Below are the 16 most recent journal entries recorded in clairenstein's LiveJournal:

Friday, January 27th, 2006
12:44 pm	"spring" semester My Classes (potentially boring for non-theater students): This is the first semester I've taken all theater classes. I'm taking Playwriting, World Drama II, Topics in Dramaturgy:Modern European Drama, and Performance Perspectives. Basically all I do is read and write plays, and research theater artists and movements. All the classes really inform each other. World Drama follows drama around the world from 19th century melodrama and neoclassical forward. Right now we're learning the truth about Stanislavsky-- none of his original works exist in print, and all the translations have been carried out by a woman named Elizabeth Hapgood who speaks Russian badly and has her own interpretation of Stanislavsky's work! So, we're up to Ibsen and Chekov. Meanwhile, in Modern Drama we're studying the well-made play, and I'm about to do a big presentation on August Strindberg's play, the Father. And in Performance, our class is going to see a one woman avant garde experimental theater piece called Restraints. There are 3 props: a rope-like cloth, a broom, and a straight jacket. We're studying the alternative, non-realistic performance tradition in this class, and Sarah Hickler, the professor is amazing. We're reading plays and articles in all these classes, and the playwriting class is getting off to a good start. Andrew Clarke really had us jump right in. We had a plot summary due yesterday. I have some good images --floods, magnificent fish, a potter's field. We'll see how it turns out. The Hypnotist: Last night I saw hypnosis for the first time, and it was possibly the most wildly entertaining spectacle I've ever seen. When everyone onstage was being hypnotized I felt my hands get stiff and heavy in my lap and it was like I was wearing lead boots. That passed as the show got going, but it was like coming into contact with a mysterious force. Ben Sloane is an acting student a year below me, and I never thought much about him before, but he was HYNOTIZED. He has no inhibitions and he answered the hypnotist in the loose, yet slightly mechanical manner of children in preschool. At one point the hypnotist had everyone believe that they had an adorable stuffed animal in their laps and Ben was just stroking and stroking this invisible animal. The hypnotist asked him what it was, and Ben said it was an elephant. "What's it's name?" Ben didn't miss a beat. "Jesus." Later he had Ben feel compelled to dance when he heard the songs, You're the One that I Want from Grease and Shania Twain's I Feel Like A Woman. And he DANCED. He had dance Skills. It practically looked choreographed. He was working the CROWD! And he remembered none of it when he woke up. I could hardly believe it was real. Afterwards I had so much energy. I just wanted to leap around! It is so cold here at night. It's deadly. (Comment on this)
Sunday, June 19th, 2005
11:45 pm	dinner with susie tonight susie and I ate eggnoodles and mashed carrots and frozen strawberries and a glass of red wine. Lovely. We also watched Daria. Oh, I love the Suze. But I must say that I feel homesick in a dozen directions. Buenas todos. (Comment on this)
Saturday, June 11th, 2005
2:56 pm	jonathan? "Jonathan? Jonathan? We wanna know somethin." "Ya, OK." Guess who is playing at the Middle East in Cambridge on Thursday night? Well, he plays the guitar. and I have his first record. "Ya?" He's got more whimsy and imagination than a classroom full of second graders. "OK." He speaks Spanish with a terrible accent. "Ya. That's fair." I constantly listen to his music for consolation and joy. "Ya?" JONATHAN RICHMAN, YEAH! I'm so excited to see him. Susie called and told me about it a couple of days ago. I want to speak Spanish with him and listen to all his great songs and i'm sure he'll tell sort of bad jokes and work up some New England pride. Too bad Jono is going to Prague that night. The show will have to be a tribute to his (reluctantly accepted/dreaded) departure. Oh my god, it's so hot here. I spent most of the day inside the air conditioned Starbucks, but now I'm just at home, sweating over the computer. I like the heat though, as long as I'm allowed to be lethargic. We have some kind of weird garbage issue in our apartment. There are four trash bags out. Two of them appear to be mixed recycling and the other two appear to be competing for garbage. My theory is that Eric put out a second trash bag to be used for recycling, but then Evan was too lazy to flip open the lid of the kitchen garbage can, and corrupted the recycling with regular garbage. And then this happened again like two more times. There is also a huge decaying vase of flowers on the dining room table that have been here longer than I have. I should probably take care of these things before the apartment starts stinking too badly. The apartment seems just a little less clean than before. I can't tell if the new roommate, Eric, is messy or if Jay just used to keep Evan's messiness in check. I guess this is all one big living experiment. OK by me. I went to Haymarket for the first time yesterday. It's this famous outdoor farmers' market that goes up Fridays and Saturdays between Faneuil Hall and the North End. I was reminded of Europe, walking through the bustling aisles of stalls, men calling out prices, trying to lure you to their stand. There were fruits and vegetables and fish and cheese and olives. I ended up buying some mediocre apples and oranges and tomatoes, but I got a great deal on strawberries-- a 12 pint case for one dollar. When I got home I cut them up and froze them. I went into the bathroom to wash my hands and I saw that I had these two alarming, bright red breast-accentuating stains on my shirt. I must have been holding the box of strawberries against my chest. I blushed in hindsight and washed the shirt. Oh yeah, and I'm excited for working at the Improv Asylum. I can do the coffee job in the morning and the usher job at night. It works out well. (Comment on this)
4:56 am	working Well, I'm finally working. I'm training at Starbucks, I have a couple of paid ushering jobs lined up at the Majestic next week. And yesterday I just found out that the Improv Asylum is going to hire me for regular paid ushering starting in July. Right now it's about 5 a.m. and I'm getting ready for day 3 of training. Almost 1/3 done! yay paid training! I miss the jonospoon. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 1st, 2005
5:17 pm	a black man's hand Sometimes, walking down the street, I feel oppressed by the surge of people around me. Boston is a city. But it's a small city, and so, the city rules of behavior toward other people sometimes feels awkwardly inappropriate. I walk down the sidewalk in Brookline, taking in the passersby: glimpsing faces, semi-consciously noting their clothes, their pace, their attitude, maybe their pets or children.* I find myself guessing at people's ages, professions, their likelihood of attacking me-- so there we are, sizing each other up, and then, as soon as we come close enough to each other (maybe within conversational earshot), we both suddenly look away distractedly or stare intently straight ahead. Passing strangers one at a time on the street in this city is uncomfortable no matter what I do. A suspicious flash of eye-contact, a weak(unanswered)hello, willing each other out of existence-- all vaguely rude, vaguely embarassing options, because these are city-street Crowd tactics. Anyway, I hardly ever face this kind of social ineptitude when I'm walking downtown-- except when people are begging for money. I think to myself: I have it so easy. I'm living a luxurious temporarily unemployed lifestyle. Of course, I feel like I'm begging the manager at Starbucks to put me on the schedule, and I have to borrow hundreds of dollars from my father to pay the rent, I need to spend my money on T tokens and groceries and laundry, but I could afford to give this guy a quarter. Oh, ineffectual guilt. I usually look away nervously(I'm very busy busy busy, got to get to the library so I can sit around and read in an urgent sort of way), and say "sorry," in this nasal, apologetic tone of voice. Anyway, so there I was, passing Trader Joes on Boylston, and this 55 year old white guy (obviously a Massachusetts native) was yelling, "Hey would you give me some money for no reason at all? I ran out of ideas!" He looked like he'd just wandered out of Fenway park. I was grinning insanely, staring straight ahead, concentrating on some lady's ugly purple windbreaker a quarter block ahead of me. "Hey! You!" The guy yelled. "If you keep smiling like that I'm gonna have to give you all my pennies. And I got a lot of pennies!" Like a reflex, I buried my face in my face and laughed at my stupid embarassment. On Com Ave: "Shake a black man's hand!" He was old-looking, but probably only in his fifties. His hand felt crumpled, as if the last guy to shake his hand had broken his fingers and the bones had healed all wrong. "Nobody's gonna hurt you." He said this like an accusation, somehow continuing to pump my hand without exerting any kind of grip. We both looked up at the large, young blackman standing beside him like a roadblock. The small old man, with skin like a grocery bag, seemed to recede the wake of this black man's deliberate bull-like silence. He looked at me with large, white eyes, traced in delicate red. "I'm trying ta get somethin ta eat," the old man said. Or was it, "Can you help a man get somethin ta eat." In retrospect, I'm sure it wasn't a request. I obviously had the money to buy a flamboyantly green T shirt, to carry a canvas bag bulging with books and tupperware, to keep my cell phone(all set to sing Swanee River for my incoming calls) in my left hip pocket, to keep my hair(the color of hardwood floors) out of my round young face in a childish silver clip. I was still looking at the black man's eyes. "Um." I pulled out my wallet and dropped a couple of quarters into his Starbucks cup. "Here you go, man." I zipped up my bag. 'Now I'm going to need more quarters to do laundry,' I thought automatically; blushing, ashamed. *If they're walking dogs I decide how closely the human and animal resemble each other. If they're pushing a stroller, I stare at the baby and silently compare the little creature to an animal. Monkeys and owls are the leading dopplegangers. (Comment on this)
Monday, May 30th, 2005
11:37 pm	vomit-inducing quasi-professional theater Well, to contrast my incredible theater experience at the BCA on Saturday, I saw a horrble play in Somerville on Sunday afternoon. I got a late start on my way out there. I took the C train to Park Street and transferred to the redline, which was under construction, so I had to get on a bus to Cambridge and then back on the train to Davis Square, and then I jogged awkwardly and red-faced along the highway for a mile? for two miles? I got there about 8 minutes late, which I felt really embarrassed about. I hate latecomers. I need that growing feeling of collective anticipation and the reverence of the hushed moment when the lights go down in a theater. But I came late, and was dropped right into the theatrical disaster that WAS Herostratus. It felt like dress-up time for untalented grown-ups in a community theater setting. (My God! I feel like I'm watching regional theater!) Susie wouldn't be so harsh, but then, I like flinging around disgust, disappointment, and criticism just as much as I enjoy praising the moving, well-executed work of art. Maybe MORE. Anyway, the show was horribly scripted-- the dialogue was terrible and unconvincing, the characters were unrealistic and unsympathetic, and on top of that, had no apparent motivation for their actions. I WISH it had been more contrived. That way I would have had some idea what the point of the story was. Any play must relate to the present to the audience. If the play doesn't clearly answer why it is relevant and necessary to stage the production, here and today it is a failure. inevitably. Anyway, susie came over afterward and she saw my apartment for the first time. I had figured out how to program the rice maker, so when we got home there was rice all hot and cooked and waiting. We made a vegetable stirfry and laid around in my room listening to Joni Mitchell and talking about the disgusting food we ate as children. A favorite at the Perkins house is Pork-fried cassarole. Or something to that effect. It was lovely to see the old doll. (Comment on this)
Sunday, May 29th, 2005
12:23 am	Take Me Out (at the B.C.A.) Well, I saw a lot of naked men today. Probably more naked men than I've ever seen in my life. I'm at least sure that I've never seen so many men naked at the same time. I heard that when the show first opened a good number of old people were so scandalized that they walked out of the theater(I know my Grandma wouldn't have. She knows what's what.). What a fucking show. I was just blown away. It won a Tony for Best Play in 2003, and I can see why. Well written, incredible characters. The pacing, the arc of the storyline, the designers' and director's choices, the ACTING in this production were all great. The first act was at least an hour, but when the lights came up for intermission, I was actually taken aback. I couldn't believe so much time had passed. The action never dragged. Two of my favorite local actors were in this one. Nathaniel McIntyre (the Junkie from Homebody Kabul) and Neil Casey (the cook from the Tempest and the amateur astrologist from the Arthur Miller reading) were fantastic. Neil Casey is probably has the best comic timing in the city. He's a genius. I went up to both of them after the show and shook their hands and thanked them for their performances. I would usually be too timid to approach people already in standing in groups, already holding conversations, but I decided to get over it. They were gracious, too. Man, do I hate hate hate peer-pressured standing ovations. I obstinately remain seated through them. I only stand if I am immediately overtaken with an impulse to leap to my feet the moment the theater erupts with applause. Which in this case, I felt compelled to. The audience was incredibly responsive. I'm sure that contributed to my experience of the play. I was an usher for this production, so I had the chance to seat a good portion of the audience, and there seemed to be a lot of gay men in the audience. One of the things that I liked about this show was that in a sense it was about the issues of homosexuality and race, in a sense it was about sports(of course, baseball specifically), but at the same time it was just about the dilemma of being a human being in relation to other human beings in relation to our big world. I've thought about it a lot, and I think theater feeds that part of my self, that part of my soul that can't quite believe in God. The theater, to me is a sacred place. The hush of the audience the moment the lights dim is a sacred moment. The captivation of the audience is incredible. Whatever force it is that keeps me riveted to the seat,despite my desire to intervene in the action of the play is an important working metaphor. I know I need to keep in constant touch with theater. "Don't ever stop going," I said to myself as I walked home. Good theater gives us a salve and a sense of perspective. I have been doing a lot of walking lately. I like to walk across town from Brookline to Emerson or Cambridge or the South End. And as a result, each pair of shoes I own, has developed its own special technique to hurt my feet. My feet are slightly different sizes, and my right foot(half a size bigger) ends up suffering for it. In my running shoes, my little toe is pinched and squished with each step. In my Birkenstocks, I have blisters on the inside and outside edges of my feet, and in my sneakers, the arch of my foot is strained. But after I walked out of that theater, and the rain started coming down, I knew with a feeling I could not contain, that I would work in theater all my life. I don't even care exactly what I do. I want to try it all, propel it forward from all angles, you know? House Manager, Stage Manager, Dramaturg, Artistic Director, Usher, Front of House, Playwright, whatever, who cares? I walked all the way home on blistered feet in the rain, grinning maniacally, idiotically. My stride was long, and my feet didn't even hurt. They just felt walked on. I was so happy to be in a position to see whatever I like, get my soul fed for free, no one to answer to, nobody to tell me not to walk home alone, possibilities exploding all over. I kept wiping the rain off my forehead and slicking back my hair, almost feeling happy that it was raining. I was in my own little world, sure that I would live in New York City at some point, toying with the idea of moving out west after college like to San Francisco or Oregon or Seattle or something. Fantasizing about working for a theater in Latin America or Spain. I was just sort of letting my mind run over surfaces, planning, wondering. The actor's life is notoriously difficult-- all that auditioning and starvation and table-waiting and rejection. (Although I've come to believe that if you're good enough and if you're in it for the right reasons there will be a place for you somewhere.) But anyway, it seems to me, that if you're willing to do anything in theater for little or no pay, it's not so hard to, like, Break Into the Business. There is so much going on here, right in Boston, I can't even see it all. But I've been trying. This week alone, I saw Duplex at the BCA Black Box, Julius Caesar at the Cambridge YMCA, Take Me Out, and tomorrow Susie and I go to Somerville to see Herostratus. Since I've been back in Boston, I've seen Falsettos at the Huntington, a reading of All My Sons at the Shubert, The Boston Theater Marathon in the BCA Wimberly, Shakespeare in Hollywood at the Lyric... I want to be SEEN everywhere too. Austin, an Emerson graduate who I see as a BCA big shot offered me a job in September. Which really excites me even though I am going to be so busy in the Fall, I MUST work at the BCA. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 25th, 2005
9:39 pm	dripping wet with susie Q I met Susie at the airport this afternoon with my bag of tricks. Apples for the airport, spaghetti for dinner, and a complete program of 50 Boston area theater companies. I forgot to ask Suze which airline she was coming in on, but I tracked her down pretty easily. She has a great big apartment in JP that she's sharing with a couple of grad school whole foods type ladies. One of them is a British woman named Claire. There is an incredibly fat orange cat who lives there too. His name is Dillford. Which I find distasteful. But it was really good to see Susie again. It's been a while, a couple of weeks. Her apartment was freezing (even colder than mine, which isn't so bad right now), and I figured it would be more fun to have a cold, wet adventure to the supermarket than to sit around and freeze in one place. So, we headed off into the driving rain, umbrellas flapping inside out, yelling and pretending to cry in miserable fun. Back in Texas, it's been over 100 degrees. She was swimming a couple of days ago. The two nearest grocery stores were closed, so we both got on the T, Susie in search of groceries, and me on my way back home. Wet, wet, cold. Pea soup. Finally warm. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 24th, 2005
9:38 pm	sky opens february wounds over lush month of may If I may moan in despair at the weather in Boston, I will: oooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOO. Why? (shivers, fumbles with key, scuffs wet sneakers across the matt, thinks about weeping, props up broken navy blue umbrella behind door, thinks about tea, glowers, pours too much laundry detergent into the machine, eats spaghetti while on the phone with her mother, removes brassiere, reads page after page of photocopied poetry, chews carrots listlessly, reclines on a sheet-less bed, breathes through mouth, pulls armloads of soapy clothes from the washing machine into the dryer, stares at stack of nearly finished books and begins a new one, dials *86, dreams of a warm summer. A hot summer. Ceiling fans and sweat. Touches cold, rain-beaded windowpane from inside her apartment. Checks calendar, circles a date, lowers eyelids. For just for a moment. She is already back to scouring twentieth century post-colonial poetry from the Caribbean, drawing small magnolias in the margins, making notes in blue pen for the benefit of Professor Dulgarian.) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, May 23rd, 2005
11:13 pm	unemployed My roommate Evan has been watching Hawaii Fantasy Millionaire Vacation for the past HOUR. The man watches a lot of TV. Tomorrow he leaves for a Caribbean sailing vacation with his family. And I'M going to see Robert Dulgarian . So... I don't have a job yet. I've been ushering and volunteering like crazy lately. I saw Falsettos at the Huntington, Shakespeare in Hollywood at the Lyric, and about ten 10 minute plays at the BCA during the Boston Theater Marathon. I applied and interviewed at Starbucks, Securitas, and Event Temps, which is like a catering company that goes to places like the zoo or hotels. Yeah, I would probably get to wear a uniform at any of these jobs. It's pretty professional. I did fire evacuation training at the Majestic Theater today and I'm signed up to work a couple of days in mid-June. Also, Evan, my reality TV addicted actor roommate, told me that the Improv Asylum is passively looking to hire ushers and house managers for evening shows, so I sent off an application for that. I took some money out of the ATM today and felt a little sad about the amount of money I have left. But I picked up a couple of forgotten paychecks at Emerson Student Services and that made me feel a little relieved. I saw Dave last night. It was lovely. He wore the neon green jacket he was wearing the first time we spoke. And a straw hat. We went out for Chinese food with Kal and Elliot. I think tomorrow we're going to read again. We haven't touched the Series of Unfortunate Events in an entire year. I really miss it. And Susie is flying in Wednesday. And we have free tickets to a musical on Thursday. Yay friends! I'm excited to see her new apartment in Jamaica Plains. I've never been to that neighborhood before. I checked a copy of Veronica's brother's book, The Ice Beneath You, out of the BPL the other day and I'm about 150 pages into it. He's a great writer, really. I can't believe I never read his book before now. So sleepy. I miss Jonathan. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 10th, 2005
1:04 pm	home Yesterday, I was sitting on my front porch at home in New Jersey, and my little sister Lana came out . "Claire... at camp they make us wear bathing suits for swimming." I looked up from The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. "Duh." "But Claire!" "Lana, you have a beautiful, athletic body, you will look incredible in a bathing suit. Shut up." "No! It's not that I think I'm fat. People will see my stretch marks." "So, wear a one-piece." "WHAT?!!!! Only FAT people wear one-pieces." Oh, home. (Comment on this)
Monday, May 2nd, 2005
1:00 am	my date and a day of freedom Adam. Ice Cream Cone. Devoured. I woke up after noon, and after breakfast with jono and friends, adam and I went shopping on newbury street. Well, shopping in the sense that we went into a store. Neither one of us bought anything. Adam left to look for a Mother's Day gift on Charles St., and I went to the Boston Public Library (BPL, really. People in Massachusetts hate words that aren't abbreviated: Mass Pike, Mass Ave, Com Ave, The T. Emerson: CPK, NYP, ECPD, LB, C-store). The only Douglas Adams book checked into the library was The Dark Teatime of the Soul, or something along those lines. I really wanted to read a Hitchikers's Guide to the Galaxy, but I guess so does everyone else. I read the first four chapters of the Teatime book, but it was too beachtowel-trashy, so I left it on a table somewhere and started reading one of Lorrie Moore's short story collections. "You know, I'll tell you a secret: I've never been to New York. I'll tell you two secrets: I've never been on a plane." And he waved at her sadly as she pushed her way in through the terminal door. "Or an escalator!" he shouted. BPL Reading Room Entrance Hall Lion Sitting in the indoor courtyard, drinking coffee, I felt like I was back in Europe, in a very at-home sort of way. I went into the vast, vaulted reading room with all the green reading lamps in long, glowing rows, and all the long, deeply quiet rows of people studying their books. The ceilings are 3 stories high, and they belong to me. But if my cell phone had started singing Swanee River in there, I know I would have fallen down dead, crumpled into a heap-- killed by the silent hatred of all the people sitting in the long, green rows. Corner of Com Ave and Marlborough I was walking home, looking at the new, green leaves lining the streets, when I realized I was clutching my library books. Clutching them. The thought of sharing books with the city, the knowledge that I could read anything in the entire library that I wanted to, looking forward to folding down the corners of pages with the best pieces and copying them down, and drawing secret magnolias in the margins: all thrilling and comforting in a way that only a librarian's daughter could imagine(librarians themselves never underline passages, not even in pencil. librarians never leave books lying splayed open on desktops. "bad for the binding."). The idea of paying money for a book strikes me as a dirty deal. i don't want books. Bookshelves are nice for decoration, but I think they should pass through people's hands like water or paychecks. Red line. entrance. Around 7, Adam and I took the redline to Harvard (eating strawberries along the way) and the 66 bus to Allston. He took me out to Grasshopper, a "pan-asian vegetarian restaurant" where living vines grew along the walls and an illuminated fish tank bubbled with bright orange coy, and the waiters who came to our table were so adorable that Adam wanted to hold them in his hand. or something. Attracts Fish. Fascinates Reptiles. We just talked and talked and talked. In a way that maybe bordered on pretensiousness, but mostly we talked about real, meaningful things/episodes/thoughts/experiences, the piece, Theater, life directions, painful memories... After shivering at the bus stop for what felt like a really long time, we rode home, and went our separate ways. And it wasn't until I crept into Jonathan's empty room that I realized how sad I felt. Jonothan's empty room: I read a couple of Lorrie Moore stories: about a woman dying of cancer, and lusting after her repulsed and broken husband, and announcing her plans to commit suicide on Bastille Day to all of her close friends at a party: about a woman who has fallen out of love with her lover, but can't leave him because his kidneys fail and he starts pissing blood and she is fantasizing about his funeral. And I just put the book down and started weeping. A leaky, gasping, disbelieving kind of emotional spilling. jonathan came home, "hey, you smell like tears" for a long time, i didn't say anything "what, what, what...?" and i kept spilling. adam is leaving. and i don't have big enough dreams. and i'm afraid i have no purpose. (KNOWING how i sound, still admitting...) we listened to jonathan richman for a long time, and i nestled up in the down comforter while jonathan cleaned his room and held me in a i'll-smile-for-you, so-don't-worry kind of way sometimes. Meanwhile, Pat came in with his film-project, talking to us in a lisping Mexican accent, and we couldn't help laughing and laughing. So, Pat and Jonathan and the other Jonathan made me feel better. and pat's girlfriend katy came over: their last night together for the next... 4 months? jono did some work and i took pictures. And then feeling vaguely tired-eyed, we came home to 132. And went to sleep, lovingly. but i dreamed about digging and protecting children. (Comment on this)
Sunday, May 1st, 2005
11:50 pm	infinite improbability yay friends! yay jonathan! kaja shaved her head! international student identity card photoshoot... ...continued nosotros en la cafeteria. porque? me and the littlest jonogoat gruff dave. dave, my dave. Today I finished my final honors paper, ate a 5 pm breakfast, dropped the paper off in my teacher's mailbox, and stepped out of the Walker Building around 6 pm. "Claire!" A car pulled up to the curb and parked right in front of me. My future roommates, Evan and Jay, who I had never even seen outside of the apartment in Brookline, got out of the car. I couldn't believe it. The whole thing seeemed so casual. They were on their way to the movies and I didn't have anything else to do. "Can I come?" I felt like I had to go see Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with them under these strange circumstance. Throughout the movie, these ridiculously convenient (yet totally improbable) coincidences and lucky chances would move the storyline along. I met Evan's friend from the improv asylum, Brian at the movies too. He works at MIT doing research on string theory. I just feel like I saw this movie under the most oddly appropriate circumstances possible. My favorite part of the movie was probably the musical number, "So Long and Thanks for all the Fish," set to stock footage of dolphins at Sea World. Afterward the movies, we all went out to the China Pearl restaurant in Chinatown, where there was a Chinese wedding reception happening at the same time. Yes, there was kareoke. My fortune was: To make dreams real, first you have to have them. I feel a little more at ease with my roommates now. It was cool to meet up with them this way. Evan was telling me all the things I was going to love about the apartment. Tivo. And a Rice-Maker. It makes the perfect rice. Throw in the rice, forget about it, and by the time dinner is ready you have the perfect rice. It's perfect. So, I have that to look forward to. I always feel more comfortable with someone when I can say, "hey remember that time...?" Oh, glorious! I have no obligations tomorrow. except dinner with adam. and that's not an obligation exactly. More like a date. goodnight! (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 15th, 2005
9:28 am	valentine's day Well, Jonathan and I celebrated Valentine's Day with a trip to Mass General for their open testing clinic. It was fairly painless, and good to have out of the way. Last night was incredible. When I got out of my production crew detail, I raced home to pick up the gingersnaps and sparkling lemonade for my gourmet, jonathan, and burst into the 8th floor common room, expecting my hungry friends to be waiting for my arrival to eat. Instead, I found Katy and Josie cutting out paper hearts and looking at their watches. We did a lot of giggling and waiting and waiting and waiting-- Elizabeth, John and Arnold were our kitchen go-betweens, and they threatened to stay and chaperone our dinner. Jonathan and Pat started cooking around 10 PM and while they were upstairs having heart attack freak outs in the kitchen, Dave bought drinks-- milk, iced tea and orangina-- and set up desk lamps and a stereo crooning Dean Martin to set the mood. We didn't eat until 1:30 in the morning. But I think it was worth the wait. They made linguini and chicken. Pat made Red Sauce (just like his mom's) and Jonathan made clam sauce. It was absolutely delicious and drenched in olive oil. We sat around for a long time, with a half naked dance interlude by Pat and Jonathan, and listened to Pat's favorite disney songs. It was lovely to have our friends in such a romantic mood. The boys were so sweet and goofy-- and everyone was so ridiculously happy that Jonathan threatened to throw himself out the window to return us to equilibrium. We had chocolate covered strawberries and chocolate ice cream for dessert. And we collapsed into bed around 5AM. I woke up about 3 hours later. I am going to be a zombie today-- but it was worth it! I hope this isn't sickeningly sweet to read. I'm sure to the outside world it was. (Comment on this)
Thursday, January 13th, 2005
9:46 am	substitution Today I'm substituting in my old high school. I'm the Spanish teacher and we have a guest speaker who's come in to talk about his experiences living in Spain last semester-- Brad Bondor! He's in Matt's class at TCNJ, and we were friends in high school. So, it's another easy dia suave substitute teaching at Del Val. It's the third time I've done it, so by now it's not so bizarre as it was at first. It really does feel good to be in this place and really feel like I have my shit together. Most of the kids here look miserable with their acned faces and exhausted trudging through the hallways. Luckily time only flows one way. Meaning that after the school wastes the taxpayers' money by paying me $100 to update my livejournal in the teachers' lounge for the next couple of days, time will carry me north and classes will begin at Emerson. And on Sunday I get to move into my new SINGLE room at 132 Beacon Street! Susie is living one floor above me, and Caitlin is living one floor below. And of course Dave, Pat and Jonaphone are just down the street at 100. I'll never have to leave the block! Unless I want to go to classes or something. Well, I now have lots of important high school teacher things to attend to. Solamente 4 dias hasta Boston! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, January 10th, 2005
2:41 pm	back to school I had this vague fear that Boston and Emerson would no longer exist when I came home from the Castle... but as far as I could tell in December it's all still standing. I'm so happy and relieved to return. My only regret is that the Red Sox won. It's not that I would deny the Massachusetts children their happiness, but I'll miss the indignance and emotion once associated with baseball. I think the Red Sox should disband and work up a vaudeville act or something. ...and there has been an incredible development in my life. I have a single! in Six! and a new journal to celebrate. This semester is unbelievable. I'm taking honors philosophy, acting, creative writing, scene painting and mask making. What would my life be like if I went to a real college? I don't even want to think about it. (Comment on this)