2013 is on its last gasp.  As a Jew, I am always slightly confused by this other New Year, the one that dominants and is celebrated by most.  In my kishkas I feel Rosh Hashanah (usually in September) is New Years which matches well with all those years of schooling. Yet, I accept this one too as another opportunity to reflect, reassess and party.   This year I am obsessed with the notion of cleaning my study.  Note at this point I am merely obsessed and I haven't touched a thing. But I am fantasizing about making sense of the piles of paper that make less and less sense in this electronic age.  Note I even googled the cost of those paperless scanners. Too much, but you see my seriousness.  And my current reality that I can find something quicker on my computer than anywhere else.  I diligently take notes now on my iPad because I know if I took notes on a piece of paper it will end up under a thousand other pieces never to be found in time. I'm amazed at how much my little iPad has contributed to my being organized about my multiple projects. So helpful.  

My study needs attention. There are papers in piles on the floor from recent activities, meetings and thoughts.  There are two semi organized piles on each side of my desk.  And then there is a three-shelf thingy with folders - some labeled - with stuff I haven't looked at in months....years.  I think each piece of paper needs to justify its existence or get recycled.  So any minute now, perhaps after this blog, I will march in there and begin what is likely to be a 2 1/2 day process.  First steps of tax organization included.  Discovering of lost objects a certainty.  Tears and smiles likely.  And then followed by that wonderful feeling of knowing where everything is, having made much less of it and revealing in neatness.  This can happen at least once a year.  

I also have a playwriting goal before the end of the year.  The World Avoided - my new play about the Montreal Protocol is moving along in fits and starts.  It is a curious work process because the play is based on real events that I can only read about and talk to folks who were there about and otherwise have to imagine.  As well, theatrically, I am discovering characters and actions the play needs that are purely fictionally. So an interesting blend.  Right now I am deeply in some of the real stuff so looking back at books and interview notes and then writing another scene or half  a scene.  I lose confidence and then re-group.  The goal is to have 50-60 pages to send to my principal source by the end of 2013. I'm on page 37 right now and am not sure all of those 37 are of merit. So need 13-23 more pages.  I'm a glutton for punishment so likely I really do want those 23 by 1/31/13.  Don't you love how lyric these dates are in this new century. They so often have some interesting pattern of numbers.  23 pages. That would be awesome.  That will take me deeper into the story which is where I want to be.  The first 20 pages needed to be rewritten three times before I could go any further. Now I am starting to be more curious about the depths of the play and want to get there. In!  

So I likely should stop blogging and start writing - I think next - and then paper chasing.  Ah, Sunday and New Years, you are full of spunk and inspiration.  

It is good sometimes, I think, to shake things up. So this week, I traveled to California - Northern first to work with the company that pays me for my non-theater work and Southern second to see friends in and out of television and life.  And, as my Facebook readers know, I bought my first MacBook Air.  Seriously the last time I owned a mac laptop it weighed five pounds, at least, and was in black and white. The thing was in black and white!!!!!  Since then, I've had a series of company paid for PCs on which I've done everything. But last year, they bought me a Sony Vaio that killed me. The thing was a lemon and would blue screen or otherwise wig out.  I decided I had it with PCs and with encouragement from Mac friends, took the plunge. I am loving it.  There is a lot to figure out and literally I'm learning something new every day, but I can see this will be a boon to productivity and happiness.  The other way I'm shaking things up right now, is I'm questing to see if I can figure out why my playwriting career isn't progressing as much as I'd like.  I am very happy with the work I've been doing and I have some fine scripts being circulated around to the powers that be. I'm just not happy with not getting picked more often.  I want more productions.  Period.  I want more work because work is what I Iove, work is where I'm happy, works is where I learn and work is where I get to reach out and impact the world. And I imagine that is why I write and why I get frustrated when I don't feel like my work is getting out there enough.  So the last two days in LA have been great for connecting with old friends who know me very well with whom I can be honest and who can be honest with me and just talk it all out and end up feeling like I gots to keep going and that we all feel the same way, no matter where on the career circle we are, and we all need to find ways to keep going towards our personal bliss.  The career circle I learned early on out here in LA.  Someone, an actor who was hosting us new Carnegie Mellon grads, said a career in this business is a circle that goes round and you never know where on the circle you are going to get on, but it is all going to keep going round.  From my experience and observation, I think that was pretty wise.  I'm not yet where I want to be on the circle, but  I shall keep spinning with my multiple ideas for new and ongoing projects now living on my MACBOOK AIR!