good night, and good luck

I sit alone in a dimly lit room typing away at the nothingness of the internet. I say nothingness because despite the hours and hours we devote to it, it gives nothing in return. We may feel like we're a community on these various social networking sites, but it's mostly a facade of timewasting. At least that's how I've felt over the past few months where my own personal internet exchanges have felt severely lacking in some way.

I heard a quote one Sunday at Cornerstone Church. Francis Chan said it, but he said someone else had said it originally, but I don't remember who that someone was supposed to be. Nevertheless it goes something like this: If nothing else, facebook proves that lack of prayer is not for lack of time.
Begging your pardon, but that was severely paraphrased. I know I wrote it down somewhere, but I can't seem to find it.

I suppose I could say that it is for lack of time that I have not updated this blog or my other one. I was quite busy with assisting on Hellzapoppin, the mainstage show at CalArts this fine fall semester. It would appear that it was when I received a break and finally allowed myself a moment to relax that the illness I have felt lingering in my body for the past month decided to spring up. Headache, sniffles, slight sore throat. It's only the beginnings, but I still have hopes that I might be able to beat it away with a big stick.

Hellzapoppin. An entertaining show that lacked coherency and tried to do to many things at once. I wished to feel that communal sense you get when you work on a show and get to know the actors and such, but since I was assistant and not designer, that didn't really happen the way in which I wished it to. I suppose the stress of trying to figure out what the hell I'm doing in my costume classes too would effect that. The designs I'm producing are not the designs I usually produce. I'm bored with the historicity of the class. My designs lack character. I am not investing myself in them as much as I should and this might have something to do with the high turn over rate of each project.

Suffice it to say that going to grad school is tough (not that I expected it to be easy). I think I expected it to be tough in a different way. Which way, I'm not sure. Sometimes I feel like the other people here are really just pretentious bastards hiding behind a facade of intellectualism and critique. But there are many who are not pretentious bastards and those are the ones I befriend more often.

And now I will change the subject and talk about Darren.

This is Darren:
Darren is my boyfriend.

Darren and I met online. The first thing he messaged me about was how Han Solo is a "witty gunslinger archetype." We've been going out for about a month now. I like him, he adores me, so it all works out. So....yeah. Don't really know what else to say about him.

Guess that's it for the life update. Until I have more to post to this silly thing: good night, and good luck.

Oh, and happy thanksgiving.

when the heart hurts

Ruth
Emerson
Tyler
Elizabeth
Diana
Rachel
Bethany
Jessica


My life feels a little less without these dear ones in my daily life.
Yet I have life bursting in other ways.
I suppose I shouldn't complain, but I want them here with me as I attempt this journey through unknown waters...

to help stifle this feeling
(even if it's just for a little while)


that I really am alone.

I think too much.


Okay, maybe only just sometimes.



Because other times,







I don't think at all.

playful things

Today I feel like sharing with you a bit of fiction. This is a new scene from Love Me Dead.
-----------------------------------

PHOEBE
Very nice. What’s that there?

JAMES
Please go away.

PHOEBE
Nope. It looks like a -

She looks/motions suggestively at James.

JAMES
Will you get your mind out of the gutter?

PHOEBE
It’s not me, it’s your drawing. Roxy's going to hate it. (pause) What? You don’t believe me? Ask her yourself...

Phoebe wanders away, but not far. Roxy’s head appears above the chalkboard, a spotlight makes her look like a floating talking head.

JAMES
Roxy?

ROXY
Yes?

JAMES
Roxy, do you love me?

ROXY
It’s like the Beatles, James. All you need...is a formula.

JAMES
What?

ROXY
People don’t fall in love with people. They have a chemical reaction: one person’s pheromones responding to another’s. It has absolutely nothing to do with “cute” or “nice” or “pretty” or “sense of humor” or -

JAMES
(interjecting) Okay! I get it!

ROXY
- or “nice smile” or “kind” or “good with kids.” or “tight butt.”

JAMES
I GET IT!

ROXY
As you psychologically build someone up as a romantic interest, your brain releases addictive chemicals into your body, like dopamine and oxytocin, when in said desired person’s presence. We often mistake this for emotions of happiness.

JAMES
Always the romantic, you are.

ROXY
Side effects often include mood swings, dizziness, loss of appetite, increased heart rate, sweating, nausea, insomnia, and increased bloodflow to the genitalia. Since these pleasure stimulating chemicals retain many addictive qualities, one of the greatest difficulties for someone suffering from love is to, in fact, stop seeing their romantic interest. Neil Sedaka seemed quite aware of this when in 1962 he produced the song: “Breaking Up is Hard to Do.”

JAMES
Roxy! Roxy, listen to me! Love...love is giving up your jacket when it’s cold. It’s fighting with each other til there’s nothing left to do but to kiss and make up. It’s giving them the last bite of your favorite dessert. Love is driving 21 hours straight, across the country, just to be with them for a day. It’s stroking their hair when their head’s in the toilet.

ROXY
Some researchers have shown similarities in the brain activities between subjects in love and subjects with mental illnesses.

JAMES
(to himself) Love really is a madness, isn’t it?

ROXY
Yes, James.

Roxy disappears.

singin in the rain

Every day is a blessing and I have felt this more than usual this week. Things are going well. I finally feel like I have a place at CalArts. I'm working twice as hard on this week's costume project and it's paying off. I'm so pleased by the improvements. Attending Cornerstone Church on Sunday was a blessing. I'm developing deeper friendships with the other designers. I have a place. And this art world, this theatre world is exactly what I should be doing.

Life is going very well (for once).


And I know not to take it for granted. I know from past experience that life behaves very much like a sine wave, good to bad and bad to good. I am blessed regardless. Praise God.

in the morning

This morning, I wake up.
I go downstairs to make a cup of tea with the song "I Only Have Eyes For You" stuck in my head. The incessant chords, the doo wop sound and the melancholy melody reflect my own state of mind.

I Listen to the outside world and the wind Howls. I look outside. The sky looks pissed. The wind talks back. Like in Ingrid's song.

"My bones are shifting in my skin
And you, my love, are gone"


What is it about the morning and just waking up that makes me acutely sensitive to emotions and/or a sixth sense? Like a place between dreaming and waking. And my mind works in overdrive in twisted repetitiveness of "what does it mean?"

Nothing, Gogo. It means nothing.

Penelope

New favorite movie. Stunning visuals. Art direction and costuming was beautiful. It created its own fantasy world for the modern day. Loved it.