2010 So Far: The Practical

I prefer not to think of this blog as "abandoned".

Let's just say it has just been...dormant, for various reasons...none of which are interesting enough to explore here. Although I suppose it must be said that probably the major reason is also the least glamourous: after years of resistance I finally joined Facebook. Of course it is a very different forum of online communication, but in some ways it 'does the job' enough to make you not think about writing blog updates. Okay...ME. I won't make assumptions about the rest of you...

I am well aware that long lapses in communication mean I have probably lost most of my previously loyal (and oh-so-close-to-my-heart!) readership, but there must be some of you still kicking around...somewhere.

So I intend to update you all on "2010 So Far" in two parts: The Practical and The Personal. This is the first.

January sort of accidentally began at the Prana Blue Moon Festival in the Coromandel peninsula.


While everyone else I knew made exciting plans to hightail it out of Auckland and go camping over the Christmas holidays, I just assumed I'd kick around the city and use the quiet time to make some extra cash, as I had done pretty much every Christmas 'holiday' period of my semi-adult life.

It was actually a pretty sad and stressful time in general. It felt like a hundred times a day people were sympathetically cocking their heads to one side and saying, "It must be so hard to be away from home for Christmas..."

And a hundred times a day I would have to decide whether or not to explain that I wasn't Christian (gasp! like Vanuatu all over again!), and that Christmas really really REALLY doesn't mean anything to me or my family, and if I was up for the series of questions I might explain that I have been away from "home" for a very long time, and I might even go so far as to declare that I've never really been a "home person". I really felt like everyone around me really wanted me to be depressed about being single and foreign on Christmas. So I guess I kind of rolled with it for awhile...

Also I was totally broke with no idea how I was going to pay my rent week to week.

That hasn't really changed much, but I do cry about it less frequently than I did in December.

But anyway, I am meant to be focusing on The Practical.

So what I didn't realize is that, like the tropics, Auckland really does shut down for the holidays. There was no extra cash to be a made, I would be on holiday with or without my consent. And just when I returned from the library with a stack of books to feed my soul in solitude, the opportunity came up to go to Prana for free as a worker at a stall for a local organic food store. In about 72 hours, various new friends pitched in to lend me a tent, flashlight, etc, cover my classes at the gym and organize rides for me. It was all feeling very blessed.

One of the funniest things that stands out for me about this preparation phase is how deeply embarrassed I felt admitting that I did not have a functional flashlight or pocket knife on hand...at all times. You can take the girl out of Peace Corps, but you can't take Peace Corps out of the girl!

How could I describe the Prana experience efficiently yet effectively?

I remember afterwards declaring it was as transformative as walking into my one-month Yoga Teacher's Training Course a staunch atheist at 20 years old and walking out a devotee...but even crazier considering I had had no plans to be there, had no idea what to expect, and it was only five days...with a bunch of (mostly) strangers with no particular organization or tradition uniting them other than a generalized interest in spirituality, music, eco-politics and/or the healing arts.
New friendships were ignited, old friendships were renewed and young friendships were cemented.

Everything that had seemed so hard and overwhelming about life just...stopped seeming hard and overwhelming for awhile.

Incidentally, I will be returning to Prana over Easter weekend for a smaller, quieter version of the New Year's festival. I pledge to remain expectation-free in the meantime.

When I returned from Prana, the rest of my January can be defined by a single phrase: "Short + Sweet". This ten-minute play festival ran for the last two weeks of January. Here's a news clip about it, but I sort of have a feeling you may not be able to view it from outside of New Zealand...

In Short + Sweet, I wrote and directed one play, co-directed and acted in a second, and Just Plain Acted in a third. It was an exciting experience for a number of reasons, mostly because it was my New Zealand acting and directing debut and my playwriting debut period. It was an exhausting and inspiring time...plus my legs got really strong from cycling to and from the theatre...

February marked my first show and official induction into Auckland Playback Theatre, a company and form I adore more and more as time goes on. Founded by Jonathan Fox in New York in the 1970s, "Playback Theatre is an original form of improvisational theatre in which audience or group members tell stories from their lives and watch them enacted on the spot. Whether in theatres, workshops, educational or clinical settings, Playback Theatre draws people closer as they see their common humanity." That's from the Playback School website you can go to to find a company near you...

In fact, Playback is so awesome I just know I am going to have blog separately about it at some stage.

At the other end of February, after months of rehearsal, Wet Hot Btchs finally had our 2010 premiere under the more family-friendly title of 'Wet Hot Beauties'...in the pool.


From the press release:

Pretty ladies all in a row!
A fantastical aquacade!
A memorial to the King Of Pop!
A hand in glove mix of syncronised swimming and water boogie - don't miss the underwater hit of the summer!

Deeply silly, delightful and glorious, the 40s era water musical aquacade is back, MJ styles! Hilarious! Hot! Wet! Wet Hot Beauties!



It was amazing...obviously. (That photo was not part of any press release - I just put it in cause, like, this is my blog and stuff...)

March...


...began with the fortuitous combination of a terrible cold and an amazing, intensive training for the newly-established Clown Doctors New Zealand, a partner organization of the long-ago-established Rotenasen (Red Noses) International. Pretty much I'm not allowed to say anything about the program launch in Auckland until the PR moguls have done their thing, but feel free to give us money in the meantime...

What I can say with impunity is that I had 20 Clown Doctors on my patio on Tuesday night to celebrate the end of (initial) training and to say Bon Voyage to our teacher returning to Vienna and other staff back to the South Island. I do so like having parties.

Since Halloween I have been teaching a free Yoga-in-the-Park class on Saturday mornings (weather-permitting). It's in the park.


Which brings us pretty much up to speed.

You may also be wondering how I pay my rent. To be honest, I am kind of amazed it happens myself.

So for money I teach a couple fitness classes a week at a gym, I've run a couple 6-week yoga courses, I babysit adorable toddlers in my neighbourhood, and as of a couple weeks ago I telemarket Me Time Pamper Packs - enter code 9572 to get $5 off (Aucklanders only would care). I've even ended up with a couple eensy-weensy gigs behind the camera which has been awesome and I definitely hope to do more of that sort of thing. But yeah, it's been a pretty hand-to-mouth existence the last few months...

A friend recently suggested that one day I will fondly look back on my starving artist days with a kind of bemused nostalgia...and if nothing else have a good laugh about it...(of course with the implication that I won't still be living them at the time). I hope that's true. I find the thought comforting nonetheless.