NOT A DAY

Not a day goes by when I do not think of the many blessings in my life. I know not everyone is so lucky.

Though I do believe that everyone has something, even just one little thing, to be thankful for.

And it brings warm giddiness to my soul when I see or hear people bringing their attention to these important, wonderful little things.

CLEAN ME

I spend a lot of time at work, and a decent amount of time working from home. And for years, until a few days ago, most of my remaining time at home has been spent in some form of intoxication. A little like I needed to be numb. All the time.

There have been many changes over the past few months: I was diagnosed with high cholesterol, my husband quit his job, I was diagnosed with mild cervical discogenic degenerative disease (quite literally, a pain in the neck), my father-in-law lost his job, my mother found a lump (not cancer, thank heavens), I've been given more responsibility at work including managing our out of town events, some good friends had to close their business, and I am interviewing with the company manager of the HAIR tour with the hope of joining her on said tour when it goes out in the fall.

These changes have brought a few things into sharp focus.

For one, I am so lucky that I love what I do. Not that everything at work is always sunny and perfect, but I love the people I work with, the show I work on, the tasks I am asked to complete. I am very lucky.

Second, my family is incredibly special. I think ALL families are special, but I belong to the one I belong to, and I am happy and honored and totally in love with all of them.

Third, my husband is an amazing and complicated being who is so full of love and brilliance. He is growing at a rate that I didn't realize was possible for him, and is a continued testament to why he needed to leave his job. He has mentioned more than once his appreciation of my support for his quitting. I keep telling him that it was the best thing he's done for himself, and for us, in years. And it's so true - the job was stunting his growth as a compassionate human being and it's so beautiful to see him back on track.

Finally, and most significantly to this particular blog entry, I need to be clear headed. The damage done by dulling the world is far reaching. It interferes with my intellectual growth, with my spiritual growth, with my career growth, among many other things. Three days off and I feel like a new person. Not a different person, which is SO important to point out, but a new shined up version of who I've always been.

I'm excited to continue in my life journey with clear focus and pure joy for everything that is to come. I've always loved life, but now - like I did in high school - I can embrace it with every single bit of myself and let the opportunities knock once again.

COOKIES

The holiday season is fully upon us, yet I still cannot believe it is here.

Next weekend is cookie trial weekend which should help me accept the approach of Christmas.

I plan to test:

• chocolate cake cookies with peppermint-marshmallow icing
• toasted almond & chocolate chip oatmeal cookies
• iced sugar cookies
• gingerbread cookies
• iced pumpkin cookies

Yum...

SCHEDULE CHANGE

My husband and I no longer share the same schedule now that he has broken free of the evil corporate chains.

It's a strange thing.

We have had the same basic schedule for the past three and a half years. I would often be required to work much later than he, so it was a rare momemt that I would be alone in our apartment.

All that has changed. It is simultaneously wonderful and a bit disconcerting to have so much time alone. I know the novelty will wear off soon enough, so I am trying to really observe and appreciate this strange new feeling.

THE DAY AFTER, OR WHAT I'M STILL THANKFUL FOR

After the turkey and stuffing have digested and the morning-after coffee has been brewed and consumed, I like to look back on Thanksgiving and on the past year to restate what I am thankful for.

• my wonderful husband Geoff who loves me no matter
• Maroto, the fiercest of all lovable pets
• my family who supports & loves & asks for nothing to do so
• Melrose Place (not the TV show)
• slow food
• carrots growing on the fire escape
• Alton Brown's turkey brine
• friends with babies
• friends with no babies
• friends in faraway places
• friends in Brooklyn
• my husband's family, who have embraced me as their own
• Central Park
• being a part of Team McCann/Parnes
• Farmville
• NY Botanical Gardens
• the theatre
• the Vineyard
• clams
• FSC
• dirt, trees, rocks, rain
• the fact that food can taste so good
• LOVE

There's so much more. I am blessed.

Happy Thanksgiving.

ONE

Life and love and dreams
Earth and babies and clouds
Fruit and cookies and memories

We are all one.

FELLOW BLOGGERS

Pregnant friends and brilliant, world-traveling friends write the most lovely blog entries.

I'm so thankful to have such amazing women in my life.

NOVEMBER MUSINGS

Is it that we don't know where we are going? It seems more about the fact that we don't know what steps to take to keep us moving forward.

My destination has never been clearly defined. I resist defining it for fear of ending up in an uncomfortable, unsatisfying box. But it has become clearer to me over the past few years that boxes can be opened fairly easily and change is not so hard to create when you need it.

So I'm stepping inside the box and accepting that I enjoy being a manager. I am ready to fully embrace the joys and hardships of the position and the joys and hardships of a life out of the spotlight. I have not considered myself an actor for years, but I am realizing that maybe I have been holding onto a little thread of hope (not the right word...fear of giving up?) that keeps me from fulling embracing my love of management and producing. I am hoping that by saying it out loud I can finally, completely, let go of the thread.

I don't think that anything is ever definite. Who knows where my life will take me in the next 10 years? I certainly have not ended up where I thought I would when I was 22. But I think the reason things proceeded so well through this first part of my life is that I was open and honest with myself, and that I trusted that things were happening as they should.

I have been feeling like I'm hiding from me for the past year or so. I don't know why...perhaps the upheaval at my office since the Tony contract was not renewed. (It really is like working for/with your family, so when my coworkers & bosses hurt I feel it too.) Perhaps it's the fact that I've not been practicing my meditation. Perhaps it's because I've not been spending enough time free from intoxicating substances. But most likely it's all of these things and more - and it is the fact that I have not wanted to face any of them.

November seems like a great month for refocusing and embracing and facing what my life is.

BACK TO WORK

Today I will return to the office. I've managed to almost completely ignore it for my week away. I am thankful that I have a job that gives me vacation.

That being said I could very much use another few days of peace & quiet. One week is not quite enough.

I LOVE NY

There are many, many days that I lose track of the wonder that is New York City.

Last night, while sitting in Central Park at the Delacort Theatre watching an odd production of The Bacchae, a breeze blew through the audience. It caressed and cooled my cheek and sent me briefly into the deep part of my mind where I store the memories of all the things that I love. And what did it pluck from my personal Pensieve for me to observe? My love of the city - my love of that moment. My love of sitting in the landmark of Central Park, watching remarkable actors perform a Greek tragedy. I felt immersed in a memory, which was in fact just reality, as I looked up and around and realized what an amazing life I have. Where else in the world??? These are not average actors; these are incredibly gifted actors doing incredibly challenging work for almost no money. And they do it for the challenge and for the prestige.* I love New York City.

I often dream of a house with a yard for a garden and a grill and a big tree for climbing.

I often dream of driving myself to work.

I often dream of a garage to store my bike and my drill and to use to accumulate more tools to do work on my house.

I cannot have those things in Manhattan; it's just not built that way. But when I finally am able to obtain them, I will miss living inside this incredibly vibrant city. I will miss walking through Central Park to the farmer's market on the West Side. I will miss living inside the biggest theatre town in the US.

I love New York.

*(Amazing that theatre is now considered prestigious, after studying its historical roots.)

I am currently infatuated with love.

BASEBALL

Yesterday Geoff and I took our nephew to a New Britain Rock Cats game. They, as we learned on our way to the game, are a part of the Minnesota Twins franchise. I don't know much about the Minnesota Twins except that I think Kirby Puckett played for them at some point.

A minor league (I think that's what it was...) baseball game is kind of a wonderful outing. The tickets are cheap (the expensive seats are $12, the cheap seats are $5), the players are friendly and willing to sign any child's baseball or t-shirt or lunchbox, the food is more reasonably priced than at a major league game (though $3.75 for a snow cone is still outrageous), and people just seem to be having a great time. And best of all you get to watch pretty decent baseball.

Of course when it's 90 degrees and you're sitting in the blazing sun with a 7 year old there's not a chance in hell that you're making it to the end of the game. Try the end of the 5th inning...

SLOW FOOD

Tonight the Edible Garden event at the NYBG is "Slow Food" hosted by Josh Viertel. I'm so psyched to listen to this guy talk about the slow food movement. I don't know much about it, but I do know that I like to eat, I know I like to eat locally prepared food, and I know I like food that has been made with care more than food that has been prepared at McDonalds.

Plus there are bound to be samples and music and loveliness all around - what more can a girl ask for???

Running late. Is it because I don't really want to go? Maybe. Probably.

Definitely.

THANK YOU

Today I send a thank you out to everyone I have ever known in the world. Whether you have brought me pain or joy I thank you.

Without you I would not be me. And I like me.

BDAY WEEKEND

A weekend like that just experienced by me is a reminder of life's simple pleasures:

• beef jerky
• grilled vegetables
• grilled steak
• grilled anything
• meteor showers
• a sky full of stars
• deer on the lawn
• bunnies
• a ceiling fan
• cucumbers
• farmer's markets
• river rafting
• waterfalls
• beer in a can
• bats in the sky
• ice cream cake
• fireworks

Even more amazing than all of these simple pleasures is the pleasure and privilege of amazingly generous friends who might as well be family. Thank you for your awesomeness, and your love.

I am blessed.

BDAY

One of the loveliest parts of Facebook is that you get so many birthday wishes, from people who would otherwise never know that it was your birthday.

You even get birthday wishes before it's your birthday! Which makes the celebration of your birthday even longer.

I like that. :)

GROWING UP

I absolutely love having dinner with friends. It's just one more sign of getting older I suppose, but I prefer having a good dinner with a bottle of wine to drinking at a bar anyday of the week.

My freshly 18 year old sister and her 21 year old boyfriend visited us for about a week recently. I do not think I have ever felt as old as when hanging out with them. I guess I haven't realized that I have been turning into an adult every day. I still wear jeans to work! I still watch The Simpsons! I don't even clean my apartment every week! Not that any of these habits need to change in order for me to become adult (though I'm trying to get better about the cleaning...). Which is my point I guess.

I have, without noticing, turned into an adult who likes to cook and wants a garden and just might want to raise a family and certainly prefers lectures about nutrition to partying.

I have replaced pb & j on white bread (crusts cut off please) with turkey, avocado and sprouts on whole wheat bread, hold the mayo please.

I have replaced white russians with white wine.

I have replaced messing around with friends on the subway with reading a book on the subway.

I have replaced laying out in Central Park with a daily application of sunscreen.

I have replaced bedtime at 2am with bedtime at 10:30pm.

But I am still me.

I'm still the same person who, at 18, was never going to have children, would never stop staying up until midnight, who would always listen to NWA, who would never forget what it was like to be a kid.

I was bold and confident in myself at 14, 16, 18, even 21. I am still bold and confident in myself, though from a very different perspective.

As a teenager I screamed at my mom in a fit of angst that adults just don't understand what it is like to be young. I told her that I thought a piece of their brain dries up and disappears - the piece that remembers what it feels like to be a kid. I told her I would never lose that part of my brain. She said, "Okay; we'll see."

Hmmm.

I guess mother's are indeed always right.

What do you do when you don't feel like doing anything?

Just keep going. And doing. Whether you want to or not. It's kind of the only thing to do.

BOAT BASIN

I highly recommend lunch/dinner at the 79th Street Boat Basin. It's one of the most unique restaurants in New York City, and the burgers are always yummy. I was there yesterday, and, if the sun comes out, might very well be there again today.

I also recommend that you get off the subway 2 stops earlier than necessary and walk along Riverside Park on your way to eat at the Boat Basin. Thinking happens freely when walking along this beautiful park, and that's a very nice thing on a lazy, burger eating afternoon.

WHAT TO DO

We don't always do what we set out to do.

But if we are willing we will always end up doing what we were meant to do.

SOME DAYS

Some days are better than others. Some are worse. All are just days though, and they all do end.

MARKETS

I discovered an amazing sheet of paper from Greenmarket NYC that lists all of the markets in the city and their days/hours of operation. Yesterday I stopped at the 97th and Columbus market where I picked up two beautiful tomatoes for a caprese salad and a lemon cucumber, which is a veggie I'd never seen. I'm psyched to taste it.

Today, after my li'l sis and her beau arrive, we're going to the ever-famous Union Square market. I hope to find another yummy something that I've never had before. These markets are a very special treat in New York - what other city offers a farmer's market everyday of the week - often times in multiple locations?

It's trade-offs like this one that make it okay to live in this jungle of concrete.

A LIFE I'D LIKE

The truth is...
It's a sad truth...
Losing touch with some
Creates room for others.

Sure, it's better to just open yourself bigger and bigger,
but sometimes the limits of life make that tough.

I'd like to create a life in this day and age where:

1. The most important bit is not working but living.
2. The work I do has a positive impact on the world.
3. The life I lead has a positive impact on the world.
4. Yearly vacations are never skipped.
5. Most of my money is spent on good food and helping others.

Plus more time for people I love, and more room for new people to love. And a garden.

Today I feel like curling up on my couch and reading book after book, with a cup of tea in my hand and the rumble of thunder in the background.

But instead, I guess I'll go to work...

HOMEGROWN

I have decided this year to start my very own edible garden. The trouble with this passion project is that I live on the fourth floor of an apartment complex. And I have no land. Not even a solid terrace on which I could create a raised bed garden. So I've got a lot of pots on window sills...

I have planted the following edibles:

• Patio Tomato plants
• Fish Pepper plants
• Mini Sweet Red Pepper plants
• Mini Purplette Bunching Onions
• Various Leaf Lettuces
• Basil
• Cilantro
• Chives
• Strawberry plant

So far I have used some cilantro for guacamole (yum!), some basil on a margherita pizza, the top of one of the onions (aka scallion) in a veggie stir-fry, and some lettuce to supplement my store bought lettuce. But today - I can hardly contain my excitement! - my strawberries started to turn ruby red. Holy crap, I can't believe I'm actually going to have fresh homegrown strawberries!!!!!!

FOOD AND BODY

I'm getting back in the self-improvement zone. I am refocusing on my meditation practice which is good, good, good for me. I also want to turn my attention towards my body - what I put in it and how I move it daily.

Yesterday I ate 4 (!!!) biscuits with butter and jam, some leftover pasta w/ sausage and broccoli rabe, steak, potato wedges, salad, and a pint of Ben and Jerry's Mint Chocolate Cookie Ice Cream. In truth my husband helped with the ice cream, but I think I could have polished off that pint on my own...

And what did I do physically to burn off some of thise useless calories? NOTHING! I read for a couple of hours. I surfed the web (it's called surfing; shouldn't that count as physical activity?). I cooked the delicious steak dinner we ate. Not a good balance of food/activity.

I think my yesterday was necessary to push me into a healthier today and tomorrow. I will eat better and move my body today. And when I decide I need a cookie, I'll just remind myself of the pint of ice cream I ate yesterday...

EAT PRAY LOVE

I am FINALLY reading eat, pray, love...the book that I have beeen longing to read for months while I finished everything that I had to read. But I'm finally there - here - right in the middle of this gorgeously speaking-to-me book.

I've recently started wondering if I should be writing down everything I think. Should I write daily about what I do that day? Or should I write about what people around me do? Or should I write about the feelings that I don't talk about? Or maybe I should write about my dreams, or the conversations I have with my cat, or maybe I should just write a how-to book, or a cookbook, or a guidebook to living in New York?

I get a serious high from reading a great book and it makes me want to write everything down so maybe one day I can give some other person that totally air in your body, visions in your brain feeling that comes around chapter six, when you finally are in the story, walking those steps, breathing that air.

I Work on a Tony Award Winning Musical

That's right. I do. And it's hard work. The challenges are quite different with a successful show than they are with a not-so-successful show. I am learning new ways to think about problems, which I love. These are skills that I can use on many different shows and, in case theatre suddenly disappears off the earth, they are skills I can use in many different industries.

On another note, I love food.

I'm trying to become a mobile blogger. Well, more precisely, I'm trying to post a message to my blog from my mobile phone. :-D

BLOG BLAH

I've been in a blog blah lately. For one reason or another what I have to say seems too trivial to write down. So I say it to myself and then move on. I wonder if that's the first sign of going crazy...

Today I need to put feelings of love and good health into the atmosphere. A friend of a friend just had a baby and things are rough right now - the baby is very tiny and the family has been in and out of the hospital. I need good love and warm thoughts sent to this family and am putting it out there to the 2 people who sometimes read this blog, but more to the Internet Spirit that exists inside these wires and routers and modems and airport cards.

If only the people who pester us with spam could pick a subject matter for their emails that would make people feel good, or might illicit some positive change. If I had spam-ability, right now I'd blast out an email of love, and request prayers and good wishes for this teeny-tiny baby.

NOT MY WORDS, BUT ALL THE SAME

Dancing in the backyard
Kool-aid moustache and butterfly wings
Hearing Andrea McArdle sing
From the hi-fi in the den
I've been waiting my whole life
To find a way back to then

I aimed for the sky
A nine-year-old can see so far
I'll conquer the world and be a star
I'll do it all by the time I'm ten
I would know that confidence
If I knew a way back to then

So I bailed on my hometown
And became a college theatre dork
I was eastbound and down
Moving to New York
So I crammed my life in a U-Haul
To find my part of it all

But the mundane sets in
We play by the rules
And plough through the days
The years take us miles away
From the time we wondered when
We'd find a way back to then

And when you least expect
Opportunity walks through the door
You suddenly connect
With the thing that you forgot
That you were looking for

And there you are
Right in the middle of what you love
With the craziest of company
You're having a kick-ass time
And being who you wanted to be in this world

You're that little girl
With her wings unfurled - flying again

Back in your backyard dancing
I found a way back to then

--from [title of show]

IT'S OPEN

Finally. It's open. I can breathe again. Especially since it opened to reviews like this. Although in truth that makes my job more difficult. But I'll take difficult with LOVE, to easy with URGH anyday.

I love this cast, this crew, this company, these designers. I love the love that pours out of all of them. I love that the audience feels it and soaks it up like sunshine on a summer day. I love that people are moved by what we are doing.

I wish getting to this point had not been so painful for my office. So many good hearts were bruised getting this show full of love up and running. It's hard to heal that pain; I don't know if it's even possible. But I hope with some distance it will become easier.

"Our eyes are open."

ALRIGHT SO I MISSED A FEW DAYS

It seems pretty clear that it's gonna take me a little while to get back into the swing of the blog thing. But I'm keeping on keeping on, and that's all I can do.

My cousin just graduated from basic training. Which I guess means he'll have to start doing army type things, like fighting in a war. It scares me that my little cousin - I can remember so clearly the year he was in my Aunt Jana's belly - will likely be deployed into a war. My family is pretty peace-lovin', so this is the first family member of mine to take that path and it is eating at my gut. I'm scared for his life. I'm scared for his big heart. I know that there are many opportunities he will have that he could not have had without this, but I'm still scared for him.

I hate fighting. I don't understand why people don't see that talking and listening and compromising and sharing and give and take are much better ways to resolve conflict than fighting. I'm not talking about the soldiers, though I think it's crazy important that the soldiers too are imbued with a base layer of calm, peace, and love. I'm talking about the leaders. We all have to choose compassion over aggression. Or children will continue to die.

LOVE.

TWO DAYS IN A ROW

I'm taking it one day at a time - I can definitely recommit to daily writing.

I like to do my very best at everything I do. I don't think that means that I have to be the absolute best - there are a lot of people out there who do a lot of things really well. I don't see any point in aiming to be better than others. But I do like to be the best me I can be.

I'm currently feeling a bit too overwhelmed to actually be the best I can be. I'm letting tasks slide off the side of my plate, like a slippery, vinaigrette covered cherry tomato. STOP SLIPPING AROUND AND GET ON MY FORK, DAMN IT!

But maybe what I am doing is the best I can do under the circumstances. We don't have enough help to get through this time at the top of our game. We are all working at least 10 hour days, often more like 12-14 hour days. None of us has had more than one day off a week for the past three weeks - some of us haven't even had that. We're all letting those damn tomatoes fall off our plates.

So maybe this is the best I can be right now. And I should just live in that moment and be that best.

Good, Better, Best. Never let it rest, until your good is better and your better is your best.

LET'S TRY THIS AGAIN

I'm foolishly attempting to restart my blog during a month that is sure to challenge my sanity. HAIR opens on Broadway on March 31st. And I'm currently giving my whole self to it. But I had a day off yesterday which gave me the false impression that I have SO much free time...so here I am...writing in da blog.

I'm looking forward to this week. A nice new face will be around the theatre, taking over the task of running the lottery. Which leaves me more time to focus on the other layers of my job, so that hopefully I can do them better and better and better. We'll celebrate a co-worker's birthday on Thursday. I'll have dinner with a dear friend on Wednesday. And there is the continued presence of HAIR, a show so full of love that people are flocking to the theatre to see it again and again and again.

Let the sun shine in.

THIS WEEK

This work week...

No heat in the morning
A hole in the kitchen ceiling
A fight for what's right
No heat in the morning
Too many changes in one ten minute period
A hi-five with security
A visit with an old and dear friend
Bar Centrale Fish Tacos
A McDonalds hot fudge sundae
No heat in the morning, yet again
Half a bottle of red wine all by myself
Three cigarettes (bad, bad girl...rough, rough days)
Tears.
They realized they were wrong & gave her what's right
Heat!!
Still got that hole in the ceiling...
Snowstorm
Pre-Inauguration Obama cupcakes
Us Airways/Hudson River Miracle

And hey - we still got Friday to go!

WORK

Challenge me some more, Broadway. I dare you.

2009

This year will promise to be just as unique as last year. That's the good thing about life - it is always changing. Nothing stays the same. Life, the world, the universe, all of us - we are impermanent. We are ever-changing. Thank goodness for that.