Can't type! Thinking!

Time for a proper post. O.K., so I am seriously considering ISU. They have a good, workhorse actor's program. It's not a get-famous-instantly program, but if I invest myself I will be well-educated there. In two years time, at the tender age of 32, I will have my Master of Fine Arts in Acting and be well on my way to getting an Equity card (the stage actor's union is called Actor's Equity) because they are affiliated with a well-respected Equity Shakespeare theatre and part of the degree requirement is that you take a role there in the summer. Their upcoming season looks amazing, my tastes are very much in line with those of the artistic staff (not so with the other schools I got offers from). They're doing Metamorphoses (the rocking Mary Zimmerman version), The Seagull (a translation that was just done by a guy at Steppenwolf), Moon for the Misbegotten (I'm so Josie), Marisol, Phaedra, House of Blue Leaves (hello) to name but a few. I'd be happy going to see any of these plays, not to mention being in them. So I'm intrigued... I'm going to get some more information and make my decision by the end of the week.

I have to say, that's kind of it. I don't really think about too much else right now. Yeah. O.k.

two down, one to go

O.K., I just said no thanks to another university. So I'm down to one... Illinois. We'll see. It's looking more and more like I'm going to be hanging out in Iowa City for the time being.

More and more, I think Minneapolis is looking interesting. Nice theatre community, I know a bunch of people from up there now, I'd even have someone to live with... verrry intriguing!

Also, Howard's End is brilliant. I love it. I am a little troubled still by the German stuff, but I'm over it for the most part.

Read it, it's beautiful.

Long time no blog

O.K., so a lot has happened. A certain university offered me a lot of money to go there, but I don't think I can because the program is just not right for me. And the town is a sinkhole. And the state is pretty gross too. So there you have it.

But in the meantime, I've gotten two more offers, one from Florida and one from Illinois State. So now I have to research them and see if they'd be worth going to.

I have maintained from the beginning of this process that if I don't get in anywhere good, I'm not going. And so I may not be going, from the looks of things. Oy.

"Before passing gas, I look behind me. But I don't bother when I'm smoking."

The above is very likely properly translated, but I got it off of the engrish web site. Man, I never get sick of that stuff.

O.K., so I went camping AGAIN this weekend, this time a vernal equinox hoe down with a bunch of the old timers, which is this group of cool folk musicians that play at the Mill a lot. It was really fun, but I fell asleep early in the evening (like 12ish) and slept pretty much longer than anyone else. I woke up in the morning and a guy was hanging on a rafter above my head, and everyone was eating organic porridge. Ah, life.

I still can't decide whether I really like Howard's End or whether I think it's poo. I'm just rubbed the wrong way by all the classism and nationalism and ethnocentrism. For every wonderful insight Forster has into human nature (and there are many, I'm glad I'm reading this book), there are several long passages where he goes on and on about how the Schlegel sisters are better than other Brits because they're of German extraction, blah blah. And on and on without a proper resolution to the debate about how certain classes should or should not attempt to experience enlightened thinking. Maybe I'm too American to appreciate this book. Edith Wharton can explain class distinctions without setting off these triggers with me... it just seems like she doesn't really believe in them, and I don't feel like I completely trust that Forster isn't on the wrong side in some way. Poor Leonard Bast.

I'm going to go look at personality tests. I've been all pissy at work because I just don't like it there. They can't keep me busy, I mean literally there is not enough for me to do all day, but they get mad when I surf, which means that I have to create numbing busywork so that I can keep them happy, which is why I left my last job, because I was sick of doing that. I want to work at the Food Co-op. I want to go to a job where I wear jeans and a t-shirt and a bandana on my head, and sneakers. Or my damn Birks. Instead of dressing up so that I can go clean the work room again, or reorganize the cabinets in the kitchen, or take old samples down to the dumpster. Bah!

I wore sandals today!

I keep watching the movie Indiscreet, and I think what's getting me the most about it is actually Ingrid Bergman's performance (not the set decoration and title sequence as previously reported). There's this moment when she first sees Cary Grant, and she looks at him for a really LOOONG time with this amazing gaze. She doesn't even pretend coquettishness, she gives him the frankest, most desirous stare. She's like the consummate anti-gamine for the entire film. I just keep comparing it to Charade with Audrey Hepburn (same director), and imagining how she would have done that same bit of scene, and Audrey's choice would have it's charm, certainly, but the heat would be missing. And girl, the heat was far from missing with Ingrid in charge. She took us to StromBOLI. Sha-NAP!

Oh... I'm such a homebody lately. I got invited to go to Spring Green last weekend, and did, and had a great time, and I think I'm still tired and out of sorts from the experience! I'm just getting really fussy in my middle age, I think. I need lots of downtime by myself. Well... I kinda always did need that, actually! Maybe I'm just getting more protective of it.

We're going to see a country house with land around it that the cooperative might buy tomorrow. Like as not, I won't be around for this event... I'm going to Bloomington next week to check out the campus. The town looks like it might not suck, actually. It's a bit like my I.C., which is great. I stand on the threshhold... I peer into the future... I let out a low "oy...!"

A Recommendation

Let's talk about the movie Indiscreet. It's FANTASTIC. Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant... sigh... Even if you can't stand sappy romantic comedies, just watch it with the sound off and look at how BEAUTIFUL everyone and everything is. I love it. It's like the Tenenbaums pre-breakdown. Or Douglas Sirk, without the bizarre-o social commentary. There's even a split screen telephone conversation!!! Heaven!!!

Forgive me!

I thought Bell's was local, indeed, many of my companieros were under just that impression, but they were, in point of fact, WRONG. I think it's lovely, anyway, though, and would be delighted to purchase a keg of said beverage and then place within it a straw for myself.

Does anyone bowl anymore? Because I am interested in doing that sometimes.

I made another journal at work yesterday. I am newly-obsessed with MAKING journals out of recycled materials. The fact is that I've bought a lot of pre-made journals in my day and then felt guilty (this is my default emotion, frankly, if I'm between emotions I just start feeling guilty about something until I get distracted. I would also like to point out that I titled this entry 'forgive me' even before I realized that I was going to carp about this.) about not using them up. The lack of guilt I feel about not using a homemade journal out of discarded materials has inspired me to write every day!! I know this is weird and neurotic, you don't have to tell me, but I've learned to accept this type of thinking as my lot in life.

There are some people who find neurotic people endearing, you know. Even cute. Just thought I'd point that out.

This

What San-X Character Are You?

I don't know what this cartoon is (I don't know anything that's popular with today's modern young people, Youthquakers I think they're called), but I am SO GLAD THAT I'M A KITTY!!!!

Weekends away are fun, but they are also work-ey. I'm TIRED. I went to Spring Green, WI to visit with friends, and it was great and fun, but I'm an old weary fart now. OH! You guys should go to the Casbah in Madison. We smoked apricot tobacco from a hookah pipe! It was great, it wasn't blucky at all. And my clothes smelled like apricots instead of horrible tobacco reek when we left. We also drank an amazing local brew called Bell's, which you should please partake of as soon as you possibly may. Very delicious.

I also had Turkish Coffee, which is like espresso flavored with coriander. Yum

"You can dance the dream with your body on!"

Velveteen, your new blog template is SO PRETTY!!! It looks like Spring. It's so springy outside this morning, I can't believe that it's going to snow soon!! That's just bizarre... I've been spending mornings perched in the window of a local coffeehouse and journaling, and I've started recording the time and the temperature along with the date (the bank is right there and they have one of those new-fangled electrical clock-temperature displays). My journal is the coolest thing ever, it's made of paper taken out of a recycling bin and bound together with a cereal box for a cover, and I LOVE IT. I'm never going to buy a new journal again!!!

We've started garden meetings at the co-op, and we'll be outside planting soon, and I can't wait to get muddy! I can't believe how good Brandywine tomatoes are, if you are at all interested in cultivating anything, please plant this tomato variety because it will BLOW YOUR MIND. You can't buy them in stores because the skin splits really easily, which would make them too hard to ship from one place to another, a detail that just makes them all the more special, in my opinion. Also plant basil because you just should, and also it will complement the flavor of the tomatoes perfectly.

The play is going well, and I am holding up o.k. in spite of the difficulties. All the same, I kind of can't wait until it's over. Particularly because the next couple of plays I'm in do not contain any heinous people. And I also got asked to be in a reading for new play festival (even though I didn't audition). So that's a nice compliment, too. Makes me feel fuzzy!

As you may have read, I work in an architect's office. One of the architects that I work for is an older gentleman (we had some troubles getting along at first, but something clicked, because we get along SO well now, it's great), and he was cleaning out his office recently and found a bunch of old architectural magazines from the 60s and 70s that he no longer wanted to save (there were a LOT). I found a bunch of articles about the pre-construction phases of the World Trade Center, with photographs of the cardboard models used to illustrate the idea to investors. So eerie. There was also a bunch of stuff about Marina City in Chicago, which I sent to my old boss (his dad was the mechanical engineer for that project). I also found a bunch of hilarious old images and advertisements which I have wallpapered my small cubicle with. I am mildly obsessed with adverts for old computers, so I spent most of an afternoon "working on getting that stuff recycled!" ("boy! this is taking longer than I expected! I may have to spend the whole afternoon on this one..."). If I knew anything about how to make blog templates, mine would be so TRS 80.

I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can

O.K., so valerian? The best! Velveteen, please try this delightful product. Sleep troubles? I had them. HAD. No LONGER, my good friend! I am stone cold sleeping every night now. I take the max dosage, which is three 125 mg tablets. And I have gooooood sleep.