multitudes

Work. Play. Blog.

2007-01-30T10:53:00.000-05:00

Last night I was reading an article about New Yorkers searching for inner peace, and I came upon the word: multitudes. It reminded me of this blog, and how I've neglected it for months now. When we left off, I had resigned from my full-time job to try the life of a freelancer. Fast forward six months - this is my email signature these days:

Amanda Hirsch
WORK http://www.amandahirsch.com
PLAY http://www.washingtonimprovtheater.com
BLOG http://www.creativedc.org

I'm no longer a job first and hobbies second. I am all of me. In other words: I contain multitudes.

Stay tuned.

Here I am

2006-09-29T12:44:00.000-04:00

I like these pictures of me.

Deep thoughts when you wake up at 5:45am to catch a 7am train

2006-08-25T19:04:00.000-04:00

This morning when I stepped outside, the air conditioners on my block sounded like distant applause. I'm not trying to sound poetic or deep: this was literally the thought that popped into my head. (My next thought was: "coffee!")

Check it out

2006-08-24T10:53:00.000-04:00

I'm guest blogging over at Hip Tranquil Chick this week - check it out:

Today's post - on daring to put yourself out there
Yesterday's post - on the practice of creative living

Let me know what you think.

Yes

2006-08-19T20:13:00.000-04:00

"It takes courage to grow up
and turn out to be
who you really are."
---e e cummings

Diary of a woman who left her job a week ago to start a career in freelancing and hasn't stopped since

2006-08-04T12:40:00.000-04:00

Last Thursday was my last day at work. I worked there 6 and a half years. I went straight from my going away party to the train station, and up to New York. I got to my hotel room at 11:30pm; the next morning, I was up at 7, and off to a breakfast meeting/schmooze-fest with a potential client. 10:45am, another meeting. 11:30, another.

1pm, lunch in Times Square with a guy a friend of mine thought I'd hit it off with - not romantically, more in a hey-they-have-a-lot-in-common way. He's self-published a bunch of albums and has a well-known blog and I'm trying to build up Creative DC... 3:30, coffee with a friend/producer. 5:30 drinks with another friend, a toast to my freedom.

8pm, the first in a string of probably 20+ improv shows I would see over the course of the weekend, as part of the Del Close Improv Marathon. More hours than I'd care to count spent in a dank basement theater surrounded by people with terrible B.O. cheering for creatures who, like myself, have tasted the improv high and can't quit til they get it back. Hoping Amy Poehler would show up - she didn't. Drinks with friends, more shows, more drinks, walking up and down 8th Avenue between shows, cheap pizza, cheap egg sandwich from a Korean grocery without air conditioning.

Sunday, a restaurant with good A/C, the first we've had all weekend, brunch with a friend. Sunday night, on a train home, exhausted, high on the fumes of activity, finally finish the Truman Capote biography I'm reading, slam through a vapid interior decorating magazine, pick up the crumbs of the Yoga Journal I started on the ride up. Home, exhausted, midnight.

10:00 the next morning, a conference call with another potential client. Sore throat, cancel a lunch meeting, exhausted. Sit hunched over laptop finishing PowerPoint slideshow for former boss's going away party back at....work. Show up at 3:30, part of the decorating committee. Decorate. Party from 4-6:30, cheerful, surrounded by ghosts of workdays past. "Yep, I'm just ready for a little variety," I chirp.

Wine. Potato chips - perfect salty taste. Then off to auditions for my improv troupe, Jinx. 7:30-10. Grapefruit juice. Drinks afterwards, who are we going to pick? Pick. Home to bed. Sleep til noon, exhausted. Afternoon with a spreadsheet, mapping out 90-day goals for me, my blog, my freelance business. Clarity. Bed.

Wednesday and Thursday, long peaceful drive out to Rockville to do government support work my mom helped me get. Mindless - thrillingly so. View out the office window of trees, reminds me of Maryland - of course I'm in Maryland, but it reminds me of Maryland, of growing up, of all the time spent there. Today, slept til 11:30, sore throat descended into full-on cold. Stumble out in the heat to walk my dog. We're out of milk so I drink my coffee black.

Launch

2006-07-29T10:44:00.000-04:00

(I wrote this Thursday night, but couldn't get online to post it til now.)

It's weird how your sense of self can be challenged by travel to a new place. I'm alone in a hotel room in New York tonight. Today was my last day at work, my last day at a place I've been for six and a half years - longer than I was in college, or high school; almost as long as I've been married. I lived in 4 homes during my tenure. My husband and I bought our first house.

My team threw me a going away party, and invited my husband, who drove me straight to the train station afterwards - I have a day of schmoozing ahead of me tomorrow, meeting with potential clients (and some friends). We were planning to come to New York this weekend anyway, for the Del Close comedy fest, and then when I decided to start freelancing I arranged to come a day early and meet with people. Hubby joins me tomorrow.

After what felt like the longest train ride ever (despite a good book), I decided to walk to the hotel from the train station - 13 blocks, and 3 avenues. I walked through Times Square and felt like Alice in Wonderland with all the glitter - I've seen it a million times before, but tonight it felt otherworldly. I drifted through. On the train ride up, passing through Philly, where I went to college, we passed the boat houses lit up all along the Schuykill river, and I was struck with nostalgia, with a sense of passage. Thinking of the young woman that walked those city streets.

I arrived at my hotel covered in sweat. The lobby is beautiful old New York on a small scale; the elevator fits about 3 people comfortably; and my room is probably about 8 x 10. The bathroom is like a closet. The view out the window is of other windows. The window unit is roaring. There's a framed black and white photograph on the wall that's supposed to look arty. The sheets are soft. My limbs are weary.

In seven hours I get up and start the schmoozing, start the selling of myself, the charming. It's nerve-wracking, and too fast - I need time to come down. But at the same time, it's thrilling: to think of being myself out in the world, for what feels like the first time.

Hunger strike

2006-07-24T19:14:00.000-04:00

On the way home today I passed a group of people who've been on a hunger strike for 21 days so far, as a way of protesting the war. They were at 18th and Church Streets NW, camped outside the church there. I can't imagine not eating for 21 days. I want to believe it will make a difference - but is the point of what they're doing to change the outcome of the war, or to make the leap of faith and live your beliefs so strongly? Either way, I find it inspiring.

A house filled with music

2006-07-23T14:27:00.000-04:00

My husband's fledgling band is rehearsing downstairs, filling the house with the sound of Ben Folds Five, and of guys happy to be rock stars, if only for the afternoon.

(He's being sarcastic)

2006-07-20T23:30:00.000-04:00

"I was delighted to learn that American politicians are trying to make it illegal to burn the American flag. That can only mean that my dedicated public servants have finally solved the problems of crime, drugs, war, poverty, terrorism, healthcare, immigration, and the mystery of why our children are such idiots compared to Norwegians. Evidently those issues are now under control. I was starting to worry that Congress was wasting my tax dollars doing stupid shit." -- Scott Adams, July 1, 2006

Giving notice

2006-07-06T20:48:00.000-04:00

I gave notice at my job this week. I've been there 6 1/2 years - that's longer than I was in college - almost as long as I've been married. I feel like I'm graduating, in a way, into adulthood. Taking off the training wheels. I'm going to be freelancing (new media consulting and content development, thankyouverymuch), and it's exhilirating - yes, exhilirating. I'm - giddy. The thought of dipping in and out of things, brief immersion, independence, flexibility...helping more people, more organizations...experiencing more things...trying things... exhilirating. I'm done being immersed in one organization for a while. Done marching to a mission statement other than my own. Graduating. Keep in touch. Have a gr8 summer.

Ha

2006-06-29T09:57:00.000-04:00

Launch pad

2006-06-29T09:11:00.000-04:00

I've been thumbing through The Artist's Way at Work again, and came across a quote that struck me:

The task of the best teacher is to balance the difficult juggling act of becoming vitally, vigorously, creatively, energetically, and inspiringly unnecessary.
--Gerald O. Grow

It made me think about how we all play the role of teacher in one way or another, as we help each other through life -- as friend, as manager, as parent, etc -- and how the best gift is to get to a point where you're not needed. You're loved, or you're valued, but you're a launch pad, rather than a security blanket.

Kimberly Wilson's Lessons Learned

2006-06-26T17:28:00.000-04:00

On the eve of her 33rd bday, Tranquil Space Yoga founder and creative director Kimberly Wilson reflects on lessons she's (almost) learned in life thusfar. Her list includes:

Trust your gut
Stay away from people who drain you
Surround yourself with inspiring people
Know when to let go

...and, one that my mother would love:
Always send thank-you notes

Read the full list (and note the comment from yours truly :)). And, check out my Q&A with Kimberly on my other blog, Creative DC.

Say "yes"

2006-06-21T22:14:00.000-04:00

An excerpt from a commencement speech that Steven Colbert gave at Knox College earlier this month:

Will saying “yes” lead you to doing some foolish things? Yes it will. But don’t be afraid to be a fool. Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying “yes” begins things. Saying “yes” is how things grow. Saying “yes” leads to knowledge. “Yes” is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say “yes.”

Read the full speech.

Terrible horrible no good very bad day

2006-06-14T19:26:00.000-04:00

1. We have rats in our kitchen.
2. The exterminator discovered a gas leak.
3. Did I mention we have rats in our kitchen? "Rats," plural. We've had 2 spottings in the pantry and 1 that just scurried across the kitchen floor in broad daylight.
4. I was supposed to get tickets to a baseball game for Father's Day and didn't act quickly enough, and now the game's sold out, and I feel terrible, and my mom keeps telling me how disappointed my dad is.
5. I have so much to do at work that my head is spinning.
6. I am jet lagged from a long weekend on the west coast.
7. I have been so busy since we got back that I still haven't unpacked.
8. My dog wants to play but I can't muster the energy.
9. I haven't practiced yoga in days.
10. I disagree with my improv troupe on something and hate feeling like the negative one, or the one who's making things difficult.

Phew. It's amazing how just writing that down puts it all in perspective. None of this really matters in the long run. All that's real is this moment - Cosmo at my feet; the sound of birds outside my window, the cool breeze, the bright green trees. My breath, going in and out. My body moving toward the floor, ready to practice yoga, ready to come home.

Sleep machine

2006-05-30T18:53:00.000-04:00

That's me. My parents are astounded. Today, after a hard day of doing not much of anything I collapsed on a lounge chair on the deck and passed out for two solid hours. I'd still be sleeping if the breeze hadn't picked up and made me cold. This after falling asleep on the couch last night and sleeping at least 10 hours. They knew I slept like this as a teenager and they knew, from my husband, that I could still out-sleep the best of them, but I think it's weirding them out to experience it in person.

Honestly, my ability to nap was rekindled in Tobago - it left me more relaxed than I'd been in ages. There, I was outdone by my friend Dan, who fell asleep at the end of every yoga practice - something we were all made aware of by the dulcet tones of his snoring. "Snorasana," we called it (an asana being a yoga pose - a little Yoga humor there).

Truth be told, I could curl up and fall back asleep right now, but instead I will shower and get ready to go out to dinner with my husband for our 7th wedding anniversary. Happy anniversary to us!

Beachy keen

2006-05-29T11:42:00.000-04:00

I'm at the beach this week with:

my husband
Cosmo
my parents
my parents' dog Rhoda

...and, down the beach from us:
my uncle
my aunt
my cousin

This is Cosmo's first real trip to the beach, and he's exhausted. I'm exhausted, too - in that state of relaxation that leaves you feeling perpetually on the verge of dozing off. No complaints. I'm reading a silly beach book and drinking Bloody Marys and staring out at the sea. Yesterday I led my husband and mom in a yoga session. Life is good.

Yoga high - and a new blog

2006-05-25T20:51:00.000-04:00

I went to Tranquil Space tonight for the first time in almost two weeks (my travel schedule for work has gotten in the way), and it was heavenly. It's amazing how much better I feel after taking a class versus practicing at home - something about the choreography, how we flow from one pose into another, just releases energy and leaves me feeling buzzy and high. Afterwards I was walking Cosmo and ran into a friend of mine, and I was all buzz buzz buzz as I told him about a new blog I've started (more on that in a second), and we talked about WIT, and about his upcoming trip to Costa Rica... finally I stopped myself, realizing I was rambling, and laughed... I may have sounded silly, but man, what a gift it is to feel that good.

Now Cosmo is humping his bed. I guess he feels good, too.

So, about that new blog: it's called Creative DC, and I really hope you'll check it out. I have to say that I am having a tremendous amount of fun with it. Somehow it's clicked more than this blog ever has... I just have a much clearer vision of what I want to do with it. Still, I'm not giving up on multitudes just yet.

Namaste!

No more sitting still

2006-05-21T09:27:00.000-04:00

I have apparently lost my ability to sit still in a big room and be spoken at for long periods of time. At two conferences in the past two weeks I have nearly gone out of my mind - needing to get up for frequent stretch breaks, walk around, get some fresh air. How did I get through school?

My country tis of thee...

2006-05-16T08:41:00.000-04:00

"America is hard to see."
-Robert Frost

If you could choose where to live, would you choose America?

That's the question posed by this very interesting feature on the P.O.V.'s Borders: American ID Web site.

Sample responses so far:

"Yes - I am a woman, a homosexual, and of Mexican American decent. Where else could I live this openly without imprisonment, genecide or servitude?"

"No - I don't like living in a country where wealth is so unevenly distributed, where the social safety net continues to disappear, and where so many people have no access to health care."

Other cool features on the site:

Define America in three words, and hear how people around the world responded
Name 5 essential recordings you'd take with you on a cross-country road trip
Write a slogan for America

Go to it...

Rainy day in Boston

2006-05-13T16:19:00.000-04:00

Saturday morning, Boston. I was in town for a conference that ended Friday, but my flight home wasn't until Saturday evening (my husband was in town too, for training, which ended Saturday afternoon), so I had the day all to myself. After spending all day Friday sitting still, listening to dull academic lectures, I was dying for some yoga - ready to get out of my head and back into my body. And I was looking forward to having some time by myself to explore the city - I'd been there a million times, but couldn't remember ever having even so much as an hour to myself. I asked a friend of mine who lives there to recommend a yoga place, and she pointed me to Exhale, a day spa/yoga studio right off of the Boston public gardens.

I set the alarm for 9:30 so I could easily make it to an 11am class without rushing, but between the rain and my general proclivity for sleeping well past an alarm, I woke up at 10:50. When I had called to reserve my spot in class the day before, the receptionist had emphasized the importance of arriving early, and warned me, "if you're here at 11:05, we can't let you in." But I had been looking forward to this class so much that my desire to make it drowned out logic, and I leapt out of bed and was out the door in 5 minutes. As I stood on the street in the pouring rain, with cab after cab zooming by me, I almost gave up -- but I was craving yoga so deeply, and this studio sounded like it would be such a great space - so I held out hope. Up pulled a cab ("this is the kind of day for staying inside, listening to music, drinking wine and cooking," the cab driver said), and at 11:06 I arrived at Exhale.

I had resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn't be able to get into the 11:00, but thought maybe I could take a different class later in the day, or sign up for one of their spa services. "I'm so sad," I said to the woman behind the desk when it was my turn, "I'm late for your 11:00." Then, wonder of wonders, she said, "it's ok" - and after quickly filling out a form and paying my $18 entrance fee, I was on my way to the yoga studio downstairs. Moments later a staff member slid open a wooden door (it looked like the entrance to an ancient Asian temple) and I entered the studio.

I was 20 minutes late, but it was an hour and a half class, so I still got a generous practice, and it felt wonderful. I missed the warm-up, so at first my muscles felt a little creaky, and I felt more awkward than graceful as we flowed from pose to pose. But I was patient with myself, and breathed deeply, and by the end of practice I was deeply, deeply relaxed.

When the lights came up, I rose slowly, and glided out into the hallway, where I discovered a locker room stocked with fuzzy robes, soft towels, bottles of lotion - in other words, heaven for this sensual Taurus. I took a shower, and water rained down on me from the shower head in the ceiling; I took my time getting dressed, and blew my hair dry, something I never take the time for. On my way out I browsed the shop up front, touching the soft, soft fabrics of the (dramatically overpriced) yoga clothes for sale, and made myself a cup of tea.

I eventually drifted back up to the main level, and out onto the street, where the rain was still pouring down. I found my way to a restaurant someone at Exhale had recommended, called Parish Cafe, where I sat at the bar and ordered a fritatta sandwich; I savored every buttery bite. Afterwards I ducked into a store across the street that turned out to be a wonderland of beautiful paper, journals, notecards and art supplies. I was in heaven.

I share this story as an example of how restorative it can be to spend a day, or even a few hours, letting yourself do whatever it is you want to do - whether it's watching a football game or taking a dance class or working in your garden. I also share because as I mentioned in my last post, I am playing with the idea of creating an inspirational space here in DC - and my day in Boston left me more convinced than ever of the power such places have to change the entire fabric of a person's day.

Creative life

2006-05-09T08:04:00.000-04:00

At the end of When Harry Met Sally, Harry says, "When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to begin right away." I feel that same urgency about beginning a life that's centered around work that's mine - my gift to the world, something only I can give, something that brings me tremendous joy, something I'm the boss of. If only I knew what that something was.

I know I have high standards. I know that some might counsel, "be grateful for what you have. don't strive so hard." I am grateful - my life is full of abundance. And yet, I'm restless. Restless because I know that if I find that place where "my deep gladness and the world's deep hunger" meet, it will unleash deep joy and fulfillment, will color each day of my life with clearer purpose and meaning. I could spend the rest of my days working for companies whose missions resonate with my values - but at the end of the day, no matter how much I accomplish, I am a cog in someone else's wheel.

As I try to crystallize my vision of the work I want to be doing, I find myself focused on the idea of creating spaces that inspire people. As Eve Ensler once said, "We give what we most want to get, and we teach what we most want to learn." YES. I want spaces that inspire me, and am so grateful whenever I find them. I struggled for so long in this city, falling in with those who judge it as a khaki-pants town, with no creative community. I was wrong, and finding places like Tranquil Space and organizations like Washington Improv Theater helped me discover a city full of creative people dying to express themselves, to live differently, to find a community of others with shared interests and values. All of this pulses beneath the surface in DC, and it takes a while for newcomers to find. I see others struggling, and I think, if I could create a space that was a gateway into this dimension of the city I've grown to love - a gateway, like the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland - I would be giving such a gift.

What kind of space do I mean? Maybe a vegetarian cafe on 18th Street, with fresh, delicious, local food - a haven after a harried day at the office, a place to nourish yourself, a place to feel communion with others who seek out such a place. Or, an arts space - somewhere artists could rehearse, workshop ideas, perform... like the new Woolly Mammoth space, but with a feel all its own. Perhaps the cafe and the arts space are somehow attached.

Or maybe, an inn. I love to travel, and some of my happiest memories are of places I've stayed that have provided a unique and comforting experience that made my discovery of a new city or town that much more delicious. When I read travel literature about DC, it's all about monuments and museums; while these national treasures are, indeed, treasures, they cast DC as more of an object to be gazed upon, than a thriving creative city. I could see myself helping, in my own small way, facilitate travel to DC for a whole different dimension of experience: local theater, food, drink, nature -- a bike ride through Rock Creek Park, a beer at the Brickskellar, dinner at Meskerem, an evening at the Source. The inn could have space where community organizations could meet, films could be screened, artists could rehearse...

So many ideas, and yet I'm still waiting for that "aha" moment - the moment where the heavens part and the sun shines down and I know that, yes, THIS is the idea to pursue. I try to be patient - but patience is not my strong suit - and with each passing week, I fear weeks will turn into months, and I will still be stuck trying to crystallize a vision, instead of pursuing a dream. I try to savor and enjoy this process, of brainstorming, allowing myself to dream as big as I can... and I do enjoy it, to an extent. But after a while, being who I am, I want results.

One thing I do know (I think): I don't want to work at a systemic level. I don't want to sit in an office with city planners figuring out how to design DC to better showcase creative life. I don't want to issue grants to arts organizations. I don't want to be part of a marketing team. I used to believe that the more macro you were, the more of an impact you could have, but I'm ready to go micro - to make a difference through the individuals I help feed, nourish, inspire, not through strategies that inevitably relegate individuals to concepts.

Have you ever struggled with a similar process of crystallizing your vision for something? If so - any advice to share? I'd love to hear it...

Outed

2006-05-06T11:59:00.000-04:00

So yesterday my boss told me she knows about my blog. Gulp. (Hello, boss.) I am still processing how I feel about this, and what it means for what and how I write moving forward. It's a reminder that of course, anyone can find this blog - it's not just a bulletin board for friends and family. I've known that all along, and it's made me censor myself - which on the one hand, is incredibly frustrating, because it keeps this from being an outlet for true artistic expression; on the other hand, that's life - if you have a job, and you're an artist, you have to constantly negotiate how much of yourself you reveal in your art. Which sucks, but that's the way it is.

Quote of the day

2006-05-05T09:22:00.000-04:00

From How to Find the Work You Love:

"If you always go as far as you can with what you have,
you will always find that you can go further."

In yoga, this is called finding your edge - the place in a pose, and in life, where you're pushing yourself as far as you can...never to the point of pain, but as my yoga teacher said last night, you never want to find yourself "just hanging out."

Inspiration

2006-05-04T20:53:00.000-04:00

Things that have inspired me lately:

1. Chef Alice Waters on the spiritual significance of food and meals (as quoted on the Web site for Heritage Foods USA)

"We have always seen the meal as a center of the human experience. At the table we are nourished and gladdened, put in touch with the source of life, and reconnected to traditions and creativity. This is true of everyday life as well as special occasions. A good kitchen respects its sources, chooses ingredients that are sound, seasonal, local when possible, and appropriate to the event. Garnish and presentation play supplemental roles, not principal ones. Respect for traditions, both artisanal and sophisticated, is an equal to inventiveness and improvisation."

Yes yes yes yes yes.

2. Stephen Colbert's satiric send-up of the President and the mainstream media at the annual Press Corps dinner.

3. The "U.S.A. in Three Words" feature on the Web site for P.O.V., and indie film series on PBS.

4. Practicing yoga at home and at Tranquil Space, reading Yoga Journal, and thinking about my yoga trip to Tobago (floating in the sea...)

5. Reading The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant.

6. Helping L'Enfant on 18th Street in Adams Morgan celebrate their 3-year anniversary. The theme of the party? $3 glasses of champagne and a free shoe shine...

7. All the flowers in bloom on my street, and being able to see green out of the front of our house.

That's a lot of inspiration in one week. Lucky me.

Here we go again

2006-04-29T10:13:00.000-04:00

As President Reagan once said: "here we go again..."

Our President is getting ready to invade another Middle Eastern country. But don't worry - he'll talk about diplomatic solutions for a while. And his Press Secretary will probably get advice from Madison Avenue on the best time to break the news to us.

A front page story in the Post this morning describes an International Atomic Energy Agency report confirming "that Iran is accelerating its uranium enrichment efforts and hiding crucial information about its nuclear program." The article goes on to describe our President's reaction:

President Bush said after the report's release that "the world is united and concerned" about Iran's "desire to have not only a nuclear weapon but the capacity to make a nuclear weapon or the knowledge to make a nuclear weapon." He said he hoped for a diplomatic solution.

Ha! "Bullshit," I thought to myself when I read this. "Bullshit" that our President would hope for a diplomatic solution. "Bullshit" that he didn't have his zealous, hawky pals deeply immersed in military planning - just as we now know they were planning military action in Iraq without evidence of any imminent threat.

For a minute, I stopped myself - maybe it's just knee-jerk cynicism, I thought. But such optimistic glimmers faded quickly as I reminded myself of the depths of this man's insanity, this man who sees his mission to save the world from evil.

And sure enough, as Seymour Hersh painstakingly details in this month's issue of New Yorker magazine, Bush and his merry band of zealots are at it again. Saying one thing ("...diplomatic solution") and doing quite another:

The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack....

...One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” He added, “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’ ”

Later in the article, a member of the House Appropriations Committee is quoted as saying about the President, “The most worrisome thing is that this guy has a messianic vision.”

Exactly.

So what are we going to do about it?

Related Reading:

New Yorker: The Iran Plan
Seymour Hersh article referenced above, published 4/8/06.

Washington Post: U.N. Body Set to Act on Iraq
Article referenced above, published 4/29/06, written by Molly Moore and Dafna Linzer.

Foreign Affairs: Intelligence, Policy and the War in Iraq
A summary of this 3/06 report: "During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, writes the intelligence community's former senior analyst for the Middle East, the Bush administration disregarded the community's expertise, politicized the intelligence process, and selected unrepresentative raw intelligence to make its public case."

Frontline: Truth, War and Consequences
This 10/03 report, which you can watch on the site, "traces the roots of the Iraqi war back to the days immediately following September 11, when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered the creation of a special intelligence operation to quietly begin looking for evidence that would justify the war."

Work

2006-04-16T17:17:00.000-04:00

"What do you do for a living?," asked Sadie, the acupuncturist from Maryland, as we waited for the band to begin playing. We were both friends of the guitarist.

"I work at [insert name of company here]," I said. "I manage part of the Web site."

Pause.

"But I'm planning my escape."

She nodded politely. Conversation turned to astrological signs.

I haven't written much in this blog about my job, because I don't know how to write about it without being specific about where I work, and I don't want to get in trouble, like so many other bloggers. But if you haven't noticed, this blog has stagnated lately -- and it's because work is what's on my mind. "Work" in the fullest sense -- "work" as in "occupation," as in "my life's work," as in, "Where your talents and the needs of the world cross, there is your vocation" (Aristotle). Or, to quote the book I'm currently reading:

"We find lifelong meaning in giving through the work we love."

So I've decided to write about my efforts, past and present, to find work I love. I consider this a lifelong process -- just like a relationship with someone you care about, your relationship with work needs attention if it is to remain vital.

Many people I know -- good friends, casual acquaintances, 20-somethings, 40-somethings -- struggle to varying degrees with how much their work should be an expression of their identity: whether 9-5 should be dedicated to what they love, or just a way to support their life outside of work; whether it's realistic to expect fulfillment from work; whether it's possible to make a living doing work you love.

I don't profess to have answers, but maybe by sharing my story, I can help other people find their path.

***

First, a quick look at where I've been, so you know who you're dealing with:

Flash back to college, when I was beset with angst about the challenge of living meaningfully. In retrospect, this existential struggle was probably made all the more desperate by my undiagnosed depression. At graduation, I beseeched my fellow students to recognize the responsibility that comes with a fancy Ivy League degree; I felt a great obligation to give something back, but I had no idea what that was. And it never occurred to me that I should enjoy myself.
First job out of college: the first day on the job, I learn success is measured in productivity points. People say things like, "let's double-click on that idea." I write angry poetry in staff meetings. I quit after 9 months and take a few months to get my shit together. I decide I want a job that allows me to be creative, and to use my communication skills, while doing something socially responsible.
Through Google, I find the resume of a local woman who seems interesting - she's worked at NPR, Discovery and the Washington Post. I email her and she writes back immediately, and invites me to meet her for coffee.
We meet and she introduces me to her colleagues as a friend and content producer. Within a week I am working for a major Web site. Unfortunately, the partnership I'm hired to support never materializes, so I spend my days surfing the Web.
Another company I'd interviewed with previously calls to see if I'm interested in a job that's opened up. I am. Six years later, I'm still there.

My relationship with my current job is complicated, and provides enough material for many other posts. For now, I'll just say -- I've come to realize that despite its merits (and there are many), it's time for me to break out on my own. To crystallize my vision of what I want to contribute to the world that is uniquely mine to give -- that intersection of my passion and the world's needs.

Stay tuned...

***

Amanda's library of books on finding meaningful work (listed in the order read):

Zen and the Art of Making a Living
The Artist's Way
The Artist's Way at Work (never finished)
What do You Want to Do With Your Life?
How to Find the Work You Love (reading now - about halfway through)

Also, this blog by Tranquil Space's Kimberly Wilson provides relevant inspiration (just tune out the stuff about being hip and fashionable - there's advice about living mindfully that relates to the search for meaningful work...):

Hip Tranquil Chick

Are there books or Web sites on this topic that you'd recommend? Let me know, and I'll add 'em to the list...

Reasons I love my neighborhood

2006-04-07T19:16:00.000-04:00

I was just walking my dog and we met a 5-month-old bassett hound named Mookie Wilson. Then an old black man whizzed by in a wheelchair yelling, either to the guy in the car behind him or the woman in the wheelchair on the sidewalk, "I'm gonna beat you!"

Things learned on a yoga retreat in Tobago

2006-04-02T12:06:00.000-04:00

1. I am powerful.
2. I can let go of fear.
3. Even though I haven't traditionally been athletic, I can be athletic now. I am strong. "Focus on what you can do," one of my yoga teachers said.
4. Roosters in Tobago (toe-bay-go) start crowing at 2 am and don't stop all day.
5. There is nothing more wonderful than floating in the sea.
6. I enjoy challenging myself.
7. I am a master napper.
8. I love the sound of wind rustling through palm trees.
9. Opening my eyes after shivasana (resting state at the end of a yoga practice) to see a sky full of stars fills me with profound gratitude and feelings of abundance.
10. A week without an ounce of media - no newspapers, no television, no ads - is exhilirating and restorative. I wish I never had to read or send an email again in my life.
11. This mantra brings me peace:

(inhale) Everything I need and desire
(exhale) The universe provides

(inhale) Everything I have
(exhlae) I give away

(inhale) Everything I give
(exhale) Comes back to me ten-fold.

Namaste.

Things people have said about me lately

2006-03-21T22:45:00.000-05:00

You have control issues. If you can't control something, you try to stop it from happening.

You have a very forceful personality. Your intensity washes over people like a wave.
You're very persuasive.
I knew you'd have good advice.
You make the house nice.
You are doing phenomenal work.
You know you have a nickname around the office, right? "Demanda."
You're one of the funniest people I know.
You're an awesome improvisor.
People are afraid to take you on.

Things people have said about me in the past that mean a lot to me:

You are one of the most creative people I know.
You are kind.

Found

2006-03-08T20:34:00.000-05:00

"The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do."
-Sarah Ban Breathnach

White guy improv

2006-03-08T07:53:00.000-05:00

Last night someone tried to convince me that it's harder to find strong women improvisors - that too many women are afraid to play anything other than "the pretty one." I call bullshit on this. I have never met a woman improvisor who fits that description. Given, my experiences are limited to a year's worth of classes with one DC improv theater, but it outrages me that a discussion would even be framed in this way. The person was quick to qualify that of course there were plenty of bad male improvisors, too. Well, yeah. I personally am tired of seeing a testosterone parade on stage - I see performance after performance with six or seven men and maybe one woman. I was talking to some friends about this and someone said that, "yeah, well, improv is pretty much a white guy thing." Why is that?

I'll come back to this topic. For now, an article I found about women bashing in Chicago improv:
Carnival of Misfit Toys

The Day of Oscar

2006-03-05T19:30:00.000-05:00

Adult cynicism (or just plain knowledge) has knocked a lot of things off their pedestals - but not the Oscars. I am still like a teenage girl when they come on. The day they air, I wake up excited, and feel compelled to plan some sort of festive viewing arrangement; this year, it's a bottle of champagne, some of my coziest clothes, and spaghetti and meatballs a la husband. I'm logged in to the live discussion on washingtonpost.com. I'm Tivo'ing the red carpet pre-show for a good 40 minutes before I start watching, so I can skip all commercials with confidence through the entire evening. I haven't even seen most of the nominated movies - but of course that's not the point. It used to be - I was crushed when Tommy Lee Jones (Fugitive) beat out Ralph Fiennes (Schindler's List). Now I know it's not about art, so my expectations are adjusted accordingly; I just love the spectacle. The glitz. And yes, I imagine myself on that red carpet, looking glamorous, feeling unstoppable. It's nice to have a little fantasy once in a while.

Save the Source Theater

2006-03-03T08:09:00.000-05:00

There's a movement afoot to save the Source Theater on 14th St. NW - specifically, to preserve the building as an arts space instead of selling it to Bedrock Bars. Last night I attended an ANC meeting - my first - where the issue was on the agenda. The hope was that enough of us would show up to convince the ANC of the community's concern over the sale. It worked - they approved a motion to officially oppose the sale, and will be urging Mayor Williams and DC Councilmember Jim Graham to initiate legal action against the sale. They will also attempt to meet with the Bedrock company to see if they're open to working with the city to find another space. For more background on the sale, check out my friend Jaime's site, Stop, Blog and Roll; to follow the story moving forward, and/or to sign a petition opposing the sale, check out the Save Our Source blog.

travel day

2006-02-22T08:15:00.000-05:00

today i: go to work. take a cab from work to the train station. take a train. take a plane. take another plane. take a cab to my hotel.

approximate time from work to hotel - 9 hours.

this does not sound like fun.

how do some people travel for work every week?

Anchor

2006-02-16T08:39:00.000-05:00

"Not all who wander are lost."
-the air freshener hanging from my rearview mirror

It's been a rough week. A very difficult coworker is bringing me down. I'm trying to diet and feeling hungry all the time. I keep realizing I'm clenching my teeth, and then I get stressed that I'm stressed.

So yesterday I treated myself to a yoga class in the middle of the week. I usually only go on the weekends because it's too hard to get to the studio after work. But yesterday I had a doctor's appointment downtown - fittingly, for the week I'm having, I was 10 minutes late and they tried to make me reschedule because of it...instead I decided to wait it out and they finally saw me an hour and a half later. Sigh. Anyway, since I was already downtown in the middle of the afternoon, I decided I'd treat myself to a yoga class. And it was heavenly. I couldn't completely clear my head, but I was able to relax. I left feeling warm and buzzy.

I decided to walk home - it was unseasonably mild, as in, 60 degrees (despite the fact that it snowed 4 days ago), and it had been a long time since I'd wandered through the city. I wanted to savor this good feeling; I wanted sensations that would keep my buzz going. Do you know that feeling, of good fullness tinged with knowing that the beauty of the world could slip away in another moment?

So I wandered, and when I passed Kramerbooks, and saw the children's books in the window, I thought maybe I'd buy books for my niece and nephew, who will be coming over on Saturday. So I drifted in - it felt like coming home, to be honest, after all the time I used to spend there, browsing, sitting in the bar with my husband, waiting in line for Sunday brunch - and found my way back to the children's book section, and that's where I discovered it: Owen and Mzee.

I am probably the last person on earth to hear this story, but apparently after the 2004 tsunami, an orphaned baby hippo decided to adopt a (male) 133-year-old turtle as his mom. And a man and his daughter decided to write a children's book about it. So there, staring out at me from the shelf, was this big photograph on the cover of a hippo and a turtle, his naked hippo head resting on the turtle's grand shell.

Animals disarm me. They snap me right out of myself. I didn't buy the book - the information about the tsunami seemed too upsetting to share with my 6-year-old nephew and 4-year-old nice - but as I walked home, soaking in the activity of the city on an early Wednesday evening (people walking their dogs, sitting on patios drinking beer, talking to loved ones on cell phones at crosswalks), I felt anchored.

More about Owen and Mzee:

Overheard II

2006-02-13T08:36:00.000-05:00

"duuude, your dog has booties."
-guy passing me, hubby and cosmo in walter pierce park yesterday. yes, cosmo was wearing booties. we don't mean to be fru-fru; he just gets ice wedged between his toes and starts limping and we end up carrying him. ok, so we're softies.

Overheard

2006-02-10T18:43:00.000-05:00

"What, honey? You said what to the rabbi? You called him what? Oy vey."
-woman on her cell phone while shopping for underwear

Dennis and Dubya

2006-02-10T08:47:00.000-05:00

My friend John wrote the following in response to my last post:

I think your take on voting there is an overly dismissive POV... (Apologies, I'm reading into your writing a bit... :) When you only have two choices, it ignores the grey areas where most of us choose to live. I'm a registered Independent because I disagree with just as much Democratic Rhetoric and I do with Republican Rhetoric. I've met way too Republican environmentalists and Democratic Homophobes to feel confortable judging someone on a "Column A or Column B" choice.

Fair point, and let me clarify, I did not mean to make a blanket statement about all Republicans - I meant to characterize the way Bush I, Bush II and Reagan portray reality in a black and white way. And I should really just focus on Bush II, because his is the presidency I know the most about.

So, an amended statement: our current president, George W. Bush, promotes a whitewashed version of reality, and tells the story of America like it's in a children's storybook - or, actually, like it's a comic book, with superheroes fighting villians. In his own words:

"Just three days removed from these events, Americans do not yet have the distance of history. But our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil."
-September 2001 (source: pbs.org/frontline)

"We built a vast coalition of nations from all around the world to join us -- nations which understand that what happened in New York and Washington could happen to them, as well. They understand it's now time to unite to defeat evil."
- October 2001 (source: whitehouse.gov)

"Our war is a war against evil. This is clearly a case of good versus evil, and make no mistake about it -- good will prevail."
-January 2002 (source: whitehouse.gov)

"My objective is what I said in my second inaugural address:
to end tyranny."
-December 2005 (source: fox.com)

Good idea, to end tyranny! Way to go right to the source of the problem. If only previous leaders had thought of that, we could have spared the world so much suffering. While we're at it, let's end injustice. Who's running for office in '08? That should be their platform: no more injustice. The world will be fair! We will hunt down everyone who's unfair and smoke them out of their caves and cubicles.

Note sarcasm.

You don't hunt down a concept, and no matter how much money or how many weapons you have, you cannot eradicate entire dimensions of the human experience that have existed for centuries. And the reality, to state what should be obvious to any adult, is that people's motivations are more complicated than good and evil; and good and evil are in the eye of the beholder.

To bring this all back to where I started - I am no expert on Dennis Hopper films, but I generally think of independent films as representing nuance, unique perspectives, exceptions to rules, unpopular truths, even - sometimes - unpopular characters. That's a huge generalization, but I think it's fair to associate those qualities with independent films versus mainstream films. And that's what led me to express surprise that Hopper, a guy who's certainly made more cult films than box office darlings, would support a leader whose vision of the world seems so dangerously like an Arnold Schwarzenegger film.

Harsh

2006-02-08T08:11:00.000-05:00

"I write poetry because I suffer confusion
not knowing what other people think."
-Allen Ginsberg

So, I am apparently harsh for saying Dennis Hopper looked old at Sundance.

Did you know Hopper has voted Republican since Reagan? Another reminder that no matter how well you know someone's art, you really don't know anything about the person behind the art. Who would have thought that the stoner from Easy Rider, the creepy guy from Blue Velvet - the icon in many ways of counter-culture films - would vote for people who promote a whitewashed version of reality, who tell the story of America like it's in a children's storybook ("and the good people believed in family values...and the bad people tried to squash those values...").

I learned to separate art from artists back in college, when my hero at the time, Allen Ginsberg, came to speak at my school. I was so excited - I had discovered Howl in my junior year of high school and loved it, and then my favorite English teacher gave me a copy of Cosmopolitan Greetings and I loved that, too. From there, I was a goner - I had a full-on crush on beat poetry and everything it represented to me: authentic experience, and the lyricism of authentic experience; truth.

So there's Allen Ginsberg, onstage in an auditorium down the street from my dorm, and he gets up to read, and - he is sing-songy. He reads his poems like they're jokes. I might appreciate that, now - might be better able to appreciate the playfulness - but at the time I was devestated...he was turning art that mattered to me into a punch line. After the reading I stood in line for him to sign my copy of Cosmopolitan Greetings, and I - young, naive, thinking my ideas were at the center of the universe - gave him a copy of a paper I'd written about him, Walt Whitman and William Carlos Williams. I thought he'd be interested! Anyway, he looked at me, befuddled, and said, "I can't read this right now." Well, duh, Mr. Ginsberg - it's 30 pages and there's a long line of people behind me... it was the way he said it, like a confused old man, that just broke my heart.

Another example: I have loved Paul Simon for as long as I can remember. I truly believe the man is a genius - songs like "America" "Graceland," and "Darling Lorraine" alone are more powerful than what some artists create in a lifetime... the poetry of them, the way they reflect a life journey...the lyrics of "Darling Lorraine" alone tell a more impactful story than any movie I've seen since I can remember. Anyway, so I'm at a Paul Simon concert a few years ago, and he had the oddest demeanor - waving his arms about fancifully as he sang, sort of trance-like - and I thought, God forbid I'd meet this guy and he'd be a flake. I want to think that because he writes absolutely brilliant songs, he must be a fascinating person, but maybe the most interesting thing about him is his art.

Now, when people ask me, "If you could have dinner with one famous person, living or dead..." - I think of comedians...not because I think they'll be as funny in person as they are on TV/ in film/ etc, but because I instinctively feel like I'd have something in common with people who turn their observations about and experiences in this world into comedy. Tina Fey. Will Arnett, the guy who plays Gob on Arrested Development ("I've made a huge mistake"). I wouldn't want to sit around and talk about comedy, but I feel like they'd be fun to hang out with, and we'd have something in common.

Sundance Postscript

2006-01-22T21:42:00.000-05:00

Our most exciting celebrity sighting was Dennis Hopper, who was in the front row at the "Stay" premiere. He looked really old.

I have to say, some of the best films I ended up seeing this year were through the on-demand service in our hotel room...aside from "Ryan," which was at Sundance last year and went on to win the Oscar for best animated short (see my1/05 post on this film), I'd recommend "Right Place" and a film called something like "Employee of the Month" by a guy who's directed Badly Drawn Boy music video (I'll try to find the exact name and add a link).

It's good to be home. I'll miss having picturesque snow-covered mountains as a backdrop - but it's good to be in my house, with Cosmo, and a belly full of food from City Lights of China.

Overheard in Park City, Utah

2006-01-22T21:20:00.000-05:00

"Aaron!!"
-fan or paparazzi screaming actor Aaron Eckhart's name as he ducked into a building on Main Street

"So you basically cut up 2 scenes. It's still 2 scenes. I'm just saying, that's not how it's done. That's now how they do it on Scrubs or Sex in the City. I'm just saying."
-woman on her cell phone, on the shuttle between theaters

"The filmmaker is my nephew."
-woman on the shuttle

"Hello? I'm not in the office right now. So I'm just confirming, you'll be on at 8:30 tomorrow. Park City TV. 8:30. I haven't seen the film yet but I heard it's fabulous. Don't tell me how it ends! I heard it's fabulous. 8:30."
-publicist on the shuttle

"We drove 14 hours to get here, and we still haven't seen a film."
-2 guys on the shuttle

"Las Vegas porn, baby!"
-drunken guys on Main Street circa 11:30pm

"I'm terrified."
-director Bob "Bobcat" Goldthwait just before the premiere of his feature film, "Stay"

P.S. Watch "One Sung Hero," the short film about karaoke I mentioned the other day, and/or learn more about it at its official site.

Kung-fu for your phone, artistic vision & raw fish

2006-01-21T14:30:00.000-05:00

Just sat through a panel on mobile entertainment, e.g. video on cell phones, PDAs, etc. Such a disconnect between the (middle-aged, white, male) panelists and the artists who come to the festival - one guy talked about the success his company has seen with a "Brady Bunch Kung-Fu" game for cell-phones, and plans to cut together the best video of Pamela Anderson running down the beach on Baywatch...this at the same festival where artists talk about spending 10 years telling the story of a woman who lived under a rollercoaster (this was actually a film at Slamdance, the festival that bills itself as what Sundance used to be, before it went commmercial - and this film apparently took more like 6 months to make, but believe me, the streets here are full of people who spend 10 years trying to tell a story right).

The karoake film I mentioned yesterday is still the best thing I've seen - it's been really hard to get tickets to things. On Thursday night my husband and I waited in line for 2 hours to get into the opening night screening, "Friends with Money" - a film in which Jennifer Aniston, ironically, plays the friend without money. The friends with money are played by Frances McDormand, Joan Cusack and Catherine Keener. I know this from the festival guide, not because I saw the movie - no one in the wait list line got in, which frustrates me because someone later told me there were a lot of empty seats. But when we couldn't get in, we got sushi at a place called the Blind Dog Cafe, where last year we put Cosmo's photo on the wall full of dog photos - and it was still there. So we cooed, and ate delicious raw fish, and drank martinis, and all was well.

Hello from Sundance

2006-01-20T14:27:00.000-05:00

I had big dreams of blogging Sundance. Then my Sony laptop ceased its ability to, um, turn on. This is particularly painful since the place we're staying has free, high-speed wireless. D'oh! This is the second time this has happened to my otherwise beloved little laptop. Turns out it's been a known issue since 2002. Double d'oh.

So, hello from Park City, Utah, and specifically from the bank of laptops at the Film Center on Main Street. I passed Ted Sarandos, chief content officer from Netflix, on the street on the way here, and then I passed the director of "One Sung Hero," a short film about a woman spreading the karaoke gospel, which I saw this morning. It was funny and bright and much more enjoyable than the film about Manhattan buildings covered in images of naked women kissing each other's breasts while planes fly into the twin towers and then every other building in the city - yes, seriously. As offended as I was - I couldn't stop thinking about people who lost loved ones on 9/11 - I stop short of condemning it... to me, it is an irresponsible abuse of imagery that means so much to so many people, but maybe it said something else to others in the audience, and better for the artistic community to engage with those and other images than to let them be exclusively defined by mainstream news outlets and Hollywood. Maybe this film being out there means there will be another one that will - for me - succeed.

That's what's so fulfilling about being at Sundance - you see good stuff, you see bad stuff, but what's really exciting is just being in an environment honoring so many different kinds of artistic vision...the dark, the light, the meaningful, the absurd...I know people say the festival's sold out to Hollywood, but it doesn't feel that way "on the ground"...it just feels like being surrounded by the fruits of so much artistic labor, like being a kid in a candy store full of artistic expression. I'm not squeezing a 2-hour movie into the rest of my life - for a few days, I get to indulge in seeing however many movies I want, and that is my life.

It actually makes me even more eager to attend an improv festival. I find myself missing my improv friends, wishing we could be performing - it's weird to be among so many performers and have to be a spectator only. In the Q&A after the shorts program this morning, one of the directors said her actors had improvised most of the film, and I got so excited.

More in the next few days if I can find my way back to a computer that, well, turns on.

Friday the 13th

2006-01-14T03:20:00.000-05:00

Friday
4:30 pm
National airport
Flight is supposed to be boarding
Huge mass of people crammed into a small chaotic gate area
HOT

6:00 pm
Flight boards
Slow line snaking onto plane from gate area
Just before I step onto the plane they say overhead baggage compartments are full, so I need to check my small suitcase.
Sit on runway for a long time.
Already bored.

On plane:
Catching up on reading for work
Trying not to be distracted by cheesy Hollywood movie playing, "In Her Shoes"
Give in about 10 minutes into the movie
It's not cheesy, it's great. Cameron Diaz's performance is amazing. Or maybe I'm just really ready for a distraction at this point.
Resist urge to order a beer; holding out for hotel bar.

10:40pm, or 8:40pm local time - arrive in Salt Lake City
Connecting flight to Burbank departs at 8:56
Sprint through airport
Flight has just pulled away from the gate
"There's a flight to Ontario in 10 minutes, though," the gate agent says.
My husband and I stare at him.
"Ontario, California," he clarifies. "It's close to Burbank."
We sprint back through the airport.
At the gate, a round, heavily made-up woman is looking something up on a computer for another passenger. 2 other gate agents stand nearby, doing nothing. We explain our plight. "You'll need to talk to her," they say, pointing at woman #1.

5 excruciating minutes of woman #1 not knowing how to work the computer and none of them making eye contact with us later, one of them says, "now, you needed help, right?"

Once onboard, I order a beer.

1:30am, or 10:30pm local time - arrive in Ontario, California
Lo and behold, our suitcases do not appear in baggage claim. After filing a claim with Delta, we go outside to catch a cab. There are none. There is not even a taxi stand. What kind of airport doesn't have a taxi stand? We finally find one, at the far end of the terminal, and wait 10 minutes while someone calls us a cab.

2:00am, or 11pm local time
Most Expensive Cab Ride Ever
The amount on the meter literally increases every 4 seconds as we zoom at God-knows-how-many-miles-an-hour down route 10 towards Pasadena. We point it out and the cab driver says, laughing as though we're making a joke, "Oh yeah, (ha ha), it increases every 30 seconds." "But it's increasing every 4 seconds, we say." "Ha, ha" he says.

$95 and 1 hour later, we arrive at our hotel in Pasadena
It is now 3:00am or - everybody now! - midnight local time.
In our room, we order a cheeseburger and fall asleep to the dulcet tones of Bill Maher on CNN.

Now it is 10:30am Saturday, local time.
The view out our hotel window is lush - tall delicate trees with yellow-green spindly leaves, big old dark trees, the outline of blue mountains in the distance, now obscured by pale gray skies (it's drizzling). Alejandro Escovedo plays on the clock radio and scrambled eggs with ketchup sit in my belly.

Saturday the 14th is looking a lot better than Friday the 13th.

...98, 99...100!

2006-01-12T22:35:00.000-05:00

So this is my 100th post. I felt that should be noted. And now it has been. Moving on...

I drive to work on the GW Parkway, along the Potomac River, and this morning it was so foggy that when I glanced over the river towards DC, all I saw was soupy blueness - no river, and no buildings, except for the bright white tip of the Washington Monument and the bright white top of the Lincoln Memorial. I wanted to take a picture so badly.

This weekend I head out of town for a week, first to the TV Press Tour, then on to Sundance. Unlike last year, when I went to Sundance and wrote nothing about it until I got home, this year I plan to blog about what it's like to be there in Park City, some of the films I'm seeing, etc. And this will be my first trip to Press Tour, so I'll be sure to share first impressions - I'll be on the sidelines, so my coverage isn't likely to be as rich with tacky celebrity details as the Washington Post's, but I'll do my best.

So stay tuned for "Multitudes Heads West: A Mini-Series": shorter than a Ken Burns film, but just as culturally significant. (Hmmm, I wonder what Ken Burns' blog would be like...)

comfort zone

2006-01-09T09:06:00.000-05:00

"one must still have chaos in oneself
to give birth to a dancing star." -nietzche

about 6 months ago i looked around at my life and realized, "hey, all that stuff that used to bother me isn't bothering me anymore."

somehow the stars had aligned - or i'd aligned them - bathing me in perspective that kept old worries and hurts at bay. my job wasn't awful anymore - i had reached a point in my organization that "fit," and i'd realized (finally) that so many of the woes that felt unique to my company were in fact universal (read: all companies are dysfunctional in some way). people who had pushed my buttons now pushed but got a different response - i'd finally internalized the mantra that what other people do is about them, not me. in improv, we try to identify a character's triggers - what makes her anxious, or angry, or calm - and i was identifying mine, learning how to prepare myself for situations likely to stress me out or bring me down.

i felt grateful, and relieved, and after a little while, a bit too smug. "ah, my 20s - glad i survived them. glad all that angst is behind me." (i have a habit of feeling like i'm a year older than i am, which currently means i think i'm 30 even though that's not the case until 2:45am on the first of may.) i found myself playing buddha with younger friends, the peaceful guru smiling down on tortured souls - "oh yes, that's a common feeling in one's 20s...(glad i'm done with it)."

then, lately, the stars have started spinning again. suddenly my dreams are loud, my subconscious clanging to get my attention. i'm dreaming of all-out screaming fights with my mother. last night i had a dream i've had before about being taken prisoner in a foreign land.

so here's the thing: the alignment of the stars 6 months ago wasn't coincidental. it had a little something to do with being diagnosed with depression and anxiety, and with starting medication. which has stopped working. so now we're tinkering with me, the doctors and i, like trying to perfect a recipe - a little more salt, less sugar, bake longer.

it's a relief to share this, but slightly terrifying, too. when my doctor first said to me, last winter, "i think you may be struggling with anxiety and depression," it was like having gauze pulled away from my eyes, and my life since the age of 18 suddenly came into focus. i never would have come to that conclusion myself - i still had an image of depression as being curled up in the fetal position, unable to get out of bed in the morning, even though i knew people who were depressed and were not that way; i guess i assumed that's how they'd be without medication. and anxiety, in my mind, again meant the far end of the spectrum - dehibilitating panic attacks, etc. and yet, when my doctor said, "...anxiety and depression," i knew instantly it was right.

when i started taking medication, i asked my doctor, "how will i know if it's working?" he said i would feel like my old self, and i'd know. i was dubious but sure enough, after a few weeks, something clicked, and there was a lightness i hadn't felt in years. people commented on it. it makes me sad just writing this, to think of all those years stuck inside myself, not realizing how much my perspective was being skewed. i try to make peace with it by saying it was part of my journey in this world - it makes me more compassionate, and controversial though it may be, i think there is a way that depression lets you see certain truths about the world; unfortunately, it made me feel siezed by them.

having medication work, and then stop working, is what i imagine it would be like to be sent down to earth after being in heaven. maybe the universe recognizes when you get too comfortable.

in my dream last night about being taken prisoner, i remember i was more prepared than i'd been when i've had the dream before. i had a bag full of things that could help with my escape. i was confident, but scared. i knew i had accepted the risk of being captured when i decided to take the journey to this foreign place.

keeping up

2006-01-04T11:44:00.000-05:00

this morning, circa 10am.
i'm dropping my car off at the shop across the street from work.
patrick, the nice man who works there, is waiting for me to answer a question.
but i am transfixed by the TV -
my attention first caught by the sound of conan o'brien's voice
(i had such a crush on him back in college)
then snared by the sight
of martha stewart
with a head of dark brown hair.
"wow," i say to patrick.
"martha stewart has brown hair. what's next? the world is changing
too fast, i can't keep up."
he laughs. i give him my phone number. there is a giant pumpkin on the counter
covered in ballpoint-pen signatures, adorned with a
big
red
bow.

all souls

2005-12-26T14:15:00.000-05:00

on christmas eve this year my family and i tried a service at all souls, a universalist unitarian church in adams morgan. it was so much more fulfilling than the methodist services we usually attend out in suburban maryland - the minister began the service by saying, "welcome - believers, non-believers and half-believers." the associate minister sprinkled her comments throughout the evening with references to peace. the pews were filled with people of different ages, skin colors, walks of life - some all dressed up, others in jeans and tshirts, families, single people, teenagers.

it's hard to explain how comforted i felt, how much i felt i was with "my people," even though i was among strangers. i just felt much more of an instinctive bond with this congregation than i ever have in methodist churches - maybe because they were city people, and that implies a set of values in and of itself, even if those values are arguably often more myth than fact, something to aspire to rather than daily experience: sharing of cultures and ideas, building a community of diverse people, honoring and contributing to the history of a place -- more than just co-habitating on a particular street or in a particular neighborhood. unquestionably, i felt a connection with people who care about the values the church espouses - justice, peace - unobstructed by a particular religious creed.

a sermon about atonement seen through the lens of race relations in america, on yom kippur. a series about the meaning of life. poetry readings. this is my kind of church. this is my kind of worship. i expect i'll go back.

[related link: past sermons at all souls]

on my mind

2005-12-21T09:50:00.000-05:00

"we give what we most want to get, and we
teach what we most want to learn."
-eve ensler of vagina monologue fame, at a
conference i attended a few years ago. after
she said it i remember staring at the turquoise
sea and having one of those moments when
the world makes sense, however briefly.

confessions of a not-so-dangerous mind

2005-12-20T23:31:00.000-05:00

1. i inadvertently turned on the "comments moderation" feature of this here blog, so if you have submitted a comment and wondered why it wasn't showing up... that's why. i've published the 'backlog' and from now on, comments will go directly live, which is as it should be.

2. i have been playing the role of workaholic for the past week or so (well, for several years, but i had it under control until recently). i prefer the part of balanced human being.

3. my goal this year was to start volunteering and i haven't started volunteering.

4. last week a friend of mine said, recounting an experience in which someone hurt her feelings, "i just can't help it, i'm always surprised by how people behave" - and i said, "we're all on our own path in this crazy world, we all have our own context, you have to accept that what people do is about them, not you." i believe that. but when i read the paper and see bush's approval ratings are climbing, i slam into a wall of incomprehension - what context could you possibly exist within and think this torture-enabling, privacy-invading, secretive "i know what's best for the country so i'll do whatever the hell i want in the name of fighting terrorism and i won't be accountable to anyone and people will be too afraid to question me" president is someone to approve of? he holds a bunch of press conferences so now we think iraq is going well after all? what is wrong with people? (in terms of a confession - my confession here is that my zen acceptance of differences has its limits. i am angry.)

that is all for tonight.

nothing like potty humor

2005-12-10T13:30:00.000-05:00

yesterday on my way to work i saw a van that said:

Peed Plumbing

hee hee.

Journalists to the rescue!

2005-12-08T16:59:00.000-05:00

I just came across this quote, which is directly relevant to my post the other day about the us/them dynamic between media orgs and readers/users:

"It is the first amendment that protects our society from being ill-informed, not the people who work for our culture's institutional media corporations."
--Terry Heaton, the POMO blog

Ha!

Take that.

Seriously, though - I believe that journalists provide value. They provide access to information, and the good ones provide information that's accurate and fairly presented; the best ones not only provide fair and accurate information, but also they do so in a way that's compelling (style and substance don't always have to be at odds). I just don't believe journalists are a special class of citizen who know what's best for everyone else -- "the poor public, we must keep them from being ill-informed." I have this image of Edward Murrow in a superhero cape, smiting bloggers...

mushy

2005-12-07T20:51:00.000-05:00

my husband says he likes my post from this morning, except for the last paragraph, which is mushy.

i know it's mushy. i knew it as i wrote it. i knew it would turn people off - like my brother-in-law. i am sure he read it and thought, "oh, jesus." but it's how i feel. i am mushy. i am sentimental. i am emotional. i am also intellectual, critical, analytical, etc. (dare i say - i contain multitudes....)

i am sitting in busboys and poets. it is so loud that when i stop and focus to see if i can hear snippets of conversation above the din - i can't. there are pale branches suspended from the ceiling with invisible wire, adorned with crystal and glass ornaments that sparkle - a ballerina, teardrops, a dove, a Christmas tree. a man is cackling. there is some sort of jolly music underneath all the chatter, like a carousel. the waitress is african american, skinny with big hair and huge silver earrings shaped like peace signs. the man next to me wears thick coke bottle glasses - he's balding, with a ponytail, and he's wearing a turquoise sweatshirt with a scooby doo logo and little pictures of scooby. he has a book called "approaches to media - a reader."

the girls across from me are all wearing pink, except for one, who is in all black.

i will finish my guinness and we will go home. i could linger but my husband is tired - a role reversal. there goes that waitress again - in addition to the peace earrings, she's wearing big turquoise beads tied in a knot. a man nearby bellows, "where are you!" and then, "shhh." he has a pointy goatee and a pointy black winter's cap. he is with 3 other people and 3 of them are on their cell phones.

the waitress is also wearing an orange bra, and the strap shows when her black sweater slides off her shoulder.

goodnight.

media criticism and idealism on a wednesday morning

2005-12-07T08:40:00.000-05:00

driving home from work the other day, a story came on npr, and - like the story about peace activists held hostage, from my last post - it hit me hard. i have tried to summarize it multiple times but ultimately think it speaks best for itself - you can read or listen here.

shamefully, stories about the darker side of human nature do not always penetrate - i don't always register them, feel them. perhaps this is because i have defense mechanisms in place - there is only so much horror and sadness i can take. perhaps it's because the storytellers - reporters - so rarely communicate as human-to-human, versus deliverer-of-information to consumer-of-information.

as journalists moan about the decline in public trust, the decline in newspaper readership, the rise of untrustworthy niche information sources -- they would do well to reexamine how they communicate with readers, and how to evolve beyond an us/them paradigm, and acknowledge the reality of "we." for more on this idea, see dan gilmoor's we the media blog (i recommend the intro to his book, in particular). i'm less convinced about the notion that everyone can be a journalist than i am that media organizations need to change their relationships with readers/users -- which, i believe, has more to do with transparency and tone than with every newspaper web site adding a "upload your photos of this tragedy" link.

as an example of what i mean by tone - this editorial from the washington post's outlook section is, to me, a perfect example of us/them. titled, "even a free press can use some oversight," its author, murray seeger, writes:

"More than ever, the industry needs a set of rules for journalists to follow and for the public to understand. But there is no mechanism for drafting a code that would get broad acceptance. Various drafts have been floated, but they have no legs; they gather dust on shelves. Meanwhile, the public is left to the mercy of those who fill the atmosphere with a mixture of fact, opinion, rumor and speculation about the workings of the media and journalists.

To start bringing some order to this cacophonous environment, one or several of the big public interest foundations should sponsor a new citizens' commission to undertake a broad survey of the public media with the goal of suggesting forms of self-regulation. This commission could provide the industry with universal standards and give the public tools to sort out the practitioners of journalism from the purveyors of propaganda and mere noise."

the public, left to the mercy of bad journalism. the public as dumb and helpless - journalists and foundations as intelligent saviors. mr. seeger, are you not part of "the public"? how about the staff of the washington post?

i am not saying that every single u.s. citizen has the same level of media literacy. certainly, building more media literacy education into curriculums makes a lot of sense. but your language suggests that there is only us - the elite, knowledgable establishment - and them - the poor, helpless, uneducated public that is easily duped. and you wonder why more people don't read the newspaper?

the reality is that we're all in this together - we're all human beings, sharing the same earth. we have different paths - some of us are more concerned about trying to make sense of the world, others with taking care of it, others with getting by. the shades of human existence are many, but at the end of the day, we all have something in common, and that is the fact that we are human beings. i believe that the more we can learn to talk to each other in ways that acknowledge what we have in common versus what separates us, the better the world (let alone journalism) will be.

Peace Activist Held Hostage

2005-11-30T08:10:00.000-05:00

I sat down to eat my breakfast and a story on the front page of the Post caught my eye:

Kidnapped in Iraq
Tom Fox, above, a longtime Virginia resident, was
among four peace activists taken hostage on Saturday
and shown in a video broadcast yesterday.

My stomach turned. I felt sick.

I wonder if they are being tortured. What goes around comes around, right? Why should Iraqi insurgents show any more respect for human life than we do? Let us pray that Tom Fox is not subjected to any of our country's techniques, such as:

burning people

leading people around on leashes

stripping people naked

inducing hypothermia

smashing people's feet with axes

breaking bones

and more

I am praying for Tom Fox and the people being held with him. I am praying for all prisoners of war. I am praying that more people will show the courage to seek peace. I am praying that I will find the courage to do my part.

Sources:
Frontline: The Torture Question
"Torture, American-Style," Washington Post

art

2005-11-26T14:20:00.000-05:00

the first time i saw "rent" was at wolf trap. some of my friends had seen it in new york and loved it - i knew the experience wouldn't be the same at an outdoor amphitheater in northern virginia, but it was the only chance i had to see the show, so i went. i was so ready to be inspired, to fall in love with it - i was in love with dreams then, with quotable life philosophies - but instead of empathizing with the characters, i found myself judging them. at the time i wrote it off to the setting - the feeling of soft grass between my toes and the sound of chirping crickets made it hard for me to immerse myself in a vision of downtown bohemia. but watching the movie yesterday, almost 10 years later, i had a similar response -- for different reasons.

10 years ago, i judged the characters because i thought it was irresponsible to be an artist, to live so indulgently. i had trouble feeling sorry for them. plus, i was even more sheltered then than i am now, and embarassingly more conservative, and i thought, these people chose this lifestyle -- chose to do drugs, to have unprotected sex -- and now i'm supposed to feel sorry for them? why couldn't they get jobs if they wanted to? why didn't any of them seem concerned with anything beyond their immediate circle? (ironic that i so harshly judged self-absorption, since i reeked of it, and in less angst-ridden ways, probably still do.)

back then, i bought into the myth that being an artist meant indulgence, meant chaos, meant trouble. meant bohemia. ironically, a musical ostensibly intended as a love letter to art instead reinforced negative stereotypes of the artist as over-indulger, tragic, doomed -- narcissistic. watching the movie yesterday, 10 years older and wiser, i was outraged -- i thought of all the repressed artists who were watching, and how this would reinforce the popular myth that art is an either/or proposition - either you are an accountant or a dancer, a computer programmer or a songwriter, a teacher or an actor.

well i'm here to say you can be an artist in whatever damn way you please. sure, pop culture tells us that all artists must be freaks, lonely geniuses, obsessive abusers, reckless dreamers - and yes, there are artists who fit those descriptions, and some who wear it as a badge of honor. but since when did we trust pop culture as the fountain of all truth? art, and artists, come in all shapes and sizes. the impulse to create is part of the impulse of life, and some of us just feel that impulse more strongly than others - and we all express it in different ways. art isn't elite, and artists don't need to be tortured.

"the opposite of war isn't peace," says one of the characters in the show. "the opposite of war is creation." yes - so let's get more of us creating.

Simple pleasures

2005-11-23T16:15:00.000-05:00

It's that time of day: Cosmo keeps placing his head insistently on my lap -- ready for my walk, mom! But I'm sleepy and it's cold outside, and all I want to do is climb into bed and take a nap...but the painters are here, so that feels awkward. I might do it anyway.

For years I never napped, but recently, I'm finding naps are one of life's greatest pleasures. On Sunday I sat down on our couch to take a break from cleaning, and the next thing I knew I was lying down, and then there I was wrapped up in our big comfy red blanket... and before I knew it I had drifted off into warm, delicious sleep. I could doze off right now just thinking about it....

Baths have made a big entrance into my life recently, too. The pleasure of just soaking your entire body in hot water, feeling your muscles and skin soften, being transported to a meditative dreamy state ... I am living in Paris in the 20s, I am soaking in a big old-fashioned tub, there is jazz music playing somewhere... I am in a cabin in the woods, the only sound is the dripping from the faucet into the tub, echoing, outside the world is still, the moon shines brightly over the forest....

And cocoa. One mustn't forget cocoa in a cataloguing of simple pleasures. Curling your hands around a hot mug full of creamy chocolate deliciousness, perhaps a splash of raspberry liquor, a dollop of whipped cream...a fire in the fireplace... such luxury.

Indulging in these pleasures - naps, baths, hot chocolate... they help transport me, and yet at the same time they anchor me in my body, in the present, in the here and now. And I think maybe that balance, of being anchored and being transported, is for me the ultimate state of being. Yoga takes me there, and, in a different way, improv. And being with my husband. And discovering a new place. At the risk of being cheesy, on the eve of Thanksgiving, this is what I'm thankful for: the ability to be present, and to be transported, all at once.

My Day Off

2005-11-18T16:48:00.000-05:00

Alarm goes off at 7 but I don't hear it til 7:15. My husband gets up and goes to take a shower. Cosmo jumps on bed. Back to sleep. About 3 months ago I became physically unable to get out of bed at 7 after getting up at 7 for as long as I can remember.

7:45, out of bed, throw on clothes, put Cosmo in the car, drive to Petco. Drop off Cosmo for grooming. Growing up my dogs got baths about once a year, and they were in the driveway with a hose and some soap. My husband grew up with a poodle and insists on taking Cosmo for "the works" (shampoo, conditioner, etc) every few months. I usually make him do it because Cosmo hates it so much, I feel like I'm leaving him in a torture chamber, even though the staff is incredibly friendly and professional; but my husband wants Cosmo looking his best for our housewarming party tomorrow night, so I do it to make him happy.

8:15, I'm writing in coffee shop, and my husband calls: we forgot to leave one of the doors unlocked for the painters. Back in the car, drive home, unlock door, drive back to coffee shop, resume writing.

9:45, run misc. errands within walking distance of Petco.

10:00 Cosmo is done. He is so freaked from his grooming experience that he rejects a treat; this is like Homer Simpson rejecting a beer. We take a walk and the sun is shining, the sky is blue, and I am thrilled not to be at work. By the end of our walk Cosmo's tail is wagging.

10:30 Cosmo and I are homeward bound. Putter around at home.

Noon - yoga. I can't remember the last time I went; it was definitely before the move, so it's been at least 2 months. It felt heavenly. Bought a sparkly black skirt on my way out from the yoga studio's "boutique." I always feel guilty when I buy clothes, like it's an incredible extravagence.

1:30 - Buy 2 potted plants and some flowers. Poke into random stores. Feels gross to be spending money. I'm not cheap but spending my time shopping makes me feel like a shallow consumer.

2:30 - Buy myself a tempeh sandwich and a cup of coffee at Busboys and Poets. At first I'm bummed I don't have my laptop b/c I see they have free wireless, and I've been wanting to blog, plus there are a few things I want to look up online. I decide this is an opportunity to detach from media and just be present in my surroundings. I force myself not to buy a newspaper or magazine to read while I eat, and instead I people watch and daydream. It's hard to let myself do nothing but there's something so luxurious about it, too. I soak up details.

3:15 -As I'm walking from Busboys and Poets towards U St., a man says, "How are you?" and I say, "Fine, thank you" as I pass, and he yells after me, "Fuck that!" Then as I approach U St. I see I'm about to miss the light so I start to run, and another man yells "That's right, run away, you're afraid of what might happen if you're back here with me." I remember when my friend Emily and I were in Georgetown once in high school and as we passed a homeless woman she snarled, "Democratic sluts!"

3:30 Duck into a few vintage shops looking for a sweater. Vintage clothing used to creep me out - the thought of being in clothes that were on someone else's body - but now it's so refreshing to see different shapes, colors, & fabrics than what you see everywhere else.

4:15 Home to a very happy dog. Petting ensues.

4:16 I'm in the basement, and the door to the main level is closed, and the painters are upstairs, so when I go to the bathroom to pee, I leave the door open, and then I look up and see one of the painters rounding the bend from the stairs, and I quickly shut the door. I feel like Bridget Jones.

4:18 Cosmo and I go for a walk. He eats a discarded chicken bone before I can stop him.

4:40 We come in through the front door and I say hi to the painter like nothing happened.

4:45 Back to the basement to write. Might take a nap.

Whenever I take the day off, I'm struck by how much richer the day feels - how much more expansive - even when nothing remarkable happens.

excuses

2005-11-13T19:15:00.000-05:00

i haven't written in a while. i haven't been taking care of myself. it's like a downward spiral: skip one yoga class and then i'm off yoga, sleeping through my writing time in the morning...of course being who i am, the spiral pretty much ends there, no binge drinking (although i do like me some beer), nothing dark. the security guard in my office lobby still says i look cheerful every morning. but the older i get the more aware i am of how much i avoid the things that make me feel better. and how instead of practicing yoga, or writing, or taking a bath, or walking my dog, i'll stew in my head over to-do lists and resolutions.

(i am sitting on my porch right now and i keep hearing a cat meow and it is very unsettling b/c i can't see said cat.)(also, i prefer dogs.)

this week i was in palm springs for work (i know - poor me) and as i drove in from the san diego airport i passed mountains (now the meowing's more insistent, like the cat is injured, or very sad, but i think that's just the sound cats make), and some of them looked like camels, with bumpy barren backs, the occasional spiky hair. i don't know if i'd ever get used to seeing palm trees every day. the starbucks there creeped me out - no matter how obvious it is i can't help getting freaked out by the experience of being in a chain store all the way across the country and having the sensation that i could literally be anywhere in the world and it would look exactly the same. and the fact that according to starbucks it's time for christmas - the one down the block, the one in the airport, the one in palm springs, all have the same red and white garland up, the same christmas-themed cups. someone told me that mcdonalds aspires to have their french fries taste the same whether you're in tokyo or topeka - it's an obvious observation but so depressing to think of how disconnected we are from the land, from nature, from ourselves.

(ok, i found the cat, at our neighbor's front door, & knocked on the door and asked, disingenuously, "is this your cat?", and it was, and now the meowing has stopped. ahhh.)

and tonight i had improv rehearsal and the moon is almost full and yesterday i made kahlua brownies. this is what happens when i don't write, it spills out in pools of incoherent passion. it's how i am as an improv player sometimes, all energy and commitment but it's all non-specific. and therefore not very good. but better than nothing.

but i'm too hard on myself. i do that when i'm starved for play, for art, for something beyond this everyday physical world, and schedules, and the part of my brain that knows how to study for a test, to solve a problem, to calculate how much wine to buy for a party. i just want to drink the wine. skip the test. oversleep. but this is hackneyed. i marvel thinking about the expansive unruly incoherent passion inside all of us contained in our corporeal form - life as an absurd parade of characters saying all the wrong lines, or not saying anything at all, all wrong, so far from everything it could be, people coasting past beauty, finding excuses not to be who they are, not to do what they want to do. why are we trained to hide inside ourselves like this.

chinese food is coming. szechuan eggplant with its sweet greasy soft - and brown rice - and hot dumplings dipped in sour sauce - so many flavors, sometimes it's overwhelming, appealing to seal yourself off. like when i get scared by all the books on my bookshelves, too many ideas to absorb, too intimidating to think of all the lives and all the fears and all the longings....and how is it important, anyway, when all that really matters is the air on my face right now and the beatles on the stereo and my contact lens, slightly dry, against my eyeball. i am so self-absorbed.

earlier today i left old books and clothes on the sidewalk in front of our house. as i came out tonight a woman said, holding up a big green silk shirt, "oh, it's a large - my guy's small." and i said, "mine is too, now." we laughed. a strange exchange.

there are a million reasons not to write. too tired. my dog needs me. need to clean. need to get to work early. but then there are a million reasons TO write: for my sanity. to honor this day. to honor this world. my dog's soft fur. emmylou harris on the stereo. faint headache, smooth beer. the moment of losing yourself in an improv scene. a feeling of everything all here, right in this moment.

you my friend
i will defend
and if you change, well,
i'll love you anyway
--"no excuses," alice in chains

i apply this to my friendships. it's time i apply it to myself.

Inhabitants

2005-10-31T08:27:00.000-05:00

This week I want to make a coffee date with a friend of a friend who lives down the street. She's apparently lived in the same house her entire life (I believe she's in her 40s), and has offered to fill me in on the history of the neighborhood, as well as some community organizations with which she's involved.

I can't imagine living in the same house you grew up in. How could you make it your own, here and now, and not just the place you lived as a child? To cook in the kitchen where your parents cooked for you, to sleep (let alone have sex) in the bedroom that was your parents' bedroom, to sit in the study that used to be your bedroom and really believe it's a study, not your bedroom dressed up as something else?

We're only the third occupants of our house, which is remarkable since it was built in 1920 - the same family lived here from 1920-2000. I think about all the years of life that have taken place here, the dreams secretly held, the frustrations, the fights, the love expressed or unexpressed. The mundane rituals. This may sound kooky, but sometimes I can feel the presence of former residents' lives, like an invisible but weighty impression, a thumbprint, a footprint. Sometimes I wish I could claim the space for us and us alone, without the clutter of history - but other times living in this big old house with 85 years of history makes me feel connected, like I am part of something with a long past and a future stretching out ahead.

Hahahahahaha

2005-10-24T09:37:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I had the luck to score some tickets to the Mark Twain Prize ceremony at the Kennedy Center. The honoree this year was Steve Martin - I love that man. I love his droll and absurd comic sensibility, and how good he is at physical comedy - I was inspired to bring more of both into my work as an improviser (that sounded really pretentious, but I take improv classes and am in a group that's rehearsing for a performance in January or February - so I can call myself an improviser and not just an improv student, right? - this reminds me of how people feel like they can't say they're a writer unless they've been published...but if you write, then you're a writer...right? - but I digress...)

I'm late for work so I can't write much, but let me just say that I am not above being awed by star power, and it was thrilling and bizarre to be all of 10 feet from Paul Simon, Martin Short, Larry David, Diane Keaton - who, by the way, was wearing a skirt that I will never forget, red plaid with tons of crinolin underneath, giving it the coolest shape... I love that woman's style. Instead of following suit with other performers there to pay Martin tribute, who tended either towards a roast or humorous toast, she surprised the crowd by delivering a spare rendition of "The Way You Look Tonight" that was sweet and simple and sincere.

Others who were there to pay tribute: Queen Latifah (who looked beautiful, and joked about her sex scene with Martin in "Bringing Down the House"); Claire Danes (who confessed she used to have a crush on Martin); Eric Idle (who gave a hilarious reading of Martin's New Yorker essay, "Side Effects"); Lorne Michaels (who joked that he was more comfortable as the honoree - he won the award last year); Carl Reiner (who directed Martin's first 4 films, I believe); and Lily Tomlin (who showed a hilarious clip from the movie All of Me, in which her character inhabits Martin's body).

Larry David and Martin Short were my favorites by far - David's schtick was that he was surprised to be invited since he has a tendency to ruin things, and he proceeded to tell a series of hilarious stories painting Martin as a bum-hating, cat-hating, anti-semitic, egomaniacal oaf (with David, of course, as the earnest and offended friend)...after each tale he'd say, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be telling you this." Hysterical. And Short just gave a classic roast, compliments ending with insults - I can't remember any specific lines but honestly he was in a league of his own in terms of comic timing and delivery.

I am now officially late for work. In closing: Tom Hanks was there, and he had long hair. I kid you not.

Forgive my stream-of-consciousness on a cold and rainy Saturday morning

2005-10-22T11:54:00.000-04:00

Some days I have something to say, but the something is non-specific, just a general awareness of the fullness of life - I want to raise my hand and say, "I feel it too! I'm here." On these days I think of Allen Ginsberg, "the best minds of a generation, starving, hysterical, naked." I think of William Carlos Williams, with his plums in the icebox, images holding everything, "no ideas but in things." I think of Jack Kerouac - "the only ones for me are the mad ones, the ones desirous of everything all at once, burning like fabulous roman candles across the sky."I think of all the nights as a teenager that I stayed up writing in my journal, drinking diet coke from a wine glass. (Okay, that was just once, that I remember.) I think of my friend who is adjusting to being a mom and needing permission to be imperfect, to be messy and confused - permission that life is still life even when you bring a child into this world, even when the pressure for perfection is strong. I think of how much solace she found in Anne Lamott, "Mothers Who Think" on Salon.com. I think of the power of writing to remind us we're not alone and the paradoxical aloneness so many writers feel. I sit sometimes and stare at the books on my bookshelves and marvel at all the lives represented there - all the people who journeyed to discover they were writers, who birthed the ideas represented in the books, who labored to put those worlds on the page, the joy and satisfaction and dissatisfaction that must have brought them. I think of writers going through that journey for centuries and here we are, still going through it - a reminder that no amount of struggle answers questions in a definitive way. That answers are illusory. That questions comprise life. That there are no ideas but in things.

Worth reading if you're in the right mood:

Anne Lamott, Letter to a Pregnant Friend, Salon.com

Reactions to a statement made by Kurt Vonnegut on PBS.

This poem, by Susan Scott Thompson:
We pulled each other closer in the turn.
Around a center that we could not see.
This holding on was what I had to learn.
The sun can hold the planets, earth, the moon.
But we had to create our gravity.
By always pulling closer in the turn.
Each revolution caused my head to whirl.
So dizzy I wanted to break free.
But holding on was what I had to learn.
I fixed my eyes on something out there firm.
And then our orbit steadied so that we could pull each other closer in the turn.
And if our feet should briefly leave the earth, no matter, earth was made for us to leave.
And arms for pulling closer in the turn.
This holding on is what we have to learn.

Occupied

2005-10-17T22:40:00.000-04:00

Things I've seen since we moved into our new house:

A man carrying a Safeway bag full of limes on a Sunday morning. Bloody Mary garnishes? Key lime pie? Just likes lime?
On a weekday after work: an overweight man carrying a large pizza box and a six-pack of beer. Mmm. Beer.
A line of school children - kindergardeners, I'd guess - holding hands and following their teacher down the sidewalk on a sunny weekday morning. "Hiii," they waved. "Hiiii."
An alley in the light rain on a grey Sunday afternoon, lush old trees hanging down, old brick walls holding years of history.
A hospice worker wearing traditional African garb, pushing an old man in a wheelchair. I smiled, he smiled back, we exchanged pleasantries. "What is your name," he asked. "Amanda," I replied. He told me his name; I can't remember what it was. But I remember his eyes were clear and he was beaming.
George the dog walker with corn rows, stopping in front of our front steps to introduce himself. He told my husband, "You should come play basketball sometime." "I don't really play sports," my husband said, but in a friendly way.
Lots of cars with bumper stickers that say things like, "Worst President Ever" and "Bushit."
A man walking down the street singing.
A big woman wearing flipflops adorned with plastic fruit, and her little Yorkshire terrier.
An old man picking a dark pink flower from our garden.

Every day we're here, it feels a little more real. We've hit some key milestones on the path to making a house a home: we've watched The Simpsons; I've napped, and taken baths; he's fiddled with the computer. These things color in our lives; they make the house feel occupied, less like a toy and more like us. Like the difference between a theater before and after a performance: anticipation replaced by a thickness in the air, holding what came before.

Guilt

2005-09-15T09:04:00.000-04:00

I've been in a tug of war lately, between intense mundane matters that want to consume me and my pleas for them to keep their distance at a time when heart and mind should, more than ever, recognize how little these day to day stresses matter in the overall scheme of things.

Guilt. Lots of guilt. I am materialistic, picking furniture from catalogues, obsessing over color choices and whether this loveseat will go with that sofa. I am superficial, sending a check to the Red Cross rather than rolling up my sleeves, opening my home. To feel such guilt is human, I realize, but also so unacceptably self-absorbed - what good does my guilt do anyone? Do I claim some moral superiority for having pangs of hurt for all those who have lost the people they love? Great, I'm not a heartless asshole. So what?

This struggle is familiar -- my conscience knows it well. In college I was consumed with concerns about AIDS and the culture of poverty -- but my sympathy never amounted to action. I see a movie like Hotel Rwanda and there's the guilt again. For years I have been talking about wanting to volunteer -- talking.

Sometimes I reassure myself: I work in public service media, I make contributions to society that way. But that doesn't stop anyone's hurt. I think of how I would feel if anything happened to my husband, and I imagine a nurse or volunteer there to help me -- one of those selfless types who will hold your hand no matter how dirty it is, who will give their time to comfort and help you instead of bowing out, guiltily, with explanations of their need for downtime, or all the tasks they're trying to juggle.

Time and again I reach the same conclusion, that we are defined by our actions. Our choices. There are so many people ready to give me the easy out, to tell me to give myself a break, we can't all be heroes. But the thing is: we can.

My Life The Way It Is

2005-08-24T08:45:00.000-04:00

Last night someone asked me, "If you could be doing anything in the world, what would it be?"

And I said, "I'm very happy with my life the way it is."

I'm very happy with my life the way it is.

This is profound. For years if someone had asked me that I would have said:

Living in San Francisco.
Living in New York.
Making films.
Writing more.
Something else.
Anything else.
I wish I knew what else.

And now: I'm very happy. With my life the way it is.

I feel like I'm shedding my 20s like old skin - emerging fresh and ready for life without the constant churning angst of what does it all mean. For so long I felt like a little ball of energy casting about in the wilderness, desperate for something to hold onto; like a rogue plug looking for its outlet; like a small part of a big world waiting to be glued in. And now, a little more than six months before the big 3-0, I feel a new peace setting in. Meaning is no longer an elusive gift; instead, it's imbued in every moment. Every day.

I used to think that "meaning" meant affecting "the world," something remote and big and far away...affecting "people's" consciousness, as though people were a planet you could travel to. Now I see how big the world is right at my doorstep. And I can dive right in.

The rush of an improv performance. The connections made with new friends over beers on a Tuesday night. The joy that comes from standing on my new front porch, from snuggling my dog, from practicing yoga, from meeting a dear friend's new baby girl. The inspiration that comes from a sunset. The satisfaction of solving a problem at work and serving the public better as a result (I work in public service media). The bliss of having my dad over to our new house and offering him a sandwich and beer as he spackles a hole by our new front door.

Connections. Right here, right now, and very real, as real as real can be. This is the world. This is life. And I'm very happy.

Vulnerable

2005-08-09T12:40:00.000-04:00

"Be more vulnerable," my improv teacher said, miming the peeling away of a protective layer in front of the heart - "let the audience in, and you'll have them in the palm of your hand."

Be more vulnerable -- that's a new one. I'm more accustomed to, "toughen up." I've been told I wear my heart on my sleeve. For God's sake, I blog about my personal life. So why would I mask myself on stage?

Do I mask myself here?

Don't worry, I'm not about to dive into a series of existential pontifications about the meaning of blogs. But I'm reminded of my struggle early on to distinguish personal from private, and to maintain that distinction on this site. I acknowledged that to the extent such things were under my control, I would only let you, the reader, in so far...I would write about myself, but some things would be off limits. And come to think of it, my reasoning was: I want to express myself without being vulnerable.

Ok. But there's vulnerable, and then there's vulnerable - right? I mean, if I logged in and posted every time I had a doubt or felt sad... that would be pretty lame, and not really artistic expression, in my book. Just raw neurosis and emotion. Which isn't to say I should "act" happy and strong if I'm not, but I don't think that's what I do. I'm honest - I write about things that matter to me, or interest me. In doing that, aren't I making myself more vulnerable than a lot of people?

But it's not about comparisons. The question is really one of authenticity, not vulnerability. It's about making sure that in improv, and in this space, I am not masking real feelings and reactions. I don't need to reveal the depths of my soul but if I only write about how happy and strong I am, or if the characters I play get too clownish and refuse to break down... then I'm just skimming the surface. And I'm much more interested in what's underneath.

I'm not motivated by what will get the audience "in the palm of my hand" - but I am motivated by a desire to be authentic, always.

Our House

2005-08-04T08:43:00.000-04:00

This week we bought a house.

A house!

We found out Wednesday afternoon that the house was ours. That night we walked over to see it with Cosmo, and then walked to a park nearby, where we found a dog run (where dogs can play off-leash). A friendly young couple said, "You look new," and we introduced ourselves, and chatted, and they welcomed us to the 'hood. My husband picked up pieces of trash ("this is our neighborhood now"), and Cosmo sniffed and pranced, and I basked. We walked home and celebrated with champagne, giddy and stunned and happy and scared. I couldn't sleep.

I still can't sleep. This morning I woke up at 5:30. At 6:20 I finally got up, made coffee, wrote in my journal - and spent an hour surfing kitchen design Web sites. I am running on adrenaline, like a ball of caffeine, like the Energizer Bunny, only exhausted - exhausted but thrilled. I want to do it all at once, to press a button and be in there, house decorated just to our liking - perfect spaces, colors, moods. But I know we can't make a house our home overnight - and a girl needs sleep - so I need to slow down and savor this: one step at a time...

Step one: take a nap. Step two: more napping...

Blanche

2005-07-27T09:03:00.000-04:00

There she was, wispy white hair pushed back from her face, hand reaching lazily into a clay bowl full of homemade popcorn, sipping cold beer from a glass.

She has popcorn and beer every night at 5, when the 5 o'clock news comes on. If she naps during the day, she can stay up until 2am at a dinner party. She reads the New Yorker. She lives in Mississippi in a house shaded by trees; she rarely turns on the air conditioning. She is 97 1/2 years old.

"Have some," she said, pushing the bowl of popcorn toward us. We obliged, and it tasted so sweet, like the popcorn my dad used to make when I was a kid.

Summer night, in the country

2005-07-24T18:40:00.000-04:00

Yesterday a bat pooped on me.

I felt a splash on my thigh, and thought, "Oh, it's raining." But that was it - just one drop of moisture. I was at a barbecue at my aunt and uncle's house out in Ashton, Maryland, and one of the other guests said, "it's bat poop." Huh? She pointed up, and there were little black bats darting across the sky, between the treetops. Ewww.

As we left the party later, bat poop wiped safely from thigh, I looked up and saw stars, everywhere. The air was cool, and we drove home with the windows down, even on the highway.

Wendy's Wedding . July 3, 2005

2005-07-12T09:13:00.000-04:00

Wendy and Vince on a pier at sunset with the Chesapeake Bay all around them. The water was a brilliant blue. The night air was unusually cool, for July.

During the ceremony I could hear water lapping against rocks. There was nothing else, just the two of them and that water, which was just as it should be. All the planning, all the stress they'd been dealing with, all the years of Wendy being strong and good despite conspiring forces - it was gone, sent out to space like debris released from a spaceship, as they looked at each other, as they took each other, as they blazed into their own orbit.

Later that night, as the party was winding down, I stepped outside, my husband's suit coat wrapped around my shoulders. I could hear the muted sound of the band inside the tent. I took out my contact lenses. I stood at the same spot where they'd exchanged their vows -- Christmas lights on all the trees; the sound of water lapping against rocks.

The party favor, laid out carefully at each place setting, was a box of matches ("Wendy and Vince - A Perfect Match"), and a bundle of sparklers, in honor of the holiday weekend. The sparklers were tied with white ribbon, and at the end of the ribbon was a tag: "Please enjoy these tomorrow as we celebrate America's independence, and the end of ours." Ba-dum-ching. And in their orbit, they are laughing...

Back in our hotel room, I pulled bobby pins out of my hair. The next morning I washed out the hairspray. I kept the white roses of my bouquet alive with a wad of wet tissue at the base, wrapped tightly in a shower cap. We said goodbye to them in the lobby, Bon Voyage, and then again on the street in front of the hotel. They were off to Italy. I hugged Wendy tight.

That night, my husband and I watched the fireworks from our bathroom window, me resting my head on the window sill. Cosmo nuzzled against our legs. Afterwards we lit our sparklers in the park, and I danced, making figure eights with the fire, and my husband said, "I will always remember you this way."

When I Grow Up

2005-06-30T08:49:00.000-04:00

At work the other day, the new guy guessed I was an only child. Is it that obvious? I guess it is.

I threw a bachelorette party last weekend. The groom joked that we'd all be home by 9pm - I have a reputation for getting sleepy early. But we stayed out until 2:30. 18th Street felt like an amusement park. We ended up at the Reef and I found myself in intense people-watching mode - everyone seemed younger, everyone was wearing the same trendy clothes; I felt like I was watching an ant colony or something.

Last night my husband was at a going away party for a friend from college so it was just me and Cosmo. I ordered hunan bean curd, szechuan eggplant and stir-fried spinach from Mr. Chen's in Woodley Park. I drank a Heineken. I watched a film called "P.S." in which the main character learns she needs to stop feeling sorry for herself, to root for her own happiness. In The Artist's Way, a book I read last year, the author talks about how the universe opens up to you once you know what you really want. People tend to experience synchronicity - once they admit they want something, opportunities present themselves.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an actress when I grew up. As a teenager the dream persisted. I remember at one point my dad said to me, "if that's what you really want, you should go for it." Then later, under the spell of the TV show "L.A. Law," I temporarily decided I wanted to be a lawyer instead. "Oh God," my dad said. "That's the last thing the world needs, another lawyer."

I'd still like to be an actress.

Auditions

2005-06-26T21:15:00.000-04:00

I auditioned for Washington Improv Theater (WIT) this weekend. I didn't want to get my hopes up, but part of me thought I might have a shot. When I woke up Saturday morning I was a ball of nerves. The audition itself ended up being a lot of fun, and I was remarkably relaxed that afternoon as I waited to hear whether I would be called back for the second round. They said they'd call by 6pm -- at 5:45 I was suddenly stricken with nervousness; at 6:05 I was morose; but then at 6:30, when I returned from a walk with my dog, I found the message light blinking on my answering machine: I got called back! I was ECSTATIC. I screamed, I jumped up and down -- I was bursting with happiness. I went out with friends and as we parted ways at the end of the night, one of them said to me, "you know you've been glowing all evening." What a great feeling, to be so happy it just shines off you.

But then at the call-backs today, I was off my game. I felt like shit. I had one good scene but otherwise I felt off, and lame. In part it was because I didn't really click with my audition group; so much of what makes improv fun, and good, is chemistry. In part I think my nerves got the best of me. And in part I think I just had an off day, which I know happens to everyone. Whatever the cause, by the end of the audition, the feeling of failure had sunk into my gut like a ton of bricks. I can do better. Let me try it again.

They were going to call by 8pm tonight if I got in. They haven’t called.

I know I’ve been doing this for under a year. I know I should feel proud of myself for even trying, and excited that I got called back. But instead I feel like I just got so close to something I care about, and someone shut the door.

I wish I didn’t want it so much. Intellectually, I know that it's not like I'm left with no creative outlet – I still have the feeling of community that comes from my involvement with WIT, and I still get the joy and stimulation that comes from getting to do improv every week in class, and through a practice group I'm part of. But my heart wants more. I am hungry for the next level. I want to be part of a group of performers who get to know each others’ rhythms, to feel the “group mind,” to perform for audiences…I want to be part of a performing troupe.

I can't tie this up in a neat little bow - it's 9:43pm, and part of me is still fantasizing that the phone will ring, and they'll explain that it took them longer than expected to make their decisions. But mostly I know that isn't going to happen, and I don't know how to deal with the disappointment. Intellectually, I know I'll bounce back; but my heart doesn't really give a shit about my intellect right now.

Let me try it again.

And Puppy Makes Three

2005-06-07T08:54:00.000-04:00

I got married at 23. My husband was 22, just a week out of college. But we’d been dating for 5 years at that point, and we just knew. “You’re so young to be getting married,” everyone said. Then, in the next breath, “When are you having kids?” We didn’t know if we wanted kids – we still don’t know – but we knew we couldn’t live without a dog.

* * *

Our dog’s name is Cosmo. He’s almost 6 years old. He is black and tan, about 35 pounds, with sweet, expressive eyes and the softest fur you’ll ever feel. He likes attention from people, long walks, baby carrots, chasing sticks, naps, and humping pillows. He has been known to emit long, insistent, multi-octave howls – but only when he has something to say.

* * *

We got Cosmo at a farm in Winchester, Virginia, 3 months after our wedding. He was 7 weeks old. Driving home we tried out different names – Jackson, Homer, Brownie – but settled on Cosmo because when we said it, he stopped crying. For weeks he wouldn’t fall asleep in front of us. He kept us up all hours. I thought we might have to give him away. Then we took him to puppy kindergarden. He was a whole new dog. The structure let him relax – he understood his place in the pack. The trainer said it was good how much I talked to him during the exercises.

* * *

I have been known to be fairly high-strung. I’ve gotten better lately, but for most of my life, little things have gotten to me more than the average person. Case in point: we were living in a tiny apartment on Kalorama Road – tiny as in, about 500 square feet, and you walked through the kitchen to get from the living room to the bedroom, and the bedroom was only big enough for…the bed. I was having a rough week – I don’t remember why -- and the toilet kept overflowing, and when the toilet overflowed for the third time in 2 days, I just lost it. Broke down crying. And Cosmo came to me, and nuzzled me, and let me hug him, and even though I already loved him, that was when I really loved him.

* * *

One night last winter I went to an improv class I didn’t usually attend, and I was making small talk beforehand with a couple of women I didn’t know very well. I said something about my husband, and one of them yelped, “You’re married?! Oh my God, I assume everyone’s 23 like me.” I didn’t mention that I was married at 23. This was right before Valentine’s Day, and the women – now fascinated with the fact that I was married – said, “So you probably have big Valentine’s Day plans.” No, I said. My husband feels like it’s a Hallmark holiday and I don’t mind. He actually has class that night. “Oh,” one of them said, “well I’m having a bunch of people over, you should totally come.” “Thanks so much, but I actually need to be home for our dog that night, since my husband has class.” They stared at me. I explained, “He’s alone all day, while we’re at work. It’s not nice to leave him alone at night, too.” “Whatever,” the woman said. “If you don’t want to come to my party, that’s fine.” “I’m not making excuses – I really need to be with the dog.” “Ok. Whatever.” We sat awkwardly. “I can’t believe you’re married.”

* * *

A weekday morning, somewhere in Kalorama:

Me: So you can be home by 6 tonight? Because we need to leave at 7 to get to the restaurant on time, and Cozzie needs at least an hour of company.
My husband: I’ll try.

Later that night:

Me: I feel so bad for Cozzie. It’s not nice when he only has an hour of company after being alone all day.
My husband: He had a walk this afternoon, and I gave him a nice walk after work. He’s fine.
Me: I just feel bad.

My husband tells me either not to make plans, or not feel bad when we do. He’s right. But it’s hard. Our friends like to do things on weeknights – grab a drink, meet for dinner. Sometimes we like to retreat and be homebodies – but sometimes, on a nice spring evening, sitting home in our one bedroom apartment feels like we’re missing out.

* * *

House-hunting sucks. Trudging through neighborhoods we don’t want to live in, looking at shitty overpriced houses, getting in and out of our car, feeling like we’ll never find a place with the space we want, in a location we want. It’s exhausting. We come home, finally find a parking space, stagger into our apartment – and there is Cosmo. Bounding out from the bedroom to greet us, tail wagging, eyes bright, curling his body against my legs and looking up at me, ready to be pet. Welcome home.

* * *

It is a Saturday afternoon and we are throwing sticks for Cosmo in the park and he is bounding towards us, smiling.

* * *

Wednesday night, at Larry’s Lounge, at 18th and T. Dogs are allowed on the patio. It’s a beautiful spring evening. The waiter brings out a bowl of water for Cosmo, and coos and pets him, as do the people at the next table. Cosmo basks in the attention. My husband and I drink beer and order curry from the Malaysian restaurant next door, and talk, and Cosmo lies at our feet, nibbling baby carrots. The sky is pale blue.

It's The People, Stupid

2005-05-29T11:47:00.000-04:00

I was a popular kid. I had a lot of friends. Sure, they called me “Fatso” in kindergarten, and “weird” in the third grade, but I still went to lots of birthday parties, and got lots of valentines on Valentines Day; such is the nature of friendship in elementary school.

I’m being facetious – I had actual friends, too, some of whom are like sisters to me still. But it was in high school that I found my first real community. I had a friend for every occasion: Rachel with her dark black eye liner for art movies and coffee sessions at the Tastee Diner; Amy, whose family owned 365 Ways to Cook Chicken, for hours spent doubled over in laughter; Anne and Kyla for art projects and excursions to museums; Emily for baking cookies (so we could eat the dough); Andy for easy companionship, hours spent talking about nothing and everything; Liz and Neda for girl bonding – Indigo Girls blasting in Liz’s red car, boy talk over frozen yogurt, and other simple, happy occupations.

I had high hopes for college – I would meet fascinating people, and we’d stay up all night talking. So much for that. I hated college. I felt completely disconnected. I wrote a guest column for the campus paper that summed up how I was feeling:

…My friends from home seem more guarded now and less accessible. I know, people grow apart. But the distance I sense has less to do with what we have in common and more to do with the nature of our interaction. It's as if we're less willing to expose ourselves and more concerned with polish. Image. So that now, when I go home, I feel the same chill I feel here at Penn

Everyone tightly wrapped up in image. A parade of images from the High Rises to Bennett Hall. Self-conscious conversations, where I feel like I'm watching myself interact with people, rather than just connecting with them. I feel like there's this looming block between pretense and meaning and I can't bridge the gap. I can't find the words.

Is this discomfort I feel just a case of me struggling with a Peter Pan complex? Or do others of you feel a chill these days you didn't feel before, a wider distance between our private selves (the voices our journals know) and the images we show the world? Images don't seem to lend themselves to meaningful conversations or laughter that touches your core. Maybe I'm just realizing the beauty of innocence. Or maybe I'm realizing the effort it can take to produce meaning.

It didn’t get any easier after I graduated. I hated my first job, and then I hated the one after that. Clearly there was a widening gap between my expectations of the world, and my experience in it. I expected to live meaningfully. Instead I felt constantly dissatisfied. It wasn’t until I found Washington Improv Theater (WIT) last year that I realized – what I’d been missing was community, something elusive, unpredictable and absolutely essential to my happiness.

Taking classes from WIT has been like food for a hungry person. There is no pretense in improvisation, no self-consciousness – at least, not if you really give yourself over to it. You are just in the moment, reacting honestly, and you and whoever’s on stage with you create something real – and often entertaining – as a result. A simple equation, really – be present, respond – but one that is so often absent from everyday life.

This past “semester,” I was late to my first class. I left work late, and then ran into horrific traffic, and by the time I got to the Children’s Studio School on 13th Street, where classes are held, I was in a terrible mood. I pried open the front door, walked down the hallway with its familiar stench of cleaning solution mixed with urine, and opened the door to the classroom – and was greeted with the warmest, most enthusiastic chorus: “Amanda!!!” It was an awesome moment.

When people accuse D.C. of being a boring city, one without personality or culture or spark, I think, they haven’t found their community yet. Sure, other cities are more alluring – their personalities and advantages are easier to discern, New York with its promise of making it big and disappearing all at once, San Francisco with its hippie heritage and water views. In D.C., there’s no exciting collective image to buy into. But there are people. Smart people, creative people, people from all over the world, and when you find a group of them who are fun to play with, you’ve found everything.

Real estate monologue

2005-05-20T10:13:00.000-04:00

Looking for a house is one of those experiences that finds you telling your story over and over again...

Yeah, we're just ready for more space. What? Yeah, we own our current apartment. It's a funny story actually. Well, not "funny," but - we bought the place in 2001. We had just started looking and we found this place we really liked, and it was in our price range, but the real estate agent - who was crazy, by the way, he wears big Hawaiian shirts and flip-flops and is completely in your face, but he knows his shit - he told us they were expecting a bidding war that would raise the price by $20-30,000. So we were prepared not to get the place, and then, September 11 happened. Yeah. We placed our bid on September 12. It was completely surreal. There was only one other bidder and I think ours was higher by a couple thousand dollars. So we got the place, for - I think it was $6,000 over the asking price - and we moved in in October.

It's 640 square feet, for us and a dog. What makes it nice is that you walk into this little foyer area, with french doors to the left that lead into the living room, and a door to the right that leads to the bedroom. So the layout creates a sense of space - better than so many one bedrooms, where you walk right into the living room. Yeah. The kitchen is tiny but the living room and bedroom are nice and big...we said we'd live here as long as we could stand it and then we'd upgrade to a house - no incrementally moving up from one bedroom to two, three... live in a one bedroom as long as you can, because it forces you to live minimally - you can't accumulate any junk...and then go right to a house...

So, we were just starting to think, Hmm, is it time to move? - when out of the blue we get this message on our answering machine, and it's the woman we bought our apartment from! What? No, not the real estate agent - that's the crazy Hawaiian shirt guy - no, she was the woman who actually lived here before us, for like 20 years. So anyway, her message was like, "Hello, I'm moving back to D.C., and I was wondering if you're selling your apartment, or if you know of any other apartments in the building going on sale." Yeah. Out of the blue. We took it as a sign from the universe that it was time to move.

So she's going to be buying the place back from us. What? Yeah, we want a house, but we also want to stay urban...I don't need all of Adams Morgan on my doorstep, but I'm not ready for a life where I need a car to do everything. So I don't know...you go into the process feeling like, "Oh, we've done well for ourselves" and then you see what your money can buy and it's pretty depressing. Which then makes you feel gross because you think of how much money you're talking about and how people in this city live in poverty....

Anyway. It's a matter of sorting out our values. Deciding what trade-offs we're willing to make - space versus location. The problem is we see a tiny place in our neighborhood and we think, "space!" - but then we look at houses where we couldn't walk to anything and we think, "location!" I'm hoping there's a middle ground, but -- I'm not sure.

So anyway - blah blah blah. Enough about me. What's going on with you?

A little more time...

2005-05-15T17:41:00.000-04:00

Sorry, I need a little more time...my husband and I are house-hunting and it's taking up every moment of my spare time. I will aim to have something ready to post by May 22.

Reinvention

2005-05-12T08:24:00.000-04:00

So I’ve been thinking about this blog – thinking maybe of ending it, thinking again, deciding that instead the answer is reinvention. No more piecemeal observations or ideas – starting now, I will use this space to post weekly entries. This will allow me to pay more attention to what I post, to really think about what I want to say and to say it the best way I can.

The result, I hope, will be more authentic. I feel like I’ve just been going through the motions up to now. Truth be told, it was my husband’s idea that I start a blog, and I thought my original hesitancy was fear; in retrospect, I think I’ve just always had misgivings that daily posts about my life would be artistically meaningful. I’ve grappled from the beginning with how to be personal without being private, how to reveal my life in a way that was more like a great cinema verite film than navel-gazing, Real World-style. I'm after a kind of truth that requires more artistic attention. I think some people could produce that daily - but not me.

If I’m going to ask you to listen, I want to care that you hear what I have to say. And the truth is that too much of what I've posted here to date has been filler - the best I could do in half an hour on a Wednesday morning - which has turned this into a great exercise in writing regularly, but not a mechanism for making art. My hard drive's full of stuff I'm more proud of, stuff I've written over the past few years - and while it's tempting to just use this space to publish all of that, I want to push myself to devote real attention to my writing on a regular basis, and I hope a commitment to weekly postings here will do the trick.

I'm thinking I'll publish on Sundays, so - come back Sunday, May 15, and let's see what I can do.

A 2-parter

2005-04-21T08:26:00.000-04:00

Part the First: Ridiculousness

Two examples of ridiculousness from the past few days:

1. Last night one of my improv classmates described how her boss likes to act out certain sports, for no good reason. She'll just stand in front of my friend's desk and pretend to swing a golf club or pitch a baseball, sometimes silently, sometimes while making mindless chitchat - "Didja see that email?" (swoosh). I joked that next time my friend should pretend to catch the ball and toss it back, and see what happens.

2. I'm planning a bridal shower with a few other women, and earlier in the week we sent out an evite. One of the guests was apparently insulted that we didn't invite her mother, so on the evite, she replied that she'd be attending "with pleasure - plus 1, my mom." As if this were a kegger. Note, I had turned off the "allow guests to invite other guests" feature, so she just wrote this into her reply. I joked to the bride that she should get more of her friends to write in that they would also be bringing their moms.

Part the Second: Changing Media (More Ridiculousness?)

On another note entirely, yesterday I finally started reading a report I've had in my "to read" pile at work for a while, "The Future of Independent Media" from the Global Business Network, and want to recommend it to anyone interested in independent media (you can find it here).

I haven't finished it but, building on my Tivo comment of the other day, I find it fascinating to think what our society and culture will be like as more and more content is more and more accessible, and there are more choices than anyone has time to make...will this actually have a de-democratizing effect, where only the wealthy have enough leisure time to actually sort through media and leverage choice? It certainly makes you think that the people and companies who can prove themselves expert at helping you sort through it all will be valuable, but that sorting won't happen in the same way it did in the past - it won't be Tom Brokaw saying, "here's today's news," it will be someone saying "here's what I think is important today"...the differences being an implicit recognition of subjectivity, and, once again, greater choice... more choice than Tom, Peter or Dan.

I can't tell if the media landscape is getting more or less ridiculous. The liberal in me finds it hard to think that less choice is better, but the conservative in me worries about all the noise... ultimately the idealist in me hopes that from the sea of choices, from the noise, the potential for new meaning and understanding will arise....but the pessimist in me worries that we'll just be a fractured culture full of individuals whose news diet morphs into the "Daily Me" that Nicholas Negroponte predicted back in the 90s. A quick Google search of "daily me" led me to this blog posting from late last year, and maybe its author is right - maybe two categories of media will coexist, more traditional sources (newspapers, etc) side by side with an ever-more-thriving category of citizen-driven, bottom-up media. Maybe it's not either/or.

But when today's teenagers and kids are adults, will they really value the traditional sources? More importantly - will they use them? I value Frontline, and I Tivo it, but I rarely watch; I watch the Daily Show more often. (Don't you love it when you feed right into your demographic profile?)

To be continued...

Tivo backlash?

2005-04-19T07:47:00.000-04:00

I recently gave in to my love of Friends and added it to my Tivo season pass manager. Last night I was ready to indulge, and tuned in to one of 2 episodes it had recorded, and it turned out it was the classic in which Monica and Rachel lose their apartment to Chandler and Joey in a bet. But as I sat there soaking it in, I realized, it's not as much fun when I can call it up whenever I want. Part of the enjoyment is happening to catch it while channel surfing, happening to turn on the TV at 7:10 or 11:15 when there's just enough of an episode left to give me my fix. Being able to watch it "whenever" makes me want to watch it less. (This adds to my long, complicated love/hate relationship with the show: "it's an unrealistic superficial show about pretty 20-somethings"..."yeah, but it's funny"..."but they turned it into a soap opera"..."but the reruns are fun to watch"..."but they're not as much fun when I Tivo them.")

I am hardly the first to observe that we want what we can't have, but I find it interesting to observe this again in our current media environment, in which content companies are increasingly focused on giving consumers "what they want, when they want it." At Sundance I heard Ted Sarandos of Netflix say that their biggest challenge is that people don't know what they want - so you can't just figure it out and give it to them. Netflix is investing in complex algorithms to fuel its recommendation engine. Someone else on that Sundance panel, Richard Titus of Schematic, a technology design company, observed that increasingly, user interface is going to be what gives content companies a competitive edge...giving people the best tools to sort their content choices. With all these companies racing to give users the best choices - what kind of backlash are we in for? With content so readily available, will people begin to withdraw from media, treating it like we Washingtonians treat the Smithsonian or the memorials? (Glad they exist, but we never use them.) Without the pursuit, without hurdles to access, will the fun wear off?

Shutters

2005-04-18T07:25:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I found a scrap of paper I tore out of the periodical Granta a few months back. I am going to do a terrible job of citing my source - I can't remember which issue of Granta it was, and I can't remember the name of the author. Someone who had written a book about his father (that narrows it right down). But I was so compelled by this passage that I want to share it anyway.

The author is describing what it was like to have strangers come up to him at book signings and ask personal questions about the "characters" in his book, aka his family members. "How's your mother doing?" they'd ask. "And your sister? And Nikki the dog?"

I couldn't complain this was intrusive. It was me who'd thrown the door open. But the answers to those three questions - burning on a pyre of grief; blind; dying - we're easily sayable in public. The book was there for perusal. But the story outside it - the life still being lived - wasn't public property. Sometimes the shutters of self-censorship have to come down.

When I read this it described exactly how I was feeling about my blog at that time. I don't know if I've become accustomed to exhibitionism, or what, but I feel less exposed these days. Maybe I've settled into a rhythm, or found a voice, or - ? Whatever the explanation, I feel less constantly torn between public and private, between what to share and what to keep off limits. Have I honed my instinct for self-expression, or self-censorship?

All You Can Eat Sushi

2005-04-16T15:09:00.000-04:00

Today is Sushi Taro's annual "all you can eat sushi" day, in honor of the cherry blossom festival. You pay $35 for access to as much sushi as you can handle. Now this is a concept I can get behind.

Last night I slept for 13 hours - 12 hours the night before. I feel that groggy, out of it feeling that comes with excessive sleep...I guess my body needed some rest after that conference and the stressful weeks leading up to it. Sushi should be the perfect salve.

DC, Day 1

2005-04-15T12:48:00.000-04:00

Home, sweet home! I was positively giddy as my plane landed yesterday, happy even to see Dulles airport, the familiar shuttle back to the main terminal, the under-construction pathway to baggage check. My cab driver was a slim, quiet man who I'd guess was Indian, and we drove in silence, until about half-way home when all of a sudden he started burping. Yes, burping. It was disgusting. Thank God for my husband's iPod, which I'd borrowed and which I quickly deployed, masking the sound of burps with "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight" by the Postal Service, on repeat.

After an exuberant welcome from my dog, I grabbed his leash and took him for a leisurely walk, soaking up the gorgeous early spring evening. Standing in the dog park, watching him and other dogs scamper and wag, I felt a wave of joy wash over me - thank God I am not in a hotel in Las Vegas. Thank God for this fresh spring air, thank God for the green trees and new green grass and weeping cherry blossoms and dark pink buds on long dark branches -- thank God for all of this, and for the perfection of happy dogs. Thank God I'm home.

Vegas, Day 4

2005-04-13T09:43:00.000-04:00

Last night, on the way home from dinner, someone asked our cab driver, "so how long have you been driving a cab in Vegas?" Turned out he was 10 months away from retiring to Thailand. I found myself thinking, where will I be in 10 months?

My conference ended today. Just one more event where I need to be "on" - dinner at the Venetian, which I'm actually looking forward to seeing. I wish I had more time here to get out of the city - it pains me to be so close to the (by all reports) remarkable deser terrain and not experience it. It's amazing to me that "fiery flaming red rocks, swirling unrelieved as far as the eye can see" (as frommers.com puts it) are 20 miles away from this insane manifestation of human civilization that we call Vegas.

Vegas, Day (You Guessed It) 3

2005-04-12T18:40:00.000-04:00

Ok, I've hit that point you hit at every conference eventually -- enough of the dawn-to-dusk routine, enough schmoozing, enough Powerpoint, enough of this hotel. Last night I tried to plan an escape, to the Double Down Saloon, as previously mentioned...which is apparently in a desolate part of town, with drink specialties like "ass juice" and posters advertising "puke insurance." None of which fazed me, because the place had a certain charm - a friendly bartender, colorfully painted walls, a relaxed air. The fact that I was unfazed seemed to faze some of my companions, who probably see me as a clean-scrubbed type who prefers Cosmopolitans at boutique hotels.

Ultimately the fact that Double Down served no food (save a snack machine stocked with Cheetos and Reeses Peanutbutter Cups) drove the group to insist we move on, and we ended up at the Bellagio, in a bar that looked like it was part of a boutique hotel (sleek leather booths, dim lights), where people drank...Cosmopolitans. We could have been anywhere in the world.

This morning I noticed that my view of faux New York includes a faux Statue of Liberty that had somehow escaped my notice up to now. At lunch they served pork chops and I just couldn't do it - the thought of eating mass-produced meat just turned my stomach - so I asked for the vegetarian option, which ended up being the mashed potatoes and side veggies served with the pork chop, just sans chop. So I ate them, and snacked on peanuts I carry with me in my bag as an emergency measure (Amanda without protein is not a pretty sight), and I longed for fresh food and fresh air, the cherry blossoms back home, my dog, my husband, all the sensations that make you feel alive, a place where things are real, not imitations of elsewhere. It will be good to go home. Just 1 more day...

Vegas, Day 2

2005-04-11T09:36:00.000-04:00

I woke up to darkness. I parted the curtains hoping for a sunrise - instead, the glittering lights of the Monte Carlo hotel sign across the way. Since then the sun has come up on the other side of my hotel and is shining on the top half of the (faux) New York skyline and the mountains behind it, the Monte Carlo, more rooftops and buildings.

"It is 5am, and the sun has charred the other side of the earth and come back to us" - Screenwriter's Blues, Soul Coughing

Last night I went to a reception with a live band playing jazz standards. The room was packed and people stood in clumps, shouting conversations, sipping little martinis and eating hors d'oeuvres passed by waiters. This morning my voice is scratchy. I am feeling the disorientation of being at a conference - if you don't force yourself to go outside, you could spend 3 days straight in the same building, breathing the same stale air. A coworker told me every hotel in Vegas has a signature scent that it pumps in through its ventilation system to cover up the smoke and other bad odors that arise when people overeat, overdrink and never go outside. Lovely.

Well, time to get back into character, by which I mean gussy up and schmooze and talk shop until 10 or 11 tonight. I'm going to a meet-and-greet at a bar called the Double Down Saloon, so I should be able to report back with some local color...

Vegas, Day 1

2005-04-10T15:58:00.000-04:00

I landed in Vegas about an hour ago. The time change is already playing with my head - my laptop clock says 3:59pm, and the clock in my hotel room reads 12:59. My plan is to stay on east coast time, to avoid having to readjust later in the week; plus, if I get up at 6am local time every day, that gives me time to write before the day's mad festivities begin (the schedule for the conference I'm at goes from 7:30am to 6 or 7pm every night, and then there are evening schmooze events). The trick will be getting to bed early enough for this to work. I realize I sound like an old lady - other people my age would be more focused on exploring Vegas nightlife - but what can I say, I am who I am.

I will leave you with the view from my hotel room:
-faux New York skyline
-rollercoaster
-mountains

More to come...

Viva Las Vegas

2005-04-09T10:00:00.000-04:00

In a book I read last year that changed my life, called The Artist's Way, the author, Julia Cameron, argues that sometimes it is by trying something we resist, or doing something we'd "never" do, that we unlock our true or best selves. A woman I know had a deathly fear of dogs, but decided she was going to try to like them, and now has a soulmate in the form of one standard poodle named Hilary. Sometimes, this same woman advised me, we can trick ourselves -- "oh," the chronically untidy can say, "I just have to have things in a certain order." The more we do this the more we find ourselves open to things that otherwise might just have passed us by.

I am reminding myself of all this since I fly to Vegas tomorrow for a conference. I've never been, but I assume it is the opposite of my ideal environment -- offensively commercial, noisy, crowded, stamping out the natural landscape. But despite all this, I know it's a place worth seeing, an experience worth having. My mom told me that my grandfather used to stay at the hotel I'll be at, so when the sights and sounds get overwhelming, I'll think of him, however many years back, eating his prime rib and soaking it all in.

The point about [Las Vegas], which both its critics and its admirers overlook, is that it's wonderful and awful simultaneously. So one loves it and detests it at the same time.
--David Spanier, Welcome to the Pleasure Dome: Inside Las Vegas

I'll let you know how it goes.

Patience

2005-04-07T08:17:00.000-04:00

Last night I started my new improv class. I left work a little late, and then was so tired I wasn't paying attention and auto-piloted toward my typical route home, forgetting to take the exit that leads to a quicker route to class. Which meant I was stuck on Constitution Avenue in bumper to bumper traffic, horns blaring, throngs of tourists streaming over the mall on my right. At least I got a glimpse at some of the cherry blossom trees in full bloom. I ended up getting to class half an hour late and moments away from a nervous breakdown - I'm exaggerating, but despite my best efforts at stress management these days, a person has her limits, and this week my job has pushed me to mine. Sitting in traffic last night, inching forward, watching the clock go from 7:05 to 7:10 to 7:15 and realizing I was still nowhere near where our class is held -- required more calm than I could possibly muster in my frazzled, exhausted state.

But then, when I got to class, I got the nicest greeting. I passed my old TA on the way in, and we chatted, and a member of WIT that I've met at a few of their shows said hello, and then I walked into my class and got this enormous, warm hello....it felt awesome. It's the connection I've mentioned before...I guess there's a unique way you bond with people when you perform with them, and even though I don't know very much about them outside of class, in class I feel so comfortable with them...I definitely feel the trust you're supposed to feel with an improv troupe.

There were some people in the class who hadn't gone through the same series of classes as the rest of us, and one woman in particular just seemed way out in left field -- that's the frustrating thing about these classes, the starting and stopping, getting into a groove with people and then needing to find that again, but I suppose I just need to be patient...

I am thinking about work, about needing to deal with crisis after crisis, projects and tasks piling up in the meantime, the backlog getting longer and longer...no amount of organizational skills can make a difference, it's sheer chaos. More and more I'm realizing that the key to a happy life isn't managing, it's adjusting.

Endorphins

2005-04-06T09:09:00.000-04:00

I was so committed to getting back on track with daily, or almost daily, postings here, but an insane week at work has intervened. Yesterday one of my coworkers said to me, "I have never worked somewhere with so much drama." This morning, in an attempt to leave the drama far behind, I went for a walk in Rock Creek park with my husband and dog. The tulip magnolias in front of our building are in bloom, and as we walked through our neighborhood and into the park we saw trees in various stages of blossoming -- some still bare, others holding on to the dead brown leaves that have stayed with them all winter, others dotted with little green buds, and others in full bloom, covered in pink and white blossoms. I'm apparently out of shape, since this walk I used to do all the time had me huffing and puffing, but it also left me with that much-touted endorphin high - energy in every corner of my body, blood pumping, reconnected to things that really matter.

Snapshots

2005-04-03T18:23:00.000-04:00

Snapshots of my history as a writer:

--When I was in fifth grade my friend Alyssa used to come over every weekend and sit with me on the brown couch in the den and write stories about girls who had crushes on boys. Alyssa had a pin that said, "It's better to look good than to feel good." Now she writes for a fashion magazine.

--When I was in eleventh grade I took a creative writing class as my elective. The first ten minutes of every class was dedicated to writing in our journals, and my teacher, Mrs. Wilchek, said, "this ten minutes is my gift to you, ten minutes just for you." I fell in love with imagist poetry and with Howl by Allen Ginsberg. I was part of the International Baccalaureate program, which required a final paper, almost like a thesis, to be turned in during our senior year. I started a paper about the connections between imagist poet William Carlos Williams, Allen Ginsberg and Walt Whitman, but decided to turn it into a poem. I got a score of 0 on a scale of 0-2.

--The summer after eleventh grade I got into a creative writing program at Brown University, which was my top choice for college at the time. In addition to completing a bunch of little writing assignments, I spent most of my time there focused on developing one story. On my last weekend there, in a burst of inspiration, I decided to weave my shorter assignments together into a piece that was held together by the narration of a radio DJ. I handed this in instead of my story. When I got home I got a letter in the mail informing me I wouldn't receive credit for the classes I'd taken because I'd been disrespectful, and hadn't handed in the story that my professors had helped me with; plus, I had apparently dominated classroom discussion and been adversarial. I didn't own any black clothing - my mom insisted that black washed me out - but I dressed as darkly as possible the next day at school. I didn't apply to Brown.

--In college I wrote a story about a girl who was the opposite of me. It was published in the literary magazine.

--Later in college I left school for a semester and wrote a story about a girl who left school for a semester. I named the main character Angela - a clever disguise. When I read the story now it takes me back to those feelings, to that moment in time.

--In my senior year, in a class about Chaucer and the English Mystery Plays, I got permission to write modern interpretations of the English Mystery Plays instead of handing in traditional essays.

--At my first job out of college, I wrote poetry mocking corporate speak - "let's double click on that idea."

--In my mid-20s I took a personal essay class at the Writer's Center in Bethesda, Maryland. The assignments got me writing like I hadn't written in years, ideas and images just flowing out of me. Excited, I signed up for advanced personal essay writing the next semester. It was the worst writing workshop I'd ever taken. The teacher and other students were on auto-pilot, comparing every piece submited to an unwritten checklist: show don't tell, check; use dialogue to tell the story whenever possible, check. That was their level of engagement. I produced some of the worst things I've ever written in that class. When they trashed something I wrote about two young Afghan women I'd recently met, I went to the bathroom and sobbed hysterically, even though I knew it was terrible. Driving home from our last meeting I pulled over and threw away my folder with everything I'd written in the class, taking great pleasure in the melodrama of the gesture.

--I enrolled in a screenwriting class. I loved the structure of the approach - so much effort to map your story out upfront, so that by the time you started writing, you could just play. I'm about halfway through the first draft of my first screenplay, and it's the most enjoyable writing project I've ever undertaken.

--Last May I started writing every day.

--Lately I've started daydreaming about freelancing.

To be continued.

Average Joe, Superstar

2005-03-30T09:50:00.000-05:00

As I hit "publish" on my last post, I thought, "that may have been too personal." I was right. While it provoked more comments than any other post I've made to date, I wrote it when I was feeling vulnerable, and I don't think "raw vulnerability" is among the feelings I'm comfortable sharing here. Raw joy, perhaps, or raw frustration...but vulnerability is an emotion better dealt with in private and shared only after it's passed, when it can be shared with perspective.

A quick note about the 3 comments that were posted in response: to the reader who encouraged me to help others when I'm feeling that way, thank you... this is good advice, and it was my new year's resolution to start volunteering...this is something I really want to do.

To the person who suggested that if I really had self-esteem, I wouldn't need to "shout about it to the rafters" -- I think we have different notions of shouting. Yes, of course, if a person needs to talk about how confident they are all the time, it makes you wonder. I don't think that's what I was doing. I was saying, I've always prided myself on a certain quality, so it hurts to feel like that quality's weakening. Like someone who always had good handwriting and realizes that it's gotten messier recently. I don't think there's anything wrong with acknowledging my strengths, whether in the context of a discussion of my weaknesses or otherwise. Why is it that it's more socially acceptable to yammer on about your shortcomings than to talk about what you're capable of? I have a great sense of direction, I'm lousy at parking in parking garages, I'm impatient with details that don't interest me but capable of being very detail-oriented when I need to be. We're all experts and novices, superstars and average Joes - what's wrong with admitting that?

Anyway, I've been going through a rough time lately, but I'm back, and ready to get back into a rhythm of daily, or almost daily, postings... so stay tuned.

Self-esteem

2005-03-26T19:08:00.000-05:00

I'm drinking Earl Grey de la Creme tea, the leaves of which were purchased in a store in Greenwich Village, NYC. The first time I tasted it I said it was like drinking gold - the flavor was that perfect, strong dark tea mixed with vanilla. Now I drink it when I want to feel luxurious. The tin lamp I inherited when my grandmother passed away is glowing across the room, beneath it the little succulent plant I bought for my husband a few months back. XM radio is playing (ok, so the tower of electronica isn't all bad), and the music is just right for this moment, on the cusp of a Saturday night, after a day of hard work -- building three new bookcases. I realize that for most people in the world a day of hard work is much harder than bookcases. But I feel a sense of accomplishment, of having used my body, and now it is warm and resting and a night out will feel good, like the perfect cap to a day well-lived.

Lately I've been stuck on the thought I expressed here a week or so back, that when you don't get to do the thing you're good at, you end up feeling pretty bad about yourself. This is a new feeling for me - I have always had strong self-esteem. I remember once talking to a friend who was in a relationship with someone self-destructive, and I said, "I guess after a while I'd just get angry," and she said, "of course you would, you have high self-esteem." I have always treasured this about myself - it's not about thinking I'm great, it's about demanding to be treated with respect...feeling I deserve that. Respecting myself. Lately, I feel that crumbling, mostly because I've been stuck in the middle of so many decisions for so long, with no visible progress...still at the same job, in the same apartment... it wears you down after a while. I find myself wondering, what's wrong with me? Why can't I just make choices?

Which is why I think a day spent building bookcases feels as good as it does. And then I remind myself - I have made progress in one area of my life, in giving art a more central role....writing every morning, rearranging my hours at work to accomodate that...improv... this blog. 2 years ago I wasn't aware of how important this all was to me. But instead of feeling satisfied, I feel greedy: I want more room for art, more hours of a day spent doing things that matter to me, that feel connected to who I really am. I want a house with room to luxuriate in - no more artful arranging of things into too-small spaces, no more "one ass kitchen" (as my husband calls it)...space to cook, rest, work, entertain, play. And a chance to design spaces from scratch - a fresh start. In college I used to rearrange my furniture at least twice a year, dye my hair -- changes to the external that left the internal refreshed. I need that.

There's a new song on XM, too loud, too chaotic - the spell is broken. But I still feel a sense of possibility. Off to get ready.

Rain

2005-03-23T07:56:00.000-05:00

I woke up to rain this morning. It was exactly what I needed; it's exactly what I need. I was in a car accident yesterday - I'm fine, but I hurt my hand and my neck is stiff and these kinds of things always put you into a bit of a state of shock, so a cozy day like this one feels much easier to slip into than a day full of harsh sun.

I realized I've never described my environment to you. I'm reminded of the episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" in which Larry declines to take the tour of his friend Jeff's new house ("Hey, let me give you the tour" - "Oh, no thanks, that's ok"), and Jeff's wife is outraged, deeply offended. If you don't want "the tour," then by all means, decline, and I will not be offended. :) But I picked up "The Right to Write" yesterday, a book I think I've mentioned here before, and it talked about the importance of describing your setting, as a way of allowing readers to get to know you...so here goes.

Right now I see: full red tulips craning out of a tight turquoise vase, which sits on the coffee table I got for $20 from an ad in the City Paper almost 8 years ago. I got the tulips for $9 at the grocery store last weekend. The table sits on the chenille area rug my husband and I bought on a whim one afternoon in Ellicott City - squares of navy, periwinkle, gray. I am sitting on a navy futon with red and purple throw pillows, including the big red handwoven pillow that I bought in Old Town, Alexandria on my lunch hour once. We have had this futon for around 4 years and lately when you sit on it it sometimes creaks and cracks; it's time to upgrade to a couch. I want one of the ones that extends like a chaise at one end - I always want to put my legs up.

Our living room is busy (the bedroom is the room of calm -- cool colors, more sparsely decorated), so there's too much to describe in the time I have, but a quick tour: green houseplant in a ceramic red bowl, growing like jungle, long vines hanging down over the edge of the armoire where it's perched; a long, thin, framed Simpsons cell; a wine rack recently restocked; a matted photograph of Mount Timpanagos, from Sundance; a small white vase with orange, pink and yellow stripes, a gift from my friend Lauren, the last time she visited; and then, of course, what I've been avoiding -- the tower of electronica. TV, VCR, DVD player, stereo components, Tivo... I cannot wait until we have more space and can have a living room that doesn't center around this stuff...a room where the furniture is arranged to encourage views out the window, or conversation.

On the wall behind me: a framed New Yorker cover from my grandfather; a big painting of an underwater scene that I gave my husband for his birthday last year (it looks almost like an 8-year-old made it: big blocky shapes, jagged lines, bright colors); and, 2 recent additions, framed album covers: The Who's Tommy, and Rocky Horror Picture Show. In the corner, a tall silver magazine rack, filled with old copies of the New Yorker (we finally cancelled our subscription - couldn't keep up), New York Review of Books (we had a free trial at some point, that ran out), Harpers (just renewed), Utne (I love the idea of it), and Wired (another free trial).

And, now, my dog, sitting on the futon beside me, waiting patiently for his dad to take him on his morning walk. Little does he know it's raining -- he hates the rain.

Comet

2005-03-20T09:46:00.000-05:00

The other night we decided to walk our dog after dinner, something we never do, but which seemed that night like something that needed doing. At the edge of the dog park we ran into Jason, who works for a neighborhood dogwalking company, and sometimes walks our dog, and has even boarded him a couple of times when we've gone out of town. My dog went crazy, dancing and jumping, and then another dog came over, and it turns out this dog is our dog's walking partner much of the time, so more jumping and exuberant running. We felt like we were discovering our dog's secret life.

We held off on hiring a dogwalker for a long time - it felt like crossing a line, like soon we'd be buying him sweaters and feeding him a gourmet diet. But as our workdays got a little longer we decided to give it a shot, and met with Pete, the godfather of the neighborhood dog community - who, confusingly, runs a company called David's Dog Walking (he inherited it from David and didn't want to change the name, in case clients who'd moved away came back into town). Pete is like a horse whisperer, but with dogs - the first time our dog met him, his eyes got this swoony look, and he was drawn to Pete like a magnet. So now he gets two walks a week, sometimes more depending on our schedules, and when we go out of town he sometimes stays with one of Pete's employees, like Jason.

So at the dog park that night we started talking to the other dog's owner, and we learned that Sid, the owner of Comet Liquors on Columbia Road, had passed away a few days before. The Post wrote a story about it... Sid was a neighborhood institution, and while we weren't personally close, we shopped at Comet frequently (not just for booze but for H&H bagels, sometimes turkey, sometimes lox), and we definitely appreciated the role he played in the neighborhood. Hearing the news of his death was like hearing about a dear but distant relative's passing, the one who always danced up a storm at weddings and told you stories about when your parents were kids. The woman, the dog owner, who shared the news with us, said the funeral had been lovely, and that neighbors were thinking of forming a co-op to keep the store from being replaced by a chain.

Yesterday I was walking my dog again, our typical morning route, which takes us past Comet. The storefront was a shrine of rememberance - yellow lilies and bouquets from Safeway in plastic wrapping, small plants, candles glowing in glass jars, hand-made notes and signs stuck to the glass, under the neon glow of the sign that said, mistakenly, "open." I stood there with my dog, and others stood next to us, and I felt a community I hadn't known existed.

I'd like to join the co-op they're starting.

Hit Save

2005-03-17T09:00:00.000-05:00

I just spent about 40 minutes writing today's post and then inadvertently closed the browser without saving.

AAAAGH!

I don't have time to recreate it, so for now, I will just offer a link to this site about outsider art, or art made by people without any formal training. The site includes a "create your own backyard paradise" feature; here are 2 of the paradises I created:

-Trying
-Dreamer

The site was produced by the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, MD; I've never been, but I've heard it's wonderful.

Ok, well, off to work. Oh, by the way - I finally replaced my ID and garage pass yesterday. When I got upstairs to my desk afterwards, I was looking for something in my bag, and found...my old garage pass.

And so it goes.

Tribe

2005-03-15T10:01:00.000-05:00

Yesterday morning I lit incense, and as I watched the smoke curl and dance I was reminded of a poem I wrote in college that began, "Incense becomes smoke becomes air I breathe like you, I breathe you." I am tempted to apologize for this sounding too much like a poem written in college, for it being pretentious, or -- but I'm not going to, because, to be honest, I always loved that line.

I didn't actually write the poem myself - that line, yes, but it was part of a poem I wrote with a friend of mine when I was visiting her at Wesleyan University, in Connecticut. I remember being so inspired there - it seemed everyone was immersed in a creative project of some sort...making a film, costuming a show, playing music. I considered transferring (this was during my leave of absence from my own school, the University of Pennsylvania), but decided against it - I thought Wesleyan, with a student body of something like 1,500, would be too much like summer camp. That I was better off staying at Penn, a school connected to a city and to the "real world."

First - looking back almost 10 years later, I think, how sad that at age 20 I thought summer camp was something to avoid.

Second, a slightly-off-topic-rant: Oh how I wish colleges, parents, "the man," didn't perpetuate this notion that what awaits students following graduation is "the real world" - meaning that life before graduation is....what, exactly? I understand the idea is that once you're responsible for yourself financially, you're forced to grow up in new ways and take on certain obligations, but is all this more "real" than things you do in college and for the 18 years before it? Learning, making art, building friendships - this somehow counts less? If I sound like a hippie here - oh well, I guess I'm a hippie.

Anyway, back to my decision to stay at Penn...I've always been drawn to cities, to the sense of connection they give you to a world beyond yourself. And yet, what good is being surrounded by a volume of people if, in the middle of it, you feel alone? By contrast, at Wesleyan I could have had a creative community...and I'm increasingly realizing how rare it is to find such a thing. I wonder how much cities really provide us with. Living in Northwest D.C., I don't experience the cultural diversity that makes cities theoretically important or appealing. Yes, I'm surrounded by more people - when I walk my dog I pass more people than I would if I was walking him in the suburbs, but how meaningful is this, really? Especially considering the ethnic diversity of so many suburbs in the D.C. area. At this point, the main benefit I see to city life is being able to access so much without getting into my car. Which is important, but which is fundamentally a matter of convenience, not connection. The deepest connection I've felt to D.C. came after I discovered two communities - Tranquil Space yoga, and Washington Improv Theater. I was talking to a friend the other day about my experiences with WIT, and she said, "It sounds like you found your tribe." It's about time.

Living Out Loud

2005-03-14T21:02:00.000-05:00

My work ID has not turned up, nor has my garage pass. I alternate between illegal street parking and playing it safe in the pay garage. It's weird when you already feel like you aren't yourself at work, and then you keep losing your ID...if it was fiction, you'd say the symbolism was too obvious. We try to be so subtle in our art and sometimes life is just that obvious.

Earlier I read a piece in Salon about a woman with a personal blog, about how she became addicted to it and started revealing more and more - from mundane details like what her children ate for dinner, to a thinly veiled plea for help as she contemplated suicide. She wrote,

In the introduction to the collection of her New York Times columns, Anna Quindlen wrote about the challenges of "Living Out Loud," writing life as it is happening. If producing a regular column is living out loud, then keeping a daily blog is living at the top of your lungs.

I don't buy that the rate at which you write about yourself implies the intensity with which you live - the intensity with which you think, perhaps, but thinking isn't living. Recently I heard a quote - that while the unexamined life may not be worth living, the unlived life isn't worth examining. If I could only begin to live the way I write, or the way I am in improv - no gap between what's real inside me and what I present. That would be living loud.

Leaving yoga earlier tonight I was struck by how much clearer the world looked, how much fuller it felt, than it had when I'd rushed to the studio an hour earlier. The world gets so thin sometimes. At the beginning of my yoga practice I felt stiff, my thoughts richoceting like lotto balls around the inside of my head. As I breathed my way into pose after pose, some pushing me to the limits of my strength, others stretching me deeply, I began to inhabit my body again, began to inhabit the world.

Which makes me think that maybe sometimes in life, meaning comes from just going through the motions. And so I write this blog. And so I wash the dishes. And so I have faith - when I can muster it - that meaning will seep in between these activities, and one day it will just be obvious.

Some Kind of Monster

2005-03-12T15:50:00.000-05:00

Last night my husband and I watched Some Kind of Monster, the documentary about Metallica that came out last year. It would be an understatement to say that I am not a fan of the band or of heavy metal in general, and yet, I found the film engrossing. It was less about the band, or the group therapy they undergo, than it was about the creative process... or, as a critic from the Village Voice put it, creative torture. For more information and to see clips from the film, go here.