Where Dance Meets the Gym Requirement
NYU chick: They do African dance together.
NYU dude (incredulous): he does African dance?
NYU chick: Yeah, he started taking it as a class in high school.
NYU dude: He took African dance in high school?
NYU chick: Well, he's from the Bay Area.

--Hummus Place, McDougal & W 3rd

Overheard by: sarrrah3000
via Overheard in New York, Oct 26, 2008

My director makes one West Side Story reference and I can't get the RUMBLE out of my head. So I've broken down and started listening to the soundtrack.

Watch out Berkeley, Broadway will be hounding your every step for the next month.

the new iTunes visualizer is COSMIC. i feel like i'm on drugs.

Almost through September and I'm in a show again. Plebians Rehearse the Uprising. God or lack thereof help me, I think I'm going to declare theatre. Rehearsals four hours a day 5-6 days a week, I'm procrastinating. April's in the OC, I got drunk with part of the cast last night.

Love you all, in other news, tanks.

So it's been a while.

I've been living with April and two strippers in LA lately but we're about to move out seeing as there's only one week in August when we'd be around anyway. Um...

This was going to be a huge filling in post but I can't really think of what to say.

I'm at UCLA right now because my computer has steadfastly refused to get a signal at home for about a week, maybe more. April's talking to the coolest professor on the planet who also happens to be her thesis mentor, and he likes me and probably wouldn't care if I were there but she needs to talk to him about things that matter and I'd be distracting. I'll pop in and say hello in a little while.

Also in the news... hm. I'm apartment searching for Berkeley, which is scary but going well enough, I love/hate my parents, there was an earthquake yesterday that was somewhat scary but also funny because my roommate freaked out, and I've had this unbearable craving to go to the East Coast for the entire summer. I'll be in Maine with April and the whole happy family burying Gram's ashes for a little over a week this month and I have a feeling it's going to be really unsatisfying but what can you do. I shouldn't complain, I did a lot of random traveling in June that went something like this:
Me: Let's go on a quest!
April: Ok!
[two days later, somewhere on the road to Vegas]
Me: Where are we sleeping tonight?
April: Shhhh....
We ended up staying in Vegas long enough to fix my car's shitty alignment before moving on to Zion Nat'l Park in Utah and sleeping in a teepee, then getting tailed by fundamentalist Mormons in a white car on the way to the Grand Canyon, and... well, it was too damn hot outside to stay anywhere very long. But everything was beautiful.

No closer to the meaning of life, though.

For a while I wrote down all my produce-induced revelations in a little black book, but then I lost the little black book. I felt really smart while I was doing it though, like I was on to something. Oh well--what's come out of it is that I've started doodling all over the place with a giant box of crayons. They're a lot of fun, and I'm a little crazy, so I ended up with a lot of things like neon teddy bears and bizarre creatures with red-rimmed stare-y yellow eyes and technicolor trees with dancing monkeys. I can't draw realistically, anyway.

April has decided she's going to try to be a Rhodes Scholar, which means she'd get paid to get her Masters at Oxford. The representative in the honors office reckons she has as good a chance as anyone, so she's getting nominated. She really is ridiculously smart, but more importantly she's actually doing something in college, what with the Harry Potter research and everything else she's getting paid (!) for. (By the way, if you want to know what she's talking about and how she makes it sound legit, come up to UCLA tomorrow at 9:30 am and listen to her present. Call me, because I don't remember which building it's in right now).

Anyway I think that came out sounding bitter.

I'm actually ridiculously proud and if she gets the Rhodes thing I'll happily take a year or so off from college and try to start acting in London. Or study abroad, if I can find something interesting across the Pond, but acting would probably be good for me if only because it won't accomplish anything a degree in theatre can't. Seeing as that's probably what I'll end up with.

I really haven't got much else to talk about.

I wrote to my penfriend in Uganda, finally. I'd lost her letter and felt really bad about it until it showed up in April's backpack, what the fuck. She's 17 and she's been in an IDP camp for 7 years. It's really hard to know what to say to that, honestly, but I did my best.

I still want to save the world.

Mm. Anyway, I'm going to get myself an iced chai and gtfo.

Cheers,
J.

Thanks to Devin.

So I should be packing now, but I was burning chapters of HP5 to CD and Maya just updated and this was absolutely fascinating.

See you all soon, I'm leaving tomorrow morning.

PS: Old shit like this amuses me.

In 30 days.

Holy shit.

PS: I wonder what my parents think.

I'm done with my first year of college classes.

Outside it feels like summer and I really, really wish I were in Maine right now. Although I am told this is the worst time of year for mosquitoes, so perhaps I am better off.

Still.

Getting new glasses next week, hurrah. Apparently the prescription on the old pair is fine, but it doesn't do me any good when they fall off all the time. But the nice lady dilated my pupils so I had to spend 2 hours wearing some dorky piece of dark plastic over my eyes and not being able to read. Oh, life.

Wow, I'm really hungry. That happens sometimes.

I don't have a final until Saturday. (Although I have to say: who the hell schedules a final on Saturday?) Tomorrow maybe I'll get up early and walk to Cordonices Park and the Rose Gardens. I'm sure they're beautiful now, but I haven't been since November.

I am so ready for summer.

Hm.

I want to go back to Arcata. Anyone want to come?

PS: I need new headphones.

So every time my period's been late I'm worried it's stopped because I don't eat enough.

The upside?

No PMS.

(I am trying to eat more though. Not eating is a really bad habit to get into)...

Why don't we say funny things like "Ballyhoo" anymore?

I'm writing Twelfth Night porn!

News at 11.

time is moving slowly
how strange--

So I had an awesome class today involving me trying to teach the class Elliott Smith and then getting covered in chalk. Um. Not at the same time. Mel had this bird lady in named Bijou or something and she was supposed to be a movement coach. Mostly she looked like a mime and didn't make much sense, but somehow teaching something related to rhythm turned into me teaching everyone the first two lines of "Between the Bars." It didn't work, so Ryan tried to get them to sing "Get Back," which was a little more successful but not by much.

Then more people did their monologues. This involves like 20 minutes of someone starting to talk, then getting cut off by Mel, then trying it all over again. The bird lady made it worse because she interrupted Mel interrupting us. I didn't mind, though, because she made a suggestion that I write on a chalkboard while I talked. And I did. And all of a sudden I had this random flow of inspiration and it was brilliant and it totally worked. And even Mel liked it, and he is ridiculously hard to please.

For instance, the first line of the monologue is "Hello everyone. I'm dead. How are you?" So before I started talking, I wrote "EMMA=DEAD" on the board. Or when I referred to my character's fiancé "spending all his time with Montgomery Clift and George Cukor watching movies" I wrote "(gay!)" on the board. And so on and so forth and it was really just awesome.

Then I went into a rather nice description of lesbian sex. But that didn't involve the blackboard, I'm afraid.

All in all, I win.

I just spent two hours talking about MASTURBATION and now I can't do it.

Fuck my roommate.

Spring Break photos are up. Particularly debauched photos are friends-locked, as per usual. The pretty ones, of course, are not.

So I told my cousin CJ I'm engaged to a girl today. And he was totally cool with it.

...kind of a relief. He's part of the conservative side of the family but he's absolutely my favorite distant relative. So I imagine now the news is going to spread to the rest of that side of the family but for the most part I don't really care what they think. Unless his sister's kids think I'm going to hell, in which case I'll be really upset. But in any case. I feel better, because I really wasn't sure how he'd react. I mean, I've known him since I was 6, but I only see him about once a year.

Anyway I'm going to go study my French now. I have a midterm tomorrow and Thursday.

Oh, internets.

In other news, am no longer made of play-dough. Thanks for an awesome weekend, dudes.

-j