About Face

Last summer our church hosted a Vacation Bible School for kids ages 6 through 12. For five whole days we sang songs, learned about the Bible, and enjoyed snacks, games and crafts. On the last night we had a Family Night ice cream party with balloon animals, all flavors of ice cream with toppings, games, music and...FACE PAINTING!

I was in charge of face painting and I had no idea what I was getting into. I brought a few washable markers and made a chart with pictures of an ice cream cone, a dog, a flower, etc. I thought I'd just draw a cute little design on their faces or hands. Didn't happen.

They wanted the whole enchilada, the whole ball of wax, the whole nine yards, the whole megillah (FYI, in Judaism, the megillah is the scroll that contains the biblical narrative of the Book of Esther, but I digress.) In a nutshell they wanted a full face design -- butterflies, robots, fairies, dinosaurs, Darth Vader! Me and my little markers were working like crazy. And the kids loved it. Every kid at the party got his/her face painted. I warned the parents to wipe it off before the kids went to bed unless they wanted marker stains all over their pillows.

So I've decided to make it official. I bought some face painting supplies and an instruction book. I am going to be a Face Painter.

Livin' the dream.

Luke's Birthday

My son Luke (aka Lucas) will be celebrating his 31st birthday next week. First of all, I can't believe he's that old, which makes me think of getting older, too. Not a fan of being in my 50s. My 40s was my best decade. I'll blog about it sometime.

Anyway, the question of what to get him for his birthday is not really a problem for me. He and I enjoy the same things, so I just get him what I would like and it's usually the right choice. I'm not saying it's 100 percent. I don't think he'd be crazy about a subscription to Marie Claire magazine.

I'm grateful for the Internet because I can choose his gifts and have them sent to his house without leaving the comfort of my ergonomic computer chair. He doesn't read my blog so I can go ahead and mention the unmentionable:

1) The James Dean DVD box set featuring East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant. Although Luke is a fan of classic films and I'm betting dollars to dominoes that he doesn't have this collection. But I could be wrong. My favorite is East of Eden.

2) The movie "The Muse" with Sharon Stone and Albert Brooks. I think Luke would enjoy the idea of a real live Muse helping a writer with writer's block.

3) A set of four classic musicals: Singing in the Rain, Easter Parade, Band Wagon and Meet Me in St. Louis. I brought my kids up on Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. I'd teach them the songs and we'd dance around the house ..."Moses Supposes His Toeses are Roses." Luke remembers that. I think in a parallel universe he'd be a tap dancer.

4) A book called "Renaissance Soul." This book was a milestone for me in assessing my goals and achieving my dreams. It's philosophically similar to the concepts behind Isaiah Berlin's essay on Tolstoy's "The Hedgehog and the Fox" analogy. In "Renaissance Soul" the world is divided into two kinds of people: the Mozarts (the Hedgehogs) who are all about ONE THING, the main thing that fulfills their existence. AND the Benjamin Franklins (the Foxes) who have many different interests and pursue a variety of activities to meet their need for fulfillment. (Cliche alert!) This is right up Luke's alley.

So I'm hoping that Luke can enjoy his birthday reading about goal-setting and watching Gene Kelly tap dance on a mahogany table. Happy Birthday!

Black Swan and The Roommate

Two mini movie reviews:

The Black Swan. Oscar material? Give me a break. Totally over-rated. Acting was mediocre. Script terrible. Story uninspiring. HOWEVER: the cinematography was outstanding. Note to Director: the mirror motif was overkill (no pun intended). The whole point of a visual motif is subtlety...it nibbles at your subconscious and goes almost unnoticed...and then when you discover it...WOW! In this movie the director is saying: Hey! Look at all the mirrors! It's a METAPHOR!

And if I didn't get enough female psycho drama, I watched The Roommate. Predictable and boring. I will tell you right now that I'm not the kind of person that gets bored. I love watching films and I usually find something good about a movie no matter how bad it is. But this was hopeless. When you have to resort to killing a kitten in a dryer to spice things up, something is wrong.

The good thing about all this is that I have great hopes for my own screenplay. If this is what Hollywood is churning out, my smart, inspiring comedy should have agents drooling on their lobster bibs.

Write On

I'm on a roll and writing like crazy. I'm working on my full-length play, a sketch, a screenplay, and a new fiction blog called Fixing Madison. I also created a flash fiction blog on my website. Not to mention maintaining my Sunnyside Players blog, My Theatre Blog and the Dragon Tales Jewelry blog for Carly's jewelry business.

I'm also writing an e-newsletter for work which will be launching at the end of the month.

You may say, "HOLY COW! What is she thinking? This is absolutely CRAZY!"

I would say, "Not at all. I'm a writer. I love to write. It's what I do. It's who I am."

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. ~E.L. Doctorow