I don't have a toothbrush

Because last night Sam was cleaning up a mess in the bathroom and my toothbrush was on the side of the sink (which actually was kind of weird because usually it is put away), and he sprayed cleanser on it.  For you know, fresh comet-y breath or something.  Yeah.  It happened late last night, so that meant this morning, no toohbrush.  Used mouthwash but not quite good enough.  Sam is buying me a new one today.

 

 

The Fog Is Lifting

I feel much better, maybe it was rest or better food or doing things that make me happy, but I am feeling better.  Some people at work are being stupid which is not helping the feeling better entirely--mostly because I have been doing things on my own timeline and no one told me that a few things on my list they would prefer get done earlier rather than later which I totally would've done if anyone had said something because it is not like I am doing nothing over here people!  I just have a long list of things to do to recover from whole office spring cleaning.

 

But I feel like I am taking pleasure in things and not feeling clouded over, and that is good.  Getting out of the rut is good.

Captain Crankypants

That has been me lately.  I have just had the blues.  You know? 

 

I would say I am a generally laughy giggly person, and I had a great week last week, but sometime this weekend a fog rolled in.  And it has stayed.  I had to work over the weekend, maybe that was crappier than I thought.  I had a minor fight with Sam this weekend, but I feel it was a fight because I am in a funk and was spoiling for something, plus we resolved what it was about.

 

It is an especially thick funk fog because yesterday I could feel happy fun people at rehearsal doing and saying things that generally get me out of things like this, and I could feel this part of me really wanting to break out of my cloud and join them.  It wanted to laugh and smile and sing along loudly with the song on my ipod while I was walking, but the rest of me just clawed to it and wouldn't let it.

 

And the self-critic is out in full force, chastising specific behaviors and instances I cannot go back in time days, weeks, and months to fix.  And really, really harping on them and their specifics and making it easy to stay and dwell in this fog and I don't want to.  I want to lighten up, and for unexplicable reasons that is not happening.  Tonight I will go home and watch some Sports Night or West Wing, they usually make me happy or maybe I can convince Sam that we should go somewhere new and exciting.  I don't know where that would be, but maybe breaking out of the routine will help me break out of this fog as well.

Recessed

Yeah, so my life met the recession a little first hand last week or two week ago. My hours at work have been cut (and my pay too since I am hourly) to 35 hours a week, but the surprising thing is that I freaking LOVE it. My show is up and running and busy, busy. I get paid less but not CRAZY less, and since I had Sam's help in consolidating my credit card debt I am now paying it down faster AND have a savings account towards a rainy day.

Basically all it means is that I get paid a bit less but I get to go home earlier everyday. Or I can have a half day once a week and still go home early a couple of days. Plus I always take a for sure one hour lunch--sometimes meeting Sam for it. How can that be bad. It has made me a better employee because I have a reason to stay focused and a happier employee because I don't feel like the job is imprisoning me. Apparently all I needed to like my job was do the same job but for less hours a week. It was proposed to me as a temporary measure, but when the economy straightens itself back out and it can be time for me to go back to full time, I will probably ask to stay at 35 hours a week. I am just soooooooo much happier because of it.

Here's hoping this is all the recession/depression does to my life, and I hope it only touches all my readers out there in a similarly serendipitous way, if it has to touch them at all.

Everyone calm down

I found my cell phone, or the staff at Old Navy on State Street did, and I will pick it up later.  Sigh of relief.  Also will copy down all of the phone numbers into the interwebs.  Yea for Google docs!

I think I lost my cell phone.

It is for sure not in the house. It may be at old navy. It may be at nine west, and it may be somewhere else entirely. This totally sucks. Although it may be just the excuse I need to get the new purple phone that I want. We shall see.

On a kick in the kitchen

So last night I made pesto from scratch for dinner when Chris came over to just hang out and watch movies. Today I decided we should make cobbler and I just put into the oven a berry cobbler (where the berries get some punch from whiskey and lemon zest) from a recipie by Emeril. We also picked up some ginger flavored ice cream at the store that should taste awesome with this once we get around to eating it.

Sam helped slightly on each of these, but basically they were all me. I am quite the Suzy homemaker for the weekend.

Part 4: Idaho, Idaho, Go Go Go!

On Friday morning, we woke up and headed up to Idaho in time to attend a workshop in the mid afternoon. We tried to stop by the theater department and see if anyone was around, but no luck, so we headed off to the SUB Ballroom for our first workshop. Benny Green and a few other members of the house band reminisce about a deceased jazz great named Ray Brown. They played a tiny bit but mostly talked, and Sam ate up every second. Then we headed to main street for a second workshop with a piano prodigy named Eldar who was way way WAY more advanced than anyone in the audience but clearly genius and very interesting. After that we went back to Pullman to take my little brother out to eat, and I think he enjoyed spending more time with Sam.

That night we went to the Kibbie Dome for the most amazing concert that I have ever, EVER seen. The first half was good jazz of the sort that Sam likes and I try really hard to stay awake for. Because I acknowledge it is good but when I see it late at night in a darkened concert hall (or football stadium) I tend towards nodding off. But I did not nod off and it was good. And then, it was time for Bobby McFerrin. He is amazing. He is incredible. He is possibly the most magical performer I have ever seen. No he probably is the most magical performer I have ever seen. He made a football stadium of 4,000 people most of whom were punk ass high school students silent with rapt attention. I can't really explain how fantastic he was. He as definitely not the goofy don't worry be happy man you would expect. He was calm and very rooted and sharing his music with us rather than performing it. If you ever, ever have a chance to see him I would for SURE go. I certainly will. It was awesome. Also eclectic. He did more traditional sounding jazz, he played the audience as if we were the sound in a giant piano on the floor of the stage (think "Big" but there was no piano he just taught us where the notes were and we sang them--helped by the fact that the audience included a few thousand music students), and he did a one man mini-Wizard of Oz. It was so awesome. I was floored. Very rarely do you go see some art or performance or concert where you can tell that what you are seeing is someone truly genius, truly magnificent at the top of their game. He is that.

After the concert, we went to meet up with my friend Sally who was being kind enough to let us stay at her house. However, we got to meet up with her at a cocktail party for VIPs, donors, volunteers and our interloper selves. She was volunteering as an artist relations guru all festival, and she managed to snag Sam and I each invitations to the cocktail party. No open bars are nice, but even nicer was getting to see some truly fantastic jazz musicians just jam with other musicians. Sam's favorite living pianist was there and on the piano, and since it was a fairly small party in a hotel ballroom, Sam got to stand just a few feet from him watching him play and being in pure heaven. As the night progressed another jazz piano legend came over to join the jamming musicians, but as the piano was occupied Monty Alexander had to pick up the bass. Sam drew in a sharp breath and whispered to me, "I didn't even know he could play the base!" Even later, as Monty Alexander's hands grew sore from slapping that bass, he joined Benny Green (Sam's fave) at the piano playing forhanded and switching sides effortlessly. After they finished, Sam joined Sally and I at our table, he was flushed and a little sweaty just from witnessing something amazing. I asked him then if the trip was worth it, and he told me that is definitely was.

The next day we slept in a a little bit before having breakfast at The Breakfast Club and taking a nap. After nap time we met Sally and her husband for dinner and had a great time talking and just hanging out. I am so very glad that Sally and David will be moving to Chicago soon because they are such wonderful lovely people. That night's concert was half big swing band that I didn't particularly like and half people I did like. There was a really great jazz vocalist who was just totally in the wrong venue. She was the kind of singer you want to see in a dim club late at night perched at a tiny table instead of sitting in the bleachers watching her in a domed football stadium. That night there was more cocktail party, with more great jazz (better than that nights pay concert) and where Sam was encouraged to sit in at the piano. But he didn't. It was a good night, but the night before was just so much more magical that it had no choice but to be more of a denouement.

Sunday morning we drove the long drive back to Seattle, saw Sam's brother again and flew on back into Chicago with no mishaps. That actually was rather amazing because apparently the East coast was a mess travel wise, so we were quite lucky to have a perfectly easy flight from the West coast home.

In a postscript, next month both Monty Alexander and Benny Green will be performing here in Chicago and Sam and I will be sure to see each of them at least once. Go jazz showcase. If it isn't too crowded, I will probably mention to the artists that we saw them in Idaho and that they were marvelous.

Vacation blogging (very belatedly) parts 2 and 3

Part two started getting up at regular work time and getting on the road. We drove from Seattle down to Portland, stopping once for some caffeine and Jack in the Box tacos (YUMMY!). Then in Portland we found ourselves in the Pearl District downtown, parked, and went in search of a restaurant for lunch. That was harder than we thought it would be, but eventually we found a bar that was kind of funky, had free wifi and got some delicious pizza.

Then back on the road, but instead of driving straight to my grandparents, we decided to head down the coast which was a much more beautiful drive. It wailed on us with the rain until right before we hit the coast when the sun came out and it was gorgeous and lovely and a perfect view for Sam's first day in Oregon ever.

We stopped and got out of the car on the beach in Lincoln City. There we were on the Pacific Ocean, on the beach for the second time in February. Although, it turns out that it is much more fun to be on a beach in Mexico in February than in Oregon in February. Then we swung back East to my grandparents farm.

There my uncle Chris and my grandparents met Sam. I am pretty sure that he was well received (my grandmother mught have approved the most). Then we had a delicious dinner of pheasant and bread and a few things before we drove over to my cousin Shane's house to see him, his wife Sadie, and their brand new baby Owen who was 8 days old. We didn't stay too long since they had a new baby, but it was good to see them.

The next day we got up and took a tour of the farm, met my aunt, and spent a little more time with the grandparents before we headed off to my hometown.

Before heading all the way to Pasco, we drove to a winery called King's Estate for lunch at their kinda fancy restaurant. The food was delicious with things like estate cured ham and flight of yummy wines. Then we drove another big chunk until we stopped at Multanomah Falls which is this amazing waterfall just East of Portland. We got out and climbed up to this old bridge across the bottom of the falls, if it hadn't been raining so hard we might have hiked up higher but we didn't. It was raining and we needed to get back into the car and drive all the way to my parents with brief stops for gas and fast food.

That brings us to Part 3: Hometown.

Our first night in, we just hung out at my parents for an hour or two before going to bed and saw my sister a bit when she came over after a meeting she had for work. The big revelation was that my parents let us sleep in the same bed! Sam and I, unmarried, premarital fornicators that we are, were allowed to share a bedroom for the trip. WEIRD!!!

The next day was sort of low key and let us catch up on some sleep. We got up to go take Natalie out to lunch at a little Mexican food place with big BIG margaritas and played with my mother's 10 week old kitten. That night, my aunt threw us a dinner for close family friends who were all meeting Sam for the first time. It was kind of a test, but I think that he passed it. I also got to see my brother's fiancee for the first time since they got engaged (well the first time since they started dating even though I have known her for well over a decade almost two). They seemed very happy.

Our second full day in town, I got to see my dear friend Heather before my mom, my sister, and my brother Tom took Sam and I wine tasting. My mom was BLITZED after the second winery. We had to taste and eat at the third one, but then Natalie and I got a little toasted at the fourth winery. They were pouring EVERYTHING for us there because we bought a great deal of wine as gifts for friends who were putting us up (wink, wink Sally) and Sam's brother as well as to drink ourselves while we are there. Then we had dinner at Tom and his fiancees house with my parents. It was nice, kind of lo key, Kate makes a great pasta red sauce. That night Natalie and I karaoked it up at our local bar. Seriously no one was singing at the Dugout, just us. We sang a ton. A handful of people who knew us (but were not singing) started laughing and heckling because of how many songs we had sang.

The next day we headed up to Idaho which will be part four coming soon. . . hopefully.

Ok, still paused. . . actually may unpause later today

I paused because this weekend started with a doozy of a birthday party, and I got way drunker than I had been in a long time.  That led to a Saturday where Sam and I did nothing.  We made the house messy, we ate chips and salsa as a meal.  We lounged around the house and never got dressed or showered.  That meant Sunday needed to be more productive and then my play got crazy because someone dropped out of the play and there were re-writes and all hoop-dee-durdle.  Although in the end I think it might end up even better for the show than if the rewrites had not been prompted.  (So for those following along in the comments Sam and I were not vomiting, although he managed to massively screw up his sleep schedule during this whole thing).

 

Anyway, things are settling down.  I got some news that should make several things in my life easier--thanks to the genius and generosity of my wonderful boyfriend. 

 

I was also pausing to put pictures in the blog posts, but I think I will just blog AND THEN go back and insert photos.  So later today I may well catch things back up.

 

 

So, pause before more vacay blogging

I have had rehearsal all week, really long ones where we block giant scenes that I am on stage for virtually the entire time.  The good news that is basically most of what I do in this episode, so I don't have a whole lot more to do rehearsal wise for a bit.

 

Tonight I need to catch up on unpacking, paying bills that come due at the beginning of the month, and seeing my boyfriend who wakes up way after me and is basically already asleep when I get back from rehearsals and no of course it does not make me bitter that he gets to sleep way more than I do when I am totally exhausted.  Except that oh yes it does.  Oh yes it does.

 

In a side note, I have a potential opportunity this summer to do a solo performance, and I have been toying with ideas of what to do/brainstorming, and right now the front runner is a piece on my obsession with Henry Rollins and like the causes of it that would sort of revolve around the fact that he was the scariest man I could come up with who was also smart and attractive and vaguely approachable (you know except for the part where I do not know him), and therefore in my mind was the perfect man because he was smart and attractive and WAY scarier than I was so of course we would be perfect for eachother because there is no way he would be scared of me. 

 

Obviously it would be longer than that paragraph.  Also, I was thinking that in order to convey who he was to the audience I should have like a scary looking photo of him and maybe play a snippet of his music (of the yelly punk 80's variety).  I think this could work.  What do you my loyal readers think?

My Trip, Segment One

Okay, so I blogged not at all because I had wifi about that much over the course of the trip which was basically really, really great (even though I was kind of concerned that it would go over like a lead balloon since Sam had already met most of those people in my family and it was almost seemingly a pointless expensive trip—well not so expensive, mostly just the tickets). The plan is to over this week blog about the trip in segments and maybe even add some pictures (because I did take some), so here I go. . .

Segment one: Seattle and Dan (Sam’s baby brother not mine)

We left on Saturday, but in the afternoon and as it spent the morning starting to snow more and more on the snow that had already fallen the night before I kind of worried that we would be WAY delayed or cancelled and that was NOT how I wanted to start my vacation that I was forcing Sam to take with me. But here in Chicago we don’t let a little snow get us down, so we took off and only a pinch late because the plane that we were taking was a pinch late in the landing.

The flight it self was long and uneventful and we landed just fine and dandy in SeaTac. Sam’s little brother was there to pick us up. Then we headed out to dinner at a GREAT restaurant called “Wild Ginger” which I would HIGHLY recommend (and on the bus we took to get there we passed KIRO and the TBTL haunted Azteca which got me VERY excited). After dinner we went around the corner to the Musicquarium at the Triple Door and heard some blues, and it was a good, good night where we were joined by a work contact of Sam’s. The next day we hung around kind of lamely, but I went out with my cousin Stephanie shopping, and then we hit Ivar’s for dinner. Also somewhere in there I creamed Sam and his brother at Xbox 360 Scene it.

Monday morning we got up earlyish and got in the car for Segment two: Oregon, Oregon, everywhere with a baby and some white pheasants. . . To Be Continued . . .