Jane's World – A Phoole Blog

I'm posting this blague from 10,000 feet above the surface of the earth, which is just TOTALLY CRAZY. I'm flying Virgin America for the first time ever, and do you know what? I like it. The Phoole Trunk is in the cargo hold, the Monkey List is freshly updated and rolled, and I'm getting ready to see you at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire in Irwindale, California this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., at the Santa Fe Dam Recreational Area. Loads of Phoole Friends are there, including – YES – William Shakespeare (as portrayed by one of the funniest humans EVAR, Jeff McLane, to whom I owe a life debt, and you can ask me about that in person, and I'll warn you ahead of time that it is a macabre-but-uplifting tale of death [!!!] and laughter and superballs and buses and ice cream and then remembering death [!!!] but eventually being okay) and SOUND AND FURY and bunches else besides.  Devoted Phooligans are Flying Out to see this Faire and see me at it, which makes me happier than I can express with words, so I'll just make a little guy flipping a table over with what you must imagine is intense glee:  (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻  It's the Renaissance Pleasure Faire's 50th Anniversary Jubilee, and if you come and celebrate it with me, we will have MASSIVE FUN TIMES that will go down in legend as some of the Silliest Goofery Ever Enjoyed!

OH AND BY THE WAY:

Devoted Blague-peepers, thank you for waiting during the silence while I do all the mad things that make up PhooleLife.  So many things are happening, and all of them are Excellent Good Things – people are buying (and reading!) my book Easy Street, which gives me hope that more and more players and interpreters at more and more events will Build the Bridge and Make It Worth It for everyone. (Secret Special Treat for Blague-Perusers: if you cannot afford my little bookity-boo, or you're on the fence about getting it, email me at jane@phoole.com, and I will share with you a free PDF, which will fascinate you utterly.) I teach private students all the time, but I'm also returning to the "classroom" and rejoining the faculty of the Bristol Academy of Performing Arts, teaching a core class in Character Creation for participants in the cast of the Bristol Renaissance Faire.  It's going to be so good to be back building larger-than-life people to romp amongst those beautiful old oaks and the gorgeous storied streets of my first and longest-running show, which will celebrate its own 25th Anniversary Jubilee this year!  JUBILEES ALL OVER THE PLACE. So. Many. Jubilees.

Between teaching and WRITING BOOKS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, I've been making clothes.  I have made more clothes this year than I've ever made before, EVER. Too many clothes? Perhaps.  If you are one of my clients, perhaps you are saying, "Not enough clothes," because I'm definitely way behind on commissions.  I'm booked for commissions, quite seriously, for the rest of forever.  Which is to say, I believe I have reached the end of the time in my life when I accept commissions for clothing.  Eegh, I hate saying final-sounding things like that! But here is the thing:  I'm teaching people to make clothes.  Now, when I get an offer for a commission, I explain, "This will cost you ONE MILLION DOLLARS.  But if you work on it with me – if you and I make the clothes together, and you learn All Of the Things, you demonstrate to me that you Really Want to Look Good, and we both derive a Measure of Satisfaction." This means I do Much Less Sewing, because most people prefer to just imagine that the clothes appear magically after being built by singing woodland creatures.  I also prefer to imagine this, even though I know it is not true. (I have started to read articles about quantum physics, and the whole "there are infinite versions of everyone and everywhere and everywhen" makes me pretty hyper.)

And while I'm thinking about quantum physics (a subject on which I know PRECIOUS LITTLE, but it's Extremely Exciting, and I'm thinking of acquiring More Knowledges about it), yesterday I mentioned to my hurrrrsband, MBTC, that I was reading articles about quantum physics, and that one of the articles touched on the idea that there are infinite versions of everything all the time, and MBTC seized on that thread and gave me quite a talking-to.

"Do the other infinite versions of you doubt themselves?"

I blinked at him. (Plink-plink.)

He asked again, "Do the other versions of you have crippling self-doubt, the way you do sometimes?"

I shrugged hard.  "Possibly."

He smiled.  "Let 'em.  Let THEM have the self-doubt.  You don't need it.  Let it go.  Can you let it go more easily if you consider that there are potentially billions of versions of you that are busy with that?"

I just stared at him, and then I stared somewhere else, because it was too intense. 

"Close your mouth," he gently reminded me. I did.  

MBTC is always very good at helping me find my way out of little pits of despair, but this metaphor totally won for all time.  The timing was serendipity-doo-dah, because, while I'm extremely confident during face-to-face teaching and interaction, the times in-between, when I'm not With the Audience, feel a bit like a constant gaze into the Total Perspective Vortex, where I'm not certain I make an impact or do anything useful for peoplez. You know, that whole thing. 

Since we had that skeleton-rattling chat yesterday, I've thought about it every time I've had the urge to indulge in insecurity and doubt, and it's an appealing little distraction that keeps me hurtling confidently along. WELL PLAYED, MBTC. Perhaps I will make More Art and Writing and stuff if I can simply delegate the fretting to my quantum doppelgangers. Let It Be Tried!