Some People Sit on Their Butts

I'm so freaking bored. It's my own fault, since I could call up friends and say, "I'm bored, let's hang out. " Instead I sit on the computer and try and raise fish. I kid you not, I'm raising fish on my computer.

Part of it is that I've never been the type to call friends to hang out, with very few exceptions. Maybe it's because I've always had someone to hang out with, you know, Sister, that I've never needed to. Or perhaps I'm lazy. Right now I feel schlubby which also works against calling others. If someone called me I'd totally become unschlubby, but it's an outside motivation thing.

In the meantime, I'm going to continue to watch fish grow.

Pretty Little Picture

Sondheim has no good holiday themed lyrics. Boo.

Happy Holidays everyone! All two of you who read this.

So, yay, Snowflake Lane and tambourining is over. If I've got nothing better to do, I'll be happy to do it again next year. You know, it's way better than having a retail job for the holidays.

Christmas Eve was spent with the extended family (we still have an assload of leftovers) and Father swears up and down that he won't go through having family over for the holidays. He says that every year. Then I had to go to work, and then I went to another party. Greg Thompson and his wife were there, because it was at the home of my SL boss. Weird. Very strange. Bobbi was there as well. That is one crazy wonderful lady. I was really only going to stop in for a little while, but Bobbi and I were the last ones to leave, at oh... 1:00 in the morning.

Christmas day was the immediate family gift giving, which resulted in my pretty new laptop. Ooooo, it's so pretty. Right now, this wonderful picture is the background image:

Aren't they cute? I love this movie series. But I digress. Then, very late at night, I went to see Dreamgirls. It was really fun. It was part College kids, part Alumni Kidstagers, with a sprinkling of professionals, and a very chatty, raucous audience. Ivie organized the whole thing, and was so excited he was like a puppy about to wet itself. He didn't, thank goodness, but you get the idea. The movie itself was well done, I thought, and Jennifer Hudson was belting her face off, which is always a good thing if you're playing Effie. I can see her getting an Oscar nod, and maybe even win, if it's a Supporting Actress category, but not if it's Leading Actress. Although she would give the others a run for their money.

Last night then, I went to see New Voices 2. It was a fun audience, parents, Kidstagers and Studio East kids alike (and alumni of both). It was a veritible Who's Who of Young Theatre Artists. Sister and I hung out with the Studio kids, but between the two of us we knew everyone. The performances were all fantastic. Jessica did a brilliant rendition of "If You Got It, Flaunt It". Ryah pretty much kicked ass on everything, but especially the "Actuary Song". I so need to bug Kitty Raz for the CD to I Love You Because... I'd never heard Ivie sing before, and he was super cute. LOVED Casey singing "Crowded Island". And Alex Mansoori's voice makes me melt. Yummy baritones. Oh yes, and Abby's "The Beauty Is" was magical. Did I use enough adjectives? I love what Contemporary Classics is doing, and I think that it should be a theatre to be reckoned with. I'd love to see it grow into something solid and permanent. If anyone can do it, Ivie can.

Though It's Deep, Though It's Dark, Though You May Lose The Path

OH THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!
Electricity is wonderful. Especially after 5 days without it.

So a while ago, before WINTER STORM 2006, I went to Jersey Callbacks for Village Theatre. I understand a lot of it is cast already, and it's an awesome cast. I'm very proud of the girl who got Angie since she's been working very hard to get that part. Sometimes things work out the way they should, and I love that. That's not to say that any of the other girls auditioning shouldn't have gotten it, and I love a lot of them as well, but I've been sort of rooting for the one who got it. Yay.

Saw Fairystories on Wednesday after finishing my last final. It was cute, and the cast was really good especially Beth and my favorite 15-year old.

Then... the winds came Thursday night. Oh boy. There are pictures, which will be uploaded to a computer at some point. Really devastating winds, knocked out the power forever. Most got it back by Saturday or Sunday. I was bored as shit for most of it. Thank god Sunday night there was a party to go to. YAY for people I haven't seen in forever.

Audition on Monday at CLO. Sucked. I looked HOT though, which has got to count for something. And Dame discovers she can be trendy. Thank god it was Monday or Pervy Quartet Guy would've been unbearable. As it was two guys volunteered to be my faux boyfriend so he'll lay off. Guy #1 could only be faux, and wouldn't be really convincing since he happens to be married as Guy #2 pointed out, but I'm a little disappointed that Guy #2 would only pretend. Oh well.

I got my power back tonight. Tuesday. Oh happy day. I went and checked all three emails, Myspace and Facebook. Of course, silly me, there were not the concerned emails or emails announcing Christmas parties that I had hoped, but I'm still happy to have communications restored.

I thought I'd be less depressed with the power and internet access, and yet it all feels strangely hollow. If I was less of a loser I'd be hanging out with a group of friends or something, but I don't really have a group of friends to hang out with. I was so bored I wandered the mall and bugged the quartet people while they were singing. I know everyone, but I'm not really close to anyone, which is hard, but I think it's partly my fault. Here I go, getting maudlin. I blame the holidays, they always make me feel really lonely.

Only One Blessing Per Pilgrim Per Ticket.

Saw a commercial for Top Foods yesterday that reminded me that I had to go see Fairystories.
What do the commercial and Fairystories have in common?

This woman:
She's super cool.
And pretty awesome.





YAY BETH!


Anyway, partay on Saturday night. Well, there were two actually, the drama dept's winter formal, and a Krupke Kristmas (Chrupke Christmas?) . Guess which one I chose to go to.

Hint: Not the one where we all had to dress up like it was prom.

I'm so not into the school scene. Will I regret that in years to come? Maybe. Probably not.

I Can Do A Few Tricks

So Saturday was an interesting day. First, an audition, and while I think I did okay (coulda done better though, but isn't that always true?) I wasn't called back. The accompianist was slow, and while I tried to speed it up, I'm just not good enough of a musician to keep it consistent. Also, lost some of the acting moments I had worked. Still, I think it would have been fine, except that caroling causes conflicts. Hey, alliteration rocks.

I mean, I'd have to be late to almost every rehearsal for three weeks, which I'm sure they don't want to deal with. I choose to blame conflicts rather than my own inabilities. Ahh... denial is sweet.

Also, boys are stupid. Really, it's not so hard to be friends with your crush. Try listening sympathetically to your crush going on about their dates and "friends" and then talk to me about hard. Although, really, boys are stupid, so I don't even want to bother.

Speaking of, the romantic in me loves this quote from Impromptu (ie. BEST MOVIE EVER). I'm identifying with the sentiment.

You have made a single instrument speak the language of God. And I wanted to learn it from your lips, you see. Anyway, you... You don’t want me and... it’s become complicated, like everything between two people. It seems to me a pity, because it could have been so simple.

I've been in the igloos of Nome

Weekly recap time!

Monday- Snow! Lovely, truly, except when it takes you five hours to get home, when you're commute is normally a half an hour. It came suddenly, traveling south, and caused so many accidents that people were commuting much longer than they should have. I kept in touch with parents the whole time, so we all knew where we were, Sister had forgotten her cell phone, which basically worried all of us to no end. Lesson: Don't ever forget your cell phone if snow is in the forecast. Thank you.

Tuesday- School, not officially canceled, but as there were two inches of ice surrounding the hill where I live, there was no way in hell I was going. I did go to voice lessons though. Why? Because my voice teacher is two doors down. I believe I was the only student that day to go.

Wednesday- Ice still on the street where I live. Didn't bother to go to school, but I did brave the streets to go carol and tambourine. Nothing like getting paid to get one motivated to brave the elements. Luckily, it wasn't near as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Thursday- Opening night for White Christmas! Super fun. It's fluffy and light and exactly the show that it needed to be. Everyone was so good. Especially Michael Gruber and Greg Allen. Michael Gruber is also yummy. Sister and I were talking about him afterward. We always expect him to disappoint us. We know he's wonderful, but we're always afraid that when we see him in a show he won't be as good as we want him to be. I don't quite know why, but it does make it that much better when we see him perform and we think "yes, that's right, that is a perfect performance, and we love him." Christina Saffran Ashford was alright, but it wasn't until she sang "Love, You Didn't Do Right By Me" that I really got her performance. Man, she sold that number. There's something lacking in the rest of her performance, but I couldn't tell you what, and it's not anything really obvious, it's just enough that she doesn't make me think "WOW" like everyone else does. That is, until she did that song. We sat behind Keaton Whittaker's mother, and that was so great. When Keaton did her big number, her mom started crying, which was so wonderful. I totally get it, and so did the rest of the audience because she literally stopped the show for like a minute with the audience applauding her. Shout outs to Pamela Turpen and Billie Wildrick as the very funny showgirl characters; Clayton Corzatte as the hysterical barn caretaker, who manages to stop the show just by walking; Bobbi Kotula in her various roles; Tony Curry for both the well-timed Snoring Man and the very gay Director(?); Carol Swarbrick for her put-upon busybody Martha; and of course, the lovely Krystle Armstrong for looking super hot during Blue Skies, and having to deal with hat issues. And of course, any number of my friends.

That'll do for now, Saturday and today will get a different treatment.

Goodbye For Now

It's snowing today. In Seattle. Or rather, at my house, which actually is on a different weather system than the rest of the Eastside King County, apparently.

In other news, RIP, Betty Comden. I'm watching Singing in the Rain right now. I loved the wit and charm of the lyrics of those songs, and I'll always love watching Comden and Green sing "Listen to the Rain on the Roof" in the Follies Concert. And no matter what Sister Mary Ignatius thinks, I know you are not going to hell.

Sit Kitty Cat, We Won't Be Home For Hours

First off, I had a lovely morning coffee date with my bestest best friend, and my high school drama teacher and her daughter. It's sort of an annual tradition, because we're all home, and none of us are the doorbuster types who need to go shopping first thing in the morning the day after Thanksgiving. Oh yes, and it's drama teacher's birthday weekend. So, we chat for two hours at the local Starbucks and wander through Michaels. Catching up, but more talking about the future than anything else. Because of what Sister and I do, ie, work in professional theatre, we can be a boon to Juanita Drama by being mentors, or connecting them with others who can be mentors, or other opportunities. It's nice to think that we're already successful enough at this point that we can get quality people for our high school.
In other words: HAHAHAHAHA, I'm better than you!

Then my first day of caroling. Things were a little frantic at first, but in the end it was very fun, handing out candy canes to the cute little kids, and smiling, smiling smiling. Joy. Everybody had a good time, and I was sort of glad that I didn't have to carol afterwards. Because I went to see Stranger Than Fiction with Sister and Bestest Best Friend. So good. I'm so in love with Emma Thompson. Does a movie without a stitch of makeup, looking haggard and put through the wringer. That, that is bravery. I applaud you, Emma. Will Ferrall was good as well, a really very sympathetic character. Yes, there were his funny moments, but without the false bravado of characters like Ron Burgandy or Ricky Bobby, we just got a confused honest man. I love it. sooo so much.

Always Arrives Overdone

Mmm... Cheesy goodness.
A little bit more on the Birdie at Village which I saw last week. First of all, yay it's been getting very nice reviews in the local papers. Bitches.
I was sitting in the audience, and the high pitched teenage belts started in on "We... love... you... Conrad" and I grabbed for my seat neighbor's hand.

Ohmigod what am I doing here why am I here get me out get me out get me out stupid nooooooooooooooo stop it now it's not too late to leave I don't really have to be here make it stop let me go!

Now, that reaction didn't end until after the last whiny Byeeeee Byeeeeeeee Biirdyyyyyyyyy ended. The show was cute, really truly. It was just such a shock is all.

More cheesy tambourine choreography for choir today. Oh what we do for a paycheck. If you're in Bellevue, don't come see me. It's a tad embarrassing. Apparently I stand on a drum and sing. Joy. So this is what two years of voice lessons leads to.

Although after sitting through two days of Tommy auditions, I totally don't want to be an actor. At least not professionally. Because it all comes down to being just enough better than everyone else, and being just the right type. They're all very talented, just not necessarily right for everything. I'll still audition, but I will not be a professional actor. Screw that, someone has got to make sure they get dressed and tell them how much they rock. I'm good at that. Kinda.

Sunday is Much Like Any Other

First full week sans Evita. What do I do?

Monday- Teach at Village and then go to rehearsal. Tamborine choreography. Weeee! I'm so cool. Except not.

Tuesday- Shopping. Bye bye tips!

Wednesday- Went to see Bye Bye Birdie at Village. It's so bright. What's with all the color? And what is this talking thing? Is this what a real musical is? I'm so confused.

Thursday- Nothing? Really? Oh wait, there was that audition that I completely bombed. I made choices, I'll own up, but they were wierd and rushed. So much for doing shows at school.

Friday- Internship day... with none of my bosses around for two hours. Hey all, La Dame's in charge of the Artistic Department now! Went to see Actor's Nightmare at Juanita. These are my roots man! Roots, roots I tell you. I've come so far, and yet, I must remain humble, for here is where I started.

Saturday- Hey a whole day at Village! Wait a minute, why? I'm done with Evita. Oh right, Tommy callbacks. Yay! I love auditions where I don't actually have to audition. I'm so not an actor. Then at the very last second, I decided that it would be fun to see Children of Eden at CLO. It was fun, and Kat lied about how bad it was. Also, it shows my deep commitment to school, obviously, since I could've gone to All In The Timing at the UW. I really was going to, but then when proposed, CLO sounded more fun.

So we come to today.
Sunday- More callbacks! However, I got to sleep in today. Yippee!

So, out of one week, how many days did I spend at Village? 4. You'd think I was working on a show or something.