Retreat

It's hard to describe what is going on. In my life. In Sue's. There are definitely cracks and fissures. Time is cracked like a busted windshield. Maybe there's been a wreck somewhere. Maybe I've been in a wreck, my head spidering the windshield upon impact and I haven't even woken up from it yet. I'm still in a coma. Shards of glass in my face. On life support.

Waking in the dark two nights ago, upstairs in our friends' house, I didn't know where I was, and suddenly I thought I was in a hospital bed. That's what it felt like. The assured breadth of the bed supporting me. Lying on my back. In the dark. Somewhere I felt there were nurses and I was safe.I sighed and I thought, I made it. I knew there has been some serious damage done, because our friends contacted us and said, come up, and they took care of us both. I was in a hospital bed, when you think about it.

Do you know when you can't breathe, how the doctors put an oxygen mask over your mouth and you breathe pure oxygen? No fumes. No pollutants. That's how this house was. No pollutants. Just creativity in its purest form, in everything. In the meals, in the food we ate and how it was prepared and consumed. In the conversation. Their friends came over one night, and on the porch we made music. More creativity. No judgement. Just sharing the gift of music we had, but no judgement. No snark. I hate snark. I hate the place where snark comes from: insecurity and cowardice. The cowardice to face your own self. To face your own insecurities. So they tear you down to build themselves up. I have someone like that in my life right now. She does snark, and I think people have told her its funny, that she's amusing and entertaining. I try to be patient, but only because she's popular, and I don't want to be unpopular.

I know someone else, she has to prove how good she is. It's a competition for her. It gets so dull and boring. I don't know why she does it. Probably for the same reason most people do it: to compensate for some inadequacy. To prove to themselves something. So prove it to yourself, I want to say, but leave me out of it. But we're not that close, to have that conversation. So I treat her like I would someone on the subway, who has a cold and can't stop sniffling.

Sue too. People in our lives who seem to have some real problems and we're in their splatter zone. We both try to sympathize. Be patient. But sometimes it seems the more patient you are with people, the more they stay where they are. Why should they change? Why should they work on their own shit when you're being patient? A long walk down an empty lane helps. The combination of quiet and vigor, the yin and the yang, for balance. The sound of conversation painted on a canvas of stillness.

And there's always the question of my role in things. What are others writing on their blogs tonight about me? How am I impacting others? How can I adjust to make someone else's life just a bit easier? Or even a lot easier? But I've done that. For a long time I concerned myself with the needs and desires and especially the opinions of others. Why give anyone that much control over your life? The test is, if you offer that kind of control, and the person takes it, you know it's the wrong person to give it to. Only the person who rejects it should be given power over your life.

The Little Voices Inside My Head

I know it's safe to write here. No one visits this blog to read my words except perverts who have Googled Miley Cyrus's crotch. Yep, that post keeps bringing them in. It's my moneymaker.

Yes, I hear voices. I hear them all of the time. Mostly they're just running dialogue, and if I were any kind of established, driven writer I'd record them somehow--write them down at my scheduled time at my writing desk or record them on this little digital recorder that I have that I think is so neat but my younger friends think is so old-school. I guess because it doesn't have an i in front of it.

But there is one little voice that, if I hear it, I know I'm in trouble. It's this little disembodied voice that wonders how I'm doing. "Are you ok?" it will ask. "Are you all right?" It's a gentle voice, like caring stranger at a bus stop or a well-meaning nurse who has broken through the crust her job has layered on her and is truly worried about me.

Are you all right? The answer is always, no. She always seems to know when it's the right time to ask.

Here's the other kicker. Sometimes she--and the voice is female of undetermined age--asks, "How bad did he die?" She's not talking to me. Who? Who is she talking to? There are obviously others in the know about me and she doesn't have all the facts about me, yet still she's concerned. That somehow relieves me, gives me comfort. But it's the question that throws me.

How badly did he die?

Is she asking, what was his death like? How much did he suffer? It seems this voice and her compatriots from the beyond know about dying. It seems as if they have intimate knowledge of it.

But then, the voices and the question seem to prove that there is "something else." That dying isn't the end, just something that has degrees of badness.

I Need A Change In My Life

Something is very wrong in my life. Changes need to be made. It was one week ago today that Sue and I returned from a wonderful adventure in Nova Scotia, but I didn't know it was a week ago until I checked a calendar. I thought it was about a month, maybe three weeks ago. When the life we returned to here in Boston, with all of its "challenges,"  can overwhelm the feelings of peace and serenity, of being, that we felt there, some drastic changes need to be made.

We started out just heading north from Boston, not knowing where we'd end up in two weeks. We had a tent and a car, and some camping gear. That's about it. But Acadia National Park proved too crowded. Too loud. Americans are loud people. So are French-Canadians who cross over to see the sights on this side of the border. And it's all family-oriented there, it's a safe little national park that Edward Abbey would have hated, and we realized it's us who didn't belong there with the parents with the wee ones who couldn't keep their voices down and the parents who were so stressed from their own life choices to not realize that they and their wee ones who pushed and shoved were rude. Sue and I looked at a map and headed for Cape Breton.

We realized when we got home that something had changed in us there. Something deep, like an earthquake that rumbles deep inside the earth, but it's barely felt on the surface yet a real, significant change occurred.

For me, my soul, that thing captured in this container called my body, began to make itself known again. I began acting and thinking like a writer. And just like I used to be when I lived away from the ocean and didn't know how much I missed the sea until I saw it again, I realized how long it's been since I acted like a writer. These internal dialogues between made-up characters, snatches of words, phrases, descriptions, exposition, all floated around in my head like dust mites in a sunbeam. All I could think about doing was finding a dilapidated old house set in the fog, heated by a wood stove, and get up every morning and put on my favorite old flannel shirt and worn baggy jeans, and write. And the creative spark burst into a creative flame that unfortunately seems to have been extinguished now that I'm back here in Boston.

I'm seriously questioning if the choice I made in 2008 to work in the theater was the right one. I co-founded Boston Public Works because of the hassles of getting a full-length new work produced in Boston, especially if you're a white man like I am. Especially if you're an older white man like I am. Boston is an extremely young, white city. The fringe theater scene, where a new playwright like me would get first produced, is populated for the most part by young, white theater graduates who came from families who could afford the expensive universities like Boston University and Emerson. They graduated, stayed, and formed theaters, and they pretty much cater to the younger population. I actually had the artistic director of a theater--a young man who I like and respect very much--tell me he likes my plays, but they can't cast them because of the actors in the ensemble they pull from, the oldest is about thirty years old. They don't understand the themes that I write about, don't understand older characters, don't understand people who live on the fringes of society, don't understand life events like death and adultery and loneliness. (If any of you are reading this, don't argue: You don't. You think you do on a surface level, but live the life you've lived one more time, commit a few sins, and you'll see what I'm talking about.) Anyway, Boston continues to be the most racist place I've ever lived in, and I grew up where the KKK was evident and real. Boston theater is as white as rice, all the way down through the production teams. I don't want to go so far as to say that the theater community in Boston is racist. I don't think it is. But I do think it acts in a racist manner. For example, gender parity is a topic the leaders in the local community is always promoting, but what they're really promoting are white, female playwrights. I've been to the meetings where all but three or four in room of about 40 to 50 playwrights are white women. If you're not young and white of either gender in this city, you might as well stay home.

And I try to fight the segregation and racism that I've seen for the 34 years I've lived in Boston, but even that--the formation of Boston Public Works--has been wearing me out. The cast and design team of Turtles is diverse, but within Boston Public Works, internal disagreements, members who feel they should have a vote in the way the company operates (if you want to run a company, then start one of your own; really, how do people grow up thinking they get a say in everything?) members who feel their productions should be supported but they don't feel they should have to support the other members, makes me feel as if it isn't all worth it and makes me want to throw up my hands and yes, pull a J.D. Salinger to Nova Scotia. We literally would drive for an hour and see maybe three cars. Heaven! No one preached about gender parity while tabling the racial side of the issue (just for the time being, they say) or cultural appropriation (another popular cause) because there were real issues to deal with, like feeding your family. Friendly, quiet-spoken, polite. Yet keeping just the right amount of distance, giving space to an individual because space was one thing they had plenty of.

Get away. It's always been my modus operandi. (Is that the correct usage of that term?) Sue and I have a short trip to an undisclosed location next week for a couple of days. After Turtles closes in November, we're leaving for London and Paris.  In the spring, more travel. Sue and I are wanderers. Seekers. We know that. Traveling allows us to take the souls entrapped in these human containers out for a spin. We find our American culture humorous, but in small doses. Americans are always trying to tell people how to live, how to think, how to behave, and after awhile we both reach the point where we say, enough is enough, it's time for a change.

Lack of Focus

I'm not sure how long I'm going to keep this up, but each year, like a resolution to lose weight or stop smoking, I come here to Blogger and here on Weebly and write. I'm not sure why, at least each year I understand less and less why I blog.

I try to write in my journal every day. I don't always do it, but I record dreams and my thoughts and sometimes I just vent. A journal is one of the best places to write down what you had wished you said, which is the reason why when I die I want all my journals either deleted or burned. No use leaving that behind.

But then, back around '08 or so, I started blogging. It was all the rage. And I figured I write in my journal, so blogging is really the same.

But blogging isn't like writing in a journal. At least I don't approach it that way. I've seen some blogs where people share everything, and by everything I mean everything. I'm too private of a person for that. I sure don't share what I write in my journal (that's nobody's business but my own) and so I find myself sort of tweaking what I write here. Then what I write becomes compartmentalized. Random thoughts here on Blogger. Only theater here on Weebly.

So I start getting crazy. I start going down this path of thinking, what difference does it make what I think about something? And then I think, well, it makes a difference to me, but what do I care if anyone cares what I think? Just live your life.

In the past decade I've given up worrying what others think in general, or what they think about me specifically. I see it as a mark of growing up. Maturing. Gettin' old. And it sure makes me a lot more comfortable in my skin, but I'm not sure it makes for a good blogger.

Anyway, I can spot rambling when I see it, and this is nothing but rambling. We'll see what tomorrow brings. I'll promise I'll try to focus better.

A Playwright's Exercise: Spill It On The Floor and See What We Got

Well, it's 2012 and that really doesn't mean anything to me, but I am finding my life shifting and since I'm having a dickens of a time coming up with a project that will occupy my soul for at least six months or a year, I'm finding myself writing bits and pieces like this one. I've been writing in my journal, just putting fingers to the keyboard seeing what comes out, trying to get a bead on what's really bothering me or getting me excited. That gives a writer a pretty good indication of what he or she should be writing about. That's pretty much what I'm going to be doing here. This post is more for me more than it is for you (sorry to say that, but it's the truth.) I just want to see what's in there, and by writing to an actual audience, I'm interested to see what I'm brave enough to share. You're about to get a snootful of the flotsam and jetsam of my life as it pours out of my brain like tipping over a bucket.

Work is coming along but it's still difficult. I graduated at the end of August and it took me about eight weeks to land something. I knew I was going to teach creative writing at BU, but I needed something more. Sue and I live cheap, real cheap, but sometimes it gets down to the bare bones and that can be scary. I had a few nibbles, some that looked really promising, and by that I mean they were conveniently located or paid a lot of money but I knew by the end of the gig I'd be spiritually bankrupted. Then Boston College hired me, and as Sue and I like to always point out, things do always seem to work out. I worked there one other time for a different group, and loved it. This proved to be the same experience. I can't say enough about how wonderful it was to work for Norma and her staff, and be around all the wonderful, fun, intelligent people who work in stewardship. Norma was a sane, sensible manager, and you can walk in the place without checking your morals at the door. Just as a comparison, I just got word yesterday that a company was looking at me and the feedback was, we're afraid he has too much experience. Okay, maybe I'm gun-shy, but to me that's code for he's old. I know I play the age card sometimes (others might say a lot) but until you walk in my shoes I suggest you believe me. Age discrimination is alive and well in corporate America. It is not only tolerated, it seems to be fostered. 

The downside to working two jobs, though, was my entire life was put on hold. By the end of the day I was too knackered to even go to the gym or pick up my guitar. I got fat and sloppy. And it seemed like I forgot over half of whatever I had learned in music. Big, big resolutions for 2012 are get into the gym after about a year and a half of no exercise at all, and picking up the guitar and working it. I mean, playing scales, doing the grunt work that makes you a better musician. I've inherited my father's stomach, which basically means I look like I swallowed a basketball. Not quite, but it could get there. He had a large, round, hard stomach. I could get there if I let myself go. This to me is a silver lining. If I've inherited the bulk of my father's genes, it means I won't die of cancer in ten years, following my mother.

Musically, just today I signed up for a basic ensemble class at Club Passim. I'll be studying with Kimber Ludiker and Austin Nevins. I could have taken a more advanced class, but I want to hang out with these two hip, cool, talented people; I think I can actually learn from them and I've learned in theater (and in business, too) to hang out with people you like and get along with.  Kimber is an awesome musician. She's the fiddle player in Della Mae, one of my favorite bands of recent.  Scroll down on their site and there's a pic of her. I want their song, Blessed Hands, sung at my funeral. (Besides Tom Sawyer, and I the only person who continually plans his funeral? I doubt if a lot of people would show up, so I want to maximize the tears.) I play their CD all the time, and if were the olden days (and someday these will be the olden days, too) it would have been said that I was redigging the grooves on the record. And who can go wrong with a guy whose first name is Austin?

And I'm seeing more sweat equity at the gym. Thankfully, I'm not that out of shape. What seemed to affect me even more than inactivity because I'd walk everywhere on campus, including up and down five flights of stairs in the library, was that bout of spinal stenosis that hammered me last fall. I think there was a little nerve damage done, and I'm just a bit unsteady on my feet, not a good thing for the mountains when you're hopping from rock to rock on a slope. So I want to drop a few pounds and tighten my stomach up, and also get some coordination back. I want to be back in the mountains this summer. It's been way too long, mostly because of school and Roberto, the Wonder Aussie.

Speaking of Bob, he's on his last legs (literally, he can't get up the stairs anymore and has a real hard time going down them.) I grab his hind legs and we have a wheelbarrow race up the stairs. He has hardly any control over his hindquarters, and no control over his bowels, which can get pretty gross in the apartment. It going to be my job to give him the shot, but I'm just not ready yet. Everyone around me, doesn't want the responsibility. I know this is a process. Just yesterday Sue said she wishes he'd just die in his sleep, but he won't; he's still too strong for that to happen. My wish is that the people around me would back me up when I say it's time, but no one wants to that. The hard truth is he's crippled, even though there are days he's happy and alert, even puppy-like. He goes in and out, up and down, and in the meantime, dog shit laced with Lysol smells horrible.

But when it comes to Bob, it's impossible not to draw a comparison between him and any of us who are getting old. What's going to happen to us when we get inconvenient, because truthfully, the bottom line is that's what he is, though trust me, it's a colossal inconvenience. Try the other day, seven degrees outside and he has shit all over him from lying in it and it's too cold to hose him off. I know so many people who silently worry about their future.

I'm not going to touch politics or the state of our country, though I think that's the thing I'd really like to write about, or at least tell a story set against the backdrop of a dying empire. Yep, that's how I see it. And I'm watching all my liberal friends do their typical knee-jerk because most of them don't own houses, have never been laid off or been in fire financial straits because, in this country, that's what really strips off the veneer of our society. When you have to make hard financial decisions in your own life, you start to see who the government and the financial markets (tied to corporations) couldn't care less about any of us. Until you've had to scrape to buy food or pay the heating bill, life has been way too easy on you and you're basically flying blind right now in this economy. They don't see how Obama is no different from Romney, who happens to be the Republican front runner (barely) and how Obama is just following the policies of Bush. They don't want to go there, because they haven't had to. It's easy for them to follow their old ways and beliefs, but what this country needs is someone to hit the ejector button. Democrats and Republicans alike are tainted. That includes Obama, Paul, Romney, Clinton, and anyone else you want to name. I've been bringing up Ron Paul a bit online, not because I support him, but because he's the only politician right now who is saying the things people don't want to hear. Then liberals do exactly what conservatives do: fall back on their doctrine or on something he said ten years ago, which means anything he says is tainted today. I don't understand people who just won't listen, period, to everyone and everything. It's like listening to Christians quote the bible. And it always reaches a point where I just glaze over and want to run away. I said to Sue, though, the only thing that's stopping me right now is how the #ows movement came about, and there are people who realize the system is broken--everyone from Obama on down. I'm not sure what to do next, but that's the start right there: If you just accept that even your favorite liberal politician is just as corrupt as Newt Gingrich, then you've just anted into the game. Before that, it's just the same old mess.

I'm growing my hair. Actually, it's more that I'm not going to a barber and therefore my hair is growing. I've gotten some compliments. Right now I can feel it tickling the back of my neck, and it's long enough so if it gets in my way I just tuck it behind my ears. I'm doing this because I'm tired of going to barbers to whom I say, I want to keep it long, and they say sure, then pull out their scissors and take a big hunk out. I had a great barber a few years ago then she quit. After going to a number of people, including Sue's hairdresser who is a woman and we figured she'd understand how to cut long hair, I got tired of shelling out twenty five to thirty bucks with tip and walk out looking uglier than I did when I walked in. It dawned on me if I want long hair to stay out of the barber and just grow the damn stuff, just like I did when I was a hippie. Hair's like writing, if you want it, just grow it. If you want to write, just write.

The bread machine actually walked off the chopping block today and hit the deck. I'm thinking this is the sort of news my aunt Marcella would have written. "The dern thing walked right off the table right onto the floor," she'd say. Now that I'm not working full-time (and my next gig will involve some work at home) I'm back to cooking. I love cooking and I like it the same way I like gardening. It gets you involved in your food, in your health. I baked a semolina bread today. When you make it yourself--bread soup, sauces, anything that doesn't mean opening up a package and firing up a microwave--it gets us back to a more natural way of living, which I think is necessary for people to have. And it tastes better and it's better for you, though I don't use "natural" ingredients because they are too hard to find and too expensive. It's gotten so only the rich and elite can eat healthy in his country, but I do the best I can.

I think that's about it. Thanks for listening, if you've read this far. This was helpful to me as a writing exercise, and eventually I'll be posting something at my other blog. Hopefully it will be good news, though there is a reading of one of my plays coming up in about a month on Cape Cod.

Why Housework and Playwriting Work Together

Classes are over. Done. Terminee. Yesterday I dropped off a stack of books at the library that lined the floor of our office. These were books I lugged home from the Mugar Library for papers and my own personal interest. No more papers, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks. Thursday I take a French translation test, and if I pass that my graduate studies are done. It's hard to believe it will be over. I'm going to miss school. I've always loved school, even high school, which most people hated.

But today is a wonderful day. Turtles, a full-length play I started at BU, is up on the laptop, and I've been writing. Well, not writing. Writing is writing--actually typing or making marks on paper that are words. Don't ever confuse writing with the writing process. But everything I did today is definitely part of the writing process. What were those things? Today, they took the form of cooking a pot of spaghetti sauce, baking bread, making a big bowl of salad, doing the laundry, taking care of the plants on the deck, and an assorted other things. These are the things that get left behind when your brain is revving at 5,000 rpm in a literature class. But I've learned I need to "trick" my brain about writing. I can't just sit down and stare and say, okay, I'm going to write now, though sometimes I certainly do that and at times it does work, but I've learned it works only for so long. I have to let my creative part work alone, and at some point I know when it's time for that creative side and the practical side--the side that knows the touch system of typing--to get together and write.

And I like doing these things I've been doing today. I do. They feed the soul. I like being the "lady of the house"--a reference to Highland Center, Indiana in case you're a knee-jerk liberal and rile at anything remotely anti PC. I've always had a paternal side, and I like taking care of things and people. Left to my natural rhythm, this is the sort of things I would be doing in the morning--and blogging and reading the news and checking out all the social media sites and connecting to the world out there. And all the while my writing brain would be churning. Sometime around 3:00 I'll sit down and write. Actually write, make words and write dialogue and stage directions. 

What's My Credit Score?

This little image shows up on more than one occasion as I flit from here to yon on the Internet. I've never paid any real attention to it, just delete in the same way I wish I could delete flies that annoyng me. Or, I didn't pay much attention to it until today when it hit me with all the partisan bickering going on in Washington that I wonder if this shows up on some master computer at the Fed. But I do imagine my credit score, at least as it's tabulated by government-sanctioned loan sharks, probably isn't very good.

On the other hand, the way I tabulate it, I'm sitting pretty. Well, maybe not pretty, but not too shabby.

I live frugally. Mighty frugally. I do it out of necessity because I'm pretty broke for any number of reasons from being in grad school for the past year to being in my fifties and trying to get work in an economy and a society that values people half my age. And I live frugally by choice. I wouldn't have it any other way.  The typical American lifestyle gives me, as Mark Twain would have said, the fantods. (Yes, it's a word; look it up.)

The thought of a big house filled with all the latest stuff, from a wide screen TV to a bed the size of a aircraft carrier actually makes me feel nervous. I don't even own a TV. I don't want to own one. The programming, I believe, is mostly crap that just wastes my valuable time and attention. And it's expensive. I gave up my television years ago more out of a necessity to cut costs, and when I got rid of it I suddenly realized how much better I felt. I guess it's sort of like how some people feel when they cut out red meat or caffeine. 

I have a pretty basic phone, and I just recently had to replace my phone and opted not to get a smart phone for a couple of reasons, including the cost of the service, but also because I don't want to be that connected. Because I think the more connected we are, the less connected we actually are, if you understand my drift.

It came to my realization a few years back that what makes this life so expensive is the upkeep. Marketers figured out that the real money is in add-ons and service. Once you buy the phone or the TV they gotcha. You got to spend more and more to utilize what amounts to commodity items. I saw that in the computer industry. The initial cost of a enterprise computer system is one thing, but where people make their long-term money is in the service contracts and upgrades. On a smaller level, it's one thing to own an iPhone, but then you're dealing with that additional monthly payment just so you can look up a restaurant while you're walking around Boston.

When I drive, which isn't very often since the $59 a month T pass is the greatest deal in the world since I usually have taken $60 in rides by the middle of the month, I jump in my 1997 Ford pickup with 180K miles on it. It's rusting out and the springs and brakes are a little mushy, but if I'm careful I get to where I'm going.

What little debt I have is in my upcoming school loans. But I did get a scholarship to Boston University, and then a teaching fellowship that defrayed even more costs. I'm not sure I could have swung the cost without the scholarship. But I think me borrowing money to go to school is a good example of how you have to spend to get out of trouble. I think for the Republicans and the Tea Party to think otherwise shows how little they know.

Credit cards? Nope. I carry two out of necessity, but the American Express gets paid every month and I keep it for the points. The points are Sue's and my ticket out of here someday, on a plane going to the other side of the world. The other one I only use if someone doesn't take American Express. Otherwise, it's cash all the way for me. If I run out of cash, oh well, that's what's called a balanced budget.

I have to say I'd like to ask all the people who say they live within their means and expect the U.S. government to do likewise to open their books. I think a lot of people who say they live within their means actually don't. I'm not saying they're liars. That would be kind of harsh. I'm just saying it's human nature for people to see reality whatever way is best for their own interests. (Okay, true disclosure: I'm steeped in Tennessee Williams' work right now, and that's pretty much standard operating procedure for his characters.) I don't even think it's a crime to borrow money, just as long as you can pay it back, which is really what all this debt ceiling nonsense was about, wasn't it?

I've said it a few times here: I'm not holding out a lot of hope for this country. It seems to be run right now on one hand by a lot of mean-spirited ignorant people, and on the other by a bunch of spineless politicians feeding out of the hog-trough of the political lobbies.

Tweet This

I was emailing an old friend, Craig Moodie, whose new children's book, Into the Trap just was released today, and I told him that I tweeted the news, "for what it's worth." Then I commented that I can't believe I lived to see the day that the word, "tweet" is a verb.

First, Craig's book can be found here. And here's his blog. (If you think I'm a crusty old writer, get a load of his mug.)

I wrote about Craig's work sometime ago, too. He and I met way back in the corporate world--many lives ago for me. He's still hanging in there, has a beautiful wife, two kids, and home.

But tweeting. One of my professors, a dramaturg, kept saying that the old model of the theater is gone--where you send in a script and if they like it it's produced--and that now to succeed now in the theater you have to be "part of the conversation." That does make sense; that people who know you and who know your work are more likely to produce it. But that means you have to follow God knows how many Twitter accounts, blogs, Web sites, and I don't know what all. To be honest, it's comes across like a full-time job, and I think for dramaturgs and artistic directors it's a great thing to do. But if I'm tweeting and blogging and Facebooking and surfing, I'm not writing. And now there are new social networking sites coming out, like Google +, that's making me choose what to call people: friends, family, acquaintances, people who I barely know and can't figure out why they're still on my Christmas card list I guess it's simply laziness or something else deep-rooted that I'm too tired or scared to figure out. 

So if I'm part of this conversation I'm not part of the real conversation, the conversations that my characters are having. It's enough to make this writer want to spit. 

It all kind of seems as ridiculous to me as that section in Huckleberry Finn where Jim is being held in that shed in the back of Tom Sawyer's uncle's house, and Tom has him writing on tin pans and carving things and throwing them all out the back window because that's what the romantic, swash-buckling heroes did that Tom read about. I feel Tweets and root-a-toot toots are just as silly sometimes, as I try to write something witty and pithy in 140 characters or less.

But then, I do wonder if I'm not a Willy Loman, left behind by the world and on my own, just trying to get by on a smile and a shoeshine. (BTW, I know no one would ever say that, but I love that line.) I know I'm not exactly like Willy. I believe in hard work and talent more than charm and a handshake, but I will admit I do it all with an underlying feeling of desperation that I'm still swimming against a tide that will still sweep me into oblivion.

You Might Be Shocked

You might be shocked if you were on a job interview and the interviewer casually pointed out that the majority of the staff was white. You might be speechless if the interviewer noted that the staff was mostly men. Or non-Jewish. Or even had all their arms and legs.

And you would particularly amazed if you were a person of color, a woman, a Jew, or in a wheelchair. 

But it's perfectly fine for an interviewer to sit with a person with close to thirty years of experience in the workforce, and note that the staff is mostly in its twenties. Gee, as if I hadn't noticed.

I got an email yesterday that the company where I interviewed for a job was going to continue its search, and best of luck to me. I knew I was going to receive that email, and for a split second I even considered being "professional" (just in case; don't burn any bridges) and sending an email back, saying thank you for your time, keep me in mind for future positions, etc,

But then I thought, to hell with it. They're not going to hire me; I don't fit into their "corporate culture." I knew it when I rode the elevator up to their offices and everyone was in their twenties. I knew it the minute two more interviewers were ushered into the conference room and they couldn't contain the look on their face (what was that?--surprise? horror?) I knew it when I was asked what I would do if they asked me to use certain words in the copy, and I said, You mean keywords for SEO?--search engine optimization?--and again, there was that look--surprise? astonishment? How could someone over thirty know this?

And I knew it when I was asked how I got inside a woman's head considering I wasn't a woman. And I know by then I was a bit gun-shy by the whole process, and realize that while it might be a valid question under other circumstances, by that point it seemed to come from a place that questioned a middle-aged man's ability to "relate" to women, even though I have two daughters, one about the same age as the interviewer, and over the course of my career, which spanned more than both the two interviewers' lifetimes, I've written for female audiences.

And while I most certainly will admit that maybe I wasn't best-suited for the position, I certainly don't feel it was my skills I was defending. Or if it was my skills I was defending, I'm pretty sure I was defending them for the wrong reasons.

This all is so astonishingly hard to write about, because again, I'm not certain I was the right person for that position. I'm fully aware of my deficiencies, and really don't want to get into the discussion about what older, more mature workers can bring to the workplace, their skills and knowledge that can only be attained by putting in the years.

But the one undeniable moment I'm not going to relinquish is the look on the faces of those interviewers when they walked into the room and took their first look of me. There is no hiding it; there was no hiding it. And after you've seen it more than once, you identify it quickly.

And I know the three people I came in contact that day would deny all this in the most emphatic way. And I'm not saying they are mean, horrible people. The only thing I can fall back on are Anita Hill's words, You just don't get it, which I am fully aware is lame, but our prejudices (yours, mine, ours) are so ingrained into our ways that we just don't see them.

Lawyers will tell you that age discrimination is the hardest thing to prove. (Although when a company's hiring does not reflect the diversity of society, you may have something.) Really the only thing I or anyone who experiences the prejudices that are inherent in our society can do is move on. I'm not going to fight this. I don't have that much to gain. So this company, which is very successful, I might add, will continue with its questionable hiring tactics. As a headhunter told me yesterday, I have the proven skills, I'm likable, and I have the experience. I just have to find that place where I'll be valued. And I will be. I've made lots of money for businesses over my lifetime. And I'll tell you this: Something that would give me supreme pleasure is to be valued by the competitor of the company where I interviewed.

I saw some terrific theater...

...and you can argue with me that it wasn't. Some might say it really wasn't theater.

The actors weren't professional. It didn't take place in a theater. It wasn't the result of any theatrical process. In other words it happened in the "real world" by "real people" reacting "in the moment." But my experience, my reaction to it, was exactly what I would hope I'd have from a piece of theater.

It was produced just one time, and then it closed forever. It happened last Friday at a retirement party on the Cape at a country club. I didn't know hardly anyone there--just one or two people; I just a quiet observer, just like I'd be in the theater. A man was retiring--he was leaving a life he knew for 32 years--so the stakes were pretty high, at least a dramatic moment was ripe for the taking.

His co-workers put on skit, this wonderful piece of theater I'm referring to. They structured it. They actually realized they needed something to hang their skit on, and instead of concentrating on something classically Aristotelian--rising action, climax, denouement--they chose the alphabet. I loved it. Something we've known since our childhood. Something familiar. Something simple. Twenty-six scenes. Each "actor" was assigned a letter, and had to stand up at a staged area and talk about the retiree, and the script, their monologue, because that's what it was, was to be rooted in that letter.

When you give people, people who are not trained or comfortable in being in front of an audience, give them a microphone and force them in front of an audience, they are stripped bare. The are naked. And my reaction was I cared for each and everyone. I applauded their bravery, which in a small way spoke the something deep and meaningful in the human spirit, and also something that I think is waning in our society too.  I wanted to hear what everyone had to say. I rooted for the ones who were uncomfortable. I enjoyed the more polished speeches. But even deeper, I was amazed but how much was revealed.

There was Mr. Popular. He was attractive to look at. Vivacious. Funny. Comfortable. And it was easy to see why people liked him. And he reveled in his place in this little community.

Conversely, there was the guy who was unpopular, and you can see how he struggled for the group's approval. Everything Mr. Popular wasn't--not comfortable in his own skin, unfunny, inarticulate, the group still accepted him and drew him in.

From A to Z I saw quiet people, smart but reserved people, the outsiders, and people who believed in sincerity and love, and weren't afraid to show it, because when you put people under pressure, and make no bones about it, these people were under pressure, people will resort to what they are most comfortable with, their core values and beliefs.

And there were two other characters. There was the man for whom all this was done: the retiree. who seemed at first so much outside of all this. Sometimes it seemed as if I wasn't so much at a retirement party as I was at a wake, and the participants were celebrating their life, their vitality, because they were going to go on living in the world they and the man had occupied. He was the one moving on.

And then there was me. The outside spectator, who thought about his own life, his community, if there even is one, and how long it's been since I've had a "real" job, one where the office was my life and characters like I was watching were a part of my life. Thirty-two years. Thirty-two years of his life the man spent in his career. Wow. And now it was over. They talked how he now had time to paddle his canoe and read his Boston Globe. Hmmm....

I wish I could write scenes like this, actors' pieces, that are simple and rely on the talents and instincts of people who can replicate this kind of world night after night. This is storytelling at its best, something I strive for but never seem to be able to get it quite right. It's frustrating as hell, to sit here at a keyboard day after day, then see it so genuinely and endearingly done by people who aren't even trying.

Monday's Thoughts on Age Discrimination in the Workforce

Like most people, I'm not a big fan of Mondays. I learned though, when I was struggling, like I am now, that Monday's are the day that you really learn what you're made of. Put a person under pressure, and you'll see what they are made of. They'll crumble, or bitch and moan, or yell and lose their temper. Or they'll knuckle down and face what it is that's beating them up, and figure out a way to get passed it, move on, defeat it, do whatever it takes to get to Friday.

I'd get up on a Monday morning, and an entire empty week would loom below me like a ski slope. (I'm one of those people who see things like time lines and even the alphabet in 3-D color and shadow.) So the top of the week is really the top of the week. I'd have no work, no obvious means of income, with bills piling up and my stomach just churning, and I'd pick up the phone or email or something and by Wednesday I'd usually have something. Work. A plan. Hell, sometimes it was an entirely new problem, but I had something going.

I always say, homelessness and starvation are really good motivators.

So that's where I stood today. Actually, it was over the weekend when all the craziness of the semester just dissipated and I suddenly realized my I got my last check for teaching and I have no visible means of support. (Or, invisible means, either.)

Nothing yet. And this economy makes it all the harder. I did go on an interview last week for some contract work, but I'm not holding out for much there. Riding up in the elevator, I noticed just like the last place I worked that the people were at least half my age. The VP who I first spoke with me and  was probably just a bit younger than me, even came out and told me that the average age of the your average worker there was in their twenties. (The fact that there wasn't an true representation of all ages in society is always a good indication that while they talk diversity, they really don't practice it. I don't recall seeing any African-Americans either.)

Then came what I always dread. He ushered in two managers who had never met me and only knew me from my resume. And the looks on these twenty-something faces when they turned the corner into the conference room and saw me told me all I needed to know: Age discrimination is alive and well. It's a look I've seen a number of times on younger people's faces when they first lay eyes on me, and the generational gap yawns between us. And I know I barely have a fighting chance, even if I might not be exactly right for the job. (Although this time I think I was.) 

There's not a lot you can do in that situation. I can't prove that I was being discriminated against. But I do know what I saw.

And truth be told, when I was freelancing it was a requirement of the clients I took on that I 1) liked the people I'd be working with because I like to have fun, and I do consider my work fun; and 2) I had to feel that client organization was making the world a better place. I built a pretty good, thriving business by being true to my own beliefs and values. It worked once, and I believe it will work again.

Back in the Saddle

And it feels so good. Spent almost the entire day working on Highland Center, Indiana, a full-length play and the one that I'll probably use for my thesis. Classes start next week, and my playwriting prof wrote to and wants to see some of our work by Friday. She wanted to know where we stood with it, if it was almost finished, if we were sick of it, or what. After working intently on it since around last May, I love going back into that world and dealing with those characters.

And she wants to see something else we're working on, and I'm thinking of showing her Red Dog. I haven't really touched that since the reading last March with Whistler in the Dark, and I know kind of what I want to do with it (based on some really good feedback from the audience that night) but also, just when you think something is easy, that's when you'll get snagged every time. 

I'm so lucky right now to be enjoying what I'm doing. I've written my entire life, professionally for thirty years, and there were times when I was simply writing for a paycheck, which should never happen. And now, I can't wait to get up and get working.

Tomorrow I'll be fixing up details for the writing class I'll be teaching, and again, I can't wait.

And yeah, it's all so familiar. Starting a couple of days ago I've been waking up at around 2:30, I think from the sheer weight of everything I have to accomplish. I just lie there with details swirling in my head. How to line up all the ducks for the class? What can I do about this particular sticky part of Highland Center? (Hint: if it's not character-driven, it's not the answer.)

So welcome back to my world.

To Live is to Write

I wrote all day today, and this is the first time today I've put fingers to keyboard.

I'm not saying you don't have to put down words every day. Let's get this straight: Yeah, you do. You have to actually write every day. But, unless I'm right on top of a deadline, or the deadline is right on top of me, pinning me to the wall, which is what's usually the case, I don't actually start typing until mid-afternoon. Usually the first thing in the morning I write in my journal, and that counts--sort of--as writing. I'll do a brain dump and write about the dreams I had the night before and basically orient myself (do you know we get the verb, orient, from years ago when east, not north, was at the top of the map because that's where the sun rose, and to right the map you had to "orient it"?)

So today, I was writing all along in my head, thinking about that sticky scene 6 in Highland Center, Indiana that I'll address as soon as I finish blogging. And I thought about what I'd write here, but more importantly, I lived my life, which is what all artists should do. Live it and enjoy it and wrestle with it and swallow it whole.

I talked to both my kids who slept here last night after a night out at the theater and their first jazz bar. I played dad, giving Al advice. I watched a couple of episodes of 30 Rock with Kathryn--we're peas in a pod when it comes to stupid humor and Kathryn and I talk anyway like old friends, laughing and calling each other out and sharing our experiences in the world. (Kathryn has been more organized than me at the age of three, and I've gotten used to it.) And I made red sauce for a dinner tonight and bread and I don't know how many pots of coffee to keep this crew running: Sue in court today, Al with two job interviews (and I can't even get one!), Kathryn to wake up, me because a cup of coffee is usually by my elbow until around noon.

I don't have a lot of friends--I never have; I've always been the type with one or two very close friends, but I cherish them and my small family. I've said it so many times: The most dangerous place in the world is between me and my loved ones.

So, that's how I've written so far today. Which, if you can read between the lines you can see, means writing is living life. You can't do one without the other.

ENG 202

"I am pleased to inform you that on the recommendation of your department, you have been selected to receive a Teaching Fellowship for the Spring Semester 2011." So starts the letter I received last fall. It was quite a thrill, one of many that happened during 2010. One of my goals when applying at Boston University was to teach upon graduation. As I wrote in my personal statement:

 

"Another reason I want to teach is because I want to be constantly around intelligent, creative people who value ideas, and work in a place where ideas are generated. I have worked for some incredibly stimulating organizations where creativity and openness were valued—as long as the bottom line was robust. But there is something about the nature of corporations and commerce that when, as soon as hard times come, they become very risk-aversive and ideas and creativity are the first things to be jettisoned. I want to belong to an organization where ideas—and not product or money—are generated and valued and protected."

I knew I wanted to be a writer--that I actually was a writer--when I was quite small. Starting at around second or third grade. It's all I ever really wanted to do, and quite frankly I can't imagine what I'd do if I couldn't write. I am so confident and comfortable in the medium--probably the way fish feel in water; the way we feel in air. But now I'm going to teach people how to swim, and it's a bit daunting. And what's troubling me the most is maybe that student who may not be right for the class, who may not have the talent, but is there anyway. Isn't that funny? The teaching fellows all got a letter from the department telling us to grade hard, to really push and challenge the students (well, it is Boston University, after all) and that the worst thing we could do is give an undeserving B. To encourage someone to continue to beat his or her head against a wall some more.

And I do get that. I don't think children should get trophies for just running out on the soccer field. There are winners and losers, and there is talent and then there are the wannabes. But what I've spent a good amount of time and energy doing is trying to figure out how to set up an environment that is encouraging and nurturing. A place where, if you really want to write, you'll get your chance. I don't want to get touchy feelie about this, because I truly don't see writing being that way. I guess maybe because I've always been able to do it, it doesn't seem that hard to me. It just takes practice. In my case, about forty years of practice, we all had to start somewhere. For me it was sophomore year in high school, where a student teacher named Miss Harbert showed me how to be a writer, then I turned around that craft back on her. On her final, she asked what we had learned, and I answered nothing. That writing in itself was what was needed. Or some such snotty reply. She was devastated. That's the power of words right there.

I still have the letter she sent me, hand-written from her home in Connecticut, telling me all classes weren't like hers, and all schools weren't like the one I was in, a public school in Cincinnati. And if I could find her today I'd tell her students would be lucky to have a class like hers. She got us to write, which is all you have to do. Sit down, and write everyday. If you do it every day for a semester, you'll certainly be better at the end of the semester than you were at the beginning. I'd almost guarantee it. Write every day for ten years, and you'll certainly be better. You might not be published. You might not be famous. But you'll be a better writer. And that's all  you really should strive for. The rest is gravy.

A Writer's Work is Never Done

Even when he's not "working", i.e. going to an office or pulling down a W-2 (or more likely a 1099) a writer is working.  I bet my "to-do" list rivals the most industrious and driven office puke. And in some ways I bet it's more important, because my list drives my life, and not some soulless organization that would drop me in a minute despite the emotional and physical energy I'd devote to it.

I have plays to write. Yes, real plays that have to be written for next semester and to send out to theaters. And I have plays to send out to theaters around the world. Just last week I sent three short plays to a theater in Romania. Why? Why not? The theater was looking for plays, advertised for them in the United States, and I would love to see how my work plays in Romania.

I have plays and books to read. Plays for the Boston Theater Marathon, and books to read for my own education. Every time one of my professors mentions a book or a play or a movie that I'm not familiar with, I go to the library and pull it out. The stack of books is impressive, but when people ask me what I do without a television, they should see the stack. And I know most people's eyes would glaze over, but mine do too when I hear about Mad Men. (Just the other day on Hulu I pulled up a clip of Glee, just to see if my opinion had changed, the same way people will try Brussel Sprouts.) Nope.

I have a syllabus to write for the English class I'm teaching next semester. It's almost there, but I don't want any surprises somewhere around week 12, where we're all looking at each other going, now what? More on this in an upcoming blog.

I have to finish the proposal for a fellowship I'm applying for for next fall.

And I have to write a long overdue letter to a cousin whose wife died many months ago, but I just haven't been able to pull the words together. Families are like that. I could sit here and blather on for 2,000 words, but to write 100 meaningful words to a man who lost his wife of 50 years or so absolutely freezes me.

This is my day. And cook and pick up the apartment. And it's all self-induced. I don't have a manager who has to tell me what to do. Or a boss who lets me know when I can take a break. Or a anyone who says I have to do this or that or sit in on this meeting or when I can go to the bathroom or if I can take a vacation. (When I was in the corporate world, I think the one thing I resented the most was having to get permission to do things that were in my life.)

I do what I want, and everything you just read about are things that I want to do. Me. Not someone else. Me.