Easing on down another road

'Cause there maybe times
When you think you lost your mind
And the steps you're takin'
Leave you three, four steps behind
But the road you're walking
Might be long sometimes
You just keep on steppin'
And youll just be fine

For the past couple of months, I've been doing some soul searching and serious thinking as to what direction I should be heading professionally in the creative realm. I've been playing with some folks down on the other beltway... learning how to teach music that literally just finished being written and laughing my butt off.

Today, I start teaching children how to sing The Wiz. Generally, a day doesn't go by where I don't find myself at least once saying some variant of, "I hate children." The Maestro says I do it for shock value. Sometimes I'm not so sure.

But, I truly am excited to have been given the opportunity to try something new, and to work with a completely unfamiliar group of people. I think that I'll need this concentration of youth and innocence before I start working with naked men in April.



Don't you carry nothin' that might be a load. Come on, ease on down the road...

I bit the bullet!

When I started this blog, my intention to be semi-anonymous was never rooted in an attempt to hide it from people in real life. Nor was I trying to keep my face off the web so that I could bear my deepest darkest secrets. While there are some blogs that I love to read because over-share and impassioned commentary are their specialties, it's never quite been my style. My sole objective when keeping my legal name off of this site and instead going by my musical theatre nickname was to keep this from being the first thing potential employers saw when they Googled my name. Not that I have anything to hide, it's just that it's none of their business. I am also convinced that one day, the Maestro will be elected Mayor of Baltimore, and I don't want the press to use any of this against him. That being said, my mother reads this blog. The Maestro reads as well, and I have it posted somewhere on my Facebook profile. Not only do I not mind when people I know in real life check out Random Musings-- I get a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.

This should not be seen in anyway as discounting the friends I've made and lives I've been welcomed into on the internet solely by networking with other people from all over who, like me, are addicted to the blogosphere. I do, however, wish that I had more of an interface on the internet side of the world with people I've known in real life first. I can count on my fingers the number of real life friends with whom I'm connected on Twitter. The same goes for blogs in my reader. I don't by any means expect everyone on the planet to keep a blog-- I barely can. But I definitely wish that more real people were on Twitter. For jeeps' sake, I found out about yesterday's Hudson River crash before anyone else I know.

So yesterday I got inspired when I saw the Twitter handle and blog URL in the signature of an e-mail I received from a member of the cast on my current project. Why shouldn't I put myself out there? If I want to interact with people I know in real life online, I should advertise my existence, no? So I just changed my e-mail signature on my personal account to reflect my online persona. I'm betting I'll be surprised at how many people I know are out there lurking on the internets in varying states of anonymity, too. At least that's my hope. I'll let you all know how it goes.

AND! Don't think I don't check my stats on Feedburner. I know there are some Baltimore lurkers out there. Let me know that you've stopped by every now and then. It'll make me straight up giddy, I promise you.

A New Years Confession

I have a deep, dark secret to share with you all. I almost put it on a postcard and sent it to Frank Warren, but I decided I'd feel better if I just came clean.

I'm sure that you're familiar with this video (unless you've been living under a rock for the past two months):



Well I have a sick, obsessive, love-hate relationship with it.

I became acquainted with this little ditty at a friend's party pretty soon after it was released. I smiled and nodded and told said friend that it was as magical as he thought it was. Then I found myself a few days later re-enacting most of the choreography in the middle of the night in the middle of a Cheesecake Factory parking garage for a group of un-hip friends who hadn't been so fortunate as to see it yet. We chortled. "How awful is that video?!" "What is she doing, the funky chicken?" "I could've written that song when I was five!"

But months later, I find myself somehow still hypnotized with the drum machine and mindless repetition. Or maybe it's the way she gets her hips to rotate like that. There are some who have even attributed my fascination to the jealousy I harbor against Beyoncé's alleged million-dollar weave collection closet. And then there are others (cough cough maestro cough cough) who consider my frightening ability to recall the choreography as a parlor trick to start conversations at parties.

Either way, I've got a fever that even more cowbell can't solve, and it's called "Single Ladies."

PHEW! Now that I got that off my chest, I feel better. Please don't judge me too harshly.

Same old stuff, whole new year

Do you remember how every year when you were a kid, grownups would ask you if you felt any different on your birthday? And you never did, did you? I know I didn't. I would strain, trying to force a feeling of something that distinguished this day-- this age-- as somehow different than the last. I never did feel different, though. That was until one day I woke up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night at 24 and had the epiphany that "HOLY CRAP! I'M A GROWN UP!" I have this strange prophetic feeling that 2009 is going to be that way. I don't feel any different on this day, the second of January in 2009. But somehow I know that I'll wake up one night in July in a cold sweat in the middle of the night with the realization that "HOLY CRAP! IT'S HALFWAY THROUGH 2009 AND YOU'VE BEEN SLEEPWALKING FOR SEVEN MONTHS!"

Let's hope for everyone's sake that none of us phone it in for 2009. I don't believe in resolutions, but I am going to try to be a better friend, blogger, and build up a savings account that doesn't look like it belongs to a four-year-old. Come to think of it, I think that my savings account was probably more impressive when I was four because my parents controlled it.

What do you feel is on the horizon for 2009?

Hey Christmas... where did you go?

Hi there blogosphere. I've been silent because I've been on the run. There have been so many fun things that we've done, and they've gone by so fast that I've been remiss in sharing all of our fun-ness with the internet. Please accept my sincerest apologies. I do hope that everyone had a lovely Christmas. I still can't quite believe it's over. The Maestro and I did a lot of singing (he did a lot of playing the organ, too), a lot of laying around in our pajamas, followed by a lot of driving and spending time with family. It was so beautiful. So incredibly beautiful that I wish I could have a week more. Then, I feel like I'd be ready to face 2009 with open arms. Since it doesn't seem that I'll have my way, though, I'll have to get the most I can out of the Christmas season in the next 24 hours, I suppose.

With that, I'll leave you all (until tomorrow) with the real meaning of Christmas.

October 15 - Blog Action Day does Poverty

Today should be Wino Wednesday, right? Not today. Today is Blog Action Day-- a day in which almost 11,000 bloggers the world over each commit to bring attention to a selective cause to their individual audiences. The topic for 2008 is poverty, and I'm not going to lie... this topic didn't hit as close to home for me as it should. I go out to lunch with my work girlfriends and eat in fun restaurants all the time. I don't know what it's like to go to bed hungry because I don't have money. And honestly, I don't spend enough time thinking about those who do and resolving to help my fellow man. It's easy to think about poverty as some obscure epidemic that only touches the developing world, but I know better. I know that poverty is lurking in my back yard while I sleep comfortably with a full stomach in my little patch of suburbia.

So I felt like this would be as good a time as any to educate myself about just how poverty touches the world around me.

* As of 2007, the poverty rate for the entire US was 12.5%, remaining the same from 2006. (source)
* As of 2006, of the 631,366 living in Baltimore City, 21.5% were living below the povery line. That's around 116,800 people. (source)
* Over 1,000 people will die just this hour the world over from hunger (source)
* Maryland is apparently the least impoverished state in the union, but 100,000 people is still too many (source)
* Each week, over 50,000 people rely on free food from soup kitchens, pantries, and shelters in Maryland alone (source)

I found a few things to do help the hungry at home and abroad

* Print a letter to send to W. asking him to honor the agreement he signed at the 2002 Monterrey Conference and Johannesburg Summit to "make concrete efforts towards giving 0.7% of our national income in aid to poor contries." Most countries have reached that goal already, or have at least made a schedule to have it accomplished on our before the year 2015. Those that have yet to even schedule that goal are Switzerland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, and our fine US of A.
* Support local businesses and employers who pay a living wage
* Donate goods to pantries or your time to an organization dedicated to feeding the hungry in order to ensure that the impoverished are being helped year round. Two of those in Baltimore include Moveable Feast and the Maryland Food Bank.
* Throw a party. Seriously. How many parties do I go to in a month for the sole purpose of benefiting the people in attendance? I'm sure you could hold a party with the secondary purpose of feeding the hungry and invite all of your friends to bring food items and money to donate to food banks. In fact, that's definitely going to be the theme for my fall harvest beer-tasting party coming up in a few months. I would encourage you to do the same.

Check out any of the resources that I've linked in this post. That's just a start, but with the advent of the internet came more information on any one topic than we ever wanted to know. That knowledge is power, though. Use it to help those in need around you. And check out the Blog Action Day website. They have links to all of the Blog Action Day posts around the web. I'm sure most people are far more articulate than I am when it comes to talking about poverty. Support and learn from them as well.

A Brief Monologue from My Mother

Setting: On the phone
Time: Yesterday

Madre Downbeats: Are you working today?
Me: Yes.
Madre Downbeats: Well, did you know it's Columbus Day?
Me: I did.
Madre Downbeats: The banks are closed.
Me: Yup, they sure are.
Madre Downbeats: I stopped by the bank, and I thought that my branch had closed down. It wasn't until I got to another branch that I realized that everything was closed yesterday.

God bless her... take her out of civil service for even a few years and she forgets all of those random Federal-ish holidays.

For me, Columbus Day was just a slap in the face. I didn't get any mail, couldn't go to the bank, but still had to go to work and cover three different jobs for yet another Jewish holiday.

Meme... not to be confused with même

I got tagged in a meme by Angela. Since I'm such an un-cool blogger and haven't been tagged before (as far as I know), I had to Wiki-search meme. Unsurprisingly, that article didn't help me. Well, it taught me how to IPA it, but that's about it. I'm guessing that this thing is just like a survey and I'll do what Angela did and hope that I haven't screwed anything up.

So apparently I'm supposed to say 6 random things about myself that I've never shared with y'all before. Here goes nothing.

1. I have this frivolous desire to be a socialite. Not to go out to clubs and be one of the cool kids, but to be invited to important events with influential people and have my engagement announcement in the society pages of the newspaper. Fortunately for me, no institution like that exists in Baltimore, so I can blame my geography for my silly dream never being realized.

2. I don't like women. With a few exceptions, I didn't have close female friendships until a few years ago. I still find myself forging closer relationships with men and having to be intentional about maintaining friendships with women.

3. I'm a closet music nerd. Like legitimate "classical" music of the Western Heritage. I feel like heaven rings with compositions by Debussy like these two.

4. I can't wait to have babies. Lots of them. I was an only child, so I want an obnoxiously large family. I'm also pretty sure that babysitting for a family with five children (or even three) for an extended period of time could easily reverse that notion.

5. People assume that I have a bad relationship with my father because I never talk about him. Really, I have a great relationship with him. He's just dead, and I don't like pouring salt into open wounds.

6. I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I weren't busy. When I have down time at home, all I can manage to accomplish is a load or two of laundry before falling asleep.

Alrighty... now apparently I'm supposed to tag people.

-Rocketwife
-ExSchutz
-Kristin
-The Spotted Ottoman
-Kyla Bea
-Miss Musical

Meme away, peeps. Unless you don't want to. Fear not... I won't take it personally.

An Awkward Encounter

So as I've mentioned, I'm knee deep in tech week for my latest show. We have our final (and open) dress rehearsal tonight. Needless to say, this week in every production, tensions run high. I've been surprisingly not too stressed, but I haven't really seen anyone (Maestro included) outside of the office and the production this week.

So of course, I'm all about running out as soon as we get out at 11:15 pm last night to hit our weekly Wednesday night haunt so that I can see somebody... ANYBODY... who is not associated with this show for even five minutes. By the time I got there, my food was cold and The Maestro and Troy were ready to go home. They obliged me... let me eat my cold calamari and gulp down a beer, and then we stood outside for awhile as we were saying goodbye. Just as we were all about to go our separate ways, a large, inebriated man approached our cluster of friends and stood in the middle of us. For 45 seconds, he just stood in front of Troy, not looking at anyone, acting like he was supposed to be there. When he finally broke his freeze, he did it to move with a purpose right towards me. He kept coming forward... I took a step back and held the Maestro's hand a little tighter.

And then he looked at me and said, "The thing is..."

Me: The thing is what?
Weird man: Can I ask you something?
Me: Alright...
Weird Man: Can I smell your hair?
....awkward silence....
Me: No.
Weird Man: Come on! Why not. Not just the ends over here...?
He takes a step closer and reaches out toward me. I step back.
Me: NO!

Then Weird Man proceeded to look behind him to the woman who had just snuck out of the bar to grab a smoke (sidebar... OH HOW I LOVE SMOKE-FREE BARS IN BALTIMORE!) and said, "I would ask her, but white girls just don't got that smell." And with that he hobbled off.

I really don't know how to handle that situation... still... almost 12 hours later. But white girls, apparently you don't have that smell. Whatever that smell may be.

Short story long, this is my plea to Sheila Dixon to clear the riff-raff out of Fells Point. If you do, Mayor Dixon, you could consider it the best Christmas present ever. Thanks bunches!

My plea to whomever controls the campus budget for next year

I would make a horrible visual artist. I don't find beauty in many random things. As a result, sometimes I confuse exterior art installations for, well, mistakes. Can someone please tell me if these random bricks lying outside of the theatre are someone's college art project?



And furthermore, can someone explain to me why the powers that be at the institute of higher learning where our theatre is housed decided to lay a random amoeba of concrete in the ground surrounded by a moat of decorative stones?



At least they've placed these beautiful/humongous planters outside of the lobby to try to take away from all of the other randomness that is occuring as one approaches the building.



If the college has money to throw around on random patches of "decorative" cement as it appears they do, I would encourage them to throw a little money my way for a brand new freakin' sound system, please and thank you. Just a suggestion.

In other news, I'll be MIA over the Labor Day weekend. Another friend of mine is getting married. Fifth and final of the summer, thank goodness. A wedding recap will undoubtedly be up some time next week because I know you all are quivering in your boots, eagerly anticipating pictures of me and the Maestro cutting up a rug as grandma jumps up and down to hip hop.

Have a happy and healthy Labor Day weekend!

Are you the dream?

"...America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds.' But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice."
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

45 years ago today, a really amazing man gave a momentous speech in front of hundreds of thousands of citizens unhappy with the way that things had been done. These people were tired of the hypocrisy that was being espoused by their leaders, their elders, and their neighbors. So they gathered in Washington, D.C. in droves for a completely non-violent demonstration that culminated in a speech that some might say changed the face of our nation.

While I'm sad that he can't be around to see his dreams come to fruition, I'm filled with an immense pride that so many boxes on Dr. King's dream check list can now be checked off.

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Check!

"One day... little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers." Check!

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." Check. Check. And more check.

45 years later, freedom is ringing from the "prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire," the "mighty mountains of New York," the "heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania" and so forth and so on. To be able to live a life that is a testament to a vision that one remarkable man had in a not-so-distant past that my parents can remember continues to blow my mind. That the color of my skin was neither a hindrance nor a burden to me is a blessing. That I can walk down the street hand-in-hand with my super white boyfriend occasionally takes my breath away in the wake of the fact that my mother went to a segregated high school. That I can call my friends of all colors, shapes, sizes, socioeconomic backgrounds, faiths and creeds my sisters and brothers brings me an amazing joy.

But 45 years later, the work still isn't done. I'm fortunate to live in an environment that is accepting of all people. I know that it's not that way everywhere. Not everyone can marry their soulmate free from a world of intolerance and hatred. Not everyone can be friends with whomever they please. 35 years later, we still fight to keep things like Jena from happening. Hatred still oozes from groups like the Westboro Baptist Church into our everyday lives. But just when we take two steps back, we always take at least one step in the right direction.

So I implore you to not let the day go by without at least remembering where we, as a nation, came from and where we, as a nation, still have yet to go. And after you think on that for a little bit, strive to continue being the dream that Dr. King articulated all those years ago.

If you haven't heard/read that famous speech, or it's been awhile since you have, you can read a full transcription here.

Ahhhh youth....

Troy and I went to opening night of this musical called bare. Before I go any further, I want to make clear that should anyone from the Baltimore theatre community actually stumble upon this, the following words are in no way a critique of the actual production of bare in Baltimore. The following is more my commentary on adolescent life as a result of going to see bare this past Friday.

I remember seeing advertisements for this show in a Playbill years ago when I was in NYC on vacation with my mother. It looked interesting, but managed to open and close in New York before I had sufficient time to become intrigued. Then last summer, my friend Jennie (the same one with the great taste in wine) was playing something from it in the car. Again, it sounded vaguely interesting, but not enough to compel me to find out more. Then some sufficient hype was raised this summer in Baltimore when casting began for this project. Many of my friends and other artists with whom I've worked in the past had been cast, so I went to see it. In case you're not familiar, it's a show about these two boys at a Catholic boarding school who are best friends and lovers. The show follows their closeted relationship in the homophobic microcosm that is Catholic boarding school through their senior year.

What I took away from the show was most simply that teenagers are quite possibly the most annoying people on the face of this planet. Don't get me wrong. I know some very cool teenagers. But the fact that they manage to be remotely cool now is just a testament to the fact that they're going to be beyond incredible human beings when they mature into adulthood. To make a broad and sweeping generalization, however, teenagers are melodramatic, manic, self-involved creatures. They think that the world begins and ends by whatever situation they manage to find themselves in at the moment. And many of these situations, however avoidable should they have chosen to use just a hint of judgement, are nowhere close to the be-all end-all of scenarios that will play out in their lives (for the most part, at least).

Watching this show forced me to remember my own experiences in high school. I remember people dropping catch phrases such as, "These are going to be the best times of our lives!" And even then, I vaguely remember rolling my eyes in adolescent cynicism and thinking that there was no way that my life was going to go completely downhill after high school. What I've learned in the past six years since, however, is that every stage of your life is supposed to be the best time of your life. Your twenties are the best time of your life until you reach your thirties. Your thirties are the best time of your life until your forties, and so on and so forth.

And I'm just thankful that I made it through my teenage years. I don't think that they were nearly as tumultuous as for these poor little boys in bare, but they certainly weren't easy. I'm even more thankful that I'm now surrounded by people who love me and are loveable in return, and that I've learned (for the most part) to stop whining and stand up for myself.

PHEW!

Rant completed.

I wordled. It was cool. That is all.

Because all of the cool kids are doing it.



I love that Baltimore is so prominently displayed. That's because I say it. A lot. And apparently I say "Twitter" more than "Facebook."

You're probably cooler than me and have already Wordled like 8 million times. But if you haven't, and you want one of your own, check it out here.

I told you guys I'm a sucker for anything on the internet.

"Do you find it hard to type on your iPhone when you're %&$#ed up?!"

I'm obsessed with the blog culture. I read blogs all day at work... and evenings on my phone. I am addicted to the intelligent writing and spot-on witticisms that come from some of my favorite online authors. That being said, I'm a horrible blogger. It's one of my dream grown-up work-from-home jobs, and I'm mock-terrified that my dream will never come to fruition because I'm just so freakin' bad at consistently updating a blog. I'm even more mock-petrified at having nothing to say that is of any interest to anyone other than myself. In real life, however, (some) people at least seem to think I'm interesting and funny. So as many of my other posts have started, I'm going to try to get better at posting when I have something of note to actually say.

So I just started rehearsals for TOMMY a few weeks ago. I've unfortunately been taking way less initiative with the production company in the past few months as I went on a mother-daughter holiday to Italy with my crazy-but-loveable mother, a girlfriend, and her less-crazy-but-still-equally-loveable mother. When I got back, I had to hit the ground running at my day job in a new capacity. There are so many things I could possibly say about my day job, but I'm going to take some advice from a blogger that I look up to and not say anything about my day job that I wouldn't say to my boss' face. That leaves very little that I can say about it here. Long story short, I've felt divested from theatre after my brief hiatus and have placed more priority in maintaining professional contacts and personal relationships than getting any non-profit administrative work done. At our first rehearsal a few weeks back, my theatre boss/adoptive sister told me that we got the rights for one of my all time favorite shows and we'd be doing it in the fall instead of Sweeney Todd (and anyone who knows me knows that I have a hate-hate relationship with Sondheim based on some college experiences in my musical theatre classes). So the compound news that we'd be producing one of my dream shows and NOT (at least immediately) producing one of my least favorite shows has placed me in a dream-like trance for the past few weeks. I feel like I'm cheating. On TOMMY. With A Chorus Line. Show infidelity is really bad. It's like an emotional affair. I'm teaching "Pinball Wizard" and in my head I'm humming "Dance 10. Looks 3."

So at any rate, all of this to say that I went out to Brewers last night with my brother from another mother after my rehearsal. He was auditing the BTA auditions at CenterStage and met me immediately afterwards... with a stack of headshots and resumes in hand. We're awful people. We openly acknowledge it. We pored over these headshots and resumes with reckless abandon... judging... criticizing... laughing a little sometimes. That's the one saving grace that we have personality-wise in theatre-- we're allowed to judge people completely subjectively in theatre because it can all be justified and explained away.

As we finally found (out of a stack inches thick) ONE promising candidate for our fall show, I finally finished the Resurrection (the best microbrew ever if you haven't had one) I'd been nursing and we started preparing to go. I pulled out my phone (we call her Tydaisia) unceremoniously and checked Facebook statuses. It has become a tick of mine. I don't even realize I'm doing it. I'm trying to get better, but I might have to go to rehab. These two slightly inebriated (probably Hopkins) guys were sitting at the table next to us, and one of them leaned over and asked me how I liked my phone. We iPhone users are total elitists, by the way. We wink knowingly at fellow iPhone users when we see them on the street, and judge you if we catch you chatting someone up via a Blackberry or a Treo. I gushed, told him I loved it and couldn't imagine life without it. He then asked the most hilariously dim-witted question: "Isn't it, like, hard for you to type when you're #%&$ed up?"

Me: No, I don't really get that way... but if you haven't had your phone for that long, it takes awhile to get used to.
Guy: Yeah, I've only had it a few weeks, and I'm starting to get the hang of it, but when I get hammered, I can't type.

Then Troy (my friend) volunteered that he has large thumbs and finds it hard to type on said iPhone keyboard. Which, thanks Troy, just egged on drunk Hopkins dude #3 from the left even more.

Guy: Yeah, that's it. I just have huge thumbs.

and after a slight pause... "We'll let you guys get back to your drinks."

So we finished up, packed up the stack of headshots and resumes from the night, and I started to pull on my leather jacket. Because it was approximately -12 degrees outside. On May-effing-19th. And as I pulled on my outer layer, aforementioned drunk Hopkins dude #3 from the left grabbed ahold of my leather-clad elbow and said, "Have a good night." And then to Troy, "You take care of that lady, now."

Dude. It was a Monday night. If there's anyone that needs to be taken care of, it's you. I'll call up my friends Amy Winehouse and Lindsay Lohan... they'll take you to rehab with them for summer vacation.

Green grass on both sides

With High School Musical having been closed for over a week, I’ve had a remarkable amount of down time. I usually go from one to the next seamlessly: starting production on my next piece once I’ve opened the last… or worse—working on two productions simultaneously and staggering the openings by three or four weeks. For the first time in a year, I’m actually getting a huge break between productions. We don’t start rehearsals for Carmen Jones until January, so I essentially have the entire months of November and December (minus a few leftover promotional performances for HSM at UMBC and the Kennedy Krieger Festival of the Trees) to be theatre-free.

I was elated to finally be able to take a break. I haven’t taken a vacation in two years, so the thought of being able to hole up in my condo and sleep for days was looking pretty appetizing towards the end of production. Now that I’ve caught up on sleep (a little too much. In the past two weeks, I’ve slept through a standing weekly bar outing with friends, a few nights I could’ve been working on the next show, and even an evening with the beau) and have actually started pretending that I have a commitment to the company that writes my bigger paycheck, I’ve reached a point of complacency. With the complacence comes self-reflection and pensive moments. My thoughts of late (or today at least)? Why is it that the grass is greener on the other side?

I must preface this slightly-too-deep musing with a brief corollary: I’m not depressed. I’m quite happy with where my life is right now. So, if anyone happens to actually read this silliness that I write, please don’t be alarmed or feel the need to contact the local mental hygiene authorities.

Moving on… I think it curious that my life was filled with so much drama 7 or 8 years ago. As far I was concerned, I was fat (20 pounds lighter). I was SO talented (with loads less education and experience). I had so much longing, however, to just be anywhere but where I was then. When I was in high school, I couldn’t wait to be in college. I thought that would cure all of my gripes with life. Once I was in college, I couldn’t wait to be graduated and in the real world. Now that I’m 23, have a mortgage payment and two jobs—one completely artistic and enlightened and one completely… not… I split my time between longing to be back in my “innocent youth” (when I didn’t have to worry about bills or life or grown-up stuff) and longing to be 30 and more financially stable and married with children and a single-family home and a back yard and a dog.

Despite my vacillating life desires, however, there is one thing that stays constant, and that is my consistent inability to be pleased and crazy grateful for how fantastic my life is in this moment. So I am avowed to spend the next few days thinking about what it is about my life right now that I’ll long to have back 10 years from now when the moment has passed. Will it be quiet time or personal space or my 23-year-old body? Will it be my sense of humor or my ability to run out of the house at 10 pm to BEGIN to hang out? Whatever it is, I will remind myself to savor every moment that God has me this week… this month… this year. I will thumb my nose at my ego and be thankful for my independence from the viewpoint of both a woman who used to be 16 and a woman who will sooner or later be 30.