An Open Letter (10)

CAST! LISTEN UP! [ed. note: This is the accepted way of opening an address to a student cast.]

Thank you. I had no idea what to expect from my week in halfway-to-nowhere Minnesota, and you all have absolutely knocked my socks off. Over the last three days you've proven yourselves smart, talented, energetic, and - perhaps most inspiring to me - endlessly eager to learn. You've drunk in our endless notes on theater, music, and performance; you've asked intelligent questions; you've SOUGHT OUT extra information and help. And you have displayed incredible generosity toward your fellow performers. As far as I can tell, not one of you is complacent or conceited, and that is to be applauded. (But don't let the applause make you complacent or conceited.)

Keep working hard - I hope you've seen this week just how much you can accomplish when you do. Keep questioning your teachers and directors - don't take what we say at face value, ask about what doesn't make sense, and ask when you want to know more. Keep giving so generously to the people you work with - whether they're fellow artists in a collaboration or office mates at a 9-5 job, giving your energy and trust to the people you're working with can have radical results. Keep looking for the fun, the sense of play - you'll spend far too much time in your life on what seems like drudgery, so whenever you can find some joy in what you're doing, embrace it and make the most of it. And keep learning - no matter how old you are or how much experience you have, there is ALWAYS more to learn; understanding that will help you to always move forward, never be complacent or conceited. It will also keep your eyes open for hidden learning experiences that are all too easy to miss, and are like gifts if you can receive them.

But enough cheese! You guys have TOTALLY ROCKED this week!! I'm so proud of you, and I hope you're proud of yourselves. Thank you. You guys are rock stars.

Pardon me while I geek out.

I totally have a girl crush on Jennifer Garner. I want to be her best friend. I want to drink lattes and talk girl talk. What am I saying? I'd be thrilled to babysit her kids.

I never thought much about Jennifer Garner, for a long time. I thought she was good in Juno, and in The Invention of Lying (which, incidentally, halfway through turns into a completely different movie than the one advertised, but is still totally worth renting). But I never really paid attention until a few weeks ago I started watching every episode of Alias, in chronological order, of course.

I generally believe that the best actors are the ones who bring something of themselves into the characters they play - so they're not putting on masks, but rather finding the parts of themselves that resonate with the roles at hand. Which is to say that after watching over 100 episodes of Alias, I feel good about saying that Jennifer Garner has got to be a total sweetheart. Yes, I fully understand that I don't actually know her even the teeniest bit, having never even been in a room with her much less met her (nothing creepy or delusional going on here, I swear). But just watch all five seasons - how can she not be awesome?

Also, as evidenced by the blooper reel for season five, she has the most awesomely bad laugh ever. I'm just sayin.

Strength in Numbers

Over the last several weeks I've found that my perspective on most of life has shifted fairly significantly. I'm happy with the new direction in which I find myself looking, but it's a big adjustment nevertheless. I keep having to stop and take my bearings, or stop myself from automatically responding to something the way I would have two or three months ago. It's amazing to me how drastically I've changed and simultaneously how much more myself I feel.

One thing I've finally come to terms with is the idea that life is often arbitrary and generally full of mistakes; that I might "ruin" good things in my life, but in some way that's okay because that's just how life goes. I guess I finally believe the old adage about doing your best being all you can ever do.

Even though it makes me very sad to think about the possibility of making terrible career choices or losing dear friends, there's something incredibly liberating about recognizing that it's inevitable that those things - or similar things - will happen. It makes me less anxious about doing something wrong. And it makes me value even more the positive outcomes, the good times with friends. It makes me realize just how valuable my closest friends are, and how grateful I am to have people with whom to share all the ordinary experiences of life. It reaffirms for me that my family - the one I was born into and the one I've chosen for myself, my friends - really are the most important part of my life: the rest of it is arbitrary and too often full of tragedy, but there truly is strength in numbers, in remembering that other people are experiencing the same difficulties, in having people to prop you up when you can't stand on your own and to party with you when you're finally back on your own two feet.

It's cheesy, but it's true.

Thanks, guys.

Fan Mail

I'm not so into writing fan mail. I wrote fewer than five letters of adulation in all my overeager childhood years (and only one really came back to embarrass me later). I generally figure that any overblown feelings of admiration I might for someone I never met are just as well kept to myself as sent off to a manager who might or might not open the envelope before dropping it in the trash. I understand the basic realities of the business of celebrity...and I'm honestly not that impressed by most famous people these days anyway.

That's not to say there aren't a few bigtime stars whose presence wouldn't reduce me to a stammering, inchoerent blob. I freely admit that those people do exist - and thank God they do, because what would life be if there weren't a single human on earth whom you admired so intensely that they could rob you of basic verbal functions simply by being in the room?

It's a fairly small group of people, though, who I really think would have such a strong effect on me. But there's a larger group of people who might not reduce me to a blubbering mass but nonetheless stand in my highest esteem for who they are and/or what they do.

One such person is Heather B. Armstrong (and this is her website). I believe I have referenced this site before - my favorite blog in all of blogdom. When I began reading it I simply found it entertaining in all its snarky glory. Now that I've gone through all seven years' archived posts, I have gained the utmost respect for this woman. I still get a kick out of her snarky sense of humor, but I also have been moved by what she has to say, and have honestly had my perspective changed on more than one occasion.

So today I broke down and I wrote a fan letter. (fan email.) I'd like to think that it was a nice balance of adulation and restraint, of intelligent commentary and gushing flattery. I basically just explained that I've now read every single post published on her blog and that I'm a huge fan of both what she has to say and how she says it.

I refrained from adding "P.S. Your daughter is beautiful, your husband sounds awesome, and I'd like to move into your basement and be your best friend."

That's good, don't you think?

An Open Letter (3)

Dear Likely Future Landlady,

You are entirely cool. You remind me a little bit of my mother, but with a serious drawl. You are (most likely) rescuing me from potential homelessness in my new city - or, more realistically, from paying $700 a month (not including utilities) to live in a (barely) glorified closet. You will let me park my car in your garage and wash my clothes in your washing machine. Your son is going to install Dish Network in my (hopefully) future apartment. The only way this could be any better is if your son turns out to be my future perfect husband. (Maybe that's asking too much.)

Thank you for being so nice. Thank you for sounding so Southern. Thank you for saying you couldn't "put the photos up on the craigs list." I very much hope I can spend three years living upstairs from your overtired self and your deaf mother.

p.s. The forty-year-old avocado green stove is beautiful. Please don't get rid of it.

That's Just Like a Vacation, Right?

Apologies for being MIA for more than a whole week! A dreadful sin in the blogosphere, I know. My excuse is that I was out of town, and too busy taking in a new city to sit back and reflect on much of anything. Now that I'm home I can share a few thoughts about (or inspired by) the trip:

• Southwest Airlines is lovely, but the way to "like where you sit" is NOT to "sit where you like." Give your sloganeers a pat on the back, and then find some other way of boarding people quickly without screwing us over. Thanks.
• Any city that has a coffee shop that serves a spicy vegan chocolate chocolate chip cookie (and a really good cup of coffee) is okay by me.
• Trees are nice. Grass is nice, too.
• A lake can be almost like an ocean, if you don't swallow any of it, and if you ignore the fact that you can see the other side.
• Long Island is REALLY big.
• I like nice people.
• I want a tiny house with its very own vegetation, within walking distance of civilization.
• Major corporations are the devil, but small-ish chains that make a strange city feel more like home might not be quite so bad.
• Motels are the most miserable places on earth. The free wireless access is necessary so the guests don't all drown themselves in the indefinably sketchy swimming pool.
  Time should be allowed, in life, for both varieties of vacations: the kind where you go somewhere new and run around like crazy trying to Maximize Your Time, and the kind where you go somewhere - probably somewhere familiar - and just become as much like a piece of furniture as possible for some amount of time. People call the first a vacation, but after trying to See And Do an entire city in 2.5 days, I'm really not sure it should count.

* photo(s) to be posted very soon *

An Open Letter (1)

To the woman at the grocery store who was working by the self-checkout lanes tonight,

Thank you for coming to my rescue. Thank you for not blaming me for making the machine not take my change. Thank you for not heaving a sigh and giving me that look that says "it's almost 10pm, I'm tired and I hate my job - can't you just put another dollar bill in?" Thank you for having a sense of humor about the damn thing not working. Most of all, thank you for opening up the machine and beating it into submission. Literally. You brightened my evening AND allowed me to efficiently dispose of two pesky pennies.

May life bring you many opportunities to hit uncooperative machinery.