Freckles

I heart freckles...in moderation. One of the few things I like about myself, is that I get freckles in the summer. I don't get covered in them, just a sprinkling of them on my arms, face and shoulders. I realized today that my freckles are coming in.

Yes, I'm that bored that I'm dedicating a post to my freckles, but there isn't much I like in the way that I look, so I thought I would be positive and write about the one thing I do like. I find it funny that people who have freckles year round tend to not like them, but people without freckles find them cute. I hope to lay in the sun tomorrow and have a few more freckles appear. That would be hot.

My Boys

All I can say is, it's about time. Finally, the team that I'm proud to say represents my state played a game worth watching. That's right, I'm a Pistons fan. Let's just hope they can continue their amazing playing abilities for the next two games and can go to the finals for 3 years in a row. Life is so exciting.

My Amish Dreams, no More

There was a huge storm today, and we lost power at work for a few hours. It made me realize just how much we rely on electricity. There was absolutely nothing we could do. We didn't have access to our computers, no phones, and no lights in the back to see what we were doing. As I sat there, bored out of my mind, I realized that I no longer want to be Amish.

When I was younger, I had a great appreciation for the Amish. I always thought it would be fun to spend a year or two in their lives. You all probably think I'm making fun of Amish people, but I'm actually being serious. I would never survive.

First of all, I don't get up before the sun. I don't wear black, and I can't go a day without electricity. Those few minor things aside, I thought it would be fun. Most importantly, you would have a barn.

I guess I should take this time to tell you how my sister and I always wanted a barn when we were younger too(by younger, I mean our late teens). Can you imagine the parties you could have in one of those things? Plus, if you have a hay loft, that would be the coolest hang out spot EVER. Yes, we were immature, but we did ask our parents for a barn every year for Christmas. We never did get one though.

Anyhow, I realized that a few hours without electricity was enough to make me insane. I even went on lunch during that time and used my cell phone and drove my car. There is no way I'm cut out for the Amish lifestyle.

The Neverending Story

I watched this movie countless times as a child, but it always scared me. I was thinking about it when my mind was wandering at work yesterday. I think I should rent it so I can laugh at how I used to have nightmares after seeing it.

It wasn't supposed to be scary, it was aimed at little kids. The characters and storyline just freaked me out. There was the racing snail, the rock eater, and the flying dog. Not to mention, The Nothing.

I used to have dreams about the rock eater and racing snail. They would turn bad and help The Nothing destroy Fantasia(?), whatever the land was called in the book he was reading. Scary stuff.

Anyhow, the whole beginning of the movie freaked me out too. Why is this little boy reading an old book in a deserted room during a thunderstorm? I sure wouldn't do something that ridiculous. If I found that book, I would probably leave it alone. If I did read it, it would be during the middle of the day, with every light on, right next to my parents.

Where to begin with the flying dog? That was some scary stuff there. I know he was supposed to be nice, but he freaked me out. Seriously, if you saw a huge white dog, covered in glitter flying above you, wouldn't you be a little scared? Plus, as I remember it, the dog's back was nasty. It was covered in what looked like glittery cysts. Why would poor Atrey-u sit on that? You might pop one of them. Nasty.

Lisa reminded me of the worst scene in the movie when we were talking about it last night. The horse in the quicksand. That was horrible, all I can say about it to this day. Seriously, the poor horse that had to play that part must have hated his life at that moment.

There was a sequel to this movie. I don't remember too much about it. All I know is that the chicken guy probably is one of the reasons I'm still petrified of people dressed in costumes today. Someone was trying to steal the kid's memories, which were stored in some vase and looked like marbles. He had to jump off a waterfall at the end. This sequel, like most, didn't leave a lasting impression on me.

So, everyone go rent The Neverending Story. Watch it in the middle of the day though, it's scary stuff.

Who Cares Who Won

Taylor won, who cares? Honestly, I almost didn't watch the finals tonight because I didn't care. I stuck it out in hopes that Kelly would make an appearance, possibly even sing her new song that's all over the Ford commercials. No such luck.

Tonight's episode did nothing but make me realize what a waste this season was. So much great talent was passed up for Taylor and Katherine to make the final two. How did this happen? Mandeza, Chris, Paris and Elliot were all far better then these two.

The good thing about the show was that you got to see all the finalists sing again. It was really cheesy, them doing group numbers, although the Burt Bacharach(spelling?) medley was fun. The best part of the show had nothing to do with the finalists, but was the Clay Aiken suprise.

If you didn't see it, it was by far the best reaction you could imagine from live TV. They had one of the bad singers from the auditions come back to sing Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me(one of my favorite songs I may add). He started to sing, and Clay walked out behind him. The crowd went crazy, and this kid had no idea what was going on. Then he turned around. He literally almost passed out. It was the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life. He apparently was a huge Clay fan and had no idea Clay would be there. Sometimes, unscripted TV is the best thing there is.

As Clay Aiken and I are very good friends; he did talk to me once during his concert, I feel it is my duty to tell him this. He needs a hair cut. What was up with his hair in his eyes? Clay, go back to the spiky hair that you had when you became famous. It suits you better.

That's all I've got for tonight.

Kickball

One of the perks of growing up with a family as large as mine was that I never lacked people to play with. I think my older siblings all hated me...okay, I know that my older brother hated me. My older sisters just tolerated me from time to time. Despite their disdain for me, my family made a mean kickball team.

That's right, in the summer, the neighbor kids would come over and take on my siblings in kickball. We would use something in our driveway for home plate, a crack in the sidewalk was first base, a sewer cover was second, and a tree was third. Those summer games with team Warnke on Wylie St made me into the mean kickballer I am today.

I wonder if I could convince my family to play a game in the near future. We could make t-shirts and everything. Anyone wanting to take us on, let me know. We'll kick your arses.

Reasons I Hate Deer

I really dislike deer. They're dirty, disease ridden, and ugly. I hate that people feel the need to parade deer carcasses on the tops of their cars during hunting season with blood dripping down the sides. I hate that I'm scared to walk through the woods in the winter and fall without wearing bright orange so I don't get shot. Mostly, I hate swerving to avoid deer when I'm driving.
It never fails, if I leave the house at dusk, I'm sure to almost run over a herd of deer. Tonight was no exception. No matter how careful I am, and how much attention I pay to the sides of the road, they always come out of nowhere and are in front of my car about 20 feet away. The worst is when it runs away and you think you're safe, only to have another one run in front of you 2 seconds later and you have to slam on your brakes and go off the road to miss it. Stupid deer.

Let's Get Naked

Summer is almost here, which makes me happy. With summer comes one of my favorite activities; swimming. I was invited to a pool opening party on Sunday and I can't wait.
To be honest, I'm a little nervous about the party. I went to the pool closing party in Oct, and it was fun. There was a bon fire, fire batons(I have cool friends), and alcohol. Unfortunately for me, I had a little too much to drink that night and decided it would be a good idea to join everyone for the ritual skinny dipping.
Skinny dipping in itself isn't too bad. I won't lie and say that was the first time I had done it. In fact, it probably wasn't even the 10th time I'd gone skinny dipping. I've done it many times in my life. The problem arises when someone suggests that we should have a diving contest. That's right folks, naked diving, and I was all for it.
I realize just how trashy this post is making me sound. I'm honestly not, I just loose my sense of judgment when I drink sometimes. I am a good diver though. My mom used to do synchronized swimming when she was in college and taught me the proper way to dive when I was a wee one. I had to do the diving contest.
Once again, I'm not trashy. I did a backwards dive so only my bum was facing everyone watching. The point is, when I go to LPG's pool opening party on Sunday, I beg of those of you there, don't let me drink. If I do, don't let me skinny dip, and if I do the aforementioned, don't let me participate in the diving contest.

Encore

My blog has sucked a lot in the last few weeks. All I write about is the shows I'm working on or in. So, with my foray into theatre ending tomorrow(perhaps indefinitely...dry your eyes, it's true), I decided to write one last post on something that happened to me during my final performance of Biloxi Blues. Sit back and enjoy.

All my life(or as long as I've been doing shows), I've wanted someone to be so moved by my performance, that they would magically find some flowers during curtain call and throw them to the stage as I bowed. Of course, it will never happen, so I finally broke down and told my friend Christa about it one day at work.

She promised to throw flowers at me during my curtain call, as long as I would sneak her into a bar one night. I didn't think she would follow through, and agreed.

The last night of my show, I came out for my bow. The applause swelled as I came to center stage, as it always did, I was that amazing. Just as started to come out of my bow(with both hands at my side. I haven't bowed incorrectly since our talk Amanda), I heard something hit the stage. Christa had come and thrown flowers on the stage for me.

I don't want to be an ass, but, if you're going to throw flowers, they probably should be roses, not carnations. Just a thought for anyone who wants to one up her. Christa is reading my blog now, so I decided to give her a little shout out since none of my other friends have ever thrown flowers to me.

Old Town Saginaw

Tomorrow night I have my last show at the 303. Thank God. I'm so tired of not being paid to do things. I've been meaning to write the first half of this post for a few days, but haven't found the time.

One of the reasons I love Old Town Saginaw is because of all the crazy crackheads. You can be anywhere in Old Town at any time of day, and the odds are someone will ask you for money, start yelling at you for no reason, or stumble across the street in the middle of the day holding a brown paper bag. I exaggerate, it isn't that bad, but there are a lot of crackheads, and they always want to talk to me.

A few nights ago, one of the crackheads rode a bike up to me. I don't want to sound judgmental, but I am, so it's okay to think I'm a judgmental person. This bike was obviously WAY out of his price range. He rode it up to me and offered to sell it to me. Just call me Sherlock Scott, because I'm pretty sure it was stolen.

I don't like to lie, unless it's necessary, and it was necessary that night. I told him I didn't have any cash on me, so he was out of luck. Any other day of my life, that would have been a true statement, I never carry cash. But for some reason, I had some on me that night. What are the odds? My newfound crack whore friend insisted that I could get money from my house and bring it to him. I told him I don't even live in Saginaw, so that wouldn't be an option. At this point, he had crossed the point of funny crack person, into scary crack person who is either going to kill me or get me arrested. I decided to get back inside.

Senor Crack Whore decided that I was inviting him in to watch the show, and tried to follow me in; with his bike of course, heaven forbid he leave it outside where it be stolen. I blocked the door and told him it was a rehearsal, and no one was allowed inside. I love to be assertive.

Part 2 of my story of Old Town happened tonight. I love to do things at the 303 because its so relaxed. Alcohol consumption seems to be encouraged during performances, rather then frowned upon as it is at the good ol' Pit. I had quite a few drinks backstage tonight with my helpful stage hand. There's nothing better then shirking all responsibility for a few beers. Gotta love it...yes, that's my whole story.

Kid's Incorporated

In the mid to late 80's, there was an amazing show on the Disney Channel. Most of you will probably remember it. It was called Kid's Inc. Ok, I don't really expect anyone to remember it, but it was cool.

My sister and I were talking on Sunday and the topic of this show came up for some reason. I don't really remember any specific episodes of the show. I know the basic premise was a bunch of kids who sang and danced, kind of like The Mickey Mouse Club. All I have of the show, is a vague recollection of the opening credits.

Regardless of my memory lapse, I do remember that MJ and I LOVED that show. We watched it whenever we could. We idolized those kids and wanted to be them.

Here comes the scary part. We would dress in our play dress up clothes and pretend we were the people on the show. We had a card table that we would set up and use as our stage. The two of us would be decked out in full 80's garb and stand on that table and sing our heads off and dance till the cows came home(I don't know why I just made that reference). If you've never had the pleasure of seeing me dance, I'll just inform you, it isn't pretty, much less when I'm constricted to a card table.

What amazes me to this day is that we never died. You wouldn't know it to look at us now, but Molly and I were not small kids. We loved our food, and it showed. I would love to find that card table today and try to stand on it and see how long it would take to break. My parents must have seen our pudgy legs jumping on it one day and had it reinforced so it wouldn't collapse under us.

I'm too Nice

I don't know why I feel the need to correct everyone else's problems. Even if it means sacrificing my own health and sanity. Just last night, I wrote about how I was going to be done with the theatre for awhile. Today, I got sucked back in.

It won't be so bad; or so I keep telling myself. I'm helping backstage with a show that opens this weekend. I'm only going to be involved for 5 days, so where's the harm?

The harm is that I haven't had free time in 2 months, and now my impending freedom has been postponed by another week. Life sucks. Actually, what sucks is the fact that I am physically unable to say no when someone asks me a favor.

It's All Done

I finally have my nights and weekends available again. Today was my last day of my show. It's always a little bittersweet when a show ends. I'm glad to get my life back, but I always feel really lazy when I'm not doing one.

One thing I won't miss about this show is getting spit on. I'm not one to really complain about people spitting when they say lines, I'm horrible about doing it. If you enunciate, it's fairly difficult to not spit. There were many scenes in this show where I was being yelled at by a person who was inches away from my face, and I always ended up soaked.

Last night was ridiculously nasty. During one scene, I was spit on. It wasn't a small amount of spit either. I was standing there, and I felt a huge drop of spit stick to my face just over my left eyebrow. There was no way I could wipe it off without being obvious as to what I was doing, so I just had to stand there with it on my face. Absolutely disgusting.

The guy was really nice about it. He realized what had happened and apologized about 20 times to me during intermission. It really wasn't that big of a deal. One of the hazards of doing a live show, I guess. I think I'll be taking a hiatus from doing shows for awhile though. Who knows, I've been asked to do two shows this summer already. I'm sure I'll change my mind and end up doing both of them. It's so difficult to be talented and in demand...as if I would know.

My Allergies

Yesterday, my allergies started to act up. When my allergies get bad, it's out of control. It makes me want to crawl in a hole and die. I took some medicine, and it stopped my nose from running, but now I have a sinus infection. My life is amazing.

Anyhow, as much as allergies suck, I do have a funny story of how I became allergic to bees. It was painful when it happened, but it must be told.

I was stung all the time as a child. I used to catch bees using nothing but empty mayonnaise jars. I don't know why, it was just thrilling to do something that could get me hurt. I was probably stung about 3-4 times each summer.

Disaster struck the summer I was 10 years old. My family moved to Indiana that year. When we first got to our house, I went exploring in the woods and at the bottom of the hill in our yard. I got bored quickly(I've never really had a large attention span), and decided to go into the house.

As I trudged up the hill, I stepped into an abandoned rabbit hole. When I say the hole was abandoned, I mean that a rabbit no longer lived in it. Instead, wasps had decided to make a nest in it. I had stepped right on the nest, and the wasps were pissed. I was swarmed by them and was probably stung around 50-100 times.

I ran into the house screaming. The great thing about wasps is that they don't just sting once like a bee, they can keep biting. They were in my clothes, so my mom had to strip me down to my unders, while my dad hit me to kill the wasps that were still on me. If you've never been hit on a fresh wasp bite, let me tell you how great it feels.

By the time it was over, I was a swollen mess. It took hours for the pain to even begin to subside. Luckily, I didn't have any allergies at that point in time, or I would probably have died. That day overloaded my system, and I developed an allergy to bees as a result.

I've been stung/bit 3 times since then. The first time, I was barefoot outside, and got stung in the side of my right foot. My foot swelled so much that I couldn't wear a shoe on that foot for a week. The second time, I was stung on my right shoulder. I lost all feeling in that arm for an hour or two. There was a welt there for 2 months after it happened, and I still have a scar from it.

The last time I was stung, was last summer. I bee stung me right in my stomach. Nothing happened after though. It was just a normal sting. Maybe I'm overcoming my allergies. I hope so.

I have an appreciation for bees. I'm not scared of them, but I won't move if there is one near me. I've realized it's better to just let them do what they are doing, and you won't get stung. I actually am fascinated when I see them getting pollen from a flower. I'll sit and watch them. I no longer go after them with my mayonnaise jar though. I don't want to tempt fate.

Take a Bow

Friday was opening night of my show. It could have been worse, and could have been better, as life always goes. I'm so glad to have a few nights off though. I don't have to be back to the theatre till Thursday, so hopefully I'll have time to write interesting posts for the next few days.

Anyhow, a few of my friends came to see the show this weekend, which was great, but I'm going to focus on Amanda coming to see the show. The first reason I was excited to see her was because she brought her boyfriend, Nate. I could be wrong, but NATO doesn't really strike me as the theatre type, so it was cool that he came along.

It was great to see Cricket again though. We went out to the bar after the show for some karaoke. One of the best things of going to the bar with your friends after a show is hearing what they really thought of it. They don't have to censor themselves anymore since they aren't at the theatre anymore and don't have to run the risk of being overheard.

The biggest complaint Amanda gave me about my performance was how I bowed during curtain call. I didn't know there was a correct way to bow. Apparently there is though, and Amanda schooled me in it last night. Oh, how I love her.

In honor of Amanda, I'm going to include grades with this post, just like she always does on her blog.

My performances this past weekend...C

The Junction Saturday Night...B-(too busy and I was tired)

Amanda teaching me how to bow in the bathroom of a bar...A+

Bold

Did anyone happen to see the commercial for Fords during Desperate Housewives tonight? It's the one where they kept showing the word bold over and over. There were all these different people doing various bold things...shaving their head, skateboarding, etc. The thing that struck me about the commercial was the music. Was it just me, or was it Kelly Clarkson singing? If it was her, which I'm pretty sure it was, what song was that? Does she have a new CD coming out? How exciting.

I'm Forgetful

I probably have the worst short term memory of anyone you will ever meet. I can never remember where I parked my car, I repeat things throughout conversations because I don't remember that I already said something three times, and I loose things. It's not that I'm stupid, although I kind of am, it's just that my mind wanders, and I don't pay attention.

At some point in January, I lost a paycheck from the Temple. It wasn't really a big check, but it was the fact that I worked and wasn't getting paid that made me mad. I talked to my boss, and she told me they would cancel the check and reissue another one. Problem solved.

The problem is that I'm an idiot. I somehow managed to loose the replacement check too. It's a good thing I'm cute because this mind isn't gonna get me anywhere in life...damn it, I'm screwed in that department too. I decided to just cut my losses because I really couldn't bring myself to ask them to issue me another one.

Sunday, I found one of the lost checks. The problem was, I didn't know if it was the original one that I lost, or the other one. I figured I would be penalized for cashing a cancelled check, and didn't want to take the risk because I'm cheap. I took it to the bank so I could ask my sister if it was the original or not...I figured she would find some way to help me out.

When I got there, she was leaving for lunch, but told me they would be able to look it up and let me know which one it was. She warned me not to deposit it if it was the cancelled one because they'll charge me and it's a big hassle. She told me which teller to go to for help(we were in the parking lot) so that I wouldn't get someone stupid and didn't know what they were doing.

I walked into the bank, and the lady I was supposed to go to was busy. One of the other people called me over. I figured she would be able to help me. It couldn't be too difficult to look in a computer, or do whatever you have to do. I explained the situation, and she kind of got a confused look on her face when I asked if she could check to see if this was the good check or bad one.

She feigned a "can do" attitude and started to go into the computer system. She said that the computer was allowing her to deposit it, so it must be the good check. The thing was, this comment wasn't made as a statement so much as it was a question. I was about to tell her I would just wait till someone else could verify when she said, there, it's all taken care of, and started to give me money. I'm going to be pissed if that check bounces.