Exes and Ohs

My buddies Natasha and Justin are performing their 2-person improv show, Exes and Ohs, at the Comedy Spot this weekend (Saturday at 10pm, $14). Check it out!

Show Description:

Looking back on your most significant relationship, what would you do differently? How did the 'you' then turn into the 'you' now? And how could you have felt so good about someone so bad for you?

They say hindsight is 20/20. Join us as we rehash your most significant relationship, so you can finally see what went wrong.

5 Places I Love

1. card and paper stores. i remember one of my best days ever - i was in boston for a conference, and on my "free day," it rained. i took myself to a yoga class, then out to lunch; then i ducked into a paper store and spent over an hour browsing and gulping in all the wonderful colors and designs.

2. duck, nc. i step onto the beach there and it's like opening an old journal - returning to a part of yourself you haven't spent time with in a while. the raw beauty of the place affects me like nothing else.

3. tobago. for my 30th birthday, i spent a week there on a yoga retreat, and connected with myself in a way i hadn't in a long time. i got to float in the sea every day, i felt incredibly powerful from a twice-daily yoga practice, and i ate the most delicious, fresh vegetarian food at every meal. it was truly heaven.

4. indian restaurants. the smells and flavors.

5. kalorama park. it's a shady retreat, i love the view of the cathedral over the tops of houses, and i used to walk my dog there every day...there's nothing like visiting a neighborhood where you used to live. (even though it's probably less than a mile from where i live now -- not the same blocks i walk every day anymore...)

how 'bout you?

Serendipity

In The Artist's Way (my bible, as you know by now if you've been reading for a while), the author, Julia Cameron, talks about the importance of knowing what you want. Once you can name it for yourself, the universe can respond.

With that in mind, I present: my week.

Me: "I should really be blogging more. It feels so good when I'm posting regularly. It keeps me focused on creative living and gives me energy and I like it." [Further reflection.] "Maybe I avoid it because it makes me happy, and I'm doing that dumb human thing of not doing the thing that makes me happy even when it's right in front of me."

[Next morning. Phone rings]

Kimberly, over at Hip Tranquil Chick: "Do you want to guest blog for me next week?"
Me: "Yes! Yes I do."

[Time passes]
[Phone rings]

Client: "...oh yeah, and we're looking for someone to write this blog..."
Me: "Um, I would really like to do that."
Client: "Great, I think you'd be really good at it. Call [so and so] and tell her I recommended you."

[Dial phone number]
[Leave voicemail]
[To be continued]

His Duckiness

I came across this painting - "His Duckiness," by Harold Whitlow - on the Art Enables* website and fell in love. It's been sold, but there are a bunch of other paintings for sale, with a 10-50% discount available (depending on the piece) through September 4. Check it out.

[*If you aren't familiar with Art Enables, it's an organization that supports the work of artists with mental and/or developmental disabilities, giving them studio space in which to work and helping to showcase and sell their art.]

Eat, Pray, Love

I'm reading it.If you haven't heard of it, it's about a woman who spent the year after a nasty divorce traveling the world: she spent four months in Italy, to explore pleasure; four months in India, to explore devotion; and four months in Bali to explore the balance between the two.

It's an interesting setup that pays off - you get to vicariously experience decadent Neopolitan pizza and "meditation caves" at an Ashram within 50 pages of each other. I read a passage last night that really struck me, and I wanted to share - the author, Elizabeth Gilbert, is sharing something that a friend of hers once said. The friend is a neuroscientist and a student of Yoga.

"Just as there exists in writing a literal truth and a poetic truth, there also exists in a human being a literal anatomy and a poetic anatomy. One, you can see; one, you cannot. One is made of bones and teeth and flesh; the other is made of energy and memory and faith. But they are both equally true."

I like that.

The Cathedral

Driving past the National Cathedral, circa 1998:

Me: "You know who got married at the cathedral?"
Jordan: "Who?"
Me: "My parents."
Jordan: "Oh."

Driving past the National Cathedral, every time since then:

Me: "You know who got married at the cathedral?"
Jordan: "Yes."

(Thanks to Kate for the photo.)

The Language of Wine

My beloved high school writing teacher, Mrs. Wilchek, who wore rose-scented perfume and collected buttons (not the ones with slogans on them - actual buttons), once told me her dream job was to be someone who named things. Need a name for a new shade of lipstick? She's your woman. Naming a new street? You know who to call.

I found myself thinking of Mrs. Wilchek as I read an email earlier today from Bistrot Lepic in Georgetown, describing a wine tasting they're having next week (they have them every Tuesday, actually). The email describes a brut they'll be serving as having "dough" accents. Ummm....But it gets better: this wine also "finishes with a tactile sensation around the gums." Ah, yes, a tactile sensation. The best kind.

And then, there was the capper, part of the description of a rosé:

"It gives an impression of youth and vigour but also tenderness and serenity."

Oh. My.

I now have an image of a room full of struggling poets who can't get published and so turn their creative energies to describing wine. Crumpled sheets of paper lie scattered across the floor. They haven't even tasted the wines they describe, they only know that "good and grapey" will not do, nor will the slightly more sophisticated "a full-bodied red." No, their bosses expect more from them, and there are no small parts, only small actors (or whatever the equivalent is for poets), and so they earnestly churn forth, until at last, a small glimmer of inspiration: of course. An "accent of dough."

There's hope yet.