Perchance to Dream...

I’ve been having a lot of vivid dreams lately and those incredibly deep sleeps where I wake up, feeling like I just downed a bottle of Tylenol Cold so I’m all druggy and confused and my legs won’t move. Weirder still, when I looked at the clock I found out I’d only been asleep for about an hour.  Not that I’m complaining, but there are nights when I can’t will myself back to sleep so how on earth can I be deep-in-a-Tylenol-Cold-sleep in under an hour? 

(And on a total sidebar, does anyone know when Tylenol Cold is coming back on the market?  I don’t mean to sound like a junkie but that’s the only stuff that works for me and, well, I miss it.  I read it was recalled so they could update the labels – really???  This is the line they're toeing?  I’m pretty sure it’s because some kids who were really good in chemistry found a way to turn it into crystal meth and were making a few bucks selling it around the playground.  If only I could find this playground….)

But I digress.

So the crazy vivid dreams.  It’s weird how sometimes I remember them in great detail (and on occasion am not sure if what I dreamed really happened or was it all just a dream?) and other times I can’t even remember if I dreamed at all the night before.  I’ve always found the entire concept of dream analysis fascinating, so I keep a notebook on my nightstand and scribble pieces of dreams I remember.  Some mornings the writings are clear as can be and I’ll look the dreams up online and try to figure out what the hell it meant.  Sometimes the scribble is beyond recognition and I’ll wonder what the frak I was trying to write.

But the analysis amazes me.  Sometimes the dream meanings are so dead on to what’s happening in my life that it freaks me out.  Other times I’m left totally confused.  And on special occasions I will myself to have the same dream so I can finish what I started. (I hate waking up just when things are starting to get good!)

This week’s dreams went a little something like this:

Monday night – I’m being held captive by some crazy dude who’s looking for information that I presumably have.  And he’s slowly cutting my arms and legs with a knife and I’m bleeding.  (Yes, this is one of the more disturbing dreams I’ve had lately.  Made worse by my crystal-clear memory of it.)  Maybe it’s all the Law & Order: SVU I’ve been watching or, cue the emotional train wreck, maybe it’s this:

To see blood in your dream, represents life, love, and passion as well as disappointments. To dream that you are bleeding or losing blood, signifies that you are suffering from exhaustion or that you are feeling emotionally drained.  (That’s an understatement.) It may also denote bitter confrontations between you and your friends. Your past actions has come back to haunt you. (Nothing like the word “haunt” to make a girl nervous.)

A knife refers to some sexual tension or sexual confrontation. (Guess that’s better than sexual frustration, right?)  To dream that you are wounded, signifies grief, anger, or distress. You need to slow down and take time to heal.  To dream that you are wounded by a knife, is symbolic of masculine or animalistic aggression. (Huh?  I’m *so* not aggressive.  And I’ve never had a pet.)

 

Tuesday night – I was at a party at my office and both my dad and my Nana told me I was pregnant.  Evidently I wasn’t aware of this fact, but in my dream I said that must have been why I wasn’t losing weight, despite apparently a lot of time at the gym.  I begged them not to tell my mom.  (So I'm a coward in my dreams.) And I didn’t know who my baby daddy was either. 

Bravo me!  Way to get mysteriously knocked up in my dreams.  To the dream dictionary:

To dream that you are pregnant, symbolizes an aspect of yourself or some aspect of your personal life that is growing and developing. You may not be ready to talk about it or act on it. Being pregnant in your dream may also represent the birth of a new idea, direction, project or goal.

I’m not always good with embracing ch-ch-ch-changes, but I know there are parts of my life that are in a rut and could use a kick in the ass.  I have one of those quotable magnets on my fridge that says “I am still learning.”  I’ve had it up since about 2003 and it’s still 100% true.  Still learning.  Still growing. 

I have ideas in my head of what I want my next life steps to be, but realistically need to pay the bills, so this part is still gestating.  For now I’m taking the baby steps (no pun intended) to making the dreams a reality (minor apartment renovations, blogging, contest entries for starters).  And the story ideas are popping, which always seems to be the case when I should be editing my manuscript so I can send it out to potential agents, but all I want to do is write new stuff.  But this was a good dream.  Hooray for being dream preggers!!!

I was on a train.  Trains are one of my recurring dreams (though the details change from dream to dream).  I was also reading Silent Mercy before I went to bed and Alex and Chapman are on a train for a portion of the book so that could have planted the idea in my head.  Either way, I’m a train with my friend “K” from high school who, in real life, I haven’t seen in a decade and haven’t been in touch with since we were both on Friendster.  (Don’t judge.  I’m aware Friendster wasn’t cool.  We all make mistakes.)  K keeps popping up in dreams lately, as my sidekick, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why.

Anyway…I’m on the train with K.  Apparently we’re on the run and trying to figure out how to switch trains to get to safety.  The only person on board who can help us is Drew Barrymore.  (Oh thank God!  Love her.)  Drew was very helpful, telling us we could literally jump onto the train that was slated to pass us.  And she promised she wouldn’t change the passenger list so whoever was after us would think we were on the original train. And then I woke up. 

Train in Vain you ask? (“I see all my dreams come tumbling down”). Let’s find out:

To see a train in your dream, represents conformity. You are just going along with what everyone else is doing. (UGH!  That’s disappointing to hear.) Alternatively, a train means that you are very methodical. (That sounds more like me.) You need to lay things out specifically and do things in an orderly and sequential manner. (I can be a tad bit of a control freak.) If you see a passenger train, then it relates to mental work. Dreaming of trains may also be a metaphor that you are "in training" for some event, job or goal. According to Freud, a train is analogous to the male penis. (Oh Jesus.  Of course it is.)

To dream that you are on a train, symbolizes your life's journey. It suggests that you are on the right track in life and headed in the right direction. (Good to know.) Alternatively, the dream means that you have a tendency to worry needlessly over a situation that will work out in the end. (Sadly, that’s pretty much true.  I’ve been know to worry myself into an attack of irrational thinking.  Perhaps this is one of those things I can work on ch-ch-ch-changing.)

So, it’s been an active dream week. I could certainly do without the nightmares and the creepy dreams, but have read that these are usual the result of stress and anxiety.  And interesting to work out the things I don’t want to deal with in the light of day, in the dark of night. 

But the really cool part is that every once in a while, when I’m not being attacked or having some Freudian episode, I come up with an idea, or a snippet of dialogue or a one-liner that makes its way into something I’m writing.  (One such line is the opening of my work-in-progress.)  Without fail I’ll have a moment of inspiration and I won’t have a damn thing to write it down with. (I’m particularly brilliant in the shower and at the gym.)  That’s another reason I took to keeping pen and paper, bedside.  Sometimes ideas (good, bad, strokes of genius and painfully awful) are the things that go bump in the night.  And sometimes they are the things that inspire me to write.

Has anyone else had moments of genius in your dreams or in those moments before that weird body jerk/sense of falling happens?  And if you do, do you try to jot them down in the dark?  Get up and start writing? Or just convince yourself, OMG, I’m way too tired to move/get up/write this down, but it’s such an insanely great idea, I’ll totally remember it tomorrow.  For the record, nine times out of ten, you wouldn’t remember the idea if your life depended on it. Write it down.  Every time.  Or repeat it in your head until you can get a pen in your hand to record it.

And now for something a smidge unrelated – I couldn't resist.  This is one of the many songs I’m currently obsessing over.  As if the world needed further proof that Adele is ahh-may-zing, here is a live version of Someone Like You.  I agree with the lady herself – this one brings me to my knees:

Oh Sweet Heaven! It's Sweet Valley High!

To my total and absolute deee-lite (groove is definitely in this heart) I saw that Francine Pascal is revisiting my beloved Sweet Valley High and releasing a new book, Sweet Valley Confidential on March 29th.

Now I don’t know about anyone else, but I DEVOURED the SVH series, longing for blonde hair, a red Fiat and a twin sister.  I wanted a partner-in-crime who was also my best friend.  Because even when Elizabeth and Jessica drove each other nuts (which was usually Jessica scheming or being selfish and shallow about something), they always made up in the end.  And twins? How cool was that?  You could share clothes and trick people into thinking you were the other twin.  And blame your twin for things you actually did.  How convenient!  (I’m pretty sure that TV show Double Trouble was out about this time which only fueled my twin fire.) 

I realize theses books were totally preposterous and stories got rehashed and they perpetuate all sorts of bad stereotypes (blah, blah, blah), but I was a twelve year old living in the suburbs, with a crush on Andy Taylor from Duran Duran.  SVH was an exciting discovery for me.  I wanted to exist in that world so I could write for the paper like Elizabeth (and her devoted boyfriend Todd wasn’t so shabby either).  And I wanted to be popular and carefree like Jessica.  I wanted to have my cake and eat it too! 

I was pretty much the good girl (though I liked to think my rubber bracelets, Pat Benatar haircut, double pierced ears and Madonna albums gave me a little edge).  Though at that age I really had no concept of what being the “bad girl” even meant, even if I liked to think I did.  But the world of Elizabeth and Jessica (and Enid and Bruce and Lila and the gang) was total escapism.  And in some ways it made me feel very grown up to be reading about their lives.  I gobbled up every book, swapping them with friends, and reading them like mad. 

And maybe I can even trace my travel-to-France dream back further than Brenda Walsh, since the Wakefield twins made a trip in Spring Break, one of those fabulous super-sized books.  (Pure genius, btw, to spin off your own series into vacation and crime adventures.) Though I distinctly remember not understanding why they kept saying “ow-ee” all the time. Alas, I took Spanish in middle school (Pleasantville Middle School to be exact, as in PMS.  Oh how that joke never got old.)  Anyway, I’m kicking myself now for not choosing French.  It was rumored to be a harder language.  (Way to challenge yourself, younger version of myself!)  Too bad it was also the one that would serve me better in everything from reading SVH to ordering off a menu to international travel!

There’s a chance I had to ask my mom what the heck “ow-ee” was.  (In case you haven’t figured it out by now, “ow-ee” = “oui”.  Yes, I’m thoroughly embarrassed.)  But luckily she never, ever made me feel stupid for my mispronunciations.  There was an incident where when I saw the abbreviation “lbs” I asked what “libs” meant.  That got me some good laughs.  (My mom’s also had the album “Elvis In Concert” which I called “Elvis In Concrete”).  But until this day whenever one of us talks about weight we’ll say something to the effect of “I definitely put on some libs over Christmas”.   

As a former English teacher and eventual editor (amongst other things) my mom certainly shared a love for books, so any requests to hit up the library or the book store were always welcomed.  Somehow buying lots of books was always justified and we’d often make trips to The Second Story, one of my favorite local bookstores.  I also remember trolling bookstore aisles while on vacation on the Cape since I would plow through books on the beach and need to replenish.

The genius of SVH was the mix of cliffhangers (kidnapping, motorcycle crashes that lead to comas, lots of random deaths) and just good drama (mistaken identities, a crap load of dances, cheerleading and boys).  And all of this with barely a drink or any drugs or any sex.  Sigh.  It was so much easier growing up in the 80s. 

But my SVH love definitely explains my addiction to soap operas in my teen years (if you aren’t familiar with the Lily Walsh/Holden Snyder/Dusty Donovan love triangle you are *seriously* missing out).  My love for SVH probably also explains my lifelong obsession with teen dramas – Dawson’s, One Tree Hill, Degrassi, Laguna Beach, Buffy, Veronica Mars, Gossip Girl and oh-thank-God-for Pretty Little Liars, to name a few.  There’s just something about those shows…  

And I don’t remember exactly when I decided I wanted to write – I read those bios of people when they’re like “I’ve been a writer since I was three”.  Really?  Three?  Could you even do more than scribble outside the lines at that point?  But I always told stories – “imagined” things happened in my real life (i.e. I never lied…I imagined). I remember getting my first diary around 4th Grade and still keep one, though now it’s a mix of writing, pictures, quotes and song lyrics, doodles, and lists upon lists of to do’s and never-do-again’s. 

But I can say that I’ve always been a reader.  I vividly remember Milton El Madrugador from the kindergarten era.  It's the Spanish version of Milton the Early Riser, an illustrated book about well, an early rising panda bear.  I loved bears. My mom did her best accent for me.  (And dammit if Spanish isn't rearing it's ugly head.  Maybe that's why I poo-pooed French at PMS?!) 

But it was really around the time I found Judy Blume that reading became such an insatiable habit.  And it was around this time I discovered SVH and Lois Duncan (probably one of the first authors to make me love mysteries and thrillers).  I just wanted to get lost in books.  And I suppose there’s a part of me that would like to get lost in the much easier time of when I was reading SVH.  So not only am I unapologetically excited to read the Sweet Valley Confidential but I’m also hoping to go to the book launch at Barnes & Noble.  A little stalkerish? 

What can I say?  I’m dying to know how the Wakefields are doing – the book is supposed to be 10 years into the future even though they were in high school in 1984 when the series started.  But the passing of time in the books never made sense, which didn’t matter because the books were so damn good!  One of my friends from high school was actually a ghost writer for these books circa 1995.  Can you say dream job?

Feeling all nostalgic, I did some Googling and found a bunch of websites dedicated to the SVH.  The book covers totally crack me up and I remember a lot of the earlier books vividly.  I’m actually kind of bummed all my old books got donated when my parents moved out of our house over a decade ago.  I digress.  And for those who like their humor a little darker (or, gasp, didn’t think SVH was ahh-may-zing the first time around) this blog is brilliant:

http://thedairiburger.com/ 

I haven’t laughed this much since the IBBB recaps of The Hills. Ole!

The Cool Girls Are Human Too

Lately I’ve felt like I’ve been watching my life through someone else’s eyes – kind of like I’ve been in a weird out-of-body mode where good, bad or ugly it doesn’t always seem like it’s actually happening to me (or rather, I can’t believe it’s happening to me.  See my previous “Being Brenda” entry).  

And last night was no exception.  I had one of those very weird, very magical kind of nights that only could have happened in New York City.

One of my most favorite things to do is to attend writer’s book readings/signings.   (I’m also a sucker for general discussions, seminars and panel discussions.)  Not only do I get a kick out of seeing a favorite author live and in color (where inevitably my face will flush a brilliant red, I’ll get all tongue-tied, and ramble on about how much of a fan I am. I’m now realizing that I probably come off as a total awkward weirdo.  Rats!) 

Alas, I devour their words of advice and am fascinated when they talk about their process, the craft, the struggles and the successes.  And when they tell the aspiring writers that rejection is part of the biz and to just keep at it (they did!).  To get your butt in the chair and write.  After all, writers write.  I know that’s the truth, but somehow when I hear it from Jennifer Weiner or Patricia Cornwall or Emily Giffen it just seems that much more true. 

And I can’t help but dream that someday it’ll be me up there – proudly reading from my novel, answering questions about how I write (I’m a full-on pantser) and why I write (Because I don’t know how not to write.  I’m the girl who has conversations in her head, writes dialogue in the shower and has always had a wild imagination).  And I hope there are more than five people in the room and that the audience is not made up of my parents and the people who earn their paycheck by working in the very fictional bookstore I am reading in. 

But I digress…

Last night I had the extreme pleasure of seeing Linda Fairstein speak, for the launch of her latest novel, Silent Mercy. I can’t even count how many times I’ve seen her, but I’ve been a fan of the Alex Cooper series since Final Jeopardy. (And I should probably be ashamed to confess that she’s the reason I tried…and fell in love with…Chanel No 22).  They are the kind of books that make me want to write.  And any books that pay such a tribute to NYC the way hers do, suck me right in (same goes for books that do Boston the justice I think it deserves…the city formerly known as my home).

But back to Linda Fairstein – I have so much respect for her professional career, her writing talent and the time she devotes to charities.  When she talks about her work in the DA’s office and when she talks about researching her books, she has so much passion.  When she launched her last book, Hell Gate, she did a co-panel with Kate White, who was launching Hush.  I didn’t know that they’ve been friends for years and watching the two of them “interview” each other, was almost like having the chance to eavesdrop on the cool girls’ table in the cafeteria – the kind of girls I wished I was friends with (hell, I wished I was one of the cool girls). 

And while every Fairstein talk I’d seen in the past never failed to disappoint, last night took a total turn for the strange.  It was at a Barnes & Noble and as usual, there was a good crowd of people.  And all was going well until a person in the crowd started shouting at her, referencing the Central Park jogger case she prosecuted some 20 years ago.  (To note, I am not here to talk politics or to pretend to understand the intricacies of investigating a case or to claim to understand how it feels to walk even a day in the shoes of anyone involved.  I’m just a girl, telling a story.) 

Shouts quickly burst out from all corners of the room (apparently this wasn’t the first time this group performed an informal protest).  I’d be lying if I said my stomach didn’t drop a bit.  There’s often a police presence at her events, presumably for this very reason. (But where on earth were they now?).  And I’ve read enough crime novels and watched enough Law & Order (and lived enough life) to know that bad things happen.  I did take some solace in the fact that one of the crowd-screamers was holding a small child, so while the screaming was surreal, it seemed like it simply meant to be an obnoxious disruption. 

But Fairstein didn’t lose her cool.  Her voice never wavered.  And in between apologies to the rest of the crowd, she went so far as to invite her hecklers to share their names with the crowd, rather than to chant.  God bless the B&N event coordinator who clearly go more than he bargained for while covering this event.  He offered to usher Fairstein offstage (she refused, and I felt like I got a glimpse of what she must have been like in the courtroom) before he contacted security to remove the disruptive group.  Even members of the audience got into the mix, saying they were here to talk about books, not pending court battles.  And while the whole kerfuffle probably lasted about two minutes, it was two very long minutes of “I can’t believe I am witnessing this crazy drama.”

The event quickly got back on course thanks to Fairstein who readily took questions about writing, researching and what it was like to be one of seven women (along with about 200 men) in the DA’s office back in the seventies.  And at the end of it all, I felt like I had such a unique glimpse of a woman who is so many things (smart, funny, strong, inspirational, generous and ambitious to name a few) but who is also fundamentally human.

Happily I positioned myself just right (front row, aisle seat) so that I could promptly hop on the book signing line for my first personalized Fairstein:

And as if that wasn’t cool enough, she was also handing out bookmarks and bags of M&M’s that are imprinted with her name and Silent Mercy: 

Drama, inspiration and treats?  Does it get any better? 

Well, I’m here to say it does. 

It was such a nice night (i.e. the wicked wind and crazy rain finally came to an end) I decided to enjoy the thirty-block walk home.  And as I made my way down Third I spotted Real Housewives star Ramona and her husband Mario while they were leaving dinner and saying good-bye to friends.  I made eye contact with Mario, but quickly looked away, playing it cool, like the cool girl I am.  

Don’t believe I’m that cool?  Well, I waited a *whole* block before I texted one of my friends to share the sighting!  Maybe Kate and Linda will let me sit at their table next time.

Being Brenda

I’m not embarrassed to admit that I am a hardcore 90210 fan.  But I’m more of an old school fan of the Brenda and Brandon years. And sure, I totally tune into the new episodes.  I mean Kelly Taylor raising her son while baby-daddy Dylan is off finding himself.  And her baby sister Erin Silver becoming *just* Silver.  And Little Miss Perfect (aka Annie) not only getting drunk on prom night, but then driving and then running over some random dude and killing him.  Bravo!  I mean, how can you not tune in?

But back to my 90210 - I’ve seen every episode more times that I can count.  I can quote the lines.  I know all the love triangles.  The random guest stars.  In some cases I can even tell you what the characters are wearing or what song was playing (REM’s “Losing My Religion” for Brenda and Dylan’s first break-up).  The fact that the show premiered when I was in high school gave it instant appeal.  But add in Jason Priestly, who I fell head over heels for in that crap show Sister Kate, where he was part of a group of orphans living with a nun.  (Say what?)  And then the pièce de résistance - Shannen Doherty. 

I kind of have a bit of a Shannen obsession that dates far, far back.  I related to her as the pesky little sister in Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.  Was oddly intrigued by her in Our House (even though Gus was a total creeper).  And then she totally won me for life in Heathers, which I can also quote all day long.  And maybe it’s a bit of the brunette solidarity sister, but when Shannen’s Heather took the Westerburg throne in the original mean girls movie, I rushed out to get myself my own red scrunchie.  Shannen inspired me to be the bitch I am. 

Veronica (aka Winona): "Why do you have to be such a mega-bitch?"

Heather (aka Shannen): "Because I can be."

And then came Brenda and a major case of envy – the hair, the clothes and the boyfriend with the sexy sideburns (though my heart was truly with Brandon, but if he and Brenda got together that would have been a whole different kind of show).  And I longed to have Brenda moments – to spend a summer in Paris, to find a diary under a window seat in my house which would let me live out someone else’s life in the sixties, or to have an epic romance with the coolest dude in my zip code.  

And then it happened to me.  I had a full-blown Brenda moment a few weeks ago.  But not one I longed for. 

I went in for my first, and what was supposed to be my routine baseline, mammogram, and they found a lump.  And no lie, as I sat in the waiting room during my second appointment, to have a sonogram (isn’t that for pregnant women?) I was replaying the 90210 episode when Brenda, Donna and Kelly are supposed to be studying for the SAT’s, but like any typical teens they are procrastinating.  Kelly was reading a fashion magazine (clearly becoming the future West Bev guidance counselor wasn’t event a blip on her brain at this point) while Brenda quizzed Donna on SAT vocab words.  Autodidactic.  Apotheosis.  “Like, Patrick Swayze is the apotheosis of adorable,” Kelly said with a giggle. 

But it’s all downhill from there.  Kelly’s mag has an article about doing a breast self exam which the girls decide is more fun than studying (“The SAT’s aren’t going to save your life.”  God, Kelly. You are just pure brilliance in this episode.)  Then Brenda feels a lump, which totally freaks her out, but she keeps her mouth shut.  And the episode, still in its Season 1 after school special mode, takes a turn for the serious. 

Me?  I never felt a lump.  Never had any flags from any previous doctor appointments.  I booked my mammogram without a second thought.  The same way I grab the newest People Style Watch from the checkout line at the Food Emporium.  But I never expected something to be wrong.  Yet there I was, waiting to hear Brenda’s diagnosis  - that I would need a biopsy, or worse, that I would need to have surgery to remove the lump (Brenda’s biopsy was inconclusive, so it was surgery for her). 

I knew statistics were on my side – gratefully no family history of breast cancer.  But I’ve also been having a bit of a rough year so my inclination was to expect the worst.  Even my new doctor – my radiologist (which I never thought I’d have) – told me I was getting quite the first-timer education.  She was optimistic that my lump was a fibroadenoma – pretty much an innocent ball of fiber and tissue, which seemed a bit odd to me.  Why does fiber and tissue come together to form a ball in my boob?  Though not quite as odd as good old Jim Walsh’s explanation – “maybe it’s an ingrown hair”.  LOL!  Oh, Jim.  Time to go back to your keyboard to play some “Great Balls of Fire”. 

But back to me doing my best Brenda.  Last week I went back for my own needle biopsy and I just kept reminding myself that Brenda was fine, so dammit, I would be too.  And I know there have been a lot of medical advances and technological improvements since Brenda’s biopsy in 1992 (oh, and yes, her’s was fake because 90210 was not a reality show). I got shot up with some novocaine – and kept my eyes tight shut – while my radiologist took multiple biopsies.  Each sample sounded like a stapler clicking.  I can’t even explain how surreal it was to know it was happening.  To hear it happening.  But to not feel a thing.  To feel a bit like I’d been watching someone else’s life for the past few weeks.  And to actually wonder, what if.  To honestly try to get my head around what a literal life-altering change might lay ahead for me. 

About 30 hours later I got *the call*.  It was a fibroadenoma.  (Insert full tears of relief while sitting at my desk at work.) The game plan is to leave it be for now and to watch it with annual sonograms.  Just like that, life goes on.  I’ve learned there’s actually a lot of debate about removing benign fibroadenomas, though the more I read the more freaked out I got.  So for now, I’m listening to my doctor and for now, it’s staying a physical part of me.  And for a few fleeting weeks I got to be a little bit Brenda.  (I still would have rather had her summer in Paris.) 

I debated even writing about this, but my forever encouraging and championing friend told me to give it a go, even if I didn’t post it. But at the end of the day, and with a week of time and space between me and my biopsy, I have some perspective.  I also still have a needle mark and a bruise on my right breast, but know those will fade.  But I realized I wanted to share, because I was the first amongst my friends to go through this and longed for someone, who wasn’t a fictional character, that I could relate to.  And as I found out the hard way, I was so uneducated about mammograms and so embarrassed to know so little. I’m certainly not going to spew statistics or medical info – that’s what doctors and the internet are for – but if there’s anyone out there who feels all alone in getting mammogram results with an undetermined “finding”, you’re not alone.  And it’s okay to be scared and anxious and nervous.  I was all three. In spades. 

My mom keeps telling me that she believes there has to be a reason for all this – a meaning that I may not have figured out yet.  Maybe it’s about being pushed to your limits to see how strong you are.  Something about not being handed more than you can bear.  Or maybe it’s just life and the universe’s weird way of telling me it’s time to spend a day watching Shannen Doherty movies.  I’m bummed that her epic made-for-TV movie Friends Til the End is nowhere to be found on iTunes or Netflix.  Shannen as a sorority girl meets singer in a band meets psycho girl who tries to take her place in her life.  Heaven.  But until Lifetime replays that keeper, I’ll watch some Brenda and just be grateful I didn’t get mixed up in that whole radical "Animal Rights Now!” group or get creeped upon by Roy Randolph.   Now that could have a total disaster.