Street Harassment Ain’t No Thang (and other lies that I tell myself, in order to avoid having, like, emotions)

“Hey, hey girl. Sit down. I’m givin’ you my seat.”

This from a skinny man on the train who was, apparently, determined to get my attention. I was wearing my biggest shades and my headphones and toting my usual twenty-pound Show Bag*, just like any other day on the red line. Let the record show that I was also looking pretty good, although it might have just been the new dress and unexpectedly good hair day going to my head.

For whatever reason – possibly because I was only four stops from my destination, possibly because I didn’t feel like giving this guy an excuse to keep talking to me – I just didn’t feel like sitting. So I smiled, shook my head, and went back to looking away and out the window.

It would seem that, for some people, this is a huge insult.

Or so you would think, as I spent the rest of my train ride being loudly and insistently asked to take my headphones out, whether I was ‘looking for a man’, whether I was a ‘good and decent woman’ who knew how to treat one, and, finally, loudest of all, whether I was ‘one of those dykes.’

So Apparently Being An Adult Means You Can’t Ride in the Grocery Cart OR The Laundry Basket, aka This Sucks, and To Top It All Off, the Laundromat Doesn’t Have WiFi

Happy Thor’s Day, people of the internet!

META-THOR.

Full disclosure - I am actually writing this ahead of time, on Wednesday. Also, in case you hadn’t guessed, I am sitting at the laundromat down the street from our apartment, waiting for my clothes to dry and being slowly and gently fleeced in the meantime. (It costs at least five dollars for us to do two weeks of laundry down here. Can you imagine? Five whole dollars. That’s almost as much as I paid in library fines yesterday.)

I still think apologies are stupid (but only most of the time)

When I was a kid, and having one of the (in retrospect, many) passive-aggressive-cold-war-turned-violent-blood-feud fights that my siblings and I used to engage in when we were all stuck at home yet sick to death of the sight of each other, I would often be ordered to ‘say sorry, or I’m telling!’

More often than not, if intimidation and/or psychological warfare had failed to force my victim to admit it was their own fault the whole time, I tended to turn pious. “But why should I say sorry?” I’d ask, folding my arms and shrugging, which was my pretend ‘let’s just level with each other’ stance. “I know I’m not sorry. You know I’m not sorry. Do you want me to tell a lie? Lying’s a sin, you know. I’m surprised you’re trying to get me to do that.”

Sometimes it worked (meaning, they gave up). Sometimes it didn't.

it's only been...what, two months?

Holy crap.
*awkward cough* Well, I have been away for awhile, now, haven't I? Just walked off for the paper one day and never came back. Awkward.

HI GUYS! (If indeed any of you are still reading here.)

So, updates:

1. I am currently in the middle of experiencing my first Chicago winter. Wheeee! Currently, I believe there is less than a foot of snow outside, so that's not so bad, but I think all my boots and pant-hems are going to be salt-stained forever.

2. Am stage managing a show called Body of Water at Redtwist Theatre. Today, I got my comp tickets - six for previews, two for the run. I am secretly hoping my parents can come for the run, but if anyone wants to come to a preview night of my show, come get it!

3. Job searching again. I'm still employed at the clothing store, and it's lovely, but have reentered the market for something better. Aside from the overall cost of living/paying off my loans, I need to start saving up because...

4. I hope to be moving this summer! Not far; still in Chicago and in all likelihood within walking distance of where I am now. But I plan to be sharing an apartment with an old friend. The specifics are super-secret yet, since nothing is really quite planned/worked out. But. It will be REALLY exciting if we can pull it off, and I will most likely not be able to shut up about it.

5. Also (and you must have known this was coming, surely),
HAPPY THOR'S DAY.

Nice hammer, sweetheart.

6. PS Boston was AWESOME.
...
Anyway, I hope to get back to posting, at least off and on. I realized recently that this blog is pretty much the only way half my folks from home still know I'm alive and not, I dunno, starving to death in an alley somewhere (not yet!).
If you're so inclined, you should leave a comment and tell me what's been new and exciting in your lives while I've been away!

Ivan returns!

(That ... is an theatre injoke with a very long backstory that most of you may not get and probably do not care about. So let's just move on to the important bit, shall we?)

TODAY IS THOR'S DAY.

...

YOU'RE WELCOME.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming. Further blog updates will, hopefully, be coming soon...my college laptop has fizzled out on me (rest in peace, Jade m'dear), but a friend is sending me her old one (bless her), and I expect it to arrive any day now.

Until then - Happy Thor's Day, boys and girls. Swing a hammer at someone today.

someday...

Someday, I will have reached the level in my field - I'm thinking Cirque du Soleil or similar - where I know Exactly What I'm Doing, and every day I go in to work will look/sound like this.



For now, I just go around playing Fort Minor on my iPod. On repeat. All day.

pretty much all I have to say today.

1. We just closed Six Dead Queens this weekend. I'm gonna miss those ladies. More immediately, though, the usual post-show immune-system shutdown is proceeding about as expected.

2. As a direct result of the first point, I am now going in for my first shift at Planet Access that does not involve an enormous backpack with food, change of clothes, and laptop for going to the theater afterwards. (It's the little things.)

3. I'm going home tomorrow, for almost a whole WEEK.

Source: tuckedstyle.com via Lauren on Pinterest

I might have little-to-no money and about the same amount of upper-respiratory cooperation, but life is good today.

sending up a quick signal

"Happiness consists in getting enough sleep. Just that, nothing more."

-Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers

Oh, hi.

Remember me? I blog here. It's true! I may tend to go AWOL when life stops being fun to write about (I mean, I like to think this is an Amusing Blog, and it's hard to find much amusement in the endless job applications, money challenges, self-doubt, and tear-inducing levels of exhaustion that have been filling my life of late), but I do still exist!

I don't have much in particular to say, except that I'm still searching for a day job, Piccolo's official run of Six Dead Queens is officially underway, and it has just started to get cold here. It was pretty sudden, too - one day it was all hot and sticky like usual, then that night, boom  - cold front. Somewhere, there is a trusty scarf that I really need to dig out and start wearing when I go out at night.

and now, the hard part. (or, GAH YETIS ARE EVERYWHERE)

Hello, my lovely readers.
While I have not actually been ambushed and devoured by yetis cleverly disguised as snowdrifts (or rather, it being 86 degrees in Chicago today, city buses), it is certainly beginning to feel like it.

We all know that moving to a new place - and following your dreams, and being a grownup, and blah blah blah all those associated things - is hard. People who have done so tell you this all the time. It is a widely accepted fact in most of the circles I move in, including but not limited to theatre people, middle-class folk, recent college grads, and In-Denial Twelve-Year-Olds Anonymous.
What most of us don't realize until it is much, much too late, is that simply being told this is not doing diddly to prepare us for the reality. We think, "Okay, it's gonna be hard. That's okay! I will be strong! I will believe in myself! I am a Strong, Independent, More-Or-Less-Grown-Up Professional, and I can totally do this!"

Hold up there, tiger. Here are five real for real things that you had better be ready for.
You're welcome.

yeti-free for all of six days now...

Hello, friends!

I've been in Chicago for a little over a week, but it feels simultaneously like it's been barely a day or two and like it's been years. I'm really glad that I didn't know beforehand how exhausting this transition was going to be, because there's a pretty good chance I would have chickened out!

Anyway, first things first: I have an apartment now! I have one roommate, but there will be three of us by October. I moved myself and my two travelling suitcases in on Monday, and my absolutely fantastic boyfriend came up on Tuesday with the rest of my belongings from home.

Here's the photo evidence:

My room, and the air mattress that is my new best friend.

Note the Lookingglass theatre poster. They seem pretty awesome.
I want to see ALL their shows this season.

onward and upward. please, God, don't let the yetis eat me.

Source: fun-gallery.com via Larissa on Pinterest

HOLA, COMERADES.

That is not usually how I begin my blog posts, you are probably aware. Honestly, I stole that just now from Amanda F. Palmer, who writes the rawest most exciting Kickstarter Project Updates ever. (Other Kickstarter-ers: take note!)
I am sitting at someone else's kitchen table, in South Chicago, at 7:30 in the evening (which for me, since I have hardly slept since for the last two days, feels like 2 in the morning), and I thought I was tired until I read her post about what she's been up to.

(Oh, and that link is, if you scroll down far enough, quite NSFW.)

I stand corrected. I am far from really, truly tired. I am merely fortitudinally inconvenienced, that's all.

as the workdays run together...

Good morning, friends!

I've been sitting here for fifteen minutes, trying to think of something interesting to write about, but I have a confession to make: my life does not come with a lot of interesting anecdotes right now. Three (four?) of the summer's productions are in rehearsal so far, and I've met a number of very nice actors and stage managers, and I'm looking forward to working with them all at tech this weekend (which will be the most epic tech I have experienced in my life thus far - I think we have four days in a row of 10/12s). Aside from that...I answer a lot of phones, send a bunch of emails, and run errands. And I watch and listen as much as I can to how the professionals around me are conducting their business.

Oh, and I've started writing a play. It is ridiculous. You can tell I've been spending a good third of my waking hours reading plays; I've gotten sucked right in.

In other news:

something intriguing

something inspiring

and something hilarious.

Happy hump-day. If you've got something interesting going on today, please share in the comments!

let's all just take a moment...

And behave as if we've got a clue.

Source: jenatru.tumblr.com via Lauren on Pinterest

NYS&F: Day 1

Hello, friends!

I write you from my lunch break, because there was no way I would have had time to blog, eat and dress this morning. I don't know what it is - maybe it's the change in elevation or something - but I've been sleeping like a rock here in Poughkeepsie. Consequently, mornings are difficult.

early mornings + late nights + New York

Source: etsy.com via Lauren on Pinterest

[just because.]

Oooooookay.

I've been sitting here puttering around the internet while occasionally cleaning my (already hopelessly trashed) desk, trying to figure out how best to start with the events of the last couple days. As usual, when in doubt, I revert to my trusty bullet points! Feel free to hop around to the interesting bits. I'm afraid I may be too tired to prioritize just now.

working Wednesday

Good afternoon, people of the internet!

I apologize for the lateness of today's post; my computer's been in a bit of a sulk most of the day and I (terrified of getting on its bad side - again) have been running around doing things other than typing. To whit:

1. Packing. Endless, endless packing. I am so close to being done, guys. So. Close.
2. Tutoring (my student has a peer review on her yet-to-be-written analysis paper tomorrow).
3. Eating sandwiches with the irrepressible Lindsay T., who should really have a blog of her own because she is hilarious.
4. Having awkward encounters in the dressing rooms at Target ("Hey, aren't you the same girl who was here yesterday?" "Um...yes?" "Well, you're sure here a lot. It's like we're family!" "Um...no?")
5. Paying strangers to rip out my eyebrow hair, all the while making comments like, "Oh my; they're so thick!" and "You don't do this very often, do you?" and "Wow, you cry a lot."
6. Buying my Very First Ticket To See A Broadway Show.

That's right. This Saturday, at 2pm at the Lyceum Theatre in New York City, I am going to see Venus in Fur! I will be sitting in Balcony Row C, so if any of you, my lovely readers, should happen to be there too, you should come by and say hi.

I feel slightly guilty about not having any actual work news to report today, but rest assured that that will be changing very soon. The day after tomorrow, I leave for my NYS&F job...which means, in about 48 hours, I hope to be drafting a blog post about the No Doubt Ridiculous trip (because something ridiculous always happens when I take a trip).

Much love everyone, and thanks for reading! I will soon be writing you from a different time zone (eep!)...

many hats

Source: vixenvintage.blogspot.com via Simone on Pinterest

Although I like to identify as a theatre professional now (does it count as professional if you have yet to be paid?), I still find myself doing a lot of things that have nothing to do with theatre, for the sake of a paycheck.

Now, for example. I'm a composition tutor Monday - Thursday mornings, and I work in catering on the weekends. Neither of these qualifies as a full-time job (the tutoring gig is only for a few weeks), but they bring in reliable money utilizing my non-theatre skills, and so I'm happy to have them.

I suspect I will have these kinds of jobs, off and on, for most of my life.

5 Things I Learned from Production Managing the New Works Festival

Truth.

back again

Hello, friends!
So, it's been awhile since I wrote here, but Blogger tells me you've been visiting a lot anyway, which is nice to see. I've said this before, but seriously, guys - if there's something in particular you'd like me to do a blog post about, let me know and I'll do it. I'm interested in what interests you.

Anyway, here are the highlights of what I've been up to since we last talked.

1. I finished my last week of undergraduate classes. (woot!)
2. I production managed a play festival.
3. I got published.
4. I received (and signed) my contract for this summer with New York Stage and Film.
5. I went to an amazing end-of-the-year banquet with 50 or so of my closest theatre department friends. (Seriously, it was amazing. You should probably be jealous.)

The senior class, all dolled up in our banquet finery.
Photo taken by Anna Selle, courtesy of Cassandra White.

There are a bunch of things I could write about recent events, but they will definitely not all fit into one post. So I'm going to break them up, and hopefully get through the interesting stuff while it's still current/relevant. In the meantime: I hope you're having a lovely weekend, and thanks for reading!

slightly largeish news

So. So guys.
The news came last week, but I wasn't sure I was going to officially do it until today, and I thought you all might like to know: I have a production management internship with New York Stage and Film this summer!