Los Angeles Winter

The vibe is so aggressive. In Chicago I get catcalled like one might actually speak to a pet cat. It's obnoxious but at least it is gentle. In LA it was gross. The highway was not only jammed but mad. Tob and I snagged the last tickets for an overpriced comedy show, but the theatre was too small to hold us so we sat in a stairwell. A lot of Yelping even for locals. What to do, what to do, where to go, where to go. How long will it take? (Long.) I don't think I'll ever like it. But that's not the real question. It's "Would I ever even be okay with it?"

I had a great trip. Don't get me wrong. The trip was the trip. But my life is my life. The pros are the pros: the sunshine, the palm trees, the beach. There are many more, but not really. The people, like Yosh, A Jar, a slew of other comedy friends--even Skars. But would I see them? It seems nights are more free there than here, but still. Something is amiss.

The food. Okay, yes, I ate an astounding curry pot pie, one of my top five donuts ever, cashew parfait, a churro waffle. But it's all so far away. I just want to putz around town and come upon things. I don't want to drive an hour for a scone. I would drive an hour for a scone. There are neighborhoods. So, that, I think, I could do. The mornings I ran through Highland Park, trotted about to read in a local coffeeshop--those were okay. I could make that work.

The opportunities. I can't deny those. But I can be denied those.

I believe I can do anything, but do I want to? I am feeling new. Reborn in the crack of November 8th. Recharged and reforming in the afterglow of my solo show. The world is open and the world is an open wound.

Beat So Wild

There are so many wonderful fantastic things. There are all the adult things--the networking emails, when you can expense cookies for a meeting, getting your ears cleaned at the minute clinic. There are the potential things. What if this opportunity opens and blossoms right before my eyes? What if I was meant for something I have yet to realize? And what if we met? Control. I seem to have no control over so many of the wonderful things because they are all a puff of dust away from not even existing as things at all. But there are the also the simple things. My favorite college album, blankets, walking Clark street, pink neon signs. These things can not be taken away. The risks seem smaller, the jumps mere steps, remembering that.

Me dying. Sketch show last October.

Am I just confused
Or did our hearts that beat so wild and free
Forget who they beat for?

Losing Free Things

I'm learning to be okay with lost free things. It's very hard, I think. Particularly for someone with a very good memory.

Last fall A Jar visited. He was wrapped in a stylish coat and scarves. He was talking about his drinking and how it gets out of hand. "And sometimes you get really drunk on St. Patrick's day and give your iPad away," he said. Pretty interesting when people say "You" when they mean "me." I got a pretty good laugh yesterday while lecturing about how "you" mucks up essays. I read aloud an essay that began, "When you're growing up as a young black man..." I explained, "I will never grow up as a young black man." Grammar jokes, ya dig? Know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.

So A Jar is, reasonably, sad about this lost iPad. Then he reveals it wasn't his. It belonged to a school he teaches at! A school that apparently just lends stuff out and never asks for it back? Idk. Point is--he lost a free thing. I mean, he possessed it, at no cost, and stopped possessing it, at no penalty. I see how one would be upset, but should he really be? Logically? Nothing ventured, plenty temporarily gained.

It became a mantra that weekend. "We only lost a free thing"--in regard to plans falling through or the immaterial gifts of junk like friendship. Maybe I can say it, but I don't feel chill re: losing free things. I didn't know what CVS ExtraBucks were (basically just free money) until three years after they had been piling up, expiring, in the back of my scooter! I accidentally used my free "Welcome to Uber" ride on a $4 trip. That kills me. I still think about it when I swipe by my app. Those other $26 wasted. (The $26 I didn't have.) I think the solutions lie in 1) recognizing other people deserve goodness and money too. It's not all about ME. 2) This is practice for not caring about the big fat missed opportunities. 3) Hopefully, I don't have those.

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.

Now Is not Always the Time to Win

Can you imagine how terrible life would be if you were successful at everything? Whatever you were interested in at five years old would be your career right now. I would be a world class grocery store toy aisle designer.

I stretched myself too thin this weekend. I got stuck in bus after bus jam after the informational meeting for a new play festival. I showed up later than I wanted to be for an ensemble audition. 12th on the waitlist. I spent most of the day hovering around the theatre, and when suddenly a slot opened and yes, actually, we were all the way to my number, I was barely prepared. I scuttled in, performed my monologue, left relieved--but much too tired to work on the play contest until this morning. If I had just picked one thing to do I might have done that one thing well.

This morning at 7 AM that's how I felt. I wrote in quiet Sunday sunbeams. I finished the piece hastily and sent it in 2 minutes shy of the 9 AM deadline. Not my best work. But every submission gets a pair of comp tickets to an upcoming preview show. Might as well.

I didn't feel bad though. Ultimately I'm glad I did both because each one gave me a personal victory. Just finishing things is, like, the best you can feel. I've said that before. Honestly, I think I was happier when I sent off my glad school apps than when I got accepted, certainly than when I graduated.

My friend Heart says "Failure is information," which is just peachy. I think of an interview from Jenna Fischer. She explained how she worked in Hollywood for eight years before landing anything tangible. How she had to learn victory for herself just by playing outside her box in an audition--even when she didn't land the gig. My victory was just doing the thing with no more than a minute's notice.  There's something pure and honey-like about knowing the opportunities we don't get go to someone else who needs them more.

26 Snapshots, Spring Semester 2014

-Eating greek yogurt on the new poofy couch, watching The Real World: Explosion.

-Defending my thesis with a big smile, a bleeding thigh, and a chocolate stain on my dress.

-The three yahoo freshmen who sat in the front row every Screenwriting class: the backwards Sox cap, the famous name, the blond with a rubber bracelet.

-Dropping the bowl I was cleaning in the sink, screaming hysterically for Bisque, cockroach scuttling under the dishwasher.

-Getting the "rocking horse" and "reverse basic" on Monday night Step.

-Cartwheels in bare feet on the Santa Monica beach after winning improv regionals.

-Bex snapping photos in the Tucson salon, my hair on the ground.

-Crying in the Target parking lot. Hot day.

-Webpages about periods and Italy open in the hip coffee house.

-Trotting the outdoor mall with my sister. Palm trees and blue.

-Wet, tired, aching feet--welled with hope--mile 24.

-Henne ordering me to buy trash because we entered the rare food store with snowy boots.

-Three coaches cuddled in one bed watching Poltergeist on a computer.

-Clenching my fists, a person speaking behind me I could not like. Talented women only.

-Chelle in the 80s chair, we talk issues, we write our movie.

-I use the side door out of Literary Management. Classmates don't.

-Playing High School Musical until the playwrights woke up.

18. -The longest ride to New Mexico there ever was.

-Lights up after The Whale. The whole row in tears. Apple pasty.

-We eat chili. Muffy's family explains everything about zombies.

-Talking until the end of time in two neighboring twin beds with kid sheets.

-The post-gym shower on Saturday afternoons.

-My multi-color pack of felt-tipped pens. Doodling article notes.

-Sittin' with the kid in shorts above the auditorium, talkin' drama.
-Are You The One? and buttermilk donuts with the women of DZ.

-"The more I think about it. The more less interested I am."

From Inside the Hive (Some Things That Are Good to Remember)

I cannot take every opportunity I am given.
Comfort is not guaranteed. It is a bonus.
I can't make people know I love them.
The hard questions are soil.
There must be time allotted for stillness.
Being judgmental of someone for being judgmental still counts as being judgmental.
There is no competition. We will all die.

Smithfield, VA. 2012.

The Chinese Crisis

We were supposed to present a Chinese Crisis--
the moment of tension, the moment right before the choice that could lead to
the biggest catastrophe or the biggest opportunity.
Our topic was bullying--these two young men and me.
"I have something, but it happened the only way it could,
so I don't know how anyone could change anything about it."
We were to replicate this true story and let our audience step in at the CC.
"Well, let's hear it," I say.

This boy was 8, and two classmates grabbed him and started punching him.
He shoved them off and ran away.
He was called into the principal's office for shoving.
They all got citations.

"So there were no other options--unless I just wanted to be beat up," this college kid says.
"There are always other options," the other boy with dark skin and sparkly earrings says.
"But, no, there's nothing else I could have possibly done."
"Yes, but--" I say.
"See? But that's the problem with this story. I did the only thing I could."
He would not stop repeating this sentiment.

It kills us to admit that just because we were victims doesn't mean we were right.

Trashball Odds

I'd rather take the probable chance that I'm wrecking/will wreck opportunities to be successful because I look like a trashball all the time, than risk the slimmer chance of becoming the very successful gal who climbed her way to the top despite constantly wearing pink running shorts and oversized tank tops.

Ditto this argument for nabbing future boyfriends.

Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor.

AZ Gratitude

Why I'm Grateful to Be Here:

-I can bike home from sketch meeting turned trip to Red Robbin for endless steak fries in the dark night without a coat.
-The birds chirp as my eyes are opening when 90s alternative wakes me up. This is what they mean by flying south for winter.
-I sit on the porch when I can't think anymore, and the sun lightly bakes my face.
-Cacti. (See above.)
-Being forced to write. Maybe I can't do it forever, but for now? Okay.
-Lots of theatre all the time. And pretty cheap.
-Chelle and Kale coming over for banana chocolate chip pancakes yesterday morning.
-All my basic needs are met within a one mile radius.
-If I had ended up at a more prestigious school, I couldn't wear sweats 85% of the time. Maybe this is not a good thing for my future/potential love life, but lawd help the institution that tries to divorce me and my seafoam green shorts.
-The opportunity to do a lot of comedy.
-The opportunity to look at mountains every day.
-The proof that I can be far away from all the people I love and survive quite well.
-There's a train that comes through just half a mile away from my condo. I hear its whistle. Everything reminds me of being in my bed in the house I grew up, open windows in May, listening to the ooOOOOOOOOOOOoo in the distance.

Days, Weeks, Years

Illinois. March 2, 2011.

Everything we do is an opportunity to become better than we were. If we do not take that opportunity, what is the point of being alive in those moments, hours, days, weeks, years?

Under the Ocean, Over the Stars

Goals for This Week:

1. Do not burn my tongue on any hot liquids.
2. Remember that every option is actually the best, no doors actually close, and the good rolls on forever and ever.

Our last night at the resort, Nac fell asleep very early. I changed into pajamas and quietly brushed my teeth in the kitchenette. We left the balcony door open all weekend--letting the salt water smell and the waves' chops float in. I closed the door for the night and tip-toed to my bed. But, then, I rethought, gathered up the comforter, and went back to the living room. I reopened the balcony sliding door to a huge whoosh of North Carolina breeze. I pushed the sofa from the middle of the room to the balcony's opening.

I curled up and watched the moon creep across the sky.

I dreamed I was under the ocean. Sea shells. I woke up to the pink just beginning to peek over the horizon. I stretched my legs, squinty-eyed shuffled outside, and watched the puddle of tangerine lift itself into the day.

Eventually Nac woke up and joined me. Eating Life in our deck chairs, he asked, "So, how was sleeping on the beach?"

Harry Potter--The Boy Who Starred

a winter rehearsal

Daniel Radcliffe is going to star in How to Succeed in Business on Broadway. Now, I'm not saying he's a bad actor, but he's definitely not supa fly, and who knows about his singing. I wonder about the kid. He was 11 when he randomly--with a stroke of luck--became Harry Potter and had his acting career set for a decade.

Now, he will probably be getting sweet jobs for life. He's a guaranteed money-maker, and so, now, because of his role as Harry Potter, he is kind of going to have a Potter-like experience forever. Some people will hate him and make fun of him just for being who he is and some people will idolize him blindly.

I wonder if he is good at acting just from all the work he's done, if he likes it, if he can consider doing other jobs, or if...this is it?

When I was very young I went to an audition for a touring production of Les Mis. I would have dropped out of 4th grade and started show biz. I wonder about all that. Do you have more opportunities from more money and a big name and credits, or are you kind of stuck in 4th grade?

Ain't nobody gotta blessing like mine.
It's a red sky night and I'm doin' alright.

Not Lost!

Wiped! The writing conference was inspiring, education, enjoyable, but oh-so-tiring. So many ideas, but just a quick thought for now.

As I was waiting at the terminal in Portland at the end of Spring Break, one of those "we've oversold, whoopsies" announcements came on the loudspeaker. No one wanted to budge. There was a free ticket at stake for bumping to a late flight--one that would leave the next day.

I was seriously considering it, but then I would have to call Yatchface, get her to pick me up, stay with her boyfriends family, go through the whole idea, have less time with my dad etc. etc. etc. So...I opted to stick on the original flight. For a moment I checked myself. Was I going to regret losing an opportunity to my laziness? Well, no! Because the opportunity was not lost. The opportunity was gained for another person, and that can't be bad.

It's spring. The lilacs have arrived. I've been back in my room for a few minutes. It's time for a run.

I don't do sadness--not even a little bit. I just don't need it in my life. Don't want any part of it.

Waste Not, Want Not

Today was a perfect fall day. My favorite weather in my favorite season. And what did I do? I wasted it! I did run this morning--which was much needed and much enjoyed. But then I was inside most of the day studying for my mid-term. Then afterwards I was too pooped to do much besides curl up on my bed and close my eyes in and out of SNL reruns.

Do I feel bad? Absolutely not. There will be other beautiful days. In fact, I hear tomorrow is one of them. I know we're always told to just bite into the succulent blackberry when it is ripe and play outside on the most autumngorgeous day of the year, but if you don't want to then that's the real waste my friend. Oh I'm sure if I had opted for a lovely afternoon walk or even a nap under a tree I would be just as happy now, but at the moment I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do more than sprawl like a starfish up for dissection on my fluffy blankets.

Just because the restaurant has the best cake around doesn't mean you always order it. I mean, I do, but you might not. If you don't feel like it. I always feel like it. Guaranteed. Its a lesson you might as well learn now. Opportunities--even if once in a lifetime--don't mean anything if you don't want 'em.