abduction.

this cadence camp is my second of the summer of 2010. throughout these two camps, i have learned two very vital things. one. if a kid has dimples, their cuteness factor is immediately hightened. two. if my kid does have dimples (which it must or i'm giving it back) i will not send it to camp, because im afraid that the counselors will kidnap it.

this fear comes from a very real occurance, for eric and i are currently plotting the abduction of our favorite little boy camper named rye. like the catcher in the. or bread.

he has dimps. freckles. curly hair. chubby cheeks. all of his teeth. im not a fan of the whole "loosing teeth" fase of childhood. and a gruff little voice. and we want him.

its getting slightly out of hand. we took pictures with him that we plan on putting on our christmas card when we become a family. we considered adoption as an option because his parents have another blonde haired kid to fill the void. but theres all that paperwork.

while watching a movie with the campers yesterday, eric and i cornered rye. and we so had him. no other adults in the room, most of the other kids were in a trance from the movie, and there was a trashcan nearby to mask the actual snatch. the plan was to slip him into his sleeping bag, then zip it up, (gently) toss him in the trashcan, and then "take out the trash" while really relocating him to sheila franklin, also known as the getaway car.

i actually dont remember why we didnt go through with it. i think it was because of rye's slight reluctance to get in his sleeping bag. we wanted this abduction to be as pleasant as possible.

after all, he was going to become our child.

driving fiascos.

lately i have been having a lot of car fiascos. i'd like to take this time to give a quick shout out to sheila franklin, who has been with me throughout all of these fiascos. because she is my car.

first. driving down my road, which happens to go by the name of 'stone horse creek road'. now, going off of the name, one would assume that many 'stones' are scattered across 'STONE horse creek rd'. this is a fact. i have ran over many a stone in my day. but stones, when hit, ricochet off the tires and fly into the ditch. they do not squish. driving along, i see what i so ignorantly assume to be a stone. so i hit it. twas not a stone. twas a frog. i know this, because it squished. i heard it. both wheels. rest in peace.

second. where i live, seeing tractors on the road is not uncommon. in fact, it is extremely common. do you know what is NOT extremely common? seeing a tractor (on a trailer, yes, but still) cruising down highway 64. this tractor was headed into downtown richmond. i can only imagine what its plans were for the desolate asphalt pit that is, richmond.

anyways.

this tractor was in front of me, and i was less than pleased, because anything with a load such as that cannot go the speed limit and certainly cannot go ABOVE the speed limit which is what i desired to do, for i was late. traffic was thick, so passing just wasnt an option. so here i am, stuck behind this tractor, when all of a sudden a metal object comes flying at shiela and i! i swerve, of course, and avoid it, but then as i contemplated what that unidentified flying object could have been, i realized that it was a BLADE from said tractor! THIS TRACTOR IS HURLING FREAKING METAL RAZORS AT MY CAR.

blinker on. i eventually find a hole and manage to get in the lane next to the tractor driver. it is there that i ride beside him for a solid 15 seconds glaring at him until he gets the message.

RAZORS.

third. the lever that turns on my lights in my car sticks. let me just start with that.

now. a few months ago a bastard nailed me from behind and took out my left brake light. no big deal, gots it fixed. except it didnt really fix, cause the brake light was still out. so then i went to get it fixed again. the brake light got fixed that time. but somehow in the process of fixing my brake light the mechanic managed to screw up my tail light. so thats out.

now that you have all that info, i can begin my story. driving home from 'the fantasticks' (ITS GREAT GO SEE IT www.cadencetheatre.org) and its late. i am aware that my tail light is out, but i am also aware that police officers will usually only give you a warning for such things if they pull you over for it. knowing this, when i saw the police officers blue lights flashing behind me, im pretty chill. ive got nothing to hide, thats my policy.

the guy comes up. and instead of doing what i expected and informing me that my tail light is out, he informs me that i have been driving without my lights on. yes. i had travelled from downtown all the way to short pump with only my parking lights on and did not even notice. so he tells me to turn my lights on, and then goes on to tell me that he's still going to need to see my license. so he takes it and meanders back to the police car, where he sits for nine minutes and then returns.

WITH A TICKET. i'm all like 'whaaaat?!' cause im freaking sixteen years old AND I JUST HAD MY LIGHTS OFF. no no. i've been nailed for a double whammy, lights off AND tail light out. he said he originally pulled me because he thought i was a drunk driver, because usually only drunken people forget to turn their lights on all the way. whatever.

no more titles.

for all of you out there concerned with the state of my teeth, the healing process is going quite swimmingly. i enjoy feeling the stitches in my tooth holes because it tickles. and i am down to eight advil a day. yay for addictions.

this is going to be an exceedingly short blog post.

i dont feel like naming this one.

i got my wisdom teeth yanked out of my face friday morning and they anesthesia-ed me all up so since then i have been sleeping on and off and therefore it is 1:36am and i am starving and wide awake. its not even like im just not tired, i literally am alert as ever right now.

i am going to list some things that i have done since midnight that i usually would not be doing because usually i would be either watching scrubs or sleeping.

-played 'megajump' on tommy the itouch. 'megajump' is a free little app (NOT FREE ANYMORE SUCKAAAAS!) that consists of a tiny red monstrous-looking creature that jumps and then you have to steer it left and right so that it continually makes contact with the ever moving coins dangling mid-air. meg introduced it to me late last night. its really a super game once you get past the silliness of it all. the sole problem is im having trouble getting past level one, and the other levels that say LOCKED when you try to cheat and access them have names like 'city of mists', 'silvery moon' and 'comet nebula' which are just altogether too appealing.

-watched 'diners, drive-ins and dives' on food network. hosted by guy fieri, who has abnormally blonde hair. did i mention earlier that i was starving? yes. yes i did. and watching guy stuff his face with the united states of america's best burgers was just torture.

-ate applesauce. or shall i say, BEGAN to eat applesause, because i have come to find that this natural applesauce keeumm buys is tasteless.

ALL I HAVE EATEN TODAY IS A BOWL OF MASHED POTATOES. HELP ME.

-went on a scavenger hunt for cinnamon. cinnamon really can add that extra umph to things that are tasteless. probably because cinnamon has taste.

-found cinnamon, put cinnamon in applesauce, completed applesauce. i dont feel the need to expand on this topic much more.

-listened to commercials with my eyes closed. this SEEMS pointless but if you play a game with yourself and try to figure out what the commercial is for within the first 5 seconds it proves to be exceedingly entertaining until they start repeating commercials which is much too frequent on late night television.

-gargled salt water. just did.

-got a flashlight and tried to see the holes where my wisdom teeth once were. it was tricky, and took much maneuvering with a mirror, but i figured it out. theres really not too much to see, unless raw gums are interesting to you. i also expected much more from these so called 'dissolving stitches', like BEING ABLE TO SEE THEM. you cant. fyi.

-parted my hair on the opposite side that its supposed to be. BAD. IDEA.

now im still not tired, but guy fieri's voice on the tv in the other room is REALLY starting to annoy.

ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT, thats not really it. im just jealous of his solid foods.

time to watch some infomercials.

manhole.

the gilman troupe took a vaca north. these are my highlights from said excursion. and just so you know, i plan to continue using 'vaca' as an abbrev for 'vacation' because it is one of the few abbrevs (including abbrev itself) that i am actually in favor of.

-washington dc. the fam *another approved abbrev* sits in front of the washington monument, marveling in its majestic beauty. we notice a plane. sister points to said plane and says "it looks like that plane is going to run into the monument." sister is correct, and we all watch in a mix of awe and terror as this aeroplane flies slowly but surely lower and seemingly closer to the monument. then we all breathe a sigh of relief as the plane passes it on the other side. all except keeumm, who smiles, cocks her head to the side and says "that's neat..."
not an appropriate response.

-street vendors. brother purchases a lemon italian ice on the street. we sit on bench to rest our tired feet, or as dick calls them, "worn out puppies". brother drops half eaten italian ice on sidewalk, and ice pops out of container. mass devastation ensues. brother tries, in vain, for a solid three minutes to scoop up (MEG) the ice into the container without using his hands. he eventually gets it up to a wall and manages to slide it back in. he then goes back to the street vendor and tells his harrowing tale, expecting a new italian ice. instead, he retrieves a cup of water. for "washing it off", as the street vendor told him.
he disposed of both.

-muslim karaoke singers. hershey park has these wonderful opportunities for rising stars to perform their debut for all of the park to enjoy. it is a room with a karaoke machine where you can sing and afterwards pick up the video, which may not seem to be worth $25 BUT the exposure is invaluable. i was lucky enough to be walking by when the familiar musical introduction of 'my heart will go on' caught my attention. i, of course, stopped to listen. the two muslim women began to sing. or rather, speak on pitch. or rather, talk with rhythm. or rather, mumble aimlessly. for they had no rhythm, certainly did not know the pitches, and most of the time it seemed like the one on the left was singing a completely different song. i asked if i could purchase THEIR tape, but the employees said that could cause a lawsuit down the road.
i was bummed.

-toilet paper. in the hotel room in hershey that we stayed in, the bathroom perplexed me. here's why. if you were to sit on the toilet, the toilet paper roll was all the way across the bathroom. it is literally impossible to reach while remaining seated. no need to bring up the fact that i have abnormally short arms, because i tested it and you would need to have nearly twice my armspan to reach it.
that just aint right.

-wooden rollercoasters. because keeumm and dick are silly and had three kids and didnt stop at an even two, family theme park visits are extremely difficult. somebody always has to ride alone, and on the wooden rollercoaster known as "the wildcat", i was elected to be the lone rider. it was my wise decision to ride with a little black boy instead of all by me lonesome. i tried to strike up a conversation on the way up the hill, but he was a bit too anxious to chat. then once we went over the hill and got going, he covered his eyes and said "ohhhh noooo" many, many, many, many times. then when the ride ended a mere 45 seconds later, he uncovered his eyes, looked at me sheepishly and said "my b."
poor fella.

-palm beach tan. driving home we passed a joint that goes by the name of 'palm beach tan'. except the sign was malfunctioning a bit so it looked like 'palin beach tan'. come on. dont tell me if you saw a sign that you thought said 'palin beach tan' it wouldnt land in the highlight category of your vaca.
really now.

-orioles game. the gate workers at camden yards were handing out orioles tshirts before the game, but considering how i am a new york yankees fan and NOT an orioles fan, i declined to accept their free tshirt and decided to sport my new yankees tee to the game. yes. i was booed. verbally abused. and i think some drunk guy actually spit at me. but because of MY support, ARod hit his 600th homerun today.
SO YOURE WELCOME NEW YORK CITY.

-wheres waldo. if you have ever entered urban outfitters before, you should well know that their array of books is eccentric to say the least. apparently they carry a 'wheres waldo' book, because as i exited the dressing room, one of those very 'wheres waldo' books goes flying by me. the culprit was a little boy whose mother, im sure, sat him down with this book whilst she shopped. he then shouted 'i jist caint FIND waldo no more!'
many a time has that same thought crossed through my head, lemme tell ya.

-lost & found. sister does not own a cell phone of her own, so she has adopted, or rather, stolen dick's phone so she can chat with her little frands. she had dick's phone in her pocket when we rode on hershey park's infamous rollercoaster, 'fahrenheit'. unwise. a stellar ride was there after RUINED by sister's comment 'um dad, i dont have your phone anymore.' my immediate suggestion was that it had tried to commit suicide after being overwhelmed by the mass amount of middle school chatter, but that idea was quickly discarded for whatever reason. long story short: went to lost & found, were filling out paperwork when dude walked in with dick’s phone and we said ‘oh that’s it yay happy happy joy joy’.
i think she deserved to lose it.

-manhole. i walked on top of a manhole that actually had steam being emitted from it. what an absolutely exhilarating feeling.
check that off my bucket list.

i have one downfall from my vacation. and that is the death of fernando the glow-in-the-dark unicorn silly band. sister is to blame. i'd rather not go into detail. my husband said it best when she said, 'it is a sad sad day in the land of fernando'. may he rest in peace.

besides this tragedy, i'd say vaca went quite swimmingly.

into the woods its time to go

today is opening. literally, just now, as i wrote that, i put my face in my hands. not cause im fearful of (the woods at night) opening, simply because i really just cant believe that its already here. this day has been a long time coming, folks, and im not just talking about the rehearsal process. i'd say ive been dreaming bout this for a good solid two years. shivers.

this is not going to be my usual witty banter-esque blog post, because im too jittery to be amusing. sorry.

i'm attached to little red like i've never been attached to any other character before. usually its easy for me to draw the line between myself and my character. but she is so different; she is literally an 12year old, caped extension of myself.

i'm excited and scared for tonight... but all thats left to do now is say a little prayer and kick some INTO THE WOODS butt!

i love you, my cast! WE GOT THIS!

silly bandz.

let me just get this straight before i begin this blog post. i am not, repeat, NOT a fan of silly bandz.

silly bandz (i am adding the z because i like it, i dont actually know for sure if the correct term for these ridiculous wrist adornments contains a 'z' or not) are, as i stated in my aside just then, ridiculous wrist adornments.

you wear them around your wrist until someone asks you what it is. because someone WILL ask you what it is. and then you remove said silly band with pride and tug at it for a certain period of time until it resembles an unidentifiable blob, then tug at it some more until it becomes the silhouette of a random animal, vegetable, mineral or unknown.

kids these days barter silly bandz as if they were actually valuable. but keep in mind, one silly band is not equal to the next. silly bandz that glow in the dark, are tye dye, or resemble the shape of toy story characters are considered to be the most precious. as in, YOU BETTER HAVE SOME COLD HARD CASH IF YOU WANT MY BUZZ LIGHTYEAR SILLY BAND.

why have i gone on this rant about silly bandz, you may ask? because i myself have recently had a revelation, a change of heart, if you will, about silly bandz.

im a really good person. and wasting things just irks me. thats why when i noticed there was a water bottle in jessie's bathroom trashcan with a hair elastic around it, i was going to inform jessie. because i was either going to be a good person and let jessie know that she was accidentally going to throw away a hair elastic, or, if this did not alarm jessie (AS IT SHOULD) i was going to be nonwasteful and save that hair elastic from a premature fate.

i informed jessie. she reacted as i feared, and was not concerned about the hair elastic. but eureka, jessie spotted something ELSE on this water bottle which she decided she DID want to retrieve. choosy little bugger.

this much smaller and less prominent object turned out to be.... a silly band. i was not interested, because, as i have already told you, silly bandz are not liked by allison.

i climbed into my adopted jennison bed and was snuggling in, ready to catch a good solid 5 hours of sleep before a day of stage explorers and into the woods-ing.

and then i saw it. a glowing beacon of light slowing floating towards me across the room. i was instantly mesmerized. my eyes followed its every move, watching in awe of its simple but stunning beauty.

TO JOANN.

needless to say i was alarmed when the mysterious object floated upwards towards the blinds and then two legs plopped beside me in the bed. it was jessie closing the blinds. not exciting. but what was exciting was that the beacon of light was clinging to her wrist.

jessie dropped the beacon on my face. for a few minutes, i was fearful to touch it. then i gathered my courage and grabbed it, then held it up in the air. it was a glow in the dark unicorn silly band, and i was in love.

if you put it on your wrist and then madly wave your arm, the people across the room can see what your arm is doing! and if you put it on your nose and then sit up, the people across the room can see your nose! and if you put it around your eye, the people across the room can (so they tell me) SEE YOUR EYE!

i put on quite the show for meg, jessie and kaki.

this unicorn silly band that i have named fernando is still on my wrist and i never plan to take it off. we'll see how this goes with the run of into the woods. i think that little red would be the trendsetter of the show, the first character to wear silly bandz. ITS A CHARACTER CHOICE OKAY.

a kid at stage explorers asked if she could have it. i said no.

i also saved that hair elastic.

plastic daggers.

hi there. ha that's funny because that's the name of my blog but really i was just greeting everybodies.

i haven't blogged in quite some time, and i'm gonna be honest here, i actually forgot that this blog existed for a good solid month or so. pity. cause when i used to blog daily, i liked it.

to say that i am gonna start blogging daily again would be the equivalent of flat lying to your faces. but thats what audra honaker did with stage explorers kids so im guessing that since audra's done it, its now socially acceptable.

into the woods is pretty much in crunch time now. which is symbolic because in into the woods, people get crunched by giants. not i. i survive. which is why the show is totes def worth seeing. www.sparconline.org ORDER TICKETS RIGHT NOW. STOP READING THIS BLOG RIGHT NOW. YES YOU. STOP READING. ORDER TICKTETS. NOPE, DONT EVEN PRETEND YOU FORGOT THE WEBSITE NAME. HERE IT IS AGAIN, FOR YOU IGNORANT SOULS. www.sparconline.org NOW THERES NO EXCUSE.

i enjoy into the woods because i get to talk really fast and snap at people who, under any other circumstances, i would not mess with. like t'arahhh juuuulietaaaa. i also get to wear a cloak made of wolf skins and brandish a small dagger made of plastic that lives in my pants when im not using it.

other things i like about into the woods. i dont have to wear heels. i do have to wear an apron. i get to toss a baby around in my arms like nobodys business. i get to crush john mincks foot. (not really, but he doesnt know about my opening night blocking alterations as of yet.) eric switches back and forth from being a cow to a munchkin from the merry old land of oz. i get to swing fake birds around on floating branches. meg and daniel kiss for an extended period of time. as do julia and daniel, and julia and john. and i am allowed to eat muffins onstage. dream role: check.

oral surgeon.

i have received a special request to blog. to misquote captain barbossa from pirates of the caribbean "I'm inclined to acquiesce to your request. Means 'yes'." the actual line has something to do with being disinclined and meaning no but thats really not applicable here at all.

current events. lets see. i visited the oral surgeon today because my wisdom teeth are being all wisdom-teeth-like and really wanna be removed from my gums. keeumm dropped me off at this more developmental looking area behind henrico doctors.

she told me to go into this building. this building had a sign on it that said 'orthopaedics' on a sign by the entrance. i pointed to said sign and asked keeumm 'orthopaedics?'. keeumm nodded fervently.

i said to keeumm, 'but orthopaedics is like arms and legs related...'. but keeumm insisted. and if you know keeumm then you know, what she says, goes.

so i went in, feeling like a fool with my tooth xrays in hand as i passed by multiple patients with crutches and ace bandages. i asked the lady at the front desk where i could sign in to have my mouth examined. she seemed to be pretty peeved. i dont know why, seems like lots of educated people like my mother would confuse the words 'orthopaedic' and 'oral'.

my prayers are with the jennison family!

OH SNAP

i-i forgot i had a blog.

CIABATTA!

this blogpost is being written by a human being who has the legal ability, perhaps not permission but thats a tale for a different day, to drive themself anywhere they please. score.

behind the wheel yesterday was the most fun of all because at this point i had already passed the exam and pretty much had to do something insanely terrible like hit a pedestrian to get that revoked. so i considered it free reign.

amanda drove first and she passed with flying colors of course so then it was my turn to take a spin. i was driving along when i came to the conclusion that we were remarkably near my house. what a crazy coincidence that was, too crazy a happening to pass up thats for sure.

im pretty sure mr. hudak wanted me to get on an interstate for some fast mileage, but that was not in MY plan, and seeing how ALLISON was the one with the steering wheel and not mr. hudak, i was in charge. and i took advantage of this.

we took a "detour". mr. hudak didn't have a clue where we were which put me in total control. he was a tad freaked. i believe he muttered something about being kidnapped by teenagers or something like that but i just disregarded everything he said from there on out.

amanda and i established that we lived really close to each other, which was a perfect oppurtunity to drive by each others houses, check em out. lucky mr. hudak also came along for the ride. certainly not by choice.

we changed our route multiple times in order to make it the most scenic/difficult for mr. hudak to figure out where he was. we succeeded. at one point he asked me 'could you tell me where we're headed?' and i said 'actually i dont really know road names i just pretty much know where im supposed to turn'. this reassured him.

occasionally he would mistakenly believe that i was going to run off the road, and he would exclaim things like 'CIABATTA!'. i dont know why the name of an artisan bread was the first thing that came to his mind when he thought he was going to die, but to each his own.

when i eventually in the most roundabout way possible returned him to the main road, he breathed for the first time in a solid 30 minutes. amanda and i laughed gaily, but now that we were back in his neck of the woods, we were reprimanded.

it was fun while it lasted.

scratch off gently with a coin.

i am under the impression that a good collared shirt is timeless. i was also under the impression that pigtails were timeless, but the director of grapes was adamant that i was incorrect. that was a devastating blow.

lately i have seen a lot of shows. some have been really good, and some have been really bad. you truly can get the best of both worlds here in richmond.

saw 'children of eden' yesterday. there was one actor who i think may be completely tone deaf, and yet he had a lead in a musical. this bodes ill for the rest of the musical in my opinion, especially when this dude returns in the second act to play another singing role. why. just... why.

one of my favorite past times is to look for awkward couples. i really dont have any guidelines as to what is and is not an awkward couple, but i can feel it in my bones. couples whose height difference is staggering and therefore have to use stairs so they can kiss. couples who are really self conscious and are always looking over their shoulder when talking to their significant other to ensure that no one will know that they are actually a unit. couples who walk down the hall very close to each other but are certain to never make any legitimate physical contact. when i see air quote relationships air quote like this, i am glad i have no time for boys.

the staff of bath and body works is infamous for being the most pushy salespeople in the history of EVER. i think being overly satisfied with any and all bath and body works products is the leading factor that comes into play when hiring. word to the wise: dont attempt to look at their wackadoodle "scenteggs". it will only end in a perpetually confusing conversation that can never come to any gain of knowledge.

i have come to the conclusion that the little bar on lottery scratchers and the back of gift cards that says 'scratch off gently with a coin' is really more trouble than its worth. it should be made so it can say 'scratch off gently with long fingernails' or something like that. i always find that i can never locate a coin when i need one for those suckers. and nickels are apparently not included in the 'coin' department because they require much more scratching fervor to remove all the junk than say, a penny.

windshield wipers.

my parents became infuriated today because i "only grunt at them". this is entirely not true. i also shrug.

behind the wheel is going swimmingly for all who are curious. successful parallel park today. which was tricky, because i had no cars, cones, or markings to determine where the two invisible vehicles were located.

the concept i am worst at in behind the wheel is figuring out those bloody windshield wipers. since when does pushing up the trigger cause the soapy stuff to come out? those front windows were squeaky clean when i was done with them, let me tell you.

i almost hit a crow today on the road. you'd think it would be near impossible to hit an animal with wings on the road, but tis not so.

apparently i have a small problem with road rage. i say small because i tend to be falsely kind to my fellow drivers. LOOK if you pass me, and then i catch up to you, and later pass you, i am going to wave to you and mouth the word 'SUCKER'. i just am.

continuously checking your mirrors is one of the checks needed to pass behind the wheel. to test this, the teacher will ask you to tell whats behind you without looking. mr. hudak asked me to tell him what color the car behind me was without looking. i told him with a fairly certain tone, 'blue'.

there wasnt a car behind me.

blast.

cinch.

meg & i went on a date this afternoon. i enjoy going on dates with meg. because we can both be pigs and neither will care. hence- cheeburger cheeburger.

disappointment did ensue because we both ordered kids meals and they were delivered in little black baskets instead of the cardboard tbird souvenir basket. just because we are over the age of seven doesnt mean we are too old for a toy car. sheesh.

i found a pair of mens sunglasses in the carnahan car. i put them on. this was a mistake, for mens sunglasses do NOT look good on girls.

nay, mens sunglasses dont look good on ANYONE. the ones that like slant upwards like the avatar creatures eyes do. with the random colors in the lens. you know the ones.

showcase was today. it reminded me why i want to adopt children when they are in their teens or raise them until they are four and give them away. aka avoid the wretched age that is- preteen. yikes.

matt polson had to go downstairs for teacher introductions. i happened to be standing nearby. he asked if i could keep an eye on his kiddies. i said yes. something i would soon regret. i thought to myself 'this should be a cinch!'

i really did say 'cinch'.

it was not a cinch. what is a cinch? i should probably stop using that term until i discover the definition.

ah. here we are.
cinch
Pronunciation: \ˈsinch\
Function: noun
Etymology: Spanish cincha, from Latin cingula
Date: 1859
1 : a girth for a pack or saddle
2 : a tight grip
3 a : a thing done with ease

i choose to refer to definition number three. awesome.

those kids were rowdy beyond belief. new appreciation for sparc teachers across the board. i pulled every theatre game EVER from my mental collection. still not enough. thank the lord for red light green light. and jessie jennison. i think it was definitely a job that needed a bare minimum of two people.

major headache and loss of hair were the result.

now off to massage my scalp.

well past 7:15.

i only have fifteen minutes til class change so im going to do the best i can with the time alotted. in case you havent noticed, my naive assertion that posting one blog post per day is not only improbable but most days also impossible. i'll do my best to keep up, but consider this fair warning that there wont be a new one of these suckers every day.

meg & i went to see beau jest at the JCC wednesday to support two of our favorites from the highly diverse cast of fiddler, jackie and david. they were lovers. which was weird for me having known them. but they still did a superb job, despite the oddity of the match up.

we had planned to attend this show on opening night since the day we heard of it. immediately went into our phone calendars. so you know we meant business. later on a sparc performance was scheduled that same day, but being young and unaware of the unreliabilty of theatre performance times, we merely assumed we would be finished in time to make it for curtain.

the show started a little late, no big deal. except it WAS a big deal. my husband offhandedly informed me right when the show ended that it was 7:15 during my dainty june song. which let meg and i to draw to the (correct) conclusion that it was now WELL PAST 7:15, which was our desired time of leaving.

jelj checks her handy dandy wristwatch. it is now 7:30 on the dot. crap.

we burst out of the sparc building like a shot, exiting through a door i think is supposed to be reserved only for emergencies, flying by our friends whom we left in the dust (still wanna apologize for that, guys) and waving our arms in a mad frenzy.

meg checks her phone. deb is holding curtain for us. PRESSURE.

of course it takes us a whole 13 seconds to find megs car which was WAY more than alotted, and then the seat belts are stuck, the radio is blaring country music... everything was going wrong.

finally we get out, speeding, but enough so that we look like a blur and police cars dont usually stop blurs.

im screaming directions. meg is, of course, questioning my directions. but for once in my life i know whats up.

meg lets me out in the drive through at the front of the JCC. i jet out in front of the car, because that is where i must go in order to get to the building, not because i am stupid. and meg accidentally presses on the gas instead of the brake. close call with death involving cars and being late places #2. but this time, no hitchhiking.

adam.

"blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah" -spring awakening. my quote of the day.

the return of glee has filled me with glee. idina & johnny groff. plus im just really stoked for some more pop culture songs to be injected with the glee sting of death, because i gotta say, after working glee auditions saturday, i cannot stand the sound of people singing about the sun being a ball of butter or weaklings leaning on their friends or lovers insisting that they are not going anywhere. just writing that made me cringe. new topic.

my favorite american idol contestant to date, adam lambert, is on tonight to mentor the youngins. anyone else find it ironic that they got kris allen, last seasons WINNER, to perform multiple weeks ago, and now, top eight, they are bringing in adam as a mentor. favoritism. just sayin.

adam and i have had kind of a shaky past. meg showed me the video of him performing at some sort of awards show last year, the now infamous gay makeout performance, and i questioned our future. mad props for his guts though. joel mchale certainly had a field day with that.

i am dismayed to admit that i did in fact forget a rollercoaster when i was listing off the few coasters we rode at kd. the "wooden death trap" as meg politely calls it, aka the grizzly. not a fun ride. not fun at all.

i am also dismayed to correct myself yet again, for it was a tapestry, not a shrine, that mr. jif was honored on at the university of kentucky. excessive apologizes, mr. jif.

there is a stray headshot lying on the floor. i am oddly tempted to vandalize my own face.

.......excuse me while i do just that.

yeah cookies.

this morning, scottie learned that our father was lactose intolerant. he was devastated. i think he was confusing it with a much more life threatening disorder.

thursday meg and i went to jmu. a game of role playing was ensued, meg as herself, i as her eighth grade little sister who was slightly less than pleased to be touring a college campus at the young age of 13. i threw a few mini tantrums to add to the effect. it worked.

we also decided to begin speaking in aussie accents everytime we saw anything with james madison on it. our one and only line was "its james 'imself! JAMES!" much to the dismay of pam. easily annoyed by her daughters.

our tour guides name was levi may. DANG i still need to facebook friend request him. hold on.

done.

he was quite the fellow. he told us that there is this buffet thing where you buy a container and can take as much food as you can squeeze into the container. not only did this idea alone intrigue me, but then he told us that he generally just fills the sucker up with three dozen cookies and brings it back to the dorm and then everybody's like "YEAH COOKIES!" according to levi's stories. so pretty much, its like a buffet that acts as a popularity booster. me like.

meg and i ate at mongolian grill. i dropped two pennies and a nickel in line. you could say thats how i left my mark on jmu.

levi needs a volunteer. i am the one. some bricks on the ground make a circle. stand in the middle of the circle. clap your hands. makes a weird sound. best part of the jmu tour.

levi and my one and only conversation that i will treasure for the rest of my life and perhaps re-live daily.
"moody hall... who can guess what department this is for?"
"...psych?"
"YEAH PSYCHOLOGY!"
meg thought it was women's studies.

did you know the guy who created jif peanut butter donated like a squillion dollars to university of kentucky library and if you go there, there is a shrine dedicated to him with sn image of mr. jif and a horse? meg knows.

coraline is NOT available with verizon on demand. do not be fooled.

saw julia's production of 'as you like it' at colliegate. it was mongolian themed. julia played a french lad and an elk. she can DANCE.

i just ate chinese food and now would like to nap. i bid you all adieu.

planet snoopy.

sorry. call me a fail at life. or a fail at blogging. another long absence i know. but i havent been alone in eighty one hours. seriously. meg showed up at my house at 10am on wednesday and i just left her house at 7pm today. satruhday. joined at the hip much?

KD was fun. it was just the four of us, meg and myself and tibbz and pastore. which worked out nicely for the two person seaters on the coasters. not that we rode any coasters. cause we didnt, really. we mainly walked from one end of the park to the other. like five times. call it bad planning i guess.

we also were bad about wasting time. we chose to wait an hour for white water canyon. a little splash of water was all that was obtained from that epic time waster. but we did gain the friendship of two young lads, matthew and louis. worth it.

saw rachel's snoopy themed show. it broke my heart a little bit to hear them take the YAGMCB songs and slaughter them as they did. they did the best they could with the material i do believe. because the material was just flat out bad. so props.

speaking of snoopy themed, that was what the entire park was. the kiddie area is now called planet snoopy. i could only imagine how i would have reacted to this mass exploitation of snoopy this time last year. i imagine cardiac arrest at first sight of giant inflatable snoopy.

michael was not nearly as enamored as i.

rollercoaster tally at the end of the day. intimidator300 - 2x. dominator - 1x. white water canyon - 1x. spongebob 3d adventure - 1x. and thats all thats coming to mind. so clearly if we did any thing else it didnt make much of an impact on me at all.

took a trip up the eiffel tower. we expected the view to showcase the natural beauty of the countryside. it actually showed us how rotten the rooftops of kings dominion are. flat nasty. this sightseeing adventure was shortlived.

began to watch the show PULSE. stopped. soon.

found an asian boy carrying a giant pikachu and asked him to pose for a picture. he obliged. good lad.

meg & i rode back to shuffles with michael. he was in ali's car so we had every cd EVER to choose from for our ambiance on the ride home. meg and i chose N'SYNC. i dont believe michael was a fan of this choice.

lots of other stuff happened this weekend, but i am tired and therefore i am weak. i shall decide tomorrow if i wish to continue detailing my spring break. if not, i shall leave it to you, my readers, to imagine.

soap.

i have a box of tagalongs sitting next to me. there is a picture of three girls who look straight out of the eighties on it, and one of them has a crazed look in her eyes. i think she is disappointed because she is on the box of tagalongs instead of eating the box of tagalongs. tough luck, crazed cliche teenager.

went to massanutten today with my cousins. my cousin dabney likes to be joined at the hip with me. in the car ride there, it was just me and her and my parents. this was a bummer because my plan was to catch some extra z's.

i somehow convinced her that it would be a good way for us to bond if i went to the backseat and slept while she sat quietly in the front seat.

children. so naive and impressionable.

i saw a clone of 11 year old meg at the waterpark if meg was fat and had bad teeth. so i guess it wasnt really that much of a clone.

amanda and i enjoyed watching people do the "flowrider". the "flowrider" is a little machine that squirts water upwards really hard and then people get a boogie board and jump on the water and try to "surf". in case you didnt catch on from all of my airquotes, this machine is really a load of bologna.

that is so weird that bologna is spelled like that. should be balonie.

but its so entertaining to watch. some people walk up with a swagger because they KNOW they are gonna OWN at this because it looks SO SIMPLE. it is those people that end up flipping off immediately and gain nothing but a mouth full of water and their swim trunks at the bottom of the pool. awkward.

i tell of this from a special place in my heart because i saw this happen to someone i know and love. yes, a close member of my immediate fambly lost their swim trunks in the flowrider. that person.... is my father.

...moving on.

saw the gimmick show at bdale tonight with my husband and annie. i also saw my granpa tom mcgranahan whom i miss because now who is there to call me a hooligan? sad.

annie and i went to the restroom. simple enough. saw dee lynch. some polite chit chat was occuring, and i was trying to seem coordinated, cue laughter from jessie at the thought of me being coordinated, and so i decided to attempt to multi task.

its tricky to multi task right when you enter a restroom because generally what you are in there to do you cant do and carry on a conversation. well, you can, but i'd prefer not to put the other person in a position of such awkwardness.

so as i was conversing with dee, i meandered over to the soap dispenser, squirted soap in my hand, and finished up the convo. it was a few moments after she left the restroom that i realized that i had been holding out my hands with a hefty dollop of soap on them for a good minute or so without noticing. i am SO coordinated.

my husband's name is jessica elizabeth love jennison and after tomorrow we shall not be friends anymore because she is getting her braces removed and she will be too beautiful to be even distant acquaintences with meg and myself anymore. its a shame, because i really was beginning to be able to tolerate her.

this blog post is dedicated to my sister in law, kaki jennison.

tmobile coworkers.

sorry for my hiatus. im back.

if you will, go back in time to friday night with me. that is what i desire to blog about on this fine easter sunday.

roast time. i was beyond stoked to be back with the cast and make fun of the show that i devoted 9 weeks of my life to. some vengance was still inside of me. i had to release the little bit of angry joad still in my soul.

oh my GOSH its hot in here. ah. fan.

anyways. i was all dressed up in my oversized tyedye tshirt and leggings. like, i was set. ready to roast.

keeumm decided i was to drive. no big deal. i enjoy driving and generally am more chill about it when it comes to manuevering city streets.

it was established that i had forgotten to acquire an address for shafer street theatre were the festivities were to take place. oops. cut a girl some slack, i at least was lookin fly.

texted eric. he didnt have a clue either. figures.

called nicole. she gave me an address, but she was on speakerphone since veronica is a failure and the reception was bad. so the address nicole said and the address keeumm and my ears received were not the same.

we ended up WAY downtown. WAY. like by the trainstation. i was trying to follow gretchen's directions but that was tricky considering how she was confused as to where we were, so she would say something like 'turn right' and i'd look to the right and there was no possible way to do such an action. so i'd swerve. almost had an accident four times. not. too. shabby.

the decision was made that we would just park and go from there. not as easy as it sounds, folks, not as easy as it sounds. first attempt to parallel park should not be in downtown richmond at 10pm. i failed miserably, and the people trying to get by me were not friendly, to put it mildly. i believe i was flipped the bird. well SCREW YOU.

attempt number two. large open space. perfect. except once i'd squeezed in, we saw the fire hydrant. so THATS why nobody parked there. i knew it was too easy.

attempt number three. an abandoned private parking lot right off of a dark alley. PERFECT! i exclaim and pull in happily. keeumm was not so pleased, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

i turned off sheila franklin, and right as i did, she made an odd bell noise that i had never heard before. i didnt know what she could possibly be trying to tell me. the doors were shut, the radio was off, nothing seemed to be ajar.

checked the fuel tank. E for EMPTY. found it!

in case youre confused, let me reiterate my point. my mother and i are sitting in my car with no gas on a dark alley in downtown richmond at 10pm.

should prove to be a fun evening.

called nicole back, who told us we had gone WAY too far down franklin and needed to go back towards vcu. while we knew that was the case, that was going to be an issue since we were without a vehicle.

so of course we started to walk aimlessly down franklin, because that seemed like the right thing to do at the time. this causes me to come close to tears, for i was called for roast rehearsal nearly 23mins ago and we had not a clue where we were. and it was dark, all the clubbers were about. needless to say we didnt fit in very well, and i could tell that keeumm feared for our lives which didnt help very much at all.

spoiler alert. we didnt die.

here we are, walking without a clue as to where we were and i was near my breaking point. at this point i knew i wasnt ever going to make it to roast and probably wasnt going to make it out alive (refer back to spoiler alert if you are getting concerned) and so i am taking out all of my desperation on keeumm by screaming at her.

i made quite the fool out of myself. so much so that the two people walking in front of us turned around. thats when keeumm the hawk swooped in.

she ran up and asked the couple if they knew which way vcu was. just our luck, we had been walking in the exact opposite direction of the campus. i think i let out a wail of despair, cause they felt really sorry for us.

the guy said he would give us a ride. RED FLAG. isnt it always preached to never talk to strangers, let alone never take a ride from one? YES. but that is exactly what keeumm and i did.

the guy introduced himself as william and his tmobile co-worker brittany. he was so crushing on her. and he was so weird. but a ride is a ride. i noted that keeumm had her hand on the door handle at all times no doubt ready to jump out if he tried anything fishy. how she planned to save me if that was to happen was unknown.

he turned out to be quite the gentleman, and dropped us off alive. i can now check hitchhiking off of my bucketlist.

jenny came and found us and steered us to the theatre. i got the quick rundown of what was gonna happen, and then we went out in an alley to practice. the script jenny and nicole wrote was hilarious, and i thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it.

we were a hoot. the other performers at no shame, however, took a much more vulgar and risque route, especially this one stand up comedian who said literally the nastiest jokes i have ever heard in my entire life, just one after the other. about midway through i remembered that my mother was in the audience. needless to say i was mortified and she wasnt too happy herself.

luckily our stunning performance that closed the show and my responsibility of arranging for matt to drive us back to my car distracted her, and i she had cooled down. whew. dodged dat bullet.

zeppole.

foreign language week has a lot of downfalls including 57,587 projects due. luckily, there is one salvation to foreign language week. food day.

in case you were wondering, my italian doughnuts, zepPOLe, as the italians say it, turned out pretty fantastic. turns out nana had a deep fryer. shoulda known, nana has everything.

it took two and a half bottles of canola oil to fill the sucker. it got to bubbling and alls i had to do was drop a little dollop of dough in the boiling concoction and BAM. amazing. they just popped up and were perfect. i started thinking that it would be really great if one day in the distant future when i have children if they turned out the same way. just pop out and BAM. amazing.

my favorite part of this process was sprinkling the powdered sugar. it was a delicate procedure. and it also reminded me of cocaine.

my least favorite part was getting rid of the hot oil because it took like a squillion minutes to cool down. but it happened. and my project was finis. and it was fantastamazing (jallison gilison addition).

AND GUESS WHAT I ONLY BURNED MYSELF SEVEN TIMES.

i was all proud when i presented my zepPOLe to my teacher today. i think i may have alarmed her a little bit. because when i opened my box, i gasped in horror, for all of the powdered sugar was gone. just up and disappeared. i figure it probably got sucked up into the doughnuts because they were all hot and oily but still it was really disheartening to see little brown lumps without the magic that is powdered sugar sprinkled over them. i still got an A. which i cannot say about my pinata.

they still tasted like heaven in the form of a brown lump so that was good news. cant say the same about the other foods, especially spanish. they were the worst. french and german made a nice effort, but nothing can compare to the italian beauty of latin. in one spanish class, i think i ate a cookie that was made of flour and water and nothing else. or at least thats what it tasted like.

a fun game for us was to spot the people who cheated. the bread that was a little too perfectly sliced to be homemade, the noodles that had that special quality one can only link to ramen noodles, the pasta that was without a shadow of a doubt hamburger helper, the grapes. yeah. somebody just brought in grapes.

the worst of all was the mystery meat. i left the taste tasting to my fellow latin students. not sure if its because i am not brave or if it is because i dont enjoy food poisoning. regardless, i went vegetarian for the day.

emma was the best. she somehow managed to convince my teacher that cheesecake was from italy. god bless cheesecake.

dinosaur noises.

some middle schoolers decided to play a game on the bus today. the game was merely contrived of who could make the best/loudest dinosaur noise without showing their teeth. needless to say, i wanted to strangle each and every one of their tyrannosaurus faces.

i am running for junior class secretary. this was good news, until three other people decided to run. now i am afraid i will lose by a vast margin. therefore, i have decided to wear a low cut shirt and lean forward, then ask guys to vote for me. with this system, i so far already have five votes.

this week in gym class: tennis. tennis and i have a rocky past. lets just say we have a history. i have a knack for swinging so hard that the pure velocity throws my whole body so i go flying in whatever direction that may be. it makes me look legit though. so legit that this random black guy was walking by and witnessed it and said 'you could knock somebody out with that mother f***er'. i was pleased with his approval.

you know a game i hate more than tennis? the game where people try to toss a variety of objects down your shirt. today, i was the victim. and it was orange slices. there were some good shots. and bad. regardless, i have pulp all up in everywhere.

now i am going to make italian doughnuts without a deep fryer.

female glittery belt.

continuation again.

george retrieved meg, jessie, eric and i from michaels. there was a quite hysterical convo between eric & george regarding eric's gf. oh im sorry. i mean, eric's "missus".

sometime during this car ride i acquired eric's glasses. i have established that i like how i look with glasses. especially eric's thick rimmed ones. i wore them for the rest of the day. except on occasion when eric would actually need them. psh.

the three of us arrived at meg's, much to pam's suprise. i think she was only expecting her daughter. oh well.

there was some fine dining consisting of fried rice, bite sized pizzas and pineapple mango orange juice. we fell asleep to the glorious sounds of the banter between tina fey and alec baldwin.

falling asleep with glasses on is painful and annoying. sometimes you'll wake up with the frames jammed into your cheek or eyeball or nose.

after removing the glasses i returned to my slumber because the four hours of sleep the night before was taking its toll. meg fell asleep on another chair, and eric ended up snuggling up next to me in a semi spooning position until he disocvered that when i breathe and he has his head on my tummy it sounds like a balloon inflating and deflating and inflating and deflating. so he switched sides. and removed the cushions from the couch to act as a blanket.

meg's mega cool older brother brad came home to the sight of three teenagers sleeping in his living room at 4 in the afternoon. we must have been quite a sight, cause his confused questioning to pam woke us up.

picked up carrington and back to the empire for my second consecutive night of watching full plate collection. meg & carrington's call was an hour before curtain, so eric and i needed something to occupy our time.

we tried to go to the nearby coffee shop named lift but that was closed. so we went back to the empire and asked the cop where the nearest starbucks was located. she said about six blocks.

she was wrong. it was more like twelve blocks. we insisted on finding somewhere, so we walked those 12 blocks until we got to the vcu barnes and noble. yes, we walked from the empire to vcu barnes and noble. which was closed. tropical smoothie was the next best thing.

i got jetty juice which is strawberry and super green bananas. eric got chocolate chimp which is peanut butter and chocolate. mine was way better.

we both got kids smoothies so technically they should have taken less time to blend. that is apparently not the case. it was 7:45 before we got our frozen delights. that meant we had 15mins to get back to the empire.

so a dead sprint was ensued. it was dark. and it was broad street. and it was frightening.

eric spotted a female belt on the sidewalk. i saw in his eyes the mental struggle. get the belt or dont get the belt. he ran past. then stopped suddenly, turned around, and retrieved the belt. and after all that trouble, when he saw that it had glitter he threw it on the ground again with disdain.

we arrived at the empire with 2mins to spare and no one kidnapped.

watched full plate again. equally hilarious. there was one lighting mishap, and i could feel meg freaking out in the booth. it remedied itself. then i could feel meg breathe again.

carringtons daddy drove us home. he was the one who figured out the mystery of the name of the guy who wears the trucker hats on 30rock. its frank.

meg and i stayed up eating samoas and watching true life: my boyfriend is addicted to technology, the new 16 and pregnant, and the soup. quality television.

next morning. back to empire for strike. meg and i moved heavy chairs up the stairs only to discover they belonged downstairs. i found a magnet that said 'tom mcgranahan has a posse' in the prop closet. i wanted to steal it so badly.

moved to sparc to finish unloading. it was there that wendy explained the story behind tom's posse. i am now a member. end of weekend.

for the first weekend i have had to do with as i please since grapes ended, it went pretty darn good.

poser rock bands.

continuation.

after jessie's many failed attempts to awaken me, i arose from my deep slumber to the sounds of meg and jessie happily chatting as if it were midday. punks.

it was 8am. four and a half hours of sleep and a long day to go.

10k time. we got dressed. then we got re-dressed because we remembered how cold it was. our final get ups were spandex, sweatpants, sports bra, long sleeve tshirt, sweatshirt and a shirt graciously donated by george that had cow spots and said 'the herd' on it. we were running for his leukemia surivor friend named ferd. so we were the herd for ferd.

i made the mistake of bringing keds to run in. well actually it wasnt a mistake per se because i have not owned an actual pair of tennis shoes since i played sports and lord knows that day has come and gone. i was given a pair of green nike shox. they now belong to me. and i love them.

got numbers. got smoothies. got raybans. got in the car.

george gave us the DL on the way there. apparently 37,000 people run this thing. impressed. we were in the UC wave. that wasnt good enough for us, so we promoted ourselves to the UA wave. muuuuch better. there we met a man in a wedding dress. photo opp. we also saw audra and met her momma.

the run began. or shall i say, the walk began. for we were in no hurry. our first mile went slowly. we meandered along broad street, taking it all in. when we arrived at the first mile marker and discovered how long that took us and did some calculations on how much we had left, we discovered that at this rate we would not finish until well after 1pm. not acceptable considereing how michael's party began at noon. oops. speed increased to a fast gander.

george is tall. therefore, his steps are large. quite the trick keeping up with him. we established a system. see the mile marker in the distance. run to it. simple enough. we gave ourselves 17 minutes per mile. perfect pace if you ask me. it also makes you look really spiffy when you sprint past the people. even though they pass you again later, still, momentary high.

there were multiple bands set up along the way. some we liked. the christian ones especially. we made a point to sing along with them. the poser rock bands? not so much. honestly. you cannot be a legit rock star if your gig is playing on monument avenue at 9oclock in the morning. you just cant.

because of our shirts, lots of people mooed at us. sometimes it sounded like they were booing us. which was disheartening. but we gave them the benefit of the doubt and just assumed they were mooing.

we had a simply marvelous time run/walking the 10k. believe it or not, sometimes it does feel good to exercise and actually do something athletic. crazy right?!

we finished the run in what i assume was record time. nobody has contacted us yet but im fairly certain that even the most experienced of runners could not have beat our perfect balance of walking and sprinting.

there was a tree in the park that was ideal for sitting in. the trouble was getting in the tree. jessie is a natural born gymnast and so she was able to boost herself up. meg and myself, however, were not born with such natural skill. after a few minutes of looking quite foolish, we had almost given up hope.

til little asian man showed up. he said one word only. 'here'. he cupped his hands and boosted meg and myself into the tree. we never saw him again. he just disappeared. mysterious. but oh so helpful.

returned to the jennisons to find keeumm chatting it up with cal. fast friends i tellz ya.

we did not have gifts for michael. this served as a problem, because we were already going to be late and didnt want to stop to buy him one and be even later. so homemade cards it was. meg pretended she had made it on his actual birthday and "fixed it" to apply to today. i tried to quote dwight schrute and go the office route, but ended up using the wrong quote. and jessie... well. lets just say jessie gets the award for best effort / worst outcome.

warmly greeted by everybody at michaels. this consisted of eric (evans & pastore), carrington, mackenzie, annie and the birthday boy himself. party was in the basement. you know its a thibodeau party if there is random junk food. there was random junk food. chicken in a biskit, oatmeal cookies, honey barbeque fritos, some outlandish kind of mountain dew, and oreos. aka lunch.

eric and i played chess. warmed my heart. we almost lost the f***ing rook. dont worry though, we located the f***ing rook. also, he forfeited to me.

there was a humorous picture of ali in the basement. but oh my goodness she is so gorgeous now.

of course we had to visit the neighborhood playground. michael and mack drove. carrington and i made the mistake of riding with michael. apparently michael with a stick shift and an open road is bad news. to say my life flashed before my eyes would be an understatement.

there were three hoodlums on the playground. naturally eric befriended them. their names were heather, cami and camden. we know them as boner, kerpatrick and rolaid. rolaid is chubby. boner and kerpatrick both wore sex bracelets. according to these 10year olds, if a bracelet breaks you have to do whatever the color of it symbolizes. i tell ya, kids these days have lost all of their innocence. boner slapped eric, i think she was grossed out because she thought eric and i were siblings and he was sexually harrassing me. then again, its not something she should be unfamiliar with. im sorry, just threw up a little.

t'arah joined us on the playground. after an hour or so of quality playground time including michael and pastore stealing eric's bowling shoes, it was decided that we should return to tibbz' house. when jumping the fence to get out of the playground, t'arah's skirt ripped. and im not talking a little bit either.

i was wise and rode back with mackenzie.

michaels bed was the next location of the party. it never fails to astound me how many people can lay on top of each other on a bed and not have anyone be crushed. miraculous, thats what that is.

there is much more i have to tell of this weekend, and of today, for some awfully entertaining things did end up happening today after all. but i shall resume again tomorrow for part three.

no photographer.

weekend was way fun. i'd now like to detail this weekend fully. in all actuality, i will probably begin to tell the tale of this weekend in full detail and end up pretty vaguely telling what went down.

friday. packed and off to jessie's. gretchen was cheating on me with keeumm. so mapquest took me on a wild goose chase, what else is new. jelj greeted me at the door with her bright shining face that makes my insides glow.

i got the quick re-tour of her humble abode, and met her cool tall athletic sister kaki and her nice taller prince brother jay. he was almost as tall as their ceiling. almost.

we started cooking a pizza. pizza takes 19 minutes to bake. time to leave for the empire in 20 minutes. climactic situation resolved by jelj eating sushi.

then i met george. george is also tall. thank goodness for 8 year old hannah.

i admired jessie's sock arrangement. time to leave.

george and i bonded on the way to the empire. fast friends.

jenny had our tickets in hand at the door. i think they were holding for us. oops. blame the pizza. squeezed in to witness the magic that was the full plate collection. many laughs at the expense of laine satterfield. saw meg and holly timberline at intermission. i like them both.

finished full plate. got the tour of the light booth. saw the blue golf ball contraption that jessie was once intrigued by. admired the framed picture of cooper timberline on the wall. then admired the picture of tom mcgranahan on the wall. i am a fan of both of these human beings.

cal arrived to pick us up. i love cal. back to the jennisons. we made a second pizza. watched erin & tony the musical and reminisced on how bad we used to be. then questioned whether we've truly gotten any better since then.

attempted to make brownies. jessie was a tad off on the measurements. somehow there was an abundance of vegetable oil. this problem was solved by meg and i spooning it off in small quantites in order to not waste any batter. success was minor. it was an unspoken decision to not bake the brownies. but we are good people. and good people do not waste ghirardelli brownie batter. so we ate it.

1am. ideal time to jump on the trampoline. unfortunately, jessie's home alarm system did not agree. it woke up cal. and we were foiled.

relocation: jessie's room. it began with a simple request to take a picture. it turned into something much bigger than that, bigger than us.

first picture. chairs. boring. the bathrooms bright and appealing colors called to us. the jacuzzi tub seemed like the place to be. we were right.

three people. no willing photographer. problem.

eureka. we built a tower consisting of dictionaries, a tissue box and a cup. it was magnificent. camera only attempted suicide once. many works of art were created during this time. much back pain was to follow. yes, we did get creative. yes, george, we were fully clothed.

we squeezed all of the photo shoot potential out of the bathroom. but all of the potential wasnt squeezed out of us just yet.

relocation number two : the closet. mirror pic fail. but wait, all mirror pics are fails.

it was established that my eyes made me look asian. i began to massage my eyelids hoping that would help them open wider for pictures. never has, never will. luckily the self timer was on two seconds instead of ten and it was captured on film. this caused me to roll on the floor with hysterics. also captured on film.

peeking out through jessie's clothes was our next creative rendezvous. in order to do this, we had to sit on her closet shelf. it was scary. and worth it.

they dressed up like jessie's athletic brothers from duke. it was funny.

we finally decided to retire to our beds. at 3:15am. jessie muttered the words 'oh my...' as we drifted off to dreamland. what a glorious evening.

day two of my wonderful weekend to be continued tomorrow since im fairly certain nothing entertaining will happen then.

oh. and i am sixteen and a half today.

tongue.

almost missed the bus today. in the rain. it was one of those things when you walk out of school, and youre feeling pretty good. you wave to some people. pretty happy go lucky. and then you look up. and theres your bus, pulling away.

so the people you were looking pretty fly in front of now look at you with horror. because you are a crazed maniac. all other cares cast aside, you run crazed after the bus. you end up behind the bus, running frantically and screaming until the people at the back of the bus notice. then they'll watch for about 15 seconds because its sure to be one of the more entertaining things you'll see. and finally they inform the bus driver. and you meander slowly onto the bus, dripping wet and glare as the chuckles ensue.

i cant tell if i burned the roof of my mouth or my tongue. but somethings sizzling in my mouth.

empty water bottle needed in chemistry today. full water bottle in possession. problem. common sense would lead me to pour it out in the sink. i lack common sense. so i chugged the entire bottle. i could feel the bubbles in my tummy. it was entertaining. i laughed. because it tickled.

burritos.

i have added a reaction tab to my blog. right underneath. if you like what you read, you can click "that was funny". if you think that concussion is affecting my mental stability, you can click "you suck at life". or you could comment. its probably even possible to do all of the above though i dont know why one would.

went to the chiropractor today. when i pop i sound like rice krispies.

i miss barksdale. did you know its known as barksdale only? its not THE barksdale, its ...barksdale. like youre supposed to say "happy day, i am going to barksdale to visit the bar!" instead of "happy day, i am going to THE barksdale to visit the bar!". news to me.

especially miss the smell of bdale. there were a variety of smells always reeking up the place. for example, the back stairwell for the actors always smelt like burritos. which sucked when you were late for call but in the mood for burritos. theres that internal struggle. should i continue up this stairwell and be 3 minutes late to call? or should i turn around, walk across the street to chih-pot-lay order me some texmex to go and be 23 minutes late to call? overwhelming thought process.

you know when you brush your hair a lot and it accumulates into a hairball in your brush? thats gross.

the last time i played chess was sunday. that was over 96 hours ago. i am itching to play chess. its bad. luckily eric and i will be playing in less than 40 hours. i splurged on a chess set today. it is an identical set to the one we played on at grapes. this made me shed a tear of joy.

does that giada lady from the food network have a lazy eye? i think yes.

70, girls, 70

got word back from the doctor. according to my blood tests, i am dehydrated beyond belief and it is a wonder i havent passed out from exhaustion yet. i feel that this is good news. when i am a starving actress, at least i'll know i can go days without any sort of hydration.

keeumm has been force feeding me liquids. this is my third 24oz water i have drinken (jallison gilison dictionary addition) today. to quote a chorus line, i am drowning.

pa and i exchanged show tunes cds. i gave him timeless classics like avenue q, next to normal and ragtime. he gave me '70, girls, 70', 'wild party' and 'baby', which are about, respectively, elderly women who steal fur coats, a giant orgy, and couples who are struggling to get pregnant. all musicals. he gave me some legitimately good ones, but they dont have nearly as entertaining subject matter.

i am still wearing my hospital id badge.

this weekend i will be walking the 10k. either walking or scooter-ing. we shall see what is and is not allowed. regardless, when i pass the water tables, i plan on making a scene. possibly knock down the table of cups. definitely throw the empty cup with disdain. i do not plan on going unnoticed.

ruh roh. water cup #926 is sweating on the wooden table. coaster time.

jcc.

i feel like im doing a bad thing since ive already done a blog post today. but that was for yesterday. and today deserves one too.

i love the jcc because it always smells like one of two things. chlorine or food. got the best of both worlds today. smelled like chlorine when i came in and pizza when i went out.

did gypsy highlight show again. this time nobody but alex and julia were allowed to touch me. that was good news. i still did manage to injure myself though, dont worry. i spun right into a big wooden box. no head truama this time. i know, pity.

i arranged the marriage of jessie's sister hannah to scott. hurt megs feelings a little, since she was supposed to marry scott. luckily i can still marry bradley. whew.

yes i do plan to keep my hospital id bracelet on my wrist for as long as possible to act as a badge of honor, why do you ask?

its awkward when you decide to sit in the car while your parental unit goes somewhere and the person in the car across from you is also sitting in the car and he is facing you and you are in the passenger seat and he is in the drivers seat so you are literally placed right across from each other and are forced to make eye contact multiple times until somebody decides to move and its not going to be you and seems like its not going to be him either and so you just stare.

geez those sure are some fast acting sleeping pills.

hospital.

the plan was to do this blog post last night. but i took a muscle relaxing pill and the world started to slowly slip away after a few minutes. they should really underline DROWSY on the bottle.

so i was dancing. pushed into a pole. banged my head on the pole. flew backwards. banged my head on the floor. finished the show which involved much spinning. then almost died.

but thats not the story im here to tell. once i informed everyone of my head truama after the show they swiftly relocated me to the carnahans car. i turned into michael jackson's son blanket the whole ride to the hospital because the sun was being a bastard.

i gots all signed in and jank. this sucked even more majorly than it would have on any other day because i had JUST been to the doctor that morning for my yearly checkup. so you would think that when the nurses asked me for all my info, height, weight, etc, that i would know it. but i still didnt. screw basic information, thats what i say.

i moved to the waiting room so i could be with meg. the waiting room is not nearly as exciting as it should have been. come on now. were in the ER for goodness sakes. there were no rushing patients through on rolling beds, no blood squirting, no pregnant ladies about to pop. just two rednecks who were infuriated with their 4 hour wait and one old lady in a neck brace.

the time was passed by taking pictures. we tried to include my id bracelet, my blood pressure thingy and megs fawn necklace in each and every picture. we got a few winners. i think the other patients were annoyed at how chipper we were. all they had to do is ask and we would have included them in the picture too.

an adorably awkward nurse named george came to get me with a wheelchair. this was good news, because that is an ideal photo opp. we politely asked george if we could get a picture before i was wheeled away for my procedures, and of course he obliged. thats when i knew we would be good friends.

he steered me away, and i got a little nauseous with his fast speed. but i wasnt going to complain because it was fun anyway. he started to explain to me how the ct scan was gonna work. i stopped him immediately and informed him that i knew exactly how it worked because i watch scrubs. george and i continued to talk about scrubs and the nameless janitor until the scanning started.

there was a sign on the scanner that said do not look into the red light. because of that sign, i knew i had to look into the red light. further mental damage is yet to be discovered.

then i got xrays on my chest and neck. i had to take off my necklace. when i was putting it back on the nurse (NOT GEORGE) asked me if i was a mime. i just stared at her blankly.

nurse number two wheeled me back to meg. i never saw george again. i am still saddened by this.

a third nurse (STILL NOT GEORGE) told me that i have a minor concussion and neck spasms. and that i am crazy for finishing the show. i stared at her blankly too.

meg is cool because she stayed with me the whole time. we ate jimmie johns together. she is a special girl.

but i still didnt get to meet gay love.

california dreamin.

i dont want this to be a melancholy blog post. so i will try to avoid that.

i was surprised at just how sentimental the cast of grapes was. i thought the vcu kiddies would be too cool for something like that. i am overjoyed to announce that every single negative stereotype i have ever heard about vcu students is false. they are the best. dont let nobody tell you otherwise.

i was also surprised at the maturity of the college students when they discovered that there was free booze at the bar. well handled. they also turned down eric's incessant requests to try a sip.

oreo ice cream bar was retrieved from the bdale freezer and envied by all.

olivia, eric and i took the liberty of hanging the grapes poster on the back wall. it looks like thats where it was born to be. literally that it popped out of the poster making thingy's womb and was like i belong on that spot on the wall. our thumbprints are a nice addition. i made my thumbprints form a little heart. because thats how flumping creative i am.

eric beat me at our last chess game. it felt right. i shall miss playing chess a lot. however, eric and i have made plans to sit in the corner at michael's party for at least 15mins next saturday and play a game. for old times sake. maybe even throw in a game of cats cradle for good measure. never could figure out how to make the cradle...

i am emotionally drained. i had not felt a teensy bit sad for the enitre run up til today so it hit me with a mega blow of emotion. it comes and goes in waves. i plan to sedate myself into dreamlands that consist of california hills and lots and lots of grapes.

reesee eggs.

im talking to meg on the phone now. she cant find her remote. OH just found it. happy happy joy joy.

after my show choir competition today we sat on the bus waiting for our teacher lady for about 19mins. we found out that we were waiting because she was in the bathroom using a breast pump. many unanswered questions arose.

eric and i found out that once you sign in on the call board, they dont really check to make sure youre present backstage. so we left and walked to the dollar tree. easter is about two weeks away. therefore, stores like dollar tree should have an abundance of candy such as reesee eggs. dollar tree had no reesee eggs. so we decided to settle for option two, reesees. tragic story. dollar tree had no reesees either. unless you count those reesee whips. WHICH. I. DONT.

needless to say i was infuriated. i even suggested we walk to cvs across the street. after all, it was 7:17 and our call was 7:00. so we had only been MIA for 17 minutes and chances are they hadnt noticed yet. but eric wasnt wearing any shoes, and we are lazy. so we settled on a giant chocolate bunny and an oreo ice cream bar.

which i just remembered is still in the barksdale freezer. luckily, i put a sign on it that read 'property of allison gilman' so if anyone steals it theyve got a law suit on their hands.

i watched some scenes from grapes on the tv backstage that i'd never seen before and cried my eyeballs out. legit. now i kinda see why people leave feeling depressed. but only kinda.

when my hair gets wet at the river it gets curly. there is this one strand of hair that is curling right into my eye. irritating little sucker. i shall now ponder whether to pin it back or just chop it off completely.

guido.

this post goes out to betty white. alter ego: jenny hann.

theres this song. its called blue hair. its from joe iconis rock and roll jamboree. whatever the flump that is. somehow or another, this "joe iconis" character has channelled me into a song. and that song is blue hair. i am lucky, for jenny found this song and brought it into my life. and now it will forever be stuck in my head. im performing it for jenny tomorrow. i may even throw in some lyrical movement for an added effect. we'll see.

that pixar movie cars has a tiny little forklift named guido. its italian and beyond adorable. today i saw a tiny little forklift on my way to poor farm park. i waved at it, because it reminded me of guido. in order to get to the pavilion at poor farm, i had to walk behind guido. shouldnt have been a problem. but then guido started backing up when i was walking behind it and almost plowed me into the ground. i avoided the collision, but expected an apology. there wasnt even a friendly beep from guido to apologize. bastard.

guido is a funny word. it should be spelled "gweedoh". and now the memory of guido from cars is not only marred by my experience today but also by jersey shore. because thats what the orange, steroid loving, greasey sleazeballs call themselves. its also the name of the daniel day lewis's character in nine. which sucked. majorly. now cars will never be the same.

sarah jessica parker wore a yellow bedsheet with rhinestones to the oscars.

noah joad is dumb and we hate him. all except pa. john steinbeck only knows why that is. he needs a diaper and regularly smells/eats paint. how is it then, that noah joad knew that walt disney was cryogenically frozen? mysterical. thats what that is.

and yes i am aware that mysterical is not a word. it is an addition to jallison gilison's dictionary of words that dont exist but we use on a regular basis anyways.

there is salsa on my cami. i am forced to wash it. i wonder if i slipped it in with the costumes if it could get washed at barksdale? now i am curious.

arm wrestling.

chris brought all the girls oriental fans tonight to color on. why she didnt bring us a coloring book is beyond me, but i was pleased with the new arrivals. there is wood holding it together and everything. we grapes of wrath girls are legit.

eric and i play lots of games onstage. a fan favorite is concentration 64 with categories including but not limited to: types of mexican food, illegal drugs and drag queens. we also play cats cradle, pattycake, thumb wrestling and the occasional staring contest. we thought tomorrow we might lay on our stomachs and hold an arm wrestling match, to see just how disruptive we can be. i'll get back to you on how that goes.

our names vary depending on our character choices of the night. for example, when i am being butch, i become ruth. when eric is acting fruity, he becomes winny. tonight we established that if we are gangster, we become ruth-nay-nay and win-la-la.

i think something is wrong with me (insert mean joke here). i was hearing echoes out of my right ear that were heard by no one else. i was told that non existant echo hearing is a sign of premature schizophrenia. im not hearing them anymore, but im afraid tonight i may start seeing dead people.

im going to eat some fried rice now.

the iron.

sometimes smart people do dumb things. thats all i have to say about that.

st. pattys day is an odd, odd day. dick needed to stop by costco to buy his weekly 64 pack of pepsi (thats an exaggeration. his weekly 32 pack of pepsi) and so i people watched for a good 30mins.

some people go all out for st. patricks day. one woman had a shamrock necklace to match her earrings. one elderly man had a leprechaun hat. one girl dressed up like a leprechaun from head to toe. she is an inspiration to me. most people just wore a hint of green somewhere in their clothing. i appreciated their effort.

and then there are the party poopers. these people seemed to have made an effort NOT to wear green. one snooty old lady was wearing a magenta dress suit. as in, both the jacket and the skirt were magenta. if you can stand going in public wearing that, you could stand wearing green on this one day of the year. i think the world could unite via everyone wearing the same color one day. but its people like this who shatter my dreams for world peace.

the little lad who collects the shopping carts from their "corrals" was my favorite of all. he was wearing a green shirt. that is all the green he wore. but the way he walked, his gander if you will, was that of a leprechaun. he skipped and pranced about as he pushed the carts back to the warehouse. i dont know for sure whether he was trying to look like a leprechaun because it was st. patricks day or if that is just how he normally walks, but either way the effect was wonderous.

donnelly wore green today. he also knocked the iron off the ironing board today. and he picked it up by the part thats metal and hot. i think he may have scalded himself pretty badly. which i would have been concerned about had the premise of what had just happened not been so humorous. i mean, andrew donnelly is an intelligent guy im sure. but picking up an iron by the metal part is something usually saved for looney tunes. im glad it happened backstage at the grapes of wrath.

when youre in a theatre and someone tries to slide in front of you to get in/out, generally the polite thing to do in order to allow them to leave with ease is to stand up. at the matinee, some lady in center section, in the middle of a row of elderly people, decided to leave during curtain call. my fbbf nick thought all of those people standing up to let her out were giving a standing ovation. but then they sat back down. bummer.

meg came and had dinner with me tonight. for some reason when the panera employee asked me my name, i shouted at her as if that was a ridiculous question to ask someone of my stature. then i apologized. and dropped my buzzer. and got a smoothie with a giant straw. and a half cooked grilled cheese.

sometimes when i laugh hard, i cry. at panera, that happened. then i started yelling 'stop it your hurting me!' towards meg to make it seem like she was either doing me some great injustice or (more obviously) harrassing me. good way to wrap up our panera trip.

i wish smart people wouldnt do dumb things.

says the character actor.

there is a half full bottle of mountain dew with its cap off laying on its side on a rafter above the patrick henry cafeteria. impressed me a lot.

i still cant do cartwheels because of my life threatening injury to the upper thigh. at rehearsal, i usually mark it by doing some intense arm thrusting motion and making a swooshing sound effect of some sort, but today i realized that this would not fly in the actual performance, which is next monday. concerned me a little bit.

meg put it nicely. as soon as into the woods starts, that wont even matter anymore. and i will be able to die at peace. unlike my mother. who, were i to die after completing my run as little red, would not ever have her death wish completed. which is me being maria in the sound of music. sad. but i'd be at peace.

there are six more grapes performances. my heart hurts when i think about that. it feels a little better sometimes when i think about the summer. but then it gets to hurting again when i remember that its march. if waiting for the summer was to be compared to a pregnancy, we'd only be in the second trimester. and at least for rosasharn, thats when it all starts a'goin downhill.

im not a sappy person or one to rant on how shows "change me" or whatever, but grapes has. im not used to making people cry and give standing ovations who dont even know us. these random people are coming to the show just cause they heard about it and end up leaving emotionally shredded. and theyre not even biased. thats a cool, cool thing. i wish all shows i do could reach out like this... says the little character actress who 99% of the time prefers a comedic musical to all else. funny, huh?

i'll leave it at that. i couldnt be happier to be little red, and im sure when the time comes, being the comedic relief again will be welcome. but this depressing and slash or hopeful show sure has been a wild ride and im going to miss it.

i just heard mention of a ripstick in my basement. if im not mistaken, thats one of those cool little half skateboard half boomerang things. i am going to go break my leg falling off of it now.

banana.

i realized that i have two #5 blog posts. so im just going to stop counting.

today i ate a green banana. usually i like bananas to be yellow with a greenish tint. this one was green green. it tasted like i was eating a leaf.

at vcu they dont do any actual learning, but they do play a lot of fun theatre games. they graciously passed on most of their knowledge to eric and i. i can now proudly say i have an education from vcu theatre.

our favorite bodily warm up goes by the name of 'peel banana'. its like the 'be agressive b-e agressive' chant, except you dont go into all that whole 'b-e-a-g-g-' nonsense.
it goes as such:
form banana form form banana
form banana form form banana
peel banana peel peel banana
peel banana peel peel banana
go bananas go go bananas
go bananas go go bananas

and of course there is fun choreography and multiple variations like mash potatoes, squeeze the orange, shuck the corn, drink the gatorade, tip the cow, and so on and so forth. we have also made up a few of our own like 'beat the connie' and 'kill the baby'. just some grapes of wrath humor to disturb your day.

for valentines day eric got me a shaker of chocolate 'curls'. i call them chocolate 'truffles' because truffles is a fun word to say and is generally referred to when speaking of chocolatey goodness. jai argues with me. she says that my curls are not truffles. i thought perhaps it was one of those 'a square is a rectangle but a rectangle is not always a square' scenarios, so i googled the definition of a truffle. turns out a truffle is a mushroom.

i specified my search to CHOCOLATE truffle. there is a very vague line between what is and is not a truffle. but the conclusion i have come to is, truffle = chocolate heaven. chocolate heaven = my shaker of curls. therefore, curls = truffles. simple algebra, jai.

arbys.

willow lawn is a happy place. so much fast food. i think god smiled on willow lawn. i craved curly fries today, and it is common knowledge that curly fries = arbys.

while i was waiting patiently in line, the people behind me were being entertaining so i eavesdropped. i heard the male figure say 'imma get me a chickfila sandwich!' and then his gf goes 'chickfila?! this heres arbys!'. then the male became very angry and left in a huff. he probably had a hissy fit when they went to chickfila and discovered that it isnt open on sundays. i wish i could have been there to watch the rest of that story unfold.

there are a lot of tears in grapes of wrath, a large percentage of which shed by eric and myself. we cry three to four times per show. this is because we are kids. and bad things happen to us. and our parents are more interested in enlightening the people they meet on the road with their wisdom than consoling their disturbed children. our granpa dies. then granma. then our sister delivers a dead baby. then she breast feeds a dying man. oh yeah... *spoiler alert*... oops.

because of all of this crying, i have developed overactive tear ducts. so now i cry when people get voted off american idol, when i see roadkill, and when watching disney channel original movies. just kidding. except the disney channel thing.

i still owe annie $8.65. darn it.

numba six. almost one week since ive had a blog. feels like a lifetime.

freckle.

11:19 slurpee run. an eye opening experience for me, have no doubt. i dont think you ever truly know the incredible variety of people residing in richmond until you visit 7-11 after dark.

i had chosen wild cherry for my flavor. wild cherry seemed to be a little too watered down, but wild cherry is the absolute best unless pina colada is in stock. which it wasnt.

major overflow-age. napkins needed. i meander to the napkin dispenser located near the lighter display. a toothless man stood browsing the variety of lighter colors. he flashes his "smile", winks and begins a chorus of 'aint no rest for the wicked'. good guy. he ended up buying a yellow, orange, red and black lighter. and some slim jims. i ponder his possible plans for the night.

today slash tonight is spring forward. i know this because of rick the stage manager's incessant reminders all night long. keeumm, however, confused spring forward with fall back. so all of the gilman household clocks are now set for 11:17pm instead of 1:17am. this worries me.

i have a freckle impeccably placed in the center of my left wrist. so the whole "what time is it? - half past freckle" saying applies to me. only. i use this to my advantage. some say that i perhaps even take advantage of this sacred skin deformity by looking at my wrist at times when it would not even be appropriate to check my watch if i so happened to be wearing one. which i never am. for example: "gosh its raining hard! - yeah it hasnt rained this hard since *checks wrist* last summer!". but cut me some slack. when you have a freckle there, it is near impossible not to reference it. yet another sign that i am the chosen one.

this blog post is dedicated to miss eric weebles winfield allen joad evans. no hyphen.

#5.

chess.

last night i told eric that people from switzerland were swedish. people from sweden are swedish.

eric and i play chess. a lot. if you were to come backstage at any point in the show where ruthie and winfield were not onstage, we are playing chess.

we are equally annoying players, which is good news. eric likes to sing when he makes some BA move. "isnt it a lovely night....?" is his favorite, probably because he knows how it makes my spine tingle with disdain.

i like to talk to the chess pieces when i take them. i am also very ADD when i play chess. this is because there is no green room that is not segregated by gender, so we set up the playing field in the middle of the hallway. and the hallway is an entertaining place.

i also have a counsel. this is because i learnt to play chess about a month ago, and eric is a seasoned player. when one of my older brothers walks by, they will aid me in the kicking of eric's butt. which i have done. 5 times. out of 17 games. i am quite pleased with these odds.

eric has one counsel member. her name is olivia. she may or may not actually be good at chess. but her advice to eric is this. when allison looks away, steal her pieces.

andrew donnelly is the one who watches the game and goes 'ohhhh. shouldnt'a done that'. which is exceedingly helpful after eric takes my piece. thanks donnelly. in all actuality, he's probably the best counsel-member, because he makes eric the most furious when he tells me what to do.

when joe plays with me, the game automatically becomes r rated. erics pieces turn into little f***ers. and ya gotta show the little f***ers who's boss. pieces are slashed off the board left and right. i usually lose when i play with this mindset, but its a lot more fufilling that way.

matt provided the chess board and drew me up a cheat sheet when i was learning to play. so he's the winner.

and nick, my fbbf (face book best friend) makes grunting noises while i still have my hand on the piece. if its a grunt with an upward inflection, im doing something right.

chess is fun. and nerdy. which is irrelevant. because its fun.

blog post numba five.

stairs.

i have the ability to fall asleep anywhere. while i treasure this at times when napping is appropriate, it must be taken into consideration that napping is not always appropriate. example. i once fell asleep while vacuuming the car with the vacuum still running in my hand. skill, my friends.

the floor of my father's office seemed appealing today. until his secretary stepped on me on her way to the copying machine. i realize that i am a little person, but i feel as though you might notice a breathing lump on the ground if you were to encounter it. i expect a bruise.

something ive noticed about backstage at the barksdale. there are a lot of levels. annoying single stairs left and right. occasionally there will be two or three stairs in a row, but only if youre lucky.

you can learn a lot from tina fey. in the valentines day episode, she speaks of the sensation you recieve when you think there is another stair and you step forward expecting that next stair, and that stair, well, it isnt there. i watched this yesterday. specifically remember saying to myself, 'hm. never had that feeling.'

til today. apparently the upstage right vohm only has three steps. its funny how much fake velocity you receive when youre mentally ready to drop down another level. a lot of fake velocity. its also startling as the dickens for everyone involved, as you are seemingly performing a simple task such as walking down the stairs, and it turns so futile. long-story-thats-actually-not-so-long-im-just-dragging-it-out short, i fell. collapsed into a heaping mound. laughed at my own stupidity. and moved on.

two high school girls confronted me after the show today. i say confronted for dramatic effect, because really they were not being threatening towards me in any way. they wanted to know my age. 16, i say. collective gasp from the girls. i add that my little brother is 15. they misunderstand and think i mean that eric is really my little brother. i go with it, and explain in great detail how we are adopted, homeschooled and best friends. they comment that they knew we looked like we could be related. funny how that is. they leave. and i am fufilled, for i am becoming such a good liar.

fourth blog post.

leprechauns

i like grapes. angry, wrathful ones. it is a common misconception that fruits and vegetables do not have feelings. these people are horribly mistaken.

there was an enormous three-layer leprechaun cake backstage today. confusion ensues. is it st. patricks day? is st patricks day actually the 17th? is today actually the 17th? am i wearing green? turns out somebody merely made a cake and had an excess of green icing. im not one to complain.

that deliciousness provided a mediocre sugar buzz. good thing. cause ten in the morning, immature high schoolers and a breast feeding / baby birth scene turns out not to be a pleasant combo. i must admit, however, that seeing some of the "jock" figures watch with horror as rosasharn had contractions 6ft in front of them was nothing short of hysterical. dont have sex, kids.

i must have perfect timing. how else could it be that the exact milisecond i walk out of the stage door is the same milisecond those very schoolchildren were loading their bus? the irony was overwhelming. i considered my options.
1. turn around and run back in the stage door, looking quite the fool.
2. pop on my sunglasses and rush hurriedly through the crowd, incognito.
or 3. seize the day. carpe diem, as we say in latin.
of course, i seized the day.
i smiled. i waved. i would have even been willing to sign autographs if the situation had presented itself.
it didnt.

i did all of that in good fun, because i knew i would probably never see these hoodlums again, and if i did, they would most certainly not remember me.

back to my perfect timing claim. the kids in the school bus happened to be travelling the same direction as i. we ended up side by side at a stoplight. or two. or five. and i was wrong. they did remember me.

not only did they remember me, but they were intent on contacting me again. these hooligans were leaning out of the bus windows, flailing their arms like a mentally unstable duck, and screaming bloody murder trying to obtain my attention, which i was not willingly giving. my poor mother was the recipient of all of this, for she rode in the passenger seat.

it shook her up a tad. weak heart. but i learned a lesson today. dont pretend youre famous unless youre SURE you'll never see those people again. SURE.

three blog posts. im beginning to like this.