Roverandum

Roverandum

One costume piece and bit of prop at a time I am building up my wardrobe for the show. Usually I come into rehearsal with an armload, leaving with one article. Repeat. So far, for sure, I have one pair of over/undersized grey sweats, on blue chenile bathrobe, one black dress, one pair fuzzy leopard print slippers, one pink and greeen swirl beaded shoulder bag, one pair of dilapidated UGGS, one quilted headscarf, one key on a chain. Nary a full scene anywhere. Well, I suppose the bathrobe counts as a whole costume.

Today at work we hung up a bejillion clothes previously sorted by Nancy (and myself and my mom) into black trash bags. Now the racks are completely stuffed just in time for our impromptu 50% off sale happening Thursday through Saturday. Those in the area might consider stopping by. Denise.

I heard from a very sleepy Jeff this evening who is in training with Alaska Airlines and working horrid hours. Eventually he gets all the flights he wants, so it all makes up for it. He may even fly in for a show. And he mentions a possible trip to New York. Lucky.

On a completely unrelated sidenote, we Americans need to be more careful what trashy shows we're airing abroad. A foreign exchange student came to our country with most of her knowledge derived from MTV and Oprah. Now she's having to buy all new clothes for school because she thought everyone here dresses like Paris Hilton. Not the case, I can assure her, but far too many.

I'm in the throws of preparing to teach. I can play anything on the guitar as long as it's in one key (D) and doesn't require more than three chords (I, IV, V). I can even play "The Wheels on the Bus" and hold onto the guitar as I go "up and down." Allie humored me the other evening as I had her help me practice singing all the kiddie songs I know. Tomorrow I need to go to school, touch base with the teachers, and find their classrooms ahead of time.

Exciting Day

Exciting Day!

We got milk in that HASN'T EVEN EXPIRED! Hurrah! Huzzah! And rice-a-roni packets. My favorite!

Last night's misadventure

Last Night's Misadventur

So, I locked myself out of my room just before the alarm set itself. Not out of the building, just into the hallway. And the alarm is motion sensored. So I dashed around trying to turn off the alarm before I set it off. I called my parents, but they didn't answer the phone the first several times. So when they did call me back I was sitting in the hallway trying to alternatly pick a lock and break the door down. Neither was succesful. Finally Dad remembered a set of keys in the store. Maybe one of those keys would work. What do you know? One did.

Long night.

Sorting the Motherload

Sorting the Motherload

I'm getting very tired of having to invent post titles so that my whole post font style won't be screwy. Anyway.

Nancy has been all week in the "cage" sorting about 500 black plastic trash sacks of clothes. In theory, all clothes are sorted at the Warehouse and then sent to us. But we've been looking at the clothes that are on the racks, and the selection is primarily polyester. Blech. So, rather than continue the trend, she decided to sort all future loads herself. And what did we find? Lovely things. Lots of polyester, which we threw into the bins to be baled and sent to poor countries, but plenty of lovely things made of natural fibers, and quite a bit of vintage. Where has that all been going?

Our guess is that the error is happening here. We have a wonderful woman who sorts and hangs up our clothing, but she is an older lady. She wouldn't know a brand-name if it wore neon lights, and polyester double knit would appear to be...nice. *Shudder*

Henceforth, all clothes shall be pre-sorted by Nancy, Me, or my mother. Period. No more doubleknit. We've declared war.

Do it again.

Directions
Do it again, more. Do it again. More. Do it again. MORE.

Act II,2 was an emotional scene to block. The last time through, I almost teared up for real. Raahaah. And I got my fuzzy leopard slippers put into the show. I have the feeling they may upstage me.

Highlights from Denise

Highlights from this post by Denise:

You Know You've been in Theater too long When:
...Your weekend consists of Monday, and only Monday
...You can't remember what daylight looks like. ...95% of your wardrobe is black.
...Your diet consists of fast food or microwaved food.
..."Practical," "Drop," and "flat" are nouns.

You know you work in non-profit theatre if...
....your living room sofa spends more time on stage than you do.
....you've ever appeared on stage wearing your own clothes.
....you can find a prop in the prop room that hasn't seen the light of day in ten years, but you don't know where your own vacuum cleaner is.
....you have a Frequent Shopper Card at the Salvation Army. (Or in my case, Goodwill)
....Rogers and Hammerstein is synomous with 3 months of rehearsals.
....you've ever cleaned a tuxedo with a magic marker.
....you've ever said "Don't worry -- use the duct tape and if that doesn't work we'll just hot glue it."

So I guy walks into the lighthouse and says: "So there ARE pretty girls working here." I was the only person here, so that must be me. Compliments are nice. Especially when you're trying to live up to your poster.

Phase Two

Phase Two:

Begin unpacking small items without having moved big items into room
...COMPLETE.

Hey Eric

Hey Eric

I found a picture of you in my scrapbook. Remember Rocktober? The youth conference. You, Kris and I were a team on the canned food drive. And I think in the picture you might have been shorter than me. But maybe not. :-)

Wow

Wow

The poster for this show makes me look hot. It's very disconcerting.

It's a Whole Other World

A Whole "'Nother" World

I'm at in-service all day. Lunch was provided at a local Mexican Restaurant. Reaching the table I'm greeted by a Father in a reverse collar saying, "The only thing you need to decide is what color margaritas!"

They're a whole lot looser on that side of Christiandom.

Phase One

Phase One:Taking all items from truck and trailer up 22 steps of the fire escape into the second story -- COMPLETE.

I'm back

I'm back

80 hours of driving in five days. I am so tired.

At 70 mph, "99 Bottles of Pop on the Wall" will take you 19 miles from beginning to end.

Christmas songs cross language barriers and have lots of verses.

Brushing your teeth feels really good after two days without.

Kansas: One Question! Ooh Ooh! Corn.

Off

Off

Excuse the absence. I'm off on a five and one half day trip to Texas and back. Insane. I'm not sure now, at 5am, why I thought I could do this and retain sanity. But I'm finally going to empty my storage unit and collect my things about me again. At this hour, if it wasn't for my victorian circa 1840's red velvet tufted loveseat, I would be tempted to leave it all. Oh, and my scrapbooks. And some other stuff, too. But really. 5am.

What was I thinking?

Like and unexpected song

Like and Unexpected Song

Today. In one of the boxes I was sorting through. Was. A battery operated device. That luckily was in several plastic baggies. Because I didn't want to touch it to throw it away.

Who DONATES stuff like that?

Long Day

A Very Long Day

Ending with taking Allie and Linda, our new exchange student from Lebanon, to see Monsters, Inc in the park. Linda slept through it, being very jetlagged from her flight. Allie met up with one of her friends. Never take three teenagers to a movie is my new motto. Not if you want to hear the lines, anyway. I threatened that if they didn't shut up I'd never take them anywhere again, and I'm the only one with a drivers license.

Math for Fun

And for tonight's entertainment,

Several hours of research on prime numbers and slogging through a College Level Algebra/Geometry/Trigonometry book. And one call to a friend of the family who also happens to be a Professor at UW to try and understand Eberhart's Hypothesis. Some luck there.

Act I, 2

Act I, Scene 2

I walked up to my director's door and saw yet another of her collection of bumper stickers: "Republicans for Voldemort." I was laughing as I walked up the steps.

We had a great first rehearsal. Yesterday was our first re-through (which I've always called a read through, which makes more sense in my opinion). Today Aimee and I ran our first sister catfight, which went well. Especially brilliant were the between scene banter that we had going. The director was relieved the we understood our parts well enough to keep up the running commentary. Aimee had spent a great deal more time researching motivation and beats. I, having been around people who won't take no for an answer and push, push, puss, felt I had plenty of life experience in acting defensive.

Roadkill

Roadkill

I was having a conversation with Nancy this evening, who is also my manager. We often talk shop at 11pm because we don't have time for a debrief during the insanity of our normal day. Tonight, while discussing special pickups by our donations crew, this conversation occurred:

Nancy: "It has to go through Faye because I never know when the trucks will be in use, or there will be too many pickups that day, or a food emergency might come up."
Me: "Oh, you mean like a semi drops off an entire load of green beans (it happens, people)?"
Nancy: "More like if the forest ranger calls us about fresh roadkill so we can send the truck up with people to get it."
Me: "We eat roadkill? That explains the "mystery meat" in the fridge."
Nancy: "Oh yeah, we have guys that go up for fresh meat, skin it, chop it up right there, and then we have a butcher in town who will process it right away at a moment's notice. That's where most of our hamburger and stew meat come from."
Me: "Hmm....so, what about the steelhead in the freezer?"

I'm guessing he was too slow.

Sometimes the Customer isn't right

Sometimes the Customer isn't right

I tried to close the store at the regular time. No one was leaving. I did all the shut down proceedures, then wandered around flashing lights, darkening rooms that no one was in, asking people if they were ready to ring up, etc. What do I get?

"I just found the kids clothes way there in the back, but I couldn't shop because it was too dark to see anything."

Right.

Headshot alteration

My face on the cover

They just stopped by to pick up my headshot to turn into the program covers and posters to advertize Proof. How bizarre it's going to be to see my watercolor face all over the place...

I wonder what it feels like for those models who do covers for bodice-ripping romance novels.

I got it

Catherine

I got the role of Catherine, the slightly unstable younger daughter of a crazy mathmetician who takes care of him in his decline. She also has a fling with Harold, one of her fathers former students, now a math professor in a rock band that plays "Imaginary" songs. And her sister is trying to sell the family home and move her from Chicago to New York where she can really keep an eye on her.

Proof

Proof

I just got done with the audition for Proof, by David Auburn. There were 9 people there and 4 parts. I was among the 7 who were still reading in circles at 4. By 7:30 all of our fates for the next two and a half months will be sealed.

Guitar

Guitar

I'm teaching myself to play guitar. It's very sad sounding right now. I know four chords, sometimes.

Jumping Beans

Jumping Beans

I saw Bean today. She came into the shop to suprise me! Was I ever! I went over to her house tonight and had dinner with her and her mom. Mostly we talked highschool alumni tidbits. The usual, who got married, who didn't, who has lovely children now, and how is it we're the only people we mutually know that aren't having a heigh-ho time in suburbia.

(That is a gross overgeneralization. Actually, none of my close friends are married yet.)

Speaking of poor choices

Speaking of Poor Choices

And now Chris and I have pledged to each other that we're going to stay clean. We really and truly are! We've given our sacred oath and promise. In San Francisco we won't know a single soul that uses it and it will be easy to stay off.
~from Go Ask Alice

Go Ask Alice

Go Ask Alice

It's a completely new world I'm exploring, and you can't even conceive the wide new doors that are opening up before me. I feel like Alice in Wonderland. Maybe Lewis G. Carroll was on drugs too.

Ya think?

(From Go Ask Alice, the diary of a 15-year-old drug user)

Cookies

Cookies

"Oh! There's no cookies!"

"Nope, no cookies."

"There aren't any cookies!"

"No cookies?"

"Why aren't there any cookies?"

"I guess they forgot to put any out."

"Yep, 'cause there's no cookies."

"Look, Hannah, they don't have any cookies for you."

"No cookies?"

"No cookies."

"Why no cookies???!!!"

"I guess they forgot to put any out."

Nope, no cookies..."

If they want cookies that badly, they should try donating them sometime.

Cheree Jones

Might I draw your attention to this site?

Frivolity

Basking in Frivolity

After being a hermit for a long time post-tour, suddenly my social calander is quite full.

Friday I worked four hours for the Saturday manager after running errands all morning. I bought new pins at JoAnn's. As soon as the store closed I went wild in the vintage clothing room looking for a dress to wear to the theater. I found the perfect one. Black knit 1950's scooped back dress, three quarter length sleeves and a t-length skirt with a foot border of satin. Only it was just a bit big - me not having a pointy bra and all. So I did a quick alteration job that will be easily taken back out. I put on seamed black stockings and my highest heels. There's so little dressing up in the Northwest. Guys wear flannel shirt to the Seattle Ballet. The ensemble was completed with black earrings and a pearl necklace

Kevin and I ate dinner in a hurry, having discovered the show started at 8 and not half an hour later. We got to the show in plenty of time to be seated next to the older brother of the guy we went to see. The show was good. I was leary of a "rock n' roll" version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, but the dialogue was in tact. They added snippets of 50's songs, and the costuming was vintage. I found myself getting caught up in "the magic" in spite of myself, and had a great time.

Afterwards, Kris invited Kevin, Denise and myself to hang out at a local pub. I called my boss to establish an alibi and promise that I wouldn't drink, and off we went. As I walked in, Kris' brother said "It's Cheers." I didn't understand until later. It truly was a "place where everybody knows your name." One guy came up to Kevin, "Hey man! I remember you! I used to treat you like s**t. Man, I'm so sorry." And Denise was getting snuggled by some random guy who wanted her phone number.

Sunday, finally!, Jeff came into town. We went out for *dun* *DUN* *DUN* Bur-ger-r Ra-anch. I hadn't had fry sauce since I moved back. After that we drove around and amused ourselves, doing nothing of importance. But, we ended it with Ice Cream from Coldstone. Hurrah. I couldn't finish mine.