April 30th.. a tribute.

Know what I love?? When I come home and this is what i see:


OH, my dad!! These packages show up pretty often.. They are always full of something I really love and/or really need. Days when dad-packages arrive are the best days, ever. The one above just arrived last week with a note wishing me good luck with finals.. Honestly who does that?! To top it off, it's HIS birthday this week (the 30th). HIS birthday and he sent me a package!!

I love parents. I just really like the whole idea of them. I love that we get to have them. I love that I get to have mine. I work with a lot of little kids who don't really have parents and it constantly makes me feel... i don't know, grateful/lucky... so many things.

We owe so much of who we are to the people who raise us.

My first word was, "Papa"

Whenever I hear a classical piece of music and I am able to distinguish between Mozart or Rachmaninoff, I think of my dad. I think of him playing the piano down the stairs as I would fall asleep on my bunk bed.

When I was little my dad would tell us stories of Flea MaGee and his wife, She-Flea MaGee and their lives inside their matchbox house with a thumb tack for a kitchen table.

He used to pretend that he was a "sleeping giant" on his bed and my sister and I would giggle and squeel and inch closer to him until he came to life and ticked us until our sides hurt.

In church my dad would tuck his thumb inside his fist and no matter how hard i tried (and sometimes i would literally put my back into it) I could never get it out of there. He also rarely held my hand, he would just stick our his index finger and I would grab on with my whole hand. It was a perfect fit.

I love that I am still learning things about my parents. I still learn new things about my dad all the time. It wasn't until my mission that I learned where my dad got baptized and how. It was even later that I learned that he started college as a piano major and then switched to English.

My love affair with J.D. Salinger started when my dad told me that Catcher in the Rye was his favorite book.

My dad is really fantastic at making things special. Birthdays/graduations/shows. He has seen nearly every single show I have ever done, and he hasn't lived in the same state as me for over a decade.

Every time I talk to my dad on the phone he mentions the weather. I know this is because he pays attention to it. He pays attention to everything around him. He has sort of trained me to be the same way. He is so many things and I admire and aspire to be.

This might be my longest blog post to date.. but it could never really be long enough.


I just... love him.

Classic.

So, the next six weeks are going to look a little like this:


Hooray for me and the classics! First Chekhov and now Euripides. I'm so classic!

It frightens me, just a tidge, to think of the common themes in Medea and The Seagull (ie the inability to make love stay) and why I have been cast in both consecutively. I'm just gonna go ahead and say that it doesn't mean anything at all.

Ohh, Just look at Martha G. as Medea!

I'm way into that.

Pinnacle Acting Company is new to me. I am about to find out what they are all about. It's going to be performed on an outdoor stage and that sounds pretty "summer" to me.

In other acting news. Barta, the head of the BYU theatre department has been pretty adamant this semester about getting me into BYU and getting me back there to finish my BFA. Welp, she did it! I got the official word last night. I am officially a BYU student!

This may be confusing to people who thought I already was.. and to you I say.. eh, it's a long story.. The short version being that I was at BYU before as a "visiting student"- that is to say my GPA was not high enough to get in. I took evening classes, was given a scholarship and did The Seagull, but was never actually admitted. I thought they were going to cancel the BFA Acting Program so I left and came to the U of U. Once here I discovered that I would only be getting a BA and not a BFA. Also once here, BYU started contacting me and finding ways to get me back. So, fall 2008 I will be a full time student at BYU in the BFA Acting Program. Boom.

Now if i can just make it through finals.. i'll be set! Spring is here and i feel like i am coming back to life. good things are happening. it's good.

How I came to love..

(the abbreviated version)
Once upon a time, i was cleaning my apartment.
I had Britannie's playlist on and it was keeping me company, as it often does.
A song shuffled on.. the vocals captivating..
It was Green Gloves by the National (our eyes met)

time passes

Emily the Cliff makes a mix CD for Valentines Day
One of the tracks toward the end, "The Clampdown" by The National
(The National is flirting with me now)

some more time passes

I am listening to The Arcade Fire Radio on pandora.com and there is that voice again (heart jumps a little)
"Slow Show" by The National
(the National did it, it asked for my number)

Shortly there after, I spend money I don't have and buy Boxer.
(It's our first date, I don't know how I feel at first. It's a mixture of nervous and very at ease. It becomes apparent very quickly that I am falling.. fast and hard..

The rest, as they say, is history..

what a gem.

Okay, a few weeks ago the Coy's introduced me to Leslie Hall..
last night she was in my dreams.
really she was.
she was singing
and i asked her if i could borrow her glasses
because i forgot mine..

One inch..

So, who didn't LOVE this documentary?

Welp, in two weeks I am shooting a short film with the cinematographer who filmed it. Well, I wont shoot it as much as i will just act in it. I am pretty excited about it. And I owe it all to Janelle. It's a 48 hour deal so I have no idea what I will be doing but I went to meet him and his wife today and it was amazing. They have 2 little boys, Indiana Jones "Indy" and R2. I am already in love with that little family.

It will be nice to have a new project. Lots of other auditions coming up too.. I didn't make the theatre company in New York.. I was pretty much knew I wouldn't. Funny how that didn't make it much more awesome to hear. Rejection is never all that much fun, even if you are kind of expecting it. BUT, the day after I got my rejection letter, the guy who played Shamraev in the Seagull called to tell me that BYU had awarded me "Best Character Actress" of 2007-2008! I really have no idea what that means, and I doubt that award has any far reaching significance but it made me feel good. Because honestly, sometimes as an actress, it's hard to hold on. I feel like I am often one inch from giving up, and then some small thing will happen to spur me along... Just something little to say, 'don't you give up now, no no no'..

I have to write a political theatre play for one of my finals. I have no idea what to write that about. Any suggestions? I started writing some short films, but they are not exactly political.. I want to get those films done. Hopefully this summer will mean good things.. artistically. And it's looking like in the fall, I will be back at BYU. So, there you go. Life.

what bounces in the brain...

Umm, i cant sleep. it's been a problem this last year. some serious insomnia. these are some of the thoughts that i have lately that wont adhere to melatonin...

a. Artaud. We can not understand anything in isolation. We understand things in relation to what they are not... language is a never ending chain of signification. The "meaning" that a word has is produced by it's difference from other signifiers. Language is a kind of dance around an absence of fixed meaning. So when i type the letters "b-l-u-e" most people will understand in a general way that with those letters I am signifying a color and they can picture, ie understand what it is i am trying to signify, because they know it... but who is to say that when people process the word "blue" in their minds that they all really see the same shade or color that I am envisioning? Also, what is blue? We understand blue, because we understand what it is not.. it is not red, orange, yellow green.. etc...
do people only understand who i am in relation to who i am not?

b. Lakoff and Johnson. The several ways humans experience themselves.
The physical object self -the self as an object: "I have got to get myself moving.."
The locational self -the self as a place: "I was beside myself" or "I'm all over the place today"
The contained self- the self as a container (inner and outer): "I disappointed myself"...

c.

http://www.rockpoplyrics.com/national/slowshow.php

d. Also, Friday Night Lights. I'm most attracted to Tim Riggins but I would like to end up with someone more like Matt Ceracen and either way I want the marriage to resemble Coach Taylor and Tammys'. Not all the same circumstances. I never want to live in Texas, for example, or marry someone who coaches football, but I hope we talk to eachother like they do. Ohhhh, tv on dvd, bless you. you help the long insomniatic nights go by..

When life gives you lemons...

My little fifteen year old self had no idea what she was getting herself into back in '98 when she signed up for Hot Dog on a Stick. It was the perfect high school job. Then, it was the perfect seasonal job. Then it was the perfect summer job. Now it is the perfect part time supplemental income after my other job, job. That's right, hot dog has officially followed me to Utah.

And you know what? I actually think that it is pretty awesome. I really like pluggin in my ipod, rocking out, makin some lemonade, stickin some dogs and being fifteen 2 days a week.

Mmmmm, i love lemonade.

At hot dog on a stick everyday feels kind of like this: