Category: Drama

I’m living in a small apartment with some of my best friends, apprenticed in a trade I find fascinating, dating an amazing girl, working with a dream cast on a play that really excites me and playing in one of my favorite bands. It occurs to me that these are probably the best days of my life.

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

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

Working backwards in time, the play is over and I have my evenings to myself again, which is as always a strange feeling. I’ll get back to my lazy habits soon enough, I’m sure, but right now I feel 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 came away from the end of the play so satisfied with what we’d done that I decided not to try out for the 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 be excitingly 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 on that stage again. I had my time in the spot and I’m out. I’m really just looking forward to watching the show.

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

I think that as of this week I have reached Critical Busy Mass. I’m scraping together the stuff towork at the family biz for my winter internship, to take the GRE (I’m so poor it’s free!), and of course figure out if and where I want to do the grad school thing. And that’s the long-term stuff. There’s also still the play, and the other play, and the job, and the other job, and I just remembered I have to run (literally) down to the flower shop to pick up a corsage. Yow!

I’ve pretty much had to quit running, thanks to the frigid weather (I have no cold-running gear) and the fact that what used to be my afternoon time slot is now usually filled with other stuff. I’m keeping the weight off with sheer nervous energy, I think, but I miss it. The exercise, that is, not the weight. It’s too bad Halo doesn’t burn calories.

Today: Corsage! Build set! Visit Emily R from Richmond! Hang out / eat / dance with Audrey! It’s a mad house.

In the middle of the street.

Ben Folds was stunning, again, this time even more so because he was playing solo–just him and the piano (which I think is still the name of the tour)–and it didn’t feel like anything was missing. He got an almost unfair amount of music out of it: stomping the pedals like a kick drum, tapping on the mike in lieu of toms, and of course conducting the audience in place of strings or trumpets or whatever.

And that might be the best part. I went in planning to scream for Where’s Summer B.?, easily my favorite BF5 song and one I didn’t really expect to hear even upon request. And he DID play it! Without provocation, as like the fourth song! And we got to sing the best background vocals in any song ever!

So that was good. And then! Not only did I finally meet Jon’s friend Ana, who is unspeakably cool, but we met a bunch of UK friends at the Tolly Ho afterwards. These included my old friend Audrey, whom I hadn’t seen since spring (and before that not for probably two years), and her roommate Alden, whom I’d never met. It was a great time.

And then, the next day, Audrey and I were commenting (via email) about how much fun the whole thing was, and that we should hang out more often, and I asked her to the Centre fall dance and she totally said yeah!

The (large) part of me that is still a sophomore in high school is dancing for joy right now.

Anyway, the week has been work work rehearse rehearse other than that. This weekend’s Centre homecoming, and though it can’t possibly match my own for nostalgia, I’m sure it will surpass it in quantity of graduated friends. Or you could take Lisa’s hunch and predict that it’s going to be “mad drama.” Whatever. I’m just looking forward to sleeping in.

so she won’t sleep better alone
and they won’t feel better alone

I’m going home tonight to escort my sister out onto the field at Homecoming. I guess technically I could be there to actually come home too, especially since my own (ill-fated) appearance onthe Court four years ago was the only football game I ever went to. But I’m not real big into that.

I don’t have much else to say. We did a lot of work on the play this week, and it’s going to be good, but right now the payoff is mostly exhaustion. Really I just wanted an excuse to update the cam. There ain’t much better than a reluctant girl wearin’ a plastic mullet! Well, actually there is.

Saw Spider-Man (who needs links anyway?). Good; fun; could have been better. Tobey Maguire kicks the appropriate amount of ass, but it’s that infernal Koepp at the dialogue controls again. I kind of hope he dies.

And again, courtesy of Ken and Yahoo! News, comes a brilliant “What’s Wrong With This Picture” (click for a bigger version):

one of these things...

Look carefully. Well, not too carefully. Full article is here. And now I have to go close out a play.

turn all of the lights on
over every boy and every girl

I’m going to be on a plane very soon. This hasn’t quite settled in my brain yet. I love flying, probably because I get to do it so rarely–the last time I was in a plane was on my way back from Brazil, summer after senior year, when I was exhausted and homesick and weighing 120 pounds. That wasn’t the best flight, actually. But the way down, six weeks earlier, well… of the roughly fourteen hours we spent over ocean and rainforest and cloud, I’d say I spent at least thirteen just looking out the window.

I’m going to be crazy far behind in my classes when we get back late Sunday night, and I’m probably going to be bored once the sound and fury have settled down, and most everyone but Ian and I are going to be drinking heavily at night, and I’m going to miss the chance to copy edit for the paper this week (for which transgression someone has already beaten me severely). Even so, I’m looking forward to this. I keep getting asked if it’s a competition, but if it were I doubt I’d be going. We’re going to be half-killing ourselves just because it’s never been done before, and that gives me kind of shivers I imagine mountain climbers must get.

I need to figure out what books to bring, and also how the hell I’m going to get to the airport. Wish me luck.

they saythe more you fly the more you risk
your life