The Devil and the Details: Welcome to Techno-Hell.

You buy a new piece of computer equipment and the only easy thing about installing it is opening the box.  Or you try to link several cyber accounts, and have to change passwords.  You no sooner change passwords than you forget what the password was. You try to change it again. You get locked out of the account. You call the help number and get an automated message system asking you for information you don’t have. 

You yell into the receiver “Let me speak to a person, damn it!” and when you finally do speak to a person you don’t understand them They don’t understand you either. You ask if they can transfer you back to the automated system.

You know what I’m talking about.  Techno –hell. 

That’s where I’ve been living the past month.  Jayne and I have been ironing out issues to take our web site live, to create a PayPal account for donations and to make sure the bank recognizes us as a non-profit. (We got the official letter in January!)

Once you’re in Techno Hell, you have also entered a time warp. I’d written an “end of the year” blog post on December 31 but was unable to put it up until now. Why?  The password was changed.  Yeah, baby. We all burn there.

But I still want to share the previous unposted post – because other than the cyber devils, 2012 has gotten off to a very good start.  I’m currently in Oregon for a production of a play I wrote, Jayne is pedal to the metal working on artistic issues for the Anvil.  Good, good, good. Stay tuned!

PS:  Pretty much everything has happened on the list below except that 35 pound thing.  I’ve decided to make that my Saint Patrick’s Day goal.

PPS:  I'm gonna go take a relaxing bath and calm down after my most recent tour through techno-hell, which involved numerous attempts to access this blog and post.  ARRRRRRR.....

Staci

Written Dec 31, 2011

Count down.

Every December the same thought passes through my mind.  Where the hell did THIS year go?  I’m convinced that time is picking up speed, Einstein’s equations to the contrary, and it’s daunting to get to the end of 2011 with so much left to do.

By my reckoning, I have 36 more hours to accomplish the following:

1.  Pack up and complete moving out of my home of 25 years.  The good news is that our house in Sleepy Hollow has sold. The bad news is that when you have lived in a house this long every room is a repository of memories and objects, making cleaning out a layered and laborious process.

2.  Write that killer stage play.  Or screenplay.  Or write – well, anything, damn it! I have been so distracted by this moving to Knoxville process that the only thing I seem capable of writing is a “to do” list.  My friends who have moved tell me that the “fog of moving” will lift.  I’m counting on their experiential wisdom in this arena.

3.  Lose 35 pounds.  Gee – that’s about a pound an hour.  (Insert Homer Simpson growl….Mmmm, cake.)  On second thought, scratch trying to accomplish that.  The thought of cake makes me want to find a piece and eat it.

The challenge of an End of The Year Review is that it is so easy to focus on everything that wasn’t accomplished so let me list a few of the things that actually were put on the board.

1. Founded Flying Anvil Theatre with Jayne Morgan

2. Applied for non profit status with the state of Tennessee

3. Applied for non profit 501(c) 3 status from the Internal Revenue Service.

4. Got a great logo from graphic artist Tarrer Pace

5. Contracted with VIEO for a terrific new website – coming soon!

6 Compiled a list of possible plays for our first season- to be announced soon!

7 Began assembling a terrific team of people in Knoxville to work with us on this vision.

8. Began looking at spaces and clarifying what we need in a space and where it might be

9. Did a fair amount of important daydreaming

10.  Had fun in the process.

So its time to make a few goals for 2012 – especially as the sun sets across the Hudson River and I realize I only have 35 hours left before 2011 is history.

1. Get Flying Anvil Theatre off the ground and launched

2. Put writing at the top of my personal goals list

3. Don’t delay happiness. 

Plagiarism alert - I heard this on Laura Linney’s Showtime series, “The Big C.” Just because someone else wrote it doesn’t mean I can’t use it.  Literally.

So let the count down begin.  

Five, four, three, two – blast off.

Happy End of 2011! 

Happy Beginning of 2012!

May you find yourself thinking that this next year just might be the best one ever, because you know what?  I’m having that thought right now.

Happy New Year!