thank you california

for another great adventure.

ocularis

This morning I woke up and I couldn't see. Literally. Everything was blurry and I wasn't even hungover or headache-ridden.
I rubbed my eyes and gave myself a series of eye tests, splashed water on my eyes, asked myself if I was 'being dramatic' or hyper again and again, went for a run to make sure it wasn't grogginess, and then... I got a ride to the hospital.
When I was 5-- a few days after seeing a production of The Miracle Worker I'm pretty sure-- I kind of faked being blind one day. I think I didn't want to go to school, and I was half-curious if I could pull it off-- and in some deranged way I almost successfully convinced myself that if I was going down this road it could only mean I really was going blind. Or at least that was a symptom of something. I put my shoes on the wrong feet. I don't remember how conscious I was of these things, how shotty my vision was if at all, but I remember the part of the mid-morning, after several hours in the ER, when I sort of got bored and suddenly regained the power of sight. I remember feeling bad that my mom was so worried. But it was also a really interesting experiment.
Today was not an experiment. The ground, people's faces, and street signs were unrecognizable to me. In order to write notes to the actors I made the words on my computer 300% and held it inches from my face.
At the hospital I got a gown, a CT scan, and some headache medicine. They think it was an ocular migraine. Not serious at all. I'm glad I had it checked out and also that my worst fears (which flashed before my blurry eyes as I was being wheeled on a gurney into the CT machine) of going blind are not true. I really like seeing.
Also, here's a great article about another one of my favorites. Who happens to be a lady.
Miranda, I really think we would be bosom buddies.

Jennifer Egan, hero of mine

Since I'm directing a new musical at the moment, and just finished directing a play that my company Colt Coeur created collaboratively with playwright Lucas Kavner, I have been thinking A TON about story. And about style. And tone. And playing with time. And objects as jumping off points. Maria Irene Fornes said that she used to go to flea markets and look at the dresses hanging around a stall and try to imagine the women that would wear them. SHe'd find chairs and find a story in their shape, their cushions, and their scars. I love working this way. The musical i'm working on now is the first (new) project I've ever been a part of that I came to very late in the process. I'm finding this incredibly challenging.
Anyway, I just came across this interview by a writer named Alec Michod with Jennifer Egan, one of my absolute favorite writers and probably people.
I read The Invisible Circus in 1997 as a high-school girl with her own plans for a European-backpacking adventure. The whole time I was in Europe I'm pretty sure I was looking for Snake; Egan's super-sexy crafting of him had made me all but fall in love. I went to Cinque Terre looking for the sister who jumped as much as for the cliffs themselves. My own sister and I laughed and cried and obsessed over that book together and waited with baited breath for Emerald City. And so it has gone with each of her books. I haven't read The Goon Squad yet-- but it is on the docket for August and is probably the thing I am most looking forward to at present.
The interview is great and I especially got a kick out of the powerpoint section. It reminded me a little of William Gass or Christopher Alexander. But much less heady and much more fun.