Away We Go

It's evening now, and I’m eating crisp seaweed rice crackers and drinking aloe juice. Outside, it’s cold and wet. Today at the gym, I heard on the radio that they’re expecting gale force winds tonight, coming up from Antarctica. I guess that’s how we roll here in Wellington.

Have I, in all my walking blues and worry, forget to mention how beautiful it is here? Monday morning, the sun came out, and I got up and walked down to the corner bagel shop and basked in the glorious light. By noon it was raining again, but it cleared up by evening. I went to another yoga class (pic at left), and after class, already dark at 6:30pm, I started walking back down the hill but stopped partway and looked up at the starlight, the quarter moon, and then out onto the lights of Wellington. It was so quiet, so stunningly serene. For the first time since I left The States, the chatter in my head ceased. The silence was like falling snow.

Later, I attended an Improvisation workshop that Walter told me about, a group called WIT (Wellington Improvisation Troupe), a talented bunch filled with creative spirit and smarts. Some of them do a weekly improvised staged soap opera called The Young and the Witless at The Fringe Bar on Cuba Street, a pedestrian mall full of restaurants and bars. Watching them, I was reminded of the old School of Night gang in Tampa from the mid-eighties, and of Red Hot Nutsack, the ongoing Friday night free form open mic muskrat-juggling fire spewing gig I started with Destiny Ramsey last January in Tampa.

Wednesday, I met with my two thesis supervisors, Sean and John, and we strolled from our offices on campus down a steep winding road into Aro Valley, a happening little neighborhood that reminds me of Portland. We ate lunch at the Aro Valley Café, a place that roasts its own coffee, and the smell reminded of Saturday mornings in Ybor City when I used to drive a truck for a thrift store and the coffee makers along 7th Avenue would be roasting their beans, filling the entire neighborhood with exotic vapors.
Since I’ll be writing about film actors and performance technique, Sean and John urged me to write with passion, and, at least for now, not to worry so much about theory. They remarked how my dissertation would make a good textbook, something I’ve been thinking since before I began my application. Hopefully, in three years, I’ll have a PhD and a textbook.

Wednesday night, I met Walter at Fringe Bar and was impressed by The Young and the Witless. Really good stuff. Later, we went to a joint called The Mighty Mighty, which is a long bar in one half, and a live music venue in the front. We hung out for a bit, I tried a ginger beer, and was impressed that they have Zubrovka vodka, which I’d only ever seen in Krakow, Poland and an Egyptian-themed pierogi café in Clearwater, Florida. We paid five bucks apiece to check out a guy named Stompy Nick (the opening act called himself Boss Christ), who sat behind a kick drum, one foot booming it, the other tapping out a stick on hinge above a snare, a guitar on his lap, a harmonica at his face. The guy was awesome. I especially liked The Cramps’ Human Fly intro segueing into These Boots Are Made for Walkin’. After Stompy Nick, a dj played a mix of all my favorites: The Stones, Bowie, Modern Lovers, Velvet Underground; I stayed and danced ‘til 2.

Yesterday, I finished writing the first draft of a bedtime story, The Stitch Fairy, about a young girl who falls down and cuts her leg. Since it’s supposed to rain all weekend, I bought groceries today, and will stay inside, drink a lot of coffee and get a bunch of reading done. Monday, I start work on the dissertation. Like Helen Keller said, "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." Away we go.