Love this Cast: Part I

This is the first show at Writer's Theatre to have supernumeraries (I hope I spelled that right). Or understudies that fill out the stage. Our brilliant director, Rick Snyder, knew he wanted more than just the written cast in the show. He wanted to have servants moving in and out, making the play seem less isolated. So he enlisted the three non-equity(not in the actor's union) understudies to be in the show as well as understudy. Turns out it was a good thing becuase the scene changes are a bitch. There is no way the one stage hand, Shannon, could have done it all. I will try and get pics of some of what they actually do in the show later, but for now, I just want to bask in their funness.

Here are Kipp and Rawson (LtoR). Rocking out to accapella "Eye of the Tiger" on my ipod.

Kipp works on the tour boats dowtown, which fits him so well. He has a great, deep, southern drawl, but is amazingly good at many accents, which makes him a great story teller. My fav so far is the train conductor that got hit in the eye with an umbrella "Some jackoff just poked me in the eye with his umbrella!"

Rawson has his day job at Second City Box Office. A great gig for him, especially the cute interns. He is one of THE funniest people I have had the pleasure of hanging out with. And is intensely proud to be Canadian, not American, even though he has lived here for 11 years. We try not to give him a hard time about it, he's just patriotic for his own country.

And this is Tiffany. She is especially good at mocking the sounds of odd things, dogs, bells, brakes. It's HILARIOUS. Her and Rawson are a comedic duo, I love being around when they get going. Especially when they start imitating "Bringing Up Baby" which Rawson just recently watched. "What's in the box David?" sends me into fits of giggles everytime.

We were all very excited this past week when Kipp got to go on! Chris's brother was getting married suddenly and off he went to Hawaii, and Kipp took over. Here he is in Chris's costume, backstage. It's a little long on him because Chris is a VERY tall guy, but luckily, it was okay with the period of the play. He did an amazing job, love that accent. He was especially glad to get to trim back the beard and hair from slave length to a more princely look.

This is a run for birthdays, we've already had three and have three more! insane. Shannon made Tiffany carrot cake cupcakes. It's all so cute, the girl, the candles, the cakes. awww.
I especially loved when she did jazz hands while we sang "happy birthday" to her. what a hamm.

We always have such a good time at the theatre. Everyone gets a long and make eachother laugh. It makes going to work so easy, something to look forward to, not dread.

But even so, the highlight of my night is going home. Mostly because it means a train or car ride home with these guys. It changes every night, sometimes we sit together, sometimes we don't. If we do we are endlessly entertained. If not just good conversation, Rawson can always be counted on to step it up a notch:

This started with him lamenting his LONG and voluminous hair.

Finding new use for my knitting, as a knight's cowl.

Yeah, he's a bit of a camera whore, but I just count myself lucky that I can be there to witness the gooffiness. But sometimes I wonder how long my luck will last...

Well at least I don't have to have a beard. (Kipp is itchy, but Michael Fagan, I'll cal him Fagan, is not)

I'm just going to enjoy it while it lasts.

Oh and my Knitting...

This is what I have been working on for the past few weeks, it's a commission for a special girl's birthday, so I can't tell you who it's for, but it is my own design. Made with Knit Pick's Main Line in...I think Harbor View is the color name, on size 6 needles. I am very pleased with the result. He had seen me making a sweater for another commission and said, that would be perfect for her b-day! So I did a variation on that sweater. The fact that her birthday is in the middle of july was overlooked when we decided on this sweater, but I hope she likes it regardless.

In the past week I have managed to lose my knitting pouch. In it i keep essentials, like my tape measure, little scissors, yarn needle, markers, cabling needles, the perfect size crochet hook for weaving in ends, stitch holders, ect. I knit the outside, my first cabling project and sewed in a lining and zipper. It was also the first thing I sewed on my sewing machine. So in addition to all the notions (I do have a couple back ups lying around) it had a certain amount of sentimental value, even though it wasn't the prettiest thing.

So if I'm going to make a new one it better be cute. I have a littel crush on this "little birds" stitch, and like that this strawberry red mercenized cotton is a complete turn around from my blue acryllic pouch. I had the yarn in my stash, just one ball because I liked it but wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it. Not sure if the stitch is ideal for such a high use item, but it will be adorable. Might have to follow it up with a matching cardi, how silly would that be!?! I just truly love this.

Been at this one a bit longer, I'm up the armholes. This being my first foray into steeks, it's pretty exciting. I'm not sure how I will reinforce because although it is a "hand wash" merino, it doesn't seek very grabby. I may only hand sew, machine stitching would make be feel more secure. But I know that you can end up with puckering with machine stitching. hmmm.

The pattern is from Interweave mag. Been loving it for a while, so even though I don't have enough yarn to do the whole thing (this yarn in discontinued), I'm just going to do it as a vest. Very sporty.

Lastly this is a lace scarf out of knit pick's alpaca cloud in tide pool. I doubled the yarn and am working on size 5 neeldes. This is a long term project, it was a sweater I frogged halfway through. Which had taken me a little over a year to do (on and off and off) and just wasn't going well. So now it's a sure thing for this yarn, even if it will prob take me another year to knit it.

Here's a close up of the stitch pattern, which was taken from some random place. i love it. like berries, or polka dots or something. It only took a few days to memorize the stitch pattern. even better.

If you hadn't noticed a big goal for me this summer is to knit from my stash. I want to decrease it majorly before moving day in September. So all those someday projects are moving on up the line.

I Will Miss You Two-Toy

Today is my last full day with my roommate's dog, Brady. Lisa and Brady are moving into an apartment with Lisa's boyfriend Jason. Which is very cool, but I will miss my two friends.

Brady is a beautiful german shepard/lab mix. Really the cutest, sweetest guy. This is the favorite perch for both of the dogs, this great picture window in the living room. There is big pleather chair right up against the sill, that makes it deep enough to sit up there, but the chair sure has taken quite the beating from the dogs jumping up and down and everything, but I haven't the heart to get rid of it, they are so cute in the window and I love looking up from the street and seeing them like cats on the sill.

It is a great place to watch the world go by.

Or just enjoy the sun.

I just love his long shnoze

Brady is the record best dog to snuggle with. He's always a willing pillow.

But even cuter when he's the big dog in the little bed. Believe it or not he loves curling up into a little ball to fit in that thing, but sometimes he streatches out like this, love that.

But often he heads for the coffee table or dining room table or chairs for his naps. I think he likes the cavi-ness.

He surely is a big dog, here he is with his growth chart. Lisa got him from the anticruelty society as a puppy, so we got the great pleasure of seeing him grow, and grow...and grow.

But the best part about brady is how he always greets you with a toy. If you are very very lucky he will have two. It is his greatest accomplishement. Hence his nick-name Two-Toy.

There have been many combinations, and if Stanley has a toy, even if Brady has one, Brady will soon have both. Luckily Stanley doesn't mind, most of the time.



The best part of my day, if the weather's fine like today, is taking them for a walk, or they as prefer it, to the park. Here they are "in formation." I've got the ball, so Stanley stays close, not until I wind up does he start to run, but Brady, he stays in the outfield, hoping to pick it off. Stanley is so fast, and Brady has such a good eye, that it's a toss up who gets it.
But Brady also just likes wandering around the perimeter smelling. If it weren't for the training treats, he woud never come when called.

And when he's tired he just flops down where ever he is. He's so handsome.
Love when his tongue hangs out the side.
We will miss you Brady, I hope we can dog sit sometimes.

Welcome to my Lair

This is my booth. I love it. It is actually quite spacious compared to many booths. Here I am blocking a sweater vest on the floor during a two show day. My knitting is reluctantly accepting by my boss David and embraced by my two crew mates as they knit too. We joke that you have to be able to knit to get a job on the crew, as the two previous crew members knit as well.

I love that we switched to running the shows on a computer, it gives us greater flexibility and control. And I can read my favorite blogs during the show. You are also looking at two knitting projects about to get frogged, my trusty nalgene and the virtually defunct CD and MD rack. Up in the empty slot, that's a pic of my Mike and our dog Stanley. I love that picture. Another momento would be that green blob to the right of my computer screen, that a love note from our last show, As You Like It. Shannon(ASM), David(SM) and I spent ten minutes putting up those notes on the trees at intermission.

Here is the top of that rack, snacks, tea, back-up water, my running notebook, contact sheet and kleenex. All essentials. Especially the kleenex becuase we get blasting AC up in the booth and it always causes David and I to have sneezing fits. I also knit my very own booth blanket, in black of course.

The booth is a great place to knit, read and get away from the unruly actors backstage if need be, which it often does. More about them another time.

I have been training a sub the past couple days and it is hard to watch someone else do your job. This person is a fine person. Something about her personality doesn't always sit well with people, but she is much more knowledgable and qualified for my job than I am. I get very flustered talking to sound people sometimes, because I can't seem to keep up with them. I've lost my vocab and don't care for equipment. Finding out what's new and hot isn't fun. Although when I was in school it was. I liked being able to handle it and hear the differance it made. Reading about it in a mag just isn't the same. Anyway, so I had a really hard time talking to her and knowing that she would be better at my job, and I really did want her to have it, the theatre deserves someone with solutions to their problems. But I know that my co-workers don't care for her and so I can't in good conscience encourage her inquiries. I'm glad I don't have anything to do with getting my replacement. Cause I don't know which is more important, it's such a small work space and odd hours, that you really do need to get along with everyone to make it work.

And she knits.

Speaking of sound people making me feel stupid, met another Columbia sound alum on the metra the other night and he wanted to know what kind of board I have, of course I couldn't remember. It's a Sound Craft, Spirit. It's cute and a great workhorse. Not as sexy as the baby Midases (my true love in college, see I did like equipment back then), but gets the job done.

Thank you Sound Craft. I'm sorry I take you for granted.

My So-Called "Quarter-Life Crisis"

Everyone knows about "mid-life crisis," but in my friends over the past ten years I have noticed what I have come to call the "quarter-life crisis." It strikes anywhere from 24 to 30 and consists of sudden floundering panics, "What am I doing?" "Is this REALLY what I want to do with the rest of my life?" "Shouldn't I own property by now?" among many other haunting questions that instantly put you in a sweat. My husbands quarter life crisis caused him to quit being an actor and go back to school for a Masters in Public Policy and Management from DePaul University. He's hoping to save the world. Aren't we all.

I am sure I am not the first person to define this phenomenon. It may have been occuring to every generation since the dawn of time. Maybe back in the day, when people only lived to fifty, there were twelve year olds wandering around hoping their needlepoint would be enough to catch them a good husband. I don't know. When I was twenty and Mike (my husband) started his I thought it was hilarious to see that wild look in his eyes. But a year ago, it wasn't so funny anymore. Because suddenly I was in it.

It started when I realized how bitchy I would get during a run. Mike gets up and leaves for work before I wake up in the morning and would be asleep when I got home. We could talk on the phone occasionally, but he's at work, so that's limitted. (Although I do abuse this terribly, the poor guy) But we had most Saturday mornings before I would leave for the show. Sundays he would head off for church, but I got home a little earlier on Sundays, a whole hour before he would go to sleep! And then Monday evenings, our oasis of the week. Then there are all the social functions I miss. Can't go to that party, or that play, or out for that drink. And it wears on me. I pick. and pick. and scratch. About mundane things that were no big deal during the lulls between shows. One day Mike asked me "when I was going to stop running shows?" That was over a year ago. I hadn't even thought about it. Theatre is my love. How could I leave it? The initial thought of changing careers didn't scare me, but the more I thought about the options the more overwhelmed I got. But it took me a whole year to come to grips with not running shows.

So brain spinning "What now?"

Here I am being thoughtful (in my handknit sweater).

A differant form of sound engineer? I hate to admit I have fallen a little out of love with sound as a job. Equipment and it's upkeep gives me a headache. Since I've been out of school I haven't talked to very many sound people and have lost my vocabulary. Reading about sound, even in college was no fun. So I don't think it's where my heart is. I hope to get back to enjoying performances, which is where my love of sound came from, and is a thing I definitly miss with this job. Not only do I not get to see shows, I'm in a booth, with crappy monitor sound. blah.

Librarian? Don't really want to go back to school at this moment. But I love books and libraries and research. It may still be in my future. Just not right now.

Something with my true love knitting? I hate the way I turned against sound. I don't want my knitting to become odious. I enjoy doing occassional commissions, but not interested in more. I did contact a local yarn dyer for a job, but they are not looking now and I'm afraid I was too forward. Oh well.

This brings me to my long time love Paper Source. It's a perfect fit for me right now. I hope to work there, in an enviroment that I find truly stimulating. And there are so many fascets of this business that intrigue me. There is just the simple possibilities in management and upward mobility. There is also the department that creates the sample/display items for their kits. Then they have a custom design department. How cool would that be?!?

So that's where I've ended up. It has taken some time and now I have to get the job. It's June and I'm not available until late AUGUST!!! But I'm working on my resume ect, and plan to go introduce myself and my hopes that they'll give me some encouragement and the next opening they have. Trying to get a job. A whole new thing to make my head spin.