...done with Southern California...

...for awhile... yeah.... at this point, i think i have spent 3 of the last 4 weekends somewhere in Southern California.... through rigorous testing and exhaustive research, i have definitely come to the conclusion that i vastly prefer Northern California. this is a pleasing result, since I just happen to live in Northern California. San Diego was having a heat-wave this past weekend. it was just TOO MUCH. the 4 hours of rock climbing that occured on Saturday were AMAZING (traversing is way cool....), although i think i may have lost a rather alarming amount of fluid (in the form of sweat) due to the goddamn heat. yeah. now i am back in the frozen tundra that is summer in San Francisco and it is a cool, crisp 62 degrees outside. :) nice.

the channel islands and my expectations....

...were incongruous. i went to Santa Cruz Island, which is a part of the Channel Islands (and they are located off the coast of Ventura, CA) last weekend. it was for an island wedding camping hiking drinking kayaking music/merry-making celebration. the island was very scrubby and dry, with little to no shade cover. there were bluffs (lined with bracken and gorse????) that reminded me very much of England, but it was often WAY too hot to be England. For some reason I had expected them to be lush (not tropical, by any means, but a little semi-lushness is always nice) and full of exciting hiking trails. huh. i was wrong. go figure. the boat ride over (complete with dolphin pods chasing the bow) and the sea-kayaking through caves were both, well, totally awesome. but as an avid hiker, who just happens to be really fucking pale, i take umbrage with the lack of places to take umbrage.

but - harbor seal and sea lion sightings did make it all good.

acting is hard....

so the funny thing about theatre is that you have to constantly be in a state of looking for, obtaining and preparing for job interviews…and then, just like other jobs…you may have, god, up to four or five interviews (auditions/callbacks) for the job… BUT - one of the big differences between theatre and normal jobs, is the fact that you can actually lose jobs to other people for reasons such as ‘too blonde’, ‘too tall’, ‘too fat’, ‘too thin’, ‘wrong hair’, ‘too old’, ‘too young’, ‘too ethnic’…blah blah blah as well as one of my favorites for its unapologetic ambiguousness: ‘well, they just don’t have the right feel…’

huh. how bout that?

yeah, i know. it’s pretty obvious. i had a callback for a show that i would LOVE to do and it’s been a few days and I haven’t heard anything, which could be good and could be bad and could mean absolutely nothing at all....one never really knows…..but the waiting NEVER gets any easier....

shaky arms...

i am back from rock climbing. i went during my lunch break. it was an absolutely marvelous bike ride down to Mission Cliffs (the route i took was almost entirely laid with bike lanes! so pleasing!); the sun was (and still is) shining, yet there was a slight breeze - one of those perfect San Francisco days. i arrived in foul spirits (see morning post) and left feeling like an amazonian warrior. man this climbing stuff kicks ass. literally, figuratively, physically, mentally, colloquially, psychologically and holy crap, fore-arm-ally. ow. but a GOOD freakin OW! :) dave is really making me proud. he climbed a really hard 5.9 as his first climb of the day and then later went on to tackle a 5.10a and 5.10b. he is taking to this climbing business like i take to ice cream. very impressive. personally, i wasn't feeling my strongest today, but was really proud that i still worked through the pain and almost had the top of a 5.8. next time, next time. nothing like a shot of adrenaline mixed with a myriad of mental challenges to improve the mood. :)

must stop typing now. it hurts.

http://www.touchstoneclimbing.com/mc.html

my very first post

i am hungry and i want my morning bagel. i am hungry all the time these days.

the partner in the office caddy corner to me is coughing and hacking and actually grinding up phlegm from deep within his chest and it is making me feel sick to my stomach. he actually hacks these lougies (sp?) into his stupid partner hankie over and over again. i am trying to figure out just WHERE all these lougies are going? i mean, the man needs a lougie BUCKET, not a hankie. yesterday, i got so fed-up that i finally called over to him, 'hey wow. that's QUITE a cold you've got there!' and this was met with the pleasing response of him CLOSING HIS DOOR. yes, that's right. he actually has a door. i do not. i am stuck in my hamster hole and there is no door for me to close. perhaps i should wear a gas mask to work tomorrow. perhaps i was initially too vague. a gas mask is more specific.