Ten on Tuesday (The Late Edition)

1. I was so busy today that the day escaped me and it's now Wednesday and I'm finally getting to my Ten on Tuesday, hence the "Late Edition."

2. I said goodbye to some really good friends today. Joel and Rob are moving to Florida next week and I won't be here to send them off, so we all got together with Mere for lunch at DoJo's in the village and then later met up with Mere after work for a drink at a pub. I've known Joel and Rob for most of the time that I have been in NYC. We always have such a good time together and we laugh a lot. Guys, it's not goodbye. It's till we drink again!!

3. I leave for Jamaica in 12 hours and 39 minutes!!!

4. Jazmin, I didn't get a chance to look into that Burt's Bees Diaper Creme. I think I'll be okay without it and if I get burnt I have a ton of aloe and ibuprofen. I'll look for diaper creme when I get there if I need it. Thanks for the suggestion.

5. I plan on getting my copy of the last Harry Potter book when I'm in Jamaica. I hope that turns out to be as easy as it sounds.

6. If anyone needs to get a hold of me, I have international calling on my phone. It is $1.99 per minute so we'll have to keep it brief and if you leave a voicemail keep it exceptionally short (Jazmin, that means you!! HEHE!!) I can receive texts, but I won't be able to respond.

7. I'm so excited. It kind of feels like the first day of school is tomorrow and I'm not sure that I'll be able to sleep from the sheer excitement of it all.

8. We are flying Air Jamaica and it is a champagne flight. How cool is that?!

9. This will be my last post for ten days. Thanks to all who check daily, but you can have a little vacation from "Figuring It Out." I'll be figuring it out on the beach and I don't have any desire to blog while on vacation. I am bringing two cameras so I promise to post pictures when we get back.

10. Look out, JAMAICA, HERE I COME!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm Packed!!!

More importantly, I'm excited!! JAMAICA!!! Okay, it's very strange for me to be packed two days ahead of time. In fact, when I leave to do shows in other places I usually pack the night before. I think that is actually easier because I'm usually gone for months at a time and everything I own gets packed. I still have to buy sunscreen/bug spray, lotion with aloe, hair ties, and a new pair of flip flops. Meredith helped me so much. She let me go shopping in her closet and we discovered that we both need to wear dresses more often. We both have so many cute clothes that we never wear. Today I discovered I have a ton of really cute jewelry that I don't ever wear. I'm going to try to wear different jewelry everyday for awhile. I need to get better with the idea that change is not only inevitable, but desirable.

Blog oh blog, why have I abandoned thee...

So sorry to my three regular readers. I have been busy this week. I wrote a Ten and Tuesdays that for some reason didn't publish and was not saved. It was sad and I didn't have time to retype it. I met Joanne on Tuesday for lunch at the Times Square Olive Garden (super ghetto, but cheap- Joanne, I hope Jordan doesn't read this. I know he says OG isn't real Italian). Then I got on the Chinatown bus to Baltimore for Charissa's 30th birthday. We had a blast and it was good to see all of her friends and hang out for an evening. We watched Wes and Drew play (if you're interested Charissa has many postings about these guys and it's worth it to check them out. They are a great duo). I came home Wednesday evening through a huge thunderstorm. The bus was breezing past semis on the highway, tossing up water from the road like it was nothing. I thought, "Oh God, I'm on that Chinatown bus. The one that ends up on the side of the road." So, what do I do in this situation? Sleep. I felt that way I wouldn't worry the whole way home and it would stop me from asking the driver to pull over so that I could get us all home in one piece. So, we arrived home a bit late and I had no umbrella. I resigned myself to walk in the rain and actually had fun getting soaked. I decided there was no need to be upset, it wasn't cold out and the rain felt refreshing. So, yesterday and today I have been shopping so that I am ready to go to Jamaica (we leave on Wednesday!). YEAHHH!!!! I'm getting super, super excited. I bought two new bathing suits at a crazy sale at Macy's today. I've never owned a Donna Karan anything and now I have a beautiful purple bikini (the top of the one pictured is what I have, but I have a regular bottom, not a skirt). The top was originally $72 and the bottom $60 and I got the whole thing for $30. Yeah, bargain shopping!!

Notes on the Weekend

So, this will be short because its so hot I can barely think and my computer screen is emitting extra heat which is making it more complicated. Anyway, Friday I went to see 110 in the Shade with Audra McDonald. Which was amazing. They made it rain onstage. The show closes July 29th so if you have the opportunity go see it. Also, if you are under 35 years old, you can sign up for hiptix which allows you to see Roundabout Theatre Company's Broadway and off-Broadway shows at discounted prices. I saw 110 for $36.25. The only downside is that you only get one ticket per show. I love to go to the theatre by myself sometimes, so it's not really a turn off for me.
When I got home I decided to treat myself to a netflix movie online. Netflix gave me this offer that lowered my monthly payment by a dollar and now allows me to watch movies on from my computer for 14 hours a month. There aren't DVD extras and the selection is not the best, but when you're waiting for a movie to arrive it's pretty cool. (OB, I am not saying this to brag, so don't feel too bad.) Evidently it is not an offer that is given to everyone and I'm not sure why, but it works for me because I don't have a TV and I watch movies from my computer anyway. I watched the documentary Maxed Out which was really good. I highly recommend that if you use credit cards, then watch this movie. The movie tracks the lives of some incredibly in debt people and also follows the trail of how the banking industry rewrote Bankruptcy law in 2005. MBNA was the primary author. Politicians really need to start answering to the people not the banks, credit card companies and corporate America. The only way that will happen is by being a more informed public. Find out where the donations to your favorite presidential candidate are coming from here. And then follow their voting patterns. Make sure that they are beholden to their constituencies and not the big guys. On the Dems side all the Presidential Candidates in the Senate at the time voted no except Joe Biden from Delaware who voted for the bill and Hillary Clinton from New York who was the only member of the Senate to not take part in the vote.
Moving on to the rest of the weekend because if I don't I'll end up sitting here melting into the chair. Saturday was clean the apartment day. And I must say it is beautiful. I have never had a pet before and I had no idea that they could lose so much hair. They also puke. Friday I learned that when you have a pet in the house you should not attempt to save energy by walking in the dark. Cat puke is not fun to step in with bare feet. Saturday night OB picked me up and we went to Long Island for a BBQ. It was a ton of fun and I learned that dominos is an actual game, not just a line them up and knock them down sort of game, but a game involving probability. I never got the finer points, but I'm sure I'll learn.
Sunday was a rest for most of the day because its hot out sort of day. We did go rollerblading for an hour or so, but it was hot and I didn't put on any sunscreen. I didn't get burnt, so don't worry mom! I am planning on buying 30 and 50 SPF for Jamaica. A woman I met at the BBQ said 50 is great, but if you miss any part of the skin then it makes for a really dramatic suntan/burn lines. Sun is not usually my friend so I will probably err on the side of caution.

Flashback Friday

It took me all day to figure out what I wanted my Flashback to be about. But now I know. My sophomore year in college I was privileged to play Sally Bowles in Cabaret at KSU. It was my first leading role in college and besides Aldonza in Man of La Mancha it was the most exciting character I have ever played. The rehearsal process took place during the spring semester and my mom and I decided to spend spring break in NYC. We couldn't get tickets to Cabaret because it had just opened and it was sold out for months. So, we filled our time seeing just about everything else we could. And then, it snowed. A lot. It was the morning of March 22, 1998 and my mom and I woke up in our hotel room to see the city in a blanket of snow. Of course that wasn't about to slow us down. So we got up, had some breakfast and prepared ourselves to stand in line at the TKTS booth in Times Square. My mom had a brilliant idea to have me stand in line at TKTS and she would head to the Roundabout Theatre's box office and see if there were any cancellations. Now, this was before we had cell phones, so she left me there in line to check on Cabaret. As I neared the front of the line I figured I would just let people go ahead of me until my mom came back. See, we were both convinced that we had no chance of getting Cabaret tickets. And then I heard it. From far in the distance around 45th street I hear my mother shouting my name. JOOOOODIIIIIIII, WEEEEE GOOOOT THEEEEEM!!!!!!!!!!! And then I saw her. She was running toward me. Now imagine her running down the street waving the tickets in the air with snow all around, piled on the side of the street. And shortly after I heard her I ran toward her. She was so excited and so was I. We got to see the original cast, with Alan Cumming and Natascha Richardson, that would eventually win four Tony awards and then run for more than 2300 performances. It would later play at the infamous Studio 54. There I saw it a second time with Neil Patrick Harris and Deborah Gibson. And tonight I was back at Studio 54 again to see Audra McDonald in 110 in the Shade. All I have to say is that I love the theatre. I loved it then and I love it now. What I really want though, is to be up there. I know what it's like to allow yourself to live in another world for two hours each night. And to understand the world through someone else's eyes. What a thrill it is to know you have the power to bring an entire audience along for the ride. The performances I saw then and now are the reason I keep pressing on. I want to be there. I will be there. It's only a matter of time.

I Don't Understand.

What don't I understand, you ask? Well, Shoshanna, Meredith and I went to see Evening on Tuesday night. It was dreadful. Plain. and. Simple. Don't waste your money. And to tell you the truth it hurts me a little to say that. There are not enough movies written for strong women actresses. Movies are dominated by men and men's stories. Now, don't get me wrong, I enjoy things exploding and characters from comic strips, but I know first hand that there are more women in the acting business than men and way less opportunity. That's why I don't understand how so many fabulous women signed up to do this bad movie. In case you don't know this is the cast list: Claire Danes, Glenn Close, Vanessa Redgrave, Toni Collette, Natascha Richardson, Eileen Atkins, Mamie Gummer, and Meryl Streep. I know you are as shocked as I am that all these people are in a bad movie together.
First, the script is just dreadful. The main character is Ann, played in old age by Vanessa Redgrave, and as a young woman by Claire Danes. First of all, the old Ann is dying, but of what we are never to actually find out- most likely just old age. It kind of tries to be Alzheimer's or dementia, but twice she kind of makes noises as if she's in pain. The worst part is that she is confined to her bed throughout the movie almost completely. The best actress in the world wouldn't be able to hold a movie together when all the action takes place in bed unless it's a porn. It was tragic. On top of that the most common way for the action to slip from the present to the past was old Ann falling asleep most of the time mid-sentence. Which brings me to my second point. The movement between past and present was pointless. It made the movie seem even more scattered and did nothing to further the plot, add suspense or further develop character (all great reasons to include this device: see The Notebook or Da Vinci Code to understand how it's done well). And finally, the characters' relationships, which is what the movie is attempting to be about, are all poorly developed. Ann's daughters seem to be trying to figure out their own lives in relation to their mother's, but they seem to know nothing about her. They both argue (stupidly) that one has everything and isn't really happy (Richardson) and one has nothing and isn't really happy (Collette). And all mom wants to tell them is that there are no mistakes in life and to be happy, even though in her dying she is fixated on the one mistake she made- not getting the man she loved. Add into all this the nurse morphing back and forth from a nurse to a woman dressed in a white dress with a sparkling shawl that Ann seems fixated on, and the appearance of glowing butterflies which pointlessly get Ann out of bed to climb down the stairs and then run into the bushes. This was one time that she didn't fall asleep to allow the director to change from past to present and it was the only time that she got out of bed.
Save it for Netflix if you must, but otherwise go see A Mighty Heart or Sicko. I wish I had.

Ten on Tuesdays

1. I'm awful at blogging on the weekends. I don't even attempt to write. I was in Montauk with my friend Joel this weekend. I met his family and they were so much fun! We laughed a lot! Plus, the beach and the weather were absolutely gorgeous.

2. Sand angels are almost as fun to make as snow angels. I highly recommend them.

3. Montauk reminds me of Ireland. It's coastline is similar in many ways. Did I mention how gorgeous it was?

4. I learned from Meredith that it is unnecessary to press the space bar twice at the end of the sentence with a word processor. I couldn't figure out why the extra space was going away every time I published a post. I think it's a bit crazy that I never knew that before. I wonder how much time I've wasted by pushing that space bar an extra time over the last 10 years?

5. Tomorrow is the 4th of July. I love fireworks.

6. I'm going to see Evening tonight with some of my friends. I'll tell you all about it. I'm so excited to see such a stellar cast of women in one movie.

7. I'm thinking shish kebobs for the cook-out tomorrow.

8. GWB commuted Scooter Libby's sentence. He doesn't have to serve any jail time, but he still has to pay a $250,000 fine and he's on probation for two years. Didn't you learn anything from the Paris Hilton debacle, George? It sends the wrong message to young people that being famous or well connected can get you out of trouble or at least make it easier on you.

9. 9 of the 17 pardons GWB had granted as of August 2006 involved either weapons or drugs.

One of them involved a guy from Kent, Ohio (the location of my alma mater Kent State University).

10. I'm not endorsing a candidate yet (as if my endorsement is something everyone in the political sphere is waiting for with baited breath), but I'm really starting to like Bill Richardson. Check him out.