Colorado Springs

They keeping changing the roads in this city. Add my terrible sense of direction to moving roads and I'm perpetually lost. The strip malls on repeat don't help. If it wasn't for the mountains giving me a point of reference, I think I would lose my mind trying to get from one place to another.

It's nice to see my family and old friends, the stars, and open space between cities. I love the forest and the way people smile at you from passing cars, and the customer service can't be beat.

The dry air is making my face breakout, although my hair looks amazing. I can't seem to sleep at this altitude, so i'm always tired and always attempting to nap.

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ILM

oh no! Darth vader has our heads!!

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Dedicated to the artist...

As I walk out the door, I say to Allison "goodbye - I'm never coming back!". She smiles, I wave...and I find myself with a strange sense of freedom - like maybe I won't go back. What would happen if at this moment I just took what I had with me and left... ?

As my step lightens, I'm all of a sudden hit with this thought of impending doom - that maybe I'll get shot or I'll accidentally walk into traffic (as I'm typing this very moment while I'm walking) and I won't actually go back. Like, I nonchalantly, unintentionally predicted my own death and, when word gets back to the office, after the initial shock wears off, at some point Allison will realize that just before I left I actually said I was never coming back. Now it all seems so significant...

And then someone will discover this - my blog. "Did you know that Kristen was writing about this exact moment (meaning the one right now where you're reading this) just before she died? I feel so uncomfortable and inspired at the same time (this is me channeling you in the first person from my life before death - clever, eh? heh heh - yeah, okay, not really... clever, I mean)".

....

I continue to walk. Nothing's happening to me. No guns. No fire from the sky. Cars are dodging me left and right. I'm strangely invincible... There is a strong smell of tar in the air. I breathe it in deeply.

Making my way back to the office, I start to think, maybe it's good thing that I haven't had scaffolding fall on me. Maybe it's okay to return to the office with a sense of relief that I have survived ...

I say hello to Allison. She acts like she didn't even notice that I said I was never coming back...


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Breaktime for Billy

From earlier today...

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Phantom

We rushed to get here, find parking, grab a quick bite... and it turns out I had the time wrong! Show starts at 8pm not 7 (Berkeley Rep has me thinking all Wednesday night theater starts at 7).

... So we sit in Starbucks and wait while Hallelujah plays over the PA...

We saw a bunch of people getting arrested on our way over. A girl in a shiny jumpsuit stood on the side of the road in handcuffs surrounded by her baggy clothed friends, cops, flashing lights, passersby... Something about it made me really sad.

Josh is reading Odd News and eating nuts. "Bull storms mall, scares shoppers"

We've moved on to smooth jazz and Christmas songs ... Some guys made room for us at the window bar ... I have a terrible feeling that i'm not really drinking decaf ... A really old guy in a red beanie just rolled by on a razor scooter ... We still have 45 minutes to go ...

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Fish taco day!

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The ocean

I remember this one grey day when I went to the ocean with Tyler and Matt... as I watched Tyler's silhouette dance across the waves, Matt brought pieces of crab shell and reassembled them around me until I had three whole crab skeletons sitting with me in the sand. I sat with my journal and wrote about the grey and the silhouettes and the crabs...

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Thanksgiving

In Marin at Maureen and Dave's pretty little house on the ridge... :) A wonderful assortment of food, wine, new friends, and the best hosts you could ask for.

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Rock me

They're playing Rock Me Amadeus at Burger Joint and it's totally making my day.

It's raining. We have these loaner umbrellas at the office, so I grabbed one as I left. I generally avoid umbrellas at all costs, but I didn't dress for the weather today so, in a effort to not be more cold than I already am, I decided staying dry was a good choice. The umbrella I grabbed is just about the biggest umbrella i've ever seen. I'm pretty sure the diameter matches my height.

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Saturday fun

$1 wine tasting!

We got a bottle of EVIL (please read upside down) and Mark West, which is very close to Matt's stage name (Mark Winters).

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Game night

At Brian's gorgeous apartment on twin peaks... I could completely get lost in the view from the balcony.

His apartment is filled with artwork and books - an incredible collection of inspiration, thought, and design.

A night full of delicious lental soup, french pressed coffee, wine, laughter, music, stories... Fun! Oh, and games. ;)

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Obama

I tried to post this on Sunday, but I guess it didn't work.

Josh and I went to Everette and Jones for dinner and it was Obama crazy in there! Obama everywhere... :)

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Dinner w Maureen

Wow, it's been way too long... :)

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Oh yeah...

...and last night I met the famous V. Vale. He gave me some tips on Chinese food in North Beach. It's all about Chef Gia's (sp?) apparently. Ha! What a fun and fascinating man... :)

It's great to be in a place where you feel like art just moves all around you.

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Work by Matt Gonzalez

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Emily party

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Forever Tango

Wow, what a great show!

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This looks like a fun job

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Out to lunch

I just found out there will likely be layoffs in our office. Whether my job is secure or not, this makes me really sad...

I'm taking a walk to get some air and to get some lunch. It feels like a perfect, clear, calm, autumn day outside.

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Voting

It's a nice sunny day in Oakland. The line isn't too bad and people seem in good spirits.
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Madonna!

Madonna is still completely hot.

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Day at the studio

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Halloween night

Dinner with friends, then off to a great warehouse party! My costume didn't really work, I was supposed to be an anime character. :)

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The weeners

It's a perfectly crisp overcast rainy Halloween. :)
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Shoes

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Saved or Destroyed

I tried to quit this play so many times!

I told the director I couldn't do it because I was in another show that opened the same weekend. He decided I could share the part with someone else and could still do his show the following weekends. Then, I couldn't go to rehearsals, completely missed tech week and never ran my lines with the cast AT ALL, and the other person playing my role was great at it so why disrupt a good thing, right? But the director still wanted me on stage. I told him I wasn't going to learn any of my lines until the week before I was supposed to go on because I needed to focus on the other show, and that I would be completely unprepared. He said I could just walk around reading the script.

Last Saturday night, while I was still learning the lines and the blocking and had still never been on stage with the cast, I found myself stumbling through a live show. It was a rough night. I feel like I got through it alright, but I don't think I was ready to be onstage.

I had a week to recover and polish up my lines and blocking on my own, and then I was back on the stage Thursday and Friday night. Walking in feeling like I finally knew my lines made a huge difference.

Thursday night was a great show. A small audience but a good one. Friday night had a nice big audience and also felt like a solid show. A really hot (temperature wise) show, but a good one.

*sigh*

After all of that, i'm really glad I got to be a part of this strange, dark, and unfinished play (Kondolean's last play written on his deathbed. Maybe not his best work, but a brilliant playwright.).

Thanks Val... :)

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My cat barfed on this picture

It's a photo I took of my friend Jacob at 4am one night (morning) in the dorms. It was for a photography assignment, and is still one of my favorite photos.

I guess she was on the window sill above it hanging over like a drunkard on a curb aiming for the gutter... What's funny is I can't decide if she's ruined the photo or just added some weird artistic cat barf charm to it. It was hairball barf and managed to dribble straight down the photo where Jacob's dripping hair also falls.

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Backstage

Well kinda...backstage, that is. Closing weekend. 2 shows to go. I feel more prepared this weekend at least. A week to learn lines isn't enough. I'll remember that.
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Hogwarts

Jim just walked by and told me he liked my Hogwarts' colors. I had no idea what that meant. Apparently it's Harry Potter's school colors so now all I can think about is how I must look like Harry Potter today...

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My debut

Tonight I had my only rehearsal...without the cast. I learned these lines on Sunday, and I go on stage tonight.

Before coming into the theatre I witnessed a woman selling (I can only assume) some kind of pills on the street. She had a bunch of rough looking dirty guys coming up to her taking stuff out of her coat, then popping something into their mouths as they walked away. Then she stood thumbing threw a huge wad of cash...
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There's always parking...

...in crackville. At least everytime I've come to this theater during off show hours. Interesting how crack and theater seem to go together. Or, is that just the San Francisco theater district.
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Heading into the Exit

I watch the show tonight and tomorrow, and then Saturday i'm on the stage. I don't feel really nervous about this show, even though i've got to be completely freaked out about it on the inside somewhere... I think the recovery from the last show has me in denial for the moment, so i'm anticipating a complete freakout breakdown sometime soon.
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Night of the fights

The show opened and closed this past weekend. Just a run of two nights. I wish it could've run a bit longer... But such is the life of a Jr. College show.

I was in two scenes. One was made up of excerpts from a Henry Hwang play called FOB where i worked with this great woman named Shawn and my good friend Jermaine. I felt that Andrea (the director of the show) did a great job directing and choregraphing this piece. The scene featured a kung fu fight between me and Jermaine.

The other scene I did was a sword fight from Dangerous Liasons where I had the privledge of fighting with Dave, the incredible fight director I do a lot of work with. it was a short, kind of creepy scene centered around a sword fight.

I thought both of my performances were better the second night. The first night had a lot of mishaps with props and weird audience incidents.

Now, i'm desparately trying to learn the lines for the other show that i'm supposed to be performing in this next Saturday, and then Thursday and Friday following.


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Free parking

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Broken sword

Tonight, in the middle of our dress rehearsal, I'm dressed like an action figure fighting king fu style with a wooden sword, and on our last big hit my hilt and sword go flying leaving me with a wooden handle and splintered stump. That's a hard moment to recover from.

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The stage...

...for the other show.

I feel weak.

Both of my shows open this weekend. I don't feel ready for either. Luckily I only focus on this show this weekend, and then attempt to be ready for the other show for the next weekend(s). Remind me not to do this to myself again.

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Rehearsal at the exit theaters

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