Author: Jamie Walker Ball

Luck, Skill & Porn Star Lip Gloss

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I missed the memo about luck, skill, and porn star lip gloss.

If there was ever a day I should have played the lottery, it was back in November of 2004.  On one crazy afternoon, I scored a spot as a contestant on Jeopardy! and then a couple of hours later, I learned that I had passed the California Bar Exam.  Winning the lottery would have been a nice little hat trick. 

My first stroke of luck was being chosen at random invited to audition for the show.  I got dressed up in my best suit and headed on down to Sony Studios where about 100 of us were ushered onto the actual Jeopardy! set, which was Nerd Nirvana.  The producers gave us a little pep talk and quickly disabused us of any notion that we’d actually be meeting Alex Trebek that day. 

Next, came the pencil and paper test which featured Jeopardy! style answers and questions.  There ain’t no two ways about, folks, this test was hard.  Luck was not enough, but I had paid my dues as a quiz bowl geek in high school and college, so I did actually think the test was kind of fun.  Then the tests were collected and we hopefuls sat and fidgeted with our souvenir Jeopardy! pens and waited to hear who had made the cut.  Mine was one of two names called  (I told you the test was hard!) and when I heard my name, it was like I had been coronated Queen of the Geeks.  I was, how you say…stoked.

My fellow test-passer and I were then asked to do a quick screen test which consisted of overly enthusiastic small talk and wrangling of signaling devices.  The producers thanked us both for coming and congratulated us for making it  into the contestant pool, but that didn’t mean I was assured a spot on the show.  As we were sent on our way, the producers asked if we had any questions, and luckily, I had to pee, so I asked,”Where’s the bathroom?”  (Classy, n’est ce pas?)

When I emerged from the facilities, one of the producers intercepted me and told me that they’d had a last-minute opening in the taping schedule and asked if I could come back in a few weeks to tape my appearance on the show.  I skipped off the lot, thanking my nervous bladder for affording me the chance to win a gazillion dollars. 

I came back a few weeks later and it was as glamorous as I’d hoped.  A Green Room full of bagels, Alex Trebek in the flesh, and best of all, gobs and gobs of make-up skillfully applied by a professional make-up artist. 

When the make-up artist was done with me, I think I was wearing all the hot pink lip gloss then available in the state of California.  I like wearing make-up, but usually try to use a light hand, so I was a little taken aback by this look.  But under the bright studio lights, it looked fantastic.  Later, in the regular light of day, it looked like I had been eating a pork chop without a knife and fork.

Despite my fabulous lip gloss, I’m sad to report that I got my clock cleaned by a 23-year-old graduate student.  I was around for Final Jeopardy and even bet it all, like a boss, but alas, my dreams of extinguishing my student loan debt with a few clicks of a buzzer came to an uncermonious end.  It was an absolute blast, though, and I wouldn’t mind a rematch…

Sometimes it’s about luck.  Sometimes it’s about skill.  And sometimes it’s about having to a take a fortuitous pee.  Memo received.

Witnessing History

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I missed the memo about witnessing history.

This is Emma Willard’s “Temple of Time”…where the hell was this when I was studying for ‘Jeopardy!’?)

While the news guys killed time tonight waiting for President Obama to swagger walk up to the podium in the East Room, one of them noted that we’ll all remember this night, this night that we learned that Public Enemy No. 1, Osama Bin Laden, was killed by American forces.   This made me take stock of the fact that I don’t really take stock of the events that constitute history in the making.   Maybe it’s because everything seems to have a political spin on it as it’s happening, so it’s really hard to appreciate the real significance of anything…

As of this writing, I’m 37 years old. I don’t remember Viet Nam or Watergate…I dimly recall gas lines and the hostages coming home from Iran.  I do remember the attempted assassination of President Reagan, but in my house, we were all much more upset about John Lennon being murdered, so that seemed a bit more important.  Then there’s a long stretch of malaise and Cold War and the constant threat of nuclear annihilation.  (Seriously, “Red Dawn” still gives me nightmares.) 

Then in 1989, I was 16 and the Berlin Wall came down.  For a minute there, it did seem like the world was going to be a much better place, at least, that’s what I thought when I heard this really irrepressible Jesus Jones song…


(and check out that fantastically spaztastic keyboard player…if the demise of communism didn’t bring a smile to your heart, then those choice dance moves must!)

Then a couple of years later, Saddam Hussein started his antics with the Kuwaitis and all of a sudden guys who had been my high school classmates five minutes ago were now signing up to go to war in a far away desert.  Has it seriously already been 20 years? Doesn’t seem that long ago…

Because the U.S.’s involvement in Iraq has been so protracted, it’s been hard for me to keep any sort of focus or perspective on it.  Then the events of September 11, 2001 occurred and I got even more confused.

On 9/11, I was a first year law student, and had been watching “Real Genius” on basic cable that morning before leaving home for class.  Val Kilmer is now forever associated in my mind with that fateful day.   I had no idea what was going on and as it gradually dawned on all of us what was happening, it really was pretty sickening.  Out here on the west coast, there was an eerie remoteness from the acute sense of terror that New Yorkers and Washingtonians must have felt, but the world definitely shifted in a perceptible way.   I grieved for the people, who not only lost their lives, but who must have been so very scared in their last moments.  It still haunts me to think about it.  And I selfishly grieved for myself, because I now had to live in a world where planes got flown into buildings and buildings fell down.  I thought crap like that only happened in Jerry Bruckheimer movies.

And now, here we are, nearly 10 years later and the 9/11 boogeyman is finally dead.  I don’t know exactly how to feel.   Maybe I need another catchy pop song about Bin Laden being killed during this Arab Spring in order to really appreciate what’s happening.   But I’ll be sure to tell my son that he had just eaten a dinner of chicken and carrots and he was wearing his favorite dinosaur jammies on the night we learned Bin Laden was dead.  Memo received.

Fear, Choice & Good Dental Health

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I missed the memo about fear, choice and good dental health.

As per usual, the other day I was listening to NPR and heard this extraordinary story of the rescue of survivors of a plane crash in New Guinea back in 1945.  When recounting how she felt as they prepared for the complicated, daring, and dangerous rescue attempt, survivor Cpl. Margaret Hastings said something that stopped me in my tracks: 

“When you have no choice, you have no fear. “

Whoah.  This just really got to me for some reason.  I suppose it makes intuitive sense…in desperate situations, people tend not to over think or equivocate; they just do what they need to do to.  

Mercifully, I’ve never been in a plane crash.  While furiously knocking on wood, I’ll tell you that I’ve lived a quiet life that’s been relatively free of genuine peril. Given this good fortune, I think one of the closest things to a “no choice, no fear” situation that I’ve experienced may have occurred this week. 

Last Saturday, I started experiencing a bit of discomfort around one of my lower incisors.   I began swishing fervently with hydrogen peroxide and doing some extra flossing in the vain hope that I could cure my little issue and avoid an extra trip to the dentist.  Alas, as you might expect, my self-care efforts were pure folly.   As the week progressed, the discomfort escalated from just a bit of sensitivity to explosions of pain radiating through the entire right side of my lower jaw.  As pain goes, it seriously rivaled labor and childbirth, so I knew I was in real trouble. 

When it comes to going to the dentist, I’d say I have an average level of anxiety.  But since I had missed a few check-ups, the anxiety started to intensify as I imagined the horrible state of affairs in my mouth and I nearly had a panic attack at the prospect of how much all the dental rehabilitation was going to cost me. 

But when you feel like a baby is about to be born out of your face, you’ve really got no choice but to go to the dentist.  Seriously, I might have been willing to let Sir Laurence Olivier have a go at me with a drill and rusty pair of pliers…it was that bad.

So to the dentist I went.  And because I was pretty desperate for relief, I really had no fear.   My only other option would have been to cut my head off, so really, no choice, no fear. 

And it wasn’t that bad.  I did need a root canal, but I was otherwise in good shape.  I had a pretty gnarly infection, but with a week’s worth of antibiotics and 800 mg of Motrin, I’m already feeling a whole lot better. 

Having no fear is great, but having no choice is really no picnic.  When given the choice, I want choice, even if that means dealing with a bit of anxiety.   And from here on out, I promise I’ll get my check-ups every six months.  Memo received.

The Immortality of Navy Brats

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 I missed the memo about the immortality of Navy Brats. 

I went to four different elementary schools, three different junior highs, and mercifully, just one high school.  I’m a Navy brat, plus my mom had a bit of intra-city wanderlust, so we moved a lot.  I was a professional new kid and as a consequence, I learned to cope with change.  I am freakishly serene at the prospect of even cataclysmic upheaval.  I just…go with it.

And thanks to NPR, I recently learned that I may be immortal. See, I probably have what’s called “adaptive competence.”  Adaptive competence is the ability to bounce back when life throws you a curve ball, and it’s apparently a strong predictor of longevity.  When you roll with punches, you get to keep rolling for a long, long time.

Since “nothing is permanent except change” I suppose it’s good to accept or even embrace change.  I remember a couple of years ago when The Adam Carolla Show was signing off after it was announced that their radio home was going from a fun all talk format to really insufferably bad pop music  (and this is coming from me, the chic who loves Duran Duran and Katy Perry…)

As fans were calling to bitterly express their outrage, Adam Carolla said something that was really comforting and really great.  He challenged his listeners to think about some disappointment they had experienced…like losing a job, or getting dumped, and then to take the long view about it.  At the time, it seems like the world is coming to an end, but once you’ve moved on a bit, you can usually appreciate that what seemed like bad change at the time is usually the starting point to some other good change.  You get a new job, a better one.  You fall in love again, and this time, it’s the real thing.   It’s the old saw about closed doors and open windows.   And so it is for Adam Carolla and his crew…successful podcasts, book deals, and all sorts of good things have come to the talented people who were working on that show.

Whenever I encounter a person who lived in the same house from birth to graduation, who went to school with the same group of kids for a dozen years, I do feel a little pang of envy.  After all, stability is safe, change is always a little scary.  But then I’m mostly grateful that I’ve seen a lot of the country and developed lots and lots of adaptive competence…but who wants to live forever?

Memo received.

Retainers, Laundry & W.B. Yeats

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I missed the memo about retainers, laundry, and W.B. Yeats.

Seeing as how I was all grown up when I got my braces off, one might think I would have been mature enough to heed the counsel of my orthodontist when he told me to wear my retainers every night.   I think I lasted about three months.  I found my retainers the other day, in a box of cast off stuff under the bathroom sink.  On a lark, I popped them in.   These custom-made,  expensive bits of metal and plastic which once fit perfectly are now the stuff of medieval torture.   Despite my wishes to the contrary, I can’t keep my teeth in place by passive force of will; I do actually have to wear my retainers.

Similarly, despite my desperate pleas to the universe that laundry just stay clean, beds just stay made, and toilets just stay pristine, the natural tendency is for tidy things to become untidy.  This is Entropy! (note the exclamation point; try to say this to yourself the way Johnny Gilbert says “This is Jeopardy!”  Seriously…try it, it’s more fun…I’ll wait….) 

Entropy, in a very basic sense, is the natural tendency towards disorder.  It’s a law of the universe that my teeth want to revert to crooked and that my hamper runneth over. 

I think I was first introduced to the concept of entropy back in 7th grade science or thereabouts, but I didn’t give it much thought until I was studying “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats.  Egads, that poem gave me the heebie jeebies.  It’s beautiful, but the idea of a rough beast slouching toward Bethlehem to be born really spooked me.  And then there’s this line:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold

“Things fall apart.”  Holy crap.   I’m a pretty perky person by nature, so the casual, yet desperate negativity in this language really just blew me away.  But then a few years later, I saw this video, and I tried to lighten up…


(“Things fall apart…it’s scientific.”  David Byrne has a way of saying things so I can understand them, kinda like Forrest Gump and his mama.)

So here’s what I think I’ve figured out:  Entropy sucks, but the more aware of it I am, the less it sucks. Doing one or two loads of laundry seems a lot less daunting than 5 or 6.  If I had been more consistent about wearing my retainers, my teeth would have stayed straighter, etc.  Maintenance is a lot less monumental when done in regular intervals.  Now, to overcome my inertia and start tackling all this entropy…OK class, that’s enough physics for tonight.  Memo received. 

 

 

Validation

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I missed the memo about validation.

When I was in junior high (and yeah, back then, they called it “junior high”), there was a kid in my neighborhood who thought it was really funny to respond to anything anyone said by saying, “So, what’s your point?” At the time, I couldn’t quite articulate why this bugged me so much, but I remember just burning with anger and embarrassment when he said it to me. 

A few years and a few psych courses later, I think I’ve figured it out.  I think it hurts a lot more to be dismissed than to be disagreed with.  It’s that whole “the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference” thing.  It might chap your ass when someone doesn’t  see things the way you see them, but I think it’s more devastating when they don’t even care enough to look. 

It might sound kind of New Age-y, but I guess it’s called “validation”.  Even if you don’t agree with someone, you acknowledge them, you give them the right to have and express their misguided opinion.  It’s just a fundamental rule of fair fighting. 

I’m a recent devotee of the TV show “Parenthood” and I through the magic of Hulu, I’m working my way through past episodes.  One episode was poignantly entitled, “I Hear You, I See You.”

I don’t know the whole back story, but it seems as if a bit of distance had opened up between the patriarch and matriarch of the family, as played by Craig T. Nelson and Bonnie Bedelia, respectively.  As part of their couples counseling, Craig T. Nelson’s character catches himself in little moments where he makes an extra effort to be mindful of acknowledging his wife’s feelings.  He turns to her and earnestly says, “I hear you, and I see you.”  It’s a little corny, it’s a little forced, but somehow, it’s everything he needs to say and every thing she needs to hear.   He validates her, and it’s lovely.

And since moving to Los Angeles, I’m become acquainted with another form of validation.   In some of the swankier parts of the city, it can cost upwards of $40 just to park your car.  Seriously, $40.  But if you’re lucky, sometimes you can get your parking validated.  When your parking is validated, the person or business is telling you that you had a good reason to be there.  They appreciate your visit or business enough to subsidize the cost of the parking.  It makes me feel worthy and important and it’s just so…validating.   Memo received.

© 2011 Jamie Walker Ball

Petrels, Persistence & The Princess Bride

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I missed the memo about Petrels, persistence, and The Princess Bride.

Back in the fall of 1990, I did just about the craziest thing I have ever done.  I applied to exactly one college and then casually went about my life as a high school senior.  I was  a fairly strong student (*cough* nerd) so it’s not like I didn’t have at least a few options.  Because I checked the little box on the SAT forms which invited all the glossy brochures from various institutions of higher learning, I was able to get at least superficially acquainted with lots of really good schools.  Somehow, though, Oglethorpe University (Ogle-what?) just stood out.  There were lots of tangible factors which made Oglethorpe attractive to me, but ultimately, I characterized my choice as kind of cosmic.  It just felt right.  Lots of my fellow Petrels told me similar stories.  We were like Richard Dreyfuss in “Close Encounters” ….we saw visions of neo-Gothic buildings and we just had to come.

At this point you may be asking yourself, “What the hell’s a ‘petrel'”?  It’s a kind of bird that I had never heard of before, either.   Indeed this was part of Oglethorpe’s charm…the mascot is the Stormy Petrel, and it’s a distinction which usually lands it on “Top 10 Weirdest Mascots” lists. Maybe you have to experience the place to appreciate this, but just trust me, having this tenacious little creature as the totem for Oglethorpe is amazingly apt.

Another Oglethorpe-ism that I especially love is the university motto:  Nescit Cedere. It translates to “He does not know how to give up.”  I always thought this was kind of bad ass.  To be constitutionally incapable of giving up…that’s like, Steve McQueen- in- Papillon-tough.

As a Petrel, I thought that I was pretty special in that I had somehow been endowed with this admirable brand of tenacity, but then my husband and Sonic the Hedgehog had to come along and pee in my Wheaties. 

My husband pointed out that it’s more courageous when you do know how to give up, yet still persist.  He may have a point.   And then there’s Scratch and Grounder, Sonic’s nemesi …after being frustrated yet again in their efforts to capture the crafty Sonic, they have this existential exchange:

Grounder:     Sometimes I wish Dr. Robotnic hadn’t made us so persistent.

Scratch:         He made me  persistent, he made you too dumb to quit!

Oh, snap!  I suppose there is a point where persistence veers into stupid.  And then sometimes stupid veers into heroic….


If The Princess Bride isn’t one of your all time favorite movies, then I think it’s best that you and I just part ways here…

There is something to be said for knowing when to quit.  And there’s also something to be said for knowing when to quit, but then not quitting.  Memo received.

© 2011 Jamie Walker Ball

Spring

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I missed the memo about Spring.

In my little suburban corner of Los Angeles, the mercury hit 92 degrees today.  It appears that Mother Nature didn’t get the memo that it’s only April.  With apologies to Joe Walsh, when it comes to weather in Los Angeles, I can’t complain, but sometimes I still do.  And my major complaint was captured in a catchy chorus…

After almost 10 years in L.A., I have recently convinced my self that I am just about cool enough to listen to the music programming on KCRW.    A week or two ago, I heard a track from The One AM Radio’s new album and I was blown away by the blasé melancholy…it was just soooo L.A.

A City Without Seasons

It’s hard to measure time in a city without seasons
The smog makes gorgeous light, but you can never let the breeze in
I’ve been waiting for so long that I forgot the reason
It’s hard to measure time in a city you don’t believe in

By virtue of my Navy brat pedigree, I am actually a native Californian, but with my formative years spent mostly in Virgina and Georgia, I’ll probably always have an east coast soul.  While I marvel at the convenience of having good weather so many days of the year, it is in fact very hard to measure time in a city without seasons.  Holidays sneak up on me now.  I forget birthdays.  Once, I even forgot how I old I was. In the land of perpetual summer, it’s easy to accept the delusion of perpetual youth. 

While most transplants don’t miss harsh winters, we almost all miss the seasons.   There is something disorienting about it being 80 degrees in January.  Maybe it offends a hard-wired sensibility about the natural order of things.   In the words of Pete Seeger (by way of Ecclesiastes and made famous by The Byrds):  To every thing (turn, turn, turn) there is a season…

Without traditional seasons, perhaps I’m a bit adrift.  We do have roughly four seasons in L.A.:

1.    Rainy and a bit chilly
2.    Nice
3.    Regular  Hot
4.   “Are f*%$ing kidding me?” Hot

I suppose I should quit my bitchin’ and just enjoy wearing flip-flops in February.  But I still miss Spring. Turn, turn, turn.   Memo received.

John Taylor & Paul Reiser (Nice Guys, Redux)

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I missed the memo about John Taylor & Paul Reiser.

(The devastatingly handsome John Taylor, whom I wanted to marry when I was 11; and the utterly adorable Paul Reiser, whom I wanted to marry once I wised up a bit.)

My dear childhood friend, Krista, and I were recently plotting to attend an upcoming Duran Duran concert.  Our friendship had been forged in our shared fanaticism for Duran Duran, which dates back to the early 80s.   She loved Simon LeBon with an unfathomable ardour, whereas John Taylor, with his highlighted hair, soulful brown eyes, and pouty lips…he was more my type. 

When we figured out that our schedules weren’t going to jive to attend a show together, I sent Krista this text message:   “Don’t stress…after JT, Paul Reiser was my next true love and his new show also premiers that night.  Stay home with you bebes; we’ll hit it next time!”   Apparently, this message was a bit confusing, as a few days later, Krista sent me this reply: “It has taken me several days to wrap my head around your Paul Reiser thing.  So now I must ask, how does one go from John Taylor to Paul Reiser?!?” 

I presume Krista meant no disrespect to Paul Reiser, but perhaps an explanation is in order.  I talked a bit before about how I had gotten a memo about nice guys from Alanis Morissette.  I apparently got another from Cosmo.  They once ran an article (described to great effect here) which identified that there are two kinds of husbands:  There’s the “boyfriend husband” and the “husband husband.”   These are fairly intuitive categories; the “boyfriend husband” is more of a bad boy, he doesn’t settle easily into domestic life, he keeps you guessing.   The “boyfriend husband” can be pretty exciting, but he can drive you crazy.  Whereas the “husband husband” is more fully committed, a bit more predictable, totally loveable and doesn’t make you nuts.  

When Paul Reiser’s hit show “Mad About You” premiered back in 1992, I remember watching him and Helen Hunt and thinking…”That…that’s what I want…I want a nice guy who loves me and makes me laugh a lot.”  Paul Reiser, as the character of Paul Buchman, was definitely a  “husband husband.”  I’m guessing that John Taylor, who is now a married man these days, is a perfectly good husband.  But I’m also guessing he’s a “boyfriend husband”—a globe-trotting pop star, recovered cocaine addict…yeah, definitely a  “boyfriend husband”.  

So instead of John Taylor, I married Paul Reiser, albeit in a slightly taller, slightly blonder, slightly more gentile incarnation.   He slays me with his silliness and I revel in his goodness. 

(My husband, whom I will not forsake, not even for John Taylor or Paul Reiser)

My “husband husband”  does indeed make me laugh a whole lot, and sorry JT, I love him more than I think I ever could have loved you.   Memo received. 

© 2011 Jamie Walker Ball

Philosophy and….Philosophy

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I missed the memo about Philosophy and ….Philosophy.

Like most freshmen at my liberal arts-y college, I took an Introduction to Philosophy course.   The class was hard, but it helped that the professor looked like something out of Body Heat…

(Seriously…slap a tweed sport coat on William Hurt and you get the school girl swoon-worthy Dr. Philip Neujahr.  I had a very unorginal crush on him.)

One of Dr. Neujahr’s favorite transitional phrases was/is, “Firm grasp of the obvious? Yes? Yes? Yes?”  It was a cute and reassuring way of checking in throughout his lectures just to make sure he hadn’t left a gaggle of gobsmacked teenagers in his intellectual dust.

But it was an interesting choice of words.  A lot of the ideas we wrestled with started with something obvious and then we were challenged to reconstruct the cerebral scaffolding that supported concepts that really only seemed obvious.  It was trippy. 

I can’t pretend to have been a truly serious student of philosophy, but the coursework I did undertake did help me to appreciate that there’s a lot more to the human experience than meets the eye.  If we’re tired, or lazy, or things are really, really bad, we can function on a pretty animalistic level.  But given our cranial capacity, we’ve got the option of swimming around in the world of ideas.  Sometimes we figure stuff out, and sometimes, we figure out the stuff we haven’t figured out, and that can be good, too. (I know that’s a bit “Bill & Ted“-ish…but when it comes to my own efforts at doing philosophy, that’s all I got.)

Perhaps it was the affection I had for Dr. Neujahr and all the things he taught me that inspired my adoration of the Philosophy line of skin care products and perfumes.  

I’m a sucker for a well-conceived and well-executed branding campaign.  They had me at “Hope in a Jar“. I mean really, what are beauty products about if not hope?  I don’t  know if Philosophy products are the best thing on the market, but I think they’re the most charming.  And when I go about my day wearing a perfume called “Pure Grace,” maybe, just maybe, I’ll be inspired to actually exhibit the characteristic for which the perfume is named. 

Think deeply and smell good while doing it.  Memo received