arweena's very first blog

Pickle Circus Show at the JCC

2010-01-29T10:03:00.000-08:00

all photos by Ann Marie Donahue

wow. i didn't realize it had been so long since I had checked in here. the holidays really do just WHIZ by, don't they!?!?!?

a couple africa teasers...

2009-11-05T01:51:00.000-08:00

...since it's taking SO long for me to get through my 1200 pictures....

tanzania was breathtaking. simply breathtaking. primal. vital. deeply affecting.

life feeds art.

2009-10-31T01:54:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Whitney has been a phenomenal experience for me. And I'm so glad I'm not the only one who thinks so: Chron Review

If any of you want to come, I can hook you up with 1/2 price tix. It's a great show.

blog at rest

2009-10-14T10:00:00.000-07:00

at this point I would not be surprised to find out that I have lost the small handful of readers that visit my little blog.... and i just wanted to say that i am sorry for my silence.

It is simply this: Dave and I have been going through a very difficult and very painful separation. It has been, hands down, the hardest thing I have encountered in my 35 years on this planet.

I have found that the last thing I want to do these days is be on my computer. I'm not sure why. I just don't want to deal. Which means that my yahoo account currently boasts 600 unread emails and my facebook page is only rarely visited and this here little blog has been ignored.

But.

I think the pendulum may be swinging. I would like to tell you about my Africa trip. It was astounding. It was life changing and affirming. And I have some pretty awesome pictures. I would like to tell you about my new show at the Magic. It's gonna be a good one. I would to tell you about the reading that I just did over in Marin. I would like to share what it's like to get caught in a torrential downpour on my bike. I hope to be able to get it together to do some of this soon.... but I'm still in 'one day at a time' mode.

So.

To all of you who have been such amazing rocks to lean on through this time, I thank you from the deepest depths of my soul. I know that I am in no shape to return the favor these days, but you have all rekindled my belief in the power of love and friendship and openness and communion and TRUTH and breath and flow and empathy. Thank you.

Sonora Pass/Leavitt Lake

2009-08-25T23:31:00.000-07:00

oh the Sierras how I love you...

Wag More. Bark Less.

2009-08-14T15:30:00.000-07:00

I saw that on someone's car yesterday and thought, "yes yes yes!" Such a simple, clear and useful mantra.

Wag More. Bark Less.

I don't know about y'all, but I can always use a little less bark in my life and I like as much wag as I can get. :)

Las Vegas Sucks. KA Kicks Ass.

2009-08-12T11:26:00.001-07:00

Wow. I really hated Las Vegas. Wow. It is a really terrible place. The smoking. The food. The overconsumption. The lack of recycling. The flagrant misuse of water. The idea that this is someone's idea of a perfect adult playground. The 105 degree temperature. Wow. I thought it was far closer to hell on earth than desert paradise... but then again, I'm an athletic liberal married non-smoking vegetarian female in my mid-30's. Perhaps this place was not really designed for me.

However...

...the whole reason for going was to see a Cirque show (Dave's B'day present to me) and, well, that actually exceeded my expectations (something that happens VERY rarely.) We saw KA. We had intended to see either Love or O, but neither of them were playing during this particular week. Zumanity was also on hiatus. This seemed irritating at first - the fact that 3 out of 6 Cirque shows were dark during the day and a half we were to be there - but I think it all worked out for the best. We probably wouldn't have chosen KA if the others had been playing. I thought KA was fantastic. The theatre was huge and beautiful and detailed and simply breathtaking. The show was not nearly as obtuse and french canadian as usual. it was actually really creative and exciting. And the stage.... holy shit... the stage. it turns in/around/up/down, i think, in 8 or 9 directions. it was incredible. it did everything but wipe your ass. the stage was like a main character in the show - that's how cool it was. so yes. if you are in Vegas, (and if you are... I'm SO sorry.) GO SEE KA.

Other Tidbits:
1) when we got there the cabbie asked what 'cold' place we had come from since he was so tickled that we had our North Faces with us. He said that we were lucky that we were there during a cool spell (103-105 is a cool spell) since it had hit somewhere around 116-118 during the whole past week. excuse me? what? that is just wrong.

2) we stayed in the Luxor because the room rates were insanely low (we paid more for one Cirque ticket than we did for 2 nights at the Luxor!) And well... it seemed kinda fun to stay in a pyramid. We reserved a non-smoking room in the pyramid on-line only to get to the hotel (and after standing in a cattle like line that was worse than the airport), we were told that all the non-smoking pyramid rooms were taken and we'd be upgraded to the Tower. Well that would be lovely for most people since the Tower rooms are newer and everyone told us that they were much nicer, but Dave and I wanted to stay in the PYRAMID, cause, well, that's what we wanted and what we had already PAID for online. Grrrrrrrr. The woman checking us in was not really interested in hearing this at all and just repeated that we were being upgraded. Ok, fine. I just wanted to get out of the cattle line. So we stayed in the Tower and yes, the room was lovely for how much it cost us... but still... this may be the only time I ever go to Vegas and I just wanted to stay in a silly, black pyramid.

3) On Monday, we were able to walk from Mandalay Bay/Luxor to Paris/Bellagio. That was all we could handle before we both hit a wall. The overstimulation wall. I think I'm so overstimulated in my general daily life, that it's the LAST thing that I want when I go away for vacation. We liked Paris. And thought the Excalibur was funny. All the other ones were kinda all the same flashing light/loud music/smoky/casino/bar/too many people thing over and over and over again.

4) We were told by our cabbies that business is down anywhere between 30-50%. From our viewpoint, it still seemed insanely overcrowded there for a Sunday-Tuesday visit, so I cannot imagine what it's like during a booming fiscal year.

5) And finally... why would you bring your whole FAMILY to Las Vegas?!?!??!?! It's so clearly designed for ADULTS. There are HUGE posters of scantily clad women EVERYwhere. There are men on the street willing to shove escort service cards into the hands of fathers holding babies. Why would you bring your kids to this awful place?!?!??!

Ok. I think I'm done now.

holy crap. i'm going to africa.

2009-07-20T23:36:00.000-07:00

holy crap. my mom and i bought plane tickets to tanzania this morning. holy crap.

this is where tanzania is:

the serengeti is in tanzania:

and so is mt. kilimanjaro:

and i will get to see them both. holy crap.

tanzania is the closest i have ever come to madagascar. it sort of makes me want to cry, but I will wave to the lemurs from mainland africa and let them know that I will be back for them some day. plus.... i mean, come on arwen, you will be in tanzania! holy shit! our plane tickets say 'kilimanjaro airport' on them. that is nuts.

just wanted to share.

(oh and the doubles website has been updated - check it out): Zwillinge

Doubles Website!

2009-07-15T13:56:00.000-07:00

So Jen is a super speed demon and has already thrown together a website for us! This is a first draft, but any comments, feedback etc. would be awesome: Zwillinge

(oh - Zwillinge = twins in German)

showcase - thursday night 6/18

2009-07-02T13:44:00.000-07:00

this was our first of the 6 performances. it's the only one we have videoed straight on as of now... but it at least gives you a concept... a grainy concept, but a concept nonetheless. :)

twin pics...

2009-07-02T13:28:00.001-07:00

Jen and I had an amazing time at the showcase... just amazing... :) thank you thank you to everyone who came to support us...

Circus Center Showcase Time!

2009-06-15T15:14:00.000-07:00

Ok! If you've wanted to check out my twin doubles trapeze act - now is the time!!!!

CIRCUS CENTER's Annual SHOWCASE

Our performers come from varied backgrounds and train hard for
countless hours. CIRCUS CENTER celebrates their dedication,
artistry and bravery! Good family entertainment!

Thursday June 18 & Friday June 19 @ 7:00 pm
Saturday June 20 @ 2:00 pm & 7:00 pm
Sunday June 21 @ 1:00 pm & 4:00 pm

Advance Tickets: $20 (Adults), $15 (Seniors, groups of 12 or more), $10 (Kids)
At the door: $25 (Adults), $20 (seniors, groups of 12 or more), $15 (Kids)

All shows at San Francisco CIRCUS CENTER,
755 Frederick Street (between Arguello and Stanyan)

Public Transportation: N Judah, 70, 37, 43

TICKETS available through TixBayArea
at www.TixBayArea.com or (415) 433-1235

My beautiful stamp show...

2009-06-14T23:55:00.000-07:00

...may have come to an end for me tonight. *sniff*. We had a fantastic two show day and then the cast and crew surprised me with an impromptu "closing" night party. It was really touching. Really. It was very strange to perhaps 'close' out a show before the show really closes (it may still yet have another extension, so my time with Mary may not yet be over!), but my doubles trapeze awaits and well, I'm pretty damn excited about that too! I know they say 'when it rains, it pours', but jesus, it's been like a constant torrential downpour over here in arwen-land. (note to self - when you haven't worked in any artistic medium for a year and feel that the well is dry, look back on this and remember!!!!!)

In the meantime, you should all come see my circus show - there are 6 chances to see the tall blonde twins... and if you missed Mauritius, I am not in it for the next two weeks (it is extended to 6/28 at this point), but it is a kick-ass show and deserves your support. Plus, you know, the man is out of his chair.....

Mauritius Opening Night Kicks Ass

2009-06-03T11:19:00.000-07:00

Ok. I have patiently waited and worked dilligently for 12 years in this town to be in a show where the little Chronicle Man is FINALLY leaping out of the chair. I've had lots and lots of good little man clapping reviews, but have never had him get his ass out of the chair. until now.

The day has come: Mauritius Review

:)

doubles routine!!! the whole thing!!!!

2009-05-10T21:46:00.000-07:00

here's our first official showing of our doubles routine. :) we'll be performing it in the annual Circus Center Showcase (third week of June).

it took me 34 years...

2009-04-24T18:02:00.000-07:00

...to be the kid on the playground that i always wanted to be...

those are the rings at muscle beach in santa monica. i had no idea arika was recording with her camera, but i'm super psyched that she was, since 1) holy shit, i can't believe i was able to do it! and 2) this is great footage to have for when i'm 85 and musing about 'the old days'. :)

there were these kind of rings too:

and these fun bars:

the whole experience was somewhat empowering as the vibe down there was very big man man mantimes look at all my pull ups man manny man uuuuupmh grrrrrr man times.

:)

Mauritius

2009-04-21T13:07:00.000-07:00

it's official. i booked another gig. this makes 5 in a row. I have crossed my heart and sworn to die to dave (and myself) that i will take the summer off!!!! i promise!!!! but wow. i guess this is sorta the "reaping the rewards" of all the dues paying in my 20's, eh?

it was really nice to see some of you over the past few weeks, i apologize if i disappear on you - i'm going to basically be in survival mode for the next 5 weeks.

i leave for LA LA Land tomorrow - visiting arika and cindy, which will be lovely and chill and super fun and planning on having brunch or something with Mr. Symonds as well as getting coffee with James. :) I'm trying not to over-schedule, especially since this will be my last time off before Mauritius begins rehearsal in LESS THAN A WEEK. (Monday, the 27th to be exact. whew.) but it just so happens that the Pasadena Playhouse down there is doing the show, so we're gonna go see it tomorrow night after I fly in. wacky, eh? :) AND - there is this circus training center that I'm gonna check out on Friday and have a trapeze lesson with one of their coaches, so that will be cool.

CANNOT wait to sleep in for FOUR DAYS STRAIGHT. sleep is the BEST thing in the world. I know that all my Mom friends out there are giving me a Hallelujah Sister!

fame and fortune...

2009-04-16T11:38:00.001-07:00

...will never be mine. But this is kinda cool: Arwen in the Examiner

pelican - here we come!

2009-04-05T11:27:00.001-07:00

yay! about to leave for trees and hiking and the Pelican Inn and peace and quiet and walk in fireplaces and totally dead cell phone area and ocean and hopefully banana slugs and like i said, trees trees trees and yay happy 24 hours away from the city. After a very long 9 hour day at the circus center yesterday, I'm really excited about a little rejuvenation time. really. excited.

oh - and since these seem to be popular - and here's our latest cute doubles move. we are calling it the 'love dip' for now:

not dead.

2009-03-30T22:52:00.001-07:00

so yeah. it's been a little busy. Just a note here for myself: DO NOT DO 4 SHOWS BACK TO BACK WITH 3 OF THEM OVERLAPPING. IT IS VERY TIRING. AND YOU ARE NOT A SUPERHERO.

Ok, now that we have that out of way, there may finally be some blog updates coming now and then in a more timely fashion. :)

but for now...

1) My show, 'Skin' ended on Saturday night. Twas a lovely run complete with an extension week and full of lovely people, but I am definitely ready for a break.

2) Dave and I are going to the Pelican Inn in Muir Beach this Sunday to Monday (thank you Mia and Dave!) and hoping to do some hiking on both days. The Pelican is one of my favorite places ever. It is right out of 'The Lord of the Rings' and should probably be in the town of Bree. I expect Strider to be sitting in the dark corner warming his boots by the enormous walk in hearth every time we go. He's never been there, but I keep checking for him. After we leave Marin on Monday we head over to the East Bay to do our first ever Zekey watching for Mia. We hope we succeed in this endeavor. I'm sure that Mia does too.

3) This Sunday was the end of the winter session at the circus center and I somehow managed to pull off 5 classes and privates and subbing without totally losing my mind. However... I learned a lot. I'll revisit this later. Spring session began today and I just found out that ALL of my silk classes are OVER full! WTF?!?!? more on that later as well....

4) Doubles trapeze with Jen has been super awesome. We are trying to put together a routine for this year's showcase in June. It is SO HARD. SO MUCH harder than silk and so much harder than solo act building. But it's also a lot of fun and really rewarding because it's so hard. I'll post more videos soon. I just have to figure out how to edit out the long sections in the middle where we sit and talk to one another on the trapeze for minutes. you don't need to see that.

5) I still have my day job. Considering what is happening in the world, that seemed worthy of reporting.

6) Got to play a bunch of Damien Rice songs this week with Patrick. Was really pleasing to cut my nails so that I could play guitar again... and was really pleasing to play ultra beautiful and depressing songs. :)

7) My first full day off in like, i don't know, 8 MONTHS was yesterday. Dave and I saw 'Monsters vs Aliens' in IMAX 3D. It was SO much fun.

8) If we are supposed to go out to dinner/lunch/coffee to catch up, you can try emailing me now. I seem to have more time. ;)

9) Battlestar Galactica is over. *whimper*

10) We are currently watching 'Long Way Down' - Ewan MacGregor and Charley Boorman's second amazing motorcycle journey. This time from Scotland to Cape Town, South Africa. It's great. So was the first one, "Long Way Round". I highly recommend them. You don't need to like motorcycles in order to like the show. at all. it's more about travel and curiosity and communication and friendship and perspective than anything else. good stuff. 3 thumbs up!

11) I'm excited for Spring. And I love the light staying with us til 7:30pm. sooooooooooo pleasing.

and i will leave you with my 1/2 twist to ankles. :)

more doubles

2009-03-13T00:14:00.000-07:00

so - no time to blog. no time to do anything. but here's another peek at some of our doubles practice. We are now up on the real doubles trapeze. :)

skin

2009-02-21T09:32:00.000-08:00

somehow i seem to be entering tech week for my next show. this one is dark, but also really freaking funny. kinda like the way 'revolutionary road' was really dark but WAY more funny than expected. or maybe you didn't think that. maybe that was just me.

anyway - it deals with very adult relationship stuff and there is nudity (nope, sorry, not me.)
Details:
'SKIN'
by Steve Yockey
directed by Mark Routhier
February 26 - March 21
Thursday & Fridays at 8PM
Saturdays at 7:30PM & 10PM
at the Climate Theater (285 9th Street, SF, CA corner of 9th and Folsom)
info can be found here: SKIN and here SKIN

and you know - if i owe you a phone call or an e-mail, i apologize... my brain is about to explode and i am in 'just take it day by day, minute by minute' mode and will be for one more full week.

doubles trapeze...

2009-02-16T16:00:00.000-08:00

... has become an obsession. which is odd, since my partner jen and i never really cared for watching it, but man it is fun to work on. :) here's a tiny sneak peek at some moves we are working on stringing together.

Cancel it!

2009-02-16T15:42:00.000-08:00

so... i started to feel like boiled crap yesterday. not pleasing. so today, i made the unprecedented move to just cancel the whole day. i am so not good at this. my intense 'suck it up and deal' side always mocks me and chides me if i don't just suffer through the day. but you know what? after much internal struggle, i told her to fuck off.

to begin with, i called the girls that i train with at the circus center every monday morning and canceled. i called my private aerial silk students and canceled their lesson today.

that was a lot of canceling, so i drank my coffee and ate my bagel and decided that i could really do this. i mustered up the strength to shoot an e-mail off to my agent and canceled out of an audition today and then called in sick to the day job (yeah - we don't have presidents day off.) sadly, i cannot entirely cancel the day job, since i have my computer at home and have to complete my time sheet along with some other things. but honestly, that's not too bad.

i am proud.

i have canceled today.

:)

Obama Goodness and Peanut Butter Badness

2009-01-20T18:21:00.000-08:00

Happy Happy Obama day! What a day of hope! What a day to be proud and grateful to be an American. I stayed home with Dave and the birdies this morning so we could watch the inauguration together. I could do with a little less pomp and annoying newscaster opinions, but it was thrilling nonetheless.

And now - about my good friend PB - let me share some peanut butter information with you. I eat a lot of peanut butter. A LOT. The current peanut butter scare of 2009 is driving me crazy. If you also eat a lot of peanut butter, I have some info for you. Basically - you can eat peanut butter - the kind from a jar. It's fine. It's the little debbie snack cakes and shit that you need to toss. And Clif Bars. I just found out today about Clif Bars. *sniff*

From the FDA:

Major national brands of jarred peanut butter are not affected by the PCA recall. PCA does not sell peanut butter directly to consumers. PCA only sells peanut butter to institutions and food manufacturers (some of which use it as an ingredient in other processed/packaged foods). Some food manufacturers use PCA peanut butter or peanut paste in baked or processed foods, such as crackers, cookies, cakes or ice cream to name a few. The FDA and food manufacturers are working to identify products that may be affected, and to track the ingredient supply chain of those products to facilitate their removal from the marketplace.

And this just released from Clif Bar:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- BERKELEY, Calif., Jan 19, 2009 -- Clif Bar & Company today announced a voluntary recall of CLIF(R) and LUNA(R) branded bars that contain peanut butter because the products have the potential to be contaminated with Salmonella. The recalled products contain peanut butter manufactured by Peanut Corporation of America (PCA). PCA is the focus of an investigation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concerning a recent Salmonella outbreak thought to be caused by tainted peanut butter.

The following Clif Bar & Company products with "Best By/Sell By" dates ranging as shown below, in all sizes and packages, are included in the recall:

Clif Bar Chocolate Chip Peanut Crunch
BEST BY/SELL BY: 21JUN09 to 01OCT09, and 03NOV09 to 28NOV09
Clif Bar Crunchy Peanut Butter
BEST BY/SELL BY: 21JUN09 to 01OCT09, and 03NOV09 to 28NOV09
Clif Bar Peanut Toffee Buzz
BEST BY/SELL BY: only 13SEP09
ZBaR Peanut Butter
BEST BY/SELL BY: 07JUL09 to 05SEP09, and 12NOV09
Clif Builders Peanut Butter
BEST BY/SELL BY: 19JUL09 to 30SEP09, and 05NOV09 to 18NOV09
Luna Nutz over Chocolate
BEST BY/SELL BY: 29JUL09 to 03OCT09, 11NOV09 to 14NOV09
Luna Peanut Butter Cookie
BEST BY/SELL BY: 02OCT09 to 03OCT09, and 11NOV09 to 14NOV09
All Clif Mojo Bars
BEST BY/SELL BY: 30APR09 to 21JUN09

In other news, my show continues to kick ass. I will post some awesome reviews and articles soon. And my next show is finally fully cast and will start rehearsals in a week and a half. yes. it is crazy. these overlaps... i know. anyway....

I can drop from standing all the way to catching by my ankles on the trapeze without lines now. I can balance on my knees and roll forward (suicide roll - nice name, eh?) without lines. And I got my skin the cat fall to ankles back without lines. i am a badass. oh - i can also hold myself on the bar with one heel, but I still need lines for that as I fall off more than half the time still. BUT. I mean, come on, ONE HEEL! think about it. :) I can also muscle my way through 10 pullups (once again - finally!) and 10 skin the cats (and I couldn't do ONE just a few months ago). Things on the circus front have been kicking ass. I had a tissu gig scheduled for valentines day, but it was just cancelled. ah well. Plus I'm teaching 5 classes and a slew of privates. it's crazy, but i love it.

I need to run to teach some tissu right now, but I'm reminding myself that I want to tell you about my first physical therapy appointment. it was yesterday. my pelvis is all out of whack. my right side is turning in. a lot. but it feels a good deal better today. i think this stuff just may work. i sure hope so anyway.... and today is a good day to be hopeful!

let's just look at it in print one more time: President Obama.

pleasing.

i have been so freaking busy...

2009-01-08T11:37:00.000-08:00

... but i would like to at least take a moment to say,

1) Happy New Year!

2) My new play, T.I.C. Trenchcoat in Common, totally freaking rules. And not just because the Chronicle says so: HERE

It rules even MORE than he says. :)

I must now resume doing 12 things at once.

Happy Holidays!

2008-12-24T14:09:00.000-08:00

Hope you all have a festive time celebrating something!!!

4 jobs is too many

2008-12-17T11:32:00.000-08:00

just wanted to check in to apologize if I owe you an email… a phone call… money… all three. ;) I'm so sorry if i suck as a friend or a daughter or a sister or a coworker or a mom (sorry birdies!) right now. i just spent two weeks working 4 jobs and as I slowly emerge from the chaos, I can safely say - 4 jobs is 4 TOO MANY. For two weeks I was trying to work 1) my day job; 2) teach, train and create a new duo silk act from scratch at the circus center; 3) perform 'current nobody'; and 4) rehearse 'T.I.C.' *yawn* wow. i'm tired. i woke up today with a sore throat and no energy to speak of, so I think my body as told me in no uncertain terms that it is time to chill the fuck out. Sadly, that is out of the question. I may have closed 'current nobody', but rehearsals are gearing up full force for T.I.C (we open January 5th - that's sort of INSANE), day job has work for me to do and teaching and training fill in what little holes there are, since, well, I will be performing a new aerial silk routine with my new partner Jen this Saturday. We are twins separated at birth. It's kinda cool. Just imagine… not one… but TWO arwen's doing nifty silk routines next to one another - that's pretty much what you'll see on Saturday. It's a work-in-progress, but i think it will still be pretty awesome as long as Jen and I can both stay healthy!

Breathe.

okay - I just got an e-mail that a big audition that I had later today is being cancelled and my heart seriously just sang the hallelujah chorus. :)

sweet.

So yeah - come see me at the circus center this Saturday, December 20th. We go on around 2:30pm. It's totally free to get in. you may have to pay a small fee if you want to try the flying trapeze. Which you do.

San Francisco Circus Center welcomes the public to an all-day festival!

Open House and Holiday Carnival 10am - 4pm
San Francisco Circus Center opens its doors to the public for a full day of fun and circus for the whole family. We will offer free workshops in clowning, acrobatics, and circus skills, as well as free performances by our amazing students. For a modest fee, you will be able to fly on the trapeze, balance on a rolling globe, get your face painted, take home a custom-tied balloon animal, load up on popcorn and hot pretzels, and much more!

Main Gym:
10am - 2pm - Try Flying Trapeze
2:30 - 4:00 - Aerial, Teeterboard and Trampoline performance/demonstrations

Theater Room:
On-going - Workshops, clowning, acrobatics, contortion, juggling demonstrations

Basement:
On-going - Holiday Carnival: rolling globe, rolla bolla, tightwire, facepainting, toddler play area, balloon animals, food concessions, costumes and clowning for kids

Trapeze Room:
On-going circus videos and photo exhibit

Everywhere: Walkaround entertainers and circus music (authentic caliope demonstrations outside entrance to basement)

www.circuscenter.org
755 Frederick Street (behind Kezar Stadium), San Francisco, CA

breathing

2008-12-04T11:58:00.001-08:00

Breathing. I've been thinking about it a lot lately. I don't know about you, but when I get nervous about something or if something is physically difficult (lifting, stretching, circus, etc.), my body tenses up and I hold my breath. I don't really even know that I'm doing it; it seems to happen on instinct. Before circus, I never really had to think about breathing much (except for a yoga class here and there - and I was usually too busy grumbling to myself about how much I hate yoga to think much about breathing.) Turns out that breathing through something physically difficult is really good; it makes you more relaxed and makes you lighter. Lighter is good. I just wish it was more intuitive. I still have to constantly remind myself to breath before doing something difficult or scary. On Tuesday, I executed some difficult trapeze moves for the first time out of safety lines. I've been doing these moves for quite some time, but it's amazing how much your brain and body understand the difference between being hooked up to lines that will catch you if you fall and not being hooked up to ANYTHING. As I started to go into the first move, I felt as shaky as if it was my first time trying the trick and so I immediately stopped. I reset myself and checked in and realized - nope - I wasn't breathing. I took a few deep breaths and went on to do the combination. I've found that I've done this a lot in circus recently as I keep pushing to do harder and harder tricks and I'm having to deal with fear again. I'm hoping that one of these days it will start to become second nature, but I don't think that's the way it works. I have a feeling it's one of those 'life lessons' we all know and love. ;)

I employ this with acting too - if I feel nervous before going on stage or into an audition situation, I'll find a quiet corner and take 10 deep breaths. It really helps. I feel my body flood with some sense of calm and then I can actually return to myself. When I was rock climbing, I called it 'finding the zen place'.

So I find myself thinking about breathing more and more as we enter the month of complete and utter insanity that is December. I was just talking about this with my cast mates last night - how this month is totally out of control - and if your life is generally out of control to begin with, this month takes it to entirely new levels. So this year, December is going to be my month of breathing. I highly encourage you to join me in this. I will breathe deeply every time I arrive at the office downtown and am showered in the over-commercialized 'spirit of the season'. I will breathe deeply every time I check my overwhelming email (and I will breathe deeply looking at every party, show, gig, event, etc. that I get invited to and breathe deeply as I know that I cannot make it to all of them.) I will breathe deeply as I think about shopping. I will breathe deeply while shopping. I hate shopping. I will breathe deeply when my brain starts to overfill and all tasks seem insurmountable. I will breathe deeply and organize my tasks instead of flailing and feeling useless and angry and frustrated and altogether un-jolly. I will breathe deeply as I wake up tired every single morning because my body wants to hibernate as it gets colder. I will breathe deeply as it becomes dark at 4:30 in the afternoon. I will breathe deeply for my students as they struggle and succeed and remind them to breathe deeply. I will breathe deeply when I think about presents and trees and candles for the menorah and house cleaning and laundry and buying groceries and birdies kicking all their expensive food all over the cage bottom and onto the rug and the couch. I will breathe deeply as I look into the future and see just how busy this month is with two more weeks of a show running and rehearsals for a new one starting on Saturday and Aerial Silk routines that need to be brushed off in three weeks time and the impossibility of scheduling bike rides and band rehearsals and friend dates and enough time with my husband during the next 4 weeks. Oh god. Hold on - I need to take a really deep breath after that one. Whew. I will breathe deeply for our country…our economy... our sanity… for the eradication of Prop 8… I will breathe deeply for hope… for gratitude… for life. I will breathe deeply and remember that this is supposed to be a season of joy and love and thanks and the giving and receiving of those things (which is WAY better than any physical present).

I'm gonna get SO lightheaded from all this breathing.

Anyhow… I sent this out in an email to a lot of people - but wanted to post it up here as well (you may want to breathe deeply before reading it):

*****************************************

Many of you know that a few years back my life changed rather dramatically after seeing a beautiful woman perform feats of grace, strength and agility on the aerial silk. Now I train it, teach it and perform it. Many of you have showed interest in either seeing me perform and/or trying some of this zany aerial stuff yerselves. Well. The time has come.

1) I am performing aerial silk at the Circus Center's Open House and Holiday Carnival on Saturday, December 20th. This is a great day to come by and check out what the center is about, try swinging from a trapeze, watch people train and check out a few performances (and it's VERY kid friendly). I'll be performing between 2:30 -2:45pm.

Info:
Circus Center Open House and Holiday Carnival!!!
Please join us as Circus Center celebrates the holidays with an Open House and Carnival, featuring free circus shows, free circus workshops, and a free "tiny tot" area, followed by a recital of our Professional Clown and Aerial Students!

SATURDAY DECEMBER 20
Open House and Carnival - 10 AM - 4 PM *** FREE!!! ***
Circus Center
755 Frederick Street in San Francisco (behind Kezar Stadium)
www.circuscenter.org

2) I have been teaching aerial conditioning and aerial silk at the center since early in the year and I'm going to start teaching even more. Our next session will begin at the start of the New Year and if you'd like to try a class, maybe now is a good time! The Winter Session runs Jan 5 - Mar 29. Direct link to class schedule: HERE

I teach:
Tuesdays 4:30-6 Trapeze 1 (I will be teaching this class every other week with the head of our aerial program, Helene, which is a great opportunity to have two teachers.)
Tuesdays 6-7:30 Trapeze 1 (every other week with this one too)
Thursdays 3:30-5pm Beginning Aerial Silk
Saturdays 10:30-12pm Aerial Conditioning

And I also teach privates at $45/hour or semi-privates with one other person are just $27.50/person for an hour.

Anyway - if you have any questions or interest at all, let me know…. It changed my life, it could just change yours too. :)

Also - while I am here…. Let me just remind you that my current theatre show, Current Nobody, is running for just 2 more weeks with only 6 performances left. This is a super talented cast and a smart, funny, moving show. And it runs only 85 minutes. Thurs, Fri, Sat 8pm at the Exit Theater through December 13th. www.justtheater.org

And after that, mark your calendars in the New Year for my next show:
T.I.C.
Trenchcoat in Common
a world premiere play by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb
directed by Ken Prestininzi
January 2 - February 1, 2009
at Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco
Thursday-Saturday at 8:30pm, Sunday at 5:00pm
Previews: January 2 and 3 at 8:30pm, January 4 at 5pm
Opening: January 5, 2008 at 8:30pm
www.encoretheatrecompany.org

(you should check out the website just to see the press photo.)

:(

2008-11-19T22:14:00.000-08:00

it is totally NOT okay with me that the Embarcadero Center is FULLY decked out in Christmas splendor. I would say 'Holiday' splendor, but that may give you the false impression that perhaps it is decorated for Thanksgiving - which has not even HAPPENED yet. This is very troubling and just makes me feel stressed when I go to work. do. not. like. at. all.

i mean for fucks sake - could we please at LEAST have thanksgiving before they shove this shit down our throats.

and by the way - i actually like holidays - i like the spirit of them - i like a lot of the fundamental ideas/ideals of them (i.e. NOT consumer WHOREdom). i like feeling happy and jolly and merry and festivusy and like there are fun things to do with fun people that i love and feel thankful for having in my life. but. really. it is november 19th - i should not be humming along with 'rudolph the red nosed reindeer'.

i do not believe i am alone in this either.

yet another boyfriend...

2008-11-12T10:38:00.000-08:00

ok. i know, i know... i have quite a nice little handful of boyfriends. But lately I feel like as I add them to my list, I am just as often taking them off. For example, after seeing Neil Gaiman reading from his superfunandawesome new book for young adults, The Graveyard Book, live and in person at the Kabuki Theatre here in town, I decided that he is no longer my boyfriend. I still love him dearly and think he is talented beyond belief, gush gush gush, but he's not my boyfriend anymore. ani difranco recently came off the girlfriend list. Same thing - LOVE her LOVE her LOVE her to death, but just watch a behind the scenes DVD and you'll see why she is not girlfriend material. ANYWAY. Mark Morford has been a boyfriend for awhile and today he provided yet another good example of why I love him and why he gets to stay on the list: Permagrins for Obama

a random photo journey

2008-11-11T11:41:00.000-08:00

greetings on this lovely tuesday! :) why is it so lovely, you may ask? because today I finally kicked a circus nemesis of mine in the ass. and after i kicked its ass once, i kicked it 4 more times. i am talking about a sweet little circus item called "skin the cat". it was the ONLY nemesis I had left (except for fear of heights and that's never going away), as I have wiped out many many many nemesii (?) through the years, but this one just never clicked. until today. and i had to keep doing it to prove to myself it really happened, so before i knew it, i had done FIVE. I will try to find a video of one, so that you can know what the hell I'm talking about. but basically, for me, this was a big ass deal and now I can finally feel like a real teacher. ;) (more on that later - I have lots of news...but it deserves its own post...)

as for the show.... my darling show, "Current Nobody".... i'm actually really excited to start TECH tonight. I'm a really strange actor in that I generally LOVE TECH. :) Did I mention that this is a really cool show. Ok, good. If you want info, just look at the previous post. :)

now for something completely different...

i feel lazy, so here is a pictorial of some of the things that have been going on in the lives of the tarts....

I went back east in late September to visit family and friends... twas also my mom's birthday. she and I went into NYC and walked through Central Park, went to the Museum of Natural History (one of my favorites since childhood) and had dinner and saw 'Spring Awakening', which was fine, but not great.

Here is mutti in the Museum with the Stegosaurus:

I also went on a day trip with my father to the massively huge original Cabelas store (they are an outdoor recreation and hunting superstore). People actually TRAVEL to come to this store. They sell postcards of their store. It was something else. I learned a lot about trophy deer and the way antlers are judged. As you can see from this picture, they have every horned/antlered animal that you can hunt along the wall:

they also have a really cool aquarium where the fish, thankfully, are alive... AND they have this crazy super mountain structure in the middle of the store with ALL sorts of stuffed things. Here's my dad with the Polar Bears:

in continuing to try to follow a good number of Michael Pollen's food rules in his awesome book, "In Defense of Food", I have been learning all sorts of new things about cooking and spices and the amazingness of the shallot and on and on and on, but one of the most fun new things has been cooking beets. Here dave and I demonstrate how fun Beets can be:

I was a fairy for Halloween. I had a gig that was supposed to be a trapeze gig for a big fancyrichpeople halloween party where I needed to be a fairy, so I just went as a fairy to Halloween as well. Dave was, um... something, no one really know what it was and sadly I do not have a picture. But we went to Carrie Paff and her husband Jeremy's party and had a grand ole time. We won comic books. it was pleasing. :)

and finally - I wanted to show off Sorsha's new tires. honestly, she and I are not sure if maybe it's too much... does it make her look like a hipster? or like she's wearing a matching leisure suit? we are not sure. but we went riding in the headlands with Elizabeth yesterday and had a grand ole time, so maybe they are stylish and functional, which is something I appreciate. ;)

Current Nobody

2008-11-09T22:28:00.000-08:00

Hey - I'm about to enter TECH week for my next show. Why have I not told you about this earlier? I dunno.... we all go through blog phases, I guess. ;)

It's pretty durn wacky and smart and imaginative and well-written and the cast and crew are REALLY nice and talented and it's affordable and it's totally elitist. ;) It's called Current Nobody and it's a sort of contemporary re-imagining of The Odyssey with the genders flipped (see below). I play Pen. Pen rules.

Please notate that we have two pay-what-you-can previews this Friday and Saturday. Those are REALLY cheap.

Just Theater Presents the West Coast Premiere of:

CURRENT NOBODY
by Melissa James Gibson
Directed by Jonathan Spector

"She said the general said this was a
Besiege Becalm Begone type of thing and
she said the general said In and Out and
generals are generally right"

A modern riff on Homer's Odyssey, CURRENT NOBODY reverses the genders to tell the story of an epic long-distance relationship and the ultimate working Mom. While his famous photo-journalist wife Pen is away covering a war for 20 years, Od struggles to raise his daughter and fend off the advances of a trio of indie-documentary filmmakers. With dazzling language and humor CURRENT NOBODY weaves together this famous tale with the very contemporary dilemma of attempting to balance career, ambition and family life.

With Arwen Anderson*, Michael Barrett Austin,* Lizzie Calogero*, Lindsey Gates,* Danielle Levin*, Michelle Pava Mills*, and Ryan O'Donnell
*(Actors' Equity Association Member, An Equity Approved project)

Sets: Logan Granger Costumes: Tammy Berlin Lights: Stephanie Buchner Sound: Dina Maccabee Dramaturg: Maryanne Olson

Stage Manager: Alex Mallory

Produced by: Molly Aaronson-Gelb

Produced in Partnership with Playwrights Foundation

Tickets: $12 - $25 sliding scale
Call 510 421 1458 or http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/46107

Nov. 14 and 15 Pay-What-You-Can Previews

Opening Night: Monday, Nov. 17

Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays thru Dec. 13

All shows @ 8pm
Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy Street, San Francisco

www.justtheater.org

ok good - i can have a kid now

2008-11-05T19:28:00.000-08:00

by which i mean i can have an Obama Baby rather than a Bush Baby (and this is not to be an announcement that ANYTHING is on the way.....i just like the thought....)

:)

I wrote this yesterday:

"Hm. For some reason, I seem to have woken up in one nasty-grumpy-ass mood today. I'm wondering if I'm just tense about what is a, you know, sort of important day. (yes, I was employing understatement) I feel sort of weird in my tummy actually. Anybody else feel this way? It's like there is a little gnawing anxiety demon in there. *sigh* I think it's also that as I was riding my bike downtown to work today, (where, by the way, I just give up even trying to concentrate - it's just not gonna happen!) I was suddenly struck with the notion that I should have done more. I coulda, shoulda, woulda… It's really lame, but true. Part of it is that it took me a little longer than most to come around to Obama. I'm not going to get into it, but it took me a while to 'feel the magic', which, honestly, I still don't always get, BUT I have been super impressed with the man in the face of the last few months of nasty mud-slinging and lies and 'she who must not be named', etc., etc. Anyway - I hate phone banking and don't want to help that way. I know how annoying I find it personally when I receive calls at home, so I just can't go there… I've talked and talked and talked to lots of people - trying the one person at a time approach - but most of them agree with me, so how does that help? I live in California (NO ON EIGHT!!!!! YES ON TWO!!!!!!), so my state is locked in for Obama, so my vote is just part of a massive flag of support. Honestly, part of it is that I have a hard time with politics in general. I've realized over time that I am just DONE with fakeness. I have no time for that bullshit anymore. It's part of the reason that I have WAY less theatre/actor friends than I once did. Sure - be a great actor on stage/film, but when we hang out, just be you, whatever that may be… I know that politics IS theatre in a lot of ways. I do. But even knowing that, I always get a little thrill when a politician flashes a passing glance of real emotion… I feel like politics takes the ' real you' out of everyone who stays in it for any amount of time. Maybe these things are silly and naïve to say. I'm just rambling because I'm so damn tense."

I can now say for sure that, yes, the anxiety of the election put me in a shitty mood and made my shoulders so tense that they are actually sore today (oh ok - that might be from trapeze, but who knows?). But wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! all things MUCH better today - except for the red wine hangover and this proposition 8 BULLSHIT that is the only thing making today not a perfectly wonderful rejoice-fest. oh - and after hearing Obama last night - I am so please to report, that YES - I get it now. I cried. I sooooooooo get it.

If I'm not carfeul, I'll be running around town on my bike singing, "I'm proud to be an American" by Lee Greenwood. ;)

heh.

Congratulations America and congratulations to the world. So nice to wake up to a day of hope.....

gobama!!!!

2008-11-04T23:55:00.000-08:00

there is light after so much dark.

I don't know about where you live... But people are going apeshit out here.

I'm so very proud of my country. Feels nice to be proud of ones country. :)

I think my little brother put it best, when he texted me simply, "fuck yeah!"

Fuck yeah.

A little bit of hope feels damn good. :)

truckee time!

2008-10-21T12:31:00.000-07:00

with the figster!!!

unmotivated

2008-10-08T17:35:00.000-07:00

Hi. It's been a while. I was on the east coast for a week and blah blah blah and life just keeps speeding along and suddenly you feel like you can never catch up with it all - let alone blog it all - so you just don't. and then you don't some more… um, yeah… and then some more.

I'm really tired today and I feel totally unmotivated. I don’t even know where I found the motivation to start typing this.

sooooooo.... lots of stuff.

- Dave's Dad got here saturday. We've eaten a lot of food, went to see Dave do a dive show at the Academy of Sciences (which is awesome and you should go) and right now they are in Yosemite having man time. I am jealous. Yosemite is one of my favorite places on earth. But I didn't feel like I could skip teaching any more circus classes and I had just been away from the day job for a week and well, sometimes you just don't get what you want. ;)

- but sometimes you do. Like right now. I was thinking about how much I am hating being chained to my desk for the entire day. I was thinking about how lovely a glass of wine would be. And just like that - the AMD asks if we should go check out the wine bar in Embarcadero 2. sweet. sometimes you do get what you want. :)

So I'm gonna go get a glass of wine (or maybe even TWO!) and sit outside in this glorious weather and think about how sometimes it really kicks ass to be unmotivated.

til next small motivational spurt....

Crutch Camp Palin

2008-09-18T23:34:00.000-07:00

Ok - I never thought her name would worm its way onto my blog, but....well... I found this pleasing:

Sarah Palin Baby Names

Mine is: Crutch Camp Palin

Dave's is: Crunk Petrol Palin. I tried it for some of the birdies... my favorite is that Rowsby Woof would be named Flex Gunship Palin. heh. I dunno why... I found that really amusing. Giggle-worthy even. But I did just teach silk for 5 HOURS so I'm little brain dead. ;)

and please make sure that you have all watched this:

Daily Show

I am officially on break from the news. Until this so called 'liberal media' that supposedly runs the world find some balls and/or pulls their collective heads out of their asses and starts asking some real questions and oh, I don't know, reporting some actual NEWS, I am on strike. The bitter taste of hypocrisy has been testing the limits of my optimism and frankly... that pisses me off.

oh - and if you haven't... watch this too: Saturday Night Live

i have clearly returned to the circus

2008-09-17T15:55:00.001-07:00

my body once again looks like it lost a fight with a battering ram. i love circus. :)

crankypants

2008-09-09T16:38:00.000-07:00

It's official. I am still not a morning person. Dave had to literally toss me out of bed this morning. I am not kidding. It was awful. I sat there on the floor not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Why is it that some people can pop right out of bed fresh and vibrant and ready to meet the day while some of us feel like we are being re-ripped from the womb EVERY single time the stupid alarm goes off. Ugh. And now I feel grumpy and tired and annoyed. Good combo! Oh - and there are aliens in my stomach and they are not friendly. Ugh.

Ok- I wrote that this morning and I am now back from trapeze class. My tummy is still wonky, but man - after flipping around in the air a bit and catching oneself by body parts that have no business holding ones entire body weight, I feel a whole lot better… which is good, because I have to turn around and go back and teach in just about another hour. (oh yeah - by the way - I've started teaching! Anyone wanna learn aerial tissu or trapeze or just generally get your butt kicked? let me know. I'm available.)

Wow. I was REALLY cranky this morning. I hope I didn't talk to any of you… if I did, I probably snarled. Sorry. goodness gracious, dear me.

arika and cindy are the change you want to see in the world

2008-09-02T20:41:00.000-07:00

Dave, Ann Marie and I spent Labor Day weekend in Santa Barbara, California at a truly lovely wedding. I believe a wedding that widens and deepens your heart and inspires you to be better in your own life is a damn good wedding. My dear friends Arika and Cindy (who have been together almost as long as Dave and I...over 11 years) decided to take advantage of the fact that for the time being gay marriage is legal in California. Well, they took FULL advantage and created a uniquely beautiful and inspiring wedding...and it was at the Santa Barbara Zoo... I mean, how cool is that? Dave and I trucked an ass load of sound and music stuff down and Dave played some lovely original creations during the ceremony and I sang and played two songs of their choosing" "Magnolia Street" by Catie Curtis and "Push" by Sarah McLachlan. Ann Marie was their wedding photographer (they saw her pictures from our CLL and saw how awesome they were.... and, well, the fact that she had a couple really flattering pictures of Arika in there didn't hurt). The weather was perfect. The lions waited until after the ceremony to start making rather loud angry growls. All family members behaved themselves. And I got to have a nice conversation with a very awesome bird of prey, whose name is escaping me (stanley?)... well, anyway, I thought we were communing over life and happiness until his trainer told me that he was probably looking at me so intently because predators zero in on red things and i was wearing red lipstick. oh. ok. I guess he just wanted to attack my face. it was still cool. Also - Arika and Cindy worked really hard to keep it a 'green' wedding, with wildlife adoptions at the reception tables for every person who came, favors in boxes that were made of seeds and could be planted and reused, necklaces for attendants bought from a website that made donations to charities (my necklace saved a tract of rainforest)... all sorts of great ideas. they also wrote some of the most heartfelt and sob-worthy vows I have ever heard. i was more than a little verklempt.

anyway - i'm doing a hack job of explaining it to you because a) i'm still waking up and b) it's hard to describe any experience that transcends normal every day life, but suffice to say, it was wonderful and every bit as real and special and touching and important and legal (!) as any wedding between two people deeply in love... now let's just hope oh great and glorious state of California that they will be allowed to KEEP IT THAT WAY.

Test.

2008-08-19T15:21:00.000-07:00

Ok - I stole this one from a bunch of you because I was procrastinating writing my already late development plan at work. (Does anyone else HATE writing development plans as much as I do???!?!?!??)

anyway.

test is here: http://mindmedia.com/braintest.html

This makes me sound a lot more awesome than I really am. I kinda want to take it again in a few days to see if I really would score differently. I am surprised that my left and right are so close. But it is correct on most accounts: I can't make decisions to save my life and I do often get anxious as I alternate between logic and impulse. I have math anxiety. Even though I kind of like math. I hate being tested. But I also like it. huh. I am pretty happy most of the time. Or at least I try to be. I am MUCH MORE than a LITTLE critical of myself and I don't think I downplay my creativity, but who knows, I spend so much time apologising for not being good enough at things that perhaps that is exactly what I'm doing. huh.

Your Brain Usage Profile:

Auditory : 37%
Visual : 62%
Left : 52%
Right : 47%

Arwen, you exhibit an even balance between left- and right- hemisphere dominance and a slight preference for visual over auditory processing. With a score this balanced, it is likely that you would have slightly different results each time you complete this self-assessment quiz.

You are a well-rounded person, distinctly individualistic and artistic, an active and multidimensional learner. At the same time, you are logical and disciplined, can operate well within an organization, and are sensitive towards others without losing objectivity. You are organized and goal-directed. Although a "thinking" individual, you "take in" entire situations readily and can act on intuition.

You sometimes tend to vacillate in your learning styles. Learning might take you longer than someone of equal intellect, but you will tend to be more thorough and retain the material longer than those other individuals. You will alternate between logic and impulse. This vacillation will not normally be intentional or deliberate, so you may experience anxiety in situations where you are not certain which aspect of yourself will be called on.

With a slight preference for visual processing, you tend to be encompassing in your perceptions, process along multidimensional paths and be active in your attacking of situations or learning.

Overall, you should feel content with your life and yourself. You are, perhaps, a little too critical of yourself -- and of others -- while maintaining an "openness" which tempers that tendency. Indecisiveness is a problem and your creativity may not be in keeping with your potential. Being a pragmatist, you downplay this aspect of yourself and focus on the more immediate, obvious and the more functional.

Sorsha

2008-08-18T09:21:00.000-07:00

I took my new bike on her first ride two weekends ago. She did very well, although it will take my body awhile to get used to all the things that are different: frame size, pedals, handlebars, wheels, blah blah blah... Elizabeth and I did a nice, long ride to fairfax and then back through the full paradise loop into tiburon and then home. It's about 55 miles door to door.

About 30 minutes into the ride, my neck, right shoulder, right hip flexor and right knee started hurting. I figured out that there was something jabbing me in my calf on the right side. It was making me bleed. I was tweaking my leg to make it stop, thereby creating all the pains on my right side. We got it fixed at Mike's Bikes. They were awesome and did it for free. I bought some fingerless gloves from them. Soon after, those pains abated. About 30 miles in, my butt started to hurt. a lot. By the time we were done, I was toast and, well, so many things ached, I will not bore you with the inventory... or the fact that she is sooooo much lighter than Mr. Speedy that I thought I was going DIE coming downhill into Sausalito with all the wind whipping at me from front, side and back. Twas scary. But I lived to tell the tale.

BUT.

Near the end of the ride, she told me her name. Her name is Sorsha. Who knew? It seems to fit her though. And I think I like it. :)

Elizabeth and I rode again this past Saturday and even though I had a few more new things (new pedals to go with my new road bike shoes), Sorsha felt SO MUCH better than the first ride. This is impressive since Jim, who met us about half way, commented on just how bad a head wind we were dealing with the whole ride. Head winds suck. Wind in general is pretty annoying. Sorsha is not. And she's really pretty. I think we'll get along just fine.

Moving Forward

2008-08-06T23:58:00.000-07:00

Wow. I've had this blog for just about 3 years to the day. Wow. I have to give myself a little pat on the back. I admittedly have a habit of getting super excited about new things, have a honeymoon period with them (lasts somewhere between a week and a year), and then suddenly I feel like I've had my fill and just stop. Things that make it past that time frame are generally around for the long haul. I guess that means the blog somehow made it. Huh.

I've been rather useless lately. I got socked with a really, really terrible cold last Monday night (it hit right as the lights were going doing at the IMAX theatre where we were seeing 'The Dark Knight'. You should see it. You should see it on IMAX.) I stayed home from work Tuesday and half of Wednesday and felt like utter shit all the way through the weekend. As you can imagine, Serafina's death on Thursday was like a double whammy. :( But I'm FINALLY feeling a wittle bit better. Ugh. Still spewing tons of snot out my nose and waking up tired every day, but a tiny bit less tired than the day before. I say again - ugh.

I've had the chance to read a lot. I finally finished "Case Histories" by Kate Atkinson. I recommend it. Good detective novel with really solid, well drawn characters and just the right amount of wry British humor. Jen Weed just loaned me her first novel, "Behind the Scenes at the Museum" which she says she liked even better than "Case Histories". Sweet. I just started it two days ago, so we'll see. Dave and I finally finished "The Siege" by Jonathan Stroud. It had been our bedtime book for far too long. He's the guy who wrote the Bartimaeus Trilogy (which is awesome). This one was not. Boring. Ah well. We've just started "The Thief Lord" by Cornelia Funke and it is already more exciting. I also TORE through "Waiting for Daisy" by Peggy Orenstein. (Thank you Sarita) LOVED it. It's a memoir about a woman's struggle to decide to have a child and then when she finally makes up her mind to go for it, she is diagnosed with Breast Cancer. She then becomes so obsessed with being able to have a child that she almost loses her marriage and her mind in the process. It was fanfuckingtastic. She was exactly my age when she first started wrestling with the 'I'm getting older… am I going to do this or not?' demons as well as the 'I'm an independent woman. An artist. I love my life. Why would I want to change it?' as well as 'but I'm a woman, this is what I'm made for, how can I lose my chance at this experience? How can I lose my chance at creation? At that kind of love? ' etc etc and so forth. Let's just say it resonated and we'll leave it at that. ;)

I've also been on a graphic novel binge. About a month ago, I finally finished "Watchmen" by Alan Moore. Brilliant. Freaking brilliant. But it seems as if everyone already knows that. Please read it before you go see the movie. Please. Also got through the first set of "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" also by Moore. Totally fun. I've been told NOT to see the movie. By, um… everyone. I also burned through Neil Gaiman's "Books of Magic" which I've read before, but I wanted to read the next set of graphic novels by a different writer and I couldn't remember what happened. Also fun. And I finished a short OZ related graphic novel (eh.) and one called "Planetary" (by Warren Ellis) which follows a group of 'archaeologists of the impossible' (liked it a lot and think I'll check out some more) AND read my first two comics on the computer, both by Brian K. Vaughan: "Ex Machina" and "The Pride of Baghdad" - definitely a different experience than holding a book in your hand, which I prefer, but they looked really fantastic on screen and well, I still really enjoyed them both, so they must have still translated in some way. "Pride of Baghdad" is actually based on a true story about a pride of lions that escaped from the Baghdad zoo during the US invasion. If I tell you more, I will ruin it.

Midsummer/4 got a really nice write up in the Berkeley Daily Planet: HERE and if you are interested in checking out the show... more info: HERE

I tried to add a Beginning Aerial Silk class to the fall schedule at the Circus Center and was told that the schedule is 'full'. I don't entirely know what that means, but, okay, fine. I will just need to find victims, I mean, students who want to take privates. Any takers? Any of you out there burning to try the silk? Or have friends who have said, "Gosh, I'm really wanting to suspend myself 30 feet in the air and dance around?" Anyone? Anyone? I'm really nice and patient and a very good teacher. I promise.

Oh - never told you about the rest of my birthday. Basically, on the actual day, I went to circus class and had my ass kicked, had to drive to Berkeley for a stupid modeling audition that I do not even think merits mentioning, I went home and cleaned because it made me feel better and once Dave got home, we decided to use a gift certificate from Mikey for one of his new restaurants - Terzo. It's up and over the hill on Steiner near Union Street. It's a very fancy wine bar and small plates place. It was extremely tasty and had lots veggie stuff and even though our waitress totally had a stick rammed so far up her ass I could swear it was coming out her head, we had a nice time. That was where Dave told me about my beautiful new bike. She is very shiny and pretty and still in the process of being built. After dinner, we went home and watched Battlestar Galactica. Pleasing.

On Tuesday something happened, but I don't remember anymore. And on Wednesday I went to the korean spa with carrie paff carrie paff. it was sorta for my birthday and sorta to say goodbye. She left 24 hours later to start her whirlwind Joan Rivers tour. Anyway - it was Bliss. Always is. And that seemed to be the official end of my gluttonous birthday. Although little things kept trickling in through the mail. Thanks y'all. I felt like one very loved arweena this year.

And finally, we buried Serafina on Sunday. I can't tell you where or I would have to kill you, but she's in a beautiful spot over-looking the bay and the ocean. We put her in the ground surrounded by some of her favorite things: a carrot, some millet, a nutriberry, a feather from each of the other three birdies, a few choice seeds and a haiku I wrote for her. Dave played her song on guitar. We said goodbye. It was so cold and so foggy that it seemed like the sky was crying with us. But it did help me make some amount of peace with the whole thing. The power of ritual... even when you've created it yourself... maybe especially when you've created it yourself.... potent.

sad

2008-08-05T22:51:00.000-07:00

still so very sad. :( I keep seeing her little face whenever I am not focusing on something else. :(

we even went to see wall-e tonight and followed it up with a jubili... but i'm still sad.

so sweet. so pretty.

2008-08-01T15:23:00.000-07:00

Serafina Pekkala 7/25/03 - 7/31/08

2008-07-31T13:51:00.000-07:00

Our dear little Serafina passed away this morning at the Birdie Hospital. She was going in for her weekly antibiotic shot and abdominal tap. She was accompanied by the Wogdog and they were tweeting and preening right up to when they went back into the exam room. Serafina has been having more and more trouble breathing and she did look especially puffy and out of breath this morning. But at least she still had enough energy to head snuggle with the little Wogdog.

The vet said that she was acting fairly feisty and normal when she had her antibiotic injection and a first abdominal tap.... but when she (the vet) went in to try a second tap to remove some more of the liquid in her abdomen, little Serafina just suddenly stopped breathing and died. It was that fast. It is a small, but comforting consolation.

I drove home with a rather confused and alone Wogdog and a very sad looking small box. The box just kept making me cry every time i looked at it. It seemed so strange that it could possibly hold Serafina. Maybe her body could fit in there, but all the things that made up her real self - her incredibly loud and energetic tweeting, her superior flying abilities, her undying love for Terfle, her way of hanging upside down like a bat on the front of the cage, her adorable way of sleeping with her head tucked into her wing whilst singing beautiful little chirpy songs to herself - those things could not fit in such a small box.

Dave met me at home and we opened the box together and put Serafina's body out on her carrying cage so that the rest of the birdies could see what had happened and hopefully have even a flicker of understanding. It's impossible to know if this does anything, but it just seemed like the right thing to do. They are a very close knit flock and the sudden change from 4 birdies to 3 will certainly impact them in some way.

It does seem like there is a tangible emptiness at home.

We are going to bury her tomorrow morning.

Thank you all so much for your thoughts and well wishes and prayers over the last month and a half. Serafina was one well-loved birdie. I know I felt like I could love her unconditionally with a clear and open heart. And that is really the most beautiful and important thing we all have to offer one another, isn't it?

Happy Birthday Serafina!

2008-07-25T16:23:00.000-07:00

She made it! Serafina turns 5 today. :)

(from L to R: Serafina Pekkala, Terfle, Rowsby Woof, The Faerie Wogdog)

bike!!!!!!!!

2008-07-17T17:00:00.001-07:00

yay! it hasn't come yet, but this will be my new road bike!!!!!!! thank you sossososoosososososoososososososososososososoo much to all of you who chipped in. :)

week long birthdays are the way to go....

2008-07-17T10:45:00.000-07:00

i think maybe perhaps my birthday is finally over. maybe. yeah... i think so. i would call it a pretty fantastic success this year. much fun and friends and food and celebrating. :) big hugs to everyone for sharing it with me. thank you.

i think it started last friday with my decision to let myself run around the city and do whatever my inner arwen wanted to do... so i biked to the circus center super excited and anxious and nervous to get back up on my tissu and to my utter despair, it turned out to be a summer camp day where the kids get to use the entire big aerial gym. all day. dammit. this was frustrating. i decided to not let it get me down and went straight to get a mani/pedi whilst learning my lines for ACT 2. i consider this to be impressive multi-tasking. now i have blue toes. and i know my lines (pretty much). pleasing. stopped by haight street and had a tofu skewer at askew grill. i had never been there before. it had couscous with it. i have not had couscous in a really long time. twas pretty yummy. then i headed off to find the georgiou outlet in SOMA. I had already looked for it about a week ago and gave up and went to REI. (if you know both of these stores, you know that this makes no sense.) But I was determined this time. Turns out that I had been about a half a block from it the first time, but the addresses go out of order on this one block of 7th street. rather confusing. but. success! I love georgiou's dresses. i own about 3 or 4 and they all fit like someone has sewn them right on to my body. after years and years of feeling like my size was somewhere in no mans land, this store was pretty exciting to find. But once i found it (there was one right here at work in Embarcadero 3), they decided to close the store about 6 months later. this figures, eh? BUT - they are based in San Francisco and have this weird little outlet store that is attached to their main warehouse. so anyway... once there, i found out from the saleswoman that the reason why i love their stuff so much is that it's made for tall, long people with broad shoulders. sweet!! I walked out of there with 4 things, including a dress to wear to arika's wedding for under $75. awesome. from there i had to stop by work. that was dumb, but pretty fast. i decided to go home and do exercises since i never got to train circus and then met dave at sports basement. i really love sports basement. they have FIVE levels! we had to return a bunch of stuff. and well, to be fair, also buy a bunch of stuff. :) i completely ruined the impact of the sale shopping i had done earlier in the day by purchasing a new bike jersey (well, actually, dave made me do it) that was just stupidly expensive. stupid. offensively expensive. but very, very comfortable. very. who knows? maybe it will even make me ride faster. by the time we were done with our consumer whoredom, we were starving and unable to think. we jumped on our motorcycles (when we ride together, but on separate bikes, we like to think we are in a gang. the anubis gang.) and wandered around the mission in a blood-sugar deprived stupor until we ended up at an italian restaurant that neither of us really wanted to go to... so we jumped back on the bikes and drove to Goat Hill Pizza instead. I think of this as my first b'day dinner, since Goat Hill was almost what I picked as the group dinner place. it was SOOOO tasty and we ate SOOOO much. i ate half a medium pizza. awesome.

on saturday i had to rehearse in berkeley, but afterwards i went on a birthday bike ride with elizabeth. it was our first time without the boys. we did awesome. we rode the paradise loop (over through mill valley and around through tiburon and back) and seriously had the most amazing evening ride ever! the fog never rolled in. we hit the golden gate bridge on the way back at about 8:40pm and there was NO FOG. i was in SHORT SLEEVES. the sun was setting over the headlands... there were flocks of pelicans in the sky and there were NO other bikes on the bridge. it was a kick ass birthday ride. and then jim and elizabeth took me (and dave) out to korean food so that i could have a bibimbop fix. TASTY!

on sunday i also had to rehearse in berkeley. but once back in the city, i came home and did something very uncharacteristic. i flopped onto the bed and read. SO NICE. :) "Case Histories", by Kate Atkinson (if you were interested). Then we headed over to debbie and michael's to have band practice. oops. no practice. we just hung out and debbie gave me stuff. :) From there, we all headed over to India Clay Oven where 19 people celebrated my birthday with me, including me. it was really special to have so many people there that mean so very much to me. it really drove home the whole 'creating your own family' thing when your own is so far away. thank you guys. i love you guys. i could keep being mushy, but i'll stop. it was really a great night and tasty and they had cherry nan. ????? wtf??????

OMIGOD. this is getting sooooooo long. i am rambling so much. i will do the next three days later.

other thoughts....

i feel like birthdays often become a reflective time. something that i know that i do not do enough. reflect. sit. think. i'm bad at yoga and i'm bad at meditating. i have a hard time quieting my mind. always have. i've thought back on the past year and felt proud of life accomplishments and proud of living life to the fullest, which is something i feel almost maniacally driven to do. but looking into the future i feel kind of, well, cloudy. i feel like i don't know what to 'shoot' for... what sort of goals to set... what to be excited about....passionate about. i've had a handful of 'aha!' moments in the last few days. mainly dealing with 1) having a kid 2) surrender 3) my place in the world 4) what i can do for the world; and 5) widening my ability to see beyond my own needs. whew. you, know... small stuff. ;) it's a bit unsettling actually. when you spend SO MUCH time running running running, it's always uncomfortable to suddenly have time to think. or actually, there hasn't been time to think, it's more that... sometimes, you don't get a choice.... it's just time. no amount of running can stop the thoughts. so i've just been thinking them. and trying to deal.

i keep having strange impulses. like cutting all my hair off. like becoming a teacher. becoming a better public servant. doing something about injustices. i don't know.... brain on rapid fire.

time. the issue is always time. time is friend. time is enemy.

serafina has been on the decline. she is having a really hard time breathing and the vet took some more fluid off her abdomen this morning, which is a whole other thing separate from her mass. :( the wogdog was a very good companion, but in some ways it makes it even sadder to see them kissing and beaking right before serafina goes in to get stabbed. dave and i have now both written her songs to play for her when she needs some calming time. i had forgotten just how much the birdies love the sound of the piano... so i wrote mine on that. dave added a pretty little melody to his and when he sits in front of her cage and sings it to her every morning it just about breaks my heart. i know that she will be leaving us soon and it almost makes it harder that she is fighting so hard to stay with us all. oh dear. ok. that's as much as i can talk about this at work.

aye-aye's are awesome

2008-07-11T14:47:00.000-07:00

so - just to prove what a strange little lass the arwen has been since, well, birth, i am going to divulge another odd arwen animal story. When I was in 5th grade, we needed to choose an animal for a project that included a written report and an oral presentation. we probably had to practice our 'making an outline' skills for the paper as well.... (seems like we spent SO much time making outlines in 5th and 6th grade...) anyway... most people chose things like, oh, i don't know... horses. cats. maybe there was an elephant and a tiger. things like that. arwen chose the aye-aye. what? what the hell is an aye-aye? how did she find this here aye-aye? ok. get this... the encyclopedia. totally. she couldn't get over the fact that the encyclopedia told her that there were only about 50 left in the world. what? 50? how can this be? and all on this zany island nation called Madagascar. they are definitely pretty high up there on the weird list. check out the batty bat ears. the patchy hair. the creepy long middle finger. good stuff. totally fuzzy cuddly bunny stuff, right? ;) well anyway. i still think they are pretty awesome. they have really extraordinary hearing so that they can locate grubs in tree branches. once located, they use their overgrown beaver teeth to rip open the bark of the branch and then use that spindly weird-ass middle finger to shove in the hole and spear the grubs. i mean, isn't that awesome?!?!??!?! mother nature, folks. she's something else. (sadly, the people on madagascar think they are evil spirits/angry, dead family members returning to do bad stuff and so they kill them on sight. hence, 50 left. it was actually believed for a few years that they were extinct. thankfully, that was incorrect. although now there could still be about 50 left, but they just say that the count is 'unknown'.)

so please check out this amazing story regarding an aye-aye bred in captivity (their mating issues are pretty wacky too): aye-aye story

the video is also pretty cute. i mean, if you like wacky little aye-aye type things. which you should. look at this little guy!

and this one!!!

my mini-tri day

2008-07-09T17:28:00.000-07:00

ok. circus is such an ass-kicker. i don't know if i have ever been this sore in my life. it just keeps getting worse. ouch. i can't even touch my pecs - it feels like i'm jabbing them with a fork.

but anyway...

the AMD offered up the really good idea today that swimming and/or soaking in the hot tub at the gym would be lower impact and getting things moving and probably beneficial. this was totally smart. go AMD! HOWEVER. the arweena has not swum in, um, huh, um, well, i doubt snorkeling counts, so, um, god, 4 years? 5 years? when the hell did I do 'Lobby Hero'? Not since then. Holy crap. so anyway, i boldly scooped up my swimsuit, located the well-aged bag of swim supplies (i still have my cap, my goggles, my ear plugs and my no-fog goggle spray *note to self - doesn't work* and somehow got my sorry broken ass to the gym.

remembering all the pool etiquette took a little while... and the pool was pretty busy, which was a little intimidating, but i pick up some fins and floaty things and just jumped in and went for it. 1000 meters later (after a combo of freestyle and random drills for legs and arms and other weird stuff that ensured that i would not be bored), i determined that i should probably be done and i went over and soaked in the hot tub. with a gaggle of old asian men. it was awesome. one or two of them started to emulate my stretching. good times. oh - and swimming feels easier. not easy! just a little easier. i think the upper body changes from circus really make a difference.

and then.... in the shower.... i crashed. i had forgotten about the swim crash! I mean who do I think I am? I haven't swum in how long????? why did I push it when I was just trying to give my muscles a break and stretch out???? but then an idea popped into my head that made it all worth it. i was just completing my mini-triathlon day. yeah. totally. that's all. I biked to work this morning and will bike home. I swam. and I hoofed it a bunch around downtown (ok - that's not exactly running, but work with me here...). so yes. my mini-tri for the day will end up being a 1000 meter swim, a 7 mile bike ride and about a mile of fast walking. now i never need to really do a real one. right? right?????

wow. tired. wow.

2008-07-07T23:58:00.000-07:00

1) serafina is amazing and super and fighting with all her little birdie heart and is sleeping next to terfle right now. :)

2) this past weekend was stupidly busy and there was no time to catch up on anything. or call family. sorry. or friends. sorry. grrr. all i want to do is go see Wall-e. and then in about a week i want to see Batman. these are the things i feel like doing. i do not feel like working on lines. i don't want to touch my e-mail inbox. i do not feel like working. i do not feel like being productive. period. and that feels really strange. i have a rather marked lack of ambition. huh. i wanna watch battlestar galactica (this is becoming a common theme, eh?). i wanna play piano for my birdies. i wanna eat yummy food with my friends and drink yummy wine. i'd say that i need a vacation, but supposedly, i just had one. huh. weird.

3) our coraline gig scheduled for this friday seems to be double-booked at the cafe and therefore cancelled. :( actually....to be honest, this is good and bad. it's a bummer as we were putting together some really cool stuff for it and having fun doing so.... but at the same time, i'm kinda excited about having the only two days that I have off from rehearsal this week NOT taken up with something...... wheeeee! maybe I can see Wall-e!!!!! and hopefully they can re-book us. so far none of the dates they offered have worked, but we'll see...

4) i went back to the circus center this morning for basically the first time since streetcar. shit. um. turns out that you don't just magically keep being able to do this stuff. huh. ow. ow. ow. humble-pie sandwich. big time. the arweena is not what she once was. twill be an uphill climb, but i try to remain hopeful.

5) one week til my birthday. :)

confessions of an almost 34 year old.

2008-07-01T17:06:00.000-07:00

too busy. so looking forward to this holiday. omigod. need to sit and stare at wall. need to watch more 'battlestar galactica'. need to memorize lines, but do not want to. need to clean clean clean sort sort sort throw out throw out THROW OUT. yeah. that will be good. :)

I cannot even believe it is July. I will be 34 in two weeks. How did that happen? I kinda like 33. 33's been good to me. Yeah. It's been a pretty damn good year. I spent my 33rd birthday sorta in Canada and sorta in Glacier National Park (see blog entry from July of last year for further explanation) smack in the middle of our month long cross-country motorcycle trip and that went right into the crazy Expedition 6-now I have astronaut friends and bill pullman is on my resume and I get to do trapeze for a theatre gig-show at the Magic right into about a kajillion staged readings/yearly mia and dave camping/2 trips to LA for arika and cindy time/LOTS of seeing plays and friends/playing with coraline/circus training 5x a week which morphed into actually starting to teach at the circus center and right into dave and I running away to city hall to get married and right into that equally huge life event that was Streetcar and right into un-wedding/CLL preparations and then the actual west coast AND east coast celebrations and then right off to Hawaii and then right into this new Midsummer show. and road biking. :)

Holy crap.

No wonder I'm tired.

No wonder it feels like there are 10 tons of bricks on top of my body every morning.

Dave weighs like 2 pounds now. He's lost at least one (perhaps two) pants size/s due to all this road biking. He's going to be wearing my pants soon. Hm.

Some unappetizing things that I have learned about myself (some oldies, some rather new): I hate being afraid of things. I hate being bad at things. I hate thinking that someone thinks I'm bad at something. I hate getting up. I fear that I am more self-involved than I wish myself to be. I can actually be quite lazy. I hate it when someone else controls my time. I hate it when I'm low energy. I hate making decisions. I hate upsetting people for any reason at all. I REALLY hate it when people are insensitive and yet I have the ability to be rather nastily insensitive myself. I hate change. I love change. I hate being told what to do. I hate going places where I don't know anyone. I like to be alone WAY more than I think I do. I am often irritated by people that I later realize have the same irritating qualities that I do; it's embarrassing. I am sensitive and needy and moody and cannot lie to save my life. I procrastinate. I am impatient.

Ok. that's enough of that.

Right now I am procrastinating the writing of a letter and the writing of more thank you cards. They make my hand hurt.

Serafina is still with us. :)

quick update

2008-06-30T17:29:00.000-07:00

serafina's still with us. she made it through the weekend like a little trooper. thank you all for all your thoughts and wishes and prayers. it really means so much. serafina is one lucky little birdie to have so much love coming at her from all over the country. thank you. :)

when i left the apartment this afternoon, the wogdog was preening serafina's head very sweetly and carefully and they were both making the cutest little tweeting sounds. it was so beautiful and so touching.... and broke my freaking heart all at the same time.

made it through another fiscal year here at the dayjob. need a nap. rode the paradise loop (42 miles) with dave, jim and elizabeth yesterday (more on my new road biking experiences later....) tried to do some push ups at home and my body said, uh, NO. ok. i will listen. i'm off to rehearsal now. new theatre gig is called "Midsummer 4" with a group called Central Works in Berkeley. We open in July. More info here: Central Works

ok. off to BART.

serafina update

2008-06-27T15:09:00.001-07:00

Oh boy. Um. I dropped little Serafina off at the vet this morning for her x-ray. I hate taking her in the truck. It must be so stressful and confusing for her. We have been feeling somewhat hopeful as a) she is still alive; and b) her blood tests came back negative for a bunch of bad stuff. The x-ray is the next step. Well. Dave just got a call from the doctor. It was bad news. :( She has a large mass in her abdomen and it's squashing against her lungs as well as her digestive track. It is actually taking up most of her lung capacity and that's why she's having breathing problems. They are not sure what the mass is, but it's most likely a tumor. On a bird as small as Serafina, they cannot operate to remove such a thing. It would kill her. So our options are: a) do a biopsy to find out if it is indeed a tumor. The actual process of the biopsy has a 75% chance of killing her on the spot. (so, um, NO biopsy.); b) give her a cortisone shot that *might* do something helpful or *might* not. However, you can only give a cortisone shot to a bird with a healthy immune system as the cortisone tends to have a negative impact on the immune system. So that would mean more blood work to find out if her immune system is looking strong and then seeing if the cortisone has any effect; and c) they offered to put her down. (um, again, as she has been eating and flying and playing and tweeting, which for some reason dave said the doctor cannot believe, this is a, um, NO.)

So our options are extremely limited… and possibly exhausted. It feels very, very sad. Thankfully, we are both in agreement that we want her to live out whatever life she has left at home with her flock. The Wogdog (and Terfle, who has been sitting and guarding her on the top of her cage) will be inconsolable if Serafina just disappears one day and so I'm hoping that if she happens to die in the cage with the other birdies, perhaps on some level they will at least understand why she is gone. Oh my. Ok. this is getting way too sad and I'm at work and starting to cry, so time to move on…

serafina pekkala is a trooper

2008-06-21T13:21:00.000-07:00

serafina had a very harrowing visit at the birdie doctor yesterday. turns out she was acting funny, shaking, breathing heavily and scratching weirdly at herself, because she has a big, yucky, swollen sac filled with liquid on her lower tummy. When the vet went in to relieve some of the fluid, it came out bloody. :( this is bad sign. :( we were told that since it is impossible to tell what is going on without more tests, we should be prepared to know that she may not make it through the night. That was, um, hard to hear. But, we ordered the tests, got her some antibiotics and some pain medication, took her home and kept her quarantined from the other (very confused) birdies.... and then I noticed that she was bleeding all over her swing. This was distressing, as we had always heard that even the slightest blood loss is potentially fatal to parakeets. Called the vet - she said twas normal response to the things she had done... and oops sorry she forgot to tell us. :( so, poor serafina just sat there on her bloody swing all night long with her eyes mostly closed and not chirping at all. Very sad.

But this morning she was alive... and improved. She ate. She did some stretching, some preening and some chirping.... :) we'll just have to see how it goes from here. Terfle is greatly vexed. Even more so than the Wogdog.

overwhelmtion

2008-06-20T10:45:00.000-07:00

i think catch up is, um.... rather daunting at this point. so.....

back from hawaii. back to work. about to start rehearsals for a new show. the huge task that is 'catching back up with life post trips' seems rather insurmountable right now... especially since I can't seem to shake 'vacation mode' mind-set. I feel like there are SO many things to do and fix and clean and take care of and prepare for and finish and blah blah blah and as much as they all stress me out, I have an equally strong inclination to want to do nothing. heh. incompatible this is. :)

so I think I'll start from now and slowly work my way backwards as there are a lot (i think) of fairly cool (and not) things that have happened over the last month.

1) It's like 81 degrees here today. I got to bike downtown in my polka dot dress. so pleasing (not the going downtown part, but I do love dress-biking). :)

2) Work just got more bearable as they have opened a Yogen Fruz here in Embarcadero 3. Not quite as good and fresh and healthy as the Jubili right down the street from home, BUT - it does mean that I have access to healthy type tart-yogurty flavored frozen yogurt with fresh fruity toppings at work and at home and that totally rules. You should try both if you live here.

3) Tomorrow, Dave, Lisa (from BBI) and I are going to meet Josh and Becky Sladek-Nowlis and their 2 kids down in Monterey to do some diving. I am going to baby-sit the kids whilst the 4 adults do a dive and then Josh (who is a dive master) is going to give me a scuba skills refresher, cause, um, it's been awhile. Dave went once while we were in Hawaii and I considered going with him but I was having terrible ear problems while I was there. I would try to dive down while snorkeling and I couldn't go past about 6-8 feet down because my left ear would NOT pop. ouch. but they seem better now, so I'm hopeful for tomorrow. plus - I haven't had any weird water/ocean/deep dark pit/shark/whale dreams, so maybe some of my fears of monterey diving have subsided. (when dave and I were certified down there, we had about 5 foot visibility the first day and 2 foot visibility the second and I got all tangled up in kelp and attacked by a giant crab and all kinds of other stuff on top of the fact that I was freezing and suffocating in my 7mm wetsuit and hood.) *fingers crossed* wish me luck. :)

4) our poor little birdie Serafina Pekkala is sick again. she was shaking this morning and not flying and it looked like she was having difficulty breathing. :( off to the vet today. :(

5) Day job is kicking my ass. June is our year end, so this next week will be even more insane than this week has been. :( poo.

6) went to the circus center showcase last night with the AMD. no tissu act. the kids are amazing. and soooooooooooooooo freaking energetic. it's inspiring to see them... but, alas, the adult acts were not as strong as last year. ah well. still a whole lot of fun if any of you have time this weekend to check it out. :)

ok. that is a start.

vog ist nicht so gut

2008-06-05T00:58:00.000-07:00

I have never tried to blog from my iPhone before, so this will have to be quick... The west coast and east coast CLL's are all over (details later) and now we are in Hawaii... On the big island... Which happens to be completely covered in a thick cloud of vog. :( We've heard that two vents are currently emitting fun stuff, something that has not happened in over 200 years. Timing is everything, eh? ;) we did snorkel today with sea turtles and that was rather awesome. We're going to attempt to locate dolphins tomorrow morning before heading off to Volcanoes. We've been pretty underwhelmed with the Kona side of the island thus far and are hoping that Volcanoes and the Hilo side will be more our thing.

There are Pygmy ponies, goats, a pot-bellied pig and every bird from chickens to parrots at our B & B... You should hear it in the morning... ;)

Bay to Breakers

2008-05-20T18:08:00.000-07:00

The AMD and I kicked Bay to Breakers ass. It was super awesome. We were in danger of not making it downtown in time since the stupid 38 Geary was on a Sunday schedule and totally filled to the max when it finally did come, but we hitched a ride with a very nice couple who we owe some cosmic good karma to and soon after we were off and running. Literally.

The Hayes street hill wasn't even THAT bad. And - NO - we didn't even partake in any of the jello shots that people were selling at the bottom of it. ;)

We ran the whole damn thing and had a freaking great time. Even a born-again Christian group at the end (who are there every year along with jews for jesus... but not right next to each other. ;) ) calling me out for my 'exposed body parts' could not dampen the spirits. Especially since everyone around us looked rather horrified for me (since, well, let's be honest, we'd all already been subjected to way too many naked men at this point) and this awesome woman behind us said, "she's running a fucking road-race, what do you expect?"

Warning: my (and others) exposed body parts may show up in the following photos:

too hot

2008-05-15T23:58:00.000-07:00

too too hot. too hot to blog.

too hot to work.

too hot to catch up on e-mail.

too hot to remember to send out reminder e-mails for upcoming un-wedding celebrations.

was way too hot to jog today. duh. error on my part.

was borderline too hot for bike to work day, but at least there is a breeze with biking.

it was that feet swelling in the sandals kind of hot. not pleasing.

god, i'm such a wimp.

i really, really hope that it passes in time for bay-to-breakers on sunday... or that is going to be one painful and sweaty (well, sweatier) 12K.

and now perhaps it will be too hot for bed.

marine mammal memories....

2008-05-08T18:08:00.000-07:00

this darling elephant seal was featured in my latest marine mammal center newsletter. omigoodness... i like to call them 'little fatties'. when i was volunteering at the center, they would show up dehydrated and malnourished, and they still looked like little fatties. they were my favorite animals that came through... it's something about the eyes. they have eyes like deep, dark, dreamy pools... sea lions have quick, darting eyes that somehow mirror their wicked intelligence and curiosity, but elephant seal pups have a sort of languid, patient beauty that reflects back at you. maybe it's because of how deep they can dive. it's been shown they can go as deep as 5,000 feet. maybe that is part of what i see in the eyes.

almost makes me remember why I got up every wednesday at 6am for a year and a half to go wash the poo out of their pens, thaw and cut up fish for them, towel wrap their heads and tube feed them with 'fish mash', clean fish scales off of things for HOURS... and oh right... there was that one that bit me. and then that whole making sure that i didn't get 'seal finger' thing. right. oh - and also that time that I watched the necropsy of the mother and baby. and oh god...the 30 day old harbor porpoise that had to be basically carried around the pool by a human at all times because... yeah. ok. i'll stop now. oh god! and swissy! the sea lion who had been back several times due to gunshot wounds to the head and all sorts of other ailments, who, just seconds after being re-released into the wild, was snatched by a great white shark.

ah. memories....

but honestly.... the MMC helped toughen me up a lot. and it got me to the marin headlands once a week, which was like therapy for the price of a bridge toll. if any of you have never been, I highly recommend checking it out. :)

Dave Squared

2008-05-08T11:15:00.000-07:00

Big Dave came to visit for a week back in April (I admittedly did not get to see him very much due to my show) and had a super snazzy photo session with the AMD. She took some Father/Son shots as well as some single portraits. I think these are pretty great:

Mutti visited as well (for less than 48 hours!) and her visit overlapped with Big Dave, so it was family time in our little one bedroom apartment. Dave and Dave saw her more than I did, but it still meant a whole hell of a lot to me that people traveled 3,000 miles to see the show. A little love and support goes a long way.... :)

random spew

2008-05-07T16:57:00.000-07:00

Things are generally good over here on the arweena planet. Up and down still… a little more than I am comfortable with, but I don't entirely feel like I'm driving the bus, so I'm still attempting to be patient and open and all that good stuff…

I have so much to catch up on and none of it interests me… you know, like taxes… :( cleaning… :( and oh god, so many random piles around the house… these are REALLY scary because sometimes things go into them and just get forgotten… bad bad bad.

The AMD and I signed up for Bay to Breakers today. Haven't done it in a few years due to being busy with rehearsal or a show or some such thing… felt like it was time to give it a shot again… I mean, what's more fun than a slew of cold, naked men running past you at 8am on a Sunday morning, right? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Anyhow…

I have to go see Jen Weed for the third week in a row today. it sort of makes me feel like an over-privileged woman of means, but at the same time, not only did she tell me I needed to (and she only reserves such statements for when I really do), but my neck and shoulders are killing me today (along with everything else) probably due to my triumphant return to the circus center on Monday. yeah... wow... ow.... wow.... ow.... so good. :) Elena even gave me a smile (!) and a hug (!!!!) and after about a half and hour into class a compliment (!!!!!!!!). That was all very exciting and well and good at the time, but in my desire to impress her, I think I may have overdone. I know. Shocking. Really.

Have band rehearsal after the massage, which was maybe not so brilliant on my part, but then again, it's not like my guitar is all that heavy. It's more just the standing up…

More later…

but until then, i leave you with this:

May

2008-05-01T00:13:00.001-07:00

are you kidding me??!?!?! how is it May?!!?!? how can it possibly be May already?!??!?!

soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. hi. it's getting late. i need to go to bed. i'm not entirely interested.

been working on returning to life. part of me is resisting. and i'm pretty cool with that. seems natural, really. i mean alternate universe and all. yeah... it's not altogether healthy, this acting thing, eh? but dear god, it feeds the soul.... it feeds the soul of the community... feeds the soul of people desperate to actually FEEL something.... to be transported from day to day existence and into something... into ANYthing... different. i mean - that's it, right? theatre is exciting because the people on stage get to transmit something electric to the people in the audience and their response transmits back to the people on stage and for somewhere between 60 minutes to, well, you know, over 3 hours (depending on whether or not you are in 'streetcar' ;) heh.) you get to have this incredible symbiotic, inexplicable exchange with human beings. something that just gets rarer and rarer these days.

i know. i have a big HD TV with surround sound in my apartment. movies look pretty freaking awesome on it. why would i want to leave my big screen and go pay a lot of money to watch people potentially suck big time saying words that make no sense and seem to carry no real meaning whilst they shake their heads and hands in mock realistic gestures? why why why? why do i want to watch a bunch of 'artists' masturbate? (wow - this red wine went straight to my head tonight, i seem to be in a rather cheeky mood...) well, because every now and then something like 'streetcar' comes along and you can actually move people to feel - and feel deeply and think - and think deeply and talk....dear god - talk to each other... for over an hour about a shared experience that happened live in front of them....

ok. this wasn't what i think i was going to talk about at all... but now i've forgotten whatever i was going to talk about.... so....

oh. returning. to life.
returned to day job.
returned to band rehearsal.
returned to massage therapist.
returned to seeing friends.
returned to prepping for summer show.
returned to looking at mail. sort of.
returned to watching some things. Flight of the Conchords. Planet Earth. watched "Carrier" tonight on PBS....rather fascinating actually....

still many things to slot back in.... not the least of which is my silk which has been screaming at me and i have been playing coy... or something... trying not to force it. but i do miss it desperately. i mean, i have 5 of them now... i just need to pick one, hang it up at the circus center and DO IT.

as if it was that easy. ;)

how dairy can make a day better....

2008-04-28T18:03:00.000-07:00

fresh mozzarella cheese is so pleasing.

my amaryllis at work decided to come back from the dead today. it sprouted three inches of green... :)

...and god i love biking through this city on a perfectly not too hot-not too cold sunny day...

2008-04-27T01:55:00.000-07:00

i am very thankful for trees.

mmmmmmmm.

2008-04-24T02:11:00.000-07:00

so - anybody out there that needs a good massage therapist - talk to me. i know i've waxed on about jen weed before, but let me repeat...the BEST. she is the best. She has her own space now in the mission/potrero hill area and i'd love to help her get off to a great start in her new home (she'll still be at the mindful body as well)....

just let me know if you want her info. :)

i had an hour and a half with her tonight to try to rub streetcar somewhat out.... i hate to say it....but....it's not gonna go easy... it has taken up residence. whew. ouch. but it was a start. i'm going back next week.

afterwards i had drinks and dinner and drinks with my sister carrie paff. we never once talked in a southern accent all night long. i am so proud. it was wonderful. went to aperto in potrero hill. had to wait a loooooong time for a table, but twas worth it. yummy yummy yums - right across the street from goat hill pizza. go to goat hill when you are short on cash. go to aperto when you want a nice cosy splurge.

otherwise....things are still much rawer than i had expected. ah well. one day at a time....

2008-04-22T18:25:00.000-07:00

...been doing a bit better today. had three close calls with the tear ducts, but being in the office made that rather uncomfortable and unruly, so i was able to keep it together....

however... i would normally be crossing the golden gate bridge and heading to mill valley right now to do the most brilliant play of all time as one of my favorite characters of all time and instead i am finishing up billing issues at work and it seems soooooooo surreal.

we had cast party number two last night at dena's house. it was lovely. lovely. lots of singing around the campfire. definitely a wonderful salve, but certainly not an antidote....

2008-04-21T14:53:00.000-07:00

ouch. heart broken. ouch.

meowch

2008-04-20T08:59:00.000-07:00

There is something magical about this play. It doesn't just transform those of us in it, it also transforms everyone who comes along for the ride. Shit.

Just two more to go.... Twill be a bittersweet day indeed....

And thank you so much to all you guys... friends, family, complete strangers with open hearts... I really appreciate all the support over the past two months... and your patience... and understanding... i will come back to you all soon... The mourning period may be really rough and I may be on need of extra hugs and ice cream and Korean spa visits and stupid movies and bourbon and hikes and music and circus and stuff, but I look forward to being able to hold real conversations with you all soon....

love,
arwen/stella, who will be just arwen very soon...

uh oh.

2008-04-16T01:10:00.000-07:00

oh dear. the final week. the countdown has begun. tonight was our last tuesday show. i think i'm going to start getting really sad.... really soon.

uh oh.

my joujou, or rather... my juju

2008-04-11T16:10:00.000-07:00

The broken, open feeling comes and goes. Sometimes it feels like it's smacking me upside the head, other times it feels like crouching in a dark corner would be nice, sometimes it feels like absolute bliss and sometimes things feel just fine… sorta like the pirate ship ride at an amusement park… the one that is basically a large pendulum. But - I've had some decent meals, been getting a bit more sleep here and there (although my introduction to bourbon seems to have gone well and I don't know if that is a good or a bad thing?!?!?!), I walked myself in the redwoods last week (and did Tennessee Valley for the first time yesterday) and have had one or two moments of alone time. Those things have all helped. Otherwise, I am not capable of much right now. Coraline is not rehearsing at all. The week of opening I stopped going to the circus center (which actually feels like the right choice right now) and I haven't been back yet… It's really hard to concentrate at work. Really hard. I'm probably not the bestest friend in the world right now. My apartment is rather foreign to me. I think I put it best to my mom the other day - I just totally surrender. For the first time in my life, I totally surrender to the fact that I actually cannot do it ALL right now. I can handle precious little on top of this show and I admit it and I'm not fighting it. Feels kinda good, actually. ;) kinda freeing… I don't know if I've ever surrendered in my whole life… usually I just flail and kick and scream and bite the bullet til I somehow get everything done and make everyone happy and learn everything I need to know and pick up all the pieces and keep going.

Right now I can a) do streetcar, b) sometimes sleep, c) eat and drink, d) get exercise, e) play guitar.

That's all.

Otherwise, I dunno. I was gonna vent about our review, but I'm totally over it now… and any of you that know me, know my opinion of people who choose to judge other people's art for a living. It's been nice to get back on Mr. Speedy so much this week. Biking is freedom, I tell you. Freedom. I took the motorcycle today though, just to give her a little love. It's a remarkable day out today. I sadly tell you this from the 22nd floor of an office building, but I did get out in it to run some errands… it's the kind of day that makes Patty Griffin write happy songs. :)

Oh - and my juju (which I admit, I like to spell joujou) seems to have corrected itself. After just escaping that awful golden gate bridge crash, a couple days later Arika and I were walking up fillmore street and missed a horrific bus accident by a minute or two. A muni bus hit an elderly pedestrian and from what we were told - the man lost his legs. Ugh. That was bad. Then two days later, I'm on my bike on the way to work and some urban hipster cyclist wipes out directly in front of me and the car ahead of me. He was okay (no helmet!), but it was upsetting and unsettling and looked like it hurt. Later that afternoon, Hector is driving me to the theatre and we see a car hit a young boy on a bicycle (no helmet!). This one was two cars ahead of us and we just suddenly saw limbs flying in the air. Again, he was okay, but JAYSUS, WTF?!?!?!??! After citing me for my juju and looking at me with terror, Hector took it back and posited the theory that it was actually safer to be WITH me these days, since all this stuff seems to happen just ahead of or behind me.

But thankfully there *knock on wood* have been no more of these creepy incidents. I'd like to keep it that way.

Here's a photo of our stunningly beautiful set (click on it to see it full-size):

9 Crimes

2008-04-07T18:01:00.000-07:00

we just did the show 9 times this past week. the show is 3 hours long. we had 3 two show days. it's a monster, but i love every minute of it. jesus. it was past 4am when i finally fell asleep last night. the carrot bread at Pete's is yummy. i went to step aerobics class today for the first time in like, two months. it was really fun. the drive-by-truckers fucking rule. i cannot focus at work today to save my freaking life. i forgot how good dutch crunch rolls are... homeless people are more upsetting to me than usual these days. this morning on my bike commute, i saw a man who seemed, um, not so well, asleep in the middle of a sidewalk downtown with his pants pulled halfway down his ass and people were just stepping over or around him. there is something so wrong with this. i am going to go eat a real dinner with dave now. i have to tell you all about my strange accident joujou, but 'twill have to be later.... hopefully not as late as 4am.... but later. ok.

we made it.

2008-04-03T00:36:00.001-07:00

oh god - after the struggle that was opening, we had an absolutely lovely fucking show tonight. LOVELY. Everyone showed up. and with extra ammunition.... it's the way it should be.

*insert arwen breathing big sigh of relief*

now i REALLY need to go to sleep since 12 hours from now I will be just about to hit intermission of our student matinee.

yeah. i know.

goodnight.

meow.

2008-03-31T15:34:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling a little broken. Like maybe one of my wings has sustained a hefty injury. My heart feels a little too open for comfort. Nope, let's be honest here - WAY too open for comfort. My lines feel very blurred. My head is so full. I can't seem to conjure my handy dandy protective crab shell and so I feel a bit naked. I think my tear ducts are going to start charging overtime. My equilibrium (which I work SO hard to maintain) is, um, a good bit thrown off… and I have this foggy, distant feeling from myself. It's uncomfortable and unsettling and sorta terrifying and exhausting, but I get the sense that this is where I am supposed to be… where Tennessee Williams wants us to be.

Ouch.

I need to eat a real meal.
I need some alone time.
I need to write a song.
I need to play on my aerial silk.
I need to fall asleep at a decent hour. without the aid of red wine.
I need to be walked. in redwoods.
I still need a dog.

But first I need to get through opening night tomorrow.

I got an A+ at the dentist today. and she's coming to see the show. :)

buildings and bridges are made to bend in the wind...

2008-03-27T23:59:00.000-07:00

...to withstand the world, that's what it takes.

yes. thank you ani.

This morning I was so tired. So very, very tired. You know that deep, deep feel-it-in-the-fabric-of-your-soul tired? Yeah. That kind of tired. (I have a feeling that all of you with kids are going 'um, yes Arwen, we know' or you are thinking 'um, just wait til you have a kid Arwen, it gets worse!') ;)

There was a 10 car pile up on the golden gate bridge yesterday. It happened at about 2:40pm. Our call time in Mill Valley was 3pm. Blanche and I were in my car on our merry way, excited about stuff, happy that we were running ahead of schedule and la la la when suddenly traffic came to a dead halt. Then the emergency crews started coming…police, fire trucks, ambulances, helicopters. LOTS of them. The great big beautiful suspension bridge was literally quivering with all the hubbub. We ended up stranded there in the dead middle of the bridge for a full hour. What we didn't realize is that we were only maybe 500 feet from the accident. We missed it by about 30 seconds to 1 minute at the most. As Carrie (my Blanche) and I sat there in Saphira getting later and later for rehearsal, we had a certain strange calm descend upon us and started talking about how intensely lucky we were - to be alive - to be there together - to be okay, when so many other people were really hurting - to be stuck in the middle of the most beautiful bridge in the world on a crisp, clear sunny day staring straight into the Marin Headlands, where red-tailed hawks were lazily circling, whilst utter chaos ensued below. It was all rather intense. After this strange, hazy hour passed, we started moving forward and that's when we found out just how CLOSE we had been to the actual accident. We saw some of the cars being towed away and it was just horrifying. A Volvo had crossed over into the oncoming traffic lanes of 101 southbound and the crash had spread from there… and it just happened to be the last thing we saw once we finally cleared the bridge - this carcass of a Volvo. I have never seen anything like it. It was deeply unsettling on a very base human level.

There are too many things going on and too many things to do. I have totally reached overwhelmed status. Dave is trying to pick up the slack, but he's busy too, so, yeah… it's a lot. All of the planning of our east and west coast celebratory deals, plus the show, plus the day job, plus trying to at least keep my pinkie in the circus arena, bills, cleaning, laundry, endless e-mails…..blah blhababhalbalbhalbhlbhalbahlab you get the idea. I mean Easter sorta popped up out of nowhere. Dave's birthday passed with me basically being out for the count. So so so hard to keep up right now. I was really proud of myself today for remembering to pick up some raspberry jam. That's sorta parthetic.

Daniel (my Stanley) has introduced me to this CrossFit phenomenon. http://www.crossfit.com/ it's sorta totally insane and totally different than anything that I currently do (or have ever done, I guess). I will tell you - it is HARD core. I really like it. :) Today, I had a pretty short amount of time between tech rehearsal ending and call time for our first preview and yet with the help of this CrossFit thing, I kicked my own ass hardcore in about 20 minutes. Pleasing.

Ok - I need one small little play vent:
I still love this play desperately and I still love my little precious Stella desperately, but jesus, could somebody please cut her a break? Having to negotiate two rather enigmatic, manipulative, needy and passionate people for a 3 hour play is starting to drain the poor Stella. She really is so very caught in the middle of two tornadoes and I don't know how much that translates since she works so hard to keep her feet on the ground… but I will tell you that the Arwen that is the Stella could use a little petting now and then. Blanche is not the only DuBois sister who is sensitive.

Flag

2008-03-25T09:56:00.000-07:00

This is called a flag. It is totally ridiculous, no?

goodbye...

2008-03-21T10:18:00.000-07:00

...entering TECH now. will emerge later.

low blood sugar from russian torture session...

2008-03-17T16:42:00.000-07:00

...creates stream of consciousness blog post:

I don't know if I've ever been so entirely consumed by a show before… This morning, I realized that I was counting my sit-ups in conditioning class in a southern accent… I feel like I vaguely remember my life before this show started, but that it's all rather hazy… I feel like my concentration on things during life outside the rehearsal room is the antithesis to my concentration in the room (meaning - no concentration at all in normal life)… I keep having to make sure that I have really locked doors, really remembered my keys and really closed the birdies cage with the birdies actually in it. Scary. I feel so swept away by this one.

Carrie, my Blanche, played a little practical joke on me yesterday as we were lounging around and getting our notes. She tied my shoelaces together. I got up to try something for the director and almost landed on my wee little face. It was sooooo oddly pleasing. I don't have an older sibling nor a whole lot of historical bully experiences, so no one has ever done that to me before… (Blanche is my older sister by 5 years in the play) and since Carrie and I have become so accustomed to one another so quickly (i.e. picking things out of each others teeth, constant petting, checking in, tucking in tags, pulling nats out of hair, constant realizations of things that we do the same…you know, girl things…), I presumed she was just fixing my messy shoelaces. Hah. :) it's such a small thing, but since our relationships have grown so deeply so quickly, I really honestly felt like I had an older sister in that moment. Nice.

Carrie, Daniel and I have been working our asses off and it's never felt quite so good to work so hard. The only thing I can compare it to is circus. For the last few years (and especially since training in circus), I've felt frustrated with acting because I feel like a lot of theatre people are lazy. Myself included… so I feel like I'm allowed to talk about this… ;) If you are a dancer, there are certain things you have to train and a certain way you have to live in order to constantly maintain and or improve your art. Same thing with music - be it singing, instrumental, composing, etc. You have to practice. You have to stay committed. You have to put in the time. With circus, it takes SO much effort to be able to do anything at all, that it seems to weed people out fairly quickly and, well, honestly… only the strong survive. Not so with acting. Theatre doesn't 'weed out' quite so prodigiously. And that doesn't have to be a bad thing. But I do feel like actors can and do get lazy. When actors are not actively working on a show, they don't spend 4 hours a day reading plays, seeing plays, working on monologues, adding new skills etc. An acrobat does. A dancer does. Some musicians do. ;) Most actors do not. The longer I am around, the more I see how important it is for us to 'get things in our body' and this really only happens with practice. Granted, actors do indeed do this during the rehearsal process for a show. We are lucky enough to have 8 hours a day to do it for Streetcar. This is not always the case. A lot of the time actors will start rehearsal at 6pm after a long day of doing some other job and then have 4 hours to work on what they ostensibly love to do. But we get tired. We don't push ourselves to go deeper, try things new ways… We tell ourselves that we'll try it tomorrow, you know, when we aren't so tired. But then we end up being tired the next day and the next. Here's where a really good director can save your freaking life. Personally, I love to be pushed… I love to try to open up new things… see something in a new way… but sometimes, I have a hard time forcing myself to be the nexus of change. It's hard. It's uncomfortable. It's exhausting. But it's also so freaking exhilarating. And it's really where the work is - the work that we do as actors. We should not be trying to find 'the right way', but trying to find ALL the ways and then have them all at your disposal so that when a cast mate throws you a curve ball, you're not just open and ready, but you catch it and return it with a fast ball of your own… We are lucky to have such an amazing director for Streetcar. Jasson inspires. He pushes. He questions. He really listens. He cares. He's direct and pulls no freaking punches. He's open and receptive and trusting and trustworthy. And I haven't even seen a hint of an ego trip. It's rather refreshing and so very pleasing. Have I mentioned you all must come? ;)

This is hard to talk about and I'm doing a bumbling job of it. I guess I'm done for now.

They ordered shamrock cookies here at work today for an afternoon treat. They taste like cardboard. Such a waste to eat a bad cookie. Such a waste to make a bad cookie.

more happinesses

2008-03-10T23:48:00.000-07:00

so, streetcar is just about the best play ever. and it's looking like our production is going to ROCK. my old golden love of theatre has been reinforced and reinvigorated and - eek - i just don't even know what to say. I am absolutely in LOVE with Stella and playing in her skin is such a treat every day... playing with this group of people is such a treat every day....

that's about all i can articulate today. but you should come see it.... check it out here: Streetcar

and you can even check out our actor blogs. i wrote a characteristically excitable one. MTC Blog

lovely

2008-03-03T13:25:00.000-08:00

it is a simply a magnificent day out today.

it is impossible not to smile. :)

Freaky February

2008-02-29T21:31:00.001-08:00

Ok. the blog has been resting. And the blog will likely continue to be pretty rested over the next two months unless I seem to find myself needing it as a cathartic outlet.

February has been madness. As opposed to the normal type of February that I have come to loathe over my lifetime that is usually all about trying to fight off February depression (different than seasonal affective disorder - I truly believe that February brings it's very own special brand of melancholy), this February has been chock full of absolute amazingness. (the shitty ass cold that I had for 12 days straight and am still fighting is the only bad thing I can point to this February.

So - here goes:

- I've started rehearsals for my role as Stella in Streetcar Named Desire over at Marin Theatre Company. I am thrilled and exhausted and overwhelmed and totally, maniacally excited.

- Did an Argentine Tango Boot Camp weekend with Dave - 3 days of dancing. I've been hoping to get Dave to do something like this for 10 1/2 years. Twas good. :)

- ended up substitute teaching three times at the Circus Center and was therefore officially hired on as a teacher. I taught Aerial Silk twice and Aerial Conditioning once and loved it. I'm also available for privates if any of you have been yearning to climb my silk. I'm serious.

- Did a weeklong workshop of a new musical by Tanya Shaffer with music by Vienna Teng called Sid Arthur. It broke my 3 year musical hiatus in a very positive way. Really good people to work with.... I still have NO INTENTION of doing musicals anymore, but when they are about a young woman who is trying to find her lost mother who is now an enlightened one and tells a really good story with REAL characters, it's not soooooo bad. ;)

- Went through a rather big job change at the day job. Almost thought I was out of there, but it has all worked out. Which, right now, is good. :)

- Ended up doing a last minute silk gig at Supperclub (covering for Kerri getting sick). Performed twice to two songs that I had never heard before that morning! So I guess I should say IMPROV-ed to two songs. Went rather well for the last minute nature of the gig and it was corporate so it paid nicely. :) sweet.

- I've started workshop meetings for the show that I'll be doing in the summer. It's a new play being written during these workshops and will be a contemporary take on the four lovers from A Midsummer Nights Dream.

- I wrote an epic rock ballad.

- Saw movies - such as history of violence, shaun of the dead, sisterhood of the traveling pants, casino royale, high school musical, no country for old men, hairspray, superbad, postcards from the edge, the aviator and OH MY GOD - notes on a scandal. holy shit - next time I am feeling like one of my 'ugh acting - what am I doing? why am I not saving seals?' etc moments, I am just going to pop in this dvd and be fucking KILLED by cate blanchett. she is over-exposed right now, but dear god, she REALLY is THAT good.

- Like I said - I was sick with nasty, heavy cold from HELL for 12 days.

- I did readings at the Aurora, the Magic, Marin Theatre Company and the Throckmorton. They were all really fun.

- Dave and I went to city hall in a great feat of serendipity and got married.

wow.

2008-01-14T23:31:00.001-08:00

as i have been cleaning a bit, I came across a 'poem' that I wrote in, god, must have been 8th grade. i think it gives a rather sad and all too true insight into my general 8th grade emotional state. Good god, thank christ those days are over.

the nimble fairy princess
kneeled before the throne
her gaze it was unsteady
she knew she was not alone

voices getting louder
echoed in her ears
why oh why must she cry?
why must someone hear?

her wings outstretched to heaven
were silky, lovely indeed
if only she had told them
expressed her dire need

severe faces; glances
flashed before her eyes
no one will ever comfort her
if again she cries

her life it spun before her
the sad story told
she had tried her very best
tried to fit the mold

one fairy princess
is to be no more
the proof is her cold body
lying on the floor

wow. that's embarrassing.

at the bottom of the paper there is a little scratchy drawing of a dead fairy. with "La La La La" written next to it. WTF?!

wow. i guess there are things that never change. i still kill off half the characters in my songs, but i sure hope that my understanding of rhyme scheme is a bit more, um, developed....mature....and, um, good. yeah.

emerging...

2008-01-13T23:35:00.000-08:00

So, um, Happy New Year!

I have HIGH HOPES for 2008. High hopes indeed. If the first two weeks have been any indication of what is to come, I am totally ONBOARD for this year. :)

I haven't really felt like blogging, so I, well, I guess, I just haven't.... I've been out Doing a whole lot of shtuff. People I know are out doing a whole lot of shtuff. I could never catch up with everything, but, some thoughts:

1) My mother is somewhere in the Galapagos or Machu Picchu right now. That's so awesome.

2) Dave is in Paris, soon to be leaving for the Netherlands. That's so awesome.

3) Over the holiday break, I decided to try some actual road biking. with clip-in pedals and all. I snapped this SNAZZY pic with my lame-ass phone that, no, is not at all an iPhone at the top of the 2 mile uphill climb at Hawk Hill in the Marin Headlands. I freaking LOVED it. I think you can tell. I really kinda like hills in a sick, sadistic way.... and i also don't think that my silly little phone is half bad. so there!

4) I went to pole class with deborah over the break. it was badass. we were the only two there and I got to try all sorts of fun stuff since they knew I already did aerials. Deb caught the exciting action of me having climbed to the top of the pole on my way back down. good times. maybe not as exciting as some of the inversions we did that day, but it still proves I was there.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

ok. that was a start. i should probably try to break back into this slowly....

blog at rest.

2008-01-05T19:00:00.000-08:00

seems the blog is on a little break. it is a blog still in its pajamas at 6pm in the evening....kinda like, um, oh right.... ME!!!!!! :)

a very happy solstice to you all....

2007-12-22T11:02:00.000-08:00

um. yep. i repeat. this month. too damn busy.

BUT. Last day of work was yesterday. Don't have to return until Thursday, so things are about to get a lot better. no work, no auditions, no call-backs, no circus classes, no readings, etc etc. :) pleasing. my agent has been calling me so much - everything from print-ad go-sees for california blueberries to asmanex commercials to computer geek industrials. it's been overwhelming. and god, i'm just not cut out for this. for those of you who don't know about this crap, basically, your agent calls at 5pm the day before an audition, tells you that you have a 10:30am slot for something like a Honda commercial where you need to be dressed up as a 1950's hollywood star, send you sides (parts of the script) if you have any speaking parts and then hangs up and leaves it up to you to totally rearrange your whole day to make it work. it wasn't so bad when they didn't call all that often, but 3 or 4 of these in a week is enough to make you tear your hair out, especially if you don't know what the hell upscale casual, business casual, weekend casual, just plain casual, workout casual, geek casual, computer geek hipster, hip and approachable, but not edgy, midwest mom, business upscale, but no suits, glam, young mom approachable.....blahblhablabhbhlabhlahbhlbahlab. what do these things mean? I swear to god, figuring out what the hell to wear is the hardest part of these creepy things.

ANYway. shortest day of the year. better get outside to enjoy it while it is still here. meow!

it's all a blur.

2007-12-16T00:16:00.000-08:00

ok. um. this month is just too damn busy.

super snazzypants website!

2007-11-27T17:23:00.000-08:00

okay - so i need a little help here. deborah is building me a website. she is rad. she is amazing. she has sent me her first versions/concepts and it's like, holy crap, she totally understood the pictures in my brain and turned them into reality! go deborah! :)

so if you have some free time, please go to this link: arwen's site

From there, take a look at "11/17/07 Front Page Mocks" and you will see all the ideas that deborah created for a front page for my website. Whatever template/background is chosen for the front page will also be the background for the rest of the site, so it's kinda important. I've already heard some strong opinions from dave and i have a few of my own, but i'd be curious to see what y'all think of some of the choices. if you don't want to post a comment (this is most of you. :) either that, or i just talk to myself here in blogspace...), just send me an e-mail. :)

also check out her mock-ups of what happens when you mouseover (this is for when you pick 'acting' or 'music' or 'aerial' to move on to those specific pages) - they look so cool!

and then finally, if you still have time, look at the top link under '11/19/07 Acting Page Mocks" and you can see the concept of what sort of info, pics and what not this little fancy site will be showcasing.

yay deborah!

perspective.

2007-11-25T21:52:00.000-08:00

so - we've been doing a lot of cleaning of the house over this very nice and oh-so-needed long holiday weekend. one of my projects during this time has been to attack the shelving unit that is housing all of our photo albums and framed photos and loose photos and boxed photos and, etc, etc photos. it was a dusty, nasty, unorganized mess. I haven't really been dealing with them since college (although i do make nice, fancy photo journals whenever we take a vacation), but otherwise, they've been going in this huge poo pile. did i mention the dust? no, really. it's disgusting.

well. wow. as of yesterday, dave and i have been together for 10 1/2 years. and let me tell you, it shows. ;) our little sparkling 22 and 23 year old faces are so earnest and excited and confused and overwhelmed and the rest of us is generally wrapped in black leather jackets and black nail polish. dave is without facial hair. my hair is longer and blonder. and yet after spending hours organizing pictures from countless gigs and halloweens and birthdays and camping trips and family events and hiking trips and holidays of all kinds and friends that have faded away and friends who have grown dearer and weddings and texas and just tons of random shit, i started to notice that at the core, we mostly have the same ridiculous tarty smiles and goofy grins and absolute relish of life throughout it all. and dammit, that is good. that is mighty good.

:)

so, i feel deeply thankful for all that.

i feel thankful for our friends and family.
i feel thankful for country music that makes me weep when i'm pre-menstrual. and even sometimes when i'm not. ;)
i feel thankful for full moons.
i feel thankful for three part harmony vocal melodies.
i feel thankful for one, two, three, four birdies.
i feel thankful for the piano that i don't play enough. but i feel thankful for the thought of it.
i feel thankful for happy japanese things with big googly eyes.
i feel thankful for all the people donating their time to help save the wildlife and help clean up in the aftermath of this oil spill.
i feel thankful for games.
i feel thankful for patty griffin.
i feel thankful for 'dancing with the stars'
i feel thankful for sewing machines.
i feel thankful for bicycles.
i feel so thankful for the sheer number of talented, smart, creative, inspiring, incredible people we have in our lives.
i feel thankful for long hikes, redwood trees, dogs, sleep, books, good food....
um, this could go on forever and now that i've typed sleep, i suddenly want some....so to close,
i feel thankful that i can choose to go to sleep now in my comfy bed, in my happy apartment, in the challenging, yet so worth it city of san francisco with my challenging, yet so worth it tart of 10 1/2 years.

our yearly ritual...

2007-11-18T21:38:00.000-08:00

so our weekend camping excursion with Mia and Dave in Big Basin was just lovely. we've been doing a camping trip with them in the fall for either 5 or 6 years running... this was our first group trip to Big Basin. i highly recommend it. what wonderful redwoods... (although honestly, i've never met a redwood i didn't like....) our campsite was actually situated in a little ring of them... which could not have been more perfect. i won't even talk about how dave forgot the tent and how cold it was and how....oh. oops! silly me.

ANYway - Big Basin = good stuff. you should check it out. :)

we ate lots of good camping food, went on two excellent hikes - one long, one short, were out of the city from fri - sun, played cards, had good chats, ate more food, played riddle games, had more chats, ate even MORE food, had lots of hot cocoa, had lots of homemade cookies, enjoyed the peace and quiet of the great outdoors, listened to mia tell us how she can't tell jokes and then proceeded to tell lots of great jokes, made fires, and ate more food and had more chats. all under the canopy of the majestic redwoods. not a bad weekend!

now why does it have to be monday tomorrow????

tired tired tired tired all the time.

2007-11-14T16:59:00.000-08:00

I'm really, really tired. And not just today. It seems like every day for the past week or two (or three) I wake up tired. The amount of sleep does not matter - it could be 9 straight hours of zonked out bliss, and yet I still wake up tired. and it's mentally tired and physically tired. An all-over body tired. And it's getting annoying. And it's getting really old. And it's hard for me to believe that it's because of one stupid hour from turning back the clock.

Ok - confession time - I am so addicted to 'Dancing with the Stars'. How could this happen? I never watch TV. I don't like TV. TV is soooo evil. And this show is on TWICE a week. It's like a REAL commitment. Jesus. Will wonders ever cease?

I fell off my step in step aerobics class today and landed smack on my left butt cheek. It hurt my pride a whole lot more than my ass. I was so tired and the instructor started doing her one routine that I find annoying and I just tuned out for a second to be annoyed and think to myself about being annoyed and blam! Next moment I was on my ass. I don't know what the lesson is here, because I'm too tired to think about it, so instead, I'll opt for denial and pretend it never happened.

Bananas are really wonderful. Sometimes they are lifesavers.

A few weeks ago I took my work laptop home. I started to do some work, but my letter 'k' kept fighting me. It would not go down all the way. So I plucked it off the keyboard to investigate, didn't find anything, and resumed typing. But then, my letter 'm' started acting up. so I peeled that one up as well and again, I didn't see anything. I decide to press some of the letters around the problem area and now the letter 'l' is the culprit. So I pull up the letters 'o', 'k', 'l' and 'm' and find a very large piece of discarded fingernail. And it wasn't mine. This is troubling. What are people doing at my desk when i am not there?

Scrabulous on facebook is making me very angry right now. It seems to be having errors whilst loading quite a lot lately. Either that or it's giving me the hint that I should be doing work. At my job. HA!

I have an audition tonight and actually have to do a monologue. I think it may be a good 4-5 years since I've needed to do a monologue. (This is because I get called in by specific theatres for specific parts in specific plays and so I just prepare 'sides' or sections for that part. I am doing that for these people as well, but since they are a smaller company they still do 'monologue' auditions. Monologues are something I was more than happy to be done with due to their suckiness and limitations as a vehicle to show your acting 'chops', but that's a WHOLE 'nother post.) This may prove interesting. It's been a really long time. oh - and did I mention how TIRED I was!?!??!?!

To quote my character Mina, from when I did 'Dracula' my senior year in high school, "Oh! I'm so weak and languid!" (said whilst tossing hand back dramatically against forehead and falling into someone's arms.) What a vapid role.

monsterous montage!

2007-11-13T00:01:00.000-08:00

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

a moment in time

2007-11-12T17:03:00.000-08:00

ok. can someone please tell me why there is oil spilling everywhere right now!?!?!??!?! argh! it's making it hard to maintain my youthful optimism. :( i feel the massive weight of the death of so, so, so, so many birds right now. it's utterly horrible and sad and lame and god can't we get it together!?!? grrrrrr.

um. anyway. it's been brought to my attention, that somehow back during the time that i was jazzed out of my mind to be doing my first aerial silk performance, that I totally flaked on putting it up here. duh. silly arwen. my focus gets spread a wee bit thin sometimes (um, all the time).

so - here's debbie's recording of my first performance of the weekend (I can't believe this was just this past May, it feels like eons ago already. ah time. such a wonder....)
you should also pay close attention to the fact that it's dave singing and playing the piano live. he sounds awesome. :)

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

jim also did a recording of the final performance. I have that one up on my facebook page. ah facebook. however did we live without you? my old boyfriend from high school (who i re-found on facebook) calls it 'crackbook', which i think explains it all perfectly. anywho - you can find the other recording there (you know, if you're just dying to see it from a different angle and a different split combination) ;) click HERE

oh - and i don't have to make a G-rated trip across america montage anymore, cause it seems as if everyone can deal with the F word. phew! i'm so glad. (thanks mom! i'm so proud of you) ;) and the halloween one is almost done!!!! yay!

Mia and Dave's Happy Halloween of Horror

2007-11-01T20:33:00.000-07:00

ok. since I still haven't found the time to cobble together a rad ass montage, here are a few terrifying pics from Dave and Mia's Halloween shindig last saturday. it was a potluck and we were only allowed to bring food that was orange and/or black. not so easy, eh? that mia has the craziest ideas! ;) I made carrot fritter latke type yummy things (and finally used my food processor! yayayayayyay!) as well as stuffed squash pumpkins with black rice that had things like orange heirloom tomatoes and orange peppers and golden raisins and pecans and stuff in them. shockingly it all came out pretty tastypantsy! oh - and i got to carve a pumpkin. this was happy making. that's him above. that's right - it's voldemort, complete with his snake buddy nagini. i rule. well, either i rule, or i'm a complete and utter nerd. well, maybe both. ANYway....

dave dressed up as...um...uh... well, i don't think we will ever know...

Mia and the AMD have a special moment:

Dave, the AMD and I investigate cheese grater options...

the most excellent new addition to my ear collection:

whew! what a night! all that eating and drinking and murdering and merry-making and cheese-grating and pumpkin carving and mayhem really takes it out of you! i mean, god, it's what? 9:20pm already!? must be about time to call it a night.... (when the hell did we get so old!??!?!?!?!):

sdrawkcab

2007-10-24T22:30:00.000-07:00

So I actually started this post a week ago and got distracted, but as it will demonstrate the general state of my mind these days, I thought it would still be fun to share. :)

Here 'tis:

the AMD and I went to the gym today - as we often do on Monday. we got dressed for step aerobics class and i put on the same damn sports bra that i wear every time we go to the gym, because there are some things (like coffee with a bagel in the morning and V-neck shirts and getting the mail when i come home) that i like to have consistency with.... anyway. i've been feeling really puffy lately, like my body is retaining every speck of moisture that i'm putting into it... along with the San Francisco Bay, Mono Lake and a good part of the Jersey Shore. ugh. So i put on my bra and it feels so snug... like my boobs suddenly increased a full cup size (hah! when hell freezes over...) and i said to the AMD, "Jesus Christ, that food last night must have had SO MUCH salt, this bra top is killing me." So we go upstairs and get set up and start class and do some warm up with resistance bands and i catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and, holy mother of god, my upper body looks simply HUGE. like a freak. and my chubs are squeezing out and it's just wholly unappealing on so many levels. i cannot even fathom at this point how much salt must have been in my food. god - maybe there was MSG?!?! jesus. i can't even look at myself because i look like a freak of nature and omigod wait a minute. um. why is the back of my bra so wide? and, uh, full coverage? and why are the pretty straps back there and why is it - oh wait... no way.... what an idiot. it is SO on backwards. ugh.

this stuff needs to stop. today I sent Ann Marie a series of instant messages at work. When I called her to ask why she hadn't replied (she's a very good IM-er, very quick), she said she hadn't gotten them. this seemed very odd, until on closer inspection, I realized that I had IM'd myself. and was waiting for myself to reply.

dear god.

and i don't even have kids.

my first montage

2007-10-15T23:34:00.000-07:00

ok. i am now highlighting deborah's lovely place of employment. :) I made a montage at One True Media. that's right! everyone can make free montages at One True Media. :) now, maybe I'm a loser, but this thing took me HOURS to finish. i know it's 7 minutes long, but still... it took some time...

this is the R-rated version. as in - if you like South Park, you will like this one... otherwise, wait until I post the G-rated version.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

oh please god no - no sickies! :(

2007-10-11T17:56:00.000-07:00

woke up feeling a bit shitty this morning. hoping that it will go away with a couple of good night sleeps (severely lacking) and zinc and echinacea and stuff. i still managed to drag my ass to conditioning class, which i think was rather ballsy, considering I knew the pain awaiting me.

but I made it and, well, three good things happened.

1) I did 10 pull ups non-stop with no help for the third day in a row. i don't think i thought this would ever be possible. it's still sinking in.

2) I finished my trapeze. daniela taught me how to tape the bar and now she (the trapeze) is good to go. she is so beautiful, but alas, I did not have the strength left, nor the appropriate number of carabiners on me to take her for a first test spin. maybe tomorrow. since I will NOT be sick tomorrow. hell no. I'm going to rig her up like a single-point trapeze (i.e. the trapezes in Expedition 6 except that mine is a slimmer metal bar with longer thicker ropes made from hemp). this is very exciting. :)

3) a very nice young man at the center named Stan seems to have compiled some very cool pics from the Showcase. This one is so awesome. I want it to be the entry page to my website as well as my business card. badass:

and I think this one will be a good promo shot as well:

(deb - he's gonna zip them for me, so we'll have them for the site. :) yay!)

now, um, I've just got to start, uh, training on the silk again. that would be good. training is good.

In other news...

My dear friend Arika in LA LA Land has signed with a killer agent - William Morris. I am shouting her news from my blog as I am as excited for her as if it had happened to me. This was a long time coming and a LOOOOONG time deserved. Arika currently writes for "South of Nowhere" on the N channel (I have it on DVD if anyone wants to check it out.) The main character is a lesbian. in high school. it's VERY progressive. Arika also has some excellent pilot scripts that will now be in a better position to be bought, what with a KICKASS agent, so let's all wish her well. She deserves it. :)

Also - MARK YOUR CALENDARS - there is some pretty awesome rock coming up...Saturday, October 20th at the bar that used to be the Sandbar but is now the Riptide. Both Hammer of the Godz and (i think) Godz of Rock will be playing and it looks like perhaps i will even have a cameo. should be really fun. it's at taraval and 47th out in the sunset. music starts at 9pm. check it out: riptide i actually love this bar and I don't like bars. how's that for an endorsement. :)

just say no to PSDS

2007-10-09T23:59:00.000-07:00

god dammit post show depression syndrome totally sucks. and it's not like the last two days have been bad at all or anything. but that doesn't matter when it comes to this stuff... there's just this nagging sense of loss. you birth this incredible, painful and hopefully beautiful artistic baby with people and you get to live with it for about 2 months and then POOF. gone. sometimes it's more like a little death than others.... and sometimes you kiss them goodbye with the finger. this one will take a little time... and a little more time... ;) and i've been listening to WAY too much damien rice and that just exacerbates these things.... feeling so '9 Crimes' right now. yeah. big time. followed up with a little 'Volcano' and 'Rootless Tree'. devastating. shit.

...just like 'Into the Wild'. don't go see this movie if you are at all in a tender state. well, unless you need a good sob-fest. jesus. I read the book a couple of years ago on the AMD's recommendation. (good call. i ended up reading everything john krakauer has written. you should do the same.) it's a book you will not soon forget. it just leaves these trails with you... i feel like i had ghost pains from that book... like being haunted.... and, well, the movie was pretty stunning. it seems to have had a similar effect. ouch. but, wow. i do so appreciate art that can elicit that much of an emotional response.... something so very alive about that. it feels like you are part of the transfer of something so basic, so communal, so human...so....so...cardinal...so fundamental... which is something i think is missing so much in day to day life...

i'm going to get all sensitive if i think about this more right now. it best be getting on to bedtime.

ohmigoodness i landed the space shuttle

2007-10-05T23:33:00.000-07:00

ohmigod you guys - the last few days have been so out of control, i haven't had a moment to breathe, let along blog, or take stock, or figure out which end is up....

i only have time and energy for a lame-ass list.

1) Found out Tuesday afternoon that Reno is a no go. They need someone immediately. Well - I still have two more Expedition 6 shows to go, plus I would HAVE to have a week to put my ducks in a row.... ah well. I'm actually rather relieved. i'm tired. i want to go camping. i want to hug trees. i desperately want to see friends. i want to clean. but who knows, the offer may come up again. and if i could have the chance to see what it would be like to be a full-time circus girl, well, gotta try it. :)

2) Soooooooooo - I got the role of Stella in Streetcar. This is righteously awesome. What I know of the rest of the cast is AMAZING. I am really, really excited about this one. And it's not til February, so the holidays will still be open and unobscured. :) www.marintheatre.org

3) Rowsby Woof had super night frights the other night. He freaked out about 2am, flew like a crazy bird all around his cage and by the next morning had molted off all his flight feathers on his right wing. He's having a hard time understanding this problem and keeps trying to fly. It's impacting his ability to make out with the ladies, so he's been seeming a little less than himself these days..... Poor Mr. Woof.

4) Ok. So 10 astronauts came to the show on Wednesday, including the real Don Pettit. It was an amazing show and felt like opening night all over again. incredible. it was amazing to meet the guys. it was amazing what an intense focus it gave to the cast, as we were suddenly hyper-aware that there was an audience of people out there that actually knew about EVERYthing we were saying. We had a little gathering with them after the show and they were all so gracious, told great stories and really seemed touched by the show. It was just a great freaking night. Afterwards, some of us stayed later, blew off some steam and played around on the trapezes. It was simply so much fun. I think we all needed it. :)

and while I'm thinking about it....here is a pic of nora and I with Millie - the woman who Marsha is partially based on - she's the one that went to exercise alone on the last day of the mission and the camera wasn't off. :) She said that was pretty much how it happened. here is also a happy opening night pic...

5) of course in the amazing way that the world works, I've had 4 casting calls about theatre auditions, including Berkeley Rep, for shows that would happen during the same time as Streetcar. i'm floored by the sudden popularity wave, but wish that it could be spread a little better throughout the year. But isn't that how it ALWAYS is! ;)

6) we had a great time watching the figster. now I am more dog starved than ever. :(

7) I had the most amazing conditioning class ever with my russian teacher yesterday. I was the only one who came, so I here I was in an advanced conditioning private. But after the first 15 minutes or so, she started to really lighten up and talk during my breaks and it was the first time I could really see the very human and fun and FUNNY and real side of her. it was really nice. she talked about russia and tea and circus and hot summer days and all sorts of stuff. but then she made me end the class by attaching weights to my arms and have me hang by my heels on the trapeze for as long as I could. TWICE. my calves are killing me. but the answer to your question is - yes - I rule. 30 seconds each time. ow.

8) MOMWOW is coming in on Thursday for a short visit with us and the Zen Center...

9) met one of the guys who won the Amazing Race tonight. he was hilarious. (sorry brentster, it seemed of interest to me.) :)

10) been thinking a lot about extreme croquet lately. really want to have another battle. want to perfect the stump shot. anyone out there have a croquet set?

11) Like Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen was a great freaking book (thanks mutti!) highly recommended. and not just because it's about the circus. no, really, I PROMISE.

and finally 12) HOLY SHIT. Our cast got to go to NASA in Mountain View yesterday and hang out some more with the astronauts and, well, fly the VMS - the vertical motion simulator. This is a huge piece of machinery in a room that's over 100 feet tall and you get inside a box and it's a simulated Space Shuttle cockpit. The box can go back and forth and up and down. fast. And then we all got a chance to try to do a landing simulation. It was AWESOME. We went inside the box two at a time and our commander told us what to do. It was rather like a video game. well, except that it wasn't. I killed everyone on my first try. Ran the shuttle into the buildings that would have housed family and children. go me. But - I brought her down pretty excellently on the 2nd and 3rd tries. :) Talk about a once in a lifetime day. It was too too much. On the drive on the way back, Nora, Angela and I just kept saying, 'did that really just happen!??!?!'

weird. life is too too weird.

thank god.

:)

oh - and don't forget the bluegrass festival is the weekend. pleasing.