"In 2003, the same year she was nominated for two golden globes, [Scarlett] Johansson was rejected from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Good call, NYU."

I wonder if our letters said the same thing.

Somehow, this makes me eerily happy. Is that bad?

Quote from Dave's blog.

"Music is enjoyed not so much for the lyrics, or musical style, but becuase of the memories...
Remember when we made out at a stop sign becuase we were "Hanging by a Moment"
Remember when we were so bored at work we made up a dance to "What Are you Waiting For"
Remember when "Kiss" was performed and how the crowd enjoyed
Remember when we sang along to "Deep Enough To Dream" in the car
Remember when we sang along to "That's What Friends are For" .. everytime it played
Remember when you played "Again I go Unnoticed" and how much fun it was to sing
Remember when we would sing ... if that's what you could call it... along to ... that song that I can't remember...but I remember those being good times...
Memories, thanks...it's nice; It's too bad each of these memories has something sad associated with it... missing mom; a home that housed my body, but never my heart and soul; friendships that seem to be breaking; friendships that never started; the pain of shattered romances...longing for something better, yet having not achieved!
-the end of what seems just a small step above vanity"

-David Jensen

---

This post is my favorite. I remember such times with you (apart from the makeout session at the stop sign), though I'm not sure any of this was directed to me necessarily. But I think our friendship has a soundtrack, and I think there are also good memories associated with it. Remember when we sang "Land Down Under"? Or how about that one song about "one, two, princes kneel before you..."

I can't for the life of me remember its name.

"Remember when we would sing ... if that's what you could call it... along to ... that song that I can't remember..."

I think that's my favorite part - because I do remember many times like that, whether it was just us or there was someone else there, too; we would sing so loudly and uninhibitedly to the beach those nights, and then we sat and listened to Nickel Creek quietly on the way home with the windows down.

You fell asleep, usually.

I used to think music was absolutely necessary, but these days, halfway through every song (especially the good songs), I feel the urge to press "mute" and sit in slience for the duration, being torn by what seems like a grand injustice.

I saw her hands were full, and I wanted to lighten the load for her, so I offered my hands. She said she was ok, so I started moving chairs back into place and picking up trash from the party. She knew I didn't know sign language, so when she needed me she came over, looked at me and struggled to form a word,

"Help..."

I was disarmed: she will never hear how beautiful her voice sounds.

One thing about which I haven't been blogging is my incredible experience with the Arizona Deaf Theater Company, and it's not for a lack of interest, but more just dissatisfaction with my inability to describe such things in a way that matches my love for them.

(I also felt that I should keep this one to myself to protect it from being “skimmed,” but I figure that doesn’t really cheapen it for me.)

Today was the cast party, which means all the performances are over, all of which went very well. We were actually asked by a certain big-named school to perform it again twice in May because they were so impressed, but the times and dates conflict with our individual schedules.

Deaf people are amazing. I just sit there and watch them converse and realize that the whole language they have, the devices they use... These people have adapted so phenomenally well with their differences. But I guess it’s a bit thoughtless of me to call deafness a thing requiring adaptation, because every person born is born adapting, learning how to use what they’ve got. In that sense, there really is no difference. I have adapted to being taller than most people in all my classes since kindergarten, for instance. :)

And they are so honest! We sat in a circle discussing our thoughts about the play and whether we thought it would be a good idea to do the play over in May, and most people said that they thought the six performances we’ve done were enough. Now that’s pretty honest. I would expect a bunch of us hearing folks to frown upon that type of curtness. The thing is, in the deaf culture, that type of honesty doesn’t make the person seem unappreciative of the opportunity, it's just more realistic.

Oh, and I got a job. DHL’s newest International Shipment Researcher. Woot. And it was the HARDEST INTERVIEW EVER! Ugh. I hate interviews. I actually thought that I screwed up many times, but apparently I did very well. (Example: the position I got is two positions higher than the one for which I applied which was customer service, and it’s about $.2.50 per hour higher.) I'm working the backline of the department (there's also a front-line that will take the initial calls), so I’m basically taking all of the super-difficult situations and contacting the respective customs people and our stations in different countries to help me resolve things...

Yeah... Because I’m so good at dealing with super-difficult situations.

Did I just hear someone laugh?

"As a one-time card-carrying member of the Culture of Death, I've had no little experience with the bile and the acid that is used to burn out the soul and replace it with the dead-end secular totems of possessions, fashion, sexuality, and the self-uber-alles. I've used selfishness to "enhance" my own life and I've had "selfishness" used on me in turn to enhance the lives of others. Commitment and duty have no place in this philosophy -- everything is reduced to "lifestyle" choices in which, since people are only things, they can easily be replaced by other things, other people."

This is a cutting, but strangely refreshing piece.

I found it on a random blog that had a link to the essay. Here's the whole thing.

Alexis had her babies, Hannah kai & Ethan Cade Holley yesterday morning. Hannah is now off of oxygen and they are both doing fine. They were born about 5 or 6 weeks early, but they are doing very well now. :)

Those names are so awesome, yeah?

Listening to: Sarah Maclachlin - Possession (Acoustic)
Mood: Hmm...

The most profound, truest thing I've heard in a long time...

notyetsuperman [11:24 PM]: I don't know what I want to talk about.
notyetsuperman [11:24 PM]: or if I want to talk at all....I don't know.
Junglebuttons2 [11:24 PM]: hmm
notyetsuperman [11:24 PM]: I miss God.
Junglebuttons2 [11:24 PM]: wow...
Junglebuttons2 [11:24 PM]: me too...

"you speak to me in riddles and you speak to me in rhyme
my body aches to breathe your breath your words keep me alive" - Sarah Maclachlin

A lady won a trip to the Don Cesar resort in St. Pete. beach, FL this morning on Live with Regis and Kelly.

Memories. How many times have I snuck into their pool and swam with all the British tourists?

Good times.

Intro to a story called Found Object:

"Night had claimed the color of things, and made every rock and tree brilliantly starved – the moon lights differently than the sun. Out there, with the affectionate wind jumping as a stream over my sprawled body, I don’t think anything had ever looked so crisp – the stars… the wheat… the moon… my hands… I was alone; so perfectly isolated, so far from the world and time and people and myself that I felt the earth rumble in concord."

America in Five

As usual, on the way home from rehearsal, I stopped to get gas, which is pretty standard considering the number of people who use my car for everything.

Circle-K was packed. I was actually quite surprised because every time I stop in to fill 'er up and exchange almost no words with the bearded guy at the register, I seem to be the only other soul in sight, especially considering that it is always after 11pm. The pump I usually take is situated at the perfect angle so that I can pull off 7th Ave. and just slide right into place, but it was occupied. In fact, all of them were except for one, which was on the other side of the gas station. Despite the mass of vehicles going this way and that, all trying to leave, park, or drive around in circles (it seemed), the path to the only open pump seemed to clear itself more and more as I drove over to it. So, I parked, got out and as I was walking to the door, a van seemed to be leaving, so I slowed down to let it pass.

The girl in the passenger's seat was probably about 22 and had the look of a Hollywood drug-addict. Beautiful face smeared with dirt and old make-up, a lip ring, and drab, lifeless hair pulled back into a ponytail. The driver was an older, black guy, probably about 45 or so - the odd couple for sure.

The van slowed just in front of the entrance as some other car was getting impatient. (But what are you going to do when a giant Chevy work van is blocking every way out?) I could tell she was going to ask me something because of the look on her face. It was unavoidable.

"Hey man. How ya doin tonight?"

"Um… I'm good, I'm good."

"You're good? Well you wanna feel even better?"

She handed me two passes to "Jungle Cabaret - Half Price Cover" with "PAID" handwritten across.

"Um... Thanks..."

“Yeah. Come tonight. We’ll see ya there.”

As the van eased forward, I walked in with a furrowed brow and slipped the tickets into my pocket folded in half. I thought it would be rude to trash them before the odd couple was out of sight.

I should have noticed the sheer variety of cars outside because the people inside were just as different from one another. I think every ethnicity, skin tone, height, and hair color were represented inside that place. I got in line behind a guy younger than me who was also about a foot shorter and had a patch on his sleeve that read, "Arizona Community Service Officer." I'm guessing he was off-duty because of the scene that unfolded.

A bald, black 60 year old woman was absolutely irate at the counter.

"I was just lookin at the baby Tylenol! My baby sick! My baby sick! Whatchoo thank every black person steal?"

The old white guy behind the counter responded, "well, you said it - I didn't! If you can read my mind so well, read it now and get outta here!"

He was obviously suspecting some kind of theft and told her to leave repeatedly. Her husband (I’m assuming) was standing a few feet behind her with a worried, confused look on his face and said nothing.

The redheaded community service officer did nothing as the argument continued.

"I ain't even much steal nothin'! Maybe you needs to watch yo own coluh!"

She meandered smugly over to the door as she muttered bad things about white people (or black people; I can't remember which), and as she was all the way out the door - still holding it, but still walking away - she turned her head and looked me dead in the eyes.

"Yeah. Maybe you needs to watch yo own race."

Her statement was calm; I had no reaction but to mirror her own blank expression.

Her husband wandered out behind her.

I took a deep breath and inched up in line, as I overheard an empty conversation between the college kids behind me. All the same age - all the same clothes - all the same trendy haircuts - all trying to be unique, perhaps, but not from this particular angle.

They laughed at something (or maybe it was nothing). One of the girls finally spoke.

"Dude! We need some weed!" Though, come to think of it, I think the word weed was never finished. I'm pretty certain she just trailed off into more laughter.

Kids these days, I thought. Kids about a year younger than me.

For all of the line that I waited through - I sure got the transaction done quickly enough when I finally reached the counter. The same, young, bearded guy who was always there quickly took my twenty, and I was out.

Walking back to my car, I looked to my left and there was a very suspicious looking priest sitting in a 1998 Cadillac Sedan Deville, giving me the curious up-and-down look. I won't speculate, but he was creepy, and had the official clergy-collar, maximizing irony and hypocrisy.

Even as I pumped my gas, I saw something.

Across the pump was a Chrysler Pacifica and a very urban, young guy was pumping gas. He told a story - I forget the plot, or wasn't alert for enough of it - but it was about some guy who pulled a gun on him.

Then he and his friend had a good laugh because of the story – or maybe because of his cunning wit in evading the person with the gun in his story.

I calmly replaced the lid on my gas tank and drove away.

...blank expressions, trends of highlights and expensive clothing, perverted hypocrisy among those claiming God's name, explicit and implicit racism, diregard for the seriousness of life, attempts at escaping reality through drugs and drinking, utter incorrectness that seems unchangeable...

This is America. This is it.

"Amen. So be it. Welcome, O life, I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race." - James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Listening to: Patrick Park - 'Something Pretty'
Mood: Appropriately Nervous

Nervous for two reasons:

A) Interview in the morning at DHL International Shipping Company. They used to be Airborne Express - but the Phoenix location is strictly international shipments now - so that's preferable to domestic in my opinion.

2) The play starts Friday - and the stage actors are having more and more troubles everyday, but the thing about "The Odd Couple" is that the dialogue is so ample, that it's not really a big deal to skip a few lines - the general concept is still there. But for us voice actors, the challenge is to seamlessly compensate for the improv, and it's not always the easiest thing to do to figure out how far the stage actor has jumped since they are signing.

Plus, no offense to him, but the guy voicing for the part of "Felix," despite having an accurately toned voice, is not fast enough to keep up and finds himself trying to squeeze the rest of his line in as another character should be speaking. That's just not good. So I hope he catches the mistake before Friday.

But the more times we rehearse this thing (everyday now) the more I get a feel for their stage directions and can recognize which signs go with each line.

There's a part in the play where Oscar is in the kitchen and Felix, the timid, neat-freak, neurotic one is left to talk to the two sisters, Gwendolyn and Cecily, in the living room. They are all on a double-date, and Felix is completely uncomfortable when talking to them alone, but soon resorts to talking about his estranged wife. I think tonight Gwen said a line that was completely out of place which threw the other two so far off that the whole scene was completely botched, but this close to opening night, we just pushed through. So they kept saying random lines that didn't go together at all (intentionally at this point), followed by a long period of laughter and confused looks to each other.

Then Felix offers the girls chips, which is basically supposed to be at the end of a really long line of his at the end of the conversation - and frankly, I almost laughed my stomach out!

These people are so awesome.

listening to: shoobey doo wop bop, badoobee wop bop
mood: scared

Um - I'm afraid for my life at the moment. The high for Thursday is 91 degrees. 91 DEGREES!!! It's only APRIL! :^(

In other news - I got a job. woot.

I rather enjoy this photograph.

Listening to: What?
Mood: ...huh?

It's 3:19 am and I have just read about half of my archives. Ironically, even as I'm so awake in reminiscence, a song called "Sleep" is on repeat.

So many things have changed over the years. But one of the most shocking things as I read was to my description of certain events, particulary the seemslikeyesterday ones - and then to see the date attached. I started the blog when I was... 19 apparently.

When will I finally learn the value of a dollar day?

Seize the carp.

Listening to: When in Rome - The Promise
Mood: Accurate

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land...

-P.N.

Listening to: Random Joss Stone
Mood: Inexplicably Ecstatic!

And then there are days when you just feel like DANCING!!!

And i refuse to switch to livejournal, so I'm copying the mood and music deal because blogger doesn't have it. So what?