So so so SO, the Fringe Festival begins in about a week and I've been all busy getting my little theatrical ducks in a row. Dress and shoes are sorted and today, thanks to the help of Sarah, I bought some kick ass jewelry for my costume. Still to do: Figure out something to do with my hair – which will most likely involve buying a set of hot rollers and teaching myself to actually style my hair, and buy some hooker red lipstick.
This past Monday, Dark Side Theater (the name for the theater company producing Murder!) participated in a Fringe Festival Preview at Play's and Player's Theater. This marked my first time on stage since I played Doctor #2 in our 7th grade production of "Doctor, Doctor." We performed a 10 minute scene that went off pretty well, despite the fact my knees were shaking the entire time, no lie. Even with my shaking knees, Jillian told me that I had "quite the strut" as I moved across the stage, so this gives me hope that I might actually live through this acting thing.
Anyway...the benefit of taking part of this preview show, aside from breaking my acting hymen, is that I got to see peeks of some other shows that will be going on and would like to make my official Fringe recommendations:
You're coming to see Murder!, right? You'd better.
And Trad too? Hello, you must. So good, you guys. And Mike Dees has already commenced with the head-shaving, so you know he's geared up.
The Power Of Magic: An International Commedia for Everyone by OMBELICO Mask Ensemble This was hilarious and incredible. I highly recommend it, AND it's free! You can't beat that.
Same Spirit Different Movement Fest by Illstyle & Peace Productions This is a dance production that incorporates all styles, but on Monday they just previewed the hip-hop bit. Still, it was pretty incredible and very fun.
4Play by Secret Room Theatre Four plays, each about sex. Well, it is the Fringe, after all. The bit we saw was a section titled "Johnny Infamous," a Grease-like musical about a guy who likes to get off with inanimate objects. Utterly ridiculous, very funny, and extremely catchy songs.
Salesmanship For Life & Limb by Thomas Tirney & Tall Grass Productions My uncle is starring in this. Between me and my brother and now my uncle, this Fringe Festival is a real family affair.
Shakesploitation II Iambic Boogaloo by Iron Age Theatre R. Kelly and Juliet Trapped in the Closet. NEED I SAY ANYTHING MORE?
Improv Comedy by The N Crowd I'm going to be attending at least 3 performances of this, taking pictures until my camera breaks from the awesome. Join me!
7 (x1) Samurai by David Gaines I don't think there's anything I can say about this that the trailer doesn't say.
Muralmorphosis which is where you will find me the weekend after all my Fringe shows.
Support local art and artists at the Fringe Festival!
I was going to give you a quick write-up about my time in Chicago, but something happened last night that took precedent over the entire weekend.
Arriving home from Chicago, I had just enough time to shove some food in my mouth and run a brush through my hair before heading out to rehearsal. After rehearsal, I came home, exchanged some pleasantries with Gary (who retired to his bedroom), and flopped down on the couch. All I wanted to do was unwind a bit and watch the series finale of Battlestar Galactica. (which, WOW, btw). The kitties were all over me, curled up for some quality time after my weekend away. Things were good, Starbuck was tapping out the secrets of the universe, and I was chilling out.
Suddenly, Galahad perked up and dashed into the hall, to be quickly followed by Dill and Kayla. I didn’t think too much of it – I assumed there was a bug of some sort. We get a lot of moths this time of year and the cats enjoy chasing them around. I was also, frankly, pretty focused on the show. And then something dark in the hall flitted into my peripheral vision and disappeared again. Wow, I thought. That must be a pretty big moth. It happened a couple more times and just when I was starting to get suspicious of it, this flew into the room:
As I was lying on the couch, it flew directly over my head. It was a terrifying moment wherein I envisioned the bat swooping down and eating my face. So I did the only thing I could do: I bolted upstairs, screaming for Gary the entire way and praying the bat wouldn’t follow me.
Here’s the thing: I am a brave, liberated chic. I will kill my own bugs – spiders, beetles, those creepy-ass centipedes we get, even roaches (which I despise) – I can do it. I’m not particularly fond of wild mice or rats, but once faced with them, I can steal myself and take care of business.
But bats? No. Just…no. For one thing, they carry a lot of disease. Like, a LOT. Rabies, first of all. But also SARS and the ebola virus. Second, they fly. Adding wings to a rat changes the entire equation. Since it can fly by it’s own volition, has sharp teeth and claws, and can give me deadly viruses? It has an advantage over me.
And you know what else? I don’t need that bullshit in my life. I’ve got enough problems as it is without disease-carrying winged creatures in my house.
Frankly, when faced with a bat in my living room, I turn into Martha Plimpton in The Goonies:
Rabies! Rabies!
So I have never been so glad that I live with a man than I was last night. I hurled myself into Gary’s room without even bothering to knock, and demanded he put his XY chromosome to good use.
Gary: [getting up, looking panicked] What’s wrong, what’s wrong?! Me: There is [pant] A BAT IN THE LIVING ROOM. You need to take care of this. Gary: That’s all? A bat? Me: Whatta you mean, “That’s all?” What else do you want? Gary: [chuckling] It’s just a bat. Me: EXACTLY. GO GET RID OF IT. I can’t handle this. Gary: What would you have done if I wasn’t home? Me: I would have left. Abandoned the house and the cats and just left. Once a safe distance from the house I would then call the landlord and have him take care of it. Gary: You know that bats are all around here, right? Like, they live in that tree right next door. Me: I know, I’ve seen them, and that’s fine. They can live out there. They belong out there. But they do not belong in my living room, so get it out right now I'mnotkiddingsohelpmegodthisismyseriousface.
Gary chuckled his way downstairs and went searching for the bat. But he was unable to find it. “Come down and show me where it is,” he called up to me. By the mirth in his voice, I could tell he thought I had made the incident up. I creeped downstairs to help.
As we were driving to the fair a few weeks ago, Mike recounted how he recently was sent on an EMS call to our old apartment in Ardmore. Which, if you remember, we sort of loved, but was a dump. The reason for the call: The girl now living in Kelly’s old room had a cockroach crawl into her ear while she was sleeping. We did not have roaches while we lived there but if we had I would have picked up and moved, let me just tell you. At the time, I told Mike that I couldn’t imagine anything worse happening to you while you sleep. But I was wrong. Because as I was creeping down the stairs I remembered hearing on NPR that bats can bite you while you sleep and you will never know. You wake up with rabies, surprise!
I was also remembering a story QK told me about her mom – that a bat got in the house, and they thought they had got it out, but instead it hid, of all places, in their bed, burrowed under the covers. QK’s mom didn’t realize until she crawled into bed and was – I swear to god – lying on top of it.
There was no way in hell I was having either of those things happen to me. So I went downstairs to help Gary locate it.
“Where is it, where is it?” he kept asking me. “I don’t know where it is now,” I told him. “It was flying around the living room the last time I saw it.” And a few seconds later, it flew back in, causing me to haul ass back upstairs to the sounds of Gary’s laughter.
Gary managed to apprehend the bat within a few minutes, and release it safely into the wild. I am now freaked about how the bat got into our apartment in the first place. Best as I can figure, it squeezed in through one of the small openings between the panes of our old windows. Considering I’ve lived for 4 years in this apartment and never had a bat enter before, I’m going to consider this a freak occurrence. Either that, or the vibe of QK moving in is drawing the bats near. Not only does her mom have that bat story, but QK has a few of her own, as well.
Gary had made so much fun of me for this whole incident, but I don’t care. I feel very rational in my dislike of bats in my personal living space. And considering he did the dirty work and captured the bat, he has free reign to do so.
Oh promises, promises. Four entries this week, huh? How about two? Well, tough. You're going to take two and like it. I've got a lot going on. Namely this play thing. And I'm trying to watch the end of BSG 4.5 and a lot of my brain space has been devoted to trying to understand what the frak is going on with Kara Thrace (Yes, I know I'm a dork, and yes, I know that I am 12 hundred years behind the times. But I won't get a chance to watch the finale until Monday, so shut it). And also, I'm going to Chicago this weekend. Which I am very excited about.
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So the theme for last weekend can be summed up in three words: Bitches for Life.
First of all, Melissa was in town, so I took an unprecedented two days off to spend time with her and Stephanie. The best way to describe our time together was British and Boozy. We essentially spent the entire time vegging out to anything the BBC has ever transmitted over the airwaves. We also drank a lot. We may have been a little ridiculous and over-the-top: On Friday we went to the beer distributor to pick up a case and walked out with, um, three cases. As in, one for each of us. Oops. We ate insanely well too: We had breakfast with the Doctor and Stephanie cooked us a full (vegan) English breakfast including beans on toast. Which made my heart sing and made me long for London.
The other big fun thing of last weekend was Haven's Bachelorette Party.
This girl is getting married so very soon! It's all exciting. I just had a meeting with Haven and Mike to discuss wedding photos, and let me just tell you: this wedding is going to be a damn good time. I may be nervouth about taking these photos, but god knows I'm going to be giggling from behind the lens.
The Bachelorette party began with the traditional decorating of the van and from there it was off to Coyote Crossing for a scrumptious dinner. And also some cocktails. And Sangria.
After dinner, it was time to head to the secret location of...Montana West!
Yes, there was line dancing. And yes, Kimmy and I were brave and went out and tried to do a line dance. We weren't particularly good, but whatever. But the main fun began when we ordered Haven a Montana Margarita.
Now, I've had personal experiences with this particular drink, and let me tell you it is awesome. Essentially, you get the hot bartender to give you a shot, but the people at Montana West do it...creatively.
Haven had no qualms about hopping on the bar and doing her bachelorette duty.
That bartender was hot too. Damn.
After the shot we were all feeling high in spirits:
And after making Haven do a few more bachelorette stunts, decided it was time to ride the bull:
LIKE A CHAMP. Kimmie and Justine also took a turn on the bull:
After the bull, we headed to Reed's and at this point I stopped taking pictures because It's hard to take photos when you're drinking and dancing. But let's just say that Haven had a good time.
Meanwhile, over on the faux Brit hacienda (I don't want to think about how many languages I just butchered), Stephanie went and got themselves tattoozled in serious fangirl fashion:
WHOA. That Dalek is totally going to exterminate me, but the Tardis will sweep me away just in time. ROCK.
Having just got back from seeing Julie & Julia, I am now in the proper mind frame to talk about this. Never mind that were Julia Child alive she would be horrified at what we ate last weekend. The point is that the movie made me hungry. Just like the fair makes me hungry.
This year the fellow fair attendants were: Kelly (of course), Mike (YAY! I missed him so much!), Krista and Christopher. Driving up to Jersey it was just Kelly, Mike and I in one car, and when Kelly turned the car on, I channeled my mother for a minute and gleefully yelled out "Roomie Car!" It had been ages since I'd seen Mike, and I don't care. It was nice having just the three of us, together again.
Once we had all reached Kelly's parent's house, it was time to head to the Fair. Per tradition, we take the Falcon to the Fair. However, this year we originally thought we would have too many people to take just one car. So Kelly's dad, being awesome, got her sister Danielle's Falcon ready too. Only issue? It's stick. Specifically, a "Three on the Tree." Out of all of us, Krista was the only one who knows how to drive stick, and being a car lover, was stoked to drive it – even though we technically didn't need to take two cars anymore.
Krista is brave of heart. I rode with her to the fair, and let me just tell you: That car is not messing around. It is a tricky beast. As it's from the 60s, it's a bit...old. And not particularly fond of idling. And for a while there, the drive to the fair was all bumper to bumper at lights. And so, it would stall. And then when she had to put it into first gear (I assume it was first gear. My car shifts automatically, so what do I know?) the car would make this awesome clunking farty noise. We were so so cool driving in that thing. And then once we reached the fair grounds, they made us park on a hill. I swear, never in all the time we've been going to the fair have we ever had to park on a hill. Of course it would be this year. But like I said, Krista is incredible and rocked it.
And then...oh the fair. Oh, the food. The week before we went to the fair, Kelly's mom called her and told her that they had extended the main food aisle. We sort of thought she meant that they had just moved food from other locations. But no. There was somehow more food at the fair this year. And so the theme this year was about branching out and trying new things.
Full list:
Corn! (Krista went back for seconds, later in the day!)
Red velvet cupcakes
Rice Krispie Treats
Baked Potatoes of the Lord
Nachos (A new fair food this year! I tweeted a photo to show how amazing they were)
Mini Donuts (Another new fair food. They literally melted in our mouths. Awesome.)
Watermelon
Beef jerky
Corn Dog
Fudge
Gyro
London Broil Sandwich
Ice cream
Frozen chocolate covered banana
Pretzel
Pickle
Ice cream waffle sandwich
Bratwurst
Kettle Corn
Deep fried pickles (another new food item, also awesome)
And then we were sufficiently stuffed. For all of 2 hours. Because when we got back to Kelly's parent's house? We ate some cake. And uh, then Kelly made onion dip and we ate that with some chips. And then, since it was Danielle's belated birthday, had some ice cream cake with her to celebrate. And then we were finally full. For a little while.
Driving back from the fair was also an adventure. Namely that Danielle's Falcon stalled on the hill and had to be pushed by Kelly, Mike, and Christopher. While I was particularly useless and stood with the other, idling Falcon.
And speaking of being useless and motor vehicles...I should just not drive things other than my own car. Because that evening after we got back, we went tooling around the property on the golf cart and I took a turn driving it. And I may have nearly flipped the golf cart whilst trying to take a turn too fast and barreling downhill. Whatever. The point is that I didn't actually flip the golf cart, I merely flung Kelly and Christopher violently out of it while taking that turn. Later, because apparently they hadn't learned from the golf cart incident, they offered me a turn driving one of the mini motorcycles Kelly's dad just purchased. Yeah, I drove that thing for about three seconds and realized that motorcycles? Not for me. I'm not exactly sure what I looked like driving that thing, but it was enough to nearly make Christopher wet his pants laughing at me. Never forget how awesome I am.
Now that Fat Kid Weekend is over, I came to the harsh realization that I need to fit into a dress for Murder! and...yeah. Kind of fat rolly over here. Time for crash dieting, friends.
After the NJSF (New Jersey State Fair, dontcha know), Christopher made a flippant comment: "I suppose I'll have to wait two weeks before you post a blog entry about this." It was his way of saying that I've been lax in my blogging this summer.
OK, FINE. It's been nearly a week and a half since the NJSF and I still haven't blogged about it. But you know what else I have? A life. A lot has been going on, and granted it's not earth shattering or crazy like it was in grad school, but it's still a lot.
You know what else? Sometimes I just don't fell like writing or like I have any particular commentary I want to give on my life. Sometimes events just happen and I live them, THE END. And I've been twittering a lot, so I feel like I've covered this ground. I'm tired of making excuses for not blogging. It's not like you all are commenting a whole lot either, so...And as I said to Christopher, start your own damn blog if you want updates.
However...I do sometimes miss it.
All of this by way of saying that I am going to cave and give Christopher what he wants. A whole slew of blog entries are coming your way in the next couple hours/days. I'm going to try to post some entries about things I didn't post about, namely: NJSF and MST3K Live. And then I'm going to post about this weekend, which needs to be broken into two entries. So at minimum, 4 entries are coming your way this week.
It's been a pretty frustrating day in Cubicle World, and I don't really want to get too much into it. But suffice to say, towards the end of the day I was becoming slightly unraveled and desperate for either a tall cool drink of the boozy variety or a warm towel laced with ether.
My job requires me to browse and hunt through stock photography quite often – either for one of the numerous blogs my company runs or for book covers, brochures, whatever. In this case, it was for one of the blogs for a post detailing a compliance/benefits story about a person injured while bowling. The editor's request was simple enough: a photo of a man bowling. Fine.
But then, one of the first photos to come up in my search was, well....this.
And that was it. I couldn't stop giggling and snorting uncontrollably. I mean, seriously. Look at that image. What stock photographer thought that was a good pose? What photographer says to their model, "Hey! Crouch down, pretend you're surfing, hold the ball between your legs, and make a face as if to say, 'Behold! I have a gigantic, mutant, hot pink testicle!'"
So of course I included the photo in the selection of possible photographs for the editor, mainly to amuse myself. Here's the brilliant thing: HE CHOSE IT. I had said in the initial email that it was a ridiculous image, and he agreed, but said he liked it because he thought it looked like the guy was about to fall over. Personally, I think said editor got just as much juvenile humor out of the image and wanted to use it.
