hello, peanuts, the play

Two things:

1) I just want to say hello and welcome to the people who have come here recently and begun reading regularly. I'm looking at my stats and it's so nice to see that the place is getting bookmarked, and people are making themselves cozy in the archives. That's just so grand. I hope you'll pipe up in the comments and tell me about yourselves a little bit. So glad you're here.

2) So I'd mentioned in my last post that I've been rehearsing a play, and I said I was going to talk about it before it opened, but then I didn't. Life intervened in the form of another trip to the hospital for ol' Fred. Goddamn. This time: peanut allergy. He has a peanut allergy, it turns out. Awful. He's fine, but really? Is this necessary? I remember when I was pregnant with Fred and was stuck on bedrest, I'd log on to babycenter.com and read the message boards to kill time. There was one area called something like "Controversies". This was where all the smackdowns occurred. Breastfeeding vs. Formula Feeding. Attachment Parenting vs. Whatever It's Called When You're Not Doing That. Et cetera. And I remember getting sucked into a swirling....can it really have been a debate?...about peanut allergies, and what measures are appropriate and inappropriate to protect the people who have them. Now, I didn't know I had a peanut dog in this fight yet, but I remember being amazed by the contingent that was all, "Waah waah with your fatal allergies. We love peanuts and we should get to eat them everywhere and you should just never leave the house!" I'm pretty sure I piped up, which is always a dumb thing to do when you're pregnant - to enter the fray and voluntarily get all worked up over a message board. But now I do have a dog in this fight. Oh, yes. I do. And that's all I have to say about that.

I digressed again. Damn it. I was going to tell you about the play again, but I don't have time to do it justice. I'm off to go shower and get ready to perform. So here are some links which will have to do the talking for me. And then, then I'll come back and tell you about the process, which is really, really cool.

Here's a preview from The Stranger: Medicated Into Madness.

I'll come back and post reviews later. They've all been great. I'm really proud to be a part of this. Elizabeth is one of my dearest friends and I was there when all of this went down. She's turned that nightmare into artistic gold, and I think it ought to be required viewing for all humans. If you're a health care professional, or someone who ever goes to vist a health care professional, this is for you.

Okay. Off I go.

(I guess that was really three things.)

hodgepod

In the old days of this blog, before I knew what I was doing (because now I know what I'm doing at all times), I used to just come on here and talk. Didn't always have a plan or a focus. Just came on the air and started rambling.

Going old-school today.

First of all, CAR ACCIDENT. (Apologies to those who have already heard about this ad nauseum on Facebook. I can think of at least 100 people who will read this and be like OH MY GOD WE KNOW. WE KNOW.) You guys can skip this one.

For the rest of you: car accident! Oh, I'm fine. But I got rear-ended last Friday...can I just pause to say that I don't enjoy the term "rear-ended"? Whenever I say it, I imagine somebody's old drunk uncle is going to come stumbling in from outside, "D'somebody say rear end?! My wife, lemme tell you, she's got a...oh. Car accident. Well, anyway, god bless her. She's got some caboose on her." There are just too many unavoidable jokes. Rear-ended! Slammed into from behind! Shhh. SHHH.

But let's get back to the horrible thing that happened to me. Yes! Very bad! Sitting there waiting to turn onto the freeway and then an unholy BANG! A Bang/Ouch combo, in fact. The driver was cooking along pretty fucking quick, judging by her crumpled car and my jolted neck.

And it was pouring rain, too!

Let me give you a moment to locate your violin.

Tune up a little. There you go.

Pardon me if I observe that you could stand to practice a little more. You've been playing how long? Oh, that's not long. That's not long at all. Why didn't you say something?

Let's enlist a professional.



Thanks for upstaging my very minor whiplash by walking out on stage on crutches, Perlman. You're supposed to be backing me up. Everything always has to be about Itzhak Perlman all the time. Well, I'm sick of it.

Anyway, that's nice. That's a nice song.

So, yes! Bang! And then instead of getting out of my car right there, I drive around the corner to pull over, hoping the driver will follow me. See, I didn't want to block the entrance to the freeway, you know? I was being considerate! Maybe that's not protocol, but hey! Plus I was confused, nay, shocked! But then the lady who hit me thought I was driving away. Thought I was pulling one of those "Get Hit and Run" moves that people who've been hurt in a car accident and aren't at fault so love to do. When I was stopped at the nearby light waiting to turn onto a safe street to pull over, she got out of her car and started yelling at me to stop. I yelled back and pointed to where I was pulling over.

So we pull over and we get out and she's berating me for not staying where we were. And I'm yelling at her "PARDON ME FOR NOT THINKING STRAIGHT AFTER YOU'D JUST SLAMMED INTO MY CAR!" And she keeps at it, "We should have stayed there!" And I'm yelling, "WELL I CAN'T EXACTLY TURN BACK TIME, NOW, CAN I?!" And really, really, really? You're scolding me?

Did I say it was raining? It was raining. The hems of my pants, they were all soaked. Is this the saddest thing you've ever read? This is like Old Yeller.

Police came. It's so nice to be the not-at-fault one. Medics came, but that was gilding the lily. But then I did drive myself to the hospital, due to escalating ouch. I'd packed coffee and breakfast for my rehearsal (to which I'd been headed) and lounged in the E.R. watching t.v. while I waited to get x-rayed. Sent home after a couple of hours with a prescription for Vicodin. Sweet.

And then it was a total free ride from there. Home safe, sore, medicated. Husband watching kids, pampering me. Drama queen goes on Facebook and gets petted by a thousand mommies and daddies. Spacing out on pain meds, watching Downton Abbey on Netflix. Yes, there's a little back pain, and a teeny bit of whiplash, but I don't have to wear one of those collars that makes you look like the cranky landlord on the 70's sitcom who's gotten his hilariously undignified comeuppance.

For a crappy car accident, it's all pretty first-class. I'd say I'm not complaining, but that's because I've already complained at exhaustive length, as Facebook can testify.

Let's see, what else? I want there to be something else. I don't want this to just be about that. I set up the expectation that there would be more.

Well, let's see. I'm writing a book. Good, that's good, I like this buried down here after everything else. Not too much with the fanfare. I thought about not saying anything, but I imagine this might take me a very long time, and maybe sometimes I want to talk about it.

The book's a memoir, with a family/philosophical angle. My dad's side of the family, particularly my grandmother's clan and ancestors, were some awfully unusual cats. There's some clairvoyance that runs through the female line, ostensibly down to me. I'm looking into this, as it were. And my parents/grandparents/great-grandparents were Theosophists, which is a very particular and peculiar thing to be. And so I'm reacting to that, as well. My granny, in particular, was a looming figure. Well-known clairvoyant. Difficult person. Super intimidating. And I'm learning about my great-grandmother, who was also clairvoyant, but went about things in a very different way from her daughter.

Anyway. Yes. It's nice to say this out loud, even if I'm very early on in the process. I think I need to invent some reason that I have to finish it in a timely manner. I think my own steam might not be steamy enough. I think I need an artificial deadline. Somebody give me one.

Is there anything else? Of course there is. My god. I'm alive, after all. That wasn't my whole autobiography. But is there anything else I feel like talking about today? No. This post was to be entitled "hodgepodge". However, two topics do not a hodgepodge make. Ergo, hodgepod. But I'll come back very soon and tell you about the play I'm rehearsing, which opens next Friday. How about I do that before next Friday? Yes. Good.

See you then. DRIVE SAFELY. (tiny violin)