2017

Produced & performed my solo show.
Disney World with Alice Sr.
Two protests.
LA: peeking, dates with Puhg, goofing with A Jar, friends & beaches.
Got rejected big time from four auditions.
Got accepted from two.
Made a new real friend.
Started my first book (3/4 done as of today).
Visited my dad & survived a tornado.
Taught third graders to improvise all spring.
A teen improv workshop for underserved girls.
Published three times.
Saw Andrew McMahon & Arcade Fire in concert.
Graduated i_.
Cast on my first Harold team.
Coached two indie teams.
Directed three sketch shows.
Visited my alma matter for spring break.
The Goodman six times.
Steppenwolf twice.
Two women's coven retreats.
Climbed Machu Picchu, explored the Amazon, best ceviche ever.
Wrote & starred in a kids comedy show at SC.
Hosted five friends on the couch.
Dallas Improv Festival: godmommin', pie, Dizz's pool, a great set.
Taught musical theatre & song parody at two summer camps.
Cried on Fourth of July.
Screamed Moana around the apartment.
Submitted three writing packets.
Made it to the final round of one for Comedy Central.
Re-learned Hiragana & Katakana.
Almost a month of improv in Maine.
The total eclipse.
Taught two sections of Theatre History & four of English.
Revised my pilot into something I'm proud of.
Took a meeting.
My first comedy class at The A.
My first playwriting class since grad school.
Workshop reading at GH.
Threw a small but intellectually stimulating film viewing.
New tattoo.
First commissioned play.
Tutored 300 hours.
156 improv shows.
After three years, found my neighborhood coffee shop.
Told my co-worker casually I am living my dream. She laughed, and I said, "No actually I am. This is the dream I had and I am doing it. Like, everyday."

The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg

Peru: Tough Reflections

People say they like to hike because they get in touch with nature and themselves. I don't like to hike mostly because I already feel in touch with myself. Nature is cool, but it's everywhere. No need to make it arduous. I dunno. I often get bored.

But then, over some oven fried potato crisps, I found myself asking Puhg what he thought about when we were quietly making our way up the Inca Trail. He had thought about mountains and history and civilization. I asked myself, what had I thought about anyway?

I had thought, "I hate myself," which is baffling to admit. But I had. Especially in the last half hour of the most difficult leg when my body was disintegrating into fatigue and sweat. I wasn't happy and I had flown to another country and dropped stacks in attempt to be. But almost as soon as I had admitted, "I hate myself," I had countered, "I don't want to be a person who hates herself." I couldn't believe it was me thinking that thought. That's a thing other people say. I've been hard on myself or guilty, but I've always liked Alice.

My birthday was such a brilliant joyful day, but in the evening I was hit with anxiety. My things weren't going to fit in my bags. I wasn't feeling 100%. Bad sleep. I'm getting older. I forgot sunscreen and had gotten beet burn--not an ideal condition to start two days outdoors. I called myself an idiot. I looked at my hiking pants. I hadn't tried them on since I bought them and had probably gained five pounds since then. If they didn't fit, I had no other options. "I'm a fat idiot," I said outloud. What was happening? This has never been how I treat me.

My mom would say these weren't my own thoughts but some nasty cultural lies that stuck to me like briars. Since the negativity felt so foreign, I am inclined to agree. I bet this happens to a lot of women/people.

There have been other things--it's been harder and harder for me to make decisions this year. Any decision. I'm always timely with mine, but less certain. I wonder more. I worry more. "My life was run by fear," a thing I've heard said at the start of motivational speeches or in narrative essays. I have never related. I'm just not afraid of much. I am calm on a shaking plane. I welcome an emotional disruption. I have started over numerous times. But I was afraid to hike a thing that thousands of people do every day. Because maybe I wouldn't have the right backpack or order the right fish at dinner or just feel the right way.

I have no idea when this started. After a lot of consideration, I have a theory. My life is really perfect. I'm doing everything I have wished for my whole life. I perform improv (for money) several times a week, I write, I teach in the arts, I have a loving partner, good friends, supportive family. It's 4 PM and I am sitting in the sun with a brownie in my gut. Literally any day of the past year would be my past self's dream--tutoring and seeing plays at Steppenwolf, a big open gym, stages and coffee houses, Sophia Bush hugged me this year! I am living my best version of my best self, and I think it's too good to be true. Like maybe I don't deserve it? Or at the very least it's all incredibly fragile. I used to have nothing to lose. Now I feel like every choice could take me a teeny bit higher or plummet me to dust. This is dramatic and untrue. I have done incredible things this year! Memorable and challenging, unbelievable and rare. I am so proud.

I feel freer. This ivy grew secretly. I yank at the vines. The leaves rip rip rip rip. And also, I guess, the hiking worked.

You Should Be Happy

On paper I am living the dream. Like, literally. I dreamed of performing at the _______ theatre since I was twelve years old. And yesterday, I did.

You should be happy. This is what it is all about. But I couldn't have known when I was coming back from that summer mainstage on a school bus fulla kids who got most of the jokes but not all of the jokes that when it happened, when it really happened, it would be at the end of the longest week ever. The week I was sick to the bone. All my parts heaving and mucus, a clogged ear and too much lost lunch. I don't get paid enough to lose that much lunch, I thought while I was yakking in the bathroom on the floor above my classroom. I didn't want one of my students to see me wipe the slop off my face. It has been a shut-down week. Too tired to even respond to text messages week, certainly too tired to write, half-functioning just enough to sludge to the bus stop and cradle the stacks of copy-machine minted syllabi up the escalator.

You should be happy to have this job even though you need another if you want to do anything besides pay your rent this semester. You have to buy your own dry erase markers. Adjuncts are only administered two per semester, and yours haven't arrived yet anyway. Meanwhile there are all these new papers with all these moldy sentences and all these fresh faces who deserve a good education.

The show was okay. Just okay. We've all done so much better. But it was late and actually stunningly non-magic considering dreams and such were coming true. I walk out the doors of the best comedy theatre in the world, get in the car, snatch a chunk of toilet paper, blow my nose. This is the way it ends.

This is what dreams are for? To arrive at. To see the next mile post down the highway. "Maybe once I am there," you think.

Anti-Sloth!

My sister sort of harps on this idea of sloth from time to time that I'll paraphrase here:
We all think sloth means being lazy like not working or sleeping a lot, but it means a lot more. There's mental sloth. There's knowing you don't like your job and not trying to change it. Or not telling the friend the thing they should know. Or not finishing that thought you had about why or why not you thought the film was good. Even in your own head.

Perhaps because I am moving and have a forced sense of freedom, or perhaps because I'm out of school for the first time in two decades or just because this season of Breaking Bad has been very good and Dunkin has an iced coffee for 99 cents deal on, but lately I have been doing things I want to do. Case in point--the waterpark on Friday. But there has been so much more. I get bored with sorting papers, so I read. Or I mention wanting to experience The Rainforest Cafe as an adult half-jokingly and Bisque takes me on a date there for volcano cake. At summer camp I love playing Mafia with kiddos, so why not get a bunch of friends together on a Thursday and play, offering up the last beers in the fridge and the Thin Mints I have been saving in my freezer since January of last year. Any day can be a rainy day. In the good way I mean.

He tricked me into seeing Edge of Tomorrow after, but that's okay.

Mafia night in my living room.

It could be easier said than done, but oh well, just try.

He Was Somethin'

"It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come."--Dalai Lama

Beloved.

Well, Now They Know

A really cool thing one of my classmates said recently post-directing a staged reading of one of her news plays: "Most importantly I realized some people liked things one way and others liked them another way. I can't make everyone happy, so I might as well just do what I want. Which is a relief."

I don't care
what they're going to say.

Wisdom of Friends

Advice I have received re: my blog post on Monday about my compulsion to fix ish.

-If you're trying to make things happen, it's because you believe YOUR way is best, and, well, it just might not be. To think so usually means you're just very fearful of how things will turn out if you don't have complete control. Obvs, fear is not good.

-Be aware of the expectations you have for yourself and others. This will help minimize how much you are trying to control. What's really important? And why? Be in charge of a few things. Let the rest fall into place.

-It is important to enjoy life NOW instead of believing we must live a certain way to get to an eventual  future we can enjoy.

-Being happy is worth chucking previously-designed plans under a canoe.

-Ultimately where you're headed is good, and you're not responsible for making everything perfect in the meantime. Problems aren't even problems when seen in the correct light.

I saw tail lights last night in a dream about my old life.

Bliss

Clara in AZ. September 2012.

When Clara started dating her ex-fiancee two years ago, she told me about their date when the boy wore serious work work work boots and a furry beard. He had gained pound and pounds since they had met, and she was on horrendous acne medication. A stocky bear and a tiny pussing nervous laugher. They fell in love, the first time for her. And she told me about this, she said "I always had an idea of what I would be when I could finally deserve someone perfect. I would have been fitter, had an education, clear face, poised dignity"...but that's not what she was. The good finds you in the state you're meant to have it. (Which is all states?) Real happiness isn't when there's zero discomfort, uncertainty, bad haircuts, mid-terms to grade. I hope not. Because then it will never come. Real happiness is Joy Despite.

Everything about you is how I'd wanna be.

Your freedom comes naturally.

Everything about you radiates happiness.

Now I won't settle for less.

Loan

Disability Momma

Last spring I wrote about a girl I saw at work (the disability center) who was nervous about a math test to the point of tears and pregnant and very young. I was worried for this girl.

A few weeks after I wrote that post, I saw her again. She was outside a building, waiting for a ride. She looked miserable and was very ripe with babe. It's against policy to approach a student I know from work outside of the center, so I had to just walk on by. I've considered that gal a few times a week spring.

This year, the girl showed up again! She had dark dyed hair now and seemed very happy. She wore a wedding band and carried a cute cartoony backpack. She made small talk with me and showed no signs of anxiety at all. I was so happy. I have no idea if she has the baby or not. I am just glad she is okay.

You never know who is rooting for you.

Be Comforted

Cozy couple in PJS in VA.

Comfort. Capital C, sunny days on bicycles, chocolate cookies at the grad student picnic with Hill, trotting up to our favorite professor's door, being invited in for sits and thoughts.

The Comfort of the subpar but all-you-can-eat chocolate froyo and brownie squares at Sweet Tomatoes. "I want to be fat," I told Smirn. The Comfort of my home here. How it feels to punch in the code on our garage, taking an envelope out of my stationary drawer, knowing there is one pine cone stamp left for this letter Michigan-bound. The people I've met, and how they've turned into the people I can insult, or hug, and how it feels just right.

"You will begin to understand that healing is an effect. It's no longer the object of your intention. It becomes the unavoidable side effect."--Michael Pabst

Rough

Having a rough day. It happens. It's spring outside, but maybe the sun's distance still makes my brain get winter blues. I don't know what to do. Scratch that--I know a lot of things to do, but I can't make myself do them. I KNOW the hard part isn't doing things, it's just starting to do things. Furthermore, the hardest part is not doing things. I know this. I know this, but still. But still.

I have decided to remind myself of some times I was truly happy:


ACTF 2008.


Tokyo Disney with my abroad group.


Seeing Andy solo.

These yellow lights are turnin' red, turnin' red.

You Just Can't Show Me

Ultimately the only thing that can make you happy is a choice to be. I believe this. The world could be over. Or your world--you could be afraid to return to school, could be struck with two deaths in one transitory year, could keep getting bloody noses and accidentally muss up your white hankie permanently....but you can understand Good and shake it all off. You can shrug--no, MORE than shrug--you can lace up your sneakers and go jogging down the lake path. I believe this. But, I also believe sometimes it's very very hard.

Maybe it's just watching that episode of Boy Meets World where Cory gives Topanga his jean jacket and remembering first seeing it in your suburban Chicago bedroom, on your bed that you had to climb, and turning off the TV to run over the lines of your speech for the next morning's competition. High school speech is magic, but is it? Who really cares? You say it was so good for you, but who cares? What's actually Good anyway? I repeat: Who cares about any of it? And no matter how decadent the caramel salt latte, how cushy the employment benefits, how absolutely perfect the Arizona heat in January is--there's still unhappiness if you can't make THE choice. I believe this.

But that's why, although we are not entitled to it, we are sent angels in the form of a friendly stranger offering positivity about your writing, about Life. In the form of the poor depressed folk singer who, despite his forever unhappiness, has given me dozens of reasons to be happy--two being "Goodnight Rose" and "Desire," which remind me of walking through Kyoto at night, up the steps of the art school. I asked the noodle shop for a knife. My Japanese wasn't good enough. I ripped open the avocado with my fingernails.

And although we might not be deserving of these angels because we have been such horribly sad, dysfunctional little maggots, they come to us, and although they cannot make us happy, they can remind us to try.

You know me. You know my way.
You just can't show me, but, God, I'm praying.
That you'll find me, and that you'll see me,
and that you run and never tire.
Desire. Desire.