Art-Making and Blues in Betsy's Trailer= Bliss

Entangled

So, I've been noticing a lot of interesting emotions "coming up," as we say here at Omega, over being a finalist. Once I saw the Balsams and how neat of a place it was, and imagined being there and all that I could do with such an opportunity, it became almost painful to think that I might not get that opportunity. So, I have been experiencing a lot of irreverence, and inner rebelliousness against I know not what. It's strange to think that people are actually reading my blogs and evaluating me and my creativity, and voting accordingly. It's so touching to have so many people saying such nice things and being so supportive, and I immediately feel a sense of fear and guilt that I will let them down or disappoint them.

Even now I'm thinking; should I be writing this? Who will read it and what judgment will they make? But I'm both blessed and cursed by being deeply in touch with my emotions; it's the same root that leads to the creativity, the stories, the songs, self-expression. So it is virtually impossible for me NOT to try to make sense of what is going on inside me, and not to be myself. That self can be irreverent and silly, but it is also deeply curious and compassionate, and seeks to find the core of people and places, the heart and soul of each experience. It has a deep appreciation for life and all of the variety that comes with it. I know that I could find unique ways to express every facet of life at the Balsams, and really make the two months a fun and colorful and entertaining and engaging experience for everyone. I get frustrated and see self-sabotaging tendencies arise when I feel like I have to prove that.... and instead, promotional videos that started with the best of intentions turn into the clip shown above.

Typical. And so it is. Settling upon silliness because I'm afraid of looking even more foolish in taking things seriously. Whatever the outcome, this has been such an amazing few days, and the beginning of what I'm sure will be an enormous learning curve in the journey toward being a professional story-teller, entertainer, wanderess. Thank you so much to everyone who has supported me in this endeavor; I hope I can repay you through fun and laughter!

LOVE, Elizabeth aka Wetsy aka Liz O

Wetsy for the Inn-bedded Resorter!

This is me campaigning in the historic spot where the first vote of every U.S. presidential election is cast! Wetsy at the Balsams, 2010!

La Chemin de Traverse

I'll be uploading more tomorrow, but here is a preview of how I entertained myself on the six hour drive back from Colebrook to Rhinebeck. Since I was almost on the Canadian border, there were plenty of French tunes to bop along to. And bop along I did! Don't be thrown off by the 0:00; there really is a movie that will play! It's kind of like IMAX. On crack.

The Inn-Bedded Resorter!

It's crazy to even still be awake right now, but I am revved up with excitement--- the past 24 hours have been a whirlwind! Last night I returned to my tent to find a pool of water about an inch deep thanks to the ongoing thunderstorms. Luckily, I had a spare air mattress which some have observed to resemble a swimming pool float- I blew it up, plopped it atop the sopping foam cushion I had been using for three nights prior, propped my head on the pillow, and tried to ignore the dripping water coming through the tent netting onto my toes. I dreamt I was on Noah's Ark.

I woke up, found a few dry things to wear, collected the rest to be put into the laundry, and headed for lower ground. Over breakfast, I opened my computer to find that I had been selected as one of the Top Five finalists for the Balsams Innbedded Resorter contest- where you get to spend all of July and August living as a guest in the famous Dixville Notch hotel and writing about it! That's when the whirlwind really got churning. Over the next few hours I was running all over campus, from dining hall to the staff lounge (which I have affectionately renamed The Stinkhouse), to housekeeping shed to cafe to tent to laundry room to Stinkhouse to dining hall and back again.... and by 12:30, thanks to serendipity and awesome friends and employers, I was on the road, with the next day's shift covered, laundry taken care of, directions printed, and lunch packed.

My foot was extra weighty on the Taconic and 1-90, and I probably could have time warped the whole 6 hour trip into 4 and a half hours if there hadn't been the cop that was cruising along at 75 for the duration of 1-91, and all my breaks for bathroom and water and changes of dress and painting my nails and so on. There was also a good two hour stint where I became convinced that I had Lyme's Disease and wasn't going to make it to Dixville Notch at all, but then after considering some basic facts such as outdoor temperature and liquid intake, I re-diagnosed myself with dehydration and pulled over for some vitamin water.

Anyway, I will have to save the details for part two of the story for tomorrow, as my head is about to fall onto the table. The Balsams is a palace, my room is amazing, we had a lovely five course meal and post-dinner drinks and gaiety and there are promotional flyers for each of us final contestants (four in total, here tonight)... tomorrow we have breakfast, a hike to see the panoramic view, and at around 10 o'clock we campaign to the staff as to why we should be the Balsams Resorter, and then they cast their votes in the same plathe same place where the first votes of each presidential election are cast.

Phew! I will leave the rest up to you, dear readers, to check out my page and the contest and cast your vote and pass the word, and please follow this blog and leave comments all over the place and... oh, you know the drill. Any support I can gather is just fantastic, as adventuring and storytelling are all I ever want to do, and in this day and age that involves a lot of shameless self-promotion!

Good night- right now there is a nearly full moon out my window, and mist rising over the lake, and loons calling in the distance- but I am content and cozy in my chamber.

SO MUCH LOVE and Vote Wetsy at the Balsams, 2010!!! : )

I'm a Top Five Finalist!!!!

Out of hundreds of contestants, including reality show alumni and people from all over the world, ol' Wetsy persevered! Now, I could get paid to live here for the next two months:

Check it out and vote!

Break Me Down (3rd Anniversary Edition)

I was feeling so whimsical and Wetsy that I just couldn't resist!

This is a classic example of what I look like on any given return from Omega.

Betsy and Wetsy: Available for Hire

Wetsy got her first official post-college employment on Friday, when she and Betsy were hired to keep Marcy Currier, world's most awesome tarot reader, awake and entertained as she drove back and forth all night between gigs in Connecticut and NY. Wetsy sat in the backseat and sang her repertoire on a miniature guitar, in the dark, as they flew over bumpy, winding dirt roads. Then she rapped some Biggie Smalls. They turned on ecstatic chant to Ganesha right around the time the gas light appeared, and sure enough, the elephant god manifested an open mobile station at the next exit.

Betsy and Wetsy traipsed around the convenience store in the pink wig, took some video for the web series, and soon they were off again, discussing the wily ways of the Universe and listening to Salt n Pepa. There were some minor road-work related obstacles (where were you on THOSE, Ganesh?!), but they arrived in New London by 2:30, whereupon Marcy went straight to bed for an hour of sleep before rising again for her gig at a post-prom party, aka answering existential conundrums whilst keeping post-prom libidos at bay. Betsy and Wetsy tucked into some chicken parmesan before following suit, and by 7:30 the teenager's questions were answered ("Actually, I don't know OR care what you're thinking, and yes, you ARE going to die"), Dunkin Donut's coffee was in hand, and the car was on the road again bound for Omega. All in all it was great fun, and the best 20$ Betsy and Wetsy have ever made. Their work performance was almost flawless, except for the one minor incident in which an over-excited Wetsy hit Betsy on the arm that was being used for driving. Marcy suggested that on their next gig, Wetsy might want to re-think this particular impulse.

That's the news from Omega-land; Wetsy crashed for a few hours before hitting the road again, to drive the rest of the Taconic parkway north and then continuing on to New Hampshire. She has three days in which to get her tent and Wetsy essentials together before returning to the magical forest for the end of June. Who knows what this round has in store?

NH Resort Announces the “Inn-Bedded Resorter” Search!

NH Resort Announces the “Inn-Bedded Resorter” Search!

Qualifications include being a great creative writer, sense of humor, good on-camera personality, adventurous spirit, and penchant for ghost stories. I dare say I fit the bill! : ) You can help me by subscribing to my blog, twitter, youtube, all those sort of things, so I look like a social networking MAVEN! And then check out the ecstatic chant videos by Betsy and Wetsy. xoxo

Betsy and Wetsy: Future Lives and Present Devotion

So. I decided life was getting a little un-fulfilling. And before I knew it, I was headed west for the Taconic Parkway in Adelaide, Albert the stuffed gorilla in the passenger seat, jester hat and glittery wig and cowboy boots in the back. I rolled up on Omega campus amid a rainstorm and it didn't take ten minutes for the Universe (who I had been trying to renounce, in favor of Rational Decision Making) to start working its magic. Betsy and Wetsy were re-united and took their first real trip together into the outside world. Guiness and various snacks were obtained. A rampage ensued, followed by various empowering walks, and a general freaking-out of the rest of the campus with their collective energy. Those who have been previously exposed to/harassed by the natural phenomenon either kept their distance or approached tentatively, working up a gradual tolerance.

This technique has been best mastered by soul brother Brandon/Frodo, who was a surprisingly good sport about the decision that he is going to be Betsy and Wetsy's egg donor/surrogate in a future life. Betsy and Wetsy plan to be Miami-based Latino lovers named Ricardo and Luis, who live in a decrepit area and think a baby will bring the joy they lack. Enter Fabrizio (Melissa in this current life), a philandering Italian, and his sweet, adoring spouse, Brandon/Frodo/Italian name pending.

Fabrizio was pushed by his parents into the marriage, and soon had to take his new wife to America once he got a high-paying business job in Oklahoma. His new office is filled with temptation in the form of young, nubile blondes, not to mention the cheerleading squad who practices across the street. Throw in the fact that Frodo/Brandon/Italian name pending wife is letting herself go a little, what with her penchant for baked goods, and, well. The cheerleading coach who is the reincarnated soul of our friend Patty just turns a blind eye.

Meanwhile, Ricardo and Luis are unsatisfied with life in Miami. Ricardo works at a spa and Luis at a car dealership, and they go out clubbing Thursday through Monday. They have some gay Latino friends and are also quite fond of their next door neighbor, an old, wise, black woman from Alabama who invites them in for tea and grits and corn-pone and deep conversation about their lives. Her incarnation will be played by this life's Monique. Monique has a seventeen year old grandson, played by this life's Isobel Sweetland, who will be stunning with a ripped physique, who both Ricardo and Luis have a shameless crush on. Later, when they hire a nanny (Alex B) for their egg-donated baby, they get horribly jealous over the fact that Alex and Isobel, nanny and grandson, hit it off. So they fire Alex and hire a manny, played by, I THINK, Hassan.

Anyhoo, back in Oklahoma, the Brandon/Frodo/Italian woman character has grown increasingly unhappy in her marriage, and all the silk robes and cannolis in the world cannot make up for the fact that he is philandering. The plan for egg surrogacy is an attempt to obtain enough money so he/she can officially separate from and move far from Fabrizio. A brief visit to meet Ricardo and Luis turns into an extended stay, in which the men take her shopping and clubbing and in return she cooks them delicious pastries (although this causes gym rat Ricardo to agonize over getting fat). The only problem is, B/F/I meets some friends who will eventually lead her down the slippery slope to drug addiction. Which explains why the baby housed in her womb for nine months is actually the soul of Bob Maintenance.

So that's the news of the future life of Betsy and Wetsy, and now we are working out a future life after that, which will take place in the past. The only detail we have sorted out so far is that Nate will be a eunuch. So, that's a start.

Last night Betsy and Wetsy went for an empowering walk around the lake in full regalia. They had empowering conversations, ate empowering food, and then settled in for a nice evening of devotional chant to their favorite deities. You can check out the videos here, and here, and stay tuned for the blog/book/national bestseller, "Bingeing with the Buddha."

BE BELLIGERENT.

Love, Betsy and Wetsy

P.S. Is it binging, or bingeing? Both look weird.

Bingeing with the Buddha!

Betsy and Wetsy have a new web series, "Bingeing with the Buddha," in which we offer unconsciousness as an alternative to anyone feeling too caught up in the consciousness movement. It's like "Keeping up with the Kardashians," only worse.

Bingeing with the Buddha: Episode 2

Bingeing with the Buddha: Episode 3

The artists formerly known as "Plate of Gluten" try to re-enact their breakout hit.

Memorial Day (Part Two)

We left off at the part where I was yelling down the mountain at a Chinese woman who was not, in fact, my mother, to hurry up and bring me water. Mollified, I scampered away to higher ground. Once I was practically on the summit, I passed a group of college frat types on their way down. Jokingly, I asked if it was far to the top. "You're almost there!" They answered. Typical.

I made a beeline for the top, and proceeded to befriend and charm every potential Aquafina-packing male in the vicinity until I was sufficiently hydrated. Then I set about looking for my parents.

"Did you come up the Lost Farm trail?" I asked one dude as he appeared over the boulders.

"I don't know WHAT I was doing," was his answer.

So I went and perched on a ledge overlooking the trail and waited for my parents to materialize, meeting new boys and thus securing more water along the way. A few of us sat and took in the view and chatted idly, and before long there was a figure with ski poles sort of hobbling determinedly up the ledge below us, and it was my father. Another figure had materialized, but it was in the far distance, and heading away from the summit.

"Hey Dad!" I yelled. "Where's Mom?"

He looked up, and then pointed a ski pole in the direction of the figure in the distance.

"What's she DOING?" I asked.

"Ahhh," said my father, waving his poles dismissively. "Someone told her there was a shortcut. I told her to stick with the trail. But you know she doesn't listen to me." He huffed along.

"Typical," I told the boys.

We watched as my mother went farther and farther away.

"I wonder where she thinks she's going," said one of the boys. Indeed, we were all very curious about this, since the summit of the mountain was quite clearly UP, while my mother seemed to be going DOWN.

She would wander in one direction for a little while, and then turn around and go the other way, and then stop, and shade her eyes, and then start wandering back in the original direction. It was a bit like our family trying to find the mountain in the first place.

"This is fascinating," one of the boys said.

"I know," I said. "I wish we had snacks."

Which may or may not have been a strategic maneuver to obtain some of their peanuts.

So we sat back and ate some peanuts and watched my mother wander back and forth, and pretty soon my Dad came along and plopped down beside us and then I got some more water, and a luna bar.

The sun was getting low and there was a nice breeze and it was a pleasant afternoon, sitting with good company watching my mother be lost. Every so often we would forget about her and get caught up in conversation, and then we would remember and look back and she would still be in the same place.

"This would be a great drinking game," said one of the boys. "If we took shots for every time she turned around."

"We'd be WASTED," I said.

So instead we took bets on what time she would finally make it to the top. One of the boys finally started to look a little anxious.

"Maybe someone should go down and get her," he said.

"Nah," said me and my dad.

So we waited a little longer.

"I mean, it's a mountain," I said, as my mother started to go down the ledge away from us for the fourteenth time. "It leads into a peak, and the peak is right in front of her. I don't understand how it could possibly be so confusing."

We waited a little longer.

"Oh, all right. Maybe someone should go down and get her," My dad finally said.

So John very gallantly volunteered, since my father was old, and I was eating peanuts. He clambered with the ease of a mountain goat down over the slopes, and right as my mother, it appeared, finally found the trail, he was appearing out of the bushes. I could tell even from a distance that my mother was thrilled to be escorted up to the summit by a dashing young man, and she very pointedly commented on how nice he had been once she reached my father and I, who were chortling with the boys about something and finishing off the snacks.

All in all it was a day not completely bereft of dysfunction, but the important part is that every Oehlschlaeger ultimately made it, in one piece, off of the mountain. Some an hour earlier than others. We got take-out from a local sub shop, drank some white russians, and nobody so much as cried. Perhaps there is hope for human evolution?

An Oldie, but a Classic.

Memorial Day

Last week, the Oehlschlaeger family got through an entire major holiday without anyone storming out, crying, threatening to move across country, or locking themselves in a room and responding, when other family members knocked on the door, "I'm dead. Consider me DEAD from now on."

Ahem.

This particular bout of functionality on Memorial Day was thanks to the fact that it was sunny, warm, and a perfect day to head, like everyone else in New England, for Mt. Monadnock for a hike. Father Oehlschlaeger grabbed his ski poles, Mother Oehlschlaeger prepared the packs, Daughter Oehlschlaeger pulled her hair into an irreverent side ponytail, and they were off. Daughter read Omega workshop descriptions aloud for entertainment on the drive up. It was decided that she will soon be hosting her own workshop series in "Unconscious Living," a theme she explored in depth during her years in California.

Anyhoo, they somehow arrived at the mountain despite the fact that their trail guide was from the 1940's.

"If it worked then," goes Frank Oehlschlaeger's philosophy, "Why wouldn't it work now?"

They had trouble locating the golf course they were supposed to turn left across from, and the gazebo that followed shortly thereafter. There was, however, still a lake, so they based their navigational system on that. Soon they came across a trail head, but Father Oehlschlaeger insisted they press on.

"We want the DUBLIN trail," he said.

So they drove and drove, but no new trail heads were found. Eventually the female navigators staged a coup and they turned around. They returned to the lake. They turned around again, passing the trail head for the third time, and turned into some dirt roads where they got a nice tour of country neighborhoods. They were now driving directly away from the mountain, as the youngest and wisest member of the family pointed out, but Mother Oehlschlaeger refused to listen and instead stopped to ask for directions from some joggers.

"Uh, the mountain's back that way," the joggers said.

And so the Oehlschlaeger family turned around for the fourth time, conceding defeat, and made their way to the main trail head. They were greeted at the booth by an enthusiastic young main named "Forrest," the irony of which was not wasted on anyone. The map that Forrest provided was from 2010, and explained why they hadn't found the golf course, the gazebo, or the Dublin Trail, since none of them currently existed.

The senior members of the family took unnecessary amounts of time to ready themselves for the brief hike, while the junior member grew increasingly impatient, declining bugspray, a pack, a map, and a whistle, despite her father's cryptic queries as to what would happen when she broke a leg and got stranded in the dark and then it started to snow. She rolled her eyes, grabbed a water bottle, and charged ahead up a trail that turned out to lead to a second parking lot. She did an about face and charged around some more until she found where her parents were hiking, and then she charged ahead of them.

Now this story is about to change into 1st person omniscient, because this third person thing is getting obnoxious.

I had been charging for quite some time, and when I came out above tree line my water bottle was empty and it was hot and I was feeling a bit woozy. I figured my parents couldn't be too far behind, since I'd cycled back to them once or twice for snacks, and at one point I'd heard my father yelling obscenities when he tripped over a rock. I perched on a ledge and waited. Eventually someone came out on a ledge below, and stood taking in the view, and it looked like my mother.

"Heyyy!" I yelled, waving. She turned, and waved back.

"Hi!" She yelled.

"Hurry up and bring the water!" I yelled. "I'm thirsty!"

"What?" She yelled.

"THIRSTY!!"

There was a pause, and I was getting annoyed by the fact that she wasn't making any move to come join me.

"Are you coming?!" I yelled.

"You come down here!" She yelled back.

"What? No! You're coming up anyway!" I yelled, wondering why this was so difficult.

"I've already been up!" She was now saying, "I'm not going again! I'm too OLD!"

And that's about the time I realized that she had a Chinese accent, and she was not, in fact, my mother.

(To be continued.... )

I recently was offered and turned down a full time sales job, pooh-poohing the 10$ per hour salary.

“Me! A Wellesley graduate!” I huffed.

I told myself something better would soon come along, and sure enough, a few evenings later, a beacon of hope appeared on craigslist. The heading was in all capitals and a few of its words were misspelled, but the important part was the numbers it touted: 15-18$ per hour!

“Now that’s more like it,” I said, clicking on the link. Personable, outgoing salesperson? Desire to work flexible hours? Knack for customer service? Check, check, check. I hurried to scribble down the phone number, and call Brittany at reception.

It was a woman named Amy who answered, but she seemed duly impressed with my credentials. She repeated my first name a lot, and laughed at all of my jokes.

“Elizabeth, you seem like a great candidate,” she said. “I don’t usually do this, but I am going to pull my boss aside when I see him and give him your name. I’m also going to get you an interview tonight at 6:30.”

“Wow,” I said. “Thanks, Amy!”

She sent me a confirmation email, and I scrolled through it to verify the appropriate dress code. Curious, I then googled the name of the company, “Vector Marketing.”

Before I could even finish typing, the words “Vector Marketing Scam” had popped up as a suggested search.

“Uh oh,” I said. Twenty minutes later I had a cancelled interview, a broader perspective on the world, and was calling my mother at her office.

“How’d you like to have a daughter with a job selling knives?” I asked.

“Oh boy,” she said.

“You know, I actually had a student who did that a few years ago,” she went on, “so I bought one to help her out. Now it’s my favorite knife!”

That evening I went on a walk with some friends and neighbors, and it turned out everyone had had an experience with Vector Marketing and Cutco, which is basically a pyramid scheme where you solicit everyone you know for business.

“My daughter was doing that for a while,” said one neighbor, “she made about 4,000 bucks!”

“A good 1,000 of that was from me,” said another neighbor. “I was practically broke at the time but I wanted to help her out. So don’t come hitting me up, Lizzie, I’m still paying for the first set!”

I briefly considered hocking the knives at my college graduation. What with all the benevolence and champagne and charitable alumnae, I could probably make enough to pay off my student loans.

“I graduated from Wellesley,” a sign around my neck could read, “and look at me now!”

But instead, I turned back to scouring the depths of craigslist. It’s rather painfully amusing to see my web page history; “Call for Topless Waitresses,” “Armenian Translators Needed,” “Full Time Mechanic,” “Are You Qualified to be an Egg Donor?”

Oh, and a google search on “rational decision-making.” I think I might be beyond help.

I will always remember my real graduation ceremony as the moment I passed through British Customs to get onto the Eurostar from Paris Nord Station. The man behind the counter frowned at my boarding card.

“This says you’re a student,” he said, “but that you’ve been traveling through Italy and Greece. What are you, on some sort of sabbatical?”

“Well, I actually technically graduated in January,” I said, “and the last course I took was in Paris, so I’ve just been traveling since then. Visiting friends. I went to carnivale in the Greek islands!”

“So you’re… not a student,” he said.

“Well, except I am,” I said, “I’ve applied to graduate school. For film, although there’s a part of me that thinks it would be better to do creative writing. Either way, I’m sure I’ll be going back to some sort of program soon enough, and…”

“NOT a student,” the man at customs repeated. He picked up a pen and, to my horror, gave a swift, decisive strike through the word.

“But… but…” I stammered.

“Give it up!” He said. “Join the real world!”

He gave an emphatic stamp to my passport. I headed for the metal detectors in a state of mild shock. If I could no longer be a student, I pondered, then what on earth WAS I?