Total Look-ist

The last three days (two tech days and one dress rehearsal) have been exhausting. Mostly in a good way. There have been all the things one would hope for a few days before first preview: laughter and tears, tensions and fears, brilliance and beers.

Yeah and see--that little bit of lame word play--is why I direct and leave the writing to someone else.

And I love my design team. They are all really young and really good and really pretty. When you have to spend twenty-four hours of the weekend with a bunch of people in a smallish space it helps that they are pleasant to look at.

We'll see how the next few days shape up.

Like a Glove

I can't stop eating cookies and mint m&m's and sour gummy worms. And we haven't even started tech yet.

It's been quite a week. Feigning great interest in the day job, auditions for this mid-week, rehearsals galore, and finally last night the first bit of theater I've watched in a long time, The Madcap Winter Carnival. I worked on the show three years in a row and was indeed a little sad to miss it this year. But Shawn has found brilliance and wonder working with Betsy on the sock puppet musical. It was fabulous. See it if you can.

So. Something I'm thinking about...

I was talking with a colleague about a mutual acquaintance of ours who recently and suddenly proposed to another mutual acquaintance of ours (la la la la la la). My colleague said of the speedy engagement:

"Well, they really are perfect for each other."

What does that mean? Is anyone actually "perfect" for each other? And another, more disturbing thought--what if some of us are simply not "perfect" for ANYONE?

Seriously, I can't imagine anyone existing who I am "perfect" for.

I don't think I could conjure up an image of someone who was "perfect" for me.

I think the idea of "perfect for each other" is a little silly.

There is one couple I have described as "perfect for each other" and it is not meant as a good thing.

Maybe the whole idea of "perfect" is what's kind of silly.

I guess that can mean two people who fill in each other's gaps, who complement each other. Two people who have just enough of the right things in common but still continue to challenge and learn from each other... right? I know couples like this, I do. I also have known couples that I'd look at and think "They are so strange together." And sometimes that is good. And sometimes that is bad.

Anyhow, that was on my mind. No conclusions. Carry on.

Afterthoughts

P.S. Someone remind me of that happy post when I am in the midst of tech-ness next week.

P.P.S. I also cleaned my room last night. I can see the floor again. And my aunt was here visiting, so everything else in the house was suddenly clean as well.

It's All Twisted Around In There

I should write something.

I should write SOMETHING.

I admire people who write only when they really have something worth saying. But I know my mother is worried because I haven't called her back in two days.

See, I do try not to write too much about work stuff, meaning theater stuff, but really that is all I am doing right now. And if I tell you that we had a phenomenal time with the playwright this weekend it will sound like I am doing some kind of gilding of whatever actually happened.

But we did.

We had a phenomenal time with the playwright this weekend. We got so much done. And I am really happy with how the work went.

I kind of love playwrights. I do. They can do this thing that I could never do and when it works well--the relationship, the stretching, the learning, the growing--it is so much fun. And she's just, well, awesome.

On top of that we all had some good times involving beer, cashews, HPMelon, beer, Marty's, friendly bartenders, photos of fly-bys, beer and... phew... yeah, so, ummm, yeah?

Okay, right. So the only other thing I have been doing is exploring Youtube since my ladies Casie and Regina won't stop talking about it. Yesterday I ventured into the Curb Your Enthusiasm clips. When Larry gets the pubic hair caught in his throat? Very. Funny. Stuff.

Cough. Wheeze. Cough.

Set Up

I got nothin'.

Sorry. I'm a pretty useless blogger these days. There a number of explanations behind this which can pretty much be boiled down to: 1) new management at my day job and 2)so busy I'm not even busy.

Our playwright comes into town this weekend. Butterflies in the stomach.

Two meetings with set designers for upcoming projects yesterday. Both really jazzed me. I was talking to a costume designer about the fact that set designers, good ones at least, can have a monumental effect on the shape of a show. And because they enter so early in the process they become much more a part of a show's eveolution than other design disciplines. Does everyone find this to be the case? I always feel like I shouldn't love the first crack at a set that I'm given, like I should make a designer rework and reimagine so that they have the chance to stretch their mental muscles. So what then if an idea is thrown out to you and you're like, "ummm, yeah!" of course-- give me another entrance, and some height on this side, and something for them to play on in this scene, and we're all set...

No pun intended.

Furry Item

I'm in New York for a quick visit, less than twenty-four hours. There were specific reasons I came up here, though I don't remember now exactly what those were. Mostly to try and heal a fractured friendship--which happens tomorrow morning.

I did see the former speech writer for a quick drink, after which he took me to Moss in Soho. Did everyone else know about this place? It's a fun window shopping jaunt, really cool design elements, amazing chairs and lamps and $6,000 serving bowls. I bought what might be the cheapest thing in the place for Miss T's baby girl--the Bunglie Black Bear (link is in the title). He's really soft. I had a flicker where I thought I'd kind of like to keep him for myself.

I won't.

Then I had Thai food with sweet tara and we unpacked the past month of life over our spicy basil dishes and sake mojitos.

Back to DC tomorrow at noon. Fun to be here. I do love this city.

Make Me Shiny

It's going to be a light month for posting. For a number of reasons. Easiest--busy. More complex--the difficulty in writing about what is happening inside my head right now.

That said, New Year's (remember that?) was an appropriately unexpected and varied experience for me. I ended up out with my cousin, her boyfriend, his friend who works for Lockheed Martin, and her actor friend that she grew up with who is right now in King Lear at the Folger. It was a random group, and actor-friend and I resolved at the start not to talk theater all night since we can do that pretty much any time, and this was a chance to hang out with a whole bunch of world-development and economics types which, when you talk about theater all day, actually seems pretty fascinating.

We almost succeeded. At Party #1--the stylish-well-fed-dinner party--we chatted about the mutual friends we have (so much less than six degrees in the theater) and then I picked his brain a bit about the show until we had an almost heated discussion about Shakespeare and non-traditional casting. We then broke away and met other people, including a fellow from Gdansk, Poland. With him I babbled on about Stutthof--the concentration camp located outside of Gdansk.

Let it be decreed! If nothing else, Citymouse knows how to pump up a party! Avert the conversation to charged racial issues and concentration camps!

Yeah. Ummm. right.

We headed onward about thirty minutes to midnight, and I am sorry to say celebrated the official dawning of 2007 somewhere en route between parties. So be it.

At Party #2--the rockin' well-produced big-crowd party--we were regaled with large inflatable decorations and a projector with images celebrating the year that was had by the host and his friends. I'll admit, I was pretty beat by this time, and not the most exciting of guests. I guess I was past mixing at this point. Lame, Citymouse, lame.

Mixing is so 2006.

I called my parents, wished them well, and when I rejoined the party I ended up in our little circle next to Lockheed Martin friend. I think at this point I'd dropped all pretense of not talking theater as I recall that I was now raving about the rise of Sarah Ruhl, which I can only trace to the fact that my cousin and a friend who'd joined us by now both graduated from Brown. Somewhere in this discussion I noticed that L-M friend had his arm around me.

"That's weird." I thought. "Maybe he is having trouble standing up."

I inched a little to the side, but if he was indeed about to fall over it seemed cruel to leave him completely to his balance challenged state.

Then he started rubbing my back. Rub, rub. Rub, rub.

Ummm, excuse me?

It wasn't exactly a come-on, though I can only imagine that was what he intended. Rub, rub. Rub, rub. It reminded me of when I was little and I was sick and my mom would rub my back in concentric circles because somehow that made everything better. Rub, rub. Rub, rub.

Was he hoping that a genie would come out of my ear?

The thing is, I couldn't really step away because the party was too crowded. I couldn't tell him off because I wasn't up for starting a scene and it honestly didn't seem worth it. There was no way to subtly extricate myself from the sort-of-creepy-back-rub that was to ring in my 2007.

We departed soon, much to the relief of my tired head and well-stroked back, and I begged off requests to stay out and get another drink somewhere. Sweet Brown friend offered me and actor-friend a ride home and as soon as we got out of earshot both were like, "Man, what was up with the back rubbing?"

Glad to know my ick factor is well calibrated to the masses.

Happy New Year all.

But Time Takes Time You Know

Just so you all know--I am feeling much, much, much, much, much better.

Did you catch that? Five much's. Yup.

As they say, time heals. It just does. My appetite is back with a vengeance (so be it for sadness induced weight loss), the tears have dried up, I feel like I am making some sense again--on all fronts the clouds passing is a very good thing.

And it's not just due to time--it's thanks to old friends, new friends, talking, hugs, wonderful listeners, dear confidantes, cousins, mothers, fathers, twin brothers, smoke-free tunni's, and exciting work with fabulous people that keeps on coming.

At my first rehearsal for my next show on Wednesday we did an exercise where we interview each other and share our findings with the group. My partner was our lovely stage manager who had interesting and probing questions for me, one of which was: "What is your greatest fear?" My quick answer was: "Being alone."

Later when I was thinking about it, thinking about the phenomenal people in my life, I realized that I will never ever be alone.

As HPMelon said--what a love fest indeed!

As ACP would say, "Ah. Life, life, life."

The funny thing about life is it doesn't stop and wait for life to happen.

I need a couple of days to process some stuff, but in the meantime here are some lovely thoughts that a friend sent, thoughts that she cut and pasted from another friend's thoughts, that I then cut and pasted to share with you...

from Awakening Loving-Kindness, by Pema Chodron:
"When people start to work with any kind of spiritual discipline, they often think that somehow they're going to improve, which is a sort of subtle aggression against who they really are. It's a bit like saying: "If I jog, I'll be a much better person." "If I could meditate and calm down, I'd be a better person." Or the scenario might be that they find fault with others; they might say, "If it weren't for my boyfriend, I'd have a perfect relationship." "If it weren't for the fact that my boss and me can't get on, my job would be just great." And, "if it weren't for my stupid mind, my meditation would be excellent."

But loving-kindness toward ourselves doesn't mean getting rid of anything. It means that we can still be crazy after all these years. We can still be angry after all these years. We can still be timid or jealous or full of feelings of unworthiness. The point is not to try to change ourselves. Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become someone better. It's about befriending who we are already. The ground of practice is you, or me, or whoever we are right now, just as we are. That's the ground, that's what we're here to study; that's what we come to know with tremendous curiosity and interest."

I love the idea of befriending myself. After years of being my own harshest judge, maybe it's time.