Writing Away

Unabridged (Dun Dun DUUUN!!!)

2007-09-23T14:56:00.000-07:00

So, I don't know if the pink chair is solely responsible or if there are other factors at play, but I have been in writing MODE this past week. Holy cow. It's kind of intense. In addition to those two crazy nights of journalling last Wednesday and Thursday, I have now spent a pretty sizable portion of the weekend on various additional writing projects. Nothing creative in a fictional sense--mostly philosophical / academic / reflective stuff. A lot of things I've been thinking about and wanting to express to a larger audience than just, you know, me, myself, and I (although the three of us are pretty encouragingly responsive and engaged as audiences go, if at times somewhat overly argumentative). And you know me (you kind of can't help it, can you?)--I'll take any opportunity you make the mistake of giving me to share my thoughts about things, in writing or aloud.

And just such an opportunity has recently presented itself. Because, you see, I have recently had reason to acquire a livejournal account. Really just for the sake of having a username, but then of course once I had the thing, I couldn't just leave it hanging, postless, in cyberspace. Plus, I went to see the new Julie Taymor/Beatles music movie Across The Universe, and I wanted to consolidate my thoughts on it in written form. But it wasn't exactly the sort of thing I typically intrude upon this blog with. So I thought, "Well, I'll just stick it up on livejournal. Just for fun."

And I'm like a junkie when it comes to this sort of thing. One hit just wasn't enough. I kept going back for more. I've only been posting on the thing for a day and already I think you can pretty much piece together my life story from the stuff I've put up there. It's insane.

So, now comes the tricky part--what to do with the fact that I now have a blog AND a livejournal? Is this the end of an era? Should I close out my blog and move on to the livejournal? It isn't unprecedented. I switched from one blog to another when I came back from England. But this is not nearly so definitive a shift in circumstances as was that. Plus, I like my little blog. I've become kind of attached to it.

At the same time, there are certain things I am interested in exploring that for some strange reason involving the arbitrary, sourceless internal conception I hold about the purpose and structure of my blog I don't really feel able to do on here. Like, I've always admired blogs like Ciao Samin for their inclusion of random day-to-day observations and details. And I've often resolved to try out that method of blogging. But for some reason I just can't bring myself to do it. Some things just seem too trivial (in other words, too brief) for a blog, unless I save them up and post them all at once in some massive "here's what I've been up to lately" litany.

But (and once again, don't ask me to try to explain why) for some reason I feel totally comfortable posting those things on a livejournal. It's crazy, I know. But that's the way it is.

So, anyway, I've decided I'm going to keep both. But worry not--this doesn't mean you now need to visit two separate sites every time you want an update on my life and thoughts. If I do things properly, then depending on what you are looking for in terms of your desire to keep tabs on my doings, you will be able to select which of the two locations it makes more sense for you to visit.

If you want to know everything, absolutely everything, that I have the time and inclination to explore in some forum more public than my own spiral-bound notebooks, then visit my livejournal. You can find it at http://shethinks-aloud.livejournal.com (or, click on the link to it in the sidebar under "My Other Blogs"). I'm calling it "She Thinks Aloud, Unabridged," and I'm warning you now, that's precisely what it's going to be.

A lot of the things on there will be the (hopefully relatively) brief, random notes and observations of the type I so admire out of Samin. But there will also continue to be the lengthier, more involved, philosophical and expositional types of posts characteristic of this blog (for instance, see my post from a little earlier today directly below this one: "On The Road: A New Section"). But here is what, for your benefit and convenience, I am going to do with those types of posts--not only will I put them up on my livejournal; I will also copy and paste them over here.

So, if you want to keep reading posts at the level and frequency to which you have become accustomed here on the blog, just keep coming here, and your experience should remain unchanged by my adoption of an additional livejournal. If, on the other hand, you have recently been craving exposure to even more of my thoughts, reflections, observations, opinions, and experiences, switch over to visiting my livejournal, and you won't miss out on anything if you never return to this blog again. (Except, I suppose, the lovely layout and color scheme. Which you have my permission to periodically revisit for purely aesthetic reasons, if you so desire.)

So, that's the update. Click here to pop over to my livejournal for a little peek, to see what exactly on earth I am babbling about.

On The Road: A New Section

2007-09-23T14:43:00.000-07:00

I just got back from church a couple of hours ago, and I want to gush a little bit about this one particular aspect of the almost countless circumstances that have me so incredibly content with where I am and what I am doing with my life at this moment. I have, throughout my life, been more blessed than it seems possible to have been by a consistent presence of amazing communities of faith which have welcomed me openly into their midst and provided me with a comfortable yet challenging place from which to explore what it means to believe in God. Somehow I have managed to encounter them pretty much everywhere I have lived, and it has made an enormous difference in my spiritual growth and general life experience.

Back in high school it was the B.R.I.D.E.S. (Bible Reading In Da Evening Sistahs)--the covenant group of amazing women (which started out with our two fabulous leaders and four freshmen girls, and by our senior year had grown to a group of thirteen passionate seekers of truth) which met a couple of hours each week in the Brides Room at my childhood church. Then in college I found Tacoma College Ministry, a fellowship group which provided a number of my most meaningful friendships, along with Trinity Presbyterian Church, a place of remarkable and inspiring sincerity, openness, and faith. I studied abroad in England for a semester and was immediately welcomed into the Meeting House group, a circle of deep, thoughtful, and loving askers of questions led by the marvelous chaplain Gavin Ashenden. I moved to Seattle and found Bethany Pres and the College Age Fellowship, and made many more dear friends, lasting connections, and spiritual developments. And now here I am in Princeton, and I think I have found yet another church body of which I am excited to become a member.

It's called Westerly Road, and it's a half-hour walk through some lovely tree-lined streets from my house to the church. I first attended about a month ago, in the company of Jessica Lee, my friend from Bethany back in Seattle who is now also here in Princeton studying at the seminary, and who, like me, was in the process of searching for a new church to call home now that sh'e'll be living out here for a while. During my first visit, I was struck by the friendliness and authenticity of the people leading the service. And I found the sermon engaging and thought-provoking.

At the time I was wrestling (and actually, I still am) with the proper balance between focus on God's saving grace and our acts of faith/obedience/repentance, particularly with respect to the question of salvation. A while back I read Brennan Manning's Ragamuffin Gospel, which is a really incredible book, and whose central message, at least as I understood it, totally blew me away. It had to do with the idea that we are truly saved solely by the grace of God, and that nothing we can do--not even failing to "accept" it properly, whatever that means--can prevent us from experiencing that grace. I don't know for sure that that's what he was trying to say, and I know a lot of Christians who will virulently object to that idea. I don't know whether I myself believe it's true or not. But it was such a radical rethinking of the way I had ever approached grace and salvation, and Manning made one specific point with respect to this line of thought, which was: "That would truly be a gospel."

And he's right. I mean, really, what if it were true that we didn't have to worry, not only about making sure never to sin in our lives, which seems to be quite impossible, but also about whether or not we have prayed the right prayer or repented in the right way or believed in God or accepted Jesus as our Saviour at the right level in our psyche? Because, as relatively lenient as these requirements may seem in comparison to the type of total perfection in thought and action Jesus describes in the Sermon on the Mount when he talks about lusting being adultery and name-calling being murder, they are also disconcertingly subjective and undefined. I mean, what does it mean, precisely, to "accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour"? I have never been entirely certain. And if you don't know what it means or looks like to have done so, but you believe that that is required in order to avoid hell or death or some other terrifying fate, then you will live in a constant state of fear that you have not met the obscure requirements. I think it is this fear and uncertainty that causes so many Christians to behave in ways that are tragically damaging, desperate, and devoid of love for their fellow human beings.So, anyway, I am compelled by an idea that offers peace and comfort and hope rather than terror and desperation and aggression, and interested in exploring it more. And the more I think about it, the more I realize how many sermons in my life I have come away from with all sorts of ideas about new ways I can try to make sure I am doing what I need to be doing in order to be saved, and how few (if any!) I have come away from with the reassuring reminder that God has so loved me that He has already provided for my salvation, and that nothing I do can get in the way of that. So if that really is the gospel of Jesus, well, nobody seems to be talking about it, at least not in my hearing.

I was in a place of being very conscious of this idea when I first attended Westerly Road, and so as the pastor spoke I was actively examining the things he said to determine whether, ultimately, he seemed to believe that salvation comes through God's grace or our response to it. And I felt like there was, at least, an addressing of the tension between the two ideas, which I appreciated.

I've been back two times since then, and each time I have felt that the sermon was thoughtful and meaningful and pertinent, and focused on the aspects of faith I have come to believe are truly important, rather than superficial if not completely counter-productive or even ungodly injunctions towards condemnation and exclusion in response to certain arbitrary moral/behavioral precepts. A couple of weeks ago they started a series on the Ten Commandments, and the perspective the pastor is taking is that these ten commandments are simply an expansion of the two great commandments Jesus discusses in Matthew 22: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" and "Love your neighbor as yourself." Which is a perspective I embrace, and it's been interesting to hear how he makes these links.

Today we looked at the second commandment, which is "You shall not make yourselves an idol in the form of anything on heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them and worship them." The first thing the pastor did was talk about how this commandment differs from the first, which is "You shall have no other gods before me." I always did have trouble seeing the distinction between the two, and wondered why they were considered two separate commandments. But he pointed out that the second commandment doesn't just say not to make idols representing other gods. It also advises us not to make idols of the Lord Himself. We should not try to represent Him or understand Him through some human-made constructions, because inevitably we will distort His nature or leave out some essential aspect of His being.

Then we looked at Colossians 1:15, which says "[Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation." And the pastor pointed out that the Greek word here translated as "image" (oh, yes, he referred to the original Greek--which earns major points in my theological book) is actually the word from which we get the term "icon." So, basically, we're not supposed to make images of God, but He understands that we have a lot of trouble getting an idea of something we can't look at or hear or touch, and so He made us a representation that fully enfleshed Himself. The sermon went on to discuss ways that we turn Jesus into a manmade icon by failing to take into account all aspects of who he was and what he did, picking and choosing from among them instead. Which was a very interesting and thought-provoking perspective.

I don't agree with everything that is said in the sermons, but that's actually something I appreciate about them. They're not filled with meaningless platitudes that everyone would agree with. They are making definitive claims about what is true and what our response to that truth should be. And I am engaged and able to examine what is being said and determine when I agree and when I don't, and why. What's even more exciting, is that today the pastor actually invited the congregation to a Q&A session after the service! This is something I have always wished to see incorporated into a church service. (I tend to be pretty conscious about what aspects various churches do and don't include in their services, and how they approach them. It often says a lot more than you might suspect about the church's underlying beliefs. This is something I'll probably pontificate on at greater length in a future post...) Anyway, today it was just me, the pastor, and one other member of the congregation at the Q&A session, but I got to ask something that I had been wondering about during the sermon, and the pastor had some really interesting things to say in response and additional background to provide, which was great. And mostly I just find it encouraging that this church is one that believes the opportunity to come together and discuss and ask questions about a sermon is important to offer.

Another fun aspect (although this is a slightly less vital one as far as my opinion about a church is concerned) is that the past two Sundays I have been there, the pastor has thrown a mini vocabulary lesson into the middle of his talk. :-) Last time he explained that the individual segments of aggregate fruits like raspberries and strawberries are called drupelets (he was comparing the Ten Commandments to an aggregate fruit, saying that they are so interconnected to one another that you can't pluck one apart separately from the others like a grape off a bunch, and decide to uphold it while discarding the others. Rather, the individual commandments are like drupelets, and if you try to pluck one you will, as he put it, "end up making a mess of all of them. And yourself.") And then today, he explained that the word "toady" (which means sycophant or flatterer) comes from the days of medicinal charlatans who would have a person eat a toad (which were believed to be poisonous) and then "cure" them in order to prove their legitimacy.

The point is, the sermons I have thus far experienced at Westerly Road have hit me in ways that were intriguing and inspiring and somewhat unprecedented in my church-going experience. They have also held my attention from wandering more reliably than have most sermons in my past. Although I suspect this is largely a result of the ways I have, over the years, grown in understanding and spiritual maturity, and become closer to God and more attuned to hearing Him speak and less distracted by other things that are going on in my life, rather than being in any way a critique of the pastors who delivered those past sermons, many of whom were incredibly wise people I deeply admire.

Bottom line: I am really happy to have found this place, and I am looking forward to the ways God will continue to guide me into a deeper and fuller understanding of Himself and my place in creation through my involvement with the church and its members.

Why Am I Still Awake?

2007-09-21T23:19:00.000-07:00

So, I just got home from an evening of bartending the McCarter after-hours party in honor of Stick Fly. It was fun times--great music, friendly people, incredible creme brulee. We kept quite busy all night, and made a pretty penny in tips. And I should probably be going to sleep now, but I wanted to throw up a quick blog post before I do (and everyone who knows me at all just smiled knowingly and rolled their eyes at my use of the word "quick." I saw that...) I'm kind of simultaneously completely braindead and unable to go to bed quite yet, both phenomena resulting from the fact that I have stayed up until 5:30 in the morning the past two nights in a row.

Why on earth have I done such a thing, you might wonder, especially when each time I had to be up by 9:00 the next morning to make it to work? Well, it's actually largely the fault of a chair, believe it or not. See, last weekend I got this new chair to put in the corner of my room by the window. It's this really cozy pod chair that allows you to curl up in all sorts of excellent ways and is just perfect for reading and journalling and such. Which is precisely the problem. Because I've got a bunch of stuff I'm working on processing at the moment, and there's this chair just begging for a nice solid journalling session. So I get settled in and start writing and I just DO. NOT. STOP. In the past two days combined I have written nearly 50 pages worth of thoughts/ reflections/ questions/ ideas/ constructions/ recountings. And I still have more to say. (So if you think this blog is subject to some abusive prolixity, just be glad I have a journal in which to screen through the fifty pages worth of stuff I have actually been thinking about since my last entry, you know?)

Anyway, it's all good stuff, so worry not (Dad). Just trying to do things like record recent experiences that I don't want to lose, and figure out my feelings and expectations about things, and assess what makes me happy and what I want out of life. Last night I went to this lecture on campus by Daniel Gilbert, who's a Harvard psych professor who wrote Stumbling On Happiness, which you should read because it's fascinating and mind-blowing and makes you rethink how you think about things. And it's all about how we try to predict what will make us happy in the future, but we employ all these fallacies in doing so, and actually end up being pretty inaccurate--that is, the things we think will make us happiest frequently don't, and the things we think will make us unhappy often aren't nearly so bad as we predict them to be. And Daniel Gilbert is a big proponent of rational self-examination and awareness of these fallacies in order to circumvent or override them.

It was an interesting lecture, and perhaps an even more interesting post-talk question and answer session. Turns out Gilbert is unconvinced by the claims of books like The Secret and Blink. He is also way more socially/globally concerned than you would expect of someone whose research is focused on how to make yourself personally as happy as possible. He basically ended his lecture by saying, "Our brains were adapted over tens if not hundreds of thousands of years to survive in the Pleistocene. But now circumstances have changed far more quickly than biological development/selection is able to keep pace with. As a result, if we follow the intuitive paths our brains urge on us, we will eventually destroy ourselves through things like hunger, homelessness, obesity, and war." Thinking more rationally about the future, he seems to believe, is the only way to avoid total calamity. Which is fascinating.

Okay, I no longer possess the presence of mind to figure out a way to tie all these random observations together into some sort of mildly cohesive blog post theme or through-line. So I'll leave that to you, and simply bid you goodnight. When I wake up tomorrow, it'll be time to delve into the exciting world of grad school research. Which actually I'm quite looking forward to. I should also probably open a bank account. And now this blog post is becoming a to-do list, which means it really is time for me to take temporary leave of consciousness. More later...

My Sticky Board for Tomorrow is Mostly Purple!

2007-09-18T15:02:00.000-07:00

Which means, according to my carefully color-coded, highly obsessive-compulsive sticky note task organization system, that I am actually scheduled to work primarily on tasks that fall within the realm of honest-to-goodness literary management! Which is, technically, the department in which I am supposed to be interning this year, in case anyone had forgotten. I myself had nearly forgotten, what with all the dramaturgy and other such randomness I've been spending most of my time on of late. Which has all been fun, but I'm excited for the chance to actually read and respond to some scripts. Woo-hoo!

On a slightly less exciting note, I arrived at the theatre this morning to discover that I had received a parking ticket. Turns out that last night when I went home after work, I completely forgot that I had driven my car in that morning--something I rarely do, and only did yesterday so that I could attend my Anthropology course and still get to work in time to set up for the Seagull reading. So I blithely walked home last night, as I always do (well, actually not terribly blithely--it was dark by that time, and kind of chilly, and I wouldn't have minded driving home if I had remembered that my car was available), and then this morning as I was walking in, I passed the spot where I had parked the day before, thought "hm, that's the spot where I parked yesterday," realized "hm, that's my car parked in that spot," noticed "hm, that's a ticket on the windshield," and then the whole foolish series of events came crashing into my consciousness. Oops.

Little Green Men

2007-09-17T16:19:00.001-07:00

So, I had my first Anthropology course this morning. No, I haven't started grad school quite yet, in case that announcement took you by surprise. I've just signed up to audit an Anthropology course at Princeton while I'm here, since there actually was one on offer that works with my internship schedule (well, theoretically, at least), and I've never actually taken an Anthro class before (I was signed up for two different ones at various points while at UPS, but neither of them ended up fitting into my schedule and I was forced to drop both—kinda ironic, really, since that seems to be the direction I appear to ultimately be taking with my academic career, and I think those were the only two classes I ever dropped. I wonder what I’d be doing now if I had taken one, or both… Hm…)

Anyway, I figured that taking an Anthropology course would be a good idea for several reasons: (1) I can see for sure whether Anthropology is something I want to devote my next 5-7 years of study on, (2) I can get a little more background into the study of Anthropology which might inform my decision of what specific aspects of it I want to focus on (which apparently I need to figure out BEFORE I apply), and (3) when I do apply, it will be one more way to show that I really am serious about this Anthropology thing, even if I did major in theatre and then spend this whole year interning in it as well…

So today was the first day of the course. The lectures are Monday mornings, 8:30 to 10:00 am, which means I start the week off nice and early, but it should mostly be doable, since 10:00 is when I’m usually scheduled to start work. Of course, today that turned out not to be the case. I mentioned, in my last post, that one of the many jobs I was scrambling to accomplish last week (and on into the weekend, as it turned out) involved coordinating an upcoming reading of Emily Mann’s adaptation of The Seagull, by Anton Chekhov (her version is called A Seagull in the Hamptons).

So, that reading was scheduled for today at 3:00, which meant it rehearsed from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm, which meant the actors arrived on the train at 10:30 am, which meant I had to pick up bagels in the morning and then arrive by 9:30 am to finish the last-minute preparations and set-up in time for everyone’s arrival. So I was trying to decide whether it was possible for me to make the first day of the Anthro class. Since it would be the first day, I both didn’t want to miss it, and didn’t know the professor/space/teaching environment well enough to know whether it would be appropriate/possible for me to duck out a bit early. I decided to at least pop into the classroom a little before 8:30 to check things out, and luckily there was a seat right in the back by the door, so I decided to stay.

There was, at first, no sign of the professor. Just a bunch of students milling in and chattering quietly, finding their seats. At precisely 8:30, the professor wanders in, and the classroom quiets. He gazes up at us for a moment, and then says, with quiet wonder, "Isn't the news extraordinary?" And then he pauses for a moment while we all wrack our brains to think about what might have been in the news today that would be pertinent to the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Shoot. Will I have to have a thorough working knowledge of current events for this class so I won’t look like a total idiot?

And then he goes on: "I mean, a year ago when we landed on Mars, that was exciting enough. And then discovering that not only was there life on Mars, but there was actually human life! To be sure, they were a little greenish, a little funny-looking, but essentially human. And they were very friendly to us, and we soon learned to communicate with them, and our delegation has been living with them in peace for a year now."

"And then today, so we hear, the Martians sat our people down and told them, very nicely, 'Look. We'll help you out, and provide you with all the food and supplies you need, but we want you to leave our planet. We want you to leave, and never come back.' They had learned enough about us, and studied our history of dealings with one another, and decided it was in their own best interests to shut their planet off to us. So they would make sure we had what we needed to make it back to Earth, but they never wanted to see our people again."

"So here's the question," he continued. "Do we have a right to go back? Do they have a right to forbid us to? You don't have to tell me what you actually believe, and nothing you say in here will be held against you at your confirmation hearings. But I want to hear some arguments on either side of the issue, and I want you to explain your assumptions and the principles you are basing your arguments on."

And then we spent the rest of the class period discussing this hypothetical situation and talking about how, well, maybe if the Martians possessed something that was necessary to the survival of our species we might have a right to return, even against their will, to collect it. Or maybe we might feel that we could put the planet, or some part of it, to a better use than they could, and so in utilitarian terms we would have the right to extract from the land the greatest good for the greatest number. Or maybe we felt that they weren't culturally developed enough to take care of themselves and their planet, or maybe they practiced some barbaric customs like slavery or human sacrifice, and we felt bound to step in and act as guardians of some sort. Or maybe there were sections of the planet that they didn't inhabit, and we would have a right to visit those portions. Or maybe the Martians who ordered us never to return didn't have the legal rights to speak for the entire planet, so we weren't bound to obey their orders...

It was all very fascinating, and I'm looking forward to seeing how these concepts, and the many complicated intricacies that the specific cases ended up playing themselves out into, manifest themselves in discussions about indigenous peoples here on Earth. But I loved that he started so very theatrically like that, and he never did admit that the Martian case was a hypothetical one--just kept talking like it was absolutely true. It was glorious. So, anyway, it should be a great class. He seems to have a tendency to throw in those quiet professor-jokes that only a few people actually pick up on enough to react to, which I invariably find hilarious. And it was neat to see so many people willing to toss their hands up and throw out an idea. That’s something kids at UPS sometimes had trouble with, and there were classes where I felt like I had to frequently speak up to avoid awkward, dead student-silence. But since I’m auditing this class, I’m actually not supposed to speak up, so it’s nice to see that there are plenty of other people willing to do so.

It should be a good class. The rest of the day went well, also—the reading went off pretty smoothly, all things considered, and it’ll be much easier to coordinate future readings here now that I’ve done one and know how it all goes. It was kind of a crazy process, because the thing wasn’t fully cast until late Saturday, and I had all sorts of follow-up stuff to do once each role was cast, so I ended up having a bunch of little tasks to work on over the weekend. But I was able to get things done with enough spare time to drive down to Baltimore for Saturday night/Sunday morning, which was lovely and restful and fun, so that was good. And the rest of this week should be pretty relaxed, once we get all the catch-up work done that piled up today while I was in the rehearsal room for the reading. At least, it should definitely be relaxed compared to last week. So, that’ll be good.

The weather’s getting cooler here—autumn is approaching. I’ve managed to get a few benches into my new bench journal. I’m planning to take a morning or an afternoon off this week to recoup a few of the extra hours I put in last week. All in all, things are going pretty gloriously well in my life at the moment. Hope all is well in yours. Much love.

A Wild and Wonderful Week

2007-09-11T21:41:00.000-07:00

It’s been a fun-filled week since last I posted. Work has been busy as ever. Stick Fly had its final dress rehearsal last Wednesday night, with the first significant outside audience we’d had, which was very fun. You can read my post on the McCarter blog about it here. Some pretty sizable script revisions came out of this process, so I stayed in late Thursday night processing those. And then I went to the preview on Friday night. It’s a great show, and the audiences are loving it. According to production notes, there were instant standing ovations the past two nights. During previews. Pretty impressive.

Also did a lot of work on Tartuffe dramaturgy. Pulling together images for the program, picking up the last few books from the library, photocopying useful chapters, and compiling an actor resource packet for the first day of rehearsal (which was today). And, I got to meet Will Power, who is this uber-cool hip-hop playwright. He did some work with the La Jolla Playhouse last year, and is now an artist-in-residence at McCarter, where he’s working on writing a new play. He had a list of books he was planning to use for his research that he wanted to have available when he got to the theatre, so I checked those out on my card a while back so that when he arrived we could go to the library and transfer them over to his. So we met up and walked across town to the library to do that, and chatted a bit as we walked. He’s a really nice guy, and his play sounds very interesting. So, anyway, a fun and eventful week at work.

On Saturday, I finally took the time to complete the finishing touches on my room décor. This involved buying a couple yards each of a few different fabrics to drape over my closet rack and writing desk, and to make some curtains out of. I also got this really comfy papasan-esque chair for the corner by the window. Set all that up Saturday night, so now the space is pretty much complete, aside from perhaps a few more wall decorations. It feels really cozy and homey up in my treehouse now, and makes me happy. If you've been asking me for pictures, you'll get them soon, now that it's actually pretty much done.

I also picked up a bench journal. Now what precisely, you might be wondering, is a bench journal? Well you see, it turns out that Princeton has this amazingly incredible assortment of benches scattered throughout the town. Like, I think if everyone in Princeton simultaneously decided they wanted to sit down on a bench, there would probably be enough seating space to accommodate them all. So, I was telling Kate Fox about it, and she said that I should make it a goal to sit on every bench in Princeton during my time here in New Jersey. Which sounded like an excellent idea to me. Potentially impossible (I'm telling you, it's a heck of a lot of benches) but certainly worth a shot. Furthermore, I’ve decided to keep a journal noting the various qualities of each bench I sit on—location, environment, activity level, scenery, light, squirrel population, etc. So I picked up the journal this weekend, and I’ve been scoping out benches as I walk through town, deciding which ones I want to try out first. I think I’ll make up a map of them as well, at some point, and perhaps eventually do some ranking in various categories. You know, “Best Bench to Eat Lunch On,” “Best Bench for People-Watching,” “Most Isolated Bench,” etc. Yeah, I’m kinda into benches…

Saturday evening the theatre offered the interns a chance to make a little extra money by ushering at a Princeton orientation event that was being held at McCarter. 1,244 incoming freshmen crammed into the theater to listen to speeches by some of the college deans and a couple of student government representatives. Our job was mainly to herd them in to get seated, convince enough of them to sit up in the spillover seating on the stage itself, and make sure they filled in all the seats, as by the time everyone arrived the theater was completely packed.

It was interesting to watch the “first week of college” social dynamics playing themselves out in the process—-which kids were eager to be the crazy ones sitting up on the stage, which kids were mortified at the very thought of this… The weirdest part was hearing them addressed as the “Class of 2011.” Are you kidding me? Twenty-Eleven?!? That’s, like, The Future. Like freaking flying cars, teleportation, meal-in-a-pill, colony-on-the-moon kind of Future, you know what I mean? Crazy!

The speeches were generally shockingly meaningless, and basically composed of unrelenting streams of trite platitudes that could potentially have provided some useful advice to guide a college experience if they had not been delivered with such agonizing repetitiveness and complete and utter lack of any context, illustration, or rhetorical skill. I came away kind of shocked and disappointed by how passive our culture has become about presentational mediocrity. We are so apathetically polite that we don’t demand any kind of effort on the part of people to whom we render up our attention. I mean, I’m all for politeness and respect and understanding that not everybody is a brilliant speechmaker. But there’s a part of me that feels like we should at least have high enough standards to make people strive, and not feel comfortable about sleepwalking through wasting an hour of over a thousand different people’s time with a bunch of uninspired blather. I just sense, somehow, that the audiences of, say, Ancient Greece, or Shakespearean England, would not have tolerated that sort of thing. Like, tomatoes would have been lobbed. And maybe that’s the reason we’re still watching the plays they wrote back then. You know?

Anyway, then Sunday morning I drove out to Philadelphia for some Irish set dancing, which I found out about from one of the gentlemen at contra dancing the other week. It was fun times. Ira was able to meet me out there, which was very brave of him, as he’d never done any Irish dancing before and thus basically had no clue what he was getting into. And then it turned out that they didn’t have a caller, and everyone else there just kind of knew all the dances, so that made things even more exciting. They were very nice about whispering quick pointers before each set and pushing us in the right directions and such, but they were also kinda intense about it, so I got lots of pointers about how bouncy to (not) be and what kind of steps to take and where to put my feet. Turns out set dancing is a bit more structured and restrained than ceilidh, which, by contrast, is a glorious bouncy, twirling free-for-all. Have to say that ultimately I prefer ceilidh, but it was still a pretty fun experience, and Ira was a very excellent sport about it all. Afterwards we explored the neighborhood a bit, which was nice, and then drove around trying to find a place to eat, which is apparently no small feat in a Philadelphia suburb on a Sunday night. Finally found a diner called the Trolley Car, which Ira was pretty excited about. Had dinner there, and then called it a night.

This week at work is another crazy one. I’m doing double-duty (or maybe even triple- or quadruple-duty, I’m kind of losing count), which makes things a bit intense. Tartuffe started rehearsals today, and I’m slated to sit in on the first few days of those so people get used to my presence in the room and so I can assist on any initial dramaturgical needs. And then in the evenings I take line notes for Stick Fly (which basically means I sit in a dressing room listening to the show on intercom and keep a list for each actor of every line they mix up in any way throughout the performance, and then deliver them at the end of the night—-kinda satisfying, since I’ve become such a keeper of the script on this show by now anyway). I’m also coordinating an upcoming staged reading of Emily Mann’s A Seagull in the Hamptons, so I’m calling actors and confirming information and doing other organizational preparation for that. Plus, you know, I am still technically the literary management intern, as well, so I squeeze in those duties whenever it’s possible. Like I said, kind of intense, but it’s all neat stuff and I’m learning a lot. And it’s all precisely what I signed up for.

So, essentially, nineteen-word summary: Doing lots, having fun, very happy. Wish you were here. And now, off to sit on a bench somewhere.

A Labor Day Weekend for the Record Books

2007-09-04T20:31:00.000-07:00

Wow... So, someone pinch me and tell me that this past weekend was only three days long. Because I could have sworn it lasted at least a full week. Surely no shorter period of time could have held as much loveliness and perfection as I have experienced since last Friday.

Friday started out intense, as the last day in a long and hectic week at the theatre involving lots of last-minute, complicated script revisions, some intensive Tartuffe dramaturgy, highly involved editing of the Stick Fly program and online resource guide, script logging, script reading, and a variety of other literary and dramaturgical tasks--all very fun and enlightening, fortunately, but certainly sufficient to keep me plenty busy all week long. I also had a couple of chances to babysit the darling three-year-old son of playwright Lydia Diamond. This little boy knows all the words to Annie's "The Sun'll Come Out Tomorrow" and belts them unashamedly if you ask him to. It's adorable. And then we went to this fountain on the other side of the campus and he spent over an hour contentedly splashing around in it, as I waded along behind him, which was pretty hilarious. The play is coming together well, and we actually start previews in a couple of days, which is kind of insane. But I'm looking forward to seeing it fully fleshed/lit/costumed out.

At the very end of the day I dashed out to deliver McCarter newsletters to local businesses, which would ideally have been done earlier in the week except for the insanity of tech week made this impossible, and so I didn't have nearly enough time to hit everywhere I was supposed to, but I did my best... And just after 6 I took off to head out to Baltimore, where Ira, a friend and fellow playwright I met this past June at the conference up in Alaska (who is also in a band, called Even So--you can check out their myspace if you want to hear their music--it's lots of fun), was having a show which I had made plans to come out and see. It's just under a three-hour drive from P-ton to B-more, and despite the fact that as far as I can tell the state of Delaware consists of little more than five straight miles of impenetrable traffic snarls, I managed to make it into town just in time to catch the band performing.

It was a really fun show, with a couple of other cool groups as well, in a funky little venue with all these hip intellectual East Coast kids, and generally just an excellent night. The next morning Ira had a ten-minute play being read at the Kennedy Center, which is this playwright development center in Washington DC, so I stuck around to check that out as well. He started this playwrights group of Baltimore a while back, and they were putting up twelve ten-minutes, each of which contained, at some point in the script, mention of both a whistle and a naked light bulb. Some interesting stuff.

We also saw a reading of an INCREDIBLE solo performance piece by this writer/performer named Josh Lefkowitz, which was hilarious and spot-on and brilliant, and all about being a playwright and trying to write in the wake of having just finished a really successful first performance piece and not really having any ideas, and also about relationships, and it was perhaps one of the most engaging pieces of theatre I've experienced in a while, which was way fun. (If you want to hear me rant about it some more (and honestly, if you're reading this you've obviously got some sort of sadomasochistic fascination with my interminable rambling) you can check out the McCarter blog (which I tend to post on once or twice a week because Adam, who is in charge of making sure it gets updated regularly, is in my department and too nice a guy to refuse when he comes in worried about how he can't find anybody to write an entry). You should check it out, especially if you're interested in finding out more about what I get up to at work. You should also look at this interview I conducted with Stick Fly director Shirley Jo Finney, because she's pretty deep and amazing and it's a really fun interview. Also the web design is quite pretty to look at. Anyway, end of lengthy McCarter-website-plug interjection...)

We also got a chance to walk around DC a bit, which was cool because I've never been out there, and it was an absolutely gorgeous day--incredible sunset over the river, the monuments lit up in the deepening dusk. Glorious. And the next morning we went out to this park in Towson down by the water, with beautiful trees and a very restful aura of natural, scenic peace, and it was just a truly lovely experience.

Then it was time for me to drive back to Princeton, so I could catch a train up to New York City, where I was scheduled to cover a show on behalf of the theatre. It was an interesting show, plus instead of regular audience chairs they had these incredibly comfy cushy sofas to sit in, so that was pretty amazing. And then afterwards I got a call from Kate Fox who was just getting settled back into her dorm apartment, so I met up with her and we caught up, which was fabulous, and I spent the night at her place.

The next morning I dashed out to catch an early train back to Princeton (which I missed by precisely one minute--darn subway delays!), and when I finally made it back into town I darted home, rapidly reorganized myself, and headed out of the apartment once more, this time setting off towards the Jersey shore in the company of five other McCarter interns. The head of the Marketing department had incredibly generously invited us to spend the day at his parents' beach house, and oh my goodness, this poor recently-ocean-deprived San Diego girl was ecstatic at the sight of white sand and rolling surf. Mmm. I could have sat on that beach forever, despite the mild but constant sting of horizontally wind-borne sand.

Alas, eventually we did have to depart and head back into Princeton so we could get to work the next day, but even the drive home was an excellent one, with some quality intern-bonding conversation in my car with my roommate Raegan and Rachel the education intern. All of this year's interns are really cool people, and we've bonded quite well thus far, and have had a couple of movie nights and fun evenings out to the ice cream shop or a local bar, which has all been quite excellent. I am really hard-pressed to imagine ways in which this whole situation could be much more ideal.

Anyway, basically it was a pretty incredible weekend, and I kind of can't believe how much happened in such a quantitatively short space of time. All very good, though. I am very happy to be out here, and I am currently kind of in a state of awe about how many things have fallen into place in my life this year in some pretty amazing and unexpected ways. Wishes of similar moments of contentedness, appreciation of life's beauty, and feelings of rightness in the lives of each of you reading this, and all those who aren't but who nevertheless hold a special place in my heart and mind. Much love to you all.

She's Just The Right Combination of Flexible and Anal-Retentive

2007-08-12T22:42:00.000-07:00

The above is a direct quote from my boss, made yesterday morning in reference to my work preparing the script revision pages for the second day of rehearsals. I took it as the compliment it was intended to be, and asked if I could quote her on that. She said she'd be sure to stick it in any letters of recommendation she writes for me. :-)

Well, it's been an amazing first few weeks living out here on the East Side. And I guess I actually haven't posted a blog update since South Dakota. Wow, a lot of ground covered since then... So, brief overview:

The morning after my last post was one of those absurd days when everything goes just slightly wrong. I miss tours, am charged outrageous entry fees, get lost in obnoxious seas of tourists, drift three hours behind my planned driving schedule, am bitten by vicious flies who find their way into my car and attack my ankles as I'm driving, and then, after I've finally taken a moment to pull over and journal and get over some of my frustration, I get back on the road and am pulled over for speeding, and then an hour later a crazy lightning storm rolls in and I'm forced to try to find a place to pull in early because I'm driving through freaking flat-as-a-pancake South Dakota, and who knows what could happen if I drive into the middle of this puppy. Oy.

After that things got better. The next morning I stopped at the Archeodome, which is this amazing archaeology site excavating an old Native American village, with fascinating displays, and I made friends with a British archaeology student working there. Then I drove through Minnesota, stopped briefly to follow some signs to the Spam Museum (which, sadly, was closed), drove into Wisconsin and down along the Mississippi River, took a quick detour across the border into Iowa so I could say I'd been there (and was treated to a glorious, quiet sunset over the river, complete with cricket chirps and fireflies... all that was missing was the faraway pinging of a banjo), drove with relentless determination until 2 in the morning, and finally made it to my friend Donna's house in Milwaukee.

I stayed with her for the next few days, playing some frisbee golf (I am horrible at frisbee golf), meeting her roommates and other fellow med students, making several forays into Madison to spend time with some very cool friends, and of course picking up Harry Potter Seven at a midnight release party at the Milwaukee Public Library (which was lots of fun). Sadly, I had to wait almost 48 hours, the book sitting temptingly by my side the whole time, while I spent another day in Wisconsin hanging out with friends and then drove through Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan to meet up with my family, before I could actually dive headfirst into reading it.

The book was amazing, but I won't say more in case any of my readers haven't finished it yet, for some insane reason or other (seriously, what are you thinking? turn off the computer now, and get going!). And Michigan with the family was glorious, as always. So good to have everyone together for the first time in a long time (and the first time ever for a few of the newcomers). Fun times hanging out around the house, picking blackberries, playing games, swimming in the lake, going minigolfing, etc. The CLUE play starred six of the seven grandchildren (one had gone to bed and played his role in absentia) and was a wild success--or at least, a cursory (as in, fictional) internet search has revealed no written reviews to contradict such an optimistic claim.

All too soon it was time to press onward, so I drove through the rest of Michigan and into Canada, making it to Niagara Falls by nightfall in time to catch them lit up in all their nocturnal splendor. I spent the night there and the next morning took a few hours to walk around and explore in the daylight. A glorious place--I highly recommend a visit if you ever have the chance. Then I drove through New York and Pennsylvania, and managed to make it into Princeton by the evening.

There I managed to find my apartment, and was welcomed by Brent Ferguson, husband of one of the leaders of my high school Bible study group and former attendee of Princeton Seminary. They still live in the area, with a two-year-old daughter and another on the way (or possibly arrived--I haven't spoken with them in about a week...) Brent came bearing a welcoming assortment of food, milk, and OJ to tide me over until I could get to the grocery store, and some maps to find my way around. He also helped me pick my bedroom from the two available. I opted for the "treehouse" (as nicknamed by McCarter's company manager, who apprently described the room thus only to me out of the apartment's three incoming occupants, so I think I was getting the attic room spin sell from the get-go)--a cozy room up my own little flight of stairs, with sloped ceilings that get about six feet high at the tallest point (which gives me a good two inches of clearance--plenty!) and really does have a lovely tree just outside the window. The first few days it was pretty intolerably toasty up here, but I've since fixed the air conditioner and now I am loving my arboreal sanctuary.

In the next couple of days I met my two roommates--Raegan, the development intern, who hails from Texas, and Heather, in stage management, and originally from Connecticut. They're both very cool people, fun to live with, responsible about cleaning and house maintenance, and chill but friendly. It seems like a good situation. I started work on August 1st, and it's been a whirlwind since then. I've already written a pretty extensive blog post about my first week and a half of work for McCarter's blog page, so you can check that out if you want more specifics about what I've been up to at work so far. In addition to working, I've had a little chance to explore the area, and I've been able to hang out with my friend Jess, who is just starting at the seminary, and who has introduced me to a bunch of her seminarian friends, all of whom are very cool, and with whom I have so far cooked pasta, played Apples to Apples (yes! I know!), gone bowling, and gone out for ice cream. Fun times.

The area is incredibly beautiful, with absolutely amazing architecture, and the people are all really cool. I went to the grocery store today, and everyone was so nice! Other people were actually dancing along to the grocery store music (I'm usually the only one...) and the guy ahead of me in the checkout line and I had a lengthy conversation about lentils and treacle and soup and other food-related adventures. I get to walk through campus on the way between home and work, and pretty much every building looks like a castle. I'll probably post some photos soon, and you can see for yourself if you've never been out here. We also live right next to the cemetary, which is actually a kind of nice place to sit in the shade and read or journal (I feel like Anne of Green Gables, or of Windy Harbor or wherever it is that she lives right near a cemetary and loves to go walk around in it). Grover Cleveland and Aaron Burr are both buried in there, in case you wanted some random Princeton Cemetary trivia... Or in case for you (like Allie) Grover Cleveland is your favorite Grover Cleveland.

Anyway, the point is, I am completely loving living here, and the internship is cool, and my living situation is cool, and I think this is going to be a very good year. And now I'd better get to bed so I can get some sleep before work tomorrow. More later!

A Very Harry Roadtrip

2007-07-16T23:05:00.000-07:00

So, I really should get to bed soon, but I wanted to dash off a quick update RE the roadtrip while I'm online. It's been great so far. I've made it across Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, seen some glorious scenery, including Old Faithful, Beartooth Highway, Little Bighorn Battlefield, Deadwood, Needles Scenic Highway, and Mount Rushmore, as well as lots of glorious places along the way without fancy names or distinctive fame. Lots more fun stuff still to come, as well. I'll probably give a much fuller overview later. For now, just wanted to comment on the strong theme of Harry Potter running throughout the experience thus far.

So, it started off with a Harry and the Potters (that's an Indie Wizard Rock band from MA, for the uninitiated--check out their myspace page) concert at the Seattle Public Library, followed by a viewing of the movie version of Order of the Phoenix, both of which were excellent. The former was apparently their biggest show thus far, and lots of fun with many enthusiatic fans dancing around to "Hagrid Is Fun To Hug" and singing along to "Human Hosepipe." The latter was of course hopelessly abridged, but almost everything they did decide to include, especially the characters of Luna Lovegood and Dolores Umbridge, were spot-on, IMHO.

All that excitement occurred Friday night, back in Seattle. The next morning, clad proudly in the "Save Ginny!" t-shirt I had purchased the previous evening at the concert, I departed for my great adventure. And of course what was I listening to on the journey but the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, on tape? Naturally. And THEN, I get in to this random motel in Bozeman, Montana, which wasn't even in the AAA book, and I ended up getting the number from the people at another place that was booked up. And I've checked in and I'm bringing my stuff up to my room from the car, when somebody hanging out the front door of a big van parked nearby in the lot calls out, "Hey, is that a Save Ginny Weasley shirt?" "Yes," I reply. "We're travelling with them!" he informs me excitedly. "This is their van! We've got their drummer with us. They're playing a wedding tonight, and we're meeting up in two days in Minnesota." "Wow!" I said. "I was at your show last night, in Seattle!" "Oh, then we sold you that t-shirt, didn't we?" And sure enough, he and the girl sitting in the navigator's seat had been the two behind the t-shirt table the previous evening, some 700 miles away. As it turned out, they had been assigned the room right next to mine. Some crazy coincidence, eh? Or, as the Harrys would probably have it, just a part of that magical connection forged by the conjunction of the amazing powers of love and rock.

And to top all this off, of course, the seventh (and final!) HP book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, will be released at midnight on July 20th, which is in less than four days, for those of you who are counting, which should be all of you. So I've got a list of places with midnight book release parties in all the cities I might possibly be in on that particular evening. The hard part will be deciding whether to devour it instantly starting the moment I procure it, or to ration its pages so as to savor them and forestall the dreaded moment when the reading experience is done and there are no more Harry Potter books to come... 'Twill be a sad day. Luckily, I already have connections at my final destination in New Jersey making arrangements for post-book 7 supprt groups.

That's all for now! Bedtime! More later...

Love Levels: My Latest Psychological Theory

2007-06-08T12:14:00.000-07:00

So, remember that moment, sometime in middle school, when everybody suddenly became obsessed with liking somebody, you know, like that, and the prospects of it became "real" because there were actually dances and things to go to with people? Well, when my life hit that point, there was this question I started asking myself. It had to do with the fact that, by my understanding, we as Christians were all supposed to love each other, to love everybody we came into contact with, to love them as God loves them, or at least to try. But then here were all my peers talking about how they loved this person or that person, and I knew they meant something slightly different, but I couldn't figure out exactly what it was.

I mean, did it just have to do with adding to the basic love they felt for everybody an additional feeling of physical attraction? I didn’t like that very much, or at least, it didn’t seem like it deserved to be called “love.” “Lust” sounded more like the appropriate term for that particular sentiment, and what was all so meaningful about lust? How could it possibly (looking, admittedly, a little far ahead in the timeline) cement a lifelong, meaningful relationship like marriage? Why should we allow it to guide us towards that sort of a relationship? Why not base that process on some more reliable force? But what?

I pondered this for a long time, for years, drawing gradually closer to some sort of answer, putting pieces together, but I was still pretty perplexed about it all. But I was pondering things a few night ago, and at the end of an intensive journalling session, I had put together a framework that made a sort of sense I had never quite achieved before. I don’t think this is necessarily the whole picture or the definitive answer or anything, but it explains a lot of things in a way I’d like, so I’m interested to hear what other people think about it. It’s a bit complicated and involved (this probably comes as an enormous surprise to those of you who know me) so you’ll have to bear with me to get through it. But I appreciate anybody who takes the time to do so and to share any of their responses, questions, arguments, etc.

Here we go.

So, as I see it, there are these different levels at which we are able to love a person. First of all, at the deepest level of a person, there is the person that God created them to be, the person God sees when He looks at that person in love, the person He died to save. And I think that if we could see that person deep inside somebody, we would love them, we would love everybody we could see in that way, and that is the way we should try to see people as much as possible.

But that's made more difficult by the fact that on top of the person God has created us to be, we have each layered on various sins and selfishnesses and insecurities and other things, so that when people look at us they can barely see the true person we have dwelling somewhere deep inside of us. As we look at a person, what we see are all the things that have been layered onto them. The more we get to know a person, the deeper we see into these layers.

At first we see a few of a person's actions, and that's all we know of them. As we get to know a person more and more, we next see the patterns within their actions, and then we start to see the intentions behind those actions, and then we see the desires and drives and beliefs behind those intentions. Each descent into deeper knowing brings us closer to the person they are trying to be. And somewhere in there underneath is the person they were created to be, but I think even in the best of people the person they're trying to be never quite approaches the person they were created to be, although for some people it's closer than others.

So then among everyone we meet, there are some people whose outward selves, at whatever level we see them, we are able to love for one reason or another. Either their actions themselves are simply lovable, or if not, then as we get to know them better we see that those unlovable actions are really failed attempts towards a lovable goal, and we love the person they are trying to be. I think some people have become so twisted that we can't even love the person they are trying to be. But I still believe that, somewhere underneath, there is still an ultimately lovable person who God created them to be. This is my understanding of concepts like "Hate the sin, but love the sinner." At some level, every person is lovable, because God loves each of us.

So anyway, the next level after this love for the person we see, which has to do with appreciation or respect for how they act or at least how they're trying to act, who they're trying to be--the next level is friendship-love. This comes when, among people we love/respect/admire because of what they're trying to do with themselves, we recognize in some of them a special kind of affinity, a connection in areas that we deeply value. They're not the areas we think every good person should consider important, but they're ones that we consider important, and so we are able to connect with other people who also consider them important in a special way that we can't connect to people who we still deeply respect, but don't happen to have these particular interests or values or ways of thinking about things in common with us. And that special affinity is friendship. You might deeply respect someone with whom you simply don't have enough in common to be a friend--that doesn't mean you love them any less, or they're any less worthwhile or valuable of a person, it just means you don't happen to have enough of the slightly more superficial things in common with them to love them through the particular actions and relationship of friendship.

So friendship-love is a little more arbitrary, which doesn't make it un-meaningful, especially because it is at the level of friendship that we are more able to make our love felt because it involves more direct interaction, but it just doesn't have as much to do with the things that really matter in the bigger picture in terms of who a person is. So then the next level, which is in a similar fashion even more arbitrary but at the same time more personal, is romantic love. I've been talking over the past few months to a number of different friends about romantic attraction, and those whose opinions I most trust and respect have all mentioned a similar phenomenon.

They have talked about romantic attraction. At first I thought they just meant physical attraction, and this is a conversation I have had with friends before--should you date somebody who is pretty perfect in a number of ways, but you don't happen to find physically attractive. And since it has always been my opinion that physicality is way less important than personality and character and such, my position has typically been, "sure, give it a try at least, you might find them more and more physically attractive as you get to know their beautiful personality." But then one friend made a distinction, saying it wasn't just physical attraction she was talking about this time, that physical attraction was, if present at all, a relatively unimportant part of what she was talking about, which was a more global, if not much less arbitrary, feeling of magnetism towards a certain person, a still probably chemical and fluttery-stomach-based fascination for everything about a person--the things they do, the way they talk, the way they think, tiny little quirks, that sort of thing.

I knew instantly what she was talking about. This I had experienced before. For me, it starts not quite the moment I meet a person, but soon thereafter. They'll do or say something that somehow alerts me, and instantly reveals a whole interconnected set of characteristics that for whatever reason are immensely appealing to me. And then that interest bleeds back into the moment I first saw them, and forward into my desire to get to know more about them, and deepens the more I find out and the more they reveal certain characteristics. And as I look at all the people I have felt this way about in my life, and the degree to which I've felt it about each of them, I see patterns begin to emerge--certain common traits. It's as though I have a sort of model in my head that I am attracted to romantically, and I am romantically attracted to a person to the extent that they match up with this model.

I think this is similar to the friend process I described above, but even more arbitrary. The qualities that make someone a candidate for friendship are qualities that, if not necessary to a person being worthwhile, we still see as somehow specifically valuable, usually for reasons we are capable of explaining if we are asked. But the qualities that make us romantically attracted to a person are often incredibly random, things that there is no real compelling reason to value that we could explain--we just do, we can't really help it, and we may not even be fully aware of what, exactly, those qualities are.

This is not to completely denigrate romantic love. I think that, as flawed humans who have extreme difficulty seeing in each person we meet the person that God created them to be, we are able to come the closest to this, or at least to most closely experience the depth of love that this process would allow us to feel for each person, in the experience of romantic love. I brought up this idea of romantic attraction with pretty much the wisest, most spiritually mature woman I know, expecting her to say something like, "well, yes, it's helpful at first, but eventually you grow to the point where you don't need something so silly and arbitrary as that sort of attraction." Instead, she insisted avidly that this feeling of romantic attraction was an invaluably necessary factor in getting through the struggles and conflicts and misunderstandings of a romantic relationship, especially one of lifelong commitment.

The unmitigated support of someone whose opinion I so implicitly trust really made me examine this kind of romantic attraction and its importance in a new light. I can see her point, that this chemical attraction helps smooth over the inevitable difficulties of intimate interaction between two ultimately flawed, selfish, sinful individuals. It's probably true that a serious attempt at a committed relationship in its absence would be folly. At the same time, it is still incredibly arbitrary. Which means that whether or not a person is romantically attracted to you is not an indication about any really important aspects of your worth as an individual. It's just a relatively random matter of whether or not you happen to fit the pattern wired into their brain and body through whatever accidents of genetics and personal history have placed it there.

As you go back through the love levels described above, you reach more and more centrally important aspects of self and value. Friendship love is sparked by slightly more meaningful but still somewhat arbitrary details of character and preference. Respect for external actions or intentions, for the person you are striving to be, is a mark of far deeper and more important lovable qualities. And it is a love for the person deep inside of us, the person God has created us to be and is gradually, as we allow Him, guiding us to become, that is ultimately meaningful. This is the kind of love God has for us, and in truth, God's love for this part of us is all we really need.

But our society has got it all backwards. Somehow, we have twisted our view of reality until the ultimate mark of a person's validity is whether or not they are in a romantic relationship. A story does not end "happily ever after" unless the prince and princess end up married. Pick ten movies, or ten books, at random off a shelf, and tell me how many of their satisfying conclusions do not include a consummated romance. In fact, tell me how many do not include a desperate pursuit of a romantic relationship for the implied if not explicitly stated purpose of proving one's worth to oneself or others. This is particularly the case with movies and books oriented towards a female audience, and its effects are apparent in the countless conversations I have had with women struggling painfully with the fact that they are not in a romantic relationship, and desperately desire to be, because otherwise they do not feel valuable or lovable. When in fact all they should need to do is recognize the fact that God loves them for the person they truly are, deep down, and that is so incomparably incredible and meaningful that nothing else, certainly not the romantic affection of some random human individual, could possibly compare.

Anyway, those are my thoughts as they currently stand. Once again, I welcome any criticism, questions, comments, clarifications, etc. that anybody has to offer. And I will point out that anybody who is reading this is doing so because, whether or not I am capable of truly seeing you for who God intends you to be and loving you in your true form, I love you and respect you deeply for the person you act as and are trying to be, and value you as a friend with whom I share many meaningful things. And although even that fact pales into insignificance in the face of the unalterable fact of God’s amazing love for you, I desire to give you the knowledge of it as a gift that, because of my love for you, I hope will bring you happiness and peace to the extent that you need it and of which it is capable, while not becoming a substitute for embracing the divine love we have been graciously created to dwell deeply and joyfully amidst.

What I Did in May(ne)

2007-06-08T11:36:00.000-07:00

So, admittedly the entry below this one, which I posted the other day, was a bit of a random one, and probably not what you'd expect after a month without a post. But Keagan and I were talking about how one day he's going to college, and he said he thought it was about a hundred hours from now, and I explained that one hundred hours was only about four days, and it was probably longer than that, so he said maybe it was a THOUSAND hours, and I explained that still wouldn't even get him into kindergarten, so I told him we'd figure out the real number of hours when we got home. He suggested we look it up on the internet, which is what we did when we wanted to know how many pores the average person has (he was counting the holes in his body--mouth, ears, nose, etc., and I mentioned that he should consider including pores), so then I had to explain that things were only on the internet if someone had decided to put them on there, and that it wasn't necessarily likely that someone had decided to work out how many hours there are between preschool and college and post it on the internet, but we could figure it out with a calculator. And then Keagan suggested that WE post it on the internet after we'd figured it out, in case anybody else wanted to find it. So, that's what we did.

Anyway, the point is that it's been quite a while since I've actually posted any updates on the course of my life, so I'm going to post a quick summary of the past month. I also have a new philosophical/psychological theory that I'd like to hear people's thoughts on, so I wanted to post that here as well. I'm still trying to work out exactly what the point of a blog is. What do my readers (all three or four of them...) come here to find? Descriptions of my recent activities? Developments of my opinions? My blog, like my journal, has thus far tended to be a strange, disjointed mishmash of these two impulses, mainly because there is a part of me that feels most valued when other people know random details about my life and activities, but there's another part of me that is way more interested in ideas and their development and how people respond to them, and the battle between these two parts of myself is fought in forums such as this one. I apologize to the innocent casualties of this war.

The upshot is that I am going to fill this post with random details, and then I am going to immediately create a separate post with an explanation of my theory. I sense that there may be a couple of my readers more interested in my activities, and a couple more interested in my thoughts, so hopefully my tendency to keep the two separated is helpful to you. Perhaps someday I will learn to use a blog function that makes it possible to view only one or the other type of post. Until then, you'll have to figure it out for yourselves by reading my introductions and getting a feel for a post's upcoming content.

Anyway, what has gone on in my life since I posted last? Well, the Relay-for-Life that I mentioned in a previous post was fabulous fun. I stayed up all night, had fun hanging out with some of my new friends from SPU, enjoyed improv and a late-night showing of Batman Begins, and stayed up all night reading Guns, Germs, and Steel, which is an absolutely fabulous book. Directly afterwards I drove down to Tacoma for a reunion breakfast with all the wonderful folks with whom I went to Mississippi last March. It was great to have one last time all together before many of us took off in various directions for the summer.

Speaking of taking off in various directions, the next day I departed for Maine, to meet up with my family and celebrate my grandfather's graduation from college. It was wonderful to get to spend some quality time with my grandfather (not to mention my mom, sisters, stepdad, and grandmother) during the week while he showed us around what we eventually came to term "The Sparkly State" (seriously, everything in Maine sparkles--the water, the rocks, the dirt, the roads, the plants...it's crazy). And then the rest of my mom's family drove up from Massachusetts, and I got to reconnect with all the wonderful relatives I so rarely get to see. I feel like I actually spent enough quality time with all of them that I'll be able to recognize them the next time I see them, which is always nice. I especially appreciated their enthusiasm as we painted celebratory slogans celebrating Grandpa Fred's graduation on everyone's car windows, aimed bubble guns out the car windows on the caravan ride to the ceremony, provided my grandfather with the loudest, longest cheer of anyone graduating that day, and finished off the evening with a couple of rousing games of Diced Apples to Apples.

Then I returned home to an overflowing e-mail inbox, and by the time I had that relatively under control, it was time for the aforementioned Double Shot Festival of overnight playwrighting. It was a wonderfully insane experience. I was given the initially dubious prompt of "dogwalker," along with a director I had met once before and three actors I met for five minutes in the hallway outside the theatre, and then I was sent off into the night to start writing. Eleven hours later, I returned to the theatre with a ten-page script I was actually pretty happy with (although I wasn't sure to what extent my judgement could be trusted at that particular sleep-deprievd moment). The director seemed to like the script after reading it through a couple of times. And then we put it into the hands and mouths of the actors, and it came alive! It was incredible! I could have gone home at that moment, completely content. But we still had a full day ahead of us to rehearse and prepare for two full productions that evening. The actors did their utmost to memorize my hopelessly wordy, monologue-ridden script and to do it justice in front of an audience. The jury is still out on whether the play actually makes any sense whatsoever, but I'm hoping to get some more feedback on it at an upcoming theatre conference in Alaska. (And if you have any interest in reading it, and I haven't sent it to you already, shoot me an e-mail request for it and I'll send you a copy.) In any event, I learned a lot and had a blast, and have so much respect for the directors and actors and all the other playwrights who devoted so much talent and energy to the process.

(If you want more information on the festival, check out the Tacoma News Tribune's review. This is a review of the first night's shows. Fortunately or unfortunately, the second night of shows, which included my script, does not seem to have been reviewed by anybody. But, the review of the first night is a good one, and it gives you an idea of what the actual experience is like for an audience member.)

After Double Shot I spent a week planning out my upcoming road trip across the country to Princeton, figuring out where I want to stop and what sights I want to see. It was an intense struggle for my J personality to leave my plans as open-ended as it is advisable if not necessary for them to be, but somehow I found a balance, and I am very excited for the adventure. Since then, I've done some more research on grad school programs, fellowships, and applications, spent lots of fun play time with my cousins over here, and actually finally had a couple of people make the trek out here to West Seattle to visit me in my own domain--some girls from church came over for a sleepover the other weekend, and Robby just drove up the other day from Tacoma while on brief leave from Iraq. All of which was very excellent.

I have just been reunited with my laptop after a couple of days getting the fan fixed, which was a painful but necessary separation, and now I can actually do things like watch videos and listen to music on my computer without worrying that it will slow to a halt, or, worse, completely and irrevocably fry its own hard drive.

I've got a few more days in Seattle before I head down to San Diego for a week, which should be very nice, and then from there I go directly up to Alaska for the theatre conference. Then it's another two weeks in Seattle for packing and goodbyes, and I'm off on my Great Cross-Country Road Trip Adventure. Wish me luck! And now, for something completely different (see above).

113,958

2007-06-06T15:32:00.001-07:00

...the number of hours in thirteen years... (Approximately the length of time until Keagan goes to college!)

Upcoming All-Nighters

2007-05-04T12:05:00.000-07:00

Turns out there are still opportunities to pull all-nighters even after you're out of school. Two opportunities I'm looking forward to this month:

Relay For Life at SPU, a 24-hour relay (walking though, not running, for any XCers out there who got excited...but still, fun times!) that's a fundraiser for cancer patients and research. For anyone who doesn't know what a 24-hour relay is, you have various teams camped out on a track, and each team has one person going around the track at all times, so people switch off and hang out and it's pretty much glorious crazy excitement. So that'll be fun, and a little nostalgic of the LJXC 12- and 24-hour relays of yore. Also, I just found out someone's bringing Apples to Apples--yay! (Hey, here's a fundraiser idea: a 24-hour Apples to Apples relay--teams make sure they always have one person engaged in a twenty-four-hour-long Apples to Apples game! Yes!!! (No, seriously, Robby, I've got it under control, though, really...)) Oh, but if anyone's interested in sponsoring me for that (Relay for Life, not the Apples to Apples relay), or donating any money to the cause, let me know. All proceeds go to cancer issues.

...and then...

Doubleshot Festival at UPS (SPU's evil arch nemesis--we even have the same colors, did you know that? Eerie...) Anyway, this is a two-day theatre festival. There are twelve playwrights and directors and a whole bunch of actors, split in half. The first half of the playwrights are each assigned a director and a handful of actors twenty-four hours before their play is supposed to go onstage. They are also given a theme. Then they're sent off to write all night. By morning, they're expected to have a finished script to hand over to the director and actors, who rehearse all day, and the collection of ten-minute plays is produced that evening. After the production, the remaining playwrights are given their directors and actors and their theme, and the process repeats, with a whole new collection of shows performed the following evening. Crazy, insane, incredibly amazing! I am one of the second-day playwrights, and I am so incredibly excited for this event. If you're living in the area and want to come check the festival out, contact me and I'll give you more info. An hour of plays resulting from the late-night, high-pressure, rapid-deadline mental brewings of six playwrights who have to be slightly mad to begin with to even agree to this crazy scheme--should be an interesting evening...

Return of the Intern!

2007-05-01T17:01:00.000-07:00

Apparently one summer of working as a literary management intern wasn't enough to scare me off entirely--I'm going back to the wild and woolly world of regional theatre! And I'm incredibly excited about it. I just found out this morning that I've been offered the intern position at McCarter Theatre, located on the campus of (though not really affiliated with) Princeton University in New Jersey! So, I will head out there sometime in August, and be working there for about a year.

My duties will include reading scripts to consider for production, facilitating and conducting dramaturgical research, attending artistic department staff meetings, observing rehearsals, dramaturging a high school student playwrighting festival, helping out with McCarter's in-festival of new work, and attending productions in New York to scope them out for the theatre. Al this in addition to the slightly less glamorous but just as necessary general administrative work like photocopying and script logging and office correspondence and such. McCarter has a lot of exciting projects coming up and is very invested in new work development (Emily Mann, their artistic director, is a playwright herself), so it should be a very exciting position, and I'm sure I will learn a ton.

In additional benefit, there will be a whole handful of supercool people I know living in that area next year. From Eli Ferguson, one of the leaders of my high school Bible study group, and her husband and soon-to-be-two little girls, to Kristy Roberts, current director of Tacoma College Ministry, to Jessica Lee, an amazing woman and one of my closest friends from the college fellowship group of the church I've been attending up here in Seattle... Not to mention Kate Fox and Amy Wong, two of my closest friends from high school, who will both be living a hop, skip, and a train ride away in New York City (where, did I mention, my job will actually be paying for me to go see theatre... did I mention that?!?) Oh my goodness, it couldn't get much better!

We're still working out my starting date (I'm really holding out to be able to make it to at least a good part of Running Camp, although ideally they'd like me to start at the beginning of August), but sometime this summer I'll be driving out there (woohoo, cross country road trip!). They provide housing, in apartments near the theatre, where I'll have my own room and live with a couple other interns. They even raised the weekly stipend a bit this year from years previous--so some nights I'll get to put butter on my top ramen! (Just kidding, they actually pay quite well, for a theatre internship.) I've been holding my breath for a couple of months now about this internship, which felt right from the moment I first found out about it, so I am so incredibly relieved and elated to have gotten the yes!

So, that was today... But I realized I haven't really posted much for over a month, so you might be wondering what else I've been up to. Well, since you asked... It's been a great month. I spent a lovely Easter up in Anacortes with Doug's parents, and then I visited Coach and Coach Singer (and got stranded up there by a horrible stomachache that was entirely my own fault (though perhaps exacerbated by Coach's bizarre insistence that port wine and chocolate would clear things up--my condition declined rapidly immediately thereafter, so I'm still a little dubious about the medicinal veracity of his claim)).

I saw a couple of interesting plays, including My Name Is Rachel Corrie at the Seattle Rep. That play--which is about an American girl in her 20s who went to Israel as an activist and got run over by a bulldozer while protesting the destruction of Palestinian homes and was killed--has been garnering the kind of controversy one has come to expect from any stance taken on the conflict brewing over there. Mostly, the play served to add fuel to my growing regret about how possible it is for those of us privileged to live in peace, safety, and prosperity to close our eyes and ears to the fact that most people in this world are not nearly so fortunate. This makes it easy for us to convince ourselves that we have somehow earned and are deserving of our lifestyle, and keeps us from feeling compelled to use the blessings we have been given to ensure that all people live in comfort and justice. I've had a couple of experiences recently that have begun to drive home to me, in very minor ways, how it might feel like to live in legitimate and immediate fear about my safety and survival from moment to moment, and it makes me ashamed that I don't have to live like that, and that so many people do, and that I am doing so little about it. So that's something I've been pondering a lot lately.

I also went down to San Diego for a week to hang out with my little sister while my mom and stepdad went out of town. We had lots of fun hanging out and dancing and playing and watching such cinematic classics of 80's fantasy filmography as The Never Ending Story. It was great.

I worked on a couple of small writing projects--an article about the recent College Fellowship retreat to Whidbey Island for the Bethany Pres newsletter, and a script about Internally Displaced Persons in Burma for an experiential exhibit being put together by a couple of my friends at SPU. I've really dived back in to working on my novel these past few weeks, as well. I've been doing some background research, and a whole lot of brainstorming, and things are really starting to link together and flesh out in exciting ways. (For more detailed information about that process, you can check out Garbage, my novel progress blog.)

And those are most of the major updates for the moment. Many more fun adventures lie before me in the months ahead, and I will dutifully detail them in subsequent entries, because, well, that's just the kind of person I am. I kind of can't stop myself. Oh, well--until then!

Virtual Town Hall on Iraq

2007-04-06T10:29:00.001-07:00

Click on the above banner to check out YouTube video clips from the forum on Iraq hosted by MoveOn.org. They invited seven potential democratic candidates for the next presidential election (Joe Biden, Dennis Kucinich, Bill Richardson, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, and Chris Dodd, listed in the order I found their responses interesting and enlightening, although I recommend watching them all) to answer three questions each about the war in Iraq.

I was very appreciative of the chance to get to know some of the potential candidates, and hear them speak on their positions on the Iraq war. I'll outline some of my opinions in response to watching all the clips, but I strongly recommend you check them out yourself and form your own opinions. I believe very strongly in the importance of being informed about our options, because I have come to be somewhat shocked and horrified by the power the American President has in the world, and it is my sincere hope that the next person we give that power to will be one who intends to use it for healing, diplomacy, reconciliation, and improving the state of the world, rather than out of selfishness, economic interests, power, and diplomatic ignorance.

Here are my thoughts. I don't know a ton about any of the candidates outside of this forum (to my shame), so this is just a response to ten minutes each of responses, and should be taken with an according dose of salt. But I was particularly impressed with Kucinich's general approach to things, and he struck me as the person most interested in doing truly positive things with the presidency. Biden seemed to be the most knowledgeable about the actual political/religious situation in Iraq, and the best way of moving away from civil war and chaos in the wake of our invasion in the context of that situation. I thought Richardson, Obama, and Edwards all had interesting things to say. Clinton worried me with her self-focused mode of speech, which I hoped would not translate into her failing to see herself as part of a wider collection in her political actions. It didn't seem to be the kind of humble, diplomatic approach I hope our next president employs.

Anyway, I really do encourage you to take the 70 minutes to watch these clips, or you can read the transcripts if you prefer that, to get a better picture of what the candidates are saying and doing in response to the Iraq war. Thanks, and enjoy!

Apples and Anthropology: Current Obsessions

2007-04-04T15:01:00.000-07:00

I am currently reaching a level of excitement which, were my psyche equipped with the appropriate warning gauges, would be dangerously approaching the red zone. Watch out. So, first of all, last weekend was the College Group retreat on Whidbey Island, which was absolutely glorious, and involved eleven wonderful individuals (joined by a few more on Saturday) who spent the weekend joined in fellowship, worship, conversation, and a rather impressive assortment of board and card games. The latter included Scattergories, Boggle, True Colors, Pictionary, Risk (which I learned to play for the first time), Slingball (a fascinating game involving a sling composed of two golf balls linked by a string which one attempts to hook on a three-runged PVC goal), and Imaginiff. All in under 26 hours! It was great fun, and I felt like I really connected with everyone there, which was wonderful.

And then late Saturday night, talk turned to Apples to Apples. Having by now discerned that I was in the presence of a collection of true game aficionados, I promptly produced my Apples to Apples Recipe Book to see if anybody had any favorite or signature rule variations that I hadn't already included in my book. To my surprise, they were all initially perplexed at the very idea of rule variations, having, apparently, never actually played Apples to Apples any way other than according to the ordinary, official rules. To my delight, upon discovering that I was so enthusiastic about rule variations that I had compiled them into an alphabetized, cross-referenced book, and even invented a number of my own, they did not look at me like I was a raving maniac and back slowly into a corner, but rather they enthusiastically asked for permission to peruse my book and requested that I teach them some of the variations listed therein. Sadly, it was by that point to late to launch into that process at the moment, but I do hope to do so sometime soon. (I did get to show a few people Barrel of Apples and Apple Bundles the next night after the College Fellowship dinner, but that barely scraped the surface of the possibilities, of course.)

And the renewed promise of some Apples to Apples gameplay has reawakened my passion for the game, and has resulted in a new proliferation of ideas for potential variations. I created a list of apple-related terms that I had not yet employed in previous variations, and then couldn't prevent myself from thinking up ways of playing to fit some of these terms--for instance, I came up with a method of launching a "Trojan War" to contest a winning card, and invented a "Snow White" version of the game complete with evil queens and poisoned apples. So now, first of all, I have to reprint my recipe book to include the recent additions, and secondly I am even more eager than ever to get together a group of people willing to test out my various variations and recipes. I'm definitely looking forward to a promised game of Xtreme Apples to Apples (whatever that means--I am bursting with anticipation to find out!) at a friend's upcoming birthday party.

And then, when I have managed, over the past few days, to tear myself away from working on my recipe book, I have begun to conduct some research into graduate programs in Anthropology. So far, I've read a great 1997 longitudinal study of Anthropology PhDs--their distribution, make-up, concentrations within the discipline, and employment, conducted by the American Anthropological Association, which you can find here if you're interested. I've also started looking at the courses offered by Harvard's grad program, just to get an idea of what's out there and to see what sparks my interest most, so I can decide what I'd most like to focus on and select programs and departments and faculty accordingly.

Before I began this research, I was still slightly uncertain whether the study of Anthropology really involved precisely what I thought it did, and thus whether it would actually be as enticing to me as I imagined it would be given my assumptions of what it involved. Thus far, my research has revealed that my understanding of Anthropology as an encapsulation of everything I have always been fascinated by was in fact quite accurate. Right now, the hardest part has been identifying courses among those offered that I am not incredibly eager to take. I want to enroll in them all! So, that is very encouraging, and I am looking forward to beginning the process of selecting programs and preparing my applications.

I also just got invited for a phone interview for the internship I've applied for, which would fill the upcoming year between my current time writing and my entry into a grad program. So, that's pretty exciting, and we shall see what comes of it. And that's all I have new to report at the moment (luckily, or some of those aforementioned gauges might just overexert themselves, potentially resulting in some severe mechanical malfunctions).

Really A Writer...

2007-03-29T00:33:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's kind of crazy how things tend to cluster themselves sometimes into little packets of excitement. Or big packets, as the case may be... I returned yesterday afternoon from the writing residency in Oregon, which was absolutely glorious. Wonderful weather (mostly sunny, with a few days of snow that allowed me to curl up cozily beside my woodstove), gorgeous scenery (which I tried to get the most of through a variety of amazing hikes and runs in the area), inspiring fellow artists (two printmaker/sculptors, a filmmaker, and a writer, all brilliant!), idyllic solitude (in my own cute A-frame cabin by a gently flowing creek), and the time and freedom to research, write, reflect, read, and gather inspiration from a variety of sources. I ended up finishing a draft of my Confessions, and reading the first few sections aloud at an Artists Salon we held at the end of the week for about thirty or so people from town. It was such an amazing experience, and I feel incredibly blessed to have been given the opportunity.

And then I returned home to discover that my one-act play, "Questions, or, An Experiment in Destiny, or, An Exercise in Entropy, or, Whose Dream Is It, Anyway?, or, Stalemate" (known, with greater brevity, as either "Questions, etc." or "Five Titles"), which was written for and produced by the Town Crier Speaks Festival at UPS back in October 2003, has been accepted for presentation at the 15th Annual Last Frontier Theatre Conference Play Lab in Valdez, Alaska. Which was exciting, although I'm not sure whether I'll withdraw it, since it requires me to make my way up to Alaska to attend the conference...

But then I also learned that, coincidentally, the play had also been selected as one of three winners of American Theatre Coop's 2006 one-act playwrighting contest! And that is truly incredibly exciting, because it means the play will be distributed to a collection of theatres to be considered for production, among other possible excitements. It even has its own webpage that interested theatres can visit to request a script (http://www.americantheatrecoop.com/questions.html)

So, anyway, what with all that, I really do feel like an official, actual writer. Which is quite fun.

Other upcoming excitements: retreat this weekend with the College Age Fellowship from my church up here (lots of wonderful people, and a fun and restful couple of days on Whidbey Island), Senior Theatre Festival all this month (I just saw a performance of Mary Zimmerman's Arabian Nights, directed by the fabulous MaryAnn Valentine, which is an absolutely incredible show you should definitely go see this weekend if you are in the area), and, in two weeks, a regional LMDA conference, and a potential Apples to Apples game as part of the festivities celebrating the 25th birthday of the illustrious if somewhat elusive J. Moy (I have been so A2A deprived lately that this possibility leaves me almost shaking with excitement).

Basically, life is going incredibly well at the moment. As soon as I have tackled all the e-mail that piled up while I was in Mississippi and Oregon, I am going to start researching Anthropology grad programs, which should be fun and informative. And the novel is still in the works as well--I've been brainstorming deeper developmental background in preparation for tackling the next draft.With renewed energy, now that my status as a writer has received some uplifting external confirmations... :-)

From Moss Point, MS, to Caldera, OR

2007-03-20T12:46:00.000-07:00

I am sitting at my computer in a small A-frame cabin in the Cascade mountains. Beside me a fire blazes in a small black wood stove, and outside snow is falling gently on the pine trees and into the stream that rushes past between the two lakes that flank this isolated artists retreat. I am at Caldera, in the middle of my third day here, and it is absolutely lovely.

I am currently working on the aforementioned Confessions, which are currently only about half done and already eight pages long, and are beginning to look more like a book chapter than the magazine article I originally envisioned. But the writing is coming along well. I have divided the piece into chronological sections, between which I go back and consult my diary entries from the appropriate era in preparation for writing the following section. Reviewing my diary entries from middle and high school is sometimes a painful process, as I lament how foolish I was in so many ways, but writing this article has been a healing process—it makes me feel that perhaps some good will come out of my struggles and silliness, that perhaps there was some reason for it all.

I’m not sure what I’ll do with it after I’m done. It’s one of the most personal things I’ve ever written, which makes me nervous to show it to people. And it’s getting so long, I’m not sure what kind of publication would be seeking something of the kind. Perhaps some sort of compendium, a book of collected stories on themes of love, of desire, of womanhood. I’m sure there is something of the sort currently in the works somewhere. But I will see what it turns out as when I’ve made my way all the way through.

But Caldera is lovely. My cabin is very cozy, and I have met two of the other women artists here—a sculptress named Chris and a filmmaker named Joanne. They are both professional artists from Portland, and have been very welcoming to me—last night they had me over for dinner, which was fun. I have thus far spent most of my time holed up in the cabin writing away, although yesterday I went into the nearby town of Sisters, a quaint mountain village, in order to print out and mail my application for McCarter Theatre’s literary management internship, and to make some phone calls, as there is no cell phone reception out here in the trees. And I do have intentions to explore the area here with some hiking as the week goes on, because it is all incredibly beautiful.

And the week before I arrived here I was in Mississippi, back in Moss Point--to which I had not imagined, when I left there last March, I would ever return, and once again it was an absolutely wonderful experience. I had the chance to reconnect with some people I had met there last time—the spirit-filled Pastor Jerry, my South African sheetrocking mentor David, and the family whose house I worked on last year, the generous and friendly Lydia, Nick, and Paul. There were seven of us from Tacoma, and we bonded amazingly during the week through our travels, our tiredness, through hard times and hilarious ones.

We were set to work on the house of a remarkable woman named Tristan, single mother of a darling four-year-old boy named DJ. She is currently working two jobs to support herself and her son, while simultaneously attending school to become a surgical assistant—and not just attending, but excelling at it: she is on her way to the President’s List, and during the week we worked at her house she got a 97% on one of her exams and a 105% on another. She is truly incredible. We pulled down the remaining old drywall on her walls and ceilings, removed old screws and nails, put in new insulation, and got on to our main task of installing new sheetrock. This was exciting because it was the job I learned to do last year, so I was able to help teach the new people how to do the work. They learned incredibly quickly, and soon we had completed the walls and ceilings of the living room and kitchen, and had moved on into the den before our time at the house was done.

We also got to visit the town’s Projects, and play games with the kids living there. I carried a darling four-year-old boy named Chris around on my shoulders and pushed him on the swings, and then I was taken over by a group of girls who asked if they could undo my braids and proceeded to attack my hair with combs, barrettes, and firm fingers, each with her own idea of what the eventual style should look like. Some of the kids also discovered my camera, and took enough pictures to fill up my memory card, documenting the entire hair-styling process. It was great fun.

We made our way home starting early last Saturday morning. I returned to Seattle in time to answer some e-mail, pack, nap, shower, and attend the St. Patrick’s Day ceili on Vashon--which made me immensely happy. It was a glorious time, naturally--and then I did my best to get a solid night’s sleep before the drive down here to Caldera. I’m not sure when I’ll actually be able to post this particular blog entry, as I’ll have to go into Sisters and purchase a library card in order to gain internet access, but I wanted to at least get some of my stories and reflections down before time washes the crispness from the outlines of the memories. If you have been awaiting contact from me, I should be able to oblige you at the beginning of April, but probably not before.

Can I Just Say...

2007-02-24T23:53:00.000-08:00

...how incredibly wonderfully amazingly glorious ceilis are? I'm pretty convinced that in the great big dance party rocking around the Throne of God in Heaven (Rev 7:9-12), there is/will be a section of people who have put "Praise and Glory" to fiddle music and are twirling their hearts out in Irish set. If you're ever looking for me in the aforementioned vicinity, that's where I'll be.

That's all for now.

X Eye Ting! Gnus ^ 2/22/07's

2007-02-22T13:36:00.000-08:00

(Translation: Exciting News Updates)

A compendium of exciting recent and upcoming developments in my life:

I spent the past weekend on Whidbey Island with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. We had lots of fun making games, playing at the beach, birdwatching, going on lovely walks, etc. It was a glorious time.
I have successfully managed to get my cousins hooked on Apples to Apples. Since they can't read, we made our own set of cards with pictures. They love it. Plus, it allows me to address the Apples to Apples deficiency I have been experiencing this year. (I've also made a pretty intense A2A Recipe Book compiling numerous game variations, so if there's anyone out there interested in getting a night of play together, I am more than prepared. Seriously. Just say the word.)
I started a new writing project this morning, for a variety of reasons, chief among them being the fact that it popped into my head so clearly and insistently that I couldn't not start writing it. But also, conveniently, it actually fits much better than my novel with the type of project I said I was interested in working on in my application for the writing residency I'll be attending in March. It is also a shorter project that will fit better within a ten-day residency. It's called "Confessions of A Teenage Dating Addict," and it's a semi-autobiographical short story/article targeted towards adolescents via magazines like Seventeen. Should be interesting.
I just found out about a year-long literary internship at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, which provides housing and a stipend on which it would be possible to live. It would involve work similar to the things I most enjoyed about my internship at the Playhouse last summer, and would run from August to next June. So basically, it's work I enjoy and have experience in, in a place I would be interested in living, for pretty much precisely the time that I will be needing something to do between my time writing and my entry into grad school. Needless to say I sent away for the application. So we'll see whether anything comes of that.
I've joined a weekly women's Bible study group which has been quite fabulous. We're exploring various spiritual disciplines (so far we've looked at Examen and Lectio Divina), and I have been getting a lot out of the process. The women involved are all wonderful as well, and I am looking forward to continued and deepened relationships with them.
Lots of chances recently to hang out with fun people in the area for dinners, conversations, movies, etc.--people from church, from back home, from UPS. And the weekend after next I'm going up to visit Coach, who I haven't seen in quite a while.
There is a ceili this Saturday!!!! Seriously, that in itself is pretty much more excitement than I can handle.

There's so much more, but those are the highlights. I think this entry was even shorter than the last one. Look, I'm learning to condense! My long-time readers will be quite proud--not to mention relieved. :-)

The Latest on the Writing Scene

2007-02-09T22:28:00.000-08:00

Two quick but exciting (to me, at least) updates:

First of all, I just started a new blog! That's right, another one! "But, Elizabeth, you already had four," you point out (quite accurately). "What on earth do you need another one for?" Well, I have decided to create one devoted entirely to the progress of my novel, because it's reached the point where it's kind of like a child to me, and let's face it, if I had a child, I might well create a blog for him/her, except for the creepy stalker factor, but the great thing about a novel is you don't have to worry nearly as much about creepy stalkers as you might with a person. And anyway, I thought it would be an interesting process to be able to look back on and have a record of. So, a fifth blog it is!

It's called Garbage, which is the working title of the novel at the moment, not for any self-deprecatory reasons, but because it's about a young man who becomes a garbage collector. And there's a link to it in the sidebar under "More About Me." So, if you are really searching high and low for more random ways to wile away time on the internet, and for some reason you have an interest in the various events of my life, Merry Christmas!

But the second, even more exciting (yes, it is possible!) news is that I just got word from one of the artists' residencies I spent all last year applying to that they have an opening coming up in March, and they invited me to take it, and I accepted! So, I will have ten fun days of solitude and freedom to pursue my writing. "But, um, Elizabeth," you say, somewhat hesitantly because you have already questioned me once in this blog post, but pretty sure you have yet another accurate and legitimate observation. "Isn't that basically what this entire year is for you?" Well, yes, excellent point. But the selling points of the artists' residency include a change of scenery, the chance to meet the four other artists in residence at the same time, and my own private lakeside cabin. Not to mention the impressive air of legitimacy it will cloak me in... :-)

Anyway, it's really nice to have all the applying finally pay off for a little something, and it will be a fun experience and a cool chance to meet other people. I might also get a chance to lead a writing workshop in one of the residency's partner schools, because that's one of the requests to repay them for the use of the cabin. Should be neat. So I'll head off there in March as soon as I return from post-Katrina rebuilding in Mississippi. Yay!

That's all for now. Wow! I'm pretty sure that's the shortest blog entry I've ever written. Of course, it probably helps that I wrote four lengthy posts in my new blog earlier today. Hmm. What can I say, I did set aside this year to pursue my writing...

Agapeo Anthropous

2007-02-05T14:26:00.000-08:00

So, I have just returned from a ten-day trip to New York to visit my two dear friends Kate and Amy, which was an absolutely glorious experience. I was able to spend some amazing quality time with two of my favorite people in the world, to see their homes and neighborhoods, meet their friends and roommates, chat with their boyfriends, visit their classes, cook pretty incredible meals with them, and experience their favorite cafes and hang-outs.

It was also my first time visiting the city, and I did a host of fabulous touristy things like walking through Central Park, visiting the Met and the Museum of Natural History, seeing RENT on Broadway, walking through Chinatown, riding the subway, admiring the skyline, marveling at the diversity of the citizenry, walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, having a snowball fight at midnight in Prospect Park, and eating amazing pizza.

Also, I got to spend some time with my Great (in both senses of the word) Aunt Carol, which was, well, great; and, one of the Chipotle ads my sister's national contest-winning team created (The Dryer Spot, starring her boyfriend David--see YouTube links at right) was playing on the big screen in Times Square, so I got to watch that multiple times and soak in her impressive achievements at this early stage in her career. Basically, it was a rollicking good time, and I couldn't have squeezed more pleasure and fun into ten days if I wanted to.

But then in addition to all of that, what began as a brief journal entry to reflect on my impending journey turned into a five-hour, fourteen-page writing marathon filling the entire flight from Seatac to JFK, which resulted in my gaining a greatly increased level of certainty about what I want to do with my life, or at the very least the next academic step I am planning to take.

Previous to that entry, I had been wavering between the possibilities of an MFA, an MD at seminary, and a PhD in one of about nine possible disciplines, including psychology, theology, english, math, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and theatre, and was unsure as to exactly how I was going to proceed to narrow these options within reason so I could actually start looking into the programs of specific schools.

But recently, in response to various books I have been reading and my usual bouts of introspection, the idea of anthropology has slowly worked its way towards the forefront, at least among the possible PhD disciplines I've been considering. And in the airplane, at the window seat I always vie for, gazing down as I love to do at the fascinating patterns to be discerned in the indications of human activity visible from high above, I realized that anthropology is a little like observing humanity from an airplane flying high above human history, and the thought excited me a great deal. As I wrote, something began to speak to me about the Anthropology PhD, and the more I thought about it, the more sense it began to make to me.

Anthropology (or at least, what I know of the discipline, that is, the field I think of in my head when I use the word anthropology, which might well turn out to be more accurately termed sociology, but for simplicity's sake I'll stick with the first term, which I like because of its highly Greek origins) ties together my fascination with ancient languages, constructions, and customs, with my love of stories and the emphasis I realize I have always tended to place on people, with my enjoyment of examining patterns of culture, communication, beliefs, interactions, interpretations, systems, and habits, with my desire to understand and elucidate disparate societal circumstances in the modern world.

The academic world has always been one that calls to me, one in which I feel inherently comfortable. I would love the joint and balancing opportunities that a professorship would provide to teach and to study, to write and to edit, providing me with structure and security which I have come to understand I thrive in while at the same time leaving me sufficient freedom to determine the direction of my research. As a number of those closest to me have pointed out, professorship is something I would most likely be skilled at and find enjoyment in.

One of my main objections to throwing myself so deeply into the midst of academia has been a reluctance to hide away from the ills of the world, a desire to do something concrete and immediate to address certain intolerable circumstances I see around me. But I am now thinking that it would be possible to address these issues through anthropology, conducting research into the circumstances of people left disadvantaged by current cultural circumstances--the poor, minorities, social outcasts, etc. I could then work to impact their situations in beneficial ways using the methods I am best equipped for and most enjoy--careful study, sympathetic understanding, analysis of possible solutions, and the use of my powers of communication to initiate movement to change things for the better. It's really quite exciting when I think of it in this light.

Ever since I reached this realization, which was so long in crystallizing and yet seemed so natural and obvious and long-foreshadowed when it finally arrived, I have been suffused with a general love for humanity which is as significant and sincere as it sounds sappy. Each individual person I encounter seems beautiful to me, exquisitely so, in a way that totally overthrows our traditional, highly limited parameters of physical attractiveness. The only ugliness I see in people is in their moments of cruelty to one another. All physical traits, even those considered by the prevailing cultural aesthetic to be unappealing, are breathtaking to me in their loveliness, their humanity.

It is a feeling I wish that I could convey contagiously, although I'm not sure I can do so with words, at least not yet. At the moment it probably comes out sounding a little goofy and touchy-feely. But I can assure you it's glorious, and a particularly wonderful way to experience New York City, which is such a kaleidoscopic tapestry--if I may be forgiven the mixed metaphor, which I employ for the sake of emphasis--of humanity's variety.

So, that's my epiphany of the week. It seems to me that I have struggled through some of the more difficult portions of this year of experimentation and freedom and writing and solitude for the purpose of arriving at this moment when deep and ground-breaking realizations come rapid and breathtaking every couple of days. I actually have another area of inquiry I've started to explore, having to an extent digested the whole validation theory and this newly recognized anthropological inclination, but I will save that for a subsequent blog post, so as not to overwhelm.

As always, I welcome your comments/responses (I loved what I got back in response to my last entry--very heartening to see people reading and having such amazing insights into what I am saying here), and I hope that your life is bringing you some combination of peace, love, growth, and joy. Thank you for being a part of my life. You as an individual are a large source behind my love for humanity as a whole. I hope that you take the time to celebrate that fact in whatever manner befits your nature.

Validation Revelation: My New Psychotheory

2007-01-22T23:04:00.000-08:00

The structure of this year dedicated to writing has left me with a great deal of time by myself and within my own head, which has been both a blessing and a curse. In addition to providing the opportunity for the output of a novel that would probably otherwise not have emerged (the end of the first draft, though it has retreated many thousands of words and dozens of pages from my initial vision of it in the actual writing, is now finally within my grasp--I intend to finish tonight), one of the less expected benefits has been an opportunity to come to know various truths about myself which might otherwise have taken years, perhaps a lifetime, to understand. It is the most recent, and overarching, of these that forms my topic for this evening's entry.

It comes in the form of a generalized psychological theory of motivation, which I suspect could be applied to a number of individuals besides myself, although it also has very specific ramifications for my unique situation. The basic premise is as follows: The individual is inclined to seek a sense of validation as justification for her behavior. That is to say, a person will seek out some standard against which one's life choices can be judged, and will then attempt to make choices that satisfy that standard, in order to achieve contentedness or a sense of self-satisfaction.

The standards in question can be expressed as assertions regarding the purpose of a person's existence, and there are a countless number of them floating around in the world, serving as the bases for various people's behavior. Some examples include:

The point of life is to...
* make lots of money.
* help people in need.
* enjoy yourself.
* convert others to your way of thinking.
* be loved/admired/respected/known by other people.
* achieve enlightenment.
* reproduce.

Goals like these make no recommendations regarding the way in which they should be achieved. What they do is provide a marker by which it is possible to judge whether one's life is worthwhile. If you are achieving the goal you have set out to achieve, then the actions you have chosen to pursue are validated. And that sense of validation, I hypothesize, is a source of security which we are inclined to strive for.

Once a person has decided on a goal to pursue, the value of all subsequent decisions can be assessed based on whether they help or hinder this goal. Any action that furthers the goal is good, any action that prevents the goal is bad. Life is simple, clear, straightforward. The difficult part is selecting the goal in the first place.

When we enter this world, we are not provided with a manual explaining to us what we are supposed to with the life with which we have been entrusted. We are thus forced to select for ourselves some statement of purpose to shape our decisions. In the absence of the aforementioned manual, we seek guidance in this decision wherever else it is available. We look to those around us--our culture, parents, teachers, mentors, heroes, and friends--to see what principles they seem to have chosen to guide their own choices and actions. We read the ruminations of past thinkers on the subject--philosophers, theologians, scientists. We consult our own internal intuitions. In the course of a life, as the inputs of these sources fluctuate, a person may shift allegiance from one purpose to another, but at any given moment, it seems to me that a person's sense of the value of her own life is a function of the extent to which she senses herself to be achieving the goal she believes at that moment is the true purpose of her existence.

I don't think that people are always fully conscious of having selected an assertion about the point of life by which they are evaluating their lives. Sometimes we unconsciously internalize these theories of purpose from our surrounding milieu, along with a sense of the markers by which we can assess whether we are adhering to them effectively. To use one of my favorite pet peeves as an example, romantic comedies champion the theory that the purpose of life is to be loved romantically, and propose that one judge the value of one's life by whether one is in a romantic relationship. While people extensively exposed to this way of thinking might not be consciously aware of having aligned themselves with the belief that the underlying purpose of life is tied to one's involvement in a romantic relationship, they may nevertheless have done so subconsciously, and may thus find themselves content and secure when they are in such a relationship, and discontent and insecure when they are not. It is thus possible to determine what theory of the purpose of life you have come to accept by examining the times when you feel secure versus the times when you feel insecure.

To bring this theory to a personal level, I have recently come to realize that I am in a moment of uncertainty as to the underlying purpose of life on which I should be evaluating my actions. I am undecided regarding the ultimate point of my existence. This makes it difficult for me to make a decision about how to proceed with my life. If the point of life is to make a lot of money, I should proceed in one direction; if the point is to serve other people, that suggests another course; if the point is to do what makes me happiest, that might point towards yet another.

The people I am closest to differ from one another in the purposes they base their own decisions on, making it difficult for me to decide which is best, which is right. This uncertainty makes it equally tricky to evaluate my current activities--is this time devoted to writing highly worthwhile, or a total waste of time? It is particularly disconcerting to me since I have just emerged from a phase when the immediate purpose of my life, if not the ultimate one, was relatively straightforward--do well in school. It was something I was capable of doing, enjoyed doing, and could easily determine how successfully I was doing, while at the same time being supported as a worthwhile task by pretty much everyone I encountered. The regular assurances, in the form of good grades, that notified me that I was successfully accomplishing this purpose lent a sense of validity, not just to my time spent studying or working on homework, but to all the activities in which I engaged. As long as good grades were what mattered, and I was getting them, everything I was doing was justified.

This is oversimplifying to a certain extent, because in truth I was at the time operating with several other simultaneous theories of additional purposes to life, like not causing harm to other people, being productive, being liked, and enjoying myself, which shaped the way I chose to spend my time when I was not striving to get satisfactory grades. The point is, that in the absence of this clear, specific, and widely approved source of validation, a sense of security about my decisions is much more difficult to achieve.

I share this largely because the realization, and the clarity and specificity of its formulation, has helped me to understand my own reactions to various circumstances, which I always value and appreciate. It has tied together a number of disparate phenomena and observations, which tends to indicate to me that a theory has some validity. It has also given me some guidance about how to proceed with my life. So, I thought I would share my thinking on the matter with anyone who chances across this particular blog entry, especially any of the brilliant minds I so value in my family, friends, and acquaintances. If you have any commentary on my theory, in its general form or as it might relate, specifically, to your life, or to mine, I would love to hear it. I hope that you are content with the life purpose you have chosen to pursue and your success in pursuing it; or, if not, that you will take this opportunity to further contemplate the matter and perhaps move towards such a desirable state of affairs.

The two of you stand before me for very different reasons...

2007-01-06T16:08:00.000-08:00

For anybody who was wondering, I am having a wonderful time spending a week of fun-filled bonding time with my li'l sister. We have spent an embarrassingly large portion of the past few days ensnared in an America's Next Top Model Mega-Marathon on vh1, in which they played every episode from every season of ANTM thus far (that's seven seasons). Thankfully I did not count exactly how many episodes we ended up watching, otherwise I would undoubtedly be ashamed to admit to the number.

It was actually pretty hilarious, and left us spending a lot more time together and interacting than we probably otherwise would have. Needless to say, we have our impersonations of Tyra Banks (to whom we sometimes lovingly refer as Ty-Ty) down solid, and countless inside jokes from the various episodes. Our favorite part is when they catch themselves about to make some kind of comment about a girl's physical appearence, and then turn it into something about her personality. As in, "she really fills the room...with her, uh... energy!"

Actually, to my surprise the show isn't quite so physicality-centered and oppressive as it seems to have the potential to be. I mean, admittedly there is kind of an upper weight limit for the finalists, but so much is done with make-up and editing that there doesn't seem to be a specific "look" that is preferred, and a number of quirky and even awkward-looking girls, by traditional standards, have done quite well. They focus just as much on energy, commitment, acting ability, etc. Not to promote judging women based on their external appearances, but it could definitely be worse.

In the moments we have been able to disentangle ourselves from Tyra, Nigel, Twiggy, Janice, Miss J, and the girls, we've had some good times on the beach, gone for a couple of runs, and last night we went to visit our old friend, the beloved guitarist/vocalist Harry Troupe, who appreciated having his own personal cheering section, and sang O Bla Di at our request.

Allie's here for a couple more days, which I am looking forward to, and then I will have a week here on my own, during which I am hoping to finish up the novel first draft. I've had a couple of great breakthroughs about the ending over the past couple of days, so I am itching to get back to writing in earnest, and for those of you to whom I have promised to send a copy, I should be getting that to you by the end of January.

I hope the new year is treating you fabulously, wherever you are and whatever you're doing.

Holiday Briefs

2006-12-28T00:32:00.000-08:00

Okay, I am going to depart wildly from my habitual locquacity and attempt to communicate the most relevant recent developments of my life in a few brief bullet points. This act, along with pigs flying and hell being employed as an ice hockey arena, could well be one of the signs of the apocalypse, so watch out.

* The last six days I spent in Seattle were spent without power, after a crazy windstorm (the latest in a succession of Northwestern weather anomalies including the rainiest month ever on record and a freak snowfall--seriously, you think I'm kidding about the apocalypse, but...) that took out numerous trees and their neighboring powerlines. Luckily we had a gas fireplace that we kept going and plenty of candles--still, it was an adventure. Luckily, due to quick thinking, we ate all the ice cream the first night, so no great losses were suffered. Part of a tree also did land on the roof, but it doesn't seem to have done any significant damage.

* In spite of the lack of power over my last week of writing time, I managed to come very near to meeting my self-imposed word quota deadline. I had 47,000 of the hoped-for 50,000 words when I left town on the 18th, many of those written in various local coffee shops or in the dark late at night on power stored up from various local coffee shops. Even more exciting, I have now officially crested 50,000 words, and am coasting through the novel's final pages before turning around and heading back for a second pass through to clean things up.

* I returned to San Diego for the week prior to Christmas to hang out with my mom and sisters, which was excellent fun.

* I attended a ceilidh held by my little sister's Irish dance studio, which was glorious, as all such events are.

* I am currently re-obsessed with Apples to Apples, after recently playing my first game in many months, discovering what serious A2A withdrawal I had been in, and finding a couple of websites, both official and unofficial, listing various A2A-related products and rule variations. I have started creating a "recipe book" with a compilation of all my favorite rule variations and a glossary of Apples to Apples terms. So, if anyone wants to play with me next time I see you, you'll be my new best friend.

* I am now in Maui with my family, which is absolutely gorgeous and very relaxing. I will be staying for three weeks, and intend to use a sizable portion of the time revising my novel, with the goal of having a draft ready to show people by the end of January.

Ok, so, that wasn't the briefest thing ever written, which I guess is a good sign if you're not quite ready for the end of the current age and the creation of a new heaven and earth and all of that. But there are a lot more details I could have inserted but restrained myself from including, despite the fact that I haven't yet journaled about the time period under discussion, which is usually the best method of distilling my reflections to only the most relevant, or interesting, or whatever it is I am aiming for with this blog. I'm not sure whether the lack of readership I have thus far managed to secure is an indication that I have as yet failed to achieve my aims, or that the aims themselves are flawed, but it hasn't stopped me from persisting yet, so I suppose I will probably just press on as usual.

Okeedokee.

Novel Writing Update

2006-12-10T12:52:00.000-08:00

Since I returned to Seattle after my journey home for Thanksgiving, my progress on the novel that currently serves as my main writing project has been quite promising. I have now reached 32,608 words, which comes out to 65 pages (1.5-spaced, size 11 font), which is just slightly short of the 35,000-word goal I had set to reach by the end of this week, an issue I am currently working on addressing. But although I have found setting daily word goals a useful way to prevent myself from getting overly mired in a difficult question or unresolved portion of the story, the word count is, of course, secondary to the development of characters and storyline. Fortunately, the latter process has been progressing even more satisfactorily than the former.

The story is really beginning to come together. I now have a general idea of all the major plot points and the ways that they are going to interconnect. There are all these interwoven mysteries, so I am working on how they emerge and how the connections between them are gradually revealed. The characters are also becoming increasingly fleshed out, and I'm getting clearer mental pictures of the city and the society.

My current plan is to get a rought first draft of the novel in its entirety done by the time I return home for Christmas. I'll then take a few weeks off for some holiday merriment before returning to revise, add, and otherwise get the novel into the best shape that I can on my own. After that I will send it out to any friends/family members willing to take a look at it and give me whatever feedback they have on what works and what doesn't. (I'll probably be ready for this part of the process in late January, and if you are at all interested/willing to participate, please let me know and I would be delighted to add you to my list of people I'm planning to send it to, otherwise known as the list of my favorite people. :-) Taking that feedback into account, I will revise further, and then start working on communicating with editors to see about the possibilities of publication. If nothing else, it will give me the chance to experience the whole process of novel-writing, and leave me with something to show for this year of literary adventure.

In the moments between bouts of writing, I have been able to connect with a number of friends in the Seattle area, and I have definitely appreciated the increased level of social interaction, as well as the chance to spend time with such supercool people. Recent excursions have included a birthday party for a UPS theatre friend at Gameworks, where I spent the evening running around playing video games with the incomparable Evan Tucker--more fun than I can convey. I also saw the spanish film Volver with Nati at the Egyptian, a local independent cinema, met up with the elusive Jason Moy for coffee, and visited the fabulous apartment of my former Trimle suitemate, Marlo, where we prepared a Southwestern feast of various chip dips and some bell pepper slices topped with a delectable mixture of rice, tomatoes, onions, spices, and cheese--very delicious!

This afternoon will be my second chance to attend Bethany Presbyterian, the church I have decided to call my home while in Seattle, and afterwards there is a college age fellowship time, which I am looking forward to. So basically, this is just an update to remark how incredibly well things are going at the moment. And now, back to the novel!

Back in Snowy Seattle

2006-11-30T23:35:00.000-08:00

Well actually, the dusting of snow that covered cars, rooftops, lawns, and fenceposts when I returned from my Thanksgiving holiday in climatically stabler southern California, greeting me with an inviting and seasonal ambiance of winter coziness, has by now mostly melted away, but it was a delightful surprise on my arrival.

The time spent with various immediate family members over the past few weeks was pleasant and largely relaxing, and included several opportunities to converse with successful writers of both the screenwriting and the novelist variety, which was inspiring and encouraging. This in addition to yummy food, bike rides, board games, Irish dancing, pillow fights, evenings in the jacuzzi, and afternoons reading by the crackling fireplace, all of which were quite lovely.

My one regret is that my NaNoWriMo progress, which had made its way from nearly hopeless to promisingly possible over the days preceding my departure from Seattle, was unsalvageably derailed, leaving me at 20,123 words as the deadline descends, 29,877 words short of my goal. However, I have adjusted my expectations and set a new and conceivable but still challenging schedule to reach the 50,000 word mark by the date of my return trip home for Christmas, which will leave me without the glory of an official NaNoWriMo finishing participant, but nevertheless the proud author of what will hopefully be the somewhat meaty bones of a potentially publishable novel by the end of the year.

Note: If you have told me you want to see it when I'm ready to show people, I must warn you that I have a charitable policy to discount people's requests to read my work as mere politely feigned interest until the third or fourth repetition, so ask me a couple more times if you were actually in earnest, and I will happily share with you the fruits of my literary labors.

In other news, I have recently somewhat adjusted my perspective on the proper goals and capacities of blogging as a written form, transitioning from my previous view of the medium as being simply an abridged, electronic version of my physical personal journal entries, which had begun to get somewhat repetitive, to a new view more focused on fleeting glimpses and witty yet whimsical observations of a more transitory, less excruciatingly detailed nature. I anticipate that this shall result in my posts being increasingly enjoyable, or at the very least mercifully shorter. Hopefully this is a positive change in the eyes of my anonymous but undoubtedly numerous and avid readers, but I welcome any and all contributions--concurring, protesting, or indifferent--on the topic of the most appropriate approach to the blogging process.

Oh Yeah, That's Why I'm Doing This...

2006-11-12T01:17:00.000-08:00

This week the writing has really been clicking into place, which is very exciting. I'm not sure whether I've made some change in my way of thinking about things that has caused the improvement, or if I am simply settling in to this rhythm of things, or what, but I'm not one to look a gift mental state too closely in the mouth. Actually, that's completely untrue--there are few things I enjoy more than ramming my head so far down the throat of a given mental state that I could deliver a detailed chemical description of its digestive processes, if you'll excuse the somewhat graphic metaphor.

In any event, I have been moving forward with my NaNoWriMo novel, and I am at that always fascinating point when your characters are beginning to accumulate enough life to take over the story and start surprising you--initiating actions, conversations, and entire plotlines that you did not anticipate until the moment they began to occur. So, that's interesting.

And today I attended a conference at school on the process of theatremaking, whose participants included students, professors, a designer, an actor/producer, and a whole collection of working playwrights. The discussion was entitled, "Why Am I Doing This?", and conversation ranged from lamentations about the lack of federal funding of the arts in America, to brainstorming ways to expand the theatre's audiences and the very definition of the form, to advice from the established theatremakers to the neophytes about how to break into the business, to a rather epic extension of the deceptively simple metaphor "preaching to the choir." All very fascinating and inspiring stuff, which reawakened the passion for theatre that has gone a bit dormant in me recently in my solitude--understandably, I think, given the collaborative, interactive nature integral to the process of making theatre.

And afterwards, I had the opportunity to speak with several of the theatremakers who are, as they say, "out there doing it," whatever "it" happens to entail in their particular experience, and saw some particularly exciting opportunities arise out of one particular conversation with a local playwright and literary manager who is quite passionately devoted to getting local work developed and produced. It started with a query about the monthly staged readings he oversees to determine whether one of my own scripts currently in development might be appropriate for submission, moved on to an offer to read some of the plays other people have submitted and write responses recommending whether the play be considered, transitioned into a discussion of a festival of short plays performed by Japanese students for which I may have a suitable one-act written, and eventually culminated in an invitation to participate in a 48-hour theatremaking festival coming up in May, in which 12 playwrights, 12 directors, and 40 actors are placed randomly into teams and given a theme and 24 hours to produce a 10-minute play that addresses it. An incredible opportunity, about which I am inexpressibly excited! Many special thanks to the professors who kept breaking briefly into the conversation to reiterate to him how highly they recommended my work--immensely generous and impactful, even if one of them did at one point attempt to compare me to a bulldog. No, but seriously, in context it was actually very kind and complimentary.

So anyway, that's all very exciting, although if anything this weekend has only added to my list of "Oh, yeah, that's something else cool I could do with my life," which isn't making the process of figuring out what I'm going to do when I'm done with this year of writing any easier. But it will all come together as time requires, I firmly believe. Life, they say, is what is happening while you're closing your eyes planning for the future, and I for one am hoping to spend most of my life with my eyes open. With crabapples in my cheeks. Or something.

Turning Twenty-Two

2006-11-10T01:40:00.000-08:00

Well, I have passed another milemarker on the road of life, with mild but melodious fanfare. Festivities included five of hearts waffles with rainbow sprinkles a la my cousin Keagan, several hours curled up on my couch reading, a walk through the park lit by the golden glow of a glorious sunset, my favorite CD (The Old Style by Blazin' Fiddles, which I picked up in a pub in Inverness, Scotland) blasting in my car, yellow curry, yellow birthday cake with homemade vanilla frosting and more rainbow sprinkles, quality time with my aunt, uncle, and cousins, and a whole pile of brand new books! All interspersed with phone calls, e-mails, and facebook wall posts of merry birthday greetings from many of the friends and family members who light up my existence with their support and individual fabulousnesses. Aside from a good game of Apples to Apples, I couldn't have asked for anything more.

The interesting thing was that the age I was donning that day actually felt appropriate, something I could assert with confidence about myself. "How old are you?" "I'm twenty-two." This in stark contrast to the usual several-month process of acclimating to a new number, of faltering responses to the simple query into my age: "How old am I...? Uh, twenty. Twenty-one! No, twen... um, no, that's right, twenty-one. I'm twenty-one. I think. What year is it?" Which gets awkward when one is attempting to, say, purchase alcohol, not that I have actually done much of that during the past year in which it was my legal perogative, but I can imagine it would result in a slightly prolonged examination of whatever form of identification I produced to support my stumbling claims.

The point is, ever since I can remember I have spent some time on each birthday introspectively evaluating my instinctive sense of my own age, and marveling at the fact that the additional candle on my cake did not immediately instill in me an identification with the corresponding new and incrementally increased number. But this year was different--sometime on the day itself I slipped seamlessly into the mentality of myself as a twenty-two-year-old. And if you have ever attempted to answer, with regard to yourself or one of your acquaintances, the question "What age are you?" in the same sense as questions like "What animal are you?" or "What color are you?"--that is, not literally, in the which case the aforementioned questions would be increasingly silly, but rather metaphorically, with respect to one's inner self or soul or aura or whatever term you want to assign to the elusive uniqueness characteristic of a certain individual--then you will perhaps understand that this fact caused me to wonder whether I, in some fundamental sense, *am* twenty-two.

That is to say, whether the age "twenty-two" just happens to be the age that most suitably describes the person I more permanently am, internally, and whether that internal self has been waiting all these years for my physical self to catch up. And whether the internal self will ever grow older, thereby possibly allowing me another conjunctive moment of age-rightness at some point in the future, or whether it will remain twenty-two for the rest of my existence, and if so, what feelings it might experience as it watches the physical body eventually move on and gradually retreat into the ensuing decades. Only time will tell, I suppose... In recognition of the possibility that this year is my one opportunity to experience this conjunction between the inner and the outer, I suppose I will do my best to appreciate and enjoy it while it lasts.

Thoughts? Responses? Similar experiences in your own life? Always appreciated.

Autumnal Revelry

2006-11-03T00:03:00.000-08:00

This is an exciting time of year for me, ushering in as it does explosive displays of color in members of the tree community, increasing bouts of cloudy and occasionally rainy weather, and a succession of particularly enjoyable holidays.

I have long been an avid fan of Halloween, for its encouragement of creativity and identity experimentation. Past disguises I have donned in celebration have included a Haunted House, a Fairy Pirate, Time, and Rain. I have always been a particular supporter of the portrayal of abstract concepts in costume form, and so this year I combined the fabric scraps from my prom dress and some gray polar fleece from an attempt at a cloak I once made, creating a somewhat obscure but not wholly inexplicable representation of The Dream State of Sleep, of which I was quite proud. I greatly enjoyed the process of creation, which involved a lot of draping and sewing directly on the only mannequin on hand, namely myself, which made things slightly tricky at times. But somehow, miraculously, it all came together in the end, and I felt that the somewhat disjointed combination of different fabrics and styles was appropriate to the patchwork nature of the mental state I was attempting to embody.

Ever since I was ejected from the golden days of my elementary school youth, however, there has been a twinge of sadness lacing my experience of this particular holiday, as the enthusiasm and spirit of those around me has waned even while my own remained unabated. I mourned the day when it became, according to my peers, "uncool" to wear your costume to school--not that this stopped me from doing so; rather, I felt sad sympathy for the poor souls who had deprived themselves of their one opportunity to express themselves, physically, in ways not even open to contemplation on any other day of the year. Likewise I pitied the adults, with their suspicious queries of "aren't you a little too old to be trick-or-treating?", who were unable to rejoice in the retention of an inner innocence that kept my friends and I traipsing door to door to smile at our neighbors rather than sneaking around in the darkness pelting eggs and crushing pumpkins.

But of late an even more tragic development has come to my attention, as our collective societal rejection of imagination has caused us to respond to political and academic pressures by eliminating the celebration of Halloween from school even among our elementary and pre-schoolers. So that my little cousins, so excited to don their monkey and jackolantern suits for the third time in the past four days, were the only kids at school attired out of the ordinary. So that I, who went out walking through town in the morning despite the near-freezing air temperature and my costume's distinct lack of insulation in order to maximize my Dream State's public exposure, and, hearing the strains of children playing float merrily over the elementary school fence, decided to take a detour past the schoolyard to admire the frenzy of witches, princesses, and grape bunches I remembered from my halcyon youth, was shocked and disappointed to see nothing but your everyday jeans and jackets.

I have heard different explanations for the reasons behind the apparently universal costume bans in even our most primary school systems--some claim it is in response to religious objections against the pagan influences of the holiday (HOLYday) and some of the costumes, others that it is a symptom of the test-centered tunnel vision resulting from the ever-increasing competitiveness of our society, or the No Child Left Behind Policy, or the threatening expansion of Eastern economies. I strongly believe that a lack of imagination is both the source of these problems and the inevitable outcome of our chosen response, thereby removing much hope that we will find a way to overcome them. If we truly understood the nature of the problems we are trying to address, we would create monthly opportunities for children to costume themselves however they desire, and we would forbid them from purchasing storebought representations of their favorite TV show characters, while we were at it.

However, I have by now grown used to overlooking the general disregard for the holiday's unbounded potential and enjoying myself immensely in spite of it all, so I had a marvelous day.

As if that weren't enough excitement, last weekend there was a Ceili (essentially an Irish square dance--for an account of my first experience of this incredible cultural institution, see my previous blog post Feis and Ceili--Pretty Much The Most Fun Ever) a short and absolutely lovely (although incredibly freezing) ferry ride away. Unfortunately, my costume was not completed in time to debut it at this momentous event. Still, the experience was every bit as enjoyable as I had expected it to be. As I boarded the ferry the sun had just set, leaving the horizon ablaze in a deep, smoldering red. The evening chill over the water could not keep me from drinking in the crisp fall air tinted with woodsmoke, and so I rode on the bow as the sky darkened, the stars emerged, and the moon's reflection dappled the water racing by. It was almost painfully beautiful.

When the boat landed I followed the strains of fiddle music into a small dance hall, where a band of merry revellers had already begun to gather. Soon the rounds of dancing began, and people of all ages--from small girls in bare feet (I gleefully followed their example in this), to rosy-cheeked middle and high school students (some such specimens do still, against all odds, somehow exist), to young adults, grown-ups, and grandparents--mingled and bungled through intricate celtic knots of footwork and formations, laughing and dancing and skipping and clapping with strangers as readily as with family.

As at my last ceili, I felt the approbation of my ancestry awakened within me, nodding contentedly at the rightness of this form of interaction. I could imagine myself transported back to a place and a time when such a gathering would have been the most natural social ritual, serving all the necessary functions--chatting with the neighbors, tiring the children, showcasing the local talent, and seriously, if you're looking for a new form of speed dating, you should try out the Bonfire Dance.

Although I arrived alone and knew not another soul in the room, I danced every dance and was never left without a partner, and felt instantly welcomed and appreciated from the moment of my arrival although I had not been directly invited and had warned no one of my intent to attend. To my delight, this event is held monthly, and though sadly the next few months I will be back home when it occurs, I will definitely be sure to get a few more in while I am living in the area.

Ceilis are held by small groups of Irish dance devotees all around the world, and there is likely an opportunity to attend one wherever you live. I strongly advise you to consider doing so. You need know nothing whatsoever about Irish dancing--the steps are typically taught at the start of each dance, and then reminders are called out as the dance itself progresses, and most of the time at least seventy-five percent of the people have absolutely no clue what they are doing, so you will be in company both understanding and hilarious.

In the writing arena of my life, things are going rather well. I have committed to participation in NaNoWriMo, aka National Novel Writing Month, which happens to be November, in case you were unaware. Hordes of people annually take this opportunity to join in solidarity in a mad rush to produce 50,000 words in 30 days, operating under the principle that sometimes it is best to rush so fast through your writing that you don't have time to think your ideas away. I have a basic novel idea I have been wanting to work on for some time, and I have recently developed my protagonist to the point that I am sufficiently interested in him to start writing his story, but at the moment I am still struggling with the setting, in terms of things like latitude and the precise composition of the mixture of ancient and futuristic influences, which has my slightly stymied. Basically, I still harbor some resistance to the "Stop thinking and start writing" mentality that NaNoWriMo requires, so I just need to let go of that for now, and if my characters find themselves in a different continent, millenium, and gender with each subsequent chapter, well, that's what NaNoEdMo (National Novel Editing Month) is intended for...

Exploration

2006-10-15T14:22:00.000-07:00

My full and joyous immersion in the glories of the Northwestern outdoors can perhaps be most dramatically illustrated by the unknown amount of time I spent this morning standing in a gulch completely surrounded by the green and gold of tree leaves beside a flowing brook, becoming slowly soaked by the rain streaming across my upturned face, glad for the screen of greenery which shielded me from the sure to be questioning eyes of passers on the nearby street. But it was also celebrated yesterday and the day before with ventures into the park just on the other side of my aunt and uncle's house, where trails crisscross enticingly through a miniature forest sprinkled with hidden clearings, shocking bursts of autumnal color, and benches that cry out for a contemplative visitor to join them in their breeze-stirred solitude. Do I really live here? Is there really such a land as this, where the days rotate between crisp cool sunshine, enclosing swirls of mist, and purifying showers from the sky? Incredible.

This morning was my third in the process of seeking out a new church community in the area. I attended the Fauntleroy Church of Christ, which I enjoyed quite a bit. The service leaned more towards the traditional than the contemporary, but I was excited to find that once a month the congregation breaks into small groups at the end of the service to discuss the sermon in greater depth. This happened to be such a week, so I got the chance to meet a few people from the church, including a very friendly young couple who introduced themselves to me as we were walking over and invited me to join their group. I think I connected more with this church than I have with the past two I've attended--the first, West Seattle Presbyterian, reminded me of the church I attended as a child but was a little large and impersonal, and the second, West Seattle Christian, had a good atmosphere but was a little alarming in some of the leanings I sensed in their underlying attitudes.

It's a slightly strange process, seeking out a church. My life thus far has found me, at various points, at many different types of churches, from an all-black Full Gospel church in Mississippi to a small renegade Eastern Orthodox-influenced Anglican church in England, and I have grown from and been fed at each in different ways. But I have also just come from several years with a home church in Tacoma that I deeply admired for its integrity and thoughtfulness in incorporating aspects into its methods of worship based on a combination of Biblical precedent and internal searching, so that everything was thought-through and done out of true belief and not for show. It's a sadly rare quality, I think, and dependent on individual church leadership rather than inherent to any specific denomination, so finding such a church requires seeking and time. In the meantime, I hope to grow also from this process of ecumenical exploration. C. S. Lewis has some wise words on the subject (doesn't he always?) in the 16th of the Screwtape Letters, so I am trying to keep those in heart and mind.

Other than that, I have been settling in well to this new lifestyle of writing and playing with my cousins. This past week illness intervened to interrupt my writing process somewhat, keeping the boys home from school for a few days and even hitting my aunt and youngest cousin, and necessitating that I spend slightly more time helping out with the kids and consequently less time in front of my computer plugging away at the screenplay which is currently my most active project. Nevertheless, I have managed to reach about page 33 out of a typical 110, and when I do have the time to apply to it the writing is going along smoothly and swiftly. The trickiest part of this project is translating the narrative voice which is one of the novel's strong points into the screenplay version without completely overwhelming the audience with constant voiceover. It's good practice, though, and is somewhat akin to a child learning to write their letters by tracing over some that an adult has dotted out for them--by adapting this novel, I am in effect getting to trace over it, and examine the story's developments and narrative techniques critically and in exquisite detail.

That's the main of the aspects of interest in my life at the moment. I'm still on the lookout for the hiding places in which peers and potential friends lurk in the nearby area. Fortunately I have had several opportunities to make my way back down to Tacoma for various events, and have thus been able to connect with many of my good friends who remain down there. But it's something of a trek, and it would be nice to have some contacts a bit closer to home here. So, we shall see if I can search some out. Other than that, all is well. Those of you who read this and have been in contact with me are always an encouragement, so thank you. Until next time.

Getting in the Groove

2006-10-06T12:04:00.000-07:00

The end of my second week of writing draws nigh, and I am pleased to announce that it has gone far better than my first week. Perhaps I am simply getting used to this new situation and the pattern of my life--which, with its lack of constant busyness and looming deadlines, and the inclusion of several small children with whom I spend my afternoons, is quite different from what I have become accustomed to over the past several years. I think it also helped that I have been able to get out of the house a few times this week--into the park or down to the beach to write, and one day I walked the several blocks to the nearest coffee shop and sat there for a few hours sipping a vanilla steamer and brainstorming a novel idea in its initial development stages. I've hit upon a couple of ideas that I am really excited to work on--the aforementioned novel, as well as a screenplay adaptation and a seed of an idea for a play--so that also helps.

But I think a significant step towards a better writing process for me has been to mentally reinterpret this year so that my focus is not on immediately producing something I deem worthy of being sent out into the world, because at this point in my process that pressure was preventing me from feeling free to experiment and play and try and fail and try again, which is what I need to be doing, which is what being in this circumstance is so amazingly able to provide me with the opportunity to do. It's a little hard not to feel guilty about having this chance which is so crucial in the writing process, but which so few writers are able to have, and that guilt was also making it difficult to work freely. But my ever-encouraging mother pointed out that this is, as she put it, my "cookie-baking year"--that is, the year that most people spend at age three staying home baking cookies with their mothers, but which I deferred to age 21 by starting school a year earlier than most other kids in my cohort. So if I produce nothing more than a few burnt batches of brownies and some indistinguishable multicolored blobs of hardened PlayDo, I'll have caught up with the rest of my generation at the end of the year.

I also realized that my current lifestyle--living in a beautiful area with pockets of nature accessible, helping to raise a family and having free time to write whatever I'm interested in, is the lifestyle I currently find most appealing to imagine for myself, and this time gives me the perfect chance to test it out and see if it's really all it's cracked up to be, if I can revel in it or if I eventually find myself in need of more--more interaction with people, more intellectual stimulation, more productivity. So I decided that the main point of this year for me is not necessarily to produce a finished book, or play, or screenplay (although that certainly may happen along the way), but to experiment with my own identity as a writer, to decide what part I want writing to play in the next upcoming chunk of my life: what kinds of things am I interested in writing, how much of my time do I want to be spending on it, how central to my life do I want it to be, what else do I want to be doing at the same time? When I have figured these things out, I will have a clear idea of what I need to do in order to achieve those desires, and I will know what my next step should be.

In other news, watching the boys has been going well. They just got this marble track set that they absolutely love--Keagan enjoys planning and creating new permutations of the various blocks and rails, and Braden loves testing them out and knocking them down. I have also made it down to school a few times. Last weekend I went to the Homecoming football game, initially questioning my decision to do so because I hadn't arranged to meet anyone there and wasn't particularly interested in the game itself, really. But luckily I ran into a couple of good friends--Megan and John--on the way to and at the game, and we spent much of it commentating on the game with various sociological/philosophical/artistic observations, which was quite entertaining. Also, to my shock and elation, the long-lost hatchet, elusive symbol of our school traditionally stolen by prankish seniors and missing since 2002, aka throughout my entire college career, was returned at halftime in a dramatic display involving a young man rappelling from the roof, rushing the field, and being apprehended by campus security. Quite exciting!

I also went to Lighthouse this week and stayed afterwards for a game of midnight basketball, which was incredibly fun despite the fact that I can't score a basket to save my life, and despite my incurring a quarter-sized blood blister on the ball of each foot due to improper footwear. Tonight I will attend the fifth annual Town Crier Speaks Festival of student-written one-acts, through which, while I attended the school, I directed one play, wrote three, and produced two festivals, to my great edification. I can't wait to see what this year's festival brings forth.

My living quarters remain cozy and well-appointed, although in the absence of my valiant father, Official Vanquishing Knight of Menacing Spiders, I have been forced to come to terms with some persistent eight-legged visitors entrenched in my room's upper corners. Last night I noticed that, in the silent detachment of my room late in the evening, I had started to speak to the spiders, which had me a little worried. Perhaps one day soon I shall be calling myself Arachnia, the Spider Queen, and luring them in with promises of juicy flies and silken webs. Goodness, I hope not.

Um, right, well, that's all the updating I'll do at the moment. I'm now off to attempt to apply the rigid structure of a screenplay on one of my favorite books, which I think will stand up to the challenge. Until next time!

The Great Experiment Begins

2006-09-27T23:23:00.000-07:00

Well, I have made it up to Seattle at last, and have finally got settled in to my place with my aunt and uncle. I'm enjoying my set-up here--I have my own room detached from the house next to the garage, and I have set it up with separate sections for sleeping, hanging out, and working, which is nice. It's very cozy, and it's great to have my own space, so I can distinguish between time I am playing with the boys and time I am not. They are in school in the morning, so right now my aunt has me coming in at 4:00, which is when she gets tired and the boys get rowdy, and playing with them until dinner. That means I get a good 6-8 hours to write in the morning. I usually help clean up after dinner, then come back out to my place to work some more before I go to sleep. I think we'll try out this system for the week, and then see how she thinks it is working for her. I'm also planning to spend one evening a week watching the boys so my aunt and uncle can go out, and one day a week helping them out with projects around the house.

I've been here for a week, mostly setting up my room, and today was the first day I was able to devote a whole morning to writing. It was pretty good. It's a big shift going from generally being too busy to spend much time writing at all to six straight hours devoted to getting something interesting down on the computer screen, so I am giving myself some time to get used to the rhythm and not expecting too much in terms of quality output of myself at first. It's a little intimidating really having the time to write and wanting so badly for something worthwhile to come out of it, and it's hard not to feel guilty that I'm not being more productive or proactive or whatever in my life right now, but it is a tremendous blessing to have this time and this opportunity, and it will really allow me to see whether this is the right path for me or not. So many writers don't get this chance, and have to battle within their busy lives for a little time to write through things, so I am very thankful for the opportunity to do so in such a supportive environment.

I had an exciting journey up here, with several visits with friends along the way--I had breakfast with Kara Christianson in Los Angeles, and heard about her teaching experience, which sounds unsurprisingly intense (she is doing Teach For America down there), then I saw Luba in San Francisco, where I experienced my first official San Francisco taqueria (apparently they're a pretty big deal) and saw an exhibit of amazing quilts at the Museum of Modern Art. I spent a few days with Janel in Berkeley meeting her friends and co-workers and getting to experience her situation there, and then I stayed with Brooks and Justin in Redding for a night talking and commenting on the manifestation of gender roles in Legend (a hilarious movie featuring Tom Cruise completely doused with glitter which you really should consider your need to experience) and Field of Dreams, before making my way the rest of the way up to Seattle.

I have stopped by school a couple of times since I got up here, to watch the showcase of the Town Crier Speaks student-written one-act festival, and to attend Lighthouse last night, which was fabulous, and I am planning to go to the Homecoming game this weekend, because heck, I'm an alum, and isn't that what we're supposed to do? :-) And last weekend I got to go up and visit my coach, which was wonderful as always--complete with the usual fabulous conversation as well as a run/hike on glorious trails and another foray into culinary brilliance, this one consisting of savory waffles with broccoli/potato/onion/cheddar batter topped with vegetables and lime sour cream--yum! I also watched the first half of Branagh's Hamlet, which I had never seen before, with his AP class.

Back in Seattle, the boys have been really good so far. They are very well brought up, and I am amazed at how well they share and behave given how young they are. My newest cousin is 8 weeks old, so she's still pretty tiny and mainly eats, sleeps, and cries, but she's a cutie. And my aunt and uncle are great--they're so generous and welcoming and understanding. I can't get over how amazing it is that they have offered me the chance to be up here doing all this.

As for the projects I'll be tackling, I have a screenplay I have mostly plotted out that I am interested in writing, along with a half-finished fairy tale play I've always meant to complete and a couple of novel ideas including a collaborative story I'm writing with Coach. I just got an idea for a play that takes a slightly new look at the synoptic gospel story, so that's another potential undertaking. There are certainly plenty of projects to tackle, and I'm sure I will come up with more as my brain gets used to the idea that I really get to spend significant portions of my day working on this stuff. I've also been doing some warm-up exercises and prompts and writing lists and such, basically writing anything that comes into my head, operating on the principle that if I get in the habit of not censoring my ideas and just spewing everything in my head out onto the computer, then I will get down to the good stuff buried in the corners and crevices, and I can go back and cut and edit after it's down, rather than as it's coming out. So, we'll see how the philosophy holds up with time.

Finally, I've decided to create a special blog for publishing snippets and excerpts from the writing I am doing each day. This won't be the main projects I am working on, which I will keep under pretty close wraps until I feel ready to share them, but it will provide an idea, to anyone who might be interested, of some of the more random stuff that finds its way out of my head and will probably never make its way into anything "real". So, if you want to check that out, it will be at http://www.shewritesaloud.blogspot.com, which you maybe could have guessed if you had thought about it hard enough. It's called For Public Consumption, and will be linked in the sidebar of this site for ready access. I will be discouraging critique of the stuff I post on there because of the nature of what it will be, although you are welcome to comment on the ideas/content posted. And words of encouragement are ALWAYS welcome, especially in these first rocky, hesitant days of experimentation with a new, exciting, but vast world of possibilities. Know, also, that although I write in isolation, I am able to do so only because of the many people who have supported, encouraged, and inspired me along the way. One of my projects today was to list all of the people I felt were with me, somehow, in spirit as I wrote, in my corner, so to speak, and if you are reading this I can almost guarantee that you are on there. So, thank you, for being there, for being who you are, for making me who I am.

Labor Day Weekend

2006-09-05T23:37:00.000-07:00

It's amazing what a three-day weekend can allow, and I was definitely in need of one at this point in the summer. It was perfect, because it allowed me to segment my time as I have found is most effective for me, and I got to do everything I could have hoped for on a single weekend. Glorious.

Saturday was my sister's feis, which was lots of fun. She did wonderfully, and got a first place and a third place medal. The dancing was great, as was the music. I also got a glimpse into the eccentricities of the competitive Irish dance world--bucket seats and sock glue and bun wigs and the like. Always very interesting... It feels a bit like a curly hair convention, which is fun, although at times it gets a bit overboard. And if I had my choice, I would institute a sequin ban in the solo dresses, which are INTENSE. But it was neat to see how the steps for the dances differ from school to school, and such.

After that I returned to my mom's house for a car washing extravaganza, using all sorts of products I never even knew existed, and I found myself to have temporarily run out of interest in meticulous attention to detail, which people who have lived with me, especially, may find as shocking as I did. Maybe I get a bit much of it at work? That's the hypothesis, anyway. I don't think I'm cured for good of compulsiveness, certainly, so don't worry. We also watched Miracle, which was a pretty good movie.

Quite excitingly, I was able to spend most of Sunday in bona fide Sabbath, which I have wanted to do for some time, and the three day weekend finally gave me the chance. I'm hoping to make it a more regular habit even on weekends of the paltry two-day variety. I spent most of the day up on a hilltop overlooking the city, reading and writing and praying. It was very good, very peaceful, and towards the end I met a Vietnam veteran named Larry who sat down and talked to me for a little while about his life and beliefs and such. He was a very nice man, and some of what he spoke about actually related to some things I had been puzzling over earlier in the day. As I was walking back home I got a call from my dad, who picked me up on his way out to go see The Illusionist, which I very much enjoyed. I also won our contest to guess the movie's post-preview start time--quite exciting. :-)

I set aside most of Monday for cleaning out and organizing the last pesky hiding places in my room--drawers and closet and under the bed and the like--hoping to finish them up before I head back up North. But first, I was excited to discover that the cross country team was meeting, and since work has kept me not only from attending camp this summer (tragedy of tragedies!) but also generally from getting to run with the team or meet the new freshmen or hang out with all the wonderfull people I've had the chance to get to know in previous years, I decided to seize the opportunity to get in at least one day with the team.

It was great to see everyone, and it seems like it will be a really good year. I was encouraged by the positive, dedicated attitudes of the freshmen I met. We ran along the ocean, which was lovely, and I got to hear all the stories of crazy camp adventures, which sounded hearteningly like the good old days, but better! I swear, Running Camp really does just get better every year. I have vowed to return for next year's camp even if wild horses attempt to prevent me--although I'm not sure why exactly they would try. But they better not even bother, is all I'm saying! I also did the circuit course with the freshmen when they had all returned, which was pretty intense especially after a four-mile run for this girl who hasn't been doing any training aside from Irish dance the whole summer. It was painful, but that didn't keep me from going around again when the returning runners came back and took their turn. So now I am paying for my foolhardy exuberance with aches and soreness in about every muscle imaginable--but it was worth it!

After practice I decided to stop by the Juice Kaboose for a smoothie, and as I was waiting in line I picked up the mixed-up rubik's cube on the counter (always a temptation) and started to solve it. When I got to the front of the line, the guy behind the counter asked me if I was going to finish it. I said I would, and he said he had always promised to give a free smoothie to anyone who could solve the thing. "Ok," I said. "But," he added, "you have to place your order now, and you have to finish it before I finish your smoothie." Well, it wasn't really fair for him, because I was already halfway through by then, but still my heart was racing when I set the solved rubik's cube down on the counter. "Are you sure?" I asked, as he slid the smoothie across to me, still willing to pay. But he insisted, so I now owe Brent Ferguson, my trusty RC-tutor, one smoothie. Brent, if you're reading this, you may collect at any time.

The rest of the day was spent organizing, and I did manage to get it pretty much done, so now I just need to start the process of packing my stuff, since the plan is to head out the morning after my last day of work, which doesn't leave me much free time to get everything together. But I am definitely eager to get up there and start writing, an eagerness of which this entry may be some indication.

One other note of interest (to me, at least)--today was my second-to-last Irish dance lesson in San Diego (sadness!), but instead of our usual teacher (whose 21st birthday is tomorrow--Happy Birthday, John!), we had Mr. Bracken, the founder and head of the school. He is a wonderful Irish man, and I just love the lilt, so it was very fun to hear him speak. He also has a lot of mannerisms and facial expressions very similar to those of Toby, a very fabulous friend of my flatmates from my time abroad who has earned one of the many special places set aside in my heart on that journey, so it was almost like getting to see him again, as well. It is both heartening, and sad, to have so many dear friends and wonderful people so scattered across the globe that I can't possibly keep in touch with them all; and yet, just knowing they're out there is often enough. Thanks to all of you who fit in that category--even if I'm not the best at keeping in touch, I very much value and appreciate you, and I promise I think of you often. You keep me going: thank you!

Back in Business

2006-09-01T22:33:00.000-07:00

...after a brief hiatus in which I boycotted all expendable responsibilities/things that stressed me out, and took time for things like bidding farewell to friends (so many fabulous people have departed from San Diego in the past few weeks, I'm surprised there have not been recorded sightings of weeping sidewalks and wilting palm trees), walking on the beach, sitting in God's presence, etc. For which I think my psyche is much the better.

I am now the last intern standing in the Artistic department, my two fellow interns having departed for school over the past several weeks. We made it through the whirlwind--or should I say tornado--that was dramaturgy for The Wiz, which was a very educational process, and now rehearsals for the show are underway and looking fabulous. I am here for two more weeks, and am particularly enjoying the literary side of things under my new boss. I do miss Sasha, though, and our mutual appreciation of some of the more amusing things that go on in the office.

At the same time, I'm definitely looking forward to the chance to start seriously focusing on writing. And to being back in the glorious green Northwest. Although I have been soaking up my share of golden So Cal sunshine, able to appreciate it thanks to my knowledge of the limits to my time basking therein. I am attempting to get through the task of sorting and organizing my papers, books, and other possessions before I depart from this land once more, in order to purge my way down to that which I am truly likely to use, and it looks like this goal should be accessible, although the film editing I was hoping to also complete this summer is looking far less likely thanks to a defect in the editing program I purchased for the purpose.

Let's see, since last I wrote I have experienced several recommendation-worthy books and movies: My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok and The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey were interesting reads, and Children of God, the sequel to The Sparrow, was not disappointing. On the cinematic side of things, I watched The Devil Wears Prada, which I heartily recommend despite my usual distaste for the "Ugly Duckling made Beautiful through hair-straightening, glasses-removal, and make-up-application" genre of films. I also saw Little Miss Sunshine, which was quite amusing and heartwarming and such.

Plans for the future are somewhat less overwhelming since I spoke with a much-valued mentor from my high school Bible study group, who is also a writer herself, and who, unlike many people I encounter, not only understands my urge to spend some time focused on writing, but thinks that the plan I have outlined is a sensible one given my goals. The current thought on school is to apply if and when it doesn't stress me out too much to go through the process of doing so. If that happens this fall, great. If not, I will finish this year focusing on writing with some kind of part-time work on the side, and then next year get my own place and find some fuller-time job capable of supporting me and leaving me with enough extra time to make my way through the application process for the following year. I'm happy with this plan, and, most attractively, it doesn't cause me to hyperventilate whenever I think about it, so I think that's what we'll be going with for the moment.

Tomorrow I am off to a real live feis to cheer my sister on in her soft shoe competition, and to pick up a few tips to improve my own dancing, I'm guessing. Unfortunately there will be not ceili at the end of the day like at the last one, but I have been getting a weekly Irish Dance fix of late at the beginner adult lessons, which are so much fun. I will be sad to leave the school in a few weeks, and will definitely be looking for a place to continue my lessons up north.

That's it for the moment--just wanted to post a quick update to satisfy those few who actually check this thing to gain insight into my existence. Hope that's sufficient. :-) More later, I'm sure.

Stars and Bubbles and All Things Sparkly and Bright

2006-07-04T00:41:00.000-07:00

The past week in brief flashes:

The summer's annual twelve-hour relay-- twenty crazy cross country runners clustered on a track in the dead of night, split into two teams and taking turns carrying two gradually dimming glowsticks in 80 miles' worth of circles, passing the time between runs with stretching, reading, dancing, giggling, eating, stargazing, and a fabulous game of leap frog across the football field. (Has anyone ever actually played that game? I don't think I ever had, seriously, before that night. It's actually incredibly fun. And not a little bit of a quad workout, either.)

Two e-mail exchanges I am most delightfully involved in-- a collaborative novella with Coach in the form of a series of vignettes around a transient Fountain of Life, and a gloriously lengthy philosophical/theological contemplation of the human condition.

Current reading material-- The Sparrow (Christian science fiction): what are the theological implications of intelligent life on other planets? Makes me hopeful for my own writing career--it IS possible to write interesting yet deeply meaningful fiction, after all!

Recent stargazing-- saw Jupiter's moons (crazy!) and the Butterfly Cluster (in Scorpio; gorgeous).

Afternoon of fun-- sitting on the hill out front in the shade of a tree, reading, and then buffeted by a thousand bubbles from my mom's newest acquisition; popping and frolicking and spreading bubble joy; gazing upside down at the world with my nine-year-old sister and marveling at how alien it makes the world look.

Work-- First week at the Young Performer's Workshop; I have named my group (4th and 5th graders) the Sunshine Group because our t-shirt color is yellow and I am trying to encourage them to keep a positive attitude; the job takes every ounce of energy but the kids are darling and still young enough to have pretty universally good intentions, and there is definitely much scope for sociological observation.

Plans for tomorrow-- watch the 4th of July parade, finish The Sparrow, update my journal, admire some fireworks, ponder the complexity of my opinions about patriotism.

Have a good one!

Meyers-Briggs Musings: An Existential Crisis

2006-06-24T00:28:00.000-07:00

So, recently I have been on one of my periodic Meyers-Briggs kicks, which inevitably provide me with some insight into an issue I am dealing with at the time, revealing to me that issues's connection with some integral part of my personality. Which can be both reassuring (I'm not cazy, it's just part of who I am) and disheartening (great, it's part of who I am, which means there's no way to get rid of it; I have to find some way to work within it).

This time is no different. Having exhausted, for the moment, my favorite M-B study, Nurture by Nature, I turned to another classic--Please Understand Me, by David Kiersey and Marilyn Bates. This one has a whole chapter on the four temperaments--SJ, SP, NT, and NF. Now, if you're not too familiar with the typology, feel free to contact me for a tutorial. For this entry's purposes you need only know that I happen to be an NF--Intuitive Feeler. Anyway, I hadn't read this chapter through for several years, and I was, as usual, shocked by the accuracy of the assessments.

First of all, there were several paragraphs which provided a more apt description of the pattern of my relationships than I would have expected from the people who know me best, myself included. I reproduce those here...:

" The NF can bring to each relationship a heightened sense of meaning, lending drama to the events in those relationships. The NF is extremely sensitive to subtleties in gestures and metaphoric behaviors not always visible to other types; she is also vulnerable to adding dimensions to communications which are not always shared or perceived by others. The NF's relationships can fall into a pattern of enthusiastic anticipation accompanied by a considerable investment of effort and emotion, ending in a disappointment that what could have been was not.

The NF is seldom miserly in the energy and time she is willing to devote to a relationship, especially as it is developing. A like return need not be quid pro quo for the NF to continue investing generously, as long as some response is forthcoming. No matter how the NF structures her relationships, she needs to have meaning. She wants their significance appreciated, or, at the very least, recognized as existing. Only through this kind of feedback does the NF know that she has unique identity. "

Eerily accurate in every particular, and especially applicable to my romantic interests much of the time, particularly the last sentence of the first paragraph... The chapter also contained an equally accurate description of my overarching goal/purpose/desire in life:

" 'How can I become the kind of person I really am?' asks the NF. She hungers for self-actualization, to be and to become real. To be what she is meant to be and to have an identity which is uniquely hers. Self-realization for the NF means to have integrity, that is, unity. There must be no facade, no mask. To have integrity is to be genuine, to communicate authentically, to be in harmony with the inner experiences of the self. Living a life of significance, making a difference in the world, satisfies the NF's hunger for unique identity. "

Once again, all too true. The prophetic nature of this section extended even to my intended profession:

" Most writers come from this group. Writers who wish to inspire and persuade, who produce literature, most often are NFs. The search for meaning as a necessary pilgrimage for all people is advanced by the NFs in their writings. Very often the other types, the SJs, NTs, and SPs, are troubled by the thought that they ought to be pursuing these values, even if, somehow, the search for meaning and integrity does not beckon to them. The reluctance of 88 percent of the world to join the search for self-actualization is a great source of mystification to the NFs. "

And it was this last section, specifically this last sentence, whose implications, as I reflected on them while sitting in my car this morning, brought me to a state that can only be described as existential crisis. Because if the assorted above assessments are correct (and I cannot deny they are, for me, at least), and if in fact NFs most value having significance and meaning in their life, and find this significance through encouraging others in the search for self-actualization and identity, then the worst possible thing you could tell such a person is that 88% of the world is not particularly interested in this search. For that removes from their plans for the future the very sense of meaning which they so strongly crave.

And that is, of course, precisely what I am most interested in doing with my writing. And is it really fruitless to attempt to persuade almost nine tenths of the population that this is valuable? And if so, what on earth am I doing with my life?

These moments of questioning, even of crisis, are, I think, inevitable events at certain points along the winding, sometime bumpy, road of life--and especially along the particular section of that road on which I am currently travelling. And I am sure it will look much more optimistic by the light of morning. But any thoughts or reflections are, always, appreciated.

I hope you are content with your own life's purpose, or with whatever it is that drives or satisfies you in life. Best.

Feis and Ceili: Pretty Much The Most Fun Ever

2006-06-20T21:44:00.000-07:00

I have just returned from my second Irish dance lesson, which was quite a lot of fun. Having learned the beginner's reel at my first lesson, this class I picked up the single jig and most of the slip jig. It was pretty hilarious--the teacher and the two other women in the class kept up a constant exchange of banter, even as they danced, which I found rather impressive.

But my real Irish dance excitement occurred this past weekend, when I got the chance to attend a feis and ceili held by the Bracken school. For the uninitiated among my readers, a feis is a competition between dancers of similar age and level--several dancers at a time take turns in the various dances, and are judged and ranked against their cohort. A ceili is a celebration, with formation dancing in large groups. Sammi competed in the feis, and did a wonderful job, and it was great fun to see all the different dances. It's kind of crazy--people might be dancing completely different steps simultaneously, because there are several different versions of the same dance.

But the ceili was absolutely fabulous!!! I'm actually kind of at a loss to explain just how glorious it was. They had a live band, complete with a fiddle, an instrument whose sound, as far as I'm concerned, is liquified gold and aural ecstasy and all things superlatively good and transporting. And you didn't have to know a single thing about Irish dance to participate: they'd just call out "groups of three" or "four couples in a square" and anyone who wanted to dance could wander onto the floor, and if you didn't have people you knew to dance with they would make sure to get you into a group of the proper size. My little sister had two friends there, so the four of us would often partner, and there were a few other girls I had met at Sammi's birthday party. But everyone was really friendly, and after a few dances when the girls had got tired and were sitting them out, other dancers would walk up and offer to partner me.

It was mostly the little girls (there were a total of I think two or three boys competing in the entire feis) who had competed who came out to dance in the ceili, although some of the adults who take lessons also participated (there hadn't been adult competition that day, as it was only a practise feis among members of the school, not against people from other schools, as the official competitions are). And a few parents of dancers tried a dance or two as well. There seemed to be a set of steps that most dances were built on, but I was outside for the first part and missed them teaching those, so I mostly just hopped and skipped in time until I started picking it up by watching what other folks were doing. The steps remained pretty constant, but each dance had a different way of combining those steps with movement patterns and interactions with the other dancers. It was somewhat similar to square dancing, with left hooks and right hands and a modified do-si-do and such, but all skipping and hopping and constantly whirling in what, from above, would have resembled a vast Celtic knot, which is, I believe, the point.

It's grand because you're constantly changing partners both within and between dances, and you move from group to group and sometimes grab hands and swing along around the entire circle, and as you meet everyone smiles and looks you in the eye--a very friendly form of dancing. I could just imagine a warm summer night in Ireland, with the whole village gathered in someone's barn, dancing the night away. It's funny, but every once in a while I feel the inexorable pull of my British heritage--when I was wandering the moors in Scotland, or hiking the hills outside of Dublin, or breathing in the misty air of England, I felt so utterly at home, so anciently right there. And Saturday night was the same thing. I danced every dance.

Funnily, eventually somebody noticed this. At one point the announcer guy, walking by, asked me my first name, and a few minutes later, in a break between dances, they announced that they had decided to award a "Spirit of the Ceili" medal to someone who "had been dancing all night, looked like she was having a great time, and, if she were competing, wouldn't even need to wear a wig!" (At the higher levels of competition, all dancers wear massive wigs of curly hair, which look rather absurd on quite a few of the girls, especially the smaller ones.) So, that was quite splendid and silly, and I was rather giddy from all the dancing. They gave me one of the medals the kids got for competing in the feis, which I wore for the last few dances, before we finally closed up and headed home.

Oh my goodness, I don't think I can imagine an evening's activity that would give me more exhilaration and joy and contentment. It was positively glorious. Seriously, if you ever have the opportunity to attend a ceili, I strongly suggest that you take it. I hope that my description has at least partially managed to convey how wonderful it all was.

In other news (which I'll try to keep brief, after my rather extensive gushing above), the internship continues to go well. I have been reading bunches of plays, some of which are kind of hilarious but many of which are quite good, and getting positive feedback on the response reports I write. Sadly, I only have a few more days before I leave the artistic department for three weeks to work with kids at the Young Performer's Workshop. But that should also be lots of fun. I finished The Secret History, which was good although not entirely satisfactorily concluded, and I have started Lies My Teacher Told Me, about the travesty that is American History as taught in schools, which is quite interesting so far. Two nights ago I pulled a near-all-nighter writing in my journal, because I was on a linguistic roll, and I only got halfway through the topics I wanted to cover before forcing myself to get at least three hours of sleep, which nevertheless left me a walking zombie at work the whole next day. Seriously, the absurd mindless things I did at the copier... So then last night I slept for eleven hours, and felt pretty fine today. And then I had my lesson, where the shin splints I developed after a perhaps slightly ill-advised but very lovely run with my dad on Fathers Day didn't interfere with my dancing nearly as much as I expected they would. And that brings us up to the current moment, in which I conclude this entry, remove my contacts, and attempt to attack the second half of my journal topics while still somehow getting a reasonable amount of slumber.

May you be, sometime this week, as joy-filled as I was last Saturday.

New Title

2006-06-17T15:12:00.000-07:00

I realized "Rain of Glory" was a less than appropriate monicker given my current locale. Hope those of you in more distant lands appreciate the subtle double entendre of the new title.

La Vie Est Belle, Non?

2006-06-14T23:23:00.000-07:00

Mais oui!

Another wonderful week of interning, with much reading of plays and other odd jobs. On Sunday the Playhouse held a Tony party, complete with '50s diner fare--hamburgers and potato salad and even root beer floats, yum!, also a lovely-looking dish served in fancy dessert glasses which appeared to be some sort of apple cinnamon crumble drizzled in caramel atop vanilla ice cream, but revealed itself, upon first bite, to be, in fact, quite to the contrary, ground beef drizzled with gravy atop mashed potatoes, which was rather a shock to our fellow intern, Peter, whose pride at having been the first to snag a dessert soon changed to somewhat indignant surprise. It really was misleading... But funny... :-) But the excitement of the evening was Jersey Boys snagging four Tonys, including Best Musical, which is the biggie, so there was much celebrating. And, they did eventually produce real desserts, including delicious apple pie, the leftovers of which appeared in the lunchroom the following morning, to which no one raised violent protest.

So Monday my tasks included compiling packets of newspaper clippings on the victories from the local rag, as well as a trip to the local news station to drop off a tape. Yesterday and today were a marathon of script reading, with the added excitement of a tutorial on how to log new scripts into the database, and an assignment in partnership with my fellow Literary intern to interview a scene designer for the Playhouse newsletter. Which is a (nominally) paying gig, so I am now officially a professional, commissioned writer! Or, close enough. I'm pretty excited about it.

Last night I attended my first Irish dance lesson; also quite exciting. I have always wanted to take Irish dance--used to leap around pretending like I knew what I was doing, and claiming it was Irish dancing to the inquisitive people who didn't know any better, or at least pretended they didn't to humor me. But now I know a bona fide reel. Jump two three, jump two three....

This evening I enjoyed a delightful dinner with the illustrious Allison--quite enjoyable. And tomorrow night I see Zhivago, the musical currently running at the Playhouse, with my mother. If anyone on Team Echoes happens to be reading this, I have been working on the DVD in spare moments and am almost ready to send it off, at long last, I promise. If you're waiting on a Town Crier DVD, I will also get to those, I promise, but it may be another little while yet. I also started The Secret History, by Donna Tartt, which I love so far. The characters are wonderful. The story is getting a bit creepy for the pre-bedtime hours which are the only ones I'm able to devote to reading, but it's definitely a gripping and well-written book.

Bonne nuit, and I hope that ta vie est si belle que ma vie! Bons reves!

I, In Turn, Intern...

2006-06-08T23:05:00.000-07:00

Well, just over a week has passed since I commenced my internship, and so far I am heartily enjoying the process. My tasks thus far have ranged from reading play submissions, to compiling a list of local awards the theatre has won, to arranging headshots in alphabetical order and by ethnicity, to my current project researching the aspects of clowning present in the works of Samuel Beckett, specifically Waiting for Godot. All quite interesting, and sufficiently varied. We (the artistic/literary interns) have managed to procure university library cards of a clearance level so high that the sentry in charge of issuing them at the circulation desk openly expressed her shock at the awesome power they would allow us to wield. I can check out, literally, 100 books at a time. With such authority, I could conceivably conquer the world. I would therefore advise in you CONSTANT VIGILANCE.

This morning was the second of our intern seminars, where each week the head of a different department meets with all the interns currently working at the Playhouse to provide us with breakfast and a description of the particular tasks they oversee. This morning we got strawberries, vanilla wafers, and whipped cream from General Management, who claim there is a competition to see which department's breakfast is the most creative.

A couple of nights ago I gave in to my state of literary deprivation of late by staying up until 2am to finish The Life of Pi, which I had started a few days previous but hadn't been able, with my work schedule, to get through nearly fast enough. It was a very good book, engaging and philosophical and vivid, and I recommend it to anyone who hasn't yet had a chance to check it out. I then began the process of responding to the collection of e-mail that has been building up in my inbox over the past semester, some of it, rather embarrassingly, left over from as early as mid-January. This weekend, the intended projects include finishing the unpacking process and perhaps getting a DVD burned and sent out to my beloved Team Echoes.

I hope all is well with whatever persons and/or leprechauns have found this site and decided to take the time to peruse it.

Here's Your Diploma, Welcome to Reality

2006-06-03T10:29:00.000-07:00

Although actually, I don't have my diploma yet, so technically I am probably still residing in that twenty-something-year Limbo we inhabit before finally being released into legitimate existence. And if I never pay my library fines, I suppose I could postpone that release potentially indefinitely. Hm...

In the meantime, I am practising for the much-acclaimed "Real World" by pretending to join the work force (you can tell it's pretending because they don't actually pay me, but I do go someplace and do relatively useful things for eight hours straight per day, which is quite a change from the couple scattered hours of class per day to which I have become accustomed), in the form of an internship in the Literary Management/Dramaturgy department of the La Jolla Playhouse. I just completed my first three days in that position, which I have enjoyed immensely. I met my fellow artictic department interns, Peter and Sasha, who are very nice, fun, and hardworking people. Peter, a San Diego native, just finished his freshman year at Princeton, and Sasha, who is from D.C., will be a senior at Carnegie-Mellon next year. Our supervisors, Allison and Jackie, are also very neat, and they have particular skill at explaining how things work and what they want, which is hugely helpful in a boss.

The two interceding weeks between the ceremonious observation of my successful completion of college and the commencement of my internship were made quite enjoyable by the chance to spend time with many of my wonderful family members--visiting with my aunt and uncle, as well as my grandparents who were staying with them, and painting a closet into a supercool rocket ship for my two little cousins with the help of my sister, who then came back to Tacoma to hang out with me for a few days as I packed up my stuff and attended my roommate's wedding, which was lovely, and then a week-long cruise up to Alaska with my mom, step-dad, grandmother, and both sisters, which was fabulous and beautiful and relaxing and hilarious, highlights including the seven-mile hike along a glacier with Joe and Sammi in Juneau, wandering through a totem park in Sitka, perching atop the railing of a wooden staircase in a small wooded area overlooking a rushing stream and scribbling away in Ketchikan, having the chance to actually complete an entire book purely for fun (Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco), late-night dancing with Mom and Allie, sitting in the on-deck jacuzzi as the green and white hills of Alaska glided past, spending quality time with Grandma, and a three-hour late-night Apples to Apples game (what event is complete without one of those, seriously?).

After the cruise I packed up my car and headed down the coast in my much-beloved solitary two-day communal with the road, stopping midway to spend the night in Luba's lovely new apartment. And now I am home in San Diego, having started my internship the morning following my return, and I have even managed, in the evenings after work, to make a sizable dent in the huge pile of possessions (half of which, of course, are books) which I dragged along and am now attempting to organize and purify to the central core which I truly use and have need of.

Prior to graduation was that wonderful week and a half when the students of UPS, for a brief period given a top-heavy ratio of available time to required tasks, are actually able to interact with one another as the actual semester, what with classes and activities and jobs and homework, never quite manages to permit. I, as usual, revelled in this opportunity, turning a blind eye to the few final projects I did need to complete until they were screamingly unignorable in their urgency, and instead taking the chance to delight in the company of those people whose existence I so deeply value. So that was lovely.

I am currently attempting to formulate and formalize my plans for life after my internship. The idea currently seeming most promising involves spending the next year or two focusing on my writing in an attempt to discern whether I am cut out for the life or a writer and, if so, what sorts of things best make their way through the conduit of mind to pen to paper and out into the world of shared ideas. The hope is for this to occur in that northwestern land of trees and clouds and that rain of watery inspiration from the sky that I have come to love over the past four years, and my aunt and uncle's offer of their guest room in their house in Seattle has made that a distinct possibility. After that, most likely a graduate degree in Writing or Playwrighting, and then... We shall see.

In any event, my intent is to recommence my online posting at far more frequent intervals over the summer, and as usual, if you read an entry you are eagerly encouraged to acknowledge that fact through some form of responsive comment, which need have no relationship with the subject of my writings, as the main purpose of your response is to assure me that there is some purpose to the time I spend writing into this electronic void. Even one person on the other side of the screen is sufficient to inspire me to continue. Thank you for taking the time and patience to wade your way through my winding words. Until next time.

Turning Twenty-One

2005-11-10T22:57:00.000-08:00

Of course you never quite feel the age difference overnight as it seems that you should. The magical birthday fairy always seems to pass by without a sprinkling of the "sudden realization" dust. I suppose it must be quite costly, that dust, and not to be wasted on your average everyday birthday. But you might think that such a reputedly significant turning point as one's twenty-first birthday might merit a pinch or two... No matter. Fairy dust or not, I had a positively marvelous birthday.

I awoke to a birthday phone call from my mother, then headed off to school, where my Theatre History class bid me Happy Birthday and made me wear a plastic light-up tiara and matching earrings through class. Between classes I got to talk to my sister about the wonder which is the DVD of R. Kelly's Trapped in the Closet chapters 1-12, which she will bring home so I can watch it with her over Thanksgiving. I brought homemade vanilla cupcakes with sprinkle-stars to Senior Theatre Festival, where we unfortunately failed to reach a satisfactory resolution as to next semester's line-up of plays, alas, but we shall. I hope... They did treat me to a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday, which was quite fun.

After class, I returned home to cook a delicious feast of spinach, biscuits, and macaroni and cheese casserole, which I shared with my wonderful housemates. Then a number of friends came over for a marathon of Apples to Apples (regular and 2-for-1) over cake and sparkling pear and cranberry juice, while listening to music from my time abroad. The day was also interspersed with e-mails and phone calls from loved ones from afar, bidding me a happy birthday. All in all, a fantastic way to celebrate the twenty-one years of life with which God has blessed me so far.

I'm still in the midst of a time of relative stresslessness, which is wonderful (apart from the Senior Theatre Festival difficulties) and have had some time to relax, catch up, and even READ A BOOK FOR FUN! I know--gasp! (It was, if you're curious, Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein, which happens to have been the only new book I brought up to school this semester, so pessimistic was I about the prospects of having free time to do some reading.)

One other exciting tidbit: I found out that two fellow-students will be studying abroad at Sussex next semester, so I get to meet them on Monday and give them some advice, and basically reminisce about my glorious semester abroad and try to convince them to allow me to stow away in their luggage.

That's all for now. More later, and much love!

Happy Halloween, and other stories...

2005-11-01T13:41:00.000-08:00

Before I begin this post, give me a moment to stretch back into a vast, prolonged sigh of relief. Ahhhhhhhh. Ok, sorry about that. It's just so nice to feel that I have, finally, truly, at long last, or at least for the moment, emerged from the mad vortex of the past, hm, say seven and a half years or so of my life. I actually walked to school today! That's a half hour each way, one hour out of my day I was able to dedicate to frivolous, non-productive activity I could achieve in my car in five minutes. It was pretty much pouring as I did this, but I've wanted to walk to school since I moved into the W-Min house, and today was the first day i've even been able to consider the possibility, so by gum, I seized it before it could slip through my grasp. Mmm, so pleasant and peaceful, rain or no rain.

Other fun activities in the glorious new leisure time I've discovered over the past few days:

~ I went to visit Coach and Coach Singer in their cozy new temporary abode on their forest-y Washington property, anticipating only the end of the rains to build their long-awaited home. A grand and glorious weekend, complete with bonfires, marshmallow roasting, stargazing, run/bike riding, trailer toilet adventures, rain gutter construction, the invention of a delicious culinary concoction alliterarily appelated "Curry Couscous Chocolate Chicken Concagination with Compost (aka veggies) and a Cherry On Top", and the viewing of the second half of Branagh's Hamlet with Coach's AP English seniors.

~ Helped manage the auditions for the Directing class' one-acts, which I did in large part to restrain myself from actually auditioning and interfering with this freedom I am now so thankfully enjoying. My favorite part was helping to facilitate the casting process, providing the directors with outside eyes and my previous experience with the compromises and juggling of actors requisite to multi-show casting.

~ Ushered for the mainstage production of Romeo and Juliet, which was quite well-done, with particularly lovely costumes and a really fun set, and lots of play-up on all the sexual innuendo in the script, much to the dismay of the fourth-grade teachers who wanted to expose their students to some Shakespeare and didn't really read the play with that sort of context in mind.

~ Tutored at the 7th Street Learning Center, my church's middle school tutoring program, teaching a boy how to calculate local noon.

~ Decorated for the W-Min House's Halloween bash (photos to be posted), which I attended dressed as Rain (ibid). The party was a wild success, complete with creepy dry ice fog, yummy treats, a dance party in the basement, a costume contest (I won for Most Creative), and some rousing games of Apples to Apples and Twister.

~ Helped throw a Halloween-themed birthday party for an 8-year-old boy and his 13 neighborhood friends, with four other girls from my school (housemates Jess and Lahlae, and two other girls from Lighthouse). Utilized my dramatic skills to tell a spooky story, watched the kids bob for apples and donuts, eat cake, open presents, bash each other with balloon swords, etc. So much fun!!!

~ Handed out candy to the costumed neighborhood children. Hooray!

~ Looked at a number of potential writing residencies I am considering applying to for my upcoming year, still shrouded in mystery, of trying to spend some serious time writing. There are apparently a whole bunch of them, many of which will pay for your food, housing, and even travel. So, we'll see where I go from here.

~ We had a pretty spirited Senior Theatre Festival class this week, as we're getting down to the wire in terms of having to pick which plays we'll actually be producing. Next week is the deadline, so we spent this week's class talking about a few hypothetical possibilities, and trying to figure out if any four plays will make all eighteen seniors happy. No immediately obvious solutions, but definitely some promising possibilities.

All other aspects of life are going well. My new Bible study group is particularly wonderful--so far we've had two very interesting discussions on worship and prayer, and this week we're talking about what it means to love/be loved by God. The House and its inhabitants are wonderful as usual. Oh, goodness, we have three House birthdays within a week, and last night, for Jess' birthday, one of the TCM interns cooked the whole house this fabulous gourmet meal of pork roast, beans and carrots, salad, bread with garlic spread, mashed potatoes, mashed corn, and chocolate covered strawberries. It was absolutely amazing! Tonight is Lahlae's birthday, and she's cooking salmon. I think my birthday meal will be slightly less fancy, but no less delicious--macaroni and cheese casserole. One more week and I'll be 21--crazy!

That's all for now. Go in peace!

New Day Dawning

2005-10-18T12:20:00.000-07:00

Phew! I have managed to emerge, unscathed, from the past month or so of school/Town Crier/life in general, and I suppose those of you who have discovered my new blog and are checking it in hopes of an update (aka Bruce) deserve some kind of summary of the past few weeks. So, here you are:

The main event which has prevented me from updating sooner has been the Town Crier Speaks Festival of student-written one-acts, for which I was the Artistic Director, meaning I oversaw advertising, visited rehearsals, recruited and trained a tech crew, solicited, printed, and posted posters, ordered t-shirts, made programs, alerted the school newspaper, ran cue-to-cue, watched dress rehearsals, taped the performances, and did what I could to encourage the many fabulous actors, directors, and technicians involved in the process. The shows came off fantastically--each of them was very well-done, with strong acting and skilled directing. Friday and Saturday night we sold out and had people packed in the back of the house standing up to watch. We had an avant garde theatre piece which was particularly ground-breaking in terms of the type of theatre done on campus, even our most hilarious plays had some sort of import or at some point made you stop and think, and basically the whole process was a remarkably successful one. I definitely believe it was the best Town Crier Speaks Festival so far, and I was incredibly satisfied. And, although I did hit this weird sickness that seemed to demand I sleep 11 hours a day in order to avoid weird headaches, general achyness, and dizzy spells, I pretty much had the energy and ability to enjoy the performances, which is more than I can say for last year's festival. All in all, a wild success.

In addition to Town Crier, there has of course been school, which has been going very well as well. I'm really enjoying all of my classes, and the reading is always interesting. Assignments have been mercifully notoverly demanding, although I'm hitting a wall in terms of paper-writing, which I am really just pretty much done with, mentally, for the time being. I wish I could just learn the material without having to ramble on for pages about it. You might elevate an eyebrow at my expression of contempt for rambling, especially given what you are currently perusing, and to a certain extent I am in agreement with your skepticism. I think I'm just ready to be finished with obligatory assignments. Hence, my current decision to take a year or two off after graduation before entering grad school or teaching or whatever my next trajectory turns out to be, in order to pursue the writing of some of the screenplays, novels, plays, articles, and books that have been floating around in my head, but trapped, deprived of the free time in which to escape via pen or computer into the world at large. To that end, I've applied to a writing residency in Washington for two months isolated in a cabin in the woods sometime post-graduation, and am hoping to apply to a few more as well to provide the time, solitude, and inspiration necessary to release these pent-up ideas. I'm also pondering other methods of lending structure to this time of freedom to which I am looking forward with appreciation and anticipation, feeling that I have spent far too many years in a kind of frantic perpetual motion which I will be glad to slow or stop for a period of time, before I whirl completely off the surface of the planet and drift into deepest space.

Anything else? Hm, I've seen several plays, including Don Quixote, which was ok, and Vincent in Brixton, which was fabulous. I've met with a few people currently participating in the Teach For America program in order to get an idea of their experiences. I've met with my new Core Group (aka Bible study), which has coalesced this year much to my delight, and which seems to consist of a number of delightfully different and dedicated women really interested in gaining some knowledge of/closeness to God in the process.

And this past weekend, lengthened slightly thanks to the slightly stingy Monday off known here as "Fall Break," I flew down to Dallas to visit my sister Allie at college, which was a wonderful experience. My dad and Pam met us down there as well, and we saw the town and the campus, watched Allie take pictures for her photography project, met many of her friends, saw her new and wonderfully decorated abode, played many fun games including Racko, Taboo, Scattegories, and Apples to Apples, stayed up until 5 or 6 each morning, and generally had a lovely time. I also got to go to four of Allie's classes with her. It was really great to spend time with her, especially since we didn't have much time together over the past summer, and to experience a weekend's worth of her life in Texas.

That's about all for now, but I will try to update this blog more often. Life should be a bit less crazy now with Town Crier over and no other theatre events to speaks of until Senior Theatre Festival next spring. So, check back soon for more updates, Bruce! (And anyone else who might have stumbled in here as well...)

The Whirlpool

2005-09-13T20:44:00.000-07:00

Crazy how easy it is to get sucked right back in, no matter how much you appreciated the freedom and serenity of life frolicking in the tidepools. The whirlpool does have its own draws, though, pun only subtly intended. My first few weeks back at school have been filled with the minute but crucial processes of getting into the swing of new classes and getting various elements of student theatre up and running.

Classes this term are fantastic:
* Comparative Education, comparing Japanese and American teaching styles, and later, I believe, Afghani as well
* Developmental Psychology, Adolescence to End of Life
* Psychology of Romantic Relationships, really fascinating stuff
* Contemporary Theatre, because theatre is still my major
* Senior Theatre Festival, where the senior theatre majors read tons of plays, talk about them, and pick four to produce in the spring,
and
* Yoga, because I'll sure need it

I'm living in the Women's Ministry House, arranged by the local college ministry group, with seven other wonderful women. The house itself is utterly fantastic--photos to be posted soon. We have house dinner four times a week, and much fun.

This year in the student theatre world I'm producing the town Crier Speaks festival of student-written one-act plays, which is going to be great this year. We just had our auditions last week and now directors are starting their rehearsal processes, and I am really excited about the scripts we'll be putting up and how well-suited each director is to his/her show. We'll be putting up several more experimental pieces, and one that I've written will also be produced, which will be neat to see.

I also discovered that I'm president of the Student Theatre club on campus, so there was a bit of running around filing forms and talking to people to get that taken care of, but it's pretty much settled by now.

For the most part, as my creation of this blog indicates, things are at a bit of a lull, although I'm sure they won't stay that way for long. but i'm glad to be back, much as I miss many of the people and places from my time abroad, and i am excited for the mysteries which lie ahead, beyond the hazy frontiers of my life as a college undergrad.

I'm Back!

2005-09-13T20:14:00.000-07:00

Back in the States, and back on the blog. Or rather, a new blog, for a new/old place and even, p'raps, a new/old me. We shall see. Anyway, for those of you who are technologically inclined and like to keep track of me, even if I am a bit more stationary these days than I've been in months past, you're in the right place. Hope you enjoy it! The level of exoticism may be lower, but tales of adventure shall still, I most certainly hope, abound.