Day 59: A Runner from the Start.

Written at the age of five. Clearly, spelling was not always my for-tay.

In my ongoing attempt to understand why I smoked pot every day for ten years (and, in general, for far longer), it's worth examining what exactly pot had to offer. Sure, it was fun. I loved the ritual. I liked being high.

It also helped me ignore things I wanted to ignore - like the fact that I'm a runner and a hider.

I've always been a runner. When I was a little kid, I had a backgammon set that came inside a thin briefcase of sorts. It had buckles that snapped shut and a latch in the middle. Whenever I got really mad at my mom and then-stepfather, I'd pack my backgammon suitcase and make a plan to hit the road. (All I could fit in the case was one shirt and maybe a pair of underwear, but I was making a statement. A girl on the run needed a suitcase.) I'm not sure I ever actually left the house, but in my mind, I was out of there.

Later, in high school, I remember actually leaving a few times. I didn't go far, but I was determined to make my point. I'd run to my friend Tara's house and complain (in pitch-perfect teenage angst) about what a dick my step-father was. (In retrospect, I was kind of rough on him. I mean, he was pretty hopeless, but I delighted in pushing his buttons and setting him off.)

Even in college, the running motif continued. Every so often, when my friends and I were out at a bar (one of like, 52 that were within walking distance from our house), I'd get it in my head that no one was paying attention to me. I'd feel left out, I'd get all sensitive, and I'd decide to show them by walking home. I'd get home, sit there a few minutes, realize no one was coming after me, and go back to the bar. In every single instance, my absence had not been noticed (or, if it had, people merely assumed I'd been hanging out elsewhere). I'd rejoin the group and everything would be fine. (It should be noted that this only happened when I drank vodka. Vodka makes me ridiculously over-sensitive, which is why I hardly ever touch it.)

But the real running - the true running - has always been on the inside. I've run with remarkable consistency from expectations, hard work, pain, guilt, limbo, and, most of all, love. Pot helped me avoid looking at the pattern - hell, it obliterated the view altogether.

Sometimes I wonder if I've ever truly been in love. Sophie and Garp came closest ... but even in those cases, I was running. Why? Because true love is a terrifying proposition. There's so much to lose. It's a lot easier to run and hide. And so, in almost all of my relationships and would-be relationships, that's exactly what I've done.

It's actually a pretty neat trick, because for the longest time, it doesn't look like you're running at all. You're right there in the moment, filled with sincere passion, feeling real feelings ... you're the only one who knows you're building in emergency exits. There's the "I'm not attracted enough" exit, the "Not enough in common" exit, the "I'm not wanted enough" exit, the "Something is missing" exit ... you get the picture. The finale plays out like a game of emotional chicken: How much real love can you taste before the fear of losing it sends you through one of your exits?

It's easy to see why, after all that running, hiding can be such a relief. There are lots of ways to hide (overeater, hermit, workaholic, TV zombie), but the grandaddy of them all is to enter into a relationship with someone who'll never hurt you because you were never truly in love to begin with. Pot (at least for me) was crucial in pulling that one off.

But eventually, the hibernation period has to end. After all, who really wants to stay hidden? We all want to be found. We're desperate to be found. And so we emerge, and the cycle begins anew.

Without pot, running and hiding - in general - seem to be more difficult propositions. In fact, most exercises in self-sabotage are harder to execute.

If I were looking for another reason to stick to this experiment - especially on a night when I feel kind of shitty and wish I were stoned - I guess I just found one.

Day 56: Striking Out. (204)

For someone who's dedicating a year-long experiment to transformation, I sure as hell hate change.

This is not a news flash. I mean, we are talking about someone who pitches a fit every time her mother threatens to change any single element of Thanksgiving dinner. (I'll never forget the year she added nuts to the stuffing ... blasphemy!) I'd like to blame my slavish love of routine and tradition on the fact that I'm a Taurus, but I suppose there might be more to it than that.

You can imagine my dismay, then, when George and I walked into our favorite local bowling haunt and realized the entire place had been given a massive facelift.

The whole reason we always went to the All Star Lanes was its old-fashioned '50s charm. It was a true joint, with rickety tables, overhead table lights to help you keep score by hand, sketchy lanes with years of wax buildup, and plain facades above the pins.

So much for charm. Today's All-Star Lanes has automatic scoring, fancy new lanes, and patriotic facades that were apparently stolen from a George W. Bush wet dream. There's a TV screen above every lane, where the score is recorded, and even worse, the screen editorializes after every frame. An exploding bomb means you got your spare. A squadron of ghostly pins rushing out at you means you didn't. The screen also suggests where your ball should be placed if you want to get your spare (Coaching? Is that even fair?). Halfway through the first game, I wanted to throw my ball right through the fucking picture tube.

A few beers helped ease my pain. So did George's bowling, which got particularly exciting in the second game. The lanky Buckeye managed five strikes in a row - five!! It was quite the stellar performance. I, of course, was helping the cause by loaning out my ju-ju - that's the only excuse I can find for my pathetic score of 86 (my high of the day was 90. I would have broken 100 in the third game if our time hadn't run out in the 8th frame ...)

Still, I missed being able to write my own strike Xs and color in my own spare triangles. I missed the waxy buildup. I missed the old-school simplicity the lanes used to offer. I missed the way it was.

(Okay, now prepare yourselves for a rough transition ...)

I like to think, however, that I wouldn't miss the way I was if I could just lose some fucking weight. I dropped another pound this week, but one pound isn't going to cut it. Not if I want this experiment to be a true success.

And not if I want to kick Jackie's ass in our three week bet, which ends next week. Luckily, Jackie is also in a tight spot - she's lost 2-1/2 pounds in two weeks, exactly half of what she needs to lose in order to win or break even.

Can I lose five pounds in seven days? I dunno. Not likely. Possible, but not likely.

This weight thing is killing me. It's hard. And I suck at it. I think I need a mental makeover.

Maybe I should call the folks at All-Star Lanes.


George scores five strikes in a row! It would have been way cooler, however, if he could have written all those Xs himself ...

Day 53: The Art of Living Fearlessly.

Taken at great personal peril while Napoleon flew off a staircase overhead.

Like almost every other adult on the planet, I fight fear pretty much all the time. These battles range from the small (will I be able to pay my bills?) to the large (will I ever feel good about myself?), and they drive me nuts.

When I was a kid, I don't remember having too many fears. There were things I was afraid of externally - notably werewolves and vampires, thanks to some movie I watched behind my mother's back - but on the inside, there was nothing I felt I couldn't do. My mother had instilled a belief that anything was possible.

It took thirty years to build up fears to the contrary.

I spent this weekend with Samantha, my closest friend of 21 years, and her son, Napoleon, who's 11. Napoleon is a pretty amazing kid - he's bright and funny and charming and, most of all, he's fearless. It's not just the physical stuff, like skateboarding, it's the core belief he has in himself.

I'm not saying he's perfect - he's not - and he's well aware of the issues he does struggle with. But Napoleon attacks every moment with a sincere love of being alive. He holds nothing back and expects just as much in return.

Maybe, if I'm lucky, some of that rubbed off on me. A little fearlessness would go a long way these days ... a long way, indeed.

Day 51: Kicking the Hermit to the Curb.

I never used to be a hermit.

I mean, I've always enjoyed my down time, and longtime friends would attest to my tendancy towards staying home. But I'm also someone who moved to London right after college - to work and live for a year - without knowing a soul. I did the same thing seven years later when I dropped my career and moved to Los Angeles. I can talk to just about anyone, I don't frighten easily, and no one would ever call me shy.

It wasn't until maybe five or so years ago that I started truly dreading having to leave the house. Part of it was that I'd gained weight, and I didn't want to see people, but that was just one reason. When it came right down to it, I wanted to remain ensconced within my four walls, safe and secure ... and stoned.

My agoraphobic streak was also influenced by the fact that I was in a relationship with someone who preferred that I had no life. Life made her just a little bit too nervous. For years, I stopped traveling and stopped going out.

I guess this is all coming up because I'm flying to Phoenix tomorrow to see Samantha and her son Napoleon (Samantha has been my best friend since high school - for details see Day #15). I haven't seen Sam and Napoleon since I went back East this past summer, and I miss them both terribly.

And yet, the thought of going puts me ever so slightly on edge. Once I get there, I'll be fine - thrilled, even - but the thought of going is sometimes difficult. It's almost like exercising ... the anticipation is the hard part.

Enough is enough. Being a hermit makes me, well ... crabby, and it's no one's fault but my own. I haven't smoked pot in 51 days and I haven't been trapped in a relationship for eight months. How long can a person blame current habits on old circumstances? Even Maggie, who is unconditionally accepting of just about every eccentricity and flaw I have to offer, gently prods me away from the hermit thing.

It's easy to curl up inside a borrowed shell when life begins to pile on. The hard part is to crawl back out when the coast is clear.

Well, from what I can see, the coast is clear.

Day 50: No Sweat.

After a muddy soccer game, 1982. Okay, so I had a thing for Jim Morrison. Sue me.

What is it about exercise that makes my blood run cold? Why do I hate physical movement with the same intensity that I hate ... oh, I don't know, olives? (Seriously. Olives are just disgusting. I can't even eat anything they've touched - they leave behind repulsive little slime trails.)

My dislike of exercise goes way back. Sure, there's a time I can point to when physical activity was fun, but that was before puberty. After that, it gets tangled up with gym class, a poor body image, and painful headaches borne from a truly retarded inability to breathe.

The last time I considered myself athletic was in highschool, when I played softball. I didn't get around to going out for the team until my senior year, and I made first-string thanks to the sheer power of my throwing arm (I also loved to make dramatic, diving catches from third base). I can still hear my coach's voice from the sidelines reminding me to, "Breathe, Karen - breathe!" Apparently, I had developed a penchant for holding my breath at the point of contact, which led to a somewhat frightening cooked-lobster face and, later, massive headaches.

Once I began equating exercise with headaches, it was all over. In college, the closest I came to exercise was intramural soccer my freshman year (I had no choice if I wanted to go out drinking afterwards) and broomball (a hockey-like game played with sawed-off brooms on the frozen campus pond, which I doubt I could resist even now). After that, well, sex was about it.

I managed a brief comeback after that 1989 bet with Samantha's mother, during which I joined a local tennis club and worked out one way or another almost every day. Not only did I maintain a pretty decent weight that year, my serve became lethal and I met my first girlfriend (she was my personal trainer at the club ... and I have to say, when I see that in print, it feels two steps away from porn). I battled the headaches that year by taking massive amounts of preventitive Advil, plus I had Sophie (the first girlfriend) constantly reminding me to inhale, exhale, and repeat.

When I got into film school and moved to Los Angeles, that was the end of my born-again exercise jag. I've tried off an on to change my habits, but nothing seems to stick. I love my dogs, but clearly not quite enough to make sure they get walked every day (I have a huge yard). I owned a stair-stepper a few years back, but within a few months, it became a glorified coat rack. I tried jogging once, but all it did was make my shins sore. And always the headaches ... always the headaches.

To blame the headaches alone, however, would be a bit of a cheat. Headaches or not, I basically seem to have zero discipline when it comes to getting off my ass and moving. Whenever I actually exercise, I feel great (well, after I get over feeling shitty) - and yet, that happy feeling never translates to the next time I face the same situation.

So what do I do? Telling me to simply "get up and do it" would be ineffective. If I could manage to do that, I would. Maybe I'm just spoiled. Or lazy. Or cursed. Yeah - that's the ticket ... I'm cursed. That way, it's not really my fault.

Okay, so I'm not cursed by anything more than a lifetime of bad habits. But I really do wish I could find a way to change my behavior in a way that would stick. Because if I don't start exercising, one thing will happen and one thing won't. What won't happen is that I won't lose the weight I need to, and what will happen is that I'll drop dead a decade or two early from one of those "she didn't exercise enough" ailments.

Suggestions, anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Day 48: Had a Dad.

Had a dad
Big and strong
Turned around
Found my daddy gone.
- "Had a Dad," by Jane's Addiction

Back on Day #12, I talked about the reasons I've always been fat.

Well, I used the euphemism "heavy" because it made me feel better, but today I feel like I should just call it like it is. I might carry it well, and I'll reluctantly admit to being vaguely attractive despite the weight (when I make an effort, anyway), but 70 pounds is 70 pounds.

On Day #12, I talked about fat as a "Suit of Armor" that, among other things, kept the boys away. I quickly veered into a conversation about liking girls, but never addressed the more basic issue: Why would I have wanted a suit of armor in the first place? Why did I have a hard time trusting men from the get-go?

Well, I'm gonna go all Freud on your asses and bring up the first man in every girl's life ... Dad. Good or bad, present or absent, loving or cruel, dads seem to matter. They have a fundamental effect on their daughters' lives ... even if the daughter never met him or can't remember a single thing about him. I'm not saying adult women should blame Dad for their problems ... I'm just saying it's a relationship to be aware of.

My father left when I was four, and that was that. I'm told there were birthday presents for a few years (picked out and mailed by his new wife, who obviously felt a whole lot guiltier than he did) and even a few phone calls. And then it all stopped. I never heard from or saw him again.

I don't have any memories of him. There's nothing beyond the nine pictures I've seen and a few stray facts my mother's told me. I supposedly adored him, I always wanted to go places with him, he rarely wanted a baby tagging along. He thought it was funny when, while learning to walk, I tripped and fell down. He liked sports cars. He gained weight easily. That's about it. It's not that Mom is holding back - she just doesn't remember much. Mom believes in cutting bait, and when she moves on, she takes as little as possible with her.

If only I could be like that. Unfortunately, wallower that I am, I've been thinking about this prick my entire life. For a long time, I claimed not to care. Whenever anyone said something like, "Don't you want to go find him?" (which people used to say all the time, at least until I got old enough that the expiration date on 'finding daddy' had passed) I would merely sneer and say he didn't deserve to know me.

But I was lying. I did think about finding him. I wondered who he was. I wondered why he'd left. I wondered why he'd never bothered to try and know his daughter. And so, finally, I broke down and called him two years ago. I'd tracked him down on the internet and discovered that he owned an art gallery/antique store in Florida.

When I called the store, an innocuous-sounding man answered ... and I immediately hung up. I never called back, and I shoved it from my mind.

Being abandoned sucks - I'm not the first and I certainly won't be the last. I'm embarrassed at being such a cliche, but there it is. Maybe it's why I always have to be the first to bail, why I can't bear to be caught off guard, why I despise looking like a fool.

And maybe it has something to do with why I keep the extra pounds on. I mean, if I lose the weight, what will I blame for future failures? Future rejections? Future losses? And, most of all ... future abandonments?

Day 46: Little Monsters.

I like to stay up late
My mommy says
Don't stay up late
But I like to play at night
Please let me see
How tomorrow comes
Muse L. - Age 6

I started working with a new student last week. Philippe is not only one of the brightest kids I've ever met, he's autistic.

He reads like a fiend and has any number of wonderful insights, but he's all over the place. Instead of having organized thoughts - rows and rows of file cabinets in the brain, which is how I like to envision things - his thoughts are randomly mixed together, like thousands of papers piled up on the floor.

He also likes to yell. He gets up and spontaneously dances, claps, makes odd clucking sounds through his teeth, and veers off on unrelated tangents every time the conversation gets too intense.

I wasn't sure exactly how to react, so I just went with it. I raised my voice and got excited when he did, I gave no sign that I saw any strange behavior, and I treated him like an equal. At the end of the lesson, he asked me when I would be back. I told it would be on the same day at the exact same time the following week. He nodded, wrote it down, stood up, and abruptly left the room.

His mother, who'd been listening while she worked nearby, was thrilled. She said that she'd never seen such a successful first meeting. Somehow, she said, I'd gotten through to him. She was so pleased that she made me leave with two huge Korean pears wrapped in little yarn cozies.

I left happy - as I do almost every time I tutor - and not just because I like pears. It felt good to have an impact.

That said, I won't lie to you. I'd rather be making my living as a screenwriter again. I miss the challenge, the glamour, the money, the excitement ... I swear to god, I even miss how empty and ultimately alone it made me feel.

Then again, doing what I do now actually matters.

For the last two years, I've spent maybe 12 hours a week helping kids learn to be better writers and critical thinkers. A few have learning issues, but most are bright students whose parents want them to excel beyond what the public schools can offer. Once a week, I go to their houses for an hour and meet with them alone or in groups of two. They range in age from kindergarten (where I'm literally teaching them to write) to 10th grade, and because I have a waiting list, I'm able to choose carefully. I actually like every single kid I work with. I give them homework every week, and they do it without fail. I write my own curriculum, and it works.

Sure, I complain about it sometimes.

The rugrats are little germ carriers.
If I have to correct another Character Analysis Report on "Sideways Stories From Wayside School," I'll shoot myself.
I'm sick of driving to their houses.
I need to work on my own stuff.
I don't have the energy today.
Their teachers aren't teaching them jack shit about how to write.
I just can't read another story about "The Day My Family Turned Into Cats and How I Saved Them," or "My Very Strange Trip Inside the Human Body," or "Stranded! Two Weeks Alone on a Deserted Island."

Then a kid like Philippe comes along. Or Ned, an 8-year-old with ADD (among other things) and a huge heart who just gets to me on a level I can't explain. Or Muse, a 6-year-old who writes poetry the way Mozart must have played piano as a child.

When I worked as a screenwriter, and something I wrote got made, I'd get this hardcore adrenalin rush watching it appear on the screen (usually the small screen). Millions and millions of people were listening to me.

Problem was, I wasn't saying much. TV shows, TV movies, film ... it was all just entertainment. My ego may have been in heaven, but my soul felt a tad neglected.

Now, those tables have turned. I'm not speaking to an audience of millions any more, which kills my ego, but maybe that's okay. For now, maybe it's more important to reach out one little monster at a time.

I want a friend
Who is nocturnal like me
So we can stay up all night together
I want a friend
Who is a fish like me
So we can swim all day together
I want a friend
Who does not like to watch TV like me
So we can watch each other instead.
- Muse L., Age 6

* Note: Muse's mom gave her the word "nocturnal' - Muse had asked if there was a word for people who preferred to stay up all night.

Day 43: The Story of Franny and Garp.

The Summer of '82.

I have been in love with exactly one man. We saw each other off and on for eight years, despite never living in the same city, and I wanted to marry him. We broke it off for good on August 1, 1990, and I've only seen him twice since. The first time was during his airport layover at LAX in 1992.

The second time was this morning.

We met the summer after our freshman year of college, when we were counselors at a camp in the Colorado mountains (go Yellow Tribe!). He ran the ropes course and I ran the stables (the most popular activities), and since everyone knew we were a couple, that pretty much made us the king and queen of camp. There was no place else I wanted to be, and no one else I wanted to be with. We spent the summer making love under the stars, and it was magic.

In the fall, we were back at our respective colleges, suddenly separated by 1,500 miles. I ached for him, and phone bills were high. We went to camp again the next summer, and then, for the next six years, we continued to see each other inbetween other relationships (his) and one-night stands (mine). We called each other Franny and Garp after characters created by one of our favorite authors (John Irving), and when we were apart, we told each other to "keep passing the open windows" (a line from The Hotel New Hampshire). We called our relationship "the never-ending conversation." I was madly in love.

It all came to a head in the summer of 1990. He was in graduate school four hours away (for us, that was close), we were both 27 years old, and I knew he was The One. He wasn't so sure, and I was clueless as to the the reason behind his hesitation. Apparently, we could talk for hours about every topic under the sun except one: Us. He didn't bring it up because, well, he's a guy, and as for me, I was too scared to rock the boat. It was as if I thought that calling attention to our relationship might break the spell he was under. He might suddenly wake up and say, "How did this happen? What am I doing here?"

Instead, I filled in the blanks myself. Deep down, I knew why he didn't want to commit: It was my weight. It was those 25 extra pounds, the same pounds that always seemed to ruin everything. Plus I wasn't hot enough - he'd always had beautiful women falling at his feet. How could I compete?

When I finally walked away in 1990, I was bitter. I blamed him for being shallow, for not knowing what he wanted, for not loving me enough. We started communicating again a couple of years later, and that led to Reunion #1 at the airport bar in '92. He was on his way to teach at a university in New Zealand, and was in love with the woman who would later become his wife and the mother of his children. I was also in love with a woman - my first girlfriend, whom I'd met six months after he and I ended things.

Our communication has been sporadic since that last meeting, but we've never completely lost touch. And so, when I started this experiment, I sent him the link, and he's been a faithful reader from Day One. When he knew he'd be in L.A. for another layover (this time with his family, traveling back to New Zealand), he wrote to let me know. And so, despite my fear at him seeing me this heavy, I went to have breakfast at their hotel this morning.

He hasn't changed at all. It's really quite remarkable ... and vaguely maddening. He met me in the lobby carrying his eight-month-old (yeah, that took a minute to get used to), and we went to the hotel restaurant to grab a table and talk. Small talk. A short while later, his wife and three-year-old came down to join us. We asked questions about each other's lives, and it was all very pleasant.

Afterwards, he and I went out to have coffee on our own, and that's where the real conversation began.

Finally, neither one of us was afraid of the conversation we'd always avoided. We reminisced about our relationship, smiled at our chemistry, admitted that we'd both wondered more than once what might have been had we decided to get married. And then, finally, we got to the $64,000 question: Why? Why, in the end, had he held back?

His answer blew me away. "I've thought about this a lot," he said. "And I guess, well, I was afraid to be myself with you sometimes. I was scared you saw me as this person, you know, up here, when I really existed somewhere down here. I didn't think I could live up to who you thought I was. I was scared you expected me to be, I don't know ... Garp."

This from a man who turned down his family's money and put himself through college? A man who earned an advanced agricultural engineering degree ... and then joined the peace corps? A man who later turned down any number of fat-cat corporate jobs to instead try and design a cheap well cap that would stop dysentery?

To say I'm still shell-shocked as I write this would be an understatement. I spent the day in disbelief, precariously close to tears, struggling with the fact that I'm an idiot. Never in a million years would I have guessed that the reason had anything to do with him. I'd always filtered our relationship through the prism of my own insecurities; I'd always blamed myself. To know, after all this time, that the problem was something we might have been able to work through if we'd only talked about it ... that it had nothing to do with my physicality ... well, it's both heartening and crushing. I mean, it's nice to know it wasn't that stuff, but at the same time, it kind of makes me want to bang my head against a wall.

Yesterday, I mentioned the movie Brokeback Mountain, and how its themes of wasted chances and missed opportunities reverberated loudly for me. Seeing this man from my past today - the only man I've ever truly loved - was bittersweet. It made me wonder how much of my life I've misread - even sabotaged - thanks to that same stupid prism.

I don't want to do that any more. I want to take that prism and smash it into a million little pieces. And if this experiment helps me accomplish that, well, it's the smartest thing I've ever done in my life.