Tag: postaweek

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"Other people" Being a girl Theatre

The Art of Avoiding Eye Contact

Drew and I went to a show at a theatre company some time this weekend, and in the lobby I noticed someone with whom we are both familiar. Let’s call this person Pat. I said to Drew, “Hey, Pat’s over there,” and he said, “Did you say hi?” and I said, “No,” and he said, “I don’t need to say hi.”

Then we went and sat down, and after a minute he grabbed my arm and I intuited (from years of having things like this happen) that Pat was now behind us. About a minute before the show was about to start Pat crossed the theatre and I said, “Don’t worry, s/he can’t hurt you now.” But then Pat ran back over and sat down in Pat’s seat very near to where we were sitting.

At intermission we went and hung out outside (and chatted with the ASM on the show who is a friend of mine), and then we went back inside. I don’t know how, during all this, Pat and I never managed to make eye contact, but we didn’t. By the end of intermission when everyone was settled back in our seats I started pondering if Pat was also avoiding eye contact with us as much as we were with Pat.

The show ended, applause ensued, and we took off in order to try to get back through San Francisco on a Sunday night (rarely a small feat). I never said hi to Pat; Pat never said hi to us. For all I know, Pat has no idea we were there, breathing the same air. But I find it more likely that we were all in agreement that a hello wasn’t really necessary.

I guess that’s the world we live in now.

Categories
Beginnings Being a girl Children Drew Love Memoir Sentiment

This Girl’s Treasure

The other day Drew put on a jacket he hasn’t worn in over seven years (apparently) and said, “Oh wow, guess what I just found?”

My first thought was Twenty bucks??

But what he showed me was kind of way better than that.

This is the ticket stub from the first movie we ever saw together. It was January 9, 2005, it was a Sunday, and I think it wasn’t actually a date.

I remember that I was running late getting to the theater, and parking was hard to find, and he was already waiting and had already purchased his ticket. I don’t remember how late I was but I hope it wasn’t bad – I know now how much he hates being late. Oops!

While we were reminiscing about this movie, I asked him why it wasn’t a date, and why he didn’t buy my ticket, and why we didn’t do anything afterward. His response was, “I don’t know…but don’t worry, everything worked out in the end.”

It’s just so weird to think about – when this ticket was printed, we were just two people who went to school together. And then less than three weeks later we had started down a path that would lead us inexorably to New York City and back, to marriage, to starting a family…and that’s all within eight years. There are so many more years yet to come!

I saved the ticket stub, by the way. I mean…wouldn’t you?

Categories
Awesome Books Friends Home improvements Love

Shelve all the things

Last night Erin came over to the new place to help me go through this:

 

After about an hour and a half, we took a break to get some water (and seconds of pizza) and admire how far we’d come:

 

And when she left an hour after that, we had filled all the shelves. Most of them were pretty themed. I tend to like to take all the books that

a) I like the most,
b) I’m proudest of, and
c) have the highest reread potential

and put them on the eye-level shelves. I don’t think Erin likes that very much. I think she wanted them more thematically arranged, and she didn’t seem to be a fan of Marian Keyes next to Ira Levin. But that’s okay. After it’s all done, I can always switch everything around. (JUST KIDDING ERIN.)

Anyway, here’s everything filled:

 

And all that remains is assorted fiction, which will hopefully fit on this one last shelf I have.

 

Oh, who am I kidding? I need to buy a new bookshelf!

(I promise, after this, I’ll stop talking about books for awhile. I know it’s been a lot lately.)

Categories
Beginnings Being a girl Books Home improvements Sentiment Writing

Better late than never

Drew and I are in the middle of moving, as I keep mentioning. In fact we have given ourselves a goal of being completely out of here and living there by next Sunday. Which is slightly daunting.

This afternoon he went by the apartment and realized someone had left two pots of flowers on the doorstep. Since it doesn’t seem to be anyone that we know…I wonder if this means we have really sweet neighbors?

One funny thing that happened today as a result of being so far in the process, is that this afternoon I finished my other library book, and then I wandered around for awhile going, “What am I going to read now?” I had a few choices:

a) go in the guest bedroom and read a Cat Who book
b) read one of the (few) books (left behind) here that I have already finished
c) go out to my car and find something in the trunk

When Drew got home, he pointed out the Amazon box on the floor, under a box of ginger snaps, which I then remembered had 5 brand new books still in it.

See, every time I think we’ve got them all…

The other funny thing happened when we were unpacking all our kitchen stuff this weekend. We were pulling stuff out that we’ve literally never used. It’s mostly kitchen stuff, and, now that I think about it, it’s mostly stuff we didn’t register for, that we still liked, but just haven’t had the chance yet. For example, a sugar-and-creamer set…in a pattern that I totally adore, but we’re just not big coffee drinkers. (We should change that.) There’s also a wedding-style picture frame that we should probably use to display a wedding picture. One of these days.

A friend who was over helping us unpack suggested that it would make a good blogging project – to commit to using those things we’ve never used, and then chronicle that. So hopefully over the rest of 2012, I’ll be making an effort to get some of that great stuff out of its packaging and onto the table.

Categories
Drew Love Memoir Sleep talking

Sleep talking 19

Drew: Look, what did you say?
Me: Nothing.
Drew: Look…What?
Me: No one said anything.
Drew: Okay.
Me: I didn’t say anything.
Drew: Okay.
Me: You’re crazy.
Drew: Okay.

Categories
Being a girl Drew Memoir Travel Work

“Will Work In Seattle”

As I mentioned, this weekend I was at an arts marketing conference with NAMT (National Alliance for Musical Theatre) in beautiful Seattle, Washington. It was gray when we arrived, and yet within 2 hours of being there, 3 separate native Seattlites (that must be what they’re called, right?) had commented about how great the weather was. On Friday and Saturday it was actually pretty clear and nice, for which I say to you, Seattle, YOU’RE WELCOME for bringing up the California weather, and leaving the Bay Area in rain.

I thought I would make some lists about this weekend, since I love making lists.

Things I learned at the conference

  • Doing post-show audience surveys (every show, every audience member) is very useful
  • Lots of theatres in NAMT are not non-profit (we are)
  • We should allow patrons to take their drinks into the theatre
  • People are greatly divided on “tweet seats” (I’m on the “opposed” side)
  • Lots of people get around discounting by raising the ticket price, and then cutting it in half, but really it ends up being about the same cost that it was originally – tricky!
  • Some people think you should give your patrons special treatment, not if they’ve been just a long-time subscriber, but you should use a more “What have you done for me lately?” approach

Awesome shows I saw

  • First Date – a new one-act musical, a co-production between ACT and 5th Avenue Theatre (loved it!)
  • It Shoulda Been You – a musical comedy at the Village Theatre, with a major twist right before intermission

How much I overpacked

  • Two tank tops (even though I used four, or something…that is definitely classic overpacking)
  • One work top
  • One long-sleeved non-work top
  • Two pair of socks
  • One pair of underwear (that’s technically not overpacking, that’s just good planning)
  • One book (I finished The Night Circus, read about 100 pages of The White Castle, but didn’t crack open Bright Lights, Big City yet)

What I missed about California

  • My own bed (well…sort of my own bed)
  • My own toiletries (the hotel stuff was all lemon-sage-scented, which is fine, but isn’t really my style…and there’s never enough conditioner, am I right?)
  • Wireless internet (the hotel wifi was all over the place, and impossible to get on in some places)
  • Free time
  • (And most of all) Drew!
Categories
Self improvement Technology

Facebook DOES miss me!

After saying yesterday that my separation from Facebook was pretty painless so far, they sent me this email proving that they don’t feel the same way.

It’s nice to feel wanted.

Categories
Fashion Self improvement Technology

Facebook, do you miss me?

Last weekend was about the halfway point during Lent. I meant to do a little introspective on how it’s been going without Facebook. But I got distacted with real life and it’s happening late.

I find that I don’t seriously miss Facebook. Occasionally I want to wander over there to kill some time, but I’ve found other websites to take care of that aspect of it. I am afraid I’m missing friends’ birthdays. But oops. I did totally miss one friend’s birthday party invite, but it was at a bar on a Wednesday night in San Francisco, and chances are I would have taken a raincheck anyway.

I kind of like not having Facebook in my, um, face all the time. I don’t have to read the endless posts about The Hunger Games movie coming out. It’s not like I’m not interested in The Hunger Games, but when I have opinions on something like this, it’s so hard for me to watch other people’s opinions go by without saying anything…lol. I don’t miss seeing the same memes posted over and over again. Or seeing the horrible grammar and spelling on the wall for my high school reunion (yikes).

I have also accidentally sort of fallen off of Twitter. I just love not having the pressure of staying caught up on what everyone is saying all the time. Do I sound old?

The only thing is – I guess I thought I’d be more missed. Looking at it now, I get that people are more likely to comment on something I post, rather than just posting a comment onto my timeline. But I don’t know. I thought that someone would want to talk to me. But it seems that no one really does. [Why do I know this? Because I have to get on Facebook for work sometimes (don’t worry, I don’t go through the news feed, I go straight to facebook.com/theatreworkssv), and so I see the pitiful number of notifications.]

Or if they do want to talk to me, they are emailing or texting or talking to me in person. And isn’t that what this is all about?

So…I guess so far this experiment is successful! Still no word on whether I’ll be back on Facebook on Easter Sunday. We’ll see!

Categories
Awesome Memoir Writing

A Celebration!

This happened on Thursday, and by some fortunate coincidence, I happened to be there to catch it at the precise moment:

So thanks to everyone who reads! As always, I renew my promise to try to stay interesting, optimistic, and as non-Dear Diary as possible.

Categories
"Other people" cars Exercise Sports

Chasing Cars

Yesterday, when I left for work, a man came out of an apartment opposite me and crossed to a car two spaces away from mine. I paid attention to him because I was mentally calculating a) whether I would be out of the space behind his car by the time he pulled out; and b) whether I might be able to get out of my parking spot before he got of his. But he was moving pretty quickly, and he jumped in his SUV and drove away.

As I got into my car, a woman ran (not jogged) from the same direction as he had, and chased after his car. She looked kind of angry. Not like, “Darling, you forgot the lunch I packed you!” angry, but more like, “I can’t believe you bailed in the middle of our argument and are now driving away” angry. She chased him through most of the parking lot and then gave up and went back inside.

Last night, when I got home, a car was leaving the parking lot. As I parked, I watched a stocky guy come around the corner and then chase after the car. Not in an angry way – he kind of had this look on his face like, “I look stupid, and I’m wearing pajamas and it’s wet out here.” He jogged after the car around the corner, and then I didn’t see him come back, so I’m hoping he caught up. I wonder if I should have done something to help him. I could have honked maybe?

Anyway. Two people chasing cars in a 12-hour time span. Is this a sign of something? Should I get a dog? I don’t know.