LizaWasHere

I saw a very interesting movie on Thursday night, "What the Bleep Do We Know?" starring Marlee Matlin.

The movie is a mixture of neuroscience, Buddhism, physics, and humor. Matlin plays a frustrated photographer who who is stuck seeing the world through her own negative previous experiences. Her story is interwoven with interviews with scientists and spiritual leaders and scholars.

One of the main ideas of the movie is that our intentions actually have an impact on the world around us. This was illustrated especially by an art project in which bottles of water were labeled with things like "love,"  "thank you," and  "you make me sick and I’m going to kill you." The next day the water was photographed through a molecular level microscope, and the tiny particles looked different from one another, with the "negative" water looking warped and damaged somehow.

One of the most interesting ideas in the movie came from Dr. Joe Dispenza. He indicated that every day, he creates how the day will be, and asks the universe to provide some kind of surprising confirmation of that intention.

I thought about all of the things that Jill and I have intentionally created, against "reasonable" expectations.

About a year ago, or maybe a little less, we were feeling stressed about money. I decided to create more room for abundance in our lives by decorating a "Big Old Box of Money." The outcome I wanted was to double our household income. A couple of months later, Jill’s started her investigator job, and later that month, EarthLink called. Within 6 months of my arts and crafts afternoon to create abundance in our lives, our household income was doubled.

Incidentally, I only decorated part of the box that day — the cover and the interior. Not too long after I got to Atlanta, I decorated the rest of the box with images of an abundance of family and children.

And then on Monday, Jill and I sat down to talk about Atlanta theater, her possible options down here, and how to get energized and enthusiastic about creating more opportunities. Among other disappointments (Jill would rather I not say more about what they were) she hadn’t heard anything back a week after she had an audition that she felt really good about.

Half an hour into our conversation, the director called. He’d been on vacation since the audition, and very much wanted Jill in his show.

Thinking about all of those experiences in the context of the movie, I decided that I wanted to try creating my day. On Thursday night, I created Friday as a day of tremendous productivity and outstanding results. Like Dispenza, I also asked the universe to provide some kind of surprising confirmation that my intention was working.

Friday was wild:

• All went well at the DMV when I registered my car — a change from Thursday, when I tried to register my car.
• I had a meeting that I’d been trying to schedule, unsuccessfully, for a week. It went phenomenally well, and I think it will provide some surprising results in the future.
• My boss asked me to take a look at a new type of product EarthLink is probably going to offer, with the intention that if I’m excited about it, I may be invited to take ownership of the product line.
  AND
• I was declared the winner, out of a tie, in my department’s quarterly product adoption contest. Next week I’ll be the proud owner of a new iPod mini, my prize for winning.

I’d call the iPod mini, especially, a outstanding surprise result.

Today, I declared that I wanted the day to be fun, productive, and include delightful surprises. I’ll report back tomorrow.

Congratulations to Jill!

As a result of her first audition in Atlanta, for a PROFESSIONAL production no less, Jill has been cast as Nurse/Lt. Connie Leibowitz in M*A*S*H, at OnStage Atlanta.

The show goes up September 1 and runs Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sunday matinees for the entire month. Although we haven’t seen a script yet, the director told Jill that Leibowitz is a nice substantive role with one big scene and a good amount of additional time onstage "doing nurse stuff."

The call from the director could not have happened at a better time. Jill has been really missing her theater buds lately, especially since Leta is directing Steve LaRocque’s latest award-winning one-act play at the Silver Spring Stage’s festival, and Misty is directing something else there too.

The best part is that Jill has yet to be in a play and not develop a wonderful friendship with someone involved in the production. She’s started to make friends with theater people here, like the charming Evan, but I think she’ll be happier meeting some other actors too, and going through hazing together forging those in-show bonds.

We spent last weekend in New York City for my sister Anna’s wedding to a very nice man named Jason.

I suspect we will never again have such a luxurious trip to NY.

On Friday, we had manicures and pedicures, and then did the actual rehearsal. The rehearsal dinner was filet mignon in a private room at Tavern on the Green, with cocktails on their private patio.

I spent Saturday with Anna in the Presidential Suite of our Times Square Hotel getting our hair done and picking all the raspberries out of the gigantic fruit plate that the wedding coordinator sent up. No one else got any! I also ate most of the pineapple, although that I shared.

Isabel was there with Bilal and her daughter Amalie, age 4. Amalie was the flower girl, in a tutu-esque hot pink dress, which she adored. Unfortunately, she adored rolling around on the floor even more, and Anna was worried that she’d rip the dress. She’s the most English looking little girl I can imagine, and as one would expect of Isabel’s daughter, precociously verbal. During the actual rehearsal, she kept saying, "Mummy, this is a bit silly."

The wedding itself was an extremely long and traditional (I’m told) Jewish ceremony, which began about 8:45 pm, with dinner after the service. The Rabbi kindly explained everything he was going to do in English, before doing it in Hebrew.

It looked beautiful. They’d set up the chuppah on a riser in the corner of the room, and along the back of the riser, they hung a "curtain" of candles. It was absolutely stunning. (Although I’m told that before the wedding party came in, several of the candles melted the fishing line from which they were hanging, and dropped dramatically to the ground. Fortunately, nothing caught fire, and none of the candles fell during the ceremony.

After dinner, my Dad organized a bunch of people to sing "Muss i Denn," which is a wedding tradition in my family. Unfortunately, the usual singer is Aunt Susie, whose health is bad, which meant that she couldn’t come to the wedding.

The substitute choir, which included me, was absolutely awful. Fortunately, we were awful with enthusiasm and a sense of humor.

I went to bed well before the end of the night, one dance with Jill after the cake was cut. But I made it through the Horah, and everyone seemed to be having a blast.

The next morning, we had a huge brunch at the hotel. Anna and Jason had ordered roughly 50 copies of the NYT, where they were included in the marriage announcements.