Weirdness.

I guess this would fall under the NSFW column, but why are you reading my blog at work in the first place? The other column it falls under is What Will the Japanese Think of Next? What makes this truly weird is that it isn't an isolated bit of weirdness; it's one of a fad of mashups of dance music and gay porn with baby heads covering the genitals. If you enjoy this (and who wouldn't?) there are hundreds more.

You're Welcome.

Women.

In my Postmodern America class a couple weeks ago, we were talking about the 50s in America, talking broadly about some of the big cultural changes associated with that decade. Someone brought up The Feminine Mystique and "the problem that has no name," and I made an offhand remark about how women were bored because machines were doing all the work they used to spend all day doing, like laundry for instance.

A woman in the class, a graduate media student, said, sharply, "Actually, that's not true." She said that there were some recent books and articles pointing out that that was a myth, that, with automation of housework, expectations of what housewives could accomplish had been raised so high that any benefit of the new appliances was lost.

We left it at that -- we had other things to discuss besides the women's movement -- but the exchange left me feeling a suddenly very specific lack in my life of close women friends. I guess I mean close mainly in terms of proximity, because I do have a few intimate women friends but none of them live within a thousand miles of me. My sister and I are close, but sporadically in touch, and it's only about once a year that we get to have anything like real conversation. But I don't have a woman friend that I just hang out with, have coffee, talk about whatever's on our minds. (Actually I don't have men friends like this either, except J, and I feel that lack, as well. I don't have many friends here, but that's another story.)

I thought about this again while I was reading this article. I have lots of ideas about this. I always have opinions. I wish I had someone to bounce them off of, a woman friend who maybe has had some experience with this stuff, who might forgive my insults born of ignorance -- for instance, when I say, rhetorically, "why is it some women feel it's so important to be able to simultaneously give birth and raise a baby and maintain a career outside the home? if you're going to have kids, have kids. it's not sexism making women unhappy, it's multi-tasking" -- who might be willing to tell me what she thinks I'm right about and wrong about.

It's hard to have these conversations in a classroom, where so often people have a desire to express a strongly-held view instead of listening and examining an issue with an open mind. I'm just as guilty of this as anyone. And there's the whole "sensitivity" issue. Most of the kids in my classes are encountering the expectation of sensitivity for the first time in their lives, I think. Sensitivity to sexism, homophobia, racism, etc. And that's a good thing, especially here in Texas. It's just not where I am with these issues.

Well, last week I made a couple new male friends. Maybe women are next.

Taylor Swift.

I first heard, and heard of, Taylor Swift when I was staying with T in New York and we watched SNL. She was the musical guest. I was mesmerized. I had no idea until days later when I looked for her on iTunes that she was a country artist. It sounded like pure pop to me. Really good pure pop.

I don't like the CD versions of the songs -- she's much better live -- so I didn't download anything. The clip below is a bizarre production number from the CMA Awards. Here's one that's a little more stripped down. I searched for the SNL clip, but the NBC goons have already made sure nobody gets to see their "property." (How does alienating your audience make good business sense?) The SNL performance is better than either of these versions. I don't know that I can really explain yet why, but Taylor Swift makes me feel good about the future of country music.

Saturday.

Yesterday my new friend M and his friend D picked me up at home and we met another friend at Epoch for coffee.

R is a guy I hang out with at the bar if we both happen to be there, but otherwise we don't socialize. Last weekend there, at the bar, R and I were outside on the patio about to smoke a little, R saw M standing by himself and thought he looked interesting, so he asked him if he wanted to join us. He turned out to be an artist, a teacher, a really interesting man, we kept in touch during the week. It was from M that I found out that in Texas one can get a job teaching in the public schools with just a bachelor's degree. There's a state program where you can work toward your certification while you are teaching, taking weekend classes or some such thing. (The institution where these certification classes are held just happens to be right across the street from us.) M and I talked about it a lot that night we met, and over coffee yesterday I continued to grill him about teaching. His friend D teaches high school and loves it.

Coffee lasted for hours and it was time for dinner so we all went to a Thai restaurant nearby. It's rare, for me anyway, to make new friends, so it was kind of a thrill. I got home about 8 I think, talked to J for a while. He was excited because his improv class had gone really well. He's enjoying that more and more. I can't wait to see him do it! J went to bed at 9 -- he's preparing for his Paris trip (he leaves Friday) by adjusting his sleeping hours. I'd slept till 10 that morning and I was wired from the coffee and stimulating company, so I was wide awake.

It had stopped raining, and earlier it had seemed warmer, in the fifties maybe, so I decided to ride my bike down to the bar. Once I started riding, I realized the temperature had dropped, I'd only worn a long sleeve t-shirt, but I knew I'd warm up with the exercise. It crossed my mind that it was going to be colder on the ride home.

There wasn't much happening at the bar, nobody I knew to talk to was there, so I sat with my beer, stood with my beer, walked around with my beer. After an hour or so, R showed up. We went out to the patio to smoke. He always has really good stuff and that makes us both, naturally pretty shy, very chatty. I like R a lot. He's a good-hearted man. Every once in a while in our conversations I remember how different we are -- usually it's when he starts talking about real estate. He's very sensitive, has an artistic temperament, but chose a conventional life. So there's sort of a basic level on which we connect but his everyday concerns are very different from mine. Anyway, we have fun talking about sex and random things.

I was getting cold so we went back inside. It was dark in the bar, the music was loud, completely unfamiliar dance music, the pot was kicking in, and I was enjoying it a lot. It's like therapy for me, getting high and sitting in a crowded bar, listening to loud music, with no pressure to keep up conversation. It's one of the few times I feel completely off the hook.

The last couple of times there I noticed a boy, he was a little cocky I guess is why I noticed him, Mexican I assumed from his features, young, small, wavy shoulder-length hair like Peter Frampton but black. Very sexy but not someone I would necessarily take a specific sexual interest in, mostly I guess because he was so young, but also because he seemed to be there with a big group of friends who, for whatever reason, didn't look like people I would hang out with. (Younger and a little more dressed up than the regular flannel shirt beer gut crowd.) But I had enjoyed watching him.

Last night, he was watching me too. Before R got there, he (the boy) had walked past me, stopped, smiled and said hi. Then his friend snagged him and they disappeared. Later, when R and I had come in from the porch and were sitting on the bench along the back wall, I pointed him out to R and told R how intrigued I was by him. While we were talking about him, as if he knew, he walked over and sat right next to me. Within seconds R had disappeared, I think assuming that I wanted to pursue this kid and he would give me room, but honestly I was scared. I was disoriented by someone so young showing interest in me, and I was suddenly very stoned.

Every time I looked over, he was smiling at me. He told me his name was Tim and he was from Mexico, here in Austin going to college at St. Edward's. He had no accent at all. He said something about me that I can't quite recall now, something like "you're interesting," and I being completely hypnotized by now said, "I think you're beautiful." Which embarrasses me now to remember, because it's such an old man thing to say to a young person, but on the other hand, how many times do we get to express exactly word for word what's on our mind?

He smiled and shifted his leg so that it touched mine. I thought, "I am not safe here."

He asked me how old I was. I said, "In a week, I'm going to be 48." He very politely told me I didn't look it, and I said, "Well, it's dark in here." I asked him how old he was. "15," he deadpanned. (I was ready to believe him. He looked very young.) But after a beat, he smiled and said, "How old do you think I am?" I thought 18, but said 20, I think in some unsuccessful attempt to reduce the lecherous troll quotient a bit in my head.

"I'm 22," he said.

I said, "How old is your father?" and immediately wished I hadn't. He laughed and said, "Younger than you."

He kept shifting himself closer to me and if I would look over, he would meet my gaze and smile. He was androgynous -- not in the way I usually think of, neither male nor female but some state in-between -- he was strongly both male and female. It was almost more than I could take. There was something about his age, the absolute beauty of a 22-year-old boy, that was overwhelming, but the other aspect of it was the mere fact of someone who I assessed to be very much more attractive than me expressing sexual interest in me. I have no power over that. Nothing has ever arisen in me to protect me from that.

He said, "Do you like to play pool?"

I said, "No."

"Do you want to?"

"Mmm. No. I don't play."

"Really? You won't?"

I shrugged. I didn't want to play pool. I'm sure I was worried about embarrassing myself in front of this beautiful boy who liked me for some unknowable reason.

He looked at me for a moment and then said, "That sucks."

I said, "What?"

"That sucks. You could have at least tried." About 30 seconds later, he got up slowly and walked away, back toward the pool tables, and I sat there feeling like I was 300 years old.

It had gotten much colder and the two beers I'd drunk weren't enough to keep me warm on the way home. I was seriously painfully cold for the first half of the ride. I rode fast to get my heart pumping to warm me up. It didn't really work but it was fun to ride fast. It's mostly uphill on the way home and Springdale is deserted at 1 a.m. My mind was racing too, back to the beautiful Mexican boy to my day with wonderful new friends and my recent fretting about the future and it suddenly seemed clear to me that I should be a teacher. I should look for a job teaching high school in the fall. I've always wanted to teach and the thing that has kept me from pursuing it is the worry that I could not do it and also make art. But this week I met M, who is both an artist and a teacher, as if to teach me that it is possible.

So much points toward it being a sensible pursuit. I have a strong hunch I will be good at it. I complain about the state of American education all the time -- here's a chance to do something about it. It's a field where there are jobs available, which is rare these days. It's a state job, with good salary and benefits. I'll have mountains of student loans to pay off once I finish school. I'm going to be 50 in 2 years. Maybe this is a way to age with some grace.

Ham? Did Somebody Say Ham?

J and I used to have Pickle Surprise on a VHS demo compilation from J's days as an entertainment writer for a magazine in New York. The tape was long, and full of great stuff besides Pickle Surprise -- Ann Magnuson and that crew of East Village 80s drag queens and crazy people doing lots of weird characters, etc. At some point in our crazy life, we lost the tape. There are few things I have missed as much as I missed that tape. We had serious Pickle Surprise cravings for years. We looked for it forever, and came close to spending $50 for a copy from some museum archive.

Hooray for youtube!

Here's a Treat For You.

New York.

I didn't mean to be all cagey about my New York trip. For anyone who reads this and is wondering: the Lizzie Borden showcase staging was a huge success, the producers are really happy with the shape the show is in now, and they're going ahead with plans for an open-ended run in the fall. The next step, from what I understand, is to find a space.

I wish I could blog about it, blow by blow, but I always end up writing myself into a corner, not knowing what's appropriate to share at this point. A lot of it is just, in the end, not my story to tell. Rest assured that when the show is a big hit this fall and we all makes pots of money, I'll let you know all about it.

La-di-da.

I'm so all over the place, I don't know what to write about. The world is so full of fearful and exhilarating things. I swing from scared to thrilled, apprehensive to excited.

I got a 100 on my Rigging midterm. It was easy, but still I feel very proud of myself. My Spanish exam on Friday was tough. I rushed through it and didn't have a chance to double check my answers. I'm generally okay with the written stuff, but understanding spoken Spanish is another story altogether. I struggle with it. I want so badly to do well in that class, in large part, I'm not proud to admit, because the teacher is cute and he likes me.

I'm trying to decide whether I should finish my degree this summer, as I had originally planned, or go to Utah for the summer to work and come back to finish school in the fall. Since I'm not going to grad school in the fall, there's no real rush. Except that I'm so close to being done I can taste it, and just want to get it over! The advantage of waiting is that it prolongs having to figure out what to do with my life. And, of course, summer is Utah would be paradise.

On the other hand, somehow fall seems like a good time to start something fresh. Whatever it is. I've been thinking seriously about looking into teaching, high school or middle school. You can start teaching here in Texas with just a college degree and then do whatever coursework you need to get your teaching credentials while you're working. It would be an insanely huge commitment, but I have this feeling that I'd enjoy it and be very good at it. I hear there's a demand for teachers at the higher grade levels in the public schools, so maybe it wouldn't be hard to get a job. I like teenagers -- they're much more interesting to me than younger kids. Am I crazy?

My Take on Comics.

I thought I'd share with you a short essay I wrote for my class, Postmodern America. The assignment was to write a personal essay addressing the question of whether one thought of oneself as a modernist or postmodernist. Here it is:

I don’t get comic books. That may not seem like a big deal; some people don’t get true crime (get) or anime (don’t get) or Bollywood (totally get) or science fiction (get, but only Samuel Delany and that’s just because there’s lots of deviant sex in his books) or whatever so-called genre there is to get or not get – doesn’t it seem like there are more genres every day, like porn: whatever you’re into there’s a sub of a sub of a subgenre just for you and the handful of others whose prenatal hormone mishap or relationship with their mothers have cursed (or blessed?) them with the same particular inability to get off on anything else? – but I can’t help feeling that somehow not getting comic books is a serious handicap right now, when our mass entertainment landscape is dominated by Batman and the rest. I try. I went to see The Dark Knight. I saw a couple of the Spiderman movies. Superheroes are one thing on paper – I went to art school; I’m a big fan of drawing, and I appreciate that there is some great drawing in comic books – but these movies with live actors playing superheroes always look to me like some guy forgot to take off his Halloween costume and everyone is pretending they don’t notice. It’s not a generational thing, though there is a mark on a timeline, maybe a fuzzy mark, that separates the era when little boys saw their lives through comic books from the current era when everybody (except me) sees their lives through comic books. Maybe it started when Pollack and Rothko etc. were knocked off their high modern pedestal by Rauschenberg and Warhol and, well, Lichtenstein, but I grew up in the 60s; I should have got in on the ground floor. Other boys my age carried comic books around with them. I had a couple Archies books, which I liked okay, but I’m sure the Archies don’t count. Maybe it’s a straight boy thing. Lip-service to change notwithstanding, mass media is still mostly created by straight boys. The inscrutability of comics certainly wasn’t the only thing that shut me out of the world of real boys when I was a young homosexual. Whatever the reason, superheroes are not my native tongue, and they say there’s a certain age past which it’s very difficult to learn a new language. I fear I will slowly lose my grasp on a world increasingly mediated by a popular mythology of superheroes. It’s way beyond the books themselves now. I think the actual publishing of those books, pamphlets really, printed on soft newsprint and sold in dusty little mom and pop stores, must be, if not over, at least a much smaller industry than it was in say the fifties. Keep in mind that I am relying on a version of the history of comics that I’ve mostly unconsciously composed in my head based on, at best, indirect observation, eavesdropping, misreading of magazine headlines, etc. I dated a guy briefly in my early twenties in the early eighties who was an artist at DC Comics. He drew Superman for a living. We met at the Ninth Circle, a hustler bar on 10th St. at the very ass-end of the West Village being at all counter-anything. A. had studied at SVA, I at Parsons, where our teachers were the last generation of artists whose teachers worshiped at the altar of Abstract Expressionism but whose students were painting, you guessed it, comic book characters, on canvas, and selling them in trendy galleries in the East Village. The night we met, I followed him to an after hours club on Houston St. and watched him dance maniacally to Gang of Four. I found him more intriguing than attractive. He lost his job at DC, and, whether he told me this or I assumed or fabricated it in the intervening years in order to create bit by bit, like we always do, a cohesive narrative out of events that most likely at the time didn’t cohere, let’s say it was because the comic book industry was on a downturn. I hate this word because it’s indiscriminately applied, but in the case of A. it’s accurate to say that I “dumped” him. One day he called from the corner of First Avenue and asked if he could come by. I said yes for no other reason I can think of than that I was a coward. I let him buzz for a while; then, someone must have let him in the building because he was knocking on my apartment door. I stood perfectly still on the other side of the door so he wouldn’t detect movement through the peephole until I heard his footsteps fade slowly down the hall toward the front door. Later that day I found slipped under my door a handwritten letter several pages long full of wistful regret about the demise of punk and the cynicism of the art world in New York. Many years after I left the city he got my address somehow, and now he sends me letters dozens of pages long, typed with an old manual typewriter on the back of Xeroxes of band fliers and newspaper photos of high school athletes and violent crime victims, which I assume are references for his work. He makes a living now drawing custom pornographic comics for people who are into torture, mutilation, Nazi medical experiment fantasies, stuff like that. When his letters arrive, before I read them I turn them over and leaf through the backs of the pages. Sometimes there’ll be a copy of a rough draft of one of his porn comics. I’m not particularly turned on by Nazis, but I get these comics. Batman, not so much.

Back and Forth.

I got back from New York last night, did a little Spanish homework,some fancy footwork with my schedule next week, hung out with J for a while, then went to bed.

I wasn't going to, but now I am going to, go back to New York this weekend for the Lizzie Borden showcase. When the performance was rescheduled for a Monday, I told T and the producers that I wouldn't be able to be there because of my classes, but T strong-armed me a little -- at one point Saturday night, he threatened to wait till I went to bed, buy a plane ticket, and then in the morning dare me to say no -- and the more I thought about it, the crazier it seemed to miss this event. This is the kind of thing I've worked for and hoped for years and years. It's a big deal. I realized I was being superstitious about school, that missing a couple days of classes was not in any way going to jeopardize my finishing my degree, was not going to really matter in the long run AT ALL.

The show is on Monday, so I will miss Monday and Tuesday's classes next week. I managed to reschedule a midterm exam in my Stage Rigging class and an in-class composición in Spanish. I'm scheduled to do a short presentation in my Postmodern America class next Tuesday morning, and I'm hoping someone will switch days with me.

Dreams.

When I'm anxious or troubled, I have vivid nightmares and remember them. Otherwise, I don't usually remember my dreams. Two nights ago, there was a car crash with a mangled bloody corpse sprawled in the front seat -- a lot of my nightmares are about the aftermath of car wrecks (I don't have recurring dreams so much as recurring settings or types of events in which the details change from dream to dream) -- and a weird trio of blond children wearing angular plaid suits and old-fashioned haircuts who were terrifying for some reason.

Last night I dreamed that J and I encountered a tiger and her cubs on a hiking trail. J ran right by her, but she blocked my path. I managed to intimidate her and keep her from attacking me. J took one of the cubs home. He was holding it in his arms, and it was beautiful and vivid with pale blue eyes. I kept telling him that he had to take it back to its mother, but he ignored me.

I don't enjoy being stressed out, and I wouldn't exactly say that I enjoy having nightmares, but there's something about them I like. They're maybe instructive, at the very least diverting.

Autoepiphany.

I think I need to get a car. Maybe not immediately, but before too long. I've been so resistant to the idea, because I hate driving, I don't want the expense and trouble of a car, and I'm opposed to car culture in general. But I live in a city with crappy public transit, limited sidewalks and poor pedestrian access to many areas, not enough bike lanes (which aren't safe anyway because they're so often used for turn lanes or parking). Am I just making myself miserable to prove a point? Is this one of those cases where I should just give in and live in the real world even if it doesn't line up with my values?

I love Austin and want to stay here. Maybe I have to accept Austin on its own terms instead of expecting it to be something it's not and consequently resenting it.

Having a car would eliminate so many little day-to-day frustrations, like having to rely on others to shop for me, or my apprehension about almost every invitation or social activity because I don't like feeling stranded and dependent on someone to drive me home. Being without a car makes it difficult for me to contemplate getting a job, it makes me reluctant to pursue a date with anyone, it makes what should be the simplest tasks feel like walking through a foot of mud. A car would also relieve some of the anxiety I feel about the heat here, because I wouldn't be out in it as much and I wouldn't be soaked with sweat every time I arrived somewhere. (Anxiety must seem like a strong word, but that's what it is. Today when I was walking to the bus in the humid 80-degree weather, my heart started racing and I thought I might cry because the air felt like summer coming and I thought, "I have to get my life together before the heat comes because once it does I'm going to be incapacitated for 5 months.")

I think the strain effects me more than I have admitted.

Now, the actual getting of a car is another story since I have no money. But I feel a small sense of relief having realized that I want one.

I Guess I Could Always Lead the Nation's Toughest Warriors.

I was thinking on my way home from school today that tonight I should make a list of things I might want to do in the fall, since I no longer have plans. Just to sort of get my thoughts together. In the mail when I got home was a flier from the Marine Corp. that says, "When you started college, you planned to change your world." And then you open the thing and inside it says, "You still can." Hm.

Heard on the Street.

Pretty frequently there will be a club or sorority or some such group doing a blood drive on campus. They bring in those big bright buses, line them up, and get a couple perky girls to nab people as they walk by: "Would you like to save 5 lives today?" The first time this happened, I didn't know what it was and I said, "Sure? How do I do that?" "Your blood donation can save 5 lives!" I muttered something like, "Not today," and kept walking. But now I always say, "You don't want my blood" -- blood banks don't accept blood from men who have sex with men -- and the perky girl's smile freezes and her eyes go all quizzical and she'll say, "Okay."

There's an area on campus, on the main mall, called the "free speech area" (the name cracks me up, as if speech is not free anywhere else), where organizations like the Palestinian Students Organization or Campus Democrats set up tables and hand out literature as kids move between classes. There's a group called Face AIDS which raises money for and awareness of AIDS in Africa. I don't want to disparage their hard work and dedication because AIDS is a big problem in Africa for sure, but it strikes me as bizarre that, when rates of new HIV infections among college-age kids are spiking and most college kids seem to have no clue what the fuss is, the only student organization dedicated to AIDS is focused on Africa. Anyway, when you walk by they say, "Would you like to help fight AIDS today?" I've taken to saying, "I fight AIDS every day." (Meaning that every sexually active homosexual man, no matter his antibody status, lives with the spectre of HIV.) Same falling smile and quizzical eyes.

I wonder what stories these kids are weaving in their brains about me.

Blog About It.

On the web site of the graduate admissions office, they say that applicants will be notified in late March whether they have been accepted or not, so when I got an email from them Thursday afternoon it didn't cross my mind that this would be "the news," and I opened it and started reading, only half-focused because I was in the middle of my anthropology homework, which scrambles my brain:

"We have concluded our review of applications for the Master of Fine Arts in Film & Video Production program at The University of Texas at Austin. We regret that we are unable to offer you admission for Fall 2009." etc.

I had to read it a few times. I was so completely unprepared for the news that I literally couldn't quite make sense of it. My first thought was "Fuck it, fuck college, the only reason I went back to finish my BA is so I could do this MFA program, so why do I need to be struggling with fossils and math now? I'll drop the whole thing, go to New York, and work on my show." That's what I would have done at 23, in fact pretty much was what I did, more than once, quit school because it was annoying and making art was more compelling. But I'm older now, as they say, and if I'm going to be homeless I'd rather be some place warm.

I settled for dropping my anthropology class. I can take something else this summer to fulfill that science requirement, something math-free. There, I feel better now.

When I got home, there was a big zip file in my inbox from A with recordings of 5 songs from his rehearsal with the band. I listened to them and cried. I'm sure my disappointment was in the tears somewhere, and my regret that I'm not in New York, but mostly I was crying because they just sound so fucking great.

I get it. The future contains infinite possibilities. I don't need another reminder.

Everybody's Happy.

T called late last night ecstatic about the show. He was on his way to the subway after the first music rehearsal and he said, "I just have to tell you this show rocks!" You know we hired, they hired, my old friend A as musical director after a lot of lobbying on my part because, well, I've always thought the show needed a musical director because of my limited skills as composer and arranger but the need it seemed to me was crucial and obvious this time since I with my limited skills am not even there. I had this strong feeling that A was the right person to do it. I thought he would understand the story, the approach, the songs. He's played in rock bands for years, he has formal training in composition, plays several instruments, has done a lot of theatre.

He elbowed his way into the score fast, seeming to comprehend the thing whole and know exactly what needed to be done in ways big and small, which took my breath away, not, I have to admit, in a good way at first, because he suggested a lot of changes, some of them pretty substantial. But he has been right about everything. I'm in awe of his talent right now.

So T staged the first three scenes last night, the first three songs. He's thrilled with A, thrilled with the new cast. God I wish I were there.

Meanwhile, here in Texas, JP is finishing the bodies in the garage. He's executing an idea T had for Mr. and Mrs. Borden who have to be hacked to death with an axe on stage. They only appear for moments, but it's the big scene, it's what the show is all about, so it's got to be great. They don't have to look completely real, but it needs to be gruesome.

T's idea was that two big road cases would be wheeled out on stage for the murder scene (you know those big black and silver boxes with oversized hinges and latches that they use to carry stuff around in for rock shows?), and when they're opened, inside are truncated but life-size dioramas of Mom and Dad made out of latex and dressed in period clothes. Mr. Borden is napping on a Victorian settee and Mrs. is sitting at a dressing table, both looking very proper and peaceful until blood starts gushing out of their heads. They are rigged with stage blood that, when Lizzie hits them with a rubber but very convincing axe, will be pumped out through pre-cut wounds in their heads. (The picture above is one of the crime scene photos of Andrew Borden dead on the sofa.)

I also talked the producers into hiring JP to make the props, because the other thing besides a music director that this show needs is great gore effects for the murders, and I just happened to know someone super-talented in that department too.

Don't Panic.

I was feeling sort of panicky yesterday. On my to-do list was a pile of reading for my human evolution class, a project that involved a bit of research and a scale rendering for my stage rigging class, study for a Spanish quiz, and a phone call with the Lizzie Borden music director in New York. I couldn't concentrate for long on any of them without the others pushing their way into my brain, so I spent about an hour in the late morning just lying on my bed with my eyes wide open trying to breathe slowly.

I have seriously bit off more than I can chew with this anthropology class. I needed one course from a list of science courses to fulfill a degree requirement, and it was the only course on the list that would fit in my schedule. Since this is my last full semester, I don't have a lot of flexibility. I knew it was a course for science majors, but the course description was a little vague about prerequisites and it's a course on a fascinating subject taught by one of the top scientists in the field, so I just decided to do it.

I was reading from the textbook yesterday morning, and seriously not absorbing ANY of it because it's so full of terminology it looks as opaque as a foreign language. So not only do I not know what I'm reading, it takes me forEVER to read it. I kept thinking I should just stop, it's a waste of time, and I have so much other stuff to do. But then I would tell myself to relax and read it a few times, maybe it'll get clearer eventually. A few times? You mean I have to read this more than once?! And round and round.

The hard thing for me to accept (and the fact that it's so hard makes me even crazier) is that I may not get everything but what I do get will be valuable. When he's not digging fossils, the professor of this course is very involved with creating interactive teaching tools. Besides the book for this course, we have a CD-ROM which is much easier to navigate than the book. Pictures! I spent a little time with it yesterday and suddenly a few basic concepts became clear, and now I feel like I have at least a start of a framework that I can hang all the esoteric information from the textbook and articles on.

It's not that I can't do this stuff. I just need to take it in smaller pieces. My new motto for life. "Don't panic!"

I finished the rigging project, and the Lizzie Borden phone call went well. He's making some big changes in the arrangements of the songs: all improvements, but it's hard to have someone else fussing with material that I created and have become very attached to. Some of those songs I wrote almost 20 years ago.

Falling.

Today in my rigging class, we climbed a very narrow metal spiral staircase with a low, open railing up to the grid at the top of the theater's fly space over the stage to look at the rigging system up close. I knew this would be part of the class, and though I dreaded it I looked forward to it because it has become one of my pet projects in my middle age to challenge my fear of heights. I don't think I will conquer it in the sense of making it go away, but I try whenever I can to ignore the signals and push ahead. I try to experience it as a thrill, as ecstasy instead of terror and panic. Physically they're very similar, so it kind of works. To a point.

Well, this today was hard core.The way up was bad enough, just staring straight ahead at the steps in front of me. The teacher had told us that if we really didn't want to go up, we didn't have to and halfway up when I started to get really scared, I considered stopping and going back down. I guess my vanity helped me out, because I kept thinking, "If I stop, everyone behind me on the stairs is going to have to go back down and then up again and I'm going to look like a fool in front of the whole class," and that kept me forging ahead. But the way down was absolutely terrifying because the only choices you had were to either look down (unthinkable) or look straight out into the wide open space, which made my legs feel wobbly and my eyes tear up. I took it slow, and I made it.

I thought actually being up there would be the worst part of it -- and it was pretty intense standing on a grid of steel pipes with 4 or 5 inch spaces between them looking straight down 65 feet to the stage floor -- but the walk up and down were far worse. It's one thing to stand still and involuntarily contemplate, over and over feeling it in your bones every time, falling, but there's something altogether more difficult about forcing yourself to put one foot in front of the other when every nerve and muscle in your body is telling you that to move means death.

Me, Today.

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. The beginning of the semester always brings this feeling. I look at the syllabuses (I refuse to say "syllabi" -- for some reason it's annoying to me how people in academia insist on using Latin plurals) all together and start thinking, oh my god, there's no way I can do all of this stuff -- read 2 dozen books, write several papers, take all those tests, learn all that stuff! -- for some reason forgetting that I don't have to do it all right this second.

And then there's math. I don't even have a math class this semester (I'm putting off my one and only math class until the last possible moment, this summer), but my stage rigging class involves some math, and my anthropology class involves a lot of math. Who knew? Not me, for sure. The anthropology class is hard core -- it's called Human Evolution, extremely interesting stuff, but seriously hard. Chemistry (fossil dating), statistics (classifying fossil bones), and taxonomy up the wazoo.

And there's some great stuff happening with Lizzie Borden in New York. They're doing a showcase production in February to try out the new book and songs, slightly more staged than the reading we did last spring, but still short of the full production which is planned for next fall. I couldn't be there for the auditions, but they had a big open call and from what I heard they saw lots of great people and have a strong cast. I'll miss most of the rehearsals, but I'm flying there for the show in 3 weeks. Maybe another reason I'm feeling stressed out is that it's all happening without me.

I dropped out of school 3 times because working as an artist was more compelling to me than school (well, to be honest, the third time I dropped out it was because of a man), so I'm determined to finish this degree this time. Besides, I couldn't just move to New York for this show. I don't have a paid role in the production, so it wouldn't have any way to make a living there. But god I hate missing this!