Hi all you Holiday people!
Well, finally 2014 is done. What a long strange year it’s been. I had lots of fun things happen, and lots of not-so-fun things too.

On the bright side, I performed quite a few weddings, each of them beautiful and joyful.  I love doing weddings and always end up making new friends. By the way, if you are planning on getting married, you should use me as your officiant! (marriedbyjane.com)

The Go-Go’s did their annual tour this Summer.  It was a short one but I still enjoyed myself.  Over the years I’ve really fallen in love with the little seaside towns that dot the Eastern coast of the US.  They are so charming and such fun to run around and explore! This year was no exception.  Being a California girl born in Wisconsin, I find the East Coast glamorous and exotic.  Thank you to everyone who came out to see us, especially those of you who come every year and make our shows feel more like family reunions than concerts!  You are appreciated.

The band had the honor and privilege of writing songs with the amazing Linda Perry.  What a great experience!  She is so talented, it is kind of intimidating, but I put on my brave face and went into the experience ready to contribute and have fun.  Both of these things I did! I have no idea what will become of the songs we wrote.  More will be revealed, and I am trying to just have faith in the Universe on this one.

I worked really hard this year on the musical I have written, LADY ROBOTIKA: THE SPACE OPERA.  This is not to be confused with the musical being made that uses the Go-Go’s music, HEAD OVER HEELS.  While I am super stoked about the HEAD OVER HEELS musical, LADY ROBOTIKA is my baby because I wrote the whole script myself, and wrote or co-wrote every song!  It’s a sci-fi comedy, and is very Girl Power and entertaining.

I organized several staged readings of the show to get audience feedback and then spent the rest of the year doing re-writes.  The re-write process never ends, but at the beginning of December, I sent the script and songs out to various people who I hope may help me get this thing on the stage!  I am looking for producers, donors, investors and a director and want to have it playing in San Francisco in August of 2015!  I am learning a lot and I love doing something slightly different and new from my beloved band.  Speaking of the band, Charlotte is a co-writer on several of the songs, so you KNOW the music is great!

In the Spring I bought a small piece of property on the Big Island of Hawaii with the intention of retiring there.  I’ve been obsessed with Hawaii since the 80s, and especially the Big Island.  It’s so…BIG, and so diverse.  I love the volcanos…More on that in a bit.

The not-so-great things that happened…

I got Shingles.  Yuck.  They were on my face and head, and I thought it was spider bites until I saw a commercial for Shingles, and the actress in the ad looked like me!!  Glad I saw that because I was able to immediately get on the medication which shortens the duration of the illness.  I’m still waiting for my face to fully heal.  Shingles are gross and painful!  Don’t mess around if you suspect you have them; get to your doctor right away!

My identity got stolen!  I started getting calls from credit card companies congratulating me on my new card.  Hmmm, fishy.  I only ever have ONE credit card because I’m always paranoid I will misplace my wallet and not be able to remember what cards I have!  One card keeps my life simple, especially since I took over doing my own bookkeeping a few years back.  Anyway, I quickly cottoned on that mischief was afoot, and joined Lifelock.  They were helpful, but I still spent about a month on the phone, all day, every day, talking to credit card companies and credit bureaus and banks.  What a mess!!!  Strangely enough, even though Identity Theft happens millions of times a year, they actually CAUGHT the person!  A lady detective in Los Angeles called me last week to tell me they arrested some people and one of them had a credit card in my name on her!  Wow, what are the odds???

I split up with my boyfriend of seven years. I am heartbroken that we couldn’t make it work (my plan was that this was my last relationship; I was going for the long haul). Right now I am just being single.  I am surrounded by the love of my dogs, family and good friends, so I am not lonely.  It does feel strange though.

Just one week after escrow closed on my little piece of paradise in Hawaii, a new lava flow started that was headed straight for my place.  This is still going on and is incredibly nerve-wracking.  Even if my place doesn’t get inundated by lava, most likely the lava is going to cross the only highway that provides ingress/egress to the area, and thousands of people will be stranded by the flow.  This means it will take more than 3 hours to access such services as hospitals, gas, the airport, shops, etc.  This is a huge disaster, not just for me, but for the ten thousand people in the district.  It’s hard to overstate the stress this is causing.  It is a slow-moving disaster, and there isn’t anything I can do about it except wait to see what happens: where the lava decides to go and when.  There is also no way of knowing how long this flow will continue.  Lava tends to start and stop, and re-cover itself over and over, getting wider, longer and taller each time it does.  Many of the flows on the island are nearly 100 feet high!  I am doing my best to be philosophical about this, and patient too.  Neither of these things are my strong suit!

I will leave you with this thought: Wouldn’t it be great if we all set our intentions for 2015 to be more compassionate, to help more and hurt less, to strive to be the best kindest people we can, and to be the people who ACT, not complain?  That is what I am going for!

Much love to you all,
Jane