the show must go on

tomorrow i start my new company management job for dai. i am both excited and terrified. my boss has yet to provide me with a show schedule, so i decided to look it up on the website and was a little shocked.

i knew i would probably not be able to go home to bahrain for christmas because of the show schedule. i accepted that. this year will be the first christmas i spend in america since 1982. i figured that even though i wouldn't be able to get time off to go back, i'd at least get the day off. nope. i don't care about having to work on thanksgiving because, oddly enough, the holiday hasn't meant that much to me since i was in college and would organize the dinners for the students who couldn't go home for the holidays.

but christmas is different. according to my schedule, we have at least one show a day from december 21st to january 8th. 19 days straight without a day off. i've done that before, too, for both nymf and don't quit, but that wasn't over the holidays.

yep, i asked for this...the shitty schedule, the crazy hours, the egos...the job in professional theater...i know i'll love it once i get started, but this is just a bummer.

i did it!

on october 5th it was a year since i left corcoran. the first week of november will be a year since i left corporate america to pursue a full-time career in theater.

and today i succeeded in doing what i set out to do. yes, i've been making money from theater for a while now, but either the money was terrible or they've been piece-meal jobs or doing things i didn't really want to do.

today i was hired as company manager for a show called dai (enough). it's a thought provoking, political piece of theater with a message (not just crappy commercial fluff). and although it's just a limited run until march, the money is decent.

the job was pretty much handed to me. bess, a company manager i worked with at rci, has been working with the producer and when he was looking for someone, she suggested me...and only me. she called me for my resume and basically he had already decided to hire me before he sat down to our sushi lunch today. that's right, he bought me sushi at a swanky restaurant. :)

i am both elated and terrified. i'm scared i'll be in over my head. but no way to know except take the plunge.

taking that first step was so hard for me before, but i've achieved my goal in 11 months.

ooops...nearly

this morning it was so difficult to wake up...i stumbled into my kitchen in my sleepy haze, got a bowl of cereal and went back to my room to eat and read emails. as i took my empty bowl back to the sink, i got a whiff of gas. for a second i thought i was imagining it. why would i be smelling gas? i didn't even cook last night. but as i stood there, i knew what i was smelling. i looked at my stove and felt it. i don't know why i'd think it was warm, but i checked anyway. then i noticed that one of the nobs was turned, almost to the "light" setting.

i'd like to think i brushed it when i was getting my breakfast this morning, but i know that i was nowhere near the stove. which means i either brushed against it last night when i got home and it had been going all night or it's been like that since friday night, which was the last time i cooked.

i've never had something like this happen before, but i have no one to blame but myself (since i'm sans roommate).

i cracked my glass door and am letting my apartment air out. it should be fine by the time i get home tonight. good thing i'm not a smoker, eh?

the story of the gold lamee skirt

i've felt that my blogs lately have become very one-note...they're all "yay job this" or "oh no job that." i swear after october 7th, i'll at least have something more in my life than musicals 24/7...and i should, in theory, have more of a social life because i won't have the insane schedule, so let's hang out people! but in the mean time, a non-job related blog post...

i had to buy a new futon mattress. it's the same one that i got it with, and i got the futon second hand. it was almost completely flattened and very uncomfortable. i found a fairly cheap one so had it scheduled to be delivered today between 12 and 4. of course they came as close to 4 as humanly possible.
hatim decided to come over to keep me company while i waited and at some point i was showing him this gold skirt that i bought for a costume in hurt so good but decided not to use. at that moment the delivery guys called my cell phone to let me know they'd be there very soon.
so hatim gets this bizarre idea that i need to wear the gold skirt when they deliver the mattress. he told me he'd buy me coffee if i did it, so i said ok. i put the skirt on and all of a sudden he was telling me i had to bend over in front of them, etc. and i refused. it was already bad enough that i was wearing this stupid gold skirt with a green day tshirt.
so the guys come with the mattress and you could see that they were visibly flustered. they were probably thinking "fucking hipsters and the way they dress." and i actually had to bend over in front of them to get a pen. they were trying so hard not to look at the skirt, but i must admit that it's really hard not to look at it...i would probably be staring if it wasn't me in the skirt. it was a very uncomfortable situation and they got out of there as quickly as possible. the highlight was probably me trying to adjust the futon and mattress while still in the skirt and trying to keep it from riding up.
i'm such a whore! all of that just for a coffee (i actually made sure to get a dirty chai...a whole dollar more expensive). for some reason hatim knows how to challenge me to do things that i'd never do...like see the movie 28 weeks later...or take pictures of me growling at the camera while still in the skirt and on the mattress. no, you can't see those pictures, but you can see this one...

overwhelmed

today i got two phone calls about potential jobs. not for jobs i've applied to but from people i've worked with who have heard about things or have been approached about positions and have thought of me. and they're good jobs. i don't want to jinx anything but i'm a bit excited.

oh, and creatively my brain is working too...i think i may have just passed the blocker on my play. :)

yay for days off!

"time flies like an arrow..."

i had a bit of down time between shows today, so i took a look at my schedule, and i estimated the number of hours i worked during the first week of the festival. 76. it's kind of frightening when you actually put a number to it. and that doesn't include hurt so good rehearsals, etc.

i suddenly feel better and justified as to why it feels like most of my life is in shambles now. and why i've been so tired.

but in better news, i have wednesday off. woooo!