OCTOBER! A MONTH FOR ALL!

Tomorrow.. It's a beautiful month. 

Today's high is, like, mid80s... so we'll have snow for Halloween. 

September! All things started. 

School started! Both kids spent time sick, but seem to be generally OK with all of the changes. 

I started some programs for COMPAS with the Memory Café at Jewish Family and Children's Services and with Park View Day Program up in Buffalo. (Dear world, please know that the shiniest HyVee resides in Plymouth, MN AND NOW I'M DATING THE PLYMOUTH HYVEE. PROB'BLY GONNA MARRY IT.)

Classes started at HUGE and Strike. 

And planning started. Let us plan. 

I got to do a couple of wonderful one-offs: so many thanks to Mary Jo Pehl and her Garage for the Performing Arts! So many thanks to Sam for joining me! And so many thanks to Jim and Dennis of Tablesalt Productions, and letting me be a part of their "Love in the Time of Democracy" improv workshop. Just a dream. 

October... will be what it will be. 

HUGE closes at the end of this month. Going to teach there feels so.. tender, until the class actually starts. Then, it's just breathing and joy again. Still so sad. 

Bring Your Kids! will be at HUGE Saturday Oct. 12th at 4 p.m.... and then moving back to the Bryant Lake Bowl in November! This last show is stacked! Z Puppets Roseschnoz! Billy from the Jolly Pops! WHUT!? Tickets here! 

I get to play some original spooky songs at Melancholics Anonymous' S'More S'Melancholics: a Firelit Fundraiser on Saturday Oct. 19th at the Art House North in St Paul - - so excited!

I get to sing a song at Tablesalt Production's annual fundraiser on Wednesday Oct. 9th at the Black Forest Inn in Minneapolis. The theme is “Songs of POWER, PROTEST and JOY!" Lovely!

I turn 49 years on the 20th, which is the SAME DAY that Mike Birbiglia is performing in Minneapolis. My parasocial relationship continues, but in real time! I also (somehow) have tickets to Jay Jurden and Julio Torres!? GOOD LORD. (Also, Rita and I have tickets to be in the same room with children book author, artist, and Irishman Oliver Jeffers. This is honestly pretty lovely.) 

I also get to take a night fully off and go do a cabin thing. Just me and a ukulele. And maybe a drum machine. A book. A television program. WHO KNOWS. 

In news of THIS WAS THE 1990s, this movie turned 30?! years old. Priscilla Queen of the Desert (not without its problematic content, certainly.) was a family favorite. We were a Time Bandits family, a Northern Exposure family, a Newhart family, a Hill Street Blues family, and a Priscilla Queen of the Desert family. As my mom would say, "It's a neat flic." (Hugo Weaving! Guy Pearce! Terence Stamp! sigh.) 

I'll see you....

I've started this blog a couple of times. 

There's been some hard stuff: final decisions have been pushed through. HUGE Theater will close at the end of October. 

Not speaking for the whole community, but the folks I've connected with - - we're all in mourning. Stuck in the grief, AND so grateful for 2 more months of this very precious play space. In gratitude, and it's such a goddamn bummer. 

I keep telling myself, "This is the dirt... The flowers will grow." But oh man, we loved that dirt. Scrappy and lucky and we're all sad. 

August! 

 - Got to teach at HUGE's Summer Intensive and THEY WERE JUST INCREDIBLE! 

 - I played the Uptown Porchfest and it was goddamn dreamy. 

 - I was a guest at Pants on Fire at the Minnesota Fringe Festival. Congrats to Sarah!

 - I went to my 30th High School Reunion. #bwahahahahah I am grateful for the smart, funny, and kind humans who talked to me, were kind enough to have dinner together before, who bought me a shot, and 'am utterly impressed on how those old social strata are still at play. (I'm learning that maybe the culture of I went to high school in was a scooch toxic? In the 90s?! WHA???) To the gentleman who told me, "Hey! You aged great!"... that charmed the heck out of me. :) <3 

 - I got written about in my hometown paper! 

 - My family went to Duluth and it was dreamy. Oh Duluth, your lake eats ships and your mansion murders people, but boy, you are a lovely place to visit. 

And September is here!

 - Bring Your Kids returns on Saturday September 14th!

 - I'm part of an Improv Workshop called Love in the Time of Democracy for TableSalt Productions on September 25th. What guidelines for improv are also 

 - I'm teaching a Low and Slow improv workshop at Strike Theater on Wednesday September 18th! 

 - Teaching begins at Strike, HUGE, maybe Children's Theatre Company, and a couple COMPAS projects begin. 

 - And maybe some teen improv?! If you have a teen who's curious about improv, come join us! Classes starting in October!

 - I'll be singing songs as Penny and the Bandits (joined by the incredible Samantha Baker Harris) at Mary Jo Pehl's Garage for the Performing Arts on September 28th! Email maryjopehl//gmail for tickets! :) 

And now planning planning planning... Future thinking and throwing fishing lines. What's a good fit, what sticks? Move forward with love. <3