i · am · laughing · wild · amid · severest · woe

this has been on e of the best post secret weeks in a long time.  these two stand out for me incredibly:

i'll be home for christmas.  i have to remind myself of that when i don't ever want to go home, and i cling to it when all i want to do is be with you guys.

and oozing_surprise for the rest of you

instead of homework, i spent the past 3 hours making balloon animals.

a kid in my major is a part of this balloon animal corporation.  he sits on his arse and makes balloon animals, gets paid close to $100 a night, and doesnt need to pay a damn thing back to the corporation.  he is sizing me up to be their connection in the northeast, so hopefully by december i will be good enough to train people.  i think over christmas i'll try and work every day at more than one venue, and buy a car for next semester.  once i have a car, i can go wherever i want, and therefore will be able to work wherever i want on my off - time.

so far, i have made a fish on a pole, two swords, a monkey, a toucan, a ray gun, a tommy gun, and a tiger.  there is more to come.

i have an exam tomorrow, and a monologue to find and memorize.

i wake up every morning to the sun rising over the half - built arena across from my building.  at precisely 7:30, a sunbeam will slap me on the face, and urge my lazy ass to get out of bed.  if it's a cloudy day, i will hear the sweet sounds of dave matthews's "dodo" politely nudging me into the conscous world.  today, at around 6:30, the men from the construction site played a little practical joke on me.  they said "you know, these college kids have things far too easy, mayhaps we should take an extra hour of precious sleep from them for our own enjoyment.  they decided to test the arena lights RIGHT INTO MY FACE.  now, generally at least half of the arena lights would be covered up, but the arena is not finished yet, therefore all of the lights, at full blast, were pointed right at my window.  The simulation of sunlight was quite unkind, as i had been feeling quite sick yesterday, and was preparing to sleep for another three hours or so.  If i had a heavy object, an open window, and the strength of a pro baseball player, every light in that stadium would need replacing.

with my extended morning, i decided to walk to starbucks and get some coffee.  i made it to the corner before i realized three things:

1.  i was sans underwear.
2.  i was sans shoes.
3.  lovebugs were fucking on me.

for all of you in massachusetts, or rather, north of the bible belt, i would like to introduce some vile creatures to you:


the lovebugs.

these pairs of bugs fly around, fucking in mid-air.  at first it struck me as no big deal.  that it was a seasonal thing, like the stink bugs of the northeast.  however, as time passed, they began to infuriate me.  i'd drop my bag to make a phonecall, and they would be fucking on my bag when i picked it up.  i'd be walking around outside, and a couple would smack me in the face.  i'd do work on my laptop, and there would be an ORGY plastered onto my window.  CAN'T THEY JUST GET A FLOWER OR SOMETHING?!?!?! right, just because they're BUGS and they don't know any better doesn't make them more special.  i should just dragg harrison onto the front lawn and take him like a 14 year old schoolgirl, see how THEY'D feel!

i was too tired and grumpy to address their presence this morning, so now i'm back in my apartment drinking tea, which has barely any caffeine, and certainly not enough to get me through the day.  to which i say HARRY! if you are reading this, remember how you wanted to get me an espresso machine for my birthday but i said not to? well, it's mornings like this that i regret what i say!  forgive me for spurning your generosity, and take it to heart that i welcome it now!

for now, i must hop into the shower.  my plan is to look like a beauty queen today to make up for the misfortunes of the morning.

have a good day everyone.

guys, seriously, guys, guys, guys.........

oedipus with vegetables:

it's quite brilliant, i'm not even kidding.

after a long weekend of fighting, bickering, crying, appologizing, snuggling, longing, dreading, working, dining, procrastinating, and petting, i needed to cut loose a little bit.  i put on guns n' roses, slipped on my new fluffy blue dress, and danced around my room.  this dress is absolutely ridiculous, but i am a theatre major, and know that  i will actually use this thing at some point.  it makes me happy, similar to the way a food fight makes people happy.  in all its ridiculousness, you learn to stop judging and just live it up.  yes, i know it's ugly, i know it makes me look like some kind of warped fairytale character, but it's looking beyond the absolute ugliness of it, and finding the joy someone had while wearing it.

and now, for your viewing pleasure, the ridiculous blue dress.


ISMOKECRACKROCKS.


i love it.  judge me all you must, but i love it.




~*~fin~*~

ahhh, what a weekend, what a weekend.......




harrison came to visit.  we won't be seeing each other again until late november.  we've had worse, right?  so we ended up fighting pretty much all weekend about really trivial shit.  i've concluded that i need therapy.  i am going through a lot of changes right now, but all of it is good.  i'm getting restless, cynical, misanthorpic. and self - abusive.  i can't sit still and accept the good coming my way, i always have to look for what's next, and assume there is something negative in a positive situation, or that something bad will immediately happen after something good does.  harry has his own problems, but i think of the two of us i need to sit down with a therapist and just talk.  just to have a neutral party to work through all this shit with me.  the weekend ended nicely.  we had a practically free dinner, which was nice, and our faith in each other and the relationship was restored.

HOWEVER, this friday i went thrifting with some ladies from the costume shop.  i got five new dresses and my (spectacular) costume for the party.  i also found a little gem of blue, puffy ridiculousness.  my explanations are far beyond me at this point.  i think if you had the $3 to spend on this thing, you would have too.  we also went to a vintage store, where harrison tried on a pair of sparkly, tight, red pants. 

i promise there will be a picture post later.

harry brought me some nag champa oils and a burner, so my room smells wonderful.  mmmm.......hippie smells.
 

i'm going to a costume party next week, and we were told to dress up as our favorite movie characters.  here is who have so far:

-  Marla Singer (fight club)
-  amelie (amelie)
-  holly golightly (breakfast at tiffany's)
-  dorothy (bite me, i have the shoes)
-  mary (there's something about mary)
-  gina (empire records)
-  lola (run lola run)
-  princess leia (star wars, dumbfucks)
-  willie scott (indiana jones and the temple of doom)
-  mia wallace (pulp fiction)
-  corey (empire records)

i already have two votes for marla. 

if i missed anyone, let me know.

i'm also thinking of going as a stewardess, and chucking rubber snakes at drunk people.  that would be awesome.

so i came to the conclusion that i left sudbury months and months ago.  i'd say i checked out emotionally around november of last year.  i feel like i've judged some people too harshly and overlooked a lot of character traits in some good people, just because i was so anxious to leave, and begin my separation early.  it was never conscious but it certainly was present, and if i've hurt you in any way over the past months, i'm sorry.

i took a kick - boxing class with my roomates tonight.  it beat the living hell out of me.  i wondered how i would go about getting certified for a yoga class, so i asked the teacher.  he spent the ENTIRE duration of our conversation staring at my chest, and basically told me that my style of yoga is bad for me.  that i'll have a stroke from all the heat and my joints will be too lose.  i may have been a little more cordial to him if he did not make eye contact with my face once, but i basically told him the truth, that my doctor reccomended me to take this kind of yoga, and if it's only offered once a week, it won't exactly give them a brain hemmorage. i don't really know what got me so angry, but i really just wanted to hit him right then! ugh!

i find that a fair number of people around here are legitimately stupid.  that they prefer re-runs of bad sitcoms to media that will make them think, that not a single part of their exterior is natural, and they intentionally pick majors and take classes that will give them the least work imaginable.  i realized this when i was doing my invisible theatre project, which in some way involved people wearing nametags.  i asked a kid to help us out.  he said "i fucking hate you faggots...hah! just kidding!"  he signed the nametag, while mumbling "what kind of gay - ass first year shit is this anyway, i can't believe i'm doing this."  it finally hit me when he said he was a psychology major.......the most rude, uncompassionate person i had met all day was studying the human brain and general path of emotions...........because it's easy.  i fear that people like this are the ones taking my checks and giving me advice.

there are very few times where i wish i was back home.  the reasons why always lead me back to the open minds of the people i lived and grew up with.  i can feed myself, do laundry, do homework, and make friends a lot better than at home, but it frightens and saddens me when i see that in a school with 46,000 kids, a large majority are wasting their lives and don't know it.  i've heard the arguments before, that if they're doing what they want they aren't really wasting their lives, that it doesn't effect me, that at least they're going to school.  well, it does effect me.  it effects the whole world if this university is churning out degrees to people who barely studied the whole time, who had the information at their fingertips.  these are the people i will be paying to defend me in court, or book my hotel rooms.  they are also the people who will waste their resources, and will drive the world straight to hell in the next fifty years.  i will hopefully either be teaching their children, or performing for them, and i know that for that portion of students, i will have studied a lot harder than they did, always with the goal of making everyone else's world just a little bit better.  my major is incredibly different than the tracks that everyone else takes, but i think the answer lies in individual attention.  i think that's a big part of the problem.

this is NOT to say i haven't met a large number of kids who keep an open mind and turn the lights off when they leave a room.  i've met those kids too.  they feel the same way, and they're trying to be a part of the solution as much as i am.  there are so many groups on campus that really focus on social and environmental causes, and it's relieving to know that NORML is the largest group on campus.  i've joined five or six groups, but i've been too busy to make meetings.  i sit and debate with the club recruiters in the student union almost every day.

i've made incredible friends, and i'm so glad for it.  there is sincere love between the other BFA acting majors.  it's like a cast that never fights in a show that never ends.  we all love each other like brothers and sisters.  it's a bond that you can't make on the streets.  it's a bond that will keep me in this profession until the day i die. 

i realize how judgemental this all was of me.  please forgive me.  i don't know how it benefitted me in any way to dump this onto the internet, but somehow i feel a little more clean on the inside.  i don't judge anyone personally anymore, not even the kid that called us "faggots."  it's refreshing, but i don't think i could have made that leap in high school.  i would have been burned far too quickly.

i'll see you all on the other side.  enjoy these last years for what they're worth.

today, i talked down a bible thumper.  this guy came to our school wearing a "come to jesus or burn" t-shirt.  people were crowded around him, making fun of him and just trying to rile him up.  he was calling women whores and sluts, and calling the guys whore - mongers and fags......so i went up to him, let him call me a whore for a while until i convinced him that i am not a whore or a blasphemer, and that i had a few honest questions for him.  i asked him how he thought his message would reach us if calling us whores and whore - mongers is obviously deterring us from his message.  he gave me this rant about people seeing the devil in themselves and not wanting to accept that and all this shit.  he ranted about jesus creating an angry chaotic stir that brought about peace and love to those who believed and all that shit.  my response was basically "look around you! it's 2000 years after jesus's death, and the fear of god is gone!  approach us with compassion and an answer as to how to make our lives better, who cares whether or not we believe in god or jesus, shouldn't your goal be to get everyone to be a little more peaceful and understanding?  we'll listen if you show that you really do care about how our lives will turn out."  his response was actually "give me a minute to collect my thoughts."  by that point people were clapping for me.  i handed him a slip of paper with andrew cohen's website on it, and said "this is a way to reach people.  keep an open mind if you can."  it was an experience i would have NEVER had if i went to a school in the north.  i made my fucking day.

two people were very highly scolded today, and were all but put on probation.  i felt awful for them.  later today i went to a hip hop class, and hopefully jiggled some fat away.  my friend AC was teaching it.  mmm mmm mmm can black boys dance.  our gym is beautiful.  there are floors and floors of machines, basketball courts, tennis courts, raquetball courts, dance halls and yoga rooms.....there's even a subway.  i'm going almost every night now to work out.  that is if i can get rides.  it's wicked sketchy biking around campus at night. 

so before bed, i have to:
-  finish my action analysis for lysistrata
-  make flashcards for chapter 3
-  read chapter 7 in lessac
-  be awesome


hope everyone has a fabulous week!

harry just left, and i am lonely.

there are a lot of people at this school.  there are a few people in the theatre department, and there are only twelve people in my class.  there are three people in my apartment, and around 60 on my floor.  i still haven't met anyone that i feel like i can really confide in, share dirty stories with, or listen to their hardships.  there are lots of people who i could be that close with, but i am just so incredibly busy, i don't have time to hang out outside of class.  i'm only lonely because i feel like i should have met people by now.  i really don't need to though.  i'm just fine on my own.  i'd much rather do the work.  it's just as rewarding.

last week, jj (my professor) forced me through a window.  i was saying a monologue to a girl in my class, and he came over and told us exactly how we were fucking up.  i was almost in tears, because he was so harsh, and because he said stuff that i had heard months and MONTHS ago, and thought i had already worked out.  after class, i asked him what else i can do.  he told everyone to leave the room.  he told me to grab a chair.  he sat six inches from my face, and made me speak the first word of my monologue.  every time, he'd ask me a new question.  generally after i said the word, he would say "no!" and ask me another question.  there was one glimmering moment, where i got it right.  where i finally connected my thoughts to my emotions, and didn't weight it with an air of drama or performance.  he told me it was the most significant experience i've had so far in his class.  he also told me that i have all the ability in the world.  he said that if he complimented me, it wasn't because he felt i needed it, it's because he has confidence in me and wants me to know that i've got it.  i smiled and nodded, but i didn't thank him.  at that juncture, i felt that it would be wrong to let him believe i was going to him to get the praise of a teacher, or that i was sucking up.  i didn't want him thinking i'm just there because someone told me i was good and i'm just feeding my ego.  i figure the best way to thank him is when i feel like i've fixed whatever was broken, and i feel confident enough to verbalize my grattitude......let's just hope he doesn't think i'm an ungrateful little bitch now.

how's everyone doing at school?  or at college, if i haven't spoken to you?  i miss you guys!  i want you all to sleep in my room and walk me to classes and cook with me!  i hope all is splendid.

so i spent $150 on sunglasses today......i kind of want to tease you all, thinking about how much i've spent on hats and mittens and big puffy jackets that make us all look like the michelin man...all i need is an umbrella and a pair of sunglasses.  both of my items are beautiful. 

i know you must all think that my campus must be some tacky offspring of disneyworld, but really i've had to look for the obscenely brightly colored buildings.  i honestly think my building is the closest to tacky the campus has to offer, and really, there are only three colors of paint on it.  i love my building.  it's cheerful.  the other buildings are very artfully sculpted, often with a student made piece of artwork on the front lawn.  the greek houses are beautiful, as are the main buildings like the student union and the gym.  i can't really find much here that makes me cringe every time i see it.  so feel free to visit!

i spent my scholarship work time watching the designer for Noises Off's two year old son.  his  name is ian, and he has bright red hair.  we spent the whole time watching Toy Story and playing with plastic buzz lightyear and woody dolls (although he made me call them ACTION FIGURES).  i showed him the geckos outside the theatre building and we ate teddy grahams, and recited everyone in the building's name.  it was such a blast, but at the same time, it struck me that i may never have children.  i don't play with little kids very often, so my experiences are few and far between, but it just really rubbed me the wrong way to think that maybe harry and i won't get married.  maybe i won't be with anyone by the time i'm 25, and i'll miss my ever shortening window of opportunity in which to have kids.  maybe life will be better for me without kids, but it certainly won't be as joyful. 

i'm devouring plays left and right.  i just read The Glass Menagerie.  next is Hedda Gabler, then The Lion in Winter, and once i decide to pay for it, Chekov's complete works.  i enjoy the work i'm assigned so much i feel like i'm done before i've started. 

i'm baking cookies.  i must retrieve my cookie sheet from the oven.  i wish you could all come over for cookies and milk, but i don't think an $100 plane ticket is worth a cookie.

maybe you all can help me....for my semester's assignment for movement and theatre survey, i have been told to kill both the editor and the cynic in my head, as well as "fuck judgement" (direct quote from mr. ruscella).  this proves to be incredibly difficult when i know my friends are very cynical about my actions and judge everything i say directly and indirectly to them.  i understand that it may be hard for some of you, especially those of you who live in sudbury still, but for my sake, when we are conversing, know that i will be exposing more of myself than usual and i hope you will avoid harsh judgement so that i can continue being this open. 

thanks.  hope everyone had a good labor day.

this issue has been bugging me for a few days, and then i discovered that my inner monologue on the issue applies to many, many people.

 i don't understand how you, of all people can be so hurtful.  it really makes me sad to look back on all the times that i believed were some the only times i ever felt real friendship, and to realize how much you have judged me.  i'm not stupid, or flaky.  i'm not unrealistic or demanding, and a try as hard as possible to avoid self - righteousness.  i'm not even close to being the loud - mouthed, haughty diva that i painted myself to be.  it was just easy.  it was easier to show that i had minor amounts of sensibility and compassion to people like you, rather than admit that my friends didn't really love me.  i don't know if it's college, or that fate has set a particular course for me to land in a nest of wonderful people, but i see you in an entirely different light now.  i want to still love you.  i do i really do, but if absolute strangers are more enthusiastic about finding out who i really am, and share their lives with me for hours upon hours, then what were we?  what were all those times where we shared our hardships, if you judge me whenever we tried to enjoy ourselves?  did you ever once care about the things we enjoyed together, or the places we went?  i don't want to believe it was all a farse, but looking back, it was obvious that you loved me out of necessity and tolerated me otherwise.

i don't want to see any comments singing my praises or cow-towing to me.  even if you know who you are and are genuinely sorry, what does it say about you if you only discover now how you're treating me (and probably others) after i've said something?  what is an appology, if you're only going through the motions because you got caught?  how could you respect yourself?

for everyone else, the poor little squirrel friend was so cold and small....he could barely eat.  i lent amy's sister my heating pad and a box, so that when she and her boyfriend went to work, the little dude would still be safe and warm.  it kept twitching and falling asleep.  i don't think he'll make it very long.  it nearly ruined my day.

voice class is excellent.  there is nothing better than starting your day off with stretches and warming up your throat and mouth resonators.  the interactions you have with people after a full warm - up, especially those in your classes is absolutely enlightening.  i feel like i'm at an emotional rehabilitation center.  that i'm fixing all the misery and abuse i dealt with in public school.  i think one girl got kicked out today.....which is sad, but if she isn't being responsible then it will make it extremely hard for the rest of us to be an ensemble.  i also can't believe that every single morning she wakes up to a new disaster that prevents her from getting to class on time.  she's a really sweet girl though, and she seems to really enjoy and commit to whatever exercize we're doing.  i am really worried, i hope she is okay.

hopefully by the end of the week, i will have gotten a fish of some sort.  i have an empty glass milk bottle next to my stereo that is looking for a resident.  i am having such a hard time surviving without my pets.  whenever i call my mom i hear the dogs barking on the phone, and it makes me really sad. i'm missing my friends a lot too.  i'm making great new friends from all walks of life, but it upsets me to think of everyone who is waiting back in sudbury to break off and join the rest of the world.  it breaks my heart to think of all my friends still in high school who are ready and eager to get away from public education.   

the good news of the week is that on top of my in - state tuition and scholarships, the university is giving me $4642.  i am essentially going to college for free this semester.  although in order to get the money, i have to earn it.  i have to maintain a certain (easy low) GPA, and do work for the department four hours a week.  it's not too bad, especially since i got assigned to the costume shop.  i'm going to get to design, sew, find, size, and perfect the costumes for the shows this semester,....SO much fun!

tonight, my roomates and i went out to the cheesecake factory.  it was nice and comfortable.  it's starting to feel like a family.   i'm really going to love living with these girls.  tomorrow, harry is coming over for the weekend.  i can't ask for much more out of life right now.  i'm finally happy.  i know i keep ending each post like this, but realize it's more than just an announcement about my current standing with life.  i'm really just trying on the phrase for size.  it feels odd to say and think about.

i cook more than i ever cooked at home.  even though sometimes i come home looking for a snack, or really pig out after a movement class, i walk and run and bike so much that i'm losing weight.

not to brag, but i have a butt to be proud of now.