dramaturgy: ([BSG] Starbuck is unhappy.)
I have so much I want to talk about. But since brevity is the soul of wit and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.

My sister is still in Japan of this moment. She's okay, there wasn't much damage in Nagoya from the earthquake, but she's going (I keep typing 'coming' but I'm not there) home for a bit and she'll get in on Monday. I don't know if my mom will ever let her go anywhere ever again, but maybe now at least she won't drive me crazy for a bit. I love my mother and understand being worried, but seriously. (I also understand that she is ~mother and her worry probably outshines any that I had -- and I was a bit worried but my sister is a smart girl and the Japanese know how to handle it.) I told Gretchen to grab something good when the looting started, but apparently they don't do that. Which is cool.

Sunday I went and saw Angels in America at Signature again. They changed the cast, and Michael Urie was playing Prior so obviously I had to go. As much as I hesitate to say it... Michael Urie is totally my Prior. Justin Kirk is wonderful in the film, and Christian Borle was amazing, but Michael? He was inspired. He was just the perfect combination of righteous, queeny rage, fear, awareness of the absurdity of it all, and at times, utter contempt for the world around him. And how he looks in a dress is exactly as unfair as you would think it is.

Adam Driver was a newcomer as Louis. I LOVED him. He LOOKED like a neurotic Jewboy, and had amazing comic timing. At first I thought he was a little stiff but I warmed up to him. I actually ended up liking Louis a little lot more than I usually do -- which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Considering some of the things he does, it increases my sympathy and emotional reaction when he does or says reprehensible things. Truthfully, Bill Heck puts too much ANGRY~ in his Joe for my taste. I get that he's supposed to be confused and maybe a bit self-loathing, but I don't think I should fear for Harper's safety when they're arguing. I didn't like Keira Keeley (I think that's her name) as Harper as much as I liked Zoe Kazan. Zoe was a bit younger, more ethereal -- I could believe she went flying and saw ex-drag queens in her hallucinations, but Keira went a bit more zombiesque with her interpretation at times. And there was a lot of yelling. :\ Bill Porter was still Belize and he was STILL fabulous. Jeffrey Wright is Jeffrey Wright but Bill Porter was DIVAING OUT. The angel was good. I don't know if I like her as much as Robin Weigert, but it was a different interpretation. A lot more human at all times, not just sometimes.

I didn't want to stalk too much -- stagedooring Off-Broadway is a different culture than Broadway shows, I'm finding -- but I wanted to fangirl Michael Urie a little and was under orders from [livejournal.com profile] occultebelta to do so. So he signed my copy of The Temperamentals and told him I'd enjoyed that play as well, I'm teaching it in my 101 class this semester (last semester wasn't so impressed with Angels), and it was in part due to that play that I want to pursue my MFA project in queer dramaturgy. I voiced a concern about identifying straight -- in my experience, cautious self-deprecation and disclaiming works out better in the end when it's genuine -- and he blew it off. He said, "You may have more to say than a queer artist." So therefore I intend to make no more apologies about it. Onward and upward. Michael Urie said so.

Last week I applied and interviewed for a customer service position at Old Navy -- so basically what I'd been doing at Lane Bryant, but I'll be able to do it in jeans. Except when they offered me the position and tried to set up a time for me to come in for training and such, they proceeded to ignore the availability I gave them when I applied and tried to get me to come in Monday during classtimes, Tuesdays when I'm teaching, and damn. I don't even. Why? So I gave him my availability AGAIN and he said he'd call back. That was Wednesday. So if this is going to be a chronic problem I'm not sure I want to work for them. Because my school and teaching job are going to come first. Sorry. The end.

I had two major writing assignments due last Monday. Of course I left them until the last minute. One was a ten minute play, which I actually ended up being proud of despite not considering myself a playwright (it's hard to give all the information the audience needs just in dialogue without being didactic or fake). I got a B+ on a paper on Elizabethan foreign policy. I probably would have gotten higher if I'd been able to bother with MLA formatting and edit properly, but no. She did compliment my handling of the history though, so I will take it.

I've sort of started using my tumblr that I made to see what the fuss was about. And when I say 'using' I mean I'm reblogging shit like it's going out of style. It's here.

I am giving serious thought as to when I want to move, and 'soon' is what comes to mind. Twice this week I have been woken at 9:30 by a roommate (the same roommate) wailing the song "Fuck You" at the top of her voice. First of all, that's a god awful song 24/7, and second, 9:30 is not the proper hour to be shouting songs.

I just have this fear of not having enough money to stay in an apartment elsewhere and getting evicted and having to live in my car. Which is stupid. But I get anxious, I get depressed about being anxious, I get anxious because I don't get anything done when I'm depressed and it piles up, etc.

Also, Galileo is going to suck. And that is an objective assessment.
dramaturgy: ([SPN] Anna is dangerous.)
Since I don't think I'm smart enough for "The Politics of Aesthetics," let's have an LJ update instead.

Last weekend I was feeling a bit sick, and by Monday night I had a raging sinus infection. So I cancelled my class for Tuesday and went to the doctor and got some drugs. He was a nice doctor; we had a lovely conversation about Iowa because I was wearing my Coe College sweatshirt (I need a new one, this one's getting all ratty) and apparently his mother grew up in Cedar Rapids. Wednesday I was still on my back, but I woke upon Thursday and cared about things again, so I decided I could teach and go to Galileo rehearsal -- which is going really well. I'm enjoying it.

Friday was hella busy. I went into the city to run some errands; I dropped off/picked up scripts at Young Playwrights and got my brother a birthday gift. I walked around in the theatre district. I love the city so much, sometimes it actually hurts me.

Then I went with another woman in the program to see an NT Live broadcast of Donmar Warehouse's production of King Lear with Derek Jacobi. Now, I am a huge fan of Michael Grandage and the Donmar. I think they do beautiful shows that are not dependent on design or spectacle, but instead allow actors and plays to do the work for themselves and letting talent shine through. I would seriously give my right arm to work for that man.

That said, I also don't have another Lear that I've seen to compare it to -- but it was stunning. Derek Jacobi is just as marvelous as you think he would be from beginning to end. Gina McKee was an awesome stone cold bitch as Goneril. The brothers were also great, and the whole thing with them and Gloucester was so wonderful it hurt. Edmund was compact and sort of weaselly looking, and Edgar was tall, gallant -- basically everything he's supposed to be. (And he was doing some dead ringer Matt Smith and his confusing yet sexually exciting facial hair action as Tom, which was only a little distracting but it was working for me.) There was this wonderful/awful moment after Gloucester's been blinded and meets with Edgar again, still as Tom, he slips and calls him "father" when me and probably a good 70% of the audience all went, "Ohh" because it hurt so good. Ron Cook made me cry as the Fool -- he was superb. I have seen him onstage twice (I suppose technically three times?) and he is just so great every single time.

I don't know if I've ever had my heart broken quite like when Lear came on, wailing -- not so much crying as just a full out cry of despair -- with Cordelia's body.

They also advertised the next NT Live broadcast which is Johnny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch trading off lead roles of the Creature and Victor Frankenstein in "Frankenstein." They're going to do one broadcast for each and DO WANT. I want to see both.

Spider-Man is hiring a script doctor which is honestly what needed work but there is a part of me going ASSHOLES I'M A DRAMATURG THAT'S MY JOB.

Also I'm coming to that time where I have a lot of things to do and I don't want to do any of them, and some of them don't have a penalty like not doing homework does. These are things like finding a job, and finding internships to apply for.

ETA: Since I'm a big old slut for production/rehearsal photography, here's some for Lear.
dramaturgy: ([AI] I amount to nothing.)
So Hoff, who directed the Women's Chorale at Coe, died in his home earlier this week. For those of you less schooled in the subtleties of writing and speaking, that's usually code for "suicide" and that was confirmed for me today about twenty minutes ago. There are Coe alums all over the internet buzzing about it, and I already tweeted and wrote on Facebook about it but I'm still trying to make sense of this.

Hoff was not everybody's favorite teacher, as I said, and sometimes he wasn't mine. He pushed for excellence and sometimes I wondered wtf he was doing with us, but it always had results. Sometimes I was resentful for being in the chorale -- it did feel like a consolation prize to not being "good enough" for the mixed choir at times, but there are other times where I would not have jumped to the mixed choir if they'd asked me. I'm sure if you go back into the archives of my journal there will be posts littered with 'OH MY GOD I HATE HOFF RIGHT NOW' and the like, but the fact is that those moments were fleeting. My time with Hoff was... well for lack of a better term, magical.

He was a hard taskmaster at times, yes, but it was all to make us better singers. I love to sing, and I love music. Behind his madness there was method, and always passion. He loved music and he loved theatre. He was head of the New York term program and while I didn't go on that exchange, I did get to go to Europe. I had to have three letters of recommendation; one I got from Steven (a theatre professor), one from Dr. Buckaloo (history) and the third I got from Hoff. He also wrote me a letter for grad school; I don't think it was SUNY (I don't remember how many letters I needed for here) but he did write me one and so because he did that I got to do things that I wasn't sure I would get to do. Some of my favorite memories at Coe, too, are the Winter Convocation, where WC sang the music (I love Christmas music) and the spring concerts, where sometimes it was so dang hot in Sinclair I thought I was going to fall over.

He loved theatre, and he knew I did too. When I was a senior he had made a trip to NY over winter break and had gone to see a bunch of shows. He brought in the souvenir program from Spring Awakening and the revival of Sunday in the Park with George so I could take a look at them. It was a small gesture, but one that meant a lot to me -- and now I'm in New York where Broadway is a train ride away. One year we did music from Phantom of the Opera at our spring concert, so we all gathered at his house, watched the movie, and then we had food after -- lots of delicious food.

Undergrad is the days before I got my depression and anxiety under control, and some mornings -- particularly late fall and winter, I think some of it was seasonal -- I just did not want to get out of bed. It's hard to describe but it is just the complete lack of will to do anything except lay in warm darkness. But most mornings I got out of bed, because I knew that at 12:00 or 11:00 or whenever rolled around, I got to go sing. I was never suicidal -- seriously anyway -- but I was probably close.

To know someone was in some kind of pain so awful that they thought that was the only way is awful, especially when they themselves had a hand in alleviating that pain for you, is indescribable. I wish there was a way I could have known, could have helped, could have repaid him. I don't know what he was thinking or feeling, but I still wish that I could have. Even though I have a certain flair for the dramatic, I'm not saying this to go "oh look at me, a professor I was close to died" or "I deal with these issues too," I am just trying to sort out how I feel. I'm sad. I'm a little angry (in general). I am just generally, all around, upset. I owe the teachers I was close to as an undergraduate a great debt, because it was at Coe that I started becoming the person I am today and started heading towards the person I wanted to become. They all had an amazing hand in that, and one of them took his own life for... whatever reason.

I suppose that I have no choice but to pay it forward, do everything my best, and make every showtune I sing just as expressive and wonderful as Hoff could have hoped to make it.

Guys, suicide doesn't just affect teenagers and young adults. Though I don't really know my thoughts on right to die, I do believe that suicide is a very drastic and permanent solution when the hurt is in your heart and soul and not your body. If you are having suicidal thoughts, then PLEASE tell someone. Anyone. If that someone doesn't listen to you and help you, tell someone else. Tell me. I'll listen, I'll metaphorically hold your hand (literally if I am close enough), and I will help you help yourself best that I can. I'm not a therapist or trained for psychology or anything, I just know what it's like to be in an enormous amount of pain that you don't know what to do with. We can find a better solution than suicide together.

Say a prayer for Richard Hoffman. He touched a lot of lives at Coe, and there are many more who will never be blessed to say they knew him, but he was a man with an enormous heart and a lot of soul, and that should not go unrecognized. Love him or hate him, no one should ever have to feel like suicide is the only option.
dramaturgy: ([TWW] ???)
1. My students, by turns, are wonderful and know absolutely nothing and it shows.

2. This weekend was not fun. Want to know why? Because Saturday I got a cancellation notice from my insurance company. Admittedly, I called them on Wednesday to pay by card over the phone when payment was due THAT DAY, but I didn't think they'd get it done that fast. I don't get it, do they print out a new cancellation every month and then express mail it at 12:01 on the due date if you haven't paid yet?

Anyway, I paid over the phone and didn't think anything more of it, but I took this as a sign to change my car insurance, which I was going to do when my year with Eveready was up anyway. I matched my current policy best I could with the options Progressive gave me, and it's going to be like sixty bucks a month cheaper. So this morning I sent Eveready a letter telling them where they could shove their insurance. (Except nicer than that.) Of course, I checked and the money had already cleared. (So they cancelled my policy but had no trouble taking my money.) But I wrote they could either give me the full month they took the money for or let the cancellation hold and let me know so I can get the appropriate start date for my new insurance.

3. Friday I was referred to an endocrinologist by Dr. Tuckman and he gave me the form and said, "Call this number!" so this morning I did and they were like "Oh we need to have the form/your recent bloodwork/first born child faxed to us." And also that they're booking into December-January right now, which means February. Ugh.

Kill me now.

Home.

Aug. 25th, 2010 10:24 pm
dramaturgy: ([AI] I amount to nothing.)
I'm anxiety piling, so excuse me.

I said the other day that 'home' was a really complicated word, and I find that a lot of people my age feel the same.

I was talking to my mother and was talking about driving back to school before I left. Before I knew it I called New York 'home'. But it's not. New York is where I am living and going to school (for now. For at least the next two years. Please don't even start me on my thoughts on the matter right now) but it's not home. I don't know if it could be. Iowa is kind of home. It's where I grew up, but there are many things I don't like about it. I don't know. My family's there, and my family's probably not leaving any time soon. I don't have a boyfriend, I don't even have a prospect. I don't have someone I want to make a life with. I don't have ties like that here. I don't know if I want them.

When we saw my sister last, I put the Mamma Mia soundtrack to drive to because I needed to stay awake. Stupid idea, because eventually we got to this song:



I saw this movie with my mother, so that whole mother/daughter thing his ~super hard with me. I really do miss my mother, she's one of my best friends, and this stupid song makes me bawl every time.

So home is complicated. I don't know where my heart is so I don't know where my home is, but what I do know if where I pay money to store all my stuff and sleep a few hours a night.
dramaturgy: ([AI] Johnny.)
All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow

And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very mad world mad world

Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
And I feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me

And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very mad world ... mad world
Enlarging your world
Mad world

dramaturgy: ([SPN] Gabriel.)
I am watching some episodes of Hoarders on the internet. And now all I want to do is scrub the apartment from ceiling to floor.

And now the part that is just blah. )

In other news, I have been daydreaming about working in a theatre somewhere near home that is not Chicago. Because Chitown makes me want to cry.

And I have a deficit in TA hours that I have absolutely no hope of making up by the end of the semester, so I am probably going to be in trouble with the department. I hate my life.
dramaturgy: ([SPN] Suicidal teddy bear.)
So for want of anything else to do on a Saturday night, I went to Bank of America's website (one of the two banks with ATMs on campus, and the only one off Long Island) and signed up for checking/savings accounts so I can get my New York residency. Monday I'll have to go see what I have to do to change my direct deposit account. :x

I DON'T WANT TO GROW UP AND BE AN ADULT. MAKE IT STOP.

ETA: Also, why does the universe hate me? Why is there a SPN con in Chitown right after I leave the Midwest? This can't be a coincidence. Because I could have been in the same room at that right there.

I'm sorry. You know what a man in a vest and tie does to me.

I'd kind of like to go to one. Because now that 5x09's aired I can only imagine the meta meta that will be going on will be FANTASTIC.
dramaturgy: ([SA] MBN.)
Moving 1000 miles from home is hard. There's a reason the only people who've done it are pioneers, criminals, and Super-Man.

Seriously. Getting the doctor who has known me since I was seven to give me an antidepressant was hard enough.

I woke up late this morning. Why do I do this to myself? I'm only shooting myself in the foot.
dramaturgy: ([Heroes] Praying.)
So my application has been processed by the theatre department, not the graduate school. And once they do that, crap will get sent out. Also, there was a housing deposit and a deadline that never, ever heard about.

WHY THE FUCK IS THIS SO HARD?
dramaturgy: ([DW/T] Owen ;_;)
Grrrr.

I AM NEVER GOING TO GET INTO GRAD SCHOOL.
</dramatics>

Brooklyn College just called me to say that they had my stuff, BUT the papers I wrote had to go to the department in question, which I never EVER saw on their website, and also that they never received my official transcripts from Coe OR my letters of recommendation.

There's two I'm not getting into. Three to go.
dramaturgy: ([SA] No mortal.)
I never knew that everything was falling through
That everyone I knew was waiting on a queue
To turn and run when all I needed was the truth
But that's how it's got to be
It's coming down to nothing more than apathy
I'd rather run the other way than stay and see
The smoke and who's still standing when it clears

Everyone knows I'm in
Over my head
Over my head
dramaturgy: ([DW/T] *salute!*)
Yay jaunty Captain Jack icon.

I was supposed to go in to work at three, but Frank called me at 1 asking if I could come in to cover for him until RJ got there because he was le sick or something. I didn't really listen. So I went in for about forty-five minutes until RJ got there and he said I could come back at four, so go back at four I shall.

I replaced University of Iowa with Brooklyn College CUNY, because they also have a dramaturgy program AND a theatre history/criticism program. :x I sent an e-mail to admissions asking what their policy on dual application was because I can't deciiiiiiiide mommy, I wanna do booooooooooooooth.

I was having my Waking Nightmares again. It's not a technical term, but a Waking Nightmare is those uncontrollable thoughts and worries I have about money, getting into a school, money, my brother not moving his ass to get into a real school when he's finishing his AA in the spring, money, [livejournal.com profile] thinkatory finishing her thesis, [livejournal.com profile] roseanna and her busy, busy Beeness, money, weird dreams I have, [livejournal.com profile] kaesa being eaten by science, and money when I am trying to sleep. My mind races and I can't sleep and I end up tossing and turning and thinking about it. And sometimes I think I should get up and read or do something until I'm ready to pass out, except it's already three in the morning and it'll take at least half an hour for my mind to slow down... I'm supposed to go back to the doctor in a couple of weeks or something, this is probably something I should mention. Except it doesn't really do any good to put me on an anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medication, does it? ... It just seems counter productive. Maybe less fluoxetine will just do the trick.

Like last night, I was going to turn the light back on and read, but I'd just finished my book. The Handmaid's Tale, if you're curious. My brother read it for a class a couple of years ago, shoved it at my mom, and she shoved it at me. I think I'm going to read The Host next.

I have these really weird dreams. Like the other night I was eating bagels in the kitchen and for some reason the Tyrells were there. Like, not even [livejournal.com profile] westerosorting Tyrells who at least have the virtue of being real people. No. Like Margaery and Loras Tyrell were in my kitchen, eating bagels with me. I also have a dream about this restaurant that is somewhere out in the middle of nowhere north of DeWitt, and it has not only the best chocolate milkshakes I've ever had, but their chicken is delicious and so are their french fries. I was actually convinced that this restaurant was real, but when nobody in my family knew what the hell I was talking about, I realized I'd dreamed it all.

Also, ABC cancelled Dirty Sexy Money. Which, considering how it was going, might be a good thing.
dramaturgy: ([Misc] I am never going to work again)
I hate pretending to be a responsible adult. I'm so desperately bad at it.
dramaturgy: ([Disney] GFD!)
Arrrrrrrrgh;salkdjf

I went back to Coe tonight to see the play and it was marvelous. We have talented actors at Coe and this was an especially momentous occasion, as it was the first time we did plays by black playwrights. Florence and The Dutchman were both staged as a joint venture called A Dream Deferred, A Race Derailed. A couple of years ago, we read Topdog, Underdog in our theatre history class, and the question came up: why do we not do this play? It's an excellent play, it's probably one of my favorites that I had to read for theatre history, and I read a lot of plays. But it was said that we couldn't do these sorts of plays (where African-American/ethnic casting is needed for the play to make sense), i.e., put them on the schedule if no one was going to show up and audition. There's a certain amount of logic to this; we (and when I say "we" I mean the department) needed to decide whether or not if we built it, they would come.

Well, we built it. And they came.

Jackie, I'll give you more details later if you want them I promise, I am just REALLY tired right now. And if you all read on you will find out why.

The short story: I dropped my car key down the elevator shaft in Murray.

The long story: After the play was over I bid my sister good night some of my friends (Lizabe [[livejournal.com profile] techie34], Ashley, Rae, and Chelsea) were getting ready to go to the Homecoming dance, and I was catching up with them some while they did so. I was going to go to the truck (I was driving my dad's Big Truck) and they were going to go to the dance, so we were heading out together. I had the key out and I guess I didn't have a good hold on it or something and it fell out of my hand and RIGHT in the space between the elevator car and the floor. There was much swearing and gnashing of teeth and a little crying (you know how I get). We talked to the RA on duty who did his best to help us (even taping a hook to a broom handle to try and stick in the shaft, bless him) and well. They can't get into the shaft until they can get maintenance in there which would have been tomorrow at the very, very earliest but more likely Monday. And, the cynic in me says, most likely even later than that, because this is Coe College. (It's like Sparta, except it sucks.) So Lizabe, GOD BLESS HER, I LOVE LIZABE, lent me her car so I could drive home. I'll go back tomorrow, return the car, and take the truck back. I parked the truck in a zone that had no parking between 11 PM and 8 AM or something, right there on 1st Ave, but of course I didn't figure on leaving it there over night. I figure I'll have a parking ticket (FUCK) but I am petrified that it's going to be towed and impounded, because I don't owe enough people money already.

I just. Why do these things always happen to me?
dramaturgy: ([Buffy] Giles + Anya.)
Weekends are such a bad time for me.

I've been on fluoxetine (generic prozac) for a week now. I haven't noticed any differences, except now I know why I want to cry instead of just wanting to do it for no good reason at all, but I still don't have much of a drive to do things. Also, I've been having some really weird dreams.

I'll just add that it would be really nice to have had them been upfront with me about being hired only part time. Really nice.
dramaturgy: ([Misc] I am never going to work again)
I don't know how to make my manager understand that I am a perfectionist. I am a defective, anxiety-ridden bundle of nerves and I don't know WHY, I just am. I don't like it, but it's how I'm wired. So when I make mistakes, I'm going to go "AAH" and apologize profusely. I know I'm going to make mistakes, but that doesn't mean that I am going to like it. I can, in fact, guarantee it that I am really going to hate it. If I worry about screwing up, it's not because I want you to pet my ego. And likely the only reason I'm going to tell you is because you asked and I am just being honest.

I am, in retrospect, glad that I never got rid of this icon.

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