Monday, October 30, 2006

today's tears (featuring fff)

although i must admit i titled this days ago when i drafted the note about what i wanted to post (if you'd like to skip ahead to fff, it's the last item) but between the radio station, shakespeare rehearsals and equus, i haven't had a moment to actually write it and just deleted the whole thing to start again- it's too far behind me now to pick up where i'd left it, and sadly, i'm too exhausted to muster the fire and indignation that fueled the tears on the day i read crazy: a father's journey through america's mental health madness by pete earley (local author who previously wrote for the washington post) for the radio gig. i'ma give a brief rundown of some of what i learned because i believe in disseminating information and raising awareness wherever possible, but please understand that i'm too tired to do the topic justice- i just know that if i wait any longer i'll lose the wherewithal to get this post written- we open equus on wednesday night, and i don't really have downtime until after that (at which point i'll collapse and hopefully do nothing for about 24hours) so i need to do this now or i'll never get to it...
the state of america's mental health system is tragic and inhumane- there are more mentally ill people in jails+prisons than in mental hospitals because the system has no other accomodations, so the largest facility for the mentally disabled is the l.a. county jail, in spite of the fact that jails aren't properly equipped with staff or resources to handle the mentally disabled. jails+prisons are designed to punish, isolate and dehumanise so that inmates will never want to return to similar institutions, which is the exact opposite of how treatment of the mentally disabled should be conducted- even on the most basic level, jails are built with metal beds and other standards that are physically unsafe for the mentally ill.
earley witnessed the mentally ill held naked in cells, even women didn't have underwear, even @ that bloody time of the month; they weren't given the basic amenities like toothbrushes or blankets, because those in charge think that crazy people will lose and/or don't deserve them (plus, it's jail)- toothbrushes are handed out for brushing then all collected up in a bucket and hosed off, with no individual having his/her own brush. there's one blanket per cell, and one must be willing to resort to violence to alleviate the chill, because the temperatures are maintained @ 50degrees or lower, since a nearly-freezing inmate (remember they're naked) is less likely to have the energy to act up- the thermostat is used as a sedative. and speaking of sedatives, prison staff often don't have the training to deal with the mentally ill and dispensing medications- there was a story of a man who'd been given the wrong medication daily, and nobody noticed that he lost 30lbs in 30days until he went into a coma and died. the mentally disabled convicted of misdemeanors can spend years (literally; one woman clocked 1,151days) being shuffled back+forth from the jail to the courtroom to be declared incompetent to stand trial, to another institution that's supposed to "make them competent" (but not allowed to treat them and thus mostly sedates them) then back to the jail to wait for their new court date, which takes so long to roll around that by the time a judge sees them again, they're no longer fit to stand trial and are sent back to be "made competent" again...i could go on+on but haven't the energy, and just wanted to say that we can't only pay attention to the treatment of the mentally ill when somebody gets pushed off a platform in the n.y. subway. earley shows the system starting with his discovery (his adult son's bipolar) that the system won't treat the mentally ill (eg. somebody going off meds and having a psychotic episode) unless the person is proven to be an imminent danger to self or others, so he was able to get help for his son (on advice of police and mental health personnel) only by lying and saying he'd threatened to kill his parents- it's a difficult issue, involuntary treatment, because it raises civil rights questions, but at the same time the mentally disabled by definition can't always see what's best for them- i'm no advocate of forced medication, but believe that with the right checks+balances, something better than the current system can be devised- as earley points out, nobody treated involuntarily said afterwards that they'd rather have been left lost in their own minds. i don't necessarily think his suggestions are the best way, but the book's worth reading just so you know what's going on and can decide how you feel about his propositions yourself. treatment should be administered before it's too late, and waiting for someone to try to kill themselves or another seems to me to be too late.

unconnected, but something i wanted to mention: grims has 2 recent posts i'm recommending- one of them just for the photo of the headstone that's tattooed on both of us (we are deeply disturbed by this development), and the other because it highlights some important issues that i've recently started to bring up here (although the london protest's over), and links up rentaempress one of my favourite (or should i say meggietastic?) people/writers in the process.

and finally, big-up jj for providing the opportunity to fff again- i been missing the weekly (fff#57) forays into fiction. this one's inspired by a scene from equus and the richard iii scene for my shakespeare gig and the aforementioned book crazy, which are also unfortunately the reasons this piece isn't as good as it could be since the shows are eating up all my time. but i can't not fff, so bear with me until all the shows are running smoothly (or @ least as smoothly as live theatre can get) and i have time to be better:
Blink…
he tapped the pencil.
blink…
he tapped again.
i closed my eyes…
tap.
opened them…
tap.
close…
again.
open…
again.
close…
i could hear him speaking. i could hear myself answer between slow-motion blinks. i was cognizant but somehow okay knowing i wasn’t the one in control. that was definitely new.
he kept tapping the pencil and i kept raising and lowering my lids as commanded, responding to questions i’d avoided discussing inside my head, but amazingly, not caring that i was letting him in.
the most revelatory part was how little it bothered me to relinquish control and tell him things i barely thought aloud for fear of endowing them with irrefutability.
i admitted to my secrets. claimed them and named them as demons to be exorcised. betrayed them, and in doing so, myself. and it felt good. at least, it felt good then, in the safety of his office.
at home later though, my angry secrets came back for me. they came back and showed me that simply calling them out didn’t make me any less theirs. they still owned me, and no amount of admitting them to another could erase the grimy caste they cast over my life. they made my ears burn and my eyes water. they infected my mind, multiplying and populating me with their tainted offspring – fear, doubt, shame.
where was the safety of the office with the comfortable chair and his comfortable voice?
i scrambled to find the little card with my next appointment marked on it – it’d have the numbers i needed. i dialed with shaking hands, hoping somebody might answer in spite of it being the wee hours of the morning, knowing finally that i needed help.
nobody answered. but i had the internet.
the rest of the dark time passed in a dream of watching myself frantically searching for information. i couldn’t quite keep track of how and where i searched but finally i had what i needed. as the sun began to show itself, i was at his door.
i knew he’d help me. i just needed to wake him up and get him to come outside.
i pounded and pounded but he couldn’t hear. but i knew he’d come eventually. i just had to wait for him. he’d come out.
i lay on the grass, waiting, looking up at the sky as the sun made its way into full view. i realised i hadn’t seen a sunrise in years. the deep purple streaks gave way to pink and orange feathers which somehow smoothed their way into a pale blue, and as the blue came, my mind felt at rest. i felt as clear as the morning emerging around me.
then the sirens came.


walk good.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Your FFF is so good, and so sad. Well done.

10:10 am  
Blogger willl said...

a beautifully written adaptation of that scene. nice work.

1:41 am  
Blogger justacoolcat said...

Powerful and nicely written. The secrets coming back for vengeance was powerful.

6:52 pm  

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Wednesday, October 25, 2006

eye-opener...

just read this article about eyelash transplants, and it made me wonder:
are long, full eyelashes (or, at least, what they do for the eyes) the only characteristic of physical beauty that all cultures worldwide agree on?
some like skinny, some like fleshy, some like exposure, some like keeping assets under wraps, some like elongated necks and/or lips, some like bound feet, some like tattoos/scarring/piercings- the list of the various attributes that cultures and subcultures have found attractive and propagated through history is neverending, and the extremes that people (especially women) will undertake to achieve them never seem worth it to me. but are the eyes and the effect of eyelashes the one thing we all love? something that comes pain- and finance-free, or at least relatively cheap and easy for those who may not feel naturally blessed...
walk good.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You have eylashes? I've never been able to get past those eyebrows...

4:50 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

aaaahahahahahhaha, damn right grims...now if only she would let me do something with those eyebrows, to show off her eyelashes and frame her beautiful face nicely....then maybe sis could talk about lashes...

7:22 am  

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Tuesday, October 24, 2006

production notes

i've never been accused to my face of being self-absorbed, but i believe i must be, and i'm ok with that. as a wise empress just reminded me, that's prob'ly why i have a blog...i can't help that this experience of life i'm having is the most important thing in mine, and i write and speak aloud not because i expect others to care, but because i must question, explore, reconsider every single thing happening within, without, and with me. my self-absorption anticipates no such similar reaction in others, but i must keep checking in case there's something new.
i've been carrying the same coke to+from rehearsal, untouched, for weeks now and i wonder if anybody's noticed (even if they can't tell it's the same bottle, wouldn't they wonder why i keep bringing a coke every day when i never open+drink it). then i tell myself that of course nobody's paying that much attention to me- why would they? but then i realise that's exactly the kind of twitchy shit i notice in others, and wonder if i'm paranoid or if everybody scrutinises everybody as hard as i do. either way, i stand by the adage that my paranoia doesn't mean the world isn't out to get me. but this coke thing is making me look @ all my little tweaky shit. i don't just repeatedly tighten the arrangement of the coffee table, i also repeatedly tighten the neat pile of my belongings i've set down for a period as short as a rehearsal, rearranging around each item i remove or replace. i adjust my clothing constantly, and switch my hair hourly because my head gets uncomfortable. i can't sit still because my body's restless. i drive myself fucking crazy.
anyway. we teching equus now and i love the show. now my only stress is not fixing the wedgie i acquire scrambling up from the ground when things go sour with alan. we have a full page of threatening dialogue with the occasional even-less-attractive crouch/huddle to get through and i feel like my shit's increasingly crooked the whole time. but i can't go back to the brazilian. sorry grims. but the show feels good.
i don't wanna say any more.
walk good.

ps: just glimpsed the funniest tv ad, cartoon cranberries (in cranassure by ocean spray) singing about their being good for the urinary tract. cracked my shit up!

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Like the lack of a brazilian ever kept me away.

2:50 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

grims, you put too much info here, why must everyone be subjected to you and sis nastiness!!! anyway, yeah sis you are a bit para, and it does my head in, but your paranoia also makes you well observant and a great writer, i think....love u

7:25 am  

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Monday, October 23, 2006

"dc is the 3rd world of the usa", and related thoughts

this post is a mishmash of thoughts i'm still sifting through, so if the connections aren't all clear and it doesn't actually go anywhere yet, i apologise and ask you to please bear with me.
i tell friends from sweet trini that being in d.c. is just like being home in all the bad ways- wasa (yes, the water+sewage authority even has the same acronym, making me cringe @ more than the expense when the bill comes) is always digging up the road and not fixing it, and between that and construction, d.c. roads are as bad as (if not worse than) trini roads. plus, wasa's crowning achievement is the lead content of our h2o clocking in @ more than few times the epa's recommended maximum, leaving many d.c. residents to pay out of pocket for non-optional pipe-replacement. we have regular power outages and more phone/internet service interruptions than i expected from the capital of the 1st world's poster-country when i came here from the 3rd world. crime is ridiculous, as is the number of people living (if you can call it that) in poverty. d.c. public schools are shit, which i can attest to since i spend a decent amount of time in them as a teaching artist, and when i was in university, an acquaintance called for a pizza and emergency services @ the same time and got pizza 1st (i do not condone wasting the time of emergency services just to prove a point, but cannot deny that the point was made in spades). i've waited in a d.c. emergency room for enough hours that i declared myself well and left, figuring that at least my bed was better for me than the hard plastic waiting-room chair. every trini who's been here and discussed this with me agreed on d.c.'s 3rd-world-ness.
i had a high school geography teacher (big-up ruddell) who made me love the subject after hating it for the previous 9(ish)years of academia. she also made me an evolutionary revolutionary and conservationist. it began to really bother me that sweet trini doesn't have the resources to do things like nationwide recycling, and neither gov't nor people seem to care. but after almost 9years observing black americans in d.c. and comparing people here to people @ home, i have a theory: regardless of geographic or cultural location, people barely ekeing out a survival (even less than a living or a life) and feeling marginalised by the system/society (on any scale from a small town to the international arena) are (necessarily) incapable of concern about things like arts+humanities or the environment and endangered ecosystems+animals. these are the concerns of people comfortable and confident in continued life and standard of living (by definition, already above subsistence). the development of arts+humanities and the resources to teach, sustain and propagate them, and the same as applicable to environmental and conservation issues are signs of rising civilisation and the implied prosperity of that process for at least some, if not all of the populace.
i.e. the reason behind the litter filthifying the streets of my sweet trini is ultimately the same reason behind the litter filthfying the streets of my northeast d.c. neighbourhood (we still a less gentrified 'hood). i'm not making excuses for people, but to work towards changing this mentality we must recognise that people need to feel like they're a part of the real world, rather than its unacknowledged underbelly, to give a shit about it. of course, there's education lacking too, but it's hard to educate people about something that seems unrelated to the needs of an uncertain survival because that very uncertainty renders such causes irrelevant fluff. people existing in cages and feeling abused/ignored by the prevailing system can't be concerned about the caging of chickens and humane treatment of animals, or even other people- i feel like everybody knows that starving people can't care about others' famine, but somehow that's not applied elsewhere...
more later.
walk good.

3 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Dennis Miller's fabulous line: "There are people who will step over a person lying in their own urine in order to throw paint on someone wearing fur."

2:38 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well said DM via JJ. That was before he became a republican voicebox right?

Babes- you see so much. And despite prevailing wisdom its not so much about helping people rise up, as much as it is removing the weight that pushes them down.

4:00 pm  
Blogger Attillah said...

you people are beautiful. thank you and the universe for existing.

9:28 pm  

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Friday, October 20, 2006

do people matter?

friday morning, just home from thursday's work- i went from having no gigs booked for thursday up until wednesday lunchtime, to having a workshop @ 9am, then straight to shakespeare to help grims with some carpentry (replacing floor, post-fire+sprinklers) until after 11pm- so much for learning lines for shakespeare and equus before i start tech this weekend...
but my real gripe today wasn't the length of it, but that the 2 different local theatres, both considered historic buildings, are thus mostly handicapped-inaccessible because the rules say they can't do anything to change the buildings. now i'm all for preserving historic sites, but not to the detriment of people- saying that a building can't be made handicapped-accessible because it would ruin it seems tantamount to saying that the building's more important than people, and more important than us not discriminating against each other.
today i conducted a student workshop with one student unable to get any closer to the stage where his classmates were performing than the absolute last row of the house, 2feet from the door. he was in my group and we had to exclude him because his wheelchair couldn't get any closer. at his height, it prob'ly also meant that when they actually saw the show after our workshop he can't have seen much from his chair, over the heads of theatregoers between himself and the stage. what he could see would've been thanks only to a raked, raised stage. i tried to include him by making him the voiceover for his group's commercial (the show's state of the union so we're dealing with the selling of political candidates as product) but with them onstage and him @ the back of house and other classmates filling seats in between, they couldn't hear him for their cues anyway and i had to make him redundant, repeating his lines for those onstage and nearer the front of house. it broke my heart that he had to be left @ the back like that, and there was nothing i could do. is any building worth that? i say: fuck no.
the other heartbreak was that one of the groups present was a gateway-type school that for some reason, included the word "probation" in it's name. now i know that may be what the school is, but when dealing with children-at-risk grownups should remember that the system's already told them they're losers, they already feel like the lowest in the pigpile, and our job is to help them break the negative stereotype they've become used to fulfilling. naming the institution they're sent to a "probation house" reinforces the stereotype and embarrasses them every time they have to tell someone where they go to school- which happens at most of the programmes and activities we try to expose them to. the 1st thing i did today was ask them if they all went to the same school, and what was it, thus (unknowingly) forcing them to admit that they attend a probationary institution, and that there's some sort of "confidentiality" rule that actually forbids them from telling me about it. how can this help children-at-risk believe that society gives a shit about them? how can it help them to have to tell relative strangers who think they're asking an innocent question that they have enough issues that the system's getting ready to kick them out altogether? i nearly burst into tears the one time i had to say the name of their school because i couldn't stand saying those words to those girls. and you know i'm no softie, but we're supposed to help them and instead they're put in a situation where they have to verbally reinforce negative stereotypes about themselves just to explain basic facts about themselves.
as a teaching artist i genuinely believe i'm doing positive and valuable work, but i also feel like whatever progress is made with and through us is minimised as soon as the students leave our workshops and go back to their daily lives. sometimes i almost feel like it's a disservice, to tease them with snippets of a good experience, then send them back to the "probation house" and expect them to be able to use what they've learned with us. i didn't have time to cry between the workshop and the next gig, and now i'm so tired that if it didn't upset me so much i wouldn't even be writing this post instead of washing the sawdust outta my locks and falling into bed.

in more amusing theatre news (i needed some between fires, lack of access and probation) my boss @ my shakespeare gig emailed the other day to let us know he had to sign a form (and this is his direct quote) ...certifying that none of you have ever been convicted of a felony or a "crime of moral turpitude."
Let's just say I had to look up the word "turpitude".
almost made me blush.
and another bright spot, from the father-in-law, courtesy our favourite husband, grims, check out this dude's "kinetic art"...
walk good.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You act like you are such a bad ass but deep down inside you care, and that is why I love you so much.

Not that you aren't a bad ass... I would never want to suggest that.

1:17 am  
Blogger AngelConradie said...

oh trini- i couldn't agree with you more about the name of that school...
i hope the theatre comes back to the way it was before the fire- with all your work i'm sure it will!

4:46 pm  

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Wednesday, October 18, 2006

bodily functions

remember how i told the gremlin that she could put the floats on her ankles and walk on the water like jesus, and that if she didn't brush her hair it would grow back inward and erode her brain? last night's dream reminded me of how i do that shit to my own self too: ever since my high school bio teacher (big-up miss marchak) explained that when you hear/feel your stomach growling it means your stomach acids are digesting your stomach lining so you should really eat and give it food to digest instead of itself, every time my stomach grumbles i'm deliciously tortured by imagining my stomach digesting itself and eventually somehow turning my whole body inside-out as it digests all of me and becomes the stomach that ate its person!
plus, i have to pee constantly. already- it's apparently winter. in october.
lame.
walk good.

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Tuesday, October 17, 2006

uppitycasier than thou

i get asked this question about my programme bio when lovely companies like wsc get it right, so i figured perhaps i should explain here too.
i don't like capital letters because i feel that they confer some imaginary and unwarranted importance on certain words over others. i find them randomly discriminatory, and don't believe in belittling words. plus, i think we shouldn't need assistance to recognise that what follows end-of-sentence-punctuation is a new sentence and possibly new thought, and when it comes to words capitalised because they're proper nouns, i think anyone who can read can figure out that emphasis oneself.
hence, i only use capital letters when directly quoting someone who did (eg. jj's fff starters) or for intentionally conferred emphasis that couldn't be achieved with italics.
so, no, i do not compare myself to e.e.cummings.
walk good.

ps: speaking of words, big-up afrobella for my new favourite word, "psychophant"...it has the aptness of "pop tart" with more sophistication...

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

hey! thanks for the big-up. There's definitely alot of starfuckers and psychophants here in Miami, I had to coin a word to describe them all. The whole South Beach scene really icks me out. You're going to be wonderful in Eqqus, glad to know you're out there doing big and wonderful things.
bestest as always

6:42 pm  
Blogger Christine Cormier said...

güten Tag Trini!

that umlaut doesn't really belong there, but i just like using them because they look cool. you would really love german as they as a grammatical rule capitalize nouns no matter where they occur. except when a noun is used as a modifier preceeding another noun. i get really confused and have to question myself a lot when writing. it's like a disease. i actually have to fight with myself when writing in english not to capitalize nouns. the keyboards are a trip too. the y and z are switched around to make them qwertz instead of qwerty. not that you needed to know any of this, i just wanted to share my pain...
lauf gut.

2:26 pm  

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Monday, October 16, 2006

year of the...

...horse.
i don't know what the chinese are saying, but for me, it's clearly the year of the horse. equus has been followed by multiple recent horse-related items (too small and multitudinous to mention) everywhere i look. even @ the movies, flicka's opening soon (no, there is absolutely no reason for me to see it; i read the book- lame). and i feel like i been talking a lot about my near-nudity for this show (conversations, not blog) but i'm not nervous about equus requiring me to get mostly-naked in front of people. i'm ok with my body, and distinctly unshy- i mean, i'm the girl who walked out into the livingroom where the boy roommates were playing playstation, in her thong so she could tell them to take a long, hard look and get used to it and even bored with it, so that she could then be free to stroll around her apartment in just panties. i got them so used to it, that my boobs were no longer the automatic 1st choice over playstation, because they knew the boobs'd always be there. i grew up in a naked house and have maintained one of my own ever since leaving my parents. every roomie until i could afford to live alone had to deal, and even after marrying grims, there are some friends we see @ our home often enough that i've made them deal with the fact that i am anti-pants so i can be comfortable @ home. if you ever come by me, pants are optional. what i'm actually very worried about is from now through tech and the rest of the equus run, being on top of waxing, trimming, pristine and unholey underwear, always bathing and remembering "chick stuff" like i'm getting laid even when i'm not, tampon strings, beardburn, very chapped lips (thank god for the recently discovered cocoa lip balm) and the big question: will friends of mine be able to sit through it? i know it can be uncomfortable to see a show where someone you know well gets naked, mostly because the average person can't look @ the now-forever-naked friend the same way ever again. especially if there was a stray tampon string in evidence. my vanity's also concerned about what level of undressed looks best on my body type, because i firmly believe that i'm best completely dressed or completely naked (quote: sweet trini is at her most charming when she's naked). i'm hoping that at least they won't have me end up in anything that cuts me right @ the waist- that's very unattractive on me, and once we get undressed, there's a lot of scene left to be played in that state. right now i'm getting down to bra+panties but the director may still change her mind, since it's supposed to look like we could actually be having sex, and we haven't talked about how feasible that is with panties on.

...drama.
there's been more than enough of it in my life lately, especially since i don't do drama, as a rule. but just as i thought things were well on their way to repair, this weekend while i was @ shakespeare rehearsal, our theatre where grims is also the fulltime production manager and technical director, caught on fire. this theatre (an elizabethan stage modeled after the globe in london where shakespeare really was) also happens to be attached to the largest repository of original shakespearean shit in the world. brits come here to d.c. to study and caress all the 1st folios. the vault under the building is bigger than the building itself, and in 5years steady freelancing with them, i still don't know the vast contents of the secret, supersecured underground stash. the fire was relatively small and contained, and things could be much worse, but our theatre's trashed. it was tragic- thick smoke still choking the air when i tried to high-step across the floor covered in water (coupla inches deep) and water dripping off the stage, the set, every column and balcony edge- i thought the whole building from lobby to backstage wall could make a brilliant set for macbeth or hamlet or richard iii, instead of a theatre where a midsummer night's dream was supposed to be teching as i write. that didn't make me feel better, though. i feel awful for grims because he has to deal with the cleanup, fallout and rescheduling of the show, and i'm totally depressed because even though i was just a freelancer, that theatre's been a 2nd home for years.

i feel like i should explain that the equus part of this post was written before the fire, and i'm sorry if it was jarring. i feel incapable of writing an fff this week but big-up jj for always being there. i don't really have anything else to say.
walk good.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I feel bad about how upset you have been about the theatre. I was very emotional about it for the first hour, but by the time I talked to the fire inspector I was working on my list of shit to do. If you could breath well I would put you to work in the nastiness so you could see that its not as bad as it may appear. That and because I dont' have any of the six clones needed for all the directions I am being pulled...

9:19 pm  

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Friday, October 13, 2006

bits+bytes

warning: this post contains items not often seen round these parts- capital letters. because, family, the gremlin is Getting Her Shit Together. she's holding down the GOOD (Get Out Of Debt) job and Handling Her Business, and i think she deserves a serious big-up.
at the same time, talking with her made me think of myself in a slightly different light- i now wonder if i'm a get-rich-quick type because i notice that others try to make more $ to cover expenses, but i always think of reducing expenses so i don't have to work any more. how do you think about it?
so i'm about to jump around a bit- this post is a mishmash of the few thoughts i managed to save from my recent too-busy-to-blog period.

i started rehearsing equus @ wsc (weeks ago) and am now learning lines for that and my shakespeare gig, and revising my noir. shit got hectic, but it's all good- i feel positive about the production, and i'm not worried about the nudity. as of right now, we're blocked with me getting down to panties and him naked from the waist down, and i know his direction won't change, but mine may, so i'm not saying anything to mom until i know for sure just how much of me will be exposed. weirder than getting naked onstage is extended face-sucking with someone other than grims for the 1st time in 5years. and it's more french kissing than is generally my style anyway, so the whole experience is a little surreal, and my lips are terribly chapped (which makes me even more excited about my cocoa lip balm that i'm so in love with right now).
and speaking of equus, has any american writer in the fantasy genre managed to capture the worldwide imagination (especially including non-genre-fans) the way tolkien has with the lord of the rings, c.s.lewis has with the chronicles of narnia, or j.k.rowling more recently has with harry potter? and it looks like his dark materials might be threatening to follow suit. it seems that the brits have a talent in the genre that american writers haven't achieved yet, but i can't see why. grims put forth robert jordan as an american challenger, but jordan hasn't captured the worldwide non-genre-fans. grims said that might be about time, but harry potter's only been around a few years as well- speaking of which, the connection was that every time i google equus for character work, i can't fucking escape fucking harry potter links because the kid who plays him in the movies is apparently in a west end revival of equus and it's all the internet cares about! i hate this kid right now.
anyway, american fantasy writers, anyone?

next, the silly side of office gossip: deidre, this very lovely (very lovely) actress we know, recently started working @ the theatre i do my shakespeare gig with, which is also where grims is fulltime. we ran into her when we saw a show @ the kennedy centre on my b'day weekend and spoke about everyone's intent to see another show another mutual friend was in. the following week, deidre asks grims @ work whether we went to the show or not, and he said we hadn't, and had just laid around the house naked instead (i think). so deidre apparently didn't know we were married, and thought she had the scoop in the latest theatre/office gossip and goes to jeremy's office (our mutual boss) to give him the skinny on grims+yourstruly shacking up, to which our boss replies, well yeah...
but it felt good to be mistaken for shacking-up on the down low.

upcoming project: the etymolygy of "muffin" as used to reference musical theatre people. an ex of mine who briefly attended emerson (i think) or some university in boston, used to call musical theatre students "muffins" because that was the emerson idiom. i think it's perfect and immediately adopted the expression while completing my performing arts degree, calling many of my friends+acquaintances muffins. i recently discovered that people going to that college now that i don't know use "muffin", and only some of them know that some random trini girl brought the term to them. i also recently discovered that previously-mentioned ex just asked somebody who goes to emerson now, and they don't use "muffin" anymore. does anybody else use "muffin"?

i looked up @ the tv the other day to catch a piece of some movie with a blonde scarlett johannsen in a matrix-y pleather outfit, and realised how easily bimbo-fied she is. then i realised that deep down, i think gina gershon is the brunette bimbo.

a church in my neighbourhood proclaims its congregation to be "christ's ambassadors of hospitality" on its marquee. i didn't think christ should need ambassadors of hospitality; i thought dying for the sins of mankind was pretty damn hospitable...

who exactly are spammers targeting with subject lines like "footbridge stipulation" and "summer's almost here" sent on october 10? did they really expect me to read that?

a follow-up on the male orgasm: grims posted a response to my mindless orgasm post, that i somehow missed until now. but it's never too late to come+enjoy...

walk good.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

sis, thanks for the big-up...big love

8:11 pm  

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Thursday, October 12, 2006

i am god

if you haven't tried googlism yet, here's my favourite new pieces of information about myself (googlism-ing my real name, of course, and cut+pasted intact with typos and all, in case somebody's tracking quotes):

sweet trini is god
sweet trini is blamed for siege and food shortages
sweet trini is here to help
sweet trini is happily married to her soul mate
sweet trini is also a gifted teacher
sweet trini is penetrating the anti
sweet trini is your grandpappy preceded with however many "greats"
sweet trini is a new christian thriller novel by brandilyn collins and it will have you on the edge of reading chair from start to finish
sweet trini is born amidst tension
sweet trini is also attested in the qur?an
sweet trini is responsible for post
sweet trini is certainly the one born
sweet trini is a great example of the healing power of god
sweet trini is buried in the cemetery attached to immanuel union united methodist church
sweet trini is the prophet of civilized life
sweet trini is currently studying not
sweet trini is deeply troubled by his new doubts
sweet trini is forced into a waiting government vehicle
sweet trini is a native of hazard
sweet trini is called upon to save a poor widow who is faced with having her children taken from her as repayment for a debt
sweet trini is very comfortable in front of the camera
sweet trini is received with new respect
sweet trini is singled out because of the color of his skin
sweet trini is pictured here "au natural"
sweet trini is reported to have used
sweet trini is censured for having been too severe
sweet trini is one of the stars
sweet trini is also a gifted musician and sctress
sweet trini is a young man who is trying to do things right
sweet trini is jeered and then ends up using a curse that kills
sweet trini is weaned
sweet trini is at her most charming when she's naked
sweet trini is a genius at conveying in her voice is a deep sadness
sweet trini is plowing; sweet trini is busy
sweet trini is treated at a level far above royalty
sweet trini is a holy man of god
sweet trini is the fact that
sweet trini is born
sweet trini is married to her best friend
sweet trini is a 10
sweet trini is dismayed and astonished as the cloak envelops him and he feels the spirit of prophecy possess him
sweet trini is a part of a group of evolved saturnians that were stranded on a distant planet that has far more exposure to sunlight than saturn
sweet trini is seeing
sweet trini is depicted as amiable
sweet trini is then recorded in the next chapter
sweet trini is a member of the red circle; after his birth village had been destroyed by a horde of lesser demons
sweet trini is a treasure; the men vie with each other to teach him wilderness ways
sweet trini is playing a game set in a rain forest
sweet trini is also our resident pokemon expert
sweet trini is not listed
sweet trini is found at damascus

walk good.

1 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Hi, right back.

Stumble Drunk.

3:41 pm  

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Tuesday, October 10, 2006

it seems that alcoa is the devil

i've said in the past that this blog is as ready as i am to move back to sweet trini. i've also said that i'm sometimes jealous of writer/activists like rentaempress and caribbeanfreeradio who can be there and actually use their webspace to try and help, because not living in it makes me feel unequipped to take a stance.
it occurs to me now that the least i can do from my end is help raise awareness about some of the things that i'd probably be protesting if i were @ home, because even if not being there makes me unsure of that, i can still disseminate information.
so i wanted to point anyone who has a minute and might give a shit to http://www.nosmeltertnt.com/ where you can see for yourself some of the issues facing our tiny country as our government (like so many others) seems to turn against us- or perhaps they were never really for us in the 1st place...
in the immortal words of 3canal: jab jab say...some a dem just wearin' d clothes but dey not for d people...some a dem just cuttin' a pose but dey not for d people...some a dem just actin' the roles but dey not for d people...some say dey pushin' love, but only promotin' hate...
walk good.

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reverse racism

as someone whose neighbours (in the 'hood, no less) think she has an endless supply of white boys, i feel a little bad that the only moments in my life i feel real fear are walking through wealthy, white neighbourhoods when the trees that provide shade all day do nothing but cast shadows, darkening the night. i'm only ever afraid for my life when i feel trapped in large groups of white people. i start looking around surreptitiously, needing to ensure nobody looks hungry.

walk good.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I wanna eat you up, but that's not quite the same I think.

10:36 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

gross!!!! leave that nastiness off the public domain and in your bed domain in the hood

1:38 pm  

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Monday, October 09, 2006

smells like fff

so this week's flash fiction friday sparked my descriptive streak, but i still felt a need to try something different with my delivery, so here's hoping it's enough to catch your mind's own creative streak, while being open enough to allow your imagination to run wild...
big-up jj. we love him over here, and hope he knows it.

The air was redolent with...
the sting of sulphur
the sweet smell of fresh grass
charred paper
smoky exhalations
the scent of desire
the stink of latex
warm musky flesh...
sex and marijuana
should always stay
unwrapped.

walk good.

3 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

I'm a sorry I no come round no more. My life is indescribable at the moment. But this was good. Very evocative with the minimum use of words.

1:07 pm  
Blogger willl said...

after the hype, im not let down at all. thanks for the brilliance.

3:35 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

sex & marijuana,
always good...

6:39 pm  

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Sunday, October 08, 2006

happy birthday, grims!

walk good.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

thanks babes. :-)

10:16 am  

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Monday, October 02, 2006

fff

so, since i said i was back and blogging, of course now i've been m.i.a. for 5days, and return with this week's flash fiction friday, not one of the promised posts.
but the fff's fun, and the only reason i been m.i.a. is an unexpected gig taking the time i woulda spent blogging (and doing other things)- so i'm keeping notes so i can really be back like crack in a short.
in the meanwhile, big-up jj.

She never would have done it if she hadn’t got drunk…and now, with stone cold sober pounding on the backs of her eyelids, that hardly seemed excuse enough. the angry little marks like fiery gashes in her flesh made her wince. ashamed, she couldn’t bear to be so clearly reminded of what she’d agreed to the previous night.
trying her damnedest to look at anything but those blood-red stains, her eye settled on her still-sleeping partner. he was miraculously mostly dressed and spattered with the same red, but he wouldn’t bear lasting marks the way she would in the next weeks.
she looked down again, contemplating her condition, and unexpectedly smiled. she decided to just enjoy it. she wiggled her toes and her smile got bigger as she thought to herself,
“maybe he didn’t do so bad with my toenails after all…”


walk good.

2 Comments:

Blogger willl said...

truly nice work.

4:53 am  
Blogger AngelConradie said...

oh trini- truly brilliant!
you had me on the edge of my seat till the the last sentence!

4:11 pm  

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