Does anyone else feel like they barely recognize their past selves, and that their personal anecdotes play themselves out like a movie? I kind of feel like I’m trying to cram as many lifetimes as I can into this one, whether first hand experience or just observing humanity secondhand, and the past, the memories to me feel like someone else lived them. And I mean that in the best way possible. I’m constantly amused at my own antics, and making mental notes to file under “the idiosyncrasies of an awkward extra-terrestrial”.  It’s like I’m collecting experiences and interesting tales of adventure, so that someday I’ll be telling these tales around a campfire to someone who likely won’t believe me. These lives and experiences and observations are as cherished to me as gold to a tycoon. I’m a collection of words, images, and philosophies.

I planted basil today, with good, rich, uphill-from-the-parking-lot mud, gathered in the middle of a thunderstorm. I separated the roots gingerly between the plants, and supported the whole trio of plants with a pair of chopsticks and embroidery thread. When we bought the basil, Micah kept making jokes about “this basil makes everything smell like weed”. It was funny when he first said it, but now it just kind of seems lame. All plant-based things don’t have to be chalked down to a weed joke. *Shaking my head*

Estrogen. Estrogen is making me nauseous and disturbing my sleep. Might as well entertain my fleeting thoughts.

Non-melodic is a deal-breaker for me when it comes to music. I can listen to the harshest, most ear-splitting music, dark as the bottom of the coffee carafe, but as long as it has a discernible melody, i’m okay. I’ll never understand that. I’m also super-picky about how well the lead singer sings. That’s a given, though, as I’ve been singing for two decades now.

My inner Celt is coming out, and insisting that I roast some corned beef and make Col-cannon. Col-cannon is mashed potatoes and fried cabbage. I’m pretty sure at some point my inner Celt is going to make me go out and pick flowers to weave into a wreath soon too, as spring comes and everything warms up.

Why is my view of the arts so different from that of other people? Take theatre for example. I’ve been the stagehand for the past show. For the next show I’ve been promoted to lighting designer *excitement* and that will be completely different. In all the years of my training in theatre, I’ve known the art of stagecraft to be this dirty, slightly dangerous, gritty thing that I sacrifice blood and sweat for. Never really thought of it as glamorous, even when I’m an actor. Friday night, though, someone showed up that challenged that view for me. She’s the mother of one of the actors, and I guess has been with the company for a while. She was following her daughter around, and the girl always seemed pretty down-to-earth. Not the mom, though. The woman, for a community theatre production, was dressed like she was ready for a one-night-stand with Clark Gable. Glittering stones and furs from head to toe. Her heels were so high she walked like a one-woman kickline. Geez. I was sort of uncomfortable being around her, as she trounced around backstage over spilled paint and sawdust.

Until all the other compressors are ready to compress,

Rae Rae the Magnificent

Plum-mouthed and articulately pronounced.

Three things I’ve decided I’m probably more than passionate about: art, the natural world, and my spiritual path. Any other interests I enjoy, but they don’t consume my every waking thoughts like those three.
My first opening night in three years. And I had a part in the play, although it was only one line, and I was pretending to be a man. And I got a laugh. And I was treated like an actual part of the group, not a pariah. It was like a dream come true. Although, I gotta say that this is the first time that I’ve had dealings with theatre where almost everyone was untrained. I kind of felt like I was the go-to answers person, but I still had fun.
I’ve also decided that if someone were to make a slice-of-life comedy that was something closer to reality, at least in this economic climate and targeting the under-30 set, it would be more likely that one of the main characters is living out of their car, or in some other non-traditional, borderline-homeless situation. My thinking about that led to me making up a rather awkward romantic comedy in my head. Here’s how the plot goes:

A guy and a girl meet in high school. The guy is super-popular, while the girl is kind of a nerd. They both have feelings for one another, but don’t say anything. The girl is pretty shy at first. The guy’s friends don’t approve of him dating the girl, so he mostly just makes fun of her a lot. He secretly asks her to prom, and tells her that they’re going to play a prank on his friends. His friends find out, and confront him. The guy lies and says that he’s actually playing a prank on the girl. The prank gets played on the girl, and she’s humiliated. Fast forward ten or so years, and the girl is a librarian in a town in West Virginia, far far away from where she grew up. She is going to her favorite cafe for lunch, and her server is none other than… the guy who stood her up at prom. He has no idea who she is, but she knows him, and acts very sarcastically towards him. When he figures it out, he is completely blindsided, and figures she hates him. The guy has grown up a lot, moving from place to place after college and his family falling apart after his father’s business tanked. He moved to West Virginia to take care of his ailing great aunt. The aunt has a lot of animals in her house, so he stays out of the house, in his car, in the cluttered garage. He’s working two jobs, one as a server, the other delivering newspapers.  He tries to make it up to the girl, but she’s still pretty untrusting. He plays his guitar outside the library, trying to get her attention, and gets picked up by the dopey town sheriff for vagrancy. After the guy and the girl get together, they get into some sort of fight over something, so he goes out and gets drunk at the town bar. He doesn’t want to drive after drinking, so he tries to sleep in his car in the bar’s parking lot. The next morning he wakes up in the county jail, where he’s been arrested for vagrancy, again. He gets one phone call to the girl, and apologizes. The girl has to tell the whole complicated story to the police while she’s posting bail. And everyone lives happily ever after…