Procrastination

Oh my gosh! I'm dawdling in blogland when I have so much work to do. I love being here, browsing, chatting, reading, laughing and being inspired - by you. Thank you all, new friends, old friends and friends yet to be. But I MUST get to work!

Like Alice's White Rabbit:

I'm late, I'm late for a very important date!
No time to say hello, good-bye, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!

I run and then I hop, hop, hop, I wish that I could fly.
There's danger if I dare to stop and here's a reason why:

I'm over-due, I'm in a rabbit stew.
Can't even say good-bye, hello,
I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!

For My Mini Pixie Friend

Time out to send a virtual hug to a very long distance friend.

To Paula,

Be proud because you had the courage to take a difficult path. This quote is to remind you that doing nothing when you see a wrong is even worse than the wrong itself. Sleep well, knowing you had the courage to do the right thing.

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing. ~ Albert Einstein

I Wish

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for. ~ Epicurus

Ten Things

Ten Things I Never Thought I’d Do:

1. Use my blog as a tell-all journal (I did, according to my 2/13/2007 post and it looks as though this embarrassing trend may continue.)
2. Live overseas. (I taught English in Korea when I was young(er) and still thought the world wanted me to save it. I later learned it didn’t and I couldn’t, but it was a fun time never-the-less.)
3. Cut my hair. (I did in January - ten inches! - and even think it looks rather cute. Perhaps even a bit cosmopolitan. Still, it’s weird to wash and brush … seems to stop long before my brush thinks it should, and so it keeps on brushing even after the hair stops. Silly.)
4. Ride motorcycles. (I do, and seriously love them. Love them enough to buy my own a few years ago. Vroom vroom. An intoxicating mix of freedom and speed, privacy and exhibitionism, as you slice through time astride a rumbling, tooth-shattering roar, whilst enveloped in a cone of silence.)
5. Have my voice be recognized throughout a goodly portion of the US and a pretty fair share of Asia and Europe. (Around the globe, recordings of my disembodied voice instruct and exhort listeners to press 2 for a name directory and 0 for help – as though anyone is really listening anyway.)
6. Be owned by another cat. (I’m allergic, but she was cute and I had a mouse in the house. She swiftly dispatched the mouse – naming herself “Assassin” for it. Well, “Sassy” for short. The mouse is gone but the cat’s still happily here, tormenting the dog who owns me and purring.)
7. Drink steaming tea in London and slurp noodles in Seoul. Eat sushi in Tokyo and salmon in Anchorage. Eat wedges of golden gouda in Amsterdam and spicy chuchitos in Guatemala City. Eat Madeleines in Paris and wild boar in Umbria. (No explanation needed. Travel lust periodically grabs me by the throat.)
8. Fall in love … again.
9. Move 3,000 miles away from the people and places I love in order to live in the opposite side of this vast country where I knew no one – except one very special person. An alien, east coast snob adrift in the friendly, straight forward west.
10. Live happily ever after.

So I better tell you the next part of the story soon.

I start my new job in a week and am eagerly scared of it. Scared that it will take a lot of time and energy. Scared that I’ll neglect the blog and my blog friends as I have this past week. I’ve been reading and learning and trying to get a head start on this supersized, yummy new job.

I’ll go write the next part of the story soon. I promise. In the meantime, tell me about the things you never thought YOU’D do…

What's in it For Me?

The stage is not merely the meeting place of all the arts, but is also the return of art to life. ~ Oscar Wilde

Never Say Never

Ok, well I was never going to do this. But I guess I am. You’d think I’d learn – there are so many things I swore I’d never do and then I leap right in and do them anyway. Sigh. I guess I’m going to do this, too.

I never wanted to use the blog as a journal. Never wanted to say, “Today I made a cake,” or “Today I’m going on vacation.” I mean, I’m just not that interesting. Surely no one wants to read about the daily comings and goings of my wee life. I just wanted to post things I write and let you have glimpses of who I am through my writing. I really started this as a kind of anger management device. My job was wretched and I wanted somewhere else to put my brain. Didn’t want to think about the work that was making me unhappy. Made myself promise I’d never write anything about work or theater or marketing or development or bad finances or bad shows or bad choices or toxic workplaces. So I haven’t. I just keep posting other random thoughts that rattle around in my little brain.

Then I stopped working at the place that caused me to have screaming fits alone in my car, and life got sunnier. The clenched fist inside my head relaxed and I learned to breathe again. Twinkling summer sun brought fresh air and calm. I cooked for friends and family. I wrote. I played. I sang. And, uh, there was the occasional glass or two (or three) of wine. (I live darned near wine country, after all, and should be forgiven.) A lily of the field, I neither toiled nor spun. Which, of course, was the problem. No toiling or spinning, no paycheck. Ok for a while, but not as ok after six months. Things have been kind of tight around here and I’ve been worried.

What if no one hires me to do the job I love? It’s been seven and a half months. There aren’t all that many theaters around here – I no longer live in metropolitan east coast theater heaven. And I do love this job. I love theater and the business of theater. Of course a non-profit theater isn’t a business, but it needs to be run like one. We don’t sell shoes or ships or ceiling wax – our product is magic. Our job is to touch you and bring you a smile, a laugh, a tear or a thought. Our job is to change you somehow. But the business doesn’t run on magic and so we sometimes struggle and sometimes our work is hard. Our ability to change a human life makes it worthwhile. But that isn’t what I want to tell you. What I want to tell you is that I love the business of theater – marketing and publicizing, developing audience, finding money. And I love the art and the joy that you can (sometimes) find in a theater. Emotions on steroids. Even after working much of my life in theaters, my heart still races on opening night. The smell of an empty theater still makes my tears well up.

Today I got a new job.

I’m excited and happy and giddy and and and… And all that. I am the new Director of Operations, Marketing & Development for a wonderful professional theater company. Shiny bright promise. New troubles will come, to be sure. But the beginning will be filled with the heart racing passion of new love. And I think there will be magic, too.

I just wanted to tell you, even though I said I wouldn’t. Happiness likes to be shared.

Illegitimate

I’m not sure
But I think
That the same people who believe
Marriage will legitimize
Lovemaking
Are the same people who believe
Divorce will legitimize
Anger.

“No, I’m Just Going for a Walk”

Why is it when people feel they are losing
Each other
They always leave
Each other?

Why do people walk away from their houses
When all
They have to do to get home
Is turn around?

She's Not Getting Any Younger

I don’t know what it’s like
To be old,
But I think
It’s living long enough
To make a joke of the things
That were once
Breaking your heart.

The Children

Cool Slideshows

(You can click on a picture to see it larger and then click it again to put it back where it came from.)