Author: sychela

Categories
Endings Memoir Sentiment

Estate sale

This weekend Drew’s family had an estate sale at the house of a family member who passed away over the summer.  The purpose was to clean out the house of as much stuff as possible so they can get the house on the market.  Everything was set up inside the house so people would come in and wander around to look at everything.  There were boxes of books lining the driveway up to the garage, where there were tools and two (gorgeous) steamer trunks and an exercise machine that we all took turns trying.

I had matinees both days, but I went down with Drew in the morning around 7:30 each day, and stayed until 11:00.  The first day that 3 1/2 hours was packed with people snapping things up, including a guy who right off the bat wanted all 35 sets of salt and pepper shakers.  Edie and I spent the next 15 minutes wrapping them all up in newspaper.  He came in every so often and said things like, “Oh, look at that little raccoon figurine – that’s cute, throw that in too.”  I wish I’d gotten a picture of all of the salt and pepper shakers the way they were set up, but by the time I started thinking about taking pictures, all that was left on the table was this ashtray:

(Obviously there’s stuff on the table around it.  I exaggerated.)

In the bedroom there were these two portraits, and I’m not sure why there are two of them.

In the other bedroom, these dolls:

In the kitchen: this bowl, which surprisingly was still there on Sunday afternoon.

We also still had many puzzles at the end of the weekend.

The second day was less busy but people still came.  It was raining in Redwood City and not good garage sale weather.  But we did get rid of the steamer trunks, a bed and nightstand, and some miscellaneous stuff.  Overall, the difference in the house was astounding from Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon.

It was weird – watching people fill plastic grocery bags with the small details that used to make up a person.  I found myself getting suspicious of things: why are you taking that entire box of old books?  Is one of them worth a million dollars and you’re sneaking it out to sell it on eBay?  Where are you going with that picture of a little girl dressed like the Virgin Mary?  Do you even have a cassette player?  What are you going to do with those tapes of CATS and Barbara Streisand?  Then as I watched the house empty out, including all the furniture, I got really motivated to clean up some my own stuff.

Among the stuff we came home with: a cuckoo clock, a cigarette holder, some fur hats, a giant area rug (for donation to MTC), and a copy of Emily Post’s Etiquette book (it has a chapter telling you the proper etiquette if you have an audience with the Pope!).  And yes, I recognize the irony in bringing home more stuff while I’m thinking about thinning my stuff out.

In conclusion: Estate sale ended up being super successful, and it was really fun being down there and helping out with this big project.  I wish I could have stayed for the entire day, especially on Saturday, when it was really hopping.

And, the story of the salt and pepper shakers guy is that he’s a bartender.  He spent another hour and a half browsing and drove away finally in a fully loaded car.  I’m just glad we weren’t enabling a hoarder.  Hopefully.

Categories
Drew Theatre Work

(7+2) (OOO)

Tonight was closing.  I was not sad.  Except we finished the show, and everyone gathered on the stage and drank champagne and told stories about how successful the run was and how much we all like each other, and then I felt a little sad.  And then strike didn’t exactly happen, because staff is all involved in the tech next door, so eventually I sort of struck, and then I couldn’t find the people I was talking to so I just left.

I’m going to miss those actors.  They are good people.  And I think I accidentally promised one of them I would be back as a dresser on Seagull in February.  Which…yeah.

I feel tired.

But this week is going to be fun.  For the first time…ever…we’ll both be home from work every day by 4:00.  Thursday we’ll both be home all day.  Then this weekend is very special, because one year ago we had delicious cake, and this Saturday we get to have more cake.  It’ll be like a vacation.  But we’ll both still be working.  Yay!

Categories
Fiction

National novel writing month

I don’t want to turn this into a month-long thing, but this is about Nanowrimo.  I have a problem.  I admire, respect, envy, and (yes, even) love the writing styles of Ira Levin and Emily Giffin, in particular among all writers.  I want to sound like them.  I don’t sound like them.  So far I feel like my writing is much more “Dear Diary, Today this happened, then this happened, then the characters went over there, then we talked about this.”  I know it’s probably not as bad as it sounds in my head but it’s certainly not the crafted language of Ira Levin or even the devourable writing of Emily Giffin.  I’m hoping that if I keep pushing this out I will at some point (hopefully by this weekend) hit my stride and find the voice, and then I can go back and tweak the beginning.

It probably doesn’t help that I’m writing backstage, sitting on stairs, hunched over a UCD notebook, illuminated by blue light.  It’ll be nice when this show is over.

The End.

Categories
cars Drew Fiction Sentiment

The fuzz and the guts

My first speeding ticket happened when I was driving back from school clothes shopping in Ukiah with a friend from Mendocino.  My third speeding ticket happened when I was rushing to Solano’s Beauty and the Beast rehearsal in Suisun City, after I had missed the exit southbound and was already running late and didn’t actually know where Suisun City was.

My second speeding ticket happened after a family lunch in Santa Rosa, and I was headed back to Davis and was trying to find the exit for 37 at San Rafael, but I missed it and got almost to the Golden Gate Bridge, and I was trying to make it back for an IS event that night, and (I know now that) all that highway south of San Rafael is 55 mph, and a cop pulled out of a speed trap just north of the bridge and got me.

I drive past that speed trap every single day (never going more than 62 mph) and every single day I think of that speeding ticket.  I haven’t actually seen a cop there again, even though I check every time, and anyway there is always someone cruising along in the fast lane.  But it’s strange that I could think of something that happened in 2003, almost every single day.

Nanowrimo starts on Monday so I figure one of two things will happen: I will either disappear from this blog, or I will post snippets of the amazing Nano writing I’m sure I’ll be doing.  In the meantime, here’s a picture of the pumpkins we carved today while we watched Anastasia and sang along.

Categories
"Other people"

still raining

Why were so many built guys running shirtless in the rain today in twos and threes?  It’s like they all had similar conversations with each other:

“Oleksander, it is raining today, let us go for our bi-daily run.”

“But Andrei, I do not want to get my new fancy running shirt dirty with rainwater.”

“It is okay, Oleksander, we will run without our shirts.”

“Oh, good idea!  That way our shirts will remain clean and folded in our laundry baskets.”

In my head all these shirtless running guys are Eastern European.

Categories
Religion

It’s raining dogs and British ladies

This afternoon I am standing in the MTC lobby, watching the rain through the glass double doors.  Suddenly from one side of my makeshift TV screen runs a little white poodle on a long leash, who makes a wide trotting circle around one of the olive trees flanking the doors, and then runs off screen left.  Instantly another poodle appears – another because this one has a blue leash while the other’s was teal – and then a woman, decked out in a raincoat.  She gets held up on the one looped up poodle around the tree, and tugs on her leash, but the dog just struggles to go forward, not back-around.

I watch for a minute as the woman attempts to uncircle the poodle, who just follows her around the tree again.

If not for the rain I might not be standing there; but I push the door open and ask “Can I help you with that?”

“Oh, you can actually!” the woman says in a pleasantly surprising Natasha Richardson-esque accent.  “If you hold her leash I’ll take her around the tree” at which point she plucks up the dog around the middle and deposits her on the other side, instructing her to come to me.

“She does this every tree we come to,” she tells me, “thank you so much.”

As I jump back inside and close the door I hear her say to the dog, in her delightful accent, “Now don’t do it again.”

(Just say that out loud to yourself in your best Natasha Richardson accent.  Isn’t that fun and pleasing to the ear?  It’s obvious why I was so tickled by this interaction, right?)

Categories
Fiction Sentiment

Bryant Park 2007

I finally got all the old stuff off of my old laptop, and now I can go through it at my leisure and delete all the not-absolutely-necessary pictures and beginnings of stories and old AIM conversations.  I’ve already unearthed some good stuff.  Like this poem.  So get ready.

I’ve been hooked on sestinas since studying Elizabeth Bishop’s Sestina in high school.  It’s a complicated form, and I like some guidelines in poetry.  I have cobbled together a couple that I like: one called The Morning After, which is conveniently about Drew, and then this one.

BRYANT PARK
1/25/07

I am watching a grandfather skating around the ice
At Bryant Park, holding on to his granddaughter’s hand.
They are wearing handmade sweaters, red and blue.
The ice is fake and white, a device of the city,
But I believe it, as I believe the pine trees that scream,
Yes!  Foliage grows in New York City!  It’s fresh and clean!

I’ve taken two showers already today, but don’t feel clean.
I don’t think I can keep blaming it on the city.
I keep seeing your face, the memory encased in ice
Like I can still feel the vibration of the scream
Some people say ice is clear but I’ve seen it blue
I slowly pull my woolen glove from my cold hand.

The pocket opens reluctantly to admit my hand
The photo inside makes me want to scream
The storylines are old and faded, but still clean
The edges of the photo are stained a pale eggshell blue
My blood runs cold as I look back to the ice
And see the new disaster blooming in the city –

A lot can go unnoticed in the city.
A lot of people can get away from crimes, crystal clean
Over the happy laughter, I almost hear the man scream
As the little girl’s grandfather goes down on the ice
I don’t see him ever let go of her hand
As her red sweatered form falls down upon his blue.

Someone scoops up her body, crushing orange on blue,
And they try to hurry her off the ice
I hope someone has alerted the authorities of the city
And that someone else is holding her hand
That poor little girl – this morning she was so clean –
She hasn’t even realized that she should scream.

Finally her scream comes out of the blue,
And suddenly my hand feels so much more clean.
The pulse of the city keeps beating, strong as ice.

Categories
Not awesome Sentiment

Hormones

My parents say that I didn’t go through a really long angry-teenager phase where I slammed doors and hated everyone.  They said there was a week or two where they would say “Good morning” and I would say “Shut up” and then one day it was over just like that.

I have one specific memory of getting into this big blow-out fight in the car on the way home from somewhere, it might even have involved all four of us.  I remember stomping into the house, fuming, slamming the door to my room and turning on the radio.  The song that came on was one that my friends and I had been listening to nonstop, and we loved it.  The familiar melody instantly calmed me down, and I sat down on my bed and listened to the whole song.  Then I went back out into the kitchen, smiling and ready to make up after our fight, and instead of being grateful to have a happy daughter back, my mom exclaimed in annoyance, “What happened to you, why are you so calm?!”

And that magical song, my friends, was LeAnn Rimes’ “How Do I Live.”

Categories
Beginnings Not awesome Theatre Work

Pay no attention to the girl behind the curtain –

– because she is just taking a break and counting up all the hiccups tonight.

Today, while we were having our customary pre-opening-night rehearsal (mostly notes, super laid-back), Happy Now? by Lucinda Coxon was having their first read-through and rehearsal.  The MTC Production Manager told the Happy Now? stage manager that she would have more time for them, now that we, 9 Circles, were opening.  To which he responded along the lines of, “I don’t know, I have a feeling about that show, I think it may be cursed.”

Here is what went wrong today:

– Major sound issues, which because they spent all afternoon working on, were all fixed by the performance.  But they did spend 3 hours troubleshooting basically every single piece of the sound system to find out what was causing that mysterious hum in the speakers.

– Since the Stage Manager, Production Manager, and Master Electrician were all consumed with that all day, around 5:30 I texted Jen the PM to ask if she wanted me to go pick up the dry cleaning.  When I got it back to the dressing room I found out they had shorted me a silk Banana Republic blouse, very heavily altered and quick-rigged.  Jen and I went back to the dry cleaners and they searched for it but couldn’t find it.

– While I was sorting out the rest of the clothes one of the actors called me into her dressing room to tell me her toilet was broken (and used, by the way) and who should she tell about it?  So I pushed up my sleeves (and took off my rings) (and took my phone out of my pocket because I am always dropping it) and fixed the chain in the tank.

– The laundry from Sunday, which I had assumed would get done by the Wardrobe Supervisor on our day off, didn’t get done.  But I didn’t know that until after 6:00.  So I tried to finish it as quickly as possible but lots of stuff got carried back downstairs without being washed (it’s not really dirty anyway) and one actor had to wait until 7:48 to get his undershirt because

– It took 40 minutes to dry a single wifebeater.  Darn ribbed material.

– The actress’ hair clip went missing…someone stole my Diet Coke out of the fridge (I suspect someone who was in the Happy Now? read through)…because I was dealing with everything falling to shreds in my hands I didn’t get a dinner break.

But, the show went awesomely and the audience loved it!  And they had delicious food afterwards.

(Also, if you’re curious, we had a revelation that part of the quick rigging on the silk blouse is magnets – it sounds weird but actually works really well – and thanks to a quick trip back by Jen, the blouse was discovered stuck to the inside of the dry cleaning machine!  So that particular piece will get handwashed from now on.)

Happy opening to 9 Circles!  This is the part where my hours get severely cut back, yet I’m somehow making more money.  Awesome.

UPDATE: One more thing! In all the opening night excitement I totally spaced getting the valuables back to the one actor who locks them up.  So she went all the next day without her wallet…

Categories
Sentiment Theatre Work

Time for thinking doesn’t necessarily lead to deep thinking.

Tomorrow, we open.  Which means for the last week or so, I’ve had plenty of time for thinking (sitting backstage in the dark) but no time for writing any of it down.  But here are some things I’ve thought about.

One of the actors (Craig) has a t-shirt with Sesame Street characters on it, in a kind of artistic rendering.  He said he bought it so his 3-year-old daughter would think he was cool.  And I was looking at this t-shirt and thinking about how if my dad had worn it for me when I was that age, I probably would have worried (quietly, without saying anything to anyone) that that’s not what the characters I knew from TV looked like.  I was a very specific child, and allowed for very little leeway in the way I “knew” things to be.  Example: I had just learned how to write my name in cursive, and my babysitter’s daughter, who was maybe 4 years older than me, was showing me her signature.  Her name also began with an S, and she was writing it with all lowercase letters – something I’m sure everyone does at some point, something I definitely did and sometimes still do – but my 7 or 8 year old mind COULD NOT grasp that this was okay.  But I didn’t dare bring that up, because on top of being stubbornly unable to look at things from slightly different angles, I was also painfully shy.  So I just worried, that’s the feeling I remember the most, just worrying, because Shonna didn’t know any better and was writing her name with a lowercase S.

Similiarly, I have always had issues recognizing guys when they change their facial hair.  I don’t know why.  It’s the same with girls and major hair changes.  I’m not talking about people I know, I’m talking about acquaintances and movie stars.  Except in one instance: I don’t know how old I was, but based on the setup of our living room, I was pretty young.  And I was sitting on the floor watching TV, and then I heard someone come into the living room and sit down on the couch behind me.  I turned and there was a strange clean-shaven man in my house.  He looked at me and smiled and waved.  I smiled back and then turned back toward the TV, supremely freaked out.  I’m not sure at what point later that day I realized that this was my dad, who had just shaved off his full beard.

What else did I think about during this week of sitting…  Remember when I said that I never know when to leave a party?  I think, to put a positive spin on it, I want to squeeze every last drop of joy out of an experience.  When Drew and I went to see 13 at MTC over the summer, I went upstairs to drop something in the Production Manager’s box, and I was so bittersweet sad because I thought I’d never be back to work another show.  And now here I am, wringing out every ounce of enjoyment.  No more guesswork and no “path not taken” wishing.

Then I think about how much I like some of the people I’ve met, and I’m glad that I have met them.  Last Saturday I randomly saw the stage manager from the first show I did at MTC, and an actor from the reading I stage managed between Equivocation and Woody Guthrie, and the three of us went to get soup from Whole Foods and catch up.  And I had a blast, for like 45 minutes.  But he’s moving to New York and she’s quitting stage managing to work a real job at Pixar, and I’m like, that’s inspiring and hopeful.

I’ve done a lot of circular thinking this week.  Also a lot of reading.  Also I put together and mailed in my application to be a California substitute teacher.