old pictures

I really do love the instant fun of digital photography, but I will never get enough of old pictures. My mom, aunt, and grandmother are all really great at holding onto photographs, and I'm so glad because I can spend hours looking through their boxes and albums.

My mom

My mom and some mystery suitor. I think this is at Rye Playland amusement park.

My aunt Donna

Me!

i love florida

Photograph by Slim Aarons

I don't totally understand my fascination with Florida. I've only been to visit three times, I've never stayed longer than a week, and there is something about the politics and confused culture of the state that is really terrifying.

And yet.

I used to have a fantasy of moving to Florida after college and renting a pink house and driving a mint green pickup truck and having a boyfriend named Beau and a dog named Stitch and always leaving the front door open and post-dinner walks to get ice cream and there is definitely a porch swing in there somewhere and yes to beach hair and bare feet and tanned shoulders and shorts all year and fried seafood in front of a sunset.

But see most of this could take place anywhere, right? That could be easily be southern California or Massachusetts or even New Jersey during warm months. The pink house might be a little tricky, but I could attempt to make most of my fantasy come true right here in Brooklyn. But there's just something about Florida. I think it's the landscape, the beaches, the swamps, the flatlands. It's the climate, the mugginess, the winding tree-lined coastal roads, the cultural indecision, the proximity to Cuba, there is something about all of these things lumped together that fascinates me.

Or it could just be my white hot desire to live a life of leisure that doesn't include a soggy, sweaty, smells like my nose is packed between someone's butt cheeks subway car. Rush hour commuting creates in me an ardent need to lounge and loll in white bloomies by the pool waiting for absolutely nothing at all.

i'm happy about

My new Soludos.

This book I'll take with me to New Hampshire. Especially looking forward to Sarah Vowell's Montana essay, Rick Moody on Connecticut, and Florida by Joshua Ferris.

31 plays in 31 days

So I've signed up for this challenge! You write 31 plays in 31 days and you feel good about yourself. Because instead of doing what I always do-- drinking beer, watching Netflix, not doing any writing, texting old boyfriends, reading other people's plays, napping, not doing any writing, fantasizing what my life could be like if only I could write my damn play, not doing any writing-- instead of only doing those things, you're writing, too!

And of course, your plays can be dreck or genius or just kind of mediocre. They can be one page or two hundred pages. The only important thing is that you get stuff down on paper. And I like the philosophy of the organizers:

The 31 Plays in 31 Days Project is based on the idea that to become a better writer, you must write. You must write a lot. And you need to practice experimenting with your writing form constantly. The pressure of this goal will allow you to set aside preconceived notions of what you should be writing and how you should be doing it. You will not have time to overanalyze your work, you will just have to write, write, write and be surprised by what comes out of you. You may love your work some days and wonder what happened on others, but by the end of the month, you will have amassed 31 new plays. Instead of waiting for the breeze of inspiration to blow your way, you will see that writing is a craft that can be called on at any time.
--Rachel Bublitz & Tracy Held Potter.


Wish me luck! Today begins the first day and the first play!

uncle vanya

I'm so, so glad I made myself go see Sydney Theatre Company's production of "Uncle Vanya." They brought it to New York as part of the Lincoln Center Festival, and because the tickets are expensive, the show is long, and the run is so short, I came up with a billion reasons not to go. But I really loved STC's production of "Hedda Gabbler" at BAM back in 2006, and I feel like it's silly to miss an opportunity to see Cate Blanchett on stage, so I just used that credit card that's always $100 from the maxed out limit anyway and went to see it.

Whenever I'm feel particularly boastful after a drink or two, you might catch me claiming that "Uncle Vanya, hic, is my favorite Chekhov play." When in fact, Uncle Vanya is the only Chekhov play I've read in its entirety (shameful, I know). But I really do love it-- it's slow, not much happens and yet everything happens, and it presents a kind of crushing, acute reminder of the pain of living and trying to love and deal in the world.

This production had all of that, but it also had a bouyancy about it that I can't seem to forget. I've seen productions of "Uncle Vanya" that are certainly beautiful and poignant, but they definitely feel like "eat your spinach" theater-- long, dour, a world without much light. Which I guess might be the Russia Chekhov creates, but he also creates a Russia where people need music, drink like Vikings, sing at the top of the lungs, crave the human touch, and break into dance. Their inability to have all of these things in a consistent way is one of the reasons his work feels so heartbreaking to me. And when you get a glimpse of how these characters might live if they could get out of their own ways, when you see how one's life could be if perhaps fear wasn't such a constant, it is absolutely both the happiest and saddest thing in the world. This production of "Uncle Vanya" allowed us to see how happy these people might be, how their lives could feel like a Saturday night as opposed to Monday morning-- we see that glint of possibility, and when it's taken away, when they realize their dreams are only dreams and life is probably one, long, monotonous stretch, the shock of the realization just takes your breath away.

beach wisdom

I went to Fire Island a few summers ago for a friend's bachelorette party. We drank on the beach, drank out of plastic cups, drank in the mornings to kill our hangovers. We played board games in the sand, ate fried seafood for lunch, and laughed for three days straight. Fire Island doesn't allow cars on the island, so you have to walk everywhere. It's actually kind of nice because the streets are tiny and heavily shaded and lined with little houses that have porches and flags and mailboxes brandishing someone's family name. People use wagons to cart stuff around on the island-- bright red wagons full of groceries and towels and charcoal and tired puppies and beach supplies and who knows what else. On our first day there, we found three young girls selling painted seashells for a dollar in front of their house. I loved my shell-- "life is a wagon" it read. There was something kind of simple and unclear about it, but the stance also felt definitive. Yes, ladies, you're right. Maybe life is a wagon-- something you pack up and tug around, and for the most part you know what's in there, but every once in a while you might discover something kind of new and fun about your very own bright red wagon.