your project.
She's also facing an insurance crisis. I suppose this is more fallout from terrorism – insurance providers are increasingly reluctant to underwrite large group venues where people can get blown up. Her insurance company didn't merely raise her rates; they informed her abruptly that they are canceling her insurance altogether as of August 1.
"What are you going to do?" I asked.
"I don't know, Patty. I don't know," she sighed. "Maybe I'll just give it all up. Cancel my phone, get rid of the TV. Live very simply. Grow my own food –"
"Jeanna, that's ridiculous. You can't do that."
"Why not?"
I sighed. "Jeanna, do you belong to the Outdoor Theater Owners trade organization?"
"No. I don't care about that kind of shit."
"Well, Jeanna, you ought to care about that kind of shit. And you ought to join. I mean, seriously. The insurance crisis is probably something that everyone in the business is facing right now, and trade groups are your best bet for finding another insurance carrier. You can't stay open without that."
The bizarre thing, of course, is that the city of Las Vegas, New Mexico is basing its entire tourism campaign around Jeanna's drive-in. You'd think that someone in the Chamber of Commerce would have some kind of idea that might help her. Next week she's going to be a feature story in Santa Fe's big newspaper –
"I told the guy who's interviewing me to call the story, Drive-In Owner Gives Up," said Jeanna.
"No, Jeanna," I said. "You tell the guy who's interviewing you to call the story, Plucky Drive-In Owner Vows to Keep Fighting. You kind of angle the story for that Peter Pan moment when everybody who's reading the damn piece closes their eyes and chants, I believe in drive-ins. One must always remain relentlessly positive in all dealings with the press."
"Plucky, huh?" said Jeanna.
"Plucky," I agreed.
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no subject
Date: 2013-05-25 07:14 pm (UTC)