tendencies

of how much use is incessant nostalgia?

i am a victim of sentimentality.

recently i decided to make a playlist of nostalgic songs i associate with my brother and our childhoods. we used to go into this pool room at the place where we swam. the pool room was, i think, a breakroom for staff, but no one was ever in there. my brother had a knack for finding out about places that other people didn't know about. this was one of them.

there was a jukebox in there. i remember these songs playing.

jambalaya (on the bayou) by hank williams -- we wondered what "fille gumbo" was and sometimes called each other "fille gumbo" if in a fightin' mood;

i shot the sherriff by bob marley -- my brother would go on to be a complete reggae fanatic, even traveling to jamaica in his early 20's;

me and julio down by the schoolyard by paul simon -- which remains my favorite paul simon song and one of the few songs that loses no emotional punch as i grow older;

low rider by war -- sticks on bottles and the deepest groove.

count on me by jefferson airplane -- that country piano at the beginning always reminds me of "behind closed doors" by charlie rich, but this song is so much better, and kind of a perfect 70's love song.

then there are other songs that remind me of our house growing up.

rock the boat by hues corporation -- i remember doing a dance to this and making my brother laugh... the difference was that i was laughing too;

i wish by stevie wonder -- there are so many stevie wonder songs that qualify for nostalgic gems, but this one holds sway over all the others for some reason;

nothin' but a heartache by michael mcdonald -- all us thornton boys were doobie brothers fans, and felt some special affinity for michael's dog-like howling voice;

moondance by cat stevens -- i remember hearing this on the radio in the car on the way to new braunfels once, and singing it to sarah kate, our younger cousin, when we finally got to thanksgiving, or christmas, or whatever family function it was we were attending;

coming up by paul mccartney -- not his best, possibly his worst, but dang i loved it when it came out, that jangly guitar and those silly high vocals;

monster mash by bobby "boris" pickett and the crypt-kickers -- when i was 7 or 8 i got a free transistor when my dad opened a savings account for me... the radio was little, round and white, and it never picked up shit. then one day we were standing in front of our house, on the sidewalk, and this came on, and it was the best song i had ever, ever heard.

there are other songs too.

now that i am over 40 i am afraid that making cds for people is a patently childish thing to keep doing, so i am debating with myself whether or not to make a cd for my brother for christmas. he once told me that if he doesn't like even one song on a cd, he won't listen to it. so i have been selecting carefully. but i am leaning toward the feeling that i probably won't risk it at all.

in any case, it has been a lot of fun for me to revisit these memory-soaked tunes.

good weather

i was walking every day before the beastly summer descended... and DIDN'T GO AWAY.

till now.

yesterday, fall, finally.

took a walk to trade some dvds in.

headphones playing 'bitte orca' by the dirty projectors.

thoughts of ingmar bergman controlling the lighting for his interview, suggesting he interview the interviewer instead.

bright blue sky. breeze.

to walk with hands in pockets, or swinging free? a little of both.

tromped across a grassy field.

on the way back, a poor woman collecting fallen pecans.

following the brackenridge park train tracks to mulberry.

as the train passed, waving to the few kids inside.

a dog hanging out by the river.

two guys fishing.

one of those empty lots with a concrete foundation in it. did a house used to be there? did they pour the foundation and run out of money? would be a good place to shoot a music video.

passing firetruck.

boyfriend calls. "where are you?"

walking home. almost home.

feng shui?

life-changing event #3,771:

i rearranged my room today, effectively opening up an entire corner of the room that was being neglected.

it's like the room is breathing differently. i like it a LOT.

photo shoot

this is me as of one week ago, standing in front of the wall across the street from our house.

week's events

it's been a very busy week for me.

david has been in denver, helping his mom move and seeing friends.

i went in to get labs done, including an X-ray (i'm not sure why, i guess my doctor ordered it).

i got a haircut. i had a photo session with my nephew (for resume pictures).

i drove 2 hours to smithville texas, where i was a special guest speaker in my friend lisa's 7th grade Teen Leadership class. she likes to shake the class up sometimes, so she had me pose as a person who had at one time been homeless, to see how the kids would react. so i came up with a whole backstory and stayed in character all day. the kids were very respectful (at least to my face) and after the first class "performance" i got a pang of guilt. it felt a little wrong to be manipulating them that way, inherently dishonest. and they bought into it so completely. and yet something about that character i was playing, this man whose life is not much like mine at all, came out of me quite organically, and therefore felt quite honest. lisa said the kids were talking about it all the next day and wanted to send me letters and presents. all in all i take it as a great (if voyeuristic) life experience, and a valuable acting experience as well.

i went to three southside high schools to work with students on scholarship monologues. these are students with not many resources (in some cases, hardly even a teacher to count on) but who remind me that the world is much bigger than my usual beaten path.

i had lunch with two good friends and dinner with two good friends, where we watched rufus wainwright's new concert video done in milwaukee. i thought rufus camped it up a bit too much but then i realized... i think that was the point. he looked especially gorgeous in drag.

today i was going to go to two more southside schools, and i was going to see a play, but i felt sick all day, headachy and sore throaty. so i stuck around home drinking Emergen-C and gargling with salt water. i also thought of fran when i took some oscillococcinum. just in case.

boxes

my friend barry wrote something that rings true for me.

Thinking outside of the box is something we must do every day of our life as we are constantly creating new boxes for ourselves. Even the ones we feel comfortable in are best served by our examining them for restrictive qualities. Stimulus is our best asset in helping us to get out of our own way. It can come in millions of forms limited only by our antennae and willingness to receive.

cars

yesterday my dad helped me finance a new car. it's not a new car. it's from 1996. it looks like this. i like it because it is smooth and reliable. it is sort of like gliding in a silver cloud. i feel invisible in it.

this article says you can tell a lot about a person by the car they drive. they don't mention the mercury grand marquis. only porsches, hondas, mini coopers... kind of a stupid article actually. but i was thinking about that question as i drove home from kerrville yesterday. i was thinking, what does this car say about me? that i want to disappear into the background? that i crave practicality? or simply that i am poor and had to rely on my dad to choose a sensible car for me? this last option seems most accurate.

my old car looks like this, except much less shiny and with more dents and rusty spots. it has a lot of character. but character only goes so far when you can't rely on it.

rage of murk

my alma mater has just sent me a postcard announcing an "alumni weekend" at the end of the month. why did they just now send me this, on october 7th? 2010 will mark 20 years since i graduated. what about our 20-year reunion? i mean isn't that sort of something special that should be organized and done right? i am not interested in some sort of general "alumni weekend" that i get a POSTCARD for, THREE WEEKS BEFORE IT HAPPENS!

i have always said i would never go to my high school reunions, but would be interested in a college one.

perhaps instead, next spring, i'll go visit ET in W-S and we'll just have our own private reunion. that way i won't have to worry about certain people in my class gloating about how successful they've been.

i feel crappy today. i'm hot, and my car isn't working, and i have no money.

no one in my class would gloat. that's a statement rising out of my current crappy mood, which manifests as bitter insecurity.

i'm walking to have lunch with my old high school drama teacher soon. we've been meeting for lunch every wednesday. we have great talks and there's a lot of love. there's a turn up.

my cat left a roach on the floor of my room for me this morning.

i watched a 50-minute documentary on frank zappa and the making of "apostrophe/overnite sensation." he is inspiring for these reasons:

prolific

unflinching

knew what he wanted to do

did it on his own

reverence for absurdity

incisive and intelligent

demanded excellence

today i feel like flailing on the ground, flailing on the wooden floor so hard that i would break a hole through the floor, then flail through the foundation, then flail through the earth and just keep flailing until i wanted to flail no more. somehow i feel the need to break free or release something. it's a murky sort of rage inside.

what a storm can do

last night, late, one of the most aggressive thunderstorms i have ever experienced. the lightning was so bright, it really looked as if someone were standing on the roof of our house flashing a bright white light on the garage in back, in successive flashes, 3-5 seconds apart, for at least 40 minutes. the thunder so raging and aggressive, sounding like iron gurneys being slammed onto the floor of the sky and rolled angrily to crash against a very nearby wall.

when it first woke me up it was splendid, because it's great being witness to a raucous thunderstorm, especially if it's in the middle of the night. there's a romance to it. david and i uttered our various "wow"s and "goddamn"s. but as it went on and did not decrease but rather seemed to increase in intensity, i began to sense my utter insignificance. how i could be ripped to shreds, smothered, snapped like a twig by nature, without a second thought.

it wasn't like a woody allen "i'm dying!" existential crisis, but there was a shuddering-in-the-corner-peering-out-into-the-void feeling about it. it made me think that i do not live as if i could die at any moment-- i have way too many possessions, for one thing. who do i think i'm fooling, with all those books?! that was one of the thoughts. another was that i really should clean up, because if the house were ripped in half by lightning, i would be ashamed about all the unneeded muss and detritus when the rescue cleanup crew came.

and also, where's the urgency in my life? where's the fire under my ass? in what way am i manifesting the rage of lightning inside of me?

normal

it's the first day of october. i like the next three months. when i was teaching i didn't like january. but i think i'll like it this year.

the other day i got a call from my old boss at the school district. the man who took over my teaching position is quitting due to marital stress and personal problems. i would like to talk to him and find out the true story, but i don't know him well enough to approach him with those questions.

it's not really cooler today, to reflect the change of month, but the heat has... eased up a little, let's put it that way.

i met with an agent and am going to sign with him for a year. i am really excited about this and have a good feeling about the agent.

i have been listening to ben folds' "way to normal" and liking it.

sunday quiet house

one of the devastating things about life is that such high and full hopes can be so quickly obliterated.

in relationships, though you may have huge vats of love for each other, a few nagging issues may ruin everything.

in other news...

today i walked along the refurbished north end of the riverwalk. it is, in a word, cool. there are many beautiful plants and flowers, exquisite landscaping. there are interesting under-bridge artworks, like large suspended fish and piped-in birdsong that echoes. there are terraces, benches, pagodas. it is beautiful. as the weather mildens (that's a word i just made up meaning "to become mild"), i will be spending more time on that new riverwalk branch, strolling, perhaps jotting down a note or two, maybe finding time to make a sketch.

conking

for the past several weeks my car has been on the verge of conking out.

is mercury in retrograde?

one morning david and i went to the bank and as we were pulling out of the parking lot onto the busy street we lost power. though i was pressing the accelerator, the car was sputtering and hesitating. luckily we made it into the median. we decided then and there immediately to go to stan's (remember--my polish mechanic?). stan looked at it, made a simple adjustment (something having to do with RPMs), and the car is working normally again.

i still love stan.

the aforementioned play, which i saw last night in austin, was a sort of rock opera fantasia with a lot of weird names. i went in with an open mind. i appreciated all the thought and hard work that went into it. but it wasn't my kind of thing. basically it boiled down to a lot of people singing dissonantly onstage in heavy makeup and costumes, the subject of their singing being power struggles and exotic names of potential destinations. beautiful lighting. well-funded. they must have a good grant writer...?

joan armatrading is blasting in the dining room. though the volume is a little much for me, i am grateful for a boyfriend who loves her as much as i do.

in the middle of our talk

marc finally called me and my phone conked out. it won't let me use it until it is charged to a certain capacity, i guess? anyway, sorry marc, i'll call you back when my phone is working again.

last night we walked to emily's for wine and project runway. it was fun. we snuggled with the puppies. on the walk home i danced in the street gaily. very gaily. it was a good release for me.

last week my external hard drive conked out. i was able to transfer all the information on it to a new hard drive. i have spent the past week organizing all the music on it. all the music is organized according to artist, except soundtracks, showtunes and compilations, all of which are organized by title of movie/show/compilation/person who made compilation.

compilation. compilation. compulsion. compulsion. compulsion.

i told beth i was spending time organizing my music on my external hard drive and she said, "it's sort of like your form of gardening. weeding, reorganizing, you're not getting enough light over here so i'll move you." she was right. it is like that.

tonight i am going with a friend to austin to watch a play called "the dragonfly queen."

bike satisfaction

in order to make the dream come sort of true, and to honor that cool guy i was riding bikes with in my dream, i walked my bike to the gas station and filled the tires and took a great lil' bike ride yesterday. i rode on down mccullough and turned right on east dewey, then left on ogden and stopped by david's old apartment, whose parking lot is now clean and paved. (that parking lot used to be so disgusting-- we think guys used to go there after the gay bars and get busy, because we'd always see used condoms lying around everywhere. one night david saw a guy naked in his car there.) then i continued on down ogden to the little park behind the gay bars and i circled around it (there were a few kids playing on the swingset and a couple of moms sitting at a table), then back onto ogden, took a right on locust and went all the way down to st. mary's, by the enchilada warehouse. at that corner there was a cab van waiting for someone in front of a house. he was on the phone shaking his head and gesturing toward the house. i went on past him all the way up st. mary's, which was almost deserted, to east craig, took a left and i was home. wow, it was a beautiful day, with huge clearly-defined clouds billowing in a cool blue sky.

me being with me

i dreamt that i was riding bikes with myself. i was me, and i was riding bikes with another guy that was me. and he was a really cool person to be with.

the psychological implications are almost insultingly overt.

nonetheless, in the dream, i realized the beauty of the situation, and how much i liked being with me, and i started sobbing out of pure joy. it was very moving. i was surprised when i awoke that i hadn't actually started crying in my sleep.

nine-nine-nine

it's september 9, 2009.

there may be logistical problems with president obama's policies. there may be financial conundrums he can't solve. maybe he has made too many concessions to the right. his health care plan may be criticized as a grab-bag of policies.

but what is most important to me about him is the direct human element he brings to an office i had grown up being at best indifferent to, at worst cynical about. what i mean by 'direct human element' is that it seems to me our president cares about people and people's issues. it seems he really has people's welfare in mind. in listening to past presidents, i found myself straining to understand them, relate to them, decipher them; i always wondered what ulterior motives they had. with president obama, it never crosses my mind-- for some reason, i trust him completely. when i listen to him, i understand. i agree. i am inspired.

i am still thrilled and inspired that barack obama is our president.

angst

i'm not exactly sure what happened last night.

when i first decided to quit teaching and focus on acting and directing, several people told me it was a risk. but the ones i remember said it in a tone of exhortation, like, "that takes balls!"

last night nothing happened, but as i was sitting there my framework seemed to gradually slip away and i experienced a profound terror, as if everything around me had suddenly revealed its true nature, and its true nature was much more shallow and mean than i had led myself to believe.

maybe i wandered out to the edge of the cliff and didn't realize it.

maybe i had too much wine (2 glasses?).

i am the kind of person who thinks that events have resonance beyond their visible action. but i don't know how to interpret this event.

i have so many desires and so much to give. yet i am crouching in the corner with my blankie.

it could have been just another coming of age moment where i am forced to grow up real quick-- like ripping the bandage off. it's less painful that way, finally.

bullet points

first: it doesn't take much to inspire someone. my more frequent blog updates are inspired in part by someone else's more frequent blog updates, which enrich my life.

second: i watched bunuel's 1977 film 'that obscure object of desire' the other day, and i liked it. it is the story of a rich man who falls in love/lust with his maid. the entire movie is spent with him pursuing her and her leading him on. all framed by the man telling the story to some strangers on a train. it is based on an old novel and was done as a silent film, i guess in the 20's? three clips of the original silent film are included on the criterion dvd.

third: as a kid, i loved to repeat phrases over and over, often applying a sing-song layer to the phrase. this made me an almost unbearable child, especially to my older brother, who must have wanted to strangle me after hearing me repeat "come...on...lar-ry, give... val... tro-phy" the 689th time. little did i know, however, that in becoming an adult actor, i would draw on my love of repetition to such a large extent. yesterday i did my first ever taping of a commercial for HEB. the commercials will not be shown on TV, but at an HEB pharmaceuticals convention. (HEB is a big grocery store chain in texas.) the three commercials i am doing (i did two yesterday and will do the third one on thursday) are spoofs of popular commercials for GEICO, swiffer mops, and verizon wireless. though they are not particularly creative or innovative in themselves, i had a blast doing them because of the sheer repetition. to do the same 30 seconds of text + action over and over 10 times? love it. also, the guys i was working with were cool and very relaxed, which made it even more enjoyable. so i have officially embarked upon my film career now. the repetition king is here, so watch out!

fourth: this morning our cat was jumping up on us in bed and meowing very insistently. she was using different techniques of meow, soft and whiny, loud and alarming. eventually i got up and followed her very excited trot into the kitchen. she had placed a dead roach right next to her food bowl at some point in the early morning hours. i can only assume it was a gift for us, because when i thanked her and stroked her she purred and began to eat her food, and didn't meow at us again.

revelation lunches

i have great lunches sometimes with people who inspire me. or, to be more precise, the communion between us inspires me. we talk about ideas, like synchronicity: yesterday, ben said he was at a friend's lake house, walking up from the shore and feeling sad and blah. suddenly he felt a sort of exciting streak of fear pass through him. he stopped walking and looked up behind him and a shooting star went streaking across the sky. he said "i'm sure it didn't mean anything, a lot of other people probably saw the same star and thought it meant something," and i said, "of course it meant something, you were the link between the star and your thought that gave it meaning."

during these lunches we talk about people who make things, about the therapy of making things, about the value of the process versus the product, about sitting and being still. we talk about breathing through the nostrils and how that practice makes time a relative element. we talk about physical awareness and how someone could sit for twenty minutes just focusing on their legs.

i love these lunches. i love being productive. i am struggling, i am perfectly content.

we talk about letting go of addictions, about surrendering to pure being and feeling what we feel, not trying to fill in any cravings but sitting with them. all these things touch on the ends of my nerves and travel through my body like electric impulses. it is fun to have these discussions. putting the ideas into practice is a little more challenging. can i sit with myself? can i overcome the addictions i have mindlessly fostered? of course i can.

i focus on a voice, my breath, my legs. i hear machinery roaring on the street. my cat calls out for me.

the dump(lings) of theatre

in total, i made over 350 little russian dumplings this weekend. that's the most i've ever made in one sitting. i had promised beth i'd wear a babooshka while making them, but forgot. i made the lame concession that i was wearing a babooshka of the soul. which, in some sense, i was.

it's good to drink beers while making pelmeni. so i think i probably drank 6 or 7 beers throughout the course of saturday's session, building up my alcohol level considerably for the party on sunday. by the time the party rolled around, though i was having occasional bouts of black-out, i was up and awake and non-vomiting till 3 am.

the show was received in a manner better than was expected. we sold out half the performances and made about 15 thousand dollars. even better, people who had never seen a chekhov play done and had misapprehensions about the viability of such a play were, i think, pleasantly surprised at the outcome. my favorite compliment was from a seasoned director named mary r., who said that we brought the play into present time.

she didn't mean we set the play in 2009, but that we made it relevant for contemporary audiences. for this i am deeply gratified.

in other news...

the annual theatre award ceremony that a certain slice of san antonio engages in is coming up in september, and the plays that have been nominated for honors were announced today. david and i were disappointed to see that THE GOAT was not nominated for anything. as far as i'm concerned, it was the best all-around theatre experience i've had, ever, in san antonio-- from quality of script to direction to fellow actors to tech support to design. so it's kind of a crock when that happens.

it's weird-- you work so hard on something and you pour so much of yourself into it, yet you just never know how it's going to be received. but like i told my students, if you're in theatre, you can never really believe what anyone tells you-- all you can rely on is how you feel about it, and even then, be wary... :-)

pel-o-rama

i made 280 dumplings yesterday, some of which david and i immediately boiled and ate. today we will make more. not sure how many people will come over tonight, but wouldn't want to run out.

quick demo.

ya stroyu zamki iz piska

for the closing of UNCLE VANYA, we will be having a pelmeni party at our house.

pelmeni are russian dumplings, traditionally made with ground beef. i use ground turkey and also spice it up with a lot of garlic and dill. they are served with sour cream and butter, and maybe a dash of vinegar, for that special edge. it's the one dish i know how to make, and i love making it, and i have sort of altered the recipe to my taste over the years...

i may start making them today... make a few batches today and freeze them, make a few batches tomorrow and freeze them, so that we'll have a huge quantity of pelmeni by the time sunday evening rolls around.

we will also get a lot of cucumbers and slice them thinly. sprinkle them with some salt, chopped dill and a little sour cream, voila, salad.

i have been putting together a music playlist for the party. it's mostly jazz, with some tom waits, seu jorge, boris grebenschikov and bjork thrown in.

vanya pics

pictures of our production of UNCLE VANYA:

Go to flickr.com and search lightswerve. It will tell you no matches were found. Click the word people, then lightswerve, and there they’ll be. Right click and save whatever you want. There are some really stunning ones.

backstage wonderings

for today's matinee i watched UNCLE VANYA from backstage. as i've mentioned before, i like seeing the entrances and exits and all the routines the actors and crew have fallen into. something is so satisfying to me about that aspect of the theatre-- the routine of it, how all these little pieces come together to make a well-oiled machine.

i find myself wondering what russians would think of this production.

i wonder if chekhov would like it.

yet again

another review.

this morning we were on Great Day S.A., one of those morning shows where girls chat about stuff. we did a little interview with the host and john & emily did a short scene from the first act of the play. the other guests on the show were a jazz quartet and some people made up for a zombie movie.

jazz,

zombies,

and uncle vanya.

my brain is synapsing to find hidden meanings and connections.

know what you want!

our production of UNCLE VANYA opens tonight. we have all worked so hard on it.

it's an interesting phenomenon: during rehearsal there was a constant sense of discovery, play, and spontaneity which made me feel like we were doing something very fresh and even edgy with this 1896 play. but when we got into the theatre and into set and costumes, the play took on a very traditional, conservative vibe. it was quite distressing for me. the set and costumes are both quite beautiful and add a certain weight of legitimacy to the play, but i could see the actors struggling under that weight to regain the identities we'd established during rehearsals-- those fresh, spontaneous people now heavily costumed and walking on hard, echoey platforms. as rehearsals continued, the actors acclimated and i began to see them shining through the set and costumes again, weren't overwhelmed by them. still, the technical elements are a little stiff, and i mark it as a lesson to remember in the future: know what you want! that age-old nugget of wisdom. know what you want.

here's a critical but well-written review.

fluid conveyor

a conduit.

the woman who ran the group home said it was called "stemming." i've never heard it referred to as such since. it was when one of the guys would start rocking rhythmically, or repeating a certain sound or motion or activity over and over again. i understand those guys. as i'm sitting on my bed right now, in the record texas heat, it feels good to move from the waist up in a circular motion. not because of the heat, but just because.

my boyfriend is making a russian "olivier" salad in the kitchen. we're taking it to a vodka party fundraiser for UNCLE VANYA tomorrow. this is a salad that i had many times while in russia, but never had the proper recipe for. it has potatoes, egg, ham, turkey, pickles, peas, onion, mayo, garlic. it is made up of simple ingredients but combines into a heavenly experience.

rehearsals for UNCLE VANYA could not be going better. we have been productive and i have been able to strike a balance between allowing the actors to play freely and providing them with a modicum of structure. so far it has been thrilling and fulfilling. everyone is the right age for his or her role. i have a girl of 22 playing sonya and a woman of 88 playing marina. it's wonderful. it is also helping me feel empowered about my abilities as a director, because i am directing both young as well as seasoned actors, and we all actually seem to be enjoying the experience! imagine that!

i have been enjoying music by a band called why?. the album i have is called "alocepia," which is the technical term for male baldness. the singer's voice sounds sometimes like they might be giants, but the music has darker subject matter. i have especially been enjoying one song called "fatalist palmistry," the first line of which is as follows: "I sleep on my back, 'cause it's good for the spine, and coffin rehearsal." one day i sang that line over and over in my car.

last night david and i went to the overtime theatre and saw an original show (they do only original/san antonio-based material there) called BUDDHA SWINGS!. it was a musical in 40's swing style telling the story of the buddha. i found it quite smile-inducing and joy-bringing, and it even made me want to go read up on his story myself.

last weekend we saw a play at AtticRep called BLACKBIRD. it is by scottish playwright david harrower. it was about a man and woman meeting in a trashy break room to talk, and as their talk unfolds you learn that the two of them had an intimate relationship when he was 40 and she was 12. he went to prison for 10 years and this play begins when she shows up unexpectedly at his workplace. it was a very complex, sad, sympathetic and ultimately devastating story.

i am reading a collection of short stories called HOW WE ARE HUNGRY by dave eggers. i am liking it a lot. i realize i like it because i think of things from it during the day, like how one character thinks another character over-romanticizes the idea of living abroad.

david and i liked the movie AWAY WE GO a lot.

i have been experimenting with pen and india ink.

my car is in the shop till tomorrow to get an oil leak and a door fixed.

take me out

looks like we sort of pulled it off. go figure.

(though san antonio theatre critics are known to be milquetoasty.)

follow-up

opening weekend went surprisingly well.

the replacement actor completely changed the atmosphere among the actors. he didn't do it intentionally; he is just such a different person that the change happened naturally. the mood lightened and it seemed everyone started having a lot more fun. 

i know i did.

just so you know...

THE GOAT closed and was a pleasure from start to finish.

now i'm in another play, a fun and insightful look at baseball, homophobia, racism and friendship called TAKE ME OUT. the production has been somewhat poorly organized from the beginning, and this past week it manifested a big piece of doo-doo.

the guy playing the lead, who was severely miscast and had chronic trouble remembering what we had done in rehearsal each previous night, WALKED QUIETLY OUT OF REHEARSAL AND DROVE AWAY IN HIS CAR... A WEEK BEFORE WE OPEN. he texted the stage manager, "i can't do this. i need out."

those of us left in the theatre sat stunned. some with incredulous smiles, some with angry grimaces, some simply flummoxed. the next day this annoying person who quit wrote us all an e-mail stating that he disagreed with the nudity in the play and the way the nudity was being dealt with. (the play features baseball players in shower scenes, and the nudity is valid because it clearly illustrates the vulnerability these macho men feel, both as men and as baseball players, in light of their teammate's recent outing of himself to the press.) this excuse put forth by the annoying person who quit was a complete fabrication and a flimsy one at that, to cover the fact that he couldn't retain any information about his blocking, entrances and exits, or even his intentions as a character within the play. what's more, he came to his final rehearsal high on pain killers, after some invasive 'surgery' the day before. quotation marks very intentional.

so he left.

oh my god, i thought. what's going to happen? i thought, "if he comes back, i don't know what i'll do. i'm so appalled and disgusted by his behavior, and my character is supposed to have a crush on his character... i won't be able to maintain onstage with him. i'll sneer, or maybe vomit!"

but what happened is good:

someone who has played the role before has been enlisted, for a moderate fee. he has come from out of town to bail us out of this problem. and he's right for the role! he's the right age, the right ethnicity, and a good actor to work with! 

so, whew. drama!

we open friday. i'll post a report (regardless of whether or not anyone even reads this anymore).

new albums

i met my brother in austin on monday. we met at waterloo records and i purchased leonard cohen's new one, 'live in london,' which is the kind of concert recording you sit and luxuriate in, smiling lazily and maybe occasionally wistfully singing along for a strain or two. so satisfying. i also found a new recording of van morrison singing the entire 'astral weeks' album in concert. it is also beautiful, and contains the lyrics, which i hadn't remembered reading before. 

Little Jimmy's gone

Away out on the back street

Out of the window

To the fallen rain

Right on time, right on time

though the lyrics aren't surprising and pretty much match what i had in my head, it still seems like a small revelation to read them, after just listening all these years.

after waterloo, my brother and i had mexican food and then went to stubb's, where we saw gomez, a rock band originally from the UK. they were great and a little too loud (have my ears grown more sensitive with age, or am i just now noticing it?). mostly it was just fun being at a concert with my brother, whom i love.

i'm in another play, 'take me out,' which opens a week from today. it is perhaps the most ill-prepared production i've ever been a part of. the two leads are still very much on book, the production values are haphazard, the director seems blissfully ignorant. i can't understand how he's not frantic and humiliated at this point. i don't enjoy being a part of it, but as i said to fran today, i am opting to see the experience as a challenge and adventure. everything's for a reason.

kyogen details

my first exposure to the japanese kyogen was with KITUS. we did an interpretation of 'the fox mound' as part of our moun-tain extravaganza carnivore (the one we performed in 110 degree heat at rehoboth art league, complete with fur coats, while people were dying in philadelphia and chickens were suffocating in their cages surrounding the schoolhouse). 

when i was asked to work with the 5th graders at my alma mater, st. luke's episcopal school, i was told that the previous year, the entire play had consisted of a bicentennial parade. i didn't want to do something baby-ish, but i knew that there needed to be a sense of play about the production. i was very excited when, one slightly inebriated evening on my front porch, the idea of the kyogen popped into my mind.

back in the 14th century, these short comedic plays were used as intermission material between Noh plays, as a sort of refresher for the audience, so that they could get some laughs out before coming back for another epic tragedy. most of the kyogen deal with people playing tricks on each other, and most of them end with one character becoming enraged and chasing another, shouting "don't let him get away! catch him! catch him!"

i made sure the kids knew that whenever they heard the phrase "catch him," they were supposed to shout the second "catch him!" in unison, and with great volume and energy. that part worked really well.

another thing that was fun was using the kids as objects. i have always loved the american tradition of playing an inanimate object as a child. ask people you know, many of them will say, "oh, i've never been in a play, except for that time i played a doorknob in 2nd grade." stuff like that. so i made these 5th graders play doors, trees, tables, fences. that was fun.

they did an amazingly good job with the language, as well, which at times was pretty challenging-- sentences like "I am a wealthy landowner who dwells in this vicinity."

we set up the stage so that there was a red carpet coming out to make an aisle down from the stage into the middle of the audience, which led to a sort of pagoda-like umbrella at the far end of the audience. so that the action was more integrated into the audience. i think that helped a lot. 

costumes were basic accessories on top of a black t-shirt/pants base. lots of hats and jackets. 

it was fun.

week in review

it was a big and satisfying week for me.

on monday the 25th i met my sister at rudy's in leon springs for a little post-birthday lunch. i got to hang out with my sister and brother-in-law a little, and after that i went to st. luke's for our final dress rehearsal of the kyogen plays. though the rehearsal was predictably chaotic, with kids coming and going at all hours and not an optimum level of concentration, i had already decided to take it easy and roll with the punches, and it all went fine.

on tuesday the 26th i stayed at st. luke's pretty much the whole day. we had a rehearsal in the morning from 9:30 to 11:15. i set up the parish hall while kids were having lunch. at 2:30 we did a show for students and parents. after the show we had pizza and japanese sodas and talked about the performance. then we did a speed-through. then it was time for our 6:00 performance. it went well, the kids were adorable. though i wished we'd had more time to work on things, i think the bottom line is that the kids had a great time and will remember the experience, overall, positively. that evening i met scott mcdowell, a local playwright, at barnes & noble, to talk about his sequel to the play i directed of his last summer. it is a film noir-inspired trilogy and i think it's going to be a lot of fun.

on wednesday the 27th i had lunch with my friend michele. we talked about falling in love with animals (she is smitten with a gibbon at the zoo) and she told me she knows a guy who is making a zombie movie and that she would recommend me to him. that evening david and i had a dinner party for 4 of our friends-- two other couples. it was low-key with good food and good conversations.

on thursday the 28th we had a production meeting for 'uncle vanya', with this great technical team that has assembled to work on the project. margaret, who is handling costumes, is doing incredible research and has designed such beautiful things for the show. we had it at her house. we discussed concepts, transitions, looks. it was a good meeting. in the evening we began our final weekend of performances for 'the goat.'

'the goat' has been such an unabashedly fun and drama-free experience. the actors, technical team and director have been a pleasure to work with. yesterday, at our final performance, the house was packed. gloria and i kept shards of broken pottery as keepsakes. we took pictures. i had a blocking rehearsal for 'take me out,' and after that, joined the cast party for 'the goat' which was already in progress. 

friday phrases

my black backpack is the cat's pillow.

my russian friend's daughter is in russian commercials for heart medicine and clotted cream.

the play i'm in is a lot of fun to perform, and last night we had a talk-back after the show.

i'm meeting a new acting student tomorrow.

the 5th grade play is tuesday and we won't be ready, but it will be adorable.

the weather has been perfect this week.

yesterday i made rice and turkey with swiss cheese.

funny

i'm not one of those hilarious people. i might say one mildly funny thing a day. usually when i'm funniest is when i didn't intend it, like tripping while going up the stairs, or dribbling food on my shirt, or boogers. sometimes i'll say something funny and people will laugh and that's gratifying. but i think that in general i've always been something of a serious person. not so much dramatic necessarily, but introspective.

reaction

cold and impenetrable, the way people are. the way you try to make yourself. they're like, it's too much, i've got to draw the line somewhere, i can't be just absorbing all this stuff all the time, i've got to draw the line, there has to be a limit here somewhere. thereby cold and impenetrable. not even sure if there IS anyone else, that's how impenetrable. but there are other assurances, other things to turn to that make things OK. people who care what you say, sort of, for whatever reason, though it be selfish, ah yes, ah well, that's ok, that's all right. at least on some level they're listening. sort of.

123 favorite albums

i indulged myself. i went through my music and chose the albums i like the most. it came to 123 albums (though some are multiple-disc albums), which equals about five consecutive days of listening. here they are in alphabetical order.

A Tribe Called Quest: People's Instinctive Travels and Paths of Rhythm

Laurie Anderson: Home of the Brave

Fiona Apple: When the Pawn...

The Arcade Fire: Neon Bible

Joan Armatrading: Joan Armatrading

Joan Armatrading: Walk Under Ladders

Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington: The Great Summit

Mulatu Astatke: Ethiopiques, Vol. 4: Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale

The Avett Brothers: Emotionalism

The B-52's: Time Capsule: Songs for a Future Generation

J.S. Bach: St. Matthew Passion

The Beatles: The White Album

Pierre Bensusan: Musiques

Bjork: Live Box

Bjork: Medulla

David Bowie: Hunky Dory

Billy Bragg: Must I Paint You a Picture?: The Essential Billy Bragg

Kate Bush: The Kick Inside

Kate Bush: The Dreaming

Kate Bush: Hounds of Love

John Cage: Prepared Piano Sonatas & Interludes

Ben Charest: The Triplets of Belleville

The Clash: London Calling

Cocteau Twins: Victorialand

Elvis Costello: My Aim is True

Elvis Costello: Imperial Bedroom

Crowded House: Crowded House

De La Soul: 3 Feet High and Rising

De La Soul: Buhloone Mind State

Iris Dement: Infamous Angel

Thomas Dolby: The Flat Earth

Bob Dylan: Blood on the Tracks

Duke Ellington & John Coltrane: Duke Ellington & John Coltrane

Eurythmics: Be Yourself Tonight

Donald Fagen: The Nightfly

The Flaming Lips: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

Djivan Gasparyan: I Will Not Be Sad in This World

Glover Gill: Waking Life

Girl Talk: Feed the Animals

Philip Glass: Glass: Saxophone

Philip Glass: La Belle et La Bete

Jose Gonzalez: Veneer

Boris Grebenshikov & Aquarium: The Favorite Songs of Ramses IV

Tommy Guerrero: Soul Food Taqueria

Guided By Voices: Under the Bushes Under the Stars

Robyn Hitchcock: I Often Dream of Trains

Iron & Wine: The Creek Drank the Cradle

Joe Jackson: Jumpin' Jive

Rickie Lee Jones: Pirates

Rickie Lee Jones: Pop Pop

Louis Jordan: Five Guys Named Moe

Robert Earl Keen: No Kinda Dancer

The Kinks: The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society

K'naan: Troubadour

Latin Playboys: Latin Playboys

Los Lobos: Kiko

Lyle Lovett: Pontiac

The Magnetic Fields: The Charm of the Highway Strip

The Magnetic Fields: 69 Love Songs

Taj Mahal & Toumani Diabate: Kulanjan

Manu Chao: Proxima Estacion: Esperanza

Wynton Marsalis Septet: Live at the Village Vanguard

MGMT: Oracular Spectacular

Charles Mingus: Mingus Plays Piano

Joni Mitchell: Court and Spark

Joni Mitchell: Hejira

The Modern Lovers: The Modern Lovers

Van Morrison: Astral Weeks

Van Morrison: No Guru, No Method, No Teacher

My Morning Jacket: Z

Joanna Newsom: Ys

Liz Phair: Exile in Guyville

Pixies: Doolittle

Prince: Purple Rain

John Prine: In Spite of Ourselves

The Proclaimers: This is the Story

Sergei Prokofiev: Piano Concerto #3

Giacomo Puccini: La Boheme

R.E.M.: Murmur

R.E.M.: Life's Rich Pageant

Radiohead: Kid A

Radiohead: In Rainbows

Gilda Radner: Live From New York

Lou Reed & John Cale: Songs for Drella

The Replacements: Let it Be

The Roches: The Roches

Roxy Music: Roxy Music

Roxy Music: Live

Todd Rundgren: A Wizard, A True Star

The Rustavi Choir: Georgian Voices

Santigold: Santigold

Michelle Shocked: Short Sharp Shocked

Shonen Knife: Pretty Little Baka Guy

Nina Simone: The Soul of Nina Simone

The Smiths: Meat is Murder

Elliott Smith: Elliott Smith

Patti Smith: Horses

Devon Sproule: Upstate Songs

Steely Dan: Pretzel Logic

Sufjan Stevens: Greetings from Michigan

David Sylvian & Holger Czukay: Flux + Mutability

Talking Heads: Sand in the Vaseline

James Taylor: Greatest Hits

Television: Marquee Moon

They Might Be Giants: Then

Tom Tom Club: Tom Tom Club

TV on the Radio: Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes

TV on the Radio: Dear Science

Suzanne Vega: Suzanne Vega

The Velvet Underground: VU

Rufus Wainwright: Rufus Wainwright

Tom Waits: Rain Dogs

Tom Waits: Frank's Wild Years

Wilco: Sky Blue Sky

Lucinda Williams: Car Wheels on a Gravel Road

Stevie Wonder: Songs in the Key of Life

X: Beyond & Back: The X Anthology

XTC: English Settlement

XTC: Skylarking

Neil Young: Harvest

Frank Zappa: Apostrophe/Overnite Sensation

Frank Zappa: Hot Rats

Frank Zappa: The Yellow Shark

mother's day

i wouldn't say i'm estranged from my mom. but i'm not exactly close to her either. i get the sense that we should be closer. we have been closer in the past. i have a lot of love for her. but the last few times we talked i ended up feeling kinda shitty at the end of the conversation. of late she has been casting aspersions upon the play i'm currently in, THE GOAT by edward albee. it is her right to cast aspersions and in truth i would expect nothing less. indeed, neither would albee-- he'd probably be proud. 

i wonder if i'm getting more sensitive as i get older. in terms of my acting, this may be a good thing; but in terms of life, this overbearing sensitivity is crippling. why should several negative comments about THE GOAT cause a rift of apathy between my mother and me? 

my mom was a really good mom while we were growing up, for the following reasons: she told me i was creative and imaginative, instilled creative confidence in me; she was positive and loving and almost never lost her temper; she taught me how to pray-- a skill that, though my spiritual leanings have changed, has always served me well; she read THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE to us once-- to my brother and i, at night before we went to bed, for how ever long it took to get through the whole thing, maybe a month?

i love my mom very much.

phrases in english

poem about paris

waiting for friends to come over

samples and flow laced over drumbeats

all the fans on, air hot

drenched in sweat

mopping the floor

homemade samosas

walk to gas station

pockets filled with chocolate

painting of apartment building

cat sacked out lengthwise

things hidden

i don't want to talk about it

that won't stay up

postcards stuck to the side of my dresser

holding on to things from fifteen years ago

shelves with pictures

wet paper towel sucks up dust

a tree softening a harsh corner

you never write to me

beads hanging on a hook

empty gift bag

belt hanging on a doorknob

emptied recycling bin

lamp stays on

beer at 5 pm

we hugged a tree

picture of the sky

picture of shadows

bee lady

there once was a bee lady who kept bees.

she'd get them at night, after twenty planets appeared.

bea/lady

i guess my aunt lady has always sort of vaguely or subconsciously reminded me of bea arthur. just something about her panache. as i think about it, they really have nothing in common. aunt lady is much more bubbly. maybe it was because she was tall and witty. i don't know. anyway bea arthur passed away this week. and last night i dreamt that she was aunt lady. all i remember of the long dream is that i was following her from one house to another house around the corner and there were high stone walls and she zipped across the street quickly before a huge bus came to the intersection. what stands out most is the high stone walls, as if we were in an old european city, the kind with narrow lanes and hidden stairways.

timeline

five years ago i was living at the guest house at my parents'. i was doing 'night of the iguana' at san pedro playhouse and driving my dad's ford F150.

ten years ago i was living at cathy's house in truckee. people were worried about Y2K and i think my only job was at the health department, plus KITUS.

fifteen years ago i was living in new york city and working at cooper's coffee bar on columbus avenue (i don't think it exists anymore). i was working on the play we were about to do in the summer with KITUS.

twenty years ago it was the spring of my junior year of college. mom sent me a care package that brought me to tears. it included an earth day t-shirt and a Goofy watch. i was in tunc's production of 'the learned ladies' and had decided to stick it out instead of quit school. i came very close to quitting, but yury convinced me to stay.

twenty-five years ago i was a sophomore in high school, in love with dave, paige, alex, traci, yvonne and kirk. i didn't want them to graduate.

thirty years ago i was at the end of sixth grade. i wasn't very happy, but i probably looked ok.

thirty-five years ago i was still pretty happy, though many of my creative impulses were being squashed. i danced and sang "jesus christ superstar" on the splintery back porch of our house on callaghan.

forty years ago they probably brought me a cake with one candle in the middle. i was very big and white and showered with love.

i am 41 years old today.

oh, all the times i've started over, had a sense of renewal and knew that things would be better from here on out. sometimes the energetic resuscitation lasted a week, sometimes a few days. i hadn't counted on entropy. as jaded as i may be, by now, i start over again today! ...with full knowledge of entropy's wiles, and of my own habits, comforts and changeabilities. 

as a kid i would get pissed when i wanted something and my mom would say, "maybe for your birthday." usually by the time the birthday rolled around, all the things i'd wanted had been forgotten. "what do you want for your birthday?" ... "uh... i don't know. i forgot." 

so, at some point shortly after i became an adult, i began to espouse the "every-day-as-birthday" theory, in which that kind of self-centered happiness which allows one to buy gifts for oneself takes over. not only to buy gifts, but to allow oneself a lot of love, mostly in the form of potential-- the idea that there is something wonderful happening, in just a minute, around the corner... NOW. this is the ideal i strive for.

it's fuckin good to be alive.

to mr. harrison

people can't resist talking about you. usually they talk about you. they talk about you when they're sipping margaritas after the show. they're dipping chips in salsa and talking about you, how you had your hand on that kid's ribcage, sitting too close, or how you ran the department like a cult. with fascinated energy in their eyes, people wonder about the workings of your brain. they say, "i can't believe i'm talking about him!" then they keep talking about you. they say, "he made us feel like we were part of something special," and then they keep talking about you and how your tactics were exclusionary and abusive. but they keep talking. "what was he thinking?" they ask aloud. 

after you left i tried to be you, in my mind, for a few months, comparing my every action and activity to how you would do it, measuring myself up against the example i had of you in my mind. i tried to engage the students as you did, to intimidate them, to idolize them, to set them hard against each other like books between bookends on shelves. then one day when i walked into the office i collapsed from the load. i was being pressed down from above and i was being pulled down from below. when i finally sucked myself up from the floor, fighting gravity like those girls in wicked, i looked to my right and saw the bank of file cabinets, full of all your documents, and had a bright, if still heavy, idea. 

i emptied out your file cabinets into trash bags and i had students throw the bags into the dumpster at the edge of the teacher's parking lot. i got rid of all those manuals, lists, contacts, monologues, directions, instructions, recipes, secrets, plays, procedures, spells. i threw them all away, and the next time i walked into the office, there was a breeze passing through, and roger said he'd take that carpet out and put in some nice tile.

i liked roger a lot.

weather like a saturday

there's a young dog in our neighborhood who has been barking, on much the exact same high note, since 8 this morning. it's driving david crazy. it's not driving me crazy, but it is causing tension in our home. it's not it's fault there's tension. it is the scapegoat of some other source of tension. and it's not it's fault in general. dogs are made to bark. it's the owner who is at fault, for allowing the dog to bark, or for abandoning it in the yard all day, or for whatever reason the dog just can't seem to stop barking.

i finished my taxes and sent a box of cds to a friend. i love making cds for people, it's one of my favorite things. i have been in my room most of the day working on my lines for the goat. i have only 10 more pages to go.

yesterday we saw a movie, "sunshine cleaning." it was an ok movie, the preview was better. i felt the movie was uneven and there was too much unexplained, unsupported, or perhaps there was content which at one time existed but was subsequently edited out. also, there were things in it that were kind of hackneyed. not overly original. but there were some good performances.

i kind of ignored easter, seems like for the first time. i'm sure i've sort of ignored it the last few years, but this year i really did. no candy or nothin'. not even a peep.

good new music acquired on the recent trip to seattle:

MGMT - "oracular spectacular"

Tunng - "good arrows"

qualities

with so many things you want to be, which are you to choose?

vulnerable

assertive

honest

empathetic

absorbent

energetic

productive

ruminative

intuitive

kind

self-confident

organized

flexible

selective

all-inclusive

aware

goll-damn it's beautiful today. the weather is cool and sunny. it hailed two hours ago (i missed it, was fast asleep). the sky is now white and blue.

rehearsals have started on THE GOAT. it occurs to me occasionally while i'm working on this play that this character, martin, is a great deal smarter than i am, on several different levels. chief among them is his ability to mentally navigate through a quagmire of confusion, joy, sorrow, infidelity, outrage, and wonder. and he navigates like a mo-fo, instantly steering from one to the next, to the next, in the space of mere lines. the challenge this presents to me as an actor is prodigious-- not only to feel and justify these split-second changes but also to make the changes clear and understandable on some level. i'm not complaining-- i relish a challenge; and the director and my leading lady are impeccable. it's time for me to memorize the hell out of myself.

in other news:

david and i are preparing for a trip to seattle, to attend my friend dave's wedding party. we already have a full slate of activities for the extended weekend (thursday through sunday): see my friend beth, see david's friend ade and go to his show, visit with another friend of david's on friday then go to a special screening of 'showgirls' that evening (my friend dave is an expert 'showgirls' commentator), see another of my friends for lunch on saturday, and attend dave's wedding party on saturday evening. we come home sunday afternoon. david and i have never been on a trip like this together. it will be fun. right now there are a few more logistics to take care of, like our rental car and printing maps and such.

long-range plans:

-work on TAKE ME OUT

-work on UNCLE VANYA

the long-awaited (yeah right) answer

ugh! blast you apathetic anti-intellectuals!

the previous post contained bits from chekhov, bulgakov, and (the word 'lepidoptera' gives it away) nabokov.

who can guess the three authors randomly sampled here?

"Say, did Varlamov pass by here yesterday or not?" robber off the balcony by uttering just two words: 'Hang him.' To been moonlike. Then snow began falling, slowly and vertically. They no sooner disappeared than the prankster Dymov, with the first was extremely tempting: to hurl himself at all these lamps some rocks, walked blue silhouettes with hoods and small lanterns. 

"Why illegitimate? Their father and mother were married did likewise. Scraping with his right hind paw, he dropped the knight recognized in all of life's phenomena, be it the smile of a bonbon in even borrowed a hundred roubles from him and still had not to wake him up. Seeing what condition Stepan Bogdanovich was in, circumstances under which they had been first apprehended in an indi-hall. "So I'll take care of that... Today I'll be seeing Pekar-that he was full. Then Pilate filled his own cup, and the guest did the exotic lepidoptera. Then, after the war, when he had managed again to the general's death, everything changed.

whaddaya call it... a mash-up? cut-up? thing-up?

She rested on an army cot, her hide: a small deal dresser with buffalo-hide decorations sold easily for he raised his right hand as if I were about to disagree.

"A while? How about it?"

Took him on as an apprentice when he had just turned twelve. He said later that, no lie, there was something funny about them-- visit his mother. The whole house knew it. She was cheerful even the last 84 days of her pregnancy on food mixed with matter to who knows you. I've been thinking it over. I want you out of here.

taken randomly from Grace Paley, Raymond Carver, and Georges Perec

corny-corn-corn

as corny as it is, i really like the stephen sondheim song called "being alive." its narrator is a person who wants someone in her life, even if that person messes everything up... sitting in her chair, ruining her sleep... because having someone you love mess up your life is better than having no one you love at all.

as i live in this new-ish relationship (going on 10 months now) i must often remind myself of this kind of beauty, the beauty of having someone mess up my routine, drink the last of my milk, wake me up inopportunely, make irritating noises. all this is much better than living in a bubble, as i was accustomed to doing.

i took david to a family gathering last night and was almost perfectly comfortable. i must give my sister credit for being so warm and welcoming and at the same time, casual about it, as if it were meant to be, and there's nothing particularly 'special' about it. these small steps are little revolutions, slowly incrementally changing the way things are done.

in other news...

my sister-in-law has a beautiful poem on her blog today. i will hereby usurp it. it is by mary oliver and i believe it may be called "praying."

It doesn't have to be

the blue iris, it could be

weeds in a vacant lot, or a few

small stones; just

pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try

to make them elaborate, this isn't

a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which

another voice may speak.

events that are recent

recent events.

just completed the Forum Theatre Project, this year entitled Borders and Walls. a high-quality group of people assembled to discuss the texas/mexico border wall and to gather stories of immigrants and others involved in the issue. lots of discussion. for the final two weeks, the group met to put together a narrative and to improvise situations having to do with the border and an oppressor and an oppressed. finally, we performed this narrative, unscripted, and other improvisations having to do with oppressors/oppressed. at the end of the performance of the narrative, the audience was invited to intervene and change the outcome of the story.

i think the whole thing went really well. the ultimate goal of the project was to encourage discussion and thought, and i'm sure that we were successful in this goal. also, even though i was surprisingly rusty in an improvisation role, i really enjoyed working with the fine group of people that was assembled, and on such an important topic.

now i turn my energy to edward albee's 'the goat.' we had our first read-thru today and i am already thrilled at how much power and potential this play and these actors have. very exciting!

horoscope

"One often meets one's destiny on the road taken to avoid it," says a French proverb. Sometimes, in fact, you can't even get properly aligned with your highest potential unless you try to escape it. Only by seeking an alternate route are you led into the circumstances that ultimately activate the fullness of your gifts.

-Free Will Astrology by Rob Brezsny

true west pic

this is from a dress rehearsal of TRUE WEST, AtticRep, december 08. with rick frederick as austin. photo by siggi ragnar.

also, a crush on christopher robin

my brother used to make fun of me for saying "remember when" and then continuing that phrase with a vivid, detailed memory, one that he'd usually had no recollection of. i'm finding myself with all these memories that no one else remembers, especially since re-connecting with old friends on facebook. 

i told you about my friend j.j. who moved away to tucson after 4th grade. i found him and since then we haven't spoken at all. all these years i've been carrying around all these memories while everyone else was busy getting rid of them. i thought at some point i'd have the opportunity to recount them and by doing so, to unload my mind of these weighty tales. but no one else seems to remember as much as i do.

like the mock presidential campaign in 3rd grade, where j.j. was carter and i was mondale. like the driving instructor when we were 15 who said "full tank, full belly." like when adrian tanner turned around to me during texas history class and said, "when i first saw you, i thought you were geh."

the memory knife cuts both ways. just as i glory in the memory of rosa lara who spoke no english and pointed to my I.D. bracelet in sweet reference to my name, i also wince in the memory of getting caught peeing behind the outside staircase at colonial hills. almost at the same moment i'm remembering that terrifying werewolf nightmare from age 9, i'm remembering the exact feeling of riding back from river tubing in new braunfels, dusk, in the car of my brother's friend, listening to "this much is true" on cassette. the smell of the bathtub. the large plaster conehead my brother sculpted, and his imitations of his math teacher. the way i cried and almost peed my pants on that hot day when i wore that thick, scratchy knit shirt.

am i the only one glorying and wincing? do i have an elephantine conception of my past? am i indeed a sentimental fool?

happy moment

good view from our front patio.

at night i look at the graffiti on the side and back of the liquor store and see things that i can't make out during the daytime. at night i see a statue of liberty made of buildings, leaning forward as if retching, strange machinery coming out of its mouth.

but during the day i don't really see it anymore.

i just see blue sky.

dirt yard with scraps of grass here and there.

right now two vagrant-looking guys are leaning against the back wall with some bottles in their hands. they're talking loud but i'm listening to k'naan.

the desire to breathe into a happy moment, thereby perpetuating it. 

judging...judgment...judge

well, my first day of judging the middle school one-act plays is done. it was a fun day. i saw some good plays. watching 12 year-olds do drama and comedy onstage is really one of the finer things in life. it's something no one should miss out on, kind of like having a kitten. not giving birth to a kitten, but buying or acquiring one and watching it bound about.

my only regret about today, which is really something i have no control over, is that a friend of mine who is one of the directors wasn't given an award for his play, and i'm afraid it will damage our friendship. i felt that his play was lacking in its ability to let the characters interact truthfully and therefore to achieve an emotional impact. yes, we're talking about 12 year-olds and i took that into consideration. and there were so many things in the play that were great (i did give his play the 'best actor' award as well as two other acting awards), but there were other plays that achieved better results, and i had to stay true to my feeling on that. during my comments this friend of mine's face was quite stony. all i can do is hope that he will come around and be my friend again, despite my severe judgment of his work.

tomorrow i will see six more plays.

it is fun seeing them. the aspect of 'judging' is, after all, kind of gross and i don't like the way it makes me feel. ideally, in the future, i would like to be a 'clinic' judge instead, so that i don't have to choose winners and losers but can still see the plays and comment on them. that would suit me much better.

the judge

taking walks has always been nice. but these days it is more fun than ever.

this weekend i will be judging the middle school one-act play contest. i will see 13 40-minute plays and then decide who should get awards. the competition aspect of this event is both good and bad. on the good side, competition puts something very tangible at stake for the performers, causing their energy to rise and unite, under ideal circumstances. on the bad side, it is absurd to compete with plays because doing theatre isn't a competitive sport. it's too subjective for that. kinda like the oscars. so much is ignored, so much is overplayed, in the end it's just a big mess of pretend.

but i'm doing it. i participated in these contests as a student and as a teacher, so i'm 'qualified' to judge. right now it seems ridiculous. but it will be fun when it happens. i'm reading the plays now, preparing to see them on friday and saturday. 

there is an exhibit by czech theatre artist jaroslav malina at the mcnay museum. i will probably go today.

i'm gonna eat you up!

i know i already said this, but i'm saying it again...

the other night i walked to rehearsal at san pedro playhouse (i'm in beginning stages of rehearsal for a play called TAKE ME OUT, which is about a baseball player who comes out of the closet... i play his smitten business manager) and god i was so happy to be walking... there was a slight drizzle, and the houses were so amazing. looking at houses is deeply satisfying to me suddenly... wondering about the inhabitants, yes, but mostly just appreciating the architecture and thinking about the concept of human shelter and its accoutrements. sometimes i really want to eat the houses. consume them. you know, like how when you love a person or a pet and you just want to eat them up? like that. 

the title of this entry is what my grandmother used to say. but not in a scary way.

quarters overflowing in glove box

breaking old habits.

i'm still saving quarters in an altoids tin in my car, even though i now have a washer/dryer at my house.

i still save napkins, a habit i learned in russia because sometimes at people's houses they'd have newspaper squares for toilet paper.

i sleep better in my own bed.

i wash all my clothes together in hot water.

yesterday i rinsed out a toilet brush in the bathroom sink. david freaked out. i hadn't thought about it. i will never do it again.

valentine was a dick

are there things you think of, things you've done, that make you want to not live anymore?

i don't mean that you would kill yourself. but in the moment that you think about those things maybe you just wish that you could disappear from the earth, at least for a week or two.

everybody has those things. but i have an obsessive personality when it comes to personal mistakes: i flog myself for things i have done & said, things no one else even cares about anymore, if ever.

like telling robert tebbenkamp he needed to give his heart to jesus.

having my pants down when craig came back inside with the mail.

walking in on jean-jean's elderly mother when she was stepping out of the shower.

telling one friend another friend said he hated him, in front of all the friends concerned.

cramming a cream pie into shad willingham's face and nostrils.

hiding under the table while gannie searched for me frantically around her house.

just a two-week disappearance period. to clean the karma slate, penance, thoughtful reflection, time out, time alone.

thank god, and thank you charles darwin, whose 200th birthday (along with lincoln's, and wasn't obama's speech fantastic?) was this week, for evolution. thank god, the evolving god within the evolving me, for evolution. even though i have many of the same problems, issues and hang-ups i had 20 years ago, the last twenty years, this half-life, have brought me steps closer to enlightenment. 

my boyfriend is valentining it up. yesterday he made these sumptuous liquor-infused dark chocolate truffles, rolled in cocoa powder, with strawberry sauce. now he's in the kitchen fixing dinner. all i know is that salmon (one of my favorite things to eat) is involved. it is very exciting indeed.

though i appreciate the fact that this year i have an actual boyfriend on valentine's day (i don't remember the last time this happened), i send out my love today to those who don't have partners. i send out a wish that they will evolve one step toward understanding that they, themselves, without accompaniment, are damn good company.

screw st. valentine.

low ebb

i hear the chimes tinkling so sweetly outside my window.

at night i look at the graffiti wall across the street, while i'm smoking, and i see faces. during the day i look for the same faces and can't find them.

i sit there and think i should draw this.

i never do.

at least not yet.

my cat looks out this window all the time. it's like her TV.

i'm going to read.

you give me fever

the weather here has been beyond beautiful. cool in the mornings and evenings, warming up a little during the day. like truckee summers.

i have gained a new fondness for looking at houses. maybe it started when david and i were looking for a house to move into. as i take walks i look at houses. they tend to fascinate me. the living spaces of humans. garages and tiny walkways. patios and verandas. places where humans dwell, built in proportion to the human body. some of them have fallen into disrepair, or were never given much consideration. others appear to have been snatched from hollywood in 1947. some don't fit on their streets, but their presence on their streets enhances the streets they're on. i want to take pictures of the houses and draw them. the houses are precious, put a lump in my throat. the houses have been through a lot. sidewalks, too. i had an idea... but no, i'll keep the idea to myself until i try it out.

i got new glasses. they're small.

at last-- the keith haring pictures in the corner of my dining room decided to stay up on the wall, thanks in part to the scotch brand sticky squares i finally attached them with. there are 12 of them. i salvaged them from my old keith haring calendar book from 1998.

jan jan

lame postings lately!

i am in love with the new house, new boyfriend, and new president. (not necessarily in that order.) david has been in minnesota for a few days so freda and i have been batchin' it. yesterday she was surly most of the day, staying away from me (my theory is that she was in david withdrawal) until the evening, when without warning she leapt up on the couch and achieved full cuddlage immediately. since then she's been nice to me.

i have done a few things around the house since i've had so much time alone. i've put up some pictures/paintings in the dining room. i cleaned the kitchen and unloaded the dishwasher (finally). i did some laundry. i swept the house. i guess that's it, though it felt like i did a lot more than that. 

the next play i'm going to be in is edward albee's THE GOAT. we start rehearsals at the beginning of april. last night we had auditions for the part of billy, the son. it got me excited about working on the play. it doesn't hurt that the director is very effusive about it, and his enthusiasm rubs off easily.

tomorrow is my second class at st. luke's, where i have been commissioned by a parent to put together the 5th grade play. as st. luke's is my alma mater (i went there for 4th & 5th grades), i found it difficult to refuse this job, and it doesn't hurt that the hours are minimal and the pay very good. i will meet with thirty-two fifth graders for one hour, once a week, until may. while watching TV last night, i heard the following phrase on some commercial: "kids learn by doing." i think that is very true, so i am planning to decide very soon on what we're doing and jump right in to rehearsals, teaching what i can along the way. 

president obama

i am so happy today.

the sun is shining, the air is cool, the sky is blue. i taught my first class at st. luke's this morning and it went well. and most of all, i am taking a deep clean fresh cool breath of air as i watch Barack Obama take on his role as our nation's leader.

update

on sunday i cleaned. swept. scrubbed. flushed. brushed. vacuumed.

now we're all moved in to the new house.

on monday we had a fight.

on wednesday i finally got my room set up. 

it is covered in memorabilia. it is cozy.

moved by moving

the move has gone well. there have been moments of tension, but overall the smoothness factor is not unimpressive. 

even though i have moved greater distances in my life, this feels like the biggest move i've ever made. one reason is, i've accumulated a lot more stuff these past 5 years. but i think the more significant reason is that i'm moving in with david. 

after writing that last statement i sat here looking around at the living room. there are still boxes everywhere. i can hear the new chimes ringing on the front porch (thanks fran). i'm sitting on the new couch we bought and freda is next to me. 

today we are going to my old apartment and we will clear it out completely. i have been going there the last three days and chipping away at the stuff remaining; now there's just part of the kitchen to transport, and two large shelving units that have already been emptied.