what am i

supposed to do right now? that is the eternal burning question. what, in this moment, is my destiny? should I... grade speeches? watch a movie? get some exercise? call a friend in need or just call a friend to laugh? you never quite know is the truth really. you can wait and wait and wait until the moment strikes you down like a bolt of lightning and you realize in a deep and profound way exactly what you are supposed to do precisely in that moment in time or... you can do what I do most of the time and just guess. keep on guessing and hope that I picked the right answer on the bubble test of life.
for some reason, the truth and whatever 'the truth' means fascinates me. everyone has their greatest strength which, at other times, can potentially be their greatest weakness and that is mine: I philosophize... A LOT. in my head, all the time, analyzing and dissecting, microscoping and chemically saturating the zips and starts fits and farts that I observe throughout the day. for instance, today, a sweet young girl said to my sweet young daughter, "i am really bored. and actually, i'm having a lot of fun being bored, too." who ever - in their most perfect adult mind - could ever dream up such gems? but it's true. sometimes, when you get so bored that you can't even stand the sight of yourself, THAT is when life just starts to get interesting again. when you're at the bottom of the barrel, the end of your rope, fresh out of ideas, that's when your mind finally clicks on. your noggin. and it starts to think for itself all over again.
like this thing, this thing I am doing. I have started and given up and started and given up on writing a one woman show I don't know how many times. and now I have just started it again. here. in a blog. this is going to be it. I decided. the crap I pour out of myself on this page is going to be the chef d'oeuvre at the end, the piece de resistance. it's going to be shizzizit, baby!
what better place to write a one woman show besides here? not that I ever approve of writers writing about writing. I think that is just about the cheapest date you could ever go on. so I will stop soon, but let me just share my opinion on this a little bit more. writers who write about writing are equivalent (sorry fellow writers and friends or, soon to be, former friends who write about writing) to masturbators who masturbate to videos of themselves masturbating. so i'm going to stop right now while i'm ahead of myself.
other things I've thought about, learned about, figured out today? that's all you've really got to go on isn't there? today? sure, you can think about the long ago past or the far away future, but really... what better place to start than the right here and right now.
so... today? I figured out that being an adult is a lot like being a kid. when I was a kid, I used to tally up score each evening before I went to sleep. I recounted in my mind all of the highlights of the day. reliving my day. until I fell asleep. being an adult is not so different. much of our time is spent relishing our victories or strategizing our triumphs. I think it's a good thing. but I also think it's an amazing thing if adults can do what kids do which is... forget about time. lose track of time. clear their mind. just clean the slate and just be. sometimes, when I truly forget myself, that's when i'm at my best. when I stop remembering that I am a 44 year old woman teaching a class of 18 to 30 year olds and i'm just me up there chatting away with friends. when I truly forget that i'm supposed to be responsible and be concerned about whether my kids are doing their homework or watching too much TV and I just let myself play awhile with friends, working on a play, playing dress up in class, zoning out, not realizing that I'm yawning as somebody else rambles on, when I just stop worrying what everyone thinks because, as augusten burroughs also pointed out, it's when you stop dressing up to impress people and you are just yourself out there in the real world that your true friends will come to the surface because they will love you for who you really are, not the spiffed and polished up you but the real you that you are the rest of the 90% of the time that you are alive and just living it. just being alive. getting by. doing your best but just you, the you that doesn't take quite enough showers, the you that wore that pair of jeans one too many times, the you that doesn't quite care if the coffee breath still lingers. that's you. ok, well maybe a breath mint wouldn't hurt once in a while, but still...