And Never Brought to Mind

Happy New Year! I'm happy that 2011 has ended. The first half was the worst few months of my life. I spent most of it asleep, and the rest daydreaming about dying. Then the rest of the year was spent trying to repair the damage. So needless to say, it was a rough year, and I'm ready for a fresh start. I spent New Year's on the marina in Sarasota, FL watching fireworks and sipping champagne with Kay and her roommate. Earlier, I watched a Rat Pack revue show and then saw Next to Normal for the second time, all at the fabulous Florida Studio Theatre. Not a bad way to ring in the New Year. I'm looking forward to the future.

When In Rome

There are many artists I listen to that are perfect for autumn, but I think my favorite has to be Nickel Creek. There's just something about their brand of folksy bluegrass deliciousness that feels like autumn to me. I've been listening to them on a loop recently as I feel the weather slowly change. I think When in Rome might be my favorite song from them.

I've been going to Skateland almost every day to practice for roller derby tryouts (4 days!). The staff knows me now, to the point where the guy at the skate rental stand saw me coming today and immediately brought out a pair of size nine speed skates for me. D'aww. I love being a regular. It's tough to skate at a rink, only because there are so many people there and the majority are kids who are all kinds of unstable on skates. But maybe that's a blessing in disguise, because I'm practicing my dodging skills by skating around them! I'm getting the hang of roller skating (not an easy transition after years of ice and inline skating) and building my endurance more and more each day. I know that roller derby training is going to kick my ass, so I'm trying to build up as much strength as possible so if and when I make the team, I'll be at least a little bit ready. I hope I make it!! It's a huge commitment and also very dangerous, but I think it'll all be worth it. This is where my heart is leading me right now, and I'm looking forward to potentially trying something new and meeting lots of new people.

Still plodding along in school. I continue to struggle with staying awake in the morning, which is so frustrating. Tomorrow I'm going to try waking up earlier. It may seem counterintuitive, but maybe having more time in the morning to wake up will help? Ugh, I don't know. I really hate the way I feel in the morning. I envy early birds who pop out of bed like Julia Child in Julie & Julia ("I'm UP!"). I'm like a zombie, and I stay that way for a couple hours. Bleh.

My transition project is a bit of a hot mess right now. I've had so many problems with casting and absences (very reminiscent of Sweet Charity, ughh). So we're way behind and it's really frustrating. I did a bit of firm housekeeping, though, and I'm hoping that things will run smoother from now on. Pray that no one else drops out!! Also, I just launched a Kickstarter project to raise money--check it out and feel free to donate! Any little bit, even $1, helps tremendously. I'm hoping to raise $500 to cover costumes, props and copyright fees primarily. All that stuff is expensive!

And that's pretty much all that's going on at the moment. Apartment is still awesome, kitty is still awesome, I'm hanging in there.

I'm just MAD about Dolls!

I'm on new medication that's supposed to wake me up. It basically feels like glorified caffeine, meaning that I just feel wired and jittery instead of feeling awake. And one of the side effects is increased agitation. You know, because I'm not moody enough already. Of course being exhausted all the time is horrible, but so is the polar opposite. I want nothing to do with either extreme.

I hate this. I'm tired of feeling yanked around. I'm sick of doctors appointments and side effects and having to write down every symptom since my memory is so foggy that I can barely remember anything. Hate hate hate.

Same shit, different day.

BlahblahblahHEALTHblahblahblahGETOUTOFMYHEADSTEVEblahblahblahBADDREAMSblahblahblahOHLOOKMOREMEDICATIONblahblahblahSTILLTIREDALLTHETIME.
And that's about it.

Oh, except that THE OSCARS are tomorrow. It's the only award show I actually care about, and spend every Oscar Night camped out in front of the TV watching the ceremony in its entirety.

Also, I'm obsessed with Easy A. I finally saw it earlier this week, and have literally watched it every day since then. It's THAT glorious.

Zzzzz....

I'm at the Valley Sleep Clinic waiting to get all wired up for my sleep study. I really, really, really hope they find SOMETHING. Because this is so damned frustrating. After awhile, getting so many inconclusive test results honestly makes me feel like this might all be in my head. I want whatever this is to GET OUT OF MY BODY OR KILL ME. I'm so exhausted.

Things

GOOD:

• Spent a couple hours with my family in Tucson yesterday to celebrate my Adoption Day (which is actually the 15th, but I'll be out of town). Played Scrabble and my Mom sent me back with a pumpkin pie. Om nom nom. She also got me a Disney Princess greeting card that plays "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes." 'Cause I'm five years old, for real.
• Went shopping at Old Navy today because I desperately needed some new jeans. Turns out they were still having massive clearance sales, and I ended up getting a quite few pairs of jeans at deliciously low prices. Including a pair of skinny jeans! And they all look really good on me, which rarely happens. Scorrrre.
• My Dad called earlier to ask me to send him some ASU tuition statements for tax stuff. The conversation wasn't all strained and awkward and felt a little more natural. I hope things will continue to get a little better between us.
• My doctors appointment the other day went pretty well. He took a billion vials of blood to run a bunch of different tests on and ordered a sleep study, which I'll probably do in the next few weeks. Anxiously awaiting results.
• Derek is coming to visit AZ tomorrow! I haven't seen him in at least a year so I'm excited to catch up.

CRAPPY:

• I'm exhausted and scary depressed ALL. THE. TIME. I was so tired the other night that I barely remember being at Marissa's epic Harry Potter birthday party. The one thing I do remember is being so tired that I had trouble talking to people because I couldn't think of the right words to use. Later in the evening, I went into my room to check something on my laptop, dozed off, and drifted awake at like 6 AM. My life.
• My hair is ridiculous. Every time I've washed it since getting it cut, it just turns out greasy and disgusting. I try to only use a tiny bit of shampoo/conditioner, but still can't wash all of it out. Or something. It's driving me insane. I'm also pulling large clumps out of it. Awesome.

NOT SURE HOW I FEEL:

• Going to New York on Thursday to visit Steve. I feel like I really need to see him to get some closure, so I can figure out how to be friends. But I guess I'm kind of dreading it at the same time. I really just have no idea how to do this.
• School starts next week, and I don't know if I can actually handle it. I'm scared. And don't feel at all rested or refreshed from Winter Break, just more exhausted.

Sweet Girl

Finally saw this last night. SO good, SO creepy. And not your grandmammy's dance movie, that's for sure. Beautiful dancing and nasty risk-taking.

Going to the doctor this morning, hoping to be more vigilant about whatever is causing me to sleep so much (and never feel fully awake when I'm not sleeping). If my doctor rules out sleep disorders and autoimmune diseases like lupus, I know what my next step is.

Am I Awake?

I've been asleep so much over the past week or so (at least?) that I've actually lost track of how much I slept. Everything is just a blur. And I'm having trouble remembering which things happened and which things were dreams. It's really freaking me out.

Yesterday in Music

Yesterday was a fun music day. Here's some of the stuff I was listening to...

I started with Jane Monheit, badass jazz babe. I had to wake up super early (5:45 AM) to take Steve to work. (Long story.) I was mildly hungover from 4th of July festivities, so I chose Jane Monheit because she's nice and mellow and gorgeous and didn't hurt my pounding head:

Started with Over the Rainbow, Then Waters of March, per Steve's request. It's his favorite Jane song. I ended the drive with Hit the Road to Dreamland.

Halfway through Over the Rainbow, my headache started easing up. Jane Monheit cured my hangover. This is one of many reasons why I love her.

Later on, I had a doctors appointment. I always get nervous when I have to go to the doctor, so I needed something peppy to cheer me up. Clearly, I needed Janelle Monae:

Her adorable tiny fierceness helped me be less nervous. :)

I decided to reward myself for going to the doctor by going shopping. Janelle Monae got me in a sassy mood, so I switched over to Lady Gaga:

Started with Teeth! Ohh I do love this song. "Take a bite of my baaaad girl meat!" Then listened to Bad Romance since I hadn't listened to it in awhile. I belted Poker Face on the 101 driving home. I used to really hate this song, but now it's a guilty pleasure. And a perfect for the freeway. I listened to part of Eh Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say) in my driveway while I was trying to figure out my surprisingly confusing shade thing for my windshield. Normally I skip over this song, but I rediscovered it today.


And that's about it. I love fun music days!

I actually fell asleep at like 8 or 9 PM last night, because I'd gotten up early. CRAZY. It's nice having a reason to get up early, but I'm predicting this will only last for a few days before I'll be back to my vampire schedule. Eh.

Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

I've slept most of this week. I just haven't felt like staying awake...Or, it's more like I can't drum up the energy to stay awake. And I would definitely love to stay awake, seeing as 99% of my dreams are vividly unsettling or full-blown nightmares (like the one I had last night where Aaron Echolls was chasing me. Unnnnsettling. Most likely brought on from re-watching season one of Veronica Mars with Steve, who had never seen it. Aaron Echolls is a scary man.) Anyway. The point is, I'm sleeping too much. And am kind of trapped in a vicious sleep circle--the more I sleep, the more weak/exhausted I feel; yet I don't have enough energy or motivation to fight through it and wake up. It's annoying.
So I'm up in the middle of the night right now, doing one of my favorite insomniac activities: reading The Pioneer Woman. Of course, I really don't cook. I have sparse cooking skills and my impatience with it overwhelms my desire to get better at it. But I inexplicably love reading food blogs like Pioneer Woman. I think in the back of my mind I know I'll eventually start cooking a little more in the future and probably still won't be that great at it, but will be better than I am now. Anyway. I'm reading her recipe for Decadent Chocolate Milk right now, but had to stop temporarily when I got to the part where she mentions semi-sweet chocolate. Because it triggered a series of totally random childhood memories.

When I wasn't at home, I spent the majority of my childhood hanging out with my oldest friends, Justine and Lanie. I met them when I randomly walked out of my house at age three or so, and toddled over to their house out of all the houses in our neighborhood. I remember I was wearing my white Mary Jane shoes that had the little hole punch pattern on the toe. Remember those kinds of shoes? I wandered over to their house, knocked on the door, and met their Mama (her name is June) and met Justine. Little Lanie was asleep in her crib, so we all had to whisper and tip-toe. June called my Mama who was frantic with worry by then, and I was returned to my house. That was pretty much the catalyst for a lifelong friendship, as I continued to stay friends with Justine and Lanie while my Mama continued to stay friends with their Mama.

Some of the most vivid memories I have of summer afternoons spent at their house revolve around food. We ate a lot of random things. June would make us "Dunkers," soft-boiled eggs which we ate with strips of toast. Or we would take out the tub of Nutella, and dip spoonfuls of it into Rice Krispies before eating it. I remember dreading when June would make us PB&J, because she made it with refrigerated bread, which I've always hated the taste of (and still hate to this day). But I never liked to complain when I was a guest in someone's house, so I ate it anyway. In terms of more decadent, ridiculous snacks, I remember Justine loved eating sweetened condensed milk right out of the can. I never really liked that. But we all loved the gluttonous joy of eating entire cans of cherry pie filling with a spoon! We usually had to do it secretly, because ohhh how our Moms hated that! A few years later, their stepdad John, who is from Brazil, would cook Brazilian meals for us. There is nothing more orgasmic than Brazilian steak, or that really delicious rice with the powdery stuff on top (I forgot the name). June's best friend, Mary Beth, who Justine and Lanie referred to as "Auntie," was the proprietor and cake chef at Maribelle Cakery. We loved visiting the kitchen and stealing spoonfuls of frosting, or sampling her latest recipe. Whenever Justine and Lanie had a birthday, we always had a deliciously outrageous cake from Maribelle to eat.

Oddly enough, one of my favorite snacks was the most simple: semi-sweet chocolate chips. We'd pour them into the dainty little glasses that June usually used for Dunkers. But Justine, Lanie and I would use them for eating cupfuls of semi-sweet chocolate chips while watching TV shows after school or during the summer. Every time I eat a semi-sweet chocolate chip, I definitely taste those childhood afternoons. And remember all the other random and delicious food we ate growing up. I just bought a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips from the grocery store for exactly this reason. All I need are some soft-boiled egg glasses to eat them out of.

Anticlimax and "Fiction" Reading

Sweet Charity closed yesterday. It's always bizarre closing on a matinee. Matinee performances almost always have mellower crowds, which is just weird energy to end a show on. In my experience with Phoenix community theater thus far, the second-to-last performance is always the best one...and I usually prefer to remember those performances as the "last" ones. I remember doing Man of La Mancha at exactly this time last year, and I remember our second-to-last show being electrifying. The house was completely sold out, I had tears streaming down my face during the finale (so good for high notes), and we got a standing ovation. Then the closing matinee the next day was...fine.

It was the same with Sweet Charity. Saturday night's performance was hands down our best of the run, despite some minor mess-ups. We had a big, responsive, energetic audience that was FULL of people I knew. Some I already knew were coming--Kay and her brother Paul who came up from T-Town (yayyyyy!), Marissa and Steve--and some I had no idea were coming and was so overjoyed to see! The incredible Felicia who was one of my Harlem dancers in Ragtime who I haven't seen in far too long, Jeff who played Tateh in Ragtime, Michael Stewart who I saw in World Goes 'Round last year at Desert Foothills but didn't officially meet in person until last weekend at the City of Angels cast party, and the wonderful Cat who was in Kiss Me Kate with me last year who came with her sweet husband Josh (they're such a great couple). I think that's everyone? It was just a blur of awesomeness so I may have forgotten some people. It was a great night. Annnnd then the closing matinee. My DST friends Chris and Jennifer came and it was so great to see them, but it was a pretty small crowd (Easter Sunday) and not our best performance. IT'S ALL JUST SO ANTICLIMACTIC.

After gathering all my stuff, saying goodbyes/see you laters (another anticlimactic part) and discovering that the restaurant I wanted to go to was closed for Easter, I grabbed Panda Express and went home. After I washed my face, ate, internetted, and watched some West Wing (DAMN that "18th & Potomac" episode!), all the post-show adrenaline had worn off completely and I was EXHAUSTED. Even the glorious new Star Wars review couldn't keep me awake! I watched one part, then ended up falling asleep. AT NINE O'CLOCK. I'm NEVER able to fall asleep at nine!

I woke up this morning at 4 AM, inexplicably craving pasta like mad, and couldn't go back to sleep. So I went through 63 pages of updates on my Tumblr dashboard--that's what happens when you neglect Tumblr for a few days--and watched some Gilmore Girls and started reading blogs.

There's this girl I was vaguely acquainted with in middle school and high school named Gina. I knew her because she was part of the musical theater crowd and I filled her soprano spot in the girl's quartet I sang with. Now she's a military wife, personal trainer, nutritional advisor and raw food chef who I recently discovered writes a prolific blog called The Fitnessista. I've been reading it a lot lately. Even if her writing is full of silly slang/substitute words (please don't ever call a banana a "nanner" around me), emoticons and Spanglish, it's still an enjoyable and fascinating read, and she really knows what she's talking about. I find it fascinating because I do NOT know how this girl has the energy for her lifestyle. She works out every day in addition to teaching group fitness classes and personal training appointments, and eats raw/vegan meals and snacks until dinnertime. The amount of effort that goes into that kind of diet just staggers me. I don't even know what the hell she's talking about half the time. Maca seeds? Millet croutons? Chia seeds? Shallor? Good GOD. Even if I wanted to take on a raw diet, I don't know what any of this IS let alone where to buy it or how to pronounce it.

I do wish I could cook, though. Or rather, have the patience and energy to cook. I also wish I could be as active as Gina is. She has all these fitness plans on her blog, and I was like "Oooh, I want to try!" ...and then I stopped reading halfway through because I knew there was no way I'd ever be able to do all that. These gym people fascinate me. Which is the reason I've been oddly addicted to her blog recently. I read blogs like this almost as if they're fiction, because I feel like a lifestyle like that is so impossible. That's really the only way I can describe it. And this is all similar to my weird addiction to reading The Pioneer Woman or various cupcake blogs for hours on end, as if I'd ever be capable of cooking like that. Even the easy recipes feel too hard and time consuming. Plus I have no idea how to dice garlic cloves or whatever the hell she does. So until my Fairy Godmother knocks me on the head with her magic wand and bestows some magical cooking/gym-going power on me, I live vicariously through these crazy blogs and wonder how they do it all.

Late Night Internetz.

Since I withdrew from my classes and don't have to wake up early, I've of course completely effed up my sleep schedule by sleeping in. Now I'm like a vampire, staying up all night and sleeping all day. I took some NyQuil tonight to try and break through that, buuut it's not strong enough. I may have to resort to staying up all night, then forcing myself to stay awake all day in order to get back on a normal sleep schedule. Blahhh. I hate doing that.

I wish I could spend these sleepless nights doing something productive, like cleaning my room, but I'm inexplicably incapable of productivity this time of night. I'm just in a daze. I spend part of my time watching episodes of various TV shows over and over again, even if I've seen them a million times already. The other half is spent online. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LJ, various blogs I read. I refresh the page over and over again, as if people actually update these things in the middle of the night.

Here's what I've discovered in tonight's waste of time internetting:

“After all, I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.”

--Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery

Even though I never read the Anne of Green Gables books (I've always wanted to...need to add that to my reading list), I grew up on that TV miniseries with adorable redhead Megan Follows as Anne. My Mom had them on VHS. Both Green Gables and Avonlea were like four hours long but I watched them constantly growing up. I loved every second. I stumbled on the above quote on a Tumblr I follow called BookLover. It's the only blog that posts in the middle of the night since the author is from Turkey and on a different time zone. Anyway, I really liked that quote, and I think it's so true. I love simple pleasures. I try to keep a list of my favorite ones in hopes of starting a blog, but always forget them once I open up the list. Bah. And now I really want to watch the miniseries.

Another thing that BookLover posted tonight was a text/image thing that said: You know those nights when you can't fall asleep? Well, maybe it's because you are awake, in someone else's dream. Hmm. Innnnteresting.

Another find was a fiery LJ entry I wrote something like four years ago, about buying jeans. Some things never change, because I still feel like that every time I shop for jeans! But it was funny to read that entry, because I totally forget some things I say/write, such as refer to a pair of jeans that fit perfectly everywhere except the waist by saying that "I very nearly set the little cocktease on fire." I get very angry when I shop for jeans.

And of course I'm starting to get tired now, at 4:45 in the fucking morning. Blah.