Up All Night

The song of birds reminds me that I should have been asleep by now*. My schedule is creeping forward again. If I were a planet, I'd have one of those wacky orbits that takes astronomers centuries to detect the pattern.

Great. Now I want to watch Pi.

Improv ouch: pimping yourself into a roomful of folio edition Shakespeare, and blanking on a single damn quote. Stammering out some iambic pentameter that gets your eye poked out. With an appendage. Thank Dionysus for my creative, on-the-ball classmates who made the scene into awesome!

Improv happy: getting to be part of a beautiful French Braid scene with Guy and Martha Maggio. Emotional depth and breadth, interesting twists without invention, honest realistic relationships, and a punchline timed with a sharpshooter's accuracy.

More improv happy: Anomaly Orange is off to a running start, and preparing for our first two shows. We'll be at the Westport Coffeehouse on May 28 (Thursday, 7pm, all ages, $5) and the Roving Imp on June 13 (Saturday, time-n-price yet TBD). Official announcements, invites, and pretty posters coming soon! Can! Not! Wait!

Employment happy: So, you know, I'm mostly unemployed. I sell an occasional book online, babysit now and then, volunteer when I can, and remain available to help family and friends. I figure I contribute to the whole economic situation by not taking up a job someone else needs more, since we are able to get by on Hans' salary. But, a person gets to feeling a little useless and closed off and like a 1950's housewife (only less good at cleaning). Well, some seven years after giving up paid theatre work and answering to the arts-man, a series of connections led me back. I'm on the call list for changeovers at the American Heartland, yay! And I still remember how to focus a lighting instrument, yay! It will be occasional, not full-time nor even part-time. But the pay will cover the gas to get there (yeah, I don't even know how much it pays), and it's fun. I'd forgotten how perfectly at home I feel on a catwalk thirty feet above a stage!

Guitar happy: After about five years of messing around on the guitar, I finally had the chance to take a few lessons this spring. It's made a huge difference... or, in Hans' words, it no longer sounds like I'm torturing animals. I can finally hold a pick the right way. I'm playing scales and arpeggios, and can actually tell that my fingers are getting stronger and faster. I can play chords that used to hurt, like B minor. I'm getting fingertip calluses!

I wish someone in my life had taken the time, some thirty years ago, to explain to me the concept of muscle memory. I always had a pretty reliable brain for learning how something was done, but I thought once my brain knew, my fingers (in piano) or my feet (in dance) should be able to follow. And I never became amazing at anything with a physical component. It might be too late at this point in my life to ever be an amazing guitarist or improviser (and I can deal - I do these for fun and I bring my own skill set), but now that I can accept practice and patience as part of the learning curve, the process is much less frustrating.



*"Now" at the time of writing was about six in the morning. I fell asleep before finishing the post.