Felt Fragile

Here's an uncharacteristically emotionally candid post from me, posted on my blog where it's unlikely that anyone other than a stray bot will read it. So, wandering code beast, if you're not up for wallowing in the misery of planning for classes in a Covid world, feel free to drop your awesome offer on Ray-Bans or ED medications in the comments and skip on by. Don't worry - I'm sure I'll post a cat picture on my instagram in a few minutes and the algorithms will right themselves once more.

For this fall, I'm prepping a class that I last taught during Spring 2020. Going back through my daily class notes, I have just arrived at Mar 9, 2020 - the day when we started having conversations with our students about how things might change if the situation got bad. "This is all out of an abundance of caution," my notes copied from the faculty emails said, and we were so hopeful that none of these contingencies would end up being necessary. A week later, we sent all our students home.

Here we are a year and a half later, with almost less certainty than we had back then. We have vaccines, but we have variants. And how long until the hateful, willfully ignorant hordes incubate for us a fancy new variant that skirts the few defenses that we have? How many people will be sacrificed to the egos of our stubborn politicians and our myopic neighbors?

What will classes look like? What do we do for the students who are forced to miss class due to a 2 week quarantine? (In a lecture based class this is one thing - but I'm teaching Improv!) What do we do if WE are forced to miss class due to a 2 week quarantine? What of the plays we've already started designing? What of the students who are looking to a theatre industry whose position is so precarious that it's hard to conceive of what world we are preparing them for?

My natural cynicism already has me believing that things are going to get worse before they get better... but how much worse?

I'm angry. I am so so angry right now, and I don't know what to do with all of that anger (aside from my daily ritual of shaking it up in the cocktail mixer of my psyche, along with my festering anxiety, and a little fear zest as a garnish).

So... that's a little text-based selfie from me. What's the instagram lingo? Felt fragile. Might delete later. IDK. I really DK.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

For the last four summers, I've spent a month in Moscow seeing some of the most exciting theatre I can imagine. It's hard to explain exactly what is so magical about what we see over there, but a lot of it boils down to theatricality. They are not so tied down to "realism" as we are in the US. They are interested in imagination, in vivid visual communication, in using imagery at least as powerfully as text. There is an understanding that theatre is unique in its ability to make magic happen in front of our eyes.

That was what I saw in Julie Taymor's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was broadcast as part of Fathom's series of live theatre in movie theatres, and the closest location for us was in Gettysburg, PA. So we drove two hours and sat in a nearly empty theatre waiting. Eventually we probably ended up with about 20 people. And those 20 people shared a remarkable evening together.

The film was preceded by a brief interview with Julie Taymor - sort of a full screen version of director's notes in the playbill. She talked about the way in which her Puck invites the audience to dream, and the ways in which the characters experience all the nightmares of love before embarking on their happy marriages. The images laid over her introduction, in my opinion, gave a little too much away, but they also elevated our expectations. We couldn't wait to begin.

The sheer inventiveness of the staging was a delight. The use of flowing white cloth as clouds, dresses, the bower, walls, a cyc... and whatever it needed to be was deliciously theatrical and so well choreographed. The fairies spoke in this beautiful, discordant almost-chant. They were mostly children, and Taymor used other performers in black or in fairy garb to move them around, allowing their movements to feel fluid and other-worldly. The forest was made out of bamboo and chorus members - it was something that the lovers had to negotiate in a very real way as they made their way beyond the gates of "civilized" society. The use of shadow and projections was discerning and powerful, taking every advantage of the technology and budget available, but without beating you over the head with it. The lovers were charming - particularly Helena. The way they slowly lost their clothes as they lost their minds was similar to the way things progressed in a production I was in several years ago - down to Lysander taking a good, sultry whiff of Helena's shoe. Bottom's donkey head was amazing! It was all out donkey, but it also retained the nose and facial hair of the actor, so it was sort of delightfully cartoony. Plus, the actor had two little hand pieces that controlled the mouth and lips of the head, which created such a realistic, but still delightfully theatrical effect! Puck was an amazing, double-jointed, slightly androgynous figure whose strangeness made our dear Robin Goodfellow a clear denizen of this dream world. Oberon was so beautiful - his fluidity of movement and resonant voice were out of this world. And his journey from gleefully tormeting his wife to growing tired of the silliness was articulated better than I have ever seen it before. Titania was sexy and powerful and had these awesome lights on her costume that kept her face constantly lit, so sometimes it seemed like her head was just floating. The mechanicals were Brooklyn workmen with personality and passion coming out their ears. The rotund black man playing Wall was a particular favorite for me (Greenville folks: Mr. Jason may well have a doppelganger!). And after all the hilarity of Pyramus and Thisbe, a moment that stopped me in my tracks was Thisbe's discovery of the dead Pyramus. It turned out that Flute could really act - and he had the audience on stage, in the live theatre, and in the movie theatre holding our breath. It was really beautiful. 

This ended up being one of my favorite kinds of productions to see: it's one that gave me tons of ideas, but not necessarily the ideas that I saw. The imagery and interpretation were exciting - and I'm sure I'll end up stealing some things from this production one day. But much more exciting were the ideas I found myself coming up with. The production was inspiring. I found myself seeing things in this familiar script (one I've performed twice and seen... I don't know how many times) that I hadn't seen before, or that I was seeing in a new light. And I walked away with ideas of my own that had grown out of being so close to such excellent work. I love watching good theatre that makes me want to make good theatre.

Grand

I know a lot of people who didn't know some or any of their grandparents.  Or maybe their grandparents passed when they were too young to really remember them.  I, on the other hand, knew all four of my grandparents well.  I had their hugs and stories and laughter and weirdness for decades.  It wasn't until I was

Nana and Gandalf's wedding photo

22 years old that I had to say goodbye to my first grandparent: my maternal grandfather, known to his 21 grandchildren as "Gandalf."  He was a magical, musical, admirable man whose love of stories is the seed to which I follow back my love of theatre.  Almost two years later, his wife - our Nana - left us.  She was gentle and warm and kind, an inspiration to her numerous children and now grandchildren who have followed her into teaching.  In the coming years, grandkids kept going to school and falling in love and starting families and starting jobs and going on adventures and generally growing up, the way grandkids tend to do.  And all the while, my brothers and I continued to be overseen by our paternal grandparents.  Sometimes known as Teta Agnes and Jeddo Leo (because of our Lebanese cousins), and usually known simply as Grandma and Grandpa, these wily Canadians continued to weather and rejoice in all our sorrows and joys.  In in the last five years they gleefully took on the rarely held title of Great-Grandparents (they referred to themselves simply as "The Greats").  It wasn't until two years ago - ten years after we lost Gandalf - that Jeddo Leo passed.  His adorable Newfoundland lilt and infectious laugh lost to us at just shy of 90 years of age.  And finally, today, we laid to rest Teta Agnes, right beside her husband, at Assumption Catholic Cemetery (and directly in the flight path from Pearson International Airport... which is perfect for this aviation-obsessed branch of the family).  We spent the last couple of days reflecting on the life and love that she shared with us, and as I stood at the pulpit today reading the responsorial hymn, I reflected back on all these remarkable grandparents I have known and loved and lost.  For my maternal grandparents, I was always asked to sing this psalm.  For my grandfather, I read the general intersessions, and today, I read aloud the same psalm that has been present at each of these farewells.  As I read the words, honoring my grandmother, I couldn't help but think back to all the funerals - all the amazing people who shaped my world view and my sense of humor and my identity.  I could feel them all there with me at the Mass of the

Teta and Jeddo dancing at my cousin Claire's wedding

Resurrection for my sweet, hilarious, adorable grandmother - like Nana, another inspirational teacher.  And I could feel again how lucky I am to have known all four of them so well, and to have my parents and aunts and uncles and brothers and cousins and nieces as reminders of how much I have learned about how to live and learn and love.  And, even though we are sad today, I can't help but be happy to think about the ridiculously cool and smart and fun and supportive and loving family of which I am a part.  And as Father John noted, we are a pilgrim family - one that takes great pleasure in our journeys, and as much pleasure in coming home to each other.  And that's what we did this week - we came home to each other.  And though she is gone, it was Teta who brought us here one last time.  And it is one more thing in an endless list for which I can be grateful to her, and to Jeddo Leo, and to Nana & Gandalf, and to all of those crazy fruits with whom I am so lucky to share this family tree.

"The Lord is my shepherd;
there is nothing I shall want.
Fresh and green are the pastures
where he gives me repose.
Near restful waters he leads me,
to revive my drooping spirit.
He guides me along the right path; he is true to his name.
If I should walk in the valley of darkness
no evil would I fear.
You are there with your crook and your staff;
with these you give me comfort.
You have prepared a banquet for me
in the sight of my foes.
My head you have anointed with oil;
my cup is overflowing.
Surely goodness and kindness shall follow me
all the days of my life.
In the Lord's own house shall I dwell
for ever and ever."
Amen.

Weddings

I'm not a girly girl.  I don't have the fantasy wedding I've dreamed of or whatever ridiculous rom com trope is floating around out there.  Truth be told, it turns out I don't know much about weddings at all... except that no, I cannot "wear that periwinkle chiffon dress anywhere."  Seriously.

So now that we're engaged, and people are starting to ask us questions we can't answer, I've been trying to do some catch up.  And based on the googling and pinteresting (that is a terrifying place, by the way) I've been doing, I have learned a few things about internet wedding (IW) information:

1) DIY means something very different to IW people than it does to me.  I'm thinking maybe I'll bake some cupcakes or do something funky with my bouquet.  These people want you to sculpt miniature birds out of clay, individually stamping each one with each guest's name.  These people want you to painstakingly fold thousands of origami flowers.  These people want you to do do screen printing and calligraphy.  These people assume you have tons of vintage, shabby chic (whatever the hell that means) buttons all over your house just waiting to be turned into boutonnieres for your army of groomsmen.  These people make their own wedding rings.  WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE!??!

2) Every IW website that tells you they have cool, interesting ideas for unique venues has the exact same ideas... and none of them are that unique.  Really?  Country clubs let you get married there?  Who knew?  People get married on hot air balloons?  Tell me more!  My parents' backyard?  Amazing!  Of all these websites I've visited, almost none of them has had a place I would genuinely call unique.  Maybe the one that suggested a library.  That was kinda cool.  But seriously... just because it's not in a church and/or hotel doesn't mean you're reinventing the wedding as we know it.

3) As far as I can tell, Pinterest is nothing but a black hole of shame, daring you to make your wedding into some a shabby chic, hipster masterpiece worthy of all the re-pinning in the world... and threatening to doom you to some weddingfail tumblr for all eternity should your nuptials be found wanting... and yes... they will be found wanting.

It's entirely possible that I'm overreacting here.  But this whole planning a wedding thing is pretty intimidating.  And we haven't even really started yet.

Gulp.

Happy

I spent part of this evening going through old letters from friends and family.  There were letters from family members sent to me at summer camp, notes from ex-boyfriends, notes from old friends about ex-boyfriends, totally mundane little exchanges... but all of them had to be sent through the mail with handwriting and stamps, rather than simply texted without a moment's thought.  I admit, I ended up throwing away a lot of them - some were just too unremarkable, some were even from people who I can't even remember.  But they all made me think about the countless people I've bumped up against in my life, and the amazing little marks they've all left on me, whether I knew it or not.

So, with all these people in my past and present, and with so many upcoming changes coming down the pipe to my future... I got to thinking some more.  I don't know if I'm lucky or if I've worked hard or if some higher power is conspiring to give me warm fuzzies, but I do know that I am happy.  I have the most amazing, loving, weird, hilarious, fun family on the planet.  And this weekend, when I brought home the caring, supportive, nerdy, brilliant man who has (for one reason or another) agreed with me that we should go ahead and spend our lives together, this band of fantastic people to whom I am related welcomed him with open arms and inside jokes aplenty.  Brian and I are moving forward - taking big new steps in our lives, and we're doing it with the support and love of the people who mean the most to me in the world.  I have amazing brothers (and sister-in-law) with gigantic brains and hearts, delicious little nieces with smiles that light up the planet, parents who believe in me even when I forget how to do that for myself, and who provide a model every day of what a marriage is supposed to look like, aunts and uncles and cousins who are a huge part of who I am, even though I don't see them as often as I would like... and I have this Giant Ginger who said, "Hey... I'm on board for this crazy ride!  Let's do this!"

These last few days at home have been a huge gift.  And I just hope that I can hold onto this feeling on those days when I'm feeling down or grouchy or defeated or lonely or a little less than upbeat.  Because this family I get to be a part of...(and the AWESOME wine and whisky that tends to go with it) has got to be about as good as it gets.

I'm being uncharacteristically mooshy right now... but hey... I'm surrounded by the love of amazing people.  I think a little mooshy is fully justified.

Breakup Goggles

I think this may be a phenomenon identified by How I Met Your Mother - the idea that, once you've decided to end a relationship, suddenly you start to see it all through idealized, rose-colored glasses.  Now, this is a faulty metaphor for me, because I have had a wonderful time during my stay here in Marshall, MN.  But in addition to the awesome rehearsals and classes, I've also been more than a little solitary and homesick as well... and that is most definitely the part of the guest director experience that I was least prepared for and am most looking forward to being rid of.  And now, as I'm sitting here in the theatre before our final dress rehearsal, looking ahead to the dwindling days I have left here at SMSU and with the great people I have met here, I am definitely feeling sad that this time is about to come to an end.  Theatre is a small world, and there is every possibility that I may cross paths with many of these folks again at some point, but I have no idea when that will be.  So as much as a big part of me has wanted to go home to Brian and our kitties (and my own bathroom!), the idea of not being here anymore is getting sadder and sadder each day.  I've been so lucky with all the great folks I've met here, it's going to be tough to bid them all farewell!

And even tougher, I have no idea when my next show will be!  It will be awesome to see my boyfriend when he arrives on Friday, and awesome to see our friends in Chicago on Saturday, and awesome to get home to my sweet kitties on Sunday... but once I get back to Ypsi, my immediate (and distant) future is made up entirely of writing my dissertation, writing articles, writing presentations, and applying for jobs.  For the first time in I don't know how long, I have no next show in the pipe.  And that is terrifying.  When will be my next chance to direct or act?  I have no idea.  That, among all the other uncertainties hanging over my head at this particular point in my life, is probably the one that makes me feel the most out to sea.  Well...that and the big question of a paycheck after May... but that just makes me want to throw up a little bit.  So... yeah.

White Out

Have you ever driven through a white out?  I haven't... until today.  I have definitely driven in some pretty crappy weather.  I have white-knuckled it past spun-out cars, crawling along between all-too-sparse street lights and making bargains with all kinds of deities to get where I'm going.  But I'll tell ya... all of that became a pleasant memory today when I got stuck driving through white out conditions.  I landed in Sioux Falls, SD around 2:00, and it was a beautiful day.  Sure, it was cold and windy, but it was sunny and clear, and the roads were completely dry - a great day for a drive.  I got a few miles into Minnesota and saw something strange ahead of me - it was sort of like a wall of snow, but there weren't any clouds in the sky per se.  I figured I was just driving into some snow, but then I discovered something new.  I wasn't just driving into the snow, I was swallowed by it.  Inside this cloud, there was nothing.  There was just me, and about two yellow lines in front of me if I was lucky.  I couldn't see ahead or behind or to the side... I just had me.  For a while, I also had the person behind me.  We trailed along at 15-20 miles per hour for about 20 miles, at times I could barely see his headlights, but knowing he was there made me feel a little less alive.  There's pretty much a whole lot of nothing out here anyway, and it felt extra lonely as I was enveloped in swirly grey and white - no sign of humanity on any side.  I was getting to a point where I was actually considering pulling into the next farm house I saw and begging for help.  Luckily, I came upon a gas station in the teensy weensy town of Jasper, where I pulled off to have a little panic attack.  When I got there there was the guy behind the counter, and two large old me hanging out at a tiny little booth at the front of the store.  They chatted with me for a while, I called folks to try to decide what to do, and eventually, I made the extremely scary decision to get back on the road - trying to make it to the slightly less teensy weensy town of Pipestone, where there was a hotel.  This last twelve miles of the drive turned out to be the weirdest of the entire drive.  Sometimes the road cleared enough for me to speed up a bit, but then it would swoop in around me again, so I mostly just rode the rumble strip in the shoulder of the road and gave myself an ongoing manic pep talk.  But the weirdest part was that, for most of this part of the drive, I could actually see blue sky.  I could see the clear blue sky, but I couldn't see the road in front of me.  And when I finally got to Pipestone (named, because this area was the source for the stone used in Native American pipes back in the day), I took a moment to look around.  The air had cleared a bit, so I could see where I sat in relation to the rest of the storm.  As I looked out to the horizon, I saw billowing clouds on most sides, but they were billowing from the ground, not from the sky.  Mostly the snow wasn't falling, it was just being blown around, and it made it look like the ground was spewing forth all manner of hell.  It kind of reminded me of photos of the Dust Bowl... or like that ridiculous sand storm scene in the last Mission Impossible movie.  I can't explain it.  It was horrifying and stressful and scary and alone, and when I got to the hotel, all I wanted to do was just fall down off my shaky knees and weep for a bit, but as I walked into the lobby, I discovered that a middle school basketball team and their parents had made the same stop I had - and they all had to check in before I did.  I and the two other lone travelers beside me stood there for 30 minutes, waiting for all of these people to check in, and silently praying to ourselves that there would be a room for us once we got to the front.  Luckily, there was, so I retired to my new room and proceeded to call parents and boyfriend again - this time without the hyperventilating and weeping while leaning up against a Land O Lakes cooler in the back corner of a gas station.  When I think about it, the white out is a pretty fascinating and weirdly beautiful phenomenon, but it's one that I would be happy not to experience ever again.  EVER.

Arrested What in the Hell!?!

Here's the story of a TV audience who lost a great show, and the one totally non-existent blogger who had no choice but to procrastinate from all the other stuff she should be doing by blogging about the long-awaited return thereof.

Okay, let me begin by saying...

SPOILERS ALL OVER THE DAMN PLACE.

Now, first let's make note of the fact that the casting - in particular for the 1982 flashbacks - was fricking genius!  I'm not a fan of either Kristin Wiig or Seth Rogen, but both were perfect as Lucille and George.  And young Barry... THANK YOU!  There was so much great casting.  Who could possibly be Liza Minelli's brother, if not Tommy Tune?!  A particular standout for me was Mary Lynn Rasjskub's character... an excellent gag that I will not spoil just in case one of the three people who might read this hasn't seen the episodes and still progressed beyond my warning.

There was a lot of great payoff from the original series.  Roles were reprized, running jokes were resurrected and alternately beaten to death or had the breath quietly wrung from their respective alvioli (her?).

And I have to say... the relationship with Google over the course of the episodes was pretty amusing.  I'm going to have to something search that one.

In general, I would say that the arc took some time to get moving.  From the first episode the elements were all there, and the construction was every bit as clever as in the original three seasons, but I wouldn't say it was as funny.  There was so much ground to cover since last we had seen the Bluths, so much foundation to lay before we could understand how everything was going to fit together.  The pace was break-neck most of the time, so a lot of the jokes didn't have time to land.  Add to the overflow of exposition the fact that we watched all fifteen episodes in two very long sittings, and we've definitely got the feeling of drinking out of a fire hydrant, despite the fact that nothing seemed to be happening per se.  Since each episode centers on one family member's personal journey, I initially felt the absence of the manic interplay that made these strange, self-involved characters so watchable.  It is especially difficult to watch Tobias without much interplay with the other characters.  Gotta love David Cross, but MAN... Tobias is rough.  There were tastes here and there, but it wasn't really until the seventh episode - the first to feature the incomparable GOB - that I started to feel the Arrested Development rhythm settle in.  That episode brought in some of the first truly hearty laughs for me...and a healthy helping of "DID THEY JUST DO THAT?!?" From that point on, we got increasing dollops of overlap, but I still wanted more.  I guess I felt like characters were too often absent from each other's episodes.

We were left hanging on a lot of people for a long time - not even getting a Buster episode until the penultimate one.  And George Michael took a long time to have his say as well.  But as much as we were left hanging throughout the fifteen episodes, the final one leaves us dangling by our pinkies off of a cliff over we don't have any idea what...but you can just barely make out that brown area and its points.  Question upon question has piled up on us, and almost none has been resolved.  If they're campaigning for a season 5 or a movie... well... that's great.  But what the hell was up with George, Sr's identity crisis (my theory is that is has something to do with the sweat vs. the lemonade)?  What about Maeby's arrest?  What happened to Lucille 2?  How are Michael and George Michael going to sort out their little...er...father/son squabble?  Will the truth about fakeblock ever come out?  And who brings their girlfriend a cactus?  Who really sabotaged the tomb (my theory: Ione Skye was looking pretty shifty!)?  And while we're at it, what's up with Tony Wonder and GOB?  Talk to me about the Lindsey/Sally Sitwell campaign!  What happened to Tobias and Marky Bark?  How about poor DeBrie?  What about the wall?  And seriously... the cactus?  Come on!

Seriously... there had better be someone greenlighting a next whatever as we speak... and if the Bluths all just  end up coming together in some lame church in an alternate reality, I'm going to punch Mitchell Hurwitz AND J.J. Abrams right in the mouth.

Because let's be honest... I'm still a little mad at J.J.