2017

Produced & performed my solo show.
Disney World with Alice Sr.
Two protests.
LA: peeking, dates with Puhg, goofing with A Jar, friends & beaches.
Got rejected big time from four auditions.
Got accepted from two.
Made a new real friend.
Started my first book (3/4 done as of today).
Visited my dad & survived a tornado.
Taught third graders to improvise all spring.
A teen improv workshop for underserved girls.
Published three times.
Saw Andrew McMahon & Arcade Fire in concert.
Graduated i_.
Cast on my first Harold team.
Coached two indie teams.
Directed three sketch shows.
Visited my alma matter for spring break.
The Goodman six times.
Steppenwolf twice.
Two women's coven retreats.
Climbed Machu Picchu, explored the Amazon, best ceviche ever.
Wrote & starred in a kids comedy show at SC.
Hosted five friends on the couch.
Dallas Improv Festival: godmommin', pie, Dizz's pool, a great set.
Taught musical theatre & song parody at two summer camps.
Cried on Fourth of July.
Screamed Moana around the apartment.
Submitted three writing packets.
Made it to the final round of one for Comedy Central.
Re-learned Hiragana & Katakana.
Almost a month of improv in Maine.
The total eclipse.
Taught two sections of Theatre History & four of English.
Revised my pilot into something I'm proud of.
Took a meeting.
My first comedy class at The A.
My first playwriting class since grad school.
Workshop reading at GH.
Threw a small but intellectually stimulating film viewing.
New tattoo.
First commissioned play.
Tutored 300 hours.
156 improv shows.
After three years, found my neighborhood coffee shop.
Told my co-worker casually I am living my dream. She laughed, and I said, "No actually I am. This is the dream I had and I am doing it. Like, everyday."

The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg

It's a Rambling Old House with a Big Apple Tree

This is my favorite selfie of 2017. I woke up in Maine, a sunny cool morning, felt the old curl of my hair and crusty eye lids from previous night's show. I snapped this. I went on a run. I likely bought a donut.

In 2018 I want to begin each day phoneless (quiet bathroom, journaling session, readings.)
I will try to spend a little more time with family and finish my book.
I'd like to eat less dairy and keep a more cohesive to-do list.
There is a plan for bi-weekly meetings on a large project with so and so. I am sure enough to ask for eyes on my things and to charge for my eyes on other things.
I have the most incredible life, and I spend it rushed. I'd like to not...somehow.

The year is laid out before me. I am booked and planned from January - December. I see it all--perhaps for the first time since I was 16 or so. That said, I welcome a curveball. In my ideal life, curveballs. And suddenly what I see so clearly now will be washed away and I will be somewhere completely new on soft baby feet. It's not impossible. It's very possible. So possible I can actually envision at least three alternate realities. I have been close.

There is allegedly something to be said for announcing this type of thing. "This year I WILL xxx." I have done it before. I WILL run a marathon and I WILL finish my screenplay and I WILL go swimming in Wisconsin." I was successful in these endeavors. But now I'm at a point in my life where I can't will the things I hope for ("hope for" even? I'm unsure).

And I wonder how to be the kind of confident that gets one unquestionably hired while also being kind enough to myself to know I will not be a failure if I don't. I believe the answer is in fulfilling motives, not goals. I do think motive-based living can accidentally set my sights too low, but who says a low sight is a bad sight if I really go all in? Again, for the millionth time this year, I feel like I'm learning I was not born to do anything but be alive--if that.

I Just Want It To Be Great

I've never felt as sick walking into a theatre for rehearsal as I did today. I've been revising my solo show all week--posting up in the donut shop, running out to the grocery store for bear claws to consume at the kitchen table, tittering away in the morning before Puhg woke up on his birthday, pushing all my notes around the table in the gym foyer, sunk into the couch. It is not fun. I am not enjoying this. My director tells me if I just do what I did last time/last year, it will be good. But I want it to be great. I want to nit-pick and fill in gaps and waste no one's time or eight dollars. I suffocate inside the context of this script. I want every word to weave and stick like a perfect spider web. Instead, I have sloppy glue traps in the middle of monologues and concepts I don't know how to implement and a pressing fear that everything is boring.

As a "break" I went to VG alone last night. It's closing weekend of a play that had an intriguing email blast, and I had a show tonight, two tomorrow. I stopped at Walgreens for a bag of Riesens. I sat in the theatre alone chewing the caramels one seat away from an old lesbian couple and next to three college kids. The lights seemed to go down early. Was there pre-show music? Was it just very quiet? I suddenly heard so much. "I'm so happy I'm seeing this with you," someone whispered next to me. Another voice: "Did you get here okay?" Settling bags, phones turning off, leg pats, and settled butts. For the first time in a long time, a bitty proscenium felt like home.

It's hard for me to enjoy theatre anymore. Certainly not making it. And often not even seeing it. I'm too involved in the ingredients and gaging what I can learn. I remember seeing and doing my first improv shows. I wished they were endless. Shark said in the green room last month that he never goes to shows anymore. "I have ruined improv for myself," he said, "I'm glad I ruined it. I was destined to, but I ruined it." Too real.

I put myself through this torture. I'm the one who wrote the thing. I'm the one who applied for the space. I'm the one who cares so much. I could phone it in. I could eat the deposit. I could move. I've considered all of it. I'm sitting in my favorite diner with buffalo tofu in my tum. People have told me this show changed them, inspired them, was a joy. Today, I can't comprehend it. I do not feel like "YEAH, I CAN DO IT" even though I desperately wish I did.

Post-Crying in the Writing Center

I grumpily helped some students with commas. At home Puhg saw I was in a mood, so while he was swiffering the kitchen, he impersonated Winston Churchill with a little cane. He made me kale power bowls for dinner, and when I hopped out to the store for a lime, I came back with my extra treats. Puhg glanced in the shopping back, so I said, "Don't @ me." (The Santa's Favorite that taste like licorice!!) We watched Survivor! I worked on revisions for my solo show for half an hour before grabbing a cab to coach an improv rehearsal. I made a cool $45 (sunglasses emoji). I felt scared about opening night--3.5 weeks away. I ate fifteen cookies before bed. Final grades have been submitted. My backpack is full of popcorn and candy for a Star Wars viewing in 54 minutes.

Crying in the Writing Center

Welp, I'm crying in the corner of the Writing Center. There are no walk-in appointments, so I am at the reports computer grading extra credit that I marshmallowed into giving some theatre history students. I'm weak.

My Thursday commute has been overlapping with a young, foreign father. He gets in the train car, passes out Kleenex packets with a photo of him and his baby on it, and a note that asks for a donation in return for the tissue. I think this is a good business plan because no one is bothered, there is a service given, and he's respectful. Today I decided to give him money, but when I reached in my purse, with him waiting expectantly, no dollar. I felt v bad. He was getting off the train at my stop, so I offered to buy him something at 7/11. He mentioned needing diapers. We walked over together. There were no diapers. I suggested formula. Nope. No formula. I asked if he wanted something else. Now I'd really strung this guy along, and I had to punch in in seven minutes or less. My building, just across the street. He asked for a hot dog.

My whole body got itchy. I looked around, eager to offer a substitution. But it was just candy bars and chips. I didn't think I was gonna sell him on a bag of nuts. It was our turn in line. The cashier asked what we wanted. I told her a hot dog. Guy interrupted, "a cheese hot dog," I put my card in while the attendant prepared the meat. My fingers tingled. I clenched my jaw. I pulled my card when the machine told me to and I said "Have a nice day," to the guy. I ran outside into the cold, just making it to work in time. And now I've helped a dad and killed a pig.

It's Finals Week, So I Am Entitled to Troll Just A Tad

No matter how many times I announce, "When you're done with your final, leave it on the stack at the corner of my desk," and how evidently the pile grows taller, there are always the students who walk right up to me as I am grading behind the computer and shove the stapled papers into my face with a "Here." I'm trying to be the kind of person who never misses a pile, you know?

Happy, leaving class at the end of September.

Theatre of Cruelty

Kath & a sunset, September 2017

I read an article yesterday about how by 2030 every other summer will be hotter than the last. By 2050, every summer a record high. Puhg and I have poke wraps and tacos before going to see In the Next Room at the theatre in our neighborhood. There are actually eight theatres in our immediate neighborhood, nine if you include the concert venue. We counted on the walk home. It was not too cold to enjoy the evening. It is November.

The air in the dive made our shirts smell like fries. "I wonder what will happen when it is is obviously the end of days," I say. Right now I am confident it is, although I do agree humans are resilient. But what if quicker than we think it's over over? Or maybe just over for everyone not in Michigan. On Thanksgiving we played Pandemic and since we were about to win, Puhg's turn was pointless. He chose to fly to Tokyo and then Buenos Ares instead of curing London. "Is that what people will really do?" I asked him, later, over the aforementioned grub.

We reasoned it might be. A year is actually a long time to die out. If we suddenly have three days we could exhaust all our resources getting to family and hugging. I've thought of last years before--but only about my last year. I would write because there would be more world left behind. With a mass exodus perhaps I would just scout for heroin.

I'm confused about people who are still choosing to make children, but I guess I am more of an alarmist than most (although like a true alarmist I do not feel like one). I'm grateful for the life I have lived and find it more difficult to worry about my future. Sometimes I forget and act like a regular person from 1980. I weigh the pros and cons of moving or investing in a new mattress...but I don't plan for ten years from now anymore. I think that part of me is gone forever. It disappeared when I wasn't looking, when I was reading the news.

In the meantime I try my best to make and teach, but more this year than any other year, I am concerned less with the lessons and more with "can you learn?" and "was I as kind as I could be?" For example, what if a student is going to get a 68% in theatre history? Should I give him a C anyway? In the apocalypse maybe no one will ask him about Antoin Artaud's contributions to the surrealist era of modern theatre.

There's a joy still in me. An eagerness to learn. I am going on an exciting trip, I am taking a class beginning in January, I'd like to finish this book I'm reading. I'm about to do two shows tonight, and I look forward to them. And I wonder if this is actually the best/ most authentic I've ever felt. There may be nothing at the end of the rainbow, but the rainbow is quite nice.

Everyday

I write every day. Journaling, blogging, a hefty email--these things count--but besides all that, I also strive to work on a play, my book, or a script every day. Two pages is the rule of thumb. It's been hard lately. I'm now in five ongoing improv shows, coaching a team, teaching four classes, tutoring eight hours a week, and my list of my day staples keeps growing. Read inspiration every morning, workout, eat a protein-rich breakfast, put away my clothes, do ten minutes of Japanese study. It's been a No Time for Fun Fall. I am perhaps too honest to peripheral friends. "I would love to hang out, but honestly, I have no free nights until December 17."

Tonight I got home from rehearsal and needed to sit and be with Bisque. And then I needed to read up on all the new sexual harassment allegations of the day. And then I needed to write, but, oh, what a long day. I finally began at 11. It's 11:50. It took me 50 minutes to get two pages on my new short. But I did it.

I've been stressed the past two weeks after somehow skating over all my obligations through September and October. I guess students are desperately trying not to fail, I have six weeks until my solo show reopens, I'm trying to run myself as a business, I eat too much candy. But some things I have liked about the past week: starting Big Little Lies, the sweetness of my new theatre, honest rehash on the Argyle train platform, playing a singing rat in yesterday's set, confetti canon at The House of Blues, inspiring a stranger, a chocolate fountain at my new play opening, when I am listened to, the student in the back row crushing his monologue, goofball English students, giving new improvisers easy information, never feeling embarrassed in front of a good friend.

Halloween Heart

Being scared is my favorite thing. I revel in the spooky season: movies whenever I can squeeze them in, horror blogs to fall asleep, I sat in a lawn chair in my apartment foyer to pass out candy over the weekend. This Halloween itself was a pretty standard day. I went to the gym, I tutored at the writing center,  I had dinner and graded papers, I coached a rehearsal 8-9:30. And then when I came home the hall lights were out. The apartment was pitch black, but sheets hung everywhere. It was ghostly, the billows from white rectangles. Silence. I slowly walked through one corridor to find another. I called throughout my home for Puhg. Eventually I paused in the bedroom and he leapt from behind a door. I was scared, but not as a scared as when I realized he was wearing a frightening mask. I laughed, he laughed, he took off the mask, then he bared vampire fangs and I yelped again. Then he was gone. I couldn't see where he ran beyond the haunted house-ness. He popped out of no fewer than four hiding spots--once emerging from the ground walking like a crab after grabbing my ankles. This is my dream come true.

A Very Good Day

5:30 do a country line-dance workout in the living room
6:30 catch the Red Line, grade papers as I ride
7:15 grade final paper in Potbelly eating breakfast sammie
8:00 begin fifteen minute mid-term meetings with 101 students
1:00 meetings over, I sing "Ring of Keys" in the classroom alone
2:00 submit mid-term grades and post announcements to Blackboard
2:30 finish Difficult Women standing outside the library drop box
3:00 prepare bowl of lime kale
3:30 plan play revisions
4:00 Puhg serves me a sweet potato bowl and we watch Broad City
4:45 practice Japanese on the Brown Line
5:05 meet Sabarra and walk through a teensers haunted house
5:30 donate money to Puerto Rico
5:32 have a creative meeting about out newest screenplay
6:05 meet with Dusty for a chai at Eva's
6:50 relocate to a familiar Starbucks because we weren't done talking
7:30 Dusty drive me across town to i_
7:35 we talk in his car
7:55 I have to go inside for my calltime
7:58 run-in with my coach from three years ago
8:00 my Harold team warms up in a stairwell
8:30 we do an improv show as an opener for a magician
9:00 I make the audience clap for my sister who is there
9:20 Dbag, Egg, and I watch aforementioned magic from the back corner
10:00 LC hugs me in a big pink coat
10:05 Flood text asks if we can grab a Shirley Temple at the bar
10:20 Squid & Blanco and I laugh a lot on the way to North & Clyborn
10:45 Blanco gets groped on the train
11:00 it is very cold
11:08 I step into my apartment, Puhg looks drowsy with sleep
11:15 I choose two little chocolates I took from the break-room at the Writing Center to consume while watching S2, E12 of Scream

Some Things to Love about Chicago (Very Partial List)

-calling everyone "you guys"
-when the River bridges go up
-those little yellow ladders on the lake
-everybody's a comedian (discouraging at first, homey at second)
-my nail place where they use java essential oils
-LSD at night by car, south toward the pink Drake sign
-the bakery cases at Mariano's
-nicest conductor on the Red Line who always ends announcements with "students: study hard"
-300 theatres
-the Picasso (hack, but true)
-State and Lake trash shopping
-the forever of a Clark Street walk
-the tallest movie theatre & reclining chairs
-my library--so hot and yellow with a familiar security camera
-the Lakeview rooftops at dusk
-spaceship church
-no one is too good for you

The Last Warm Day

Wake up late (8:15) cursing the headache from last night. I read S & H on the couch and hit the gym. I'm slogging through Ghost Story on the elliptical. I wear shorts. My sidewalk is covered in little yellow leaves. Puhg wants brunch. I wear a purple lip and my bat necklace. We think we miss the bus, start walking, and then grab it on the next block. It starts to rain as we arrive. A warm rain. It's summer but all the storefronts on Clark have fake cobwebs in the windows. The specials are all maple-y. I eat two veggie sausages. I forget what we talked about. We walk the mile home, in shorts, enjoying our neighborhood. I feel a special kind of Lakeview pride on Sundays. I can sense the visitors, but this is my home. We stop twice--once for the Target bathroom and again so I can buy artisanal popcorn. It's perfect out. Women walk to church in maroon dresses. I put Arcade Fire on and fold sweaters. The windows are open, maybe for the last week of the year. In the rain, we snuggle under blankets and watch the end of Something Wicked This Way Comes. I work on a screenplay, I grade two papers, I make a lesson plan, we watch the 6th Paranormal Activity. It's my mom's birthday. I think about next August. I do not think about December. I am not ready. I will drink a pumpkin coffee tomorrow. I will administer a mid-term. There is something unlike anything else I know in me. I try to name it and can't. Last night in my dream I was teaching a class and someone else started lecturing. I complained to the department chair. I threw a fit, really. I do not wince at the week ahead. I love the week ahead. I can't believe it's been fifteen years since fall meant putting on a little Express suit and delivering speeches in high school classrooms. I felt the same something stirring then. I try to sluff the guilt off. I know how good I have it and how Puerto Rico doesn't have power. I donated $20 and called Congress. I vow to call and write five times this week. We go to CVS. I get a bag of Reese's shaped like ghosts, filled with orange stuff.

I Wanted to Stay (A Sexual Harassment Story)

I had just been cast on my first post-college improv ensemble. We had real shows in real city theatres and I was working with a cast I had never met before. We rehearsed for three weeks before beginning a six week run. I was 22 and thrilled to be in a professional production. It was janky and we never ended up getting paid like we were told we would, but I wouldn't have traded it for the world. Our director was a middle age guy who I thought was smart, funny, and nice. I owed him, let's call him Pete, big time. Everyone else on cast was a company vet. He plucked me from a sketchy bar jam and took a major chance on me. I took the opportunity very seriously and worked my butt off. After our final show we had a big cast party in the theatre. I was on cloud nine. I had new pals, my first non-school resume line, and, mostly, I had done it. I had become an adult who did art. I was so proud.

So the party has been going for a few hours and most people are tipsy (I am sober). The group has dwindled to six, and we're just sitting around telling stories. Abruptly, Pete asks for my number, which is odd because he has it. The mood kinda shifts and someone maybe even says, "Leave her alone" in potentially real/potentially joking way. I feel awkward. Did someone just accuse Pete of hitting on me? I don't want anyone to feel uncomfortable on my account. Especially Pete. I have a lightening flash of what could happen: I imagine someone misconstruing the comment, Pete feeling ashamed, and to avoid any future misconception, never casting me in anything again. I smile as genuinely as possible and say, "Oh, everything's okay!" Pete says something like, "See? She's not scared of me!" The conversation continues. Phew. But Pete's not participating. He's chatting quietly to himself about how he's gonna call me. Party's over. We all start picking up bottles when Pete says loudly, "I am going to call you. I'm serious. When are we going to have sex?" I freeze for one moment and then let out the most immensely unnatural laugh. I think the laugh makes Pete think I'm comfortable, when my brain is screaming, "Walk out of this theatre right now and never come back." Pete says some more stuff to me that I really don't remember because I am playing a rapid-fire game of mental chess to decide how to make this thing a non-thing. New friend Dusty takes Pete by the arm and says, "Help me out upstairs." Pete gets pulled away while literally screaming about my dimples. I wish could say I'm on the road in five minutes, but the drunk tech guy insists on walking me to my car even though I told him over and over I was right in front and I'd actually rather just go alone. At my car he leans against the driver's door (blocking me from entering) and tells me how sad he is, how much he wants a girlfriend. I tell him I want to go home repeatedly, but he begs to just sit in my car with me. I am cold, so I let him sit in the passenger side seat while I am as far away as I can be and still inside the vehicle. He talks until he's sober-ish. I finally drive away.

So, what did I do? Nothing. Why? Well, mainly, I wanted to stay. That company was the only professional comedy theatre in my city. There was only one director. There was an owner, but he lived in LA and Pete was one of his oldest pals. I walked down the line of possibilities and didn't see one where I would stay at the theatre and Pete wouldn't. Also, I felt ashamed. Maybe I wasn't actually that good at comedy. Maybe this is what he was after all along, and casting me was the long con. I decided if I didn't mention it, maybe everyone would forget. And that's essentially what ended up happening. I didn't see anyone for the week of Christmas. When we came back for a New Years gig Pete never apologized or mentioned what happened. I kept working with him for six more months. Sometimes he was harsh with me in notes and I wondered if he was trying to show people he was boss after I had shut him down. I'll never know. Maybe he honestly didn't remember the incident and no one told him. Anytime he was around I was mathing out if there were any possibilities of someone leaving and someone else going to the bathroom and me ending up alone with him. And then I'd write in my diary, "Don't be so full of yourself. You're blowing everything way out of proportion." I felt guilty to be afraid of something I never voiced to anyone else.

I did meet with Pete once privately, at his request, in a pizza place. He wanted to talk shop. I was sharp with him. Mean. He looked at me like, "What is wrong with you?" I felt bad but then thought, "Should I feel bad?" I still felt bad. I moved away soon after. He accidentally called me a couple years later. I picked up. We had a nice catch-up. Maybe it wasn't an accident. Even now, I don't want to say he is a bad person. Overall, I really liked him. This is still confusing for me.

My story is an extremely tame example of harassment. I am so lucky the worst I've weathered is an improv teacher talking about my boobs, another one mooning me, a professor asking me about my vagina in a grad school class, this dude being a creep. I honestly wrote this a few days ago and then decided not to post it because I was worried someone might see it and think I just want attention or I'm a wimp because this was barely harassment considering what other women have been through. But last night after a show some ladies and I got to talking about creeps of our past. Nothing life-ruining, but still icky. We'd all been there. WNT ended at midnight. We sat in the greenroom until 2. E and I were the last ones in, waiting for our cabs. She said, "I usually don't talk about this stuff because I don't want anyone to judge me, but I feel less crazy knowing I wasn't alone." And if this is how I felt, god help the women who were attacked, coerced, exiled. God help them do what they need to do because they too want to stay.

Maturity

I. Waiting for the light at Clark & Belmont. Guy in front of me wearing shorts. Huge Heath Ledger Joker tatt across his calf. I don't think it's stupid. And I don't think he's got issues. I think, "I wonder why the Joker is so important to him."

II. In improv rehearsal we do solo scenes. I think about ways I could knock the exercise out of the park. I choose instead to do something out of my comfort zone that will challenge me. I flounder. I don't feel embarrassed or concerned. I consider what I have learned.

III. I just became a cast member at another theatre. A friend gave me a cute lil welcoming gift--three candy bars wrapped in tissue paper. I ate half a Twix last night. I thought about saving the other half for today. I didn't, but I thought about it.

The Past Three Weeks of Art

Sunday: Wrote at a coffee shop all morning & afternoon.
Monday: Taught Medieval Theatre all day, ran home to take a meeting with a television producer. Prepped a piece for a callback in the morning.
Tuesday: Early SC callback (three hours), immediately hit the train to tutor writing for two hours. Had my first "Business of Playwriting" class.
Wednesday: Taught Intro to Devising class, Harold rehearsal, Harold show.
Thursday: Writing Center shift. Vigorously doing playwriting homework. Playwriting class.
Friday: Taught English 101 all day, pass out in the afternoon, see a new play at The Goodman.
Saturday: Step class, pump-up coffee date, see Puhg's movie premiere, family dinner, three hours of improv shows.
Sunday: Took my mom to brunch. Spent the entire day preparing a comedy writer's workshop packet. Finished at 7 PM, just in time to scarf dinner and run to the theatre to host and perform in a Harold show.
Monday: Got to school early to check-in guest speakers for my Theatre History class--a local improv team. Researching local theatres. Eating junk and froyo with old castmate all night.
Tuesday: Spent morning applying for theatre production, Writing Center shift, 3 hour BWC rehearsal.
Wednesday: Beginning of Directing unit in Theatre History, dinner with teammate, Harold rehearsal.
Thursday: Shift tutoring at The Writing Center, Indian with my sister, playwriting class, grading until midnight.
Friday: Taught English 101 all day, met up with old SC cast member for cake, dinner with Puhg, a live Bat at i_, new play at The Goodman.
Saturday: Audition at CSz. Fight with a Trump supporter in a bagel shop. Writing Center shift. Work on my pilot. BWC & WNT shows (three hours). Hang with the bros and go to bed at 2.
Sunday: All day trip to Fright Fest at Six Flags! But you KNOW I woke up ay 6 AM to write first.
Monday: Theatre History. Writing madly in my office. Chili with writing parter of yore. Harold show.
Tuesday: Writing Center shift. Surprise visit from Syd. Callback for CSz. Dash to playwriting class. Get convinced to stay out late eating cake with Syd discussing out past and present.
Wednesday: Theatre History special guest = my old director. She teaches and I treat her to salads and coffees downtown. Last minute invite for a film audition. Run across time learning the sides as I travel. Ingest a caramel apple much too fast. Harold rehearsal. I stay at the theatre to run warm-ups and coach an improv show.
Thursday: Up at 5 to work on a new play, outline calendar to see if I can do a run I am offered, Writing Center shift, cry in my boss's office, Puhg makes me dinner, off to playwriting class.
Friday: 5 AM up to grade, teach 101 all day, write in the afternoon, pass out, wake up in time to see improv show I will audition for in two weeks. Grade papers until slumber.
Saturday: Ran two miles and then train to The Goodman for a reading of Jose Rivera's newest play. Lunch date with Puhg followed by afternoon of writing at the library. Zip to BWC show at SC. Eat a funfetti ice cream sandwich with the cast.
Sunday: I woke up and immediately started working on my pilot. I took a break for HIIT class at the gym, a bowl of cookie dough dip, and a Rick & Morty. I just finished my pilot. I reflected on how much dang art I do. I wrote this.

Six Flags Great America Fright Fest

Front of park blared the Halloween synth. A lake of blood in front of the carousel. I was happily overwhelmed. Pumpkins and cobwebs, skeletons and boarded up hot dog stands. We started on The Raging Bull, which near whipped my pigtails out. Next the Giant Drop. After our show Saturday, Dal reminded me about the girl who's feet got cut off on that ride several years ago. I had never been on Goliath before, and I hurt my throat screaming on the first drop. It was such a vertical plummet I was sure the track broke. Puhg didn't want to do V2 but later said it was his favorite. I remember waiting in that yellow line when I was in 8th grade. I felt suddenly hungry, so we went to the cobalt blue "Jack's Snacks" for pretzels. Then Batman, which made us both dizzy. I got a bag of pink cotton candy. The children in line for The Whizzer all looked at me scarfing it with jealousy. It was not as smooth as I remember. I wanted to see the hypnotist. It was such a shimsham "show," but Puhg and I like a middle age woman in a Tweety shirt who took pretending to smell something gross very seriously. Puhg took a car nap. I rode Superman. It broke down twice while I waited, but then I flew right at sunset. The sky was a dazzling purple. I am impatient at theme parks. I was meeting up with Puhg for dinner. It took him twenty minutes to get to me and I could barely stand it. I decided to have a funnel cake fudge sundae. I said, "That hit the spot," when I was done eating and Puhg explained that was very funny. I still don't get why. Something about excess, but I really truly don't understand. I used my (extra $15) fastpass to zoom through five haunted houses alone. I also tried The Joker and didn't particularly enjoy being flipped and hurtled, but did appreciate being so disoriented I couldn't tell where the beauty of the sky and the electric bulbs began. The best part of the haunted house was when two guys lunged at me from two different corners of a room and knocked heads. They cursed and whispered, "You okay bro?" and then attempted to get back into character and scare me. I particularly liked the house that told the story of a little ghost girl who killed all humans who enter her home. I nearly tripped over a bloody mattress when half a carcass reached for my ankles. Closing time was nine. In the last half hour I decided I wanted to see everything from up high again. No one was at Giant Drop. When it opened the wait was two hours. I had to walk through snakes and snakes of line fence and arrived in my own private row. I faced out of the park, the north suburbs of my city. I could make out all the typical words on buildings. Auto-Zone and Burger King. The technician kept us up there for a while. Maybe even thirty seconds or so just waiting to fall. I unintentionally screamed when the bottom gave out. "Do you want to go again?" the girl on the mic asked. I think there were four or five of us. I called out to Puhg waiting on a nearby bench. I tried several name variations, but he couldn't hear me. I wanted to wave from the top. Suddenly I felt so alone. There are things no one else will share with you. There just are. Has it always been this way? Did cavemen experience stuff and have a guttural need to have someone else see? At the top it was silent. I fell the 200 feet.

Other Lives I Am Not Living

On my way home from girl's night with Nep I see a few couples at the Thai restaurant on my block. It's 9:30. They're sitting down to dinner. I understand this is a very city thing. I guess people work late and then maybe go to the gym and then by the time the train has taken them home...

I don't have late dinners, so this is a life I am not leading. I can't imagine a possible fork that would have led me to it either.

Right now I could have been on a cruise ship doing more comedy. I think the itinerary would be taking me up the coast of Canada this week. But I opted out. I guess there was the option of staying in Arizona for that teaching job. But I'm somewhat certain it would have crumbled underneath me. I am more than somewhat certain I would have left for Chicago after a year anyway.

There's the version of me who went to Japan instead of grad school. I think she ends up staying for two years, but I'm not entirely sure what she does for work now.

There is a gritty restaurant hostess in the Bay area with friends who don't like me. And probably a Boston babe who wants to move to Chicago.

I think all the possible Alice's ultimately want the same thing and the ones with enough gumption to have gone for it earlier are scared. The ones who are still waiting are hopeful.

Favorite Arizona Fall Memories

Yesterday was no September 22nd. It was muggy. I wore scalloped green shorts to work and a t-shirt to The Goodman at night. The play we saw (Continuity by Bess Wohl) was about climate change, and I couldn't help but feel extra sticky on the walk home.

This is Arizona fall. I had improv rehearsal on Sundays at noon. I often took the holy day as an opportunity to buy myself a Starbucks treat--an iced pumpkin mocha latte. I would hold the cold drink in one hand and steady my handlebars with the other. The little circular tower atop the Fine Arts building. I would look out that window and worry about Act One, Scene Three. Puhg and I wore pajamas to get half price froyo at our favorite place on campus. Or he picked me up for my lunch break during full-day rehearsal for my thesis play. The girls on my comedy team went to that old ranch for a haunted house. Bug couldn't stop talking about her new boyfriend she didn't know if she liked or not. Shell and I had to keep doing the knowing glance game. When the streets were suddenly nutso and I remembered about football. I went to a weird speech tournament alone. I remember being full of Costco muffins and walking up a hill into the parking lot. I rarely asked, "What am I doing here?" I wasn't often sure what to prioritize. I went from the soft white carpet of a condo to orange concrete in a House of V. The sun seemed so powerful I never believed it would go down. The first Tuesday night dramaturgy class that ended in the dark confused me. I didn't have a bike light yet.

First Year Out of College

I've decided I'm going to be one of those people who has an empty inbox. You know. Delete stuff I no longer need. File things I want to save. Be reminded easy what I need to respond to.

I decided this somewhat randomly about two weeks ago. I was at The Writing Center and no students had come in for walk-in tutoring. I had around 17K emails in the the gmail I started in college. This isn't that much maybe. I also have a junk account, two school accounts, and a professional artist account. Maybe I'll deal with those sometime too.

So, first, I used the search bar to weed out advertising junk. I deleted all the "Groupon," "Twitter," "Jamba Juice" hits etc. After destroying as many spams as possible I started working through my cache starting with the oldest messages to the newest.

Right now I have 7,881 emails in my inbox. I have lurched from my freshman year to my first year out of college. It's been weird to my life snippets in a vertical list. That year seems so foreign to my life now, but it was actually incredibly foundational. A flurry of student notes from the Writing Center, navigating a weird boss for an after school program, running my first marathon, all my grad school statements of purpose, a community theatre musical rehearsal emails, indie improv team volleys. Some of it is embarrassing--advice I gave in a very knowing way, hatching my sense of humor, I had no fear, and I substitute taught an English 100 lab for free on Valentine's night.

But, oh, there are precious moments. Long chains with friends who were still friends, pictures from Dusty, and the most charming: a lesson plan for the first improv class I ever taught. The usual teacher for the Level One class at the comedy theatre I performed at couldn't make one week. He asked this other girl and I to cover. We were PUMPED. We went out for pizza beforehand and freaked out about everything we wanted to teach the class. The place was called Suds or something and we sat at a countertop and just gushed about all we loved and hated about improvising. We practically ran to the theatre screeching in excitement. We had both just broken up with our boyfriends.

When we arrived we found only ONE PERSON there for the class--a middle age woman who was pretty nervous. No idea why she took the class, but it was only her second attempt at improv ever. The other girl and I were not deterred. We went full-ham on our plan and took turns being in the scene with the woman. Toward the end of the three hours, I think we were both so eager to act, we just did a ton of three person scenes. We laughed and laughed in that shady, bunk basement room for rent.

Writing Like Your Family Is Dead

Making like no one will love you more or less for making.

I Love Study Hall

The athletes of T College are required three hours of study hall a week. This means as a Writing Center employee I have to be vigilant about clocking basketball & volleyball players in and out. This is the busy season. Maybe there aren't spring sports. I'm actually not sure what all the activities are at this school. I am a typical adjunct; I show up to my class, grade in my office, delete emails not of immediate relevance to me, go home. I don't know what the dean's name is.

Anyway, I love study hall. I'm sure if I was forced to do it I would be annoyed. These students are adults and should be allowed to do homework wherever and whenever they want. But here's whats up:

Many times I have seen four teammates come in and waste time quietly. They need to be shushed once or twice and then they get bored. One of them opens the assignment. They look at it. They raise their hand. "Hey, I actually don't get this. Can you help me?" And I do. I've also observed the one teammate who knows from the jump he needs a ton of help. It makes me happy that his friends are at the same table even if they're goofing off so the situation isn't reversed (they're all out goofing off and the lil nerd ditches his tutoring appointment). Also, they get used to see the other players all the time. I see guys congratulating girls on their games. They say things like "I see you strivin'." I am currently sitting across from a dude who just waved across the center at another guy. He said, "Yo, bro. You doin' study hall? Very cool." Very cool!? Very cool.

So Long Sweet Summer

It's Dashboard Confessional. I am not embarrassed. I wish it had never been laughable--the boys screaming their feelings. The popularity of emo could have been an antidote to toxic masculinity.

For every bright notebook aisle at Target, there's a new orange leaf. The darker sky. Six years ago I started grad school in Arizona. I spent most afternoons by the pool with my Theatre Histories textbook and a highlighter. Today I went to the gym's rooftop pool and read Chapter Three in my teacher's edition Theatre History textbook. It was windy, and I could only bear the chill an hour. I call the Senate Committee and my House Rep to say I support the DREAMers.

I've officially lived in Chicago longer than I was in grad school. This saddens me. It's not a surprise. I've been here, you know, watching the planner pages turn, establishing myself, signing leases. But still it happened so fast. I steadied myself on the last thing I had done. I had just moved from the desert. The other people I meet here--some spent one, two, five years in their cities, but it gets washed away in the machine of big shoulders. I join the slop.

From the moment I stepped off the plane in high school, it was my spot. It's my laptop backdrop. My blue and purple scooter plate hangs over my window. Yesterday Puhg and I went on a Labor Day run. We stopped halfway through just to sit and watch the lake. A baby regatta of boats, a seagull, a plastic bag splat into the water. He says the way I feel about our old place is how he feels about his new place.

Some days I feel it too. The neighborhood abuzz with teeny shops and how I can get from my couch to the A____ for a lime & seltzer with Flood in less than ten minutes. People feel overwhelmed by the city, but when I was in Maine I felt so weird not being able to, at any time, walk to a Walgreens. I do not think about trotting four blocks, taking the train, going down Michigan Avenue, spending thirty minutes in an interview, reversing the whole thing. It's so easy I barely pay attention. I jot lesson plans and ding my Ventra card. I'm at the library now and then I will go back across the street to my apartment, eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch, watch Friday Night Lights, and go do a show at i_.

First Saturday Back

First of all, I got to return to Step class at my gym. It was hard, as it always is after an extended absence. At a water break I asked the instructor to re-demonstrate the switchkick turn, and three women around me all (at the same time) told me how to do it. Isn't it infuriating to be told how to do something even when you have asked? And, by the way, why do people like telling others what to do? I don't. Which is funny because I'm the teacher.

I showered. Pug and I sat on the couch and talked over morning yogurt, a ritual I missed. We keep up when we're apart, but the conversations are more like maps and less like landscape. I convince him to walk with me to a new coffee shop, where I set up camp for lesson planning. After an hour I head to the train. While I wait a man starts addressing people on the platform asking the question "Why?" a lot. It's hard to hear him. At first he is ignored since he's ranting. He's holding a Dunkin bag and a large iced coffee with cream. He lays down on the platform over the line folks are not supposed to cross. Another older man walks up and tries to talk to him. He is batted away. I get closer. I want to kneel down and say, "Don't do this here," but I don't know his mental state and am worried he might throw me into the tracks. The board says the next Red Line to 95th is in one minute. Someone presses the help button. Someone else is making a call. "They'll put me back in jail," the man says. The train is now arriving. Someone at the end of the platform waves his arms wildly to the conductor. I bark, "Sir, please get up." In the nick of time, someone the fella by the ankles, and pulls him to safety. The dude, still on the ground, yells, "You almost spilled my coffee!" to which his savior rolls his eyes. I get on a different car and practice Japanese on an app.

I attend a producers workshop for marketing one's comedy show. I learn a couple things. Several men, not running the workshop, offer a lot of unsolicited advice to everyone n attendance. Again, I wonder what the appeal is. I go across the street for a Whole Foods salad and purchase a scone to eat between shows at night.

While home I have a little time to work on my book before curling my hair, changing into a new blouse, and heading to SC. On my commute I think about how we use Twitter, how I use Twitter, microaggressions, and how important but also stupid recognizing said microagressions are. It's my first show in Chicago since mid-July. The audience gives us "IHOP: The Musical" as our title. The singing feels good. The singing brings renewal. I call an Uber.

At the next theatre's greenroom I am met by some unusual faces. People from New York and LA visiting, jumping in on the fun. We do two acts of improv. It is okay. I am happy to be there though. Puhg comes and during something particularly funny I look out at him to see if he laughed. He's munching a french fry. He is standing at the bar when it is over. We take a car home.

I Think You Are Very Successful Now

At least that's what I surmise from bits and pieces of social media. I don't know what major success looks like in your field. I don't know if you still have mountains to climb. I think often about that sommelier documentary. I cannot name a single sommelier or honestly a single fact about wine. In the film some men became certified top-tier experts and some didn't. The ones who fell short are surely more knowledgable than 99% of the world, but ten feet from the summit can feel much farther.

I wonder if you are happy. I feel like I really know you because I saw you back when you were trying to get into your skin. You made fun of yourself for not understanding football and now you tweet about it a lot. I don't think that's fake necessarily. I'm only curious.

We used to talk about how we didn't have any money, how a muffin was a feast. I'm proud of you even though I am a small tick in your timeline. But I don't know. Sometimes I feel like a mark. Are you a mark in mine? I think so. I questioned what you actually liked and what you fronted then. I do now, if I think of it.

My theatre history class is divided into six units--directing, playwriting, tech, etc. We will study modern work and move backwards toward the significant elements of the past. I DO NOT WANT TO TO HAVE ONLY COVERED OEDIPUS TARTUFFE AND HAMLET BY MIDTERM. I have too many ancient playwrights to choose from, the timeline of how directing transformed and the dramaturg was born. But actors from 1800, 1900, even 1950--none come to mind.

That okay Dispatch song. Would you come running if I called your name in a crowd?

Eclipse

I am still trying to figure out why I thought the eclipse was so incredible. I didn't initially care. My mom lives 45 minutes away from totality, so she wanted to make a thing of it. There were cucumber sandwiches and brownie piles and eclipse pop in coolers. We went to a football field with 2,000 other people. I imagined sweating in a mob, but actually, 2,000 people on a huge field is not crowded at all. The dogs ran around, sometimes standing in front of an icy fan. I put on my glasses to see the crescent. Lenses up, lenses down.

It got cooler. Gradually I didn't need my sunglasses anymore. "It feels like evening." Globs showed up in my hand's shadow. At 1:13 I felt giddy. At 16 shadowy waves splashed on white ground. The crickets were a full orchestra. I held Puhg's hand. My mom said, "It's like that scene in Independence Day when they're all on the roof." She wasn't wrong. Everyone laughed at the idea that birds fly to their roosts and fall asleep, but I am certain something primal was itching at me too. Foreboding and magical. The moon covered the sun for less than two minutes. I screamed when I took my glasses off. The eye looked at me curiously. It sparkled. There was a pink sunset on every side of us. Jupiter was perched nearby. Tears welled in my eyes and over the loudspeaker the physicist began a count-down from 10. My mom gripped my hand and said, "I don't want it to go away." Me neither.

The day went on. I felt messed up. I fell asleep at 6 PM. My mom was on the couch accidentally watching Dirty Dancing twice.

When I got my tattoo I thought it hurt so awfully. I didn't know if I could stand having it finished, and I never thought I would get a second. But now I do not remember. I couldn't put words to it. I can't again now. I have seen every CGI tsunami and dragon under the sun but the real sun escapes me.

It Is the End of Days and I Have Chosen to Write

We could be nuke dust any day. I have no pretenses about avoiding desserts in this vacation wonderland. If I die, it will be with a cinnamon roll in my belly.

As things collapse and teeter I imagine myself dirty in a roving commune. My last job won't matter, but the skills I learned at it will.

Looking ahead I wonder what I will finish. What are the last words I want to speak on a stage or send to a reader? I thought about canning my book until I feel more than 50% certain I will see October, but once I have journaled, read a chapter of Ghost Story, drank my amaretto coffee, watched Big Brother, and even fallen down the Twitter void, my computer shines like a Zelda treasure chest. I sit at the desk and kick it open. A four note victory plays.

On Offense

We opened the show with "Option" last night. It's essentially a typical short form improv scene that morphs into genre switching at the audience's whim. I played a girl on a date and then at the suggestion of "horror" a cast member said he had slipped a serum into our blood. I did the first thing I could think of (pretend my face was melting off) and then the audience had us switch genres to rom-com. I kept my face distorted and said, "I look like this, but I know you love me for what's on the inside." (Laugh, laugh.)

As soon as I said it I had a little shiver up my spine. Some people really do have distorted voices. I wasn't aiming to make fun of them. I was just...acting like I was in a horror movie. As the game ended and I sat on the sidelines during the next piece, I really thought hard about how someone in the audience with a disfigured cousin might have taken that twenty seconds. Then I tried very hard to think of other options I had in the moment. I could have pretended to be a horror-trope ditz, which would have been satire (or problematic?). Or maybe I could have been the killer. I shook it off and sang a mini-musical about a purple alligator (lol comedy).

When we returned from intermission I started an intro for the next game and for the first time looked into the front row. Dead center. Staring up at me. A burn victim with missing fingers and a disfigured face. I flubbed a word. Ultimate universal irony. Then I made a point to finish my speech and give a winning smile to the dude. I creeped on him for the rest of the show. He was having an excellent time, clapping and hooting.

Earlier this summer I taught a "song parody" camp to middle schoolers. I played Weird Al's parody of "Complicated" "Constipated." The song ended and I asked the group why it was funny. A blonde 12 yo's practically screamed, "It's not! It's not FUNNY." CoMeDy Iz HaRd, u gUyz!

Girls Need More Secrets

After two weeks devising work with young women attending summer camp in Maine in 2017, I have some new thoughts on girlhood. The 4th and 5th graders fought to the death for single solo lines and the high schoolers refused to perform. I want to know what happens to girls in middle school. I want to know why one girl started most scenes with "I should have listened to my mother. I hate you." I want to know if she thought that was funny, or if it's all she could think of. I want to know if that's still a joke in her mediasphere or if her family is old school and watches black and white TV. Or if her mother really should have listened to her mother. I want to know why the 2nd graders wanted to do all their own original choreography and the 9th graders wanted to be set like china for dinner.

I want to know what it is about a secret, whispered between two teens, that makes even me want to know the juice. And I want to always remember what it feels like to be the third girl they beckon in and the fourth girl they don't.

Smidge and I were in a corner of the gym before Poms practice vowing to tell each other our crushes. We each spoke a boy's name (same boy) and screamlaughed, intoxicated in our good taste. We skipped around the three-point line singing The Sound of Music. It didn't matter we were in "competition." We weren't. We were in 8th grade. When "going out" didn't mean going anywhere. It was how we showed our loyalty and our love, these private passings.

It had been this way a long time. I didn't fully trust my best friend because she would never admit to loving her obvious affection-target. She was my favorite person, but I watched her carefully. In fourth grade someone said she didn't have any crushes. "But you have to," we pressed. "But I don't," she insisted. I can't remember if I really didn't believe her or if I just didn't want to, but we pushed until she practically yelled, "OKAY FINE IF I HAVE TO, I LIKE ____ HAMPSTER!" There was a boy in our class named _____ Hampson. In her total distress she had misspoke.

Later, once we had boyfriends, the new secrets were about us. Who said what about who to who and who retold. We ate our own tails in gossip and serious nods. I see a past of closed mouths and deep deep treasures of family darkness. I see wives of important men with tight lips. I see a future where a lack of bragging saves our butts. Where female generals refuse to disclose and never lose. But to prepare, first, girls need better secrets.

Why I Am Here

When I started grad school some dude asked me on a date, and I truthfully told him, "I didn't move here to date you. I moved here to write."

Those All-In educational years were necessary for me. I couldn't live another way. I moved to Chicago to do comedy. Bonus: I got to experiment with different avenues of teaching, loved deeper, interrogated the self, and experienced things from cool to moving to incredible.

But hobby must move to home and so few can make it happen. "Nobody owes you anything," I do know. Sometimes it makes me sad. Sometimes it feels right. There is power in alone.

I have to pat myself on the back sometimes though. Like yesterday I did six hours of improv. I mean, hey, that's what I moved here to do, wasn't it? An audition, a callback, a musical, and a two-act show. It's not enough to live. The most I've ever made in a year in my entire life is 26K. But I am, for now, doing what I came here to do.

Today I head east for some strange artistic work, and I hope to come back with something new.

Destiny/Coincidence

If you had asked me a year ago, or ten years ago, or twenty if I believed in predetermination, I would tell you no. I vividly remember learning about Calvinism in history class and wondering who would ever adhere to such a philosophy.

But this year I have come to realize I used to unconsciously believe in destiny. I only know now because I no longer do. I have felt blessed for much of my adult life. Things seemed to work out for me. I came against life-changing forks in the road every other year, and it seemed that not only did I feel peace after I made a choice, I was almost comically reassured by the universe later. I turned down tempting jobs and the company folded. I backed out of a delicious program and heard from peers they dropped because it was horrible. I went on tricky adventures and soared. If something did feel off, inevitably, some new thing would bloom and I would say, "Good thing I was here at this moment." A less romantic version of that Rascal Flatts song. I didn't realize it, but when I was making decisions, I was imagining there were already two completely written lives for me, and I just had to pick one. Of course, there were ways I could have wandered off the paths if I did something truly out of character (committed a crime, bailed), but those things were so unlikely that my fate was essentially sealed.

I didn't mind hard or poor times because I had a Golden Thing in my future. I couldn't say what it was, but since I had taken all the "right" steps so far at any given time, each challenge was meant to be. Two years ago a comedy teacher of mine said, "You have to keep working if you're going to become the artist you're meant to be--well, no one is meant to be anything--but if you're going to become the artist you can be." I was jarred. Of course he was right, but that wasn't what my secret mind thought.

Things feel random now. I see how I arbitrarily make a meeting and get an opportunity or don't. How I have a million dollar idea but can't write it. How selfish people get ahead, how true people don't. I've felt murdered by doors opening while I'm in the middle of other commitments I have made. I don't remember that ever happening before. I always understood what FOMO was but never dealt with it. I feel like a ladybug on a fall leaf. I was stuck to a branch, but now winter is coming, and I'm floating haphazardly down.

My friend expressed this same confusion the other night. It was strange to hear someone else in the exact same mental boat. She guessed it was the election. I think I agree. I know there were horrible things in the world, but it seemed like good was winning and everything was happening in some grand calculated way. November 8th felt insane and purposeless. The fight since has felt like chucking powdered sugar at a tank.

I wish I could go back to my old train of thought. Even if I was wrong.

There's a Line Where the Sky Meets the Sea

Be happy where you are,
unless you're not happy where you are.

Timing

I have always been very good at planning ahead. I have had a savings account (that I borrow from, but still, it is there) since I was 17. I have iced people out who have hurt me more than once because I want to protect my future self. I always have two deodorants so I don't run out on left pit and can't make it to CVS for right pit. I never don't read restaurant menus online. Puhg pokes fun at how I plan if we will take a Lyft or the train home from the social event several hours before we go.

The positive to my preparedness is that I have always paid my bills, I have been open to receive many unique opportunities, I keep up with friends extremely well, I don't have bad meals, and my life has been exceptionally full. There are downsides though. For example, if I have a plan and it is derailed, I assume I am a bit more anxious than most.

If a month without a gig appears in my planner, I fill that space. I take a trip or I hustle for some sickly little paycheck. This summer I cobbled together six jobs to make my world function. I saw it coming from months away, so I emailed acquaintances like it was my job (it kind of is), sweat over flight calculators, and made visual charts--just to stay barely afloat. By the beginning of April it had all snapped into place. And then a month later there was a new opportunity. And then another. And then possibly one more. But I have already signed away my life. I can't think too much about which options would have been better or worse. It's not so clear in this line of work.

Yesterday the camp I was teaching ended at noon and then I had a dinner date at 4. Both in Evanston. 45 minutes back home. It seemed silly not to stay. I ate my leftovers lunch, went to a pet store to touch some bunnies, took care of a return...and it was only 1 PM. I still had three hours to kill and my phone battery was very low. I had a book. A very good book I love reading. But I did the math on the pages and decided I would finish before dinner. And then what? I had my journal. I wrote a bit. I sat in the library and read, and then would stop and wait. I looked at the clock. It moved so slowly. As if being in the library with nothing to read would have been the worst fate of all time. I got to the restaurant early. I had not finished the book, not by a lot.

Scumbags, Sweethearts

I did comedy with a bunch of scumbags in Arizona. Some were scumbags in the best of ways: dirty but kind little ragamuffins. They'd attend a cupcake party I threw, but they'd get super stoned first. Some were scumbags in the worst of ways. They'd drunkenly brag about how great their stand-up was, show up hungover for tournament shows, classically steal ideas. I hate these aspects of a thing I loved so dearly, but there's something rich about remembering it. A lawyer once told me all JDs leap at the chance to talk about how difficult passing the bar is.

Point: lots of scum, but also, a couple sweeties. One of these sweeties felt like my little brother. He was so genuine and had an adorable appreciation for almost all humans. Once at a party we were having a 1 AM intimate conversation. Not spilling all, but just sort of swapping little bits. He said, "You know what's kind of an interesting thing about me? I am kind of into bigger girls." I was like, "Oh. Okay." And then he said, "Yeah, not like huge, but like...like--" And then he named a girl on the sketch comedy team who had this amazing black curly hair and was hourglass curve with a tummy. My guess--a size 16.

I felt the sudden lurch of "I'd like to go home" but I couldn't put my finger on why. Now I know it's because he considered appreciating a normal body a fun-fact. Or maybe because he categorized women into bins of not big and big. Or maybe because all men/ all people do that but I don't like to be reminded. Or maybe because he named an object in the bin to me, like I was an accomplice. It was too late and the music was too loud to for me to do anything other than blink. He waited for a response. "Well?!" He shoved my shoulder, "Aren't you proud of me?"

I am lucky enough to mostly spend time with feminists. I work in liberal spaces, I write in liberal spaces. But even so, little prickles of dissent poke in, and I want to smack the world upside the head and explain how hard it is to be a woman, when it is a good man's medal of honor to not be disgusted by our average selves.

What Do We Count Down To?

Bermuda Cemetery, 2016

Solstice 2017

When I was seventeen the director of the summer camp I grew up at led us on a summer solstice night hike. It was a campy (literally) rite of passage full of life advice, but several of these little lessons have stayed relevant to me over the years. My favorite takeaway was the idea of living "solstice days.' The concept is on the longest day of the year we should wake-up bright and early, full of excitement and stay vibrant with the sun, squeezing every drop of joy from the day. And, you know, if you want to live a full life, repeat x 365. On any given day when I am ear to pillow I know my day has been incredible. Even when I am depressed or anxious, on paper I have lived a remarkable 18 hours.

When I was down last week Pearl told me to remember probably less than 500 people in the world have somehow made improv & teaching their employment, and we are two of them. Those numbers could easily be skewed depending on how you define "improv" "teaching" and "employment," but whatever. I know I do this exercise all the time--listing what my day entailed--but it's always a rainbow from my 10th grade journal. 6 out of 7 of my days are so classified as solstice, that that one needed break usually makes me feel sluggish or guilty. I live in June 21st.

On this year's solstice morning I woke up at 4 AM. I couldn't sleep, so I worked on my book for about an hour and did some lesson planning. I did a circuit at my gorgeous athletic club and took the early train north to teach musical theatre to 5th graders. They learned a kickline to "Singin' in the Rain." Puhg and I watched the finale of Better Call Saul, I scrapbooked in the living room with the windows open. I answered adult bill mail. At 8 I led an improv rehearsal for an indie team. I laughed, we got critical, we goofed to the Red Line. Pearl texted me a photo of Burger King's Lucky Charms shake. I said, "We should go now," because I was already out. I was surprised to hear she was down. She and Flip had just left the Cubs game.

I pushed through the hoards in Wrigleyville and we walked to the BK. It was locked. Google had said 24-hours, but that was the drive-thru and we were on foot. But we rallied. We were already there. Maybe we would ask a passing car to get us the ice cream. I committed and called a Lyft. We waited for it to come and saw a familiar body shape on the sidewalk. It was Dal! We called out and he walked over. What are the odds! He was hungry too.  Suddenly the night was magic and we were all going to get crowns. My Lyft driver cancelled. He said my request was "unacceptable.' Was it? I didn't think so. Flip hailed a cab. No dice, but the next cab said yes! We all squeezed in cheerily, we ordered novelty treats and Cheeto sticks! We waited at the window.

We waited a long time. Our driver revealed he had to go to the bathroom very badly and started knocking on the window. The women working would not let him in (understandably). It was funny and then he was in a lot of anxious pain. He pointed at the dash and said, "There's my license. Good luck." And then he ran across two lanes of traffic to a gas station. He came back jumping, he wasn't allowed to use the restroom. We were stuck. We offered to leave, a line of cars sat behind us. After 25-minutes the food came. We grabbed it and jumped out. The driver behind us revved like he would smash us. He screamed at Dal. Dal engaged. Pearl said, "Walk away." I was got very tiny inside my head wishing, "Oh god let there not be a fight in this Burger King parking lot." We walked away, feeling the steam of tense encounters. The milkshakes were actually really good.

I asked a cop to take our picture, and Dal gave her a Cheeto stick. Eventually we all parted ways. I walked the last half mile alone up Halsted.

Lil Improv Magic

Yesterday morning I was lost on my run. I didn't know the area of our women's retreat in Indiana. I thought I had stayed near the Lake. I hadn't. I was hot and had to go to the bathroom. It took an extra half hour but I found my way. I listened to "We Belong Together" by Pat Benatar on repeat. The song stayed in my head all day. I sang it while floating in a pod of witches. I imagined the ballad power of it on a stage in the 80s.

At night I did a show at i_. I was a waitress setting up a romantic dinner. After candlesticks and chocolates I told my scene partners I would be serenading them. Guess what song I chose. I started belting, but this time people had paid money to see me do it. It was the button on Act One. Blackout.

At the end of the show the stage manager picks some reference from the set and queues it up for bows. Guess what song he picked. We bent in half and gestured to the booth. I felt like stardust. Our subconscious becomes our actions and becomes others' realities! Improv!

20 Songs of the Past Year

As tradition goes--the 20 important songs of my past year alive:

Love Yourself - Justin Bieber
Sang this a lot in empty elevators on the cruise ship
Really Don't Care - Post-Modern Jukebox & Demi Lovato
Ran to it every day in Maine
Beirut - LLW
The silliest German number from the musical I was in this fall
Fire Escape - Andrew McMahon
Fall walks to work
Love and Great Buildings - Andrew McMahon
Getting over winter in March, sitting outside waiting for the concert
Song 2 - Blur
The pre-show music for the long-running show I joined this year
Dreams - The Cranberries
Transition music from my solo show
Stuck in America - Sugarcult
Bows for my solo show
I Took a Pill in Ibiza - Mike Posner
Bittersweet end to my cruise contract
My House - Flo Rida
Getting ground in August Chicago
My Boyfriend's Back - The Angels
Getting stoked for 5Bs at i_
If My Friends Could See Me Now - Sweet Charity
Joyful writing packets
Somebody to You - The Vamps
Showersong 2K16
Crimson & Clover - Evil Stig
Thoughtful winter, 9 PM shows, bows for _____ Co
Goodbye Saigon - Billy Joel
Perspective in February
There's Your Trouble - Dixie Chicks
When spring arrived
Play It Again - Luke Bryan
Before the world exploded, things were semi-nice
Mine - Taylor Swift
Fallin' more in love with Puhg
Monster - Acoustic Eminem Cover
Writing, writing, writing at night
Better Man - Pearl Jam
Getting everything I ever wanted

Peru: Tough Reflections

People say they like to hike because they get in touch with nature and themselves. I don't like to hike mostly because I already feel in touch with myself. Nature is cool, but it's everywhere. No need to make it arduous. I dunno. I often get bored.

But then, over some oven fried potato crisps, I found myself asking Puhg what he thought about when we were quietly making our way up the Inca Trail. He had thought about mountains and history and civilization. I asked myself, what had I thought about anyway?

I had thought, "I hate myself," which is baffling to admit. But I had. Especially in the last half hour of the most difficult leg when my body was disintegrating into fatigue and sweat. I wasn't happy and I had flown to another country and dropped stacks in attempt to be. But almost as soon as I had admitted, "I hate myself," I had countered, "I don't want to be a person who hates herself." I couldn't believe it was me thinking that thought. That's a thing other people say. I've been hard on myself or guilty, but I've always liked Alice.

My birthday was such a brilliant joyful day, but in the evening I was hit with anxiety. My things weren't going to fit in my bags. I wasn't feeling 100%. Bad sleep. I'm getting older. I forgot sunscreen and had gotten beet burn--not an ideal condition to start two days outdoors. I called myself an idiot. I looked at my hiking pants. I hadn't tried them on since I bought them and had probably gained five pounds since then. If they didn't fit, I had no other options. "I'm a fat idiot," I said outloud. What was happening? This has never been how I treat me.

My mom would say these weren't my own thoughts but some nasty cultural lies that stuck to me like briars. Since the negativity felt so foreign, I am inclined to agree. I bet this happens to a lot of women/people.

There have been other things--it's been harder and harder for me to make decisions this year. Any decision. I'm always timely with mine, but less certain. I wonder more. I worry more. "My life was run by fear," a thing I've heard said at the start of motivational speeches or in narrative essays. I have never related. I'm just not afraid of much. I am calm on a shaking plane. I welcome an emotional disruption. I have started over numerous times. But I was afraid to hike a thing that thousands of people do every day. Because maybe I wouldn't have the right backpack or order the right fish at dinner or just feel the right way.

I have no idea when this started. After a lot of consideration, I have a theory. My life is really perfect. I'm doing everything I have wished for my whole life. I perform improv (for money) several times a week, I write, I teach in the arts, I have a loving partner, good friends, supportive family. It's 4 PM and I am sitting in the sun with a brownie in my gut. Literally any day of the past year would be my past self's dream--tutoring and seeing plays at Steppenwolf, a big open gym, stages and coffee houses, Sophia Bush hugged me this year! I am living my best version of my best self, and I think it's too good to be true. Like maybe I don't deserve it? Or at the very least it's all incredibly fragile. I used to have nothing to lose. Now I feel like every choice could take me a teeny bit higher or plummet me to dust. This is dramatic and untrue. I have done incredible things this year! Memorable and challenging, unbelievable and rare. I am so proud.

I feel freer. This ivy grew secretly. I yank at the vines. The leaves rip rip rip rip. And also, I guess, the hiking worked.

Peru: Lima

The ocean was a surprise. I guess I didn't realize I would see it so clearly, the shore would be so majestic and craggy. Our airbnb looked out over a gigantic park, wavy and modern. I wanted to walk in it right away. Colored tiles and a huge statue of a couple kissing, green, sidewalk ellipticals. We walked to the restaurant our host suggested. I drank a purple corn pop and sat in the bar while a group of two-hundred American teenagers took up the entire dining room. We cringed watching them screech and flirt.

I had heard about a light show on a fountain. Another surprise. Parque de la Reserva was huge and magical. We paid our measly entrance fee right in time for the show and darted to the big fountain, me with pink cotton candy in hand. It was spectacular and lovely...and then we realized there was a huge crowd at a different fountain. Ah ha! That was the show! Projections of Incan nature on a wall of water, splashed of light timed to music. It felt like Disney World, but it was a Tuesday. We realized there were fountains everywhere--a magical circuit actually. I felt truly giddy seeing all the different designs. We walked through an archway of water, marveled at a pyramid, danced along an enormous rainbow. There was a big circle of jets that people were running in and out of. It is a treasure to see so many happy adults. I didn't want to leave, but after making a wish on the river fountain, we did.

In the morning we were surprised by a little breakfast our host's maid made! I had the fluffiest pita ever spread with fresh butter. Sunrise run to the shore lighthouse, a sunny walk to a bakery to get a traditional but rare Peruvian dessert (anise cake!), stopping at teeny newscarts for candy, watching city life. Puhg wanted good ceviche (what Lima is known for), so he Yelped a good spot. I didn't really care and wanted something light. It was the best lunch I have ever eaten in my life.

Complimentary fried corn kernels. Crunchy and salted. A jug of fresh limeade. I don't like ceviche, but I tried to because When in Rome and freaked out. It was so soft and tart and incredible. I slurped it up. Puhg didn't mind because neither of us could finish out food. It felt like like eight people were supposed to share our orders. I had ordered a bowl of stew because remember, I was trying to get something light, and it was phenomenal. Fish caught that morning maybe? Soaked for hours, covered in a warm egg, swimming in sweet potato. Something I will never forget is how every dish in Peru smelled remarkably delicious. I don't think we experience that in America. Maybe fresh cookies do, but I had never whiffed a soup and had my eyes roll back in delight like I did in Peru. Since this meal was my favorite of all time, I knew I had to see what kind of dessert we were dealing with. A waitress came with a platter. They all looked excellent, but I didn't know what one was. Maybe no English translation. It was a tan cup of gelatinous substance with soft circles on top. I had never eaten anything like it. After surveying the menu and googling I found out it was a pudding made from a berry that only exists in Peru (I had never tasted this taste before! Weird!) covered in a small merangue macaroons! HOLY COW. The bill came and I calculated how much I had spent with the conversion rate. $16.

The Lorca museum was an explosion of floral beauty. It was some version of heaven and again, theme of Lima, a total surprise. The museum rocked my brain. There were archeological artifacts from pre-Incan people's. I wondered, "Were the Incans just as bad as the Spanish? Did they kill a former culture too?" It's so hard to say. Cat goddess pottery, sacred silver, every group of humans tries their best. We are all certainly wrong. This museum had some thing ingenius: a storage room for also-rans. Rows and rows of the same exact pot shaped like a chicken, bowls, tools. In museums it's so easy to get the idea that, hey, at least one person used this ceramic xyz. But by walking down aisles of the same objects, I could sense this was a true community. Everyone made their own flat cat pan. After swelling in the radiance of fresh bright petals and willow hangings, we visited the erotic portion of the museum. Truly strange. People from thousands of years ago were firing taboo images into kilns. I mean, really graphic stuff. They didn't even have sex ed yet and look what everyone was getting up to! It boggles my mind that in 1950 Lucille Ball couldn't say she was pregnant on TV and meanwhile in 1500 it was normal to have a statue of a skeleton threesome in your house.

Getting into the cab, I actually felt sad. I'm always ready to go home at the end of vacations, but Peru was such magic. I would miss it. I wondered if I would ever see those pink and purple gardens again or even anything as beautiful. I wished I had more time to simply sit there and love. We had farewell dinner at an Amazonian restaurant and walked home, breathing in the salty sea air. In the morning we left. Our plane began to rumble and Puhg said, "My home is in Illinois, but I left my iPod in Peru."

Peru: Cusco Part II

Since we had an extra day, we decided to pamper ourselves. Sleep-in? Check. Eating butter cookies at the hotel breakfast? Check. A morning in bed reading? Check. Frozen lemonade at lunch? Check. I sought out a salon that would add a pattern to my nails (a tiny black heart I decided, negra corizon). I found a sweet lil lady who then sold me on a $20 aromatherapy hot stone massage. Ah, thank goodness I wasn't barfing on a hike. Puhg went next door for a quinoa beer.

We trotted to the market for a sweet treat. I found a tiny tent where all the Peruvian children and their babysitters were. Authentic! They sort of laughed at me sitting on a stool for toddlers, hunched over an ice cream. More walking slowly, enjoying the city one last time. Puhg found a fancy fusion restaurant for dinner and I found all the street snacks. An alfajores (Peruvian cookie), a donut, and finally I stopped at the lil old lady who sold rice pudding out of a cart. We packed while I nibbled my treats and watched an episode of Master of None before bed.

In hindsight I wonder if we needed such a slow day, but at the time I know yes, yes we really really did. We talked a lot about experiences, and how some experiences trick us into seeming more important than the simple things in life--a lesson I have gladly taken home.

Peru: Machu Piccu

I was awake three hours before we had to leave with incredible insomnia. Our driver arrived ten minutes early (3:50 AM) barking we had to go, rushing us through dark cobblestone streets. 90 minutes in a van speeding, jerking, whipping around turns. When we arrived at the train, I had lost my hearing because the sudden altitude changes and was dry heaving from motion sickness. Our tickets were scrambled so I had to sit in a different car than Puhg. He walked me to my door. We hoped I wouldn't fall asleep and miss my exit. It felt like I was getting on a lifeboat off the Titanic. I drifted in and out of consciousness, once finding a raisin cookie in front of me, which I ate hastily. They were also serving coca tea, which I almost took, but as I reached for a cup my brain suddenly put together me drinking this tea every night (which is made from cocaine plants) and the terrible insomnia I had been having. No more coca tea for me. I got off the train hoping the Spanish I heard was right and was relieved to see Puhg and the couple we would be hiking with waving.

It was still dark. We met our guide, a little Peruvian man eating popcorn. The first two hours would be the hardest, he told us. The regular trail had been blocked by a rockslide. We stopped every fifteen-twenty minutes to catch our breath while moving straight uphill a jackknife porter trail. I was pouring sweat. At the first checkpoint we explored a little Incan village and were served lunch. expected sandwiches and apples, but suddenly a tent was erected and we were inside it chowing on pans of guacamole, pasta, corn chowder.

We hiked several more hours, this time in the rain, pausing to see a Peruvian raccoon and or orchids. It was scary. Only one person falls off the mountain each year, and they're usually being a hot dog, but I was walking so close to the edge on uneven wet rocks. I slipped and sort of ended up in the splits. But what if I had slipped and fallen sideways instead of down. Goodbye.

One large uphill climb our guide called The Gringo Killer. The other couple we were with took it like big stairs, while Puhg and I crawled up. The views were incredible and made everything worth it. I don't love hiking, but it felt so...I don't know, organic, to inch higher to the sacred place, seeing the river we started at become a stream and then a trickle.

We would have all day tomorrow for Machu, so we took the bus down to Aguas Calientes and checked into our crummy motel. The walls were paper thin, but our "matrimonial room" was decorated in rose petals and chocolate. We met with the other couple and our guide for an equally crummy but educational dinner as our guide told us about life as a native, eating guinea pig, and how Peruvians feel about Incan culture hundreds of years later. I fell asleep at 9 PM. At 6 we had a light breakfast and were off for a day at the main event.

We slowly made our way around each site of Machu. It kept feeling bigger than it had five minutes ago, and sometimes I felt I could understand it but then I couldn't again. Time is so long. Beliefs are so ever-changing. Grass is so green. Human sacrifice was a thing. The mountains are too big to compute.

Toward the end of the circle, the couple went on another hike, and our guide left us. Puhg and I walked through old stone houses and observed more sacred places. We hoped we might touch a llama and were pleased to find two hopping around right in our path. I patted one's butt as it stood in front of me and it later went right up to Puhg and sniffed his chest.

We had around four hours to kill before our bus ride, so we had a long slap happy lunch. It rained, harder this time, so we sat in a French cafe. It was a happy, relaxing day. The kind of day I don't really enjoy in Chicago. On the train back we talked with a couple from Hong Kong, and I finished the S-Town podcast.

We were supposed to hike Rainbow Mountain the next day, something we had both been really looking forward to, but we were so exhausted, that climb started at 2 AM, my ears were re-popped, and we would have to spend 6 hours in a bus to get there. Vomit was basically guaranteed. We decided not to go. It was a hard decision, but I am proud we made it. Sometimes the hardest choices mean doing what is best for us.

Peru: Cusco

We took a shoddy little airline and got seated apart from each other in a cramped row. However, I overheard a German couple explaining they couldn't sit in the exit row since they didn't know Spanish or English. I jumped on it and told the flight attendant we would happily switch. Much roomier aisle seats! It didn't matter to me, but Puhg literally didn't fit in his previous chair. He did all the heavy lifting for this trip so when I contributed any minute thing, I felt very proud, puffed up my chest, and sometimes even bellowed, "That's what the money's for!"

Our hotel was so lovely! There was a waterfall outside our room, big wooden furniture, fire pits in the lobby, and coca tea available 24/7. We arrived and relaxed briefly (okay I checked my email and had to respond to a bunch of stuff) before hitting the town for dinner. I was in love with the city right away. Narrow itty bitty streets full of art and stone, woven goods, fountains, big beautiful churches. Puhg felt slightly light-headed after landing, but I only noticed walking up hill left me out of breath. We were exhausted and went to bed at like 10 PM. At 2:30 I woke up.

It was maybe the worst I have ever felt in my life. It rivaled food poisoning for sure. The room was spinning out of control, an elephant had sat on my head, and I was beyond nauseous. I threw up violently over and over. Puhg had a headache, so we were both awake, miserable. I was in so much pain I couldn't even look at my phone or listen to a podcast. Altitude sickness--apparently very real. Eventually at about 6 AM I got a couple more hours of sleep. The complimentary breakfast was served until 10, so Puhg guided me slowly out of our room where I, shivering and avoiding eye contact with the servers, ate two small wheat buns. Back in the room, Puhg fell asleep and I read. As suddenly as it came, it was lifted. I felt 95% recovered. Originally we had planned to go on a tour of some ruins, but I had pushed against booking anything our first day. We were both relieved all we had to do for the rest of the day was explore the city. (Another tally in my box for "What Alice helped with on this trip.")

We walked around the square looking for trinkets and enjoying all the stray dogs (so so many). We visited a chocolate museum and had spicy cocoa overlooking the main square, I got roped into a $6 hour massage (I mean, how do you pass that up?), and marveled at the huge market. The best part of Cusco was the snacks. I got a little poptart pastry at the market, some fresh juice, a marshmallow on a stick from a street vendor, pink sweet popcorn from another. All for around $2 American. I love snacks! We went to a big deal chef's restaurant for dinner and I ate the best veggie burger I've ever had in my life--it was sprouts and beets and incredible.

The next morning was my birthday! We were healthy enough to fully enjoy the hotel breakfast spread! It was, like most eating in Peru, above and beyond wonderful! Fresh yogurts and fruits and buns. Plus a breakfast burrito with Cusco avocados and more of that coca tea. At the end of the meal the staff came out with an incredible mousse and sang Happy Birthday! We hadn't even mentioned it! They just noticed the detail on my passport at check-in! It was so sweet and surprising.

We decided to spend the day in Pisac--an Incan ruin high off a cliff. We took a forty-minute cab up winding roads and ended in a teeny town. I held a baby alpaca and bought myself a llama sweater from a vendor. We also came across a guinea pig village in the back of a restaurant. Adorable even if they were only there to be cooked. PISAC BLEW MY MIND. I don't even want to try to describe it, but I kept accidentally saying, "Wow." The mountains, the detail of the steps, the intricate rock houses. I sat on a rock overlooking all of it and opened the birthday cards from my parents I had packed. We hiked down the mountain, chatting and contemplating life for these peoples. My favorite part was seeing the extremely uncanny catacombs in the cliffsides. So creepy! The hike took about an hour, and at the end I was very thirsty. Wouldn't you know a little old woman had a fresh orange juice stand at the end of the trail? For 1 sol she pumped two oranges into a plastic cup, and we gratefully gulped it down.

Before heading back to the city I wanted to try some of the big corn I saw as street food. I really just wanted the novelty of eating giant corn kernals, but it was honestly so delicious. A woman took a huge corn sitting in boiling water out and layered some soft cheese into the ear. I ate it the whole cab back, soaking in the scenery from a backseat in Peru. Our driver had lied about how much we had to pay--the literal only time someone wasn't exceedingly nice to us in Peru (what a people!)--so I left the cob in his car. Boop!

For dinner we tried a stereotypical fancy place, and it was one of our least favorite meals of the trip. The norm in Peru is so excellent--no need for it to front. I had a stressful night of packing for an early Machu Piccu go time (more on this later), but it was interrupted by housekeeping at the door at 9 PM. The hotel staff was all there with ANOTHER mouse cake and sang again! The hospitality! I was luckily in bed by 10, read Puhg's card to me, and passed out.