So, I finally more or less got over my flu/cold - writes she while blowing her nose and nursing a lingering cough.
At least I'm well enough to have participated in two previews/fundraisers for Pants: The Musical in the past ten days, with another one this coming Saturday (at 2 pm at Take 5 Cafe in Berkeley, on Sacramento south of Ashby).
These previews give us cast members opportunities to perform our backup singing and solos with the music in front of us while we are in front of small, appreciative crowds.
On top of which, we have a mini-talent show afterwards, in which I get to read some of my little writings to the same appreciative folks.
Which has helped encourage me to get back into sorting said writings into batches that might work together and be interesting.
I reunited all the pages and sorted them back into my original topics. And have put into chronological order those topics for which it makes any sense.
I'm thinking that my next steps will include reading through the topic groups, making copies of my electronic files that are also sorted into these groups, and further refining those groups by splitting up blog posts that combine materials that pertain to different topics.
In other news, I spent four hours last week training with a coalition of people who seek to reform Proposition 13. Prop. 13 was intended to protect aging homeowners from steeply increasing property taxes. However, it applies even more strongly to commercial property, and its effects have shredded government services that depend on property taxes and shifted much of the remaining tax burden from commercial property owners to homeowners.
Finally, I got back to a Leather Soles dance class/party yesterday. Great exercise, and today, after a nice hot bath, my legs have almost recovered.
Monday, March 23, 2015
Saturday, March 14, 2015
Happy Pi Day
It's 3/14/15, which are the first five digits of pi.
I finally got back to my DIFO meeting in person today, and my support group resumed meeting this week after a hiatus, so I'm basking in the renewed support.
Which is needed. Traveling halfway around the globe without a companion was hard on this introvert, and I'm back on a psychiatric med to keep a current bout of anxiety from blossoming into major trouble.
It was also helpful getting back to my two writing groups: the class with Janell Moon, and writing at Folio Books with Kathy Dalle-Molle. Between an upcoming reading by our Folio group next month, and the musical comedy Corduroy Pants, which is in previews, I've had to write two short autobiographies in the past week. One focused on my writing, and the other focused on my theatrical experience, so there's not much overlap.
So here are some recent writings, including the biographies:
Public Speaking
Surveys relate that more people read public speaking than are afraid of death. Rank me with those who fear death the most.
I've been acting and engaging in various forms of public speaking since I was in grade school. Plays, forensics tournaments, the high school valedictory address. As long as I have a script to follow, or at least have some idea of what I want to say, I'm fairly content to stand up in front of people and sing, or act, or lead worship, or read poems or other writings.
But that doesn't make me an extrovert. No, no, no. Cocktail parties, meeting new people, hanging out in a group all terrify me. I can only spend a few hours in a party situation or with a group of people before I need to escape somewhere alone and replenish the energy I've lost. I'm definitely an introvert, albeit of the showoff or performer variety.
Watch me take a piece of my mind and share it with you. That's OK; it's what I do.
____________
Cast Bio
Dana Vinicoff played the chief elf in The Elves and the Shoemaker at age 8. In junior high, she played Ulga in Dinny and the Witches, and the Jester in Twelfth Night. She wrote and performed with Mothertongue Readers' Theater in the '80s and '90s. More recently, she played Harvey in Joan Furst's musical comedy, Dykes on Broadway. The next year, she played a Latina with mental health issues in Roke Noir's production, Mad Love.
________
Writing Bio
Dana Vinicoff came to San Francisco in 1974 to go to law school and never left. She has retired after 31 years as a legal writer, editor, and publication manager. In between acting gigs and community organizing, she writes creative non-fiction with any group she can find, maintains her blog, and tries to massage her writings into one or more collections that some people might enjoy reading.
____________
Santa Monica Summers
At the beach, the smell of Coppertone lotion and the pricier Bain du Soleil. The stickiness they left on the skin. The heat of the sun beating down on my hair, freckling my nose, and setting my skin up for cancer and my eyes for cataracts.
Stepping into the water and plowing above, below, or through the waves until I get in a good location for body surfing. I catch one wave, and travel halfway back to shore. Another wave sneaks up on me and I am tumbled in a washing machine.
Sand accumulates in my swimsuit and I duck down and try to swish it out. I step on seaweed and cringe away from its slippery feel.
Having been hit by three more washing-machine waves, I've had enough for today. I head back to my beach towel, after some searching with my near-sighted eyes.
I sit down on the towel, and the sand that already clung to my feet is gradually joined by wind-blown grains all over my body. And I pick up more sand from my towel itself.
But there's a can of soda in a cooler to wash the salt out of my mouth. And a taco stand not far away, where I can buy a mystery meat taco wrapped in yellow paper and a rainbow snow cone. I bring my prizes back to my towel, triumphant.
______
I met Beverly Sills once. Nee Bubbles Silverman, she was proudly claimed as Jewish by my family. She was at the peak of her career as an opera singer, and had a voice of the type my voice teacher claimed I was acquiring.
I'm not quite remembering where we met. It probably was the Hollywood Bowl or some other Los Angeles concert venue, since I was a music major at U.C.L.C. in those years - the early 1970's.
I congratulated her on the wondrous facility of her coloratura runs. I've a faint memory that she had sung florid variations on "Ah, vous dirais-je, Maman," a tune we Americans know as Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.
I can be fairly sure of having actually met her, because I still have her autograph on the page from that tiny notebook I carried with me even then.
But as for encouraging me to take my musical gifts in the direction of opera? Nope. I decided that I was not going to earn a living in music, and went on to law school.
Now that I'm retired, though, I'm returning to the artistic endeavor I favored in junior high school - musical theater.
__________
I'm reminded of the time I spent a day at the Elizabeth Arden salon in Los Angeles - a gift from my mother to prepare me for the high school juniors' ball. When I was done there, I looked like a million bucks. To be more precise, I looked like a 35-year-old woman whose husband was a millionaire.
And I didn't exit the building before a young man came up to me and tried to charm himself into my life. Nonplussed, I wound up inviting him to the small Santa Monica apartment where I was living with my mother and brother, to swim in the pool.
When he arrived and saw my true age and circumstances, the dollar scales fell from his eyes, and he faded away at the first opportunity.
I finally got back to my DIFO meeting in person today, and my support group resumed meeting this week after a hiatus, so I'm basking in the renewed support.
Which is needed. Traveling halfway around the globe without a companion was hard on this introvert, and I'm back on a psychiatric med to keep a current bout of anxiety from blossoming into major trouble.
It was also helpful getting back to my two writing groups: the class with Janell Moon, and writing at Folio Books with Kathy Dalle-Molle. Between an upcoming reading by our Folio group next month, and the musical comedy Corduroy Pants, which is in previews, I've had to write two short autobiographies in the past week. One focused on my writing, and the other focused on my theatrical experience, so there's not much overlap.
So here are some recent writings, including the biographies:
Public Speaking
Surveys relate that more people read public speaking than are afraid of death. Rank me with those who fear death the most.
I've been acting and engaging in various forms of public speaking since I was in grade school. Plays, forensics tournaments, the high school valedictory address. As long as I have a script to follow, or at least have some idea of what I want to say, I'm fairly content to stand up in front of people and sing, or act, or lead worship, or read poems or other writings.
But that doesn't make me an extrovert. No, no, no. Cocktail parties, meeting new people, hanging out in a group all terrify me. I can only spend a few hours in a party situation or with a group of people before I need to escape somewhere alone and replenish the energy I've lost. I'm definitely an introvert, albeit of the showoff or performer variety.
Watch me take a piece of my mind and share it with you. That's OK; it's what I do.
____________
Cast Bio
Dana Vinicoff played the chief elf in The Elves and the Shoemaker at age 8. In junior high, she played Ulga in Dinny and the Witches, and the Jester in Twelfth Night. She wrote and performed with Mothertongue Readers' Theater in the '80s and '90s. More recently, she played Harvey in Joan Furst's musical comedy, Dykes on Broadway. The next year, she played a Latina with mental health issues in Roke Noir's production, Mad Love.
________
Writing Bio
Dana Vinicoff came to San Francisco in 1974 to go to law school and never left. She has retired after 31 years as a legal writer, editor, and publication manager. In between acting gigs and community organizing, she writes creative non-fiction with any group she can find, maintains her blog, and tries to massage her writings into one or more collections that some people might enjoy reading.
____________
Santa Monica Summers
At the beach, the smell of Coppertone lotion and the pricier Bain du Soleil. The stickiness they left on the skin. The heat of the sun beating down on my hair, freckling my nose, and setting my skin up for cancer and my eyes for cataracts.
Stepping into the water and plowing above, below, or through the waves until I get in a good location for body surfing. I catch one wave, and travel halfway back to shore. Another wave sneaks up on me and I am tumbled in a washing machine.
Sand accumulates in my swimsuit and I duck down and try to swish it out. I step on seaweed and cringe away from its slippery feel.
Having been hit by three more washing-machine waves, I've had enough for today. I head back to my beach towel, after some searching with my near-sighted eyes.
I sit down on the towel, and the sand that already clung to my feet is gradually joined by wind-blown grains all over my body. And I pick up more sand from my towel itself.
But there's a can of soda in a cooler to wash the salt out of my mouth. And a taco stand not far away, where I can buy a mystery meat taco wrapped in yellow paper and a rainbow snow cone. I bring my prizes back to my towel, triumphant.
______
I met Beverly Sills once. Nee Bubbles Silverman, she was proudly claimed as Jewish by my family. She was at the peak of her career as an opera singer, and had a voice of the type my voice teacher claimed I was acquiring.
I'm not quite remembering where we met. It probably was the Hollywood Bowl or some other Los Angeles concert venue, since I was a music major at U.C.L.C. in those years - the early 1970's.
I congratulated her on the wondrous facility of her coloratura runs. I've a faint memory that she had sung florid variations on "Ah, vous dirais-je, Maman," a tune we Americans know as Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.
I can be fairly sure of having actually met her, because I still have her autograph on the page from that tiny notebook I carried with me even then.
But as for encouraging me to take my musical gifts in the direction of opera? Nope. I decided that I was not going to earn a living in music, and went on to law school.
Now that I'm retired, though, I'm returning to the artistic endeavor I favored in junior high school - musical theater.
__________
I'm reminded of the time I spent a day at the Elizabeth Arden salon in Los Angeles - a gift from my mother to prepare me for the high school juniors' ball. When I was done there, I looked like a million bucks. To be more precise, I looked like a 35-year-old woman whose husband was a millionaire.
And I didn't exit the building before a young man came up to me and tried to charm himself into my life. Nonplussed, I wound up inviting him to the small Santa Monica apartment where I was living with my mother and brother, to swim in the pool.
When he arrived and saw my true age and circumstances, the dollar scales fell from his eyes, and he faded away at the first opportunity.
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