Candyland

I got to rehearsal tonight and the girls from the costuming department were chatting. We've formed a bit of a backstage bond these last few days, built mostly around the fact that we aren't in the show, can't see the show, and as soon as the lights go up we aren't allowed to talk. Yay! At any rate, they had to run to the costume shop where we keep the show's wardrobe during the day, so I decided to tag along. They opened the door and I just about hyperventalated! Fabric! Trim! Mock ups, corsets, dress forms, aprons, bonnets, glasses, tights!!! Anything and everything you could possibly want to put in a well outfitted closet. Go figure. There was another door that led into the room where they keep the accessories. I tried on a few hats and constrained myself from rifling through the buttons. Oh my goodness! I absolutely MUST take a costuming class before I leave! I'm pretty sure if I had been all alone and could have gotten away with it without rammification I would have opened all the boxes, dumped the contents on the floor in a big pile and just rolled in it for about a week.

Too much?

..........yeah. Deal with it.

Looks like a dinosaur if you ask me....

Here's a picture I drew in voice and speech class today before the teacher came in. I swear it looked more like a hippo than it does here, although I really should have drawn little ears on his head. Oh well. Anyhow, I remember when I took this picture I totally thought to myself, 'This is so not my blog picture today. I have a lot going on and I'm sure to take more...' Yeah. Guess what? I had TOO much going on. I ended up being so busy that I forgot my camera existed, which is not something I tend to do. Ever. Either way school passed pretty quickly and I came home after classes, had an early dinner with the family and went right back to the school for the rehearsal. I left as soon as makeup was done to get to Anomaly Orange rehearsal, but I showed up halfway through it and didn't feel I did anything close to my best work. While fun, it was a bit of a letdown. I was so pumped for rehearsal this evening, too. Kinda made the whole day seem anticlimactic. Oh well, there's always tomorrow.

One fifty

I had to be at the theater at six this evening, and I had German today which gets out at three thirty. If I drove home I'd have gotten there a little after four and I would have had to have turned around and gone right back at 5:30. Jason has Mondays off so the girls weren't an issue. I asked him if I should just stay on campus or if he thought I should just suck up the gas money and time and come home in the interim. He said, "Well........Yeah, just save your gas." Okay then. Three thirty to six. Free time. Something I don't do well.

One hundred and fifty minutes.

3:30-3:32pm Walk downstairs and choose a chair grouping.

3:33-4:04pm Catch up on Facebook and e-mail

4:05-4:12pm Hey, I have a full punch card! *attain large nonfat mocha*

4:13-4:14pm Decide to walk to on-campus art museum

4:15pm I now know on-campus art museum is closed on Mondays. Great.

4:16-4:42pm Alternately study and take amusing pictures of myself studying. People watch.

4:43-4:56pm Go for a long, aimless walk on campus

4:57pm Hey........I wonder what's in the gym?

4:58pm I don't belong in the gym. Stick to theater.

4:59-5:14pm More aimless walking brings me to the art department. Cool! Art! Shiny! More pictures are taken. Maybe I should take an art class?

5:15-5:17pm Walk to Student Center

5:18-5:27pm Walk around bookstore, examine EVERYTHING.

5:28pm Prove to guy at register that I didn't steal anything.

5:29-5:46pm Decide to cut my losses and chill at Bench City, my affectionate name for my usual study spot.

5:47-5:51pm Walk out to car, way out in the parking lot

5:52-5:56pm Drive car from way way back lot to front part of campus near theater.

5:57-6:00pm Aw why not. I'm here early! Let's make noses less shiny!

But nothing happens every time I try

I remember vividly the day I first learned how to ride a bike. It was a slightly chilly late October day in California, and I was in sixth grade. (Yes, sixth, shut up, this is my story!) You may be asking yourself, "Why didn't she learn how to ride a bike previous to the NOT SO SHOCKINGLY LATE IN LIFE sixth grade?" It's very simple. I had roller skates. In the eighties, that was all I felt like I needed. Seriously, I never had a real desire to learn how to ride a bike, it seemed needlessly complicated when I could just strap the wheels on my feet and go. Back to the October day. It was a Sunday and I was bored out of my mind. Sundays my mom would take naps and my dad would watch football, and we were basically not allowed to talk. I didn't have any friends within walking distance at that house, so I thought to myself, 'You know what? I think I'm going to learn how to ride a bike.' I went into the backyard and got the bike out of the garage. My parents had given it to me MANY Christmases ago in the hopes that I would learn to use it. The day had finally come. I walked the bike to the street (Our driveway went to an alley. Too scary.) kicked my leg over the side and stood upright for a second before breathing a 'here goes nothing' sigh and nudging the kickstand into the point of no return position. I wobbled for a bit, the bike teetering precariously this way and that until I found my balance and started to pedal. I started slow then gradually increased the speed. Like I said, it was a late October day. Our house was near the high school, and I like to think it was a surly teenager that left pumpkin bits on our street. I gleefully made figure eights around the orange slime for an hour before walking the bike back to the garage, chest held high. (note, it was only a few months after that that I felt confident enough to do something stupid on the bike and broke my arm. It's how I roll. And crash.)

So yeah, today was kinda like that. Warmer, yes, and there were no pumpkin bits to speak of, but Brianna is going through the 'I don't want/need to learn how to ride my bike' phase. Leigha and I were going around her while Jason walked her down the block. No, she didn't learn today, and she's five so it's age appropriate that she can't yet (again, shut up.) but I couldn't help but think back to that day. Later tonight I was at my school helping with the musical (crew week starts NOW!) and when we got out I skipped to my car, rolled down the windows and blasted 'Defying Gravity' from Wicked. I left the windows down while doing seventy miles an hour down the highway and singing along at the top of my lungs. It's kinda like that.

Improvtasticness

Tonight there were a couple shows at the Imp and Tom decided to use it as his 'official' birthday party, so Jason and I took the girls to the 7 o clock show at the Imp, where the Saturday class shows were happening. Tom and Jen are both part of the Saturday classes so they were both there, and Tom's whole family showed up to help celebrate his birthday. I already knew his sister Julia, but tonight I also got to meet Gloria and we became instant best buddies. Like, srsly. It was a really good night and I had a ton of fun!

I'm on a FLOAT!

First off, I'd like to give a shoutout to two of my very favorite people in the world, Tom and Zak. Why? It's their birthday! For the record, guys, I think it's super cute that you arranged it that way. Happy birthday you two! Anyhow, today was the homecoming parade for our school district, and both my girls are brand new girl scouts (I'll put up pictures when we get their uniformey thingies) so they got to go with their troupes in the parade. Here they both are on the float that Leigha's troupe made. Bri's didn't have time to make a float so her group walked in the parade. A brownie commented on the matter, saying, "Oh! How sad, the little ones have to walk!" A couple of the kidlings were saying their feet hurt before we even left the starting position! Fortunately, the parade route was incredibly short.

Yup, it's that kind of day.

Tonight we had a dinner to talk about the festival. What went well, what didn't work, what we can improve on for next year, etc. We had one of these last year, but it ended up being in December and nobody talked about festival at all. Awesome. This year the whole council (plus Tom and Jamie) showed up to discuss what we'd heard from others (none of the troupe reps could make it) and what we personally thought. It wasn't all bad, but it wasn't all sunshine and roses, either. No matter how you slice it, though, I think next year will be an improvement on this year because we'll all know what we're doing. Experience, yay!