clay

I really loved my grad school. I loved it so much. Maybe the best decision of my life was going to that crummy little huge place. Man, I milked it too. I wore tank tops all year and read by the pool and zoomed around on my scooter to seize buttermilk bars from Donut Hut in the dead of winter in the dead of night.

I loved campus. It smelled like clay. There was the term I would habitually go the gym after Dramaturgy and take the long route through Palm Walk. There was the term I'd bike to the gym at 6, hit the machines, shower, and walk into 8 AM theatre history so fresh and sparkling. My first year on Fridays I'd do laps before my sketch comedy show. My second year I'd work the disability testing center Fridays, very slow and quiet. Struggling to remember my third year. That shocks me. That I could forget my class schedule. But time has passed, it seems. It's an interesting anthropological study of one's self, to reflect on what memories make it through all the purges. How did they cling on? Held in your arms like a fawn or like leeches on the back of your calves?

I loved all my friends. I had my comedy girls, first and foremost. Then there were the comedy girls' girls to varying degrees. Then there was the comedy girl's girl's Christian girls. Then! There was grad cohort. And undergrads. And then there was work. (I hung out with work people once my entire three years at the office.) And then then comedy in general, which was just so many people. And then all their little clumpettes. And then then then was Puhg and his whole world. Which was...well a whole world! The show we did, his college friends. Some were lifelong. Some I lived with. Some I went to Vegas with. More I went to Santa Monica with. And I loved just about all of them. Even my sibling roommates, why not.

I met Puhg in the desert. We went to so many adorable brunches and basketball games. We pirated Mad Men every week and some nights he would cook us a pot of beans with tomatoes. We drove that long highway stretch over and over.

I did the military play and wrote the religion play. I wrote many sketches and loads of stand-up and a bunch of plays and/or play-like things. I taught so much screenwriting and a little improv and a little playwriting and a bit of film ethics. I laughed so much. I got pretty angry. There was some sadness, but not much, and not for long. It was a different world. I made 13K or something, and that was great! My rent was $450 for a very nice room and bathroom in a lovely condo. All the best things were free anyway. I ate an incredible amount of Taco Bell and gas station nachos, also a record high amount of Ethiopian.

I learned so so much. Some of the classes were bad. But because I later became an educator, they were useful case studies for me. And other classes were very good! I really lucked out with my theatre history professor and my thesis director, specifically. I absorbed so much about the scope of theatre, got to be inside all the moving parts, keyed into the hot stuff. I squeezed every drop.

I remember so many students. I think I see them all the time. I might. Two of them got married and live out here. They work in post.

First Year Out of College

I've decided I'm going to be one of those people who has an empty inbox. You know. Delete stuff I no longer need. File things I want to save. Be reminded easy what I need to respond to.

I decided this somewhat randomly about two weeks ago. I was at The Writing Center and no students had come in for walk-in tutoring. I had around 17K emails in the the gmail I started in college. This isn't that much maybe. I also have a junk account, two school accounts, and a professional artist account. Maybe I'll deal with those sometime too.

So, first, I used the search bar to weed out advertising junk. I deleted all the "Groupon," "Twitter," "Jamba Juice" hits etc. After destroying as many spams as possible I started working through my cache starting with the oldest messages to the newest.

Right now I have 7,881 emails in my inbox. I have lurched from my freshman year to my first year out of college. It's been weird to my life snippets in a vertical list. That year seems so foreign to my life now, but it was actually incredibly foundational. A flurry of student notes from the Writing Center, navigating a weird boss for an after school program, running my first marathon, all my grad school statements of purpose, a community theatre musical rehearsal emails, indie improv team volleys. Some of it is embarrassing--advice I gave in a very knowing way, hatching my sense of humor, I had no fear, and I substitute taught an English 100 lab for free on Valentine's night.

But, oh, there are precious moments. Long chains with friends who were still friends, pictures from Dusty, and the most charming: a lesson plan for the first improv class I ever taught. The usual teacher for the Level One class at the comedy theatre I performed at couldn't make one week. He asked this other girl and I to cover. We were PUMPED. We went out for pizza beforehand and freaked out about everything we wanted to teach the class. The place was called Suds or something and we sat at a countertop and just gushed about all we loved and hated about improvising. We practically ran to the theatre screeching in excitement. We had both just broken up with our boyfriends.

When we arrived we found only ONE PERSON there for the class--a middle age woman who was pretty nervous. No idea why she took the class, but it was only her second attempt at improv ever. The other girl and I were not deterred. We went full-ham on our plan and took turns being in the scene with the woman. Toward the end of the three hours, I think we were both so eager to act, we just did a ton of three person scenes. We laughed and laughed in that shady, bunk basement room for rent.

Scumbags, Sweethearts

I did comedy with a bunch of scumbags in Arizona. Some were scumbags in the best of ways: dirty but kind little ragamuffins. They'd attend a cupcake party I threw, but they'd get super stoned first. Some were scumbags in the worst of ways. They'd drunkenly brag about how great their stand-up was, show up hungover for tournament shows, classically steal ideas. I hate these aspects of a thing I loved so dearly, but there's something rich about remembering it. A lawyer once told me all JDs leap at the chance to talk about how difficult passing the bar is.

Point: lots of scum, but also, a couple sweeties. One of these sweeties felt like my little brother. He was so genuine and had an adorable appreciation for almost all humans. Once at a party we were having a 1 AM intimate conversation. Not spilling all, but just sort of swapping little bits. He said, "You know what's kind of an interesting thing about me? I am kind of into bigger girls." I was like, "Oh. Okay." And then he said, "Yeah, not like huge, but like...like--" And then he named a girl on the sketch comedy team who had this amazing black curly hair and was hourglass curve with a tummy. My guess--a size 16.

I felt the sudden lurch of "I'd like to go home" but I couldn't put my finger on why. Now I know it's because he considered appreciating a normal body a fun-fact. Or maybe because he categorized women into bins of not big and big. Or maybe because all men/ all people do that but I don't like to be reminded. Or maybe because he named an object in the bin to me, like I was an accomplice. It was too late and the music was too loud to for me to do anything other than blink. He waited for a response. "Well?!" He shoved my shoulder, "Aren't you proud of me?"

I am lucky enough to mostly spend time with feminists. I work in liberal spaces, I write in liberal spaces. But even so, little prickles of dissent poke in, and I want to smack the world upside the head and explain how hard it is to be a woman, when it is a good man's medal of honor to not be disgusted by our average selves.

Who Loves Ya

The cool thing about grad school workshop is that people are super accountable to reading your garbage and giving you feedback. Also your group doesn't meet in coffee houses and get distracted by gossip and sometimes half the people don't come. In school you are going to meet every Wednesday at 2 PM for three hours. But in school you do not pick your people. Not at all.

I wish I had realized this as a wide-eyed candidate: if you don't like someone's work, it's probable they won't like yours. That is definitely okay, but maybe don't care as much about their opinions? By year three I knew what feedback to love or leave. And yet, I still forget this base lesson pretty frequently. And it's not just about writing. Or art.

Happened to reach out to some of my old comedy squad recently. People I think are funnier than anyone I've met in Chicago. But I had flecks of gold in my eyes then, so I could be remembering everything wrong. Initially we weren't talking about comedy at all, but eventually. I expressed I've been slumped. Immediately, my friends pummeled me with support and memories and ideas and advice. I could breathe again. I knew who I was. I remembered what I do right and what I don't care about. Duh duh duh.

For some reason we are built to strive to meet the standards of people we don't even mesh with. (Or, at least, I am.) Just because they are there? No, no, who loves ya?

Goodbye Disabilities Center

It's been almost three years since I worked at the Disabilities Center. Proctoring tests to disabled students was my part-time job in grad school. I am immensely grateful for the experience. I worked daytime only, on campus, and sometimes I was set in duties where I could read or write. The position helped me become a better teacher and certainly a much better person.

I was let go at the start of my final semester of school. I was devastated. My boss fought to keep me, but I was already a halftime instructor for ASU, and with Obamacare looming, the school was was paranoid about providing benefits. In a truly demeaning manner, the HR person for my graduate program wrote me saying I was being forced out of other work because I needed to focus on my studies. (After providing proof I had maintained an A average during my entire tenure at school she admitted, "Okay, it's about not giving you health care.")

I remember one of my last days at work. I was scribing for a student in a wheelchair who didn't have the use of his hands. I wrote out the short answers for him on his history exam. He coughed and asked if I could reach in his bag, get the water bottle, insert a straw, and give him a drink. "Sure," I said. I was holding the water to his mouth and thinking about the exam topics. I was remembering some stuff about Britain's empire I had forgotten since high school. (Another thing I loved about the job--insight to so many subjects!) He said, "Okay," and I put the bottle away. I had a conscious thought, "That would have felt weird two years ago." Even interviewing with my boss, a woman who was very slow to speak with, what seemed like, little control of her head, had set me on edge. I want to believe I was simply concerned in an interview scenario that I wouldn't nail it because I was having some trouble understanding her, but truthfully I had never spent an extended time with anyone much physically different than me. On that Arizona cool December day, while jotting down answers about British opium trade, the bitterness of being forced from my job melted. I felt a swell of thankfulness for the empathy education I had slowly accumulated without even knowing it.

Respond

A few years ago a boss-type figure gave me a directive that sincerely improved my life. I was on the teaching staff for an improv theatre. We had a teacher's meeting one night and he started by explaining he was very annoyed no one had responded to his email. He had emailed us a week earlier asking about the date of next month's meeting. I didn't know when would work next month. I didn't respond. When I explained myself he said, "Okay, why didn't you just say that?" UH DUR. I mean, this was an alcoholic who was usually living in motels and he had to teach me that an unsure response is better than no response.

Sending email can be scary. It's so non-committal. You blast this information into the void and it feels sort of inhuman to be ignored. Did it ever reach the other side of the web? Does the silence mean anger, confusion, complete disregard? It makes me want to apologize for trying to correspond with a person I know. So backwards. "I'm sorry for communicating." I can't think of a sadder and incorrect yet common feeling.

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.

It's Alive!

Last night I could not get to sleep. Was up for hours getting bonus lesson planning done and suddenly this spec of an idea I had about a play completely took shape and completely consumed my half-dreaming thoughts. I journaled for pages: lines of dialogue, stage directions, climactic images. It spilled out of me like black ink in those old timey pots tipped over.

This morning I began. Here it comes, speeding out of me. I didn't want to stop. I prolonged the workout until I was cutting it close. I thought about these people walking to the train. I have never wanted to cancel class due to creative flow before. A first. They hung with me all day. I have a new pile of essay revisions to grade, but not tonight. Not, at least, right now. I have people to see.

Very early into grad school I recognized I was loathing the hunt of playwriting. I would stay up all night finishing an act, get it ripped up the next day, and keep the document closed until it was my turn for workshop four weeks later. Not a healthy cycle. Not a successful cycle. I wondered if I would ever feel excited again.

My Place

I didn't say a formal goodbye to my graduate university. I wasn't really sure when it was the last day. I kept remembering teeny reasons to go to campus--more annoying than sweet (return this key, drop off that book). And then suddenly I was moving, and I wasn't going back. But the day before I drove out of the desert I went to throw away my v old tennies and remembered the shoe recycling program in the gym. I had long cleaned out my locker, but I swung by, less than a day left in the state, just to drop the old soles into the bin. And then I almost cried. I got a theatre degree, and yet, I will miss that gym a dozen times more than any black box. This is the place I trained for marathon number two and where I spent hours on bikes reading Atlas Shrugged before classes started when I had no homework or friends.  This is every 6 AM my first spring before I had an iPad when I had to settle for closed captioning of that dumb Amanda Bynes sit-com. Backstroke with palm trees smiling down. Step class that launched me into graduation. Midday showers on the hottest of hot full days. Every Wednesday on ellipticals reading my peers' plays. Those Saturday nights when I was a single girl trying to get a lift workout in before close. Those Sunday mornings ramping up adrenaline before improv rehearsal. I swallowed because I had so much more packing left and I'd been doing pretty well not crying.

Open road, leaving AZ.

Sometimes I find myself shakin' in the middle in the night

and then it hits me and I can't even believe this is my life.

Oh, Memory/Won't You Speak To Me?

In chronological order, the 30 most important songs from the year I was 25:

1. Sex on Fire, Vitamin String Quartet
strangely bright nights in my lonely AK hotel room
2. Heartbeats, The Knife
exploring small coastal towns in Alaska
3. Safe and Sound, Capital Cities
summer love in pools and cars
4. Sexy and I Know It, LMFAO
a constant friend on the sweltering Vegas strip
5. What You Want, Legally Blond
"keep your head down and get things done" jam of 2013
6. Mirrors, Justin Timberlake
sweeping the cabin with my teen kiddos
7. Seize the Day, Newsies
teaching boys how to improvise and dance at summer camp
8. Sing Me A Lullabye, Daveit Ferris
driving the tree-lined Michigan roads, goodbyes
9. We Can't Stop, Miley Cyrus
moving into the new pad
10. Everybody (Backstreet's Back), The Backstreet Boys
middle school dreams realized
11. Whistle, Flo Rida
getting ready in my stuffy 100-degree September bathroom
12. He Loves You Not, Dream
belting around the house with roommates
13. Breakfast at Tiffany's, Deep Blue Something
intermission music for my thesis play
14. Middle Distance Runner, Seawolf
respite from never-ending rehearsals
15. Let Her Go, Passenger
light at the end of the tunnel, coffee shops and laptops
16. Let Me Go, Phantogram
worry about the future, a laser light show
17. Untitled (Love Song), Counting Crows
solitude mornings, chopping berries
18. Don't Save Me, Haim
dog days of teaching Improv 101
19. Let It Go, Frozen
making it in, making it in despite the cold
20. The Trapeze Swinger, Iron & Wine
loving that Bisque
21. Friday Night, Eric Paslay
radio anthem during South Carolina Christmas
22. Story of My Life, One Direction
free falling winter break
23. Maybe I'm Amazed, Jem
walking in the Santa Monica sun, sure
24. Roar, Katy Perry
how I started every single marathon training run
25. Pompeii, Bastille
the reminders that life is good
26. Everlong, The Foo Fighters
the times I didn't need to be reminded life is good
27. Soldier, Gavin Degraw
reflection while working with prisoners
28. Stuck Like Glue, Sugarland
the dawn of a new happy aerobics era
29. Will I?, RENT
graduation, the melancholy of night and money
30. Timber, Ke$ha
Italy was lovely, but it's no escape

Last year's list: 24

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."

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.

The Mechanics of Hearsay

Today I was "on-book" the a run through of my most recent play. The cast and director have been working on this piece as I made revisions, cut, chopped, for the past couple months. It's finally time to perform the thing, and the ladies were off-book today (meaning memorized). Usually an assistant stage manager is "on book" (meaning, reads along in the script waiting for an actor to yell "line"). We don't have an SM. Let alone an ASM, so I offered to do the job. It's weird being an on-book playwright. Each recitation of the correct line sounds progressively more condescending. "I made this, and you are wrecking it." I, of course, do not care at all. (What's that you hear in the distance? Is it "Pomp and Circumstance?")

What's really interesting about watching the play from the page is how close but not quite actors can get to the words. "You've been freezing me out" becomes "You've been shutting me out." Dropped "well"s here, added, "okay"s there. One girl mixed up "please don't give up on me" with "please don't give me up." That's actually a pretty sizable swap.

I think of how many times i relate what someone said to me--be it kind or sharp--and how often I actually remember word for word what was said. And perhaps scarier, how often I think I do.

Defense

Today at 3:30 MST I defended my Master's thesis. I wasn't too worried.

My committee (four professors who have been giant shaping mechanisms for three years) sat smiling at a rectangle table. They were good-natured because I brought them cookies and because they knew what I knew. The heavy lifting is in the distant past now--my play opened half a year ago, my comprehensive exam was in February.

They asked me a few questions. They made a few comments. The feel was "Good on you" and the meeting was more "You have a lot of places you can go!" vs. "Let's navel-gaze at where you've been." I feel excited to move on. I love/ have loved school. But this chapter is over, and I have no desire to drag my feet.

I had to leave the room. I felt a pang of concern. It's strange to stand outside doors while people talk about you. I waited longer than I expected to. Wasn't it just yay or neigh? What's taking so long? Is someone asking I do more revisions of something? I stood still because I had nothing in my hands (which never happens anymore--hi, cell phones). The door opened. They said I'd be a Master. They all hugged me.

I don't usually love hugs, and this wasn't an acception. But that's fine. I know I have learned a lot in grad school, and most of it these people don't even know. That's also fine.

The library. Took this my first week of grad school.

I remember going out to dinner with my cousin when I was living in San Diego winter 2007. A strange thing. We went to a nice Italian place and one of his friends joined. We both got risoutto. Halfway through the meal she mentioned she had just finished her final grad school exam that day. I remember thinking it was an odd way to celebrate such a big thing. A rando dinner with two friends and a cousin? But now I get it. I'm here. The show must go on.

The Blue Signpost

Scooted home in a dust storm yesterday. The blue signpost at the light I've turned at one-thousand times was swaying in the orange wind. I love that signpost. I would take photos of it my first year. I don't look at it now. Until I was made to. Invisible to the one who loves it most.

Friends shutting the club down, dancing on a speaker last Friday.

I Am Who Is Supposed To Be Here (Greenblatt Lecture)

Saw Stephen Greenblatt speak at school Tuesday. It was what you might call "a big deal."Greenie is arguably the most famous living person in English academia. He helped invent new-historicism and write intros for Shakespeare plays in anthologies. I knew it was biggish, but I suddenly felt lameish when I realized everyone entering the reception sported ties and blazers. I was coming straight from class and sporting my giant stuffed to the gills lilac backpack. I was modeling the latest spring fashion of an oversized grey sweatshirt. Boop.

I edged around the sides at first, thinking I might be able to get inside and nab a seat, be largely unnoticed, but I saw a small pool of my peers hanging out by the refreshments and laughing over mozzarella kabobs. I saw a basket filled with assorted crackers and eyed my favorite snack ever: those sweet little brown digestive wafers! Any shame I had flew out the fancy windows as I picked through the basket and elderly women in cocktail dresses sullenly snorted "excuse me" into my behemoth knapsnack.

I had a pretty rad realization. "Hey," I thought, "I am who is supposed to be here." I am a student, getting my degree at this educational institution. The lovely people surrounding me were all very respectful of the man we came to hear, of the event itself, but I was actually in the first on this one. I have a big heavy backpack because I'm at school all day working and learning. I wear cozy clothes because I make peanuts and I drive a scooter that gets everything I don a little bit dirty. It was okay to be me. I felt good. I wondered if I ever mentally hold people to standards they weren't meant to meet. "I'll try to be better," I resolved.

Greenblatt was Greenblah. The man, the myth gave a (what I consider) a half-hearted look at storytelling and aging, mostly via King Lear. It was eh and my middle-age I-Teach-Persuasive-Speaking peer texted me during it, "Where are his signposts?" Everyone's a critic.

I didn't stay for Q & A. He hadn't charmed me enough. As I skittered out I noticed a table of assorted cookies for a post-talk reception. The tray was barely big enough to feed a fourth of the people in the room. I considered leaving the treats for the real academics of the night who stayed until the bitter end. But then I saw the most delicious-looking black and white cookie I've ever laid eyes on, so I scooped it up and gnawed at it as my peers and I walked back to our respective vehicles, laughing into the Arizona dusk.

Playwright Presentation Week

It was presentation week in my Intro to Playwriting class. I love student presentations. It's an opportunity for young writers to delve into a style, a person, ideas they love. I always learn so much. I took a lot of notes, and here are a few of my favorite glimmers.

I asked one student if he felt all his research on his playwright had brought him closer or distanced him to the artist:
"I've spent the past couple days sleeping or not sleeping in my bed with fifteen books by or about Pinter. So we've gotten closer."

Two students presented on playwrights who contrastingly said write from character and structure follows, then, write from story and character follows.

The kid with half-squinted 9 AM eyes gets excited by Mamet's refusal to explain everything. "Like Game of Thrones!" he chirps, "There's all these friggin' lords, but ultimately, you're just like, 'oh, well, this is awesome.'"

Girlio with pigtail poofs sits in a swivel chair spinning yarns about Ianesco. It's dreamy like her bright green eyeshadow. And I swear, the sweet Mormon with the long brown hair is a little in love with Oscar Wilde.

Remember This Of All

Felt-tipped markers for lists. Lists of prison lit, revisions, screenplays to grade. A freshman with thick brown curls props his skateboard against the door, shares his script about bombs dropping on his Lebanon home. He was 14. 9 AM Playwriting gang.

Spent office hours in the heart of campus. Sunshine. Reading interviews of The Wooster Group. About their 2002 production. I was 14 then? Fast. Don shorts for a night scoot to Flour's cottage in the hip neighborhood. We walk the sidewalks and talk about her break-up. It's raw, it's red. Emotional equivalent of reaching for that last handful of M&Ms and realizing you already ate it. "I remember that," I think, but there's a sheen over those histories. It's good to be here. She squeezes my arm. "That's him." The boy happens to be bicycling by. I hear her heart plop to the road.

I am so happy lately. There are reasons, but there are always reasons. There are also always reasons not to be. I don't know why the scales have tipped one to the other, but they have. And I am grateful. It's not always this way. I thank everything. "Remember this," I tell me, "this."

Why can't you see the sky isn't green anymore?
Why don't you know what I need on these shores?

I Still Love Theatre

In my first months of grad school I never checked out of class because everything could have been the next love of my life. Now 2.5 short years later I have lost that dazzling wonder. It's not sad though. I have the same excitement. It's just channeled. I scrape the rest from the stern.

In that brush-off, there have been times I don't care anymore. I have seen so much theatre. So. Much. Theatre. Mid-semester on through to the end I'm seeing at least a show per weekend. Often two, sometimes three. And sometimes I truly don't want to be there. It's not my bag, it's been a long week, I can't enjoy what I have learned to analyze.

But ultimately I go. Because I do still love theatre as a whole, and I can't miss it. I'm grateful for the choosing I can't do in this field. With movies, books, TV--all of it--it doesn't matter. See it now, later...sometimes you don't even have to TRY. You might say, "I'll get around to it," as if it will just pop up in front of you, but then it actually probably will one July afternoon on TNT when the remote is too far away for you to change the channel anyway!

I like that even if I don't think I'll like something, it will fade away forever if I don't go today. So I go. We make lives by choosing to go. Go-ing is living, and theatre makes me go, so, like, thanks.

2013 in Review

Lately I've been affectionately calling myself a "little sluglet" since Winter Break began, which is code for "lazy scumball."

Examples of being sluglet:

-my daily uniform of the same hot pink tank top that reads "I DON'T SWEAT I SPARKLE" and gym shorts SUP, BOOOYS!

-my diet, like yesterday's dinner of three Fannie Mays and second dinner at 11 PM of potato skins dipped in ranch

-how the same junk mail has been laying on my bedroom floor since November, RIP rainforest, I step on Children's International kids faces er'ryday

-any task I have to do takes me about eight times as long as when I'm in school (I learned about how gators go into "hibernation" but that doesn't mean they sleep, it just means they stop processing their food and move like molasses, only coming out to lounge in the sun and I can def relate)

But I wasn't always this way! No, I wasn't. It's very very hard to remember on days like today when I've literally just cleaned the debris of my disgusting vacation lifestyle and watched Sister Wives, so I'm providing a tidy lil list of neat thangs I did in 2013. It's a boring list, but sometimes it's nice to see what can be done in a year.

Profesh Ish

-taught/TA'd four college classes, one that I designed from scratch

-had a play workshopped at a theatre conference in Alaska

-rewrote and watched my thesis play get produced

-got a job writin' for a theatre journal reviewing new works

-another two semesters of classwork completed, one remains

-another two semesters working with disabled students

-auditioned for and accepted to The Program

-devised a new play for kiddos at summer camp

-did a lil freelance speech high school coaching/judging

-performed at National College Improv Tournament Nationals, did a spot at fall improv fest, a lil standup, a new works festival, a couple bits at Encylo Showz

-workin' on two screenplays

Personal Ish

-met and fell in love with a really great guy

-moved to a new home with new wonderful roommates

-took an Alaskan cruise with my mom and sistah

-roadtripped to the north woods with my dad to visit my aunt

-traveled to Vegas, South Carolina, and San Diego!

-hosted three of my best friends in one month!

-made some new frands (Cager, Lavender, Rora)

-experienced hella culture (MUSE concert, read Heartbreaking Work, saw Clyborne Park, many excellent films, etc.)

-and, of course, progressing as a human being through trials, gratitude, and reflection

Roomies.

It's not a ton, and it's not glamourous, but these small steps add up, you know? Tomorrow it begins again. Good food, good sleep, good organization, good person.