I actually sat and watched an entire episode of Honey Boo Boo yesterday, and I blame Eric. (He didn't give me permission to use his full name yet.)
You have likely discovered, after only a few blogs, that I am Quite Adept at blaming other people for the choices that I make.
Since you'll be hearing his name a lot, I thought you may need a bit of history on him. I will keep it brief, but meaningful. Eric graduated from LHS in 2008. He had cancer and traveled to NYC with me and 17 other students while undergoing chemo. He carried with him an envelope that said "Only Open If I'm Dying". He thought it was hysterical. He has choreographed 3 shows for me since graduating LHS, is a crazy talented animator, artist, gymnast, dancer and ariel fabric performer.
So it's okay to hate him. See how God gave him more talents than he gave us? He tried to equalize him by giving him testicular cancer, but NO, Eric was having none of that and kicked cancer's ass right outta town.
I ran when nobody was chasing me while Eric was in chemo, because he couldn't run and he really liked to run (and I am Terminally Incapable of gymnastics). I jumproped 200 times a day until both my knees seized up because Eric was making the cast of Legally Blonde do it, and as the director it seemed only fair that I should do it too.
Eric has a penchant for TLC reality shows. Most of them I will not watch, the commercials are enough. He loves Dance Moms and other such shows, and has been addicted to So You Think You Can Dance since high school. However he keeps raving about how fabulous Honey Boo Boo is and said that they are paid $20 grand an episode, yet still live in a shack and are fat. So I thought I'd give it a try.
I found myself enthralled, watching the entire episode. I have no idea how these people were located, or if they did pageants before TLC discovered them, or why they don't take the $20 grand per episode for one season, buy a better house without gnats in it, subscribe to Weight Watchers, invest in a dental plan and walk away. Maybe move to Beverly. Hills, that is.
There is no way these people are real. "Reality Show" cannot possibly mean "real people".
Harper, Genoa and I watched Wife Swap, and I sat through the entire episode yelling at the TV "There is no way that woman is real, nobody looks like that." It was an episode that swapped a New Jersey woman with a woman who lived off the grid in a cabin with no electricity. Genoa said "She looks like the He She in Shrek" and that only proved to me that the whole thing was a set up. Nobody Looks Like That, and she had clearly been created to resemble a cartoon character.She was also mean and rude and wore fur everywhere and said it takes her an hour and a half to get ready in the morning. Who has that kind of time? It takes me five minutes. Of course I look like it takes me five minutes, but who cares? Who am I trying to impress? If I thought someone would pay me $20 grand an episode I might consider taking more time to get ready. Or less time. Whichever was needed for the ratings.
A reality show about my life would not be nearly as exciting as the current shows. Who wants to watch me teach theatre? Or clean the house on holidays? HOWEVER, what if I did so dressed as a drag queen? Or blackened out a few of my teeth, wore a bath robe to work and said "ain't" all the time? AH! I know! I'll wear a wedding dress every day and take the RTD to school and sing "Delta Dawn" until someone calls TLC and then I'll make my fortune.
I can do that. I like wedding dresses!
Monday, January 21, 2013
Take Three
I posted the blog below at a different address yesterday because my original blog address had been disabled, So Saith Gmail Gods. I tried to post the new address and it didn't work.Then today I just thought it'd be fun to go back into the old blog address, you know, see if I can transfer the old blogs to the new address...and here I am, posting, UNDISABLED.
This leads me to my current rant: Codes. Why the frack do I have to have a code for everything, always? School email, home email, Infinite Campus, Blogs, KAISER Permanente, to order lamps or costumes. Sheesh. I thought I was being clever by making all the codes the same two options, but what screwed me up on google blog was that I didn't remember I had to ALSO recall a different EMAIL address for google as well as the one I have for comcast. I am racist against codes and computers, because I still believe that SkyNet is going to take over, so why bother with all the codes? None of it is going to matter when we're living underground, running from the machines.
So, today I had to call Kaiser to get G and H added to my plan. That was fine, but somewhere along the line I have misplaced MY Kaiser card. I have a disorder, and if I can't see something I don't have it any more. It's possible I cleverly squirreled it away in a file somewhere, but I cannot recall where. So while I'm at it, I ask if they can send me a replacement. To which they reply "Sure, what is your Health Record Number?" This is the number on my card. I pointed that out to the young man on the phone, and he was quite amicable about it. Apparently there are many of us Doddering Forties out there who still cannot seem to master this crazy InterWeb shennanegins. He believed me when I told him my name and birthday and address, which I feel anyone wishing to steal my identity would know. I have a vague recollection of signing up for KP.Org and having a "safety question", which this young man did not ask me. What is the point of the codes and the safety question if I can just call and identify myself in the first place?
Anyway, a different KP employee with a different click and a female voice signed up the girls, and asked if I wished to choose a physician. My reply was this : "Why do I need to do that? I had a physcial in June, I already have a physician." She replies "Oh" and I hear clicking on her keyboard. She tells me my physician has a closed practice and I cannot be added (why do I need to be added, I SAW her already) but that I can go to KP.Org and send a note to the physician, reminding her that she already saw me and ask her to add me to her practice. I agree to her terms, and log onto KP.Org.
I cannot access my account without my Health Record Number, which I still do not have because it is on my card that is lost.
See how the InterWeb is making all of our lives so much better? Enriching them, I'd say.
But I see this as an opportunity to change doctors, becuase frankly the doc seemed rushed and not very interested in me. Which was disappointing, because she is a D.O. and I like them more than regualr MD's. In fact, I think she did not care for me at all. I kept asking stupid, inane questions about arthritis treatment and answering her questions about Past Medical History. She did not want to hear my accapella rendition of "Little Bird" by Annie Lennox or ask even once my opinions on western medicine! So I may as well just pick another doc since the opportunity has arisen. See how I make everything work out to my advantage? Lemonade from lemons and all that. That's me! As positive as a lemon is yellow. Yes, I will do so by walking into the KP clinic and speaking to a person. That'll learn 'em.
____________
20 Jan
So I still have a blog, I guess, but it's not the same address.
Why?
Well, I told you this would happen. See, I had a tech on Saturday and I thought I'd use the time to write since the show doesn't need me yet. I got on my desktop at school.
Five minutes and five email addresses and passwords later, Google disabled my blog.
Because I had no idea what my email address was for gmail, or what the password was.
HA!
So here we are! I'm creating a new blog while Jeff Dunham's bio is playing behind me.
So am I supposed to reload the other posts from before? Why am I bothering? Because I'm never going to be on the Tonight Show. Clearly Jeff Dunham has been on the Tonight Show. I can hear his parents talking about it behind me. They got upset because he cussed on the Tonight Show. I can't imagine telling your son that you were disappointed with his language after his first appearance on Johnny Carson. I mean...he was on JOHNNY CARSON! You should be proud of him, not fussing at him because he said hell and damn.
The Jeff Dunham bio is called 'Birth of a Dummy'. Which makes sense because he's a ventriloquist. I fear mine will be called 'Birth of a Dummy' as well, but I am not a ventriloquist. I am just a dummy.
Trying this again, whee!!
This leads me to my current rant: Codes. Why the frack do I have to have a code for everything, always? School email, home email, Infinite Campus, Blogs, KAISER Permanente, to order lamps or costumes. Sheesh. I thought I was being clever by making all the codes the same two options, but what screwed me up on google blog was that I didn't remember I had to ALSO recall a different EMAIL address for google as well as the one I have for comcast. I am racist against codes and computers, because I still believe that SkyNet is going to take over, so why bother with all the codes? None of it is going to matter when we're living underground, running from the machines.
So, today I had to call Kaiser to get G and H added to my plan. That was fine, but somewhere along the line I have misplaced MY Kaiser card. I have a disorder, and if I can't see something I don't have it any more. It's possible I cleverly squirreled it away in a file somewhere, but I cannot recall where. So while I'm at it, I ask if they can send me a replacement. To which they reply "Sure, what is your Health Record Number?" This is the number on my card. I pointed that out to the young man on the phone, and he was quite amicable about it. Apparently there are many of us Doddering Forties out there who still cannot seem to master this crazy InterWeb shennanegins. He believed me when I told him my name and birthday and address, which I feel anyone wishing to steal my identity would know. I have a vague recollection of signing up for KP.Org and having a "safety question", which this young man did not ask me. What is the point of the codes and the safety question if I can just call and identify myself in the first place?
Anyway, a different KP employee with a different click and a female voice signed up the girls, and asked if I wished to choose a physician. My reply was this : "Why do I need to do that? I had a physcial in June, I already have a physician." She replies "Oh" and I hear clicking on her keyboard. She tells me my physician has a closed practice and I cannot be added (why do I need to be added, I SAW her already) but that I can go to KP.Org and send a note to the physician, reminding her that she already saw me and ask her to add me to her practice. I agree to her terms, and log onto KP.Org.
I cannot access my account without my Health Record Number, which I still do not have because it is on my card that is lost.
See how the InterWeb is making all of our lives so much better? Enriching them, I'd say.
But I see this as an opportunity to change doctors, becuase frankly the doc seemed rushed and not very interested in me. Which was disappointing, because she is a D.O. and I like them more than regualr MD's. In fact, I think she did not care for me at all. I kept asking stupid, inane questions about arthritis treatment and answering her questions about Past Medical History. She did not want to hear my accapella rendition of "Little Bird" by Annie Lennox or ask even once my opinions on western medicine! So I may as well just pick another doc since the opportunity has arisen. See how I make everything work out to my advantage? Lemonade from lemons and all that. That's me! As positive as a lemon is yellow. Yes, I will do so by walking into the KP clinic and speaking to a person. That'll learn 'em.
____________
20 Jan
So I still have a blog, I guess, but it's not the same address.
Why?
Well, I told you this would happen. See, I had a tech on Saturday and I thought I'd use the time to write since the show doesn't need me yet. I got on my desktop at school.
Five minutes and five email addresses and passwords later, Google disabled my blog.
Because I had no idea what my email address was for gmail, or what the password was.
HA!
So here we are! I'm creating a new blog while Jeff Dunham's bio is playing behind me.
So am I supposed to reload the other posts from before? Why am I bothering? Because I'm never going to be on the Tonight Show. Clearly Jeff Dunham has been on the Tonight Show. I can hear his parents talking about it behind me. They got upset because he cussed on the Tonight Show. I can't imagine telling your son that you were disappointed with his language after his first appearance on Johnny Carson. I mean...he was on JOHNNY CARSON! You should be proud of him, not fussing at him because he said hell and damn.
The Jeff Dunham bio is called 'Birth of a Dummy'. Which makes sense because he's a ventriloquist. I fear mine will be called 'Birth of a Dummy' as well, but I am not a ventriloquist. I am just a dummy.
Trying this again, whee!!
Monday, January 7, 2013
Bartenders Know All The Actors
7
January 2013
Bartenders
Know All the Actors
This holiday, I spent an evening
doing a Suburban Cookie Exchange across the street and chatted with a woman
whose name I never caught, but who lives across the street and over from me.
And up here in the burbs, I found a fellow spirit.
What really makes a small theatre
community (Denver) is not the number of actors or the small theatre companies
or actors who become directors. It is bartenders. Bartenders are at the center
of a theatre community and they make it seem small. Whether you are an actor or
director or actor who became a director, at some point after a rehearsal or
show, you went to a bar.You did not quietly enter the bar, shyly taking a place in the back corner. You are not a writer. You made an entrance, whether you were alone or not. Even if you were not the person bellowing like Don Quixote, you were with that guy. Blowing kisses at waitresses,shaking hands with regulars, moving tables together behind the This Section CLOSED sign. All of this is noted by the bartender. The same bartender who called you a cab last night, told you off color jokes after rehearsal, filled your coffee and honestly asked how the show was going.
This bartender knows your drink. Your limit. Your sandwich. Your car. Your cat’s name. Your significant other. This bartender knows other actors in the show you are doing and speaks of them all as if you have all been friends since the kiddie pool. This bartender has never seen a show you were in but believes that you are The Best Actor Ever.
This bartender has taken away your car keys. Cut you off before it’s too late. Knows you are in a tiff with That Bastard director from the last show who is badmouthing you all over the other side of the bar.
This Bartender listens to your dreams and smiles. Nods when you say you’re quitting---“marriage, kids, maybe I’ll teach”. Of course you should teach, fulfill your soul, share your talents with students.
The Bartender knows awards are stupid and you Do Not Act For Trophies. It’s about truth, finding truth in humanity, in moments, through inebriated conversation and slurred Shakespeare. Because you will Not Ever Stoop to playing Prostitute #1 on Criminal Minds or Victim Number Two on CSI or Waitress on 30 Rock and furthermore You Will Be Damned if you breathe another monologue that begins “I remember” or “When I was a kid” or “It’s been a rough couple of days”. The Bartender smiles and refills your coffee and asks about your holiday plans.
So one night years decades maybe eons later at a
holiday cookie exchange your husband has encouraged you to attend in an effort
to find you friends, you gravitate first to the other teacher. But once you’ve
had a few glasses of wine, you seek out the quiet woman in the corner. She
looks worried, lost, a bit frazzled. She is your new neighbor—well, “new”, if
living across the street for nine months is new—and you do not know her name.
But she looks nice, and she makes eye contact with you and you find a kindred
spirit in this suburban wasteland and you smile.
She wonders how she is supposed to
find time to make cookies when she has two kids under the age of five and full
time job. You smile---you know the drill. Yours are teenagers now, but you
know. She asks how to you function? You just do. Aren’t you tired? Yes. Another
drink. She asks your job. Teaching. Really? Really. What do you teach? High School,
theatre. Really?!! Not that interesting, really. She smiles, her eyes drift
away. “I used to bartend at the Wynkoop. I knew actors.”
You grab the bottle of wine, top her
off and exhale.
Bartenders know all the actors.
Friday, January 4, 2013
4 Jan 2013
I finally decided to go ahead and blog.
I used to send email posts to about 25 friends, I did that for maybe six years. They said "you should blog" and I said "nah". I didn't tell them that "nah" was code for "I have no idea how to do that."
Two dead desktops and a dead laptop later, I figured I could just write blatherings on facebook. It seemed to be working. If by "working" you mean occasionally facebook will randomly freeze up 150 words into the writing and I can't save it, or copy and repaste, it's just gone forever. I also can't get it to copy once I've finished writing so it can save in a word doc.
Maybe this will work.
So I have nothing to say of value at this moment, because I fear it will freeze up, or not save, or tell me I have to Leave This Page before I'm finished. If I can get this to work, then cool. I will post and maybe people will read. Who knows?
_____
Well, the test run worked. Not only did I figure out how to create a blog, but I successfully posted it to facebook, returned to the blog and fixed my typos. In my world that is successful.
Since reading On Writing by Stephen King ten years ago I've tried,with varying degrees of commitment, to write 2,000 words a day. I discovered early on that journaling is something I cannot do without a Big Chief and a Starkey. After being in theatre I needed an audience. So I did email rants, called them "Square State Mom" and sent to about 25-30 people over the course of six years. That was only about twice a week, then it petered out completely when a student set up a facebook for me. Several friends had suggested blogging, but I had no idea how to set it up, and my relationship with computers is pretty cantankerous. I had no doubt I would go to All Kinds Of Trouble to set something up that would then disappear, or crash, or both. I got away from writing once I took over the theatre five years ago. Or I didn't have anything to say, I guess. Edward Albee had a pretty deep impact on my life and I hear him saying "Writers write because they have to. They have something to say and they must get it out." I figured when I stopped playwriting that I had nothing more to say.
Then I figured I really had no idea what my voice was. I went back through the email postings and discovered I had, sort of, kind of, found a voice. That was an exciting moment, and then I realized I could not retrieve about half of the postings. So much for putting everything in one place and publishing it and getting rich and famous, the Next Erma Bombeck.
I have read Tina Fey's book Bossypants eight times. Eight. I carry it in my car to revisit when I have to wait somewhere. I figured I didn't need to write ever again, Tina Fey was doing it for me. She has the same voice that I do and shares similar experiences and is much funnier and also, famous. Why bother writing when Tina Fey is doing it? I had the same epiphany during O2V as I was wrestling V. Woolf's Orlando into a stage version in 2009 and heard that Sarah Ruhl was also writing an adaptation of Virginia Woolf's Orlando. That thing made me crazy, took up all of my summer and it never really worked, Why Did I Bother--Sarah Ruhl's got this one. Let the pros do what they do and the rest of us will stay home and watch 30 Rock.
Ah, well I'm sure I have more to say, but Harper just called and needs a ride home from her sleepover. This keeps popping up with a pink error that says "An Error Occurred While Trying to Save Or Publish Your File". If I walk away will it save? I have no idea. I tried to publish it and the warning popped up again. So I'll paste it into the first blog. HA! See how technology hates me?
I used to send email posts to about 25 friends, I did that for maybe six years. They said "you should blog" and I said "nah". I didn't tell them that "nah" was code for "I have no idea how to do that."
Two dead desktops and a dead laptop later, I figured I could just write blatherings on facebook. It seemed to be working. If by "working" you mean occasionally facebook will randomly freeze up 150 words into the writing and I can't save it, or copy and repaste, it's just gone forever. I also can't get it to copy once I've finished writing so it can save in a word doc.
Maybe this will work.
So I have nothing to say of value at this moment, because I fear it will freeze up, or not save, or tell me I have to Leave This Page before I'm finished. If I can get this to work, then cool. I will post and maybe people will read. Who knows?
_____
Well, the test run worked. Not only did I figure out how to create a blog, but I successfully posted it to facebook, returned to the blog and fixed my typos. In my world that is successful.
Since reading On Writing by Stephen King ten years ago I've tried,with varying degrees of commitment, to write 2,000 words a day. I discovered early on that journaling is something I cannot do without a Big Chief and a Starkey. After being in theatre I needed an audience. So I did email rants, called them "Square State Mom" and sent to about 25-30 people over the course of six years. That was only about twice a week, then it petered out completely when a student set up a facebook for me. Several friends had suggested blogging, but I had no idea how to set it up, and my relationship with computers is pretty cantankerous. I had no doubt I would go to All Kinds Of Trouble to set something up that would then disappear, or crash, or both. I got away from writing once I took over the theatre five years ago. Or I didn't have anything to say, I guess. Edward Albee had a pretty deep impact on my life and I hear him saying "Writers write because they have to. They have something to say and they must get it out." I figured when I stopped playwriting that I had nothing more to say.
Then I figured I really had no idea what my voice was. I went back through the email postings and discovered I had, sort of, kind of, found a voice. That was an exciting moment, and then I realized I could not retrieve about half of the postings. So much for putting everything in one place and publishing it and getting rich and famous, the Next Erma Bombeck.
I have read Tina Fey's book Bossypants eight times. Eight. I carry it in my car to revisit when I have to wait somewhere. I figured I didn't need to write ever again, Tina Fey was doing it for me. She has the same voice that I do and shares similar experiences and is much funnier and also, famous. Why bother writing when Tina Fey is doing it? I had the same epiphany during O2V as I was wrestling V. Woolf's Orlando into a stage version in 2009 and heard that Sarah Ruhl was also writing an adaptation of Virginia Woolf's Orlando. That thing made me crazy, took up all of my summer and it never really worked, Why Did I Bother--Sarah Ruhl's got this one. Let the pros do what they do and the rest of us will stay home and watch 30 Rock.
Ah, well I'm sure I have more to say, but Harper just called and needs a ride home from her sleepover. This keeps popping up with a pink error that says "An Error Occurred While Trying to Save Or Publish Your File". If I walk away will it save? I have no idea. I tried to publish it and the warning popped up again. So I'll paste it into the first blog. HA! See how technology hates me?
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