Since I've Been Gone

Gone where?  Gone off, not like milk, but like a damned warrior!  Who sat down.  A lot.

All through the month of November.  And achieved this:

Which was so bad ass, it made the plaster crack even more when I drove in the thumbtack.  

"This" refers to the certificate proclaiming me a WINNER.

When last I posted, I was going on about NaNoWriMo anticipation.  Now- 50,436 words later- I am kicking up my feet, sitting in front of the pellet stove, happy to take a break from working on the novel without worrying about how it will affect my month's word count, and daily targets.  Yesterday I plowed through the last 5,ooo words to take me across the finish line, and went to bed feeling relieved that I had met the goal I'd set for myself in signing up, and thinking "Writer's Ass has to be a real thing, a diagnosed occupational hazard."

Now, if you look at the fine print, 50,000 words doesn't necessarily mean a finished novel.  If you finish the story in that number of words, it is a short novel, a Gatsby-sized volume.  So really what I have accomplished is momentum, routine, and support.  I've learned and fell in love with a long-form writing program, Scrivener.  I am back in daily contact with my best friend from college, as we OCD cheerlead ourselves through the process.  My cat has forgiven me for my three-year hiatus in the household, and steadfastly napped by my side as I worked away on my laptop.  Dave gave me space, family and friends put up with email that pretty much only talked about word count stats.  November was a really good month, so when Thanksgiving rolled around, coinciding with my wedding anniversary, I had a ton to be Thankful for.

As I was working through the last weeks of my job in June, I was following a guide about becoming a writer.  Taking some of the first suggested steps, I wrote out what was driving me, why writing intrigued me, and writing goals for the year.  I re-read the list this morning, and was happy to be able to check off one of the big goals- which I had down as "participate in NaNoWriMo."  I was one of the luckiest participants, in that time was easy to carve out- the weather was terrible, and my boss is my husband, who totally supported me in the 50k goal.  I am incredibly lucky in that he'll also support me through wrapping up the draft, which will take the month of December as well.  

Incidentally, one of my goals was also to...

"blog to my heart's content."

Let's pause to admire how very wily I am as a writer of goals.  I would "participate" in NaNoWriMo, I will blog to my heart's content.  Give yourself leeway to fail, and I think you'll do just fine.

NaNoWriMo Anticipation

The winds of a nor'easter are eating away at the last of our fall foliage, Dave's out for the count while dealing with the pain of passing a kidney stone, and I have the day to myself.

A dark, and stormy day.

The kind of day to stay at home and read a cracking good story.  Or attempt to write one.

It's the latter bit that has me antsy in anticipation.  A couple of years ago, my much hipper friend from California (she's quietly hip, not stereotypically hip) told me about this thing- NaNoWriMo.  Huh?  NaNoWriMo.  As in National Novel Writing Month.  A movement started by clever people who looked at much of the country's weather during the month of November and thought there must be some way to escape it....

...Did my research and found out the first year the NaNoWriMo month was June, and then the second year they decided they needed to move it to the miserable weather, hence November... knew it had to play in somehow...

.... It began with 21 people in the San Francisco Bay area getting together, 'cause why not? and now it's a 501c3 with 310,00 adult participants in 2014, spanning the six inhabited continents.  They also do extensive educational outreach.

The goal is to challenge yourself to write at least 50,000 words of a first draft to a novel, beginning at 12:00am on November 1st, ending at 11:59 and its final seconds on November 30th.  Since its first year in 1999, the organization has grown and expanded, and really worked to build community, help curate the experience, and above all, encourage people to throw themselves into writing, for love, for joy, for fun.  Brilliant, no?

That's certainly what I thought.  And then I thought "not while I have this job."  I would always have a show opening in the middle of the month of November, which would mean my hours would be eaten alive by Theater.  So a couple of Novembers went by and I thought "someday."  The day after I finished the job, I registered on the NaNoWriMo site.

Next Saturday will be that someday, and I am truly beginning to chomp at the bit.  I have a title.  That was the first thing to drift by.  I have a lead character and a probable genre.  A premise, even.  And today I have a gorgeously terrible day to write.  But it is my first time embarking on the challenge and I want to do it purist style- prep by all means, but no drafting until Nov. 1st.

So I have created my author profile, set up my novel, with the title and synopsis- and because I was puttering, even a cover image.  I wrote to my friend to celebrate that I had remembered my sign-in password, and to passively put the thumbscrews to her to participate this year because it would make the process exponentially cooler if she were there.  And because if I got a buddy, I would get a badge on my author dashboard at the site.  But mostly because it'd more fun with the friend who led me to it in the first place.

I even went on the discussion thread dedicated to the community of people in Maine who are onboard this year- discovering that during the month of November, the Tim Horton's in Old Town is a hot spot for NaNo writers.

Now it is a little like waiting for Xmas.  I fully expect to have my backside presented to me on a platter by the process of writing lengthy fiction, to pretty much fail left and right, and back myself into narrative corners, and generally have a big old mess by the end of the month- but it will be a glorious mess for the mere fact that it came into existence at all.  And once you've done something once, it comes easier the more you do it.

Since I clearly feel like writing, and sharing, and generally rainy day puttering without actually vacuuming or doing laundry, here's what I have posted re: the November Novel to Be, which I have currently designated as a mystery.  Which sweetly assumes I will manage to create a plot.

Quiet in the House
M.W. Hiltz
 

In a small town, you grow accustomed to death.  Lusitania Pike's first experience was stepping over her mother's body on the way to school, her second left her not-quite-a-widow.  Now a costume designer and seamstress, she navigates the waters of the local theater in the wake of the founder's sudden death in the middle of the summer season.  As the community struggles to ensure that the shows go on, questions of legacy, belonging, and blame must be answered- or buried with the body.







This image editing and synopsis work is deeply reminiscent of how my cousin Torrey used to make trailers for films he'd not yet made.  The Municipal Liaison for this area has already kindly messaged me to say it looks like a novel she'd like to read- Gentle Blog Reader(s), it is a novel I surely hope I will manage to write.  The things I will learn...

Of Brooms and Boredom

I think that boredom is a best friend.  As the weather shuts down from summer to winter here, carrying us through that best time in Maine- autumn- I am anticipating the coming glut of dark hours and inclement weather with some amount of affection and curiosity.  What will they hold, how will I fill them?  This is a question that causes general festering and soul-rot in Dave, who needs the Bahamas, warmth, and sunlight- but the closer I get, the more those hours burn in my mind with the light of potential.  Because I am getting slightly, lightly bored.  Which is a very good place to be.

Obviously, there will be feeding of the pellet stove, shoveling out to the chickens, shoveling out to the drive, and attempting to make 2014's money cover the first quarter or so of 2015.  But such things can only eat up so many hours.

My upbringing made me very good at distracting myself- a semi-only child, I was cleverly raised.  If I ever complained of boredom, my mother gave me two options: I could clean my room, or do homework.  This will make a child very good at finding his or her own preoccupations.

 Consequently, my bedroom was a scourge of laundry, books, toys, costumes, art/craft projects, and laissez-faire science experiments in the bottom of mugs, glasses, and dishes.  The key to allowing this sort of behavior/hygiene is to be able to shut the door to the child's room.  Intriguingly, once I became an adult I proved to be fond of rather tidy surroundings and now quite like to clean.  It helps that we now live in a world packed with excellent audio files, and I can listen to books and clean at the same time.  When I was young, reading and cleaning were mutually exclusive activities, and given my choice (thank you, mom), I chose exclusively to read.   If audio books, NPR, and podcasts did not exist, I would probably still live like a hoarder.

Were I faced with my childhood bedroom as an adult, my head would nearly explode and I wouldn't be able to accomplish anything until it was clean.  Oh, human development- you never know what you are going to get.  That being said, I do suggest that people parent old school, stop hovering over /minutely scheduling their kids, and kick them outside, don't allow much screen time, and let them stew in their own boredom.  How else are they going to get bored enough to create their own entertainment?

Bored is the very best state to be in, because when you are bored, your mind begins to itch and you shift about looking for something to do.  As an adult, boredom is worth its weight in gold, because in one's working life, you are rarely allowed the time to be bored.  But if you are lucky enough to stumble on a seam of it- oh the pointless things you can accomplish!

I confess: I have of late spent my boredom not on noble chores like cleaning out the fridge, or pursuits that might make me seem accomplished or remotely career-oriented, like writing, but rather on an old obsession- costuming.  My friend, Lauren, enabled me, by dangling events and occasions to be dressed up and actually have someplace to go.  So the room that a month ago looked barren, a forlorn sewing machine on an otherwise empty table, now looks like an actual sewing room.  The trick, it turns out, is to spend time in the room, sewing.    

When last my boredom chased me to my writing desk, I was contemplating my 30-odd years of consumerism... and hoarding.  Vowing to be not quite so bad, rather than going mad with on-line searches and purchases, I bent my mind to making up a costume with more or less what I had on hand.  Or had made my parents store in their homes for decades.

The glory of steampunk (the theme for the upcoming occasion) is that it really need have very little contact with reality.  Which is why I can get away with a sternwoman costume that's cotton.  And clean.  And involves... um, skirts.  The only thing remotely realistic are the accessories- gage, banders, sunglasses.  The fact of a hat and gloves.

A theater geek/major, I had petticoats, crinoline, and a red rehearsal skirt with a train that could be bustled.  You may not realize this, but as a female, you can't study Ibsen and Chekov seriously without a long, trailing skirt.  True story.  The punch of Nora slamming the door on domesticity in The Dollhouse is lost if the actress playing Nora accidentally shuts her skirt in the door.  On the mandatory packing list for students at the National Theater Institute- "long rehearsal skirt with train."  Because that's how we rolled (our hips) at boot camp for actors.  I went equipped with two- oh the riches!!!!- the red one purchased on line from a period reconstructionist, and one my mother made for me from black fabric found at Marden's.  Both came in very handy during my final years at school, any time I need to sweep period-style across a stage.

So that was the bottom half of the costume, which entailed me shifting a few storage totes' worth of my clothes, and an old dressing screen from my parent's basement to my house.   It meant quality time with my mother, sorting through old things, and playing "oh, remember!"- a favorite past time of ours.  Last spring, quality time with mom involved having her come to the theater and vacuum the audience aisles while I talked with the props master and stage manager before a show.

As for the top half, I took a summer shirt I had bought at H&M a couple of years ago, and started futzing with it, layering it over another shirt that I loved, but didn't actually suit/fit me, and that I never wore.  I ended up changing the sleeves and hem of the first shirt, then cannibalizing the other for its fabulous bits and pieces.  This left me with a sleeveless fitted bodice, with a newly yoked hem, awkward neckline, and some dreamy brown silk ribbon and brass buttons.  Know what doesn't work?  A sleeveless Victorian day dress.

Off to the Mainer's answer to every needful thing: Marden's Surplus and Salvage.

Six dollars later, I had a couple of yards of blatantly "servicable" brown cotton with a ticking stripe.  I think it says something about my aesthetics that my heart goes gooey over such fabric and thinks "perfect!"  What can I say- I love drab stripes.  Some hours of work later, the bodice had sleeves.  And days later, a collar.  Then- why not? I had a cream chiffon scarf- a built-in fichu.

This is the thing about projects- if you actually like the work, the more time you have before you hit the deadline, the more detailed your work becomes.  So once the bodice had come together, I still wanted more project.  I began looking at my crinoline, an old Goodwill find, a nylon bridal jobby that had seen better days, though it still did what it needed to do to provide poof.  And I thought... I could clean the fridge, and write... or I could refurbish that petticoat.

Somehow I found myself back at Marden's.

And here's the thing about Marden's- it always has the fabric you need, at the price a Mainer (read: cheapskate) will actually pay and be pleased about.  I am fairly certain there is a small god who conscientiously devotes him/herself specifically to this one concern of the universe.  I believe I owe that god a small shrine for how it helped me through multiple stage productions...

Today's mental exercise: design a shrine to a small god of your own choosing.  Perhaps to the god of asshats?  If you are a constant reader and got that allusion, you are welcome- again.  Also, you do not suffer from trivial memory loss, but should still go and check to make sure you turned off the oven.  Or figure out where you put your small child (if they are clever- and all children are- they will have found something to do, while you wandered off to catch up on cyber reading).

I digress, if digression is possible when you are not steering for a fixed point.

Petticoats!  And brooms!  You see, at Marden's on one of their great mounted rolls of cloth, there was a plain white cotton- soft and substantial, a million miles wide, it was clearly meant for sheeting.  Which in my mind, was exactly the type of stuff I wanted to re-make the petticoat with.  I walked out of the store with about 15 acres of it, and am pretty sure that the sales lady, having felt it up while serving me, quickly bought the rest of the roll.  Part of me thought- "you could make another white sheet set!"  It is the part of me that would walk out if it could, because I almost never listen to it.

Measure, pencil in, shear, iron, pin, stitch, gather, hem- construct.  At heart, sewing is building- but you are building soft things.  There's a reason in the theater world we call it costume construction.  In the down time, the windy weather, I have been methodically rebuilding the petticoat, the way you rebuild a broom- I am replacing the whole of the skirt, but keeping the crinoline.

It's still the same petticoat.   Years on, someone might think the crinoline is a bit tired and not keeping shape, then replace that.  Still the same petticoat, right?  Recycling is a process with soul, I think.  Worrisome that we as a society don't do enough of it.  When's the last time someone mended a broom?  Or anything, really?

Even in the course of a project you get bored.  So while working on the costume, I also managed to finally stitch one of three "curtain" panels (i.e. raw Marden's fabric on  ring clips) for the living room, and make a cover for a frankly hideous hot pink footstool I'd bought for a song at TJ Maxx and always semi-regretted aesthetically.  Two curtain panels still wait for me to care enough to iron, pin, and hem them.  Cloistered, becurtained living room privacy be damned- there's a reason I have left that rhododendron out front wildly overgrown.

This morning dawned dark and dreary, rain pattering on the roof- a perfect project Sunday for those inclined.  I went into the sewing room, to start on next steps, but didn't turn on Midsomer Murders, my companion chatter, because I was ready for quiet- I even remembered to turn off the iron before I came to my writing desk.  Every kind of work requires a special style of boredom.  Welcome, friend.

A Conspiracy of Clothes

One of the most delightful parts of speech is the collective noun.  Herd of turtles, a pod of whales, a flock of geese, a den of thieves, pack of hyenas, etc... the ultimate, of course, being a murder of crows.  Hey, is it a "suicide of emos," "a judgement of hipsters?"  Holy smokesies, making up collective nouns is a fun game- but I digress.

As I have been putting my domestic life together after a tumultuous five years of all work and no play, and only-essential housework, I have those moments when I think: where the hell is that shirt?  Or those pants?  I had them on Isle au Haut/in Portland/in Sullivan?  When did I last...

Buying an old farmhouse with attached barn, means that surely you could/should consolidate your belongings under this one rambling roof- even organize them so they pack in efficiently.  All "everything has a place, and everything in it's place."  We've now owned the house for almost exactly two and half years, and it has taken that 32 months to do some renovation, updates, cosmetic fixes... and simply unpack the stuff we brought over from Isle au Haut.  I am pretty sure we could now count the boxes not yet unpacked on one hand.  Victory!  Sort of.

It took us this long, because like most Americans of this age, we have accumulated a lot of stuff.  Which we are typically too busy to use.  For Dave and I, we're talking at a combined 77 years of "why not just get this?"

Community closet: he likes hunting, I like history...

Since leaving my salaried job, I have spent a lot of time thinking about how in the world Dave and I can build a sustainable lifestyle where we work together, and make ends meet.  How to increase income and staunch the monetary bleeding that is now pretty normative in modern America, even while in The Great Recession.  There's a whole lot of "hey girl, time to get serious about want vs. need."  And the more I look around, clean up, reorganize, and do Goodwill weeding, the more I realize: "dude, you seriously have everything you need.  Honestly, more than you need... you've collected for 34 years, how about you maybe try to coast a while on that... maybe even stop to use/repurpose it?  Because this, my dear, is verging on obscenity."

Morgan- what on earth does this have to do with collective nouns- other than that you are going on about how we collect things?  And nouns are literally just names for things?

Let me explain: While I was packing away winter stuff and pulling out summer clothes (yes, New England does require bi-temp dressing), I knew that somewhere- under this roof, there was a whole group of shirts that I was missing.  I remembered them, but I had no idea where they were hiding.  Somewhere, there was this conspiracy of clothes, playing the old parlor game "Sardines."  Now, was my summer wardrobe wanting for the lack of these shirts?  Hell no.  Even with all of the phantom pullovers, tee shirts, and blouses missing except for the memory, I was doing just fine getting dressed in the morning- whether going out on the boat, or going grocery shopping.

A few weeks later, I was cleaning up The Great Gingerbread Meltdown (expect a future post on this), when I opened a bureau to find- not only my lost marble (!) - but also that particular conspiracy of clothes- which even included clothes I had almost completely forgotten.  AHA!

Fast forward to the last 24 hours, when I have been binge-reading articles and posts on historicalsewing.com.  I love clothes.  Always have, always will.  As a little kid, I pored over What People Wore, a huge historic compendium of how people dressed, from the skin out, and including headwear, footwear, and hairstyles.  This formative book forever after helped me tell time in terms of centuries and decades.  By the time I was a teenager, I owned and read A History of Underwear, which is something of an academic tome; think PhD rather than pornography.  I was in the early stages of what would also develop into a serious love of non-fiction.  Making shit up is awesome- don't get me wrong- but the world as it exists and has existed is the most bizarre and marvelous, brilliant and beautiful thing.  I could spend a lifetime just gorging on the details of... well- life as people have lead it.

I am not alone in either of these passions.  Also firmly in the saddle atop a clothes horse is my friend Lauren, who is much better at riding out in her clothes than I generally manage to be.

 Theater was how I endeavored to be dressed up with somewhere to go.  My college education actually included how to construct clothes, walk in trains, and involved spending quite a few hours in corsets and rehearsal skirts.  In theater, however, you are very much at the mercy of the story the show is telling.  So I've slumped out in prison stripes (BTWs the dye process involved uric acid, fun smells in the costume shop!), and strode out in a gown rented from the Metropolitan Opera.

Yours Truly in Elizabeth Rex- totally a costuming win, if you like the fancy stuff.

Also... you have memorize pages and pages of dialogue.  It's a lot of work not directly related to the clothes.  As you might have noticed, I am also pretty intense about the written word, so I am clearly not only in it for the clothes.

Lauren is way better at self-determination and setting her own damned stage.  The plus side is she gets to assemble (not just wear) the clothing.  In theater, you only get to spend the hours with the materials, problem solving if you are working as a costumer- not as an actor.  Our species is compulsively creative, and for many the clothing compulsion isn't just about wearing, it is about making.  In Lauren's case, creating goes beyond the costume.  Because she is often creating the entire event.   She's meticulous and holistic in a way that a theater geek like me can appreciate, though with a slightly different bent- she's also thinking food, set, accessories, cocktails, photography and company.  Afterward, she will spend hours happily building photo albums- it is her own personal creativity continuum- planning, to party, to photo assembly.

Aging means more than accumulating stuff- experience means improvement, refinement of technique.  When we were fifteen, Lauren totally tried to throw the ultimate New Year's Eve party, complete with formal dress, opera playing in the background, little gourmet ham tartlets, and a few delightful rounds of charades to keep things lively.  Sadly, this was in 1995, all of her invitees were born in the final wave of Gen X: grunge was the predominant fashion, and Deer Isle-Stonington the predominant culture.

My homegirl Lauren, 6 years before the NYE party...

It was a hilarious night for her ironic-minded friends, who gobbled up the absolutely delicious tartlets, and gaffawed at her attempts to make high school boys act civilized.  I am pretty sure they mostly wanted to smoke pot and make dirty jokes.  And wear jeans.  Parlor games, like theater games, only ever work if everyone buys in- otherwise they are just painful.  And her friends weren't buying.  It was a rough night for Lauren.  But, Scarlett O'Hara stubborn, I am pretty sure on that night, as she went to sleep, she raised a fist and vowed never to throw her entertainment pearls before swine again.

Twenty years later, she is marrying her love of general fancy-pants fabulousness to her love of museums, and is one of the founding members of the Victoria Mansion's Gaslight League.  No, theater/movie geeks, it's a not a group devoted to making other people think they are going crazy, it is a group devoted to bringing a younger/wider set into philanthropy for the museum...  By hosting costumed cocktail events at the museum.  This is not a leap for Lauren, who held her wedding there.

The girl grows up and makes her own way... Dave holds my bouquet...

The League's pilot party: a steampunk themed Halloween soiree.

This will be my first Halloween in three years not to be stolen by directing a show, and needing to build a set.  Hell yes, I will be getting my costume geek on.  Hell yes, I will surrender myself up to another of my friend's carefully curated experiences.  Blessed are the people who do the work so that you can just show up.  In costume.

But here's the thing about costume geekery: your eyes get really big.  Your visions are shiny.  And you start going down the rabbit hole of research.  Pies fly in the sky (it's crazy- DUCK!).  Your inquisitive nature starts steering you toward the acquisitive... curiosity and creativity are a wonderful things, but can lead down a primrose path that leaves you miles from moderation.

The next thing you know,  you have somehow added more to your stash, and the purchase of bits and bobs have added up (I spent what, now?).  Our curiosities compel our collecting- our hobbies add to our hoarding.  I am stoked to build a steampunk costume, and the stitcher in me is dying to dive into sewing projects (as I have now managed to set up my sewing machine, in a room, on a table... it was collecting dust behind the pellet stove).

But hold on kitten.

What do you need?  Damn you, clothes!!!  I need not to spend money on notions (literal sewing notions or figurative ones), and I need not to spend autumn hours on costume construction, when I had promised myself I'd be spending those hours on paragraph construction.  Because giving up the white-collar job and benefits, and making the move to manual labor was intended to free my mind and time up for writing, and part of making up the difference in income, means making a difference in spending.

The Battle...

...of the Work Stations

Writing is free.

Obviously, it isn't only one thing or the other.  Life is just a series of compromises you make with yourself and the world.  The solution of course, is already inside the problem.  Clothes may be a conspiracy to tempt me into spending, but the conspiracy of clothes already cluttering my closets are the answer.  Because in the world of general costuming- as opposed to historical costuming- you build on existing pieces.  I have those in spades (and incidentally at my parent's house in Sullivan- what was that about consolidation, Morgan?).  So after the hours of binge reading the work of a historical costumer, I pulled my head out of the clouds, slapped myself into practicality, and began to dig.

Which is why earlier this morning, Dave found me in a layered ensemble of corset/dress/vest/jacket... over my pajama bottoms.

Um... Wifey?

It's terrible when people walk in on your first draft.

Which is how I ended up breaking it to him that at the very least, I would be going to a Halloween party in Portland (his attendance is 100% optional), whole months before the actual event.  Usually he finds out about my plans for him much later... speaking of conspiracy, I tend to only inform him of events and company once it is truly Need-to-Know.

Now, having written.  It's time to get dressed.

And to keep in mind a useful mantra:

Use.  What.  You.  Have.

A Company Job

So it recently occurred to me that lobster fishing is a bizarre job in that many people actively want to go to work with you.  Volunteer job shadowing!  How much fun is it to go out and help someone do their work- for free!

We bring folks out on the boat at least a few times a season, and Dave does actually do a couple of charter trips a year, when he is paid to bring people to work with him.  He's also brought out school trips, and we've often brought out cast and crew members from the Opera House's Shakespeare shows.  Friends, family- all aboard.

That's how I started- over coffee at the cafe on Isle au Haut, I wrangled an invitation to go out and fish.  Poor Dave was just never able to politely make me leave the boat.  I am pretty sure he finally married me to make sure he'd be the beneficiary if (while distracted by making up stories, monologues, songs, and essays- or gazing at the water for porpoises) I ever went overboard.

So what is the lure of lobster fishing?  Getting up close and personal with large quantities of herring?

The sound of the diesel engine?  Rope sweeping by your feet as it is pulled overboard?


No- perhaps the super early wake-up?  Who doesn't like setting their alarm for 3:30am, and then actually getting up for it?

The more I think about it, the more I think the truth is age-old.  Some percentage of us feel the call to the ocean.  It doesn't necessarily fit into the everyday lifestyle of the modern American, but it is there- funding cruise lines, underwriting research vessels, paying for pleasure craft.  And while many people make their living in salaried, scheduled jobs, (and for most of my life this has been the case), they fantasize on occasion about chucking at all and running away to sea.  Every day I have spent on the water- from when I was a little kid in a row boat, to when I was in my early 20s, getting in my once-a-year-day on a power boat for the lobster boat races- I have stoppered up the experience in my mind, each day bottled up and stored as a day I felt like I really lived.  People come out to experience one of those days.  We are happy to give them that- the work can be long, monotonous- company keeps it fresh.

Incidentally, company will come from in the water as well- the fleet has more or less adopted this half-blind gray seal... or has she adopted us?  BTW, she's gotten picky about bait, and will only continue to beg if we've got the good stuff.
  

Breakfast on the Bay

The time between leaving the mooring and making it to the first trap is one of the best parts of the day- once I've baited up about a box worth of bait bags, it is just commute time.  Nothing much for me to do but look out the window; except, in my case there's no window, there's the stern platform.  I finish my coffee, check out what sort of sunrise is happening (fishermen become sunrise connoiseurs), look out over the water.

Lately, this last bit has been fairly captivating.  On days we are fishing down the west side of Isle au Haut, we're steaming over a broad expanse of open water.  The mornings have been what is referred to as "flat ass calm" and the water has been alive with schools of herring- rippling silver out of the surface of the water.  Where there's small fish, there's soon the animals that break their fast on small fish.

The sparkle of sardines on the water draws the terns, with their rilling "pew, pew, pew, pew!" and gliding dives.  Soon the seals are circling and harbor porpoises are making their measured dives; a few degrees of sun light later, the puffins are buzzing in from Seal Island flying for all the world like bombers.  On the second day of the schooling herring, far off the starboard side, I saw not a porpoise.  It was dark and finned, but much longer, and even more leisurely in its dive than a porpoise.  There was just- more body to deal with.  Surely I had seen a whale.  I voiced the sighting to Dave, and by and by, he saw it, and affirmed I had not lost my mind, but had in fact noted a minke whale.  Which is not a harbor porpoise.

That was my first identification win of the week.  A few days later, I noted another not-quite-porpoise that was far lighter in color than any self-respecting harbor porpoise, and was downright jaunty in its dive.  "Um, are there... dolphins around here?"  "Yep, Atlantic White-Sided Dolphins."

I WIN!  AGAIN!  I can officially tell when something is (probably) not a harbor porpoise.

So while I watch the various marine creatures snack on the herring, which must also in turn be snacking on something else- I am typically drinking coffee (at this point lukewarm), and wishing I was having breakfast too.  Recently, a friend brought pickled herring while staying at the house with us, and while I am of 25% Swedish extraction, I don't watch herring school and crave that particular cultural offering.  It would totally fit in my reduced-carb diet, but I am much more Mainer than 3rd generation Swedish-American.  Give me a freaking doughnut.  Or poutine.  Is the low-carb version of poutine just melted cheese and gravy?

Happily, before I get too hungry, we are full tilt into the fishing day.  The day before yesterday, the weather had turned on us, and the smorgasboard on the bay was not so ebulliantly on display.  The sky had turned grim, and the wind over the water had picked up.

Exhibit A: Conditions go all broody
.  Very Swedish.

The past few nights have been "super moon" nights where the moon is full and particularly close to earth, which means super tides- 13 footers.  We'd made it down to our traps off the south end of Isle au Haut- deep water, with a ripping tide will suck down the gear, making buoys vanish and reappear like Houdini.


As we neared the first pair of one string, we saw the left-overs of someone's breakfast, snagged in the line and buoy.  It was half a harbor seal.  Go a link up the food chain beyond seals consuming herring, and you have sharks consuming seals.

This particular shark was not very frugal in its use of its food, and certainly did not think to re-purpose the pelt to make superior-quality cold weather wear.  Fucking sharks.  In this case probably a Mako, because we suspect that the Great Whites which have been hunting in our waters with increasing frequency would have done a greater job at cleaning up.

We pulled the remains free of the line, and hauled the traps- only to have the tide carry the body directly to our next pair of traps.  Another day on the bay.

To Audition or Not to Audition...

The community theater program at The Grand Theater in Ellsworth is being resurrected this fall with a production of Spamalot, the Monty Python pastiche created for Broadway by Eric Idle.  I just spent last evening enjoying New Surrey Theater's production of Carousel, and have for many reasons been thinking I should audition for Spamalot.

What's my motivation, you ask me?

I have asked that myself.

First:  I am pretty sure that the theatrical condition is like malaria, or herpes.  Lifelong with flare ups.  It goes dormant, sure... and those times are peaceful and productive.  But then.  Something like Spamalot, or oh- say a theater job with salary and benefits (which makes it seem like a grown-up/productive thing), will come up.  And you may find your self systemically unable to fight it.  The next thing you know it's all late nights, manic behavior, pulling away from your family and loved ones, reduced appetite, and flop sweat.

I have this disease- Human Theatrical Virus, and the only way to keep it under control is to regularly say "No."  So technically it is in that shadow land of addiction: is it disease, brain chemistry, poor choice making?  Is there such thing as moderation?

Oh holy hand grenades, it can be a slippery slope, participation in theater.

So why do I want to audition?

- To publicly get back up on the horse, having been kicked to the curb by the job.
- Dude, it's Spamalot.
- To work with Scott Cleveland, who was my musical director for The Pajama Game, and reconnect with Ken Stack, who directed me in Grease and Into the Woods.
- To act, rather than direct and design.
-To be a part of the Grand's community theater comeback.

Why do I not want to audition?

- It's a 50 minute drive in for rehearsals.
-Gas means money, and have I mentioned departing that salaried theater job that left me miserable, but fed me very predictable amounts of money?
-Evening rehearsals may well mean tired/no fishing.
- Seriously, theater is a giant focus suck, and I had been thinking I should focus on work and writing.
- And being a human.

Incidentally, last night I looked on-line for an update about auditions. The last time I checked, a couple of weeks ago, the site said would be held in "late summer."  As of last night's internet check-in, they are yesterday, today, and tomorrow.


Also incidentally:

If you, or someone you know has something like this in the closet, you/he/she may have HTV.

Writer's Block

So here's the trick with writing a blog that is personal narrative, when you are naturally pretty reserved, and raised fairly Yankee- what do you write when the voice in your head says "that makes you sound like an ass hat; who would care about the mulch in your garden; no, that will come across as self-righteous/pompous/asinine/entitled/hollow/hypocritical."  If you don't have something useful to say, don't say it.

Etc.

(Pause to contemplate what exactly the use of an ass hat would be and the design implications... I digress, and parentheses always aid and abet me- but seriously, take a moment and imagine your own ass hat design).

You are welcome for that compelling exercise in imagination.  It was your Xmas/birthday gift for the year.  I love you and it is indeed, it is the thought that counts here.

I have a lot of free time in my mind these days- specifically in my mind, not "on my hands" because my hands are busy.  These days, my hands are cramming herring into baits bags, banding lobsters, or weeding the garden.  This leaves my mind to roam, to revel, to reverie.  The upshot is that story outlining is moving ahead apace.  Characters and content for Tales from the Wilde Isle surface regularly- just this week Jonah, Jinx, and Job showed up on my doorstep, I suspect because their parents didn't want them around.  I have found the outlet for my feelings re: the bigger-and-better boat race and the habit some people may well have of hauling other people's gear to pay for said bigger/better boats, which is a retelling of "The Fisherman and the Draug"- a classic Scandinavian ghost story.

The beautiful thing about fiction is that you can get all the vengeance your little heart desires, and it is entirely legal, and presumably doesn't make your soul all Dorian Gray manky.   And the beautiful thing about manual labor is that you have your mind to yourself.

But what to write for the blog?  You see, I had set a goal for myself- to post at least every week; only by writing can you become a writer, and blogging is a business tool, and a regular writing exercise.  And a couple of weeks have flown by... and... date and time stamps, and any sort of public will keep you honest.

I have not met my goal because I've been over-editing before even sitting down to draft.   This is hilarious, given that the root of my writer's block is anxiety about the audience's reception of me and my little preoccupations.  Everyone is absurd in their passions and preoccupations- perhaps growing up (growing out?) is allowing yourself to be publicly absurd.

And let's be honest, right now that "public" is only friends and family (Hi!- seriously, happy birthday/merry Xmas!) and they are patently familiar with my particular peculiarities.

So sit down, and work through it, woman.

You're Welcome vs. No Problem

It was a couple of months ago, and I was hosting a visiting artist at the theater.  As I set up for him, he was keeping up a steady conversation with our librarian, which I could hear as I monkeyed around, refocusing lights, finalizing sound levels, etc...

"Why is it nobody says 'you're welcome' anymore?  It's always 'no problem.'"  At that point he began to range out of earshot, but I think there was something about graciousness, and the casual lack of it in younger people.

Later, when he was thanking me for all my work- despite overhearing this pet peeve piece of his worldview- out of sheer habit and muscle memory, I grinned and delivered a sunshiny

"No problem!"

Then I mentally kicked myself- but there was no taking it back.  I was one of those ungracious young people who would only do work I deemed to be "not a problem" while insinuating that the person I did the work for was a bit of a problem.  As if by denying that I had gone out of my way, I was really affirming that it was a pain in my ass.

And I heard one of the gray-faced, gray-suited members of the Committee for the Criticism of Morgan that has always resided in my head saying: "Then again, young lady, this type of 'out of your way' is in your contract...he is welcome to these services."  He was, everyone is- and to the best of my ability I always wanted people to feel comfortable, to feel welcomed, in the space.

Since then I have been chewing on this, and have been trying ever to slightly to retrain myself.

"Yooooooooou're weeeeeeeeeeelcome"

But I have become one of the breed that says "no problem."  The way Midwesterners say "you betcha," Spanish speakers say "de nada," and Aussies apparently say "no worries."  I will confess I fell into the geographically inappropriate habit of saying the latter during the spring, while I was juggling the audio versions of In a Sunburned Country and The Last Continent.  My mind is ever suggestible, and I was no match for Bill Bryson and Nigel Planer's voices in my head as I fell asleep.  Happily, once I moved on to other books, I recovered my sense of dignity before someone slapped me, or it got worse and I started sliding into a bad assumed accent.

So this response to "thank you" had been bothering me, and then a week ago, while catching a bit of Prairie Home Companion in the car, I heard Garrison Keillor go on a self-confessed elderly tear about the young people and their "no problem" problem.

What is a young(ish) person to do in the face of such generational discord?  And is it generational?  Did it start off as regional?  The passive aggressive "no problem" sounds about right for Mainers working in the service and tourist industry.  Oh the complexities of life when two two-word phrases face off!

Quit Rate

Do you ever listen to the news, and think "Hey, I am a part of that statistic!"

This was recently the case for me, as reporters and economists discussed the increase in the quit rate, and how it is an indicator that the job market is recovering.  People finally feel secure enough in their chances of finding work that they are willing to leave the jobs that do not suit them.

My seatbelt kept me from hopping up and down in my seat exclaiming "Me!!!  Me!!!  I am doing that!  It's terrifying, absolutely terrifying- and wonderful!!!"

Some of those people who have been grinding on the thought "I am mad as hell, and I am not going to take this any more" and keeping it behind their teeth, finally wrote tidy little letters, and are moving on to...

Well- I can't speak for anyone else comprising the statistic, but for me, I am moving on to fishing and writing- hopefully being able to cover expenses while focusing on a few things well enough to master them.  I loved the work I was doing- but it was about 5 jobs compressed into one, with more bosses than you could shake a stick at.  Not a recipe for longevity- the turn over rate in the position had been pretty high.

So I knew:

My candle burns at both ends;
   It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
   It gives a lovely light!

Mine lasted three years before burning out.  Now I look forward to reconstituting my particular candle- hopefully just as lovely, but longer burning.  Maybe find a position not so vulnerable to wind from every quarter.

Wait, Who Am I? Part Two- Human?

So after turning myself into a work-breathing theater mermaid of the mind, how am I to handle the aftermath of the show?  I certainly still have work that needs doing (think of the common hamster on a wheel metaphor), but all of a sudden that work doesn't require that I use nights and weekends as working hours.

I can do the work in the daylight.  Monday through Friday(ish).

Which means that the person behind the job now has evenings and weekends to...?

Try to downshift and remember what precisely it is that I enjoy doing not because I have to, but because I want to.  And reacquaint myself with the people in my life who are marginalized into the category of neglect known as my "friends and family."

I took two personal days off of work to recover.

Day One:
5:00am- Wake up, groggily get into clothes, swill coffee.

5:30am- Go into work to set up Romeo & Juliet video & plans for sub.

6:30 am- Come home, attempt to write personal emails.

7:00 am- Write work emails that keep distracting me from personal emails.

8:30 am- Okay, back to personal email I had left off in mid-sentence.

8:40 am- Field phone call from school freaking out about how to turn on lights in theater, which is being used for school pictures.

9:30am- Finish up school emails.  For real.  Even close the tabs.  Go back to writing personal emails.
9:40am- Pass out in puddle of drool, having just started chatting with friends.

11:00am- Wake up, determined to go into Ellsworth with self, to buy chicken shavings, read a book at the Mex while eating nachos and veggie fajitas, with possible window shopping at Goodwill and TJ Maxx.

11:15am- Dave wakes up from his (matching- we do his and hers) morning nap, and gets a chance to talk with his doctor about that pain in his abdomen.

12:00pm- I drop Dave off at the doors of the Ellsworth ER, and then go hit the Mex.  I did mention that after all the work attempting to be a humane director that it is a struggle to regain my humanity in my personal life, right?  Also, Dave is a walking physical/health disaster magnet, and I have learned to sort his pain into drama levels so I won't live my life worrying (and getting stress-related conditions myself).  This was not life and death.

12:10pm- While tucking into nachos (OMG, sooooo good) think: "Wow, I am a total asshole."

12:15pm- These nachos really hit the spot.

12:20pm- It's as if I just dropped him off for a playdate at the hospital.  I'm that callous.  Oh- I'd know that sizzle anywhere- my fajitas are on their way!

12:21pm- While the fajitas are exciting, I am still digging these nachos.

12:22pm- Worst wife ever, but I am in my happy place.

12:40pm- Finish my green tea chai, settle up, prep to do walk of wifely shame into ER.

12:45pm- ER Room #3.  Dave told them that I buggered off to go shopping, so the looks I am getting are a little quizzical, which is the professional version of horrified.  Happily, my theater training has made me pretty comfortable with making an ass of myself publicly.

12:45-4:00pm- Time ceases to have much meaning (the interiors of hospitals being similar to theaters, that way).  I get to watch Dave's insides via ultrasound in a dim room with white noise, and hear the nachos in my belly say "Sleeeeeeeeeeep.  Sleeeeeeeeeeep the sleeeeeeeep of the satiated!"  Curse the molded plastic chairs that are my destiny as the patient's spouse.  Spend much time in ER Room #3 sitting in molded plastic chair while looking longingly at Dave's comfy johnny and hospital bed.  Experience intense spousal jealousy.  Why does he always get the bed and I always get the chair?  Text Dave's Mom re: the condition of Dave's condition: liver, appendix, & gallbladder fine, just a new presentation of his kidney stone issues.  Text friends for sympathy/to keep from falling over in puddle of own drool.

4:something pm- Leave time sink that is hospital, get into truck, go to fill prescriptions for Flomax & high test ibuprofin.  Buy self hair dye and leave in conditioner.  Get Dave to buy me cadbury creme eggs, because I have made a rule I will only eat them if they are gifts from other people.  Nearly drive off road three times when back on Deer Isle because I am distracted by some form of natural beauty that I can't recall or even imagine now, because seriously- this is just the ugliest part of the year.  Maybe it was sunny and I was just dumbstruck.  Dave waited until the third time before he said "ummmm.... wifey? Are you trying to kill us?"  He is very patient with me.

6:00pm- 12:00am- Work 500 piece Jane Austen jigsaw puzzle while watching Austenland and the intensely abridged movie version of Pride & Prejudice.  Dye hair improbable shade of auburn.  Dave passes two kidney stones.

Day Two:
Do not really even remember this day except that it involved reading, sleeping, and solving the puzzle again (a NEW way) while Dave watched Magnum P.I.  I bet I ate something.  Like pizza or nachos.  Dave passes another kidney stone.  I do know I got up and went into work at 5:30 again, thinking I needed to set up the theater for my class, and realized- nope, it was going to be in the computer lab again, and I should have just slept in.

Day Three: BONUS!  Snow Day.
I totally cleaned the kitchen and the bedroom, and was only mildly passive aggressive about it!
Took apart and solved the puzzle again, mourning the fact that I did not time the puzzle working, so can not analyze the affect of learning on completion time.  Could have at least tallied number of times Dave shook his head at me about the puzzle mania.

By Day Seven, I had read two actual books, had gotten back to sanitary conditions in our food space, had clean laundry- bathed for real (not just washing my hair while kneeling at the tub) had written two long nearly intelligible blog posts, had dinner out with friends.  Also, naps with my cat.

Today, Dave used a 2x4 to block me and win a race while we were running through the deluge to the truck, so the jerk balance is back in a happy place as well.

So the official steps to regain my humanity (assuming travel and good weather is out of the question):

Eat at the Mex. With book.
Close out of work email, and hide computer/iPad.  Seriously- phone as only device, used for audible, compulsively checking weather, and texting friends.
Work puzzles mindlessly and repetitively to get out the excess OCD.
Read books (anywhere, everywhere).
Clean.
Binge watch BBC material.
Write inane blog post or journal entries.
Spend mundane time with Dave being made fun of.
Pass out in puddle of drool with cat.


While it might make for a unnecessarily long post, I am totally talking to my future self right now, and I know she'll probably appreciate the reminder this time next year.  And now... think about ordering Galley Pizza for lunch, (my stomach also went OCD and I am having a hard time getting off the pizza, nachos, frappacino wagon), and working a puzzle- I borrowed new ones from a friend...

Wait, Who am I? Part One: A Director

The danger of working in a very immersive, salaried job is that you will drown in it.

Theater tends to be this way- everything must come together in relatively short order for opening night.  For the show to come off, you just plow through the work, and time very quickly ceases to have any meaning.  You are working in a space with no natural light, so day and night pass without making much of an impression.  Weekends are simply a cultural artifact made up by unions, and in many places  in the world, aren't an entitlement.  Vacations, likewise.  To get through the work, it seems critical to just let go of those markers.

So when I am in the throes of directing, if I want to be joyful in the process, I have to get pretty philosophic- to run full tilt at Humanism.  I work to stay present in the moment, to be happy in the company I am keeping whether I chose the company or not, to see all challenges as enrichment.  My props master has been asking me in all seriousness how I do what I do with the community without going mad, and without getting mad: hard-headed philosophy (and ruthless optimism) is my trick.

I've worked with directors who screamed and used sarcasm, either out of temper or as a tactic.  Good product can come out of harsh rehearsals- but I suspect that works best with advanced students and professionals, not with young students and untrained community members looking for a healthy way to while away winter hours.  Yelling at people is not something I have ever seen bring about joy, or build confidence.  Sooo... not in my theater.  Also what is pretty keen about leadership is that people will take behavioral cues from you.  If the big (albeit rather small rather youngish) kahuna doesn't yell, no one else gets to.  Except Tinker.  Why she gets a pass, I am still... not sure.  It's a work in progress.

My working theory is that you can get to quality work through kindness.  To execute the theory requires that I breathe and blend (very basic) Buddhism and Christianity.  With a soupcon of folkloric delusion bent to my needs.  It may well be that I never bring my community actors to the brink of greatness, but for our group, the goal is met if the audience leaves entertained, and we've created something we can be proud of.

So I put in the hours.  I practice my patience.  I remind myself that good ideas come from anywhere and everywhere, and that as director, I need to stay open and above all, be approachable.  I have to actually believe in people.  As a community theater director, I am a teacher, and teaching is a two-way street (if it isn't you are doing something wrong).  I am pretty much the Anti-Auteur.  There are basic mantras I rip off from people smarter than me, who I can not remember but will quote...

"Here.  This.  Now."

"Only connect."

(okay, the latter is E.M. Forster, and I prefer to use ! sparingly(ish) so make it my own by thinking of it with a gentle full stop, instead of with his punctuation)

The upshot is that I spend 10 weeks or so, consciously existing in the moment with a large group of people ranging from age 8 to age 80, and working with great care to create reasonably good amateur musical theater under humane conditions.

Now when I go about creating the humane conditions, I am creating them for everyone but myself.  My production team tends to do this as well... they also put in the insane hours, to make sure that when the whole crowd is in the theater the machine works with some degree of smooth efficiency.  Blessed are the stage manager and props master (and the main builders) for they are also so committed they should be committed.

The project becomes practically my whole world.  I constantly have to assimilate info and make and communicate decisions, or delegate them.  My focus has to shift with speed from the music, or dance timing to lighting cues, sound issues... all of those pieces that have to come together.  It's a Zen ADHD: people come at me with questions regarding their specialty, and I have to provide answers on the spot.  Which means I really do have to listen to them.  It takes all of your powers of concentration to split your focus like that.

I start seeing the work in aquatic terms- fluid dynamics and folkloric biology.

First- I am a surfer.  All of the group's input, the questions, comments, observations, ideas... that's the wave, constantly in motion in multiple dimensions.  Either I go with it, pay attention, and make allowances... or I wipe out.  So much for the succinct metaphor.  On to the painful and extended one...

Second- I'm a drowning woman.  The work has engulfed me, and there's no surfacing until the show is
over.  I remember one night alone in the theater, as I was in the stage right wing thinking about my to-do/priority lists and how many hours were ahead of me and how they would not involve quality food, sleep, or a home life... and that none of the work could be shirked or procrastinated... the only thing ahead of me was work and then more work.  This kind of realization can lead to many responses- hysterical weeping and hyperventilation, quiet stoicism, a quick and indefinite trip beyond the nearest international border... in this particular case (I was pretty tired), I just thought...

If work is water, it's way over my head and there's no escaping it... I am just going to grow some motherfucking gills.  It's my imagination, bitches.  I'll be a management mermaid if I want to, breathing all the questions that need to be answered, and breathing out answers and decisions.  And it's okay that I am not breathing fresh air outside the theater, because I have transfigured.  Done.

WEIRDER THINGS HAVE HAPPENED.

So yeah- for the final three or four weeks, when people came up to me with bizarre detailed questions that I had to answer, I was totally imagining it was all being filtered through gills, and that I no longer needed actual fresh air... "wheeeeeeeee!  I am a mermaid!!!!  Or a Selkie!!!!!"  Darting from back of the theater to the lighting booth to the dressing room as needed... Work?  I BREATHE THAT SHIT.  IT'S MY ELEMENT.

Okay, while I didn't get mad, I might have gone a little mad- but as a tactic.  Incidentally, theater mermaids exist on a diet of mocha frappacinos, pepperoni pizza from The Galley, and nachos to survive.  Also fresh water to ingest.  And Shirley Temples.  With Ricolas, chocolates, and candy canes as important dietary supplements.  It's fairly hunter-gatherer.  Thank god it was chocolate and candy cane season in the theater.

Jesus had beatitudes, Buddha had his eightfold path, we all need useful ways of thinking.  When something has got to give, and the circumstances won't change, your thinking has to.  So in order not to drown in my (let's face it- deeply ridiculous) work, my mind morphed.  I was so surrounded by work, I felt like I couldn't breathe, so I chose to go with it, and to just believe that I could just breathe the work.
Personally, I also need humor, so rather than a profound vision, I had to get more than a little stupid.

And then the show closed.  The work was finished.

How do I breathe now?

Dammit.