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Life-Changing Events

(every little thing)

My aunt fell and broke her shoulder.

I got an email from Yulia in Moscow saying she wasn't hurt in the bombings.

Joan Armatrading has a new album out. So does Black Francis.

I had purchased some beneficial nematodes for our yard, but never used them.

Mom and Dad bought my lunch today. My mom's pupils were all dilated because of an eye exam she'd just had.

David got his Texas I.D. at the D.M.V. today, and rode the bus.

My cat is scratching. I should have used those nematodes.

events

Two suicide bombers killed 38 people in Moscow today.

I don't like Matthew Rothschild's incessant negativity.

My boyfriend is looking for a job. Today he went to a new bakery that opened up around the corner from us, and who was standing in line but his old abhorred boss. He said he immediately turned around and left the establishment before she could see him.

I have felt bombarded with lint and settled upon by dust lately. So today I aired out the rugs in my room, swept, cleaned under the bed, rearranged, did laundry, took things to the storage room. I guess you could call it a mini spring cleaning.

Time is weird

Today is Kevin Biggerstaff's birthday, and it is also Sergei Nosov's birthday.

Twenty years ago, in 1990, in the Spring, I went to Russia for the first time, and had my mind blown.

I know that Kevin is in San Francisco. I assume that Sergei is in Moscow, but I haven't had contact with him since somewhere around 2004.

Post Script: Last night (or, that is, early this morning) while writing this blog entry, when I couldn't sleep, my cat jumped up on the bed and was purring on me. All at once I noticed that she had a flea crawling on her muzzle. In my effort to capture the flea, I somehow tore my index fingernail down past the quick and my computer went sliding off my lap square onto the floor. Both my computer and my fingernail survived, though the left hand shift key fell off, and my finger is band-aided up like a mini-mummy. The flea, I'm proud to say, did not survive.

Fruity Bunny

Well shut my mouth, it's chilly again this evening.

Health Care Reform is supposedly passing in Congress as we speak.

Today a theatre friend sent me one of those fancy fruit baskets that looks like a flower arrangement. What a nice gift, complete with chocolate-covered pineapple bunnies.

I have two big theatre projects weighing heavy on my mind these days: Waiting for Godot, which I will perform in in May; and Much Ado About Nothing, which I will direct in the summer. I am mildly, predictably freaked out about both.

I love my boyfriend.

Small and big

So I put on my p.j.s for what will probably be one of the last chilly nights of the year. Or should I say mornings. It's 3:06 a.m. I am listening to a bootleg recording of Joanna Newsom in Sydney. The world is quiet.

At night I sit outside and smoke. I sometimes listen to the neighborhood noises, or there might be some loud youngsters across the street in the parking lot behind the nightclubs. But mostly I listen to music and play solitaire on my ipod.

I have had many revelations while playing solitaire and listening to music and smoking. Sometimes I lose myself in the game and root for suits like I'm at a sporting event, playing and replaying those games with the potential to win. And whichever suit's the last to be placed has special significance. And a win is even more significant if I got it after numerous tries. These game lessons are sometimes implied as life lessons.

Sometimes I have revelations about actions I need to accomplish, or qualities I want to incorporate, or I have ideas about ways to do something.

Sometimes I just vegetate.

I fill myself with smoke.

I remember something stupid or smart that I said, and I wince or smile accordingly. And that memory is quickly forwarded into another. Sometimes I am able to stand at a vantage point and look down, or up, at my movie of memories, which unrolls ceaselessly, impervious to my attention or inattention.

When I come inside, my cat sometimes (usually when it's cool) perches on me. She's perching on me now.

It's 3:16 a.m...

Read This One!

Enough of Lame Postings.

My last post started out really long and then got cut down to several sentences. Somehow in reviewing it I almost edited it away.

Here in San Antonio it is spring. It is the perfect time of year, except that the slight warmth in the air is an unwelcome harbinger of the beast called summer.

I have been enjoying the grape candy smell of mountain laurel in the air.

I am engrossed in Joanna Newsom's new album, Have One On Me. So engrossed, in fact, that I purchased the LP version, which is big (it's a 3-LP set) and beautiful (complete with calligraphy) and has a lyrics booklet to help decode all that swoonily-sung poesy.

Another album that has slunk unnoticed into my subconscious is Dungen's 4. This is a Swedish band and their music is difficult to describe. It is sometimes hard rock, but it also has intimate piano moments, and at other times it makes me feel like I'm sunburned in the 1970's, wearing brown sunglasses and driving a Monte Carlo on the beach at sunset, windows down and gritty breeze burning my stubbly cheek. One dusk while driving home from Dallas after an audition, I was listening to Dungen and watching some birds in the sky make their swarming patterns, and it was one of those perfect moments of beauty that you remember for a long time.

Freda, we recently realized, has been beset by fleas. I took her to the vet for some update shots last week and we also got some flea medicine for her. On Friday we gave her a bath in the bathtub. It was much less traumatic than I'd imagined it would be. She screamed about four times, then as we scooped the water onto her, she seemed to go into a state either of shock or acceptance, and let us do whatever we wanted. Afterwards when we dried her off, she didn't bolt or hide or hiss at us; she hung out with us in the heated living room, licking herself and letting us continue to dab at her fur with towels. Low-drama kitty! My favorite!

David and I have been working on the Forum Theatre Project the last 4-5 weeks or so. This year's theme was Love and Marriage, with a subtext of Who Has The Right To Get Married?. So we collected interviews and stories from people and put them into a structured, improvised scene. I did not perform but was a sort of assistant director on the project. David acted for the first time in ten years and did an excellent job. We are both glad it's over, though it was an enjoyable experience for both of us. On Saturday night the Project performed at San Antonio's 3rd annual Luminaria, an arts festival in downtown San Antonio.

I have mixed feelings about Luminaria. On one hand, it is beautiful and inspiring to see San Antonians come out in droves to experience an arts festival. On the other hand, the content of the actual festival is kind of slim. But it is only the third year. Maybe it will improve.

I applied to be a census worker and took the census worker test. I'm hoping they'll call me.

You may have noticed I am using proper capitalization recently, whereas in the past I wrote everything in lower case. Just felt it was a time for a change, a consciousness of the shift button, an evolution to adult rules, for the fun of it.

P.S. Barry, tell me how I can get in touch with you.

Theatre machine

I have been seeing a larger amount of theatre than usual. Just in these past two weeks, I have seen Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Fire on the Bayou, Blood Wedding, and Mary Stuart. Each play left me with a distinct level of satisfaction and a different list of praises and/or problems.

I am learning a lot about acting and about directing.