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flor san roman

Tag Archives: family

Even the Goldfish Died

31 Saturday Dec 2016

Posted by Flor in context-ual

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family, friends, future, me, politics, society

Damn this year, amirite? Just to get that out of the way – the major, macro level things were fairly crappy and damned near traumatic, weren’t they. David Bowie to Carrie Fisher, Prince, Alan Rickman, Gene Wilder, Florence Henderson, Debbie Reynolds and on and on, even in geopolitics, Janet Reno and Fidel Castro, all trampled under this blind troll of a year.

And then there was an election that may yet have consigned us all to hell. I definitely feel like I’m in a hellmouth, being frog-marched toward the flames. After a year and change of being forced to listen to Donald Trump, I was looking forward to having him turn into an obnoxious footnote of history. I wanted so bad to forget this asshole by Nov 9, the garbage he had said, the mockery it made of a Presidential election. That he won the election – that he won despite his opponent receiving almost 3 million more individual votes – probably makes me the most sick out of all the major level disasters of this year.

If you’re wondering about the goldfish, well that’s the real point of this post. Trauma and tragedy extended into my personal life; and it’s been difficult to grapple with given the noise and fury of political and social losses.

My dad’s baby sister, my aunt Sister Virginia passed away in May. My dad is down to just one little sister, after growing up as the middle child of eleven. Sister Virginia was always a no-nonsense, organized and take-charge sort of person. The (gigantic) family hung together because she kept everyone’s phone numbers, mailing addresses, email addresses, and birthdays, weddings, baptisms, etc, together and knew how to reach *everybody*. What I didn’t realize because she was always bustling little bundle of energy in a Franciscan nun’s habit, was that she was always a bit anxious. And she kept the anxiety in check by helping other people, her family, the students of the school where she taught years ago, the elderly women of the convalescent home where she spent the last dozen years of her life working, and so on. When I was a child at family parties I didn’t find her very warm and sweet, but she was always moving, getting food and drink for her aged mother, singing or dancing, clapping for others as they sang or played guitar, looking after kids when they fell and scraped their knees, finding extra chairs for extra guests, and cleaning up when everything was over. Sister Virginia rarely sat down and never stayed sitting for long.

Lying sick in a hospital bed, racked with pain, Sister hated the family coming to see her. *Hated* it. And it finally sunk in then, that being in a position of helplessness was her worst nightmare. When I saw her the doctor was frustrated that she wouldn’t permit them to do more. From where she was, I was told, she’d have a week to live, maybe 10 days. She could extend that by several months if she agreed to further procedures. Well, the doctor was wrong. She passed away that night.

Losing Sister Virginia was a severe gut punch. But it wasn’t the only loss close to the family. My Uncle Frank – dad’s remaining little sister’s husband – passed away in the fall. And Ernestina Rivera, Tina, one of my parents’ oldest friends and a woman who had been in my life for as long as any family, passed as well. I’ll miss Tina and her wonderful cooking. Her husband, Hector, passed away last year. He had been a good friend to my dad for a good 50 years.

Of course, over the summer Paul Backer, one of my college professors, died suddenly.

And the goldfish? hehe- Well that’s part of some of the odder and less-horrible things that went on this year. Friends in Encino invited/asked me to stay in their house and take care of their goldfish while they went on vacation to Florida. The fish was the excuse, since I’ve cat- and dog-sat so much in recent years. They just meant to give me as much of a vacation as they could, and it was well appreciated. So, the fish itself. In my defense, the thing was a freak of nature. It lived a good six-ish years before kicking off. Just… did it have to do that when I was trying to look after it? At least I was warned it could happen, and furthermore instructed NOT to replace it. I can say this for it, it was the biggest won-at-fair goldfish I’d ever seen.

Other than that, I lizard-sat later in the summer at another house in the valley. 20 year old iguanas are fairly tough and only barely need some tending. So I fed him, avoided his claws, and relaxed in my friends’ house.

I don’t really feel like going through the year and the stuff I did. I can barely remember, honestly. But there were some really nice steps forward in the career and interesting artsy projects I worked on. I got into voice classes with some of my heroes – a workshop with Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, Matt Mercer and James Arnold Taylor, a class led by Richard Horvitz – and received some really nice compliments as well as endlessly useful insight and instruction from them. I worked on a text and voice message-based alternate reality game (ARG) that was all about Shakespeare. And I landed a fairly hefty gig translating content from English to Spanish and then recording it at home for a real estate video designer. It took a couple months to get through it all, but hey for a while there I was a real, working voice over artist!!

Between working on that project and the class with Richard I felt more and more emboldened to call myself an actor – something I already was, but felt nervous saying out loud. So before I could talk myself out of it, I joined a theatre friend’s workshop and now I’m part of the cast. I’ll be onstage in WONDER CITY next month at Son of Semele’s Company Creation Festival.

I got to fit in some adventures with friends, too. I went to Wondercon, which was a lot of fun. I like getting to panels (I find the shopping really tedious, there’s rarely more than what I’d find at a local comic store (that I’d buy, anyway) and I have to dodge throngs of people, some of who are wearing large bulky costumes with spiky armor or ridiculous weapons poking out). But the most amazing part of cons is always the surprise encounters. And frankly, that’s usually with friends I haven’t seen in a long time. Thiiiis time though…img_10771

 

I met Edward James Olmos!!!!!!

And that’s one of the crazy things that can happen to LA. Meet an actor, strike up a conversation, get invited to a movie screening. Okay, that rarely happens – but now I can’t say it never happens!

Back to talking about the family, we also fit in some good times. A few months ago my cousins put together a 90th birthday party for their mom, Teresa. She is the widow of my dad’s oldest brother, Tony. They hired a mariachi band to come and sing her favorite songs, and 90 being just a number, my Tía Tere got up and danced over and over, and even grabbed my sleeve so I would dance with her! And just last night we had a 91st birthday party for my dad at his favorite restaurant – a Chinese all you can eat buffet. My mom and sister invited everyone they could think of, friends and family. I got to see people I hadn’t seen in over 20 years. We all hugged and delighted in seeing each other – for happy reasons. For many years we’d only see each other at funerals (again, my dad had nine siblings who’ve all passed away).

So, that’s how it goes. Tragedy and worries, deep concerns for the future, as well as continued efforts in the career, and really cultivating more boldness. It’s really scary. I can’t say anything without mentioning that. I’m full of doubt, and when I look around at the world around me, everyone is nervous of what the next year will bring. Will we lose equal rights and harassment protections? Will businesses be granted the latitude to treat human beings as mere resources to be scavenged? Will the environment be ravaged without an ounce of protection? Will unions be completely undermined? And on and on…

There’s this saying, “as above, so below,” and I’ve watched it be true in human institutions time and time again. If the leader of an institution is thoughtful and calm, the institution they lead will be thoughtful and calm. If the leader is rash and prideful, so will the people who follow them. If the leader is either mindbogglingly stupid or crass and cruel, I’ve watched institutions follow suit. The man who is about to be installed at the head of the government – at least at the head of the Executive – is a frightening mix of self-involvement, pettiness, greed, and superficiality. And he is surrounding himself with people have shown open disregard if not disgust for the responsibilities of a government toward the governed.

I hate that we have to face this at all, to say nothing of being without our heroes, the big men and women who shined so brightly we felt like we could find our way.

I felt this keenly when Sister Virginia died. Who was going to keep the family together? Who would organize the major parties and keep the phone trees up and running? Who would keep all the old photo albums and baptismal certificates? It’s still painful to think about.

But it was at her funeral that I realized we were going to have to step up now. That if the times made me anxious, I’d have to take a page out of Sister’s book and see how I could serve others. Getting stuff done, like she always did, really does calm the nerves. My heroes may be fading out, but it’s time for us to be heroes.

Resist movement toward the dark, be a beacon of light. Does it sound cheesy? How cheesy were you feeling at the end of Nov 8th? People are going to need help finding their way. You may be one of them–we’ll all take turns. We’ll need light. We can’t hope someone else will provide it. It’ll be difficult, it might be frightening. But it’s never the wrong time to the right thing. Sometimes the goldfish dies despite everything you could do, and sometimes you meet a movie star and he turns out to be cool, friendly guy.

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Korean Spa to Walla, and Dallas to Dallas, with a layover in the kitchen; and what I learned there.

30 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by Flor in Background

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acting, art, family, friends, home life, me, theatre, voice

If I put together all the voice over that I did this year that wasn’t in a class, it would probably take three or four, maybe five days.  Maybe six, when counting email, the Web site, business cards, etc.  But the last professional thing I got done this year, before holidays and overeating killed all forward movement, was a walla session.  So I am doing stuff.

I just need to do more.

It’s been a hell of a year, huh?  I don’t know anyone who hasn’t been figuratively booted in the head at least once in the last 12 months, and plenty of us were still reeling from previous sucker punches from life.

I knew it would be trouble from the moment I decided to stop stage managing FOOTE NOTES through yet another extension. It sucked up my January and I really wanted to get going on my goals…  The problem immediately manifested as how was I doing to get anything done without any structure to my days.  To say nothing of the added chaos that comes with living with someone who is schizophrenic.

Though, the truth is I did start to get somewhere. And it started on my last day at FOOTE NOTES.  (The two one-acts were located in a small town outside of Dallas.)  After several good-bye whiskeys and hugs to the cast, I met M and we went to a spa in Koreatown.  I’d never been so I had a few minutes to get used to the idea that the “co-ed” section one wore the facility-provided uniform of t-shirt and shorts, making it look like a bus station overflowing with Korean tourists to Disneyland, and in the women-only section one wore only one’s birthday suit.

I’ll skip over the details – which I remember keenly – and get to what I’ve taken with me.  And it’s that I’m enough and there’s nothing really wrong with my body.  And if I change it’s just a change.  In the years to come I’m going to lose as much as I could possibly gain when it comes to physical looks, and the point of that is it doesn’t mean jack when I’m laying down on hot clay marbles and my mind is wandering while impossibly insane Korean TV shows are playing in the background.  From the tiny little naked girls chasing each other around to the old grannies pushing walkers and letting it all hang out, we’re all here.  It’s all good.

The last trip to Dallas was aboard DALLAS NON-STOP, stage managing with a tiny bit of voice over thrown in for shits and giggles. I’ve always loved theatre for the chance to see the world through different eyes and this was something new and different still.  It was all located in the Philippines and imagined and realized by Filipinos and Filipino-Americans… and as much as it reflexively touched on the realities of Filipino life and culture, it was situated so that it looked squarely back at America.  I found I was looking at my own country and my own (Western) culture through their eyes.  Quite a heady experience.

Layovers are such a pain in the ass.  Enough time to not know what to do with yourself, not enough time to really go find an adventure.  That’s what it felt like this summer.  True, I was hitting a patch of depression by late spring, so I was forced to get up and take care of things when my mom had surgery.  Nothing else was getting me to productivity.  But some two-three months of pretending to be mom, cooking and cleaning, etc, at the same time that mom was around being mom and no one else was helping it out…  It just put on pause any attempts to work for myself while I couldn’t do anything to get away and relax.

And at the end of all that? My sister moved in and I started sharing my bedroom with my niece.  Hey, I love these people, even my asshole schizophrenic brother, but this house is ready to pop.  I was staying up until the wee hours before simply from being nocturnal, but as I tried to rearrange my life so I could get life moving in a more productive direction, I was starting to make good on getting some decent sleep during the night.  Now I’m back to nearly fully nocturnal because it’s the only time I can hear myself think.  This is the hardest part.  Making the life I’m aiming for work while the place I live in is slightly completely crazy.

At the least I have awesome friends who are generous with their resources.  S let me crash at her house while I worked on DALLAS and on a few occasions I got some recording done there.  It maybe that I have to do all my recording there.  It’s still not a studio, but it’s far calmer than my house.

Those are just the places I landed.  Spots where my feet touched the ground and I saw clearly what I was trying to get done, whether I was close to or far from my goals.  I coasted over fitness & weight loss, sometimes going to the gym regularly, and sometimes taking a month or more off.  I skimmed some Japanese without serious demands that I improve and commit more to the long-term memory banks.  I’m trying not to get too frustrated about these.  They’re important to me but I can have only one No 1 goal.

Walla is a term for the chatter produced when a group of people in a sound booth fill in the background conversation for scenes on TV or movies.  I can’t get into detail about the ones I’ve done, but I can say it’s a fun exercise in semi-free form improv.  Anyhow, I like that someone thought of me and called me in.  Next up: getting someone to think of me and pay me to come in.

The Things as They Will Be

25 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by Flor in context-ual

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family

I’m procrastinating.  I have a lot of cleaning to do today and precious little time, but I’m writing this instead.  I’m in my room, on my bed surrounded by a sprawling mess of my stuff.  I really need to clean it all because I’m getting a new roommate.

We’re getting housemates.  My sister’s family is moving in later today.  That’ll put the population of the house at seven adults and one child, one feline and one canine.  (And an undetermined number of crickets, roaches and spiders that don’t dare show their carapaces if they know what’s good for ’em.)

This is far from optimal, obviously.  It’s dire economic times for all of us and consolidating living spaces seems to be one of the few remaining options.  But living with other people always has its challenges.  This is looking to be extra difficult as the “other people” are family.  Roommates usually have at least some consideration for each other.  Family… well, my family… whoo boy.

We’re all pretty stubborn and we all dislike changing our habits, and of course we all have wildly different habits.  We have different schedules, different expectations, different standards for cleanliness, different appreciations for noise/quiet.  But we hold in common a not-particularly-terrific approach to problem solving and communication that tends to involve crankiness and occasional yelling.  Oh yeah, this is going to be fun.

On the roommate – that was my idea.  Otherwise the niece would have to make the TV room her bedroom.  That was awkward for me (I like doing my ‘toon viewing in the middle of the night), and seemed really unfortunate for her.

But that means I should really clean my cave, uh, our room.

The thing as it has been

17 Tuesday Sep 2013

Posted by Flor in context-ual

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family, home life

steak n' cabernet

In the latter half of this past June my mom had surgery on her shoulder. It effectively disabled her arm and even as the muscle has healed, at this point she still can’t lift anything of consequence, can’t move the arm quickly or with the full range of motion that the other still has. Early on it meant I was waiting on her, hand and foot, as she spent her days and nights largely on the recliner in the TV room. Now she’s back teaching her second grade class and I’m primarily on the hook for making sure dinner is ready at a reasonable time.

I think I worked out that moms get a raw deal compared to dads when I was all of 12 years old. They have to be the ones that shout “no!” when kids are naughty. They enforce TV, snacking, homework and bedtime rules. Etc… At least that was the case in the house I grew up in and carried across most households of my classmates. The only exceptions I knew of were when grandmothers did all the housework and disciplinary effort.

That’s pretty much the point when I decided that if I couldn’t be a dad then I didn’t want to be a parent. My dad’s pancakes were better than my mom’s. He made lunch over the summer (my mom was an office administrator then while my dad taught junior high geography and history), and it was usually Chef Boyardee raviolis with chopped up hot dogs. To the best of my recollection, he never – ever – made dinner. When we misbehaved my dad would complain to my mom.

All in all, the job of dad seemed way less stressful. And I was, even back then, able to note that it also meant it was easier to get along with him and have fun with him. Not so much with mom. Classmates always loved their dads and called them cool. Moms were not always hated, but commonly complained about.

It’s been over 20 years since I decided I didn’t want to be a mom. And being the substitute mom has done nothing but reinforce that. I already felt sympathy for my mom, and a little bit of frustration at her submission to her role. Now I’m actively aggravated at my adult siblings – and my dad – for taking her work for granted. They don’t support, they expect, and they are frequently rude about it all.

I’m fairly impatient with the whole process. As long as I’ve lived here my evenings have been almost totally random. I never knew quite when I was going to have to drop whatever I was doing to help with dinner, usually doing small chores. So getting in my way now when I’ve finally gotten around to cooking – and doing all the necessary prep and cleaning – typically gets a snarl out of me.

It’s not that it’s a big deal to do the chores, or even making dinner, it’s that as a night owl I’m often hitting my stride in terms of productivity in the evening. And also that as an adult, surrounded by adults, I expect the others will be able to either fend for themselves or leave me a cleaner kitchen. Cooking for myself or for several people doesn’t make the biggest difference, but I do have to do it at a common dinner time, rather than when I’m actually hungry.

Of course, friends have long known that left to my own devices I often forget to eat until I’m almost crippled by hunger pangs.

Anyway. I have more of my days to myself, but evenings are not mine. That goes from roughly 6pm till midnight, give or take cleaning the kitchen, and when the family finally settles down. Even when I’m not making dinner I still am expected to eat with everyone as well as praying the rosary later on at night. This isn’t a complaint, really, but it’s also not my favorite part about living here.

I like getting work done after midnight. The house is usually settled and quiet. But it can still be tough if the work is voice recording. That primarily has to do with the fact that my room is not great for recording. When I have recording to do, I try to get into my parent’s closet, the only walk-in in the house. Of course I can’t get in there in the middle of the night.

I frequently complain about sleeping. I really am resentful about the multi-hour pause I have to put on every single day. It’s hard for me to think about it any other way. I have a lot I want to do, I don’t have a lot of time every day for it, but I have to give over a solid eight hours for sleeping?! I’m not kidding. I wish I could skip it without any of the consequences.

So… this summer has been trying to fight for the time to do the work I want to do and doing the work that needs to be done and growling about circumstances that I can’t avoid.

The thing of it is

15 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by Flor in context-ual

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family

Wow I haven’t updated since May. I haven’t been too terribly inspired, but I’ve also been working on trying to hammer something out that has fought me unbelievably hard. Whenever I do get around to publishing it I won’t be shocked if it’s weird, ponderous and no one reads it. But in the meantime I think I’ll go on for a little bit about the random things in my head that haven’t inspired a full blog post but that are taking up room all the same.

I just got back from a three day retreat with my theatre company, Son of Semele Ensemble. We went off to the mountains to spend some time together, thinking big theatrical thoughts, relaxing, playing and getting to know each other. Lake Arrowhead is certainly beautiful but surprisingly crowded, and chock full of multimillion dollar manses built and expanded by folks both rich and famous. *shrug* At least it was calm and quiet up there.

I love big cities so I have no trouble with the bustle of LA. But I live in Anaheim with my family and it’s rarely calm here. Within a couple of hours getting back here my oldest brother started picking fights while I was trying to chill out (surprising how weekends away can be quite tiring) by watching TV. OB has been back with the family since January. Every now and then he throws out that he’ll move out, but he just tries to threaten it. Literally, “I’m going to move out! How do you like that?!” To which we respond, “please do.” Literally. *long breath* But he’s still here.

OB is schizophrenic with paranoia and who knows what else. None of us are trained to deal with it, and it’s a fight just to convince him to take his meds. He’s required to check in with a counselor, but they just make sure he’s okay, they don’t try to improve his mental health. Nothing – absolutely nothing – convinces him there’s anything wrong with his mind. We’re all the ones who want him to fail, we’re the ones who are illogical, we’re the ones who are crazy and/or afraid to be free etc, etc. He’s only been sick and unable be successful in life because a witchdoctor cursed him and we obviously dislike him because we won’t lend him the money to buy a spell from a psychic that will remove the curse…. Only people who’ve lived with someone who is mentally ill can hope to understand how fucking impossible it is to have a real conversation with a schizophrenic. He’s abusive, he’s irrational, he’s delusional and he is hopelessly lost inside his own head and pain.

No matter how much we want to be sympathetic, he steamrolls our good will with attacks, absurdities, inconsideration and outright terrible manners. The difference between him and an asshole is at least a true asshole will recognize when they are treating someone awfully and accept the indictment, even as they shrug it off. If we point out that he’s being a jerk he insists we’re the ones who started it. (Literally, that’s his argument. He’s 35.)

This leads me to think about how much I want better from myself when it comes to dealing with people who try my patience. Because I do care and worry about him. But I also regularly want to plant my fist in his face. Perhaps it’s a matter of wanting too much, but I feel it’s not enough to just seek calm and peace in my own mind and heart. I should be able to work toward putting that peace out in the world. That I flat out can’t with him sucks hard. That it damages my calm so bad that I end up wishing him ill is…embarrassing. My childish wish is that he would just go away. That he would stop being my problem, or that of our parents.

But that’s the true assholism, isn’t it? Obviously I wish the schizophrenia and other problems in his psyche would go away. But who the hell would he be without them? I barely remember him from high school and he wasn’t a picnic then either.

I don’t like letting my own bullshit slide. I just don’t know how to deal with this. So I frequently don’t except to just blow up.

It’s really hard to get anything done when this is a major part of life.

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