Gee...no, GTD!

I confess: my passion for giving unsolicited advice is almost as great as my passion for making lists. So when Neil Kramer, a.k.a. Citizen of the Month, a.k.a. Blogebrity's newest word pimp, posted this semi-solicitous comment on a semi-recent post about the power of making lists, my hard little heart leapt for joy. (All I really want for Christmas is to be like Heather Havrilesky.)

Dear C-trix,

You seem to be a person who's found a great deal of inspiration from list-making and organizational tools. Since I look up to in these matters, I've tried to sit down and make lists of my own: things I want to do with my life, places I want to go, people I want to meet. But after writing down the numbers on the left hand side of the page, I get a severe case of jitters as I think about what I truly want, and I always end up ripping the list up. What is wrong with me?

Well, Neil, I do get a lot out of making lists. Listmaking is more than useful to me in the organizational sense, I also derive great comfort and security from my lists. They relax me! They cheer me up! They are much, much cheaper than cigarettes, alcohol, or dulling lifestyle pr0n like cable TV, Oprah magazine and weekend getaways.

That said, there is, or can be, a masturbatory quality to lists. Right now, for example, if that old saw were true and applied to listmaking, I'd be getting fur stuck in the keyboard as I type this.

That's why, along with a few other projects I'm implementing over the holiday break, I'll be baptizing myself at the church of David Allen and adopting my new faith: GTD.

Much has been written about the GTD, short for "Getting Things Done", method of organization. Don't believe me? Check Technorati*. Google that sucker. Shrines have been erected for Allen and his philosophy of stress-free management all over this geek paradise we call the interwebs. So I won't go into too much detail here, other than to say this:

GTD is not about organization for organization's sake, but clearing your mental (and I believe, spiritual) decks for bigger and better things than remembering whether you need to pick up socks at the grocery store, making it especially good for creative people who spin like tops most of the time.

Good? Wait, let me revise that: terrifying. The 25% implementation I did of GTD two years ago scared me so much with its potential for change and growth, I immediately abandoned it for fear of the potential (and attendant responsibility) I could suddenly see lay (lie? laid? christ!) with getting my shit together.

But the world turns and times don't change and eventually, I get sick of it. Besides, I finally saw the part where Allen says it's just FINE to make lists for fun if that's what floats your boat: just don't forget to do the heavy lifting first.

So I'm using my blog once again for what it does best: humiliate me into making changes. I'll stop posting after this Friday (one more treat left for good little boys and girls!) and use the time to get my house in order. Literally**. The first step in implementing GTD is what Allen calls the Collection Process, or "Getting to Empty." That means grabbing every bit of stray paper, every item on every list, every to-do/read/pay/whatever in your paper, electronic and voice corrals, putting them in one place and then sorting through, beginning to end, until you know where everything in your life is. No "I'll think about this later." Now. Do it. Delegate it. File it. Trash it.

He warns people to block out a minimum of one day, preferably two for this escapade. I'm thinking two and keeping a third day flexible, just in case. I'm not looking forward to it, and yet I am: he's described the feeling most people have at the end of the processing, and it sounds like two parts realizing the monster in the corner was just a coat on the chair and one part noticing how good your head feels when you stop banging it against the wall.

And who knows: maybe there will be extra blogging. One of the unexpected benefits most people feel (outside of relief) is a surge of creative energy. If you're not keeping a bunch of crap in the RAM, there's room for some cool stuff. God knows, I like cool stuff.

So keep a good thought. Buy the book and play along if you like. It should be an interesting journey.

If nothing else, it'll be a really dorky one.

xxx c

*21 posts in the last fifteen minutes!!!

**Well, it's an apartment, almost literally.

GTD references:

You can get the book here. You can read a good intro to GTD on Merlin Mann's website, here.

TAGS: GTD, Getting+Things+Done, David+Allen, organizing

The city mouse and the inner-city mouse

The BF grew up on a farm and hates nature; I grew up in downtown Chicago and have quaint notions about how great it would be to live in a small town, i.e., someplace with a smattering of the goods and services I need within walking distance, adjacent to a shitload of nature. You can see the potential problem here.

Right now, we're both still relatively young* and able to cross large, busy intersections before some turd in a Hummer mows us down. But I can see the day ahead when I'm going to be over the filth, done with the congestion, and stranded on that tiny island in the middle of the street, clinging to the traffic light for dear life until the 'walk' sign comes back on. Not a pretty picture.

Plus I want to make sure we are compatible for the long haul. The BF is adamant on the issue of city life; I am adamant on the issue of The BF. Could someone, somewhere, be kidding herself here?

Fortunately, in a stroke of Christmastime serendipity, my blog doppelganger, Samantha Burns (I swear, it's like we were separated at birth, 20 years apart), came up with the answer: the Where You Should Live Quiz.

I took it immediately and pressed The BF to do the same. Surely this rigorous scientific measuring tool would provide us with the answer to our future, something more actionable than "ask again later".

The eerily-true stuff

Relatively speaking, The BF is, no surprise, The Yuppie of the relationship. He is constantly dragging me out to breakfast, lunch and dinner at charming neighborhood eateries when there is perfectly good food in grocery stores lying there uncooked and on special.

Also, the test mavens see him in a loft; so does he. I, on the other hand, lived in a crap part of Brooklyn for two years, and have had enough pee stink and garbage to last a lifetime (although I do miss the 'F' train). And he definitely has a better job than me, The Bohemian Gentrifier, or, as my friend, Scott Ferguson, used to call our little cohort, the Downwardly Mobile White Trash Who Make the Neighborhood Safe for Land Speculators.

The not-so-true stuff

Contrary to test conclusions, The BF does not think he is cooler than everyone else: he thinks he's cooler than everyone else...in Indiana, which is probably true.

The BF is also less likely to patronize a chain store of any sort than I, cheap bastard that I am, and I think he'd rather eat moth balls than a Big Mac. Me? If SCD allowed it, I'd still be enjoying my monthly Extra Value Meal #9, a.k.a. Filet-O-Fish with fries and a Coke. Supersize that baby and I'll meet you at the vomitorium.

The final result: a lifetime of mutual bliss, albeit the urban variety

Fortunately for our relationship, The BF and I still enjoy significant areas of overlap: both of us loathe resort vacations; neither one of us would feel one whit safer if the government and military were the only ones armed (especially under this particular administration); and, despite living in the American city that most resembles one, we are united in our hatred of the dreaded suburbs.

In fact, my acceptable population-to-land-mass ratio is only slightly lower than The BF's, and I'm in the 81st percentile for my age and sex, making me an utter fucking freak as far as lifestyle choices go:

Perhaps that's a good thing**. If I think about it, I'm just as happy with my fellow citizens not knowing, or, more accurately, not caring, whether my recycle bin clanks on the way to the curb and how much I like my nooners. God bless my gay, hophead neighbors.

And yes, that goes for you guys, too.

xxx c

*Quit laughing Neil, Jenny, Brandon and the rest of you baby-something punks. You are so much closer to the senior citizen discount than you know.

**It's definitely a good thing for The BF, who has said flat-out that one of the reasons he likes me is because I'm a freak.

Where You Should Live Quiz by TwelveFloorsUp, a city planner from Arlington, VA.

Wherein we explore, a year into the process, exactly what the hell a "communicatrix" is supposed to do

I had an interesting session with my shrink yesterday. In the four years (off and on, give or take) I've been seeing her, we've done a lot of the heavy lifting towards self-actualization, leaving room to focus on some "problems"* that are really luxurious in nature: you know, the philosophical biggies like "why am I here?" and "how can I best use my talents to help others?" rather than "how can I keep myself from sticking my head in this oven and making the rest of my family's lives a living hell on earth?".

So...why am I here? And what the hell should I do with my life, or what's left of it?

The truth is, while over the years I've become a passable copywriter, a decent actress, a fairly good designer and made money at all of them, nothing** has proved as rewarding as writing this stupid blog.

Not financially, of course: you make a helluva lot more jack shilling for General Mills and Toyota than spewing random meanderings. But occasionally, I'll get a comment or an email or even a face-to-face exchange where someone actually thanks me for what I've written and/or says it's helped them in some way and boy, howdy, let me tell you, that shit is better than the finest sipping whiskey. It's the feeling of plugging in to the universe, the all-that-is, the matrix/collective-unconscious/what-the-bleep pool of love that epiphanies, Singular Glorious Moments and holding fresh babies are born of.

That, along with my recent shrink-rap, have gotten me thinking: maybe I'm just supposed to share. Maybe the reason I went through hell and made it through to the other side was to show other people how they could get there, only without the hell part. Or if they're in the hell part, maybe I could help them see the gently air-cooled room at the other end of it.

I'm planning to spend the next few months really focusing on what it is I'm "supposed" to do, and my winter holiday jumpstarting the process by reading Is Your Genius At Work?***, a book I found via Dave Pollard's excellent How To Save The World.

In the meantime, I signed up for a lens at Squidoo, Seth Godin's new social bookmarking/aggregating/web-2.0-ing venture where, as they say, everyone is an expert at something. I maybe would shun the term "expert", but I know a fair bit about happiness, specifically, the kind you're not born with. (I've met those people; I marvel over them.)

Anyway, I know that a lot of the people who come here do so for the random meanderings or the reviews or the pissy rants about stupid Vegas and stupid online daters and stupid Hollywood horse-pokey. And that's okay, because I dig writing that stuff, too. Hey, I'm a generalist!

So rather than suck all the fun out of communicatrix-dot-com, I figured I'd continue to post all the wacky things that make me, well, me, but occasionally, do a more of a how-to entry that I can link to (Squidoo is more of a pointing device than a place for long-winded diatribes...er, lessons.) We'll see how it goes. I'm actually a big fan of the oblique method of nudging, kind of a wax-on, wax-off approach rather than the three-steps-to-kicking-ultimate-ass way we like here in the U.S. But maybe it'll be a good exercise for me to help clarify some of my own thinking on what's necessary to get to happy (or tequila-mastery, or whatever else I decide I'm an 'expert' at).

xxx c

*Please understand, I am fully aware of what a luxury it is to have the time and money and lack of immediate food/shelter/clothing worries to see a shrink at all. I'm painfully aware of the below-subsistence life that so many on the planet are forced to live right this second, and for the foreseeable future. I'm just trying to leverage the good that I have into something better for everyone. Namaste, and all that.

**With the possible exception of the writing and performing of #1 & #2, my collaborative piece on illness as the road to wellness. The #1 refers to my writing partner's interstitual cystitis; the #2 stands for my Crohn's. Or poop, if you prefer.

***The author uses the word "genius" to define that exact particular thing that you and only you are good, nay, the best, at. Not genius. I am not a genius. Believe me, I only wish I were a genius.

Images via kunstradio. Danke schoen!

TAGS: Squidoo, Seth+Godin, happiness, How+to+Get+to+Happy, communicatrix

Who in the world is Samantha Burns?

My site traffic has been up significantly* this month, despite anemic posting. Most of it I owe to the hit-and-run gossip juiceheads coming from a particular celebrity board (note to all you looky-loos: yes, I really did kiss him, on the lips, and yes, there really were zero fireworks on either side). I can't really count that because, like the geeks Merlin sent over back in October when I did a rare (but spicy) riff about my unbridled nerdlust, you don't gain new readers from your random meanderings, and pretty much all I do on communicatrix is randomly meander. What can I say? Sometimes I like to talk about Sartre; sometimes I like to talk about my twat. Hey, who's paying for bandwidth here?

Anyway, occasionally someone funny and smart and literate will stumble upon my messy playpen and dig it and tell a few people and maybe even grow my actual reader base, and that's fantastico, dude. To ease the burden of clicking through the 80 billion links you'll have to by the time communicatrix is a household word, Michael Blowhard is the most likely patient zero for this here website, sending the far more quality-consistent and popular Neil, who sent the equally far more quality-consistent and popular Brandon, who has already sent more readers my way than I can ever hope to repay him for in tequila or sexual favors. (See? Booze! Sex! Tortuous, English-major-gone-mad sentences full of mismatched words, references and phrases! No wonder I am shunned like sushi at the Sizzler: I'm so incongruous, I can only mean trouble down the road!**)

Regardless of my lack of stickiness***, I still thrill to see those quality leads show up in my stats. You would, too, if your schizo blog cast such a wide, useless net. No one of substance reads me, but by gum, I am at the top of the Google rankings when anyone is looking for the 411 on NSA or the human organ that Georgia O'Keeffe based all those flower paintings on. Still, some things completely confound me.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Samantha Burns.

Somehow, I wound up on Miss Burns' 'random bloglog', which, as she states in her highly comprehensive FAQ, "used to be part of a private blogroll for exploring new parts of the blogsphere, but several readers asked for it to be made public, and voila, it's now public."

Firstly, I cannot fathom having "several" readers ask me for anything. I'm lucky if one or two of you post about your fantastic poker site. Secondly, I can't imagine myself in the RSS reader next to:

1. Britpoppa, who closed up his gossip shop in May of this year
2. Marc, whose 'Messages' bear the tagline "trying to keep up with God's worldwide wonders"
3. Tony, who moved his After Grog Blog to a new URL in May of 2003 (what is it about May, I wonder?)
4. Taranne, who moved her whole Rue to a new URL a year ago (I think...it's in French)

But thirdly, and most importantly, I couldn't figure out where Samantha Burns came from. She's been around since July and already she's a Large Mammal in the TLB food chain, linked out the ass on Technorati and a finalist for Best Canadian Blog in the Weblog Awards. And while she is quite adorable (see photo, above), it's not like she sits around pissing off liberals or yakking about her twat.

I think I will just have to get down with the fact that, if anything, I'm the tortoise in this blog race****. Perhaps it is due to my horrible coding skills: I don't know how to make those fancy Javascript links that have my imprimatur in them even as they direct people elsewhere. Also, I have this little focus problem. As in, I can't focus on this blog enough to come up with a cohesive theme, much less a marketing strategy.

Or maybe it's really true that I'm just here for the beer, the blogging equivalent of 'beer' being 'freedom to write whatever the hell I feel like'.

That's bullshit, of course. I want my micro-brand-Oprah empire just like everyone else in this Oklahoma land rush we call the blogosphere. But after 10 years of writing ad copy and 3 more writing fascist sketch comedy, formats give me hives and self-promotion feels too much like a busman's holiday.

I pay the price, of course: my little ditties may draw raves and earn me trips to Montreal, but my soapbox sketches still clear the theater.

Ah, well. You two are still here with me, right? Right?

Shit.

"Hello...Samantha?..."

xxx c

*These things are relative, Chuckles. I'm wagering my former writing partner, Rick Crowley, will be able to eat me twice over in TTLB by the end of the year.

**I had really hoped to squeeze in a sneeze bar reference, but that paragraph was getting ridiculous even by my decidedly loopy standards.

***Yes, I'm reading The Tipping Point. As well as Blink, that Suze Orman book, Found, Getting Things Done (again) and the pertinent content from the New Yorker dating back to J-U-L-Y of 2004. Don't ever let anyone tell you my eyes aren't bigger than my stomach.

****Although recent reconfigurings in the TLB knocked me down from a brief high of Flappy Bird to a shameful low of crunchy crustaceonness.

NOTE: This post originally uploaded on December 13th at 9:15am, but had to be back-dated since, as usual these days, TypePad status is SNAFU.

'Tis the season to want to plug thy neighbor through the eyebrows

Remember back when you were a kid (those of you born pre-1968), before the era of grocery stores accepting every kind of plastic and bagging things in anything but? (I said "but".) Remember how everyone, everyone, who wasn't paying cash had to get their checks cleared at the service counter beforehand? How they had to show I.D. and write out everything except the amount, tear the check out of the  checkbook, hand it over to be cleared and stamped and initialed and whatever else before they ever dreamed of getting on (E. of Ohio)/in (everywhere else) line?

Well, I do. And guess what? It was a good system. Because not only did it speed things up, it was a gigantic and singular blow against the creeping solipsism of urban life. As in, Get a clue, Senor Asswipe! You're not the only pony in this here corral!

I know I'm supposed to be all Buddhist and "thispersonismyteacher" and all, but WT-motherfucking-F!?! How on the ball do you have to be to realize you should (a) have your I.D. hopefully somewhere moderately accessible on your person but (b) definitely not "maybe" in the car parked out on the lot?

Sweet baby jeebus, these holidays cannot be over fast enough for me...

xxx c

Rick Crowley is in the house!

I've blogged about my old writing partner before, wondering why the funniest people on the planet have to move on to stupid things like marriage and children instead of spending their damned time amusing me like they're supposed to. Well, as far as I know, Rick Crowley is not about to leave his stupid wife and kid (hi, Sha! love you!), but from the looks of the first post, that might actually be a blessing since they will likely provide excellent blog fodder.

Rick is a storyteller supreme, he's forgotten more about spinning yarns than most of us can ever hope to learn. And he's as good in person as he is on the page. I am hoping that with time and encouragement, he might be coaxed into podcasting, and my cyber-life will be complete.

So what are you dawdling around here for? Head on over to the imaginatively named Rick Crowley weblog and feast your hungry, hungry eyes. They will thank you, those peckish eyes.

And I will, too. Because if I can send 50 of you over there, I get to make Rick tell the white sweatpants story.

"Bwahaha!", "All your blogs are belong to us" and other dorky sign-offs.

xxx c

TAGS: Rick+Crowley, blogs, humor

Holi-daze

There are things I love about the holidays (the music, the shows, the decorations, the emphasis on gathering with loved ones) and there I things I don't like so much (the attendant hassle).

Perhaps Shane has taken the right approach, bow out gracefully, admit that the added pressure of festivity on demand is too much for the slender shoulders of the lone micro-blogger. Of course, last year, the holidays didn't dampen my enthusiasm; on the other hand, as a brand new blogger, everything was shiny and new, Christmas et al even more so.

At any rate, life (and its own attendant hassle) continue, with or without holiday spirit. I think some of my foot-dragging may have to do with plain old life overload; perhaps once I finish implementing GTD like my fully-actualized dork brethren, I'll have more time for bloggy purposes.

In the meantime, posting will likely be more sporadic than usual. This, in an attempt to keep it as meaningful (present entry excepting) as possible.

I love my blog and all of its seven readers (yes, I believe the current stats safely allow me to quote "seven" with surety).

Some things to look forward to by the end of this holiday season:

• a move to WordPress, with stem-to-stern revamping!
• the full launch of the c-trix's web presence for design work, BeanEyes Communications!
• a possible spin-off to add to the communicatrix empire!
• much attendant hassle!

And people say nothing happens in this town between Thanksgiving and New Year's.

xxx
c

Quotation of the Day: Dealbreaker Edition

"Nah. I want to watch on the downstairs TV. It's closer to the beer." , response to the question, "Why don't you watch The Simpsons upstairs with me?" posed by Bonnie Gillespie to her then-boyfriend of six months

How to get the man of your dreams: make a list, check it twice

It's been awhile since the c-trix blogged about dating. This is only natural, given that she has been blissfully, if somewhat surprisingly, ensconced in a monogamous relationship with The BF for the bulk of 2005. Plus it's the holidays and stuff, people have Black Friday and E-mail Monday and other important issues to wrestle to the ground. At the same time, the management is nothing if not sensitive to the fact that the holidays can be an especially difficult time for those who are single and wish not to be. Hell, the management has spent more than one holiday with nothing but a camera up its ass to keep it company. So when a recent check of the stats turned up an interesting dating-and-the-single-woman blog that's recently linked here (thank you, Dr. Annie), we here at communicatrix were impelled to action.

The post in question raises the question of "dealbreakers": must-have accessory of the self-actualized gal or blueprint for foolish pipe dream?

The post links to an entry on another blog written by a young Adventist Christian hussy (God bless the internets) who very much knows what she wants. In fact, she's enumerated it, in minute detail, for which I applaud her. It can be very scary asking for what you want, but also very, very powerful. I know; I myself wrote a series of these lists in the year before I met The BF. The way I see it, when I finally got the list right, bam! I got the guy who matched the list.

However...

There are two caveats to keep in mind if you want the voodoo to work.

First, you can't be cavalier about the list. The list needs to be a distillation of the things that resonate in the deepest, darkest parts of you. That list needs to be s-e-r-i-o-u-s.

That doesn't mean things like "makes my heart thump from across the room" or "can pound me till the top of my head comes off" can't be on there; they should, if those things matter to you. Anything that really matters should be on the list. It just means you must not sully it with frivolous, superficial bullshit your frivolous, superficial ego has on its shopping list.

So, in this brave new dating universe, "attractive to me" replaces any specific trait you may have found hot in anyone to date (pun intended). "Gets it" replaces a specific level of schooling you think is the benchmark of smart. And be very judicious about your inclusion of lifestyle line items: unless you are a porpoise, best to leave "MUST love the water" off.

Part II of the love juju operation is what most people leave out, and the thing that generally insures against frivolous line items: you, the asker, must be ready for the askee. Not ready as in "I am so fed up with all these stupid mens who don't appreciate my fine self" but with the heightened state of readiness a martial arts master knows his instrument. You have read the books, shrunk with the shrink, risen from the ashes of devastion like a self-evolved phoenix. You have, most likely, spent months or even years at a stretch with naught but your loathesome self (and maybe a camera up your ass) to keep you company. You know humility from false modesty from self-loathing; you take shit off of no one because you have the deep confidence in your choices that comes with time and thought and meaningful action, not because you bad.

In a quick fix world, Part II seems cumbersome, inelegant and tedious. It lacks the can-do, Tools For Livingâ„¢ sexiness of listmaking.

But there is no substitute for knowing oneself, and the alternative, a world full of people with the extraordinary and unprecedented luxury of time for self-evolution who instead choose Doritosâ„¢ and trips to Cabo and other disposable bling of our modern era, is far more horrid to contemplate than even a lifetime alone.

So for the good of the planet, of the rest of us who share it, of the people you and your future love-monkey might put on it, before you make that list of everything you want in another person, make a list about everything you want in a best friend. Or a list of all the traits the most amazing teacher/family member/heroic figure you've ever met possesses.

Take a long time with that list: write, put aside, live your live, come back to it. Rinse, repeat. It is a lengthy process and yes, sometimes a tedious one. But it can also be a thrilling, challenging and even joyful process.

Become that list, and chances are the right person will fall right into your self-actualized lap.

xxx c

Quotation of the Day: Only 27 Shopping Days 'Til Christmas Edition

"It seems as though we've marketed ourselves into a corner, where theonly way to grow is to find increasingly narrow niches of decreasing utility. The consumer portion of our economy is now dependent on a four-week long debt-fueled race to buy the useless."

, Seth Godin, reporting on next year's garage sale trinket

A Song of Thanksgiving, Part 6: My Crohn's Disease

Have you ever been sick? Really, really sick, the kind where you and God enter into heavy negotiations?

Do you remember how for the first few days you feel well after being sick, you appreciate your health for what seems like the first time, ever?

That's what happened to me after my acute onset of Crohn's...times ten. I've written about it before, but it merits repeating: the gift that my disease gave me was nothing less than my happiness. I have nothing but gratitude for my illness (and the people who helped me through it, too, of course).

Not that I'd wish it on anyone else. One of my main hopes in writing this blog is that I might help one or two other people find their own happiness without having to go through quite as much blood and toilet paper.

But on this day of Thanksgiving, I think it's appropriate to give the biggest cosmic shout-out to my wacky colon for all that it gave me. And, um, continues to give me every single day, with delightful regularity.

xxx
c

Book review: Freakonomics

Everybody knows that economics is about measurement and money and things numerical; that's why most of us find it so damned dull.

But as approached by offbeat economist and Freakonomics co-author Steven D. Levitt, economics is also "the study of incentives": what it takes to get us to do a certain thing, or to not do it, as the case may be. Which makes it human, and therefore fascinating.

This is what I love about this delightful new book by Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubner: that it comes at things sideways or upside-down or head-on, but never the usual way. I'm still not sold on some of the more radical hypotheses Leavitt coaxes from the data (the link between abortion and falling crime rates being the most widely reviled and quoted), but I'm 100% there on the importance of throwing the numbers against conventional wisdom to see what sticks. The numbers may not always tell the exact truth, but neither do they lie, making them extraordinarily useful in the exploding of myths.

Levitt and Dubner tell fascinating stories about how to combat crappy teaching, bring  down the Ku Klux Klan and what happens when you call your kids "Winner" and "Loser" (answer: not necessarily what you'd think on any count). But really, they've written a book celebrating the heart of truth: asking questions, and hacks to stay open to the real answers.

As an interesting side note, the prospect of reading something that seemed like it would rock my world long and hard was too enticing to wait for a library copy to become available, but not enticing enough to get me to part with $26 of my hard-earned money. My break point? A 25¢/day rental from the Beverly Hills Public Library, and pushing the rest of my reading to the bottom of the pile. Some might call that cheap, but I'm betting Levitt would come at it sideways and say that I was already giving up time I'd committed to other reading to explore this book, and therefore it was of great value to me.

And you know what? He'd be right.

xxx
c

A Song of Thanksgiving, Part 5: evidEnce room

Bart. Alicia. Jason. Ames. I remember what I thought after seeing my first evidEnce room show back in 1995, a production of Harry Kondeleon's The Houseguests: how do they do it?

Kirk. Dorie. Lauren. Rand, Colleen, Nick, Megan.

It was the same question I felt after seeing the next few shows: how do they do it? Find these great plays? Produce them like off-Broadway shows on no money? Get to work in this unbelievably cool space? Soon enough, it was replaced by another question: how can I do it with them?

John, Ann, Leo. Ignacia, Lori, Don, Katie, Burr, Sissy.

My friend, Tom, a longtime company member, called one day and said they were looking for an understudy to cover performances for the formidable Pamela Gordon, who had just been cast in a recurring role on Buddy Faro. The part, half of a wealthy couple quarantined in their London home duing the last great plague, was enormous and way beyond my capabilities at the time, but the dress was teeny-tiny and already rented for the run.

I was in...sort of. It took years of scrabbling along in tiny parts before I felt like I got any kind of a foothold. Even then, I would alternately burst with pride over being part of such a prestigious company and fester with fury over my lowly status within it. Why was I not front and center? Why were my career and stature not improving, clusters of awards not accumulating, sonnets not being written in my name?

Dylan, O-Lan, Tad. Ken. Johnny Z. Liz, Alex, Alain, Uma, Ryan.

But a funny thing happened somewhere along the way: these people who had started out as, let's be honest, the means to an end became the end, in and of themselves. I found myself caring less about being in the shows and more about being with the wonderful people who made them, both at the theater and outside of it. As a delightful and wholly unexpected bonus, the flyers I'd initially created semi-grudgingly as my contribution to the company somehow turned me into a graphic designer. A good one. A happy one. Jessica. Michael. Lisa.

The adage has it that you shouldn't be an actor unless you have to be. It seems like I don't need it like I used to, and, accordingly, am letting it go, bit by bit: the search for a theatrical agent; the hustling for TV and film work; the constant cycle of rehearsal/perform/repeat.

Toby. Barbara. Beth. Wendy, Justin, Travis, Tommy.

I know that the hardest thing to let go of is going to be the Evidence Room; I also know it's as inevitable as change itself that someday, I will.

With great sorrow. With a wee bit of wondering if I might have done things better.

But mostly, with a gratitude I never knew possible.

xxx c

Pride & Prejudice

After the triumph that was the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice, I thought we'd be done with adaptations of Jane Austen's magnificent 19th century novel of manners. After all, in addition to giving us stunning production values, crackerjack performances and the definitive Mr. Darcy, the miniseries finally gave us a theatrical presentation that could accommodate the scope of the story. But I'm a sucker for Austen, so I figured I'd catch the wham-bam-thank-you-mum version...at a bargain matinée, of course.

Bottom line? They play a little fast and loose with the Austen, which is weird, and the length of the film necessitates a few hefty story cuts (for a stretch in there, it feels like Austen's Greatest Hits), but the performances are uniformly wonderful, with some really fresh takes on priggish cousin, Mr. Collins (Tom Hollander actually makes you feel sorry for the poor shlub) and both Mr. & Mrs. Bennett (special kudos to Brenda Blethyn, who finally makes one understand how this nagging harridan might still be beloved by her husband and daughters).

What I enjoyed most about the film was the dash of "realism", let's face it, we none of us were there, but it's pretty clear this lot didn't bathe or even tidy up as often as we do, and the drabbish, shabby surroundings made the fun that they did manage to have even more so.

I must confess, my heart still lies with the miniseries. It is a lavish, two-tiered box of Godivas to this utilitarian mix of Cadbury and Smarties. But really, I quibble: this is just that more Austen to love, and that's what Austen should be, loved, and often.

xxx c

TAGS: Pride&Prejudice, reviews, movies, Jane+Austen, Pride+and+Prejudice, Brenda+Blethyn, Donald+Sutherland, Tom+Hollander

A Song of Thanksgiving, Part 4: Jannicups

There are only two people I've ever met whom I believe to be capable of unconditional love: my paternal grandmother, who never even said a bad word about Hitler; and Jan Kostner, my oldest friend in the world.

Or, as Jan prefers to say, "my friend I've had the longest."

For a woman who's managed to move through the world at impressively high levels, Jan is jaw-droppingly guileless. I consider myself a fairly earnest fellow, but I am Machia-fucking-velli compared to Jan. Plus she's nice. And loyal. Holy crap, is she nice and loyal. I can spew the worst kind of bitch-venom around Jannicups and feel secure that (a) she will not judge me and (b), what goes in the moment, stays in the moment. Hell, she even puts up with me calling her "Jannicups."

Which is not to say Jan is above a good, chatty evening of gossip and Chardonnay; she's not. When I'm starting to feel a little butch, a dose of Jan sets me right up. When we meet to eat, it's usually for tea or cocktails (or tea AND cocktails) at some fabulous hotel bar. She took me for my first pedicure and gave me my first gift certificate to a Four Seasons massage (which, three years later, I still haven't used;I swear, they're going to take away my girl card if I don't start stepping up my game).

Legend has it that our mothers met when we were two, pushing strollers on Michigan Avenue. Neither is around to confirm or deny this any more, but it doesn't matter: Jan and I are long past needing reasons to be friends; we're family, and family, for better or for worse, is yours for life.

Jannicups? She's all about the better...

xxx c

Quotation of the Day/"Bling is Stoopit" Edition

"Beware of the "golden handcuffs." Beware of a profession that pays you so well in money that you enter into a lifestyle (house, cars, a great deal of stuff) that traps you. You may end up in a vicious cycle of trying to earn more in order to maintain the material things that give you less and less pleasure." , John December, on taking care of your money, in his eBook Live Simple

Don't hold your breath

I am just waiting for the day I get a casting breakdown specifying, “Unnatural, awkward talent only. Must be over-the-top with no ability at all to respond in the moment. Or dead. Dead would be good. Dead, with really, really bad comic timing.”

Incontrovertible proof that I am the she-geek of the universe

I pulled up my 43 Folders message board feed in Bloglines this morning and every last one of the feed items was posted by me. Actually, using the words "43 Folders," "message board," "feed" and "Bloglines" in the same sentence is pretty compelling evidence on its own.

xxx c

A Song of Thanksgiving, Part 3: The Baby of the Family

When I was about 8 and she was about 3, my sister bit me in the stomach. Hard. Not enough to draw blood, but then, she was too smart for that, even at 3. And when I complained of this filial abuse, our mother replied, "You're the oldest; you're supposed to be above that." Score one for Liz.

We had a rocky time of it for a long time. I was always older and wiser; she was always prettier and more adorable. Our paternal grandfather (the smiling gent in this snap) used to say, "You we had to chase around the room for a hug. Your sister? She was a big, fat, slobbering bundle of love."

The bundle of love is taller than me now, and thinner, and still much, much prettier, dammit. But these things are not what make her remarkable. What is most extraordinary about my sister is her willingness to try...and try...and try again. To overcome the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, to strike out past the safe but dreadful boundaries we were taught to live within, to bravely go where no Sexton or Weinrott has gone before: to the Truth, and the very heart of it.

She hauled my sorry, 'fraidy ass to the hospital when I was too stubborn to admit I was dying. She was there without question when the other kind of love crumbled to bits in my hands. She is my rock; she is my family-family, or all that is left of it when the rest have died or worse, left us to twist slowly and alone in the wind.

And so together we stumble and fumble towards a relationship that neither of us was raised to have but that both of us hope to achieve someday.

Somehow, I have a feeling we will get there.

xxx c

Quotation of the Day/"If You Can't Stand The Heat" Edition

"Funny always wins out. I always think that women who complain about people who say women aren't funny are probably not funny. Because, really, who gives a shit?" , Sarah Silverman in an interview with Jenelle Riley in Back Stage, the actor's newsweekly

TAGS: Sarah+Silverman, comedy, comedians, standup, female+standup+comics, excuses