Monthly Archives: January 2017

Y’all are getting a piece of my mind when I am 80

Leave a reply

One of my most popular posts was dated from 2012, “With all due respect, I am fucking scared of getting old“. It has struck a nerve and attracted comments from folks who feel helpless against the relentless forward march of time and, I suspect, the world’s time-honored obsession with and worship of youth.

Almost five years later, I can’t say the same any more since the time has arrived, I’d say by whatever objective, social standards, people of my age would be labeled as “old”. It’s more like “I am fucking scared of being found out how old I am” and all the judgements that I could expect. My long, purple hair for one.

A couple of years ago a small boy yelled out as he threw a ball to a smaller boy standing near me, “Hey, dummy, tell that old lady to watch out.”

What? What lady? Old? I’m not vain or unrealistic. For the last twenty years my mirror seems to have reflected — correctly — a woman getting older, not a woman old.  Grace Paley, Just As I Thought (1999)

Right on.

The other night though it dawned on me that when I am 80, or maybe even as early as 70, I will no longer have to worry about what others think of me. I can say whatever the heck I want. For starters, I will be able to tell people in real life about this blog and my Twitter account, if I feel like it. I can do whatever I want (to the extent that my joints will allow me). I can finally be free… to be me. 

This revelation is liberating. I am now looking forward to getting old. 

When I am 80, I will be “cute” and “adorable” instead of “trying too hard”. I can proclaim with confidence, like Betty White, “I am a teenager trapped in an old body.” I am giddy at the prospect of giving people a piece of my mind. Or two. I am giddy at the prospect of living for myself, for once for fuck’s sake. 

Of course my dastardly fast-working mind is already chastising me for having to wait until then. Why can’t you be you now? What’s wrong with you?

STFU mind. If it were that easy I would have done so a long time ago. This is called hope. HOPE.

Until then.

 

Bucket list. Checked.

1 Reply

It’s only January 4 and I’ve already checked an item off of my bucket list. Take that, 2017!

 

Hamilton did not disappoint despite all the hype. It’s everything it’s said to be and more. The book, lyrics and music by Lin-Manuel Miranda is a masterpiece and will withstand time to be one of the classics decades from now. When you have something like this to work with, especially the vividly drawn characters, whether it’s the original cast or whether it’s in New York matters a lot less.

It’s great theatre in all aspects: the entire cast, the ensemble, the stage/set/prop/costume design, the lighting, the orchestra, the choreography. There’s not a single lull throughout the show. Every number is engaging (and sometimes simply brilliant) as written, spectacular as choreographed, and breathtaking as performed.

It’s everything. 

It may also be the last musical I’ll ever see since Hamilton has in effect ruined all future musicals for me.

Here’s to Hamilton being, hopefully, the beginning of a new life for musical theatre.

 

 

 

New Year’s Resolution part deux

2 Replies

I admire those who are quietly assertive and wish to learn their Jedi mind tricks. Luckily I have the following quote from Madeleine Albright and all I have to do is to apply it.

So I made up this term, active listening — you listen differently if you think you’re going to interrupt.

The trouble is I worry whether I’ve been overcompensating and become a rude interrupter. I grade myself on whether I’d been aggressive enough or too aggressive at the end of the day and I regret either way.

2017 is going to be the year of no regret.* It’s the year to be bold, to be undeservedly confident, to interrupt without fear, to rid oneself of the plight of feeling self-conscious, to grab life by the, ugh, whatever handy.

 

* I immediately regretted calling 2017 the year of no regret. tbh we all know it’s going to be the Year of Regrets on so many levels.

Make it up on volume with the island of misfit toys

New Year’s Resolution: Make it up on volume

8 Replies

Make it up on volume with the island of misfit toys

Happy New Year! We couldn’t wait for 2016 to end even though 2017, let’s be honest, is not going to fare better.

To say that 2016 sucked is a gross understatement. My father passed away on April 10 while I was 7,447 miles away. I still haven’t processed this. I am working up to it while being slowly eaten empty by guilt and regret.

I am not one to make New Year’s resolutions. I mean, I am very good at making them, I am just horrible at keeping them. My best record I believe was one week for keeping a journal. Journals are in general a bad idea: the thing about secrets is that as soon as they leave your mind, they stop being secrets. I did make one resolution for 2017 however: Read more real books instead of trying to read every single article saved to Pocket.

I’ve reached a, what should I call it other than a cliche, crossroad in my professional (and personal, though I am in deep denial on this one) life. So for the first time, I picked up one of the 10,372,763 recommended “this year’s best business books to teach you how not to jump in front of a moving train on your commute home every evening”, called Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, chosen out of, yes, self-aggrandizement. Adam Grant made an interesting point on quantity vs. quality:

It’s widely assumed that there’s a tradeoff between quantity and quality—if you want to do better work, you have to do less of it—but this turns out to be false. In fact, when it comes to idea generation, quantity is the most predictable path to quality… On average, creative geniuses weren’t qualitatively better in their fields than their peers. They simply produced a greater volume of work, which gave them more variation and a higher chance of originality.

I’m taking this as a permission to crank out as many streams of consciousness as my mind can dictate.

“…the most important possible thing you could do,” says Ira Glass, the producer of This American Life and the podcast Serial, “is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work.”

Make it up on volume. Sorry Internet. Blame it on Ira.