Dirt Chic

Getting Dressed: Childhood Rainbow (and a Sunday Poem)

Mary and I putting on makeup at 10pm.  Dress: $4.  Belt: prize, sewn down.

I found this this morning.  Can't remember when I wrote it - probably last summer.  It's entitled "My Favorite Piece of Art" but I'm not quite sure if that fits.  

Christ had such a time of it
For fifteen years I bet he didn't know
   what the hell he was doing
But heavens, he hoped his path was true
Actually I'm sure of it; he knew the half of it
   Trailing his palms over flower heads,
   inhaling the baked smell of something baking,
   undoubtedly laying on his pallet doing nothing,
   but most of all,
   being a song and dance man looking
   into the future imagining himself in
   a musical number, forever;
   this is the way of being, the true spirituality,
   girding up for a prolonged adolescence
   to make way for ministry -
oh - that was my life - well -
the half of it - still -
Christ had such a time of it.
Nevermind crucifixion.  
When you get to the point of asking
   God to take the cup away,
   asking for forgetting,
of course, something is surely done.
And maybe something like ascension has begun. 

Some Excellent News

CLAUDE

I say that all life is waiting. Waiting for one full moment when you know that God exists. It’s there in snatches, along the way, a second here or there. You catch it as it goes by, but it still goes by. And it’s good. It really is.

GARRICK

But.

CLAUDE

But.

That moment.

That moment when you feel you are in a dream, because all the meanings converge in that moment and go out from that moment and you can hold it – like fire – it’s just fire. Because it burns so bright. And it burns so hard. And what came before and what goes after is so not as bright, and hard in such a different way. But you hold it—

because you can. And because you have to. And you’re never the same. 

*

From The Maybe Pile.  A play I wasn't supposed to finish, but I did.  A play I nearly dismissed, because its subject matter seemed too particular to ever get a production.  A play I dearly love.   

A play that is going up at one of my alma maters, CCU, in September.  It found itself an advocate. 

I knew I was waiting for something.  

:)

Hot Diggity Dog. It's Wednesday.

Not my finest ensemble, just because.  I got this SUPER-INCREDIBLE Versace-ripoff shirt in Denver ($2) and wore it on Easter, first with heels/pants/tuxedo blazer and then just my cargo-ish black pants and Saltwater Sandals.  I preferred the latter look.  Big shirts are admittedly my new jam.  Of course, they can't be too big or formless.  There's an art to volume.

Anyway. 

Two words: ketchup, mustard.  (Shoes: $3.  Socks: $3.50.)

The scarf happened because I got up too late.  The wrongness that is my undereye happened because I'm 33 and my skin makes me look tired even when I'm not.  Good times.  At least rosettes are always fresh and new.  (Vera scarf: $5.)

On an unrelated note, I overdid it in yoga yesterday, and damaged something in my foot while trying to do the lotus position.  Danged lotus position.  I so want to own it, but I tend to hurt myself.  I'd say the same goes with deadline-driven writing.  I overdo it, and I pay for it afterwards.  NOT COMPLAINING.  (Yes I am.) (My own fault, though.) (Or it's just the nature of things.) (Meh.)

Another Writing Rant (Ignore If You Want, I Won't Be Offended)

I'm kind of using the internet as a massive procrastination tool, can you tell?  Even though, at the very same time, I'm not.  I just can't get my head around the demands of my current project, and I slog through about two pages at a time, and then I have to take a break.  Some kind of creativity is going on, but I am starting to feel like it's just going in a big swirl... down the toilet.  Or into a black hole.  

Man.  I really wish I hadn't lost that deadline post.  It was about a lot stuff, writing-wise.  It feels very cosmically wrong to not have it out there - it's already gone through my head, I know it happened, I want to see it in my own disjointed internet world, I want to refer back to it.  Sigh.  

Nothing's going down the toilet.  I know it.  Even if I really did lose a post, even if I do routinely lose it over a piece of writing, and it truly is routine - I should start keeping a writing journal, like some people might keep a food journal or something else, to track my behavior to note consistencies - it's going to be okay.  Do you think I'm willing myself into believing this?  Nope.  I just know it.

However.  Currently, I'm worried that I can't write strong female characters.  I look at my catalog of them, so far, and most of them seem ok.  But right now, I feel like most of my strong male characters are still more interesting.  Less internalized, less reserved.  I want to theorize about the reasons for this, and make connections to patriarchy and the difficulty of self-fulfillment, but then I can't even decide if my initial supposition of my own writing is true or just my skewed perception.  (My, my.)  I can't really theorize on skewedness.  I mean I can, but it tends to get me in trouble.

I think I just need to go read some plays.  Badly.  And I need to get on the ball and do something I've felt heavily drawn to doing, recently: perform.  Yep.  There, I said it.  I want to perform.  I suppose that could just get in line behind everything else.  But, no.  How am I going to go about doing this?  I have no idea.  Well, no, I do.  I have write some stuff to perform.  What does this mean?  

...I have to write some strong female characters.

Potential fallout from potential employers seeing this be damned: I need an adult beverage.  And a bath.  And a play.

(Note to potential employers: It's just a little drink.  And please note in my sentence construction that I am not, in fact, damning you. ;)

And then I will go back to my writing.  And it will be okay.

Light on Winter, Heavy on Showers, and the Male Cardinal is Up to His Old Tricks...

It's spring.  Is this weird to you?  It's weird to me.  One day all flora was threatening greenness in a fuzzy, hazy kind of way, then seriously one day later it exploded into full-on springtime.  It's like nature decided to go apecrap with every seasonal trick in the book - tulips, magnolias, redbuds, daffodils.  And rain, and robins, and allergies.

I'm not complaining.  Even about the allergies.  It's just weird.  I don't mind not having had to wear my snow boots more than ONCE, but I was looking at all my sweaters earlier this evening, trying to apply my usual purging ethos "if you didn't wear it this year you should deeply consider getting rid of it" (who am I quoting?  I don't know) until I realized it didn't count.  There just weren't that many opportunities to max out the layering.  

So this brings me to what I suppose we could call spring cleaning, though I didn't think of that till just now; I'm trying very hard to get rid of stuff.  Like, get down to the stuff I really wear.  It's easy, and it's hard.  Mostly I just want to get rid of the ever-growing pile of discards.  Not sure how to go about that.  Don't feel like messing with Etsy - it's just one more self-starting thing, when my life is full of those (writing, looking for a full-time teaching job, writing... WRITING).  

Oh, and exercising.  That takes a lot of willpower.  I'm wanting to step up the yoga to daily practice, because I know it would further change my life.  I also want to be enriched by weight loss.  :)  Because.  Time to shed layers.  Time to wear... shorts.

Time to have jazz hands?  Is there never not a time for those?  

I can rock the pleated 90's shorts.  You bet your bottom dollar.  But, first, bet a larger sum that I will lose some pounds so that I feel less like my 13-year-old dumpy self and more my... I'm thinking my 28-year-old self.  

I'm 33 now.  I like it.  But sometimes I don't love my 33-year-old-face.  I was trying to self-start into selling some stuff on Etsy earlier today.  I fizzled out quickly, and read The New Yorker instead.  (David Sedaris.)  

I'm... 33.  I no longer enjoy selling stuff online.  I prefer article-heavy magazines over fashion rags.  The skin under my eyes is too thin and makes me look tired, and my eyelids are more droopy and make putting on my eyeliner an exasperating experience.  I am ready to move on with things and see more stuff produced and published.  I am happy to write and teach.  Ok - and I'm happy to keep doing a lot of what I always do.  Everything else.  All that.  More.  

Think I will get away from the magazines and into an actual book, now.  As in right this minute, not in general.  I bought myself (with birthday money) a lil' something I've wanted for awhile.

Avon Soft Pink bubble bath.  Old-lady soapy opulence.  I love it.  Tomorrow, I'll go to the post office and pick up my other two prizes.  I'm very excited.

But I must take a bath.  Right now.  With the window open.  I will sneeze.  Into a mass of bubbles.

Happy spring. :)

Discursive Excursions = Discursions

(Ha.)

I was thinking back on my Xanga days - anyone remember Xanga? - and how easy it was to just blog there.  Well, I was more thinking about how it was not only easy, but how what I wrote was actually funny and fairly interesting.  And varied.  Dirt Chic, right now, or as of late (geez) has been kind of catch-as-catch-can, but then again, this is indicative of my non-blogging life.  I feel like I've just been squeezing stuff in, with very little time to be deliberate.

However, my Xanga days were pre-MFA.  They were before I got a bit hyper about whether I could or could not write this or that.  I've always been a bit neurotic, and I don't foresee this changing, but I recently was musing (yes, musing - or perhaps a better word is chewing) on how this is just stupid.  I can write whatever I want.  The real question is will I take enough time to make the first go-around less sloppy.  As in, will I be a little more controlled with, say, an essay-ish blog post.  A short story.  A short play.  A poem.

I value my artistic sloppiness.  It's not really sloppiness, of course (someone said to me the other day, "I hate discursive thought", and I internally lol'd.  It's kind of my bread-and-butter) - it's more the license to be sprawling and not feel contained by arbitrary lines or boundaries.  But sometimes I just avoid form because I'm afraid of... well, the limitations.  Which is understandable.  But not ultimately worthwhile, because being afraid of limitations is, of course, eventually limiting.

NOT TO SAY I am afraid.  Because - and it's taken a frick of a lot of chewing to come to this understanding - I'm not.  Yes, I've had a lot of fake fear, a lot of topical fear, blah blah blah, la di da.  I really think it was just pre-MFA insecurity being extended a little too long.  No.  I take it back.  I've had fake fear and real fear - someone also said (not the same someone) that being an artist means you know what you want.  I've been afraid of taking what I want, in some ways.  That, I think, is the ultimate sloppiness.  The only sloppiness.

Or maybe not. ;)

Okay, the point is is that sometimes I get to a point, sometimes I don't.  Sometimes the point is not what you think it is.  Sometimes getting to a point is not important.  I could quote a popular line from Lord of the Rings right now but I won't.  I am both excursive and discursive.  Process is the thing, most of the time.  Process really has no limitations.  The only thing that really seems to get in my way, anymore, is time.  I can do anything I want to do.  My only real enemy is myself.  Okay, no.  Viruses and bacteria aren't my friends, either.  Or technology fails.  Or zombies.  Or raw tomatoes.  

So... now that I've written this post, I'll tell you what I originally got on here to say, more or less - I'll be around more, I do believe - to write about more things.  I'll make time. :)  

Dispatch From FrancesGageLand

50,000 words.  How.  ...how.

If you perhaps are an individual who encouraged (told) me to do my current project, I have this to say to you: thank you. :)  

Boy, am I tired.

And boy... do I need to work out.

:) 

An Analogy of Resistance, and a Boring Photo

Doing an ever-so-tiny bit of writing avoidance, here, practicing a little bit of resistance, yes - I realized the other day, that writing resistance is extremely similar to when you are trying to lower yourself into a swimming pool or other body of water that is not quite warm enough.  You know you will eventually submerge yourself, you've done everything in preparation for it, but as you start... it's chilly... and you want to splash all those people that say just dive in, because can't they see you are being methodical and cautious?  And that you fear for your SENSITIVE areas?  

;)  Lol.  (Yes, I just lol'd.)  

It's just like that.  I'm serious.

I'm not really that resistant, I'm just texting someone and drinking coffee still, and I usually turn off my phone (and the internet) once I'm ready to roll.  

Yep.

Not much else to report.  This is pretty much all I'm doing right now.  Writing, reading about my subject, taking some mindless breaks to recharge.  This has involved napping, bathing, exercising, and reading cookbooks.  Yep.  Well, and magazines.  I won't let myself take breaks that involve some other project or anything that even remotely stresses me out, bad or good.  I'm in the zone.  I'm working my way methodically (but not cautiously) towards the finish line.  

And I've been wearing the same clothes.  That is, variations on the same outfit, which is boring, and typical, and comfortable.  You've seen it before.  Black pants, t-shirt, Converse, hoodie.  I haven't had to wear anything else, as this is spring break (woo-hoo) and I haven't had to dress up for work.  Next week.  It'll be nice.  It'll be more than nice.  It'll be FANTASTIC.

I've taken pictures of my writing-in-progress but honestly, it's boring.

See?  Boring.

Good thing writing isn't boring.  It was for a little while there, and then I hit my stride, had a revelation, all that good stuff.  

(I just realized you can see me in my robe in the lamp.  Ok, so I'm in my robe, and will be for hours, until I hit my afternoon break.  Booooooring)

Turning off my phone now.  Time to get crackin'.

(RPM) Revolutions Per Minute

A bit of photo and excerpt fun.  From RPM (Revolutions Per Minute), recently produced at Rhinofest 2012.  Below is my lovely cast and director (some holding up a few of their favorite posters/props.  How cute. :)

It was a perfect production, by the way.  Perfect.  And I miss it.

PETER

What are the three?
Refine our set
Hone our skills
And remember the issues at hand!

PETER

It is when we see that pens are but a shortening, a dampening of the original form – pencil – that we begin to see oppression in its truest form; as they say “The Pen is Mightier than the Sword,” they have already called upon the downfall of even the
one
autonomous
way of vigilance in all causes by—
(he breaks the pencil) 

PAUL

In our red white blue world
We could only be
One of the three, one of the three.
And thus we could plainly shade our enemy,
we could douse them with fire, with that dire red paint
Of the Communist Party.

MARY

The bait.  The red.  Keep it at bay.
The rhetoric, son, that holds you in sway that breaks through
or that is, it breaks; you—
Hold in your power, like the Joe McC, anti-Commie Party, American publicity, the public that listens to the guy with the most words, the one that takes theory and breaks.
The guy with the most words, with nothing to say.
You.
Hold.

MARY

Harmony is key.

PETER

The message must be understood implicitly – in the soul.  

PAUL

Man.  Music moves.

PETER

But I know that I have to SAY what is in my HEART and my HEAD and the GIG is the PEOPLE and they are young and I am young and the world doesn’t believe us, the world doesn’t listen, the world grows old and it forgets the real pain in every day and age all the real, common, pain and beauty and pain and beauty that’s all mixed together for the singular!  That’s it!  They all forget the common pain for the singular!  And if we can say that – if we can get all the people to see that it’s better to share it and mix it all together and not just be solo and act like it’s all okay just to try to make yourself feel better, alone – then –

PAUL

Ahhh.  Folkistry.

PETER

Hm?

MARY

Play it, son.

I Do More Than Get Dressed (But It's a Good Thing I'm Clothed)

It's been a weird three weeks.  This semester is so different than the last.  Though, some things stay the same.  I overuse this word: chatoyant.  I learned it when I started obsessing about gemstones in 9th grade.  But it's kind of my word.  It's what my days are like.  It's what my mind is like, good or bad.  It's been a chatoyant 3 weeks, for sure.

Mostly, I've just been focusing on teaching my ONE class this semester (that's how the cards fell.  Is that even a phrase?), and boy, are those students getting my full attention (not that they necessarily appreciate this ;).  However, I am not living a life of leisure.  I've got two books to write, and there are two more RPM shows that I'm going to catch up in Chicago, and then who knows.

But at least I have time, now, to appreciate the little things, more....

Like Canada geese migrating.  Doesn't do it justice.  There were SO many of them.

Like packaging.  Okay, I always notice packaging.  And animals.  Doesn't this look delicious?  Are you so excited when they make fudgsicles and call them poopsicles?

Like things that make me shake my head in wonder, like "Travel Lube", which I would imagine might be owned by whoever brought us "Kum & Go" gas stations.

Like people-watching at the bookstore.  Perhaps I shouldn't have taken this woman's picture but I noted her entire stack of everything was British and she had a BBC-embossed tote bag.  But what really amuses me about this picture is that there is a magazine called "Majesty".  

Like finally having the ability to sit in my pink office, dream about fragrance, color, and texture, and dive back into my novel, which has been problematic for me.  I've been making good headway on my biography (and whenever I say "my biography" I fear people will misunderstand and think I've been commissioned to write my autobiography, which is amusing as well).  I've been nerding out on dramatic literature and have been developing syllabi on history plays and family dramas and religion/metaphysics and theatre.  I broke my brain last semester.  I really did.  For all the reasons it happened, it's been up to me to mend it.  Well, Scorch the thrifted dragon has helped.  He says hi.  His little brown eye makes me happy.  

So anyways.  :)