Today's Daily Bread

I am grateful that I only have to wear a corset for a couple hours a night. Wearing one all day would break my back, heart, and spirit.

No Joke

This was copied straight from last night's run-through notes I took:

" Notes Summer Brave

10-27

-chug the whiskey down the throaut—tighten more, reaction not too early
-I LOVE YOU COURTNEY COURTNEY COURTNEY. WE NEVER DICUSSED THE FACT THAT one day during ball work I only threw to you. The. Whole. Time.

-Wasn’t wearing anything—decent deliberate good.
-charlston on the bench pull skirt up
-mock Hal more during quoting back part of attack
-diagonal on going to sunset with howard
-pink panties movememnt
-ben shut up
-pace in act three…eff
-courtney is the besssssst uda uda best
-love you love you love you
COURTNEY WHY WONT YOU READ MY NOTES."

Orange

Saying it was a wonderful weekend is understatement of the year.

Muff and I took a train to Chicagoland to visit Char and pick up my car. The ride was orange and yellow. Muff and I talked about everything we could think of and were swallowed by the spicy backdrop in our pauses for reflection. It was dark by the time we pulled into the station. We drank fall specialty drinks at the local coffee house.



Even the highways were pretty posted against corn and deep maroon leaves. I didn't even feel sorry to return. Just refreshed.

Doris Day

Alice, please clean your room. Its not bad or anything, but your desk is full of crap, and you keep putting important papers in one androgynous pile on top of a box of chocolates. You're going to forget to eat the chocolates as well as forget to respond to important letters. Did you forget to write your friend again? You promised you would do that this afternoon? Remember when you had a free hour because class got out early and you said you were going to get busy but you just fiddled around aimlessly with SNL clips on Hulu? Get it together! Its 6 now! You only have another hour to be productive. Could you just do it? Instead of updating your blog or anything else? Stop listening to Mest and get offline. Start by folding your clean laundry. Its all wrinkled. Do not recheck your e-mail and get distracted. Nothing you would have received would be that exciting. Just for the love of pancakes get out of bed. Do you realize you wore gym shorts all day? You said it was just because you were going to be late to work. Then you said you would change after your next class. Well, its getting dark. You're not going to change. Maybe you'll be motivated thinking that you're going to be busy all weekend? No. Do NOT put that Mad Men disc in! Alice! We had a deal!


I am on your side. This house is empty.

Caffeney Kathleeny

Blanche and Alice

When I was nine one of my closest friends was nicknamed Caffeney Kathleeny because she was just about the most joyful child you could meet. She laughed and bounced all the time. There was always some kind of activity at her house--a goofy game or a silly snack. Hee Hee! Such fun!

One day I brought my hamster Thomas into class. Everyone got to marvel and pet it before I put it in its running ball. It toddled all over the classroom during our math time. It was fractions. We were doing them on the board, Kathleeny kept getting wrong answers. She'd ask for help--more confusion. Our teacher made several personal trips to her desk as the rest of the class waited in patience. Kathleeny started to laugh a lot, a lot, a lot. She turned redder and redder until tears burst from her beet face. "I just don't get it!" she sobbed while kicking her legs wildly.

Thomas was right under her feet. She kicked him clear across the room.

Grease Never Forgets

I am so glad I was eating a cheese quesidilla when you told me that awful thing so I could never separate the awful thing with the awful nasty fullness greasy cheddar brings to my gut. Now whenever I think about softening up that memory I stop. Hey. Remember that gross cheese stomach?

Yeah. No. I'll never forget.

Waste Not, Want Not

Today was a perfect fall day. My favorite weather in my favorite season. And what did I do? I wasted it! I did run this morning--which was much needed and much enjoyed. But then I was inside most of the day studying for my mid-term. Then afterwards I was too pooped to do much besides curl up on my bed and close my eyes in and out of SNL reruns.

Do I feel bad? Absolutely not. There will be other beautiful days. In fact, I hear tomorrow is one of them. I know we're always told to just bite into the succulent blackberry when it is ripe and play outside on the most autumngorgeous day of the year, but if you don't want to then that's the real waste my friend. Oh I'm sure if I had opted for a lovely afternoon walk or even a nap under a tree I would be just as happy now, but at the moment I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do more than sprawl like a starfish up for dissection on my fluffy blankets.

Just because the restaurant has the best cake around doesn't mean you always order it. I mean, I do, but you might not. If you don't feel like it. I always feel like it. Guaranteed. Its a lesson you might as well learn now. Opportunities--even if once in a lifetime--don't mean anything if you don't want 'em.

Movies I Have Cried During

ET
Harriet the Spy
Beauty and the Beast
Brokeback Mountain
Midnight Cowboy
Junebug
Pan's Labyrinth
Kramer vs. Kramer
Milk
Father of the Bride

Honorable Mentions include The Green Mile and an educational cartoon about radiation victims in Japan

You 'Kin Do It!

Pookie New Years Day 2007

Hearing that Dunkin' Donuts is opening in Saint Louis quite honestly made my day. And I had a really good day. What is it about those sesame bagels? Those hazelnut coffees? Those delightful powder munchkins or those krullers?

I know I like the krullers because they were my grandfather's favorite. I knew him...decently. He passed away when I was 13, so there wasn't too much depth to us. But, I know some things about him past and present. He mostly doesn't sound like a great man. But he was loving in a way he knew how to be--even if that wasn't so effective. Anyway, I remember knowing at a very young age his favorite donut. And, sometimes don't you just get the urge to appreciate what someone else appreciates?

My sister got me onto working for happiness and cupcakes. My dad got me onto writing and being a community citizen. My mom got me onto show tunes. Kay got me onto Wilco. KHO got me onto exercise. Vince got me onto noticing all the possibilities. Phyl got me onto relaxing at 4 PM. My grandfather got me onto krullers.

I wonder what I have gotten people onto.

This House Is Not For Sale

Making lists has always been an immediate feel good for me. Lists of things to do, buy, say, be grateful for, people I like, concerts I've seen, etc. It allays my anxieties and feeds my purpose. Sometimes I make lists of things I know I have lists of: best teachers, favorite vacation, worst experiences just to see how things rearrange over time.

Anyway, I started feeling funny during Fiction II today. So I made a list of material things I wish I had.

-a personal game of bananagrams
-stapler
-new Uggs
-every episode of Boy Meets World
-jukebox of primarily Andrew McMahon and Diana Ross records
-the new Zits treasury

Interesting what pops up first in thought. But, you know, it doesn't really matter. I was just trying to relax. Which I did.
Since THE concert, I have been really obsessed with two old SoCo songs--"If I Die" and "21 and Invincible". It's sort of cool to realize that something I've always known and felt lukewarm on could just randomly become something absolutely adored.

Treadmillin'

Our problems can be treadmills. Just because we spend a long time working or running in one direction doesn't mean we have to spend a long time reversing. We can just stop and step off. We can walk away in a way that legs accustomed to a treadmill sometimes forget is an option.

Top Love

Stuff I Love Right Now:

Andrew McMahon
Almonds (and almond pastries)
Blanche
Camp (and the relationships/experiences I have from it)
Glee
Summer Brave (the play I am currently in)
The things I hang on my walls every quarter--especially the postcard that says in pink "BE CALM"
Books in general
Wearing my Hair in a French Braid
Muff, Muff, Muff and the stuff, stuff, stuff we do
Speaking Japanese when I can think of it
The Foxtrot book I've been reading little by little
Madmen
Scooping sour cream into plastic tubs at work

Still, more than anything else in the world I Love:



My sister.

Some days go by I wish I was famous. Or even religious. So I could go to heaven just like you.

Gee Whiz

I don't even want to talk about it. It was that _________.



I have a lot of thoughts about art and artists, but I don't feel like trying to compile them into a small space (read: this blog).

I can make you mine. Taste your lips of wine. Anytime night or day. Only trouble is. Gee whiz. I'm dreamin' my life away.

Magic

Today was magic.

*It rained. So Power Walking got to do whatever we wanted in the gym. Bradley and I watched America's Next Top (Hot? I don't know.) Dance Crew while on elipticals.
*I ate a muffin in the chapel. During a service. Boop!
*A package came all the way from my dearest pal Slou in Canada. It included a Moose and Canadian candies.
*Won a spot at a pre-show Meet & Greet with Andrew McMahon.
*Quiche AND blueberry pie for dinner.
*Had a fantastic rehearsal.
*Spontaneously hung out with an old friend.

And now I will read everyone's Fiction II pieces until I fall asleep.
The is the first, best, only day of my life.
(the photo is Slou, KHO, and me circa 2005)

No Surprises Here

The bathroom set-up on this hall of the house is atrocious. There are separate rooms for toilets and sinks, heavy doors, tight little locker bays... it's stupid. Frankly. There are also the weird showers. There is one with a bath. I prefer stall showers, so I use the other. Here's what's weird about this shower: there are two curtains. One curtain hangs in front of the stall and then you step in and there is a hook and then next to you in the actual shower stall with a curtain hanging there.

Now. Most girls like the bigger shower. I don't know why i prefer the smaller one. Consequently, I have never seen or heard anyone use my shower. But, someone must be using it because every time I go to wash the first curtain in open and the second is closed.

Maybe this doesn't seem like a big deal to you, but think about it. That means you get out of the shower. Stand wrapping your towel, and close the curtain behind you before leaving the second curtain and leaving it wide open. Naturally, I always fear there is a dead body in the shower stall. Why else would someone hide its contents?

So every time I give myself a little pep talk about how dead bodies aren't so scary really, and there will be one, so I shouldn't be worried when I see it. I inch closer. Closer. Closer. Until I give a 1,2,3 and yank the curtain aside exposing--
nothing of course. But, I still go through the whole ordeal every time.

I wonder if it would really work. If I would be so ready to see a cadaver that it would just be a dream come true, or if no matter what, when met with a corpse, I would let out a blood-curdling shriek.

It's Morning

and I keep having these terrible dreams. They are getting worse every night.

(taken in Paris near the Arc D'Triomphe)

Cake Lesson

The night I went to see Ben Folds, the rest of the cast had five minute presentations on various 1950s topics. The freshman girl playing Mrs. Potts spoke on cooking and baking. She made a type of cake her character mentions in the production: a Lady Baltimore Cake. It is three layers of vanilla with coconut, chopped raisons, nuts, cherries, and sweet icing.

Like I said, I missed her original talk, but she saved a piece for me! It was very kind. She saw me in the dinning hall at dinner and said "Oh! I've got a piece for you!" I said thanks and continued on. Then, just as promised, ten minutes before rehearsal she appeared in the theatre lobby with a huge slab of the cake on a plate and a fork. I woofed it down because it was so darn delicious, complementing her between my huge and fast chomps. It wasn't just for me--she had made the cake for the cast, but I was really grateful, and she was very happy to see my gratitude. She smiled and said You're welcome.

It was a wonderful interaction and so sweet for her to have baked, saved, and presented me a piece. But, I forgot she brought the slice too, which is almost more loving than anything else. I can envision her walking alone from the opposite end of campus carrying her script, shoes, and skirt in one arm and needing to balance a plate with open food with her free hand. Meanwhile, people pass and she her trotting along with his weird looking dessert. Something about that image made me really warm.

Passionate Nights

Four years ago, I was playing Laura in The Glass Menagerie. I started suffering some minor depression. Some of my sadness was exacerbated by my constant need to get into pathetic shoes. Literally. I had to wear these nasty tan ones to emphasize being a cripple.



(the cast: Tom Wingfield, Laura Wingfield, Jim the Gentleman Caller, Amanda Wingfield)

But, during the day I would be quiet and thoughtful--focusing on all the wrong things of course. Yet, I would want to yell and make scenes and be candidly my emotions. Although being in the play may have been a little challenging for my mental health, overall I think it was good for me because for an hour and a half or so per day I COULD be as nuts as I wanted.

I go through my whole day. I'm older and more honest, so not much gets pent up in me anymore. But, even if there is nothing to be passionate about in my life, I GET TO BE for a few hours every night. Classes, running, meals, small talk, good talk, chores, planning, etc. etc. etc. Then, at 6:30, I am loud and drunk and in pain and in desire and wanting with all of my core. All the perks to acting up without any repercussions to me personally. How do people live without getting their daily dose of raw passion? Do they just eventually explode? I seriously cannot imagine what is like to not care about performing/making art.