As Owen Would Say: What THE?! What THE?! WHAT HECK??!!

So okay, no more Herman Cain to kick around although his candidacy is merely "suspended," not ended and I have to think that has something to do with money, honey.

"I am at peace with my God," he says. "I am at peace with my wife and she is at peace with me."

I hope she gets a piece of the big ol' pizza pie of his wealth when she divorces him. That's what would bring me some peace in that situation.

On to Newt. Jesus. What happened to those Republicans wanting a president who isn't a "Washington Insider"?
Well, he'll have his fifteen minutes of being Top Dog and then someone else will scramble up the dog pile of can-this-really-be-the-best-the-Republicans-have-to-offer?

I'm gonna be all Honey Badger here. I don't give a shit. The more ridiculous the candidate they come up with, the better for the Democrats.
I wonder if Sarah Palin is just waiting in the wings, speaking of ridiculous.
I'll bet she is.
Jesus.

Mr. Moon keeps asking me what has happened to all of the cardinals at the feeder. I keep telling him that I DO NOT KNOW! They never write, they never call. I pointed out today that every darn seed in the woods is ripe for the taking and so maybe all the red birds are eating al fresco for real. He agreed this may be true. There's one juvenile at the feeder right now. "Go tell your friends!" Mr. Moon said. "Free food!"

The other night when Lis was here we got to talking about cooking. We do that a lot. She said, "It's time! We need to write the cookbook!"
"Okay!" I said. "But first, we need a title!"
We pondered, both of us for about one quarter of a second and then we spoke at the same time (this was post-martini, y'all, which explains all the exclamation points).
She said, Something Spanish!" just as I was saying, "How To Cook Southern!"

We laughed so hard. One has to wonder if we'll ever get serious about a cookbook.

Mr. Moon and I keep asking each other- "What do you want to do when we're in Mexico?"

For me, I think it mostly boils down to eating food I didn't cook, not washing any dishes, and lounging around on sheets I don't have to wash with my lovah.

Okay. There's more to it than that. But seriously? That's a big part of it. Just being honest. I want to buy some earrings, too.
And I have to admit that the idea of sharing my favorite place in the world with Jessie and Vergil is pretty darn exciting.
Here are some pictures that pretty much say it all for me:

But of course, I will have to make a pilgrimage to here:

 

And I hope the Insanely Huge And Terrifying Donkey is again part of the downtown Nativity.

And that one of my favorite statues is somewhere to be found. It seems to move around a lot.

And that this guy is still smiling in front of the restaurant where we always take our first meal.

And oh, so much Si, Si, Si! that we can visit Playa Corona and catch up with this old amigo and hear about his woes with his wife with whom he has been in a constant state of sort-of-warfare for twenty-something years and with whom he continues to have beautiful babies with despite that fact.

And now, on to the next thing which is that I have three hours to figure out why in hell I want to go audition for a play in Monticello. I have NO business making that sort of commitment at this point in my crazy, loco vida what with the trip and the baby coming and the fact that I barely have two brain cells to rub together to memorize lines with but... shitfire.
I just sort of want to.
For awhile there I had no desire to put myself out like that, no need to be out in the world, no feelings of goodness about any of it but it has all crept up again.
Dang it!
Well, again. There is only one female part and I might not get it and the odds are that I won't because the Tallahassee actors have discovered us here in the hinterlands and our beautiful stage and some of those women are HUNGRY for stage time and they are serious and they take classes and educate themselves and audition for things all the time and I'm just a little ol' granny here in Lloyd who don't know shit.
I mean that, too. Every word. I am NOT being self-deprecating. It's just the truth.

Well- one more thing- what in HELL is Mr. Moon doing out there on that four-wheeler? Oh. Picking up and hauling dead branches on a trailer behind it.
Lord.

Bless our hearts, y'all. Except Herman Cain's. And the entire Republican Party in general. I ain't blessing their hearts. They wouldn't want me to anyway. They are at peace with their God already and so anything I could do in the blessing department would be redundant, not to mention I just don't want to.

But I will surely bless yours. If you want me to.

Love...Ms. Moon

Acting Class

I will not speak of forms. Forget it, no way, ain't happening.

So. On to foxes.

Ms. Fleur, my next-door neighbor, called St. Francis today to see if there was a way the fox could be humanely trapped and released elsewhere. For a myriad of reasons, the biologist she spoke with made it fairly clear that no, there was not. Ms. Fleur has a gentler soul than I do. When she told me the whole story on the phone I said that every where that humans move we are displacing some sort of indigenous population, whether animal or vegetable (or mineral too, for that matter) and that as humans, we have to accept that, try our best to keep it to a minimum and adapt to the situation in which we find ourselves.
I believe that, too.

Okay. On to acting.
I went to an audition/acting class thing today at Freddy's house. This, of course, would be part of the basis of the dream I had this morning and I actually spent three hours doing something that had nothing to do with my family or my immediate friends, unless you count Freddy, and I do. The whole time I was there I fought feelings of guilt- I should have been helping Mother pack. I should have been weeding the squash. Whatever.

I believe I am the only person in Freddy's posse of actors and possible-actors who has never attended an acting class. And I do not feel intimidated by this. Perhaps I should be.
At one point, Freddy asked for a show of hands of people in the room whose main goal in life was to support themselves by acting.
I could not raise my hand.
I would LOVE to support myself with acting but if I had my dream-come-true, it would be to support myself with writing. That's just the bottom-line truth of the matter. I do love to act. It is a joy in my life and I adore Freddy for giving me the chance and also the people at the Opera House but let's face it- I could give it up for the rest of my life and it would be a regret but there is no way in hell I could give up writing even for a week without going insane.
And there you have THAT.

Anyway, to me acting is a magical thing. It is all about flipping a switch and becoming someone else with that person's emotions and movements and actions. Give me a character, tell me the situation, and oh, please, please, please, give me someone to do this thing with, and I can do it. I can become someone else. In a way, I do not want to take classes because if I learned how the process worked, the magic might disappear.
I realize this is not a practical method for learning to act. Or even a rational one.

Freddy gave me and another girl whom I worked with in the last film I did with him a quick sketch and gave us ten minutes to come up with a one-minute scene. We did it and at the end, I welled up with tears because for that moment, I became the person I was supposed to be and that girl became the person who was making me cry and rage and it was sweet, simple magic.
For me, at least.

It's all about imagination, it seems to me. And I think that when you grow up in an iffy situation you have to learn to become very, very good at judging other's emotions and figuring out where those emotions come from and perhaps most importantly, where those emotions might land. Before you are ten years old, you have what is equivalent to a PhD in psychology and learning how to be whatever it is that the adults around you WANT you to be.
Fucked-up childhood = Good Training Ground For Writing and Acting.
I doubt anyone would disagree with me on this one.

So that was my day and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed watching other people become other people and I took internal notes on things I might want to use and things I just don't care to ever even think about. And Freddy may or may not call me to act in another of his films. I hope he does. It gives me huge pleasure and joy to be a part of that man's expression and talent and I will always love him for giving me the opportunity. There were people there today with whom I would love to work with. Who can fall into another character with ease and no obvious machinations.

And now I'm home, cooking beans and chicken and potatoes and leeks and tomorrow I'll go to Thomasville with Kathleen and Judy to meet with Dr. McCutey Pie to hear the results of Kathleen's latest scan and I am sure the news will be good, having observed how well Kathleen is doing, and so it goes.

A different sort of day but a good one. One in which I was challenged to define what I must do, what I love to do, and what that means in my life. One in which I was allowed to step into another's life, to create something out of nothing with another person, one in which I have been given all of these gifts, unasked for and yet freely offered.

And when Freddy asked that question about acting as a main passion in our lives, I was given the gift of knowing that it IS a main passion in my life but that I have more than one and if all of the paths of my life have led to this, then I can only say with great humbleness, thank-you. And I am so grateful to know that this is true, that there is more to my life than laundry and cooking and tending. That yes, these are the sacred dirt from which I grow, but there are other things which are the holy water which restores my soul.

Amen.