whataboutwhatALICEsaw

A boat, beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July—

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear—

Long has paled that sunny sky;
Echoes fade and memories die;
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die

Ever drifting down the stream—
Lingering in the golden gleam—
Life, what is it but a dream?

—Lewis Carroll

Alice and the Pack of Cards by Arthur Rackham

I have never felt an overwhelming attraction to Alice in Wonderland or Through the Looking-Glass. I saw the Disney mash-up and remember pieces of it: a blond in a blue dress, a purple cat, cute hedgehogs. I saw Lookingglass Alice in Chicago, where it became a fun circus-piece with a thinned-out narrative. I was only moderately intrigued by the previews for the new Tim Burton version. And yet I find myself reading Carroll’s books for the first time (putting Sherlock Holmes on hold) because one of our second-years is creating a movement/music/theatrical something and she needs a dramaturg/writer.

I am captivated by the nonsense and, contrariwise, the darkness of these tales. The dream and the fever-dream. Of course I love the wordplay throughout. I am also hooked by helping to figure out how we make our take different. How is it NOT Alice in Wonderland, Babes in Toyland, The Wizard of Oz, The Matrix, Pan’s Labyrinth. What is the story that takes elements from these without rehashing the same idea? My collaborator, Marisa’s, concept is grounded in the idea that Alice’s wonderland is psychological. Just as I found myself doing for Isaac, the little boy in Demons, I find myself writing a journal from Alice’s perspective. What is Alice’s distorted perspective of the world? How is it different from ours? From her parents?

I am getting a late start in this, having joined the project well after Marisa and the actors. I don’t need to do a lot of research. My dad taught me during Demons that what I was calling psychosis was more of a metaphor for psychosis as my characters weren’t suffering from any one diagnosable disorder. Starting with this knowledge this time is freeing and a time saver.  I am not interested in what Alice has, and I don’t want the audience to be either. My Alice’s psychosis is more of a unappreciated superpower. The research I am interested in is The Icarus Project, something I have only heard about and even as I link this I have not read their site. At the heart of what we are creating isn’t the question, To drug or not to drug. It is, How do we listen and understand one another?

Having faith in (the fact that people will disobey) the system (when it is right to do so)

The good news is, I survived January. The bad news is, I am on day 19 of not having a day when I have not been in my office. But Saturday is soon and this Saturday, unlike the last two, I need not go into work. The problem with being busy and being honest about your business and being transparent about how that business sometimes makes you feel . . . sooner or later (like when you’ve worked a 61-hour week) someone is going to take something away from you, and when you work in theater and you like everything you are doing, no matter what is taken it is a personal loss. But more about that this later.

First Look. Our January of First Look was a success by all the measures we set for ourselves. Our playwrights were happy. Our students who participated in the workshops learned and grew a lot. Our 45-seat house was full or at least fullish for all 6 presentations. Could it have been smoother? Yes. Could some of the playwrights have used their time better? Sure. Did being the audience coordinator require more work than I expected? Absolutely.

But let me tell you when I got my payoff.

Friday night. 8:30. Second presentation of Christina Anderson’s Blacktop Sky, a play I am in love with and want to take back to U. City High and direct in the gym. For that same night, our students were invited to attend the dress rehearsal of a local opera, and the powers that be made it obligatory that they attend. At first it looked as though they weren’t going to be able to see Blacktop Sky at all, which infuriated me. Why would we prioritize ANYTHING over our own presentation of a play directed and performed by our own people, much less a play this good? But we moved our second performance to 8:30 so the students could see both. It was going to be tight, but they could just make it back. Friday night. 7:45. We learn the opera dress has started 30 minutes late. We freak out. Half our audience was to be comprised of our students. What do we do? Do we start the presentation without them and usher them in late? It should be said that we were in our tiny blackbox, and the disruption would have been substantial. So do we start the presentation 30 minutes late? But then what about the 20 punctual audience members?

I am not sure we ever came to a solution. We didn’t have to. 8:25 rolled around, and there were our students, soaking wet from the rain but otherwise in good spirits. They had left the unfinished opera to support their people. No one had told them to. They just did it, en masse. Because they knew it was right. And the show, which had been fine for the first presentation at 5:30, was infused with an energy and spirit that made it impossible to leave, which I was going to do. I was going to check names off my attendance sheet and be home to Rachel by 9:30. But I couldn’t. Moments like that don’t happen often, when the energy in the room is palpable and just keeps growing in intensity until the curtain comes down. They are not to be squandered.

That moment made the whole month worth the work. And I will still be saying that tomorrow, on day 20.

Possible posts to come:
What I have been asked to (“temporarily”) give up and how I’m coming to terms with it.
Two new writing projects: a hostel site-specific environment and Alice, a celebration of psychosis
How J. D. Salinger’s Nine Stories shaped my sophomore year of high school, and why I will revisit Teddy and Seymour throughout my life.

Quick thoughts are all I have left.

Do not bury the truth in the facts.

Beware the articulate and the patient.

Politicians are liars. News flash. So are baseball sluggers. I mean: what the F? At least fiction is honest about its deceit . . . that’s why it gets to use “conceit” instead.

If you think you’re nauseous because you are working too hard, you might just have a cold.

When searching for an image of the Spanish Civil War or the contact information for a verlag and Germany, doing a search with Google Spain or Google Germany will open up whole new worlds.

Sweatshirt versus Jacket

On a lighter note: Rachel and I have been having this fight for the last ten years and I need to win it before we get married.

Sweatshirt v. Jacket

No. I’m not talking about preferences. I am talking about definitions.

This is a jacket!

This is not!

My argument: if it has a zipper all the way down the front, it’s a jacket.
Her argument: it is not about the structure, it is about the material.
My argument: you can modify the term jacket by saying sweatshirt jacket, but this does not detract from the fact that it is a jacket.
Her argument: if it’s fleece it’s a jacket, even if the zipper doesn’t go all the way down, because it is considered outerwear.
My argument: that’s stupid.
Her argument: you’re stupid.

Ambiguous modern definitions are little help. Clearly people do not care about this as much as they should:

sweat·shirt

Pronunciation: \-ˌshərt\

Function: noun

Date: 1925

: a loose collarless pullover or jacket usually of heavy cotton jersey

jack·et

Pronunciation: \ˈja-kət\

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle English jaket, from Anglo-French jackés, plural, diminutive of Middle French jaque short jacket, from jacques peasant, from the name Jacques James

Date: 15th century

1 a : a garment for the upper body usually having a front opening, collar, lapels, sleeves, and pockets b : something worn or fastened around the body but not for use as clothing

Or maybe there are people who care! “The 14th century: One of the first jacket-like garments was the doublet (pourpoint in French). Modern jackets can be said to have evolved from Renaissance doublets. The doublet was a close-fitting, short jacket worn by men beginning in the 14th century. Initially the doublet was a long sleeveless fitted garment with buttons worn without sleeves.”

Pourpoint doublet c.1650

Ahem. Note all those fasteners! That said, I am never too confident in a website with more spelling mistakes than a third grader’s homework assignment.

I encourage anyone (particularly Rachel) to do a google image search of the word “jacket.” You will note that the first several pages showcase garments with a fastener of some kind extending all the way from the neck to the waist. Garments of various materials, I will add. The same experiment with the word “sweatshirt” will show you that zippers only appear in the images if the phrase “zip up” (or the like) is attached, thus suggesting that without a modifier that a sweatshirt has no zipper.

My apologies to all of you not in the Bay Area: the whole idea of jackets or sweatshirts at this time of year is probably offensive to your frozen sensibilities. We did get a lot of rain today . . . if that makes you feel any better?

We’ll doom the field to oblivion

“There is always room for artistic risk taking and experimental theater, but if we’re going to have a theater that matters, we have to make theater that people want to see,” Mr. Eustis said. “If as a field we resent that criterion, we’ll doom the field to oblivion.”

The New York Times, “Playwrights’ Nurturing Is the Focus of a Study”

I went to our first preview of Phèdre on Friday. I am not sure what I was expecting. I think something inside me was quietly skeptical of it, despite my affection and respect for Racine’s tightly-constructed script. About an ancient queen’s desire for her stepson—legally and morally equivalent to incest at the time—how would this play read in a world that has given us plays in which a woman can become the lover of a whole family of men or in which a man can consummate his love for a goat. Could the relatively tame Phèdre be other than artifact?

But, I am happy to report, it is a truly wonderful show. Amazingly acted by members of Ontario’s Stratford Shakespeare Festival (and two of our MFA students!) on an elegant yet gritty set, it reminds me why we have a canon to begin with. While the taboo surrounding the particulars of Phèdre’s relationship to Hippolytus may have relaxed, the concept of taboo has not. And with writing and characters this strong, and a story this iconic, the taboo in the play transforms into something else: for me, unsurprisingly perhaps, suddenly the play became about Prop 8: Phèdre, when she learns that her love has been superseded by Hippolytus’s love for the outlaw Aricie:

Have they oft been seen
Talking together? Did they seek the shades
Of thickest woods? Alas! full freedom had they
To see each other. Heav’n approved their sighs;
They loved without the consciousness of guilt;
And every morning’s sun for them shone clear,
While I, an outcast from the face of Nature,
Shunn’d the bright day, and sought to hide myself.*
(*This is not the translation we’re using)

I started to become angry that Phèdre lived in a world where her love was something ugly and to be ashamed of—something to be kept hidden. This is not at all what the playwright had intended, I realize, but isn’t that the fun of working with old texts of worth: without changing a word, they evolve to meet society’s needs.

Interestingly, the reading of Eisa Davis’s The History of Light last Monday also made me think of issues surrounding gay marriage. Her play explores (among other things) the relationship between a black man and a white woman who are lovers and civil rights activists in the 60s. The man eventually leaves the woman for the “perfect black woman” (who is the protagonist’s mother), in part because of society’s pressure to keep the biracial couple apart. Two very different plays by very different writers writing in very different times, both making me think about the same issue . . .

Both the classical (canonical) text of Racine and the new work by this contemporary playwright have value. I’m thankful to be working in a theater that is exploring both in the same week. There is much to be said about the balance of old and new. There has been a lot of pressure for theaters to explore new work, and what little funding that is out there seems to be focused on this. Is new work the only thing audience’s want? If so, where’s their patronage? There is a new study examining the reality of the relationship between playwrights and non-profit theaters: Outrageous Fortune: The Life and Times of the New American Play. The quote at the top of this post is taken from the New York Times article about it, and here are the Theater Development Fund’s summary of the somewhat scary findings of the study.

1) PLAYWRIGHTS VS. NOT-FOR-PROFIT THEATRES: The relationship between playwrights and producing not-for-profit theatres is collaboration in crisis. The two groups studied are deeply divided in how they view each other, the audience, and the successes and obstacles of the field of new play production.

2) ECONOMICS OF PLAYWRITING: In economic terms, it is virtually impossible to make a living or sustain a career as a professional playwright in America. The royalty system of payment that grew out of the commercial theatre has proven ineffective in the not-for-profit world. Commissions are too small to pay for the time it takes to write plays and rarely lead to production. Large grants to individuals continue to dry up. Substantial bodies of work regularly go unproduced. Mid-career is the crisis point for playwrights, and the new play ecosystem has nothing in place to help playwrights through it.

3) PREMIER-ITIS: When it comes to new play production, an emphasis on premieres—by artistic directors, the press, boards of directors, and funders—is the operating principle. This “premier-itis” means that plays rarely get the continued life they need to reach the kind of artistic completion that results from second and third productions. It also means that playwrights can’t earn from their plays in an ongoing way, as there is often no income stream, because of the field’s “one (production) and done” practices.

4) DOWNSIZING OF THE AMERICAN PLAY: New play creation and production in America has downsized in every way: cast size, size of venues for new plays, expectations of artists and audiences alike, and, even, ambition.

5) DWINDLING AUDIENCES: Our theatre is losing the audience for new plays at both ends, as current, mostly homogenous theatregoers age and die, and as younger and more culturally diverse audiences fail to take their place. Playwrights blame this on the conservatism of the theatres’ leadership. Artistic directors believe that playwrights aren’t writing for their theatres’ actual audiences.

6) THEATRE BECOMING THE LOST ART?: Under all the division and concern over the state of new play creation, development and production is the widespread fear that theatre as an art form has been pushed to the margins.  Writers and artistic producers alike are looking for ways to move it back to its place at the center of the conversation that is American culture.

7) HOPE FOR THE FUTURE: There is enormous, field-wide energy and commitment to new-play production. New-play activity is almost certainly at an all-time high in the not-for-profit theatre.  Some of this activity, geared toward new and better practices, holds the promise of improving the systemic problems explored in this report.

Does anyone else think number 7’s “hope for the future” isn’t all that encouraging given the weight of the other 6 concerns? I’m looking forward to reading the book after I convince our library to buy it, but I bet I know the punchline: money.

Prop 8 Federal Trial

U.S. Supreme Court Blocks Video of Prop 8 Trial Indefinitely

In a 5-4 decision today, the nation’s high court ruled to block video coverage of the trial challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8 and California’s ban on same-sex marriage, the Associated Press reported.

Proposition 8 was passed by California voters in November 2008. It was a ballot proposition designed to overturn a ruling by the California Supreme Court that had given same-sex couples a right to marry.  Proposition 8 was and is the subject of public debate throughout the State and, indeed, nationwide.  Its advocates claim that they have been subject to harassment as a result of public disclosure of their support. For example, donors to groups supporting Proposition 8 “have received death threats and envelopes containing a powdery white substance.” Some advocates claim that they have received confrontational phone calls and e-mail messages from opponents of Proposition 8, and others have been forced to resign their jobs after it became public that they had donated to groups supporting the amendment. Opponents of Proposition 8 also are alleged to have compiled “Internet blacklists” of pro-Proposition 8 businesses and urged others to boycott those businesses in retaliation for supporting the ballot measure.  And numerous instances of vandalism and physical violence have been reported against those who have been identified as Proposition 8 supporters.

Respondents filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, seeking to invalidate Proposition 8. They contend that the amendment to the State’s Constitution violates the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The State of California declined to defend Proposition 8, and the defendant-intervenors (who are the applicants here) entered the suit to defend its constitutionality.  A bench trial began on Monday, January 11, 2010, before the Chief Judge of the District Court, the Honorable Vaughn R. Walker.

. . .

The balance of equities favors applicants [those who are against gay marriage].  While applicants have demonstrated the threat of harm they face if the trial is broadcast, respondents have not alleged any harm if the trial is not broadcast.  The issue, moreover, must be resolved at this stage, for the injury likely cannot be undone once the broadcast takes place.

There are few issues I cannot see both sides of. Blocking gay marriage is one of them. But blocking the live-streaming of the federal trial regarding the constitutionality of Prop 8 in order to protect those testifying in favor of rewriting the books to say marriage is between one man and one woman . . . I think I can get behind that. Let’s break this down:
Person A holds  a belief.
Person A has seen others punished for voicing that belief.
The legal system can offer a little protection for Person A if Person A decides to voice his/her belief in court.
That makes sense, no? That said, I do want to know who these people are. I mean, if you are going to get up in other people’s business, it is a bit hypocritical not to let them up into yours. The brief lists a number of offenses that warranted the protective ruling—confrontational phone calls/emails, threats, vandalism. None of these are appropriate/helpful/polite/safe/positive (though I am curious to know what constitutes as “confrontational”). But blacklisting seems like a very appropriate form of protest. Money is tight, and especially in California there is a desire to support local businesses. We want to support local businesses for environmental and economic reasons, but also communal reasons: we want to support our community. We want to build our community. But we want to build a healthy community. If I have to choose between buying bread from a person I know uses the profits to, say, feed the poor and a person I know uses the profits to, say, spread prejudice and hate because of a narrow interpretation of the Bible and an irrational fear of the other . . . I am going to go with Mother Teresa. Let’s break this down:
Empowered with knowledge, I will support what I deem to be positive influences on society rather than negative.
That’s the free market. Jesus says to love thy enemy . . . he doesn’t say to support him/her financially that they might use their prosperity to enlist others into their world of prejudice.

But all of this is beside the point I wanted to make. With the banning of the video, the voices of this trial (on both sides of the issue) are at risk of being lost. This is going to present an opportunity for Theater to step up. It’s going to be docudrama time when they release the transcripts! Who’s in!

Follow the trial:
NPR’s coverage

http://firedoglake.com/prop8trial/

But enjoy this eloquent research-based rant first.

Quick January Update

I’m inhaling dinner before running to the Berkeley Rep rehearsal room for Playwright Foundation’s IN THE ROUGH presentation of Peter Nachtrieb’s Bob. Should be fun. I like Peter and his work.

Last night we had our first of the FIRST LOOK presentations: a reading of Eisa Davis’s The History of Light with Eisa reading the lead. It was fun. I like Eisa and her work.

Thursday I’m interviewing members of our acting company for an article I have to crank out for the “news” pages of our program (have we talked about this?)

Friday is the first preview of Phèdre.

Saturday is a FIRST LOOK presentation of Philip Kan Gotanda’s I Dream of Chang and Eng, which we are already overbooked for. Which is a problem since I am “Audience Coordinator” and will have to tell a good many important people they won’t get a seat. Love it!

And I think I am going to have to work Sunday and through the Monday holiday if we have any hope of hitting anywhere near our deadlines on Tuesday.

And then Monday night is Playground. For this month’s entry, Late Sunday night I cranked out a 6-page musical about a married couple who got superpowers from a meteor and are nostalgic for the simple life and love they shared before they could stop armies without breaking a sweat. Yep.

I want to blog more consistently this year.

I want to write more plays more consistently this year.

I had a brief conversation about discipline yesterday.

I wonder if I should start a twitter account.

I wonder if I could start a movement called THE DECADE OF THEATER (this has been in my head ever since I called this last decade “The Decade of Rachel”). What would a decade of theater look like?

I wonder if I should start a twitter account about The Decade of Theater.

I have been reading about Bill Ball, the founder of A.C.T. That dude had some great ideas, and he acted on them, and he got other people to believe in/follow him.

If the Prop 8 ruling does not go the right (read: good, moral, logical, practical, ethical, humane) way, I’m going to start a protest campaign in which people write “My Heart is Breaking” and “My Brain is Screaming” in chalk EVERYWHERE and take pictures, which they then upload on facebook.

If I ever want to be an artistic director, do I need to start directing? Are their playwright/dramaturg artistic directors? There should be.

I finished my David Edding’s series. It was amazing. Sometimes all you want is everything to tie together neatly in the end with about a bazillion bows on it. I am going to start reading Sherlock Holmes mysteries next. I refuse to start with anything but “A Study in Scarlet” though. Yes, I saw the movie. Yes, I enjoyed the movie. Don’t judge me.

I’m late.

The Karma of Telemarketing

Our cell phones don’t work in our apartment: poor reception, dropped calls, etc. We finally caved and got a landline. Before doing so, we called AT&T to see if they would give us a deal as it was their fault that we had to get a landline in the first place. No dice. We went with another carrier. The first phone call we get? You guessed it: AT&T. Caller ID allowed us to ignore it, but then, after a month of them calling, I decided, what the hell, they’re just going to keep calling. So, to Rachel’s chagrin, I answered it. The surprised gentleman on the other end, who doubtlessly gets silence or answering machines 90% of his attempts, greeted me enthusiastically, informed me the call would be recorded for training purposes, and “How can we get you to switch your landline back to AT&T?” “You can get my cell service to work in my apartment.” “Oh, um, I, um . . .” “And you can call back as soon as you’ve fixed it.” “Oh, Ok.” “Sound like a plan?” “Ok, thank you for your time.” He hung up on me. Ironic, no?

“You’re an asshole,” Rachel calls from the livingroom.

She wasn’t wrong. But how clever am I? It takes 20 minutes to get someone on the phone when you call to complain about your service, not to mention the maze of computerized options you have to navigate to reach an actual human. And here was one who called me! Why shouldn’t I take advantage of the situation. Yes: I realize this gentleman will not be able to help me. He is as low on the foodchain as you get at a company like AT&T. I don’t envy his position. That said, he is getting paid and he is a representative of the company.

I worked phonathon for a few semesters in college. I know it’s a shitty job. Hell, I quit and went for the preferable employment at the med school as a human guinea pig in MRI and PET scan studies. I got pumped full of a half-year’s worth of radiation in 8 hours with a needle in my arm rather than cold call alumni asking “Could you please give back to the school that already drained you of an astronomical amount of money?” And I hate needles. It was rare when I got a hold of a human being. When I did most of them gave trite “Stop calling”s, but an occasional one held a conversation. I think I successfully got 1 new pledge and a handful of renewals during my tenure there. I can’t imagine I made the university enough to make up how much they were paying me by the hour (which was on the order of $7 an hour). Sometimes they fed us . . . sandwiches and chips and cheap cookies . . . and soda . . . I think there were prizes . . . and some wiry guy with huge glasses who had been there for six years and had bought a $7000 engagement ring for a girl who later dumped him . . .

God that was  a depressing job.

Now I’m starting to feel bad for giving that AT&T guy a hard time!

But, look, I wasn’t a total jerk. I was joking with him. I was entertaining! Right? Something different? To break up the monotony . . . right?

Moral of the story: AT&T called again at 8am this morning. A very nice lady. I gave her the same spiel, asking if the gentleman last night had made a note in my file. “That takes 30 days.” Interesting. Why does it take 30 days to type “do not bother” next to a phone number? We used to just write it on a card. Maybe I misheard her. It was 8am. In her defense, I had overslept. Without AT&T, I might never have woken up. So thanks!

New commercially viable art project:
1) Start recording all phone calls with AT&T when they call asking to switch service. After they say, “This call may be recorded for training purposes,” respond with, “Great, this call will be recorded for commercial purposes.” Pause. Wait for response. Continue.
2) Follow basic script asking about what’s being done to improve cell phone service in apartment. Be super polite about it. See how long you can keep them on the phone. Confuse the shit out of them.
3) Eventually escalate and start asking for supervisors. Vary script appropriately.
4) Calculate how much money they are wasting on you. Laugh.
5) Compile data and recordings
6) Sell recordings to Verizon for brilliant ad campaign.

Our stage turns 100 on Sunday!

Here’s a nice article about where I work. I have always liked houses with history:

It’s old home day for San Francisco’s ACT

Hope to see you locals there on Saturday. I went on the walkabout a month or so ago, and we are letting people into places I never even knew existed . . . like ABOVE the flies.

Learn all about our open house here.



And Here We Go: January 2010

Today we played Settlers of Catan with friends for the 4th or 5th time in the past few weeks. Rachel and I played as a team, and we won! This was a first. For either of us. We make a much better team than we used to. Then we all watched Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King . . . the extended 4-hour version. We watched the other two over Christmas. It’s our friend’s holiday tradition to watch all three, and Rachel had never seen the trilogy. She saw some of the first one when it came out, but she fell asleep halfway through. So this viewing was overdue.

This holiday season was all about friends and relaxation. I’m usually not good about vegging, but it seemed like a necessary precaution this December because tomorrow starts the marathon that is January. At work we are faced with a parade of deadlines that will let us breathe for a few days at the beginning of February and then not again until March (if then). Our theater turns 100 years old on Saturday, and all of us will be playing hosts to the San Francisco public for an all-day open house (You should come! You can go literally everywhere we can safely let you go!). And then starts our new works festival that will take over my nights and weekends until the 31st. This fall I have been protecting my personal time—which could easily have been stolen by reading the endless stacks of plays on my desks at home and at the office—by reading David Eddings novels. I have only 100 pages left of the 10th and final book in the series I started last August. I think I will move to Sherlock Holmes novels next (the most positive influence of that new fun but frivolous Robert Downy Jr. movie).

My New Years resolution is not to lose my shit. Ok. That’s not really true. I didn’t make a New Years resolution this year. I did, however, maintain my two New Years traditions:

1) Burn a calendar: My best friend in high school and I started this tradition in his backyard many years ago. I don’t think I have missed a year since. I might have though. There is something very cathartic about watching last year turn to ash. A physical representation of irreversible  time. The year is over. Done. No turning back. Those decisions have been made. Those paths taken.

I love New Years. I love the excuse to examine who you have become and take note on how you should stay the same and how you might change. I love how one night can lift the weight of 365 days off your shoulders. I love the promises of new possibilities.

I have five calendars: two Google calendars (work and home), one huge monthly pinned to one of my two wall-sized bulletin boards over my desk at work (on which I write down all of our office’s happenings), an oversized production calendar of our shows’ runs, and our dry-erase board (on which a breakdown of our deadlines can be found). Obviously, none of these were  appropriate to sacrifice to the fire. It has always been a pretty wall calendar from the fading year that receives the torch. I didn’t have one for 2009. Luckily, the paper store a few blocks away did. Maine themed. Very pretty photographs. The nice lady on the phone put it behind the counter for me and then gave it to me for free. I wonder if she would have done so had she known her gift’s fate . . .

I am not sure when I started reading the remains like the innards of a slaughtered lamb, but somewhere that became part of the fun. Whatever scraps survive have some added importance in the year to come. The winners for 2010 are:

January 15, 18, 19, 25
April 10, 11
New moons (1/15, 2/14, 3/15, 4/14, 5/14, 6/12, 7/11, 8/10, 9/8, 10/7, 11/6, 12/5)
Good Friday (4/2)
March (the whole month apparently)
3, 11, 16, 29, & 30 (Just the numbers survived, so I don’t know what months they’re from.)

2) Two-day anniversary!
The great thing about having started our relationship on New Years (Eve?) is that it gives us all the incentive we need to extend our anniversary to 48 hours. You cannot have New Years with out New Years Eve, and vice versa. It’s been 10 years. The decade of Rachel. She pointed out that this was the first time, however, I marked the event by getting her flowers. I found a very forgiving partner.