hi.

I just wanted to say that someone will always:

• have a nicer house
• be further along in their career at a younger age
• be thinner
• have a better relationship
• have more money
• get more work

than everyone.
So you aren't alone.

Comparing yourself to other people is not just demoralizing, it's also based on very limited information and so very likely a flawed comparison from the start.

it's the business.

People. People in art will GIVE YOU THE BUSINESS.


Here is why you will go crazy: Some people tell you that you are absolutely really good.  Then other people tell you that you are absolutely not any good.  

I have been acting a lot lately and I have been getting both these reactions.  

It's delusional to believe one and not the other, but it is impossible to believe both.

It's the business.  Oh, this business gives me the business sometimes.

it's a new type of blogging

All my posts now are about how there will be more posts.  Then no posts.  My stars, it's so brilliant.

also i have been tumblring.

it's very unfinished, and when it is, it'll be a mostly a professional site, but I'll probably end up linking over here so I can keep up my wordier shenanigans. 
BUT!
I love that tumblr makes it so easy to post songs..


LIKE SO. 



http://lacylacy.tumblr.com/post/3438513534/well-the-cat-is-in-the-hospital-the-microwave-is

next step

The building behind us in this picture is being looted.  The one (not shown) across the street is on fire.

I have no idea how this family is, since there is no Internet or cell phone service right now.

Egypt was the first non-Western country I ever set foot in.  And by that I mean the first poor one.

Yes, I have been in impoverished places in America.  Yes, I have been in all-windows-boarded-up and random-things-on-fire stretches of the South side of Chicago, sketchy as hell areas of New Orleans, public schools where kids have to bring their own toilet paper to bathrooms that seem to never get cleaned.

It. Is not. The same. As an entire city of people who don't get enough to eat.

The more I learn about the world beyond the US, the more I feel it was insanely, insanely unfair and lucky for me to have been born here and to have never known anything else.  Unfair in a way that I feel I owe at least some portion of my life to others who weren't.

By the way, this excellent article here mentions a man being beaten in the alley beside Hardee's.  You know, Hardee's.  The one in the photo in my previous post.

notes from the sidelines

Several years ago I went to Egypt with my cousin to visit her family who lives there.   Her girl cousins waited up for us the night we arrived in Cairo, giddy with excitement. We asked where they wanted to take us. They took us to an Egyptian Hardees.

spot the 6 foot tall american!

Later we were taken in by a family who owed my cousin's dad a favor of some sort, and repaid it by hiring a private tour guide, chartering sailboats for leisurely trips up the Nile and arranging for chauffeured cars to take us through Cairo, showing us important mosques and museums.

Then they took us to their beach house outside of Alexandria.  The water was electric blue.

the water shames the sky.

And there were their servants (different from the ones they had in Cairo) who lived at their beach house.

you are already in love with that boy.

Those two, plus a cute baby, plus a grown woman, lived in what we would call a cinderblock storage shed behind the house.  I was there for 3 days before I realized that.  

I bought some candy and a toy for that boy.  As I was leaving I realized that he had to give it to the family (the boss's) kids.  He couldn't keep it for his own.  This really messed with me.   I was furious-to-the-point-of-tears while saying goodbye and thanking the hosts who had been so, so, SO generous to me.  

My cousin's mother tried to make me see reason.  They were a good family to work for. I guess I just hated that they had to work so hard, and that things were set up the way they were.  That kid didn't go to school, he never would. That girl gave me an elaborately printed prayer card even though she didn't know how to read. 

I wonder how old that boy is, and if he still has that expression, and if he is protesting in the streets of Egypt right now, and if these protests will lead anywhere, and if his life will ever get better, and if he'll be able to keep things for his own. 

dear future:

Will I ever, EVER look this horrible and this confident at the same time?

also, do I want to?