fade like a radio station
if you drive out of range

Retreat, retreat, retreat. While discussing the wording in the company’s manifesto, we used the term “artistic rejuvenation”. That’s not all it is. It’s life and work and relationship and joie de vivre rejuvenation. It makes everything look a little shinier and a little friendlier. Maybe I’ll write about everything later, but here are some snippets, in vaguely chronological order. If you remember things I didn’t, please help me remember.

Eating shitty ice cream at Dick’s
Pratt’s love affair with Tacoma
Singing “Kiss Me” while speeding down dark winding country roads
J-Rhea’s hot tub dance
Lovely Lulu of the mystery puppies and deformed skull
“Loud Snorer. You’ve been warned.”
Hard’n’Throbbing, the best card game ever
Miso Soup and sticky rice, again
Bruce, Stephanie and SJ’s rendition of old Heart songs
Figuring out the Yellow Dog situation
Meetings and Babies and Dogs, Oh My!
Malibu and Coffee first thing in the morning
Applying to be staff. O YEZ.
Fetzer announcing his impending resignation as AD
Off-roading to Mount St. Helens
Wine, wine, and more wine
J-Rhea’s Wonderland Dreams
Gude being “untoward”
Sticking with Dick
Streaking Pizza Night
“Oh, God. Where are my pants?”
Comte’s Volcano Story
The Baron Von Krebzilla the Hun’s play
Trixie’s fiddlin’
SRaeRob being proud to be an American
Hot Tubbin’… (no suit? no problem!)
The ass-slap heard ‘round the world
Pictures Bartell’s won’t develop
Heart-to-heart with B’gosh, finally
The More You Know (tm) about Joshua Norton
Bacteria! Bacteria!
John Galt’s Ass Castles in the sky
Lying awake and picking out 7 voices at once
“You know what I wanna do? I wanna POKE her.”
I know marriage is reprehensible, but I don’t remember why
Wigging about the duckling
“Oh my god, it’s 3:30 in the morning.” “No it’s not. It’s only 2:30!”
John Galt doing dishes until 4. No, really, 4.
Waking to the sounds of coffee grinder at 7:30
Sleeping through breakfast
Discovering my BATTLE SCAR
Touching, touching, touching the armholeskin…
Getting to take minutes for old times’ sake, ‘cause Krebs was hung over
Scavenging for food
That last Picture on the Porch
Post-Meeting-Meeting at the Dairy Queen
Eye-Color dominance … what?
Diagnosing Psychoses
and …. scene.

What an incredible weekend. Tomorrow, it’s back to the grind. If you or you post any pictures online or would be willing to send pictures to me, that would be excellent. As for my own personal roll of film, it will be available soon, but not in a web-based format. (This is probably for the best.)

Check out this link to see photos taken by the fabulous Mr. Comte. Thanks!

making up a life that is a crime

Retreat time, once again. Just like last year and the year before. Le Pratt is going to be my bed-buddy, and I am going to get away from EVERYTHING for a few days. See you on the flipside …

i know a girl who talks in her sleep
about the things she really needs
but never gets

Went and saw Spyplane last night at the Irish Emigrant. I didn’t know who exactly was coming, only that I’d sent out a massive missive long ago asking if anyone wanted to come along. It ended up being a three-way collision of my worlds, and somehow everyone got out alive. Fet and Invader Im and Meklar made the trek from the East Side, Rayray represented my theatre people, and then Sasa, Carina, and Mitten came from work. Everyone got along, a few of us signed up for their mailing list, and Sasa even bought their CD. It was, of course, a fucking fantastic show, which was no surprise. I had a damn fine time … which got me to thinking.

I fucking LOVE my job. My coworkers rock so hard that I actually want to spend large amounts of my spare time with them. I love my kids. I work in probably the coolest - at least for me and what I want and need - early childhood education institution in the city. How many people can say that they love their day jobs this much? MAN.

On another “Shit, my life rules sometimes” note, I got a package the other day. I have never gotten a package like this before. When I opened it, I was literally speechless for several minutes, because my brain is just not hardwired to react to this kind of thing. I can’t really explain it, except like this : imagine you are feeling like you’re down on your luck. Weird shit keeps happening to you that makes you question your view of reality. Maybe it makes you question reality itself. In any case, you are unsettled and shaken and not quite sure how to proceed with anything. And then, out of the blue, you get this present in the mail, and it restores your faith in your life, your depth and breadth of your friendships, your decisions, everything. It brings the delusions you’d had about the state of the world shattering down around you, and you are left utterly at a loss for words to express the paradigm shift that has just occurred. Yup. I got that package. And for that, my brother-from-another-mother, I thank you.

fallls mainly on the plain

I spent two hours in my car today, going from Wallingford to the U-Village and back. This may seem ridiculous, but I made the mistake of going just as the football game was getting out. I sat in my car with the music on and watched the rain roll down the windows. I didn’t mind the traffic and I didn’t care about the delay as long as I got to be in the middle of that rain. It reminded me of other important rains, just like the first few of the fall always do. It made me ready for the next one.

I took a quick look back, and discovered that I posted this a year ago today. I have never gotten as close to a cast as I did to that one, and the idea that I’ve only known them for a year is kind of amazing to me. Makes me wonder what crazy theatrical foibles the next year has in store. Year after year, my high school friends and I have talked about how fall is really when the new year begins. Shed all the old, start in on the new.

(Bring it on.)

rising from the medicated ashes

I have been sick for two weeks. For the last four days, I have been in bed. Literally. If I haven’t responded to phone calls or emails, I am sorry. I have been in a drug-induced stupor. I didn’t mean to offend.

Two things, quickly, before I go back to bed.

#1. This is primarily for Sarah, who laughed a bit when I talked about the way people out here long for rain at the end of the summer. By my second Seattle fall, I was starting to understand it. Now on my fourth (fourth? Oh my god, can that be right?) autumn out here, I feel it in my bones. It doesn’t take long. Here is Sjet’s take on the incoming rain.

#2. This is something I had to share, because goddamn is it cute. The more I look at it, the more I have the munchies. Plus, it’s topical, and fits in with the …and also Fierce theme.

What San-X Character Are You?

#3. This week, I went to a doctor for the first time in a very, very long time. On the upside, he gave me lots of fun flu-fighting drugs. On the flipside, he thinks I am in the process of creating myself an ulcer, and he wants me to come back for a CAT-scan and/or MRI due to the possible concussion from the Concrete Blonde show in January. See, this is why I don’t like doctors. You go in once, and then they just SUCK YOU IN. Goddammit. As if I don’t have enough to do with my time.

carpe hottie

After seeing The Rundown, I went over to my “new friend“‘s place last night for drinks and a middle-of-the-night walk to the grocery store. I finally got to sleep around 3 something, and then I was up all night with what I think was heartburn (?) so bad that I could harldy breathe. Maybe I’m giving myself acid reflux from all of the brave I’ve been recently.

But it’s worth it. It’s so, so worth it.

can’t hardly wait

Over this weekend, I acquired:

One pair black polyurethane pants
One black polyurethane sleeveless shirt
One pair distinctive black sunglasses

and I put onto layaway:

One black floor-length polyurethane trench coat

Yes, friends, my Trinity costume is nearly complete. I never imagined that shopping for pleather pants would be such an exciting experience - you think it’s going to be scary, but then it ends up being really nice. I’d originally wanted to wear it to opening night, but we have …and also fierce rehearsal that night. What’s a shrink-wrapped girl to do?

now in production

So, for the movie of my life, Josh suggested Zooey Deschanel. What do you think?

Also, I think we need to add a category. In a lot of movies (at least bad ones), there is some scene wherein the protagonist (which would be me) has to sing something. Karaoke, lullaby to someone else’s baby, drunken belting in a dark alley, whatever. Since movies can make anything happen, I choose Pink to do all my voice-over singing work. I feel very close to her, anyway, since we both have the same first name.

have y’all ever seen a pig race?

Went and saw the Live Girls! Cabaret for the first time last night - those crazy ladies have been trying to get me involved with it, but I just don’t do anything Cabaret-y. Or, at leat that’s what I thought. After seeing some of the goings-on last night, I might have to re-evaluate what defines a Cabaret.

This one was a Country Fair theme, and involved a pig race, a beer-chugging contest, a pie-eating contest (that degenerated into a piefight), and a bunch of other stuff too weird or wild to mention. I came home with the Klingon Butt-Plug Squash, which I won for having the correct answer to the Oktoberfest Trivia Challenge. (Sort of.) I got to hang out with Alison U. and Tom from Mad Science, as well as Rebekah from the J and her friend Wendy (whom I think I might have met a long time ago when she taught at the Center school.) A good, raucous time was had by all…

for awhile, at least. I went outside after the show to talk to some people, and all of a sudden found myself so dizzy that I couldn’t sit up straight anymore. It was like I was randomly hit, out of the blue, by a severe case of the drunk. You know, the kind of drunk you get after several hours of drinking, and about ten minutes before you begin to toss your cookies for several hours. I said “Excuse me, I need to go back inside” and proceeded to make it to the foot of the stairs, where I had to sit down because my legs were shaking so much that I couldn’t walk and everything was turning upside down. After a minute or so there, I climbed up the flight of stairs and sort of clawed my way through the theatre to get to the restroom. The bathroom was being used, so I was going to have to sit by the door, ‘cause the standing wasn’t working for me. Just as I was deciding to sit, I blacked out, and woke up a couple of minutes (?) later sort of sitting, and really fucking confused. My arm and leg muscles were trembling, and I had a really hard time sitting myself upright, since I had basically just collapsed onto my back on the floor.

Ten minutes later, I was fine. I don’t know what the fuck happened to me, but considering that I had only consumed one shot of vodka - and two swallows of beer - over a TWO HOUR PERIOD preceding this, I was freaked out. Has this happened to any of you? I haven’t felt that terrible since the night I got that concussion at the Concrete Blonde concert. In any case, it sucked. Friends with medical expertise, please advise.

Today was awful. The kids were hitting and kicking and pulling hair and trying to bite and crying crying crying SCREAMING. It’s like all the wonderful kids I normally teach were posessed by Satan and then returned to me and my co-teacher for the day. Now, this particular co-teacher is only with me on Fridays for about four hours. She left crying today. It makes me feel vindicated that I’m the only one who’s with these kids 40 hours a week and I can handle it. I mean, they’re great kids, but they’re 2 years old, for crying out loud. How many 2 year olds can you handle for eight hours a day?

Anyway. I finally get a break, which is really exciting on a day like today. And as soon as it starts, it’s over again.

Oy vey.