The unbearable lightness of my wallet.

So, the time finally came when I was able to purchase a long wanted MacBook Pro. I use to have a MacBook G4 that a friend gave me some time ago, but it bit the dust about 2 years ago, and I was using a loaner PC from him. It gave me the ability to work as well, but it was about six or seven years old, and a bear to work with. Still, I couldn't complain, but the time had come where I had the financial means to get a brand new Mac, and one that I could put Windows on via an emulator, so that I could use it for my work at home job, and use it for my writing and theatre work on the Mac OS side of things. I bought it last Friday, and it didn't take long to remember how Mac works, and to get most of my files transferred over to it.

I am using this as a stepping stone, and inspiration to start blogging regularly again. I feel as thought I have a computer I'm comfortable with again, and believe it or not, it makes a difference. So, here we go, and I'll consider something to write about tomorrow.

It is what it is.

Beginnings and endings. This is the stuff of life. We're born, we die. We move to a new place, and move out again. People come into our lives and then they leave. Relationships come and go. Marriages are created with the hope of lasting until the end. Usually, that is intended to mean one or the other dying. There is of course the other way, where one or both people end it for a myriad of reasons.

The end has come for mine. A few weeks ago, I received divorce papers in the mail. The reality is that it probably ended before these papers came, even before I moved out. Marriages can die a slow and painful death, and this is what happened with mine. We tried hard to revive it, but in the end, there were too many hurts that would not heal. Getting the papers delivered to me the day after I came back from a trip home to NYC was still something of a shock. I expected that it would be me that would make this decision, and in fact I was still wrestling with when and how I would do it. In many ways it was something of a relief, as now that decision was lifted from my shoulders. It still doesn't make it any easier emotionally in terms of knowing that there is now a finality to this journey that we both started so many years ago. I also think that this is the way for her to regain not only some control over the situation, but also as a way for her to go on with her life, to move forward.

I still love her, and always will, though I suspect she will always doubt it, and curse me for the rest of her days for leaving. It's what I had to do. Not a question so much of wanting, but had to. I could no longer see any other option. There was too much pain between us, something that even she had admitted. I look at the bare spot on my left hand's ring finger where there used to be an indentation after I took it off. There is nothing there now, no indication that there was a gold band that occupied it for 21 years. The ring that symbolized she and I now sits in a ceramic bowl on my dresser in my apartment bedroom. I don't have the courage in myself to put it away just yet.

And so now, after all we went through together, after all the joys and sorrows, the laughing and the fights, laughing together and the crying together, we're left to take our own separate journeys. It's not what I imagined our lives would come to back when we took our vows, but it is what it is.

This kid's got a lot of guts...

Follow her blog or if you have Twitter, follow her.

http://alicepyne.blogspot.com/

A funny thing about comedy...

...it's not as easy as it looks, but it provides healing in the most stressful of times. There is an oft quoted acting maxim, attributed to several sources: "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard." Of course, this refers to the art of using comedy in performance. However, it crosses over into real life as well.

When I was waiting for my liver transplant, one of the things I struggled to maintain was my sense of humor. So many people would tell me to "keep my spirits up," without any real suggestions on how to do that. I figured out that all I needed to do was what I have always done, and that was gravitate towards those things I found hilarious. I watched a lot of Robin Williams, George Carlin, TV shows that would make me laugh my ass off all the time, funny movies - you get the gist. What I also found were ways to make myself laugh, along with others.

I made up two lists of "Top Ten Ways Of Knowing You've Been Living With Liver Disease Too Long." While very esoteric, I was able to share with friends that I met through transplant and liver disease support groups, as well as the medical people that were taking care of me.

It made them laugh. It made me laugh.

About two months before my transplant I gave a lecture to a group of EMT students on death and dying. It drove home a lot of what I lectured about, looking as sick as I was and also being funny at the same time. The lecture was more focused on what they will encounter out in the field as EMT's, but certainly had a bigger impact having it delivered by someone that was dying by degrees right before their eyes. The opening part of the lecture was a series of video clips I put together of how Hollywood views death, both seriously and comedy-wise. This is one of the clips I used:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9tAKLTktY0

It had a great impact on those students, and I can only hope they understood what I was trying to get across and use in their daily working lives.

Now to that end, I'm organizing a similar presentation to my transplant support group here in Rochester, with a little twist. The idea is to show how to use comedy as a coping mechanism, and is part lecture, part floor show, with some local improv actors that I'm friends with and have worked with. It's all in the planning stages now, but hopefully we can make this work.

"I'm always relieved when someone is delivering a eulogy and I realize I'm listening to it." - George Carlin.

The job market is pants...

...or so sayeth Zoe. This is why I love Brit slang. Far more descriptive, in my mind than what we have here. Of course, the Irish have my fav, all time one: gobshite. Yeah, it doesn't get better than that. It is however, a perfect description for this job market. One would think that after all this time, and all these reports that things are starting to improve, that there would be something out there that I could capitalize on. Nothing since October. It's been a dead zone here.

There is something else that popped up on the university job board this past week, and while I have about 3/4 of the qualifications for, I don't have the rest, so I'm debating as to whether or not I should apply. Even in healthcare institutions around here, the bulk of the jobs are clinical in nature, and that is not an option for me anymore.

Sigh...supposedly two million jobs have been created? I'd take about 1-2% of that for around here to at least give me a fighting chance.

A demonstration of why our Constitution works...even when we may not like it.

"To preserve the freedom of the human mind...and the freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will and speak what we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement." - Thomas Jefferson

I read the news today, oh boy. I read it, and at first and was decidedly stunned. Stunned at the decision of the Supreme Court, and stunned that the majority of both Conservative and Liberal justices were very clear: Freedom of speech, however ugly, deserves protection. You should perhaps, read this first before you go on.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/03/us/03scotus.html?_r=1&hp

I personally hold the Westboro Baptist Church in a state of utter contempt. I first learned about them back in 2000, while I was in the play, "The Laramie Project." Eight actors playing sixty characters. two of the characters I played were Matthew Sheppard's father, and in a complete 180 degree direction, Fred Phelps, the "pastor" of this church. It was through researching Phelps and his church that my disgust for him and his ilk grew.

It was his protests at Shepard's funeral that first garnered Phelps national attention, and he's been in it ever since, most notably in the last few years by the incidents outlines in the article above. He is the worst sort of religious zealot, and while his followers are few, they are vocal and know how to attract attention.

On to the Supreme Court decision. It partly made me sick to my stomach. I am no arch right wing conservative by any means, nor am I an uber-liberal, but I thought what the Westboro protesters were doing was in every way equivalent to a neo-Nazi march. Free speech is one thing. What they were doing, in my opinion was beyond what are the normally accepted boundaries of free speech. I felt they were infringing upon the rights of the families of soldiers that were killed in battle to conduct their mourning unencumbered by the rantings of people whose religious/social opinions differed with others.

The justices decided otherwise, and at the end of the day, as conflicted as I am, their rationale is sound. It is at the heart of our freedoms in this country. Their are many who read this blog from places outside the U.S. who probably find our country confusing, and downright contradictory at times. let this article serve as an example of what we can be at our finest. I see examples of curbs on free speech in Europe, even with the best of intentions, and cringe at them.

I'll leave with a quote from the writer Evelyn Beatrice Hall, which is often mistakenly attributed to Voltaire:

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,"

First, let me pull this foot out of my rear...

...courtesy of Violet Sky. She gently (in her calm Canadian manner) reminded me that I promised to start blogging again. Last December. Did I actually promise that? I'm lucky these days if I wake up and can remember what day it actually is, I've been so busy.

A quick catch-up: Mrs. Nighttime and I are legally separated as of the beginning of this past December. I don't want to go too much father into that, out of respect for her privacy. I will only say that this has been the hardest thing I have ever endured. I feel as though I have severed a part of my own body off, and quite frankly, it was easier in many respects to endure a liver transplant than to leave my marriage. I know she is still incredibly angry with me, bu I'm hoping that with time, she will forgive me for what I felt was my only option.

In December, I did a play at Blackfriars. It kept me sane, and also provided me with one of the best acting experiences of my life. It was the best ensemble cast I have ever worked with, and there was a lot of laughter both on and off stage.

Nothing really new on the job front, however, an opportunity popped up two weeks ag that has turned into the most potential since the debacle I had back in October. Through the help of a friend, I am now the assistant press officer for one of the two leading candidates for mayor of Rochester. We're having a special election on March 29th, as the current mayor left office in January to become the Lt. governor of NY State. My friend became his press officer, and asked me to help him as his assistant. If our guy wins the election, there is the very good potential that we could all go to city hall with him.

That's all for now. Yes, it's boring, but it's a way to start blogging again.