Alice in Shipland: Week Two

-Sunday afternoon felt strange. I put on my new pink tank from Forever21 to feel like a normal human who can exist off the sea. We bumbled down the Mississippi. Am I doing this again? Oh, and then ten more times? For the first time in what feels like my whole life I wonder what I will do with all my time. I have buckets and buckets of time. I have like six projects I’m working on, but I only have two rehearsals and five shows a week. So. I do four miles at the gym and sit on the floor on our tiny room in the corner by the wardrobe. It’s a two foot by two foot open space of tile. We’ve dubbed it the “yoga studio.” I write a new scene for my new play. ZPill and MB come in giggling about the huge (free, always) dinner they ate. We put on face masks and pore strips and talked for hours. Something incredible is happening to me, which is, I really don’t care what time it is almost ever.

-Monday we had a cast dinner. We sat talking with nowhere else to be until the dining room cleared out. Savage Garden played quietly from the speakers. Someone started half-heartedly singing along. Then two. Then all six of us at a table in the middle of the ocean were screeching, “I WANNA STAND WITH YOU ON A MOUNTAIN.”

-I invited a word: shissed. It is short for “ship pissed” which is a hilarious and terrible inevitability of living on a vacation machine. Like, everything is gravy and then someone on cast will not be able to pass the ancient couple walking (are they even walking technically at that slow speed?) in a hallway, and suddenly a demon is unleashed. The demon says things like “Why do I live here? I hate people. This is the worst.” If you’re doin alright, it’s hard not to laugh at shissed people. If you’re the shissed, oh boy. Different story. I got shissed for this first time this week when security blocked off both hallways in front of and behind the exact staircase I live on. I wandered all over the boat for half an hour trying to find the one roundabout way in. It’s not like I was in a time crunch (that is never), but I got fussy. Shissed.

-I know exactly when and where the cookies are set out in the buffet each day.

-Cozumel port day was the bees knees. Four of us found a cultural wasteland of a beach that we got into for only the price of one drink and the cab ride there. I slurped coconut water out of a giant green coconut and ate fistfuls of nachos and swam in the ocean like a dang mermaid. I sat by the pool and listened to Coldplay. I left hot pink. It was worth it.*

-One night we huddled in a conference room to watch a stream of the Oscars. I feel full of confetti when Adam McKay won Best Adapted Screenplay. Here we were, a cast of SC, watching an alum of SC win an Oscar.

-I might already be in overload of beauty. I walked around Honduras Wednesday and if I really focused I would notice how absolutely breathtaking everything was, but only a minute later…poof, I was back to planning out the essay I’m working on.

-I have been spending at least a few hours every day in the library to write. Without fail, every hour some older person approaches me and asks how I get online. I say I am only writing—not online. They pause, ask, “So can you help me get online?” It’s as if I have “Millennial—Ask Me Anything” tattooed on my face.

-It’s a very confusing feeling to do a sketch for the umpteenth time and still get a giant positive reaction. I get that to me it’s very old and to the audience it’s very new, but man, it’s weird.

-Costa Maya = an hour massage for thirty bucks, swimming in an ocean pool, drinking summery slushies out of palm tree glasses. MY LIFE!

-Yesterday I got to teach an improv workshop in the lounge of the ship. About 40 people came out, and my heart exploded with joy. I have really missed teaching. I’m glad I get this mini outlet here.

-Saturday night is a barrel of fun. Everyone is getting one last wild ride in. We do an “adults only” set, which obviously very quickly (at the whim of the audience’s suggestions) spirals out of control into a trashy blue comedy blob. New friends are made! Fans even. We dance, we sing, everything is loud, we scream over the music. Everyone will disappear in less than ten hours.

At least twenty times a day I am filled with immense gratitude that life has taken me here.

*Don’t worry, Mary, I am wearing sunscreen!

Italy: Part Two

Uffizzi was probably a couple of the worst hours of my life. Menstural cramps hit hard and I was like "Venus? That's cool, but I think I might scream and/or rip out my own womb and fling it onto this Michaelangelo real quick." I felt bad for hustling Bisque through, but later we discovered he doesn't enjoy lingering in galleries anyway. Actually, the whole ovary explosion was probably a benefit for him as I would usually have been diddling around the plaques and leaving him bored at the end of every hall.

I spent most of the day crying or trying not to cry because I was emotional about basically everything from the street violinist playing Cats (interestingly enough I was not moved by "Memory" but more enraged that people internationally still love Cats when it's really just fine.) to extreme sadness that we had little slabs of only mediocre pizza for dinner and never took a bus anywhere and I saw a hurt pigeon outside the Museum of Modern Art and why didn't Bisque hold my hand through that crowded sidewalk?

David was impressive, sure. We saw some neat crypts. Churches that are so incredible you start to walk into rooms with only one phenomenal piece of stained glass and think, "Pfft. People are supposed to pray in this dungbox?"

Florence was good to me in that it stayed cloudy while we walked everywhere and I had this surprise fantastic Parmesan gnocchi for lunch. But, sigh, you can take the girl out of the Midwestern May, but you can't take a Midwestern May out of the girl. Mainly I was ready for Friday to end.

Luckily it did. And when I awoke our breakfast in bed of coffee and croissant included a small berry muffin. We had one item on our itinerary before the train. We climbed the Duomo. The sun burst in through the patches of concrete in the steep steps. The top was real Italy like you see in books. I felt my smile pump back into my face.

It was a joyful day of transit thanks to Bisque's navigational skills and the vending machine milk bars.

I listened to Light in the Piatzza while he slept. We arrived in Cinque Terre, literally breathtaking. Welcome to Leg Three.

Pause

I've been feeling shifting sand lately. I look up an employment page, get sucked down a wormhole of articles about this generation's workforce, think about writing, comedy, watch some vines, feel I did a lot but blink because my eyes are tired of the universe I stare into on my iPhone. An interesting thing about the internet is that when it's over, you close the boxes, and it's like you've done zip.

The world is very big lately. I had things to do tonight, so I pushed Bisque out of my house around 7. He made a little kissy face as I closed the door. I turned around when there came a knock. I opened. He beckoned, no words. Pointed. A blazing hot pink sunset over the palms. Too good for words. Too good for a photo. I have nothing of it. We stood hugging a long time.

FORWARD

LOOK at how gorgeous Bex is in this moment! We are sippin' iced toddies at a super hip coffee house in Tucson! We were both remarkably productive! In this moment, so much is funny, so much is at stake, so much is progressing. Forward!

I just got a haircut. I've put myself in a position of reevaluating my femininity and beauty. We discussed body image from the salon to Chipotle and into the hot tub of this Fairfield Inn.

Some maj thoughts:

-A lot of the cheesy stuff is true. Self-affirmation is a real hamburger helper. Don't fake it 'til you make it, fake it 'til you become it. We are not powerless to the attractiveness gods. We are anything but.

-Similarly, love others. Give it all out, it will come back. Probably three-fold.

-Focus on others' beauty...if you want. Why not focus on their achievements and personality first?

-Correct the erroneous thought in the first instance, or it will master you in the second. Negative imagine thought? Knock it out of the park. Then replace it. With something you actually care about.

-In a put of self-loathing, you can't do anything for anyone. DO something and you'll start to crawl out.

-Mentally atoning isn't nearly as good/effective as simply doing a new thing.

Bungalows

Bex is in Arizona for work, so she is staying with me in my 20s-women-bungalow. This morning I felt a pulse of power buzzing in the house. We were all up, packing our day's granola bars and blasting music, spraying the Bath & Body Works, opening blinds.

Before she left for work, Ro told me I looked skinnier. I have probably lost around ten pounds since the new year because I am training for a marathon and decided to stop eating dessert every day, or at the very least, only seven times a week. Boop.

We all support each other in my home. I tell them I ate four donuts Tuesday, and they praise me for doing what I want. I cook handfuls of spinach into my black beans and they praise me for doing what is good. I applaud our lazy MTV night. I cheer for them going to the gym. Anything goes. We should just be happy.

But that comment rang just a little too loudly this morning. "You look skinnier," "You look skinnier." I replayed it a few times. That's not obsessive. I don't know any women who re-slurp such a comment any fewer than a dozen times. I texted Ro.

ME: I hate being a woman. You saying I looked skinny made my morning. It shouldn't matter and it's arbitrary!

RO: A gay guy at a Taco Shop a couple of weeks ago said my eye brows looked good and were "on point" and I literally think about it every day.

ME: I've heard you mention it at least three times. No joke.

RO: BEIN A WOMAN.

A couple months ago I started having some conversations about womanhood and he pressure of beauty with friends I respect. I figured I'm a pretty confident human, but I can still feel so insane about my appearance from time to time. Surely other women I revere have moved beyond these societal mental torture traps! Turns out, not really.

Over banoffee pie one night, Hill told me she'd been considering the need for people to say, "Everyone is beautiful." It's been kinda shoved down Millenials' throats since we could watch Nick Jr. And it's certainly a better philosophy than "Beautiful people succeed. Good luck lol." But, maybe we should remove all the power from beauty in the first place instead of insisting that we all have the stupid totally undeserved randito power ('COS WE DON'T).

Forks

Suns are setting. This was a particularly amazing one a couple weeks ago.

What kinda scale compares the weight of two beauties,

the gravity of duties,

or the groundspeed of joy?

Mine and Yours

Woke up Sunday morning, stomach raging. I had planned to run but could only walk.  I took my time in Dizz's neighborhood. It's a nice place. That afternoon, after the schmancy brunch, after couchin', after chocolate almond bubble tea, we walked again. Dizz and I led the way, the boys trailed behind. I imagined Jamin asking Bisque "What are your intensions?" but actually they were probably yammering about Grand Theft Auto while Dizz explained how once at a wedding she led a miniature horse down the aisle. (Our lives are so different! Friendship!) I said she lived in a pretty place, and she said, "You have to take the good with the bad. The sidewalk...is cracked. But the palm trees? They are beautiful."

LA can be very bright. But also, sometimes you are going to a wedding in an hour and very angry at a gas station because there was serious miscommunication about whether or not you need to pre-pay and there are people everywhere and it is also dirty and honking is a thing. But then you, like, do get to the wedding and there was plenty of time and you look fine and you dance your booty off with your date.

This looks like a glob, but in all actuality it is one of the best desserts I've ever eaten. A chocolate peanut salted caramel bar, like, give me one for the rest of my life. There was literally a part of the night everyone was on the dance floor yelling at me and Bisque to get up and shake it, but we kept using our forks to point to the dessert the guy next to us didn't eat which we were consuming. We shrugged and mimed kind of: "Sorry? Dessert and stuff!"

As usual, it is hard not to think about love at these things. I know the couple but not that well. This is the first time I've been a weddin' date, and I have to say, it's interesting. I came to support something I'm not sure if I agree with at all. Who is to say these two are together foreva? But actually, being there made me believe it. It was just a buncha words--often simple, at times generic...but sincere. And now when I see the newlyweds around I will think that. I will think, "Yes, I believe in you and I hope it's going well."

On Sunday night we made our way to the ocean as we believe good lil travelers should do. It's just a buncha stupid water, but, my, do I love it.

Meanwhile, I shared a bathroom with my college bestie all weekend. Forever! I say.

Down the Line

Sunset last night. Lake Michigan.

I. We should be healthy not just to be healthy but because our health affects our feelings and our feelings empower or disable our actions. Our actions are our relationships with others, our world.

II. A camper shared this with me: Think beautiful thoughts and you will choose beautiful actions. Beautiful actions make a beautiful life.

Living with Eight Fifteen-Year-Old Girls

One girl walks around the cabin in undies that say "YOU'RE SO HOT RIGHT NOW." Who are those for? I ask. She shrugs. I hate you, Abercrombie. Another asks me earnestly, "What do you think about push-up bras?" while her cabinmate clips one together in the background. I have to appease and paddle through honesty: "Well. I don't own one. And, well, ideally we don't see our worth or beauty as measured by...that. But, if it makes you feel more attractive, then, that can bring confidence, and, so..."
The girl in the Wonder answers, "It doesn't make me feel attractive. It's just what boys want."

You know, I think a lot of people think we've mastered certain aspects of feminism, but then a child says something that breaks your heart, or your camper cries because she has too much acne, or another asks, "How can I feel like I am equal to boys when we've never had a president?"

Last night I crept into the cabin after the staff meeting to find all my kiddos huddled in the corner, one flashlight on, sweating out the hot night in sports bras and gym shorts. It had been Lights Out for a while. "Can we talk for just thirty more minutes?" they pleaded, and I said yes. They can go to war in three years, I think they can stay up past ten.

"We're talking about PMS," the mop-top one said. And we laughed about emotive yelling and sitting down all the time and one was like, "Yeah, and then whenever you tell a boy something he doesn't want to hear, he says it's your period!" And I did not laugh anymore. And we whispered in the dark, just over the wild Lake Michigan winds, about culture and shame and confidence and they were like, "Oh, really?!" And I was like, "Yes, really!" And being in high school is amazing! These kids remind me what enzymes are and know about Marie Antoinette but also Burma but ALSO misuse the word "ironic" and when you ask if they've seen Chicago they say, "That's the one with 'STELLA!' right?" And you shake your head and they say, "Oh, yeah, I just saw that on Modern Family." Their minds are so open and they're so eager and so confused and truly beautiful despite/because it all. I want so badly for them to see themselves how I do, and I wonder if this is how the women in my life have always viewed me. If it pains them when I accept the pain I think is my burden.

"Okay, now it's really time for bed," I say. They nod and hug. I hop up onto my bunk. Their flashlights click off. One by one. Waves crash from the beach below. "Innocence is never lost": my last thought. Before sleep pulls me into the undertow.

Leaving the Last Frontier

So. The final conference gala is in two hours. I've been here for exactly one week. My jaunt up north has cost seven days of my life and a couple thou from the grad and theatre schools' budget. What am I taking home? (A partial list):

-What are we ever taking home--a nice consideration.

-Transactions. Give the characters something to do. Move the stage.

-"Why is this a play?" is a good question.

-It's not hard to make it serious. Make it enjoyable.

-We know the end: we die. So, what's so important in the middle?

-I don't care enough about playwriting maybe.

-I don't care enough about having fun maybe.

-Get personal.

-A stupid idea, written well, is often better than a new idea.

-I can eat a lot of Cap'n Crunch if there is a Sex and the City marathon.

-You can judgit or you can lovit.

-React as if nothing is personal. It actually never is.

-If you don't want to be concerned, don't be concerned on behalf of someone else.

-Pretty much everything can be overanalyzed by some loser as a metaphor about gender in society. And that is me. I am that loser.

-Music.

-It might be beautiful objectively, but it's still okay if you don't like it.

-You also don't have to have a reason to have your taste.

-Or to be you. (Barf, but, y'know?)

-Audiences need some built-in discussion time. I believe this, but I'm not sure how it can happen.

-I need to perform periodically to keep myself unblocked.

-Feel guilty or don't about shutting down when you need to shut down?

-Say the real thing.

Ideas from Clybourne Park

When I read Clybourne Park last year I didn't really like it. I got its merit, but I was like, "Meh." To be fair, I read half, and I was in a bonbon coma trying to read 30 plays in a day for a Production Committee meeting. I was still excited to see it, and oooooooh my God, ohmygod you guuuuuys (yes, that is a Legally Blonde the Musical reference) did it blast my expectations away. Last theatre I saw that I loved this much was on Broadway (Faith Healer).

-Challenging someone's taste that is the biggest offense. If you're ignorant, you are the idiot. If you don't like someone's taste, you are insisting they are.
-It's unclear whether or not simply saying what you really really mean to say, what you really really are thinking in the smallest darkest most primal, disgusting, rude, hateful corner of your mind is what the world needs (hey, we're all thinking it) or if it is impossible to truly access and convey, so might as well leave it unsaid/buried.
-Things never stay buried. But, those graves may outlast you at least.
-There are many outcasts. Some because of ignorance, others because of awkward, some because of practicality. It is better to include them in the trash you're shoveling than shovel around. At one point a character yelled "F YOU" to the deaf girl who had been ignored all night. This was a kind of act of love.
-Music is so moving.
-Movement is so beautiful.
-The benefit of being on bottom is having the moral superiority of being there.
-The benefit of being on the top is having the superiority of being there.
-No matter where you are on the ladder, someone is above. Someone is below. Most of of the time we're probably side by side. (I realize I am white middle class, so that may be the most naive view, but sue me.)
-Saying a horrible thing that happened can be both a scare tactic and/or a considerate necessity.
-I honestly don't know if it's just best to keep living in polite lies because the terrible things that arise from honest rashness are so juicy, so chewable, so ALIVE. And we are all supposedly ALIVE, so what a splash of cold water?
-Everything was to the T literary from the choice of Neapolitan ice cream (racial divides) to the repetition of a few key phrases ("you can't live in a principle"). I avoid this in my own playwriting because it seems so OBVIOUS. Like, what am I, Tennessee Williams lame-o Pop-Tart-eating feminist predecessor? But, when it's on stage, it's not obvious. It's like, cool. Ya dig?

"Can we come out and say what we're actually trying to say instead of doing this elaborate little dance around it?"

A Marvel

Jamin waking up. December 2012. 

"One marvels that a friend can ever seem less than beautiful."--MBE

I Love You, John Darnielle

Kicking myself for not writing down the setlist as it happened. The Mountain Goats. Such a good, loving, happy concert. I've never seen a performer so absolutely sweet to his adoring fans. Even in the midst of screeching his lil heart out, John was smiling like "Oh, you guys, it's alright." He sounded absolutely beautiful live and often prefaced songs with "This song is about--" which from a post-modern standpoint is insignificant, but, from a personal This Man Is Such a Beacon of Talent standpoint was riveting.

Favorites were the opener "White Cedar," "Cry for Judas," and, of course, the encore finale was "This Year." Ro and I jumped and danced and beamed as this creator beamed down on us.

There is a True Grace in love, and you don't have to know who you are loving to love them. For them to feel loved. That is what I learned last night in the pretty little Crescent Ballroom on December 8th, 2012.

I don't have to be afraid. Speed that day on its way.
And you can't tell me what my spirit tells me isn't true, can you?

Cat Calls

On Thanksgiving, my sister and I were on a walk, and she tweeted something I said to the effect of, "I hope Obama doesn't fix the jobs act soon because the bums calling me beautiful on the way to school is necessary to my self-esteem." I was kidding, but only kind of. Because in my short fifteen minute bike ride I usually get at least one cat call of some kind. I really have no idea why this is. I really don't understand cat calls--especially to girls on bikes.

A couple weeks ago, Ro and I were on a walk when a guy screamed out of his speeding car, "YOU'RE HOTT." I yelled in mock desperation, "Wait! Come back! If you love us, why would you leave us!?" And the car paused a couple blocks up, and we panicked before realizing there was a stop sign.

It's like...what's the purpose? It's not an actual pick-up. Is it some kind of hope to exert an uncomfortable power? To make women feel victimized for no real reason? It's not earnest. 80% of the time I'm on my bike I'm sweating my face off. And, as a strong, independent female, how does one react? I usually show I'm not intimidated and say "thank you" as I whiz by. Does this encourage that behavior? Is random yelling at women "Good morning, gorgeous" offensive in the first place? Because maybe it's not.

Today on my way to work I was stopped at a big intersection with lots of cars and people all around. A man jogged right in front of me as the crosswalk was blinking a red hand. He yelled out, "WOO! I MADE IT." And I smiled at him, because we should celebrate just making lights. He turned to me and boomed so allllll could hear: "Oh. My. GOD. You are BEAUTIFUL." Since I didn't have the security of motion, and all these people were watching, I blushed down at the ground, and put up my palm.

Immediately, a thunderous, "THAT WAS A COMPLIMENT. I'M NOT HITTING ON YOU. GET OVER YOURSELF."

And you betcha I felt victimized for no reason. And I bore a hole into the asphalt under my front tire, and I took off like a rocket when I got that green.

And Lights

Light is a miracle too. There's this power that illuminates! That light even exists at all is incredible. And then when I think that I have the power to erase the dark from an entire room with the mild force of my finger on a plastic wall tab...and I am given this power--no, I feel entitled to this power--without even having to ever understand it?

Biking home tonight the AMPM looked so beautiful. Barf if you want, but it did. The purple top being lit up by a trillion pennies of light. Little spots pouring down onto each pump. Red 98 CENT sign in the background. Next to the block letters of the Mexican place I've got a gift certificate to. Ro smokes two cigarettes on my porch and the end is a teeny torch, making our faces glow. The jets crossing over my condo, blink blink. Blink blink.

You little wonder, you. Wish you could see it too. Baby, how I see you.

Watching How I Met Your Mother Even Though I'm Not Wild About It #Summer #Procrastination

Is it possible for a girl to be as ugly but as lovable as Jason Segal? Because the man is pretty darn woof.

But also.

Marry me.

Golden Waves

My bedroom window looks out over our pool. If I am in bed with the lights out but the pool lights are on, golden waves flow across my ceiling.


Cake. 5.19.2010.

Atlantis
birthday candles
hotels
wedding bands
the fall I took Swimming for Fitness
Hay Stacks by Monet
quiet nights in Arizona

Weird Compliments

Everyone has gotten his or her fair share of weird compliments, I'm sure. But I, like, ONLY get weird compliments. Like when my sister once said, "I like your style--your trashball look." I can't even be offended because if I had to describe my style in one word it probably would be trashball.

My first high school boyfriend told me, "Your eyes are so beautiful. It's like...like looking into two tree trunks."
Kay once told me he liked my "cross-eyed look." Oh, yes, of course. My cross-eyed look! How attractive!

But, Dunt just sent me some pictures she took of me last summer, and darned if I don't have a cross-eyed look!



It occurs to me it only happens when I am focusing on something super up close. Like the camera or a boy I am kissing. So, now I get why it would be attractive to see my crossed-eyes--a smooch is in the future! It all goes to show you beauty really is in the eye of the beholder.* Crossed-eyes can be nice. Thick thighs can be graceful. Who knows. Who knows.

*UGH a cliche AND a pun in one fowl** swoop.
**Is it "fell swoop"? I've never known. Either way, it's FOUL this time.

All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put baby together again.

To Be Perfectly Candid, Baby, You're Beautiful

Last week when I had that horrendous meltdown on public transportation, I remember seeing myself in the train window and literally saying "Woof" because MAN, did I look haggard. I walked by a sea of folks on the way to the bathroom, and it was like I could read their minds: "That girl has given up on life. Yowza."

At the time I was like, "Yeah? What of it?" I'm not trying to impress train riff raff. Because, you know what, we can't be beautiful all the time. But yesterday while I was sweating it out at the gym, I realized, "Yeah, actually, we CAN be beautiful all the time, and we SHOULD."


Rick, Mahji, Koon--Japan, November 2008

I was watching Japan on CNN and feeling crushed under the rubble myself. This has been a rocky couple weeks for a lot of people I know--including an entire country. And as the news faded to a commercial, I saw my own reflection in the screen. I did not look beautiful. Now, I don't mean we should always be dressed for success with make-up on and hair quaffed--I mean the simplest beauty. Like, a smile. Not plastered, just slight, natural. The way we should NATURALLY feel as beautiful expressions of Life.


IL farmland, March 2011

Or, you know, removing our eyes from sunken ruts. And giving thanks for water bottles, clouds, seafoam green combs.

Because the more we satisfy ourselves with being less than Beauty, the more ugly we chuck into the world. And the world don't need it.


Pookie, Mama, Me--May 2009

So I lightened my face--sweaty as it was--and jogged away. Freer, safer, sounder.

Why does it hurt me to feel so much tenderness?

Grad School & The Prarie State

Here's what Stripes said when I told her I got into grad school:

"How WOOONDERFUL!!!!!!!!! Congratulations!!!!! Yiiiiipeeeeeeee!!!
Of COURSE  of COURse - OOo I am Sooo happy for you if it weren't raining outside I'd jig up and down the road.  Maarrrvelous - OOo blesseings heaped down and packed upon you!! BRAVO!"

What a little firecracker! Note this old blog post from March 2009--right after I had been cast as the lead in the spring musical:

"When you do something, you kind of always wish someone will just bowl you over and cry or something. Of course no one does. It's not as a big of a deal as you feel it is. But

Two days ago, while in the dressing room for our one-act, Stripes asked. I nodded. Her eyes gaped open and she ran at me the force of a bull, leaped onto me, wrapped herself up and screamed sky high 'YES! YOU DID IT!'"

So, yes, I've been accepted to at least one MFA program, and everyone has been incredibly supportive. Stil, I'm currently on a train to Chicago for my JET interview (technology!) in case I decide to defer. Either way, I'm kissing the Midwest goodbye in a few months. I feel like I am constantly writing it a love poem. This early morning train ride past grubby little Illinois towns, the crescent moon above the Mississippi. The river was lit by barges as I drove myself to the station at 4:40 AM.