One & Done Sunday #20

Welcome to One & Done Sunday. One picture, and five links that are worth your time.

Here’s your picture:

It’s a total geek shot of my Superstar console. The question people always asked when they saw it was, “Why does it have so many colors?”. Looking at it from this angle, it kinda looks like the venue we performed in in Berlin last year. There’s a very Euro-techno feel to it. Plus, it’s dusty.

Earlier this month, we played our final performance of Jesus Christ Superstar on Broadway. It was bittersweet, as I guess these things always are. I’m better for having this opportunity to work with such talented–and nice, being that they’re largely Canadian and if they’re not nice enough they get kicked out of their country– people.

There was a party afterwards. I’m not big on parties and went to a yoga class instead, planning to swing by the party on my way home.

When I walked into the locker room it was nearly empty because I was running late and made it just in time. Something caught my eye: a prosthetic full leg, from just below the hip, on the floor against the wall.

Because the natural state of my mind is to be small and boxy, I couldn’t imagine anyone who actually needed that prosthetic would be down in the hot room to do yoga. My first thought was that it was some sort of prop, a possibility since this midtown yoga studio caters to a lot of performers.

They say yoga expands your mind.

I went downstairs and set up my mat. I looked to the right of me and there was the woman to whom the prosthetic belonged. She was tall, strong, and determined and there to do Bikram. I was humbled and inspired. I could not in good conscience sit out of a single pose that class.

It was an immediate and complete shift in my perspective.

I wished that I felt confident enough to speak to her after class, but I didn’t. I didn’t have confidence in finding the words to convey what I felt without those words being condescending, insensitive, or disrespectful. But in my eyes she was a goddamn rock star.

I don’t know if I’ll see her again or not, but the memory remains. I’m grateful for it.

The next day when I was extra sore from the extra effort I put out in that class, I thought of that badass woman and smiled.

Namasté.

Here are your links:

I just came across this post this morning and it filled my soul. Not much makes me happier than when one of my kids likes my music (and props to this kid for being a RUSH fan!): Pretty Girls Make Gravy: The Day She Discovered Led Zeppelin.

When your kid has to write an apology letter on the last day of school. Sh*t my 6-year-old-says: Apology Letter

Maybe some are staged, but I prefer to believe they’re not. 21 Pictures that will restore your faith in humanity

Get schooled on heavy metal: LA Weekly (thanks Deathrow Dan for the link).

This entire blog is worth reading, so I’m linking to the home page: An Athlete’s Journey Through Breast Cancer

Happy Sunday.

Coming to a Close

Somewhere at the very end of May, it came to my attention that there was such a thing as Camp NaNoWriMo. You probably know, National Novel Writing Month is November. Affectionately referred to as NaNoWriMo, participants commit to writing 1667 words per day to have a novel of 50,000 words at the end of the month.

Quantity, not quality, folks. Well, at least for mere mortals like me.

I made one attempt at NaNoWriMo a couple years ago. One way of looking at it is that I failed. I didn’t even make it to the half way mark. But I prefer to look at it as I got a good chunk of raw material towards what has become my work in progress.

For some reason, when I saw “Camp” in front of NaNoWriMo, I was thinking, Camp must be shorter somehow. Camp must mean a smaller word count. Camp sounds like something I could do!

So I Tweeted my friend Erin, who writes the blog MomFog. She has five kids too- and she actually gave birth to all of hers, leading me to believe it was at least somewhat intentional. Erin completed her first NaNoWriMo this past November and I asked her if she was doing Camp.

To which she replied, well I guess if you’re doing it, I’m doing it. And because I’m a Twitter NitWit and don’t have a smart phone and am not on it all the time, the next Tweet I got from her said she was signed up.

So I signed up. Because at this point, I had to.

Turns out, “Camp” is still 50,000 words.

I did a bit of a cheat. I am bogged down at a place in my work in progress where I have a crapload of backstory. Way too much. I don’t know how to work it in, I’m not sure if it fits. I’ve been struggling with moving forward. What happens next. So I decided that for CampNaNoWriMo I would simply write what happens next. No building on back story, nothing in the past, only forward motion allowed.

I did really well for a while. I was even getting up extra early to write and I was totally on target.

Right up until the week that the kids got out of school.

Which is the week that CC started working a second job during the day, prepping the next tour to go out.

Which is the week that camps started and the chauffeuring began.

Which is the week that my show posted the closing notice.

It came down to the last day of June and I was 8,000 words short. My plan was to finish, even though we had a two-show day. I would finish between shows.

I’ve been on shows closing before where the atmosphere backstage is a total downer. But this is such a great bunch of people that it was total party time. All kinds of people were stopping in to say goodbye, the head carpenter brought in a bunch of food, the ushers made a bunch of food. I typed about three sentences and finally decided I would really rather enjoy the time.

And so I did not complete CampNaNoWriMo. But I have 42,000 words of what happens next. And I don’t regret either my decision to start it, nor my decision to not complete it.

Also, I can’t wait to start revising. There’s some serious crap that should never see the light of day contained in that 42,000 words.

A Post for #3

Last night I experienced one of the less cool aspects of my job: not having a sub trained in my position, and having to miss a certain 8th-grade graduation.

Sometimes because of the timing of a show’s opening in relation to the Tony awards and when Tony voters are coming to see it you can’t train a sound sub, which is at least a two-week process, for a while.

And sometimes the show gets a closing notice before that even happens. Sadly, we did get a closing notice for July 1 but that’s not what this post is about.

This post is dedicated to #3, whose 8th grade promotion I missed last night, who is attending her very last day of middle school today.

She is beautiful and she makes me laugh and I am pretty sure that neither she nor I are ready for her to be in high school yet.

I am also certain that neither her father nor I are prepared for her to look this grown up, but it’s happened.

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Text exchange with her earlier this year after her field trip to the Franklin Institute:

Me: How was the field trip?

#3: Mmm the busss ride was rlly good. The actual place not so much.

Me: Oh that’s too bad- he was a really interesting dude. Guess they didn’t really bring that through?

#3: Mmm noooo maybbbe they should paint his statue pink.

**************

Texts we exchanged yesterday:

Me: Hope you’re enjoying your last day of middle school!

#3: the last day is tomorrow… haha but thanks

Me: Well it’s kinda silly that you have to go in after you graduate, isn’t it?

#3: yeah but we also have the pool is party 2mom.

Me: That’s worth going in for.

#3: I guess… all the guys r obsessed with one of the teachers with big boobs so now theyr even more obsessed since she’s going to the pool partyy

Me: That’s pretty much how they’re going to act for the rest of their lives.

#3: Ugh!

I was pleased to note that her text spelling has improved somewhat over this year, and that even though she still seems to have something against apostrophes, she did use more than one ellipsis.

When I came home from work Tuesday night she had just finished up a collage for one of her teachers: on a background of crazy colored and patterned tape, she had cut out and artfully arranged all her test grades for the year.

She had a bunch of writing on her arm and at first I thought it was some sort of home-made tribal tattoo. Then I thought it was a cheat sheet for a final.

“No,” she said. “I’m done with my finals. It’s the mean, median and mode of all the Facebook Likes on the pictures we put up from the 8th grade dance.”

Just in case you teachers thought they weren’t paying attention. . .