Time Drain

I cannot beleive you people got me started on Facebook. Seriously. I said I wasn't going to do it. Ever.

Curse you all.

Then Some

I am eating a Balance Bar and combos for dinner. At midnight.

Awesome.

The weekend was really, really long. Two ten-of-twelves, and while this continues to be a great experience (truly), two ten-of-twelve still drains one dry. Here's the thing--tech is what it is, it is what it has to be, but it is inevitably so much sitting around and waiting for everyone, that even though you are sitting around most of the day--it is exhausting. Because you switch in and out of "pay attention mode" so much that by the 11pm end of day you don't know which side of the switch your brain should be on.

That said, the show looks great. I think audiences will have a blast.

Did I do anything else this weekend? Not really. C met me on my break for dinner on Saturday and we had a great meal at that Indian place in the Bethesda la-la-land shopping area. I brought up inappropriate dinner topics as I am wont to do and we ate aloo gobi and nan. Monday we had a production meeting for the next Catalyst show and we drank beer and ate various fried things at Marty's afterwards.

Wait a minute, did I write about thanksgiving? I didn't. We had thanksgiving. Out in the 'burbs of Northern Virginia. Things were decidedly low key for most of the day. We snacked on cheese and crackers, we drank the holiday beer from anchor steam (love it), then had dinner with C's brother and sister-in-law and two nephews and one niece. They are good kids, the oldest is fourteen and all into the Ramones and the Clash and has this great dry sense of humor that makes him seem wise for his age. The middle brother is quiet, probably stricken with middle-child syndrome, but has a gentle sweetness about him. He carries the weight of a human who is about to emerge and hasn't quite found his way yet. The littlest is the girl, all blond and smiles and lanky limbs and darting eyes. She knows what she wants and she's learning how to get it. Whether everyone agrees that she is doing the right things to get it, is up for some debate.

When we were on our way over there C said, "J (the niece) will like seeing you. Because you're a girl. You can play girl things". I kind of looked at him funny. I'm not so good at the girlie things. I never really was.

I did my best. The one girlie-play moment we had was when J showed me her Disney Princess kitchen set. It's this big plastic oven/stovetop/sink thing that makes appropriate noises when you do appropriate things (cooking noise, sink noise) and comes with plastic food, and plastic dishes, that sort of thing. I tried to get excited by the whole thing, but I have to admit, I was pretty confused. For one, it doesn't actually DO anything. At least with our easy-bake ovens we got a consumable to show for our playtime efforts. Secondly, why the fuck would a princess have to cook?! I think that's what bothered me the most. If we are going to glorify this idea of a privileged, elitist, blue-blooded role model for girls (and this featured all of them: Cinderella, Snow White, Ariel, Jasmine) do we also have to enforce the idea that she embraces traditional gender roles? I mean, she's a princess for god's sake, can't she afford to hire someone to cook FOR HER??!!!

If I were a princess, I would totally hire a cook. Or I'd eat out all the time. I'm not a princess. And I eat out all the time.

Or else I eat Balance Bars and combos. And we've come full circle.

Dinner was great, everyone was super cool about making sure there was plenty for the vegetarian, and after dinner we went to the neighbors house for a "dessert gathering". The "dessert gathering" descended into a wide and generous variety of drinks, so C and I ate some pie, had a glass of Romanian liquor (C's brother's wife is Romanian) and headed back to the city while it still seemed like a good idea.

Cheers.

Sweet and Savory Things

It is morning in November and I am riding a bus from Glover Park to Dupont Circle. My commutes lately are inconsistent: now to Bethesda, now to Tenleytown, now to Capitol Hill. This is good because it means I have not had to return to the wasteland of a day job that my paralegal job was, in the wasteland of a neighborhood that is Silver Spring (sorry Silver Spring-ers, I love all of you but I just can’t stand the Astroturf). It is bad because sometimes I forget where I am actually headed.

This morning I am marveling at the differences between a bus ride in my neighborhood (exhibit A: the infamous 90 “party bus”) and in C’s neighborhood (Exhibit B: the very low key D2). On the D2 there are students and out of town visitors and non-profit types who are lucky like me and don’t have to be at work until 10am. It almost seems like a tour bus—the view is lovely, all autumn and Georgetown and colorful leaves and well kept buildings—when we pass the statue of Gandhi the white woman across from me nudges her South East Asian guests (“Look—Gandhi! You all like Gandhi!”) There is not a bottle being passed around the bus, no one is smoking out of the back windows, and I don’t have someone preaching to me that Jesus will save my soul.

But it’s boring, The D2 is boring. The 90 is many things, but the 90 is never boring.

I am listening to This American Life, a live edition from seven years back commemorating their fifth birthday, and I am thinking about family. The episode celebrates special days: anniversaries, holidays, birthdays, even funerals. Sarah Vowell is telling the story of her parents coming to spend Thanksgiving at her home in New York City from their home in Montana and it is funny and touching and her cute little girl voice grows on me. The story is part fish out of water (country mice in the big city), part coming of age (Sarah makes the full T-day dinner for the first time). I think about how I can never really tell funny stories about spending time with my parents in New York because my father grew up there which forever makes him more of a New York-er than my brother or I will ever be, even though the city has changed immensely since he actually lived there. New York will always be my father’s city. And DC doesn’t lend itself to fish out of water stories. As long as you don’t lose your metro card (mom), as long as you know to walk on the left and stand on the right, you can fit into this city regardless of where you last called home.

My parents are in Florida for the holidays at their timeshare. I still smirk a bit when I say that. My parents have never struck me as *timeshare* people. I will spend the holidays with C and his brother’s family in Northern Virginia.

I realized the other day that, with as many random orphan thanksgivings as I’ve had, I have never spent thanksgiving (or any actual holiday for that matter) with a boyfriend’s family. I have had several beaus spend thanksgiving with my family (always at Uncle Pete’s for some reason) but never made the reciprocal visit. I think this has something to do with the duration of most of my relationships. These visits have always gone quite well, regardless of the eventual fate of the significant other. There was the remarkable moment when my Uncle Pete realized that he’d lived downstairs from super-mover-man’s oldest brother when they were both at Niagara University. The world is strange and small and sometimes a little bit magical. Everyone went to another place in that instant, into foggy far-off memories, my Uncle Pete thinking about the crazy days of his youth and s-m-m thinking about his brother.

Then we ate pie.

This year I will be sharing in someone else’s family history.

It occurred to me suddenly that every thanksgiving I’ve taken part in since I’ve been an adult has been with other vegetarians or with my family who is super-aware of my eating habits. I freaked out momentarily, worrying that I would awkwardly be in the position of having to turn down stuffing with sausage in it or sweet potatoes with ham or some other almost veggie-but-not-quite dish. C assured me that even people from the south know what a vegetarian is.

And speaking of vegetables (errr, Cookie Monster’s carrots) this article is kind of amazing. Who knew?

Wordless

I don't even know how to start blog posts anymore.

I am listening to arabian flute music on Itunes. It all kind of sounds the same.

I had a strange weekend filled with push button emotions. Explain: we went to Galaxy Billiards on Saturday night to celebrate a special birthday. There, if you need the attention of a waiter, you push a little button on the pool table. It's like getting the attention of a flight attendant with the little button on the remote. You wait a few minutes and they appear. It's pretty cool.

So this weekend my emotions worked in a similar manner. Something would push a button, and within a few seconds: tears. This can be very inconvenient in a professional setting. But it happens. I think my body and mind are simply craving a day off. Which they will get thursday, all in due time.

And it wasn't only human interaction pushing the buttons. Last night I promised myself I would not do work, that the sound design and logistics for this reading could all be taken care of this morning (as is happening right now, with me, and itunes, and three pillows propping me up in a lame attempt to convert my bed into a space where *work* can be done) and I started reading the cover features from the last several sunday's washington post's. The one about the non-traditional older army recruit leaving his son and wife to start basic training, and the one about the family at odds about how to deal with the loss of their daughter/sister who was killed last year at the Virginia Tech massacre. Remember that awful day? Anyway, both well written stories, and both more than capable at pulling the heart strings.

Ouch. Leggo my heart strings.

Scorpios

Happy Birthday mon pere.

Other stuff: Hannah is my new hero. She introduced me to Project Runway yesterday and I think I am smitten. She also introduced me to her friend who cuts hair so last night visions of snipper scissors danced in my head. I know. I’m such a tease. When will said haircut actually happen? Will it simply be the same haircut I get over and over and over again every few months? No! Resist. Try something NEW.

Mebbe.

The show goes well. I am actually having a blast, which is something I very rarely say about AD’ing. It has always seemed like a necessary step to other things, and indeed a great way to learn different approaches to directing, but it is rarely actually FUN. This time it is. I am being well utilized, I feel completely respected by everyone, AND I get to send vulgar text messages to MB on our breaks.

Speaking of birthdays… happy, happy to Skids and MB and all the other November babies. Yes, CP, you too, but not until next week.

Did you all know that next week is Thanksgiving? Crazy, right? Sweet Ben will be in town to see his fella, so I think we will see Edward II the night before turkey day. It’s been a while since I saw Ben. Maybe even June. Too long.

C and I crashed the Edward II party last weekend on the recommendation of superstar matinee idol Josh Lefkowitz. I can use his whole name now because he has become worthy of name dropping. Josh, Josh, Josh—see now I have total downtown hipster theater street cred, right? Would it were so easy.

I’m kidding. What I should be saying is that his newest solo show Now What? Over at Woolly is spectacular, just extended two weeks, really go see it—I laughed AND I cried this time around, and that doesn’t happen for me in the theater all that often. I also saw a reading of Mark Schultz’s The Gingerbread House as part of the New Play Network reading extravaganza at Woolly last weekend. I like his writing quite a lot, loved reading Helen of Troy, wished I had seen it, would love to keep reading his stuff. Will do so. The reading was very well executed, and I got a little nervous and fluttery and clammy when Stiles and Scott had a stage kiss. A very sweet stage kiss. Now you all wish you’d seen it, right?

Speaking of new plays, Jon Robin Baitz has published a riveting response to Charles Isherwood’s strike piece . I don't get snarky when I hear about playwrights heading out to LA to try their hand there, I just get sad. Less great words for me to work with, you know? And not to say that once in that world there is no turning back, it just seems to me that writing for TV is a pretty full time job. I don't blame those who make the shift, we just may miss you here on the other side.

Trim

I am totally jonesing for a haircut. I love getting my hair cut. It is a simple, quick, relatively painless way of feeling just a little bit re-born.

I dreamed last night that I went in to get a haircut and the woman just started cutting without me saying what I wanted. But I didn’t say anything to her. I didn’t stop her. I looked around the salon to see if there was someone nearby whom I could say something to, or if anyone else had noticed that the woman had just started cutting sans consultation. But no one was around. She was giving me a pixie cut with very short bangs. I haven’t had bangs since I was in seventh grade, but I think about getting them all the time. So I was watching her and it actually looked really good. But then I realized that the face on my head was not actually mine. It was a face that would look good with a pixie cut, with small and defined features, not all soft and round like my actual face.

Hmmm.

Then I woke up all uneasy feeling and I realized the alarm had not been set. And that I had to be at a meeting in an hour.

I’m working on taking leaps of faith right now—with everything: employment, relationships, and artistic projects. I’m trying not to second guess. I’m tempering my skepticism. Trying to. At least.

Shucks-A-Do

Thanks to everyone for the thoughtful shout outs of “cheer up” from friends and family alike. And especially for the fart noise maker from MB. Because how can you be blue when you are making fart noises with your fingers in a tub of goo?

Treasure Island is going well. It’s a really fun group of people and is presenting some new lessons for me--namely how to approach a show with near complete integration of stage combat and about the process of staging for a turn table—double turn table actually. Not so sure when in my work I’ll have the chance to work on a double turn table, but you never know.

Still feeling a bit wonky, but I am trying not to beat myself up about it. Things are a bit better focused now--just NOOR and the assisting gig to focus on this month--and then another reading of ZIDNEY early in December.

I’m hoping I’ll have more fervor to write as I get through this funk. My mom thinks it’s seasonal. That’s possible. I do love the fall in theory, but the actual diminishing of the light does seem to get under my skin in a very unnamable way.

I also got my cell phone bill for September. Badness. Too much Connecticut chatter because I was lonely and wanted to talk a lot. And the 147 extra text messages didn't help.

Meh

Week two of terrible mood. Can’t really say why. Just feeling general crappiness. October was tough—the most tangible event being my aunt’s death—but many other small losses, happening, some to me some to people I love which made it feel like a weighty, heavy month. It also meant figuring out what I was actually doing once back in DC after the great simplicity of Connecticut. And money woes, and health insurance, and changing weather (finally, actually) and now it’s November, and November should be better.

I am busy, my fault, classic over-booking where I think I can say yes to everything and then end up feeling like I am letting everyone down as a result. I stew on the feeling, I feel scattered and incompetent, no one gets the best part of me, and it’s grand, just grand.

I can’t find half of my winter clothes. Has anyone seen my winter clothes? Did I leave them somewhere?

That said--the work I am doing I am happy about. Happy to have worked with a great bunch of folks last night on a reading for Solas Nua happening at Playbill Café tonight. Cool female playwright, great bunch of actors. 7pm, come by if you can.

And then later in the month we will be doing another reading of NOOR at American University. I’m glad to revisit that, Mr. Ahmed has made some well-chosen adjustments, and again—the folks at the J have amassed a great team of actors.

But mostly—mostly, I’m hanging out with a bunch of pirates. (Hold for pre-requisite "Arggghs".) I’m assisting over at Roundhouse on a project that is proving to be great fun. It’s a fabulous group of familiar Washington faces, all wielding swords and daggers and parrots and scars and the swashbuckling ways of “men of fortune”. This one will be great fun to watch, truly.

So, really, why the funk? I dunno. Dunno how to get out of it. Drugs? No—drugs are bad, which we learn from Hannah’s link to crack-motivated-alley-sex here. Watch at your own risk.

Anyway, I guess that’s my long-winded way of saying, I’m off the blog lately because I am off in general lately. Seriously, only so much sighing and shrugging that I want to share with the world.

Snarl

I'm in a terrible mood and I'm cranky and ornery and tired and blue. No singular reason--a little bit sleep-deprived, suddenly cold in the chilly weather, screwing up my schedule left and right and feeling like I am constantly letting people down and then uselessly apologizing for it--some combination of these creating oppressive melancholy.

I hate this feeling.

It will be better tomorrow after a good night's sleep.