Katiedidtoo

On Anarchy and Emma Goldman

2011-06-12T13:16:00.000-04:00

"Anarchism stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion and liberation of the human body from the coercion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. It stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals…"
— Emma Goldman (Anarchism and Other Essays)

Wow. Liberation from religion, property, and government.

When I was a young college aged anarchist with ideals that seemed totally unattainable inside the "restraint" of modern society I used to wish for an apocalyptic change. That changed when I saw Night of the Living Dead. I wouldn't live a day in a post apocalypse because I couldn't load a gun. I knew where the guns were, I knew enough to figure out how to take off the safety and shoot... but in the time it took me to figure how to load I would be eaten by zombies. Either that or the looters would steal my water and food.

I decided at that point to start watching what I wished for. So here I am 20+ years later and I recently stopped to take a look around at myself and my life.

And last night it hit me.

Freedom from religion? Check.

Freedom from property? Check.

And 2 out of 3 ain't bad my friends.

Emma also said: "I would rather have roses on my table than diamonds around my neck", and that I do. Not too bad for a Anarchist Recessionista.

Complicated

2011-05-05T16:02:00.000-04:00

In which... I get a shout out for my comment about grave dancing...
Girl's Gone Child: Complicated: In Your Words

You Couldn't Pay Me Enough

2010-04-07T02:58:00.002-04:00

I experienced enough anxiety and stress when I was a teenager, reliving it through my stepdaughters is killing me.

There is no way to prepare them for what they are facing. No way to tell them that no matter how sure they think they are; they do not know better. In fact what they know is much much worse.

My parents for sure didn't get in the middle of my life. Unless it affected my well being.
I am struggling to find the bright side again. Just when I look up, the sky falls again.

Not Exactly Leprechauns...

2010-03-17T21:53:00.000-04:00

This is my St. Patrick's Day present! A lovely gnome couple tea light holder from Yankee Candle.

I have loved gnomes since I was a kid. The Gnomes book was my bible. Forest beings living lives that I could not see was fascinating to me. I had gnome books, gnome statues, and gnome cross stitched wall hangings.

When I saw the gnome themed display in the Yankee Candle shop at the mall I gasped... and my husband groaned. He HATES the candle store. You are never going to believe why.

My husband can pinpoint the exact moment that his hatred of smelly candles began. He was five. His class was given the opportunity to color with scented crayons. It was the 1970's! We had smelly everything from stickers, to markers, to dolls. Apparently these scented crayons were wonderful smelling. So wonderful in fact that my husband was compelled to eat them.

He ate almost an entire box of scented crayons. By the time anyone noticed it was too late and they were already making him sick. You can imagine what scented wax would taste, feel and smell like in your stomach.

The sense memory of scented wax is enough to put him off the candle store forever.

But they were gnomes!!!!

So I struck a brilliant bargain. The large Yankee Candle with the gnome on the label is $24.99. A very expensive candle I admit; even if it does last for 5 years or however long the say. But the lovely tea light holder was less than half that amount!! So I was able to convince him that the candle holder was a better buy (and it really was). The most remarkable part of the deal was that he admitted that he liked the smell of the Honeysuckle tea lights...

Done. Happy St. Patrick's Day.

The Knight of Cups

2010-03-08T19:00:00.000-05:00

I started this blog a year ago. I wrote 34 posts during the last 365 days...

It surprises me that I averaged one post per week. I am a horrible horrible journal-ist. I have at least 3 empty journals in my bedroom; 2 of which are the kind that have questions that you are supposed to answer.

I may be writing into a void here, but there is some satisfaction in creating a post. I like having the ability to craft how it looks on the computer screen and illustrate it however I choose. I especially like having feedback from friends and family who are reading along. Sometimes writing it here is a way to express something that I have a hard time saying out loud.

Taking stock of the year I can look back now and see through different eyes what was happening.
Sarah was in the hospital with a migraine that wouldn't quit.
John was really beginning to build his writing credentials.
I had quit one job and started working at the theatre more and more.
Loreena was becoming a social butterfly.
We got Stella from a family who was moving to California.
We moved to Winston Salem. Back to for John... Back to within one mile from the exact spot that we met.

The precise moment that brought us to the place we are now happened in the Spring of 1988. I was 17. I was invited by my friends family to ride along on a trip to North Carolina and visit her at the School of the Arts. I spent the weekend with her; in the dorms, at parties, in apartments... It was a weekend that opened my eyes in ways I could not have imagined then.

I met my first cross dresser. I drank my first bottle of Amaretto. I met my husband.

I do not know the day, or the time. I do know that it was night and that we were not supposed to be in the Boys Dorm. Someone left the door ajar and we went upstairs to "find her friend who reads tarot cards" My memory is exceptionally vague about the whole event except that he was asleep in his bed and that we woke him up. He did read my cards. There is only one that I remember; The Knight of Cups.

The tarot cards are tools that have been used for centuries. They show archetypal people and situations that can relate to a question or problem and help to illuminate the situation in different light.

The Knight of Cups is most definitely John. I did not know that about him at the time. The Knight almost always carries a cup; he carries emotions, baggage and mood swings. The Knight is usually next to or in the water, a sea of emotions; sometimes it swirls around him, sometimes off in the distance, sometimes threatening to overcome him and sweep him out to sea. The Knight is like Romeo; he objectifies his love and works to manifest his vision at any cost. He is an artist and an idealist who rides from wave to wave throughout his life reaching for his perfect vision.

Looking back... I could have seen it all coming. I could have seen the years of conflict, the bad mistakes, the hopes and dreams dashed onto the rocks of harsh reality. I could also have seen the moments of stunning perfection when that idealistic dream manifests into reality. That is the way archetypes work. That is why they are in fact archetypes. They illustrate a universal experience; painfully typical and totally inevitable.

The journey that took us from that night in his dorm room to living in our own home just a mile from there is seems like an enormous vast sea behind. In front of me too now that you mention it...

So many changes under our belts this last. I told myself last year that I would give blogging a year. If I couldn't stay with it I would give it up; but I wrote once a week on average and I started a new one about food. So I guess I am going to keep on blogging. There are more changes and waves to ride in this year too. Luckily I have an expert wave-rider with me.

Knight of Cups Shadowscapes Tarot

In Defense of the Arts

2010-03-04T20:37:00.000-05:00

To Whom It May Concern:

We didn't just sit down one day and decide to be musicians, actors, painters, dancers, designers, writers, singers, directors, or even stage hands. Trust me. In fact most of us have fought it for as long as we were cognizant of what a "salary with benefits" was.

We did not become artists so that we could be a drain on society. I'm tired of hearing about how stimulus money was wasted on theatre projects, symphonies, and art installations. The reality is that if the stimulus money hadn't gone to those artists; your tax money would have in the form of unemployment benefits, food stamps and power bill subsidies.

For the record, most of us have a formal education in a non-art related field for the very reason that we knew what the future would be like in the Arts. We knew damn well what we could expect; budget cuts, justifications and critics (the media AND our neighbors). Those whose formal education is actually in the Arts usually have as many or more classroom hours in their chosen area than most Doctors or Lawyers. Classical musicians and ballet dancers in particular began their formal arts education in early grade school, practicing every day and taking private lessons at least once a week through their college years and beyond. You do the math.

Giving your children an education that includes the Arts will not turn them into Artists. Not unless they have no other choice but to be artists because that is what they do. Not only do they have to love it, but it must also be what they are good at. If they aren't (and I know some of you are silently sitting at home and praying that your child will never be able to draw anything better than a 2 dimensional house or play anything at all by Beethoven), an education that includes the Arts will enhance their concentration skills, their math skills and their ability to work a project through to the end. They will be leaders, team players, visionaries, builders of buildings and mathematicians. To make that possible, there have to be some artists who choose to provide that educational experience for those children. Without it they will spend their days doing worksheets and looking at textbooks that have no pictures.

Karl Paulnack, Director of Music at the Boston Conservatory wrote this welcome address to the parents of the incoming freshman class in September of 2004. Please follow this link and read the speech in it's entirety. Especially if you have ever hoped that your child would just be a doctor.

We do not become artists because we are lazy, or because we are not intelligent enough to do anything else. We become artists because we believe that we can save the world.

Photo: August Wilson Center Dance Ensembles "moving mural" project Moving the Lives of Kids Community.

The Stranger at the End of the Bed

2010-02-24T22:33:00.000-05:00

It seems that my friend had left our hometown to move to the Big City and attend a progressive performing arts high school only to fall in with an... interesting crowd.

Left to their own open minded devices they were experimenting. Developing the power of their minds as they developed their creativity in an anything goes environment. I don't know the details, I was not there; but at the time she told me about someone called "the traveler". It seems it was the traveler that came and stood next to my bed after being told to go and "see" me.

Astral travel or an out of body experience can be induced from a deep state of meditation. There are any number of vehicles or tools that you can use to get out of your body; hypnotism, meditation, trance inducing music. In this case he was a scrying. Using a mirror to effectively turn on the psychic awareness we all have, but comes easier to some more than others.

I imagine it was scary and unnerving to have someone describe a room and a person she knew so well. My feeling is that this was the disturbance I felt from her. If you are of my generation you probably understand when I say that "I felt a disturbance in the Force". She and I are connected. Through time and space it seems. We still have these moments of inter-connectivity living on opposite coasts and in very different lives.

It's weird. After all of these years, every time it happens that is the first thing I think. Wow, that's weird.

This traveler in my bedroom had brought us back together again and started a chain reaction of events that continues to this day in both of our lives. I just realized as I am typing this that when I actually met this mystical traveler in the flesh, our positions would be reversed and it would be me standing over him asleep in his bed.

The Long and Winding Road

2010-02-23T22:14:00.001-05:00

Like all gothic novels, my story wouldn't be complete or even half as interesting without my alter ego. My foil. The strange character that you never really quite figure out if they are real... or another manifestation of the protagonists mind... The Tyler Durden character.

I met mine when we were very young children. Our roles were established almost from day one. She was the risk taker and the extrovert. I covered for her and egged her on. We were the same age, same stature, same artistically dramatic flair. Many times over the years we successfully posed as sisters to the unknowing. We may decide to do it again sometime.

Our relationship was tumultuous from the beginning as our mothers were close friends. I was compared to her, she felt like she was competing with me.

The crux of this story happens during our teenage years. At some point between 9th and 10th grades we had a falling out. My interpretation is that our competitive natures and teenage girl hormones got the best of us. We stopped talking almost entirely which left a staggering void in my life. We had been nearly inseparable.

She was accepted into a High School of the Performing Arts in a Southern city I had never heard of and went to live there and finish out high school. I was frankly glad that she was gone. I imagine that most people don't know what it's like to live life with a living alter ego... the competition was brutal.

I continued a blissfully singular life on my own after that. I got reports through the Mother-vine that she was living the life she'd been dreaming about; performing and experimenting and partying.

I had an odd experience while sleeping one night. I "dreamed" that I woke up and was frozen in place, unable to move. At that time I didn't know much about lucid dreaming, but now I know that must have been the state I was in. I was firmly in my body, but unable to move. Standing at the foot of my bed was a large dark shadowy figure. Not moving or speaking; just standing. I could not see his features or what he was wearing. He was literally a shadow figure.

I wasn't afraid until I realized that I could not move. Then I panicked and "woke up".

It was around this time that I got a stereotypical sense of foreboding. Specifically about her. It was unnerving because I was very glad to be rid of her at the time. I talked to my Mom about the feeling and she encouraged me to write her a letter explaining that I was worrying about her...

I did indeed write that letter. It began "It's me. Don't be too surprised." I put it in the mail on a Friday afternoon.

On Monday I was coming home from school with my dear friend Sara who is endlessly silly and sweet. I mentioned that I had sent the letter and expressed some regret and worry that it wouldn't be well received on the other end. I walked into my house and into the dining room where I met my mother with an odd look on her face holding out an envelope.

It had come from her to me. Sent on the same day. The same opening line, written in her crazy handwriting... "Don't be too surprised it's me!!"

To be continued in The Stranger At the Foot of My Bed...

(photograph by Richard X. Thripp)

The Man on the Train

2010-02-22T19:33:00.000-05:00

Inspired by Shift Your Spirits I am going to try and put some of my more interesting experiences into a series of posts...

I was in New York City in the Spring 1989. I do not know who I was with or why I ended up there but I was on a subway train.

At the moment our train stopped in a station that I do not remember the name of the train doors opened and across the platform, in another train with their train doors open was a man. He was young. Approximately my age or a few years older; early twenties. He wore a trench coat and sat on a bench mirroring my position on my own bench.

We locked gazes and I had a stunning jolt of recognition.

The trains doors shut and my life resumed. I spent the entire next week searching for him in crowds. I looked into the faces of every person I passed on the street. That search is almost the only thing I remember about that trip to New York. Searching and searching for that man that I just knew that I knew.

That memory of the phantom man on the train has persisted... One of the odd things about myself that most people don't know about me. I often wondered if he was indeed a real person, a ghost... an angel? Was I supposed to see him? Or was it an accident? I don't believe in accidents...

I know that at the time I thought perhaps it was John who I had met the summer before for only 15 minutes but had been exchanging letters with and felt a deep spiritual connection to. 13 years later John and I would get married...

(the photograph is London's Barking Cross station from a Wapedia article about cross platform interchange)

What Do You Give Up For Lent?

2010-02-09T14:54:00.000-05:00

Lent, the somber season between Ash Wednesday and Easter is the time to reflect on Christ's sacrifice and our own sacrifices that ultimately make us better people. Catholic's all over the world celebrate Shrove Tuesday, the last day before Lent as their last big indulgence before entering the Lenten season and giving something up as their own personal sacrifice.

Growing up it meant that all my friends gave up something like, chocolate, soda, or candy for Lent. In our house my Mom tried to get us to into the habit of not eating meat on Fridays. Best of all went to Saint Al's for fish fry's...

This year I'm trying to find something to give up that is actually do-able. It will be hard but it has to something that is actually in the realm of possibility because I will feel terrible if I pledge to give up something and then am totally unable to follow through....

Any ideas?? I have a week....

Ghostie Ghostie

2010-02-04T10:02:00.001-05:00

One o'clock the ghost aint here...

Ghostie Ghostie
We had a neighborhood full of kids when I was growing up. I was the littlest. If I was really lucky the older kids would allow me to join in on their games. It may have actually been called Ghost in the Graveyard, but I was a lot littler and Ghostie Ghostie is how my brain processed it between the ages of 5 and 10.

The Justins lived directly across the street and the Conways lived next to them. Both families had about 6 kids each so they dominated the game decisions.

Ghostie Ghostie was played at or in the hour surrounding dusk using the Conways front porch as "base".

From the front steps we chanted "one o'clock the ghost aint here..." and on and on building the tension until we got to Midnight and "the ghost IS here!".

A that point we would shriek as loudly as we could and then try to run all the way around the house and make it back to base without the "ghost" (the person who was It) tagging us.

I absolutely loved this game and was terrified of it at the same time.

I liked it much better than Kick The Can because no one ever got hurt and for some reason when our neighborhood played the can game; someone got hurt. Much like the Pom Pom game that the big kids played at the ice skating pond, I avoided Kick the Can.

I love the memories I have of sitting on the porch steps with the big kids and being allowed to be part of the action. I wonder if they remember that they ever let me play... because it's permanently etched into the mythology of my childhood.

Don't Dream It... Be It

2010-01-06T21:23:00.001-05:00

This year I am enjoying the fabulous city that I live in much more than I did last year!

This year I am reading my To Be Read pile.

This year I am lighting a theatrical fire under as many kids as I can.

This year I am a good friend and wife.

This year I am prosperous, comfortable, healthy and at peace.

These are not goals or resolutions. These are things that I am. Somebody said to me "if you do it than that is what you are". Well okay then.

I <3 Cyber Monday

2009-12-03T10:22:00.001-05:00

I have to admit it. I hate shopping.

I hate crowds, I hate waiting in line and I especially hate having an image in my mind of what I want and not being able to find it.

I do love, however, shopping online. The ability to search for, see, and purchase exactly what I want is amazing!! I never have to leave my house!!

This year I was able to buy a book I had been coveting for my Dad. This particular book was long gone from the actual book store shelves, but I found it online and with my husbands super discount plus a Cyber Monday coupon I got the hardback edition for $13!!

Along the same lines... I love that I can have pictures printed from my home computer to the drugstore and then go pick them up in just a few hours. We picked the shots we wanted, sent them and got them back with almost no effort. Mom's gift: check.

Most of all I love that Internet shopping opens up the entire world of options to me. I can find something that is only sold at a gift shop in Northern California and have it shipped to me that day! This global shopping center is less than 15 years old, but I am embracing it thoroughly!!!

Now... let me see... what exotic culinary item can I find for sister that she won't expect but will love more than anything...

Lily Liver'd

2009-09-20T23:31:00.000-04:00

I lost my Cattledog Wrigley in a divorce 9 years ago.

I think I just got her back.

I keep calling Lily a Sheep and Cattledog... She's definitely Sheltie and definitely something Australian. She is her own self but time after time I want to call her Wrigley. The way she runs, the silly look on her face...

We swore we'd never have another dog. But Loreena wanted one (note the past tense) and she fell into our laps serendipitously like all of our animals do. It just made it seem more like she was meant to be ours.

So she's added to the chaos. Is trying my patience. Is inspiring me to make long awaited changes. Is totally NOT a cat.

My cats are very mad. This time though they've decided to take it out on Loreena! Apparently they know the source of the canine usurper. And I really don't mind washing a basket of peed on clothes because I know that they know that I love them and would have never done that to them if it hadn't been for Loreena.

I do love Lily. And something will give here eventually. We struggle for routine around here and insist that we are letting go of the drama. Stepping off the roller-coaster if you will. I have my own carnival rides to visit. Lily is along for the ride here and she'll do great. We all will.

This next year around the sun is all about creating reality. Letting go and moving forward. Being happy and trusting the Universe to provide what we need to prosperous and loved. Love multiplies love.

Welcome to the carnival Miss Lily. Keep your paws in and enjoy the ride.

Things to Remember

2009-08-15T12:45:00.000-04:00

My Mom reminded me the other day that age 15 or 16 was the era of “would you please tell Dad that…” and “Tell your daughter this…”. And I have to keep reminding myself that if judges and courts and Universal law took every 15 year old girl who was mad at their Dad away from them, none of us would have any Dads. It’s not just me, lots of folks I know have girls who are tweens and teens. And those of you who don’t, well… I’ll just say hold onto your hats and leave it at that.

When I was 15 I had my first boyfriend with a car. I got threatened with expulsion for fighting in class (with a boy who still apparently can’t resist needling me to the point of extreme irritation). My friends decided to hate me randomly for no apparent reason. The first deep lessons of the “anyone can say anything they want” quandary started to cut into my soul. I was deeply into Ray Bradbury. My crushes at the time were Harrison Ford, John Lennon and the older boy across the street. No boys at school looked twice at me. We performed Oklahoma, which is significant because those songs are the ones that pop up on incessant replay in my mind to this day. My locker looked like I was hording paper for doomsday. Alienation from the mainstream was solidified. I just did not fit in. Thank god. Thank you thank you thank you because I would not be who I am today.

At 16 I went to High School. Fell in love twice. Met lifelong friends. I went to a dance with someone who had known me since birth. We hung out on the levee, in parks, and boarding houses. We listened to music that reverberates through my memory like a soundtrack. The feeling of being wild and free is palpable in those memories. My sister was 4 and she willingly tagged along in convertibles with the top down and the air blowing through our hair. I got a 45 record of sixteen candles as a birthday present and a t-shirt I have to this day. My brother began to exhibit the signs of severe OCD, addiction and violence enhanced by his lifelong defiance of all authority. My Dad took away the phone if I got in trouble, especially for bad grades. At school we were power reading, moonlight swimming, and spending study halls lying on the floor of rehearsal rooms talking about poetry and love. We couldn’t stand to be apart even for 45 minutes and wrote notes to one another in classes. I was the babysitter of all babysitters for a huge number of families. Some of those kids are still on my friends list today. One Saturday afternoon I had a fight with my Dad and broke the glass in the front door just as a mother came to pick me up to babysit. That was the only time I forgot a job. Sometimes we’d get up in the morning to find that my brother had eaten a gallon of ice cream during the night. My Dad put a lock on the freezer.

I have to remind myself just how wonderful and terrible it is to be a teenager. I have to remember that those memories linger and the people who you love do not fade.

I have to remember that now, to me, my Dad walks on water and that my Mom is the one I go to when I am crying.

My Side of the Story

2009-08-11T15:31:00.000-04:00

When John started his John and Kate plus POTS blog I was worried that I would not have much to contribute that would stay positive. I have a lot of anger and sadness and frustration and hopelessness at times. But I have to say we have come so far. I would be doing a great disservice to our family if I didn’t acknowledge the hard work we have all done.

I came into Sarah and Loreena’s lives when their parents were separated. I had know their father years before and at the time I had no idea if I’d be a permanent part of their life or just a passing through kind of friend. It was a really hard time. Sarah was struggling with seizures and finding the right medication at age 7 and Loreena was 4 and had her own struggles with speech and conveying her already abstract and complicated world view.

We all hung together through thick and thin and both girls overcame a great deal of difficulties and problems and their father and I did too. Not all of our problems, but some really big ones. But the underlying theme always seemed to be that Sarah was sick with one weird thing after the other. I would call my family back home in Iowa from the ER and they’d say “again!?!” I have been in the ER more with these guys in the last 8 years then in the rest of my life combined. It became kind of a joke that if anyone was going to get something it would be Sarah; the rare sickness, the anomalous symptoms.

Through it all her resilience amazed me. She kept plugging away at school and physical activities and friendships and even boys (karma has not forgotten my own teenage woes). When her health started to decline 2 years ago we chalked it up to growing pains, teen angst, and lingering illness which was always a problem for her. She just never seemed to get well. And then we started the cycle of symptoms that would eventually lead us to POTS syndrome.

As a step mother is it torture for me to see them in pain, either physical or emotional and not be able to help either by determining a better course of action (that’s not my decision to make) or even just by comforting them (don’t want to step on anyone’s toes). It’s a struggle for a problem solver like me to find diplomatic ways of persuading the players to look at things from a different point of view and satisfy the nurterer in me as well.

I eventually came to see that I have a place in this complex puzzle. I can’t say I have totally accepted it but I recognize my role. I was raised with parents and extended family that are highly skilled in the art of unconditional love. That is a quality that I know I can provide for these two beautiful girls and their Dad if only I can let go of the need to have a influence in the outcome. I need to accept that my influence is passive. Sarah needs support for strengths and comfort. She needs to understand that everyone is fighting for her best interests and that no one wants to fight against her. Loreena needs to know that we are all just as worried about her as we are about Sarah. POTS syndrome effects the entire family and how you interact and what you do together. It sucks the life out of the person who has it and everyone who loves them. John needs some clarity of thought and unconditional support when everything around him is falling apart.

That’s me. The Goddess of Unconditional Love. Those of you who know me can hear the sarcasm in my voice. How can I explain that while it comes naturally, it also goes against my perfectionism and critical tendencies? I am only human after all. I am really trying.

The Real John and Kate

2009-06-25T11:49:00.000-04:00

A very sweet friend mentioned on Facebook the other day how no one would watch a reality show about us – the REAL John and Kate – because no one wants to watch two people who are really in love. It got me thinking…

A reality show about our life?? Oh you have no idea.

Here’s the pitch – a bohemian family struggling with chronic illness, high IQ’s, and cats who think they own the lot of them move into a 100 year old home with no closets. Hilarity ensues.

On any given day our house looks like a chaos bomb hit it. We recently tore up a front flowerbed and displaced about 1 million little black biting ants. My boy cat thinks he’s a soccer star and loves to kick things onto the floor (mostly my pint glasses full of iced tea and anything smaller than a dictionary). Daughter 1 is struggling with a recent diagnosis of a syndrome that keeps her on the couch 24/7. Daughter 2 just stepped on and broke Daughter 1’s laptop severely limiting any connection with the outside world.

John is at home writing for a living and frustrated that he’s fixing the writing of fools instead of writing his own stuff and I am gone half the time at an office job or directing other people’s children in community theatre productions.

You want fights? We got fights! But does anyone want to see us argue about how you should wash a dish, or whose turn it is to make dinner? How about which daughter gets to use the one working laptop we have? Or even better – when the lawn is going to get mowed!!

Yesterday Daughter 2 and I had a conversation about the gallon of water she spilled on the stairs. We got 3 clean stairs out of the deal. I tried to get her to clean more of them. No luck. I explained I only care about spills when they are sticky, stain, or are stinky; water not so much. Words to live by.

SO if anyone wants to pay us a million dollars or buy us a giant house to sell out our story on tv; bring it on. You will also see us all sit down to dinner every night, watch movies together, get insanely fattening custard and carmel corn sundaes, spoil our cats to death in what we call “kitty city”, and have Indy car races with Sarah in the Walmart wheelchair.

An Actor's Life For Me

2009-06-12T15:35:00.000-04:00

I’m having a hard time lately in my life so I'm trying to write about things that would make me happy. I am even having a hard time thinking about some of the fun times because of regrettable occurrences that happened after or with the people involved… This is kind of stupid. You are not supposed to be depressed at the beginning of summer vacation!

SO in honor of my summer theatre kids here is a list of some of my theatre memories growing up:

• My first stage feature was as a yellow crayon. I wore corduroy and a turtleneck. It was deep in the 70’s.

• My follow up performance was as a townsperson in Tom Sawyer. I got the role because my mother has a talent for historical costuming. (I already had a dress)

• Then I was typecast in the role of Lucy in You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown. It made me love Moonlight Sonata and gave me knock out audition song. I got my first community theatre role with that song in Music Man; another costume drama and my first “cast party”.

• 7th grade was Bye Bye Birdie and the director who quit every year the week before Dress Rehearsals. In 8th grade she quit Oklahoma too.

• I went on to play such show stopping roles as a Swedish Maid, a stripping Aunt, a tomboy, a catatonic nursing home patient, the Chiquita Banana Lady, Cassandra, and an angry Earth Goddess among others.

• I loved doing theatre. I loved hanging with the boys backstage and running across the street to get malts at Dairy Queen. I loved and still love the smell of dust in hot lights and how cool the floor is underneath the stage.

• In high school some genius gave me the opportunity to be a stage manager. Probably type casting again but I had never considered that being bossy could actually be a job!!

• Theatre teaches you how to see someone’s real personality. The one they only show when they are acting. If you don’t believe me you have never been in a show.

• Theatre teaches you how to find your own personality. The one you think you never show anyone.

• I still love theatre and I love children’s theatre because I see the looks on their faces and I know that they are starting to hear the voice of their true self in their minds. I hope they never lose the ability to hear it ever again.

I am doing more children’s theatre this summer even though it is a longer drive and a bigger commitment. I am doing it because theatre let's me hear that voice of mine and because when I see the fire catch in their eyes it makes my heart sing.

Homage to the Armstrong Bathroom Makeover Disaster

2009-05-12T16:49:00.000-04:00

I did not want to move. Don’t get me wrong I love being in Winston Salem and it is for sure the best thing we have done in our lives so far. But folks I did not want to pick up all of the stuff we own and put it into a truck/our cars/my hands and move the shit into another house where I would then have to dig through it and find places to put it away again. I did not want to do that.

So my husband and I had that conversation. I work 3 jobs. I am taking classes. I cannot help you do this. It is your priority and I have finally given in and acknowledged that we need to be in Winston Salem, but I cannot help you do this. He engaged the help of his father and I said fine. You move it. Remember that I cannot help you.

I knew that the agreement had gone South when I got the call at 8pm on day one of moving van rental. “We picked up the van. Then we bought a chair and went to the house to load the things that are going to my Dads. Now we are going to Dads to unload. None of us have eaten and we’re just going to have to load up the truck in the morning.” Oh Sweet Lord this was bad. It devolved from there to become a 2 week process of exactly what I expected. Picking stuff up, carrying it to the car, driving to Winston, carrying the shit into the house, putting it down, and then milling around in giant stacks of boxes until you find something you need. Lather, rinse, and repeat.

The I Can’t Help You conversation is long forgotten. Saturday we dug out a 4 foot by 6 foot Prickley Pear cactus. This was a remarkably easy task that only cost me one pair of leather gloves. I still don’t know how to get it to the compost facility or if they will even take it once I get it there, but it is out of my yard. I am seriously considering those things that shrink wrap bags of clothes and blankets so you can store them in small spaces. Someone at work had a box of books to give away left over from a yard sale. I checked every title in paperbackswap.com and these aren’t even my books!

We do have a Harry Potter room under the stairs… Now if I could only figure out how Harry makes it into a real sized room that holds all of his shit.

It Is What Makes Me... me.

2009-05-11T17:32:00.000-04:00

I’ve been talking to an old friend about the things that make us who we are. It’s where we are from but much more than that. It is where we are and how we got there and the people who sang us their songs along the way.

I am back in a City. It’s a community within a city. It’s the people you know and which streets you use to get where you’re going. It makes a big difference. Do you take the back roads or do you always get on the expressway? Because there are cities within cities and your boundaries define your limits.

People have said to me a million times: I didn’t realize you grew up in town. You don’t sound like you grew up in town.

That’s because I didn’t. I lived in town, but that is only a part of where I grew up. I grew up in farm fields, and county parks. I grew up with my feet in the streams and rivers and the storm drains. I grew up in our family van driving the back roads of America looking for pieces of history and culture that most people never see. I grew up with my friends sitting on the edge of the levee and lying in the leaves.

Sometimes my new City reminds me of home. On Saturday mornings it smells like lawn mower exhaust but this morning it smells like rain soaked lilacs. With a window open I can hear dogs barking and kids playing somewhere down the sidewalk. Other times it reminds me that here, old men speak using accents that my brain lags a good 3-4 seconds behind in comprehension.

Stories swirl around you in Cities. Waiting to be sung.

Art Imitating Life Imitating Art

2009-04-28T23:03:00.001-04:00

My stepdaughters are writing a horror story.

"Fictional" characters living in a house that sounds like our. Who are haunted by living memories inside the house.

Both John and I have been having dreams that go way beyond your normal night time flights of fancy. I can't help thinking that either the girls are planting seeds in our brains or that this house has inspired all of us to take a deeper look at how we relate to the past the present and future.

We are, after all, living in a 100 year old farm house in the middle of a major city.

Ear Modification

2009-04-17T21:00:00.000-04:00

Industrial

2009-04-16T10:35:00.000-04:00

I pieced my ear again yesterday.

Man, I hope my Mom isn’t reading this.

I couldn’t resist! When I realized that I could get a 16g stainless steel barbell in my upper ear at Claire’s using the earring gun at the mall for less than $20??
I was so there!!

So I get to the store, a little worried because, hello! Cartilage! And I sit down to wait for the manager who is the only one in the store trained to pierce cartilage. And who should walk up to wait in line behind me to get her little ears pierced but Cindy Lou Who. I swear this little six year old is standing by the chair I am sitting in sucking her thumb and holding her teddy bear.

I tell her “don’t worry if it looks like it hurts me, yours is going to be MUCH easier than mine” (at this point I am hoping for silent tears at best) and her mother ask where I’m getting it, I point and she mouths to me “she’s really scared, this is her 3rd try”.

Great. No pressure to cowboy up or anything.

They watch. I get pierced. Cindy Lou gets a high five from me and she was all smiles hopping up into the chair. I didn’t have the heart to stay and watch her get hers done. I would have felt like a traitor.

But honestly? It really wasn’t that bad! Not really that much more pain… seriously.

I can so totally handle a tattoo now.

Hoppy Easter!

2009-04-12T09:15:00.000-04:00

I have two great Easter memories that stand out. The first is one when I was very little and my Dad put out chocolate covered raisins and said that the Easter bunny had been in the house and left rabbit droppings everywhere.

If you know my Dad, you know this makes total sense.

The next is a year we had snow on Easter. I remember laying on back between the trees in our back yard and the huge fluffy flakes falling softy all around me. I love that memory. It's one of my happy thoughts.

This Easter I am missing being with my family and enjoying Mina's first Easter. My sister loves bunnies so I bet Mina will get at least one lovely stuffed bunny to hug. I am also missing my Grandmother's pickled beet eggs.I love them!

Kelly- if you are reading this, let everyone know I would rather be home with all of you, eating beet eggs and ham.

I will instead be in a hot dusty house packing up what is left of our lives and trying to move on up.

tired.

2009-04-11T14:13:00.000-04:00

I am so tired that I can hardly move.

Younger step-D just slipped on the floor leaving the room. Does that mean she's a spaz or that I need rugs? You be the judge. I have now convinced her that wet-Swiffering her room sounds like FUN! Maybe not fun exactly but she's doing it.

Kitty Walk 80% installed. Pictures coming later! John and Sarah made a trip to Tville to get the walk part and another load of stuff.

I have to sleep. Stayed up late watching the EMT's help a crying girl in front of my house. Have washed every comforter and sheet set at least twice and Fat Head is still only peeing on things he's perceiving to be mine. Apparently this is all my fault. I am not trusting him to go anywhere out of my sight.

Something that sounded like glass breaking just fell in the kitchen and Stella is the only one uaccounted for. Guess I don't get my nap.