Had a terrific living-room reading of Wide Open Spaces (my thesis play) today. Now my head is hurting from all of the possible things which can be done with this play. My brain is just Really Full. 

It's a Really Good Thing to have friends who you can trust with "here is this thing I made that I'm not 100% sure how I feel about." 

"well, let's unpack it and give it a spin and see what happens. OH. There's your whisamaidit, and your doohicker. Hmm. Did you consider that the doohicker could be fragmented by that hawatchijig?"

"Um... no..."

"Because that's what's making your whoosis go all flickety."

"My whoosis goes flickety?"

"Yup."

"Damn, I thought so, but I didn't want to say anything."​

Right at the end of the discussion, I had a really clear image of a way that blocks can be moved around to make the play clearer and more streamlined, but it made sense RIGHT THEN and now it's getting slippery. so I'm going to go scribble on a legal pad for a bit. 

Feeling extremely grateful for such good, smart, supportive friends. 

Done, done (rest day) and done. Still planking on, up to 45 seconds.

Hi all!  

Just letting you know that I'm here, and all is well. I don't have much to report... everything is functioning as it has been. No new developments. If anything changes, I'll keep you posted. :)

xoxo!

We're playing in Wallingford (3 minutes from Media) at 8:00 next Saturday night. 

Last show sold out, so tickets in advance are recommended.

http://betterthanbacon.eventbrite.com/

Taught my first aquatics class at the Rocky Run YMCA.  8:00 Wed nights, if you are interested in attending.  It's action-movie themed, so we'll be preparing to act in jungle adventure, Rocky XII, James Bond, Splash 2, musicals, and the obligitory kiddie roles.

"OK, everybody grab the enemy frogman by the head & kick around in a circle to break the neck"

That's frogman with a speargun, of course.

I discovered this album by Katie Lee, it's called Songs of Couch and Consultation, and I am happy to inform you that this song is as good as its title.

The good news is that I got a freelance writing gig today, and I've been writing all day. It's a very boring product that I'm producing, but it feels good to be doing it. 

The bad news is that I have this horrible idea for an erotic vampire novel. I was thinking that I should write it, self-publish it on Amazon, and sell it for some ridiculously low price. Then I'll sell a zillion copies to people who don't know any better but at least they're reading (the Dogs Don't Know It's Not Bacon theory of publishing), and go to Vegas for the weekend where it's WARM and SUNNY, and I can drink 99-cent margaritas* outside. 

I thought, nah, I'm not a novelist, I have no prose writing skills. 

then I thought, what if the novel was entirely made up of e-mail messages? 

I'm trying to think of what my fake erotic vampire fiction novelist name should be. I think the imaginary chick who writes this novel is a Drunk J. Crew Model. 

Imma write a book

cause

books. 

----------------

*don't worry, they water down the 99-cent margaritas unless you're actively gambling. 

In other news: The dogs are hating this weather. They're bored, but they can't be outside for more than maybe eight minutes because it's just too damn cold. I found some toys that you stuff treats into, on the theory that it's like a puzzle for them. I stuffed the little nozzles with food, smeared them with peanut butter, and figured that'd buy me about 20 minutes of peace and quiet. 

Bebe seems to have buried her toy somewhere in the house. Squeaky didn't seem interested at first. I tried to take a picture of her with it. When I approached her, she defended her prize, doing the "I'MA RIP YER THROAT OUT" growl. Notice that in this photo, she's trying to keep one eye on the toy and one on me. 

I needed a name for some software (don't tune out yet) and I wanted something that invoked the idea of migration. I googled migratory birds. And I fell down the wikihole checking out this magnificent bastard:

Check it out: the arctic tern migrates from the north pole to the south pole and back every year.

It does this for 30 years.

You ain't no wanderer, you ain't no travelin' man, just hang it up, the arctic tern has it all over you in the meandering department.

Ok, my progress:  I skipped day 4. Well, I didn't so much skip it as I was TOO DAMN BUSY, and I ate too much. I have one of these thinking jobs that consumes me, then meetings which I try to be on time for. And usually I'm a driving force in a meeting, so can't really plank in the middle. Not complaining, it's what I do. Plus I had a dentist appointment, and it snowed. So added cleaning off the car to my rushed day (I admit it, I drove to the dentist with snow blowing off the roof - but I did get the windows scraped so I'm calling that a win.)  After getting my teeth thoroughly cleaned, I got lunch: BBQ sandwich with coleslaw AND broccoli salad. And after eating all that, I was too stuffed to plank.

Back to work, to meeting prep and meetings, which ran all the way to 5:35PM. At which point I was running late for my 5:45 non-work meeting across town.  At least the car was no longer snow covered.

5:45 I meet up with a friend to brainstorm on Art. I had an O'douls and we sketched. We go camping at a regional burn Playa Del Fuego twice a year, and they want more Art (so they claim). Burner Art is not fine art. It's go off and build something interesting or engaging or whimsical or burning, and we'll call it art.

ASIDE: I read a lot about kids since now I have one. This struck me, and I repeat it often: Ask a room of 5 year olds "Who's an artist, a singer, a dancer?" and they pretty much all raise their hands. Ask a room of high-school seniors, and almost none will claim to be one.  What's with that? We can again all be those things; we just need to embrace the bravery of our inner child.

So two Art ideas later (An evolution on the hanging ball cube I made last fall - now to include lighting, more balls and goodness gracious adequate balls of fire. and 2. A lighted PDF marquee sign), we went out to a local pub for half-price burgers and 2 more O'douls.  Home at 9:30, I was WAY TO STUFFED to plank.

What I decided is I would repeat day 3. So I did so 30 seconds in the morning when I woke. And I did day 4 just this morning, again 30 seconds.  Neither was that hard, nor easy. Doable. I explained to my kid what a plank was shortly thereafter, detouring through "walk-the-plank" pirate talk to explain what a plank was. And she said, "I can do that!"  Then she laid flat on the floor, pretending to be a board. "This is easy!", she said.

Instead of working this morning, I'm writing up art grant proposals and creating this OPW post.

Per request from Jenny Hill (who I can't link to, since we aren't friends), here is the 30 day plank challenge.  It's simple: just do a plank for a certain (increasing) amount of seconds.  Here's the site with the details:

Today I went to the gym immediately after dropping V off at the train. I think this is going to be a good way to build a new habit.  I did 51 minutes on the elliptical, but was unable to use my telekinetic powers to make the televisions explode. I'll keep trying. 

Yesterday one of my cousins asked my other cousins and me to join her on a 25-mile charity bike ride for ALS this spring. It looks like fun, the ride ends at a barbecue in Wildwood (so it's sort of a "bike to the beach" thing), and it'd be a good training goal. I said sure. Now I'm trying to figure out if I have any idea what I'm doing, and wondering how exactly one trains for a 25-mile bike ride. Do I bike for three hours a day until 25 miles becomes No Big Whoop? Do I bike for an hour a day until I can easily bike 25 miles in an hour?  Is there a couch-to-25-miles cycling program? 

Yeah, there's an app for that, but the developer support website, couchtobike.com, comes up with a blank page. also, there are no reviews.  an app's not the same as an explanation. 

still, might be fun, though.