the grindstone

And so the summer drones on. I work and occasionally hang out with friends, which is actually alright with me. It's not the life itself that's irritating me, but more the town itself. Newberg is starting to feel too small, so I'm jazzed to get out of here and spend a weekend in Portland with some friends relatively soon, not to mention going HOME! AH! Can you say Disneyland? Six Flags? Venice Beach? Heeeelllzzz yeah!!!!! I'm excited, as you can tell.
4th of July should be interesting...Kyle and I are planning on going to Dylan's to go to some carnival thing and hang out with Dylan's friends from high school. That kinda makes me nervous cause Kelso high school kids like to get wasted, and especially being 4th of July...Let's just say that I'm gonna be sticking close to those two boys for the evening.

inside-outside-upside down

I'm in one of those wierd moods where I feel like I should be making better use of my time to explore my own humanity and grow as a person, but I have no idea how the hell to do it...

A lot of people are gone this weekend because Sunday is Father's Day.
Sunday is also my 20th birthday.
The day will be spent in my apartment with some of my good friends who are still around cause their parents are far away too...We will eat junk food and watch movies and just be. What's funny is that it isn't for my birthday. If you're reading this, you are one of the few people (literally, I could count on one hand) that I've told about it being my birthday. For some reason, I don't really want a bunch of people to know. I feel isolated being away from my mom and my house and my dad and my family, and I'd almost rather have people just not know instead of finding out and doing the whole "Oh my gosh! I didn't know! Happy birthday!" I wouldn't even let the girls I work with tell my boss, cause she's big into the whole cake and all-office-"Happy Birthday"-sing-along, and those things just make me want to sink into the carpet. I guess birthdays are one of the ways that I subtley test my friends and see how much they pay attention. Of course, thanks to facebook everyone and their mom will know now. There is one particular scenario that keeps popping up in my head however. I am sitting in my room and it's past 11PM on my birthday and I still haven't gotten The phone-call, and I finally resign myself to the knowledge that my best friend has forgotten about my birthday for the 2nd year in a row. Yeah, I haven't heard anything from him about hanging out or visiting or whatever. Whatever. I know that it's no measure of how much he cares or anything...It'd just be nice to feel like he actually wants to keep this thing alive.

Wow. I totally didn't mean to unload like that. See, this is what happens when all you do is work and watch movies and work out...Your brain starts to over-analyze life around you just to give itself something to do.

Tomorrow I go grocery shopping at WinCo with Suzie and then come home to Lexie who's coming down from Hillsboro to hang out (yes, for my birthday). It just feels pointless. There's nothing to anticipate or look forward to.
I need to get out of here. I need to go home. I need people and the city and smog and traffic and hectic-ness. Dah! I need LA.

Apparently I am a borderline schitzo. Goodness.

You win some, you lose it all

Professional theatre is one of the most unpredictable forces of nature in the world...I was watching the 60th Annual Tony Awards tonight, putting my money on Patti LuPone to win best actress in a musical for the revival of "Sweeney Todd", but alas, in an unprecidented upset (not only to me, but also to everyone else by the looks on their faces) LaChanze took home the golden round for her role in "The Color Purple". I realize that this means nothing to 99% of the people who read this, but if you take anything from my heartbreak over that turn of events, take this: I have no freaking idea how the hell I will ever be able to make a living off of theatre.
Most other majors in college are relatively stable; engineering, nursing, ya know...all the hard ones ;0) Theatre has always been the black sheep of the academic family however, next only to art, in that the likelyhood of being able to "make it" in the professional world is next to none. With theatre, book learning isn't enough; you can't skate by by spewing facts that you've memorized. You actually have to be GOOD at it. But not just good...You have to be extraordinary. Hence my being screwed.
I am not extraordinary. It's true. I won't deny the fact that vocally and theatrically I'm talented. That's not bragging...that's just stating a fact. I am not, however, any MORE talented than all the other talented theatre students in the world who watched the Tony's tonight and squealed and clapped when Bernadette Peters walked onto the stage (*sigh*), and wished desperately that Alan Cummings wasn't gay (Ugh. It's ALWAYS the cute theatre boys...). I listen to musicals and I read manuscripts and I cry and I tear up and I get goosebumps and I pray to God that something amazing happens to break me into the world that I'm staking my future, my education and $100,ooo+ on.
I rarely ever say this because most of the time I get an indulgent smile and an insincere 'Well-good-for-you', which frankly is not only embarassing, but also really irritating. but I want to be an actor. It's true. I want to live the rest of my life doing theatre and nothing else. I don't care if I win a Tony, I don't care if I leave this world under a pseudonym and never get any world-wide credit...All I want is to be able to make a living off of acting, so that I can sing and perform and live other's lives to the fullest, and in the process, live mine. The chance of that happening is next to none. I know this. I always have. I perpetually question my own decisions and whether or not I need to change my major or go to a different school or look into another area of my interests. But then I watch a performance of "Assasins" at ART, or listen to "Parade" or read "Agnes of God" (for the 50th time), and I cry out of sheer awe at the dissonance of Sondheim and the resolutions of Jason Robert Brown, and I throw the script across the room out of the overwhelming desire to be Dr. Livingstone to someone else's Agnes.
Few people really understand what it's like to want to destroy the thing you love the most because you know that you will never get to experience it to the utmost and you would rather forget about it completely than watch someone else ravage it for all it's worth. Most look at you and shake their heads and wonder why your parents didn't make you do something more sensible with your time and money...Most of the time they make sure you know that the probability of it working out for you in the long-run is slim (even though you've been telling yourself that for years). But I love theatre. I love acting. I love singing. And I'm damn good at it too. But I'm also scared. I'm petrified that it won't work and I'll end up at some non-descript job doing something that anyone with a college degree could do, and going home that one night a year to watch the Tony's and feel my heart absolutely ache to be up on a stage and feel my non-existant opportunities laugh at me like some gloating belter who got the part instead of me just because she fits into the costume better.
I'm proud of my talents, and I'm excited about the growth I know will happen over the next few years (it's inevitable with a director like Rhett). I'm proud to be a theatre junkie. Now all I have to do is to make my life worth while and to pray to GOD that He didn't give me this desire and these gifts for nothing.

We'll see.

Last night, I went to dinner with a guy friend of mine...Tonight I watched a movie/walked to Naps with a different guy friend of mine. Two very different men. Two very different nights.
Politics v. high school
Freshman year v. years to come
Past mistakes v. past accomplishments
Contemplative silence v. raucous laughter

security v. comfort...

fantastic v. wonderful.

Oh the wonder of "different, yet equal".

desire v. envy

When I got out of the shower this afternoon, the first thing that I heard was the "missed call" jingle of my cell phone. Upon checking said phone, I saw that I had a voice-mail from my (ex)roomate, Emily. Aforementioned voice-mail was a message inviting me to her and Phill's new apartment that evening to pseudo-celebrate their unpacking. Em-J was gonna make dinner and wanted me to come over and just hang out for a while. So I did. The 5 1/2 hours I spent in that apartment were the best 5 1/2 hours I've experienced in a long time. We sat and talked, Em cooked chicken and rice, we ate at their new dining room table, talked some more, I looked at wedding pictures with Emily and we watched a movie, and the whole time I kept thinking "Thank you Jesus that this isn't awkward". I mean, I've lived with Emily for 2 years now, which means that I have become really good friends with Phill, so things have never really been "wierd" when the 3 of us hang out. It was a relief, however, to know that even though they were in a completely new and different phase of their lives, things were just as fun and relaxed as they've always been...I guess Em and Phill have always been married in my mind...Now the only difference is that they're actually living together. Phill and I threw pillows at eachother, I helped Emily load the dishwasher after dinner and ooed-and-awwed over her decorative choices like a good roomate should (no joking though, the place looks fantastic...y'all should go see it). It was just a nice and mellow evening with just the right mix of hysterical laughter and small talk. If I didn't love those two before, I sure as hell do now. They are as perfect for eachother as two people could ever be.

Jealous much?
Yeah. Me too.