this house is condemned

I feel like I need to stay in a hotel for the night, I am so grossed out by my house right now. I walked into the house after rehearsal and noticed it kind of smelled. The dog now shits in the house multiple times a day, so that was not a huge surprise. I got a plastic bag to pick it up, and as I lifted it, three cockroaches scurried out from under it!!! I am apparently living in a tenement slum. Yes, we have a cockroach problem, and the exterminator just sprayed, so they are slow and groggy and wandering out into the open, so the kitchen is randomly scatttered with them. We're also redoing a closet, so the whole house smells like paint. I am afraid to move for fear of stepping on insects or shit. Paint fumes, dog shit, and cockroaches. Fabulous.

pink is my signature color

Almost time for Steel Magnolias! Anyone in the Chicago area, come check me out in some fabulous large-haired wigs, and then the crappy short hairdo. Also I die. Many one-liners and lots of drama, what more do you need?

Today's Theme Song

I wish I could go back to college.
Life was so simple back then.
What would I give to go back and live in a dorm with a meal plan again!
I wish I could go back to college.
In college you know who you are.
You sit in the quad, and think, "Oh my God!I am totally gonna go far!"
How do I go back to college?
I don't know who I am anymore!
I wanna go back to my room and find a message in dry-erase pen on the door!
Ohhh...I wish I could just drop a class...
Or get into a play...
Or change my major...
Or fuck my T.A.
I need an academic advisor to point the way!
We could be...Sitting in the computer lab,
4 A.M. before the final paper is due,
Cursing the world 'cause I didn't start sooner,
And seeing the rest of the class there, too!
I wish I could go back to college!
How do I go back to college?!
I wish I had taken more pictures.
But if I were to go back to college,
Think what a loser I'd be-
I'd walk through the quad,
And think "Oh my God..."
"These kids are so much younger than me."

Thanks Avenue Q, for providing such a timely soundtrack to my life. Of course, I don't really want to go back, I just want things to be simple... although I could totally relive sophomore year (without the PH drama)...

Stairs in a beauty parlor?

Ok, just a quick little rant. So the set designer's really nice, but shouldn't it be a goal of set design that the actors can move easily through the space in a way that makes sense for the show? (Jason, weigh in here). The set for Steel Magnolias, for those of you who don't know (and then there are those like McClain, who know all too well), is Truvy's beauty parlor, which is her renovated carport. Yes, they call it a carport. So when was the last time a carport had stairs? Not just two or three little stairs from the rest of the house into the carport, but a zig-zag, wrap-around set of stairs that just about divide the space in half horizontally. So the dryer is next to the washing station, just a foot and a half up from it. Makes those intimate moments work really well. And there are several jutting walls and half walls that exist for no reason at all, except perhaps to place tchotchkes on (many tchotchkes). The jutting wall is about two feet out and is supposedly the "coffee nook," except that you can't see the table with the coffee stuff on it, so we just have to make a little show of picking up the coffee pot and pouring the coffee in full view (and not accidentally disappearing behind the wall). I suppose we could just rationalize that Truvy's husband is a really bad contractor, maybe work in a few jokes... and try not to fall down the stairs while moving across the stage.

dinner with the parents

Whenever my parents and I go out to dinner, I get all tipsy, and they get a bit tipsy as well. Here are some excerpts from tonight:

Dad: How would you feel if I was bisexual?
Me: I would be fine with it. I would be more concerned about your relationship with mom.
Mom: What the hell are you talking about? I have a problem here!

Dad: And so some uber-chick was driving down the street, getting ready to cut me off, laughing at me...
Mom: Wait, uber-chick, don't you mean dyke-chick?

Mom (watching Oprah after dinner): How would you feel if you were married to the "mall rapist?" Oh my god... Rich, do you have anything to tell me?
Dad: I'm the 7-11 rapist... the sandwich section.

Welcome to my parents... I love them, they're fabulous.

Paperwork hell

So I have chosen to enter the field of education. I was previously aware that this involves a sad little salary, and I've gotten used to that. However, I did not quite anticipate the level of paperwork/waiting for paperwork to clear. Dear god. I now need to get my substitute certificate, which requires official transcripts, so I have many mailings to do. I have to wait for months in paperwork limbo to get my Wisconsin certification, and then I need to apply for my Illinois certification. That's like four months of paperwork hell right there. Most of my potential teaching jobs require online applications, which cannot fool me, it's just non-paper paperwork. I will either eventually get a job or have an aneurysm from trying to sift through everything. Other people have jobs where they just go for an interview, right? Seriously, I'm kinda losing it...

Lethal Long Island

Laura and I decided the bar we went to on New Year's Eve was so much like a Madison bar (very Irish pub) that we just saved ourselves a two hour drive. And most of the people were there to hear the imported from Madison band, too, so everyone was from Madison, anyway. Way to move on with life.

The proprietor of the bar, Lilly (the bar's namesake), wearing fabulous completely-sequined black pants, served Laura and me the strongest long islands we had ever tasted. This is the drink to beat all drinks. For both of us, it was our one drink of the evening, and we just about died. The band was awesome (a friend's band who's actually good, how about that?), Laura got to know my Ogg girls better, and we drunkenly recited lines in Steel Magnolias, which I was surprised to discover I knew. Perhaps I need to start getting drunk before rehearsals.

On the way out, we attempted to sloppily hail a cab for about 30 seconds and then realized there was no point as all the thousands of cabs in Chicago were occupied. When we arrived at the El, the turnstiles were not open, even though they were supposed to be free until 6am. I became outraged and decided to jump the turnstile. I then promptly caught my toe on my way over and plummeted to the concrete floor. I tried to right myself and made it about 2/3 of the way, but had no equilibrium and fell again, laughing maniacally the whole time. On the train, as I had been doing in the bar, I attempted to send text messages to Nate (who sadly had to work), but couldn't quite push those little buttons or read that blurry screen. I may have succeeded to send one with one eye closed, which seemed to balance things out. On the way back to Laura's, I got horribly loud drunk hiccups, which lasted the better part of an hour. Laura, when not focused on not vomiting, instructed me to "breathe deeply."

The next day we dragged ourselves out of bed and went to Marina's for french toast, pancakes, pesto squash, potatoes, and eggs. Major feast, Marina is fabulous. Nothing like syrup to cure a hangover.

Happy 2006!

a note seen in the lobby of planned parenthood

"We're downstairs... everything should be over shortly."

I'm pro-choice and all, but that made me a little sad.