not falling down

Just for Kristofer, I’mtyping this in my underpants. Whoo!

In a few hours I’m leaving, familywise, to head for St. Louis for fall break andfreedom!. I’ll be gone until probably Friday night. (Why are you even saying anything?It’s been like five days since your last entry, and you weren’t even gone. –Ed. I know!Shut up! –Br.)

See you soon, and don’t forget you’re my special little rodomontade. You should wear the red silkpants more often, too. Rrow!

Thanks to Sumana, I now know there’s a pro-anorexia LiveJournalcommunity, and you know, I’ve seen grandma-donkey bondage porn sites that disturbed meless.

Holy God.

… this year’s show seemed weighed down with its own sense of self-importance. Kind oflike Tyra Banks, who so desperately needs to get over herself — winking to the camera and pointingat people in the audience: so uncool — and also to get over the 15 or 20 pounds she appears tohave on her much slimmer colleagues. Tyra looked very Lucy Lawless out there on the runway, exceptwhen she did that flamenco dance thing about halfway through the show; then she looked like aprancing Clydesdale.

From an article about the ratings gap between The Bachelor and the Victoria’sSecret underpants fashion show, by Lisa de Moraes. She called Tyra Banks fat. She said TyraBanks looked fat. Hello, Lisa! Welcome to anorexia is your fault!

Wow.

I put a lot of my daily recorded life into correspondence with Audrey now, which means that I don’twrite as much of it in here–partly because the urge to journal is satisfied, and partly becauseI’d feel guilty just writing the same things twice. I’ll try to make up for that soon; I thinkit’ll help once I (finally) write a backend interface for this thing so I don’t have to upload andupdate the SQL manually.

As seen camwise, I got Drew’s (old new) CD today, and what I’ve heardso far is shockingly good. I’ve mentioned his music in here before, and I always liked the cheesylow-quality mp3s fromhis old site, but the CD is high-res, listenable indie pop music. It’s kind of like a combinationof the Flaming Lips andRhythm Method. (What you say? You haven’t heard of Rhythm Method? Of course you haven’t! That’spart of the PLAN!)

Working backwards in time, the play is over and I have my evenings to myself again, which is asalways a strange feeling. I’ll get back to my lazy habits soon enough, I’m sure, but right now Ifeel obligated to work from 7-10:00 out of sheer habit.

The final two shows were much better than Thursday and at least as good as Wednesday, and I cameaway from the end of the play so satisfied with what we’d done that I decided not to try out forthe spring play. It’s going to be amazing, I know–it’s Bertolt Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle, and it’s Patrick at the helm, so it’d beexcitingly mad even if he weren’t adding enormous puppets and masks. Part of me regrets that Iwon’t be able to work under Patrick as an actor–it’s a hell of an experience–but I won’t act onthat stage again. I had my time in the spot and I’m out. I’m really just looking forward towatching the show.

That pretty much brings us up to date. Anybody want a Swiss Cake Roll?

I came in out of the rain and noticed that the cuffs of my pants were soaked through about fourinches up the leg. They’d been dragging under my heels again, which was in turn because my pantswere riding low on my hips. That’s when it hit me: I actually lost all the weight I wanted to losethis fall. My 34s are comfortable, and my 36s won’t stay up without a belt.

I haven’t run in three weeks, since I started having two rehearsals every day, so I can only assumethat the stress of this November has continued working for me in that capacity. I fully expect tohave my mother force-feed me back to plumpness over Christmas break. It’s a nice feeling for now,though, even if it does mean wet cuffs.

she’s like a baby, I’m like a cat;
when we are happy we both get fat

Opening night was, in a word, BLA-DOW (or, in two words, MY HOUSE). We didn’t have quite all thehigh points we’d had in dress rehearsal, but all put together it was the best show we’ve done. Thecrowd ate it up, thanks in no small part to my roommates and director sitting out there and givingeverybody else permission to laugh.

Last night was less BLA-DOW and more BLAT. They were the least responsive audience I think I’veever seen, and doing jokes for them was like playing tennis against a pile of sand. We kept lobbingthem out, but when you go for ten minutes at a time without getting anything back, you start to runout of steam.

After we got through the first act I told Will the Improv God to fix things. He appears only in thesecond act, and he’s managed to send the crew into hysterics before just by messing up his lines;during second dress, the script and the things he said were two entirely disjoint word sets. Lastnight, he came up with such gems as

• “It’s a fract! Not fract, but fract. Fact. I… must be in a different place than youare.”

• “I may be sick, but I’m not squaresville! Strike that, reverse it.”
• “You’re like a blasted speaking clock! Beep, beep, beep! I HATE YOU!”

And even he couldn’t crack them. It hurt, but I think tonight will be better. For one thing, Mom(and at least eleven other family members) are coming to see it, and Mom tends to express herappreciation of my plays by laughing louder than anyone else at my funny lines. It’s heartening,even though by ten minutes into the show everybody knows exactly whose mom she is.

And the other thing that’s heartening, of course, is the best picture ever taken of anyoneever. Excuse me. I have to go swoon now.

Reasons for wanting to hit Harlan Ellison

Old: Writing things with titles like “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” and “Objects of Desire in the Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear.”

New: Just being a jerk.

(Pre-P.S.: Anyone want to get me a Christmas present?)

I’m frighteningly happy. I really shouldn’t be. I’ve developed a kind of moribund equanimity; I’mdoing so much work right now that hurrying really isn’t going to help anything, so I’m actuallysetting a workable pace and sticking to it. Free time has ceased to exist, but I’m steadily gettingthings done, and I do find moments here and there.

I found enough of them today to finish Lady Oracle, my third Margaret Atwood thingy and the first one I’ve readthat’s just a book and not “a celestial modern classic!” I liked it quite a lot, even if itfelt dated in parts. Unfortunately, it was also the first one that I’ve felt really needed somekind of analysis to get the full story out of it, and that’s kind of to its detriment.Handmaid’s Tale and Blind Assassin stood alone.

Tonight’s final dress for Joe Egg; we had a great run last night, which typically means tonightwill suck, but we’re finally comfortable enough with the show that I’m sure it’s going to be good.Unfortunately (again!), tonight is also the night I have an Ada programming project due, andThursday is our last test in Software Engineering. The next forty-eight hours are going to beheinous.

Yet I’m still frighteningly, unsquelchably happy. I think I even know why, and her initials are alot like mine, only backwards.

On a less cool note, KristoferStraub is going through some rough times, body-wise. Kris is one of the more luminous minds onthe web, and he’s been a real inspiration to me. If you’re not religious, just send generalwell-wishes his way. I will.

1. I got a girlfriend.

2. I got in NewsBruiser.
3. It has been a good couple days.