Stagestruck

Rave reviews count, even when they’re from a dear friend!  Here’s a link to Ms Kristy’s assessment of the show:  “Hey, Sailor” transforms and delights. Thanks, Kristy, you are ever so sweet and awesome!
Six shows left:  8pm Th/Fri/Sat through Oct 4.  Click here for tickets & info or call 1-800-838-3006.  If you’ve already seen the show, please tell people about it and consider posting your thoughts/reviews on the SFGate page.
We had a wonderful first weekend, I’m finally over the flu, and looking forward to enjoying the next six performances.   Miraculously, I still remember all my lines after four days off!  Once a show has seeped into my body, it’s there for good– I wonder if I’ll be reciting Squeak’s syphilis monologue for the next ten years…??  The show is just getting better and better, as all of us get more comfortable in our characters, in the theatre, and with our lines. 
On Saturday I felt well enough to go with friends out after the show, which is my favorite thing to do, since I’m usually wired from performing and excited to see people. It was a balmy SF night so we walked a couple of blocks to Mel’s Diner and through the giant Oracle craziness in Yerba Buena Gardens, which was sort of magical-looking, with tents and fairy lights everywhere.  As we walked and talked, we realized we’re all in some form of big life/career transition.  Maybe that’s what our late 30s are about…  M wrote and received a giant government grant, so now she’ll be moving from being a professor to administering a campus-wide program to improve outcomes for underserved Asian Pacific Islander students.  F is thinking of leaving his corporate training gig so that he can actually learn something new himself.  And J is only two weeks back from a long stint Beijing and still in culture shock, yet people keep asking him “What are you doing now?”  
I shared my own personal metaphor for that, when people ask me what I’m doing next — before the book has even come out!  It’s kind of like there’s a woman having a baby, and they’re cutting her open, and the crown of the baby’s head is just coming out, all bloody and sticky, and the baby hasn’t even taken its first breath yet, let alone cried or fed or pooped or puked, and someone says to her, ‘So what are you going to do NOW?’ 
Really, what I’m doing now is just trying to BE in the transition.  That has a few elements:
– Being in “Hey Sailor” … shifting from the inward and isolated mode of writing to a much more extroverted art form, working in collaboration with a great cast and crew.  Aside from the awesomeness of the script, it feels like great pre-book-tour training as I learn what it takes for me to perform, connect with audiences, and stay sane and healthy.
– Working with a coach, who is helping me to set goals and clarify where I want to be in a year, and how to get there.
– Writing up a business plan for myself, a culmination of a great class I took from the Women’s Initiative for Self-Employment, which has helped me understand things like “cash flow” — i.e. why some months I can afford shoes and other months I can’t!  The business plan is great because it gives me a sense of how I’m going to be supporting myself over the next 18 months, how much & what kinds of paid work I need, and how to get it.  
– Laying the groundwork for marketing and book touring, connecting with folks everywhere.
– AND, enjoying life, relationships, family, friends, myself, yoga, the City … Just taking time to, as a friend suggested, bask in the feeling of completion.  Sometimes I still don’t *really* quite believe that durn book is DONE!