Odd Wishes

Last night, a friend and I had a conversation about odd wishes. I brought it up by saying that, weirdly, a small part of me wants to be in New York right now. I know that what's happening is scary and serious, but I often feel like New York is my city (albeit not one that I've fully lived in yet) and I am, in some ways, regretful I can't be there. In an alternate universe somewhere Other Olivia took the leap right after college and she's bundled up in her tiny Brooklyn apartment, watching the water rise and drunkenly reading Jane Eyre aloud with a Bennington roommate. I envy Other Olivia a bit, and not just because she gets to be day drunk reading Jane Eyre. I know that this is a big moment and a marker for my generation of New Yorkers. When I do finally make the leap, I won't have any Hurricane Sandy stories. I'll have been 3,000 miles away.
When I told my friend this, he said that he remembers feeling similarly during 9 -11. He was in Alaska teaching and felt like he was in foreign country. He told me that he wished to be in New York that day. He said that he is grateful no one he knows or loves was hurt in that great tragedy, but he still wanted to be there: be connected and a part of the national grieving. He felt removed and remote in Alaska, and he wished it wasn't so.
I know that anyone in New York now, or in New York 11 years ago, would tell the two of us just how silly we are/were being. That this is real life, not fiction, and we shouldn't romanticize it. That's not what I'm trying to do, but maybe it's what I'm doing anyway?

Checking In

Sometimes you just need to write about the little things.

Christmas Lights: The christmas lights in Albert Hall's living room died this week. Or maybe last week? In any case, I came home one night and realized that our living room with all the lights on was darker than a high school dance.So when I got the night (semi) off tonight, I took myself to BiMart and bought us $6 worth of new white lights. I hung them tonight while my soup heated up and voila! a brand new living room. Well worth it.

Country Music: It's a bit of an obsession right now.

The Giants: Well, yeah, duh this is a big part of my life right now. The World Series started on Wednesday and I've managed to watch both games so far. (0-2 Giants!) It's been wonderful to get back in touch with baseball, to remember how much I really do love this game, love these boys. I've also spent time with new people just because of the World Series, which is turning out to be excellent. I'm quickly becoming good friends with ASM because we hit the bar together to watch the game. I ended up nearly jumping into the financial director of my theater's lap on Wednesday, when Pablo Sandoval hit his first homerun. I'm taking Stervin with me and we're going to go down to Eugene on Sunday for a little Probstein Girl Giants reunion. I'm thrilled.

Outlander: Another of my good friends has just started reading it and says she can't put it down. Every time someone new starts the series, I get a little rush remembering what it was like when I first went to Scotland in 1743. I think about how it feels to meet Jamie, to feel like he's something all together too much for your mind to contain. But you do. This is sounding sexual and maybe that's how it should be - he is James Alexander Malcom McKenzie Fraser after all.

Sherlock Part Deux: Starts on Monday. God help us all.

Big Talks: I hate to have 'em. We all do. When it's me getting Spoken To, I always feel blind-sided and defensive. When it's me doing the Speaking, I always feel like I'm unfairly prepared. This person had no idea this was coming, they have no way to fight back. It's just me and my well-thought out points and them and their surprise and temporary misery.

On: Awareness (Duck for President - Opening)

How did I forget that this part of working for OCT sucks so god damn much?
Hello, 6:45a alarm clock. I never wanted to meet you.

On: Awareness (Duck for President Tech - Day 3)

Full Awareness:

We're done, essentially.

It is both terrifying and thrilling that I will be running this monster of a show in the Newmark all by myself tomorrow morning.

I am exhausted and have an 8:30a call.

My bed boyfriend Hank calls for me, longingly.

On: Awareness (Duck for President Tech - Day 2)

To be aware: Jimmy Eat World came on my shuffle the exact moment when I opened this blog post. "Work," to be specific. That, universe, was a cue well called.

To be more aware: I (semi) stood up for myself and had a (kind of) Come to Jesus with some of my crew. I want to be able to say that I laid down the law and showed them who was boss and blah blah blah but thing is, I didn't really. I wasn't afraid but I also wasn't forceful. I was just clear.
I wish, a little bit, that I had come off as some bad ass stage manager goddess, but the American patriarchy has got it's hold on me too tight: "You are just a little girl. You may not, ever, tell men who are older than you what to do. Ever."

Full awareness: I think it's so interesting the way people pick up non-verbal cues. I, as Chels put it so nicely earlier tonight, collect boys. A large portion of my good friends are men and I tend to be physically affectionate with all of them. This afternoon, a certain gentleman came to visit me at the theater and, as we walked to the park blocks, we ran into two people from my show. We were not touching, I said nothing about his relationship to me. Yet both asked me if he was my boyfriend when I got back to the theater. BOTH! How many times have I stood with my arms wrapped around the waist of a man and never been questioned? And today, just walking with him, everyone sensed something. How odd.

On: Awareness (Duck for President Tech - Day 1)

To be aware: I'm writing this blog post the morning after, which is totally against the Tech Blog Post Rules. I just actually fell asleep in front of my computer last night.

To be more aware: Sometimes you go into new situations. You should not assume you know what they entail.

Full awareness: Things are different on paper than in reality.
On paper: "You have a union crew." And I'm like,"Okay."
Reality: "They have an entirely different set of expectations for how you will run your rehearsal."
On paper: "This guy seems to really like you." "Okay."
Reality: "Maybe you are totally not ready to deal with what that actually means."

Deck Run Sheet: A Photo Essay

Getting down to work

Wait, no, fuck work. Dinosaur.

Shit, wait, WHAT time is it??

uuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhh

I hate this job.

The Pumpkin Patch

I spent this morning out on Sauvie Island, taking Zo to the pumpkin patch. It was lovely. We went and visited the petting zoo, took the hay ride out to the patch, played on the hay bales and picked out our pumpkins for October. I got a large yellow-orange beauty with a flat side and Zo picked out two decorative pumpkins for herself. She was very serious when picking out her pumpkin, rejecting the pumpkins her size, the fairly large ones and the normal ones. She needed a pumpkin at her scale, which is how I somehow got away with only spending $6 to kill two hours with a toddler and snag three pumpkins.
I was so happy to be there, stomping around in the mud in my big boots, with my favorite girl, breathing in the air of my favorite season.
A lot of people weren't happy to be there though. I passed parents yelling at their children, kids throwing fits, couples bickering, even a man screaming at his elderly mother-in-law as she tried (and failed) to take a picture of his family sitting on a hay bale. I turned around when I heard him raise his voice and watched his two sons wail, his mother in law fumble and his wife burn up in shame as he went on and on.  I felt my face fall. I know that all I was seeing was a miniature slice of these people's lives but it killed me a little. There is no reason to go to the pumpkin patch but to have fun and enjoy the season; there's no pressing business to be done there, it's not on the way to anyone's work or anyone's errands. Maybe I'm being naive about what my future life with children will be like, but I hope that my interactions with my own kids will be like my day with Zo today: fun, easy, full of the joy of watching a child's wonder at this brand new world they've found.

It's Gonna Rain

...for the rest of my life.

No, not really, but that's how all of Portland felt this morning when we woke up to the oh-so-familiar sound of rain on our respective roofs. (Yes, I did just try to spell that rooves at first.)

The funny thing is though - no one I've talked to has been negative about it. We all knew it was coming this weekend and we spent last week sitting outside in our light jackets and we took that last late night walk across the bridge and then we kind of smiled at each other and said, "The rain is coming back."

I guess when your city is known for something, you start to miss it when it's gone.

Success

When You Know Yourself Well Enough To Schedule Some Baby Time The Weekend Before You Go Into Tech.

Stolen Blog Post - Why to Date an SM

I found myself talking about this blog post I read a while ago tonight and I decided that not enough people have read this for my taste.
So here it is, world. I did not write it and I take no credit - I simple adore it.

Original Source: Bruce Willis' Bunny Suit

Ten Reasons To Date A Stage Manager 

My girlfriend is a stage manager in NYC. And I am here to tell you Stage managers are the are the best ones to date. Here's reasons as to why you should date a stage manager. And reasons........go.

10. Don't have to worry about getting calls to come help hang pictures, repair appliances, etc. your crew guy or gal can probably do it on their own and most likely will do a much better job of it.

9. Ten times out of ten you will never be late for anything. In fact, according to your SM boo, if you are on time you are already late.

8. Unlimited amounts of glow tape so you can finally make that Tron costume you always wanted.

OLIVIA'S ADDED NOTE: This is not actually true. No stage manager I know would ever let you waste that much glo tape. Ever.



7. You get to meet awesome, interesting people, like Will Swenson, Elaine May or someone from the Butthole Surfers. Do you know how many times I have babysat NPH's kids? Or how many times I took Cheyenne Jackson to school in FiFa Soccer on XBox?

6. Stage managers actually get paid for some of the shows they do! It's pretty rad right?

5. They are always prepared for anything. A-NY-THING. Headache? They got aspirin. Got a cut on your finger? Boom, your boo has a band aid for your boo boo. Cats dead? Kablam, they have the shovel to bury it and the eulogy already written. Resourceful and thoughtful.



4. They are exceptional multi-taskers. One night I watched my girlfriend bake cookies at home all the while planning for the next days rehearsal and reserving tickets to go and see "The Muppets". If you notice the picture below there are copious amounts of x-mas cookies including stars, trees and snowflakes and the ones I made, which are axes, wolves and sunglasses that I turned into boobs.



3. Stage Managers won't loose their shit when the something gets thrown out of routine. They are calm, cool and collected and don't freak out if someone is late or a cue is missed. Just don't use their gaff tape.

2. They often times gets tickets to awesome shows....for free!!!! Because my girlfriend is who she is and she is awesome at what she does, she gets tickets to shows from people who want to work with her. One time we went to a show at Signature Theater in NYC and we sat in front of Ethan "Raising Arizona" Coen.

1.  When you date a stage manager they are up for anything and are low maintenance. After of a day of them telling people where to go and what to do, when they come home all they want is to NOT make decisions. You can suggest anything to them and as long as there is food and booze at some point they will be up for it. "Burgers and beer at the park? Duh!" "Turtle Races and tequila? Where do I sign in!" As long as you plan it and they don't have to worry other than where to be and when you are set.

OLIVIA'S ADDED NOTE: This, on the other hand, is very very very true.

Milk Dreams

Why This Topic: I'm taking a page out of Maria's book and writing about one of my dreams. My most recent one that I can remember, actually, and it's only a fragment. I used to remember long, complicated dreams but not at this point in my life. I'm sure they will come back eventually.

Item of Note #1: I love milk. I do. It's thirst quenching in a way nothing else is for me. Though I was raised on non-fat or 1% milk, adult Olivia prefers 2% or whole milk. Those are high in fat though, so lately I have been trying to avoid them. Avoiding them entirely, actually. The girl who drank a gallon of milk a week by herself has not had any milk of any kind for two whole months now.

Item of Note #2: Mona, my best friend and now ex-roommate, is a vegan.

The Dream: I am in the grocery store in my neighborhood, holding a shopping basket that is getting kind of heavy. I'm shifting it from hand to hand as I look in the glass at the gallons of milk. I'm weighing it out in my head: "how much will it cost?" and "I shouldn't drink it anyway" and "I could use that money for something else" and "don't get it, there are things that are better for you" and I just keep standing there because I really really want the milk. I cannot make the decision to buy it but I cannot just leave without it so I stand, mentally wringing my hands. This goes on for a long time. Then Mona walks over, cuts into my field of vision of the milk case and opens the glass door. She pulls out a gallon of milk, puts it in her already over-flowing shopping basket and simply says, "Come on."
 Like she didn't just step in and solve my existential crisis.