Grateful

I got the ole what-for tonight from Gwen about not blogging.

I explained that my temp job won't have it, I'm all restricted from certain parts of the internet and stuff. Plus I'm enjoying the job, so I'd rather do well by them.

It's at the paper of note in town, and it means I get to have lunch with Mr. Guadamuz on a regular basis. Pretty cool, right?

In other news, CRUMBLE is going well. Except that today the room sounded like a TB ward. The plague seems to have stricken the ladies of the team, while the men breeze through in top form. Who ever heard of a gender biased respiratory infection? But we're doing near-runs now, incorporating some of the more unusual props (petroleum jelly and watercolors), and putting the final touches on the production numbers. Sort of. I'm having a blast, truth be told.

Tomorrow is, indeed, the Helen Hayes awards. I haven't had time to get excited, spent too much time being stressed about dresses and shoes. I lost my silver shoes. I can't imagine where I left them (are they are your apartment Aaron?) so I got all frustrated having to re-conceive my dress with my black heels. But now I've wrapped my brain around it and I think I'm good. I think I like my dress. It's sparkly and should be good to dance in.

But that all isn't saying much.

Here's the thing, you know when you get low and life seems like a trial and you think "Good things will happen, good things will happen soon I know it"? Well all the good things are happening now. I am so amazingly fortunate to have so many good things in my life. Friends, love, exciting work, supportive family. I want to take a moment and step away from it all and recognize it and enjoy it. I want everyone to know how much they mean to me.

What a life. What a world.

Can't Even

It's not going to happen.

I promised myself I would stay up as late tonight as was necessary to do my laundry for the first time in weeks, put away the clean laundry from three weeks ago, read the six plays I'd promised to read by last weekend, and update my blog.

These things are not going to happen.

But these things are true:

I have a temp job that keeps me off the internet but that I like alright. It might end tomorrow.

I bought a dress. It is sparkly and pretty and fancy and special. Hannah was a great shopping partner and I thank her for her positivity.

Judas Iscariot was a worthy "only show to see this month" and everyone involved should be very proud.

I also bought $17 lip gloss. I never thought I'd say this, but it was worth it.

CRUMBLE goes well. Very, very well.

That's it folks. My eyes burn with exhaustion and allergies and my lids droop by the light of the screen. Be well.

An Era Ends

Thank you to everyone for their notes, emails, text messages and calls offering condolences for my grandmother's death. It has been nice to get them.

My grandma's passing was rather unexpected, although when someone is months away from ninety I guess these things are never completely out of the blue. There was a part of me that thought grandma would live to be at least ninety-five. Health issues aside, she seemed remarkably sturdy. When my mother described the last few minutes at her bedside (where she was, thankfully, surrounded by her five surviving children and--depending on what you believe--perhaps my Aunt Nancy who died in October as well) she marveled at the strength of her heart. Even as the breaths came further and further apart, the heart kept beating. Indeed, after the final exhalation settled, a nurse still detected a heart beat.

My grandma had a lot of heart.

She had a condition that accelerated her decline, something that neither her family nor her doctors had anticipated. But it seems her final moments were peaceful. She did not have a long drawn out illness. Her pain was brief and manageable.

But who wants to hear about THAT stuff.

I love the pictures that I posted earlier this week. They give me a lens into her life before and soon after her marriage to my grandfather--before the six kids and eleven grandchildren and two great-granchildren--a time that is hard for me to imagine. She was a fashionable woman, always. She loved shopping. She got her GED around the time she turned seventy--because she'd had to drop out of high school in her senior year when her mother fell ill. She was very social at the senior community where she lived, which was decidedly NOT assisted living. She had her group of friends with whom she had dinner every night. Many of them were there at her mass yesterday--the walking wounded, all women of course, navigating their way through their twilight years. My grandmother experienced macular degeneration for about five years now, to the point that she was nearly blind at her death. Everything blurry in the center--only clear on the very periphery. Her handwriting was shaky and slow, but still she signed and addressed every Christmas and Birthday card.

Several years ago she took to writing "I love you" on every correspondence. She was not a hugely expressive woman. But it felt like this message had become very important for her to share.

Thanks Grandma. I love you too.

For Grandmother

images of a city girl,
living in Brooklyn before Brooklyn was a hipster zone,
donning her curls and a smile.

memories, and stories, so many stories.
a crowded sewing room; new dresses for holidays.
manicotti and homemade sauce;
italian cookies: meatball cookies, lemon bars, perfect napoleans.
A house full of knick-knacks and memories.

r.i.p. grandma

From Brooklyn, over the Brooklyn Bridge,

on this fine morning, please come flying.

In a cloud of fiery pale chemicals, please come flying,

to the rapid rolling of thousands of small blue drums

descending out of the mackerel sky

over the glittering grandstand of harbor-water,

please come flying.

Whistles, pennants and smoke are blowing.

The ships are signaling cordially with multitudes of flags

rising and falling like birds all over the harbor.

Enter: two rivers, gracefully bearing

countless little pellucid jellies

in cut-glass epergnes dragging with silver chains.

The flight is safe; the weather is all arranged.

The waves are running in verses this fine morning.

Please come flying.

Come with the pointed toe of each black shoe

trailing a sapphire highlight,

with a black capeful of butterfly wings and bon-mots,

with heaven knows how many angels all riding

on the broad black brim of your hat,

please come flying.

We can sit down and weep; we can go shopping,

or play at a game of constantly being wrong

with a priceless set of vocabularies,

or we can bravely deplore, but please

please come flying.

Come like a light in the white mackerel sky,

come like a daytime comet

with a long unnebulous train of words,

from Brooklyn, over the Brooklyn Bridge, on this fine morning,

please come flying.

-Elizabeth Bishop

Snapshot II

Speaking of photographs...

So, earlier this week the good people at DCTheatrescene wrote an email saying they needed a picture to accompany this little interview blurb thing they are posting for each of the Helen Hayes nominees. And I ask "A picture of me, or one from the show?" hoping they will say the latter, but suspecting that they meant the former, since they already would have several press images from the show.

Yes, me. They need a picture of me.

And I think, yeesh, but, okay, I have some snapshots of myself that I like okay and have on facebook and whatever that I can submit for this. I am not the most photogenic individual ever but I don't hate the way I look in all pictures, so this seems like it will be a not-formidable task.

Ha.

I opened a bunch of the images on my lap-top. I showed my "favorite" picture to a friend.

What do you think of this one?

It doesn't look like you.

What do you mean it doesn't look like me?

I don't know. I would look at that and not know it was you.

This revelation is a little unsettling since this photo has been, for about two years, one of the most flattering shots I have of myself. Or so I thought. Now I realize I liked it because it apparently doesn't look like me at all.

This continues with the next several photos.

That one looks weird because the angle your neck is at is funny.

That one's kind of washed out.

Wait, show me that last one again? Can you make it bigger?

At about this point I have a minor meltdown. All of the photos I planned to use have now been nixed. I start looking at more images in Iphoto. Except now none of them look like me at all. Now they all look like a swarthy-skinned, shiny-faced alien with a big throbbing vein pulsing and swelling in the middle of its forehead.
Ahh. Positive self-image. I knew you when.

My point is. My job doesn't require me to be photogenic. My career is not dependant on me looking good. Thankfully. But even so, the eyes start to play funny tricks. The world is full of shiny images of beautiful people wearing thick layers of makeup and I will never look that perfect. Never, never, never, never. And most of the time I don't care. Most of the time I'd rather spend the time it would take to apply eyeliner doing something else. But then, suddenly, you become hyper aware of how you look for some unexpected reason. You have to wrap your brain around the idea of putting a picture out there for the world to see, and suddenly your face is... well, your face is hard to look at. Your face makes you turn away.

Mothers, your work is cut out for you. Our daughters are worth more than this. So she smiles a big, genuine, joyous smile, and reveals a gap in her teeth. So be it. Isn't it the smile that we should notice, not the gap?