writer, storyteller, speaker
I spent this past week in bed recovering from root canal from hell (just so you know, gritting your teeth is VERY bad for you). Blog post to follow at some point, using said root canal as metaphor. In the meantime, a blog rewind — one of my favorites. Here’s to your good dental health and a relaxed lower jaw!
[Read more…] about Blog Rewind: Shooting My Way Out of My Comfort Zone
Thanks to a dear friend’s generosity, I attended last night’s Broadway opening of “Ann,” the play about Ann Richards, the former Texas governor. Actress Holland Taylor is both the playwright and star of this one-woman show, and since I share those roles in “How to Draw a Nekkid Man” (formerly “I Will Be Good”), I was very eager to see her performance.
This past summer, The Moth asked me to perform at a Mainstage in St. Paul on Nov 10. I was thrilled. Then in early fall, after reviewing my story, The Moth’s directors decided the piece needed more work and pulled me from the line up. I was less then thrilled. Now, these directors are the best of the best; I know they have my back and their decision was the right one. Still, I was really disappointed. Until two weeks ago. [Read more…] about When No Makes Way for Yes
There’s a terrific vignette in Carrie Fisher’s one-woman show and book, Wishful Drinking. She tells the story of her mother, Debbie Reynolds, being disciplined by her own mother, Carrie’s grandmother, in Texas. After sassing back or some such offense, Debbie Reynolds’s mother puts Debbie in the closet to teach her a lesson. After about an hour, sitting in her mother’s closet, Debbie Reynolds asks for a glass of water. Her mother wants to know why. Debbie Reynolds says, “Because I’ve spit all over your clothes and now I want to spit all over your shoes.” [Read more…] about Spitting on Her Shoes
Doing my taxes this week, I sat surrounded by a sea of expense receipts, all glaring reminders that far more cash went out in 2011 than came in. I’ll be honest — sometimes in those moments, it’s hard not to ask myself, “Exactly why am I an artist?” and I romanticize about my days as a consultant when income was plentiful. I wonder briefly why I stopped doing that work and then I remember: Oh, yeah. I was miserable.