week 11 : family, the christmas spirit, and growing up

the head ushers have adopted me for the summer.  they make sure i'm doing well, bring me medicine when i'm sick, make sure i eat dinner.  it's really cute.  and makes me feel special.  they know i'm from texas and that my closest family is in another time zone.

time has again come to a slow pace.  i just want to go home.  that's not completely true.   i just want a job that doesn't have such a crazy schedule.  i want weekends again.  i want a life.  to have fun.  to live.  to be young.  because i am growing up, i need to have fun while i still can.

christmas in july is going strong here in my tiny village.  we are doing secret santa at the theatre.  keeps our morals going.  makes things interesting.  keeps us wanting to come to work day in and day out.  we are all beat.

i just need to make it till the first week in august.  then my time left will be short.  or i need mr. utah to get hired for the last month to pick up my spirits.

when life gives you lemons...

find someone with tequila and have a margarita... or four.

i'm going to start with a back story before telling the recent happenings.

went to utah for an internship, met ne.  we liked each other, but were in different places in our lives.  so we didn't hook up, just always (always) had a crush on each other, always flirted with each other, the usual fun stuff.  i then started dating ut.  we had a nice thing going, i left to finish college, we stayed together.  i decided to pick up my life for some stupid reason and move to utah after college to be with ut.  (i had no other option for jobs so i took it.)  and when mr ne and i met up again, we started where we left off.  that crush we had, still existed, so we flirted.  a lot.  more than a lot.  and we had our fun, without making mistakes with mr ut. things were going well with ut until he decided to move in a different direction, and we had a bad break up.  and when things started getting rocky, i hooked up with ne. meaning that, yes, i did cheat on ut. and i fell in love with ne to make matters even worst.  then summer tore everyone apart because of the addition of summer stock.  so i left and moved to new york.  i was heart broken, the guy i loved was thousands of miles away.  and we started to loose touch.  we texted often, which turned into less often, and then even less. 

it's now been a year, we talk every couple of months.  he's been dreaming of getting out of utah ever since i left.  when i came back to new york this year, i stopped to see ut, there's a blog about it that goes into details, go read it.  and after our lovely break up (note the sarcasm), we picked up on a good spot and became friends again.  he is wanting to know when i'll be going back thru.  ok, maybe we picked up on a really good spot.  maybe it was the beer that helped.  whatever. 

mr ne texted me for the first time in a couple of months last night.  part of me deep down still loves him, probably always will.  he was my first love.  it happens.  and i miss him, i miss hanging out with him, playing beer pong, watching the horrible movies that he picks out, just having a good time.  and now he's looking at moving to austin with me.  i was painting a pretty picture in my head of a possible future with tx.  it's probably a pipe dream, but it's sometimes good to dream.  even though i'm probably setting myself up for failure.  now i might be given this chance to catch back up with ne.  third time's a charm right?  but i might have something good starting with tx.  i wan to know what each path has to offer.

i am growing up, i am ready to settle down, be close to family, blah blah blah.  and i might have to option to do it with the guy i love(d).  or i can do it with the new guy who i have to potential to fall in love with.  life seemed so easy until last night.  i know i'm making a big deal out of something that probably won't happen.  it's sometimes nice to dream though.  right?

week 10 : i'm a hot mess

so i've spent all week with the sniffles.  i have an upper respiratory infection, a head congestion, a cold in the middle of summer.  this is my life.  and i am the only me in my crew.  i can't hear properly, can't function properly, can't do my job properly.  and there's nothing i can do about it.  i have no one to help me.  and it sucks.  i haven't gotten too many complaints (yet) about this show, so i guess i'm doing a good job.  we are starting yet another show, damn yankees, and i can't eq properly.  it sucks.  i hate this.  i need another member on my crew!  sad face. 

i feel like i'm growing apart from the guy back home, really sucks.  between my beyond busy schedule and his multiple jobs, we hardly talk any more.  double sad face.  hopefully things will pick up soon.  we'll see what happens when i get back.

i've realized that i don't mind being here, i don't mind being in theatre, however i am growing older, and becoming more of an adult and i now want to no longer do summer stock.  i could handle doing shows in rep again, i think.  i can handle a months run of a show.  and a build of more than two weeks time.  however i cannot  keep changing shows every two weeks, it's killing me, stressing me out, keeping me constantly on my old toes.  this is why i constantly want to leave this theatre.  i can't keep going on this schedule, i'm beat, i'm tired, i'm exhausted, i need time off, i need my friends close and my family closer.  i want to go back to texas.  i want to settle down.  find a steady job.  start a family.  but can i do that in my field?

week 9 : it's so hot!!

not much happening here.  just in the second week of chicago.  getting ready for aladdin and damn yankees.  chicago has been a HUGE success.  i knew it would be, we all did.  we've sold out or nearly sold out every show.  we were lucky to get half for each showing of secret garden.  so this is much needed.  damn yankees is our throw away show, the show after chicago.  there's a whole new design team, minus me of course.  first time director, first time set design, first time costume design all for the theatre.  it's ...an experience.  the director has a lot of pipe dreams, he's really anxious, wants to add a whole lot of everything.  it's nice on my end though, i haven't had a design heavy show yet.  chicago was a mic heavy set.  but everything else was easy breazy.  making the mic list is hell, though for damn yankees.  i have 11 mics and 14 people who need one at various points throughout the show.  i'm making a map for myself and for the actors.  i'll need the asm to track them backstage too, since i have no a2.  it'll be a fun time keeping up with everything. 

heat wave came thru last week, record high temps in the northeast.  we were hotter here than in texas a couple of days.  and it has yet to cool down.  i must note that it is my 9th week here at the mac, and i have 9 more to go!  i was a rough climb up to the halfway point but it's all downhill from here!!

week 8 : i love my job. i think.

a blog to start the week, i won't have any other time this week to write, so here is this week's blog, week 8:

so third show is done.  finished.  struck.  over.  and now onto our 4th.  chicago!  that's kind of like our halfway point.  (..hold for checking of schedule.....)   next week will be, yay!  wait... wow.  really?  cool.  half way there.  well, almost.  that's crazy.  ever since children's shows started it's be going so quickly. 

chicago has been a hell of a changeover.  i've moved part of the orch over to the stage.  moved in an actual drum kit, we generally use virtual, and brought in three horns.  i've had to mic my drums, redo snakes, draw in more mics, make every wireless mic hotter; it's just been crazy.  crazy hours, crazy sleep patterns, crazy eating habits, crazy life.  crazy and stressful.  i'm losing my mind.  luckily the sound guy from last year came in to visit, so of course i put him to work.  he helped me immensely.

and as another reason why i love my job, i got an actor to take off his pants without asking.  i had a mic pop during a show and so i had an asm check the connection and a sm blow air into the element, well i asked him to blow the element, he actually blew the pack so i had to go blow the element.  i walked up to the actor, said "i need to blow your face."  he thought i meant pack, so started talking off his pants.  love my job, made me smile.  whatever.

however, chicago is making my job challenging.  and stressful.  and almost making me hate it.  but once we open this show, i will succeed at it!