2019 Strange Family Reunion

Due to various circumstances in years past, I hadn’t attended the family reunion on my mother’s side in nearly ten years. This year, all the stars aligned and I made it–late, but better than never.

Perhaps more accurate, “delayed.” Everything about this vacation back home had me wait past the time I expected something to happen: my airport shuttle, the check-in line, the connecting flight, my sister picking me up from the final airport. I’d love to credit the accumulated mindfulness of yoga practice for not being annoyed the entire time, but that was only part of it.

The impromptu conversations I had along the way, truly made the journey, starting with the three strangers who shared the airport shuttle. Apparently, one of them took long in getting her things together and caused the delay in picking me up. Any irritation or anxiety I had about making to the airport on time, quickly disappeared when one of them asked me, “What are the amenities at this apartment complex?”

That innocent question snowballed into a gentrification rant on my part, including the historical context of how people of color were forced to live on the East side with I-35 being the dividing line between whites and POC.

They all turned out to be in the Real Estate business, but none of them were agents. They’d attended a conference in Austin and were headed back to New York. Yet, they shared similar stories of racial divide and gentrification with the bonus addition of family residences, being sold for less than what they were worth to big-time Real Estate developers, changing the demographics of the neighborhood.

The driver, who’d joined in the conversation (after all, we were all POC), had assured me that given the time of day, the delay in arriving at the airport wouldn’t be a problem because there was no crowd at that time. Too bad no one told Delta Airlines.

I rolled up to a self check-in kiosk, typed in my information, paid a ridiculous fee for my checked luggage, printed out my boarding passes, and then noticed the tag for the suitcase was missing. I looked around, saw the line to the Delta counter, heard a cat meowing, then looked back at the kiosk, and back at the line. As my sense of logic wrestled with the reality of the situation, I noticed that half the people in line already had their boarding passes. Logic lost the wrestling match.

I entertained myself by people-watching when I saw a guy who wore the same expression I imagined I’d worn after printing out my boarding passes. “Yes,” I said, answering the question mostly like floating in his mind, “you DO have to wait in this line even though you just checked in.” We both laughed at the illogicalness of it all.

I didn’t exactly race to the security line, but whatever time I saved was negated by the line I chose to stand in to have my things X-rayed. When the TSA worker checked my passport, I joked that I was there to receive wine and chocolate. At least she had a sense of humor.

Even the TSA worker I encountered after going through the metal detector was in a good mood. “Happy Juneteenth!” he greeting me, reading my T-shirt. I bumped fists with him. (Who actually enjoys going through security like that?)

I regrouped, putting my laptop back in its case and my shoes on, then I dashed to my gate after a quick stop to the bathroom. I arrived to the boarding process already in progress. Instead of having group numbers, Delta boards by categories, which seemed over the top, given how small the plane was.

I joined a woman at a nearby table, who happened to be assigned to the same row as me. We laughed at the fact that she was listed as “Main 1,” or some such shit and I was listed as “Basic.” Essentially, “Basic” meant I’d board last. She remained with me until my category was called.

Our conversation leapfrogged around such topics as racial bias, privilege within the deaf/disability hierarchy, immigration injustice. I’d convinced the guy who sat beside me take the window seat so she and I could talk across the aisle, which wasn’t a loud conversation since the aisle was so narrow that two beer-bellied men could scarcely pass one another coming and going to the bathroom. We noted the challenge when one man loudly said to the other, “OK, we both gotta suck in our guts!”

We talked to one another the entire time, but she initially feared I’d talk to my seat partner when he stated that he was a music therapist. Imagine the richness of conversation we could have had if that guy wasn’t so determined to sleep on the plane.

We wished one another well once we hit Cincinnati. I did my usual layover routine: bathroom, bar food, booze. As good fortune would have it, I struck up another good conversation with a guy at the bar. I enticed him into a really good conversation after giving him my business card, which advertised the spoken word and storytelling show that I produce. One theme, “Too Woke Insomniac,” intrigued him.

What an invitation to discuss the extremes of political correctness and the lack thereof. We agreed that both political left and right have become too polarized to be rational. I even included the bonus conversation about how many poor and working class whites consistently act against their own self-interest due to racial resentment.

The only example I had time to touch upon was how white men commit suicide by gun more than any other demographic, mainly because the gun industry heavily markets to them. White men who previously showed no signs of depression, will undergo a crisis–as what normally happens a few times in life–and impulsively reach for their gun. I pointed out that if black people encouraged white men to buy guns, knowing the statistics, we’d be accused of being racist, but the white community says virtually nothing about being targeted by gun makers. Even cigarettes come with warning labels.

Not only did he agree, but admitted that he was a gun owner who believed in common sense gun control and that the most conservative whites have a low tolerance for discussing the bad consequences of guns.

At that point, I had to pay up and head toward my gate. Yet, I enjoyed my delayed layover, thanks to that meaningful conversation.

Once I landed at Reagan International Airport, I had another good stretch of time to sit and read while my sister and her kids worked their way through a traffic jam. What a coincidence that as I read about Siddhartha rebelling against his father and family wealth to live a beggar’s life, I sat outside during a sprinkling of rain without much a care in the world.

At that point, the vacation had truly begun. All the meaningful conversations I’d had didn’t quite seem like the start of vacation since I do that on a regular basis. Sitting outside in the rain, albeit under a shelter, while reading seemed like the vacation.

Once my sister and her kids picked me up, that’s when the family reunion started. I loved the car ride home since I got to first catch up with a few family members at a time.

The next day, my sister’s family and I trekked several hours to the hotel where we normally stay during the Strange Family Reunion. The first day of our 3-day celebration is always the fish fry.

My extended family acted as if I’d been away for a much longer time that it felt to me. Some reactions reminded me of UFO sightings: not believing their eyes at what they were seeing.

One of my sisters and a 1st cousin, who were both members of the Strange Family Historical Committee,

recruited me to help update the family tree during and after the fish fry. Essentially, we snagged one of our relatives to write down as much information as they knew about their branch of the family tree.

My uncle, mother, sister and many others not pictured above,

all hailed from the Floyd Strange branch, which is one of twelve from the Strange family. From those twelve, our extended family has proliferated.

I’m more like my Great Aunt Gracie, who never had any children. I never met her, but to hear it from my mother, I have a temperament just like her. So in a way, I feel that I’m her child. She was married for about a month. By that, I don’t mean that she divorced him; she just couldn’t stand living with him and left. I, on the other hand, have never married, but would be more open to that if I didn’t have to live with him. Aunt Gracie definitely had the right idea.

This was the second year

that an African dance troupe performed at our family reunion. Brought back memories of when I used to take African dance in college and in my 20s.

As impressive as the troupe was,

I loved seeing this young woman holding down the bass line, a traditional male role.

After their performance, they invited members of my extended family to join in.

I tried to get my nieces and nephew to get up and join in. If they were less respectful, they would’ve said, “Hell no, Aunt Teresa!” As par for the course, my mother, who sat at the elder table, sent one of my cousins over to where I sat to relay the message that she wanted to me to get up and dance. I wasn’t about to wear out my gimp leg with some one-off physical exertion that it hadn’t been conditioned to do.

Yet, I redeemed myself hours later when I co-emceed the fashion show. The same sister who’d recruited me to help update the family tree, recruited me for the fashion show. Another cousin announced who was about to walk down the catwalk, and then I said the first thing that would come to mind–minus the curse words.

I kept the audience of friends and relatives laughing the entire time. Since we never rehearsed anything to begin with, even the models had no idea what I was going to say. Several times, my co-emcee would be so entertained by my commentary that my sister had to remind her to announce the next model. The models themselves would start laughing so much they could hardly finish their walk.

I’d love to co-emcee for next year, but I want to up the ante. I’d love to show them a short clip or something that I’ve made as a filmmaker. I noticed a screen at the shelter. I’m going to see how to make that happen–along with the other balls I’m juggling.

Juneteenth 2019

For the 7th year in a row, I reprised my role as newly emancipated slave,

Mattie Gilmore. Yet, this was the first time I was positioned near the front of the art exhibit part of the George Washington Carver Museum.

I took advantage of my proximity to the Juneteenth blurb on the panel, which hung on the wall across from where I sat. Instead of faithfully reciting the lines from the excerpt of Mattie Gilmore’s narrative, I started off my performance with a trivia question: What month and year did the Civil War end?

That question was a doozy. Only three people knew the correct answer. Most I directed to look behind them to read the first sentence of the Juneteenth panel.

Some people remembered that 1863 was a significant year, but thought that Texan slaves didn’t hear about the end of the war until two years later. They were close.

In 1863, President Lincoln wrote the first Emancipation Proclamation, but since the Civil War hadn’t ended then, it freed not a single slave. Two years passed and the South surrendered on April 9th, 1865. Texan slaves found out about it around June 19th, 1865. Hence why we celebrate “Juneteenth” instead of “Aprilteenth.”

After some variation of the above, I’d launch into my Mattie Gilmore excerpt. Sometimes that was after significant conversation. Other times, reading my audience, I’d zip into the excerpt and send the group of people to the next storyteller.

One Iranian visitor really got into the spirit of Juneteenth and stated that essentially the same thing happened in his country. He felt the key to equality was education. Not just formal, academic education, but also raising the younger generation to have self-respect. At this point, he described the sagging pants on young men. Although he got way off topic, I politely moved him along to the next storyteller, putting my call center agent finesse to good use.

I then was able to talk with one of my friends for a while until another group of people arrived. She stayed to listen to my narrative, then moseyed along when yet another friend spoke with me about his diabetes.

Several kids walked around the corner to escape upon hearing my opening trivia question, but many tried to answer and some even asked me statistics about how many died. One boy asked me how many Confederate soldiers started the war. My answer: all of them. At least the adults laughed. I confessed to him that I didn’t know the war statistics, but I’m now motivated to learn far more about the Civil War, especially the action here in Texas and Texan slaves.

Next Juneteenth 2020, I’m going to know more about the Reconstruction era since most people want to hear more than the sanitized history they learned in heavily biased public school history books.

DFW Visit

From July 2012 to December 2018, I’ve produced and hosted The Austin Writers Roulette every second Sunday of the month without fail. Starting in 2019, I scheduled the show bimonthly in order to have more time to pursue other creative outlets. And yet, my sister and her husband STILL managed to visit Dallas-Ft Worth on the same damn weekend!

I also had the bad luck to wear a two-piece suit as my hosting costume for the show during 110-degree weather. I felt like the Grim Reaper. I even told the audience that the Grim Reaper was in fact a Black woman in a fedora.

After the show, I hit the road for the 3-hour drive, reaching the hotel close to 10 PM at night still in costume. As amusing as my costume was during the show, people were NOT amused to cross paths with me in the parking garage and on the sidewalk, leading up to the hotel. They cleared a path for me as if I were truly the Grim Reaper.

Magically, once I hugged my sister and brother-in-law in the lobby, others were at ease.

To the point that one woman, who conveniently wore a Grateful Dead T-shirt, asked to take a picture with me just to prove to her friends, who were in another state at a cosplay event, that she too was having fun with some cosplay as well.

As stylish as I looked wearing a fedora,

I left it in the hotel room the following morning when we toured the stadium where the Dallas Cowboys played their home games. Part of our journey there included cruising along Tom Landry Freeway, which was periodically decorated with his famous fedora.

This tour had been on my sister’s bucket list. She’s been a lifelong Cowboys fan although she and her husband are Redskin season ticket holders. When the Redskins play the Cowboys, her loyalties are with the Lone Star team.

This was the only part where I wished I had the fedora.

Yet, the entire guided tour was indoors, so being out of costume with a hat on would have been pointless.

My other sister wasn’t touring with us,

but she requested for me to send her pictures of Emmet Smith. This was the first one I came across.

To my surprise, a cement floor had replaced the grassy field.

I’d never known that all that lush grass rested on top of a layer soil, which covered cement.

Since everything’s bigger in Texas,

this was the biggest screen of its kind in the world–or something like that. Added bonus, if you zoom in and look to the lower right of the screen, you’ll see Emmet Smith’s name!

A football-inspired ceiling light illuminated one of the members only lounge areas.

Apparently Clinton became an honorary Cowboy when they won the Super Bowl during his term.

I’d seen from afar that Ford had sponsored a floor,

but I couldn’t see the vehicles until we were actually in the space.

I mused aloud that the vehicles must have been helicoptered in via the retractable roof.

When the tour guide overheard what I’d said, she corrected me. “They open the windows (which are the biggest of their kind in the world, of course) and lift them up with crane.” None of us envied the crane operator who does that once a year to switch out this year’s vehicles with last year’s.

Before my mind registered the significance of the cotton, I thought of slavery.

Considering how many view pro football players, I’m not too far off the mark. Yet this symbolized the Cotton Bowl.

Once again, Emmet Smith’s backside.

And when it wasn’t his backside, he looked worn out.

En route from one part of the stadium to the basement, we passed by a storage area where banners from past events hung.

Sometimes, I know too much to enjoy things.

Yet, another woman in my tour group actually voiced a question in line with my thinking: “How much do the cheerleaders get paid?” Although the tour guide tactfully answered that she didn’t know and had to refrain from further comment, I knew I didn’t have to.

As a matter of fact, several of us knew that for all their hard work, they received less that minimum wage and had a stricter code of ethics to abide by than the football players. Plus, as the tour guide informed us as part of her script, these women had to try out every year. Tryouts had hundreds of cheerleading hopefuls, but the returning cheerleaders auditioned during the third round as part of a group of about 50 women.

Unlike touring the cheerleaders’ locker room, we received a word of warning before touring the players’ locker room: Do not sit on the wooden lockers. The tour guide stated that the quality of wood was like one finds on the inside of a Bentley. No such warning was given for the cheerleaders’ locker room since their decor was the quality of IKEA furniture.

I must admit: those lockers looked like inviting places to sit! But even the players sit in chairs and not their lockers.

Toward the end of the tour, we saw where the players run out onto the field. Hundreds of people line both sides of the lounge to root them on as they hit the field.

We got a closeup of the “field.” A soccer match had been the last event, which was why all of it had to be taken up in preparation of the next event. When sporting events aren’t taking place, the stadium also hosts concerts.

By the time we finished our tour, we had walked a mile and a half. Then, after leaving the facility, I drove us to the market to eat, followed by driving back to the hotel to get my things and trek back to Austin. That was such a full and exhausting day. All thoughts of working or even working out once I landed in Austin again were driven out of me.

Not Feeling the Heat

Although I practice hot yoga several times a week, one of the greatest benefits is the mindfulness I’ve gained when outside the hot room. The beautiful thing about life is that one never knows when yoga practice will transform into a life-challenge strategy.

A friend invited me to attend a monthly storytelling show at a popular venue. Due to recent thunderstorms, the torrential rains damaged the venue’s AC. Even though the repairman fixed the AC unit minutes before the show began, the space was still too warm for most people’s comfort–except for me.

As we lined up outside to pay, one of the producers handed out appetizer-sized paper plates to use as makeshift fans. I declined to take one. He assured me that I would need one. I insisted I wouldn’t.

Envision the air becoming cooler, I suggested to some people before the show began, but without hot yoga training, they fanned themselves in frustration. Throughout the entire show, I felt encapsulated within a bubble of calm, sitting among an audience of agitated energy. I witnessed warm air futilely whipped around with so much aggression, I wondered if the fanning action itself negated their cooling process.

During intermission, the so-called heat worked in my favor. While everyone else flocked outside for relief, I used the bathroom without having to wait in line. I even helped myself to water and made an ice water for my friend without any waiting.

Keeping my cool under the circumstances enhanced my viewing pleasure. As usual, I want to extend that calm mindfulness to other challenging situations. How much more enjoyable could my overall life be without figuratively fanning the flames?

I failed at the next opportunity I had to test my mindfulness. As much as I hate working on Saturdays, I love seeing the extra money deposited by the following Tuesday. Mindfulness went out the window when that money didn’t show up in my bank account. About the only thing I managed to hold onto was professionalism when I communicated both in written and verbal form.

After the bureaucratic run around with my supervisor, the payroll company and my bank, I gave the same supervisor I’d begun the whole process with a summary of my efforts, which had solved nothing. I tried to calm myself down with the thought that eventually, the situation would be resolved. That was my rational mind at work. My subconscious took over as I fought the conflict in my sleep.

And the next day, the money appeared.

The journey continues.

Rise of the Middle Manager

In this triple-digit summer heat, some may feel sluggish, gasping for breath in the humidity-filled air, wondering how anyone can logically doubt climate change when every summer seems to be the record-hottest.

Even those climate change-denying enthusiasts who hold up a snowball as they willfully mistake “weather” for “climate,” are part of the most insidious evil machinations known to our democracy: the rise of the middle manager.

Make no mistake. Middle managers don’t arrive at their position because they’re the best, the smartest or even the most logical. Their sole purpose of existence is to provide denial plausibility for upper management, while unleashing the most asinine policies onto the overworked, underpaid masses. And if you’re merely thinking of the present administration, I’m sorry to tell you this disaster has been in the making for several decades now. 

Unlike other epidemics, I cannot pinpoint a patient zero who infected all other workplaces, big and small, with this diabolical strain of middle managers. Those who get paid to regurgitate soul-zapping policies, which remind the huddled masses that the smallest man in the dick-comparing contest is in charge and must overcompensate by ramming the most logically-defiant practices down the throats of those who may risk a scream of protest.

Like any gang of moneyed thugs, upper management initiates the newest middle managers by giving them a hit list of bad shit to do to prove their loyalty. You’ll know exactly when the new bullshit hits. There’ll be this big announcement of congratulations to the newly minted middle manager. The company may even make some type of celebratory gesture. That’s merely the calm before the storm. 

There may not be any actual poison in your cup, but make no mistake, you’re gonna drink the Kool-Aid—at least until you find another job.  After a new middle manager’s jumped in, the mental and physical slow deterioration due to additional work-related stress starts to take its toll.

And the closer we get to the end of the world, the less sense the directives are going to make. It’s truly going to be a mad scramble to the death for the last of the available resources. And then what?

Will some brilliant woman Interstellar our way out of this shit? Will she even have enough autonomy and agency to do so? It’s bad enough that climate change deniers are hastening the end of the world, but these motherfuckers want to roll back women’s reproductive rights as well?! 

Because what we need at the end of the world and its dwindling resources is even more mouths to feed, more bodies to shelter, and more children without health care. And in order to save money, we’ll stop vaccinating. That way, as the world burns, all those diseases modern medicine eradicated can now thrive and we can invite an asshole to throw a snowball at it. I recommend a middle manager to do the deed. They’ve got great arm strength from all that illogical shit shoveling.

As the diminishing population of sane humans look around, scratching our heads and wondering, “How in the hell did we get HERE?” 

One middle manager promotion at a time.

Levels of Happiness

As a call center agent, I’d normally be very aggravated over the low call volume experienced this week. I took Memorial Day Monday off because I’m a good boss to myself. I continued being good to myself by not setting an alarm to sound at 6:15, so I could rush through the morning routine in order to plant myself at my desk as close to 7 AM as possible.

Instead, I got my rest, woke up refreshed, and progressed through my morning routine unhurried, but also not taking my sweet time. That only took a few minutes longer for all the running around I used to do, thinking I was saving so much time.

I’d long ago adopted the habit of reading a variety of things in between calls, but for this week, partially inspired by the slowdown, I began watching educational videos about real estate investment in between calls.

Talk about being even more efficient with my time! Stopping and starting a video between calls. I previously thought that experience would be maddening. I couldn’t do it for Netflix binge-watching; however, this worked pretty well for educational videos, which I stop and start anyway to take notes.

Another beautiful thing was, while I took notes, I fantasized about one day setting up passive income through real estate investments. No more trading time for money!

A year ago, I stated I was living happily ever after since I worked from home and set my own schedule. Yet, I realized after awhile that I wanted to make money without trading my time for it.

There should always be something to strive for in life. This is my new financial goal. I’ve got plenty of creative ones. As soon as I get this latest one off the ground, I’m going to invest more time in my creative projects.

In the meantime, I’ll continue being more efficient with my time. Plus, I’ve applied for another telecommuting job where I set my own schedule. I won’t be able to multi-task with that job and it’s not as monetarily lucrative, but at least it’ll help me become a much faster typist and give me access to many different conversations, which helps with writing dialogue without the trouble of eavesdropping on people in public.

Having Sex with Angels

I imagine the afterlife for wonderful people as an eternity of doing what they loved doing while alive. For Brian, I picture lots of stunt driving, gourmet cooking, playing loud music, even louder laughing, snapping fingers at poignant statements and eating lots of pussy.

Is it just me, but didn’t he talk about cunnilingus a lot? As if it were part of a healthy heterosexual man’s nutritious diet. Couldn’t you just imagine THAT being one of the PSAs he did as a voice actor?

Poignant, humorous and entertainingly vulgar, Brian was the only other poet who said the word “fuck” more than I do.

I first met Brian several years ago during an open mic at Kickbutt Coffee one faithful evening. He was in his usual state–mind-altered, that is. After hearing him read, I invited him to perform at my show.

The very next day, Monday, January 18th, 2016, Brian sent me the following email:

Hi, Teresa – It’s Brian from Kick Butt Sundays. Interested in hearing about the journal you talked to me about. I’d also be interested in participating in one of your 2nd Sundays. So, clue a brother in on the details. Cheers, B

I replied:

Brian, Sounds like you’ve meshed two women together!  I’m the producer of the Austin Writers Roulette, a monthly, theme-inspired, adult storytelling and spoken word show and Janet is the editor in chief of an online magazine.  Anyway, here’s the link to find out more info about AWR: austinwritersroulette.com.  Hope you can make it one 2nd Sunday.  I’d love to have your unique storytelling voice join in with ours! Cheers, Teresa

He replied:

Yes, I did. My apologies. When you wake up after three hours of sleep and there’s a stack of business cards in your pocket – you kick yourself for not writing down on them because it makes one look like an ass (as I’ve just done to myself). Provided that I’m not working as a private chef on the 14th of Feb, I’d love to read at the roulette. I will see if I can submit shortly.

Well, Brian did follow through and you can view his first of many Roulette performances here at time stamp 3:35. And you can see all of his roulette performances after his February 14th, 2016 debut here.

RIP

Making Things Easier

Conventional wisdom states that practicing a difficult task more often will make that task easier. Well, I’ve discovered a variation on that theme through yoga.

I practice 5 times a week, but recently, I started taking a much more difficult type of yoga, ashtanga. Before ashtanga, the most difficult class I’d taken was intermediate Bikram class. After a few ashtanga classes, intermediate Bikram seemed comparatively easier.

The same was true for Inferno Hot Pilates. All those bridges and side planks were so killer until I joined Orange Theory. Since then, every pilates exercise became that much easier to do.

So, where I’m going with this is: how do I apply those lessons to other aspects in my life? I’m not merely looking to complicate things. I want an improvement in the quality of life through growing myself as a person.

The only reason those exercise classes that I started out with seem easier now is because I’ve improved my overall physical fitness through cross-training. I want to do that with both my art and financial situation.

Is the answer multiple revenue streams? How about leveraging? I already know that the more skills I have under my belt, the better off I should be in order to roll with the changing market.

My brief experience with working several meh jobs is that usually, with my fluctuating luck, they tend to hiccup at the same time, so I’m left scrambling. One thing that I’ve only recently embraced is to continually look for another job.

Over the past 6 years, I’ve read several books about starting a small business. In some way or other, they always talk about leverage. It’s not always about money. Whatever I don’t already know, I hire someone else who does in order to leverage their knowledge. Whatever I can’t do, I leverage someone else’s skills. And what I don’t have time to do, I leverage someone else’s time.

About the only thing I’m uncomfortable with is leveraging someone else’s money. Perhaps once I’m able to go through that door, I’ll start on a different journey altogether.

Gearing up for Greatness

A few weeks ago, I hit the wall professionally as two technical glitches prevented me from making money for a week. I did a mad scramble job search, found something I liked, but the training for it was more than I bargained for.

In the meantime, all of my creative outlets have suffered in an effort to prepare for one lucrative opportunity while taking advantage of another less lucrative, but daily-pay opportunity.

Yet, I’m so pulled to be creative. Breaks my heart to put the creative things on the back burner because I have to be an adult. What I do know, from spending nearly 5 decades on this rock, there will never be the perfect time to do something great. I got to somehow squeeze all that in between doing other shit to survive.

Fortunately, I’ve surrounded myself with creative friends. At least when I take a pause from the rat race, I feel rejuvenated. Even though everything in this world is temporary, misery appears everlasting when amid the grind.

On one of the worst mornings since getting back on my financial feet, the two things that kept me going was my usual midday yoga class, then much later at night, hanging out with some poet/musician/tango friends.

The host for the evening started us out with music, featuring himself on oboe and guitar, and another musician on guitar. Those two, who love doing an impromptu collaborations, were absolutely fabulous. I wished someone was recording, but apparently all of us wanted to stay in the moment.

I originally was invited to read spoken word poetry. Instead, as soon as I walked in the door, I started handing out scripts for a short screenplay I’d written. I knew exactly who I wanted to cast and ended up reading one of the lead roles myself because I didn’t know many of the women who were there. As a matter of fact, the only other woman casted was another spoken word poet. All the other women were there to dance tango.

I could tell the host was nervous about us performing my screenplay. He did a couple of songs, followed by some other poets, then music again. Finally, almost reluctantly, we set up to read the screenplay.

There were only two mics for the 6 of us. The narrator and the bad guy both went without a mic, but were seasoned performers and projected without any problem.

This was the first time my screenplay was performed with an audience. Nonetheless, everyone, from the narrator to the 3-line actor, knocked it out of the ballpark. With the changes I’d made after the first table read, I only noticed minor changes that I wanted to make, thanks to the performance.

Since I knew I wouldn’t have time to rehearse with the actors prior to the performance, I did everyone the favor of having their lines highlighted, which everyone I handed a script to thanked me for doing. Once again, Virgo organization saves the day!

I’m so happy that the two biggest laughs came toward the end. As a matter of fact, I blew kisses at the audience for one of the big laughs. And without realizing it, I’d written a crowd-pleasing cheer at the very end, which all the actors did and the audience even joined in on. That spontaneity made me so happy. Even the host beamed at the big finish and he enjoyed playing the bad guy.

At this point, my game plan is to eventually work my schedule doing more wonderful interactions like that than working jobs I’m passionless about. After one more edit, I’m going to submit this screenplay to contests. Beyond that, I’m going to write another one. For my next project, I’ll do myself the favor and make it a series.

Be Patient…

Freedom has a cost. The trajectory of my professional life has gone from being a secondary math and science teacher to an independent contractor who writes, edits and sales insurance on her own schedule from home. Along the way, some companies I’ve worked for have tried their best to recreate sweat-shop conditions in my home. For other companies, they’ve become less lucrative over time.

The latest variation of this theme originally sounded positive: Be patient.

Normally, if a situation has caused me to panic or be impatient, telling me to “be patient” wouldn’t be magical words that would suddenly alleviate my concern. Yet, I realized this latest technology glitch would eventually be resolved. And then it was announced that it was fixed, but I still experienced the same problem. Then another glitch compounded the problem.

The territory manager told me to be patient. Take some down time.

The only problem with that is that other people were still making money. I even asked which other money-making opportunities I could do within the company until the glitches were resolved.

Be patient.

I took matters into my own hands. I called my former supervisor in the department I’d just left to switch me back, which he did about 30 minutes later. It was all a matter of switching my automatic dialer from one job to another.

All the while, I’d been job searching for weeks, beginning with a copyediting job I saw in one of my favorite weekly publications. At that point, I had to do something I hadn’t done in a few years: update my resume.

Oh the anguish! I’d said I’d never do that bullshit again, which was precisely why I had to do it again. When will I ever learn not to tempt the devil?

To ease the pain of the process, which included typing up a cover letter, I sipped some Malbec. In the end, I dialed a lifeline and read my cover letter to a friend just to make sure it wasn’t just the wine talking.

To get more mileage, I applied to other writing/editing jobs. A few weeks later when the glitches hit, I looked into other telecommuting insurance jobs.

I was in damn near panic mode when, after a week of hardly making any money, the glitches still had not been addressed. Fortunately, when I returned to my former position, some things had improved.

I worked a few hours on a Saturday just to play catch up. I’d just paid the IRS and then spent a week barely making in money with the sage advice to just to be patient.

Ain’t that some shit? The person who told me to be patient would probably have had a much greater reaction than I if his ass went a week without making hardly any money. Yet, his pay wasn’t affected at all by the glitches. Plus, his “be patient” reply wasn’t truly something to comfort me or provide a solution. It was one of those trite comments people say when they’re not actually going to anything.

But like I said, freedom has a cost. To be free means to work the smartest hustle I can without even a thought of there being some knight in shining armor to rescue me. Honestly, I’d probably give him a hard time anyway.

One of my saving graces is being an academic. I’m nothing if not studious, so no matter how many times I have to reinvent myself or learn a new trick (or update my damn resume), it’s all in pursuit of remaining on the right side of evolution.