please, pass me a slice of shut the *%#@ up pie.

Generally, this is a dessert that I save for select lovers and enemies, but this time, it's all mine!

Growing up is not easy to do, and some of the lessons leave scars. I have a fresh wound from beating myself up, and I don't wish to forget it any time soon. I had a self-reflection about a year ago when I realized that (I think) I am not as loud as I was in my teens and early twenties. However, this was a realization that pertained to volume levels alone. Since then, I have had many reminders that not only should I speak softly, but carefully and more scarcely than I do.

I don't suppose this entry is for anyone's sake but posterity's. I needed to write for my own therapy and as a reminder that history repeats itself. So in that case, JaNelle, I have a few things to share with you:

1. work is work. life is life. leave it that way.

2. drama is your business not your lifestyle. keep it on stage!

3. not sharing your opinion does not equal lying.

4. some things *are* better left unsaid.

5. your heart can be on your sleeve without it diarrhea-ing out of your mouth.
---> sub point: diarrhea-ing is not a word.

6. often, a good stretch and brisk walk will chill you out, you hormone-ridden female.

and lastly, but likely the most important reminder to us all:

7. sometimes people just don't give a damn!

This will be enough to start with. If anyone else is looking for reminders that we often need to leave our loquacious tendencies at the door (different ones at different doors), I will share more. I'm still pretty new at this--which anyone who knew me in the 90's can attest to ;-) And for those of you in my life who actually *need* this info, you don't know where my blog is so FIGURE IT OUT YOUR DAMN SELF!! Dang it, there I go again. Strike that.

much peace and even more love.

love is patient, love is kind

....but sometimes, nothing else is!!!

I have three family members who are earning frequent flier miles on local (to them, not me) hospital beds; I have a three story building and about 50 tenants to keep from killing each other, and a laptop that can't get out of the blue screen of death!!!!

Lord, please grant me patience...

Living Single

...yes, I was joyriding. Sorry I have not kept up lately.

I have had a few of the best months of my life since I decided I wanted to live alone. I have made and kept new resolutions, I have encountered tough decisions and weathered storms with all the grace I can muster. I have cooked and baked up storms, I have hiked to the ends of my world with my four-legged partner, I have found my peace alone, which is something my family wouldn't even believe. I realized about a year ago that if my life had gone like many other people I knew, I might have never lived alone--straight from the hometown, to college roomie, to spouse and kids. I know that as little as I am a "loner," I believe I am stronger, more able, and more peaceful person to be alone with. I am certain that I am a product of my past and choices, and I am certain that in those respects I have been blessed. A new experience is on the horizon for me and my K9 companion...

Let me start where most things in my life begin--Texas. I was home for a couple weeks in June and had some happy realizations: Many of the friends I have back home have been my friends for ten years or more. My family is quite possibly the coolest bunch of thinkers and doers on this planet--and we all get along! Despite health concerns, I have two parents and two grandparents that still make me very proud, and some people have none of either. And since I was also in part home to visit my long-distance love, I noted a few things on love: You never stop loving your siblings. My cousins have incredible taste in spouses and partners, and they were all coupled at different stages in their lives. My grandparents have been married for 62 years, and while they were not all smiles and laughter, they all count.

This last realization hit me. Sixty-two years is as long as my dad has been alive. That's a long time. If I got married today, in 62 years I would be 87. My grandfather is 87. He is a machine of a man who takes incredible care of himself. When he says with so much pride that he has been married to my grandmother for 62 years, I am not sure whether it is the length of marriage or the length of his life that pleases him more. To me, the former is divine.

I took sociology and philosophy classes that often dissected the reasons why humans pair up and why they marry, and why they divorce. Love is a complicated emotion and in all of the history and future of neuroscience and philosophy, I do not think we will understand even a fraction of what it means, how it feels, or why we do. I do know that I am in love. I know that the man I love and I are a long way from marriage and kids, but we are not far from our future.

He and I have been discussing how to get the distance out of our relationship, and he has decided to push all of his chips into the pot and head to California. I have some of the expected apprehension about sharing my apartment and changes in my life, but they do not compare to the excitement and confidence I have in him. In us. I can see the beginning of the rest of life unfolding. He is the realization I have every time I come home. He has been a dear friend for ten years. He embodies the values that I came from. He makes me melt.

Let me share another experience from my trip. The last night I was home, I asked Patrick to take me to see some live, local music--something I often ask him to do, and he always manages to deliver. It wasn't easy at first, but if there's one thing I can say about him it is, don't challenge the man, you'll only fuel his fire. He drove us to the center of Houston--a place that taunts me with the exciting life he has established there and the palpable happiness it could bring me if I were with him--and after circling a couple of blocks, he found me not one venue but two. Based on the lights and color and not too much else, I insisted on a place called Sambuca. He had never been there, but he's always willing to try new things with me, so in we went. I was instantly engrossed in the community, the spirit and the music at this place.

A woman named Yvette Williams was on stage heading a funky blues/soul quartet. It was her birthday. She was expressing precisely what I was feeling. An overwhelming, unabashed, irresistible love of the moment. The moment is something we studied ad nauseum in acting class and something that I try to embody wherever I am. Yvette had it. I was enjoying great sax solos and the mean bass riffs coming from the back, but I was touched by that beautiful black woman belting out amazing notes with an enormous amount of joy and soul. She had the humor of a woman you could only meet in Texas, and the style of a musician you would only meet in the Bayou. At one point she stepped over a small fan and laughed into the mic with her thick accent, "Look y'all, I'm Marilyn Monroe!" She was no Marilyn in the way she looked; in fact, she was arguable her complete opposite. But Yvette had taste and class and an ear that I was infatuated with. The first song we heard was a soulful rendition of What a Wonderful World by the genius, Mr. Louis Armstrong. In the moments between watching the music with starry eyes, I would turn and look over my shoulder and there he was--my reason to sing, my partner in adventure and laughter and most of all, love. Then she'd point the mic at the audience, "all together, y'all!" and we'd sing to her, but mostly to each other..."I. LOVE. YOU!" We were in the moment, together.

During the performance (or party, as I saw it) Yvette would pull her friends on stage and make them sing, and they were all great. Her husband took the mic at one point and made a toast to his lady love, of 39 years. They were perfect, and beautiful and happy. So 39 years, 62 years, 100 years, it doesn't matter. Find your love, know your moment, and live it.

I had many more experiences during my refuge that I will take with me always; too many to tell. They were all trials of love, in one way or another. Armed with a better understanding of who I am and what I want, I am ready to make a step into the great beyond with the man of my dreams.

Patrick, you have been a standard of manhood for me for many years. You are a steward of intellect, integrity, respect, and propriety. I have coveted the intimate friendship we have shared and now I embrace our romance. I respect you, I adore you, I admire you, and I welcome you.

"To love is to admire with the heart; to admire is to love with the mind."
- Theophile Gautier

Wooooo Hoooooo!

...that is all.

Baby got B-E-A-T

I guess this is growing up... When I was leaving Texas for my future in California, my mother made me buy a car! The best form of revenge I could come up with for her imposition of practicality on my life was to buy ridiculous after-market audio equipment. We got rid of the sports car I drove in high school in order to haul everything I could in my new wheels across the desert to my new digs. I had to quickly put a stop to that rationality!

I bought a huge sub woofer and speaker box and put it smack in the middle of my luxurious trunk. Then I added the necessary power for the monster sub by installing an amplifier that needed a foot of airspace on all sides...trunk...getting...smaller. AND, in order to run power to it, I made the mistake of letting my darling older brother help me and we ended of cannibalizing the appropriate cables and connectors, only to blow fuses and have to rig makeshift parts in their places. So I have a Frankenstein cable running from my battery through a HOLE that I helped drill through my firewall! I doubt she ever knew what all I did to the poor new car that she was paying for. Aw, Mom.

However, 7 years and many miles later with my cute lil' Elantra, I am reaching the point in my life to regenerate my transportation, for some of the same reasons I did in '02 and some opposite ones. I have worked very hard to succeed in my field, I have scrimped and saved through hard times and good, and saved up a pretty purse to put down on a toy car. That blog should follow, but this one is about the jams!

So I have spent the last two weeks kicking out the jams, busting up some funk and trying to give tribute to an audio oasis that I have often escaped to in the brutal traffic of LA freeways. I am taking out the sub and player, stripping power cables and attempting to yield some cash for the many dollars I spent many moons ago. The inspiration for the system itself stemmed from my love for a certain Sublime song that just wasn't sounding right in Emma before the upgrade, and now I shall refer again...I am waiting for my ruca.

FIRE!!!!!! ....curtain!

"...the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic."


-Oliver Wendell Homes, Jr


While I am not out to promote socialist draft-dodging, I may be guilty of Justice Holmes' defined crime. The theatre is a funny place, where it seems nothing is forbidden, but this edict is an important one that I often relied on when I was a debater. Luckily for me, my outburst did not cause alarm, mass hysteria or injury, or I might be behind ethical bars. Allow me to elaborate...

Last night, I was working in the theatre at my school. There was a combined orchestra and chorus concert that featured most of our middle school girls. The coordinator (P) that tasks me during productions was behind the video camera in the audience, while I was in the booth running the lights and prepping the two maintenance crew members who help us shift from an orchestra setup to a choral one. P, the "guys" and I have accomplished this massive changeover in the past with few complications and surprising speed.

This time was different. We successfully moved the girls off stage, the chairs and stands that were in front the red curtain were pushed back, the curtain was closed and we transitioned into super-fast, messy mode of clearing objects one direction and loading risers from the other direction just behind the exiting clutter. It was all going quickly and smoothly, with the exception of barriers in our level of common theatrical language with the guys and my hindered communication with the boss. I was practically "orchestrating" my own concert behind a curtain. Meanwhile, P is waiting--no, anything but waiting--impatiently next to the $100,000 grand piano across the stage from me. I could read his face: Let's move the piano now; no, now; okay, let's move the piano! I kept telling him to please hold so we could get everything big on the stage, open the curtain, and then move it down into its place which was in front of the curtain anyway. However, my words were fewer, and my voice was, for once, quite low. I was sure this was the only way. But, no. That would not do.

As he is anticipating his "big move" (after the two guys and I single-handedly did all the other manual labor) I see him summoning the help of our accompanist. Now I love her, but she is all of 5 feet tall and 100 pounds soaking wet. I was planning to help move that piano. P and I were the only people behind the curtain that had on official polo shirts (the guys in their blue work shirts) and who were not performers in the production. We do the labor for them. I thought we had an understanding? The guys and I had an understanding, after all! They knew that they needed to be off the stage before I opened the curtain. So here we go...

I start opening the red curtain, the audience starts clapping. Oh, dear! Minor mayhem. The boss just starts moving the damned thing AGAIN! With only a sprite of a helper, they careen into the red curtain, I see the piano dragging yards and yards wide and high of thick rose velvet...."Jesus. This never ends well," I think to myself. But I'm still pulling the curtain open, then SNAP! I hear the distinct whirring of steel aircraft cable releasing off of a reel. Holy crap. The FIRE CURTAIN!!!! I knew exactly what it was when I heard the snap, because I have experience with fly systems that use cable reels and cranks, but we don't have flies!

So here I am, curtain's open far enough to suit me; I have a much bigger problem on my hands. The clapping is keeping P and the pianist from hearing anything and they were oblivious to the FIRE CURTAIN! that was falling, very quickly, toward our Mercedes of pianos. So I take off, pointing up and saying (in as calm an audible voice as I can muster) "fire curtain!" However, I have been substitute teaching for a coworker on maternity leave, so a dozen of seventh graders in the audience who just performed in the orchestra, are all hyped up and start screaming "JA NELLE!" P is even more oblivious! I get across the stage, plant myself opposite of both of these numb skulls and use all of my brute force to push them and the massive piano out of the way of the very bulky, steel enforced, flame-proof barrier that is racing toward everything in it's path to the floor. Success! ...at least in saving the piano.

Now we have a bloody emergency safety feature deployed that has not ever been unfurled in our three and a half year theatre's history. And, it's dark backstage to boot. And, there are still JaNelle whoops coming from the audience. Oh dear. With the guys onlooking, mouths agape, I race back to where I know the reel is for the fire curtain, and I have to assemble the damn crank! I knew that, I just haven't had to before. As I feel my way around the gears and levers in the dark I get the thing together and start cranking. IT'S HEAVY! I mean, I knew it was heavy, but it was really heavy! I point to the brother of these two that I know could easily bench two of me, and I say "come here, turn this, and DON'T LET GO until I tell you!" I run back across to the boss who has found the point of release in the system. We struggle to get this pulley locked down in the release latch, then the other brother comes over and with no common language or basic knowledge of pulley and counter-pulley systems, informs us that little bro can't move the curtain anymore. Duh. I knew that would happen, but why would P, a guy that knows these things waaaay better than me convince me to help him anchor the counter-pulley?!?! Oh boy! Okay, "P, undo that; continue cranking; get curtain to the reset position; then we'll set the anchor." We're ready to go! Of course, I still had to run up to the booth and get the lights going again. It felt like a million years in stage technician land, but it was only a couple minutes in real time.

Another day saved thanks to the whipping girl! It turned out that the harpist broke a string and was able to restring, tune, re-tune and be at her best for the performance during our "break." And, no gasps, no claps when we succeeded--it felt like no one even saw it, but that is impossible! My irreplaceability in times of technical crisis was reinforced, the harp got fixed, we got to see our fire curtain...uh, work? I will write this one off as a happy accident.

...but as you can see, I had to write it. You can't make stuff like this up.

....gulp.

"A poem begins with a lump in the throat."

-Robert Frost


The day has dawned. I have a blog...and a huge lump in my throat.

I was born into a very talented group of writers. I've since spent my life reading, writing, acting and collaborating with more incredibly talented writers, directors, and orators. This decision was inevitable and long overdue. I have some very important literary Joneses to keep up with ;-)

The Jones numero uno in this scenario is my mom. My blog's name comes from a poem my mom wrote about me when I was a toddler. Her writing reflected the love and understanding that only a mother can have for her child. I aspire to reach that level of consciousness in my life and my musings. So this is for her--an ongoing way to keep up with my journey.

For an Eternity

Though distance may separate us,
Though time may not slow for us,
Our bond is everlasting.

From this life into the next,
You are my hero; I, your art.
I live to make you proud.