Pack-rat or Archivist? You decide

So... my mother is receiving an award tonight from the Alzheimer's Association (I will be writing a blog later with the details from the program) and I flew home this week to go to the event. I'm so proud of her and everything she's done, but that's for a later post.

No, today's post is about my childhood desk. It sits on the wall of my childhood bedroom, below a faded yellow post-it note on my wall that says (in all caps and underlined, no doubt for emphasis) "STUDY!" The note is a relic of my long-ago days of school-dom. I asked my mother yesterday how it can still be on the wall. They stripped the wallpaper since I moved out and painted the room white. She says she liked to leave it there because it was so iconoclastic.

Anyway, I was getting dressed yesterday and happened to glance over at my desk and noticed a little round piece of plastic sitting there. I realized it was one of those plastic discs that you put in the center of a 45 record to play it on a normal record player. As I was looking at the little disc of yester-year, suddenly, as though I had blinders on before, my entire desk and everything sitting on it (including the yellow post-it reminder to study) materialized. I realized that since I moved out of this house in 1991, I have never really looked at that desk. So, I decided to dig in and discover it's contents. Here's what I found...

On top of the desk:

• A jar full of pennies in a mug that says "Please don't bother me, I'm studying." (Yeah, I'm sure...)
• 8 different coffee mugs with various sayings... "Official Left-Handed Mug" (which had a small hole on one side so if you tried to drink with your right hand it would dump the liquid all over you) "Coffee and Cruellers will hold back the honk" (That's a Wayne's World mug, of course) and one with a pretty unicorn leaping over a rainbow.
• A Giant Guinness mug filled with hair combs.
• Four, count them, FOUR pencil cups jammed full of writing implements (including some Crayola markers) which no longer have any hope of working. (And I know they don't work, cause I tried several of them as I began my inventory of the desk. None of them were up to the job. I just put them back, naturally.)
  
• A Guinness bottle with a red and white pom sticking out of it from my Shaker Heights Red Raiders days.

And that's just what's been sitting on top...

Drawer #1:

• A program from my high school senior honors dinner, in which I did not receive any honors.
• My report card from the fall of '92 (Mostly Bs with an A- in Fiction writing)
• A directory of my C:/ drive from my first computer
• A Colleco Quiz Wiz with 1001 questions (I wonder if I can get money for that from eBay)
• A container of Pick Up Sticks
• A File box that says "Pick a Book" on the outside. Inside are cards describing books. For example: "This book is about all kinds of animals at a hotel. It is very funny" and "This book is about a boy who loves soccer. If you like soccer, this book is for you." (For the record, I believe this box was a class project in Elementary School and I took it upon myself to procure it secretly. Not all these descriptions were written by me, as evidenced by the fact that there is a book about soocer.)

Drawer #2:

• Two boxes of reel to reel tape from my days as a radio Production Manager on 106-VIC- the Voice of Ithaca College.
• A notebook containing questions from my first (and last) celebrity interview... yes, friends, it was Julio Iglesias.
• A folder full of fiction writing, most of it involving death and bad metaphors. I was a very, very dark writer in my youth.
• A college Viewbook from the University of Hartford. (A school which I did not visit, nor apply to, nor, obviously, attend. However, I live on a street called Hartford now, so that's something.)
• A book in which I wrote down song lyrics I liked with the title in calligraphy (or what I believed calligraphy should look like) on the facing page. Many of the titles are Beatles songs, but there is some Simon & Garfunkel thrown in for good measure. (It seems to me this was early practice for my future career. It also seems to me that I got a lot of song lyrics wrong back then.)
• A reminder on a slip of paper to call Lee Fisher's office (candidate for State Representative) on Monday for myself and Molly. Mol and I volunteered in his office in 1990, mainly because the Volunteer Coordinator was very cute and used to call us Slut-Puppy. (Which we also called ourselves, to be fair.)
  
• A yellow Yo-Yo
• The letter I earned for my letter jacket from High School Marching Band. (Which I clearly had the sense NOT to put on my jacket, cause how lame is a band letter?)
• A book of piano sheet music with TV and Movie themes. (Ex: The Theme from Ice Castles, St. Elsewhere and Happy Days.)

Drawer #3

• A Certificate of Merit from Temple Emanu El for Outstanding Scholastic Achievement in Grade 10 Judaic Studies. (Really? They must have set the bar VERY low...)
• A wall calendar from 1990 titled "PMS Attack." Complete with countdown to the day I left for my summer trip to Cambridge in England. The countdown begins 117 days from departure. (From 4/22-4/30, I wrote "Dante's 9th Level of Hell" across the dates. Which puzzled me until I saw that the SAT's were held on May 1st. Ah!!!)
• Paperback book version of the movie "Big" starring Tom Hanks.
• Flash cards for Division. (Truthfully, I should take those home and study them. I could use the practice!)
• The shooting script from the August 25, 1994 edition of Entertainment Tonight. John Tesh: "All that pushing and squeezing and pushing and squeezing and finally... rock hard thighs. Now watch Suzanne put them to work." (Ok, I'd really like to know what was happening in the tape package that came after THAT intro!)
• My Driver License that expired in June of '93
• My SISTER'S Driver License (which I was stupidly using as a fake ID even though there was a three inch height difference and we look nothing alike) which expired in January of '95.
• A recipe printed on dot matrix printer for Skyline Chili (hmmm.... can't wait to try that!)
• A copy of Cliff's Notes for Macbeth.

Now, you may be wondering to yourself, 'Self, I wonder if Sheri decided to throw out stupid things like the note to call Lee Fisher's office, or the printed 8 page description of a C:/ drive that has been taking up space in a landfill for a good 15 years... and really get something accomplished while she strolled down memory lane.' So, I'll tell you.

No.

No, when I was done looking at everything, writing it all down so I could record it here, I shoved it all back in the drawers and pushed and pushed until they closed again.

And it's not that the idea of purging the drawers and throwing things out didn't occur to me. It did. Many times. However, ultimately, the garbage bags were downstairs and the alarm was already on. And, you know, I had such a good time combing through all this crap, that who am I to deny my future self the same enjoyment 10 years from now? When I can again wonder why I'm saving that empty file box, or that yellow yo-yo, or the 15 copies of the resume I sent to LA when I was trying to find an internship for 2nd semester senior year. How sad would I feel one day to not be able to comb through pages and pages of badly written fiction with teacher's comments written in green on the side, pointing out gramatical and spelling errors?

No, I can't deny my future self this joy. And what if I should become famous? I know it's not likely, but it could happen. Shouldn't I save all these important momentos for the opening night of the Sheri Spitz Collection at the Smithsonian?

Yes, better to leave things as they are. Who knows what I will need someday.

Tune in for the next time I return home and document the contents of my closets, where I promise you, there is a Married With Children board game!

I freakin' love my job!

So... I have had a bad couple of weeks, as you can probably tell from my previous two posts. I feel like I've been non-stop cranky for months. (I'm sure if I asked some of my friends if that's true they would confirm... which is why I won't ask). I've been feeling a bit lost, a bit confused, a bit like everything I want in life is just beyond my reach and I will always come close to what I want and but never quite get it.

Then, miracle upon miracles, PR scheduled an all day educational Empowerment Summit in Charlotte. Well, not just in Charlotte. In eight other markets as well. But Charlotte's happened to be today. And all I have to say, having spent 9 hours sitting in a hotel ballroom, in the same chair (with a half hour lunch break and loooots of bathroom breaks cause my bladder is apparently the size of a pea), listening to five different speakers and watching five different Powerpoint presentations...

I FREAKIN' LOVE THIS COMPANY!!!!$#@$#@

Feel like I'm shouting at you? I am.

Seriously, I have always loved trainings and meetings from the day I signed up. I go to every meeting that I can for our team in the Carolinas, I've been to National Convention twice in Las Vegas and chose to ignore the city and its trappings to sit in voluntary training sessions (of course, to be fair, I don't like Vegas very much, so I didn't feel like I was giving up anything) and I've gone to Annual Corporate Training in Cincinnati, OH every year for three days. Every year, at the end of training, I start getting excited and can't wait for the next one. It's always so empowering and exciting and amazing to be in a room with SO MANY women who are all about bettering themselves and each other instead of being nasty and bitchy as you know we women can be in large groups.

But this Empowerment Seminar blew all those previous trainings away. I am so pumped, I want to do a party right-freakin-now to show off what I learned. I want to memorize every bullet-point, every note, every demo that I heard today and recite them to strangers so they can get as excited as I am. (Hence the blog! Aren't you glad I didn't call you personally?)

I have been to quite a few trainings for other companies. The Pump Factory in Monroe, North Carolina (pronounced MONroe by the folks who worked there...) was a special treat of sheer, mind-numbing, excrutiating pain. The sales trainings I used to have to organize when I worked at Hair Color Xperts made me want to cry and beg my boss not to make me actually attend. And then, of course, there have been the ENDLESS tech meetings (yes, telethon, I'm thinking of you!) and production meetings where I seriously considered jabbing myself in the eye with my mechanical pencil just to make life more interesting.

This was twice as long as most of those (except the Telethon meeting, of course!) and flew by in a blink.

What I love about PR sales trainings is that they don't train us and say "Here's how you can make better sales." Instead, they tell us how we can like ourselves more, appreciate our customers more, be more educated... thereby increasing our sales. I genuinely walk away from our trainings feeling happier, more empowered and more in love with this company than ever.

Anyway, this is probably getting nauseating, so I'll stop here. I guess I just wanted to let everyone out there in blog land who might be feeling some concern for me based on previous posts know that "HappySheri" is back and ready to go!

PR rocks!!!

Messages from the Subconscious

So... last night, I had two very weird dreams. Not unusual for me by any stretch. I am the most vivid dreamer I know and my dreams are regularly active, dark and often involve life or death situations. If anyone out there in blog land has a cure for that, let me know. Please.

These dreams last night were no different, generally, than the others. Quick action, representation from people in my life etc. But usually, I wake up from these things thinking 'What in the holy hell did that mean?' and writing it off. Like the other night, I had a dream that my whole family was going to Greece for a vacation and I had volunteered to stay and watch my cousins' restaurant for them (despite the fact that none of my cousins actually own restaurants) and was very anxious about doing a good job. What does that mean? I have no idea.

But two dreams from last night actually seem like they are sending me a message. In the first of the two, I was driving a large mobile home type thing with a group of friends home from some kind of vacation. For some reason, I have a memory that we were a band on tour? But anyway, we were driving this mobile home and we put it on autopilot (!!!) and went into the back to play cards while the car drove us home. But something was bothering me and I couldn't figure it out. So I went back up to the driver's seat to check on things and started to come a very slow realization that we were driving the wrong direction on the highway.

I didn't panic, but I got off (driving backwards so I could go with the flow of traffic) at the next exit I could find. My friends didn't seem bothered by it and no other cars were honking at me. Which is probably why it took me so long to figure out that we were going the wrong way. But we did eventually get off the highway and turn around to attempt to get back on. As we were starting to turn onto the entrance ramp, I noticed there were some orange cones blocking part of the ramp. I tried to see if I should go around the cones, but there was so much traffic and they were all honking to get me to move forward, so I just went around the cones and started driving down the ramp, only to discover that the ramp was only half finished and didn't connect to the highway. We were trapped. And then I woke up.

I had to get up to go pee at that point, and as I went, I was doing my usual to reassure myself that none of that actually happened, that it was just a dream, blah blah blah. But I realized it seemed like a pretty telling one and I thought to myself, 'If I still remember it in the morning, I'll write a blog about it.' Then I went back to sleep.

In the next dream, I was at a gas station, filling up my car (which was actually my car on and off through this dream. Sometimes it was the Element, sometimes it was a big van) when all of a sudden, someone came by to pick me up and I left. I came back a long while later to the same station to pick up my car and pacing around the car screaming was Luke from Gilmore Girls. He was mad that I had left the car there so long with the gas pump handle in the car, taking up room. He was threatening to tow. I came running over, apologizing over and over and he started telling me he was going to sue me for all the business he had lost while my car sat there. I was horribly embarrassed and apologetic and tried to pay for my gas, but he kept ranting and raving and getting angrier and angrier. Finally, he started to calm down and eventually agreed to just let me pay for the gas I bought. Then my friends and I climbed into the car and started heading home.

Do you ever think maybe you're doing something wrong with your life and no one has bothered to tell you, or even noticed? I hate to take such a literal translation with these dreams, especially since my dreams are usually so screwy that there isn't a lesson to be learned among them. My dreams are abstract and strange. But these dreams just seem so obvious. At a time in my life where I am a feeling a bit at loose ends, these dreams seem to be screaming at me. Am I going the wrong direction? Am I taking dead-end roads? Am I just taking up space in places where better things would get done if I would just move out of the way?

I don't think this applies to my business. In fact, work, as usual, is the one thing in my life I am completely certain about. I know I am doing good there and I'm proud of the work that I do. At least, I know I'm good at parties, at selling, at educating and supporting my clients in a very intimate setting. Recruiting, on the other hand... not my strongest area. But I don't feel like I'm going the wrong direction there.

Maybe the dreams happened because I have spent this entire week carrying around the intention of getting organized as hell in my house and never getting it done. Is that it?

Is it my personal life? Is that where I am standing at a dead end road? I don't get the chance to meet a lot of people to spend time with in this line of work. I work from home, I work at night... not a lot of new friendships or relationships to be made in that context. Back in LA, I would do new shows every month and at every show, I would make a great new friend. Sometimes they were just friends that I would see at shows occasionally, but more often, they became friends that I would hang out with after shows ended. I had so many incredible friends out there and I do miss that here. The friends I have made in Charlotte are amazing and I love them all, but there are not a lot. At least, not by my standards.

Maybe the dreams were the result of frustration that I've been feeling this week over trying to prepare my books without really understanding what I'm doing. I finally got them done on Tuesday and gave them to my accountant who then called me to ask a hundred questions about things I had done wrong in my Quickbooks, even going so far as forgetting she was on the phone with me and muttering to herself 'she has got to take a bookkeeping class.' Which, yes, I need to do.

Maybe it's to do with my fear that practicing and learning Pilates so I can make an extra couple hundred a week teaching is not going to work out because it appears there are not enough clients for me to actually get a class to teach.

I don't know exactly what they mean, but I have a feeling it might be all of the above. I also know that I have these types of moments in my life, these feelings of being at a turning point, on the cusp of something, every few years. And everything always works out in the end. I have no doubt that all these issues I'm facing right now will be resolved and when they are, of course, the answer in hindsight will be obvious and I'll wonder why I spent so much energy trying not to think about them.

In the meantime, until the light turns on, I guess I'll just assume these dreams are a warning sign. A reminder to me that even though I'm pretending these issues aren't there, they do exist and probably need some attention.

And my Element does need some gas. I'll just remember to stand there while I fill the tank and take my car with me when I go.

Wocka Wocka Wocka

So... I'm having a bit of a downer weekend. All the parties I had scheduled for this weekend canceled, which was frustrating as hell for me. The two people I usually spend time with whenever I don't have parties on a weekend are actually in Australia right now. So, I spent a lot of time in the Pilates studio practicing, saw a few movies and actually got to attend Molly's daughter's 8th birthday, which I normally would have missed if I had parties, so that was the highlight. But I ended the day Sunday kind of bummed. Too long by myself in my head with no structure and nothing of interest to do.

A few weeks ago, when I was home, my sister gave me a new book to read. It's about the creation of the Children's Television Workshop and the birth of Sesame Street. It's a great read (it's called Street Gang, for those with an interest) and I'm loving it. I did watch a lot of Sesame as a kid, so the nostalgia was thick around me this afternoon as I sat in Starbucks reading.

I loved Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch and Cookie Monster and all the other Muppets that hung out on Sesame Street, but my favorite Muppets had always been those who worked at the Muppet Theater on Saturday nights at 7:30PM. Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, the Swedish Chef, Camilla the Chicken... I loooooved that show. For some reason, Kermit's voice reminds me of my Dad. Especially when he (my Dad) sings. At my Bat Mitzvah, after my Dad sang an Alliyah on the pulpet in front of everyone we knew, I looked at him and said "Now sing 'It's Not Easy Being Green!'" (Years later, in college, when I was, shall we say, experimenting with things my father would not have approved of, my friend Gary would sing that song to me to further my already rampant paranoia while I inhaled.) Similarly, my father has always had this habit of singing the Swedish Chef theme song whenever he's tossing a salad or pasta. (In fact, I think my whole obsession with the Muppets is because I so strongly connect them with my father in my mind. Dad used to get ready to go out early on Saturday nights so he could watch The Muppet Show with us while we waited for the babysitter to get there.)

So every mention of Kermit in the book has made me want to watch the Muppets again. It's been so many years! I bought a DVD of some shows a few years ago, but never got around to watching it. So tonight, after I finished feeling crabby about my business and lack of people to hang with in Charlotte, I pulled out the DVD and put it on.

God, I forgot how funny it was. And not just in a 'oh, I used to think it was so funny back when I was a kid' kind of way. Funny in a laugh-out-loud as a grownup kind of way. There was so much adult humor in that show. I keep staring at Kermit and trying to see him as just a puppet. Just a felt thing that moves it's mouth up and down. But I can only seem to do it for a second before I get caught up in his personality and forget that his lips aren't actually forming words. The facial expressions are what makes it. I know that it's just his nose getting pointier (is that a word?) but it makes all the difference and changes his whole mood from happy-go-lucky to perplexed and/or mortified.

The Swedish Chef tried to make eggs in a frying pan but instead of laying actual eggs, Camilla the Chicken kept laying ping pong balls. Ultimately, TSC wound up chasing her around trying to put her in the pan instead.

At the Vertinarian's Hospital, Rolf the dog was worried that the dog patient on their table had fleas. Miss Piggy inquired as to why and Rolf explained it was because he hated starting from scratch. When the voiceover started his "Tune in to the next episode..." spiel, Miss Piggy, Rolf, Janice (who was the other nurse helping) and the dog patient all looked toward the ceiling to see where the disembodied voice had come from. I forgot they used to do that every episode. I don't think I understood as a kid.

Elton John sang Crocodile Rock and was eaten by the backup singing Crocodiles at the end.

Watching Kermit and Fozzy sing a duet means so much more now that I know how close Frank Oz and Jim Henson were.

On Pigs in Space, Miss Piggy and the Captain freak out when aliens invade the space ship. The aliens turn out to the Camilla the Chicken still being chased by the Swedish Chef. The voice over offers "Tune in next week and be bored again by... Piiiiiiiiigs Iiiiiiinnnnn Spaaaaace"

Sam the Eagle wants to know why Elton John dresses like a 'stolen car'. Huh? Yet, funny!

Okay, here's a scary moment... Elton John wearing a bedazzled, skin tight pink pantsuit (unzipped to the waist) and a pink bowlers hat.

Anyway, I could provide a blow-by-blow of the rest of the episode but I'll spare you. The point is, even though I haven't seen this show in 25 years or so, it is home to me. Comforting. Puts me completely at ease and totally abolished my bad mood. As soon as Kermit waved his arms and yelled "yaaaaayyyyy" during the opening song, I started to smile.

Sometimes the current fascination with Elmo makes me crazy. I wish Elmo would stop referring to himself in the third person. Sheri doesn't like it when people do that. But there is a whole generation of kids years from now who will be in a bad mood one Sunday afternoon when they are 35 and suddenly, they will see a Tickle Me Elmo doll and it will immediately make them feel better. So long as they don't grow up referring to themselves in the third person, I can accept that.

After all, the Muppet Show DVD managed to turn my downer of a Sunday into a Most-Sensational-Inspirational-Celebrational-Muppetational day.

(The final scene of the episode was of Statler and Waldorf in their balcony audience box talking as the Swedish Chef and Camilla go running through the background. Waldorf says "I hate a running gag!" Get it? Cause it was a running joke through the show and they were running in the background? I loved those two!)

Um... holy awkward Batman

So... I've temporarily folded my Pure Romance self and put it in a drawer for a week so I could once again temporarily don my production self and come out to D.C. I'm helping out on one of the Inauguration events. I was hired on Sunday afternoon. Travel booked Monday afternoon. Flew out on Tuesday morning and was sitting in the office of the Presidential Inaugural Committee headquarters by noon, breaking down Jonas Brothers songs. Our event airs on Monday night on the Disney channel.

When I was called on Sunday afternoon to come out, I said yes immediately since I had no parties this week. Besides, who wouldn't want the chance to be part of something historic?

But later that day, a bit of concern started to creep in. See, five or six years before I left Los Angeles, I took a job which was a move up position-wise. Although the show should have been easy for me to handle, for some reason, it quickly turned into a logistical mess and a show that was WAY over my head and abilities. I hung in for a while, struggling to keep my head above water, but ultimately, they decided I wasn't the right fit for the show (aka I was fired). Honestly, I was never angry about it, because I would have fired me too. I was terrible on that show and totally drowning in my inexperience. When they fired me, I was COMPLETELY relieved and anxious to get back to shows I would enjoy. So when I was booked on the Inaugural I got very nervous because the production company and two of the producers on the show are the ones who fired me back then.

But ultimately, I got over it and realized that they fired me so many years ago and haven't seen me since and probably would not remember me at all. (Which it turns out was right for one of them. In fact, yesterday, after having worked with one of the producers for three days straight, I sent him an email and he asked the people in his office, "Who is Sheri Spitz?") So off I trotted to D.C. and all has been well so far. In fact, I've kind of enjoyed having the chance to redeem myself to "P," one of the producers who I am working with very closely. I can tell he has changed his opinion of me and his attitude has changed with it. I feel very triumphant.

The only TV show I normally do tends to have the same people on it year after year, so the added bonus of coming here and doing this show is that I have been able to see people some people I hadn't seen in years. Years before I left LA in some cases. It reminds me a lot of a family reunion. I remember a lot of them and most of their names. Most of them remember my face, some of them remember my name. I have decided to give them all the easy way out and pretend we've never met and introduce myself. Then, later, I pretend to have an epiphany and say, "Hey, didn't we work together on something before?" To which they say, relieved, "Yeah, what was that again?" At least, I do that for the people I like. The ones I don't like, I just say hello, call them by their names and let them twist in the wind while they try to remember who I am and what my name is. Ha.

So all has been going well here. The horrific nightmare of a production schedule I anticipated never really happened. Should happen tonight, but tomorrow is show day so no big deal. I'm having fun catching up with people and it's been easy, as usual, to shrug back into the script department role I played for so long. I've had my rough moments with certain higher ups, but other than that I'm having a good time. At least, I was. Until last night.

We actually made it out early(ish) last night and for some reason, the gods were smiling down upon us and we made it to a 9PM dinner reservation. It was super awesome! My fellow scriptie and I returned to the hotel to meet our fellow diners. The new FOSS (Fan of Sheri Spitz) producer "P" was joining us as well as one of the writers and a few other people. At the last minute, two people arrived at the hotel who had just flown in from LA and they wanted to join us. I knew the guy looked familiar, but I just couldn't place it. So we waited for them to drop their stuff in their rooms and headed to the restaurant.

The whole time we were walking in the F-ING FREEZING COLD to the restaurant, I was looking at him... trying to figure out what show we did together. No big deal, I thought. Probably some show back my early years and I haven't seen him in a while. But then someone called his name and it hit me... like a ton of bricks. I know where I've worked with him before.

A few months ago, I wrote a post about a sushi restaurant. In it, I talked about my first experience learning that as a Script Supervisor I should be seen and not heard. I talked about how I got spanked, AND HARD, when I was fired from my second job out of college. What I didn't really go into in that post is how I committed all these cardinal post-production bay sins... I lounged with my feet up on the desk. I talked at random. I ordered coffees for myself not realizing they weren't free. All kinds of things that I would never even THINK of doing now. (In fact, one of the producers just went to Starbucks and I'm half asleep and he would have been happy to get something for me if I had asked, but I was too uncomfortable to do it.) I plead ignorance. It was, as I mentioned, my second job (and only six months) out of college and I just didn't know any better. The problem is, I continued these habits unabated (cause no one told me not to) for over two months. Finally, when the post-production supervisor let me go, he explained in detail everything I did wrong. I have never been so humiliated. To know that all this time, I had been making people mad and making mistakes and acting completely wrong and had no idea and no one told me? Ugh. I hated myself for doing it and them for not telling me.

So back to our current story (can you guess what's coming?) We're walking to the restaurant and I realize, the man I recognize is "R", the very Post-Production Super who fired me all those years ago. 13 years ago, to be exact. I instantly panicked, but at the same time I was highly amused. Strange combo, I am aware, but none the less, those were my thoughts.

So we get to the restaurant, all 10 of us, and walk to the table. I am the first to arrive at the table and so I pick out my leftie seat as usual. At this point, I'm trying to decide if I am going to re-introduce myself to "R" as though we have never met and let him just assume that's the case or remind him and own it like a grownup OR ignore him throughout dinner altogether. Option three was the winner in my mind, but apparently not in fate's mind. Cause he was the last to the table and there was only one seat left. Yes, next to me. On my right. Oh, and did I mention that "P" was sitting directly across from me? (It's also worth mentioning that "P" and I have never talked about the fact that he fired me. We are pretending that never happened, apparently.)

So there I am, surrounded by my own failure, deciding between the catfish and the crab cakes. "R" is mostly turned away from me, talking to the woman on his other side and I thought maybe I could ignore him the whole dinner after all, but then I decided that would be too tiring and I'd spend the entire dinner nervous. So I bit the bullet. "R," I said, drawing his attention. He turned to me and I stuck my hand out. "I'm Sheri." He shook my hand and said, "Yeah, we'e met before." I said, "Yeah, we worked together a VERY long time ago." "Where was that," he asked. "I can't remember." I pretended for a moment not to remember while I tried to decide whether or not to bring it up. Finally, I surrendered. "Disney," I said, looking him in the eye as much as possible. (BTW, I just realized that not only was that a Disney show, but the other show I was fired from was Disney as well and SO IS THE ONE I'M DOING NOW! Hmmm. And you guys wonder why I hate Disney!) I watched recognition dawn. And his face changed. And I knew he remembered. And for some reason, it made me laugh. Probably inappropriate, but unavoidable none the less.

He recovered quickly and we talked about how difficult that show was, neither of us actually acknowledging the giant pink elephant sitting on my shoulder, and then we both turned back to the people on our other sides and continued other conversations. We spoke a few more times during dinner, but for the most part, remained in our seperate corners. Later in the evening, one of the other producers there who had too much to drink started talking about how grateful he was that I was there doing the show and how great a job I was doing and how fantastic I was. And, of course, I humbly acknowledged his praise and thanked him graciously. In my head, I was thinking, "Yeah 'P' & 'R'! Suck it!"

At some point, the irony of sitting at a table with two men who have fired me became too much to shoulder alone and I told the AD who was sitting on my other side. He and I shared a laugh and he asked me if there was a third person who fired me and if we could expect him to show up on the show anytime soon. I assured him that the list ended with "P". Unbeknownst to me, I got up to go to the bathroom ("R" had already left to go meet friends at another restaurant) and the AD told the table what I had told him. According to my fellow scriptee who shared the story when we were back at the hotel heading up to our rooms, "P" adamantly denied that he had EVER fired me and then said "And it was a long time ago, anyway." Which made me laugh all the way up the elevator to the 9th floor and down the hall to my room. It never happened, officer! And even if it did, it wasn't my fault.

My mother has decided that the reason fate gave me the opportunity to do this show was so I could go back and prove to these men who were such bad memories for me that I am a good, competent script pa. She could be right. Who knows? Either way, last night was definitely a lesson in humility. Shall I pass the bread and butter to the two people who fired me at this table in chronological order or alphabetical? But either way, I got a ton of amusement out of it.

How appropriate that this all happened at Obama's Inauguration event. See, it's a lesson that Obama taught me! Can I survive a whole night of socializing with people who don't like me?

Yes, I can.

The Gentile's Guide to Chanukah (or Hannukah... or Hanaka... or however you choose to spell it)

So... on this, the 2nd night of Chanukah 2008 (2nd night, right? Who knows. I can't remember if it started on Sunday night or Monday night, but whatever. Close enough.) I thought it might be prudent to give the Jewish challenged folk in my life a little lesson about this holiday which is so often misunderstood. Call it my mitzvah for the year. (Jewish Challenged People: The word "mitzvah" is Yiddish or Hebrew or something for "good deed".)

So, below are some of the FAQ I receive here in the south where Chanukah is so widely mizunderdastood.

Q. Why is Chanukah at a different time every year?
A. My ancestors thought it would be fun to keep the gentile guessing. OR... because all Jewish holidays are celebrated according to the Hebrew Calendar which is different from English calendar. Just to illustrate this point, while you non-Jews will soon be welcoming the year 2009, we Jews will be waiting until Rosh Hashana in Sept. to begin the year 5770. The Hebrew calendar is shorter than the English calendar, so the holidays move around. That's why you hear us Jews talking about "Chanukah/ Rosh Hashana/ Purim is early this year!" It's our favorite thing to talk about. (well, 2nd favorite. Our favorite thing to talk about is what we will be eating at the next meal as we consume the current meal. But I digress.)

Q. What are you celebrating at Chanukah? Does it have something to do with Christmas?
A. No. Nothing to do with Christmas at all! Zero, zilch, nada. The fact that there are presents on Chanukah and it happens around the same time as Christmas (sometimes) confuses people into thinking the two holidays are kissing cousins or something. In reality (and long story short) the Jewish temple was trashed by some bad people and after the damage was assessed, it was determined that there was only enough oil left to last one day. (Or something like that. Give me a break Jewish friends. It's been a long time since Sunday school.) But the oil lasted seven days instead and Chanukah is a celebration of that miracle.

Q. What's with the candelabra you always light?
A. That's called a menorah. It's got eight candles on it. One for each night of Chanukah and then the 8th is the candle we use to light all the others. You start out by lighting one candle the first night, two on the second, three on the third etc. There are a few prayers that you say, I think three on the first night and then two on the second. We sing them in Hebrew and that is probably atrocious for anyone who can hear. Then in the morning, after the candles have burned out, you pull out a metal skewer normally used for cooking shish-kabobs on the grill and dig out all the melted wax. (Of course, that may have just been at my parent's house.) It was always my favorite part. Strange? Yes. Are you surprised?

Q. How cool is it to get so many presents?
A. And herein lies the crux of the confusion. I can only speak for my family, of course, and the families of friends I grew up with, but here it is. You may want to sit down for this one. It's a bit of a nasty shock if you don't see it coming... Celebrating Chanukah is NOTHING like Christmas. In the past, when I have attended a Christmas celebration, I have seen orgys of present opening under the Christmas tree. Piles of presents in beautiful paper... toys... games... clothes... stocking stuffers. Good God but you all get a lot of stuff.

At Chanukah, as a child, you get about one present a night. Perhaps two. And one of them is always socks. Or some pair of shoes you don't want to have to wear to Temple. Or, worse comes to worse, Chanukah gelt. (Those are the little gold wrapped chocolate coins that come in the yellow fishnet. Gelt means "money" in Hebrew.) The gelt chocolate doesn't even really taste all that great, to be honest. So on the first night of Chanukah, you may get a gift from your parents. The next night may be from siblings. The next night, you get one from crazy Aunt Mildred who lives in Florida. She got you a sweet little hat to put on your keppie (yiddish for "head") to keep you warm in the cold Cleveland winter and if you would just come down to Florida already you wouldn't have to be so cold and then you could get a real gift. Oy, why do these meshuge (yiddish for "crazy") kids never come to visit?

So you see, all those kids who sit and picture eight whole days of Christmas Morning-style partying are so sadly mistaken. At my parent's house, as I believe I mentioned in an earlier blog, we would light the Menorah during a commercial from the evening prime time TV. Then Dad would make us march around the house singing Chanukah songs and then either make us hunt for our gifts or just give them to us. Whole thing would be over before the commercial ended. And that's not to say I didn't look forward to the holiday. I always did. I liked lighting the candles (I looked forward to lighting the match and would pick out my favorite box matches every night to use. Young pyromaniac for sure!) and digging out the aforementioned wax every morning. There was always something really peaceful, as well, about walking into the kitchen after the candles had been burning for a while and standing in the dark, watching the colorful wax melt into interesting designs onto the tin foil beneath the menorah that kept the wax from sticking to my mother's pristine counters. I always liked arranging the colors of the candles too, sometimes alternating between two colors, sometimes going with a block of color, sometimes just putting together a random sampling of colors from the blue boxes we always had in abundance because they gave them out to us at Sunday School every year.

But did I walk away from any Chanukah with an overwhelming bag of booty? No. I do remember walking away one year with an excellent new Olivia Newton John album ("Totally Hot") but that's about it.



Q. Do you and your family get together for Chanukah?
A. Another harsh truth to be faced. Chanukah is for kids. Really, it is. My parents still give me a gift every year, but that's it. I don't run around trying to find a gift for my Aunt on my mother's side or my brother-in-law's cat. In fact, I give a gift to my niece, one to my cou-niece (that's the daugher of my cousin who is more like a sister than a cousin so her daughter is more like a niece than anything else. I am her Coz-Aunt Sheri and she is my Cou-Niece Sara.) and one to my oldest friend's kids. And that's it folks. So there is really not all that much enthusiasm about getting together at Chanukah. It's not a big family holiday for us (and by "us" I mean the Reform Jews. Conservative and Orthodox Jews may feel differently, but either way, it's not a major holiday for us. Rosh Hashana is much more important!) Thanksgiving is the big winner in the Spitz house.

So those are a few of the questions I get most frequently. If you have more, by all means, ask me. I probably won't know the answers, but I can certainly point you in the direction of a website which will explain it allllllllllll.

In the meantime, I wish every reader a Happy Holiday Season and a happy healthy New Year. Shalom, out.

(Oh... yeah, Shalom means peace. And Hello and Goodbye. So it's a confusing language. What can I tell you?)

Twilight... And the Reason the Chicks Dig It

So... in case you don't already know, Twilight is the first in a series of books by Stefenie Meyer (who is strangely Mormon and NOT a Member of the Tribe... huh) which is currently making women across the country swoon and sigh in their love of vampires and werewolves and the Pacific Northwest. (Oh my?) The movie is currently burning up the box office and women have arrived in droves, waiting for their chance to see Edward and Bella fall madly in love under cover of rain and clouds while all manner of creature attempts to kill Bella, Edward's first true love in 100 years.

Last night, I went to the movie with the girls in my book club and we went out for dessert afterward to discuss the movie and book at length (aka my chance to pick the movie apart and alienate several members of my book club with my movie snob ways...) We have already decided that the second book in the series will be next month's book and some members of the BC have already finished it. One girl has finished all four in the series. So it was difficult to have the discussion without giving things away.

Let me take this opportunity to fill you in on my history with book clubs. The first one was in LA. All my girlfriends in the script world and one errant Line Producer drew straws to determine the picking order of each book. The first book was "Emma" by Jane Austin. Ouch. Very few people got through the whole thing. And based on the nature of our work lives at the time, we never really were able to get around to actually getting together to talk about it. Which was sad. The next book was by the author of Owen Meany and that further alienated any of the remaining members who were interested in reading. And we once again had an aborted attempt at meeting and discussing. Basically, by the third book, "Deliverance" (which my friend Leslie picked but was bitterly disappointed by because the "squeal like a pig" line was not in the book) it had become less of a book club and more of a suggested reading list for Sheri. We disbanded after the third book, I think.

Shortly after my arrival in Charlotte, I started one here with a few girls. The first book was a great easy read. I think it was called Ella Minnow Pea. And it was about a town where you were not allowed to use certain letters. So the actual text omitted letters from the book as the characters were no longer allowed to use them. Fun! Sometimes had to read aloud to understand, but fun none the less. We actually met, discussed the book for a few minutes before turning to celebrity gossip and picked another one. I think we continued in that vein for a few months, although once again, I became the only, or one of the only, people to read the book. Frustrating!

So one morning this summer, I was standing in line at Best Buy to buy a Wii and the girl in front of me said she might like to have a PR party with her book club. I jumped all over it and invited myself to join them. I finally met the Novelistas a few months ago and what a difference! They all actually read the book! And come to the meeting prepared! And have discussion questions ready! And don't deviate into celebrity gossip until all book business has been finished! I love it!

So, in true Novelista fashion, one of the girls had prepared a list of questions to aid in our discussion of the phenomenon that is Twilight. And one of the questions she asked was, "Why do you think this book appeals so much to women?" To me, the answer was immediate. "Because Edward is a man who says exactly how he feels and doesn't mess around with stupid 'how-many-days-til-you-call-your-babies' stuff. Plus, he is totally damaged AND really protective and will not hesitate to put his body between his woman and danger. Which is HOT!" I received resounding approval from everyone at the table from that statement. Which made me think... is that really all women want from a man? Is that all I want?

One night, a few years ago, I was out at a club with a guy I was dating and a few friends. The guy I was dating was very nice, but he was an MOT (that's Member of the Tribe, aka Jewish), really short and kind of wimpy. My friend was kind of dating a guy there who we will now refer to as Jon the Jewish Cop. (Well, I always referred to him as that because the idea was SO astounding to me! A Jewish guy who is a cop. What the F? I love it! I never actually knew his last name, really.) So we were all dancing and there was a guy behind me who was kind of weaving around. He was pretty drunk, and he kept crashing into me like he was trying to dance with me. I was completely creeped out and was kind of hoping the guy I was with would help me out. Instead it was Jon the Jewish Cop who stepped in. He came over and stood behind me, facing the drunk guy with his arms crossed... just staring him down. The guy took the hint after a few minutes and walked away. J the JC stood there a few minutes longer, staring him down as he walked away, making sure he was gone before moving. Believe me readers when I tell you, if Jon had then asked me to rob a bank, run over small puppies in the getaway car and drive right off a cliff with him, I would have answered "yes" in the breathiest voice I have. It was hot! And suddenly, I was just DONE with my date.

It's not that I consider myself a poor, defenseless woman who can't defend herself! I know how to break an attackers nose and kick him in the groin! (We all saw that episode of 90210 where Donna and Brenda and her Mom take the self-defense class and keep screaming "NO" while they attack their instructor, right?) It's just the idea that a man would put himself in harm's way for me... wow. I can't explain it. I'm sure the idea doesn't have universal appeal. Every woman is different, of course. That's why there are so many different flavors of ice cream. But I bet there a lot of women out there who know EXACTLY what I'm talking about.

So when Edward (who is emotionally available enough to say things like "I'm tired of trying to stay away from you" before there has even been a first date) drops into a defensive crouch, shielding his woman with his body and growling deep in his throat (even if it did sound like a burp in the movie... you were totally right about that Al!) it is supremely appealing. And don't even get me started on the damaged thing. I have always loved the tortured boys. It's a sickness from which I hope to never be cured.

The funny thing is, as the series goes on, more and more men are dropping into defensive crouches in front of Bella and growling deep in their throats. Poor Bella has to choose between all these protective, emotionally available, yet tortured, men! It's like Felicity all over again. Plus, at least in my head, all the men are really tall!!!

Now, some girls will protest. They will say they were drawn to the story, to the emotionally rich characters, to the suspense. They will be lying. And that's not to say there isn't a great story in there and the characters are nothing if not well drawn and emotionally rich. Stefenie Meyer is a great writer and her grown-up novel "The Host" is fantastic as well. But it's Edward that has the girls swooning at the movies. One of my girlfriends just got a life-sized cutout of Mr. Edward Cullen for her office as a gift. Is that because he is suspenseful and emotionally rich? Or cause he real hot? Personally, I don't find the actor who plays him all that attractive. But I still sighed through the movie.

I believe this makes me seem not at all deep. And I think I'm ok with that. After all, I have dated plenty of guys who were none of the above. And I even liked them a lot. But one of my favorite dating memories is of the Green Beret I went out with for a while. We went to the movies one time and he was playing a video game with a prop gun and after watching him shoot the gun and then break his wrist after each shot, reaim and fire again, I said to him, "I'm not sure if I am totally grossed out or COMPLETELY turned on." He responded with quite the lacivious wink as if to say, "I know which one you are..."

And he wasn't wrong.