Shed the Things

Welcome back to the world of the living, Citymouse.

We opened CRUMBLE on Saturday night. From what I have heard, the show went well (I no longer watch openings, for a number of reasons) despite some technical problems. They were issues that we couldn’t have foreseen, nor could anything be done about them once the show started, so I am trying not to obsess about that too much.

It really is a beautiful, unique, quirky show, and I encourage you all to go see it. Everyone has done fabulous work. I am proud of it.

The rest of the weekend, in some ways, resembled a “normal weekend”, which is something I haven’t had in a while. My parents were down for a quick visit so I had a late night meal with them on Friday night, then brunch Saturday, a visit to the Newseum (totally overwhelming but worth the $20 ticket price), my show Saturday night (which I genuinely believe they liked), and then brunch again on Sunday for Mom’s day.

Sunday brunch was at Café Odeon—one of these places that I’ve walked by a hundred times but never actually stepped inside. It was lovely--tasty crepes and eggs benedict—but even better was the company. My cousin and her fiancé (!) joined us and we all caught up a bit on family and non-family life. I do fear we were a bit brutal to my mother (and on all days) in teasing her about her continued Reiki training. Sorry mom. It isn’t that I don’t believe in the IDEA or CONCEPT of reiki, and I totally respect the under-lying principal of reiki, but long-distance reiki and reiki on rats and squirrels does set off my skeptic-meter. That said, if mom wants to distribute my jpeg to her reiki friends and have them all generate energy that specifically addresses the question of my financial security—heck, I’m all for it. I’ll be reiki-energy-zapped if it will help me pay off my credit cards, ‘kay?

After brunch the parents headed home, I crashed and took a nap (glorious!!) and waited for C to get out of his matinee. After that we went for clam chowder and crabcakes (WE) then to a movie (ARE) where we had sour candy (REAL) and finally home for an early night (PEOPLE). It was wonderful.

I don’t know if people with other jobs feel this way. Maybe certain jobs. But theater folks go for very long stretches without a single night free. Weeks and weeks sometimes. And so the simplest pleasures, like dinner and a movie, can be these enormous rewards. And that’s what it felt like last night. We saw FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL, which was even better because it was a relatively mindless movie (usually I push for heavy E Street fare). Funny and just touching enough, but pretty darn easy.

So I’ve been mulling over some ideas for future posts that will hopefully extend beyond gazing at my very own navel. One thing I’ve been meaning to do is to include some posts about the books/people/articles/influences that have been helpful in guiding me through doing what I do. Not to imply that I am in any position to be giving *advice*, quite the opposite I often feel, but I do want to work some of this out as I recently have had a few instances of folks in the community sending their younger students/interns/assistants to chat with me about “finding work as a director”. My fear is that I’ll sit down with some hopeful, idealistic young soul and start bellowing about being under-paid and over-worked finally culminating with a grand “get out while you can”. Which isn’t really how I feel at all. Maybe sometimes. So I want to work out my thoughts here ahead of time. And maybe you all can help me to do that.