Weekends

Have not been lately inspired to write. But I'm back from the memorial. It was good, not as sad as I expected, though paradoxically I cried more than I expected. It was interesting seeing everyone in one place. The most recently I've seen any of them was five years ago, at my cousins wedding. The two cousins I hated are much better. The boy got tall and slenderish, doesn't talk much, and seems to have absolutely no inclination toward sitting on and tickling me, always a good thing (it really sucks when some one 3.5 years younger than you can pin you that easily). The girl has stopped being so whiny and spoiled, though like a lmost all 13 year olds, when asked what she's doing by older people, she talks in a self important, self concious manner, but hey, I can deal with that. My favorite cousin was a whiny bitch. True, she was sick, true, she hadn't gotten much sleep, true she hadn't seen these people in longer than I had (she didn't go to the wedding). But my god! I was mean to my mom when I was 14-16, cause I was too focused on my own inner turmoil and teenage angst to look outside, but I was never that rude or mean to my mom (my mom confirmed this) and certainly not in public. It was mainly in the morning, she got a lot better later on, but I don't know if I like the way she's turning out. You can't hold grudges against family members. The next time you see them, you can be cautious, but open. Maybe they've changed, maybe you have, and you can't hold on to petty resentments forever. SHe bitches a lot, too, about silly things. Kind of reminds me of Beth, but I like Beth most of the time. Course I see Beth more. Maybe I need to hang out with Emily more before I judge her.

I met my two second cousins who I had heard about before. Gracie goes to Yale for stage management, is a little bossy, and looks like a stage manager, can't tell you how, but I picked her out immeadiatly, didn't need an introduction. She talked to me about Yale, what she knew about the lighting program there. It sounds awesome. You don't design your first year, but after that you do, and there are a lot of shows (more about that later). Her sister Caroline ended up spending one night with me ( first night, I shared a room with Emily, then she left, Gracie, Caroline and their mom got a one bed room, with a rollaway, I had an extra bed, so she stayed with me, third night, my aunt left, so my mom and I shared that room. It was a little nuts). I really like Caroline. She wants to be an auto mechanic and is having a lot of trouble getting hired as one (NAPA in New Jersey can go to hell. The guy said they were hiring, and when she said the app. was for her, he got hestiant, and was like, well, we got an app. from this guy this morning, and we might hire him, so let me just take your name and number and we'll call you. Whatever, so she did. Looks back halfway to the door and he's already throwing it away. Asshole). So anyway, we stayed up till about 1 or 2 talking. Good times.

Then last weekend I went down to see Matt. It was a good trip, but too short or too long. The first two nights I had trouble sleeping, wasn't used to some one else being there, then the third night I slept better than I have in a really long time. Then I had to go back and get used to sleeping by myself again. We had fun, though. Explored the campus a lot. I like it better now. When we went to check it out this summer, I didn't like it, not sure why. I like spanish mission style buildings, but there were too many of them, and they clashed with the over-abundant palm trees. But this time I noticed a lot more trees, and lots of squirrels. I don't know why, but I liked it more this time. Maybe because I was visiting Matt there, not viewing it as something that was going to take him away from me.

We went to the art museum there. It's kind of odd, I'm the arts person, but he's the one who always wants to go to museums. I like them, but they're not really on my agenda, sort of. Anyway, the main thing there was the Rodin sculptures, which were awesome. I really want to find a play that I can use some of them as pivotal images for. Your pivotal image is a picture that you find or create that sums up for you the feeling of the play, color and texture and movement wise. I liked his hand molds best. Outside there were a bunch, including the Gates of Hell. At one point while we were there, this tour bus unloaded and they swarmed over the place for about ten minutes, then dissappeared. While they were there, a lot of them had their pictures taken in front of the Gates of Hell. Matt and I thought that was a little creepy.

I also ran into one of my favorite people there, Darin. He's the nicest man I have ever met, best stage manager ever. Talked to him for a little while about what we were up to, blah blah, just chatted, but it was good. He's a good person to bounce things off of.

We loaded in for Henry, which I'm assistant props for, this weekend, so this past week has been a little nuts, getting ready for that.

On friday, my hero and god came to Cornish to talk. Jennifer Tipton, one of the greatest lighting designers ever. She also teaches lighting at Yale. Is it any wonder I want to go there. So every year, the third year directors, playwrights, and some one else, forget who, put on one play each. Not sure how many of them there are, but let's say 10 in each category, but perhaps some of them overlap, like a director takes a playwrites play, so lets say that's 25 shows. Then theres random other projects by second and perhaps even first year students, and we support the Yale Repertory Theatre. So it comes out to about 50-60 show's a year, and theres 6 lighting designers. HOLY CHRIST. My god I want to go. To be designing that much, getting that much experience, and learning from these fantastic people. Jordan and Beth both want to go there as well. They only accept 2 a year. Jordan and I are planning Beth's mysterious dissapearance. Jordan is supposed to be a junior, he went to Cornish, dropped out for a year, and now is back with our class. He's an awesome guy, lot of fun to hang out with. Jill and I helped him figure out his lights for a senior project the other day. So anyway, then we had load in yesterday, which went really well, so we got out early, but Jill and I stayed late to help with lights. So that brings me to today. So far I slept in late, took a shower, and am waiting for Matt to get done dorking out, so I can talk to him today, as I've got a light call from 5-11 tonight, and I need to call Brandon and see if he needs me for props earlier.