Momentous

"Been in town, my baby

We just got to rock on

Yeah, darling, we just got to go home

I don't want no tutti-frutti, no lollipop,

Come on baby, just rock, rock, rock."

-- Led Zeppelin, "Boogie with Stu," Physical Graffiti

--

Paige, my baby sister, came to visit me from Wednesday to yesterday. In total, the princess spent five days in the Queen City.

Highlights:

- Ice-skating in Fountain Square

- First hockey game (viewed in the flesh, that is): Cyclones v. Chiefs

- The drive to and from Dayton, OH, to see a mediocre production of Urinetown

- Letting her drive to Wendy's

- Running to the river

- It's Just Crepes

--

On the Sad Bear Blog, Tony G. posted about what he calls "moments of clarity," those "ah-ha" moments. He was inspired by something he read to post some seemingly obvious things that became apparent to him only recently; in turn, inspired by his entry, here are some of mine:

- There never was a Pope who married a bear. (As I told Zach H., who created this hilarious rumor, I've been spreading that whopper and needlessly pissing off Catholics for years.)

- Manicurists get paid basically to do the same thing I do to my own nails; the only difference is that when I do it, it's a bad habit, and when they do it to others, it's a job.

- There are different blades used in different Olympic events like skiing, ice-skating and sledding, depending on the hazards of the event (check out the array of blades that aired on the "Today" show this morning--the $20G luge blade is especially cool).

--

Another thing, not-so-obvious, and this must be shown as it's told:

When my sister came to visit, it broke my routine in many good ways. I was propelled out of my work and apartment because I was now a host, an older brother who wanted to experience all these things with his younger sister. We did all sorts of things, almost just for the sake of doing them.

The things that I wanted to be most meaningful turned tortuous and sour, but the things I thought would be superficial and glossed-over turned out to be the most fun. And that was because my sister was there, and I was more focused on her than I was on the thing.

For instance: We went to a play (a very serious, artistic play) on Friday night, and I was excited because this was the first "real" play my sister had ever seen. But at intermission, when I asked her what she thought about the production, all she did was smile and say, "I'm sorry, I don't get it." And all my explaining turned into jargon the instant I spoke the words. My attempts to make this event momentous pushed her away and made it awkward, forced.

Two days later, we took an hour-long road trip to see another play. I promised her that if at intermission she didn't "get it," we'd go ahead and leave. On the drive, I gave her control of the music and we had a blast, singing along to songs we both knew. I wasn't trying to introduce her to anything, and there was no pressure, and we ended up enjoying the play, even if it was a textbook example of what we would've labeled "deadly theatre" in college.

That night, I took her to Dave & Buster's for some Valentine's Day arcadia. D&B's doesn't take reservations, so we stood there in the lobby for a half hour before Paige looked at me and said she'd rather just hang out at the apartment the night before her flight to Nebraska. So we left. The very thing I thought would be the climactic funfest of her trip was the last thing she wanted to do. We went back and watched the Olympics until she fell asleep.

--

So what's the moral? I don't know.

Maybe: Do what your guests want to do?

Or: You can never plan fun?

Or: Not everyone likes the things you like, stupid.

--

We were harried and hurried at the airport. There were delays because of snow, but they bumped her flight earlier again without telling us. So at first we could not check her in, and then we could, and then there was the gate rush, and suddenly, two pictures later, she was at security, and I had to stay back.

It had been so good to have someone with whom to share life. And life itself had changed for five days. I'd been propelled out of my apartment and out of myself. I missed her already.

This is gonna sound really stupid, but I felt like I'd been saved from myself. You can only watch so many movies and clean the kitchen so many times before you're bored again.

So she went through security and I watched from fifty yards away as she put up her luggage, took off her shoes, gave me a wave and was down the escalator. The rows and columns of blue TV screens told me she was boarding. We kept texting while the plane waited to taxi. I walked back to my car, where only twenty minutes before we'd been scrambling with her suitcase and avoiding slushy muddy puddles.

I got into the driver's seat and, before I knew what was happening, I began to sob. I don't mean "weep," and I don't mean "a tear came to my eye." I mean I was dry-heaving tears, vocalizing sadness, groping for a reason. I only had a vague notion as to why I was crying, and I couldn't stop. It lasted for thirty minutes and it lasted for three. It was the first time I've had an exhilarating cry, almost like a second wind, like each tear only primes the pump for the next one. It was wonderfully cathartic.

This is gonna sound even stupider, but I felt refreshed afterwards.

--

Then I got a text from my mom. "So how does it feel to be a parent for 4 days?"

Momentous, Mom.

--

So now it's back to work.

I delayed it for as long as possible, going in after I'd eaten lunch. (There are perks to working part-time.) The city is so full of snow that it's impossible to get any real running/walking done, so my exercise routine is suspended until shovels hit sidewalks. But I'm in the mood for having a routine scrapped and replaced for a time, so it's all good.

No, really. It's all good.

Boots

"Question 16. Is attendance at a place of worship or membership with a Christian community necessary to a Christian way of life?

Lewis: That's a question which I cannot answer. My own experience is that when I first became a Christian, about fourteen years ago, I thought that I could do it on my own, by retiring to my rooms and reading theology, and I wouldn't go to the churches and Gospel Halls; and then later I found that it was the only way of flying your flag; and, of course, I found that this meant being a target. It is extraordinary how inconvenient to your family it becomes for you to get up early to go to Church. It doesn't matter so much if you get up early for anything else, but if you get up early to go to Church it's very selfish of you and you upset the house.... I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music. But as I went on I saw the great merit of it. I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education, and then gradually my conceit just began peeling off. I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren't fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit. It is not for me to lay down laws, as I am only a layman, and I don't know much.

Question 17. If it is true that one has only to want God enough in order to find Him, how can I make myself want Him enough to enable myself to find Him?

Lewis: If you don't want God, why are you so anxious to want to find Him? I think that in reality the want is a real one, and I should say that this person has in fact found God, although it may not be fully recognized yet. We are not always aware of things at the time they happen. At any rate, what is more important is that God has found this person, and that is the main thing.

-- from "Answers to Questions on Christianity," God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, by C. S. Lewis, ed. by Walter Hooper

--

Yes, I'm reading C. S. Lewis again.

I went to a college where it seemed everyone read Lewis--and not only read him, but read him too much. I'll be the first to say that you should never read one author at the exclusion of others, especially if the topic is intellectual and so is the author, but when I read Lewis, I don't know, I feel as if there is little need to read anyone else. I find myself wanting to read too much of him. Even people who disagree with him, like the people who disagree with Orwell, have to admit their awe at the writing. The sheer majesty of it. The language is so crisp, so clear, and the writer is so unashamed of his beliefs. It's the ultimate marriage of what one means to say and what one actually says, when things come out so simply and strongly. I just love it.

That's the main reason there are four Lewis books on the desk beside my computer. Libraries; gotta love 'em.

--

I've found myself stuck in a cycle of self-righteousness lately, though. Especially on this blog. If I've offended anyone with callous words, I'm sorry. I'll try not to do it again.

I've resumed going to church, and I think that makes me a saint. I'm running three times a week, and I think that makes me healthy. I'm considering a major career change, and I think that makes me too good for the job I have.

All those things I think are simply not true. I'm not involved in the church yet, I simply attend on Sundays; I still have a spare tire wrapped around my midsection that won't go away no matter how many sit-ups and miles I achieve; I still struggle at work.

(The latest work-related debacle has been sending these notification letters to kids who have made it into our summer musical-theatre program. In Friday's snowstorm prelude, I took all 90 envelopes in a large paper shopping bag to the drop box a few blocks from my apartment. I grabbed them in bricks of letters and slid them into the slot. Halfway through, I realized that some of the envelopes didn't have the "non-profit organization postage PAID" stamp in the corner. In other words, The Children's Theatre is gonna get a lot of red-stamped envelopes on Monday or Tuesday. It's not a huge deal, it just delays the process a few days, but it's still such a simple task and my absentmindedness struck again.)

I don't think those things consciously. They're unconscious, subconscious, whatever. It's an attitude I've had for a long time, that the thing that I'm doing must be the correct thing to do, otherwise I wouldn't be doing it. That's a poor way to think. I'm trying to turn from that, too.

--

"...and then you realize you aren't fit to clean those boots."

--

That being said...

A dream is coming true in this show I'm in. My number, a rewritten version of "Rufus Rastus Johnson Brown," includes a dance break during which I can impersonate a performing hero of mine, Charlie Chaplin. The whole thing is under a minute, but hey--with the mustache, cane and waddle, I couldn't be happier.

That is something I can say about theatre, even as I consider--mind you, consider--giving it up. There are moments when I feel I am the happiest person in the world. Those moments are not to be forgotten, whichever way my life goes.

It's just that I've heard so many professional actors say something along the lines of, "If you can do anything else and love it, do that thing instead." Many of my friends have tried to do something else and found that they hated it.

I see that, I hear about it, I read about it. I acknowledge it.

But there are different strokes for everyone, you know? And a stroke (I'm thinking of boats and oars here) is a short, repetitive thing, and if you keep stroking (again, I'm thinking of boats and oars) the same way, you'll end up going in circles. Going in circles makes a person dizzy, and when a person is dizzy, he/she falls down. And even if the person doesn't fall down, they're not really going anywhere...just circles...in the middle of a lake or something...

(Is the metaphor mixed enough now? Jeez. I'm nowhere near Lewis when it comes to saying things directly.)

Okay. Here it is. I just want to see if there's something else I could do in this world and love it. It's a risk I'm finally willing to take.

--

So. What does any of this have to do with Lewis? (Aside from his language prowess and my linguistic powerlessness.)

Everyone knows that Lewis was an atheist who set out to pick Christianity apart intellectually, who in the process of investigating it with a cold eye discovered its warmth, and who converted and became one of the greatest Western apologetic writers ever. Fine. Go, Lewis.

What I guess this means in terms of my life is that people change all the time. Myself included. Lewis was in his thirties when he adopted a whole new religion. It took him for an amazing journey. Fortunately for us, he took pictures and wrote postcards. I've got four of them right here.

I'm in my twenties. My early twenties, at that. The Flaming Lips have a song in which they ask, "If it's not now then tell me when would be the time that you would stand up and be a man?" Now. In this moment. Always and always, now.

I've got a friend who has a wife and kids. He says he contemplated this very life change, but it was impossible because, well, he's a husband and father. He tells me that I'm young, I'm single, and why not try something else? It really affects no one's life but mine. He says now's the time.

Another friend is unmarried like me, struggling to find his way. He tells me that I'm young, I'm single, and why not really give myself to theatre? Move to a bigger city with a serious theatre crowd (no offense, Cincinnati). Restart the acting career. Hit the auditions. Really go for it. He says now's the time.

So I guess that means now's the time.

--

Gotta look ahead. Make things happen. What those things are, God only knows.

I think Lewis would tell me to get back in touch with the Source before picking a tributary. (Another metaphor...sigh.)

Ultimately, here's the bacon. I don't want to be like Prufrock:

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!	75
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?	80
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,	85
And in short, I was afraid.

--

Oh, and the Super Bowl's today. Go Colts!

Paperback

"I'm a-tell you baby,

We gonna move away from town...

I'm a-buy myself a Frigidaire

When I move, yeah, out on the outskirts of town.

That's why I don't want nobody--

Hoo, baby!--always hangin' around..."

-- Big Bill Broonzy, "I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town"

--

Driving north from my apartment, passed a U-Haul truck on my right. Back was open, inside were large picture frames and bed frames, lots of furniture piled and stacked like files in a cabinet, all crammed in there, immovable. There was space between where the furniture pile ended and the truck ended, and in that three feet or so was a rocking chair, and in that rocking chair--ancient, graying brown wood, straw webbing for the back--sat a girl of about twelve, wearing overalls and Skechers whose toes tapped the floor of the truck and pushed with metronomic regularity so that the girl in the rocking chair, well, rocked, but with too much weight forward (and too little total) to get that satisfying depth of rocking that old women with weak backs seem to enjoy on autumn afternoons. She looked like a much younger, backwards-turned version of Granny from "The Beverly Hillbillies." The girl read a paperback in her lap while a young boy--I assumed it was her brother--aimed the spine of a large dark-colored book (Bible? dictionary? Stephen King's The Stand?) as if it were a machine gun. She ignored him.

And this I saw in a flash as I passed, and I was driving to work.

--

My little sister visits in nine days. Gotta clean the carpet, scrub the sinks, wipe down shower and toilet, wash the extra bedsheets, fluff the extra pillows, and--latest addition to the list of preparations--buy some ground beef and Hamburger Helper (no stroganoff or lasagna, please). I'm terribly excited for her visit (he said, sounding accidentally like the heroine of an Austen novel).

--

To have found a church (maybe) and a volunteering outlet (definitely) and to start walking and running in the mornings...it's all stuff I feel like I should have done a long time ago, and it feels so completely good to be doing those things again. But it's not the doing so much as the change I feel as a result. Simple energies. Little moments.

With the early morning activity, I now have more time in the day. More productive time. Been reading a lot more (almost 100 pages, just today) for leisure, and feeling the benefits. With a full day of things done, the evenings are reserved for films. Films for leisure.

And things are just looking up in general. That's all, I guess. (Or something like that.)

Readiness

"Are you waiting for lightning,

A sign that it's time for a change?"

-- Steven Curtis Chapman, "Waiting for Lightning"

--

Some quick words before rehearsal:

Been trying to exercise daily. Like my pregnant co-worker, it's not yet showing, but I am feeling more energized on a regular basis, even though I wake up two hours earlier and do a lot more.

As a guideline, I'm following the Navy's physical regimen for candidates for the Officer Training Command. This means for my age group, I would be expected to do (each in two minutes) 71 push-ups and 87 curl-ups, and to run 1.5 miles in 10 min., 30 sec. The push-ups are going fine, and the curl-ups would be easier without this persistent gut (had it since high school), but it's the running that has been a killer. I ran around the block three times yesterday morning, and by the end my throat was so dry and my passages so full of mucus that I had to stop; all this, by the way, after having run .9 miles in 12 minutes.

Gotta do better. Been stretching before and after everything (no sense getting shin-splints in the dead of winter) and just the flexibility is reassuring. I keep remembering my junior year of college, when I was in the best shape I've ever been in, and that wonderful, exhilarating 10-minute chunk between four hours of modern dance and three hours of rehearsal. I felt like I was moving from hard labor to soft, and I want that feeling when I get ready to go to work in the morning: Great workout. Now what?

--

Got a new iPod. It's been a godsend during this whole process. So, oddly enough, has cabbage.

--

My sister is flying out here to visit me! She's leaving Omaha to spend her winter break with me in Cincy. I'm seriously excited, looking up all sorts of activities (Ballet? Theatre? Hockey?) we can do together in this city. Not only am I finding things to introduce her to, I'm also discovering more about the place where I live. If you want to learn about your environment, pretend you're about to teach someone else about it.

--

Rehearsal's approaching. Gotta learn these lines of narration. "And so Jack went back up the beanstalk..."

And so Chris goes back to work.

Okay

"No, no, no--we are Christians!"

-- a father, trying to schedule an audition for his daughter with The Children's Theatre

--

I'll try to reproduce this amazing conversation that I just had at work. The following takes place after I've been talking to a man, C., for about ten minutes about scheduling his daughter, M., for an audition this Saturday.

Note: I don't intend for this conversation to appear racist. However, I simply have to tell you that C. has a very thick accent and has trouble understanding English over the phone. Personally, I think the humor comes not from the ethnicity of the person on the other end, but because that person has clearly no idea what he is getting his daughter into.

--

Me: Sorry it took me so long to get back to you.

C: It's okay. So what does my daughter have to do for the audition?

Me: Well, there are a number of things. First, she has to perform a monologue.

C: A monologue?

Me: Yes.

C: Okay.

Me: This has to be less than two minutes long. Under two minutes.

C: Okay. Under two minutes?

Me: Yes.

C: Okay.

Me: She also has to prepare a song.

C: She sing?

Me: Yes, she's going to sing at the audition.

C: (worried) Oh...how long?

Me: About a minute.

C: Ten minutes?!

Me: No, sorry. One minute. About one minute long.

C: Okay.

Me: She needs to bring sheet music.

C: Sorry? What kind of music?

Me: The sheet music.

C: What kind of music?

Me: It's the paper that the music is written on.

C: Oh...okay.

Me: There will be an accompanist in the room with her. He will play her song while she sings.

C: Who?

Me: A piano player. That's why she needs to have the sheet music.

C: Oh...okay.

Me: He'll play the music while she sings.

C: Why does he do that?

Me: Uh...

C: She can't just sing?

Me: No, sorry, we don't allow acapella singing at auditions.

C: Who singing?

Me: She has to sing with the music.

C: Oh...okay.

Me: Okay. She may also have to dance a little bit.

C: Dance? Okay.

Me: Yes. Has she taken dance?

C: Oh...no.

Me: That's okay.

C: What has to be in the song?

Me: The song she sings?

C: Yes.

Me: She can sing about whatever she wants. Some kids come in and sing a Broadway song, and some kids come in and sing "Happy Birthday."

C: "Happy Birthday"?

Me: Yes. It's a big range.

C: What else?

Me: She also needs to have a headshot and resume.

C: Resume? What needs to be in the resume?

Me: We need contact information.

C: Okay.

Me: We also need her physical description. Eye color, hair color, height, weight, that sort of thing.

C: Okay.

Me: We also need to know what experience she has. If she's taken any classes in acting or singing, or done any performances.

C: Oh. She doesn't do that.

Me: Oh, that's okay. Has she ever done a play at school, or--

C: I will put her on the phone, okay? You tell her what she has to do at the audition, okay?

Me: O...kay.

C: (to his daughter) Here! Come here! You talk on the phone to this man.

Daughter: Hello?

Me: Hi, my name is Chris Stewart. I'm calling from The Children's Theatre. Your dad and I just scheduled an audition for you this Saturday.

D: Okay.

Me: He wanted me to tell you what you had to do in the audition.

D: Okay.

Me: First, you have to perform a monologue, and that has to be less than two minutes long.

D: (silence)

Me: So, under two minutes.

D: I don't get it.

Me: What don't you get?

D: What's a monologue?

Me: Oh, sorry. It's any time one person is talking on stage. So they could be talking to themselves, or telling a story...

D: Can it be two people?

Me: Well, that's when there's two or more people talking. A monologue means only one person is talking.

D: So...just tell a story?

Me: Well, as long as it's already written down. Like in a book, or a play. You could probably even pick a poem if it tells some kind of story. There's a lot of them on the internet, too.

D: Okay.

Me: Okay. The next thing is a song.

D: I have to sing?

Me: Yes. And you'll have to bring sheet music.

D: What music? Can I sing with a CD?

Me: No, you have to bring sheet music for our accompanist.

D: What?

Me: Our piano player. If you go into a music store and ask for the piano sheet music for your song, they should be able to help you.

D: Can it be for guitar?
Me: Maybe sometimes. But if you can find the piano music, that's best. Because our accompanist will be playing a piano.

D: Okay.

Me: And I told your dad about the headshot and resume, so that should be fine. Oh, have you ever done any dance?

D: Kinda.

Me: Okay. Well, we may ask to see some dance ability when you audition.

D: Okay.

Me: Think you can do all that for us?

D: Maybe.

Me: Okay...uh, do you know all the things you need to do?

D: Yeah.

Me: You remember everything?

D: No.

Me: Did you take notes?

D: No.

Me: You didn't? Did you write any of this down?

D: Na-ah.

Me: Oh. Okay.

D: I be fine.

Me: I'm sure you will. Well, I told your dad all of this, too. So you should be okay.

D: Okay.

Me: See you--

C: Hello?

Me: Hello, sir?

C: Okay. You told her everything she needs to know, right?

Me: I think so.

C: Okay. Where is your building?

Me: (I give him directions)

C: Okay. Is it a big building?

Me: It's...uh...medium.

C: Okay. Is it on the top floor?

Me: No, the auditions will be on the main floor. You'll probably see a lot of people around that door.

C: Yes, yes. What is it like?

Me: What does it look like?

C: Yes.

Me: It's gray. It has a tree out front. We have a signpost but there's no sign on it yet. We just moved.

C: Oh--you're not in the same building?

Me: Not the same as before.

C: This address is not the right one?

Me: No, that's the right one.

C: It isn't?

Me: (I give him directions again)

C: Okay. Good. What play will she be in?

Me: This is for our summer program.

C: When?

Me: This summer. July.

C: Oh...okay.

Me: Is that okay?

C: Yes. Okay.

Me: Okay. Well, we'll see you Saturday.

C: This Saturday, yes.

Me: Okay, then--

C: Can my son come too?

Me: You want your son to audition, too?

C: Maybe. What time?

Me: Well, it'll be a different time than your daughter's. Hers was the only slot open.

C: When can he come?

Me: How about in the afternoon.

C: Oh...okay.

Me: Okay, I have times available--

C: No. He won't like it.

Me: Oh. Okay.

C: She knows what she has to do?

Me: Yes. But I don't think she wrote it down.

C: No, she wrote nothing down.

Me: Right. Okay. Well, as long as you know what she has to do, we should be good.

C: I know?

Me: I hope so.

C: Okay.

Me: Okay.

C: Okay. Goodbye.

Me: Bye.

Visit

"Some veggies went to sea, sea, sea

To see what they could see, see, see..."

-- VeggieTales

--

Because I work part-time, and because I've logged so many overtime hours in the last two weeks, and because the finances of this place are such that overtime hours are de facto converted into extra vacation time--mandatory vacation time, even--I will be taking a few days off to make a leisurely, unconstrained-by-time visit to Hillsdale to see the Tower Dancers Concert.

I'll make a four-day weekend out of a three-day weekend.

--

Part of the reason for making the trip is to reconnect with the few college friends of mine still working on degrees there. Another is to see the Concert. But I think my biggest reason for heading back this time is to meet up with my mentoring professors, to grab meals with them, to discuss what's going on in their lives, and to ask for advice on what's going on in mine.

Italian

"If you gots the poison,

I got the remedy."

-- Jason Mraz, "The Remedy"

--

It's five o'clock on a Friday in January, I'm sitting at my desk, and I'm half-tipsy on Mission Street India Pale Ales, a sixer of which was the gift from my boss to me to celebrate our co-direction of the Black History Month show, Harriet Tubman, which had its dress rehearsal earlier today.

It's also been two weeks since my last post. Sorry about that. I've been busy.

A quick rundown:

For the first week back from the holiday break, I was doing my best to direct (notice I don't say "directing") a touring show. This meant stopping at a Pilot station halfway from Nebraska to here so I could get started on blocking, and it also meant a number of very late nights pondering entrances stage-right and exits stage-left. It also meant feeling like a fool during choreography rehearsals when the barrels were empty and the trickle ran dry, my creative juices verily sapped by hasty, wasty hours of making things up as I went along. But my boss intervened and the show was saved from mediocrity--or worse, unmitigated children's theatre failure--as she tweaked and fixed and cut and flipped entire scenes while I sat nearby, taking mental notes of all the faulty direction I had given in the preceding week. It was thrilling and humbling to watch as my boss, a woman with years of directing experience, isolated problems and pinpointed solutions with the ease of a master carpenter working a piece of wood.

All this, mind you, while I met with Navy recruiters and researched educational options in my spare time.

Remember: 2010 is going to be a big year for this squirrelly little Asian guy. The trick now is to make it big in a worthwhile way, and to refuse to be ashamed.

--

Started going to church again. It's the way I was raised and I like the person I am when I go to church and feel myself humbled before the Creator; it's as simple as that. Haven't found a "church home," as it's called in the Assemblies of God churches I knew growing up, but it's normal to bounce around a bit before settling into one's new religious digs.

The AoG service I attended (in Alexandria, KY) was disappointing and discouraging. The preacher--a tall, black-clad man with a microphone turned up way too high--snapped his fingers at the congregation twice during his sermon, saying, "Hey! Listen up! Listen to me!" He had all of the pomp and circumstance one expects from a sixth-grader leading Sunday school for the first time, and the me-me-me attitude of a third-world warlord. I will not return to that church.

This coming Sunday's destination: the AoG church in Montgomery, OH, about ten minutes from where I work.

--

Broke up with my girlfriend of 14 months, too. Had to be done.

--

One night about a week ago, I found myself convinced that I was going to enlist in the Navy and become a CTI, the military equivalent of a linguist. The prospect of learning another language on the government's dollar so inspired me that I rushed to the library and checked out a 6-CD multimedia series called "Teach Yourself Italian." In one hour, while watching a football game, I learned the numbers and days of the week. It was exhilarating! I marched around my small apartment, holding a glass of white wine with one hand, gesticulating like a Corleone with the other, practically shouting the words, "Cero, uno, due, tre..."

--

I haven't decided what I'm going to do to change my life. But I have decided that a change has to be made, and that's half the battle, I think.

Encouragement from family and skepticism from friends aside, I do know this: No one will make me the person I want to be, except for myself. Losing weight and getting into shape are not mere tricks of diet and exercise--they are rather the natural results of mentality. It's not as simple as the faith teachers say--"Think you will lose weight, and you will!"--but it is as simple as saying, I know what it takes to lose weight and get into shape; therefore, I will do those things that help me achieve those goals.

Further: I will do those things that make me the person I wish to be. I will act upon my beliefs, and I will refuse to prostitute myself to anyone, for any reason. I will retain my dignity along with my self-respect, and will strive to turn that respect outwards to my fellows and to my environment. I will live according to my ideas of virtue instead of another's idea of value.

--

Is it that simple? What will my friends think? Will I let people down if I turn from my talent towards a career with stability, higher income and the prospect of a good family future?

Along those lines, I want to say this. I feel as if some friends--not all, not many--are living vicariously through my success (if that's what you want to call it--I call it half-luck, half-settling) and will feel discouraged themselves if I stop doing what I set out two years ago to do. What I say to them is this: I'm simply trying to live my life. What I do defines not who I am. It doesn't define whether we'll be able to hang out and have a beer the next time I'm in town. But it does help to define whether I can finance my future children's education, what kind of car I'll drive in five years, and whether I'll be content or discontent with my choices down the line.

Food for thought: I'm growing tired of not having anything to show for my efforts. Today's events are indicative of old habits and life trends: For almost two years now, I've been working too long and too hard at a single project, seeing it to completion, and drinking away the reward.

No more. Something's gotta give. Something's gotta give back.

--

Like Jimmy Stewart in the holiday classic, "I've said too much." It's a half-hour later than when I started, and I've said many things I've wanted to say for days.

There's a certain nobility in taking a risk and branching out. There's a definite solace in starting over. And there's a lot of stuff you have to think about before you do any of those things. What I can promise is that I'll think it all over--a lot--before I make any real decision. I owe it to myself at this point to send out beacons and gather information; that's all I'm doing.

Pennies

"And now I'm caught in the air

It's a good life."

-- Mae, "Ready and Waiting to Fall"

Well, it's a new year.

Got the feeling, for the first time, that this year is going to be really good, special. Got a lot of changes to make, as always, and some of them are bigger than any I've ever made. That should be a frightening feeling, but instead, I feel startlingly okay.

I feel I am shedding the chip on my shoulder.

--

Parents bought a new car yesterday. Helped some poor car salesman get one sell closer to quota, I guess. It's a nice car, longer than it looks, gray outside and inside, with small behind-the-seat pockets and a concave backseat, the kind that curls your back in that firm, insistent new-car way.

We rode it to Rick's Cafe for the last meal of the year; I had the shrimp and scallops but I should have had the sirloin. Prior to the countdown, we Wii'd until 11pm, switched to old episodes of "The Beverly Hillbillies," then scanned basic cable channels for the straightforward ball-dropping ceremony. So many kissing folks after.

We toasted the future with sparkling white grape juice--this, instead of champagne. Ate green grapes, symbols of fertility and affluence. Had coins in all our pockets, promises of more to come. Returned to Wii-ing until the troops grew weary, then hit the hay.

--

Growing up, whenever we moved into a new house (and we did that a lot), my mom would take a handful of coins from the jar and walk around to each windowsill, placing a coin in each corner. I don't know if this was supposed to ward off evil spirits or financial ruin, or to invite money, or perhaps it was a sowing gesture, a planting of currency.

My mom has a lot of those superstitions. Drop a fork, a woman will visit; a knife, a man; a spoon, a child. An itchy left hand means you will receive money (left is passive), and your right means you will pay soon.

But the ones that for whatever reason make sense to me are the coin superstitions. I read somewhere that picking up pennies only brings good luck if they are heads-up, and only if you find them randomly. If you get change, any coin minted in your birth year is good luck.

--

A word about pennies: I'm not a fan. They get stuck under car mats and beneath furniture, and they fuse to carpets with gunky laziness. They are lost and discovered with little consequence, these browning copper circles. Many are mostly zinc: poser pennies. They are obsolete. Especially if they stop making them soon. 2010 will be a year in which less pennies are made. 2011 will be the last in which they are made.

But a word for pennies, too: The idea of them is beautiful, those small, forgotten bits of worth. Alone, they disappear, falling from meaning into corrosive mediocrity. In pairs, they seem fortuitous, and in large quantities they become priceless--at some magical point the setting aside of pennies turns from a habitual gesture of frugality to a conscious act of collection, of prizing, of seeing the potential of the mass, of giving to the penny more than it deserves. A penny saved, and all that; and what they won't tell you is that a penny is what you make it worth.

Years are pennies. So's this one. I want to make it worthy.

Dreams

"No matter how your heart is grieving,

If you keep on believing,

The dreams that you wish will come true."

-- Disney's Cinderella

--

Just had a dream last night, the night after Christmas. An acting dream.

We are doing a show called Measure for Ending Well and Then Some, our director's idea of a script that satirizes the problem plays of Shakespeare. It is a sprawling, epic, disastrously long script, one that makes me think of Hugo's Hernani or Ibsen's Brand. I don't know where I fit into the show. It will come to me in time. It's a big one: most of the theatre people whom I know from high school, college, and elsewhere are involved in this play. I see them as I wander around backstage.

There is a bluish gray light coming from somewhere. It allows me to see a gaggle of beautiful girls dressed as Celtic maidens, perched all about an oversized wooden arbor (or maybe it's a pergola) that has been painted to represent rocky cliffs. Or something. They speak to me with the allure of a siren, these nymphs hanging in the air. With the voice of their characters, they ask me the questions of a friend, blurring my reality, and I begin to think they have actually transformed themselves into spirits. Then they shush me and rush me into the wings, so I won't be caught on stage during their entrance.

No, not Hernani. Wagner's Ring Cycle.

For clues, I examine my costume in the blue light. I need to know what I'm doing here, and nothing is "coming to me," as I'd hoped. I'm wearing Elizabethan garb (the black pantaloons, shiny doublet, poofy shirt) and I have a mustache on.

I'm playing the villain.

--

This vacation began as a disaster, and not the sort that arises from burnt food or other sudden, instantaneous crises. No. This one began with what we'll call motherly resentment; a kind of silent, chilly chide; my mother was mad at me for something. My first full day here, my dad had to take me out to dinner, where we discussed what I had done with my life, where I was going, and why I had offended my mother.

Long talk, and since these matters are personal, I don't know how to handle relating it here. So I won't.

It all means this: I may try something else career-wise in 2009.

--

Don't know any lines. None.

I rush to my dressing room and discover that this theatre is the Taft, in downtown Cincinnati. The air in the wings is warm. The hallways and stairwells backstage glow behind semi-closed doors like orange portals to heaven. I go there.

Find my script. It's on a table and it looks like this. I scan the pages for highlights, but apparently I haven't done my acting homework. No indications of who I am or what I say, anywhere.

My dressing roomie walks in. "Ready?" he asks, straightening the lace around his neck.

"No." I can't think of any better way to explain it to him. "No, I'm not."

He sees I'm holding the script. "You've forgotten it all?"

"I don't think I ever learned it."

"You learned it, all right. You just forgot. Here." He takes the book, rips out some pages, and hands them to me. "Roll these up so it'll look like your scroll. You're playing Spallier. Let's go."

I walk with him, rolling the papers.

--

It's not that I don't want to keep acting. Honestly, I would do this forever if I could. I just wonder if I can anymore. If I should.

I've always wanted a family. Right now, I work part-time in an ill-paying position, doing a faint imitation of what I really want to do. Never really was completely enchanted with children's theatre, and the scary (funny?) thing about it is that it seems to suck people in. You don't intend for it, but you first get a steady paycheck, then get hired onto the staff, and before you know it, you've married a local, you have a mortgage and kids, and you don't know how to do anything--anything that pays you better--except let playwrights, directors, musicians and technicians make all the serious decisions for you. All you have to do is walk through their prepared world, and you don't even have to do a terribly good job. Just be adequate, and you always have a job here.

It's not what I signed up for when I declared a Theatre major, and it's not what I envisioned for myself when I decided to take acting as a career. And that's the God-honest truth.

--

We're on stage and I can't see the audience but I can feel their silence. That wonderful quiet. Nothing is happening There, or Then; it has all been replaced by what is happening Here and Now.

There are two of us on stage. I see by the light of a tiny lantern that the other actor has plenty of speaking time before I interrupt him with a goofy sidekick line--and then it makes sense. I'm not the villain. I'm the villain's sidekick. Yes.

He stops speaking. I interrupt, shamelessly reading my lines from the "scroll." As I read my lines aloud, I find that I am supposed to be reading a letter from the villain's brother, so it's fine for me to read this scroll. It feels more than fine. It feels friggin brilliant.

The scene continues, and I glance down the page and see that soon, very soon, I am supposed to rip the scroll to pieces.

--

I'm good at my job, yes, but I know I could do anything. The question is whether I would like it or love it, or come to that point in time, or whether I would spend all my days in some other career dreaming about what I could have done in the theatre.

This longing, I believe, is what propels decent, hardworking American adults into that most grotesque form of theatre, that driven and funded not by talent, but by the community.

--

I don't rip the scroll. Instead, I give the other actor a warning look and jump lines to later in the scene. We've completely vaulted the scroll-tearing business, and now we're talking about the holidays.

And before I know it, after a final punchline about how "it's best to slaughter people when they feel most prepared for it, during the unhappy holidays," the audience gives us an encouraging batch of giggles and we leave the stage.

"What was that?" the other actor asks. He is angry. "Nothing came to you?"

"Nothing. What's the next scene?"

"Figure it out yourself."

--

My parents are clear: they think the military would be a fine option. And it is. It really is. It's just that if I had wanted to enter the Armed Forces, I think I would have done so.

Then again, Einstein flunked math, dropped out, and delivered mail before he found his higher calling.

I'm trying to think of my life in terms of What I Want. Some people want only the thrill of being on stage and telling stories, and I have to say that's a big motivator for me, too. But I've also wanted to publish a book (several, if possible), raise a family, live in a safe neighborhood, teach my son baseball, own permanent furniture (I'm still sleeping on an air mattress, for what that's worth), save up plenty of money, travel, and this, and that, and on and on and on.

I'm realizing that it isn't possible with my current job. Unless I get full-time employment (exploitation?) and an inside track to high-paying producing jobs, something I don't honestly want right now--or just move away and try for another job or go back to school, which is what I'm considering--I can't have those other things later on.

Those "other things" are my dreams, and what I have now is my reality. Why is raising a family and having a simple, stable life a dream? I'm nearing my mid-twenties, and soon my late-twenties, and then my thirties. I don't want to have my first child when I'm forty-five.

--

There are no other scripted scenes for Spallier and his villainous leader. None that I can find, anyway.

The director has come backstage to yell at me. It is intermission. He asks me what I've done and why. I tell him I did what I had to do, because I didn't know what else to do. He tells me that is a poor reason to do anything. I say I know.

I go back to the wooden arbor, looking for the ladies that encouraged me before. Those beautiful actresses. But they are gone. The wooden arbor sits behind other set pieces, abandoned, and now under harsh working lights it looks old and decrepit, like a gas station in the middle of nowhere, or the exoskeleton of a long-dead spider. It is obviously painted to look like something else, garishly painted, and in a way it looks beautiful and ugly at the same time.

It would have made a fine wooden arbor, holding up vines in someone's landscaped backyard, giving shade to grass and standing up to the sun, being a cliff only for the kids who would climb it. Now, there are splinters on its beams and an actress is complaining about it. It can never be a cliff.

--

Then I wake up.

I have to think about my dreams.

CDs

"We gave her everything money could buy

She's leaving home

After living alone

For so many years...."

-- The Beatles, "She's Leaving Home"

--

Four new roadtrip CDs to get me through this 11-hour drive to Bellevue, NE:

- Led Zeppelin (mix)

- The Beatles (mix)

- A Prairie Home Companion (podcasts)

- The Moth (podcasts)

For the LZ mix, I tried to take only one track from each album. Found that it was difficult not to take all of their third album; "Since I've Been Loving You" was my first choice, and it might be my favorite LZ song period...but I just had to add "Gallows Pole," "Tangerine," and "That's the Way." Was sad to see that "Immigrant Song" didn't make it, or for that matter, "Friends" or "Braun-Yr-Aur Stomp." Seriously, I wanted to add the whole album.

As for the others.... The Beatles CD is comprised mostly of Anthology tracks, though the most-represented albums are White and Sgt. Pepper. And the APHC and Moth CDs are just my favorites of their recent podcasts. Makes me wish my car played MP3 CDs as well as regular CDs; I'd get more material per disc.

--

At TCTC, our bosses want us to work until the day before Christmas Eve, and I think that's crap. We all remember being told we were released on Dec. 18, last Friday, and it was ironically on that Friday that we found out they expected us to work half of this week, too. I had planned to leave today at 1pm.

And that's exactly what I intend to do. Take the vacation days or count them as personal; I'm going home.

It's a great day for it. Checked the weather along the route. Looks like no rain or snowfall until I get to Iowa (of course, it would be Iowa where the crummy weather begins). And looking ahead to Christmas Eve, looks like Nebraska's in for quite a wintry wallop, making it a white Christmas this year.

Good.

--

Played Rock Band for the first time on Saturday night at a friend's party. I'd had some mojitos and plenty of peppermint schnapps by the time I worked up the courage to take a guitar. Ended up doing all four: two guitars, drums, and singing.

First bass song: "Eye of the Tiger"

First guitar song: "Carry On My Wayward Son"

First drum song: don't remember, but I rocked it

First singing song: "Dear Prudence" (also rocked "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?", which is surprisingly high)

--

Everything's a mix: drinks, songs, weather, work. If the name of the game is reflect and regroup, I guess that's what I've got in my hand this year. Not that it's all madness; there is method, lurking somewhere, or perhaps embarrassed; the only thing for it is to put on an antic disposition. Eat, drink, be merry, and take long drives.

See you in Nebraska.