The Thing and The Pudding

I received Amy Poehler's book Yes Please for Christmas this year, and tore through it, much as I did Bossypants a few years ago.

I must have read Amy's book at the exact right time, because I can't stop my head yelling at me 'TEACHING THE THING IS NOT DOING THE THING, DO THE THING!"

I have, for a year and a half now not done The Thing.

I ventured out and found others who were willing to let me do The Other Thing, but not The Thing, and that was great and a fabulous distraction, and led me to believe that, maybe I could  return to  The Other Thing. The problem is, nobody wants me to do The Other Thing anymore, and nobody wants me to do The Thing, either, but they are happy to let me teach The Things anywhere I'd like, any age group I'd like.

But the issue is that I Love The Thing. And it only works if I can do it with people who are old enough and hungry enough to grow and stretch and rejoice and learn from the experience. As kind and magnificent as the many people who have allowed me to do  Sort Of The Thing are, the age group is wrong and not fulfilling for me. Which, they tell me, is not the point, it's not about ME, which is why you teach, dumbass, you TEACH THE THING because it is not about YOU.

UGH.

I don't want to do The Thing for Pudding, I don't even want the pudding! I stand by Christopher Guest's For Your Consideration: "I don't act for trophies." I AGREE. I don't care, dude, about pudding. I just want To Do The Thing. I miss The Thing.

UGH

Because teaching the thing, is NOT doing The Thing. My heart knows the difference.

Goals and Dreams

   This past year, Jim and I focused on the first goal I have had in a very long time: fix our credit so we can get a new car.
    It was practical, achievable and we did it together. Every decision ended with "Is this going to help or interfere with our goal." Jim kept saying "We have to stay focused, we can't lose sight." It sounds like we were climbing the Andes, I know, but it was a big deal to us. We knew we had a small window-to do this before the girls' graduate and their loans come due, before anything else can interfere.
    And two days before Christmas, we bought a new a car. Our first new car in ten years. A car that had been researched, planned, saved for. A car for which I taught and directed--and will continue to teach and direct---kindergartners. It is ongoing, because the goal of a new car did not end with Vernon  Fransisco (his full Christian name) in my driveway, that's where it starts. I still have to save and adjust and pay off debt and direct and teach outside of my main teaching gig to continue to keep this car.  And I love it. I love knowing I had to make a plan, I had to think ahead and I have to continue. It was a great distraction from losing my theatre.
    So...now what? While maintaining the car payments is ongoing, I have achieved the goal of the car.  A brand new, insured and warranteed to blue perfect heaven Subie sits in my garage. I love it, I find excuses to drive it, and I busy myself in the mornings going through old debt and finishing off what we started, so the new year can begin not fully debt free, but at least with everything current. Is that a dream? To have no outstanding debt or collectors? To have everything current?   Sure. Why not.

   I do have a dream, I actually have two. I suppose they are dreams, as opposed to goals, because they are unachievable.

   The first one is my NYC dream. The one where I live in a townhouse in Greenwich and am the house manager for the Cherry Lane Theatre. I spend my days writing whatever I want, sometimes it's a play, sometimes it's blogging. I have a publisher who is kind and once a year  I publish a small tome of my random , stupid thoughts, and I sell enough to maintain my townhouse. My plays are occasionally workshopped in NYC and on three occasions have been produced at The Cherry Lane, under a psuedonym, so I can just be the house manager when I'm there (may I remind you  that this is  A DREAM). I live close enough to walk to work. I have no illusions about acting or directing, I just keep the house in order. Fix the toilets. Talk to patrons,  thank the teachers who bring their students to the shows. Sometimes, if there is a need, I run a prop check for the SM because I am  always friends with the SM. While s/he takes care of the show and everyone on it, I make sure s/he has coffee or tea, tell them the hair looks great tonight and keep extra blacks in the office for the days s/he's juggling gigs. I also see to it that, during rehearsals, everything  is open and accessible for the directors. I make coffee and tea every rehearsal day, clean the mugs and bring fresh fruit. In other houses it's the SM who does this, but at Cherry Lane it's me, the house manager, and that's part of the Cherry Lane's charm. Everyone loves me because I don't want anything from them. My job is to support and feed and keep warm--or cool off, NY summers can be brutal---the cast and crews of all shows. It's a pleasure and a joy, as many newer playwrights are trying out their shows on our stage, and some older playwrights are venturing into new territory, and this is their church, and it's imperative that they feel comfortable. Every day I arrive three hours before curtain. I do yoga on the stage first, to balance all the energies. I play soothing music to warm the space up, before I check backstage and clean up anything overlooked by the crew. I check bulbs in the mirrors, wipe down the makeup counters--even though I know the makeup crew cleaned up beautifully --make sure the Glade Plug in is full and doesn't need replacing. Lavender is the current favorite scent. Then I walk the house, checking for programs, left over garbage. Even though my crew is attentive, people will still sneak in food and drink. It's hard to hold the line when so many Broadway houses are allowing food and drink--they even have cupholders on their seats. UGH. What a horrible nightmare. I check the problem seat, get a wrench and make sure it's secure. Then I run a dust rag over the sound and light boards, before heading to the lobby. Check inventory: red wine, white wine, beer. It's October, so I check the Baileys and coffee, those are popular as it gets colder. Then it's the bathrooms, the night crew is fantastic about bleaching and cleaning, but I  walk through and run a Clorox wipe over the sinks and check the Glade Plug in. Flush all the toilets---I'm superstitious,  my first visit to the Cherry Lane  was with students when I was teaching 100 years ago, the toilets in the women's restroom had malfunctioned and they had to close the restrooms. When I took over, I added two more toilets to each restroom and took down the "Men" and "Women" signs. Now they just say  "JOHN" and "LOU", cause I think that's funny. Then it's the lobby, run the vacuum, check the programs and sign to make sure they are for the proper show. Then to my office, where I manage this evening's tickets. We are old school, with so many out of town visitors and groups, we print and mail most tickets. But it requires a close eye, and I make sure I've printed tickets to any open seats we still have and close the ticket purchase window online for that evening's show. Our Box Office Manager is also a web designer, she is on top of it, but lives in the city so I manage anything necessary on cite.  By now,  the SM has arrived, and the actors are beginning to arrive, but everything is open and cleaned and warm (or cool), well lit and the coffee and tea is made. I sit in my office with a glass of red wine--only one before the show---and look over the house numbers for the weekend, leave a message with the radiator repair man--it's very quaint that it bangs when it comes on, but tonight it was particularly loud and sounded like something shook loose. I run a wood cleaner over the ticket booth and check the sidewalk out front for garbage, or snow, or teenagers. I look up at the awning "THE CHERRY LANE THEATRE" and close my eyes, saying a prayer of thanks.

That's one dream.

The other one is the complete opposite. In that one, Jim and I have a very nice but quaint "log" cabin on fifty acres near Steamboat. We have a horse, who is my horse, four llamas and two alpacas and a donkey. The dogs roam freely and safely, as we are far from any roads, and the cats come and go as they please.  Every morning, I walk out with the dogs to the barn where the llamas and alpacas and George the Donkey are warmly snuggled in for the night. I brush everybody while they have their breakfast, as the  dogs run madly outside the barn waiting for the others to emerge so they can chase them. The llamas pay no heed, they only notice when the dogs nip at their legs at night when they are being herded back to the barn. During the day it's just a game, and the alpacas have a particular snark to them, one time I saw them head butt the German Shepard. I'm not sure he knew an alpaca from a llama until that moment, now he gives them a wide berth. Once everyone is brushed and fed, I hop on my horse and we all ride out. The land behind us is protected national forest, so they can roam all they'd like, and some evenings it can be stressful to find the  buggers, but they are not dumb and they know where their food is. Unless a storm is coming, I don't worry about it too much.  Once a year we shave the llamas and alpacas and give the fur to our friend who spins and weaves and twirls it into yarn, and then I make alpaca mittens and scarves that I sell in Steamboat. When I'm not riding my horse, or knitting, I write. I write constantly, and inconsistently, and my plays are produced and my stories are published and widely read, and I have anxiety attacks every time there is a snow storm, because weather plus mountains equals anxiety. This is a dream, and there should be no anxiety, and I just realized there is no anxiety at all in the NYC dream. Hmmm.

Those are my lame dreams. Notice none of them are being on stage. When I was young, ya, I wanted nothing more than to be seen. But now, I'm older and I'm appalled at the utter lack of roles for women in general, and women over 40, specifically. In both dreams, I am solving that by writing stories that can be read and adapted, and plays with fabulous, strong female characters. I am single handedly solving the problem. Because it's a DREAM. That's the dream.