Dunno

I like thinking about that first improv teacher I had assuming, possibly knowing, so deeply I must be a kid who signed up for the wrong class, and this was going to be one of those once in a weird adolescent lifetime experiences that I try to forget, or do forget, as soon as humanly possible. If there had been anybody in the entire comedy summer school class she would have bet money on to burn rubber and never look back, she would bank it all on the girl who actually refused to play Freeze and could not speak in conducted story. That teacher will never know I was actually observing and thinking about what everyone did, and judging too critically to participate.

I like thinking about that teacher (I would kill to know who it was--we probably have mutual friends) because sometimes you just don't know where what you have said and what experiences you have created and who you are will go as attached to another person.

How Are You?

Can someone think of an alternate question to ask that starts a general conversation and shows I care that doesn't force the person I'm asking to place Life and existence somewhere on a linear Good Vs. Bad chart?

When people ask me how I am, I usually say "Good"--not because I'm being compliant with societal norms, but because, unless something horrible is happening AT THE MOMENT, I am Good. I have a lot of Good at my fingertips all the time, so I feel like it's only respectful to the powers that be if I acknowledge it. I mean, obviously, if I just dropped an ice cream cone on the ground, and a passerby asks how I am, I have permission to say, "Horrid! Simply dreadful!" and, like, wail at the melty dessert.


Graduation cake. June 2010. From my Wisconsin Aunt.

It's a very weird habit we've formed as humans. When we take a moment to evaluate how we are, it's either "good" or "bad"--very rarely just "happening" (which is actually all it ever is: happening). We usually end up coming to a polarizing conclusion (for me, it's semi-mathmatical: work was a plus today, financial concern negative, hanging out with LC positive, super stuffy nose negative...I guess if class is good tonight I will be "good." But if it's bad, I will be "bad.") Why can't we just "be"? Better yet--why can't we be "good" and cast of the "bad" as flakes of insignificance. Because the Good is far more enveloping than we ever realize. A billion Good things happened to me today I don't even consider, and I fill a page in my journal with gratitude every night, and yet, tonight I might have forgotten the fresh green beans I ate at dinner, the fact that I own a sportsbra, that I found a typo in a form I was about to send out just before I sent it. It's poor practice to think of good and bad as equals--swinging the scales day by day. It's simply not so!

Grant us all from earth to rise,
and to strain with eager eyes
towards the promised Heavenly prize!
We beseech thee, hear us!

Good, Bad, Good

I wrote this at 3:30 PM today:

"My hands smell like the hospital.
My hair is greasy and cow-licked.
My skin is breaking, white with purple blood hardening below.
My eyes are small. The crows feet circle in.
Pouches, like make-up bags, sit right below. Ironic--there's no makeup here.
There is too much going on."

Since then, I'm feeling better. It's funny. In the face of all the bad things that have cropped up this week--and let me tell you, it's been a doozy--I stayed strong, joyful, positive. But I reached a breaking point this morning and may or may not have bawled/ yelled (?) on a train full of passengers.


Aragon Ballroom, Chicago, 2009

But, since 3:30 I rested, thought, wrote. I'll write this now:

My belly is full of spaghetti and chocolate ganache cupcake.
Muff had cupcakes in her kitchen while I was there for her wedding.
I ate a few.
They were from her favorite grocery.
She said, "Just know, those are my favorite kind of cupcakes ever.
I have made love to those cupcakes."
My hands smell like laundry.
Diz is texting me:
"So did you apply to any grad schools in LA or what?"
And I like that.
I don't know what my eyes look like.


Muff&Jamba Weddingcakes 2009

Eating is absolutely my defense mechanism. I have eaten more this week than I have this...year. Or, so it feels. Every five minutes I look down and there's some new piece of cheese or marshmallow bon bon in my hand. WHAT'S THAT DOING HERE? I ask, shoving it into my mouth and chewing rapidly, so as to get to the strawberry yogurt faster.

Every Penny Pithy Thing

And I promise it will feel like this,
no matter how bad things seem,
I can promise you this:

That when it rains at the end of February, you will feel the life churning in the grass below you.
You will taste the water, and you will know Better is on its way.
That when you work with your own body, and get very quiet, and sit very still,
it will tell you what it needs.
Maybe even a bag of sea salt potato chips at 11:30 PM.
That when you pinch other people's comfort with your OCD tendencies,
if they love you, they will calm down enough to listen and to try to understand,
and to say It's Okay and not let it spoil the Sunday goat cheese crepes.
That love is blind, and work gets done, and you can eat twenty-five cookies
in one night
and you don't have to feel sick.

And no matter how good things seem,
I can promise you this:

That there is too much butter in the bowl.
That you might have to rush some things.
That you won't really ever know if it's "working out" the way you intended it to "work out."
That people don't always say Goodbye.
That you're always going to be an idiot about something.

But, still, I'll accept it all--every penny pithy thing--
for the wind outside, threatening to become a tornado.