I am a spirit of no common rate

In which our Diva outlines the particulars of how this summer doth tend upon her state

Storefront Shakespeare presents
A Midsummer Night's Dream

228 S Third St, Geneva, IL:

• Friday June 25th at 7pm
• Saturday June 26th at 3pm and 7pm
• Sunday June 27th at 3pm
• Thursday July 1st at 7pm
• Friday July 2nd at 7pm
• Saturday July 3rd at 3pm and 7pm
• Sunday July 4th at 3pm
• Monday July 5th at 7pm

2035 S Washington St, Naperville, IL:

• Friday July 9th at 7pm
• Saturday July 10th at 3pm and 7pm
• Sunday July 11th at 7pm

All tickets are $10.

I know I'm usually Babbly McPosterson during theatre rehearsals but haven't been this time around, and I'm not sure why that is.  This Monday I'll see the Geneva space for the first time, and our set will be coming together in it over the next couple weeks. Very excited about that!

Song for today: My Titania-inspired playlist is just about where I want it to be, and I'll be posting it here and sharing it with my castmates soon. I missed doing this for Pride & Prejudice, but for that the purpose was really served by the music in the show, especially since I was involved in two of the dances.  The right mix of music really helps get my head and heart in the right starting place before a rehearsal or performance.

This Midsummer has a contemporary fantasy sensibility, and that's reflected in some of the decidedly contemporary songs that felt right to put in the playlist. Idina Menzel's "Gorgeous" is one of them -- a great fit for Titania and Oberon's tempestuous relationship!

If I had a million dollars

In which our Diva displays her preference for experiences over stuff, though stuff is nice too

If I had a spare few hundred bucks lying around:

When I designed costumes for Barnum a few years back, I got to participate in one of the circus workshops arranged for the cast at The Actor's Gymasium. A. Maze. Ing. I've wanted ever since to do a full session of their aerial class. I'm still determined to get the knack of wrapping my feet in the Spanish web so I can actually climb up to the loop and play. I did have a great time on the lyra, though, and also discovered that I do in fact still have my 180-degree split -- by being hoisted seven feet off the floor that way!  They're also affiliated with Lookingglass Theatre, one of the companies at the vanguard of physical theatre in Chicago.

If I had a spare grand or so lying around for airfare and lodging, I'd be headed to London in October for the UK premiere of Cyrus: Mind of a Serial Killer at the Gorezone Film Festival. (Despite the topless promo photo of one of the emcees at the top of their webpage.) I love a good horror weekend anyway, it'd be all kinds of fun to do the whole red carpet thing, and I could visit with friends in the UK. My role in that is, of course, too minor for them to send me anywhere, but I'm still holding out hope that there will be some kind of event Stateside that I could go to. Apparently it's already out on DVD in Australia (a couple blog reviews have popped up on my Google Alert), and I'm hoping to get a copy of it soon.

If I had a spare three or four grand, and the ability to take a month off besides, I'd finally go to Shakespeare & Company's full Intensive program. I learned so much just in the couple weekends of theirs I've done -- one in 1995 and another in 2001 -- that's still very much at the core of my actor's toolbox.

Of course, spare cash lying around is, as for pretty much everyone else these days, not so much something I have. I'll just have to make do with playing one of my dream roles in an exciting production with a brand-new theatre company. Darn. ;-)

Song for today: Been running through my head, and inspired this post. Which, considering I've been neglecting this blog for a couple weeks for lack of inspiration, is a darn good thing.

Gotta say, though, I have several real green dresses, and I don't think there's anything cruel about them. ;-)

That kind of woman

In which our Diva has a Song for Today and a challenge to meet

Brought to my attention by our Midsummer director, who also happens to be an Old Hollywood aficionado as well as the host of the "Sunday Standards" radio show. Quoth she, "Titania is very much that kind of woman."



Clearly I'm going to have to check out more of this Emma Wallace person. Love the song. And love how many times Cyd Charisse in that green flapper number from Singin' in the Rain  keeps popping up in the vid.

I hope my Titania achieves half the glam of these ladies!

Cannes do

In which our Diva has a signal to boost

Melissa Silverstein at Women & Hollywood has been tracking developments in the lineup at this year's Cannes Film Festival, at which not a single film directed by a woman is in competition for the Palme d'Or. (If this doesn't immediately strike you as a problem, W&H is a great place to start reading up on why it is.)

She's by no means alone, and now British-based filmdirecting4women is organizing a petition to point out to the festival powers-that-be that this is a pretty appalling state of affairs.

As people who care about and are interested in films we must protest the lack of female directors in competition for the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. Women make up over half of cinema audiences and we demand a fairer representation of female directors in the main competition.


We are raising our voices in protest in hopes that in the future this will never happen again.

We are watching. We will not be silent.

Please take a moment to check out their website and the cool T-shirts they're selling, and if you feel so inclined help spread the word on your blog/Twitter/etc. I know it's "just movies," but it's also part of the larger conversation about the value of women's work. And that conversation isn't going to be over any time soon. I hope you'll join in.

When in doubt, cute

Busy week, no time to write a proper blog post. (And when I do, I owe Travis a guest blog about Raymond Did It.)

But I get antsy if I go more than a week (OH NOES THEY WILL THINK I AM DED!!!11!!), so in lieu of a proper post, I give you forty-eight seconds of a snoring duckling. I am not even kidding. We are talking lethal levels of cute here.

To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind

In which our Diva takes on one of her dream roles

That audition I was all cagey about the other day? Turned out very well indeed, and I shall be playing Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream, the inaugural production of Storefront Shakespeare.

I'm excited about this for a number of reasons, not least because I've wanted to play Titania for ages. Fourth... possibly fifth? Time's the charm. The first opportunity was for Actors' Theatre of Columbus way back in 1995, and though I was ultimately not cast in that production, it was in reading the "forgeries of jealousy" speech at the callbacks that I fell in love with the role. It was just after I had done a weekend workshop with Shakespeare & Company, at which I learned more in three days than I would ever have thought possible, and I was all afire with the possibilities in the language. I also got a lovely handwritten notecard from the director thanking me for coming out, which is pretty darn cool as consolation prizes go.

There are all kinds of reasons I love that speech, which for me is the heart of the character, but one absolutely critical one is also the easiest to explain. It starts out as a bitter complaint about how everything is All Oberon's Fault, that no sooner does she light somewhere with her court,

But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.

The catalog of nature gone awry that follows is some of the most vivid imagery in the canon, but somewhere along the way she reaches the conclusion that

this same progeny of evils comes
From our debate, from our dissension;
We are their parents and original.

"It's your fault, your fault, your fault... our fault." From childish petulance to mature responsibility in under two minutes.

Of course, this is a fairy we're talking about, so the latter doesn't necessarily stick. But I love that she's capable of it if she chooses, and the message that we share both power and responsibility for this world of ours. Even if we're not supernatural royalty whose mood swings literally affect the climate.

I've had quite a long Shakespeare drought. Except for understudying the Widow in The Taming of the Shrew a couple summers ago (when my attention was far more on designing the production's costumes), it's been almost eight years, since... Hey, what do you know? Another Midsummer at Actors'. In which I was really hoping for Titania, of course, but Mustardseed was fun, and I had a great time hanging out with a great company while getting eaten alive by mosquitoes.

I'm also thrilled by the energy and vision behind Storefront's genesis, as described on their website:

We live in a fast-paced, mobile society, accustomed to interactive media, in which our phones are computers and through our computers we can interact with people in real time on the other side of the world, and in which children grow up playing interactive video games. To truly engage a modern audience, theater can no longer be a completely passive experience. Our plays are staged with the audience right in the middle of the action so the people will feel that the play is happening to them. No longer passive observers, they are now eye witnesses to the story.

I've been friends with artistic director Nora Manca for a couple years now. I first met her at a cast party for a show I was in with her now-husband, and several months later we were cast as sisters in an ill-fated project I refer to as the slowest-motion train wreck in theatre history. It doesn't matter what the show was, because it never happened, but I met some terrific people through it. Nora's one of those people you can tell, after about five minutes of conversation, is going to do something really special. I'm delighted and honored to be part of its beginning.

And the timing is also great for pointing out that this Friday, Shakespeare's 446th birthday, is once again Talk Like Shakespeare Day, as declared by Chicago Shakespeare Theatre and Mayor Daley. Toss in a "forsooth" or two for me!

Stages and stages

In which our Diva is all along the continuum

This weekend is like a microcosm of the various stages (in the first sense) of what I do. Yesterday during the day was all about shooting another student film, which was a lot of fun because this one was all improvised within a relatively loose structure. I thought it was going to be mostly nonverbal, which as you may have read before I'm kind of ambivalent about these days. On the one hand, I love that aspect of the work, whether doing it myself or watching it in others, and I'm actually kind of proud that I'm developing something of a reputation for specializing in it. On the other hand, though, there's a lot of it on my reel, and the industry and audiences at large still put a high premium on how you deliver dialogue. So I'd kind of like to do more of that, please! (With some cool nonverbal mixed in. That'd be awesome.)

So it was a nice surprise to get on set and find that the director actually wanted me and another actor to talk to one another much more than either of us had expected. The conversation evolved from one thing at the beginning of the day to something really quite different by the time we wrapped, with various takes and angles. I'm looking forward to seeing how it ends up cut together. So much of how your character comes off in a film is almost as much about the editing as about your acting -- just a completely different way to go about telling a story!

Speaking of editing, I went from that shoot to a low-key cast & crew screening of Tasting the End, which looks fantastic. It's a story that certainly could be told in a straight line, and still be effective. But that's not the way Ken chose, and the results are dynamic but still flow and make sense. It's a terrific example of what a filmmaker can do these days with next to no money, and I'm crossing my fingers that it'll get some festival play. It definitely deserves to be seen.

Today I'm delving into my theatre past on various stages (in the second sense), converting some old videos with an eye toward maybe uploading a clip or three to my YouTube account, just for fun. Stay tuned.

And looking toward my theatre future: I've been itching a bit to get back onstage, and have an audition today for one of my dream roles. Won't say any more until I know whether I get it -- not superstitious, that's my story and I'm sticking to it, but there are so many auditions I'd never get anything done if I posted in detail about the stuff I won't get to do! So again, stay tuned.

Song for Today: "The Mummers' Dance" by Loreena McKennitt, just because I was listening to it in the car last night and it's running through my head. It's associated in my head with all sorts of amazing images, mostly because it was used for the theatrical trailer for Ever After. I'll never forget being halfway up the aisle to see a movie that spring, hearing a few bars of the song, and turning around to stand and stare openmouthed at all the gorgeous on the screen. The movie did not disappoint, and is still one of my all-time faves.

Extra, Extra!

In which our Diva has finally posted a new video diary

I've been saying for years I should write up an "extra's survival guide," assuming someone hasn't beaten me to it. In the meantime, here are some top tips from my fellow background players during a recent four-day stint on the ABC pilot Matadors.

In the pattern of the grand design

In which our Diva spins a whole post out of her Song for Today

This time of year, you see The Ten Commandments on a lot of TV stations' schedules. For about a decade now, my tradition has been to bypass Charlton Heston in favor of The Prince of Egypt. It didn't make the money Dreamworks wanted, but it's a gorgeous and heartfelt movie that deserved far better attention than it got. If it had gotten its due... nah, they probably still would have abandoned hand-drawn animation. But the couple of flicks they turned out its wake might have been less forgettable.

The art -- hand-drawn, digital, and groundbreaking sequences blending the two -- is stunning. The voice cast is jaw-dropping, with dialogue spoken by Val Kilmer, Patrick Stewart, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sandra Bullock, Danny Glover, Jeff Goldblum, Ralph Fiennes, etc. etc., and singing duties entrusted to the likes of Broadway powerhouse Brian Stokes Mitchell (who created the role of Coalhouse Walker in Ragtime and currently serves as president of The Actors Fund) and the late Israeli superstar Ofra Haza. And the whole is held together by Stephen Schwartz' songs, Hans Zimmer's orchestral score, and a humanity of storytelling that is by turns heartrending and incredibly inspiring.

One of the most memorable sequences -- the portrayal of the final plague, the death of the firstborn -- is nearly silent, and simultaneously terrifying and tearjerking. But what I always go back to is the musical number "Through Heaven's Eyes," sung by Brian Stokes Mitchell as Jethro. The high priest of Midian, who takes in a fugitive Egyptian prince, welcomes him as husband to his eldest daughter, and sees them both away with his blessing to fulfill a mission from the Hebrew God.

In my book? That's a guy with his head screwed on straight.

For some, this is the midpoint of Passover. For others, Good Friday. For still others, it's sacred in the way that any day is that sees warmer winds blowing through and tiny, tender bits of green beginning to unfurl on the trees and bushes. For some, it's just another day.

Whatever it means to you, any day is a good day for what this one has to say.

Insta-mom

In which our Diva has acquired a teenage son

Casting has just been announced for a couple more roles in Raymond Did It, including Alex Smeltzer as my character's son Edgar. I had a great time reading with all the young actors at callbacks, and was very glad I didn't have to choose among them! I remember a couple points of really "clicking" with Alex in our reading, and I'm looking forward to being his onscreen mom. (Even if it is a little weird to suddenly have a teenager the first time I really play a mom!)

It's always exciting when the words on the page get attached to a living, breathing person, and you can really start working on creating the relationship between characters. Especially with Edgar's dad out of the picture in the movie -- just having a face for our kid gives me all kinds of new insights to work with in figuring out who he was and what our lives were before the movie.

Song for Today: "Sink 'n' Swim" by Plumb. I know this is the third song of hers I've plugged, but I've been listening to her a lot lately, and it's just what's in my head today so I thought I'd share.

Drive-by book plug

J.A. Cummings now has book 2 of her "Clans" series available in e-format.

(Full disclosure compels me to point out that this particular author happens to be my college roommate, maid of honor and one of my best buds. This does not make her books any less awesome. It does, however, mean I can testify that she used "clans" before White Wolf did. *g*)

Go forth and read.

Read this. Now.

In which our Diva is blown away on so many levels

Text of Theresa Rebeck Laura Pels Keynote Address (over at Melissa Silverstein's consistently must-read Women and Hollywood blog):

As an aside let me add, I would rather be called a witch than a man hater. Honestly ‘man hater’ really does need to be simply off the table... Someone actually called me that at a party a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to hit him. BUT I DIDN’T. Anyway, if you need to call me a name, the preferred insult would be “witch,” or “madwoman in the attic” is also acceptable.

For the record, I will also happily answer to either of those. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go get my hands on every play this woman has ever written.

Happy Cartoon Leprechaun Day!

In which our Diva is at least half kidding about that subject line

I wore my green today, in the form of a nice comfy soft wrap sweater that I barely needed. It's over 60, sunny, and amazing, and I will soon be taking a walk to take advantage of it!

For those at my primary day job, it's also Free Lunch Day. (Benefit of the company being owned by a first-generation Irish-American. We won't talk about the Dublin expat in the office next to mine, and how I sometimes have to check that my mental switch hasn't flipped to the accent that got drilled so successfully into my head for my very first professional play 20 years ago.) In the spirit of the day, and with Solàs on the BigBossLady's laptop, I attempted to teach a coworker sevens & threes and the Gay Gordon (yes, I know it's Scottish, sshhhh!), with hilarious results.

Continuing in that spirit (and speaking of Solàs, to which I once literally danced until I couldn't walk -- barefoot, dirt baseball diamond, live folk festival, blisters over the entire soles of my feet, we shall discuss it no further), I'm going to cheat and turn today's blog over to the incomparable Jean Butler and Colin Dunne in their take on the Graìnne and Diarmuid legend, Dancing on Dangerous Ground. I wish the show had been more successful so I could have seen it live, and I still think that kind of evening-length story ballet is the next logical step in the stepdance-fusion trend that started with Riverdance.

Also, if you'd told teenage me that hardshoe would someday be rendered screen-meltingly sexy, I would have laughed in your face. But, well, guh.

The nose knows

In which our Diva spoke too soon

Want something to blog about? Post that you have nothing to blog about!

Not that I regret the bunny, mind you, but almost no sooner had I made my previous post than the hot-off-the-editing-suite trailer went up on the Facebook page for Tasting the End, the black comedy short in which I play a hospice home-care nurse. Check me out in my stylin' scrubs!


Tasting the End Trailer from Ken Cohen on Vimeo.

Bunnied!

In which our Diva is hibernating, sort of

It's been solidly above freezing for several days here in Chicagoland, and only scraps of snow remain on the ground. I can smell spring, and oh, I can't wait. Meanwhile, there have been auditions and a bit of writing and a couple of not-entirely-disastrous cooking experiments, but nothing to really hang a blog on.

Therefore, thanks to a heads-up from an old friend from our Columbus days, I bring you one minute and forty-seven seconds of a baby bunny eating a dandelion.



You're welcome.

A few of my favorite things

In which our Diva has been neglecting her blog again. Bad Diva. No cookie.

Watch: Being Human, the BBC series that sounds like the setup for a joke -- a werewolf, a vampire, and a ghost share a pink house in Bristol -- but is in fact one of the more brilliant things to hit my TV in years. Anyone who knows me knows that my favorites list has always included various supernatural dramas, but the main thing that sets this one apart is its intimate scope. No Chosen Ones, no cosmic prophecies, no apocalypse-of-the-week. Just three people who happen to have some extraordinary problems, building their own weird little family. Even when they do inevitably get caught up in larger circumstances, the focus remains on protecting that family. Saving the world is a bit out of their league, just as it is for the rest of us.

Like all good fantasy, it isn't really about monsters. It's about how life is frequently and drastically unfair, but we find ways to make it worthwhile anyway. And how what really matters is looking out for the people we love. The three mid-twenties stars -- Russell Tovey, Lenora Crichlow, and Aidan Turner -- are individually superb, and collectively a perfect storm of ensemble chemistry. And creator/writer Toby Whithouse (who has written, among other things, the milestone "School Reunion" episode that reintroduced Sarah Jane Smith to the revived Doctor Who) has a knack for defying cliche, and for acknowledging the absurdity in dramatic situations without lessening their impact. For those on this side of the pond, BBC America has already aired the first season, and has announced plans to run the second (which has just finished in the UK) and third (which will be starting production soon).

Eat: It's the time of year again for my two greatest vices: Cadbury's Creme Eggs and Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies. I've already stocked up on the former, stashing boxes in odd corners of the freezer to be rediscovered throughout the year. The latter have thus far eluded me. At this rate I'm going to have to start going from grocery store to grocery store until I spot a table of earnest little girls. I need my fix!

Read: Currently I'm in the middle of Derek Parker's lively biography of Nell Gwyn, the most famous mistress of the famously randy Charles II. It's unpretentious, full of all kinds of cool incidentals about Restoration theatre, and generally a very enjoyable read.

Listen: The other day, my mental soundtrack randomly started running Clara and Fabrizio's soaring duet that closes the first act of The Light in the Piazza, so I've been playing the cast album a lot. Still bowled over every time by the heartfelt performances and the utter beauty of the score. Still cry at two or three points every single time. If there's a "the" Broadway composer of this generation, Adam Guettel is probably it.

En-title-ment issues

In which our Diva probably should have done better than that pun

Oops, nine days since my last post. I'm basically over being sick, so I think I'll blame the Olympics. Who wants to blog when they can watch Evan Lysacek? (YAY LOCAL BOY YAY!)

In the midst of the sick, I had a very busy January, and one of the projects I shot during it was Ken Cohen's Tasting the End, which is slated to be released this spring. When I auditioned for my role as a home hospice nurse, the title on my sides was Smelling Anosmia. By the time we shot, that had been truncated to Anosmia, which was evocative but perhaps a bit literal? With the new title, Ken has hit on a memorable ring, and I can't wait to see the finished film. I've done several offbeat comedy projects lately; this one probably fits most properly in the "black comedy" category. I shot one day on it, and had a great time.

Movies commonly go through several title changes even after they're wrapped, for a variety of reasons. A little birdie told me last week that business wheels are turning behind the scenes, and there should be release news on Cyrus before too terribly long. Since a comedy by the same name got a fair amount of attention at Sundance, I'm guessing that news will come with a new title. I'm curious to see what it will be!

And then there's Raymond Did It, the first feature from horror writer/director (not to mention comics writer and RPG designer) Travis Legge, which I'll be shooting in Rockford this summer. One of my audition sides came with the draft title The Revenge of Ray-Ray still attached, but Travis had moved on to the punchier title by then. It's already getting attention in the horror blogosphere, and you can get in on the ground floor of support and news at its IndieGoGo page.

Looking forward to that one, as I get to play my own age for a change -- the mother of a teenager! Plus, how can I not love the first-ever design for a real movie poster with my name on it?

Nature has her say

Woke up about 4 am to what sounded like a semi-nearby explosion or crash. Turned to hubby, whom it had also awakened, said "WTF?" Briefly considered looking out the windows to see if someone had driven a car into a house or if there was smoke rising somewhere, then decided I didn't want to leave my nice warm bed and there'd be sirens if it were something like that anyway.

Which there weren't, because generally people don't call the police or fire department for earthquakes.

In all the places I've lived and visited, I've been present for exactly two earthquakes. Both were 4-point-something, within the last five years, in Illinois. Gotta love our crazy planet.

So, we have earthquake instead of Snowmageddon 2. We shoveled about 6 inches last night to keep it from getting out of hand, which of course means there's barely another inch this morning. Mind you if we hadn't done that, Murphy's Law dictates there'd be another foot or something, so I'll deal with my sore back and the fact that we're not shoveling it today in the sunshine.

Meanwhile, I'm still steadily getting better from The Ick, and have a couple new projects in the pipeline that I need to post about. Soon, I promise!

Just breathe

Quickie post, as I need to get to bed. I'm still trying to get 9-10 hours sleep (or at least being in bed; I tend to lie awake a lot on this particular antibiotic) until the rest of the ick clears out of my chest.

And there is plenty of ick -- I made it through Monday and Tuesday by the great good fortune of their both being short shooting days for me, and kept getting worse until I landed at the doctor's office Thursday morning with a verdict of bronchitis, laryngitis, and sinus infection. Yay me?

Five days and lots of pills later, I'm about a thousand percent better but still barely talking almost normally and feeling pressure with every breath. Scary. Especially with an opera concert this Saturday night (thankfully, I'm only singing in one relatively easy ensemble number) and a long shooting day tomorrow, playing a home hospice care nurse in a quirky little film called Anosmia.

My relationship with my instrument -- my body -- begins with two things: My spine and my breath. Most of the techniques in my actor toolbox that get used the most have breathing at their core. Heck, when I was a kid, I had a recurring nightmare about drowning. So it's always scary when I can't breathe as freely as I'm accustomed to, especially when it lasts for any amount of time.

I marked through rehearsal tonight and managed to hit all the pitches, so I should be able to pull off Saturday night more or less sounding like I should, even if it feels all wrong. But I'll be much happier when it feels right again.

Around the next corner

In which our Diva did not see that one coming

Was supposed to do a fun vintage-style photoshoot today. Unfortunately, my body had other ideas, as I woke up with a hacking cough, pounding headache, and 101.3-degree fever. Didn't I just do this a month ago?? Photoshoot duly rescheduled, fingers crossed that I'll be better in the morning to start shooting My Cousin Radu.

This post, however, is not to complain about my health. It's to remark upon The Audition, the absolutely captivating documentary about the finalists in the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions that ran on PBS the other night.

All the singers are amazing, of course, and you absolutely root for all of them. But one tenor, Ryan Smith, stood out as a bit of an underdog. At 30, he was several years older than most of the others, and had given up on an opera career for a while before returning to give it one more shot. Early in the film, he explains that he told his mother he was going to give it two years full-out, and if it didn't happen by then, he'd go back to finish his doctorate and teach or whatever.

It happened. He knocked the judges' collective socks off, brought tears to the eyes of the Met vocal coach watching from the booth, and went home with one of the six $15,000.00 prizes and a huge heartwarming grin.

As so often happens with this sort of documentary, there's a "one year later" montage at the end, outlining how each finalist's career is taking off. In the midst of this parade, the text notes that Ryan Smith made his Met debut in a featured role, and "is now fully committed to an opera career."

Then comes the sucker punch. At the very end, there's one more screen, with a still of him with that wonderful grin, and text dedicating the film "in loving memory of Ryan Smith, who died in November 2008 after a year-long battle with cancer."

I already can't breathe very well today. Bursting into tears did not help. Nor, particularly, did wailing "Not fair!" for the next three minutes.

And it's not. He will never have the career and life that every instinct says he should have.

But this is also true: He sang on the Met stage, with the Met orchestra, and a happier human being was never captured on film.

Seize your dream. It may not happen quite the way you envision, but you will make something magic happen. Recognize and cherish it when it comes, and then reach for the next.

Do it now.