Indignant Mind

Stupid and Angry

2012-01-27T10:08:00.000-06:00

I'm angry today and feeling stupid now.

Let's say your internet company calls you up and says, "Your internet isn't working, we'll send a new router to you and you'll have it in 3-5 days." And a week and a half goes by and you don't have the new router yet, so you call them back and say, "I thought you were going to send me a new router. Has it shipped yet?" And they tell you, "Oh, we issued a new router but there was something wrong with it so your account is on hold."

"Why is my account on hold?"

"There was something wrong with the router."

"What?"

"Please hold." *muzak* "Okay, we've located a working router and taken your account off of hold and you'll have it tomorrow."

"Groovy, thanks."

So tomorrow comes and they sent the new router to your mom's house instead of your house. So you call the delivery company and ask them to change the address (since your mom was smart enough to refuse the package) and they process your change of address request so that your router will be delivered to where you are between normal delivery hours the following day.

Except, the delivery guy shows up an hour late. You've already left because you had other commitments. You're hoping he'll not actually deliver your router since you're not there to receive it and will try again the next day but no, the tracking information for the delivery says he delivered it and left it outside the front door an hour after the front door is locked for the night.

So you hurry in the next morning, hoping to find your router waiting for you outside the front door, but it's not there. It's not in the hallway. It's not blowing down the street. Your router is nowhere to be found and all the delivery company can say when you call them is that they don't know where it is, either, since the delivery guy said he left it at the front door. And at this point, you've been without interweb for two weeks and it's getting ridiculous and you're frustrated and angry. So you call your internet provider back and tell them that the delivery company lost your router and they need to run a track and trace on it and they need to disassociate the serial number of that router from your account since it was never in your possession and you don't know where it is and you don't want to be held responsible for something that the delivery company lost. Your internet provider reports that router lost and after quite a bit more hassle, agrees to overnight another router to you, shipped to where you will be the next day when you will be there, because this whole thing is just a freaking mess at this point and you're freaked out and angry and you've been a model internet customer for a really long time and I'm sure they're pissed off that one of their routers is now lost, too.

And then, ten minutes later, your neighbor knocks on the door with your router that was delivered to him last night when the delivery guy showed up an hour late.

So I'm angry. And frustrated. And feeling stupid. If the delivery company had just said they left it with my neighbor instead of at the front door, I would be in possession of my package now and all would be good. As it stands, I have to camp out at home tomorrow until the delivery guy shows up with the replacement for the replacement for the replacement because someone got frisky and messed with my account in the first place.

And I will freely admit that maybe I should have waited a bit before completely freaking out on the delivery company and "internet service provider" (this has nothing to do with my interweb - it's an adjacent metaphorical story), but wouldn't you? If sensitive information was supposedly left somewhere in the open where it then obviously wasn't?

I could use some happy today. I could really use some happy. I don't like feeling stupid and angry. I don't like yelling at people on the phone. I'm sure they are all very nice people who are just trying to do their jobs but when they can't answer my questions or provide reasonable solutions to my problems, I get frustrated and start to yell. I don't like that. I'm sorry if you are one of the people I yelled at today. You didn't deserve that. And if it helps at all, I'm mad at me, too, for not just waiting two hours to see what else would develop (even though I feel justified in my irritation at the incorrect information given to me).

So I'm sorry that I'm stupid and angry today. I'm going to go try to find some happy now.

Yeah, You Don't Need to See That

2011-12-29T14:00:00.000-06:00

I was cast in a couple of plays that open in January (yay!) at the theater where I took all sorts of classes about a year ago (yay!). For the most part, I am very excited about it. It is an evening of short plays, six in total, and I appear in two (which doesn't happen often - they don't like to double cast these shows because they want as many people working as possible). I really enjoy both scripts and both directors and both writers and both casts - I think it is going to make for a really fun night of theater.

In one of these shows, though, I will be wearing clothing that a woman of my age and body type really has no business wearing. That's kind of the point. And on the one hand, I know it's a sort of sight gag (not quite the right term, but I can't think of a better one), and I'm totally on board for that. Having been a costume designer, I know that the clothes do a lot to tell the story of the character and when I'm only on stage for three pages, there's a lot of story that needs to be told in not a lot of time, so whatever the costume can do to help is great. But on the other hand, I have body image issues. I think we all know this by now. I think we also all know by now that I don't have washboard abs or a cute, pert little rear end. I'm curvier and squishier than that. I take comfort in the fact that my cat likes to sleep on my curvy, squishy tummy. And I try to be an advocate for non-lollipop women in the arts to get more screen time, so to speak, so this would seem to be a great opportunity to showcase an extremely talented woman with a less than Hollywood-perfect physique.

But it's still freaking me out a little that I will be seen wearing...that. Like people will love me less if they see my exposed, fish-belly white, curvy, squishy tummy. Or like they will be so blinded by the stark whiteness of my legs that have not seen the light of day in years that they won't be able to focus on my performance.

I will do it. I will wear that costume on stage and I am sure that once I am in the scene, I won't even be thinking about it. I usually don't, once I'm in the scene. The anticipation of it is freaking me out a little. Almost motivating me to stop eating for the next two weeks and do lots of crunches, but I know that doing that would then fly in the face of the aesthetic of the piece. That wouldn't be true to the character or the director's vision or the writer's vision.

Anyway. I hope people come see these shows and enjoy them. I hope people are able to focus on my performances instead of my tummy. Though if you do come see them and stick around to talk to me after, I may need you to tell me that I'm pretty and you still like me.

Maybe.

Big Happy, Little Happy

2011-12-20T13:09:00.000-06:00

I dream big.

I think anyone who knows me at all knows this by now. I can't help it - it's what I do. It could be an overactive imagination or some coping mechanism for dealing with disappointments in the real world, but I dream big. I dream of the day when I no longer have to worry about money. I dream of the day when all I have to do is be an artist. I dream of finding my life partner. I dream big.

Thing is, the big things don't happen very often. That's why they're the big things.

Often times, I find myself getting annoyed with the fact that the big things don't happen often. I know I've posted before that I sometimes feel like I need that "blow your face off" exciting thing to happen - like I'm owed some enormous debt by the Universe. I'm sure that's not true, but sometimes it feels that way, and then when all of the other little annoyances in life pile on top of that, I get grumpy.

What I need to remember is that there are a lot of "little happys" that happen all of the time. Getting a hug from my niece. Snuggling with my cat. Making someone laugh. I think I'm usually pretty good about recognizing these things and appreciating them for what they are. I was on the train not too long ago (I think it was when I was in New York) and this guy on the train sat next to me and ate these sour candy straws one by one out of their little package and it struck me as so beautiful that this man was enjoying his sour candy straws on the train that I almost started crying. So I think I'm good at recognizing the "little happys."

This time of year, though, is one wherein we're sort of taught that the big happys are supposed to happen. Movies and television shows pump us full of the idea that the holidays are magic and magic things happen just in time for Christmas. And when they don't...it can be disappointing. When the object of your affection doesn't suddenly pull you under the mistletoe for a quick kiss that you know in the movies means the start of a long, beautiful relationship. When the Christmas bonus doesn't happen at all. When you discover that all of the little holiday treats you've been enjoying really weren't calorie-free and you don't fit into your favorite trousers anymore. It can be easy to be grumpy.

But I got a little happy today. Maybe even a medium-sized happy that came with a nice side of ego boost. So I'm going to smile for a little bit and maybe even hope that it does snow because the world looks pretty when covered with new snow and I got enough little happy today to let me enjoy that. So go enjoy some happy - big or little - today. Maybe even spread it around. Today is a good day for happys of all sizes.

Another Day, Another "Thanks Anyway"

2011-12-08T08:53:00.001-06:00

An actor's live is full of rejection. I knew that going in, and anyone else who considers this career path should know that. For every fifty auditions you go to, you may get one role. It is the odd lucky streak when you get to work consistently. Even amongst our big movie stars - from the time a movie is shot to the time it is released can be a period of anywhere from six months to two or three years. So when you don't see someone in anything for a while, just imagine how long it has actually been since they worked.

But I digress.

An actor's life is full of rejection, for all sorts of reasons. This morning, I got another, "You were great, but we're going another direction" email. On the one hand, I like that theater companies are sending these emails now. It used to just be if you didn't hear from them within about a week, you cross that one off your list. At least now they let the non-cast people know they weren't cast so we can stop thinking about it. That's nice. But it is still disappointing to not get to work on certain projects.

Which brings me back to my feeling that I need something to happen in my life that is so amazing it blows my face off. I feel like I need to define that a little better, because I am surrounded by lots of little things that go right and are lovely and I am thankful for them, but none of them blow my face off.

I have an amazing family and some really wonderful friends.
I love it that my apartment has been warm so far this year.
I love it that my cat is super snugly.
I'm thankful when I find parking on the street so I don't have to pay for parking at work.
I'm thankful that I have one of the all time great heads of hair.
It still makes me smile every day that I get to drive a little green bug.
I have been getting a lot of compliments lately on this one ring that I wear that I wasn't sure I'd be able to pull off in the first place.

All of these things are amazing and humbling and they make me smile and I am thankful for them on a daily basis.

The thing about the "blow my face off" thing is that I feel like it needs to be a game changer. It could start with something small, but it needs to produce some big end result. It would be best if it was also surprising.

For example, I got a phone call from a theater company with a bit of a reputation for putting on good theater, inviting me to come audition. That's pretty cool. Didn't blow my face off, though, because unless I get the part, nothing really changes. Now, if I get the part and we get really good reviews, that could be a bit of a game changer and maybe it will turn into the blow my face off thing, but it isn't there yet. For now, it's just really groovy. I do appreciate the awesomeness of some cool random thing in my day - like when I get to see a really amazing sunset, or when a puppy I've not met before licks my face - but my face is still in tact.

What I would really like, in terms of my face being blown off, is, like I said, some surprising game changer. David Tennant showing up at my door with a cupcake for a chat. Someone deciding to pay my rent for me one month (or one year). A significant bonus at work. Finding my life partner. Suddenly waking up twenty pounds lighter. Some movie producer using one of my songs in a blockbuster film. Landing a role on the BBC. You know - the big goals. Not the daily awesomeness that surrounds me. I love the daily awesomeness. I'd just like to mix it up a little, you know? Because there's a lot of daily crap, too.

So anyway. Someday. Someday my face will be blown off and I won't know what to do with myself. But it will be amazing.

Tired and Ready to Move On

2011-11-08T14:34:00.001-06:00

I've been thinking for a couple of weeks now that I want to make a vlog about this, but I just have yet to sit down and do it. So I'm writing about it, too, because it's sort of important to me and I don't want to forget about it. I may also need help sticking to it, but here goes.

I still fit into my high school prom dress.

I have told a couple of people this tidbit and their jaws kind of drop, like, "Oh my gosh, you're so lucky that you're still the same size you were in high school!" Thing is, it's not a tiny dress. I've never been the sort that fits into the tiny dresses. But I do still fit into my high school prom dress. Which means that even though I'm not tiny, my body hasn't changed all that much since high school.

I have spent I don't even know how much time dieting since then. I've tried Weight Watchers and SparkPeople and plain old calorie counting and some weird thing that was supposed to help me lose eleven pounds in ten days and I've tried various pills and cleanses and various workout programs and spent I don't even know how much money on gym memberships and supplements and other assorted associated crap. And for all of that, my body hasn't changed that much since high school.

Yes, there was probably a time between then and now when I was smaller than I am at this very moment. And there may have been a time when I was bigger than I am at this very moment. But the net gain/loss is about zero since high school.

The net gain/loss is about zero since high school.

So you know what? I'm done with it. Or, at the very least, I want to be done with it. I want to stop obsessing about how much ketchup I put on my soy dogs. I want to stop counting celery sticks. I want to stop berating myself for eating when I'm hungry or skipping a workout when I'm sick. I want to stop doing these insane things to my body chemistry that will ultimately end up leaving me with a net gain/loss of zero. I want to stop wasting the energy hating myself.

Now, I'm not saying I'm going to totally let myself go and let my health deteriorate. I still like going for walks, and I'll still do squats in the ladies' room when nobody is looking. I'm still vegan, so I'm still going to get my six or seven servings of fruits and vegetables a day. But I'm tired of limiting myself to twelve grapes when I want a snack. I'm tired of feeling guilty for eating! I'm sick of it. People need to eat to live. People need to eat carbohydrates for proper brain function and fats for proper nutrient absorption. I'm tired of not eating mashed potatoes because white starches aren't good for you. I'm tired of not having spaghetti for dinner because my lunch was kind of carb heavy if my body is really, really craving spaghetti. I'm tired of berating myself for having a snack at 10:00pm when I get home after a show and my stomach is growling. I'm tired of restricted calorie diets that leave me grumpy. I'm tired of hating myself for my food choices which are 80% of the time very healthy.

There are those who would argue that as an actor, I am acutely aware of things like this and that there is extra pressure on me to look a certain way so I can get certain types of roles. Thing is, I have come to the conclusion in the last year or so that I wouldn't get those roles anyway. I'm not an "ingenue type." I never have been. The closest I got to an ingenue type role was one I played in college because the girl who was originally cast got really sick and they needed someone to fill in and as the costume designer, I already knew the whole show so I did it. I would never have otherwise been cast in the role of the sort of flighty girl looking for her best friend's approval of her new boyfriend. I'm usually cast as the best friend from whom the flighty girl is seeking approval. Which is fine. Those characters are much more "me." So why am I killing myself to look a certain way so I can try to get roles I'm completely wrong for? It just doesn't make sense.

And how sad that it has taken me this long to figure that out?

But I am figuring it out. Which is the good part. Thing is, I have a pretty face. And I'm not obese. I am a very healthy person - good blood pressure, good cholesterol, all of that stuff. There are men out there who find me quite attractive, just the way I am. Not all of them, but that can be said about stick-thin women, too.

Being thin won't make me smarter.

Being thin won't make me a better actor.

Being thin won't make me a nicer person.

Being thin won't increase my contribution to society.

So why do I do all of this shit to try to be thinner?

I'm tired of it. And I want to stop. I want to eat when I'm hungry and listen to my body cravings to tell me what to eat. My body is pretty smart - if I need more protein, it will tell me - and if I listen to it, I'm pretty sure I'll get what I need. I want to enjoy a slice of cake on my birthday without feeling like I've failed as a person. I want to stop getting angry when I eat a meal that is 400 calories because that is too much food to be eating in one sitting (even though I'm perfectly happy to eat a whole bag of chips in one sitting). I'm just sick of how much time and energy I waste worrying about food and exercising because the majority of it is negative energy. Really negative energy. And I would like to be done with that.

I'd just like to get to a place where my body can kind of self-regulate. So far, it seems to be working, too. I'm not spending time hating myself for eating, which is actually getting rid of some of the urge to overeat.

So I'm going to stop worrying about my cravings for Fritos. When I want Fritos, I'll pick up a bag, eat a few until I don't want them anymore and put the rest away for later.

And I'm going to stop worrying about days when I don't work out. There are days when I walk six miles, and there are days when I spend the evening curled up with my cat on the couch.

What it all works out to is I am still a healthy person, a nice person, a talented person, a kind person, an intelligent person, an attractive person and a lovable person. Regardless of what size dress I wear.

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho

2011-10-18T14:25:00.001-05:00

And so begins my work trip to Italy. I made it from my front door to the gate with detours through a Jamba Juice and a currency exchange in an hour and a half. Which means now I get to wait here two hours for my flight. But it's fine. I'd rather be early than late.

I'm nervous about this trip, in part because it is for work and people are depending on me, and in part because I don't speak Italian. I've done a little bit of research on Milan and I should be okay - its not like I've never traveled internationally on my own before. I'm just nervous. My mom thinks that's normal for overseas travel. She's likely right about that.

I should get some time to walk around while I am there, and that should be fun. Probably just what I need. I will keep you posted (kind of) and will likely have pictures and video to share when I get back. Have a good weekend!

Dream a Little Dream

2011-10-14T10:29:00.000-05:00

I have been in desperate need of DTWAC for a while now. Maybe a month? I don't know if it started around the time my grandmother passed, or if it has anything to do with the fact that I've not yet really said goodbye to my friend who passed away from ALS while I was out of town at a wedding or if any of it is residual crap from this character I'm playing at the moment who is very...put upon? But I've been feeling, in general, very put upon lately and in need of DTWAC. Or something good. And surprising. I would like someone to be overwhelmingly nice to me for a minute without me having to ask for it. And now that I've typed that, I've asked for it, which means I'm going to feel ooky if anyone is overwhelmingly nice to me in the near future. So if you have any plans to be overwhelmingly nice, hold onto them for a few weeks and get me when I'm not expecting it so I can fully appreciate it. Deal?

But then last night, I had this completely lovely dream about Liverpool. I dreamed I was visiting a friend in Liverpool and it was absolutely gorgeous there. He didn't live in the city proper, but sort of on the outskirts, so when we wanted to go into the city to go exploring, since he doesn't drive, he rode a Big Wheel. While wearing a helmet and goggles. And he didn't have to pedal it for some reason, so it actually sort of looked like he was luge-ing on a Big Wheel down this twisty, gorgeous, remote mountain road. Because in my dreams, the space between the Liverpool suburbs and Liverpool proper is mountainous and forested and gorgeous. Like the opening(ish) shot in Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (which is brilliant, by the way. If you have the means, I highly recommend checking that movie out. It is extremely funny and very well done). And I thought he was crazy for luge-ing down this road on a Big Wheel, but I was keeping up with him somehow, without being on the Big Wheel. I guess I was flying? I did get some nice aerial views of his trip down the mountain into town, so I must have been flying, and laughing most of the way, too. When we got into the city, it was the kind of place where there was a Barnes and Noble on the corner, but there was also this tiny one-room shop full of all kinds of crap and some books that served both as a store and a kind of library. He grabbed a book and tossed it to the proprietor (a nice little old lady) and said, "Sign that out for me, would you?" I have no idea what the book was, but I thought it was cute that he could borrow a book from this tiny shop. And we went to get lunch somewhere that must have been like a food court or something, and while we were eating, he kept moving closer and closer to me - he started out across the table, but with every bite, he would scooch around the table until he ended up sitting right next to me. Which was kind of nice in and of itself. Nothing unseemly happened, it was just a nice day spent with a friend in a beautiful place.

And I woke up feeling better than I have in a really long time. Not grumpy. I'm kind of amazed at how much my dreams can affect my moods. Bad dreams can leave me in a funk all day. But this good dream has me feeling somewhat optimistic today. And I have no idea where it came from. Yes, I'm traveling next week, but not to visit a friend. The scenery came from Tucker and Dale. But the happy? No idea. I guess I should just be thankful for it and enjoy the dream time I got to spend with my friend.

Keep on dreaming, kids. It's good for you.

Happy Mug Is Happy

2011-10-05T09:03:00.001-05:00

When I was in Pennsylvania for that wedding, we had breakfast one morning at a place with this very happy coffee mug (I'm going to try to post the picture, but I'm not sure if my blog is set up to do that).

Anyway, it occurred to me as I'm in the middle of a silly picture text message exchange with a friend of mine while I wait at the airport for my flight that this could be a wonderful thing to see first thing in the morning or something actually kind of horrifying.

See, on the one hand, you have your coffee telling you that you're awesome first thing in the morning. Most people could use a compliment first thing in the morning, so yay for that.

On the other hand, you are about to consume the contents of the mug, exhaust the mug's entire purpose in life, and then either leave it sitting in a sink all day or scald it with boiling water and soap before relegating it back to the dark, non-ventilated cabinet. And it is telling you, with a happy smiling face, that you are a very important person. Isn't that a rather unhealthy relationship?

Happy mug is happy. And sadistic.

Hotel - Part 2

2011-10-04T08:01:00.001-05:00

When I stay by myself in a hotel, I don't necessarily think the room needs to be cleaned every day I'm there. Factor in the water savings and all of that "green" stuff, but I'm also not that messy. They might need to empty one carry out container from my trash bin and that's about it. I mean, think about it - do you change your sheets at home every day? Do you scrub your bathtub daily? So is it really necessary for them to do that in a hotel?

Anyway. I'm out here for four nights, so after the second night, I hung the "service please" thingy on my door. When I got back to my room last night, I found that they had given me a top sheet for my bed. On top of the comforter. Which, again, kind of seems to defeat the purpose. And they took my damp bath mat (damp from me showering wrong with only half of a door), folded it up, and draped it over the edge of the tub. So it was still soggy when I replaced it on the floor so I would have to stand barefoot on cold tile. Instead, I got to stand barefoot on soggy bath mat. Yay.

And one final side note - the thermostat in my room tells me that I have to put my keycard in a slot by the door to adjust the thermostat. Even when my keycard is already in the slot by the door. But it's kind of moot because in New York City, they can only provide heat or air conditioning one at a time, not both. So with the nighttime lows in the forties, they've kept the air conditioning on. Good thing they put that sheet on my comforter.

Hotels

2011-10-03T08:25:00.001-05:00

I don't understand some things about hotels, and maybe it is because I don't stay in them very often and I've watched too much "Hotel Babylon," but there are some things I just don't get.

I am currently staying in a hotel in midtown Manhattan that normally charges upwards of $300 per night for it's cheap rooms. I understand the room I am in is one of the cheap rooms - no frills, basic amenities. Well, basic for midtown Manhattan. I was in another hotel in rural Pennsylvania a couple of weeks ago where a hair dryer was not a standard amenity in every room. Where I am now, it is. And it's a pretty good hair dryer, too. But mine is not the sort of room where rock stars would stay and trash the place. It's nice for the business traveller who needs a bed, a shower, and a TV before going to work in the morning.

And yet, there are no sheets on my bed. There is a fitted something over the mattress, but no top sheet. Just a comforter and blanket. It would seem to me more sanitary and easier to clean sheets than comforters, but what do I know? And there is a huge crack in my bathroom sink (and I keep seeing the shape of the crack throughout space and time...kidding). And the elevator is unreliable at best - I don't mind taking the stairs on occasion, but I'm on the seventh floor and it has almost made me late a couple of times.

But the biggest thing that baffles me about this fancy-schmancy hotel in midtown Manhattan is that it only has half of a shower door. And this is the second time I've stayed in a hotel in midtown Manhattan that only have me half of a shower door! It is literally a piece of glass that has been caulked into place that is only half the width if the shower. Which makes it awkward to turn the water on and off unless you are already in there, and it also means the bathroom floor gets soaked any time I bathe. Am I showering wrong? Are other people able to maneuver in this half-shower in such a way as to keep all of the water in the tub? Are they trying to be semi-European where they don't have shower doors or curtains at all because they bathe sitting down? Because the last hotel I stayed at with half of a shower door didn't have a tub, so sitting down wasn't really an option, or at least not an appealing one. And at this place, the shower head is mounted to the wall, so I couldn't sit down with it, so to speak. I just don't get it.

This is why I would either be an awesome hotel reviewer or a horrible one. I'm just not trendy.

Flying High

2011-10-01T11:48:00.001-05:00

I'm blogging on a plane. In a plane, according to George Carlin, but you know what I mean. With my lovely iPhone Blogger app, I am writing a blog post while 30,000 feet in the air. Give or take. Of course, I'm going to wait until I land to publish this because even though I'm on a wi-fi plane, the wi-fi rates are ridiculous.

But seriously, when did this happen? When did our world become the sort if place where a) we can connect to the interweb from ANYWHERE and b) we feel the need to do so?

The other fun thing about this flight (well, "fun" is subjective) is that it is a 6:00am flight headed east, so we're flying into the sunrise. I do like that this is the time of year when I get to see more sunrises, but it's pretty cool to watch one from this high up. I took some pictures out the window, though I don't think they can quite capture the beauty of it.

Does anyone else sing "Movin' Right Along" from "The Muppet Movie" when you're trying to remember where the sun rises and sets? "Hey, I never saw the sun come up in the west? Movin' right along (buddy dum buddy dum)..."

Anyway. Not too much else to say from up here. It's going to be a long five days in New York at a trade show and I've been up since about 2:00am, so maybe I should try to sleep. Happy October!

Life, Death, and Marriage

2011-09-19T10:46:00.001-05:00

This was sort of an intense weekend that reminded me very much of the cycle of life. For very good reason.

The first event was the birth of a daughter to a friend of mine with whom I have recently sort of reconnected, thanks to the interweb. I think it's lovely that he and his wife now have a little girl in their family, in addition to their adorable twin boys. Congratulations, and welcome to the world!

The second was a wedding, between two friends of mine who might be the cutest couple I have ever met. She is certainly one of the most adorable people I have ever met, and I think the two of them have a very healthy attitude toward their relationship. They are partners in life, and are still fantastic individuals. Their wedding was gorgeous, too - on her parent's property in the northeast corner of Pennsylvania. It was very "them." It was friendly and earthy and welcoming and fun, with all sorts of people pitching in to help out in whatever ways they could. And dancing. Lots of dancing. Which killed my knees. Honestly - my knees are really hurting two days later (probably from all of the jumping), which is making me feel very old. As is the fact that for most of the wedding weekend, I was being hit on by a twenty-year-old. What is it with me an inappropriately young men I meet at weddings? Apparently, according to him anyway, I'm still hot even though I could practically be his mother. But a lot of fun was had at this wedding by a lot of people who came from all over to celebrate the love that these two share. It was gorgeous.

And the third was the passing of a dear friend of mine. She had been diagnosed with ALS in late February of this year and now, seven months later, she is no longer fighting. She was surrounded by friends and love when she passed, and we all know that wherever she is now, there's a huge party happening filled with love and laughter. Always.

I haven't really started mourning my friend yet. She was the woman you wanted in the audience at your shows because her infectious laughter would encourage everyone else to laugh, too. She was an amazingly talented designer and seamstress. She had a heart bigger than anyone I've ever met and was beloved by everyone who met her. I'm sad for all of the things she never got to do - she never married or had kids, so there are no little Vickys running around. I can't really say she never found her life partner because I think she did in some of the friendships she had. She had a beautiful family and beautiful circle of friends with her always, though it is a little sad to me that she never got to start her own family. And from a professional standpoint, she was adored by the theaters for whom she designed the costumes, but her name never got "out there," you know? And it should have because she was so talented. On a personal level, she was the one friend from my circle of college theater friends who came to my shows after graduation. Not all of them, but when she could, she came and that meant the world to me. For as thick as my heart can be sometimes, I believed her when she said she loved me, and I am forever in her debt for that. I used to dream that if I ever got married, I would ask her to make my dress. Or that if I ever went to a big award ceremony like the Oscars or something, I would ask her to design something for me so as I walked down the red carpet, I could tell people I was wearing an original Vicky Strei. I will miss her smile. I will miss her laugh. I will miss her hugs. Life dealt her a lot of shit. A LOT of shit. But she will always be known amongst her friends and family for her tag line "Love and laughter." Even when she was diagnosed with ALS, she kept smiling, she kept laughing (as best she could when she could no longer speak), and she kept loving the people around her. We should all be so lucky to be that positive, and to know someone that positive. The world needs more positive energy, and the world is a poorer place for the loss of Miss Vicky Strei. I love you always, Miss Vicky. Always.

So kind of a lot to process in one weekend, and a very immediate reminder of the circle of life and death and celebration and mourning. Life is weird. Sometimes it sucks and sometimes it is gorgeous. And I guess the best we can do is love with all our hearts and keep laughing always.

I Just Need a Little Motivation

2011-09-14T10:07:00.002-05:00

I think y'all already know I'm a geek. I'm proud to be a geek. I like being a geek. And a geek I am. Not in the "bites heads off of chickens" way, but in the Lisa Simpson is a geek kind of a way. Geeks are cool now and I dig that.

So in a rather large "geek" moment last week, I downloaded an app to my iPhone from a radio station in the UK for the sole reason that is has an alarm clock that you can set so that David Tennant is yelling at you to wake up in the morning. I thought it might be funny to have Mr. Tennant wake me up. I wasn't sure if it was going to work, though, as often times, I sleep through my alarm and usually the horrid, horrid alarm clock buzzing sound is just about the only thing that will get me. Which is weird, because I am a terrifically light sleeper. Anyway. I didn't know if David Tennant's voice shouting, "Wake on up! Wake on up! This is David Tennant telling you to wake on up! Come on, move!" would do the trick.

It does.

It completely does.

I start to anticipate him yelling at me two or three hours before the alarm is actually set to go off.

And when it does go off, I feel guilty snoozing it and making him yell at me again ten minutes later. Which means I've actually been waking up when my alarm goes off. And not just waking up, but getting out of bed and going on about my day. I've done quick little 10-minute yoga workouts the last two mornings before work because I've had the time to do them. Crazy, that.

The sad thing is, I sort of decided that I feel guilty snoozing him because it's like I'm letting him down if I don't wake up when he tells me to. WHICH IS REALLY FRIGGIN' SAD, I know. It's a friggin' iPhone app with a recorded voice! Nobody except maybe my neighbors would know if I snoozed it and made him yell at me again. But it's true - I feel like I am letting David Tennant down if I don't wake up when he tells me to. And considering he is the sort of actor I aspire to be, and the sort of actor I would love to work with one day, I don't want to let him down. Not even his yelling, pre-recorded voice.

It then occurred to me that there are other areas in my life where maybe a little bit of this sort of guilt trip would come in handy. For example, when I start mindlessly snacking in the evening, wouldn't it be nice if I had a little alarm in David Tennant's voice to yell at me saying, "You don't need to eat that. Come on, you know better. You're just eating 'cuz you're bored! Put the snacks down and read a book!" Or when I don't feel like exercising, a little alarm in David Tennat's voice to yell at me saying, "Get up off your arse and move! It'll make you feel better, you know it will. Move your arse!" I think it would work; I honestly do. I just need someone who I look up to like that to yell at me on occasion to do the things I know I should be doing for myself anyway to keep myself on track.

Just a thought. There's money to be made here, Mr. Tennant. 'Cuz, ya know, I know you're sitting around twiddling your thumbs at the moment, wondering how you're going to make ends meet. Tee hee.

To Tweet, or Not to Tweet

2011-09-10T20:44:00.000-05:00

To Tweet, or not to Tweet; that is the question
Whether 'tis cooler on the net to join the
Throngs and masses of shortened conversations
Or to stand strong against peer pressure
And by boycotting, maintain individuality
To join, to Tweet with them; and by a Tweet
To say we reduce the thought process to
One hundred forty characters; 'tis a limit
Strictly to be followed. To Tweet, to chat
To chat, perchance to meet - ay, there's the rub
For in that chat of Tweeting what friends may come
When we connect on the interweb
Must bring us joy; there's the conflict
That makes the sign up process such a conundrum.

2011-09-02T09:56:00.002-05:00

My grandmother passed away today.

In a way, it was sort of a relief - she has been suffering so much for so long, it is good that she won't have to suffer anymore. But it's always a sad day when someone you love dies.

I think she knew that I loved her. I told her as often as I could, but in her mental state, I'm not sure how much of that got in. I'm not a terribly religious person, but I did get the image today of her in a happy place, where it is light and warm and she is back to her normal self, the woman I grew up with. A smile on her face. A warm, inviting house with the radio on in the background. I picture her with my grandfather, and how happy that reunion will be. I know she believed in those things and I hope they came true for her. I'm taking comfort in the fact that they did.

I love you, Grandma. And I would like to remember you with a smile on your face, arms outstretched for a hug, with the "WARNING: These premises patrolled by an attack grandma" sign on your door. I'll miss you. But I hope you have found some peace. God knows you deserve it.

2011-07-18T08:55:00.002-05:00

I'm trying to remember the last time I asked someone out when I really cared whether or not he said yes.

I think we all know that I have relationship problems, as in, I'm not sure how to have one, so the last few times I've asked someone out, it has been through an online dating site where I sort of had the attitude of, "So what?" or "This could be fun, or it could not, and I'll never have to see the person again, so what have I got to lose?" And in their defense, those dates didn't turn out that well (no second dates), so I really didn't have anything to lose but one evening. No biggie.

But when was the last time I did the asking out when I was actually invested in it? The guy from college who re-found me asked me. The hot drummer asked me. The clown asked me. Was it Fucknut? I know I have expressed interest in guys since then (the musician, but in his defense he lives a bajillion miles away so dating isn't really that feasible), but when was the last time I asked a non-online-dating-site guy out and cared whether or not he said yes? Am I only able to do this via email?

Which I guess begs the question, if you are actually invested in the answer, what is the best way to pose the question? Should one make one's investment known (i.e. "I think you're gorgeous and would like to get to know you better, so how about a cup of coffee?") or should one play it as if one is not all that invested (i.e. "Dude, coffee later?")? Which is more likely to get a positive result? Functioning under the assumption that one knows the ask-ee is not completely repulsed by the ask-er's existence, but not knowing if the attraction is at all mutual.

Now, I know there are those of you out there who would say, "Honey, you're a girl asking a guy out, which is hot to begin with, and you're kind of attractive so he would have to be stupid to say no." To which I can only reply, "Thank you, but there are a lot of stupid men out there."

I'm probably way over thinking this. And it is also possible that blogging about it is a mistake, for which I will apologize right now. But I think we all also know that I'm the sort that likes to do the research and find out the best way to go about something before I do it, especially if it is something scary. I'm not sure how to research this one, though, other than to ask other people what is the best way to ask someone out? What was the best way you ever asked someone out that yielded the best result? What was your favorite way that you were ever asked out? Can I borrow that?

2011-07-15T10:04:00.002-05:00

I'm curious as to when "standing up for oneself" became "being a bitch." They seem to be synonymous in our society today and frankly, it's kind of pissing me off today. Two separate incidents, one common thread.

I was walking home from the theater last night, crossing the street with the green light and the walk signal, and this guy making a left turn almost hit me. Now, most of us know already that this has happened to me before. I was crossing the street while training for the Avon Walk in 2005 (I think) and a car turning left felt it was more important he turn left in this little open space in traffic than it was to avoid hitting a pedestrian and he hit me. I managed to jump up a second before impact, so it was kind of like I jumped up and landed on the hood of his car, and he slammed on the brakes and I slid off into the gutter. Well, last night, the car was coming at me from the opposite direction and when I saw him turning despite my presence in the crosswalk where I totally had the right to be (and the right of way), I thought to myself "Oh, no. Not again," just like the bowl of petunias, followed by "I'm not as good at falling on this side." I wasn't so much afraid of getting hit because it has happened before and I survived, but its really undignified. There is no graceful way to slide off of the hood of a car that just hit you into the gutter. Fortunately, he stopped just short of hitting me. His window was open so he laughed a little and yelled at me, "Sorry, I couldn't see you," so I replied, "You're supposed to look." At which point, he started calling me names. Because obviously, I was WAY out of line for being upset that I was almost hit by a car. I'm the bitch for pointing out his error. What did he expect me to say? "Oh, no worries. Wherever you are going must be much more important than my ability to use my legs, so it's perfectly understandable. Tee hee." Really? Really, dude? You're pissed at me for being upset that you almost hit me? Really?

Then this morning, I got an email message forwarded from someone I don't know containing some random bit of spam saying cell phone numbers are going public and if you don't call this number, you're going to get charged for incoming telemarketer phone calls. I did a quick Google search to verify that this is hogwash and emailed back the link saying, "Please check your facts before forwarding spam. And please remove my email address from your distribution list, as I don't know who you are." So they emailed me back saying, "U don't have 2 b rude." Which honestly made me want to reach through the monitor and slap them. You spammed me! And you don't know how to spell real words! You are a complete stranger and you spammed me. So I asked that you please refrain from doing so again, and I'm the rude one? Really?

Granted, in that second case, you miss out on the whole "tone of voice" thing since it was an email, but still. Two instances wherein someone did something that I don't appreciate, so I asked them to stop, and they get pissed at my reaction. Am I in the wrong here? When did it become not okay to ask people to either not hit you with their car or to not spam total strangers?

I need to get back to my I'm-About-To-Go-To-Comic-Con happy place. Because in my fantasy world, I'm allowed to stand up for myself without being labeled a bitch. I know. I ask a lot.

2011-07-12T12:59:00.002-05:00

So the events of this past weekend mean I didn't cook for the week like I normally do on Sundays, and the events of my evenings this week and coming weekend and next week and next weekend mean I probably won't cook for myself for a while. So I'm whittling down the food I have left in my house and buying lunch at work as needed until I come back from San Diego (Comic Con!) and have the time to once again, make myself a decent meal.

I went out at lunch today thinking it would be nice to get a salad from that make-your-own-salad place, with perhaps some chips (crisps for our British friends) on the side. Granted, I realize that nutritionally speaking, the crisps cancel out the salad, but I do like a bit of a crunch with a salad, especially when the base is spring mix because a lot of those lettuce leaves are really not crunchy. Anyway. I picked up my salad and went to get the crisps and could barely find one bag of regular corn chips. I wanted Fritos, specifically, in all of their original glory. The first store I went to DIDN'T HAVE THEM. They had Super Mega Tornado Blast Pizza Cheese Wow Fritos, but not regular corn-flavored Fritos. They have Garlic Jalapeno Whirlwind Storm Cheetos with a Twist, but not regular corn-flavored Fritos. And all I can say is what the hell? Does nobody understand the simple joy of a corn chip anymore? Do snacks have to be as ADHD as Saturday morning television in order to get people to eat them? I don't want some foreign-colored fake cheese product dust all over my hand. I don't want a list of ingredients I don't recognize. I want a packet of crisps that says, "Corn, oil, salt," on it and that's it.

In the end, I went to another store and found them in the back corner, somewhat sequestered from the rest of the snack foods. I can't be the only person left who likes regular corn chips. Or if I am, I weep for the state of snack foods in America.

2011-07-07T10:59:00.002-05:00

So I had kind of gotten into the mindset that I'm a pissy person. I've spent a lot of time griping about things that don't really matter in the long run and being grumpy over things that I cannot control and getting irritated by the behaviors of others who don't do things the way I think they should be done (particularly bicycle riders in the city who feel the need to cut me off, not signal, and not stop for stop lights or signs and then get pissed when cars almost hit them). Admittedly, it's not really fun to think of yourself as a grumpy, irritable, pissy person.

But in the last week or so, I think I have come to the conclusion that in truth, I am sort of an inherently nice person. Most of those icky feelings are just thoughts that I have from time to time, but from a behavioral perspective, I think I come off as a genuinely nice person. And I like that. I like that I could be a genuinely nice person. Or a nice, genuine person. For example, there are several dietary restrictions amongst my Hamlet cast mates, so I made cookies that accommodated all of them and brought them to rehearsal one day because I wanted to. I made a birthday present for my mom that I hoped would make her smile because it was fun and I wanted to make her smile. I had a moment wherein I thought bringing flowers to the cast and crew for opening night might be a bit much considering the recent cookie episode, but then I remembered that I like to do little things like that for other people so that they know they are appreciated. I like celebrating other people. Those who deserve to be celebrated, anyway. I like doing nice things for other people. I like saying please and thank you. I like giving compliments when they are appropriate. I like greeting the people around me with a smile and a friendly, "Mornin'," regardless of the time of day. I like being positive. I like making people smile.

But then, of course, the voice of my high school English teacher pops into my head, saying there is no such thing as an altruistic act and he would accuse me of being a nice person because it makes me feel good. Is that really a bad thing, though? Did I give my cast mates flowers because I wanted to make them smile, or because I wanted them to thank me, or because I wanted them to think I'm a nice person? Was I really being manipulative about the whole thing? Do I celebrate other people because they deserve to be celebrated, or so outsiders will say, "Look how well she celebrates others. She must be a good person?"

Honestly, I don't know. Does that make me not a nice person anymore? I do feel a little weird classifying myself as a genuinely nice person. It feels egotistical or something. But I think I would still rather tell someone that his haircut looks nice than not. I believe that people like to hear that stuff. I like to hear that stuff, so why wouldn't others, right?

I'm stopping now.

2011-07-05T10:53:00.002-05:00

Hamlet opens tomorrow. I'm starting to get nervous about it. I've been working on this project for, what, two months now? Three? And finally, we are going to have an audience come in and judge us, and I'm sure there are those who will judge us harshly. There will be those who think the cuts we made to the script were excessive. There will be those who think Gertrude should have been a conspirator. There will be those who think our sparse set and modern costumes don't make enough of a statement. There will be those who just think Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are funny and walk away with only that. And I know this. I know this is true of any production I put up - everyone who sees it will have an opinion and they are not always positive. Hell, remember the one I shaved my head for?

But this one feels different to me because it is such a KNOWN play. There will be people coming in who have seen seven different film versions of it, or five stage productions, or there may even be audience members who were in a stage production of it themselves and it is very possible that our interpretation will offend them for whatever reason. Our Hamlet speaks too fast or our Claudius is too young or our Gertrude is too nurturing or whatever. All I know is that I have worked my butt off in this show - we all have - and it is one that I am proud of. I love the cast, I love the crew, it has been an extremely positive experience for me start to finish. I just hope the critics don't crap all over it. Which they have every right to - it probably looks different to us than it does to them. I just...I dunno. I like this show. I want other people to like it, too.

Though it did occur to me that opening night is kind of a sad occasion, too, because it means we're almost done. Only six more weeks with these people who have become so dear to me and then we'll all go our separate ways again. There is always the hope that we will work together again on some other project, but I know from experience that you're lucky to stay in moderate contact with one or two people from a show once it closes and even then, it takes a lot of effort from all parties involved. So a delightful four or five months is drawing to a close and that makes me a little sad.

But in the meantime, we still have a few shows to put on, and people will get to see the fruits of our labors starting with our final dress rehearsal tonight. I'm excited and scared and sad and nervous and I hope the cute boy in the cast doesn't just disappear from my life once this is all over, though I know it would probably be better if he did. So lots of mixed emotions surrounding opening night tomorrow. Let's all break legs!

2011-06-15T08:22:00.002-05:00

So I've been thinking about lust lately and trying to understand where it comes from. I'm not sure why I've been exploring this concept, but I have so let's just go with it, yes? Okay. So, lust. I think my biggest question is whether it comes from a desire to make oneself feel good or from a desire to make another person feel good or whether those desires have to be mutually exclusive. If they are not mutually exclusive, is the thought that bringing desire to another person will bring desire to oneself what makes lust such a strong feeling for some?

I've thought about my life and thought about times when I've lusted, if I have lusted, and I realized that I don't lust very much. I think it has been fairly well established here that I don't have crushes on people the way that other people have crushes on people. I'm usually attracted to the person and don't really factor in the "gettin' jiggy" part of it, especially if it's a famous person I'm crushing on because who knows? He could turn out to be a jerk in real life. And I think we all also know (or if we don't, we're about to find out) that I get kind of weirded out by men who are physically attracted to me because a) I've had plenty of bad experiences in that department and b) I think I have a lot more interesting things to offer than my physical being, so I kind of mistrust those who focus on that. Maybe it's because I'm weirded out by men who are physically attracted to me that I started thinking about this. What is it about me that would make someone lust over me? Is it a desire to make me feel good, or does that person think I could make them feel good?

So then I meet this man. Kind of a man - he's young, so maybe more of a boy? He's old enough to drink legally, but the age difference is enough that I'm kind of beating myself up for finding him attractive. But it's only happened to me a handful of times in my life where I meet someone, just see him from across the room, and am instantly attracted to the point of distraction. One was a boy I met in Spain. One was the gay man I loved for ten years. One was the musician I loved for six. None of whom I actually dated. And then this man. I want to touch his hair. I want to touch his chest. I can't stop looking at him. I don't know if he falls under the "typically handsome" category or not, but I find him so physically attractive I can't look at him. Is this what lust is? I would think that the desire to play with his hair comes from the thought that it looks really soft and would feel good, but also from the thought that it is fun to have someone play with your hair so hopefully he'd enjoy it, too. Though to be honest, I have no idea what his sexual preferences or relationship status are, so it is entirely likely that a random woman playing with his hair would not be at all enjoyable, which is why I do not qualify as a sexual predator, because I realize that my advances may not be welcome so I do not advance them. But anyway.

Hey, cute dude? Hi. You're friggin' gorgeous. Just so you know. And I'm sorry if I just smile like an idiot when you're in the room. I'll try to stop that. If you could be not so hot for a little while, that would help. Or if you were a jerk. Which I've not yet seen any indications of, so maybe just let your inner jackass out a bit so I can make it through this project like a professional, that would be great. Thanks!

2011-06-06T08:08:00.002-05:00

It's been a while, huh? Sorry about that. For some reason, I seldom feel the need to write in here when things are going well. It is only in times of frustration or unrest that I feel the need to post. I'm not really this unhappy. Or maybe I am. I don't know.

So I thought perhaps the big "blow my face off" happy thing had arrived, but as quickly as it came, it went again. I will not be playing Hamlet this summer. I am still in a stage production of "Hamlet" which I love and am intimidated by all of the time, but I'm Gertrude in that one. The production in which I was to play the Dane has been put on hold until who knows when, if ever. Which is disappointing in part because I was looking forward to tackling such a huge, complex, well-known role and trying to bring something new to it, and in part because it was a perfect motivation for me to get myself in shape. So I've lost a bit of my workout mojo. I need to get that back because I'm feeling lumpish and unattractive.

And I have a dear friend who was recently diagnosed with ALS and she is not doing well. She was diagnosed in about February or March, had lost the ability to speak by May, and is now confined to a wheelchair. It's just...progressing really fast. And if there was ever a person who did not deserve to watch her body fall apart while her mind stayed sharp, it is this woman. She is cheerful and friendly and loving and brilliant and beautiful and what a horrible diagnosis to get in her early 40s. On the up side, she is surrounded by people who love her and support her and can help her. On the down side, she'll never have children. If anyone from that group of my friends should have been a mom, it was her, and I mean that in the best possible way. So that's been weighing on my mind a bit lately. I love my friend and don't want to dwell on the negative with her, but it's hard to watch her wither away. I know it's hard for her best friend, too, and I'm trying to be supportive there as well. It's just not a good situation.

I do have a couple of theatrical projects to work on at the moment, though, so that's good. Like I said, I'm in love with this production of "Hamlet" and feel kind of unworthy every time I show up to rehearsal. There are so many talented, creative people involved; I hope I'm not the weak link. And I'm rehearsing another show that will go up in October that has just a brilliant script and I actually get to play the lead in that one, so here's hoping I don't muck it up too badly.

But I'm seeing all of these "blow your face off" wonderful things happen to people around me. People getting married. People having kids. People finding new jobs. People getting to go to London to see my hero on stage. And I can't help but wonder if that was my "blow your face off" wonderful thing that is no longer happening, can I have another go at it? Do I still have a shot at some mind-numbing amazingness?

Please?

2011-04-01T09:35:00.002-05:00

Rabbit rabbit! Happy April!

Today is, in many ways, a happy day. It is new contact lens day, pay day, and Opening Day for the Chicago Cubs. Hooray! Baseball is back! I listened to a couple of spring training games on the radio and it's not quite the same without Ron Santo, but it's still nice to have our boys in blue back on the field.

But I have to admit, I'm also in a fair amount of pain. On Wednesday afternoon, my jaw started to hurt, at sort of the corner of the jaw bone. I was a little freaked out because jaw pain can be a sign of heart attacks in women and my job was driving me particularly nuts on Wednesday so I would not have been all that surprised if I had a little stroke or heart event. But seeing as I did not collapse or lose control over my extremities or forget how to speak, I figured it wasn't that. And the pain moved down to below my jaw and I could feel the glands or possibly lymph nodes were swollen and tender. So I went to the doctor yesterday. She diagnosed me with a TMJ, which is an acronym for a few very long words that basically mean there is swelling in the tissue between the bones of my jaw.

Thing is, if you look at a picture of the human skull, the jaw is sort of U shaped - it attaches to the rest of the skull kind of under the cheekbone, goes around to form the chin, and attaches again on the other side under the other cheekbone, yes? The ramus is part of the mandible - they're not two separate bones with a joint in between them. The mandible connects to the skull at the temporal bone where the condyle forms a sort of ball and socket joint. I can see pain developing in the condyle-temporal joint. But that's not where my pain is located. My pain is under the mandible where it turns into the ramus, and then down into my neck, not so much up towards my ear. And I don't hear a clicking sound when I chew like some other people with TMJs do. So why, if there is inflammation in the tissues between the mandible and the temporal bones, is the pain manifesting under the mandible and in my neck? That's about an inch away, with no pain at the actual inflammation site. Is that normal?

My doctor gave me a medication to, I guess, help with the pain. Reading the information that came with the prescription, it is an anti-seizure/anti-epileptic drug that is also used to treat pain after someone has had shingles. So I'm kind of confused. Fortunately, even with my craptastic insurance, the pills weren't dreadfully expensive, so I'm giving them a shot. So far, they're not helping very much. She said I could up the dosage after a couple of days if it's not helping and I should call her if it's not better in about ten days.

It's kind of funny what hurts my jaw. Opening my mouth too wide hurts. Lying on my back hurts. The tension that happens when I'm lying on my back and go to sit up hurts (tensing my neck). Yawning hurts. I tend to talk out of one side of my mouth anyway, and this is making that more pronounced because I keep trying to talk without moving my jaw too much.

I am a little afraid that it has something to do with the tumor behind my ear and that I might have to actually do something about that in the near future. I'd kind of rather not have surgery on my head just now, thanks. So I sent an email to my cousin who does cranial sacral work to see if she has ever treated TMJs. If she wants to work on me, it would mean probably a few trips up to Madison. Which could actually be really nice - I love my family that lives in Madison so it would be an extra excuse to spend some time with them. But we'll see.

I don't like being in pain. And as an actor, I particularly don't like not being able to talk. In rehearsal last night, I was just shouting through the pain and went home really hurting. I don't know that I'd be able to turn off the acting enough to protect my jaw - I'm not that kind of actor. I will always act through the pain instead.

So yeah, it should be a good day today, but my face hurts and I'm kind of confused as to why.

Happy April, everybody!

2011-03-24T09:21:00.002-05:00

My grandmother has been very not well for a very long time. She is the only living grandparent I have left and she has had a very rough go of it for the last four or five years. She has been living in assisted living facilities for a while and the hospice people came to see her yesterday and they figure she has about one to three weeks left. She has given up and at this point, I can't really say I blame her.

My mom called to tell me this last night, and let me know that if I want to go see my grandma one more time, I should probably do so in the next week or so. And last night, I was fine. My mom told me, we chatted about some other things, and I went about my evening like it was any other Wednesday night.

But this morning, on my way in to work, I remembered this sweatshirt I painted for my grandma for Christmas one year and how I thought it was kind of cheesy but that she might get a kick out of it, so I gave it to her. And every year after that, she wore it for Christmas. Just because I made it for her. And I remembered playing with the Winnie the Pooh dolls and the poker chips at her house. I remember so many holidays at her house when I was a kid and how if you were lucky, you got the seat on the couch by the fireplace where it was so nice and toasty warm. I remember when the 17-year cicadas came out when I was a teenager and how my brother and I collected them in a paper bag from my grandma's backyard so we could try to transplant them to our own neighborhood. I remember her one pink bathroom always had pink toilet paper in it. I remember coming back from our family reunion in Arizona and she and I were on the same flight, so we sat in the airport just talking for a while and it was probably the best conversation I ever had with my grandmother. She listened and was supportive and non-judgmental. I know other people have had different experiences with her, but I felt very close to her then, like I actually started to get to know her as a person and she was a pretty cool person. I remember she used to string up Christmas ribbon across her dining room and hang her Christmas cards on it every year. I remember watching Cubs games at her house. I remember being fascinated by her skin when I was little because it was paper-y thin, but also really soft. I remember how her lipstick used to get kind of clumpy by the end of the day. I remember that she always had lots of pictures around of all of her family and that made her house feel very home-y to me. I remember the matching rust-colored recliners she and my grandpa had. I remember her piano and the bookshelves that covered the wall and the deer head hanging over her basement stairs. She used to play the organ at church, and for a long time, she was very active with the MDDA because she herself was bi-polar. I remember when the doors fell off of my car and it had to go in for repairs, she let me borrow her car for a few days and she was so pleased to be able to help me with something. My mom always made sure that Grandma was part of our lives and I'm glad she did that.

My grandmother has not yet passed away. But it will happen soon. We've all known for a long time that it was coming and she has suffered so much for so long. She doesn't have some dread disease like cancer or congestive heart failure that will ultimately do her in. She's just been wasting away for a long time. Over-medicated. Losing her mind. And finally, losing her will. It is sad. It is very sad. I will be very sad to see my grandmother go. But it will be good for her to not be suffering anymore. The last time I saw her (this past Christmas), she was spending her days watching the clock, waiting for it to be bedtime. She had eliminated all things from her life that used to bring her joy - music, books, all of it - and believed it was too late to have any of those things anymore. She has been depressed and joyless and hopeless for four or five years, but also absolutely terrified to die. We think she has finally given up and decided that maybe death isn't so scary. And while nobody wants to see a family member die, nobody wants to watch them suffer like this, either. We will all be sad and we will all miss her terribly, but we will all be relieved for her, too.

I love you, Grandma.

I love you.

2011-03-01T10:31:00.002-06:00

You know, if I ever get to the point in my life where I am sharing my bed with another person on a regular basis, I feel kind of sorry for that person having to wake up next to me every morning and deal with my random dream-inspired ramblings like, "But I don't know what kind of cheese is in me" or "I'm not done downloading yet" as they try to get me out of bed. Whoever that person may be, I apologize in advance.

2011-02-15T13:29:00.002-06:00

Hi. Happy Tuesday.

I apologize, but I need to be whiny for a minute.

I know I have no real reason to be whiny, because when I sit back and take stock of the things in my life, I really have it pretty good. I have an amazing family and brilliant friends and a job that pays my rent and I'm basically healthy and I have a cat who brings me almost unspeakable joy and I managed to get Comic Con passes before they sold out and I am involved in a couple of shows at the moment, so all in all, I don't really have the right to complain. I know that. But I feel the need to complain anyway, and my friend in Texas agrees with me.

I need something big and mind-blowingly brilliant to happen to me. Soon. Or I'm gonna lose it.

I think at least part of my problem is that I have a tendency to dream big. I dream about making a living being an artist and about getting to work with my heroes and about meeting an absolutely wonderful man who I can share my life with. Big dreams. But the big stuff doesn't happen to me. I don't think I'm a big stuff kind of person. I don't think I'm the sort who would ultimately get cast in some film that will go on to garner seventeen Academy Award nominations. I am the sort who gets cast as a supporting character in a community theater production. Which is brilliant and lots of fun and I get to meet fun people and learn stuff. But when you're dreaming of Italy and you get to make your own spaghetti dinner at home instead, yes the spaghetti is tasty, but it's not quite what you were hoping for. And I feel like I've been hoping for a lot for a very long time and getting lots of little joys that are kind of Italy-adjacent, but they're not quite Italy.

I have no idea where this whole Italy thing came from. If anything, I'm fantasizing about a return trip to London.

So I think I have two choices in this situation - I can continue to dream big and constantly feel that my full potential has yet to be reached, or I can try to teach myself to dream smaller. So that when chocolate I can't eat arrives at my office courtesy of some vendor I work with, it's enough to make me feel acknowledged and appreciated. Instead of hoping my super secret admirer would send me flowers or vegan chocolates I can actually enjoy.

My friend thinks, though, that I'm due for something big, and I'd like to agree with her. I think it is about time my idol shows up at my door with a vegan cupcake so we can have a lovely chat and he can offer advice on how to further my artistic career. And then so I can give him a hug. Because I'm due. I'm due for something so amazing it blows my face off.

Of course, knowing me, I will be so incredibly grateful when said face-blowing-off incident occurs that I won't feel worthy of it and I'll probably screw it up. Like if the idol/cupcake thing happened, I'd probably forget to invite him in for a chat. Note to self: always invite your idol in for a chat.

Okay, I think I'm done for now. If you see me in real life and I'm snippy or less than my usual polite self, I apologize in advance. I'm feeling a bit trudged upon at the moment and it has nothing to do with you but it is making me a bit pissy. Sorry about that.

2011-02-01T11:06:00.002-06:00

Rabbit, rabbit, happy February!

Or happy blizzard, is more like it.

Yes, Chicago is due to be hit with a blizzard sometime around 3pm today. Forecasts are saying there could be up to two feet of snow by the time it ends tomorrow around 3pm. Plus winds and cold and general ickiness (I went to military school with General Ickiness - not a very pleasant fellow). And I have to admit, I'm kind of scared by it.

I'm not afraid of snow. Snow, in moderation, can be a very pretty thing that brings peace to the world. But two feet of snow when I have to be out and about in it is not fun. It makes travel difficult, it means an extra ten minutes of prep time to bundle up appropriately, it means you're dripping everywhere you go, parking is a nightmare, but the alternative is walking in the ick, or worse - taking the bus. I may have to take a bus. Where I live now, the train station is about a ten minute walk, so depending on how bad the sidewalks get, I may have to take a bus to get there. I don't take Chicago buses; I just don't. I don't like them and will avoid them at all costs. But I may have to take a bus. At the same time that the rest of the city is taking the bus, so it will not be a pleasant experience. It will be my nightmare of taking the bus, thus enforcing my position of avoiding the bus at all costs. And even then, there is no guarantee that the bus will be running any better than regular traffic and I might get places faster if I just walk there.

But yeah, it's the prospect of having to be out and about in the cold and the snow and the ick that is freaking me out. Will I still arrive at my destinations on time? How much earlier will I have to leave to allow for crowded trains? Once I'm able to dig my car out again, will the doors just plain fall off?

And perhaps worst of all, is all this panic for nothing? Chicago has a tendency to avoid the brunt of bad storms. I don't know if it is because of the extra heat generated by the city, but when the 'burbs get six inches of snow, we often get only two or three in the city. Will this be like that? Will all of this panic result in just a sprinkling? If so, and if they decide today that we should have a snow day tomorrow, will we still get a snow day?

It's kind of funny how freaked out people are about this. Even I can see that from my own panic. But honestly, I wish it would just start snowing already so it can be over with and we can figure out how to work around whatever sort of mess it all creates.

Be safe everyone, and stay warm.

2011-01-21T08:52:00.002-06:00

I don't normally like cantaloupe very much, but I will say that it is one of those flavors that once you have it in your mouth, the only thing that sounds good is to get more of it in your mouth, so I always end up eating more cantaloupe than I planned.

Sorry. My brain is a little off today. I've gotten about five hours of sleep every night this week, so my thought processes are kind of random. Don't get me wrong - I'm enjoying how I'm spending my evenings. It just makes for a really long week when you get up at 6:20am, leave the house by 7:05am, and don't get back there until midnight. And then do that again. For five days in a row. You get tired.

It's interesting to me to sit in on these rehearsals as an understudy. I'm getting an opportunity to see how an Equity show works, and how Equity actors work and it's really fun to just sort of sit back and watch that. It makes everything just a little less scary. And hearing them talk about various opportunities and problems and things that go along with being full time actors is also interesting. I think we all have this mental image of actors as the people in Hollywood who don't really have to audition anymore and they are shuttled off to exotic places to make brilliant films and then somebody dresses them up fancy so they look great when they pick up their Academy Award. But that's not how it is for the majority of actors. We still have to audition all of the time. ALL of the time. And even if you are offered an amazing gig, it might not be in your best interest to take it for insurance reasons or because it doesn't fill your union requirements or because it means you won't get paid for rehearsal time so you'll be without a paycheck for a month and a half before the money starts coming in. And, you can have an entire season booked as of July, so you know where you're going to be and when through the following July. Or you can not know what you're doing once your current show closes, so even though you're pulling in a nice check now, you have to be careful with it because you don't know when your next gig will happen.

I dunno. It's not a glamorous life. Nobody is an actor for the money. We're actors because we love it. Because we have no other choice in the matter. Because we love to learn and explore and play. Really, I think being an actor is about studying. You study your character and your time period and human emotion and human interactions and life all around you and then you do your damnedest to recreate the important bits on stage in front of (hopefully) a full house. But it's the studying and creation and the process that is really fun about it. Everything from preparing for the audition all the way up to keeping the closing night performance fresh. It's a process and it's brilliant and I love this opportunity to watch how other people work. It helps me focus on how I want to work. What kind of actor I want to be.

Anyway.

I've also started "working out" in the bathroom at work. When I take my breaks throughout the day, I've starting doing some squats or wall pushups or other various strength training exercises while I'm in there. So far, nobody has seen me do this, which is why I use the restroom to do it. But it struck me as rather a good idea. I'm home for about seven hours a day at the moment, five of which are spent sleeping, one spent trying to apologize to my cat for leaving him alone all day, a half hour spent taking the day off of me, and a half an hour spent prepping myself for the new day ahead. That doesn't leave much time for exercise. But I don't like being completely sedentary. So why not throw in a few exercises during the biggest sedentary part of my day? While I'm at work? It doesn't take very long when I split it up through the day - fifteen reps of an exercise on each trip to the ladies' room amounts to an extra minute and a half spent away from my desk? Something like that. But it makes me feel like I'm doing something, so that's good. And every little bit helps, right? Who says you have to do all of your squats, leg lifts, calf raises, and pushups in a row to get some sort of muscular benefit from them?

Anyway. That's what's going on with me. I'm working a lot, learning a lot, and trying to still take care of myself while I do it. And I know what my next show is after this one and how I want to walk in on the first day of rehearsal. I'll be a professional actor someday yet, I swear.

2011-01-17T15:50:00.002-06:00

Happy new year!

So honestly, I've been meaning to post something since about December 30, but I've just been to lazy to actually do it. I wanted to do the whole "year in review" thing and talk about how hard 2010 was for me, and I wanted to promise to say something nice about myself every day in 2011, and I wanted to talk about my frustration with my body at the moment, but none of that happened and here we are, seventeen days into January and I'm just now posting. This is going to be random. I'm telling you that up front in case you were looking for some hidden gem of the interweb or something.

I find myself kind of antsy lately. One of the reasons 2010 was difficult for me was due to a lack of creative outlets. Let me qualify that: yes, I can always play music in my living room; yes, I can always write; yes, I can always cook or bake or do a bunch of other things that many people consider creative outlets. I'm talking specifically about performing. I was all geared up to perform in 2010. After my bigger, more exciting plans fell through (and I wasn't really performing in anticipation of said plans), I set out to reinvent myself in the Chicago theater scene. Only to get called back for about a dozen shows, but not cast in any of them. And while it really is exciting to be called back (because that means they saw at least enough talent in you to want to see you again), it is almost infinitely frustrating to then not be cast in anything. ANYTHING. New plays, old plays, sketches, short plays, long plays, you name it. Yes, it is flattering to know that the directors liked me and saw something in me. But I then don't get to work on the actual project, which sucks. I like having projects to work on. And I know there are a million reasons why another actor was cast - they wanted someone taller or shorter or more blond or less blond or her eyes look better next to his eyes or whatever. A lot of it has nothing to do with my abilities. But to be good, and to know that I'm good, and not be working is hard. It's really friggin' hard. It's like the people out there pounding the pavement trying to get jobs that they are overqualified for, and they don't get those jobs because they are overqualified. Kind of. I'm not an "overqualified" actor - I don't think anyone ever gets to that point. But you know what I mean. I have the skills, I have the drive, I have the willingness to try things and learn and whatever, but I don't actually get a chance to show anyone that by working on a real project.

Which brings me to: I'm working on two projects now.

Which is exciting. I'm understudying a show on an Equity stage (I don't know if I get Equity points or not, but even if I don't, it's nice to be recognized by this company) and I was cast in a university production not too far from my house. Which is exciting. Both are exciting. They are very different roles in very different circumstances and I think both will be a lot of fun.

But it means I'm going to be insanely busy until about April. Which is good - I like being busy. But I've not been this busy in quite a while and that might take some adjusting. I had kind of gotten used to having a couple of nights a week to myself. I'm going to have to start actually taking care of myself so all of these late nights don't wind up killing me.

And the body issues thing - it's always there. It always will be. And there is part of me that would like to drop x number of pounds before we open, but there is a bigger part of me that knows that isn't going to happen. If I start obsessing about every little thing I eat right now and try to squeeze in three or four workouts a week when I'm running at full speed from 6:15am to 11:15pm, I'm going to make myself sick. So I think what I need to do is just be kind of mindful about it, do what I can, and most importantly, learn to love my shape just the way it is and be confident in it. There are plenty of actors larger than me who are consistently cast. And I am, by no stretch of the imagination, an ingenue. Women who are not the ingenue don't necessarily have to be lollipop girls.

Which brings me to my next point - I am not an ingenue. Yes, I still look like I'm in my mid-twenties (especially with my hair long like it is at the moment), but I am not an ingenue. I am strong and grounded and confident as a performer, which the characters played by ingenues seldom are. I, however, keep being cast (in class, and now in these two shows) as someone significantly older than I actually am - fifteen or twenty years older than I actually am. Which can be a little challenging because those types of women are typically in a different stage in their life than I am (i.e. I've not been married to the same man for twenty years and I have no kids), but it is also a little bit encouraging because it means that when my face finally catches up with the rest of me, there should be some good, juicy roles for me to play.

But it's still a little disappointing that I never got to be an ingenue.

But anyway, I'm busy again and that's good. And I have ideas for things to do in 2011 that I hope actually work out. So keep your fingers crossed that 2011 will be better than 2010!

2010-12-17T08:01:00.002-06:00

I had a dream last night that I met my current celebrity crush, and it was in the sort of setting where he was able to see me perform. And after the performance, a whole bunch of people were sitting around talking about artsy things, and he kept making a point of coming over to talk to me and standing really close, or if I was sitting, he would crouch down next to me so there was an excuse to put his hand on my knee and at one point, I sort of put my arm around him and started playing with his hair, so scared that it was inappropriate, but so not wanting to let this opportunity (if it was an opportunity) pass. And it was an opportunity.

So of course, my cat had to wake me up. Which is what he does at 4:30 in the morning. He's a cat and I'm a light sleeper. It's bound to happen. Nightly.

I very politely shut my cat out of my room and went back to sleep thinking about what a lovely dream it was I had just had and wouldn't it be nice if I could get back there for just a little bit? Because it had felt so nice to share some sort of physical contact with this person, and I could feel his attraction to me and it was...amazing. And I went back to sleep and got back into the same dream! But this time, I was sitting on a couch next to him in the same room we were previously in and some other dude came over to hit on me, so I inched over toward my crush who asked if I needed rescuing and I replied yes, and he rescued me. And I went to move away after the other dude left, but my crush once again found reasons to place his hand on my knee (in a very non-skeezy way) so I very embarrassed-ly told him that I had just had a dream wherein he was interested in me. In my dream, I told him that I had a dream about him. I don't remember his exact phrasing, but he let me know that it hadn't been a dream and that he was interested and I was so excited but so terrified at the same time. He got a little frustrated with my disbelief in the fact that he could be interested in me - he said he was blown away by my talent (he called it my "Henry V training"), essentially, which was the root of his attraction - so I decided to just go with it. Just accept it.

This was not a sex dream. No sex was had in this dream. It was a connection dream and a trust dream. And in my dream, I made the choice to trust this man's love for me and it was such a...relief.

In my class last night, I got to do my monologue twice. I actually asked to do it a second time because the first time was kind of chopped up and I wanted to try to get in one smooth, start to finish go at it. And in my second go, I could see the teachers out of the corner of my eyes wanting to jump in and do some side coaching, but I think I caught what they were going to say and I did it before they had to comment on it. I think. The second run through felt wonderful - I was hurt and vulnerable, but also strong and confident in my innocence. And when I was done, the male teacher jumped up and ran over to hug me. And pretty much as soon as he put his arms around me, I started sobbing. Uncontrollably. Which I don't do. I don't let people hold me when I cry. I want so badly for someone to hold me when I cry sometimes, but I never think to ask and then I get all embarrassed about the fact that I was crying in the first place and sometimes I'm such a mess when I cry that I'm afraid to let people see that, but in class, I just couldn't help it. I sobbed on this man. And the wonderful, beautiful teachers that they are, they let me. She came over and held me, too. And they told me I did a wonderful job, that I got the "But I love you and two days ago, you loved me" part of the monologue and it had great texture and things. It felt great. And it felt great to be held for a minute while I cried.

Which I think is why I had the dream about meeting my celebrity crush and just deciding to trust him. I survived having that sort of meltdown in front of a room full of people and they still loved me afterward. Perhaps even more because in this setting, to be able to do that is golden. So I had a dream wherein I let myself go there. And it was so lovely. Though admittedly, the combination of the two experiences has me feeling a little sad and lonely this morning.

The funny thing is, I had a dream once before wherein I just trusted in a relationship with a man, and shortly thereafter, I started dating a guy about whom I felt very strongly. He turned out to be a jackass, but still. I kind of have to wonder if this means someone amazing is coming my way and when we meet, I need to remember to stay open to it.

I hope I remember to stay open to it.

(And I secretly hope it turns out to be my celebrity crush, or someone who looks like him and also has an amazing personality, which I think my celebrity crush does, but as I've never actually met him, I don't know for sure.)

2010-12-15T12:52:00.002-06:00

Hi.

I need to vent for a minute, and it's really stupid and I know it's really stupid but it's bothering me today, which is also really stupid, and unless I rant about it for a minute, it won't stop bothering me, so here goes.

Eight and a half years ago, I became vegan. It was my choice to become vegan and to be honest, I did it because I realized I was judging an entire segment of the population without even really knowing much about it. So I thought I would give it a whirl for a year and see what happened. Turns out veganism works well for me. I love the food, I love the products. And it wasn't until afterward that this sense of calm at knowing nothing had to die so I can live kind of settled in. I don't dwell on that bit much, though. It's mostly that I like the lifestyle.

Thing is, I know that for a lot of people, veganism is weird. Let's face it, the human body was not designed to digest only plant matter, as is evidenced by our teeth and our inabilty to digest cellulose. I get that. And for a long time, I thought vegans were weird. And let's face it, a lot of them are. There are lots of vegans out there shouting about how cruel KFC is and reminding people that the burger they are eating came from an animal that is considered sacred in parts of the world and showing people videos of bunnies being skinned alive and things like that.

Thing is, I am not that person.

When I was transitioning to veganism, I talked to my mom about it and she felt it was important that we use the proper terminology - it's not that I can't eat something, it's that I choose not to eat certain things. Which I think is a very important distinction. I choose not to eat anything that comes from an animal. I choose not to use products that contain animal ingredients or that were tested on animals. Because to me, veganism is about not subjecting animals to human desires. They would not choose to be food or clothing or shampoo, so why should I ask them to become that when there are perfectly wonderful alternatives available?

But the important thing is that this is my choice. We all have choices in life and this is one of mine. And I know that just because this is my choice, that it doesn't have to be yours, too. I'm fine with that. And in my eight and a half years of being vegan, I think the only time I have made a disparaging comment about someone's non-vegan lifestyle was when I was defending myself against their attack on my vegan lifestyle. I freakin' went to a barbecue joint in Kansas City with my friends for the sake of being social where the only thing I could even consider eating was a pile of soggy French fries. I did not sit there making vomiting noises. I did not tell them they were gross for eating piles of meat. I did ask what the thrill of eating something called "burnt ends" was, because normally people don't like to eat burnt stuff, but I think that was about it. I did complain that the fries were soggy, which they were. And when we left, I went back to my room and ordered a salad. The next day when they went to another barbecue joint, I politely declined the invitation to go along. I could be wrong, but I don't think anyone on either side was offended.

Yet for some reason, there are some people in my life who think it is okay to make fun of me for this choice that I have made. Fortunately not the people who I am closest to (my close friends and family are actually really supportive and are happy to eat the vegan treats I make for them, and for that, I thank them), so I don't run into them that often, but it makes me sad that they are out there. I wonder if these same people make fun of people who keep Kosher. And while I know that everyone has the right to their opinion and they may have a different opinion of soy products than I do, I do have to wonder why they feel the need to share their negative opinions with me. In a pointed fashion. By pointing at what I'm eating and calling it icky or gross or weird. What other purpose could that comment possibly serve beyond trying to make me feel bad about my choice?

Granted, it may not be intentional. They may just be the sort of people who need to share their opinions on everything. Okay. If I let you know that I find your comments offensive, though, will you stop making them in my general direction? You are welcome to keep your opinions - I have heard them and made note. You don't have to tell me again.

It's possible that I'm being overly sensitive, too. With all of the stuff in the news lately about bullying, I have to admit that I do, from time to time, feel like I am bullied about my lifestyle choice. I'm not giving up my Star Wars thermos, though. I like being vegan and will continue to be vegan until I die (or some medical necessity (i.e. pregnancy) requires that I change). And in the meantime, all I ask is that since I don't walk around making disparaging remarks about other people's life choices, that you please extend the same courtesy to me. Please?

2010-12-10T13:37:00.002-06:00

I've posted on all of my other blogs today and this one was feeling kind of lonely, so I thought I should put something up here, too.

I would like to start this post by saying I sometimes think there is something wrong with me, but "wrong" usually implies "bad" and I don't know that this thing is necessarily "bad." I think it is probably "different" to a lot of other people I know, but I could also be wrong about that - this isn't something we talk about very much. So I'm just going to say that I feel the need to clarify something that may or may not be odd.

This was inspired, too, by a conversation (or piece of a conversation) I had with my classmates and a famous person last night. I was chatting to one of my classmates and mentioned that there was an actor I liked (though I don't quite remember how we got on him, because we were talking about a lot of actors last night, being actors ourselves and all) and the famous person was shocked that we liked this particular actor because the famous person had gone to school with the actor we like. I don't think his shock at our admiration was any sort of reflection on the actor's talents, but more a, "I know that guy and you're all gooey for him?" kind of a thing. But anyway. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Oh, I love this actor.
Famous Person: Him?
Me: No, Him.
FP: Yeah, Him. I graduated with Him.
Me: You seriously know Him?
FP: Yes.
Me: Would you give Him my number, please?
FP: He bats for the other team.

The thing is this, and this is maybe where I'm different to other people around me, but I don't care. I wasn't doing the "give him my number" bit because I'm hoping for a booty call at some point. This happens to be an actor who I quite enjoy and I think is adorable and I would love the opportunity to either get to work with him, or just tell him that I think he's a groovy actor. That's it. I wasn't even thinking about sex.

See, I get these crushes on people. Artists, mostly. Often times people I've never met. I call them Artist Crushes, to try to differentiate them from Crush Crushes. (Crush Crushes are the ones where you picture yourself spending the rest of your life sharing every moment of your existence with a certain person who makes you feel all tingly in the nether regions.) Artist Crushes are artists I like who I'd love to have a chat with. Seriously. Artists who make me want to be a better artist. Artists who I think would have interesting things to say if we were to sit down and just shoot the shit, so to speak. Not artists who I want to take home for a quick roll in the hay. I don't think that way. I just don't. The two artists I look up to most at the moment are both male and honestly, in my dream scenarios, I would sing a song with one of them and act with the other (or do both with both). I don't know them well enough to know if I would want to take them home. And because of this, it doesn't matter to me one bit if the artist is straight or gay or married or single or whatever. My desire to know/work with a person has nothing to do with anything romantic so sexual preferences and status should not factor in.

I guess it just kind of irked me because it was almost implying that I'm not allowed to talk to said actor, or I wouldn't want to talk to said actor anymore, or said actor wouldn't be interested in talking to me because he likes players with different equipment. Since when does one's sexual preference dictate what kind of friendships or even acquaintanceships he or she can have? But then I had to remember that not everybody thinks like I do and the phone number comment was probably perceived as an invitation.

Anyway. I just wanted to clarify. If I have an Artist Crush (and I have quite a few), I just think the person is a great artist and I'd like to meet them and/or work with them. It's nothing sexual.

Moving on. As I was leaving, I got to hug the famous person and it was a really nice hug. A real hug. Not one of those "Oh, I'll see you tomorrow so I'm going to politely wrap my arms around your shoulders for 2.6 seconds to give the appearance that I tolerate your existence but really I'd be fine with waving, too" kind of hugs. It was a strong hug with a bit of conversation involved. And famous person also prefers players with equipment other than mine, but that doesn't mean I can't hug my friend, does it? I don't think so. And yes, I have an Artist Crush on him, too.

And for the record, great hugs are just about the most wonderful thing in the world.

2010-12-03T08:14:00.002-06:00

We lost a legend last night. Ron Santo passed away at the age of 70 from complications related to bladder cancer.

In a way, we shouldn't be shocked. He battled health problems his entire life. But at the same time, he was so full of life that it is hard to imagine that he's not around anymore.

I never met Ron Santo. Everything I know about him, I know because of things I have read in the news or because of the documentary "This Old Cub," or because I listened to him call baseball games on the radio for years. So this post may not be 100% accurate. But it is how I felt about this man I never met, but who was such a large part of my life.

Every spring, the first spring training game that was broadcast on WGN Radio would bring tears to my eyes. Tears of joy that my boys were back and that all was right with the world. I loved listening to Pat and Ron - their voices brought peace to my heart. And as the seasons wore on, I loved them more and more. Ron teasing Pat for his horrible sweaters. Pat teasing Ron for washing his toupee in the dishwasher. These men knew baseball and loved baseball and helped us all love baseball, too. Ron's cries of "Oh, geez" and "Come on!" will be just as much remembered as his cries of "All right! Yes!" when the Cubs did something good. And when games got really bad, it was still fun to listen to Pat and Ron talk about everything but the game. They kept our spirits up as Cubs fans even when the Cubs were at their worst.

I loved the passion with which Ron Santo called games. He was a fan, first and foremost, and he loved the Cubs as much as the entire rest of the Cubs fan base combined. He took us through the ups and downs of the games and the seasons, feeling the same joys and disappointments as the rest of us. But he still loved the Cubs, no matter what, just like the rest of us.

From what I hear, he was a really great man, too. He was a husband and father and grandfather and he treasured his family. He did a lot of work with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (though he often forgot what the acronym "JDRF" stood for in his broadcasts), and he would take the time to talk to kids with diabetes, one-on-one about...whatever. He would take the time to talk to fans and it seemed like he was always grateful for the amazingly blessed life that he lived, even with all of the hardships he faced. He never let them bring him down.

I'm sure that he will be inducted into the Hall of Fame now, but I'm sad that he won't be around to see that. I'm sure his induction speech would have been grateful and humble and joyful - I would have liked to hear it. And it kills me that he never got to see the Cubs win the World Series. We got so close. He got so close in 1969, but it just didn't happen. He wanted it so badly, and worked so hard for it, and loved the game and his team so much, and it didn't happen in his lifetime and that's devastating.

I've only cried at the passing of two celebrities - Madeline Kahn and now Ron Santo. We'll miss you, Number 10. Thank you for all of the amazing, brilliant years you gave us.

2010-11-17T09:35:00.002-06:00

I had a dream last night that I gave birth. I remember giving birth in the dream, too, and thinking, "Wow, that didn't hurt as bad as I thought it was going to." But I also remember that for some reason, as I was pushing out my child, they had to give me an injection in my nether-regions, which was significantly less fun than actually pushing out my child. And it was a little boy. I have no idea where the father was, or where my family was, for that matter, in my dream. If this was real life, I know I would not have been in the delivery room alone with the doctors. And if this was real life, I would not have been left to my own devices after the birth of my child to go get a snack. But seeing as this was a dream and my mind is, well (let's be honest), kind of goofy, once the kid was born, I had to wander about and try to find something to eat. And all I could find was one of those newspaper stand type places like you find in airports or bus terminals and it must have been late at night because most of the wares were packed up. There weren't even any good magazines left to choose from. But I got a box of crackers or something and went to buy it, and it took me a long time to dig out the correct change. I groggily apologized to the clerk, saying, "Sorry, I just gave birth," as my excuse for why it was taking me so long to dig out a few pennies. She was then kind of excited and asked what the kid's name was, and I realized I didn't know yet. And that kind of bummed me out. But it was soon followed by the realization that I could name this child anything I wanted to (which is what leads me to believe that in my dream, I was a single mother. I didn't have to check in with the father to see if the name was okay with him). And I thought of a bunch of sort of bland names and finally ended up with Linus James - Linus because I love the name Linus and James because it was my grandfather's name. In my dream, I thought it was the name of both of my grandfathers, which made it kind of a no-brainer for the middle name, but in reality, it was just the name of one of my grandfathers. When I woke up, I found myself hoping the non-James side of the family wouldn't feel slighted that I hadn't used a name from that side of the family.

The really weird things about this dream are that:

a) I had a kid. I physically remember the labor I was in and getting that injection. I have no idea what was going on in reality while I was dreaming, but I remember giving birth;
b) I was a single mother. And beyond that, my family was absent. As I watch my family with my niece, I know there is no way in hell that my family wouldn't be there if I had a kid, and they would not leave me to my own devices to raise it alone, but in my dream, I knew I was on my own now with this kid; and
c) that the hospital let me/made me go out in search of food right after giving birth so I had to buy crackers at a newspaper stand.

And what is really strange about it is that I think all of these things were sparked by the fact that I spent two hours at the library looking up words and character descriptions and plot summaries and histories for "The Winter's Tale" by William Shakespeare.

I'm taking this beginning Shakespeare monologue class and they gave me a piece by Hermione (the queen) from "The Winter's Tale" to work on. In the monologue, she's on trial for adultery and treason (both of which she is innocent of) and she is threatened by death and comes back with, "I'm not afraid of dying, you dink, because you have already taken away from me everything that I love in this world, so put that in your pipe and smoke it and won't you feel stupid when you find out I'm innocent after you've killed me?" But in fancier language. So I went to bed with the image in mind of this queen giving birth to her daughter in prison ("the Child-bed privilege deny'd") and then having the baby taken away from her before she really even gets a chance to breast feed it. And it turned into a dream about me giving birth to a baby boy named Linus James all on my own and I had to leave him to go get a snack.

The brain is a funny thing, isn't it?

2010-11-08T16:02:00.002-06:00

So if you read my acting blog at all, you know I'm in a pretty good place right now as a performer. Not that I'm in anything at the moment, but that I trust myself and I understand raising the stakes and I've been auditioning well as of late. I have the confidence to be able to say I think I could hold my own if cast opposite just about anyone I am likely to be cast opposite at the moment, and that's a really good feeling.

The other thing I need to remember that goes along with that is that my performance abilities will be the same if I have a 24" waist, a 34" waist, or a 44" waist. My ability to create a character and bring her to life and infuse the given text with purpose and meaning has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT SIZE CLOTHING I WEAR. Nothing.

I saw an article about some actresses who found they were offered more roles when they changed their hair color, and you hear the stories about how when Jennifer Aniston first went to Hollywood weighing 140, they told her she had to drop 20-30 pounds before an agent would even meet with her. These things make me almost unspeakably sad. My talent has nothing to do with my hair color. My imagination has nothing to do with how much I ate today. I hope that someday, I am cast in something great because I am good at what I do, not because I managed to starve myself for six months to get down to a size two.

I am a good actor. Right now. I can walk into an audition, take over the space, take direction from the auditors, and deliver an engaging performance - enough that they want to see me do more. I have to trust that. And I hope that directors and public opinion will come around to see that, too.

Or I'll end up moving to England where they seem to cast more on talent than looks. (Seem to - I don't know for sure because all I've been able to see of British television is what they send over the pond.)

2010-11-03T12:47:00.005-05:00

I went to the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear over the weekend in Washington, DC, and I have to say, it was wonderful. It was encouraging to be surrounded by 200,000 people who were all just being cool and letting each other exist and have opinions and do their thing. So many of the signs were hysterical, and there was good conversation to be had. It was just...a really lovely day. I want to thank Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert for coming up with the whole thing, and their entire teams of people who put the event together in about a month. Well done, guys. Well done. I am so glad I was able to attend.

Part of the reason I was able to attend was because they organized these rally buses. Buses from all over the country that were scheduled to get to Washington at about 9am on the day of the rally, and leave at about 8pm that night. It was cheap, it meant I didn't have to spend anything extra on a place to stay, and it meant I didn't have to take any time away from work. Brilliant idea. And it also kind of made the whole thing feel more hippie-ish to me (which was a large part of the appeal). You see these movies wherein rallies happen back in the sixties and when it's over, people get back on the bus and go home. It's romantic somehow.

What they don't show you in those movies is what the actual bus ride is like.

I would like you to please keep in mind that the following story is true to the best of my recollection. And I do not intend this as any sort of commentary on the Rally or the rally buses or their organizers. This is a story about a jackass. The biggest jackass I have ever met and it needs to be told.

On Friday night, I showed up to the meeting spot to get on the bus. I saw one of my friends who was traveling with his sister and chatted with them for a bit. I asked if they would mind if I got on the same bus as them because my friend brought the good movies and, obviously, he is my friend. They said that was fine. It was around about this time that a very tall man standing behind me remarked, "It's not very sane to be a Cubs fan right now," when he saw I was holding a Cubs bag. We started talking about the Cubs and optimism and random small talk chit-chat and he seemed like a decent guy. As we started filing onto the bus, he asked if I was traveling alone. I replied that I knew my friend, but essentially, I was traveling alone. He asked if I wanted to sit together. I was hesitant - he was a very Large Man. Not obese, mind you, just large. Probably 6'5" or better, maybe 275 pounds? He was tall with broad shoulders and full around the middle. I knew that by sitting next to him, I was putting myself in the position of not having enough space to myself, but I figured I was most likely going to have to sit next to someone, so I agreed to sit next to him. I said I preferred the window; he said he preferred the aisle. I thought, "This could be okay."

I would like to take a brief moment to point out three things that you, the reader, should keep in the back of your mind as you read the rest of this story. First, the Large Man is a 49-year-old salesman from Sheboygan. I know this because he said he was going to poll the bus to see if he was the oldest person on it, and because he told me what he does for a living. He is a 49-year-old salesman from Sheboygan. Second, this was a brand new bus. The driver bought the bus and picked it up from the dealer the day before. We were the first group to ever ride this bus. And third, there were really only two rules on the rally bus - clean up after yourself and no alcohol. Not too hard to follow, right? Clean up after yourself is simple. And we're on an overnight bus for fourteen or so hours - most people want to sleep most of the way, so it shouldn't be too hard to not drink, right?

Maybe.

So, we were on the bus and I noticed that before we were even on the expressway, the Large Man was asking me the same exact questions that he had asked when we were standing on the sidewalk waiting for the bus. I also noticed that any time I pulled out my phone to see why it had buzzed at me, he would pull out his and call someone. I started to get nervous that maybe this trip wouldn't be okay. But then my friend made it known that he had DVDs and after reading off the titles, the bus decided to watch "Young Frankenstein." The Large Man did a little bit of flirting with me during the film, by saying the lines from the movie right before they were going to be said, or by saying the lines from the movie immediately after they were said, or by asking, "Has anyone ever told you you have a very cute, unique laugh?" "Yes, they have," I replied. Because they have. And I didn't feel like flirting. And at some point in all of this, he informed me that he had a bottle of vodka in his bag and offered me a drink. "No," I replied because really, who wants to be drunk on a bus for fifteen hours? Sounds miserable to me. He then got up and took his backpack with him to visit the restroom at the back of the bus.

When the movie was over and the bus made a stop so we could stretch our legs and whatnot, he started talking to me about music. His current favorite artist seems to be the woman who did a bunch of songs on the "Juno" soundtrack. I've not seen "Juno." I don't really want to see "Juno." When something is hyped up that much, it usually just turns me off. But he insisted that this is great music and pulled out his smartphone to play me a song. I have to admit, I was grumpy already when I listened to it and I didn't want to stick his earbuds all the way into my ears because lord knows where they have been, so it is possible that under other circumstances, I would have liked the song more. Or it is possible that since I had Mumford and Sons songs stuck in my head for the previous 24 hours that I wasn't really in the mood for singer/songwriter stuff plunked out on a child's toy piano at the time. Either way, I told him I found the song to be "meh," which was apparently exactly the wrong answer and he flew to the songwriter's defense. We eventually had to agree to disagree about the song. He asked if he could play me another to try to persuade me she was the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I replied that "Shaun of the Dead" was starting and I would really like to watch it. Yes, I've seen "Shaun of the Dead" a million times, but I love me some Simon Pegg.

Throughout the movie, the Large Man made several more trips to the restroom with his backpack and each time he returned to his seat, he smelled worse and slurred his speech more. To the point where my friend and his sister sitting in the row in front of us could smell him.

I think it was at the second rest stop, we both got off the bus, but I got back on before the Large Man. When I got back to our seat, I noticed that it was a disaster. The Large Man had brought snacks like Chex Mix and that bar mix that has the wasabi peas in it and had managed to drop quite a bit of it on the floor, which was then stepped on and in some cases, ground into the carpet. On a brand new bus. Where I was also sitting. I pointed this out to my friend and his sister and my friend thought we should let the bus captain know what was going on, so he did. The bus captain came back to talk to me. I told him I hadn't previously known the Large Man and I felt bad about the mess, but that yes, he was messy and was sneaking back to the bathroom to drink. When the Large Man got back on the bus, the bus captain asked him to pick up the mess around his seat a bit. The Large Man sat down with obviously no intention of cleaning up. The bus captain brought him a plastic bag he could put the trash in. The Large Man picked up a few crumbs, put them in the garbage bag, crumpled the garbage bag and threw it on the floor.

I felt horrible. Not only was this brand new bus a mess already, but I felt like the Large Man was now looking at me like I was a narc. I put on my iPod so I could try to avoid having to talk to him. He was not deterred. When I pretended to not hear him, he tapped me. I took out one earbud and said, "I can't hear you; I'm listening to music right now." He offered me another song by the "Juno" woman. I politely declined.

More trips were made to the bathroom.

Finally, it looked like people were going to try to get some sleep. I put my pillow against the window and leaned my head on it. Now, I know that the Large Man is a large man and as such, he was probably very uncomfortable trying to sit in the small-ish seats on the bus. I, however, like my personal space and don't necessarily like it when drunk people I've only known for three hours fall asleep on me. As it was, I was squished up against the window, just about as far over toward the window as I could get, and his entire leg was touching mine, and his back was resting on my shoulder. So I did the squirmy thing to get him off of me. Which he did...for about a minute and then he'd be back sleeping on me again. So I'd shove him off again and he'd come right back. I took a look at one point at where I was positioned and realized that he was reaching over half of my seat in order to lean on me. I had paid just as much as anyone else for a seat on the bus and as such, I felt entitled to a seat on the bus. A whole seat on the bus. I'm good at staying within my allotted seat space. And he was eating up his whole seat and half of mine. This started to piss me off. At least once, I shoved him off of me hard enough that he woke up. I asked him to please move over. He would for a minute, and then he'd be right back where he started. He would also occasionally sit up very quickly, smashing his leg into mine, rest his head on the seat in front of him (no doubt irritating my friend who was sitting there) and breathe very heavily. Then he would flop back again, his shoulder smashing into mine.

Needless to say, I did not sleep much on the bus on the way out there. When we stopped in Toledo, he asked me three times if we were in Ohio yet. Each time, I pointed to the large sign that was immediately outside our window that said "Toledo." He then asked me where Toledo was situated within Ohio. I told him I didn't know. Which would prompt him to ask again if we were in Ohio.

We finally got to Washington at about 11am on Saturday, and the rally was fun. A lot of fun like I said before, in large part because the Large Man was nowhere to be found.

The bus was supposed to leave Washington at 8:00pm, so I made sure to be back on the bus by about 7:30. A few people had done some seat shuffling, which sent other people into a panic when they got on the bus to find their seats taken. I tried to offer them the seat next to me so that the Large Man would be displaced. I also tried sending messages out to the universe that would prohibit the Large Man from getting back to the bus on time so that we would be forced to leave without him. I think the universe got confused because there was a passenger who did not make it back to the bus by 8, but it was not the Large Man. He reappeared on the scene in different clothes at 7:55pm and plunked down next to me. I could tell by his aroma that he had spent the time since the rally ended at 3 in a bar drinking. And he started asking me very loudly how I had passed the time since the rally and what I thought of the rally and whatnot. Which would have been okay, but the bus captain was trying to take a roll call to determine which passenger was missing so he could try to call them. "The bus captain is talking now and needs to be heard," I said. He was quiet for a minute and then asked me very loudly again what I had been doing. "The bus captain is talking now and people need to hear him." I felt like I was babysitting a three year old. The missing passenger was identified, called, and texted, and after an additional twenty minutes of waiting for a response from her, we had to leave anyway.

"Large Man," I said (though I used his real name because it would have been rude to call him "Large Man" to his face), "can I ask you a favor?"

"Yeah, what's up?"

"The whole way out here, I felt very cramped, like I was being smushed up against the window because you were sleeping on me. I paid for a seat on the bus and I would like to be able to use my whole seat without you sitting in it, too."

"I'm sorry, I didn't even know I was doing that. You know what? If I do that, you should just hit me or something."

"I did. I tried several times to ask you to move over and you kept sleeping on me. It made me very uncomfortable."

"I have no recollection of that."

"Well, if you could just be aware. I don't mean to be nit-picky, but..."

"No, thank you for telling me. And if I do that, you should just hit me or something."

I was actually a little bit proud of myself for that conversation. I stood up for myself. I asked for what I needed in a calm, mostly polite fashion. I thought, "Maybe the trip home will be better than the trip out here." My friend put in "Airplane" at the request of our fellow passengers and we were off.

Within just a couple of minutes, the Large Man was taking over my space again, so I pointed it out to him. "Large Man, when you are leaning on me like this, it makes me uncomfortable."

"I'm leaning on you?"

"Your entire leg is touching mine."

"I can't even feel that."

"Maybe it is the stuff in your pocket?" He moved the stuff from his pocket. "Thank you. If you could just try to be aware of when you're touching me..."

He started saying the lines from the movie right before they were about to happen. He also pulled out his snacks again and started eating very loudly, dropping as much on the floor as went in his mouth.

When the movie ended, the bus captain encouraged us all to try to get some sleep, or at least to be quiet so that our fellow passengers could sleep. The Large Man was already passed out, his head tilted back on the head rest, mouth open, snoring, and halfway on my chair. So I hit him. "Large Man, would you please move over?"

"Which way?"

"That way. Away from me."

"Is it really that big of a deal?" And he promptly fell asleep on me again. I wanted to scream at him that I found him to be absolutely repulsive and therefore, yes, it was a big deal. I did not want him touching me. I fantasized about screaming on the bus, "Stop touching me!" in the hopes it would sound like something much more inappropriate than it was and some good Samaritan on the bus with an empty seat next to him/her would fly to my aid and let me switch. Or kick him off of the bus. But instead, I flailed violently every time he touched me to try to get him to stop, and I smashed into him a few times trying to reclaim my seat back space. Eventually, he stopped moving away. I squished myself up against the window as far as I could go so I wouldn't have to touch this odious man - I could feel his stink penetrating my jeans where his leg touched mine. And then, I felt him make a conscious effort to move over closer to me so he would continue to be touching my arm. He was trying to piss me off now.

(I would like to mention as an aside that my friend offered to switch seats with me several times, which was very sweet of him. I didn't want to subject my friend to this guy, either, which is why I didn't take him up on it. Somehow, I would have preferred he go sit next to someone I didn't know so I wouldn't have to think about it anymore. Had my friend sat next to him, I would have felt guilty that my friend had a horrible trip. So thank you to my friend for offering, and thanks to both you and your sister for listening to me bitch about this guy the whole way there and the whole way back. You were the bright spot of the ride for me.)

We finally made it to the first rest stop. Yes, the first rest stop. This decline into drunken juvenile behavior all happened in the first hour and a half of the trip home. I waited for Gigantor to get off of the bus first, and then turned around to ask anyone who might be awake behind me if they knew of any empty seats. The guy who had been sitting next to the woman we left behind said he didn't know if there were any. Thank you, Sir Galahad. I got off the bus and went inside. When I came back out, I found the bus captain and told him that Gigantor was still drinking, still making a mess, and was now being intentionally disrespectful of my personal space. I asked if he knew of any empty seats I could take and he said he was sure there were a couple. The woman sitting across the aisle had two seats to herself, for example. I remarked that I would prefer to sit farther away from Gigantor than just across the aisle, but if that was my choice, that was my choice. I asked the woman in question if I could occupy the empty seat and she agreed. No biggie.

I then went to talk to my friend and his sister. Gigantor came over and asked my friend if he had "Sex Lies and Videotape" or "Pulp Fiction" with him. My friend replied that he didn't bring those movies in case there were children on the bus.

"There aren't any kids on the bus," Gigantor replied.

"Yes, there are. There is a kid in the front row," said my friend.

"So are you going to play another movie? You should put on 'Sex Lies and Videotape,' or 'Pulp Fiction.'"

"I'm not playing anymore movies. People want to sleep."

"Why aren't you going to play another movie?"

My friend, his sister, and I figured that the best way to end this conversation was to just go inside.

A few minutes later, we went back out to get back on the bus. Gigantor was already in his seat and when he saw me coming, he got up to let me in to my spot by the window. I reached across, took my water bottle and pillow, and sat next to the woman across the aisle. I gave him back his backpack and book, which he was storing in her empty space that was now my seat. She and I started talking about the rally and her kids and other random things. He pulled out his cell phone to call someone at 11:30 at night to tell them we were about half-way home (we were in Maryland) and he was on the bus and couldn't they see him on the bus? and he waved. I don't know who he was waving to, but we're all guessing that there wasn't anyone on the other end of that very loud phone call.

All in all, I don't think Gigantor was too broken up about having two seats to himself now. He kicked off his shoes which stunk up the bus. He managed to cover both seats and the floor under both seats with a nice layer of trash, which must have made him feel right at home. There was stuff under his seat that I don't even know where it came from - napkins, bottle caps, one of those straws that you use to stir coffee even though I never saw him drink coffee. And he would lie down on his back across both seats, with his legs in the aisle and his feet UNDER MY FEET. It wasn't enough that I had asked politely and not-so-politely for him to stop touching me. It wasn't enough that I had moved seats to get away from him. His feet were still occupying my space. And he kicked me no less than six times on the remainder of the journey. SIX TIMES. I kicked him back a time or two. He would then sit up, splay his legs, rest his head on the seat in front of him (no doubt waking my friend who was sitting there), and either breathe loudly or eat loudly. He made another trip or two to the restroom with his backpack, and when he came back, he made sure to sit down in such a way as to allow his butt to smack me in the shoulder. Needless to say, I didn't sleep on the way home, either.

When we got to the last rest stop before getting back into Chicago, the woman sitting behind what used to be my seat reached over the seat, tapped Gigantor, and asked, "Did you spill your water bottle or something? Because my feet are soaked." Upon further examination, we're pretty sure it wasn't water. But he spilled something THROUGH THE SEAT so that it soaked her feet below it. She had to throw her socks away. He denied spilling anything, and went bumbling into the rest stop, sans shoes, to get more Chex Mix or something. I took pictures of the carnage that was his seat.

We finally made it back to Chicago and I got off of the bus as quickly as I could. If I never see that man again, it will be too soon.

But it makes me wonder, how does a person get to be 49-years-old and have absolutely no sense of self-awareness? How could he not feel it when he was resting on me? How could he not have figured out yet that this is inappropriate behavior for a bus with fifty-some-odd people on it? How can he not know that when a woman asks you repeatedly to stop touching her, she means it? How is it that he hasn't figured out yet that when you are in a semi-confined space with fifty other people, you sometimes have to sacrifice a bit of your own personal comfort for the sake of the people around you? And how did this guy think that a Rally to Restore Sanity was the right place for him, seeing as he is clearly insane? Or at the very least, a raging alcoholic.

So my romantic notion of the bus to the hippie rally was rather squashed. My desire to only take road trips in the privacy of my own car was rekindled. And while my sanity was restored by the rally, I found out that I am incredibly intolerant of inconsiderate slobs with the maturity level of a three-year-old (no offense to the three-year-olds out there).

And I do have to wonder how it is that I attract these sorts of people so I can stop doing that.

2010-11-03T00:06:00.002-05:00

I know that I don't know a lot about politics. I know that I don't stay as current as I could or probably should about a lot of it. Thing is, I like not having to pay attention. I like feeling like my country is doing okay and I don't have to get all up in arms about the day-to-day. I am blissful in my ignorance a lot of the time. Which may make the next bit I am about to say sound stupid and ignorant and un-thought-out, but it is my opinion and last I checked, I am allowed to not only have an opinion, but to express it as well.

The current state of our nation is not the fault of the Obama administration alone.

The problems we are currently facing go back many years, through the Bush administration, through the Clinton administration, and in some cases, through the other Bush administration as well. They are the result of lots of bad decisions that came from both sides of the aisle. There is no single person at fault for all of it - these crises took a lot of people working together (or in many cases, not working together) to happen.

And then Obama gets elected under the pretense that he will change things and try to clean up the mistakes from the past 8-20 years. And Democrats gain control in the House and the Senate because people are, frankly, sick of this shit and want something else. And over half of the country is overjoyed to have Obama in office, and I think, rightfully so. The Republicans, though, want nothing to do with him and sit in the corner having a snit, covering their ears and singing "la la la I can't hear you la la la" because they're sore losers.

I'm not saying the Republicans don't have the right to be upset that they lost control. But it seems to me that in many cases, they did everything in their power to stop Obama from accomplishing anything by just flat out rejecting anything he said without even really listening to it. They figure if they keep the "But where was he REALLY born?" thing alive, or throw around words like "socialist" and "fascist" and "communist" willy-nilly, then the majority of America will pay more attention to questioning Obama's credentials than they will to the fact that Republicans are blatantly standing in the way of compromise and progress. They're standing in the corner plugging their ears and holding their breath, waiting for mom to cave in and say they can leave the table without finishing their peas because mom has realized she just can't get through to them.

Look at how many filibusters have happened in the last two years (on both sides of the aisle, but Republicans used it more). Look at how much fear-talk has made it onto the news (supposed death panels and whatnot). Am I the only one who thinks this is ridiculous?

Republicans were in control for eight years and drove this country into the ground. They lost control and spent two years stirring up as much fear and resentment as they could so they could get control back instead of actually trying to fix the country. And you know what? It worked. Republicans have control in the House again. And I could be completely wrong and I could be talking out of my ass because I don't know the real story, but it pisses me off. Republicans had eight years to screw up this country, and because Democrats haven't been able to fix it all completely in two years, Democrats are the ineffective ones.

The Obama administration has done a lot in two years. A lot. No, the country was not magically restored in two years' time, but he never said that change would happen overnight. And a lot of the things he said he would do, he has done in such a way that most people haven't even noticed. If you want the not-safe-for-work list of what he's done, go
I'm stopping now because I'm sure I sound whiny and ignorant. I'm just disappointed. I'm disappointed that Democrats aren't given more of an opportunity to try to fix things. I'm disappointed that the Republicans in office refuse to cooperate when they can't have their way. I'm not saying Democrats are perfect, and I know they are to blame for some of the mistakes made in the past twenty years, but I'm still kind of reeling from the Bush administration and am afraid to see the country head back that way. I could be wrong. Maybe everything will be great. Today, though, I don't feel good about it.

2010-10-15T13:37:00.003-05:00

This post is probably going to be too much information, but oh well.

I am in the middle of trying to ride my exercise bike for 1000 miles in pursuit of a better butt. I have one friend (female) who says I have a pretty darn good butt to begin with, but I think we all know my stance that it is larger than I would like it to be. It is a decent shape at the moment - more curvy than blob-ish - but in my opinion, it could still use some work. My cycling friend says it takes 1000 miles to get a cyclist butt, so I'm going to try riding 1000 miles in the hopes of getting said cyclist butt.

I am about 92 miles in. Not as far as I had hoped to be by now, but I have motivation problems from time to time. Though in my own defense, how many of you have ridden almost 100 miles on your bikes in the last month? Probably more than I want to think about, but in my mind, you are all sedentary so my little bit of effort puts me in the "above average" category. I need that to keep going, even if it's not true.

But the really irritating part about it is that the seat of my exercise bike is not horribly comfortable. As in, if I ride two days in a row, I can feel it. That spot right where the butt joins the leg, kind of on the inside of the leg, right in a spot where you don't want to have to think about it and you certainly can't go up to your friends and point to it and say, "It hurts right here." But it hurts. Right there. Almost like I need to develop callouses or something. Which is irritating because I'd like to be able to ride two days and take a day off and ride two days and so on, but if there is pain involved, I tend to not ride. Crazy me. And I don't really want to develop callouses there. Callouses there would automatically remove me from the "better butt" category.

Anyway. That's what is irritating me today. It hurts. Right there.

2010-10-13T09:31:00.002-05:00

I have a gray hair and I love it. I was a bit mesmerized by it on my way in to work this morning. It comes from somewhere behind my left ear and if you weren't looking for it, you probably wouldn't find it. But it is there. All by itself. I was trying to see if the texture of my gray hair was significantly different from the texture of my non-gray hairs, but it's kind of hard to tell with such a small sample size. See, I have (as my mother puts it) one of the all time great heads of hair. I really do. It is crazy soft and catches sunlight really nicely and I have a lot of it and it holds a curl well and I have this idea in my head that when I go gray, I will go silver like my great aunts and how beautiful will that be! My super soft, silky hair in a sparkling silver color. But I know that when hair goes gray, it can change in texture and become more coarse, which could get in the way of my dreams of being an absolutely stunning older lady, so I was trying to test the texture, but I can't tell quite yet. In any case, I have a gray hair and I love it. I almost wish the rest of my hair would turn so I could see what it looks like. If I don't like it, I can always put color back in. But trying to get the color out so it is silver isn't something my stylist can do. Trust me. I've asked.

And it's also rainy today, but in that comfy "I should be at home curled up in a chair with cocoa and my cat and a good book" kind of a way. On Saturday, for probably the first time, as I was clearing my breakfast dishes, I felt like my new apartment is my home. And today with the rain, I am fantasizing about being in my home, all snuggly and warm.

And I'm also wearing one of my favorite outfits today, so there's something else to feel good about.

For a Wednesday, today isn't starting out too badly.

2010-10-08T11:14:00.002-05:00

I cut my wrist yesterday.

NOT WHAT YOU ARE THINKING! I promise, it was totally innocent and completely accidental.

I got home after picking up my car and went to go in through the back door, only to remember that I had latched the hook and eye latch on my back screen door. Apparently, the guy who lived there before me used to do this a lot, too, because he cut a hole in the screen just big enough to reach through and undo the latch. The latch was a little stuck, though, and when I finally pushed up with enough force to undo it, the screen scratched up my wrist. Not knowing what kind of whatever might be on the screen, I went inside and washed the scrape a lot and then put Neosporin and a band-aid on it to try to keep it from getting infected. I re-bandaged it (with more Neosporin) this morning after my shower. And now I feel a little silly walking around with a bandage on my wrist, covering up a nice, long scratch. This was not a cry for help, people. This was me being too lazy to go outside, walk around the building, and go in the front door.

I am a little concerned about what was on the screen, though, 'cuz the scratch kind of hurts.

On the up side, I got my car back and the driver's side door opens and closes like anything. Hooray! I can go back to my usual blissful ignorance about how my car works and just drive it for a while. Grocery store, here I come!

2010-10-07T13:49:00.002-05:00

So I moved into a new apartment just over a month ago and for the most part, I love it. Last night, I stood in the middle of my kitchen and twirled around with my arms stretched out just because I can. But anyway.

My car is in the shop getting new hinges put on the driver's side door so hopefully it won't fall off again. Why it takes three days to do this repair, I'm not exactly sure, but it does, so I am without a car for three days (starting yesterday - I should hopefully get it back tomorrow). Which means I have to take the train to work.

In my old apartment, I was about a block away from the train station. Super crazy convenient, but still far enough away that "train noise" wasn't a big part of my life. In my new place, I am about a half mile away from the train station. Still pretty convenient, and my new train station is farther along the line than my old station, so basically, I had no idea how long it was going to take me to get to work on the train yesterday morning. I got up a little early and hurried out the door by 6:54am. I just barely missed the 7:03 train and jumped on the 7:08 train instead. Got off at my stop around 7:30, walked into the office by 7:42. The same time I normally get in when I drive. Nobody at work would have known I had taken the train if I hadn't told them (which I don't think I did 'cuz it's really not important). And this morning, I was in the same basic pattern, but I left my house at 6:58, got the 7:07 train, and walked into my office at 7:44am. Train schedules in Chicago are not exact.

I have a coworker who takes the train every day - he does not own a car. And just about every day, he comes in somewhere between 9:10 and 9:25am. His day is supposed to start at 9. (He knows when he wakes up in the morning how long it will take him to get to work (approximately), yet he is late four out of five days a week.) My day is supposed to start at 8. We're both supposed to stay until 5.

Does this strike anyone else as lopsided?

It strikes me as lopsided. So I started leaving around 4:45. If I walk into the office at 7:45, I think I'm within my rights to leave at 4:45 - that's nine hours I spent at work. The funny thing is, when I started leaving nine hours after I showed up, my coworker started showing up later and later. And one day, I stayed until just after 5 because I had a lot to do, which means I got to see him leave at 4:56. He got in at 9:25 that morning and left at 4:56pm. That's about seven and a half hours, compared to my nine plus.

Please note that I have nothing against this coworker as a person. He is a very nice person. The only reason this is even an issue for me is we have very similar job titles, which would seem to merit similar treatment in the workplace, but very obviously does not in this particular case. And I also bring this up as a sort of tip for employers - if you have two employees with similar job titles and/or descriptions who are treated in a significantly different manner from one another, you are, essentially, telling the one employee that his or her time or work obligations are not as important as the other person's. And to continue to let it happen, even when made aware of the situation, reinforces the one employee's belief that you really just don't care.

Just a tip.

2010-10-07T09:45:00.002-05:00

I've been grumpy and feeling lost and I'm kind of tired of it, so I'm trying a few things to give myself the old kick in the pants (so to speak) and get my butt motivated to, well, improve my butt.

You'll notice that I've changed the layout of this blog. I think it was time to brighten it up and make it...happier. The dark thing with dots was a dark thing with dots. Now I have dandelions and it looks like nature, but without being pretentious about nature. At least that's what struck me about this template. It looks like fun nature. So that's one thing.

I signed back up for the nutrition and fitness tracker I used last year to lose about 14 pounds. I've put just about all of the weight back on (though it came back on differently than I lost it, so my old "fat clothes" don't fit right either and I'm kind of annoyed that none of my clothes are flattering on me at the moment) and that has made me grumpy. I do love to eat cupcakes. And I don't want to spend the rest of my life obsessing about whether or not it's okay to eat 13 grapes instead of my usual 12. But I know I'm overeating and I know it's not all healthy stuff and I know that puts me in a mood. So since I'm ready to get out of the mood, I'm going to try to do something about it again. Eat healthier. More exercise. A better butt in 2011.

I want to blog more. I am realizing that I kind of miss this. It's a good creative exercise for me. I think I got a little scared of it because there were a few posts that I wrote that offended people. I understand that. Those posts were, however, written in a very dark place out of a need to get that out of me (or maybe as a cry for help) and the fact that people got offended by my unhappiness is a little upsetting. Makes me not want to share. But this really is my blog. My place to say the things on my mind. If you find it offensive, you don't have to read it. I need to write it, though, and I need to be able to express myself here without fear of pissing someone off. I know the pissing off will happen, but I need to write anyway, if that makes sense.

Which brings me to "The Social Network" and "Catfish." I saw both of them in the same day, back to back. I was a little surprised at how much I related to this portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg. It was kind of one of those "dork does something to try to stop being a dork, but despite his success, he's still essentially the same person and therefore, still a dork" things. Like when I was little and I would go to other girls' birthday parties, I would see the guests fight over who got to sit next to the birthday girl and whose present she should open first and blah blah blah blah. They all made a fuss. At my birthday parties, my friends did not fuss over who got to sit next to me or whose present I should open first. They just didn't. I don't know if it was my friends or if it was me. I remember thinking every year that I should invite an odd number of people to my birthday parties so that including me, there would be an even number of people there, hopefully ensuring that I would have someone to talk to. It's sad that an eight year old would think that way, but I did. And I feel like I have done many things to put myself out there and become more sociable and more approachable than I was when I was eight, but I don't know that I will ever be the sort of person who gets fussed over. So I kind of felt for Zuckerberg in that respect.

But the big thing I took away from these two movies is that a person's online persona can be anything and you often have to be careful what sort of relationships you start with the people you meet on the web. And I started to wonder about my own online persona. I don't think I have tried to present myself as anything other than what I am, but it is possible that I am seen as something different. When I write these posts, I write them in my voice. When you read them, you read them in your voice. Something I intended as sarcastic and funny might be read as bitter and harsh. Such is the nature of online communication. But it does make me want to cut some people some slack. People who I know largely through their online communications. What I know of them is what was running through their heads for five minutes on a random Tuesday. I don't know what the rest of their Tuesday was like because I wasn't there. I don't know how much editing went into the post or if was totally stream of consciousness. Just because I read someone's blog does not mean I know what is going on with them in their life. Just like you, my dear readers, I love that you come here and read my brain droppings, but they are selective tidbits. I hate to say it, but you don't know the whole story. I love it that you read - please continue to do so. But reading my blog doesn't mean you know what's going on in my life.

That sounds mean. I don't mean to be mean. It was just something I was thinking about after watching those two movies.

But anyway, back to getting healthy.

I am going to get back on my exercise bike.
I am going to go on my adventure that I've been meaning to go on for a week and a half now.
I am going to cook more.
I am going to eat better.
I am going to say one nice thing about me to me every day.
I am going to do one thing every day to try to further my artistic career.
I am going to do my best to not let the little things get to me.

And in the immediate future, I'm going to get some more tea.

2010-10-05T14:02:00.002-05:00

So I have some thoughts on suffering, largely because I read an article about the failed Times Square bomber who was sentenced to life and he said that he was defending himself in the name of the suffering of his people, or some such thing. Which made me wonder if there is a people on this planet who have not suffered. At all. Over anything.

Jews have suffered. Muslims have suffered. Africans have suffered. Europeans have suffered. Asians have suffered. Native Americans have suffered. Central Americans have suffered. Pagans have suffered. Christians have suffered. Women have suffered. Men have suffered. Children have suffered. South Americans have suffered. Hell, the Mayans and Incas suffered so much they don't exist anymore.

I know I'm being kind of blase about this, and I don't mean to compare the suffering of one people to the suffering of another. All I'm saying is that pretty much everyone has suffered because of something. So is it really fair to go blow up a city block because your people suffered? Guess what? I will bet you dollars to donuts that if he had been successful in blowing up Times Square, he would have killed a half-dozen Muslim people, at least. Because New York is a very diverse city. So the way he decides to get retribution for his people who have suffered is to kill them? His own people? Who suffered? Yes, others would die, too, but really? Who makes that leap of logic? It is also possible that walking through Times Square that morning would have been a lawyer who was fighting for the right to build a community center with a room in which Muslims could pray two blocks away from ground zero (or some such similar situation, because the community center thing wasn't on the table yet when he did his attempted bombing, I don't think, but there are always human rights groups lawyers running around, right?). So in addition to killing his own people to get retribution for the suffering of his own people, he would be killing his friends.

Really?

Really?

Is this the best you can come up with?

I understand pain, believe me, I do. Maybe not the same pain as that guy (who was living a very nice life in Connecticut before he went and trained with the Taliban who paid him nice sums of money and provided him with the tools he would need to carry out his plots), or as the Islamic nation, or as the homeless guy I walked past at lunch. But there has been pain in my life. Trust me on that. But never once have I wanted to kill my family or friends because of it. Never once has that pain made me think, "you know what, I've suffered so I think I need to go make other people suffer, too." I don't understand that. I just plain don't understand that line of thinking. In fact, when I'm having those self-pitying days or those curled-up-in-a-ball-sobbing-uncontrollably-wishing-it-would-all-just-be-over days where I might start to feel destructive, I stop and think about how my actions might hurt someone else, who is maybe already having a bad day, and how they really don't deserve that and maybe I should call them to see if they are having a bad day and if they are, I should lend a sympathetic ear but then I don't 'cuz I wouldn't be a very good conversationalist right now and then I feel guilty for not being a better friend and I decide to eat ice cream. Not to blow up a city block.

How about instead of "can't we all just get along," we say, "can't we all recognize the fact that humans have a rather sordid history and while I don't necessarily agree with your ideology, and you probably don't agree with mine, you, personally, seem like a very nice person and you have never held me captive in a bamboo pen and poked stinging nettles into my eyes, so let's just call it a day, huh?"

A little harder to put on a rally sign, but I think you get the point.

2010-09-23T09:14:00.002-05:00

So I think I have decided how I would like to get married, if I ever get married. I see my future husband and I, in all of our finery, sneaking off to the mall in Central Park, New York, with an officiant of some sort (perhaps one of our friends) and we exchange vows on a fall morning with the joggers running by and nannies out taking the dog for a walk while the kids are at school. On a Tuesday or something. Just a completely ordinary day for the rest of the world, where we get to sneak in on the beauty of everyday life and share a moment together.

There can be a party later so people can celebrate with us, and that can be as big or as small as our families and friends dictate it should be. That part can be for them. The vow part can be for us.

2010-09-20T21:07:00.002-05:00

I'm not a hotel connoisseur by any stretch of the imagination. I don't stay in them enough to really speak intelligently about what is good and what is not. But I am a person who has lived by herself for about ten years, so I do know how some living spaces should work and what is convenient and what is not and while I know I can be odd, I don't necessarily think that most of the big things I look for in a living space are that off the wall.

For example.

I'm at this trade show type thing in New York and we're staying in a boutique hotel on the upper west side (or it could be midtown west, we're right on the border), and you would think that for the kind of place that normally charges upward of three or four hundred dollars a night, you would get a top sheet on your bed. Not my bed. The bed in my room at this hotel has a bottom sheet and a comforter. And a little blanket draped across the foot of the bed that I don't know if it is big enough to cover the bed or not - I haven't unfolded it. But with six pillows on the bed (filled with various substances), you'd think they could spring for a top sheet. No such luck.

You'd also think that for a sort of posh upper west side hotel where there is a movie or television program filming around the corner that maybe the bathroom door wouldn't catch on the floor. Not my door. It sticks at the half-way-shut point. Which wouldn't be that big of a deal - I have the room to myself so it's not imperative that the door be shut while the restroom is in use - except that if you want to sit on the toilet (I'm a girl, that's what we do with toilets), you have to either shut the door all the way or open it all the way. The room is too small to comfortably get around the door with it in the half-way-open stuck position, and if you try to balance it any more open than that, the door touches the toilet. Unless you push it all of the way open. Then you have very easy access to the toilet. But not to the toilet paper, which is now hidden behind the bathroom door. Which you can't now open without scraping your kneecaps or using the toilet sidesaddle, so to speak.

You might also think that fancy showers have doors or curtains that prevent the user from spraying the entire bathroom floor with water while in the shower. Not my shower. The shower in my room has half of a door. In their defense, it looks really cool. Really cool. There is one of those rainfall shower heads mounted in the ceiling, and a hand-held wand shower head that reminds me of an oversized toothbrush, if you think of the water coming out as the bristles and the rest of the thing as the handle. And wood planks on the floor. I'm guessing they're supposed to smell nice when they get wet and as the bathroom gets all steamy during a shower, it's supposed to be like a sauna. However, when I turned on the shower this morning, it was set for water to come only out of the toothbrush wand thing, which was pointed directly at the rest of the bathroom, so I was soaked before I even got in the shower. And it took a few minutes to realize that there was a second lever that would turn on the overhead shower head. And since the whole shebang only has half of a door, I ended up getting most of the rest of the bathroom floor wet, just through the regular process of lathering and rinsing. I didn't even repeat. I did, however, drop the cap of my body wash bottle, which fell under the wood planks and rolled far enough back that my fingers can no longer reach it. So long, body wash bottle cap.

Speaking of cool, though, the bathroom sink is square. Like, the actual bowl of the sink is square, which is pretty groovy, I think. Except it doesn't seem quite slanted enough to inspire drainage, so when I wash my face, I then have to wait a minute for the sink to drain. And since the sink is a big, open, square bowl, there really isn't a rim. Which wouldn't be a big deal, except it's nice to be able to set things on the sink. Contact lens solution (and contact lens case) when putting in or taking out said lenses. Hairbrush while blowdrying hair. Toothbrush and toothpaste so they're easy to get at before you go out for dinner. Soap so you can wash your hands instead of just rinsing them. But there really isn't much "setting stuff down" space around this sink. Which wouldn't be that bad because the toilet is right next to the sink and sometimes, you can put things on the lid of the toilet tank - use that for the hairbrush and toothpaste or make up bag or whatever. But this toilet tank lid is slanted just enough so that you think whatever you put there might stay if you tiptoe out of the room and promise not to jump up and down, but then it slides off anyway as soon as you pull your hand away.

One might also think that a posh hotel would have the temperature control in the room thing figured out. We do have individual controls in each room for heating or air conditioning. They're not very attractive though. (The actual control panel part was replaced (I don't know how long ago) with a new digital control panel that is too big for the original hole cut out for the original control panel, so it's just resting on top. I opened the panel to adjust the temperature when I got here and the control panel went with the lid. I thought I broke it, until I realized it was one of those good ideas that someone didn't see through all the way.) So the designers thought to put curtains up on a sort of a curved rod, so that when you close them, the heating/air conditioning unit is hidden. And very effectively cooling the side of the curtain nearest the window, while the rest of the room stays nice and toasty.

Don't get me wrong - this hotel is lovely to look at. There is a giant mirror on one wall so the room looks bigger, but a little love seat thing in front of it so you can't get a full body picture of yourself. And a big metallic sun sculpture on the wall that does nothing but look cool. I just get the sinking feeling that whoever revamped this place when they revamped it was more concerned with design elements and not so worried about functional elements. And I'm guessing that the people on the 11th floor, right under the rooftop bar, who got to hear the loud, thumping techno music of the rooftop bar all weekend, would agree with me.

Or I could just have really bad taste. Who knows.

2010-09-14T00:56:00.002-05:00

I'd also kind of like to know why. I don't mean that to sound accusatory - I'm asking because I don't know. The friend who told me he'd had a thing for me for years, but who I now haven't spoken to in about a year and a half. The friend who played me not once, not twice, but thrice. And Fucknut. Dear, sweet Fucknut, who one of my friends implied may have told me he was gay so I would back off. Can I ask why? Am I that gullible that I fell for it and you all never really liked me to begin with? Am I a bad kisser? Am I too smart or too independent? Are you looking for someone to take care of and you don't see the need for that in me? Am I physically repulsive up close?

I know it shouldn't bother me, but when you find yourself falling into a pattern that spans over fifteen years, you kind of have to ask why all of these men invest this time in getting to know me only to disappear before anything goes anywhere. It's not like they're even getting the free milk out of the deal - they leave before the carton comes out of the fridge. So why? What is it? It can't all be them. If it was one or two guys, maybe. But we're talking a half-dozen or so, which would imply that it is something about me. I'm just curious to know what it is. I'm not saying I'm going to change it to make other people happy, I'm just curious to know what it is. And would it be wrong of me to email these guys and ask them why? Probably. So I won't. Because they're not worth the time.

I"m still curious, though.

2010-09-13T23:26:00.002-05:00

So last night as I was very unsuccessfully trying to fall asleep, I found myself thinking about a friend of mine. This is a friend that I had hoped I would be able to see soon because I've not seen this friend in a very long time and I miss him. Yes, it is a male-type friend, but not that kind of friend. I think the world of him and he thinks the world of me, but we have had that talk and we wouldn't date. And no, he's not unattractive - he's quite hot, thank you very much - there are just some things we each want in a relationship that the other one doesn't offer. So we are friends and I love that. I can tell him I love him and there's no weirdness. But as it turns out, I won't be seeing him anytime soon. When he used to come visit, he would sleep on that side of the bed and I would sleep on this side of the bed and while I was very unsuccessfully trying to fall asleep last night, I found myself wishing that he was sleeping on that side of the bed. Which is silly because I am a very light sleeper and I don't sleep well with other people in my bed. But last night, for some reason, I wanted him there. I wanted to be able to hold onto him while I slept. Which now has left me in the very weird position (and perhaps him, too. If you're reading this and you've identified yourself, I'm sorry if this is weird. It's not a sexual thing, I promise. I just miss you) of wishing there was someone in my house with me. And not just anyone. I know of a couple of men who I think are currently interested in me (and who are local), but for one reason or another, nothing is happening. And when I try to think about one of them sleeping on that side of the bed, I feel all ookey and not in the good way. It's really only the thought of this one particular friend that is bringing me comfort at the moment.

I'm sorry. That's weird, isn't it? To need not just a hug, but a hug from a specific person who you haven't seen in a while who lives very far away?

And that, by extension, makes me think about the fact that there are a couple of men right now who I think are interested (but with whom nothing is happening) and what if I did have a certain someone who always slept on that side of the bed and without whom I couldn't sleep at all? Like my cat, but a person. But in order to get there, I'd have to go through all of the getting-to-know-you dating type crap first. Spending evenings talking about our families and school experiences and political views until we trust each other enough to invite one another over to our houses, but then there's the whole "do I ask if he has a spare contact lens case 'cuz I didn't bring one and if I sleep with these in, I won't be able to see in the morning, but it's really not romantic to say, 'hold that thought, I gotta go take my eyes out'" thing where you really need to follow your routine but you're afraid to let this new person know what your routine is because what if they disapprove for some reason and yes, that nightie is sexy, but the ratty t-shirt is so much more comfortable and what if all I really want to do is sleep? I'd like to just fast forward to feeling comfortable enough with someone to just sleep next to them, like I can with my friend, and be able to actually sleep. And then be able to tell him the following day that he has to go sleep in his own bed because my cat is pissed that he didn't get his spot last night and I have some making up to do.

I miss my friend. My cat is softer and really cute when he's snuggly, but my friend gives better hugs.

2010-09-08T08:22:00.002-05:00

I don't know if I told you or not (I think I did, or it was mentioned somewhere), but I told the man I've had a crush on for years that I had a crush on him and, in my opinion, he handled it exactly wrong. He chose to not speak to or interact with me at all instead of just a polite, "Thanks, but I don't think of you that way," or whatever. Though his response is the more popular choice, I have to say, it leaves a person feeling rather like shit. Anyway. He was in my dream last night. I was traveling with a lot of people, and I could tell in my dream that my introvertedness was starting to kick in and I was really just done with being around people, but we had to go to this place that was like a giant diner/bar/truck stop food court. And one of the restaurants in the food court was named after my mother. I don't think it was intentional on the part of the restaurant owners to name it after my mother; I think they knew someone (or were someone) with the same name and chose the name for that reason, but there it was, so we had to eat there. And they had vegan cakes, too, that all looked like baby cradles or graves. Not very appetizing. But anyway, this guy, the one I've had a crush on for a long time, worked at the restaurant named after my mom. And I tried so hard to not notice him, the way you try to not notice someone you really want to see after they've told you that you mean nothing to them, but I failed because eventually, I had to go to the register to pay for my cake and he was working the register. And of course nobody that I was traveling with knew who he was because they'd never met him, so nobody thought it was a big deal that I should have to pay for my own cake. So I went and paid and he asked me if I wanted to see his ring. It was a gold band with a light green square stone that he said he got in Utah or some such place. I remember thinking it was rather girly, and not in the "feminine" way, but in the "I had a piece of costume jewelry that looked very similar to that when I was five" kind of a way. But I nodded and walked away. He was playing it in the "hey, we know each other so I should say hi, but really, I'm uber cool since I work at this diner/bar/truck stop food court" kind of a way. Which is sad because this particular person has been in many of my dreams in the past and he is usually a lovely human being in them but now I guess I'm so annoyed with how things were handled that he's going to manifest as a tool. But anyway, in my dream, he was also traveling with a couple of friends who stopped by the diner/bar/truck stop food court and then there was music (probably his, as he is a musician) but I wouldn't let myself listen to him play and his friends were kind of eyeing me but I wasn't all that into it and I turned into a giant introvert who just wanted to go home and be by herself but couldn't figure a graceful way out of the scenario. And every time he came anywhere near me, I hid or found somewhere else to sit. I avoided him completely.

All in all, a very unsatisfying dream that left me feeling kind of sad when I woke up. I'm sad that he would be a jerk to me. I've met him in real life and hung out with him a time or two and he always seemed like a cool guy to me. So it really bothers me that he couldn't handle someone saying, "I have a crush on you." Or that he couldn't handle me asking him to say "Thank you, but no." Maybe I was annoying. If I was, I'm sorry about that. But I miss thinking of him as a good person. I miss being able to listen to his music without getting really sad. I don't want him to be just like every other guy out there.

You know, it's kind of funny. I had my first crush on a boy in preschool, when I was four years old. I remember his name, too, and my friend and I used to fight over who was going to marry him. Come high school, I don't think he knew who I was. But ever since then, I can pretty much define where I was in my life by who I had a crush on. I almost always have a crush on somebody. And they usually get to the point where I would just like to know if I even have a shot, so I say something, and he avoids me for three months, and I sort of sit in limbo until I can find someone else I'd like to have a crush on. I am trying really hard this time to not develop a big crush on someone famous because those ones are, I think, the saddest. Yes, they are safe because that person will never have the chance to tell me "no" as we'll never meet, and even if I did write some fan letter, it would probably never get to the actual person. But I would like to have a crush one someone. I think, in a weird way, life is more fun if you have a crush one someone. That little flutter in your stomach when they call or send a text. The skip of a heartbeat when you see their picture. It's fun to think of someone as special. And when you don't have that...things just kind of plod along. Anyway.

And maybe the really funny thing is I don't think I would know what to do if the opportunity for a relationship presented itself. If I said to a boy, "Hey, I think you're really groovy," and he said, "You know, I was thinking the same thing about you," I don't know that I would know what to do next. The introvert in me wouldn't want to call every day which might irritate him or make him self-conscious or suspicious. And/or if I did want to talk to him every day, that might get to be too much for him. Honestly, I don't know. I don't know how to date or be in a relationship. Which may be why guys shut down when I express an interest in trying one - it's too much work to teach a newbie. Anyway.

I'm sure this guy really is a good person and an upstanding citizen and a caring family member and all of that stuff. I know that he is. I think my subconscious is just trying to help me get over it and how badly it was handled. Which is ridiculous because it amounts to two or three text messages which probably shouldn't have been sent. A friendship lost over a couple of text messages. I wish there was a lesson here (maybe don't drink and text?), but in the long run, I'm glad I said what I had to say because I think it's better to say those things than to not. It just makes me sad that the ears they fell on didn't want to hear them, that's all.

2010-09-07T11:00:00.003-05:00

So I'm working nights this week, shooting training videos for work, and I feel like I'm cheating. I need to be there about 3, and I have some props to get beforehand, but I feel like I'm cheating since I slept in (until 7:30), worked out, and am doing laundry before I go to work. It was part of the deal - take all of my other work obligations off of the table so I could focus on videos for a week - but it feels weird. Really weird. I'm just saying.

In other news, I love my new apartment. I miss my old neighborhood. I'm not that far away, but it does feel different. Probably because there is construction going on out front, and probably also because I don't have my routine set yet. My gas will get turned on tomorrow (good thing I'm working nights), so then I'll be able to cook, which will be nice. I don't miss the little old man who would masturbate in front of his window, but it looked like he moved out, too. I like having more space. I like having hardwood floors again. I like being able to reset my own fuses if they blow. I feel a little bad that my cat isn't totally comfortable in the new place yet - he still likes to be where I am, and right exactly now he's running around like a crazy person. I can't tell if it's a weather thing or a new apartment thing or just an "I'm a cat and I'm kind of nuts" thing. Anyway. All in all, I think it was a move up.

So yeah. I should eat some lunch before I go to work. I am a little afraid I'll like this working night thing so much I won't want to go back to working days. I don't think I have a choice in the matter, though, so even if I'd rather work nights, no such luck. Working nights would make doing theater and music hard, too. Until, of course, the day comes when theater and music is all I have to do. *sigh* Someday...

2010-08-23T19:51:00.002-05:00

I am quite possibly the biggest geek in the world. When I went to look at my new apartment, the guy said they might be putting in a dishwasher. I, of course, talked myself out of the idea that I could live in a place so luxurious as to have a dishwasher. I've kind of been in an ookey place for a little while which means I've been spending a lot of time expecting the other shoe to drop or for the bottom to fall out. But when I called today to find out when I can pick up my keys, he told me that they're putting in the dishwasher tomorrow. He said a bunch of other stuff, too, other things that are being upgraded and rehabbed, but all I heard was "dishwasher." See, I love to cook, but I hate doing dishes. Hate it. So much so that I sometimes procrastinate doing them a day longer than I should. But in addition to having more space and more closets and doors that close, I get a dishwasher in my new place. I can cook to my heart's desire, use as many prep bowls as I want, and wash them all in the dishwasher afterward. I went to the store tonight and was looking at Eco-friendly dishwasher detergents, excited to be able to take them for a spin.

It really is a silly thing to get excited about, I know. But sometimes you have to revel in the little victories in life. Like a brand new apartment, complete with dishwasher. Whatever it is that makes you smile so hard you cry is a good thing, yes?

Yes.

2010-08-20T14:45:00.002-05:00

Okay, so I know smoking is an addiction. I don't have a very addictive personality, so I don't know that I can fully understand what it feels like to have a nic fit and to need a smoke. I know that.

But what I don't really understand are those people who take an hour lunch break and then take a smoke break on the back end of it. You were just outside, away from your desk for an hour. You couldn't use the last five minutes of your break to have a cigarette? You have to tack an extra five minutes on to it? Even if you were walking somewhere and were running late heading back, couldn't you have your cigarette while you're walking back to the office so as to avoid extending your lunch into the "inappropriate length" territory? And it seems that these are usually the same people who need to take a smoke break twenty minutes before the day is over. Really? You're jonesing that bad that you can't wait twenty minutes until the work day is over? You have to take that one more break with just a few minutes to go?

I don't get it. The only thing I can come up with is that it is laziness and/or it stems from a desire to work as little as possible while at work. Personally, I think it kind of sucks for those of us who don't smoke. I'd love to go take a five or ten minute walk around the block every hour and a half. But unless I was smoking, that would not be considered appropriate.

Anyway.

2010-08-18T08:12:00.002-05:00

So real quick and not related to anything.

Blago was found guilty on only one charge. The jury was split on all of the remaining charges, sometimes with a margin of 11-1, sometimes with a greater split.

There is a sound bite of Blago and crew that has been played about three hundred times since the press conference yesterday wherein they talk about how they didn't even put up a defense and the prosecution couldn't prove his guilt.

Be he was also not found not-guilty.

Which means the prosecution planted a big enough seed of doubt in the minds of some jurors that they could not let him walk. Which means there is at least some credibility to the remaining charges. Perhaps if Blago had testified, he would have cleared up those charges and he would have been found not-guilty on the remaining counts. Maybe he would have verified them. But in either case, I don't think a hung jury means a win. I don't think a hung jury is the same as being exonerated. And, the one count they were all able to agree on, they found him guilty. So if it were me, I wouldn't be partying too hard in the Blago camp. You can have all the press conferences you want wherein your lawyers sound like evangelists preaching about how cruel the whole trial process is, but he was found guilty on one count and he was not found guilty or not-guilty on the other ones. You're going to have a lot of work to do to clear his name entirely.

(And yes, I know that in this country, we are innocent until proven guilty, but the fact that the jury could not find him innocent either says something. I'm sorry, but it does.)

2010-08-17T00:32:00.002-05:00

Dear You,

Its funny to me in retrospect how many times we talked about how much we didn't want to screw up our friendship. How many times you told me how important it was to you. And how after all of that, you kissed me anyway and we haven't spoken in a year and a half and I know it hasn't even occurred to you that we haven't spoken in a year and a half. I just think that's kind of funny. In the way that makes me really resent movies where these two best friends secretly have crushes on one another and by the end of the movie, they both admit it and they live happily ever after. Because I know it doesn't work that way.

Dear You,

Three times, man. Seriously? Three times! How big of a chump am I? We both admit on three separate occasions, many years apart under different circumstances that we are attracted to one another and then we kiss and you say you'll call and nine months go by and we haven't spoken. My guess is that you're with somebody new because that's what you do, but I had to take you off of my friends list because I honestly just don't want to know.

Dear You,

It's not okay for you to say that you love me. You were awful to me. Granted, I probably wasn't a peach either, but you ditched me because I wasn't cool enough. And now you're going to try to tell me that you've always cared? &#$* that.

Dear You,

I remember being really happy for you when you met your husband, but I knew at the same time that our friendship would then be over. Trust me, if I could have found someone so that it could be a foursome hanging out instead of a threesome, I would have. And I realize it probably wasn't fun to hang out with someone who was bitter about couples in general, but it wasn't really fun to hang out with couples then, either. So we went our separate ways. Do you ever even wonder where I am or what I'm doing now? Maybe I should just man up and say hi, but I'm scared to. I don't think I mean anything to you anymore.

Dear You,

When someone gives you a compliment, you should say, "Thank you." It does not mean said person wants to run off, get married, have babies, or start a cult with you. It's a compliment. That is all.

Dear You,

I secretly hoped we would have a shot and when that time finally came, you took the shot and ran thirty seconds later. You knew me better than anyone and you just plain bolted.

Dear You,

I will always love you. Sometimes, I think that is what I'm here for. My purpose on this planet is to love you, just to show you that there is something good and not everything has to be seedy. But sometimes, I just can't do it. I can't hold my breath for you anymore, especially when I know you're not coming, and the excuses really only make things worse. I love you. I always have and I always will. Sometimes, I'll have to love you from a distance.

Dear You,

I love you probably more than you know. Or maybe you do and you just don't...whatever. I think we shared some things that will keep us tied together forever. And I know I'll never have a shot at being a primary character in your life and that's fine, but it still kills me to see my younger, prettier, more extroverted friends falling in love with you the way we all did at one point or another. I wish you were as interested in being a part of my life as I am in being part of yours. I realize I may have messed a lot of that up a long time ago. But I'm jealous of your life and of those who get to share it with you. I'm sorry about that.

Dear You,

Are you sure we wouldn't work?

Dear Me,

You are amazing. It hurts to say that and it hurts to hear it, but it is true. You are strong and beautiful and there is no one else on this planet like you. You are one of a kind. That is wonderful and beautiful and amazing and really hard. You're doing pretty well, though. You have learned how to survive and you're good at taking care of yourself. Don't forget how to do that. You will someday find someone you want to cast in a leading role, who will be thrilled at the offer and who will give 110% to it. I mean, really, think about it - you've already found a few. I don't know quite how they've managed to hang on through your selfish phases and your moods, but they are and that is such an amazing gift - don't let that go. And yes, there are people who will turn down leading roles, and those who will cast you as a supporting player or in a bit part. That is their choice. It is not a reflection on you. Because those who do get to enter the funhouse that is your life know what an amazing place is truly is. Those who choose not to, choose to miss out.

Hang in there, kid.

2010-08-16T10:02:00.002-05:00

So I am, admittedly, not proud of that last entry. I was being petty and trite and egotistical and whiny and for that, I apologize.

I will also admit that I'm having a bit of the "But what's wrong with me?"s lately. A bit of it in connection with the plan that almost happened but is now back at the starting blocks waiting for the next run to start. A bit of it having to do with non-returned phone calls or emails or whatnot. And a large part of it having to do with the fact that I'm just all kinds of off in my regular schedule at the moment. I'm not eating right because I'm moving soon so I don't want to stock my cabinets and it's also been too hot to cook so I'm grabbing what I can when I can. I've not been exercising like I should because it's too hot. I've not been sleeping well because my dreams keep reminding me of all of the things in my daily life that are wonky at the moment. I'm just kind of restless and antsy and ready for something to be different (which it will be in about two weeks when I move) and I'm feeling like a whale even though I'm not necessarily looking like a whale and whatever. I just kind of feel icky at the moment.

But I made this movie ten years ago, and in honor of the ten year anniversary of the filming, the director has been posting links to where all of the chapters of the film are posted online. And I went back and watched my parts of the film. I have to say, I'm good at this. I was good back then. I'm still good now. And I went to these two auditions this weekend knowing I could do whatever they asked me to do and now I get to sit and wait and see if they call me back and if they don't, is it because I look wrong with the leading guy they like or is it because I'm not sure how much potential nudity I'm comfortable with on stage or is it simply because I'm going to be out of town at a trade show for a couple of days in the middle of the rehearsal process? I don't know. And I won't know. I just have to keep going out there and auditioning for stuff to get my thick skin back. Because I am good at this. I am really good at this. I am fun to work with and I am creative and I am invested in every character I play in every situation that character finds herself in and I am open to whatever sort of direction they want me to take. I am good at this. And I am much more attractive than the current picture of me in my head would imply. I need to remember those things. There is plenty that is odd about me, but nothing so odd that I can't get a job or make friends or anything like that.

That being said, I'm still really looking forward to moving. I was packing up the clothes from my closet last night and realizing that I haven't worn most of that stuff in about a year, so maybe it is time to trade that stuff in and get new clothes that feel more like me. Even if it means having fewer garments for a little while (which means more frequent laundry), I think it might be time to upgrade my wardrobe. I'm ready for change in my life, and I am of the opinion that drastic can be a good thing.

2010-08-15T01:07:00.002-05:00

So I know there are men out there who are interested in me. I know this because they have told me. And I know that there are men out there who are interested in me who I am not interested in who are kind of beating themselves up because they are still interested after I said, "Thank you, but no."

But I tell the guy I am interested in that I am interested in him and he shuts down all communication for three weeks (and counting). I can't go pester him and say, "Um, did you hear what I said?" because that would be pathetic and sad. And frankly, if this guy isn't the kind of guy who can say, "Thank you, but no," within three weeks and has to avoid me completely instead, he's not the sort of guy I'm interested in anymore. Right? That's sad. It's sad that a man older than me hasn't figured out how to gracefully turn someone down and has to resort to the avoidance technique instead.

And what is really sad about it is there are men who would like to be with me who are looking to that guy saying, "You're a frickin' idiot," because that guy has chosen to avoid me completely when they would give their left arm to be in his shoes. Why can't I ever get it to line up that the men I'm interested in are interested in me, too, and the other way around? What's with that?

2010-08-13T14:14:00.002-05:00

I've been trying really hard to not let things get to me the way they used to and for the most part, I've been doing okay. But then someone comes along and proves to me that yes, there are people out there who are just that dumb, and it hurts my face. It makes my brain want to cry.

So hey, dude? That email you sent asking for clarification on one I sent you? Read my second bullet point. See, I sent details on four different subjects and made each one its own bullet point so you'd know they were different subjects. That's what bullet points are. And in the second bullet point, I tell you what the attachment is and why I'm sending it. So, you see, it is completely unnecessary for you to send me an email a week later asking what the attachment is and why I'm sending it. I already told you. It's right there. Just read a little further down. Not skim - read. See it? There ya go. Right there. Get it? It's really not that confusing when you read it and I say, "I'm sending the attached so you know..." I'm not trying to trick you or confuse things. That's why I gave each subject it's own bullet point. Get it? Make sense?

I sometimes wish it was appropriate to send back responses like that, but I know it's not. So I responded by trying again to clarify what I had already spelled out in very simple language. Maybe this goes back to my whole "I write at the level of a college graduate" thing. Though I bet this guy makes significantly more money than I do, so if he can't read at a college graduate level... He did also ask if it was okay to alter a trademark. I'll just let you sit with that one for a minute.

Thank goodness its Friday.

2010-08-11T13:25:00.003-05:00

I am in the process of putting my life in a box. Well, many boxes, actually. I am putting everything that I own into boxes that will be moved approximately one mile south and reopened in a brand new space to start a brand new chapter. I thought about a much larger move, but the stars were not in alignment for that one. And I thought about a smaller move, but I think I found the move that feels just right.

It's funny to put so much emphasis on a move. And it's funny to put everything you own into boxes, only to take everything back out again a couple of weeks later. But for me, this is exciting. My current place has always had a bit of a weird vibe because of events that occurred the first week I lived there and because of other events that happened in the four-ish years since. But the new place gets to start with all new vibes. All good vibes, I hope. I get to put my life into boxes that will be moved approximately one mile south to a bigger space where I get to build a new home for me and my cat. I get to start over with deciding where things go and how to decorate. I get to clean things out and get rid of excesses. I get to make myself a home that is comforting and welcoming and full of the things that I love. It's like going from the being a caterpillar, through the cocoon bit, to being a butterfly. In my new home, I will blossom and fly away.

Or something.

I know, I'm being silly. But you think about these things as you wrap twelve glasses in newspaper that you've not used in the past four years. And you think, "In my new place, I can keep these in a cabinet so they don't get dusty and won't that be nice?" And you think, "I could set up my AeroGarden in the pantry so I can have fresh veggies, but the light cycle won't be so annoying." And you think, "I get hardwood floors that are easily cleaned of cat hair with a simple swipe of the Swiffer." And you think, "I'll have the sort of closet where I can see all of my clothes at the same time without having to dig through to the back row." And you think, "I can get rid of a bunch of the junk in my closet that I don't need anymore." And these are all wonderful, happy, warm thoughts. Really happy thoughts.

I'm excited for the end of the month. I'm excited for moving day. I'm excited to build a new home.

2010-08-04T09:16:00.002-05:00

So I'm wearing this two-piece body shaper thing today because I'm wearing a dress that is just clingy enough to be unflattering in certain areas on certain days and since I am rather desperate to do laundry, I had to wear it, but I thought I would try to smooth out some of the lumps and bumps. And I have to say, this two piece body shaper thing sucks. It does nothing to smooth out the lumps and bumps, takes no inches off of my waist or hips, and tends to either ride up or roll down in the general waist area, depending on if it is the top piece or bottom piece. I'm tempted to just remove the whole thing and deal with the lumps and bumps as they occur naturally, but there is a strange sort of comfort in wearing extra undergarments. And I'm kind of cold today, so the extra layer is nice.

But I've seen the commercials for this particular two piece body shaper thing where they're in a store and they have a large-ish woman try one on and she magically loses two sizes! I wasn't expecting to lose two sizes when I put this thing on - I'm not that big to begin with. But I thought maybe it would squeeze my hips down a half an inch or something. Nope. Nothing. And I have to wonder if it is because I'm not that large to begin with that what little needs to be shaped is too stubborn for this fabric. I dunno.

In either case, I've started exercising again. Lifting weights at home and doing a bit of running. I'm tempted to try to get into good enough shape to try one of those really insane workout program things like PX90 or Insanity. But I think I'd need to work on my stamina a bit first or I'll burn out in the first week and give up. Maybe once I'm in my new apartment, I'll give one of those a go.

2010-08-02T11:46:00.002-05:00

I feel different today. I am almost 100% sure that nobody else can tell I feel different today, but I do.

I had a plan. I accomplished my goals. I did what I set out to do. The other parties involved gave me bad information, so I went back to my original goals and set a plan to try again. There is a lot of power in that.

There are certain things that have to change in the meantime. I need to find a different apartment. The one I'm in started out with bad vibes almost four years ago, plus the heat problems, plus the fact that the maintenance people don't understand that when they go in to fix something, they're going into a person's home that should be treated with respect. So I need to find a different apartment. And I need to shift my attitude towards my day job. It is a job. It does not and should not creep into every other aspect of my life. I am at my job from about 7:30am-4:45pm Monday through Friday. The rest of my time should not be spent thinking about my day job. If it cannot be done during working hours, it does not need to take my personal time in order to complete it. It will just take longer.

I think that is the big shift. The big difference. I am an artist with a day job. I am not a marketing person who acts and plays music. It's not a difference that most people can see, but I feel different today. And that's a good thing.

2010-08-01T07:04:00.002-05:00

Rabbit, rabbit. Happy August.

So it's been kind of a rough weekend. Some of you know what I'm talking about and some of you don't and I don't want to go into too much detail, so I'll paint a picture for you.

Imagine you enter a contest where the grand prize is a Ferrari. Fully loaded, sleek, perfect condition. So you enter this contest and it's not just a "put your name in a hat" kind of contest, you have to write something and whoever writes the best essay wins the car. And you work really hard on your essay and think it's really good and other people think it's really good and you hand it in and wait and wait and wait and you get a phone call from the contest people saying, "You won! We'll be sending the 2006 Toyota Camry over next week." And you think to yourself, "Camry? But I was trying to win a Ferrari?" But a Camry isn't a bad car, per se, and is perhaps more suited to your style than the Ferrari was anyway, so you say sure, send it on over. And when it arrives, it has a payment schedule with it, rust on the hood, and is lime green. You didn't win a car; they sold you a car - a used car - and expect lots of money for it. Now. And you start to scramble thinking, "Can I afford a car payment right now?" You were prepared to pay the taxes on your prize and everything, but a full on car payment starting this month? And you look into car loans and talk to your bank and talk to other banks and you realize that you could do it, but it would really be more of an inconvenience than you bargained for and since you'd be saddling yourself to a car payment, you wouldn't be able to save up to try again for the Ferrari next year or buy a different car on your own or take that vacation you were planning for later in the year. So you decide that you're going to send the Camry back and say, "This wasn't what I signed up for. I'd rather write another essay next year and try again to win the Ferrari."

I decided to try again next year for the Ferrari.

It's sad that I walk away from this whole contest with no prize, but I did learn a lot from the process that should help me next time around. And the next time around will start very soon, so there's not a lot of waiting to happen. There is the mild embarrassment of telling everyone who knows I won a car that I really didn't (this is a metaphor, you realize), but I think most people would empathize with this situation and understand my ultimate decision. I do need to take this experience and use it as motivation for the coming year instead of getting sad about it. On the one hand, I won. I was all set to take on my prize and the responsibilities of owning a Ferrari - the insurance, the security measures I'd have to take, a lot of people would be scared and intimidated by such a thing, but I was not. I was 110% ready to do it. I'd just rather have the Ferrari than a used Camry. If I'm going to dream, I'm going to dream about the Ferrari, not the Camry, and if this whole process was about following my dreams...I'm glad I'm not selling my dreams short. I'm better than low-hanging fruit. I can do better than that.

So back to my regularly scheduled life tomorrow. I am going to look for a different apartment - I don't want to go through another winter of freezing my butt off. And I'm just going to have to suck it up and deal with my other annoyances as best I can, or look into another way to change or lessen them in the coming year. This is not a loss - I won a car. It just turned out to not be the car for me, so I'm not going to take this one in the hopes that a better one comes along in the future. And I still have my Mitsubishi in the mean time that does get me from point A to point B just fine. So that's a good thing.

Happy August.

2010-07-26T14:08:00.003-05:00

I'm nervous today. Like can't-quite-catch-my-breath kind of nervous. I'm not sure why. This is actually a pretty typical Monday. I think I just have a lot coming up that I'm starting to feel the pressure of and it's making me nervous.

On the up side, I get to go to New York this weekend to visit some friends. I do love New York and it's been way too long since I was last there. Though this little vacation may also be adding to the nervousness. But yeah, this whole almost painful nervousness thing today is annoying. I don't think it's caffeine because I only had one cup of tea this morning, so it shouldn't have effected me that strongly. I'm just...tense. And nervous. Very nervous. I hope I start breathing normally again soon.

2010-07-13T09:29:00.003-05:00

So I think I figured out what is bothering me about the newest season of Doctor Who. It's missing love.

In most of the previous Doctor Whos that I've seen (Tennant, Eccleston, Baker, Pertwee, even Hartnell), you can tell where the character's love is. You can tell that he loves to travel and he loves to see new things. In the more recent ones, you can tell that he loves his companions and loves showing the universe and the whole of creation to them. He loves every form of life and is just tickled pink that he gets to spend his life bouncing around seeing all of it. Yes, he also has the weight of the universe on his shoulders and he is homeless and on his own which wears on him, but that's what makes him complex. And if he didn't love his home so much and if he didn't love life so much, he wouldn't feel the pain of losing it so intensely. It's sort of one of the fundamentals of acting class. Always choose to love the other person - it makes things interesting. Even if you're at odds with them, if you chose to love at least one thing about them, it raises the stakes. People do some really horrible things in the name of love or in the pursuit of love. And it's fascinating to watch.

Matt Smith doesn't appear to have committed himself to loving anything as the Doctor, except maybe being the Doctor. I don't see the joy in building some crazy gadget. I don't see the wonderment in meeting a new species. I don't even really see a connection between him and Amy. And Amy seems to be just sort of plodding along doing her thing. I know there was an episode about her having to choose between the Doctor and Rory and it wasn't until the end of that episode that I saw a glimmer of love in her for Rory. She mostly seemed kind of annoyed with him and going along with the marriage plot because that's what she's supposed to do, not because she really wants to get married. And her attraction to the Doctor seems to come more from the attraction to adventure than because he is particularly charming or anything. Because I don't find a Doctor who doesn't love anything with both of his hearts particularly charming. I saw Rory love Amy (which is probably why I loved him as a character - he had vulnerability), but we all know how that turned out. And now the Doctor and Amy are just kind of running around together because, well, I guess they don't have anything better to do.

I'm not saying that love has to be romantic love. Donna Noble was voted one of the greatest sci-fi characters of all time because she didn't fall in love with the Doctor. But they loved each other immensely - they were best friends and partners in crime. And the Doctor loved Martha. And the Doctor loved Rose. And the Doctor loved Sarah Jane Smith and Romana and Astrid Perth and and Alonzo and Mickey Smith and Captain Jack and all of his companions. He was invested in their lives and in protecting their lives. Romance had nothing to do with it in many cases. I have recently come to the conclusion in my own life that I love being able to tell people that I love them and have that not be weird. There have been plenty of times in my life when I have expressed feeling for someone only to be ignored and avoided for months on end because that kind of positive emotion was something they didn't want from me. But I do have other friends in my life to whom I can say, "I love you and am so grateful you are in my life," and they say, "Thank you, I love you, too," and we go on about the rest of our day and I LOVE THAT. No weirdness. No pressure to run off and have sex or get married or anything. No follow up needed. Just "I love you" and "Thank you." The Doctor used to have those kinds of relationships (minus the actually saying "I love you," of course) with so many people and so many species and so many things. Now he just seems to enjoy being weird and almost creepy in his social awkwardness. He's a bit of an island who likes bow ties. I don't even see him loving bow ties. His catch phrase of "Bow ties are cool," comes out as "I say they're cool, therefore, they are and if you don't like it...well, actually, I don't even care if you agree with me or not. This is what I say, and I'm smart, so it's right."

I'm sorry. I'm such a dork, babbling on about Doctor Who as if it actually mattered. There was a marathon of season 3 on PBS over the weekend in anticipation of their starting to air season 4, and I watched some of it and was reminded of just how beautifully expressive and connected Tennant and his companions were. His point of view was so clear all of the time. Point of view will always save you. And you should always choose connection. And then I watched the most recent Matt Smith episode that I got from iTunes and I found myself much more interested in the supporting characters than in either the Doctor or Amy. I was almost bored when they were on screen. And that's a sad statement to make about what could and should be such a dynamic show.

Anyway. I've heard the season finale is good. Here's hoping. Or if it isn't, here's hoping it ends with a regeneration.

2010-07-10T21:14:00.003-05:00

I have spent the day today sorting through my stuff, purging the unnecessaries, and putting them up online for sale. I do feel a little silly selling books online for fifty cents, but let's face it, I feel even funnier asking more for them since a couple don't even have covers on them. A lot of my stuff is in really good condition, though, and I could technically see it selling. I hope it does sell. I'd like to see this stuff go to good homes of people who will use it. And of course, if it doesn't sell, I can always donate things to the Salvation army or wherever.

And on the one hand, it feels good to be getting rid of stuff. Even though it's all sitting in boxes in my living room until someone actually bites on the sale. On the other hand, it's annoying to have all of this stuff sitting in boxes in my living room and I do feel a bit...naked. I am a bit embarrassed that I owned some of the books I'm selling off and now everyone will know I had them. And some of the random trinkets and things I'm selling are a bit silly. But I do like getting rid of stuff. I hope it sells.

If you want to take a look at the stuff I've got, it's all here I'll be adding more in the next few weeks, but I think this is a decent start for today. Unless, of course, I need something to keep me awake for the Doctor Who marathon on PBS tonight and I decide to dig even deeper into my closets. I do have a bunch of scrap fabric and crafty supplies I think I'll donate to my mom and/or her friend who uses that stuff in school art projects. Wouldn't hurt to get that straightened out...

2010-07-07T10:47:00.001-05:00

Addendum: He walked in the office, sat down, and made a personal phone call.

2010-07-07T10:24:00.003-05:00

I'm feeling the need to give myself a bit of a pep talk, so please bear with me as this post may sound like bragging or like I'm really self-involved or something. I don't think I am. I just need to say some nice things about me to remind myself of them.

I think a large part of my need to do this comes from my constant frustration with my job. I don't mean to talk about it here, but I have one co-worker in particular who gets away with everything - literally EVERYTHING - and when he isn't here, I have to cover for him and do his job. Which makes it really difficult to do mine. And they know it's hard for me to do my job when I have to do his, but nobody ever takes him aside and says, "Hey, dude, you gotta step it up. Kitty has other things to do and can't be relied upon to clean up your shit all of the time." As it stands, he's still not in the office this morning. He had a last minute doctor's appointment to deal with a broken foot and thought he'd be in by 10 so he wouldn't have to take a half-day on Friday afternoon to go have it looked at. Here it is 10:30 and no sign of him. I hope they dock him half a day for this morning; I really hope they do. Because even now on the days when he doesn't have an early appointment, he's not here until 9:30. Which is frustrating because I'm here at about 7:30 and it means I have to cover for him until he decides to show up. And nobody ever says anything about it to him. They know it's a problem, but they aren't the confrontational sort, so nothing gets done about it. I just get to sit and wait for him to show up so I can focus on my own tasks that need to get done.

And part of it stems from my doctor telling me I need to lose five pounds. I went in for my annual exam and she was a lot more hands-on than she has been in the past and I don't know if that's because I'm getting older so she feels she needs to pay more attention or what, but they also recently switched over to a computerized record system, so we had to rehash almost my entire medical history and the last time I let them weigh me, I weighed about five pounds less than I do now. Granted, I had lost about fourteen pounds and I have now put just about all of it back on, but I've been stressed. Really stressed. So I've been stress eating. I know this. I can't stop this just now. I try the waiting thing to see if the craving will just go away. I try drinking water first so I won't eat as much. I try eating veggies instead of the chips and salsa I really want. Doesn't work. I just keep eating. Because I'm stressed and unhappy and sometimes, cake is all that will soothe the pain for a little while. I hate to admit that, but it's true. I am 100% aware of the damage I'm doing to my figure as I stress eat, but I just keep stress eating. I don't know what to do about that as long as my stress level remains where it is.

So I need to remind myself of a couple of things so I don't get completely down on myself.

I have beautiful, long, flowing limbs. Really. Very nice elegant arms and legs.

I have a very strong, healthy body. Yes, I am carrying a couple of extra pounds at the moment, but I am still very healthy. I am (for the most part) very active and strong and my muscles work well and all of that stuff. This body has been through a lot, and so far, I think it is doing rather well, regardless of it's current mass.

I am really talented. Really talented. I'm pretty good at just about everything I do and the things I don't know how to do, I learn really fast. I was invited to a "by teacher invite only" acting for film class (that I'm not taking due to scheduling conflicts), but still, I consider that an honor to be invited.

I am the sort of person other people like having around. I am personable and social (when I need to be) and in general, easy to talk to.

I am very much loved.

There are much better things waiting just around the corner for me. I may be unhappy now, I may be frustrated and stressed, but this is not permanent. I will enter a whole new world of frustration and stress, but in the name of better things.

And my co-worker just got here at 10:43, so now I can get to doing my job. Because I'm good at my job, too.

2010-07-02T08:37:00.002-05:00

I dreamed an episode of Doctor Who last night that, I believe, doesn't exist.

It started in the TARDIS with the usual exposition and sort of a "Now we're going to be landing on this planet at this time" kind of a thing and then we were down on the planet. I know it was in the future and I know it was a different planet, but I don't know how far in the future or the name of the planet. What I do know is that there was a very nice landing platform for us just outside of a sort of intergalactic marketplace. This landing platform was in an area that reminded me of a social hall kind of place at college, or the green room at college in the theater department, or SA hall in high school - the kind of place where people would just go chill out for a while when they were trying to kill time before they had something else to do. So the Doctor and I (because I was his companion) come out of the TARDIS and suddenly, David Tennant is also there as the Doctor. I don't think he was my Doctor - I think this was a trip that he and Rose took wherein he met his future self (the Matt Smith Doctor), but somehow everyone was okay with that. Anyway, we were just kind of chilling and this issue of Cosmopolitan falls from the ceiling with a nice thwack and we all go over to look at it because, of course, the two Doctors are unfamiliar with Cosmo and are intrigued with the sex articles referenced on the cover. On the cover is also a picture of Katherine Heigl, which was odd, because I think I was Katherine Heigl in my dream because I knew the picture was of me and I was going to get all kinds of crap for appearing on the cover of Cosmo. Anyway, we start looking at the magazine until we hear that there is this nice, noisy marketplace just over there and we decide to go take a look at that instead. Round about this time, Rose Tyler comes bounding in asking what's going on and she joins us as we go into the marketplace.

Somewhere in here, the Matt Smith Doctor just kind of went away. I don't remember him really serving any other function in the dream other than I knew I'd have to go back with him at the end of the whole thing. But I was so fantastically geeked to be working with the David Tennant Doctor that I'm sure I was smiling too much and just in general freaking him out, but I really didn't care. I couldn't stop staring and I was so excited. His face was a bit fatter than it is in real life, but it was fine. He was wearing the brown suit with the thin blue pinstripes and I couldn't stop thinking about how perfect that all was.

Anyway, Rose went off to look around a bit and I was hanging out with the Doctor and then we heard people shouting about this kid who was walking up the railing next to the escalators into the marketplace. You know on really wide staircases, they'll put a railing in the middle that is sort of a steel oval mounted on steel legs, so people on either side can have a railing but it doesn't take up too much walking space? There was a kid who had apparently walked all the way to the bottom on this railing and was now walking all the way back to the top, on tiptoe, as if he was on a tightrope and everyone was frightened that he would fall to his death or something. But he was smiling and sure of himself and looked to be possessed. And then we noticed a whole slew of kids walking up and down this railing, looking possessed, their arms out like airplane wings for balance. And this was the thing that, of course, signaled that something was not right in the marketplace or that something bad was coming. This fog started rolling in, so we tried to herd everyone into the market so we could close the doors, but these crazy sort of wicker people aliens got into the market, too. They were the bad guys, you could just tell. Or at least the minions of the real big bad guy. And I don't mean wicker people as in they looked like wicker chairs, but more along the lines of "He must have been King of the Wicker People" from Batman mixed with the Cyberman dog thing from "The New Doctor" with a sort of African tribal mask flair. They didn't talk, but they moved very fast and very fluidly and were actually very threatening. They were trying to get people into the fog because The Eternals were waiting in the fog to take us away to some unknown doom. If someone got too close to the doors, the fog would creep in under the door (as fog does) and you could see these sort of creepy, long-fingered green hands pull the person down into the fog and out of our world. Of course, the fog would not then recede - it started filling up the marketplace and everyone was scared and we were trying to figure out what to do. And then Rose, gotta love Rose (who might have been me for a second or two - you know how dreams are), started sort of taunting the lead wicker guy to get him to chase her and she ran over in front of one door and started this speech about how she is eternal so the Eternals can't touch her (it was kind of like the speech she gave when she looked into the heart of the TARDIS at the end of season one but without the glowing eyeballs, wind, and tears) and the fog was rolling in around her feet and she was dragged down, but then the camera angle switched to a shot from above where we saw the creepy green hands sort of clawing and pawing at her while she was curled in a ball on the floor and no matter what they did, they couldn't take her away.

I don't remember really what happened after that, but shortly thereafter, my cat woke me up. I know that there would have to be some resolution to the situation if it was a real episode - we'd need to know why the Eternals were attacking the marketplace and how and why they were possessing the children. But I thought it was a pretty sweet episode. Visually stunning. And, I have to say, I was really geeked to be working with David Tennant. I was really happy that he was back to being the Doctor. All I really saw of the Matt Smith Doctor in my dream was that he looked a bit put out that the David Tennant Doctor was there so he was going to go off and pout or something.

Anyway. Maybe I'll actually write it as a script and see if they'd have any interest in shooting it. Tee hee. That's how I'll get into the Doctor Whoniverse - as a script writer.

2010-07-01T08:48:00.002-05:00

Rabbit rabbit, happy July.

I can't believe it's July already. Yipes.

So my dreams have been really...violent lately. Not violent as in people getting beaten up or killed or anything like that, but violent in the sense that I'm all riled up when I wake up. I feel unsatisfied, anxious, restless and exhausted. There is usually some element in my dreams of me wanting to do something but not being able to. I think last night, I was getting married and none of it was working out. The night before, I dreamed I was at a dance in the park downtown and I couldn't get any of my guy friends to dance with me - some of them didn't even acknowledge that I was there.

I know some people don't remember their dreams at all and are a bit jealous that I can remember mine. I sometimes get jealous of the people who can sleep through the night and wake up feeling rested instead of feeling like they just lived another really frustrating day. I know that dreams are the mind's way of working through things that weren't addressed during daylight hours and I guess this means I have a lot of pent up stuff going on at the moment which I need to address so I can get some sleep. Either that, or I should get drunk before bed so my brain just shuts off.

In either case, I hope you are sleeping well and happy July to you!

2010-06-29T12:00:00.002-05:00

I've been feeling for a couple of days like it's time for me to reflect on the past year and examine what I did and what I didn't do and all of that stuff and kind of take stock. These things happen as you get older.

In the past year, I think I wrote one new song. I didn't play out very much, nor was I in any theatrical productions. I understudied one show, but didn't get to perform. I took a lot of classes, though, and I think I grew a lot as an artist thanks to those classes. I also met and worked with a bunch of people there who I love dearly and hope to work with again in the future.

In the past year, I think I kissed three boys (not counting kisses in my acting class because those don't really count - it's acting class). One of them decided the next day that he would rather not make out with me ever again and seeing as this was the third time he played my emotions like that, I've decided not to talk to him anymore. I don't think he has noticed. Another one was, I think, just a case of bad timing. Good guy, but I don't see it going anywhere, unfortunately. Not now, anyway. The third was just plain silly. The kind of funny thing about this bit is that I went to the doctor yesterday for my annual exam and she asked if I had any "concerns" and I had to laugh, largely at what would be required to make me concerned. Divine intervention or something. Anyway. Sad times on the boy front this year.

In the past year, I went to the emergency room and decided that I never want to have to go to the emergency room again. And I also found out that I don't have tumors on my knees like the one on my head. For whatever that's worth.

In the past year, I fell in love with my brand new niece. She'll be one on Friday and is just about the most amazing thing I have ever seen in my life. I wish I got to spend more time with her, but she's going to be around for a while. I can't wait to see her grow up!

In the past year, I worked really hard and finally, finally, finally got about a half-an-ounce of recognition for it. I realize that a lot of people work really hard, but if one's supervisors just say "Thank you" or "Nice job" every now and again to recognize that, it goes a long way. I got a "nice job."

In the past year, I set a plan in motion to begin the next chapter of my life. A lot of you know about it already, and full details are coming, but suffice it to say I'm excited and terrified all at the same time, but I know it's the right thing to do. It feels good to be on this path.

In the past year, I got an iPhone and I love it.

In the past year, I hung out with family and friends. I spent time being a pillow for my cat. I listened to my best friend when she really needed me to. I helped people whenever I could. I became a fan of Scrabble-type games, and I started to learn about futbol.

In the past year, I fell in love with Doctor Who.

The past year was hard for me in a lot of ways. I spent a lot of it being very unhappy. I think some of that is still hanging around because I'm grumpy today. But I know that changes are coming and that's a good thing. My doctor told me I should try to lose about five pounds. In the coming year, I'm going to try to lose five pounds of worry and fear and anger. At least five.

So here's to a brand new year for me. And here's hoping it is happier than the last one. For all of you, too.

2010-06-23T11:19:00.002-05:00

So I'm kind of amazed at how easily I can get sucked into sporting events. Maybe I really am a competitive person by nature, or maybe I just like to watch people do things that I don't do, or maybe I was a sports star in a past life, but I find it really easy to get into sporting events. For example, the World Cup. I know virtually nothing about futbol. I sucked at it when we played in gym class - I've always been more of a baseball/softball player. But there is all this super crazy fun happening around the World Cup and I have to say, it is exciting. I went online and read some of the Laws of the Game so I have a bit of a clue now, and now I'm waking up in the morning thinking about who's playing what matches today and who I'd like to cheer for. I'm looking at group standings trying to determine if anyone has been mathematically eliminated or guaranteed a spot in the knock-out stage yet. And I'm trying my best to pay attention to the games as they happen (online updates, that kind of thing) so I can start to get a feel for the game and I have to say, it's exciting. Yes, it is a low-scoring sport, but that doesn't mean there isn't action. And yes, some of the players are whiny drama queens who trip over their own feet and try to blame it on an opponent who was passing by at the time, but still. It's fun.

And when the US won today in stoppage time, well, that was a pretty incredible moment. I am annoyed with the US for having two goals taken away for having a player offsides (seriously, do you not know where you are on the field? And where your opponents are? How can you be that oblivious? I realize spacial relationships are not American strong points, as is evidenced by people stopping in doorways or at the bottom of stairs when there are hundreds of people behind them or people altering their walking paths so that they bump into me on the sidewalk (though that one may be partially due to the gravitational field generated by my rear end), but still. You'd think that practicing futbol however many hundreds of hours would make you aware of where your teammates are at any given time and where your opponents are at any given time. I'm just saying.), and it looked like all was lost, but then bam! With three minutes remaining in stoppage time, score! And with that score, we advance. Without that score, we go home. It's exciting. I'm sorry, but it is.

Anyway. I'm enjoying the World Cup. Particularly since the Cubs are sucking the life out of north side baseball right now. I gotta have somebody to cheer for, right?

(I still love the Cubs, they're just hurting my heart right now.)

2010-06-16T14:08:00.002-05:00

So I'm almost wishing I knew more about futbol. Yes, I meant to say futbol. I mean to distinguish it from American Football, which my friend and I contend should be named Tackleball, as they spend WAY more time tackling one another than they spend doing anything with their feet (besides walking around and stuff, but a lot of sports use feet in that respect, so I'm not counting that). By futbol, I mean the sport that the rest of the world calls football, but we here in the US call soccer. Which I'm sure confuses small children when they find out that the world soccer organization's acronym is FIFA and contains no "s" for "soccer." Anyway. That was sort of long and rambling.

I'm almost wishing I knew more about futbol because the World Cup is happening right now in South Africa and I keep seeing all these news article updates about this team upsetting that team and these people getting arrested for wearing that and this guy was so excited he took his shirt off in celebration (which is always what I do when I'm happy) and they got really pissed at him for doing it and that guy scored a goal that left this guy bleeding from the head and in general, the whole thing looks to be a boatload of super crazy fun. It amuses me almost to no end that if you get the live online updates of a game, it tells you if goal kicks and penalty kicks were made right-footed or left-footed. And some of the pictures they show of so-and-so's face as his team scored in extra time (which some people think shouldn't count) to get his country's first ever World Cup goal are just priceless. The absolute jubilation is infectious.

My brother's friend explained to me kind of how it works, with the groups and points and all of that stuff. In a weird way, it makes more sense and seems more fair than March Madness, though I don't know if the groups are selected arbitrarily or what. Anyway. It sounds like super crazy good fun times and I kind of wish I knew enough about the sport to speak intelligently about it. As it stands, I'll just have to cheer for countries that I like, whether their clubs have any history of doing well at the Cup or not. And/or I'm going to cheer for anyone who upsets a heavy favorite because that just makes it all so much more dramatic.

Yay futbol!

2010-06-07T14:46:00.002-05:00

A lot of people have a lot of things to celebrate. In the past four or five years, I have been to wedding showers, baby showers, weddings, engagement parties, bachelorette parties, birthday parties, anniversary parties, "I'm leaving town" parties, "I'm back in town" parties, Fourth of July parties, Memorial Day parties, Labor Day parties, New Year's Eve parties, Halloween parties, Christmas and Hanukkah parties, a Passover seder, beer pong tournaments, random "let's drink 'cuz it's hot/cold/pretty/icky outside" parties, housewarming parties, "I felt like having people over because I never have people over" parties, "I'm finally single again" parties, and at least two "proms." That's a lot of celebrating. As humans, I think we like to celebrate. We're always looking for a reason to spread around the good fortune.

And we all know I have a thing about holidays. I don't believe in making them week-long or month-long ordeals. I think St. Patrick's Day should be celebrated on March 17th. I think Flag Day should be observed on June 14th. Granted, I don't get too upset when Labor Day and Labor Day (Observed) don't match up because that one still gets me a Monday off of work, so I can get behind that. But I'm all about celebrating things on the day they are supposed to be celebrated.

Thing is, I haven't celebrated Me in a long time. A friend of mine threw me an awesome blow-out birthday party about eight years ago and since then, it's all been rather low key. I threw a closing night party for a show I was in. My birthdays have been a handful of friends meeting for drinks or dinner or something. I don't have any relationship anniversaries to celebrate. I'm not a mother or father, so I can't get in on those days. I'm not a veteran, so there's two more I don't qualify for. I don't have a kid, so no baby showers or kid's first birthdays or anything. I'm not really an administrative assistant anymore, but even if I was, my company doesn't pay attention to those kinds of things. I haven't survived some dread disease, so I don't have the anniversary of a surgery or anything to celebrate. I haven't won any awards or sweepstakes contests or anything. And I have just a one bedroom apartment with no outdoor space, so the big summer holidays really shouldn't happen at my house. Nor the big winter holidays for that matter. And in my family, we're all scaling back on the big winter holidays anyway. Birthdays have been no big deal in my family for years - it's usually phone calls and maybe a card.

Which is all fine and totally understandable. But I have a lot going on in my life right now that needs to be celebrated. NEEDS to be celebrated. I know I haven't told you about all of it yet, but I'm guessing you already know because the four friends I told about it seem to have each told four friends who told four friends and so on and so on and so on so word has gotten around, but I didn't get the joy of telling some people and seeing the looks on their faces. And when I do finally get to make my big reveal, it's not going to be news anymore and nobody is going to want to celebrate with me. Which sucks. I'm sorry, but it sucks.

I'm going to sound like a three-year-old having a tantrum right now and I apologize in advance for that, but I kind of need to.

I would like to be celebrated. For one day. I would like one day that is full of people saying nice things to me and treating me nicely. I would like one day that isn't hush-hush clinking of glasses under the table with one friend at a time kind of celebrating. I would like, for one day, to be a big deal to everyone I know.

I don't mean to negate the hush-hush clinking of glasses under the table with one friend at a time - some of my fondest memories include celebrating something or another with just one or two friends. And my mother celebrates me all of the time and I love her for that (and many other reasons). But for the past couple of years, I've been feeling a bit lost in the shuffle, or glazed over in larger situations and larger settings. Maybe it is because I used to be a "name" in the swing scene and people used to get excited when they knew I was coming to town and now most people barely know who I am, but I miss the occasional fussing over. I don't want anything crazy. But I know, if I had a significant other in my life, he would buy me something pretty, or make me breakfast in bed, or take me out somewhere special for dinner and just for one day, make a wee bit of a fuss over me. Let me know I am appreciated.

I feel like I work really hard. I feel like (most of the time, anyway) I'm a nice person and a good person. I feel like every now and again, it would be nice to hear people say that.

Thing is, I have plans to go to a charity fundraiser on my birthday this year. I've gone every year for the last three or four, and it is always the weekend right around my birthday and it is supporting a cause that is very important to my best guy friend and his family, so therefore it is supporting a cause that is very important to me. I wouldn't miss it unless it was an emergency. And on the up side, I will get to dress up fancy and go out with my friends on my birthday, but it won't be about me. It shouldn't be about me. This cause is bigger and more important than me and that's a good thing. But it means that the one day each year on which I feel like I have a right to ask people to make a wee bit of a fuss over me, I've been trumped. And I have to wait until next year. Or find another day to ask people to fuss over me, which feels kind of false (see above paragraph on celebrating holidays on the appropriate day). And/or it feels like people have a perfectly legitimate reason to prioritize other things over me if I ask them to celebrate me on a day that isn't actually my birthday. The weekend before my birthday, a bunch of my friends are out of town. The weekend after is the Fourth of July, which kind of trumps everything else. You go too much farther out than that and it's no longer a birthday party, it's a random "hey, let's all hang out" thing.

Anyway. I don't know. I will be doing something later in the summer, for other reasons. And one of these years I'll get to celebrate Me again. And I'm sorry I sound like a petulant child, I just needed to bitch for a minute.

2010-06-04T12:21:00.002-05:00

Call me crazy, but I would think that if an employee keeps messing up, and the errors keep growing in severity, I would think that said employee's supervisor should take said employee aside and say, "Hey. Shape up," or something to that effect.

Call me crazy.

2010-05-20T09:05:00.003-05:00

A gay couple in Malawi were sentenced to 14 years in prison because they had an engagement ceremony. Fourteen years in prison for "gross indecency and unnatural acts."

Now, I realize that the culture in Malawi is different that the culture in America, but it still makes me sad. It makes me sad on so many levels.

I've been thinking about sexuality a lot lately. I saw some little tidbit tucked away on some website about another country music star coming out and honestly, all I could think was, "So?" And I don't mean that in a "don't ask, don't tell" kind of a way. I mean it in a "it makes absolutely no difference to me who you are sleeping with" kind of a way. If I liked your music before, I'm not going to like it less now that I know you're gay. If I hated your music before, I'm not going to suddenly decide to like it now that I know you're gay. Who you are sleeping with does not influence my opinion of you. AT ALL. I'm sorry, but it doesn't. So why do we all make such a big deal out of who everyone else is screwing?

Right now, I'm not sleeping with anyone, but if I was, do you think I'd be running around all over the place yelling, "I'm sleeping with David Tennant!" Well, okay, if it was David Tennant, I probably would just because, you know, David Tennant. But I think you get my point. Sex is an intimate thing, between two people, and it is nobody else's business. Yes, there are those who prefer it when there are more than two people involved, but for the most part, it's a one-on-one activity, and when the two people involved are in love with one another and committed to one another and are both old enough to know what they are consenting to, I think it's beautiful (and none of my business). I don't think it is any less beautiful (or any more my business) if the two people are of the same gender as one another. If you're lucky enough to find someone with whom you connect on that level, hold onto that! I don't care if that person is a different race than you or different religion than you or different gender than you - it's a rare and beautiful thing and you should allow yourself to experience that. And anyone who tells you it is unnatural or gross or indecent (or their business) should take a look at some of the practices in his or her own life and I'm sure, he or she will find plenty of unnatural indecencies there. Fake tans. Plastic surgery. Banana hammocks. Repression. Spousal abuse. Child abuse. Animal abuse. Religious persecution. War. People do so many things to harm one another, but are able to find justifications why it is okay to act so cruelly. Yet two men who love each other and are committed to loving each other for the rest of their lives are sent to jail for fourteen years, simply for bringing more love into the world. How does that make sense? I don't get it.

It makes me sad, too, that there are still so many people who find homosexuality abhorrent. And I know that if I ask them why they disapprove, most of the answers have a religious tinge to them - "it's against God" or "it's against nature" or "the [insert holy text here] says it's wrong." I wonder if we took all of that out of it and just looked at it as two people, two best friends, who have committed themselves to loving one another, if it would still look so wrong. Because to me, that's what it is. Two people who get to share something wonderful. I cry at gay weddings the same way I cried at my brother's. To me, it makes no difference who your partner is, as long as they are a good, kind, loving person who treats you well.

I dunno. I realize that parts of this post are offensive to some and parts seem heartless to each other. I wish we didn't have to define ourselves by who we are sleeping with. I don't care who you're sleeping with and I don't know why anybody else should care either. Personally, I'd like to subscribe to the 51st Century type of sexuality - travel the stars, meet new life, and dance with it.

2010-05-20T08:20:00.002-05:00

Okay, so those of you who know me or at least have been reading for a while know I love my cat. He drives me crazy sometimes, but most of the time, he is the reason I get up in the morning and not just because he's meowing at my bedroom door for me to feed him. It melts my heart when he curls up in my lap to sleep. I love his little voice and how he sits on the bathroom counter while I'm getting ready in the morning like it's time for his eye make-up, too. He's just...I love my cat.

Lately, he has gotten into the habit of lying between my pillow and the edge of the bed at about 4:30 in the morning, right by my face. I don't know if he does this because it is warm there or because he's already thinking about breakfast and knows that him lying there wakes me up, but the end result is that I can put my arm around him and, essentially, spoon with my cat, my face buried in his back. It just may be my absolute favorite thing to do. It's just this really sweet, innocent, loving moment where I get to hug him and he lets me. Of course, he gets a little squirmy and he pushes his head into my face and then has to roll over onto his back so I could scritch his tummy if I was a bit more coherent and since it is 4:30 in the morning, I am still wanting to get some sleep, so inevitably, I kind of psyche him out into getting up and walking to the kitchen and I close my bedroom door and go back to sleep. This morning, he wasn't going to be fooled so easily. When I sat up like I might go feed him, he rolled over onto his side like, "But mom, I'm not done being snuggly yet." So I went back to being snuggly. For about five more minutes until I really needed to get back to sleep at which point I gently carried him out of my room.

But the long and short of it is that I love my cat. He is very sweet and he knows exactly how to get me to do what he wants. And if what he wants is some snuggly time, I'm all for obliging.

2010-05-12T10:55:00.002-05:00

So I was thinking not too long ago that I'd like to win something. Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of wonderful things in my life and wonderful things do happen to me. But usually, I have to work my butt off for those things and pour in a lot of time and energy and blood and sweat and tears. For example, the children's musical I wrote and directed was well received. But I wrote and directed it. The plays that I have gotten into have been lots of fun, but there's the audition process and the rehearsal process and all of that stuff. When it comes to randomly getting picked for something amazing, that never happens to me. I never win the lottery. I never win the contests I enter that involve randomly picking a name out of a hat. And man, I could use that kind of luck right about now.

Things at work are...weird at the moment. Weird and mind-bogglingly frustrating. I can't go into too much detail but it really is a world of suck at the moment. Which means I would really, really, really, really like to be the person who wins a trip to London, or a million dollars, or a new car or something. A spa retreat. A year's supply of lovely lovely vegan baked goods. A date with David Tennant. Something, you know? Something that I didn't have to work for, but that I can feel like all of the hard work I put in just in general, on a daily basis, is finally being rewarded with just an extra little something. A thank you. A karmic pat on the back. I would, just once, like something really nice to happen that I didn't have to lift a finger for.

A girl can dream, right?

2010-05-06T09:07:00.002-05:00

Hi,

Thank you for coming by yesterday to work on my bathtub drain. It kind of drained this morning. The bathtub was, at least, empty by the time I left my apartment this morning. It still collects a lot of water during the course of a shower, though, and I don't take particularly long showers. Anyway. It's better than it was, thank you.

I am a little bit curious, though, regarding why it was necessary to remove my cat's litter box and the bathmat from the bathroom and leave them in the hallway. Was it that you didn't want to step on them? I'm guessing it wasn't a cleanliness thing, judging by the dirty shoe-prints left in the tub and on the floor. I'm just wondering. And also wondering if you couldn't have, I don't know, put them back before you left. Or at least positioned the litter box with the opening facing away from the wall so if my cat needed to use it, he would be able to do so. I know, I know, I'm being nit-picky.

I'm also a little curious regarding what in the drain-clearing process made the backsplash behind the sink chip, crack, and break so that it required new caulking. I'm guessing you moved all of the stuff off of my counter so as to not get cover it in caulk as you were fixing the backsplash, and I appreciate that. I also like how it was all put back exactly where it wasn't before. That was fun.

Anyhow, thank you for fixing my bathtub (sort of) and for motivating me to thoroughly mop the bathroom floor and wash all of my towels. The simple surface cleaning of the whole room, scrubbing of the bathtub, and sweeping/Swiffing of the floor that I did over the weekend just didn't do the trick.

Yours,
Kitty

2010-05-03T15:15:00.001-05:00

I'm having one of those days wherein the future cannot come soon enough.

2010-05-03T10:19:00.003-05:00

So I'm now three episodes into the new season of Doctor Who and I have to say, I'm not thrilled. I found myself wishing that Martha Jones would make an appearance so that the show would get a little bump of energy. And I have a theory as to what's going on.

Doctor Who has been sort of a cult hit for decades. It was a sort of low budget sci-fi show that certain people knew and loved, and was considered (in some circles) to be dorky. Which is great. But then Russell T. Davies came in and took over and wrote these wonderful scripts and bumped up the design elements and you get this show that now appeals to a much broader audience. Which is also excellent. I have to congratulate them on their successes, and I'm thrilled because their successes make it easier for me to get my hands on the new stuff. But now we have this new production team coming in, riding the high of the Davies era, and it feels like they're going to change everything just because they can. It's like they have money now, so they might as well do all of these nifty things and oh, maybe let's write a script that gives us an excuse to do some nifty things.

I'm sorry. I don't mean to be so negative. There have been moments in this new season that I have enjoyed and the new companion is growing on me a bit. There was a moment with a star whale that nearly brought a tear to my eye. But the show is not what it was. I know shows are supposed to evolve and that particularly the character of the Doctor is supposed to change with each new actor, but there's something missing and it occurred to me yesterday what it is.

Oomph.

Do you ever watch America's Next Top Model? Tyra Banks will sometimes get on a model for not "bringing it" in her photographs. She'll say something like, "Even when you frown, you have to be fierce. You're giving me this..." and she gets all droopy, "...and what you should be doing is this..." and she makes the frown FIERCE. She gives it oomph. Doctor Who is currently seriously lacking in the oomph department. The Doctor can stand looking over his shoulder at the Daleks while they reveal their plan, or he can STAND LOOKING OVER HIS SHOULDER AT THE DALEKS WHILE THEY REVEAL THEIR PLAN, and currently, he's doing the former.

I know that Matt Smith is a young guy. I know Doctor Who is cool now. But the Doctor's coolness doesn't come from the current hipster cool place of ennui. It doesn't come from not caring. The Doctor's coolness comes from exactly how much he does care. About everything! Every situation he is in is the most important situation in the entire universe! You can't just saunter into that. You have to run.

In actor terminology, everybody needs to raise the stakes.

In two episodes so far, the Doctor has said this is the hardest decision he has to make, but I just don't buy it. I don't see him torn apart by the decision. I don't see his anger or his frustration or his pain. I don't see him weighing the options against one another. I see him bummed out. And granted, in real life, we'd all probably be bummed out in those situations, but Doctor Who is not real life. Doctor Who is bigger than real life, so the reactions to certain things need to be bigger than real life. Like Amy Pond's eyes are bigger than real life.

I should go back and watch some of the Davies episodes again, because I found myself even bored with the performances of the extras in this current season's episodes. First of all, it's sad that I'm paying attention to the extras as much as the stars. But I found myself hearing the directorial tidbits to the extras going something like, "When I say action, push the pieces around on the table, but don't move them too far because we'll have to put them back for the next shot." Or, "When the Dalek shoots you, put your arms in the air because it really hurts and then fall to the ground because you're dead." Whereas I get the feeling that the direction from the Davies era for those same extras would have been more like, "You're strategizing your next move and it's okay to move the pieces around to experiment with different layouts. But keep in mind that the next attack is coming in four minutes and you need to be ready to take the hit and you have to have a plan for how to counterattack," and "And then he shoots you! Zap! And it's like being electrocuted with 10,000 volts so you just kind of melt into a puddle that was once a human being." They both get the same point across, but one is infused with energy and urgency, while the other just gives the people something to do physically. I don't know if the lackluster performances by the background are because they used to have better extras or because the director just wasn't paying attention to them.

Which brings me to the scripts themselves. I've already talked about the wasted time on the new Doctor's food preferences, but in general, they're not as clever as they were. They seem more linear, and the big secret thing that you know is going to be important in the season finale (think "bad wolf") is already being shoved down our throats so it will come as no surprise when something happens with it later. Unless they do something shocking with it. But we all know where the shock is coming from.

Anyway. I don't mean to be a negative nelly. I love Doctor Who, and I think it is because I love the franchise of Doctor Who that I feel it necessary to kind of whip it into shape. Actors need to care more and when they don't, the director needs to call them out on it. And just because you can make rainbow colored plastic looking Daleks doesn't mean you should. Though I do like the new eye-stalks. Those look pretty groovy. I'm still not totally sold on the new TARDIS and am realizing they haven't spent much time in it. Maybe they're not sold, either. Anyway. Here's hoping the season picks up. Or, if it doesn't, that I somehow get to work on the show so I can bring the oomph back myself.

Tee hee.

2010-05-01T14:05:00.003-05:00

Starting today, I pledge to lose 10% of my current body weight.
Starting today, I promise to take better care of myself.
Starting today, I will create my meals so that they include protein, grains, and vegetables.
Starting today, I will get back to cooking.
Starting today, I will stop beating myself up for my appearance.
Starting today, "I just don't want to" is no longer a good enough reason to skip working out.
Starting today, I will cut back the amount of sugary junk food that I eat.
Starting today, I will strive for the body I want to have instead of the one I feel I'm stuck with.
Starting today, I will know I deserve it.
Starting today, I will start loving myself again.

2010-04-30T10:14:00.002-05:00

So the Cubs aren't doing very well. They followed up a four game winning streak with a four game losing streak. Or maybe it's just three games. In any case, they have just about undone all of the good they did last weekend. And it's frustrating. Kind of like me undoing all of the hard dieting work I did not so long ago. I need to get back into that. I've started with the workouts again (somewhat), I just find that I'm always hungry and I don't stop eating until I feel stuffed. I need to adjust that.

I find I'm thinking about a lot of things lately and I'm also having a lot of dreams. I remember two of them from last night. One involved a lovely conversation (which of course, I don't remember now, I just remember really enjoying it) with a man who was a hybrid of the man I have a crush on and a friend from college and then meeting my mom in this tiny quilt shop which, I think, was in Ireland. I wish I remembered some of the projects they were working on in the quilt shop because I remember them as being beautiful. I wish I could recreate them. I think at least one of them had something to do with stained glass, too. Anyway, it was cool. And my other dream from last night involved me selling my car to my brother, but then my brother died and I couldn't get to his wake because I didn't have a car anymore. That dream just left me with an overwhelming sense of irony, or I would have woken up and called my brother to make sure he is okay. I had another dream the night before last that I was sitting in the backyard of the house I grew up in (which doesn't exist anymore), chatting with my sister in law and it was such a nice conversation! Again, I don't remember what we talked about, except I think there was talk of manicures and lilacs. Anyway.

Tomorrow is May. I can't believe it is May already, even though I know that this past February and March were quite possibly the longest months of my life. But the weather is turning nicer and the farmer's markets will start up again and I'll be able to leave my windows open all day. Maybe I'll try to get in the habit of walking to the theater when I have classes, in large part just to remind myself to get outside and enjoy the summer. I have a class starting tomorrow morning that includes two-person scenes and I'm keeping my fingers crossed really tightly that I get to work with one person in particular who I haven't gotten to work with in a very long time. He's going off to grad school in the fall and I'd like to work with him again before he leaves. And he's the sort of actor that will call me out on my crap and not let me get away with half-assing anything, and I like that in a scene partner. I'll enjoy whoever I end up working with, but I really hope it's him. Or another woman who would bring the same sort of energy and passion. She's the only woman I would let smack me upside the head for being dumb and she has. Thrice.

Anyway. Sorry I'm sort of rambly and random. That's kind of where my brain is these days. It'll get more linear soon, I think. Maybe? Or maybe it's a good thing if it doesn't.

Be well.

2010-04-20T14:11:00.003-05:00

Oh! And I almost forgot! The new Doctor Who!

Most of you know by now (though some of you may not) that I am in love with Doctor Who. I was flipping through the channels one night and I saw this rather cute man standing in a doorway in outer space next to a woman in a wedding dress and she finds out that he's an alien and I found out that the show was "Doctor Who" (the episode being "The Runaway Bride") and he mentioned a friend he had (Rose) who he lost and I, of course, then had to go back and start watching the show from the beginning (the Russell T. Davies beginning, anyway, starting with Christopher Eccleston as The Doctor) to find out who this Rose person was and what happened to her and well, I found my new favorite TV show. I have seen every episode since the show's resurrection, up to and including the first episode with the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith), and I have gone back (I love Netflix) and watched some of the old episodes with Tom Baker, John Pertwee, and William Hartnell as The Doctor. And I have to say, I love this show. I love the character of the Doctor, no matter what actor is playing him. He has this age and wisdom and love for all forms of life that is really...lovely. And just the whole concept is great - a guy traveling through time and space having wacky adventures in a blue police box, usually with a companion or two in tow. But particularly since the show's rebirth in 2005, it's been great. The special effects are top notch and the writing has shown marked improvement. And, Donna was named one of the greatest sci-fi characters of the decade because she didn't fall in love with the Doctor. Brilliant. And her story was so tragic! Anyway.

So David Tennant left the show and regenerated into Matt Smith around Christmas time, and my best friend and I have been chomping at the bit, waiting to see the first episode with the new Doctor (also with a new production staff), and finally, last Saturday night, it happened. We even bought British beer to enjoy while watching the show, such dorks are we.

There will be spoilers here, so if you don't want to know what happened, stop reading now.

I don't like the new sonic screwdriver. Of all the things to redesign, why redesign the screwdriver?

I'm not sure I like the new TARDIS. In the special features for the Ninth Doctor season, they said they redesigned the TARDIS to make it feel more organic that it had been with, say, Tom Baker's Doctor. And I loved the "more organic" TARDIS. This new one for the Eleventh Doctor feels modern and cold. Granted, I didn't get to see it very long, but it feels like all of the organic elements were removed in favor of a sleek, modern-looking machine (with a staircase leading up? What's up with that?). I liked the idea that the TARDIS was a living thing, and I liked being able to see that in the design. The six seconds I saw of the new one didn't feel alive.

Even more than that, though, I really didn't like that the episode started out with him hanging out of the TARDIS, holding on for dear life. The previous episode didn't end that way, and the TARDIS has a protective bubble kind of thing so if you open the door in space, you don't get sucked out into the vacuum. How did he fall out the door? You could argue that the TARDIS was damaged so that's what happened, but still. That bothered me.

I thought they spent WAY too much time trying to figure out the new Doctor's eating habits. Comedy happens in threes, not in fives or sevens or eights. "Three is the number of the counting and the number of the counting shall be three. Five is right out." Thus spake Monty Python, thus is law. So yeah, the food bit was too long. And who didn't know that he was sitting there talking to Amy? We all know his new companion is played buy a cute redhead and he's awful with punctuality. I don't know. It was like "The Girl in the Fireplace," but I like Madame du Pompodour better.

Prisoner Zero was...meh. It was creepy as the woman with two kids, but as a monster it was...meh. I kind of wanted to know what it was hanging onto from above whenever it showed up as the eel-looking thing - how long is the rest of it's body? It felt a bit like an afterthought. "We can get away with only showing it's head. Nobody will care."

The jury is still out for me on the new title sequence/revamped title music. It could just be that I am so used to the old stuff that I just need to give this stuff time.

I'm pretty sure David Tennant's tie didn't have swirlies on it at the end of The End of Time, or at any point in his tenure as the Doctor, so it was unnerving that Matt Smith's tie had swirlies on it for the first forty-five minutes of the episode. The new costume...meh. I'm glad they had an explanation, though, for what kind of cop wears mini-skirts and seamed stockings. Though her shoe choice was a bit of a head scratcher. Practical for running about with the Doctor, not so much for Kiss-O-Gram parties.

I spent Saturday afternoon watching the last three episodes of Season 4 and then the five specials (season 4.5?) and I will admit, it amounted to an afternoon of me crying. I cried a lot. The characters are rich and their situations heartbreaking. Granted, this new episode with the new Doctor is the first of a new season so they're not going to have the Universe collapsing in on itself just yet, but still. I didn't find Amy compelling. I didn't find the new Doctor as charming or charismatic or ancient as he used to be. I didn't cry. I barely laughed. I walked away from it neither loving the episode, nor hating it. There are a couple of episodes that I have seen that I didn't like very much ("Fear Her" and the one with the Wire), and this kind of felt like one of those. Not so horrible that I'm going to stop watching, but it's going to be a little while before I fall in love with the New Doctor.

That being said, I am open to falling in love with the New Doctor. I remember thinking, when David Tennant first appeared at the end of Season 1, "Who is this skinny rat-looking guy and why didn't Christoper stick around a little longer?" But I grew to love David Tennant as the Doctor, just as I had loved Christopher Eccleston. Maybe it will just take some time to love Matt Smith, too. I've heard murmurs about the "new Daleks," though, and that kind of scares me.

I know that every time a new actor comes in to play the Doctor who is younger than the last guy, people get all up in arms about how he's too young to play the part. One thing I liked about David Tennant is that while he looks young, he can also look very old. He was good at carrying the weight of the Universe on his shoulders, and carrying the weight of the Time War and all of the pain he caused his companions and all of the people he lost. Which made it that much lovelier when he would see a new species or a different planet with child-like enthusiasm (i.e. "You are beautiful!" when he sees the werewolf, right before running out of the room to get away from it). I haven't seen that age or weight of the Universe in Matt Smith yet. Granted, it's the first episode so the Universe isn't imploding yet, but even when he was telling off the giant eyeball, he wasn't as threatening as David Tennant used to be. Anyway. I'm picking nits here. I liked the episode. I love the show. I will continue to love the show and I will continue to wish that there really was a Doctor who would show up someday and rescue me from some evil only to invite me to travel with him through the Universe (I'd go in a HEARTBEAT!) and/or I will continue to hope that I get to be on the show someday (I'd make a great first female Doctor - and I'm ginger to boot!). I can see that they need some time to develop and to bring their own whatever to their characters and to the Universe of Doctor Who. And I'm looking forward to watching them do it.

I just really hope they don't make the Doctor/Amy relationship a romantic one. We did that already, just a couple of years ago. Her name was Rose and it was tragic (in the beautiful kind of way). Let's do something else with Amy.

2010-04-20T13:16:00.002-05:00

It's been a really long time since I posted. Sorry about that. Thing is, when you're really upset about something and waiting for things to change, you can only write, "I'm really upset and waiting for things to change" so many times before you start to even bore yourself, and I think I was trying to spare both of us, so that's why I was silent for a while there.

Things have changed.

I can't go into too much detail, though some of you already know what I'm talking about. I have a plan again, and a focus and a goal. It's weird, though, because it doesn't quite feel real yet. I'm making progress and taking steps, but I'm still kind of in the blahs, for lack of a better word. And I'm feeling the need to make lists, so here we go with some lists.

I need to cut my fingernails because they are WAY too long for my liking. I remember in high school, I used to try to grow them really long 'cuz I liked the way long nails looked. I still do. They look pretty. But they make playing the guitar really difficult, and even get in the way when doing things like typing. Now my preferred fingernail length is no-white-showing. But every now and again, when my nails have an eighth of an inch of white showing, I look at my hands and think they are really pretty and feminine and I like to just sit in that for a little while before I cut them off again to be practical. Sometimes I'll just file them down a bit so I still feel a bit girlie but I can play. I think it's time to cut them off, though. I have a show in a couple of weeks that I need to get ready for.

Speaking of things to get ready for, classes are going to be starting up again soon. I'm trying to figure out if my long-term plans will allow me to take two classes this session (from a financial standpoint). I think I can. I just need to give myself permission to do so. My mom's partner has this theory about money that it just kind of comes and goes so you shouldn't get too hung up on it. I'm a smart person with many talents; if I need more money in the future, I'm sure I can find a way to get it (legally). In the short term, I'd like to take these two classes. I think they could present some fun challenges.

I have a lot of things I want to do this summer. I want to order pizza from my favorite pizza place. I want to eat at my favorite vegan restaurants again. I want to see the Swell Season at Ravinia. I want to enjoy my favorite beer gardens. I want to go to street fairs. I have tickets for four more Cubs games. I want to get my hair cut. I want to buy another pair of jeans from the store that knows how to make clothing for real-shaped women. I want to play at my favorite music venue again. And I want to lose the weight that I had lost but have recently put back on while I've been hanging out in the blahs. I started running in my living room again last night, and I'm going to do some strength training tonight while I watch the Cubs game. Maybe throw in some time on my exercise bike, too. I'm torn about doing strength training that focuses on my lower body - my lower body is really strong. I have strong thighs and calves and as much as I'd like to shrink my rear end, I don't want to end up building it up more by doing 8,000 squats. Maybe I'll stick with leg lifts and things like that.

I also need to clean some things out this summer, get rid of excess. Figure out what of the stuff I currently have I need to hold on to, and what is ready to move on to its next owner. I'd have a garage sale if I had a garage. Maybe I should talk to someone I know who has a garage and see if I could bring a bunch of my stuff out to them to sell it there. Just a thought.

I have research and planning to do this summer, too. It's going to be a busy one, but I think it will also be good. My niece turns one this summer - I can't believe she's almost a year old already! She is such a sweetheart; she melts me every time I see her.

My plan scares me a little. I think that is what makes it a good plan, but I'm still scared. I hope at some point this summer, the scared goes away for a little while and I can be excited. Because it really is a good thing that could lead to other good things. I think it will help when all of the logistics are sorted out.

So yeah, lots going on. Sorry I'm kind of cryptic - I'll tell you more when I can. In the meantime, lots to do. I hope you are doing well!

2010-04-01T10:50:00.002-05:00

Rabbit rabbit! Happy April and all that rot.

See, the thing is this. One of the most important things I've heard in the last couple of months is that if you want to do something, if you want to accomplish something, or if you want to be involved in something, you have to make it happen (or you have to do it yourself). This is something I have found to be true again and again and again and again. And while it makes a lot of sense and can feel very empowering and all of that, it is also IMMENSELY frustrating because if you dream big (like I do), you always get to the point in these grandiose projects where you do need help and input from someone else. For example, if I wanted to start my own theater company right now, I could. But it's not much of a company with just me in it - I'd need other actors and directors and designers and whatnot and I'm sure I could find people interested in joining me for a project, but one show does not a theater company make and I'd have to start probably all over again for the next show, with maybe a carry-over of one or two people and so on and so forth. Or, if I want to launch my acting career, I can go out there and get more headshots and pound on agency doors until I get representation and I can go audition for everything under the sun, but until someone casts me in something, I'm not going to get very far.

I am just about at the point where I think I could make something happen on my own. Just about. I have ideas. I have a couple of scripts percolating. I have a big, silly project idea. And I can get started on them at any time. I think what I need to do, though, is figure out how far I need them to go. If I write a script and it never gets produced, am I okay with that? If I start my silly little project and only a dozen people ever see it, am I okay with that? At what point do I stop looking for help from people who just can't give it and move on to the next thing, or do I keep holding onto one dream forever and ever and ever even if it kills me?

I don't know.

In the meantime, I have a lot of work to do that I don't want to do but that I probably should get on. Because if I am going to launch any of these new plans of attack, I'm going to need some sort of funding for them at some point and being out of a job would really suck. Really.

2010-03-01T08:31:00.002-06:00

So I've been feeling for a little while now like I need something good in my life. In large part because I'm currently parked in limbo, waiting to hear back about a few things and I hate sitting in limbo. I like to be able to make plans and move forward, and while I'm waiting to hear how something is going to go, I can't make those plans. And you know how when you hear a word somewhere for the first time, you start to then hear it everywhere? Life is the same way. When you're sitting waiting for something to happen, all you can see are the other things not happening in your life and it starts to get really depressing. So I've been feeling like I need something good in my life for a little while now, but I'm not seeing it.

And I know that's a really unfair statement because I have a lot of good in my life. I have an amazing family and brilliant friends and this wonderful support system. I have enough money. I am physically in good shape. My cat brings me almost unspeakable joy. My apartment (currently) is warm enough (knock on wood). I am smart and talented and not too painful to look at. I have a lot of good in my life. I feel selfish wanting more, but I do. I'm sorry, but I do. The two or three things in my life that make me unhappy are really making me unhappy and I would like to be able to formulate a plan to change them but while I'm stuck in limbo, I can't really do that.

The good news is that limbo will end this month. I don't know if I'll come out on the heaven side or the hell side, but limbo will end this month. Please keep your fingers crossed for me that it comes out on the heaven side. Or if it doesn't, please keep your fingers crossed that I then take that and turn it into something good. Because whether the good thing I'm looking for comes from within me or from elsewhere, I need something good to happen this month and I am determined to make it happen.

Happy March, everybody.

2010-02-20T10:58:00.002-06:00

So I'm not in a good head place. I haven't been in a good head place for a couple of weeks now. And I think the worst thing I have done is to try to force myself into a good head place just so I can seem normal or okay or something. Truth is, I'm not okay right now. I put a lot of work into something that may turn out to be all for naught, something I placed a lot of importance on. Something that if it had gone the way I wanted it to had the potential to change the big three annoyances in my life all in one fell swoop. And to have it not go the way I wanted (I think. I still have about six weeks until I know all of the results) feels awful. It means I have to find other ways to deal with the big three. I've thought about some options in the past couple of weeks as part of my "trying to be okay" thing, but none of those options is a very good one - they'll all lead to more annoyance later. They are band-aids on the problems, not curatives.

So I'm not in a good head place. And trying to force myself into one is not at all helpful. I'm getting angrier at myself when I don't stay in my calorie goals or when I take a day off from working out. I bought a different brand of deodorant that doesn't smell as good so I feel stinky all the time. And I played a really difficult scene in class on Monday that proved that I have the ability to do this, but emotionally had me feeling like crap for a couple of days. And then I got angry at myself for feeling like crap. And none of this is productive!

So I'm taking the weekend off. I'm not tracking calories. I'm going to eat what I want when I want until I'm satisfied. I might work out; I might not. I may even splurge and have a beer. I'm not going to try to make myself feel good. I am going to allow myself to be in whatever head place I need to be in for a couple of days. If I just ignore the icky feelings, they'll never really go away. If I sit in them, acknowledge them, and deal with them, they will go away. Or at least become manageable.

And the funny thing is, as soon as I gave myself permission to feel awful for a few days, I started to feel better. I ate pizza and cake for dinner last night and went to bed at 8:30. I lounged around for a bit this morning (because what else is there to do when you wake up at 5:30 on a Saturday morning), did my dishes, and walked to the grocery store. I bought myself the deodorant I like so I smell like me again. I still don't feel great (my sinuses are staging a coup today, too), but I think allowing myself to take a break from trying to be healthy is the healthiest thing I could do right now. So here's to taking the weekend off!

2010-02-01T08:31:00.002-06:00

Rabbit, rabbit.

I'm nervous and scared and excited and relieved and I feel like I should be freaking out more than I am but I'm not. I'm ready for this. I've been working on this for about eight months and it's finally here. And part of me really can't believe that it's here and part of me is relieved that the day has finally come. It is the end of the first phase of a project, which means it is the beginning of the second phase which is really exciting. Really exciting. And if phase two goes as planned...

So I'm nervous and scared and excited and relieved and I'm kind of freaking out but kind of not. I need to remember the humor. I need to remember the energy. I need to remember to take my time and make my points. I need to remember my subjects and I need to go in there with David-Tennant-like energy. And most importantly, I can do this. I know what I'm doing. I'm prepared. I'm good at this. I'm likable. I'm flexible. I listen. And they all want me to do well. You all want me to do well. I am blanketed in love and support and positive energy and it makes me want to weep with joy. Which is kind of what this is all about in the first place.

But it's here. Today is finally here. I will be brilliant. I'm so excited for the next stage!

2010-01-21T09:39:00.002-06:00

I've needed a little bit of support lately and I've gotten it. Just about every day, I'm getting an email from a family member or friend who I may not have talked to in a long time, just offering kind words of encouragement and support. I can't even begin to tell you how good that feels. It's like my own blanket of fleecy angels descending on me and holding me and keeping me safe and warm and loved.

I feel very blessed right now. Thank you to my wonderful, beautiful family and friends for being there when I need you.

2010-01-12T09:23:00.002-06:00

In my ongoing attempts to learn to love my body, I worked out last night in my underwear and a tank top. Granted, they are what the kids call "boy shorts," so they look like I'm wearing hot pants, but still. And don't worry - I worked out in the privacy of my own living room, away from the windows so I'm pretty sure nobody saw me, but it was a big deal for me. I don't normally show that much leg. And it's weird - yesterday was lower body conditioning and I got to watch my muscles work since they were, you know, exposed. I learned a couple of very important things about myself from doing this:

1) I have AMAZING quads. Seriously. My quads are huge. I could probably lift a truck with these puppies. I keep doing squats in the hopes they will help shape my rear end, but I'm really seeing the benefits in my quads. They are something to be proud of.

2) I really like it when my apartment is warm enough for me to just wear underwear and a tank top.

3) If I ever decide to wear shorts again, they should be of the short-short variety because I have great legs and any other length cuts them off funny.

4) If I ever have to play a hooker or an escort or a call girl, they should have me wear boy shorts for any scenes involving lingerie. Boy shorts actually make my butt look cute and pert. I never thought I'd have a pert butt, but in boy shorts, I do.

Please join us again next week for part two in this ongoing series, "What I Learned By Hanging Out in a Belly Shirt For an Afternoon."

2010-01-11T00:21:00.002-06:00

I know what my life is supposed to be. It is supposed to be passion and love and fury and anger and fire and tears and laughter so loud it shakes the mountains. It is supposed to be glory and heartache and triumph and turmoil and beauty as far as the eye can see. It is supposed to be magnificent.

But those things don't often happen in the real world. At least not for me. The closest I get is a laugh so loud it disturbs dogs in a three-mile radius. The real world is censored and muted and safe. There's nothing wrong with that. It is censored and muted and safe for a reason - so that we can all function in it and carry on the usual business of being alive. Nobody would be able to do their jobs if they felt the anguish of Hamlet every time someone did them wrong. Nobody would eat if they felt the passion of Juliet as she drank the vial of poison. The world would cease to function if everyone walked around experiencing the world as intensely as characters in books and plays and movies do.

But I want to. I want to feel everything that intensely. I want to live that fully. I want to experience every aspect of the human condition the way they experience it on stage and screen. I don't like to do things halfway. I don't like to be missing out. And in so many ways, I'm missing out already. I'll never marry my high school sweetheart because I didn't have one. I'll never have the four day Vegas marriage because I'm too smart for that now. I'll never even know what it's like to grow up in another country because I only get the one childhood. I'm tired of missing out. I'm tired of capped emotions. I want to live the life that the characters on the screen do.

I know, I sound like a crackpot. I know I can't live that way all of the time. But if I am one of the characters on the stage, I can live that way for a very short time. I can scream and weep and leap for joy boil with rage and love with my whole heart until my body aches. I can experience...everything.

I know what my life is supposed to be. I know what my life is supposed to be and it is not supposed to be this. I know what my life is supposed to be. Please, oh please, oh please let me get there one day.

2010-01-10T18:32:00.003-06:00

I know I've probably said it before, but I feel the need to say it again. I love cooking. I really love cooking. I love having warm, healthy, nurturing food in my house. I love working with different textures and spices and flavors and styles. It's fun. I wish I had someone to cook for more often, though, because as much fun as it is to make a big batch of chili, it would probably be more fun if I wasn't the only one eating it for a week and a half.

Today, I made Chile sin Carne al Mole (or something like that - it's chili that uses molasses, cocoa powder, seitan, and pinto beans) from "Vegan with a Vengeance" and I made braised curried tofu with peas from an iPhone app cookbook I found. So tasty. SO tasty. It was the first time I cooked with coconut milk (the curried tofu) and the first time I cooked with seitan (the chili). And my house smells good and things are warm and it's just the kind of food that makes you feel like you're doing your body a favor by eating it.

I also feel the need to give a little shout-out to my sister-in-law. She is an amazing cook, and she cooks with no fear. It doesn't matter how complicated the recipe is, or what kinds of things are in it, she'll give it a shot if it sounds tasty. And it always turns out beautifully. I think, in a strange way, I started cooking more interesting things because of her. And, she and my brother have been instrumental in my cultivation of the cooking habit because they have supplied me with many a lovely gadget to make things easier, and one of the greatest cookbooks ever written (the Veganomicon). So thank you for inspiring me to cook and giving me the confidence to make things like braised curried tofu with peas. I don't think I would have even looked at the recipe twice a few years ago, but now - it's super crazy easy, super crazy tasty, and probably something I would make again. So thanks for that.

Yay good food!

2010-01-08T21:20:00.002-06:00

So I'm doing this exercise boot camp thing through this website and on paper, it doesn't sound that hard. There is a workout video every day that is ten minutes long - maximum - and you're supposed to get 30 minutes of cardio exercise in five days a week. So far, I have kept up with all of the exercising. The eating bit has kind of gone down the tubes, in large part because I haven't shopped in a long time. But the exercising is surprisingly kicking my ass. Then again, I'm also doing the 100 push-up, 200 sit-up and 200 squats challenges. And I can see my "saddlebags" going away. My butt is actually taking on a really nice shape. It's still larger than your average starlet, but it's taking on a nice shape. And my arms - I'm getting some nice arm definition. I'm not saying I'm turning into a gym monkey or a female body builder or anything, but I'm starting to get a really nice body. I've got really solid legs, too.

But right now, after biking for 30 minutes at 14 miles per hour, and doing the 5-minute upper body video twice, I'm exhausted. I'm sore and tired and really thirsty, so I should probably put the computer down and go get some water. Being in good shape takes a lot of work.

2010-01-03T10:14:00.002-06:00

Three days into 2010 and my heat isn't working properly. Woo hoo!

I feel like I should look back on the last decade and take stock and make resolutions and all that kind of stuff like so many people are doing, but I also have a feeling it would make me sad. I wanted something major to happen in the aughts so that I could say, "We got married in aught-six and had our first child in aught-eight," or something like that. But I didn't get married and I didn't have a child. I did buy a car. I moved into an apartment by myself. I got (was given) a cat who I fell completely in love with (over time). I fell completely in love with my niece. I made two friends that I don't know what I would do without them. I changed jobs. I became a musician and then became not a musician. I joined and left a theater company. I shaved my head. I became vegan. I cried a lot. I laughed a lot. I was an extra in two major motion pictures. I went to Europe.

I was thinking last night that I'm ready to start really living. REALLY living. And I don't think that sitting behind a desk all day, five days a week, is really living. I hope that some of the events of the coming year will start to push me along the path to really living. That is my resolution for 2010 - to start really living every day the best I can, even if it means turning off the phone and the computer and doing what I want to do for an entire day. I did a lot of things in the last decade, but I also missed out on a lot of things. I want to make sure that in this next decade, I take every opportunity I can get my hands on, even if it means taking chances that might just be me making a fool of myself.

I also want to grow a bit of an ego this year, just in respect to my performance abilities. I tend to think that I'm decent. I want to get to a place where I think I'm great.

But first things first. I need to eat breakfast and clean my house and do laundry and start on day one of my January bootcamp. Simple, easy attainable goals. It's the best way to get things done.

Happy New Year, everybody!

2009-12-30T21:23:00.002-06:00

I find myself getting very angry and very annoyed about the stupidest things lately. This is stuff that should just roll off my back because in the grand scheme of things, it's really not that big of a deal. I just get angry, though, and want to fight. Like I get angry with having to consistently clean up messes at work that aren't mine. I get angry that there are only two of us in the office who empty the dishwasher with any sort of regularity even though everybody uses it. I get angry that my old cell phone company billed me for a month of service they didn't provide and when I called to straighten it out, they bounced me around to five different people and hung up on me once before I got somebody who could kind of understand the situation, but she said I owe money for one day of service. And then (let's just double check our math, here) she informed me that one day of service equals nine dollars and change. When a whole month of service is $73.44. On what planet is nine dollars one-thirtieth of $73.44? And I'm pissed about it! I shouldn't be pissed about it. I shouldn't say nasty things to the accounting person at the cell phone company, but I did. I know it wasn't nice and I'm sorry for that, but she couldn't see how ridiculous it was to charge me nine dollars for their mistake instead of just taking the whole charge off of my bill. Especially considering that I canceled my service with them at about noon, so technically, I should be billed for 12 hours of service. Hey, if they're going to quibble about days, I'm going to quibble about hours.

When did I become the person who quibbles about hours and says nasty things to customer service representatives? I don't want to be the person who quibbles about hours and says nasty things to customer service representatives. I'm really a nice person. I'm a good person. I'm a helpful person. I think I'm just tired of being taken advantage of so I'm starting to lash out at anyone who has less clout than me. I can't tell the president of my company that it is his turn to empty the dishwasher, so I get angry at guy who made some big catastrophe that has been going on for a week and a half my problem all of a sudden. I'm misplacing my anger and I'm sorry about that. I really am. Cell phone accounting lady, I'm sorry I yelled at you. In my defense, you guys screwed up first and your math skills are atrocious, but I shouldn't have yelled at you. I apologize for that.

I don't want to be an angry person who gets annoyed at the drop of a hat. Maybe that's what I should work on as my new year's resolution - I need to lighten up again. I think I know what will lighten me up and I'm working on it, but I can't really talk about it yet. Not here, anyway. Just know that it is potentially amazing and keep your fingers crossed for me!

2009-12-12T09:34:00.002-06:00

I had to come in to work today to help out with a training. Yay. Be at work at 7:30am on a Saturday. I think things are going well so far, though. Running smoothly and a bit ahead of schedule, which is okay by me. Smile, nod, be polite and accommodating and then leave to go to class at about noon.

I've also had a house guest for a couple of days and it has been really nice. In part because she is a really lovely house guest. She's flexible and easy going and independent, so it's kind of like having a temporary roommate whose company you actually enjoy. Perhaps, if I did find a partner who I liked and who liked me, living with him might not be so bad. It is kind of nice to have someone to ask, "So how was your day?" when you get home and to have them ask a similar thing of you. It's very...friendly and warm. I dig that.

Anyway. Other than having to come into work on a Saturday, things are going pretty well. Just have to make it to noon...

2009-12-05T08:22:00.002-06:00

I'm going to sound like a crackpot in this entry. Just so you know. I assure you, I'm fine.

Have you ever had one of those moments where you can feel your ribcage open up and all of the light that lives inside you just comes flooding out and fills the whole room? That was the Swell Season concert for me the other night. Amazing. Just...amazing. I found myself thinking, "That's my life happening up there, but I'm really happy that they got it." Which I know makes no sense. My life is supposed to be art and performance and joy and making other people feel wonderful things, and I do get jealous of some people who get to live that life who I don't think necessarily deserve it (i.e. the Britney Spears type), but the Swell Season deserves it. The guys have been playing for over 20 years and Marketa is adorable and talented and humbled and completely appreciative of every single moment of her life. They deserve it. They love it. I'm so glad they get to do this, and it made me so happy at the show I wanted to cry. I actually did cry when he played "Say It To Me Now" partially because of the story he told beforehand about a woman in a blue coat, and partially because he came to the front of the stage and played it with no amplification or microphone and he filled that space as completely as the opera singers fill the Lyric. That's amazing and brilliant and beautiful and all I could do was cry. Which also made me really happy because I was freely following my impulses, public forum be damned, you know? Anyway.

I sometimes feel like my body is a shell, housing this brilliant yellow/gold light. And I have to be careful when this light gets to shine because not everyone can handle it. I don't want to overwhelm anyone or blind anyone, so sometimes I have to keep it under wraps, so to speak. But every once in a while, I can open my heart completely and let the light just shoot out and I can't even begin to tell you how good that feels. I was thinking about that after the concert and I realized that I want to do that in a relationship. I'm looking for a guy who can handle it and who deserves to be bathed in it. I think there are a lot of men out there who can see it - when I think back on things, as much as I would like to try to convince myself that I'm not the sort of woman men are attracted to in that way, that's just not true. There have been a lot of men who can see this light inside me and they want to be near it. I haven't always trusted them with it, though, or trusted that they can handle it because it's really bright. Really bright. And a lot to take in. And I think it needs to shine on someone who has his own really bright light, too, because if it shines one someone who has no light (or a weak-ish light), I'm going to be completely drained and that's not really fair to me, now is it? But if it's a mutual light exchange...that could be brilliant.

I know that sounds crazy. You can swap out "light" for "love" if you want and it sounds a little more sane.

I had a dream about Christian Bale last night. For some reason, he was in the house I grew up in - I think they were filming something there - and my room was his dressing room. I had to get something out of there at one point and he and I started talking and kind of became friends. There was nothing romantic about it - we talked about his wife and his work and my artistic aspirations and stuff. I think at one point, I even tried to sell him on Doctor Who and told him that David Tennant was really cute because of his accent (maybe I was trying to get Christan Bale to speak in his real voice?). We ended up going to one of those sort of kitchy stores where they sell cheese and processed meats and kitchen accessories shaped like barnyard animals and stuff like that and I bought this giant slice of coffee cake with blueberry crumble on top of it (think about three feet square giant) to bring back home to I don't even know who (the film crew maybe?). It was a really nice dream and he came off as much more normal than he is painted in the media (what with the outburst on the Terminator set and whatnot) and even somewhat unsure. It was nice.

Anyway. I warned you I was going to sound like a crackpot. I've been meaning to blog for two days (since the concert) and now since I just woke up, it's all coming out in a mush. Sorry about that. Hope you are well.

2009-11-28T14:39:00.003-06:00

I've gotten a lot done this weekend. I have to wait until January 1 for the next part, but I still got a lot done this weekend.

I put the plastic up on my windows. This year I thought ahead and measured my windows and got the super jumbo size stuff so it was a lot easier than it has been in the past. And I used an extension cord with my hair dryer that was long enough that I was able to effectively shrink-wrap the windows in a decent amount of time. Now I just have to wait for the heat to come back on so my apartment actually gets a little warmer. I think they have you use a blow dryer so you start out with a blast of warm air in the room, but I could use more than a blast. It's not icy (yet), but it is teetering on the 66-67 degree mark which is just shy of what the temperature is legally supposed to be. I'm hoping with the plastic, I might get those extra two degrees, and maybe a bonus two degrees or so.

But I'm feeling good. I got a lot done. Movement. Progress. And believe it or not, it's only Saturday. I get one more entire day after this to do even more. Maybe cook. Maybe clean. Maybe take the day off, sit on my butt, and watch TV all day. Who knows. But it feels good to have gotten a lot done.

2009-11-27T18:41:00.002-06:00

And the medical bills just keep coming in. I got another bill today for the pregnancy test they performed on me when I was in the emergency room that I had no idea they performed and did not give them my permission to perform, along with a bunch of other lab work that I can only assume was necessary, though whether or not it was is open for debate. However, I do remember telling them several times that there would have to be Divine Intervention in order for me to be pregnant, so the fact that they are now billing me for a test they didn't have to do, when they already billed me for x-rays on my knees that they didn't have to do...I'm pissed.

I called my insurance too, because I got another explanation of benefits saying I owe money for surgery performed on me by some doctor I never met. They don't have a record of a doctor with a name I recognize performing any procedures on me. But surgery? If my lumbar puncture is/was to be coded as "surgery," I should have gotten more than a Band-Aid out of the deal. And I certainly don't think it is right for this doctor who did not perform the procedure to be able to bill me for it. That's fucked up. Pardon my language, but that's fucked up. According to my insurance company, it happens all the time. It is "the norm" for random doctors who you never meet to bill you for things they didn't do. If that is the case, I think it should be "the norm" to not pay for shit that didn't happen. And my insurance company couldn't tell me when it's going to end. It sounds like I could just keep getting bills for some indefinite period of time, as long as Doctor Whatsit didn't make his numbers and decides that the fact that he was standing near the nurse who sat on his ass for three hours while I had needles in both arms waiting for results that weren't coming, he should be able to bill me for a lobotomy. Because that's obviously what they did to me if they think I'm going to pay for doctors I never met to perform procedures that they didn't do.

Healthcare in this country is fucked. Pardon the language, but I can't think of a better term to describe the state of things. Healthcare in this country is fucked up.

2009-11-26T20:19:00.002-06:00

I'm thankful for a lot. I'm thankful for my family and my friends and my cat and my health and the fact that I have a job and an apartment and several guitars and I'm thankful for all of the amazing things that my brain and body allow me to do. I'm thankful for the 15-ish pounds that I have lost and the fact that I now feel closer to living in the body I'm supposed to be in. I'm thankful that I got to spend time with my niece today because honestly, that kid melts me like nothing else ever has. I'm thankful that I wasn't the only vegan at my family gathering today. I'm thankful that relatives came today that haven't been to this family gathering in years and that I got to spend some quality time talking to them - maybe more than I ever have before. And I'm thankful that at least so far, I'm entering the holiday season in a positive mood. I think it made a world of difference, at least for me, that I felt friendly and talkative and happy at the gathering today instead of dreading the prospect of having to talk to people. It allowed me to have some really lovely conversations.

So yeah, most things are going pretty well at the moment. And I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful for you.

2009-11-19T09:17:00.002-06:00

I'm feeling the need to write about some happy things today.

Warm water. I'm really a big fan of warm water. Warm showers are particularly nice, but even just washing your hands in warm water (after, say, using the restroom) can feel really indulgent from time to time. I've even taking to drinking hot water when I'm at work and I've already had my tea. It helps make sure I'm drinking enough water, and it helps keep me warm. I'm sure people think I'm silly drinking cups of hot water, but that's okay. People think I'm silly for lots of reasons and I kind of like it.

I've lost fifteen pounds since July and I finally bought myself a pair of trousers that fit. It makes me feel really odd to wear the ones that are way too big, now that I know just how big they are, and it makes me feel good to wear the ones that actually fit. I also like that I can see muscle definition in my arms and my legs. I have some pretty great legs, I must say.

Class has started again. I didn't have a great exercise last night, but it wasn't awful and I didn't die, so it's all good. It was great to see my friends again and I love that feeling of trying something new and giving it a shot and, I dunno, just seeing what happens. I like to try new stuff and I got to try new stuff last night.

I may have found someone else to help me in a spot I hadn't even thought to look.

It's Thursday. Which is almost Friday. And it's only a three day work week next week. I think I'm at a place in my major work projects where I need to wait for stuff (need to wait for product to arrive, etc), which means today shouldn't be as crazy as the rest of the week was, which is good. I could use a sort of mellow day.

I dunno. I'm just feeling kind of good today. I still hate certain things about my life and my station therein, but I feel kind of good today. Like things are coming together and like maybe I'll make it through the holidays without a major meltdown. Here's to Thursday.

2009-11-16T23:31:00.002-06:00

I'm grumpy.

I got the explanation of benefits for my emergency room visit today, in addition to the first bill from the radiology people. All told, it is going to cost over $3,100 for me to waste nine hours of my life finding out there was nothing wrong with me and being made to feel worse in the process. And that's with insurance. That's with the deductible met on my insurance. Thirty-one hundred dollars. I don't know about you, but I don't have that lying around to hand over at the moment. Even paying it off over time, if I pay it off over a year, that's still $258 a month. That's a car payment. But I'm not getting a car out of it. I got holes in my arms and my spine and I got treated like I really didn't matter. Yay.

And I went dancing tonight and got a parking ticket. I got there about 9:30pm and left by eleven, and somehow, at 10:22pm, I got a parking ticket for an expired meter/overstay. I hadn't even been there an hour - how could it be an overstay? And what meters in the city require that you pay after 9pm? Really? And why didn't any of the other surrounding cars have tickets on them? What the hell is it with cops and ticketing my car? Don't they know I just got slapped with $3,100 worth of medical bills?

I'm tempted to call my doctor and ask her to pay for it. Or call the hospital and make them pay at the very least for the completely unnecessary knee x-rays. I shudder to think what additional charges they would have slapped me with had they actually given me some sort of medication for the headaches that I went in for in the first place.

And I'm hungry. I've been hungry all day. I went over my calorie limit and was then kind of bored at the dance tonight so I didn't get as much exercise as I was hoping for and I really want a snack now but it's almost midnight and I really should just go to bed and I've already had too much to eat today but I'm hungry. This is not good.

And I haven't gotten any sort of confirmation that my class is starting on Wednesday. I like to know these things more than an hour in advance. Especially since I'm going to be stuck in a meeting at work all day Wednesday that I'd rather not be in because I have enough other things going on at the moment.

So I'm grumpy. I think I have a right to be grumpy. I know it will go away, but right now, I'm grumpy.