resting on nalgas or laurels

relief. rest. recuperation.

i've been telling folks that i'm kinda resting on my laurels, which is another way of saying that i'm chilling and recovering from a hard busy spring-into-early summer season. lately, though, i've been feeling like i'm really friggin' lazy. that's because i am super hard on myself and don't like to lay around without a project for very long.

now for a fact-check, in the form of a short list of recent accomplishments, in order to justify my self-imposed embargo on overworking:

1. I just got notification from the TEXAS COMMISSION ON THE ARTS that my name has been added to their Performing Artist Touring Roster--a nice endorsement from the biggest arts agency in Texas which will, hopefully, get me more gigs around the state.

2. I've just produced--with the hired help of Logan Gilpin, who's good and FAST--my first dvd demo, complete with sound (poetry with music) and video (performance documentation) files and the requisite bio-data, press clippings, etc. It's about time i put something like this together in order to shop it or ship it around to arts presenters. It's pretty cool!

3. I just met the recent NALAC (National Association of Latino Arts and Culture) grant application deadline! I submitted a proposal for my bicycle love story, a "hiphopera" or "bicycle theater performance" which is titled SHE: bike/spoke/love. This work-in-progress needs a little money love (i.e., funding) in order to truly launch the way i envision it. Vamos a ver si NALAC likes the proposal enough to grant me some support.

4. Faculty members at TCU have asked if they can include one of my poems (“Home Away From Home: a land proclamation in 5 parts”) in the freshman class orientation "colloquium" this coming fall semester.

5. I triumphed at the NPN (National Performance Network) showcase in early June, performing my original dramatic monologue "Malinchuca" for a very responsive audience at Richland College's Fannin Hall. My friend and fellow artista, Karen X had this feedback for me:

"Heh ho, you Rock-the-House-Bad-Ass Performance Artist You!!!! Tammy, that was just a phenomenal, phenomenal, I tell
you, performance."

So, then, not two days after the NPN gig, it happened. As it always seems to happen--just after a show or project has ended--i check my email and new opportunities surface. One was a call from up north and another was from a contact in south Texas. Basically, I am now going to be considered for a performance slot at a future Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz festival in Chicago at the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, and I am also now invited to do a 4-day artist residency at Texas A&M University in Kingsville, thanks to a friend who's now teaching there.

I feel humbly blessed and also pleasantly reminded of the wealth of the universe.

So, lemme go on with my resting and recuperating; it is summer hiberation season after all...


Today's recommended reading: Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke AND the Tao Te Ching.
It's great to finally give myself a chance to read some things of substance that require stilling my body and forgetting the multitask orientation drive.