Sweet, innocent...

So I'm back in the library again. The other library we went to doesn't have wireless internet access after all. It's another bank of computers we can use, which is good, so I should still be able to update pretty much daily. But I was just really wishing I could get my own computer to work so that I could use AIM. I miss chatting on AIM. But I didn't come to England to chat on AIM. Blah, blah, blah, I know, I know.

Anyway, things are still good. The visit to Anne Hathaway's cottage was good yesterday. The walk was really pretty, although we did see a horse lying sprawled out in a pasture. Healthy horses don't lie down, do they? Anyhow, we toured the house and took some pictures in the garden. I keep teasing Amanda because I swear she already has about a hundred pictures of flowers on her camera. She does have a purpose because she plans to print some of the best pictures in black and white and use them to decorate her room when we get back to Texas, but I have to tease her anyway. It was kind of cool to walk through the labyrinth again and see how much the bushes have grown since the last time I was there. They only came to my waist last time and now some of them are almost up to my head.

Last night was a lot of fun. The Alexes, Liz, Amanda and I went to a pub down the road from our house called The Lamplighter. It was pound fifty pint night, woohoo! I drank a couple pints of Strongbow (in draft form!! AH!), ate a greasy package of fish and chips, and watched the Poland/Germany "football" game. How very British of me. I always forget how ridiculous alcohol is here. For one thing, the alcohol content of beer is stronger than it is in the states. And then there's the fact that even though I only had two beers over a 2 1/2 hour period and that seems perfectly reasonable, a glass of beer here is an entire literal pint of beer. A glass of beer back home? Not so much. Anyway, we were all telling stories and making each other laugh about stupid things, and of course at some point sex came up and both Alexes' jaws dropped at a few things I had to say. Things that I'd rather not repeat here 'cause my Mom is reading this at the moment. This inevitably happens every time I'm getting to know new people. I blow the cover of my sweet and innocent reputation and it's never quite the same again. :-) I still don't understand why this reputation precedes me in the first place, but I've decided it's a mystery about myself that I'm just never going to solve. And it's also a reputation I'll never be able to shake no matter what the hell I do, so whatever! I embrace it.
Anyway, we all came home from the pub kinda buzzed. As we passed him on the second floor on our way upstairs Chris asked if we were drunk and Amanda said, "No, we're just amused" and I couldn't resist calling back down the stairwell, "Is amused a synonym for drunk?" Ha. The five of us are the only ones that live all the way up on the third floor and we've now decided that the third floor is where it's all going down. As long as we're showing up for class and getting our stuff done (and we do and we are) we figure we might as well enjoy the local culture while we're here. And, frankly, there's nothing to do here in Stratford after 6:00 other than go to the pubs, so what can ya do?

This morning was fun. Paul taped his lecture for the BBC this morning and we were guests in the audience. Since the show itself is actually about Holy Trinity Church, the portions Paul taped at the Birthplace Trust are actually just short little blurbs that I imagine will ultimately just be little short bits in the final show to establish the setting or something like that. So the "letcture" was actually just thirty seconds of real lecture and then a bunch of time when Paul talked about random things and the camera crew filmed us watching him talk and pretending to be fascinated and attentive. And then afterwards some of us happened to be standing around on the street deciding what to do next and the producer ended up asking us to be extras in some other shots. So they filmed us walking around in the birthplace gardens and pretending to take some pictures and look at the house and then they filmed us pretending to do research in the library. It was kinda fun, and it's not like I had anything better to do this morning. And the producer made me laugh by saying we were, "Lovely! So realistic!" as we were pretending to research. Um, yes. Because it's quite hard to pretend to read a book and copy notes out of it. Although maybe it is hard to just do your own thing and ignore a camera if you've never done it before, I don't know. The funny thing is, there's this girl in our group who drives us all crazy, and when they asked for a volunteer from the audience to be taped asking Paul a question, of course her hand flew up immediately. And the rest of us all groaned inwardly, because we know how Mindy is. Sure enough, it was the most long winded and complicated question ever. But they made it shorter and filmed her asking it, and now I'm sure we're not going to hear the end of it for days. Like, for the past couple of days now she's been all excited about this and talking about how she can add it to her resume, which is just ridiculous. You can't put that on a resume. "Extra on BBC program Songs of Grace". Haha. I mean, I suppose you COULD, but it would be a very pathetic move. And then she kept talking about how "we're being filmed on Thursday morning!" Um, no, dude. Paul the important Shakespeare expert is being filmed. We're just sitting on chairs to fill in the edges of the frame and ensure that he's speaking to a full house. Immediately after they filmed her asking her question she commented out loud to the whole room "I'm more than just 'extra on the left' now!" Jesus. Oh, the stories I could tell about this girl. But I'm not in a bitchy mood right now and, honestly, I mostly just feel bad for her. It's kind of depressing because I think she's genuinely a nice person and she seems to know how annoying she is (she wrote Jenn, her roommate, a letter the other day saying "If I'm following you around like a pathetic puppy dog just tell me to leave you alone and I will...") but she's just incapable of not being annoying. With the exception of her I really like everyone in this group, though, and we're all getting along well so far. So that's good.

This afternoon we had rehearsal for our scene with Patricia and then this afternoon we had the first half of our master class with Jane Lapotaire. She's definitely a character. She's a major classical actress, and an associate artist at the RSC (there are only about fifteen associate artists in the world, so apparently it's a really big deal). She's acted with people like Kenneth Brannagh and Sir Laurence Olivier, so she's kind of important. Google her if you're curious, it turns up tons of stuff but I'm too lazy to link right now. Needless to say, I was kind of intimidated. But you know, it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. She's actually really, really funny and entertaining. She is definitely very blunt and she's not afraid to make fun of you, but it wasn't as bad as I thought she might be. And she does have a point: if you can't take blunt criticism, acting is not for you. Given, I don't do well with constant criticism and acting is NOT for me and I already know that and I'll tell her that next time if I have to, but today I actually think I did fairly well and got off easy. The only critique I got is that my voice is very high. She said, "Can you lower your voice half an octave?" and I said "I can try..." and then she addressed the class and said, "Some girls, particularly cute little girls who are probably their daddy's favorite, have a habit of using a sweet little high pitched voice because they've found that it works to get them whatever they want from men." And everyone in the class that knows me burst out laughing and I just shrugged and laughed because, well, that's pretty much the truth. Hey, at least I acknowledge it! Anyway, then she went on to explain how I could lower my voice and it worked! She later referred to someone as looking like a "real prat" which I sort of love. Prat. I think that prat, 'have a go', and 'dodgy' all need more use in the U.S.

Alright, I'm getting the five minute warning on this computer and England plays a World Cup game on TV in ten minutes and I'd really like to be at a pub for at least part of the game because I'm sure it's going to be wild. So I'm out of here.

Finally Updating!

Hello hello. You all should be happy to know (or maybe you won't care at all, but I'm happy) that I think I've finally figured out a way to have daily internet access. Obviously I didn't post an entry yesterday. The thing is, getting a computer at the public library here is kind of a pain. You have to find time to come to the library early in the day and reserve an hour of computer time later. That in and of itself is not a pain, the bigger problem is that the library is only open from 9:00 until 5:00 most days and with this program we're pretty much booked from 9:30 until 5ish most days except for a lunch break, so it's hard to find time to write (and print the papers that I need to print).
I do have my computer and it connects to wireless internet, but I don't particularly want to pay to use the internet at any of the hot spots. My professor picks up someone else's wireless internet connection at her flat, and yesterday afternoon Jenn B. and I decided we were going to go over to Dr. C's house with our computers and use her internet for awhile. But when we got to her flat she wasn't home, so we decided to just sit on the curb outside and check to see if we could pick up a signal. And we could! So Jenn and I sat on the curb for half an hour using our computers until Dr. C and her daughters got home and let us come inside so we could quit looking like street urchins (very wealthy street urchins with Dell laptops). At one point a couple of the local police walked by and commented "That's a strange place to work" but once we explained what we were up to they just laughed at us and moved on. Jenn and I had a good laugh about the lengths we'll stoop to just to get free internet access. Ultimately the connection ended up being very weak, though, and I never could manage to stay connected long enough to post a blog entry, so Dr. C's flat will be a last resort from now on.
All of this has just been a very long winded intro to what I really wanted to say, which was that this morning Dr. C told us that she got us three grad students privileges to use the library at the Shakespeare Institute, a library that is open until 8:00 at night! And supposedly has a free wireless internet connection! And lets you print papers for free as opposed to the 15p a page that it costs at the public library. So hopefully that all actually works out and I'm able to blog more than once every two or three days.

Anyway, lots of exciting things have happened the past couple of days. For one thing, it finally stopped being super hot outside, thank god. Because did I mention that not only was our room hot, but that our shower wouldn't run cold water? For the first two days we were here our shower was only running water so hot that it was almost scalding, even when you placed it on the coldest possible setting. I have to say, I never thought I'd be complaining about the shower being too HOT. I'd be sweaty and gross in our hot room and want to take a cool refreshing shower, but the shower didn't even make me feel clean, just more hot and sweaty. It was Hell Room, seriously. Really cute Hell Room with a dormer window and my own little bed alcove, but Hell Room nonetheless. But then yesterday the weather got nice and cool and rainy and England-y like it's supposed to be, and I'm happily wearing a sweatshirt right now. And yesterday I also figured out that for some reason if you take a shower late at night you can actually get cool water for a few minutes before it goes back to attempting to melt my skin off. So living conditions have vastly improved.

On Monday night we saw a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Swan Theatre, and it was incredible. Seriously incredible. Definitely on the top ten list of all shows I've ever seen (and I've seen well over a hundred shows in my life at this point). It was done by a company from India, and less than half of the play was actually performed in English. The rest was done in seven different Indian dialects. So the language aspect was really interesting, and it was amazing how the language barrier wasn't actually a barrier to understanding at all. The staging was amazing, they had a massive vertical climbing wall that they used constantly, they climbed silk ropes hung from the ceiling, and the whole thing was very raw and sexual and passionate and just really fantastic. I joked to Amanda that I was going to entitle my critique "A Midsummer Night's Wet Dream" just to see Dr. C's reaction. Ha. It was sort of Cirque du Soleil meets Shakespeare. So cool!

Yesterday we had a voice lesson from the woman who is the head of Voice at the RSC, which was amazing. I got hands on attention from a woman who has given hands on training to all of the RSC actors! And the very first thing she said to me was, "You are a dancer, aren't you?" Ha. It's been five years since I did any sort of real dancing and my posture and stance still gives it away, apparently. And actually, all that muscle memory isn't really the best thing for vocal training, but what can you do? She taught us some interesting things and it was a fun session.
Then in the afternoon a woman came to show us all sorts of records from the Shakespeare archive. Not only did we get to look at stuff, we actually got to TOUCH stuff. I paged through a book of Stratford guild records from the 1400s. I held records concerning Shakespeare's finances in my hands. My very favorite thing was a note signed by Queen Elizabeth. I held a piece of paper signed by Elizabeth. It's sort of mind blowing. (She has the most awesome signature, by the way. Her Z has about six curlicues on the bottom. Very dramatic!)

This morning Paul and Stanley Wells lectured to us about the sonnets, which was really interesting, and this afternoon we're all walking out to Anne Hathaway's cottage, which should be fun, doing the same walk Shakespeare used to do when he'd go to court his wife.

Anyway, I have some funny stories, particularly about a show called EuroTrash that I watched with the Alexes last night (it was absolutely baffling, let me tell you) and about how certain people have willingly eaten yogurt described as "curdled". But I'll have to tell those later 'cause I only have fifteen minutes left and I need to plug in my portable USB thingy and print a critique before time is up.

I'll post again tomorrow, hopefully.

P.S.-I've been responding to comments in the comments themselves, just in case you haven't noticed.

From the library

Hey all. It's 1:3o in the afternoon right now and I have about twenty minutes to post from the Stratford public library. You can use the computers here and get a free hour of internet time. The only problem is there are only about twenty computers and it's hard to get time to use the computer unless you reserve it.
So Amanda, Jenn B. and I reserved computer time right after we got out of our morning class and then went shopping at H&M until it was time for us to come back to the library to use our computer reservations. Ah, H&M, how I love you. I don't plan to spend much money on clothes...actually, I don't plan to spend much money on ANYTHING, but H&M is just irresistable. I just bought the cutest dress for only £15. £££££. I dig the £ key! I might have to eventually break down and buy more short sleeved shirts, too, since I only brought five or six short-sleeved shirts, figuring it would be cool enough for light long-sleeved shirts most of the time. Why is the freakin' weather always out to get me here? Two summers ago when I was here I brought plenty of tank tops and short-sleeved shirts and ended up having to buy a sweater and a heavy jacket because I ended up being too cold all the time. And so this time I came prepared for cold and it turns out my room is a sauna and it's hot and humid outside. Their unpredictable weather must be really good for the economy.

Anyway, today has been good so far. Marian, the lady who runs our B&B, is really sweet and she cooks a full English breakfast every morning. The amount of food she gave each of us was RIDICULOUS. Orange juice, a big pot of tea (in an Alice and Wonderland pot...it made me think of Matthew, he'd love it), an entire rack of different types of toasted bread, two eggs cooked however you want them, a piece of ham, a sausage link, half a cooked tomato, mushrooms, and a hash brown. And then on top of that you can help yourself to fruit, yogurt, and cold cereal. It sounds like an odd combination I suppose, but I personally am a huge fan of the English breakfast, especially when it's free (or not free, but pre-paid with my program fees, anyway). Also, this morning at breakfast I met the resident cat and he let me pet him for a while. He looks just like Jose in Cedric's body. He has the white mustache and everything!

This morning we met Paul, the director of the birthplace trust, and he gave us a syllabus. I'm still just utterly in awe of the people we're going to meet. This morning we had a lecture on Midsummer from Stanley Wells. He is THE Shakespeare guru of the world. Honestly, there's not a person alive right now who knows more about Shakespeare than he does. It's amazing to be learning from him, and to be able to say on my CV that I've studied with him.

Tonight we're going to see Midsummer Night's Dream. I'm so excited!

Oh, and guess what? We get to be on the BBC! Paul is doing a taped lecture for the BBC on Thursday and he invited us to be part of the audience. We're supposed to look very, very interested and take lots of notes to make him look good. Haha.

It's almost time for us to go back to classes. Today we'll learn about the library where we'll be doing our research and then we're touring Shakespeare's birthplace.

I'm sure it has come across pretty clear here, but I'm having a great time so far!

In England!

Well, we made it. I'm in Stratford right now sitting in a Starbucks with Liz, paying for an hour of internet time. I kind of hate myself for sitting in Starbucks right now, but it's a Sunday night and this little town shuts down on Sunday evenings so there's really nowhere else to go anyway. Plus we ate at a Whetherspoons for dinner and you can't do that in the U.S., so I'm not totally being lame. I try to make a point of doing things you can't do in America when I'm abroad, but sometimes you just can't help it.

Anyway, our journey was long, long, LONG. I spent the night with Matthew on Friday night, didn't sleep at all, got on the plane to Toronto at 6:30 in the morning, got to Toronto at 10:30, and sat at the airport for HOURS. We had talked about maybe going into the city and doing something, but logistically it just would have been hard to do. We had bags with us, we weren't sure where to go even if we had left the airport, none of us had Canadian dollars and didn't really feel like exchanging money for just the afternoon. So we explored the airport. Thoroughly. Very exciting, let me tell you.

The airplane rides were both good. The plane from Houston to Toronto was awesome. Each person had their own TV screen on the back of the chair in front of them and could select from like, 18 movies, make playlists from all the airline radio stations, watch dozens of TV shows...I've never been on a plane with a selection like that before. So what did I watch? Eight Below. Yes, the dog sled movie. I thought it would be cute. And it was either that or Annie Hall, and it was way too early in the morning for Woody Allen. And it was cute. And then of course a couple of the dogs died, and there was this reunion at the end and I got all emotional thinking not of Cohen but of stupid Morty! The dogs reminded me of Morty and then I thought about him freezing in the snow and I cried on the airplane. I. Am. A. Loser. Thank God I had the whole row to myself and nobody could witness me crying over a Disney dog sled movie. After that I made a playlist that consisted of nothing but the same Panic! At the Disco song and some Madonna over and over and over again until we landed. Ha.

The flight from London to Toronto was seven hours long. Since by that point it was nighttime again I actually managed to sleep most of the flight. Given, it was a really short night since we were flying east and I probably only slept 4 or 5 hours of the flight. So basically what I'm saying is it's 5:30 on Sunday evening right now and 11:30 AM Texas time. And the last time I slept a full night was Thursday night. I did take a nap when we got to Stratford this afternoon, too, but damn, I'm going to sleep good tonight.

Anyway, I don't have much exciting to report yet. Our bed and breakfast seems fine. Liz, Amanda and I are sharing a good-sized room and it's cute. The only problem is that it's basically the attic of the building and there is no AC so it's freakin' hot in there even with the windows open. I'm hoping that the fact that it's almost 90 degrees here right now is just a fluke and we'll be getting some real England-y weather soon. I was prepared for chilly weather, I was not prepared for 90 degree heat.

Alright. Liz and I are sharing internet time so I'm gonna hand my computer over to her. I'm hoping to find a free internet connection at some point in the next couple of days 'cause I refuse to sit in Starbucks and do this more than once or twice during the whole trip.

So yes. I'm here, I'm safe, and so far all is well. I'll talk to you all again within the next few days I'm sure. Love to you all!

All My Bags are NOT Packed

I haven't even remotely started packing, my apartment isn't clean, I don't have any of my animals' stuff packed up for them to spend three weeks at Chelsea's, and the load of laundry that includes a lot of the clothes I need to pack is in the washing machine as we speak. But somehow all of that is gonna get done by tomorrow afternoon, and then I'm outta here!

Chelsea's driving me to Houston, and then I'm spending the night with Matthew!!!! Yay Matthew!! I'm spending part of the night with Matthew, anyway, since we'll have to leave for the airport by 3:30 in the morning. I probably won't even sleep tomorrow night. I'm gonna be jet lagged and totally out of whack no matter what I do, so what difference does it make?

Anyway, I'm so excited now it's ridiculous. I'm starting to feel a bond with my classmates, that sort of inevitable bond that forms whenever a group is spending so many hours a day together, especially when they're doing emotional acting work, especially when they're traveling together. So I'm actually really excited about spending three more weeks with everyone (even though I realize from my last study abroad trip that spending three weeks together literally 24/7 is a very different thing than spending three to five hours a day together). And I think everyone else is feeling a connection forming, too. In our trip orientation today Dr. C. was saying that graduate students have to stay with the group all the time and can't go off on our own excursions (apparently there have been issues with grad students in the past thinking that they should have special privileges because we're not undergrads) and she said, "I don't think we'll have a problem with that, though, since you all have developed such a good ensemble feel already." And I joked, "What, you mean you're not sensing my elitist attitude? That's not coming through at all? I was trying so hard!" I have now been teasingly nicknamed Ashley "Coriolanus" D. Haha.

Anyway, I'm only really posting because I just had to post my horoscope for today. I'm not a big believer in astrology, but I do read my Google horoscope for fun every day and on days when it's especially good I choose to believe it. And today's was awesome:
"Finish up old emotional business while there's still time, for it's all about to change. Stick to your regular routine, however, until the action begins; it's the details now that will make or break the success of what is to come. The more you focus on what needs to be done today, the easier it will be tomorrow."
Something new is about to come along! Everything is about to change! How appropriate. And it's telling me to finish up old emotional business, which, honestly, is exactly what I've been doing the past few days anyway!

Like today I had a long conversation with my mom about Mike. I mentioned something he had said, and Mom said, "Oh, you two are talking again?" so I told her the whole story and about my worries about falling in love again and all of this stuff that I don't usually talk to her about. I don't like to talk to my parents much about any problems between me and Mike because I don't want them to form a negative opinion of him. I really do think he's always going to be in my life at least as a friend and I'd rather my parents see that as a positive than a negative. Still, today I told my mom a lot of stuff about Mike and Jenny that we hadn't really talked about before, and we talked about my feelings and how I've coped with everything. I feel like I came across as sort of emotional and still hung up on it all, which is weird because that tends to happen when I talk about it all when in actuality I feel pretty good about everything these days. But anyway, we talked about it all for a long time.

And then about an hour later I was in the laundry room (why is everything happening in the laundry room these days?) and my phone rang and it was Mike. Weird coincidence. So I talked to him for a while and he had big news as far as his relationship is concerned, news that I'm not gonna post here 'cause that's his business to share and not mine and it's all new and I know everything could still change in a second right now. But if/when he does go public with what he told me tonight and you all figure out what I'm cryptically alluding to here (and let me just say, your best guess is probably correct anyway) I'll say that my reaction to his news is to have no freakin' idea how to feel about it.

So I'm not going to worry about it right now. It could all change by tomorrow anyway so trying to figure out my feelings about it is a moot point until it becomes something definite.

Plus I'm going to ENGLAND in less than 48 hours. I have better things to think about.

So...I'll talk to you then!

Now This Is Talent

So for one of my homework assignments tonight I had to write a sonnet. It was an exercise in making sure we understand things like simile, antithesis, oxymorons, alliteration, etc. Personally, I would much rather have labeled all of these things in one of Shakespeare's sonnets instead of having to make up one of my own, especially since I had to re-read Julius Caesar* tonight for our quiz tomorrow and I still have to label all of my operatives in my scene so I can work with my scene group tomorrow. Oh, and for Thursday we have to read both Coriolanus and Antony and Cleopatra for quizzes. That's a good four or five hours of reading, at least. In other words, there is a whole lot of stuff that needs to be done for class before Thursday, and the addition of having to write a sonnet on top of it all made me feel thisclose to panic.

*Incidentally, Julius Caesar may be the title of the play, but he's so not the main speaking character. Caesar dies in the third act, in case you don't remember this fact from sophomore English class. I sure didn't. So just in case you ever find yourself in a situation where a whole group of people is going to read the entirity of Julius Caesar aloud in one sitting and study it for a quiz (and really, I don't know why you'd ever find yourself in that situation, but just in case), it's actually a wise idea to volunteer to be Caesar. 'Cause he dies and then you get to chill for two acts. You definitely don't want to be Brutus or Cassius because they talk in massive 20+ line chunks throughout the whole damn play. Guess who Liz and I were? Yeah. I was smart enough not to pick Brutus (actually, I don't think Liz picked Brutus either, I think he was just the only major character left by the time it was her turn to choose) but I'd forgotten how major Cassius is. Freakin' Cassius.

So anyway, I was not thrilled about having to write a sonnet, but it turns out that it's pretty easy to churn out a sonnet in less than half an hour if you're not at all concerned with being clever. The result:

I hate the hot heat of a summer's day,
The pavement is like coals beneath the feet.
I wish the month of June would go away,
For I do so prefer the winter sleet.
The cloud that brings the rain is a kind friend,
It gives sweet respite from a sun like fire,
But all too soon the drenching showers end,
And dark sun once again provokes my ire.
To some a heaven, I do think it hell:
The buzz of bees, the whir of sprinklers, all.
How long I'll take the heat I cannot tell,
I cannot wait each day for night to fall.
But since the summer never will be cool,
I'll spend the next months lying by the pool.

I'm now fairly certain I have a promising career as a poet. Ire and fire? Pretty good, huh? Ha. Haha. Anyway, it includes all the stuff we needed to include (which is partly why it's so awful...the cloud is a kind friend...that's some brilliant personification right there) so I'm golden. The theme of the sonnet had to be summer. My professor didn't specify that it had to be a positive poem about summer, so here's hoping it's okay that it's full of hate. And I don't really hate summer, I just needed the alliteration I could get by writing hate, hot, and heat in the same line.

So yeah. I'll try to post at least one more time before I actually leave the country, but if I don't get the chance you can just admire my sonnet skills until I get time to update from Stratford.

P.S.-Hi Mom! (And Dad, if you're actually going to read this...)

I Wanna Know What Love Is...

What is it like to fall in love for a second time?

I really want to know. This is not a hypothetical question. I know that some people that read this have been in more than one very serious relationship, and if you are okay with sharing your experience with me, please do. I really do want to know someone else's experience with this.

'Cause see, it hasn't happened to me. I've only been in love once. I've only had one very serious relationship. I guess technically I've had two long-term relationships, but although the second one was long-lasting (almost 3 years of anything is definitely long-term) it was certainly always based pretty much on sex rather than on any sort of serious emotional connection and it was never a completely committed relationship, either. So there was definitely something in that second relationship, but not something I ever recognized or defined as real love. And any other relationship I've been in has been either completely physical and not emotional AT ALL (physical intimacy does not always equal love in my book, not even remotely) or has fizzled before either of us got too involved emotionally. So in terms of a serious, committed relationship based on mutual love and respect, I've only done that once.

And I was standing in the laundry room this afternoon folding my towels when it suddenly hit me: I kind of hate the idea that it's possible to have more than one real love.

I mean, in some ways it's a very liberating feeling. Just because I loved one person immensely, he's not necessarily the only person that I will ever love. This is a very reassuring feeling in the case of a break up, or the death of a loved one.

But in some ways I also just hate it. Because the way I see it right now, it seems like being able to be truly in love with more than one person devalues the emotion. Why is the love two people share so special and important if they can each find the exact same feeling of true love from someone else?

So how does it work? I'm sure it will happen for me again one of these days and I'll be able to figure it out for myself, but if you already know how it has worked out for you, could you give me a hint?

'Cause right now, I can't even imagine it. Is it sort of like having more than one child? Like, instead of transferring your love from old boyfriend to new you just get sort of an overall increase of love in your soul and you completely and entirely love the new person while still maintaining love for the old person? Like, it's a slightly different variation on your personal understanding of "love" but it's no worse or better than the love you felt for your last boyfriend?

Or do you absolutely have to devalue the love you once felt in order to fall in love again? Like, once I fall in love again will I automatically re-evaluate the relationship I had with Mike and recategorize it as something else like, say, puppy love, or will I go around saying things like, "I thought Mike was my true love until I met X and, wow, it turns out I had no IDEA what love really was until I met X!"? Because I really dislike that idea. Maybe it's just that I dislike being wrong, but I hate the idea that someday every deep feeling and soul connection (ha, how cheesy) I felt with Mike will turn out to have been not so very important and earth shattering after all. In that sense I'd like to be able to truly fall in love more than once, because I hate the idea that everything that has happened in my love life so far hasn't been the real thing.

Or do you think you really only get to fall in love once, and if I'm correct in thinking that I have already found true love once in my life, am I totally screwed and for the rest of my life will every other relationship I'm in just be a form of settling for second-best? I hate this idea most of all, but in order for this NOT to be true, won't I invariably have to devalue my relationship with Mike?

I guess maybe I already know that in order to fall in love again I'll have to admit that I wasn't truly in love before, or that I was but that old love wasn't as good or important as the current love. Which is sort of a hurtful feeling when my ex is in love with someone else and I'm currently not. I guess I've been devalued.

And hey, I accept that. I accept that because I'm optimistic enough to believe that I'll fall in love again, too (or TRULY fall in love for the first time, or whatever) and it will all work out evenly in the end. Just 'cause I wasn't the first to fall in love again and move on doesn't mean that it won't ever happen.

I guess what I'm saying is, I hate the idea of devaluing an old relationship for the sake of a new one, and I'd like someone to tell me it doesn't necessarily work that way. Then again, I'd like to know truthfully how it works and if that IS how it worked for you, then I'd like to know. So if you have first hand experience with having been in love more than once, or thinking you were in love the first time around and then having all your ideas of love totally blown out of the water by your next serious relationship, or whatever, please share. I'm just curious. Don't feel like you need to post in a comment, either, if you don't want to. I'd love thoughts on this by e-mail, too (AllieDream@aol.com or my "real" e-mail if you know that one, I'd rather not post it here since it uses my full name and it's also a spam-free address right now and I'd like to keep it that way). Consider this sort of an informal poll I'm conducting here. Also realize I don't ask for advice/tips much, so you people should be flattered!

Anyway, I don't know why I'm thinking about this today. To be totally honest in a too-much-information sort of way, it's probably because I'm in PMS mode right now and I tend to get all contemplative and emotional when I'm PMS-ing (which I guess is preferable to getting all irritable and rageful...I guess).

Also, don't think of this as any indication of my feelings about Mike right now. My feelings about my love life in general are actually very healthy at the moment. I kind of feel like I'm on the brink of something new, which is I guess why I'm wondering about all this in the first place. Given, whatever "new" thing is in my future is still a total unknown at this point, it's just a bit of intuition I've had lately. Intuition that could be totally and completely WRONG. Still, I'd rather lean towards optimism than pessimism.
The other day in class I said something to Liz and she retorted, "It's always 'Look on the bright side!' with you, isn't it?!" And I promised to attempt to be more of a pessimist while we're rooming together.* But actually, she's right. I'd much rather find the silver lining than focus on the rain.

*Liz has also informed me that "common sense has no place here". I think I'm in trouble...

Hedgehog is Talking

A week from today I'll be at the airport in Toronto, an hour away from boarding my flight to London Heathrow. From there it's a mini van ride to Stratford, where I'll be living for three weeks. Here, specifically. Did I mention that Liz, Amanda and I have a NINE HOUR layover in Toronto? Well, we do. We have to leave Houston at 6:30 in the morning, we get to Toronto around 10:30 AM, and then our flight to London doesn't leave until 7:30 that evening. I'm not sure what exactly we're going to do in Canda for nine hours. I'm not even sure that we'll be able to leave the airport, but I sure hope we will 'cause then I could add Toronto to the list of Places I Have Been.
(I have very specific rules about when I can add states/countries to my list. If I drive through a state/country and see a significant amount of it that counts, even if we don't actually stop anywhere other than gas stations. For example, I was able to add Utah to my list of states because I drove across a significant portion of it on my way from Colorado to Las Vegas when I was 16. However, layovers in airports don't count if you don't actually leave the airport since the airport is a neutral space. If airports counted, Ohio, Washington D.C., and Georgia would be on my list, but they're not. I can't add Canada to my list if I don't actually leave the airport, but if we do get to leave and, say, have lunch somewhere or even just walk around outside for a while off airport property, then it counts.)

Anyway, I'm getting really, really excited. I can't wait to feel that London energy, and I can't wait to get to Stratford, to meet all the renowned people that are going to be giving our workshops, and to see all the shows. The Royal Shakespeare Company is doing a complete works festival. It began in April, and over the course of the next year every single work ever written by Shakespeare (sonnets, etc.) is going to be performed in Stratford. Some of it is being done by the RSC company, and then they're bringing in different groups from arond the world to perform as well. Like, the Midsummer we're seeing is being performed by a company from India (apparently it's being performed in both English and various Indian dialects), and the Titus we're seeing is done by a Japanese company (and will be performed in Japanese, or so I hear). We're seeing Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Titus Andronicus, Much Ado About Nothing, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus (although I think we're seeing Coriolanus at the Globe in London). Anyway, I think (I hope) it's going to be awesome.

The class itself is going really well, too. I like it so much more than I thought I would. Today after class Dr. C asked to talk to me privately. I was wondering what I might have done wrong, but it turns out she just wanted to tell me that both she and Patricia think I'm doing really well. That was totally not what I was expecting to hear. It's common knowledge that I'm the person in the class with the least acting/voice/movement experience, but I actually feel like I'm holding my own okay. I mean, I'm certainly not the best in the class, but I don't think you'd automatically pick me out as the least experienced, either. Dr. C. was saying that she admired the fact that I'm not afraid to try everything and that I just jump right in, and she also asked if I had dance training (apparently it still shows...who knew?!) and said that in terms of being comfortable in my body I'm actually one of the better ones in the class.
Both of those comments really surprised me. For one thing, I never used to be a "jump-on-in" kind of person. I'm not typically the type that throws my hand up and volunteers to be first. It used to be that if we got through an entire acting class without it getting to be my turn, I was relieved. But now I'm disappointed if I don't get a turn. And I also never used to be someone who could fully use my body, or could be considered "comfortable" in my body. I've always had a pretty good amount of body confidence, but I also often felt a certain amount of awkwardness when it came to actual body movement and it's fascinating to discover that suddenly that awkwardness isn't really a factor anymore (or not nearly as much as it once was, at any rate).

So I've been wondering...what has changed between this acting/voice/movement class and the ones I took at TCU a few years ago?
I think that part of it is just a matter of coming into my own. I progressively get more confident as I get older. I've always been like that. Maybe everybody is. All I know is that I was a much more confident person at 18 than I was at 15, a much more confident person at 21 than I was at 18. So it makes sense that I've just naturally grown and gotten to know myself more in the past few years and I'm more confident overall now at 23 than I was when I took acting at the age of 19 and 20.
But more importantly than that, I think I feel safer in this class than I ever have in any other acting class. At TCU I always knew the people in my classes very well. I was in acting class with my best friends. You'd think that would be a benefit, that it would make for a safer environment. And true, it made for a fun environment most of the time. But actually, in terms of work and growth, I'm finding that I'm liking taking this class with (mostly) near-strangers a lot more. I think in my acting classes at TCU there was always a certain amount of pressure. True, most of it was self-imposed, but I could never quite escape that feeling of wanting to impress people. I wanted to do really well in the classes so that my professors would want to cast me in shows. I wanted to do well in the classes so that I didn't have to worry that my friends were pitying me behind my back over my lack of talent (not that I think that ever actually happened, but that was sort of my thought process at the time). Needless to say, that constant feeling in the back of my mind of wanting to be "good" totally backfired.
Now, if there's any feeling of wanting to impress people at all, it's just me wanting to impress myself. I don't feel like I'm competing with anyone in this class. I don't feel the need to be good at this in comparison to the entire group, I just feel the need to make an overall improvement over where I started on Tuesday. I don't audition here so I don't feel like I need to be "better" than Jenn or Mindy or whoever. Everybody in this group knows that I'm a scholar before I'm an actor, so nobody expects me to be able to do this as well as Chris or Alex or the self-proclaimed actors in the group. I know that nobody expected these things of me before, in my old classes, but I did.
But now I'm truly just worried about improving myself, and that's such a freeing feeling. It's like I've finally grasped the mindset I should have had all along, and as a result I'm not nearly as intimidated by it all as I used to be.

Of course, this only counts right now. I may very well have a heart attack when I have to do workshops with the people in Stratford. But for right now, it's mostly just a lot of fun.

Prying Open My Third Eye

So, life has been good around here this week.

For one thing, I think that I got everything all worked out with the Mike situation. We are finally talking normally, as friends and nothing more. FINALLY. I'm glad that we've managed to reach a decent compromise because for a while I thought that was never going to happen.

On Sunday I went tubing on the Guadalupe with Chelsea, Katy, and Scott. I'm glad I got the chance to see Scott and Katy, it was so much fun. Tubing on Memorial Day weekend is crazy. The river was absolutely full of people, most of them college students, most of them drunk. Why do people think that every time there's a group of young adults and a body of water a beer bong needs to be involved? Oh, and my personal favorite group was floating a grill. Who floats a grill?! Surprisingly, it seemed to be working well. Or at any rate, it was standing up and lit every time we saw them. Being on the river reminded me a lot of being in Padre, actually. It was the same vibe, although slightly less frantic (thank God). We floated a cooler with a bunch of drinks and sandwich stuff and had about five hours of just drifting lazily and chatting punctuated with a few moments of screaming whenever we hit "rapids".
Coincidentally, I ended up running into my friend Aaron on the river. Aaron and I were friends in high school and I haven't seen him or talked to him in any sort of meaningful way* since we graduated five years ago. I knew Aaron lives in Austin and I figured what with being Matthew's "emotionally detached hag" I'd run into Aaron at one of the gay clubs eventually, but it never happened. Wouldn't you know, two weeks after Matthew moves to Houston I run into Aaron in a totally random place. Anyway, it was great to see Aaron. Chelsea, Aaron and I did a lot of reminiscing about our high school days and he reminded me of some people and events I'd literally completely forgotten about. God, we were laughing so hard. High school isn't something I'd ever want to do again, but it sure is fun to laugh about it for a couple of hours. It's so weird to think about how much has happened and changed in the five years since I left high school behind. It freaks me out a little bit in a weird way I can't quite put my finger on, but it also makes me really excited to think about the potential of the next five years of my life, if the last five have brought so many major changes.
All in all Sunday was pretty perfect. Every day of summer should be like that.

But my summer vacation is on hiatus now since I started my summer school class on Tuesday. I have to say, I was a bit wary of doing this summer program. Shakespeare is not my strength. True, it's possible that Shakespeare isn't my strength simply because I've never done any in-depth Shakespeare before, but whatever the reason, I don't feel very confident when it comes to Shakespeare. Oh, I can read and comprehend the plays, it's not that. I took a Shakespeare class for an English credit at TCU and read a ton of plays and sonnets and wrote some decent papers. I'm great at English class Shakespeare. I have the reading comprehension bit down. But Shakespeare from an acting/theatre perspective is a different thing entirely, and it's pretty much all new to me. So I was scared of the idea of taking a class that has so many performance elements when a) I'm not a very confident actress under the best of circumstances and b) did I mention that I've never done any Shakespeare performance at all whatsoever? And that most of the people in this class are acting emphasis? I don't even need the six hours of credit I'm getting for this course. Pretty much the only reason I took this class was because I had a thousand dollar summer scholarship that I wasn't going to be able to use otherwise, and the idea of giving a thousand dollars back to the school was killing me. That, and I'll never give up an opportunity to travel, especially to England. I LOVE England.

Well, let me just say that I'm already so glad that I am in this class. I already like Dr. C, and she is team-teaching the class with a woman named Patricia, who has awesome credentials and is just a cool person. She's really cool so far, anyway.
Today we worked a lot on scansion and I scanned my very first piece, ever. I kind of can't believe I've been studying theatre for five years and have never had to do any sort of scansion work before, but it's true. I knew the basics but had never applied them until today. And it's fun! It's like...cracking a code or something. And then we've already had a couple of good lectures, and Patricia has us working on yoga, releasing our bodies and working on our breathing. She's one of those people that says things like "Now send your breath into your hip sockets" or "Relax your third eye". I'm always really scornful of stuff like that until I spend an hour really focusing on it and then I remember that it actually works. I feel terrific for an hour or two afterwards. I also just really like being in a group of people focusing on body movement. It makes me realize exactly how much I miss dance class.

Anyway, there's still a bit of trepidation on my part. I'm still very worried about actually getting into the scenework portion of things. But so far so good. I think a struggle will be good for me. I don't challenge myself very often, and I'm not used to doing things and not being one of the best. In this class I definitely won't be one of the best. And you know what? I'm okay with that.

*The occasional two line IM saying something along the lines of, "We need to hang out sometime!" or a MySpace message hardly counts as meaningful in my book. Although it does count a little bit. It's better than nothing, anyway.

Talking to the Girlfriend

[FYI there's another new entry below this one. Wouldn't want you to miss a second of my thrilling and exciting life. Also, just for clarification purposes, Jenny-Mike's-girlfriend and Jenny-of-the-weekend-adventures are not the same person. I'm sure you could have figured that out on your own, but ya know, just in case...]

Okay, I know I promised to tell the story of how I befriended Mike's girlfriend. But as with most things, by the time I finally get time to tell the story I no longer feel like telling it, or I don't care much about it. Such is the case here.

The other thing is, I thought that by befriending Jenny (yes, she has a name, her name is Jenny) I would be able to talk to Mike. That's the whole point in befriending his girlfriend, after all. I want to be able to talk to Mike without him having to feel guilty and without her having to worry that I'm a threat to their relationship. Of course I also wanted to befriend her just for the sake of karma. I'd rather not have people out there in the world hating me if I can help it, you know? But mainly the main point of befriending Jenny was to maintain my friendship with Mike. The thing is, even though Jenny and I are on good terms now, Mike and I are still apparently on hiatus from talking. I have a feeling if I just asked her if he and I could go back to talking normally she'd say "Sure", but Mike doesn't want me to ask her. So now he's imposing these restrictions, and it's pissing me off. Once again I'm wondering why I'm going through all this trouble to maintain a friendship if he's not really going to reciprocate. I guess it's mainly because I feel like he may not necessarily need this friendship right now, and I may not necessarily need it right now either, but we're both going to regret it if we let it slip away entirely.

Mike gave Jenny my phone number. She didn't trust that he hadn't seen me while I was in town, so he gave her my number so she could text me personally and hear from me that he was telling the truth, that we really hadn't seen each other at all while I was in El Paso. At first she sent me a bunch of really bitchy, angry text messages. And okay, fine, I helped her boyfriend cheat on her so yes, I suppose I deserve that. But I also wasn't about to give her a reason to tell Mike that I'm a bitch. So I stayed nice and polite the whole time she was bashing me and I just kept saying, "Yes, I was fooling around with your boyfriend. There are reasons that happened and those reasons are gone now. If you'd like to talk about it I'll explain the whole thing to you. If not, that's fine, too. But just know I'll tell you the truth if you want to hear it. You have nothing to worry about anymore." Finally she got tired of insulting me (or realized I wasn't going to take the bait) and she began talking to me rationally. Three hours of text messaging later I'd told her the entire story: the situation Mike and I had been in when they started dating, everything that happened in Padre, why I was letting him have phone sex with me even when I knew he had a girlfriend, the fact that it took him forever to finally admit to me that he was committed to her and over me, etc., etc. etc. I was perfectly honest, and it paid off. I came to find out that Mike had told her a lot of lies, she found out that I'm not even remotely the sort of person she thought I was going to be, and ultimately I feel like she and I would actually have hit it off had we met under different circumstances. And it felt SO GOOD to finally come clean about all of it. A big weight had been lifted from my shoulders, and I think I helped her, too.

The bigger benefit, though, is that I got a lot of insight into her personality. And while I can see her as a full person now and like her as a result, I also think that she has a lot of issues. Anger issues, trust issues, emotional/mental issues. There's a lot going on with this girl and a lot going on with Mike right now that it would be unfair of me to discuss here.

But what I'm trying to say, basically, is that I no longer feel the need to be jealous of their relationship. Before it was so hard because I kept trying to figure out what was better about this relationship than the relationship that Mike and I had. And now I realize that the answer to that question is nothing. This is not a relationship that is going to last. I can say that with certainty. Or rather, I guess I should say that it shouldn't last. It's so cracked. God, it's more than half broken already. And maybe neither of them can see that.

But I can see it so much more clearly now. And that's the important thing for me. I just hope Mike stays smart, though. As much as I like Jenny now, and I honestly do, I just hope that eventually the love fog clears for him and he realizes exactly what he has gotten himself into and realizes that he deserves more than what he will get out of this relationship. And I hope that she realizes that she's never going to get what she needs from being with a guy like Mike, either. They're both good people. I love him flaws and all, and I now believe that she's a good person flaws and all, too. I just think that their relationship is incredibly screwed up. I mean, in real life I'll try to be a good friend to Mike and support him as long as he chooses to be in this relationship (until it gets really dangerous, which hopefully isn't too much of a possibility). But do I see this as a good, healthy relationship? Hell no.

Then again, who knows. Maybe I'm the one that's deluded and he is getting exactly what he deserves. The universe is strange.

Summer Fun

This has turned into a crazy busy week, but in the best possible way.
Monday I drove back from El Paso. Tuesday I chilled and then went to Chelsea's house in the evening.
Wednesday Chelsea and I went to Schlitterbahn Waterpark, and it was so much fun! I love waterparks and I'd never been to Schlitterbahn, even though it's only twenty minutes from the apartment I've called home for the past ten months. I'd heard a lot of horror stories about Schlitterbahn, mostly about how people paid $40 for tickets and then had to wait in line so long that they only did one or two rides the entire day. Still, I wanted to go at least once in my life. My sister and I really lucked out, mostly because we were smart about it and purposely went on a day when a) it was early in the season and mid-week, b) anyone younger than college age is still in school, c) it was overcast and only 80 degrees early in the day which might have turned off potential visitors, and d) it was a half-price day so only half the park was open but hey, you only have to pay half price! Plus the half that was open was what seemed to be the more exciting half with the Master Blaster and all the other "roller coaster"-type water rides you always see on the Travel Channel water park specials. Besides, the park is so enormous I don't know how you'd ever get around to more than half of it in one day anyway even if both halves were open.
Anyway, we had a great time. There were a lot of people there despite all our careful planning (mainly buses full of high school kids on end-of-the-year field trips, which made for a lot of entertaining people to make fun of...ah, high school) but we never had to wait longer than about 45 minutes for a ride and for a few we didn't wait at all. That's amazing considering that the peak wait time for some of the rides during the summer really is 3 to 4 hours. We managed to hit all the open rides (we even did some of them TWICE. Oooooh!) and we still had plenty of time at the end of the day to leisurely drift around the "river" on a fake alligator. I really wish I had my own fake alligator. I'd be at the river all the time if I had an alligator to float around on. Anyway, it was a really fun day with my sister and I left feeling like it was well worth the money, which is a better Schlitterbahn experience than I've ever heard of anyone else having. It was something I've wanted to do for a while, and we actually did it, so I was happy.

Then Jenny came to town to visit for a couple of nights. True to form, we managed to consume near-ridiculous amounts of free alcohol and amass several good stories over the two nights she was here. We were somewhat tame (for us) on Thursday night and started out at Bennigan's and then moved to the square and went to Rocky's, which started out slow but then got much better once the bartender randomly decided to give us a free round of shots, and then another round, and then another round...I managed to get just drunk enough to have a good time but not so drunk that I made a fool of myself or woke up with a hangover, so it was a good night.
Then yesterday Chels, Jenny and I spent the day swimming and laying out at the dam and then we went up to Austin and had dinner at Matt's El Rancho (Dear Matt's, you are delicious!) and then we spent the night bar hopping on 6th Street. As testimony to our combined hotness [or perhaps because we unintentionally appear easy?...Whatever, I'm gonna keep telling myself it's just because we're hot] let me tell you that we were at the bars from 10:30 until 2 a.m. drinking continuously the entire time and we spent a combined total of $15 on drinks. Jenny got us a round of $3 Jager bombs and I bought a round of $1 Long Island iced teas (Yes! Really! How crazy is that?! They were normal sized drinks even!) and other than that every drink we had was free. 6th Street is full of club promoters trying to round up girls into their bars, so if you're a relatively small group of single girls it's pretty easy to take advantage and drink for free all night long.
What happened last night is pretty much what happens every time I go to 6th Street: We wander the street trying to decide where to go and inevitably a promoter comes up and says, "I'll buy you a free round at wherever" so we go and get the free round and then either stay just long enough for it not to look too shady before heading out onto the street again where the odds are very good that we'll get offered another free round by a different bar promoter, or guys in the bar start buying us rounds of drinks and we stay. Free drinking all night either way. I'm not saying this is exactly the most ethical way to spend an evening, but I also figure there aren't that many advantages to being a young single female so I might as well appreciate the advantages I DO have while I've got 'em. Plus in my defense I have never, ever blantantly flirted with a guy for the sole purpose of getting a drink out of him. People just tend to send drinks my way when I'm out with my girlfriends. I'd love to chalk this up to my being a sexy girl, but I think the more likely explanation is there are just a lot of desperate guys out there.
At any rate, we did a lot of drinking last night. We started out with a couple of free rounds from promoters and then ended up meeting these guys who asked us to bar hop with them the rest of the night. They were funny, friendly, easy to talk to, and not drunken assholes, so we hung out with them the rest of the night. We spent most of the night dancing at The Dizzy Rooster. Personally, I don't understand the appeal of the Dizzy Rooster. Everyone wants to go there because it was featured on Real World, but there are much, much better bars on the street. But the guys we were hanging out with were mostly all tourists from Missouri so of course they wanted to see it. It was hot as hell and way too crowded, but the dancing was a lot of fun. The upshot of all this is that I ended up kissing an accountant from Kansas City for a while and then we girls go thrown out of the Hilton Hotel because we were apparently being too loud in the hotel room.
Getting thrown out of the hotel room was kind of ridiculous. Yes, we were being loud. There were about ten of us in one hotel room, of course it was loud. It was also after 3 in the morning so yeah, we were out of line. I admit that. However, I think the security guards that threw us out were out of line, too. They didn't give us any sort of first warning or anything like that, they just came into the room, told us we weren't allowed to stay unless we were registered guests, and forced us to leave. No "Do you ladies have somewhere else to go?" No "Can we call you a cab?" Just "Get out of here." They wouldn't even let us sit in the lobby for a minute. And Jenny was definitely visibly pretty out of it. Chelsea and I were both sobered up by that point from all the dancing and the fact that we'd been chillin' in the hotel room without drinking for a couple of hours, but still. The security guys didn't know that. They basically threw three drunk girls out of the hotel onto the streets at 4 a.m. I'm sorry, regardless of our behavior, there is something very wrong with that.
I didn't mind being thrown out. I was actually kind of happy about it. It was the first time in my life I've ever officially been thrown out of anywhere! Plus Jeff was nice and attractive enough, but all I really wanted to do was dance with him and kiss for a little while and we were rapdily approaching the point where I was going to have to have an awkward conversation with him about how no, I didn't want to go to the empty room next door to fool around, I'd already done everything I wanted to do tonight so, um, I'm just gonna go back to my own house now, okay? The arrival of security prevented me from having to turn down the offer I knew was coming, so that actually was the perfect ending to my night. I just think the guards could have been a little more polite about it. It's not like we were being unruly or destructive, we were just talking too loudly in the middle of the night.
For the record, the guy last night was one of the few strangers I've ever made out with in my life. I've never been much of a lip slut. In fact, the last time I remember making out with anyone who wasn't already a pretty good friend of mine was in Las Vegas in spring 2004, and I'm pretty sure that particular guy was the first stranger I've ever kissed, ever. So I don't do that a lot. I guess it's mainly just because I don't really see the point. It's fun for a minute but I just don't have much desire to do anything if I don't feel like it's ultimately going to go somewhere. You know me, I do pretty much everything in my life with a particular ultimate goal in mind, and that includes relationships. And yeah, there have been times in my life when that goal was more along the lines of "potential fuck buddy" than along the lines of "potential meaningful relationship" but I can't say I've ever gone into anything with the goal being "potential one night stand". And no matter how much he claimed to like me, Jeff wouldn't have been anything but a one night stand. So yeah, I can't say that I was exactly sad that we got thrown out of the hotel before things could go any further.

Anyway, that's a Cliffs Notes version of everything that actually happened last night, but it was a fun night overall. I thought the rest of my weekend would be just me and Shakespeare since I have lots of reading to do before my summer class starts on Tuesday, but then Katy called me last night and told me she and Scott are in this neck of the woods visiting Scott's family for the weekend and they decided on a whim to tube the Guadalupe tomorrow and they invited Chelsea and I to go with them. So now I get to spend tomorrow tubing with Katy!

I should get some sleep first, though. For real.

Won't You Be My Neighbor? Part II

Remember last month when I wrote about all my neighbors, including how I didn't know what exactly was going on in the apartment across the hall but it seemed kind of shady and maybe like nobody was living there at all? (Here's the link to that post)
About a week later I was walking out of my apartment and there was a guy knocking on the door across the hall and he asked me, "Hey, do you know the guy that lives here? His name is Roland, he works for Budweiser. Do you know if he's usually home at this time?" I said no, that I didn't know him and had no idea when he was home and when he wasn't, and then I went about my business and didn't think anything else about it.

But then this afternoon I was cleaning my apartment and there was a knock on my door. I opened it and there was a cop standing outside. After wrangling my attack basset back into the apartment (he wanted to lick the cop to death) I said hello and the cop said to me, "Do you know this guy? He lives across the hall from you. We're looking for him," and he showed me a print out of my neighbor's picture. I said that I recognized the picture and that the guy does in fact live across the hall but that I don't actually know him at all. Then the cop asked if I'd seen him around lately and I said I'd been out of town for the past week but that I never really see my neighbor anyway. [The last time I saw him was a couple of weeks ago when Chelsea, Matthew and I were outside talking one night and the neighbor stuck his head out into the breezeway to glare at us and then went right back inside. I don't know what the glare was for, we were talking in normal tones of voice and it wasn't even all that late at night. Humph.] I told the cop that I've only seen him a few times and have no idea how long he has actually been living there or whether he even lives there regularly at all. Then the cop asked me what kind of car he drives and I said I had no idea and the cop prompted, "Is it a silver Chevy truck?" and I told him that I actually don't think it is. To tell you the truth, I have no idea, but I'm sort of familiar with the cars that make up the view out my front window and I don't think a silver truck is regularly one of them. But like I said, I don't think this guy is regularly living in his apartment anyway.

So who knows. I wanted to ask what the cops want him for, but I figure the officer probably wouldn't give me that information even if I asked. At any rate, my closest neighbor is apparently a wanted criminal. Awesome.

Anyway, I have more to tell you and I know I'm still holding out on the story of how I befriended Mike's ex, but my friend Jenny from Forth Worth just got here and she's spending a couple of nights with me. So I'll update again in a few days, possibly with more Jenny-related adventures since you all know we're crazy together!

I'm Great to Have Along on Road Trips

I'm back home. Chelsea and I drove back from El Paso today. On the 9 hour car ride home I amused myself by doing such things as:

A) Singing the entirety of Elton John's Tiny Dancer one line faster than it was actually playing. Sometimes you false start and you just have to roll with it. This worked fine musically at some points, not-so-well at most. And at one point I did have to belt out "Jesus freaks, out in the street, something something out for God!" because I had to get the line out before Sir Elton caught up to me and for the life of me I couldn't remember the real words. [Incidentally: "Handing tickets out for God." Obviously.] Chelsea fully backed me on this project and I intend to attempt it with other songs in the near future, except that I don't think I know many songs well enough to sing the lyrics ahead of the singer him/herself. Another deterrent to the continuation of this project/experiment is that it is stupid and pointless.

B) Changing lyrics to rap songs so that they can be sung by/to my basset hound. Examples include: "On the front porch barking bring 'em out, bring 'em out! In the backyard barking bring 'em out, bring 'em out!" or "Shake that bas for me, shake that bas for me, come on Co!" Cohen, of course, was fast asleep in the backseat the whole time, but should the dog ever decide he wants to live up to his name and be a rap star, my sister and I will have a routine ready. [In case you don't know, his name as a young puppy before my sister gave him to me was T.I., after the rapper, so I went ahead and registered him as T.I. Cohen. So far he hasn't proven to be a very gangsta dog, but he's young yet].

C) Shouting "Jesus take the wheel!" and flinging my hands in the air and then admonishing Jesus for doing a damn lousy job of taking over on the steering.

Oh, and a certain Pussycat Dolls song may have been played a minimum of three times and possibly more. Possibly. I'm not confirming or denying that except to suggest that if such a thing DID happen it was on account of my sister's bad influence and I still fundamentally think the song is utter crap except that maybe, just maybe, it does kind of grow on you but not so much that you'd actually pay to download such a thing, thankyouverymuch.

And in case you are somewhat concerned by the above descriptions, let me assure you that I was in fact sober the entire way across the state. I'm just that much fun in the car all the time!

On a completely unrelated note, I talked to Mike's girlfriend today. Yeah, really. I'm planning to leave the whole story for another entry because I'm too drained to rehash it at the moment, but the very brief version: it was a surprisingly good turn of events.

Less than three weeks until England!

El Paso-isms

This is a list, but there's really no rhyme or reason here, so don't try to make logical connections.

1. Why are there so many shopping centers here? El Paso is a city full of half-empty shopping centers, and even though most of the shopping centers on the east side of town are half empty (or more than half empty), in the past two days I've driven past at least five sites where they are building new shopping centers. This is a phenomenon that I just don't understand. And I don't really see this happening in other cities, either. Is there a logical explanation for this? 'Cause if there is, I'm not smart enough to figure it out on my own.

2. Do you know what the word "yoco" means? Neither did I, until I read an article in the El Paso times yesterday about some stupid "Bring Your Brightest Bling" party at the El Paso Museum of Art (kill me). Here's a link to a description of the party. It's for El Paso's "young, sophisticated" people to socialize and network (KILL ME). Problem number one is that the El Paso Times is one of the most pathetic newspapers I've ever come across. Given, I'm pretty sure that nobody's crowning achievement is writing for the El Paso Times and the minute a person actually turns into a decent journalist they get a job at a different paper, but still. I have never taken a journalism course in my life, even in high school, and I'm fairly certain I could research and write better articles than anyone on their current staff. The paper is a joke, and trust me, that's not just some snobby, elitist opinion of mine. I'm not one of those El Paso bashers anyway. I actually like El Paso other than the fact that the whole damn city currently reminds me of my idiot ex boyfriend. Anyway, problem number two, the paper wants to tell people where the cool stuff for "young, sophisticated" people is happening? Trust me, the young, sophisticated people of the world (whoever they are) know where the hip stuff is happening without having to be told in the Arts section of the paper. The most annoying thing, though, was this sentence in the article describing the party as a place for "Yocos" to mingle and then in parentheses the reporter explained "Yoco is short for 'young cosmopolitans' and is the new term for yuppies." Is it? Is it REALLY? 'Cause I'd sure never heard the word yoco before. Neither has anyone else I asked. Google didn't even turn up anything,which leads me to believe this isn't exactly pop culture slang. The fact that the reporter or the museum or whatever is apparently making up the word "yoco" isn't even the most annoying part, though. The annoying part was that the reporter had to explain what a yoco is. You don't explain stuff like that. Just use the word. When was the last time you saw a word defined in the newspaper, unless the reporter was specifically coining a new word/phrase? If you want to use a word, use the word. The people who are in the know will understand it. The people that don't understand it will use context clues or ask their friends or look it up. I don't know why I'm ranting on and on about this, it just annoys me that the majority of the paper seems to be written with the assumption that its audience is a bunch of morons. They're not. And if they are, well, sink or swim, people. I just hate when stuff is dumbed down.

3. I got a fun new hair cut today and had a nice chat with my hairdresser. He also cuts Mike's hair, so he's heard the whole breakup debacle from Mike's perspective already. And when I got to the part of the story about how Mike finally told me he's in love with Jenny, Victor snorted and said, "He doesn't love her. He thinks he does right now, but he doesn't. She's a bartender. She's not even from here. He just thinks he loves her because it's new and exciting." I'm not sure why those are reasons not to love someone, but it made me laugh. I asked Victor if Mike made it seem like I was crazy about the whole thing, and Victor said no and added, "Mike just said that he can't handle long distance relationships and you always knew that all along so you should have known better than to get all attached." Fine, that's probably true. I finished up by telling Victor, "He doesn't love me anymore, so I'm done with it for good," and Victor laughed and said, "Of course he still loves you. He will always love you. Just wait, I can already tell you exactly what's going to happen. Years from now you're going to be married with a family and you'll be happy, and he'll run into you and realize what he lost. He will always love you, always. That's just how it works." And I told Victor, "Yeah, but I don't think it works the other way. I won't always love him like that. I warned him when I'm done I'm done, and I meant it. I'm going to move on." And Victor said, "I know that. And it's his loss. And believe me, he's going to realize what he lost eventually. Maybe not any time soon, but he will. Trust me, hairdressers know everything."
Deep down, I have a feeling that's true. That's how I like to imagine things turning out, anyway. Since at this point we won't get back together, I'd at least like to come out on top. Then again, who doesn't? But it was nice to have an objective source agree with me on the fact that Mike still loves me. I mean, obviously he's still afraid he has feelings for me or else he'd be able to talk to me and hang out with me like a normal person, right?
Anyway, there's a good chance Victor pretended to be on Mike's side when he talked to Mike, but I don't care. I'm gonna assume that Victor really is The All Knowing Hairdreser and that he's absolutely right in this particular case.

Alright, time to load up and go to the mountains. I'll be back to the connected world on Saturday.

Quote O' the Day

Mom: In all the years I've been getting Playboy*, I think I've only seen a "Girls of the Ivy League" spread once. It's kind of sad, really, because a lot of girls at those Ivy League schools aren't that hot. It really does seem to be a brains or body thing a lot of the time.
Me: It's not just that, though. I think the bigger problem would be finding girls that would agree to be photographed naked. Because lets face it, the people who do agree to pose naked in magazines aren't usually the brightest Crayons in the box.
Shane: Hey, what about me?!
Mom: When did you pose naked?
Shane: Not yet, but I might.
[The conversation then went off on a different tangent. Ten minutes later]
Shane: So back to me posing naked...
Mom: Yes?
Shane: I'm not gonna lie, my body is pretty hideous.
[...]
Me: And?
Shane: What?
Me: That's it? There's not more of a story? You just had to get that line in there?
Shane: Yeah.

[One more, just for fun]
Background: Because we're total nerds, Chelsea, Shane and I are lying around my grandmother's pool playing that game where one person says "I'm going on a camping trip and bringing whatever" and makes up a rule and then the other people suggest stuff they're bringing and the rule maker says yes or no according to the rule and keeps bringing new things that fit the rule, and then eventually other people start to catch on and guess the rule and whoever the last one is to guess the rule loses. Do you know that game? I hope so, 'cause this is a really shoddy description of it. Anyway, we played a bunch of rounds of this game, and each time a new round would start, Shane would always say, "I'm bringing a...snake?" I don't know why he kept suggesting snake, but he'd say it all the time, even when it was already obvious that snake probably didn't fit the category. Finally I called him on it and said, "Stop saying you're going to bring a snake!" And then we started a new round and it was Shane's first guess and, well, the first guess doesn't require a lot of thought. Basically you just need to start suggesting random things to try to narrow down the pattern. So Shane was thinking and thinking and finally I was like, "Just say something!" and he said

"I can't. I keep wanting to say 'snake' again."

Ah, this family of mine...

*Incidentally, yes, my parents subscribe to Playboy. It actually comes to the house under my mother's name because she's one of those people that says she gets it for the articles and actually does read the articles. Also, this is a pretty typical dinner conversation with my family.

Crazy As Ever

Yesterday my sister and I drove across the state along with two dogs, two cats, two crates for the dogs, and a bunch of other random crap. Thankfully Chelsea drives an SUV (except that it cost me $60 to fill it up in Fort Stockton. I wasn't as thankful about that part).
The drive was uneventful, and so far El Paso has been uneventful too. We all went to Hudson's last night (including Shane's friends Gus and Dykes, who spend so much time with my family whenever Shane is in town that they're basically my brothers, too). And I got a really good buzz going, which is pretty much the only way I can both be in El Paso and be happy at the same time right now. And everyone else drank a lot, too, and we were all really loud and a lot of inappropriate things were said, and my parents are still very much in mid-life crisis mode, which is entertaining to say the least. In other words, it's the same old, same old.

Probably my two favorite moments of this El Paso trip so far:

Yesterday in the car Chelsea and I got on the topic of annoying songs that always get played at weddings and dances (the Cha Cha Slide being a prime example) and I announced that I won't have that music at my hypothetical-possibly-never-going-to-happen wedding. Chelsea then informed me that she's all about the Cha Cha Slide and, in fact, at her wedding she's only going to play the 18 songs that they play over and over again at The Derby in Juarez. "Which means you'll be hearing Cha Cha Slide about every hour and a half!" she gleefully informed me. I love my sister. I'm pretty sure the Derby mix also includes some Prince, so it's not all bad.

And then this morning at 10:00 I was getting breakfast in the kitchen, and Shane poured himself a bowl of shredded wheat and then opened the fridge and stood there staring for a minute and then sighed and said, "Damn, I was hoping we'd have bottled beer." (I later realized this was just general commentary on the fridge and not that he was looking for a beer to have with breakfast, thank God).

Also, my brother just now strolled through the living room wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts with a beach towel wrapped around his neck, carrying a staple gun. This led to the following conversation.
Me: What the heck are you doing?
Shane: That's for me to know and you to find out...(pauses in the doorway) Have you ever been in a staple gun fight?
Me: No. Why would anyone want to do that?...Are you about to tell me that you have?
Shane: During the Member/Guest when you're putting up the scoreboards, nobody comes into the room for hours and there's nothing better to do.
Me: So you kill time by shooting each other with staple guns?
Shane: Yeah...
Me: (long, long LOOK) I have absolutely nothing to say about that.

Really Lame Stuff I Did Today

I don't know if this is a sign that I'm an adult or just a really pathetic neat freak, but while I was cleaning my apartment this afternoon I kept thinking about how much I long for one of those fancy Dyson vacuums. If I got a sudden windfall of cash, I would spend part of it on a vacuum cleaner, and I'd be happy about it. Who daydreams about having enough money to buy a new vacuum cleaner?!

So yeah. I cleaned my apartment today. The absolute only other things I did today were 1) work out and 2) read The Da Vinci Code. I borrowed it from Matthew so I could re-read it before Chelsea and I see the movie when it comes out. Matthew got a promotion last week (yay!) and has to move to Houston (boo!). He thought he wasn't going to have to move until June, but now it turns out they want him in Houston on the 21st, which means he'll be leaving here while I'm still in El Paso. And since I'm going to El Paso the day after tomorrow, I'm doing some speed reading so I can get his book back to him. I realize Houston is just a few hours away and I could easily make a day trip and see him in person and give the book back to him then. And I do intend to visit him in Houston, I just figure I might as well finish the book now anyway, especially since I have a whole stack of library books on my nightstand waiting to be read. Ah, few things in life make me happier than a stack of unread fiction!!

Hmmm, I've already admitted my pathetic vacuum daydream and the nerdy revelation that few things get me more excited than a stack of library books. I was trying to think of something else to share with you, but that's probably enough damage done for one day.

Oh, wait, here's one more complete reputation-damager: I have spent not one, not two, but EIGHT HOURS today watching a Brady Bunch marathon. Given, I've been reading and cleaning and working out at the same time. But still, I have had the TV tuned to the Brady Bunch for eight hours. And counting. Yeah.

P.S.-Today is the one year anniversary of the day Chelsea surprised me with Cohen! Best. Surprise. EVER. In five minutes it will be the one year anniversary of the day I graduated from TCU. I can' t believe it has already been an entire year. Unbelievable how much can happen in a year, really.

Swimming/Not swimming

Well, some minor bad news today. Mandi and I were supposed to go to Galveston for the weekend so we could hang out at the beach and I could meet her family. Unfortunately, her dad has been sick lately and had to go into the hospital for tests yesterday. He still wanted us to come down, but Mandi has decided to go down by herself, which I totally understand. I know she'd feel weird taking me out around town and entertaining me while her dad is sick, and if they happen to get bad news about his health this weekend I know I would feel very awkward being there. I just hope that her dad's health ends up being okay. That's the important thing. And hopefully we'll get to make a trip down there sometime later this summer.
I'm a little disappointed, but I don't mind not going after all. Now I can save a little bit of money this weekend instead of blowing it all on food and alcohol at the beach. Plus it was going to be kind of a hassle coming home on Sunday night and leaving again on Monday morning. Now I have the weekend to clean and pack and all that good stuff. So yeah, it's okay.

And my day was still awesome today because...Cohen learned to enjoy swimming!! I've been determined to get him used to the river. I love hanging out at the river, and it would just be so much more fun if the dog would come and swim with me. Well, Chelsea and I had taken our dogs down to the San Marcos River a few times. Morty the Dark Lord (Morty is in fact short for Voldemort and I love referring to him as "The Dark Lord") ended up loving the river, but Cohen wasn't a fan. On Easter we got him to swim a little bit but he'd only get in by force and he wasn't digging it AT ALL. Plus the river here in town isn't the best place for a little dog like Cohen to swim because there's only one tiny portion of the river where you can actually wade in gradually, and that area is always full of other dogs and screaming children. Not exactly relaxing.
So last week I bought him a life vest, thinking that maybe he'd like swimming better if he could be a little more weightless. Bassets are not made for swimming. They're very heavy-boned and have very short legs, so they basically sink like stones. They CAN swim on their own (all dogs can swim) but definitely not very long or very far. So today Chelsea came down for the afternoon. We put Cohen in his life vest and went out to Five Mile Dam, a park on the Blanco River that's only about four miles from my apartment. I somehow didn't know that this park existed until a couple of days ago, but I'm so, SO glad someone at the dog park told me about it. It's perfect. The Five Mile Dam park itself is big and grassy with picnic tables and all that good stuff. Lots of people hang out up there. But if you go down below the dam there's a quiet area where the water flows really gently and is shallow enough to wade right into at most parts. This is where people take their dogs, so that's where Chels and I took Cohen. Then we tempted him with pieces of hot dog until he waded out into the river. Before long he was paddling around in his little life vest!!
I love my hound dog like crazy, but I don't think I've ever loved Cohen more than I did when he was paddling around in the river today. He looked so cute, I almost couldn't stand it. And the best part is, by the end of the day I think he really, truly liked it. At first I could tell he was just in the water to make me happy (and to get hot dogs pieces) but by the end of the day he was actually wading through some of the shallow parts of the river without any coaxing. And then once we'd had enough of swimming we took his life vest off and we walked up the river a little ways to check out more of the park. Cohen bounded along beside us (off leash and behaving really well, I might add!) and then took it upon himself to wade out into the water several more times. So he's not afraid anymore! I still think he prefers wading to actual swimming, but I'm just so happy that he'll willingly get into the water now.
Plus I'm really glad we discovered Five Mile Dam. It's much better than the City Park here in San Marcos, which is where I'd always been swimming in the past. The water feels great, it's quieter, and it's just prettier overall. Wild flowers everywhere, clear water, lots of shade...I'm thinking I'll head out that way much more often this summer.
These links will take you to pictures of my swimming hound dog!