Living my Truth

Sitting around the table with a bunch of improv colleagues the other night;  we were swapping stories about life and failed relationships and our 'worst dates ever'.

I knew exactly the story to tell. It starts with me arrogantly talking up all of my love of the outdoors (I don't) and ends up with me in the water under an upside down canoe, swimming to the point of exhaustion and at one point clinging to a tree in the middle of an (I wish I was kidding) alligator infested lake. All because I didn't have the guts to be honest with the guy I was with at the time and say that I'd never been canoeing and didn't really enjoy the thought of it. I wanted his approval even at the sake of my own safety, so I lied. After I 'fessed up' and said that it had been a turning point in my life and since then, I never lie about my personality and likes and dislikes, one of my colleagues overhearing, looked at me and said, "You gotta live your truth!"

I've thought about little else since he made that seemingly innocuous remark.

What is living your truth?  Do I 'live my truth'?  What is my truth?

These thoughts have chased themselves round and round my brain like some sort of demented carousel ride.

I'm rarely completely candid with people. I often utilize writer's privilege using it to embellish my own life to make it seem more exciting and hedonistic than it really was, rationalizing that I am hurting no one. Except, it seems...myself.

Why do I try so hard to conceal the person who is really inside?
I guess the answer is rooted somewhere in the truth. Which is that I've lived such a comparatively sheltered and quiet life. When my parents divorce was final some 30 years ago, I walled myself off like a sort of box turtle. I swore that if love and relationships made people this miserable, I wanted no part of it. I sought solace in books and work. I studied hard, I read everything I could get my hands onto. Reading became sort of an obsession with me, how many classics could I complete, how much knowledge could I cram in my brain?  I began competing with myself in class, on tests, how close could I get to a perfect score?

The other kids, just seemed like competition, a distraction, so I ignored them. The only relationships I experienced in those years lie mainly in the romance novels I read surreptitiously because I was ashamed of my craving for them. I thought myself above such 'baser' feelings. Gothic romances were especially favored because so many of the relationships in them started from a place of conflict. Conflict, that I understood, thanks to family dynamics.

So I entered my early adulthood with absolutely no social skills, no real dating life. I lived mostly inside myself. When I entered the world of work, I concentrated my efforts on learning administration, writing the best business letters, paying attention to computers, how they processed, how programs worked. Basically it boils down to the fact that I never gave much thought to relationships. My work colleagues never really knew me well and if they did ask me to join them for drinks, etc., my role usually was that of the designated driver. Living the life that I did, a latchkey kid, I grew up with hyper-responsibility. I slid into the role of the responsible co-worker/friend quite easily.

When I actually went into the dating world, I had no idea what to expect other than the fact that I wanted to experience the love and companionship that I had heretofore only experienced in novels. Men don't behave in real life the way the do in novels. I had no idea what they really wanted, so I became accommodating, needy. I just wanted to be loved and cared about, but I had no inkling how to articulate that.

All this is how I ended up under that canoe that September Sunday afternoon. I just wanted to feel connected to him, to somehow get him to love and appreciate me.

That's my real truth. I rarely did hedonistic things because I knew no one, I was always on my own,  I've always been somehow accountable only to myself or to God I imagine.

It makes you less welcome in crowds, etc. I don't have as many stories to share. People tend to think of you as sanctimonious, a prig, a goody-goody. Truly though, I had no thought other than self-preservation. I wasn't trying to live this life. This is the life that I ended up with.

That's my truth and I guess the only thing that remains now is to live it and with it.

Blue

Sitting here trying to pick out a word that fits my state of mind...and there it was, blue. Ordinarily, to me, blue is a good thing. It's my favorite color so often I'm dressed in blue, I go near water to make myself feel better and when I think of blue, it's usually healing.

Right now though, I am in a blue funk, period of time, or feeling. It's been a rough couple of weeks, I've been fighting through a protracted illness, mostly bronchitis, but it has really hung on. One of my family members has been hospitalized multiple times due to a heart condition, and another family member is in hospice about to give up his fight.

Finally, tomorrow will be the day on which my friend Eric, should have celebrated his 45th birthday. Eric loved blue too...On the first day of my junior year in high school, I had to suddenly change schools. We moved that summer and I was distraught about losing my teachers and friends. I've never been a person who makes friends easily so I always cherish the people that I do connect with.

Eric was one of those people. I encountered him the first time in Madame Tavera's 2nd period French II class. Yes, I know I live in Florida so why did I take French? It's an easy answer, they moved me because they shut down the German class that was my first choice. I rarely do the conventional thing, like take Spanish because you live in Florida. Eric would totally understand that. He never did anything conventional either which explains why he ignored all of the prettier, well-turned out girls in class to talk to the nearsighted blond with tear streaks still on her glasses. He asked me how I was doing even though it was pretty apparent that I wasn't happy, and I wish I could remember exactly what he said, but I recall he kept telling me jokes until I laughed and cheered up.

He was the first of many artistic types of people I would meet in school, yet Eric is the person that stands out in my mind the most because he never lost his inordinate kindness, his passion for his art and he never compromised to 'fit in'.

I think of Eric a great deal when I am doing improv, knowing how much he would love it, how he and I were actually improvising long before I ever knew what it was. He would love the irreverence, the lack of rules and the unbridled creativity it engenders.

I should point out that Eric was never my boyfriend, we simply weren't 'that way' together, but we just seemed to get each other. I wasn't even one of his closest friends, but it seems that whenever he was down, he'd find his way over to my computer in the newspaper office or my desk in classes and I would return the favor, telling him jokes until he smiled. I always tried to see his art shows and I was always awed at what he'd created.

About a month before he died at the age of 21, I ran into him at a local Subway and we made tentative plans to meet again to 'catch up' but I didn't follow up. I cannot even articulate how much regret and how many times I've thought of that, wishing it had been different. The circumstances of his death are grisly and I simply don't think this is the place to recant them.

Eric's influences are many. For instance, I always name my cars because he called his car Sharona and I thought that was the greatest. If I see people who seem distressed or unhappy, I talk to them first, always remembering what Eric did for me. Whenever I hear, well, just about anything on 1st Wave on Sirius XM, I think of him, but in particular, "What Have I Done to Deserve This" by Pet Shop Boys/Dusty Springfield, and Morrissey songs.

I wish so much that I could know what he would have been like in his 40's. I mourn the art he should have created, and every time I write this blog or challenge myself at improv or spend time in a gallery, I try in my own way to honor what he taught me.

So today, I'm blue. And I am going to ride it out. Maybe there are just times when you need to mourn to appreciate life for what it is and cherish the people who are here and the ones who are never really gone as long as you remember them.

The 101st

Without realizing it, my last post brought me to a milestone, my 100th. Somebody out there is like, “Wait a minute, “I only count 89!” If that’s you, I’m torn between being flattered and worried. Flattered that you actually read this and worried that you counted blog posts. I only have 89 posts because the others were either, considered by me, to be too personal, borderline offensive, or just plain awful to release. Some were released and much like Disney movies, returned ‘to the vault’ because something changed or I felt they no longer represented my true feelings.

Life is messy, relationships are weird, unpredictable and much like water when it spills from a glass, flow where they will flow.

I decided for my 101st to make this a sort of time capsule for me to come back to. I completed a Things About Me quiz, the kind that people tag you to do on Facebook. Here it is:

1. Are you named after anyone?

    A. Actually no, when I asked my parents who I was named after, they shrugged their
shoulders and said “we just liked the name”. Recently I learned that it was my
Dad who ultimately picked it.

2. Where did you grow up?

   A. In the suburbs of Orlando, Fl.

3. What inspires you?

   A. Reinvention. People who no matter how old they are, or the circumstances of their life,
continue to reinvent themselves, who have fears but do it anyway. Also, creativity, being
with creative people tends to inspire me to be more creative myself.

4. What has required the most courage of you in your life so far?

   A. There have actually been a couple things. The first time I went on stage to do improv. I was really nervous the first time I performed a ballroom routine in front of an adjudicator.
The time I needed the most courage though, was giving the eulogy at my Auntie G’s funeral.

5. What is your favorite childhood memory?

   A. Being with my grandparents on my birthday. They always made it a point to delay going
back north until after my birthday in early July. It must have been a sacrifice, not getting
back to their friends and other family, but it meant the world to me that they were with me
on that day. We went to Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlor and had special birthday sundaes. Every
birthday in spite of the fact that they passed away several years ago, I still miss them.

6. Are you a good cook?

   A. Actually I am. My dad graduated from culinary school and created two (2) restaurants, owning and operating an italian restaurant when I was born and he passed a lot of his knowledge
and techniques to me. I am told he built a nursery in the back of the restaurant so that I
could be with my parents when they were working. To this day, I love to cook, particularly
italian food.

7. Do you sing in the shower?

   A. Absolutely. I sing in the shower, in the car, in the kitchen, at my desk while working, when I
am working out, basically all the time. I’m pretty annoying about it. What do I sing…where do I start? Broadway show tunes, 80’s top forty, country songs, Motown, Disney songs (a lot), and people are usually shocked to hear how much ABBA I sing.

8. If you could eliminate one weakness or limitation in your life, what would it be?

   A. Self Doubt. I wish I trusted myself and my instincts more. It would help my improv, writing and  a lot of other things as well.

9. Who was your first celebrity crush?

  A. Probably everyone, including my Mom and Dad assumed my first celebrity crush was Ricky
Schroeder. I thought he was the one everyone wanted me to like, so I was like, ‘okay, I think
Ricky Schroeder is cute’. I didn’t. My first celebrity crush was really Julian Lennon, and I still find him attractive. For the record, I never usually like who I am ‘supposed to’, i.e., I never found Leonardo Di Caprio, Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise particularly attractive. However, I’ve been
in love with Robert Downey Jr., for years. I’ve always loved him 3000.

10. What is something that amazes you?

   A. I read that sea otters hold hands (flippers) while they sleep so they don’t drift apart or lose
contact with each other. I don’t know if I am more amazed or touched by that.

11. Are you a morning person or a night owl?

  A. Night Owl. I have to get up early most mornings for work, so I’ve learned to ‘do mornings’, but my mind and my sociability, etc. are most active at night.

12. What is the last movie you saw at the cinema?

  A. Avengers- Endgame. Actually I believe I’ve seen all 22 in the MCU (Marvel
Cinematic Universe) and heretical as it may be, my heart still belongs to Thor: Ragnarok. I’ve
never laughed as hard or left a movie feeling as great as I did after Ragnarok.

13. Are you 'high maintenance'?

  A. It depends on who you ask. I've been called many things, intimidating, complicated, and my co-worker used to call me a princess until I finally broke down and said how much it bothered me. The intimidating moniker baffles me, to this day I can't listen to Don McClean's 'Vincent' without tearing up and I'm actually very soft-hearted, but I don't often show it. Maybe all of this boils down to being a little, 'high maintenance'.

14. Do you believe in love at first sight?

   A. I used to. Now I am more inclined to think that often attraction is mistaken for love. I've been attracted to people at first sight. I think that's a chemical reaction in our brain where we are hard-wired to value some features more than others. To me, love is something that develops over a period of time, and it isn't always a person that we are going to date or be with intimately. It's a person who has your best interests at heart and for some reason, you share kinship, common goals or just when you see them, your heart is full of affection for them. You cherish their dreams and their goals and want the best for them. It doesn't mean they are the right partner for you. I think finding the right partner takes time and work to develop.

15. How old were you when you found out Santa isn't real?

  A. Santa isn't real!  Actually I don't know that I was ever really encouraged to believe in Santa, per se. It wasn't really emphasized in my home. I do though to this day, believe in the spirit of Santa. I love those stories of people who perform random acts of kindness or make a little kids' day with a new bike. In fact, that's what I love best about Christmas, how it (hopefully) brings out the best in us, brings out joy, where we laugh a little more with each other and remember all of the good and the bad that happened in the year.

Thanks for reading the last 89. Now you know a little bit more about me, ( I do too) and my values.
See you next time.

You Are Special (Phil and Me)

I've put this one off for quite a while. I've been writing though, since the moment, Rick put a hand on my shoulder and said simply, "Phil passed away last night..."

Phil went to heaven on Oct 31, 2018.

Who was he?

In the simplest terms, he was a financial advisor. What we both couldn't have known when I started out as a wet behind the ears sales assistant was that I would be the last sales assistant he ever worked with and he would be so much more than just another financial advisor to me. He would become a friend, a confidant, a second grandfather.

Sometimes I think about Phil being in heaven and I always see him seated at some sort of celestial desk, mahogany with brass fixtures and he's dressed in a white double-breasted suit with gold pinstripes. Sort of a heavenly stock trader if you will.  As ever, he's watching a ticker, maybe trading shares of commodities like gold, myrrh, frankincense, rubies, etc.

That's how I best remember him, sitting there, a  be-spectacled diminutive grey-haired man behind a massive desk, his eyes fixed on the television waiting for the pundits to do their thing, then the light coming into his eyes when he fixed on his prize, usually a bio-tech of some sort and then he'd start working the phones calling all his top-tier clients, making the trades. He'd come out of his office, walk to my desk and drop a screed of stock reports on my desk saying jubilantly, "this is it Jill, Leopold Pharmaceuticals!"Make sure these are mailed out to Rupert Wallace!" Then he'd come a little closer and say, "Now, tomorrow I think we'll bottom out, but by Thursday, we're talking at least a 1-2 point spread!" 

In the stock market, there are few hard and fast rules, compliance not withstanding, someone is  always either in the money, at the money or out of the money. Phil was generally all three at different times, but his enthusiasm never waned. He loved the cut and thrust of the market. Truthfully, I think he would have worked for free.

After the excitement of the new hot tip died down, usually at about 10:30, Phil would leave the office and walk several laps around the parking lot getting in his exercise, he lunched around 11:00, generally Panera soup or his favorite thing, a Chik Fil-A sandwich, coming back to the office at around 12:00 whereupon he allowed himself one snack size Kit-Kat that he kept in the freezer door of the office refrigerator. Then it was back to his office to check up on the markets, snooze for a bit in his chair, and leave the office promptly at 2:00 p.m. to go home for his nap.

After all, when I started work as his assistant, he was 84 years young.

Despite the difference in our ages, Phil and I shared a lot in common, we were both stubborn Germanic types, both bull-dog in our tenacity and our work ethic, we loved cats and we loved movies. Many mornings as I came in to the office, Phil would already be in the office kitchen making the generally agreed upon worst coffee in the world, and he and I would always talk movies. Phil was unique in that, despite being born in 1930, he wasn't stuck in that time. In fact, while I enthused about movies from his childhood, Phil would scoff, full of his enthusiasm for the latest blockbuster installment in the Marvel franchise or Disney. He liked to relate in some detail all of the plot, so if I didn't want to know or hadn't seen a movie, I would have to quickly change the subject.

When the day finally came when Phil acquiesced to retire at age 86, I organized most of his retirement party, and as per usual, I worked hard on it, rushing around, checking details, working furiously to dull the ache inside about the coming days when he'd no longer be around every day to chat about movies, cats, Indy racing and life.

When the last moment came, the last piece of cake eaten, the last glass of sparkling wine drunk, before taking that last walk to his car as a full fledged broker, Phil sought me out. I was cleaning the conference room, carrying out bags of trash full of all the detritus of any good party and he stopped me, hugged me, and then, something I will never forget,  he took hold of my shoulders looked me square in the eyes and said, "You. Are. Special... you're special!"

I am not humble-bragging. To this moment, I would have given anything to truly understand what he meant by that. So many times to me, I'm so ordinary, so unremarkable. When I look in the mirror, I mostly wish the other image was cuter, thinner, prettier. What Phil saw, I'll never know, but I'll never forget it.

After that, in the next year or so, he came around to visit every so often, stubbornly refusing to use the cane he'd been prescribed, so my co-workers and I took it in turn, to watch him surreptitiously, hiding behind walls and plants to avoid injuring his pride but so that we could have the piece of mind that he'd not fallen as he made his rickety way to his car. He always managed to somehow make me feel that he still thought of me as special, important.

When the moment came last autumn, that he'd had a fall that required surgery but he couldn't seem recover from, Rick, another of the brokers advised,

"Jill, if you want to see him again, I wouldn't wait."

I took the injunction for what it was, made my way to the hospital, dreading the moment where I'd have to see him, not full of life and hugs and kind words, but hooked to machines with tubes and wires everywhere, and up in that small hospital room, Phil and I had our final conversation.

The nurse insisted he could still understand despite being heavily sedated.  This time it was a one-sided conversation, I did all of the talking and sometimes begging, wishing that he'd sit up and just... anything, argue, get stubborn, spoil the plot of another movie for me...I talked, telling him all about the office, the markets.  I explained improv and the triangle of the scene, telling him about all the people I met doing scenes and how much I loved it. Then I just sat in the chair next his bed unable to contain my tears any longer, knowing that I was going to have to finish the conversation and not knowing how. And then I said, "Phil, you are special, you mean more to me than I have words to tell you!" And with a last look at him, I walked away.

I'm different since Phil died; I found myself wanting to share with others what he taught me. People need to be told they are special, that they mean something to you.

I was stingy with myself before Phil, now I write the email or leave the message, no matter how awkward or emotionally naked I may feel afterward. Sometimes there are replies and sometimes there is silence and that's okay too. For me, it's knowing that I've taken the time and told you how special you are and how important your presence in my life is to me. Sometimes life is just showing up, being there for, and somehow letting each other know that you are special.

In this way, for me, Phil lives on.

Pursuit of Ham

So it's Easter 2019 and all apologies to any of my Jewish brethren, in our family, Easter means just one thing, ham.

Fresh ham.

To the uninitiated, and everyone who though that ham was merely…ham. You couldn’t be more wrong.

Traditional hams are pinkish-hued from the curing process and oblong in shape. Many are spiral-sliced, glazed, pineapple and cherry-topped, square and pink and studded with cloves. They are in their different ways, sweet and salty, smoked, tangy and foil-wrapped.

Ours is not...because my culinary-trained father will brook none other than the elusive, un-popular, un-cured, hard to source fresh ham.

It all starts out so easy… Remembering, last years’ ham quest that saw me in full panic-mode feverishly propositioning a meat manager at Publix on Good Friday, as in, “If your 4:30 customer doesn’t come in for the ham, where’s the harm in selling it to me!” “Okay, what about half, can you sell me just half the ham?!” this year I ordered ahead. Three weeks ahead to be exact.

This year there would be no back alley deals where I, clothed in trench coat and sunglasses, a fedora with my blonde hair peeking out the sides perched on my head, and a $50 dollar bill ‘palmed’ in my right hand, spy a burly guy with 9:00 p.m. stubble, a white butcher’s coat, hairnet, steel-toed shoes and Ray-bans and nod twice giving the ‘sign’.

“You got the stuff?” I say…

“You got the cash?” burly butcher says…

I slide the $50 into his mesh-gloved palm, anxiously looking from side to side, while he kicks a lumpy white paper parcel at my feet, saying, “Nobody but nobody hears about this, right?”

“Last thing I need is those goons over at Winn Dixie, or Walmart finding out about this!”

“Last year I was nearly blackballed when some newb over at The Fresh Market began peddling un-cured bacon and sausage out behind Whole Foods!”

I nod nervously, grab my contraband pork and disappear into the night.

Surely this year would be different...

The first warning came when I realized it was the Sunday before Easter and I had received no reassuring call from Publix assuring me that my fresh plastic wrapped blade end ham was sitting waiting for me in the walk-in. This year I would leave nothing to chance. I took evasive action and drove to my neighborhood Publix made my way to the meat counter, where I encounter, Ileana who is rapidly filling in pre-packaged chicken nuggets. I approach her,

"Can I ask you a quick question?"

 "Si...ummm Yes?"

"Are the fresh hams in yet?"

"Si...ummm yes", Ileana indicates the case where row upon row of spiral-sliced hams in their glittery, gold packages sit waiting for purchase.

"No, those are cured hams, I ordered a fresh ham" I comment making my tone as even-tempered and rational as I didn't feel.

"You order ham?" Ileana looks at me quizzically.

"Yes, I ordered a ham two (2) weeks ago."I say fighting for calm, panic rising in me.

"Okay, they call you."

"They'll call me, so they haven't come in yet?" I say, feeling reassured, okay, they just weren't in yet.

"Okay, si...ummm yes they call!" Ileana says.

"Look, do you just want to take my name down again?...."

"Okay, si...ummm yes they call you!"

Ileana moves further away from the nutty blonde who is looking bewilderingly at her...and as I finally turn and walk away, she's still saying,

"Si, okay...they call you!"

They're not going to call me; I know that as surely as I know that the dinosaur shaped nuggets she's stacking in the case have rarely made contact with a chicken.

Me, being me, I maintain my optimism. Over the next few days, I keep my cell phone at arms' length at my desk, and every time it lights up, I just know it's going to be the Publix meat department with news of my porcine parcel.

By Wednesday evening, I am in despair..no ham, forget that...no hope of ham. I call my Dad,

"Dad, I don't know if I can get the ham in time for Easter"

"What...no ham?"

"I ordered from Publix like three (3) weeks ago and they never called!" (I actually know this feeling well, it's like waiting for a guy to call after a date you are sure went great and you never get the call)
I relate the story to him of Ileana and the fact that she was certain they'd call, and my Dad explodes like Vesuvius,

"Stupid Publix, I will never, ever, ever buy a piece of meat from them again!" "They can rot before I step foot in their stores again!"

"Okay, I'm on this!" he says and with that hangs up.

Which is exactly what I knew would happen, newly semi-retired and ever spoiling for a fight, my Dad begins his own ham-quest. There is nothing my dad loves more then stepping into the fray culinarily. When he used to cater, bakers, meat managers and produce stand owners alike, stood up a little straighter and made way when my father stopped in sourcing his goods.

A little while later, I get a phone call from my Dad,

"Okay, I called every grocery store in two counties ( I refrain from asking if Publix was in that number) but I think I got a couple of leads, guy at Whole Foods says they just got a shipment of fresh hams, not only that but blade end!,"  he says jubilantly. "They'll have one for you tomorrow afternoon!", making it the Thursday before Easter. Tricky, very tricky.

So, on Thursday afternoon, I confidentially stride up to the meat counter at the Whole Foods where I meet up with Reuben and say,

"My dad called ahead and was told you guys would have fresh hams today!"

Reuben says, "Yes ma'am, we surely do!" and takes me to a case filled with golden glittery wrapped spiral smoked hams. Argghhh!

"I'm sorry but these aren't fresh hams" I say, a tear welling up in my left eye.

"We just got them in today!" Reuben asserts.

"Yes, but I wanted an un-cured, fresh ham, blade end if possible" I sniffle.

"You mean you want a raw ham?" Reuben stares at me as if I had just asked for a bald eagle to be shot and dressed on a silver platter.

"Yes, exactly a RAW ham, un-cooked in any way, un-cured, un-smoked. RAW!" I shout, flailing my hands for emphasis. Several customers turn around and look over at me with naked curiosity. Who's the crazy-eyed blonde losing it in the meat department?

"Listen, I gotta check with Chuck the meat manager about this", Reuben says sotto voce, as if I was trying to buy black market arms. "Maybe we have something in the back..."

We approach Chuck who, in the attempt to sell two little old ladies some steaks, is giving them an entire anatomy lesson on how the steaks came to be, how they were cut and from which part of the animal, and they are listening with rapt attention, because Chuck basically is classically handsome and has just the kind of face little old ladies love. I hate him on sight, because he stands between me and the ham. When we get to Chuck, he has just got to the part where 'when the male steer and the female steer really love one another...' and Reuben whispers in his ear, 'umm this lady is looking for a fresh ham'... Chuck cocks an eyebrow and aims a look of distaste at me because I have the gall to interrupt his meat lecture and says condescendingly, "When I'm finished with these customers, I'll have a look in the back". The little old ladies look at me bitchily as if to say, "beat it blondie, he's ours", and something in me just snaps.

I'm sick of Reuben, Chuck, the little old ladies, the patchouli laden, hippy, compounding pharmacy smell of Whole Foods and the weird screamy music playing on the Muzak in the store.

"Never mind!" I say airily as I march back through the over-priced produce section and out the front door. I sit in my car for a few moments trying to put things in perspective. I tell myself this is a 1st World problem, remembering how my actor teacher Lauren always reminds us how so many people in the world have it worse. It doesn't help though, I think, "I know I'm past the age where I expect the Easter Bunny to leave a candy-laden basket with a chocolate bunny on top, all I wanted was to make a nice fresh ham dinner!"

I call my Dad and relay my failure to source a ham at Whole Foods, and he responds typically,

"I've always hated Whole Foods, damned over-priced produce, I like the wraps at Fresh Market much better!"

"Okay, I've got one more source, there's a guy over at "Marshall's Meats" and they say they've got 'em, fresh hams , butt-end AND blade-end, cut to order", okay it's Good Friday and it's cutting it close, but if you get there early..."

So on Good Friday, I rise early, I dress quickly, I'm at the store ten minutes before it opens and though there are elegant foodstuffs, there is foie gras, there is caviar, there are standing roasts and crown roasts and delicate fileted Cornish Game hens, I only have eyes for the fresh ham which sits tantalizingly in the case, there isn't a gold sparkly package in sight!  The butcher spies me, it's easy to do, I'm the only one staring at the meat case with tears in my eyes.

"Can I help you?" he says, perhaps a fresh ham?" I nod, the search over and the quest complete, I leave the store with the ham tucked neatly under my arm. I think I'm in love with that butcher, although I'm not entirely sure what he looked like...

Surely next year will be easier...

So maybe titles are overrated...

Especially when you can't think of one...

Here we are again...Gen X Life...I can't seem to quit you.

So...happening in my life right now...playoff  hockey, waiting for Yacht Rock to come back to Sirius (hey I don't judge you), and haunting Target & Publix for Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs. I can't seem to quit them either. I rationalize this, by saying things like, 'they only come around once a year' and 'it's tradition' and 'it's Easter, I am pretty sure God would want it this way, after all He made chocolate and peanut butter...right?'

I've been giving a lot of thought to my former post and pondering my life. The things that are working and the things that need 'tweaking', or 'editing'. I haven't reached the conclusions that I thought I would. That's hardly surprising though. So much of my time is spent in the service of others, it's basically my whole job. New guy in the office observed recently, "I've never seen anyone multi-task so many things at once." And I thought, "It's no wonder I can never seem to think about what's really important, what's next in my own life. I am too busy thinking of what's next in terms of keeping all the clients happy, keeping everything afloat." Juggling. 

Frankly, I am a tired and apparently crappy juggler. Up until now, I was so full of my own importance, being essential to my job, to my family, to even my classmates at improv, it never occurred to me to wonder if I was actually accomplishing any of the 'big picture' things such as personal fulfillment, joy, meeting personal goals, maybe actually finding my 'someone' or traveling, etc.

I dig still deeper...do I do that, fixate on my work performance, family, etc. because of my ever present fear of failure, my own personal boogie man that doesn't merely live under my bed like he used to when I was 6, but now rides shotgun in the car, lives under my desk at work and in the corners of my subconscious mind? Making it that much easier to succumb to the pull of inertia and just kick the can down the road a little longer.

Another conclusion I come to, is a bit surprising. I always seem to be on some epic quest for my 'soulmate', or call it 'true love', 'finding the one', etc. There are lots of ways to express it, but the other day it occurred to me, that there are soulmates everywhere in my life, that there is love.  I mean, in a mind-blowing, 'wow, I didn't see this coming' kind of way. There are these wonderful people I am in classes with, some of whom I've come to know through drinks after shows, etc. Actors who pour their whole lives into their careers and who inspire me through their passion and sometimes, through their struggles. I've met gifted engineer types who also just happen to be incredibly funny, programmers, veterinarians, administrative and finance types like me,  people from all walks of life who in this surprisingly weird way, I love. For their courage, their humanity, their willingness to be vulnerable, and for the fact that we share some sort of unique kinship the minute we are on stage together.

So, yeah...titles are a bit overrated. Think I am going to give up mine..."Perfectionistic Administrator" "Best Daughter/Sister/Aunt in World", "World-Class Improviser"...and just assume one "Imperfect Human Being"...

The Hard Edit of Life

In Improv, for me, one of the hardest things to master is the edit. Simply put, editing is where you ‘wipe’ the scene and start something new. Think back to every time, Michael Palin, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam or Eric Idle (Monty Python) gleefully shouted, “And now for something completely different” and you have the general idea of an edit.

There are ‘tag edits’, meaning you tap someone on the shoulder and take their place in the scene and in so doing, bring a fresh approach or idea to that scene and then there is the so-called, ‘hard edit’ where you walk across the stage, ending all scenes and wiping everyone from the stage. It’s the equivalent of bringing down the curtain in dramatic theatre. There is generally very little or no curtain in improv and it makes sense, a curtain would just get in the way of all that scene building.

One of my instructors, wisely said recently that in life, just like improv “mastering it means knowing when to edit”. And just like in improv, where the real beauty of it, is its impermanence, so life can be also.

I think the most difficult thing for me personally is that I have always lived my life so safely. There have been many times where I’ve almost quit on Improv, because it was forcing me to change so frequently and disquietingly. I’m a much more conventional type of person than many of my scene partners and often I wonder if I ‘stick out too much’. ‘Am I suited for this?’ is a question that I often ponder when standing outside of myself and observing the other me in class and shows.

Being Gen X is often problematic as well, so many of my classmates and scene partners are so much younger than I, with Millennials often the elder-statesmen where it used to be my fellow Gen X’ers. One time, we were called to do an exercise where we pretended to take  objects out of an imaginary gym bag, making statements about them and pantomiming their use, acting on whatever impulse you had, but all of the objects had to follow a ‘trend’ and then you were to ‘hand them’ to your scene partner who in turn would respond as to how he or she felt about these objects. I found myself pulling out a Slinky, an old Duran Duran tape, a beat up old Cabbage Patch kid, and other assorted Gen X paraphernalia out of the bag, thoroughly enjoying myself and eagerly acting out all my nostalgia and enthusiasm for these missed objects. When the scene finished and the instructor came around to ask the question every improviser hears 1,000 times by the end of their first year, “how did that feel?” my scene partner said, “I dunno, she was pulling out all of these old 80’s toys and stuff!” And bam! once again it hits me over the head, we are a generation apart, while he might know of the objects, he doesn’t really get how I felt about them, because he probably never played with any of them. It was the same in an earlier class where I attempted to explain the concept of sticker albums and trading of the same, to nothing but blank looks and a couple of people who just looked up for a second before diving back into the conversation they were having with a colleague on social media on their I-phone.

An even stickier situation is when you are Gen X and single and find yourself, unsettlingly attracted to someone who could also potentially be your son, or was too young to remember Challenger.

That’s when the editing comes in again, what am I doing in this life? Do I belong in this group? What could I do differently to change my situation? Should I move? 

Most of the time however, inertia takes over and you allow yourself the luxury of doing nothing…which any improviser worth their salt knows is the best way to ruin a scene.

So do I succumb to inertia or do I hard edit my life…

Stay tuned.