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I dreamed I was being cited for contempt of [gardening in] court.

a moment in the day: front steps

It's cold, and I wish I were still sleeping. We walk down the sidewalk through the early morning dark, my fingers numb around the end of the leash, ice air a sting in my lungs. I reach for the handle of the apartment's entryway door and let Nicholas click happy toenails up the front steps ahead of me. Into the warm. He leads me up the marble steps and stops at the top, sits in a Chihuahua curl, nose up, to watch me pull out my keys. What more lovely moment can there be than the one of knowing that a dog can take completely for granted his safety, his comfort and his love.

team mate

It was nine-thirty in the evening, and Nicholas decided it was time to take the woman with the lap for her walk. They strolled down the sidewalk and turned a corner to head to the place where Nicholas liked to look for the cat that always hid, crouched, under a bush or a car and never moved when Nicholas barked.

A few more steps, a few more sniffs, and there it was in the dimness of October nine-thirty gray. Nicholas leapt forth into valiant barking - then stopped. The cat was not a cat. The cat was an enormous raccoon.

For just a second, all three creatures - Nicholas, the raccoon and the woman with the lap - shared that very particular, intimate animal moment: locked in a stare, linked in mutual anticipation.

Nicholas figured he could take the raccoon. The raccoon figured he could take the woman with the lap.

Then the woman with the lap picked Nicholas up off the pavement and they got going back toward home. Coming down the sidewalk the other way were two men in conversation. As they passed Nicholas and the woman, one man said to the other, "When your team mate gets the ball, like, you have to get out of the way."
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a moment in the day: spring

I walk through three seasons on my way home from work. First, down the pseudo-boardwalk behind Jamison Square under a tunnel of yellow leaves - that is fall. Turn and continue along the pavement through another tree tunnel, this one dotted with tiny gold lights - that is winter. Off to the left, the fountain shaped like a tiny seashore is flowing - water over the rocks and down into a shallow pool at the center. There aren't any children playing in the chill, but still. That is summer. Spring will have to wait.

a moment in the day: in the play space

One o'clock at the play space. Kathleen and I talk writing and neuroses over a margherita pizza while her boys climb and run and slide in the enormous indoor jungle gym shaped like a castle. At the next table over, a young man and woman sit facing the castle. Arranged on the empty chairs across the table are three sets of tiny sneakers, pink, lavender, blue. And on the table between them, two glasses and a full bottle of wine.

richard foreman mini festival 2011 - the rest of the story

Two doors opened off of the theater, one on each side of the back wall. You could say they led to backstage, but what they really led to was the apartment of the people who own Performance Works Northwest. We dressed in their bedroom, watched by two cats, waited in their living room for our turns in the program. The main stage door was in the kitchen.

The apartment / green room was packed: a troupe of guys in striped shirts singing to the tune of a Christmas song, a drag queen in half whiteface clown makeup, a sexy young woman in bodice and tights and high lace-up boots, a group of guys in war paint and scant costumes made of strips of fabric. The show was getting close to starting, and everyone was warming up, running lines and stretching, laughing. One of the guys in war paint needed help adjusting his scant strips of fabric, and a middle aged woman in a black evening gown stepped behind him, got close, and said, "Where do you want it?"

Stephen and I sat in the middle of it all like accountants* at the party, Stephen sitting straight-backed in his jeans and button-down shirt, except, of course, he was also made up with lipstick and false eyelashes. We were on last, and as acts came and went we chatted in whispers but mostly just sat, the two of us, and ran our lines. Having had ten days to put this whole thing together, neither of us felt sure that we wouldn't royally screw up. The program had three parts and two intermissions. During the second part, we went into the bedroom to change. The bedroom opened out into the living room - no door - people everywhere - so I stood in my dress, fanning my skirt out wide as if there were any possible way this might make a good enough screen to keep Stephen hidden as he stripped down. I have to say, as we stepped back out of the bedroom in our full regalia, we were turning heads - well, mostly Stephen was.

We spent all night waiting backstage, watching the acts come and go. The later it got, the quieter it got back there, as more performers finished up and slid out into the audience to watch. One of the guys in war paint, this one in a white tutu, pushed by in his wheelchair and turned to us and said, "Merde."

When it was our turn to go on, the whole backstage / apartment / green room was quiet. We hunched in the kitchen, at the stage door, waiting to be announced.

And then this happened.

And then this happened.

Sitting in the spotlight for twenty seconds waiting for your musical cue is not the best way to start a performance, but I suspect there must have been some sort of technical difficulty. I hear our technician is a wizard at what he does. Once the music started up, our lines rolled out surprisingly well. We were getting laughs. We started into the first song and sang nicely.

And then other things happened. There was bobbling of dialogue, coincidentally and unfortunately mostly obliterating most of our references to Richard Foreman's notebooks (meaning, the prompts we were to build our piece around). Then Stephen launched beautifully into Shadow Waltz, and our paper cones got a nice laugh, but there was no monitor to adequately hear our background music over our own voices, so when we finally came up for air, we were a couple beats ahead of the music. In that pause, I lifted out of the song and floated over a sudden streaming of music that had no meaning. I didn't know where it or I was. Like sometimes happens when you're water skiing and the boat turns and the line goes slack, that tug picks up again - my ears found the forward thrust of the song again - and my voice kicked in. We sang the big finish, our arms up in a grand pose. The music ended - ta-da and applause - I let my arms drop and glanced over to see Stephen still frozen in his grand pose. I didn't know what to do, so I bowed, by myself, and the lights came down.

Then it was all out and over, and we were walking back through the kitchen, and I was thinking, did we stink?

I was thinking, did we look like the one amateur act in the whole Richard Foreman Festival?

I was thinking, is Stephen sorry we ever took on this crazy experience?

As we got to the back bedroom where our clothes were waiting, Stephen turned, grinned, reached out, and shook my hand.

*[sorry, dad]

a moment in the day: convergence

With Nicholas cradled in my right arm and swagging a loop of leash over the side, I step down the apartment staircase into a convergence of early morning dogs.

Big, black dog, panting and straining against a synched-up leash held close by a neighbor. "Good morning." "Good morning." Passing by us and up the steps.

Woman and a brown Boxer coming in from outside, woman and two Basset hounds heading for the same door. "Oh! Good morning." "Good morning."

Me with my little Chihuahua in arms. "Good morning. Good morning."

Wait for the convergence of dogs to clear, wait for two Basset hounds to clatter echoey claws down the marble steps in the entryway. Then a bit of quiet and a lick on the nose from Nicholas, and we're through the entryway, down the last set of stairs, and out into the six o'clock black.