The Things We Do for Love

--For those of you who came here hoping for MLK insights, I'll link you to some past posts. This one has a poem, this one talks about students' misperceptions of when King lived, and this one gives you some quotes.

--For those of you who came here thinking I'd have watched the Golden Globes and have an opinion, keep searching. I have never watched those kind of award shows.

--Wait, I just lied. I used to watch the Tony awards obsessively, to the point of taking notes and trying to determine how to get ready for my upcoming career on Broadway. Clearly, I should have taken better notes.

--I did spend part of yesterday watching Every Little Step, the documentary about the original making of A Chorus Line and the recent revival of the show. I loved it. LOVED IT. I wept. I wanted to dance. I wept some more. I sang all of the songs, and I kept singing, even if we didn't get the whole song in the movie. If I'm ever held prisoner anywhere, I intend to sing show tunes. In that way I will torment my captors. They will either kill me or let me go.

--Would I have loved that movie so much if I was not a drama geek or if I didn't still dream about running away to New York City to make my fame and fortune in some artistic venue? Probably. As a creative person, I'm always intrigued by the journeys of others. Now if I was the kind of person who only liked trashy humor, no, I wouldn't have liked the movie.

--I also did more collaging (pictures coming soon). My spouse and I spent a bit of time wondering if anyone could make a living doing visual arts because we were having such fun.

--I already know the answer to this. A few years ago, I was having a fabulous time making baby quilts, and I wanted to quit my teaching job and launch a career making baby quilts full-time. Before I did anything precipitous, I did some calculations and determined it simply wasn't possible to make all the quilts I'd need to sell to make even the minimum amount of money I needed (and I never did figure out how I'd pay for health insurance). Even if I managed to sew 12 hours a day, I wouldn't get it all done.

--And then there's the matter of desire. There's simply not much that I like to do well enough to do it for 12 hours a day, day after day. NOTHING. Well, maybe being a gourmet food and wine taster--but for 12 hours a day? Probably not--and if I could pull it off, I'd gain 500 pounds. As my little nephew would say, "And nobody wants that!"

--Today's forecast is for storms, lightning, and wind. I've been to the grocery store so that I don't have to leave the house again if the weather gets really bad. I've got a pot roast, an endeavor I only go through a few times a year. I'll pull out my grandmother's Magnalite roasting pan and fill it full of potatoes, carrots, onion, and a hunk of beef. I will try not to worry about the fact that I'm paying less for beef than I ever have and more for potatoes than I ever have--how is this possible?

--While the pot roast cooks, I'll collage some more and perhaps write a poem that weaves big bad wolves and modern workplaces and the idea of family. Am I the only one who grows weary of corporations who declare that we're all a big, happy family? Am I the only one who thinks in terms of dysfunction when being told how big and happy the work family is, even as we're downsizing (or regionalizing) and shipping jobs to other countries and being told we'll all be doing more with less?

--If I'm ever downsized, I'm headed for the big lights and the big city. Or maybe a farm to call my own, where I can finally understand food prices in reference to labor.

--And here's one more thing to strike terror in your heart: Baby Doc Duvalier has returned to Haiti. On NPR's Morning Edition, Cokie Roberts said that his return was a worse crisis than the outbreak of cholera.

--At least no one has said that I'm worse for my country than a cholera outbreak.