Just a few more weary days and then...

Actually, I'm flying away Friday morning. So...less than a few days.

Flying in these troubled times is at first nerve-wracking, then rather hilarious. Because, seriously, even if my life were governed by statistics, which it isn't, there is still probably a greater statistical probability of me accidentally slicing a major artery with a box cutter on the job than of my plane being hijacked by terrorists. Boy, will this be an uncomfortable post to read if my plane IS hijacked by terrorists. If that happens, I would ask two things: one, try to see the funny side of this; and two, please take care of this bear...I mean, bird. Who will, speaking of flying, be getting his wings clipped so he doesn't kamikaze-attack his new sitter, not that this would be likely to happen. (She reads this blog.)

But enough about his flying (which won't happen). Back to mine.

The trauma and the hilarity of flying are one, and for "one" you could very well insert "baggage," except that wouldn't hold up well grammatically. Let's review my Big Baggage Fears of Labor Day Weekend 2006: 1) No water; 2) no chapstick; 3) no recourse if the TSA decides mobile phones really aren't allowed and that they'd rather throw mine in the trash. A quick review of some pertinent websites reveals that some people have bigger problems than I do! For instance, Northwest Airlines warns their passengers that they can "expect to be asked to remove all shoes at security checkpoints." ALL shoes, folks. Not both, but ALL. While you're thinking about that one, how about my favorite on the TSA's list of prohibited items: Spear Gun. Yes, fellow citizens, while I'm worried about my lips drying out and cracking, some Captain Ahab wanna-be is going to have to check his dream at the gate.

It was good to see this sign that the TSA was thinking of me when they created their website: "We also ask that you follow the guidelines above and try not to over-think these guidelines. "

Awww.

They don't call him Big Brother for nothing.

Are you pondering what I'm pondering?

Another Yahoo! News gem: "Spain prepares for tomato-throwing festival." That crazy Spain!

Currently pondering: A way to say "That's none of your business" without saying "That's none of your business," or at least without sounding catty. Also, how to sew a button on a fried egg [in joke].

Did you ever notice that lots of strangers read your blog? (Sorry, Lisa.) Apparently, somebody in Greece visited my reading journal recently. Of course, it could all be an elaborate ruse, and all this traffic from other states and countries could turn out to be one or both of my computer genius friends trying to hide their IP addresses.

Just in case....

To anybody out there who wouldn't recognize me if I stood five feet away and stared at you intently: Hi. I hope I helped ease your ennui for just a moment. Have a nice night.

As you go on your way, perhaps never to visit again, I would like to leave you with this one thought: maybe that person staring at you in a creepy/fascinating manner really is me. Introduce yourself next time and find out.

Love, luck, and lollipops,
Shopgirl

By popular demand...

...of Abby, that is, here is the next installment of Build-Your-Own-Celebrity.

Abigail "insert today's nickname here" Tjapkes was born the third son of the Tjapkes family. At least, so her two older brothers tried to make her believe. As part of her male indoctrination, they tried to cause brain injuries through activities like hockey and sledding. They wouldn't let poor Abby join in any raind--girl-like games. Thus, she grew up without such things as Jump Five, glitter, and large amounts of pink. They are things she does not regret.

I got to know "Abby," as I call her, when she was props mistress for a little show I like to call The Importance of Being Earnest (abridged school-gym version). She also cameoed as the cocktail waitress--unless I mean the character who brings out the tea. We have since worked together in a larger-scale production known as Tim-and-Lisa's wedding.

Abby enjoys watching sports (notably hockey), playing sports (notably ultimate frisbee), and dreaming about sports (notably Michigan players). She is also a fan of the superhero and fantasy genres, with Batman and The Lord of the Rings ranking as favorites.

Abby is tragically afflicted with Celiac disease, a disease which not only makes it impossible for her to be exposed to any gluten product without nasty stomach-wrenching, head-aching consequences, but also makes her predisposed to turning into a seal (under the right conditions, obviously). It is in her alternative guise as a seal that she does most of her own crime-battling work, a work made difficult by the fact that she lives in the suburbs and not near any large bodies of water.

And now for some fanfiction:


It had been a long, hard day for Abby Tjapkes. People who had once called themselves her friends had chased her for hours with a bag of bread crumbs, a flour sifter, and a Jump Five CD.

"If only people would understand," she mused morosely. She cast an angst-ridden gaze out of the window.

Then, she felt it. A crumb. Under her sock. In her left shoe.

"NOOOOOOOoooooooooooooo!!!" she cried. "Not again! Not so soon! Curse you, Pink Baroness!"

A figure clad in sparkly pink leaped from the shadows. It was indeed the Pink Baroness--Abby's arch-enemy; the only enemy who knew her secret identity; and, incidentally, her younger roommate.

"AHH-hahahaHA!" laughed the Pink Baroness. "Not as dumb as you look, are you? But how did you figure it out this time?"

"As if I would tell you," said Abby, the image of the Jump Five CD lingering in her mind.

"Well, drat," said the Pink Baroness.

There was only one thing to do. Well, only two things.

"Look!" said Abby, pointing at a mirror behind the Pink Baroness. "Your hair is out of place!"

"It is NOT!" said the Pink Baroness, but she turned anxiously to the mirror anyway.

Quickly, Abby whistled the secret code, and her sidekick came running.

"Eggplant!" she said. "You know what to do!"

Her sidekick looked at her in confusion, then realized that "Eggplant" must just be the latest random name she had. It was new every few days.

The small blond girl ran to a nearby shelf and pulled out a teaspoonful of salt, which she stirred into a handy glass of water.

"Faster, Eggplant, faster!"

"It's ready!" said Eggplant.

"Do it now, while the Pink Baroness is stuck admiring her own reflection!"

Eggplant tossed the glass of salt water at Abby, and the transformation began--the transformation that so often occurred after gluten exposure--the transformation that had necessitated Abby employ a sidekick to answer phone calls and emails with "sorry, but my stomach/head/kneecap is hurting too much" excuses--the transformation into...SEALYAQ!

Sealyaq, who was constantly being harrassed by people saying her name was too difficult to pronounce, leapt into action, flopping across the floor just as the Pink Baroness turned.

"Selly...sealyy.... Ack!" cried the Pink Baroness. "Why must your name be so confoundedly difficult to pronounce??"

Sealyaq reared up on her back flippers. Eggplant tossed a ball. Sealyaq caught the ball on her nose. She waved a front flipper at the Pink Baroness.

"You...you...." The Pink Baroness sighed. "Awww, man...you know I can't hurt anything cute. I'm going to the mall."

She stormed out of the room, turning only to shout, "And if all my fish are gone again when I come home, I'll know why!"

The door slammed. Eggplant gave Sealyaq a high five on the flipper.

The world was safe once again.

Spidey Wisdom

"Some days I almost wish the world would go away, so I wouldn't have to worry about things. But if it did--if everything that bothered me vanished--then all the good things would vanish too."

Build Your Own Celebrity

First off, I have to draw your attention to this Yahoo! News item: "Giant invasive oysters found in S.F. Bay." I didn't put a link because I didn't actually read the article. There was no way it could live up to that title.

But the main reason for this post is that my friend Beth wrote a great post on the nature of celebrity. (Beth was once a celebrity herself, to me, anyway, until she got promoted to "super-cool-and-talented friend," or "friend" for short.) As I thought about what celebrity means to me, the first two things that came to mind that set celebrities in general apart from the rest of us are: image saturation, or seeing pictures of the celebrity anywhere and everywhere, doing anything and everything; and fan websites.

Now, I can't promise to follow any one of you around taking random pictures of you. You should be grateful for this, because I have not mastered the art of taking candid shots in which the subject's eyes are 1) open and 2) not red.

I have not made a website on my own since Theatre History class, which was something like aeons ago in computer years. So that's not really going to work, either.

Fan blog posts, however, are an option. For the subject of my first fan blog post, I will use Beth Dekker, because she inspired the whole thing.

Beth Dekker was born Name-Which-Must-Not-Be-Used-Never-Mind, in a small town west of Calcutta. She is trained in absurdist theatre and the finer points of making gallons of salsa at one time. Her hair does this fun wavy thing, and she also has beautiful eyes. My first real recollection of interacting with Beth in a meaningful way was in a Playwriting class. Later on, I would take part in a Bible study to which Beth invited me. I remember meeting at her apartment, and I would marvel at the number of herbs and tomato plants growing on her balcony. (Notice my self-validation through talk of personal experience with this celebrity.)

And now for some fanfiction:

Beth Dekker strode into the empty theatre and stopped abruptly. She squinted to stare at the empty stage. It wasn't empty enough. She tilted her head to listen to the silence in the theatre. It wasn't silent enough. 'We can do better than this,' she implied with a subtle lift of an eyebrow. As she turned to leave, she ran into a familiar-looking man.

"Mark Rylance!" she gasped. "My hero!"

"I'm no hero," said Mark Rylance humbly. "I'm just an out-of-work actor."

"Out of work?" Beth asked incredulously.

"Since my last show wrapped, yes," Mark Rylance replied.

"When was that?"

"Last night."

Beth stared speechlessly.

"I heard you'd be here," said Mark Rylance. "I was hoping...."

Beth waited.

"Well, you see...I've always wanted to play Man in Beckett's 'Play,' but I've never heard of a director I trusted to bring it off."

Pause.

"Until today."

Beth gaped.

Mark Rylance waited.

A silence louder than any crowd rushed over the theatre.

'This is better,' Beth said (but only with a twitch of the lips that was almost a smile).

Mark Rylance nodded.

They raised their eyes to the stage.

It was empty.

Empty.

Of all but hope.

SCENE

Dream Log

I don't know if this is true of most people, but my dreams/memories often play out like home movies. That is, I know it is me in them, but I usually see myself from the outside instead of seeing the event through my eyes. I also tend to have extremely vivid dreams in emotionally tense times. (This morning I took a close friend to the airport because she is moving back to California after nine years in Michigan.)

The other night, I dreamed I was Elizabeth in Pirates of the Caribbean. (In my view-from-the-outside moments, I was Kiera Knightley as Elizabeth.) I had some magical power/device that emitted blue rays that caused the top of a sand dune to change to a brilliant white, making it easier to locate the place where the treasure was buried. I also played a scene with Jack Sparrow.

Almost immediately afterwards, I had this bizarre Lifetime-movie dream in which I (again, not really me but me as someone else) was chased down on a sidewalk at night, knocked down, shot in the spine, and paralyzed. (All of which I knew was going to happen before it did, but still had to play out.) I was waiting for the gunman to fire a kill shot, but he was either fooled by my playing possum or he had already accomplished his goal. I had a long rehab, in which my family stood by me like the troopers they are (or maybe it was my family playing my character's family). Then there was a fairly touching recovery where I regained most of my movement, and could get out of the wheelchair to shuffle across the room and hug my mom. When I woke up, I could still feel a tube in my neck.

Can this possibly be my brain de-stressing? A paralysis story and (more disturbing) Jack Sparrow?

Lois Lane's Top Ten Signs Your Boyfriend May Be a Manipulator/Manipulative Psychopath

10. He seems to be wearing a hairpiece.
9. He has a god complex, but laughs it off.
8. He favors windowless buildings underground or far removed from civilization.
7. You have an exchange like this—Him: "You remind me of someone." You: "Who?" Him: "The woman of my dreams."—and he seems to be taking it seriously.
6. He pushes you into crime in a don't-knock-it-til-you've-tried-it sort of way.
5. You can't remember who you are or anything about your past, and he's all over you like white on rice.
4. While you're trying to recover your memories, he suggests major life changes like moving to the south of France.
3. There is another man always hovering around looking tortured whenever he sees your boyfriend touching you, and your boyfriend seems to get a kick out of this.
2. The veins on his head twitch when you mention major figures in your life, such as a coworker or a close friend.
1. He is anybody but Clark Kent.

Suzanne Lives!!!

Thank you very much.

This weekend was horrible, then awesome, then horrible, then awesome, so that in balance it was good and I'm becoming nostalgic for it. It was challenging in a lot of ways, I met a lot of people, I got pushed and pulled out of my comfort zone several times, I ran up against my dark side several times, I told my story, I received new chances. I realized things I already knew in stronger ways, I practiced communicating intentionally, I got sick of my usual schemes and lies to myself and saw a way out of them.

Favorite quotes of the weekend:

"A person with a commitment is not held hostage by circumstances."

"Up until now...."

"From now on...."


I would love to talk about this more with any of you who want to hear about it, but it really isn't an electronic conversation. Although I'm sure bits of the experience will sift through electronically. I feel alternately like nothing ever happened and like I'm filled to bursting with all of this.

It was good.


And now for something completely different. Check out this link. You will thank me.

http://forum.creatusmaximus.com/showthread.php?t=1264

Family quotes

"People who read are stupid. Write that down somewhere where people can read it." -- Jeremiah

"I have a couple things to say to you about this weekend. Don't let them shave your head. Don't drink the Kool-Aid, even if you're really thirsty. And we're praying for you." -- Dad

Boot Camp (my version)

This weekend, I'm going to boot camp. At least, I'm going to my version of boot camp, which means Vulnerability Fest. This is where I'll be: http://www.accd.org/index.cfm/pages/48

The website doesn't explain very much or very well. I went to the informational meeting and I'm still not entirely sure what's going to happen, which is adding to the boot-campness of it for me. Here's what I know: a) I'm going at the urging of a friend who went and found it both freeing and empowering; b) I'm expecting that any freed and empowered state would make me a better soldier in this age-old war; c) I'm realizing that I'm really scared.

I'm thinking, fairly or unfairly, that people are more likely to pray for someone in actual boot camp, featuring actual physical injuries and actual godless intimidation tactics. Or maybe someone with cancer. Or someone without a job. You know, somebody with "real" problems.

What I'm hoping for is compassion.

Please pray. I know He hears. And I know that He never hears without taking action.


"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

"Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen."

~~ Ephesians 3:14-21