One Thought Eh Day

Could be an idea for a story (written, theatre, film, fireside), or something existential and universal, or something practical that can be implemented in life, or something funny, or a business idea, or something that makes you reframe stuff you thought you knew. Et cetera.

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4/18/25: I’m realizing that although in real life I’m an INTJ, in the rehearsal room I’m an ESFP. The total opposite.

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1/17/23: Book Idea: If Only Parents Knew…

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11/30/22: Children’s book idea: The Adventures of Lead Bones and Feather Body.

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9/22/22: I have been annoyed with the small talk greeting, “How are you?” for a little while now. Since my brother died, since the pandemic, etc. Usually people mean well, but in the end everyone just wants to hear that you’re good. And I think, for the most part, it’s just a polite ritual of our culture and how you *really* are isn’t actually the question, in most cases. Sure. I get that. However, I struggle to ignore the honesty of that moment, and I sorta feel like I freeze up. Like there is half of me that knows what I’m supposed to say and knows the purpose behind this innocuous greeting, and half of me that is like NO YOU HAVE TO SAY WHAT’S TRUE WHICH IS THAT YOU ARE NOT JUST FINE!!! And so, I would like to offer back into the public consciousness the 90s favorite, “What’s up?” as an alternative. You can bypass how you are, if you like, and go straight to what’s on your mind without the crisis of negotiating politeness with truth.

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2/12/22: I was thinking about statistics—I had read some article that illustrated how there was this one thing that we thought was caused by something else, but at some point scientists realized there wasn’t causality at all because we didn’t take into account blah blah blah. So I was thinking about statistics, and how I could never really work like that. You know, have a job that tried to ‘figure things out’ via data and statistics. I feel like I would be haunted by The Thing I Was Overlooking. I guess I was just feeling that looking for that causality was just hopeless. And I guess I feel it’s hopeless because causality implies some sort of order to the universe. But I don’t think it is ordered, actually—it seems completely chaotic. Just chaos. Randomness. And if if there are patterns we find that we feel we can rely on, I feel like it’s a trap. Like, there’s this pattern, and then we come to rely on and make decisions based upon that pattern. But then one day, the randomness strikes and the pattern is broken and totally fucks us up. That’s even kinda worse than a universe totally chaotic. You know—the illusion that you’ve found some pattern that you can base some decision off of.

[1thoughtehday]

2/6/22: Was listening to a Radiolab episode that was about a guy who suddenly lost his fiancé. The idea that what was missing from the future was more prevalent when you’re in the throes of grief then being able to think about the past—which is, presumably, why you’re sad (meaning: without the past with that person, you wouldn’t be sad in the first place. So it just got me thinking about the nature of my grief as it relates to the future-sized holes the sad things leave in me. These things that now never will be done. That there was a moment in your past where you saw your future—but that future turned out to be a parallel timeline that you aren’t living in. And that is what is so sad and is at the root of that grief.

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1/29/22: This thought is most specifically coming from my partner—but we were deep into a convo and he got us to this idea: For some reason, we (meaning society? I’m not sure what ‘we’ means, but you get the gist) value PLOT over FORM/STRUCTURE/POETRY/STYLE (ie HOW the story is told) every time. People say, “What a great story!” Do they mean that? Or do they mean the experience of that story being told was meaningful and impactful to them. And that could mean a lot of things. This came up because I was mentioning that as a director, and as a newly-forming writer, I’m actually driven and most inspired not at all by plot—but rather by form and structure. You know: HOW the story gets told. Best example: Curious Incident… is a great story, it’s fine. But honestly, I’m not overly bowled over by it. But Marianne Elliott’s concept and direction? Almost nothing beats it. Once is another great example—the story is good, but for real: it’s just another story about love and passion. I love those, but there are many. This one doesn’t stand out. But John Tiffany and Steven Hoggett’s manifestation of those set of plot points and Enda Walsh’s way of organizing the ideas? That’s the difference. So also, when we talk about who came up with the STORY versus the actual writing of it—story seems to be everything. It’s like, once you have a good story, it’s in the bag. And I’m just here to posit the importance of the actual end manifestation of said story. Also, I want to be clear: I’m not saying story isn’t important—it is. It’s just not THE ONLY important thing, nor is it the only reason why a piece is successful.

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1/17/22: A rare thought about not wanting to be special. Context: I’ve always wanted to be special, singular, ‘the best’ might be the best way to say what I’ve wanted to be. Most recent context related to this: This creeping awareness that I’m not special. Not spectacular. That the things I thought for sure were going to happen to me/for me may very well not happen at all, ever. Tonight, maybe for the first time, I authentically wandered for about 5 seconds in a sense of Not Being So Special And Maybe Not Needing To Be So Special for, you know, one of the first times. Was reading Under The Whispering Door (TJ Klune) where the protag is dead and looking back on life—a Scrooge sort of thing. And they were looking at pictures of beautiful locations in nature, and in life they were this totally ruthless heartless super successful person. The book narrates, “He had never had time for such places, and now, he never would.” And I thought, if I can think thoughts about life after I die, what will I think? And right then the feeling of being super successful and special and singular felt totally meaningless. It just couldn’t matter less, all of a sudden. And so what does matter? A lot of times, people say something like, “…the relationships you have…” or “…the love you give…” or just simply, “FAMILY IS ALL THAT MATTERS.” But my thought in that moment was something more like, “I want to make sure I experience all the things there are to experience in this human/Earth/3dimensions existence I know.” And that meant to me, you know, being in the thick of life. Not on top of it, not better than all the rest of it, but amongst it, with it, in it. And somehow, being super rich or super successful or super smart or super beautiful or super perfect just feels so removed from what life is really supposed to be. Like, if so few people experience those things, then how can that be life? And also, in an episode of fucking Dawson’s Creek I was watching yesterday, I think fucking JACK said something about how you gotta go out and live life, take chances experience it. He summed up, “Maybe you won’t change the world, but the world will change you.” And that somehow THAT was the point. And these thoughts are connected for me. I’ve always held myself to the standard of changing the world—that I’m wasting my time and energy and talents unless I change the fucking world somehow. But that’s actually not all that interesting. And maybe it’s selfish, but actually what is interesting to me is my experiences and my thoughts and the life I’m leading—and letting just simply what I think about or what I’ve learned about, you know, whatever, be my litmus test for “success.”

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1/16/22:

Kintsugi is the Japanese practice of mending broken pottery with a gold lacquer. The gold actually highlights—and elevates—the break. This is most definitely not the typical way of approaching both pottery and, you know, humans.

This is finding beauty in imperfection—and we are all imperfect.

[1thoughtehday]

1/3/21: While i was visiting my parents over the holidays, I was sitting on a chair that belonged to my grandpa. I then went to put contacts in and didn’t wash my hands ahead of time, like I typically do. I had the idea of, like, little pieces of my grandpa (maybe microscopic skin flakes or something) from decades ago being on my fingertips and then going in my eyes. And then had the thought of ‘absorbing’ someone else’s DNA and then having your personality be altered by that. Gross, sorta, but wouldn’t have to be. The question: what do we get from our family? And how? And do we notice when it happens? And is it theirs or ours and does it matter?

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10/17/21: —Women throughout history killing themselves

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10/4/21: I’m reading the book of Flashdance, and not that I assumed it would be a font of wisdom, but there’s a line in it that essentially states a notion as if we would all hear it and nod our heads and say, “Yeah, man, she’s right,” and I would like to take a moment and explicitly reject its premise. The line is: “There’s a time in your life when everything is possible and then, there’s a time when almost nothing is.” While quietly pointing to the improper comma placement, I also take issue with the assumption here: that Alex, at age 19, is in this point-of-no-return moment here. It’s not that 19 can’t be filled with lots of bold choices one can and should make and that you shouldn’t squander your time, it’s the premise that 19 is most likely the most interesting moment of her life and she will inevitably—and I think the assumption is soon—she will have no more ways to make things possible. Which is just absolutely absurd bullshit. I was a fucking idiot at 19. At 38, it seems to me like life if just a continual process of getting better if you’re brave enough to keep getting better. If we don’t start thinking about new ways things are POSSIBLE in the course of life, then I think we’re all fucked, and we’re gonna keep watching stories about 19 year olds as if it’s the pinnacle. I think the zeitgeist has moved toward including 29 year old women in the world of narratives about people inventing themselves, but to be fair, these stories are usually about how these women already feel washed up. I mean, MY GOD, 29 feels FOREVER ago to me and it was less than a decade. I think it’s this built in idea that 38 is so far past when I’m allowed to figure out what I want next that is making me feel like shit. And I think maybe it’s connected to my fertility—to a woman’s fertility. Like, 25 is the best time for me to have a baby, and that is tacitly the standard we hold everything against for women. But FUCK THAT—that has nothing to do with me.

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9/11/21: I was listening to this week’s episode of This American Life and it’s a play on mix tapes and sorta how music—or certain songs—can affect us and form us. Act 3 (or Track 3, as they called it this week) was about how this woman easily cries at those sappy slide shows at graduations and stuff. But one time when it was for her 2nd grade kid a slide show did not have any effect on her. The opposite: she was distracted, bored, etc. She then realized there was no music and maybe music made all the difference. Anyway, not a shocker: it was the determining factor. And this just got me thinking about the importance of creating and curating a moment and how I think people don’t really think that’s a real thing. And if they do, they absolutely don’t value what it takes to make moments meaningful. This is what we do in theatre, and even people within the industry sometimes tend to look down on or belittle what goes into the magic-making. So, there’s something there for me about quantifying or demonstrating the power of storytelling in that sense. But also: if it takes curation to make a moment have an effect on you, then is it real? And should I care if I determine that on some level it’s not real?

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9/10/21: I’m sitting on a bench. It’s nearly 5 on a late summer (is this still summer?) afternoon, so the light is gentle and warm. My bench is in the shade, but the tree above me is creating all sorts of textures and movement in the light around me. And that tree above me—someone is up there. They must be. Because every half minute or so, something hits the empty iron bench seat next to me causing a clanging noise. I guess they’re acorns. And it makes me look up and wonder who’s up there sitting in this moment with me; this moment where the clanging bench and the falling water in the fountain in front of me make a subtle little bit of music for me. And then just like fucking that—literally as I’m composing these words to capture this moment—two fucking pairs of college students come and sit by the fountain and start talking about shit, their rhythm and tone sounds inane and their presence in and of itself ruins my little sense of safety I had found. I mean, don’t get me wrong—these fucking kids have a right to sit wherever they want. But my god, Universe: I GET IT—NOTHING LASTS. But also, Universe: thanks for this moment of communion.

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9/9/21: I am on the verge of tears all the time. I mean, some moments it doesn’t exactly feel like it. In other words: I’m fine. But I am one fleeting thought away from a full flush of my eyeballs. And I guess I wonder what does it mean for me to reassure you—or myself—that I’m fine. I’m, in so many ways, totally not fine at all. I’m completely lost. And I think that’s why it’s so easy for me to cry right now. And not just cry about myself and my life (although I do do that), but also really about anything. Happy, sad, meaningful, pathetic: whatever, man, I’ll cry about it. I’ve never been high before, but sometimes I think what I’m feeling might sorta be like what people on a really great trip are feeling. You know, that they’re somehow closer to some higher meaning that you can’t ascertain on a strictly sober plane. And I am definitely emotionally tripped out pretty much nonstop. So, although being sad or depressed like I am or whatever sucks on way too many levels, I guess one level that I’m sort-of enjoying is I feel like I’m seeing and feeling some things that other people may very well be missing out on all the time. Because, if they were seeing it, how come they aren’t crying with me?

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8/29: The “unknown unknowns.” The Unknown Unknowns. Something there?

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8/16/21: Is it better to die suddenly? Or to find out you have a certain amount of time left, but your death is impending?