No Happy Ending Here

People Make Mistakes

"I could've made my life so much easier if I went to college," he said, shaking his head in dismay. My father begins this topic, and I'm curious. So curious. For anyone who doesn't know my father, you are missing out on a real treat. His psychological makeup is something extremely extraordinary, a character that made me cry in my pubescent years and made me proud as I left home for the first time. 

"After Dad died, I didn't have much direction. I took the easier route. Had I done what your brothers had done, I could've had it easier."

I politely remind him that easier is not better. Moreover, the decisions I made at age 14 were based on my loves (of ballet, tennis, and food) and less on future financial stability. Losing a father would be difficult enough. Why was Dad's dialogue so full of regret? 

I don't believe it. I don't think anything we do is actually a mistake, as long as we learn from it. Writing this blog, I've shared a lot with the world that might prove to be a "mistake", but I'll grow from it. I'll learn. I'll move on. and so will you.

My father begins this week's conversation with: "Listen Sally, have you written some music yet?" After watching a great documentary on Carole King and sharing a few Joni Mitchell videos, he thinks this might be the future I didn't realize I'd been created for. I'm with you Dad, I ought to try new things and cultivate new talents.

But sometimes, I find myself sitting back with a game of scrabble listening to Barbra Streisand, gleaning different things from a life that's not all productivity. And I think both of us need to understand that these moments of leisure might be just as important as the active ones. 

Doggy Daycare

If you all are following the puppy saga on my instagram (hears_who), you'll wonder how I've managed to find all these beautiful pups. Do I intend on keeping them when I leave the country? 

Well now that you mention it...

In all seriousness, I've stumbled across one of the greatest jobs of my career. Doggies don't demand, doggies don't mind if you were running errands and turn up a few minutes late. Doggies don't care that you've got an audition one day so you turn up looking like a drag queen.

Doggies just like attention.

One of the radical things I've learned from life:  just be yourself. We all try and embrace these words and act on them, but it's inevitable that we amend based on context and audience. Only today, I called up +Grace Gilday and read her a few monologues for her feedback. One of them I've been working on for quite some time, and as I said it to her over the phone, it rang with a greater clarity than I've achieved through all my practice thus far. Our audience helps us to relax or to become something else.

And what I'm trying to say is, I can sing heaps in front of doggies and not feel one bit perturbed. If I sing in the presence of most others (including my parents and those who know me quite well), I'll preempt my practice with a "do you mind if I sing?" and if they dare make a comment, I will become defensive and vitriolic in a split second.

I need to just imagine all the people around me are doggies, and then I will be my true self.