Oh, Tannenbaum.

So my younger brother, a freshman in college, was very adamant that we wait until he return from school before we made the annual family pilgrimage to get a Christmas tree. Which I understand-- I know that it's a sort of natural feeling to feel misplaced or lost in your own family after leaving for an extended period of time, so that made a lot of sense to me. And we do, indeed, wait for him to return home. We then wait for about a week or so while everyone else lives their lives (school, work, in my case drinking and designing costumes-- not at the same time, mind you, but that's what I've been up to). In my brother's case, as far as I can tell, the last week has been primarily spent watching "Scrubs" on the couch in nothing but a pair of navy blue sweatpants, but I digress. So today the decision was made that come hell or high water, today would be the day for this tree.

And then we wait. We wait until I wake up and ditch my hangover (about one p.m. or so). We then wait for my brother to come back from a funeral (of a woman he didn't really know, but I'm not getting into the politics of that). And so as he pulls in the driveway, my mother, thirteen year-old brother, and I are eagerly waiting... until he announces that he's just too tired and he needs to take a nap this afternoon before going out tonight.

Well.

So after a few heated words, the general consensus is 'fuck it.' We pile in the car, drive to the place we go every year. This year, there are about four trees propped up outside against the main warehouse with the annual tree extravaganza. We walk in, remarking on how decent-looking just the trees propped up outside look this year, and are about to start turning the door handle when a man with about three teeth informs us that "That's it. Sold out. Those four are the last ones left."

On second thought, we look again at the four trees. We then realize why none have sold-- they are all priced at $175. Now, I'm not trying to be ridiculous, I realize the environment and economy are both in the shitter and that both things come at a cost-- but $175 for a tree? You've got to be kidding.

Fortunately, the nice -- if dentally challenged-- man at the garden place gave it to us for 50 bucks since we did wait until the very last minute and they weren't going to sell it anyways, but still. Got it on top of the car for us and everything looked swimming.

And then my mother promptly pulled the car into the garage with the tree still ON it. The whole back side is pretty mangled, but the garage door at least is still in its tracks this year. It's now soaking up a bucket of water in the garage, where I'm sure it will remain until at least Christmas Eve, when we remember that not only has the tree stand been broken since last January, but no one knows where we stored the ornaments.

Yikes.

I guess it's been awhile.

Sorry, all both of you who read this. I'm sure you were up at night as a result.

New updates in my world since last I posted--

-- My mother informed me that she asks Jesus every day to find me a good Christian man. I don't know about all of you, but I personally was a little creeped out by that statement. If heaven is something like that scene in "Angels in America" where God is supported by a whole flock of angelic secretaries at desks, you just know that up there some poor schlump is going "oy, it's THAT lady praying again."

In conclusion, yes, I find that weird.

-- I'm ready for a vacation. What's new.
-- I had a few days of vacation and didn't quite know what to do with myself. (I mean, I figured it out. I essentially squandered them on Christmas shopping, drinking, wandering around, and watching "Weeds" in my pajamas....) but it still felt like something wasn't quite right. Like since I wasn't running around in a freaking panic, it meant that something was wrong... which probably just says things about my life that I'm not ready to admit to anybody just yet.

--I wrote Christmas cards to a whole bunch of people, and then promptly second-guessed my Christmas-card listmaking skills. What if I send this to someone whom I thought was perfectly marvelous and lovely even if I didn't know them particularly well, and while I think I'm being charming and reaching out to acknowledge a friendship, they think "wow, what a crazy stalker." Or worse, think "oh, shit, now I'm obligated to mail something to THAT girl..." The same applies to gifts. I wish there was some way of consolidating who gives who what, when, and how much money. I know the basics are pretty obvious, but co-workers? Roommates? Those friends that are totally your friends and they're great and you hang out but they're not the sort you call at 3 am when you think you might have done something monumentally stupid and you need someone to slap you into sense again? Are you supposed to buy them something? If so, how much? And for a poor college student who doesn't have the time to do homemade things anymore nor the cash to give really cool finds, just what, if anything, are you supposed to buy?

Anyways, if someone could clear that up for me, it would be much appreciated.

-- Capture the flag. What a great game. I ran around campus like an idiot the other night with my tiger stripes and game face on. Unfortunately, that brought about my next point:

--OW. I am out of shape. From two or so hours of running around like an idiot, I was sore the next day. Which is really shocking and sad and I need to do something about it. Yet I'm still planning on making Christmas cookies this year. Help.

-- In conclusion: this wasn't a very together entry, I guess, was it? I sort of rattled on about a lot of unrelated things. Oh, well, readership.... better luck next month....?

Whew.

I'm trying to think if I have anything to write of any sort of importance. (Do I ever?) My top five subjects, in no particular order, seem to be:

1. Senior Ball. I'm not sure if this is particular only to my college, or all other schools, but at least my small liberal arts college seems to place a lot of weight on this one evening, with sort of mixed results. On one hand: Congratulations! You have emerged from three and a half years of rigorous coursework, have "found" yourself, and are now able to call yourselves mature, educated, responsible individuals. On the other: You are an immature college student, and we all know how college students act when they spend a lot of money on dresses, shoes, tickets, and jewelry: drunk and belligerent. We will put you through two security checkpoints to ensure that no one brings in any alcohol that is not the kind you need to pay for. And once you arrive at your destination, we encourage you to go drink and dance-- as long as you can get the attention of one of the four bartenders we hired for roughly nine hundred people.

Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to strap my Virgin Mary flask to my inner thigh all evening, so that element wasn't so much a problem. One cultural oddity down, another lifetime to go.....

2. Schoolwork. There's too much of it. I realize I am paying a decent chunk of cash in order to do all of this work, and for the most part, I really do care about getting it all done on time. I like reading more, expanding my mind, becoming an educated person, and I really don't like to let down professors with yet another paper typed at 4 a.m. with imaginary words. But I also like sleep a whole lot. Which brings me to:

3. Thanksgiving. Thank god for this holiday. I know it's not even anything I care about for reasons like they teach you in third grade-- I couldn't really give a shit about the Pilgrims and the Indians sharing one glorious meal in happiness until they all started killing each other again. What I am grateful for is the idea of time away. They let me go home, see my family and friends, and escape the confines of classwork, homework, extracurricular work, and just plain ol' work-work for at least a long-ish weekend, and for that I am a grateful little lady. Do I even like turkey all that much? No. That's why my mother cooks filet mignon every year. (And oh, god, does she ever.... with this mustard tarragon cream sauce that you wouldn't even believe). And don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of mashed potatoes and pumpkin anything... but what I really like is the chance to catch up on friends, rest, and sleep. Unfortunately, this brings me back to:

4. Theatre. (And, in essence, number two: work). I have a dress rehearsal the Monday after we return from break. I'm not really ready for that. So much for time away to revive and recover. And in essence, this is really:

5. Life. (Not the board game. My own). I'm trying to figure out now if what I think I want to do with my life (design costumes, live in this theatre world, become a true "artist") gibes with what it actually entails (poverty, struggling to break through, honest assessment that I might not actually be "good enough" to do what I want). It's a strange time in my life right now, and I don't know if I even merit the sort of self-scrutiny that I've been subjecting myself to everyday... but if anyone's going to question my own self-worth, I guess it might as well be me. Is this really what I want to do with my life? Have I pidgeonholed my interests, or am I truly finding myself? Am I smart/talented enough to have the career that I want? And is it all that important anyways?

So anyways. That's what's on my mind this week. You can catch up with me after I've had my nap and steak/mashed potato dinner.... and maybe I'll have a different worldview entirely. Enjoy your turkeys!!

Reality Check.

So Thursday night, I'm backstage at my show. I'm spacing a little-- two more quick-changes and I'm outta there, going home, pouring a glass of wine, and catching up on abc.com with "Pushing Daisies." (Which-- sidebar-- I know I shouldn't love for so many reasons, but I do. They're really pulling out all the stops here, which although yes, we've seen it all before, I still can't help but just adore. The cast is amazing, they've been able to sustain a seemingly unsustainable premise for four episodes now, and I really hope the WGA strike doesn't put it all on hold. But I digress).

So I'm prepping my next change, thinking nothing of anything, when all of a sudden we hear this horrifying sound coming from the back stairs -- as if a large weight was crashing and banging down them, hitting every single step until its final destination when it came to rest in one final, terrifying moan. Sure enough, I run over, dodging distraught actresses and freshmen techies, until I see my friend Cara, at the bottom of the stairs, in full Victorian period getup, eyes closed and moaning quietly in a tangled mess of petticoats.

Let me explain something about these stairs. The way the theater is constructed, the dressing rooms and costume shop are all upstairs, on the building's fourth floor. The theatre itself is on the second; we have a set of stairs that connects the backstage area to the fourth-floor dressing room area that scares the bejeezus out of everybody. They're old and steep, with carpeting to help muffle the noise (because they are old, they are creaky, and because they essentially are directly over the audience's head, the creaking really distracts from the performances-- thus, even the most cautious of actors still tend to avoid going up or down them during performances because they know just how noisy they can be). They're also steep motherfuckers-- essentially connecting the fourth floor to the second in one staircase, so people are cautious on them in part because of the noise, but in part because to fall down them would hurt. Badly. Kind of like what Cara discovered.

Turns out she's been feeling woozy the past several days as a side effect of her antibiotic, but because the girl's a trooper (very Long Island I-Could-Break-You-And-Quite-Possibly-Will), she powers through the show anyways. She doesn't actually remember what happened at the top of the stairs, though she does remember thinking mid-fall, and I quote, "Oh, shit...."; and she remembers waking up at the bottom and thinking "I have to go onstage now...."

Needless to say, seeing as how the girl just broke a 33-step fall with her nose, she didn't go onstage. Once she proved that she could stand and move on her own without her neck being broken, we got her out of costume and upstairs, where the rent-a-cop campus security chief and his medic were waiting; and about ten minutes later I'm holding her hand as the EMTs body-board her with a cervical collar onto a stretcher and put her in the back of an ambulance. (Neither did we stop the show, either, which was part of the reason why I was the one to get in the ambulance with her at all). We spent about four hours in the hospital getting her x-rayed and questions answered and poked and prodded, and-- get this-- here's what's up:

The corset and wig she was wearing probably saved her life. The corset kept her spine straight when she finally landed into the wall at the bottom of the steps, and the wig-- with her hair in pincurls on top, and with the extra cushioning and padding-- acted as a helmet to keep head injuries to a minimum. She had a contusion on her wrist (I didn't know what it meant-- basically a nasty bruise) and a headache like none other, and now 48 hours later, she's pretty banged up across her chest, torso, and upper arms, but other than that-- she's FINE.

What I'm to make of all of this, I really don't know. I honestly went home that night-- after getting her safe back to her dorm room, with her roommates and a Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich-- and emailed my parents, because I decided I didn't tell them I loved them enough. I'm not trying to get religious here now, since I have a lot of really unresolved issues in general, but I do believe that spiritually something happened that night that saved her life. By all accounts, a fall like that should have broken her neck; it's hard for me to imagine how quickly everybody's lives could have been changed. Every time I've gone down those stairs since I keep thinking how horrifying a fall would be, and how in the thirty years people have been saying "one of those days, someone's going to take a header," I can't believe someone actually did.

Moral of the story: Be careful what you're doing. Life can change quickly. If you love somebody, tell them, and if you are in danger of falling down thirty-three steps in the middle of a musical, I would recommend doing so in a corset and Victorian updo.

Ten Reasons Why I Love Actors

That was sarcastic.

Actually, I do love actors. I spend a lot of time with actors. I enjoy the company of many a fine actor, always good for a laugh or a cigarette. I can't do my job (did I mention? I work in costumes) without actors.

But I have learned a few universal truths about actors over the years, namely:

Sometimes, actors are really, really dumb.

This problem is always at its height on the first dress rehearsal of any production. For some reason, the minute that an actor puts on a costume for the first time, their bodies start to produce some brain chemical that causes them to ask, frankly, a lot of stupid questions. And I mean a lot of stupid questions. Things that would never give a rational person a moment's pause before ("Should I put one arm in this sleeve or both? Should I button these buttons in the buttonholes on the front of my costume? Do you suppose the wig is meant to go on top of my head?") become major obstacles in the life of the young actor.

Now I don't want you to get me wrong here. For the most part, these are not people picking their noses or staring at their feet (or worse, singing showtunes) at a party. These are people who play drinking games and do stupid things and dance and are generally okay to be seen with in public. But the minute someone says something to me like "I know you're busy right now, but could you possibly lace my shoes for me?" I lose my cool. I am currently doing ten other things right now. You have owned shoes for, let's say, the past twenty years of your life, and for probably eighteen of those years, you have understood the basic principle of putting laces through small holes and tying a pretty bunny knot at the top. When I am not trying to solve the crisis-of-the-moment, I would be more than happy to educate you in the finer arts of "over-under-around-and-through," as my kindergarden teacher Mrs. Daly taught me, but for the time being, I would sincerely appreciate it if you would shut the hell up.

This isn't by any means an expansive list, either.... it's just the first thing that's come to mind. I keep thinking about the scenario posed to me by an actor-friend of mine from last year's summer stock, who wondered, "If you were to be locked in a small ski lodge cabin for one long weekend with either twenty cats or twenty actors, which would you pick?" On any given day, I would pick the actors... but switch that to a roomful of actors trying on their costumes for the first time, and give me the cats anyday.

Going as David Bowie from "The Labyrinth" for Halloween............... hell yes.

Being mistaken as Tina Turner or Bon Jovi all over campus............. not so much.

but overall a fun night.

though tech tomorrow should be interesting..... as Jeff the 30something factory-worker-costume-guy says, "shit, i forgot how much hangovers suck."

So much for my productivity....

So since no one knows I started this, I think it's safe to begin this way. I am a college student at a prestigious university on the East Coast (stalk away on THAT, stalkety stalkers), and about a month ago I was approached by a representative from our school's department of Public Affairs about a blog. Not just any blog-- my blog.... my very own, or soon to be very own, public-domain blog. Provided through the school with my own brand-new headshot, to boot. All that I would have to do is write about the daily life and activities of a college senior, English and Theatre major, designing costumes and finishing out the year.

Now my first reaction was, oh shit, these people clearly have the wrong girl. There is no way that what they want me to write ("Theatre is SOO much fun! I'm so glad I came to school here!") is going to match how I actually think and feel on any given day ("I am actually going to punch those cuntwaffles in the face if they start singing in a public, academic space one more time..... ").

My second reaction was, sure. I wanted the free headshot. (I was not impressed, incidentally, with the results). I wanted the glory. (I was instead incessantly mocked by everyone around me as being the new "blog girl," including my boss, who told me point-blank, "I don't think you can work here anymore.") Most of all I wanted Ellen, the Director of Public Affairs, to like me, as she is my aunt's best friend from journalism school and I needed to bum a ride to Manhattan in a few weeks' time. (We had a lovely trip. Except for the part where I set my favorite cocktail dress on fire. But more on that later....)

Of course, the problem is that I can't post anything that I really want to post. I was told that using the phrase "it sucks," might "offend some of our readers." It was deleted. I tried to post an entry detailing the plight of the arts major on a liberal arts campus, complete with links to a NYTimes article and everything, elaborating on how although I am not an economics or chemistry major, I work just as hard if not harder than those people bitching about how damn difficult it is to live in the science library. It was eventually posted, but hidden in the folds of happier, more "cheerful" postings, and no one read it. (Until I told people about it. I then actually got some cool emails from alums and professors). The point is, it's not a place I can really actually get out there and write.

Strangely enough, of course, it would never have occurred to me to START writing at all had it not been for the first blog and that opportunity. So I suppose I can't be too hard on the poor old department of Public Affairs. Still, I am thrilled that I can just click "send" without anyone responding to say that "use of the term 'cuntwaffle' really might offend some of our readership."

Will this turn out to be the next Perez Hilton? Dubious. Highly questionable. For one thing, I don't have access to pictures of Lindsay Lohan's labial folds. For another, I don't want to. But hopefully if you are someone who might stumble across this and read, I hope you enjoy.