I support women's plays and new work in theatre.

I'm hoping you'll join me in sending money to support this new play: http://www.indiegogo.com/The-World-Premiere-of-The-Garden-of-Monsters
Mara Lathrop is a brilliant playwright who has won awards with her work, and like all playwrights -- but especially women -- struggles to get her work produced. She has raised some money already and is currently raising more specifically to compensate the artists in this production.
I've written here before how I've irritated local theatre companies with my emails addressing the inequity of women's plays in their lineups. I won't go into that again right now. I will say that there is a recent article in the New York Times about the dearth of women's plays being produced in New York. So, even if I weren't a playwright myself, if I were just an audience member -- which I also am -- I would support women's plays. As a playwright though, I also feel compelled to support NEW work. If I don't advocate for new work and ask others to do so, how can I hope to get my own work produced? What if all we ever watched were things we know we like already?
It's beginning to seem that way in movies, isn't it? Everything is a sequel or a prequel to something we already know and love. How safe is that? Come on people! Get risky! Dare to taste something new, see something you might not like, take a chance. A movie is less than ten bucks. So you waste a couple of hours. You can actually get up out of your seat and go home and waste your time in front of the televison. Or, get this: you can read a book.
At the theater, seeing a live play you might want to wait for intermission, or in one of those new-fangled plays where you have to sit through the entire 90 minutes, you'll have to watch the whole thing -- or not! People actually do get up and walk out if they are offended or bored, you can do that. But look at it like an adventure! Be the explorer of your posse. Choose something from your local rag or online calendar that has a title or synopsis that piques your interest, call and make reservations, or buy your online tix, and show up.
Or if that's too bold, just donate a few bucks to Mara's Garden of Monsters. Please.

You think you have it bad?

Sometimes we feel really down, life can be really unfair. Then we look around just a little and sure enough, someone has it worse. One of my dear friend's husband is battling a relapse of throat cancer when the first battle was scarcely over. The treatment is dreadful, and the odds aren't great. They have twin boys who just turned 14. But wait -- they're not the ones I mean. No, it's their friends who were similar. The mom is fine, the dad just lost his battle with cancer a little over a month ago. They also have two boys, one 16, the other 10. The 16 year old was shot in the chest on Sunday in an accident. He's in critical care, has lost a lung. Now it's just Mom and the younger brother praying for all they're worth not to become half a family. Prayer circles have been formed, people are donating blood in his name.

Still, if we look around further, there are others even worse off. People suffering alone with no one to care or notice. If you are alone, maybe you can notice or care about someone today who needs your notice. Sometimes that is all we can do. And sometimes that is enough.

Writing on Wednesday

On Twitter, people use hashtags (the number sign) and words together to create categories that can be searched. On Wednesdays, there is #WriterWednesday or just #WW. People sometimes report what they're writing, where they've been published, or share their favorite authors, blogs, books, all kinds of writing. This is a good way to learn about what is new in the publishing world. New authors to follow, new writers to learn from. I love reading tips from other writers, even if I've heard them before or read them before, it is good to be refreshed. All writers love to read about writing, especially when we aren't writing at the moment.
Today I worked at one of my part-time jobs, which entailed taking two buses on the way, walking a mile after the second bus, working for two hours, then hitching a ride for that mile, and taking two more buses back home. The first bus of the day was 35 minutes late because the Rose Fleet arrived downtown and the bridges were up. So, I spent all that time just standing looking down the street and checking my watch. After a certain amount of time I knew I was going to have to walk that mile. Not happy, me. Not that I can't use the exercise. I was looking forward to having the time to get lunch and go over my script for work. It all worked out okay. I had a cold wrap and still had time to go over the script anyway. Plus I got some exercise.
Walking gave me time to finish up the non-fiction piece I worked on the past two days. When I got home this evening, I went over it again, reading it aloud and made the changes I had made in my head earlier. Then I found three journals to which to submit it, and did so. Now I have something to tweet about. And that's my #WW. You?

Shame

After spending my writing time for the past two days on a piece in which I felt many things, one of them shame, even though I was blameless, the feeling is up there for me today. And along comes Representative Weiner of NY, standing up in front of a crowd of press and accepting responsibility for his admittedly "dumb" actions and feeling the shame of it all. He had some tears, and he squirmed, but he stood up and answered all the questions they threw at him. I thought he would read his statement and leave, but he didn't. He said he would now take their questions, and he took them all. He answered them all, over and over again. He denied nothing. He said that he had initially denied sending the picture and tweeting because he was embarrassed and he knew he had done a dumb thing and he didn't want to get caught. He told lie after lie. And now he was finally telling the truth and he felt horrible, and it was no one's fault but his own. He refused to blame it on alcohol, or anything that could be counseled away, anything but his own lack of judgment.
I don't know the man. As I watched him, I felt as if I did. I felt as if I were feeling the shame, the sadness, the surreal-ness of all those reporters asking those questions. He found the inner strength -- I think -- in the truth. By not having to come up with another lie, by telling the truth, he was able to stand there and continue to answer their questions.
May he continue telling the truth and learn from this. May we all learn a lesson today from watching a man face his shame head on and beat it back with the light of truth.

Mining the past

For the past 22 years I've been writing about an incident in my life that happened when I was 12 years old. It wasn't the most horrible thing that ever happened to me by any means. I've often wondered why do I keep writing about it, why does it stick in my mind, drawing me back the way a lost tooth draws a tongue to the hole in the gum. I wrote 600 pages in 1989 in 6 weeks at a mountain retreat. Since that time I've reworked that material, written short stories, plays, poems from that mass of material, sometimes going back to the same incident, sometimes not -- but that incident is the spark. I think I have finally found the reason why. That was the pivotal moment, the incident that forever changed the journey I was on, switched my track. I made a momentous decision because of that incident, one I thought was a grownup decision, and I suppose it was, but was to set me off on a rocky course for many, many years. I'm writing a creative nonfiction piece about it now called "Losing My Place." I hope this one puts it to rest.

Taking Care of our Bodies

I'm reposting a quote here that I got from a friend's blog this morning. It's a quote from Buddha: “To keep the body in good health is a duty; otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.”
I don't get enough exercise. I always intend to, but instead I spend my time writing. That's what I have always wanted to do my entire life -- have enough time to write as much as I want. Now I have the time, that is what I am doing with my time when my time is free. My other habits are good for my body: I don't drink or smoke or eat things that are bad for me. My diet is excellent. I drink enough water, I don't eat sugar or fat. I'm a vegetarian and I eat lots of vegetables and fruit. High fiber content, low processed food, no trans fats. I laugh a lot, I try to get enough sleep, and I surround myself with loving people.
I do garden, so I get SOME exercise, and I walk some. I like to walk, I like to swim, I just don't discipline myself to do it daily as I have done in the past.
How do you take care of your body in order to keep your mind strong and clear? Or do you? And if not, is your mind strong and clear anyway?

ALWAYS SEARCHING ...

I've had headaches for as long as I've been an adult. And I've had migraine headaches as least since I was in my mid-30s. At first I had them a couple of times a year. Later they became worse and worse, lasting longer, once I had one for 16 days. After that someone told me I could go to the ER and get something for my headache. Well, back then you could. I started going to the ER and getting a shot of demerol. That was about 3 or 4 times a year. My doctor told me what to ask for, it was demerol and an anti-nausea med. I don't remember the dosages. But by the time I was 55 the headaches were more frequent, and I was having to go to the ER for chest pain way more often that I was for migraines. I was a mess. Finally everything came to a climax: I had a heart "event" after 3 hospitalizations in a month, then a hotel house call for a migraine (I was working and on the road), an allergic reaction to Plavix, and heart failure. I retired. After 18 months of cardiac rehab, I began to get my health back, but the migraines have persisted. So ...
I'm always searching for a cure for migraines. I've found some things that helped a bit. I located my food triggers and eliminated them from my diet: all corn products, nitrites and nitrates, aspartame, sucralose, too much soy. And I became a vegetarian and recently I gave up sugar/sweets as well. I don't drink coffee. I drink plenty of water. I take Co Q 10, and magnesium tablets. I tried feverfew, ginger, butterbur. None of those helped. I tried chiropractic, acupuncture and massage. I learned biofeedback and it sometimes helps. I take Topamax which probably prevents me from having 15 to 20 headaches instead of 8 to 10 a month. It may also decrease the severity. I can't take most of the migraine meds because they give me chest pain. I'm stuck with butalbital and phenergan, which I can take only twice in a week in order to avoid rebound headaches. Oh yes, I'm allergic to aspirin and ibuprophen as well (see Plavix above, severe allergies to meds).
So, now someone has recommended Dermamag oil, which is magnesium oil that you apply to your skin and supposedly is absorbed and has less effect on your digestive system, but is helpful re migraines. It is expensive. But I am about to try to find some locally and apply it. If you have tried this, I would very much appreciate hearing from you. If you don't wish to leave a comment, please contact me via twitter @dehelen.