perspective

My friend’s father had a major heart attack a couple of days ago. The latest prognosis is “grim,” to use an ugly word from the neurologist.

Another friend’s boyfriend died last night in a car accident.

Another friend just announced that she is getting a divorce; she had two young boys, one less than a year old.

This has been a tremendously hard week for my friends. I can’t stop thinking about any of them. My mind jumps from one to the next.

This would be the day that I would typically blog about my weekend plans. My weekend plans are this: to try not to focus on the stupid shit that annoys me on a regular basis. To remember what I have. To hug my people. To be grateful for life.

I’m a big believer in the fact that the daily dramas of our life are important to our sanity. Getting fully riled up about how shitty Glee is, freaking out about whoever the presumptive Republican nominee is this week, wondering if I should just set fire to all of my clothing because I hate all of it – these are the things that keep me from really focusing on the reality of life.

It’s fleeting. So fast. And hard, incredibly hard sometimes. And can be taken away in an instant. Just like that.

This weekend, I want to remember that, and hold close the things that truly matter. I am so lucky, so very lucky, in this little life of mine, and remembering that feels like the greatest lesson I can take from this week.

millionth verse, same as the first

Just clearing out the dustballs over here. I swear, if I had anything new to say, I would be blogging more. But it feels like my days are on repeat. My life currently equals work, rehearsals, learning lines, and taking Jane to dance class and birthday parties. Oh, and going to Target. More or less.

Last weekend our friends came up from New Jersey, and we had an absolutely epic time. The birthday party I took Jane to Saturday afternoon turned out to be a harrowing experience (for me) – it was one of those big places with a bunch of bounce house equipment and is basically a free-for-all for kids and accidents. So I spent the entire time making sure Jane wasn’t hurt/lost, and making sure the complete douchebag of a father (from another party happening at the same time) who was running around jumping on all of the equipment (NOT MADE FOR A 40-SOMETHING, LET ME ASSURE YOU) wasn’t squashing my daughter at the same time. Douche. Bag. God, I hate that guy. What in the fuck is wrong with you, guy? Stop re-living your childhood. You are a grown ass man.

So by the time we went out for drinks and dinner on Saturday night with our friends, I was very very (very!) ready. Two glasses of wine had me pretty loopy, and I was laughing so hard in the middle of the street at one point I thought I was going to fall down. It was great. So often we use babysitters for nights where Greg has one meeting and I’m at something else – it was nice to actually go out  together with other adult humans. We always know we’re being fancy when there are no crayons offered at the restaurant.

Tonight I have a production meeting for my show – not only am I in it, I’m also helping out on the production end, so it feels like I’m living at our rehearsal hall this week. Luckily it’s fun (that’s why we do it, right?) but I’m taking Jane to the meeting with me, because she has HAD IT with the fact I’ve been out at rehearsals so much. I’ve been explaining to her that she gets to do fun things like dance and swim, Daddy gets to go to band practice with his friends, and I get to do theater sometimes. She seems to think it’s fine for her and Greg to do fun things, but I shouldn’t be allowed to. So that’s nice.

Like I said, I've been working on learning my lines for this show, which we are supposed to have done by this upcoming Sunday. I work on it daily but I have to tell you, that is my least favorite part of being in a show. Once they're down, it's great, but the getting there is just work. Right now I feel like my brain is stuffed with a whole bunch of sentences but I'm not sure when and where I'm supposed to say them, and if I turn my head too quickly they will all fall out. Sunday should be.....interesting, to say the least.

Oh! And my iPod shit the bed. I can’t believe it. I got it five years ago before I had Jane, so I could have the perfect playlist in the delivery room (it never came out of the suitcase, of course - best laid plans and all) and halfway through my walking yesterday it just froze. It’s done. I am sadfacing all over the place about this. I need my muuuuuuusic. I’ve already alerted the proper authorities that I would like a new one for Mother’s Day. Glad that’s right around the corner!

In 21 more posts, I will be at my 1000th post on this blog. I mean, that's something, right? I feel like there should be a prize or something. For me. Or you guys. Or someone. Probably you guys.

How’s your week?

 

weekend update.

It it time for the weekend update. Well....it's slightly early but tomorrow's busy and frankly, it's astounding that I'm blogging at all. Here's the plan:

Friday: Workity work work work. Then some line studying, which I've been doing every day this week. The funny thing is, you can know your lines super-well at home, but the second you are in rehearsal, it all goes to shit. Speaking of rehearsal, I have that tomorrow night. Friday night! This is the first show I've ever done that has Friday night rehearsals (every other week). Prior to that I have my weekly happy hour, so this should be interesting.

Saturday: We have friends coming into town for the weekend (Greg's old college roommate and his wife). They should get here when Jane and I are at yet another birthday party Saturday afternoon. We are constantly at birthday parties, for reals. Her social life is so much better than mine. Saturday night we're going out to dinner with our friends at a real adult restaurant with no crayons. No crayons! Whoo hoo! And I'm going to eat what I want because I reached my goal weight this week, oh yes I did.

Sunday: Probably go out to breakfast with the friends, and then it's off to rehearsal all afternoon.

But seriously, what are you up to? I want to know!

this is the part where I post my goals so maybe I will actually achieve them.

There are exactly two things I need to focus on like a laser this week:

*Learning my lines for my show

*Getting back into the exercise drill

I am supposed to be off-book for my show in two weeks. This is kind of funny because it's an incredibly short time to have to memorize lines, particularly when I think this is the most lines I've ever had. But then again, I've totally slacked off since we got our scripts on Tuesday. I should have been working on this already! So starting tomorrow, I'm on it. ON IT.

In terms of exercise, I only got outside twice last week. That is lame. I should be exercising five times a week, no excuses, but boy, is it easy to come up with them. I don't want this to be the beginning of a months-long drought of physical activity, so starting tomorrow, I'm back on that train too.

These are my goals. What are yours this week?

oh hey! It's April.

Where the hell have I been?

This blog has been painfully neglected since the end of Scintilla. So what have I been up to, anyway?

Well, last week was total balls to the wall. Greg was away all week in Florida for work. In the meantime, I had to be a single parent (ALL HAIL THE SINGLE PARENT quickly became my mantra), spring clean the house like a crazy person, shop for birthday presents for my mom, whose birthday was last Friday, and Greg, whose 40^th birthday was last Saturday. I also had to shop and prep for Greg’s birthday party that I was hosting on Saturday night, and Easter, which I was hosting a mere 18 hours later, on Sunday.

Whew, right?

I also had to take Jane to dance class, I auditioned for a show (and got a part), I took Jane to another kindergarten orientation meeting, and took her to see my friend’s production of Seussical the musical.

Saturday was the most excellent party for Greg. Oh, here's something funny that happened that day. When I went to go pick up his cake at Stop and Shop (I had ordered it a few days earlier) they had no record of my order. This was three hours before the start of the party. They were all over it though - they had a new cake for me in 15 minutes and didn't charge me. Yay, Stop and Shop!

When the party ended around 11:30, I re-cleaned the house for Easter, and even remembered to do the crucial Easter Bunny duties. Five hours later, I was up getting dinner started. Overall, the weekend was fun and we saw lots of family and friends. Or something. I'm not sure - it was all a blur.

Seriously – I hardly remember anything. But it was worth it, because there seemed to be many happy faces at my house all weekend. Or maybe they were drunk. I don’t know.

Monday I felt like I was in a coma.

And Tuesday, I started rehearsal for the new show I’m in. I’ll be rehearsing three nights a week for four hours, and the nights I have off I need to cram to learn my lines, which we are supposed to be off-book for in two weeks. This is the funniest thing ever, if you know anything about theater. I’m really excited about this show, and the cast, and the fact that I am doing something for ME for the next seven weeks, but it’s going to be intense and time-consuming.

As for this weekend: we are off to another birthday party for one of Jane's peeps tomorrow afternoon. All of my friends will be there as well, so it should be good times. I have rehearsal Sunday night. And I should probably make out with my script for a while. That’s my weekend itinerary, at the moment.

Oh, oh, oh – I almost forgot. I’ve lost 14.5 pounds on the 17 Day Diet! This Sunday marks day 17 of the second cycle. On Monday I begin the third cycle, which introduces many more foods, like BREAD. OH YES BREAD.

And do you want to know a secret? I am PMS-ing so hard right now and I’m so hungry that this afternoon I trreated myself to a real lunch. I had fajitas. I’d been FANTASIZING about fajitas in a nearly an x-rated way for the past couple of weeks. And I haven’t cheated at all for the past month-plus, except for a piece of candy and a spoonful of mashed potatoes on Easter. So today, I had a real lunch - and promptly felt like shit for the rest of the day. And, perhaps, tomorrow's weigh in will show a 13.5 loss instead of a 14.5 loss, but what are you going to do.

And how are you these days?