Tag Archives: Mad Men

So much stuff going on!

May 21, 2015 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Holy Moly. What a terrifically jam-packed couple of weeks it’s been, and I don’t mean that in the best way. Although, overall, everything is great.

First off — so what did you think of the Mad Men finale? I wasn’t completely sure how I felt, so I watched it twice. I came to the conclusion that each of the characters resolved in ways that were realistic to the characters overall, and that everyone, except Betty, of course, has a reasonably happy ending. More importantly, it felt as if the characters’ lives were going on into a palpable future that we as TV-viewers can only dream about… So even though I felt deflated after watching the final episode, I think that was only because I was sad to see it end.

Although kudos for closing with that killer Coke commercial! I vividly recall sitting in my family room one evening when I was 11 years old and seeing that Coke commercial on TV for the first time. I was blown away by it, as was most of America…

Hands down, the most stressful part of these past couple weeks was when my beloved cat, Doris (photo above) went missing for 8 long days!! She was one of the semi-feral kittens born in my basement 2 years ago and had never been outside in her life. Somehow, she got out and I couldn’t find her and it was beyond stressful and heartbreaking and exhausting.

Through the help of many kind cat rescuers online, I learned how to find and catch a terrified, extremely timid semi-feral cat. I tell you, they hide right under our noses, but indeed, as I was emphatically guaranteed by the professional lost-cat trappers, we can’t see them but they are there! They’re watching us, but are too terrified to come out of hiding until the wee small hours of the morning. The whole adventure was maddening. I was out in my dark backyard, in my red Wellies and my cotton nightgown, at 4 a.m. for several incredibly humid days running, catching glimpses of her but to no avail!!

But I finally trapped her at 5:09 a.m. this past Monday morning — in a humane trap — and brought her back into the fold.

Other more upbeat things: School is going incredibly great. I still don’t know if I can keep up this notion of being back in school with homework to do every single day, but so far, I am loving it. There’s honestly no reason for me to still be in school, I’m already an ordained minister with a degree in Pastoral Ministry. However, for now, it keeps my mind off this never-ending limbo of “when will I move back to NY?”

Appropriately enough, though, through some “miracle,” I am on vacation from school this week. Just in time to take on a new web content client who needed help with new content “yesterday” (it required a ton of research & writing immediately). That was turned in this morning, and now I have to draft two killer 500-word essays for a writer’s lab I seriously want to get into, and the deadline is June 1st.

The staged reading in NYC of my screenplay Tell My Bones: The Helen LaFrance Story is still moving ahead. It is going to happen SOON, gang. As in “the next few weeks.” And — I’ve been asked to be the Narrator, so I will be on stage with the actors, instead of lounging around stress-free in the audience. But I am super excited and I hope all of you can get to NYC and attend!! Yay!!

Okay, well, I guess that’s my update for right now. I gotta get crackin’ on those 500-word essays. I hope you’re having a wonderful month of May, wherever you are and whatever’s been going on in your world. Thanks for visiting, folks. See ya!!

I don’t think I can stand it

May 4, 2015 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

That’s right, I’m talking about these last few episodes that are left of Mad Men!!!

What the heck is going to happen?? And why are they screwing around with Joan? And how come Peggy always, always, always seems to just barely have a clue? And, as always: Poor Don!!

My body posture when I watch this show is to sit with my legs crossed and my arms folded tightly across my chest. I should point out that this has been my body posture while watching this show since the summer of 2007. I love all these characters so much and they all just seem like a world full of loose cannons. This morning, when I finished watching Episode 7, I was so relieved to turn off the TV and to go back to focusing on my quiet little life, wherein women are taken a tad bit more seriously — however, I guess if you still look at advertising these days or watch much TV, you’d have to add “but not much.”

Oh well. Only 2 episodes left… Then I hope they release the magnificently designed, boxed-DVD set the very next day.

Okay!!! Guess what I did over the weekend? That’s right. I completed the revisions on my screenplay, Tell My Bones. I was still only able to get it down to about 60 minutes, which is the high end of the time limit they wanted for the staged reading. But we shall see. Maybe it’ll be fine. If not, maybe they’ll tell me what else has to go and I can just chop it off without even looking because, frankly, I can’t see where/how to cut the script down any further and still have it make sense. (But then, I wrote it, and I can’t really see where/how anyone would want to experience anything less than its full 105 pages!!) (But perhaps I am a wee bit biased.)

Anyway, it felt great to get that off my plate and officially on to the next phase of the upcoming staged reading. I have to say, I am starting to feel like this reading is going to run smack dab into me selling this house here in Ohio and having to buy a house back in New York and move. I just get the feeling that all this endless waiting I’ve been doing for so many years now is going to culminate in everything imaginable happening at once.

I can just see me flying into Manhattan, attending the reading, applaud, applaud, applaud, then hop the commuter train up to Dutchess County, look at the house I have my eye on, exuberantly say “I’ll take it!! Where do I sign?” Then hop on a plane back to Ohio, take all my possessions and throw them into a dumpster somewhere, load myself and my many beloved cats into my new (used) Jeep Commander, and head straight back to happily-ever-after-ville!!

Or something like that… Meanwhile, yes, I turned in the script, and all my homework is done for school (for today, anyway), I already taught my writing student this morning, so that’s done, and it is a gorgeous day here today, so I’m outta here!

Thanks for visiting, gang. I hope you have something wonderful going on in your corner of the world. See ya!

Happy as a clam can get!!

April 13, 2015 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Wow! Well, I have to say, I couldn’t be happier with Time Warner Cable! My phone chat with them regarding my impending surge in cable fees (see post from the other day, below) couldn’t have gone dreamier!

I will now be paying $6 less per month than before, with twice the megabytes for my iPad streaming. Yay.

And here I had watched Mad Men this morning, solemnly thinking it would be the last TV show I would watch in my comfy family room. I don’t mind streaming shows on my iPad, but the family room used to be my favorite room in the house, and now the only time I’m in it, is if I’ve recorded something on the DVR. So that was kinda making me sad.

(To be honest, pretty much everything about this house makes me sad, nowadays. I used to have this fantastic sun room, but it has now become overrun with mold due to a collapsing ceiling and rain pouring in — this has been going on for years. The collapsing ceiling part, I mean. But I couldn’t see fixing it if they were just going to be tearing the house down, right? So now I have to keep it closed up. Oh, and the first new franchise to set up business in this new shopping district they’re building around me is Arby’s. Isn’t that weird? To think that my once sweet little paradise could become something like an Arby’s?)

Anyway. It’s very sad. The sunroom had once been a beautiful room.

But, on the upside!! I still get to watch Columbo re-runs and Mad Men. And, speaking of Mad Men — OMG! I honestly think that this final, short season is the best yet. The writing has been incredible, right???

Okay! Have a wonderful, sunny Monday, wherever you are! Thanks for visiting!!

Yes, Holy Week be Upon Us!

March 30, 2015 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Yay. My favorite week of the year, even though “favorite” might not be the best word for describing a crucifixion, let alone the crucifixion of someone so widely missed as, well, you know who…

This is the week that I am more “in” church than “out” of church. I love the solemnity of it, the beauty of it, the pathos of it — and the questions that I ask myself all week long: “How much of this stuff is actually true???!!” Who the heck knows, right? As a minister, I’m supposed to tow the party line & buy it all, but I know it won’t surprise you to know that I question every single solitary thing. But I still love it….

I love it SO MUCH, in fact, that, yes, I am back in school, completing the next phase of my ministry degree. I know I said I was done, but it turned out — I was wrong! I don’t need all this education to be a mionister (that’s Olde French for “minister”), but I still crave that Masters in Divinity, so I am sticking with school, for now. We’ll see how I can manage that once I move back to New York, but for now, I am back in school and loving it.

And also on Spring Break! Yay. Just in time to be at church constantly. So.

Wow, the re-writes of the original stage musical I am working on with that actress in New York City– it is going spectacularly well!! Yes, after several months of pulling teeth, pulling hair — I don’t know; what else can we pull out in frustration? Whatever it was, we pulled it and we are almost done with the revisions of Act One and I still think the show is incredible, gang. It already won one award — these revisions are being done on a grant from the Canadian Arts Council. The play won the actress/writer the Best New African-Canadian Playwright award — something like that. So the lovely world of Canada is paying my wages and will pay my airfare to NYC soon, to work in person with the actress and the music director, and everyone else. (I know, I keep saying I will be going to NYC soon to work on this, and it keeps getting postponed, but, naturally, now that I am back in school, the trip is imminent again!) But I am a big fan of Canada now. Yay! Honestly, what’s not to love??

Okay. Since it has been over a month since you last heard from me: Yes, I was glued to every single solitary episode of Empire! Wow, how addicting! I love Terrence Howard, which was the main reason I tuned in the very first night, but then I was hooked on the indescribably un–Christian immorality of every single character!! Too fun, wasn’t it, gang? Luckily, the first season is over now — making room in my world for the final season of my beloved Mad Men. (I’m hoping they will soon release some sort of gorgeous Boxed DVD set that I can purchase and display prominently, next to the icons of Christ…)

The other thing I waste way too much time on is Miranda Sings. This is why I had to go back to school, gang. It gives me something to do with my magnificent brain besides binge-watch endless 5-minute episodes of Miranda Sings, laughing myself silly. She is just too funny. (I don’t know if I can pick an absolute favorite episode, I have so many, but the one where she gives singing lessons to Pentatonix is right up there, along with the What’s In My Pants Challenge.)

On that lofty note, though, I do want to wish everyone a very blessed Holy Week. Even if you aren’t a big Christ-follower yourself, there is a whole lot about human nature that we can learn from this week. Mainly, that when Christ entered Jerusalem on Sunday, he was already a dead man walking; the same crowds that cheered him on Sunday, had him nailed to a cross by Friday morning… Funny, how the more things change in 2000 years, the more they stay exactly the same, right? Something to ponder, anyway — how the “crowd” will turn on you on a dime.

Okay!! Now that the roof guy has finished patching the enormous hole in my roof and gone home, I’m gonna get my taxes together here. I have a nice little pile of official-looking junk on my desk that I have to make sense out of before I dump it onto someone else’s desk! Yay! (The buck never stops here, folks. Whenever I see one coming, I scoot quickly away!!)

I hope you are gearing up for a fantastic spring. Things simply could not be better over here — I hope it’s likewise wherever you are! Thanks for visiting, gang. See ya!