Monday Musings

I met a man at a party the other day who said he tries to get in 8 miles a day. Three in the morning and five in the afternoon. THAT brough me up short. How was that even possible I asked. Oh, simple he said – We (he and his dog) walk from 122 Street down to the reservoir and back. Reservoir? I thought. There is a reservoir in New York?

Continue reading The Artist’s Way (Continued) ~ Pace Yourself ~ Monday October 30, 2023 at Tulis McCall.

It’s not that I hated turnip. I didn’t hate it. Turnip made me gag. There is a difference.

Continue reading Turnip As Torture ~ Monday, October 23, 2023 at Tulis McCall.

It will not do for me to be hopeless and less-than. It will not do for me to decide that things are on a downhill journey that is impossible to rectify. It will not do to be friends with disappointment.

Continue reading The Artist’s Way: A Hail Mary Pass ~ Monday October 16, 2023 at Tulis McCall.

I had a revelation the other day That WOULD have changed my life if I had remembered it. I did not. I have forgotten it.

Continue reading Revelations Saved and Lost ~ Monday, October 9, 2023 at Tulis McCall.

What about you? Have you been visited recently by the Covid team? I would love to do a totally non-scientific survey. In the meantime – wash your hands.

Continue reading Covid – The GIfts That Keeps On Giving ~ Monday, October 2, 2023 at Tulis McCall.

My first grade teacher was Miss Beatty and her room was the center of my universe. She was a short woman – even at 5 years old I knew she was closer to my height than my parents. On the first day each of us was ushered in by our mothers as if we were passengers on a gangway headed to an outbound ship. Which was kind of true. That grammar school ship was sailing and although we would return, we would never be the same.

Continue reading First Grade Lessons ~ Monday, September 25, 2023 at Tulis McCall.

This school with the brown linoleum hallway floors and the globe lights and the pencil sharpeners and the long wands that were topped with window latches for opening and closing the windows, and the cloak rooms and the chalk boards. This was the place I returned to every September for nine years. From age 5 to 14. I loved it more than my own home.

Continue reading School Days ~ Monday, September 18, 2023 at Tulis McCall.

Danny, was 11 on 911. He had been, for a few hours and without knowing it, a child in danger of losing his parents. And there he was, standing at the bar, having traveled though 20 years, sharing his story with me, a stranger. Something that happened 20 years ago had come full circle and placed me and Danny at an intersection of immense specificity. An 11 year old boy whose parents dodged a bullet and an older woman who had never given his generation a thought.

Continue reading September 11 ~ A Surprise Take On An Old Tune ~ Monday, September 11, 2023, at Tulis McCall.

Labor. Never been in it – the baby making part. I have, however, spent plenty of time in the labor for money part. As to the baby making – all I can say is that, I was involved in it in the sense that I was born. Which when you think about it is an odd word for what happens, or what I am told happens because I don’t remember one bit of it.

Continue reading Labor Thoughts on Labor Day ~ Monday, September 4, 2023 at Tulis McCall.

For every 1-2 minutes that we are given in an audition, we spend 3-4-5 hours working on that monologue, conjuring, sifting, adjusting.

Continue reading Anatomy Of An Audition ~ Monday, August 28, 2023 at Tulis McCall.