Supernatural Law

                                 Truly. You are seeing this correctly. No, I have not gone
                                               "fade to white", but this frame has for sure.

           Ah. Today is and must be a tremendous mashup of mega proportions. Why? I will tell you why . . . because yellow wall paper style-in a good way!!!!-I am, to copycat my favorite anti-depression robot man-attempting to FORGE MEANING and build BUILD IDENTITY in this oh so swiftly moving and fast escaping helium filled ballon glistening rainbow gobsmack of a brilliant jewel of a planet sailing through galaxies unknown. Ebola count? Staggering to go back to March when numbers were low and it seemed barely an evil whisper among those who knew. Those on the front lines as we love to say. Fast forward to NOW when the debate is flying as to how best to help? Oh my goodness, I remember when I had two sticks as legs and hair that stuck pretty much straight out thanks to an ill met match with some hair clippers-1960's style-when I was reading a magazine about a population far far away that was starving. Little kids with rib cages like cages and corpses on streets amounting to not much more than a skeleton and on and on-the photos were black and white stark. I had a kids morbid fascination with hunger to death, all things dead, and people dying as they lived but I CAN CLEARLY REMEMBER, even to this day, reading commentary that proposed letting the people starve to death . . . that our planet was crowded enough and this was nature's way of cutting the weak. And now, once again, I read the same thoughts and rational on the Ebola hotlines. Contrast those ideas with the testimony of the health worker who discusses how her children are grown and she has nothing to lose and she must respond to a humanitarian need despite fears for her own safety and life. I know that I could never be that brave.

                                   From my back deck. Remember I told you that I ripped off part
                                    of the fence? Now I can see for miles and the trade winds
                                                               are strong.

And speaking of superheroes . . . so, discover for yourself why I am obssessed and moved to tears by the graphic novel of RECALL AND GIVEN. It should be easy for you to find, I am not going to provide links or any of that nonsense-just read about this comic. It is a story of love that knocks me off my feet. I can time travel with this one as well, remembering back to a solid couple of years dedicated to reading every comic and graphic novel I could get my hands on-back in the superhero days, back in the collecting days, back in the curl up and read days. Recall and Given. It is a beautiful thing. And moving right along to more beautiful things . . . rather than bemoan this odd time slip of NOT working two and three jobs at a time, working like an idiot, working too hard, and working hard enough to take my back out, for the MOST PART, I have had the time of my life visiting my beloved family, spending more time than ever with actual friends, spoiling the hell out of my dogs-yep, the hell is gone-,  researching everything from "where are the survivor season one players now" to teaching jobs around the country, cake recipes during Mozart's lifetime to how to comfort an old dog, and watching old movies, bad reality, practicing my craft and sullen art, and READING. Mostly I have discovered, rediscovered (which is one of the gems about staying on the planet this long REdiscovering past loves) my first love in this life-READING. And as I told you last post, I have read my way through a brazillion cyber articles, 15 and counting books, and magazine articles by the dozens. For the first time in a decade I have moved my chess piece of "reading" from a drowsy half hour before passing out, to hours during the day-HOURS-outside on my front deck, in my back yard under the Totoro tree, and sitting up in bed with a huge mug of coffee.  
 For this thinking and reconnecting and forging and building time, unexpected, I am eternally grateful. Grateful to whom you might ask? Yes. That is a valid question. Type it in. Thousands have asked the same thing. Here is the path I am choosing and putting into practice right now: I am grateful to THE PEOPLE in my life. I am grateful for children that care enough to listen, friends that care enough to hunt me down, and strangers that care enough to share a bit of conversation. Under the great vast umbrella of gratitude deserving people I can feel myself remembering to find tenderness and humor and joy. "Being grateful" just wasn't enough for me . . . I have to know-grateful to whom? For what? And when I take an unknown out of the grateful equation and put in people that I know, it is powerful. Now the smallest exchange holds potential for worthy connection and the ordinary realism becomes magic. Magic Realism is the name of the place where I always want to live. Always.

                                   The darkest of chocolate, pumpkin organic!, and raspberry
                                      buttercream with ginger and chocolate chips.
                                                       Happy First Day of Fall!

I guess what this mashup is attempting is a sort out, of sorts, of a brain packed with why can't we? and we must! and a virtual download of heartache over our mess of an existence, my gratitude for the people who care for me and love me and make my life wonderful,  apprehension shading into anticipation of working times ahead-oh those theatre hours!!-and an all around treasure chest of  a little girl with her teacup poodle walking on State, bike racks permanently mounted in the street of a city that can't be bothered to accomodate middle income, a man telling me that I smelled wonderful-better than the deli counter he was surrounded by, a guaranteed spot in this years Faeriefest-yes, seriously, I am the faerie cake baker!!, birds cuddling down much earlier and with no quieting of goodnights, a slight chill settling in,  the promise of a new painting to grace the absolutely covered walls of my Pandora's box home, children busy in their own lives, Sancho still presiding over Command Central, my foor leggeds greeting me like the windups in Blade Runner,  and one FINAL QUESTION which is one of my favorite and best mysteries so NO I won't google it and PLEASE do not tell me . . . but go back and look at my first two photos and you will know why I am enamoured of this one particular time every single evening when the SKY FADES TO WHITE!!! I am always walking around, my jackrabbit self, watching and wondering and trying to capture those moments and oh my goodness-why does the evening sky fade from blue to white? WHY THE WHITE?
And my sign off for this glorious day and night that will never come again? If you are one of my very special people, please know that I am grateful for all you have given, all we have shared and will share, and for the time we have spent together. My door is always open, my dogs are always barking rascals, I rarely have food and I don't drink wine, you will most likely find me buried deep in something either profound or absurd, but you are ALWAYS WELCOME to brave my Bohemian Paradise and ponder the big and small questions. Oh. And eat cupcakes. LOVE ALWAYS!!
                                                                                                                                                           

Beauty and the Beast

                                     This is where i spent some of the happiest mornings of my life.


Tonight is a remembering back one, a casting in reverse to some days early in May when i felt alive-really alive-not just content, or sun-baked, or comfortable-but engaged and alert and excited. i had that happy little kid feeling of anxious anticipation . . .  perhaps i will meet the man of my dreams walking down the street. maybe i will end up behind the bagel counter, serious, sincere, and slinging bagels and tofu spinach spread with the best of them. it could be that i meet up with writers not afraid to sit in dark corners with dim lights in order to hash out characters unsavory and climates not tropical. the person catching my eye on the train across from me smiles and i notice that she has orange dyed hair and screaming bright neon blue running shoes. she has a death grip on her high tech computer bag. i love her. this city where i spent five glorious days was just like me! constantly moving, rarely sleeping, and usually too loud. i smell better than this place, for sure, not everyone reeks of violet french perfume-some prefer the stench of rat, but there was so much talking! and eating at odd hours! and crowds of pigeons, people, taxis, signs, and food carts. i loved every single caffeine fueled, high energy, pavement pounding second of my time there. no regrets. no regrets. i felt alive. i felt glad to be human, glad to be busy, glad for discovery around every corner, glad for experiences planned and unexpected, glad for the connection and conversation.

                                This was the sign on the front outside wall of the bagel cafe.

When people ask me if i enjoyed my visit and i explode with happiness just being asked, more often than not they scoff and tell me that if i lived there i would feel differently. you were just visiting, they say, you would get so tired of the people and the trains and the crowds and the stench. and that is precisely when i know that they have not done their homework on me. oh so wrong they are! i have so much energy i am banging off the walls of this city. how do you costume 300 kids people ask? why do you work so much? don't you ever want to relax? but here's the thing, ever since i was little i have had this internal voice-louder than a heartbeat-that lets me know that my time on earth is limited. i hear the tick and tock of my life's moments flying by and believe you me, even in the heart of the most beautiful, perfect, tranquil city on the planet-i can still hear that clock coming for me. it seems as though there is still so much to learn, and experience, and discover, and know and just witness! i am the eternal snoop just going everywhere with my notebook and noticing and writing down ideas and impressions and trying to capture my time here in some measure of a way. the past couple of years have brought me too much time spent rewatching the same films, living for the next installment of some favorite show, and sitting on my ass in front of a computer. wait! i am not old yet! please don't roll me off to some corner and sit me in front of a television! the streets are calling, dodging those taxis, admiring the smartly dressed, walking dozens of miles a day, feeling the weather change, clouds rolling in and out eclipsed by building of super human size, have i truly spent my time? am i too old now to do much more than dream?

                                                    So here is what i did do.

i realized that if i tore the porch fence wall completely off of my back deck, then when i sit in my hauled off the street wingback chair i can see out into sancho's field next to me and practically for forever. it feels good. it doesn't look that impressive, for sure thousands of miles away from the scene i just described to you, but i do feel a bit better about life. tearing off that wall let's me glimpse the old theatre and got me to spend a couple of days felling waist high weeds in the field itself-like i did two years ago trying to recover from sancho's death. and i didn't tear the wall off-i got my screwdriver and spent the better part of an afternoon removing it in an oh so professional way. if you are young and reading my words, do a better job than i did at staying connected and vital so that when you are as old as me you don't have to be constantly dredging up your cups and whining in them trying to figure out what the hell to do next.  and it also doesn't escape me that i blogged (still so hate that word) for a solid month straight LAST september so i know that part of my restless about to break down the walls of my cage going bat shit crazy gypsy wild woman spirit is simply a matter of being in between theatre seasons. work will start again soon and there will be precious little time to sit in my chair and dream about anything. but right now, while the sun is setting and another night closing in, another day gone, i am remembering back to a time when my feet hit the pavement and i felt home again. really home. like i belonged. LOVE ALWAYS!!

Bourbonized and Beyond

a little known fact about me . . . my father drank. Like the fathers in "Mad Men". It wasn't quite as glamorous in reality, I never knew what side of the bread my toast was buttered on (deliberate skewing of everything there), but he effectively scared the dickens out of me as to ever relaxing with a wee bit of anything pretty much for the rest of my life. Wait. OK. So upon reflection I guess he is not here and I still am-so yeah, but today was a day of days. After quite a few of those days. Actually, more like a solid year or more of those days of all days. Now, don't get me wrong-heaven forbid! This is not going to be one of my usual whining posts. No, no, no! This is going to be a thoroughly unique one of my whining posts!

     CUPCAKE BREAK number 1. Ahhh!!! Blue roses and The Glass Menagerie!!! See them?
                                                         See the little glass animals?
 Those of you who suffer through my wordy blog posts on a regular basis-and I don't know how you do it-know that for the past decade of my life when, in one FELL SWOOP, WAIT!!! aside here!!!!! do you ever seriously listen to our delightful expressions? fell swoop! that is a really good one don't you agree? anyway, in one fell swoop EVERYTHING changed, my kids all grew up and left home, the bungalows next to me which had been a perfect bohemian community were emptied of my neighbors and torn down and dumpstered away AND i quit teaching. Wow. When i write it all out i think to myself NO WONDER!!! and so those moments in time were enough to send me, quite rudderless truth be told, out into the world without my own private idaho. yeah. no port in the storm. no safe harbor. nothing but those long grey meaningless mornings when the fog outside my window and the fog inside my brain drifts in perfect disharmony. and don't get all advisory on me! i tried it all-happy faces, dating sites, sitting in bars by myself, calling friends, trying to make friends, trying to keep friends, long drives, longer talks, never ending walks. i tried working non-stop. i tried to find happiness in not working.  i made over 400 knitted washcloths and gave them away. i made 200 and counting stuffed catnip mice. i baked and gave away-sit down if you aren't already-almost 500 vegan cupcakes.

                 CUPCAKE BREAK number 2--Chambourd and heartbreakingly dark chocolate!!
                                                          Remember this one?
I don't tell you these things because i think that i am amazing or because i want you to think i am amazing. far from it. i have a difficult, almost impossible, time even appreciating the fact that i have done these things! and why you ask? oh i am so glad SO GLAD that you are still with me on this . . . . . . .  because, and here is the truth, because i do not believe that these things i have so neurotically and feverishly and done never quite successfully enough- are the right things!
 two examples: on my way to burningman i was cruising along listening to a traveling cd recorded for me by my beloved son and feeling so lucky and so blessed and so free and so about to save the world etc etc etc-and on some hellish two lane highway i saw the stockyard, slaughterhouse, killing field of my nightmares! i pulled off the road. switched off my happy tunes. got out. hung on the fence calamity jane style and just thought OH MY GOD.  and yeah i know i am biased and i know i am passionate and i know i am dramatic but i could smell and feel and see the fear, the blood, and the death. i climbed back in my car and drove out to the world changing desert festival where i knew, without any doubt whatsoever, that NOTHING i was going to do in the next few days would have ANY effect on something i truly believed, and believe at this moment, has to change.
 next: today i loaded up some Lucky Cakes and went to a small market that was NOTHING like i expected it would be from learning about it on its delightful website. the asphalt was hot. the sun hotter. the buyers were absolutely non-existent. i had gotten up at 5:30-good baker that i am-and baked fresh pear, french fruit cakes, and ginger carrot and went to sell my vegan cupcakes next to a booth where a man was selling-and i am NOT making this up-BBQ hooks made out of golf clubs! because, in his words, "i can get anything on one of these hooks for the BBQ!!" after i realized that i would not even make my selling fee, i simply talked with people as to what vegan means, listened to their life stories, and marveled at their knitted booties, potholders, and crocheted scarves.  my cupcakes were pretty damn trivial compared to the human experience that was all around me. people told me about their dreams and hopes and how they wish they had somewhere to sell what they can't stop making. they wished for connection and validation and a sense of worth. they told me about beating cancer, the deaths of husbands and relatives, and rescuing cats and dogs. one woman offered a corner of her canopy shade for me and by the time we were packing up, the sellers all came over  and bought cupcakes to take home. "veggen" one woman said, never thought i would eat a "veggen" cupcake.

                                CUPCAKE BREAK number 3--birthday for the most special
                                                  little person i know and love.
As i was driving home, i felt sad of course that i had spent my food money to bake cupcakes that were far from world changing, and hot and sun baked and tired from my early waking up hour like i told you, but mostly i felt that old familiar tiredness of DAMN!! why oh why oh why do we exist with this wretched combination of having the world's hurts and lacks and inequalities and gross injustices, cruelties, ugliness and unfairness of ALL SORTS known to us and AT THE SAME TIME we cannot seem to figure out HOW TO HELP?!! i have talked to enough people and sat with myself, BY MYSELF, for enough time now to know that the paradox of knowing the grief and wanting to help, but not having A CLUE as to how to help or what that help would look like (OH! except for SEND MONEY!!!) . . . that! that right there-perhaps not for everyone, but certainly to me and others i have listened to-that is the killer and tremendous thief of our vital energy. the younger people i know seem to be engaged and tech savvy and ruling the universe and connected and excited about what they do-is it age? is it where we all are in this place and time? my inbox has an interesting title that i know will answer all my questions: "Can we prevent the end of the world?" and i am not even really sure i know what that means, but i know there has GOT to be a way to live connected and helpful and needed and vital until we die!!!  my dearest friend of all time says that my tombstone will say "not for lack of trying" and i love her for that. i am going to change it to a shingle tied onto my funeral pyre, but until i get shipped to india or africa to feed starving babies, set off with a sleeper toyota and my wee doggies in the back to stitch rips and tears for the needy across our vast wasteland, blasted to some far distant planet to establish a new colony, elected to bake and cook in community kitchens far and wide, or named as head of a vast animal sanctuary i will not give up my quest.

                             END OF THE CUPCAKE ROAD number 4--fig and raspberry.
                                               it doesn't get much better than this.
So come on Lise, tell the patient and kind people that have sat through this incredibly long whine, did you find happiness at the bottom of that bourbon bottle? Well, no dear people, not exactly-but i will tell you this . . . it is hot still. my brain is tired. my heart is heavy with the life stories i heard today from people i never imagined i would ever even meet. my freezer is full of cupcakes. my dogs are snoring all around me. happy sounds are coming from the belly dancing restaurant on the corner. beyond a new season at the theatre i do not have clue one what my future holds. i still don't know how to end the madness. if i die tonight, i am not sure what i would be remembered for. or if it matters. but my crystal glass, with very cold lemonade and just the slightest bit of the best bourbon has allowed me to push the worry aside, send it to some far distant corner actually, and connect with the human factor that has asked the same questions, and wondered the same concerns, and felt the same heart tug of desire for as long as there have been BBQ hooks and veggen cupcakes. believe it or not? i love you for listening and THANK YOU. love always!

Mother of dogs. Storming the Bastille. Catching my breath.

My dearest daughter muse gave me the finest compliment I have ever received in my life the other day by comparing me to a near perfect woman (oh for gawd's sake!! of course from television!), but that's OK-I'll take her generous words and walk with them. Perhaps stride is a better word. I can feel the earth turning beneath me as even at this age defying birthday I am still me. Unashamedly now as I have been practicing anything but self-abuse for the past several months, finding joy in the smallest of moments and mistakes and midnight reading sessions that last until the stars have grown cold and even the birds are asleep. You know those nights. And most, most, MOST importantly of all-holding on to curiosity, looking up new words, finding the love of my entire adult life in the form of a writer I had somehow missed, reading everything I can get my hands on, listening to speakers I am lucky enough to find, and smiling and learning . . . just, damnit!, smiling and learning. If there is one thing this laboring at the salt mine has taught me, these OH MY GAWD the show is opening in two days drama filled breakdown moments time after time again, the actors who behead me in the midst of their own desire for perfection and fear of failure, the sheer incomprehensible immensity of all of it- the human drama, the animal agony, the bee deaths and children at our borders, disappearing water and all the scrambling for rent, for recognition, for respect, the great mash-up of past destruction and intolerance, present day challenges and stresses, and future imaginings and worries-all of it, all of it has taught me that being here, just to be here, and being me, just to be me-is the very best thing of all and trumps all of the regret and remorse, heartbreak and despair, depression and confusion. The dog above is the newest one in my pack. You remember him from my last post. He is an altogether perfect example of the power of love. From the arms of an angel who rescued him, to almost a year in the House of Dogs, he went from barely able to breathe past his fear of living to well . . . look at him! If there was ever a dog who has found his place, it's lil bro.

Storming the bastille has to be my most favorite thing to do. I love to work so hard I fall into bed exhausted-move over dogs!-and sleep solidly all the way through. I love to walk for miles and miles and miles and just witness. Today I am one with France and one with the Bastille and one with the Revolution. Today the clouds came and stayed with us awhile, the sidewalks remembered rain for a moment or two-those drops, that wet concrete smell.  Dusk is darkening now and I am looking forward to a complete and total storming of three weeks nonstop work-from Looped to Carmen to back again. And here is where those productions take me-to Tallulah Bankhead and Lifeboat and Hitchcock, and our leading lady and Pee Wee Herman and Carnivale, and Carmen and The Tempest and stage and costume designs from everywhere and music and images from everything-fabulous, fantastic, and the hardest work I have ever done-split second timing, nerves like firework explosions, discussions that never end, decisions made without reality in mind, personalities worn like badges, and feelings and emotions on display lit by neon-the theatre is heady stuff, and it is mine, baby mine-for the next little bit. Good thing I wear Joan around my neck. Off to storm the Bastille. Me and France! Me and France! Oh. And that darling one on the steps above? Someone who kept up with me as we covered the entire island of Manhattan-I swear-we never stopped moving! The BEST TIME EVER.

And catching my breath on this birthday of all birthdays . . .it has been quite a year. Still mourning my Queensland. Death of my father. Work and pain sometimes too intertwined. Still no vast fortune, future security, ship in the harbor, or direction or purpose clearly defined, but wait . . . wait just a moment. This photo above is titled "What We Have" and I know that is my greatest lesson from my past year on planet Earth. True, I had my share of unhappiness and disappointment, but SOMEHOW I got to the other side of the crossing. SOMEHOW I have begun to understand that I have ALL ANYONE COULD EVER, EVER WANT. And I have much, much more than many in this lifetime. I have my beloved children-lights of my life, I am the Mother of Dogs, and I have you-my friends who stood by as I whined and complained and begged for someone ANYONE to turn the goddamned hall light on-hear me out-bail the water from my sinking ship-and basically and most importantly, love me and like me for who I am.  I have learned the power of getting the fuck away from bad people, bad relationships, bad situations, and bad work. I have learned how to ask for what I need to survive. And the rewards have been life changing. Phone calls from so many, texts from so many, a long visit from my dear best of all friends, a delivered cake from the two most darling of friends, and let's just go with WOW. WOW. Thank you for supporting me and loving me and being my friends. I think you ARE the somehow!!! Ah good gawd I love my birthday. I love the 14th. VIVA LA VIDA.