Sunday Blog post

 Football Nights & Doctor Visits

At night, it’s been nonstop football. I’ve been watching from my window on the window on the tenth story, it looks right out onto the field, and it’s kind of perfect. The lights, the energy, the sounds drifting up, game after game.

Also took my son to the doctor this week to get his glasses.

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Starting Improv at Ella Baker

I’ve been looking forward to starting improv classes in person again. I signed up for a six‑week series at one of our local community centers, Ella Baker in Minneapolis.It feels like something I need right now, something real and live and in the moment.

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Thoughts About My Dad
Lately, I’ve been feeling a little sad. My dad’s been in hospice. He’s had prostate cancer for the last two years, and we just got a recent update. The next six months don’t look good. It’s been hard sitting with that, knowing there’s not a lot more time. Just trying to stay present and not get swallowed up by it.

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Books I’ve Been Reading
I’ve been reading Brightly Dead Things and If You Tell by Gregg Olsen. I also picked up We Used to Live Here, it’s about a couple who buys a house, and then a family who used to live there shows up. It’s haunted, kind of eerie but beautiful too. I got a copy for my dad. Then there’s Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy — a story of a remote island, a mysterious woman washing ashore, secrets, and nature and survival. Can’t get it out of my head.

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Diet Woes
Still struggling with my stomach. I’m on a gluten‑free and lactose‑free diet now, and honestly, it kind of sucks. Gluten‑free bread tastes like blah. Tried sweet potatoes, didn’t work. Tried lactose‑free milk, didn’t work either. Mostly I’ve been eating oatmeal, grilled chicken, salmon, and cantaloupe. Lots of cantaloupe. It’s been rough trying to find things that don’t hurt and also don’t taste like cardboard.

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That’s Where I’m At
That’s the week. A mix of doctor’s visits, football nights, starting improv, sitting with some heavy news, and still trying to find food that won’t mess with me.

Going forward, I’m hoping to catch at least two plays a month and do a lot more improv online. I’ve also started writing some stand‑up and am planning to hit at least one or two open mics before the end of the year. I’m still driving for rideshare, on and off, and I’ve started weaving some of those experiences into my comedy.

Hoping to write at least four stories for Medium.com before the year’s out, and really, the focus now is on writing, creating, and spending more time supporting my son — especially as he starts thinking about joining the school band after school.

Maybe You Could Love Me at Theater Mu

 I saw Theater Mu’s world premiere of Maybe You Could Love Me on September 13 at 7:30, and the play was an emotional rollercoaster. The first half was chaste and innocent between the two characters as young adults, and then the second half was painful and emotionally charged. I even heard a male in the audience crying. I felt the set could have changed more in between scenes as the play went back in time to when the characters were younger, but overall the two actors had such great chemistry that I couldn’t help thinking of myself in their shoes. Although there were moments where Sajida’s lines could have landed with more emotion, the dialogue exchanges carried weight and kept the audience deeply invested. The opening night crowd filled the theater, and even the snacks afterward carried a sense of celebration and community.

Written by Samah Meghjee and directed by Katie Bradley, Maybe You Could Love Me follows Sajida (played by Broadway actor Sushma Saha) and Noor (Ashembaga “Ashe” Jaafaru) as they grow up together, bound by friendship, cultural traditions, and the pressure of entering adulthood. What I appreciated most was how the play showed the tension between collectivism and individuality: the push and pull of family expectations versus personal identity. As Mu’s artistic director Francesca de Leon has noted, the story asks, “Can you hold on to your family’s value of collectivism while simultaneously exploring your own individuality?” That question hung in the air throughout the show.

The production team clearly worked to make the story authentic. Cultural consultants Aamera Siddiqui and Filsan Said contributed their insights to Sajida’s South Asian household and Noor’s Black Muslim household, grounding the play in lived experience. This attention to detail made the characters’ struggles feel even more relatable, especially in moments of conflict and quiet tenderness.

Still, the show’s greatest strength was the dynamic between Saha and Jaafaru. Their performances carried a natural chemistry, making the shifts from laughter to heartbreak believable. At times, I wished for more variation in the staging to highlight those emotional turns, but the raw sincerity between the actors made up for it.

Maybe You Could Love Me is a strong start to Theater Mu’s 35th season. It’s not only a story of two friends coming of age, but also a meditation on what we risk, lose, and sometimes gain when we choose our own path. The play resonates well beyond its cultural specificity, striking a universal chord about love, faith, and identity.

Ticket Info: Maybe You Could Love Me runs through September 28 at Mixed Blood Theatre. Theater Mu offers Pay As You Are (PAYA) pricing, so audiences can choose what they pay—sometimes as low as $10.