Hotter Than a Pepper Sprout

Last weekend we wrapped up, at least for now, our performances of "The Great Nebula in Orion." We first brought this one-act by Lanford Wilson to life in mid March for the Minnesota Community Theater Festival. On my flight to DC on Sunday to play professional librarian at a conference, I finally had a chance to reflect a little on what I learned playing Louise, a confident and successful fashion designer in the 70's: Sparkly turquoise eyeshadow makes me happy and is just fine for everyday wear (and speaking at a librarian conference). A bright blue vintage 70's polyester pantsuit that looks unpromising can magically transform both you and it when you put it on (thank you MC for this amazing costume!!)  I know! This pantsuit is amazing!! As the acting adage goes, it's really hard to play drunk without overdoing it, but I'm pretty good at playing drunk and lounging on a couch. I'm better at playing an angry drunk than a sad drunk (unfortunately...

A few days ago I made a shocking discovery: "Days of Our Lives" is still on the air. For whatever reason, I had been living my life under the misunderstanding that ALL soaps, including DOOL, had gone off the air. This falsehood was remedied thanks to a friend we were staying with. Somehow it came up that Emily followed and recorded DOOL so we promptly viewed two recent episodes. To put it simply, my mind was (and still is) blown. Why such a powerful reaction? Nostalgia, to be sure. I grew up watching DOOL and all the NBC soaps (and even a few from other channels) and my earliest memories include these "stories." And so many of these characters are STILL on the show!! Which is both wonderful and frightening. How does Marlena do it? Of course anything nostalgia related is also deeply intertwined with memories of my mother. And Colleen loved her stories. When mom was dying, my sister Jenn read to her from Soap Opera Digest, because hearing about these familiar ch...

Sometimes it's the little things. Like rainbow unicorn kittens. I can be quite surly about popular things. Often my inner teen causes me to have a knee-jerk reaction against something just because too many other people like it. But not so with rainbow unicorn kittens. Perhaps rainbow unicorn kittens have a storied, or sordid, history. Maybe they are even considered a meme. I just discovered them a few weeks back when looking for a greeting card to brighten up the day of a friend. I fell in love with them last night while looking for an image for a PowerPoint presentation. I needed something to capture the excitement and magic of my topic...and to fill up some space...and luckily, remembered the rainbow unicorn kitten and how happy it made me. I don't even really like butterflies (they actually creep me out a bit) A google search of "rainbow unicorn kittens" returned more magic and excitement than I could have hoped for. It's amazing all the different em...