This evening I am mopey realizing MANOS is not going to make any year-end "Best Of" lists.

The problem is, I had gotten my hopes up. For the first (well, maybe second) time in my 17+ years of artistic life, I thought I had something that was successful enough to make that kind of impression.

The other problem is, I'm aware that this has nothing to do with the quality of the production and everything to do with the fact that only one media source came to see it. (That one source is too busy folding to do a year end wrap up.)

It would be a disingenuously self-centered extrapolation to try and suggest the media isn't serving the community just because it doesn't happen to be serving _me_.

However, with that bias noted, I can't help but feel there's something lacking in a critic pool that all goes to see the exact same things; that isn't interested in something until they're told ahead of time that it's big and important and wonderful and then turns around and lambasts artists for "playing it too safe" and "not taking enough risks".

For me I think the lesson here is: don't do work in one art form hoping for attention in another. Still, I'm currently mopey.

things for which i am thankful for

- shelter
- food
- coffee
- books
- that Christmas only fucking comes once a fucking year

happy dance time

not only am i free, but also:

- business goal for the year achieved and surpassed
- last night's tarot reading said Justice and CHARGE!

other things i'm tempted to say

huh. i thought you said you were going to find a _better_ name.

things i am tempted to say to medical students
but don't

them: have you had any memory loss?
me: not that I recall.

them: have you had any hearing loss?
me: what?

them: ok, each time i move the stethoscope, i'd like you to give me an inspiration and an expiration.
me: Carpe diem.....December 13, 1992.

“If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.”
― Katharine Hepburn

first world solutions

last night i foolishly splashed tea onto my Mac keyboard.

though I flipped it upside down and applied kleenexes almost immediately, naturally some bizarre operating glitches revealed themselves over the course of the evening. To wit:

- sticky down arrow (UNSTOPPABLE SCROLLING!)
- dead right side of track pad (NO RIGHT CLICKS EVER ANYMORE!)
- no capital "O" when pressing the left shift key (NO "O" AT ALL, ACTUALLY)
- shift + return function non functional (DOOMED TO MULTIPLE FACEBOOK COMMENT REPLIES!)

However, thanks to an actually useful Mac Forum (IT'S A THANKSGIVING MIRACLE!) and an hour with some rubbing alcohol and Q-Tips, everything appears to be back to normal*.

So what if I should actually have been cleaning the kitchen during all of this? Priorities! (I HAZ THEM!)

* The -return- key requires a tap of extra clear intention right now to work, but I'm thinking I might just have put it back on wrong and will give it another go. (PRIORITIES, DAMMIT!)

fun, no fun

i have five fake patient gigs on the merry-go-round right now, which makes keeping track of my schedule a bit paranoia-inducing. in the easiest one, i basically use my own history to help very young students practice their interviewing skills.

i've done this one before and a fun side effect is that it always provides me some sort of insight into my life. not surprising, really; it's hard to answer the same questions truthfully 20 times without catching some patterns.

for instance: once it helped me discover the cause of some mysterious headaches.

this time it's helping me realize that i don't do a lot of things Just For Fun.

this is not to say i don't enjoy many things i do. however, most things that i do (and enjoy) wind up under the loose heading of Theatrrr Stuff (which, yes, i also enjoy but, let's face it, it's also my job.)

that's not necessarily a bad thing. in fact, i'm feeling like there's some cal ripkin jr. quote i could insert here re: not trying to separate your Work and your Life, because if you're not enjoying your Work enough for it to be your Life, you need a new job. (horrible paraphrasing/misattribution)

and that's all well and good, but it leads me to wonder: am i incapable of just Having Fun? would making Having Fun a goal defeat the purpose? what do normal people do for Fun, anyway?

why? part 3
the part I didn't mention at the party, because i didn't want to be one of _those_ actors. going on. and on.

aside from the fear, i keeping acting because things are never so clear to me as when i'm onstage.

when i'm onstage there's the audience. and my job is to please them. and that's all. everything that relates to that is monumentally important and everything that doesn't can fuck right off.

which is a refreshingly simple state of being for someone who tends to make their life as complicated as possible.

so I keep acting because it's one of the simplest things I do? yeah, that might be it. huh.

why i stopped reading the Twilight series after Twilight

because I could tell if I read on I was in for 3 more books of:

Bella: I love you.
Edward: I love you. Because you smell delicious to me. In the food way.
Bella: Let's have sex.
Edward: I am afraid that if I gave into my passion I would lose control and eat you.
Bella: Then make me a vampire.
Edward: I couldn't subject you to that eternal torment.
Bella: Then soon, like, in 5 months, I will be old and shriveled and you will no longer love me.
Edward: I will always love you.
Bella: Then let's have sex.
Edward: I'm afraid I'll eat you.

etc. etc. ad nauseam.

why? part 2

aside from the bitter, eye-rolling rhetorical form: "why do I do this, again?", usually asked after discovering the umpteenth parking ticket earned during a rehearsal period, I don't question the theatrrr doing thing very much.

late night, tired and buzzed from a successful show, sucking down my first manhattan, i started talking without thinking, and what i talked about was fear.

"the fear is kinda important to me, i think. i mean, i started doing improv because i was afraid of it, and after i did a scripted show where i wasn't nervous at all, even on opening night. but after doing improv awhile, the fear is back for scripted stuff too, so that's good."

and who knows what the heck i meant by all that? adrenaline junkie much? or just that the fear is an indicator of my emotional involvement in the show? dunno. it's weird the things you tell yourself when you just launch into talking.

which is another thing i like about the improv, by the bye.

coming next, the part i didn't have time to say.

why?

at last night's Whedonesque Burlesque after party, I was asked something I don't normally get asked:

why theatrrr?

normally I'm hanging about with theatrrr people, who just assume that your answer to that is the same as theirs. or they don't question it in the first place.

so it was fun and unusual to take a moment to think about that.

when you're tired of Cabo, you're tired of life

one of my favorite fake patient co-workers travels a lot and was questioned today about her upcoming plans. she's apparently going on a "blues cruise" to Cabo.

and at first we were all like "cool." and then it landed and i said "wait a minute. how are they going to even _have_ the blues in Cabo, much less sing them?"

which led to this:

i got me a sunburn
and my beer has gone flat
i'd be alright but my woman took my floppy hat
i got the blues
i got the color of the deep Cabo san Lucas waters blues

JESUS GOD. Leave me the fuck alone for awhile, would you?

Seriously.

when you dream

while i was away, i had a bizarre dream that Arthur, King of the Kittons, was curled up at my feet. this is where he usually sleeps, but he wasn't actually on the trip, so i was a bit weirded out, because he's been sick. i was afraid i'd come over all psychic. or that his ghost had dropped in for a 'goodbye'. very glad to find this was not the case. very relieved.

jump. jump start the funk.

god. i've had stress dreams the past couple of mornings and ended each day with neck pain and feelings of Doom. or maybe just doom.

but anyway. i'm in a ditch. there's an end to it, but i don't want to wait for that to feel, well, better.

awareness is usually the first step, but I'm not sure what the next is exactly.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Note to self: Focus on the positive.

Addendum: People who are upset/disappointed because they wanted you to create a different show than what you wanted to create are beyond your reach/help/influence.

Also? They were in the minimum for a blessed once. Stop being an idiot.

Finally: Remember, there is _nothing_ so unimpeachably awesome that someone, somewhere on the internet won't hate it.

if you can't say anything nice...

i have a stomach full of bile this evening. seriously. all i want to do is just spit nastiness in the face of anyone and everyone, but, oh yes, particularly, at those against whom i have a grudge of any sort.

i could be all full of shit and call it Speaking Truth, but, let's be anti bullshit for a sec, that would be the means rather than the ends.

a bunch of minor nibbles built up to this. but the gitgo of the evening boils down to: I fucking fucking hate it when credit for a good idea is taken from me. not only does it suck, but there's so totally nothing you can do to claim your credit without looking like a petty douche.

mother fuck. best to get offline and go sleep. yes. yes.

the best text i've ever received:

sorry I cant talk right now.
We have the wiggles today

Catch 22
Deep in the throes of another Faux Patient testing cycle, and short on sleep, I find myself obsessed with the unfortunate fact that the students who most need the feedback are the ones least likely to get it.

There seem to be two main reasons for this:

a) They are the least likely to listen to it -
Either we give them feed back that they murmur politely at and don't absorb. Or they get defensive and the session gets embroiled in that action. Or we can tell they're not listening so we stop talking.

b) We tend to give comments in good-bad-good sandwiches - With a students who didn't do very well, there will usually be more bad things to say then good. But you run out of good, you generally also need to stop with the bad. Because otherwise they stop listening.

thank you India, thank you terror

if i'd never been to India, Italy's traffic, despite the adorable scooters, would be a bit terrifying, i think.

for instance, walking about this afternoon, i saw a misplaced car drive slowly up the sidewalk and then stop before pulling carefully back out onto the roadway.

but! the car was moving slowly. and it stopped before re-entering traffic. and there was only one.

so as it is, the Italy traffic is slightly familiar and (only) slightly mad, but absolutely do-able. on foot that is. i wouldn't dream of trying it in a vehicle.

after all, i'm not crazy.

or, as I like to call it, Tuesday

i'm half watching The Matrix as I make plans for the Joss Whedon puppet and scout for covers of Dust in the Wind, which are plentiful, by the bye. and it just occurred to me that Agent Smith and Tim Gunn sound rather a lot alike.

Best Line From an Email This Week Past

"Excessive glitter application should happen in the alley"

when geeks drink

some time after 11, the King of the North declared himself and demanded drinking games ensue for his amusement.

meanwhile, "dragonborn can't feel the fire!" came the call from the fire pit. fortunately, the attempt to prove this was overruled by the soberer party goers.

as for myself, i knew it was time to take my leave when i started getting downright belligerent about literature (billitergent?). I mean, Grrr Martin's lengthy attempt to kill the fantasy genre is tedious, but when sober I don't stoop to name calling the person I'm arguing with.

I seem to've accidentally made a Dr. Manhattan puppet:

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"

I've just been informed that the girl who succeeded to my position at The Evil Theater of Evilness is quitting. After 18 months in the position. HA! What's more, she's quitting after an incident almost exactly the same as that which caused me to quit, ie, being verbally attacked by the Theatrrr Director.

Her brief tenure, by the way, means that my own record of 32 months as the Marketing Director is secure. A dubious honor for me? Perhaps. Something the organization should be proud of? Certainly not.

Seeing Neil Gaiman, by Rae J. Age 35

So, I had the very great delight of attending The Neil Gaiman Experience at Town Hall last night and I promised to blog about it - "an actual blog, not just a status update" - so that Cole could hate and envy me with precision and accuracy. This is that blog.

The Line:
My Experience actually began in the line for Will Call A-M, which was backed up down the block (Will Call N-Z had about 5 people waiting; apparently Neil Gaiman fans tend to have last names in the first half of the alphabet, make of that what you will). Since the active event staff quickly informed us that nothing was going to start until everyone was safely inside, we could all relax and make friends.

One lady in front of us, who had seen Neil at a signing in Portland several years before, was texting with a friend who had the fortune to be already within; and this is how we learned there was going to be an opening act (which seemed very appropriate given Neil Himself's intensely active internet presence).

The second lady (with whom I shared a last name; weird and wonderful) knew a surprising amount about the other event in the building that night (which had a noticeably older fan demographic) - Steig Larsson's Girlfriend Cashes In (I may be remembering the title inaccurately). Naturally this prompted me to give Mr. D permission to cash in on my death, should I be so ill mannered as to die before he does.

The Event:
Billing the event as "in conversation with" was well done, as that is probably about as close as you could come to summing up the quirky awesomeness of the evening in one short phrase. Part interview, part reading, part lecture, part Q&A and, as mentioned, including a bonus opening act; "big, happy geek family gathering" would also cover it, but is perhaps not a phrase a marketing person would be comfortable using.

The Opening Act:
Featured a ukulele (which is, I believe, required by Seattle city ordinance for gatherings above a certain size). A lovely lady named Molly (Lewis. I had to look her name up after the event. The acoustics in Town Hall are occasionally muddy) came out and sang for us, one song a musical triptych about the night Lincoln was shot, the second an open offer to be the host mother for Stephen Fry's baby. So, both firmly in the nerdcore wheelhouse and loved by me and everyone.

The Lecture:
Unpremeditated, I think, though I suppose it could be something he has on tap, Neil politely explained to us all why we should really, _really_, turn off the ringers on our cell phones. He did this at some length after the second phone rang, which happened with cosmically good comedic timing, immediately after his first, much simpler plea to turn off our phones.

And this is as good a place as any to say what so many others already have: Neil Gaiman is a ridiculously charming public speaker. It is astonishing to the point that it almost seems to be a super power. After the second cell phone, where any other Famous Person might have, understandably, gotten a bit annoyed, Neil instead patiently outlined in glorious detail the nature and size of the horrible shame we would feel if our cell phone rang during the remainder of the event. I don't know if it was the Super Charm or that his voice was invariably gentle throughout, but when he said "You will want to die" it was easy to believe he was (in a friendly mocking way) genuinely more concerned for our embarrassment than any of the other side effects of the cell phone interruption.

The Reading:
Once all the noises were taken care of, we proceeded to the selected readings. ("Coming to America, 14000 BC" and the scene where Sam and Shadow go to the bar). I was curious; would he do voices? And: Sort of, yes. Sam had a definitely lighter, faster weight. Shadow seemed to almost leave behind the Britishness. Also? Neil does other voices. Namely Tim Minchin and Alan Moore. I have no idea whether these are accurate portrayals, but I really don't need to know that. It was awesome.

The Q&A:
Best Q - "Have you ever met a god?"
A - No, but there were two people he'd known who maybe perhaps could be designated gods. Alan Moore, who would be the God of Looming (this is where he did the voice) and Douglas Adams, who would be the God of Accidentally Breaking Things by Backing Into Them and Then Seeing Them In a Way That No One Has Ever Seen Them Before That is So Compelling That You Can Never See Them in the Same Way Again.

Worst Q - (though I may just be bitter because my question didn't come up) "Do you have any advice for aspiring fantasy writers?"
A - (and here's the Super Charm at work again. His answer to this tedious question was both lovely and useful)
Write.
Finish what you write.
Read everything but fantasy.
Don't try to rewrite Lord of the Rings. It's already been written and far better than you ever could. Write the things that only you can write.

Without question, it was one of the more satisfying live events I've ever gone to. It is downright enchanting to discover that one of one's heros is as eloquent and entertaining as you always hoped to find them. Apparently he might be back in town in November (with Amanda Fucking Palmer no less; double plus good!). If at all possible, I will be in the audience. And next time I'll remember to bring my camera.

brushing up on your small talk, 35th birthday edition

p: so how're you doing after last night?
me: not too bad actually. i managed to keep things pretty reined in.
c: you spent the evening in a red cape and monkey mask and that was low key for you?
me: well, i was sober.

(crafty headsmack)

so, um, apparently my sewing machine wasn't so much broken as, er, had the bobbin winding toggle in the winding position. which, apparently, disables the sewing abilities of the machine.

pros: sewing machine is at home and working and it didn't cost me any moneys

con: it did cost me some pride. but, what the heck. i have too much of that anyway. probably good to get rid of some.

sigh.

Dear Jerk,

Look. We can all understand wishing to let your large doggie friend run free and leashless on a warm sunny day.

However, when he has disrupted 2 separate picnics in a public park, and both groups of people have politely requested that you apply the leash which you are holding in your hand to your dog, the appropriate response is _not_ to swear and pace near them and call them names.

Because hey, you were doing the wrong thing and you effing well know it. When people call you on it, fix the problem with good grace and move on about your business.

Jackass.

Your not friend,
Raej

hate

hate hate hate hate hate.
hate.
you.
hate hate.

there, see? i've said it so many times now, it looks like a word that has no meaning anymore.

almost.

seriously: hate.

everything i need to know i learned from fairy tales

always be polite.

WARNING: regency lit geekery

reread Tam Lin (the novel modernizing the old tale) recently; at one point several of the characters are challenged to guess the outcome of Emma based on just reading the first chapter. being a bit of an Austen freak, and at loose ends this weekend from a self-imposed internet hiatus, i wondered if this exercise could be extended to the rest of her novels. so i hauled out my copies of everything to see.

SPOLIER ALERT ~ AUSTEN PLOTS MAY BE COMPROMISED AFTER THIS POINT

the answer is a definite 'no'. Emma is the only one of the novels where the guy the main character winds up with even appears in the first chapter. In general (3 out 6 times) The Hero doesn't stroll in (and isn't mentioned by name; I was counting that as well) until chapter 3.

interestingly, the 3 books where this happens are the first three she wrote, which leads me to the notion that she was trying to break her own formula in her writing after that; there's no regularity to The Hero's first appearance in the next 3 books, happening in the 1st, 2nd and 4th chapters, respectively.

or it could, of course, be simple coincidence. not sure how one would know.

i want what??!?

taking a time out for a couple days to reset after MANOS - THE HANDS OF FELT (awesomely successful. Yay!)

on the to-do list for the near future is replacing my 13 year old head shots so I can go back to auditioning for things.

as i was thinking about all that, timing and whatnot, a truly horrible commercial came on. badly written, badly acted, bad product; a triple threat. and it reminded me of something a college friend observed one afternoon after encountering a Hardee's commercial.

"you know, someone had to audition for that. actually, lots of people. and that asshole right there? he was really really happy to get that job."

what am I doing again?

this is the hard part

a show I (basically) wrote and am producing opens in four days.

this is the hard part. the train is going. the tormenting question is whether anyone will want to ride it?

Dear Comcast "News" Headline Writers,

Every other day, your Video section features a headline similar to "Famous Female So and So Shows Off Bikini Body".

How then, on the alternative days, do you expect me to feel the appropriate level of shock at the headline "Did Famous Female So and So's Dress Go Too Far?"

It's called consistency. Look into it.

Thanks,
Raej

made with real girl scouts

girl scout cookie time always takes me kicking and screaming back to my high school days, specifically those spent on the debate team.

districts were always the weekend right after cookie delivery and our debate coach didn't want us to leave campus for fear we'd miss our competitions, get up to mischief, who knows what. The problem with this was the campus closed down on the weekend, so there weren't any food options.

so once a year, every year, in high school i would spend a weekend massively stressed out, getting almost no sleep and eating nothing but girl scout cookies.

gosh, why was i sick so often back then? i can't begin to guess.

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

well shit

fuck.
i've tried starting this two other times.
i got home from xmas and my cat (Arthur King of the Kittons) was sneezing and not eating. he'd clearly lost weight. i took him to the vet. they said he looked bad. they called me back today and his kidneys aren't working right.
fuck.

Masters Thesis I'm Not Going to Write #37

Why, in our Western Mythology, is Retribution/Revenge the only acceptable reason for a woman to commit some righteous ultra violence?