Author: sychela

Categories
Beauty Theatre Work

SF City Hall, and my face

Wish I could say I’ve been busy but really I’ve just been boring.  Next week should be more interesting though as I’m seeing a final dress rehearsal for Aida at the Opera, and then volunteering to help with their Opening Night gala…which is the Opening Night for the entire season, and takes place primarily in City Hall, and sounds AMAZING and I wish I had a ballgown and could attend. 

I was in City Hall today and fell in love with it.  If I was going to go the big-formal-wedding route (you know, in another dimension), I would want to do it here. 

 

 

Also, I just finished reading this book (Still Life With Husband by Lauren Fox) which stated that if you take a picture of yourself and digitally alter it to have two pictures: one of the right side of your face mirror-imaged and one of the left side, one will be subtly but significantly more attractive.  All I’ve got is a cameraphone and MS Paint, but you get the idea. 

LEFT SIDE
RIGHT SIDE

I realize it’s not a great picture under normal circumstances, and my haphazard cutting and pasting did not help things (tracheotomy scar?).  I do feel when I look in the mirror that sometimes the two halves of my face do not go together as well as I’d like, but after this little experiment I’d say I like my face with one right side and one left side.

Audience participation time!

Categories
Nonfiction Religion Tomato

Motherhood, and the harvest

Remember back in May when I got a dinky little tomato plant from the Davis Farmers Market?

And I predicted that it would explode into a tomato tree?  Well I am a proud proud mommy because that is just what it has done over the last 3 months:

Tomato plant is a survivor and has flourished despite the infrequent days of sunlight and the blustery winds at night.

And now I count 5 or 6 (that I’ve found so far) little tiny marble-sized green tomatoes.  I couldn’t be happier (true, dear?).

I just can’t wait to eat these.  Is that wrong?  It sort of feels wrong.

Categories
Exercise Religion

One trip to the dentist equals two new paperbacks!

Often, in order to get myself to do something, I have to set up a system of bribes and rewards.

When I get home from the gym (especially later at night) and find a parking spot near our building (especially one of the primo ones), I feel like God is working with my system to reward me for that gym time.

I went 14 times in my first month of membership, which I think sets a good standard, and works out to $2.29 per visit.

Categories
Nonfiction Theatre Work

Sweet, free mandolin.

Tonight I broke out the mandolin (the musical kind) in the closet.

To make a long story short, I have this mandolin, which one of the musicians in Woody Guthrie loaned me, and when I tried to give it back to him closing night, he told me to go ahead and keep it, and keep practicing, and if he ever needed it back, well, he had my contact information and we’re both in the Bay Area.

I looked from him to the mandolin (in its Trader Joe’s bag, because he said he didn’t have a case for it) and back to him.  “How many mandolins do you own?”

“Oh, about eight or nine, I guess.”

“And is this your cheapie mandolin?”

“Well, you can tell how long it’s been since I’ve played it, by how out of tune it is,” he replied.  It was indeed out of tune.

At this time, I should admit in the interest of full disclosure that I had had a few or maybe several drinks, to celebrate closing night.  So while part of me kept saying, “Give him the mandolin, this is crazy,” the other part was like, “Sweet, free mandolin.”

So tonight, in admiring the craftsmanship of a friend’s mandolin (the kind you have in your kitchen and use to make crinkle-cut vegetables), I remembered my musical-type mandolin in the closet (still in its Trader Joe’s carrying bag).

We tuned it using a Droid tuner app, and then Dale attempted to play “Losing My Religion” (Drew’s request).  Allen Joe then played it like a guitar, quite successfully!  Here’s what I learned:

a) I forgot the chords I learned,
b) Maybe it’s my fate to listen to and admire the playing of stringed instruments, but not to play myself, and
c) I seriously miss that show and that crowd.  I kept wanting to announce, “I can restring and tune a guitar.”

Maybe this reaffirms the decision and phone call I made today – I’ll be back at Marin Theatre Company for at least 2 more months working on 9 Circles by Bill Cain.

Categories
Memoir Nonfiction

The Internet, with the email and the wikipedia

Our generation will have some really interesting stories to tell our grandchildren, the kind that begin with “Back in my day” or “When I was your age.”  For instance, I remember before CDs or DVDs, I must have been in middle school and a teacher who worked with my dad at the high school was showing us these “laser discs” he used in his classroom instead of videotapes.  I remember thinking, Psshhh, that’s ridiculous, but look what happened within the next few years.

I also remember when the “computer lab” at school was a happening new addition, and we each had a Mac to work on.  We would practice typing, ClarisWorks, and SimCity.  Eventually we even went on The Internet.

When we got The Internet at home, my family had one computer in the middle of the kitchen, and my brother and I would monopolize it to “do homework.”  If we were doing something private we would turn down the brightness of the screen almost all the way.  We would have to squint to see it, so how could someone getting a glass of water glance at the screen and see what we were doing?  (I guarantee you I was writing poetry.) 

Of course we couldn’t sneak onto The Internet because our parents would hear the telltale sound of the modem dialing up – and will anyone born in the 80s ever be able to forget that sound?  I think not.  We quickly figured out how to turn the sound on the modem off, and I definitely remember my mom picking up the phone to make a call and realizing we’d been on The Internet for hours now.  Oh such fun.

Now I realize how annoying it must have been for anyone trying to call us between the years of 1999 and 2002.  That busy signal drives me crazy now when I try to call home, and it only happens every so often.  I bet back then it was constant, and more irritating with every redial.

I got my own phone line sometime in high school, although that was only because of all my long-distance phone calls to Mendocino and Ft. Bragg.  I even remember the phone number (-9096) although I only had it for a couple years before I went to Davis.  Then that phone line became the internet line, and now I wonder what happened to it, if it even still exists.  Maybe some other kid has my 9096 number as their personal phone line.

My parents have, of course, graduated to a cable internet line for more rapid downloads, a much sleeker Mac, and constant internet connection.  They are now a house with a computer in one room chiming with each new incoming email.  Along with these chic new changes came cable TV, three years too late for Robb or me, which I think was deliberate and my parents’ brand of dark humor.

When we were having all the carpets in the house replaced with hardwood, I was the one who opted to keep the carpet.  (I still prefer carpet to wood floors, one big check mark in California’s favor.)  While the rest of the house was torn up, the computer, TV, and VCR were moved into my room.  I have a vivid memory of renting old movies from National Video (they did 3 movies for 3 days for 3 dollars) and watching them while emailing people and talking on my own phone line.  It was so luxurious.  Amazing.

My grandchildren will probably roll their eyes at me while they pick up whatever tiny miracle devices also happen to suffice as cell phones (or maybe they’ll be implanted in their heads so they’ll roll their eyes while they tap out codes on their temples?) while I try to tell them about the days of busy signals and not everyone had an answering machine, and sometimes you just had to make plans to meet up with your friends at a certain time or place, and then everyone would just go there.  If you didn’t know how to get there you had to ask someone for directions or look at an actual map you would keep in your glovebox. 

I’m absolutely not saying it was better back then, I just like the way our generation balances on the divide.  Sometimes I see old people with email addresses and it makes me smile, and sometimes I see old people who refuse to get email addresses on the grounds that they’re too old, and that makes me smile too.  My parents have adapted somehow, better than I would ever have guessed (especially given that they still don’t have call waiting or caller ID, and they screen their calls, so I always have to leave a message going “Hello?….Are you guys there?….Hello?”).

But some older people are trying to adapt and just haven’t quite made it, as evidenced by this conversation I overhead at work between two (ahem) older folks:

-Did you watch that video I told you about yesterday?
-Yeah, I watched it last night.
-On the youtube?
-No, not on the youtube, I just googled it.
-You what?
-I watched it on ebay.  I mean, not ebay.  On yahoo.
-Oh really?
-Yeah, I googled it.

Bless their hearts.  Of course, I know this’ll be me one day, with phrases and trademarks I can’t even imagine yet.

Categories
Memoir

To brand new experiences

Today I went to my first ever yoga class.  I really wanted to be able to condition that sentence somehow: Today I went to my first ever yoga class in California.  Today I went to my first ever yoga class at this gym.  My first ever yoga class since college.  But nope, I thought it over and realized I’ve never taken an actual yoga class, much as Kaitlin and I discussed going to one in New York City.  It’s not surprising I never went to one in Davis, given my one single failure of an appearance at an ARC class: a pilates class targeting legs, abs, and butt (that is over half of your body; is it wise to target all of it at once?).  I don’t remember how Erin and Paige fared, but I remember aching for days.  For days, I tell you.  It hurt to laugh.  I remember Liz and I were taking Kerry Hanlon’s class at the time, and I remember saving her a left-handed desk and concurrently being in pain.

Well, pilates for over-half-of-your-body is not the same thing as yoga, and I thought I would be okay.  I have become something of a yoga master on Wii Fit yoga, which I believed would count for something.  Then I arrived at the gym.  And saw all the people lining up with rolled up mats under their arms.  But I am good-natured, so I asked Teresa (who works there, who has become something of my friend/acquaintance, against all odds) if I was supposed to bring a mat.  She said no and pointed towards the room where the mats were (there was still a kickboxing class finishing up) and I laughed it off, joking that I was intimidated.  But I was kidding.  But I made a little mental note to buy self yoga mat.

When the kickboxing class finished up, I headed straight inside to the back of the room where I could watch other people.  I have heard you’re supposed to tell the instructor you’re a beginner, but I couldn’t figure out who the instructor was until she had started instructing.  And I’m pretty sure she figured out my beginner status right away.

It was pretty cool, over all, except that it’s hard to go all Zen and relaxed when you’re alternating between a) surreptitious glances around to see what “backwards swan dive” looks like, and b) giggling at the pose names.  Near the beginning we did a series of sun salutations, which I remember doing in Sheldon’s acting class, and I remember liking the repetition and the way it all flows.  I bet it would have been a lot more fun if I didn’t spend the first 2 1/2 salutations remembering what flows into what.  The last 1/2 was pretty fun.

When the instructor started walking around and touching people I freaked a little bit, but she seemed to focus on the students she already knew, which was reassuring.

Then a bunch of them did Bird of Paradise, which looks amazing but was absolutely not happening with me.  Luckily only about a third of the people in the room could do it, so the rest of us stood around and pretended to be “lengthening” while we really just watched them enviously.

Halfway through the guy next to me rolled up his mat and left, although I guess it was his third class in a row today, so mine is a shallow victory.

Also, while doing tree pose, while I was thinking, Yes! I know this from Wii Fit! I can totally do this!, it turns out my foot is resting too close to my knee, which the instructor didn’t like.  She didn’t say anything to me directly, she just kept saying, “Everyone, please keep your foot away from your knee, it’s bad to rest on the knee,” until I finally moved my foot down.  So I’m pretty sure she was talking to me.  Tree pose is no fun when your foot is on your calf.  So now I have something to work towards, I guess.

We finished up in corpse pose, which is the funniest one, right?  Because you’re just lying there.  Then she kind of whispered into her microphone to stay there as long as our bodies could (me: “Um, I can lie down a long time, like for hours even”) and then she thanked us, and then she thanked our bodies for being there tonight, and then she whispered “Namaste.”  And then I waited until I heard at least 3 other people get up before I got up.

It was interesting, and I would like to go again.  Actually I would like to try a class with the other instructor to see if I like her style more.  I don’t feel the way I feel after a regular workout, but I don’t think that’s necessarily good or bad.  To new experiences!

Categories
Books

Books for sale, two bucks a book

In the past, I have (twice) kept a list of books that I’ve read in a year.  It’s an interesting exercise, because then I can go back over it and remember titles that otherwise I would have forgotten…but also it turns reading into a race, a “I have to finish this by Tuesday so I can add it to the March column.”  I have been reading A LOT lately (not sure why, but it is kind of a cyclical thing with me), so I wanted to be able to write some of these down, not that I’ve been keeping track all year.  Most of the books have come from the library, where I assumed there would be some sort of easily-accessible check-out history.  Unfortunately no.  The SF Public Library doesn’t seem to have anything like that at all, while the Peninsula Library offers a Reading History, but you have to have “opted in” already, which I hadn’t.

So I’ve cobbled together this list based on what I can remember and I know, sadly, I’m leaving things out.  But just to give an example of how out of hand this has gotten, yesterday I finished The Namesake, finished Thin, Rich, Pretty, read Five Little Pigs, and read half of The Late, Lamented Molly Marx.  Yikes.

Possibly I need a full-time job (both to keep me busy and so Drew doesn’t have to work all the time), and/or a hobby.

Hope In a Jar, Beth Harbison – These books are fluffy enough to keep me turning pages but not really interesting enough to talk about.  Also I’m tiring of overweight heroines.  There, I said it.

The Nanny Diaries, Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus – I have never seen this movie, but I secretly love the book.  It is so well-written.  It’s the perfect complement to The Devil Wears Prada.  If you haven’t read either of those two, do it now.

Valley of the Dolls, Jacqueline Susann – Okay, I feel like this was kind of a tongue-in-cheek book club pick between Erin and me, but ultimately I liked it.  It was so trashy in a 60s way.  No one was happy and everyone got what they wanted and then it became their downfall.  LOL.  (Also, I noticed there is a book called Jacqueline Susann’s Shadow of the Dolls, written by a “Rae Lawrence,” which is theoretically based off of JS’s notes for a sequel, but updated to the 80s/90s.  I read one page out of the middle and it was AWFUL, not to mention I saw a misspelling right away, which made me think maybe not this time.) PS. The Dolls are pills!

Kissing in Manhattan, David Schickler – A collection of stories about people in Manhattan, all of which are gradually intertwined.  This is the kind of Manhattan life I NEVER led, not that I wanted to.

The Good People of New York, Thisbe Nissen – I loved this, I loved the characters, I loved the wandering of the story, I loved the lessons, I loved the author’s first name.

The Fourth Hand, John Irving – So not as good as The World According to Garp or A Prayer for Owen Meaney.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson – The interesting thing about this is that I think that everyone understands the deal with Jekyll and Hyde, but few people maybe have read the story.  Like, I have seen the musical and the Wishbone episode, so I grasped the concept, but the story is set up with the idea that the reader doesn’t know they’re the same person (oh, spoiler alert) until nearly the end.  Which I bet really threw a lot of people for a loop when it was first published.  Also in the story, lots of juicy details about why Dr. Jekyll did this to himself over and over again, and delving into good vs. evil.  Loved it.  (Bonus short story in the book: The Bottle Imp, which I am mulling over adapting or otherwise updating.)

The ABC Murders, Agatha Christie – 50 pages into this book I realized I’ve read it before.  That happens more than it should.  (See The Department of Lost and Found.)

Five Little Pigs, Agatha Christie – Thank God, I didn’t think I’d read this already and I was right.  I am definitely going to check out more AC stuff from the library, I forgot how much I love her (and Hercule Poirot).  PS. I totally thought I knew who the killer was, and I was wrong.

The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri – I know I’m late to this party, but I love love loved this book.

Smart Girls Like Me, Diane Vadino – Interesting protagonist and interesting story, but not something I’ll really recommend or ever purchase.

The Department of Lost and Found, Allison Winn Scotch – I liked this book, but definitely have read it before, I’m guessing in New York.  This is just sad.  Jen Lancaster told me to read books by Allison Winn Scotch and Beth Harbison, so I’m fulfilling my duty here, but I’m not enthralled.

The Late, Lamented Molly Marx, Sally Koslow – I way liked this book, even though the protagonist is dead through the whole thing and I’m still not entirely sure who is responsible.  I think that’s how it’s supposed to be.

The One That I Want, Allison Winn Scotch – Meh. Lots of musical references. Another “fantasy” novel by AWS.  Maybe going to stick to my own instincts and do less blindly-following-where-Jen-Lancaster-leads-me.

Categories
Drew Sleep talking

LOLs

1. I was just on Facebook and changed the page before I realized this, but on my home page were 2 things for me to potentially “like”:

          LOST!
          1, 342, 857 people like this

          JESUS CHRIST
          493, 400 people like this

2. It’s my fault for having the light on and typing too loud in our room, but Drew (who has to get up in 5 hours) just had this sleep-talking conversation with me (out of nowhere, I might add):

Drew: You really broke up with the one on the left.
Syche: …What.
Drew: The left.  The left.  One of the characters.  (Sits up)
Syche: What characters?
Drew: In the — In the computer.  (Jerks head toward computer.)
Syche: Um.
Drew: On the left.  The left.  (Rolls over.)  YOU know.

Usually I’m in bed with the lights out when this happens, so I’m so glad I was able to grab a pen and record this for you and for posterity.

Categories
Awesome Beginnings cars Drew Family Memoir Sentiment

One year: California

 

I can hardly believe it, but a year ago today Drew and I arrived in California with a van packed full of our stuff (see above) and a camera full of pictures from our warp speed drive from NYC.  We arrived one day ahead of schedule (earning us back a day’s refund on our rental car – totally worth it).

I am so happy that we decided to drive back.  Driving across the country was kind of inspiring.  I just flipped through the Facebook album I made when we got back, and there are some really great pictures in there.  A lot of the landscape and the way it changed over 3000 miles.

Iowa, one of the best states.
I think this is Nebraska...I have like 15 pictures of this labeled "Void 1," "Void 2," etc.
Colorado, or Wyoming, something like that.

One year later, I still think it was the right thing for us to do, to come back.  I don’t think that we “gave up” or that New York “got the best of us,” especially considering we had a pretty sweet setup out there.  It was a good life for three years but I guess we both knew it wasn’t going to be our life forever, and it was time to get that party started.

Right now, Liz and Bill are packing up their lives: putting a ton of boxes in storage, giving away a bunch more, and packing up a few suitcases and their cat, and in a week they’ll be flying out to New York City.  They will go from the airport to their sublet in Brooklyn (sound familiar, anyone?) and try to orient themselves to a lifestyle completely unlike what they’ve been living.  While a little part of me is jealous over this blank slate, most of me is just plain excited for them…while also being relieved that I don’t have any packing/unpacking in my near future.

I am ready for an NYC vacation, so hopefully we can get it together soon.

In the meantime, I can see the Pacific Ocean from where I’m sitting, and even though I just saw my parents less than a week ago, I’ll see them again next weekend.  It’s 68 degrees here and I’m wearing socks to keep warm (sorry, New York friends).  I miss New York, but not the way I missed California.  Plus, think of the stories to tell my kids about my reckless youth.

Categories
Books cars Family Theatre

“Well, it was no Les Mis Junior…”

This afternoon, Drew and I headed up to my alma mater theatre company in Mill Valley to check out the teen summer conservatory production of Jason Robert Brown’s 13.  I saw it in New York and loved it, so of course I dragged Drew who had never gotten a chance to see it out there.

Man, if I thought the audiences liked Woody Guthrie…this audience was literally screaming in happiness after certain songs.  At the curtain call, the father (?) of the lead actor jumped up and did major fist pumps when his kid came out.  It must be amazing to see a person that you created, now a teenager and up on stage doing something they love.

But if we spent 2 hours in the theatre watching the show, we spent something like 3 hours in the car just getting there and back.  It took us a little over an hour to get up to Mill Valley, thanks to horrendous Saturday traffic.  When the show ended at 4:00 we booked it out of there to get Drew to work by 4:45 in the city…and hit major Saturday traffic coming back over the bridge (closed down to 2 lanes! wtf?).  He was only a half hour late but it was still super frustrating, making us both sit tensely and mutter obscenities at other cars, when we should have been gabbing about the teenagers.

When I left him, it took me a half hour just to get to the freeway.  I spent a lot of this time sitting at traffic lights through several cycles, leaning my head on the window and sighing deeply to show other people how annoyed I was, and occasionally yelling, some of which were swears.  Mostly the yelling happened when a dozen cars zoomed past me in the BUSES AND TAXES ONLY ALL THE TIME lane and then tried to cut in to our lane, in time to make the light I’d been creeping up towards for the last 5 minutes.  It might be true that when I turned onto the onramp to the freeway, a car from a non-turn lane turned next to me, then started to drive in the middle of the onramp, which is two lanes.  It might also be true that I honked at them and then sped around them.

After that I thought, maybe I’m too stressed about this, but the fact was I had been in the car for an hour and 45 minutes basically trying to get the 25 miles home.  I breathed deeply and later went to the gym to punch it out.  (Day 5: $6.40.)

I’m Zen-ed out now but I thought it might still be helpful to make a list of things I love.  Plus I’ve been collecting all these cameraphone pictures.

1. I love that on Tuesday my parents came down and the four of us went to see Wicked, which I’ve been dying to show them.  I love that they loved the show.  I love that my mom and I have been emailing each other just little updates about our day.  (She told me she found some blue nailpolish for her pedicure; I told her I was at work and was hungry but forgot a spoon for my lunch.) 

Here are my parents on BART (they are SUPER excited about going to see Wicked, you can tell):

I have no problems showing my excitement.  Shut up, I love this show.

2. I love our world map shower curtain.  I told my dad I had just bought a new shower curtain, and it was awesome, and he said, “What, is it like a world map or something?”  OMG, Dad!  You were kidding but now that you’ve seen it you realize how awesome it is.

It faces in so you can study while you shampoo.

3. I love the San Francisco Public Library.  I’ve been a member of the Peninsula Library system for awhile now, and finding it very helpful now that I’m working only part-time and really shouldn’t (I deliberately didn’t say “don’t”) spend money on books.  But I walk past the main branch of the SF Library on Grove and Larkin, and I gotta tell you, it’s very promising on the outside.  So on Friday I went in, even though they were closing in 15 minutes, and picked up a library card and admired the inside.  I can’t wait for next week so I can go browse.

The outside reminds me of Shields Library at UC Davis…

…while the inside is what Heaven might look like.

None of these pictures are of books.  But there are totally books there too.  And I walked out with my very own library card and keychain library card!  The library is a really great system, you know?  Free books!  Paid for by the government…or someone.

4. I don’t love leaving Lake County, but I LOVE the way the landscape looks, especially in the summer.  Driving from Lakeport to Davis and vice versa is my little deep down mushy Achilles’ heel.  I can’t help but think of being in college.  And in high school.  This one time, we (CSF, or Academic Decathlon?) were driving back from a field trip to Ashland, and there are no streetlights or anything out there, but I just remember that it was so bright because the moon was full.  I have definitely made Drew pull over on the side of the road and look at the stars from there.  You can see so many.

Speaking of stars, when I went home last week I remembered that I always forget how many you can see out there.  It’s not just, stars in the sky, it’s like the sky is made of stars.  And the Milky Way and everything.  I wish I could see that every day.

But in the daylight, I love this combination of blue, yellow, and dark green.

So now I miss my parents and Lakeport, I am sad because I can’t get any new library books until Monday and because Wicked is closing, and I want to take another shower so I can study Africa.