I don't know what to say.

I've been taking a lot of pictures lately. That is one thing I love about traveling. Or even just the sensation of traveling. (I'm here working, and theoretically my days are not so different in their component parts than my days in NYC, however, it all feels different. Either because I'm different or the environment is different or as is most likely the case, both.)
The problem is I forgot the cord that moves the pictures from my camera to my computer. So they are stuck there. Silent.
It's been a big day. I went to Berkeley for the first time in my life after at least 14 years of anticipation and excitement. (I liked the way Jennifer Egan wrote about it and what it felt like to be there in The Invisible Circus; and I also thought Anna Godberson and her black eyeline and hoop earrings were pretty cool in college.) I walked around the Cal campus which I loved, though it did remind me of Santa's Village. I think that's good on both the Cal groundskeepers and the Santa's Village designers. I loved all the 'wooded paths,' wooden bridges over creeks, and nettles on the ground. I wonder what my life would have been life if I'd gone there. Like Sam Glickman. (There's a name from the past!)
I also visited Berkeley Rep which was gorgeous and growing in a rather mind-blowing way. Beth Garfield generously connected me to her old friend Marjorie Randolph who's the Board Chair there and she showed me around and we got to talk and meet people and Les Waters (who I really admire). I also ate an excellent Yellow Curry at the Thai Restaurant and had a feeling the whole time I was there that I'd be back. A good feeling.
The rest of the day and evening were somewhat more complicated and I think I am still processing them. Flu Season is going well but not easily. More on that as it becomes available.
I should try to rest now. Tech at 9am tomorrow.
Goodnight.

Tree of Life

by Terrence Malick.
I just watched it and loved it.
For many reasons but the chief of which is it's economy of words. It is a rich and beautifully-told story about a boy, his dad, their family, and the evolution of the universe, the Earth, animals, etc. In that spirit, less is more words-wise tonight.

my biggest fears and Walgreens

I saw a little of Tilda Swinton's interview on The Daily Show last night and she was talking about how she couldn't direct because she has kids and that made me really scared/sad. Or she said she couldn't imagine how anyone could do both-- be a mom and direct because they both required so much. I know I'm only directing a small production of a play right now and some days it too feels all-encompassing. Especially because I find it so important to find the points of intersection not just intellectually but emotionally. This play I'm working on right now 'brings up a lot of stuff for me.' As the kids say.
I think it is about that guilt, about hurting someone, and also about wanting two conflicting things at the same time. We have all been there. We know what that feels like.

There are two things that probably tie for being most scary for me.

1) Trusting someone enough to fall in love
and
2) the part of directing up until tech starts

I love being in love and I love directing-- but they still scare the hell out of me. The thing I love about tech (and the thing that takes the fear away) is the intuitive part. I feel like I'm getting to conduct or choreograph sound and lights and movement and haze and fog and the audience's attention-- and I get to just ask for what I want, what I see, because I feel it. I don't have to explain it at all. (One of the key differences between talking to actors and talking to designers in my experience-- but it also makes sense-- putting a light cue in a certain place is not a psychological effort for a designer, whereas expressing a line of dialogue or bit of blocking has to make sense for the actor in order for him to understand why his character would do it.) I love words, and sentences, (as the playwright Richard Manley likes to say), but sometimes I feel how something goes much sooner than I know how to explain it. We aren't in tech right now. We're in the talking-a-lot-and-figuring-it-out phase. Which is hard but full of possibility still.
Sometimes I just want things to be simple though.
There are more Walgreens in San Francisco than I have ever seen anywhere else. I see them on almost every corner and I love them. Their bright lights and colors and big yellow price stickers. Their displays look like something out of The Price is Right. Special like that. A special occasion display, but there on every other corner and something I can count on. They are clean and well-ordered and consistent. Not emotional. Not heady.
This is what a Walgreens looks like today in San Francisco.