PROGRESS

23 new pages of Virgin Territory today.

And they don't even suck.

Thankyou muses!

(And all of you other real support system folk...this play is gonna happen afterall!!!)

I think I can I think I can I think I can...

It's a big weekend for me....
I think I can I hope I can I know I can?

ithinkicanithinkicanithinkicanithinkican...........

The last of a good thing...

Every semester since I moved to Mankato, Dad has had a Cropland meeting that has required his attendance in town. He spends the night at a hotel downtown, has meetings on a Wednesday day, and Thursday morning. In between, I usually pick him up around 5pm, we do happy hour somewhere in town (we share a bucket of wings, a caesar salad and a pitcher of beer), run whatever errands I need help with, watch some TV and play cribbage.

But more importantly, we catch up one-on-one. I get to tell him everything that's going with me, ask his input on that stuff as well as whatever political questions I have (as I go to school in a place with one very loud, very opinionated, very political head of the department) and we just talk until it's time for me to go home. It's rare we get to be alone, just father/daughter, so these times have been really special.

Last night we had our final Dad and Nik night...for now, anyway. And it was awesome. They all have been. And I've really appreciated them.

So...Thanks, Dad. Love you.

Blog Assignment #1: Top 10 best MOMENTS of the first 10 years of the millennium

Suz and I are on to a couple of things. During a conversation in which we decided we should start two more blogs ("Things We're On to" in which we predict new trends and good ideas and "Ho, No You Di'int" in which we list things that women should not be doing if they don't want be categorized as a ho), I told her about Micah's Top 10 movie list that actually included 41 movie mentions. Somehow in noting how difficult it actually IS to commit to a finite favorite anything, we decided that not only could we beat Micah at being selective, we could top him. Thus this blog assignment!

The Top 10 Best Moments of the first 10 years of the new Millennium!!!

(Note: "Moment"= Snapshot of a memory or feeling. No all-encompassing general moments like theatre or family or love. That's lame and non-specific, nor does it challenge the blogger. Note 2=I am doing 1 per year so as not to have current perspective overwhelm the entire decade. This was not a pre-requisite rule, just me being organized.)

1. 2000=Epic Dance-off at the Mardi Gras party at Nick Blake's basement. Nickie, Laura, Carrie Hill, Charlie, Nick and I danced our faces off to Outkast's B.O.B. It was epic, overflowing with joy and we danced in a way (and for the reasons) that I imagine the first people who ever thought of dancing, danced.

2. 2001=March, Spring Break in Arizona with Jordan, Martin, Jason and Derek (? I think that was his name?). Eve and I were called up to the roof to find all 4 boys stark naked, sunbathing, with their girlfriends' initials in sunblock on their right buttocks. We laughed, took pictures, grabbed their swim trunks, threw them in the pool, and left the roof.

3. 2002=Memorial Weekend, 4th Street Blues Festival, my first full-blown Root City show at the Twins Bar. If having to pick a moment from that show, I'd say "Pinch Lover" and having Al dedicate a song to me for the first time. It signaled the beginning of a long run for me and many other RCB family members to come.

4. 2003=The moment of getting cast as Nickie in "Sweet Charity," knowing it finally meant I would get to be a triple threat on stage.

5. 2004= I am tempted to just say Italy, but I need to pick a moment. Damn rules! Okay! In Pompeii, I went for a walk away from others because I had hit my limit on too many theatre folk. I was looking at a flower bush and the old gardener came up to me and we had a lovely conversation in full Italian. At the end of this impromptu, long and personal conversation, he gave me a flower from this bush, which he planted for his daughter when she was very little and who had since married and moved far away. He said that she and I had the same eyes. It was one of those amazing moments in life that are 100% magic. Wow, I haven't thought of that in a really long time. Gratitude.

6. 2005=Jan. 12 around 1pm. As Jill Scott's "Golden" played in my ears, a one-way ticket cashed in, I sat in a plane as it took off for Boston, Mass. I knew in that moment that I would live the life I'd imagined, fearless and on my own terms.

7. 2006=April 21, opening night of Bye, Bye Birdie watching my production number "Honestly Sincere" earn a standing ovation in the middle of the first act. It was the moment I realized I was good at what I did.

8. 2007=March 22, Bruegger's in Uptown. Ben and I fell in love that morning, starting with coffee and bagels. My heart has never been the same, blessedly.

9. 2008=Sometime during the fall of that semester, Eric Mayson and I created the opening number of Abiyoyo in less than an hour, in one of the most organic, collaborative and inspired creative processes that ever graced this earth (I'm convinced). We started that afternoon with a chord and a fable and ended an hour later with a 4 minute production number, a strong concept, a full blown musical and a community of people all on the same page. Irreplaceable. I've been chasing Cocolee ever since...

10. 2009= In March, the exclusive Green Door Bar of Taunton, MN, witnessed the karaoke stylings of three siblings drunkenly performing some re-imagined Garth Brooks, before one of them was to be sent to war. Well, Bree and Chris sang, I did creative movement (which was so good, a regular dubbed me "Helen Keller's great grand-niece" by the by), and Mom took pictures and laughed until she couldn't breathe. Right now, it doesn't feel like we'll ever be in that place again, so happy, so in the same place at the same time...so it's pretty damn special to me.

There. Assignment complete! I feel grateful and accomplished in this moment, to tell you the truth. I also just made a bunch of realizations about myself. Like love trumps India, Birdie trumps the Lincoln Center, and Abiyoyo trumps LaChiusa in my heart and spirit. Huh...Who would have thought that? <3

Now...your turn! CHALLENGE!!!!

Pawlenty screws plenty today...OR...Nikki definitely has to move in the fall now

There went my last hope of being able to work in Minnesota in higher education anytime soon... According to him, higher education soon won't need the pesky things like buildings and professors--everything should be digital. Finishing what Ventura began with his ignorant If-they're-smart-enough-to-go-to-college-they're-smart-enough-to-figure-out-how-to-pay-for-college attitude, Pawlenty has assured that Minnesota will continue to define "Education" as K-12...

This is what he announced this week at a visit to Mankato: (from the Free Press)

Asked by a university employee about the prospects for funding for state colleges in the upcoming legislative session, Pawlenty provided a prediction for 2010 and a long-term forecast.

“It’s going to be reduced somewhat,” he said, referencing the state’s budget shortfall.

The bigger issue for colleges and college towns is the more dramatic change coming to higher education as teaching moves from classrooms to computers.

“I think higher education is going to be radically transformed in the next 20 years in a way that people in higher education don’t see coming,” Pawlenty said.

College officials are planning for new buildings — “clinging to the status quo” — even in the face of a digital revolution that offers more efficient, and possibly more effective, ways of teaching students, he said.

“You’re going to see the higher education establishment have the rug pulled out from under them in a way that totally blindsides them,” he said.

“They better get ready. If I was Mankato State University, I’d be less worried about how many undergraduate buildings I’m going to be building and more worried about how I’m going to lead the digital revolution that’s coming.”

Budget bleakness

Pawlenty served some fiscal gloom with the doughnuts and coffee at the gathering.

The worst news is at the federal level, where entitlement programs such as Medicare, Social Security and other promised benefits carry a price tag that the nation’s economy can’t support, he said. Total unfunded liabilities are $65 trillion for a federal government that generates annual revenue of $2.2 trillion.

“They’re broke,” he said.

Pawlenty didn’t offer much more hope for flush budgets at the state level either after he was asked to be “compassionate” on salaries for aides to people with developmental disabilities. Spending on health and social services programs is rising at unsustainable rate and must be curtailed, he said. A few years ago, those programs represented 15 percent of the budget, now it’s 25 percent, and it’s projected to grow to 75 percent or more within 20 years.

“There’s going to be no money left for anything unless we reform our health and human services budget.”

Protecting prosperity

After a seven-year tenure where budget deficits have come frequently, where Democratic lawmakers have proposed tax increases to erase some of the red ink, and where Pawlenty has remained steadfast in opposition to new state taxes, the eighth year might seem like a bit of a rerun.

Facing a $1.2 billion projected budget shortfall, the governor said he will block any efforts to boost tax revenue. The reason is that business owners in the state already face competitive disadvantages because of Minnesota’s tax rates, Pawlenty said.

“Thank you,” one man in the audience shouted.

“Yeah, you’re welcome,” the governor answered.

Minnesota can’t return to its high-tax, high-service model of the 1970s, he continued. Everything from schools to health care must become more efficient. And newly hired public employees can’t be given the level of benefits promised to those in the past.

This is just a excerpt. Quickly following it, yesterday MSU announced which programs will be cut all together to try and prepare for the 2012 "Abyss" as it's been deemed to be much larger than the "Cliff" which is what we were calling it at the beginning of the school year. The Department of Theatre and Dance and all of it programs made the cut. Hustoles is an evil genius that way...or rather, smarter, more passionate and more shameless to push his agenda than most people in any room where the people who make such decisions reside. He's done something amazing with that.

However the programs to be cut are: aviation, computer science and undergraduate music programs, art’s BFA in fiber and sculpture programs, one of chemistry’s BA/BS programs, computer information technology, curriculum and instruction, mass communications’ journalism program, business education, geography’s BS in GIS and plant science, nursing’s accelerated BS program, food science technology, infomatics, statistics’ BS in computer science, social studies and vocational technical education.

For more info on the state of higher education in America and where Minnesota ranks, check out: http://measuringup2008.highereducation.org/print/NCPPHEMUNationalRpt.pdf

Sometimes I get stricken with absolute sadness...

today is one of those days.

Trying to let go of what isn't mine...

Finding a Creative Habit...

So I read Twyla's The Creative Habit a few years ago, when Gayle was doing her masters on creativity and it inspired me. It continues to do so every time I read it...which is about once a year. I give it out as my closure present constantly. (Closure present=present given at the end of a process you shared with someone, knowing that when this project is over, you won't see them nearly as often or ever be nearly as close. Thus said present gets to say "I appreciate you and how much you made this moment beautiful". I have given this book to all of my dance captains since 2004, for example, and to my dear one, Christine, from MFA when she graduated a year ahead of me.)

Anyway, it's all about finding/creating a routine for your body so that your mind can be open to creative thought. Create a ritual for your day that commits to the work ethic of creativity. I love this idea...and to be honest, it makes sense to me in that place where faith exists. It's more gut than thought, but nobody could talk you out of it as truth. "Without passion, all the skill in the world won't lift you about craft. Without skill, all the passion in the world will leave you eager but floundering." Doesn't that make perfect sense?

I've made my creative space (step 1) and I love it and it works! When I need to write cover letters, essays, research the topic more and find new ideas to incorporate into the already obfuscated play of Virgin Territory. But when I am writing the scenes and trying to find the ending, the anxiety attacks hit...even in my creative space, which is really quite a lovely place to be. I've established my other ritual as well: get up at 8am, grab my sassy water (water with cukes and lemon), light my candles, put on my purple slippers, journal for gratitude and start working by 9am at my desk. And still the anxiety...

I've never been at a loss to make my creative habit work before. What gives?

I think this week with everyone away all week will be good for me. I also return to yoga after a week off...that should help too. Deciding that this is going to get better will probably help the most though...

family...

So in a family...one that labels itself as close-knit...how much say do you really get in each other's choices?

Is there a line in unconditional love?

Found this via google, where I have also confirmed such amazing things as Swoboda meaning "freedom" in Russian, Czech and Polish.

Always knew I was a destined to be a gypsy...

Amazing thoughts I've run across lately...

If I can't dance, I don't want to be a part of your revolution.

A revolution without dancing is not a revolution worth having.

-Emma Goldman

the new manifestation of the buddha will be in the form of a community--Miss Wellin

Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be.-- Clementine Paddleford

I've decided to waste my life again, like I used to: get drunk on the light in the leaves. Find a wall against which something can happen. --Phillis Levin

Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, and lessens the frictions of social contacts.

Clare Booth Luce

And now, after finding these thoughts of others...I have an idea. Dependent on the success of another idea. Dependent on the initiative of, well, myself. I wonder how much magic fairy dust I have left.

Love, clarity, gratitude for all things....

Oh, blog, how I've neglected you....

But don't take it personally. I've neglected a lot of things for the last two months. Like the gym. And Chapter 3 of my thesis. And most of my friends, most of the time. And the actual writing of my thesis play.

What I haven't neglected?

1. Research on my thesis and thesis play.

2. Rocky Horror and Rikkie Recycle.

3. My parents. My brother. My sister. My nephews.

4. Daily anxiety attacks about getting a job, getting my script done, finding an acceptable internship that Hustoles will actually accept (3 so far have been turned down by him and I have been rejected from 4 that I have applied for), and repeating my undergrad career in taking forever to get everything in order to actually graduate with an actual degree and an actual diploma. Daily full-blown anxiety attacks, I have not neglected you.

5. Bottles of Pinot Noir.