Springy-dingy.

I had several very pleasant and funny interactions with strangers in New York City today, which can only mean one thing: spring fever. When you grow up in Chicago, you have a lot of trouble trusting balmy breezes that occur before May. You are very tentative in your enjoyment of the first warm front, because you always believe that it's some sort of evil ruse and in five minutes you'll be knocked over by a frigid wind or buried in snow. This is not the case here, at least not today. Never since I moved to New York (in the heat of last summer) have people made eye contact and smiled so much, and never have I been entertained so thoroughly by random people on the street/in an elevator/driving a cab. It was the only thing as refreshing as the 70-degrees-and-sunny weather.

I thought my day was going to thorougly suck when the 6 train arrived and I wasn't able to get in any of the FOUR (4) different doors I tried, because it was so packed full of people. I was running late, so I walked outside and jumped in a cab operated by one of the funniest characters I've ever met, a middle aged man who immediately told me I smelled good and that I could have any job in the world, especially in the hotel business, which he knows because he was a head hunter once. He can read people. Then he told me all about the jobs he's had, which include owning a restaurant in Mexico City and currently owning a deli in Westchester. What was he doing driving a cab? Who knows? I didn't ask, because I was too busy being entertained by his exhaustive analysis of my "genuine" and "charming" character, and his subsequent prediction of the most appropriate career path for me, all based on what he could see by looking in the rearview mirror. I gave him a nice tip, and when I reached my appointment and got in the elevator, a very small, very scruffy little man in a green messenger outfit who could have been anywhere between 35 and 60 years old told me in a raspy voice that I looked pretty.

So there you go. And the rest of the day continued with me smiling at people and them smiling back, other people smiling at each other, lots of how-are-you's, and very few public obscenties.

Powder.

I apologize. I haven't posted in a long time, and this one isn't particularly interesting. But it has a picture! Oooooh!

As I mentioned, Brian was here for a whole week, and besides when he was following me around to various jobs and other responsibilities (like basketball games, where he became a ringer for one of our absent players and kicked ass), we did actually do fun stuff, like picnic in Central Park and see movies.

Aaaaand...then I went skiing again. In Lake Tahoe. I know, I know, I went skiing only three blog posts ago, but because of a travel voucher we had, I had the chance to fly pretty much for free and I jumped on it. Brian was there, as well as an assortment of other fun people. And I confirmed my skiing addiction. Also, skiing at well-known places with real snow and mountains with actual high altitudes and views of a huge lake is really freaking cool.

See? There's me, and unfortunately--it was taken with my camera phone--you can't quite see the lake in the background, but it's there.

I tell ya, coming back was difficult. Leaving four days of vacation, skiing, and hot tub behind, then having a layover in my hometown airport and not being able to stay there, then coming back late and jumping into everything early today...it was tough. Still, you know what? I may eat my words, but I think spring may have begun.

At least the hardest parts of my job sometimes end up being so absurd they're funny.

Today, I had a rubber chicken thrown at me. Not as a joke.

In more positive news, Brian's spending an entire week of his spring break here! Woot!

Hey guys!

Starting a class and a new internship in the same week makes Margaret a very busy girl. No time for pondering blog post subjects these past few days. However, I'm not cranky in the least, because I get to run around doing all my stuff in freakishly nice weather! Seventy degrees? I'll take it!

Anyway, recently I was able to get together with most of the readership of my blog, two wonderful people who inspire me, and this was the result:

Susie, me, Graham

I think Graham said it best, as always. I wish I could have you both around all the time!

Ski bunny!

Ohmygoodness, I love skiing! We went to Camelback in Pennsylvania, and not counting the one time I went for a few hours at a crappy ski place in Wisconsin seven years ago, this weekend was my first real time skiing. So. Much. Fun. I feel like I learned pretty quickly--thanks to my expert and supportive companions, Brian, Sus, and Josh--and although some tumbles are inevitable, I avoided any gigantic wipeouts and achieved high speeds on some decidedly non-beginner runs. I was very proud of myself. I'm already trying to finagle a trip to an even more intense ski destination sometime in the near future...

I think I looked the part, n'est pas?

I heart the Olympics.

I love everything about them, winter and summer, from the endless colorful flags to the theme music to the teensy weensy gymnasts and the ripped skiiers, the outfits, the surprises, the scandals (speaking of, isn't Bode Miller an ass?), even the heartwarming TV profiles of the medal favorites, complete with shots of ever-supportive family members and training montages set to trendy music. Love it.

Zack asked me last night what even I would compete in if I had the chance to do any in the winter Olympics. I expressed interest in the obvious figure skating, and he said he'd always wanted to learn luge, but we both agreed that in the end, you really can't argue with short track speed skating. It's just so intense.

Back to my weekend o' work.

Sad? Depressed?

Just not yourself? Need a lift? Why not look at some weird pictures of baby animals?


Click on the picture. Come on, try it. You know you want to.

Aaaaand...there goes my morning.

Ummm...I don't really have anything much to say. I'm too distracted by GoogleChat at the moment. One more reason for an unproductive day? Check.

What are our thoughts about this new GoogleChat feature? Not that I haven't enjoyed the few tentative conversations I've had with fellow gmail-using friends, but it also seems sort of strange that it was unveiled so suddenly by Google, who just seemed to decide that it's one of those features that everyone wanted, like auto-forward or the ability to create email groups. Then again, I'm sure they do focus groups on this kind of thing all the time, right? Either way, it seems like a good way to get people to never not be connected to Google. As my dear friend ATF (who I'm chatting with at this very moment) said, and I quote, "for a company whose motto is Don't Be Evil, Google sure found a good way to make sure people can't do their jobs." Good thing I don't have a desk job now. My question is, where was this feature over the last two years, when I literally spun around in my desk chair to pass time at work?

Oh, and I won't go through a lengthy description of my Chicago weekend, but it was absolutely lovely. Brian outdid himself again, and I *almost* got to stay an extra day because of this "noreaster" (why the hell do they call it that?) that dumped snow all over New York. The weekend was full of fun surprises and seeing people...so much so that we ended up cancelling all plans on Sunday and instead watched many many episodes of "Entourage." Perfect.

And I already think my job is awesome!

Today was the best day of work ever. Like, seriously. The first graders I worked with, who are already pretty much my favorite, reached new levels of brilliance, complexity, and cooperation in all of our dramatic activities, several of which I did in my most recent graduate level course. A few actually giggled with delight while doing their extended work with partners. Extended. Work. With. Partners.

Really.

Then--and this is the crazy part--the middle schoolers, all of whom I wanted to fling off of the stage headfirst last week, spent an entire hour engaged, having fun, encouraging each other, and doing some of the best improv I've seen in a while. And they were nice.

Whaaa...??!

And of course, a potential employer just called.

I just had a cavity filled for the first time in my life. (oh, the shame!) Halfway through the procedure they had to give me an extra injection because I'm such a wimp when it comes to mouth pain. Now I'm sitting in a lounge at school, compulsively biting my numb lower lip, poking my cheek, and wondering if anyone can actually see the right side of my face drooping, because that's what it feels like.

And I desperately want a cup of coffee, but I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to keep it from dribbling down my face. This sucks.

Coming soon to theaters near you.

Today I had one very fun and energetic experience in a gymnasium, and one that made me very anxious and hoarse. The fun experience was our 3-on-3 game tonight, which I look forward to every week. Team Friendship, unfortunately, only won one of our four games this time around, but we had a small group and we played pretty hard. (On an unrelated but interesting note: tonight we played at a very small and poorly-lit gym at a public school in Midtown near Times Square. The gym is on the 5th floor, and on the way up we passed a person who looked like a janitor, arranging bags of garbage, while wearing a very visible, large handgun in a holster on his belt. Now I know this is New York City and all that, but a janitor who's packing? Meh?)

The other gymnasium experience I had today involved a very large and psychotic group of children, ages four to nine. Some context: I run various activies at a wonderful after school program in Brooklyn. On Thursdays, we have something called "Clubs," wherein each child signs up for a club--such as Cooking, Dance, or Photography--and they stick with that club every week for four weeks. It's great. Since almost all of my activities are arts-based and I wasn't exactly full of club ideas this month, I decided to volunteer for the "Fitness" club for the youngest group of kids. I had high hopes; I was working with two great co-workers, and I just knew that it was going to be different, more meaningful than all of the silly gym activities these kids do every day. If all went well, I might have the little ones doing Down Dog and Warrior pose by the end. I soon realized how misguided I was. Do you know how children act in gyms? I knew, I really did, yet somehow I thought it couldn't possibly be that way with my awesome club. Even today, on day two, we struggled to get them to follow our supercool warm-up stations and after half an hour managed to get them into formations that could be called lines for relay races, as I muttered "I hate Fitness club...I hate Fitness club" under my breath over and over. By the end, however, we had managed several successful races, and I let them play one fun game of "Cleaning Up Your Backyard," wherein teams attempt to throw all balls and beanbags from their side of the gym into the other team's area. I allowed myself a sigh of relief as kids enthusiastically helped put the balls back into the bag I was holding. Then I got hit in the head with a beanbag. Sigh.

So it wasn't the greatest hour in the world. But fortunately, the next hour I got to spend time with my MovieMaking club, otherwise known as The Best Club There Ever Was, Ever. It's a small group of creative, considerate, committed fifth graders (who else though that kind of phrase was an oxymoron?), who are totally into planning and writing our upcoming film, "The Case of the Missing Staff." We produced a whole storyboard today, people! I felt like I was in the writing room for a big-budget film. I love my job.

And you'd think I would make time to post every day.

I am such a colossal time-waster sometimes, and I really don't understand why. Granted, I did become a professional time-waster during my last job, where I spent a year and a half in my very own office (with door that closed). During days when--if I was lucky--I would have one short meeting and/or an assigment that took approximately one-fifteenth of the time my bosses alotted, I found new and innovative ways of filling the hours, most of which involved ridiculous and compulsive internet news, oddities, and blog surfing, but also occasionally featured some great chair-spinning and window-staring.

But now that I'm back in school, I know how to buckle down. I did it last semester like a pro, writing papers and papier mache-ing masks into the wee hours, but for some reason I am most certainly not doing it now. I've spent the last five days just trying to bang out a short final paper for the intersession course I took in January, and every day I disappoint myself. I blame it on the fact that all of my free "schoolwork time" happens in the morning, before I have to depart for my afternoon job. This just doesn't work well for me, and it has nothing to do with me wanting to sleep late. I am often the last in my apartment to go to sleep, and I wake up early every day with the best of intentions and a solid plan in my head. But then I have to make coffee and eat. Then maybe exercise. Then check my email, of course. And then by the time I'm showered, it's time to leave, because it takes me an hour to get to work. Seriously. I'm not pretending that I'm the most focused person ever here, I most certainly take too much time doing little things in the morning that could wait for later. So all this, combined with my falling-asleep-at-9:30pm syndrome, and the best daily result is maybe one crappy page of notes. Ugh.

A wise blogger once pointed out that no matter how early you start, you will always use the exact amount of time alotted to complete an assignment. I take comfort in that.

Crap. Now I have to hurry or I'll be late for work.

Two great things.

1) Our 3-on-3 team won all four games tonight! Go Team Friendship!

2) I find this hilarious.

Sleep, round two.

Well I am just the tiredest girl there ever was these days! Every night since I got back, right about 9:30pm, I have an absolutely enormous, golden retriever-type yawn and I fight off sleep unsuccessfully for 20-30 minutes before dragging myself up from whatever surface I've been slumped on and make myself actually brush my teeth and put on PJs. Last night I actually fell asleep on the phone with Brian for about half a second, to my horror and his amusement. I was thoroughly convinced that I had responded to what he said, but I think now that it was only in my dream, since all of a sudden I heard him faintly say "babe...?"

Tonight after watching Deadwood I yawned again and put my head down on the couch. Next thing I knew Susie was putting a blanket over me, and I was murmuring that it was the best thing anyone's ever done. I woke up half an hour later with my contacts plastered to my eyes and a pain in my neck.

Maybe 2006 is the year of the nap.

PR and Pancakes

Just a little reminder to myself of where I spent the last two weeks...

The rest of our time in Puerto Rico was amazing. The practitioners and educators that we worked with were some of the most inspiring I've encountered, and their energy was simply non-stop. We performed for each other on our last day of class (there were two separate classes), and the mask-makers and dancers in the other class blew us away. After class ended we had several free days, during which we explored Old San Juan (the picture is the view of the old city from the fort, El Morro), kayaked in a bioluminescent bay at night, and, of course, went dancing.

My return to Chicago was triumphant and glorious, filled with lots of time-spending with Brian, which is all I really wanted. Here is the picture of the mango pancake we shared at brunch at The Wishbone.



My return to New York, while fine, was not quite so triumphant. I think the best part was when a drunk/crazy toothless man attempted to hug me on the subway platform yesterday...as frightening as it may sound, it was actually quite hilarious, and, I think, a completely appropriate re-introduction to the city. It was just New York's way of loudly announcing, "we're still here!" It's just wanting to make sure I know that nothing slowed down in my absense.

Beyond that, it's been so nice to spend time with my roommates again, and I'm excited about exploring all the places I've been wanting to go in the city on my Fridays off!
It's also been lovely to see the kids and my co-workers at after school, and to feel like I'm trying new things with them. Speaking of which, I am worn out and it's the second night in a row I've fallen asleep in front of my computer. Night-night.

Halfway.

Look at me, just posting away!

After another super stimulating day, I just had an incredible dinner at a small, hidden restaurant right on the beach in San Juan, with seven people from my program who are hilarious. It doesn't matter at all in our workshops, but when it comes to going out to dinner or other social activities, I feel reserved for some reason, and it can be a little nervewracking for me, since I don't know anyone all that well. Isn't it annoying when you know you can be fun, but everyone else is already doing that and you just have to kind of sit and watch and be shy? I sort of feel like that, except tonight not so much. And I found out that they pretty much didn't know each other before either. It's such a junior high feeling, isn't it? Brian and I talked about this before I left--that feeling never really goes away, even as people mature. But anyway, I can honestly say that I pretty much enjoy everyone on this trip. Another thing is how accomplished they all are; when you get to grad school, most people are either a little older or a little younger (in my case, most are a few years older), and in my program everyone seems to have started their own theatre companies and non-profits and all that. Don't even get me started on the Puerto Rican professors and assistants that are running our program!

So since this was a boring post about my social anxieties, I'll post a little something fun. Below is a picture of the director of our graduate program, engaging in some very important program administration. This was taken directly after a workshop in which we transformed our gathering space with paper art. Which sort of, in a way, explains why he's wearing a collar made out of a giant doily.

Happy Three Kings Day!

I've experienced several days of complete artistic stimulation and inspiration, and it's great. Our first day of "class" consisted of learning about Puerto Rican social and theatre history, and then seeing the performances of several of our instructors here, which were incredible. The first performances featured the masks you see here, part of a one-woman piece by mask maker and performer Deborah Hunt. Fun fact: in case you can't tell--I mean, duh--these masks use sea urchins as eyes. Wha...?? We've been learning about Boal and Theatre of the Oppressed, and dance, and visual art, and what it means to truly be an experimental theatre committed to resistance and transformation.

Yesterday we traveled to Cayey in the south of the island, where we worked with Rosa Luisa Marquez, the woman who runs our class here, and her collaborator Antonio Martorell, one of the island's best known artists. Besides being the most charming souls ever, they're the type of people that don't seem real...they're involved in everything, and it's hard to believe they have time for everything they do, from performing and teaching to writing books to making tons and tons of art. We did a workshop on transforming spaces, then had a big party in the tent that we had "transformed" for the occasion. After Cayey, we went to the biggest Three Kings Day celebration on the island, in the town of Juana Diaz. It was hot and crowded, but quite the experience. Everyone in the parade dresses up as shepherds and wise men and every other character in between. Several of us put grass for the camels under our beds last night in hopes that we might get gifts from the Tres Reyes, but to no avail. Oh well.

I'm exhausted, but I can't wait to see what they have for us tomorrow.

Feliz Ano Nuevo

Grrrr...Happy New Year!

Well, I think I've waited long enough to post again, especially considering that my New Year's Resolution is to post significantly more often.

Oh man, the holidays are nice, and also such a whirlwind! We had a lovely Christmas, and were graced with Brendan's presence, which always shakes things up in an enjoyable way. Then I hightailed it out of town to Arizona, where I spent a few days with Brian's extended, hilarious, and ridiculously welcoming extended family. Seriously, it was actually a lot of fun to be the new face in that group. We climbed a mountain, swam in the pool, made lemonade from the lemons on the trees outside. We even met up with Susie and her family in Arizona, where we met her nephew Trenton, who is indeed the cutest child in America or France.

We got back to Chicago just in time for a really funny New Year's, which consisted of eating a gourmet meal prepared by my sister, then going to a totally random house party, where everyone forgot to do the countdown. All kinds of people were asking each other what time it was, and then all of a sudden Brian was holding up his cell phone, which said "12:00," and we looked around and everyone was kissing and blowing noisemakers. Weird! It didn't make much difference to me, though. Pretty much everything that occurred at the party was hilarious, in particular the spontaneous dance blockade that our little group of five made, which required anyone wanting to get down the hallway to dance their way through, and subject themselves to substantial booty smacks from Annie and Brian. I personally thought that was the most festive way to ring in the New Year. And the best part of these last few weeks is that Brian and I have had so much time to hang out. It's been a dream.

And now...I'm in Puerto Rico! Yes, I'm here for about 12 days doing a course on Drama in Education for school. That's right, I'm getting graduate credits for this. I just arrived today, but I think this trip will be a very useful way for me to begin posting more--and more interesting--stories. I'm going to go finish my fresh pineapple smoothie now.

She lives!

Oh, my goodness. I really haven't posted in a long time. Sorry. I had finals and then the holidays, and I'm realizing that the latter can be more hectic than the former when my whole family is home at the same time. It's not that it's bad or anything--it's actually quite hilarious and often farcical--but between everyone's totally different pre-Christmas agendas, the demands of our elaborate family holiday newsletter that went to press yesterday, and the insufficient transportation (the early bird gets the car), my cell phone has never blown up like this.

So before I came home to Chicago, I had a wonderful whole week of Brian visiting, during which we saw a Harold Pinter play, ate many delicious meals including one amazing one at The Red Cat in Chelsea, worked at after school, and also toiled together on two of the many pieces required for my masks and puppetry final. (Yes, I am in graduate school. Shut up.) Then he left and I was all alone, continuing the papier mache marathon, breaking only to dance it up at a weird artist collective party in Long Island City with the departing Dr. Science (sniffle). My finals finished on Monday night, after which I rushed home, packed horribly, and narrowly made it out of town just hours after the transit strike had begun.

And now I'm here, eating fudge and seeing movies ("Munich"...whoa), and getting last minute gifts for people and hanging with Abbey and Taylor and getting excited for Christmas. Oh, and my sister got my family tickets to be part of the studio audience ofWait Wait, Don't Tell Me the other night! For an NPR nerd like me, it was sooo exciting to see the faces behind the voices of Carl Kassel and Peter Sagal (Carl looks just like I pictured him, Peter does not, and both are bald), and the whole thing was hilarious. Naturally, I am now the proud owner of a large commemorative mug.

And that's about it. I love being home for winter break. I love that I have a winter break. Tomorrow's Christmas Eve and all the duties that are left are cooking and eating. Hooraaaaay!!

All things go, all things go.

Two reasons today was a great day:

1) I turned in a crapload of papers and projects and one of my classes is done (although no one really understands how much work I have left with mask making alone...); and
2) I won two out of three racquetball games with Andrew today! This might have been unprecedented. I also accidentally hit him in the temple with the ball and made his glasses fly off, but don't worry, he's fine. I think I was more freaked out than him at the incident.

Also, if you haven't listened to Sufjan Stevens before, I strongly urge you to check him out. Susie wrote about this too. He's started this 50 state project where he intends to make an album for each state, I believe. It seems like a mammoth task, but he's got two of them: Michigan and Illinois. I had to start with Illinois, of course. "Casimir Pulaski Day" has been in my head for three days. I was attracted to it because of it's title; it references a random holiday that is pretty much only observed in Chicago. But it also manages to be one of the prettiest and saddest songs ever, in a good way. It's one of those songs that makes you pretend you're listening to the soundtrack of the movie of your life. You do that too, right?