Don't Act Like a Criminal

I am so weird around cops (and those of you who know me, yes I do realize this is ironic). I substitute teach occasionally and I just got hired on at a new school. The hiring process requires lots-o-paperwork and a thorough background check making sure I’m not a criminal or pedophile (The school is also a catholic school and required a seminar I had to go to. THAT is a whole other blog entry. Stay tuned). So included in this barrage of red tape I had to go through, I had to go to the police station to get fingerprinted.

I know. No big deal.

Maybe it’s because I’m an actor/writer and my imagination is constantly being worked and given mass doses of steroids. Maybe it’s because I haven’t always been the most law abiding citizen in the world (Nothing crazy i promise you. I mean who didn’t steal a gum from the 76 in grade school and stumble drunkenly down the street when they were in their 20‘s. And by “gum” I mean gap clothes and by “stumble drunkenly” I mean... Oh never mind). The origin doesn’t matter. The fact is I am totally nervous.
I go one evening to my local police department, check in and wait in the lobby. What’s happening in the lobby is interesting to me. A woman and a boy maybe 12 or 13 are talking to a sergeant. I eavesdrop. The boy is telling the officer about how he is being bullied at school. His mother is taking furious notes. Fucking junior high. In junior high something chemically changes in kids and makes transform from perfectly good and cute into into tremendous assholes willing to make the innocent eat cat shit. I was a naive skinny girl. I was good target back then. I nod to the kid understanding (I still am skinny. It’s just that super skinny models have made what I’ve always detested about myself okay, So keep on with the cocaine and anorexia ladies).
“Elizabeth Ann Navarro?” a short bald officer asks popping his head out of the door.
I snap back into the real reason I’m there. He used my full name. Really? Nothing worse to make me feel like I’m in trouble. My I walk back into the bowels of the station following this officer clutching my paperwork. He’s making some sort of small talk, but all that is running through my head is: Don’t act like a criminal. I’m not a criminal. Be cool. Act cool. You won’t be found out. There’s nothing to be found! Shut up Beth. Be cool! Remember cops are almost like real people.

Before I know it we are at the holding cells. I freeze. What the hell! Is this a trick? I start backing up.
“It’s through here,” the cop says. “ I like your purse by the way.”
Okaaaaaaay.
He leads me to the middle of the four cells they have there (none occupied thank god. I did not want to have a silence of the lambs moment). And there is the fancy finger printing station. This is no ink and paper operation. It’s all computerized now. I realize this is where people who’ve been arrested go to get finger printed too. He takes out some sanitizer and sprays down the machine. Well that’s good. While I’m waiting I start to get antsy and start tot want to do very inappropriate things. I want to grab his gun. Why do they have to make that so tempting??!? I want to rub his bald head. I want to get him in a choke hold and noogie him. I want to snap the cord of his radio repeatedly against his back.
My arm starts to raise of it’s own accord. Down arm down! Stop it Beth! But this is what goes through my head when I’m around cops. Welcome to my brain, grab a cocktail and enjoy the insanity.
“I’m ready for you!” He says with a weird grin on his face. I’m wondering if he’s like this when a murderous felon is being arrested.
I imagine him smiling a lazy smile at the criminal he’s caught telling him, he really likes his boots and grabbing his hands to fingerprint saying “Let’s get this show on the road, guy!”
There is something about fingerprint taking that I didn’t realize. It’s sort of an intimate process. He takes my hands. I tense up immediately. He tells me to relax them and make them all floppy.
“Let me look at your fingertips,” he says. “Yeah, those are nice.”
Okay that was sort of creepy.
The starts the fingerprinting process and to my relief unclicks the criminal box on my profile. It’s over in a few minutes. My fingerprints whiz through the system and I’m done.
The cop leads me out and winks saying, “Let’s hope you pass!” He’s joking, but that just speeds up the “Be cool. Don’t act like a criminal” monologue in my head. I leave the police station feeling like I got away with something (God I am so dramatic). What did I learn from this ordeal? Not much except I totally need to book something on Law and Order: Los Angeles or Southland. I am ready people.


Disclaimer: I do not think cocaine and anorexia are okay. It’s a joke people.

Clarity

I suck at eye exams. I wish I could study for them.

I arrive at my eye doctor’s office yesterday and I’m nervous like I always am. I know I need a new prescription. My vision is not perfect with my contacts. At night I drive like a grandma if she was a cab driver. I can’t see, but I drive fast anyway, I have places to go. I’m nervous. I fail eye exams as consistently as I failed my algebra tests. And it’s not my eyes fault. Sure, I’m about as blind as one can be without it being legally declared. If you put me out on the streets with no vision aids and I might as well start pandering like a homeless woman. But it’s me that screws up these tests and I sort of think everyone in the office is out to get me. Okay, that’s paranoid and maybe a bit of exaggeration. Listen to the evidence and draw your own conclusions.

So the first thing I have to do is take out my contacts. A very nice female assistant take me to a room to do this. No problem.

“Here’s a new case,” She says and disappears out the door. For some reason I always forget about the logistics of this part. I never remember to bring my glasses (Fail number one). So my contacts are out and I’m standing in this room feeling about as helpless as a newborn baby. I wait for her to come back. Nothing. I look out the door and all I see is a blotches of the bland beige decor and about six blue blobs walking around. The chick helping me is one of those blue blobs. I feel like an idiot. Don’t they know that without my contacts it’s about as clear looking through a fogged up window?? So I sit myself down in a chair and stare at my lap figuring someone will get me when I’m ready.
“Beth Navarro,” I hear my blue blob call from across the room.
I sigh loudly. Don’t mind me. I can make it through your maze of chairs and planters. No problem. I knock over a few magazine hanging off the coffee table to emphasize my point (yeah I know totally dramatic, but I was PMS-ing too).
I walk into the room and sigh again. I forgot about this part. The glaucoma test. The stupid glaucoma test.
“My favorite,” I say. She just smiles and tells me to put my head against the forehead rest.
“Keep your eyes open. Just a small puff,” She says. I can hear her smiling. I am convinced this test means nothing and it’s just to mess with people. “Focus on the red dot.”
I do. I’m straining to keep my eyes open even though I know what’s coming. It’s like holding your eyes open when someone is shaking out a beach towel. Totally against your instincts. This is just torture.
“Oh no, you blinked!” She said all cheerfully (Fail number 2). No shit. You are blowing air into my eye.

After the third time it finally works.

The eye chart exam is where I really suck.

The doctor comes in, makes some small talk about the weather then puts up the eye chart on the wall. I’m pretty sure they put this up here just to humiliate me. I can see nothing. The only reason I know the top line is an E is because on the Snellen charts (fucking Snellen) the top line is always: C,D,E,F,L,N,O,P,T,H or Z. So I got a one and 11 shot and the E looks pretty boxy. See I did do some studying, not that it got me anywhere.
Then they put my prescription in that binocular sort of thing. Ah, I breath a little sigh of relief. But now it’s the one and two game, which I don’t think I could suck at worse.

“One or two?” the doctor asks.

It’s make it or break it time. Come on new persciption. Don’t mess this up, Beth!

“Wait do show me them again?” I ask.

“One or two?”

I debate. “Um, two?”

“Okay. One or two?” He asks again with two fresh choices.

“I’m not sure,” I say. The doctor doesn’t like this answer.

“Try again. One or two?”

“They look the same,” I say.

I think I hear him sigh. I hate this game.

“Try these. One or two?” he asks.

My mind spins: Two looks maybe slightly better, but wait one was good. Two... Um...

“Can I see them again?” I want to get this right. The clarity of my whole entire year is dependent on this, literally and figuratively. I’ve had a bad day and I need some frakin’ clarity (Yes I love Battlestar Gallatica, but I regress)!

“One or two?”

“One. I’m sure it’s one,” I say.

“Good,” the doc says taking the contraption away from my face. I did it. That stupid song starts running through my head, "I can see clearly now the day has come... I can see all obstacles in my way..."

He comes close to my face because he knows I can’t see. “I think your prescription is pretty much the same. If it’s not broke don’t fix it!”

Fail number three.

He sends me on my way. Once again stranded in my fuzzy world left to feel my way through the office to find the room in no man’s land that has my contacts. I failed again. I put in my less than perfect contacts. That will just have to do. There’s always next time. Until then I’m studying those Snellen charts without my contacts.

As for the clarity, I guess you just have to go with what you got. Nothing is perfect. You see what you need to. You just gotta look close enough, ignore the halos on the lights at night and break down and just get the bifocals.

The End of the Book???

Say it ain't so! I know they have been saying for years, now that the internet and electronics have taken over our lives. The LA Times have a interesting article about this. Check it out:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-engelhardt21-2008dec21,0,1701730.story

I have been asked: You read so much, wouldn't you love to have the Kindle (a hand held electronic book that holds hundreds of titles)? But no one can replace the good ole paperback for me (Although I won't be surprised if I find the Kindle in my stocking this year, god love my husband). I have faith the traditional publishing market will stay afloat. Hopefully this is not just wishful thinking...

Turning a corner...

I feel like I'm turning the corner... I've never written anything before because I HAD to. And I don't mean I HAD to as in required to in English class. God knows I've had plenty of writing assignments. But I HAD to as in, something deep inside is telling me, this story needs to be told. This is why you are a writer. The story I am beginning I HAVE to tell. It is the most exhilarating feeling. I think is a key. The key to good writing. I will find the heartbeat.

Shel Silverstein's Birthday

Today we celebrate Shel Silverstein! He introduced poetry to children everywhere. Below is a favorite of mine that he wrote:

Invitation

If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
a hoper, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer...

If you are a pretender,
Come sit by my fire
For we have some flax golden tales to spin.

Come in!
Come in!

Letting go of the perfect story...

I learned an important lesson today (and I'm sure if I think hard enough I'll find it's a life lesson too). I learned when rewriting I have to forget the perfect story I had in my mind before I wrote word one. You know... That explosion of excitement when you come up with a great idea and amazing characters and before you know it you're making millions like J.K. Rowling and signing book after book in great halls filled with readers who know your world better than you do? You know that perfect novel? I'm not dismissing this part of the process. Without it I don't think I'd write at all. It gets you motivated. Excited. But in rewriting I have found it can be detrimental.

I must remember to forget the perfect novel I had in my mind and deal with the story that is in front of me. Only then can I move forward. And I've realized this week that when I let go fully of my fantasy story and I see the actual story I wrote, my rewrite comes alive (and I even enjoy it!).

Sam, Feels Better now!

I thought I would "toot the horn" of a fellow author of mine. Jill Osborne just published a interactive story. We are part of the same critique group and I am proud to say she is now published! Below is her summary of the story:

Sam Feels Better Now!
Sam Feels Better Now!: An Interactive Story for Children incorporates elements of trauma therapy, as well as play and expressive therapies to assist children in working through crisis situations, traumatic events, and grief by helping the character, Sam learn ways to cope after his own difficult situation.

I truly feel this book will help the kids who need it. Thank you Jill! Great job!