One Song Glory

Listened to Hadestown soundtrack for the first time Wednesday because I had a long drive out to Santa Monica. Loved it very much. It cleaned up at the Tonys this year. It was originally a concept album/theatre piece traveling around in 2006. Talk about a long road. One of the players in the big fat Great White Way version won the Best Supporting Tony at age 74! Now that's a long road. This morning I went down a hole before my alarm was even set to go off of all the big shows this year. Oh yes I scoured message boards for all the spoilers of the Oklahoma revival. Fascinated. Gobbled up all the videos. The anchor of the whole thing (Jud) was first cast by this director in this weird version as a college student in, also, the mid-2000s. Road! Long!

Do we even hear the stories of people obsessed with their One Thing and the One Thing is just kinda bad and nothing? I know people who only ever do One Thing and kind of trot it out, but they aren't working on it, so it withers up. But throw enough love and time and eventually money at anything(?) and it will be incredible? Is this true? I heard the lady who made Tale of Two Cities say she just knew it was a Broadway show and spent a decade making it be so. Anything in it's first stages or in whatever places is gonna be bad, and even the best things some people think are bad, you know?

I'm asking because for so long I was trying to see needs and make art that met the needs. It's still hard not to leave a meeting and think "Oh so they want THIS, what can I think of real quick that is that?" In some ways that's a good entrepreneurial spirit, but is the real gold in cherishing the one one one thing and carrying it forever? Nia Vardalos did her solo show for years and years with screenplay on her desk until the day came someone asked for it. I always consider Matt Weiner carrying his pilot on his person, lort.

I think I know what my major items to peddle would be/are. Now the question is should I write these two features on spec and should I be even choosier with my brain space? And also were people solitarily in love or were they just better at knocking on doors with their few wares. Not to brag (this is my blog though), but people keep saying I am "prolific" which seems like such a deep serious compliment. I mean, yeah when I write down all I have written, it's a lot. But it's also my job. And I work hard, but I'm not dying. It feels right. Taking suggestions on this.

Wrote This Quickly Because I Told Myself to Write Something and My Meter Is Almost Up So

Last night I got home at 11 PM and I wondered if the apartment light would be on sometimes Puhg is alseep after all so imagine my surprise when I looked up from the gate to see Puhg in the flesh standing at the corner of the balcony with the spray bottle for our succulents aiming right at me I laughed and laughed, what a good bit I love him so much Dizz visited this weekend (!) for stuffy pizza and board games mid-day she kept commenting how we were so respectful of each other and I don't even notice anymore it was nice to have someone observe and then also nice to get coffee like neighborhood friends might I was very lucky in general I've been feeling lucky last night, the reason I was out until eleven is I had a mentor meeting in Culver City it was paid for by our guild so oh man did we go all out there was a giant fish at the table I had an entire artichoke and also the Ovaltine cake and a peanut salad people are generally kind even though people always say this industry is evil or maybe I am as I already said just so lucky the woman who gave us advice was a big believer in be a good writer and you will find work, you will you will I mean right before the dinner I was at Target buying shirts for my shows in Edinburgh and before that I had really a truly delightful easy breezy meeting with people who make things I admire and they told me no they wouldn't be making my thing so solemnly like it would be a blow when jokes on them I didn't even know I was at the level where they were considering it, what a win, what a win in the afternoon I had popcorn and watched TV and there was networking in the morning and it's very hot but I wear sunscreen every day now I have learned that's a thing and I am surprised by how quickly I am doing it all out, even my rose serum.

Happier Post

I’m not sure how to pretend everything is normal? I keep having these meetings at very cool studios and then waking up in the middle of the night reading articles about climate change. It’s incredible to be in the middle of a problem that’s never existed before. For so many complications of my one life I walked through knowing it’s all been done. But this hasn’t actually been done. They didn’t do this in the 16 or 1900s--plan vacations partially for relaxation and partially because perhaps in fifteen years it will be gone, or we will all be poor, so live it up but at the same time feel guilty I’m not using that vacation fund to protest in Flint?

I worked on a non-political TV show for 8 months. At first it felt ignorant but then it felt like an important respite. And I do believe the solutions aren’t all from (are rarely from) addressing the dearth of problems head-on and often answers come inside out from healing the sadness inside of people. (But also healing the sadness hasn't been cutting it for polar bears?)

The solution/resolution cannot be that we simply exist. We weren’t always here and we won’t always be. Everyone knew that too. The heat death of the universe was never a secret. We just thought we wouldn’t see it. The more I question what it is all for the less motivation I have, but somehow the more clear the present becomes. A horrifying stoop for a progress-oriented person. I come home and go to the balcony, the moon is bright as a theatre spot. Puhg points at it. “Moontime,” he says.

Despite these previous three paragraphs, I’m looking fancy on the outside and feeling special on the inside. I bought brand new white Vans only to be worn in meetings. I drive around LA like I own the stupid place and believe in myself. I am unsure of what flower to nurture, but I am certain there is a prized petunia in there. In practicality I don’t know anything, but, well, I can’t describe it, I know something.

Prosthetic

Difficulty in zooming out. You know when something feels off? Something's just not sitting quite right. I've felt it all weekend. And here I am at the end of said weekend. I don't have a "job," but I workhorse the days away, both good and not so good. I should take a day to not this week. It's difficult though. When I have afternoon meetings scheduled. And I need to stay sharp and focused but also can't over-focus.

Chill, I wish I could believe. It feels right to pet a sweet dog by a pool at my friends' girlfriend's birthday. I even post a short video, but later when I go to look at it I am bombarded by recurring footage of our despicable VP avoiding eye contact with immigrants. Suddenly I feel guilt for the dog video.

Puhg and I have Thai lunch and I gush about what I'm learning to feel about my career. One step out the door I'm watching a mentally ill man scream on the sidewalk, and a person inside me throws up her hands, "Oh why bother at all?" I am all caught up on Big Little Lies now. Nicole Kidman, what a delight. I remember The Hours, but at the same time I can't remember much about The Hours. It was So Important and Noteworthy and got Awards, but it boils down to oh, I don't know. There was a prosthetic nose.

We just talked about Meryl today even. I voiced I was reading a scene in a play about a Kentucky family accidentally selling the minerals on their land for what they thought would be a good price. But, no, it was stupid Rockefeller gutting the soil for oil. Puhg and I stew. It's hard not to despise rich people. We work on it. We really do. But it's hard. I know comparatively to the entire globe I am rich, so that buys me some humility. I start to go down a Google hole, a conspiracy hole even, wondering why when you Google "I Hate Rich People" there's a bunch of websites that tell you not to hate rich people. Exactly what Larry Page wants I am sure. But so, anyway, no person should have that much money. A coworker of mine once said "A million dollars really isn't that much money" and I wanted flip a desk. But then we think about some people with their millions. (Like Meryl.) Less reprehensible than most, but still, but still. Another co-worker once said some people do deserve their money. She said Jay-Z and Beyonce do, but it is literally impossible to "make" the money they keep. Ethically. To really actually make all the value. At some point, we made the money off poor people. We all have. Until Jay-Z pays the people in factories manufacturing his CDs a full living wage, he didn't make the money. Meryl is a treasure, no doubt, but I know sweatshops made her costumes. It's not her fault. It's not anyone's fault, which is why it's been happening for so long and will likely never end until the oceans swallow us whole.

And in these moments when I know everything will die--either peacefully or not so--I think being a writer is both the best and stupidest idea I could have come to. I believe both that loafing around watching TV with someone I love is the best use of time and also the saddest. I'll write something happier tomorrow.

Good Boys

Went to Good Boys at the Pasadena Playhouse Thursday night. It was what it was re: teenage rich boys being problematic and creating scandal and so on. Secrets from the 70s. A mother unbelieving of what her boy has done. But then an anchor scene I just loved: the same mother ripping into her son. "Do you feel remorse?" "What did you do?" "Why did you do it?" He kept skitting around the living room, being absorbed into a stupid armchair, and she was like, (paraphrasing) "Nuh uh, buddy. You're never going to forget the horrible things you've done as long as you live, and I will see to that, and also this is what it looks to stand by you, by the way." Oh, it was so punk rock. I want to cut that chunk out and send my own VHS copy of it to all the moms (and dads) defending boys. I, at one point in time, did understand "Okay, the world can hate these people, but perhaps their mothers need to still love them or they will evaporate." But lately I kind of feel the toxic behavior will never be atoned under the protection of mothers' love. I know. Easy for me to say. I don't have a son, nor am I one.

When I was in Michigan there was a recurring theme. A question: how are we to treat people we don't sit right with? I am not good at hiding my truth. I think this is one of my greatest qualities and something that tends to create issue in my life. No secret there. I am earnest with people, and I think I am also diligent in finding solutions, but at a certain point I can't forget and I can't pretend. There was a mother I saw on the last night of my stay. I tried to avoid her. I have previously loved this person, but now she defends her son who has done something not evil but worse than terrible. It's not my business to bring it up, but also not my business to want to hug her. I see a person who has also done very bad things. In fact, I am speaking of those very bad things less than one day before I see him, and then he's suddenly in front of me smiling waiting for a hug. So I give the hug, and say nothing of import, and prefer that swift ending than a messy call-out on a public patio plus maybe unfavorable rumors following me?

People say LA is fake, and I find people to be kinder than I thought. I find people to be thoughtful and sincere with said full thoughts. But also I find no one ever wants to deliver bad news, and I find, in some ways, that's appropriate. While he held his puppy in his lap, crunching over the cheese plate I had made, ____ told us that anecdote about Sondheim and Jason Robert Brown and how, yes, when an artist shares something the only right answer is "I loved it" even if you didn't. Martin Short said it in front of my eyes. The secret to success is lie and say you liked it. I have been on the other side of careless remarks after I gut my heart for someone to see, and, I'll say, I never NEVER have thought, "Well, at least they were honest." Absolutely never. I have also been the careless remarker and regret each one, years later. What, did I think I deserved a pulitzer in criticism?

I'm enjoying the freedom to hate things everyone loves. Like Toy Story 4, which I despised. But not because it's cool or I have a nuanced take (like I feel everyone had with I Feel Pretty). No, just a "Maybe I'M the idiot, but I didn't like it, and I like that you did!" I also find an ease in the same freedom to love what I love despite others' hate. But there is this other way of criticizing I just can't hack. That specific cringe when someone is trying to convince me why I should hate what I love or love what I hate. It really does lurch my skin. Let me enjoy, let me not. If you don't, rain on your own parade, okay?

Who

I've decided to recommit to this blog. For so long I had it so I could write. Something. Somewhere. Over time I had more important writing projects and now I have a writing career, so this little junk heap has been my last priority.

"Introspective" is how I keep describing my summer. I've always had some semblance of summer vacation. I've never just worked straight through the season, even when I've wanted or needed to. Maybe I'm now cursed to always have time off and think about soft pretzels at the PH pool.

I have around a dozen writing projects at any given time, but which do I care the most about? Which would I fight for? Which are me? More, who is me? We like to think we know, but then you have a lonesome walk around your old neighborhood's book and coffee and donut stores, looking for a water bottle you dropped somewhere and you wonder, what have I liked from this visit? What do I think I like but didn't? What didn't I like but did? What even is a person beyond what they like, don't like, and make? I don't know. I had so much fun at The A with ___, but a few days later I realized we only talked about him. I wanted to be indignant, but I didn't actually care for some reason. I ring my hands over what perfect scone to order at the Ukrainian Village pie shop but ultimately go with, no, not the most "me" item but the one my guts 'n' butts ask for in the moment. I watch a very stupid and clunky musical my friends wrote and smile the entire time, I watch an acclaimed show at L__________. It's impressive. More than once I think "Ooh, ahh" but more than once I ask, "Do I like this?" What is "like" to begin with? In Japanese it is an adjective. That garden is pretty or full or like.

My friend is teaching at a prison. He said he might be able to set me up, but he knows I'm not looking for that. But why aren't I? I guess it would tank the momentum of who I am, but who I am isn't what I do, the self-help website told me. Truly an instagram account rocks my world every week with "reflections."I mean you can't chase every Like you have anyway.

Some things I like lately: knowing I am going on tour next month, the caramel cold brew I'm currently sippin' Midsommar, Phantom of the Opera, staying organized with my planner, singing Dashboard Confessionals in the basement of a Mexican restaurant, country music on the radio, hearing people's true ghost stories, my tatts, hot pink nails, massages, making a cheese plate for guests, rejection stories, research.