Friends

This feels pretty fuckin' bizarre... Not going to be at the theater for about a week and a half. WHAT. WHAT. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND.

BUT. As is-be time for the going home... Is not bad. :D And I'm guessing the time'll go faster'n fuck, leaving me to go, "Wait, what, I went home...?" Also, I have shit for memory, so y'know. Further reason for lapsing. BUT. Am looking forward to it. I was home for a couple of hours in, em, September, for the anniversary deal, but otherwise? And it doesn't feel as if it's been nearly that long. I mean, mein gott...

Don't necessarily want to deal with airport lines tomorrow. But. Very much excited, otherwise. :D And have rather a large stack of papers to be going with me. As in, "Oh, hell, didn't realize I had that much... Erm." Research-sterf and plays, whoo-whoo. And am pretty well packed. So. Should probably sleep, or something, as am much toward the side of exhausted. Hrmhrmhrm. 'twas a day.

Hey, so I spoke of that September thing in the previous entry. GUESS WHAT. I completely forgot about that. The shit for memory thing? Yeah. Yeah.

Although I did NOT say that my Northwestern app'd been submitted. Because it hadn't. But now it has. BITCHES 'N' HOS. That motherfuck is out of my hands. Just got the Towson one, and then... I shrug. Because I'm not finding any other programs that really intrigue, and you know? Isn't worth the fucking trouble to go for the others. So if I make it, I make it. If I don't... I'll find something else to do. Somewhere. This is probably a horrible attitude to take, but the mind is so goddamn numb right now that it's willing to give an "okay." So here we are. And it's in. And that made Monday a very, very positive sort of day.

I started working on the interview meme. And then I failed at it. Ern. Maybe when brain is working a bit more properly. Hopefully brain will begin working a bit more properly. 'twould be nice. I'd very much like the chance to do some decent thought-process-whatever on the Working plays. WELL. We shall see.

OH MAN OH MAN there might be Rock Band in the near future...? XD And Timesplitters. In the future. Where Jacob Crow is hiding out, bein' all sneaky. Man. Yes. Video games are an apt way of diverting brain, yes? Can hope, anyway.

Airport tomorrow, airport tomorrowwwwwww... Am a fan of flying. Just not of those lines. Urgh. Or of, I'm going to guess, taking "hi I'm falling apart isn't that vierd???" laptop bag around. But again, eh. Airports are TOO AWESOME to be beaten by such details. Hells yeah, airports. Hells yeah.

Hrn.

And I said, "But where do you die?"

"Where, if not the corner? The end, the shadow."

I tell you, I couldn't make a damned bit of sense from it. And I guess maybe the guy was crazy... But he sounded pretty serous. And I guess I've always believed that anyone who speaks with conviction's gotta know something about what he's saying, you know?

YOU KNOW?


Edit-edit. Fuck, and I am definitely missing on some characters, here. Rrgh, blech. If had time to keep up... But do not. Or brainspace. SO I SAY FIE. FIE, FIE, FIE. Hrn.

If you give a thumbs up but your bone's falling off, what happens?

I mean, I guess it depends on which bone we're talking about. Because I guess there are a lot of possibilities. But that's just getting into technicalities, and we don't want to go there. Oh no, oh no. Oh NEIN.

...I'm pretty sure I almost typed my name as "Keith." Or, at least, it was a hell of a lot closer to "Keith" than "Kristi." What in the fuck? I've been having some serious typing issues of later. Erngh, I'll chalk it up to brain-doom. Brain-doom has been rather rampant of late. BUT. BUT. Once app is in. Now that Cyrano stuff is pretty much set. Should be 'aight. (Totally ignoring everything else that's coming. <.< Pretty sure we have two glossaries that need to be 'round and about [or done-ish, depending on which] by mid-January. Though dunno who's on the Let There Be Love gloss, because sounds as if the AD might be a-takin' that... Do know that I am-to-be-doing the Working because, um, hi... :D TOTALLY COOL with doing whatever of whatever. But we also have program pieces to start thinking about for Love. And that whole other business of...) Okay, anyway.

Wednesday, 1:45. Airplane to Detroitttt, WHOO. Doesn't really feel as if I've been out here since August (well, okay, see, there was that couple of day sprint back in September... so technically, I was in Michigan then, and home for all of maybe two hours during it XD BUT THAT WAS A SWELL TIME), but here it is. Going home for, damn, about a week and a half? We've got a couple of weddings for ze family (one in Chicago on the first, aw yeah >.>), and otherwise, I do not know. Will try to work, but also relax. Let brain catch its breath or whatever, because I'm thinking it needs to.

OH HI ALSO WEATHER? So this theater very-very rarely cancels shows. As in, it sounds as if 'tis almost unheard of. And that whole HI EAST COAST GETTING SLAMMED? Yeah. All shows canceled for today. That'd be matinee and evening performances of two separate productions, both of which are closing tomorrow (Assuming, you know, that snow death hasn't continued). So, damn... Strange, and somewhat awkward. And there was much calling of patrons. And we'll see what the morrow brings.

Not the marrow, silly. Morrow.

Aaaaaand first rehearsal for Cyrano on Monday, yeah-YEAH.

I'm actually not terribly displeased with my statement of purpose now (and many many thanks again, acoustics1220 :D). And I am going to say it, because it is TRUE: I love me some dramaturgy. Forrrrrr real. CONNECTIONS-CONNECTIONS-CONNECTIONS, mmmm fun.

Shit, maybe that should've been my statement.

Now I am pretending that the essay doesn't need revising. It's actually much improved, but I don't know whether that's saying a lot. Cut the hell out of it, now reworking some bits for better flow, word choice, sense... The lot. But is getting there. And I'm not going to let myself toy with it forever, because I don't think it's as deadly as the excitable side of me believes, and I think I'm better off getting it out soon. Very soon. And the article (or articles) shouldn't need much, if any, work. So... Getting there. Getting there.

Oh, fuck it. Back to the essay.

I must've pulled my left hamstring at some point, because it's been bothering me for most of the week, though not intolerably until yesterday. I decided to go to the gym with astute_reason on Wednesday, figuring that I should try to stretch the leg out a little, and when I felt mostly fine all day Thursday I assumed that I'd done something right. Yesterday, though, I woke up in the morning and the entire leg was screaming, along with my back. I lasted most of the day at work, limping around when not struggling and failing to find a comfortable position in my chair, before giving up and heading home. I've found that there're two positions that're comfortable for my leg: standing straight up, which kills my feet after a few minutes, and laying down flat on my back, which kills my back after a few minutes. I shall now return to my family's traditional way of dealing with any injury: settle down somewhere and wait for it to go away.

Of course this had to happen when I have less than a week left to clean up for Boxing Day. No matter; it'll get done. It always gets done: two years ago I had my yearly Death Cold for the last few days of cleaning and during the party; last year, of course, my dad was dying and I wasn't sure I even wanted to have the party at all, so my heart wasn't exactly in it. But it always gets done.

I eagerly await the new year. 2010 will be a season of change, no doubt.

Okay, let’s just get something out of the way, shall we? As most of you know, I am not a fan of the holidays. Aside from the forced contact with my family- and dude, what is up with that? Under the Articles of Engagement established by the Geneva Convention, cruel and unusual treatment is prohibited in dealings with prisoners of war, and seeing as my family has been upholding a life-long battle of out passive-aggressiving each other (Shut up, it is TOO a word if I say so) I definitely consider myself a prisoner of said war. But apparently, since we don’t even compare to the weekend population of Lichtenstein – it’s freaking Lichtenstein. You’d go somewhere else on the weekend too- we don’t get official standing with the Geneva Convention, let alone the UN.

So my lack of love for the horrordays doesn’t actually stem from some deep seated emotional trauma, despite popular theory. Mostly, it’s confusion. I find myself spending most of the holidays imitating the RCA dog – head cocked to the side with baffled incomprehension coloring my expression.

Let’s start with the decorations. I just don’t get it. I understand where they come from. It’s the arse end of the year. It’s cold and dark and the weather, especially around these parts, sucks donkey balls. Your skin itches and your nose runs and the damn furnace is always making funny noises. We need to hang up green things to remind us spring will come and bright lights to drive back the darkness and maybe, to borrow a phrase from Mr. Pratchett, to remind the sun to do a proper day’s work.

But a nine foot tall inflated Santa Claus, that seems to always be running at half-mast? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? So a couple strands of lights in a tree, or maybe some battery operated candles in the window – not my type of battery operated device but to each their own, I always say- sure. I can even stomach those white-lighted reindeer and the weird spiral things that are supposed to be Christmas trees but in all honesty, if your lawn is so filled with multicolored objets de bad taste, to the point the local airport is considering contacting the FAA because you’re causing pilots to divert from their flight plans, something is wrong with you. Like, the mall Santa touched you in the no-no wrong. Daddy dressed up as St. Nick and climbed down the chimney to deliver presents and got stuck and DIED wrong.

And people, please- lighted candy canes? In a row or even circling a tree? At best, it looks like they’re holding the tree hostage and worst, like a cemetery for tasteful decorations.

And don’t get me started on the music. Okay, too late. I know that the majority of Christmas music was thought up by some hack on Madison Avenue to sell candy and for the most part, I can stomach it by basic avoidance and application of alcohol. There is a very good reason why they started putting restaurants with bars in the malls.

It’s not really the music, per se, but the people they get to sing it. I mean, Kenny Rogers singing “Mary, Did You Know?” It’s bad enough that I can never decide if that song is intentionally maudlin and pathetic or truly a sweet and touching homage to the relationship between the King of Peace and his mortal mother - and really, guys, Mary knew. She didn’t exactly get handed a message reading “ Angel stopped by, messiah due in nine months” she spoke with Gabriel. Face to face. He said, hey you mind bearing a child by a supernatural, absentee father who will one day ritually sacrifice him in order to purportedly save the entire population of the world, without even the side benefit of sex first and she said- it’s documented- sure, whatevs. In what strange and terrifying hell-verse was that concept birthed? It’s just ... creepy. I mean, have you seen Kenny Rogers recently? A man who looks like he’s walking around with a pineapple liberally spiked with lemon juice lodged in his rectum has no business singing about the Virgin Mary.

And what sticks in my craw is the way everyone gets this image of the perfect life shoved in their face nonstop. You’re finally an adult. You’ve survived your parents and high school and possibly college and you’ve got a wife (or girlfriend or boyfriend whatever) you’ve got a house or at least a roof over your head and a job and you’ve done it. You’ve accomplished the big three. And some marketing plan is determined to show you, in explicit detail, how very much this is not good enough. You are not living a life comprised of big screen Tvs and high def what-nots and vacations to Vail or Aspen and what if you don’t have children or are single on New Year’s? You are totally missing the big picture. There will be no pitter-patter of little feet rushing toward the tree Christmas morning in wide-eyed wonder to proclaim you the best mom or dad in the world and even if you do have children, what if you’re not really comfortable with lying to your kids about Santa Claus, that good old Peeping Tom? You have obviously scarred them for life. Like some dickwad somewhere has the right to invalidate all your life choices because he’s not really comfortable with his own.

And Santa Claus- the ulitmate cult icon of consumerism- is definitely part of it. The very concept of Santa Claus is psychotic. He’s a jolly old elf- WHO SPIES ON CHILDREN. Who watches, apparently, their every movement and then judges them on some arbitrary personal scale of worth and value, setting them up for failure from the very start. You better not pout, you better not cry? Dude, they’re children. I’m over thirty and I want to pout when the President bumps my favorite show for an address on the state of the union, and I not only care about the state of the union, I love listening to our current President speak. It seems glaringly obvious to me that the whole thing was established by someone who obviously didn’t get his Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas one year and is determined someone, if not everyone, share his pain.

Yeah, I hate that movie, and I’m not exactly a fan of A Charlie Brown Christmas either.

I freely admit to being a misanthrope and internally focused. But I strongly dislike watching, every year, the Season of Lights be continuously strip-mined for financial profit. As misanthropic as I might be, I do believe in taking time to make sure the people I let into my life know exactly how beloved to me they are, and how valued and truly cherished. And I refuse to take just one day out of the year to do it. Too much value is taken in December 25th.

I hate to sound so naive, but the spirit of Christmas should be a year-long event.

So I challenge you. I challenge each and every one of you who read this to do a random act of compassion on the people you carry affection for. Next time you are out and see something you know will delight someone you know, get it for them, for no reason other than than it will delight them. Send a letter to an old friend, out of the blue. Donate to a charity they believe in, in their name. Remember that love is a year-round event and sacred, not because Jesus was born in December- well, he wasn’t. If he really existed, he was born right around the same time he died- but because without it we cannot fully understand the human experience. Donate your time or gently used clothing or money to something you find worthwhile and do it not for this ridiculous concept of Christmas, but because human beings, even the isolated, misanthropic ones, need other human beings.

Even if only for someone else to look down on.

And while you’re at it, if you truly wish to gift me this Yuletide, take a moment to be kind to yourself as well. That’s all I can ask for.

Through the year we will all will be together.
If the fates allow.
Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow.
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

I slept last night.

I mean, I slept. I went to bed around 10, woke once at midnight to pee and then did not move until six in the motherfucking AM. The side I was sleeping on was asleep, that's how asleep I was.

So naturally, the universe decided to make everything just a wee bit more surreal for me.

I woke, quite abruptly as if I had exactly reached the point of Too Much Sleep, clearly thinking, "But Darla's body should have rejected the fetus the moment Dru turned her, because vampires aren't living organisms and therefore, cannot be proper hosts for parasites."

Then I fell back against the pillows thinking in abject relief, "Oh, right. Prophecy."

The episode of Angel TNT was running at 7 this morning?

The one where Darla turns from the bar in Mexico to reveal her heavily pregnant belly.

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot, brain.

Worse? Now all I can do is wonder if Angel wore heated BVDs or something, cause that is some super strong sperm.

Did you know...?

-If you stand in front of a hurricane and hold out your hand real hard, you can stop it in its tracks.
-Single-lane bowling actually involves the use of three lanes.
-Baby mice (called "micelets") are born covered in sacs made of a material akin to beeswax.
-The phrase "riding the rails" came into use after a few too many hobos were caught humping train tracks.
-Two chickens make an omelet.
-The Sopwith Camel was given its first test flight in an underground train station.
-Three wrongs make a penguin.
-"Pluto" is another word for "asphyxiation."
-The process is lost in its very creation, but you need not worry your pretty little head over it; the matter'll resolve itself, in the end.

Not the Giants defense, that's for damn sure. There my craw overflows.

• Wow: the Obama Administration is actually making good on part of that whole transparency-and-accountability thing.
• The successor to SpaceShipOne is finally ready. Space tourism grows ever nearer.
• Houston TX is now the largest city to elect an openly gay mayor, thanks to Annise Parker's victory Saturday night...and despite the vicious campaign.
• It's always cool to see another little corner of Jeffersonian history uncovered.

Thin week this time, I know. I've been trying to toss off the warm-but-stifling blankets of my own reticence and work up a Big Damn Post; perhaps tomorrow. It's only a day away.

We had our first significant snowfall this week where I live.

And naturally, everyone lost their god-damned minds.

Look, folks: you live in a part of New York state where it is more common for you to cross an international border into a foreign country than visit the state's most popular city, and that country is freaking CANADA from whence we import most of our bad weather. (Thanks, guys; you're still sore about that whole invasion thing, aren't you?) As a matter of fact, visiting the Canadian Ballet is a time-honored tradition, a coming of age event, and most of us in this region openly refer to the country above us as "New York North."

My point being that snow happens, every freaking year. It is currently, with windchill, in the negative digits outside and you ought to know very well from previous experience that this means salt doesn't fucking work and the streets are going to be somewhat slick.

So walking out into traffic, while never recommended, is seriously ill-advised currently. As is riding my ass, yes I AM looking at you Mr. White Ford F150. You drive roughly two tons of reinforced steel, with a roll bar. So do I, although I consider mine more attractive and better made. So the two of us will likely survive whatever accident your asshattery gets us into. The poor people around us? Like that guy in the Camry? Not so much.

::deep breath:: Ooo-kay. I promise, that's the last I'll bitch about other drivers for at least a couple days.

Mainly because I tend not to post from home but yanno.

"Whadda YOU... fuckin' care?"

Ehehehehehehehehehe.

Hehehehehe.

Entries continue to be only vaguely entries. BUT ROMA IS BACK??? And mini-glossary has been sent, so whoo. :D "Whoo" until I find out that it's ALL FUCKIN' WRONG. But for now, I will pretend that it works. And we shall see. And I was a sort of good kid mayb and cut some of my ramble out. Hrrrrrrrrmhrm.

Ha ha, it's almost six again. This makes twice for the week. HELLO HELLO HELLO WORLD. :D Think I may just opt out of bartending altogether next week. Which means probably not bartending until January but, um... I'm kind of okay with that. And may need to think about dropping it altogether, because money is good, but as it is? Emmmm, yeah...

BUT GAK. EXCITEMENT. STILL MUCH EXCITEMENT.

Yeah, was hoping to have that through earlier. Yeah, should've known better. ...yeah, pretty much did know better. Sometimes I am skilled at deluding myself. Or deluding myself into believing that I've deluded myself. Extra layers means extra fun!!?!?!?!???

Williamson went down to the store. To buy a hotrod magazine. 'Cause they got the chicks with the boobs... BUT THEN HIS DRESSER OF PORN WAS STOLEN BY BEINGS FROM THE MOON OH NO OH NO!!!

Come on. You know that's alarming.