malaysia's musings

Happy Halloween to all and Happy Birthday to Abigail!

Isn't it evil what we will do to our dogs? I don't feel that bad, if it hadn't been in my car I would've grabbed my devil hat too.

okay, I couldn't resist. Many of you already know the story behind this tattoo. So here it is.

This picture brought to you by the first actor I ever met to use as an excuse for missing his entrance "Well, I was standing there and I heard my cue and I thought, "I should be onstage" . But I wasn't"

Okay besides getting the knitting blog up (w/ 6 posts already) I actually finished a project today. This is the sweater I made for Piper (which if you don't know is the name of Connie's baby - due in February). It's actually a cashmere blend. Why not start with the spoiling now. And hey Connie is gonna have tons of time to handwash baby clothes.....yeah.

And then Laura came over and Abigail taught her how to tie a tie. Aren't they adorable? By the way, check out Abigail's new haircut.

It's called a faux-hawk. It's a fake mo-hawk. It's really cute. Oh, and by the way, just to brag, that's the sweater I made her for Valentine's Day last year.

Back to work tomorrow!

As many of you know I seem to have a knack for flying into Florida just in time for hurricanes. My mother and I were on the last flight in before Hurricane Andrew hit and Abigail and I got evacuated from Ft. Lauderdale last year from Hurricane Jeanne (we had been there a total of 17 hrs). Many of you may have also heard that Andrew was headed straight for Broward County (where my mother and I were huddled in a closet-okay I was sleeping and she was watching TV, but only because we didn't know any better) before turning at the last second and hitting south of us.

I wasn't paying as much attention to this one because I haven't been watching the news as much this week. So when I heard that it actually hit Broward County it kinda threw me for a loop. The picture above is taken in Davie which was literally 2 blocks away from where I lived all thru high school. I've spent a portion of this evening looking up pictures of buildings I recognize, with no windows.

Can't get thru to anyone in S. Florida. So pray for all my friends who are down there.

So I was gonna call myself a bad blogger for not posting since last Thursday, but then I realized that with the exception of Warner none of my friends have posted in forever so....hey I'm in good company.

The reason I haven't posted in forever is that, well frankly, everything is very calm and kinda boring. But nice. I guess the calm before the storm continues for a few more days. It so much easier to talk about problems in your life than when things are going well. Isn't that depressing?

My theatre friends will be glad to know that I have saved them from having to look at my knitting blogs, by creating a second blog dedicated exclusively to knitting. Once I have it up and running with the pictures and all I'll link to it, just in case you all are bored.

I had a great, but too short, visit with Emily yesterday (or I guess it is technically Monday, so 2 days ago). It will be nice to have her home and working back at the theatre, even if it is only for 10 days or so. Actually over the next few weeks many friends will be returning to the area for the Christmas show.

Don't worry, I'm sure there will be plenty to talk about once I start rehearsals with 14 (yep 14) children.

Somewhere in the world Terry Lee is laughing her ass off at the idea of me trying to handle 14 children. And Keith and Marc are thinking "What's the problem? Just tie them to the fly rail."

Oh, I do miss St. Louis something awful sometimes.

So here's a first this year. I don't have to be at work until 6:30pm tonight. I have spent a good portion of the day in my pajamas (which I put back on after going to work out), sitting around my house and hanging out with Abigail. I watched an entire program on Pompeii and what would happen if the volcano erupted today. I will read "A Christmas Story" before I go in tonight. So yeah, I've pretty much just puttered around the house doing nothing.

But the Christmas show is just around the corner. It's really hard to believe that in two weeks I will be in rehearsal with a whole lot of kids. I'm trying very hard to appreciate this down time before everything goes kablooey again (that is the technical term by the way).

In other news Miss Emily Rossi will be here again this weekend. And it must be getting closer to winter because I went and got my first box of winter clothes out of the Middletown house yesterday. And I'm sitting on my bed enjoying a steaming hot cup of Miso soup (the powdered stuff is better than nothing) What could be better? Other than I ran 1.7 miles today before I got kicked off my machine and I wasn't winded at all yet.

Oh and just a warning to all my theatre folk friends. Since the title of this blog does actually have the word knitting in it I'm going to be posting some pictures of what I'm working on in the next few days. (Because the people who are actually here with me aren't subjected to "Hey look at what I'm working on now!" enough already) Just beware if you look at all the pictures you may get a glimpse of your Christmas present.

By the way is it bad that a tooth I had a root canal on 4 years ago has begun to be very sensitive to heat and cold in the last two days? Because that's what I need. More dental work. Bleh.

Okay, I absolutely get my lesbian card revoked tonight. So Mac (one of Abigail's teachers) asked her to take care of his cats while he was away for Fall Break. But Abigail went away this weekend as well so she asked me to. So I go over Saturday night to feed the cats, but I can't get the key to work. So I call Abigail but we decide I will try again in the morning when there is light and stuff. So I went over this morning and still couldn't get it to work. I met Jonz' (our old Scene Designer) mom. She lives in the apartment behind them and she couldn't get it to work either. So I call Abigail again and she calls Will Ingham to see if he knows if there is another key in town. Evidently he Mac keeps one in his office. So Will and his wife Libby come to opening night tonight, but he's left his office keys at home. So we open the show, go to the party and then have to go to Shenandoah to get campus security to open Mac's office to get the key so I can feed the cats that haven't been fed since Friday evening. But when Will gets in the key is gone. So i must have the key he usually keep there. So it must work, right? So we all head over to Mac's where I try a couple more times to get the door to open, which I can't. So I let Will try....and of course he gets it open in the first 10 seconds. So I admit it. I needed a big strong man to open a door for me. By the way, Thanks to Will and Libby Ingham for trekking around Winchester with me tonight all in the name of feeding a couple of cats.

In other Malia news we opened the show tonight and everything went very well. Some scariness during half hour when Warner sent Nat out back to test shoot our gun and it wouldn't fire twice in a row (which of course it needs to do during the show) so we had to use our back-back up gun (also thanks to Will Ingham for lending it to us). Other than that things went very well. The guys did a great job, the audience really seemed to like it, went to the party (where Warner told the "Die, Larry, just die. Literally die" story - which I will never live down, and rightly so) and then the cat craziness ensued.

Abigail's home tomorrow. Yeah!!!

Not my best work today I have to say. It's so frustrating to feel prepared for something, and to fall so short of anything resembling acceptable. At least to me.

And to top it all I twisted my knee again which is just annoying.

Blew the shit out of the beginning of the show this afternoon and then screwed up again because I let it bother me. Got it right tonight, but then we had problems at the end of the show with sound. Joy of live theatre right? Maybe I should have gone into film. It would suck not to have an audience though.

In any case, you better believe that I'm ready to hit it out of the park tomorrow.

Keep flipping back and forth between being pissed that I screwed up and beating myself up and being pissed that I screwed up and feeling rebellious to get it right tomorrow.

Enough of that. I'm sitting on the floor of my apartment watching, of all things, Gettysburg. You'd think that I would have had enough of the Civil War by now, but evidentally not. It's so weird to hear the lines I'm so used to hearing coming out of the mouths of different actors. And the scenes are in a different order. I was watching the Buford/Hancock scene and then all of a sudden I was in the Trimble scene and my brain just went "But we're already in intermission". Okay, I'm a dork, I know.

Abigail is home in Richmond visiting her folks for her Fall Break. It's nice to have time alone and all, but I miss coming home to her at night. And it's always weird to not have Oscar (our dog) running around underfoot. Isn't it always the way that just as I'm coming out of my hermit phase, everyone is busy or away.

By the way, I almost titled this entry "Frustrated and Loney" but it was too depressing even for me. Hence no imaginative title.

Peter, Larry, Jim & Carl

So, Killer Angels has closed. Had one final amazing show last night. The most responsive audience of the run. Felt like we really went out with a bang. Thank you to the boys who really made this experience for me.


On another note, had a big reunion last night with Steve Przybylski, Katie Strock, Anna Marie and of course Miss Emily Rossi. It was fantastic to get to spend some time with my friends. We ended up at The Isle until about 1:45ish. (at least that's when I left, there were still quite a few downstairs). Hopefully all made it home okay.

Focus all on Sleuth now. We have one more rehearsal in town hall today and we'll put the show together for the first time. Get to have dinner with Emily one more time before she goes back to college on Tuesday. And then a day off and we move into the theatre for tech week and open next Sunday. All in all life as usual.

Got a mention on that Harriet Miers blog today. Seems she likes bad knitting too. Still getting used to total strangers reading what I'm writing.

Quickly coming up on the end of Killer Angels. Only 3 shows left. All in all it has been a wonderful experience. These guys are a great group and many of them have earned my respect over the last month and a half.

Tomorrow is proving to be quite the reunion. Not only is my friend Emily coming into town, but our old music director Steve Przybylski, and two actresses from previous shows, Katie Strock and Anna Marie Sell will also be here. Haven't seen these guys for quite a while so I'm very much looking forward to it.

Fairly normal day today. Production Meeting, rehearsal, show, come home and knit. Speaking of which I'm going to start selling on ebay I think. I already have one scarf up as a test, just to see what happens. If I don't start getting rid of stuff soon the scarves are going to take over the apartment.

Today is my 2 yr anniversary with my beautiful girlfriend, Abigail. Hard to imagine it's only been two years and that it's already been two years.

In typical theatre fashion today she will go to school and then open a show tonight. I will go to rehearsal and then run my show tonight. I'm pretty sure we will see each other before midnight, but you never know.

So, happy anniversary baby. Thank you for two years of loving me despite all my faults.

I can't take credit for this. Warner gave me the link today, but it was so funny I had to pass it on. Someone has created a "blog" for Harriet Miers. You have to start at the beginning and you have to read the whole thing.

Also for my knitting friends, you have to check out this blog. It kinda epitomizes the phrase "just because you can....doesn't mean you should" You knit what?. Enjoy.

I have now been accused of inspiring two new bloggers. Who knew I was so inspiring?

My good friend Emily Rossi has started her blog called The Not So Daily Herald. Emily has just started her first year at William and Mary studying theatre. I met her 1 year ago when she came to Wayside as a mentor student. And if you had told me then that I would someday come to regard this 18yr high school senior as one of my closest friends I would have called you crazy. But maybe I need a little youth and idealism in my life to balance my own cynical nature. What can I say, for some reason we work.

My other very good friend is an actor I met last season. A true gentleman named J.T. Arbogast. He lives in New York with his girlfriend (who I still haven't met and have accused him of inventing). He currently performs in an improv group and is just truly a good human being. He is about a week into his blog. Backmountain Whistles.

Today Em told me blogging was addictive. She's right. But what I enjoy more than writing my own is the chance to read my friends'. In a life where the majority of my family and friends are scattered not only throughout the country, but the world, it brings them into my living room every morning, if only for the 5 minutes it takes me to read what they did the day before.

So thanks to Larry and Warner for inspiring me and giving me a new way to keep the people I love a little closer.

I've spent the day trying to get my life somewhat in order, which includes getting all the photos off my camera and into and organized in my computer. This is my favorite. From the top (and going clockwise) it's me, Thomasin, Tamara (who was celebrating her birthday, I mean she looks great in a tiara, but she doesn't wear them all the time) and Libby.

Next I will tackle the apartment and then maybe even my car. If no one hears from me in 24hrs you may want to send help.

But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.

-Bill Bennett (a man refered to as America's "Morality czar" and author of The Book of Virtues)


Oh. My. God.

Can there be any clearer sign of the health of America's so-called morals?