You Are 50% Normal

While some of your behavior is quite normal... Other things you do are downright strange You've got a little of your freak going on But you mostly keep your weirdness to yourself

How Normal Are You?

Must learn to say "NO"

We auditioned on Saturday from 10am to 5:30pm with a short break around lunchtime. We have more auditions tonight from 7pm to 10pm. We have callbacks Wednesday night from 7pm to 10pm. We have our first read through Sunday starting at 6pm.

I'm already tired.

Why did I say yes?

I liked the director and the costumer (both of whom I've worked with on other shows) and it was at a new theatre and it was a musical and all of those things together made it sound interesting and challenging and fun. As the time drew near it was sounding less and less attractive. I got to the "oh-wait-this-is-going-to-be-a-freaking-lot-of-time-and-work" point and have been dreading it ever since.

I thought about telling a lie to get out of it. I was good at that as a child but find I can't do it very much anymore. It just feels cowardly and wrong. I thought about telling the truth but found I couldn't after so long, I accepted during the first week of November.

It seems to bother me less while I'm with the production team so I'll probably get out of this "I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS" funk.

I think this will be the last show I stage manage though, at least for a couple of years.

For the next four months though I should focus on...

• the people I'll be working with


• a new and bigger theatre (with an actual fly gallery), house manager, backstage crew, proper office facilities, etc.


• the show should be fun (it's light-hearted and fluffy, "Meet Me in St. Louis")


• though nerve-wracking when it comes close to show time, the intricacies of the set should be a fun challenge (we will have a trolley, when it's time to sing Clang, clang, clang went the trolley...)

It'll be ok, perhaps fun even.

Next time I'll just say no.

Sad

Following a relatively good night when Sanjaya was finally kicked off of American Idol (I'm sure he's a nice kid and all but he had no business being in the competition at this point) I'm feeling a malaise.

Ok it has nothing to do with American Idol, I just thought that would be a funny lead in, and not make the rest of this sound as morose as it does.

I realized this morning that I graduated from college 10 years ago. MY. FUCKING. GOD. Was I asleep? Where did it go?

I'm not old but then I'm not particularly young either. So I'm mourning the death of my youth. Youth is so fleeting, as is time in general these days. Here it is already Thursday and I could swear the week just started. The week? How about the year? I'll be nearing retirement pretty soon at this rate.

What is it about nice round numbers that cause us all to take stock? 10 years. Do they get any rounder than that?

I'm not happy.

I'm not content.

I'm not happy about what I do, where I am, or the direction my life has taken. But then, I don't know if I have it in my nature to be content, let alone happy. I'm happy about aspects of my life but happiness in general, I don't think I've ever known such a beast. I feel like I'm always waiting for something or looking back towards something else. It's never now, which I suppose is why the time passed unnoticed.

None of this is new. I suppose everyone feels like this at some point, except my husband, the pod person.

My apologies, Kimberly Saunders, wherever you are.

I was wrong. I freely admit it. Granted you'll probably never read this since we lost touch when I left Simon & Schuster and indeed New York city several years ago. Nevertheless, you were right, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a really freaking great show. I poo-pooed you at the time. I judged without knowing and I was wrong. There, I've said it.

My friend Dana has forced this show upon me and I cannot be more grateful. I didn't get her enthusiasm at first. The first two seasons are "cute" and little more. It's season three where it hits it's stride and you really start to care and get into it. At least that is how it worked for me. It's a cleverly written show with a cast of funny, interesting characters who make up for the pouty self-involved heroine.

Granted Buffy has a lot to be self-involved about but her teenage insecurities were enough to make me want to bitch-slap her at times, not to mention her pouty, depressing soul-posessed vampire boyfriend, Angel.

From season three on it just seems to get better and better. And now (in season 6) my ridiculously romantic nature is being pampered by the delicious character of Spike. Ahh Spike, what a guy ...er vampire. He's so much better than Angel and I mean that in every way. Let us examine...

Angel vs. Spike

In Life
Angel was basically an alcoholic man-slut.
Spike was a sweet-natured, unappreciated guy who wrote bad love poems.

In Death
Angel (or Angelus) was a right bastard. Obviously he needed to feast upon humans given his vampire status but he went one step further, preferring to torture people. He was so bad that a gypsy tribe placed a curse on him so that he would regain his soul and remember all of the terrible things he did. Only then does he become a good guy. The second he looses his soul, he's a completely evil bastard again.

Spike on the other hand considers himself "the big bad," but in truth is not. He feasts upon humans (until the initiative and the chip) but doesn't torture them. He's a bit ambitious with the rest of the vampires but not ruthlessly so. Despite his vampyric state when we first meet him he's already in love with another vampire, later on falling to pieces when she leaves him. Seasons later he ends up (very reluctantly) falling hopelessly in love with Buffy and remains loyal to Buffy and the Scooby gang, and all this WITHOUT A SOUL. He doesn't need a soul to be a good guy, to have a heart. Favorite quote, "I may be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it."

In Asthetics
Angel is played by David Boreanaz who I'm sure is a lovely person but he's not a great actor. He does improve from those awful first episodes of the series but he's just not that great. I haven't watched any episodes of Angel or his current series Bones perhaps he got much better. Oh but his Irish accent (from his life scenes) is embarassing.

Spike is played by James Marsters who is a really good actor (funny as hell) or at least he's really convincing as Spike as I haven't seen him in anything else. Also I was shocked to find recently that he's a Californian. I though he, like Spike, was British.

Let's face it, Angel is boring. His sweetness is ingenuine and fleeting and he's depressing as hell. Spike is sarcastic and funny and sweet and loyal. Yay Spike!

Ok this turned into a love letter to Spike but his story line has become the most interesting of all and is so romantic! I just love that shit! The show wouldn't be nearly as interesting without Giles and Willow and yes even Xander. Once again the supporting cast is much more interesting than the heroine.

We ended our recent Buffython at the end of the Musical episode (which is fantastic, especially the ending). Dana wouldn't leave the disks with me though. Some friend, she doesn't trust that I'd wait until we were together again to watch more.

She was right.

Hrmph!

I'm annoyed by eBlogger's composition tool. It's hard when you introduce photos because they never end up where you place them.

Case in point, my last post about the web photo searches. I look at the post at home on our Mac and it's all jumbled. Pictures all over the place with the wrong explanations next to them. I fixed it here but who knows what it will look like from a PC.

So sorry about that last post if your picture is not next to your name. I try to keep things pretty annonymous anyway.

Net photos -UPDATED

Have you ever gone onto Yahoo or Google and searched for images of people you know? Try it! Just go to either of those search engines and instead of searching the "web" search for "images." Put in the names of everyone you know.

I did this today. I found pictures for about 8% of the names I put in, but here's what I found.

Family
Alas, none. None of my family, none of my husband's family either.
Holy Crap! Victoria is right, there are pictures I missed. I think the problem was that I started searching on Yahoo first (and started with family first) then moved over to Google later on but didn't research the names I'd already done with Yahoo). I think Google is probably a better search engine. And I'm not just sucking up because eBlogger is powered by Google. Still none of my family but I did find...

Monica & Hal (mum & dad-in-law)







Nat (sis-in-law)



Brian (soon-to-be husband's bro-in-law) I'm ashamed to admit, I forgot to search for his name. Forgive me! I forgot to search for my uncle too if that is any comfort.







Friends

Brandon (pal o' mine from high school)








Mark (ditto)








Rebekah (from College- we've lost touch but I see she's still doing shows, at least that's what I hope this is!)











This sexy lady is my friend, Dana. Yes, that's her on the cover of DVD of "Princess Warrior" (she's the "evil" one in black).




















And here's my pal, David (Dana's main man) looking cute in his own right if not a bit pixelated.








Former Teachers
I didn't look for everyone but did find...


Bill (high school teacher) I can call him Bill because we remained friends.






Mr. V! (junior high school teacher and basket ball coach) Oh and I had a pretty big crush on him too.






Previous Coworkers
None. :( Bull crap! Damn, that Yahoo! I found more on Google!


Dave (former bossman)





Anna & Roksolana (receiving an award I should have received, since I headed up the project but left before we received the award, eh I love 'em anyway)



Current Coworkers
Hah, found one of Olivia...











Me!
Hey, even I'm on the web! Here's an ancient (12 years old) picture of Rick and myself. Of course I'm only on as an appendage to Rick.







Speaking of my husband, behold my greatest find of this adventure....
Yes, this mop-topped creature is my husband. He's sitting in our living room in our New York apartment probably about 6 years ago. He's sitting in front of an "A" because the picture was taken as a project for his Grandmother. I think each family member took a picture with a letter and it was put together to spell something. I don't remember what at present.

The hair is great! Oh my god! I nearly spit my coffee all over myself when I saw this picture. There are a lot of pictures of him on the web but I had never seen this one on the web.


This is what he looks like these days. Such a cute, baby-face!