It went well. People laughed. I guess when it comes down to it, people like silly stuff onstage.

In the meantime I've killed 7 mice in my apartment. Would you say that's an infestation? At first we tried the humane kind--they are humane in that they don't catch mice! Then I bought traps. After the first one Bindi Girl and her beau and I had a funeral--Beau played the Casio, Bindi prayed in Hindi, I recited a limerick in its honor.

Now--fuck it, I'm a killing machine. I can empty one of those big black boxes, and reset it, and have another one trapped in a matter of hours. Okay, so it is an infestation. But neither my landlord nor I want to use poison. We've decided to continue the killing spree until this batch is gone, and then see about sealing the holes. As I write this I realize that I have a kind of morbid fascination with my task--how long will it take for me to end the reproductive cycle of this mouse family? Bindi's on tour--isn't aware of my new blood lust. She may need to stay with Beau until the slaughter is over.

And there are people who have the money, but Jesus--it's not due for another month--or two!--and think: I'll just set it here among all this other crap and send it later. And then the crap gets crappier, and there are overdue fines, and there's just no reason for that now is there?

Yesterday I realized that my car registration was overdue--did I even get the notice? It's not here among the other crap. And so I think--well I'm really supposed to register my car in CA anyway, so let's be all official and look into that, but fuck I've moved 5 times since I bought my car. Now I know the paper work is somewhere in a box marked "FILE" in my parents basement, and in those files is one marked AUTO, and in that file it says how much I paid for the thing, and how much sales tax I paid, but you know it would really just be easier to lie. To call the WA DMV and tell them to send me another notice here in CA because it's just a temporary thing, and I'm coming home soon.

And THAT makes me think about that. Coming home. Home. Hmmm.

And that makes me think about stuff. This stuff I've been carrying around with me for the past few years. Stuff that makes me feel like I'm home. Books, and saucepans and original artwork.

Now that's just silly.

I know that soon I need to get rid of this stuff. It's not a material thing that makes me want to keep it all, it's a confronted-with-the-trajectory-of-my-life- kind of thing. Because--here it comes--AT MY AGE--do I need to be buying used pots at St. Vincent DePaul when I land where I eventually land?

I just found out where I will be for most of next year: Working here for part of the summer, going to Seattle for August and September, doing a pedagogical internship here through December, interning with Pig Iron Theatre in Philadelphia Feb-April, staying on to see their new production in May.

So. I really don't need to deal with all of this until at the soonest, January.

Dudes: It's frickin' February!!

Last weekend our class went to the beach with our mask teacher and did a ritual. We stood with our backs to the ocean and imagined it was our past, and when we turned around to visualize our futures--a seal swam by.

And the frogs by the Grange are so loud at night.

In the first weeks back thinking mostly about the end of the year: thesis projects, research projects, internships. Wrote a proposal, then rewrote a proposal--a disaster clown play--and yesterday I just rewrote another one which is mostly about...the moon.

That seems best.

Started working this week with a mask teacher from Mexico and I feel like my training this year has just started. Moment, by moment work. Awareness, breath, openness--we're working with "Empty Masks" as opposed to Neutral masks, and so it's not so focused on Universal Man or Woman, but the person who is wearing it--you are emptying yourself of habit, of judgement, of tension.
It is profound. And it opens up the outside world to the studio so that the logging trucks and geese are part of the work as well as the walk to the chair in front of an audience. Sounds woo-woo, I know, but that's my world right now. Later we will work with traditional Mexican masks that she brought with her--devil and death masks, jaguars, old men, women with bright smiles and gold teeth.

I'm becoming an Indian--that's what Bindi Girl says. I drink tea instead of coffee, and Dal (I make a mean Dal!) and eggs have replaced my morning toast and peanut butter.

I'm still in love with the Logger and I am finally on "The Happy Jar"--if your name is on the list, you pay fifty cents for two rolls of the dice. Get five of a kind and you win the jar. When I first got here, I saw other people rolling and I asked Brenda what it was. Bless her heart, she just turned away. There are arbitrary rules about who can be on the jar. You have to be a local. A REAL local--not just a passing through student. After the last pot was won Brenda brought me the list. "You wanna be on the jar?".

I have arrived.

During the choir part Lily brought Freddy outside, then a teacher whispered into Jimmy's ear. He left and when he came back he whispered in my ear: "Freddy just hurled in the hallway." A few moments later we see principle Doug snapping on gloves and exiting. I love Principle Doug.

Earnest Mike just brought me a bag of potatoes. "Keep 'em in a dark place or they'll turn green".

Entered my first 9-ball tournament at the Logger the other night--was the first one eliminated. Then long conversation at the bar with Fugazzi about our show--character and timing and ensemble..about how to give the audience permission to clap after this one song. We tried pausing, changing our stage position, striking a pose--is it an unresolved chord? We final got applause the other night because Fugazzi changed the lighting.

Then conversation with Fisherman Pete about...fish.

Then conversation with some of the farmhouse boys and Lily about earthquakes and orgasms.

Another reason I love the Logger--Burly local men think nothing of delaying the pool tournament to wait for Fauxhawk Rick to get back from choir practice:

Show for McKinleyville High School--mind you this is a family show where we are dressed in ridiculous piggy costumes--were prepared for them to eat us alive--and they loved it. Clapped at everything, laughed, talked to us afterwards. Go figure.

Came back to Blue Lake in time for an annual ritual--a toast to our founder, Carlo Mazzone Clementi. All day there was an altar outside with his photo, a ribbon with the Italian colors, flowers, candles, wine--as the day grew there were more bottles of wine, and at night we gathered. Joan--the head of the schoool--played the accordian, my classmate Ade played guitar, we ate salami and roasted garlic, and toasted to our Papa.

Our cast had to leave before the trek to his grave, but as part of our warm-up we sang "When I get drunk, on a gallon of Carlo Rossi..." in his honor. It was the night to videotape and two of our instructors were there--so I decided to spice up the show by falling off the set (throughout the play we climb and play on these metal crossbars). We kept going, Jimmy, as our mother pig improvised fabulously, and I just went into clown mode. The shock kicked in on the van ride home. Was feeling a little tender, so Jimmy took me home for a huge family hug, and Spooky Nell wiped my tears with Jimmy's hat, then gave me a dime and a battery to make me feel better.
In my apartment there was Bindi-girl and a few first-year students, then more students, then more wine, then music and salsa dancing, then crepes, then more wine, and ultimately: FLOOR BED.

I try not to remind myself that when most of these people were born I was in junior high. I take their comfort and vitality, I offer them food.

From there we went to Petrolia which is near the Lost Coast. It could very well be the most beautiful place in the world. Green valleys, hills, trees, ocean, cliffs, sheep...

We arrived to a potluck dinner in our honor where we met our host couples and then departed to our separate homes. Jimmy and Fugazzi (our tech guy) and I stayed with some local legends, Jane and David. Real Haight-Ashbury activist hippies--hung out with the Dead, and Janis Joplin, David was in the SF mime troupe...they lost their home to an earthquake in '92 and then used all of the material to renovate their barn, where they live now. Cook on a wood stove in the winter, grow or raise about 75% of their food, you go pee--"away from the house a little, just anywhere in the garden, and for #2, I'll show you where the shitter is"--an open air outhouse with a view of apple trees and the ocean.

I drove the van on the windy roads home and despite the incredible beauty we had just left, people cheered when they saw the first sign to Blue Lake. I arrived in time to be in the mini 9-ball tournament at the Logger. Was eliminated in the 2nd round and Lily and I walked home arm in arm.

In the last month was reminded in a big way of how small this town is--things...shift, are not as they seem. There are ideas and ideals and truths and misunderstandings...but in the end--here I still am, in the middle of it. Can't hide in an anonymous city. And here, in the middle of it, I am supposed to be developing my point of view--creating outrageous art.

Am grateful for Jimmy, Lily, and Bindi Girl (and of course the Logger) for boosting me up.

And Now the News...

Just opened the holiday show which our class wrote: Three Pigs. A family musical adaptation of the children's tale with not so subtle references to Homeland Security and other Bush specialties. We go on tour on Wed. Tour stops include Petrolia--a community of about 300 people where they will put us up in their lovely solar-powered homes, and Cave Junction where we will stay in treehouses.

Tomorrow my first day off in weeks. To do: sleep in, fix car, write paper, take bath. That seems like a lot--maybe I'll just take a bath.

Coming to Seattle around the holidays--flying this time. Let's have a drink at the Six Arms while I'm there, okay?

Many weird synchronistic things happening here this time.
I've been carrying this parachute around with me for about ten years. I've used it in two shows. Last time I was here I brought it but it stayed in the closet. This time while packing I considered leaving it behind, but couldn't.

Last week we got an assignment entitled: "Parachute".

Finished paper mache-ing my elemental mask and today our teacher, Bruce, will help us cut them off the molds. Mine looks like a combination of a river, some car parts and "The Roadrunner".

Getting used to having last minute assignments and classes on weekends.

Just wrote a critique of a company production--I slammed it. Will be turning it in to the head of the program who was the lead in the play. I kind of love that.

Right now pouring down rain. Just made muffins. Have to write a proposal for a research paper than spend a couple hours in the studio with my parachute a ladder, and a bunch of mail.

Oh, and I have to write six haikus that describe my "magic moments" with a broom.

I love my life.

There are ten people in my class (7 women, 3 men). We are from the US, Canada, Holland and Korea. There are 26 people in the PTP (12 men, 14 women). They are from the US, Israel, India, Italy, Sweden, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. There are 7 people in the MFA 1st Year (3 women, 4 men). They are from the US, Korea, Canada, and Puerto Rico.

We go to school from 9am to 12:30, and then 2:00 to 5:00.

Our class has our own studio (the crib) away from the rest of the school. It is near the brewery and lumber mill, and we share a wall with some kind of construction place that uses loud machinery all day. The men there also listen to pop music (they are especially fond of Norah Jones). The light in the women's room doesn't work, so we all use the men's.

My homework assignments involve stuffed envelopes, a broom, and lip syncing a Portugese song.

We're making elemental masks for the 1st year students to use--not animal or human, but a study of shape and how it may inform movement in the body. (I dream about it).

On Sunday my roommate, Bindi Girl, and I stood in the Mad River while huge salmon whizzed through and around our legs.

It's the second week of October and I got a sunburn.

I'm the captain of "Tai Chi Club" every weekday morning at 8am on the cruddy tennis courts near my apartment building. (Teaching the new boys how it's done).

My neighbor's teaching me lots of dirty Spanish slang.

My other neighbor, Earnest Mike, is my veggie connection and gave us a pie pumpkin and a Jack O Lantern.

Every Friday my class goes to a gym and works on tumbling and trampoline!

We govern ourselves, and lead our own warmups.

We sweat. A lot.

I don't hurt as much this year.

I'm much more communal this time. Bindi and I eat most of our meals with others--she wanted to call our place "The Adoption Center" We might settle on "The Galley".

One more rain, and the waterfall should be gushing.

There is that friendly: "how do you do, where do you come from, oh how interesting" tentative hedgy thing that we all do. Yes, of course. The diplomatic, let's give everyone a chance because after all we don't know anything about them yet and we are going to spend a whole year (or more) with them after all, thing. And when asked by my friend, Lily, about one of these new arrivals I usually say: “He seems nice… kind of reserved”, or “she seems funny...”

But Lily will have none of this. She demands: "Cross, or Tick?"
A cross being an "X", a tick, a check mark . She mainly gives crosses straight off, but allows that they might redeem themselves later--others have (I haven't asked, but I have a feeling that when we first met, I may have been a cross).
So I have picked up her method:"I just met so and so. Definitely a tick!"
She looks suspicious. She asks a few questions.
"Mmm. Sounds like a cross to me."

But I have learned how to count to ten in Swedish and to say the equivalent of "Break a leg" in Spanish. It really translates into: "Lots of Shit".

So there's that.