Author: mathdreads

Cockroach Invasion

I heard the telltale signs while sitting upon my red sofa, typing away at some piece of writing or other. A part of me wanted to dismiss the flapping wing sounds since I hadn’t actually seen it.  Seeing is believing, right? Reality check came soon enough when that little bastard flew straight toward me and landed on my knee.

I. Hate. Cockroaches.

Nearly two and a half years of living in Tanzania as a Peace Corps Volunteer had cured me of being afraid of them. They were in my closet nibbling on my clothes, feasting in my kitchen, even living in the hollowed out wooden bathroom door where they bred. I witnessed the whole cockroach lifecycle while taking bucket baths. I even discovered there was such a thing as albino cockroaches.

After all that, cockroaches still didn’t endear themselves to me. I popped its little ass with my bare hand before I reached for my house shoe. Then, I swept it up with a broom into a dust pan and tossed it outside, figuring that was that.

A few days later, as I’d just sat upon my throne, yet another cockroach startled me just hanging out on the ceiling. I preempted doing my business to get the lavender-scented insecticide, which I kept in the bathroom cabinet. After dealing with it, I used the bathroom and tossed it out with my preferred broom/dust pan method.

Afterward, I sat on the sofa, writing on my laptop, when yet another one scampered across the floor from the direction of my patio door. I jumped up, ran to the bathroom to grab the spray. Last I saw, it was headed under the sofa.  With the spray in one hand and a flashlight in another, I got down on my knees to shine a light under the sofa in hopes that I’d flush it out from underneath.  That son of a bitch came from behind, ran across my arm and kept going as if to say, “Catch me if you can!” Which I did and added it with the others outside.

I marveled about all of these 6-legged invaders. Even with the recent rains and warmer temperatures, I’ve lived in the same apartment since the summer of 2010 and I’ve NEVER had this many cockroaches in my apartment. I couldn’t even think through which recent changes in the environment must have caused the sudden rise of cockroaches when a third one shimmied down my patio vertical blinds. With the spray now beside me, I pounced on it, disposed of it only to turn around to see another peep from between the blinds and enter my apartment.

Once I dealt with the fourth one of the night, I closed the glass patio door.  I no longer had confidence that the patio screen door was enough, but, truth be told, there were enough gaps with both patio doors closed that a determined insect could still get through. Or it could just walk under the half centimeter gap under my front door.

A part of me wanted to spray the outside of the patio entrance, but I’ve seen too many horror movies where the foolish person attempted to handle something late at night rather than wait for the light of day. In the meantime, I put in a maintenance request.  I had no idea whether anything on their end could be done, but since I’d never had such a problem before, I believed that something had kept the insect population out of my place previously. I’ve always enjoyed patio breezes before–even after a nice rain.

Apparently, the pest control person always comes by the apartment complex on Wednesdays; so this time around, the person actually entered my apartment while I was at yoga to spray (so I imagine) around the inside of my place.

So far, so good. One of the small pleasures I take in my humble existence is patio breezes while writing and otherwise working on creative projects in my living room. I can’t surrender that to beings that survive a nuclear blast.

Notorious RBG

The Austin chapter of the League of Women Voters (LWV) sponsored movie night at one of my favorite theatre chains. Normally, no one is allowed to talk or even have their phones out at a certain point and the theatre becomes a quiet zone.

Yet, this was a “rowdy” viewing of “RBG,” meaning we were allowed to clap and cheer for the brave, bold, logical assertions of one of the remaining liberal Supreme Court Justices, The Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsberg. LWV seized the moment to register voters, disseminate voting information, especially about early voting, including a time-saving convenient website, vote411.org, where registered voters can enter their address and find personalized election information.

For this special viewing, even the tables were decorated with placemats similar to RBG’s judicial collar. I started the evening with my favorites: a glass of water and Malbec.

Prior to the movie, a spokesperson from the movie theatre welcomed us and explained that when management and staff previewed “RBG,” they couldn’t stop themselves from cheering, booing and applauding and knew they had to offer some “rowdy” viewings for the general public.

Next, the president of LWV, flanked by two members who dressed like Supreme Court Justices, gave us a brief history of the suffrage movement in Texas and the organization itself. They invited those of us who weren’t members to become members. As luck would have it, I sat beside the next LWV president, who will take over those duties in June.

Throughout the documentary, the same two struggles kept lurching forward: gender and racial discrimination. When there was progress in one area, the other area used it as a basis of analogy. Yet, the most entertaining gender/racial analogy was when RBG acknowledged that not only did she know who The Notorious B.I.G. was, but they had several things in common, such as they were both born in Brooklyn.

I had a heroic moment after the movie–at least for me. As I walked toward my car in the parking garage, a woman approached her car and screamed. Ever so cautious, I stopped walking and called out before coming over, “Are you OK?” She answered, “I think a crazy guy put a snake on my windshield, but I can’t tell whether it’s real or not.”

It just so happened that I’d witnessed the incident that she was talking about. After I’d parked, I walked toward the theatre when one of those black overcompensating-male-ego trucks vroomed by. Thank God I was paying attention because I stepped between the parked vehicles, making sure that fool didn’t hit me. The other driver, the woman who was now concerned that he’d left a snake on her windshield, started screaming obscenities at him, which was a moot point since he was long gone. Apparently she’d taken a little too long to get out of his way, but still….

I turned on the phone flashlight, shined it on the windshield, and that snake turned its head to look at me.  And you thought Michael Jackson could do the moonwalk!  Next thing I know, I was several meters away from her vehicle.

The woman was about to work herself into a good hissy fit over that asshole leaving a snake on her windshield, but I reasoned with her. First of all, I didn’t think the guy would return after the fact and toss a live snake on her car because the incident in question was too trivial in nature to go to such extremes.  Secondly, even if he had left a live snake on her car, it would not have remained there for hours. Lastly, I saw a pipe running along the ceiling, which went over the top of her car. I hypothesized the snake slithered across the pipe and dropped onto her car.

My reasoning calmed her down, but the next dilemma was to determine whether the snake was poisonous. She’d wanted to take a picture, but it had slithered away. I backed up even farther. Just then, an SUV, with two guys in it, started to park nearby. I approached the guy riding shotgun.

“Excuse me, can you tell the difference between a poisonous snake and a nonpoisonous snake?”

To his credit, he didn’t seem at all fazed that I’d asked him that question in a parking garage while his (boy)friend(?) was attempting to park.  He readily admitted to being a park ranger and knew how to tell the difference among snakes. As he stepped out of the car, I pointed him in the direction of the woman who needed his assistance and continued to my car.

Not nearly on the level of RGB’s contributions, but I think she would agree that everyone should do her best within the moment and situation.

All Knowing Mother

In honor of Mother’s Day, I reflected about the unsung contributions of Black women such as the generational and social network of wisdom. To represent the Black Woman Network, I used an African paper doll template, complete with a curly afro. Taking advantage of the gift of fabric given to me by a friend, each of the 12 African cloth cutouts graced a different decoration.

The T-shirts read, “A Black Woman Probably Did It First.” In the great tradition of shining a light on something we in the Black community have taken for granted, but the world now cannot live without, I present to you the following: The Internet.

I’m not saying that Black women invented the internet. I’m saying we WEREthe original internet, especially my mother’s generation and the Black women who came before them. Their network of knowledge passed from neighbor to neighbor, flowing from one generation to the next. If they didn’t know the answer, they knew who could supply an accurate answer. News traveled so far and fast among the network of Black women that it took the male-dominated fields of science, math and engineering centuries to approximate, match and finally surpass the natural efficiency of the Black Woman Network.

My foremothers never needed any fancy cumbersome gadgetry to disseminate their wisdom as they went about their wifely, motherly, daughterly, womanly duties. We are always so bedazzled by the bells and whistles of electronic devices that we dismiss the greater foundational basis of wisdom, information and entertainment. Sometimes mischaracterized as idle gossip, the network also provided social status long before friending, tweeting or liking on social media platforms. Back when “facetime” actually implied interacting with someone face to face. And not showing your face meant you were either ashamed or told not to be present in a space or event as in “you better not show face here again.” If someone defied that warning, they got a “you got a lot of nerve showing your face here” reaction.

Ever needed a recipe, home remedy, natural cleaning product, hair product, or know who has been born/graduated/married/divorced/diagnosed/died, moved away, moved back, moved on, or just updated on how your great uncle’s youngest daughter’s husband’s grandmother fared in her recent hip replacement, because remember I told you she had the first one done two years ago? Then ask a member of the Black Woman Network.

Depending on the age of the participating Black women, their depth of knowledge reflects their collective richness in wisdom. And make no mistake: they’ve seen it and heard it all and in their combined experienced, they’ve done it all. We may laugh at the refusal of older Black women to abandon outdated technology and upgrade to modern conveniences that younger generations cannot live without, but nothing’s really new under the sun. No matter how fancy and high tech we think we are, we’re still the same human beings who used to huddle together in caves around a fire, subjected to the same shortcomings and fragilities as we always have been.

As a consequence of being brought to this country in chains, Black women learned the intimate details of the human condition from slave to enslaver. Fusing traditions they’d learned from their homeland with survival strategies in their strange land, the network regularly updated and not just at 2 AM. For the first couple of centuries, knowledge couldn’t be written down since literacy for them was illegal. Imagine how much wisdom has been lost when the minds which housed such treasure troves died.

Yet, the Black Woman Network persisted.

Throughout the constant gaslighting of not having souls to not having the intellectual capacity to not having citizenship to not having the vote to not having property to not having credit to not having agency to not having…they had one another.

Generations upon generations of Black Woman Network motherwit. Against so many odds. Working at least twice as hard to get half as much. Whether her contributions were trivialized or in some unbelievable instances, even criminalized, I honor my own mother and the network of mothers who came before her for minding everyone’s business and ensuring we progressed.

B 12

Anytime the leasing office at my apartment complex offers free food and drinks, I make sure to attend since they raise my rent every year. I figure over time, I can consume my money’s worth. This particular event centered around Bingo.

Even though I’m middle aged, I feel too young for this particular game, which I associate with retirees despite the fact it’s seen a revival among the younger generation. Nonetheless, I’m either too young or too old.  The cards were already on the table when a handful of us entered, fixed up our bowls of nachos and ate while the first game began.

Throughout the evening, the winners only needed to be the first ones to get a straight. The first game took an incredibly long time to conclude when two guys both won with G 59. I made a mental note of that number since Dad has always been an avid Bingo and Pick 3/Pick 4 lottery player.

After I finished eating, I sipped red wine and used the Bingo chips to make designs. They wouldn’t allow us to use more than one card; so I had plenty of time on my hands in between numbers being called.

In between games, I’d refill my kiddie cup of wine, but at one point, the leasing agent noticed that it was empty and offered to refill my glass. I shared with her my sentiment of having the bottle on the table since I was the only one drinking it. At that point, some dude, who was sitting at another table, piped up, saying he could help me with it. As if. At least I no longer had to make the 20-step round trip to the kitchenette counter to refill my glass.

Then, a miracle happened: I won a round of Bingo.  I’d just said, “I need B12,” and thought of how I take that vitamin supplement both for energy and to ward off memory fog, when I heard the Bingo caller say, “B 12.” I turned around and asked, “Are you serious? You just said, ‘B12’? Bingo!”

After initially teasing me that I didn’t have Bingo, the staff laughed. The leasing agent happily screamed, “I know exactly what you want!” She disappeared into the kitchenette and brought me an unopened bottle of merlot. That wasn’t even one of the original prizes offered. As a matter of fact, I was the only one offered a bottle of wine. The other Bingo winners either got their choice of a $5 gift card or one of several apartment knick-knacks.

I readily accepted my wine. Much better than a mere $5 gift card and I didn’t need any knick-knacks.

Freedom Fighter?

When I first heard the phrase “freedom fighter,” it was used as a euphemism for a military presence in a foreign country. Yet, this time around, while I was in traffic after leaving my yoga class, I learned of a different fight for freedom.

I wondered about the legality of selling these marijuana-laced sweets in Alabama, where this van’s license plate hailed from. I wasn’t even aware that  people could sell such goodies in Texas. I spotted this on the Monday following 4/20, which may account for why it was here: there has always been a Marley Fest in Austin around this time of year since I’ve lived here.

The longer we sat in traffic, the more I pondered what would citizens from Weed World actually look like. At first blush, I was inclined to believe that they would be very laid back and hardly anything would get done–good or bad. Then, as reality crept in, I remembered that many a professional already smoke and consume edible marijuana foods; so Weed World has been embedded into this one for some time.

Dining Reviews

I’ve been an independent health insurance agent for about seven months now.  Before I began, I had brunch with a former coworker, who’d left the dead end situation where we’d both worked as agents. I greatly appreciated her taking the time to meet with me, answer my questions, and encourage me to be far more successful.

We checked in with one another a month later at a different restaurant, after I’d quit my former job and started training with the company where she worked.  I was just one of the latest agents who’d defected to that company for both greater opportunity and to set my own schedule. For the second meeting, I’d chosen the place and we’d invited another agent to join us.

With the success of those Saturday mid-afternoon “brunches,” more agents from our former workplace, who now worked as independent agents for the new company, joined us. We celebrated, shared strategies and marveled at how wonderful our new opportunity was.

Throughout this entire time, we rotated who chose the restaurants and enjoyed trying out new restaurants…until we finally hit one with bad service. It was inevitable. I was so distracted by the horrible service that it became the focus of my experience rather than connecting with my coworkers, which was a shame since we all work from home and hardly see one another in person.

When I returned home, I looked up the restaurant’s website and left the following message, using the “contact us” feature:

“Although the food was absolutely delicious, I will NOT return because the service was lousy. STRIKE 1: host didn’t escort me nor point me in the direction of my friend, who had arrived ahead of me and had left her name. Instead, the host informed me that “we don’t write down names, but you can walk around and find your friend.” I opted to just call my friend, so she could come to the front and escort me to the table. STRIKE 2: Although the server brought all 6 of us water, she, nor any other member of the wait staff, refilled our water glasses.  For a place that has the word “grand” in it, shouldn’t refilling water glasses be an achievable low-hanging fruit? STRIKE 3: I expressly asked for a to-go box because I wanted dessert, ordered dessert, but never received it.”

By the following Monday, a manager reached out to me, first by email and then by phone. She first apologized for the service I received. Then she asked for details, specifically who was the host and server because she wanted to address those women. Then she offered to send me a $25 gift card to try the restaurant again. I’m planning to return to next Sunday.

In the meantime, the one thing I didn’t comment about, but was certainly a factor in my experience was the demographics of the restaurant. As soon as I walked in, I was pleasantly surprised at the diversity of the diners. Even with the upscale atmosphere, I was most impressed by my fellow diners. Given the poor quality of the service, I wondered if the staff, who were also people of color, didn’t feel that my table, which consisted of 4 women of color, a child of color, and a white woman, weren’t important enough to give adequate service to or if all the other tables were experiencing the same thing as well.

What stopped me for mentioning this observation in both writing and during the telephone conversation? Conditioning. I’m so used to not being listened to by white people when I suspect race is one of the factors involved in an incident. I can talk all day long to other people of color, but I don’t want a white person to dismiss my entire claim whenever I suspect race is a factor.

As a a matter of fact, the main reason I hardly ever visit a nail salon in east Austin is because of bad service. Time and again, if the clientele is mostly women of color, the service has been bad. If the clientele is mostly white women, the service has been much better.

The following week, I’d met a friend at one of my favorite restaurants after yoga.  As I told her about my experience the previous Saturday, I looked around and noticed the same rich diversity at that restaurant as well. The big difference was their service, along with their food, had been consistently good.  I went to their website and left the following:

“I recently commented to a friend that the only places where I’ve had bad service at a restaurant, the clientele is mostly blacks and latino with the notable exception of TNT. This is not to say that EVERY restaurant with a majority person of color clientele has bad service. Far from it. It’s just that, the times I have had bad service in Austin, the clientele has been mostly been people of color. I started writing on their comment sections after my experiences in the hopes of doing my part as a woman of color who also enjoys good food, good service and good company. With less than 6% of Black people in Austin, I now feel compelled to balance things out and thank TNT for being consistent with the quality of your food and service. I’ve noticed that your restaurant has a good racial mix of people and your staff members are well trained. Please keep up the good work. I especially like to detox at Bikram yoga and come to your restaurant to retox!”

At this point, I felt very comfortable mentioning race since the overall comment was positive. The manager answered immediately, stating how my comment just made her “heart sing.”

Since I normally eat at home, weeks passed before my next dining review. This next review happened to be the very next monthly “meeting” (more like “happy hour brunch”) with my coworkers. Once again, diverse crowd, delicious food and great service.

“Just had lunch at G—— in the Domain with two of my coworkers.  We are successful women of color who work from home and meet once a month to talk shop and pump each other up for another month of being independent health insurance agents.  Since we try out a different restaurant every month, I’d like to compliment G—— not merely for the wonderful service, drinks and food, but for providing an inviting experience that an ethnically diverse clientele enjoy. I especially want to commend the service that M—– provided us,  from refilling our chips, dips and water glasses without being asked, but cheerfully engaging with us throughout our entire dining experience.”

Again, since this was a positive review, I stated all the factors, which led to my enjoyment of the experience. As a matter of fact, I shared my review of the last restaurant with my coworkers. They agreed that the service was horrible and they’d been tempted not to tip. One in our group hadn’t tipped, but the three of us had. The next day, the general manager replied that she’d share my comment with the manager of that restaurant location.

And then the incident at a StarBucks in PA happened. I’m not a StarBucks customer. Yet, I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to add my two cents, especially since I’d begun letting management know my experiences.  In this case, I wanted them to know my perspective on Dining While Black.

“Kudos to CEO Kevin Johnson for his refreshingly straight-forward apology over the arrest of two Black men who were accused of trespassing at a Starbucks. As part of your company’s investigation into this incident, I’d like share with you 3 criteria to tell if something is about race, taken directly from Ijeoma Oluo’s book, “So You Want to Talk about Race,” pp. 14-15: 1) It is about race if a person of color thinks it is about race; 2) It is about race if it disproportionately or differently affects people of color; 3) It is about race if it fits into a broader pattern of events that disproportionately or differently affect people of color. Lastly, trespassing laws are reasonable, but only enforcing them when black people trespass is a racist practice. Since this incident, many white people have self-disclosed conducting business meetings at Starbucks without purchasing anything and not being approached by management, much less being arrested. I hope this incident leads to more training for all the Starbucks locations to ensure that people of color aren’t demonized/criminalized for doing the same thing that white people do without adverse consequences.”

Like a good teacher, I led with a compliment before diving into the criticisms and suggestions for improvement. I received a boiler plate response, then I heard on the news a few days later that Starbucks would close 8,000 locations for a day’s training to counter “unconscious bias.”

To be clear, we Americans will need the rest of our lives to counter unconscious bias. The collective effort against unconscious bias includes the big movements along with the billions of tiny gestures, far too small to ever make national headlines.

Randomized Headshot

I’m always impressed by the high-tech art displayed at the Interactive Installation Meetup events.  Who knows if I’ll ever understand any of it on a coding level, but theoretically I know what’s going on. So, I sat in front of a laptop, which took my headshot. Then the program randomly chose pixels to recreate the headshot. I’m not exactly sure what other algorithms were at play because the portrait originally looked just like a stylishly pixelated photo.

As time passed, the image became increasingly randomized. I think this was both a cool effect and tapped into everyone’s ego. How often can we see a distorted image of ourselves without it being a distorted sense of ourselves?

Suddenly Awakened

My remote-controlled TV activated in the middle of the night, propelling me out of bed to turn off the blaring garbage that spewed far too early in the morning for consumption. The last time that had happened, I’d returned to bed, slept some more, but was nearly late for work, which led coworkers to question how on Earth I could have possibly slept without first checking the apartment for burglars.

“Who’d break into my apartment silently, only to wake me up by watching TV?”

This time around, I didn’t mind the nightmare interruption that found me frantically preparing beds for my grandparents, parents and two of my uncles. What bothered me in the nether hours was that out of all those people in the dream, only my parents are still alive.

Then I dreamt about something that only a former math teacher could find inspirational: The Additive and Multiplicative Identities. Now before you start cursing in your head because, dammit, I’m talking math again; let me remind you, or in some cases, share with you for the first time about what these two things are.

Let’s pretend that I’m the number 8. Now think: which number can you add to me and the sum still be 8? Again, think: which number can you multiply by me and the product still be 8? If you thought the numbers 0 and 1, you’re correct! Zero is the additive identity because when added to any value, leaves the value unchanged. One is the multiplicative identity because when multiplied to any value, leaves the value unchanged.

When most people think about zeroes and ones, binary coding comes to mind. In my fantasy dream, people came to mind. Vividly clothed people.  Think something along the lines of the Whos in Whoville meet the Emerald City citizens from The Whiz. And because this was a fantasy, I knew that each individual represented both a zero and a one.

Individuals reflect both the values they add to and multiply by. In this mathematical liberal fantasy, I knew the reflected values would balance out to a saner, more harmonious society when no demographic was underrepresented in positions of power and influence. (Yes, I got all that from that!)

If we only saw the numerical makeup of a person, devoid of gender, sexual orientation, religion, skin color, immigration status, political affiliation, all the things we claim that makes us so different, we’d only see our own values and fears reflected. We’d notice how many commonalities we had. A seemingly unending string of zeroes and ones. Every added experience. Zeroes and ones. The things that brought us joy. Zeroes and ones. The things we feared. Zeroes and ones.

Our brain isn’t programmed for randomness. It seeks patterns, distinguishing among items. Particularly noticing what’s different—at least on the surface. But if we transcended the superficial, we’d see the zeroes and ones. Our own personal collection that significantly overlapped with others.  We’re made up of the same stuff. Zeroes and ones.

In real life, I get to approximate this experience as a health insurance agent. Since I always talk with my clients over the phone, they only know that I’m a woman. A confident woman who is a good listener, answers their questions and finds them the health insurance plan, which best suits their needs and budget. Often times, as I’m building rapport, I may share my age with potential clients, who inevitably think I sound like a younger woman. At that point, I always want to ask them if I sound like a Black woman.  It shouldn’t make a difference, right? But I’ve heard people say things that I don’t think they would normally say in front of a Black person.

When I was a middle school math teacher, I called a student’s mother to explain an incident, involving her son. The first thing out of her mouth was, “I’m tired of all you White teachers calling me up about my son!” My response was: “Who are YOU calling White? I promise you, if you come up to the school, I will be the only Black female teacher with dreadlocks.  I won’t be hard to find.”

She never came to the school to see me in person and I never had a problem with her son in my classroom again.  Initially, that mother couldn’t hear the essence of what I’d said to her because she’d had a preconceived notion of what I looked like, based on my voice and how I spoke. Once she realized my skin was brown, then she focused on the zeroes and ones.

Humans are full of contradictions. Is it any wonder that I find the elegance and logic of numerical expressions are so comforting and reliable? Wouldn’t it be wonderful, for a change, that we when we looked for a common denominator, that we’d do so in a spirit of finding the common good among us all rather than seeking the bad?

Day for Super Interns

Proving just how super we are, my fellow Tuesday morning intern at the Austin School of Film and I showed up to work one day wearing our strength on our chest. Not to go too deep with the Superperson analogy, but I loved how my neat, precise “S” matched my sense of organization and his slightly unkempt “S” matched his very relaxed style. We both bought our T-shirts at second-hand stores since both of us were broke ass artists, opposed to paying full retail price for depreciable items such as clothing.

Plus, we both self-identify as writers, but I’m more prone to write spoken word and novels, whereas he writes mostly screenplays and for the stage. At this point when we were laughing and posing as superheroes, we had merely taken a break from using our creative talent to clean the facility. I normally dislike cleaning up after other people, but for every 30 hours we intern, we get to sign up for a film class.

Another excellent perk of this internship has been networking with other artists. I continue to be amazed at the variety of people who I cross paths with.

First Three Pages: Bad Driving

What began as a 3-minute radio drama script with one MeetUp group, transformed, after much painful Word Doc template formatting, into a movie script. After all that work, an opportunity presented itself, in the form of a script-writing competition, to get more mileage out of my effort, “Bad Driving.”

The Austin Film Festival usually hosts all of its competitions in the fall during their big festival, but sponsored its inaugural First Three Pages competition in collaboration with the ColdTowne improv actors outside of their regular festival time.  They mentioned, at the start of the show, that they wanted to hold the competition every month.  After the event, the producer in me suggested that they consider doing it once a season.Two of my friends joined me before the show to enjoy complimentary drinks.

Unfortunately, only one had bought her ticket ahead of time and there were none available for sale at the door.  Yet, since we’d arrived early, we still had a wonderful time talking.

Another friend, who is a member the same film MeetUp that I am, showed up without a prepaid ticket, but he was far more determined to get in and signed up for the waiting list, figuring that someone would either not show up or the venue would allow him to stand in the back to view the show.

[From March 2nd until this night, March 20th, the greater Austin community had been terrorized by a package bomber.  So, there was a good chance that some people would remain home due to fear. Everyone who showed up did so out of defiance of those acts of violence and a determination to go on with life and not let him win.] Another friend, who had been among the first to purchase her ticket, arrived just after we’d been allowed to enter the tiny theatre space, which perhaps sat 60 people. Nonetheless, I loved reconnecting with her since, out of all of my friends who’d came out to support, she was the one I’d not seen in quite a while.

Every audience member was given a ballot to vote for their top three scripts. On the back of the ballots was a snarky set of instructions on feedback etiquette. As far as voting was concerned, I knew my piece was number one. Until the improv actors performed the third script. Then, I knew I was number two. They even performed my script fourth, which turned out brilliantly, causing me to daydream about making it my first animated film.

As I’d surmised, that third script about the lesbian couple coparenting their dog won. I was satisfied.