end of the aughts

in a fit of self pity while riding home to my mom’s house in this horrifically cold weather, said trip being undertaken so that i can go to my best friend’s grandmother’s funeral tomorrow, i started to type out a roundup of my decade. my life in the aughts. as i thought, lots of it was fantastic, but parts of it were pretty rough, too, and the piece in general was sort of embarrassing. rather than actually share it (remember: things written in self-pity are generally not meant for public consumption), i figured i’d share a more lighthearted summary instead.

so. as we hover on the brink of a new decade, and with apologies to the harper’s index, here is a certainly-not-all-encompassing accounting of MY AUGHTS: (a.k.a. this kid’s life ages 18-28)

number of tattoos: 1, acquired at age 26, for valentine’s day, nursing a broken heart (oof, but true)

overall weight gain, 2000-2009: about 20 pounds (remember, i was in college until the end of 2002, i swear i didn’t eat pillsbury crescent rolls every week for at least a year. seriously, i don’t drool at the thought of them even now. not at all.)

cars owned, and their fates: 3. ‘94 toyota camry: rear-ended while parked outside my house,
new year’s day 2009. ‘95 geo prizm: caught on fire on MOPAC a few days past my 28th birthday. ‘09 honda fit: still running, and i damn well better be able to say that at the end of the NEXT decade, too.

farthest traveled via automobile in one day: ~1100 miles (somerville, ma to nashville, tn)

cats: 1. mishka. taken in after his owners moved to austin, he made the move to said city, with me, at age 19. finally succumbed to kidney failure, november 2008.

bikes owned, and their fates: 3. hybrid bought from bikes not bombs in 2005, its fate escapes me at present. Puch single speed built up by my friend matt’s roommate austin in 2008: stolen off the porch of my apartment in medford. i caught the thief, but he escaped down a side street. surly steamroller fixed-gear bought in austin in 2008: still trucking my butt around. now augmented by a fancy brooks saddle.

bands i was in or guest-sang for: 8. (member of:) valhalla kittens, world’s greatest sinners, red tide at dawn, earth people orchestra. (guest:) robby roadsteamer, al janik’s plastyczny ser orkestra, reverend glasseye, the insect fable. jammed with a handful of other immensely talented pals, and i sure wish the one with ben and ryan had worked out (i moved to texas a few days later. i’m dumb.) (also: number of choirs i performed with, pre-band era: 2.)

graduate programs: 2. (1 failure in 2003, 1 success in 2009)

terrible long-term relationships: 1.

awesome long-term relationships: 1.

horrific dating failures (less than 6 months): at least 4.

horrific dating failures (definition of ‘dating’ in this case is largely due to my perception at the time and not my current, more clear-eyed state) (more than 6 months): 2.

one-night stands/hookups (utterly regrettable vs. ‘meh’ vs. ‘actually, that was totally worth it!’): 4, 1, 2. (was it regrettable to share this statistic? perhaps, but it’d be weirder to have thought this out and then held it back, i think.)

4.0 semesters: 1. grad school, of all places!

apartments: 8. 2 in the north end, 1 in somerville, 1 in medford, 1 in cambridge, 1 in jamaica plain, 1 in east austin, 1 in north austin.

jobs: 4, plus 2 promotions.

money earned: more than $250K.

musicians dated or otherwise involved with: 6.

longest book read: infinite jest.

biggest magazine devotion: harper’s (the intelligent political mag, not the fashion mag).

family deaths: 1.

cross-country moves: 1.

countries visited: 5.

number of times i changed my undergraduate major: 4.

number of semesters it took me to graduate: 7.

number of (pet) rats i’ve lived with: 3.

money earned (cumulative, gross): >$350K

‘good’ and ‘bad’ years: unquantifiable

arctic

it’s 19 degrees in boston today. i’m shuddering as i consider venturing back out into the cold. being here has been strange, tumultuous, wonderful. i’m ready to head back to austin. every time i visit, i don’t quite have enough time – two weeks during a holiday season makes for strange encounters. i’ve seen a few friends repeatedly, others i know i won’t see at all. it’s a question of who is out of town, who is too busy, who is hibernating. if i had a few months here, it’d feel much more normal. but instead, i’m a guest, a temporary visitor. it’s jarring, in a way, to see who has changed. who has left the city, who has ended up single, who has found somebody to be with. who is lonely, who has a new band, who seems to have disappeared. courtney and bill are out of town, so i have no reason to hop the bus to maine. i miss them like hell. going back to austin also feels strange: where do i stand? i spent a huge part of last year in a relationship, giving lots of my time and attention to one other person, who was also my best friend. then that was gone, and i worried the friendship was gone, too. i felt adrift, unsure of myself in school, unsure how i’d fit in. then i somehow found my place, and things felt better. and just when i was feeling really strong and accomplished, everything slipped a tiny bit, and i got on a plane. life has been on hold. this interlude with people i love terribly, deeply, wonderfully, has been great. but i don’t fit in boston the way i used to. i feel loved, but i also feel like a bird perched in the knot of a tree, watching things pass. i miss my sisters, i miss my family, i miss my friends.

i fear my own attempts to create. which is weird, because i SEE what is out there. i see the levels of brilliance and beauty some of my friends have achieved, but i also see some put out work that isn’t anything amazing – but at least they’re doing it. through the mortal fear, the nakedness of sharing one’s creations. they try, and i feel like i don’t. that’s a big thing to change next year. so that’s my mess of disconnected thoughts for the day. i’m back in austin on monday, and you bet your booty i’m heading out for a january swim as soon as i can.

frozen nose and an arrival

fun things first: i spent this weekend in new york, staying in greenpoint, schlepping around in the snow with friends. beer, good food, great company, my first real snowfall in almost two years, and a hoarse voice from all the conversation. boston is more of the same, albeit with the addition of a few final obligations to my job.

that’s right: i leave my current job on january 8. it will have been just over three years – the longest i’ve held a job, the most money i’ve made, and in some ways the biggest frustrations i’ve had. leaving the comfortable salary behind is scary, but i’m so happy with school that i know i’m making the right decision.

and yes: i did great this semester. somehow i managed to pull off straight As – a feat i don’t think i ever achieved in my undergrad program, where i let myself become pretty distracted by the drama of my life.

so. i’ve been planning my next move, and that’s applying to ph.d programs. talk about terrifying. if i want to go straight from my master’s program (which would be ideal), i need to start working on my applications as early as this summer, so i’ve been doing lots of research, trying to choose programs that sound right for me, figuring out which have professors i might align with, and of course, which will offer me funding. to be honest, location is a big factor, too. i’m a city girl. i admit it. i like chaos, i like access to the arts, i don’t think i could spend five years in a sleepy town. so i’m looking at austin, boston, providence, new york, san francisco, chicago, l.a., maybe seattle, toronto, portland, vancouver, philadelphia.

so that’s the next step, but for the next two weeks, i’m more concerned with celebration and catching up with friends and family here in boston.

heading north

i’m off to new york early tomorrow, and then boston. i’ll be back in austin in 2010, and everything will be fresh and new and i will be ready for more dancing and school and to be a TA and to pick up where i left off.

hugs.

oh, and here’s the best photo of me from 2009. it was taken at the second sunday sock hop earlier this week. with jen and katie, the best gals.

milestone: first CFP submission

i’m sitting in a cafe on the east side, with two friends, on a comfy couch. i have a cup of hibiscus mint tea, a copy of the monstrously large drama anthology i CPMed (i’m reading aeschylus’ agamemnon for the first time), and i just clicked “send” on my first submission to a call for papers.

i’m terrified.

the conference is in new york, next may. it’s one day, and aimed at graduate students, so it’s probably not as huge a challenge to be accepted as a professional level conference might be. but it is hosted by a really solid graduate program – one i would consider if/when i apply to ph.d programs. so i’m nervous. but i got an A on the initial version of this paper, the work fits the scope of the conference, and i had my advisor check my abstract one last time.

so there. another milestone. if you’d asked me a year ago, i wouldn’t have believed i’d be submitting my writing to a theater conference. i have confidence in my ideas, research, and writing, but i’m still feeling some butterflies.

i’ll share details if i’m accepted. back to tea and aeschylus.

stand. look. trust.

this came up on my iPod and then i found a video!

it’ll be nice to see all the people who are close to my heart up north, including the friend who wrote this song (hi farhad!).

stand. look. trust. – summerduck

hello, freedom

i’m done. i’ve survived my first semester as a graduate student in a theatre history program. i’m mostly proud and happy: i missed only 1.5 days of classes, in spite of my 70-mile round trip commute and tendency toward laziness. i wrote a strong paper on brechtian influence on lars von trier, a decent paper on reinterpretation and dramaturgical experimentation in a paula vogel play, and a pretty good analysis of the play i directed for my first directing course. i’m disappointed with myself for two reasons: i missed the deadline to submit my vogel paper for a conference she’ll be attending, and i did a really half-assed job on my production book for directing class, because i didn’t give myself nearly enough time to get the work done. that said, i think i’m coming out of this semester with two As and hopefully a B. i’m proud of that. i was largely a very lazy, fearful student as an undergrad, and i’m taking my efforts this semester as a sign that i’m more confident, and more excited about my studies.

so. i’ll be starting as a TA in five weeks! until then, i have another month of work at my current employer, 2 1/2 weeks of fun back north, and lots of reading, baking, partying, and relaxing to do. oh, and studying german for reading knowledge. more later.

counting down to a break

my five-week break starts in about TWO DAYS. you have no idea. i need reading suggestions, though my time in boston will probably be spent hugging people and talking too much and walking a zillion miles on the (hopefully not slippery-slushy) streets of my beloved city. i sure hope i have enough clothing to keep me warm.

that said, i won’t have anything real to say for a few days.

maybe i don’t even need to ask for reading suggestions. i realize i have to finish (and in some cases, start) the following books on my little shelf: child of god (cormac mccarthy), the rest is noise: listening to the twentieth century (alex ross), if on a winter’s night a traveler (italo calvino), the elephant vanishes (haruki murakami), the gulag archipelago (aleksander solzhenitsyn), the executioner’s song (norman mailer), ULYSSES, at least two half-read pynchon novels, and a few play collections. huh. that’s more than enough for five weeks. i’m insane.

bits of excerpts from david foster wallace’s unfinished novel

i was incredibly down for a few days. there are reasons, though they’re foolish.

i just started reading the published excerpts of the pale king, david foster wallace’s unfinished novel, which will apparently be published next year. things often catch my attention according to the mood i’m in. so:

from the new yorker excerpts: “The girl wore a thin old checked cotton shirt with pearl-colored snaps with the long sleeves down and always smelled very good and clean, like someone you could trust and care about even if you weren’t in love.”

“The worse he felt, the stiller he sat. The whole thing felt balanced on a knife or wire; if he moved to put his arm up or touch her the whole thing could tip over. He hated himself for sitting so frozen. He could almost visualize himself tiptoeing past something explosive. A big stupid-looking tiptoe, like in a cartoon. The whole last black week had been this way and it was wrong. He knew it was wrong, knew something was required of him that was not this terrible frozen care and caution, but he pretended to himself he did not know what it was that was required. He pretended it had no name. He pretended that not saying aloud what he knew to be right and true was for her sake, was for the sake of her needs and feelings.”

“…sitting here beside this girl as unknown to him now as outer space, waiting for whatever she might say to unfreeze him, now he felt like he could see the edge or outline of what a real vision of Hell might be. It was of two great and terrible armies within himself, opposed and facing each other, silent.”

“She is gambling that he is good. There on the table, neither frozen nor yet moving, Lane Dean, Jr., sees all this, and is moved with pity, and also with something more, something without any name he knows, that is given to him in the form of a question that never once in all the long week’s thinking and division had even so much as occurred—why is he so sure he doesn’t love her? Why is one kind of love any different? What if he has no earthly idea what love is? What would even Jesus do? For it was just now he felt her two small strong soft hands on his, to turn him. What if he was just afraid, if the truth was no more than this, and if what to pray for was not even love but simple courage, to meet both her eyes as she says it and trust his heart?”

deeply sad stuff. pieces of it feel really relevant to my life (not the obvious pregnancy references, thanksmuch) in the past few months. the other day, i felt like this was the worst year in a long time. which is untrue, but i guess i’m still reeling from some of the year’s bigger challenges.

the other two excerpts from the book Harper’s (a far more hilarious bit)
another from the new yorker

i’m sitting on my bed, and i’ve been reading things, and experiencing waves of emotion – actual, physical manifestations. not tears – just feeling the confusion and stress of the past few days pulse outward from my gut, up my spine and down my legs. it’s a strange, hot feeling. uncomfortable. but not, i suppose, bad, at all. i look forward to a break, i look forward to changes, i look forward to a new year, i look forward to embracing my far-off friends and family. i look forward to returning to austin fresh, excited, and eager for new adventures.

small, important things

in the past few days i:

biked 18 miles in the course of an evening, met three kittens (two siblings, barely a month old each, and a third, about three months old, who was adorably vicious, far more ferocious than his size warrants, a bit like a snarling terrier), baked a successful, delicious pumpkin bourbon cheesecake, saw precious (better than i would’ve expected, aided by fantasy sequences that reminded me of tony kushner), started reading v(pynchon) again, hugged a gaggle of friends on thanksgiving, got teased about brecht, watched a whole season of mad men, and slept in a bunch, lost in dreams.

i mean, look at this momma and kitten

and this adorable, wounded dog (he sat with me while i had a long talk with my friend kim) (okay, the picture is mostly me, whoops):

now i have to write a pair of 10-page papers and do a huge project. most of it by monday. and the big bummer of the week is that i wasn’t awarded any scholarship money for the summer program i’m planning to do, so i have to try to hustle for alternatives now. suggestions welcome.