Novel Eye

I want to launch my friend Derek's (it's ok , he uses his own name) blog. I've known Derek for about 10 years so he went pretty high in the list. We met at R&S's annual Halloween party when he and his wife were dressed as dead Heaven's Gate cult members. We knew we were going to like them. Derek is always fun to speak with (and once won some money on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, but don't hold it against him) and I feel it's high time he dumped some of that into a blog. Check out his mash up of Sexy Beast and Gandhi . http://www.derekleif.blogspot.com/ He also is learning L'Arc's Ready, Steady, Go on the Ukulele which is a bizarre coincidence and still hasn't told me why.

...I will feel a glow just thinking of you... I've been off work this week and the first part of the week I was off without my husband which meant that I was able to focus--plus they were working on the roof of the house which made me get up and get going--rather than lie in bed listening to the banging on the ceiling. Which is not to say that I don't work when my husband is home, but the way we distract each other is a post for another day. What I got up and did was to go through a lot of paper. I sorted my paid bills. I made a decision on the unsorted receipts--to stuff them in a box marked with the end date of June 30, 2008 and to go forward from here. I went through magazines I'd been keeping. Now, as an organizer I would have advised a client to throw them away (recycle) sight unseen, and I almost did, but there weren't that many so I did a fast skin--pulled out a few pages and put them out with Wednesday's recycling. More on that in a bit. I also went thr...

I am happy to add Musing back to the sidebar!

Writing Life x3 (Pat) has an interesting post about his play "Pieces of Whitey." I saw the production he's referring to, and I would agree with his assessment (the set overwhelmed the actors at times--never a good, I say, as a set designer; the pacing was odd, etc.) but some very funny AND very thought provoking lines. I also saw it with my friend C, a beautiful black woman, who was dating (at the time) one of the white actors. She had also auditioned and they had discussed with her why they were going with an all white cast. I did find myself glancing at her through the night. I think she enjoyed it.

Cheap for me, cool for content. (I thought of all sorts of things to post about stuck in traffic, late for an apt.--in fact, a couple of days worth--and all are gone as I sit here.) So here is a link to David's brilliant invention http://davidseah.com/archives/2007/07/29/a-chindogu-social-yardstick/

First, very cool responses to my posts all over the place: Mirror Up to Nature http://mirroruptolife.blogspot.com/2007/07/fame-duration-and-quality.html The Writing Life x3 http://writinglife3.blogspot.com/2007/07/fame-and-legacy-and-art-courtesy-of.html (and possibly Matt, but I'm not sure) and the earlier post on what makes music appealling to one person and not another: Musing http://musingsofamiddle-agedwoman.blogspot.com/2007/07/its-way-past-my-bedtime-but.html It made me very happy--this is why I started doing this--for the interesting conversation. Two of these people live quite close to me and in theory we could go sit somewhere (not Starbuck's ) and have these discussions, but two of these people live nowhere near me. I would like a few more readers and more that I read regularly, but I feel that some sort of personal introduction is needed than just, "Hey, I like your blog." On the other hand, I would not want to be so popular that I was getting the pointle...

Jumping ahead for a moment. Looking at the bit on friends in the poem made me think of something I was thinking of last night at my friend's shower. The person throwing the shower has been friends with N since high school. I've been friends with N for 10 years. I mentioned R last month as someone I've been friends with since I was 15--for 20 years now. I've been friends with Red Queen since I was 18, so for half my life but Red Queen is about 15 years older than I am. Likewise with C. Most of my other friends I've had for five or six years. When I was leaving my job my two female bosses mentioned that they had a core of friends that they'd been with since elementary school. I really can't even imagine that. I ran away from the people with whom I went to elementary school. Now J is still in the same town where she grew up--went to state college two hours away--probably with all the same people and she's only 30, so it makes sense. But D is 65 and has live...

I used to comment after people's comments, but I don't think people go back to look at comments they've made on other people's pages (well, sites with large readerships perhaps). So thank you, Matt for the words of encouragement. I remember when I was young and really thin ('93 or so--see L'Arc blog) when I could eat a steak dinner, be five pounds heavier when I went to bed than when I got up. Skipping a meal could lose me five pounds then. Happily it looks like those four pounds are pretty solidly lost, when I checked yesterday and today. That's why I was only looking at the scale once a week so I wouldn't get discouraged. I'm hoping it's not just water. Back on the treadmill yesterday and today. I now understand baseball marginally more (about .001, as a matter of fact :P). I hope your ultimate games are going as well, Matt! I am reminded of the explanation of Blurnball in Futurama --which unfortunately does not seem to be on YouTube . MULTIB...

http://www.chaospirals.com/blog/japan/

B with whom I can say the most absurd things (and for that I love her--you know who you are) and I had this intriguing exchange in email. I used the word "JOY!" in an email and then asked if she thought I was Ren or Stimpy (and fans of the show will know why). She responded that I was Ren to HER Stimpy because she was almost always Stimpy except for certain friends where she was Ren , and that her old boss was R to her S, but with his wife he was probably S and she R and further, that I was probably S to my husband's R. I'll go with that.

Is the name of a Barenaked Ladies album. That aside, I was laughing at Red Queen/The Other Joan's comment below. I think I say something profound everyday (o_o") I just don't say something profound about the same things everyday. Mirror keeps his blog pretty focused on Theater and Theater in Boston with only tiny personal sidelines. Red Queen finds her "Art of the Day." David's is clearly a much more focused blog designed to discuss his work (and his hireability ) within the fields which interest him. It's personal, but tied to the professional. I don't have a focus to this blog. I like to review films and books (although my reviews have been less formal than I am capable of). I did NOT want to become maudlin or self-absorbed. I've started real-world journals for that and found that it wasn't productive. What I wanted was to find the more universal meaning based in my personal experience and to practice writing essays which I've always e...

I love his writing. I always have. I found the writing before I knew anything about the strange, tortured man and I'm glad, because the writing has become subsumed to the image. The writing is exquisite and never cliched and full of all the pain that is living. Poor, lonely, needy Tru. The movie is good, Hoffman's performance is breathtaking. I understand--I don't necessarily forgive--when he sells out the killers, sells out himself, would sell out his best friend to get that laugh at a party, to make life ironic and light when he knew that it wasn't. Grabbing that moment of adulation in a crowd rather than anything lasting--tomorrow may never come, after all. And you know he knows it's a lie too. He sold out Perry Smith, and yes, Perry was a dangerous and disturbed man who had murdered a family almost because they were there, but Truman played him to get that story, and lied and played with another human being's feelings and life to write the book. And what a b...

I've added a few links to the side. I'm still trying to pass it on--go out, read more blogs, help forge links. Musing and Red Queen I've written about before. DMZ is someone I've never met, but he's a Vietnamese adoptee like me and he's roaming Vietnam at the moment, trying to... well, I'm not sure what all he's trying to do, but find his roots is a major part of it. The pictures are fantastic and I wish I could make that journey. Joe and Karen are equity actors in Boston. Joe is my director for Eugene. I costumed them both in "Blinders" (the bottom middle picture on Joe's site) and built the set. Jeff was the lighting designer on "Far Away," the show of 50 hats. He has some great pictures of my hats and I just really like the way he set up his site (don't know if he programmed it, or hired someone).