Sister Sense

The Artist's Way encourages you to look for synchronicity in your life... signs, omens, coincidences, examples of fate, providence, highly attuned intuition and answered prayers...

I have always sort of done that anyway, but I'm highly sensitive to the appearance of these things in my life now so since I woke up missing my sisters Wednesday morning I was not the least bit surprised when my sorellina called to break the news of my bambina sorella's breakup from her prince of a high school sweetheart that night...  We've all known it was coming, it was a caveat from the beginning of their relationship that they wouldn't stay together when their freshman year of college came around, but it was sad none the less.

So I don't want to harp on that, I'd rather share a silly anecdote from last weekend. Perhaps the little one will stumble upon this post and at least have a chuckle at her eldest sister's nutty-ness.

I got pulled over on the interstate Saturday night on my way back to Westchester from a BBQ, and when the cop leaned into the window to ask for my license and registration he said "it reaks of booze in this car" (but I have a feeling what he actually smelled was the gasoline I had actually spilled on myself at the Mobil station I stopped by to fill up at before getting on the road because I over paid in cash ahead of pumping not realizing the clicking would mean the tank was full) and anyway, I was like "I went to a bbq where there was drinking hours ago, at like 2... but if I was speeding it's because I was singing along to this soundtrack of Batboy the musical" (and then I turned the volume up so he could hear).  To which he replied, "you were singing?" and I just nodded.  And he said, "well do you always drive with no headlights on on the high way?" and I said, "oh gosh, nope, oh my gosh, sorry, this is the car of the family I'm house sitting for, I didn't realize the lights didn't go on automatically!"

Found the lever, twisted the lights to On and drove off after he told me to "just be safe."

It's a semi-charmed kind of life. 

Book Notes

I'm a little more than a quarter of the way through my fourth draft of The Book largely thanks to the effects of the 11 weeks I've done so far of The Artist's Way.

And I have in the past week come upon two gems...

The first is the recently departed and great David Rakoff's encouraging if pessimistic piece on how writing gets harder



The second are Colson Whitehead's Rules For Writing.

The most clutch of which, I think, is "Rule No. 7: Writer’s block is a tool — use it."

And now that I'm the wiser I will.  Perhaps in future months but for the time being to explain to friends & family members why, after 5.5 years working on "The Book" it's still not finished.

Fortunately I'm feeling unblocked and ready to wrap this draft up in time for my best friend's wedding this October.  I just like to know I have tools.  And I'm in good company when it feels hard.  Nobody said it was easy.

The Peanut Gallery

When I want a quick news fix in the middle of my work day as an Agent I go to msn.com.  I should probably make my default the NY Times, and I've tried to in the past, but something about the interface of msn.com, my familiarity with it, the way it flashes 7 slides with 3 stories each when you open to it makes it my go-to.

Usually it links to NBC news stories or MSNBC news stories or msn business, relationship, or fitness articles that I find interesting enough and pretty well written.

But in the past two weeks, during the Olympics hub-bub it habitually linked to Fox News reports recapping stories coming out across the pond.  And almost everyone I read was repulsively written, with a snarky, conservative stand point leaking between every line.  I finished every article thinking to myself, "who are the assholes they have writing these pieces??"

24 hours after Gabby Douglass won the all around gold, she googled herself and amidst a million articles calling her America's Sweetheart, a handful of comments about her hair not being done well for the competition caught her eye.  The McKayla Maroney is not impressed meme went viral over night, and my bff posted a beautifully written piece to his fb wall which he usually gets no deeper or personal on than in reference to his favorite childhood film or flavored mocha latte and it received over 1300 likes and some few hundred comments...

From the peanut gallery.

Most were positive, but a handful were rude, unintelligent, and most annoyingly, unnecessarily negative.

To which I ask, why???  Why the negativity?  What does it add to the world to make a peanut gallery contribution that's negative?  McKayla Maroney had that smirk on her face in one moment, but she had tears in her eyes for far more as she stood on the gold medal platform smack dab in the middle of the Fab Five, her teammates & friends.  Gabby Douglass defied gravity over and over again with a breathtaking exuberance smiling for miles. 

I mention the Fox news articles I kept coming upon on line last week, because, for the first time ever I was actually tempted to post a comment criticizing what I was reading - but I didn't because the thought would occur to me: what's there to gain? 

Remember that lesson from Bambi?  If you don't have something nice to say don't say it at all.

It's right on.

Once in a blue moon

My aunt posted this little nugget of an astrological fun fact to FB today.  I don't have any crystals to put out for recharging, but I am pretty excited to see what this blue moon has in store for me.

Tonight, my sorellina and I saw Anything Goes at the theatre where we were in The Wedding Singer two Summers ago.  We hugged & congratulated my "show crush" from that Wedding Singer Summer, a stellar tap dancer as it turns out and such a solid guy, who's been happily married now for a year I think and I walked away with two main conclusions from the viewing.

1st.  I don't know if anyone it means a hill of beans to will ever read this assessment/recommendation, but Dori Bryan-Ployer is, I swear, the best choreographer in Boston.  She shapes up a cast into a crisp troupe of dancers with a method I haven't seen since I was first directed and choreographed by one of the greats originally from CA twelve or thirteen years ago.  Feck, I'm old.  (I also cantered at an Irish Wedding this afternoon - amazing - more on that another time, but hence my feeling like saying "feck").  Anyway - Dori - she's so freaking good.  The Lyric or Speakeasy or the Huntington had better scoop her up sooner than later.  And when they do, I'll start coming to Boston to see shows at all three again.

2nd.  Here's the once in a blue moon tie in... The premise of Anything Goes is a guy & girl meet one night at a swinging 1920s or 30s party and fall madly in love driving around Central Park in the back of a taxi cab for 9 hours, but the girl's betrothed to a Brit, and the two lovers don't run into each other again until they happen to both be on the deck of a London bound Ocean Liner 3 months later...  many musical theatre antics unfold and ::SPOILER ALERT:: the guy gets the girl back (with the help of some offensively written scenework and the singin' and dancin' of his public enemy and nightclub crooner friends... it's one of the best).  And it's a riot to think that back when life spans weren't spilling into the 80 and 90 years on the reg, sometimes all it took was ONE NIGHT - one magic moment at a party to seal the deal.  Stick a fork in these two, they were done for, head over heals and ready to take the plunge...

There was no song and dance of an on again off again courtship.  No trial period spent testing out living together in a 2 bedroom apartment before the ring was bought.  It was bing bang boom.  A little moonlight, a little spin around the park, and (likely) a couple kisses combined with what one imagines could at most only have been a little heavy petting, and it was cause for the breaking of an engagement.

Once in a blue moon, I bet love still works like this: "at first sight," in reaction to a gut feeling, and because for all intents and purposes after all, anything goes.

But I haven't seen it do so to date in real life, so for the time being, even though I've been in it twice and seen two of my siblings perform it in middle school and high school productions, even though I've got pretty much every spoken line and no joke every song lyric memorized, I'll keep seeing this show time and time again, whenever I've got the opportunity to.  Because it's not just delovely, it's heavenly.

Cue self indulgent embedding:





Okay enough of that. Take me back to Manhattan ;)