What Happened?

Here's what happened. Gidion's Knot, by Johnna Adams. I've been busy rehearsing and opening this relentlessly tense play, and now it's up and running. Whew! Meanwhile, another powerful play, The Exonerated, is up and running, too, and you can read all about it here, at A Follow Spot, Julie Kistler's fantastic blog about area theatre and the arts. I hope I get to see it this week, if I can catch up on all the things I've neglected during the rehearsal period. This morning it was laundry, cleaning the bathroom, and rest. This afternoon, yard work! It's almost 60 degrees. But editing work awaits me, too. Sigh...

Gidion's Knot is the story of a fifth grade boy, as unraveled by his mother and his teacher in a parent-teacher conference of godawful woe. His mother keeps asking, "What happened?" There's another weekend for you to find out.

Fittingly, we are performing in a classroom of the old Bloomington High School, at 510 E. Washington Street, Bloomington, now the home of Mount Moriah Church, yoga and dance classes, and other wonderful organizations. We are in Room 320, down the hall from Illinois People's Action and The Immigration Project. Social justice everywhere.

Thanks to Lori Cook Baird for the classroom photo.

A Little Behind

Hmm, should this be illustrated with a picture of a little behind? Ha, I am in exhausted-thus-I-think-I-am-hilarious mode today, on the Hump of the Week in the blog. Nope, I appear to have chosen upside-down jazz hands in hot pink feathered cleaning gloves. But, clearly, I am hilarious.

It's also a Poetry Someday, as I posted a poetry book review, of Sparrow by Bethany Reid, over at Escape Into Life today. I am very behind in my poetry book reviewing, so this was a major accomplishment/relief.

And here's part two of the "official" story in The Art of Sports, a new blog at EIL, by Mark Lewis.

Oh, and here's me when I was little. With a little behind. In a little, tiny snapshot. Because I don't know how to make it bigger. I'm sure it'll still be here tomorrow, on "throwback Thursday," because I am...a little behind...

The Last Days

Lots of stuff happening lately, and I am too busy (and too busy being kicked off the Internet) to blog about it. So I will provide an untidy list of links on this Slattern Day in the blog between loads of laundry (and lint):

1. New sports blogger at Escape Into Life! Mark Lewis, a former newspaper copy editor in the last days of newspapers, is also a sports official! Check out The Art of Sports!

2. New set of translations up at EIL: poems by Circe Maia (in Spanish) side by side with English translations (by Jesse Lee Kercheval). Plus mixed media art by Sage Vaughn with butterflies, birds, and street scenes.

3. Kicked off the Internet. Back on the Internet. Inexplicably unable to connect again. Powers of deduction applied (since I have no powers of technology), leading to realization that the other networked computer in the house must be on and connected to the Internet before my computer can be connected. I hasten to say that this was not previously the case, lest you think me a broad of little brain. Well, it's true, I've killed (quite) a few brain cells. Because wine. As they say.

4. Fabulous new art, with wild and bright colors, up at EIL: Carol Lukitsch, thanks to Artist Watch editor Maureen E. Doallas.

5. Daughter came home again, for Transfer Day at ISU. Looks like we'll have a sophomore living at home again soon! Everything's looking great for a transfer into the changing Journalism program! Uh oh, see #1 re: "the last days of newspapers." But, fear not, that's part of the changing major: making sure you know how to do everything as a journalist: news writing, photos, video, broadcast, website, social media. Luckily, both my children do have powers of technology!

6. Announcement of new leadership at Heartland Theatre Company! Congrats to Gail Dobbins and Chris Connelly.

7. New book review by Seana Graham up at EIL: Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson, one of my own faves. My husband is reading the companion novel, Home, right now. We loved the film Housekeeping, and I started seeking Robinson out as an author after that.

Intersperse "play practice" and "line memorization" between each of the above, and there you have it. Plus laundry. Not very much dusting going on lately. I'm such a slattern.

Green Monday

Happy St. Patrick's Day! That makes a Green Monday of this Blue Monday in the blog. I am enjoying the last few minutes of the blue sky, as well as being back on the Internet! Thank you, Frontier, for the new modem. Why did we not realize this sooner? Oh, well, glad to be back and up to speed.

I'm always a little blue after the kids visit, because then they go away again...  Daughter is done with her spring break; son has gone back to Chicago after a visit. Even my sister and her daughter were in town this weekend! But now it's blue/green Monday all over the place.

Over at Escape Into Life, Scott Klavan has taken a look at the one-person show in general and Satchmo at the Waldorf in particular. The accompanying art by Jim Naughten also looks at the black man uncomfortable in the white man's "costume." Much to ponder here.

And I saw a giant leprechaun and many people wearing green on Saturday, coming back into town from the state volleyball tournament just in time for the St. Patrick's Day parade.

Blue + yellow = green

HAPPY PI DAY

I'm still kicked off the Internet, but I'm stopping in (somehow) to wish you a HAPPY PI DAY!

May you also have a HAPPY PIE WEEKEND!

Kicked Off/Ticked Off

I've been kicked off the Internet too many times this year. We need to solve this problem in our home/home office situation. I don't know how to do anything from other locations because I am a dinosaur with short arms who cannot use a smart phone. (I did figure out how to drink wine with them, though.) Oh, Frontier! Oh, Netgear! Oh, Dell! Oh, hell!

I am rehearsing a play. See A Follow Spot. I am attending lots of regional and sectional junior high volleyball. (Husband is a coach.) I have poems to submit and features to post but am delayed....

Sigh. But heeeeeeeere's Jackie!

Sorry Me

My smart phone is far smarter than me. Today, it called my dad when I was trying to call a theatre to RSVP about something. Then, when I was trying to call my friend Kim, it called the theatre. This, evidently, was not the smart phone’s fault, but mine.

Sorry, Theatre. Sorry, Kim. Sorry, Me.

If only there were an animated movie based on my life: Sorry Me. (Like Despicable Me, only sorrier.) And Sorry Me could be a musical! Here are the songs:

“My Smart Phone is Smarter Than Me”

“Butt Dialing for Dollars”

“Sorry Me”

“Wait! I Have a Phone?!”

“Verizon Horizon”

“My Smart Phone is Smarter Than Me” (reprise)

Intermission

“What Should I Give Up for Lent?”

“Catch 22”

“Sorry, But Did I Just Butt-Dial You?”

“Louis CK Won’t Return My Calls”

“I Think I’m Hilarious (Why Don’t You?)”

“Sorry Me” (reprise)

“The Sound of Ring Tones” (finale)

Starring, of course, Carrie Underwood, as a wooden ingénue perfectly capable of using a smart phone, playing opposite a 50-something silver-and-gold short-armed dinosaur unable to use her smart phone correctly.

“What Should I Give Up for Lent?” will be sung by the short-armed dinosaur, behind on her social-media-Fat-Tuesday-post reading, wondering, on Ash Wednesday, while drinking wine, what she should give up for Lent, and deciding on wine. Then, blogging about it on Friday (aka Cranky Doodle Day), wondering again whether she should give up wine for Lent…while drinking wine. This is all doubly hilarious because of her short arms. 

Really, think about it.

Agustín Wednesday

Although it is Ash Wednesday, that’s probably not ash but a bit of dirt on the forehead of soccer player Agustín Lucas, of Uruguay, also a poet, up today in Spanish and English in a new translation feature at Escape Into Life. I needed some outdoor sport, triumph, and a tattoo on this cold March day, on which flurries have resumed. But my white geranium has also resumed blooming, in its rusty blue watering can of an indoor pot, and my heirloom two-toned (purple & magenta) Martha Washington geranium is also about to bloom, thinking spring is surely coming. We’ll see.

Thanks to translator Jesse Lee Kercheval, in Uruguay now, as I understand it, in connection with a new anthology or Uruguayan poets, and to Jackie K. White, EIL’s new Translation Editor. (More about her next Wednesday!) 

My parents are home from balmier days in Florida, just in time for a little more of the groundhog’s predicted winter. And our local good news is that my husband’s 7^th graders advanced in their regional volleyball tournament! In a gym blessedly warmer than the home gym—well, a blessing for the spectators, anyway! Maybe the girls like it cool!

Fat Tuesday

It’s Fat Tuesday! Actual Fat Tuesday, not just one of the “eight days a week” here in the blog, where I often celebrate food or joyful abundance or generosity. I’d like to celebrate by having cookies for breakfast and pancakes for dinner, but I will probably celebrate by having concession stand food at the 7^th grade Regional volleyball tournament tonight.

I guess cookies for breakfast is still a possibility, as it’s mid-morning* and I still haven’t 1) eaten breakfast 2) posted this blog entry, as I’ve been kicked off the Internet again. A healthier choice would be an apple, a banana, or a peanut butter sandwich, but, hey, it’s Fat Tuesday! I think there’s some chocolate pudding in the fridge.

Speaking of pudding and pancakes, and sweet things in general, here again are links to a couple poems with those food items in them:

“A Man’s World” in Sweet

“CassandraThrows Out the First Pancake” in Prick of the Spindle 

In case I don’t get back on the Internet until nighttime, sweet dreams. *Ah, noonish: I went with the banana and peanut butter sandwich. 

But a woman can dream...