[Wo]man's Best Friend

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND NINE: The Pauper Says Goodbye

“A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.”  - Josh Billings

In my last post, I lamented the loneliness of Christmas and the hopelessness it can bring.  I closed my post with a quip about watching Blue Valentine and the poor dog that dies in it.  Not two minutes after posting, I received a call from my mother telling me that on Christmas Eve, they were going to put down my 16-year-old dog, Sparky.

Unable to think properly, I had to hang up the phone, allow myself to break down, and then call my mom back.  This now being Christmas, and about 17 hours since he has passed, I am going to indulge myself via blog and eulogize my baby.

It's a weird feeling to carry when a beloved pet has passed.  It's understandable to be upset when a beloved human passes.  It's a human life, after all.  But as I walked into work today, I had to carry the burden of pain without the relief of being able to call off work.  It's just a dog.

It's not just a dog.

I don't have a lot of memory of my childhood - a truth brought to light when my foreign exchange sister, Adriana, visited me last spring.  She recalled so many memories that her 17-year-old self had of which my 10-year-old self had zero recollection.

But I will never forget the moment I met Sparky.

Adri was living with us at the time.  This sets me at 10, as previously stated.  My mom had used her newly purchased cellphone to call and tell me that she had picked out a new family car and was heading home.  Remembering how awesome it was to see our new minivan for the first time, I ran to the garage when I heard it open to see what gem she had picked out.  When I opened the door, I screamed as I saw no car, but instead my mother cradling a two month old Shih Tzu in her arms.  He was small enough to cup in my 10-year-old hands.  You sneaky mom...

I had never had a dog before.  I had always talked about wanting one, but I didn't realize how much I really wanted it until I met our new little guy.

We spent the evening playing with him in the living room.  He was shy - a trait my mom later told me was a factor in picking him out amongst his hyperactive brothers.  With a 9:00 p.m. bedtime, I only had a few hours with the puppy before I had to go to bed.  And it sucked.

Mornings at that age left me about 15 minutes alone in the house before I had to catch the bus.  Jordan was in middle school, Adri in high school, my mom worked, and my dad was home on weekends due to his job.  My 15 minute ritual consisted of laying on the couch and watching the first segment of Rugrats until I had to catch the bus.  That morning, I held my little Sparky as he fell asleep nestled against my chest.  I thought briefly about skipping school.  The thought of putting him in his crate was too much to bear.  So I pushed my time with him to limit, set him in his crate, and dragged myself to the curb where I barely caught my bus.

Throughout the years, Sparky blossomed into the (completely objective) perfect pet.  He was friendly.  We often joked that if anyone ever tried to rob our house, we would be screwed.  He'd just lick them to death.  He rarely barked - unless a pesky rabbit hopped outside the window.  But even then, it was never annoying.  A few barks out of his system, and he was done.

When we took him for walks, he'd boast to giant German Shepherds at a distance, but cower away the moment he realized he was within biting range.  Like a wimpy kid trying to impress a girl by bad mouthing the bully just outside of earshot.

During high school and home stays in college, Sparky would spend the nights in my room.  I'd put my comforter on the floor for him.  As we both settled into bed, I'd often hear the sounds of him thrashing about - picking up the comforter in an adorably carnal fashion to get it just right.  And some times when he'd fall asleep first, I'd hear his little yips as he dreamed.  Probably of walks and Snausages.  And if ever he got lonely on the floor, I'd hear a moment of silence before he leapt onto my bed and always, always nestled as close to my body as humanly possible.  Usually pushing my legs apart creating the least comfortable sleeping position for myself.

But I never cared.

I wasn't a really happy kid in high school.  I'd spend hours crying in my room over teenaged angst.  Some times I'd leave the door slightly ajar.  And who would push his little nose in and comfort me?  You may guess Jordan, but no.  It was Sparky.  I'd clutch him close.  My tears would coat the top of his head.  And he'd lick my chin and take all the incomprehensible angst.  For the life of me, I can't remember what I was crying about.  But I will always remember the soothing comfort he brought.  That's the power of unconditional puppy love.

I am not exaggerating when I say there was never a single guest in our house who didn't love Sparky.  Grown men would fall to their knees and speak in baby voices as they entered our house and pet the living daylights out of him.  Always the sucker for attention but never a whore for it, Sparky obliged every giddy entrance.

As I returned home more seldom in my college and post college years, my parents would gladly take in my suitcase as I ran into the house to greet the Sparkster.  His tail would shake so happily that his entire back half would shake with it.  In later years, he became less willing to run down the stairs when he heard the door open - his bones getting weaker and weaker.  But there was no way I'd walk into my house without a greeting from my Sparky.  So I would go straight upstairs to my parents' bed (his new favorite hangout), crawl under it, and give him a kiss and hug.

In those later years, I began saying my real goodbye to Sparky each time I left for the airport.  I'd spend about 10 minutes cuddling with him on the couch or in my bed just in case this was the last time.  But for about 6 years, Sparky managed to stick around for each return.

My last visit home was Thanksgiving, 2012.  At this point, the damn little guy kept proving me wrong, so I made my goodbye brief.  Like the Boy Who Cried Wolf.  Even without a return trip in sight, I never thought this one would actually be the last.

Until I got that call Monday.  I woke up earlier than I anticipated on Tuesday morning.  I knew what time his appointment was.  I kept imagining my little baby, so old, so tired, so unknowing of his fate in a few short hours.  I stayed awake until I knew it was time, and I cried myself back to sleep knowing in my heart that he was no longer with us.

I'll never return home to see that little face, full of so much love.  Full of so much comfort.  It's hard to believe.  I don't want to believe.  I have so many wonderful memories with such a wonderful pet, but now I can't shake the haunting visual I have of his final moments, as described to me by my mom.  As his body filled with drugs that lulled him into a calm that prepared him for a peaceful end.  I'd give anything to have one more night of uncomfortable sleep with him shoved up against me.  I'd give anything to give him a bath, even if he was such a little shit about it.  But most of all, I'd give anything to have someone look at me with such unabashedly love that he would give to me.

He's not just a dog.  He's a living, breathing companion and instant smile vessel.  He was my friend, my family.  And now all I have left is the indelible mark that memory leaves behind.

Sparky Williams - August 28, 1997 - December 24, 2013

And At Christmas, You Tell The Truth...

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN: The Pauper's First Christmas

Our perceptions of reality have always been altered.  Conflicting ideologies paint the beliefs some people are willing to die for.  As children, we are taught that we celebrate Thanksgiving because it's when the Indians and Pilgrims sat down together and became best friends forever.  Until, of course, the Pilgrims raped the Indians, spreading incurable communicable diseases and stole their land only to essentially rape and pillage that as well.

The most egregious application of the taintification of reality would be the romantic comedy.  (Yes, even more so than the decimation of an entire people.  And yes, read the sarcasm, sit back, and enjoy an acerbic blog post from a Christmas Scrooge.)  I recently revisited a newly anointed Christmas perennial, Love Actually.  I believe it was Christmas of my 16th year of life the first time I caught it in an overpacked theater with some friends that preceded a ladies' dinner date at Pargo's Restaurant (R.I.P.) in Frederick, Maryland - my hometown.

I can't fully articulate what made me want to see it.  I had been a staunch cynic having come up completely and utterly empty-handed in the love like seriously, can we just pretend like I at least have lady bits department.  So rarely did I feel like spending my Friday or Saturday nights paying 8 bucks to spend an hour and a half Liz Lemoning all over a crowded theater.  But for some reason - maybe it was the allure of British accents or the undercooked French fries with that perfect style of Honey Mustard at Pargo's - that had me agreeing to see it.

And something weird happened to my body while doing so.  I smiled.  I laughed.  I got this warm gooey feeling inside of me that should not be read as inappropriate, you ass bags.  I had done it.  I had thoroughly enjoyed a romantic comedy.  Who am I?

By the time college had started, I purchased it and made it my own tradition to watch it every year at Christmas in the time leading up to my familial Christmas traditions.  And an away message quoting the infamous "Carol Singers posterboard" scene played an integral role in a pseudo relationship when I was 19 - the details of which are too pathetic and therefore rife with self-effacing humor to be told in a sentence or two.  So stay tuned.

So I carried on my tradition.  Even as I grew up and realized just how insipid the plots were, and how cringeworthy the writing is, and how cloying the music can be; I still always enjoyed that little warm and gooey Christmas pick me up.

Until the year I decided to spend Christmas alone instead of heading off to see my family in the same stupid city that stupid movie was stupid filmed in.

I'm not sure why I thought it'd be a good idea.  Some kind of masochistic inclination triggered by some late night whiskey after a long day at work.  Nevertheless, it happened.  And it wasn't pretty.

Everything I was willing to forgive was no longer unforgivable.  Hugh Grant falls in love with some girl just because she was silly enough to swear in front of *gasp* the prime minister?!  It's not the fucking pope.  And even he seems pretty chill by today's standards.

Alan Rickman, as Laura Linney's fucking boss feels it is appropriate to probe into her love life and make her feel awkward as hell just because we need a plot device?!  JOBS ARE HORRIBLE!  COMPANIES ARE NEVER AS COOL AS THEY ARE IN THE MOVIES!  UNLESS YOU WORK AT FUCKING DIGITAS WHICH I HAD TO PASS IN THE ELEVATORS EVERY DAY AT WORK AND WATCH AS WHAT CAN ONLY BE DESCRIBED AS A CORPORATE FUNHOUSE APPEARED BEFORE ME ON A DAILY BASIS ON MY WAY TO MY SOUL-SUCK OF A JOB!

But I digress.

Sam doesn't give a shit that his mom just died?!  DUDE!  Put the insipid puppy love on hold for a second and mourn the woman who has loved you unconditionally since you were a fetus.

So all these flaws started to come through the cracks.  I got mad at this movie I loved because it made my poor, blackened heart believe that Christmas was a time for goddamned miracles.  Christmas was a time you never had to feel alone.  Someone would be there for you.  Someone would care for you.  Someone would walk up to your front door and pull some elaborate, speechless speech to tell you how much they love you.

We watch movies like this because they give us hope.  Hope is the thing that keeps us going in life.  People cling to religion in the hope that life isn't just over when we die.  People with suicidal tendencies don't always go through with it because they have to hope that things are going to turn around.  And 26-year-old women still believe in fairy tales because it hurts too much to face reality.

Some naive part of me still believes something magical is going to happen in two days.  But the part of me that clings to those silly hopes is quickly dying.  Because even when you get the fairy tale, you only get the portion most movies allow you to see.  It's the law of gravity: what goes up, must come down.  After the fairy tale is over, life gets all mumblecore on us.  And what's really more depressing to watch?  The truth, or a fabrication of life too impossible to be real?  This Christmas, I'm going to pop open my Netflix, open up a bottle of whiskey, and watch some Blue Valentine.

Let it be known that Hannah's new Christmas tradition shall be watching the demise of Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams' marriage.  And watch Michelle Williams lose their poor dog.  Aw, poor dog.

Evolution Through Creation

DAY NINETY-FIVE: The Pauper Becomes the Second Option

"People love witnessing creation." - My improv teacher, Spike.

It's a simple and even obvious thought that still manages to confound people.  When we witness something, we witness it in one of two ways.  Option #1 is as a casual observer.  In the most basic sense of viewing something.  If it's funny, we allow our bodies to laugh.  If it is sad, we allow our bodies to cry.  If it's awful, we allow our bodies to throw peelable fruits in its general direction.

Option #2 is as an absorptive viewer.  If it's funny, we allow our bodies to laugh, and then we attempt to dissect why we are laughing.  Am I laughing due to physicality, situation, diametrically opposed ideologies?  In this option, we are no longer static members of the audience.  We can critique the creation in front of us, and that is how we become better creators ourselves.

It took me a long time to start absorbing my entertainment in this fashion.  A recent example that springs to mind is The Beatles' "I Am The Walrus," a song with lyrics like "I am the eggman," and "Goo goo goo joob."  It's a song that as a 14-year-old beginning to acclimate herself to the later Beatles canon, I took it mostly as "What a silly song!  Who would be sitting on a cornflake???"  But it was The Beatles.  And I grew up understanding that The Beatles were infallible artists.  Everything they created was inherently a masterpiece because, The Beatles.

As I was listening to that song the other day, I realized it still doesn't make much goddamned sense, and from my knowledge of The Beatles, I'm fairly positive hallucinatory drugs are partially - if not completely - responsible for this song.  But to write down those lyrics, create melodies, and commit them to a recording - that requires the lack of inhibitions that creation stems from.  It's the reason talented people go undiscovered and untalented people are swimming in their Scrooge McDuck money pits.  You have to remove all sense of inhibition: fear of failure and need for perfection.  You are going to fail while creating.  But if you are good at it, no one will notice.

I've been having a really great time reviewing shows, movies and music I held so dear as a child.  Even as a child, I knew witnessing Buffy the Vampire Slayer was witnessing something special.  And I'd like to think some of Joss Whedon's sense of humor molded a bit of my own.  But re-watching episodes as a 26-year-old who is a decade older than the characters were at the start of the series, I can appreciate the beauty of the story-telling from a new angle.  An episode like "The Body" always felt like something special, but paying attention to the lack of sound, the patience of holding a moment, the out of frame paramedic, and the way each character acts in response - these are no longer elements I take for granted as appearing out of thin air and onto my television screen.  These are products of many people brainstorming in an office until they realize the perfect capper to Anya's inability to understand mortality and Willow's frantic outfit choices would be Anya finding the desired sweater and replacing it next to the chair nonchalantly.

It's watching Can't Hardly Wait 8 years removed from high school and having it resonate 8 times more.  It's understanding that the people who created that movie weren't just some "let's make a high school rager that will net us some money."  It's seeing a writer grappling with the idea of fate, and clinging to the hope that something besides our own meandering thoughts are guiding us through this thing called life, and it's committing that idea to paper.  It's having the courage to tell a story.  The courage to be judged.  The courage to create.

A few years ago, I felt adrift in my early twentysomething bullshit.  I was talking to a friend of mine who had about 3 years on me.  I was concerned that I spent too much time listening to depressing music, drinking wine, and expelling my emotions through aquatic viscera leaking out of my eyeballs.  She told me that was a fine thing to do, as long as I was an active participant in my emotional journey.  It's one thing to cry uncontrollably and spew "whoa is me" bile throughout your brain.  But the only way for such an act to be considered conducive to your emotional and mental well-being is to actively participate in your pain.  "Why am I crying?  Why does this hurt?  How did I get here?  And what can I do to stop it?"  It's a much healthier practice than "WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"  See the difference?

So let's all try to be more active participants in our consumption.  Be it sources of entertainment, conversations, or our own thoughts.  If we become more active in our lives, we'll be able to create more.  And there's nothing more impressive to witness than creation.

Hannah, Meet Hannah. Hannah, Hannah.

DAY EIGHTY-NINE: The Pauper Drinks a Boost

I used to have a major problem watching the show Girls.  This is a well-documented road block known to my friends.  When I was in college, I had an idea to write a show about three post-grad women in their early twenties trying to navigate life, love, and career pitfalls.

"But Hannah, everyone who has ever had an idea has had that idea."

The reason I was sure watching Girls would cause me to convulse, spasm, vomit, and rotate my head 1080 degrees was a tonal reason.  I wanted my show to be real.  It would star a young woman, not stereotypically beautiful, but a woman that women could identify with.  She would be an anti-heroine.  Not always the best person, someone you certainly shouldn't admire, but she'd endear you because of her humor.  She would make horrible sexual decisions.  There would never be a scene where the characters begin kissing, and then slowly fade into the morning after with the two of them laying awkwardly in bed with the sheet pulled up to her chin.  She was an aspiring writer with deeply penetrating fears of writing.  Her "love" interest was named Adam, because I always named my male counterpart Adam.  And she was me.  She was Hannah.

I tell you all this because some of you readers don't know me well enough to understand my frustrations at seeing and hearing about this show.  But I can assure you from the number of times it was brought up in conversation, "Have you seen Girls?!  You would love it!" that this show stole my idea.  And Lena Dunham would pay... by not having me watch it!

Until, yeah, I watched it.  I cringed as I saw exact storylines I had thought of executed in incredibly similar ways.  I squirmed as little "self-deprecation in the face of comedy" moments played out like Hannah always sneaking into the fridge to eat something when stressed, even if it's Cool Whip.  I agonized as Jessa responded to Hannah's sighting of Adam with "Who?  The first man?", a rationale I adopted long ago in my writing.  It was difficult to digest, but I watched the whole damn thing.

Girls and I have a very complicated relationship.  It's nearly impossible for me to watch this show without bias.  The same things I love about the show are the same things I love about my writing.  But the Catch-22 is I therefore hate everything about the show that I hate about my own writing.  And that self-loathing is the reason I'm sitting here at 26 writing a blog that about 4 people read and at 26, Lena Dunham won a couple Golden Globes.

She had the confidence to go after an idea she had.  Whereas I have a tendency to overanalyze everything I do creatively, she just did it.  (Don't even get me started on Tiny Furniture.  I have a nearly finished screenplay stored on my hard-drive that would like to have a word with it.)

So how do we attain this confidence?  Well, speaking from two month's experience, it helps not being berated at work on a daily basis.  It helps actually showing your work to people.  It helps forming friendships with people who not only support you, but encourage you.  And it even helps when you have a nice conversation with a mother/daughter at your table who writes "Good luck with your career!" on your credit card receipt.  But ultimately, you just have to understand that you won't be perfect, but with practice you will be good - even great.  And the difference between the people who make it and the people who don't is confidence.  Or an amazingly stupid amount of luck.

Girls and I are doing a little bit better now.  I've forgiven it for making me feel like shit about myself.  Because something happened over the past year.  I realized it's not really the storytelling I aspire to anymore.  Kudos to Lena Dunham for doing what she is doing, but the idea of reliving my early 20's for the sake of my career seems like a certain place in hell meant for pedophiles and sandmonsters.  My desire to create is stronger than ever.  And I think I had to get over myself a little bit before I could do that.  I have confidence in knowing Girls is a show I probably could have written (and maybe I'd have a couple Golden Globes to add to my shelf, though I've already got a couple of my own.  HEY-O!), but it's no longer the show I want to write.  It's no longer the story I want to tell.  Because I finally realize I my creation abilities excel beyond recreation of the past.  And without Girls, I don't know if I'd ever have gotten out of that frame of mind.

So thanks, Lena.  But if your next heroine is named Katharine, I'm coming for you with the force of a thousand and twelve banshee grey hounds.

From Great Risk Comes Great Forward

DAY EIGHTY-FIVE: The Pauper Settles In

A weird feeling has recently passed over me.  It's weird because it's so foreign.  It's not something I've felt for the last quarter of my life.  And though I'm not foolish enough to believe it will last for years to come, I can confidently say that in this moment... I'm happy with my life.

What brought me to this utterance?  A risk.  A big one.  When I was a freshman in college - a point in my life where the world felt like the proverbial oyster - a senior I knew from College Democrats bestowed some advice upon me.  She was at an age where the world seemed less like an oyster and more like an ominous void.  But when she was discussing her plans to do Teach for America in a new city she knew no one in, she explained, "If the decision isn't scary, it's probably not the right decision to make."

Scary life decisions are the most difficult to make.  It's all there in the title, so it's not like I'm making a grand statement that will open people's eyes.  But one of the hardest things you or I will ever do is step outside of our comfort zone.  That warm security blanket that makes the day to day easier, but the long run impossible.

At the beginning of August, the idea of quitting my job seemed, ironically, impossible.  Why on earth would I leave the thing that has kept me going for four plus years?  This is what people do.  They graduate from college, find themselves a job, and they stick by it to ensure a life of financial stability.  But when you graduate in the midst of a recession, you get this curve ball that requires a bit of risk.

In 2009, the place mats where set for a life of drudgery for Miss Hannah Williams.  Working in a position so far from my major that I trained myself to laugh every time I admitted the difference.  "Majored in film?  What are you doing now?"  "I work at a law firm... yuck, yuck, yuck."

But it took a low point at work to point me in the right direction.  A moment of realization that spending my life hating the days and yearning for the nights would do nothing but subject me to a life of misery and regret.

Regret: The biggest devil of them all.  After a collegiate romance gone astray because I felt too inferior to reveal my true feelings, I promised myself I would never regret the things that I didn't do, but would rather regret the things that I did.  I took this to heart, but relegated them to my romantic life, as I thought anything else was merely what I "should" be doing.  And it took four years to realize that there is no "should" in our professional lives.  There is simply what we do.

So on that fateful day in August, when the fates fed me a can of unnecessary "whoop ass" at work, I realized that I simply could not carry on in this charade.  Paychecks weren't enough to keep me going.  Life had other plans for me, I was certain.  But I had eked out everything I could from four years of professional ambiguity.  It was time to take a risk.

I'll admit that waiting tables hadn't felt like my proudest moment.  In the beginning, I welled up inside nearly every day I slipped on my uniform and stared at myself in the mirror before I walked out the door.  Last week, I encountered a father and his collegiate daughter who asked me what I had majored in when I studied at Loyola.  I felt ashamed.  Telling this man that I attended school four years ago and now I am serving him and his daughter pizza with my degree.  It wasn't exactly what I pictured myself doing when I wore that cap and gown in the spring of 2009.

But then I added in, "I'm studying at Second City now."  And I continued to recommend some shows to him.  And I realized, I have nothing to be ashamed of.  I was working in a job that sucked my soul away like some kind of legalese Dementor.  And I had the balls to walk away from it.  And now I'm starting over.  There is no shame in changing your life.

And now, I stand as a woman who walks into work joyously.  My coworkers are wonderful.  I am obliged to improv with tables on a daily basis.  I wake up in the mornings and get to write instead of hopping into the shower to go to a job that will do absolutely nothing for me beyond giving me rent.  I have a new show opening next year.  I feel confident.  I feel strong.  And I feel happy.

The dust has settled around the rough patch of my risk.  And from it, the phoenix rises.  Though the future remains uncertain, it's a hell of a lot clearer than a life resigned to apathy.