Things I Love: I love Shakespeare! Edition
Things I love this week:
* NaNoWriMo -- a story came to me last week, and now I am being slowly inundated with ideas and plans and plot moments (although not an actual plot, never that, I don't plan....). I have characters and am collecting more. I am super excited about my cadre of strong, fabulous, snarky women in this family (so far a grandmother, mother, young great aunt & her wife, and a daughter), and my problem character is fascinating although he isn't telling me a damn thing about what he's done (I know he's done something to get all these supernatural forces chasing him, but I still don't know what). I have been carrying around a folder full of paper and writing ideas on notecards and am so looking forward to starting to write all this!
* Shakespeare! Last night I took a (free!) masterclass on Shakespeare taught by LAMDA's Randy Cottier, who is experienced, extremely knowledgeable, a fabulous teacher, and is also freaking hilarious. (Perhaps my favorite was him consistently calling Elizabeth I "Queen Gingerwig," which I am stealing.) It was a great class-- we delved into the first scene of Lear, and bits from lots of other plays, going over sections, looking at the text, comparing various versions to the folio, talking about rhythm and meter and vowels. I got to be the King of France. And also get on my feet and be Anne in the famous seduction scene with Dicky 3, to play with speed and motivation and verse. lkasdjkbkb SHAKESPEARE I LOVE YOU. I want to take classes like this constantly. It felt so effing good.
* Autumn. I'm just going to make this its own category, because otherwise half the things I list would be snippets related to this. So: pumpkin bread from Trader Joe's mixes, & everything else pumpkin flavored from TJ's; gorgeously colored leaves covering my entire street and my car and my walk to work; waking up to frost and being able to see my breath; fluid weather between bright sunny mornings and foggy cloudy rainy afternoons; warm tea; the smell in the air. It really does smell autumnal.
* The Princess & the Pea. & the kids. Oh my god, they are hilarious. They yell and scream and get totally invested in the show and sometimes are on Daniel's side and sometimes rat him out completely, and say the best things at random moments (Daniel: "I'm going to stay awake all night-" Kid: "Are you KIDDING me?"), and then are so adorable after the show. Some of them want to come right up to us (usually me-- the perils of playing the princess), and some of them are really shy and some of them run over to give me hugs and kisses and the parents just love everything that's going on. It's a pretty big ego boost, won't deny it. And also super fun.
*&etc: the Ramayana opens tonight--I cannot wait to see it!; good, positive, lively discussions in meetings; all of the amazing plants at Molbak's (I cannot stop taking photos of them); new unlikely dresses to wear; comfy jeans and sweaters, fall's wardrobe; notecards and colorful pens for idea organization; feeling on top of things at work, as much as one ever is; Superior Donuts at SPT, which is selling out and getting the kind of press and audiences that it utterly deserves; swanky galas and dressing up like a flight attendant.
What do you love?