should auld acquaintance be forgot

Pals, I've only cut my hair twice this year. It's crazy-long. Why? Well, I'm lazy as hell, and also I think... I dunno, I think on some level I was growing hair for Brynn. I'm pretty ambivalent about my stupid thick hair and would have shaved it off in a heartbeat if it meant she could keep hers. But I couldn't. And she couldn't. So that was nice but dumb.

So now I have an appointment to lop it off on Friday. (just like RaeJ!) (thanks, Sibyl!)

Old year, old hair. A lot of stuff happened while I had this hair. I'm so so so ready to let it go, but I also feel a little sad for the work and grief and loss and joy that it got mixed up in. (And sad for the hair. Like it should have a last walk or a last meal or one final up-do.) (Uh, yeah, I tend to anthropomorphize. A bit.)

So, anyway. Out with the old, and in with a bright shiny new year of new hair and new art and new life and good health and hair of Brynn's very own.

Happy New Year!

*headdesk*headdesk*headdesk*

oh.
my.
god.
y'all.

Can somebody please reassure me that MS Outlook's "recall message" function might actually work? 'cause I just emailed a tax organizer with my name, date of birth, SSN, bank account number, and last year's gross salary to a client instead of to our receptionist.

new normal

My dad called to find out if we "got snow out there."

I've been walking everywhere for the last week, but I caught a bus down from Denny this morning. The streets leading into downtown are so rutted that the front and back ends of the bus were bobbing independantly. It was like riding in a covered wagon. Also, my bus driver had a full white beard and mustache and was wearing a Santa Claus hat.

I have industrious neighbors:

Snow Day #5

Snowy walk to work, Monday a.m.:

wonderland

At the top of every steep hill there's a pile of abandoned cardboard sheets, plastic box lids, and stolen condo signs. People are sledding day and night, and they're usually willing to loan their inner tubes and woks (the woks are the best) to passersby for a quick downhill run. Half the dumpsters on Capitol Hill must be missing their lids now, as resourceful scavengers quickly discovered that they make excellent two- and three-man toboggans.

Last Thursday's snow (I have been informed) was the kind that's "good for biking" but not much is moving on two wheels right now.

Apparently my neighbors have all the snacks, whiskey, and DVDs they need. There wasn't a single footprint on these stairs when I got home.

I remain very happy about these boots:

Still!

Yesterday I was telling my coworker that I actually kind of like seeing the city shut down like this.

I grew up in Alaska; my childhood reading was To Build a Fire and Tisha and Mrs. Mike *, and you kept a down sleeping bag in the trunk of the car as soon as winter hit and were constantly drilled to keep your feet dry and always stop for stranded strangers. It wasn't just an aphorism, it was something you could feel bone-deep: if you are not vigilant, the environment will kill you.

In a more temperate climate, there just isn't the same danger. (It's possible to freeze to death here but you'd have to work at it.) So it's almost reassuring to me when a winter storm like this one gobsmacks the tenderfeet with my earliest lessons. Respect nature. We are small and fragile and no match for what it can throw at us.

And then people who didn't learn the value of caution and fear nearly drove two charter buses full of students over a twenty food drop, and my sanctimony felt a lot less fun. Jesus. My condolences to all who will spend the next weeks and months dealing with the physical and emotional fallout of a wrong turn.

* This maybe says a lot about me, but I was surprised to see Mrs. Mike reviewed as a romance. What I remembered from my pre-teen reading was frozen feet and babies dying of diphtheria and malaria and charred bodies in the wells after wildfires. Did I miss a whole bunch of smooching?

Snow!

Snow! We've got snow!

Icicles! We've got icicles!

Cold! It's freaking cold!

I've been searching Ravelry for earflap hat patterns. Will post pictures when (if) I finish one.

iVoted! didYou?

For the first (and, apparently, last) time, they were handing out the stickers at my polling place, and I got my damn sticker. I've been coveting one for years; you'd better believe I'm wearing it.

I also took a picture of my hand inking the circle on my ballot for my presidential choice, and I got a little emotional about it. And then the picture somehow didn't get saved (damn digitals!), and I got a little emotional about that. No permanent record of my tiny fist making its mark in this historic election, but there will be a new president-elect twelve hours from now -- god willing, the right one.

Happy Election Day, America!

Consider yourself warned.

You didn't know it had been published, did you?

My dentist gave me this awesome pamphlet, which is second in hilarity only to my booklet about gynecological surgery. Unfortunately, my dentist gave me this awesome pamphlet because he cracked my molar one freaking year ago and has just gotten around to diagnosing it. I'm not laughing. (Dear all of the people to whom I've recommended my fantastic dentist: this is a new dentist. Tear up that recommendation.)

You know how they fix a cracked tooth?

They don't. They grind it off and attach a crown.

Like I said, not laughing. Thinking about violating the integrity of someone else's dental enamel. Do you think I should hand over the pamphlet first, or just start cracking?

spit & polish

I'm not terribly amused when people make jokes about me being obsessive/compulsive -- I don't think I'm particularly extreme, and I prefer to think of it as detail-oriented, with esoteric interests -- but I did just dye & polish the entire cast's combat boots. And the managing director's boots. And the stage manager's clogs.

I just used up an entire bottle* of Lincoln Leather Dressing.

*Even worse, I thought, "Oh, that's OK, I didn't use up my good stuff."

uphill/downhill

Last night I dreamed that each bus stop on my route had a dedicated internet message board. I kept up-to-date on the Bellevue & Denny board, but frequently checked the one for 13th & John because its members were wittier and more articulate.

I'm not usually this kind of girl

Ok, I know how this looks, and I'm sorry. I've never been one of those people who's just ga-ga over babies, so I'm as surprised as you are by the apparently inexorable aww-factor of this sort of thing. (It gets you when you least expect it.)

Good thing there's a website I can turn to when the illicit craving hits...

inner space

This is a picture of my left eye.

The pattern on the right side of the image is called a starburst, and I don't have one in my right eye. (It's not a photographic blemish; it showed up last year, too, along with the wispy clouds around the iris. Neither affects my vision.) My opthamologist is curious to see whether similar patterns are visible in photos of my siblings' eyes.

Is it weird that I think it's pretty?

how to frame a populist argument

Step 1: Call Chris Rock.

It's not like the camel was all that sturdy to begin with.

I'm not sure why McCain's debate cancellation/campaign suspension/VP debate postponement is the thing that finally tipped me into insanity -- frankly, I should have had money riding on something like this -- but I've been checking newsfeeds every twenty minutes all day. I'm constructing rebuttals for something nobody's even willing to argue. This situation is so wackaloon we're all just sitting around rocking and hissing.

Somebody better win this damn election soon or I'm going to lose my job.

You're what?

I showed up for my first day of blocking rehearsals for my upcoming show -- one week after the first full-cast read-through -- and one of the other actors is already off-book. Dude, way to throw down the gauntlet!

as good as it gets

For my birthday, I got:

- a brief cloudburst and glorious rainbow

- fireworks! (thanks, mysterious Bellevue celebrants!)

- a tap dance performed by this dog
- smooches from (or on) 3 babies & 4 kids

- seven birthday cakes and pies
- bourbon, bourbon, and more bourbon

- an all-day party hosted by two darlings:  grilled food, tasty baked goods, limey drinks, and so very very many lovely and charming and amazing and talented people

May such good fortune continue for all of us in the upcoming year!

(pics from CCS and CComte. Thanks, buddies!)

my other new favorite thing

The inimitable RKatz offhandedly asked if I listened to the American Theatre Wing's "Downstage Center" podcasts. I do now, and you should, too. I'm very proud of what I do as a fringe theater actor in the Northwest, but the opportunity to listen to real, live career artists ("What are those, Mommy?") discuss the craft is not to be missed. 

Of particular note: James Earl Jones on the value of education, the "delusion" of race, not being an activist, and how annoying it is that film actors play entire roles off-voice for effect. (Of a talented actor playing an American president on TV, "He whispers. Too. Fucking. Much.")

eat it, Sallie

Ladies and gentlemen! today, July 15th, over nine years after my college graduation, I have hit 'send' on the final payment of my student loan.

(One of my two student loans.)
(The smaller one, incidentally.)
(Whatever, lemme enjoy this moment, OK?)

Feels like freedom, friends.

for spacious skies

Basil just introduced me to my new favorite thing.

I got the Hem album "Funnel Cloud" last night and listened to it on repeat for four hours. (I'm sure my neighbors enjoyed it as much as I did.) It's sort of bluesy alt-country via Tin Pan Alley -- Rodgers & Hart clearly gave Great American Houses of New York and Almost Home a little smooch -- and it's the sweetest little slice of Americana I've ever heard. In celebration of this great nation, I plan on acquiring and devouring the rest of the discography as soon as possible.

(Thanks, Bas!)

Rabbit, rabbit

My Mid-Year's Resolution (don't you make those?) is more dinner parties. I intend to start immediately with grilled tofu, asparagus, and carrots, and a cocktail that we accidentally invented last weekend. Hooray, summer!

It's official...

... and I couldn't be happier. Beautiful!

photo by Ella Blue.

summer in Seattle

Man, I've had a great day.

The weather is beautiful, I managed to drag my butt out of bed in time for a 10 a.m. yoga class, had a glass of wine with B. Hambly on her roof, bought some gorgeous beets and two balls of yarn, ate some delicious fried zucchini, and found a dress for B.'s wedding in the costume closet.

Almost makes winter seem worth it, doesn't it?

Show your work!

Problem in grade school arithmetic, problem today: I suck at describing my processes.

It’s partly sheer laziness. I raced ahead to the exciting part (answers! yay!), and now I have to go back and do some boring housekeeping to tell you how I did it?

Partly forgetfulness, too. I don’t have a good system for cataloging finished crafts, so I never remember that I need images to catalogue.

So in the last three months I have delivered the following, entirely undocumented:

• 12-inch cake with a hand-piped ‘Fighting A’
• birthday cake covered in ganache and a sunburst of realistic chocolate leaves
• towering German Chocolate cake (my second stab at homemade caramel)
• 2 pairs pajamas, altered with optical illusion sleeves
• 1 pair sock garters
• 2 prosthetic hands with “gripping” snaps and dangling gore
• 1940s vamp costume for a lady coyote
• six gold-tasseled pasties and a merkin for a coyote striptease

Seriously. Awesomeness, every bit of it. You’d be totally impressed if I had a single picture with which to impress you.

...if it wasn't attached.

Last week my coworker needed something from a box of client files that had been sitting in the workroom for about a month. I went to retrieve the box.

It wasn’t there.

So I ransacked the workroom and the file room and other people's offices, sweating, panicking, heart in my throat, trying to figure out what on earth could have happened to this entire box of very very important client financial data...

... and I found the files on the shelf next to my desk. Two feet from my left knee, as a matter of fact. Where I had carefully stacked them after removing them from their cardboard box -- because clearly a cardboard box in the workroom is not a safe place for them -- where I’d carefully stacked and completely forgotten about them.

I need a vacation.

May Day, May Day

Rabbit, rabbit.

I was going to post something yesterday just to have tagged April, but then more important stuff intervened and now I can't even remember what I thought was so interesting yesterday.

Love and luck and health (and so much more love and health) to those who need it.

xxxooo,
Mol

The first step is admitting you have a problem.

I just bought something called a "cake humidor."

what you have

"you spend all your time thinking about what you still want, but don't forget that what you have is what you used to spend your time wanting"

"Please do not touch"

Last night I licked a $5,400 sculpture (red enameled metal; enzyme-resistant).

Earlier, he said "You remind me of every revolutionary I've ever known."

(Whatever, dude.)

greatness awash in a sea of trivialities, blah blah blah

I know this adds nothing to the discussion, but may I just say that I'm so bored with the AP Official Presidential Candidate format? I can't remember the last time I saw a New York Times photo of a candidate in which they weren't looking thoughtful, squeezed into the corner of the frame, and dwarfed by an oppressive blur of lights, signs, normal people, etc. It was evocative the first time I saw it (Hillary Clinton, head bowed, facing out of frame in a field of blue bunting) but now it's getting tired.

Step up, AP; tell me something I don't already know:

and elevenses and tea...

Acting is, first and foremost, thinky work so I always forget how physically demanding mental exertion can be. True, I'm in an unusually athletic show, but it's disconcerting to catch myself mapping out meal plans with an almost primal attention to nutrition density and calorie input/output ratios divided by rehearsal hours. I've begun using the phrase "second breakfast" completely un-ironically.

tech notes

- My skin hates makeup. The situation is not improving as I get older. However,


- Head-to-Toe baby wash is an excellent makeup remover, particularly for waterproof mascara! Yay, babies!

- Note to self: yes, you're biking way more than usual, but you still don't get to eat candy all freaking night. Stop with the M&Ms already. Really.

- If you're going to be dancing in high-heeled tap shoes (two sizes too large), it really helps if you practice the routine in said high-heeled tap shoes (two sizes too large). Yeah, it's a little different than dancing in sneakers, isn't it?

- Tasks and assignments are great ways to tackle confusing spots in the text, but you actually have to, uh, do the tasks and assignments. Derr.

- Stretch your hamstrings after exertion, doofus, or you are going be a crippled old lady much sooner than you anticipate.

- No matter how it seems, we're all in this together. Really.

food chain

"The whole of nature, as has been said, is a conjugation of the verb to eat, in the active and passive."

- William Ralph Inge

via.

did you forget the...

I leave my house for work at 8:45 a.m. and return to it after rehearsal 14 hours later. Every morning feels like I’m packing for a little camping trip. I make lists like this one:

• tap shoes
• toe shoes
• white peignoir
• romper that kind of looks like old-timey bathing suit
• unitard
• curry, bread for lunch
• bag spinach for dinner
• water bottle, e-mer-gen-C
• vitamins
• power bars

• ProSys tax webinar (10am-1pm)
• SEP/IRA adjustment form
• get new bus pass


• p/u library holds (accordion sheet music!)

• don’t forget to buy cat food! (chicken/lamb OK, not salmon)

it all depends on where you're standing

"You may not be Tolstoy, but Tolstoy wasn't Sendak, either. You have a vast and beautiful genius."

- Ursula Nordstrom to Maurice Sendak,

Dear Genius

baked goods

Last week I made a batch of end-of-the-holidays cookies:  cocoa, bittersweet chips, ginger, cinnamon, coconut, salted brown butter... basically, everything that was left in my pantry after holiday baking, minus the acorn squash.

If you can believe it, they taste even better straight from the freezer a week later.  I may have a new tradition.

So long, 2007.  You were sweet and weird and you look best in the soft glow of hindsight.  I'm ready to re-stock.

hello, again.

I've slapped up another blog after a long hiatus, and am back on Blogspot after years writing in MT. I keep coming to look at this page (because it's new; because it's daunting; because I like the colors; because I'm kind of in love with the title*) and am genuinely surprised each time that it isn't updating itself with new content the way all the other Blogspot blogs do. Heh.

* Thanks, Sherman Alexie!

rabbit, rabbit, rabbit.

forgive, love, offer more, ask for more. (a work in progress)