Sunday, April 1, 2012

D'OH!!!

As Dea pointed out on Facebook... I failed in my goal of posting every month... Crap! So here's March's blog 1 day late.

LEGALLY BLONDE!!!!
My life is consumed by 2 jobs and a show, but I'm really enjoying it! Legally Blonde is looking like a really amazing production. The cast is so strong that it was destined to be a great show from the beginning. I've also felt more accomplished in this role than I have in any role since RENT. I'm loving it, and am actually excited for people to see it. My voice lessons with Donna continue to be a huge help as well. All this can be summed up by saying that I feel I'm becoming a strong performer again. I've been doubting myself for so long that I had forgotten what it felt like to be confident in what I'm doing. The major change this time is that I know my limits a bit more, and understand that I'm not perfect. High School gave me an inflated opinion of myself, and college along with the years that followed has helped to rid me of that.

Next we have work! Only a few weeks more of the Tax job, which is gonna make things a little financially rough. I've been pretty good about saving since I've started working the second job. And while it eliminates any free time, saving needs to be my focus over the next year. This has led me to the conclusion that I need to have a second job until we leave. I'm going to see if Tomato Cafe will hire me back over the summer, and if they will I'll probably stay there until next tax season rolls around. Don't wanna, but I need the money!

As for the other job, it has it's ups and downs. I love some of the people I work with, but have an ever growing list of problems with a few others. Luckily there are only two more months before I get a nice vacation, followed by a school year that I hope will be much more enjoyable.

Now I'm gonna brag a bit... THIS IS THE BEST YEAR EVER!! I'm officially going on 3 major vacations, and there are talks of another one at the end of the year. Gilbert and I joined my parents and sister (with husband in tow) to New Orleans over spring break. Was so much fun! It was great to spend time with all of them as I rarely see them. Next up is a family trip with Gilbert's folks. We'll be going to Disneyland and Vegas as the end of May. I wasn't sure I could do it, but Gilbert and my parent's basically told me I had to go! So I'm going! And then of course we have Europe in July! So many trips in one year! Truly is the perfect way to spend my last year in NM.

So there we go... My update for now. I haven't worked on developing my cabaret at all, but I've been too busy. However the progress I feel I've made vocally will make it much easier to put it all together.

I will update before the end of April... Otherwise I don't know what Dea will do... O_O

Monday, February 20, 2012

Legally Blonde!

So here's is the promised blog update! Despite the fact that it it mostly useless given that the few of you who actually read this already know the major news.

So yeah, I got Emmett! I worked since last december to be ready for this audition and callback and it paid off. I got the part, and I'm super excited. Given the rough journey it's been for my voice as of late I was actually extremely surprised with how well it performed yesterday at the call backs. Nearly every time I had sang through "Chip On My Shoulder" in the past I've struggled with several things, but yesterday they all disappeared. I found a comfortable place to sing from and ultimately felt really good about how I did. I found a confidence that hadn't been there since the rehearsal process of RENT. It felt amazing!

Now the trick is to rediscover that confidence and keep it through this rehearsal process, and of course on to the show itself. I'm willing myself to keep it up! haha.

But yeah, there's the update! One more win in the battle to overcome my voice issues! This one feels huge. As stupid as it sounds, I feel like I'm making a comeback! I'm gonna rock this part, and show everyone that I am a strong performer!

(okay, ignore the stupid self inspirational speech if you want)

Sunday, February 12, 2012

1 Week Away.

My Legally Blonde audition is one week away, and seeing as how I'm having a sleepless night I figured I'd make a blog entry.

So one week! My voice lessons have been going pretty darn well as of late! It takes me a bit to get into the groove but once I'm there, I feel more confident and sound better than I have in quite a long time! The only downside to this whole thing is that when I'm alone, or rather just not in a voice lesson, the progress is harder to find. I can sing a song really well in a voice lesson one day and then the next day try to replicate that success with uninspiring results. This scares me as I can't audition for legally blond by having the directors come see me in my voice lesson. I want the part, but I'm also not 100% confident I can earn it, but we'll see! Have one more voice lesson before the big day, hopefully something will stick that I can carry with me into the audition!

Next work... oh work... I have started working for Gilbert's parent's office as a way of supplementing my income. It's been pretty nice honestly. I get to see Gilbert a bit more, and even though we can't really be affectionate there, it's still really nice to be around him. But now that I'm working an evening/weekend job this is what my week looks like:

Mon- Wake up at 6. Shower, Eat, Be to work by 7:30. Finish work at 2:30, drive to other work, arrive by 3:00. Finish around 8. Return home, eat, relax for an hour or two and then hit the hay to repeat for the rest of the week.

If I get into Legally Blonde it'll only get more chaotic as I will go directly from job #2 to rehearsal, then from rehearsal directly into bed. I'm gonna be exhausted by the time March 11th comes around!

However, March 11th will be pretty fantastic! It's my spring break from the APS job and my parents are treating Gilbert, Me, Zoey and Kevin to a trip to NOLA with them!! I'm so excited for this trip fro many reasons, but most of all because it'll be the first family vacation Gilbert and I are taking as a couple with my family! Pretty significant step I must say!

Well... now that I have had a lovely word vomit upon my blog I think I should try to sleep. It's been a long week and I have to work yet again tomorrow. I'm sorry this is pretty unorganized, I'll be posting by Monday the 20th if not before.

Monday, January 16, 2012

My Year, My Voice

Alright, so I've finally come to a decision, and this blog is going to help me stay positive through the struggle ahead.

First a quick overview of the troubles I've been having. A week before we opened for RENT 2 years ago I lost my voice almost entirely. Luckily I was able to get it back in time for the show, though it was never really perfect through the run. Since then I've felt that I'm in a constant war with my voice. From working at a call center when I lived on a steady diet of Riccola, to just not being able to speak after my day had finished. I finally went and saw a speech pathologist last summer who had to retrain me on how to speak. Apparently my speech pattern was damaging my vocal chords making it a real challenge to sing.

Now to today. My speech patter is significantly better, I have very few issues speaking and rarely have issues where speaking becomes a chore. However a new problem has finally become the target of my frustration. I feel like I can't sing anymore. I've never had to think so much about what I'm doing when I'm singing, and yet still not yielding anywhere near the vocal quality I once had. I told Gilbert the other night that without singing I don't really know who I am. Sounds dramatic yeah, but my degree is in (musical) theatre. I've always sang nearly every second of the day, but these days I haven't been enjoying it. One of my new years resolutions was to do more shows than last year, well this voice issue is the major wrench in that plan. So here's my solution:

I'm currently studying with a voice teacher who was recommended by my speech pathologist. I have had the mentality of dreading each lesson and then leaving feeling unsuccessful. I talked with her last time about her apparent frustration at my lack of progress. She told me that she was actually seeing quite a bit of progress, but that she was being extremely careful with me as she understands that I'm relearning how to sing. She doesn't want me falling into damaging habits that will result in worse problems than last time. After this talk I had on of the most successful lessons in years.

So here's the goal. We move to NYC in about a year and a half. before we go I am going to have a put on a cabaret. This means I have 18 months to regain both my ability to sing and my confidence in my voice. In my last blog I said that I will be posting at least once a month here, so if nothing else I will be giving monthly updates on my progress with my voice. My first update regarding this will hopefully be some good news about the auditions for Legally Blonde which is coming up!

Anyways... There's the blog for the day! Here's hoping for a year of great progress and successes!!

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Found on Huffpost

So I read Huffingtonpost constantly. It's one of my primary sources for news on several of the issues I find important. I realize it's not exactly balanced, but often these days I am okay with ignoring the GOP's take on issues.

Anyways, I found this article concerning the Pope's New Year's Address.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/09/pope-benedict-xvi-gay-marriage_n_1194515.html

While this is nothing new, (everyone knows the pope is anti-gay, anti-abortion, and anti-contraception) there was one line in particular that disturbed me. A member of the Catholic Clergy sent a letter to Barack Obama's administration stating that legalizing gay marriage would "precipitate a national conflict between church and state of enormous proportions." Now the realization that this brought about shouldn't be anything new,but I guess I just never looked at the argument quite like this.

Abortion was deemed to be constitutionally legal by the supreme court with Roe v. Wade, and yet there is a continued battle to overturn the ruling. States pass laws that limit down the availability while also making the process even more emotionally torturing to the women than it already is. So what's going to stop the same thing from happening once Gay Marriage is legalized?

I have complete faith that within the next 10 years every state in the country will have legal gay marriage. Whether that be from an act from D.C. or the individual states I don't know, but I'm confident it will happen. But given the continued fight to take away the right of abortion,it's safe to assume the christian right will never yield in their fight to keep the gays from being gay.

If full gay marriage is achieved we'll be faced with an onslaught of threats of overturning the law. If/when that fails they will attempt to change gay marriage to civil unions. If that fails they'll begin taking away the marital tax privileges, or modify spousal hospital rights to exclude gays specifically. The list can go on and on.

It's a grim look forward, I know, but I don't think it's unreasonable to assume. Legalized gay marriage will be a huge step forward, and we need to be prepared for a tough fight even after we achieve victory.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Happy New Year!

Wow...

I fail...

6 MONTHS WITHOUT A POSTING! That's worse than I've ever done since creating my first blog.

So here we go, 2012 if here and I'm excited for the possibilities it holds. The past few days have been fairly eye opening and I've had a lot of time to really think about things. Now I'm not one for resolutions, but I think this year I need them. So here they are.

#1.
I'll start this one with a list:

1. I'm the biggest push-over in the world.
2. Stealing this one from Dea: I love Team Awesome...Bitch! I'm so happy I have a group of theatre friends again!!!
3. For the first time ever I'm living in a place I don't consider home.
4. Music is my greatest passion, my goal in life is to find someone with the same tastes in music as me.
5. I rarely ever miss people after not seeing them for a while. If I say I miss you it means you're special.
6. I never liked wine until Dea and her alcoholic ways showed me the light... I love my wine buddy!!!
7. I've been a vegetarian for over two years now, and plan to continue being one until I'm told by a doctor to stop for health reasons.
8. I've still never once been high. Hadn't been drunk until a week after my 21st birthday.
9. I think dark hair and blue eyes is the hottest combination a guy can have.
10. I love being in a relationship, but am way to picky to settle down.
11. My first gay experience was at the age of twelve, yet it still took me four more years to accept that I'm gay.
12. For the first time since high school I have a fag hag, NOW I HAVE TWO!!!!
13. Most people think I don't like them when they first meet me. It's not that at all, I'm just shy!
14. I can't think of a single person I personally know that I can say I truly "hate".
15. Despite the many things I say I dislike about myself, I'm very proud of who I am and what I've done with my life so far.
16. I had to think way to hard to come up with 16 facts about myself.

These are 16 Me Facts that I wrote in Dec. 2008. Reading through those made me realize that I'm not too happy with how I've changed in the past 3 years. Team Awesome is gone, which is old news. But I really do miss having that group of friends! It was something amazing and made for little time to be bored. I am now in a spectacular relationship with Gilbert who I love more than anything. I don't feel like I have a fag hag anymore... I definitely miss that presence in my life. There are people that I've started saying I hate. And then comes #15 on the list... I think this is what I've lost the most. My pride has greatly diminished, dragging my confidence down with it. Looking at this list makes me realize that I was a lot more confident and ultimately happier 3 years ago. So my first resolution is to get back to that! I miss this mentality! I'm still fairly easy going, but there's something missing now. I'm going to spend this year finding it, and enjoying every second of life again!

#2.
This is the one I posted on Facebook. I want to do more shows. Reflecting on 2011 made me realize that I had only done 1 show the entire year. I had vocal issues and travel plans that seemed to put a damper on my usual life choices. This year, I'm working through them all to be in several shows! The first on my radar is Legally Blonde! Emmet here I come!

#3.
At the end of 2012, I want to look back and say that I regret nothing from the previous year.

#4.
Just thought of this one now. I will blog at least once a month. About anything! Just so long as this poor blog doesn't get neglected again. I love going back and reading through my old blogs to see where I was years ago.

There we go. 2012 begins. I'm determined to make this the best year of my life, with 2 awesome trips in the work, I just have to hold true to these resolutions and I should be able to achieve it!

If you're reading this and haven't spoken to me in a while, hit me up! Chances are I'd really love to hear from you.

Monday, June 20, 2011

Another Late Night Blog

It's almost amusing that I only ever blog when it's late at night. I suppose it's because I'm normally only up late at night if I'm thinking too much to sleep. Which is half of what tonight is. The other half is that I threw out my back at work today and am in quite a bit of pain and can't seem to get comfy.

So real quick a rant about that! I threw out my back about 15 minutes into my work day while I was taking chairs off of tables as part of the opening work. I got about half-way done with the dining room and out of no where my back tensed up and I couldn't breathe because the expanding of my lungs made my back hurt like hell. I lied down for a few minutes and was able to walk a bit. I was concerned because I couldn't bend over to pick things up, couldn't carry heavy objects, and was struggling to even walk without pain. So I called the on call person, and she refused to come in... So in the end, I worked a double... Yeah, freakin sucked. Luckily the manager was understanding and cut me early both shifts. But it still made for a stressful, and painful, day. Tomorrow I work another double with limited mobility, this time apparently with limited sleep on top of that!

So an update! For the few of you who actually read this, especially after the months of no posts. Work is good! I am working for APS as an educational assistant, but since it's summer I don't have to work there. So I took over Gilbert's job at Tomato Cafe while he's away. The APS job is a huge step up from Desert Hills and I've thoroughly enjoyed it! The only problem I have is a few of my co-workers who are bigoted in ways I thought I'd be spared from for at least another year. I'll post on them another time, but the work is good! Tomato Cafe has been a perfect summer job! I love the majority of the people I work with. It can get stressful but never anything over whelming. I'm making decent money, not enough to live off of, but luckily I don't need that money to support myself. The management has been fantastic! I've had a pretty busy schedule outside of work and have had no troubles at all with getting the days I needed off!

Performing has been something I haven't done near as much as I'd like over the past year. I'm still struggling with some vocal issues but am back in voice lessons to try and work through them. I also have an appointment with a Speech Pathologist next month. So I'm trying to recover. I did however get cast in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying! I'll be playing Bud Frump who is essentially the antagonist of the story. It's a character part again, which I kinda wanted to start distancing myself from, but oh well. I need to be performing so I gotta take what I can get!

My love life has been surprisingly good as of late. Gilbert's been in Oklahoma and it's been 35 days since I've seen him face to face or kissed him. We talk a lot, at least twice a day, and we've video chatted almost every day! That wasn't our original plan, but he gets poor cell phone reception in the house he's staying in so we've had to use Skype as our primary means of communication. The past few days have been fairly weak on the communication side however, which has a lot to do with me being awake right now. He's gotten busy and I've unfortunately felt like I've been bumped down on his priority list. I know that's me over thinking things, and we're still doing great. Plus I get to see him in 5 days! After living with someone for a year and spending every day with them, it's hard not to have a really intense longing for them when you can't kiss them or hold them. But that'll be cured for a while in just a few days, I need it...

I think that's all... I'm sadly not tired at all, which is awful because I work in 5 hours and am still in quite a bit of pain. But such is life right?

I'll try and be better about updating... I don't know if anyone actually reads this but it certainly helps me to just put all my thoughts down. I'd start a journal if I didn't feel silly about doing it...

Good night all, but more like good morning as it's so freakin early!!!