Flexibility, Perspective, Niceness

I was very frustrated during Music Improv class tonight. I would initiate a scene very sure and clear about where it should have gone...and time and time again I was knocked down. I started to judge my classmates for making choices I wouldn't have made. I love each and every one of my classmates, so these angry feelings really upset me. It's tough though to feel like you're setting a foundation for something doesn't get built.

But then you really have to remember what you're doing exactly. In my experience, for example, I was trying to start a scene about needing a new worker at my seal docks business. In short: something very dumb. And yet, there I was, feeling my ears turn red in annoyance because someone didn't have the same idea about the fake miming we were doing. Sigh.

I want Chicago to be a nice place. And yet...As I bopped into the crosswalk on my street a mini-van was not stopping. At the last second a woman with a car full of people screeched to a halt as I was raising my arms like, "You tryin' to kill me, lady?!" I bet she was a tourist, and I bet she felt bad. Mainly, I just didn't want to get hit on this particularly cool June evening.

Sweet Brown Kitty

The family cat passed away this week. She was twenty years old. She was born into a chaos of siblings, shuffled to our quiet shack, and given a partner/boss cat. She chirped like a mouse, her namesake. She was useless in catching bugs, but she did fit my hamster into her mouth once. Unlike her shifty roommate she despised the outdoors. She'd just rather not. If held to a lightbulb, she would lick it. She was a fat cat, gobbling up everything, including a basket full of Easter grass, but this past year after I took her to the cat salon for a shave, I realized she had gotten quite tiny. Itsy bitsy bird bones and shivery scalp. She was missing teeth and yowled at two in the morning like a cat pirate.

In cars she complained the whole time. She learned a cottage twice, but she spent her last days with my dad quite constantly living to jump into his arm chair as soon as he stood up. Toasty seats make good cat beds.

I don't have a favorite memory of Mouse. I guess I liked when we put a pumpkin onesie on her and she just laid on the couch like a festive slug. We never had a bond. She was just sweet and frumpy and a little clueless. I will miss her.

You can sort of be bird-brained and even a little gross, but people will still like you if you're just nice and generally happy it's another day.

Nice Things (An Extremely Partial List)

1. Biking home from Bisque's house one day (in December mind you) I was struck by the beauty and simplicity of this lemon tree. I did nothing to deserve this happy sight except look up and be aware of some of the nice things freely given in this world.

Hello, world.

 2. We decided via group text to watch Place Beyond the Pines one night at 6. Incidentally, it is my second favorite movie of 2013--only coming in a hair behind Don John. In the text someone mentioned a blanket fort, so when she got off work, Ro made one. It was a charming evening, warm, sweet.

Cager in the blanket fort.

Where Does Being Nice Get You?

"Nice" is basically an insult these days. I mean, I think so. I take it as "in lieu of a real compliment:" It's the backside of a silver spoon or a perfectly triangle slice of yellow cake.

And most of us at one point (or many) times in our lives have asked "Where will being nice get me for real?" Indeed, there are times we feel we cannot be heard if we're nice, successful if we're nice, loved if we're nice.

When you're an educator, and a student meets with you, and the student is nice, it's really hard not to help her succeed in the class. I wouldn't act immorally and pass a failing kid or offer extra help to some and not all, but I am hard-pressed to find flaw in a nice student.

When I worked at at Marble Slab, I remember it was literally as simple as Please and Thank You if I was going to help a customer out of a credit card jam, getting a discount, putting a cherry on top. Just being nice, the whole world opened up for those people.

In rehearsal this evening we discussed the US involvement with Pakistan. Complicated to say the least. And Jersey said, "It's so stupid. It's like paying a schoolyard bully not to beat you up, but, meanwhile, you're a six-foot juicehead!" Point taken. But, part of it is about...niceness. There's a niceness.

Nice flowers at a nice wedding in 2010.

Seriously consider what could have been avoided in the history of crime, violence, and hatred if everyone were nice. The immediate reaction is to say, "No, no. The nice guys would just get taken advantage of." But would they? If EVERYONE was nice. If everyone were nice, wouldn't domination seem a hassle?

Sweeties

There are some girls who can live forever with sugar voices. Anything they say is like gingerbread pancakes with whipped cream drizzle. I do not know how these girls function. Do they get into fights? Do they cry more or less as they have fewer reasons for crying? I am interested.

The other day backstage FG was pointing to everyone in the cast and stating which "one" he or she was. Like..."the ethnic one" or "the nerd" and I was "the nice one." I don't think that's accurate, although to a group of strangers it might be. I'm not offended. There are plenty worse things to be called.

The butter melts out of habit.
You know the toast isn't even warm.