Days of school left:  15
Days till opening night:  12
Days till my first of two spring concerts:  14
Days till graduation (last performance of the year):  21
Days till we leave for the New England Odyssey:  55

Seems I’m counting down everything lately. Usually, a countdown makes you feel hopeful; excited. Not so with a couple of these, unfortunately, as they are fraught with uncertainty. Can I just say I am glad that after this year, we won’t have the musical in May anymore?

Off to my Monday…hey, what are you counting down? Anything I should know about?

Random Neuron Firings

1. Either I ordered the wrong pair of Wayfarers, or they sent me the wrong color. Either way, I’m happy.
2. I’d eat this.
3. OK. I love the idea of making your own fizzy lifting drinks (actually, I just like to say fizzy lifting drinks), but isn’t this a trifle too much work?
4. We hadn’t even started rehearsal last night, and I was on the warpath. Nearly reached critical mass. Very uncomfortable beginning. (Fortunately, things improved.)
5. Me wanty.
6. Cue awesome Lalo Schifrin theme song in 5/4 meter.
7. OK, but why?

All right, enough looking for cool stuff this morning. Time to get going on the sound plot for Grease, then 68 other things. I shouldn’t complain, though; when I woke up with a start at 4:50 this morning, I thought it was Monday.

Yay!

At the end of the day, you’re another day older.

Heh. Sorry for the lame Les Mis reference, and that’s not what I mean anyway. I mean that at the end of the day, if you have done your best, if you’ve treated people with kindness and respect, if you’ve been honest with and loving to your family and friends, and if you are grateful for the blessings in your life — then you have no choice but to experience at least some contentment.

In spite of some unexpected scenarios popping up with the show, and the requisite stress that comes with encroaching performances and hanging details, I am largely content this day.

We don’t allow ourselves to experience it often enough, in my opinion. Americans are seemingly hard-wired to fret and scheme and wring every possible minute of work out of every day. It’s like if we’re not exhausted by 10 p.m., we have wasted the last 24 hours. We have to stop that.

What if we were to say, “I am going to deal with my life today projecting an attitude of contentment, to wit, if I can’t change a thing, I will work around it/with it. I won’t let it destroy my day or rob me of joy.” Imagine the worry (which solves nothing) and stress (which’ll eventually kill you) you will avoid. That hasta count for something.

OK, fiends. Ready, steady, do it. Try on some contentment for size.

She got her hair slicked back and Wayfarers on, baby…

Yes, after reading a post on Facebook this morning from Suzanne, admiring a pair of Ray-Bans, I had to go make my first purchase of the summer: some Wayfarers. In fact, I got this exact pair — with the girly flowers on them. Whatever do you think?

Twenty-three days, and I will be that much closer to wearing them on the beaches of Cape Cod and Bar Harbor…

Aren’t they adorable? (The glasses, not the beaches.)

Cute Fink

Cripes.

Yes, I am crabby this morning. I embrace it. I marinate in it. And as the boo-hoo quotient is abnormally high today, I will go so far as to say I’m justified in being so.

I’ve said this before: I think that in order to glean the most from the human experience, one has to, as BFF Kay is wont to say, feel all the feelings on occasion. Some of us feel the need to feel all the feelings quite often, which could explain the high incidence of mental and emotional instability in artists. It’s the reticence to be that big ball of public high anxiety that results in my infrequent blasts of snark on this forum. Gotta release the pressure, or it gets funneled into the choir rehearsal, which is never a good thing.

So maybe I should just go with the research and snark out a curse word to make me feel better (although reading the word “Webicine” just makes me mad all over again). Oy.

Know what I dislike?

• Rude, inconsiderate, unkind people. Now listen here. I try (I don’t always succeed, but I am constantly trying) to make it so the experience of having contact with me does not make a person want to run away screaming into the night. Or reach for an awl. But even I have my limits. What have I ever done to YOU? (Not you you, but “you” collectively. I know, I know: you get it, move on.)
• Being able to get to sleep fine, but once I wake up, I’m up (today it was 2:15 a.m.).
• Verizon Wireless, because they’ve got so many of us by the throat and they know it. Somewhere, Ayn Rand is smirking.
• The fact that being rude, inconsiderate and unkind is not some kind of misdemeanor. If people were fined — or better yet, jailed — for being mean, we’d see a lot fewer insensitive, uncharitable displays. Either that, or we’d need a lot more prisons.
• Election years
• The fact that many of my students can recount with pinpoint accuracy everything that Snooki and The Sitch have done for the last three years, but cannot identify the last three US presidents
• The fact that we have exactly one weeknight rehearsal this week with the full cast due to athletic events, and learning last night that our lead has to instead go to a meeting for Buckeye Boys State. <insert maniacal, psychopathic laughter by two directors, waving pistolas and jumping off the Cliff of Insanity>
• Samuel French, for putting out the most hideously written and poorly edited script and score for a musical, and having the unmitigated gall to charge an arm and a leg for the privilege of going through it page by page and making improvements

Oh my, she’s such a drama llama, yes? Yes. I claim it. I corner its market. But please — misery loves company today. Please make me feel like less of a loser and contribute a witty rejoinder about something that bugs you this fine Wednesday. I promise tomorrow’s post will be sunnier if you do.

Sincerely,