I am a reluctant nihilist. I do not embrace this. I do not rejoice in my nihilism (though maybe I do wear it around my neck like a pet albatross), and that I look to the distant future and see nothing but void does not give me a sense of liberty or freedom. The literally inconceivable absence of myself forces me to turn to other options: the breathing of the cat passed out around my feet; a thought on a script I read earlier that day; memories; the near future. Anything. Even writing about it is not thinking about it. Writing about it does not create the panic because I am choosing words. I am carefully crafting sentences to convey a meaning so that I can avoid feeling what is behind that meaning.
Life is a defense mechanism.
I have had many MANY a conversation with the faithful about my envy of their security. Do not mock it, their devotion to a higher power: how can you accuse them of being illogical when they live their lives in comfort and promise? I think missionaries would find me endlessly frustrating: a willing convert whose ______is too stubborn to accept what his______would like to accept. You cannot CHOOSE to believe in something. The question, How can you believe in something, is no more difficult to answer than, How can you not believe in anything? Maybe we should be using "may": How MAY you believe in that? Who let you? What opened you up to it? Where can I get some? Do they sell it at Walgreens?
And yet this is not a sad post for me. I have been grappling with this on some level since I was 13 and in the affirmation program of my church and we were told that we get to decide what to believe in. A great gift, not to be forced into a doctrine; but no doubt a burden to those of us who took it seriously. So this is not a new conversation I am having with myself.
And here's the kicker: the flip side to nihilism is that there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON NOT TO BE HAPPY. If nothing matters, than misery is just as worthless as happiness. And yet happiness is just so much more enjoyable.
This was going to be an entry about my new life in San Francisco. It tried really hard to be, but fell to a false start. I am thinking about moving my conversations related to theater over to the Dark Knight blog, but that idea stresses me out. That idea makes it seem like I should take it more seriously. And should one take a blog seriously?
Monday, August 25, 2008
i'm writing again i'm writing again i'm writing again so stop nagging my brain and let me write again
Write something.
Write anything.
Sneeze in your hand and wipe the snot on the page.
Anything to start.
Draw a line around the snot.
Oh that's a nice shape.
Looks kind of like a flower.
Maybe you should write about a flower.
You like flowers.
You were a gardener once.
You bought a calathia for your bathroom. Though those don't flower.
Flowers remind me of vampires. Cue vampire segue:
I am reading Twilight that new book (with vampires) that is supposedly the next Harry Potter. It's not the next Harry Potter. It's not a smart book. It's an easy book. It is the kind of novel that makes me think that I could write a novel. In like three weeks. I actually started. In my head. To write a novel. I think the problem a lot of writers have is that they are trying to be good; when I write my novel, I am going to do like Stephenie Meyer did it: to make enough money to pay for maintenance on her mini-van. She needed to make 10,000 bucks; she got a book deal for 250,000.
Okay, I don't know where I heard that, but I definitely heard that. I just tried to find a link to some evidence that this is truly what happened, and came up shorthanded.
Sometimes I am in the mood for that kind of book; other times I read one sentence and am disgusted with myself and more disgusted with how it really is just up to a publisher to decide what becomes popular.
I have often thought that becoming famous isn't all that difficult: you just have to find someone who wants to make you famous who has the power to make you famous. That's it. That simple.
Write anything.
Sneeze in your hand and wipe the snot on the page.
Anything to start.
Draw a line around the snot.
Oh that's a nice shape.
Looks kind of like a flower.
Maybe you should write about a flower.
You like flowers.
You were a gardener once.
You bought a calathia for your bathroom. Though those don't flower.
Flowers remind me of vampires. Cue vampire segue:
I am reading Twilight that new book (with vampires) that is supposedly the next Harry Potter. It's not the next Harry Potter. It's not a smart book. It's an easy book. It is the kind of novel that makes me think that I could write a novel. In like three weeks. I actually started. In my head. To write a novel. I think the problem a lot of writers have is that they are trying to be good; when I write my novel, I am going to do like Stephenie Meyer did it: to make enough money to pay for maintenance on her mini-van. She needed to make 10,000 bucks; she got a book deal for 250,000.
Okay, I don't know where I heard that, but I definitely heard that. I just tried to find a link to some evidence that this is truly what happened, and came up shorthanded.
Sometimes I am in the mood for that kind of book; other times I read one sentence and am disgusted with myself and more disgusted with how it really is just up to a publisher to decide what becomes popular.
I have often thought that becoming famous isn't all that difficult: you just have to find someone who wants to make you famous who has the power to make you famous. That's it. That simple.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Day 1
A young Hamlet whines of nunneries outside my 7th floor window. Elizabeth admits that this is one of her pet peeves, and when I start writing for the Publications portion of my Publications and Literary Associate gig, when these external recitations compete with my internal experiments, it will probably become one of my pet peeves as well. But for now I can only giggle. I work in an office where on any given day one might hear Juliet bitch out her nurse on the 7th floor patio.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Damn you USPS!
I built my bookcases on Monday. After days of Craigslist games -- The Waiting Game; Cat and Mouse; Bullshittm; etc. -- we caved and went back to Ikea to get some bookcases named after some guy named Billy. And they are lovely, and now all my books and comic books and encyclopedia collection (The DC Comics Encyclopedia; The Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology; A Dictionary of Angels; The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft) have been freed from their boxes.
Some books were not so lucky. Of the seven boxes I sent media mail, only six arrived unmarred: the seventh sadly had broken open en route and only a third of contents made the trek: Sylvia Plath's Ariel was unsurprisingly a trooper though her friend Sappho was left behind. God smiled down upon The Five Gospels and A Dictionary of Angels, but surprisingly did not favor my collection of Horton Foote plays. I don't know all that was lost, and all you bibliophiles out there know my heart is breaking.
If anyone sees Horton Foote having a tea party with Sappho somewhere in the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains, let me know: I'll send Paula Vogel and Richard Rodriguez to come rescue them.
Some books were not so lucky. Of the seven boxes I sent media mail, only six arrived unmarred: the seventh sadly had broken open en route and only a third of contents made the trek: Sylvia Plath's Ariel was unsurprisingly a trooper though her friend Sappho was left behind. God smiled down upon The Five Gospels and A Dictionary of Angels, but surprisingly did not favor my collection of Horton Foote plays. I don't know all that was lost, and all you bibliophiles out there know my heart is breaking.
If anyone sees Horton Foote having a tea party with Sappho somewhere in the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains, let me know: I'll send Paula Vogel and Richard Rodriguez to come rescue them.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Pilgrimage
I'll begin in the middle of things as it seems like an epic.
Kansas is beautiful. It's supposed to be boring and monotonous, isn't it? It was last time I did this drive when I was coming back from Colorado with my family when I was, what, 16? 15? Maybe earlier. Earlier, I think, because I bought that t-shirt in Durango that I wore through high school (and college), but I was old enough to sample dad's samples at the microbrews. But maybe it was middle school because I remember being poolside at our hotel and calculating the chances that I had with random girl A. That was a middle school mindsent, and a middle school mindset cannot appreciate Kansas. Or was that Arizona? Maybe I was in high school...but still had a middle school mindset.
It is the second shift on Day 1 and I am driving Defne's 1994 Ford pickup through Kansas with the windows down and I think I understand America.
It is the third shift on Day 1 and we are driving north around Denver towards Ft. Collins where we will spend the night at a hotel that allows pets with the sun setting behind the mountain range and I think I understand much of art history.
It is the first shift on Day 1 and I am driving Rachel's 2008 Honda Fit which she bought off the lot yesterday afternoon from a charming salesman who used to be a highway patrolman and has a niece in PT school. He doesn't bullshit us about the price or the trade-in. It's a hatchback: Rach has beamed over hatchbacks since I have known her. I am driving towards Kansas City, MO without cruise control because we are supposed to let the engine relax periodically. I am hoping that this zippy car has the stamina to make the 30 hour pilgrimage. With 5 cats in the back seat yelling in my ear, I am hoping I have the stamina to make the 30 hour pilgrimage. I wonder what the ramifications would be for removing a cat's larynx.
It is Sunday and we are finally moving towards San Francisco. Last Wednesday we drove from Chicago to St. Louis to pick up Rachel's new Honda Civic, which will arrive from the manufacturer by Friday at the latest. St. Louis is not on the way from Chicago to San Francisco unless there is severe flooding in southern Iowa. I enjoy returning to St. Louis more every time I return to St. Louis. Family, yes of course; but the trees. St. Louis doesn't have a lot of height to it. Not like Chicago's apartment filled skyline. In St. Louis, the trees are often the top of the civilized world. At least in the parts of St. Louis I frequent. I am missing a staged reading of a play I wrote for a company I adore in Chicago, but I will be able to attend the opening of a site-specific piece I wrote for a young company in St. Louis.
On Thursday, we take Defne (who is our roommate in SF if I neglected to mention it) to Blueberry to visit with old friends who prove to be very much the same as when we left a year ago. Time moves slowly in that bar if it moves at all. Delightful for us now that we are on the outside, but obviously frustrating for some of our friends who are tired of the stasis. Breaking stasis is difficult, especially when it pays well and the drinks are half off.
Friday comes and still no car. The manufacturer is in Ohio. If the car were coming from overseas, then the dealer who sold Rachel the car (Randy Borth, whom we have dealt with before and who is a straightshooter and an all around great guy...there are some lovely car dealers in this world, let the record show) would have been able to track every leg of the journey. But as the car is coming from Ohio, we are at the whim of the trucking union, who is apparently is not required or expected to communicate with the car dealers. We begin to panic because we wanted to leave Friday, Saturday at the latest, Sunday as a worst case scenario. I am driving the Fit through Wyoming (first shift Day 2) when Randy calls Rachel to tell her the Civic finally arrived.
I am not sure about Utah. Utah has exits off the highway that don't seem to go anywhere. You exit, the road bends, and then the concrete ends. Other exits lead to towns which appear to be merely a short series of trailers. Utah confuses me. Wyoming is beautiful, and it is interesting to me that the state lines are not as arbitrary as I imagined. Wyoming is marketable; Wyoming is a cigarette ad. Ten minutes into Utah, and you stop imagining cowboys and start wondering where people buy milk. You drive for an hour and a half at 80 mph on the same straight highway going between one mountain range and another, congratulating yourself for filling up your gas tank at the last station, listening to the Bible Station explain Revelations and Jezebel because it is the most interesting of three stations and because it couldn't hurt to have God on your side out here seeing as the wilderness seems to be God's thing. I am driving the truck again. It is not as comfortable or as fun as it was on Day 1.
Utah shifts into Nevada without much fuss. We stay in a small city ~100 miles outside of Reno where we get a roll of nickels with our hotel (motel?) room and are encouraged to eat at one of the 7 or 8 casinos on our block. We do. I win a dollar in nickels before losing them.
We get into San Francisco at 2pm on Day 3. Our keys don't work because they apparently fixed (changed) the locks, but luckily the third floor had burst a pipe over the weekend and workmen were around the building with keys and they let us in so that we can let our cats (little troopers) out of their crates. Earlier in the day, Linus had finally had enough and succeeded in expanding a small hole in the carrier he shared with Mabel into a hole large enough for him to jam his head through and subsequently shimmy his body out of. But they survived. We survived.
Tips for moving from the Midwest to California:
1) Burger King has the best vegetarian options of the fast food chains. They also have cheesy tots.
2) Gas is cheaper in Wyoming.
3) Go through Kansas. Skip most of Utah.
4) Drive an old pickup with bunk air conditioning.
5) You could do it two days if you had to...two really long days.
Kansas is beautiful. It's supposed to be boring and monotonous, isn't it? It was last time I did this drive when I was coming back from Colorado with my family when I was, what, 16? 15? Maybe earlier. Earlier, I think, because I bought that t-shirt in Durango that I wore through high school (and college), but I was old enough to sample dad's samples at the microbrews. But maybe it was middle school because I remember being poolside at our hotel and calculating the chances that I had with random girl A. That was a middle school mindsent, and a middle school mindset cannot appreciate Kansas. Or was that Arizona? Maybe I was in high school...but still had a middle school mindset.
It is the second shift on Day 1 and I am driving Defne's 1994 Ford pickup through Kansas with the windows down and I think I understand America.
It is the third shift on Day 1 and we are driving north around Denver towards Ft. Collins where we will spend the night at a hotel that allows pets with the sun setting behind the mountain range and I think I understand much of art history.
It is the first shift on Day 1 and I am driving Rachel's 2008 Honda Fit which she bought off the lot yesterday afternoon from a charming salesman who used to be a highway patrolman and has a niece in PT school. He doesn't bullshit us about the price or the trade-in. It's a hatchback: Rach has beamed over hatchbacks since I have known her. I am driving towards Kansas City, MO without cruise control because we are supposed to let the engine relax periodically. I am hoping that this zippy car has the stamina to make the 30 hour pilgrimage. With 5 cats in the back seat yelling in my ear, I am hoping I have the stamina to make the 30 hour pilgrimage. I wonder what the ramifications would be for removing a cat's larynx.
It is Sunday and we are finally moving towards San Francisco. Last Wednesday we drove from Chicago to St. Louis to pick up Rachel's new Honda Civic, which will arrive from the manufacturer by Friday at the latest. St. Louis is not on the way from Chicago to San Francisco unless there is severe flooding in southern Iowa. I enjoy returning to St. Louis more every time I return to St. Louis. Family, yes of course; but the trees. St. Louis doesn't have a lot of height to it. Not like Chicago's apartment filled skyline. In St. Louis, the trees are often the top of the civilized world. At least in the parts of St. Louis I frequent. I am missing a staged reading of a play I wrote for a company I adore in Chicago, but I will be able to attend the opening of a site-specific piece I wrote for a young company in St. Louis.
On Thursday, we take Defne (who is our roommate in SF if I neglected to mention it) to Blueberry to visit with old friends who prove to be very much the same as when we left a year ago. Time moves slowly in that bar if it moves at all. Delightful for us now that we are on the outside, but obviously frustrating for some of our friends who are tired of the stasis. Breaking stasis is difficult, especially when it pays well and the drinks are half off.
Friday comes and still no car. The manufacturer is in Ohio. If the car were coming from overseas, then the dealer who sold Rachel the car (Randy Borth, whom we have dealt with before and who is a straightshooter and an all around great guy...there are some lovely car dealers in this world, let the record show) would have been able to track every leg of the journey. But as the car is coming from Ohio, we are at the whim of the trucking union, who is apparently is not required or expected to communicate with the car dealers. We begin to panic because we wanted to leave Friday, Saturday at the latest, Sunday as a worst case scenario. I am driving the Fit through Wyoming (first shift Day 2) when Randy calls Rachel to tell her the Civic finally arrived.
I am not sure about Utah. Utah has exits off the highway that don't seem to go anywhere. You exit, the road bends, and then the concrete ends. Other exits lead to towns which appear to be merely a short series of trailers. Utah confuses me. Wyoming is beautiful, and it is interesting to me that the state lines are not as arbitrary as I imagined. Wyoming is marketable; Wyoming is a cigarette ad. Ten minutes into Utah, and you stop imagining cowboys and start wondering where people buy milk. You drive for an hour and a half at 80 mph on the same straight highway going between one mountain range and another, congratulating yourself for filling up your gas tank at the last station, listening to the Bible Station explain Revelations and Jezebel because it is the most interesting of three stations and because it couldn't hurt to have God on your side out here seeing as the wilderness seems to be God's thing. I am driving the truck again. It is not as comfortable or as fun as it was on Day 1.
Utah shifts into Nevada without much fuss. We stay in a small city ~100 miles outside of Reno where we get a roll of nickels with our hotel (motel?) room and are encouraged to eat at one of the 7 or 8 casinos on our block. We do. I win a dollar in nickels before losing them.
We get into San Francisco at 2pm on Day 3. Our keys don't work because they apparently fixed (changed) the locks, but luckily the third floor had burst a pipe over the weekend and workmen were around the building with keys and they let us in so that we can let our cats (little troopers) out of their crates. Earlier in the day, Linus had finally had enough and succeeded in expanding a small hole in the carrier he shared with Mabel into a hole large enough for him to jam his head through and subsequently shimmy his body out of. But they survived. We survived.
Tips for moving from the Midwest to California:
1) Burger King has the best vegetarian options of the fast food chains. They also have cheesy tots.
2) Gas is cheaper in Wyoming.
3) Go through Kansas. Skip most of Utah.
4) Drive an old pickup with bunk air conditioning.
5) You could do it two days if you had to...two really long days.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
words are words
Taking a break from a marathon playwriting binge, my lower back is getting sore sitting in Argo's wooden chairs. I am sitting with a view out the window, which has been surprisingly unproblematic. I used to peoplewatch. I guess I still do but maybe with less intrigue...hunger? I don't get distracted by them as they walk by anymore, and I'm not sure that is something to be proud of. Have I finally shaken off whatever tendencies that encouraged some random neighbor to suggest to my mom that she put me on ritalin when I was 3, which my mother promptly, and smartly, rejected. Or have I just lost interest? Has cynicism taken over?
Or do I people watch differently? I watch out the window and I see bodies -- some attractive, some less so -- and clothing. I adore our era of clothes, at least in my neighborhood. There is this hodgepodge rebellion against the trendiness of whatever label is big right now. People wear what they want and wear what looks good on them. An eclecticism of colors and styles and fits.
And then there is the blogosphere. This is the first time I have ever used this word: blogosphere. An atmosphere created by electronically reserved ideas. It's funny that my blog spellcheck doesn't even acknowledge it's a word. Now we people watch from the perspective of the people we watch.
Or do I people watch differently? I watch out the window and I see bodies -- some attractive, some less so -- and clothing. I adore our era of clothes, at least in my neighborhood. There is this hodgepodge rebellion against the trendiness of whatever label is big right now. People wear what they want and wear what looks good on them. An eclecticism of colors and styles and fits.
And then there is the blogosphere. This is the first time I have ever used this word: blogosphere. An atmosphere created by electronically reserved ideas. It's funny that my blog spellcheck doesn't even acknowledge it's a word. Now we people watch from the perspective of the people we watch.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
rushed
I feel the decaffinated starbucks surging through my veins like a bobsledder on acid. That is how desperate I am for time: coffee at 8pm on a work night. I will fall asleep maybe around 3 if at all. Decaffinated starbucks is, for a tea drinker, like plugging your heart to a car battery.
But I need the time. A project that was proposed a month ago was reproposed three days ago as a larger project with a sooner deadline...namely the same deadline as the other commission I have been working on. Namely this sunday. 45 to 60 minute play in 6 days. Go!
And quickly it becomes clear that plays are like children. And you don't want to have a favorite, but you kind of do...or maybe it is just that the younger one has so much promise and possibility and needs more nurturing and love and is just, frankly, a whole lot cuter than the older grungier child with her problems and hidden tatoos that you don't even want to think about. She won't change and she doesn't care what you think because she is her own independent preteen. So getting her to put on a dress to go to the theatre: an exercise in manipulation, coddling, and bribery.
I have this shirt that barely has any thread left; fits like cobweb. It was my dad's old Wilson baseball tee. She finally got me to stop wearing it because it really wasn't a shirt anymore. But it took her like three years. And I only have three days to make my preteen play presentable.
But I need the time. A project that was proposed a month ago was reproposed three days ago as a larger project with a sooner deadline...namely the same deadline as the other commission I have been working on. Namely this sunday. 45 to 60 minute play in 6 days. Go!
And quickly it becomes clear that plays are like children. And you don't want to have a favorite, but you kind of do...or maybe it is just that the younger one has so much promise and possibility and needs more nurturing and love and is just, frankly, a whole lot cuter than the older grungier child with her problems and hidden tatoos that you don't even want to think about. She won't change and she doesn't care what you think because she is her own independent preteen. So getting her to put on a dress to go to the theatre: an exercise in manipulation, coddling, and bribery.
I have this shirt that barely has any thread left; fits like cobweb. It was my dad's old Wilson baseball tee. She finally got me to stop wearing it because it really wasn't a shirt anymore. But it took her like three years. And I only have three days to make my preteen play presentable.
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