What the hell was I thinking? Day 6

I'm sitting here trying to think of something to write about tonight. It's after 1:30. It's my fault I'm in this situation. I went to an election watch party for a couple of hours earlier. It was a roller coaster. I don't want to talk about politics. Then I came home and talked to Elvira for a while, sorted some laundry and threw a load in the washer, puttered around in the kitchen, and played solitaire on my Kindle for 45 minutes I will never get back. I blame my mom for the solitaire. She loved playing solitaire on her Kindle, and so I started playing on her Kindle while I sat with her in hospice. Now I'm addicted and I'm not happy about it. Thanks a lot, Mom.

When I finally dragged myself away from being pathetic Solitaire, I realized I had neither the time nor the energy to write the post I'd been composing in my head all day. No problem, I thought. I've got all those ideas in my drafts that I gathered for just such an occasion. Lots of good ideas. Probably a whole month's worth.

I opened the first one.

Fried bologna sandwich. That's all it says. Fried bologna sandwich.

I'm sure I had something brilliant to say about fried bologna sandwiches, because I even took a photo of fried bologna. It's not a good photo, but it is fried bologna. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I figure I could stop here.

But no. I was prepared and I was going to use my great material that was waiting in my drafts. I opened the next one.

Write your own damn porno.

That's it. I'm not sure if I was talking to myself or if I planned to ask you, my loyal readers, to write your own damn porno. I have no idea. I did not take a photo to remind myself this time.

Moving on ...

Look for mangina.

Once again, no idea. I had to goggle the definition, I suspect I had planned a rant,because it's a misogynist concept,  but if I did, it's flown out of my mind like the air escaping from a balloon.

The next one was a pretty complete thought. Have you ever noticed how any time a man is getting schooled about any feminist issue that he refused to understand, and continues to mansplain the hell out of, there will be that one woman who comes in and pats him on the head and tells him she understands what he's trying to say and we should all play nice? What the fuck is up with that? Let him take his spanking like the bad boy he is and maybe he'll learn something. Apparently his mommy protected him too, and now he's an obnoxious, obtuse skin bag of X/Y's who steps on his weenie every time someone posts something that makes him uncomfortable.

In fact, I do have notes for a post about this very topic. Maybe tomorrow will be the time for a big, old reticulated rant.

Next useless idea: The weight of being nice.

Hmmm. Anybody know what that might mean? Anybody? Bueller?

I have about a dozen more brilliant ideas and none of them are worth writing about. Pods? Dunno. Scrotum beauty contest? Don't want to look. Things my dick does (NSFW). OK, that one's hilarious, but I have nothing to add to it. A guy takes creative photos of his penis in various costumes and poses. I wish I'd thought of it myself, except one, I don't have a penis. And two, it's remarkably hard to dress up a vagina, which I do have.

Moving on. Introducing my boyfriend, Simon. That would be my imaginary boyfriend. We broke up and I don't want to talk about it.

Did you ever feel stupid? I mean really stupid? So stupid you knew you were going to be the joke at somebody's dinner table? Sounds like there's a story there. No idea what it is.

The year of square dancing and my first three-way. That one I do remember. I was ten. I'm not sure anybody wants to read about that.

I suspect I've made my point. Any preparation I may have made for this month is worthless. Yes, there were a few more possibilities there, but they were even worse than the ones I shared. Humiliating. I guess I'll have to depend on my muse Dolores to get me through.  Not that she's been a very good muse lately. She comes to work late and takes too many bathroom breaks and she's probably the one who wrote those stupid meaningless notes in the first place. I should fire her. Fried bologna sandwich? Really?

That's all I've got tonight. Think of it this way: I could have written about today's elections, and nobody wants to hear any more about that shit show tonight. Or tomorrow. Or the next day.

Day 7: All the Sex

Did I mention I'm in a show? It's our second bi-annual All the Sex Monologues, a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood sponsored by a group called PUSH or Professionals United for Sexual Health. Much as I love writing about sex, getting on stage and performing a piece I wrote about sex is even more fun. And this time, I'm performing two pieces I wrote about sex.

I know. Crazy, right? Like one 3 1/2-page monologue wasn't enough to memorize, I had to go and say I'd do two. I guess I should be grateful the committee didn't accept all four of the monologues I submitted. (I might have gone a little bit overboard. I really wanted to make sure I got to participate this year.)

Oh, and not only did I write the two that I'm performing by myself, I also put together a group piece for the women in the cast about #metoo. I guess technically I have 3 pieces in the show, although the stories from #metoo came from many different friends who bravely sent them to me for this purpose.

I have to ask myself why I would commit to performing two monologues. One was terrifying enough last time. I wasn't sure I could memorize that many words. But two?

The truth is I've had this dream of writing and performing a one-woman show for the past couple of years. I have no idea why. The closest I've come to a one-woman show is watching Carrie Fisher do it on HBO. I'm really not that kind of performer.

But you don't always choose your dreams. Elizabeth Gilbert, in her excellent book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, talks about how the Universe (for want of a better word) sends us creative ideas. And it's up to us whether we grab on and make something happen with those ideas. Kind of like what I call my Muse, Dolores, who often sends me nightmares when I don't listen to her. 

Sometimes the ideas or dreams just fly on by because we're not ready for them or we don't have the courage to make them happen or life gets in the way. I know I've let a lot of those ideas fly right on by me, mostly because I'm lazy. But maybe I'm lazy because I'm afraid I'll fail. My best guess is that it's both. And then there's life, and that tends to get in the way too.

Anyway, I was sent the idea for a one-woman show, and not much else. Like maybe a fucking topic or a few paragraphs or agents calling me up wanting to represent me. But no. Not even a deadline. Nothing. But I'm still hanging on to it.

I consider doing that first monologue two years ago, and now two monologues this year, a warm up. Maybe once this show is over, I'll latch on to that idea and ride it all the way to HBO!

Nope. That idea gave me a fucking panic attack. Breathe, Reticula. Breathe.

So our show will take place in a big gay bar on a stage with more bling than Mr. T. It's a drag queen stage, but for a couple of hours this Friday and Saturday, it will be the stage where 10 amateur performers gather up their courage and perform their stories -- some that they wrote, and some that were written by others, but all are original pieces. We've got stories about masturbation (that's me), dating a trans woman, tying people up, health issues, coming out, molestation, dating after 50, body image, suicide .... It's going to be a powerful show.

I feel so privileged to be a part of it, because one, we're raising money for Planned Parenthood, an organization that helps so many women. And two, it's the kind of thing I always dreamed I'd do when I was  little girl growing up in a small town in Iowa. Not that I specifically thought I'd write sex monologues, but being on stage and performing something somewhat outrageous. And finally, I get to work with a group of people I admire and like. This, and the support and encouragement we give each other, is the ground of what it means to be human. It's a peak experience to share something like this. And OK, it also makes me feel cool. Like I'm one of the cool kids. Nothing hateful about that.

I really hope our audiences love it. I know they will laugh and cry, get angry, maybe feel some catharsis. One of our pieces in particular will hit hard. I hope that one goes OK. We're going to have a counselor who specializes in sexual assault there in case anybody needs professional support. We are breaking boundaries.

So that's what I'm doing this week. Rehearsals every night, and performances Friday and Saturday nights. I know I'm going to feel those post-show blues when it's over. But it's also been hard being out so many evenings, setting up childcare and keeping Coraline up later than I'd like. We'll also be glad to get back into our routine as the days grow shorter and colder.

Maybe I'll be inspired after this to put together that one-woman show. Hell, I've probably got enough material here for 10 of them. It does excite me to think about it. Or maybe I'll just write a novel about a woman who writes a one-woman play and then drives an RV all over the country performing it. See? The ideas are right there if I want to grab them.

What ideas or dreams are flying by you these days? Are you grabbing them? Or is it not the right time? 

Day 31: If we were sharing a box of wine on my porch

Tonight is the last night of July, and I'm pretty happy that I managed to only miss 2 days this month. I'll make those up, of course, because my OCD insists on it. Coraline has written -- or at least inspired -- some of the most popular posts this month. One of the reasons I haven't been blogging as much is because I thought my life as a single grandmother might not be nearly as interesting as my life as a single woman living alone was, but apparently I was wrong. I intend to encourage Coraline to start her own blog as soon as she can write.

As always, I appreciate everyone who comes here to read and stays until the end of the post. Blogging experts advise choosing a topic for a blog and then sticking to the damn thing in each and every post. Other rules include posting consistently and keeping posts short so readers don't have to scroll. I'm pretty sure my batting average wouldn't get me into Little League, must less the pros. My rule is I do what I want, and you all get what you paid for.

All kidding aside, I, my ego, and my Muse Dolores do sincerely thank you for reading.

And now, on to tonight's random, rambling one-sided conversation which really would not happen if we were sharing a box of wine for realz. I would let you talk sometimes, especially if you wanted to ask me something about myself. That's if, OC, we were sitting on my front porch sharing a box of wine. (It's OK if you drink something else as long as you bring potato chips and chocolate to share.)

******

If we were sharing a box of wine, I would counsel you that experience tells me cucumber slices are a poor substitute for potato chips no matter how much salt you put on them.

If we were sharing a box of wine, I would tell you I've decided to stop checking out books at the library. And that's significant because between the 2 of us, Coraline and I always have at least 50 books and videos checked out. It's obscene really, but they let me take them for free, and so I get greedy. I've decided though that I really need to read the books I own, both hard copy and on my Kindle, instead of putting the library books first and never getting to the ones on my personal shelves.

The other day I took back a full bag of books so heavy I could barely carry it. I kept only one book, the latest by Louise Erdrich, titled LaRose. I'll still check out DVD's, but no more books for a while. I feel lighter already. I'm going to get rid of a lot more books in August too. It's not right that I should feel so weighted down by paper and words. Sometimes I think I'd like to live in a hotel and just visit my house.

If we were sharing a box of wine,  I'd tell you about the play I'm in, titled Semple Gifts. It's a play about Aimee Semple McPherson, who had a crazy interesting Pentecostal life. I'm playing one of the lead roles, so I'm glad it's reader's theatre so I don't have to memorize a long script. Apparently someone else was cast in my role, and she wasn't very reliable and quit or something. I don't know for sure. I said yes when the playwright/director asked me, because I miss theatre so much. I think it's going to be good. The music is fun, and I learned a lot about a pretty influential woman in American 20th-century history. We would raise a glass and toast Aimee, and the irony would not escape us, because she was probably against drinking, at least on paper.

If we were sharing a box of wine, I'd tell you every time I have a birthday, I feel like I become more and more transparent, and someday I will become utterly invisible. I'm finally tempted to lie about my age, and I hate that. So vain. Only a couple of people really give a shit about my age, and that says more about them than it does me. You would try to reassure me, but I'm a realist. I would appreciate that you tried though, and then we would probably end up talking about dating -- which I'm not going to do here.

If we were sharing a box of wine, I would tell you I sometimes buy the best presents! Coraline's favorite birthday present from me was definitely her magenta Kindle Fire that came with Amazon's Freetime. That means  she has access to hundreds of books, movies and games free for a year. Her addiction was immediate. And scary to me.

But I think the best gift I gave her was 8 cans of shaving cream. Often after I've finished my shower I'll call her in and wash her hair. Then I'll give her a big pile of shaving cream to play with and she'll stay in the shower running up my water bill for a while. So I gave her her own shaving cream so she could play with it out on the glass-topped patio table.

She had a ball. I had to get my hands in there too, and it felt so cool -- smooth and squishy. Eventually though, she had to come in for dinner, and by then she was covered in foam from her forehead to her feet. I had to spray it off with the garden hose. I thought the cool water would feel good on such a hot day, but she started whining. "What is the big deal?" I said. "It's only water."

"It's not that," she whined. "You got my clothes wet, and dark pink just isn't my color. I need to get these off."

1st world problems.

If we were sharing a box of wine, I'd tell you I have such shitty luck with gardens.  My community garden plot is in a new bed that sits right under a tree. Not only that, the soil is loaded with weed seeds that grow like fucking tribbles, That's my plot there. Not the one you can see. The one on the other side of the tree.

My garden in my yard suffers from the same fate. Too much shade from the neighbors' trees on either side. The neighbor to the north is growing a massive patch of poison ivy up the trunk of said huge tree while my poor tomatoes are pale and sickly looking. I think I should probably give up and put my energy elsewhere next year. Coraline thinks we should just grow raspberries, and let people pick as much as they want. I'm not sure that's the answer either.

If we were sharing a box of wine, we would laugh about this. Because we either need to laugh or run screaming from this country in terror.

If we were sharing a box of wine, it would be empty and I'd mention that it's after 3:00, so I should get to bed. Feel free to crash in the guest room. I'll open some windows and turn on a fan.

What would you tell me if we were sharing a box of wine?

Bye, TED

You know those TED Talks you love watching so much? Turns out those productions take a shit ton of volunteer hours and work to pull off. And helping pull one off is what I did today after a measly 3 hours of sleep.

My ass is dragging, so I'll hit a few high points, and then I plan to be in bed before 1:00 am. Prepare for flying pigs.

One of the women from my writer's bootcamp presented her inspirational talk today. And the talk she gave is one she started at a bootcamp here at my house. It was sensational. I was so proud of and for her. I believe I'll be able to post a video of it eventually. But for now I'll just say that it was a powerful experience having heard the first rough draft of ideas one afternoon in my living room, and then watching her flawlessly deliver the finished talk while her husband played muted trombone under her words. It was my favorite talk of the day.

Another woman, a young Air Force medic, made me cry, both at rehearsal yesterday and during her presentation this afternoon. She described studying in a coffee shop one day when a man with a shotgun came in to celebrate Hitler's birthday by killing black patrons in the shop. It was harrowing to listen to her recount lying there after she'd been badly wounded, pretending to be dead. Her courage and determination touched all of us so deeply .... I will try to post that one too.

During lunch the committee I was on, the audience experience committee, took cards around to all 60 lunch tables and asked the attendees to collaborate and write one word on the card. We gave no further directions, and we collected the cards as they were finished. Some of the words from my section were "sparkle," "aha," "vague" (because my directions were vague), "revolutionary," and "yum." A locally famous poet and professor took the cards and told a story poem using all the words in the order they were given to him for his talk. The audience was surprised and impressed, and when I applauded it was as much for his courage as for the performance.

We had 20 speakers, but I only saw 7 or 8 of them, because I was working the rest of the time. We had lots of "day of" volunteers to help out, but those of us who've been working on committees for the past several months needed to stay on top of the day.

Sometimes I prefer to do the work as opposed to just attending, and this was one of those times. I would have had a wonderful time if I'd paid my $50 and sat my butt in a chair -- the energy in the audience was electric -- but I got to work with some cool new friends on our committee and experience the day from behind the scenes. I'm glad I did that in spite of -- or maybe because of -- the months of work.

The day did hold one disappointment though. Several of us on our committee had been planning all these months to present stories we collected from the audience during our registration process, and as of yesterday we were on the schedule to do that right before lunch. Over the past few months we wrote the application essays, so we could get the best stories, then spent hours condensing and vetting the information. Four of us were supposed to read some of those stories from the stage today.

But after we spent almost 15 minutes trying to track down the person who was supposed to help us rehearse on stage at 8:15 am, we were told that the afternoon before, while we were there setting up the lobby for registration, she had chosen other people to do it. We were bitterly disappointed. I think it's safe to say we still are. It tinged the color of the day for us. Perhaps just because we were so excited about all of it though. Like kids on Christmas morning.

So TEDx is over, and I feel a little of that post-show letdown. It won't last though, because life speeds on .....

For example, Murphy visited me yesterday afternoon and laid down the law when I got in my van to drive to set-up and rehearsal. Something is broken -- the accelerator thingy, my mechanic suspects -- and my van is revving when it should be idling. It's a little nerve-wracking to drive it, because it's idling higher than normal when I take my foot off the brake. In other words, it goes before I put my foot on the accelerator ... kind of like that car in Knight Rider.

So I called my mechanic, who said he's swamped, but if I'll bring it in around 8:00 am, he'll try to fit it in and at least run the computer on it. If he can't fit it in, I'll have to pick it up at 3:00 and take it back Monday. I don't know if driving it is doing more damage, but it doesn't seem to be getting worse. Anyway this gives me an excuse to get in an early morning bike ride. The shop is only about 3 miles away, so I can drop off my van, ride back home, and go back to bed get some more boxes packed.

Finally, it's day 15. I'm halfway through November's NaBloPoMo (National Blog Post Month.) Fingers crossed I can stay the course.