Home?

I'm back in New York now. Today my producer called me and asked if I was "home" yet. That gave me pause. Because technically, this is home. This is where my stuff is kept. Where my mail gets sent. Where my driver's license was issued. Where my bank is located. Where a big chunk of my friends live. That's home right?

My Great American Road Trip 2011 was a lot of fun, but sometimes, nostalgia is a bitch. Highlights:
-I went and visited Jason in Indiana again. He's a good half way point between the East and the Midwest. It was all familiar and fun. TV. Beer. Some good natured Apple vs. the rest of the world banter.
-Next stop was La Crosse. It was pretty good. The friends part was great. Recov and Spotted Cow. Great. The professors-judging-my-life part...not as fun. To be expected I guess.
-Des Moines was almost great. Almost ran into the last person I wanted to see at the farmer's market. Thank god for Jenny and Tyler. As usual. And maaaaaybe I should have told my mother.
-Chicago was fun. Meg and I are pathetic though and don't bother going out when we visit each other though. The Thai food by N Sheridan was great, incidentally.

Regardless of my deep thoughts, I'm glad to be back. I've seen a few friends. Got some pho. Anxious to move into my new place. And I get to monitor some auditions this afternoon.

I still heart New York.

Christmastime Approaches!

I just got back from an overnight in Maryland. I'm running performances of "A Christmas Carol" with the Sundog Theatre. It's an interesting thing. When I did FoodPlay, everything was very specifically laid out. I had very little set up and there weren't many outside factors to worry about. If we had a table and a chair and a power outlet, we were good to go. Not so with this show. I have wireless mics and a sound board I bring, but I need to use the venue's system and I have to try to put together some semblance of lights. That's new. I've got a pretty good group of people though. I think I might even stay friends with a few after this is all over next week.

It's funny how with just a small show and a simple day job with steady hours, I'm crazy busy and feel way behind. I guess that means my life is going well and I'm in a good place, right? Let's try to stay on the positive, for once. And...go!

I'm going to spend Christmas with friends in Hershey, PA. It's my first year not going to Iowa for Christmas. It's a tough thing...I don't want to go there, but it seems so taboo to not go home for the holidays. I keep getting pity and I don't want that. I made a choice. It is the right choice for me. I'm going to spend more time with people who will make me happier and I will only have spent $55 on bus tickets versus $400+ on airfare.

10 days til Christmas folks...are you ready?

Worst Blogger Ever (or, an Octoberly update)

It's November...surprise! It's starting off pretty well. Highlights of October:

-Hung out a LOT with friend AraBella. We painted her room, ate a ton of Pinkberry, and made a few trips to Home Depot.

-Finished up the run of TESS: A New Rock Opera. (I was a Production Assistant, if you remember.) It was lots of fun and I was really sad to have missed the last performance, which was an added performance, because I was in Iowa.-Went to the best wedding ever in Minnesota. My good friends from college got married in an "Up" themed wedding and I flew across the country to go.

-Fetched my furniture and other miscellaneous possessions from Iowa and journeyed them cross-country to NYC. Now I feel vaguely trapped, but I like hanging things on the walls.

-Saw "A Life in the Theatre" (twice), "American Idiot", and "The Scottsboro Boys".

-Made a website for my SM side of life. Updated the Etsy site. Ordered some business cards. Y'know...in 48 hours.

-Went to the Great FoodPlay Reunion of 2010 (sans one Carlton Hall) and had a great time. You know it's a good night when a 4 hour dinner goes by like nothin'.

-Had SEVERAL random "small world" run ins all over the city. The guy from UCF who was at TESS strike, the former TSF co-worker who lives downstairs, and the girl at callbacks who is from Des Moines...to name a few.

-And one of the best parts: a surprise visit to Hershey! I tagged along and surprised some of my Chocolate Town favorites. Spent Halloween with them and even got to look for Sasquatch at the zoo.

So...November. It's shaping up rather well. My new show had callbacks yesterday so we should have a cast...like now. Rehearsals start soonly. Started a day job. Made an Etsy sale. Got together with some college friends, one of whom is visiting on his latest epic road trip. Of course, it's only a week in. Anything can happen. And I'm ready.

Moving Day...Again

I'm moving again! Biiiiiig surprise. But this time I am only moving 4 hours from my current location...not 18-20 like normal. In my usual spontaneous way, I decided about 13 days ago to move to NYC. I actually have roommates and a place and some semblance of a plan. Wacky, I know. I figure, it's only the second most crazy thing I've ever done, so it can't be that bad, right? Plus, when you decide to move to NYC and have roommates and keys to an apartment within 72 hours, you should just do it. (Don't worry...I know who I'm living with and I did not send any money to a stranger promising me things.)

I'm packing the apartment, a little glad I'm the last one to leave this year. I had to run out of town so fast last year that I was all stressed packing while I was working. This time I've been a (little too) leisurely about it, but I'm not planning on leaving until tomorrow morning so it's all good. Today's weather makes me glad I'm not trying to drive into the city and unload a car anyhow.

The end of the season was as expected. Harder on some than others. If you look really closely, you can tell who was feelin' the end of season blues, but for the most part, my kids were okay. We had a great last couple days (despite the two giant holes that ended up in my set the LAST DAY) and since 75% of us are moving/planning to move to the city by 2011, it's not like we'll never see each other again.

Crystal Sneakers 2010 Original Cast. Thanks for the summer of insanity. Smiley face.

A Week in the Life

So here we are. A new blog. Sounds exciting. This blog is partially so friends can keep up with me, though things like Facebook and text messages do a decent job of that. This is also partially to show off my knitting prowess and culinary skills. I considered a specialized blog for the knitting and the food and decided that while the knitting one may still happen, I don't cook enough for an entire food related blog. Essentially, this blog is going to be real random, but all me. Cliche, right? Too bad. My blog, my randomosity. (Warning: I apologize in advance for the scatter-brained-ness of this post.)

I just finished one of those 1000 mile, multiple-day-long road trips. I say "one of those" because this is the sixth I've been on since 2008. This time it was Iowa to Pennsylvania. Thankfully I have friends dispersed around the country and they let me crash on couches and in spare rooms. It's normally an 18 hour trip and at one point I could have done it in 2 days, but I am too old to do that sort of thing anymore. I get sick of my own company after a while and there are only so many times you can listen to the Harry Potter 7 audio book (which is, incidentally, 21 hours long). Here's what I did this time 'round.

Tuesday: I left Iowa at an easy mid-day time. I met up with the FoodPlay National Troupe in Watseka, IL and got some quality hanging out time with Carlton and even better than that...

Wednesday: I got to see a performance! It was a lot of fun to see the set-up, warm-up, and show as a regular, non-troupe member. After the show, which was somewhere between pretty good and great in my opinion, I drove a leisurely hour to West Lafayette, IN where I was entertained by a friend I met at the Texas Shakespeare Festival back in 2007. Oddly for a theatre person, most of his friends are NOT theatre people. They were pretty awesome though. A good time was had. There were beers, $1.50 wells, and maybe a phone call or four.

Thursday: It was on to Columbus, OH to stay with a friend from high school. She pulled out a bunch of yearbooks and it was crazy to remember things from an entire decade ago. Then I felt really old.

Friday: The last leg took me across the rest of Ohio and the western half of Pennsylvania to lovely Hershey, PA. After only 2 hours in town, friends stopped by with my ticket to the Hershey Bears game and we set off for dinner. My first hockey game was awesome. Bears won, 3-2. Karyn then had the less awesome idea to trek from the Giant Center across the extensive parking lots to a bar on the other side of the park. Her theory was we'd get there before those who had to fight the 10,000 people leaving the game. It would have been great if not for the rain that plagued us. By the time we got there we were soaked through. Great time though. As Lydia put it, we are now "intrepid". Really? I thought I was just cold.

So that brings me to today. There was some grocery shopping, a little more unpacking, and the best part: a little bit of lunch-having. I created a pasta dish: whole wheat penne with canned diced tomatoes, asparagus steamed with garlic and basil, and a little extra-virgin olive oil, black pepper, and red pepper flakes. Super easy, super tasty. I'm on a healthy cooking kick. It's too easy in this kind of environment to go out to eat with people all the time. It gets pretty costly AND not always healthy. So there's a goal. Work on that. Easier said than done. I have a friend coming back this year who does horrendous things to my diet. So many indulgences...

I'm back at Hersheypark for the summer, stage managing two shows and (hopefully) having another fantastic summer here in Chocolate Town. Even though I am REALLY going to miss my cast and crew from last summer, I think we've got some good things in store. There are several people returning, a few friends of friends, and lots of new folks. That's one thing I really love about the nomadic theatre thing. I meet more people at each new job than I ever could in another career.

Also, there are sea lions in one of my shows this year. Does your job have sea lions? I didn't think so.

(Photos from top: I-65 in Indiana, the FoodPlay performers juggling around their stage manager, the "intrepid" and thoroughly soaked group at Parkside, penne with olive oil and asparagus, some of the cast and crew from "Beyond the Dragon Gate" 2009.)