Tell you all my secrets

A truly awesome birthday was had yesterday.

I got a nice new cut and a fantastic color as my treat to me, then did all the dead-run party stuff that always comes up for parties - making various salads, helping swamp out the living room. It was supposed to rain, but I kept insisting the clouds needed to keep their legs crossed until at least midnight and it mostly worked.

I got a new computer monitor, a Sims 2 expansion, a copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a copy of Ravens in the Library, a Title Wave gift certificate, a wineglass candle (which was accidentally knocked over and shattered within the hour) and a remote control zombie. We had the family birthday dinner for the triplets and I last Sunday. That was a gift certificate-tastic affair (and that rocks). Mom and dad sent me a bunch of books from my wish list and I've read most of them already.

We weren't sure how many people were coming, so we over-cooked. A lot of people who planned on coming didn't and some folks brought friends, so I think it still eeked out around 30. When it finally started to rain we went inside and hung out in Jay's apartment.

Today I have my first production meeting for Harvey and a closing shift at the Aurora show. That will give me a good jump into Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (so I can then lend it to the person who gave it to me.)

We made it to Valdez just fine. It was a pretty nice drive overall.

We pulled in just in time to get our room (a studio dorm room with a mattress on the floor and a TV tray for furniture), eat at the Thai place and get to see Man in the Attic on the mainstage.

lonelydumptruck had seen in when it was Out North but I hadn't. I liked the show, but I felt like there was still a shoe waiting to drop when the final blackout came. The Fringe was in a hotel instead of above the Mexican restaurant. It was the final night, so the scripts were all Overnighters with a universal theme of death. I really liked some of them, but it was too much sitting after the drive and the mainstage.

We formally checked in for the Conference this morning and watched one of the full-length plays. It was a No Exit kind of piece where people were trapped in a room with no idea why they were really there. The blurb made it sound like it was going to be a propaganda play but it was a lot better than that. The playwright who wrote some of my favorite childrens plays is here again and there are at least 8 of her plays here I don't have yet. I smell a splurge in my future. She walked by while I was sending emails earlier and we said hi. :)

Mommie and Eddie came down to see lonelydumptruck's play tonight so we had lunch with them at the Thai place. Now the big question is whether to stay for the last full-length play readings of the Conference or go take a nap.

Another cloudy day in Valdez! Hubby's play is being read this afternoon! I can't wait to hear what the panel has to say about it. He's doing a reading today too.

Yesterday was....interesting. I went to 3 readings, 2 of them were "one-person" shows. Both of them had a second character who came in at the end or who did alternate voices. I really didn't care for the Mark Twain-based one much, but the first has some promise. The same actress is supposed to play the patient and the therapist. At first it is alternating monologues out of time (one in the session, then the therapist venting about the session to Zod-only-knows-who later on) but then it moved into the two responding to each other in real time, still in monologue. That was troubling. Also - nothing really happened. Which was the same problem I had with the Twain play. Nothing happened!! People critiqued the third play I saw pretty harshly, but I loved it! There was dialog! One person got tied to the train tracks and the train actually CAME! Hallelujah!! It was like getting to see a Mamet play after a steady diet of Beckett.

Pain levels have been okay, considering I'm sleeping on an air mattress. I've been sleeping like a baby. That could have something to do with rolling in about 2am after the bonfire at Mineral Creek every night, though.

One of my friends here also has a TENS unit, so we were comparing units. She says hers is at least 5 times stronger than mine. Mine is still not working great, but I realized I've grabbed some pads for this one and some for the old unit. That might have a bit to do with it. I'm still having the same issues with the current not staying at the set level when I move around. I'd hoped new wires would fix that, but I may have to ask for a whole new unit.

Last night the UAF Drama group did the evening performance, Split. I really enjoyed it. The playwright's notes talked about how he felt there is kind of a social adolescence at 23-24, when you are just out of college and trying to figure out what the hell is going on. It was a really young feeling play, and I liked that. Some older audience members walked out. The show didn't just drop the F-bomb, it dropped cluster F-bombs. Sort of:

F
U
C
K
!
!
Fuck............Fuck.............Fuck
........Fuck.............Fuck
..............Fuck...........Fuck
Fuck

(and thank the Hubby for that visual)

ETA: which LiveJournal won't take the spaces for! I'll try to work it out later. Right now there is Thai food to beg for and readings to hear! Ta!

I will be performing in the Overnighters tonight. Since we were at the Cake concert last night, I have no idea who our playwright is, who is in the cast or what the theme will be. I can call you for a noon redneck check though, geolinguist

Otherwise known as The Slacker Report. ( Read more... )

So much to say and so little desire to write.

In the last couple of days we had our new bed frame delivered. It's gorgeous and it is HUGE. We had such an adventure getting it inside at 10 at night, just Mark and I, with me trying not to lift. We dinged it in a few places, but none too terribly. Markis trying to decide how best to fix it, wax or a sharpie.

Based on comments,we named our Roomba. She is Rosie. Mark is now on a quest to rememebr what Rosie on the Jetsons sounded like and I want to make her a little white maid hat/tiara.

The treadmill arrived today. Mark reordered the living room to better fit it. He thinks I hate the arrangement because my first comment was that it made our living room very small, but what I meant was that it is not really entertaining size but is a nice, intimate size for just the two of us.

Mark came home very late last night because of tech. I spent the night reading after having dinner with a friend. I re-read "A Woman in Mind" which is one of my favorite Alan Ayckbourn plays. It was the first one I'd ever seen and I am still haunted by the ending - Susan standing there speaking in her own language that no one else can understand crying "December bee? December choosy?" I have recommended it to one of the theatre companies in town and I wanted to give it another read before I lent out my copy to make sure there was not anything they might object to that I didn't remember.

I followed that up with one of Ayckbourn's childrens plays "This Is Where We Came In". Dear God, I laughed until I cried. I tried to imagine how to explain it and the best I could come up with was "It's 6 Characters Trying to Ditch Their Authors". Basically there is a group of Story Players, who act out the stories as the Story Tellers spin them. The Story Tellers are older than death, one of them tells the same things over and over, one can't remember things and the third gets everything wrong. Which leads to moments like "And this is the story of Grethel and Hansel. ("so far so good") who live at the edge of the forest with their father (Albert dons Woodsman attire.) who is a plumber." Having slept on it, I love the play even more.

Tonight I went to see "Back of the Throat". Mark just blew me out of the water. I was so impressed by his acting. The entire cast was dead soild. He kind of warned me that the script starts out great and thne gets really weird but I was riveted from start to finish. I teared up at the end. The audience was small, but none of us left when the lights came up, every one of us stayed to talk to the director and actors. I think that says a lot.

We went to see Veronica at Blues Central after that, which was a kick. We were totally "that table" yelling and screaming "We love you" after every song. We even danced like white guys right there at the table.

Oh, huge news flash - I will be appearing ON STAGE at the Overnighters. Yep, they only let me out of the booth about once a year and it will be on Sunday. Please send Diet Coke.

But a good one, overall. It started off very oddly. I accidentally slept 11 hours Thursday night and had such vivid, strange dreams that it made off of Friday feel very surreal and off-kilter. I thought I saw a Bald Eagle hopping around downtown Friday morning, for example, for a moment and from a distance. It turned out to be a raven with a drink cup stuck over its head. I felt like that raven all day long. I think the whole thing started while I was still sitting in a cafe, indulging in a rare cup of coffee and reading the paper looking for mentions of ATY. That was how I came across the fact that they have released the first season of Fame on DVD.

Fame. On DVD

Now, I was a huge fan of this show and I honestly thought I was the Last Fan on Earth. I thought the only way I would see the show again would be to drag out the video tapes I made of the death rattle that was the final season on a Canadian network. I thought the only way I would hear Desdemona again would be to try to excavate the record albums still at my parent's house. I never thought there would be a call for this show to turn up on DVD. I'm honestly floored.

Normally, this kind of thing would send me screaming to my Amazon Wish List. Do not pass Go. Do not pretend to get any work done. Go straight to the @squee-ing and the hemorraging bank account. But this time, for once, I feel I should be cautious. I know, in my heart of hearts, that this was a cheesy show. I understand that even the nostalgia factor might not save it from the suck. Do I want to face that? More importantly, do I want to spend my money or a gift-giving occasion on that?

Yeah, I Netflix-ed it the second I got home. I'm a sucker, but I'm a cheap sucker.

Saturday was a little better, at least on the reality scale. Mark had an audition where he hit a home run as the one part he doesn't want to play. He's not feeling good about that. I'm trying to keep his hopes up for the callbacks.

We went to see Kafka Dances with scooterpbakes and kahteeyah. Overall, I thought the show was well done with strong performances, but I just didn't care for the script. After that we went to a bonfire and then stayed up until 3 in the morning finishing the second season of Dead Like Me.

I'd been warned that the second season blew huge, hairy goats but I thought it was a good show, for the most part. It was one of those series where you have a fine time while you are watching it but, when you start to talk about it afterward and try to piece together the logic of how and why things happened that you start to realize they really copped out and you start to get pissed off. I think that, had there been a 3rd season, you could probably go back and pin-point the moment where It All Went Wrong. It was when they let Mandy Patinkin sing.

Now don't get me wrong - I like Mandy a great deal. I think he has a fabulous voice (though I wonder if he has ever used his chest for a moment). Sunday in the Park with George is one of my favorite shows. I even own one of his solo albums and that album is why I think Mandy was one of the most self-indulgent performers out there. (Yes, more that Shatner, kornopolous, much, much more.) I especially don't think that his character on Dead Like Me should be a singer. I don't think he would have been if they didn't have MANDY. What really cracked me up is that, right before the scene where he sang, seconds before he warmed up that lilting Irish tenor, I turned to Mark and began to muse allowed on what an album by Mandy would be like these days. "Since he seems to be a lot less indulgent and more.....likely.....oh fuck."

Sunday we had the Breakfast Club at Cafe Amsterdam and then went to another Cordova/'Burner Family Safety Meeting. We went ahead and drew names for the Christmas Gift Exchange then instead of waiting for Thanksgiving. There are 2 people in the family who always leave me utterly stumped when it comes to gift-giving occasions. Of course, I drew one of them. Luckily I picked up a little something for that person over the summer, just in case, but now I have to come up with some other ideas.

After that we tried to get my computer fixed but the old girl staunchly refuses to accept aid. I mentioned that I'm thinking of just going with a cheap fix now and starting to look for a laptop that will play Sims and surf the internet. Mark and Rodney both latched onto this idea. The computer is covered with sites displaying refurbished laptops right now.

Rodney and geolinguist came over for dinner and a movie last night. We made a pasta bar and watched Love Actually. It was a perfectly harmless little film. I liked the plot with Liam Neeson and The Cute Kid best. geolinguist and I revived our game of "Predict that Cliche" for a little while. Basically the rules are that if you are able to predict what cliche will be indulged before the end of the scene, you have to drink. We had a wonderful time watching A View from the Top that way. I don't think I have ever been so drunk before 3 on a Saturday afternoon.

I'm supposed to be over helping out at ACT today but Ron is feeling under the weather so we are letting him sleep a while more before starting in on that. It's going to be interesting to see how all of this works out.

Probably more later. Definitely Christmas cards later on, if I can pry my ass off Neopets. It's not to late to put your name in for a card. In fact, we encourage that kind of behavior.

I spent far too much time tormenting a co-worker yesterday at the Rotary event. While he was fighting with a wireless mic, I kept whispering things like "Hey Mike, what's the difference between God and a Sound Guy? God doesn't think he's a Sound Guy."

The event itself went pretty well. Or as well as can be expected when you get an event like that. 9:00 we had a good indication of how it was going to play out - the person hired to sing the National Anthem of Canada didn't show up so we went to plan B. "Everyone, please turn to page 16 in your handouts and join with us in singing...." I could not help but laugh. The only really bad thing was that they only had 15 min to turn around from lunch to the next speaker and it takes at least half an hour to change all the linen. They had to cut some events from the afternoon to make up time. We're looking at the same schedule crunch today, so I think we're all just going to have to dive in and collect napkins regardless of the dirty looks and comments from the hotel staff. They really hate it when you try to help.

Last night Mark, kahteeyah, scooterpbakes
and I went to see Drawer Boy. That is one amazing script. The performances were great and the set was just amazing. I don't think I have ever seen such devotion given to transforming Cyrano's completely. It really got me thinking about shows I want to do there one day.

The night before Mark and I did a Beartooth double-feature - A Very Long Engagement and Constantine (Luckily in that order) My ride should be here any second, so I'll wait and say more about those later if the spirit moves me.

What a fucking day. I don't think I have been this loaded with stuff at work since Christmas Carol. I felt like I was up to my ears in work with someone up my nose the whole time adding to the pile.

I've also been a horrible slacker about writing. I keep having ideas, but I just don't take the time to put them down. It's been a crazy week and this will be an utterly random catalog of events.

Saturday Mark and I went to see The Tempest. I enjoyed it for the most part. It was pretty dull in places. I think that can be one of the problems with the Late Romances; because they are about fathers and daughters and the villains are not that strong there seems to be a temptation to downplay them which takes the teeth out of the story. Antonio, Sebastian and even Caliban had no real menace. I think the play works best when you have a feeling that Miranda, Ariel and Prospero are in actual danger from the forces convening around them - stranded on an island in a sea of villains if you will.

Mark went to the wake for Jesus Christ Superstar after the show but I was just too tired to rally. I felt bad, but I also felt drunk and exhausted and didn't want to snore on anyones' parade.

The weather has been so amazing lately that Sunday Mark decided to repot most of our plants. We also started some seedlings for a veggie garden. I bought myself a present. I got a blueberry bush and named her Muffin. Between that and the teeny-weeny sprouts of the European Salad seeds I bought I've been wandering through the house hissing "Grow! Grow, my pretties! Grow large and strong so that I might eat you!"

We rented Sideways this weekend. It made me miss South Africa terribly. It also made me thirsty. We went through 2 bottles of wine

Sunday was also our first rehearsal with the Toad crew. Sometimes I feel as though they only keep me around because they like me - it sure can't be for my singing. I really surprised myself on Sunday, though. I think I was one of the stronger singers. At least I was able to remember the note progression on the main song we worked and sing loudly enough to help others stay on key. Of course, the moment someone started harmonizing, I was off singing with them instead, but that is what I do. I blame years of being in choir. My technique is pretty much just "sing what you hear". That came back to haunt me on one show. We had to do "My Funny Valentine" in 4-6 part harmony and I could not hold onto my part to save my life once I had to stand away from the other altos. I sucked. I was terrified. The night of the show, Mark ran up to hug me at the end of the song and said "I could hear you!" It was a huge occasion for me, I never sing well or loud enough to be picked out of a group. I ran over to the director, all excited "Mark could hear me!" and he said "I know, and you could hear me. You were singing tenor."

On Monday we went to see Baraka at the Bear Tooth geolinguist. I got the tickets really early and then went to Title Wave to kill time. I finally broke down and bought a copy of Ring which I have been devouring every moment I am home. I'd probably be done with it by now if I didn't keep leaving it at home. Baraka was interesting. I can see why people thought it belonged in the Qatsi trilogy but I did not think it was as good. It lacked a reason for being made other than "look, isn't this cool!" in some of the scenes. Most of them were early on, which made it hard to grasp onto the movie.

Last night I went to Bear Tooth grill with kahteeyah and then hung out at home with her, Mark and Krista.

Krista is in the middle of Passover and rather grumpy about it, which is amusing as hell, especially since she alternated between that and pining for Jon Stewart. We had to remind her that even if we got him for her he wouldn't be Kosher. Even a doll wouldn't be, since they both plump when cooked, but a 2D standee? 100% Kosher.

Tonight Mark, kornopolous and I went to Bear Tooth (anyone seeing a pattern here?) to see Merchant of Venice. I was quite impressed. I really enjoyed the movie visually and it was an interesting take on just what Antonio did when he ordered Shylock to convert. It's spawned many conversations.

But now, there is a kung-fu vampire movie waiting for me in the other room so.....

Getting ready to head off to Kodiak very shortly. I think I have things arranged so the cast gets a lot of free time to study and maybe catch a bit of the whale festival that is supposedly happening this weekend. scooterpbakes thinks we will be doing very little in terms of re-hanging and re-focusing, so maybe I will get to go out and play too.

Mark and I went to see Jesus Christ Superstar last night and it kicked ASS! I don't know what people were fussing about. The first couple of numbers are a little muddy, but the diction and volume levels resolved themselves nicely. I honestly think that the fact Jesus and Judas are harder to understand than Mary is a choice of the score - they have songs in a rock style, arguing and she cuts through that as a moment of clarity with "Everything's Alright." And I adored Simon. I can't believe that woman is not getting more props from the press. Not only was she clear, funny and a good singer but she had character flowing out of her ass. Mark took one look at Simon and whispers "Look, it's Judas Jr." He could not tell the character was played by a woman. We went out for drinks with the cast afterward and had a great time. Van could not stop talking about or playing with my hair. Mark was teasing him about it "You're totally weired out, aren't you, man?" Sandy also went on and on about how I look like a 20's starlet. She talked a little about Jerry's memorial too. She wants the Mechanicals to do their Bugermask dance as part of that.

In celebration of my new hair I'm wearing my leather jacket for the first time this season and my tight little jeans (no sexy mini-tee, though I was tempted.) Yngvil made me get up and spin for her and then gave me a big hug.

Well, off for a Diet Coke before watching someone load up the bags for me and I'm off to see the bears!