i has a president
rockband with pete was as wonderful as i wanted it to be, and i had the honor of being the first person to crash on his awesome, huge, new leather couch. it's comfier than my bed.
we went for silver diner the next morning for breakfast (it's nice having dubious "get to work" times), and then i popped into dc and bethesda for work, and then down to chinatown for happy hour with mike before "how theatre failed america". kathryn never showed, nor did dome and brian, but there was me, em, ben and mike, so i was happy. i don't know how thrilled ben and mike were, because it IS a super theatre dorky show, but there was so much normal folks could associate with, too, so hopefully they had fun. em and i, however, were moved to new tears. we were literally leaning forward in our streets, holding hands in solidarity and compassion. or, falling in each others laps with laughter. one or the other for pretty much the whole show. there was a very cyclical and not entirely productive roundtable discussion afterwards about the future of theatre, which only made me feel more secure about what em and i (and all the young artists i know) want to do. the old guys talk about how theatre is changing, and how they're not seeing audiences, and how they don't know what people want to see. and i realize they've just been spending too much time working what they know, what they've been doing since the last artist revolution of the 60's. and i'm thinking, all i need is for all these behemoths who have been running the game to either die out, or take us young bloods in to keep themselves alive. either way, economic instability, and national identity change is a great time to be an artist. we can do anything, because now any effort at theatre is pass fail. there's no "minimizing loss". we either make something great, or no one comes. which means we can just go nuts :)
and mike daisey gave us advice on producing for the fringe :)
after the show i went up to join tina at the front page, with mike and rob, but they'd already left, so we just did a few rounds ourselves, and then piled our drunk butts into a cab around 3 or 4am (bless inaugural bar hours!)
saturday was met with wanting to sleep in, but instead wandering around falls church and tysons corner looking for the avis car rental place. and i don't know who up there loves me, but somehow i was rented a mustang for the weekend, which was....awesome...yeah. AWESOME.
work was fine (a little hung over, but fine), and saturday night yielded ummm...something? oh, i went to sollys with bensy and teen, and started drinking jack and making friends with doug the bartender. then jeff came (not a moment too soon, because teen was getting tired). we drank a couple more rounds, and then decided the best thing in the world we could do was walk up to the diner. but then it turned out it was balls ass cold, so we hopped in a cab for the 5 extra minutes it would have taken. we had deeeeelicious breakfast food, and thrilling conversations of life, bitches and the inauguration. then we had sobered up enough for jeff to drive us home (i wasn't gonna take chance driving the mustang on u st when i may still have been drunk).
again, i wanted to sleep in sunday, but work doesn't allow such idle fantasies. i had also hoped to get back to the city in time for the end of the opening ceremony concert, but traffic put the kibosh on that. infact, just getting home was a wodnerful world of trials and tribulations. then the eagles lost after a fairybook comeback, so we're nt going to the superbowl. so, i was a little heartbroken sunday night. but, it was matt's birthday party, and everyone came over to help us celebrate, and chipmunk bought pizza, and i wore a low cut shirt, so it was nice. pete and i decided to not go to the inaugural party we'd planned on hitting up, but i still gave him, mike and jordan rides home. i did have the mustang, after all, and had had plans for spending my night in va. somewhere between the night of dissapointments, and being tired, i decided to just drive home and grab some sleep. then up at 9am to clean my room a little (because em and ben were supposed to be crashing after the inauguration), drop the mustang off (so sad!), and off to bethesda/friendship heights/udc to work/look for peacock feathers. i searched forever and ever, and eventually found them in chinatown, which is awesome (if not a little frustrating). back home for dinner and bonding with the roomies, then kate drove me down to u st to meet up with the boys for the concert (because she's awesome). i bought some balloons and noise makers for saturday, and then went to solly's (yay! doug was there!)for some drinks and company while i waited for the boys. we got to the 9:30 club in time to see a guy who called himself code something (i enjoyed it. i should look him up). then cheryl crow! she was great. just great. just wonderful in every way. then the beastie boys!!!! who are getting old, but still rock as hard as ever, and sound exactly the same. it was a great concert. they didn't play any of the oldies (except no sleep till brooklyn), but we did watch them do the last dedicated performance of sabotage for bush ;)
i was really happy with how it turned out, and couldn't thank mike enough for getting me a ticket. but not that night. because i had to be on the mall by 5am, which meant i had to run home after the concert, try to sleep for an hour, try to sober up, and then put on as many layers as i could. nylons, pyjama pants, socks, more socks, jeans, 2 tanktops, long underwear, tshirt, a sweater, a sweatshirt, my fleece, 3 scarves and my wool jacket. and i was STILL freezing my ass of. like, serious. immediately freezing to death. i was on the metro by 4:30am, and at l'enfant station by 4:50, and then spent 20 minutes trying to get out through the exit gate. eventually they just opened the gates up and let people out without using the passes.
then the push through the throngs already gathering on the mall. at 5am, there were already boundary gates getting pulled down by people trying to get to the mall.
to be honest, guys, i spent most of the day FREEZING COLD. just miserable and cold. we were there at 5am, and didn't start pairing off and doing our work until 6:30. my group was the relief group (meaning we went out and found other volunteers who were cold or tired or hungry and let them go take a break). you'd think they would have made the relief group get there later, but i guess no. my partner kate and i wandered our zone (from 7th st to 12th st) looking for people to help and volunteers to relieve. we spent most of the morning directing tourists over to the far side of the mall, trying to mitigate overcrowding. at 8 we went over to the smithsonian castle to meet up with our team and regroup. we had hoped to get into the castle to warm up, but they were only letting maybe 100 people in at any given time. so kate and i decided to go take a break at the american history museum (because the natural history wasn't open yet). i can not even describe how cold we were. it was 27 at it's warmest, with a windchill of 17. so at 6am it was, like, 5 degrees. just so damn cold. plus, i had had maybe 30 minutes of sleep, and had been at a rock concert all night. so, it should come as no surprise that as soon as i sat down on the floor, i passed out. i wasn't the only one. all the museums were flooded with freezing tourists, sleeping on the floor :)
kate and i took a 30 minute nap, and made our way back out to the castle for our 10am meetup. none of our group showed up, so instead we went and checked all the other museums because the huddled mass in front of the castle was heartbreaking. i am really upset there weren't warming tents set up, but i am SO proud of the tourists, because they didn't flood the first aide tents, or force their way into the museums. everyone was amazingly respectful, and most tried to figure out ways to stay awake and warm for 6 hours. kate and i got a couple of tourists into bigger museums, so they'd actually be warm, and then we relieved a mom daughter pair so they could eat. to be honest, we could have fit more people on the mall. i think we were prepared for 3-4mil, but because of the cold and stupid stupid metro/street planning (i understand the intent, but it didn't work out well for the actual movement of people) not as many people actually showed up.
i was way to far away to actually see what was happening on the podium, but there were great big jumbotrons everywhere, so it was easy to keep pace. i can't express the enthusiasm. was on the mall with my american flag (the girl and boy scouts gave away free flags) and noise maker when he took the oath. People were jumping (i was dancing), crying, cheering, hugging. It was just amazing. it was beautiful. it was inspiring and invigorating. it was the one time i was warm.
after he left, we couldn't stop dancing. everyone was trying to leave, soem trying to get north to the parade (which they couldn't. they had it blocked, so people could only do one or the other). we left the mall at about 2pm, and i didn't get home till 4. we had to walk down to waterfront, and get on the train there, then metro north.and the most frustrating part was how the people who did get on the train, didn't pack in very effectively, so only half as many were riding each train as could have. americans have no train etiquette, i swear.
i was sooooo beat after the inauguration, and i actually managed to sleep for an hour or two on the couch, but was up by 6 to get ready for the artists ball. turns out i am smaller than i was in highshool, because my blue ball gown was falling off. literally. which is sad because i had planned such a nice outfit. i made a mask using blue feathers and peacock feathers and shiney bits, and a peacock tail that i safety pinned on to the dress. but to keep the dress up i had to line it in duct tape (because i have no fabric tape, ok?) which means now i'm covered in duct tape sticky bits. and the dress was still falling down half the night.
tina was feeling sick, but i was able to sell her ticket to coz mike, and also find and buy a ticket for his friend jordan! so he was able to join me and em and ben and pete. the ball was pretty great. i was a bit dissapointed with the the decorations (c'mon guys, i would have muraled the hell out of those places), but the drinks were cheap and the dj's rock, and there were fire dancers. plus, a ton of folks dressed up, so it was a great big costume party, ball gown competition, artits-off. giant dancing peace puppets (the kind that don't scare me so much), dudes in lit up bubble suits, belly dancers. pretty sweet :) so it wasn't too difficult to stay up till 3-4am before grabbing a cab out to va.
i had to work today, which was terrible, because i would have much rather been sleeping, but i have today off, so hopefully i can catch off, and divert this cold i feel trying to come on.
also, i bought myself dental insurance, and finally sent schmitty an email that wasn't laced with snark/anger/hurt. it took some tries, but i just don't want to be that person, that hurts just because they're hurt.
we went for silver diner the next morning for breakfast (it's nice having dubious "get to work" times), and then i popped into dc and bethesda for work, and then down to chinatown for happy hour with mike before "how theatre failed america". kathryn never showed, nor did dome and brian, but there was me, em, ben and mike, so i was happy. i don't know how thrilled ben and mike were, because it IS a super theatre dorky show, but there was so much normal folks could associate with, too, so hopefully they had fun. em and i, however, were moved to new tears. we were literally leaning forward in our streets, holding hands in solidarity and compassion. or, falling in each others laps with laughter. one or the other for pretty much the whole show. there was a very cyclical and not entirely productive roundtable discussion afterwards about the future of theatre, which only made me feel more secure about what em and i (and all the young artists i know) want to do. the old guys talk about how theatre is changing, and how they're not seeing audiences, and how they don't know what people want to see. and i realize they've just been spending too much time working what they know, what they've been doing since the last artist revolution of the 60's. and i'm thinking, all i need is for all these behemoths who have been running the game to either die out, or take us young bloods in to keep themselves alive. either way, economic instability, and national identity change is a great time to be an artist. we can do anything, because now any effort at theatre is pass fail. there's no "minimizing loss". we either make something great, or no one comes. which means we can just go nuts :)
and mike daisey gave us advice on producing for the fringe :)
after the show i went up to join tina at the front page, with mike and rob, but they'd already left, so we just did a few rounds ourselves, and then piled our drunk butts into a cab around 3 or 4am (bless inaugural bar hours!)
saturday was met with wanting to sleep in, but instead wandering around falls church and tysons corner looking for the avis car rental place. and i don't know who up there loves me, but somehow i was rented a mustang for the weekend, which was....awesome...yeah. AWESOME.
work was fine (a little hung over, but fine), and saturday night yielded ummm...something? oh, i went to sollys with bensy and teen, and started drinking jack and making friends with doug the bartender. then jeff came (not a moment too soon, because teen was getting tired). we drank a couple more rounds, and then decided the best thing in the world we could do was walk up to the diner. but then it turned out it was balls ass cold, so we hopped in a cab for the 5 extra minutes it would have taken. we had deeeeelicious breakfast food, and thrilling conversations of life, bitches and the inauguration. then we had sobered up enough for jeff to drive us home (i wasn't gonna take chance driving the mustang on u st when i may still have been drunk).
again, i wanted to sleep in sunday, but work doesn't allow such idle fantasies. i had also hoped to get back to the city in time for the end of the opening ceremony concert, but traffic put the kibosh on that. infact, just getting home was a wodnerful world of trials and tribulations. then the eagles lost after a fairybook comeback, so we're nt going to the superbowl. so, i was a little heartbroken sunday night. but, it was matt's birthday party, and everyone came over to help us celebrate, and chipmunk bought pizza, and i wore a low cut shirt, so it was nice. pete and i decided to not go to the inaugural party we'd planned on hitting up, but i still gave him, mike and jordan rides home. i did have the mustang, after all, and had had plans for spending my night in va. somewhere between the night of dissapointments, and being tired, i decided to just drive home and grab some sleep. then up at 9am to clean my room a little (because em and ben were supposed to be crashing after the inauguration), drop the mustang off (so sad!), and off to bethesda/friendship heights/udc to work/look for peacock feathers. i searched forever and ever, and eventually found them in chinatown, which is awesome (if not a little frustrating). back home for dinner and bonding with the roomies, then kate drove me down to u st to meet up with the boys for the concert (because she's awesome). i bought some balloons and noise makers for saturday, and then went to solly's (yay! doug was there!)for some drinks and company while i waited for the boys. we got to the 9:30 club in time to see a guy who called himself code something (i enjoyed it. i should look him up). then cheryl crow! she was great. just great. just wonderful in every way. then the beastie boys!!!! who are getting old, but still rock as hard as ever, and sound exactly the same. it was a great concert. they didn't play any of the oldies (except no sleep till brooklyn), but we did watch them do the last dedicated performance of sabotage for bush ;)
i was really happy with how it turned out, and couldn't thank mike enough for getting me a ticket. but not that night. because i had to be on the mall by 5am, which meant i had to run home after the concert, try to sleep for an hour, try to sober up, and then put on as many layers as i could. nylons, pyjama pants, socks, more socks, jeans, 2 tanktops, long underwear, tshirt, a sweater, a sweatshirt, my fleece, 3 scarves and my wool jacket. and i was STILL freezing my ass of. like, serious. immediately freezing to death. i was on the metro by 4:30am, and at l'enfant station by 4:50, and then spent 20 minutes trying to get out through the exit gate. eventually they just opened the gates up and let people out without using the passes.
then the push through the throngs already gathering on the mall. at 5am, there were already boundary gates getting pulled down by people trying to get to the mall.
to be honest, guys, i spent most of the day FREEZING COLD. just miserable and cold. we were there at 5am, and didn't start pairing off and doing our work until 6:30. my group was the relief group (meaning we went out and found other volunteers who were cold or tired or hungry and let them go take a break). you'd think they would have made the relief group get there later, but i guess no. my partner kate and i wandered our zone (from 7th st to 12th st) looking for people to help and volunteers to relieve. we spent most of the morning directing tourists over to the far side of the mall, trying to mitigate overcrowding. at 8 we went over to the smithsonian castle to meet up with our team and regroup. we had hoped to get into the castle to warm up, but they were only letting maybe 100 people in at any given time. so kate and i decided to go take a break at the american history museum (because the natural history wasn't open yet). i can not even describe how cold we were. it was 27 at it's warmest, with a windchill of 17. so at 6am it was, like, 5 degrees. just so damn cold. plus, i had had maybe 30 minutes of sleep, and had been at a rock concert all night. so, it should come as no surprise that as soon as i sat down on the floor, i passed out. i wasn't the only one. all the museums were flooded with freezing tourists, sleeping on the floor :)
kate and i took a 30 minute nap, and made our way back out to the castle for our 10am meetup. none of our group showed up, so instead we went and checked all the other museums because the huddled mass in front of the castle was heartbreaking. i am really upset there weren't warming tents set up, but i am SO proud of the tourists, because they didn't flood the first aide tents, or force their way into the museums. everyone was amazingly respectful, and most tried to figure out ways to stay awake and warm for 6 hours. kate and i got a couple of tourists into bigger museums, so they'd actually be warm, and then we relieved a mom daughter pair so they could eat. to be honest, we could have fit more people on the mall. i think we were prepared for 3-4mil, but because of the cold and stupid stupid metro/street planning (i understand the intent, but it didn't work out well for the actual movement of people) not as many people actually showed up.
i was way to far away to actually see what was happening on the podium, but there were great big jumbotrons everywhere, so it was easy to keep pace. i can't express the enthusiasm. was on the mall with my american flag (the girl and boy scouts gave away free flags) and noise maker when he took the oath. People were jumping (i was dancing), crying, cheering, hugging. It was just amazing. it was beautiful. it was inspiring and invigorating. it was the one time i was warm.
after he left, we couldn't stop dancing. everyone was trying to leave, soem trying to get north to the parade (which they couldn't. they had it blocked, so people could only do one or the other). we left the mall at about 2pm, and i didn't get home till 4. we had to walk down to waterfront, and get on the train there, then metro north.and the most frustrating part was how the people who did get on the train, didn't pack in very effectively, so only half as many were riding each train as could have. americans have no train etiquette, i swear.
i was sooooo beat after the inauguration, and i actually managed to sleep for an hour or two on the couch, but was up by 6 to get ready for the artists ball. turns out i am smaller than i was in highshool, because my blue ball gown was falling off. literally. which is sad because i had planned such a nice outfit. i made a mask using blue feathers and peacock feathers and shiney bits, and a peacock tail that i safety pinned on to the dress. but to keep the dress up i had to line it in duct tape (because i have no fabric tape, ok?) which means now i'm covered in duct tape sticky bits. and the dress was still falling down half the night.
tina was feeling sick, but i was able to sell her ticket to coz mike, and also find and buy a ticket for his friend jordan! so he was able to join me and em and ben and pete. the ball was pretty great. i was a bit dissapointed with the the decorations (c'mon guys, i would have muraled the hell out of those places), but the drinks were cheap and the dj's rock, and there were fire dancers. plus, a ton of folks dressed up, so it was a great big costume party, ball gown competition, artits-off. giant dancing peace puppets (the kind that don't scare me so much), dudes in lit up bubble suits, belly dancers. pretty sweet :) so it wasn't too difficult to stay up till 3-4am before grabbing a cab out to va.
i had to work today, which was terrible, because i would have much rather been sleeping, but i have today off, so hopefully i can catch off, and divert this cold i feel trying to come on.
also, i bought myself dental insurance, and finally sent schmitty an email that wasn't laced with snark/anger/hurt. it took some tries, but i just don't want to be that person, that hurts just because they're hurt.