she keeps her love away

Yeah, it's Thanksgiving. Two days off of school - that's what I'm especially thankful for right now! I feel like I sort of did the thankful litany with the 8 days of happiness things, so I don't really feel like doing the whole litany again. Ok? Of course it's ok...it's MY journal! :P Seriously, those I'm thankful for have been told personally. I don't feel the need to do it on here.

I'm pretty much packed. Just have to put stuff like deodorant, make-up, toothpaste and tooth brush in the suitcase and then put the electronic stuff (laptop, camera, etc.) into the backpack. Mom and Daddy get in around 2:30, so I'll hit the subway around 1 and head out to meet them. We'll take a taxi into Manhattan and get settled into the hotel. We'll do dinner at Junior's where Daddy can be thankful for pea soup and Mom and I can be thankful we don't have to eat it. HA! Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy, which should make the trip to Liberty Island and Ellis Island not as fun as it could have been. But we'll make it work. Tomorrow night we'll be MARVELOUS with The Marvelous Wonderettes. YAY! Saturday we have no plans for the morning, then it's the matinee of Ragtime. The more I think about it, the more I'm sure they'll love it. We're talking about the man who cries at the Hall of Presidents at Disney World, so he'll LOVE all the rah rah patriotism crap. I swear I was absent the day they handed out the patriotic gene. Or perhaps I'm more like Oliver in The Vertical Hour: "I do have a button marked 'patriotism'. But - let's say - I'm choosy about who I allow to press it." And then in the evening we're seeing South Pacific! Woohoo!!! Sunday it's church and brunch...and probably then American Girl Place and FAO Schwartz. All in all it should be a good time. :)

Watching the parade - or showcase of selected shows which is what the first hour tends to be - right now. Love how they jazzed up the Billy outfits. /sarcasm. I really HATE this song. And I'm not a huge fan of the show as it is on Broadway anyway. Yuck. Hair did well. At least it was a group number and not the overtired (I love it, but come on...) "Let The Sun Shine In". As for Stamos...that only proved why I have NO desire to see that show. I do wish either CBS or NBC had next to normal on, but it probably would have been "Superboy..." which is fine, but I'm SOOOOO tired of that being the showcased song for the show. Though it could be oddly apropros for Thanksgiving for some families. So yeah... That's my morning. Woo and hoo.

A couple of people have asked about the play. It's kind of hard to talk about right now since it's still in progress. Essentially it's an "aftermath and growth play" - meaning the characters are dealing with the aftermath of things in their lives and growing. Way oversimplified, but there it is. I know the most about Catharine (the primary character), then next most about Max (the stranger who comes into Cat's life), and then least about Tori ( Cat's sister). While the scene I turned in for critique had a flashback, I'm thinking I'll follow my instructor's thoughts and just have Cat narrate that - spare the audience the horror of SEEING what happened - so that means that right now it's a three-person play. Which may be ok. We'll see. The scene I turned in for critique dealt with Catharine revealing the darkest secret of her past to her sister during a storm (go me with the inadvertent symbolism), so it was pretty dark. Thankfully they all thought it was very well-written. There were some lines they thought maybe shouldn't be there...I don't know. I can see their point, but also I think with the right delivery they wouldn't be AS harsh as they read cold. So we'll see about that. It also didn't follow directly the other scenes I'd turned in, and I'm not sure everyone read the note because there were some who were like "But what about Max?" Um, I explained that in the note I put on the front of the stuff I gave you to read. But it's all good.

*random* Ok, this performance seals that I will NOT go back to Shrek. I'm sorry. They took the bullshit cop-out way of doing things when they inserted this stupid song. No no no no NO! /random

Um... Yeah, I think that's about it. For now.

Have a great day everyone!

Unbroken, never ending. Circles draw us in, enclose us in warmth and light. But circles also keep us out. Some are on the inside and others are on the outside. Is there a way to have a circle that includes everyone? What would that look like? Does it mean we all have to agree? No, I don't think so. But there has to be mutual respect and understanding. Infighting...it happens too often when people are close...or not...and are working towards the same thing or who like the same thing. People approach things differntly, and what works for someone might appear to be weird or even incorrect to others. But who is to say what circle ~ or what way into the circle ~ is correct. I think about some of my circles of friendship. Some overlap, some don't. And that's ok. Not all of my friends have to be friends with each other. Sometimes circles expand ~ you draw someone into your circle, or are drawn into their circle...and you meet others who may enter the circle both of you have created together...or you may form your own circle with the new person that may have some overlap with the original circle. Like a Venn Diagram.

And yet...to speak of relationships in terms of circles is not necessarily a true analogy. Because a circle is never ending. And relationships are, whether we like it or not, finite. Yes, some go on for a lifetime, but even those are ended by death. But more often than not, the circles end before death parts the individuals. Time, distance, even the influence of others can lead to endings of relationships. All too often the influence of others. I always try to form my own opinons of someone rather than letting others influence my feelings. And sometimes that ends up costing me friendships or puts some friendships on shaky ground. I'm in a situation where this could easily happen right now, because there is someone I've met through one friend, and I have yet to have a bad experience with her... But there ar two other friends who, to hear them tell it, think that she is the devil incarnate. Talking with her, I see her perspective on them ~ and actually it is not that far from what my gut has been feeling about them lately. But then...then again, I have a disturbing tendency to be too trusting, and it's gotten me burned before. In some ways it's getting me burned now. And so much of it boils down to trust.

In Meet the Parents Robert Deniro's character speaks about "the circle of trust" and really, that's what so much in relationships boils down to. Trust. Who do you trust and how? And what happens when the trust is broken. The pair I mentioned earlier...right now I am really struggling with trusting one of them. Because my trust was violated, actually doubly violated because the person who publicly did betray me had to gain access to what he used from someeone else, and when I confronted my friend, the subject of that person was avoided. (Don't worry, I realize that makes no sense to anyone but me probably.) And yet, if I cut this person out of my life, how will that affect my friendship with the other in the pair? Because they are thick as thieves. In all likelihood, it will make me persona non grata to both of them, much like my new friend is.

It's very confusing, and I don't expect any answers. Just me puzzling things out. And writing.

In a way, writing in a circle. I could go round and round about this in my head, and I have. It's a puzzle with no real solution, much as a circle has no ending. Such fun it is to deal with.

Last night I went to Jennifer Weiner's reading, O&A and book signing at the Lincoln Triangle Barnes & Noble. This was my first opportunity to hear and meet her after admiring her writing for years. She is definitely one of my literary idols ~ not that my novel-in-progress Coventry would indicate that. But she is.

The place was packed! They brought out the wristbands which were given to people who purchased the book to indicate that we had priority for seating. Now, to my knowledge, the last time those wristbands were brought out was for Liza's CD signing. But I digress. At any rate, the place was PACKED. And there were like 4 guys there ~ one was a friend of hers there for support, and one was her...I think it was agent's father. The other two I could see were obviously there in hopes of getting some from their girlfriend/wife later that night for being "sensitive". When the guy was introducing her, Jen walked into the little area between the door and the window and saw us all and mouthed "OH! MY! GOD!" then went to get her cell phone to take pictures of us. That in and of itself made me happy. That she's still so down-to-earth it amazes her that so many people show up for her readings/signings.

And it only got better! She started off quipping that she had this dream of having a room full of guys at one of her events if for no other reason than to be able to talk to her Nana and be all "It was a sausage fest in there!" "What? There was a lot of meat in the room?" "No Nana! The room was full of cock!" "There's something wrong with your clock?" Only then did she realize that she'd actually said "cock". She went on to say it a few more times, which was funny ~ in various contexts. And then she told some other stories that were hysterical. She finally quipped "I'd better take some questions before I have NO friends left!"

The questions ranged from things about her books to things about writing and getting published. Someone asked if the people she painted in a negative light ever called her on it, and she said "The thing is, if they're that bad, they usually don't even realize it." But then talked about the one time one person DID appear to figure it out and asked her about it, she said "Now what makes you think that?" which puts that person in the position of either back pedaling or admitting all the shitty things they've done, but they usually don't recognize themselves. HAHA! And she talked about how you can put the funny to you stuff in a first draft, just be prepared to (most likely) cut it in revisions. Which made me happy... If I go with redoing my diary of a first year teacher idea for NaNa 2009 (I got as far as Thanksgiving in the year my first attempt...which not surprisingly corresponded with where I was in my first year of teaching), I can totally use "Emily the Evil" as the name for the assistant principal knowing I can change it in revisions. :) Plus "Emily the Evil" is THREE words every time it's used! (Ok, now I'm being silly, but. Yeah!)

So I got to meet her briefly...as usual I was all tongue-tied. It takes me a couple of times meeting someone for me to open up and be looser ~ my friends in a Broadway show can testify to that! But it was really cool! I was glad she was so down-to-earth and REAL. That's not always the case ~ there is one author (who shall go unnamed) I met twice at signings...and in between a show based on her books got picked up, and the difference in how she was between the two years was SCARY. SOOOOOO Hollywood the second year. But Jen was great ~ she takes a pretty hands-off approach to her works being optioned ("other than cashing that check ASAP" she quipped when asked about books into movies) ~ and so she's, like I said, still really down to earth and humble.

What last night did was get me inspired again about writing. I've done NaNoWriMo for the past three years ~ "won" the last two. I put it in quotes because one year was essentially fanfiction which could never be published and the other I still have a long way to go with (like fleshing out a whole character and adding in a LOT of stuff)...but ultimately from the interest I've heard from people when I talk about it, that one MAY be publishable. The first year I lost (meaning I didn't hit 50,000 words) largely because it was sort of in the vein of The Nanny Diaries, but about a first year teacher, and I was IN my first year teaching, so I really couldn't get much past Thanksgiving and make it believable. That one also seems publishable...but finding an agent who wouldn't be like "WTF?" at the difference in tone and even genre (one is pretty firmly chick lit, the other more literary fic...I'll let you figure out which one is which) ~ hey, i"m nothing if not versatile. I would like to revisit that first novel attempt this year. Start from scratch and really do it right.

But I want to improve my technique. And I've decided to that end I will take some money that would have gone to theatre tickets or a trip or Lasik and enroll in a class at Gotham Writer's Workshop in the fall. I've been to a few of their free things and liked them ~ though i can tell it will vary from teacher to teacher...so finding a match may be an interesting proposition. Now...I may hate it. There is a big difference between a 30 minute or hour introduction and a 10 week course. But I figure if nothing else I WILL get some practice with technique, and that never really hurts does it?

So... Yeah. I've put my most recent short story on here (I think). I may use that for my piece in the first class I take...but we'll see. Depends on what I learn.

Fun, fun! And following a dream I've had even if I didn't know it. Writing. :)