When my lcd monitor is tilted in just the right way, I can catch my reflection in it, and right now, that reflection includes braids. If I leave my hair loose when I go to bed, I wake up with horrible tangles – my mother used to call them rat’s nests – so I generally pile it atop my head and twist a cloth scrunchy around it, but lately that’s been making my head hurt, or my neck, when the scrunchy begins to slide free, so tonight, I twisted my hair into two basic braids. They’re not terribly well done, as I’m not adept at doing my own hair (don’t even ASK me to attempt French braids) but they prevent tangles and don’t make my neck hurt.

I do look about twelve – a really busty, tired twelve – when I catch my reflection, though.

I’m still in a reading mood. This has been the summer of Elin Hilderbrand, but recently I’ve also had a string of books that I’ve been asked to review, and so far, all of them have been really enjoyable. For details, visit my book blog, Bibliotica, and make sure you check out the latest novel I’ve reviewed: Love in Mid Air, by Kim Wright.

I’m writing more than it probably looks like from my blog; I’m just not posting what I write. I have a project I’d like to finish by the end of summer, and I’ve told two or three very special people, who will hold the creative energy and not let it disperse, but I can’t say more or I’ll lose it. I know that sounds weird; trust me, it’s the truth.

Tomorrow, Fuzzy returns, and I get to play with Sage and Tim and Jancis as we record some audio improv for QN. I’m always nervous the night before, and then once we start I have the best time, but I’ve lost the thing that tells me WHEN we play, so I’ve set the alarm for eight in the morning, and I really, really need to sleep now, or I won’t make it.

This whole week has found me out of time and out of sorts, and I’m still not really WELL, but I’m BETTER. I’ll be taking things easy for the next several days…writing and being and resting…because Mom comes on the 12th and there’s a whole week of birthday festivities that begins when she arrives.

Happy, happy Friday.

Meanwhile, I’ve felt ill and fragile all week. I’m not sure if it’s just scary bad PMS or a viral infection – my doctor’s advice nurse recommended rest, fluids, more rest, and more fluids, as my doctor is not available until Monday – but while I was feverish Saturday night and part of Sunday, since then, I’ve just been sore, tired, and kind of nauseous.

Kind of a lot.

Like, I’d look at a website – even something innocuous like cheapestautoinsurance.net – and the letters on the screen would swim and blur, and my head would feel all spinny.

On Monday, I borrowed a friend’s son, who helped with the dogs and did the physical work of making dinner.
On Tuesday, another friend kindly brought me ginger ale and a few cans of MSG-free Progresso chicken soup.
Yesterday, I went to our sacred text study group, but I really couldn’t process anything that was going on.
Today, I slept a lot, wrote stuff for work, did an interview, showered, and spent a quiet evening with a friend, and now I’m just wiped out.
Tomorrow was supposed to be mani-pedi day with another friend, but I’m just not up to sitting in a vibrating chair having people play with my feet.

Fuzzy comes home on Saturday. I feel pathetic for wanting him home – but the dogs are a bit easier to care for with two people here, and the bed is too big, and I want someone else to make my tea for a change.

*Le Sigh*

George Steinbrenner (1930-2010)

I’m not a particularly athletic person, and my family tends to be largely anti-sports, with small exceptions for the artsy kinds of sports like figure skating, and the quick ones, like horse racing. Our holiday gatherings are marked by the total absence of professional football, and even if millions of dollars were at stake, I don’t think any of us – my husband included – could correctly match the Stanley Cup and Heisman Trophy to their respective sports.

Knowing this, it might seem strange that I’m at all affected by the passing, on July 13th, of George Steinbrenner. He was the principal owner and managing partner of the New York Yankees, from 1973 on, though in the last four years, his kids did most of the hands-on work. He wasn’t merely the owner of the baseball team I grew up rooting for (hey, I may sound mostly like a Californian, but deep down, I’m still a Jersey Girl), he was an American institution. In fact, it could be said that Steinbrenner was as much a part of the American landscape as apple pie, the Fourth of July, and baseball itself.

When I was a little girl, with blonde braids and a berry-brown tan, my summers were largely spent at my grandparents’ house in suburban New Jersey. Most days, I’d spend among the women my grandmother referred to as her girlfriends, or gal-pals. There were days, however, when she’d want to go shopping, or have a “gals’ day,” without me tagging along. Those days were always marvelous treats, because I’d spend them solely in the company of my grandfather.

Some days we’d go out to the fishing beach, or to the pier, and try to catch blue fish (which I now know are a variety of sea bass). I remember the salty smell of the bait store, and the murky tanks full of night crawlers and baitfish. They never seemed to have oxygenators, but every so often I’d be startled by a cascade of bubbles. To this day, I remain convinced that nothing in Professor Snape’s dungeon laboratory contained anything as mysterious as the things that swam in the bait store tanks.

Other days we’d stay home. If it was cool, we’d bake bread. I remember turning the crank on the copper dough mixer, only giving up when it was too thick for me, and then Grandpop would take over. Often, we’d spend the day in the yard, which wasn’t all that big, really, but to me it seemed like it went on forever, with different regions – here the garden, there the wild raspberry patch growing out of the compost heap…lemon grass on that side of the house, sticker bushes and stray rose thorns on the other…and in the deepest, darkest, back corner, beyond the giant tree that hosted my tire swing, a fence all tangled in honeysuckle vines. We’d dig in the dirt, play on the swing, and even, when I was very young, on the see-saw he made for me out of a 2×6 or 1×8 and an old sawhorse.

Then, there were the baseball days. These generally occurred in August, when it was too hot, and too humid, for even the most ardent gardeners to leave the air conditioned indoors. My grandfather would strip off his striped cotton shirt, and leave only a white t-shirt on with khaki pants and his “work shoes.” They were leather lace-up shoes, with sturdy soles, and uppers strong enough to support the weight of a small granddaughter who would plead, “Dance me around, Grandpop.” Of course, he never refused. (As I look back, now, at almost-forty, I realize that I’m still attracted to men in plain white t-shirts and sturdy shoes, in much the same way that other women are drawn to men in tight jeans, or military dress uniforms.)

My grandfather would sit in his mustard yellow recliner, with a tall glass of iced tea at his side, and I would bring my Tinker Toys, sprawl on the carpeted floor of the den, and half-listen to whatever game he was watching. Most of the time, this scenario ended with him snoring through the last inning, but every so often, if the Yankees were playing, and playing well, his attention would be kept, and while I played he would explain what was going on – telling me what it meant when the umpire called balls or strikes. I don’t know how much I enjoyed the game, but I still love the old pin-striped classic Yankee uniforms.

When I got a little older, my grandfather taught me some actual baseball skills. Thanks to him, baseball was the only sport I held my own in during grade school gym class. In fact, I think some of my teachers were shocked by the tiny girl with the golden-blonde hair throwing spitters (which, yes, are technically illegal. Mastering them is fun, though.)

My grandfather died the year I turned twenty-one, but his influence and his presence are all around me. The red leather chair he used to sit in when I was a baby, and small enough to be balanced on one of his arms, is mine now, and so are a lot of the toy trains we collected together (HO scale, thank you – including a replica of the Merrimack Railroad). I think of him whenever I see men in fishing hats, or men in work shoes, or whenever I catch the sounds of a baseball game on television.

I don’t know if George Steinbrenner has any granddaughters. I hope that if he does, they have wonderful memories of a special man whenever they hear the resounding crack of a bat connecting with a ball, or the distinctive slap of a ball into a leather glove. I know I do.

My grandfather never met George Steinbrenner, but even though they came from different backgrounds, probably had wildly different political beliefs, and never met in life, I’m quite certain that my grandfather made room for George on that set of bleachers in the sky, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the two of them spent the rest of forever watching the New York Yankees play baseball.

My Grandfather, Edward F. Klindienst (1911-1991)

Unfortunately, a fitful sleep last night gave me a killer migraine and I had to retreat to the cool darkness of our bedroom.

Still the cherries were good.

I’ve been having a great time streaming Netflix stuff on one computer while writing on the other up there, even if I do have to wear a sweatshirt in that room, despite the 100+ degree heat indices we’ve been having for the last few days. A summer storm on Sunday afternoon helped some, but it’s still hot and thick outside.

My second guilty pleasure is the current phase of Degrassi, which, yes, I know, is a teen show, but I’ve been watching it in some form or other since I was a teen – from the time when instead natural vitamin supplements I was still taking chewable vitamins in the shape of Flintstones characters.

Funny, the things you remember.

My third guilty pleasure has been indulging in a massive amount of TOS fanfic. In fact, I’ve been reading the entire chronology of Orion Press work, which begins at the very beginning of classic Trek, and takes us through and beyond the first act of Generations.

It’s an excellent series, in terms of plot, though some of the stories are not as good as others, and it’s kept me sane, and let me have a little fun, in between writing stuff for ATG, and for work, and for myself (not necessarily in that order.)

Also, I like that it includes the Animated Series as canon.

So, those are my three guilty pleasures this summer: Cherries, Degrassi, and TOS TrekFic.

What are yours?

Ten years ago, I hadn’t done a lot improv. I mean, I’d done some in school, and had done some street theatre as an adult, but if you’d asked me about my future, spending several years in a professional improvisational comedy troupe would not have come up. Neither would speaking from the pulpit in this church – or any church.

Then, my friend Jeremy dragged me to an improv bootcamp a mutual friend, Clay, was leading. They needed extra people in the group, and knew I liked the art form. After an intense day of theatre games and mime workshops, I was hooked. Four years later, I was performing almost every weekend, had dyed my hair pink, and had learned that improv wasn’t just improving my writing skills, it was making me more confident overall.

Yesterday morning, I was involved in recording an audio improv show for a friend’s podcast. It was the first episode of a new series, and the three of us who were tapped to be “players” all had one thing in common: we hadn’t done any preparation. By this I mean that while our microphones were set up correctly, and our recording software was set to the appropriate sample rates, none of us had done more than glance at the list of games we were meant to be playing. Rather than being a bad thing, though, it was perfectly alright, because we’re improvisers, and we’re trained to enter into a new situation without having any instructions to guide us along the way.

After the recording was done, while we were waiting to upload our recorded files, we lingered on Skype for a while, talking about improv, and what we’d all learned from it, and we came to the collective realization that what we’d learned from our improv training could be applied to every aspect of life.

Here are some examples, in no particular order.

• Don’t Perform; Play. Like many other art forms, improv is make-believe for adults, and it works best when you stop worrying about entertaining other people, and just play. When you play, you’re less self-conscious, and more in the moment. You think faster, listen better, and are generally more responsive. It’s not about the performance, it’s about the experience. In life, we make deeper connections when we stop worrying about impressions, and just let ourselves be in the moment.
• Support Your Partner. In improv we’re taught that not only is there no “I” in “team,” but that the job of each player is to make everyone else look good. At ComedySportz, before each show, we would literally pat each other on the back, and say, “I’ve got your back,” to lend assurance that no matter what happened, no one was going out there alone. In life, we also have to support each other. We have one world, one community, one extended family. If we don’t stick up for each other, who will?
• Claim Your Mistakes. We’re often told we learn from our mistakes, and that learning how to fail is just as important as learning to succeed. New improvisers are taught to take deep bows even when they utterly failed in a scene, not to celebrate the failure, but to celebrate the fact that they tried. Accepting that we all make mistakes helps us handle setbacks more gracefully. Improv also reminds us that as long as we respond truthfully – with honest emotion – there are no wrong answers. True, there are high percentage and lower percentage choices, but even the “bad” choices can still lead us in new directions. Remember the words of Thomas Edison, who, when trying to develop a working light bulb, reportedly said, “I haven’t failed, I’ve found 10,000 ways that don’t work.”
• Pay Attention. How many times in your life has a parent or teacher admonished you to “Pay attention!” How many times has a child implored you to “Listen to me!” In improv, if you aren’t paying attention to your partners, you miss vital information. After all, improv is often all about endowment, and if you don’t hear someone introducing you as their husband/sister/next door neighbor/English teacher/whatever, you won’t know how best to add to the scene in progress. In life, lack of attention means anything from hurt feelings to actual injuries (How many of us have been behind a driver not using turn signals? How many of us have forgotten to signal turns?)
• Be Specific. Some of you may remember me mentioning this last year on Meditation Sunday when I talked about writing as meditation. It bears repeating. Specifics matter. Specifics are the difference between, “I wish I had some help moving chairs,” and “Kimberlyn, would you help me move chairs around after services?” It’s the difference between, “I’m in a bad mood,” and “I’m angry at you because you forgot to take the garbage out. Again.” It’s the difference between two people talking on an empty stage and two people at a bar, or in the park, or in the kitchen, even if the lines don’t change, and set pieces aren’t in existence.
• Yes, And… There’s an improv mantra, of sorts, that goes, “You can’t deny another person’s reality, you can only build on it.” The shorthand version of this is “Yes, and.” One of the most important improv practices is to build on what you’re given – to take what another improviser has given you, and expand it. It is building momentum, instead of allowing inertia, and it works in real life, as well. It creates deeper connections. When you say “Yes, and” you’re validating what another person has said, and adding something new. In its broadest sense, “Yes, and” is saying yes to everything life throws at you – good or bad – and then adding to it. It is accepting the reality of any given situation, and then being willing to take the next step.

Mark often reminds us that it takes courage just to walk into a new church. I think doing so is one of the ultimate ways we say “Yes, and,” to the universe. When I first came here, I put “yes, and” into practice first by stepping through the doors, then by returning the next week, and not too long later, by volunteering to teach RE for a quarter. (For me, an only child who grew up without ever really being around younger kids, that was one of the scariest things I’d ever done. Children terrified me. A year later, I gleefully shared with Marcia that when my lawn guy brought his eight-year-old son with him to hang my Christmas lights, instead of retreating to my warm house and freshly brewed coffee, I hung out with the kid, chatting about school, and stuff.)

If I’d never done improv, I’d probably still have made it here, but I probably wouldn’t have volunteered for RE, or joined the blog team, or ever come up here to take the microphone. I’ve internalized a lot of the improv principles I’ve shared today – but I still have to make a conscious effort to replace “No, because,” or “Yes, but,” with “Yes, and,” when I’m feeling grumpy or snarky or shy.

When I told Clay – the improv bootcamp guy I told you about – I was doing this, he said, “Melissa, you have to tell them that “Yes, and” has been around since the dawn of time.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He responded by quoting from the book of Genesis:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Whether you believe that passage represents the actual Creation story, or is just a treasured myth from an important literary source, I think it’s pretty obvious that creating light from darkness is one, giant, cosmic “Yes, and.”

Shakespeare was right when he said that all the world is a stage.

But the play of life? It’s unscripted.

And for a moment – well, and hour or two – I was tempted. I mean, the money was that good, and that was before I realized I could probably get them to increase it.

Except…

Except I like my life, and even though I really need to make about $800 more a month to be completely comfortable, I’m mostly happy right now, and when I was working in the mortgage industry I was mostly crabby and exhausted.

Except I no longer have the right clothing – at all – for returning to the corporate world, and if I were to go back to such a job it would require a complete, and expensive, wardrobe overhaul, and I’d have to give up a lot of projects I’m committed to and invested in.

Except that working in an office in Dallas means a daily commute, buying lunch, hitting Starbucks every day, and paying to fill the gas tank a lot more often, and with the exception of the Starbucks part of the equation, I’m really not keen on any of that.

And yet, there’s a part of me that feels flattered I still get calls when I haven’t been a part of that industry in almost four years. And there’s a part of me that is tempted.

Really, really tempted.

He came out of his crate, grabbed a water bottle, went to the door, where Fuzzy was waiting.
He wagged his tail, turned in a circle, walked to the far side of the bed.
Spun around walked back to the door.
Came over to me and nudged me so I’d pet him.

Wash, rinse, repeat, except for the grabbing of the water bottle, since he’d kept it in his mouth the entire time.

Right now, he’s outside, and Fuzzy said he didn’t even drop the water bottle while peeing, but came back in, after, dropped it then, and went back out to continue his nightly deposit.

And I think he may be growing.
Again.

The heat is back, and the humidity with it, and I’ve got lots of stuff buzzing in my head, which I’m slowly getting into computer files and paper, before I lose it. It’s not stuff for online publication though. Not yet, anyway.

There’s a post I want to write, but there’s no way for me to write it without it revealing far more than I care to HERE, and without it coming across as both tacky and psychotic, which it isn’t intended to be, so I might send it to a friend or two, who will “get it.”

I made peanut butter cookies, and gave half of them away.

I spent $30 on various varieties of greek yogurt and fresh berries.

I’ve been listening to a lot of jazz, drinking a lot of fizzy limeade, and even more water, and trying to go to sleep at reasonable hours (unsuccessfully….)

I’m enjoying the show “Desperate Werewives,” (aka “The Gates”) far more than I should.

I think this season of “True Blood” might be too violent and bloody even for me. And I wish they’d bring in Bubba. I suspect they won’t. But I want them to. Badly.

I turn 40 in 33 days.

While he does write and perform a lot of his own stuff, he also sometimes covers other people’s tunes (who doesn’t?). This cover, of Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come,” is one of my favorite of Boutte’s recordings.

Enjoy.

This is Rhett, our current foster from Shelter2Rescue. He’s a three-year-old red heeler (Australian Cattle Dog). He’s sweet and silly, loves to play, lives for belly rubs, and is just generally a great dog. He even loves kids!

Rhett is house trained and crate trained, and doesn’t have a mean bone in his body, though some small dogs and cats confuse him.

He’s about 35 pounds, up to date on shots, and already neutered, and he’s available for adoption for $200.

If you’re interested in this dog, or know someone who is, contact me, and I”ll put you in touch with the Shelter2Rescue adoption coordinator.