I was in the supermarket today, and I got really, really upset.
I wanted to buy a green pepper. But they looked a little under the weather. Then I noticed they weren't organic. But the only place to buy organic green peppers was about a 15 minute drive away. That would mean more gas emissions. Then I started recalling some article I read about how certain colored vegetables are better than others. I couldn't remember which one. Was it white vegetables (cauliflower)? Or green ones? Or orange ones (carrots)? Or, was it not specific colors that mattered, but an array of colors, like a rainbow, that I was supposed to be ingesting?
I suddenly felt so fed up and frustrated.
Plus, I had once again forgotten my "save the trees" tote bag, and so would have to accept plastic again.
This was getting to me. All this pressure to stay healthy, keep the world safe, recycle, stay local, boycott, fight for the underdog, stock my trunk with tote bags, fill my fridge with non-soy products. I can't take it! These things are supposed to be done for our well-being and the greater good. But keeping track of all of it is a full-time job.
At first I was really excited when I made it a priority to start living more consciously. I embraced it totally. It was like the flood gates opened and I dove in head first.
Now, I feel like I'm standing in the middle of supermarket, starving, holding a wimpy green pepper, thinking about how there are so many ways I could have made better purchasing, sustainable, and economy supportive decisions in the process of making my silly little salad.
So, I guess, for purely selfish reasons, I decided to write down all the things I AM doing now, that I know are good for the environment and my own well-being.
GOOD: I changed all the light bulbs in my house. That wasn't hard. I bought a whole box of them, and as soon as they started dying, I replaced them with the kind of bulb that Al Gore told me to buy.
AND THEN SOME: Of course, I then had to remember to put the dead light bulbs in the glass recycling bin. And put the cardboard cases that the light bulb came in, in the paper recycling bin.
GOOD: I made it a goal to eat vegan for the summer. I won't call it a diet, and I won't call it a full-time commitment. But I was so moved when I learned about the exploitation of animals within the meat industry, that adapting this lifestyle was a no-brainer. I guess you could call it a political move. I don't feel the need to rescue every animal and I'll never say, "I won't eat anything with a face." But I am strongly against the unethical treatment of living things.
AND THEN SOME: It ain't easy. First you decide to go vegan. Then you have to start learning about proteins. And enzymes. And B-12. And multi-vitamins. And the downsides to too much soy. And the downsides to too much salad and not enough beans. And then you have to explain all this to people, who over and over say to you, "But you're not getting any protein," as if a carnivorous diet is the most nourishing way to eat in the world. It's not like the meat and dairy I was eating before was that good for me.
GOOD: I recycle as much as I can now.
AND THEN SOME: But then you have to find room in your small apartment for all the different bins. And you have to keep track of the garbage collection schedule on your block. I had a landlady once who was so strict about recycling, she used to take apart her ball point pens, because each part belonged in a different bin, she told me.
GOOD: I always look for opportunities to say, "No thanks, I don't need a bag."
AND THEN SOME: I have got to start remembering to put those tote bags back in the car.
Oh, want to know the ending of the story?
I bought an orange pepper, non organic.
A bag of organic carrots.
One cucumber, non organic, but peeled the skin off.
And yes, I had to put all that and more in a plastic bag.
But that's OK.
I used it to clean out the litter.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
Where Were You When: Michelle Obama at the DNC
Did you see that??
Were you watching??
That was the BEST potential-first-lady speech ever! She's as good as her husband in front of a microphone!
You could just feel that this was a special evening.
HISTORIC.
You could just feel that energy, that this is a momentous occasion in American history. How far we've come. How far.
It was such a touching speech. The stories she told and the way she told them were so human. She seems like a normal person. And so beautiful! She looked so glamorous. She spoke candidly, and intelligently, and down-to-earth. You can tell she and her husband have a strong partnership.
And those kids! This is going to be a fun 4 years if we have those two as first-daughters.
But my favorite part of the evening?...
Michelle didn't wear pearls!!
Were you watching??
That was the BEST potential-first-lady speech ever! She's as good as her husband in front of a microphone!
You could just feel that this was a special evening.
HISTORIC.
You could just feel that energy, that this is a momentous occasion in American history. How far we've come. How far.
It was such a touching speech. The stories she told and the way she told them were so human. She seems like a normal person. And so beautiful! She looked so glamorous. She spoke candidly, and intelligently, and down-to-earth. You can tell she and her husband have a strong partnership.
And those kids! This is going to be a fun 4 years if we have those two as first-daughters.
But my favorite part of the evening?...
Michelle didn't wear pearls!!
Sunday, August 24, 2008
People: Phelps Motivational Quotes
“It’s been nothing but an upward rollercoaster,” Phelps said. “It’s been nothing but fun.”
----
“When someone says you can’t do something, it shows that anything is possible,” Phelps said. “When you put your mind to a certain thing, it can happen. The biggest thing is nothing is impossible. All it takes is an imagination.”
----
“I’m at a loss for words,” Phelps said.
They gave him another medal, cranked up a final “Star-Spangled Banner” and as he looked over at his mother and sisters in the crowd he finally did something new.
He broke down and cried.
----
"I'm having fun and I think that's really all that matters," he said. "You can do anything. I think one of the biggest things I've learned over the last four years is that anything is possible if you set your imagination.
"Whatever you dream of, you can do. For me, the sky's the limit. I have some pretty lofty dreams in my head and those goals are going to stay there until they are accomplished.
"It's not going to be easy getting there and there are going to be some bumps in the road ... I don't think it's going to be perfect but it's going to be fun over the next few years while I finish off my career."
----
Eight gold medals: it is no small achievement.
"Well, I guess I'm supposed to tell more about how it felt," he said later. "But what is there to say? It was fun."
Saturday, August 23, 2008
News: Phelps Returns Home
From The Onion
ORLANDO—Fourteen-time Olympic gold medalist and SeaWorld main attraction Michael Phelps returned to his seven-million-gallon water tank Wednesday to resume his normal schedule of performing in six shows a day for marine park crowds every day of the week.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Where Were You When: Michael Phelps
I was at a dinner with some friends and strangers on the upper west side. I kept my eye on the clock, feeling no qualms about jumping up mid-sentence when the race was about to come on. My friend asked the bartenders if they would turn the volume on the TV up for us when the time came.I knew that at 10:10 he would be on. I swear I had my eye on the TV the whole time from across the room. At what I swore was 10:09, I saw NBC had finally switched over to swimming and I yelled, "NOW!" and a group of us bolted to the other side of the room.
When we got there, it seemed like we were watching the whole thing in instant replay. Literally. It was so slow. "When are they going to start?" I asked. "Why are they showing another race?"
Then we realized, they weren't. Somewhere in the span of time it apparently takes to blink, I had missed the race! How could that be? How fast do these swimmers go??
Weirdly, I blamed it all on NBC. I was absolutely convinced for the rest of the night that NBC had erred, and had only begun airing the race halfway through it.
My male friend, who is as obsessed with Phelps as I am, (his "boy crush", he calls him), started getting texts from people asking if he had seen the race. I said, "Ask them if they are as pissed at NBC as I am. What kind of network are they? Don't they know the entire USA is watching now! How could they do this to us??"
I really don't know how I managed to keep this train of thought going. I don't think it was until much later that night, when I talked to my sister about the race, that I realized NBC had shown the whole thing. I was just late to the game.
I'm not a usual sports fan. I don't really understand innings, or meters, or bases loaded. Being this psyched about watching someone take a world record in the name of athleticism is new to me. The whole week I felt like walking around asking people, "Have you heard of this swimmer? Do you know how important this race is?? Are you getting this???"
I had no idea that other people in the world were as obsessed with this as I was. I had no idea who Michael Phelps was until I started googling him last week, only to find out he's already been in an Annie Liebowitz commercial (I had told someone that this would surely happen for him one day), only to find out he's already making millions in endorsements (I had told someone that he would certainly get an endorsement soon), only to find out he's already been on the covers of magazines and leads the top of many BEST ATHLETES IN THE WORLD lists.
I had no idea that the LIFE OF BEING A SPORTS FAN was this exciting!
The next day, Saturday, it felt like I had planned my whole day around this last race. I was counting down the hours. By 10PM, I was in front of that television, eyes glued forward. NO WAY was I going to miss this one.
The race started. I was alone in my apartment, in my pajamas, dusty from a day of cleaning and reorganizing my home. I didn't really know that the entire nation was also at the edge of their seat, crowds in the thousands, hundreds in the bars. I was just a girl, alone with her new found Fan status, totally and completely excited to see history making.
The moment Phelps took to the water, it was like watching magic. The glistening way he soared across the water, chopping through the liquid like a man with axes for hands. His body leaping over the T-mark like a fish hunting his prey. He pulled us back into first and that's when I jumped up.
The fourth guy jumped in, and now I was screaming, cheering for him like he was my best friend and he needed to hear my support. "GOOO! GOO!" I was shouting at the television. Anticipation tore threw me and I begged for victory!
AND HE DID IT!
The excitement from that moment buzzed through me and the energy from that accomplishment felt like it was ripping through the nation faster than our Internet connections.
The whole US of A wanted this, and we got it.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Life: The Scavengers
Bar Birthdays.
They're all the rage.
They go a little something like this: The birthday kid (meaning, anyone turning 21 - 32) sends out an evite to 200 of their closest friends, asking them to meet up at a bar in the hopes that at least 30 of those evitees (along with 2-3 guests each) show up at said bar, somewhere between the hours of midnight and 2am, on their way home from the three other bar birthdays they were also attending that night. If you're the last party on the list, everyone will show up wasted and tired. If you're the first party on the list, everyone will stay for only an hour.
I hate these things. I love my friends. But the bar-birthday thing has got to go.
I tried it one year. I made the tragic mistake of only inviting people I actually liked. As far as party statistics go, only a certain percentage of the people you invite to your bar-birthday will actually show up. I was unaware of that at the time. So, let's just say it was a small gathering.
The key to a bar-birthday's success is to invite people you don't like and hope that people who show up are people you do not know. I did not realize this.
I do think though, that the bar-birthday thing starts to come to a halt as people get older. In fact, it seems like the older some of my friends get, the more their birthdays seem like throwbacks to old-school style parties. Like the kinds our parents used to throw for us in our backyards. I swear, if I get invited to an all-girls sleepover party soon, equipped with Corey Haim movies and a weegie board, I won't be surprised.
This year a friend of mine (who was turning older than 30) decided to forgo the bar-birthday and plan something more creative. He actually constructed a scavenger hunt around the city for his friends. About 20 of us came, and it was tons of fun. It was a great challenge, and we all had such an adrenaline rush from it. It actually felt like we were on a mini-adventure together and really there to celebrate something. It was a great day.
The word "scavenger" stayed in my mind for a while afterwords. I kept thinking about how interesting it was to spend 2 hours intensely and actively looking for things. How refreshing it felt to be so clear about our goals and unabashedly determined to meet them.
It got me thinking about other things we look for in life, consciously or not. And how different the experience of finding what you're looking is when you're intentionally seeking it out, versus just falling upon it by chance.
In a scavenger hunt, such as the one we were on, it's all about being entirely conscious, pro-active, and somewhat ballsy. Our tasks involved interacting with strangers, making fools of ourselves in public, and in some cases, nearly chasing people down the street in order to get them involved in our game. Most people were pleasant and eager to participate. When we walked up to someone with a smile on our face and an excited attitude, we were almost always greeted with a smile in return and a new person happy to get involved and help us out.
But that feeling of extreme motivation for the purpose of winning, achieving, and accumulating... was really powerful. And as each goal was crossed off our list, we felt a sense of victory.
Often in life, we look for excuses not to seek things out for ourselves. We tell ourselves not to speak up too loudly. We advise people not to seem so obvious about what they are after. We seem to take pride in being able to say, "It just fell into my lap!" or, "I wasn't even looking to meet someone!"
But we are scavengers more often than we realize.
We are scavengers for our jobs, our educations, and our homes. We seek out networking opportunities and educational advancements. We go apartment hunting, and then scavenge for new towels to match the wallpaper.
And of course, we are scavengers of love, looking for that special someone who is worth opening our heart to.
What I find so interesting, as I reflect, is how often I've been told, "It will come to you when you stop looking."
But you know what? I say to hell with the shame of actively looking. If you know what you're after, and you know what you want (in love, at work, in school), then don't be afraid to put your whole self into the process of seeking it out.
Keep your eyes open. Hunt. And when you find what you're looking for, go for it.
You may not get the response you were hoping for.
But with a smile like that, there is a really good chance you will.
They're all the rage.
They go a little something like this: The birthday kid (meaning, anyone turning 21 - 32) sends out an evite to 200 of their closest friends, asking them to meet up at a bar in the hopes that at least 30 of those evitees (along with 2-3 guests each) show up at said bar, somewhere between the hours of midnight and 2am, on their way home from the three other bar birthdays they were also attending that night. If you're the last party on the list, everyone will show up wasted and tired. If you're the first party on the list, everyone will stay for only an hour.
I hate these things. I love my friends. But the bar-birthday thing has got to go.
I tried it one year. I made the tragic mistake of only inviting people I actually liked. As far as party statistics go, only a certain percentage of the people you invite to your bar-birthday will actually show up. I was unaware of that at the time. So, let's just say it was a small gathering.
The key to a bar-birthday's success is to invite people you don't like and hope that people who show up are people you do not know. I did not realize this.
I do think though, that the bar-birthday thing starts to come to a halt as people get older. In fact, it seems like the older some of my friends get, the more their birthdays seem like throwbacks to old-school style parties. Like the kinds our parents used to throw for us in our backyards. I swear, if I get invited to an all-girls sleepover party soon, equipped with Corey Haim movies and a weegie board, I won't be surprised.
This year a friend of mine (who was turning older than 30) decided to forgo the bar-birthday and plan something more creative. He actually constructed a scavenger hunt around the city for his friends. About 20 of us came, and it was tons of fun. It was a great challenge, and we all had such an adrenaline rush from it. It actually felt like we were on a mini-adventure together and really there to celebrate something. It was a great day.
The word "scavenger" stayed in my mind for a while afterwords. I kept thinking about how interesting it was to spend 2 hours intensely and actively looking for things. How refreshing it felt to be so clear about our goals and unabashedly determined to meet them.
It got me thinking about other things we look for in life, consciously or not. And how different the experience of finding what you're looking is when you're intentionally seeking it out, versus just falling upon it by chance.
In a scavenger hunt, such as the one we were on, it's all about being entirely conscious, pro-active, and somewhat ballsy. Our tasks involved interacting with strangers, making fools of ourselves in public, and in some cases, nearly chasing people down the street in order to get them involved in our game. Most people were pleasant and eager to participate. When we walked up to someone with a smile on our face and an excited attitude, we were almost always greeted with a smile in return and a new person happy to get involved and help us out.
But that feeling of extreme motivation for the purpose of winning, achieving, and accumulating... was really powerful. And as each goal was crossed off our list, we felt a sense of victory.
Often in life, we look for excuses not to seek things out for ourselves. We tell ourselves not to speak up too loudly. We advise people not to seem so obvious about what they are after. We seem to take pride in being able to say, "It just fell into my lap!" or, "I wasn't even looking to meet someone!"
But we are scavengers more often than we realize.
We are scavengers for our jobs, our educations, and our homes. We seek out networking opportunities and educational advancements. We go apartment hunting, and then scavenge for new towels to match the wallpaper.
And of course, we are scavengers of love, looking for that special someone who is worth opening our heart to.
What I find so interesting, as I reflect, is how often I've been told, "It will come to you when you stop looking."
But you know what? I say to hell with the shame of actively looking. If you know what you're after, and you know what you want (in love, at work, in school), then don't be afraid to put your whole self into the process of seeking it out.
Keep your eyes open. Hunt. And when you find what you're looking for, go for it.
You may not get the response you were hoping for.
But with a smile like that, there is a really good chance you will.
Friday, August 08, 2008
Performance: UCB
Many months ago I went on a date with someone to see an improv show at Upright Citizen's Brigade. This particular gentleman had a personality that I would rate, on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the awesomest): zero. It was a weird position to be in, to be dating someone who was so cute, and so right on paper, but in real life contained no spark of a personality at all.
However. He could tell a joke like a mo-fo. That's why I kept going out with him. He kept me laughing the whole time! He just couldn't do anything else. I would ask him a question about his life, and he could barely answer me. Then minutes later, he would find a way to use a phrase or a word that I had used in my question as a catalyst for what I would call, "a bit". It was like dating a stand-up comedian ...who was on stage the entire time.
I gave it my all. I tried my best to get something "personal" out of him. One night I had the idea that we should go to The Upright Citizen's Brigade. Not sure where I had originally heard of this place, but I vaguely knew that Amy Poehler started it, and she's one of my idols. We got tickets to a show on a weeknight. In retrospect, I think it was their most famous show called, ASSCAT, which is a purely improv performance structured in the UCB style called, Harold. I thought if we went out on a date like this, where humor was at the forefront, it would encourage him to open up a little bit.
Well, the show was freakin' hysterical. Hilarious. One improv group after another kept us entertained the whole time. We laughed and laughed. When it was over I asked him if he would ever be willing to try such a thing. He said he definitely would. I said I didn't think I could ever do it. It wasn't really for me. It would be too terrifying, I said.
I went out with him one more time before calling it quits. The show was a good idea for a date night, but alas, he never did come out of his shell. I had to let it go before he started charging me a two drink minimum and a cover charge. But the memory of that performance stuck in my head.
This summer I decided that I wanted to take a class at UCB. I'm not sure what provoked that, it just suddenly felt like the right thing to do. I signed up for one of their intensives, which meant all day, every day for a whole week. 6 hours straight of improv class.
And, yes.
It was
the scariest
thing
I have
ever done.
Except for that one time I took trapeze lessons. The only difference between that and this was I wasn't a gazillion feet off the ground while I was doing it. The downside of that? No net. Metaphorical or otherwise.
It is TERRIFYING to get up in front of a group of strangers, with a partner you don't know, and to build together an entire scene based off of one word that is given to you, AND to make it funny.
I swear I had a stomach ache for the first three days. I felt nauseous. I didn't want to go back to class. I was absolutely certain that this thing called improv was not for me. And similar to that feeling I had when I was standing 30 feet off the ground, staring down at the cement ground below me, reaching for the bar, I had the thought, "What the hell did I just sign up for??"
But, I'm a determined little lass. And I work hard for my money. So if I spent a few hundred dollars on a week-long improv class, darn it, I was going to finish that week.
Plus, I learned a mantra this summer that really struck a chord with me:
Try something once to get over your fear of it.
Try it a second time to learn how to do it.
Then try it a third time to decide if you like it.
I would just like to note here, that I DID do the trapeze three times. And no, I did not like it.
But. By the third day of improv class, something clicked. And wow, suddenly I was INTO IT. All of a sudden I got the challenge of it, and I felt like I did have it in me after all. Once that happened, I started learning so much, so quickly. It was intense.
I realized that standing against the wall and waiting to jump into a scene is WAY scarier than actually being in a scene. So I started to jump in more.
I learned that the feeling of coming up with a great line after a scene is over and you missed your chance, is way more frustrating than being in a scene and not having anything to say. So I started to speak up more.
I learned that if you are in a scene that is sucking so bad, or if you are in a scene that is totally magical, either way, once it's over, it's over. And you can reflect on it all you want, but mostly you just have to move forward and let it go.
As the week went on, more and more good stuff started coming out of me. I started picturing people I knew in my life, and playing them as characters. I took it seriously when our teacher would tell us to, "Play to the top of your intelligence," which meant USE WHAT YOU KNOW. When you internalize that, suddenly it doesn't feel like you're going into a scene with nothing to say. We've all got a lifetime of things to say!
I got what they meant when they would tell us to use, "YES, AND" in our conversations as a way of building off of one another, supporting one another, and developing the scene.
I loved the notion that we were in each scene to, FIND THE GAME. Once we knew what the game was, we would play to it, explore it, exaggerate it. That's when the magic happened.
And mostly I loved what it meant to BE TRUTHFUL in every scene. Our teacher explained, the truth will lead to comedy (as opposed to just, "going for the joke", which always falls flat).
If we were ever stuck, he'd whisper from the sidelines, "What do you really want to say to this person?" And that was such a revelation. Such a grand experience. To say what you really want to say to a scene partner, as opposed to regurgitating what you think you should say or what you think will sound good --- is an awesome, truthful experience.
I learned so much from this. So much of it can be applied to life off the stage.
Then, as a culmination of our experience, we got the opportunity to perform for an audience on the actual UCB stage. The same stage where my comedic heroes have stood. The same stage that I sat facing many months ago, asserting I could never do something like that.
Hey, guess what?
I did it.
And it was awesome.
However. He could tell a joke like a mo-fo. That's why I kept going out with him. He kept me laughing the whole time! He just couldn't do anything else. I would ask him a question about his life, and he could barely answer me. Then minutes later, he would find a way to use a phrase or a word that I had used in my question as a catalyst for what I would call, "a bit". It was like dating a stand-up comedian ...who was on stage the entire time.
I gave it my all. I tried my best to get something "personal" out of him. One night I had the idea that we should go to The Upright Citizen's Brigade. Not sure where I had originally heard of this place, but I vaguely knew that Amy Poehler started it, and she's one of my idols. We got tickets to a show on a weeknight. In retrospect, I think it was their most famous show called, ASSCAT, which is a purely improv performance structured in the UCB style called, Harold. I thought if we went out on a date like this, where humor was at the forefront, it would encourage him to open up a little bit.
Well, the show was freakin' hysterical. Hilarious. One improv group after another kept us entertained the whole time. We laughed and laughed. When it was over I asked him if he would ever be willing to try such a thing. He said he definitely would. I said I didn't think I could ever do it. It wasn't really for me. It would be too terrifying, I said.
I went out with him one more time before calling it quits. The show was a good idea for a date night, but alas, he never did come out of his shell. I had to let it go before he started charging me a two drink minimum and a cover charge. But the memory of that performance stuck in my head.
This summer I decided that I wanted to take a class at UCB. I'm not sure what provoked that, it just suddenly felt like the right thing to do. I signed up for one of their intensives, which meant all day, every day for a whole week. 6 hours straight of improv class.
And, yes.
It was
the scariest
thing
I have
ever done.
Except for that one time I took trapeze lessons. The only difference between that and this was I wasn't a gazillion feet off the ground while I was doing it. The downside of that? No net. Metaphorical or otherwise.
It is TERRIFYING to get up in front of a group of strangers, with a partner you don't know, and to build together an entire scene based off of one word that is given to you, AND to make it funny.
I swear I had a stomach ache for the first three days. I felt nauseous. I didn't want to go back to class. I was absolutely certain that this thing called improv was not for me. And similar to that feeling I had when I was standing 30 feet off the ground, staring down at the cement ground below me, reaching for the bar, I had the thought, "What the hell did I just sign up for??"
But, I'm a determined little lass. And I work hard for my money. So if I spent a few hundred dollars on a week-long improv class, darn it, I was going to finish that week.
Plus, I learned a mantra this summer that really struck a chord with me:
Try something once to get over your fear of it.
Try it a second time to learn how to do it.
Then try it a third time to decide if you like it.
I would just like to note here, that I DID do the trapeze three times. And no, I did not like it.
But. By the third day of improv class, something clicked. And wow, suddenly I was INTO IT. All of a sudden I got the challenge of it, and I felt like I did have it in me after all. Once that happened, I started learning so much, so quickly. It was intense.
I realized that standing against the wall and waiting to jump into a scene is WAY scarier than actually being in a scene. So I started to jump in more.
I learned that the feeling of coming up with a great line after a scene is over and you missed your chance, is way more frustrating than being in a scene and not having anything to say. So I started to speak up more.
I learned that if you are in a scene that is sucking so bad, or if you are in a scene that is totally magical, either way, once it's over, it's over. And you can reflect on it all you want, but mostly you just have to move forward and let it go.
As the week went on, more and more good stuff started coming out of me. I started picturing people I knew in my life, and playing them as characters. I took it seriously when our teacher would tell us to, "Play to the top of your intelligence," which meant USE WHAT YOU KNOW. When you internalize that, suddenly it doesn't feel like you're going into a scene with nothing to say. We've all got a lifetime of things to say!
I got what they meant when they would tell us to use, "YES, AND" in our conversations as a way of building off of one another, supporting one another, and developing the scene.
I loved the notion that we were in each scene to, FIND THE GAME. Once we knew what the game was, we would play to it, explore it, exaggerate it. That's when the magic happened.
And mostly I loved what it meant to BE TRUTHFUL in every scene. Our teacher explained, the truth will lead to comedy (as opposed to just, "going for the joke", which always falls flat).
If we were ever stuck, he'd whisper from the sidelines, "What do you really want to say to this person?" And that was such a revelation. Such a grand experience. To say what you really want to say to a scene partner, as opposed to regurgitating what you think you should say or what you think will sound good --- is an awesome, truthful experience.
I learned so much from this. So much of it can be applied to life off the stage.
Then, as a culmination of our experience, we got the opportunity to perform for an audience on the actual UCB stage. The same stage where my comedic heroes have stood. The same stage that I sat facing many months ago, asserting I could never do something like that.
Hey, guess what?
I did it.
And it was awesome.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Life: Ammah, the hugging saint
This must be the summer of the retreat. I've already had a series of seriously intense adventures this season, that have rocked my world. Each one of them. I'll write about more of them here.
I wrote about the yoga one already, right? Yeah. That stuck with me. Still is a big part of my life. I spend most of my week in downward dog now and it's been awesome. It's introduced me to a whole new community where I live, and exposed me to some great new outlooks on life, and stuff. I feel pretty good with it, at it, in it. I think it's a good fit for me. And, I love my new yoga mat which I got at Jumakti in Union Square.
By the way, after my class one afternoon at Jumakti, I took my teacher's suggestion to heart, and went to see Ammah (spelling?), the hugging saint (accurate?) who was visiting our lovely city. I was really blown away by that. Not so much by the woman herself, but by the experience.
I don't know what I was expecting. It was nearly 10PM, and I knew I had a train to catch, so I didn't plan to stay that long. I figured I'd jump in, get my hug, and skip out of there. But when I arrived, the first thing I noticed was how commercialized the whole thing was! Ammah (which means, mother) was on a stage, with a long, long line of people waiting to receive their hug from her. But before you could even reach the stage, you had to pass by tables and tables of ridiculous product placements with her face on it. Buy Ammah on your dish towel! Your ashtray! Your boxers! OK, OK, maybe not that bad. But still, for a super spiritual experience, I was really surprised to see it so object-oriented.
I nearly figured out a way to skip the line and jump right on stage, but then I felt guilty. There were so many little Indian women with bowls of rose petals on their laps, waiting patiently for their hug. I watched on the jumbo-tron screen above my head as Ammah embraced person after person, their faces nuzzled into her bosom, their heads then bent in grateful prayer.
I asked one of the helpers what it would take to wait in line. She told me that most people got here very early to receive their ticket (like, 9AM early). But if I was willing to wait another 5 hours, I could get a hug too.
Wow.
For a hug?
Maybe it's the practical Jew in me, but all I could think was, "People! If you want a hug so bad, I'll give you one! For free!"
But, I get it. I get it. She's special. And super holy. And has a lifetime of miracles to back her up. Me, I've got a BFA and a Honda.
Tough call, I know.
I wrote about the yoga one already, right? Yeah. That stuck with me. Still is a big part of my life. I spend most of my week in downward dog now and it's been awesome. It's introduced me to a whole new community where I live, and exposed me to some great new outlooks on life, and stuff. I feel pretty good with it, at it, in it. I think it's a good fit for me. And, I love my new yoga mat which I got at Jumakti in Union Square.
By the way, after my class one afternoon at Jumakti, I took my teacher's suggestion to heart, and went to see Ammah (spelling?), the hugging saint (accurate?) who was visiting our lovely city. I was really blown away by that. Not so much by the woman herself, but by the experience.
I don't know what I was expecting. It was nearly 10PM, and I knew I had a train to catch, so I didn't plan to stay that long. I figured I'd jump in, get my hug, and skip out of there. But when I arrived, the first thing I noticed was how commercialized the whole thing was! Ammah (which means, mother) was on a stage, with a long, long line of people waiting to receive their hug from her. But before you could even reach the stage, you had to pass by tables and tables of ridiculous product placements with her face on it. Buy Ammah on your dish towel! Your ashtray! Your boxers! OK, OK, maybe not that bad. But still, for a super spiritual experience, I was really surprised to see it so object-oriented.
I nearly figured out a way to skip the line and jump right on stage, but then I felt guilty. There were so many little Indian women with bowls of rose petals on their laps, waiting patiently for their hug. I watched on the jumbo-tron screen above my head as Ammah embraced person after person, their faces nuzzled into her bosom, their heads then bent in grateful prayer.
I asked one of the helpers what it would take to wait in line. She told me that most people got here very early to receive their ticket (like, 9AM early). But if I was willing to wait another 5 hours, I could get a hug too.
Wow.
For a hug?
Maybe it's the practical Jew in me, but all I could think was, "People! If you want a hug so bad, I'll give you one! For free!"
But, I get it. I get it. She's special. And super holy. And has a lifetime of miracles to back her up. Me, I've got a BFA and a Honda.
Tough call, I know.
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