Everybody do it!

A. Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. Grocery bagger
2. Synagogue Secretary
3. Butterfly Garden Hostess
4. English tutor

B. Four movies I would watch over and over.
1. Stage Door
2. Flirting With Disaster
3. Husbands and Wives
4. All This and Heaven Too

C. Four places I have lived
1. Bloomingdale, IL
2. Oshkosh, WI
3. Iowa City, IA
4. Bloomington-Normal, IL

D. Four TV shows I love to watch
1. Project Runway
2. Sex and the City
3. D-List
4. Golden Girls

E. Four places I have been on vacation
1. New Orleans
2. Taos, NM
3. Shawnee National Forest
4. Sabula, IA

F. FOUR Web sites that I visit Daily (often)
1. Yahoo
2,3, 4. I don't surf while I'm here...

G. FOUR of my favorite foods:
1. Avocado
2. Peanut Butter on Toast
3. Salmon
4. Sweet Potatoes

F. Four places I'd rather be right now:
1. Iowa City
2. The Nook
3. New Mexico
4. I actually like it here these days...

please pull a string when you swell manually

I spent the day in Chicago yesterday and had SUCH a good time. I visited one of the co-ops I got into and it seems like it is almost exactly the same living situation that I had in Iowa, which would be the most ideal thing that ever happened to me, oh. my.god. And then I went on an audition that went very well, and then met up with my friend Courtney and we went to H&M where we bought dresses (mine looks like one of my sister's hand-me-downs I wore as a child in the 1970s), and then to Pippin's Tavern for dinner. I cannot wait to move to the city! It felt so natural to be there, I was SO comfortable.

And I'm having such a good time at the festival... I really like all the people I'm working with so much. I just feel like such a lucky cat, sometimes. Courtney and I were reflecting on the last two years and how totally crazy they were, but yet how we're glad we stuck it out because we learned, more than anything else really, how to ride the waves and survive well. Life seems like that to me now... attachments feel so precious because I know, because of the wisdom that comes with great age (33 almost!), that they are fleeting. I'm so grateful for what things are now in the moment, instead of trying to make them permanent and always good. I useta be so naive about stuff like that. I also eat my vegetables and take a multivitamin.

So I was reading in the Utne Reader this interview with Matthew Sanford, and he dropped this perfect quote that I can't stop thinking about. He lost the use of his legs in a car accident when he was 13, and has since become an accomplished yoga instructor. In response to the fact that trauma makes you fearful but also frees you, he says:

Part of the wisdom of trauma comes from that paradox. Trauma requires me to acknowledge that my life has been harsh. Does it hurt? Yes. At the same time, I'm desperately in love with living, with the gift of life. Healing trauma calls on us to honor the life force and not be destructive with it. Does this feeling come from sadness too? Yes, it's both. Simultaneously, I am heartbroken and desperately in love.

I haven't experienced anything like he has, of course, but I know that moment when you make the decision to love life anyway, even though it's sometimes so, so hard, and to be positive even though it's almost impossible. It's just funny to be standing here in this moment looking back on my life and realizing that I did actually manage to learn some lessons and not be in the same suffering-cycle all the time. Not that I'm going to get all hincty about it, mind you. It's just nice to know that, to some small degree, I am teachable.

You know, when I went to go see Amma, I think I came as close to getting in trouble as you can get with a living saint. Which isn't that close, really, but here's what happened. She hugged me close and she was talking to me in my ear, saying "nurnurnurnurnur" and then she started talking to one of her assistants, so I moved my head up to see what was going on and she pulled me back down on her chest firmly and I felt silly. Then she said "nur" some more, and when I got up she smiled at me slyly and shook her finger at me!

What do you think it means?

And when are you coming to see the shows? Because you should! I'll get you in for free!!!

I love you, Cats.

friendship makes a happiness double times and divide sadness half and make us remove our unhappiness

Updates! I'm still in NORMAL. I got a couple more calls for work, which is nice. Auditions and a few voice overs, which I hear is a very hard market to break into so it's nice that I'm just being sort of welcomed. I had no idea my voice was that marketable, but I guess it is. I'm having a LOT of fun doing the fights for Caesar (I play a bunch of small roles in Caesar, including the ensign that runs at the end. In the script, Cassius usually runs the ensign through with a sword or something, but since ours is set in modern times, I get shot in the head onstage, it's the coolest thing ever!!!).

There are some really cool people at the festival this year, so I'm having a really good time hanging out and stuff. I've also had a really interesting experience because... o.k. here's the real news... I broke up with Michael. Things were just cooling, you know? And I could tell that what needed to happen was just an acknowledgement that we were better as friends so that things didn't get really sour. It was actually probably the best break up ever. We are still friends, nobody cheated on anybody, there was no fighting, we just did it. It was even somewhat simultaneous.

I actually feel really good. Shakespeare Camp is sort of this limbo of time where I can look back on everything I learned and prepare for what faces me and also be a little irresponsible if I want and it's o.k. I'm learning a ton working here and making such good friends. I can't wait to move to Chicago in the fall and start anew. It's nice to know that after all the craziness of the last two years that things are progessing and not digressing.

I miss Iowa really a lot though. Once I'm moved into the coop in Chicago I want to be on a long visit to Iowa for a while. Just so I can be with my puppycats for a while.

Love, Cats