Listening: Canon, ani di franco
Desiring: money
Aches and Complaints: stupid eyes, stupid back

OK so it's 2008, all of a sudden. I mean it was coming, one day at a time, even. But it's here and February means it's serious. No foolin'. With it means I really, really have to find a job and must get cracking on a one act play I'm set to direct.

I spent January theoretically getting organized for both, but sorta not really. I was, however, stage managing a play. That was actually rewarding, though there were a couple weeks there where I knew I was not getting paid enough. I was getting paid, but no one gets paid enough in the world of theatre. Period. Actors get the worst of it since they almost never make any money. But the end of last month and top of this month were hard with over 40 hours put in to the place in seven days and long days before officially getting into tech week.

Just in advance of tech week my eyes flipped out and the iritis came back. It's settled pretty good into my right eye and it's looking to be a chronic episode. Fucking irritating just by the virtue of impairing my vision and the fact that treatment is a pain in the ass. Nevermind that I don't have an income, let alone health insurance and so I'm paying through the nose to see the ophthalmologist and buy the expensive meds. The fee I'll get for stage managing is just about spent on this. Gah.

But it's stayed on the inconvenient-but-not-handicapping side of things. So the first week was tough as I had to learned to juggle reading glasses for the first time in my life (turns out they fix the impairment one of the medicines gives me). So the show proceeded apace. I was very worried it would fuck the company. Instead they sailed with flying colors and I've been able to see them rock the house. BackStage West, the LA Times and LA CityBeat all dug the heck out of the show. Yay!

Of course, between rehearsals, shows and my up-coming one act, I haven't had a weekend since December. And I'm not going to get another one until the end of March. Woo, vocations!

Other than that... It's Lent. I stopped smoking for the while (with a possible break from the breaking on Sundays, maybe). It hasn't been the easiest even while I'm totally alone. It's going to be hard when I get out among smokers (every other person or more in theatre smokes).... Dietary restrictions make me feel tough and disciplined, that is when I'm not tired and sporting a negative blood sugar. But thinking about smoking makes me want to smoke. Even negative smoking ads end up making me want a smoke. It's a habit that comes out of muscle memory. I'm not chemically addicted (thankfully), but I got used to smoking at certain times and not doing it leaves me in this void, unsure of what to do next. Oh well, it's only 40 days.

Uh. What else? I only see a few friends every now and then. I've become a total hermit - except when I venture out to the theatre. There are ups and downs to this. The downs I'm pretty sure have to do with whatever happens when we forget how to get along with people. The ups mean I'm slightly more organized around the house. And I've been watching movies from Netflix like crazy. In particular lately I've been watching a lot of documentaries. The last several movies I've seen have been Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion about Tibet's troubles since China invaded, The Nazi Officer's Wife about a woman who survided WW2 by living a double life and marrying a man who became a Nazi officer, The Party's Over about the 2000 election madness and An Unreasonable Man about Ralph Nader. The last two were fairly political, as you might imagine, effectively making me agitated all over again for the sort of politics I think our country deserves but sorely isn't getting. The timing on it is crazy (I certainly didn't intend this), but it helps me keep in mind why I'm a registered Green.

I'm never going to be interested in the Republicans, I think, even if they do nominate a guy who's not afraid of thinking. Forget speaking his mind, plenty of candidates do that, the things he says indicate his mind isn't bought and paid for by the party line. Even so, I'm not crazy about McCain so...moving on. Neither Sens Clinton nor Obama impress me, though for different reasons. The Clintons have never, ever struck me as progressive. Their moderate politics struck me as Republican lite as far back 1994. They squish every instinct to actually provide for people free of corporate influence and have the nerve to treat "liberal" as a dirty word. Well of course it would be to them, neither Hillary nor Bill is remotely liberal. Obama...is so friggin new I really don't know what all his flowery rhetoric means. Sure, he's inspiring at least for his words. But what has he actually done? He abstained from voting from a shit ton of bills in the Senate - including some he sponsored! I have to say...that doesn't sound very daring. I kind of look to candidates to stand for something and I'm still waiting to see that from Obama.

So I'm voting Green (McKinney) until someone actually impresses me. And yeah, it could be Nader again. We'll see.

Oh and yeah, with the primaries and the documentaries I should be distempered and feeling powerless, but for the last several nights I've been watching a lot of Daily Show online. That keeps me laughing and my blood pressure goes down and my desire to destroy all of humanity gets under control.


anyway... totally unrelated: in a little over a week I get to see Siouxsie! Woo!! And I'm trying to convince some folks to go see ani difranco in April....

a'ight that's mostly it.