A week and a day ago I made my stage debut for my first improv show.  It was taped, but then the tape got ruined.  It's a shame, because I really wanted to see it and show it off.  I think I did a pretty good job.  And now I want to be on stage every day of my life.  I really can't believe how much I loved it.  Why I spent my entire life terrified of doing stuff in front of people I don't know.  But I do know that it took lots and lots of hours of practice and performing before I was ready to get up there.  One hundred hours, give or take.  You know how they say you can't get time back?  I am really glad those 100 hours weren't spent on the couch or at the bar or in front of the computer or with my nose in a book.  Those 100 hours were well spent.

I love time well spent.

I should be on stage again in a month or so.  I'll keep you updated.

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Speaking of one's nose in a book, I'm still plugging along (I hate that phrase.  I think it's because my mom calls tampons, "plugs".  Go ahead and puke now or puke later) with the John Irving collection.  I finished Hotel New Hampshire and I'm picking up Cider House Rules tonight.  I thought I still had a copy of CHR around the house, but I can't find it.  I most likely gave it away, I tend to do that with books.  I feel that they are meant to be passed around and loved rather than banked on a shelf.  So what if I don't get it back.  It's out there in the world somewhere doing good things, and isn't that what we want for everything and everyone we love?
The World According to Garp was a bit different this time around than it was last time.  The first time I read it I was probably a teenager, and was still in an invincible stage.  This time around I have a child and a crippling sense of doom and karma.  The combination of those two things made it a hard read, but I am glad to know that it must be a common theme among parents, since the book is so successful. 

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Sometimes I catch myself doing things that are going to land Jacob in therapy.  He is in that strange limbo stage where he wants a little privacy in the bathroom, but likes me to be in there with him.  I hate being in there with him.  It's hot, and smelly, and small.  The only ventilation in the bathroom is a tiny window, and there is no AC in the house.  So you can imagine what a displeasure being in there is.  If I give in to him and I sit in there, I usually make use of the time and shave my legs.  I just sit there on the edge of the tub in my underpants and talk to him while he tries to poop and I try breathing whatever it is that I'm using to shave (soap? lotion? conditioner? shampoo? whatever) instead of his stink. 

Maybe that's not the most responsible thing to do.  Maybe that's how fetishes are born.

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I have a blog award waiting in the wings.  It's from The Fabulous Bitch at The Joys of My Splintered Life in Smalltown.  Do you read her blog?  It's fun and serious and hilarious and righteous and full of awareness and justice and compassion and all sorts of things and I really wish she lived here because she would totally fulfill my fantasy of a gay man in a woman's body.  Trust me when I tell you, that is the highest order of compliments.

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My mom and her friend were out on a walk the other day when my  mom really had to pee.  Lucky for her, she was right in front of her childhood home and the new owners were outside.  Because there is no such thing as shame when you are part of our family, she asked to go.  She said that the house was a bit different- the family room is now the living room and the living room is the master bedroom and the broom closet is now the basement stairs, but her room (the "playroom") and the second bedroom (the "eagle room") was the same and the telephone was still in the bathroom from when my grandad put it in there, probably 15 or 20 years ago.  I forgot to ask if it was the same phone, or just a phone on the same jack.  If it's the same phone?  Gross.  It was brown, and didn't show- um- dirt so maybe they liked that about it.  The new owners are moving and told my mom to feel free to come and dig up all the plants on the side of the house.  They have been there for my whole life, and I'm guessing most of my mom's whole life too.  She will take them and plant them in her yard.  Maybe some day I'll be digging them out of my mom's yard and planting them in my own.

(grab your cat or a small child.  Cue The Circle of Life.  Now hold your cat/baby above your head.  Good.)

I lived in that house for awhile, and it's my dream house.  Not necessarily the house I've always wanted, but the house that is the stage for all of my dreams when I'm in a house.  Does that make sense?  I don't dream about any other house but that one, and even if I dream of something that is set today, like if Jake is there or whatever, that house is the stage.  When I was little I called it "Pink Mimi's House".  Not to be confused with "Green Mimi's House".  Two different houses, two different Mimis.  Pink Mimi's house was pink.  Green Mimi had that low pile green carpet that probably 75% of all Mimis had.  Thinking back, I think that Pink Mimi had the same carpet.  Pink Mimi died when I was five, Green Mimi is still alive.

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Ten years ago today I was on an airplane to Rome.  Dave went to summer school at the Temple Law Roma Campusa (I don't know how to say Campus in Italian, so I just added an -a) and I tagged along.  We stayed with five other people in an off-campus apartment and all the other students stayed in the dorms.  Suckers.  I think our address was Via del Corso, 81.  Quite sure, in fact, after Googlemapping it.  I dug out my journal and plan to read each entry on the day I stuck them in there.  If I see anything that's exciting or interesting, I'll tack it up here.  It was amazing, and I don't want to go anywhere anymore if I can't go for six weeks.  Every vacation I've taken since has felt rushed.  Funny how fast a girl can acclimate herself to luxe trips.