I’ve been rolling a bunch of Sondheim lyrics around in my head lately.  I mean, this guy somehow knows magic things about life and is able to put them into words and then set them to the most extraordinary music you’ve ever heard.  So I’m hitting you with a Sondheim bomb.  I included this a few years ago in a blog post, but it wanted to come back out to play.

I chose and my world was shaken;
so what?
The choice may have been mistaken,
the choosing was not.
You have to move on.

I mean, seriously?  Who in the world hasn’t truly felt like that at one time or another?  This guy knows what’s up.  xoxo

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Do you know Sinatra’s song “That’s Life?”  Some friends and I were talking the other night, and I realized that it’s sort of the perfect description of how life is rolling along right now.  There are some pretty extreme highs and lows these days, but you know what?  There always are.  And I kind of love them, because it means I’m really living.   And life’s gonna keep coming, so I think you just have to take Frank’s advice and go along with the ride (…except for the part at the end about rolling up in a ball and dying…  We could do without that bit.).  xoxo

“I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king…”

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This little excerpt from Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town is almost too much to handle — like trying to look at a beautiful light that’s just too bright.  But it also somehow summarizes exactly how I feel about life.  Don’t you wish you could appreciate every single little thing?  I think some people know how.  xoxo

Emily:  I didn’t realize all that was going on and we never noticed…  Good-by, world.  Good-by, Grover’s Corners…  Mama and Papa.  Good-by to clocks ticking… and Mama’s sunflowers.  And food and coffee.  And new-ironed dresses and hot baths… and sleeping and waking up.  Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you.  Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it — every, every minute?

Stage Manager:  No. (pause) The saints and poets, maybe they do some.

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I think today calls for high fives.  I feel like sometimes we (especially women) work and work and work and pass over the little good things that happen because we think they’re not big enough good things.  So I think some high fives are in order!

{Higher Fives by Ed Nacional.}

I didn’t book any acting jobs this week.  But I did get a callback for a pretty awesome theatre — Goodspeed Opera House.  And I went to the callback and sang, played ukulele, played guitar, and read a scene.  And I did a good job.  High five!

I totally want to give some higher fives today.  Tell us a good thing that happened this week.  We’ll ALL high five you!  xoxo

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So here’s a fun story (and by fun, I mean awful).  When I take photos in my apartment for all of those DIY projects I do, I usually have to take them on the fire escape because it is literally the only place where there’s any decent natural light (the joys of an airshaft-facing apartment).  So no problem.  Here’s where I do all my DIY-ing:

A little crazy, I know, but we have to do what we have to do.  And most of the time, it works.  But you know when it doesn’t work?  When you go out onto the fire escape in the winter with no coat and no keys to your apartment and you let the door close behind you.  That’s when it gets a little tricky.

Okay, here’s what happened.  I went out with my camera to take some photos.  I thought I left the door ajar.  I didn’t.  It was cold and kind of drizzly, but I had shoes on, so I started walking down the stairs (I’m sure my mom is wishing she never saw this post).

I made it to the bottom, and then realized that not only did I not have my keys, but I also had no phone and no money.  So I tried collect-calling Mr. Lovely.  It didn’t work enough for me to get through, but it worked enough for him to know something was up.  So I walked into the diner next door and begged them to let me use the phone, which they did.  I called Mr. Lovely and missed him, but thanks to the wonders of Caller I.D. he called the diner right back and I asked (cried) him for some assistance (please please please do something to help me).

I went back outside to wait by the pay phone in case he needed to call back, because I had figured that the folks at the diner were kind of over the homeless-looking girl running up their phone bill.  So somehow Mr. Lovely got a hold of our Super, who happened to magically be around the corner, who showed up right at the moment when it really started to rain.

So Super Nick walked me back into our building and gave me keys to get into the apartment, and I have never, ever, ever gone out on the fire escape without keys, money, or phone ever again.  xoxo

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I don’t really make resolutions or goals for the New Year, because I do that here.  But in 2012, this is sort of the way I’d like to live my life.  xoxo

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Letters of Note recently posted an amazing letter from John Steinbeck in response to one from his son, Thom.  Thom wrote his father about a girl at boarding school, with whom he thought he had fallen in love.  Steinbeck’s response is absolute beauty.

New York
November 10, 1958

Dear Thom:

We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.

First—if you are in love—that’s a good thing—that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.

Second—There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you—of kindness and consideration and respect—not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.

You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply—of course it isn’t puppy love.

But I don’t think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it—and that I can tell you.

Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.

The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.

If you love someone—there is no possible harm in saying so—only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.

Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.

It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another—but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.

Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I’m glad you have it.

We will be glad to meet Susan. She will be very welcome. But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.

And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens—The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.

Love,

Fa

 {Image.}

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1.  Despite being what I consider to be relatively intelligent, I always have to recite the “I before E except after C” rule in my head when I write out words like “receipt.”  Every time.

2.  Also on the recitation list: “Righty Tighty, Lefty Loosey,” whenever I screw or unscrew anything.

3.  When I take my first drink of soda from a can, I hiccup one time.  It’s like clockwork.  And kind of painful.

4.  I’ve had two successful careers — one as a choral music educator and one as an actress.

5.  The entire right side of my body is ever-so-slightly bigger than the left.  I use this as my scapegoat for the fact that I have awful balance.

6.  Diet Pepsi (not Diet Coke).  Dogs (not cats, unless it’s a kitten).  Sour gummi candy (not chocolate, although Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are one of the world’s wonders).

7.  I have a hard time keeping still.  I tend to wiggle my feet back and forth, especially in order to fall asleep.

8.  I grew up on an almond ranch and therefore know how to irrigate an orchard, saddle and ride a horse, operate a four-wheeler, and feed various farm animals.

9.  I always always always wear rubber gloves when I’m doing the dishes.  This makes me a fearless and highly effective dish-doer.

10.  I’ve been to 38 of the 50 states, and it’s a goal to see them all.  Although I’m going to have to be coaxed into Alaska.  Along with Alaska, still missing Arizona, New Mexico, the Dakotas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Delaware, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

BONUS #11! I absolutely love love.

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I would like to focus on working from the inside out, rather than the outside in.  In the theatre, your product is yourself.  And you see products walking and talking and dancing and singing all day long, and it’s the easiest thing to slip into comparing your product to the products around you.  It’s easy to mimic, to imitate, to rip off, to stack yourself up against the other products and see who comes out on top.

But isn’t that working from the outside in?  Shouldn’t it be the other way around?  Shouldn’t I just feel how I feel, and let it come through whenever I sing, and then it will be true and real?  That’s what I want.  That’s what I want to focus on.  People are smart, and people can smell falseness a mile away.  I want to walk into a room and give you me — pure, unadulterated, awesome, emotional, talented, wonderful, imperfect ME, stretching for miles until you can’t see any more.  I don’t want to walk in and sound like the girl before me.  I don’t want to try to be her.  I want to show you me, and I can’t wait for the day when the time is right, and I walk into a room and be me, and me is exactly what they’re looking for.  xoxo

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Ladies and gents, I am coming to you straight from the line at my local post office (the wonders of the smart phone), where I am witnessing four grown adults absolutely shouting at each other. They have lost their cool. I don’t know the circumstances, but the general gist is that one man cut in line to ask a “quick question,” which then turned into a 15-minute exchange with the teller. So naturally, people started flipping out.

Now, I’m not saying this is a novel experience for me, especially with all of the personalitites you come across in NYC. I’m not even trying to say that I never lose my cool. I guess I’m just wondering what these screaming people would think if they saw a playback of this whole ordeal. My best guess is that half would be unmoved, and half would be embarrassed. I know that if I saw myself treating another person the way that they’re treating each other, I’d be absolutely ashamed.

Moral of the story? Who knows. Maybe it’s just that we’re all people who are trying to accomplish things while we weave around and through other people. We have to share space and resources, and if we’re all shouting while we share, no one’s gonna hear anything at all. xoxo

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