The Muse's Muses: those who inspire!

AnnieElf has embarked on a new journey into her personal spiritual growth. You can read about her quest at Interior Dialogues. Anne is a delightful friend who, I must confess, has been completely neglected by me over the past few months due to my own real life burdens. Rest assured, dear Annie: I have not forgotten you! Please stop by her other blogs as well.

TFMM turned me on to his best friend's blog, Ron Oliver's Fabulous Life! This talented filmmaker has been blogging his ordeals while filming the new "Dennis the Menace" movie, replete with copious doses of uproarious wit. I have come to thoroughly enjoy his methods of dealing with the dumb shit in life. Indeed, part of me is a tad envious of his knack of bringing sarcasm to new heights ~ I am not nearly brave enough to publish my "true thoughts on matters" least I offend the hell out of my dear Readers. Perhaps I shall take a page out of his book in the near future and tell you exactly how I feel!

Autrice, could you have promoted two blogs which are more dynamically dissimilar?

My own life is as complexly contradictory as the “flavours” of these two blogs. I am Catholic and I do explore the dogma of my chosen doctrine with much relish. I am also quirky and was raised in a “Theatre Family” (my own father having worked at Paramount, and both parents forming a theatrical team while engaged in stage productions.) I have moments of fervent contemplation, much like dear Annie. During my “healthy years”, I also once incorporated the same “Life is a banquet, and most poor sons of bitches are starving to death” philosophy as Ron. Had I not been born with the physical predisposition of a runt pup, I would perhaps still exist in a fundamentally Bohemian parody of Mame Dennis.

I consciously chose to refrain from being “outgoing and wild” as a young teen. It seemed to me that everyone in my peer group was trying far too hard to be “hip” while wearing this costume. My acquaintances struggled with being the most “zany” and “socially brilliant”, competing with one another in order to go one better than each other. These acquaintances were also a bizarre jumble of science nerds and theatre junkies; very straight, socially stunted geeks to not often mix well with impetuous, rainbow clad lesb…. Thespians. Let me be serious: the geeks matured into healthy adults and now lead tedious lives while working in their boring fields and driving expensive SUVs into the 3-car garages whilst the theatre throng is spread across the globe (Octavia lives in San Fran with her lover, Andrea romps the highlands of Scotland, Fopbert gives lap dances to wealthy men in Ottawa, and the rest have either passed on due to AIDS or else settled down with their same-sex partners to raise families and organize gay pride events.) I know of only one friend from my teen peer group who managed to combine his love of science (botany) and his orientation into a neat little package: Walter (Tony) Morosco. Regrettably, he “disowned” me once he heard about Amendment #2 in Colorado in the late 1980’s; his unexpected brush-off left me with the impression that he assumed that I was personally liable for it in view of the fact that I lived in Colorado at the time. Absurd.

My own teenage and young adult years were spent socially typecast as the “meditative one”. I saw no need to vie with the other wild people. My manner of dress may have been outlandish, yet I was always able to clean up nice and present myself as a normal human being when required. I saw no need to engage in unbridled sex, drugs or drinking (and kept myself entertained by laughing at the idiots around me who made asses of themselves whilst under the stimulus of recreational pharmaceuticals.) I detested the infantile behavior of my peer group. My bona fide friends were all older than myself and I resolutely believe that I circumvented the typical pitfalls of my age group primarily because of their wisdom in imparting their own hard-learned lessons to me.

This propensity to gravitate towards more emotionally mature individuals has lasted to this very day. I often run into people in their mid-thirties who are besieged with the most ridiculous of issues - predicaments that I dealt with and prevailed over in my early twenties. My friends are in their forties. Even Better Half (my aging-yet-arousing ex-Navy SEAL and Marine Biologist mate) is 44. (I don’t often throw compliments about him into my blog, hence he at least deserves one line in acknowledgement of his sex appeal!)

Emotional maturity does not mean that we leave behind a youthful sense of humor (as Ron Oliver so delightfully exemplifies.) Emotional maturity is the state of being able to cope with overwhelming odds while preserving one’s zeal for life. Annie has shown us the struggles of “real issues” (those things that are genuinely devastating!) and provided us an insider’s perspective of how one can reach rock bottom emotionally before growing new wings and taking flight once again. I present both these individual’s outlooks to you via the links posted above.

(The photograph, sent via email courtesy of a friend, has absolutely nothing to do with the topic of this post. No hidden puns or messages this time round.)