Gravity

I guess I should've anticipated a fall after the high I've been on...  :)

I'm sick.  I've been sick for four days...  it's torture.  Wait, last year's hives was torture... this is more kind of miserable and inconvenient.  And, maybe necessary, actually.  I ran myself ragged - what did I think was going to happen...? 

A friend of mine pointed out that keeping busy might be a coping mechanism for me.

Sea of rooftops

New York 2010 - take two.

I'm on a flight back to the Bay with the longest sunset hanging on the horizon...

This time around, my days were filled with work in the New York office, introductions to our brilliant East Coast counter parts, and lunches with some of my former SF favorites. 

My nights were filled with:

Kenichi and Patrick
Des in Brooklyn, Holly in Manhattan
The Creditor's with Patrick (Simón's show), drinks with Simón
The Red Shoes in Brooklyn
NY office Christmas party, Brooklyn artist party
Looking at Christmas with Des (Holly's show), The Pelican with Simón

A self proclaimed ex-runway model at the artist party said that I had a great presence and he could see a future for me as a comedian... ?  In L.A.  ?  And, I think I made a date to see theater with the driver who came to take my boss to the airport...I thought we were just making small talk while we were waiting, but he said he'd meet me at the show the next day.  ?? 

The sun sets... until next time NYC...

Brooklyn

I love it when plans change exactly how you want them to. At the last minute I got to go to the theater in Brooklyn last night.

The Red Shoes was a production full of devices beautifully orchestrated to unlock imagination. Movement and moments made with light and frames and music and dance and smoke and stars... it was like a fable, and a bit of a clown show, and a puppet show, and...I sort want to compare it a little to the Rocky Horror Picture Show... hm. ...but, with less sex and more shoes and churches and old ladies and people in underwear (wait, both seemed to have a lot of underwear). Maybe that's a bad comparison. I only saw it once. (Well, I only saw both of them once.) Anyway...

The end of the show surprised me. I thought we were going to find ourselves arriving at an obvious kind of a moral lesson -- but instead we found ourselves arriving at...humanity. Exquisite.

---------

I haven't slept since... I can't really remember when...? Sometime before Carmel. ...the Bay Area feels like a distant memory of incredible food and chilly rain...

Nighttime in New York

Looking out the picture window of my over priced New York City hotel room... (unfortunately, you can't really see anything in this photo.)

I'm hoping to sleep tonight.

I'm jet lagged, booked solid, and feel great.  What is it about this city that I love so much...? 

Carmel

After the quake in 1906, a group of artists moved to Carmel from San Francisco.  According to monterey.com, today, Carmel has more art galleries per capita than Manhattan.

What a beautiful location for a film... we didn't catch any shooting this weekend due to the rain, but we scouted locations, saw raw footage, played a solid game of poker, and got to hang out with our brilliant movie producing friend and his fantastic his crew.  :)

Repost

(I didn't like my last post, so I deleted it -- but I liked the picture... :))

In stage combat terms (or, maybe it's deuling swordfighting terms, which is actually all kind of the same thing... :) or how about we just say, according to Dave, the instructor I've worked with over the last few years), to riposte means to answer. It's a swordfighting technique that can be used to quickly change the direction of a fight.

Thanksgiving

I'm thankful for...

My friend Michael who invited me to his family's house for Thanksgiving.

Newborn babies.

The lady at the laundromat who yelled at a guy when he told her she took his seat, and then later apologized for getting so angry.

Clown shows.  Clowns.

Theater.

Old friends.  ...and, new friends.  Family.

Cats.  :)

My job.

Glasses/contacts.  Seeing.  Sight.  Senses.

Blankets.  Sunshine.  Dreams.  Sleep.  Platform shoes...  Laughter.  Tears.  Waterfalls.  Stories.  Silliness, and endless nights....

Behind the scenes

I had the opportunity to work behind the scenes at the SF HipHop Dance Fest last week and over the weekend. I was there to shadow this wonderful lighting designer I met, but ended up working as the assistant stage manager for the show all weekend. What an exhausting and amazing experience...!! I ran my ass off, missed a couple meals, met some great people, and watched some truly incredible dance performances. I might need to start taking hip hop dance again, and I definitely need to continue to explore all that's waiting for me in the behind the scenes world of a stage production... who knew I'd ever want to be backstage?

The show was completely awe-inspiring. Here are some links to my favorite companies/dancers (which was like half the program...but, the entire program was fantastic. www.sfhiphopdancefest.com/performers.php).

I'm listing them how I remembered them in my head when I needed to go find them - :)

The Colorado kids - www.motionundergrounddance.com
Kenichi - www.ebinaperformingarts.com
LA girls - www.dancetrackmagazine.com/?p=2170
French guys - www.juste-debout.com/fr_FR/in/pro-phenomen
Super hero kids - www.soulforcedance.com
Guy-who-maybe-hit-on-me-but-it-was-confusing-so-I-didn't-know-how-to-respond's crew - www.myspace.com/academyofvillians
New York girls - decadancetheatre.wordpress.com

<3

"I'm still alive but I'm barely breathing..."

Headphones on. Volume up.

If I can just keep myself distracted and busy enough...

This week I finished an intermediate acting class at ACT. The rest of the week I have been volunteering at the SF Hip Hop Dance Festival after work and will continue throughout the weekend... Next week is Thanksgiving, the week after I'll be in Carmel on a film set with my brother and our film producer friend... and then I head to NY for a week for work. I'll get back and have a week here, head to Colorado for Christmas, and then straight to LA for a week long stage combat workshop. ...and then it's 2011.

...I think my best friend has breast cancer... she hasn't explicitly said it, but she's had some tests and said the results weren't good and she'll have to go into surgery next week or the week after....

If I can just keep myself distracted and busy enough...

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Coffee break

I found this drawn on my coffee cup when I got back to the office. I think it's a penguin... ?

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Made in Korea

I was born in Korea, abandoned, taken to an orphanage, put in a foster home, adopted at 6 months old - and then thrown into a white middle class world I would never visibly fit into...

The eyes seem to give me away.

Have you ever seen the movie The Jerk? Where Navin (Steve Martin) is raised by a black family, and doesn't realize he's not black until he comes across "white" music on the radio one night and, for the first time in his life, can move to the rhythm...?

When I was in college, I hung out with a bunch of Hawaii kids. A few of them were really racist against white people and would make comments about them in front of me. I would find myself angrily defending my family, my friends, and...myself - the white kid in the Asian disguise... At the time, I had a boyfriend who was half black and half white. We used to talk about how it felt isolating to not really fit into either culture...but how, simultaneously, it seemed to allow us to fit in everywhere...

It's strange when you perceive yourself one way while the world sees you as something else... and fascinating how much that perception can make a difference.

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A case for vulnerability and wholeheartedness

A beautiful talk. You won't regret making the time to listen to the entire thing.

Respect

I've been thinking a lot about relationships lately. Not just romantic relationships, but all relationships. I've found that mutual respect is key in making a relationship work, and feeds into many aspects. Respect means, (taken from dictionary.com) esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, a personal quality or ability, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability. It means, favor or partiality. To show regard or consideration for, to refrain from intruding upon or interfering with, to relate or have reference to.

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Fall

Let's see...amazing shows I've seen that I've neglected to review include: Circus Oz, The Brothers Size, Mike Birbiglia, and an impromptu trumpet performance in front of a brick wall facade in a warehouse by a friend's roommate's boyfriend. *grin* There have been more shows - but these were especially unique and completely wonderful. They deserve my sincere compliments and praise for the inspiration, authenticity, skill ...but, I'm not sure my words would do them justice...

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