R.I.P. Marty

At around 3:20 am this morning, my cousin was shot in a car jacking at a gas station in Sauget, Illinois, and died this morning in the hospital when they couldn't stop the bleeding. I spent the morning at the hospital with my family, and the rest of the day at school. I don't feel like getting into details...there are six or seven articles floating around if you're curious.

It feels really surreal. It hasn't really sunk in yet (probably because I didn't get to see him before he went to the medical examiner) and because of the horrible circumstances. Death, is always horrible, but he was taken so unfairly, and way too soon. He was 23 and had just joined the Army and was about to leave in two weeks.

Right now, I feel sad, but mostly like I should be watching some other family suffer through this on the news, rather than dealing with the grief alongside my own family.

There's a big investigation happening. Major Case Squad and all. So I guess, hopefully, I'll have some updates on this.

Get Well Soon

Not having a car to drive is painful. Sally is in the shop getting fixed today. She needs two new tires, and fixing of her alignment. Which, assuming nothing else is wrong with her, means I'm only without her today.

I REALLY hope nothing else is wrong with her.

Get well soon, Sally Skylark. I miss you.

OAT

I am also applying for an internship with Ozark Actors Theatre. It is a theatre in Rolla where a few friends of mine work every summer. I really want it. I love St. Louis, but I want to go away for the summer. In Rolla, I'll be out of St. Louis but only about 45 minutes away from the farm - which is the best place on earth.

I'll be gone for the summer - which means missing the core of Marble Stage's seasson. That's sad, because it'll be the first summer in five years that I won't be on stage with them. It's a big change. It's a little scary, too.

But I REALLY want to go.

I just sent in my resume today. I also might audition - but we'll see. I hope I'll hear something this week - I have no idea how long this will take, but I think they are really trying to get the ball rolling with hiring. So I hope I find out this week.

Holy. Crap.

Toto, We're Not In Kansas Anymore

I really need to learn how to keep blogging up for more than a couple of months.

So, last you heard, Closet Land was invited to the Region V American College Theatre Festival. It was one of four productions. The week we spent in Kansas was also the best week of my life. I quite literally have never been happier.

From the first day that we got there, whenever anyone at the festival found out that we were from Meramec, they would ask us tons of questions about the show and tell us how excited they were to see it. We were all brimming with anticipation all week (we weren't to put the show on until Thursday).

We passed the time well - there were shows to see, workshops to attend, a pool, hot tub and sauna, a workout room and a racquet ball court. And we also just hung out in our rooms a lot. I didn't even sleep in my own room for over half of the trip.

That being said, I've never been so blessed to work with such a wonderful crew. I mean, I've never worked with a bad crew, but the Closet Land crew, we all get along with ease, and we all enjoy each other's company. There is no tension, no arguing. We couldn't be happier working together on this exceptionally stressful (and emotionally draining) production. It was a great week!

And Thursday came. Our wake up call started at 5:00am, and we had to take all of the moisture and temperature sensitive equipment we were keeping in the hotel and reload it back onto the truck and bus. Then we rode over to the college to start our load-in at 7:00am sharp. We worked straight through the day with staggered short breaks, until about 5:30. By then we had finally finished our build and tech. We then took a short dinner break before our 6:00 call then it was back to the theatre. Our creepy preshow started at 7:00 and the show started with a bang (literally, courtesy of me! XD) at 7:30. Then after the show ended, we had a break while a short awards ceremony happened, after which we immediately struck the set until about 1:00am.

And then we went back to the hotel and partied till sunrise!

Kansas was great. Friends, fun, great food, parties, ridiculous times, a new boy?

But, sadly, we're not in Kansas anymore. We all miss it. We'd all love to take Closet Land back on the road.

Maybe we can. Closet Land was held for judging to go to the national festival and get put on at the Kennedy Center. We find out this week.

Holy. Crap.

Back To The Closet!

I just got the e-mail from Michelle... Closet Land has been invited to the Region V American College Theatre Festival (ACTF) in January!!

This is really exciting. I've never taken a show on the road before. Plus, show or no show, ACTF is really fun. I believe it is in Overland Park, KS this year. Ahhhhhh! We have a meeting tomorrow afternoon. I'm so grateful to have even the littlest of backstage roles in this show.

In other news: I finally talked to Ryan. That was hard. But, I basically explained to him my situation, and just the emotional state I'm in at the moment. He seemed disappointed but I think he understands. I may have just salvaged that friendship after all. We'll see.

And quite possibly the most important news of all: Sausage, Egg and Cheese Biscuits from quick trip are FIRE.

Mommy Dearest

Dear Mom,

I just hung up on you after you yelled at me with no reason. Why did you call me back eight times in a row? I know you. I know it's not important. I know you just want another excuse to be upset with me because you're in a bad mood and dad won't be home tonight, so you can't take it out on him. (Remind me to warn Tom to stay away.) OF COURSE I'm going to ignore your call. You already constantly text and call me. I deeply regret teaching you how to text. I know I still live in your house and so you deserve to know where I go, but seriously, leave me alone.

Love,
Abby

Awesome

I had to wake up and go to school early to prime my flat since I forgot to do it yesterday. I knew Rick would be there and I thought he's give me crap for waiting till the last minute. Instead, he showed me what we were doing in class that day so that I could do that early as well and be able to leave early. Verdict: awesome!

The shows went awesome. Although I think they were a little confused by the latter, the audience loved both Superhero and Drive. I got a lot of compliments from friends and teachers who saw the show. Verdict: awesome!

I've been DYING to get tickets to Star Wars in Concert. They've been talking about it on the radio for months, and I've heard a lot of good things about it. I've been trying and failing to win radio contests and I was very close to caving in and buying the tickets myself. I got home twenty minutes ago, to discover an e-mail from my choir teacher telling us about a phone call he received. This phone call invited members of his choir to perform at the concert. I don't just get to see most of it for free...I get to PERFORM in it! Verdict: AWESOME!

My day: AWESOME!

Wishbone

Accomplishments 12/02
1. Did not kill director.
2. Finalized class schedule

I pulled a wishbone from our third turkey of the season with my dad. I won. The wish seems to be going well so far, but I'll get you know if it truly comes true. Also, I forgot to eat breakfast today. And still haven't eaten. And still need to go to Goodwill. And forgot to paint my flat so that it's white again tomorrow.

Schedule:
Oral Communications 1 - MWF - 11:00 - 11:50
General Psychology - MWF - 1:00 - 1:50
Intermediate Algebra - MWF - 2:00 - 2:50
Choir - TTh - 12:30 - 1:45
Theatre Practicum - Varies
Cornerstone (Free Will & Society) - Online

Bleh. No Fridays off. Not too terribly excited about this one.

Beautiful Soul

I'm learning to stand on my own two feet, but I still love every second I spend with you. You have a horrible streak of being inconsiderate, but I still know very few people with as beautiful of a soul as you.

Thanksgiving

I am thankful for you, every day, but it is really hard to deal with this when you treat me without a lick of consideration.

You say you want to be friends and yet you blatantly ignore me. Or you forget about me. Thanks! You already know that I feel like the most forgettable person in the world, so I really appreciate you milking that one. It's already going to be hard to be just friends. You're making it impossible by not trying. And if you think my occasional texts and phone calls are encroaching on your space, you should probably reevaluate your idea of space.

You say you understand how I feel. You do not understand how I feel. You have felt pain, probably greater pain than myself, at least within the relationship realm. You understand pain, and that I am feeling pain. But you only understand how this pain might make you feel, not how I feel now, not how I feel every day. If you did, maybe, just maybe, you would at least act like you give a shit.

And I know better. I know you. I know you care. But it fucking hurts that your actions make me doubt it for even a second.

So thanks. Thanks for this awesome start to Thanksgiving. But it's okay, it's sure to get better later, when I go have dinner with my deadbeat, pedophile uncle, and his family of alcoholics who turn to the drink to deny the hell they live in, and the kids suffering under their care. That's sure to cheer me up.

-----

Note To Readers: He'll probably never understand how I feel, because when I get upset with him, I contain these outbursts partly because I want to spare his feelings and also because I just don't have the guts to put it out there. I always have to be the fucking martyr, even for the people who hurt me. I wish I could tell him. I wish he did understand.

Affirmation #1

Affirmation:

I will not be okay.

I am okay.

I may hurt everyday... but I am alive, and I am okay.

Change Your Mind

I feel more and more numb every day. I feel empty.

Also, I saw him, and that sucked.

Girl don’t say a thing
Lie here next to me
Underneath the moonlight
I know it’s getting late
Let the music play
It’s okay to stay the night

How about we give this
One more try
Come on and let me hold you
Come on you know you want to
One more chance to finally
Get this right
I know you think it’s over
Give me a chance to
Change your mind

Ain't been easy
Never will be
It was good
And still could be
I want to touch your skin
Feel your face again
I still believe in you and me

How about we give this
One more try
So come on and let me hold you
Come on you know you want to
One more chance to finally
Get this right
I know you think it’s over
Give me a chance to
Change your mind

How about we give this
One more try
One more chance to finally
Get this right
I know you think it’s over
Give me a chance to
Change your mind

I still believe in you and me

Gloriana, "Change Your Mind"

Giving Up

If you give up on me, then I give up on me, too.

Just Another Day

It only hurts when I breathe.
It only hurts when I try.
It only hurts when I think.
It only hurts when I cry.
It only hurts when I work.
It only hurts when I play.
It only hurts when I move.
It only hurts when I say
It's just another day

-Next To Normal

For Amy

So, originally, this post was to ask you to pray for (or keep in your thoughts) a friend of mine from high school, because her father passed away today.

Then, I realized, she's not really my friend. I mean, we used to be friends, but things got rough as we got older because she went through a pretty big (but subtle) streak of backstabbing, and I both had a temper and was usually a victim or rather close to the victim of the backstabbing. I actually haven't talked to on more than a few occasions after I graduated.

But she used to be my friend, so I'm still compelled to not only pray for her (which I would for anyone, friend or not) but to let her know I can do whatever she needs of me, even if we had quite a wedge between us my senior year.

But please, keep my old friend and her family in your thoughts and prayers.

Burning Dreams

I had a very strange dream last night.

We were having a sort of...family reunion on the third floor of my old grade school, St. George, except the rooms, which were most definitely on the third floor, looked more like the rectory rooms underneath the gymnasium across the street, set up and all. Also, a large portion of my extended family was black. My dad left and said he was going to pick up Cornbread from the 92.3 WIL morning show (which is weird because my dad hates that guy!). And then, some of us went downstairs to the parking lot, saw the American flag out front burning and falling off of the pole and realized the entire building was burning down, for a reason I never determined before I woke up.

Yeah. I was thoroughly confused when I woke up this morning.

My Psycho-Pharma-cologist and I...

1. I have a doctor's appointment today. Icky. I don't like doctors. They just team up with the pharmacists to over-medicate America.

2. The opening of Come and Go went very well. I was very disappointed, though, that the crowd there to see us only included Michelle. A whole group from Theatre Club had said that they were going to be there, and we were very excited to see them. Oh well. Michelle enjoyed it, which is good, because she is our acting teacher. She had a lot of positive things to say.

3. I am applying today to work as a Museum Guide at the Magic House. I really hope I get this job. I really need the money, more and more every day, but even more so, it's just a job I would love to have. The Magic House is an awesome place, and I love kids. So getting to reveal the "magic" would be fun.

4. Along with my cast mates, I crashed a rehearsal of The Boy Friend, which turned out to be a horrible idea. Seeing how bad some of the cast of that show are made me feel horrible about my self. They are really better than me? That sounds horrible, but you think your talent is at a certain level and then you find out you are a lot worse than you thought - it's a crushing feeling.

5. I'm still managing to spend a bit of time with Paul even though I can't afford to be driving out to Collinsville. It helps that he has an excuse to be up here every night for a show, but I think once that's over, I'll start feeling guilty when he drives up here all of the time, because there's no telling when I'll be able to drive out there again. Even if I get hired at the Magic House, that'll probably take about a week, and then it'll be at least two weeks before I get a paycheck. And even then, I'll have to put ALL of that money into paying off my bank account.

<3

Falling...
Falling..
Falling.

Every day.

<3

Eight Years.

Happy Friday! Well, it's not so happy, but at least it's Friday.

1. My bank account is overdrawn again. Fucking hell. I deposited enough money into my account to make it positive by about fifteen dollars, but apparently three charges still hadn't gone through. So now, the hole is deeper than ever. And I have until the thirtieth to get this fixed, because that's when my credit card payment gets taken out, and I can't afford to get behind on that again.

2. Still no job. I have a list of places that I am going to apply at...but the place I am hoping to work at is the Cheesecake Factory. It's delicious, for one. But the main reason is because I would like to be getting tip money. It would be nice to be taking home cash after a every shift, as well as getting a paycheck. Americans, we like instant gratification!

3. I am very interested in the response that Samuel Becketts "Come and Go" will get at the one act festival. It is very much an absurdist show and not at all what most people are going to be expecting.

4. I made it into Chamber Choir! This is Meramec's first Chamber Choir, and the first select choir in a long time. I was very worried about getting in, because he hardly had me sing at the come back, and it was very awkward because everybody noticed. Stupidly enough, I was so pessimistic that I actually sat through about half of the rehearsal pouting because I assumed I hadn't made it. But for once, I have something going for me. But we have very little rehearsal time, a total of about fifty minutes a week...it will be an interesting ride.

5. It's been eight years since the 9/11 tragedy. Some days it seems much further back in my memory, and some days it seems like yesterday. I remember that I was in sixth grade, and still going to St. George. When the first plane hit, I was in Ms. Knight's horrid English class and she was quite oblivious and didn't tune us in, so none of us knew anything about it. But then we went to second period Social Studies with Mr. Bettonville, who was of course tuned it. Oddly enough, I assumed it was fake news coverage from a movie that the eighth grade class had been watching. But when we never started class, it slowly dawned on be what was happening. That was scary and confusing and horrible to watch, but what scared me the most was the plane crash in Washington D.C., where one of my favorite uncles is a police officer, and has previously worked with the Secret Service. Fortunately, for my family, everything turned out okay. But the bigger picture was not so great. It is still so heartbreaking to think about all of the families ripped apart that day, all of the lives lost. Eight years later, my heart still goes out to everyone affected by this tragedy.

Gotcha!

Today was supposed to be the day I could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

Today is the day the pool closed for the year. Although I do not have a job for the rest of the year yet, there will be no more dealing with being paid below minimum wage, and never getting my hours.

Today, I found out my bank account was negative. Very much in the negative.

Do I need to reiterate the fact that makes this even worse? I will, anyway: "I do not have a job for the rest of the year yet."

Today has been one big, fat "Gotcha!". Relief one second, horror the next.

Happy fucking Labor Day.