random randomness

blinding...

2010-05-20T23:15:00.000-04:00

some days i really understand where medea was coming from.

resurrection

2010-04-20T00:19:00.002-04:00

nelson mandela said "there is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways that you yourself have altered."

i revisited this blog while i was reminissing with a new friend. i've had various stops and starts trying to regain the blogging momentum i once had in various locations and forms. when i blogged regularly, i feel like i kept more in touch with the amusement and wonderment i felt on a daily basis. i want to regain that. i want to take the time, again, to focus on that.

i've recently gone (and am still navigating) through a time of great pain and loss. what better time to rediscover myself in a place that has remained unchanged for three years?

mini vacay

2007-12-16T15:24:00.001-05:00

wednesday night, i left the city for the first time in nearly a year. and where did i go? exotic wayne, nj.

highlights of the adventure included walking down the side of the highway with seth from the willowbrook mall to a ramada we had a vague idea of the directions to and passing a billboard about spaggetti trees. actors obsessed with guitar hero. actually enjoying flight of the conchords with seth, rather than just emailing him the music videos. helping load in and out of a theater. and watching a children's theater show i actually liked.

i was invited to ride along in the van to their next stop in connecticut. so i did, and was initiated into the company through mind and word games. that was probably the best van ride through a snow storm ever...it was even punctuated with chunks of ice and snow falling off the roof of the van and smashing on the hood of the vehicle, scaring the shit out of us. fun, fun. i was told that i fit in like i had been part of the company since the beginning of the tour. that's pretty awesome.

so what do i do when i actually have time off and a place outside of nyc to go? more theater. :)

in my dreams...

2007-12-02T12:11:00.000-05:00

i had a weird dream this morning in between the first time i woke up and now. i dreamt that i was on tour with dai and we went in to this supermarket. it's was an interesting space, completely underground in an older building and had lots of big, spacious rooms. at some point i realized they left me behind and i tried to catch up with them, but came to this room that was flooded. i think i was barefoot because i didn't want to walk through the water so i got in this shopping cart and used it almost as a raft. then this guy who worked in the store (complete with the white butchers coat and everything) tried to help me get out, but as we got to the main entrance this huge crowd of celebrities were coming down. it seemed totally reasonable that they'd be having some big party in the grocery store. all i could do was stand to the side, wrapped in a blanket and watch the people go by. i saw drew barrymore, julianne moore, and lucy liu. and while i was standing there waiting, all i could think about was where i could leave postcards for my show so that someone would see them.

i think i need a break or a weekend or something. a day off would be nice.

history in the making...

2007-11-12T00:33:00.000-05:00

you know what it's like when you have so much to say but can't articulate it? that's how i feel right now. so much has gone on in the last few days, but i can't seem to express it in any cohesive way. and i'm honestly so tired that i'm not sure if any of this will make sense.

i've survived tech week and my show has it's first preview tomorrow. i'm sleep deprived, sick, and excited. and not just about my show.

local 1, the stage hands union and the largest and most powerful union in the industry, went on strike two days ago. it doesn't effect my show, so to speak, because i'm working on an off-broadway show and our stage hands are in a different union. i find this all thrilling and so important. and i've tried discussing these events with a few friends who are in the industry (but more off-off broadway) and their lack of knowledge and interest is upsetting.

these events impact theater at all levels, locally and internationally. and the longer the strike goes on, the greater the impact on off-and off-off broadway. the effects were already seen the first day of the strike. forbidden broadway, the show i'm sharing a venue with, has not sold tickets to the balcony in quite a while. they usually have just enough for the orchestra. both of their shows sold out yesterday.

the strike has been a constant topic of conversation for my coworkers and i. my boss seems to think that if they can't resolve it by tuesday (in order to save the two shows on wednesday), or if they can't resolve it by friday (in order to save the weekend shows), it could go on for quite a while. there's so much money on either side in strike funds that it is totally a possibility that broadway could be dark until the holiday season. if the strike lasted until thanksgiving, it would mean tremendous things for my show!

with all this excitement going on, i wanted to write an informative blog about the strike and the two sides and my take on all of it. i even talked to a few picketers and took their flyers. but then as i was talking to more and more friends of mine, i was struck by their lack of knowledge or care about the topic. granted, knowing this stuff is a bit more my job now than it was when i had a day job that wasn't theater, but i don't think i was completely uninformed. how can you expect to succeed in this (or any) business if you know nothing about it???

some may find it odd that these recent events excite me so much. besides the idea that i'm living through history, i also have begun to feel like part of a bigger whole (and it's been a long time since i've felt that way). i am part of this industry. i have an effect. so does my show. i wanted to be an actress so that i could inspire someone like i was inspired. and although i'm not on stage right now, i'm still able to do that. i am part of the industry that makes people's dreams reality. i don't know how i landed here, but i know i want to stay.

the show must go on

2007-10-30T02:13:00.000-04:00

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!

2007-10-10T16:11:00.000-04:00

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

2007-10-07T13:27:00.001-04:00

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

2007-10-04T00:17:00.001-04:00

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

2007-10-03T17:45:00.000-04:00

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..."

2007-10-01T23:41:00.000-04:00

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!

blast from the past

2007-09-30T17:37:00.001-04:00

i got 9 hours of sleep last night, but i'm still tired. i think i need a whole day off to actually feel refreshed. just 2 more days until i get my first day off in more than 2 weeks!

on another note, the producer of the show that is currently playing in my theater was one of my residents my first year as an r.a. boy does that make me feel old! he recognized me before i recognized him. it's really such a small world. some of his guests in the show were also some of my residents, and one of them, elizabeth, recognized me. i asked her how she was doing and she said "great, thanks to you." it's nice to be remembered and to know that i made a difference in someone's life.
that year was my hell year with my residents and i felt like i could have been a much, much better ra, but it's still nice to hear that i wasn't a complete fuck up with them.

musicals

2007-09-26T13:28:00.000-04:00

musicals have taken over my life...

i was alway the one to tell people to stop singing show tunes, but now i can't get them out of my head. at least the ones i'm singing are funny and riddled with profanity or slightly emo rock.

working for nymf has gotten me thinking about my play again...you know the one...the one that i was so close to completing and then i stopped because i didn't know how it should end. well, now i know how it should end, i just don't know how to get there. and in my ideal world, i found my musical collaborator. first, he's won an obie, so it's always to have that name recognition. ;) and i can't get his music out of my head. if they had a cd, i'd buy it in a heart beat. the music for his show is amazing...but the script has a bit to be desired (which is perfect in my case). AND when he's not doing theater, he fronts a glam rock band. which is exactly what i need for my show!

i'm friendly with him, but not FRIENDS...now, how do i get him to want to keep in contact with me so that at some point in the future i can show him my script and make him want to write the songs and score???? i don't want to just show him my script now and let him run away with my idea and go off and do his own show with the same concept and win another obie.

workaholic

2007-09-10T23:29:00.000-04:00

i've always wanted to do it all...and i'm trying to do it again.

i decided to take both jobs.

three days a week, i'm working at a lighting and sound production company, although i think he eventually wants me to work there full time. the job is pretty easy and normally i'd be happy to work there full time, but the reverse commute to long island is a bitch. we'll see how it goes and if i get used to the commuting, otherwise i may have to look elsewhere. i just don't want to piss off my boss, though, since he offered me the job just based on our limited contact when i was working on don't quit.

and as of september 17th, i'll be box office manager for the new york musical theater festival. i'm pretty excited about that. it'll give me a nice reprieve from the long commute. and my venue is the has the only musical with full frontal male and female nudity (they're washing blood off each other in a bathtub) and die hard: the sock puppet musical.

and i'm still working on hurt so good.

i don't know how to not overschedule myself. i'm hoping with these jobs to make good connections as well as a bit of cash. i eventually do want something more stable, but i feel like i haven't found the right job to settle in just yet.

how different i am from a year ago when i was working a miserable job that i just stayed put in rather than venture out to find something to make me happy...now i feel like i almost have career a.d.d.

...or that...an update

2007-08-31T16:21:00.000-04:00

my interview yesterday went really well, although it was a bit weird because it was a group interview. they said they'd let me know by tuesday.

and the interview today went so well that they offered me the job on the spot. i told them that i was waiting to hear about another offer, and they still said that they would like me to come in on tuesday on a temporary/part-time basis. if i work out, they'll bump it up to full time and a higher pay range. why am i hesitant? because this is the job on long island.

i'm not going to lie, i do need the money. but i still want to hold on in case some of the other places i've applied (blue man group, the public theater) call me. what do i do? take the job but give it a while before i settle in? i don't want to leave these guys hanging, but it also seems like they need someone pretty immediately. and the money can't hurt, right? but still...it's LONG ISLAND.

this or that...

2007-08-30T02:13:00.000-04:00

i have two job interviews in the next two days. this is what i want and need...so why am i so apprehensive?

neither position is ideal. one would require commuting to long island and the other is with a festival; so the position isn't permanent.

i guess i'm just scared that i'll accept something and miss my golden opportunity or something.

bunny pirate!

2007-08-27T13:58:00.000-04:00

yesterday while i was walking up bedford avenue, i noticed a commotion going on across the street. i took my earphones out to hear what was going on and then noticed that a man was hopping down the sidewalk and shouting "i'm bunny pirate!" to groups of people.
he was wearing the head piece from an easter bunny outfit, an eye patch, red sweatpants with novelty boxers over it (the boxers had a plastic ass attached to the back), and an american flag as a cape. on one hand he had a blue boxing glove; in the other he had a giant floppy heart on a stick.
i was more than amused and watched him accost groups of people trying to ignore him. if i was with someone, i may have risked letting him hop up to me just to see what he'd do. but, unfortunately, i was on my way somewhere and didn't want to risk it.
then today, i saw these posters up on the light poles!

some days i REALLY love my neighborhood!

essay

2007-08-23T17:51:00.001-04:00

i'm applying for a job at...well, i don't want to jinx it, but anyway, it's a place i've always wanted to work for. and they want me to write a 500 word essay on my goals, experience and education and how it has helped me thus far.

i haven't had to write an essay since 2002. i haven't had to write an essay about myself since i applied to colleges...last century. a history paper is easy. you have themes, events you can talk about. but an essay about yourself is fucking hard.

and it's for a finance position, anyway. i don't expect i'd be writing a lot of essays in between doing the reconciliation reports and doing the theater payroll.

i mean, all i really want to say is that i just want a paying, theater related job that is stable and pays me enough so that i won't have to skip meals. but somehow i don't think they'd go for that.

i think it's time for a break from the job search.

coney island/bouncing souls

2007-08-21T13:58:00.000-04:00

yesterday hatim and i went down to coney island to see the bouncing souls.

i’ve been a fan of their’s for a long time, but never had a chance to see them live. all six nights they played at the knitting factory last year were sold out the week they went on sale (or something ridiculous like that). but it was worth the wait. i couldn’t have asked for a better first time seeing a band.

our tickets included a "fun pass" that would allow us to ride the rides at astroland for free. the weather was kind of threatening, so alot of the rides were shutting down for fear of rain. they gave us $10 of our tickets back to us, so we went around spending it on what we could. we rode the wonderwheel and dante’s inferno and played a lot of skee ball. then we walked around on the beach and boardwalk. i wanted to see the freak show, but both that and the coney island museum were closed because it was monday. i did notice and think it was odd that in the same building that housed the coney museum and freak show had an army recruiting office in it.

i didn’t mind that a lot of the things were closed. it gave us a more interesting perspective. the weather set a very different kind of mood for the trip. it started getting colder and after a while we saw all that was open, so we ate some questionable food at ruby’s bar and grill, next door to cha cha’s, where we would be seeing the concert.

after a while we didn’t know what else to do besides go to cha cha's and start drinking. and drink i did. we tried the coney island ale that tasted like real carney! and nothing says class like plastic cups.

the first band to go on was static radio nj. i noticed that the drummer was a guy i accidentally hit in the crotch earlier that evening with a bar stool. heh. they were alright, not really my thing though. then another band was supposed to play. i wasn't really paying attention when the next band went on. but as they started to play, i turned to hatim and said "who are these guys? they sound like the bouncing souls." and he said "they are the bouncing souls you moron."

we pushed forward so i could actually see the stage and i ended up on the edge of the mosh pit pushing people back in. after that, it's all kind of a blur. i couldn't tell you everything that was played, but i know i heard the majority of everything i could have wanted to hear. i was in the pit, on the side...at one point hatim and i got separated and i ended up in the front row. i got to pound fists with the bassist, bryan, and there was some guy...my bouncing soul mate (haha)...who kept an eye on me and more than once kept me from getting trampled or knocked over. i tried to find him after the show to say thanks, but i didn't know where he went.

after the show, hatim and i were dripping with our sweat, other people's sweat, and beer. i was glowing. the crowd was disbursing, but i didn't want to leave. i had another beer and this guy that i had been talking to earlier...a bar regular went up to pete, the guitarist and told him i wanted to take a picture with him. it was awesome.

when i got home, i surveyed the damage. my white shoes are now black. i'm going to try throwing them in the washer to see if they get any better. hatim and i both stank of sweat and beer. this morning the shirt i bought at the merch table was still wet. i've got bruises forming on both forearms and i have difficulty putting weight on my right ankle. my body hurts, but i'm still giggling about last night. this blog entry just doesn't do it justice. yesterday was one of the best days i've had for a long, long time and i'm still basking in that happiness. and even though i know it won't be like my first time, i can't wait to see these guys play again.

the book i am...

2007-08-15T13:26:00.000-04:00

interesting...

You're Mrs. Dalloway!

by Virginia Woolf

Your life seems utterly bland and normal to the casual observer, but
inside you are churning with a million tensions and worries. The company you surround
yourself with may be shallow, but their effects upon your reality are tremendously deep.
To stay above water, you must try to act like nothing's wrong, but you know that the
truth is catching up with you. You're not crazy, you're just a little unwell. But no
doctor can help you now.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

job offer

2007-08-14T03:55:00.000-04:00

when jeromy and i were discussing my leaving rci and working at ha!, he gave me this speech about how one thing leads to another and who knows where working at ha! would lead me. i know he felt bad about telling me i was losing my job, but i also kind of do believe it. i really do believe everything happens for a reason.

and now as my time at ha! comes to a close, i was beginning to think that my working there was just a waste of time. that nothing has come out of it besides making my resume look a little more interesting...then glenn walked in to ha! today. he rented the sound equipment and did the sound and lighting design for don't quit. he and i got along quite well during the limited contact we had.

well, he offered me a job today in his office. he said it could be part time and we didn't really discuss the specifics because my boss walked up. but the draw back i'd have to travel somewhere on long island. he and i exchanged numbers and the more i think about it, the more i think i should call him. i initially was just going to pass it off, but it could lead to something. and it is money. it would just have to be enough money to make my traveling on the lirr worth it. regardless, i should call him and get more info...

so should i call him tomorrow or should i wait a day and call him wednesday?

who would have thought the theater girl who has never run a light board could end up working in a light/sound design/rental office???

dead head

2007-08-08T13:50:00.000-04:00

it's been quite a while since i've remembered a dream of mine...until last night. and last night's was crazy.

the first part of my dream that i remember is that there were a whole bunch of us in some institutional type building, like a high school or something. it was a hostage situation and we were all in different rooms, with a gun man walking the halls and checking in on us. we had all been given tasks to do and everyone was doing them except this one guy, who i think had just given up and he was being very loud about not doing what he was told. the gunman shot at him, but didn't hit him. i don't know why he didn't kill him.

in his rage the gunman came over to my room and started yelling at me. i got down on the floor with my hands over the back of my head. i was laying face down. then i heard and felt him shoot me. things got black and kind of fuzzy, but i knew he shot me and that i was dead. then i began to question whether or not i was dead because i was still conscious. i got up and it took me a while to figure out to see. i started to panic because i thought that i must definitely be alive and just brain damaged. but after a while i figured out how i could see. then i touched my forehead and felt the exit wound. i was dead. and a ghost. but i could still feel pain. i was conscious of the pain in my head throughout the entire dream.

this is where the rest of the dream gets choppy...i went out to find my friends so they could help me figure out why i was still around. of the people i spoke with, only one i recognized from real life, and that was bob. some of them could see me and some of them couldn't. sometimes people who didn't even know me could see me and interact with me, some without realizing that i was a ghost. at one point during the dream i was at a parking garage in the east village trying to convince the guy to let me park my car there because i had a regular spot that had expired. we argued for a while and then i walked away and bob handled it. then the guy asked bob if i was alright because i had a bit of blood on my forehead. that was when it dawned on me that my head wound that i always felt might be visible to everyone. it was, but i guess just in different degrees. bob said he saw the whole extent of it. and when i put my hands up to touch it, it was there as if it were a fresh wound. but others only saw aspects of it. i remember wishing multiple times in the dream that i had died some other way and that my wound wasn't always visible and the pain it caused as constant.

we were trying to figure out why i was sticking around, why i hadn't passed on to where ever. one theory was due to the violence of my death and another was that i had unfinished business. but when thinking about that, i had no idea what that business could be. the search took us to some older man. i was hoping that he didn't see me and for a while he was acting like he didn't. he invited my friends in for some food in his little back yard garden. i was hanging off to the side until he looked right at me and offered me a seat near him. i was shocked.

and that's all i remember of my dream. crazy, right? anyone have any insight? i tried looking up some of the stuff online, but i'm not finding a lot.

mike the shredder

2007-07-17T14:39:00.000-04:00

so friday i was out, having lunch with a friend and planning on running errands when i got a call asking me to come in to work. i did't want to go in, but i like the guy and i felt bad that he's violently ill. problem is...i have plans that night and have just purchased a shredder in yet another attempt to declutter and organize my life.

i had no choice but to lug it with me all night. by the end of the night, he was now called mike.
many thanks to ted and jarred for helping me out with mike through out the evening (and to courtney for being man enough to hold the door for me :wink:)

in mike's first night in my care he got to hang out at a comedy club, see the new harry potter movie, run around williamsburg, and do whiskey shots at barcade. not bad.

everyone...meet mike...

ukulele and existential detectives

2007-07-02T14:41:00.000-04:00

i got my ukulele! yay! it's so much fun (probably less fun for my neighbors, though). but now i have a dilemma...i've been teaching myself songs and chords and it's going well, but now i have a deadline. a comic has made a sort of wager with me. if i can learn to play stairway to heaven on the uke, he'll give me a very special david bowie t-shirt. so i'm looking for someone to tutor me to expedite the process. know of anyone?

and don't fall asleep watching i heart huckabees...it can give you really fucked up dreams.

do over

2007-06-18T03:16:00.000-04:00

i sometimes feel that my life, as i'm living it now, is just a sort of test run. that one day i'm going to wake up in my bed in bahrain, 15 again, like this was all a dream, but a little wiser. i would know what to really focus on, what choices to make, and what to let slide.

i realize that if my life were a movie or a novel and this were to happen, that the course of my life could be significantly altered. i do believe that there are certain places you are meant to be, things you are meant to do, and people who you are meant to have in your life, so although my life path may be altered, i would still be hitting those marks and meeting those people. but who knows, maybe very little would change...maybe after a time, my wisdom would fade and i'd end up doing the same damn things i've already done.

still, i'd like to try it and see what happens.

my inner muse

2007-06-18T01:29:00.000-04:00

Your Inner Muse is Euterpe

You are most like this muse of music.

While you may or may not be musical...

You love music and set life to your own personal soundrack.

And you are good at making anyone's heart sing!

What Muse Are You?

tonight

2007-06-16T03:09:00.001-04:00

i got soaked with a supersoaker while dancing on a bar

and

the answer to the question "so tell me something about you that i can't tell from looking at you..." isn't "what's my favorite movie?"

ugh, jersey boys...

sucks

2007-06-13T11:13:00.000-04:00

my time at rci will be up in two weeks. i was told today.

i saw it coming...shows closing, less work, etc. and i know i've grown too comfortable and should be working harder at finding a better paying job. but i like the office too much. maybe this is the kick in the ass i need. but regardless, it still sucks.

anyone know of a theater job that pays and is hiring?

my own personal hell on film

2007-05-29T01:02:00.000-04:00

if you know me, you probably know about my phobia of zombies...

i know it is an irrational fear. there's no reason for it. it's not like i fear the water because i almost drowned. and it's not like all horror movies scare me...i love them. and i've had people try to convince me that vampires and zombies are similar, so why do i freak out about zombies when i have had such a fascination with vampires?

i don't know. i've tried to rationalize it every which way and i am still petrified of them.

i saw 28 days later in the movie theater and had nightmares for two weeks afterwards. i saw it because danny boyle is one of my favorite filmmakers and it was an excellent film. but it gave me even more things to be scared of...fast moving zombies caused by a virus made from animal testing...as if the original conception of the idea wasn't bad enough! but what really scared me in the film were some of the stories told. things that we heard about but never saw. things that i sometimes still think about when i'm stuck in a crowded subway or am fretting in the middle of the night.

so knowing all of this, why did i go to see 28 weeks later yesterday? maybe part of me was hoping that it'd be a lesser film and it would break this fear. not a chance. i can't remember the last time i covered my eyes in a horror film and this one had me sobbing, with my head in my lap and my arms over my head. i was shaking and hyperventilating with my feet up on the chair in front of me for protection. so many things just talked about in the first film were shown in this one. essentially, all the nightmares i had imagined were shown to me.

and the violence was just brutal. and, of course, there were the zombies.

the movie fucked me up. and i had to run from the theater to work, so i was completely out of sorts yesterday. i also had problems sleeping. i had to go to bed with the light on and cartoons playing. i was still awake every 2 or 3 hours, though. i don't remember any of my dreams, but i've probably got a pretty good idea what they were about. i woke myself up once talking very loudly in my sleep.

all of this has just added to my general melancholia of late.

why do i do this to myself? it would be so easy to just skip the film and not have this effect. but there i was, days ago, looking at the stills from the film and getting goosebumps from that horrible face. what the hell is wrong with me? why can't i just leave it alone? why can't i be afraid of something normal like spiders or heights or something?

fyi...

2007-05-25T20:10:00.001-04:00

i'm dying my hair red again.

see that's what happens when you actually give karron a day off...

and today is proof that

"summer in the city means cleavage, cleavage, cleavage..."

rent character

2007-05-21T23:27:00.000-04:00

Which RENT Character Are YOU?

Maureen - the performer. You attract men and women like no one else, and you take full advance of your outgoing personality to woo them. You don't really care about the outside world, but you pretend to to get your face on the screen.
Take this quiz!

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tumult

2007-05-21T02:52:00.000-04:00

this past week has been insane. i've had one day off in a month. many of my days i work 12-14 hours. this week was particularly hectic because it was the official opening of don't quit your night job. also, rci was managing the new dramatists luncheon honoring edward albee which was also on the same day. so of course, working my butt off. not that i mind, but i just want a weekend, you know? i'm getting very tired and not as happy as i once was. some sleep and relaxation would help that immensly.

then on friday i found out that sunday would be my last day on the show. elizabeth, the company manager, fought to keep me and is deeply unhappy about it. but the higher-ups are doing budget cuts, and thus the ticketing part of my job will be handled by the venue owner and the other aspects of my position will be handled by elizabeth. it wasn't much notice and rather than make a game plan on what i'm going to do to fix it, i drank heavily all weekend. on friday after the show, i went out with louie, the sound guy for don't quit and we closed out house of brews. the sun was coming up as i was going home, although i don't remember actually getting home. heh. i also was reminded that sharpee doesn't wash off easily.

then after the shows yesterday, elizabeth and i went to sweet carolines, an event at ha! that happens after our show. again, i got home about 4:30 and i have no idea how much i drank. being buddies with the bartender can be a dangerous thing. i remember doing at least 6 shots from everything from vodka and tequila to lemon drops and red headed sluts and blow jobs (see picture below). And every time i turned around i had a new g&t, so who knows how many of those i drank. needless to say, i have many stories from last night. some of which inlude a lesbian licking my arm, a navy guy doing push ups so i'd give him a kiss, having the bar manager pour jameson down my throat on multiple occasions, and pole dancing on the bar.

and so today was my last day as assistant company manager on don't quit. i was at ha! trying to make sure that everyone was trained properly, when i mentioned that i was officially out of a job. anthony, the venue owner hadn't realized this. he thought i'd still be working on the show, just not doing ticketing. nope. so he offered me a job. so i'll still be working on don't quit, but in a slightly different capacity. i won't have the asst. manager duties, but i'll still be doing the ticketing. and also two nights a week i'll be hostessing at the club. so now my weekends will be thursdays and fridays. the pay isn't as good, but at least it's something until i can figure out what the hell i'm doing...again. and i'm still involved in theater. elizabeth is still going to train me to cover for her if she's out, so i can pick up some extra cash doing that as well. but at least i have a buffer for now...that i don't think i would have had if i hadn't partied hard last night.
so again, things are up in the air. but i think i'll have to get used to that working in theater and all...

and now i'll leave you with some pictures from the evening...

May 19, 2007 - Sweet Caroline's Rock and Roll Dueling Piano Show @ Ha! Comedy Club - JoonBug.com

my new boss anthony, me, elizabeth, and the random navy guy (pre pushups)

right before i got up on the bar...

May 19, 2007 - Sweet Caroline's Rock and Roll Dueling Piano Show @ Ha! Comedy Club - JoonBug.com

and of course the ever famous blowjob shot...(elizabeth's smile says it all)

May 19, 2007 - Sweet Caroline's Rock and Roll Dueling Piano Show @ Ha! Comedy Club - JoonBug.com

my turtle is this bad ass...

2007-05-18T15:56:00.000-04:00

moose ball

2007-05-18T15:47:00.000-04:00

angel

2007-05-03T01:24:00.000-04:00

i spoke with david boreanaz on the phone today!!!! heheheheheheehhehehehehehe! :D

you know you drink too much coffee if...

2007-05-03T01:16:00.000-04:00

on your way to work you walk in to your local coffee shop and the coffee guy grabs you, puts you in a head lock, and gives you a noogie. then he tries to box you.

not quite what you'd expect first thing in the morning. yet another reason why i love williamsburg.

oslo beats the pants off starbucks any day.

_insert_exclamation_here_!

2007-04-26T08:42:00.000-04:00

i'm nervous! tonight's the first preview for don't quit and i feel like i'll be flying by the seat of my pants. i don't feel prepared at all. there's been so little time to adjust to the idea and learn...anything...but i guess that's why they call it a preview and not opening night...

here is good right now

2007-04-24T01:21:00.000-04:00

is it stupid that a stupid myspace survey can make you have an epiphany?

last night i couldn't sleep and i was filling out this "61 odd questions" survey and came to the question: "where would you rather be?" and you know, i didn't have an answer. i don't think that has ever happened. i ALWAYS want to be somewhere else...traveling, etc. and this time i didn't. i had an awesome day yesterday: walked over the williamsburg bridge, bummed around the lower east side and east village, sat in a park, had dinner with friends, had a very interesting (and scarily accurate) tarot reading, and just had a great time.
so then i couldn't sleep and i came to this question and had the realization that there was no where that i'd rather be than here and now. and that's a good thing to have.
i just got back from a free LIVE karaoke night in my neighborhood...it's live with a piano, not a machine. that's pretty fucking scary. i rocked out with my cracking voice to nothing compares to you (which had the entire bar singing with me) and then did a pretty punk rock version of build me up butter cup with ian, kurtis's roommate. ian...kurtis...ian curtis...anyone get the reference? ian certainly didn't. (by the way, eric, this is for you...today is/was the 23rd and ian curtis died at age 23...23 is an auspicious number)
but anyway, i just wanted to let you know that here is good right now. here is really good. i'm having fun and for the first time in i don't know how long, there's no where i'd rather be.

voiceless

2007-04-21T16:33:00.000-04:00

everyone keeps telling me not to whisper; that it's bad for my voice. but it's not like i have much of a choice.

i know someone can only have a certain amount of luck at any given time, but this wrench in the works came at precisely the wrong time.

i lost my voice. it's a fairly common thing to happen to people, but i feel that the timing of this makes my life even more bizarre than it already is.

yesterday i had interviews with three potential replacements at petaholics. i can only imagine what they thought as i whispered questions at them.

yesterday i also had the meet and greet for don't quit. when we went around the room introducing ourselves, i had to whisper in the ear of the stage manager, who acted as my translator. wonderful first impression, i'm sure...

my lack of voice also weirded out a lot of people. elizabeth, the company manager for don't quit, kept thinking i was unhappy or bored because i was nonresponsive, but i had to keep telling her i wasn't, just that i couldn't respond. i also had a lot of people whispering back at me, as if what i was saying to them was a secret.

i was hoping that by some miracle my voice would be back by the time i had to do my show, but that truly was just wishful thinking. leslie, the stage manager, had to go on for me, instead. she did a great job and i'm very proud of her. but the whole ordeal also greatly frustrated me. i already feel like i'm letting the show down by leaving a week early to do don't quit. and then i can't even perform in my penultimate show because i have no voice. i also feel a little cheated, seeing as i don't know when i'll get to act again because of my work schedule for don't quit.

today my voice is better, but still very hoarse. i'm trying to concerve it by writing everything down so i'll be able to go on tonight and have a last show. i started writing stuff down last night when we went to a bar after the show. there was no way i could compete with the music and noise in the bar. it was actually kind of fun and for some reason i was able to come up with a number of good pickup lines. maybe i should be mute more often. ;) no, not really.

i ran out today to enjoy the amazing weather and to run some errands. on my way back i stopped at my local favorite coffee spot to grab my essential summer drink, the dirty chai. i wrote out a nice note to give to the cute coffee guy. he took a look at it and said, "i don't read." nice. then handed it to the guy who makes the drinks. he held up four fingers to indicate how much i should pay. i may be mute, but i'm not deaf. he then asked me if i was faking (a common thought among a couple of my friends), so i attempted to speak for the first time since i woke up. it didn't sound much better. i told him that i was trying to conserve my voice for the show tonight since the stage manager had to go one for me last night. he told me my voice made me sound like a tough guy and that i should do my character like a civil war general. then he offered me a cigarette. dick...kinda funny, but still a dick.

so here's hoping it works out tonight...if not, maybe i can put my new voiceless pickup lines to good use.

it has happened.

2007-04-15T17:19:00.000-04:00

friday i gave notice to my boss at petaholics. why? you may ask, knowing how long i stuck it through crappy real estate jobs that provided more grief than this current part-time gig.

because i was offered (and i accepted) a position as asst. company manager/box office liason for don't quit your night job, a new improv/sketch comedy show created by and featuring broadway actors. yes, you heard right. karron's day and night jobs have finnally merged. my primary source of income will be from the theater. well it fucking took long enough, didn't it?

i'm still not fully filled in on the details of my job...i know my work schedule and it will be a total life and schedule change. i'll be working 6 shows a week, with my weekend being tuesday and wednesday. because all of the actors in the show are currently working on broadway, the show schedule is around the broadway hours, meaning we have 3:30, 5:30, 7:00 or 11PM shows, depending on the day of the week. i've always said i was a night person, now's the time when i'll put my money where my mouth is and see if it's true. i'm really excited to see what this job brings.

my one regret is that i'm going to have to leave the cast of five years later a week early. the first preview of don't quit is during the last week of performances for five years later, and there's no way i can be in both places at once. it's a good thing my part is so minor. they're on the case searching for my replacement, and i have no doubt that she'll do a wonderful job.

so you know what that means, kiddies...this week will be your last chance to see me on stage for at least a little while...so if you need your dose of karron on stage, go see five years later.

i'll keep you posted on the details of my exciting break through as soon as i have them. yay! i've done it...finally.

american hardcore

2007-04-02T17:06:00.000-04:00

this weekend i watched the documentary american hardcore. it wasn't perfect and certainly left a lot out, but it was still awesome! it made me want to go out and start a bar fight! i can't get this clip of henry rollins out of my head. it just makes me smile (and want to get a little violent).

art movement

2007-04-02T16:38:00.001-04:00

You Are Surrealism

Dreamy and idealistic, you've created a world that is all your own.

It's very likely that you've either dabbled in drugs or are naturally trippy.

You are always trying to push beyond the boundaries of your culture and society.

You believe that art, love, and freedom can change the world.

What Art Movement Are You?

unfortunately true

2007-03-26T00:36:00.000-04:00

You scored as No Doubt - Don't Speak. You love this song. Not for the gorgeous female lead, the catchy riffs, or the brilliantly singalong quality of the song. No, you took the time to listen to the lyrics and they really spoke to you. They were there for you when you needed them. You vowed to always support the band and repay that favour. 'Cept you sorta gave that up 30 seconds into Gwen's solo career.

No Doubt - Don't Speak

90%

Verve Pipe - The Freshman

65%

Portishead - Roads

60%

Radiohead - Creep

60%

The Pixies - Where is my Mind

45%

Hanson Mmmbop

35%

Which Classic 90's Song Are You?
created with QuizFarm.com

dreamy

2007-03-24T11:13:00.000-04:00

last night i had a dream about being pregnant. i don't remember much about what went on in the dream, except that i frequently rubbed my belly and if i touched a certain area, i could feel the baby's heart beat. i was also very happy and in a good place about being pregnant (which, in reality would never be the case). i used to have dreams about having a baby or being pregnant a lot when i was in college. they were always before something big started, like, i would get them during RA training. but in college they were usually filled with anxiety and were very stylized and unrealistic. some even had an almost animated feel and were in black and white.

this is what i found out about my dream from an online dream dictionary:

To dream that you are pregnant, symbolizes an aspect of yourself or some aspect of your personal life that is growing and developing. You may not be ready to talk about it or act on it. This may also represent the birth of a new idea, direction, project or goal.

To see your belly in your dream, indicates that your are processing and integrating your ideas and feelings from the unconscious to the conscious level. The belly symbolically holds repressed emotions and unexpressed feelings. Your dream may also be telling you to trust your gut feeling and intuition.

To see a pregnant belly, represents emotions that are due to come to the surface. They can no longer remain suppressed.

To dream that you are stroking or touching a belly, indicates that you are coming to terms with certain feelings. You are slowly confronting and acknowledging your repressed emotions.

To hear a heartbeat in your dream, suggests that you are not confronting or recognizing your feelings. You need to approaching thing head-on. Alternatively, a heartbeat may symbolize life or fear. You are feeling threatened in some way.

ok, ok...i get it. it kinda makes sense given some news i got recently. who'd have thought that my subconcious was able to beat me over the head that many times in a single dream?

another silly travel map thing...

2007-03-19T07:49:00.000-04:00

headbutt

2007-03-18T21:00:00.000-04:00

last night i was headbutted twice. and then i headbutted back. (he stopped headbutting people after that). i was also asked to slap someone and it was called cute.

what an interesting st. patrick's night...

what to do tonight?

2007-03-17T14:41:00.000-04:00

i have too many invitations for this evening...places i should go, might go, don't want to go, and shouldn't go. why does the shouldn't seem so appealing?

then there are the others inquiring about my plans...do they want to come along or will they offer another option? as if i need another option tonight.

it makes me want to say fuck it all together and stay home and do nothing...but then i'd really feel like a loser.

i'm sorry friends, but i don't have a fucking clue what i'm doing tonight.

it shouldn't be this complicated, should it?

haircut?

2007-03-11T11:10:00.000-04:00

i really want to cut my hair like this...should i?

please keep in mind this was taken on a camera phone and in bad lighting...

bizarre night

2007-03-10T01:39:00.000-05:00

on my way home tonight, i was pumped. i was so excited and happy. i had gone to happy hour with my office and then saw an amazing show with an amazing actor. i was all ready, upon returning home to write a blog entry about it and my trip home, to study my lines for my rehearsal tomorrow and go to bed early enough so that i could get up early enough (and not feel like shit) to take a load of stuff to storage before rehearsal. but instead i am sitting, alone, in my ex-boyfriend's apartment in his bathrobe, drinking a beer, contemplating an earlier incident where i was crying and he didn't even get up to give me a hug. instead, he told me to move to give him one. how did i get where i am right now? i sometimes feel like my life is so full of the ridiculous. (oddly enough, the other night, hatim and i were talking about how none of our "5 year plans" have ever worked out.)
the show tonight, prelude to a kiss, was amazing. i thought alan tudyk was brilliant. i wasn't so sure the comic relief from firefly would be able to pull off being the romantic lead of a piece, but he did so with flying colors. (and he looks pretty damn good without his shirt, too.) the show had me thinking about all sorts of things. how i want to make changes in my life, for the better, and how to do so without picking up everything and moving someplace completely new, where you know no one. despite my efforts, those seem to be the only times when re-imagining myself has been successful. otherwise there are too many people who have a fixed idea about you that they are unwilling to let go, despite anything you try to do to shake them of it.
then i had a unique new york moment on the train. i was waiting in the last car of the L train as it was stopped in the 8th ave. station. there was a bum asleep on one of the benches. i was admiring his creative use of newspaper as clothing. he had very neatly tore thick, even fringes from the paper and had wrapped it around his head, arms, and jacket. something woke him up and he started pacing and staggering the length of the car. he was about to fall over into a guy who tried to direct him to fall on a bench. instead, the bum thought he was starting a fight and started to get violent. but he didn't really know where to direct it and ended up charging a guy who just walked in the car. eventually he ran out, and only then the conductor and one of those guardian angels in the red uniform came (i haven't seen one in years). i ended up chatting with the guy who the bum charged, bonding over the moment and talking about other weird things that have happened to us on trains.
then further along the ride, i look up and notice gloves a woman is wearing. she got them from old navy. why do i know this? because i looked at the same pair for a costume i was doing in college. it's amazing how i can remember that, but i can't remember my keys. yes, my keys.
i had been in and out of the house repeatedly today. i swore i had them when i left, if i did, they're gone...either in the bar or in the theater. i hope to god they're still at home.
i'm walking home, all bouncy and excited from the train. as i said before, i was jazzed from the show and amused by the goings on on the train. i was thinking of the changes i wanted to make in life, etc. and i was happy. but, i guess, here's the problem with me: happiness is so fragile. such a tiny thing can shatter it. i reached into my pocket and the keys weren't there. no problem. i call hatim because he said he and archana were going to be home tonight. no answer. still no problem. i think he might not hear his phone or may be ignoring it because he's too busy with the romance. i get home and start buzzing. no answer. he's really not home. fuck. and he's leaving on spring vacation tomorrow. i need to find a time to get home to see if my keys are indeed there. i can't wait till he gets back. by this time, i realize that i need to make a plan on what to do in the mean time. when i got off the train, the temperature was 32, and i knew it'd get colder the later it got. i had precisely two dollars in my wallet and not much more in the bank. i knew of a few places i could go for a while, but eventually they'd kick me out if i didn't buy anything.
i start calling a number of friends who live a reasonable distance away from me. no one picks up. i mean, i know it's 11 on a friday night, but come on...i start to panic.
after making the last call, i start to cry (and yet, through the tears end up giving a girl directions to a local club...i told you my life is ridiculous). everything starts plummeting down. the high of happiness i felt gives way to the dispare that i've been feeling lately. i start focusing on the negative. i start focusing on how lonely i am. i start focusing on the fact that i'm getting cold and have no where to go.
finally i get calls back. the only people to call back...the ex-boyfriends (one after i had already arrived at my current location). haha. i get here and he's already made plans. he offers for me to come, but halfheartedly. i know i'd be crashing. i'm sure a bunch of metal guys having a high school reunion of sorts would want me tagging along. besides, it was already late, i have no money, and i have rehearsal in the morning (which i will not be memorized for). so he watched me cry. it was awkward. and he left. now i'm sitting here in his robe, typing on his computer. ah well. ce la vie.
his roommate gave me soup to eat because i hadn't had dinner and i have no money. boy i'm feeling pathetic. but in a funny sort of way. writing this has lifted my spirts a little (or maybe it's my blood sugar from the soup). sometimes it helps to get it out. i don't know why i don't get locked out in the summer (well, i do, but that's only after my mom changes the locks on me and i think she's dead inside my apartment because she doesn't answer the door), 'cuz i'd just walk the bridge in to manhattan and walk around until it's light. i've done it before and will probably do it again.
well that's it. it's all out. i'm feeling better and now i can sleep. don't think i'm insane or anything. i just need it to be officially spring and/or a good show to purge my dark side in again.

i met matt dillon!!!

2007-03-07T01:20:00.001-05:00

ok, maybe meeting is an over-statement, but we conversed...

i worked the opening night for a show my company is managing, spalding gray: stories left to tell. there were a couple of celebs in attendance, including matt dillon (by the way, he's a vegetarian), mathew modine, moby, and jane krakowski. and yes, i did actually speak to them. yay!

thank you, friends

2007-03-07T00:52:00.001-05:00

i've been pretty down lately. you know how it is, one thing sucks and then it compounds and you apply that feeling to every aspect of your life.

but recently, there have been a few people who showed me that they care. it may not have been much to you, but it means the world to me.

so, i thank you...you know who you are.

i'm writing again.

2007-03-03T22:33:00.000-05:00

while i was sick, i watched the documentary, dig. it was on my netflix cue because someone had recommended it to me or something...i don't really remember why. i had pushed it down on the list repeatedly, not feeling like watching it and then it came at one point when i wasn't paying attention to what would be sent to me next. that was in december. i had been holding on to it, watching everything else that came instead. i considered just sending it back unwatched. but i knew there'd be a day when i'd get around to it.

that day was monday when i was sick in bed and i had nothing else to watch. and it was awesome. in short it was the story of two bands who were friendly, one with a very talented leader, but VERY dysfunctional, and another, the dandy warhols, who were functional and actually were able to make a living off their music. the film documented the rise and fall of the two bands.

it got me thinking about a play i first thought up about three years ago. probably the most ambitious project i ever dreamed up (and that's saying a lot). i only have a first draft of act 1 and an outline of act 2. either i got busy or i hit a wall or something, but for whatever reason, i stopped writing. i swept it under the carpet and abandoned it. it's been about 2 years since i even looked at the script. i still thought about it often.

dig got me thinking about it again, because anton, the lead singer of the brian jonestown massacre is very much like one of the central characters of my show. point of you was having a day of table reads of shows that had been submitted or pieces of things that members of the company are in the process of writing. i considered dusting it off for a read, so i talked to johnny and we fit in a time for my piece to be read. i basically wanted to know if it was worth starting to work on again, or if i should just leave it burried.

the feed back was really good! according to them, it doesn't actually suck. :)

hearing it read out loud, got me thinking about all of it again. tonight i made the revisions i marked down in the reading and wrote another scene for act 1. my brain is still working on act 2 and i'm not sure if i'm quite ready to start writing it since i still don't know how i want it to end. i'm playing with a couple of ideas, however one that keeps popping up could radically change what i've already written.

but it's all pretty exciting and pretty daunting. the idea of this show has been looming over me for years now. everyone i talk to about it thinks it's great. i know it is. it is a great idea. i just want the execution to be as good as the idea. that's what's scary. i've never considered myself a playwright and here i am writing a full legnth play. a musical, no less. i haven't even begun to think of the music for the show...

one thing at a time...

i'm scared, but this is all a good thing. i feel this must be written and has amazing potential.

don't know where i'm going, but i sure know where i've been

2007-02-26T15:05:00.000-05:00

i'm sure there are more, but i'm just going off of the places i remember...i'm not really counting the ones my parents took me that i was too young to remember.

everyone changes.

2007-02-19T00:51:00.001-05:00

everyone changes.

i truely believe that everyone in your life is there for a reason. there are some people that you can go for 6 months without speaking or seeing them and pick up right off where you left off like a not even a day has passed. there are others who can be so close, but if you go for a time without seeing them, it can be jarring once you spend time together again. it's like you're spending time with a stranger with a familiar face. i hate that awkwardness.

we all have different stages that we go through with life. some people are meant to span all or some of those stages and others are meant to be there for a short time. (and sometimes those very short encounters can be some of the most impressionable experiences.) it's sad, though, when you have a realization that you have less and less in common with some people that you consider your family. what keeps you together when they don't even make the attempt any more?

there are members of the group that are only there because of me. i brought them in. and now i feel they are more valued than i am. i feel like if i left or moved or something, that i wouldn't really be missed. few would make the attempt to keep in contact. i think the roast made it very clear how i am viewed by them.

i'm sad. i've considered them more my own family than my own blood for a long time...between 1/3 and 1/4 of my life. i don't want that to end, and i don't necessarily have another friend base to fall in to. i have smatterings here and there, but nothing as solid or with as much history or as much in common as i (used to) have with them. i don't want them to be, but i feel things have been moving in this direction for quite a while. one more radical change in my life.

theatrically speaking...

2007-02-12T02:51:00.000-05:00

this past week has been very busy for me, theatrically speaking. i've kind of been immersed in theater because of my new job.

tuesday i got free tickets to see the show, howard katz (starring alfred molina), at the roundabout. since the tickets were free, i figured, i'd have crappy seats in the back row or something. but when i got there and got my tickets i was in row G of the orchestra, center. they really were the best seats in the house. not only that, david schwimmer was sitting in front of me.

on thursday, i shadowed the company manager (who is awesome) for jewtopia. she showed me what she did in the theater, introduced me to the cast and crew and even let me sit in on an interview with a candidate for a wardrobe position. then i got to see the show. (again, for free). on my way to the theater that night, i also saw bill nighy. i love him! i totally would have stopped him and told him so, but he was already in the theater door (for the vertical hour) before i could reach him.

and tonight i worked the door for "don't quit your night job," an improv/sketch comedy thing that is comprised of actors currently on broadway. they normally do it once a month at joe's pub, but tonight was a special benefit at the ha! comedy club. david hyde pierce was the guest star. it was kind of cool.

now if i can only find out how to get free tickets to see the vertical hour and prelude to a kiss...

why frogs are cool

2007-02-05T22:46:00.001-05:00

i'm employed...the update

2007-01-22T15:03:00.000-05:00

in response to people's inquiries about the job prospects that i was gushing about in a previous blog entry, here's how the different things worked out:

that call back was a big fat waste of my time. maybe i jinxed it by being so excited by it. my call back day and time was rescheduled twice (and as a result i missed most of a concert i really wanted to see). i had to learn 8 scenes for 5 characters in a matter of days (and in some cases less than a day). they had me scheduled for an hour to read various characters with various other actors, but once i got there and waited for half an hour to be seen, he had me read one character in one scene once and then said "thank you. you can go now." much to the confusion of his assistant who pointed out how long they had me scheduled for. but he said he didn't need to see any more of me.

i think they had already decided who they wanted to cast based on their first night of call backs. the mood at the call back was completely different from when i first auditioned for them. i would have appreciated them telling me that they didn't need me to come in...then i could have actually been productive with my day instead of taking the time to try to memorize scenes that i never even got a chance to do. big waste of time.

i'm still acting and designing 5 years later with poy...our first read through is on wednesday.

i will be the *paid* assistant to the designer to blitzkreig, the hassidic professional wrestling musical. we had a visit to the storage space yesterday to see what sort of costume pieces they had left over from previous incarnations of the show. the costumes aren't actually all burlesque...i was a little misinformed, but there are 4 show girl type characters, so we'll still be working on stuff for them. my fee is tba, but it's money, right? and resume credit. the show will be going up at element in march. i'll let everyone know more info as soon as i have it.

the job at the management company is good. a lot of it is running around doing general copying, faxing, delivering stuff, but i've already had to do research on theatrical unions, finding new prod. stage managers, and stuff like that. this could grow into good things. and they've asked me to come in for an additional half day, so that's good too. i saw blythe danner as i was leaving work on thrusday, too. she's in a show that's playing on the block i work on.

other than that, i'm just trying to stay motivated, find an additional source of income and not let the winter weather get me down.

i'm employed!...sort of

2007-01-22T14:56:00.000-05:00

this was posted on my other blog on january 12...i'm trying to keep both of these up, so please accept my apology for this being a little late...

i should be learning the three scenes i got last night for my callback tonight, but i can't focus, because i just got really good news, and had to share. after being really down about the state of my life lately, but good things have started happening!!!!!

last week i had an audition for a theater company that owned the theater i did crackwalker in. they called me in because the artistic director had seen crackwalker and i guess really liked me. i walked in to the theater, nervous as all hell because i don't audition well, and they aplauded me. three of them came up to me and told me how much they loved me in crackwalker. talk about pressure! and as i left, they asked me to pick up sides for another character in the show as well...which pretty much signaled me that i had a call back. they rescheduled my callback a couple of times and then last night asked me to look at three more scenes for three other characters. i'm freaking out a bit. i feel like i don't have the time to spend on any of the scenes or characters, but i guess it means they really want to use me, huh? i'd really like to get in this show because this company is well established and gets tons of press, etc. it could mean good things.

i'm also excited about a character i'll be playing in the next poy show, 5 years later...i'll be playing death. :) i'm also doing the costume design. should be fun.
and i've just gotten wind that i may be able to assist in the designing of 30 burlesque costumes (and get paid for it)...thanks for thinking of me sabrina. :) that's totally right up my alley and sounds pretty exciting.

and for the kicker...

i just got offered a job at a broadway/off-broadway theatrical management company. it's just two days a week and the pay is crap, but it's a step in the right direction! i accepted...how could i not? i start tuesday. so yay! i'm excited!

it was suggested i buy a lottery ticket today. maybe i will. :)

i'm just not meant to have clothes...

2006-12-28T17:41:00.000-05:00

i just got back from bahrain.
for a number of reasons this was a frustrating trip, but the main reason is that fucking british airways likes to lose my luggage. (maybe this is some sort of cosmic sign for me to shrug off some of the emotional baggage that i've collected.)
my flights to london and to bahrain were delayed because of the weather. this was a day or two before heathrow was shut down because it of the fog. i can't even imagine what it was like when they closed because while i was there it was pretty intense. we were in a holding pattern above london and you would have had no idea that there was a huge city underneath. the pilot pointed out the tips of three buildings poking out of the fog...they were skyscrapers from canairy warf (?), the financial district. that was all that was visible. and then when we landed the fog was so thick i couldn't even see the wing (which i was sitting above) until we had actually touched down.
so needless to say, i had to rush a little more than planned in heathrow to catch my connection to bahrain and my bag didn't make it. that would have been fine...normally i would have gotten my bag delivered to my house the next day. it's happened before and i usually carry a change of clothes in my carry on, so no big deal. well, then heathrow shut down. and when i spoke to the airport and airline, no one could even tell me if the bag was even in london. the last time it was scanned was at jfk. lovely.
after multiple visits to ba offices and the airport and calls a couple times a day to ba all over the place including dubai, i finally got my bag christmas morning...which we had to go pick up from the airport. they wouldn't deliver it. which was just enough time for me to put my mom's gift in a pretty box and put it under the tree and throw all my clothes in the washing machine and repack. i had arrived in bahrain on the 20th and got the bag on the 25th. i left bahrain the morning of the 27th. and while, normally i'd love an excuse to go shopping, i had a lot of meds in that bag that i didn't carry on with me because of the new liquids/cream laws that say that you can't carry more than a certain amount unless you can prove that you'll need to use the prescription while you're on the flight. well i didn't, but i did need it after i got off. so i had to go try to find replacements while i was there.
so i learned my lesson and carried on all my meds when returning to the us. and i came back with two bags instead of one because of the new clothes i *had* to buy and gifts from my mom. :)
and what does ba do? they lose my bag again. not the signifcantly smaller one with stuff i don't really care about in it, but the big one with all my important stuff. at the airport they told me it'd definately be in on the last flight. i call this morning and it's not. again, they can't even tell me where it is. how does the little bag make it and not the big one? that one would be more understandably misplaced.
all i have to say is that they better fucking deliver this bag when it comes in. i'm not going all the way to newark to pick it up. the bus ride to times square alone took two hours last night. so much for the newark EXPRESS.

please please please i want something to work out for me. so far lately everything has been far, far more complicated than it should be.

bahrain does funny things to my brain

2006-12-22T18:19:00.000-05:00

i've had some very vivid dreams since i've come to bahrain...last night was possibly the goriest dream i've had in years.

i return to a rabbit farm in a wooded area with a group of people i don't know in my every day life, but knew in my dreams. most of the rabbits were slaughtered. some torn apart, others burned...none of them nice deaths. the ones that remained had some sort of disease and a cure made from the bone marrow of the dead ones. it was my job to debone the carcasses and crack open the bones to retrieve the marrow. and my brain went into quite a lot of detail regarding the process. and then there was a part where i had to dig up bodies in a graveyard, but that's where my memory of the dream gets fuzzy. nice, eh?

some pictures from london

2006-11-28T01:40:00.000-05:00

ok. i'm posting a few pictures from london. i don't want to seem self indulgent, but all the pictures will have me in it. if you're looking at this, you're probably my friend and don't give a shit about pictures of people you don't even know.
these were all taken on my last night in london. we started drinking early (and i even partook of a few on the tube) on our way to a gay arabic night at a lesbian bar somewhere in south london.

that night i met some pretty awesome people! hopefully we'll keep in touch. unfortunately leena isn't in any of these pics because she was the one taking them.

for some reason we all felt the urge to sit on aj. (i'm the one on top)

i danced a lot and had quite a few partners. dancing with depak

i really like this picture of aj and i. it looks like a planet is about to pass between us and the camera.

one of my most interesting dancing partners:

the group: aj, me, claire, depak. not pictured are leena, rowaida, zara, depak's sister, and some blonde girl who was WAY too drunk.

he's a bastard

2006-11-17T00:13:00.000-05:00

he obviously doesn't give a fuck about my health or my feelings. we talked about things...and he's lied to me more than once. most guys i know would LOVE to be in this position. why the fuck do i put myself though this shit?

hair cut

2006-11-15T21:51:00.000-05:00

i got my hair cut today! yay! i cut off over a foot and it's still below my shoulder. i'm just glad that it's gone. now...what color to dye it?

life update

2006-11-07T13:40:00.000-05:00

i frequently post stuff about random crap and my artistic life...what shows i'm doing, our reviews, etc., but because of a recent shift, i believe it's time to write about what's going on in my life in general...because there is a lot. maybe this blog post will allow me to actually sort it all out and make sense of it in my own head.
(i'll backtrack a little for those of you who i've recently gotten back in touch with). when i graduated from nyu, the job market in nyc sucked a big one. it was right after 9/11 and everyone was still in shock. companies were moving out of the city, people were being laid off right and left, and people were being forced to fall back on job skills such as bar tending, which they may have given up years before. a friend of mine looking for a bartending job told me that on one of the interviews she went on, the interviewer remarked that he had gotten thousands of resumes for the one job.
so my jump into the "real world" was less than ideal. i was graduating from a very expensive university. the renovation on my apartment (which was supposed to be done in april) would not be done until august. and i had no job, as my position with the university ended once i graduated and packed off the little freshmen for the summer. i was sending out resumes wildly. i had no idea what i wanted to do. i was getting fairly steady acting work, but i still needed a day job to pay the bills. i tried getting a more permanent job with nyu, but that didn't pan out and i finally got a call from a real estate company for a reception position that i didn't even remember applying for. i went in for an interview mainly because i hadn't gotten any other calls. the interviews went well and i think i was offered the position the next day.
granted, this was my DAY job, and not what i was wanting to do with my life, so i vowed that i'd keep looking until i found something better. and i did continue going on interviews, but gradually the company became my home. shortly after getting the job, their parent company downsized and they eliminated my position. serendipitously, a receptionist position opened up in their soho office at the same time and after a moment of panic, i was transferred to the other office. i stayed there for two years. i loved the office but hated the job. i met some of my closest friends through that office. i got to see/meet a few celebs. i was even able to score a few acting/design roles. and while the job allowed me to concentrate on my acting and design, i, well, i needed more money. and i knew i had more potential.
when an office manager position in the carnegie hill office opened up, about two years later, i applied. i naively thought that all the different offices were run the same way and would have similar types of characters. i was wrong. my new position was not like the soho office manager position that i had occasionally stepped in to. and the brokers in the office were not the same type (or age group) of people. but that is the difference between the upper east side and soho.
so the job had more stress, more aggravation, and more conflict. i did meet some more dear friends, but i was missing soho. i stuck through it for two years, but as time went on, i became more and more frustrated. i had jumped a few steps up the ladder to this position and there was no where for me to progress to unless i became a broker (which i had little desire and no nest egg for). i would dread going to the office in the morning. i felt stagnant.
during these two years, i made a great creative leap and founded a theater company with two friends and began producing as well as acting and designing shows. but slowly the issues from the day job began to seep into my life outside. the job exhausted me, and my day didn't end when i left there at 5:30. i was most likely leaving to go to a theater meeting or a rehearsal. i knew i was spinning my wheels and had to do something about it.
a little over a month ago, i left the real estate company. it was a tough decision. it had become my home. it was all i knew after college. despite the frustrations, at least it was something that was a constant in my life. i took a job at a small finance company. the founder/president was 29 years old and very ambitious. (that was an exciting change from working in an office where the average age was over 50 and most people had children older than me). there was a lot of opportunity for growth as the office grew, the hours (in theory) were shorter, the money was better, and there was a lot to learn (i had no idea about investment banking or finance).
but almost immediately, the chemistry between my boss and i changed. the previous assistant left over a month before i started and there were a series of temps between her and i. they also just moved, so i was learning a new job, a new industry, a new boss, and trying to make sense out of the piles of papers just shoved into drawers.
i thought i was getting better. i actually knew what the sec was and what nda meant. but then i noticed that my boss started getting emails from the placement agency that placed me with him. (no i was not snooping, he had me send emails from his account all the time.) i began to worry, but he was away in europe and this was something to be done face to face. but the emails became more frequent and no longer contained resumes, but talked about interviews and second meetings.
so last friday i approached him. i asked him i needed to start looking for another job. i think i took him off guard. he started out the conversation saying he was unsure, but that he felt like with me it was like trying to get a square peg into a round hole. i stood up for myself and i think that pretty much made up his mind. so he paid me what he owed me and i left.
i tried not to think of it too much over the weekend, since i'm in the middle of the run of the crackwalker and i think i did a pretty good job.
but now, for the first time, i feel like i have no direction. you always have a goal to work for: graduation, the bonus, opening night, the vacation. i don't have the money to go back to school. the show i put blood, sweat, tears, and bruises into is up. and i have no day job.
i am trying to use this time to not only live cheaply, but catch up on all the life stuff i pushed aside because i simply had no time. i'm running errands, cooking, doing laundry. i know it'll eventually get old because i was never fond of housework...actually i despise it. but my latest goal is to reduce the clutter of my life while trying to figure out what i need to do about money.
ideally, i'd get a job in theater administration. but those are so hard to come by and when you do, the pay is crap. i do know that i don't want to repeat what happened with my most recent position or even with my office manager position. i know i don't like finance, and i don't really want to go into real estate again. in a nutshell: i don't know what i want right now. i'm trying to use this time to recharge, get my life in order. oddly enough, i'm not panicking (yet). i am looking for jobs, but i am not striking out blindly like i have in the past. whatever i decide to do, i want it to make me happy. ok, maybe not happy because i don't want to get too comfortable in it and not keep doing theater. but i do want to be content.

review for my latest show

2006-10-30T22:19:00.000-05:00

ok, ok, so my part of the review wasn't stellar...it actually hurt my pride a bit because i am used to good reviews, but the review itself was very good. check it out

Northern Exposure
by Lauren Snyder
The Crackwalker reviewed October 28, 2006

To most Americans, Canada is that strange nation to the north whose major exports are beer, hockey players, and Degrassi High. Our idea of the country is that of a colder, more rural United States where everything and everyone's a bit cleaner and a bit nicer. But Judith Thompson's play The Crackwalker, produced by New World Theater, shows a different side of Canada by focusing on the desperate denizens of Kingston, Ontario, circa 1979. The result is a harrowing, powerful tale of economic depression and mental illness. Therese is a mentally challenged manipulator and compulsive liar who makes her doughnut money by servicing gay men and sleeps on her friend Sandy's couch. Sandy, a rage-filled, emotionally damaged woman, is married to Joe, an abusive, womanizing gambler. Joe's friend Alan (who is seeing Therese) is a twitchy former addict with a tenuous grip on reality.

Sandy and Joe fight and make up as they try to establish a better life for themselves. Alan and Therese get married and have a baby, against the wishes of her social worker and with the misgivings of Therese, who previously had a baby taken away from her. Though Therese is no longer working as a prostitute, she is not bright enough to take care of a child or to realize that Alan is mentally ill and should not be responsible for her or their son. Even the relatively stable influence of their friends cannot stop the tragedy that is to come. The reality of the events portrayed onstage is helped along by the theater space itself. The Access Theater is on the fourth floor of a building that evidently houses another performance space above it; at several moments during the performance, there were loud banging noises and voices raised in anger coming from upstairs. One could imagine them stemming from arguments among other tenants in Joe and Sandy's apartment building.

Tattered, mismatched furniture is easy to do on a small budget, but period costumes are not; design consultant Frankie Keane picked out some cute vintage duds for the ladies. Thompson's gritty script mimicked regular conversations in its language, rhythms, and the ebb and flow of conflict. Two characters would be at odds with each other but then talk themselves into agreement through their mutual ire against a third character. These transitions occurred so naturally that it was hard to remember who was mad at whom, as sometimes happens in life. The strong writing is complemented by the strong acting on display by the cast of non-union actors. Melanie Kuchinski Rodriguez brings a long-simmering bitterness and a great Canadian accent to the mostly reactive role of Sandy. Her physical confrontations with David Wesley Cooper, who believably plays the mercurial Joe, are fraught with danger and sex. Karron Karr doesn't always succeed with the very stylized slang that Therese speaks, but she underplays her character's mental handicap even as she nails her mix of naïveté and sexual sophistication. Kelly Miller rises to the challenge of Alan, who changes from eccentric but lovable to psychotic and frightening within the course of the show. On Broadway and Off-Broadway, Irish playwrights are now all the rage. On Off-Off-Broadway, most produced scripts are written by new local playwrights and Shakespeare. While it's important to foster the talents of young New York writers, importing plays like The Crackwalker can only add depth to the city's cultural offerings.

see photos and the actual review at www.offoffonline.com

My New Show

2006-10-14T00:37:00.000-04:00

I'm playing a mentally challenged Canadian prostute.
No, I'm not kidding...
No, it isn't a comedy...
Just see the show. It's good and it will make you feel icky afterwards...but in a good way... :)

NWT is staging one of the most acclaimed Canadian plays of the past 25 years. The Crackwalker, directed by Robert Zick Jr, is a plunge into Kingston, Ontario’s underworld of drugs, sex, mental illness and murder, where four local down-and-outs struggle to live, to love and to make a better world for themselves with tragic results.

Judith Thompson’s first play (premiered at NYC’s Hudson Guild in the early 1980’s) is a visceral exploration of the ugly realities of society’s castaways, where the “Crackwalker” waits to crush anyone unable to walk the fine line between sanity and destruction.

Access Theatre
380 Broadway, 4th floor(btw White St. & Walker St., TriBeCa)
New York, NY 10013
October 26 - November 12
Wed. - Sat. @ 8:00pm, Sun. @ 7:00pm
Gala*, Friday, October 27 @ 8:00pm
*Wine & cheese reception with the actors to follow the show!
Tickets: $18 at the door, $15 in advance
Gala event with reception $25
For advance tickets, call TheaterMania at 212-352-3101 or reserve online at www.newworldtheatre.org
Directed and Designed by Robert Zick Jr
Design Consultation by Gerard J. Savoy
Costume Consultation by Frankie Keane
Stage Managed by Leia Garcia-Benedini
Illustration created by Elizabeth Anderson
Featuring: David Wesley Cooper, Karron Karr, Melanie Kuchinski Rodriguez and Kelly Miller
Visit us at www.newworldtheatre.org.
New World Theatre is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas

sorry for being out of touch

2006-10-14T00:32:00.000-04:00

i know there's a lot of you who may feel a little neglected. believe me it's nothing personal.
i recently started a new day job...and it's really kicking my butt. it's with a finance company. my boss is cool, but it's been a tougher transition than i thought. it's like learning a new language. i'm just starting to catch on to what things are about and stuff. i have a constant feeling that i'm disappointing him and i hate that.
and then i've had rehearsals every night for the crackwalker, one of the most challenging shows i've ever been a part of. it's great and the end result will be very moving, but it's also a lot of work and very tiring.
and we've had had a series of house guests staying with us for the past few months. it's been fun and all, but it's nice to have the apartment back. just in time to start cleaning for the halloween party...

it's not fair!

2006-08-14T01:18:00.000-04:00

life is SO not fair!!!!! i got a text message from patrick today saying that he was in the same restaurant as david bowie. why do the people who could care less always meet the people i idolize most? ok, so patrick didn't meet him, but had he taken my suggestion and offered him head, then he would have certainly have met him. he didn't even ask him for his autograph. :(

there and back again

2006-08-13T01:49:00.000-04:00

i'm back from atlanta. it's nice to be reminded what life is like in the rest of the us every once in a while. eh, it's not for me. i mean, it's nice to be able to drive places and to have cable and stuff, but really a place like atlanta would drive me crazy after a while. i was pretty much out of my element there...with people and places. it was good to see andy, though. i didn't have as much one on one time with him as i would have liked. he had friends tagging along 90% of the time.
and now that i'm back, i was hoping to be super productive and get lots done. that really hasn't happened. i've reverted to staying up till 3 or 4am and then being useless most of the day. and now when i'm finally fully awake, hatim's asleep so i can't be prowling around the apartment and wake him up. today when i wanted to get lots done, i took a 4 hour nap. my biggest accomplishment this weekend has been taking a bag of clothes to the salvation army. and then packing another two bags of clothes to hopefully sell at beacon's closet tomorrow. i've been feeling an itch for a wardrobe make over. but i can't really justify it until i clear out some room.

dinner?

2006-08-01T22:35:00.000-04:00

what does it mean when a guy asks a girl out to dinner?
what does it mean when your ex-boyfriend asks you out to dinner?
and what does it mean when he mentions it to you three or four times in one day and then the next day asks to see if you could squeeze him in between work and a meeting that same night?

now i'm not reading too much into this, am i? but it sounds like someone may have changed their mind about not wanting a girlfriend. i'm just not going to deal with it until after atlanta.

it's over

2006-07-31T23:52:00.000-04:00

and, oh yeah, the shows are over. suddenly. at one point it felt like they'd never begin or end and now they're over. time to move on. it's a very weird feeling, but i don't have the sadness i did after book of days.

atlanta here i come

2006-07-31T23:33:00.000-04:00

i bought a ticket to atlanta today to visit a certain georgia boy who i've known for a million and a half years. i'm really looking forward to seeing him, but i'm still a little peeved that he screwed up our plans to go elsewhere...first it was montreal, then boston, then dc and new orleans was even a destination for about 5 minutes. i mean (and no offence to anyone) but what is there to do in atlanta, anyway, besides drinking a pepsi in front of the coke museum? (and i'm going to hold him to his promise to come up to nyc for my halloween party because he screwed up our vacation).
seriously, though, i'm glad to be going. i love catching up with him and i desperately need a little time off and away from nyc (the last time i left was for a theater retreat on long island in february). maybe i'll even be able to relax and do nothing for an hour. i think the last time that happened was when i visited him in north carolina a few years ago.
i leave friday. yes, i know it's very last minute. i hope 1. that the week goes very quickly, because i know the weekend will definately go too quickly and 2. that i somehow find the time to get everything done this week that needs to be done.

sex, drugs, rock'n roll and conjoined twins?

2006-07-18T23:38:00.000-04:00

i saw the poster and i was interested.

i watched the trailer and got really excited!

first off, the poster reminds me of trainspotting, which is one of my favorite movies. it's about punk music, another love. and it's got hot boys in it, which is always good. so what if they're conjoined twins? i guess it's trainspotting meets velvet goldmine if ewan mcgregor was a conjoined twin. this is the first movie in a long time that i've really been excited about...my roommate commented how twisted it looked...so does it surprise anyone that i'd get excited about it? i'm so there opening night (july 28th)! i just hope it doesn't suck.
and yes (after some research) they are twins, but they are not really conjoined. :)

buzz buzz

2006-07-15T16:15:00.000-04:00

so not only has united stages wrote an article about priscilla (the show i'm acting in), william niederkorn (the shakespeare scholar and nytimes writer) came to opening night of hamlet and wrote about it on his blog. it would have been nice to have been written up in the times, but we'll take what we can get. ;)
to check out the text of both articles go to www.newworldtheatre.org/blog

headshots and costumes and theater...OH MY!

2006-07-13T22:56:00.000-04:00

the shows are going. we're getting some nice buzz and united stages even wrote a piece about rewriting shakespeare/priscilla/jeff (the playwrite). check it out: www.unitedstages.com
i think the shows are going well (even if last nights' performance was possibly the oddest i've ever been involved in). had a bit of a break down about the costumes for hamlet (long story), but everything seems to be running smoothly now.
my mom is in town and this will be the first thing she's seen me in since 2000. i kinda wish she would have come for book of days last year, but nothing i can do about that now. tomorrow we're seeing hamlet and saturday my roommate is taking her to see me in priscilla. i'm a little nervous about it.
despite the press attention we've gotten, we're not getting much of an audience. so if you're in the nyc area, COME SEE MY SHOWS! they're good...i promise. (see previous blog for show info)
also after a lot of deliberation, i've narrowed my headshot choices down to 4. i just need to knock one more off and i'll be set. it's SO hard. i've never had so many pictures of me that looked good. grrrr....
which one would you vote off the island? (please remember that these are yet to be touched up before reproduction). there is another shot that i'm definately keeping. i'm only including the three that are questionable.

new headshots

2006-07-03T02:27:00.000-04:00

i got new headshots taken a few days ago and i need to pick two or three to touch up and then have reproduced. maybe i'll start getting called into auditons more often with these.

any favorites?

www.jensenstudiosnyc.com/photography/karroncolor/

Come See My Show(s)!

2006-06-18T22:51:00.000-04:00

NEW WORLD THEATRE OPENS 2006-07 SEASON WITH HAMLET: EVOLUTION

"Hamlet Evolution" image by Maria Aldana

Hamlet 1603: The First Quarto features Anthony Bagnetto, Robert Cross, Jason Liebman*, Kevin Lind*, Alyssa Mann, Thomas Poarch and Gabriele Schafer*

Priscilla features David Diloreto, Cassie Haynes, Linda Jones*, Karron Karr, Jessica Krueger and Paul Weissman

* Appears courtesy of the Actor's Equity Association

Hamlet 1603 Director: Cynthia Dillon
Priscilla Director: Robert Zick Jr.
Hamlet 1603 Assistant Director/Stage Manager: Meghan Dickerson
Hamlet 1603 Fight Choreographer: Al Foote III
Set Designer: Robert Zick Jr.
Costume Designer: Karron Karr
Lighting Designer: Keri Thibodeau
Publicity Coordinator: David Cooper
Production Manager: Melanie Rodriguez

Highlighting the evolution of Shakespeare’s renowned play from its origins to its relevant implications today, New World Theatre presents HAMLET: EVOLUTION featuring Hamlet 1603: The First Quarto by William Shakespeare and the newly commissioned adaptation Priscilla by Jeff Love.

Hamlet 1603: The First Quarto – This is a rare opportunity to see the first publication of Shakespeare’s quintessential revenge play. Presented uncut, this Hamlet is shorter and leaner and in many ways a “different play.” Hamlet returns from University to discover that his father is dead and his uncle has married his mother. Visited by the ghost of his father, Hamlet schemes to wrest the truth from his murderous uncle and avenge his father’s death.
Priscilla – NWT’s newly commissioned modern adaptation, Priscilla takes Shakespeare’s most famous work and puts its premise of indecision leading to destruction into a more contemporary context –and with a woman as the protagonist. Will Priscilla choose a life of love and security or will she lose herself amid the unraveling revelations surrounding her mother’s suspicious death?
Stella Adler Studio 2-B31 W. 27th Street, 2nd Floor New York City
July 7 - 29, 2006 Tuesdays – Saturdays at 8pm Saturday & Sunday Matinees at 3pmB
oth shows run in repertory throughout the month of July. Check out the full schedule on our website or the calendar below.
Tickets: Hamlet 1603: $15 in advance, $18 at door Priscilla: $12 in advance, $15 at door
Buy tickets to both shows for only $25 (call 212-352-3101)
Tickets are limited - reserve now!Call: 212-352-3101 or visit http://www.newworldtheatre.org/.

UPCOMING PLAYS - NWT will explore the dark side of the human experience with two politically provocative plays beginning in Fall 2006 with the staging of Canadian playwright Judith Thompson’s volatile first play, The Crackwalker, a visceral exploration of the ugly realities of inner city survival. Slaughter City, a searing drama about life in the meat-packing industry by acclaimed playwright and poet Naomi Wallace will anchor New World Theatre’s season in the winter of 2007.

venting (and some whining)

2006-06-14T16:49:00.000-04:00

i'm so tired...and busy...and frustrated. here are some reason why i think i'm going to have a nervous breakdown soon:
1. i'm a little worried that i may have bitten off more than i can chew, theater-wise. in an effort to improve my quality of life (aka my day job), i enrolled in a certificate program in management for the arts at nyu. i'm only taking one class this summer that meets once a week on monday nights, but that's enough, considering the homework.
2. then i'm acting in the play priscilla. we open in less than a month and at rehearsal yesterday we got a new act 2. i don't know when i'm going to start memorizing my lines. and i don't even have a grasp of my character. i'm still figuring out her voice, walk and all the physical stuff. (i do have to admit i'm having a lot of fun in rehearsal, though. the cast is awesome and it's been a long time since i've been in such a funny, slapstick type of role).
3. also, i'm desigining the costumes for both shows (priscilla and hamlet...visit www.newworldtheatre.org/blog for updates and pictures of the shows). i haven't even really begun with priscilla yet because i don't have a finalized copy of the script. but i've been working on hamlet. i need to figure out the women...once i figure out the women, i think the men should be easy enough. but how do you put a woman in a dress who has to change into a man in about 10 seconds on stage and still make her beautiful and feminine? and why are all the colors i want for costumes out of season? why can't i have the money and an assistant to make exactly what's in my head?
4. and i really should start thinking of designs for hurt so good...the show i'm designing for point of you productions...which goes up in august. i also feel like i'm slighting poy because i haven't been able to make production meetings in forever because i've been going to priscilla and hamlet rehearsals.
5. i haven't had time to do laundry in forever. i'm down to three pairs of underwear because i was so hung over on sunday that i couldn't do anything before i had to go to the hamlet rehearsal.
6. i have no money because i booked an appointment for new headshots...i had to pay half of the fee as a down payment, so i guess i have no money for new underwear if i run out of the clean stuff. also i'm still paying off my nyu class.
7. my computer at work hasn't worked for the past 3 days. i've got all sorts of people on my back about things and i can't access half the stuff because it's all on my computer. i've been a the visiting broker's desk, but i can only do so much from here (yes, i'm writing a blog entry instead of doing work. i wonder if this will get me fired so i can collect unemployment and actually get out of this job). so my day job is one big, frustrating nightmare right now.
7.5. my alarm rings at 7:20am. i'm not cut out for this early morning shit. i get up that early and i'm still always late for work because of the trains. and then after i get off work at 5:30 i go to rehearsals which run until 10. then i go home and by the time i've eaten dinner (if i eat dinner these days) it's after 11. then it's on the internet to return theater emails and do costume research or homework. i'm trying to be in bed by 1:30, but that doesn't aways happen. then it's back to the beginning again. why can't my day job be my theater job?
8. i miss my ex boyfriend and i stupidly text messaged him when i was drunk saturday night. but even if we were together, it's not like i'd have any time for him. i still miss him, eventhough i'm hearing stories about him which remind me why it's good that we're no longer together.
9. my mom is coming to stay with me next weekend and my room is a sty. i've got to find some time between now and then to at least get rid of the piles of clothes on the floor.

i really really need a massage...and some sex...and a nap...for, like, a year.

AIDS Walk

2006-06-04T12:29:00.000-04:00

On May 21st I participated in the AIDS Walk. I personally raised $525 for the cause and my team, consisting of members from my two theater companies raised $2880. The rain held off until we finished the walk, a good time was had by all, and we capped off the day by going to hallo berlin! for beer and sausage. if you want to check out some pictures taken by other members of my team, go to www.newworldtheatre.org/blog.

busy weekends wear you out

2006-05-23T07:48:00.000-04:00

i had a very interesting, but busy weekend...in a nutshell i went to two going away parties, had another round of casting for a part for our show, did the aids walk and saw my first prince albert. :)

more details to follow...

i'm so tired.

weird morning

2006-05-17T10:14:00.000-04:00

yes i know i should be working, but i had to share...
i was pretty late to work today because of all the weirdness on the train.
first the L train was held up because a guy on my train got arrested. i saw three cops drag him out and he looked like he was on something. he also couldn't really walk because his pants had fallen down to around his legs and they wouldn't let go of his arms so he could pull them back up.
then i finally get on the 4 train. it's really crowded and this guy behind me starts touching my back and telling me to move further in. there is no possible way i can get any further into the train. this guy keeps touching me. then suddenly i hear another guy say "why are you even touching her?" and as the doors start to close the other guy shoves the toucher out of the train. i thanked him, but it was a little violent for first thing in the morning.
at 42nd street, it clears out and i sit down. i notice that the guy next to me is looking at his diskman very closely. he's wearing glasses, so i wonder if they're not working well or something. then he starts licking it!!! the man was licking his diskman and i don't think anyone noticed but me.
i get to work (late) and i have an email from my mom. she said she got a call at 5:45am saying that school was canceled because a bomb went off in the school. then she said she got a second call that said it was an electrical fire, not a bomb. cover up? who knows...
AND THEN a baby bird flew into our office and a bunch of us were trying to get it to fly back out the door before it flew into one of our windows and hurt itself.
and it's not even noon...

art imitating life imitating art

2006-05-17T00:07:00.000-04:00

music really helps me during a break-up...and during this period i've found myself gravitating towards the bouncing souls (who i am hoping to see at the knitting factory the first week of june), most particularly to their album, hopeless romantic. many of their songs just fit with how i've been feeling...including night on earth, (i'm a) hopeless romantic (you're just hopeless), whole thing, and wish me well (you can go to hell). in fact, the lyrics to this duet could have been a conversation between patrick and myself at some point...check it out:

p: i gotta be me, baby, and you gotta be you.
k: something isn't right, but i know i love you. i only want what's best.
p: i don't know. is this some kind of test?
k: yeah and you're failing! all we do is bicker.
p: say good bye.
k: kiss my ass. i hope you die.
p: wish me well.
k: you can go to hell. say good bye.
p: kiss my ass. hope you die.
k: wish me well.
p: you can go to hell. we were so different a short time ago.
k: love's supposed to make us happy, supposed to make us grow. and i just wanna punch you in the face!
p: i love you. i guess i needed some space.
k: oh well another time and another place.
p: say good bye.
k: kiss my ass. i hope you die.
p: wish me well.
k: you can go to hell. say good bye.
p: kiss my ass. i hope you die.
k: wish me well.
p: you can go to hell. so does this mean i really have to go?
k: um, yeah. what part of 'get out' didn't you understand?
p: wow. i mean, what happens if i want to call you or something next week?
k: well, what happens is that i won't be there because i don't like you any more.
you're stupid.
p: fine then. i don't care. i'm leaving.
k: k. whatever. bye. see ya.
p: alright. i'm out the door.
k: k. bye.
p: this is me leaving. i'm gone.
k: k. see ya. bye. whatever.
p: can i call you next week?
k: no. what are you laughing at, stupid?
p: i'm out the door.
k: god. go already.

thank god for music...it can give you a sense of humor even when you feel hopeless.

cycles

2006-05-14T20:01:00.000-04:00

so my boyfriend and i broke up. i don't need to worry about him reading this because he never really took an interest in what i was doing in my life and although i did send him this link a few times, i don't think he ever bothered to visit my blog. there'd be no reason for him to start now.
to answer some questions that were put forth to me about it: yes, the relationship was troubled. yes, i knew it was eventually going to end. yes, i had considered breaking up with him in the past, but this was his decision. it came out of the blue for me because in our last serious conversation we had regarding our relationship, he said he was happy with the way things were, etc., etc. and didn't understand why i was unsatisfied. also our last day spent together was totally wonderful...the best day we had together, i think, in months. apparently, though, even that day he was planning the break up. what hurt the most though was what he said to me and that i know that there is something he is not telling me that sparked the event. i know ultimately it's for the best, but it still hurts.

now that that's out of the way, the real reason for this blog entry...

i feel that i'm back in a similar place as i was this same time of year last year. weird things keep happening to me, which makes it obvious...

last year and pretty much this time, bob and i decided to play pool one afternoon at dempsy's pub on 2nd ave. eventually we were challenged by two guys, one of whom i was pretty attracted to named roscoe. it was probably only 3pm and both guys were well on their way to being blitzed, but we had a good time. roscoe mentioned that his birthday was coming up and i should go to his party. we exchanged numbers but nothing ever came of it. a week or two later (over memorial day weekend) patrick and i had our first "date".
this past friday i saw the crucible, which was done by rising sun, a company run by some friends of mine. i joined the cast for drinks at east 4th street bar, across the street from the theater (and around the corner from dempsy's). we were all drinking at tables set outside the bar on the sidewalk when this guy who looks a little familiar stumbles by. he is incredibly drunk and probably has no memory of the night. i take note that he's really cute (but really drunk) and try to remember if he was an actor who submitted for a part in our show (and that's why he looks familiar). then he bends over the railing and asks me to dance with him. his two friends with him seemed mortified. i tell him no, to dance with his pretty friend and he says that she's his sister and her boyfriend would bash his face in for it. they pull him away and suddenly he turns around, lifts his shirt and starts rubbing his chest and stomach and starts yelling "look at what you're missing." i must say he has a REALLY nice body.
so we all laugh about it and continue hanging out. about half an hour later, he walks by again, this time without his sister and her boyfriend. and starts saying to me "oh look at your face. look at your eyes. look at your dimples and smile." so i get up and walk over to him and introduce myself. he tells me his name is roscoe. i try to shake his hand and he pulls me too him to try to kiss me. i move my face and he slobbers all over my cheek. but yes, it all came back to me when he told me his name. this is, in fact, that same roscoe and it's almost exactly a year since we first met. and again this time i am single. meghan mentioned that it sounded like we were fated. as cute as he is, i don't want to be fated to a guy with questionable intelligence and a drinking problem...

i love alan cumming!

2006-05-09T00:21:00.000-04:00

my friend eric was able to get me a free ticket to see three penny opera at studio 54. the show has gotten pretty scathing reviews, but i still wanted to see it because it starred alan cumming. i had just missed him when he was in cabaret and i didn't want to miss him again. and if the show sucked, it's not like i paid a lot for the ticket. :)
all in all, i really liked the show. alan, as always, was brilliant. he has amazing stage presence and you find yourself watching him even when he's not the center of attention. i was impressed with ana gasteyer's voice. i didn't know she could sing so well! as well as the majority of the cast (especially jim dale and the man who plays lucy brown...yes, in drag). cindi lauper was okay, but you could tell she wasn't trained to do 8 broadway shows a week. isaac mizrahi's costumes were a bit disappointing...while i felt like that was exactly how i would have costumed the show, i would have expected more from a famous designer (and with a huge costume budget). i could tell you exactly what stores on st. mark's place he got certain costumes from. one of the characters was even wearing a pair of pants identical to ones i convinced my roommate to buy from religious sex (may it rest in peace). there were maybe two items that i could tell he had made especially for the show.
but anyway, it was an enjoyable show and i think the bad reviews are full of crap. so afterwards eric and i decide to slip around to the stage door to see if we can see any of the celebrities leave. i especially want to see alan cumming because i love him. when i went to see spamalot, i waited at the stage door for over an hour just to meet tim curry (because i love him too) and he never came out. i got hank azaria's autograph, though, but i didn't really care. i hoped that this wouldn't be a repeat of that incident.
there weren't very many people waiting back there. mostly it was a group of gay guys waiting, who were totally being checked out and picked up by the chorus boys leaving. there was also this really creepy makeup artist guy standing by me that i think was freaking out the actors. so ana gasteyer came out and signed programs. she seemed a bit nervous. then nelly mckay, who skipped our section (much to eric's disappointment). then cindi lauper. she's looking really old and was not very nice at all. and then alan! he signed my program and i told him that i thought he was brilliant and that he inspired me, etc. and when he handed my program back he wouldn't let go. he just stood there holding on to it, less that two feet away, looking at me. and that was my moment. i could have said something brilliant, that he would have remembered or that would have caused him to strike up a conversation with me...but no. my brain froze. i just stood there with this huge grin on my face looking into his eyes. i couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't have made me sound stupid or like a stalker. then the creepy makeup guy interrupted and our moment was over. he moved on. i should have asked him for a hug. thinking back...that's what i should have done. i'll know now, should i ever to happen across him on the street. it is new york, you know...there is always that possibility.
so i finally met one of my idols (i don't care that he did son of the mask or spice girls. he's a fucking brilliant actor) and my brain turned to goo. what would happen if i were to ever meet someone i really love, like david bowie or julianne moore? i'd probably just start sobbing and fall to their feet. i'm not kidding. i don't think i'd have a choice.
but even though i missed my chance to touch mr. cumming, i was floating on air for the next day or so after our meeting. yay!

only in williamsburg pt. 1

2006-05-06T22:48:00.000-04:00

i had heard about this controversial statue of a naked britney spears giving birth on a bear skin rug. (technically i think the sculpture is called something like "the birth of sean preston") oddly enough, this sculpture is supposed to be pro-life. after viewing it, i don't think any one would ever want to have a child. i found out that the gallery it was at was just a short walk from my apartment, so a few weekends ago (on the last day it was showing), my roommate hatim and our friend eric accompanied me to capla kesting gallery. i felt like i had to go, seeing as the gallery was so close to where i live AND it was free. how could you pass up the chance? in ten or twenty years when people are reminising and laughing, i can tell them that i was there. i saw the naked britney spears. and it was gross.
the gallery itself is a converted car garage and is actually pretty tiny (but meticulously clean and white). the sculpture was the only thing on display other than a podium with some info about the gallery and a display case with some pro-life propaganda in it.
it's odd that a pro-life sculpture of such a high profile would be on display in trendy, liberal williamsburg. it must have just been for the shock value.
so we walked around and viewed her from all angles. the sculpture doesn't even really look like her (the artist admits that britney did not actually pose for it and britney has not released any comments about it, either for or against the piece) and the hips are far too wide for a woman of that small frame. and yes, it's all anatomically correct. what makes it more disturbing is that it's got a pinkish glaze over it that makes it almost as if you're looking at a real person.
i think hatim and eric were much more traumatized than i was. so we stopped by this amazing french place on the way home for crepes and coffee and all was well with the world again.
i'm including some pictures...not for the weak of heart (or stomach)...

i've been busy

2006-05-06T22:17:00.000-04:00

i've been SO busy these last few weeks...which not only means i'm sleep deprived, but that there are also a number of things i want to write about here.
what you may ask has been keeping me busier than usual? well, this past saturday, sunday, monday, tuesday, and wednesday, i was playing hall monitor (for a total of 20 hours...i counted) for my theater company's auditions for our two summer shows, the first quarto hamlet and an original, priscilla. i'm still recovering, but the decisions have been made, the parts have been offered, and we are awaiting a few replies.

now the real fun begins.

i'm so excited!

2006-04-19T16:04:00.000-04:00

i just read this article and i think this could potentially be a brilliant movie! i can't wait for it!

Casting: Elton John Ditches Disney

Elton John's CGI-animated musical "Gnomeo & Juliet" still has a heartbeat. According to the Hollywood Reporter, this version of Shakespeare's tragic romance set in the world of tacky garden gnomes will move from Walt Disney Studios to sister division Miramax. When Disney bought Pixar and appointed John Lasseter as its new animation head earlier this year, the long-in-the-works "Gnomeo" was shut down. Discovering it was available, new Miramax president Daniel Battsek jumped at the chance to bring John's edgy musical to his revitalized division and a deal was struck. In its new incarnation, "Gnomeo" will most likely be animated by an independent British animation house, where the production will now be based. With a script in place, plans now call for John to collaborate with Oscar-winning lyricist Tim Rice on the film's songs. Kate Winslet still remains attached to voice Juliet, but no word on who will play her Gnomeo. It's tough when the leading candidate, the "Roaming Gnome," is always ... roaming.

please send good thoughts my way

2006-04-14T11:29:00.000-04:00

the mega millions lottery jackpot is $220,000,000. the drawing is tonight.
yesterday at work, three co-workers and i were talking about the recent trend of groups of people winning lottery money. i think the most recent group was a bunch of packers from a meatpacking plant, who pooled their money.
so we decided to do it. the 4 of us pooled our money and i bought the tickets last night. if we win the full amount, my cut would be $55,000,000. not to shabby, eh? i'd be happy even if we just won $100. but i do have to admit, i have most of how i will invest/spend the millions already planned. i want to buy an old williamsburg warehouse and build a theater in it. i want at least one performance space, some rehearsal spaces and a gallery space. if there's any room left, i'd like a few apartments, that i would use to provide subsidized housing for artists. as part of the requirements for them to live there, they'd also have to help manage the arts complex. it'd be my dream to build and manage something like that.
please send your good thoughts my way tonight. i wanna win the jackpot!

good vibrations

2006-04-12T23:39:00.000-04:00

last night i went to a concert at warsaw, a really interesting venue in greenpoint. most days of the week, it's the polish national home, hosting events for that orginization. then a few times a week they host indie rock concerts. they sell pergoies and other polish foods and the stage gives me flashbacks of highschool plays. the quirkiness adds to the cool factor AND it's walking distance from home. :)
the headliner of the show was regina spektor. i first saw her perform when she opened for keane at radio city music hall. i was far more impressed with her than the headlining band at the time, so when i heard about this show, i jumped at the chance to see her again. the recordings just don't do her justice. anyone impressed with her cds should definately see her live.
she had two bands open for her. paul, hatim and i had contemplated skipping them, but it had been so long since i've seen new music (besides metal bands) that i was up for seeing them even if it meant going without paul and hatim. (by the way, paul and hatim had never seen regina, but were interested after all of my raves about her. i do not think they were disappointed).
the first band up was the hysterics. apparently they had REALLY nice guitars. i wouldn't know the difference but my escorts couldn't stop talking about the guitars. the guys in the band looked super young, but i was pretty sure they were a local band of twenty-somethings and they just looked young (like people tell me i do). when i got home that night i looked them up on myspace. nope, they're all 16 and 17 years old. they sounded pretty good and may mature into something really good. they were a lot of fun to watch though, even when the lead singer coulding figure out his guitar strap and needed help from the roadie. and the guitarist had a sex pistols shirt on, which is always a good thing.
the next person up was jenny owen youngs. and she was amazing. i've had her song "fuck was i" running through my head all day today. her voice was incredible and she's an awesome guitar player. she told a story about opening for regina in boston and a guy showed up with a rubber fish in his sleeve for her to sign. i thought she was pretty cute and was looking for an opportunity to talk to her after the show without sounding like an idiot. with hatim's encouragement i was going to ask her to sign my boobs (and then take a picture so i could save it for posterity...like on my birthday). but the show ran really late and i was tired from fighting with the crowd and straining to see over people's heads (it's really hard when you're only 5'4"), so i ended up not doing it. i kind of regret that, but i was grumpy and had to go to work the next morning. i didn't want to fight through the crowd to buy her cd, but i did order it from her website as soon as i got home. can't wait to hear it. i really need to learn the lyrics to "fuck was i". i only know the first line and the chorus so i keep singing "love grows in me like a tumor. parasite bent on devouring it's host." and then "what the fuck was i thinking" over and over and over.
and of course regina was brilliant. she has this one song where she plays the piano with one hand, hits her piano bench with a drum stick, stomps a melody with her foot and sings all at once. and it sounds good! she does crazy things with her voice as she's playing complex classical music on the piano...she really should be a lot more famous than she is! if you ever have a chance to see her (or jenny owen youngs) please do. they're both great!
i know i'm raving a lot, but it's been so long since i've been to a concert that was my type of music (whatever that is). the boyfriend's in a metal band, so most of the new music i hear are other metal bands that could only hope to be as good as his band. and i'm not saying this because i'm partial. they really are good. and if the other bands they played with were as good, i wouldn't mind seeing them so much, ya know? i kind of feel like a bad girlfriend, but metal's not my thing.
but anyway, last night was SO much fun...people watching, laughing, and good music. very refreshing. i needed that.

i didn't intend the aerosmith reference, but it's accurate

2006-04-07T00:40:00.000-04:00

i'm restless. i need an adventure. i need one of those nights that, while it's happening, you know you'll look back on it fondly for years to come. i need new experiences and new people. it feels like i used to have moments like these so frequently and now my life has settled in to such a monotony. how do i recapture that passion? i feel like there's such a hole in my soul. how do i find that excitement again?

pic

2006-04-04T21:56:00.000-04:00

since so many people from my past are popping up and asking me for pictures, etc., here's the most recent one, taken at the read through this sunday for a play my theater company commissioned.

a poem about my pain

2006-04-03T17:07:00.000-04:00

a friend sent this poem to me a while back and i love it! it's too funny...and true. i just had to share.

My Pain Keeps Me Regular
--Edward Thomas Herrera

My pain
My pain
My pain

My pain is better than anyone else’s
My pain is more serious than anyone else’s
My pain is more important than anyone else’s

Compared to my pain
Everyone else’s pain is petty
Everyone else’s pain is meaningless
Everyone else’s pain is a day at the beach a walk in the park a
Fucking
Piece of fucking cake
It’s my pain
My pain my pain

My pain beating breasts
My pain licking open sores
My pain crying thick red tears of arterial blood
My pain twisting the knife blade around and around and around
My pain representative of all the injustice that has ever happened
Is happening
Or will happen to anyone anywhere anyhow

My pain
My pain
My pain

I blame my lovers
I blame my parents
I blame organized religion
I blame the current administration
I blame the capitalist system of economics

But most importantly
I blame everyone who has ever lived
Because they have all been party to my torment
If not directly
Then indirectly
If you don’t believe me
Just give me a little time
I can find blood on your hands
Somehow somewhere some way

Trust me
My pain
My pain
My pain

Some say I need to get over it transcend
Some say I need to put it all behind me go on with my life
Some say I may require professional help in order to accomplish all this

But what do they know?
They’ve never experienced my pain
My pain is so truly enormously unique
If I don’t dwell on it then just who would?

My pain
My pain
My pain

Boy howdy does the world owe me but big time

My pain
My pain
My pain

My pain
Allows me to be bitter and resentful
Towards those who have caused my suffering
Towards those who do not share my suffering
Towards those who have not heard about my suffering

My pain
Releases me from the responsibility
Of having to accomplish something with my life
Because I can always blame my failure on my status
As a member of a socially disenfranchised group of people
My pain
Makes me the most important person in this room
And if you don’t agree with me
That’s because you don’t understand
And there’s something horribly horribly wrong with you

Thank you

walking the walk

2006-03-29T19:04:00.000-05:00

last year i participated in the aids walk with my friend emily. together we raised over $1300 for the cause. this year, i am participating in it again, but this time with my two theater companies, new world theatre and point of you productions. now this is ambitious because, not only do we need to raise money for our upcoming shows, but we also are now trying to raise money for the aids walk. i'll try to keep you updated on our progress in reaching our goal. right now we have it set at $1,500. i think five walkers (so far) can handle that. :)
i'm excited about it...i really enjoyed it last year and it makes me feel like i'm making a difference, even if it is a small one. if any of you kind hearted people out there would like to donate to the aids walk, please click here.
your donations are tax deductible (as they also are when you donate to nwt through fractured atlas or to point of you).
thank you!

out of sight does not mean out of mind

2006-03-20T22:15:00.000-05:00

a strange thing has happened over the last few months. more and more people from my past have started popping up. not so weird for many who don't move far from home, but i grew up in a very transient community on another continent. it felt like every year i had to make a new best friend and join a new social group because so many people were always moving away or just moving to the country. i lost touch with most people from high school and from college too. the ones i have kept in touch with have become very dear friends. i guess i never expected so many people to get in touch with me and so suddenly. was there some milestone, rite of passage, or unconscious thing that i somehow missed or skipped over?
i was used to running into someone on the street every once in a while. i mean, i'm pretty sure practically everyone visits new york at least once. and you expect it when you go home for christmas and are almost disappointed if you don't bump into anyone. actually, for the last few years i didn't know of any of my old friends who went back to bahrain for the holidays.
but it's really weird when you're two worlds, your past and your present, collide when you get an email or a message in your inbox on some online community like myspace or friendster. it actually got pretty overwhelming at one point. every day there was one or two new people who had tracked me down on myspace.
i feel pretty bad, though. most of them i never wrote back to. i just had so much going on with the day job and theater and stuff, i never got a chance to go back on and then after a while, it just seems weird if you write them back after ages have gone by. and then if you do, are you expected to strike up that friendship that fizzled out almost 10 years ago? i admit it. i am terrible at keeping in touch. i can't even keep my own life straight, let alone be a penpal to someone i haven't seen in a decade. it doesn't mean i feel any less for them. there are people i still miss years later, but us being so far apart, i just can't keep dwelling on it. i simply don't have time.
there were people finding me that i hadn't seen or conversed with since the 8th grade!
a boy i had a crush on in 8th grade sent me an email. i never would have thought he would have remembered me. he never gave me the time of day or even really spoke to me. now he's studying marine biology in scotland and getting his masters degree. what would i say to him? another boy who made my life miserable for a better part of a year found me on my space. i was shocked when i saw his picture. i couldn't answer him for fear of bringing up all that old hurt. best to leave all of that buried. did that asshole really think we were friends and why would he ever think to contact me?
another girl i sat next to in band class for a year found me, too. i remember her mostly because of her unusual name. i guess that's why she remembered me too. maybe it's my name, maybe it's because my mother was a teacher in my school, or it's because i'm probably easier to find than most on the internet. if you do a google search for me, you'll get a whole list of reviews and websites that have my name on them.
i must confess for googling many an old friend's name, trying to find out what they're up to. many people who meant a lot to me, i couldn't find a trace of or their name was so common that it'd be impossible to sift through everything to figure out if it was about them or not.
i guess i just find it strange that i could have touched that many people, that they'd remember me. i know that more than twice as many people have meant the world to me and have shaped me in ways they would have never imagined. but i've been called over-sensitive more than once and i do tend to cling to the past a bit more than what is normal.
i remembered every one of the people who contacted me (well, except for the boy who claimed he rode my bus and one who was 2 or 3 grades younger than me). they've all shaped me in one way or the other. i guess i should turn over a new leaf and try to start writing these people back, if for no other reason to say thank you for thinking of me, even if we haven't seen each other in a decade.
god, i'm getting old.

"where do thoughts come from? they just appear"

2006-03-15T22:31:00.000-05:00

my theater company is putting on two shows in rep this summer: the first quarto of hamlet and an original play based on hamlet (but all the genders are reversed) called pricilla. i've been known to do a little costume desigining in the past, and usually with a budget of next to nothing. it was decided that i'll be designing both shows (because the director for one of the shows had someone she wanted, but we would have to fly them in...which we REALLY can't afford at this point) as well as acting in one of them. i only agreed to design both if i could act. i'm really itching to be on stage right now. and why would i be putting all of this work in to this company if i couldn't do what i want, right?
but i'm starting to get a little nervous and psych myself out about the designing...two shows at once...while acting. and i don't even know what the concept for hamlet is yet. it could be scary and complicated. do i have that much creativity??? where will i find my inspiration?
i know i'll do it and do it well (at least i hope so). i usually do. but it doesn't mean i won't stress about it before.
at least it'll all be over by august so i can at least enjoy the latter part of the summer.

lobster bobs

2006-03-09T21:52:00.000-05:00

since bob liked my last post so much, i was curious what i'd find if i googled "lobster bob". i found some pretty interesting sights.

bob lobster the restaurant
http://www.boblobster.com/

you're famous, bob! you have a dvd about you! called let's go lobstering with lobster bob.
http://store.hamiltonmarine.com/browse.cfm/4,26932.htm

a fan fiction author named lobster bob. i think he writes about anime.
http://www.fanfiction.net/u/231396/

the photographic story of the boiling of a lobster named bob:
http://www.vision.caltech.edu/pmoreels/Images/Bob/index.html

the lobster institute...i'm not sure if they have a lobster bob or not.
http://www.lobsterinstitute.org/index.php?page=18

and of course this cartoon

it looks just like bob!!!!

2006-03-09T00:18:00.000-05:00

i have a friend nicknamed lobster bob because he turns red all the time and has red hair. really, the man is unique. this news story got brought up this evening. it looks just like bob! :) well, if he got a bleach job. i bet bob is red right now reading this. hee hee

Divers discover new crustacean
Animal is covered with blond hairlike strands

Scientists have named the new crustacean "Kiwa hirsuta."

Updated: 10:54 p.m. ET March 7, 2006
PARIS - A team of American-led divers has discovered a new crustacean in the South Pacific that resembles a lobster and is covered with what looks like silky, blond fur, French researchers said Tuesday.
Scientists said the animal, which they named Kiwa hirsuta, was so distinct from other species that they created a new family and genus for it.
The divers found the animal in waters 7,540 feet (2,300 meters) deep at a site 900 miles (1,440 kilometers) south of Easter Island last year, according to Michel Segonzac of the French Institute for Sea Exploration.
The new crustacean is described in the journal of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris.
The animal is white and just shy of 6 inches (15 centimeters) long — about the size of a salad plate.
In what Segonzac described as a “surprising characteristic,” the animal’s pincers are covered with sinuous, hairlike strands.
It is also blind. The researchers found it had only “the vestige of a membrane” in place of eyes, Segonzac said.
The researchers said that while legions of new ocean species are discovered each year, it is quite rare to find one that merits a new family.
The family was named Kiwaida, from Kiwa, the goddess of crustaceans in Polynesian mythology.
The diving expedition was organized by Robert Vrijenhoek of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California.

"gotta find my destiny before it gets too late"

2006-03-07T22:09:00.000-05:00

...and it didn't happen. last week i was at a read through of a draft of a new play my theater company is commissioning and the artistic director just happens to mention that a theater company we are familiar with lost the lease on their space and the complex is for rent. of course, i go nuts. every small nyc theater company prays for a place to call their home. that would have been the easiest way for us to start living our dream. of course it'd be hard, but suddenly it seemed like there was a light at the end of my tunnel.
the complex actually had two theaters (a 99 seat and a 40 seat) and three rehearsal spaces. i knew it'd be expensive, that we couldn't use the whole thing for ourselves, but we could set up as a management company, renting out the spaces when we weren't using them ourselves. a small business loan of maybe 6 months rent could get us off the ground. but what was the rent? the real estate broker wasn't returning bob's calls. i finally found the website and the listing for the property...it was almost $23,000 a month for the space. i desperately tried to make the math work for us...if we rented out the big space at $3500/week and the small space at $2000/week and rented the rehearsal spaces at $10/hr and had 100 hours a month of rental space we would just break even...and that didn't count utilities and everything else that went with the space. and that also meant that we'd have to have the spaces rented continuously. as much as i wanted it to, there was no way it would work. we're having issues of reaching our fundraising goal of making $7500 in donations this year for our next productions. how could we manage $23,000? i did mention that we should get two other companies to enter into the undertaking with us to split the cost (and risks), but that meant we'd need more time and organization than we had at the moment.
so again, my dreams and optimism have been dashed. but for a brief moment it seemed as if all that i had been striving for would be possible. i always read about these success stories where the artist overcomes incredible odds...or just has it fall in their lap. i want to be one of those stories. i've been working for it a long time. i need to be one of those stories.
i don't know how much more of the soul sucking day job i can take. i'm not cut out to work a 9-5:30 office job on madison avenue. but when do i give in and say it just won't happen? when do i give up and realize i need to build myself a career in something else besides theater? there has to be a time when all these ex-actors, filmmakers, etc. made the choice to conform. when was that? was it a conscious decision? did they really love what they did before? if so, how do they live with themselves now?
i know that i am most at piece with myself when i am working in a theater. it doesn't have to be acting. i designed costumes for a show in january and just going to the theater and fitting the actors had a calming effect on me. when i go long periods without acting i get very, very depressed. i can't help it. i need that creative outlet. i don't need or even want fame and fortune. i just want to be able to make a living at it...to support myself. that's all.

it may be knocking...

2006-03-01T01:14:00.000-05:00

i can't stop thinking about it. i don't want to talk about it because i'm afraid i'll jinx it. but it may be a way for me to be able to start living my dream. i don't want to get ahead of myself but i always do. i buy a lottery ticket and on my way home before the drawing i'm already doing the math and spending the money i haven't won. i feel like i'm doing that with this situation, although this seems much, much more real. it would be amazing if it were possible. even more amazing if we could do it. and even more if we could pull it off. it all depends on a number tomorrow.

how am i going to sleep tonight?

sadly overlooked

2006-02-23T22:26:00.000-05:00

having rewatched part of the movie the exorcism of emily rose with my roommate, i realized that a woman who should have been nominated for an oscar was overlooked. jennifer carpenter gave an amazing performance as the possessed emily rose, training like an athlete for the part. very little cgi or special effects were done to enhance jennifer's performance. her director even said that her audition tape made him rethink how the part could be played.
it is sad that many people dismissed this film as just another horror movie. in fact, it was more courtroom drama than horror flick, trying to present the points of view of both the believers and the skeptics. the possession scenes are flashback sequences during testimonies of witnesses and experts. it is not jennifer carpenter's fault that almost none of the script resembles the actual case that the film is based on.
now, i have only seen one of the four films for which the best supporting nominees are nominated for. i loved brokeback mountain and was very taken with michelle williams's performance, but her role had no where near an impact that jennifer carpenter's did. i hope to see her eventually get the praise and recognition she deserves.