fragile china rabbit in a bull shop.

"You disappoint me."

-Pellegrina, from The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

I've written here before about Kate DiCamillo's The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. If you haven't read it, your heart is missing out. So is your soul. 

I just finished reading this to my class. I cried two times in front of them, reading it. Two little girls and a little boy cried with me and two other kind-hearted children brought us tissues. I'd stop in different places and ask them what they were wondering - what's going on? Why did he or she say or do that? What will happen now? They made connections, they laughed at all the right parts (mostly when Edward the china rabbit is naked), they gasped at the horrible moments. At the end of the book, they clapped. We all agreed: this book is an amazing book. None of them increased their reading levels. None of their writing improved. They certainly didn't get better at number sense. But their connections and hearts exploded, just a little. And I fell in love with them all even harder.

You guys, I've probably been given a classroom of the most generous and good-hearted children in the history of this school. I just met with most of their parents, and I understand why that is now, because their parents are sweethearts. I don't know if I can move their data the way the new system is demanding I move it. Right now, I don't care. I would just like to sit and read them stories all day, and listen to theirs, and teach them how to write them down. We can pull in Math and Language Arts and Science and Social Studies wherever. But can we do it via Story? Please, new public education system?

Edward Tulane is a story that'll speak to you. If it doesn't, something's very wrong with you. It's a story that I'm just going to re-read on my own over the coming days. Because as I was reading to them, it hit me: bits and pieces of Edward's story are bits and pieces of mine. I am on a miraculous journey, of sorts. And along the way, I'm learning how important it is to stay open. To remember that not everyone I meet on my journey is going to disappoint me. To do this, I think I'm going to have to be more discerning and teach myself to figure out who's a friend disguised as an enemy, and who's an enemy disguised as a friend. Because this is where I always tend to get lost and fucked up.

A friend told me last night that I'm too trusting. I let people in too far, too quickly. I give them too much information, before I know if they're even the kind of person who will handle what I've given them with care. Other friends, in the past, have echoed this about me. C once told me my naivete is my best and worst quality. 

Yet on an ironically bizarre flip side, I have so many trust issues because I've had so many people in the past teach me that being very direct and confrontational is a Bad Thing. And because I've had my heart broken in the past so many times or I've been taught over and over that I'm not enough, it's left me in a situation where I usually don't trust ME. So I end up bonding with people who are very bossy. Or the highly manipulative. Or dishonest game players. Or just dishonest people period. Or maybe they're all just very very nice, but are too much of a fucked up mess to really be a true friend to anyone. 

So here's what happens: I meet someone along my journey. They seem kind and good-hearted. They're smart and funny and I really just thoroughly enjoy them as a human being. I don't ask much from anyone except that they be real with me, and don't play games or manipulate me. All I ever ask of people is to mean what they say and say what they mean. And that's because when I tell YOU something, I mean it. If I can't mean it, I don't say it. What I say to you comes from my heart. I don't know any other way to do it.

So what happens is this: they say kind, friendly, good-hearted, and funny things to me, and I heart them real hard. They promise me they're my friend, and I believe them. Because when I say those types of things I always mean them, and so I just assume when others say those types of things, they mean them too. And then I tell them too much. I let them in too quickly. I assume, too swiftly, that other people don't have hidden agendas. I suck at games, and it never ceases to shock me when it dawns on me other people actually enjoy games, the thrill of game strategy. This is what disappoints me most about other human beings, I think: when they treat other human beings as games. People are not games. We are not.

So when something happens that really underscores that this is not the case, that someone has said they are my friend and then does something a real friend wouldn't do, my heart is always broken. People disappoint me. If you've read Edward Tulane, and you are as fascinated by the character of Pellegrina as I am, you'll completely understand me when I say that. 

Here's another thing about me: I'm naive but not stupid. When your heart has been broken by others enough, you learn. When someone's behavior starts to change, you know to start reading between the lines. Because all your past experiences have taught you this is where the disappointment, the heart break part starts. You wake up to what's really going on, because even when the other person insists they're telling the truth you know they aren't. Your gut knows something isn't jiving. But you've also learned it's not something you can confront them with, the conversation will be exhausting or upsetting. Because maybe they really believe it's the truth. Or maybe they're very desperate not to be seen as a bad person, or whatever their motivation is. 

I promise, Internet: I'm naive but not stupid. Please, please don't ever treat me like I'm stupid. That's the absolute worst thing someone can do with me, or anyone else for that matter. Just be honest. I hate it when people aren't honest about what they really want. Once I figure out you've begun treating me as a game and aren't being honest with me, I lose all respect for you. And then I get really really angry. And then I get really really sad. You disappoint me.

And I'm too trusting, but once you teach me that you're not really trustworthy, once you really show me how you weren't worthy of however close I let you get to my protective bubble, we are done. You're going to have to come through in a really big way to prove to me that I'm wrong about you. In my experience, game players aren't really interested in doing that. Once they figure out they've been figured out, game over. They go find a new person to start up a new game with. But who really won your game? Who lost? Seriously, I could write blog entries on that for days. (Answer: there are no winners when you do this. Everybody loses.)

I'm trying not to build as many walls. I'm trying to learn to live outside a protective bubble. But other people keep disappointing me, and so I find myself continuing to lay bricks, gluing pieces of reinforced steel to my bubble's walls. This has made me really angry. But also very, very sad. Just like Edward Tulane, the fragile china rabbit.

The good news is that The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane is also about hope and redemption. Really, it's a perfect example of American mythologist Joseph Campbell's the Hero's Journey tale - someone is called to action, to take a journey. Along the way s/he meets friends who are enemies and enemies who are friends. S/he fights many battles, both winning and losing along the way. Finally, towards the end, the hero is losing everything; s/he has a Dark Night of the Soul moment in which the decision must be made: go on or give up? If the hero gives up, all will be lost. If the hero chooses to go on, then s/he must make a change. The change will be the hardest thing s/he has ever done, but the transformation after it's over will be magnificent and all will be won. 

I really want to put the Coda (the wrap up at the end of the book) to Edward Tulane here for you to read, because it's probably the most moving and lovely summary of a story I've ever read. But I'm worried there are people who've come here and haven't yet read this book, and I don't want to ruin it for them. If you're in a Dark Night of the Soul, this story will break your heart wide open. If you're not, it'll get you through a Dark Night once you're there. And if you're really living Life, you will be. 

So I'll just leave you with my Coda:

Once, there was a girl who loved the world. She loved its mountains, its oceans, its prairies, its forests. She loved its animals and its people. She trusted someone completely, who broke her heart. But she still loved the world. So she trusted again. And someone else broke her heart. But she still believed in love and the goodness of the world, and so she trusted again. And someone else disappointed her. And on and on this went, until one day she decided to live in a very hard bubble so no one would ever disappoint her or break her heart again. 

But her heart wasn't really happy in the bubble. So once in awhile, she'd let it out. And it would get punched, and then she'd get angry. She'd go back into her bubble where she'd punch and kick at the world outside, hoping some of the punches or kicks would hurt the world even though she knew: if you're in a protective bubble of steel how could it? 

What she really wanted was someone to love her, understand her, and accept her as is. All she ever wanted was a good friend. What she really hoped for was someone who would be a friend who didn't also want to play games with her at the same time. The girl sucked at games. Because what she really wanted most of all was for someone to mean what they say, and say what they mean.

.......that's it. That's as far as I've gotten writing my Coda, since my journey hasn't ended yet. And this morning I'm also thinking about C, whose heart I have smashed into tiny pieces. I wonder how his heart is going to recover, and where that karma will be written, ultimately, as part of my story's Coda. I think because I'm painfully aware that, once you break someone's heart, once you disappoint them, they'll become part of your story and you theirs. Forever and ever. Whether you want that or not. Tread lightly when you invite someone into your game, sweet Reader(s). The stakes are always so high.

At any rate, Edward's Coda is a ton better, because he kinda sorta gets his heart's desire at the end but in a way he didn't expect. And isn't that just how Life is? The Universe will always give you what your heart has always wanted, but maybe not in ways you'd have ever expected. So be careful what you wish for, and what you decide to invite in.

storytelling+kindness=positivity at ridiculous levels.

This person's name is John Emmet Tracy.
He is one of my favorite human beings right now.
You should watch every single TV show
and movie he's in from now on.

So Internet, I want to write about something really, really kind I saw the other day. You know how I've been saying here for, well, at least since I started this blog 2 or 3 years ago, that kindness is incredibly important to me right now. This rock we all fly around on is full of dark and crazy. It has people who'll make you want to grab those most precious to you and find a nice, deserted island to live on (which could lead to interbreeding issues and turn your descendants' skin blue so it only works in theory because stupid biology...but I digress). 

I can't mention her by name (unless she reads this and officially gives me permission and promises not to sue me and if that happens I'll come back and edit), but I have made a friend on Twitter who's suffering all kinds of sad health problems. I've been very blessed not to have these, but I have other friends and family who've not been so fortunate. And so I can see, from watching their struggles, that when you are very very sick Life is...you know. Crap. And yet here is this lovely person who is finding ways to find joy where she can and not only that, she spreads it out to the rest of us. That's hard - if it were me, I think there's a fair amount of evidence on this blog that I'd be typing out pieces of melancholia and woe-is-me. Spreading good when you feel bad is hard, yet it's heady stuff. God love her.

I write here all the time about the power of Story. Stories are how we connect to each other - they're how we evaluate our past, our present, and our future; they're how we share our dreams; they're how we build on what others before us have built. Really, storytelling is what makes us different. I don't think any other creatures on this planet do it...maybe dolphins. And gorillas. But that's it! I'm pretty sure zebras aren't making each other cry with stories about those bad years all the lions from Nigeria killed and ate all the lions from Zimbabwe that worshipped trees because Nigerian lions believed in worshipping clouds and so all tree worshipping lions must die. And I know hippos aren't making each other laugh insanely at the crazy antics of those wild and crazy crocodiles. (Correction: animals actually do tell these stories, but they all work at Disney.)

And so when we are sick, I think it's just human nature to turn to stories and storytellers. The virus or the genetic problem or the cancer or the heart disease are destroying your physical matter, but they can't reach your soul. And therein lies the power of Story - a cancer can eat you a live, but your Story makes you You...Story keeps you thinking and dreaming and just generally going, even when Science tells you that you ought to stop. 

But we have our stories and our storytellers, in books and movies and campfire tales and emails and dinner parties and television. And for many, many people, be they perfectly fine and healthy or very very sick or struggling, if you can find a story or stories to connect to, in whichever medium that works best for you, it keeps you going, it shows you why any of this even matters. And this sweet lady has found her story connections on TV shows. And one of the TV shows was a show called Olympus, which aired on the SyFy Channel and was a fabulous show and I can say that because, when I was able to stop focusing on my owned effed up life problems for two seconds, I watched several episodes of it and said out loud at least three times, "Wow! What a good show!" 

To have a story, you need a storyteller. Or a team of storytellers, in the case of TV and movie stories. And sometimes, you find storytellers who are willing, because they are really kind and get why what they do matters, to go beyond just telling their story or stories and decide to reach out to the people who are connecting to the stories they tell, who are finding comfort and joy in them. 

This is what I saw happen the other day - someone who is struggling with crappy crap was reached out to by other human beings who just happen to tell stories for a living. They didn't have to reach out. Telling stories for a living is a hard road to walk in a world that values material things and financial power, that doesn't recognize the value in human connection via Story unless there's bank to be made off it. And yet they all got together in spite of whatever was going on in their lives, their worlds - meeting up in offices or coffee shops or on street corners or wherever - just to sign a show poster for a sick woman. And then send it to her. 

Oh my god! Internet! Do you have any idea how amazing that was?! Do you even understand how shit like this makes me want to hug every single person I meet on the street, even the scary bad ones, and go: I know you have it in you! I know at heart you are good! I know you can do good! Because sometimes other people show you that it's possible.

If you ask the person who took charge of this how they managed this, he will tell you: Eh, not a big deal...I just met them at coffee shops and we just, you know, signed it. And I know he will say that, because a friend told him what a rock star he was for doing this and that was his response. 

But it wasn't about the poster, and it wasn't about the autographs. It was about the THING. The supremely endearing, kind thing a group of human beings did for another. And it completely made her day, her week, her month, her year. Because of a story. And so: heart. melted. 

Why these people don't all have Emmys and/or Oscars is a travesty. A travesty, Reader(s)! 

At any rate. I'm promoting them. They are all very very talented storytellers even when not spreading love and goodness throughout the planet, and so I think you should watch them in action, friend them on Facebook and/or Twitter, and when they are nominated for Emmys and/or Oscars write copious amounts of letters to the judges in charge of deciding who wins those demanding that they be given special consideration. Here they are:

Graham Shiels
Sonita Henry
Sonya Cassidy 
Tom York
Natasha Burnett
Levi Meaden
Sophia Lauchlin Hirt


there were other storytellers from the show who've been incredibly sweet to her on social media, but weren't able to meet and sign the poster. They also need Emmys and Oscars, and millions of Facebook/Twitter fans (and a blue Twitter check! Twitter! WHY do some of these amazeball people not have the special person blue check yet?!), and letters demanding recognition by The Academy:

Cas Anvar
Wayne Burns
Alan C. Peterson


and last, but NOT least, John Emmet Tracy, who was the ring leader in getting the poster, meeting up with the storytellers who were available to meet him at offices and coffee shops and on street corners or whatever, and sign the poster AND then mail it to my sweet friend. What a lovely, kind, sweet human being he is. Why is he not starring in every single movie and television show right now, Hollywood? Why?

Because what ought to happen is all the kind, good people in the world like these storytellers should be in charge of the planet. I'm fairly certain if that happened the troublesome areas of the Middle East would be fixed, war and hunger and poverty would end, and joyful Utopia would ensue. I mean, one group of storytellers have made a difference in just one person's life. When was the last time a government did that? (Never. A government has never done that, that's when.)

storytelling vs data: ultimate showdown.

Hi, Internet. How was your week? Mine was crap. (But you're getting used to hearing this, yes?) 

We had some depressing meetings this week. Okay, just one. One really depressing meeting. Can I be very honest with you? If I tell you what's going on, will you promise not to send this blog to anyone who can fire me for writing this out loud? Or maybe stick me with the scary-as-shit 5th graders next year? 

What we're doing in public education is very, very misguided. Well-intentioned. But misguided.

Listen: I want everybody to read. I want a society that's 100% literate, so we can all have safe drivers and not unknowingly sign things that say we robbed a bank or whatever. I mean, I LOVE to read. Reading, for me as a child, was a means of escape. Reading is AWESOME.

And I get it: we all want to cream the shit out of China, show the world who's REALLY top dog. In case our nuclear arsenal isn't enough. 

But listen: reading should be FUN. Learning to read is a process, and you learn to do it by DOING it. The more you do it, the better you get at it. But it should not be for instructional purposes only. Books should be MAGIC. Stories are what makes us understand the world and each other. Stories stretch us, open us up. I read an article the other night about how children who don't read enough fiction become adults who aren't able to empathize with other humans very well. Which is why I am so very alarmed right now as a teacher, a writer, a reader, and a mother about what's going on in public schools right now (thanks, Common Core). This obsession with non-fiction, practical text is going to be the undoing of Humanity, mark my words. Right after Social Media disables us, Non-Fiction text will come in and finish the job.

I'm not saying NO SCIENCE. Science matters; I LOVE Science. I really believe Science is going to help save human beings from ourselves, or at the very least from cancer or heart disease. But magic and mystery matter, too. Data does not a life make. When you die, I assure you: you will not care what you scored on a test in 10th grade, or what reading level you were at in 2nd grade. When you die, you will think of your stories, of who you loved most, of who you fought with, of times you were awed by the world's beauty, of times you were horrified by its terror. When my dad died, I didn't give a flying rat's ass about what his manufacturing plant's production numbers were, and neither did he. I sat next to his still body, thinking about the last time I'd hugged him and all the circumstances surrounding that, and why there hadn't been more hugs, and how there never would be forever after. 

And we're losing sight of that, in our race to show China whose dick, I mean brain, is biggest.

So really, when I write these angst-y about work blogs, what I'm actually worried about is where we're going as human beings. I'm depressed over what's happening in my school. But I'm also very very concerned, Reader(s). Human beings are not just data; we are complex organisms of intricately intertwined experiences. All human beings, no matter how young or old, have strengths. We all have weaknesses. Some people are very Math-y. Some people are more Word-y. Some people are Art-y. Some people are more wrestle-y. Some are good at driving trucks. Or at being silent ninjas. Or assembling furniture from boxes. Everybody (EVERYBODY) has a talent. And sometimes talents aren't discovered until later on in life. And sometimes you have talent in 2-3 areas.

What I'm also saying is: not every talent requires college. And not everybody is a scholar. Not everybody's going to college, or is even meant to. I think everyone should have the OPPORTUNITY to go to college...if they want to. But I'm also saying it's wrong of us to lay the blame at the feet of teachers if a person and/or their family doesn't value education enough to want to go higher; that's a societal ill, not an educational one. And there should be absolutely no shame in deciding it's not for you; that cleaning out gunk in sewers is more your thing. We've got sewers; we all use them. None of us want to wade through layers of steaming feces in the streets; somebody's got to clean up the shit.

I disagree with people who tell me I'm being arrogant and elitist when I say that. And I disagree because, theoretically, I too want EVERYBODY to be a nuclear physicist and solve global warming and fix the Middle East and discover the cure for cancer. I want that. Don't you? But I also like to stay grounded in reality, and I like to recognize the quiet strengths that come out of people. I have a little boy this year who likes to make sounds. He's driving me nuts. Oh my god, Internet, absolutely effing nuts. But he also cracks me up. Because I see the future comedian that is blooming in him, if public education doesn't test and squish it out of him. I see his Happy, and how good he's going to be. If data divers don't make him feel like just another number. If test obsessives don't destroy his love for storytelling.

This is what I do every day - I go into my classroom and I read and I laugh and I tell stories and I sing and I talk with children. I let them know they aren't just another number. Today we had a soft lockdown...and that made some of the children think a bad man was in our building. And some of the children remembered their parents talking about Sandy Hook, what happened there. And so we had to stop a Language Arts lesson and sit and talk: first, soft lockdowns are no big deal; we just stay inside until they say we can go outside again...and second, what would happen if it was a hard lockdown, meaning a bad person came into OUR school? And I let them know: I love you SO much, I would do every single thing I could think of to keep you safe. The bad person would have to come through ME to get to you. You are THAT important to me. I've only known you for four weeks, and I already love you THAT much. 

And my little comedian man? You know what he thought about? My daughter, Miss M. He asked, "But wouldn't your daughter be sad if you got dead?" And then we had to have a talk about THAT. About how, yes, she would be and it would be very very hard for her, just like it would be for me, if something terrible happened to her. And then we talked about how sometimes terrible things do happen, and nobody really understands why, but we can still be okay because we all have invisible strength inside of us that helps us keep going. We just have to know it's there, even if we can't see it.

So. One more day of not teaching Complete Sentences really well so they can pass that part of the tests. Will that matter to them? I don't know. It's more important to me that they don't just know they're loved, they FEEL it. And sometimes, knowing and feeling you're loved is so much more important than increasing your data and passing some tests. And telling our stories, which is really just sharing our fears and our loves. That's so so SO much more important than data and tests. And knowing we're all in this together. So much more important. 

There are people out there, I want you to know, who will read that last paragraph and say something very cerebral like: "But that's not going to get them a well-paying job in the private sector or increase our chances of staying a world superpower." And I hope those people all choke on a piece of overpriced filet mignon and go to hell. And I hope, when they're in hell, they have to take test after test after test and no matter how hard they try, no matter how hard they work, no matter how much their fingers bleed and their brains burst open over and over and over again, they never ever pass them. And nobody cares. Because their pain doesn't matter; just their data.

Which is why the meeting I was at earlier this week really upset me so much. Because I was told if I don't move every child in my class an entire year's level in Reading (and then some), based on some arbitrary chart I don't even know where they got it from, it won't be because they're living in a hotel and there's no organization at home; it won't be because they're not getting adequate nutrition; it won't be because they're watching their mom get hit every night or coming home to an empty house and taking care of themselves and their younger siblings or that mommy just doesn't care about school and so neither do they. It won't be because of any of that. It'll be because they had the misfortune of getting a teacher who had instructional issues and didn't work hard enough to fix those. In 180 days (which is really more like 150 days, due to testing). It'll be my fault. I'm magic. I'm supposed to be magic. 

This is the source of my distress and angst (when not being distressed and agonized over my personal life of course...wait for it! Wait for it. That portion's on its way in few more paragraphs). I'm working harder than I ever have. I don't know that there are words in any human language to describe the tired I am. I'm tired down to the inner depths of my soul. I am desperate for someone to come massage these tired knots out of my soul. 

Earlier this week, I feel like I was kind of told: that's not hard enough. That's not tired enough. But then I'm also told: No, we're trying to help you work smarter, not harder. Then I'm told: you're not working hard enough. Then I'm told: you're not working smart enough. Then I'm told: not hard enough. 

Which one do you want, Public Education? I'm flatlining over here, make a decision. 

Anyway. Today was bad. Yesterday was bad too. I had to take M to softball practice. 7:00-8:30, on a school night, twice a week. Exhausted. Defeated. Annoyed. I was in a dark, foul mood. So when one girl on M's team started tossing her face mask in my general direction and it almost hit me while I was grading papers, I was barely civil. Sorry to that girl and her mom. And when the coach called M "Michelle" again for the upteenth time, I was barely civil when I corrected him - learn their names, goddamn it. They matter. And if I interacted with you yesterday or earlier today, I'm really sorry. When I get into one of these moods, I'm rather...black. Ish. Funky. No fun to hang out with.

Maybe this is why, last night, I stopped by my old house and let myself in with the key. C was out of town on a business trip. I just wanted to be somewhere familiar, where I had some happier memories. Where nobody was stomping around above me, no yippy dog was barking down the hall, and nobody was having sex next to me and concluding it all with some type of bad late 80s pop hit (I have next door neighbors who get amorous late at night, and the man - a deep baritone, who actually has a keen sense for musical tone - likes to finish up with ditties like Ice Ice Baby. Fortunately, Miss M has either been at her dad's or blissfully asleep; at some point, I suppose we'll end up having THAT talk...5 years early, thanks so much kinky next door neighbors). Basically, I just wanted to be surrounded by familiar sounds and smells and...familiar stuff. Without late night Cinemax softcore film noir in the background. 

C is painting the downstairs. A hideous (sorry if you read this, C, but it is true) a hideous white-ish grey. All of our beautiful, spicy colors of earthy green, cinnamon, harvest yellow...going white-ish grey. I just sat on my old red sofa and sobbed at what he's about to do, for a very long time. And I sobbed because that was the sofa I used to take naps with M on, laying on my chest. And because my old cat Tasha died in that chair there. And I am homesick. 

Not for C, who I love a lot, but do not want to be married to anymore. I am not homesick for our relationship; we simply don't work in that capacity. I'm homesick for peace and safety, I think. Just peace and safety. And the Known. And warm colors and quiet. I feel like I'm constantly surrounded, at work, by clinical colors and loudness. Do this! Yesterday! We're pretty sure you potentially suck and are hurting children! Get the data up! Increase their growth! Now! Now! Now! 

I am not just stressed and exhausted at this point. I am actually going slightly numb, at work. I feel trapped and helpless and powerless. And I don't like this. I love the children they gave me this year, and if you walked into my classroom on any given day, you would see us reading and talking and laughing and enjoying each other. It would LOOK fabulous. But if you walked in my classroom at the end of the day, on any given day, you would see me sad and quiet, hurriedly prepping for tomorrow, stressed out about something I haven't done or something that's due or paperwork...or I'd be vegging out and checking my phone, simply unable to cope with the stress anymore...or I'd be in tears. Just sitting. In tears. Powerless.

Tomorrow I'm going to a sweet friend's house for burgers, beer, and swimming. We've been talking a long time about writing a TV show based on what teaching in an elementary-level, poor, urban school is like. I'm not good at writing scripts, but she has family members who work in the TV/Film industry who are going to help us. Because we've got STORIES, seasons of stories. Stories you just can't make up, but are really real. Most are ridiculously funny. Some are sad. Some are infuriating. Some are heartbreaking. Just like Life. But mostly, we just want people to know how hard it is. I talk to people all the time who voice this. They say, "You have the hardest job!" or "I couldn't do what you do!" But do they really, really KNOW? We want them to feel it. Because we want to stop what's happening to our children, to our schools. This is very, very wrong. 

.........or you know. On the other hand, I could just be a drama queen. Totally addicted to attention. I'll let you decide.

Tonight, after dinner, Miss M and I were driving home and she was so so MAD at me for not buying dessert. She sat in the back crying, saying mournfully morose things like, "Nobody wants me as a child. Nobody will ever ever love me. I guess I'll just be by myself forever and EVER. Because that's my FATE." (Sound familiar? Go back through this blog...apples do not fall far from trees.) 

And so I kept saying, "That's not true. You're my favorite child in the whole world. I will ALWAYS want you." (I would protect you with my life, my darling. I would take a bullet for you, my little wannabe-mermaid.) 

To which she screeched, "THAT'S NOT TRUE!!! What?! You think just telling me you LOVE me makes no dessert BETTER?!?! Well, YOU'RE WRONG!!! YOU HATE ME!!! You OBVIOUSLY hate me!!! What?! You think telling me I'm your favorite child makes what you did OKAY?!!? What?!?! You think you're the SMARTEST??!! What?! Do they give out DEGREES in PARENTING now?!?! What?! You think you have a PhD in MOM?!?!"

And that made me laugh my ridiculous shitty mom ass off. Which made her even angrier. And so she sobbed in the back while I literally peed my pants with laughter. Seriously. I had to change when we got home. But not before I got her a McDonald's ice cream cone, as a consolation prize and a thank you.

Because when I was finally able to collect myself, I realized: I haven't laughed, really laughed, in about 48 hours. And maybe THAT has really been my problem; I am so much more pleasant to hang out with when something makes me laugh so hard I pee my pants and my ridiculous mom ass comes off. (I wonder if there's some data to back me up on that?)

baby dickhead.

Kurt Vonnegut, you were smart. And kind.

I had a troll/mean person experience the other day. I'm not going to tell you where to find it (go digging--you will), but it's on a social media account. I made a joke--and I will admit to you: I'm (painfully) aware my humor is of the extremely irreverent variety, completely ironic, totally self-deprecating, and (to a certain level) very caustic...I probably spent a bit too much time absorbing Monty Python movies and Black Adder reruns in high school. And I am (painfully) aware that sometimes I crack jokes that make me laugh and LAUGH, while everyone around me goes: Huh? I am aware of these things. Know that going into this story, that I am (painfully) aware: so I made a joke the other day, and it was sort of at America's expense, because seriously, Internet, we Americans are ridiculous. Are we not? Since 1776. Can we all agree that Americans are fairly ridiculous? With our ginormous food portions, our gas guzzling cars, our obsession with firearms, and Rush Limbaugh in general? Totally. Ridiculous. 

But I forget sometimes, on the Internet, that not everyone understands or appreciates the ridiculous. And I forget sometimes, on the Internet, that some people don't agree with me that some things are ridiculous. And this can create havoc. I forget that not everyone is from America and familiar with our eccentricities. Sometimes that gets me into hot water with non-Americans. I forget that not all Americans are practically card-carrying Commie pinkos such as myself. And sometimes that gets me into hot water with Americans.

I also forget that, in America, we have this gargantuan problem with understanding irony and self-deprecation. And along with that, I forget that some human beings, no matter where they are from, simply don't think stuff is funny. Or the stuff they find funny (cross eyes and puppet shadows) is not what I find funny (colorful jokes about sex and poop). And if that's not enough, I forget some people are just way too sensitive and constantly on the lookout to fight whenever their sensitivities are offended which for some of them seems to be, like, every 29 seconds. Even when they can clearly see they're interacting wtih a ridiculous, silly person from Atlanta, Georgia who meant no harm.

So I got attacked. I was told I was embarrassing. Well, no shit, Sherlock. Why yes, goddamnit I am! But the context around being told how embarrassing I was just made me so sad for the person, because (ironically) I could tell she didn't get the joke at all. I don't think she'd been exposed to any of what the joke was about, and her lack of exposure and education was embarrassing...and so. In the end, I was embarrassed for her. 

So what do you do in situations like that? Do you call someone who's probably having a really hard life out on their rude behavior? Because I went to her account and looked through her life, out of schadenfreude-like curiosity...but also because I'm a researcher, you know. That's what I do--if you're going to leave a nasty comment to me AND a link for me to click? Be assured I'm clicking that link. I want to--HAVE to--know: Why? (But I also click links when you're nice to me, because: Why?)

Her life looked so happy. She has friends, and family who dearly love her. She loved food and parties and color and wine. This would be a person I might like, were we to actually meet and interact. But I could also see she's put on tremendous amounts of weight over the years. And as someone who constantly battles my love of fudge vs. my hatred of working out, I know how difficult this is to fight. But it made me wonder if maybe she's just generally unhappy about herself, and I wondered that because of a comment she left about her younger, thinner self under one of her pictures. (I have a degree in Armchair Psychiatry.)

So I couldn't do it. Privately, to friends, I called her all kinds of filthy names, and I've squashed her like a bug a million times, to vent my spleen. But publicly, I blessed her, and sent her love. Because that's just what I do. Kill with kindness. Go ahead--try to be mean to me. I will kill you. With kindness. (In my head, though, I'll actually be killing you. Literally. With like knives and shit.)

This is the peril of the Internet, Internet. You are such a useful tool. Until the pedophiles, pornographers, and humorless asswipes all boot up their devices and log online. What up with that? Can we get some filters for it? Who's in charge of the 'net these days?

Anywho. I keep going back to re-read the whole thing, hoping (just HOPING) she'll come back and respond with a butthead comment so I can have a real reason to take her down and then block her. But she never has--total hit and run asshole commenter. A keyboard cowgirl; didn't even have the courage of her convictions. And so last night when I read and reread her judgmental, weird comment, I used it to make my skin thicker--I printed it off and rubbed it all over my naked body to create calluses. (I'm joking--I didn't really do that.)

Mostly, though, I really feel like, if you get dickhead comments on the Internet, (a) you're doing SOMETHING right, and (b) it's a sign you've arrived. So if you'd like to leave me a dickhead comment down below, feel free! I will print it off and rub it all over my naked body later tonight, and send you blessings for helping grow my exoskeletal armor.

social media + storytelling connections.

Exactly, John Steinbeck. Exactly.

Let's talk about storytelling, social media, and connections. (And at the end, I have a Big and Important Announcement.) 

First, storytelling (as it relates to social media). I think I've been pretty vocal here about the effect I think social media is having on us as a society, both culturally and linguistically. But also artistically. We aren't relating to each other as well, and worse we're beginning 2 write words as numbers or syllables of words, which I really h8. In 1976, as a Kindergartner, this would have confused the holy crap out of me; I submit my final evaluations, later on, in Algebras I and II, along with scary ass Trigonometry as hard evidence. 

I worry about how much time I spend on it. I'll be honest: I think I'm on Twitter and Facebook way too much. I'm also on Pinterest and Instagram, but not as much because I don't get to interface with other users there like I do on Twitter and Facebook. (Narcissism, Ego. I'm saying this out loud to you: Twitter and Facebook are all about narcissism and ego...so is Instagram, but you have to know how to use it properly and I still don't have a clue how to do that.) I'm also on LinkedIn, but nobody wants to hire me, so I'm bored there already. And I'm on Google+ but...have you been there? I feel like I'm standing in an abandoned warehouse.

I'm worried about how much I'm on my phone or my laptop as opposed to, say, riding bikes with Miss M or gazing up into the night sky, pondering stars. I look around me and see other people doing this as well. I find it worrying, and yet, this is how the 21st century just seems to be turning out. And if you aren't doing 21st century things, you get left behind.

However! I see that social media really does has great intrinsic value in getting the word out, whatever your word may be. One of the reasons I started actively tweeting about a year ago was to build an audience for my writing (and to win friends and influence others, but none of that has happened at all...oh, wait, no! Except for the friends part. I am WAY up in my friends data....cause I'm a sweetheart). It's been slow going--mostly because I'm crap at Twitter and muck it up a lot. And also I'm worried about bugging people too much--famous and not famous. 

But live tweeting (or, actually, just hitting the star button a lot since I had no clue and everybody was going too too fast for me) DIG (on USA!) was an eye opener for me. I saw what a community Social Media can build. I met some new friends. I made some important connections. Jason Isaacs sat back and admired my geeky researcher issues. It taught me a lot. 

One thing it taught me was that this is how making Art will most likely work for now. If you are an actor, a writer, a director, a producer, a poet, a painter, a journalist, a musician, a storyteller of any kind? You HAVE to be on Twitter. You HAVE to tweet and interact with people consuming and potentially consuming your product, your Art. And also on Facebook to some extent, but what I see is most people heading toward Twitter. I think because it's short and it's quick, and also because a lot of famous and influential people are on it and people (cough ME cough) like to be able to announce to their friends: "Brad Pitt favorited my weird tweet yesterday!" (Brad Pitt isn't on Twitter.) (But he SHOULD be.) 

Millions and billions of people from all over the planet are on it. If you want people to see you, to be exposed to your story, you HAVE to do it. Well, wait. No. You don't HAVE to do anything...I'm not trying to be the boss of you. But if you don't do it, your story won't reach the mass number of people it could potentially. (But then, on the flip side, can I also just say that sometimes just regular word of mouth works, too? In my neighborhood, people leave books in Miniature Libraries people have placed in their yards; I still ask friends for good movie/tv show/book recommendations. To their faces. In person. Offline. It's a thing humans can still do.)

For television storytelling, because of the way it's gone--which is that nobody really has time to sit back and watch shows AS they're airing (the exception being you're a fan and a geek and so you make the time)--it's absolutely essential you have as many people involved with the show tweeting. And the more interactive, the better. Right now I'm watching a show on NBC called American Odyssey fight for renewal, and the reason it's in a fight and has a chance is because dedicated fans are fighting for it. And the reason they're dedicated is because they feel seen and heard by the storytellers making the show. Therein lies the power of social media. The artist in me wants to cry out, "But cannot Art just be ART?!" (Because I'm dramatic.) But the social media addict is going, "Yeah, man. This is how it WORKS." (Because I'm a complete dichotomy.)

In addition, it's a nice way to connect with your favorite storytellers in general. The other day, I watched STOCKHOLM, PENNSYLVANIA, which was written and directed by Nikole Beckwith (you MUST see this if you can--it is amazing; unexpectedly unsettling but also beautifully sad and thoughtful). I sent Nikole a tweet and told her how wonderful her story is. And she responded to me--so sweet and kind. I will love her forever now. 

Therein lies the power of social media: I'll watch anything and everything Nikole Beckwith is involved with now. (Actually, I would have anyway, because I think she's gifted and talented...but she's also lovely and nice, and so now I'm in her corner forever.)

Ditto that for novelists, poets, musicians, actors, etc etc and so forth. If you can connect to people who admire one bit of any work you've done, and if you can make them feel heard and appreciated? They will wrap you in gobs of love and light, and when some dickhead comes to you and says: YOUR ART SUCKS (as dickheads on social media are wont to do), these same people will gather up their pitch forks and their angry torches and they will go beat up those dickheads for you. I swear it, I swear it by all that is holy and good. They will. And then they will bring you those dickheads' dead dickhead bodies and lay them on the porch for you to find in the morning, just like cats do to show they love you.

Okay, that's done. Do you want to hear my Very Important and Big Announcement?

I got a writing job!! And I'm suuuuper excited about it. Here's how the power of social media works: I started tweeting (or, you know, trying to keep up) with DIG live tweets by Jason Isaacs back in March. Because of that, I met a new friend who is way, way better at live tweeting than me. We got to know each other pretty well. G thought my DIG research was amazing and brilliant and is delusional that I am talented. 

Then, G connected with a nice lady named Erin from a big Sci-Fi website called Three If By Space (which, if you are a big Sci-Fi fan and don't know about this website--WHAT?! Wake up! Go HERE and be amazed), and let me know they needed writers. And it just so happens I'm interested in a new show coming to the SyFy channel in December called THE EXPANSE, which looks like more good storytelling and amazing acting and also there's a conspiracy theory and you kind people know how much I loved that aspect of DIG...and! AND! there's zero gravity sex in this show. (Do you guys even know about zero gravity sex? Oh, wait until December...you will. Apparently, Isaac Newton may have thought about it some. I know for sure I would have, especially had I been one of the first people in Outer Space. How can you NOT ponder this? Not thinking about this aspect of Outer Space existence is like...like...eating pancakes without syrup. How can people DO that?! No. NO. Pancakes need syrup. Humans need sex. We are NOT arguing about this, it's just how it is, the end.) 

So that's my big announcement: I have a writing job (no pay, but I get to be legit published AND! more important, I get an editor, and god knows I so need one of those). My main writing job will be to write up stuff about SyFy's THE EXPANSE, sort of like I did for DIG (on USA!), but less archaeology and no red cows or Essenes (although I don't know. Maybe...maybe there are Essene-like aliens in Outer Space!). I can do more writing for them once I get the hang of it.

Just. Everybody pray I don't muck up Three if By Space's super nice website. If you go there and you see, like, misplaced vowels and off kilter stuff, that's me. I can't even figure out how to do Twitter cards on this frickin' blog, let alone get a web address without the "blogspot" in it. (I actually do know how to do get rid of the "blogspot" part of this site's address--I just haven't yet. Because procrastination.)

DIG (on USA!) thoughts: ep 10 (ten, rhymes with end...sorta)

Imagine me and you, I do;
I think about you day and night, it's only right...
So happy together!

Oh, Internet. It's 11 PM on Saturday night as I start typing this, and I don't know how to really express the depth of sadness I feel about what I am doing. What am I doing, you ask? I am writing The last DIG (on USA!) review. My last thoughts and reactions. There are no more episodes to watch now. Thursday evening, May 14, will be cold and lifeless. No Jason Isaacs tweets. Ori Pfeffer will not retweet me or give me too much information I expressly said not to. Nothing to scream at my TV about. No WTF is going ON?! moments. 

It has concluded. The mystery solved, the last twitching body laid to rest. 

It's okay. I'll be okay! Don't cry for me, Argentina! Or Israel. Or Croatia or Norway! I will be okay. (Because USA Network, until they say Yay or Nay definitively, will be receiving occasional, overly familiar, harassing tweets from me about green lighting a 2nd Season for DIG...and they can just go ahead and ask Jason Isaacs all about what it's like to get my occasional, overly familiar, harassing tweets. He knows all about these, because he gets them from me about every 3rd-4th time he tweets.)

Alright, diggers/digglers/diggees, let's just rip the band aid off. Let's talk about the last episode. 

Here's the mystery, solved (and if you haven't watched it yet, or even seen the series at all: (A) Why are you here? We are NOT friends...and (B) look away!! Look away now!!! I'm about to tell you THE WHOLE THING.):

In real life, Emma/Rebecca is a beautiful songwriter/singer/actress
named Alison, whose songs my daughter & I both love

*Emma was The Villain. The primary Antagonist. It was her, or rather, Rebbeca Donaldson aka Emma Wilson. THE WHOLE TIME. Someone mysteriously put the lost Donaldson murder/suicide investigation file Golan was trying to get from the grizzly old detective in the Negev Desert on Peter's desk and THAT'S how he figured out who Rebecca was (and thank you! whoever put that file there, because I spent about 3 hours last Thursday wondering: WHO THE HELL IS REBECCA???)

And she fell in love with Peter in the process of orchestrating the biggest antiquities/revenge heist of all time. She was in cahoots with greedy Margrove but not really--she just wanted to use him to avenge her father's death which Margrove caused by betraying his colleague, who just so happened to be Emma/Rebecca's dad. She lost her whole family because of Margrove's greed. And so, like a spider, she wove a web and trapped him, mated with him, and then ate him. And Margrove, who I was certain was a goner after, like, episode 3, ended up being the last of the dead guys, making it (almost) to the end. 

*The Order of Moriah? That was Ruth Riddell and Tad Billingham, and they got theirs. (Tad choked to death on some nuts...as he WENT nuts at the same time. No, seriously--he was eating nuts while talking nutty. Dearest, amazing DIG writers: I. LOVED. THIS. SO. MUCH.)

*Josh was a twin, and Fay was their mother. That means Fay killed one of her own children back in episode 1. 'Cause that's what crazy people do, y'all! Kill their kids. Google it--it's in the news all the time. 

*Josh turned out to be the very psycho Tad B. (who I THINK maybe was his dad?!?) was. (Parenting rule #1: model the behavior you want to see in your children.) And Josh turned on Tad, because Josh was taught that he's God's right hand boy/high priest, and so you know: he thinks he really is. Turns out, raising kids to believe they are God's gift to the world gives them an Entitlement Complex. (This is also called Extreme Spoiling, and I actually watched it happen, live, at my local supermarket about 2 weeks ago.)

So basically, evil Rabbi Lev and the Order of Moriah wanted to blow up Dome of the Rock. Rabbi Lev so he could rebuild the Temple and welcome the Messiah; Tad so he could start the Rapture and bring four horsemen down to scourge the Earth and bring the Messiah (and then Tad and Lev would get into a big fist fight about whether that was the First or Second Messiah). 

To do that, they brought in thousands of pounds of explosives disguised as books written by Tad Billingham. Then they rigged them all up to a dam that, when exploded, would flood the underground tunnels beneath Jerusalem and when the water made its way to the Temple Mount, BAM! Good-bye, Dome of the Rock; hello a lot of angry religious guys starting World War 3.

*Ruth's goin' to federal prison! Where she'll teach women to scare the shit out of people just by looking pointedly at them. (I think she should have gotten blown up in the damn dam, or had her throat slit by Lynn with the sharp letter opener, but that's just me. Because Armageddon Protocol.)

But now for the happy endings:

Blood. Red blood. Blood moons. Sacrificial blood.
Blood. 

*Lynn's still in Israel! She's running the FBI's Jerusalem bureau. Hopefully the rest of her time there doesn't involve any more blood. I think Anne Heche spent about half the show covered in blood, someone else's or her own. And no more climbing chain link fences, Lynn! You'll break your 5th metatarsal. And only sleep with employees who aren't being used as pawns in a chess game of revenge! But I do bow to your toughness, Lynn. You are a strong woman, and the next time I fight crime, I want YOU to be my partner.

*Peter made it! And he SAVED THE WORLD! And he's letting go of his past--he finally took off his wedding ring, and (I didn't see this but I BET) he deleted his ex-wife's phone number finally and he's going to see a plastic surgeon about that scar. He took Vicky's picture out of the drawer, and Lynn's going to send him far, far away (can it be to Atlanta, Georgia, Lynn? We have lots and lots of religious crazies for Peter to fight here, too). 

*Shem made it out alive! He's still out there somewhere, loving on Nature and saying prayers at strange moments while wearing white. He's counseling lost, fucked up people with gentle words of ancient wisdom. He's eating vegetables for dinner and dancing naked under the moon, and he's taking long, candlelit mikvehs. (I love the thought of a Shem out there in the world doing this, being a guardian of the Light for our spot in the Milky Way.)

*And Avram. Dear, sweet Avram. Thank God he made it off the DIG writers' pages alive; he's out there still. And so is Red (I'm going to talk about them in a few more paragraphs, because if I do it now, this will make me cry like I did when I rewatched it this afternoon and I need to get through the rest of what I want to say in my write up).

Basically, what I'm saying is: this show was, in the end, about water and a cow. 

....Did you know? Water has a very mystical meaning: it's used in purification rituals, to cleanse us. We are 50-65% water; without it we will die. And our planet will as well. Every bit of water we have on Earth today has been here since our planet was born; the water you bathe and shower in? Here since the dinosaurs. The water you wash your car with? Here before life began. All life began on Earth in water. Take care of it; it is precious. (Don't use it for nefarious purposes, either.)

I think it's really interesting that the DIG writers used water as a catalyst to either destroy or save in the end. (The dam's water was all diverted into an old archaeological bit of Jerusalem history: Warren's Shaft. Archaeologists who've studied it think it was first developed by the Canaanites; it is an ancient tunnel most likely used by ancient Jerusalemites as a water supply system. And it saved (in DIG) the world by diverting the exploded dam water away from the Temple Mount. Good job, ancient Canaanites!) In the beginning, I wrote about how I thought numbers mattered, that God was in the numbers. At the end, it turns out God was actually in the water.

And also I felt DIG was about darkness and light. Sons of Darkness, Sons of Light. An eternal, internal War of Soul. Maybe that's what Armageddon/Gog and Magog/the End of Days will boil down to: we'll all be fighting ourselves, inwardly...and only one of us will win. Let's all hope our Sons of Light come out on top. (Peter's did...he was tempted, at the end, by the Whore of Babylon, to come away with her and enjoy her spoils. Except Rebecca/Emma didn't realize she was dealing with a Son of Light. And so, in that way, Peter really was a Messiah. Of sorts.)

But mostly? DIG was about a cow. Not the cow herself so much, but Avram's devotion to her well-being--because DIG was about honor and loyalty and faith and loss and most important? Taking care of one another--Red saved Avram and Avram saved Red. Take care of each other, good people of Earth. Treat each other with kindness and care. Our animal friends, too.

And I think DIG was a good example of how to tell a good Hero's Journey story. Do you know about this? Joseph Campbell, an American mythologist, developed the concept--every story in every culture in every language in every corner of the planet even the farthest removed tells mythologies, and they all center around a Hero who must embark upon a Journey. One day, he wakes up and realizes: I have to go on a journey. Sometimes the journey is to rescue a maiden, or slay a dragon, or defeat a giant; it varies depending on the story and the culture. And so the Hero sets out--he leaves everything he knows behind and takes a journey. Along the way, he meets friends who are enemies, enemies who are friends, he has to overcome obstacles, pass tests, he fights battles and is wounded...until finally he reaches a Dark Night of the Soul, in which he must make the decision to either give up and die, or go on. But choosing to go on means the Hero must change, and change will involve doing the hardest thing(s) he can ever possibly imagine doing. But if the Hero does it, in the end he wins and goes back to his village to accolades and adoration. But if the Hero does it, he is changed forever, and Life as he knows it will never be the same again. (Not necessarily a bad thing.)

I think Campbell's The Hero's Journey could be applied to Lynn, Peter, and Avram. They all were woken up one day, realized they had to go on a journey to fight something terrible, and met enemies who were friends and friends who were enemies and suffered through Dark Nights of the Soul along the way. 

Particularly Avram: in the end, he is forever changed; I'm not sure if he lost his faith or just his faith in the people of his faith. But he has left the Orthodox community for the world because of Rabbi Lev's evil, and he will be forever changed now. 

Red is free. Home on the range. The last moments we see of her are a sweet, happy calf surrounded by her "people," running off to enjoy the world...no sacrificial knives or weird kids in breastplates anywhere. And the real Red is also free, along with all the other baby cows who worked the show with her. They are all free, running around in the world right now, and will never ever be a source of food for anyone reading this. They are safe, safe at last.

Since Golan got killed (sob!!) Shem and Peter could save
the world in DIG 2. (Shem will use prayer to catch bad guys, and
Peter will make sarcastic asides.)

Three Stars and a Wish

A wish:

That the final episode had been longer. I realize Jason, Ori, Anne, Alison, etc. would have had to stay in Croatia like 1-2 more weeks eating pizza while missing their loved ones and USA would've had to cough up more cash, but I felt like there needed to be about 30 more minutes, maybe 40; this show felt slightly rushed to wrap it up. A big show to start the story; one big one to finish it. And I wish the Armageddon Protocol stuff had been a bit bigger in scope and nature. More water, more explosions. I mean, Tad and friends were trying to start The End.

3 Stars:

1. Clearly, I am in love with the writers (still! we are STILL on our perpetual honeymoon, DIG writers! Til death do us part). So I thought the writing was superb and stunning, stunningly superb. Throughout. There were a lot of moments I watched and re-watched and went: holy crap, those are amazing storytellers. How does one learn to do that? I would like to just sit and pretend to darn their socks while they work on their stories. So I can learn from them.

2. The final episode had some amazingly awesome writing in it, and words that sat with me most from this episode were from Peter:

"Maybe it should all end. Let everybody wipe each other out in the name of God." (JUST last Friday, I thought the SAME thing, Peter Connelly!)

and what an awesome exit line: when Emma/Rebecca tells Peter she'll see him in Hell, he says, "Not if I see you first." (Oh my god. I am SO using this in the next argument I'm in that person tells me to go to Hell.)

3.There were some loose ends. But this is actually a positive for me, and here's why: I have read things on the Internet from people complaining about these loose ends. There are questions about why certain things happened or didn't happen, or what was the point of that character. Just some things I've seen around town: what was Ridell's motivation? What was Billingham's? How'd the file get put on Peter's desk/who put it there? How'd the Essene know where to go? How'd the bombs get there? How'd Emma/Rebecca even know about Peter? How'd she find out so much about his daughter? 

These questions are why I think the finale needed to be longer...and yet, I'm okay with not having ALL the loose questions answered. You out there reading this may not be, and the questions have been really chapping your buns (my suggestion: stop reading imdb.com's message boards; lunacy lies within). But I am okay with loose ends. And I'm okay with the unanswered questions because I think that's just how Life works--sometimes there's an ending and you can't figure out why somebody did that thing, or didn't do that other thing they were supposed to do. Sometimes you don't get to say good-bye; sometimes there isn't any closure; sometimes you just aren't supposed to know.

I'm also okay with lingering questions about some of the characters because I know about building characters--when I write stories, every single character I put in it has a background and a motivation; I know what these are. Every detail, every motivation doesn't always make it into the story; but I don't build them into my characters for that reason. I build them into my characters to give a story movement and life. Sometimes it's to make a character more real, or to make another character more real. I am totally fine if that's what the DIG writers were doing with this. 

But this freaks some people out--I once took a writing class with a lady who got really annoyed with me because I wouldn't write a complete ending to any of my stories. And I hated reading her stories because they were always ended on such pretty, wrapped up, here-you-go presentations. C'est la vie; to each his own. 

All in all, I hearted DIG tremendously. Its creators, Gideon Raff and Tim Kring, wrote it on spec and I'm not sure necessarily wrote it with the intention it would go on and on. From what I understand, they simply wanted to tell a whole story, for us to watch on our TVs (or iPads or wherever you watch your TV shows now). But the writing was so tremendous, and the acting was so stellar, and it is just human nature to want stellar, tremendous things we are enjoying to continue. Orgasms SHOULD last days and weeks, it is not fair they only last a few seconds. So I think there should be a Season 2, so we can all meet back online and orgasm together, with a new adventure. But if there is NOT a Season 2, then I am happy this story is out there in the ethos now. When my child is old enough, I will share it with her. And she can share it with her child(ren) and so on and so forth, as is the connective nature of storytelling.

It was a wild, roller coaster ride every Thursday night, thank you, DIG writers and cast and crew! But man. I will confess: I have an extremely addictive personality, and so I'm going to have to go to DIG rehab now. But first, you know what I'm going to do this Thursday night? Start over with Episode 1. I have them all in my DVR, and I'm going to start over with Episode 1 this Thursday, and recreate the whole thing!

Also, I'm going to harass Jason Isaacs on Twitter to see if he'll wake up at 3 AM on Thursday (aka Friday for him) in London for the next 10 weeks to re-live tweet them again, for me, personally. 

What is Peter looking at???

(scroll down to solve the mystery)

It's Debbie! Come to avenge Golan!!

And it's Golan! It's his ghost! (Shem brought them both back via prayer)

(Yes, yes. I KNOW THEY'RE DEAD FOREVER.
But I'm a magical thinker. Stop judging me.)

dig (on usa!) #9: i can't even.

Oh, Golan. I will miss your hot headed self and
sarcastic detective asides. 

Y'all. I can't even. I mean, I've slept on it for three days. And I'm still...I'm still...I can't even.

Well, let's just deal with it. Because I've done talk therapy, I know the best thing to do with emotions that are overwhelming you is to just face them head on and deal with them. Talk about them. So let's do that first, Internet:

1-ONE EPISODE IS LEFT. You guys! There is only ONE EPISODE LEFT. What the hell am I going to DO with myself?? What will I look forward to on Thursday nights at 10 PM U.S. Eastern Standard Time? What will I over analyze? What excuses will I have to ask Jason Isaacs weird questions on Twitter? More than all of that: WHAT WILL I RESEARCH??!! I really have to stop and take deep breaths when I think about all of this.

FYI/side note: I did put a demand out in the Universe/Twittersphere, to let them know there MUST be a Season 2 for DIG. Universal Cable Products favorited it, and that felt like God saying, "Yes, my child." But I also know (from personal experience) how God can be--sometimes God just likes to fuck with people. (I submit the entire book of Job from the Bible as evidence.) 

2-Golan's death. I'll be honest with you: I'm still not okay. I AM NOT OKAY. Listen: I had a whole thing cooked up for the DIG writers, about how Peter and Golan could go to Russia next and fight Putin. Because I think someone like Putin just needs to be taken down by a gay person. It was such a perfect plan--Peter was going to be the emotionally wrecked wing man in DIG Season 2 who gets beat up and smacked around, and Golan was going to be the hothead who saves the world (sorry, Jason). And then I was going to ask Jason and Ori where they'd like to go for Season 3, and I was going to have Anne Heche beat up all the bad guys and save the world, and Jason and Ori were going to do paperwork and get beat up by the bad guys now and then. But in a location they both really wanted to be in, because I'm just really thoughtful about things like that.

But no. NO!! The DIG writers did it again. They killed a darling. With another cut to the throat, but this time far crueler and gorier. That cut was right through the trachea, I'm told. As opposed to Debbie's slit throat, which was sacrificial in nature, a cruel-but-kind gentle death almost. Golan had to, like, literally drown in his own blood, knowing who did it and what was happening. Horrific. And my particular brain can't handle gore or thinking of people having to KNOW they're dying slowly but surely in graphic ways, especially when this is done to characters I've become emotionally invested in, who I've grown to love a lot. (What I'm saying is: this is going to stay with me awhile.)

Also I tweeted this to Ori Pfeffer, and I actually meant it: he's a big talent, and I think he deserves an Emmy for that death scene alone. I wish someone would put me in charge of the Emmys--I would so make that happen for him. (I also wish someone would put me in charge of Congress and the Department of Education. I have some good ideas for them, too.)

(sigh) It's okay DIG writers. I still love you. I'm totally aghast with you (and, I'll be honest, I'm slightly afraid of you), but I'm still head over heels for you. Because I have a hard time getting rid of adverbs; you guys are offing whole characters, left and right! (THIS is what good writing is, you all...they are master storytellers, the DIG writers. Sorry if you're a TV critic and didn't notice that after the first episode--just for that, I hope your bosses make you write about--and, worse, watch--American Idol season XXVVIIIXXIIIVV.)

Okay. That's done. I am done. I'll be okay eventually. Let's move on to DIG #9, Jehoshaphat. (If you haven't read the research I did on Jehoshaphat, you can if you have time--because I think Tad & Co. are heading to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. Or the Dome of the Rock with a bunch of bombs hidden in some books. So go educate yourself on Gog and Magog/Armageddon...Valley of Jehoshaphat is where that starts.)

1-Avram. DIG writers: DO NOT KILL HIM. I forbid it! I forbid it. Avram has a pure, sweet heart. And also: somebody's got to take care of Red the Cow. (On Twitter, Jason told everyone that show creator/writer/producer Gideon Raff bought all the show's cows--so the real Red and her compatriots are somewhere safe now. You will never, ever eat any of them at McDonald's. Which you shouldn't be eating at anyway, since they clean their meat with bleach and are part of the problem not the solution.)

2-Shem the Essene. DIG writers: DO NOT KILL HIM. I forbid it! I forbid it. Shem is bad ass, and I would like him to be in charge (if I can't be). He told Peter that if Peter could solve this mess, he'd heal himself and the world. And who the heck doesn't want to do THAT?! Win-win. And he stopped Avram from making a stupid mistake.

[Edit/Update: I forgot to mention that what the Essenes are doing, as they bury their dead, is saying the Mourner's Kaddish. I wrote about that in one of my geeky researcher entries: HERE...if you're interested in knowing about it.]

3-Lynn. DIG writers: DO NOT KILL HER. I forbid it! I forbid it. She got clocked on the head by that FBI clerk and her accomplice, but I don't think she's dead. I think Lynn is somewhere, just unconscious. Lynn trusted Liat, the FBI girl who is always looking up things on her computer (kind of like me--except I'M trustworthy) (mostly), and asked her to get all the airplane manifestos to find out who Ruth the evil Ambassador had coming into Israel. But hey, Lynn: when the FBI puts beautiful women in your office? That's usually an indication they're double agents. It's what the KGB and the CIA do, too. And probably Scotland Yard. It's how secret agents like to work. I think. At least in show biz.

At any rate--Ruth walked in to Lynn's office, just to mess with Lynn. She knew exactly why Lynn had Liat sitting in her office. She knew. Because Ruth had already put out a hit on Lynn, and Liat was in charge of it. Evil people, I tell ya. You have to stay 2 steps ahead of them.

4-Emma. DIG writers: You can kill Emma. Please kill Emma! (sorry, Alison.) You have my blessing, writers. Kill away. Make it nasty.

Because I knew it! I KNEW IT! That chick is a femme fatale. A Jezebel. The whore of Babylon. (No, for real: the whore of Babylon is in the book of Revelations, as part of the Christian End of Days. She's associated with the Antichrist and the Beast; she's an idolatress who is part of the Apocalypse.) 

5-And Peter! Peter!!! You just HAD to go and have shower sex with the Whore of Babylon, didn't you? Didn't you! And then phone your wife. (Do you ever notice that Peter does this, every time he has sex with someone he's not married to, coworker or idolatress? Peter cheats, then phones home. And he keeps his wedding ring on. Lands. You are a friggin' mess, Peter C.) (and I've given up trying to figure out the chest scar--I think it's just one of those character development things...sometimes when I write stories I give my characters background that never actually makes it in the actual story. Maybe this is one of those things.) (OR! There can be a Season 2 of DIG and the pilot can be titled THE SCAR.)

He talks to his wife about their dead daughter Vicky, seminary, how lost he is. (Seriously, this woman has the patience of a saint.) Peter had a girlfriend in seminary school (red flag #1), and he was just amazed when he held baby Vicky for the first time. Then Peter's wife says, "She came to us for a reason." (That's a clue--I'll tell you what I think his wife meant in just a minute.)

Before calling his saintly wife, Peter does a thing that, when I still believed Jesus is magic and went to church, I used to like to do: plays Bible roulette. It's where you get the Bible (actually, any holy text will do), close your eyes, and shuffle the pages to see where God lands you. Like spiritual Magic 8 Ball (which actually does work, you guys--go find a Magic 8 Ball and try it. Magic 8 Ball knows EVERYTHING, I'm not kidding) (whatever--I see you out there, rolling your eyes at me...a Magic 8 Ball told me I'd move to Georgia. BOOM! Stick that in your skeptic file).

Peter lands on a verse in the book of 1 Peter (of course!) specifically chapter 4, which basically tells him to be on the lookout--Satan's on the prowl. (Here, I will assert that, while not religious, I am spiritual...and so I watch shows like DIG and scenes like this and go: this is where the Divine intervenes to love and protect. Happens all the time--at some point, remind me, and I'll tell you about the time the Divine rescued me from being sold into sex slavery from a Mexican pool hall.)(No, seriously.)

Then Golan comes and makes his annoyed but loving Golan jokes about Peter keeping his peter in his pants.

6-Josh. DIG writers: You can kill Josh. Please kill Josh! (sorry, Zen.) You have my blessing.

Ruth Ridell is a religious crazy. She kisses Josh's hand like he's the King of England or the Pope. (Note to self: start having 2nd graders kiss my hand--establish a classroom hierarchy.) There are ginormous boxes of Tad Billingham's books in the airport warehouse they land at. (How the hell does Tad Billingham get published so easily? I can't get anyone to even read my wattpad.com short story.) Personally, I think the books are hiding explosives...explosives that will be sent to the Temple Mount to blow things up after Red has been burned up. Or maybe Tad just really, really hopes people in Israel will read his book and join his cult. (I'm kidding...the books are a front.)

7-Emma is a femme fatale. She kills Golan. She's a bad guy. Bad girl. A devil's advocate. A Jezebel gone wild. No longer in my tribe--kicked out! 

I loved the camera work--another example of how the creators are playing with lighting, color, scenery, camera angles, etc and so forth to tell their story. Emma's true nature is revealed in Golan's dying pupil......

................................

I'm sorry. I'm back. I had to take sobbing/grief break. (it's okay! I'll be okay--please, no flowers. Just donate to a literacy or childhood poverty program in Golan's name, okay?)

At any rate, Emma's vicious. And probably another religious crazy--she tells Peter as she's wiping up blood that she thinks it's kind of nice when people want to die for their beliefs. (Remember when she said John Donaldson's room at the convent was crazy? Pot, meet kettle.) 

My theory is that she's Peter's daughter's twin. I think Peter and his wife adopted Vicky--or were given Vicky to raise in some way. (Remember? "She came to us for a reason.") And I think Emma MAY be related to Vicky? Maybe. I could be wrong. But I feel strongly I am NOT wrong about Vicky being adopted by Peter and saintly, patient wife. There's just something weird about Emma, and about Peter's daughter. I've heard a theory about cloning--maybe. Maybe Emma/Vicky were cloned in the creepy New Mexico compound. And one was given to Peter/wife and the other to John Donaldson/wife. Because girls can't be high priests. 

(But then, why wouldn't they have just offed those baby girls? But maybe the high priest and the baby girls were supposed to breed the Messiah...I don't know I don't know!! It's hard to know when dealing with religious crazies.)

At any rate, I also wonder if EMMA was the child left alone for 3 days with the bodies of her dead parents (the retired detective tells Golan this at his house in the Negev desert--he asks him to imagine what that would do to a child. Oh, I don't know, retired, grizzly Israeli detective? Turn them into a cold-blooded assassin? Maybe?)

Okay. Some other things to address in Dig #9:

--Margrove. That weasel got Peter to go to the Dig site. He's so wrong. DIG writers, you have my blessing to kill him off, too. (Sorry, Richard.)

--Gregory. He tells Golan everything. But then Golan takes it to the grave (of course). So he's not as crazy as he appears--I think he's being drugged on purpose, to keep him quiet I think. And I'm wondering if--now that Golan undrugged him--Gregory's going to pull it together, escape from the asylum, and come to Peter's rescue.

--Avram unpurifies Red by spray painting her. He also tries to kill Rabbi Lev, but is stopped by Essene Shem. And Shem tells him: that's not who you kill. You kill the High Priest. (Take out the queen...I know someone told me here in the comments that the chess piece was a bishop, but I'm wondering if it's actually the queen. In the pictures I looked up on chess, the piece portrayed in the show actually looks more like a queen piece. And--because I teach 2nd grade and we do insect life cycles and so I just happen to know this--there's a mythology that says if the queen bee dies, the entire colony drops dead. It actually doesn't; they just make themselves a new queen and start over, but I think that's interesting, if the chess piece is a queen.)

And one more thing before I go:

There's a mystic part of Judaism called Kabbalah. It's far too comprehensive for me to research it, but I'd love to learn a lot about it because mysticism is my kind of thing. Madonna the singer likes Kabbalah, but her version of it is watered down and feel good. The real Kabbalah is far more mystical than anything Madonna wants to practice.

In Kabbalah, numbers are uber important. In the show so far, we've seen how the number 19 is important. The numbers 7 and 13 are also big in Kabbalah, and have played into the show but not as prominently as 19. Another big number is 36.

In Kabbalah, there's a thing about something called "Righteous Souls." There are 36 of these souls on our planet (right now! as you read this!), and they don't even know who they are. God has a job for them to complete, and once they complete it, they're good. They go back to their lives none the wiser. In Hebrew, they're called Tzadikim Nistarim "hidden righteous ones"), and if Peter is one of the 36 hidden righteous ones, in Hebrew he'd be a Lamed Vav Tzadikim. The two Hebrew letters for the number 36 are lamed and vav, 30 + 6. The concept is based on a Talmudic statement that every generation has 36 righteous souls, who are there to greet the Divine Presence, or the Shechinah, which means "where God dwells."

Mystical Hasidic Judaism believes these 36 people are there to prove to God why He ought to keep us all around still, why He shouldn't just erase us and start all over. They are there to prevent disasters and the like, and once they prevent these disasters, they just....go back to their regular lives. They don't know each other, they aren't even aware of what they're doing, and they are spread all over the world. And, quite frankly, if someone ever walks up to you and goes, "Hi there...I'm here to save the world because I'm a Lamed Vav Tzadikim," then you'll know you're dealing with a fake. They are humble and sincere about what they're doing. They're just...trying to help. (I do this ALL the time, and usually make things worse. I'm hoping there's another set of 36, numbers 37-72 Lamed Vav Tzadikim, the loose cannon ones.)

More important? They are the WHOLE reason God keeps us all around. As long as there are 36 people who don't know they're saints running around, God's pretty good with us and we're safe. No destructive floods and crap. (Unless you're in Nepal--I hope you've texted some money to them.)

Anyway, that's who I think Peter is--he's a righteous soul who doesn't know it. But I bet Shem the Essene has his suspicions, which would be why he told Peter to fix this effed up Tad Billingham/Rabbi Lev situation, and he'd heal himself. Peter can go back to his saintly, patient wife and they can pick up the pieces.

Maybe.

Because NO!! No, USA Network!! You need to send Peter on another mission. He's one of the planet's 36 Righteous Souls, here to save us all!! And there's a girl in Atlanta, Georgia who needs stuff to research and write about. Okay? The planet's a humongous mess; there's plenty of healing for Peter to do for this crazy rock of ours. SEASONS of material. And more darlings for the DIG writers to kill off. 

I don't know if my heart can take it though--I'm the walking wounded here, in Georgia, about Golan. Just as I finished moving through the 7 stages of grief with Debbie, BAM. Now I'm back at square one. 

Story of my life: And then she was back at square one.