land's end

i really need to go see some trees... well, some more trees....

we went out to Land's End today. glorious. we are watching the Queen Figgy Fig for a few days and took her for a nice walk out there. First time out there on the coastal trail. it's so odd the things you haven't seen after 10 years in your city. and what a day for it! not a stitch of fog, warm in the sun, cool in the shade... the golden gate was looking especially regal. the pelicans were out and flying high. the figster was happy. the only way it could have been better would have been a whale sighting. ;)

my eyelids are drooping

so there has been much afoot lately. visits and shows and life ?'s and full moons and deep thoughts and all sorts of important stuff.

our show will not be extending - we found out during the second weekend, and what with our luke-warm to tepid review in the chronicle, it's not all that shocking. But it sort of throws a bolt of poo through a cast energy-wise. especially a cast like ours, where we've all been working SO freaking hard toward this one goal that we were being told was so awesome and inspiring and ground-breaking and ambitious and wow wow wow. and well, lots of it is actually. we just won't be doing it for an two extra weeks. but we picked up from that news and continue to give it what we've got every night (as well as an added student matinee on thursday for balboa high - that was fascinating.) and on the flip side, the show requires an incredible amount of physical and mental energy and now I just may stop being tired all the time a little sooner. :)

ooooh - they did create a pretty cool ass trailer video for the show. you can check it out HERE

I really would like to find the time to put together a badass montage from the motorcycle trip. i've been wanting to reclaim some of those memories. :)

i've been offered a job as an aerial tissu soloist. in reno. for a month. at circus circus. it just may happen. i'm still finding out more details... that could provide some awesome blog fodder. not to mention life experience.... the whole thing is still sort of mystifying. we'll see...

all the visits went well - saw spud for less than 24 hours last weekend and mom for just a few hours more than spud. they flew in last saturday, we went out to dinner for mom's birthday and then they saw the show, went to bed and left sunday morning. zany. arika flew in at the same time, but stayed through monday. I didn't really get a chance to see her until then, since sunday is a two show day. but we played catch up on monday, which was very chill, which was very nice. :) chill is good these days. chill is good.

between the two shows on sunday, I did a little aerial silk lesson with some of the cast. they are already pretty strong, so it's fun to see them get things so quickly. everything was SO hard for me when I first learned, since I couldn't even conceive of doing a pull up or being able to pull my ass over my head. how things change. :)

bedtime now.

winter thoughts

i just entered a contest to win free tickets to a new cirque show. you had to share a favorite winter memory. i thought i would share mine since it was so fun to go back to this particular place. perhaps some of you have even experienced something like this:

I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and we had a corn field right behind our house. Every winter, when the first real cold snap came, my mom, my brother and I would stuff ourselves into our warmest layers, scoop up our old salvation army skates and trudge across the now flat, snow-covered corn field. About midway across the field, the land began to dip and out of nowhere a seemingly impromptu frozen pond would emerge. It was always bumpy and uneven, with tufts of dead corn stalks jabbing up through the surface of the ice, but it was bliss. Pretending that you were a famous ice skater, or explorer, or superhero could keep you warm for hours out there. Or you could draw funny messages or pictures in the ice with the sharp tips of your skates. But after awhile, the chill would finally settle in and you would start to feel the soreness of all the times you landed on your behind, and you would struggle awkwardly to unlace your skates, so that you could begin the journey home. And after trudging, once again, across the hard, frozen corn field, you would enter the welcoming warmth of your house and nestle up against the heater waiting for your hot chocolate - with marshmellows, please - and everything in life would seem perfect.

it's been awhile...

wow. first day back at trapeze class today. i learned how to drop from standing to ankles. that's fairly bad ass in my humble opinion. it really feels good to be back. well, i mean mentally. physically, it hurts like a bitch. ;)

opening night

so it's finally here - opening night tonight... no more rehearsal.... no more changes.... it feels almost confusing to just show up tonight and just do the show. the mayor will be there. there will be press at our opening night party. there is a cool space exhibit downstairs. tis all very exciting. :)

the last two weeks have been so all-consuming with the show, i feel like i want to remember some of the other things that are happening.

arika will be here in a week. :) she just had her first episode air as a bone fide staff writer on a tv show. it's a teen show where the lead girl is a lesbian. it's called 'South of Nowhere'. I'm very proud of her. you do have to have cable to see it though as it's on 'the N' - a new channel. during the same weekend, mom and spud will be flying down from portland for less than 24 hours to see the show and fly back. :) it coincides with Mom's birthday. that will be cozy in the one bedroom apartment. ;)

the new circus semester started and I've missed all my classes for the first week and a half, but I did go on thursday to my advanced aerial conditioning class. hard core. i am still in pain. almost everywhere. i'm thinking that elena's month off back in russia definitely included some conversations with master teachers about what we as circus artists should be able to do. things like 50 V-ups in a row. a v-up is where you lie flat on the ground, legs out straight and together and your arms are up over your head - straight and by your ears and in one fluid movement you lift your arms and upper body up as you lift your straight tight legs up and you touch your toes at the top, slowly come back down, but never all the way, so that you stay engaged at all times. then repeat that - 49 more times. yeah. she is out to kick some ass. she gave some of the girls in my class homework: 50 pull ups a day. everyday. for a month. somehow I emerged from that unscathed. luck? don't know yet... but I'm thankful.

Coraline's gig on 9/11 went pretty well. it was actually nice to have such a short set... especially since we were all pretty tired and it was hot as hell in there... they have really tasty veggie plates there too and they give the band members a free one just for playing. sweet. tasty. michael had a very good accordian debut. good times.

had dinner with kristin and jim about a week back. i can't believe one of my friends actually finally moved TO San Francisco, instead of moving away, as has been the general rule for the last few years. great to see them. i was tired. go figure. kristin cooked this amazing tofu, veggie noodle thing that i would have never dreamed up and it was soooooooo tastypants. i've actually thought of it since that evening.... you know how food does that sometimes? actually leaves a memory with you. i want some right now. :)

also - the imperial spa opened right around the corner from us and I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS but it's a korean spa very much in line with the amazing olympic spa that i constantly rave about in LA LA Land. holy crap this place rocks. the nice korean ladies wear the same matching black bra and panties whilst you lie naked on a wet, plastic slab and they commence to scrub the shit out of you. there are two scrub and massage options - one is $80 and lasts a bit over an hour and the other is $100 and goes for a full one and a half hours of bliss. I did this one last week after my tech week. it was a late b'day present from my mom and it was heaven. she just scrubbed TECH week right the hell off. i highly recommend and they have separate facilities for men and women and hot baths and cold baths and steam room and jade rooms and all kinds of great stuff. however, you really do need to leave your inhibitions at the door. really. but it is sooooooooooooooooooo worth it. i think we need to plan a girls night outing.

ok. that's it for now. I better start to focus. it feels like this opening has been SOOOOO long in the coming. it's time to go kick it's ass. wish me luck. :)

ok. now i'm REALLY tired.

wow. it's been a hell of a week. massive script changes, massive blocking changes, changes to the Act break....dealing with TONS of new props, microphones, insanity... DAILY. it's very hard to synthesize that much new information on a daily basis. it's incredibly challenging and insanely draining. i haven't felt this many total mind crashes since I was in college. at one point, I had to turn to bill and say, 'i'm sorry, my brain just exploded, i'll get it right next time.' because, well, that's exactly what it felt like happened. i've never been more worried about going up on lines...i have up to 9 different incarnations of some lines swimming around in my head and sometimes the right one comes out and sometimes 1/2 of the right one and 1/2 of an old one comes out and sometimes I BLANK out completely, which is REALLY scary. i've never really had that experience before.... it's really terrifying. i guess it's one form of the 'actor's nightmare', something which, thank god, I hardly ever have. I think my non-actor friends have them more than I do..... ugh. I know it will all come together. somehow, it always does. this is just the crunch time. the scary time. i can't believe we have an audience tonight.

in other news, i had a audition for Streetcar Named Desire yesterday (yeah - that was fun to prepare for during TECH week!) for the part of Stella, who I actually prefer over Blanche. it went really well and i have a callback monday. wish me luck - i'm going out on a limb, by putting in print that i'd REALLY like to get it. it would be something so different from anything i've done for awhile and that's how i like things to be. :) keep me on my toes. change it up. (although maybe not as much as things have been changed up this week!!!!!!)

mia is so freaking rad.

ok. this is SO awesome. Mia decided to enter a competition for a short radio piece. The theme of the competition is 'dollar storeys' and there are three categories to choose from and one of them happens to be 'bicycle bell'. She asked me if I would be willing to talk about my burger bell and all the times that it has been stolen throughout the years....about why it was so nifty....what it's like to bike commute in SF, etc. etc. I said 'yes', she came over and recorded in the bedroom closet, and now the rest is history. She was limited to 2 1/2 - 3 minutes and anyone who knows me, knows the way i tell stories....so, well, her editing is REALLY impressive. ;)

if you can spare the 3 minutes, this will really be worth your while. she did an amazing job with the final piece. it's funny, creative, heartwarming and just plain fun. i am so impressed. go mia!

I can't figure out if there is a way to post it here, so just go to this link HERE and scroll down to #51 My Bike had a Burger Bell: a Tragic Tale of Loss and Woe and check out how awesome mia is with this crazy radio stuff. :)