Proclamation

I've decided. As of noon today. Mountain standard time. I renounce all things fuchsia.

Happy Easter! :)

Because I'm British!

You know the phrase, " At ______ (o'clock) anything is funny." For example, "At 3:00 in the morning anything is funny."

Last night was the opening of my kids' show at Creative Stages Youth Theatre. The play is titled "Funny at Birth" written and directed by the Artistic Director, Jim Gradillas. He is one of my favorite people. My daughter is the Asst Stage Manager, and my son is part of her crew for this show. The "after party" was a celebration of one of the cast member's birthday at IHOP. They spent two hours torturing waitresses and snorting eggs out of their noses. At least no one danced on the table. Not yet. Christmas future...

I picked them up just before midnight. When we pulled into the driveway, my son was asleep and my daughter was just getting started. She needs to decompress. Like her mom.

The boy kicked off his vans outside, peeled his shirt in the kitchen and walked out of his jeans in the doorway to his room. He crawled into bed, wrapped the comforter around himself, and rolled up into a ball. A size 11-wearing toddler.

The girl on the other hand needed. She needed. Attention. Many many minutes of attention. I love that about here. She regaled me with blow by blows from backstage. The kicking of asses, the pleading of tears, and the hugging of fears. As she processed she realized an hour later how much she loves stage managing. Once that realization began to gel, she needed to work through this major shift in self-perception. Relaying this brick and mortar inside her skin - inside her bones - and ultimately within her spirit NEEDED to happen right then. And so she labored and I supervised. My girl fascinates me.

Just before 1:30AM I suggested that she needed to sleep. She had rehearsal for one show tomorrow afternoon and was ASM for "Funny" that night as well. "But I n-e-v-e-r get to you have you all to myself for this long. Please! Please can we stay up longer?" I gave her 15 more minutes. I could have stayed up with her all night and some day in the not so distant future I'm sure I will.

Eventually I made my move toward the kitchen. She jumped up and blocked me from entering the hall. She had that look. Her eyebrow cocked, smiled crooked, and eyes narrowed.

"Come on Sweetie Pie, you've gotta go to bed."

"No I don't." But she said it with a british accent which I must say, at 1:30 in the morning, confused. me.

"C'mon Peanut, let's go."

"You Americans can't do anything right. You can't even sing a lullaby properly." Again with the accent. "We are so much better educated than you because we have wizardering schools..." followed by more random stuff and she concluded her speech by saying, "Because I'm British."

I thought I was going to pee in my pants right there.

I'm here to tell you that at 1:30 in the morning, after decompressing with a 14 year-old girl for an hour and a half, "Because I'm British." is not just funny. It's hilarious!

And then she knew she had me. So for another half an hour she speechified me and randomly added "Because I'm British." I finally walked her down to her room. She asked me if I would sing to her. After 14 years of this same song, you'd think that an Asst Stage Manager, who takes her job very seriously, would be eager to let go of our little bedtime ritual. But she's not. She crawled into bed, and I sang "You Are My Sunshine" to her like I do every night. She smiled and cooed like she was four and rolled over with the comforter pulled up to her chin. "Why do you still like me to sing to you?"

"Because I'm British."

In Your Face

Facebook.

My husband broke the news to me while I was straightening my hair this morning, “The kids want Facebook accounts so they can stay in touch with their theatre friends.”

Huh. Now, see, I thought my husband and I were of the same opinion on this matter. We don’t use our kids’ names or put their photos on-line. We want them to have lives that are not forever documented on video for as long as possible.

Can you imagine? My god, I wouldn’t want more than 20% of my life before the age of 25 available on-line. And to be clear, that 20% would be me sleeping. In my own bed. Alone. In response to his bait, I said nothing.

Then I remembered my son telling me how Zander was taping rehearsals because this is the last show he can do with the youth company because he is now 18. (I use his name because he is 18, and because he readily uses his name all over the net.)

Facebook.

My son said on the way home from rehearsal this week that he kept running away from Zander because he didn’t want to wind up on Zander’s FB page. I felt like crap.

“No, buddy, that’s okay, you can be in his videos.”

“But mom, he’s going to upload them. You said—“

“Well. This is different.”

My son was silent. My daughter was silent. I could hear their telepathic victory dance, and I giggled. Crap. So it would follow that they would first approach their dad with what was surely going to get shot down by me out of the gate. My husband is the harbinger of all-things-bad-ideas.

In the car this afternoon, I asked. “So. Dad said you guys want Facebook pages. Is that true?”

Daughter, “Yes.”

Son, “Uh-huh.”

Long dangerous pause.

I love wielding so much power. Mwaa-ha-ha. “Here are the ground rules…” They nodded and made we-understand noises. They didn’t care if I said they both had to do the laundry until they moved out. Darn it, why didn’t I say that? “Okay, you guys we’ll set up the accounts.”

My son was silent. My daughter was silent. I could hear their telepathic victory dance, and I giggled. Crap. Here we go.

Facebook.

An Injury of Devastating Proportions

Well, it was bound to happen. I mean I’ve been walking this high wire for more than 30 years and these sorts of – what – mishaps are predictable. To be expected really. I was seriously injured yesterday. My right hand nonetheless. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to show up at the keyboard this morning. Much to my relief I am pecking. Not really typing and certainly not floating across the keys as is usual for me. Not nearly.

No stitches were required. Ice and Ibuprofen got me through the night. I notified my dear friend as to my impending absence from his inbox. Of course, he was deeply troubled to be left out in the cold by not receiving the requisite 14 emails a day from me. Devastated really. He asked. I hesitated. I knew he’d be upset.

“Laundry,” I wrote. “I have a laundry injury.”

“Laundry injury!! Oh, no!!” As you can see, he was so beside himself he could barely muster an appropriately distressed response.

When my husband emerged from his cave (read: our home office), I regaled him with the details. “You can always file for workers’ comp, baby,” he said with a particular smugness to his tone. “See how that goes for you.” He smiled and walked to the kitchen for an iced coffee. He did not even offer to pour me one. What was happening here? He didn’t lead me to chair to help me carefully sit my clearly traumatized body.

“What did you do?” he said passing me in the hall.

“I told you. I was putting up the empty hangers on the really high bar, and I tripped and grabbed a hold of them and jerked my right hand enough to burst a blood vessel.” I displayed my injury. “Just there, see?”

“There?”

“Oh for god’s sake that’s my wrist. No there. My middle finger. In the joint. It’s already black and blue. And swollen.”

“Oh right. Sorry. Looks bad,” he smiled – there was that smugness again. “Looks like no more laundry for you today.”

Ah-ha! That’s what I was looking for all along. Disability leave. How many days I wondered? Best not to discuss. Best to just tip toe around the hamper.

I looked at my poor, swollen finger and decided it needed ice again. Over my shoulder I called, “I bet I can’t even type.”

He said something like, “oooh” or “Mmm” or “Aaah” – something vaguely sympathetic before closing the office door behind him. Did he just close the door on my pain? On my disability? On me for god’s sake?

Humph. I pulled the freezer door open to retrieve the small ice bag. Well that’s fine, I thought. When he needs underwear, we’ll just see who displays a hint of smugness in her smile?

Dear Friend - A Bench To Sit On

The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky is my favorite book. Forever. An epistolary novel, it chronicles the life of Charlie throughout his freshman year in high school. He writes to “Dear Friend”, who is never identified in the novel, and at some point we as readers don’t care anymore. Charlie is clearly revealing his truest self – authentic thoughts and feelings to this person that even he doesn’t know very well.

I have a few friends to whom I write letters to on a regular basis. It doesn’t matter who they are to anyone but me. There are elements of these letters between us that ring truer than I could ever muster to put forth in person. Something about the false anonymity of written words makes this possible – even with, and perhaps especially with, friends (or family) with whom we cannot bear to share our dark or fanciful places face to face.

In light of this awareness, I will be printing excerpts from our letters and titling them “Dear Friend”. My hope is to bring pieces of truth about my life, and those around me, to this page – this place of our truest selves.

This first letter is written about my Aunt Betsy. I have written about this amazing woman in previous posts. "Aunty B" has literally saved me many times. She has carried all of my stories. I imagine she will again. My mom passed away two years ago, and I have carried such weight with me ever since. I wrote this letter on New Year's Day of this year. The girl “Sara” that I refer to is the main character in my novel. Sara is stuck at a bus stop with her mother. The following excerpt is part of the lengthy letter I sent to a "Dear Friend".

Dear Friend ~

I've been jotting down notes here and there - only really pulling my thoughts together at the end of a long drive. This is important to me. As you have done on many occasions, I trust that you will treat it as such. :)

[…] New Year's Eve, Betsy and I spent the entire day together. Many heartfelt and hilarious conversations; many adventures. One errand over adventure was dealing with my filthy car. I opted for a ridiculously expensive mega wash that would take about three days. We waited inside with orange painted cement benches, two vending machines, and a pay phone to keep us company. And while we sat on one of the benches, waiting for my car to get washed, I finally told the only story left to be told. "I have so much guilt about mom." We talked about blame and regret. Resentment and fear. We talked about what forgiveness looks like.

I drove 160 miles to be with my aunt Betsy today (New Year's Day). The circumstances were very different, but once again, we wound up sitting on a concrete bench. This time, out in the sun and in front of a huge beautiful fountain, we laughed loudly and whispered carefully. And I bought "A Charlie Brown Christmas" in Blu-ray. (Actually, I had literally just picked it up when your text came thru. Sort of a nice touch.)

Driving back into the city, I considered the benches where Betsy and I talked and waited over the last two days. That orange bench - at the car wash - was important not only for my life story, but also, as a compass for Sara's narrative.

I thought about Sara, sitting on the bench at the bus stop, waiting for an hour, and telling the only story left to be told. I heard Sara's blame and regret. Resentment and fear. And I wondered what forgiveness might begin to look like. For her.

Mare

Photo courtesy of Just Chaos