A Hooker’s work is never done

Tonight, when I returned home (after going to school for five hours and painting, straight away) I did what I normally do…went to my room and begin unpacking.  Imagine my surprise when a blue jay buzzed my f’in face and landed on my bed, where it promptly shit in fear.  On closer inspection later, that shit was one of seven.  On my favorite sheets.  On my red Indian silk quilt.  Right. 

My clever cat had apparently caught the bird in the studio, where it likely flew in through the open window (minus a screen…thanks, landlord).  Then, my precious little shit of a cat took the bird into my room, shut the door behind her, and released it.  The door wasn’t shut so much that Cleecloe couldn’t get in to toy with it at her leisure, just enough so that the bird couldn’t navigate out. 

I suppose this is the equivalent of a Post It note.  If it had been written, I believe it would have read: Dear Mom, Fuck you for leaving me with That Loud Boy. 

Blue jays are quite striking close up.  Their feathers are irridescent gorgeousness.  However, I would Not Recommend getting in close quarters with a pissed off blue jay; they go straight for the face.  I’m sure I made quite a picture with a bandana on good and tight, and my Huge Sunglasses obscuring most of my face (must save the eyes!), crying.  It had been an hour and a half, and I was sweating profusely, and the bird didn’t seem to be slowing down in the slightest.  I managed to manuever it from my room into the studio with the open window, but then it simply chose a flight path and continually circled the studio, landing in one of four spots, breaking every thing it could get it’s little lice-ridden feet on.  Daniel had to save the day with a sheet and a crock pot.  There really is Nothing that a crock pot Can’t Do.  That was a double negative.  Tsk. 

Now, I am in the CAD lab at school, where I will pay for my One Night Off with a night of no sleep and Alot of Drafting.  Sometimes I wonder why I do this. 

Oh, right.  I love this?   

Just a few minutes ago, as I sat here thinking how I needed to turn off the music and go to bed, I heard a quick burst of four gun shots, followed shortly by squealing tires, and then someone on a megaphone yelling, “We’re coming for you, bitch”. There was crazy laughter following the announcement.

I am so fucking tired of living in the ghetto. I feel like I can never get away from The Crime, because I’m too poor to opt out of Those Neighborhoods. This is how the government Keeps Us Down, methinks.

The frightening thing is: my neighborhood isn’t so bad. It’s not seedy, it’s not delapidated, it’s not Section 8…but damn if there aren’t crackheads roaming the streets all day and all night. I can’t figure out if Winston Salem has more crackheads or if it’s just that the bus line runs right in front of my house. Either way, I’m sick of this shit.

It doesn’t do much for my Peace Of Mind, which is shaky enough at this particular moment, as it is.

My grandma insisted that I not come visit her this weekend…I think she doesn’t want me to see her sick and hurting, I think she thinks it would distract me, and she doesn’t want that. Or something. These Good Old Southern Women, never wanting to put anyone out, for anything. So I’m going to get up early and come to Asheville tomorrow (Saturday) and spend one night and try to get my head right for the rest of this term…I just need a teeny break, and I think I can power through these last three weeks. I need to Step Outside for a hot second, and breathe air that doesn’t come from the inside of a theater, if just for a moment. Plus, I can’t NOT go to Old Europe one last time before it is no more. That place has left more of an imprint on me than I imagined possible for a coffee shop…so many fond memories. And when I say fond, I mean hot. I have to go pay my respects.

My mom called me this evening, right after I got out of crew, to tell me that my grandma’s tonsilectomy has proven what everyone was hoping against…the Big C.

Ya know, I had been thinking of how it’s Really Time for me to quit smoking, and I don’t see how I could really continue, after this. It wouldn’t feel right to me to keep giving money to the Bastards that are marketing and selling this highly addictive, deadly product that May or May Not be the demise of my sweet, wonderful, beautiful grandma. My mom threw her cigarettes and lighter away, I hope for good, the second she talked to the doctor and heard the news. So I guess it’s my turn, now.

I hope I don’t gain 7,000,000 lbs. trying to eat the nicotine cravings away. I must take up jogging. Maybe I’ll just start working out every time I want to smoke. Maybe I’ll carry a little note pad around with me, and every time I’d normally go outside, or take a break, to smoke, I’ll sketch something, instead.

I dunno…Talking About Quitting Smoking is like Dancing About Architecture. Completely irrelevant.

I am trying not to freak out and assume the worst…my grandma is a strong, willful woman, and she’s a survivor. I see no reason that this particular hurdle should be any different. She’s 78, and strong as a horse. I guess it’s just coming to grips with the fact that, ultimately, everyone I love will die. I haven’t really faced that whole Mortality Reality bit…maybe that’s something I’ll have to work on one of these days. It’s not a happy thought, that goes without saying, but it’s the only fact that anyone can depend on as an absolute. Why should I be so scared? It’s as natural as breathing…the cessation of such activities.

If anyone would like to send happy thoughts to my grandma’s throat, they’d be appreciated and well-received.

Today, I was scrolling through my phone, heading towards Katy P’s phone number so I could ask her a question about paint. I realized that I have more people in my phone with the root name Kathryn, than any other name. This put me to thinking, and I see now that apparently I am destined to a life of Kathryn’s company. I have always known at least five, and usually two of those five, at any given time, are people that are close friends. Right now, I have six in my phone, and each and every one of those Kathryn’s (or Katy’s, or Kathy’s, or Kat’s) are people that I either see every single day, or communicate with on a fairly regular basis. I find it interesting that not a single one of those Kathryn’s are spelled with a ‘C’ or an ‘ine’. That says something Somewhere about the shifting trends of popular names, but I’m not sure what it is, or if I care enough to spend any more time postulating about it. Just an epiphany I had about the fact that I gravitate towards Kathryn’s… Or they to me, one.

Spring Dance is progressing. The going is kind of slow, but it’s looking really fantastic, and I’ve learned alot. It’s been a crash course in a lot of concepts that I will be learning next year in Scene Painting 2 class, so I will have a nice edge, apparently. Also, it’s been a good challenge in maintaining a constant, face pace. I think that I have lost about ten pounds since this show started, simply because it is Humid As A Parrot’s Asshole in Ecuador, on the paint deck, and we are doing lots of spraying/brooming, starching, stapling, painting…things that keep us moving for four soild hours every day. I play games with myself and set speed goals to see if I can quickly and correctly accomplish tasks, and then I drip sweat for a while, and either impress myself or blame everything on The Heat. My time for laying out/squaring drops has increased ten-fold, simply because I’ve done it enough times that I Actually Know How To Do It now, and starching the drops always has to be a fast process (you can’t stop once you’ve started until it’s done–), so it’s kinda fun to say to your Starching Partner, “Alright, we’ve got thirty seven minutes until break, lets see if we can starch this 50′ drop by then”. Ho and I starched a drop in twenty-five minutes flat the other day…that’s my best time yet. Also, can I say that I love working on a crew that includes one Hooker and one Ho. There’s a t-shirt there, somewhere.

I’ll end with a shout-out to any Wig and Makeup Girls that might be reading this particular entry (ahem…Kaylan)…

Bring it, bitches. We are ready for the East Side/West Side prank rivalry, and I can guarantee you this: we’re gonna win. You might have us out-numbered, but what we lack in numbers, we make up for in endurance. Running backwards carrying a full industrial sprayer (45 lbs. on a bad day) in straight lines across a drop for an hour and a half in 90 degree heat kicks a Pilates class, any day. Mind you, we’re not arm wrestling, here, so the Supreme Gun Show that is the collective Bicep and Forearm of the paint deck might not come into play…but it’d have to be a pretty messy day indeed to make a painter flinch.

East Side Wig & Makeup Lace Cutters…the Painted Ladies are primed for the fight. Let the games begin…concluding with a short film using the Broadway quality West Side Story set that will be fully assembled next May in the Stevens Center. Start sewing those costumes now….

I am having a care-free day…I think it might just be selective processing, on my part, but it’s been one of those days where nothing could break my mood…I’ve been singing all day long.

I am also slightly intoxicated, this very second.

Tomorrow, I have to attend a Mandatory All School Meeting for a Drug and Alcohol Survey. This makes me inherently nervous…even though it shouldn’t, really. It’s all anonymous, according to the emails they’ve sent out, but making me sit in a theater with all my peers and answering quesitons about our drug use makes me paranoid. They’re looking for a response to take some kind of action, and alls I know is that I like that my personal business staying personal, and that that shouldn’t Ever Change. They know enough about me as it is; can’t I have anything to myself? They know our backgrounds, they know our social lives, they know who’s friends, who hates each other, probably why. It’s claustrophobic sometimes, to know that the facutly at my school know So Very Much about me, and keep all those tasty tidbits under constant scrutiny for signs of cracking or decay. I could choose to look at it as though they are simply concerned, and maybe that’s really it, but it just seems nosy…I mean, surely they talk about us like we talk about them. I feel like that’s a given. Everyone likes to gossip here, that’s a fact, straight across the board. Everyone Gossips.

I am wondering if I am going to have an alcohol-induced headache when I arrive to fill in the bubbles about the sordid details of my Chemical Life. It would be ironically appropriate, I think.

…coming home and realizing that I still had That Banana Pudding from Whole Foods, waiting for me to enjoy it’s tasty goodness. I have to say–Whole Foods must’ve stolen my grandmother’s recipe because it tastes just the same. I only like banana pudding if Grandma makes it, but I love theirs. It’s my current preference of Sweet Treat.

I volunteered three hours on the paint deck tonight. We made really good headway, and it was totally laid-back since I was there of my own volition. What that means is: I painted for two and a half hours and wandered around for thirty minutes. Christina brought free pizza; love that. Free dinner for a couple hours of work is a good trade. I was kind of a little shit…I went to get a drink of water, and ended up running into my pal in the hall and wandered down to his studio, where I sat and put my feet up for twenty minutes, just bullshitting.

I love the social interactions that happen every ten feet inside the walls of D&P…a person could spend an entire day just wandering from studio to studio, talking to someone different, all of them looking for a moment of distraction from this End of The Year crazy. Tensions are definetly starting to ride high. You can feel it when you walk down the hall, and look into the different studios…everyone with their heads down, IPods on, scowling with their deep concentration, or occasionally, hanging their head in their hands with despair and frustration. At this very moment, I am feeling very relaxed about my midterm tomorrow (probably foolish), and generally being secure with the fact that It Will All Get Done. It always does. Things always come together somehow. Granted, I know that while I feel good now, I will begin having Moments of Stress that are more intense than any stress I’ve ever known. This year has been hard, and I know there is alot of work to go before my head clears the surface, but man, I love it here. I feel like a masochist sometimes…The extremely elevated expectations, the pressure To Be The Best, having to reapply for the program every year even when your grades are good, all The Drama and The Hype and The Scandal and The Backbiting and The Horrid Gossip and The Constant Judgement of character, of talent, of potential. That’s the business, I know. And I know, too, that I can weather it. What keeps coming back to me is the fact that I’ve chosen all this stress and all this pressure; I’ve decided to be okay with the scores of fake friendships (perhaps more aptly titled alliances) and the self-serving nature of every move we each make…all for the love of theater? Or is it money and fame? Satisfaction in a job well done? Feeling like We’re Making A Difference?

My reasons are different on different days.

I think I’m starting to get the patented Attitude.

I think that my pride can border on sinful, every now and again.

I think that the elitism is plain old snobbery, and yet, I am an active participant in said snobbery.

When I say Fuck Yale, I mean it, in the way that die-hard sports fan from Carolina would say that about Duke.

I think I fit in here more than I’ve ever fit anywhere, and that makes me wonder alot of things I can’t even say out loud because I’d sound like such an egomaniacal douche-bag.

Is my work artistic or masturbatory? Pure or tainted with monetary lust and a longing for The Glamour?

Does any of that even matter? Results are results are results.

I suppose I’m just scared of losing my morals and letting my passions slip sideways into the Arena of Fools and Assholes everywhere. I believe I’m a good person, but I also see in myself the potential for Selling The Fuck Out, and I don’t like that one bit. I realize I do indeed Have A Price. This is horrifying for the daughter of hippie-intellectual-revolutionary-subversive-sustainable-Good Sumaritans.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that I’m already so far gone from the person I was when I began my education here that it is an intriguing and terrifying thought to imagine who I’ll be when They Are Done With Me.

Then again, it’s wonderful and thrilling and elating and more exciting than anything else in my whole life.

Go to bed, Suzy. You’re rambling again.

I went to a party last night called the Q Ball. As per usual, it was under-publicized, and all of 12 people were there, in a space that could have easily accomodated three hundred people. The food was good, the music was mediocre, and apparently, we were the life of the party. When we started really getting down and having a grand old time, the Wake Forest people just Stopped Dancing in order to stare at all of us. It was unfortunated. Instead of joining us in this great time, they stared. Oh well. One of my many secret crushes was there last night…I’d like to know how I can have such strong social skills in everyday life, yet get totally awkward the second I find someone attractive. With this one particular woman, I have a real knack for making the words Come Out Wrong, so that I kinda look like a jackass in the end. Yay.

Although, it’s always fun to dance like no one’s watching, when you’re damn sure someone is.

This week was so hectic…I’m real happy to be sitting at my computer in my unders, freshly awake, freshly showered, kinda hungry, kinda sore…but it’s quiet, and I have no pressing business until this evening, when I go out dancing with Friends From School.

Yesterday seems like a hazy dream…I fell asleep in drafting class, and smacked my head on my keyboard loud enough to alert the teacher that I was dozing…he was actually kind, though, and told me just to ‘chill out’ for the class period, as he ‘could tell I wasn’t in top form’. Kind of embarrassing, but hey—I got to sleep with my eyes open for a while. After drafting, I went and ate a chicken biscuit with some of the painters, at good ole Acadia Grill, where we obsessively stressed over the questionable completion of Spring Dance on it’s supposed time line. We aren’t even finished with the first drop, and we’ve got one more drop and eight legs left to go…It’s unfortunate that we are moving so slow…but it’s not because we can’t work fast, it’s because we aren’t being allowed to work fast. The paint charge is a nice person, but she has some efficiency problems. In my delirium, I informed her that I was coming in to paint with her this weekend. Howard had nixed the weekend crew idea, but I volunteered in order to make less work for myself next week. I don’t relish the idea of pulling double crews Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Crew til 11 every night would piss me off.

After crew, I came home and gussied up, and went to see Laramie Project again. It’s always so different with a live audience. This production is absolutely the best I’ve seen yet at NCSA. The acting is Very Good, the set is amazingly effective, the lighting is evocative and the sound design is top-notch. Again, my kudos to the designer…I was so moved by the last moment of the play….When Matt’s father reads the statement about not giving the murderers the death penalty, he talks about how much Matt loved the twinkling stars over Laramie, and how the stars were with him in his last minutes…and so the designer had x-mas lights inserted into the set, and after the last lines are spoken, the x-mas lights begin to come up until the set is in total black-out, and all you can see are these tiny lights twinkling…

It is a powerful moment to realize that you are looking down at the twinkling lights of Laramie, and experiencing the last moments of Matt’s conscious life, through his eyes, from your seat in the Catawba Theater. I think it was a bold move to transport the audience to the spot of his brutal beating, and allow us to see what he saw. It is terribly hard and terribly beautiful (and, I think, important), seeing those lights and knowing what happened on the hill above them and seeing things as though you were the one tied to that cold, buck fence. It really brings the whole show home, and reinforces the humanity of Matthew Shephard, not as a martyr or a saint, but as a person whose life ended prematurely at the hands of others, all because of hatred and ignorance. That realization couldn’t possibly escape anyone who sees the show. Bravo, Ms. Kawecki…a beautiful job bringing knowledge and empathy to those that were without, through skillful use of simple Theater Magic.

After the show was over, and I had cleaned the mascara streaks off my face (that Cooper D’Ambrose is a fine actor…always rips the emotions out of me), I returned home and promptly slept Like The Dead, for a solid twelve hours. Though a little groggy, I am refreshed, and ready to work my fanny off til it’s time to dance.

School is almost done for the year. Oh. Shit. Some much to do, so little time. And so many people that I will miss next year…

It is a consulation that this industry is so small, it’s likely I will work with most of those people again, at some point in my career. School sure is a prettier place with them around, though. And I hate that two of the five lesbians are graduating…not even because I necessarily wanted to get with ‘em, it’s just nice having Others around. Hopefully, there will be a good crop of grad students next year….

Off to painting!!

There’s something about Friendster that Blogspot isn’t giving me…I don’t know if it’s the fact that my ego likes it when I can see that 96 people have accessed my profile since the beginning of the month, or what…I never used to write with the intention of having an audience, and now it would seem I’m addicted to it. That seems odd to me, in a not-so-good kind of way, but I’ll just go ahead and put that out there, and come back home to Friendster, because that’s where my friends are. I guess I might be a bit of a follower. I like writing, knowing I can get immediate feed-back, or at the very least, keep my friends Up To Date on all the shit that I do that prevents me from actually keeping in touch with the them like a regular human. I guess that’s the long and short of it.

I had to pull my first all-nighter of spring term, last night. I sat in a freezing cold computer lab from two to eight thirty, and managed to complete thirty five drafting projects in CAD. We have to do the exercises at the end of each chapter, and then upload them onto the server in the graphics lab…I was only one chapter behind, but I failed to realize that the one chapter I needed to catch up on, also contained said thirty five exercises. I am feeling very loopy, and very crooked-eyed, from staring at the comptuer screen so long. So it makes Perfect Sense that I’m here, typing on my own computer, now that I’ve returned home for some breakfast and a bit of cleaning up…so as not to look like I haven’t slept. I’m so delirious, I almost don’t want to go to class and see if I can squeeze in a nap before crew, but there is always the clear and present danger of not waking up for crew when I haven’t slept a wink since Wednesday night.

I think I will go to class. Which means I have to leave my house Right Now. Bah. Drafting on the computer is getting in the way of my health and happiness. I will be happy when it’s over. 22 more days. And that was me, having a small coronary. I’ll be a junior in 23 business days! HOLY SHIT!!!

Blogspot might not have a honking clown, but it also doesn’t have my all of my friends, neatly contained therein, accessible with the click of my mouse.

I dunno…I think I might have been hasty when I told Friendster we were through. I’m gonna give this Blogspot a couple of days to grow on me, and see what happens.