El Fin de Marissabidilla

After 10.5 years, 767 published posts (and 49 draft posts that will never see the light of day), a lot of pretentiousness and perhaps some measure of wisdom... I think it's time to put marissabidilla to bed.

Don't worry, I don't plan to stop writing, and I'm not going to delete my old posts. But a Blogspot-blog with a punning name no longer feels like something I want to keep maintaining as part of my online presence.

It's obvious that my posting has really dropped off from when I first started the blog: as I enter my thirties, I'm less convinced that all of my thoughts should be made available for public consumption. In my earliest posts, I sense a kind of youthful narcissism, an assumption that everyone automatically would/should care about everything I had to say. I now shake my head at the folly of that.

But, as I said, I still have still some thoughts I want to share; and I still find that sometimes, sitting down at the computer and writing a few paragraphs is the best way for me to know my own mind.

So, in the future, here's where you can continue to find me:

• marissaskudlarek.com -- I bought this domain last year and am in the process of building it into my new online home, including information about my plays and upcoming projects, links to my clippings/other writing, and a space for blogging. There are no blog posts up there at the moment, but I imagine eventually it will be home to the kind of (sporadic) content you saw over the last few years on marissabidilla.
• @MarissaSkud on Twitter -- I joined Twitter several years ago and have found it very useful for posting quick jokes, comments, links, and other ephemera that (circa 2007-2010) I might have unnecessarily tried to build out into a longer blog post. It's a good place to keep up with me if you don't feel like bookmarking my new website. Follow me!
• Marissa Skudlarek on Goodreads -- I've been an active Goodreads user for nearly five years: you may have noticed that I tended to cross-post my Goodreads reviews to this blog as well. I don't review everything I read, but if you enjoyed my bookish blog posts, Goodreads is a good way to keep up with that side of me.
• @Marissa.Skudlarek on Medium -- I recently created a Medium profile in order to participate in a group-blogging project with some friends (we're going to try to visit and review every afternoon-tea service in the Bay Area). I don't currently plan to do other blog posts on Medium, but who knows, that could change.

And, y'know, I'm pretty sure I'm the only Marissa Skudlarek/MarissaSkud on Earth, so if you see that name or username on another site, it's probably me as well.

Be well; think great thoughts; do kind actions.

Happy 2018.

East Coast Girl (at least for a week)

Tomorrow, I'm traveling to New York for a week to attend my 5-year Vassar reunion (where did the time go?!), catch up with East Coast friends, see some Off-Broadway theater, avoid getting attacked by cicadas... you know, the usual.

There'll probably be no new posts while I'm away (well, except for a link to my new Theater Pub column when it's up). But I do hope to have some fun adventures, and to share them here once I've returned home!

Song for the moment, a.k.a. New Favorite Song: "East Coast Girl" by Cayucas.



When I first heard this song on the radio, a couple of months ago, I liked it a lot, but I also thought "This band sounds like they are trying to out-Vampire-Weekend Vampire Weekend." Turns out I'm not the only person who thinks that: the good people of Pitchfork have come to the same conclusion regarding Cayucas' musical style. Unlike the snooty Pitchforkers, though, I'm not so bothered by the way that Cayucas sounds like a breezier, less substantial version of one of my favorite bands. Music need not be epic or groundbreaking to have value, and it's hard to hate such summery, charming indie-pop.

I bought Cayucas' album, Bigfoot, the week it came out, and listened to it while I was on my way to a hipster barbecue in the Mission District. The sun was shining. I was wearing cut-off jean shorts. I rode the J-Church train past Dolores Park and saw San Francisco's golden youth spread before me, day-drinking and sunbathing on the grass -- full of beauty and promise and entitlement and absurdity. And with Bigfoot playing in my ears, it was a perfect moment.

This isn't to denigrate "darker" or more ambitious music -- in fact, I love the way that Vampire Weekend's new album, Modern Vampires of the City, deals with twentysomething angst and despair and "the nagging pressure to make the most of their finite youth." Goodness knows, I've been feeling a lot of that lately, as the realization "Marissa, you graduated college five years ago" sinks in, deeper and deeper. But sometimes you need an antidote to such negativity: lilting music that speaks of summer fun, a weekend reconnecting with old friends and celebrating the good things that have happened in the last five years.

That's what I hope Reunion will be like, at least.

"A Writer Never Has a Vacation"

Ionesco said, "A writer never has a vacation. For a writer life consists of either writing or thinking about writing."

Well, I'm off to go prove Ionesco wrong -- or try to.

Taking 15 days: San Francisco to New Jersey to London to Paris and back to S.F.

This has been a crazy month for me -- planning my trip, cramming in lots of theatergoing before my departure, the Olympians book was released, there's some stressful personal/family stuff going on -- which may somewhat explain my lack of blogging.

(You should check out my latest Theater Pub post, "Why Songs of Hestia Should Be On Your Summer-Reading List," though, if you haven't already.)

I don't know what my internet access will be like for most of this trip and I think my focus during my travels might be on personal journaling rather than public blogging... but I do hope at some point to write about some aspects of my trip. (I've already got tickets to see 2 plays in London!)

OK, so maybe I won't be proving Ionesco wrong after all. Writing is always a big part of my travels and while I may not be doing any playwriting while I am away, I still won't be able to turn off the journaling/blogging/putting-words-together part of my brain.

I'm exhilarated at the thought of returning to Europe after five years, but also exhausted from the busy month I've been having. Hopefully I can get a good night's sleep on the red-eye to London Sunday night and arrive there alert and wide-eyed and ready to take it all in!

La vie est ailleurs

Having one of those insanely busy weeks where I am being hit with about a dozen deadlines at once, so even though there's a lot of stuff I'd like to blog about here, I'll have to put that off. In the meantime, you can find me elsewhere:

• I'm conducting interviews with the Bay One-Acts (BOA) playwrights for the BOA blog. First two interviews (with Bennett Fisher and Anthony Clarvoe) are up now -- more are on the way!
• Twitter! Yes, I finally joined. Find me @MarissaSkud.
• I'll be at the Cafe Royale tomorrow night for the Super Secret Kickstarter Fundraising Party for BOA! OK, not sure why the event title includes the word "secret," because we want LOTS of people to show up and help us reach our Kickstarter goal! And if you're not in the Bay Area or can't make it tomorrow night... you can donate online here.

And a little music before I go: French-Canadian singer Coeur de Pirate performs "La vie est ailleurs" (which means "Life is Elsewhere" -- like the Kundera novel)

 

Technical difficulties

I came home on Wednesday night to find that my laptop had died. I'll be getting a new computer to replace it, but not for another week or so. Don't expect any new posts until Monday, April 25 at the earliest.

Happy Easter and Passover!

Autumn in New Yo-o-ork...

...is where I will be for the next few days. My first trip back to the East Coast since I graduated from college!

Back on Tuesday.

Keeping it Cagey

Huzzah, the busy season at my job is now over, so I'm looking forward to having my life back... but I will not necessarily return to blogging at my old compulsive pace. I have a lot of plans these days--plays I want to write! and translate! and adapt! and help my friends produce!--so I think I might be better served by concentrating on these projects, and not feel like I need to constantly generate ideas for new blog posts. Of course, I hope very much that these other projects of mine will come to fruition, and if they pan out, I'll certainly let you know what's going on with them! But until they become something more than just a glimmer in my eye, I feel it's better to be a little cagey about what I'm plotting...

Also, my old rule for writing about theater on my blog was that I had to be careful when writing about contemporary/living playwrights, but dead/classic writers were fair game. (And yes, I know that several times I violated my rule about not criticizing contemporary writers... but I always thought hard before I did it.) However, now that I am on a committee that curates a reading series of "hidden classic" plays, I've got to be circumspect when writing about older plays and playwrights, too! Now, when I read a play that I think has been unfairly overlooked, and I want to call attention to it, I shouldn't do it by writing a blog post... first I should bring it to the attention of my fellow committee members and try to persuade them to include it in our reading series! And I don't want you to be able to guess what Hidden Classics we will produce merely by an astute perusal of my blog. In a couple of months, we should be ready to announce the 2010-2011 lineup of Hidden Classics, but for now, mum's the word...

April is the Cruelest Month

Last year around this time I wrote a post titled My Soul is Fettered to an Office-Stool. And yeah, due to the nature of my job, it's happening again now: work is going to consume my life for the next four weeks or so, and posting may get sparse around here. Actually, I can think of at least ten things on my to-do list that ought to take priority over blogging, at the moment:

1. examining every one of my stray thoughts to see whether I can turn it into a short play (because I feel that I need to build up an arsenal of one-act plays)
2. writing said plays
3. doing my taxes
4. making my room/apartment more beautiful and livable
5. reading (plays, novels, The New Yorker)
   
6. seeing theater
7. attempting to have a life and see friends
8. writing about said life in my pen-and-paper journal
9. taking long walks whenever the weather is nice enough
10. getting enough sleep
11. trying to squeeze all of these activities in while working till at least 8 PM nightly, and sometimes going into the office on weekends!

Actually, the challenge of goal #11 excites me; to triumph over this cruelest of months! And if I succeed in that, perhaps I will have some good thoughts/stories/opinions to share with you on this here blog. But maybe that won't happen till the merry month of May...

Because It Is My Name

BTW: Because I'm getting more involved in the theater community here and more people are discovering my blog, I'm finally putting my last name under the "About Me" section. It's pronounced "skood-LAHR-ik." It's Czech... I think. Anyway, goodbye to semi-anonymity and all that.

Northwest Passage

Quick note--tomorrow I am flying back to my hometown of Portland, Oregon, to spend about a week with my family. We are also planning to take a road trip to Vancouver BC for part of that time--my first visit there since I was five years old, so I am looking forward to it!

I don't know how much I'll be blogging--as you can tell, I'm a bit short of ideas these days, plus travel can always interfere. But at the very least, I'll try to post my annual run-down of all the books I read this year!

Happy holidays to you and yours.

NaBloPoMo PostMortem

Well, with this post, I've accomplished it. A post a day for thirty days. So, let's finish up this blogging experiment with some thoughts on whether it succeeded and what I may have learned from it.

I can mentally divide my NaBloPoMo posts into three categories: those that I would have written anyway, those that I might not have written otherwise but were fun to work on or nicely expand the scope of my blog, and those that are ridiculous nonsense slapped up for the sake of fulfilling my goal. So the biggest conclusion I have drawn from the experience is that, while "writing every day generates excellence," writing something every day for public consumption is far too stressful. This month I came across an interview clip where Tony Kushner says, "The thing that all writers must say to themselves, to start writing, is, 'Nobody ever has to see this thing. I can throw it away, I'm alone with it, no one has to know what an idiot I really am. I can burn it! If it doesn't work, if it really sucks, I can just pretend that it never happened.' But directors can't do that."

How apt, I thought. Because, if directors can't do that, neither can bloggers. As Kushner implies, what makes blogging so weird is that it is the world's first instantaneously public kind of writing. Writing has always been lonely and hard; now, in addition to that, it offers an easy way of embarrassing yourself in public!

I never created a blog mission statement or anything, but I do have a sense of what are and are not topics for marissabidilla, and some general guidelines like "don't get too personal." I don't think I crossed any of my boundaries in the course of these thirty days, but I definitely felt that, if you're under such intense pressure to generate a post a day, it would be really easy to slip up, to reveal more of yourself than you'd want to reveal if you were thinking clearly.

And, like I said, daily blogging was not always fun. For instance, on Saturday 11/14, I was having an evening out (Playwrights' Pub Night) and knew I needed to post something before I left my house. But I seemed to have no good ideas, and almost panicked, and by the time I managed to put something up, that meant that I'd be late to Pub Night.

Or, on Sunday 11/8, I had several good ideas for long posts, but insufficient time to write them. I was finding it very hard to think of an idea for a short post, and I wanted to get the day's blogging over with quickly, so I could enjoy the Mad Men finale in peace. So when I overheard French Guys #1 and 2 going into their riff on "Barefoot in the Park," I said a silent prayer of thanks to the blog gods that this conversation--a perfect marissabidilla topic--had taken place and I could just transcribe it!

This monthlong experiment has given me newfound respect for people who can maintain a high-quality blog while posting every day. (Especially the people who can post every day and still find the time for other, non-blog, creative endeavors. How do they do it?) But it has made me realize that I, personally, need a slower blogging-rhythm, and that there is no shame in that. In that sense, though my playwriting has languished this month, I do believe that NaBloPoMo has been valuable for me, teaching me something about myself and my blogging philosophy. I've had this blog for almost 2 1/2 years and got into a bit of a rut in August/September, so maybe it made sense to swing the pendulum in the other direction for November. And I'd probably recommend an experiment like this to other people who've been blogging for about as long as I have or who need a bit of a kick-start.

But don't expect me to keep this up and don't expect me to do it again next year.

On the Way to Santa Fe

Yes, it's another "there will be no new posts for several days" announcement. BUT! that usually means I have something exciting to do (and the promise of exciting posts when I return), doesn't it?

In this case, that's exactly what's happening! Tomorrow through Sunday, I will be in New Mexico to see the Santa Fe Opera! My parents are already there, and together we will see two productions: La Traviata and The Letter.

Don't ask me to pick which of these makes me more excited. Traviata has Natalie Dessay in her role debut as Violetta, and if you've been reading this blog for a while, you know how much I love Natalie Dessay. It will also be my first time at a live performance of a Verdi opera!

Meanwhile, The Letter is a world premiere opera (based on the classic Maugham story and Bette Davis film) with music by Paul Moravec and libretto by Terry Teachout. I guess now's the time to mention that a few years ago, I e-mailed Terry in response to one of his Wall Street Journal reviews, and that led us to strike up a correspondence/ friendship. So I know one of the instigators of this project--and I'll get to applaud my friend as he becomes a creator of theater, not just a critic and commentator. He's been blogging and tweeting up a storm this past week as the premiere approaches--it's really whetted my appetite!

I'm sure I'll write about both these important operatic events next week.

2-Year Blogiversary / Off to Japan

Tonight is the night before my long-anticipated trip to Japan. It also happens to be the 2-year anniversary of marissabidilla. When I started this blog, I'd quite recently come back from France--now I'm about to take my first overseas trip since that time.

I'm not bringing my laptop--meaning that this will be the longest time in, I think, 5 years, that I will be away from my computer. It should be healthy for me--clear my head a bit, separate the woman from the machine. I'll borrow my friend's computer to check e-mail and read the headlines, but I don't plan to write any new blog posts from Japan. I have set up a few things to post in my absence, though, so keep checking back here!

Surely I'll write plenty of posts about Japan when I return, but in the meantime, I see that Slate.com has a columnist in Japan this week and next, so you might enjoy reading his articles too. Maybe I'll have to compare my experiences to his!

Japan, I think, will be the first place I've ever traveled where I'll really, really feel like a foreigner. Well, I guess that in Cuba I stood out as a foreigner too, but there I was nearly always with a big group of American students, so we all stood out, as a unit. When people stared at me there, they were staring at my whole group; in Japan I will attract attention as an individual. All the more so because Japan is such a collectivist society. In Cathy Davidson's book, she writes that in Japan, "if you are young, or tall, or blond, you are treated as if you are a movie star." Through no fault of my own, I hit the young-tall-blond trifecta, so I am prepared for some weird experiences.

I almost think it should feel even weirder, though, to be an American visiting Japan. Because after all, only one country has ever attacked another with an atomic bomb--my country, attacking theirs. And the city where I will be staying--Kobe--was firebombed almost to smithereens by the Americans! (And then half-destroyed again in the 1995 earthquake. Poor Kobe.)

As for this being the two-year anniversary of marissabidilla--well, I haven't become a blogging superstar, but I think I like it that way, and I believe that keeping a blog has made me a more positive person. When I started this blog, I expected that I was going to write a lot more ranty posts than I have ended up creating--maybe fitting the stereotype of the angry citizen-blogger, using this democratic New Media form to puncture inflated reputations and open my readers' eyes to the truth. But you know what? I don't like spending my Internet time with bloggers who come off as negative and angsty and humorless! So my blog should not be that way either. Of course, if I have negative feelings about a play or book, I'll let you know it. But I try to do it fairly, and I try not to make this a place for bitching about random idiots I encounter or the minor frustrations and humiliations of life.

So, gradually, this blog has become a repository of things that I love, rather than things that make me angry. And, somewhat to my surprise, I keep discovering more things to love and to post about and to share with you! Two years ago, I didn't know whether I could sustain a blog for this long. But now, when I think of all of the things I love that I have barely even mentioned on this blog yet, it makes me giddy!

I'll return from my vacation on July 3.

My soul is fettered to an office-stool

Just a quick explanation for the decrease in postings around these parts lately: my job is kicking my butt! In my industry, there is a period of intense activity about 2 months long every spring, and we're in the thick of it right now. I only just got back from the office 10 or 15 minutes ago, and as you can see, it's 10:45 PM.

I still have ideas for blog posts--in fact, because I'm listening to my iPod pretty constantly at work, I'm getting some ideas just by going through my music collection--but not necessarily the time or the energy to write them. But, this busy period should be over in four to six weeks. At least I know when the end-point is coming, right?

And I tell myself that, because my life-cycle is governed by the calendars of various artforms, at least this busy period doesn't occur during the SF Opera season, nor during the fall/winter months when all the good movies are released, and at least I don't live in NYC when all the Broadway plays are opening right about now. (Yes, I considered all of these factors before taking this job. I knew what I was getting into!) It could be worse, she says, as with a stiff neck and tired dry eyes, she climbs into bed, steeling herself for another day of this tomorrow...

Ne andrò lontana

"Ebben, ne andrò lontana" from La Wally by Catalani. Sung by Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez in the film Diva.

Well then, I shall go far away
Like the echo of the holy church-bell.
There, amid the white snow
There, among the clouds of gold
There where hope, where hope
Is regret and sorrow!

O my mother's cheerful house,
La Wally shall go away from you,
Quite far away, and perhaps
She will never return to you,
Nor will you see her again.
Never again, never again!

I shall go far away, alone,
Like the echo of the holy church-bell.
There, amid the white snow,
I shall go far away, alone--
Among the clouds of gold!

**********************************

This aria has been stuck in my head for the last two days because I am about to go (far?) away, alone, for a long time. Tomorrow I fly to San Francisco and begin to set up a life for myself there.

I can make no promises about how often I'll update marissabidilla during my first few weeks in San Francisco. Rest assured that if I don't post, I am probably encountering many wonderful things that I would love to share with you--it's just that I lack the time or the Internet connection to do so!

I've got to finish packing now. Already in my suitcase are two classic San Francisco books that I absolutely must reread now--The Maltese Falcon and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. As you can see, I'm a big believer in suiting the book and the music to the occasion.

À bientôt!

Upcoming: vocal fireworks!

Fireworks over the Sydney Opera House. Photo from whitehouse.gov, of all places.

Exciting news that I have been dying to share: there won't be any new posts for several days, because I will be in San Francisco celebrating my 21st birthday at a performance of Lucia di Lammermoor--starring the one and only Natalie Dessay!

This plan has been a long time in the making. Longtime readers will recall that I got into an opera phase last fall, kick-started by some YouTube videos of Dessay. Prior to that, I'd mostly thought of opera as beautiful music that conveyed a generalized wash of emotion. I had never seen anyone like Dessay, who makes specific, pointed acting choices on every line she sings. I revised all my ideas about what to look for in opera--and because singer/actors like Dessay make opera into truly compelling theater, I found myself liking it more and more.

Then I saw that Dessay would be performing in San Francisco this summer, and started developing one of my Crazy Marissa Schemes. (I get these fairly often, having an overactive imagination and all.) See, I was born in San Francisco, and Dessay's final performance there coincides with my 21st birthday--and if I was there, that would be just too perfect and memorable, wouldn't it? I doubted that my parents would go along with the idea, or maybe I just didn't want to get my hopes up--but they love the Bay Area, and the arts, and they consented!

And after watching the PBS broadcast of La Fille du Régiment starring Natalie Dessay, my parents might be even more excited than I am. I mean, they liked her voice when I played some of her CDs for them, but seeing her in action takes things to a new level. I think my father, especially, had never seen such a physical and funny and un-pretentious opera singer. "I can't believe they let her peel potatoes onstage--with a knife!" he kept saying.

Of course, in Lucia she'll be using a knife in a much different context, and avoiding comedy antics. But her performance of "Il faut partir" on the broadcast was very sincere and touching, so if she can do that in the middle of a silly comedy, imagine what she can do in a real tragedy!

I got an idea for an opera spoof, though, while watching La Fille du Régiment and anticipating Lucia. Both are Donizetti operas where the coloratura heroine despairs of being forced to marry a man she does not love. So, what if Tonio didn't arrive in time to save Marie at the end of La Fille? Well, I imagine her marrying the Duchesse de Krakenthorp's nephew, stabbing him in his bed (with military precision, naturally), and singing a mad scene. Then Tonio, unlike the wimpy Edgardo in Lucia, avenges Marie by killing the Marquise de Berkenfeld, who forced her into this marriage. After all, he's learned courage and marksmanship since joining the Army.

Links to amuse, in my absence: check out the blog of Sarah Noble, a fellow Dessay fan who just saw the San Francisco Lucia; learn the connection between Hitchcock and Lucia di Lammermoor; and, if you haven't already, search for Natalie Dessay on YouTube. May I recommend "Tornami a vagheggiar" to put a smile on your face, and for something more moving, "Adieu notre petite table".

And of course, happy 4th of July!

The 21 Club

Last time I wrote, it seems I was too busy lamenting my lack of a royal coronation to notice that I should have been celebrating my one-year blogiversary! And I promise that the coming year at marissabidilla will be even better. I'm full of grand (if vague) plans to get more readers. For one, I want to be more open about telling people I'm a blogger when I meet them in real life.

Still, gotta look to my future: just a short while after this blogiversary comes my own birthday--I'll be 21! And you can imagine how much I'm looking forward to that. It's a real pain to spend 4.5 months in France at the age of 19, drinking good wine on a regular basis, then return to this country and still be 14 months too young to buy alcohol.

And I have a story that relates to this--no, not to alcohol, but to turning 21. Two years ago, on the day I turned 19, I learned I had won the Young Playwright's Contest and flew to New York for two weeks of seeing plays and attending workshops. Lucas, the Young Playwrights literary manager, led the familiar exercise where you find an intriguing story in the newspaper and figure out how to dramatize it. Playwriting teachers love this--I think I've done it in every playwriting class I've ever had.

Since I love historical subject matter with a light touch, I found a New York Times review of a new biography of Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart's most famous librettist. I said I'd write a kind of jukebox-opera in which an elderly Da Ponte looks back on his life and tells his own story--all the songs would have Mozart's music but new lyrics in English. I'd still like to see a play or movie about Da Ponte--the guy led a fascinating life.

But in this exercise, I was totally bested by my fellow playwright Brittani, who found inspiration in Seventeen magazine: an article called "21 Things To Do Before You Turn 21." "This," she announced, "is going to be the greatest romantic-comedy movie ever."

The heroine of Brittani's movie would be a girl who was about to turn 21, read this list and realized that she'd lived a really uneventful life. Maybe she'd done some of the boring stuff like Save $1000 or Donate Prom Dress to Charity, but none of the kooky things that make this list so hilarious. So, before she's 21, she decides to Go on a Road Trip with her best friends and complete the to-do list. And naturally, she falls in love along the way. The last line of the movie would involve her checking off the last item on her list: "Say 'I Love You.'" Aww.

So, with my own 21ist birthday coming up, I decided to hunt down this Seventeen article and check off what I've accomplished.

THINGS I'VE DEFINITELY DONE:

• Learned to play a musical instrument--I don't excel at it, but I can plunk out chords and melodies, and play a little Mozart, on the piano.
• Saved $1000--My last name means "stingy" in Czech. And true to form, I like to save money!
• Gotten to know my grandparents--I loved asking them about what life was like back when they were my age.
• Won an award--Uh, I've kind of been an overachiever since elementary school.
• Had my fortune told--After my high school graduation, my school threw an all-night party including a fortune-teller. It was pretty fun.
• Done my own laundry--I would HOPE that every 21-year-old has done this!
• Ridden a horse--A few times, when on vacation.
• Seen the ocean--Not that hard to do, growing up in Portland.
• Left the country--It started when I was 5 years old and went to British Columbia, and now I consider myself a seasoned traveler!
  

THINGS I'VE KINDA-SORTA DONE:

• Taken a road trip--Never in the classic way with a group of friends. But I drove out to Joseph, Oregon with my dad last summer, and that was pretty fun.
• Said "I love you"--I've gotten better about telling my friends and relatives that I love them. But I've never been in a serious romantic relationship. "Seventeen Magazine--Making Girls Feel Inadequate for Not Having Boyfriends since 1944!"
• Milked a cow--I think I might have done this once, when I was a little girl at some Pioneer Days or County Fair-type event.
• Forgiven someone--The article means this in the sense of "formally make amends." But I'm more likely to forgive someone in my heart than to do it face-to-face.
• Seen something that is "the world's largest"--Well, I've never gone out of my way to see the world's largest ball of string, say, but I've been to other silly roadside attractions like the Oregon Vortex. By the way, I think that in Brittani's movie script, there would have to be an annoying frat-boy character who claimed he had the world's largest schlong. Right?
• Learned to love my body--Oh, I'm sure this is an ongoing process for every girl. But, for instance, I've become more accepting of my big feet, etc.
  

THINGS I'VE NEVER DONE:

• Gone skinny-dipping--The Mock Trial team at my high school used to bond by skinny-dipping in the freezing Oregon ocean, but I never did Mock Trial.
  
• Bought a lottery ticket--Why haven't I done this? (Maybe 'cause I'm stingy?)
  
• Learned to drive a stick shift--Hell, I only got my license six months ago!
• Gone to a drive-in movie--Are there any drive-ins left in Oregon?
• Donated my prom dresses--Maybe I'm just selfish, but my prom dresses were beautiful vintage pieces, and I don't want to give them up.
• Waitressed at least once--My mother once said to a friend, "I don't think Marissa is nice enough to be a waitress." I took offense at the time, but now I see what she means--I probably lack the patience to be a really good waitress.

image found here

graduation hiatus

Just so you know, there'll probably be no new posts until at least Wednesday, May 28. My college graduation is Sunday and I'm pretty booked up both before and afterwards, as you can imagine.

I also hope that by Wednesday I can announce where I plan to move after graduation! (I'll spend at least a few weeks in Portland right now...but I'm getting out of there, sometime this summer.)

Wending my way to the Windy City

That's it from me for a few days...it's October break here at Vassar (where did the semester go?) and I am off to Chicago. I've never been there before and I have tickets to Sarah Ruhl's epic Passion Play at the Goodman Theater, so I am quite excited! (And I'll be sure to tell you all about it.)

Willkommen, bienvenue...

Willkommen, bienvenue, bienvenidos…welcome to my blog!

If you look up my name, Marissa, in a Spanish dictionary, the closest thing you’ll find is “marisabidilla”—slang for “know-it-all girl.” It’s derived from Maria (generic term for a woman) + saber (“to know”) + illa (diminutive ending) and many people would say that it’s a singularly appropriate word for me. At a young age I got used to being “the smart one” and I crafted much of my identity around that. Sometimes I embrace the label, sometimes I rebel against it. Currently I’m embracing it again.

I am not Hispanic, though I took 4 years of Spanish in high school. Right now, my second language of choice is French. If you write to me in Spanish, I will have to puzzle it out and then reply in laboriously written Spanish that is guaranteed to have about 10% French words mixed in. You’ve been warned! I do want to go back and re-learn all the Spanish I’ve forgotten…but am too busy at the moment.

So maybe I’m not really a “know-it-all,” if I can learn tons of Spanish vocab in high school and then forget it after three years. And I have moments where I feel like I don’t know anything about how the world really works, even if I have a bunch of trivia stuffed into my head. Good thing, then, that I live in the Age of Irony. When I’m confident, assured, sparkling, witty, “Marissabidilla” can be taken seriously. And the rest of the time, I can say “Oh, I was just being ironic.”

Check back for thoughts on books, theater, movies, culture, politics, and the occasional anecdote from my life. I’m not going to be completely neutral and impersonal here, but this is not an angst-blog or an excuse to share all the details of my personal life with strangers. At least, that’s the plan as it stands now. Thanks for stopping by!