flash bulb

I'm sitting at my desk eating one of those cultured coconut milk "faux"gurts (because I eat strange and healthy crap like that) and it tastes like vacation. Thanks to a flavor known as "Passionate Mango," I am momentarily transported to a land of tropical fruit and suntan lotion, and then—wham—I realize that by this time in three weeks, I will be on a catamaran in Tortola.

I'm still not sure I deserve to be on said catamaran, but coming out of the sinuously stressful tunnel of producing The Show, having ground my molars to nubs, slept restively, jumped at every shadow, this gives me a most dizzying sense of impending peace.

Realization number two: life is so much shorter than I ever thought it would be. I haven't seen Peter Pan's parents in weeks, despite my every intention to "still be around." This is sad, to me somehow. I miss them more than I ever thought I would.

minor annoyance

I wasn't feeling as fat as usual when I got dressed this morning, so I wore a bodysuit under my wool skirt and tights under that because, well, there is ice on the ground.

In so doing, I effectively booby-trapped myself. With the obscene amount of water I drink at the office, I've had to pee pretty much every hour on the hour. Today, of course, that simple act requires me to perform the acrobatic feat of removing every stitch of my clothing in our tiny staff bathroom then reassembling myself.

The day has gone much faster for this.

in which I wax splenetic

I never say this here, because I'll likely be caught and fired immediately, but I hate my job.

(There. I said it. Right out in the open internet.)

I'm sitting in my windowless cubby, under a huge, dehumanizing fluorescent light strip, staring at a computer screen and waiting for my life to happen. I spent the morning at a women-in-business networking breakfast where I listened to a roomful of ladies in power suits pimp themselves to each other by passing out business cards and using phrases like "my industry," "consulting management" and "start-up" and pretending that Twitter is a valid field of study. How these women sat through business school without puncturing their veins with a ballpoint pen I do not know. I could never be a captain of industry. I'm probably smart enough—I just very fundamentally do not give a shit.

My job has the potential to be great. Most of what I do is at least 60% creative or project oriented and my overall aim is to raise money to help people. The mission of our organization inspires me daily. That said, any warm fuzzies to be found here are almost instantly negated by the overall douchebaggery rampant in the working world.

My ideas may be good and my ass may be on the line, but I remain a pawn. I work for people who want it both ways. "That is your responsibility," they say, but they also have said (and I quote), "You are the help—and the help move boxes. You don't make decisions."

Thing is, would it be better anywhere else? The more hours I put in, the more ass I kiss, the more Henry Miller I read . . . the less I feel like spinning the plates.

I don't belong in the office world. I never have. My tolerance for politics and posturing and the writing of memoranda was questionable to begin with and plummets daily. I get increasingly angry at the futility of how we these forty hour weeks are spent, then angrier again at myself for my own deficiency. Why can't I just be a good little girl, keep my nose clean and my chin up?

Oh. Right. The curse of the artistic temperament. Damn.

More on my permanent disillusionment with adulthood later.

my little pink heart on its little brown raft

If I had the scratch, I would treat myself to this necklace as a Valentine's reminder (slash: bronzed badge of courage). A freestanding symbol. Or something to that effect.

I would woo myself. Of myself, by myself . . . for myself.


*But—alas—I am broke.

poem of the week

Sonnet

All we need is fourteen lines, well, thirteen now,
and after this one just a dozen
to launch a little ship on love's storm-tossed seas,
then only ten more left like rows of beans.
How easily it goes unless you get Elizabethan
and insist the iambic bongos must be played
and rhymes positioned at the ends of lines,
one for every station of the cross.
But hang on here wile we make the turn
into the final six where all will be resolved,
where longing and heartache will find an end,
where Laura will tell Petrarch to put down his pen,
take off those crazy medieval tights,
blow out the lights, and come at last to bed.

- Billy Collins from Sailing Alone Around the Room, 1999.

punk ass punxsutawney

The overgrown rat we have elevated to celebrity status has once again predicted six more weeks of winter. That little shit is even more pessimistic than I am.

I am done with this cold. You hear me northwestern hemisphere? I've had enough! I long for the time when dressing for both work and tango will no longer entail a brush with certain hypothermia. (Can we also please address the current trend of tights made of string in interesting patterns? They are not warm.)

And yet, I fall in love in the winter. I don't know why. It is as if I go down to the underworld with Persephone every year, following yet another man who belongs in such a place, leaving a trail of pomegranate seeds behind me and emerging in the Spring to a crowd of "I told you so"s and other pities, just when I'm meant to be celebrating and sowing oats and flapping ribbons in the breeze . . .

I'm not there this time, but the wistfulness is all over me. Not surrendering to my baser impulses—if love is indeed the dirty fall from grace I now think it is—makes for quite the feat. How long can she stay this strong, you ask, with the trees this barren and the air this cold? Surely a faceless, beflanneled suitor will get the better of her, in a frayed wool sweater, offering her a place by the bookcase and the fire. And won't you just click your tongue at that . . . Poor, stupid girl with a habit of making poor, stupid choices.

studiously aloof, chapter two: not going home with him

That's right, world. I went home to my own bed and my little girl pajamas in my turret in Queens, where I belong—while the icy city quieted down and other, weaker women went home to riotous nights of passion. (The fools!)

What a weekend it turned out to be. I danced for the better part of twelve hours on Saturday, and by the time I ended up at the All-Night, my legs were quivering under my weight and I could hardly feel my feet as they grazed the floor and pushed ever behind me, backwards in heels. By 4:30 am, previously undiscovered muscles had begun to announce themselves and were aching something furious. Great night.

Sunday evening found me sampling cheese and wine with The Gentleman in Question and his (in a strange and humbling turn of events). So my weekend ended with a kiss I will not soon (but will likely spend the better part of the week trying to) forget.

Lucky for me, my cup already runneth over. The Show looms on the calendar in big, block letters. I will admit, I look forward to clearing my focus, strapping up the character shoes and inhabiting someone else for the next two weeks. Even if that someone else is a caricature of womanly neuroses a little too close for comfort. Time for the asceticism of performing. Nights blocked off like rows of reserved seating. The theatre a magnet in your life.