BadMormon

39 and Holding

I crosstiched that for my mother on her 40th? birthday.  39 was centered in a stop sign shape adn I recall there was a bobble with the stitch count in there that always bugged me but was actually endering.

That’s how she said Happy Birthday to me.  ”Welcome to the 39 and Holding club!”  Oh lord, I’ve caught up to my mother.

Lately I’ve been hanging around with people waaaaay younger than me.  22, 23, 24…  young. It’s fun in that I get to giggle and know things.  I have a very well rounded experientail life and have a story for every occassion though you will hear the same 4 over and over again until you remind me, yes, I’ve heard that, and I’ll feel bad for a minute but at least I’ll stop boring you later.  Anyway, it makes me fun.  I can turn it on and turn it off.  I no longer have much in the way of true insecurities.  I know I fuck up but I also know that I have to fix it.  But, I also have my own personal ethics for what is fucking up.

This year brought a lot of joy and a  lot of pain for me.  The end result of the experiential equation was that I am about me now. First.  That means time to get my life together.  Time to reach for my full potential, the one I avoided through highschool.

I look at what I have accomplished.  And I did it under post-tramatic stress disorder after 9-11, I know that now, and then the city dropping out and I through it all I have these clients who persist, who are kind and freindly and decent people, who trust me adn who I look at collectively and am proud.  Proud of the level of work and fairness I try to turn in.  And manage to maintain.  Proud of how I’ve gone from working for 4.25 an hour in a wings window, off books, living in a room in new jersey to supporting my life in the city with the ability to work my way.

And now that I have the platform of self I have worked so hard to build, now that the final SNAP filled the puzzle, I am excited to build something great.

As well as, maaaaaaan… I have this kid.  He’s an issue child though sweet, loving, best to me ever.  School is hard. He’s the kid that sleeps, takes off his shoes, and never does the work.  I have no idea what to do.  BUT I have learned how to problem solve in this old job of mine and the first thing is research.  I need time to go to barnes and nobel’s and read teenage parenting guide, figure out what may work for him, admit the mistakes I’m making.  (that’s a hard one on this.  wrestling my way into changing though, It’ll happen, I’m not a fair fight.)

I also cling to the fact I made it through teenager.  He will too.

Slow start

No coffee in the house, the apartment is chilly but not cold enough for the heat to come on.  My period is arrived.

I’ve started writing again on a project, my one-lady show, scheduled for March.  I have once again made it hard for myself by deciding to write a character driven piece written from scratch based on a 7 min character I do talking with.  I’ve started writing a story, an evening, an eventful quiet idea and frankly this crap is hard.

What happens next?

Everytime I sit down to write a serious piece I am so full of tension, MAKING myself to sit still and struggle with it, think of the next line, the next way it could go.  Ask a question, type some nonsense, keep it going…

So hard.

I have to learn to like doing that too.  I’m on a weekly schedule.

I’M SO RUSTY AT THIS!!!!!

ok, steam is blown off, time to move, shower, do things.

And just keep thinking, what do I do next?

More indulgent introspection

i meant to stop drinking for a while
but it was just sitting there and I was reading the book of hunter s thompson interveiws
adn he had a bottle of wild turkey behind him in the jacket photo
and I’m like, i’m gonzo! i’m gonna drink while I do the dishes

- from a chat about a minute ago, to explain my super irish coffee that I made to go with my aunt jemima pancakes.

yep, i’m a wee bit soused right now.

Unintentional.  It didn’t look like that much whiskey in the bottle.  I was going for an alert shoulder relaxer.

I am, however, ok with it.

My son has grown.  At 11am I look in his door and softly say, “hey if you want to get up now it’s a good time, I’m making pancakes.”  He rolls over, his back to me.  Obviously the prize of teenagerdom is the sleep all day saturdays.  I like to let him sleep, relax, recharge, grow and hopefully it makes the rest of his week easier.

His back, once so fragile and small has the V of an adult now, wide shoulders, strength to come.  But there is still this sweet, dimply, adorable boy about him.  I am so proud I could almost bust a gut in real life.  Just have my chest and stomach explode as I draw it in with unreleased and overwhelming emotion.  I would like to pound on someone, jump, pounce and hollar “I have the cutest, bestest kid in the world!”

So I had an irish coffee.

A SUPER irish coffee.

3rd Night! Great Reviews

For more info: (a)muse collective – raw art now

~ SUNDAY OCTOBER 25th ~
and nov 1st
94 St. Marks Place at 1st Ave and 8th Street

Michael Birch’s “One Man Hamlet”

“It always floors me, whenever I see Hamlet, how much of its dialogue has become part of iconographic English speech. “What a piece of work is man”; “cue for passion”; “something is rotten in Denmark”; “the readiness is all”; “to thine own self be true”; and so on and so on. Michael Birch’s One Man Hamlet—which is exactly what it says it is—makes us focus on the language in a way that a more populated and fleshed-out rendition of the play does not. The opportunity to really live inside and relish these words, and how they sound, and what they mean, makes this production a rewarding experience.”

Officially 39

Yesterday was my birthday. It was full of friends and all of them ones I’m delighted are in my life. We ate, watched a show and then DRANK!

Being 39 I know how to drink my ass off and avoid the truly ridiculous behavior, or vomiting somewhere you shouldn’t. I avoided the vomit all together. Cause I’m smart. I ate, I danced, I drank, I talked and grew one more official year older.

So.

So what?

So now I write, trying to dredge a habit up out of my lazy couch sitting butt. It’s after 8pm. Actually it’s 2am. I am home alone. I made the vow, the promise to myself to find time for the me that needs out.

Something snapped recently, internally, in the personality I identify as this marsha. I don’t know if it’s a good snap or bad. It either broke me or fixed me but one more time I’ve been changed.

That’s ok, I’m used to change.

In some way it’s coming across as a new equanimity. Been there, done that, how upset can I even get anymore.

It’s obviously defenses but we have defense mechanisms for a reason. To defend us. From life. Other people. The shit that feels bad.

There’s a part that I had to let go. A doubting part.

Hmm, I don’t know. I’m harder now than I was a month ago. Done. Tired. Over the game of the culture I grew up in and the way of worrying that somehow I’m not enough or too much or not quite fitting into the thought processes of everyone else.

Not sure what I’m trying to say.

But I like it.

There is a freedom. A center of self. It’s not that I think I am always right but I no longer give enough of a shit to question it. I’m right enough and I’m fine with being the asshole, as long as I no longer have to deal with the things that keep getting in my way.

Like egos and other’s defensives that don’t fit into my personality’s quirks.

I’m not sure where it will go.

It’s part sad and part freedom. There laughing at how much I gave in to loud voices and ridiculous specious arguments having the force of a man’s anger cow me. The pain of their disapproval. The inability of any thing I tried to reach through stubborn opinions that are too self-involved to change. The idea that somehow I could be sweet and kind and loving and good to a man who said I loved you and that he would stay, has died. My generosities, if not outright taken advantage of, are not the draw to others I imagine. That’s just how I react. What is in my head is not real to everyone else. Or how they think, or anything like that thing I’m trying to say at 3am.

Stay tuned my gentle folk. As self involved as this post is tonight hopefully I’ll get into fabulous stories soon. But now I must sleep.

This is an amazing show!

For more info: (a)muse collective – raw art now

~ TONIGHT SUNDAY OCT 18th ~
and oct 25th, nov 1st
94 St. Marks Place Between (1st Ave and 8th Street)

Michael Birch’s “One Man Hamlet”

“Speaking with a friend of mine after the show, the one thing we were both curious about is how something we’ve been seeing in seven-minute chunks would translate to a longer form. The answer: I was shocked for even thinking it in the first place. It’s HAMLET, by gods, after all. It’s meant to be experienced in one chunk. I found myself completely lost inside the play. The transitions between the characters were flawless; the voices (18 of them!) and the physical characteristics Michael Birch gives them are memorable and make the characters easily identifiable. The one thing I was worried about was being able to follow who was who over the course of the whole play. But I was never lost, never didn’t know what was going on.

In fact, I found myself thinking about the play in new ways. Finding new sympathies for characters and discovering subtleties I’d never thought about. To get particular, his performance of Act 3 Scene 1 (To be or not to be —> get thee to a nunnery) is so powerful and nuanced, people in the crowd gasped audibly at some of the lines. To think about people gasping, rapt, in the audience, at something so ubiquitous and seemingly familiar as Hamlet, in this day and age, is incredible. This is a testament to Birch’s performance, and the obvious love he has for the play and the characters. ”

- Joe Yoga, GoYogaGo.Com

Discipline

I often try new rules to get myself to settle into a sturdy dsiciplined creative framework. I try new rules often because I break them All the damn time. If I say “Write! 6 am every morning!” I don’t get up . If I say” twice a week” the week goes so fast it’s over before I can force myself into once.

I have no problem creating new rules. I figure if nothing else it gets me writing the first few times I think of the rule, set it down, decided this time to be firm with myself.

I’m betting you’ve guessed I’ve made up yet another technique in self enrichment. I’ve decided that if I’m home alone after 8pm I have to write SOMEThING before I sleep. Some thing real, not just a smart ass news update.

OF course this is the attempt to do that. Waiting for my son to come home from boy scouts. Home after a week at his dads and school reports I’m not sure what to do with. He is NOT flourishing, never has in school, but his mind does like the math and science, just not the papers about himself and the having to show his work.

His attitude is NOT respectful and he falls asleep in class.

We are suppose to have a long conversation tonight. I am worn out by a system that my son does not fit in to. I keep working with my son and not doing much with the school yet, remembering past attempts, trying to put together a really good plan. nothing is coming up. I worry.

I look at the adults I know and think ok, high school is not the beginning, middle and end of everything. But oh he could have so much if we could find a way to make this work for him.

Feeling as though I am always running behind these days.

And this is why I don’t write. I don’t want to be back here. Every time I do I end up taking stock of myself, my life, stupid navel gazing, deep thinking, and I feel un-progressed.

and blue.

I got the “I can’t keep a man cuase they’re all low down, whiney bastard scuuuuuuuuummmmmm bluuuuuess!!!!!”

I’m really missing the part where we relaxed together. And the sex of course. Nothing releases stress like 8 million orgasms.

All the Single Ladies! HOT TRAXXX :D

Pomplamoose Music covers Beyonce can not get this hook and version out of my head.

hoe hum

doing a little pre-open mic drinking, no tv – it departed with the digital age- and not wanting to fire up the other, streams-fast-enough-to-stand-it, computer to while away the half hour youtubing muppets.

I ended up here, back at my blog, the diary that I want everyone to find under my pillow and read along.

Without much purpose.

The internal “completely without anything art” stance has change. Nothing has bubbled but like gas from that amazing Chile Relleno it’s churning and I think will be tasty when I burp it up.

I have this one woman show coming up that I have to write a freakin show for.

I have staging ideas, atmosphere, three main emotional themes, setting, character… missing plot, or story. Have the glimmerings of the message I want to put in the world with this but sigh. Damn art is hard work.

I think I have a director though and that makes me mucho happy. We’re still in discussions being both of us smart adult women who understand a director and a one person play is a delicate partnership. And just the fact we’re both that kind of woman makes me smile.

Now I have to write, discipline my writing, start churning the mulch up, what’s in this basement?

As for the personal, which I’m sure everyone has missed the soap opera drama of it all, well, I got tired of spilling it out. I thought if I could hold back from spilling everything on line I would find a way to have the conversation with the source of my lovelorn issues. Not so much.

And I would love to spill my guts and share the latest but i’m so tired of caring. So tired of the drama, fueled by drinking, that we had fallen back into.

And recently the attraction has crashed. His behavior has been, well, not up to my snuff. Even as he tries to strip himself down on stage and reveal a truth there are no concrete words, there is a lack of a grasp on a style of living that I had not, until now, understood we missed together. I need it. To make something work I need it.

I’m not sure how to define it in words, it has to do with equality, who leads the dance and the word “difficult.”

By all Reasonable measures Americans should be proud

Rachel Maddow: The Nobel Prize & Obama Derangement Syndrome