It’s very possible I’m just becoming numb to the relentless cruelty and bad decisions happening in our country but the news about the National Endowment for the Arts didn’t bother me nearly as much as I would have thought. Maybe if it had happened first? Like, before USAID and before all the “deportations” that are really kidnappings and before all…

I think a lot about this dinner I had with my clown teacher many years ago. I was in my late 20s and I was recounting my plans to put on a show. I don’t think it was far enough along yet to have been a plan for starting the theatre company – but it could have been, because that is what it ultimately became. This was the show that led to the company…

If you’ve spent time in writing circles or writing workshops or writing advice threads, at some point you will have run into the concept of killing your darlings. This is the idea that sometimes you have to cut the parts of your text that you love for the greater good of your piece. Some people take this idea so seriously that they cut their darlin…

And here’s the thing that’s really freaking me out. It’s set in Marseille in France in 1940. The US hasn’t even entered the war yet. And everywhere they go, there is only terrible coffee. Over and over, the main character drinks undrinkable coffee or brown water standing in for coffee. And I know this is not nearly as bad as the bombings and the ar…

In the last handful of years, NYC has been doing something called Participatory Budgeting, which allows us to vote for which projects we’d like to see funded in our district. It’s mostly small budget proposals for schools or parks or community groups. It’s a nice idea, though I’m not sure how well it works in getting things funded. I got an email f…

In the midst of all the chaos and my friends losing (or preparing to lose) their federal jobs, several of them have asked, “But what about you? Are you losing funding?” And it’s so sweet. It’s so kind of them to check on me and I am grateful that people in such despair are thinking of me too but a part of me laughs very hard at the notion of my tin…

Recently, I went to see a middle schools’ production of a musical. It was one of the Broadway JR series shows – where they do an edited version of a Broadway show and sing along to pre-recorded tracks. I used to teach for a program helping to implement these shows so I am pretty familiar with what the deal is. They’ve become very popular and the pr…

During the Hollywood Reporter’s roundtable for documentary filmmakers, the woman who made a doc about Frida Kahlo said, “There’s a whole universe of people who are incredibly invested in Frida. We heard from a few, making sure that we didn’t call her a “feminist,” because that word didn’t exist when Frida was alive.” I don’t doubt that a lot of peo…

As I stood on the corner, waiting for a walk signal, a tall man in a long coat came to stand next to me. When the light changed, I started to go but then noticed that this man next to me was waving a car to go ahead of him into the street before us. The car hesitated. I suspect the car could see that there were two of us waiting to cross, only one …

In the days before the election, my friend made a LOT of phone calls on behalf of the Harris campaign. He spoke to quite a few people who were truly undecided. They really exist! He told me about someone who said, “I just don’t know anything about the candidates.” And I was so jealous of them! How is it possible to avoid knowing about these people?…

When I first got a computer, I gave it a name. I don’t remember which one came first, Bertram or Mr. Finkelstein. I believe I named my hard drive in college; It was the Stinky Cheese Drive. I don’t know when I stopped naming my computers but I think it’s been a few years at least. Then the other day, I told my friend I was going to go check in with…

The main reason I wanted to see The Blood Quilt was because it was about a family making a quilt together and having made some quilts with my family, I was interested. I don’t see a lot of plays about stuff I know about so I was curious. Would I gain some insight into my own experience? Discover some hidden metaphor in my family’s crafting? Would I…

When I graduated from college, I went straight into my first acting job which was a six month Shakespeare tour that was pretty intense. It was very full time. But then, when I wasn’t re-hired there, which had been my plan, I was suddenly out of work and out of a structure for my time. It threw me for a big loop. I began, then, the process of hustli…

I don’t know if I hadn’t cried yet about therapist-in-chief being elected again or if I’m just forgetting all the other times I’ve cried before, but I do have a sensation of not really dealing with or processing this reality thus far. I’ve been pretty numb and disassociated. I know that much. I didn’t even mention the forthcoming transition of powe…

Just a little extra this week. This is a monologue written by Marie Jenney Howe for a 1913 Women's Suffrage meeting. I found it while doing some research for a project about a women's secret society and couldn't resist recording it for you. Some things will feel familiar even now, over a hundred years later. Click here to read along. This is a Bonu…

This residency opportunity popped up in my feed. It sounded amazing. A week in a castle with artists from many disciplines on an island off the coast of England? A collaborative exploration in conversation with international artists and the tidal patterns? Yes, please. I could use the magic of a castle and a group process by the water. How do I app…

I confess that when the news started to come out about Neil Gaiman’s terrible behavior, I did not dig deep on it. I really did not want to know. As a fan of his work, and maybe even a student of it, this particular dark turn was one I did not want to be true. I assumed it was true and I assumed it was bad and yet I sort of sang to myself, with my h…

While talking with a friend about the ups and downs of making money from writing on the internet, it occurred to me that almost all the support I receive is from people who know me in real life. There are exceptions, of course, but the vast majority of support comes from friends, family and friends of friends and family. As I told my friend, I have…

The dance piece was genuinely terrible. The dancer couldn’t really dance. The choreographer seemed to have a four movement/gesture vocabulary and the “concept” was cringe-inducing. I could tell you more about it, and I’m tempted to, because talking about terrible art can be very fun, but I think any further details would start to be hurtful and may…

When I spent my junior year of college in Italy, I found myself not particularly bothered by the catcalling there. While there was a lot more of it, it always seemed kind of good natured. When I walked down the street, men shouted, “Bella! Ti amo!” (“Beautiful, I love you!”) And you know, I didn’t mind because I felt no implied threat behind it. It…

My jaw hit the floor when Catherine O’Hara, comedic genius, said she used to tell her ideas to Dave Thomas so he could pitch them to their SCTV group instead of her. Catherine O’Hara?! One of the most innovative performers we have, had as much trouble getting ideas out in a meeting as a lot women have?! She was ona podcast, telling this to Julia Lo…

It’s the day after election day. It was a rough night and I’m here at a café on the Upper East Side to write through this difficult moment. It’s 75 degrees in New York City in November (Nothing to worry about! No global warming to see here! Good thing no one’s declared a climate emergency yet!) so the patio is more full than usual. The man at the t…

My library finally re-opened post-pandemic and I went in for a celebratory look around. Though it supposedly had been re-modeled, it seemed to look exactly the same. (Except now there seemed to be no way to access the card catalogue? WTF?) I took a look at the theatre section because, you know, Theatre Nerd, and was struck by how much the selection…

Trigger Warning: I don’t think this piece is any more triggering than just living in the world at the moment but if you’re not feeling like reading the words r*pe and r*pist a bunch, just skip this one, my friends. * It’s Election Day in New York City. Astoria, particularly. I see a guy in a Trump baseball hat. We don’t see a lot of those around he…

A video I saw on BlueSky of a guy playing a cigar box guitar, while wearing a tin can helmet/mask, made me think of a teacher I had many years ago. That teacher told us to call him Professor Bobo (his name was Bobby Hansson) and he wore loud Hawaiian shirts with even louder wide neck ties. He had a big white and grey beard and his straight gray hai…

A few days after the election, I received a piece of writing in my email inbox about art and fascism. It was a thoughtful piece and good advice but I also thought, “Yeah, I wrote almost the same piece in 2016. This lady’s is a newsletter, mine was a blog but the content is almost exactly the same.” Did this lady copy me from 8 years ago? No. Not a …

It had been a long time since I’d seen a play, so I was kind of excited when the lights went down. When they came up, one of the three women on stage said, “Where should we begin?” and my head just sank into my hand in disappointment. I instantly knew the play I was going to spend the next couple of hours with, would not be great. To keep reading ⁠…

As I rounded the block of my polling place, I saw a couple bent over one of the VOTE HERE arrows on the sidewalk, filming a video. They were wrapping up, saying something about saving our country. Then they noticed me. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the look they gave me when they looked up and saw me approaching. It was a kind of chagr…

My doctor had a trainee with him so he kept telling her things about my treatment and the way he viewed what has happened to me. He heaped praise on me, saying how he wished all his patients were so compliant, how I did everything he told me to do, what a good patient I have been. I wanted to puke. To keep reading I Am Not Compliant visit the Songs…

My guitar tuner ran out of battery recently so I ordered a new one, popped out the old one and replaced it. It took no time at all and cost me a couple of bucks. The battery in my laptop started to fail so I took it to the Apple store, as recommended, and had them look at it. Yep, needs a new battery, they said. $249. But Apple devices are not desi…

My laptop’s battery has been behaving badly so I made an appointment to have it looked at. The confirmation message said I should update my software before my appointment so I set about making that happen. Unfortunately, I did not have enough storage space to update my operating system, so I had to set about clearing some stuff out. To keep reading…

When Chase bank charged me $15 for not having enough money in my account, I switched to USAA bank. I felt very strongly that people (and especially me) should not be penalized for being insolvent. I went with USAA because when my friends would put down their cards after a meal and discovered they all had USAA, they would all commence to talk about …

An artist friend of mine is about to meet a lot of new people and is dreading the conversations that will include the inevitable question, “So, what do you do?”. She knows when she tells them she’s an artist, they’re going to ask, “Can you make a living doing that?” and it’s going to make her feel bad. I don’t know why people feel like this is a so…

The loss of Sinéad O’Connor hit me harder than I would have expected. I hadn’t been much of a fan in her glory days and while I respected her, I hadn’t paid her much mind in the intervening years. I suppose I’d imagined she’d always be here and I looked forward to seeing what an old lady version of Sinéad might get up to and then suddenly she was g…

One of the things about maintaining a pretty regular practice over the years, is that one really does start to depend on it. In recent years, I’ve hardly ever missed a day of writing. I fight like hell for it and mostly I succeed. It is the anchor in my day, wherever I am and whatever else I’m doing. This is largely possible because I don’t tend to…

When I pulled out my goggles for the first time in a while, I started laughing, remembering when a friend of mine asked me if I’d pulled them out of the pool’s lost and found. I said, “No, these are mine.” He thought they were a child’s goggles because they are a colorful green with a bubblegum pink strap. “Nope,” I explained, “I bought them.” “By …

When Purple Rain came out, I was approaching my eleventh birthday. I wasn’t allowed to go see it but I did have the album. I also saw the videos, though I’m not sure how, as I don’t think we had a TV yet. Forty years have somehow gone by since I didn’t see Purple Rain so I went to an anniversary screening in Brooklyn Bridge Park. I found myself bot…

A friend of mine was recently rejected for a job and it stung a bit. They’re someone who hadn’t often had the experience of rejection, having mostly done their own thing where they needed no one’s approval but their own. Honestly, I think this person is better off without this job they were applying for but I sympathize with the pain of rejection, …

Now that I have an expensive piece of medical tech installed in my arm, I can no longer go through the body scan when I go through airport security. I flew out of JFK, which, as usual, was an absolute zoo, and when I finally got to the scanning portion of the proceedings, I tried to explain the issue. When they understood, the man shouted “Opt out”…

I’m currently seated on a deck that looks out over the Pacific Ocean, on Bowen Island in British Columbia. I can smell the saltwater from here and hear the lap of the waves. When I look up, I see the mountains and little islands across the bay. Wildflowers dot the hillside. I have an iced coffee and pen and paper. I’m not sure how this scenario cou…

The nurse turned pale when she read the glucometer. The whole office kicked into emergency mode and when the doc came in, he let me know I was going to be there a while. My blood sugar was super high and had been super high every time I’d been tested over the last five months but now that I was in this endocrinology office, it was suddenly an emerg…

The little black velvet notebook reappeared and I thumbed through it. I had called it The Adventure Book and at the top of each page, there was an idea I’d written there at some point. I don’t remember why I decided to do that or why I stopped but I assume it was meant to encourage the development of each idea. In re-reading these ideas from I don’…

A patron of mine sent me a message about receiving my zine, explaining that her husband found it easier to read the paper version because he didn’t really read so much on the computer. I said I understood and felt similarly – that I much preferred paper to reading on-line. Which is funny, really, because I publish most of my stuff on the internet. …

Folks over on the Period Drama subreddit recommended the Russian series, Detective Anna, and as previously established, I am a particular fan of period workplace dramas about women, so this seemed right up my street. Anna is not really a detective, though. She has visions of dead people who then help her solve their murders. It’s a ghost detective …

Because I get my Feldenkrais liability insurance through a massage therapy umbrella, they send me Massage Therapy Journal, which I read, even though I am not a massage therapist. I figure I might learn something. What the heck? In the issue I just finished, they talked a lot about how to avoid burnout and take care of one’s self at work. Much of th…

The other night, I found myself watching an interview with a theatre practitioner I admire a great deal. He’s an amazing performer, director, teacher and thoughtful analyst of his craft. I found myself taking notes – adding them to previous documents I’d created, filled with his tips and tricks. But as I was taking notes, full of enthusiasm and exc…

Despite my appreciation for Yorgos Lanthimos’ earlier work, I was not planning on seeing Poor Things. A lot of my feminist friends were not fans and I figured I could skip it. But then I learned that Kathryn Hunter was in it, playing a madam, and I got curious. (I worked with Kathryn on a show in London a while ago so she’s very dear to me.) So I w…

The other day, I was feeling so much despair about how things are and where we were headed as a culture. I thought, “If someone showed up with a time machine and asked me if I wanted to go back to the 70s or 80s to live, I’d absolutely say yes.” I told my friend about this feeling and she said, “I’m coming with you.” We figured we should bring her …

Despite my swearing off Wrongfully Convicted podcasts, I found myself watching a similarly themed docu-series recently. I was maybe halfway into the first episode before I realized it was a doozy of a wrongful conviction case. Were it not for the theatre element, I might have quit watching right then. I’m glad I stuck around. Mind Over Murder is ab…

The venue told us to tag them on social media so they could share our posts. I said, “We’ve tagged you multiple times on Twitter, TikTok and Facebook. Are you not seeing them?” “Oh,” they said, “We’re not active there. I guess it’s really just Instagram.” For some people (mostly Millennials, I guess), “Social media” just means Instagram. I happen t…