I Don't Need No F&%^ing Bucket List!

The other night...or was it early morning...I wrote about how I don't have a bucket list, but how Miss Serendipity leads me to things that should be on my bucket list and then I cross them off the non-existent bucket list. I was really writing about theatre, but the bucket list was there, probably in the footnotes because I don't have one. There was that time I was going to make a vision board, but I didn't finish it. OK, I cut some photos out and left them in a pile on the coffee table. Whatever. I have neither a vision board nor a bucket list. Ask me what's on my bucket list and I'll just give you a stupid look and change the subject to your bucket list.

Anyway, after I published that post, I checked for new posts from my regular blog porn and the only one there was about ... you guessed it from the title of this post so it doesn't count .... an entry The One True Sue wrote about a bucket list contest she'd entered*. Today as I was flying to Greece in a private jet waiting for my malware software to clean up a nasty critter that infested my computer, I went back to my blog porn and the first post that came up was Laura Mayes' latest post at Blog con Queso and it's about .... don't bother to guess because of course its about her bucket list, which she calls her life list. What the fuck? I thought. (Yes, I think in words, not in acronyms. I did not think WTF?)

Oh please, Miss Serendipity, don't make me write a bucket list. Unless the purpose is to win that contest, which I don't even have a link to, please don't make me write a bucket list. I've done similar visionary bullshit before. I've written what I want on pieces of paper and done all kinds of rituals, with or without people, during full moons and dark moons and even while I rode around in the night sky on my broom, and none of this shit works. Writing the things I wish I could do on a bucket list makes them no more likely to happen than I am likely to spontaneously start farting Mozart. I sometimes suspect just the act of asking for dreamy things like .... no, I'm not going to list any .... just the act of asking makes the Universe laugh and hold them there, just out of my reach.

Sigh.

Damn it.

Miss Serendipity is fucking with me. She does that. Then she hits me over the head a couple of times--metaphorically if I'm lucky--and I'm supposed to listen. A bucket list. The next thing I need to do, as if I didn't have enough to do, is write a bucket list. It's nothing but a recipe for disappointment. I know it is.

But I'm going to write a bucket fucking list.

And find that contest. I'm not doing this for nothing. Sorry, Sue. You're gonna have some competition. It won't be much, trust me, but I'm not doing this because I think anything good will come out of it. I need a higher purpose; I need competition. (I sure don't need no fucking bucket list.)

*She didn't post a link to the contest though because she doesn't want the competition. She's wily, that one.

There's a list in this bucket somewhere.

Wordless Wednesdays: On Your Mark...

All the World's a Stage

Shakespeare may have been writing about my life when he wrote "all the world's a stage." About a year ago a friend nagged me mercilessly encouraged me to audition for a play he was stage managing. The play was Wit, a Pulitzer prize-winner about an English professor who's dying of cancer. I didn't expect to get a part, even though the story hit pretty close to home, minus the cancer, knock wood. Just auditioning, I thought, would stretch me enough. It was a step, something I'd never done, something that scared me more than a little, and if I just did the audition, I could cross it off my bucket list. So I did it .... and it was fun!

All we did was cold readings from the script and hell, I can read. And I can act. I do it in real life all the time, so that night, I acted like an actress. The scariest part was when the director, Matthew, asked me to read for the lead, a monster of a part and one I certainly wasn't ready for. He told me later if I'd had any experience, he really might have given me the part. Thank you, Jesus, he didn't. But he did give me several small ensemble parts, much to my surprise, and so a diva was born I made my entry into the community theater world. 

Wit

As soon as Wit was over, I auditioned for Octette Bridge Club. I wrote about that last week here.  Lil was a much bigger part, lots of lines and, although it wasn't a musical, I had to sing and play the piano. My addiction deepened. It wasn't just the time on stage because I'm not really a diva. I've been working one small step at a time through a severe performance phobia for years, so I'm not always sure I even like the time on stage. It's the community, the working together to bring about the production, and the feeling of belonging that has spilled into every area of my life in the past year. I've met dozens of new friends, and only one of them has turned out to be the shallow, fake stereotype you might expect of theatre people. I rarely go out these days without running into at least one person I know from the theater world and sharing a moment. It's....well, shit. Anything I would say about that would be too mushy for Reticula to write. I love these people, man!

Octette Bridge Club

And now? Well, now I'm involved in two plays at the same time: "Master Harold" ... and the boys  and Scrooge. And with both of them, I'm crossing another experience off my unwritten bucket list.*

I'm not acting in "Master Harold" ... and the boys. I'm the stage manager, and Matthew, who gave me my big break in Wit, is the director. When he asked me to do it, I reminded him that I'm somewhere below a neophyte, but he said he was fine with that. He said he's a teaching director and he knew I could manage a stage. So I said, "Sure. I'll do it." Because that's what I do. I say yes and then I fake my way through situations like this in total ignorance. I had no idea what a stage manager does, because it's been radically different in each of the plays--yes, all two of them--I've been in. But I said yes because sometimes I just say yes and let the consequences roll.

And it's been a great experience: four gay guys and me putting together a powerful play on racism and relationships in 1950 South Africa. I'm not sure what stage managers normally do, but Matthew has involved me in every aspect of the play. I've given stage directions, talked about character development and story arc (that part I'm not faking), taught choreography, posted rehearsal times on our FB wall ... and one of these days Matthew will step back and the play will be mine. He'll show up for opening night and that's it. He gives a lot of responsibility to his stage manager, and I've learned a hell of a lot in the past few weeks. He also says I should direct my own show someday, but I think I'm fine just playing a supporting role. And I can cross stage manager off my bucket list--not that I knew it was on there when I said I'd do it.

A couple of weeks ago I also auditioned for Scrooge. I wasn't sure I would audition; in fact, I thought I would chicken out. The phobia. I didn't want to have to do the singing part of the audition.** I've done one musical audition for A Piece of My Heart, and I didn't get the part. But I got to play my guitar for that one; I was doing something I do in real life. I didn't even really prepare for it because it was the morning after opening night for Octette. Besides I knew I wasn't really right for the part, so I didn't expect to get it. The Scrooge audition required a musical theater number, and I've never done musical theater, so I was going to chicken out.

But as we were leaving our rehearsal, Matthew said, "You should audition. There aren't many women in there." I said, "No, I don't have a song." "Just sing 'Happy Birthday,'" he said, and then he went up to the table and asked the woman manning it if it was too late for me to audition. She handed me a clipboard and I did what I do. I followed Miss Serendipity right into that audition.

I stood in front of the director, music director, stage manager, producer and all the other auditioners and I sang horribly. No, really, it was bad. I decided to sing "Cry," a song I sang to my kids as I rocked them and that I now sing to my granddaughter. And I started it, but the music director said he wanted to hear my high register. So instead of switching to Mozart or something soprano-ish, I just bumped "Cry" up a few whole steps and warbled and shook through the entire song. I was blazing with embarassment when it was over, but I stayed for the cold reading too .... and I got a part! A real part with a name and lines and everything. My very first musical, after all these years as a musician. Cross another one off my bucket list.

So now I'm working on two plays at once. And let me tell you what that looks like. "Master Harold" ... and the boys rehearsals Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday nights from 6:30-9:30. Scrooge vocal rehearsal today at noon because I'm missing the ones scheduled for Monday and Wednesday, and then a two-hour choreography rehearsal tonight. And another choreography Thursday night. It's a lot. And it's so much fun!

Choreography! I love dancing, but I've never done choreography before. We worked on one song for two hours, and I could have stayed and done it another two. Not true of my male partners. The first one only made it through half of the rehearsal and had to sit out the rest. The second one was grabbing his knees before we were done. (This is a whole other post, the problem of men my age not being able to keep up with me. Yes, that sounds arrogant, but it's a fact. And kind of a problem. Think anything you want about that and it's probably exactly what I mean.) OK, it wasn't my fault this time that my partners couldn't keep up. I wondered what I would do for exercise once it was too cold to ride my bike ...... now I know.

And here's the reticulation of these two plays. Matthew directed me in Wit and now I'm stage managing with him. The Scrooge director is the Octette director's daughter. And he is in the cast, along with another of my sisters from Octette. And one of the other ensemble members from Wit is also in the cast, singing soprano with me, as is my friend, the Wit stage manager. The wife of the director who didn't cast me in A Piece of My Heart  has a part. And I'm sure before it's over, I'll notice other connections.

This is a rather dry recitation, a resume if you will, of my theater experience. I have stories, interesting experiences, but when I'm in a play, it takes a lot of time. I don't get a chance to write much. Even as I write tonight, it's almost 3:00am and I've got 20+ conferences to do with students tomorrow. But I'm going to try to be better at writing short snippets and sharing them now that I've set the stage.

Next act....bed.

* It's kind of pathetic, but I don't really have a bucket list. I could probably write an entire post about my lack of bucket list, and maybe I will. Someone once asked me, after telling me a few things on his, what was on my list and I couldn't come up with one thing to tell him. But I do follow Miss Serendipity and often I retroactively add experiences to my bucket list. I learned a long time ago not to want anything too much, not to ask for what I want, and that lesson is still being reinforced today so .... I don't have a bucket list. I don't expect to get what I ask for. But I do know when something that should be there has been crossed off. Maybe someday I'll meet somebody who helps me believe in the bucket list..... Maybe that should be the first entry on my list.

** People who know me will probably be puzzled by this. It's true though. This phobia exists and I do battle with it as often as possible.

Life on Wisteria Lane

For a while now my daughter Elvira has been complaining that my life is more interesting than hers. It's true, what she says. I have been cursed by an evil fairy at birth blessed with an interesting life. I was born a red-haired small town scandal, and I've been given interesting stories to tell since. The past few years I've experienced enough for seven memoirs, but all seven would have to be published posthumously. I don't need for my life to get that interesting. Not everyone in my life owns a Prius, you know; some of them actually own guns and pick-up trucks, and those are the ones who would make the most interesting stories.

Last summer Elvira started comparing my life to Desperate Housewives. If you're a fan, you can understand why I would protest. Totally unbelievable plots peopled by rather stereotypical characters that somehow entertained Elvira and me enough that we've watched it for six years and will probably fly our flags at half-mast next spring when the final episode airs. Nobody's life is really like Desperate Housewives though, is it? Of course not... right?

Last summer, shortly after I moved into the 'hood city, I told Elvira she was exaggerating. I said, "Elvira, I think you're exaggerating. Nobody's life is like Desperate Housewives. And besides, I'm not a housewife any more. Since your father, Lt Col Ex, dumped me for a much younger sociopathic liar who used to flatter me by saying she wanted to be me when she grew up and who dyes her hair the same color as mine moved out, I've been teaching...."

"Mom," Elvira rarely lets me finish a sentence. "Face it. You're just like Bree Van de Kamp."

"Bree? Bree? I'm not like Bree! She's a tight ass perfectionist who let both her husband and a boyfriend die while she watched and drove her son to..."

"She bakes muffins and her house is perfect and all kinds of crazy things happen to her. You're like Bree."

"You're just saying that because she's the redhead. How cliched is it to have a blonde one, a redhead, and two brunettes? I think I'm more like..."

Another crazy redhead

"You're Bree. Look at how you kept our house. It was perfect."

"Not all the time. Remember how Hoghead went home and had glitter all over his clothes that one time and I let all the weeds grow up in the...."

"How many times did you vacuum every week?"

"If I  had a lot of papers to grade, that was a treat I gave myself. I'd grade ten papers and then I'd get to vacuum for ten minutes or wash the...."

"Yeah. Bree."

"And besides, I don't live in the suburbs any more and I could never get the carpet in this house as clean as..."

"You're Bree," she repeats herself until I'm exhausted and give in sometimes, but not yet.

"Elvira, Bree is an alcoholic who can't drink wine any more. I drink wine by the box, so I can't be...."

"It's not just the cleaning and the baking. Look at the shit that happens to you!"

"I've certainly never let anybody die right in front of me, although if your father, Lt Col Ex, choked on a chicken bone right now I might...."

"OK, look at what happened the day you moved. You were standing out in the yard talking to your friend, Linda, when you received a text. Just as you pulled your phone from your pocket and looked at the message, the almost full moving van started to roll down the driveway and you watched it crash into the house ..... the house you'd closed on the week before and didn't own any more. And the text was from your close friend who is a lawyer..."

"He just wanted to see how the move was going. He didn't know about the truck when he sent the...."

"....who is a lawyer and whom you had arrested earlier this summer, Mom ... anyway, your friend the lawyer texted you just as a moving truck rolled into your house and nobody was even surprised that the truck rolled into the house. Mom, you're Bree."

"I don't really think it was necessary to bring up the arrest. You know that was painful for both...."

"Mom! That's not the point!"

"It's true that when I called Starr...."

"Your handyman's name is Starr*! One more for my side."

"I love Starr. He's so hot."

"Mom!"

"Sorry. It's true that when I called him he didn't even say hi when he answered. He just said, 'What happened now, babe?' OMG, he's so cute! Did I tell you about the time Colorado and I were standing under the skylight while he was fixing the roof and he had on shorts .... "

"Yeah, nobody is surprised any more that you live on Wisteria Lane."

"I live in a gated community now, I'll have you know." **

We've had a variation of this conversation a few times, Elvira and I. She feels kind of cheated that she's 20 and her life is less interesting than her old mom's life, so when she's bored she'll call and get a story. But Desperate Housewives? Really? That seems a little....well, then again, maybe Elvira has a point.

So the new season started a few weeks ago and .... just to catch you up ... Gabby Solis's abusive step-father showed up and attacked her in her house. Her husband Carlos walked in just in time and cracked him over the head and killed him. Now, Carlos has been to prison before, so he didn't want to go back,and besides the step-father deserved to be killed several times over. As they were pondering the situation, the other desperate housewives showed up to help Gabby get ready for her leg of a neighborhood traveling dinner party....well, anyway they walked in.

Bree took control and guided them into hiding the body until the party was over, and then taking it out and burying it in the woods. Then she went home and fucked her hot police detective boyfriend. She eventually broke up with the hot police detective boyfriend and now he hates her .... fuck me, this is so familiar .... And now her daughter is making sex swings and selling them on the internet .....

OMG! I've had an epiphany. I really am Bree Van de Kamp! If I walked into a friend's house and her husband had just killed her abusive step-father, I would so lead the body-burying party. And I would also tell Susan to shut the fuck up and stop whining about it. And I would also fuck my hot police detective boyfriend....OK, that's probably not relevant....but I would so boink that guy in spite of his jumbo ears, and I would break up with him even if it was the last thing I wanted to do. I would do all of that, and the scary thing is ... it's something that I could imagine really happening in my interesting life, and I wouldn't feel one bit of remorse. Not one bit. Well .... maybe about breaking up with the hot police detective, but I'm sure he'd turn into an asshole who deserved it. Inevitably if I went out with him, he'd turn out to be a total asshole and proud of it.

Our cows

How do I know I'm Bree? OK, a couple of weeks ago I made the raw milk pickup for our little herd  share co-op.  Chicken Grrrl came over to get her milk, and as we were carrying a large cooler full of several gallons of milk in half-gallon glass Bell jars from my van to her car, my neighbor across the street, Melvyn, called out, "Hey, baby. Whatcha got in there? You need some help?"

I shouted back, "No, we can carry it."

"You  know I love you, baby. Whatchoo got in there?" Melvyn is in love with me, partly because I'm so lovable and partly because he's an alcoholic, and I attract fucked up men.

"It's a dead body. We don't need to involve you. Love you too."

"OK, baby. You let me know if you need help."

"OK. We don't. It's only one body. We've got this."

As we strained to lift the cooler into the back of her car, I looked up and saw two cops half a block away, walking up the street toward us, just seconds after my conversation with Melvyn. I laughed. "Looks like we're busted with this dead body," I said.

The cops stopped to visit. One of them asked if we lived nearby. I said I lived in the green house there, and  I sure appreciated them walking the neighborhood. He said they worked for the hospital, so they weren't really patrolling for criminals. I noted they had guns and that seemed like a helpful deterrent to crime.

"You could be dealing drugs right in front of me and I wouldn't say anything," the cop told us.

Hmmmm, I thought. (Yes, I really do think, hmmmm, sometimes.) Hmmm. I wonder if he's trying to score some pot.

"I don't think you need to worry about me dealing drugs in front of you," I said. "Usually I'm more discreet than that."

"Well, you could and I wouldn't do anything," he said. I didn't direct him to either of the two drug dealers on the block.

"What if we were carrying a dead body in a cooler?" I said. Chicken Grrrl gasped behind me, as if we had really carried a dead body to her car just minutes before. Then I heard her giggle.

"If you were carrying a dead body, we'd probably have a discussion about that," he said.

I laughed. "Oh, you wouldn't offer to help? I've heard dead bodies are heavy," I said.

"No, I probably wouldn't help," he said. And they soon walked on, leaving us to our cooler full of dead body milk.

Here's the thing: If we'd really been carrying a dead body, I wouldn't have done anything different. Chicken Grrrl would have vomited in the street beside her car, but not me. I would have joked with Melvyn and with the cops about the dead body. And then I would have taken it somewhere--not saying where--and dug a hole and buried it.

It's not that I'm a killer, nor do I want to be. I'm not even a hater. And I'm certainly not a sociopath. Hell, I come out on the opposite end of the spectrum on the sociopath checklist. And I don't think I invite trouble. But in certain kinds of situations, I tend to take control and clean up the mess. And then I make Jello shots bake muffins and make sure life gets back to normal ..... well, what I call normal. For a while .... until the next interesting thing happens.

I've known people whose lives were not interesting, people who either lived through other people, or just didn't live, as far as I could tell. I'm glad I'm not either of those. But sometimes having an interesting life can be a challenge too. Like when calling the police becomes the last reasonable option or a moving van backs into your house, or when a dead body needs to be dealt with. Sorry I can't write about the latter here, should it ever happen, because that's another thing Bree knows how to do. She knows how to keep a secret, and so do I. One thing about an interesting life: even if I keep a few secrets, there will always be more stories to tell. I've been avoiding telling an important one, but my muse Delores isn't going to let me do that much longer. Interesting isn't always funny, is it? Sometimes it's just ... interesting.

* The really sad thing is that Starr died in the middle of the night of a heart attack just a couple of days after he repaired the damage from the moving van crashing into my house. He was only 30 years old. Sometimes no matter how you spin it, an interesting life isn't a funny life. I've got a lot of stories to prove that.
** I live in a neighborhood with locked gates that block the street every two blocks. They were installed in the 90's to prevent high-speed chases with drug dealers and drive-by shootings. It seems to have worked. I drive much slower after I turn down my street, and I still haven't shot anybody.

Alt Uses for Breast Milk

Some recent text conversations with my daughter, Elvira,* about breast milk.

Elvira: I'm afraid Baby Girl has pink eye.

Me: Is her eye irritated and glossy? Pink eye will make her eyeball glossy.

Elvira: It's pretty red. I can't tell if it's glossy. What should I do?

Me: Doctors usually don't treat pink eye any more. It goes away in its own in time, but it's highly contagious. Let's keep an eye on it.

Me: Hee.

Next day...

Me: How's Baby Girl's eye today?

Elvira: It's fine. I put some breast milk in it.

Me: You put breast milk in her eye? Really?

Daughter: It's supposed to have healing properties.

Me: But in her eye?

Elvira: Just a little bit. It worked.

Me: I never would have considered putting breast milk in your eye.

A few days later, from the commissary....

Me: I'm picking up some Desitin to keep at home. Do you need any?

Elvira: I don't need it. I use breast milk.

Me:  It's for diaper rash.

Elvira: I know. I use breast milk.

Me: You put breast milk on her butt? 

Elvira: It has healing properties. She had a little diaper rash so I squirted some breast milk on it and it went away immediately.

Me: I never would have considered putting breast milk on your butt.

Today....

Elvira: Breast milk cures razorburn. LOL

Me: I want some!

Elvira: OK.

Me: W00t!

Elvira and me, we don't need no fucking Silk'n SensEpil. We've got breast milk.

* She chose her own name. It fits.