love sky, love grass, love clouds

the acting marathon is over. i call it an acting marathon because it is the first time i have done three plays back-to-back. i am grateful for the marathon. it was at turns exhilarating, excruciating, energizing, and exhausting. GLASS MENAGERIE taught me the value of a supportive and engaged director (i felt the lack thereof); BOOTH taught me the importance of broad characterization (i didn't quite achieve it, but got closer) and sheer gumption; and TRUE WEST showed me i can be completely physical onstage (my right hand ring finger is still swollen like a small sausage). of course i learned other things too...

christmas came and went unobtrusively, though it is worth noting that i enjoy it much more when i wake up and share it with a loved one. it was nice to spend my first christmas morning with david.

speaking of david, we're moving in together this week, to a 3-bedroom house, and we are so excited. at this very moment, as i type, i am also procrastinating on packing up my books and shelves, dvds and tables, clothes and kitchen. basically, everything. today (the 27th), the house is officially ours, and david is at his apartment packing his stuff as well. we hope to be all in by wednesday the 31st.

so i went for a walk this morning, because the weather is like love. 

nature walk

i saw a whole lot of cardinals on my walk today.

snuggly

getting a little sick has allowed me to stay in these past two days, do nothing, and not feel guilty about it. it's nice. yesterday i watched mike leigh's NAKED and later, some simpsons episodes. david came home with all kinds of christmas cheer and we set up a little tree in the corner of the living room and put ornaments on it. i was dismayed at how much of a curmudgeon i've become... i had to make an effort to get up and put ornaments on the branches... that used to be one of my favorite parts of christmas. luckily david's ebullience was large enough to carry the both of us until i was ready to jump in.

today i heated up david's leftover potato soup and watched BED AND BOARD, the final antoine doinel movie made by truffaut. it was just the right movie to watch for today. the little decorated and lighted tree lights the corner of the dark room. i sit on the couch under a blanket with my cat. sometimes it's nice to be a little under the weather.

funny, one thing i noticed watching NAKED yesterday and BED AND BOARD today: both of the main characters deliver speeches about how they're never bored. that is something i have said for a while now, how the only people who are bored must be very boring themselves, because there's always something to do, or think about. 

vocabulary

my mom, sister, brother-in-law and nephew came to see TRUE WEST yesterday. i had warned my mom that she wouldn't like it. there's profanity and violence and i get strangled at the end. i just didn't think it would be her cup of tea. but she came anyway. i was shocked when afterwards she called me and enthused over how much she'd enjoyed it. i asked someone to pinch me but they thought i was weird and walked away. my mom even said "i think daddy would have liked it." strange. this is a play where i pee in the sink, throw my brother on the ground and spit threats at him, and hump a chair. and she thinks daddy would have enjoyed it?

in any case, i'm glad a piece of my family came to see the play, and i'm relieved that they actually enjoyed it.

in other news... david and i saw MILK yesterday. it was sad, inspiring. good performances. 

i'm feeling sick. i've been staving it off for some time but i think it's finally encroaching upon me. 

acting notes

i like "listen to the lion" by van morrison.

so my theory on why i'm hurting myself during TRUE WEST: during my college career, several of my teachers told me i was too much in my head and not enough in my body. these criticisms have nagged at the back of my mind ever since then, and a few years ago when i saw a videotape of a production i was in (eugene o'neill's HAIRY APE), i noticed that all the other guys on stage had bodies that actually moved, whereas i looked sort of like a head on top of a plank with legs. recently, while doing GLASS MENAGERIE, the director said, casually, not knowing the total-shock effect his comment would have on me, "your body is very passive."

argh!

in approaching TRUE WEST, i was working with a very physical director who, 12 years ago, had played the same part i was playing. he talked a lot about the violence and physicality of the play, and often told me that the energy of the acting was more important than the words themselves. he pushed me to be more aggressive in almost every single moment of the play. so when the performance finally came about, i was integrated more into my body onstage than i've ever been before. i think i was so physically aware that i actually turned off some part of my brain; or maybe more aptly, i turned off some part of my brain in order to achieve that physical connection. and so i wasn't keeping an eye on myself and my actions, but was just letting myself go onstage. it's not so much that i was losing control, but i was allowing the body to take over, and this quality, coupled with a few other things (the adrenaline of performance, the wrong golf club) caused me to cut myself a few times during the first few performances. 

it's funny when you're onstage and you hurt yourself, you don't usually feel it. i had gouged a small, deep gash into my left hand pinky and it didn't hurt. i looked down and blood was pouring down my finger. not until the show was over did it actually start to smart a little.

but on sunday, i was able to pull more head awareness into my performance, to temper the violence with a little observation, so that those physical mishaps were less likely to occur. it made the show much more fun and gave me more of a framework in which to play, rather than worry about what i would be maimed by next.

i'm learning a lot about acting. there are reviews here and here.

23 songs for winter

ah, i yearn for those college days and nights... those girls and boys on chapel street were so beautiful and voluptuous and mysterious, offering you their rolling rock and whiskey... she swooned when "cold cold ground" came on... they knew all the words to "the first attack" by the proclaimers, and they sang them full-voiced around the kitchen table... also that "we are" song that leslyn wrote... you were a genius in the kitchen with a single glance... and it smelled like dirt and perfume and beer and weed and books...

dave gave me a tape i listened to non-stop on a winter break trip i took with my parents. i sat in the back seat as we drove through the oppressive south. i couldn't have cared less what was outside those windows besides green fields, cows, and sky. it was all a beautiful motion painting for me. i was stoned and wedged in among the suitcases, headphones on.

SIDE A: ELEVEN SONGS FOR WINTER

1. PLAINSONG by The Cure

2. LOOKS LIKE MONA LISA by Michelle Shocked

3. CLOSER TO FINE by Indigo Girls

4. HEY JONI by Sonic Youth

5. MUST I PAINT YOU A PICTURE? by Billy Bragg

6. THIS IS THE DAY by The The

7. DOUBLE-DECKER BED by Phranc

8. TEMPTATION by Tom Waits

9. LIL' KING OF EVERYTHING by Los Lobos

10. TROUBLE ME by 10,000 Maniacs

11. THE PAN WITHIN by The Waterboys

SIDE B: TWELVE MORE

1. I FEEL POSSESSED by Crowded House

2. YOUNG NED OF THE HILL by The Pogues

3. SOUNDS GREAT WHEN YOU'RE DEAD by Robyn Hitchcock

4. WE CAN WORK IT OUT by The Beatles

5. GOD'S COMIC by Elvis Costello

6. KISSABILITY by Sonic Youth

7. WELL I WONDER by The Smiths

8. SIDE OF THE ROAD by Lucinda Williams

9. A PAIR OF BROWN EYES by The Pogues

10. BABY PLAYS AROUND by Elvis Costello

11. THE SPANGLE MAKER by Cocteau Twins

12. EVERY LITTLE COUNTS by New Order

(HIDDEN TRACK: PROVIDENCE by Sonic Youth)

 it was such a beautiful collection of music, each song leaving you perfectly prepared for the next, especially the transition from "sounds great when you're dead" to "we can work it out." 

i think part of the beauty of this tape must have been its tacit expression of my relationship with dave at the time, which was full of possibilities and love, and a certain degree of angst.

in my classic nostalgic manner, i am recompiling this tape on my ipod so that i can remember that wonderful period of my life.

refurbishing

yesterday was my first full day off since september 28. i'm not counting thanksgiving because that was a very busy day. since sunday september 28 i have had something going on, some rehearsal, class, or performance every single day. wow!

so, yesterday i worked on re-loading the new iPod. david took my broken one back to costco and because it was still in the 90-day guarantee period, they exchanged it for a new one. it was a pretty fun thing to do all day. i had saved almost everything on an external hard drive so i don't think i lost much. now today i get to go through it and find graphics for all the albums that don't have them. 

what's particularly fun is finding graphics for the cds people made for me. if i can't find a picture of the person online (facebook is handy for this), i'll find some other picture that seems to suggest that person, or to suggest the nature of the music they put on the cd. my goal for today is to find an image for every single album on that iPod. i'm into keeping it simple this week.

TRUE WEST opened on thursday and is going well. i have theories about why i have been hurting myself during it, which i'll share in the next post... stay tuned.

life imitating art

...but today i just feel kinda sweaty and old. tired, achy, withdrawn. 

our set for TRUE WEST is really life-like. it's quite beautifully done. we even have running water in the sink. the sink is hooked up to a spigot in the costume shop, which is just adjacent to the theatre. apparently, last night, the spigot in the costume shop wasn't securely turned off, and so the costume shop flooded somewhat. i got a politely infuriated email from the university head of costumes, explaining that many of the feet pedals on the sewing machines had been resting in pools of water when she arrived this morning, which means there may be lots of dollars worth of damage. 

though i feel some marginal sense of responsibility for this (probably more than i should), i have never touched the hoses, spigots, or anything else in the costume shop. i have this deep urge to write to the head of costumes and apologize, but i never pretended to have any relationship with that aspect of this show. my job is as an actor, and that's where i draw the line. i think it's good to know what your job is, to contribute without over-extending, so that's what i've done. i'm sure that this inadvertent (maybe irresponsible?) flooding problem will damage the relationship between AtticRep and the university, but with any luck it will make us more aware of our actions and responsibilities to be aware of how we treat others' property.

it's funny that it's happened with this show, though, because onstage we destroy property like hell, and mom returns and admonishes us. 

twelve-one-oh-eight

welcome december!

my iPod's imminent demise has inspired me to blow the dust off my old iPod Shuffle. it's one of the old ones, about 1"x3" and white. to load it and charge it you plug it directly into the port on the computer. it was given to me by nic huang a couple years ago and i remember being amazed by it (and even writing about it on my blog) before i upgraded to all the other fancy iPods i ended up getting...

i dropped david off at work and did a few loads of laundry at the laundromat. on my way home i stopped and got a soy chai latte. it goes well with the crisp weather of today. 

during last night's rehearsal i cut my right-hand middle finger on an aluminum can. i'm surprised it's the only injury i've sustained on that show so far-- we tend to get pretty violent. i guess most of the violence is perpetrated on the objects. we've destroyed two typewriters (one on purpose and one inadvertently); i mutilated a few typewriter ribbon cartridges (remember those?); the other night i jumped sideways and landed on a plastic mug which shattered; i broke a plate and a picture frame. for me it's kind of fun to practice this kind of violent recklessness, which i really don't allow in my everyday life. but i do sustain some regret for the broken objects-- especially that typewriter, which i pounded upon with a 9-iron. (it wasn't my idea-- it's in the script!) with any luck, all this violence will pay off and the audience will get some visceral thrill from our antics. 

the chill in the air makes me want to write, draw, create something. i like that.

attachment

yesterday was really beautiful here in San An. there was a blue sky with scattered multi-shaped clouds. as i embarked on my walk, a few drops of rain fell. i stopped and thought about turning back and waiting, but it seemed the rain was light, so i continued. 

across the street from my apartments there is an old road which was destroyed by flooding years ago. the road has been closed for a long time, which has made it a good place to walk. yesterday i saw that the road has been changed into a greenway path, a sort of walking/jogging trail complete with mileage markers, paved roads and signs describing the wildlife of the area. it's very nice, and one no longer feels sketchy about walking there. though there are more people on the path, and therefore less privacy or sense of knowing about something no one else knows about, it seems safer and is actually quite beautiful.

i had set my iPod to shuffle on the beatles. when i reached a point in the path where i was ready to turn around, the music stopped. i looked at the screen and it appeared that the next song was about to start... but it never did. i tried several methods of revival, did everything short of giving it mouth-to-mouth, and now it shows me a big red X when i try to start it. 

i am fully aware that we must not become attached to objects in this life, but music is different... isn't it? is it impossibly perverse that i gain so much pleasure from having my entire music collection in my pocket, so perverse that i must be struck down and tuneless due to a faulty piece of equipment?

never fear, i'm being histrionic on purpose. i am going to have to figure something out, though. i'm thinking i'll take it to the apple store tomorrow and see what they say.

in other news... i'm in another play. TRUE WEST opens this thursday. today's our tech day. things are going well enough, though i am at that predictable place of panic which always occurs several days before opening. if you live in san antonio, well, SEE it! 

a lot of thanks to be had

happy thanksgiving.

i am well. the play called booth was relatively well-received, i worked hard on it and even though there were some criticisms of the script itself (mostly that it was too long), i got a lot of postive feedback and felt that i learned quite a lot along the way.

as i throw a piece of wadded raffia for my cat to catch mid-air and bring back to me, i am most thankful for my own unique family-- freda (the cat), and my newly 32 year-old hubby with whom i have been together for six months as of the 29th of this month. i am very thankful indeed.

now i'm working on sam shepard's play called true west. it is at least as intense as booth was, perhaps more intense, and has been a lot of fun. tonight siggi was there and he took photos of us. not sure where they'll be posted, but check back here.

double bagging

today the checker at walgreens forced me to take TWO plastic bags for my "merchandise."

she was an older woman, probably in her mid to late seventies. her hair was swoopy and curled and i had observed her helping others ahead of me in line.

"the handles just broke on that bag!" she said, referring to a bag of "merchandise" she had prepared for a customer. then she said, "scary!"

so when i arrived to the front of the line, with a box of Dots, a stack of blank cds, and a bottle of shampoo and conditioner (all held comfortably in two hands), she double-bagged me!

"one bag is fine," i said.

and she proceeded to take a second plastic bag and place it inside the first one.

"i don't need two bags," i emphasized, thinking for a moment she was hard-of-hearing.

"the handles on these bags have been breaking!" she said. "i have evidence of that right here behind the counter."

so i took the double bag and left.

refuge from harsh reality

my car is stretched out on the couch next to me

its exhaust having exhausted it

present joys lighting the forest

which still and always 

carry their candles out the sliding glass door

carefully, with fur

and bullets.

various

it upsets me a little when people don't like obama.

more specifically, it upsets me when my niece posts something like this on her facebook:

"Obama is in "over his head". Looking at the photos of him and his family watching the returns come in Tues. night was very telling. He looked uncommonly nervous, ringing his hands before and after the networks called the election. No celebratory response, not even a smile. He' a novice and he knows it. BO was created by his party and they own him completely. He'll do what he's told, like the poster boy that he is. As for how it affects us as believers, it is clear that God is pulverizing His church into submission with one political disappointment after another. Watching the pagans put our dear Constitution through the shedder is hard, but politics is not our Savior. We serve King Jesus and Him only."

there is so much that is so wrong with this, it's almost impossible to react at all. i almost didn't post it, but by posting it i feel a little bit better about having seen it. it shouldn't bother me, but somehow it does. and you know, we pagans really should stop putting the constitution through the 'shedder.'

in other news, strangely related, i went back to churchill high school to see a production of arthur miller's THE CRUCIBLE on saturday night. though it is overdone to death, it is still a great play, easily applicable to many periods of history, because of people's unfortunate proclivity to demonize each other. besides all that, the students did it well. 

we had a six-hour tech day for BOOTH yesterday. i enjoyed it. we got to see some of the sets and lights, and based on what i saw, it will be a pretty show. tonight we are dealing with costumes for the first time. i am playing a harsh, egocentric, delusional tyrant with a heart of pyrite. though i have some things in common with the character, it is an extremely challenging role for me... but i am having fun with it, and looking forward to performances.

when i'm in my car and i turn on my left turn signal, it doesn't turn off. this is a recent development.

my cat is stretched out on the couch next to me.

i bought a pizza last night. it was half pepperoni and half jalapeno/mushroom. it was pretty good, but what made it delicious was some hot sauce david made. we ate it while watching iron chef.

president obama

the election of barack obama as our 44th president is the most wonderful and exciting political event i have ever witnessed.

when i first saw obama speak, somewhere on TV, i was riveted. by the end of his speech my spirits had lifted. i felt like what he was giving was a very necessary medicine for our people. we are so cynical about politicians, so jaded about the deception and corruption that has seemed to be taking over. it has become so easy to feel downtrodden about our country's affairs at home and abroad. but when i listened to obama, i felt a little glimmer of empowerment-- i felt like i didn't need to give up or feel hopeless about our situation. 

last night when i got out of rehearsal at 11:15 he had already won. i got these texts from various friends on my phone:

"Times square is a huge party!"

"Woooooo! Fucking awesome!"

"Sarah Palin is wearing BLUE!"

"Yay :-)"

"This here is what we call an election ass whoopin'"

i'm so happy that barack obama won the election, and i'm so excited to see how things change during his presidency.

sunny, happy, chirpy

GLASS MENAGERIE had its last 4 performances in gonzales, texas this past weekend. we performed at the historic crystal theatre. the town looked like the town in 'waiting for guffman.' in fact we wondered if any of it was filmed there. the theatre had a nice feel to it and in my opinion our performances were a lot more relaxed and interesting than they had been at the venue in san antonio. and... WE MAY BE GOIN' TO BUH-ROADWAY! ...not really.

the other great thing about the weekend was that we stayed in a cool old house in the country, with cows and horses and strange burrowing rodents. i sat on a porch staring at a field, took a walk on a country road, and felt myself relax a little. now that i'm entering into the final two weeks before BOOTH opens, i needed that small respite.

i think i'm starting to develop an actual relationship with the idea of my own mortality. i had a sort of death-like experience after smoking salvia a couple of months ago and it really freaked me out. as i have reflected on it since then, that freak-out feeling has begun to change into some semblance of maybe beginning to understand mortality outside the life-after-death paradigm. i guess what i'm trying to say is, i'm coming to terms with the idea that i won't exist anymore.

ps. jo jo d, thanks for your comments. i put your blog in my list of blogs to check daily, so i expect to see some action young man.

newspaper

today there's an article about me in the san antonio express-news.

tonight i am giving a lecture at the stieren theatre at trinity. i'm going to talk about how i got involved in theatre and the major theatrical milestones i've experienced (peeing onstage first grade, high school speech team, north carolina, russia, new york, KITUS), and i'm going to give some ideas/advice to the students in the audience.

the master classes i'm teaching have gone well. we've had two and we'll have three more. we're working on shakespeare's sonnets. each of 12 students in the class was assigned a sonnet randomly. my approach is very non-academic, we don't really talk about structure or technical elements of the sonnets much. we are focusing more on unlocking the hidden meanings in the sonnets and then applying those meanings to each student personally. it has been fun.

rehearsals for the plays are going well. i am 2/3 memorized for BOOTH and we open in 3 weeks. i do have some anxiety about this and it just means i will have to get on top of it this week in a big way. but rehearsals have been fun and interesting.

TRUE WEST rehearsals are also fun, but again the frustration comes in that i'm still not off-book, so there's only so far i can go with a script in my hand. but i look forward to making that happen as soon as i'm confident about the lines for BOOTH. 

this makes it sound like acting is all about memorizing lines, and it's not. but it is important to have a certain level of confidence about them, so that some exploration can take place.

i am taking deep breaths. i'm excited about the lecture tonight. david helped me put some pictures on a power point so that there'll be some visual component to the talk. also i chose some music to play while the audience comes in... rachmaninov and prokofiev. 

glass concentration

our production of THE GLASS MENAGERIE opened last night. i don't generally like opening nights because the performance energy is too high-- you don't get a true experience of the play (as an actor or as an audience) because of all that nervous tension which comes from the actors having an audience for the first time. 

i felt pretty good about the performance last night, until my speech at the top of act two. i had a mini-panic attack and left out a huge chunk of the monologue. though it wasn't a glaring mistake, it worried me. i have been thinking about it and analyzing it all day, in typical over-sensitive andy manner. 

the last time i forgot my lines onstage was in mamet's OLEANNA, where many of the speeches contain overlapping meanings, and the speeches are threateningly long and intense, and that intensity needs to be sustained in order for the play to work properly. on the other hand, during the last play i was in, LINCOLNESQUE, i spoke long speeches directly to the audience, and never had a problem getting distracted or losing my text. in GLASS MENAGERIE i also speak directly to the audience, so i've been wondering what the difference is-- why did i have that mini-panic attack during this show, and not in the other?

i'm thinking a couple of things...

1. tennessee williams' writing is not functional or utilitarian; it is poetic and elaborative. much of it, in terms of plot line, is unnecessary. it says the same thing in four different ways, and my andy brain doesn't really work like that; i don't say things like that, i just state the facts and shut up. usually.

but more importantly,

2. i have identified this character very much with myself. other than a modest vocal change, i have not done any real 'character' work, meaning i haven't really added any character traits or qualities that would suggest someone else. this was also true of my interpretation in OLEANNA. however, it wasn't true of LINCOLNESQUE-- in that play, i felt i was playing, through a deeper part of myself, someone quite different. 

so my hypothesis is: without a certain veneer or shield of character added on as protection, i seem to be more vulnerable to distraction onstage. it's almost as if my own persona were being attacked by those eyes in the audience; whereas if i were a character, or someone else up there, i would be completely protected and impervious. 

i don't know how true it is, but it occurred to me, so i thought i would write it down.

i'm a little nervous about tonight's performance, but doing my best to relax and see it more from a character point of view, or a different emotional reality, in order to achieve that protective confidence.

the great frank zappa

i felt a terrible loss when frank zappa died. he died of prostate cancer in 93. he was about to turn 53. it's not much of a consolation, but lucky for us humans, he was an incredibly prolific and perceptive artist and person. i entertained the idea that the government knocked him off because he was just too smart and subversive and proactive, or that he knew too much. i'd read an interview where he discussed the power of sonic waves, that sound could actually be used to control people or even kill people. for a while there was a movement going to get him to run for president. he was very politically aware and had lots of good ideas. i'd like to live in that world, where zappa could actually get nominated... that would be a better world.

his music is a balm to my soul. it feels healing and dynamic, like something's happening inside me when i listen to it, like wounds are being tended. it's not a cerebral appreciation. it's very visceral. and i just discovered a great album of arrangements by the ensemble ambrosius. re-workings of some of zappa's classics like "RDNZL" and "inca roads." sweet arrangements.

i once had a dream i was taking a shower with frank. it wasn't sexual, but it was very intimate. i woke up feeling so close to him, it was excellent. yeah i know it's ridiculous, put it on the same list with my dream that i was hanging out in an apartment with andy and colin from XTC, or when i had become the 4th beastie boy (AdRoc mentored me). 

but you know, thank God for dreams because otherwise i never would have had these amazing opportunities.

new technology

despite my apparent devotion to my iPod, i have upgraded to a new iPod which contains more memory. ah, the fickleness of the music-obsessed consumer.

so now i have room to put everything in my little silver lozenge, even my extensive frank zappa collection, much of which i haven't listened to since 1998. wow, "artificial rhonda." just wow.

as for the old iPod, i have taken care of it, taken care to provide it with a caring new owner, which just happens to be my boyfriend david. so it's all in the family.

missions

today david and i packed up some water and snacks in a backpack and drove out to mission concepcion. we walked around the church for a while then, after a brief tussle, drove to mission san jose, which is bigger and more impressive than mission concepcion because of its living quarters skirting the perimeter of the grassy area and the relative scope of the place. i liked to imagine the indians having affairs in the grass with wayward fathers, or escaping the mission walls under cover of night, coyotes baying in the background. we walked around there a while, then set off on the mission trail. we got about halfway to mission san juan then turned around and walked back. i'd say we walked somewhere between 4-5 miles in all. it was fun walking along the san antonio river (the real one, instead of the riverwalk), and we both needed the exercise and the sun.

why did my mom never take me to the missions when i was growing up? i realize she was busy and all, having four kids, and me being the youngest, well i guess she was tired by that time, always multi-tasking and then she got her own career going, so in some ways i understand... yet i also felt amazed at the thought that we have these incredible, historical monuments to colonialism in the guise of spirituality in our fair city and we never visited them even once!

the only time i've been to a mission (well, besides the alamo, which seems tiny in comparison) was at my friend mikki's wedding. i've forgotten which mission it was, but it was a beautiful place to get married. i was fantasizing about getting married to david at one of the missions. one of us would have to dress as a woman to fool the priests. i was imagining david in blonde wig and tight raspberry taffeta.

so tonight i put lotion on my face. i feel like my summer is now complete, having acquired a sunburn; and it couldn't be at a more appropriate time of year-- the autumn equinox.

this is not an ad for facebook

(and the last entry was not an ad for iPod.)

a few weeks ago, prodded by a friend of mine, i set up a facebook account... begrudgingly. i don't know why i was so reluctant. i guess it seemed like something 'young' people do, like people of my students' age. and true enough, most of my contacts have been former students, but there have been other contacts as well, like theatre people in the area.

but this week i had two great surprises.

there comes a time on facebook when you start racking your brain for old, old friends-- like the kind of friends who are so old they've become kind of legendary in your mind, because all your memories of them have been so rehashed over the years, and it's been so long since you've spoken to them.

one of the friends i got in touch with was philip, my next-door neighbor from childhood. we had a lot of fun together doing kid things, and he had a pool at his house AND a tennis court we played on. i wasn't sure he would want to contact me, because i was kind of a weirdo as a kid (i'm TOTALLY normal now, make no mistake), but phil wrote back and asked how the hell i am. he is now living in phoenix and has a little family going.

there was an even bigger reaction, however, last night, when my best friend from first, second and third grade (my first, and therefore truest best friend) responded to my friend invitation. his name is j.j. and i have all kinds of memories and stories about him. i hadn't seen or spoken to him since he moved away to tucson after fourth grade. nary a word. so you can imagine, over the past thirty years there's been plenty of time to miss him, wonder where he is, and think about all the things we did as kids. this is the kid i loved so much that i threw a rock at his head. it's true.

last night all my long-standing questions about j.j. came to a resolution. he's an aerospace engineer (he was always really smart), has a wife and three kids, and lives in nearby austin. he looks great in his photo, still like himself and not transformed by the overwhelming grief of life. i don't know if we will keep in touch or rekindle our friendship, but the important thing is just to know he's well and thriving in the world, and that he actually does exist outside my memory. it's a nice feeling and... well, it's a life-changing event.

iPod pleasure

when did i start loving music? when did i start really paying attention to it?

my brother had this huge LP collection. then he won a drawing at a local music store and won something like 500 more LPs. it was a huge deal. a lot of them were garbage, but a lot of them were worth keeping. if you had a question about a band or an album, craig would usually know the answer. he gave me hand-me-down 8-track tapes of rickie lee jones, earth wind & fire, and barry manilow. and later he gave me cyndi lauper's "she's so unusual" on vinyl, and linda ronstadt's awesome rock album, "mad love," which featured at least two elvis costello covers.

craig gave me my first mixed tape, "music for white men" (i was called "white man" as a child because i was so lacking in pigment), when i was a freshman in high school, right around '81-'82. it contained: laurie anderson, the roches, randy newman, mel torme, peter gabriel, the violent femmes, todd rundgren, the shangri-las, xtc, kid creole & the coconuts, jonathan richman, tom waits, godley & creme, dionne warwick, tom tom club, frank sinatra, the waitresses, loudon wainwright III, bryan ferry, the beatles, lindsey buckingham, and kate bush. this particular tape, i have since realized, shaped my sense of what a music collection should be-- eclectic, above all... also, surprising, fanciful, with blasts of the past and the future. i have told craig about the debt i owe him for bringing such a broad and rich spectrum of musical taste into my life. i don't claim to have particularly good taste; but you can't deny it's eclectic.

this broad and rich spectrum has taken on many vehicles over the years (walkmans, car stereos, discmans), but the most recent and most amazing vehicle so far has been my iPod. now i have sensed the backlash against iPods, and i understand it-- there's something a little evil about them in the sense that they are becoming ubiquitous and that they seem to cut people off from each other. true enough. my pleasure in the iPod is the still mind-staggering fact that my e n t i r e  m u s i c  c o l l e c t i o n can reside within its perfectly compact rectangular body. something about this fact turns me on no end. i can float down memory lane by flipping to "sandwiches of you" whenever i want. all those songs i love can be in my pocket at all times. i made an iPod playlist of "music for white men" and it is beautiful... still beautiful.

i got my iPod in may of '07 and have been loading it down with pretty much every album in my possession since then. it is now reaching its maximum capacity (i have only 2 GBs left out of 80) and so i have been worrying that i am either going to run out of room or that it will crash and i will lose all that beautifulness. 

so i have been considering ways to insure the iPod. since i don't necessarily still have all the cds that are contained on it, and i wouldn't necessarily feel happy about sitting down to download them all again, i was considering purchasing another iPod and transferring all the music on the existing one onto a new one. i saw in a magazine that there's a doohickey you can get which will plug into two iPods and transfer files from one to the other. i researched that a bit, and it seemed more complicated than i had in mind.

but yesterday i downloaded Music Rescue 4.0. what it does, according to the apple tech worker i spoke with, is: "it sucks the music out of your iPod and into a file, then you can download it onto your iTunes." so that's what i did-- i got Music Rescue, plugged in my iPod and my external hard drive (120 GB), and backed up all my music onto my hard drive. 

talk about bliss. bliss. as tootsie says, "sheer heaven."

that oboe/clarinet solo on joni mitchell's "down to you." the irresistable whistling hook on "young folks" by peter bjorn & john. kate bush's roar on "get out of my house." hey, i remember where i was when i first heard that. i remember the feeling i had. 

surprises

this week i got a great surprise-- i was asked to be the stieren guest artist at trinity university here in town. the stipulations of this residency are that i will teach 5-6 master classes, give a 45-minute public lecture, and act in a production of austin pendleton's play BOOTH with drama students at trinity. i am thrilled about this, for several reasons-- it gives me a chance to work with students on the university level; the part of junius booth in BOOTH will be challenging for me (now that i'm 40 i guess i can sort-of legitimately play a 50-something year-old); and my financial concerns will be assuaged for another blissful period of time. beyond all these particulars, this fellowship being offered means something in general for my life and my decisions that is very exciting, and which fran verbalized well in an email yesterday: "I think you drew all these things to you by embracing your desires-- how magical is that?"

today i noticed that someone named "rocketts" posted a comment on this blog. as i investigated, i discovered a newly-established blog called Box 104C which seems to chronicle in pictures the KITUS years at schoolhouse. 

being a man of the moment, i often live as if i had just been born, forgetting, for all intents and purposes, that i have led a rich, sumptuous, moist, creamy, chunky, volatile, teary-eyed, screamy, itchy, sexy, international existence. but seeing the blog Box 104C reawakened my memory of some wonderful moments in my life, reconnected me to them, thereby enriching my current moment of existence. thanks rocketts, much love to you. 

resistance

i've been noticing little ways that i resist everything-- i resist the pleasure of the moment by worrying about ten minutes from now. i resist healing by dwelling on the past. i resist so much every day without realizing it. it surely started out as a coping mechanism, a protection device put firmly in place after i got hurt or humiliated, until it just became part of my unconscious modus operandi. but now i'm becoming aware of it. 

they went back to school two days ago. i wonder how it's going. i've gotten reports here and there from different students... they've painted the drama hallway red. other stuff like that. i am deeply happy not to be there; at the same time i have some anxiety about my future and that is why i am realizing about resistance and how insidious it can be. 

you know, i'm really haunted by that goddamn aesop's fable about the grasshopper and the ants. was it a grasshopper? i think so. he spent the whole summer playing and making music while the ants worked. in winter he froze because he hadn't prepared. that thing really messes with me! that story of impending doom became a building block of my identity! 

of course a solid work ethic is important, chiefly because it gives one a sense of purpose. but that story is such scare tactics, and it's caused me, in the past, to not enjoy the current moment, worrying that if i have too much fun, i'll pay for it later. 

love and trust more; hate and resist less.

too much reality

ten years ago, sergei and yulia were visiting me in truckee. with dion, my native american friend, we went to a jump dance ceremony in happy camp. we drove to the coast and the redwoods. one night when we were driving home i hit a deer, grazed its back leg. it got up and ran away lopsided. i knew that deer was my spirit animal so i took it hard, trying to understand the spiritual implications of such an event. i never came to any particular conclusion. now as i look back i can see that my spirit was damaged during that trip with dion and my russian friends-- i felt torn between them, it wasn't harmonious. a couple months after sergei and yulia had flown home, i knew i had to heal and called the whole thing off with dion.

the other day while watching a documentary on sasquatch, i got excited when they interviewed people from happy camp. it's a very small town on the klamath river way up in northern california, not far south of ashland oregon. 

yesterday i read about edouard manet. we ate thai food. we watched LOST IN LaMANCHA and then the documentary CRUMB. i never considered CRUMB an overly depressing film, but watching it with someone else made me realize that it is pretty distressing. i believe david said, "too much reality!"

summer lovin'

it's already august. right now at 12:25 daytime, it's overcast and mild outside-- not really hot at all. it's been a quiet, pleasant saturday morning. it doesn't hurt that i'm in love. 

last night's opening went well, though i had to stop the show 5 minutes in because a screen onstage had not been removed and would have messed everything up. so we got rid of the screen and started again from the beginning. the show was passable, wasn't at its best, but that's usually true of opening nights anyway. as the actors settle into their routines and begin to feel more comfortable, the show will improve.

this week i got the pevear/volokhonsky translation of WAR AND PEACE. it's lovely to read it again 15 years later, and even better in this very conscientious and readable translation. i found an interesting article about this translation and another, both of which were released around the same time. 

tomorrow i have an initial meeting about the next play i'll be working on as an actor, tennessee williams' THE GLASS MENAGERIE. i'm looking forward to starting work on that.

my cat pooped in the corner of my room this morning because her litter box hadn't been changed in two weeks. i am usually very careful about changing it every week, so she's gotten used to a schedule, and that schedule was interrupted, so i didn't blame her for her actions. 

david is making biscuits and gravy and something else with onions that smells really good...

good samaritan opens

THE GOOD SAMARITAN, a play i have been directing, opens tomorrow at the overtime theater. here is an article. it has been really fun and rewarding working on it and i think it looks great. i hope the audiences will think so too.

the beach

i hadn't been to port aransas, that i can remember, since i was in high school. i just went back there this past weekend and it wasn't as i recalled it at all.

the beach was bordered on the shoreline with a substantial barrier of seaweed, the intense bright green bushy kind with berries that looks like something you'd buy in the garnish section of hobby lobby. this seaweed had also been pulverized into most of the sand, discoloring it and changing its texture. where i had remembered soft, duny sand there was now a hard sandy surface. it took me a while to assimilate this change and accept the fact that the beach had changed. as i looked at the little kids running around i thought, "they think this is the way the beach is supposed to be." then i thought of myself as a kid and how someone older might have been sitting on the beach when i was running around and they were probably thinking, "he thinks this is the way the beach is supposed to be." for me then, as for the kids now, the beach was perfect just as it was. nothing to compare it to. after i processed all that, i relaxed into the scene a little better and it became less alien.

yet another jarring development was the warmness of the ocean. i can't remember ever walking into an ocean that felt like warm bathwater. but the gulf felt that way this weekend. it wasn't really unpleasant, but again, it wasn't what i expected or was used to. it seemed just a little wrong. 

despite all my comparing the present to the past, david and i floated in the water and sat on the beach having a perfectly lovely time. also, we visited my aunt and uncle, who live in rockport, and that was really nice. 

hiatus from blogging is over

last day of school was june 5. we had a clean-up day, painted my office wall back to white (it was grape jelly-purple), threw lots of stuff away, moved stuff around preparing for the summer, and i bid the place goodbye. i was tempted to steal the red velvet couch but did not.

once again i have found that when you make your desires known, they tend to manifest in real time. i had written down this quote, but i don't remember where i found it: "If you don't articulate your conscious desires, your unconscious patterns will come true." seems like both an exhortation and a warning, don't you think?

so some exciting things are happening:

a really wonderful relationship is developing with the people of the AtticRep theatre company, and i'm now a company member as well as educational outreach director. currently we are putting together acting workshops to take into schools this coming year. also, i will be appearing in two of their plays next season, TRUE WEST (sam shepard) and THE GOAT, or WHO IS SYLVIA? (edward albee). i will also be working with the classic theatre company on THE GLASS MENAGERIE, which starts rehearsals in august.

right now i am directing a play called THE GOOD SAMARITAN, by scott mcdowell, with a very talented group of actors at the overtime theatre. this play was written by a local writer and it is a 50's film noir detective mystery. it's going well. we finished blocking last night, are thinking up some interesting ideas for lighting and staging, and we open on august 1st.

i'm going to the coast this weekend with david. i haven't been to the texas coast in a long time-- though i've been near it, i haven't made a beach trip since i was a teen. how weird. so i'm really looking forward to that.

favorite music in my world recently: noise for pretend, vampire weekend, american princes, slow runner, philip glass's saxophone album, balkan beat box, foals, joan as police woman, and the new martha wainwright album.  

the performer performs

LINCOLNESQUE is going well. we opened last thursday and tonight had our first performance of the second and final weekend. 8 shows total.

we got a good review in the san antonio express-news, and a sort of hard-to-tell-if-she-liked-it-or-not review in the san antonio current.

my whole family came to see the show last saturday, and that was a good show for me. a lot of my students have come too, which is sweet. theatre friends from all around san antonio have also been extremely supportive.

two more weeks of school. i have started final performance exams in class. yesterday a hoola-hoop performance was breathtaking. today, a boy who wrote his own song sang and accompanied himself on guitar beautifully, poignantly. 

friend beth is going to siberia in july.

my south america plans yearn to be solidified.

life is good.

terrible acknowledgement of kid sabotage (taks)

schools in texas are under the weight of a test called the texas assessment of knowledge and skills, or taks test. schools are rated and ranked based on the results from these tests. as a result, the tests are strictly monitored, stringently directed, and anal-retentively administered. 

today i got called into my assistant principal's office. i have enjoyed a relatively good relationship with this man; we have never been pals, but have been perfectly cordial. today's meeting however was somewhat unpleasant.

it started out innocent enough. 

ME: you wanted to see me?

HIM: i saw on this report that you didn't attend the training for the TAKS test. can you tell me why?

ME (glibly): i don't know.

HIM: why not? this is very important.

ME: oh. really? you're not being sarcastic?

HIM: no, not at all. 

ME: oh.

(moment of adjustment.)

ME: well, that was a busy week, we were getting ready for state, all kinds of things were happening. but i got my training later and everything worked out fine.

HIM: your colleague didn't miss the training and i assume he too was preparing for state...

ME: i would like to say that i did all the TAKS paperwork perfectly. the counselors in the office said that a lot of the teachers didn't turn it in correctly but that mine was all done right.

HIM: did you ever stop to think that because you required a separate training time from all the other teachers, you were taking valuable time away from the counselors who had to stop what they were doing in order to train you separately?

...

basically what happened was, i got reprimanded, nay threatened, because i did not attend the TAKS training session. the threat: this breach will go on my teacher evaluation. 

"what does that mean?" i asked, the glibness having vanished, being replaced by a confrontational defensiveness.

"it means it goes on your report. if you think of some good reason why you missed the training, let me know."

"no, i can't think of any reason." i said, trying to leave.

"of course, the TAKS is the most important ranking our school has; the only thing that would be more important would be our football team winning state."

"well i guess i just don't share your priorities."

"i was joking."

"really? i couldn't tell."

"this is not to downplay your second place with the one-act play at state. of course that's a nice feather in your cap. but blah blah blah blah blah....."

...

i spent my eighth period theatre class sitting and talking to a few students, watching a few playing ball, watching some practice martial arts, listening to one play the guitar as he strolled around the room. i was thinking how nice it was to sit and relax and enjoy the students as people and not expect anything of them. it was really nice. i needed it, and i think they did too.

...

ME (what i should have said): i have had several students tell me that i have made a difference in their lives. i have had a few say that they would not have taken or stayed in theatre if it weren't for me. i waste no time in worrying about TAKS requirements when i remember what i am really here for-- to teach students, and to learn from students. i refuse to, and indeed am unable to, change my priorities to reflect a meaningless standardized test simply in order to achieve a rank among people who understand very little about education.

plays and life

well it's been a week and i'm just now feeling able to write about this year's one-act play experience. 

our play was called DA. it was written in the 70's by an irish playwright named hugh leonard, and he always claimed this one was his favorite. he got awards for it. it's about a man who goes back home to clean out his parents' house after his father's death. his memories start coming up before his eyes and he interacts with them-- his father, mother, and himself at a younger age. 

our cutting of DA was mostly a comedy, though the full-length play is actually quite dark. i must admit that our cutting excluded much of the complication the main character faces in dealing with his past and what he's become. you can understand: when you are cutting something down to 40 minutes, for use by a high school drama troupe, the things you keep tend toward the light. 

this year, the state one-act play meet was not at bass concert hall, but at hogg auditorium, right in the middle of the UT campus. we weren't looking forward to this new location-- an older building, a smaller stage. but i must say that hogg was very kind to our play, which lends itself to a more intimate setting. also, being more central on the UT campus, it felt more like being in austin.

like last year, we woke up very early on saturday morning and headed over to load our props and furniture into the back of the theatre. we were reprimanded by the director for having so much stuff. because hogg is such a smaller space than bass, everyone was expected to pare down on set items. our 7-foot rolling prop cabinet had to be removed. there was a meeting with all the casts and directors at 7:30. at 8:45 our official rehearsal began. we were the first to rehearse, since we were the first to perform. our rehearsal went well-- we set up the stage, put spike tape down to indicate where everything should be placed according to the lights, we set sound levels, ran through blocking. a couple of our items were not approved (the holy water font, which i always hated, was made of a ticket-taking cabinet. it was the one thing i had wanted to change but never got changed, until it was un-approved at our rehearsal), so we had to improvise a bit with set pieces. the UIL crew was very helpful, even the man who did not like my vines last year. 

we had several hours between rehearsal and performance, during which we ate at stubb's, rested, and did warm-ups. as we waited behind the theatre at 3:30, baking in the sun, some of the other students came to wish everyone broken legs. trevor gave me an amazing bouncy-ball filled with sparkly magenta liquid. for me that ball became an icon representing the entire experience-- there was a certain perfection in it which delighted and encouraged everyone. i know it sounds strange, but for me it was really remarkable: it became a representative of joy, resilience, and the passing nature of everything. it made a strong impression, but at the same time i realized it didn't have long to live. just like the whole experience.

the performance was lovely-- everything went smoothly, nobody fell down, things clicked, and the show ran 38.50 or thereabouts, which is perfect. cy was there, as were a good fan club from churchill. 

after loading out of the theatre and back into the moving truck, we gave ourselves a little time to get food in the area, which was when i experienced jamba juice. the smoothie i consumed comes as close to orgasmic as anything i've ever had. maybe my senses were heightened; maybe i was just glad the performance was over. in any case, that smoothie, like that bouncy-ball, rocked my world.

we saw the second session of plays in the evening-- all good productions. the awards ceremony started very soon after the final show was over. we took two "all-star cast" awards and one "honorable mention" award for acting, and we took 2nd place in the competition.

my eyes see clearly. i don't want to go all esoteric on you. right now i feel truly alive. i must always remember this feeling, i tell myself, this is who you really are, an extension of the earth, someone who can appreciate joy and beauty, who is sensitive to struggle and suffering, but has roots deep enough to bend and come back to stretch his arms into the sky. 

the amazing bouncy-ball didn't even last a whole week. it was hurled against brick walls, thrown in the football field, squeezed, gazed at, and admired until it passed away quietly in my car on wednesday. i don't have the heart to throw it away. i feel it should be cremated or something. it's pretty funny, how certain objects are endowed and can teach you things. i will never forget this bouncy-ball.

four more weeks of school. 

LINCOLNESQUE opens in 5 days. 

today i'm going to thrift stores to get pants, shirts, shoes, and suspenders. 

barry, if you read this: i tried to send you an email but it got returned. do you have a new email address?

horoscope

my rob breszny free will astrology reading made me smile, like a mug full of unicorn giggles.

"It's high time, in my opinion, to give yourself an enormous amount of slack... to forgive yourself for not being perfect... to dissolve any guilt you feel for not having accomplished all your life goals yet. In that spirit, consider the following time-wasters: (1) Send letters to the editor about grammatical mistakes in the classified ads. (2) Make yourself the world's top expert on a person randomly chosen from the phone book. (3) Keep a logbook in your bathroom to verify that the toilet bowl cleaner really does work for 1,000 flushes. (4) Set the Guinness record for time spend reading the Guinness Book of Records."

www.freewillastrology.com

blatant thoughts

when i first started blogging i was living in northern california. i had just watched a documentary on the donner party, so i named my blog The Forlorn Hope. (that's what one of the donner party called a last ditch attempt to get over the pass and find help, which wound up being successful.) the name i went by was Stupid Idiot. the name was meant as a joke and was satisfying to me on several levels, but people didn't like it, so one day when my self-esteem was high again i changed it.

in the years i've blogged i have rarely gotten much response on anything. the posting that was most popular by far was an account i wrote of a visit to the church i was attending, a united church of christ with a very liberal and eclectic way of worshipping. a friend of mine even had it published in an online newsletter about spirituality.

i don't write the blog in order to get responses, but it is always nice to see a comment here and there.

yet at the same time there is a level of internal censorship going on. i won't share absolutely everything, somehow thinking that would be naive and potentially damaging to my image or something. (it's vague as to what exactly would be damaged.)

i have suspected that i don't trust people very much anymore. i think several experiences during my formative 20's caused me to be suspicious, and guarded about what i disclose.

i remember how great and refreshing it was to start a new phase of journaling one summer when i was in wisconsin. my summer-fling boyfriend got a hold of my journal and wrote this in it: "What we are showing for the new section is only the most blatant thoughts. Out are the discussions plagued with paranoia of the possibility of other's reading the writings. For instance writing retractions or qualifiers is very last section. Broad generalizations are in for daily activity descriptions, but specific accounts of evening activities, divulging lots of detail is very this section. Pictures are classic and therefore always in."

this was a cool guy and i spent one of the best summers of my life with him.

of course he was talking about a private journal, not a public blog. but his assertions are noble ones. why journal at all if it's full of apologies, retractions, and holding back?

advancing

our one-act play was chosen to advance to the state level last night at the region meet.

we competed against mcallen memorial, harlingen south, san antonio marshall, laredo alexander, and austin high. 

this morning i don't feel a sense of accomplishment, satisfaction, or potential. i only feel that i am naive and thick-headed. i can't find words to express what i mean by this, at the moment.

i am very happy for the kids, whom i love. 

i'm staying home

i downloaded howard jones' album human's lib. are you quietly judging me right now? during my turbulent high school junior year, this album was my refuge. i had a cassette of it. later i got the cd. later i became ashamed of it and eradicated it from my collection. now i've come back around. as i type these words it fills my ears with its synthesized goodness.

it's rainy. i'm staying home to incubate and learn as many lines as i can before tonight's rehearsal. i will go in half a day today.

favorite students 1

p. is a student who suffered last year, right around this time last year, from a tumor at the front of his brain which had to be removed. his surgery was very successful and though there were some rocky moments when we weren't sure we would see him again, or that he had changed drastically because of his surgery, he is well and pretty much almost all the way back to normal. there are ways he has changed, though-- he seems more strident in his speech, is more likely to ramble loudly, and has lost a certain edge in his personality, a kind of dry wit that used to be there that just isn't there anymore. this does not change the way i love him, he is one of my favorite people, he is generous, kind, funny, and can roll with whatever you throw him. 

e. is a student whose grade point average is somewhere around 104. last year, during her junior year, she would come into my office almost every morning just to hang out while i was checking my emails and getting ready for the school day. we started a ritual of choosing a word at random from the dictionary and putting it up on the dry erase board. she would comment on my music, or my omnipresent snack of apples and carrots, and we would name things-- starting with stuffed animals left in my office, like a stuffed dog with no nose (derek), the naming mania eventually spread all the way to incidental washers found in the black box (billy), or discarded pomettes from costumes (hillary). e. is one of my favorite people because of her steadfastness, her sharp mind, her sensitivity to and curiosity in the world around her. she asked me to attend the summa reception with her this year, which felt like being asked to the prom.

i will miss these people.

a few events

what happened today?

i had trouble getting out of bed. feeling really exhausted.

had no time for breakfast or coffee, could be responsible for my fatigue in the middle of the day, before i had a chance to have lunch.

while i was at starbucks an elderly woman pulling out of the parking lot ran into a cop on a motorcycle. though he was down, he didn't seem seriously hurt. i was more concerned about the elderly woman, who seemed stunned as she stood over the cop with her hand outstretched.

in my theatre I class, an advanced tech student named Z, who was visiting, led an improvisation game which the class loved. Z had just hours before told me he was interested in teaching as a career, and seeing him with the students made me think he would be really good at this, if he decides to do it for a living.

official

well, i have told my students that i am leaving at the end of the year. we had a big meeting. it was cathartic-- both sad and joyful. there was an outpouring of love, which i felt privileged and comforted and energized to receive. i feel sad about not being there for many of the students next year, but they were 100% supportive of my moving on.
it has been a huge couple of months-- i took six students to the harvard speech tournament (we won 8th place in duo interpretation), i went to minneapolis, i took a group to the state speech tournament (we won first place sweepstakes), competed in our zone one-act play contest (we advanced to the district level), and this past weekend i went to dallas for my nephew's wedding.
now it is spring break and i am:
relaxing
cleaning the house
doing laundry
learning my lines for the upcoming LINCOLNESQUE (opens the second weekend in may)
helping one of my students with a film he's shooting
spending quality time with friends (esp. fran and zoe)
by the way, i have finally updated the drawings blog. the drawing called "supine" had been the last one posted for way too long, but was also somehow appropriate, since the blog was a little bit asleep for a while. visit!

guthrify me

the guthrie theatre was established in the early 1960's by sir tyrone guthrie, who wanted to establish a high-quality regional theatre in the midwest.
at some point in the last few years, the guthrie moved from its old location to the warehouse district of minneapolis, into a huge and shiny new complex which includes three theatre spaces, two restaurants, two long escalators, and a host of huge portraits of world playwrights.
i had a general audition at the guthrie on friday, february 22. i auditioned for the casting director and his assistant. the following day, i was lucky enough to land an audition with the shakespeare theatre company from washington DC. i felt that i did well in both my auditions, though neither of my auditioners gave me any indication of their impressions of my work.
i was discouraged by the continuing realization that i do not have an actor's equity card, and how that might be difficult for me, considering my age and experience. but other than this actuality, i feel really good about the entire experience.
i saw a very enjoyable production of peer gynt at the guthrie, starring the magnetic and spontaneous mark rylance. i also saw a production of wendy wasserstein's last play, third.

all the me's (or maybe just some of them)

a volatility in me that sees the same picture through different eyes, depending on the chemical charges being released in my brain, from one moment to the next.
a stability in me that renders me inactive, inert, not all human.
a passion in me that has always yearned so much for others to join in, that when they didn't, it shrieked and berated them and then felt guilty.
a sadness in me that folds clothes into a suitcase, ready to pack up and go.
a compulsiveness in me that doesn't feel perfectly well unless the dishes are done, and as the laundry piles up it wonders about the mold growing under the bathtub.
a critic in me that vehemently opts out of the game then jeers from the sidelines.
a sensitivity in me that responds intuitively to noise, lies, and music.
a hunger in me that rages along the shore voraciously picking up chunks of wood and devouring them.
an aspiration in me that looks into the sun and feels tears of pleasure streaking down its face.

works

northanger abbey is one of austen's novels that was not published during her lifetime. yesterday i read about six chapters. at the end of chapter five, she launches into a parenthetical statement about the bad rap that novels get and how no one will ever admit when they're reading one. maybe it was just me, but after that, chapter six seemed to take on an affected tone. i put the book back on the shelf. i will pick it up again soon.
last night i watched a really good film by kon ichikawa, called the burmese harp. it is about a troupe of japanese soldiers in burma at the end of WWII. through an odd series of events, the soldiers learn that the war is over and that japan has surrendered, and they surrender to the british troupes that are in the same village. soon, they hear of a japanese division that is refusing to surrender, a half-day's walk away, in a mountain; and one of the soldiers, who has a certain higher level of finesse, is asked to go persuade them to give themselves up. since japan has surrendered, their continued fighting is helping no one. so the soldier goes. and the story unfolds from there.
i really liked the composition in the film, the way the shots were set up. in an interview afterwards, kon ichikawa says he wanted to be a painter, which makes sense. there is beautiful use of light and balance on the screen. also, the story is very emotional.

reading

i wake up today wanting to read.
the computer has damaged my ability and availability to read.
i'm going to open up a tome of jane austen.
apparently i was one of the only kids in my first grade class who already knew how to read.
my mom says it's because of my good brain, but i know it's "the electric company"'s fault.
when i was in second grade i told the teacher's assistant that i wanted to be a writer.
i do love words.
(the teacher's assistant was this really pretty tall redhead named miss wood. once when i wasn't feeling well i went to the front of the class and told her. she felt my forehead and said, "oh baby, you're burning up!" i was immediately in love. somehow i kept in touch with her and when i was in fifth grade, got a note from her that i kept. she'd gotten married by then, which made me feel a little dejected, and at the end of the note, she asked, "do you still want to be a writer?" ...it's the only evidence i have that i'd declared that wish as early as second grade.)

skeezix

i have been enjoying joe jackson's new album, rain. though joe's face has looked strange to me for about ten years now (i think he must have gotten an eyelift or a cheektuck or something), his voice is unmarred by the years-- still youthful, wild and longing. love him.
yesterday i painted a portrait of george washington on a backdrop for the music man. i copied it from a dollar. i think it turned out pretty good. i'm going to try to remember to take a photograph of it today and i'll post it on my drawings blog. i feel a little bad about the drawings blog lately because i haven't had any new drawings to post. but never fear, another burst of drawings will eventually emerge. (flock of geese, murder of crows, burst of drawings...?)

squeal

FINALLY it's february. i think january might be my least favorite month of the year. i've never been crazy about august, because of the heat and the impending going-back-to-school feeling of it, but january just always takes forever to get through, it seems like.
i went to sleep last night around 9:30, quite early for me, and as a result had very little trouble (although i'm telling you my eyes are weird lately) waking up. i made my stock breakfast-- banana, yogurt and granola, to which i have added a tablespoon of flax oil and, as a result of my recent visit to the grocery store, fresh raspberries. all this immersed in a huge vat of day-old coffee to get those gears shiftin' for my day.
this is going to be a busy month and i'm looking forward to every single minute of it.

misread?

tonight as i was leaving school i looked at the marquee. something's up with my eyes. i had my glasses on.
the marquee said:
CONGRATS V CHEER
NATIONAL CHAMPS.

but i read it like this:
CONGRATS V CHEER
NATURAL CHIMPS.

i'm not lying!

at any moment...

here in san antonio it's a cold, damp martin luther king jr. day.
i slept last night from around 10 pm to 1 am, then was wide awake. after flipping through my beloved iPod for a while, i remembered i had two big bins full of laundry to do. so i packed up the car and drove down to the neighborhood 24-hour laundromat, a building on the same property where there used to be a mr. gatti's pizza, just across the street from where i went to high school and where i now work.
the laundromat was almost empty. it was around 3 am. two other men were there. i sat on the counter and listened to music. i watched my clothes and bedsheets tumble. and to think, i used to eat pizza here.
this past week i turned in my written resignation to my principal. i am moving on. nothing terrible has happened, no bitter betrayal or unresolvable power struggle. i am not getting kicked out or run out of town, like so many drama teachers you hear about these days. i have decided to move on, and to pursue my acting career. i have hesitated to write about this on the blog for fear that the news would get back around to my students before i get to tell them myself. i think the chances of that happening are extremely low; however, if you, reading this, have any contact with my current students, i ask that you exercise discretion and keep this under your hat until i have a chance to talk to them myself, which will probably be sometime in april.
in february i am going to a general audition at the guthrie theatre in minneapolis. i got this opportunity because a bigwig at the guthrie came to my school in december to audition some of the seniors for the actor training program there. somehow i had the unmitigated gall and gumption to ask him for an audition; somehow he had the grace to say, "sure, i can set that up." the rest is falling into place: the theatre offered to let me stay in their artist housing; i bought my plane ticket; i printed out a new resume; i'm putting an audition together. it is a truly thrilling way to kick off this new phase of my acting career.
when you know you're leaving a place, your entire perspective on the place changes. in some ways i'm more engaged now in my work at school, and with the students, knowing that these are my last few months with them. but in other ways i am already gone. it's a difficult place to be in, balancing between the end of one section of my life and the beginning of a new one. i have gotten some wonderful and surprising reactions from colleagues, all of them positive, that exhorted me to go for it, follow my dream, pursue my passion. and i've had only a handful of moments of doubt, all of them short-lived-- they were literally over in a matter of seconds. i haven't felt this sure about something in a long time, probably since i decided to move back to texas back in 2003. so to have extra support from people i work with has just reinforced my decision even more.
it is scary, in a way, but the scariness doesn't compare to the excitement. beyond the particulars of the situation, what's deeply exciting to me is the knowledge i have in my heart that it is time to move on-- this conviction. and then beyond that, the ability to move on-- the energy, the initiative, the follow-through, which already feels like a victory to me.
ps. to fran: i love you!!

arrivee en portland

i spent the day after christmas with my brother and sister-in-law (we enjoyed juno) and that night we ate at paesano's. at some point i picked up something nasty because the following morning i couldn't stop ralphing. no, not 'rolfing,' providing deep tissue massage; ralphing. barfing. vomiting. worshiping the porcelain goddess. thankfully, none of my fellow family members were ill, so it must not have been paesano's. but it was icky. and after the ralphing was done, there was still a lot of damage to recover from.
on the 29th i went to portland to stay with friend beth who recently moved there. it was lovely, rainy, verdant, cold. my appetite had by that time returned so i ate a delicious reuben sandwich; my stomach however was still replenishing its natural processing fluids and as a result had some difficulty digesting. i spent most of the 30th in a kind of drawn-to-the-toilet frenzy, emitting something that looked suspiciously like pond water. by the evening of the 30th i was weak and dazed enough to thoroughly non-enjoy a sushi dinner. when beth said she could feel my self-hatred radiating across the table, i reacted sourly. it was a dark day in portland.
but when i awoke on the 31st, glory hallelujah. my energy was restored. my stomach was functioning. my eyes were filled with light and my gratitude soared up into the blue sky. beth and i walked to a cool little cafe called anna bannana for steamed eggs and oatmeal and one of the most delicious soy lattes i've ever had. then we drove to beth's friends' place in milwaukie (just outside of portland) to check on their frail kitty. then we walked around on a little island just outside their back door, an island in the willamette. then we drove to tryon state park and walked in the woods for an hour or two. i'll post pictures soon, but walking in tryon state park was like being immersed in the life-giving moisture of a woodland bloodstream. after my bout with digestive gnarliness, the trees and ferns and sheer green of the woods were the most thorough healing balm i could have asked for.
by the time we got out of the woods, it was around 4 pm. beth and i ate an early dinner at a mexican/salvadorean restaurant in milwaukie. we had homemade pupusas, tamales, salvadorean guacamole (made with onion, garlic and egg) and fried plaintains. it was heaven. we also drank celebratory margaritas. i consider it our official new year celebration.
other things we did: walked up the hill to the park where the rose garden is; ate pizza with beth's friend kristen; went to powell's; talked in french accents to strangers; had long discussions with each other. beth's my oldest close friend... we've been pals now for 21.5 years!
next time, i'm going to tell you about something else going on in my life that's exciting.
i bet you can't wait.
hello?
hello?
echo!