What are your weekend plans? All I know is that my weekend will involve seeing this new movie, Laggies, directed by Lynn Shelton. It’s about a 29-year-old woman who struggling to grow up, and finds herself thrown into a crisis of uncertainty when her boyfriend proposes. Here’s the synopsis from IMDb:

Having spent her twenties comfortably inert, 28 year old Megan reaches a crisis when she finds herself squarely in adulthood with no career prospects, no particular motivation to pursue any and no one to relate to, including her high school boyfriend. When he proposes, Megan panics and given an opportunity to escape – at least temporarily – she hides out in the home of her new friend, 16-year-old Annika and Annika’s world-weary single dad.

As a screenwriter, I’m excited by these movies. Not only because it’s directed by one of my favorite female directors, but primarily because I’m so tired of seeing movies about 30-something women desperate for love or struggling to BALANCE IT ALL. There are other types of women in their late twenties and thirties and I want to see them on screen. In my own work, I try to write movies with complex, female characters with different viewpoints than the ones we generally see portrayed. Because if I see one more successful, power-drive corporate woman who’s missing just one thing in her life…love…I’m gonna barf.

Check out the trailer for Laggies here:

Did you see this video showing a woman who walked through New York City for ten hours and received over 100 harassing comments from men during that time?  She wore a backpack outfitted with a video camera and held two microphones. It was created by Hollaback! an anti-street harassment organization with the assistance of the video marketing agency Rob Bliss Creative.

Having grown up in New York City, I remember these sorts of comments from as early as age thirteen. I remember being a teenager and feeling embarrassed to walk down the street with my dad, in fear that someone would say something, and I’d feel shamed in front of my father.

In addition to the outrage at the obvious awful comments like “Sexy” or “Nice ass”, what pisses me off the most about these comments is this expectation for women to be pleasant and chatty all the time. Because sometimes, we DON’T want to participate in pleasantries. That’s when we get comments like, “Smile, more!” or “What do you have be so down about?” God, nothing pisses me off more than that.

I remember when I was growing up, my mom told me this story about a man in our apartment building. My mom is very friendly and will often chat up strangers on transport, elevators, etc. But this particular man she felt uneasy about, so she often stayed silent in their elevator rides when they’d be alone. But she said that he would often clear his throat in expectation that she would talk to him, and then made loud sighing noises when she didn’t initiate conversations.

If I’m in a brave mood, when I get unwanted up-and-down stares from men on the street, I give them a good, long up-and-down look, judging them the same way they judge me. I’m not sure what the men think of this, but somehow it levels the playing field.

Do you ever feel like now that you’re in your 30’s you have more wear and tear, maybe a little more scarring, if you will…?

I do. In the physical way, obviously – for instance, I’m starting to see the lines on my forehead, and my pores are larger (which my facialist said was due to gravity pulling the skin downward and thus enlarging the pores, which was somehow terrifying to hear.) But also emotionally. I’ve been let down by friends, been broken hearted, become a touch more jaded, lost some of my idealism, etc.

So when I read about this Japanese practice of Kintsugi, my heart felt happy. According to Wikipedia, Kintsugi is “The Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with lacquer resin dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum a method similar to the maki-e technique. As a philosophy it speaks to breakage and repair becoming part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.”

What if we thought of ourselves like this? As if all our so-called ‘failures’ are actually beautiful golden additions to ourselves — armor against negativity, reflectors of light.

Our “brokenness” is something to be celebrated. I know I’m stating the obvious here – but it bears repeating – let’s embrace our history and heartbreaks and remember that they make us who we are.

from sangbleu.com

Imagine a big suitcase full stuffed to the brim with random clothing, knick-knacks, granola bars, etc. It’s bursting at the seams and the wheels are kinda broke so it makes a scraping sound when you roll it places. All that junk represents the issues of your 20’s.

Now imagine that you’re at the gates of thirty-something-dom. The doors open and the gate-keeper says you must leave this suitcase at the door.

What’s inside the suitcase? Are you okay with letting it go?

Here’s what was in my suitcase and what I recommend you should let go too.

1) Crappy Friends. The kind that aren’t genuinely happy for you when good things happen in your life. The kind that make you feel bad about yourself after hanging out with them. Like George Washington said, “It is better to be alone than in bad company.”

2) Bad boys. The kind that don’t call when they say they will. And when they do, you somehow feel ‘lucky’ they called. The kind that can’t commit after eight months of dating. That kind that make you feel like you’re constantly playing games.

3) Days Lost to Hangovers. It’s not worth it. It’s just not. And okay, can’t say I’ve totally, 100% left these days behind, BUT for the most part, I rarely lose a day to a hangover. Maybe two days a year.

4) Being Tolerated and not Celebrated. I read this quote recently, and it resonated with me. “Go Where You Are Celebrated, Not Where You Are Tolerated.” This includes in workplaces, relationships, friends, extra-curriculars, etc. Find your tribe. They are out there and trust me, they are worth finding.

5) Saying Yes When You Want to Say No. Your time is valuable. Really damn valuable. So ignore the “should’s” (“I should go to that party, but I really want to stay in and read tonight.”) and go with the “want to’s” instead.

Are you in the age range of 28-30, 56-60 or 84-90? Then say a nice warm welcome to the planet Saturn, for he is returning to say hi to you and teach you a lesson or three!

A Saturn Return is an astrological transit that means that Saturn is returning to the same point in the sky that it occupied at the time of your birth. If you’re into astrology at all, read on.

Saturn can be quite the pokey planet, so a Saturn Return only occurs around every 28-30 years or so. Most people are happy about this because while Jupiter is known to be the planet of luck, happiness and abundance, Saturn is the harsher planet of maturity and learning life’s lessons.  Therefore, people can get quite scared of Saturn returning with his occasionally rough teachings.

You can only get about 3 saturn returns in your lifetime, (4 if you’re lucky and live till 116 -and you never know, medical technology is getting better all the time), but the first one at around age 28-30 will probably come as the biggest shock. A major lesson or turning point is supposed to hit you hard during this time. No matter how unpleasant, Saturn returning means it’s time to tuck your head and bravely get through the storm.

I used to work for a pretty amazing astrologer. She’s been working with astrology and writing about it for over 25 years, has written a few books and multiple magazine columns, and has a very famous website. I learned a lot from her. But the biggest thing I remember was wondering about this mysterious Saturn Return. I was only 22 at the time and I saw so many people write in to her and ask about it. Sometimes they wouldn’t realize it was even happening until they told her their age. Then they’d realize that whatever crazy thing they were going through just happened to coincide with their Saturn Return.

Now, the astrologer’s response to Saturn Return worriers was always very positive. She would tell people that Saturn teaches his lessons for a reason. Sometimes there are things you need to learn in order for you to grow. It may seem harsh, but Saturn Returns help you to mature and change the things that aren’t working anymore. And so, in a way, Saturn Returns are extremely beneficial.

That’s not to say that they aren’t difficult. Since I’ve just turned 30, I’m getting to the end of my Saturn Return and it was quite possibly the most difficult time in my life. That doesn’t mean Saturn Returns always have to be so tough, but I guess I was pretty darn resistant to learning its lessons. I hope in the future I’m able to implement as much as I can of what Saturn tried to teach me in the past year.

Sometimes a stranger articulates something about yourself better than you ever could.

I work part-time at the college library doing social media. It provides me with much needed extra cash and I happen to love the job. While most of my job involves me sitting in front of my computer brainstorming witty library related things to say or scouring local events to post, occasionally a lost student will wander into the staff area looking for help. I especially love these moments, mainly cause  I like the human interaction and it’s a nice respite from staring at a screen.

The other day, one of those students wandered in. She approached me and immediately it was clear she didn’t speak English well, as I had no idea what she was saying. She looked to be Chinese and about my age, somewhere in her early 30’s. (At UCLA, we have a huge international student population, so it’s very common to have lots of bi-lingual students.) After a few botched attempts of mis-interpreting her, and thinking she was asking for the “coffee” machine, I eventually realized she was talking about the “copier” machine. She was asking me to take her to the area in the library with copiers.

So, as an excuse to stretch my legs and because I realized there was no way she was going to understand my directions, which involve several twists and turns through a very large library, I get up and say, “I’ll take you there.” As we walked together through the library, I engaged her in some small talk. Since she appeared to be around my age, I asked her if she was a graduate student. She nodded and said yes, she was studying mechanical engineering. I told her she picked a good field, and made some quip that she would definitely have jobs waiting for her after school! She seemed to agree with me.

She asked what I studied, and I said I was a graduate student in screenwriting. Writing for the movies. It took her a second to process what I had said, and then she smiled sweetly and said, “Oh, you do it for the beauty.”

And I just felt…well, understood, I guess. The whole summer I was worried about if I would ever sell a script or get a job on a writing staff of a TV show, thinking about MONEY and how I would live, and in one instant, I was reminded, that’s ultimately it’s not about that. I’m here to make something of beauty – something that allows us to connect to each other as human beings. I know, it’s corny, but there’s truth there. My aim was never to make lots of money from something, it was to create something beautiful.

So, thank you stranger in the library.