Official Reason I Have Not Been Posting

Tonight I was at a birthday party and got the question, "Hey, why haven't you blogged?" It was my friend's mom who I'd forgotten had been a regular visitor...

When I started this blog, almost two years ago, I'd already been thinking about it for at least that long. One of the reasons I hesitated is that I didn't want to be one of those people who just stopped posting. It was one of my main peeves in a reading blogs. So I made an effort to post every five or six days. And I did that for the good part of those two years.

Then I stopped. I've turned into one of those people.

But with good reason. I have stopped because I am working on my manuscript. Truly. I'm more than half way through my fourth draft and with the new job eating away at formerly unlimited free time (not that I'm complaining about having a steady income...) I honestly do not have the head space to do both right now.

So if you've been one of the lovely people who continue to check in on me, I will return.

...especially when Oscar season begins...

Thoughts While Driving...

So it's been a while. I know that.

And I miss it, the blogging, but quite frankly it's boring to talk about. However, I am surprised to find myself stopping short of writing every time I think of something. Of course much of it has to do with starting the new job. And I'm happy to yield my creative energies in that direction for a little while. But at some point I'm sure to find myself chomping at the bit.

In the meantime, here are some thoughts that have not quite made it into full-blown explorations.

- The other night I was driving home and came across the song "The Devil Went Down to Georgia". I laughed because I can remember thinking, as a kid, that the Devil totally won that competition. Listening now, it's clear that the Devil's piece was heavily reliant upon his back up band and all he really does is screech the bow menacingly back and forth across the strings. On the other hand, it was the 1970s I felt Johnny's solo seemed very old-fashioned-y hillbilly cornpone. It is now quite obvious that Johnny was the more technically adept fiddle player.

- Likewise, I heard Duran Duran and was reminded of another time when I was sure of what I believed, only to laugh now. I was at a slumber party for a youth organization I was involved in. The age range of the girls in attendance was eleven to sixteen, which makes for an interesting mix, but I was in the younger girl group and we simply thought it was cool that the older girls still (if somewhat begrudgingly) wanted to hang around with us. Anyway, we were watching Friday Night Videos (the poor man's MTV) and Hungry Like the Wolf came on. We were enthralled. Toward the end of the video there is a very explicit scene of a couple kissing, with prevalent tongue action. One of my friends let out an "Eww" and a few of us responded in kind. Looking over at the couch, I caught the eye of one of the sixteen year olds who, with arms folded, half rolled her eyes and said, "In a few years you'll like all of it and it'll all be just fine..."

- I bought a new car, which means I said goodbye to the Jeep. I kind of feel bad since at the end it was more like a good riddance (what with the gummy mess of tape from the roof stuck to my arm all day long and the miserably hot summer with no A/C). But there will be some day when I will miss it - the howdy-do waves from young men, the ease in parallel parking (okay, so I will admit I have not yet grown comfortable doing this in the new Nissan...) the general hipness it seemed to evoke in perfect strangers. But alas, when I gathered my last stray CD from it's crumb-covered floor and swung the door shut, I felt pretty satisfied.

- I am off on another adventure, leaving tomorrow to meet up with friends from graduate school in Vail, and remembering that I went out almost a year ago to help the friend with said house prepare it for ski season. I am eager to return to the lush countryside of Colorado and stand in awe of its vast beauty.

Okay, so that wasn't so hard. Now I've just got to find a way to sustain it...

The Ficus That Loves Me

While moving into my apartment in Grandview in the fall of 1996, I was out at one of the big box stores, buying light bulbs or returning the wrong size window blinds (or something equally errand-y), when I impulse-bought a small potted ficus tree.

I knew nothing of plants. Even having grown up the daughter of an avid gardener, my knowledge and experience was embarrassingly low. Still, something compelled me and I heaved it into my cart filled with items for my new place.

Over the years, I've bought other plants, a spider plant here, an adopted aloe plant there. But they never lasted. The cat ate one, another simply refused to grow roots and could be lifted in and out of the pot at will, and another required more water than I could consistently remember to provide. But ficus has thrived.

It survived my time at COSI (where I worked 18-hour days for two solid months and once left glass from a shattered ceiling fan on my bedroom floor for four days). It survived the move to my home where I placed it in the middle of the large picture window, with the same sun it received in the apartment. At Christmas, I adorn it with a single strand of lights and top it with a Santa hat left over from college.

What I love most about the tree is it's gentle forgiveness. It doesn't require me to work for its reward. When I remember to prune it back, tiny leaves grow in and impress me; when I don't, it doesn't punish me. The other day, my friend Brooke, while waiting on me to go for a walk, wondered allowed if maybe the pot was too small. It took me a week and a half of thinking about it, purchasing (and then returning) a pot way too big, and inquiring about the right type of potting soil, but I finally got the plant settled into it's new digs.

Tonight I spread out newspaper and carefully went about my first-ever plant transplant. I've seen my mother perform dozens of these over the years and never once considered its point beyond an obligated task. But it felt good to do something for my ficus. A long over-due thank you of sorts.

Makes me consider getting another plant. But I probably won't anytime soon.

Running to Stand Still

In a few hours a mini-van filled with writers will arrive in my driveway and swoop me away for a long weekend of reading and writing and generalized mixture of comraderie and solitude.

I've been looking forward to it all week. Well, longer than that, but the anticipation has ramped up considerably in tandem with a busy schedule full of unknowns.

It's no secret that I've been looking for consistent work for quite some time. For my whole adult life it sometimes seems, but, of course that's not quite an accurate perspective, just how I feel in the moment. However, in the past week, I've been in the early first-interview stages of three opportunites with great potential. As I've been busy juggling all of the proverbial balls and exhausting myself with the "what if" game, I've been itching to get my butt in on a porch swing and comb over comments from my manuscript.

The retreat place is a large former "hunting cabin" set up with a large living space and several small rooms with single beds and sinks. There is a large kitchen and dining area for leisurely meals, and, best of all, that sprawling back porch overlooking a creek. Last year we spent most of our time on that porch; quite a sight, all those open laptops among the trees.

But first I need to finish my lengthy to-do list...

The Domestic Life of Actors

Last night I had the great fortune to score free "media tickets" for the touring show of Wicked, seated in the same section as local celebs like Colleen Marshall and Jym Ghanahl (my first real "press perk"). I had written an article for (614) in which I interviewed one of the actors, Justin Brill who plays the Munchkin-turned-Tin-Man, Boq, so I was excited to place headshot with a live person. I'd spoken to him on the phone about a month ago, where he was at home in Manhattan.

Between scenes of the show at the Ohio, I started to wonder how Brill might be enjoying Columbus so far. Which got me to thinking about the lives of actors, or really, the unconventional life of the professional artist.

When I 23 I spent one year in up-state New York working as a literary apprentice at a regional theater. While I had grown up being involved in drama and earned a bachelor's degree in theater, this was my first exposure to people who made their living in the arts. Most of our actors had moved to New York City to pursue acting only to end up spending months and months out of the year at various cities in the Midwest. This because all of the regional theaters from all over the country (not to mention the various touring groups) all audition in NYC.

So these actors, some in their 20s but most in their 30s and 40s, took up residence in a block of apartments rented by the theater and did their best to maintain their version of "daily life" on the road. Because I was young, I was only able to see them through a veil of idealized envy. They were, after all, getting paid for things me and my friends were doing for free to fill the balance of the monotonous job-job. They were all so cool, haning out each night in the cabaret after shows, drinking wine, smoking, telling amusing stories about their minor celebrity encounters in the business. They had a worldy wisdom that was intoxicating.

What I began to realize was a sort of fast-track emotional existence. Relationships of all kinds seemed to come quickly and easily. And then they were gone and on to the next gig. In some ways, this seemed exciting, something I found it difficult to grasp as I collected addresses and intended sincere continuations of my connections.

What I didn't realize until many years later was the inherent complexity of their lives. Many were divorced, a few had children that required much coordinating to either see or have with them. For them, there was no coming home at the end of the day and settling into a couch with a loved one or putting children to bed.

In my Wicked phone interview with Brill, he mentioned having just gotten married. "How does that work?" I asked, perhaps a little too pessimistically. "We're lucky," he said. "My wife happens to be the dance captain of this particular tour. That almost never happens."

I've seen many people who make it work, who manage to work out the tedious details to manage the conventions that ground them while that urgently pursue the passions they need in order to function properly in the world. All without the promise that any of it will pay off in any sort of tangible way.

But I thank them. From the bottom of my music-loving, theatre-appreciating, film-obsessed heart.

Old School Ode #8 - The Significance of Rick Springfield on the Development of the 12 Year Old Girl in 1982

I do not have air conditioning in my Jeep. Luckily, I have my Dad's spare truck parked in my driveway for those days when rolled-down windows and bundled-up hair will just not cut it.

That vehicle has a tape deck. As much as I like the radio, I can only go so long before I feel the need to control what I am listening to. So I've taken to rummaging through my box of abandoned cassettes in my basement.

Which is how I've come to be listening to Rick Springfield's "Success Hasn't Spoiled Me Yet" almost non-stop for the past week.

To go on about how Springfield was a huge star in 1982 would be a redundant waste of time. Even those who don't care could not argue this point. What intrigues me now, however, is just how spot-on Springfield was in appealing to an almost exclusively prepubescent female audience, given he was in his thirties at the height of his popularity. One could argue this is creepy, but I'd like to try to give Springfield the benefit of a thorough consideration.

Let's start with the album cover of Success Hasn't Spoiled Me Yet:

I won't say it looks like something a twelve year old girl could pull off, but it absolutely appeals almost exclusively to that demographic. Anyone who ever picked up a Teen Beat in 1982 knew that Springfield had a dog named Ron. That he loved this dog enough to put him on one album cover (Working Class Dog) is one thing, but to bring him back and be humbled enough to eagerly play man-servant to said dog? That's altogether something else. Throw in the pink and the poodles and the silly posturing, you're not going to win over the Van Halen crowd.

I would imagine all teen idol types are under some sort of pressure to consistently appeal to the throngs of screaming girls. But unlike the guys in the Beatles who longed (rightfully so) to shed their teenybopper image, or George Michael's hidden-in-plain-sight homosexuality, Springfield's songs seemed a genuine expression of his inner landscape. I would imagine it might have been confusing as an artist to recognize a common maturity level between he and his audience, but he never seemed to fight this or condescend.

Springfield uses the terms "girl" a lot to describe the women in his songs. This might be offensive if he didn't also seem to refer to himself as a "boy." He has a song called "How Do You Talk To Girls" that is almost embarrassingly earnest in its longing to understand the opposite sex. How he manages to not sound like an emotionally stunted man-boy is astonishing.

Likewise, there is a song called "April 24, 1981" the title referring simply to the date of his father's death. The song is short, perhaps not even a minute, and the lyrics are simple

I know all your life you've wondered / About that step we all take alone / How far does the spirit travel on a journey / You must surely be near heaven / And it thrills me to the bone / To know Daddy knows the great Unknown.

Girls all over the world, girls who had never known one bit of loss in their lives, collectively wept over this song. While I had my musical crushes (forever having to point out Johnathon Cain from the Teen Beat centerfold Journey posters...) I was never the overt screamer. But there was something about Springfield that made it easy to fall for him. He appealed to many types of girls - the quiet, the pretty, nerdy, even the tough girls. At my school there were a trio of girls who were known for their allegiance to wearing black t-shirts featuring the icons of rock - Rush, the Doors and Ozzy - who were hard-core Rick devotees.

Perhaps I am overlooking the obvious charge that Springfield's songs were better than everyone gave him credit for. Should they be compared to even the pantheon of classic pop songs? Probably not, but as I strain to listen to my almost thirty-year-old thinly worn tape, I realize how easy it is to simply soak in the songs that I am not listening to for simply sentimental reasons.

I saw Springfield in concert when I was thirteen, fourteen, and twenty-seven. Going to the latter show, I worried that I had become like those middle-aged ladies you hear about going to see Tom Jones. But it was a huge crowd of all kinds of people - women as well as men, suburbanites and urban hipsters alike - all hovering around thirty at the time, all there to celebrate what we loved about Rick Springfield.

And he seemed genuinely proud that we'd finally come of age...

CAPA Summer Movie Series: The Love Affair Continues...

If I am remembering correctly, last year, I had at least a couple posts professing my profound love for the Summer Movie Series that takes place at the Ohio Theater.

Every year, when I pick up the flyer (that I promptly tape to the door in my home office) I immediately scour the list, picking out about ten films I'd really like to see. I eventually had to learn to accept the fact that schedule conflicts and unforeseen circumstances would ultimately get in the way.

Setting the bar low (at one showing per summer) I learned I could congratulate myself if I exceeded that. Last year I saw three - The Day the Earth Stood Still, South Pacific, and Wings, the latter taking its place as my favorite CAPA Summer Movie Series viewing of all time (which is saying a lot considering I saw Gone With the Wind in 1980 when Columbus experienced a minor earthquake that shook the one-ton chandelier above our heads...)

See - http://lostglovefound.blogspot.com/2009/08/another-love-letter-to-capa-summer.html for that post...

I am proud to report that this year, I have well exceeded my minimal expectations with my fifth show last night. There are four more left, and I have plans to see two of them next week. Usually, my desire to be "cultured" is thwarted by my default "middlebrow" tastes. But I have come to recently appreciate art produced before my lifetime.

I will wait until the series is over before I comment individually on each movie. But, so far, there has not been a dud in the bunch.