One of the phrases you will hear uttered the most at Burning Man as you run into people you know... and even that you don't is "Welcome Home" and it is usually accompanied by a warm heartfelt hug. 

As I've said before, Burning Man is not for everyone but those that return year to year whether consistently or sporadically are essentially making a pilgrimage home each time. 

Pilgrimage seemed like such a perfect word but I decided to look it up just to see if there was anything else I could gleam from it but the definition(1&3 in particular) is just too perfect on its own:

The Black Rock Desert is a magical place and people want to be there, but the journey is often fraught with issues. You will often hear stories of cars breaking down, caravans getting separated, hitch hiking from the airport, supplies being stolen before leaving or just the overwhelming feeling of being stuck just beyond the gate for hours. 

In 2011 some of those issues were my own group. 3 cars were going up together.. 1 breaks down, 1 stays with the broken down car and the 3rd car (which Hans and I were in) were tasked with leaving everyone behind and getting in to the city to secure the camping spot. Well when you're the car that gets there first, there is a sigh of relief and then a whole lot of panic when you realize all supplies.. and I mean ALL of the important ones are in the broken down car and there is no way to communicate with anyone. This is when the people of black rock start stepping up. There is a big emphasis on radical self reliance but at the same time the community is full of love. We were offered water and shelter from the camp next to us and that was a moment of joy. They weren't going to let us freeze or dehydrate. They really wanted to help. 

This year one theme camp filled up their entire truck and the next day it wasn't there. It had been stolen! On a lucky note, this happened in enough time for the Burning Man community to step up and offer help. The camp was able to get a shade structure, bicycles and a bunch of other important things all because people wanted to donate and help out their fellow burners. I stopped at their camp and they were wonderful. I'm glad they got to go. It also doesn't hurt that they provided me with food :)

There is also a spiritual element to the event. Not religion, just spirituality. Not to say there isn't a place for religion.. there is.. everyone is welcome but I don't find it as prominent as just a general feeling of something special. 

For one there is a temple. In this temple there is an overwhelming feel of relief, sorrow, love and a whole lot of other powerful emotions that I can never place my finger on. The temple to me is like a giant beautiful calming reset button. I'm not in there to honor someone who has passed like many of the people there but I am in there to find peace which I think it the goal of most people in there. To rest, to reset, to find a balance between your emotions. 

Now I did veer off my original intent of this entry but sometimes that's just the thing that needs to happen. 

Back to the journey. The journey to Burning Man pretty much no matter where you are driving from is long. Driving from LA is about 14 hours when you factor in gas, food and pee breaks. Driving up the 5 is boooooring,  there is an alternate route but when that is on fire and there are reports of cops stopping all the burners then you might just need to choose the boring route and be happy with it. There is a sense of accomplishment when you finally turn off the real road into dirt....until you remember that you have to wait in an entrance line that can take 5 hours.....and generally does. You're so excited to be getting home but there is almost a moment of being defeated when it's just so close and you can't get in. It's so fucking frustrating!!!  

And then it happens... you've officially gone through all the check points and the only thing left between you and you're glorious camp is the 5mph speed limit. Painstakingly slow does not even begin to describe it but you deal with it because YOU ARE HOME!!

Aside from the boring drive and the random stopping of all traffic and the long entrance line I am pleased to say we had no complications this year. It was a dream come true.....

I am going to Burning Man... In fact a large amount of people are going to Burning Man. It's an event that many people care deeply for, are curious about or you may be one of the many who couldn't care less.

What I am already seeing on facebook is people saying things like this:

YAY!!! Burning Man!!! Who else can't wait for a week of air in LA without all that patchouli stink??

There was also a little smiley face with the tongue sticking out that won't show up on here...I'm sorry.. but your use of an emoticon does not make you any less rude. I apologize for grabbing that particular message as I do not want the person to think I am trying to publicly shame them... (please note that if you recognize this as a mutual friend, I am simply using this as an example and do not feel ill will towards them) it just happened to be the latest and it will certainly not be the last.. I'm sure this person is having fun and not intentionally being a dick... but.. come on... it's rude. (please note that since I just finished another blog about Burning Man and I was feeling pretty good about it, I took more offense than normal to this status)

I have to hear about everyone going to Coachella and I don't see people making fun of them, We are constantly bombarded with people talking about their various trips, complete with picture updates... and they aren't made fun of... So why is my one vacation this year that costs thousands of dollars need to have such...hate? (is that the right word?) towards it? What I don't understand is why does Burning Man constantly have people making status updates about how they will be relieved to have the hippies out of town? and why do over half of the comments involve patchouli? It happens every year. I've always seen it happen. Even before I decided to go.

Have you talked with someone who has gone to Burning Man? Have you gone to the official page and read the literature about what Burning Man is about? Have you gone before and just hate it?

I just don't understand. Now most of my friends are artists so I really truly cannot fathom why they wouldn't be interested in or at least curious about a week long event that involves such diverse art and people. Yes, the event is strange and has very harsh conditions and it is absolutely not for everyone, but do you really need to make fun of it? What are you gaining by doing so? Are you patting yourself on the back for being clever? is your status really just put up for one particular burner friend that you are poking fun at? Do you think that I am an idiot for going? I'm going to have to assume you're a nice person and that you aren't trying to make me feel like a crazy asshole for going...but the fact is... you are.

I'm not a hippie, patchouli makes me nauseous and I don't even think that is a particularly clever or accurate description of a hippie in this day and age. I'm just a normal person who is adding an interesting experience to their life and I would expect people to show some sort of respect that I have made this decision.

I know that I don't have a huge amount of readers and this may seem crazy but this blog is for me and my observations and my feelings. I only hope that if you are one of the people reading this that feels the need to post status updates about this sort of thing.. that maybe you will think twice about how it is seen by the people who are going.

also.. I am speaking for myself. There is also a large population going to Burning Man who are a bit more strong willed than me. In fact.. most of them probably are and they probably could give a fuck less what you have to say.

Part of my reason for going is to become the latter half. I don't want to wonder what my actions are seen as or who is judging me.. I would love to say "I don't give a fuck" and fully believe it.
One day.....

I find one of the hardest parts about Burning Man is not surviving the intense day time heat, the strange change in appetite, the heightened emotions, the less than delightful toilets and the cold nights...it's actually the prep.

The brain swirls with "what if..."

This is a very good thing and also a very bad thing. If you are already an anxious person such as myself then this can lead to panic attacks and general horrific worry.

I was doing quite a good job at packing and getting everything ready. I was determined not to wait until the last minute on anything. I had my list of things from the previous trek out to the playa and my ideas to improve my experience. Everything was going swimmingly until yesterday. Yesterday is when my brain exploded. The simple problem of my bike having a flat (after being at the Bike Oven the day before), not being able to find one of the foods I wanted to buy, and the cleaning of my headlamp which turned out to be the exact thing that would break it... was just a little much for me. It was as if all my good intentions and prep were reduced to one epic sad feeling. It felt like I suddenly hadn't done anything. Ridiculous? Absolutely! But that is just what happens. Well.. at least to me.

I know I just need to calm down. I'll have a new headlamp, 2 brand new tires and the food I wanted delivered from Amazon on Wednesday (thank goodness for Prime membership!). I'm not a failure, I didn't wait until the last minute and I've done just about everything I could.

I will survive this momentarily irksome "failure", I will make it all the way to the desert with everything I need and I will enjoy my time. Radical self reliance will be my bitch! 

right? right!

It's happening... The Man burns in.... 24 days! (or some smaller amount depending on when I actually post this)

I previously went to Burning Man in 2011. It was my first burn and I was equal parts terrified and excited. I thought it was going to be some eye opening experience since everyone always seems to describe it as such. It really wasn't like that for me. I camped with a group of people where I knew some of them, others were brand new and some were just the biggest self centered assholes in the world. Guess which ones ruined the experience for me?

It should have been different. I should have gone off and been as far away from those people as possible but when you're trying to be a community it's really hard to tell someone to fuck off. Or at least I have a problem doing that. I'm a whole lot nicer than I appear sometimes.

I stayed close to the group, was scared I was going to get lost and was just generally a little out of it.

The times that I treasured the most were when Hans and I were exploring on our own, or when I took a deep breath and road off by myself. One day we sat in some sort of open geometric sculpture (this year the temple is being made by the same people) it was beautiful to look at and so lovely to sit in with a breeze going past in the hot desert sun... I started to fall asleep. Of course it wouldn't be burning man if someone didn't come by and offer fresh cold mango...right? The next adventure we had was walking around the playa at night going towards anything that was glowing, in the end we ended up at a movie theater where surprisingly all our other friends already were...that's the playa for you. You never know what's going to happen. We also found interactive art, slept on an oasis of fake grass, found a dome full of awesome art and danced like we didn't care in a more than dead party. It didn't matter...we had fun.
Then my own adventure was when I went to the temple and sat around drawing and writing in a little journal. I eventually had a conversation with a man who had been giving out massages. I wanted a massage but was feeling too shy to ask for some reason.  He was of course a little weird but really happy. He told me he saw...I think he said aura... but he saw swirls of purple coming off of me etc... I opened my book which he had no way of seeing and showed him a sketch I had just done in another area of the temple which was all purple swirls, it was a crazy coincidence that was kind of lovely. He also gave me a bottle filled with love. Yes, to an outsider or someone who maybe doesn't want to believe in silly things it was just an empty bottle, but to me, right at that very moment...it was perfection. He told me to open it and let out the love whenever I needed it. Honestly it was very sweet.

Burning Man is part survival, part art and part total crazy. I thought for sure I wouldn't survive. I assumed that I was going to wilt in the heat and that my medical issues and pain would spike and I would surely have to go home early.
Nope..I survived! I was ok. I didn't have the best time and swore I would never go back.. but here I am.. gearing up for another try.

I spent many many years believing I didn't have any friends. This mostly stems from the fact that as a child I wasn't allowed to invite people over to my house to play so no one really invited me anywhere and when they did I always felt awkward and guilty because I could not reciprocate. I was also waaaay too nice. I would buy expensive gifts for friends that I don't think ever cared about me, but if I kept on giving good presents well yea... I would invite me to birthday parties too.
It's not that I didn't have friends, it's just that someone always had a best friend that wasn't me who they shared their dreams and secrets with and I was always just on the outside of that. It felt pretty shitty. I didn't know what I did for people not to trust me, when really it was probably the fact that I was so painfully shy that I almost never talked.
One of my favorite stories now (believe me it was very different when I was going through it) is that my elementary school thought I had learning problems because I had trouble reading out loud. Apparently that meant I had trouble reading in general and that I needed to be put into a special class. I was actually pretty smart but wouldn't show it. I could read just fine, in fact I loved reading... but I didn't want to speak in front of anyone. So when reading time started in class I had to leave my classroom and go to a special room with an aide who helped me and several other students learn to read.. or in my case, just speak up. Now, that wasn't all bad. Not only did I not have to talk in my regular class but every time I read out loud in this cramped room with the 5 other students I got a star...when I got a certain number of stars I got a prize. Whoever had the most stars got to pick a prize out of the box first. Who usually got to pick first? Me! That's right, I'm awesome. While everyone was in the regular class reading out loud for the teacher, I was in this room earning prizes! I think that was kind of sweet deal.

So, back to friendship. I always felt out of place. In elementary school I was super quiet and people would come up with creative ways to call me fat... this is when I developed a temper (not to mention an intense body complex). A boy would call me fat or chubby or stupid or whatever terrible thing that would come out of their mouth and out of nowhere my foot went into their knees so fast. There is only so much a child can take before they lash out. I was a kicker. I didn't have any particularly good retorts and I thought I had to stand there and take it for the longest time since every time I walked away the taunting got worse. So I started kicking. Someone probably should have taught me differently. I don't think I ever got in trouble with a yard duty and the boys weren't going to tell on me no matter how bruised their knees got. Soooo...win?
This didn't make me too popular with any of the boys and they just found new ways to get to me. I remember playing baseball with some boys and the pitcher (his name was Ryan) asked everyone to come in because I wasn't going to hit it. It was pretty sweet when I hit the ball directly at him so he had to jump and it went flying past everyone. Suckers.

From there... Junior High. Just another place for people to be cruel to me, this time it included teachers!
I had people make fun of me as I walked to my locker, I spoke up more in English class and shocked fellow students with my knowledge of "big" words... still felt like an outsider. There is one particular memory that will always stay with me. It was art class and the teacher was not nice. One day when I went up to him to show him what I had been working on and get approval, he asked me if I had been smoking in the bathroom. He accused me of this very loudly in front of the entire class..so loudly that everyone stopped working on their projects to stare at me. I stuttered a shocked and embarrassed NO. But he kept insisting I smelled like smoke and that he wouldn't tolerate it. He asked the people in line behind me to smell me and confirm that I smelled like smoke. I tried to defend myself but it was of no use, he told me to sit down and if he ever smelled smoke on me again that he would get me expelled. This was just about the most inappropriate thing a teacher could ever do to me. I should mention that I probably did smell like smoke because both of my parents smoked but I didn't know I smelled.  I became even more closed off then before, wouldn't speak to anyone in art class. One day Dylan in my class decided to take one of my personal hammers away from me... I should explain why we had hammers in class, we were working on copper art work and we were requested to bring in our own hammers to complete the project since the art room didn't have enough for everyone. Dylan came up behind me, grabbed one of my hammers and ran back to his spot and started using it. If I remember correctly I got up, walked over to him and punched him in the arm as hard as I could. There was definite disturbance in the classroom and I got in trouble even though he was stealing from me. This teacher clearly did not like me. At this point I became an angry closed off person and assumed everyone was out to get me. This was of course suuuper healthy.
Now I had some friends in Junior High, many of which were with me in elementary school. We recognized each other and we hung out. I still didn't feel like I had a bond with anyone specifically. I realize now, looking back that I did. I had always considered Angela a friend, we played together, I knew her family, I felt like she was a friend but I also still felt like maybe I was weird, and I wondered if I was going to be cast aside. Not because I thought Angela was that type of person...not at all.. I was just full of insecurities. She never did cast me off. She's a good person and I am still very fond of her.
I probably had more good times in junior high than I remember. It just seems like that bad instances influenced my behavior so much that I remember them more clearly and vividly.

High School. I think High School is where I finally figured out a lot more about myself..which I assume is the case with most people. I had a regular lunch spot with a group of friends and I have fond memories of sitting in the shade eating my sandwich and watching people like Jesse goof off and romances bud between members of our group. I was still quiet but in this group...quiet was fine. I was part of it and life was just that much better.
I did have my share of torment. The same boys who were mean to me in elementary school and junior high.. continued with their trend of being assholes. One year I had a locker at the very bottom next to a wall. As you can imagine as a 5'8'' female I was not pleased with the assignment but I didn't fight it. A popular boy...Danny.. had his locker two above mine in the row. If we were there at the same time he would purposely drop books on my head and say oops and roll his eyes and laugh. Then I guess he got bored of books and wanted his friends to join him so then oranges started to get thrown at me. Why!? I have no fucking clue. I cannot tell you a single reason. I would also end up with gum stuck to my locker or other stuff chucked on it. I did nothing to these boys. I tried to ignore them, tried to be friends, tried to fight back.. none of it worked. The torment didn't just end at my locker. In English class Sophomore year I was the top student. The teacher at one point knew that I was able to answer every question so he stopped allowing me to raise my hand and would only call on me if no one else could give him the correct answer. It felt good... but every time the teacher turned around crumbled paper, spit wads or erasers would be thrown at my head, or I would be called names... yay.. just what I wanted.
Junior year I was in English class and for some dumb reason the English teachers son was allowed to take his class. This kid took full advantage of it. One day he stole my entire desk. I had given up at this point so I sat down on the floor. The teacher called my name for attendance and I responded. He was so confused because he couldn't see me. He asked me where my desk was and I said that I didn't know and that I was perfectly fine on the floor. This was either pathetic or full of courage. Who knows. I just didn't even care any more. My favorite subject was being ruined by idiots. This is when my passion for school stopped. I no longer engaged it discussions, I stopped raising my hand, I could no longer remember what allegory meant and although I felt bad because on a normal basis I would know ...... I just gave up on everything. I passed the class with no problem but I no longer made an effort. I had asked about being in the AP class prior to my Junior year because my Sophomore teacher couldn't figure out why I was in his class if I was that smart, but I'm not so good with test taking so I didn't have the SAT scores they were looking for. Finally after many questions being asked I was told "oh, well if you wanted it that much you should have just told us, you can write a timed essay after school and we will see about getting you in a better class." idiots. If they had listened to me the year before I would have never had to deal with dumb-asses stealing my desk and maybe just maybe I would have been a little bit happier. I did nail the timed essay by the way and ended being taken out of the regular class and put into AP where I excelled. My hand remained raised, I was always chosen to read out loud and I did well on my tests and was never made fun of. Finally.. a class where I felt like I could be myself. How very refreshing. I sat behind Laura in this class and we chatted and I felt like a real teenager. The rest of my classes were mostly crap though.
Aside from my success at getting into AP English I had one other period in my schedule that made everything better.. which eventually turned into 2, then 3, then 4 and 5. Choir. Choir was my savior. It was full of drama but at least I got to sing. I started off with Women's Glee, anyone could join as long as they were female.. solid... I enjoyed myself so much that I then joined the co-ed choir that met at Zero period..which I didn't even know existed. Zero period!? I had to get to school before 1st period to learn music. I was often late and scrambling to get in the door before the teacher locked it but it was worth it. At one point I was in 4 choir groups. (rehearsal was zero period....3rd period? during lunch and after school) I felt really please with myself. I started off super shy in women's glee, but one day out of no where I decided to stop being nervous and when I auditioned for a solo I burst out with such force and conviction that I got it! and I realized.. Oh snap, I'm finally being recognized, I am finally free and I shook off my insecurity for choir and started just doing my thing. That did take awhile though simply because I had a moment where I went to audition for a solo prior to that and before I started the teacher said "you know we can't lower this for you" well that shot all my confidence and I squeaked and cried. My choir peeps were what got me through high school as well as the drama kids. Remember just a but ago when I mentioned a group of friends I would eat lunch with? Well most of those people went to play rehearsal after school and I would walk with them and hang out until their rehearsal started. I was pretty jealous that they had somewhere to go. Well..I was in the right place at the right time. They were rehearsing A Midsummer Nights Dream and I was standing in the doorway watching while waiting for my mom to pick me up. This day the teacher could not take the absences and the lateness anymore and he went on the biggest yelling rant I have ever witnessed. I watched it all.. stunned.. mostly I was just too scared to walk away. He then came up to me and said "you're here more than the rest of  these people, you're in the show now"  It wasn't the most glamorous way to get started in acting but I'm sure glad it happened. Between choir and drama I finally felt like I had some friends. I was still horrifically depressed and often awkward but at least I had people to say hello to in the halls and sit with and giggle with. I started bonding with people. The next year I was able to add Drama to my schedule and I was delighted. I had two rooms (the choir and the drama room) where I felt like I was home. It was a good feeling.

One by one my older friends graduated and I was sad, there were special to me, but I still had my core group and the younger people in choir and drama crazily looked up to me. I had found my spot.

It should be no surprise that I went on to apply to college for a Music Major. (actually...crazy story about that. I was looking at majors in Botany, Geology. Oceanography, Music and Theater and mostly back east. I have always been quite eclectic in my interests)
I'm going to skip past the story of my friendships in college. it's long and involved. Just know that Opera students are crazy and wonderful. I only spent a year in the Opera program because I didn't feel like I was getting the education I needed so I moved over to the theater department where I met some of my bestest friends. You may know them as the ones chanting State School if you are a Sacred Fools regular.

After college I was sure I wanted to be a stage manager and I worked with several companies but finally found a permanent home at Sacred Fools. Although I didn't arrive there as a stage manager. I arrived at Sacred Fools as an actress but stuck around doing various things.

This is the place where my friends are. There is an entire building of them! I may not be hanging out with them every night of the week but when I show up for Serial Killers or any other show I am met with smiles and chit chat and that is pretty damn great. We have our issues and I still feel like an outcast from time to time but I know that I'm wanted and I think I would be missed if I went away, which is a pretty great feeling.

In the beginning I thought maybe people didn't like me, but I realize that isn't true. I'm not always going to be the first person invited somewhere because I still have the part of me that tries to fade into the scenery but people who have taken the time to get to know me appreciate my presence and that's what feels good. Being appreciated. It's all I ever wanted.

To those of you who like, love, adore me.. whatever word you use.. just to let you know.. it's reciprocated. If you took the time to put me in your life and your heart, rest assured you are in mine. (unless you're a dick...stop being a dick and I'll re-evaluate)

let's be friends m'kay!

Kindness is something we should all practice. Sometimes it is exceptionally hard to show kindness to someone who is being rude or argumentative but we should try. Kindness can be in the form of empathy, understanding, compassion...anything really.

it's easier to be nice, compassionate, kind and understanding when you are face to face with someone but on the internet it is a completely different story.
It seems that the internet is where combat takes place. The internet.. well.. let's say Facebook because that is really what I happen to be talking about.... Facebook is where you re-post articles that express your views, or you make comments about how someone is crazy for believing something specific, or maybe you just use facebook to say Wut Up to your peeps... it doesn't matter, there are opinions flying everywhere at every minute of the day and it's hard to keep up.

Some people willingly engage in combat as they want to be right... others ignore the comments that bother them. But I did something interesting this weekend. I had a comment posted to my page that upset me. It honestly didn't matter why it upset me.. but it did. So I decided that it was my time to stop being the girl that gets stepped on because my feelings matter too.  So I expressed how I was upset to the person who made the comment. I expected some understanding in the situation. I was so very very wrong.  I received the most combative, rude and insane message back. I was in such shock. I had no idea that what I said... about what that person said... would result in me crying on a Saturday night.

I know I was right to express my opinion on the comment and I know that they were right for expressing their opinion as well, but sometimes you have to take a moment and try to understand the other person. I told them that I knew that they didn't mean harm because I felt that to be true and I wanted them to be aware that I was trying to understand them...this person did not take the time to understand anything because within moments of my message I had one back that was just so uncalled for. It would have been fine if they didn't agree with me and even if they thought I was a little weird for being upset but instead they attacked.

I'm old enough to know that I need to be secure in who I am. I am not always secure but I certainly know that people can't continue to treat me like crap. It is clear that this person and I are very different people. I try to understand why someone is acting a certain way and this person apparently doesn't care. I don't really have time for that. Not anymore.

The people who mean the most to me know that. They know I try to understand. I may not always get it... but I'm trying.

English is a complicated language. Even people born and raised in America don't know what is correct half the time when it comes to spelling, speech, grammar, syntax and whatever else.

I, just like most people fall prey to misspellings and run on sentences. In fact, I typically love run on sentences when expressing emotions and the more ellipses in a sentence the better for me. It's just how I write. It's not correct, but it is me.

In an online world where it is more important to be up to date... or rather the first to say something, it's hard to get it right.

This drives some people crazy and others it just passively annoys. If someone misspells the word illiterate (** cough** westboro baptist church **cough**) then I'm going to be pretty peeved (or some other major word), but if your iPhone auto corrects the to they.. or some other misspelling, or random word.. I'm going to accept it as big hands on a tiny keyboard and move past it.

I would love to get it right every time. Every sentence to be eloquently phrased without the use of spell check and the like, but it is not going to happen. I could have been an English major, I could have had a deep and powerful connection with literature and the English language but I was not an English major (ok, I kind of was for a semester but that is not what is important here). I love language but I'm not engrossed in every rule there is. Should I be? yes, I probably should.. but I don't think I was raised to be perfect. I was raised to write an essay and think about how and why things relate, sure grammar and syntax were graded but the main point was to think.

I respect a person who uses their brain to form theories and can stand up for themselves. I do not need a person to use the biggest words or tell me they went to an ivy league school. I'm glad you got that education and it works for you but if you can use tiny words to say big things, then congrats to you.

For those of you who do have all of the rules in your head... you are fucking amazing. No, joke... I think you are awesome and I'm glad someone has it, but don't make others feel bad, that seems to happen a lot. People are scared to write because they don't want to seem dumb. They might be, but a lot of people aren't and just don't want you to poke fun at them. Let's all calm down.

I am currently sitting back stage at Sacred Fools Theater and we are in the middle of Round Two of The Serial Killers Playoffs (or night three for those who are wondering). We are hearing the guffaws of an enthusiastic audience member over a distorted monitor and I'm surrounded by a grown man in a diaper, a man dressed as a Nazi with Hitler wandering around somewhere in the theater, a man in some sort of magical green costume, a 1950's house wife, a cowgirl, and earlier there were topless girls and musicians around. This place is magical and I can't get enough of it. 

We come in weekly and smear our funny on the stage and leave a myriad of emotions floating in the air. We excel at comedy but we can bring heart when the timing is right.

I'm a company member here so I'm slightly biased but our oversold evening of wacky groundbreaking new shows going head to head in a fight to be the best tells me that the LA Theater community must also agree, otherwise we would have an empty house. If I'm not mistaken we had about 20 or more people who had to be turned away because we just couldn't accommodate them.

I didn't have time to finish the blog on my ipad as I sat backstage so I'm taking up finishing this on a Sunday afternoon. I am reflecting on the events of last night. It was a fierce competition and I am delighted I was a part of it. I'm slightly saddened by the fact that the piece I performed in did not make it to next weeks round of playoffs but I know there were so many good shows last night that it was hard to choose who to "kill" 

Sunday is the day where I sleep in, exhausted from staying at the theater until a minimum of 2am discussing the pieces that performed, listening to music, catching up with friends and watching people leave everything on the dance floor aka the stage they most likely just performed on. It's a home, a community and most of all a safe place to explore your skills. I love my theater and they love me. 

There are hundreds of wonderful things that I could say about the place, as well as a few not so flattering ones.. but even with the flaws that the theater has, just like all of us as individuals do, I still think we are doing something great. I hope that if you've never been to our little theater that you will one day. You'll love it, I promise. 

My time is spent doing a number of things and they are definitely not as productive as they should be.

I should spend time with the following activities: learning how to play piano, learning to play guitar, warming up my voice so I'm always at the ready, exercising, doing as many VoiceOver projects as I possibly can, learning more about audio programs,finishing all the stories I've started writing and finally writing more blogs to free my mind.

Instead my time seems to be spent working,worrying about work, wondering about my future, dealing with pain and trying or succeeding at sleeping.

There are people I see who are so incredibly busy but are doing what they love and struggling with money weekly but I admire them. I'm fairly safe when it comes to my finances but I spend more time at work than anything else that it makes me so exhausted that I don't want to do anything else. It kinda sucks. Ok it really sucks. I can't wait for the moment where I have a job that is in line with what I love and my exhaustion will be one of love and not frustration.

Some day.....

Throughout my years I have been a wide eyed pessimist. Yup... that's what I'll call it. I'm surprisingly trusting for someone who sees the world in a fucked up gray light. Most people think I'm grumpy and hate everything which isn't necessarily true. I have a huge love for quite a number of things. But I wanted to express a secret.

Every time I'm driving along and I see a stalled car and a bunch of people have stopped to help push.. my eyes start to water. Why? it is pure joy that people care enough to help someone else. Now here is another secret, I want to be one of those people pushing. My instinct is to stop, always. Unfortunately for me and them I have some back issues and I could hurt myself something fierce if I did help push. suckola!  I just can't be the person who helps :(
If it was a friend in need, then yeah.. I would help and sacrifice my back, but I just can't for a random stranger. It's hard to stifle that instinct.

speaking of watering eyes..... there is one other thing that without fail always makes my eyes water and it is music. When there is a huge swell in choral singing whether it is in a musical or opera my heart just sort of breaks and stops for a moment and my eyes start to water. There is something so beautiful to me. I don't know if it is because I sang in choirs for so long or if it is just something in me that loves that moment.

Those are my secrets for today. Not anything major but still nothing I've gone blabbing into the air until now.