Woah.

Okay, I opened a can of worms here that I did not intend to open. I will willingly take out the links to the blogs in the last post, and let's call it a truce.

Sandwich Repair guy,– your blog was simply a point of reference for me. Honestly, I am too technologically clueless to have thought that you would ever end up reading it, and if my post hurt you in any way, I am truly, truly sorry. Anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I am essentially a kind person. Hypersensitive to a fault (which is why I feel like a total schmuck for potentially having hurt your feelings) but your blog raised some interesting points for me to think about, and that is why it became a launching point for me to write about.

I do stand by my feelings about men raising high the flag of feminism over their female counterparts. I, personally, find it obnoxious. You can, by all means, disagree with me on that. Okay? We disagree. But you are not a woman and I am not a "feminist man"”. So, as you said, don't "“assume everyone is or should be like you."

And no, I am not basing any of my opinions on "“facts or evidence"”. I am basing them on WHAT YOU WRITE ON YOUR BLOG. That'’s what you put out there, so, it's out there. And I do find it a bit disturbing that you post the emails of women who have turned you down for dates, or emailing, or whatever response you would hope to get from internet dating. They have no idea that they are providing blog fodder for you, don'’t you think that's a little unfair?

And all my male feminist rants aside, I will say that I have realized in reading and hearing about other people's dating experiences, that I have had some really wonderful, amazing, bright, and yes - truly FEMINIST FRIENDLY - men in my life. That includes male friends, ex-boyfriends, and my brother and father. And if nothing else comes out of this but that realization, well, rock on for that one. I have been lucky. And I am only now realizing how lucky I am. And to anyone out there reading this, who is a fellow and has been a friend, thanks.

Lighting Designer - let's really make next week happen, but I'’ll see you Friday in the meantime.

Whew. Now that we got that out of the way can I keep complaining about the tourists?

States I've Visited (and other mindless diversions)

I can't resist these things. Total waste of time:



create your own personalized map of the USA
or check out ourCalifornia travel guide

Though, oddly, I know I am missing some states. If we count places driven through -- I did drive across the country once (although that period of my life is sometimes kind of foggy) and I know we went some route through middle america... I just can't remember where. It was flat, and wide, and never ending. Maybe it was Kansas.

Lolita was just a story

I happened upon this article yesterday.

Kind of depressing -- for all parties involved. The thirty to forty-year-old men who can't deal with the prospect of a woman even vaguely their equal, the girls who think somehow they will be a more important or special person for hanging out with middle-aged brokers and wall street meatheads, and the media who has decided that eighteen is the new twenty-four, and thirty is the new forget-about-it.

I tease my male friends about this, but in actuality - I don't get it. What is the appeal of a young woman (girl?) with zero life experience of her own who will look to their "older man" for guidance and answers about everything? Why would a bright, worldly guy want to share their life (or at least a few months of it) with a chickie without any strong opinions or points of view worth fighting for...

Maybe I just answered my own question.

(I don't mean to sound bitter. I really am curious.)

The Swarm

Okay, a quick rant about plagues and other things.

So, last year here in DC (and along much of the mid-Atlantic coast) we witnessed the phenomenon of the cicada.

Ooooh, the cicada. Every seventeen years they hatch and roam free about the city, leaving their eggs and their crusty shells everywhere. Everywhere! Cicada shells everywhere! Don't step on the larvae, because they only get one chance to mate...

Right, no -- all sensationalism aside, it was pretty cool in an "I-got-a-microscope-and telescope-for my birthday-when-I-was-eight-because-I-like science" way.

What I was thinking about today, however, was, wouldn't it be cool if that other phenomenon to hit DC happened only every seventeen years, so that maybe we'd actually appreciate it for it's novelty?

That, just like the cicada plague, we would wait, and count down, and write articles about the onset, the invasion, the hatching of...

THE MIDWESTERN TOURISTS.

Because they are all Midwestern, you know they are. And even if they are not actually, GEOGRAPHICALLY Midwestern, then they are in spirit.

This morning on my way to work I got up to the exit turnstile to leave the Metro station, and a woman and her two moon-faced daughters were blocking not one, but three --- three! of the turnstiles. Now, I actually do understand why New Yorkers get confused about our Metro system. You need a card to get on AND to get off. In NY, of course, you only need it to get on. It does take some getting used to. But for real out-of-towners, you'd think they'd prep ahead of time. Read a guidebook or something. Learn a bit about the lay of the land.

The girls were each standing in a turnstile, and the mom was in the middle one. They seemed to be having a debate about which one she should go through. And so they were frozen. Not going in, not going out. Almost headed up to the cityscape above, but somehow reluctant, comforted perhaps by the dark of the station, and the blinking lights and glowing signs that tell you what to do and where to go. It probably reminded them of a shopping mall. It even has escalators. When they are working.

This, however, was nothing compared to what I witnessed yesterday. I was coming in from Silver Spring, and one or two stops after I got on (maybe the Catholic U stop?) a group starts to board. There are many of them -- they have large poufy hair, and color coordinated outfits, little keds sneakers and colored socks and camera bags -- and they are chatting it up, just chirping away as the doors burp open and they make their way in:

"Oh it's so cool on here, oooh that does feel good, oh let's get those seats over there, and where is it we are getting off..." *ding dong* the bell sounds, indicating the closing doors and....

"Wait, wait -- oh my goodness, we left Lucy on the platform! Driver, driver -- we left Lucy! Out friend is..."

The driver ignored them, and well, attended to his job of driving the eight car train he is responsible for.

"Sir, sir -- our friend! What will she do??!!"

We pulled away, and I have to say, the image of this middle aged woman, completely baffled, standing on the platform...I couldn't help but smile. You can't write stuff better than this.

She wasn't really alarmed, she just seemed confused...

"Lucy turned away to look at something -- and now we lost her! She couldn't get on the train!"

"Well, I'll get off at the next stop and then get on the next train"

"But what if she doesn't even get on to the next train".

For whatever reason cell phones didn't seem to be an option.

The train continued on, the women debated their options, and I imagined Lucy, Lucy roaming through the hood surrounding the Rhode Island avenue stop, Lucy, Lucy wandering into the gay clubs of SW, Lucy, Lucy crunking in NE to the sounds of go-go.... Lucy. We barely knew ya.

What DO I want to be when I grow up?

This is from a conversation I had with a friend about my life and where it is headed.

Anyone out there have any ideas? Suggestions?

Me: yeah, I've been thinking about your question about why thirty seems significant, or frightening, for that matter. It's not because I am not married or having babies -- those things, if they are to come, I don't think are meant to come quite yet. It is more this issue of whether I can keep struggling away at a career field that will never be secure or lucrative, and the fact that I have no idea what I'd pursue instead, or how I'd even go about pursuing it.

And if that means I'm "giving up". Or if it means I am finally being realistic.

I would like the option of having babies someday, and at the rate I'm going financially, that will never be possible. Because it also seems smart to set up a life where, if completely necessary, I could manage a way to have them on my own (not literally, but figuratively). I thought I should figure out how to do that a long time ago, and I've just not been willing to make life changes to make that possible. And maybe I don't know how to make those life changes anyhow.

Yeah, so that's thirty.

Friend: Understandable. Wanting to feel financially stable but worrying that you haven't gotten a steady, stable career in place making it possible? (B) is having the same set of questions hit him now. He's still doing film-related stuff but sooner or later may soon have to get a steady day-job, unless some serious break materializes. Well: seems to me that there are lots of interesting jobs you could do that wouldn't close the door to directing. There's lots of (or some) theater education, which I'm sure you'd be great at--and could keep directing at the same time. There's arts administration, which is far less exciting but also would keep you close to the kind of work you care about without seeming like a fish-or-cut bait choice. Or are you considering a fairly dramatic (no pun meant) turn away from theater altogether? If you're like me, lots of this was stirred up when you spent time around your friends from home.

Me: Yes, yes, yes and yes. All of those things. Not sure about staying in the world, or trying to find another world all together. It's been so familiar for so long, I kind of think I don't know much about anything else.

I have a decent year lined up next year (artistically, again - not financially) so I don't feel right pulling out now, but maybe I should plan for the year after that.

Planning was never my strong point though.

And I'm not sure how much I am willing to give up. (T) described being a corporate lawyer as "Painful and horrible for the first two years, and after that you just become numb". I don't think I could do that -- with anything, not necessarily law.

I don't know.

Reunions II

I had dinner tonight with a friend from New York. 'Tis the season to catch up with girlfriends from the past, I guess, what with the elementary school reunion two weeks ago...But it's good. I always long for girlfriends when I go too long without them, but as with relationships of any sort, trying to force one is the worst idea of all.

I had an ex-boyfriend who was always trying to set me up on "playdates" with the girlfriends of his guy pals. They may have been cool women, but simply because someone else was trying to orchestrate the meetings for me -- it drove me nuts. I went a long time without girlfriends while I was in that relationship.

"S" was a friend I made during my second year in NY. At that time, I was an active member of a women's group that focused on nurturing ethical leadership skills in young(ish) women. It was founded by Naomi Wolf in her post Beauty Myth days and it marked a really vibrant, fun time in my life. There were four of us that had met at a retreat, and when back in the city we spent a lot of time together. Looking back, I guess we wanted madly to mix the Sex and the City lifestyle that we all inevitably desired (sans bank accounts and Manalo Blahniks, mind you) with our third wave feminism ideals. Maybe we were liberated, maybe we were nuts, it's hard to say.

We just wanted the best of both worlds. What's wrong with that?

So we would go have drinks at the outdoor bar in Union Square, then get grilled cheese sandwiches at the Corner Bistro. It was a good time.

Anyhow, summer of 2001 I moved down here, and "S" moved to Missouri to spend time with family and figure out what she wanted out of life.

And now she lives here.

Tonight we ate Greek food, and drank Greek wine and caught up on everything under the sun. I'm glad she's here. We went to Iota, where a singer I like (Emiliana Torrini) was performing, and listened to her close her set while enjoying a last drink. After the concert ended these old(er) men came over, and apparently were trying to hit on us. They were at least fifty-five. I'm not sure what they were doing there, actually.

Is that what it means to turn thirty? You suddently become a really hot commodity among the fifty and over set?

Thirty

I'd held off what I expected would be the inevitable "I'm turning thirty" breakdown for longer than I expected. I'd made it through much of June without being hit with that wall of emotion -- confusion, melancholy, aimlessness, and a general sense of edginess -- that usually accompanies my birthday month.

I've never figured out why I get this way. I have always written it off to the extreme self-examination that inevitably comes with knowing another year has passed. Maybe it is more serious than that. I don't know. I've usually made my way through it by mid-July.

Well, it hit in full force at the intermission of my show in West Virginia on Saturday night. My parents came down to see it, my brother came down with them, the show was in relatively good shape -- and while there were things I was not thrilled with, in all I think they did a professional job of maintaining the show -- and we were all having a good and relatively peaceful time. And then, at intermission, I lost it. And I had that scary sensation that I very well might start crying and not be able to stop.

My mother, of course, was baffled by my outburst, and wanted desperately to say something right to make it stop.

But there is not always a "right" thing to say, I'm afraid.

More on Young Mamas

Thanks LS for these thoughts on my baby-mama rants. The comments are getting lost in earlier pages, and I wanted to give a fair response:

"Procreation, women's sexuality, morals, politics. the conservative government doesn't want people to have babies out of wedlock, and doesn't want women to have access to abortions, and doesn't want easy-access birth control, and doesn't want to support single moms. no wonder kids are having more oral than intercourse these days.

Anyway, i think hardly anyone gets a "fair shot" these days. my mom had me when she was 20 and raised me on her own... but life just kind of spills out ahead of all of us and we have no choice but to make the best of it. i guess i took exception to what you were saying because i identify with those kids and I have to believe that i've turned out okay. the alternative isn't an option" -- Lucky Spinster

Point taken. I know, I can be an opinionated, self-righteous fuck sometimes. I tend to only see things from my personal experience.

But what I will say is this -- these kids in West Virginia were fourteen when they started having babies. There is a huge difference between fourteen and twenty. One of the women I worked with on the show had her first child at nineteen, and had worked her way through college while raising her son. I bow down to such gumption. She is a fabulously cool human being and her son is smart as a whip.

I was spoiled by my experience of having two parents who thought about every decision they made when it came to their children. I never had to parent my parents, and it was only in my early twenties that I realized how lucky I was to be in that position. If anything, it may have made me too emotionally dependant on them.

I also bring the experience of being raised by two teachers who had to pick up where many parents who, really, were not completely committed to parenting had left off. Especially as my parents neared the end of their teaching careers -- in the late 1990s -- some of the stories they heard of such devastating situations at home were both heart-breaking and enraging.

I sincerely hope that these kids get the chance to see that there is life beyond the Eastern pan-handle of West Virginia, and turn out to be smart, vital, interesting human beings like you, LS.

Or find fulfillment and happiness staying close to home. That is the same I would wish for any child.

Virtual Travel

This one is fun (thanks LS). I actually excpected to come up Italian, but the French thing doesn't surprise me at all.

Bises!

Your Inner European is French!

Smart and sophisticated. You have the best of everything - at least, *you* think so.

Who's Your Inner European?

Tantrums and Selective Memory

One final post about last weekend's events. (Maybe).

What is fascinating to hear, twenty years after the fact, were the events that each of us four remembered, and the varying degrees to which we remembered them.

J has spent her young adult life thinking she spent seventh grade in Colorado. The rest of us assured her that she didn't leave until eighth grade. How do we manage to create revisionist history in our own lives like that?

It came up several times throughout the weekend that everyone had pretty distinct memories of my temper and my constant grand-standing. I do too. I can't block those out. And as the weekend progressed I found myself wanting to apologize for being, really, an awfully mouthy and opinionated kid, probably pretty hard to tolerate.

We were eating pizza in Soho, and I bumbled out an apology. "I must have been pretty obnoxious, I'm sorry.." A looked at me, confused. "I get the sense that you want to apologize, but I'm not sure what you are apologizing for." she said. "You were you, and we needed you to be you for us to be us. I just thought that you were strong."

Interesting that I remember all the insecurities and rejections I felt during those times, and they all thought I was "strong".

Lab Rats

Wow, so, I really had no idea that my fourth grade teacher is actually like, a nationally known expert on gifted children. I really am tempted to get one of her books and see if we (me, my brother, my friends) make an appearance. Yeah, because it's all about us...

Her big thing seems to be the study of perfectionism:

"During her 35 year career, Callard-Szulgit has found perfectionism to be the #1 social-emotional trait of gifted children. She has helped hundreds of students recover from its harmful effects. Perfectionism and Gifted Children provides insight into perfectionism, discussing why so many gifted children are perfectionists while providing common sense solutions to this problem. This book will be an immense help to parents and teachers of gifted children and gifted children themselves."

I don't think that I've ever been a perfectionist. I did generally make deadlines, and was always able to "close the book" on a project or studying when necessary. But maybe that's a simplified view of perfectionism.

I have, frequently throughout my life, been crippled by expectations (my own and others) of what my life is/was "supposed to be". When I would lament to my last therapist about my physical and emotional short-comings, we did always come back to the fact that I'd obsess over them because they kept me from, what?, yes -- they kept me from PERFECTION. Nothing else. Not goodness. Not worthiness. Not completeness. Simply perfection.

It is interesting to note that all four of us girl/women friends have suffered from various degrees of eating disorders. Some of us still do. Maybe we always will. But then, maybe that's the case with all girls/women.

SO what's it take to really like ourselves, and like our lives?

Reunion

The original purpose of this blog was to give me something to do while away while serving as a means for friends and family to keep up with my whereabouts during my sojourn in West Virginia. That stint is, for all intents and purposes, done with now. So I am deciding whether to keep writing. I guess while I still have relatively interesting experiences to share (or at least interesting to me) without delving too far into my personal life, I’ll give it a try.

This weekend I had a reunion with my three best friends from Elementary school. One is still a very close friend, my closest actually, but the other two I’d not had contact with in many years. T, the one who has stayed in my life and lives in Brooklyn – we’d actually lived together in New York for a stint, had the idea of putting together this weekend in honor of our thirtieth birthdays. They’ve already crossed the threshold; I’m the last to go.

We officially met on the first day of fourth grade at Craig Hill elementary school. J, T and I had actually been at our K-3rd school together, and T and I had been classmates in second grade, but J and I barely knew each other. A was coming in from a different neighborhood school.

In fourth grade we had all tested into “Delphi”, our school district’s “Gifted and Talented” program. It was a product of the times – existing in an era before tracking kids went out of vogue, before it was recognized that all kids simply have different learning styles, and before the “experts” realized that completely cloistering kids and sending them the clear message that they are all at once “special” and outcasts could completely fuck up an entire generation of kids.

I know it did a job on all of us.

Delphi was indeed a blessing and a curse. We were at a normal feeder school, but we had little if any contact with the “normal” kids in our grade. The only time we mixed was at recess and during after school programs. When we did mix, the other kids wouldn’t really talk to us.

They bussed us in from all over the district. Ironically, this particular school also housed the district’s special ed program. So we, quite literally, “rode the short bus” to school” every morning along with the kids shuttled in for special ed classes. The Delphi kids insisted on having a trivia bowl every morning on the bus ride in. There was a girl with down syndrome on our bus named Colleen who would keep the score. The bus drivers must have thought we were all loopy.

Our teachers aimed to “enrich” our learning experiences to keep us “challenged” I suppose. In fourth grade, Dr. Callard (she actually did have her doctorate, and never let us forget that. Later I found out she was also an expert on teaching “gifted” children, and probably using us as guinea pigs all the while) taught us French, typing, computer programming, and chess. We also had to jog around the school as a class several days a week. The other kids had a field day with us. Who could blame them? We would jog by their classrooms following behind a woman with big red hair and a pink track suit like little lemmings every afternoon, then file into our class room and line up our rooks and bishops.

I wouldn’t have liked us either.

So they called us “Delphi Dummies”. Which didn’t really make sense. We were nerdy, sure. We were socially awkward. But we weren’t dumb. In response we called them “Regular retards”.

And you wonder why they did away with that kind of academic tracking?

The good side was that, yes, we really did have an exciting and enriched learning experience for those three years. (But on the flip side – shouldn’t all kids have that privilege – “gifted” or not?) The teachers in the Delphi program did take their jobs seriously, granting us greater academic freedom and creativity (which I guess they thought we’d earned simply by having higher IQ scores) while at the same time reinforcing the value of learning. For those three years it was actually cool to do well in school. At least within the four walls of those classrooms. There was no shame in achievement. We were competitive and hungry -- school was what we did, and what we did well.

Sure, we talked about boys and make-up and went to the mall and listened to Cyndi Lauper and Madonna. But we also talked about ideas and thoughts and dreams. We were allowed to be kids. I didn’t know what it meant to “make out”. I didn’t know anyone who smoked anything. We didn’t even think about drinking or cheating or stealing. We were good kids, because we were allowed to be just that – kids.

It was quite a shock when we started seventh grade.

Suddenly we were surrounded by kids who knew what a blowjob was, who went on dates, who socialized based on status, who wore lots of eye shadow and hairspray.

It took a long time to adjust. I’m not sure I ever did.

Suddenly, it seemed the most desirable thing in the world to be “regular”. So we bought what we hoped were the right jeans. We pretended we would rather watch MTV than read books. We watched what we ate, we worried about not being thin enough, or pretty enough. We got contact lenses. We stopped smiling quite as much. We didn’t laugh so loud.

From fourth to sixth grade I was known for my constant soap-boxing about everything and anything. In seventh grade I climbed down from the box. As a young person I was sure that I could make the world a better place. By thirteen I was no longer sure I even wanted to try.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

My time in West Virginia is coming to a close. So many thoughts in my head… starting with the good ones: the show has made phenomenal strides in the past few days. We played for an audience for the first time last night, and I was so proud of everyone. It was an honest-to-goodness play all of a sudden. The actors were living in their reality, they were talking and listening to each other, they accommodated to the addition of audience reaction and laughs beautifully, and made it through with grace and dignity. I think everyone breathed a huge sigh of relief, then geared up to do the same thing the next night.

Night after opening night shows make me nervous. Often actors relax a bit too much and they get sloppy. Didn’t happen tonight, They were running with a little less adrenaline, but the result was a show with even greater ease and clarity.

Sure there are still glitches. But they have learned to think in the moment, like pros, and they got through any flubs seamlessly. My Annelle even fixed my own oops moment, when she noticed that I’d left the couple of pages of notes and my pen on the set after giving them to the actors before the show, and swept it right up along with the mug she is supposed to take off stage after the first scene started. I squinted at the stage wondering, “What was that paper she picked up? Who left THAT on the stage?” My lighting designer resonded - "Your notes." Heh-heh. Woops.

I feel like a proud momma.

Tomorrow they open and I wish them all success and satisfaction. I will miss them all very much.

What I won’t miss (and here’s the bad stuff) is the job at the bed and breakfast which has turned into something of an indentured servitude. When the B&B agreed to donate the room for me to stay in, it was as a sponsorship of the show. The fee that businesses pay to sponsor the show was waived, and instead, I got the room. Which wouldn’t have been rented out except on weekends. And I was only here two weekends. So, as lovely an offer as it was, this was a business transaction. They got advertising, I got the room.

In addition, I said I would work some shifts, time allowing, since at the time they were very understaffed. What I didn’t realize was that I was signing myself up for every breakfast shift they could give me. The breakfast shift starts at 7:30. Yup. AM.

Yesterday I had one table in three hours. Today I had two. So I am spending three ungodly hours sweeping, mopping, and filling sugars, because heaven forbid I don’t look busy or the eighteen year old skinny-legged, barely through puberty manager who runs the day shift will get cross with me. His name is “Bo”. Easy to spell.

Now, if I was at least getting a paycheck next Friday with my $2.50 an hour waiter pay for the twenty-four hours I will have worked this weekend, I could maybe stomach the situation. Hey – every dollar is one dollar closer to my Ipod, right? But when I asked two weeks ago if the owner needed my social security number, and that was why I hadn’t gotten a check yet, she said (when she already knew this was the situation, because I’d left her a note asking that same question several days before) she gave me a surprised look and said, “Oh, no, part of the agreement was that because we are giving the room we wouldn’t pay you hourly at all.”

What?

No one told me that. So then I feel like an asshole, so I mumbled an, “Oh, I see, I didn’t realize that…”

Then I went to mop the floor all the while humming, “It’s a hard knock life for me…”

Really, I feel like little friggin’ orphan Annie. Sweeping for a bed and a crust of bread. Jeesh. Four years in a professional training program for this?

When the subject came up with the woman from the theater who had made the arrangements (I didn’t bring it up, she asked) she claimed not to know anything about that, hmmm, that’s not what she’d intended, things must have just gotten confused.

But she doesn’t do anything about it.

So yes, I am “ready to spit nails” (as Shelby in the play says) but I can’t do anything about it. If I’d walked out on my last three shifts, I would have gone down in Berkeley Springs as the uppity director chick from DC who was too good to work for her living. So I’m stuck. And it’s frustrating as hell.

But of course this got me thinking about the bigger picture. That trapped feeling? Must be nothing compared to what Latino immigrants (legal or not) feel like working as dishwashers in every restaurant in NY and DC. Especially those that are not legal. They can’t fight for their rights as an employee because someone might turn them in. So they are tethered. Sometimes for life.

And then I thought of the several young mothers who work at this restaurant. They can’t be making much more than I am. And they are supporting a family. But their lack of training (probably) and skill or education keeps them in the best job they can find in a service industry, fighting with other waitresses for better tables, and mopping the floors with vinegar (ewww, yes) when there aren’t any customers so that they will be deemed good workers and the Stalin-esque “Bo” will assign them good shifts.

It sucks, it really does. I get to leave this place. They don’t.

The irony of the whole situation is that the woman who owns the place is by trade a lawyer specializing in employment law.

Sketchy.

When I try to look at the good side I tell myself that the experience at least gave me the opportunity to meet more of the locals, especially the young people of BS. Otherwise I would never have had my opportunity to be righteous about the teenage mothers who won’t use condoms because, “In this town if you use a condom everyone will think you have an STD”, and the other day with the born again Christian girl who told me she burned A Prayer for Owen Meanie after having to read it for English class because it was “such a horrible book”. I asked her if she understood the ramifications of book burning. She kind of smiled and said, “I burn lots of books!” and giggled. I wanted to get up on the chair and shout at her, “What’s next birdbrain? Six million people?”

Instead I bit my tongue. You gotta pick your battles.

Lions and Tigers and BEARS!

Wednesdays are the particularly quiet day in Berkeley Springs. Because it is a long shot from either weekend, I guess most shop owners here see it as the day least likely to attract tourists. BS becomes a pretty sleepy town. I had grand plans of hot springs and antiquing to happen today, but the weird calendar of closings and my limited funds are going to make that impossible. I will however, make a trip over to the DG for deodorant.

The show took a step forward yesterday. That’s all I am saying about that.

I feel perhaps I have been stingy in my praise of the natural beauty that can be discovered around this place. Yesterday, when I realized I would be here for only a few more days, it occurred to me how much I would miss having a view of the ridge that rises just behind the town. And the trees, and the green, and the clear skies at night.

On Sunday night we all had a cookout at one of my cast member’s homes, which is right on the Cacapon River. It was pretty stunning – both the drive to get out there (during which we passed the most impressive panoramic view of the river valley) and the actual setting. We built a fire and toasted marshmallows. Really, what more could you ask for (oh yeah, and we had wonderful food and great Belgium beer, so really – what more could you ask for?)

That night after all the human life left, apparently the property was visited by life of a different sort. There was evidence that a bear had investigated the campfire site the next morning, probably attracted by the smells and sounds of people eating. The woman who lives there (who is the wonderfully self-actualized acupuncturist) interpreted the presence of the bear to represent a reawakening – a coming out of sleep – a rebirth.

I couldn’t ask for a better omen for this play.