I'm dumb

So, I did laundry today...and I put my jacket in my laundry...and my phone was in my jacket.

Sigh.

So it was a big pain in the ass and I had to buy a new phone and bug my mom at work so she could give me account information...bah!

On the bright side, I love my new phone.  Even though I've been playing with it all day instead of cleaning my apartment.  Ack!

Thus endeth NaBloPoMo, and hopefully the beginning of posts with less stupidity and more substance!

Let's go see a play!

Off to see the preview performance of The Adding Machine, starring a ton of my beautiful babies! K-Roll and I are meeting soon for some wine at Schooners in a few. But the coolest part of this weekend? Aaron Page and Gemma Smith are going to be my houseguests! Hooray! They arrive tomorrow to see the show, then Aaron and I are going to go play with Morgan White, one of the sexiest men alive, in Norfolk.


Anyway. Time to be deeply disturbed and extremely proud at the same time! I love theatre.

A bit o' Thanksgiving

Hazel made herself a little hammock under the bed

"What are you doing, sis?"

Making the compote! (Or compost, as I re-christened it)

First course: Foie Gras!
I have like 8 million more, but Blogger is being stupid, so this is all we get tonight!

New music!

I'm a really weird person when it comes to music. I tend to live in my happy bubble of Dylan and showtunes everything else that I love and it takes a lot for me to listen and get into new music - even if it's a new Dylan album! I just have this OCD thing about needing to know the lyrics to whatever I'm listening to, so I usually just don't want to use the extra brainpower to learn new songs.

(How weird does the above paragraph make me?)

HOWEVER...

Kendra gave me Tegan and Sara's new album, The Con, a couple weeks ago, and I put it on this morning while I was going on a cleaning frenzy in my room, and I am in love. I fell in love with Tegan and Sara around this time-ish last year when I was obsessed with season 2 of Grey's Anatomy and forced Kendra to make me CD's of the amazing music that's on the show, which of course lead to a mix with like 8 Tegan and Sara songs, so she wound up just making me a bigass CD of the two albums of theirs that she had. So now the music makes me think of fall...and Terminal Bar.

Anyway. In conclusion, Tegan and Sara are awesome and that is my post for the day. Blah.

OH! Also. I have been TERRIBLE about reading and writing as of late. To be fair, a big chunk of that time was devoted to portfolio-ing. But also to be fair, that's not really an excuse.

I fiiiiiiiiinally finally finally finally finished Heartbreaking Work after like 8 years. That's probably the longest it's ever taken me to finish a book in my entire life. It's a tough book to get through. It's not bad, it's just difficult. And kind of disjointed and insane.

So, new reading list:

Tartuffe by Moliere (it's been like 2 weeks since I've read a play. bad me!)
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (It was like 1 dollar at a used bookstore sale and all proceeds went to breast cancer research, so I bought it and it's been sitting on my bookshelf for a year and a half. Plus, Oprah recommended it. Let's be serious)

Finally, I have to say that as amazing as Thanksgiving was (and pictures are coming soon!), it is completely insane how much better I felt after two days of being back into my classes/routine at the gym and eating my insane everything-is-whole-wheat-and-multigrain Trader Joe's food. I walked and did crunches and stuff at Megan and Joe's, but it wasn't the same. I think I'm addicted. This will be a problem once I cease to have all the time in the world and in fact have NO time at all. I have to figure out how to make this whole thing work when I don't have 2 1/2 hours every day to go to the gym and forever to make meals!


In conclusion (for real this time), I love Tegan and Sara. And go buy The Con.


Pretty Canadian lesbian twins!

(But...not with each other.)

Thanksgiving Preview

Oh yeah. Get ready.

I love you, Baltimore...

Haven't gone through my Thanksgiving pictures yet (oy - that'll take forever), so here are my belated Baltimore ones! It's pretty much just me & Jane being idiots, there's really nothing of the actual city or the beautiful friends that I saw. I suck.

Jane's hot new haircut (that she did herself! crazy art kids)

Look! I'm about to go see art!

Nothing happened.

I don't remember.

We're so dumb!

Most people, when coming home completely smashed (off of a single glass of red wine - pathetic!) would go straight to bed. Jane Barton puts her hair up and eats a salad first.

Too cool for school with her hot chocolate in the kickass crepe place next to the Everyman Theatre.
Beatrice & Hero await a new incarnation of their favorite play :) :) Jim Jack was an amazing Benedick and the show was fantastic!

Weird.

Today I did two things I haven't done in literally years:

1) Watched football.

2) Bought & decorated a Christmas tree.

It feels like 5 or 10, but is more likely 3 or 4 years since I"ve done these things.

It's weird.

Menu

Here is why I am still in a food coma:

1) Foie gras with a cranberry, shallot, and dried cherry compote
2) Endive salad with stilton and pecans
3) Sweet potato and gruyere souffle
4) Asparagus with sage and pancetta
5) Homemade parmesean/herb bread
6) The best gravy ever. Actually, it was the first gravy I'd ever had
7) Turkey with a sage, pancetta, and butter mixture in between the skin and the meat
8) Chocolate lava cake for dessert

GUH.

Sleepy already!

I've not had as much sleep as I've been used to these last 48ish hours...so I'm dangerously close to crashing even now! I get the feeling my sleep cycle will be drastically altered in a very short time.

Our menu for tomorrow night is so amazing I can't even comprehend it. I shall try to document it as well as I can! I'm so excited. I'm going to have sweet and savory dreams tonight!

Thanksgiving! WTF?

Can you freaking believe Thanksgiving is in TWO DAYS? I'm so excited. It's proably my favorite holiday. Though I do have a soft spot for Valentine's, despite my turbulent history with it...and my terminal singleness...it's still awesome!

I've barely unpacked my suitcase from Baltimore and I'm about to pack it again, as soon as my clothes are dry. I love travelling and vacations and driving, so it's all very exciting. I'm pretty sure this is going to be the most decadent, wonderful, fun, amazing Thanksgiving EVER. I just wish my mommy could come down to NC with Megan and I :( It'll be my first Thanksgiving without her. Meep.

I so can't wait for Thursday. I'm spending all day long in the kitchen with my sister (who is, for those who don't know, a TRAINED CHEF) - just me & her, making some dinner. I've never had such a heavy hand in the creation of Thanksgiving dinner, so I'm pretty sure it'll be the most badass day of my life. Meg called last night so we could go over the menu...and good GOD. We're having foie gras along with the turkey, first of all, which is VERY exciting - and she's going to do this butter/pancetta/sage mix thing and rub it under the skin of the turkey before baking...or something. So it's going to be a vaguely Italian themed menu. We're also doing a sweet potato suffle with gruyere cheese. And I can't even remember everything else we said. It's going to be so amazing!

In other news, I went ahead and e-mailed a resume/cover letter to The Shakespeare Theatre in DC - there are two jobs available for Feb 19thish through May 30thish (Assistant Director and Directorial Assistant...fun with semantics). Steven's still not giving me any answers about Yoder so I'm just trying to keep putting myself out there so I'll at least have the possibility of other options, even if it doesn't pan out. If that makes sense. Tamara had sent me the e-mail about these opportunities a couple weeks ago, so...we'll see.

Off to pack!

Good times.

I'm hanging out with my roomie and Raymond King (aka King of Lame aka King Dumb...we had a creative evening) and I'm buzzed, so I don't feel like posting! Bah!

So here:

CenterStage...

...is amazing.

Jane and I are loving Baltimore :)

The world's gonna wake up and see...

...Baltimore and ME! And JANE!

Be seriously jealous :)

Gah!

I totally almost went to bed without doing an entry for today. Silly me!

Especially silly me when I have AMAZING NEWS.

Guess who's coming to Baltimore with me?

Only one of the prettiest most amazing girls in the entire history of human existence.

JANE!

That's right, my beautiful best friend from high school, my cousin, my sister, my love...I'm so freakin excited words can't even describe it. Everything happens for a reason, and even though I was disappointed Garth couldn't come and that none of my girl/gay friends here could come, this weekend will be so, so perfect with Jane. She needs to get away from the stresses of school & such, and she just needs a break. So I am happy to oblige!

Plus, her homework this weekend is to draw a nude seated figure. Guess who's totally capable of sitting down naked?

This is especially perfect because 1) Going to see a lecture/exhibit on Matisse with an art student will be so wonderful and 2) We're going to see Much Ado. We are (or were, anyway) Hero and Beatrice. Let's be serious!

It'll be wonderful. I love my girl. Jane is one of those people who I know, without a shadow of a doubt, will be a part of my life forever and ever. We don't talk all the time and we don't see each other all the time, but we always catch each other when we need each other.

My pretty girl graduates from high school! Class of '05. Jesus. Ignore the extra fat in my face and just pay attention to the extra fat in my boobs.

She killed a man to get out of work to come to my graduation. I'm not sure how that worked, but yay, she was there! I so needed her, too :) :)


In other news, I found out from Garth that rehearsals for Edward II are not only going smashingly, but that I'm completely in love with one of the stars of the show. Oh, Randy, the times we had when I was a Queer as Folk fangirl. So all this means is that...I seriously, SERIOUSLY need to see this show. So stay tuned for developments on that.

Anyway! I'm up early tomorrow to pack & go to Pilates. So good night, all!

Portfolio Picture Poll!

Finally, a post with a purpose! And a really embarrassing amount of alliteration.

I've actually made some headway with my portfolio these last couple of days, which is terribly exciting. I went ahead and did something I wasn't going to do, which was to devote four pages to one show - Terminal Bar. The reason being that I wanted to include a full copy of the Limelight where we were on the cover. Cause, y'know. Kinda cool.

So in shuffling around all my stuff I realized that I have room for one more production shot (so long as it's vertical.) But I can't decide which one I want! It'd be nice to include one with Billy Harley because I have more with the girls overall, but there are some good shots of Carol too. (I already have my favorite sexy shot of Katie Parker in there. GUH.)

So - which one?

Sexy dance of death!

Different angle.

Holly is pure class.

Holly is a wee bit unbalanced.

Dwayne is symbolic. He's all about those metaphors.

Stupid November!

So, there's plenty I could write about today. But I don't feel like it, dammit! I'm only writing because of stupid nablopomo.

I'll probably get some writing done in Baltimore, actually. Two more days, sucka! It looks as though I'll be making the trip solo, unless Lauren can get out of work on Saturday. That's okay, though. It started out as a solo trip anyway. And I still get to see Jason and Jim Jack and some amazing theatre and freaking Matisse. Let's be serious. I'm so excited.

I was pretty blah and lazy this morning...I eventually got myself working on my portfolio (which I will be starting up again after Big Fat Loser...it is so intense, y'all! Amy better get sent home) and then shuttled my lazy, sleepy ass to the gym. As usual, it was the best part of my day! Yay for classes and psychotic teachers. PLUS...the only other Pilates class during the week aside from the Tuesday evening one is on Friday morning, so guess who's doing Pilates before taking over Baltimore? This guy.

I came home and FINALLY made pork chops simmered in cacciatore sauce...I've been craving it for like a week and O M G. What is up with pork chops being the best food EVER? I about died. I remember when Lauren and I first made it together (back when we were pseudo roomies!) we literally had to moan after every bite because it was so scrumptious.

It's movie time with the roomies after BFL, methinks...so see everyone tomorrow!

We happy few.

So, seriously, this is freakin ridiculous. It takes like 10 minutes to upload pictures to this damn thing, and I tried to upload four more and after 15 minutes I got an error message.

W T F? Why don't you like Max? :(

So here are a few pictures from this weekend that I'm too lazy to caption at the moment.

Friends and Food!

I am so excited...in just a few moments, the gorgeous Lauren Angwin is going to be waltzing through my door with delicious chicken! We're doing a chicken-and-sweet-potato dinner, and my beautiful Kendra is joining us. It promises to be the best night ever.

Mr. Aaron Page was in town this weekend as well, and I had brunch with him and some more glorious friends today for like 3 hours. Insanity! I still need to put up the pictures from Friday night (and now this morning)!

But the sweet potatoes call me. I just wanted to make sure to post this before the dinner party festivities begin to get my post for the day in!

Hope everyone has a glorious Sunday evening, and I'll probably have a post full of pictures and thrilling life-updates tomorrow.

Um...

I'm about to go on a date.

Probably like the 2nd one in my life.

Yikes.

P.S....I had a wonderful time with friends last night. There are many wacky pictures to come.

Keep a diary, and someday it'll keep you.

So sayeth the great Mae West.

Got some potentially good/bad news today...it'll be both good and bad no matter how it turns out. Garth has might have an opportunity to work at the Red Bull Theatre in New York in their production of Marlowe's Edward II. Which would be fantastic and great. However...if he gets it, it means he can't do Baltimore. Which would suck beyond the telling of it. He's keeping me posted. I really feel like it's going to happen for him, which - again. Amazing.

From the beginning I've been planning on making this trip whether he can join me or not, so I'm definitely still going (especially since I have a hotel room booked now!). I shall just have to troll through my beautiful friends to see who's free to take over the city with me...I'm sure one of my baby loves - Katie, Lauren, Mich, Carol, Peter, someone - will be free and we will have a fantstic time.

Garth said if Baltimore doesn't work out we should try to get me up to visit NYC before his sublease ends on the sweet place where he's staying (and god knows I am dying for an opportunity to properly document the crazy art in that place!). I love to, and his show actually opens the week of my 23rd birthday. (Garth laughed and said, "I think I was a bike messenger at 23.") My birthday doesn't usually get too much to do around here since it always seems to fall on or before or after exam week, and considering I don't even attend school with 90 percent of my friends anymore, I can imagine it being even less of a big deal than usual. Plus I'd like to visit my Grandma in Florida sometime this December. So maybe I can have a week-and-a-half birthday/Christmas extravaganza up and down the east coast or something. It all depends on money, I s'pose. Maybe I can tell my Grandma that's all I want for Christmas/Birthday this year. It could happen!

Anyway. Enough of that. Time to make sure I don't leave anything behind!

Henry

I read Act IV of Henry V today! I am absolutely loving this play. I'm getting the film this weekend from my friend Netflix and I can't wait to see it. I didn't expect to love this the best of all the shows I've been reading lately - I figured I'd enjoy the romance and comedy of Shrew and such much better. But the poetry and the characters and Henry himself...it's all so glorious. I absolutely adore it. I'll be sad to read Act V and finish tomorrow.

One Acts are tonight! I can't wait to see my babies kick some ass. Yay for Lauren and Peter! And yay for Stacey's senior thesis!

I voted!

I was a little terrified going to the polls today because it occured to me a couple days ago that I didn't change my name on my voter registration card or anything like that. I've also never changed my address when it's changed 47 million times during my time here in Newport News. But I figured I have tons of documentation proving I'm me and if they don't let me vote, I'll provide them with a one-woman riot. Sure to be fun for everyone.

Luckily, it didn't come to that, which is good because I don't really have the energy for rioting today. Therefore I got to protest in the most low-key way possible!

One of my favorite things about voting here is that it's a generally Democratic district, so local elections don't induce the nauseated panic attacks that national elections do - however, despite the Democrat-ness of it, the place where I go to vote - Knights of Columbus Church, which never fails to bring images of Will Ferrell in Anchorman declaring, "Knights of Columbus, that hurt!" - has TONS of pro-life imagery and rhetoric outside of it. And every election day a gaggle of old Republican supporters of whatever Republican candidate is running that year has a little booth set up outside the churches. They're not hecklers trying to get you to come over so they can talk you into changing your vote, they're just hanging out, being Republican.

It's just good ol' fashioned fun to tick the boxes for the Democrats in a house of conservatism.

However, it is good ol' fashioned disappointment that I have NEVER HAD TO WAIT IN LINE EVER to vote here. How sad is that? Go VOTE, people! If you don't vote, you shouldn't bitch.

As for me, I'm putting my still-inaccurate voting card away until the February 12th primaries...should be easy enough to remember as it's K-Roll's birthday. And due to the fact that the constant advertising will probably make me want to stab myself in the eye with a pen at that point. Next year will certainly be interesting.

Here's wishing good luck to John Miller and all the other Dems in Virginia today...



ETA...

Henry V Progress:
Act I
Act II
Act III
Act IV
Act V

Am also halfway through Act II. Look out, Branagh, I'm coming for you...

Billy Bard

I'm going to read Henry V this week!

...I thought I had more to say, but apparently I don't.

At least my ass is covered in case I don't post tonight.

Painstaking Pictures

I'm home on a Sunday night for the first time in a few weeks...what does that mean? Well, for one thing, it means I was FINALLY able to go to a class at the gym I've been dying to go to. For another thing...

Extreme Makeover Home Edition

Yes, I'm watching this show right now. I've never watched it on a regular basis, but every so often you just need some kind of imposed catharsis, and this show definitely delivers! So, it's embarrassing, but...shut up.

This weekend was fun. I had a great time catching up with a bunch of people, and I spent Saturday afternoon at the babies' place making delicious Puttanesca, and what could be more fun than that?

I worked on my portfolio today...I was hoping to completely finish some pages for a couple shows (Bay at Nice and Terminal Bar), but that didn't happen, alas. However, after picking up some exciting goodies from Office Depot, I'm going a little bit more in the right direction. I really hope I can get it finished (for the most part) by Thanksgiving!

Finally, I have to mention that the people downstairs are BLASTING MUSIC. W T F. IT IS SUNDAY NIGHT. People are insane.

So without further pointless rambling, some PICTURES!...which took me 15 minutes to upload and caption. What the hell, Max. Are you tired of my endless praise or something?

Jeff Gallo went as Steven Breese!

Kittens like margaritas.

Whether you need her to play Ariel or the FOUL WITCH SYCORAX!, Carol Wilson covers all of your Tempest needs

Miss Elizabeth and Carol ain't takin no lip.

I don't remember what this was all about, but it's priceless nevertheless.

Anna and cast got Steven a star in the sky! Seriously! I thought he was going to cry.

Andrew Bentley almost murdered me.

Dirty slutty teacher (Miss Michelle) and her 14-year-old lover. Who I think remained nameless.

Anna and Jen had a major confrontation about stilettos. One of the evening's highlights.

It's not a cast party at Carol's without ED WHITACRE LEADING A SING-A-LONG! I love that man so much.

New, bold levels of skankdom.

Anna is my favorite party person.

Damn it, Max!

So, I was going to post some pictures from the costume party last night, but for some reason Max is being difficult.

Is anyone in blog-land blogging on a Mac? It's hard for me to upload pictures when I can only see the 8 million word code instead of being able to see the actual picture to rearrange, etc.

Life is so hard.

Anyway. I'm just posting to post. Maybe someday you can see my glorious pictures.

Time to move on with my life today...here's what's going on...


-Clean my apartment! When on earth did it get messy?

-Trader Joe's...again...for Puttanesca stuff!

-Call my girls...possibly make the food at their place. Hooray!

-Reading at 7...Six Characters in Search of an Author. Supporting my babies!

-Party at Anna's after the reading!


As for tomorrow, it should be all-portfolio-all-the-time. And gym. And hopefully a dinner party with my girls.

And some have greatness thrust upon them

Finished reading Twelfth Night - FINALLY. It took me long enough. I think that had something to do with the fact that every time I'd read it, I'd get the corresponding song from Illyria stuck in my head for whatever scene I was on. Which is why I'm sitting here at work with, "thrust upon, thrust upon, thrust upon, THEM" stuck in my head.

I shouldn't have that problem next week, as I'm going to be tackling Henry V! Hooray! And that will conclude with me NetFlix-ing the Kenneth Branagh film, which I've wanted to see for a million years.

I read about 20 pages of Heartbreaking Work last night. If I don't finish that book soon, my head is going to explode. Seriously, why is it taking me forever to finish a novel that's maybe 300+ pages? Good god.

In my last bit of "reading list" news, I'm about halfway through Unwrap Your Candy, and GUH. Any person of the theatre who hasn't read Unwrap Your Candy and Blast MUST DO SO NOW. I want to produce and direct those shows so desperately. I gave some plays from Blast to Katie Parker and Billy Harley, and now I find myself wanting to do the same with Unwrap. I'm thinking when I finish this, my next assignment for the "contemporary play" category should be Wright's I Am My Own Wife. It was a present from Billy (dad-billy) and Calia like a million years ago, and I never finished it. However, I am madly in love with Doug Wright, so this isn't a fact I am proud of. It must be remedied.

Costume party tonight! Hooray! I shall attempt to go as a cat. Of course, for 22-year-old women, a "cat" isn't so much a representation of the animal as it is tight black clothing and slightly suggestive makeup. It'll be the first time I'll have dressed up in a looooong long time. I'm pretty much just stealing Monica's clothing. And improvising with some of my stuff, since she tore her skirt. Sigh. Whatever.

I am excited, though, because this will be the first party I'll have been to at Carol's since the insane, fantastic, amazing, blissful madness that was the Actus cast party. And it'll be the first costume party I'll have been to since the AFKAP Coming Out Party two a billion years ago when I was a tiny little AFKAP. So I'm very excited to see what kind of twisted characters show up on her doorstep!

In other party news - because I shall be a party animal this weekend - I have decided to make Puttanesca for Anna and Katie and Their Roomies' International Food Fun party. I have nothing to wear that's remotely Italian, but I'll improvise, kind of like I do with the dish. I haven't had it since I made it for the Babies right after I got back from NYC and shamelessly stole the recipe from Garth, so I'm very excited. I'm pretty sure it's the most delicious thing in the world.

NaBlo what now?

So, many of my friends from the Internets participate in NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month. I think it's a little insane, but highly admirable. God knows I couldn't do that.

So through the lovely Meghan, I learned about a highly amusing alternative - NaBloPoMo. Being a sucker for insane acronyms, I decided to learn more about this insanity - National Blog Posting Month. Basically, you have to post at least once a day. Every day. For the entire month of November.

The only time this may be a challenge will be Baltimore Weekend (aka THE BEST WEEKEND EVER), as I'll be too busy tearing up the town and playing with Garth to pay the Internets much mind, or possibly Thanksgiving. But these days, I eat up any challenge!

So, I guess I should make it worthwhile or productive or something...some people use NaBloPoMo to keep a record of progress on goals they should be accomplishing, things they're learning, etc., and I thought, hey...I have goals. Sort of.

When I got back from New York, all empowered and inspired, I actually made a list. A kind of long, detailed list. I'd bought a blue spiral notebook intending to use it as a place to write out minimum-one-page responses to plays I'd read / progress on other stuff. Even though I already have a ginormous private journal on Microsoft Word. (And with these two things, I still started this blog. I'm starting to consider the possibility that I'm obsessed...with myself...)

I'll spare you from the uncensored nerd-ery of that list, but here's basically what I wanted to do...

Tuesday, August 28th

1. Eat better / Learn to cook!
2. Exercise & such
3. PORTFOLIO (immediate accomplishment tragically thwarted by upheaval of homelessness and move)
4. Read...plays, books I own, literature
5. Write...about what I read, about everything else
6. Use Netflix if I'm going to pay for it...see movies I should be ashamed of not having seen!
7. Budget...use OCD passion for organization and tables in Word to freaking keep track of what I spend

The beginning of the "school year" (whether you go to school or not) always feels more like a new year than New Years Day does. For me, anyway. It just occured to me that I wrote that on the first day of school (or did they start on Monday? that would make it less cool) for my CNU loves. Anyway, I suffer from the same thing that everyone on earth does...you make resolutions, you set goals, and you inevitably disappoint yourself, even if you don't completely fail.

Well, the amazing thing is...I've been doing every single thing on that list. Consistently. True, I haven't finished my portfolio in the 45 days I promised Garth I would on my last day in New York, but my homelessness made that challenging! It's disappointing that I'm not further along, but I'm not ignoring it. Completely. Some goals started out strong and are tapering a bit...the reading/writing about what I read has become a challenge as of late.. Some goals I wasn't able to fully get a handle on right away...it took me until October to really get in the habit of keeping a record of my finances, but I did it and I'm keeping up with it consistently, for the first time ever.

So...um...I guess what I'm saying is that I'm happy to have a head start on "accomplishing my goals." I don't know, I'm talking to Ben on Googletalk and it's destroying my concentration. It's just as well, I'm entirely too long-winded anyway. I was seriously just intending on writing like two pararaphs! How does this happen???

Finally, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BIG SISTER!!! Megan is 25 today. She's officially been gracing the planet with her presence for a quarter of a century. That's kind of insane.



Still hot in a bathing suit.