Schmoozing

Last night was the Gala. You know, I really don't like event planning, but I seem to be good at it and I keep finding myself in these situations. Bad news: yesterday was a 18 hour day. Good news: it looks like we earned between 10 and 20 percent of our annual income in those hours.

Surprise/learning moment of the evening: I thought all our Board members were crusty and old, but they showed up and it turns out that they're mostly pretty young and some of them are kinda hot! Go, Board members!

All I can think about today.

Worrisome

My stripey kitty is feeling sickish this week. She's on antibiotics, but she's been lethargic and grumpy. Usually she's bossy and perchy. I hope she's okay.

It's one of those weeks where things are tending to get blown out of proportion in my mind. Little comments become big concerns. Small frustrations become life or death issues. Small delays become major issues.

Any guesses what could be causing this lack of perspective?

Spring Breakish

School is out this week. This means that my mornings aren't quite so early, but it also leaves me with much fewer anecdotes. Some pearls from last week:

• I discovered that one of the teachers that I am working with "stole" a drama-in-ed exercise and was using it with here non-residency classes. *warm fuzzies*
• Scene: A chaotic and loud classroom. After being asked what strategies the class could use to improve their focus/respect, one student stared me down and demanded, "Entertain me." A new view on the role of the teaching artist...
• After joking with a reluctant student that he must be glad I didn't make him dance, he looked me in the eye for a few seconds and calmly said with disdain, "There's just something about you that bothers me." Then he flounced away, and made it about 10 feet before he was compelled to spin around and yell, "WHAT?!?! At least I don't LIE about it like SOME PEOPLE would!!!!" Ah, middle school.
• During a school performance, the actor said "bitch" and "shit" within one sentence, the audience went silent, and then one student stood up and yelled out "I LOVE THIS PLAY!!!!" and the auditorium erupted in cheers. Ah, middle school.
• A student (the first ever) actually took me up on my offer to look at some of his poems and possibly pass them on to one of the writers at the company for notes. We've been emailing. Work address, of course, not personal. It's been awhile since I've encountered students who are actually inspired rather than oppressed by the prospect of writing. *warm fuzzies*

Roses and thorns, my friends, roses and thorns.

We're going to play a little game now:

FORTUNATELY...I get to have a little break to revive my spirit and sleep cycle.

UNFORTUNATELY...I have to be in the office all week instead.

FORTUNATELY...our annual Gala is next week, so there is much work to be done.

UNFORTUNATELY...no one is actually doing the work because my office is a highly inefficient machine where distraction and excuses run amok.

FORTUNATELY...I'm building up comp hours so I don't have to take vacation time when I go to Jamaica.

UNFORTUNATELY...I'm not in Jamaica yet.

FORTUNATELY...I have a good perspective and am very patient.

UNFORTUNATELY...I was lying about that last one.

So Sad for the First Born

I got to celebrate Passover with MNS and ipj and a bunch of others this evening. Some highlights:

• Smash the binary gender system!
• Something about loving and supporting people with livers
• The Seder meal is intentionally low in protein and starch, and yet there is a LOT of wine. I'm a little boozy. Those Jews know how to party! I thought the Episcopalians drank a lot...
• Disagreements on who exactly parted the Red Sea
• Reconstituted fish jelly is a 5-out-of-10 in flavor, but a 0-out-of-10 in texture.
  

First Bloom of Spring

Last fall I planted a huge amount of bulbs in anticipation of the first colors of spring. Well, the squirrels had their way with a lot of them, and those that remained are taking their sweet time to bloom. My courtyard is narrow and deep and north and doesn't get a lot of sunshine, so everything is blooming and growing about two or three weeks behind the plants in the front of the building.

I'm happy to present, however, the first bloom of the season, which appeared yesterday!

In celebration, I did a little yard work this evening:

• Raking the yard
• Laying down grass seed in the bare patches of the lawn (which is pretty much all of it thanks to the squirrels)
• Planting nasturtium and morning glory seeds along the fence
• Planting two pots with leftover bulbs that I found sprouting in my waterproof tub in the back. I don't know if they will actually come up or not, but I figured that planting them was at least giving them a slightly better chance than in the compost pile.

A Week of Early Mornings

I looked at my calendar yesterday and was shocked, shocked to discover that every morning this week features being in some remote part of the outer boroughs at 8am. I hope that it is clear to all who know me that I don't even like being out of bed by 8am, so having to take the subway, the Long Island Rail Road and a 40-minute bus ride to be at a school in the far-reaches of Queens by 8am is not my cup of tea. Bayridge and Bayview might sound close together, but they are not. It is a week of travelling.

Days like today remind me why people get cars. Sometimes it is nice not to take two hours to travel fifteen miles.

Yesterday I was moved to talk to a stranger on the subway. Not just talk to, but actually tap on the shoulder and start a conversation with.

I know, I know, no one wants to turn into the crazy person who starts conversations with strangers...

But this guy was sitting RIGHT NEXT TO ME and he was reading a book that I had finished just 12 HOURS BEFORE. And it was a book that I LOVED. So I felt called upon to tell him that we shared the common experience of this book and that I loved it and I hoped he loved it to.

Does this make me crazy?

Maybe if it had just been a regular book, it wouldn't have really moved me to break the unbreakable and unspoken rule of non-subway-talking, but it was a book about somewhat surreal and unlikely connections between people, so it seemed appropriate.

The funny thing was, once I had talked to this guy, who was very receptive to my conversation, I suddenly realized that there were lots of things that I wanted to talk to people about. I wanted to ask the woman across from me where she got her ring. I wanted to tell the woman next to me that she was watching one of my favorite episodes of Lost on her iPhone.

DO NOT TALK TO STRANGERS ON THE SUBWAY. It is a dangerous and slippery slope. You do not want to know where it will lead you.

Suspense

I have a great sense of anticipation and suspense today, but I'm not entirely sure what I'm waiting for. I feel like maybe I'm expecting a check in the mail instead of a bill (I wish) or a letter from an old friend or call for a job or some other kind of good news. What could it be?!?! I'm getting a little antsy thinking about what it could be, but so far there are no clues as to what it is I'm waiting for. I'm just, generally speaking, on the edge of my seat. I keep checking my email and glancing at the headlines and looking at my phone to make sure I haven't missed a call.

Can you tell me what I'm waiting for???

Thanks

Thank you for all your kind words of support. I have managed to nurse myself back from the brink and actually went in to work the last couple days. And I couldn't have done it without you, my loyal readers, and of course without my cats. Life is good.

28 Days to Go

Unfixed

Apparently my body had its own solution for all my stress. On Saturday I went into the city, taught a workshop, got lunch with a friend, and then started to feel poorly. I initially attributed my aches to a hangover, but it seemed odd that the later in the day it got, and the more water I drank, the worse I felt. I started aching all over and my head was pounding, so I scooted myself home and, sure enough, within an hour and a half my temperature had shot up to 102 degrees and I was laying in bed, fully-clothed, under a pile of blankets and cats, compulsively shaking and shivering. As I lay there, seeing my impending death coming closer, I envisioned several scenarios:

1. Perhaps the terrorists (you know who you are) had unleashed some biological warfare in Times Square, and I was one of the first of millions to have contracted this powerful disease. If I called the hospital, they would probably either ship me to some strange medical facility and no one would ever hear from me again, or quarantine me in my house with ZPJ and the cats. ZPJ and I would probably die in one anothers arms, but what about the cats? No one would come pick them up from our house - we were under quarantine! Besides, all of our friends would be too busy trying to save their own asses to worry about my cats! And we couldn't just let them go. There is no way these girls could survive on the mean streets of Brooklyn once martial law had been established. At what point would we have to start talking about a suicide pact...?
2. Maybe I just had your average life-threatening illness, and when all the people in my life realized how serious it was, they would fly to New York to wait by my bedside, praying for me to pull out of my fevered delusions long enough for them to beg my forgiveness for the various crap they've pulled on me. I would, of course, grant them forgiveness, but remind them how fragile life is and how they had better reform their ways before they pushed away anyone else. There would be many tears, and everyone would mourn losing someone as wise and benevolent as me.
3. Perhaps I had one of those old-timey fevers that make you blind, and I would be like Laura's sister, Mary, in The Little House on the Prairie, who gets a fever and goes blind. Everyone would talk about how it shouldn't have happened to someone as sweet and kind as me, and how this burden just proved my sweetness and would whisper to one another in admiring tones, "and you never hear her utter a word of complaint." And they'd be right.

None of these came to pass, though. I just had strep, or the flu, or an infection of some sort. My doctor wasn't too curious about finding out which, but the antibiotics seemed to help out a little bit and I'm finally able to swallow things without my throat seizing up, so it seems that I'm on the mend. My fever is even down.

Here are some of the things I slept through this week:

• 2 hard-to-schedule rehearsals
• 3 workshops in New Jersey
• 2 days of residency workshops
• 12 office hours
• 1 planning meeting
• 4 beautiful days of spring.