To the tune of

I've Got No Strings from Disney's Pinnochio:

I've got no time
To do my work
I forewent vacation
I'm such a jerk
Now it's midnight
And you see
There's no more time
For me!

Right. Must remember to let Dad do the lampooning of songs. Although, we were singing to the tune "Shapoopie" from The Music Man:

Kabuki! Kabuki! Kabuki!
That make-up's good for me!
Kabuki! Kabuki! Kabuki!
It looks real Japanese!

Wear some red
Make it a little redder
Put on some white
Look a little deader....

And - that's about it. I've had Mikado songs in my head this whole weekend, and I don't even really know the opera. *sigh* But my duty is done, my hands are still residually red from the makeup, I caught up with old friends, and all is well. (...no time...no time...no time...)

After performance today, I skeedaddled back home and worked quite a bit on the KOF promo. Some good stuff in the main section completed. Will most likely bring elements needed to work tomorrow to do during the few hours I have after school and before rehearsal. Presuming there is rehearsal and the weather holds off. *shaking fist at the celestial dome*

Things are coming together. We're right on schedule. And I can't believe that I only have three weeks left until a rather extended holiday from directing. It makes the end of this a bit more poignant. Rather than dreading the show's approach, I hope I cherish this time. It'll be gone so soon.

No great thoughts. (Another dawn, another day....) Life is good. Time is short. Live like eternity lingers.

Mood: Hungryish.
Music: "Taken from the county jail" from The Mikado. AAAAAUGH! Out out out!
Goodness is: Multifarious and omnipresent.

Ah, Aie remembaire eet whale!

Battle dancing!!! A la David, a la FUS, a la Comedy Club...et maintenaint, a la King of Fools. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! Click on that first linky thingy there, and make sure you have Windows Media Player or somesuch.

Mood: Slight headache
Music: Mental Quintet
Anxiety: Not enough time for everything! Ah ca. When is there ever?

Done for the week

With rehearsals, and now off to two music lessons, and then slapping kabuki (sp?) make-up on folks for The Mikado! A theatre glutton's life is never done.

Actually, I was thinking about how, ironically, I thought at the end of my freshman year of college: "Oh, I'll be a theatre major here because I'll never do theatre after college because it's impracticle." Then, on the day of graduation, I went to the theatre and wept because I was sure that theatre was gone from me forever. And then I somehow convinced myself just before I went to Theatre in England one year out from college that somehow I was being sent there to purge theatre from my blood. And...here we are. God and His saints must be constantly chuckling at me! Heck, I chuckle at me. So, once again, praise You, God, for giving me more than my heart's desire! Alleluia! Praise You, Lord, now and forever, amen!

Right. Have to finish up and get off to music rehearsals. Which is its own irony (thinking all those years ago when I left high school that I had given up music forever, and then believing that again after I left St. Bernadette's - wow. Oh ye of little faith! What a dweeb I am).

Mood: Spike is singing to me again.
Music: Spike is singing to me!
Thought: My room is chilly. But not chile. Or Chile. Which is good.

Je n'aime pas de tout

Les places pour le vin ou les biers seulement - ils sont...pas pour moi. Moi, donnez-moi une place pour les livres et la chocolat et je suis heureux. Mais, pas une place avec plus des destractions. L'ugh.

Anywho...saw Hitch. Very, very good! Surprisingly very good! Ranking up there with one of the best of its genre, I'd say. Mostly because of the extremely clever dialogue. Then saw Traffic which was also very well done, not as disturbing as I'd been expecting (I thought it'd be really creepy so I was steeled against anything) but not the way I really ought to have ended my night. So the dreams of the morning were odd and full of FUS and cats running around my feet (in the words of Charlie: "Everything smelt of bacon"). Really, aren't dreams just odd. Mmmm, one last thought with Traffic - I liked how he used different color schemes to set off the different storylines, but the blue one was just too blue - I think I should have preferred it if he had lightened up on the filters and instead done more with costume design and set decoration to achieve the color scheme. That said, the camera work was still amazing and immediate and despite its hand-holdage, not queasy-inducing (as opposed to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind).

Off to rehearsal. Heavy scenes today. Am currently fortified with bagel and hot chocolate in my system and Finding Nemo trailers in my brain. It's really a delight to be able to wake up at a decent hour and begin rehearsing earlier in the day. I like that. Lord, please bless my actors and my crew and keep them safe. Help put everything together, Lord. Make all my work glorify You. And St. Polycarp - pray for us! (Yaaaaaaaaaay! Go Polycarp!)

Mood: Oddish
Music: The printer printing
Thought: Polycarp is so the man. And to think he knew John and Ignatius!

One Month From Today

I will...

Have finished King of Fools, for better or for worse

Have my first day off in who knows how long

Have post-show syndrome and be moping about the room after school, with nothing pressing to do

Start wondering what show to do next

Be promptly hit by my family and most especially Julie, all whilst yelling, "NO MORE SHOWS FOR YOU, FOOL! RESTY RESTY!"

After struggling my way up from the pillows they've thrown at me, mutter, "...thanks...."

Most likely sneak down to the computer or the piano to start working on another project regardless

Wonder again at the fact that a month ago from that day (aka today) I was subject to panic attacks and yet the thing went off just fine, like it always does

Lighten up when I realize I'll be able to watch Lost and Alias at the times they're actually shown

Become sad again (thanks to PSS!) when I realize that's the only benefit

Shake my head over PSS and shake my fist at the Heavens

Mope a bit more and then look at the future and...wonder.

Less than a month to go. Things are coming together. Snow cancelled rehearsal today. About to do the Act II ballet. The good thing about doing an original show is that things can be changed - added to or removed, rearranged, tweaked, etc. The good thing about doing someone else's show is that there's precedent - someone else already had to tweak the darn thing. Anywho.... Seriously debating about usefulness of Act II ballet - except that I need that scene - addition of lines? (Oh, my cast will kill me - or at least grumble - tough noogies.) Right - is it apparent that I've used up a box and a half of tissues on the cold that's finally decided to come out and play? ;)

Had a loverly time on Sat. with Sh. - can it be less than a month before LA? How odd. But I'm glad we got to visit before then. Very, very glad. Lord, thank you for her friendship! Amen! Let's see...other good things. Brothers who shovel, afternoon naps, chocolate donuts, chicken wings, Fr. Jonathan sermons, that Broadway thingy on PBS, CD players, Mothers who are Super Secretaries, Julie's prettyful hair, heaters that work, smelly candles, washing machines (although, alas, no washing machine prayers!), pictures of the Sacred Heart, digital cameras, fuzzy slippers, many blankets, spring pink apparel, full boxes of tissues - what silly things, and yet all comforts. Thank You, God, for these little comforts. I'm reminded of what someone wrote as though from Him about His gifts to us each and every moment - about the sunsets He paints just for us, about the very gift of life, of time, of all these little things that we pass through each day almost without noticing - often without noticing - and yet how these "little" gifts are so great, weighty, awesome. This stress...what is it but a passing thing? Soon erased by the inexorable stream of time? We speak of time as though it were a burden, but doesn't it also push away those things that are unbearable? Wasn't time God's ally as He walked to Calvary? Praise You and thank You God for the time You have given me. Please help me to use it wisely and well.

And now that I've managed to talk myself around from where I was, I'd better use this time to do the work I need to do for tomorrow. Oh, Lord, keep my spirits high and my eyes on You, amen.

Mood: Ppppppppppppppppftpththpt.
Music: Wicked, bizarrely enough
Thought: Spike just stood up from his wheelchair and I have only one more episode because I'm missing the last disc! Curious how hour long TV on DVD is rather like reading a novel, more than watching a movie. I'm remembering the fellow from ActOne who was extolling the virtues of writing for TV rather than writing for the big screen, and I'm beginning to understand his love of this cinematic form.

So sorry

For moodiness, irritability, and the fervent wish not to be given more options esp. in the way of additional industry. Pardon my panic when new potential responsibilities are thrown my way - particularly when they're not needed. And forgive my sighs and my eyerolling and every other form of jeuvenalia which I need to purge from my being - augh! "I do the things I hate."

Anywho.... Silliness, and not needed this late at night - and beating up the self about it will solve nothing (and "nothing is but what is not"). And the to do list grows and seems to roll out into the infinite space of implausibility, past the point of the sane man's bounds. Yet - yet - perhaps I'm simply looking at it all through the wrong sort of spectacles. There has been far more and it, too, has passed.

Went to the MFA today with Pete and Jules. Seemed to have toured nearly 3/4ths of the museum. Fell in love with the rotunda and the Renaissance and Baroque religious artwork - utterly breathtaking. The newest exhibit was a tad disturbing - real dead sheep?!??! flies stuck to a wall?!??!?!!!? - but the mandala made of butterfly wings was impressive. The rotunda, too, needs to come home with me - or perhaps I can move in to it. Oddly, though, museums always make me *sleepy*. I found myself surrepticiously (sp? I can never seem to spell that right) whistling Phantom of the Opera in the various galleries, just to have some sort of sound other than the pervasive hush (mingled with the bizarre smells). When we got to the car park, I belted out "Se tu m'ami"! Speaking of which, the musical instrument room was amazing. Pete esp. loved it and took many many pictures.

Oh, Lord! Halp! Amen. Right - back to that ever-increasing list.

Mood: Overwhelmed.
Music: Pure by Haley W.-something - gorgeous clear voice
Fantasy du jour: Being in Ireland! Yes, precious, we would run across the sweeping fields, the green grass to our knees, and smell the sea and hear the waves and laugh and sing and sing and sing! Oh...sigh.
Reality du jour: ...

Strawberry Candles

Are wonderful to smell. And those in three tiered holders are even better. As are cleaned and dusted end tables, upon which said holders stand, within which said candles burn...in the house that Jack built.

Folks don't know how much they owe to Julie. Much less to Verizon.

I'm pretty sure that I'm coming down with the Ye Olde Merrie Family Vyrus. Feeling a bit feverish and woozly and I'm definitely lacking in the matter of energy. Got through the first bit of the Act II finale, though - and can we say how happy we are with so much of this play! And, honestly, it helps me to have the tapes so that I can review what actually happened, etc. The Quintet gives me chills. Yay - through Hell for everyone!

Yahoo messenger is amazing. Oh, my Belles, I've missed you!

Had Jills at rehearsal tonight. Wonderful. It's great to have her there. Anathan syndrome remains or somesuch. And I must needs put blinders on my windows and become the proverbial rabbit. And JILL YOU ROCK MY WORLD!!!

Mood: Furiously brainstorming
Music: Buffy...silly!
Thought: HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELL and BACK! FWAH!

Interesting link

Some good thoughts here: michelle :): crazy talk. And Scrambled Mind likewise has good thoughts to read, which make one reconsider going to university in England.

What seems curious to me is that here we all are, struggling through the void to make our ordinary lives somehow extraordinary by making them public - as though our merest trivialities are of greatest concern - and yet what we are really attempting to discover is a validation for our everydayness. Part of that is this star-struck culture we live in: we hardly know how to be content with common. Part of that is our lack of silence, and our lack of actual human contact. I AIMed Jill tonight, but spoke far more eloquently for four hours in a restaurant on Friday. Give me another person, not this...electronic equivalent!

Mood: Improving but alas not sleepy despite the fact that I actually do not have caffine running through my body. C'mon...c'mon SLEEPY! Drat.
Music: The musical continues to wend its way through my mind, complete with orchestration.
Fact: I'm freezing.
Truth: Why, in fact, should it matter that I report that I am chilly at this moment? From the Christian perspective, in one way its of importance only because of our emphasis on the individual and, more importantly, God's care and love for each one of us even through such trivial things as being really, really cold - but in another...see above.
Summation: I am being way to existential for my own good. Some folk are moved by wine (see Jabbertalky) to philosophise - I'm moved by the hour. Which draws on apace. Yup.

With shadows slowly growing

The closer to the flame I come
To warm my hands and warm my heart
The larger grows the silent beast
That mocks, and threatens to become
Far realer than the solid me.

How shall I war with that within me?
How shall I slay the shadow
That slithers o'er the wall?
Turn the lights off - turn the lights on -
Blow the scented candles out -
Embers cast no shadows,
But draw them close together.

This melancholy mockery,
This mirror with no face but flame,
This swell and this distortion
This shadow with my name.

~*~

Rather more bleak than supposed. First: Joyous Anniversaire, a tu, ma soeur! Je t'aime! Yes, Jules has joined the ranks of those of one-and-twenty years and her party was loverly tonight and best to SB who was yesterday. Next: four hour dinners with Jills are merveilleux (sp?) and v. relaxing (ah Dowager!). Last: the Buffy musical episode is fantastic, but I've had Walk Through the Fire - the BRIDGE of it no less! - lodged in my brain for a good 36 hours give or take.

Ugh - I wish I could write more freely. I wish the compromise wasn't bad poetry. Granted, I can write freely elsewhere, and will - but anywho. Silly, Emily. Soon, precious, soon (that sounds far more dire! It sounds as though I'm planning to bite off someone's digit! No, no, no). Curious, though, to find myself psychologically back where I was at the beginning of the year, cocking one eye to Heaven and asking, "When?" It's almost not a "where" or "how" - but a simple "when"? Yet, He has always been firmly definitive before with every open and shut door - I can't think that He'd vastly alter the pattern that seems to be the only one I respond to. So...when??? I feel like the dog waiting with leash in hand, panting by the locked door. (Or unlocked door? Simply the one I can't open.) Except that I don't even know what door I'm panting in front of. Neither am I sure that I'm meant to go through it. So...blindly for now....

There is a reason stream of consciousness never caught on.

I want to be full of joy and certainty and vitality at this moment! Perhaps that's why the Buffy musical is so...I don't know what...apropos right now?

Every single night
The same arrangement
I go out and fight the fight

Still I always feel
The same estrangement
Nothing here is real -
Nothing here is right.

I've been making shows
Of trading blows
Hoping no one knows
That I've been

Going through the motions
Playing my part.
Nothing seems to penetrate my...
Heart.

I was always brave
And kind of righteous
Now I find I'm wavering.

Creep out of your grave
You'll find this fight just
Doesn't mean a thing
(She ain't got that swing)
Thanks for noticing.

(She does really well
With fiends from Hell
But lately we can tell
That she's just

(Going through the motions
Faking it somehow
She's not even half the girl she...
Ow.)

Will I stay this way forever?
Sleepwalk through my life's endeavour.
(How can I repay you?)
Whatever....

And I just want to be
Alive!

Hokey, fun, clever - and similar. A bit over the top, but what musical isn't. In good news, seeing how Spike didn't want to go after Buffy and then did, prompted a mini-scene in my brain for Shadowblade between, who else? - Deirdre and Reid, right after she defeats the Wolf King and then is attempting to free her brothers from the dungeons before the citadel completely collapses. Reid, obviously, shows up to help her, and then complains:

"You are the most difficult girl to save."

"I didn't ask for help."

"I know. That's what makes it difficult."

Some sort of action - most likely shoving various of Deirdre's brother to safety under a tumbling archway, at which time Reid has the opportunity to say:

"Deirdre, you have my heart literally in your hands. There is no possible way that I could not have come."

"So...this is mostly a case of self-preservation?"

"So long as you insist on bringing me into danger it is!"

Of course, it'll all be far more poetic and Twelve Kingdom-ized, but it'll do.

Other good things: warm day today. Room is looking nicht so schlect. Discovered photographs I hadn't remembered I'd framed. Played the piano for myself yesterday and today and enjoyed it. Have been getting to sleep at a reasonable hour. Lent starts this week - get those resolutions going! (Decide on resolutions.) Discovered a book I'd bought that I'd forgotten I'd bought which Looks Like Fun. Cadbury Eggs are here!

Oh, I think too much. I think far too much. I must needs sleep. Da.

Mood: Oddish
Music: "I Have a Theory" from the Buffy musical a la the mental jukebox.
Thought: I have this desire to be playing pool right now. Weird.