This year is not over, and I don’t plan to do a full wrap up of it here, but as the holiday season begins it is a time for both joy and contemplation. On this day, my experiences in the past year make this day all the more joyous, because I watched other not have what I am blessed with. I know, more so than ever, what I am thankful for – and if you are reading this blog, you are probably included in my deep thanks.

This year, I experienced two separate people I knew not have support systems or any real true friends. I watched both of them struggle, trying to make or keep threads of connection with people who were of low quality to begin with…because it was all they had. I watched them delude themselves into thinking they had connections with people who couldn’t care less about them. I watched as they mourned their loneliness, lack of connection, and inability to be heard because they didn’t have people who listened. And I watched them fall apart.

And I couldn’t relate. I could be sympathetic, and try to imagine that feeling…but my thankfulness on this day comes from being surrounded by people who ensure that will never be my reality. I have no idea what that feels like. I wake up this morning knowing I will spend the whole day with my family of choice. In fact, with more than one family of choice throughout the day. Today is a day that we all celebrate each other, and the blessing it is to have each other together.

Today I give thanks and I celebrate having a plethora of people in my life who are real, deep, true friends. People whom I laugh with until my sides ache, philosophize with until new pathways are carved in our brains, work with until we drop from exhaustion, and will always be there at 3am.

I treasure having these people around. People I trust to celebrate success with, but also mourn failure with. People who love me enough to take me to task when I’m fucking up – my friends are no “yes” men. A group of people who will mobilize on a dime to help if there is a problem, and have created a safety net for me so thorough that I can take huge risks. A brilliant, creative, loving community that welcomes me exactly as I am.
If you follow my twitter account (@denanicole), you know that (most) every Sunday I write up Sunday gratitudes. I started doing this because I wanted to ritualize the process of being grateful to help ensure that it was something was tasked to do. As I look back through the past Sunday gratitudes, I see a common theme. Almost every single one references someone amazing in my life, and a way they had affected my life in the previous week.
So, thank you, my friends. Thank you for being in my life, and thank you for being you. Each one of you brings a unique perspective into my world that I value incredibly, and my life wouldn’t be the same without you. You make this wacky, unpredictable and glorious life better on a daily basis.
Happy Thanksgiving.

So, I’ve always wanted to do a triathlon. It’s one of those things that has gotten stuck in my head for the past couple of years, and I haven’t been able to get it out. I have, in fact, started training for one before, but life got in the way. So this year, it was on my resolution list. Do a freakin’ triathlon already! You know you want to, just do the training and do it!

So in the spring I started training. I set up a training plan, and it was going well.My goal was to do my first triathlon before my birthday (June) And then…life. Or, more specifically, work. I got hired to write and direct a documentary, and spent the next month flying all over the country, and to Europe to shoot, and then the next while on 16 hour edit days in order to make my deadline. Suffice it to say the triathlon got put on hold. I delivered on the the film and then had to make my peace with the fact that I hadn’t completed what I said I was going to do. The circumstances allowed to me let myself off the hook, and I set up a new training plan, and selected the triathlon I was going to complete now. I chose one up in San Luis Obispo on 9/29. Awesome. Not only will I complete the triathlon, but I will be able to check that off my list in the third quarter of the year, where it was placed before. Cool. Let’s do this!

And so, I started training again. Swim, bike, run. Day by day, I was checking off the mileage I needed to get done in order to make it through. Partway through the training, I did my first brick (bike then run…so named because of how your legs feel when you start the run) I won’t lie. It sucked. It felt like I was going to actually fall down for the first mile of the run. I swam in my gym’s horrible pool. I started driving to a further away gym to swim in a pool that wasn’t gross. I had my bike stolen, and had to replace it and get used to a new bike. I went back to running 5k’s and 10k’s to improve my running times. I mentally prepared for each transition. I was as ready as I was going to get. My only goal was to finish – I wasn’t looking for any kind of time.

Now don’t get me wrong, I was nervous. The transitions aren’t something you can really know about until you do them. I was going to be surrounded with people who knew exactly what they were doing, etc. I drove up to SLO with a friend and got my race packet. I looked at the course. Swim was 2 laps around buoys in the lake – didn’t look bad. Bike was around the lake and into town. One pretty big hill, but overall not bad. The run looked pretty rough, but that’s my strongest suit, and since I wasn’t looking for any kind of time goal – it seemed ok. Went to bed early, got up and got to the course. Nervous? Hell, yes. But I had done the training. I was relying on that to get me through.

The gun went off, and my wave made their way into the water. We were splashing down the dock and diving in to the water in a frenzy of arms and legs. It wasn’t that big of a start wave, I was about in the middle of the pack. When I got to the point where it was deep enough to swim, I pushed off and dove in. I took a couple of strokes, and felt my chest start to tighten. Oh my god? What was going on? I took a couple more strokes, and the chest tightening was just getting worse. By this time I could recognize what was going on. I was having a panic attack. I haven’t had one in a couple of years, but the feeling is unmistakeable. Fuck.

Ok. I needed to figure out what was going on. I switched to breast stroke, and tried to calm myself down. I knew I was able to do the distance. I grew up swimming – in the ocean and in pools. I was on the swim team in high school. Get…it…together. I calmed myself down, put my head back in the water to switch over to crawl – and the panic set back in. Fuck again! Wait. Why does it start when I put my head in the water? I dipped my head back in to try to figure it out. Ahhh…I think I got it. The lake was about at 0% visibility. I couldn’t see my hands in front of my face. It was like putting my face into mud. This panic attack wasn’t going away. By this time I was more than 1/2 way through the first lap, so I slowly finished the lap, and took myself out of the race.
I sat on the side, weeping, head in hands. My friend who was with my tried to comfort me, but I was inconsolable. I had failed. I had done everything I could to prepare…and I had failed. Now for anyone who knows me, you know I don’t take failure well. I cried the entire way back to the hotel. I got in the shower and leaned my head against the door, tears mixing with the water that was streaming down my face. Failure. I couldn’t do it. I had tried and failed. I let myself weep until I had no more tears. And when I was empty of tears, another familiar feeling started to creep over me. It was that feeling I can get on the inside that makes me say:

I pulled out my computer. I found a triathlon that was going on the next weekend. I looked at my friend. “Are there any lakes in Los Angeles you know of?” He did. Great. Fuck that. I had one week to get past this.
So this past week I drove hours each way to lakes. I forced myself in, and day by day was able to calm down more and more. I would walk out, take a deep breath, and dive in. I would swim as far as I could before my chest started tightening, then turn back to dock immediately. Each day it kicked in a little later.
So this morning, I headed to the triathlon (take 2!)

As I lined up at the start, I had no idea if I was going to be able to make it through the swim. It wasn’t until I was headed back in, and it was a shorter distance to get to the end of the swim than I had already gone did I let myself think I was going to be able to do it. I did have a moment right in the middle where the panic started, but I was able to calm down within about 15 breast stroke pulls with my head above water, and was able to go back to crawl.
So did I finish? Fuck, yeah I did. It wasn’t the one I had planned on. It wasn’t the week I had planned. But I finished. And honestly, I’m pretty damn proud of myself for not letting the first one destroy me.

disclaimer: doing triathlons may be addictive. I have just signed up for my next one.

A couple of weeks ago, I was having a conversation with a friend about how my lifestyle can sometimes feel isolating. I travel a lot, I sometimes have to isolate in order to get work done, etc. I was bemoaning the fact that I don’t see my friends as often as I or they would want. We talk on the phone and text, but actual in person time is sometimes scarce. And sometimes I worry that because of that, we aren’t as close as we have been.

And then it happened. A week and a half ago, a call came in that would throw me into crisis mode. My assistant relayed the message to me, and my brain started to spin. All of a sudden, my world felt like it was crashing down, and I broke. It was nothing I could have expected – I was overwhelmed, and unable to think straight.

Now, I’m not someone who is normally in crisis. Even when bad shit happens, I tend to deal with it and move forward. Boy trouble, career woes, etc – I am strong and capable, and usually don’t get hugely tripped up. But this was different. Raw and vulnerable, I needed my tribe.

In the past week and a half, friends have changed vacation plans, driven hours to be in a different city with me, shown up at my house at 2am to give me hugs, taken time away from their jobs to hold my hand, and mined all of their resources to find information I couldn’t get myself. And I am humbled. I am humbled by the way my family of choice has stepped up and made sure that I am taken care of when I need it so badly.

Being someone who is a caretaker of other people so often, it’s easy to forget that other people are there for me, also. And it’s something I am so, so glad is true.

On Sundays, I normally tweet 3 gratitudes that I have from the week. This Sunday, I was so far in the depths I couldn’t see anything I should be grateful for. But today, I can see that in the past week and a half there is only one thing I need to give thanks for right now many times over, so that is what I’m doing. The people who love me, and the family I’ve created. I am so very, very grateful for each of you. I am amazed by each of you. I am thankful for you, and I appreciate you.

(If you are someone I know reading this, and want to know what happened, it is in a protected entry here. Email me for the password. I don’t mind anyone I know knowing, I just don’t want to put it on a totally public forum)

-confirm DVD delivery
-call to set pitches
-finish business plan
-BUILD ROBOT COSTUME

oh, hell, yes. It’s a good day y’all.

So, I wanted to write a post on how Home Run Showdown is doing, and the lead up process, etc…but then something happened last night to completely derail that post, and create this one instead. Last night, a good friend of mine wanted to go to the Cowboy Palace for her birthday. Now for any of you that haven’t been there, it’s this old western honky tonk just outside of Los Angeles. I’ve been there a couple of times, and always had a fun time. Plenty of old cowboys to two step with, and line dancing all night.

Now my gf likes cowboys. As in REALLY likes cowboys. Which, let’s be honest, who can blame her.

Real cowboys tend to fill out a pair of jeans better than most men, and the culture is overall polite to women. Ahhh…chivalry. I’ll always be a fan. So she spots someone across the bar. Nice. Go get him. He and his friend come over, and start talking. They’re from Illinois, in for work for a couple of weeks, etc. The friend seems nice enough, and I wingman him away so the two of them can talk.
Now, here’s the thing. At the moment, I’m kind of the perfect wingman. Because I’m dating someone, I don’t (overall) care what the friend is like, but I can be charming enough to give the two of them some time. So we hit the dance floor, make some small talk, and then….THEN….
I ask how the Cowboy Palace compares to the places he goes back home.
“You know, it’s a little glitzy…but I like places like this because there aren’t any N****RS here”

CUE record scratch. WHAT?

Did this dude just actually say that? But beyond that, did he actually think that, and then put it into words? I was floored. I didn’t know how to respond. “I can’t tell if you’re kidding or not” was what came out of my mouth.
“What, about the N****RS? Come on, you know what I mean, places like this, you don’t have to be around them”

Back the fuck up, buddy. Let’s start here. As midwestern as I look – I’m not white. Add on the fact that a good percentage of my cousins are filipino, and I grew up in a nearly completely hispanic community, and you are talking to the wrong girl about this. Not that ANY of that should matter. It should never have been thought or said no matter what.

Let’s just say the conversation devolved from there for the next few sentences, until I had to say – step the fuck away from me, unless you want to get punched in the mouth.

As the small minded idiot went back over to his friend, I started thinking about the conversation. I had now heard someone use that word over 10 times pejoratively. I’ve, quite literally, never heard it before. And it worries me that things like this are going on, and I’ve never seen it. Growing up in a diverse community, then becoming part of the “educated elite” (*gag*) I’ve never come in contact with the kind of ignorance it takes to make those sort of statements. And to be quite frank, I’m not sure that my reaction was the most effective or best case. So what say you? Have you come in contact with this kind of thing, and what did you do?

best…birthday…ever…

thank you to everyone who made yesterday and the whole weekend unforgettable. Spending the mornings at the beach, the days in an edit bay completing a film, and the nights surrounded with friends and family combined to make the past three days since I’ve been back in town an extended birthday celebration in which the end result is a million smiles and a tummy ache from all the laughter. I am an amazingly lucky girl.

I look around at the people I’m surrounded by, and they are some of the most intelligent, creative, kind people in the world. All I wanted for my birthday was to be wrapped up in love from all of them, and that’s exactly what I got. Bliss.