Happy Monday

Somethings that made me happy today:

"I'm Odd Todd."
"No. No. The audience has to fall in love with you."
"Why can't they love Odd Todd?"

"I drew hats all night."
"With my face on them?"
"Just what I fantasize your penis looks like."
"So, small hats then?"
"Decorative."

"I love you. Marry me. Don't leave. Ever. You're the best person I've ever met. God dammit."

We three at the Duke house are now the low class spice girls: thrifty spice, clepto spice and spacey spice.
Also guest starring cooky spice, choppy spice, drinky spice, drunky spice, hungry spice, sleepy spice, slutty spice, shut-the-fuck-up spice and others: coming to a hot mess near you

Bennington

Maybe I love my alma mater more than is usual/neccesary/normal.
But this video breaks my heart.

Vanity Glasses

Okay, guys, this is my biggest hipster weakness cause I gotta say: I love 'em. I just do. I love the way they look on me, I love how I feel when I wear them, I love them as an accessory. Yes, take me out back and have me shot by a firing squad in skinny jeans and pendelton plaid, by all means. I just, I don't know. I love vanity glasses.

I had a pair once that were my pride and joy. Black and rectangular, I bought them on the Lower East Side (St. Mark's, of course) in winter of 2009 and I wore them all the time. The following summer, when I worked as a receptionist at State Farm, I pretended they were real glasses and I wore them to work everyday. I took pains to remember to put them on before reading a document someone handed me, just so it would seem like I really needed them. On days when I forgot them I would complain of headaches, or rub the bridge of my nose and squint, as if being without them was a problem. I broke this pair while out at a club in Buenos Aires and I never found a pair to replace them.

UNTIL TODAY.
Mona sent me a package today, containing a purse I had let her borrow and a new pair of vanity glasses. Guys, I'm going to be completely honest right now: I lost my shit. I did. These were beautiful and exciting and looked great on me and in my very favorite color! I pranced around the house, squealing like a My Little Pony on coke.

And, as no Vanity Glasses Ownership is ever official until some vanity shots are done, here are some pics of the new babies:

Guess what show I'm working on next?

You Win Again

I have been listening to this song on repeat for the past few days. It's an old one from my favorite artist, but it is just really clicking with me right now.
I especially love the second half of her first stanza. I keep singing those lines to myself. I think it's perfect because everyone has had those days when they realize there is absolutely nothing left to say. So why watse the words?


I'm standing here, freezing, at a phone booth, baby
in the middle of God knows where.
I've got one quarter left, your machine picks up
but baby, I know you're there.

And I just start crying cause it makes no sense
to waste these words and twenty-five cents
on a losing game.

Baby, you win again.

- You Win Again, Mary Chapin Carpenter

A Little Perspective

I have spent my whole life thinking that I wanted a baby. I still think this, and very often. But this week I have been house-sitting for an 8 week only puppy and I've now been thinking "yes, I want a baby but oh good god, not right now."
This might not seem like a shocking thought, considering that I am only 23 years old. But I have always (and by always, I mean since age 13) felt, deep down, that should I find myself in a situation where I could have a baby right now, I would do it. And I still feel that way... but having lived with this puppy, I realized I don't want to. Not now.
Eema (Iema? Eyma?) is a darling and I have loved getting to live with her, but she is also a full-time job. I can't leave the house for more than two or three hours at a time, I have to constantly watch her, I don't really trust anyone else to make sure she isn't choking herself on a rubber band, I have to wake up every three hours to take her outside to pee. I can't go out without worrying about her and I can't get anything done when I'm home with her. She bites me and she rips my clothes and chews on power cords and pees on the floor and... she's hard work. Really hard work. Any not anywhere near as hard as having a baby would be.
Maybe babies have just been on my mind because I re-read Operating Instructions and am now reading Some Assembly Required.  I don't know what it is, but realizing this has been kind of a... blow? I spend so much of my time pretending that I am older than I am, that sometimes I forget how stupidly young 23 still is. Yes, I am working and building a career and making life choices but I'm still only 23. I am not a real grown-up yet, no matter how much I puff up my chest and say I am. I am still selfish with my time and pouty when I don't get my way. I am too young to spend my whole night rocking a baby, I am young enough to resent losing that sleep.

So all of this is to say: thank you, Jason, for going out of town and giving me a little bit of perspective.

Design

Good morning, Baltimore

For some reason, the front stairs at my new place make me want to sing "Good morning, Baltimore" as I leave the house in the morning. I go out my front door and just start singing. This is both fabulous to me and undoubtedly disturbing to my new neighbors.

I remember leaving New Orleans at 4:15a last winter, heading out on our 14 hour drive to Naples, Florida with Ali. It was the longest driving day of our whole road trip and we started the day listening to Hairspray. We made it out of Louisiana before the sun even came up, belting this song in the pre-dawn.

Vs.

Phantom Train                         vs.              Hunger Games Cannon
Makes me feel like I'm                               Makes me feel like I'm
in a Nancy Drew mystery,                          in the Hunger Games movie,
complete with a cool old                            fighting for my life in the urban
fashioned flashlight.                                   wilderness. Or like all my Jesus
                                                                    freak neighbors are counting down
                                                                    the heathens they've slaughtered.


All in all, the new place is awesome. There are just some things, like paying for water, or hearing the Hunger Games Cannon in the dead of night, that are just a little upsetting.

On: Surprises (Lear's Follies Tech - Day 5)

Thank you, you sweet sweet Baby Jesus for making tomorrow Equity Monday.

This week has been incredibly rough, but I am sure I say that in every Final Night of Tech Blog Post. This week was long and grueling and about trying to keep smiling, even when what your inner child wants most is to shriek or stamp or cry. But that's every tech week, isn't it?

What made this particular tech week different was how clearly I felt my role was defined. Everyone knew to defer to me as I ran tech, I never needed to lay down the line. Everyone did their job (...mostly) and I only did mine. I was never pushed to work beyond my assigned hours. I never felt like the job was too big for me. I approached my tasks and completed them, never feeling overwhelmed or small or frightened. Oddly enough, I was prepared the whole way through and felt like it.

This, most of all, is a surprise. Does it mean I'm starting to get into the swing of this lifestyle? Or does it mean I'm starting to get good at what I do? I'm not sure which it is, if it is either. Whatever it is though - I think I like it.

On: Surprises (Lear's Follies Tech - Day 4)

Today, we had our first tech run and surprise, surprise: it was a disaster.

Now, let me clarify, that "surprise surprise" was meant to be ironic because it was, in fact, and utterly horrifying surprise. When I got home tonight, I threw myself on to the couch and groaned. Nick asked me if it was the worst run of a show that I'd ever participated in. If it'd been in front of an audience? Yes. Without a doubt.  The projections failed. The sound cut in and out. Every other cue took 10 - 45 seconds to load. The songs overlapped. The tech we have spent the last three days preparing so carefully simply crumbled.

Then Cameron came. Cameron showed my designers how to manipulate Q lab and make it work properly. By the time I got back from the I'm-just-down-the-hall-but-in-the-dark-by-myself-so-call-if-you-need-me-but-please-leave-me-alone-for-twenty-minutes portion of my dinner break, everything was up and running. And then, surprise surpsise (again genuine): we had a great run. Not flawless, but pretty good. Almost every cue worked and the lag was minimal. A 87% turn around from the afternoon. And it left us a little in awe of Cameron, honestly.

Now, surprise surprise  (ironic):  I'm exhuatsed, hungry and half asleep at my computer.

OH NO

For the first time in four separate tech weeks, I failed to write my tech week nightly blog post last night.
I got home last night, had a glass of wine, sent out my production meeting notes and passed the fuck out. No blog post.

The chain has been broken.

Check in tomorrow for what will surprise me today.

On: Surprises (Lear's Follies Tech - Day 2)

During one of our ten minute breaks tonight, I went on facebook and saw that Jessi had posted a picture of the SSC crew hoisting something into a tree to prep the glen. It really made me homesick.

I miss it, like, A TON.

Because I missed everybody so much I clicked on over to Claire's fb page and popped open my webcam. I threw my headset on, smiled big and gave a thumbs up. I captioned it "Missing you all today - Day 2 of "Lear's Follies" tech."
I tagged everybody I love at SSC (mostly SM staff) and posted it. Then my ten was over and  I went back to tech-ing.


Fast forward four hours and I am at home, working on a cue sheet for my designers. One of my SSC people "likes" the picture I'd posted and I click on the notification only to have my face, nice n' big, show up on my screen. And to my surprise! My winning smile? Barely even a smile at all! A grimace, really! I just kind of blinked at this image - the one I had seen only hours before as so cute and confident - and was, well, flabbergasted. 
I mean, look at this thing: 

This girl is not happy.

I eventually just busted out laughing, seeing some really first hand proof of how easily we can fool ourselves when we want to. I needed to believe that I was coming off confident and collected tonight, so that was how I saw myself. Even though the girl in that photo is clearly anything but. 

This picture actually reminds me a lot of another picture I took of myself not too long ago. 

Woah, Nelly. Them's some teeth.

I took this picture in the Pod at Bennington, on February 23rd, 2011. That is me, holding the first draft of my senior thesis (which later got a much better title, bee-tee-dubbs). I had spent almost a whole year reading, writing, researching, refining, polishing those 90-odd pages and I was finally turning it in and I took this picture to "celebrate" with facebook. My caption that was: "Bound and ready to go. I took this picture about ten times, trying to get a smile that looked happy and not terrified. Guess my emotions just seep through..."

I guess I just have a face like a pane of glass, don't I?

On: Surprises (Lear's Follies Tech - Day 1)

I didn't panic this morning.
I managed to get some laundry done.
Bennett Ahmet isn't dead. (Yet.)
I went to work on time and not before.
The bookcases left over from Race are very heavy.
We ended tech early.
There was a blood moon rising over the Willamette river, which my cast and I saw from ART's roof.
I did not clean up the green room.
Two of my actors asked me to drinks after tech.
I accepted.
I actually went.
I, apparently, have to be awake in 6 hours so I can go oversee carpet cleaning at the Manor before I go into work.

These were all surprises to me tonight.

Packing

This much harder than I anticipated.