I have my own pool cue! Okay, so it's second hand, but it has a case with cleaner & my own square of chalk.
Happy.Last night, I played someone who is better than I am, so the game went faster & I played better. I still think I'm some games off from a win, but I made two goals I set for myself; making a bridge shot & making two in a row.
There is a zen space, when everything feels right,you work the geometry & the shot is like butter.I feel like my objective is to work on the technical side to make that zen, concentration moment happen more often instead of randomly.
Compared to everything else in my life right now, this is relaxing. I mean, you actually work up a sweat around the table, but it's relaxing. :)

i'm on the roster of the cheaters, the 9 ball team of one of my best friends.
she's intimidating and makes me nervous-- i think i've only ever won against her
at 8 ball when we were just out of college and she was distracted. a fluke.
two of the coaches see some kind of promise in my shooting,though & they've been
teasing me about getting on the team. well one of them needs the summer off, so
i'm on.they tell me i'm better than i think i am--i have the right speed, instincts,
something.i know there's some politics involved, too---team ego stuff not unlike slam.
anyway, yesterday was my first posting
as ON the team, against another first timer (coached by a ten ranked player) whose aim was better than mine.
i maybe only sink tricky shots with coaching in real play time.i made good defense when i didn't know what else to do.
i am kind of a hot mess, actually. yet i know a zen moment and when i feel nice and down on my shot.
i had a GREAT time. lots of fun, lots of sweat.
i know i wasn't really ready---i haven't even had a warm up or drilling lesson in over a month.
all gotta start somewhere, though.
:-)

okay, so i talked to regie about plans for DC.
more people are involved & i'm salivating to see them all.
housing will be with locals, which is sweet.with regie if necessary.
regie has some health issues which worry me (because it's what i do best)
& he's keeping quiet about.they've ruled out some serious stuff, at least.
for whatever reason, he's one of my biggest cheerleaders.
but apparently, an unseen number of others because i'm supposed to be receiving
a community organizer award.
(2012 Capturing Fire Lifetime Achievement Recipient Karen G.WHAT?!!! Yeah. )
that this is happening in dc
has special graffiti all over it.

wow. humidity. heat.the unfortunateness of humidity hasn't shown up yet.dreaing that like a wet carpet.

so much to figure out this month.already looking at the second week. AH!
i have poems to write for a set in DC. i should have done that last month, but got worked up over slam finals, cupsi, barely cracnking out a 30/30, which...my writing was out of shape.that was some stretching. now, honing in on a DC set, maybe digging up some old pieces & flames.

then there's the GETTING THERE.
coughing up car insurance renewal takes what i had saved for that.
just had an old friend offer her place to stay for, at least, the intial day or so, so that's good.
the getting there is tricky.DC is more expensive than BWI. have to work that out.
or just drive, though i suspect gas will be more expensive.in any case, it will be so,so,so good to
go up there, catch up with regie,joanna, maybe kevin & eryka.yayness. :)

a parallel thing is going on with the slam team as we try not to think or panic about raising money & instead, the fun part, WRITING.
working with hillary is interesting. she's taken on a lot of what i used to do, because she's also type A, but she's finding it to detract from the having fun part.yup. uh-huh.luckily, over the summer, we'll be passing the baton around, other people will be hosting/ etc.

my last roomate, malika, graduates from her music masters this week & weekend. today was a big reception. i'm on the kinda sad part that i'm not living with her at this time, the cheerful end to so much struggle.her mom would be so very proud.

so my to do list,
dc set
map slam team season/practice
logistics
and oh yeah, amping up to Cafe Medusa, a wonderful all-art,all-women show at the end of june :)

it's that time of year again.
transpo to charlotte will be cheaper, but the hotel expense looks about the same :(
making our fundraising goal a whopping $1500. luckily, the rest looks to be almost covered.

i am letting go of some of the reigns on this as i probably will cover
smaller, later hours of the 24hour reading/marathon/fundraiser
on may 19th.
i have to support my warrior dash friends. i figure i'll go up to the mountain cabin
late friday, go to the run with everyone on saturday morning. get cleaned up, find food,
come back into town in the evening for the 24.
i love 24hour readings. both other scenes doing them and my own. hate to miss any of our own, but
this is good.spreads the network around.
<3
i will be reading requests for donations :)

write bloody is doing a video "like" thing on youtube. in a way, i love this because there are some poets i know & a few i don't & i can just easily listen to them all day. that part is really great.i wish it wasn't set up like some kind of contest, though.my friend yo also pointed out that some of the poems are done a disservice by the video, in part because the content is intimate, videos are distracting or take away from the poem. then there's a kind of visual classist thing going on with them, too, in terms of production crew/quality. some of them are so good, i remember them and not the poem. so, the process is icky and tookie, but at the same time, irresistible listening. here are three from poets whose pieces i've actually read as well as heard, beginning with my friend Joanna, who i'm excited to see at the end of the month ( Read more... )

Daniel & Ashley, opening up our semi final set.

experiencing extreme lag. foggyheadedness after the trip. i had a lot of alone time on it, actually. i think it's just the lack of sleep from friday-saturday plus the time changes that have me tired. and re-entry to work (it's only 3.30?) funny how i felt i never really adjusted my time to the pacific, i kept waking up early, but now that i'm back here, i'm waiting to catch up with myself.

as a record, i'm hoping to be able to patch some of the video and pictures up in here.
i think we did even better than we thought possible.our goal was to get to finals, like everyone else. realistically, we thought we would be good enough for semi-finals and anticipated a real struggle to get there.we also knew that slam is slam, the presence of randomness and an inability to predict what people scoring the pieces would like encouraged our attitude that we would just seek rocking our pieces, sharing stories, and having a really good experience.the team work really showed up~~there wasn't a lot of debate about which pieces were the best or should go where, the team was on the same page through out, nobody felt like they were cheated out of solo time for doing a group piece or any of that egotistical tripe.
nothing against the other teams. we had some tough rotations. the second bout was an out of body experience and i was so nervous, i forgot to write down scores in our last rotation.we had low scoring rooms, but we had a wide lead in the first bout and room for error in the second, still winning.
i could not be a more proud coach.they all really rose to the occasion and rocked their pieces on a whole 'nother level compared to practices and features.because we were in low scoring rooms, it hurt our rank going in to semis, but not coming out.two ones meant we'd cast our own fate and we were in anyway.8 or 9th of 48.
we were in one of the hardest semis bouts i've ever seen with macalester---last year's winner, nyu---new york is...always just going to be new york---big, boomy, competitive,smart, cal state north ridge---for state local fists & montclair (yay, new jersey, represent).
so, 5 teams, not a normal 4x4.the rotations were not normal, either, but random and then high to low scores.draw effected the first rotation, for sure---the last team earning highest, montclair. then i think it was macalester & nyu. cal state never recovered from a low score in the first round and remained 5th the whole time.on paper, you can see how we would inch up a rung or two. it really seemed like a battle between montclair and macalester, knowing full well the kind of jump nyu could make. they were on the climb, too.we were all within shooting range of the second slot, with macalester earning a big lead in the second round (i think it was).
our own team issue was time. in the first poem, there were a couple of trips and it went to 3.12, just two seconds over.it's part of why i put the piece up first. it's a killer piece, but had a tendency to run between 3.05-3.15. I figured  that if i put it there, it would score high enough and we would be able to recover, which we did in round 2.
sort of.
we gained some ground with a solo piece in the 3rd round. i could have debated the time with the officiants, but i didn't. again, we were so close, at 3.11.
in the top of the 4th round, montclair really slipped. poem scored low and they had a time penalty.very exciting.with our last piece,i knew we could jump them.macalester mathed everyone out.then nyu scored a less than spectacular jump on montclair that put them in second.up we went.
we scored big!
i had figured out what we needed to jump nyu.
we were .3 under them. daniel leaned over and asked me if it weren't for the time penalty....his in particular in the 3rd round...
yup. that would have put us up over nyu.and on finals stage.
boo linear time, but that's the game (and what to work on for next year, among other things).
yet there's a woo-woo ness to me and the number 3.we have a storied history. so coming in 3rd by .3...is actually some kind of supernatural wink that i'll take.divisible by 3, we came in 6th over all.
pretty great for a second year team, first with a coach.
daniel graduates early, but the team is the team.some of the dynamic theater creativity graduates with him, but, potentially, not the highest scoring poets (the highest score is going to a poet who is going to china over the summer---so smart, it's ridiculous).
what a hard working bunch. io'm still beaming. even though exhausted.

is tomorrow! WEEEEEEEEEE!

My team had a showcase last night and they killed it.
A few things to polish, but they were quick footed. Once we get into the zone of just doing this,
without school distractions, we'll be even more ready.
Our set lists are prepared, ranked,and on the board.

A few things I've learned about coaching college kids;
they pull all nighters to get stuff done, they are still used to working with deadlines, especially tight ones,
they take direction with enthusiasm, they are emotionally closer to their pieces than their egos.
At least, this team.It's great to work with fresh voices.They know when they've nailed it and are still ready to hear feedback for improvement.
I feel like I helped where I needed to, but for the most part, they worked really hard and their follow through showed last night.
A lot of people and friends remarked on how they are at a different level now than when the started, or even since the last show a month or two ago.
That's music to my ears.
One of the easiest teams I've ever worked with.Not what I expected.
>:-)

60 Minutest story of an orchestra in the Congo
Really beautiful. I love the transportation of music.
I haven't had much time to read about the passing of Mike Wallace.
As many, I grew up listening to him. Sadness there as another
"real" journalist-reporter passes on. They really don't make them like they used
to anymore.Or if they do, maybe they're British.
So there's that.

I keep meaning to do  a better, second round of run-down for WOW,
which I should do before the next event, only a week away now:
CUPSI Emory is in Bout 1A & Bout 2B. We meet SFSU twice & UPenn.
I dig my team. They're enthused and they've worked really hard.I think a lot
of their material would stand up well even at NPS. I hope I do right by them
as a coach.I'll be spending some of the weekend aligning the
constellation of their pieces.

A poet friend and member of our community was pretty much
caught while driving brown, arrested & put behind bars on Good Friday.
It really doesn't look good. He could be in detention and then sent back
to Honduras.Pretty furious right now. He's been living and working here
for as long as I can remember~at least ten years. It's expensive to become a citizen.
Gypsy Yo just did it, but it took her years and part of that was just being able to afford
it and then the time for classes.The war against immigrants is ridiculous, damaging, and tragic.
I hope we can get him out.
The backlash against people of color keeps getting
more intense.I want an effective, more radicalized left. What the hell will it take?

EDIT:YAY, he was released. Luckily, the cop who arrested him was in the wrong. Still, it just highlights the issue!