truthpleasuretikkun

Sounds I have an inordinate affinity for

1) Empty foil chocolate coin wrappers tinkling against each other as they tumble down
2) A cascade of styrofoam peanuts (also following gravity)
3) Free weights in the women's gym, sliding along their metal bars, clinking into place

What about you?

Maui shortcake

It's been a very long time since I've posted much of substance, and even longer since I posted regularly.

What's inspiring me now, on the next-to-last day of my vacation, is to share some details about a dessert I invented for someone very dear to me.

Beth and I spent her birthday in Maui. As part of her present, I said I'd invent a dessert for her. She likes chocolate covered strawberries, strawberry shortcake, and, of course, chocolate.  With that in mind, I began to compose something multi-layered and a bit on the extravagant side. I had several days after arriving to ruminate, so I sketched out a few things, sat with it, and planned my shopping list.

Meanwhile, nosing around a local health food store, we came upon this:

It's a container of pieces of locally grown coconut, sweetened and toasted to a crunchy, nutty, heavenly perfection. They were highly addictive.

A day or so after I met this confection, it dawned on me: What if I were to make something like a nut meringue (like the layers of the Marjolaine cake from David Lebovitz's Room for Dessert cookbook), only with coconut instead of hazelnuts and almonds?

Then, what if I were to paint the insides of one layer with chocolate ganache (chocolate thinned to a sticky glaze texture with cream) with my fingers (because why would I use anything else?)

and sandwich layers of strawberry between them, sort of like sneaking some chocolate covered strawberries inside?

Then, what if I were to fashion some stiff chocolate mousse, and make it a little extra bitter with the addition of some cocoa

and make a second layer of that?

Oh, and let's not forget to assemble it...

It looks rather...naked now, no?

So. Let's cover the whole thing with yet more ganache and let it sit overnight to let the flavors mellow and meld together. But not before getting up close...

Twenty four hours later, I decide to whip up some cream with just a tad of sugar and vanilla, heap it atop the Maui shortcake all abstract-like, then arrange some random strawberry slices and toasted coconut on top.

So glad to have incorporated the local flora into the birthday boi's dessert. The birthday boi was none too unhappy, either.

Care for a slice?

What the Back Yard Bore

Shut Up

The Latest Pitch for First Crack

What if a wimpy tech geek-cum-rookie journalist with a suicidal mom in the hospital, got thrust into investigating a psychotherapy cult guru rumored to be sleeping with his teenaged followers?

Marcus, the leader of Hand-to-Hand (HtH), a catharsis-based peer therapy group, is a strange mix of visionary and lech. Robert, the protagonist, lazes in his living room while, on TV, Marcus counsels a rapist to face his victim until the rapist “Cracks,” or releases emotion. Marcus’s methods have recidivism rates down and mental health patients moving beyond drugs and confinement. However, in his off hours, he beds his followers, forces sex on teenagers and treats his wife like a bad dog.  What’s his deal?  And why have none of his thousands of followers held him accountable for his actions?

When the senior writer on the story lands in the ICU after a hit-and-run, Robert reluctantly takes over. His informant Tandy trains him in the skills he’ll need to pass as an out-of-town leader. However, when he arrives on the scene of the “men’s group,” he barely escapes giving himself away as a poser in this weepy, touchy-feely, hand-holding group of guys who go into “Handspace” to “crack,” or, release their deepest feelings.

Robert’s buddy and longtime mentor Neil, an editor at a rival paper, coaches, encourages him, and even invites him to work at Neil’s own paper, but waves off the idea that anyone will ever get anything on Marcus. Upon return from vacation, Robert’s boss decides she’s made a mistake, and takes him off the story. Robert agrees outwardly but continues to work on the story in secret, while delivering boring story after boring story to the boss. Robert and Tandy start to identify a pattern in Marcus’s womanizing. They visit HtH headquarters and find that Marcus was kicked out of both Scientology and the Communist Party for bedding the wives and daughters of leaders.  Robert also gets a strange wind of Tandy’s traumatic experience in those same headquarters sixteen years ago, just Aleatha’s age, he realizes. But Tandy’s clams up about this “coincidence.”

Now the HtH methods are starting to get to Robert. And in light of Marcus’s theories, he starts to question how the hospital is treating his mom.  In the meantime, it’s not clear if Marcus’s zealous, overprotective son is stalking Robert, or how much danger Robert might be in if he is. Following Marcus’s anti-medication zeal, Robert tosses his sleeping pills, but then the nightmares about his abusive dad return. He wakes to a midnight visit from an HtH leader, who gets under his skin, and in a haze of vulnerable confusion, Robert learns Marcus has visited Claudia, Robert’s mom, and used HtH techniques to liberate her from her years-long mental prison.

Tandy’s already stretched to her limit, but when Marcus puts the moves on her daughter Aleatha, she loses it and moves to call the police. Robert and Aleatha just barely stop her.  After all, if Marcus’s methods for reforming bad guys are so great, surely they could be used on him. Tandy’s skeptical—many have tried and failed to use Marcus’s own techniques to pull him out of his sexual compulsivity—but stays put for the moment.

Meanwhile, a group of Minnesota leaders unites to condemn Marcus’s actions, and he immediately excises the entire state from HtH. When Tandy appeals to her local leadership cohort for help and supprt, she is silenced, her concerns “treated” with HtH methods as merely evidence of past trauma, and made to take a “Loyalty Oath” to “protect” HtH and Marcus from the “dangerous detractors.”

Just when Robert’s flying highest, his boss gets wind of his having continued the story against his wishes, and fires him. Robert finally takes Neil up on his offer, and hands the story to him. Only the moment he turns the corner, Neil calls…HtH headquarters.

But Robert’s already on his way to get up in the wayward leader’s face. Joined by Aleatha, the two are puzzled to find the anti-medication advocate under some sort of chemical influence. Robert uses classic HtH tactics to penetrate the guru’s crusty defenses. Whatever he’s on has him  more receptive than usual. When he hears Robert’s secret revelation that Aleatha is his daughter, Marcus begins his own First Crack. It’s a recast of the initial rapist-victim scene, only now Marcus is the rapist poised to crack, and the formerly timid Robert now wields the firm reformer’s hand he first witnessed in Marcus.

At dawn, a new Marcus finishes his tea, and with it, his life. But not before cops come and arrest him. Marcus’s last gasp is in the back of their car. In a flashback, the long-beleaguered Mrs. Bolinas spikes Marcus’s ubiquitous “Get Crackin’!” mug with his ultimate seasoning.

Robert returns to his mother’s house.  Claudia glows now, a stark contrast to the pale, broken woman at the beginning. She asks Robert how he is, and offers him a hug. Now it’s Robert’s turn. He bursts into tears in his mother’s arms—Robert Coleman’s First Crack.

Know anyone who wants to see the script? Email me at jillcnagle@gmail.com.  Hurry up, it may be about to be sold.

Stepping In

I'm in Petaluma caring for someone I love very much, who really shouldn't get any skinnier.  We'll see what her guts have to say about it.

Meanwhile, the complex I'm staying in has an interesting method of scaring away pigeons: artificial bird sounds.  This means unearthly tropical squawks pierce the air at random intervals.  And I thought I had landed in a waystation for escaped parrots who favored haunting lively senior communities.

Trouble is, there are lots of birds here, and so far I haven't managed to discern my authentic feathered friends from the pretenders.  Stay tuned.

In other news, I start my work as a content strategist for eBay on Monday.  I go in today to finish the paperwork.  The background check was interesting--they called me to find out what it was like working with me. I explained that they had reached me myself and that while I was happy to give Jill Nagle a glowing review, that if they looked just a tiny bit harder, they would see that my resume indicates that I am the OWNER OF THE BUSINESS.

Then, the same person called back to get a second opinion from me as the owner of my other business to find out what she thought about working with me. Shake and repeat.

As long as I'm griping, I can say that, while Berkelely drivers are among the most gentle and mellow I've ever encountered, they have two major lessons to learn:
 1) Use your turn signal. Maybe Berkeley drivers think things are so mellow that, Hey, no one really needs to be so, well, formal about changing direction. Even my friends and relatives fail to use their turn signal.  "Using your turn signal these days?" I've queried more than once, often to defensive responses. Come on, people--do it. It makes driving a whole lot safer.
 2) Take turns at intersections. Often I stop and wait my turn, only to see the person 45 degrees from me, WHO ARRIVED AFTER I DID, creeping up to cross the street.  Um, no, I say, glaring at them as I cross the intersection, letting them experience using their brakes.  Sometimes I become the bigger person and let them go ahead, but often I sit and fume as I prepare to gas it, convinced they're all out to get me.

What else can I say. It's about time for me to get philosophical, isn't it. Geez.

I think I'd save a lot of time (as would all meandering philosophers) by becoming more of an epigrammist and less of an essayist.  Nietchze did this pretty well.

So for now, I'll say...

Fear only crowds out love if we allow it to.

Well, that's not as pithy as I would have hoped.  Perhaps it wants expansion.  So here it comes after all.

We cannot help it that the tiny children inside ourselves quake in terror and demand we stop the train of life so we can scream. We can, however, take those children in our arms and love them, and let them feel their fear, instead of fighting it.

We don't choose when shards of fear slice through our hearts and make us want to run.  What we can choose is to stop, breathe, and let the phantasms run their course.  They are not us. They just move through us.

We can choose to remember that love is what ultimately moves us. We can invite love in to surround the fear. We can ask, What is it I am afraid OF? what is the WORST THING that could happen if I chose love here?

The realization of our fears almost never matches the terror of the fears themselves. This is the real wisdom that "The only thing to fear is fear itself" hints at.  Because, once we know the object of our fears can't possibly be the cause of them, the fears have a greater chance of dissipating.

For most of my life, I have been terrified of getting stuck in an elevator.  For some reason, going up is more scary than going down. (Save your jokes.) I've taken stairs when everyone else took the 'vator, feeling ultra-dorky as I did so, but secretly knowing I was the smart one.

So one day, an elevator I was in alone actually did stop. And guess what--I wasn't afraid!  I realized it was something like being in an airplane in that I could not leave, but a) I would get out much sooner, and b) I was MUCH SAFER.  That was the reality.  I pushed the alarm button, then sat down in the corner and used the free time to balance my checkbook.

But guess what again--I am still afraid of elevators!!!

Now THAT'S illogical.

But when I stop and surround that scared part of myself with love and reassurance, well, it becomes easier to think about stepping through that door.

I used to be "fear-phobic," that is, so afraid of feeling my fears I would do anything to avoid feeling them.  Now I run around scared all the time!  I both love and hate feeling my feelings this way.  It reminds me of The Next Generation episode or movie where Data finally gets his emotions chip turned on is and perplexed and overwhelmed by his emotions.  Captain Picard tells him to just keep going, humans do it all the time.

I say if we stop and actually feel our feelings, on our own or with loving attention, we can much better step into whatever we want to.

What are you afraid to step into?

"I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life, and never let it keep from doing a single thing I wanted to do."
 -Georgia O'Keefe

Slightly Embarrassing but True

What do all these have in common:

cheakia
aligato
ligatto
tigalto
titalog
gunshare
arrolis
solaris
flagout
carshare
thrambad
remulus

They are all letter combinations I found out are not actually words, at least according to one of the Scrabulous dictionaries. Okay, so it is this same dictionary that does not allow "ew" as a word, so perhaps there is some wiggle room here. I mean, come on...carshare, for crying out loud.

"Monstera," however, is a word.

Can you guess what it means?

In other news, I've been offered a full-time contract position as a content strategist with a pretty ginormous global company.  I'm very excited!  I'll say more when I've signed on the dotted line.

BTW, so many thanks and love to those of you who have written comments...somehow at the end of the day it feels beyond me to respond.  But I have read and appreciated every word.  And maybe I will respond!  Know that they mean a lot to me.

LOVE,
me

Things I Learned Today

While playing Scrabulous: I really like the word "nosegay." I could get started on a sarcastic riff on this word but I'll save it.

"scudhorse" is not a word though something inside me swore it would be. Neither are "fogeasy" nor "goysafe." At some point I want to play a game of Scrabble with someone in which we play sniglets (made-up words) with some story or poignancy behind them that all players can see.

In the meantime, my self-respect cannot abide repeatedly playing words whose definition I do not know.  I now stop to look them up.  Have you seen an illustration of a zouave? It's as beautiful and unusual as the word that signifies it.  A word like that, I think, should be a dessert, not a foppish French soldier of yore.

While baking cookies for two CCC events this weekend: There is such a thing as too much vanilla in a cookie.  It gets cloying.  This, after forty years of spilling over and running out.

In between cookies: Death and metaphorphosis happen. Just sometimes some parts of me don't catch up. Just like Cainan hasn't always understood that the burnt toast can't be resurrected by putting it back in the toaster and turning it on "light."

Tears come and wash me closer to a shore I can stand on. In the meantime, the place between ocean and land, between here and there shifts with each wave. Beautiful things wash up and glisten, get cold as the sun sets. A live creature of memory rushes to hide before I grasp it like it's real.  Niki, Cainan's teacher brought in a dead shark for the kids to look at but it stunk so bad the grownups screamed for her to get rid of it.

Last night I did a Motherpeace tarot reading for the first time in...months, certainly; years, maybe. It was so "spot-on," it gave me faith again in my Intuition, and connection to the Divine.

The Outcome card was Death. Reversed.  Reversed, the death card points to what doesn't want to die, a departing protracted, that keeps living in some part of us.

I got a good look at the shark, stench notwithstanding. Niki said even as she wrapped its stiff, putrid body in newspaper to bring it home, she could swear it moved.

Things take so much longer to die in our minds.

How I Be'd A Screenwriter Today

1) I entered the Bluecat Screenplay competition. When I saw it listed, I noticed I had missed the April 1st deadline. On a bolt of intuition, I contacted the Main Dude and asked if I could still enter and be considered for this year. He sent back a one-word email: "Yes."

2) I queried eleven producers on craigslist looking for scripts.

3) I allowed my son to stage his own drama with a hot wheels car. I'm not sure exactly what it entailed, but he wheeled the car around the bed where I was working (and recovering from being sick)  left and returned once or twice, then set up his scenario, murmuring his narration all the while, and then warned me not to touch or disturb what he had done. I was roundly praised for my obedience when he returned and found his diorama of covers and car in its original condition. Hooray for unconscious parenting.

4) After reading all BlueCat's pithy, poignant log lines of past finalists, I decided to give my bulky, sagging logline a phat trim. Now it reads:

A rookie journalist investigates a psychotherapy cult guru with a taste for his young female acolytes, and risks his budding career, his new community, and maybe even life and limb, to finally give the errant leader a taste of his own medicine.

'nuff said.

Sometimes the Head Does Pops

I have finally chosen a logo, out of 86 designs.  I cannot recommend 99designs.com highly enough!  The logo I finally chose has my name, the words copywriting, etcetera, and a jar of letters to the left. The designer (who, it turns out is in Singapore!) was kind enough to work with me to get it exactly as I wanted it. I asked him if he had any ideas for a flash animation piece on the landing page, and this is what he said, cut and paste:

For the web thing, i was thinking, how about introducing a little character, a little cute Jill? Simple line work little girl with spec.
The character can be part of the animation... everytime the letters comes out and forming words from the cookie jar, Little Jill eats them, and her head grows bigger and bigger till the whole head takes the whole screen and thats when the home page appears.
I think it's important that the head doesn't pops or explode :)