Like you do....

I am pretty much the opposite of a stranger to weird occurrences and incidents of bizarre coincidence. I'm the only person I know who went to see the Radio City Christmas Spectacular at the Fox in Atlanta and left the building as a dancer in a Reese Witherspoon movie. Okay, so it wasn't like I was in the audience and some talent scout just walked up and said, "You look to be a fabulous dancer." and I was cast. What actually happened was that one of the friends who was in the group knew the choreographer for Sweet Home Alabama and he hooked me up with her for the gig. There was also the time I moved to New Jersey and at the first rehearsal for the first community theater show I did here, I met my friend, Beverly. Meeting Bev wasn't weird. What was so odd was that after a few minutes of conversation we realize that her first cousin was one of my sorority sisters at the University of Alabama. And I mean we were there at the same time and knew each other and everything.

Bringing me to this past Thursday. Now, one of the things you need to know about me is that about a year ago, my friend, Judi, who does the lighting design at a lot of the shows at the theater where I perform, asked me if I was up to run the follow-spot for a production of Camelot. I figured, "Why not?". My dear friend, Katie, was in the show. And I had never worked with this particular theater group so it was a good chance to meet people. Since then, I've run follow-spot for two other shows and last weekend and this, I had agreed to run it for a production of Pippin. The other part of the story is that I was incredible busy last Thursday. There was the regular grocery and odds and ends stuff, plus three trips to put together two packages to take to FedEx AND I measured, cut, pinned and ironed a set of light-blocking curtains that were too long (which sounds easier than it is. The fabric is an absolutely enraging combo of heavy and slippery.). I also had an appointment with our frozen food delivery guy (which I'm trying to taper out of because I'm really moving away from processed food as much as I can and that stuff is practically concocted in a lab) and to facilitate that, I completely defrosted and cleaned the BIG basement deep freeze. And in the midst of that, had my voice lesson.

But I was excited, because I was the only one home on Thursday night. Which meant that I didn't have to cook anything and, if I so chose, could go to Wawa for dinner. And then I get a binging that someone is Facebook messaging me. And it's Judi. Because she is running lights for a concert that night and would I be interested in running follow-spot FOR 60s POP ICON AND FORMER MONKEE PETER TORK??!?!?

Y'all. It is official. I am now an assistant lighting engineer for a rock star.

Reinventions

I am...relatively small. I mean, compared to most humans--at least American humans--I am pretty short and pretty slight. That said, I, like many people, have what I consider to be my maximum density. I talked to someone about this one time. "This" being that I am quite obviously, not obese. I wear a size 4 most of the time. Sometimes a 2. Occasionally a 6. And I was telling this friend how I had been talking about how I had started to edge up to the point where instead of taking a 2 and 4 to the dressing room to try, I was taking a 4 and 6. The person I was talking to (not the friend to whom I was telling the story about the talking) was...very offended. I know that I should be grateful that I am able to maintain a fairly constant weight when I eat the way I do much of the time. And I am. I'm glad that I came back from more than a week at Walt Disney World, where I ate like a 14-year old boy, weighing exactly two pounds heavier. Although when you are just 5'3", two pounds can mean an appreciable difference in how your clothes fit. And I get that if you are person who has struggled with weight that someone complaining about theirs when the biggest size they've ever worn is an 8 could be frustrating. But it's like K says..."You do you."

So here's me doing me. I am ten pounds heavier than the heaviest I like to be. Part of that, I know is that I've worked with a personal trainer for more than a year and have put on a huge amount of muscle. The problem is that the muscle is trapped under a small layer of...not muscle. I have freakishly huge calves which I like to say are a beautiful combination of pasty and doughy (I really am one of the whitest people I know). My back looks awesome. My backSIDE less so. My chest and shoulders definitely pass muster, but my upper arms are not as hot. As for my middle? I have core muscles for days. And if you press on the flabbiness that covers them, you can totally fee; that were the flab to melt away, I would have, if not a six-pack, then a fairly decent four-pack. The less said about my thighs the better.

And I feel kind of stuck. Like even if I work out like a fiend, I'm at one of those weird plateau places. And I'm not. moving. at. all. Which has been fine for the past few weeks. A little over a month ago, I went to my friend, Katie's wedding. I wore 4 inch heels. I drank like a fool (and that included the handy tequila shots that were passed at the cocktail hour). I did dance moves including, but not limited to, actual routines that I had learned in Zumba. And it was awesome and fun and I made it home unscathed. Of course, the next afternoon, I am walking straight, in flats, without a drink in sight and manage to sprain my ankle more severely than I have since the unfortunate Seven Brides for Seven Brothers Rehearsal Fall-Down Fail of 1998.

Which brings me to this. I have a friend (and one who knows what she's doing) who once told me that if you are someone who normally loses weight easily and quickly but you get to a plateau and no matter what you do, the weight's not going in either direction, then it's time for a cleanse. She used to do the Master Cleanse on occasion. I am going to try it. Of course, she was super healthy most of the time anyway and would just do it after the holidays to get herself readjusted. This means that she would go straight into the actual cleanse. And this is the thing where you drink water and lemon juice and cayenne pepper and molasses. Which sounds disgusting to me, but most people I know who've done it say it's really not that bad. Instead of going right to that, which would probably throw my poor system into a seizure, I am going to do the "Ease-in". I'm also not gonna cleanse for a month or anything crazy. Three days is the minimum. I think I'm gonna try five. We'll see. I'm not a fan of posting my weight or measurements. Although I do plan to take a picture and post it. A picture WHERE I AM WEARING A BATHING SUIT. So instead of post in weight and measurements, we'll say that today I weigh X pounds and my measurements are X inches. And from here on out, I'll call my weight (I hope) X-however much i've lost.

Tomorrow is fruits and vegetables only. Which sounds awesome. Until you know that they have to be raw. Which I don't necessarily hate. But that's a lot of raw vegetables and fruits with NOTHING on them. And here's the kicker...no caffeine. Only water and herbal tea. Yeah, it's entirely possible that I lose my mind completely.

Weird. Life is weird. And also chaotic.

I said it earlier this month. Life feels...weird. I don't know if it's the changing of seasons (which, by the way, can't seem to commit to changing) or what, but I've felt for a while that except for a few incidents where I am specifically engaged in a specific activity doing specific things and whatnot, that it's like life is happening, but I'm not happening with it. I hope that makes sense. I don't even know if it makes sense to me. So maybe it REALLY doesn't make sense to anyone else. Of course, it may just be that I've got so many THINGS happening at this very second, that I can't focus on any one of them long enough to really feel engaged. May and December are always hard. As a nanny (even as a nanny to very grown-up persons) they are spectacularly busy. Moving in and out of dorms and finishing the school year and doctors' and dentists' appointments and packing for trips. It's...a lot. And due to several things, this year is particularly "fun"-filled. I'vve also immersed myself in a kind a peresonal reorganization. Actually, this started way long in the past. The closet reorganization and clean-out started last November. The weekend of the Iron Bowl, to be precise. And I know this specifically because I was decoupaging a bookcase to go in my closet and became so engrossed in Alabama taking Auburn to the woodshed that I put a paintbrush full of ModPodge into my beer. Suffice it to say I have gotten rid of bags and bags of clothes. I thought about taking them to the consignment shop in town, but then I remembered how awesome it is to find something super-cool in a thrift store and I took them to Goodwill. It felt especially refreshing since our closest Goodwill was flooded completely during last September's hurricane and they lost literally ALL of their merchandise. AND I have a theory that doing that makes good thrifting karma for me down the road. And I'm pretty sure I'm right. I took a trunk-load and then the next week, found two pairs of Lilly pants, plus a Dooney and Bourke purse for K at Red, White and Blue.

Another ongoing, but almost finished project, has been going through the absolutely enormous stack of old magazines that had seemingly mated and multiplied in the corner of my closet. Long before Pinterest allowed you to virtually pin cool outfits and recipes and party ideas, I had kept big binders of stuff I had found and torn out of magazines. Of course, in one of those, life is happening spans of time, I had allowed a pretty good stack to start growing. And then, as the stack grew, it became just intimidating. So rather than deal with it, I just let it sit. And grow some more. I'm not finished. I've gotten through pretty much all of the fashion magazines--they're easy. I see it, I like it and I tear it.--but the cooking magazines are so much harder. That involves things like reading ingredients and weighing the relative difficulty of making whatever it is. It's also harder now that television season is winding down. Going through old magazines is an absolutely PERFECT activity when you don't want to JUST watch.

So closet-95% organized. I even have, at this very moment, exactly TWO things sitting next to the ironing board waiting to be ironed. This is a MAJOR accomplishment for me, since it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility for me to have two complete baskets waiting to be ironed. Magazine clean out? About 70% done. I still have to put the fairly sizable stack of awesome things I've found into the pockets in the binders. I've completely cleaned out one storage room and am about halfway done with the other. I'm attacking that tomorrow.

I've stage-managed on high school show. Been to see the other. Saw a friend in a show last weekend. Seeing friends in another on Friday. Have to get through my show in June. And maybe Mimi's if I can get home for it.

I'm setting small goals. I've finally figured that it's the only way to make anything happen. And if, on some days, said goal consists solely of making the bed and hanging up the towel rather than throwing it on top of the hamper? Well, I'm okay with that.

Because Ferris was right. Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

Am I the only one who has these vast periods of your life where it feels like everything is moving sin a speed that resembles double fast-forward? In the past couple of weeks, I've realized that my life has felt like that since...September, maybe? It feels like yesterday that I was packing to go to Walt Disney World for vacation. I was getting dressed the other day and I put on something and thought that it felt like something I wear ALL THE TIME and then I realized that I hadn't worn it since back in September when I wore it the day I did the American Idol Experience show at Hollywood Studios. So, really, life has been FLYING. I also realized, as I pulled out my spring and summer clothes, that I am pretty much at the limit of what I consider to be my maximum density. I did a show. I'm doing a show. I am going through a massive cleaning and reorganizing. I have a million things going on. I may be going through a fashion readjustment and resettlement. I've become obsessed with cooking, especially the trying new things part of cooking. I am also obsessed with Zumba, which is the absolute most fun one can have while exercising. I sprained my ankle three weeks ago and it's still kind of wonky. So...weird life upheaval time is happening. I have no idea.

OMG, y'all.

Am I the only one who has these vast periods of your life where it feels like everything is moving sin a speed that resembles double fast-forward? In the past couple of weeks, I've realized that my life has felt like that since...September, maybe? It feels like yesterday that I was packing to go to Walt Disney World for vacation. I was getting dressed the other day and I put on something and thought that it felt like something I wear ALL THE TIME and then I realized that I hadn't worn it since back in September when I wore it the day I did the American Idol Experience show at Hollywood Studios. So, really, life has been FLYING. I also realized, as I pulled out my spring and summer clothes, that I am pretty much at the limit of what I consider to be my maximum density. I did a show. I'm doing a show. I am going through a massive cleaning and reorganizing. I have a million things going on. I may be going through a fashion readjustment and resettlement. I've become obsessed with cooking, especially the trying new things part of cooking. I am also obsessed with Zumba, which is the absolute most fun one can have while exercising. I sprained my ankle three weeks ago and it's still kind of wonky. So...weird life upheaval time is happening. I have no idea.

This is a test....this is only a test.

So, just before Christmas, my computer decided that it was going to do something wonky. I don't know what it was, but it happened right before I went home to Alabama. So I didn't make any plans to fix it then. And when I got back, I went right into dress rehearsals for Pirates of Penzance. So I didn't make any plans to fix it then. Again. The point is that in the meantime, I have been using my iPad to do anything that needed doing. Of course, that meant that it was almost impossible to type very much. Although I DID type the entire James Spann/ABC/tornado rant on it, but really that was more possible due to my pure rage than anything else. So since I really like the convenience of my iPad (the thing is practically miniature) and it has all of my games on it, I ordered this handy dandy keyboard which connects to my iPad via bluetooth. I am typing on it now. I just wanted to see how it worked. It does. I kind of want to marry this thing now.

"Here's to the pilot who weathers the storm"

It's so strange how days that begin so ordinarily can so very suddenly become the exact opposite. And how later every moment of that day, even the things that happened before whatever caused a paradigm shift in your existence, remain locked, with a sometimes obscene clarity, in your memory. I can't think of a more ordinary day than a Wednesday. No voice lessons. No gym. Unless I'm in tech week for a show, no rehearsals. On that particular Wednesday, I awoke to a Facebook feed filled with friends and family who had awakened before dawn to the furor of a violent thunderstorm accompanied by straight-line winds. When I called them, my parents were still feeling the effect of the tail-end of the storm. Two hours to their southwest, my little sister was settling into a day where she found herself unexpectedly free from work. The threat of bad weather during morning commute hours with a further threat of more severe storms during the hours when afternoon busses would be delivering child to their homes meant that the school districts had cancelled classes. As a teacher at one of the weather-closed schools, she was excited about this unexpected boon. For the past two years she had shared a condo with, Morgan, a dear family friend who was an undergraduate at the University, but had decided to move into a house that my aunt and uncle had purchased, which she would be sharing with three of our cousins--Molly and our cousin, Katie, upstairs, and Katie's brothers, Andy and Carter, in the swinging bachelor pad apartment of a basement. A weather closing, with the storm seemingly past them and no other severe weather forecast until the late afternoon would give her the chance to bring several more loads of her things from her old condo to the new house. It was the morning of April 27, 2011 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Now, I love Tuscaloosa. Apart from my hometown, I've spent more of my life there than anywhere else in the world. Almost eight years during my undergrad and law school tenure. As such, I am well aware of the vagaries of Tuscaloosa weather. We always joked that on any given summer day, you could find the hottest temperature in the state and Tuscaloosa was bound to be three degrees hotter. Also that if there was a 10% chance of rain anywhere in the state that you could rest assured that you would literally have to wade down Sorority Row to get to class. And then there were the storms. In Tornado Alley, the peak of the tornado season is in April and May. The same is true for Dixie Alley. But with a second peak in November and December. And a fair chance of tornado sirens and glowering, yellow-green skies in pretty much any other month of the year. On the plus side, people in Alabama grow up hyper-aware of tornados. We know where in our house to go. We know the difference between a watch and a warning. We know. About hook echoes, and supercells, and debris balls. And we know this because of James Spann.

James Spann is to meteorology in Alabama, what Bear Bryant is to football. He is revered. Respected. Trusted implicitly. He has helmed the weather report at one of the Birmingham network affiliates for as long as I can remember. Since I was in college, that affiliate has been ABC 33/40. If there is a severe weather situation anywhere in the Birmingham television market, James Spann's coverage begins immediately and continues until the threat is over. The man will stay on the air, warning of weather danger for hours at a time. I have watched the man broadcast for 8, 10, 12 hours straight. Not only that, he has an almost omniscient knowledge of Alabama geography, to the point that he can tell you not just that the suspected funnel cloud is passing through the northern part of City X, but that it's near the intersection of Roads Y and Z,very near Barbecue Joint A and the First Baptist Church of Q. When he removes his jacket and you see his suspenders, you know that the situation is serious. When he rolls up his shirt sleeves, you know it's really serious. When he tells you to head to your safe place, you do it. BECAUSE HE'S JAMES SPANN!!!

Sometime around lunch on April 27, I had called Molly to ask her something. She told me she was watching James Spann and that it was amazing. Well, that's because it's ALWAYS amazing. Even if you aren't in the path of whatever's happening, James Spann Severe Weather Coverage (and yes, it does deserve all caps) is Alabama Must-See TV. Molly said that their cable was iffy because of the wind, so she was watching on UStream. Which I immediately did as well. I mean even from a many hundreds of miles away, I felt connected to home. And it was clear as soon as I started watching, that this series of storms was...different. In that moment, when the radar pictures began to register, I felt a tickle of fear. But not really, because of all the storms that I remember--Palm Sunday in '94, Oak Grove in '98, Tuscaloosa in December of '00, and any number of less memorable storms--they always happen to someone else. Which is why I went numb when a tower camera recorded and broadcast the tornado tearing apart downtown Cullman. I KNOW Cullman. I know people who live in Cullman. Friends. Parents of a very dear friend. I've been there a million times. And then.

And then. It was about 5:45 my time. I was making dinner while watching 33/40 on my laptop. The Mississippi state line. Greene County. Approaching Tuscaloosa County from the southwest. From the southwest. Three words that any experienced tornado watcher dreads. Then video. At first I didn't understand what they were talking about. There wasn't even a tornado in the frame. And then I realized that I was looking for an archetypal funnel cloud. And what they were frantically warning of wasn't a neat little movie funnel cloud. It was that enormous mile-wide son of a bitch from the end of Twister. I'm on the phone with my mom. They can't get through to Molly. The circuits in Alabama are already jammed as the parents of 30,000 students try desperately to contact them. I finally get through. By this time, Molly, all three of my cousins, Morgan and a friend are in the basement. Morgan and her friend Ben both decided that Molly's basemented house is safer than their apartments. Plus, the house is brick. Most of the houses in Forest Lake are brick. Molly and I had spent the day joking. I would call her every time there was a warning anywhere yelling, "SAFEPLACE!!!" Only this time, for the first time in my life, I meant it.

And all the while, the dialogue from my computer becomes more terrifying. Downtown Tuscaloosa. Greensboro. Skyland and 359. And then....15th Street. By this time, I've pulled up a second news feed because the tower cams are freezing as the power goes on and off. I frantically tell them that they need to go wherever they're gonna be. NOW. The call cuts off. You know how in movies at the big climactic moment everything is in slow motion? That's how the next 10 minutes of my life happened. My face and hands were numb. And a tornado, the biggest I've ever seen, is headed straight at five people I love dearly. Then it becomes a question of where. The tower cams are downtown. I know if it goes in front of the stadium, it's on campus. If it goes behind the stadium, it's over 15th Street. And Molly. Behind the stadium. Desperately dialing. Busy circuits. Ringing phone. One of my cousins got a text through to my uncle. No one has anything more than scrapes. Roof gone. All windows gone. All cars destroyed. But safe.

They had to walk out, over debris, past bodies being pulled from houses. Or more accurately, what used to be houses. They were confused because what we forget is how much we rely on landmarks, even when traveling down streets we travel every single day. We found out they were evacuating when a picture of them, like a little row of ducklings in waterproof North Face jackets, showed up on weather.com. A friend was at the Starbucks near Molly's house and rescued them, as it were. Molly was finally able to get through to me about two hours later (at which time the same storm, still on the ground, was bearing down on my parents--who had, in a weird twist, taken shelter in the basement of Morgan's parent's house).

Molly, my parents, my friends and family in Alabama, they all knew that severe weather was imminent. They knew this because of the excellent coverage provided by James Spann on the days leading up to the outbreak and the day of the outbreak itself. Two days ago, a rarer, but not unheard of January storm spun off tornados that tore through the north Birmingham suburbs. The next night, the ABC Nightly News with Diane Sawyer led with the story of the storms using words like "complete surprise" and "no warning". This is an insult. Not just to James Spann, but to every meteorologist in Alabama who began predicting the storms late last week. And also to the hundreds of meteorologists from stations across Arkansas, Mississippi and the rest of the South who did the same. The local news on Sunday was covered with reports and warnings. And yet, all the national news could concentrate on was the fact that people claimed they didn't hear sirens. Of course they didn't. Because if you had ever watched five minutes of a weather report during a southern storm, you would known that every meteorologist, and also the National Weather Service, explicitly state that the weather sirens are to alert people who are outdoors and that the solution for everyone is to have either the weather alert app on their phone OR to have a weather radio. Which I damn well assure you will wake you up (and maybe your neighbors, too). Having been called out on Twitter, by James Spann, and then by his legion of followers, ABC's news tonight offered at best an anemic response, and certainly not an apology or retraction. And then to add insult to injury, they displayed a graphic that had the date of the April tornado wrong. As of tonight three people were tragically killed two nights ago. Three is, of course, too many. But three. In the heavily populated suburbs of northeast Birmingham. James Spann, the other meteorologists of Alabama, and a knowledgeable populace saved many lives two nights ago.

In April, more than 250 people died on that awful Wednesday. Some of them were unprepared. Some of them were victims of circumstance, specifically, a storm of a magnitude that most of us will probably never again see on this lifetime. There were scores of tornados on the ground that day and night. After the storm, there were four houses that bordered Forest Lake that weren't completely destroyed or marked for demolition due to structural damage. My sister was in the basement of one of them. I don't know how many lives James Spann saved that day. It is most likely in the thousands. I know for a fact he saved six. My friends and my family are here today because of his vigilance and dedication. And for that, James Spann, we are forever grateful.