And a Year Later, Another Graduation

Last night was the closing show of my ensemble's run at SC. The Program is officially over. The reason I moved across the country is complete. I feel like I'm standing about two steps up at the bottom of a long flight of stairs. At the same time, I shouldn't discount the fact that at one time I saw those two steps as an end goal in themselves. My appetite has been wetted, but if I had to walk away today, I've already accomplished something a lot of people only dream of doing.

As soon as the audience was ushered out, I changed out of my show clothes. The directors ran through the process of "celebrating us" in robotic fashion. Eight boxes of pizza were delivered and lined up. Pitchers of Sprite and beer on the cab tables. The stage manager turned on some generic party music. "Hooray us," we all said. No one called our names. We lined up by the stage and shook our right hands and took rolled up red t-shirts with our lefts. We all put them on over our clothes and took pictures and gave out compliments like parade candy. This may be some people's way to release a year of toil, growth, and personal conviction, but it's not mine, so I phoned it in. Kinda happy, but really needing more time to decompress.

It's not a giant wave of anything yet. No walls are crumbling. I think I'll see the ones I want to see again? Won't I? I keep some words close. I dream.

Something Something Donut Joke

Not Cooked Yet

We always think we're at the end of our journey,
but we're always at the beginning.

Wedding Ruminations/ Continuation of Friendship

My brain was very busy while I watched Spiff and his lady tie the knot this weekend. The talk of forever and faithful and love is sometimes just a lot, and emotions can creep up the ol' windpipe. But sometimes you're just kind of biding your time until you can get a big glass of pineapple juice.

Seeing two people in this vulnerable romance cloud made me love them. I know that's not the point of weddings, but it is what happened. And then there was a moment of grief. Like, there they go, off into the sunset, leaving all of us here who have loved them with the scorpions I guess.

Then I had coffee with Cobra who takes everything too far with "love." She can't seem to talk to a male without wondering if they will somehow become lovers. If he lusts after her. She has fantasies and stays too long in the professors office or questions her motives around coupled friends. It's exciting, but it's also highly distracting. She told me about how last year a friend's boyfriend started making moves in a hot tub. She said, "Well, what would you have done?!" I said, "My goodness, I would have said, 'Oops, you accidentally grazed my knee.'" It would not occur to me that someone was trying to cheat.

"What I could do if I were you!" she exclaimed, curly hair like a lioness mane. Leaned back, gulping for air. "I could have written so many novels in the time I've been wasting thinking about men." All of my relationships are professional. I always get to the point. I like males classmates and Bisque's friends and students and the guy ringing me up at Jewel because I don't have an interest in any of them. Really the only danger is what it can look like. Maybe it's leftover from my dinko college days when sitting alone at a booth with a new pal looked fishy and word spread like jelly.

In that sense, I have a newfound adoration for the institution of marriage. You are safe in there. You the married person and you the person who wants to love everyone. You are an innocent soul with a big heart and desire for friendship. That's all it has to be because the rings proves it to be true.

People don't die at the alter. They're under new conditions. Less vague, cut and pasted with someone, out of business in one sense and opening in another.

After I gave my speech at the college graduation a girl who had always been just on the outskirts of my friends and activities found me in the crowd. "I really liked what you said," she told me, "and I look forward to becoming friends one day." But this is over, I thought! You dodo, that was a graduation speech. Curtains! Moreover, that girl lives in Germany! Like, in what parallel land was there any chance or time for us? Still, nice thought.

That winter she went to a theatre festival with me. We were both going through strange break-ups and bonded instantly. We sang, advised, analyzed with each other for five days. She had said it could happen, and it was so.

End of the World

Outside the children leave the school.
There's simply nothing left to learn.
Inside the bakery the bread is warm for those without concern.

Everybody's got a care to throw.
The end is coming but we already know.
Moving bodies turning into gold.
The sky is falling and we're watching it go.

Finals Tradition

Every spring of grad school, the night I complete my grading, I go swimming, sit in the hot tub, cook mac & cheese, and eat a huge Reeses's product over a TV show I have been saving for the celebratory occasion.

I took this photo after I had eaten Kraft pumpkin-shaped mac, watched Girls, and consumed a rabbit. I was noting how full I felt, and also my tan lines from sunning with my finals notes.

Last year. Velveeta Shells & Cheese, half-price Reese's egg, SNL.

Tuesday. Annie's Organic Cheddar Mac, full-price Reese's egg, Mad Men. I don't live in the condo with the pool anymore, so I snuck in. 

I look different in each because I am.

I watch the ripples change their size,

but never leave the stream.

Squeezin' Life

This week is flying. This semester is. I'm planning my first mid-term paper. Gosh darn, that happened fast. This year I've been pretty good about being happy presently. I have no reason not to be. I like all the elements of my life, but there's still a tug that chants within us, "I can't wait until this is over."

I wonder why we are built this way. Because ultimately, once this semester is over, then the year, then my program, then my job, then my life. Like, the only rush is really towards death, you know? So, what's with the chip in our brains that hurries us along? Pessimistically it has to do with dissatisfaction. Optimistically it's hope--that things--even if they are grand--will alway get better.

I consciously told myself this AM that I wanted to squeeze the life out of today, and I think I did. But it still flies!

Mainly, here's something: If you are only present 20% or 50% or even 95% because you're waiting for the future, think of how much time you will have wasted if the future falls through on you. I know you know, but sometimes you have to see it in writing.

Sweating

Muff in DC. 2012.

I am so close to the end of this year I can smell it. But, in the meantime, I feel like I am in the middle of a swamp, wading through, absolutely icky.

I KNOW there is an end in sight, but why oh why does it feel like it will never come? I also know this stuff is relatively meaningless. No one really cares what my final Theatre for Social Change portfolio will be like, but, well, I do. So. It's almost 1 AM and I have work at 7:30 and at some point during my twelve hour shift I need to dash to the library and print these finals and that scholarship app and research the canon of theatre in reference to feminist criticism and and and...

"I'm not out there sweating for three hours every day just to find out what it feels like to sweat."--Michael Jordan

Half-Moon Tummy

A mousy girl with untamed eyebrows and frizzy brown hair pulled back in a scrunchie sat down across from me at the testing center. I greeted her.
"Hello, do you have a test at 2:30?" It was almost time.
"No," she said. "It's at 3."
"Well, you have a while then."
"I know. I try to get my nerves out before I actually take the test." She adjusted her glasses.
"Well, that's smart." I smiled and went back to reading Catching Fire.
Half an hour later, she was putting her backpack away, and I realized this wiry kid I'd pegged as 19 had a half moon tummy. Preggers.

At about 4 PM one of my co-workers came out of the testing hall. "There's a student who needs to ask the professor a question. Will someone walk her there?" Everyone looked down at their projects, but I felt like sunshine. I volunteered, and mousey wires came out holding the test shakily.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"Oh, it's quite alright. I'm looking forward to a walk!"
We left the building, and in the light I could see she had been crying.
"I'm just worried because he might not answer my question," she quivered.
"Well, it's just one question," I said. I smiled at some orange trees.
"It's just...none of my friends have to take chemistry" (she is a bio major I learned) "so they never know what's going on...and I never know what's going on..." Tears welled.

We got to the lecture hall. Hundreds of kids doing equations. She gingerly stepped to the professor and came back, still a little uneasy. "I don't know what I need to know," she said. She sighed and absentmindedly rested a hand on her bump. She said thank you. I said It's my job! And I love AZ in April! We walked on.

"It's okay," I said. "The great thing about tests is that they end no matter what happens. In a couple hours it will be over, and there's nothing else you can do." She nodded, and I handed her test back. As she walked back into the hall, I stared at her stomach. I had so many thoughts. She turned around to give me a final notice of..appreciation? Solidarity? But I was just staring at her middle. I averted my gaze, but it was too late. She saw.

After A While, Crocodile

Cast of Spelling Bee--an "in character" shot.

At the end of strike, we stood in a clump watching some tech guys dismantle the bleachers we sat on for hours every night for the past two months. It was time to go, and we each took turns hugging each other. Goodbyes are not as difficult after Sunday matinees. You know you are about to go home, have dinner with family, drive in the sunshine. It's much harder in the night. Alone.

As I left the theatre for the last time, I did know just how final everything was. I am moving across the country soon. I have no family and dwindling friends in St. Louis--barely a reason to return, let alone be in the area enough to bump into anyone I met on this show. I liked everyone, but I didn't truly become close with anyone. And, I don't have a Facebook. I will really probably never see these people again.

Schwartzy's car was parked near mine. We laughed and razzed even as we were walking farther and farther away from each other. I saw her small in the distance, and she was still yelling, "You know what, Alice?!" and I was laughing. She opened her Jeep door, waved, and then, "Hey," she said. "Hey. I hope we do meet each other again. If only so I can prove to you I am just a little bit more successful."

I crumpled into my car, chuckling, putting on my sunglasses. I did not know the void of nothingness could be so bright. "So longs" happen at Chuck-E-Cheeses and open mic nights--not just prison and graduations.


Girl talk with LC and Muff in my bed this week made me feel like college never ends.

When I had driven Muff to the airport just a few hours before the final curtain call, I said, "It's all good because we will definitely see each other again. Unless one of us dies first." As if there's an alternative to those options.

Goodbye, you were good but not good enough.
So please don't ask why. Simply say, "Goodbye!"

An End to End Wishing

I will stop wishing for an end to the vegan month, an end to the running recovery, an end to the paper grading, an end to the wet spring, an end to the stop-n-go rehearsals, an end to commutes. I do hope for an end in all aforementioned points, but the daydreams should be fewer, the moments today grander.


We had an hour to kill. We found this. Japan 2008.

We should try our very best never to put ourselves in situations that leave us longing for time to speed up, because life is quite short, and not being able to revel in every moment of it is quite sad.

Some Are Brave

Bradley and me--our last night as Howard and Rosemary

Summer Brave is over, and I feel so grateful I could share such a wonderful experience with the perfect cast. I miss it/them already. I loved the entire process more than I can express. I really couldn't begin to explain what this play meant to me. I'm not going to try.



Muff, me, and Jodes right before my marriage scene

ROSEMARY: Well I hear the play isn't any good.
IRMA: Well there aren't any good plays anymore!

Treadmillin'

Our problems can be treadmills. Just because we spend a long time working or running in one direction doesn't mean we have to spend a long time reversing. We can just stop and step off. We can walk away in a way that legs accustomed to a treadmill sometimes forget is an option.