On My Mind: Sick Days

I had to take a sick day this week. I hate taking sick days. I hate being sick. I hate the experience of calling (or sending an e-mail) and how carefully you have to compose it. How much detail is too much? How much is just enough to let them know that you a really are sick and you're not just staying home for the daytime TV?

Of course, no one would stay at home for the daytime TV. It's all fake small-claims courts and shows about birthing gone wrong. Programmers know their audience.

The worst of it, though, is waking up at 3:30 and realizing you've been asleep for five hours and you're still bored, and now you'll be awake - and bored - all night.

Adulthood

It occurred to me yesterday -- like, really occurred to me -- that if I'm going to accomplish things by the time I turn dead (which is an age, by the way), I'm going to have to make a lot of decisions before I'm actually ready to make them. I'm generally a pretty prudent person and I think things through before I act on them. But sometimes that makes life move at a snail's pace and routines take over, prudent and otherwise. I feel like a teenage girl writing this down, especially on the web, but . . . maybe I'm just not ready to decide whether or not I should write this on the web. I'll go think about it for a little while.

Here's another decision I'm not ready to make -- how do I turn that into a piece people will actually want to watch?

It occurs to me that people make decisions all the time they aren't ready to make, I suspect. Maybe they are. I should put it this way -- I feel pressured with some regularity to make decisions I think I'm still too young to make. But more generally: I think it must be tough for a woman to have to decide about having kids by the age of 35 or so, which is where, from what I've learned, it becomes more likely that your kids will have life-threatening types of birth defects.

We have to decide about college at an age when we have no idea what we want. I know for me, I got good grades because I knew it was the thing I was supposed to do and it would get me to the next step in life, which was obviously college. Only as an adult did it become apparent to me how many other routes I could have taken. Students in Germany are making career decisions at 16, when you have to start taking the Abitur (I think I spelled it right) . . . for which you have to start making decisions about a career path. They're required (or were, this may have changed) to enter the military at adulthood or do 1 or 2 years of community service.

I can't even decide whether to take a shower or eat breakfast first. But I'm supposed to make life-changing, irreversible decisions?

(I should add here that one decision I have made is to sell my gas car. Hit me up if you read this and have $3,000 worth of numbers in your bank account and want to trade it for an actual, material object that goes vroom vroom. It just passed inspection. Yes, I put an ad for my car in the MOSAIC blog.)

Which reminds me that we're all just walking billboards in our own way, but that's another blog entry. Right now I have to go do something. I haven't decided what yet.

Probably I'm going to put my car on craigslist before I decide not to sell it.

What's YOUR Guilty Pleasure?

I consider myself to be a fairly intellectual, creative person, as do probably most of the residents of the Boston area. However, every once in a while even I fall victim to some trapping of the pop culture machine, be it America's Next Top Model or pretty much anything by Justin Timberlake. What are your guilty, mainstream, inane, or just plain silly pleasures?

What is This Blog?

MOSAIC is a live piece of theater that runs weekly, so what is a MOSAIC Blog?

A place for what is on our minds.

While we like to keep things fresh, not every week can we get everything in our heads into a workable piece. Some things aren't really show material. Others come and go too quickly. This blog is to let you know whats going on in our heads, whether it be reactions to important policy decisions being made or who got voted off our favorite reality TV show this week.

This blog might end up as a preview to our show or a sidebar for those who have seen it, but we encourage your participation, our audience is essential in us finding our voice.

What is MOSAIC?

"Material that embodies the fast-paced laughs of 'Saturday Night Live' and the satirical zing of 'The Daily Show.'"
(The Boston Globe, 2004)

Between sketch comedy and performance art, improv and stand-up acts, musical theater and abstract "theatre" lies MOSAIC: our unconventional take on 18 different social, personal and political happenings of today. Be it song, sketch, parody, puppet show, guessing game: every week, we find freshly creative ways to redefine comedy and shed light on our lives and yours.

WARNING: MOSAIC may contain adult themes and material. It is not suitable for children.

"A frenetic medley of political commentary, social satire, and personal memoir."

(The Boston Globe, 2006)

MOSAIC has run in various incarnations since 2003 and received multiple standing ovations for the material's wit, originality and impact on the audience. The show takes place in front of a metal frame on which 18 tiles are positioned -- each tile representing an original performance piece about a current social, political, or sometimes deeply personal issue.

MOSAIC has been invited to perform at: The Factory Theater, Boston Playwright's Theater, the Lowell Comedy Festival, the Cambridge River Festival, the ImprovBoston HUMP night and Sergeant Culpepper's Jamboree, the Boston University Liquid Fun Comedy Marathon, and since March 2008: every Saturday night in ImprovBoston's cabaret theater.

"Bunches of fun."

(Stuff @ Night, 2006)

Check us out at 18tiles.com