Writing Elsewhere

Hello, my friends! 

Things have been a bit quiet here on the blog lately, and I just wanted to post real quick to excuse and justify my absence. 

RJ and I are continuing our Sister Blog Challenge, but we're on a brief hiatus while we focus on other projects. I'm doing NaNoWriMo (again) this year, so for the month of November, I'll be focused on that. And during October, I spent a lot of time editing old works and submitting them for publication and applying for writer residencies and doing all kinds of other writerly things. 

But if you're craving some Liz writing, never fear, because one of my essays got accepted for publication! You can read my creative non-fiction piece, "The Goddamn Miracles of Nature," on the Sad Girls Club Literary Blog by clicking here. (While based on truth, names have been changed to protect the innocent and guilty alike.) 

Happy reading and writing, loves.

In Bloom

I’ve had the sense, lately, that the last year and a half was like a long winter. But as vaccinations go up and COVID numbers go down in my home state, it feels like a kind of spring. Like things that were buried and waiting in the soil are now reaching upwards towards the light. 

Or maybe it feels like summer. Like things have been awake and blooming for a while now. 

I’ve thought about this on warm evenings as I watered the yard. When A and K planted bulbs in the flower beds, A didn’t think they’d show up until next year. But there they are, growing taller every day, their green leaves standing strong in the dirt. The desert grasses are growing new stalks (well, except for that one by the mailbox). And while the lawn is struggling in this goddamn drought, there are patches of green that keep returning under our obstinate watering. 

It feels like things are blooming. And I want to embrace the blooming. 

First of all, I have declared summer of 2021 to be “Hobbit Girl Summer.” 

Inspired by this tweet, I’ve chosen to make this summer a time of taking pleasure in simple things and guarding my comfort fiercely. 

When I made this plan, I quickly discovered that I’m at least 75% Hobbit already. Often barefoot. 7+ meals per day, usually consisting of simple fare—fresh fruit, baked goods, pasta. Taking pleasure in homey, domestic past-times like cross stitching and gardening. Going to bed late and getting up late. 

So there may not actually be many radical changes. But rather, Hobbit Girl Summer will be about embracing those things more fully, and being more deliberate about them. I’m planning to throw in a few other Hobbit-y things. Reading books and taking naps under trees. Writing poetry by rivers. Smoking the occasional pipe-weed. Maybe there can be a garden party or two. (Sans Gandalf’s fireworks because Utah is in the worst drought since the 1970s.) (I will also not be donning any ornamental waistcoats, because it’s bloody hot outside.) I may seek a handful of adventures, Baggins-style. But a friend recently described hobbits as “hippie dippie hedonists,” and if that’s not what I want for my life this summer, I don’t know what is. 

Second of all, after a year and a half of Zoom theatre and streamed performances and radio plays, my fully vaccinated self is re-entering good old-fashioned rehearsal rooms and theatres all over the valley and it’s my favorite thing. I’m rehearsing “Footloose!” at West Valley Arts, and sort of also became the de facto intimacy and fight choreographer as well. I’m halfway through choreographing intimacy for a production of Much Ado About Nothing, and have another intimacy/fight choreo gig lined up for the fall. In a few weeks, I’ll teach an intimacy direction workshop at the Utah Advisory Council for Theatre Teachers Conference. I’ve been submitting resumes and self-tapes a few times a week. I felt rusty as hell for a while there—I spent a week doing vocal warmups for 15 minutes a day because any time I tried to sing, my diaphragm felt non-existent. But it’s like riding a bike…when you’ve been doing it long enough, it comes back to you pretty quickly. An Other Theater Co had our first in-person company call a week ago, where we made plans to clean up the space and get ready for our upcoming season. I feel like there’s a forward momentum in my theatre career that had been on hold for a while. 

Third of all, a handful of writing projects have been percolating in my brain, and some are ready for…consumption? Creation? Clearly, metaphors aren’t my strong suit today, but the point is that I’m moving out of the brainstorming phase and into the “actually writing” phase on a few things. I’ve been fighting myself on the idea of tropes and clichés, and was just being an insufferable, snobby hipster about it all. Like “tropes are too simple and therefore beneath me because I’m an original artist and only art that is challenging is worthwhile.” I’m calling myself on my own bullshit. I’ve started leaning hard into tropes and have found it makes writing much easier, and that there’s still room for “originality” within tropes anyway. 

I sometimes worry that I sound a little too “hippie dippie” in my observations about how “it feels like this is a season of blooming.” This feeling is 100% completely subjective and also deeply personal. But as I grow more into my witchy, intuitive, whole self, it’s empowering to speak these things, to name the chapters of the book I’m in. Friendships are beginning and deepening and shifting. Careers are gaining momentum. Things are just…blooming. So I’ll keep metaphorically watering them, and embrace the blooming.  

(I know I just had this like, great meaningful "button" for this blog, but as I initiate Hobbit Girl Summer, it feels necessary to share these pictures from 2008, when cell phone cameras were blurry as hell, and when some friends and I put on a sketch called "Middle Earth's First Christmas" and I played Legolas with my Nigel Lithgoe hair and RJ was a perfect hobbit and C was "Gandalf the Red" even though he was dressed in white.)

Dashing

Welcome to Door Dash! We’re pleased you’ve decided to become a “Dasher.” You probably started doing this as a “temporary gig,” but you may find that it becomes one of the best jobs you’ve ever had, if you’re a slightly rebellious type who doesn’t like being told what to do. There’s almost complete freedom, you can consistently make around $20 per hour, and it’s mostly driving around while listening to music or podcasts. You don’t even really have to schedule yourself. Just dash when you feel like it. 

But as a new dasher, there are a few things you should know. 

People will not always leave their porch lights on, have a clearly visible address on their house, nor leave detailed instructions on how to reach their apartment number within a sprawling labyrinth of a complex. You may occasionally find yourself wandering around with a full meal from Popeye’s for ten minutes before finding your destination. You may consider writing a strongly worded letter to the universe in general, requesting that your destinations always be well-lit and easy to find. 

While the Dasher app has the ability to connect to your phone’s GPS system, this is not always reliable. You could discover that in your attempt to deliver McDonald’s to a family in Magna, your phone has guided you to the abandoned Saltair Pavilion, a dilapidated venue on the edge of the Great Salt Lake. These kinds of misadventures can be avoided by making sure the location in the Dasher app and the location in the Maps app are the same. 

Some people will be assholes. They will come out of their houses without masks and expect you to hand them their food, which you will either reluctantly do, or more often, you’ll set their food down on the ground and walk away because there’s a pandemic still happening. Some people will also be assholes by not tipping. You don’t have to take those orders. You can ignore them. 

If you’ve struggled in the past with the difference between left and right, in part due to years of being both an actor/dancer and a director/choreographer, where stage left and stage right are opposite of your left and right when looking at the stage, you may find that following GPS instructions regularly will help improve your ability to tell the difference. Spending hours each day being told to turn either left or right with pictures and arrows to guide you will kind of start to embed the difference more solidly in your brain.  

You’ll also grow more deeply familiar with the area in which you live in general. You’ll start to patch together neighborhoods and highways and areas into a more comprehensive mental map. It will be deeply satisfying. 

You’ll also grow familiar with restaurants in your area, and learn their quirks and what to expect. An order from that Boba place will usually take 10 minutes longer than stated, but you’ll get to watch KPOP videos on the large TV in the lobby while you wait. One restaurant chain will not serve Dashers through the drive-thru, but this other one prefers it. That cookie place always pays well, and the customers tip like gangbusters. Never take a grocery delivery from Walmart unless you know how big it is. 

Note that there are a dozen hotels near the airport and that the drive is a bit of a pain, but the tips are usually worth it. Also not that the FBI has a large, nondescript office building in the same area. You’ll discover this because one day you’ll deliver Panda Express to a friendly employee there. 

You may, on some nights, find yourself wishing that no one else would be on the roads while you are driving, ever. You may long to cruise through town, unhindered by other drivers, not needing to deal with long lines, lights that are slow to change, or people who don’t understand speed limits and/or turn signals. This is normal. Take a few deep breaths. 

If at all possible, drive a car that has infinite cupholders. You will need to be able to transport your water bottle, a separate drink for yourself if you’re fancy, customer drinks, and your phone. A 2012 Compact Toyota Prius will have excellent gas mileage, but not enough cupholders. 

Keep your eyes open. Not just for safety, but for wonder. There will be evenings when the sunset sky looks so spectacular it will seem like a painting. You may see a white rabbit nibbling in the grass of someone’s front yard. You’ll get two orders in a row for two different people named “Gray.” Look for magic. There are little altars everywhere.

“I am to wait, though waiting so be hell." --William Shakespeare, Sonnet 58

“I have of late—but wherefore I know not—lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises.” 

--Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2

I know we’re all sick of the pandemic, but I don’t know what else to write about. It touches almost every aspect of my life right now. I feel myself in a sort of uncomfortable limbo…I’m living in suspended animation and I do not like it. I have all of these goals, for my career, for my finances, for my art, for my LIFE, and all of them are temporarily on hold because of this goddamn virus. 

I’ve applied to one particular job that would start in the fall, and it would literally be a dream come true to get it. But they haven’t begun interviews for it yet (that I know of), and I know they’re busy managing pandemic-related challenges at the moment, and so I wait, though waiting so be hell. 

I also applied to different temp job, assisting with vaccine site coordination, and it pays literally 4x what my current job pays, and it would be doing something to help end the pandemic. When I spoke to them last week, they said they were 95% sure I was going to be selected for the next group, but I haven’t heard from them yet. And so I wait, though waiting so be hell. 

I have my fingers crossed for travel to see family, hopefully this fall. But it’s all dependent on the pandemic and whether or not we’re all vaccinated and how safe travel is in general. And we won’t really know the answers to those things until later this summer, or maybe fall. And so I wait, though waiting so be hell. 

I also find myself longing to spend time with friends. I’m generally pretty introverted, but all I want is to get together with a bunch of people and go out dancing, or have a party, or do karaoke, or sit around a bonfire and talk, or have a movie night. I want to hold and be held, and to sit in company of others I love. I did luck out in the people I’m sheltered at home with—A and K are magnificent humans. It’s just that I long for others, too. But the general public probably won’t get vaccinated for another several months, and it’s not safe to gather until then. And so I wait, though waiting so be hell. 

And oh, how I miss live theatre! I miss rehearsals, and blocking, and greenroom laughter, and dressing room talks, and making discoveries in a scene, and the energy that crackles between the audience and performers. I’ve found myself longing for my old Playmill summer-stock days lately. What a dream to sing and dance and act, 13 times a week, for months on end, in such a beautiful place. If someone offered me the chance to safely do “Seven Brides” or “Joseph” at the Playmill again, I would do it in a heartbeat. But doing live theatre, without masks or distancing, simply isn’t safe right now. We need to wait on vaccination. And so I wait, though waiting so be hell. 

There are a few other tangible things I can’t do anything but wait for. My tax refund. Another possible stimulus payment (we’re waiting, Congress!). I’m waiting for spring, when we can plant things and continue our yardwork projects. We’re doing some re-organizing at AOTC and I want it to be finalized so I can get going on whatever my job ends up being. 

And there are other, more intangible things that only time will give me. Healing from recent heartbreaks. Processing old traumas. Breaking old patterns and building new ones. I feel like those are in progress, which helps lift some of my anxiety about this time of waiting, but because that progress isn’t quite tangible, it can be hard to notice. 

On Sunday night, I drove around West Valley and Taylorsville and sang the entire soundtrack to “Reefer Madness” because I felt like I was going to lose my mind if I was in my house for one more minute. It did help…I may have to do it dozens more times with other soundtracks until something in my life is certain again. 

But in the mean time, I wait, though waiting so be hell.

Hold, please

You may have noticed some radio silence on the blog lately--Beckah and I haven't been doing our Sister Blog Challenge. But that's because life got kind of insane...it's been very little for months and months and now it's suddenly filled with full-time jobs and directing gigs and filmed theatre and small theatre marketing and online classes and Inktober and NaNoWriMo planning and yoga and tax season. 

So we'll be back. It'll just be a minute. 

COVID-19 blah blah blah, for posterity

Here’s what it was like. Here’s what I will remember.

I spend early January to mid-March dismissing everyone’s fears, before actually doing the research and realizing that this is serious. Not necessarily because of the mortality rate, but because our healthcare systems will not able to handle the load, and that will lead to a loss of life on a terrifying scale.

Early on, grocery stores are chaos. They’re quickly cleaned out of hand sanitizer, bottled water, and toilet paper. When I go grocery shopping, I can’t find eggs, flour, baking powder, vegetable oil, or frozen lasagna. A lot of other things are almost gone—butter, cereal, sour cream (for some reason?), canned veggies, fruit, beans, meat. With toilet paper being so hard to come by, I decide to take a “greener” route and learn how to use and launder “the family cloth.” I get into the habit of ordering my groceries online for curbside pickup. We all wear masks when we're out in public. (AT LEAST WE'RE SUPPOSED TO.) When we do go into grocery stores, the lines all have markers six feet apart, and the aisles are all one-way only.

Schools close for “two weeks,” which quickly becomes “until the end of the school year” as the governor publishes a “shelter in place” directive until the end of April.

Early on a Wednesday morning in mid-March, we’re awoken by a 5.7 earthquake in Utah. My roommates and I feel dozens of aftershocks, and spend the whole day sitting in the living room together, for comfort.

America collectively loses its mind over a Netflix documentary series called "Tiger King," which has everything from polygamy to arson to murder-for-hire, because in the hours we're watching that, we're not thinking about the pandemic.

K goes to Boise to be with her parents for a few days, although things are so uncertain when she leaves town that we say goodbye accompanied by “See you in a few days! Or a few months…?” She stays there for four weeks.

A and I have “reading parties” in the living room most nights. We trade book recommendations back and forth and read the same things at different times. There’s one memorable night when we get high and watch “A Goofy Movie.” At one point, early in the movie, A struggles to reach the remote to pause the movie and say to me, very seriously, “This is important. I need to tell you this. All of the teenagers in this movie are dogs.”

When K comes back into town, our reading parties turn into “reading, stitching, video gaming, writing, puzzling” parties. We spend one week watching films based on/thematically related to novels written in the 1800s. All of our home improvement projects are put on hold, since we can’t go to Home Depot for supplies. I work from home roughly 4 hours a week, and spend the rest of my time cycling through the same half dozen activities.

I complete jigsaw puzzles on an app on my iPad. I journal. I read. I watch TV. I listen to podcasts. I stitch. I write. I do some work for Royter Snow. I do chores. I go on so many walks that I grow bored with my neighborhood and drive out to other neighborhoods to walk there. I come to enjoy the solitude of the days when A is at work and K is out of town, although I joke to A that I understand why housewives in the 1960s rebelled because this is “boring as f***.” Lock-down has turned me into the housewife that my Mormon upbringing has trained me to be. When K does return from Boise, it takes me a few days to adjust to someone else being there during the day.

My sleep schedule, despite my best efforts, reverts to its preferred pattern of 1:30 am – 10:30 am. I take a lot of naps early on, dealing with the stress of it all. Time has ceased to matter or make sense anyway. I rarely have a strong sense of what day of the week it is, and the passage of time is impossible to measure. At any given moment, it feels like we’ve been under lock-down for at least three months.

On a morning in early April, I awake longing for the pillowy soft sweetness of a freshly made donut, and lament that it’s out of reach for who knows how long. I attempt to make beignets to satisfy this craving, which is only sort of successful. I do learn an excellent apple dumplings recipe a little while later.

After a while, I find myself applying COVID-19 social distancing rules to the characters in books I’m reading. Sometimes the characters will be having a big gathering, and I’ll think, “No! You can’t do that!” before realizing that it’s not real.

Around mid-April, my dreams start to get strange and vivid. I mention it to A and she tells me that multiple people have mentioned the same thing. Later that day, National Geographic publishes an article about how the pandemic is causing widespread vivid dreams—both because of the lack of new stimulus to process, and because of our anxiety about a virus that’s essentially invisible to us.

Beckah and I begin a tradition of watching bad Netflix movies together once a week, via Skype and a Google Chrome extension called “Netflix Party.” By far the best one is “Iron Sky 2: The Coming Race,” the sequel to “Iron Sky,” a Finnish-German-Australian-comic-science fiction-action film. Major elements of the film include a reptilian Sarah Palin, a cult of Apple lovers called “Jobsists,” a hollow earth, a moon-Führer, and Hitler riding a T-rex. At one point, Beckah and I get really hung up on one particular plot point regarding how a compass would work in the middle of a hollow earth before remembering that no part of the movie made any sense.

My cousin starts a movie watching group and we meet weekly on Zoom. I do a lot of Zoom/virtual meetings. We all do. Patrick and I are stuck in separate homes, and connect through Skype a few times a week, and I long for his arms around me so much I can hardly stand it.

I learn how to play Risk on my iPad, and decide that I’m a Risk prodigy, winning 51 out of 56 games by the beginning of May, at all levels of difficulty, against both bots and humans.

I deal with my anxiety about the current situation by small-scale compulsive internet shopping, purchasing new sheets, new cookware, fridge organization sets, and a dozen other things I probably don’t need, but will definitely use.

Most of the time nowadays, I’m okay with our “new normal.” I feel guilty about the times when I’m not…when I wake up in the morning and fill with dread at the realization of being stuck at home for who knows how long. But we’re all taking it one day at a time.

At the time of this writing, from January on, I’ve played 56 games of Risk, completed 31 jigsaw puzzles, and read 9 books. I could look up how many stitches I’ve completed and how many hours of podcasts I’ve listened to, and all of the television and movies I’ve watched, but the answer doesn’t interest me enough to do the work required.

That’s what it’s like right now.

So much past inside my present

PART I: TEN YEARS

I’ve been seeing people posting a cool little summary of the past decade on social media. And it occurred to me that I’ve had a pretty full decade, and I feel really happy looking back on it. I have a handful of socially celebrated “achievements” on this list—school and career things. But I’ve also accomplished a lot of things that were personal goals, or things that I’ve dreamt of for years. And many of them don’t come with particular rewards or accolades. But I love that I did them. So in my long decade summary, I’m including both the things that were a big deal in general (whether accomplishments or just experiences), and the things that were a big deal just to me. So here are the things I accomplished from 2009 – 2019.

Moved back to Rexburg after living and working in California.
Did improv comedy with Comic Frenzy at BYU-Idaho.
Performed an original song at Acoustic Café at BYU-Idaho.
Got married.
Got a Bachelor’s Degree.
Taught English as adjunct faculty at the university level.
Finally got an iPhone.
Visited Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico, Italy, Greece, and Turkey.
Met Mike McCready and attended 2 Pearl Jam concerts.
Moved to Utah.
Got a talent agent.
Worked in public education.
Worked with Stephen Soderberg and Michael Cerberus on an HBO mini series.
Worked with Rob Reiner and Cary Elwes (FIRST TEENAGE CELEBRITY CRUSH) on a film.
Got divorced, and survived the trauma and heartbreak of it.
Got a Master’s degree, which included writing a 143-page thesis.
Lived in seven different places.
Got paid to act.
Played a romantic lead in a comedy.
Performed in 26 full-length theatre productions.
Sound designed 8 full-length theatre productions.
Auditioned over 135 times.
Joined the Improvables Improv Comedy team in Centerville.
Had a speaking role in a Lifetime horror film.
Did 3 commercials.
Did 2 industrials.
Worked as background on 12 film/television projects.
Watched a ton of live theatre, both in New York and in Utah.
Became a company member at An Other Theater Company.
Opened an Etsy shop of subversive cross stitches, which made a little over $1,600 in its first year.
Wrote 655 blog entries.
Upped my dose of antidepressants from 50 mg to 100 mg
Spent 3 days in a psychiatric hospital.
Started working with a therapist to unpack and work through past traumas, and build a toolbox to help me through current and future challenges.
Became an aunt (x4!)
Began a “Sister Blog Challenge.”
Got my first tattoo.
Had a major faith transition.
Worked in a law office.
Worked as a simulation patient at a university medical program.
Started a long-term relationship, post-divorce.
Began training as an intimacy choreographer.
Started directing my first full-length theatrical production.
Got called back for my #1 bucket list dream role of Miss Hannigan in “Annie” (which callback I bombed because I was WAAAYYY in my head and also because I hiked a volcano in Hawai’i, took a red-eye flight back to Utah, showered and changed at home, then drove to Orem and attempted to do the callback with very little sleep or preparation and it was probably the worst callback I’ve ever done in my life).
Started learning how to read tarot cards.
Went on as an understudy for a theatrical performance.

That’s a pretty damn awesome decade.

PART II: FOUR YEARS

I was thinking about how my life has changed since early 2017. I’ve had the occasional sensation of “being on the wrong timeline.” It feels like the end of 2016 sent our universe spinning off into some unfamiliar dimension. But I also feel like I’ve been “leveling up” since being thrown off course. And I feel like each year has a particular theme.

2017: Survival
This was the year of just getting through it. A morally dubious and incredibly un-qualified man was in the highest office of the United States. My marriage of almost seven years was ending. The whole world seemed upside down. So I had to just sort of hibernate for a lot of it. I embraced the self-induced coma. I worked and studied and rehearsed and performed and slept and cried and art journaled and watched a helluva lot of TV.

2018: Distraction
I did like, six overlapping theatre projects during 2018. I didn’t need to be in survival mode quite as much anymore, but I wasn’t quite ready to just be still. I wasn’t quite ready to “do the work” outside of my therapist’s office. Some of the distraction was to avoid feeling and working through things, but some of it was just circumstantial. A new romance is generally pretty distracting, in a good way.

2019: Incubation
This past year, I’ve felt like there are all these little seeds that have been just waiting, growing, getting stronger, getting ready to burst into the light. Things with careers and relationships and friendships and just…life in general. I’ve been preparing, consciously and unconsciously, to take some steps towards some of my mountains.

So I think 2020 will be the year of building. I think it will be when some of these seeds sprout, and some of them may wither and some of them may grow roots. But we’ll see.

I'm excited to see.

Life, Reviewed

Trip to Leigh Lake
4.5 stars
The view is so ridiculously majestic that my brain keeps trying to tell me that it’s not real. This is a backdrop, painted or projected. My heart hums with campfires and clear starry skies alternated with thunderstorms and sunny afternoons. I am filled with good conversations, naps, and reading in hammocks. Had to come home early because of sickness, which was terrible, but not Leigh Lake’s fault.

Dog-sitting for Penny
3.5 stars so far
Penny is excitable for about 45 seconds when you first meet her, and her claws are dangerously strong and sharp. But once you are sufficiently greeted, she settles down and is one of the sweetest puppies ever. Powerful jumping skills, including the ability to leap unassisted from the floor onto the kitchen counter or dining room table. Leaps joyously in the grass when you let her into the backyard, with celebratory bays and barks. Stubborn about eating on her schedule. The house is pleasant and just the right size, and all of the furniture is somewhere between mid-century modern and industrial chic, and it would be perfect if there was any art on the walls anywhere. A good selection of books scattered throughout the home. I only feel bad for not being home with Penny as often as she would probably like.

Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival
4 stars so far
I love Fringe so much. I love summer and theatre and Fringe and people creating brave art and people supporting each other, and Fringe is all of that and more. I tech 2 shows, then catch others, and occasionally run home to feed and take care of Penny. I wish I didn’t have to do that. My social anxiety sometimes causes me to become auto-pilot Liz, and she’s real awkward, so I spend my time between shows being happy to see so many people I love and admire and feeling like a goober for my awkwardness. (Thank you for being patient with me, fellow Fringers.)

The gas mileage on my 2002 Toyota Sienna minivan
1 star
Between dog-sitting and rehearsing and working and Fringe-ing, the 15 miles per gallon I get on this thing is painful. I take public transportation when I can, although I’ve been having trouble with my U of U card, so fingers crossed that works out. Because I can’t afford to fill this car up more than once a week.

Laryngitis
1 star
The fact that it was short-lived is cause for celebration. I spent one day not being able to talk at all and my brain just decided that this was forever. I resigned myself to the fact that I was now mute for the rest of my life. I mouthed things, I wrote things out, I mimed, I used a text-to-speech app. The next day, I was almost completely fine. I’m still a little scratchy, but you never realize how grateful you are for your voice until it’s taken away.

Air Conditioning
3.5 stars
When it’s very very hot, all I want is air conditioning. I want swamp coolers blasting, I want window units whirring, I want central air whooshing through the vents. They are not always energy-efficient, and I am aware of the resources being used unnecessarily or to excess. And about 1/3 of the time, room temperature is way too cold, having been set arbitrarily by middle-aged men wearing business suits. I shiver in the crisp indoor air at my desk job. But by goddess, I love walking into a pleasantly cool room in the middle of summer.

“The Post-Birthday World” by Lionel Shriver
3.5 stars
Dense and poetic writing, and a brilliant exploration of desire and choices and the paths we take. A British novel born of literarily Russian parents, it took me a while to get through, because it was so dense, but I loved it.

“Three Women” by Lisa Taddeo
4.5 stars so far
I started this the day before yesterday and I’m more than halfway through, because I cannot put it down. I’m borrowing it from one of my roommates and she’s underlined all of the same things I would. I listened to her gasp and exclaim as she read (she reads books the same way other people watch scary movies), and I find myself doing the same thing.

Blogging Every Two Weeks
4 stars
I am tired and overwhelmed and have a lot to do and today’s entry feels trite and somewhat uninspired. But I’m really grateful for something that forces me to maintain a writing habit. Even the things you love can get set aside for longer than you intend. In the hurly burly of groceries and laundry and commuting and maintaining and Etsy shop and theater, I have this small goal every 14 days that pushes me just enough to keep the embers burning.

An Ode to Plastic Wrap

“Maybe it was time to consign this chair to nothing, but I would do this on a day when it was not important. I would break its spell in my own due time.” –The Testament of Mary, Colm Toibin

It’s been 8 ½ years since Jacob and I got married. As one of the most practical wedding gifts in history, someone gave us 3000 square feet of plastic wrap. It’s a giant roll, from Costco. From the beginning of our marriage to the end of it, we went through maybe a fourth of the roll. 750 square feet.

Who knows how many plates and bowls and serving dishes of food it was used to preserve. 500, maybe? We used it to wrap up the window air conditioner for storage in the winter. It protected plates and picture frames each of the four times we moved. It’s a perfect temporary storage solution. It does the same job that bubble wrap or a Tupperware container would do—keeping things preserved for now, until the time when we need the thing it’s preserving.

The roll of plastic wrap came with us from 5th West to College Avenue in Rexburg, then from College Avenue to the farmhouse with Mama and Papa Chapman. It traveled with us to that first little house in Provo. When we moved to Salt Lake, we almost forgot it in a kitchen cupboard in that Provo house, and I drove all the way back to get it. “That would have been a huge loss,” Jacob said, half laughing with relief, as I carried it into the kitchen.

That roll of plastic wrap is “one of the things I got in the divorce.” Our separation was uncomplicated, legally speaking, and amicable, emotionally speaking, even if it was deeply painful for both of us. Jacob left the plastic wrap behind, which I’ve always interpreted as a sign of good will. I still have it. It’s seen me through maybe 100 more plates and bowls of food preservation. I still use it to wrap and store the air conditioner. Sometimes I use it to protect surfaces while I paint.

Most often nowadays, it’s used to wrap up finished cross stitches for my Etsy shop. The box the roll came in fits perfectly (PERFECTLY) into my craft cart, and it seems a logical way to protect stitches for storage and shipping. But it’s being used to protect dishes and picture frames lately, too.

Because I’m packing up this Salt Lake City apartment. I’ve spent four years here, two with Jacob and two without him. And it felt like time. My life is shifting, and, it feels like I’ve outgrown this place. I’m a houseplant in need of re-potting.

I’ll be joining a friend and another roommate in a perfect old house with a giant backyard, about ten minutes away from my current place. I’ve got two weeks before move-in day, so I’ve been emptying shelves and clearing out closets. And I keep stumbling upon things I saved when Jacob and I separated. Old pictures. Notes. A small book stamp that says “Chapman Family Library.” There are some things that I’m keeping. They’re the tangible equivalent of journal pages. A record of the past, of truths that were, that add up to become the truth that is. My marriage with Jacob was a big and beautiful and important part of my life, and I feel no need or desire to erase it.

But there are some things that fall into a strange “in between” category. Things that I don’t feel a need to keep for sentimental reasons, but that I’m having a hard time getting rid of. A few framed pictures of us. Things that used to decorate the Chapman home, when this apartment was the Chapman home.

Maybe it’s too much to let go of everything all at once. The apartment and the framed pictures, too. If I’m a houseplant in need of re-potting, I don’t want to cut off too many of my roots in the process.

So for now, I’ll wrap these things in plastic wrap. I’ll pull of yards and yards from that Kirkland Signature roll, and preserve those pictures temporarily. Until their spell is broken. Until I’m no longer in the middle of being transplanted.

There’s a voice in my head that cries out for me to make a decision, to let go or not. But I’m learning that I can roll my own, when it comes to healing. I’ll let those things from the Chapman home sit, preserved in amber, or in plastic wrap, as the case may be. Until it’s time to transplant them, too.

Upon Reflection of 33 Years

What was the best part of this last year? 
Meeting and starting to date Patrick.

What was the hardest part of this last year? 
There was a period of time in January/February that was really hard, for a lot of reasons.

What are you looking forward to in the coming year? 
Continuing to get to know Patrick, theatrical and other acting projects, continuing to learn and grow.

What do you want to work on during this next year? 
Finding greater balance between kindness towards others and kindness towards myself.

What makes you happy?

It’s that day when Beckah and I post things to our blogs. I have roughly 8 different drafts of things to post, but none of them are done and as for those that are close, the timing doesn’t seem right.

So after searching “blog post prompts,” Pinterest gave me a bunch of suggestions. And the one that kept sticking in my head was the simple question, “What makes you happy?”

Maybe it’s because I’ve had a tenuous relationship with happiness over the past year or so. I mean, all of us have a kind of tenuous relationship with happiness all of the time, but a year ago, if you had asked me, “Are you happy?” I wouldn’t have been able to say “yes” with much confidence. I had happy moments. But the general over-arching sense I had about life wasn’t happiness.

I knew time just had to pass for some of the happiness to return. But there are things, both small and big things, that make me happy. So I’ll spend this blog entry telling you about them.

Summer makes me happy. I love stepping out onto the pavement at nine o’clock at night, and feeling the heat underneath my bare feet, and watching the sun set and seeing the first few stars come out. I like seeing Jupiter and Venus and the moon, and the Big Dipper almost exactly overhead. I love popsicles and fresh fruit, and campfires, and parks.

Babies make me happy. With their stupid cute little hands and sneezes and laughter and cuddles. And the way they slowly learn to walk and talk and surprise you with how much they’re learning.

Hell, learning makes me happy. I think I might get a sort of extra big dopamine burst when I learn something new. It’s a high I’ll keep chasing for the rest of my life.

Theatre makes me happy. Dear goddess above, theatre makes me happy. It’s this beautiful combination of so many things I love. Literature. Acting. Sound and music. Lights and painting. Community. Design. A live connection between the creators of the art and the audience. And somehow it all combines to become something greater than the sum of its parts. (Wondrous mathematics.)

Patrick makes me happy. The way his blue eyes look at me, the way he makes me laugh, the way we can talk about anything. The way he shares my love of learning new things and the way we geek out about outer space and the human brain together. I love how almost every time I walk up the stairs to his apartment, I can hear him singing along to something playing on his laptop. The kindness and patience and honesty with which he lives his life makes me happy.

The incredible television that’s being made nowadays makes me happy. Handmaid’s Tale. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Love. Orange is the New Black. High Maintenance. Stories that are funny and beautiful and thought-provoking, that break with the traditions of the past, that put women and people of color and people of all shapes and sizes and levels of attraction at the center of their own stories. (There’s an entire episode of Easy about a teenage girl and her relationship with her parents’ Christianity, and the role was played by a big* actress, and NOT ONCE was her weight a plot point. Not in her relationship with her parents, not in her relationship with her boyfriend, not in her relationship with herself. Because while those stories are interesting and good to tell, it’s not the only story that fat people have to tell.)

Then there are little, deeply satisfying things that bring me happiness. Writing with a Uni-ball Jet Stream medium-point pen. Cross stitching. Organizing things—getting rid of things that aren’t needed anymore and finding places for what’s left. Food. Sleep. Kissing.

I know there are a million ways to measure happiness. To define happiness. I guess I’m just aware of the fact that the happy moments seem to outnumber the unhappy ones nowadays. There are still a lot of question marks about my life, and plenty of stresses, and plenty of sad moments. But I just feel happy lately. I’m grateful.







* I never quite know how to talk about weight. I’m all about fat acceptance, because I don’t think our society’s prejudice against fatness actually has much to do with health. (Going into detail would be a whole ‘nother blog post.) But here’s the reality. I’ve always been fairly skinny/average (through very little action on my part). So I don’t always know which terms are best. Overweight? Fat? Big? I want to de-stigmatize these words, but I also want to be sensitive to other people’s experiences, which are not always mine. Anyway. Feel free to hit me up in the DMs if you have insight.

"I have not eaten the heart," or The Time I Got a Tattoo And Didn't Really Tell Anyone For A Minute

"If I don’t get cast in this part, maybe I’ll get that tattoo. If I don’t get this job, maybe I’ll get that tattoo. After I make it a year after divorce, maybe I’ll get that tattoo." --My inner monologue for the past...5 years? 

(I don't really have the energy to go into the whole "Mormon getting a tattoo" thing at the moment. I know, I know. Maybe someday I'll talk about that, but not today. I just thought I'd get that disclaimer out of the way.)

I’ve had the design made and taped to my bathroom mirror for over six months now. It’s an ancient Egyptian hieroglyph, the feather of maat (click link for explanation), surrounded by a geometric pattern of an icosahedron (20-sided die). There wasn’t necessarily any planned symbolism to the icosahedron—I just liked the way it looked. But when I thought about it later, I also liked that there was a tabletop RPG connotation to it. I decided the tattoo would go on the outside of my upper thigh. Easy to cover for acting gigs, but not too hard to show off if I really wanted to. So I made an appointment for a consultation. And then I made an appointment for getting inked.

And on Wednesday last week, I walked into SLC Ink and got my tattoo.

Originally, I was going to have a friend or two come with me. It turned out that both friends who were going to come along were out of town, so I went by myself. Which ended up being perfect. I was doing something for myself, by myself.

Me laying in the chair at SLC Ink and wondering
what the hell I'm doing

I opened the door to SLC Ink that afternoon and thought, “What the hell am I doing?!” But I walked up to the reception desk and told them I had an appointment with Paige. I filled out the paperwork. I lifted the hem of my skirt and watched Paige clean and shave my thigh. I held still while she put the stencil in place. I laid on the plastic-covered bed and tried to get comfortable. I gritted my teeth for 45 minutes while the picture I had designed months ago became a permanent part of my body. Paige and I chatted about astrological signs and gun violence. And the whole time, every few minutes, I kept thinking, “What the hell am I doing?! I don’t have to do this. I can walk away. I’m so scared of this. Who am I? What am I doing?”

And then it was done.

Paige wrapped my new tattoo in a protective bandage and I stood up and swiped my debit card and limped to my van. And couldn’t stop grinning.

I didn’t really tell anyone what I was doing. Not right before, not during, not after. I didn’t post on social media while I was getting inked. I didn’t tell friends as I chatted and messaged and visited with them throughout the day, even though it was consuming 75% of my thoughts. I texted my sister about it that night, but I didn’t tell the two friends who were possibly going to come with me. Over the next few days, I didn't tell anyone while it was stinging during Othello rehearsals, or when it ached as I bent down to pick up my nephew. I know a week isn't that long to keep something quiet, but I wanted to for just a little while. Because I didn’t do it for anyone else. I did it for me.

I did it because I’m so damn tired of worrying about what other people think of me. Positive or negative. Spoken or unspoken. I’ve spent so much of the last year worried—terrified—that the people I care about don’t care about me. It has made me anxious, jealous, angry, heartbroken, and desperate in turn. And all of those fearful thoughts I had while getting my tattoo were, at their core, about other people. What they would think. What they would say. How they would react.

But the thing is that it’s no one else’s body, and it’s no one else’s tattoo.

It's not quite that I was afraid of what people would think if I talked about my new tattoo right away. But I wanted this important thing to be just mine for a little while, with no one else's input. Just a few days. It took so much energy to fight all of my fears just to get the tattoo, and I didn't want to use any more energy to field responses from other people, even if they were positive.

I still kind of can’t believe I did it. But I did it. I did it after a year of life post-divorce. I did it after one of the worst callbacks I’ve ever done, for a bucket-list dream role with a theatre I love. I did it despite a fear of needles and pain. I did it alone, despite my underlying fear that I will actually be alone forever. I did it while my anxiety about what other people think clamored for my attention at the back of my mind. And now this lovely pattern on my thigh reminds me of the principles of maat (truth, balance, morality, justice). But it also reminds me of a time when I overcame a whole bunch of fears, and a whole bunch of pain, and did something meaningful for myself. It reminds me of a time when I let peace speak louder than fear.

The phrase "I have not eaten the heart" is a part of maat, the hieroglyph at the center of my tattoo. It's one of the "42 Negative Confessions" listed in the Papyrus of Ani, and it's a poetic and ancient Egyptian way of saying "I have not grieved needlessly. I have not felt needless regret."

There have been times in my life, when making big decisions, when I have been filled with terror. Going to BYU-Idaho. Getting married. Going to grad school. Moving to Utah. Auditioning for that role. What if it was the wrong thing to do? What if I regretted it? What if what if what if?! But I did all of those things because in the moments when I was the most still and the most connected to myself, I was completely confident about the decision I had made. I felt peace about it, and knew that it was “the right thing to do.”

Not all of those things worked out the way I thought they would. I took 8 years to get my Bachelor's from BYU-Idaho. My marriage didn't last. I didn't (and don't) get every role I auditioned for. But that doesn't change the fact that those were the "right things to do." I'm so grateful for my time at BYU-Idaho. I'm so grateful for my time being married to Jacob. I'm so grateful for chances to do what I love at so many wonderful theatres. It took a lot of courage to do some of those things, but I don't regret any of them.

And I don't think I'll regret this tattoo either.

New URL who dis?

Hello everyone! 

If you happen to have my blog bookmarked, note my new web address! "dinosaursarefun.blogspot.com" was no longer "on brand" or whatever, and the simplest way to redirect was to just create a new blog and copy all the old stuff over.

So follow here! Bookmark here! Read here! Abandon the old URL!

I love you.

Midnight Thoughts on Fried Brains

My brain is fried. Maybe my heart is a little bit, too, but mostly my brain, I think.

I don't know why the hell I'm writing. It's early by my bedtime standards (11:45) but I've been tired for two weeks straight. I should go to sleep. But as a fellow MFA student said this quarter, "I write because it makes me feel better." And maybe I want to feel better. Think better? I don't know.

This is going to be a little all over the place. Apologies in advance for any failings of grammar.

Here's why my brain is fried:

Because of the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival, wherein I perform a 15-minute monologue, three times in a row, while two other people are talking at the same time. And that takes a lot of energy. And it took a lot of energy in rehearsal, and it takes a lot of energy to perform. (It's also awesome, and one of the things that keeps me anchored, and I love being a part of this awesome thing with awesome people.) (And hey, come see "Punxsutawney" at the Fringe Factory, Friday @ 10:30 pm, Saturday @ 3:00 and 6:00!)

Because school started again, and somehow we're already 4 weeks into the quarter? That's a third of the way done. So I've got reading and writing and critiquing and discussion board posting always on my mind.

Because auditions for a show with PYGmalion are coming up, and I've gotta memorize this monologue.

Because I had to fill out all this paperwork and send all these emails to see if I could qualify for a little bit more financial aid to help me make ends meet while I finish school. (Finally got the additional financial aid--yay!)

Because divorce and legal name change and blah blah blah.

Because I get to see all this amazing theatre as part of the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival, which I'm currently obsessed with. But also, it's exhausting.

Because I am certainly not ready to step into the dating world again, but I can feel the water of it inching towards my toes, occasionally washing right over my feet, and I'm not sure if I remember how to swim and I thought I had found a lifeboat in the form of marriage, but now I don't have the lifeboat but I'm also not ready to swim, so it's like I'm trying to build my own lifeboat WHILE I'm trying not to drown? (I don't know if this metaphor works, but I'll revisit it in the morning or sometime later when my brain isn't fried.)

Because one of my bosses was gone all last week, and we've got this HUGE project that has all of these different parts, and I've driven 45 miles running errands and it's my job so I'm happy to do it, but it's just occupying a lot of headspace. I sometimes have time at work to do homework, but that's definitely out nowadays.

Because of the insanity of making travel plans for August and September.

Because it's been like 100 degrees all week and while I'd rather be too hot than too cold, the heat makes it hard to function.

Because of trying to figure out how to balance self-respect and expressing my thoughts and feelings with respecting others' desires and thoughts and feelings, and not sacrificing one for the other, which is like, really complicated. (Good thing I have awesome friends like Carrie to give me awesome advice.)

Anyway, I'm tired all the time. So when I get a second, I just binge-watch Mad Men and eat ice cream and do art. I suppose it would be more productive to take a nap or something, but I'm always afraid I won't sleep well later, so I stay awake to try to ensure a good night's sleep. (Spoiler alert: it hasn't worked.)

If I've been weird (like, weirder than normal), thanks for your patience while I'm trying to get my head back on straight. I've got a marathon of a weekend to get through, but I should be able to breathe again by Monday.

That lifeboat analogy is feeling more and more applicable, and not just to dating.

But what do I know? My brain is fried.

Themyscira: Benefits and Hazards

Jacob moved out in mid-February. (I'll write more about our divorce another time.) I drained my savings account to redecorate the entire apartment (and it looks awesome), because it was cheaper to do that than move, and because I won't find another apartment for $525 in as good of a location.

This also means that I'm currently living alone, something I did only once for a summer when I was in my early twenties. For the vast majority of my life, I've shared a bedroom, or at least an apartment or house. But I find I enjoy living alone. There are definitely benefits.

- I can wear whatever I want around the house, without making anyone else uncomfortable or distracted. (In these summer months, this means that I'm mostly naked, most of the time. I mean, do you see the title of my blog?)

- I can decorate every space however I want to. Do I want to put glow-in-the-dark stars on the bedroom ceiling? Do I want to re-arrange the furniture in the living room? Do I want to post this subversive cross-stitch in a prominent place? The entire apartment is my space, and I don't have to consult anyone about how I want it to look and feel.

- I can stay up as late as I want, and turn lights on and make noise without disturbing anyone. (Within reason...I do have neighbors.)

- I can keep thing as messy or as tidy as I want, without it affecting anyone else.

- I can have friends over any time, without needing to notify or check in with someone else.

Basically, I don't have to be considerate? It's good to be considerate, and when I'm living with another person, being considerate is its own reward and I didn't MIND doing these considerate things. It's just kind of nice to not have to worry about it.

Of course, there are hazards of living alone.

- There's no one there to rub aloe vera on my sunburned back. (I've currently got a patchy sunburn from camping this weekend...I'm only burned in the places where I didn't reach with sunscreen. Which means I also can't reach those spots with aloe vera.)

- It's hard to shop for one person. I'm not going to eat an entire loaf of bread in one week, but I can't buy half a loaf? So I have to freeze half? And some weeks I go through a gallon of milk, and sometimes just half that. I don't want food to go bad, but I also want food. I'm still figuring out how much to buy for myself.

- I have to make an effort to be social. I'm a fairly introverted person--I much prefer meaningful conversations with a few friends to a big party, and for every hour I spend with other people, I generally need an hour on my own. But I DO need those hours with other people. It can be lonely to live alone. So when I want to spend time with people, it takes more coordination. I have to call or text to set something up, and sometimes schedules don't quite line up. In college, if I wanted to spend time with people, I would just go into the living room, and usually a roommate or two would be available.

- Sometimes I start thinking about zombies/aliens/serial killers/ghosts and it's spooky to be in an apartment by myself in those times. Although, if I really WAS in some kind of danger, I'm pretty sure the ladies in my apartment complex would have my back. I live in a four-plex, and right now it's just women--three single ladies and a lesbian couple. The departure of all of the men in our building happened within the last few months, and that departure was marked by a strange uptick in building maintenance. The weeds in the yard have been removed. Stepping stones have been added to a pathway. Curtains have been hung up in the laundry room. Potted plants sit on the porch. We're just five badass women making a life for ourselves in this apartment building, and we just each needed "a room of one's own" to do it. I've started calling this place Themyscira, after the island where the Amazons live in "Wonder Woman." (Important note: I don't plan on killing any of the men who visit our island. Men are welcome here. There's just something special about having a place for just women--it's something that's been denied women for centuries, and often still is--to be away from male supervision.)




In general, I like living alone. (Someone suggested using a paint roller to apply aloe vera, so that problem is basically solved.) So I'll raise a glass to all my wonder women who make meals at midnight in their skivvies: "Here's to living alone!"

If I were a drinker...

...I might pick this weekend to drink.

It's just been a long, intense, emotional week, and I dealt with it by spending WAY too much time in my head, to my own detriment and possibly to the temporary detriment of several friendships (sorry, everyone). There's not really any one particular thing going on. It's lots of things.

It's "Mockingbird" closing, which hurts so much that I haven't even really had the courage to face it. I was not ready for that show to end. And while I trust that I will have plenty of other meaningful experiences with other wonderful people, "Mockingbird" came at such an important time and I built so many incredible friendships and the story is so important...it's just hard to let go of.

It's this paper I'm supposed to be working on for my Narrative Journalism class, that I can't find my way into, that's so big and sprawling and all the quotes and research are all so overwhelming. And my interview with the one source that would have been the perfect "way in" fell through.

It's being divorced, and navigating all of the new territory I find myself in. The loneliness and freedom and uncertainty and unfamiliarity of it all.

It's missing my sister so much that my chest physically aches.

It's auditions for "The Heart of Robin Hood" coming up in a week, and being so busy and overwhelmed by other things that I didn't finalize an audition song until YESTERDAY, so now I'm trying to cram a lot of preparation into seven days.

It's feeling like my testimony is being rearranged a little bit right now. Which is, ultimately, a good thing, but it's not exactly comfortable.

It's not being able to find an ENTIRE 50,000-WORD DRAFT of one of my old NaNoWriMo novels, which is actually still so overwhelming that I haven't fully pursued looking for it.

It's trying to balance my introverted need for alone time and my lonely need for companionship, which I haven't had to do to this extent since I was twenty-two or so, when I was a slightly different person under very different circumstances.

It's re-evaluating what I really want. In friendships. In Church. In life. In relationships. In how I spend my time. I feel like I have a solid core of understanding about who I am, and about the big abstract things I want. I want to be kind and learn a lot and experience things fully and make other people's lives better and create meaningful art. But it's figuring out the concrete, every day ways to do those things that's taking some re-evaluation.

It's doing one improv show and feeling like my contributions to it were small and pretty mediocre, and then doing another improv show that was so so solid.


But it hasn't JUST been challenging things. There have been great things this last week, too.

Getting really positive feedback on one of my workshop pieces for my MFA.

My 3-year-old nephew gleefully screaming my name and running to hug me when I showed up to babysit, and the hilarious speed with which my 10-month-old nephew crawls.

Sitting and talking with girls from the "Mockingbird" cast while we played with five adorable tiny puppies.

Having some pretty awesome validation for my work as an actress.

Buying a bunch of new bras that I'm OBSESSED with.

Eating popsicles and watching a documentary with a friend on a Tuesday night.

Finishing a painting and having it turn out even better than I had envisioned.

Spending time with the cast and crew of "Mockingbird" on a Sunday afternoon, eating food and talking and laughing.

Good conversations (even though some have also been scary conversations) with friends, with family, with my therapist, with my God.

Dinner with an old friend and his significant other, eating amazing Thai food and laughing and talking and reminiscing.


See? Beautiful and challenging things. It's just I've got a lot spinning around my mind-grapes nowadays, and it can be overwhelming experiencing all of this while simultaneously working 20 hours a week, taking MFA classes, and also doing all the little stupid things that need to be done, like filling the gas tank and doing the dishes and fixing the bathroom faucet and folding the laundry and restringing the guitar and finishing that graphic design project and refilling a prescription and getting groceries and watering the plants and sewing the sleeves on those blouses and eating and sleeping and basic hygiene.


I'm real grateful for a 3-day weekend, y'all. I don't have any solid plans, and I keep thinking about possible impromptu road trips that I probably can't afford to go on. But boy, are my feet itchin' to go on a road trip. I started this blog by saying that if I were a drinker, I'd drink this weekend. But I think it would just be another form of "running away." There have been lots of times in my life when I've "run away," but I've always come back. It's just a momentary escape. A moment to re-align my mirrors, get my head on straight, take a breath. I'd stop running away if it stopped working.

When I left work on Friday, my boss asked me what my weekend plans were. I said, "I might go on a road trip." When he asked where, I said, "I haven't decided yet." And I'm still deciding. Deciding whether I even need or want to run away, and if I do, what form it will take. But whether I hop in the car and keep driving or sit at home and paint, I'm really glad I have a long weekend to do so.

art via David Wallace

Hello again, and thank you.

I'm still here!

I'll write all about the roller coaster that the last few months has been, but I'll do that later. I'm still kind of motion sick from the ups and downs, so I need to take a little while to process them. Despite the rough ride, just know that there are lots of good and wonderful things in my life that make me grateful to wake up every morning.

Here are just a few of them:

1) The bedroom ceiling. 

I got a pack of glow-in-the-dark stars from Amazon.com, and spent two and a half hours covering the ceiling and upper walls of the bedroom, unsure about the result. And then when I went to bed, I couldn't sleep for a solid half hour, because I was just grinning at the ceiling. I am OBSESSED. (Note: The above picture is not my bedroom. I do not have a camera that has the ability to capture a star ceiling that well. Also, that bedroom is five times bigger.)

2) The apartment in general, actually. 
I've made a few changes around here, and it looks awesome, and I enjoy coming home to it every night. Someday I'll muster the energy to do a before-and-after blog, but today is not that day.

3) The Great British Baking Show. 

You guys. I am obsessed. I can't help it! It's so charming and British and everything is so yummy and I love cooking shows anyway, but there's none of this cut-throat American falsified DRAMA. It's just British people baking their tushes off and it's so charming. I'm in the middle of re-watching it. Already.

4) California. And family. 

The stars aligned last week and Beckah and I got to visit Mom and Ray and Oma and Opa and everyone in California AT THE SAME TIME. With our grown up jobs and grown up schedules, that's not always easy. Beckah got there the day before I did, and when they picked me up from the airport, we went STRAIGHT to the beach. Didn't even stop to drop off luggage. We also spent some time at my uncle's log cabin in the woods, and that was wonderful, too. Mad Libs and good music and books read aloud were all included, of course.

5) S-Town. 

The producers of "This American Life" and "Serial" created a new podcast called "S-Town" and it's amazing. It's one story with seven chapters, which they released all at once on Wednesday this past week, and I finished the series today. It's funny and sad and poignant and beautiful and mysterious. 10 out of 10, would recommend.

6) Curls

I love having curly hair. I had an especially good hair day today, and it made me feel especially pretty. I love days when I feel especially pretty. (Ain't vain. I just think women should spend less time focusing on what we think are flaws in our appearance and celebrating the pretty instead.)

7) The wind outside the bedroom window as I write. 
I can hear it rustling through the trees, making the branches creak slightly. It's eerie and lovely.

8) To Kill A Mockingbird

I've loved every show I've ever done. Even if it was hard or had challenges or wasn't as fulfilling, I've always found something to love, or at the very least, something to learn. But some shows just sort of stand out in your memory as special. There's just some extra magic somehow, and everyone is passionate about the work, or maybe the story means something important to everyone involved. Macbeth. Enchanted April. And now, To Kill A Mockingbird. This show came to me at a very difficult time in my life. And that's the case for a few of us in the cast...a lot of us are dealing with loss or heartbreak of some kind. It's so meaningful to have a place to go every night where we can all pour our hearts into a story...all the heartbreak and joy and anger and fear and laughter and sadness.

And everyone is SO TALENTED. These freaking little kids and tweens, even, the ones playing Dill and Scout and Jem, are INCREDIBLE. And that actually goes for everyone. We had a run-through earlier this week, and I cried roughly eight separate times? (In reality, I started crying at the top of Act Two, and sort of kept crying off and on until the end.)

I have some dear friends in the cast, and it's been wonderful to strengthen those friendships. And despite my feelings of social anxiety, I'm slowly forming new friendships, too. Most of the cast were strangers to me at the beginning of rehearsals, but I love that friendships sort of naturally form while we're all building a show. Even though I feel awkward and uncertain sometimes, I feel so lucky to be surrounded by such amazing people. People who care deeply about this work, who are funny and kind and smart.

So many members of the cast have shared what "To Kill A Mockingbird" has meant to them over the years. During rehearsals, people have shared personal experiences, poems, things they've learned, thoughts on the show. Tears have been shed. Not every rehearsal is this overwhelming emotional experience. But that's beautiful, too--the banter-y rehearsals, the missed lines, the just dragging through it. I may be blinded by my love of theatre, but I'm legitimately disappointed when I'm not called to rehearsal. During our first read-through, the director pointed out that this story is timeless, but unfortunately, it's also timely. I think all of us feel a small sense of responsibility in telling this story. It's such an honor to be even a small part of this process. I feel so so so blessed.

It's been quite a year

Obligatory annual family newsletter post. Click to zoom in if necessary. I love you all.

I'm Tired of Marvin Asking Me What's Going On

My grandparents recently sent me an email (WITH AN EMOJI!!!) telling me they've been hoping for a blog update soon. It was the final motivation I needed to dash one off really quickly. Things have been busy in the House of Chapman. Here's what's going on.

Getting a job! 
I work 20 hours a week as a receptionist for a graphic design company called Royter Snow! I applied on Monday morning, interviewed Tuesday morning, and started work on Wednesday morning. It's really fun! My organizational heart is happy with the tasks I do, and I have plenty of down-time where I'm allowed to work on homework. The guys who run the business are friendly and laid-back, and the building is awesome. (When I mentioned my acting work during my interview, the business owners said I'm welcome to take off for an interview or day of filming if that ever comes up. PERFECT JOB.)
(Incidentally, if you're looking for an office space in Salt Lake City, Royter Snow has two suites available for rent. Only $420 per month. Check out the KSL ad here.) 
And working with designers means my office space is pretty. Here is a picture of the view from the break room.

Cabaret!
OMG WE OPEN ON FRIDAY. I feel super good about the show, and a little nervous about layering ALL the tech in over just four days. But it's happening whether I'm nervous or not. We did a "sitzprobe" with our small orchestra today and I grinned my way through most of "Wilkommen." It sounds SO GOOD. So full and lively and gritty and awesome! If you'd like to see me in vintage tap pants, you can get tickets here. Aaaaaand you'll get two for one*--Jacob is also in it! Surprise! A cast member had to drop out, and the production team was desperate to find someone to replace him, and I put Jacob's name/face forward, and now he's Ernst Ludwig. And he's spectacular. Obviously. Everyone is. Here is a picture of Anne-Louise Brings, who plays Sally Bowles, in rehearsal with the orchestra at a local studio.

Liz gets an MFA!
Still plugging away at my Masters. There are days when I feel so certain that it's the right thing to do, and other days when I question my decision. But deep down, I know that this degree will open doors for me that were previously closed, both because of the degree itself, and because of the writing skills I'm learning. This semester I'm taking two classes: The Craft of Fiction, and "The Rock Stars and the Poets." The last class is as fun and interesting as it sounds. Here is a picture of my homework for this week.

Acting! 
I've had a bit of a dry spell when it comes to casting, and for a while there, it was really rough. As much as I intellectually KNOW that rejection is a big part of this industry, it can still get to you. During July, I had 8 auditions and didn't get cast at all. I know that doesn't sound like a lot, but that's twice a week. When you're getting a "no" twice a week, it starts to feel like it must be something personal or something. It threw me into a little funk for a minute, there, and I'm still sort of re-arranging my psyche to help me better deal with rejection in the future. In the meantime, I keep auditioning! The dry spell can't last forever. I do not have a picture to accompany this item on the list.

The Internet! 
I love the internet. So to conclude, here is a favorite thing from the internet lately. In response to a prompt to name the creatures on this old-timey map, someone came up with these species names:

D - Pigdoggle
E - Snuffcumberworm
F - Schnozpoddler
G - Seahorse
H - Piggly Frontwave

(Snuffcumberworm and Schnozpoddler are my favorites.)

*Beedle-dee-dee-dee-DEE.
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